What Fareed Zakaria failed to mention in his WP article on Iran

What Dr. Zakaria fails to mention in his April article on Iran's nuclear program is that Iran, as a signatory to the NPT, has certain rights in developing nuclear technology. Iran's leadership has time and time again declared that it is against any weapons program. There is no reason why we should doubt such claims.
Well, the warmongering neocons, pro-Israeli hawks would differ. Their attitude is understandable given the fact that they act as the 5th column and more interested to protect Israel's interest than what is good for America. Their attitude is also hypocritical since Israel is not a signatory of the NPT and has hundreds of nuclear bombs. By denying Iran its legitimate right under the NPT, they want to keep Israel the only super power in the Middle-East - unchallenged and uncontested - so that the rogue state can go on doing war crimes everywhere (including denying statehood to the Palestinian people).
And the sad reality of our time is that our country, the USA, is mortgaged to Israel and her Jewish lobby. So, no one dares to challenge many of these assertions and claims made by the pro-Israeli groups. [Even Dr Zakaria, an otherwise serious and no-nonsense journalist, is hesitant to call a spade a spade.] Thus, what we have is redirecting our discussion around Iran's nuclear program and nothing about the threat that Israel poses to the entire region.
If we truly are for peace and stability in the region, why not we ensure that no country in the Middle-East has nuclear weapons? How about destroying all those Israeli arsenals before we suspect and go gung-Ho about Iran's program?
No, we won't see such discussion in the Washington Post or the NY Times.
It is outright hypocrisy, and nothing else!

Rakhine Savagery Again!

I am simply horrified to learn about the gruesome lynching of ten Burmese Muslims in the hands of Rakhine Buddhist Maghs of Arakan. ( http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201206/3517996.htm?desktop )

This incident once again shows that these Rakhine Buddhist perpetrators are nothing but savages. Through their savagery they not only give a bad name to their ethnic group but also to their religion. The incident also shows that the lives of minorities, esp. Muslims, are not safe in Burma, esp. in the Rakhine state. 

Truly, what kind of state is Myanmar and what kind of people are these Buddhists when they allow a mob of vigilantes from within their rank and file to attacking and setting a passenger-carrying bus ablaze with fire, killing everyone, without being provoked but simply based on false rumors?  A Burmese and Rakhine Buddhist ought to be ashamed of such naked display of savagery by its own kind. The local Rakhine state's and Myanmar federal government authority's utter failure to stop such a carnage and brutality from happening is simply inexcusable. 

One can only hope that those criminal savages would be found and punished severely for their inhuman crimes. Otherwise all those claims about a new Myanmar with a changed leadership would only be empty words and nothing else. 

One can only feel contempt and utter disgust at the Rakhine leadership that creates a hostile environment where its brain-dead criminal elements are battle-ready to unleash their savagery against Muslims. Shame on such advocates, messengers and executioners of hatred!

Remembering FALLUJAH and NATO War Crimes

Eight years ago, Fallujah in Iraq became the theater of a major showdown between the Iraqi insurgents and the American occupying forces. By successfully repelling the first U.S. led siege in April 2004, just a year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Fallujah essentially became a symbol of heroism and resistance against American occupation in Iraq.

Interestingly, Fallujah with a Sunni majority during the early days of U.S. invasion was a peaceful city that did not join in insurgent activities against the occupying forces. All that, however, changed very quickly when on April 28, 2003 the soldiers of the 82^nd Airborne Division of the U.S. military fired upon a crowd of peaceful protesters killing 17 and wounding more than 70 unarmed Iraqis. Soon thereafter the trigger-happy military unit was withdrawn and replaced with other units, but the killing of unarmed civilians continued unabated. On June 30, 2003 a U.S. fired missile hit a mosque killing its Imam and eight other worshippers, thus, ushering in an era of resistance that would redefine Sunni insurgency in Iraq.

Hounded and harassed daily by the occupation forces, the Iraqi insurgents from the Brigades of Martyr Ahmed Yassin in Fallujah ambushed a convoy and brutally killed four American private military contractors employed by Blackwater USA on March 31, 2004. Al-Qaeda took the credit for the brutal action but the local population paid the price. Within days the U.S. Marines surrounded the city, and arrested anyone suspected of the ambush. The U.S. Marines suffered 40 deaths in the siege while probably a thousand Iraqis (including civilians) were killed, further worsening the tense mood within the besieged city. On April 10, 2004, the U.S. military was forced to pull back to the outskirts of the city. Throughout the summer and fall of 2004, the U.S. military conducted sporadic airstrikes on Fallujah while the city remained under complete control of the insurgents.

In November of that year, the U.S.-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the city. As reported in the Guardian (dated November 9, 2005) by Mike Marqusee, a co-founder of Iraq Occupation Focus, www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk, the mood of the assault was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl who said: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Fallujah. And we're going to destroy him."

The assault in Fallujah, called Operation Phantom Fury - the bloodiest battle involving American troops since the Vietnam War (1968), was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. The American troops, in clear violation of the Geneva Convention, cut off the city's water, power and food supplies. A UN special rapporteur accused the occupying forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities. As the siege tightened in and around Fallujah, the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the media were kept out, while males between the ages of 15 and 55 were kept in. According to American sources between 600 and 6,000 insurgents were holed up inside the city, which by then had nearly a hundred thousand non-combatant inhabitants. Before the final assault, the inhabitants were given 24 hours to leave the city through security checkpoints but anyone of military age, suspected of being an insurgent, was arrested and interrogated, often with blow torches; and those that tried to sneak out via non-designated points were shot dead, irrespective of whether they were children, women or elderly people.

On November 8, 10,000 U.S. troops, equipped with artillery and tanks, supported from the air by bombers and helicopter gunships, blasted their way into the city. By the end of operations, the ‘City of the Mosques’ and shrines lay in ruins. Fallujah's compensation commissioner reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines. Even after eight years, there is hardly a building that does not have bullet scars on its structure.

It is widely believed that at least ten thousand civilians were killed in the assault. The overwhelming majority were children, women and the elderly. There were many incidents of execution style murders committed by the occupying U.S. forces in homes, mosques and shrines of Fallujah. It took a week to establish control of the main roads; another two before victory was claimed.

The city’s main General Hospital was one of the first major targets taken over by the U.S. forces, denying Iraqi patients necessary medical assistance. On November 13, 2004 a Red Crescent convoy containing humanitarian aid was denied access from entering Fallujah by the U.S. army. With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. American snipers were put on the roof top of the hospital; everyone in the street was a target for these American snipers.

And what is worse and completely inexcusable is the fact that during this second major assault on Fallujah, the U.S. military used cluster bombs and white phosphorus (WP) against unarmed civilians. The use of both cluster bombs and WP ammunition was confirmed from various independent sources, including U.S. troops who had suffered WP burns due to friendly fire.

It should be noted that the use of incendiary weapons against civilians is illegal by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980). 

In mid-December, residents of Fallujah were allowed to return to their already churned or destroyed homes after undergoing biometric identification. They must now carry their ID cards all the time.

As recently demonstrated by Iraqi filmmaker Furat Alani (in his must-see documentary film – Fallujah – A Lost Generation?http://vimeo.com/38175279) the suffering inflicted on Fallujah did not end in 2004. “Life for the people who chose to return to their city never improved. The U.S. imposed security measures and curfews that made living a normal life in Fallujah impossible. Residents already had to struggle to make ends meet in their dilapidated city, but the constant security check-points, ID card scans, and arrests only made life harder. Food and Medicine were scarce, and they remain scarce to this day. Worst of all, since 2004 there has been a dramatic increase in birth defects, infant mortality, mental retardation, and cancers of all sorts in Fallujah. The birth defects are truly horrifying. Babies have been born with six fingers on each hand, scaly skin, missing limbs, two heads, and there has been one case of a child born with a single eye in the center of his forehead. Experts blame chemical weapons used by the U.S. during the 2004 sieges, like white phosphorous and possibly depleted uranium. The few studies that have been done suggest that there is “genetic damage” within the population, and the evidence suggests ionizing radiation exposure as the cause. This has led some to say that the health crisis in Fallujah is worse than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs. So many children in Fallujah are now being born horribly deformed or mentally retarded that many women are afraid to try to have families. The U.S. occupation has had horrible effects on the Iraqi population, but Fallujah has suffered more than any other Iraqi city. Fallujah is to the Occupation of Iraq, what My Lai was to the Vietnam War, and what Hiroshima and Nagasaki were to World War II.”

Last year, on 17 May 2011, AFP reported that 21 bodies, in black body-bags marked with letters and numbers in Roman script had been recovered from a mass grave in al-Maadhidi cemetery in the centre of the city. Fallujah police chief Brigadier General Mahmud al-Essawi said that they had been blindfolded, their legs had been tied and they had suffered gunshot wounds. The Mayor, Adnan Husseini said that the manner of their killing, as well as the body bags, indicated that the U.S. forces had been responsible. Both al-Essawi and Husseini believe that the dead had been killed in 2004.

Mr. Alani interviewed Fallujah residents, doctors, veterans, and weapons experts to shed light on the cause of chronic health crisis. He noted that so many children have been born with birth defects in Fallujah that the hospital cannot offer any statistics. Parents didn’t want to talk. "Families bury their newborn babies after they die without telling anyone," said hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi. "It’s all too shameful for them… We recorded 672 cases in [the month of] January [alone] but we know there were many more," said Hadidi. Facing a frozen image of a child born without limbs, parents’ feelings usually range between shame and guilt. "They think it’s their fault, that there’s something wrong with them. And it doesn’t help at all when some elder tells them it’s been ‘God’s punishment’," said Hadidi.

According to a study released by the Switzerland-based International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in July 2010, "the increases in cancer, leukemia and infant mortality and perturbations of the normal human population birth sex ratio in Fallujah are significantly greater than those reported for the survivors of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945." Similarly, Dr Chris Busby, author of “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth-Sex Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2006,” said, “We found that the infant mortality rates compared with Egypt and Jordan were about four or five times higher, and about ten times higher if you taker countries like Kuwait, where there is good health care.”

Other than the white phosphorus, depleted uranium (DU) -- a radioactive element which, according to military engineers, significantly increases the penetration capacity of shells and has a half life of 4.5 billion years -- was widely used in Iraq by the NATO forces. DU has been labelled the "silent murderer that never stops killing."

Suffice it to say that there are plenty of evidences to show that weapons used by the U.S. in 2004, including napalm, white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and anti-personnel thermo-baric weapons, are the root causes behind babies that are born with malformations, kids affected with leukemia and ten-fold increase in cancer in Fallujah. Even the U.S. marines who took part in the battle are developing strange diseases.

Since 2004 Fallujah has joined the names of places like Jallianwallah Bagh (India), Guernica (Spain), My Lai (Vietnam), Halabja (Iraq) and Grozny (Chechnya/Russia), and has become a symbol of unfathomed and unconscionable cruelty, wanton devastation, and brutal occupation to much of our world.

The use of firebombs puts the US in breach of the 1980 Convention on Certain Chemical Weapons (CCW) and is a violation of the Geneva Protocol against the use of white phosphorous, "since its use causes indiscriminate and extreme injuries especially when deployed in an urban area." 

The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Blair cabal invaded Iraq under the pretext of stopping the Iraqi dictator of using WMDs, and evidences since then have proven that not only were there no Iraqi WMDs but that the worst culprits of mass murder and use of WMDs have been the governments of Bush and Blair. By authorizing the use of banned weapons in Iraq, they have relegated them to the level of war criminals, and thus, must be tried as such at The Hague.

Regrettably, the world community has failed to put these mass-murdering war criminals where they belong. In the mean time, over 3 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes since the invasion in 2003, in the biggest movement of displaced people in the Middle East since the Palestinians in 1948. The US and UK, who are most responsible, have done almost nothing to address it. And as to Fallujah, it still remains "a giant prison". The curse of banned weapons will continue to haunt its residents forever.

Where is justice in our world? Will the so-called civilized world ever have the moral courage to convict its former leaders - some of the worst offenders in human history, much like what the Egyptians were recently able to do with their Hosni Mubarak? 

The ‘Amen Corner’ in the Capitol Hill

With the U.S. presidential election only five months away, the Capitol Hill is behaving more and more like a cheer-leading ‘Amen Corner’ for the rogue state of Israel these days than a body of wise law-makers that care about what is best for the USA and her people. Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed a resolution H. Res.568 that was designed to tie the president’s hands on Iran policy. 

The resolution was the usual boilerplate denouncing the Islamic Republic of Iran as a “state sponsor of terrorism” that is on the road to nuclear weapons capability, and “urges the President to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and opposition to any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.” This was like telling the president that any U.S. response to that “threat” other than war was unacceptable.

Just reflect on the audacity of the resolution! Everyone knows that America cannot afford another war now. And these law-makers at the Capitol Hill ought to know better than ordinary Joe, Dick or Harry. Thus, why this madness to rush into another war, and at whose behest? The answer is: AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). The all-powerful pro-Israeli Jewish lobby has been trying hard to push the USA to start a war with Iran since the fall of the Shah. It played a vital role for the USA’s illegal war against Iraq claiming that Iraq had WMDs. And now AIPAC’s target has shifted to Iran but its very methodology - the scaremongering tactics mixed with lies and deceptions – has remained virtually the same.

Through its mouthpieces in the Capitol Hill (and there are too many of these parrots), back in 2002, just months before invasion of Iraq, we were told, “Saddam Hussein is not far from developing and acquiring the means to strike the United States, our friends and our allies with weapons of mass destruction. Thus, if we do not act now, when?” (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Oct. 9, 2002) And as we know, Ileana, like her many pro-Israeli hawks, was wrong. Now she would like us to believe that “The Iranian regime continues to pose an immediate and growing threat to the United States, to our allies, and to the Iranian people.  We are running out of time to stop the nightmare of a nuclear weapons-capable Iran from becoming a reality...We must meet our responsibility to the American people and protect the security of our Nation, our allies, and the world from this threat of a nuclear capable Iran.” (May 15, 2012) Why should America believe her kind?

Ten years ago, Howard Berman (D-CA), another puppet and unabashed supporter of the rogue state of Israel, said, “But under today’s circumstances, the best way to give peace a chance and to save the most lives, American and Iraqi, is for America to stand united and for Congress to authorize the President to use force if Saddam does not give up his weapons of mass destruction. Confront Saddam now, or pay a much heavier price later.” And he misled the country on Iraqi-WMDs. On May 15, 2012 Berman said, “What better time for this body to send an unambiguous message that Iran must never be allowed to achieve a nuclear weapons capability and that its nuclear weapons program must end once and for all?”

The list of these AIPAC-parrots for the state of Israel is too long to waste our time reading about what they said.[i] They can lie without feeling embarrassed.

There was a time when the AIPAC was not as power-wielding as it is today, and thus, there were lawmakers in the Capitol Hill that stood their ground for what they considered morally right. But those days are a distant memory now. Having seen how their courageous colleagues have been routed out for simply being critical of the apartheid policies of the pariah state of Israel, there are very few today that are willing to speak out and take the risk, especially in an election year. Over the last three decades, even the realists in the images of George H.W. Bush-James Baker-Brent Scowcroft and Jimmy Carter-Zbigniew Brzezinski within either of the major two parties have been simply purged out. As recently lamented by political commentator Pat Buchanan, “[If you] Refuse to toe the neocon line on Israel, and you have no future in the Republican Party.” Ninety-nine percent of Congress now votes almost 100% pro-Israel. They live in “fear of the Israeli lobby.”

So, I was not too shocked to learn that the pro-war Resolution passed in the House with a vote of 401 in favor with only 11 opposing. Amongst the brave ones that voted against this Resolution were: Congressmen Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. Among the nine cowards that decided to abstain were Keith Ellison and John Conyers.

As Nima Shirazi noted, it is better to be a coward than to be in the bloody pocket of the AIPAC. Well, that sums it up for all of us as to where the Capitol Hill has slid down to in the moral compass. One can only pity these spineless and warmongering members of the ‘Amen Corner.’ A sad day in deed for all those who voted them into the Capitol Hill!

---

[i] An interested reader may like to browse the collections of Nima Shirazi.

My letter to a U.S. Congressman to stop temptation for an unnecessary war with Iran

Dear Congressman,
I strongly urge you to do everything in your power to stopping another war 
with Iran which would be suicidal for our country, that is already a 
debtor country, courtesy of two wars started by President Bush and 
continued by President Obama. 

Iranian leaders have repeatedly assured us that their nuclear program is 
for peaceful purpose, e.g., medical use. It is better to believe them than 
to start a war on false premises, much like we did with Iraqi invasion. 
The Iraqi war has bankrupted us, killed nearly 5000 of our forces and 
injured another 50,000. Was that necessary? Surely not. Let's not repeat 
the mistakes of the Bush era.

Hillary’s Hypocritical Comments in South Asia

Recently, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Bangladesh. It was a short visit. She flew into Dhaka from China after convincing Chinese leaders to free blind dissident Chen Guangcheng. The stop in Bangladesh was "personal" to renew old friendships with Bangladesh. Two of her “favorite men” in the world are Bangladeshis – Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammed Yunus, a pioneer in providing microcredit to the poor, and Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of the world's largest development organization - BRAC.

Since 1995 when she visited Bangladesh with her daughter Chelsea, Ms. Clinton has been something of a household name in Bangladesh. That was quite obvious from the throngs of people that stood four to five rows deep along the motorcade route to welcome her recently. A sign along the motorcade route read, "Heartiest congratulation to our beloved U.S. foreign minister Hillary Clinton." Many in Bangladesh hopes that she would one day return to Bangladesh in Air Force One as President of the USA.

During her visit, Secretary Clinton met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed and the Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia. The U.S. State Department has not been pleased with Hasina Government’s treatment of Professor Yunus over the past 18 months. Talks between Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister Dipu Moni focused on Bangladesh’s potential to become an economic powerhouse. Goldman Sachs has listed Bangladesh among its “Next 11” countries that have potential to become major economies. Ms. Dipu Moni urged Ms. Clinton to assist Bangladesh in lowering U.S. tariffs on Bangladeshi imports while they explored a long-term trade and investment agreement. Ms. Clinton expressed hope that this visit will illustrate the U.S.’s commitment to Bangladesh’s transition to a peaceful democracy.

In India, Ms. Clinton stopped in Kolkata, a first for a U.S. Secretary of State, and met with West Bengal’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee. During her trip she cajoled India's leaders to reduce oil imports from Iran. She was asked why she was not tougher on Israel, which has its own undeclared nuclear arsenal. She tried to refute the premise and defend U.S. government policies. She called the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran "the principal threat" and said that U.S. ally Israel had “legitimate” worries.

"I think that Israel is very worried that if Iran were to get a nuclear weapon, there might be a decision by some future leader and that would be devastating," Clinton said. Israel, she said, must protect itself from Iran — "a regime that has a history of aggressive behavior, and I don't think you deal with aggressors by giving in to them." She stressed that the United States has no quarrel with the Iranian people.

Clinton’s comments unfortunately belie truth and are simply ludicrous. If past history is any barometer to judge, in the last three centuries since the death of Emperor Nader Shah (d. 1747 C.E.), Iran has never been an aggressor; rather it has been a victim of aggression. Since the discovery of oil, Iran became a victim of Anglo-American aggression. In 1951, when the Iranian Parliament under the visionary leadership of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq nationalized the sprawling Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) after London had refused to modify the firm's exploitative concession, the British government wanted to punish Iran. It resorted to threats and sanctions.

After the loss of India, Britain's new prime minster, Winston Churchill, was committed to stopping his country's empire from unraveling further. The U.S. President Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, were dedicated to rolling back communism and defending democratic governments threatened by Moscow's “machinations”. In Iran's case, with diplomacy having failed and a military incursion infeasible (the Korean War was underway), they decided to take care of "madman Mossadeq" through a covert action under the supervision of the secretary of state's brother, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen W. Dulles.

Allen Dulles approved $1 million on April 4, 1953 to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddeq." They found a traitor Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi as the man to spearhead a coup to topple Dr. Mosaddeq. And the rest is history!

On August 19, 1953, Dr. Mosaddeq was removed in that CIA-sponsored coup and Gen. Zahedi was appointed Prime Minister. Dr. Mosaddeq was arrested at the Officers' Club and transferred to a military jail shortly after. On August 22, the Shah returned from exile. Dr. Mosaddeq was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to three years’ solitary confinement in a military prison; he later died while in house arrest in 1967. His supporters were rounded up, tortured and killed.

Zahedi's new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium and "restore the flow of Iranian oil to world markets in substantial quantities", giving the U.S. and Great Britain the lion's share of Iran's oil. In return, the U.S. massively funded the Shah's resulting government, including his army and the notorious secret police force, SAVAK. Over the next several years tens of thousands of Iranians were killed by the agents of the Savak, which was created under the guidance of American and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957.

The puppet regime of the Shah was overthrown in a popular revolution in 1979, thus ending a quarter-century long history of Iranian hostage-taking by the U.S. government, courtesy of the CIA. And as the later evidences revealed from the documents seized in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the Carter Administration was involved in a conspiracy to unseat and sabotage the new revolutionary government.

In the post-revolutionary years, the US government "began to look more favorably toward Saddam Hussein as a potential counterweight to the Ayatollah Khomeini,” says Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Carter. Even Iraq’s invasion of Iran could not possibly have taken place without the US involvement. In his book, Saddam Hussein: The Politics Of Revenge, Said K. Aburish says that during Saddam Hussein’s visit to Amman, Jordan in 1979, there is "considerable evidence that he (Saddam Hussein) discussed his plans to invade Iran with the CIA agents."

During the Iran-Iraq war the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from a list of State Sponsors of Terrorism so that the Dual-use technology could be sold. It also supported Iraq with several billion dollars worth of economic aid, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, Special Operations training, and direct involvement in warfare against Iran.

President Ronald Reagan announced that the US "could not afford to allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran", and that it “would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran.” He dispatched Donald Rumsfeld in 1983 and 1984 as his personal emissary to Saddam Hussein. The CIA Director William Casey personally spearheaded the effort “to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war… The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat. For example, in 1986, President Reagan sent a secret message to Saddam Hussein telling him that Iraq should step up its air war and bombing of Iran. This message was delivered by Vice President George H. W. Bush who communicated it to Egyptian President Mubarak, who in turn passed the message to Saddam Hussein. Similar strategic operational military advice was passed to Saddam Hussein through various meetings with European and Middle Eastern heads of state” (quoted from the sworn court declaration of former NSC official Howard Teicher, dated 1/31/95, regarding 'Iraqgate’). 

At the height of war with Iran, the US government exported 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) of pathogenic (i.e., 'disease producing'), toxigenic (or 'poisonous'), and other biological research materials to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) sent Iraq 14 separate agents "with biological warfare significance," according to Senator Riegle's investigators. It did not matter to the US government that Saddam Hussein was using 101,000 chemical munitions against Iran. When the Iraqi military turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, killing approximately 5,000 people in the town of Halabja and injuring thousands more, the Reagan administration actually sought to hide Iraqi leadership culpability by suggesting that the Iranians might have carried out the attack.

The U.S. Navy cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 within Iranian airspace which killed all 290 civilian passengers and crew on July 3, 1988. The United States has never formally apologized for the attack, and instead in 1990, Captain William Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit by President George W. Bush for his service as the Commanding Officer of the Vincennes.

Even after all these years with Saddam Hussein killed, and the Iranian revolution 33 years old, the relationship between the USA and Iran has not improved an iota. The USA continues to provide material support for terrorist activities inside Iran and has been at the forefront of its all-out economic war, at the behest of Israel, against Iran, falsely accusing that the latter is trying to develop nuclear weapons.  This charge is absurd given the fact that Iran’s uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes and that both Israeli and US intelligence agencies have concluded that Tehran is not developing a nuclear bomb.

The Iranian leaders, since at least 1997, have maintained that they are not after nuclear bombs. In 2006 President Ahmadinejad declared that “Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s defense doctrine and Iran is not a threat to any country.”  In his interview with NBC’s Brian Williams he said, “We are against atomic bomb.” In 2009 the Iranian supreme leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei declared, “We fundamentally reject nuclear weapons and prohibit the use and production of nuclear weapons.” He even issued a fatwa.

Can Ms. Clinton cite a single such statement from any of the Israeli leaders about their own nuclear program? The State of Israel from day one of her illegitimate birth has been an aggressor and at war with all her neighboring countries. Who is threatening whom?

And yet, despite many such clear denouncements of nuclear weapons by Iranian leaders and repeated assurances, along with the unequivocal assessment by her own government’s intelligence agencies, Secretary Clinton had no bite of conscience to repeating lies against Iran.

During her visit to Bangladesh, Ms. Clinton advocated for “non-interference” in Grameen Bank, urging the Bangladesh government not to hamper the internal operations of the bank. One simply wishes if she is ready herself to walk the talk when it comes to Iran. Her behavior can be summed up by a single word - Hypocrisy!

An excellent article on Bangladesh's Politics by M. Adil Khan

Politics in Bangladesh has been far from perfect for a plethora of reasons. Not the least of this long list is corruption. As I noted recently what was more like an exception during Bangabandhu Sk. Mujib's rule when he is blamed for mildly tolerating it, the vice got institutionalized during the Zia rule, and got a veneer of respectability during the Ershad rule. And ever since the restoration of civilian rule in 1991, there has not been a turn around. Corruption simply has blossomed to take it to new heights! And that is sad for a nation which gave so much blood to make things better. 


Is there an alternative - a third or fourth or fifth force (depending on how one counts major political parties) waiting in the sideline that is committed to take the nation in a new direction away from the politics of crime and corruption that seem to have shadowed people's true aspirations? Or is there even a hope that current major parties would learn, grow up and weed out bad apples from their lot? 


I like to believe in goodness of human soul that it craves for things better, and would do what is necessary when its threshold is reached. But when would that day be? In our lifetime or much later?


Mr. M. Adil Khan, a retired senior UN official, recently wrote an excellent article in the Weekly Holiday, which also got posted in the News From Bangladesh, about the political trends in Bangladesh. He sees hope based on the recent local government elections "where people basically shied away from known political rogues and instead voted into power honest and committed independent or nominally aligned party candidates into victory are indications that at long last people are showing signs that they are fed up and are ready for change; and that given an opportunity they will prove it. The issue is how you connect the dots and mobilize the so-called third force."

He says, "Indeed, this is not going to be easy. There will be challenges; in fact very serious challenges both from within and outside. But a beginning, even if it is modest and no more than a murmur, has to be made and one day, perhaps sooner than later, victory will come and evil will be defeated, as Mahatma Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I recommend this to everyone interested about all things Bangladesh. I also hope that they would try their best  to make things better in whatever capacity and in whatever domain they work in - within or without the current political reality that they live in.