MRN

The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

Aipac ordered bush to attack Iran

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Gordon Duff

(source: sabbah.biz)

In a unique interview with an official at the highest policy levels of the Pentagon, White House and, eventually, CIA, we are offered a unique “behind the curtains” look at areas of policy making during the period between 1999 and 2007. Extensive notes have been taken of meetings with President Bush and all his top policy advisors. This is only a teaser.

A highly placed source within the White House and CIA confirmed, in an interview, that the invasion of Iran was sheduled for 2006 but planned in 1999. We have heard some of this before but not with so many pieces and, I am told, more to come. In an interview with a Bush administration policy official:

Q. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your work at the White House? You have read my articles, what do you think of my take on things?

A. You are closer than anyone else in understanding how things worked, the only person willing to simply put it out there. You also come at things like the Pentagon people I have worked with, the ones who stood against Bush, Cheney and the AIPAC gang at the NSC (National Security Council.) I can also see that you don’t have background material that you need. Some of it you have wrong, particularly the motives for Iraq. It was always Iran, Iraq was simply a door.

“The Iraq invasion was a ‘done deal’ in 1999, but not as you thought to steal oil and bilk billions, that was all gravy. Iraq, the entire Bush presidency, had one purpose, to remove Iran from the picture.”

Q. You talk about journalists. What has your experience been?

A. I have good friends at the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Washington Post and others. They know all of this. They aren’t fooled. They could write anything but it would never hit print.

Q. Back to the 2000 election. The first impediment was, I am told, removing John McCain from the picture. Was this the case?

A. “He was enemy # 1, stubborn, unpredictable and already tarnished by the Keating 5 scandal, with all his faults, he didn’t have the serous skeletons in his closet that would fit the bill. McCain couldn’t be blackmailed like Bush, thus McCain is a risk. Unless you can be controlled, blackmailed or bought or both, you will go nowhere in Washington.

The charade of Isaraeli palestinian talks

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Naom Chomsky

(source: Information Clearing House)

Washington’s pathetic capitulation to Israel while pleading for a meaningless three-month freeze on settlement expansion—excluding Arab East Jerusalem—should go down as one of the most humiliating moments in U.S. diplomatic history.

In September the last settlement freeze ended, leading the Palestinians to cease direct talks with Israel. Now the Obama administration, desperate to lure Israel into a new freeze and thus revive the talks, is grasping at invisible straws—and lavishing gifts on a far-right Israeli government. The gifts include $3 billion for fighter jets. The largesse also happens to be another taxpayer grant to the U.S. arms industry, which gains doubly from programs to expand the militarization of the Middle East. U.S. arms manufacturers are subsidized not only to develop and produce advanced equipment for a state that is virtually part of the U.S. military-intelligence establishment but also to provide second-rate military equipment to the Gulf states—currently a precedent-breaking $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which is a transaction that also recycles petrodollars to an ailing U.S. economy.

Israeli and U.S. high-tech civilian industries are closely integrated. It is small wonder that the most fervent support for Israeli actions comes from the business press and the Republican Party, the more extreme of the two business-oriented political parties. The pretext for the huge arms sales to Saudi Arabia is defense against the “Iranian threat.”

Hamas wont recognize Isarael period

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Khalid Amayreh

(source:The Palestinian Information Centre)

There have been some rumors of late alleging that Hamas is willing to recognize Israel in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Some anti-Hamas sites indulged in more than a small amount of gloating and disinformation, effectively celebrating Hamas’s alleged ideological turnabout.

Moreover, some Fatah spokesperson seized on the rumors, claiming that Hamas and Fatah were now on equal footing. Even Hezbutahrir (the Islamic Liberation Party) which is notorious for trying to catch faults with Hamas, has castigated Hamas for following the path of Fatah and abandoning the path of Islam.

The truth of the matter is that for Hamas recognition of Israel, the Zionist entity which claims Palestine as an exclusive national Jewish homeland, represents the ultimate red line. Which means that the Islamic Liberation Movement will never ever recognize the illegitimate entity called Israel?

Hamas does recognize the physical existence of Israel, but it doesn’t attach any moral legitimacy to that existence. This principled non-recognition of the Zionist regime is not a tactical or bargaining position which might change depending on political developments. It is rather immutable bedrock upon which Hamas is based. It is a matter of religion for Hamas and all other Muslims who take their religion seriously.

Qatars the star “ and washington is worried

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Robert Fisk

(source: Robert Fisk’s ZSpace Page)

The latest cables released by Wikileaks show that the emirate’s growing power is seen as a threat elsewhere. Despite the leaked US diplomatic reports on Qatar and their claim that it is a major source of “terrorist” funding, Washington would do well not to mess with the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

He is the only world leader to march out of an American vice-president’s office in fury after just seven seconds. And his Al-Jazeera television station – for truly it does belong to him – has revolutionised reporting in the Middle East. Qatar may be tiny but in the region, it is very, very big indeed.

The Emir is a sharp man with an equally sharp sense of humour. He is known to have told a visitor that if he threw the Americans off their vast airbase at Doha – the largest US installation of its kind in the Middle East – “my Arab brothers would invade Qatar.” Asked what he would do if this was ever reported, he burst into laughter and said he would deny ever having said it. I imagine that’s what he’ll say about the latest trove of US diplomat-speak from WikiLeaks, which suggest that his television station has “proved itself a useful tool for [its] political masters”, providing “a substantial source of leverage for Qatar, one which it is unlikely to relinquish”. I doubt if the Emir could care less.

Al-Jazeera, of course, has been enjoying Washington’s embarrassment, sharing the disclosures with viewers on both its news channels, Arabic and English, while squeezing American government spokesmen and women dry. When the Iraq cables came out, proving that the US had turned a blind eye to torture by the Maliki government, Al-Jazeera put the former US commander in Iraq on screen; his attempts to wriggle out of the questions were deeply embarrassing.