Rice Rejects Link of Iran Arrests and Captures of Guards in Iraq

[maddezmom]

Source: New York Times

Published: May 30, 2007
BERLIN, May 29 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday rejected linking Iran’s charges against three Iranian-Americans in Tehran to the Bush administration’s capture of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Iraq.

Ms. Rice’s comments suggested that the rare meeting on Monday between American and Iranian envoys had done little to warm relations.

“It’s really just a perversion of the rule of law,” Ms. Rice told reporters aboard her plane en route to a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 8 industrialized nations in Hamburg next week.

Speaking of the three Iranian-Americans charged in Tehran, she said, “These are people who are there trying to make life better in Iran, and, in the case of a couple of them, they’re there to meet their families.”



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/washington/30rice.html?ref=washington

[keopeli]

1. Bad article! Red flags and someone help me understand who linked the two incidents...

The article gives no context for these comments apart from Rice chatting it up with the press corps on her plane. Presumably, someone asked her a question, though that's not mentioned.

So, what was the question? Something like: Do you think the Iranians are deliberately persecuting the three Iranian-Americans as spies as retaliation for the U.S. taking those five Iranian Republican Guards taken from the Iranian Embassy against the will of the Iraqi government?

Then Rice can say, "I reject that link."

The problem is, this article makes it sound like it's the Iranians who have made the link and Rice is "rejecting" it.

It's comforting to know that the NYTimes has not given up on couching this Administration's propoganda in all of its old fashioned ways.

So, why all the drama in this article over a reporter's question? Simple - make Iran look bad.

I believe Iran is bad. I believe the recent spy trial may have been for show.

It saddens me deeply to say it, but I believe the U.S. is bad, too. We've taken diplomats hostage in an occupied country and against the will of the Iraqi government. There's no denying that's bad.

One final point.

If we had taken the high road all along in this misbegotten war, we would have a huge bully-pulpit world-wide telling Iran to lay off those alleged spies and perhaps even to close their embassy in Iraq. Because of the Bush years, these Iranian Americans who stand accused have no chance of being helped by their American government. No chance. In 1979, that behavior is what caused Carter to lose the whitehouse.

This is fu$*ing unbelievable.


peace

[WhiteTara]

3. if we had taken the high road

we wouldn't have invaded a souvereign country. These are below the belt guys and gals in our WH. They are such low road travelers that we have to drain the swamps to find the pathway.

[Eugene]

2. Iran arbitrarily arrests innocent people. We arbitrarily arrest spies.

A Bushie appeals to the rule of law? :spray:

It is unfair to say that Iran is turning our own "War on
Terror" tactics back on us? Yeah sure! :eyes:

Rule of law? The Bushies have absolute contempt for
the law and rules in general. Rules simply get in their way.
Bush & Co. dismissed the rule of law as pre-9/11 notion
years ago. Now Condi wants to invoke it. :crazy:

Bush & Co. declared open season on Iranians in Iraq.
It didn't occur to them that the Iranians might respond
tit for tat? It would not surprise me in the least if the
Cheney Gang was counting on the Iranians to do this.

[bemildred]

4. In other words these people can rot in jail, as far as she is concerned. nt