Netanyahu to ambassadors: It's 1938 again, stop Iran

[Jcrowley]

Netanyahu to ambassadors: It's 1938 again, stop Iran
Attila Somfalvi
Published: 
12.19.06, 12:01

The Iranian bomb can be stopped, and in 1,000 days – or so claimed opposition leader and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting with some 60 foreign envoys in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
US Deterrence

Report says Pentagon planning major buildup of US Naval forces in and around Gulf as warning to Tehran; move aimed at discouraging what US officials view as increasingly provocative acts by Islamic Republic

Netanyahu urged the diplomats to take action against the Iranian threat and not sit on the sidelines on the issue, saying that the longer the stick used to bar Iran from developing the bomb, the better the world's chances are of not seeing such a bomb used.
 
When has a world leader openly called for genocide, Netanyahu asked the audience, adding that such a thing goes against the moral principles the world is based on. "The year is 1938 and Iran is Germany," said Netanyahu, reiterating his message from last month in Los Angeles. Iran wants a nuclear weapon, he said, but this time the Jews have a country and also a responsibility.
 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3341946,00.html

Can someone tell me who Iran has invaded in the last century?

[Kagemusha]

1. I wonder who they compared Hitler to in 1938

because whatever comparison was made obviously didn't impress the world enough.

[The Magistrate]

2. An Interesting Comment, Sir

Would you be kind enough to clarify its meaning?

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IndianaGreen]

5. It was Bush who said that Saddam was the new Hitler

after 3,000 dead GIs and nearly a million of dead Iraqis, any claims about any other Middle Eastern leader being a Hitler must be viewed with suspicion.

As to the real Hitler, German Jews thought that they would be protected by their Constitutional guarantees. It took an act of the Reichstag to strip Jews of their citizenship.

Very few people outside of the rightwing had read Hitler's Mein Kampf. Had they read it, they would have known that Hitler was planning to take back what Germany lost after WWI, and that his views about Jews were less than benign.

There were many warning signs about Hitler and the Nazis. While the Holocaust did not begin until years after Hitler became Chancellor, the Nazis had beaten, abused, and killed Jews and Reds long before 1933. A murderous bunch like the Nazis could not be expected to "behave" once they took power.

Ahmadinejad is not Hitler. He is a demagogue, and a authoritarian at that, but he is not the real leader in Iran. It is the conservative clerics, and their religious militias, that are the real power in Iran.

Listening to neocons like Bibi and his like-minded American brethren will get us in more trouble than we presently are experiencing in Iraq. We must reject the calls for war! Instead we must engage Iran to seek a peaceful resolution to the outstanding issues between our countries.

[everythingsxen]

6. Neville Chamberlain and Charles Lindbergh would certainly have agreed with you

Appeasement of Iran is a much better idea than facing the fact that Ahmanutjob (whom you say has no real power) and his masters, the clerics have repeatedly called for the wiping out of Israel. Given that the clerics, whom you say are the real power, are in fact even more vitriolic and explicit in what they want to do with Israel, Jews, the US and the 'zionists' that control it, you are not making a very good case for Iran.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Most everyone in the Middle East call for wiping out Israel

and this is taught in religious schools financed by the Saudi royal family, so spare me the bullshit about let's go to war because so-and-so wishes ill on Israel.

I am sure that there are people in Israel that don't care an iota about American troops in Iraq being put in grave peril if Iran were to be attacked.

If Israel wants to attack Iran, go ahead. I double dare you! But leave America out of your holy wars!

[everythingsxen]

10. Yeah....

I guess you are right Indiana... why should we care if they want to kill the Jews. It isn't our problem, we are safe here in America.

I think that would be the average response in America, circa 1938.

[IndianaGreen]

13. I suggest you go to the nearest military recruiting station and enlist

Those that advocate war should be among the first leading the charge into battle.

A couple of things to remember while serving in uniform:

1. Don't volunteer for anything.

2. A GI Party is not a party!

Tent hut!

[everythingsxen]

20. I keep trying

Every month or so for the last few months (since the Israel - Hezbollah War) I have gone to the recruiters and checked in, I have lost some weight but not enough so far. As soon as I have though, I will enlist. My job involves a lot of walking, so I think within a few months I will be there.

I was against the Iraq War and the waste of lives it has been. Honestly if we had never gone against Iraq in the first place (Gulf War I), Iran would not be a threat now.

Also, some wars need to be fought. If diplomacy fails with Iran, it may have to be one of those wars that need to be fought.

[IndianaGreen]

21. By all means, enlist, even if you have to have liposuction

Once you get your taste of war, you won't be as quick to wish for one. And if you get killed or wounded in some war to protect Israel, you will see what a waste it all was.

If diplomacy fails with Iran, it may have to be one of those wars that need to be fought.

What diplomacy are you talking about, there hasn't been any on our part! Bush is not interested in diplomacy, and never has.

Threatening people is not the way to have a dialogue.

[everythingsxen]

22. Well if I could afford it, I certainly would

I however am poor and the military won't accept my idea that they give me the signing bonus, I use that to get the lipo and go in.

I do not believe I have been wishing for war, or even advocating war. You simply need to fabricate my position for me, since without making up my position you would be forced to defend yourself and why you think Iran's clear overtures to genocide are so worthy of defense.

Are we at war with Iran? Yes or No.

And I would say that threats are in fact dialog, since threats are at least speech and not actual war, which you claim to oppose so heartily. They are not meaningful dialog, but at least communication is there. In time threats may give way to actual dialog, however Iran must back away from it's genocidal and nuclear ambitions for there to be any real discussion.

And if you get killed or wounded in some war to protect Israel, you will see what a waste it all was.

I can only imagine why you think dying to defend human beings threatened with genocide is a waste.

[IndianaGreen]

30. All I am hearing are chicken hawk excuses

Iran is not threatening genocide.

Nukes are a deterrent to aggression.

Americans should not die for Israel, anymore than they should die for Iraq.

[Kagemusha]

9. So they're bad people with bad intentions. Let's just concede it.

I don't really know what relevance it has to the notion of invading Iran to forcibly depose the government. A lot of people would like to win the lottery, too. Sending the IRS to their doorsteps to collect the tax bill on the $30 million they haven't won yet might seem premature at best, fantastic at worst. I feel the same way about invading Iran.

[everythingsxen]

12. I really don't know what to say, you have stunned me, honestly..

So they're bad people with bad intentions. Let's just concede it.

And those bad intentions, if the leadership of Iran is to be believed, is wiping out the Jews.

You would be willing to concede that point, yet would be unwilling to stop them? This is not the same as your lottery premise, which is absurd at best.

A better analogy would be to say:

A neighbor who lives two doors down from you calls you in the middle of the night, every night, for a year telling you that he is going to kill you and your family.

Yet to you, going and arresting the neighbor from the above analogy is wrong because he hasn't done anything yet.

[Kagemusha]

14. It would not empower me to go shoot such a man in his sleep, no.

I'll just say, before leaving this topic in the dust for a long, long time I hope...

The Iran Prez said that he hoped Israel would be wiped out like the Soviet Union was, right?

Did anyone nuke the Soviet Union? Was it destroyed by invasion and the mass slaughtering of its population? No? How did it die then? It was erased as a political entity.

But I don't think, to be fair, that anyone CARES.

I just don't see how pre-meditated murder of everyone who threatens to kill you (or even better - implies that he would enjoy it, but has no plans to actually do it) would be something that would be tolerable.

[everythingsxen]

18. Ah yes, the Juan Cole answer

that he was not really saying that he wanted to wipe out Israel and the Jews, merely have it collapse. That unfortunately is rebutted by a military parade at which the Shahab-3 MRM was unveiled and written upon it was his slogan of wiping Israel off the map. He was in attendance of the parade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#Interpretation_of_speech_as_call_for_genocide

October 26, 2005

"Israel must be wiped off the map … The establishment of a Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world . . . The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of the war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land."

(In an address to 4,000 students at a program titled, 'The World Without Zionism')

More of Mr. Ahmanutjob's nuggets of wisdom: http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_International/ahmadinejad_words.htm

To say that he is not aiming for the extermination of Jews is at best naive. In the speech above, he is referencing hundreds of years of fighting, yet Israel has not existed so long. Methinks he refers to a much older fight against Jews. Not Zionism.

[breakaleg]

16. Have you paid attention to what is going on in Iraq?

The "proof" they had as a reason to invade turned out to be completely false. More US soldiers have been killed than Al Qaida killed in the US. And the country is now a complete disaster that the US can't figure out how to leave and have proven they can't clean up the mess they made.

And you think it's a wise course to make yet another pre-emtive strike in that region?

[everythingsxen]

19. I don't know that a pre-emptive strike is necessary

the situation may be handled diplomatically, however I do agree with the assessment that Iran needs to be stopped. If that means pre-emptive military intervention... then that is what it means. Iran however would in fact be different than Iraq. We would have support from Saudi Arabia as well as Egypt and Israel.

I would prefer a policy however of isolating Iran and minimizing the damage they can do. War would be bloody and would, in my opinion, lead into a third World War. There are enough entangling alliances for it to be such a case.

[everythingsxen]

8. Exactly which..

"heavily Jewish-owned" newspapers are you referring to? And in my searching I found little evidence that there was any sort of massive build up that everyone knew the Holocaust was coming. With "Lucky" Lindbergh trying to broker peace and saying things like "A few Jews are ok, but too many creates chaos", public opinion really didn't seem to give a damn about the Jews.

Kristallnacht occurred in 1938; Iran had it's Holocaust conference this year. Hitler repeatedly referred to Jews running the newspapers, governments and banks; Ahmadinejahd does the same.

I do not believe such comparisons are all that unfounded given the vitriol that Mr. Ahmadinejahd spews on a regular basis.

[Kagemusha]

11. Excuse me, what part of "not an expert" did you not understand?

Reading part of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich a decade ago does not make me an expert. You also make a really fast jump to "public opinion" which, as I said, obviously wasn't moved, no matter what papers said. I think some excerpts I saw were in the New York Times.

I'm still waiting to find out exactly how Iran's military capabilities are remotely comparable to Nazi Germany's...

[everythingsxen]

15. The Military of Iran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has two kinds of armed forces: the regular forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), totalling about 545,000 personnel.<1> Both fall under the command of the Ministry of Defence & Armed Forces Logistics. <2>

The regular armed forces has an estimated 420,000 troops in three branches: Ground Forces, 350,000 troops; Navy, 18,000 sailors; and Air Force, 52,000 airmen.<3>
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has an estimated 125,000 personnel in five branches: Qods Force (Special Forces), Basij (Paramilitary), Navy, Air Force, and the Ground Forces.<4>

In short, it is a fraction compared to what Nazi Germany had. Of course the USA has a fraction of what it had during WW2. All in all most militaries have shrunk in size, dramatically, since WW2.

[The Magistrate]

17. Actually, Mr. Kagemusha

Hitler got pretty good press at the time. Leaving aside the fact that a degree of Anti-Semitism was part of the normal mental furniture of most people in Europe and the U.S., to a degree it is difficult to appreciate nowadays after the exposure of his enormities, there were several items that went far to ensure this.

First, propaganda against Germany in the Great War, particularly that of England in regard to Belgium, had been so grotesquely exaggerated, and so thoroughly shown to have been essentially a hoax, that quite accurate descriptions of Nazi atrocities in the pre-war period were readily dismissed as the same old tricks that had been tried twenty years ago. Goebbels himself made excellent play with this theme, but it occured independently to a great many others, who were not about to get fooled again.

Second, it must be remembered Hitler came to power in the early stages of a world-wide economic crisis, and what outsiders saw of Germany as his rule solidified was an impressive contrast with the Great Depression. Nor was the drop in unemployment and the booming economy wholly a sham, though it was based on armaments and quasi-cperced public works projects and very sharp manipulation of currency controls: the term "military Keynesianism" has recently, and most aptly, been coined to describe this sort of activity, which works well for a span of time. A strong-man working miracles will get a sort of pass in many quarters for a bit of personal brutality and uncouthness.

Third, the great threat perceived at the time in the Capitalist West was Bolshevism, personified by Stalin, already running full-bore as a mass-killer, and threatening expansion into Europe and beyond through revolutionary subversion if not outright military might. Many viewed Hitler as the potential bulwark against this the West needed more than anything. One element of the outward face of Nazi Anti-Semitism was the identification of Communism with Jews, and this struck a wide echo, since it was a commonly believed thing in many quarters, and had been since the rise of the Bolsheviks. Woodrow Wilson's comments on the matter, to give just one example, make for darkly entertaining reading. It was very easy for people already holding a certain animus against Jews, and familiar with this line of attack against them, to view Hitler's Anti-Semitic pronouncements as merely an aspect of a root hostility to Communism they also shared, and viewed as extremely useful. Chamberlain, the emblematic appeaser, actually sought as a matter of policy to turn Hitler as quickly as possible to open war with Stalin, eventually going so far as to offer a colossal quantity of credit to back the enterprise.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Bibi is the neocons' darling

Let's not forget the sordid role the neocons have played in staging wars, even to the point of pressuring Israel to attack her neighbors!

Published on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 by the Inter Press Service

Neo-Cons Wanted Israel to Attack Syria
by Jim Lobe

Neo-conservative hawks in and outside the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had hoped that Israel would attack Syria during last summer's Lebanon war, according to a newly published interview with a prominent neo-conservative whose spouse is a top Middle East adviser in Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Meyrav Wurmser, who is herself the director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute here, reportedly told Yitzhak Benhorin of the Ynet website that a successful attack by Israel on Damascus would have dealt a mortal blow to the insurgency in Iraq.

"If Syria had been defeated, the rebellion in Iraq would have ended," she asserted, adding that it was chiefly as a result of pressure from what she called "neocons" that the administration held off demands by U.N. Security Council members to halt Israel's attacks on Hezbollah and other targets in Lebanon during the summer war.

"The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space... They believed that Israel should be allowed to win," she told Ynet. "A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hezbollah... If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran that it would have weakened it and (changed) the strategic map in the Middle East."

Wurmser's remarks bolster reports from Israel that hawks in the Bush administration did, in fact, encourage in the first days of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to extend its war beyond Lebanon's borders.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1219-04.htm

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. Zbigniew Brzezinski on the possibility of attacking Iran

"I think of war with Iran as the ending of America's present role in the world. Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world."

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Vanity Fair, 2006. Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security advisor to President Carter from 1977 to 1981.

Been there, done that by Zbigniew Brzezinski --
April 23, 2006

link:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-brzezinski23apr23,0,3700317.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions%20

"First, in the absence of an imminent threat (and the Iranians are at least several years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral act of war. If undertaken without a formal congressional declaration of war, an attack would be unconstitutional and merit the impeachment of the president. Similarly, if undertaken without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council, either alone by the United States or in complicity with Israel, it would stamp the perpetrator(s) as an international outlaw(s).

Second, likely Iranian reactions would significantly compound ongoing U.S. difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps precipitate new violence by Hezbollah in Lebanon and possibly elsewhere, and in all probability bog down the United States in regional violence for a decade or more. Iran is a country of about 70 million people, and a conflict with it would make the misadventure in Iraq look trivial.

Third, oil prices would climb steeply, especially if the Iranians were to cut their production or seek to disrupt the flow of oil from the nearby Saudi oil fields. The world economy would be severely affected, and the United States would be blamed for it. Note that oil prices have already shot above $70 per barrel, in part because of fears of a U.S.-Iran clash.

Finally, the United States, in the wake of the attack, would become an even more likely target of terrorism while reinforcing global suspicions that U.S. support for Israel is in itself a major cause of the rise of Islamic terrorism. The United States would become more isolated and thus more vulnerable while prospects for an eventual regional accommodation between Israel and its neighbors would be ever more remote.

In short, an attack on Iran would be an act of political folly, setting in motion a progressive upheaval in world affairs. With the U.S. increasingly the object of widespread hostility, the era of American preponderance could even come to a premature end. Although the United States is clearly dominant in the world at the moment, it has neither the power nor the domestic inclination to impose and then to sustain its will in the face of protracted and costly resistance. That certainly is the lesson taught by its experiences in Vietnam and Iraq. "

link to full article:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-brzezinski23apr23,0,3700317.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions%20

[The Magistrate]

24. Mr. Brzezinski, Sir

Is a man at the top of his trade. His analysis here is excellent.

[Douglas Carpenter]

25. yes and I don't think anyone can accuse him of being a naive peace nik

Dr Brzezinski also gave an excellent speech on why he thinks much of the thinking regarding the so-called "war on terror" is deeply misguided and counterproductive -

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/10/brzezinski-z-10-31.html

snip:" 'War on terrorism' defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions....

The second condition, troubling condition, which contributes in my view to the crisis of credibility and to the state of isolation in which the United States finds itself today is due in part because that skewed view of the world is intensified by a fear that periodically verges on panic that is in itself blind. "

snip: "I do not believe that that serious debate is satisfied simply by a very abstract, vague and quasi-theological definition of the war on terrorism as the central preoccupation of the United States in today's world. That definition of the challenge in my view simply narrows down and over-simplifies a complex and varied set of challenges that needs to be addressed on a broad front.

It deals with abstractions. It theologizes the challenge. It doesn't point directly at the problem. It talks about a broad phenomenon, terrorism, as the enemy overlooking the fact that terrorism is a technique for killing people. That doesn't tell us who the enemy is. It's as if we said that World War II was not against the Nazis but against blitzkrieg."

link to full article:

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/10/brzezinski-z-10-31.html

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cali]

27. No they're not.

Some of the posts in this thead demonstrate an unfounded fear that's almost tragic. I don't think its malice toward Iran, but it's entirely misguided. What Jews are at risk of genocide? Israelis? Iran does NOT have the capability of committing genocide in Israel. Even if they did have a nuke, they're surely aware that if they dropped one on Tel Aviv, Tehran, Mashhad, Tabriz and other major cities would be nuked in return, and more severely. It is NOT in Iran's self interest to try and wipe out Israel. And where else in the world could Iran attempt to commit genocide against the Jews? Exactly nowhere. The notion that Jews are at risk of genocide because of Iran, is absurd.

[Phx_Dem]

28. Your assuming that Iran would be good stewards

of nuclear technology.

[msmcghee]

29. Cali, I think Phx_Dem makes a good point.

I think the last thing Iran would do would be to send a nuke to Haifa on a missile whose trajectory would be easily determined. Why wouldn't they have agents, untraceable to Iran, perhaps agents who did not even know that Iran was involved, smuggle in a suitcase bomb? Or in the hold of some ship docking in the harbor? Perhaps with clues pointing to al Queda or some other party.

For whatever ability Israel had to retaliate after such an attack - who would Israel retaliate against?

My impression is that persons who would never consider the mass destruction of innocent civilians are not likely to use threats of mass destruction in their daily conversations and statements.

Conversely, those megalomaniacs from history who have actually attempted to destroy innocent civilians, sometimes successfully, are typically not too bashful about their intentions.

I think these are the risks that concern the US, Israel and the EU.

[Violet_Crumble]

31. What a nutcase...doesn't he even know what happened in 1938 in Germany?

Because by trying to compare Iran with 1938 Nazi Germany (the year that Kristallnacht happened, the Nuremburg Laws existed, all Jewish students were expelled from schools, and it goes on and on), Bibi's just showing what a complete nasty moron he is and that he's either ignorant of the anti-semitic laws and policies of the nazis in 1938 or is quite aware and just wants to hit people over the head with the Holocaust to try and get someone to bomb the fuck out of Iran...

As far as I'm concerned, Ahmadinejad is a nasty bigot, as is Bibi, who everyone should remember provided the matches and the fuel with his hatred and incitement for the assassination of Rabin. Why would anyone listen to or take for a moment seriously anything either of these turds had to say?