American Buddhist Net

...I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

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July 30, 2008

RIYADH - A Saudi appeals court upheld a jail and flogging verdict against a biochemist and his female student whose research contract was ruled to be a front for a telephone affair that led her to divorce her husband.

The biochemist, Khalid Zahrani, said on Wednesday that he found out this week from the court offices that three judges had approved the verdict.

He was sentenced last year to eight months in prison and 600 lashes and his student to four months in prison and 350 lashes for establishing a telephone relationship that the court said led her to divorce her husband.

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The IOC and the Iraqi government have reached an agreement that will allow the war-torn country to send two athletes to the Beijing Games. The deadline for competitors entering the Games has passed for most sports, but the IOC said it could allow Iraq to send two track and field competitors to Beijing.

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Robert Dreyfuss on 07/27/2008

While everyone's looking at Iraq's effect on American politics -- and whether or not John McCain and Barack Obama are converging on a policy that combines a flexible timetable with a vague, and long-lasting, residual force -- let's take a look instead at Iraqi politics. The picture isn't pretty.

Despite the Optimism of the Neocons, which has pushed mainstream media coverage to be increasingly flowery about Iraq's political progress, in fact the country is poised to explode. Even before the November election. And for McCain and Obama, the problem is that Iran has many of the cards in its hands. Depending on its choosing, between now and November Iran can help stabilize the war in Iraq -- mostly by urging the Iraqi Shiites to behave themselves -- or it can make things a lot more violent.

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by Ali Gharib
July 28, 2008

The controversial Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee and thousands of supporters filled a convention center in downtown Washington this week for his Christians United for Israel (CUFI) organization's Washington-Israel Summit, where the "Iranian threat" was a recurrent theme.

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# Robert Tait in Ankara
# The Guardian,
# Monday July 28 2008

Turkey's volatile political landscape was plunged deeper into turmoil last night when two bomb blasts in Istanbul left at least 15 people dead and about 150 injured in what officials called a "terrorist" attack.

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Saturday, July 26, 2008

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi delegation headed to Switzerland on Saturday for talks with the International Olympic Committee over a ban on Iraq competing in the Beijing Games, government officials said.

The Iraqis will meet with IOC representatives early next week at the committee's headquarters in Lausanne, said IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies.

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BAGHDAD - The International Olympic Committee has confirmed a ban on Iraq from competing in the Beijing Games in a major blow to seven Iraqi athletes who had hoped to travel to China this August, an IOC letter said.

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The Associated Press
Published: July 20, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran: Eight women and one man convicted of adultery are set to be stoned to death in Iran, activists said Sunday.

Lawyer and women's rights activist, Shadi Sadr, said the nine were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.

"Their verdicts are approved, and they may be executed at any time," she told reporters.

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By Leonard Fein

HERE'S A SECRET, the kind we hardly acknowledge to ourselves.

But first, you may be wondering who this “we” is, on whose behalf I am writing. In truth, I am not sure. Maybe it is the Jews. But the problem with “Jews” is—well, not all Jews are in on the secret. Or maybe it is the Zionists. But the problem with “Zionists” is that the word has come to seem musty, at best, and in these last several decades it has been appropriated by exclusivist fanatics. So let me spell it out: the “we” here means old-fashioned liberal Zionists, people who intuitively endorse the idea of a Jewish state, people who acknowledge that to secure the safety of that state and to ennoble its character are the compelling Jewish projects of our time, hence people who these days suffer considerable anxiety and are not strangers to disappointment. Things are not going very well, or even just average well.

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This essay argues a point that might be called "pre-MAD," in the sense both that it preempts MAD and comes before it. It says "MAD cannot work with those people because they are so extreme they do not fear annihilation, and therefore we must annihilate them now before we both annihilate each other sometime in the future."

The problem with this line of thinking is there is a wide area between world-wide nuclear war and a single pre-pre- or pre-MAD attack. Add to this the fact that nuclear weapons are not so hard to get. I am almost persuaded by Morris' reasoning that what would really be best for Israel and the world is that even more countries get the bomb because then there would be no cause for pre-pre- or pre-MAD reasoning. We would be back with MAD all by itself, which by the looks of it is safer. ABN
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By BENNY MORRIS
Published: July 18, 2008

ISRAEL will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb.

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MADRID (AFP) — Women have historically suffered discrimination in the name of religion, and the world's great faiths must do more to encourage gender equality, theologians told a seminar at a Saudi-organised conference Thursday.

"Women have been forgotten and marginalised in religions," Juan Jose Tamayo, director of theology at Madrid's Juan Carlos III university, told a roundtable on the second day of the World Conference of Dialogue in Madrid, aimed at bringing the great monotheistic faiths closer together.

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I want to say in the most respectful way I am able and without adornment: Why are American fallen soldiers ignored and always buried far away from media attention? Why did the following happen just last week in the USA? Military fires public affairs official for refusing to limit press at funerals. ABN
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By MYRA NOVECK and GRAHAM BOWLEY
Published: July 18, 2008

JERUSALEM — With solemn speeches and military salutes, thousands of mourners on Thursday buried the two Israeli soldiers whose remains were returned in a long-awaited exchange with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah on Wednesday.

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Why is the concept MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), which brought us through the Cold War, rarely if ever mentioned in this context? Does anyone doubt that Iran would be obliterated if it attacked Israel? Does anyone doubt that matters will be made worse in the long-term if Iran is attacked now? Which sane persons are persuaded by the argument that Israel should hurry up and attack now while Bush, who has gotten almost everything wrong, is still in office? Who is persuaded by almost anything Bush says? What kind of president would encourage a major war just months before leaving office (if he does intend to leave)? Why have we been fed one reason after another to attack Iran? Is there any rational reason to attack Iran? Can that reason, if you can find one, stand up against the reasons not to attack? Is Bush supporting an attack because he is genetically incapable of doing anything but raise his bet in Iraq? Does he believe that an attack on Iran will make his failures in Iraq look better? Are not virtually all wars started by psycopaths? Why is this always so obvious when we look into the past but less so in the present? Are we ourselves genetically programmed to follow psycopaths? ABN
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As Tehran tests new missiles, America believes only a show of force can deter President Ahmadinejad

By Uzi Mahnaimi in Washington

13/07/08 "The Times" -- -President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.

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It is longer than Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall taken together. It is over a thousand years older than the Great Wall of China as we know it today. It is of more solid construction than its ancient Chinese counterparts. It is the greatest monument of its kind between central Europe and China and it may be the longest brick, or stone, wall ever built in the ancient world. This wall is known as ‘The Great Wall of Gorgan’ or ‘the Red Snake’. An international team of archaeologists has been at work on the snakelike monument and here they report on their findings.

The ‘Red Snake’ in northern Iran, which owes its name to the red colour of its bricks, is at least 195km long. A canal, 5m deep or more, conducted water along most of the Wall. Its continuous gradient, designed to ensure regular water flow, bears witness to the skills of the land-surveyors responsible for marking out the Wall's route. Over 30 forts are lined up along this massive structure. Their combined size is about three times that of those on Hadrian's Wall. Yet these forts are small in comparison with contemporary fortifications in the hinterland, some of which are around ten times larger than the largest Wall forts. The 'Red Snake' is unmatched in so many respects and an enigma in yet more.

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8 July 2008

In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield', the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration's executive power, about the US recognition of Iran's overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK.

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NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) — Iraq on Tuesday said it will reject any security pact with the United States unless it sets a date for the pullout of US-led foreign troops, a proposal turned down by US President George W. Bush.

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July 7, 2008
By MATTI FRIEDMAN

JERUSALEM - In a stuffy basement off an Old City alleyway in Jerusalem, tailors using ancient texts as a blueprint have begun making a curious line of clothing they hope will be worn by priests in a reconstructed Jewish Temple.

The project, run by a Jerusalem group called the Temple Institute, is part of an ideology that advocates making practical preparations for the rebuilding of the ancient temple on a disputed rectangle in Jerusalem sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

...If you are a descendant of the Jewish priestly class, a full outfit, including an embroidered belt 32 cubits (48 feet) long, can be yours for about $800.

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Andrew Bossone in Cairo
for National Geographic News
July 2, 2008

A well-preserved mud-brick settlement in southern Egypt is providing a rare glimpse into nearly 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian daily life, archaeologists announced Tuesday. (See photos.)

The Tell Edfu site includes a public town center that was used for collecting taxes, conducting business, recording accounting, and writing documents.

The discovery paints a picture of a relatively advanced system of society during ancient times, with commerce playing an intricate part of daily Egyptian life, according to the University of Chicago and the Egyptian Supreme Council on Antiquities.

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By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: July 6, 2008

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

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Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen: 'A Third Front ... Would Be Extremely Stressful'

By JONATHAN KARL
July 2, 2008

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who was in Israel over the weekend, issued a strong warning today about the dangers of a military attack on Iran.

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Don't bomb Iran, Bush warns Israel

Makes good sense, worth reading.

Also, as for this looming conflict, why is there virtually no mention of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), which in Iran's case would be IAD (Individual or Iranian Assured Destruction)? MAD got us safely through the Cold War. Why does not MAD or IAD serve the same purpose now? ABN
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By Shlomo Ben-Ami and Trita Parsi Wed Jul 2, 4:00 AM ET

Washington and Jerusalem - Is war between Israel and Iran inevitable? To listen to Iran's radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Israel's Iranian-born transportation minister Shaul Mofaz, or even recent reports that Israel carried out a major military training mission over the Mediterranean to rehearse an attack on Iran, you might be left with that impression.

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JERUSALEM (AFP) — Some 300 rare and valuable books confiscated from Iraq's Jewish community by Saddam Hussein's regime have been secretly spirited into Israel, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The books include a 1487 commentary on the biblical Book of Job and another volume of biblical prophets printed in Venice in 1617, the Haaretz daily said.

The volumes are part of a massive collection of books confiscated by the secret police of the executed Iraqi dictator and stored in security installations in the Iraqi capital until the US-led invasion of 2003.

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One more step closer to war. ABN
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By AP/ANNE FLAHERTY

(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Armed Services Committee voted Thursday to promote Gen. David Petraeus to become the top commander in the Middle East.

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June 20, 2008

France's Association of Copts plans to hold a demonstration on Sunday against what it calls "repeated and ferocious" attacks against members of the Coptic Christian minority in Egypt.

"The beating up of Coptic citizens are occurring daily in Egypt," the association said, adding that these attacks have been going on for years.

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