From AP, with thanks to OBL r Us.
TEHRAN, Iran - All reformists who registered to run in next month's presidential elections were rejected by Iran's hard-line constitutional watchdog, which approved only six out of the 1,010 hopefuls, state-run television reported.The announcement Sunday prompted a crisis meeting by reformers, who immediately threatened to boycott the election.
"We are warning the Guardian Council that we will not participate in the election if it doesn't reverse its decision," Rajabali Mazrouei, a top member of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, told The Associated Press.
"Barring reform candidates means there will be no free or fair election," he said.
There was similar outrage last year when the Council — which supervises the elections — disqualified more than 2,000 reformists from legislative elections, leading to a low turnout. Reformists denounced that vote as a "historical fiasco."
The council's announcement, however, appeared to be the final decision and effectively leaves reformers seeking democratic changes within the ruling Islamic establishment without a candidate...
[Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst said,] "Apparently hard-liners prefer discrediting the country rather than giving up power despite unpopularity."
Today’s Extras on Jihad’s 5th Column:
I’m Leaving the Left:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18155
excerpt:
Like many others who came of age politically in the 1960s, I became adept at not taking the measure of the left's mounting incoherence. To face it directly posed the danger that I would have to describe it accurately, first to myself and then to others. That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror.
Purging conservatives from the Campus (while leaving the pro-jihadis in place):
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18118
What I learned in Arabic Class:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18150
Busy day, Stay Safe everyone!
Iran Reformists Barred From Presidency
reads pretty much like you can have any color as long as it is black. The difference lies in the fact that the latter was pronounced by Henry ford, a truly great man and the former is the mentality of jihadist vermin.
Shouldn't this be protested at the U.N. and sanctions extended by all countries (and companies) in the civilized world against Iran?
It is a raw demonstration that this is a despotic terror state that not only flouts international law (in regard to seeking a nuclear bomb, primarily) but makes a mockery of the voting process by exposing the present gang of mullahs as thugs, liars, thieves and illegitimate usurpers of the will of the Iranian people.
(Is that the sound of crickets I hear coming from the halls of the U.N. building?)
violetta-
I hate to disabuse you of the "Henry Ford was a truly great man" idea, but the current crop of malignant jihadists love his collected essays "The International Jew", one of the worst anti-semitic screeds ever penned by an American (written in the 1920's).
The work is still in print and for sale on many Muslim (READ: de facto jihadist) websites.
His vehicles were superior but his mind was substandard.
Voletti: beware of worshipping people who made money. I do not remember who said this, but he was a wise man: to be clever enough to make a lot of money, you have to be stupid enough to want to. As a rule, millionaires are not clever people, and politically they are always disastrous. (Soros, Warren Buffett, etc....)
BigSLeep:
Henry Ford was, indeed, guilty of promoting the Protocols, until it was unmasked as the disgusting forgery that it was. At that point, he immediately ceased his activities.
watedragon52-
Ford should have then retracted his earlier anti-semitic newspaper writings (released in book form as "The International Jew" -in Four Volumes!), destroyed them as base and vile rantings, and forbade their further printings anywhere. But I get the impression that his heart did not change. Maybe his wallet did.
In either case, the work is still being sold- on Amazon, alibris, ebay, and MANY Muslim websites. Ford's name give it gives it a 'serious' cachet.
('The Protocols...' are another matter. The Czarist secret police are reputed to have penned this preposterous tract. What Ford had to do with promoting it, or later disavowing it, I don't have the info, but will take your word on that.)
I drive a Ford, but am ambivalent about the original creator.
In a way, a lot like my relationship to the Universe at large. ;)
I find it more instructve to ask people like Shirki and Ia why they support the Protocols, rather than wonder about a deranged carmaker.
Islamic/muslim opinion (I'm forced to say muslim opinion, since I've never heard any different from any muslims I've ever debated) tends to fall in one of two categories:
i) the Protocols are completely real and Jews are evil (roughly 20% or so of muslim believers by my estimate)
ii) the Protocols are PROBABLY fakes, but in reality, Jews are evil anyway (about 40%)
iii) the Protocols are probably fakes, but, shucks, there sure are a lot of Jews in the US gov't and in Hollywood, huh? And isn't there some kind of conspiracy blah blah you get the idea. (around 40%)
The guest on NPR defined the latter views as the "new racism" of the Protocols - the sliiiightly more acceptable kind. He didn't mention islam, but the above views are what I see written by muslims on this website and others. I have never seen a muslim unambiguously and completely denounce the Protocols. No islamic believer I've ever debated has ever written: "The Protocols are wrong"
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
Imam Geoff
Geoff-
Don't forget the REAL 'Protocols' that every Muslim believes in:
"THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ISLAM"
(AKA "The 'Holy' Qu'ran")
Heh - nice one, Big.
Again, curious that Ia never refutes them. I'd say he falls into a modified category iii ("gawrsh, I just don't know nothin' 'bout no Protocols, but there shooore are a whole lotta them Joooz in the US Gov't, eh?"). As such he represents a slight deviation from the pattern, one supposes.
Ignorance, in many ways, is bliss! For is not islam bliss? And is ignorance not bliss? Indeed.
He might do better to redress the faults within islam, lay off the Allah-talk and leave those fundamentally skeptical of his religion to be free to express their doubts.
And Allah knows least.
Imam Geoff
Muslims believing the Protocals...they believe what they want to believe, real or imaginary makes no difference if the belief is usable...giant spiders attacking US soldiers in Iraq...Allah causing the big tsunami to punish wayward muslims and un believers in one fell swoop...Jews capturing, torturing and eating Palestinian children...
phantoms of the id...turned monstrosity by Allah, Quran, Islam...reinforced by legions of lying mullahs, Imams and Ayatollahs...
Islam is theronistic...the word meaning the creation and maintenance of monsters(jihadists).
Gullibility is the Imams best tool for recruiting jihadists...
Democracy and human rights, Mullah style!
Hey guys, some Iran stuff to chew on:
SHIA MILITIA TAKES ON THE INSURGENTS
Supporters of the Badr militia say it's a much-needed security force, but
Sunnis allege it is part of the problem.
By Emad Hasan al-Sharaa in Baghdad
Leading Shia politicians in Iraq have justified the increasing engagement of
the powerful Badr militia in the war against insurgents, as prominent Sunnis
look on in alarm.
Mainly active in Shia-dominated southern Iraq, the Badr Organisation,
formerly known as the Badr Brigade, is the military arm of the Supreme
Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI, one of the two main Shia
parties that make up the United Iraqi Alliance.
Sunnis, feeling isolated since the Shia-controlled United Iraqi Alliance won
the elections, are nervous and unhappy about the organisation's mounting
influence.
[...]
Sheikh Humam Hamoodi, a prominent SCIRI figure, insists the Badr militia
still has a role to play because insurgents have infiltrated both the Iraqi
National Guard and police.
"The Badr Organisation must participate in peacekeeping in the country,
because they were the first to stand up against Saddam and resist the
Baathists," he said. "They have experience in tension-filled areas and in
armed struggle. So they must be respected."
SCIRI was established in Iran in 1982 and received funding from Tehran for
years, leading to accusations that the Badr Organisation is a puppet of the
Iranians.
Hussein al-Shahristani, a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, insists that
despite links with Iran, Iraqi Shias -and their militia forces - do act
independently.
"The [election] victory of the Shia list does not indicate Iranian
interference in the policy of Iraq," he said. "The people must be assured
that the Iraqi government will not accept any interference from Iran."
Emad Hasan al-Sharaa is an IWPR trainee in Iraq.
(http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_126_1_eng.txt)
U.S.A. and Iran = love (After all, both are arch enemies of Saddam).
Oh and BigSleep - don't forget Wal-Mart: they sold the Protocols as well, except without a disclaimer. And don't say that it was just some disgruntled Muslim employee: "Almost as disturbing was Wal-Mart's explanation that removing the book was a values-neutral "business decision" rather than a moral choice. It's one thing to say that promoting The Protocols is wrong because it is bad for business, but quite another to admit it is wrong because the book is morally repugnant." http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=212991