In honor of espionage and the Season Two premiere of SHOWTIME's Emmy Award winning HOMELAND getting a 60% increase in viewers over last year's premiere, I present some amazing video that needs to be seen to be believed: VICE News videos - Hezbollah's Propaganda War; Morena Baccarin @missmorenab

An inside look at Season Two with the creators and stars of SHOWTIME's espionage drama HOMELAND, the best show on American television. 
http://www.sho.com/sho/video/titles/17717/behind-the-scenes-homeland-season-2


SHOWTIME video: Season Two, Episode One: An asset from Carrie's old life comes in from the cold. Uploaded September 30, 2012. http://youtu.be/-xtJ5lLkW70

In honor of espionage and the Season Two premiere of SHOWTIME's Emmy Award winning HOMELAND getting a 60% increase in viewers over last year's premiere, I present some amazing video that needs to be seen to be believed: VICE News videos - Hezbollah's Propaganda War; Morena Baccarin @missmorenab

Have already watched the new episode on TV twice. Plus, watched the DVD-RW I made looking for hidden clues, so I guess that makes thrice!

More HOMELAND clips are at SHOWTIME's YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/show/homeland/

http://www.sho.com/sho/homeland/home

http://ithitshome.com/

Dana's Unfiltered blog: http://danaunfiltered.com/

Ratings: 'Homeland,' 'Dexter' Score Big for Showtime
http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/ratings-homeland-dexter-score-big-showtime-58666
-----


"Hezbollah has built a multi-million dollar theme park celebrating its military victories over Israel. It's the latest PR offensive from the Iranian-funded Shia Muslim militia its followers call the "Party of God." Host Ryan Duffy heads to Lebanon to visit this bizarre tourist site to learn how this group that started as a ragtag militia in the 1980s has skillfully used propaganda to transform itself into a military and political force to be reckoned with, and how anti-Hezbollah groups are trying to compete in this war of words." September 2012.


http://www.vice.com/vice-news/hezbollahs-propaganda-war-part-1
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/hezbollahs-propaganda-war-part-1#ooid=tuNjhvNTqb2dIf_zU1QRpOrNm1A1pGyx



http://www.vice.com/vice-news/hezbollahs-propaganda-war-part-2
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/hezbollahs-propaganda-war-part-2#ooid=A0cXVsNTp8c_QoL8UCnCs0K8Uwy3jVSG

Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles... paparazzi cameras go off by themselves when HOMELAND star Morena Baccarin walked the red carpet two weeks ago...


http://youtu.be/3CRtkyxIVvM

And the week before that there was...

Esquire Magazine
WOMEN WE LOVE
Morena Baccarin Is a Woman We Love
And today, she is also the most beautiful woman in the world
By Tom Chiarella
September 10, 2012, 12:00 AM
http://www.esquire.com/women/women-we-love/morena-baccarin-1012

Morena Baccarin @missmorenab https://twitter.com/missmorenab

Special bonus: photo of Morena Baccarin AND Laura Vandervoort together in one photo. Seriously, you might want to sit down first so the double-dose of beauty doesn't make you faint dead away after you click this link: http://twitter.com/Vandiekins22/status/245715759555289088/photo/1

You're welcome!

Newt Gingrich on President Obama's curious choices and what they mean -placing more importance on meeting the hosts of ABC's 'The View' than practicing traditional U.S. statecraft and actually meeting other countries' leaders -like Netanyahu- at the U.N. And even elements of the MSM are upset

Video at: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1861429922001/

Fox News Channel video: Gingrich's take: Obama at UN, snubs, 'bumps' and more.

Newt Gingrich appeared on Greta Van Sustern's "On the Record" TV show on Tuesday night, September 25th, and opined on all manner of things, most notably, Obama's curious speech before the United Nations General Assembly, his continued use of "the video" as an excuse for what happened to four Americans being murdered in Libya, inc. our Ambassador, his public snub of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and what Mitt Romney needs to do for the rest of the 2012 campaign. 

Long story short: Newt Gingrich and many other Americans believe that actions STILL speak louder than words, so using that as your guide, President Obama has decided that running for re-election as president and appearing on various TV chat shows where he will get softballs lobbed at him, is more important than actually acting doing the duties expected of a U.S. president. 

He is not going to worry what high-minded people think, he's going after the yentas!

Which is why he is the first sitting U.S. president in over twenty years to come to the U.N. for this annual event and NOT actually meet any representatives from other countries. 

He's left that task to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Sen. Marco Rubio's thoughtful speech on the future of U.S. foreign policy before The Brookings Institution -more muscle, less 'realism' dithering! #rubio

Sen. Marco Rubio video: Sen. Marco Rubio's speech on the future of U.S. foreign policy before The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. April 25, 2012.
http://youtu.be/9Hb31bEa0mg


Sen. Marco Rubio's thoughtful speech on the future of U.S. foreign policy before The Brookings Institution -more muscle, less 'realism' dithering!


See summary of remarks at http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/0425_rubio.aspx 
or the full transcript at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2012/0425_rubio/20120425_rubio.pdf

The Washington Post

Marco Rubio’s foreign policy speech stakes out a middle ground in GOP

By Karen DeYoung

Published: April 25, 2012

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) took another step onto the national stage Wednesday with a foreign policy speech that positioned him squarely in the middle between a dying breed of GOP moderates and his partisan brethren who have condemned President Obama as an international weakling.

“The easiest thing for me to do here today is to give a speech on my disagreement with this administration on foreign policy,” Rubio told a packed auditorium at the Brookings Institution. “I have many.”

Read the rest of the article at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marco-rubios-foreign-policy-speech-stakes-out-a-middle-ground-in-gop/2012/04/25/gIQAOsLohT_story.html

The Washington Post

PostPartisan blog

Marco Rubio’s foreign policy message for the GOP

By Michael Gerson

Posted at 03:32 PM ET, 04/26/2012

Sen. Marco Rubio’s speech on foreign policy at the Brookings Institution was not oversold. It deserved the designation “major” for its courage, skill and moral seriousness. 

The courage came in criticizing a drift toward isolationism within the Republican Party.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/marco-rubios-foreign-policy-message-for-the-gop/2012/04/26/gIQANTAcjT_blog.html


----
http://www.brookings.edu/


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/


http://www.foreignaffairs.com/


http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorMarcoRubio


http://www.heritage.org/

Syria bleeds while dithering O 'condemns' -Charles Krauthammer calls out Obama's ineffectual foreign policy on Syria that's unsatisfactory to GOP, Democrats AND our overseas allies

Above, the segment that Channel 4 News in Sweden ran this morning on Syria, as the United States continues "to condemn."
How's that working out so far?
It’s time for President Obama to back up his rhetoric with firm action.




The Washington Post
While Syria burns
By Charles Krauthammer
Published: April 26, 2012

Last year President Obama ordered U.S. intervention in Libya under the grand new doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect.” Moammar Gaddafi was threatening a massacre in Benghazi. To stand by and do nothing “would have been a betrayal of who we are,” explained the president.

In the year since, the government of Syria has more than threatened massacres. It has carried them out. Nothing hypothetical about the disappearances, executions, indiscriminate shelling of populated neighborhoods. More than 9,000 are dead.

Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/while-syria-burns/2012/04/26/gIQAQUC0jT_story.html


-----
For more on Obama's failed foreign policy re Syria, see my previous posts on the subject:


April 29, 2011 blog post titled, Marco Rubio is crystal clear in Foreign Policy magazine - "How America Must Respond to the Massacre in Syria
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/marco-rubio-is-crystal-clear-in-foreign.html


March 20, 2011 titled, Marco Rubio on dithering O: “So if Russia doesn’t care and China doesn’t care and we care but won’t do anything about it, who’s it up to, the French?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/marco-rubio-on-dithering-o-so-if-russia.html


It's completely impossible for me or any of my like-minded friends to think of any time since he's been in the U.S. Senate when 'nice guy' Bill Nelson has said anything nearly as pointed or effectively as what Rubio has done repeatedly on Syria since last year.


My vote for Senate will be FOR people with similar intelligent and articulate views and AGAINST someone who wants to be a U.S. Senator because they think it would be cool.
That completely eliminates Connie Mack IV and puts George LeMieux back in the U.S. Senate.


-----
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/


http://www.foreignaffairs.com/


http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorMarcoRubio


http://www.heritage.org/

Ben Stein: "Arab Spring" is a fraud; David Rothkopf: Obamamandias: the great shrinking superpower in the Middle East

CBS News Sunday Morning video- Ben Stein: "Arab Spring" is a fraud. May 15, 2011.

"Arab Spring" is a fraud. Says street movements in Middle East mean U.S. is losing valuable allies - and Iran is reaping a "gigantic regional coup"

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7366114n&tag=related;photovideo

-----

Did you happen to catch Ben Stein's spot=on comments on Sunday's CBS News 'Sunday Morning' TV program?

It's long been a personal favorite of mine from the day it started due to its smart, lengthy essays on subjects and people that often received little public notice, but who were doing some very interesting things.

If you didn't catch it, the video above will correct that situation toute-de-suite.

Stein is largely right that President Obama's bewildering and feckless Mid-East policy seems to constantly profit Iran at the West's expense, and Israel in particular, as he channels Prof. Obama and lectures everyone, issuing threats to Libya and Syria to change their methods or consider leaving, threats that are completely ignored but which would've been mocked by the U.S. Mainstream Media if Bush 43 had made them.

The very same condescending crowd in the news media, academe and the foreign policy desk of Comedy Central who said that Bush & Co.'s contention that democracy would work in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, were crazy, but who now play the role of Obama sycophants and valets for his bewildering policies that never seem to quite result in anything positive or tangible for the people.

Or did you forget how quiet Obama was when there were genuine street protests for reform, democratic institutions and fair elections in Iran two years ago, and everyone, esp. The American Left, wanted to know why it took Obama so long to recognize what was happening and say something of substance?

I haven't.

Not that I was ever a fan of former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, per se, but he's undeniably a very, very smart and savvy guy who knows how to handle himself.

(I mean he wasn't a federal judge for nothing.)

Well, he's bailing out as Obama's Mid-East policy czar, trouble-shooter and general explainer of things that make no sense coming out of C Street, the U.S. State Dept.

Who's his replacement?

Don't expect to get that answer soon or even any educated guesses anytime soon in the Herald or Sun-Sentinel.

-----

Foreign Policy magazine blog

Obamamandias: the great shrinking superpower in the Middle East

Posted by David Rothkopf Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - 4:06 PM

http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/18/obamamandias_the_great_shrinking_superpower_in_the_middle_east

Foreign Policy magazine blog

Another major policy speech on the Middle East? Yawn

Posted by Stephen M. Walt Thursday, May 19, 2011 - 10:44 AM

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/19/another_major_policy_speech_on_the_middle_east_yawn

Foreign Policy magazine

Discord in the Rebel Capital

Benghazi may seem like an island in the storm, but beneath the surface lies confusion and disharmony.

By Portia Walker

May 18, 2011

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/18/discord_in_the_rebel_capital

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

New York Times video: New York Times Op-Ed columnist Roger Cohen's hopes for President Obama's Middle East peace efforts.

http://youtu.be/H0m2WJjKHeQ

Just common sense - Peter King's long-overdue hearings on Muslim radicalism in U.S. gets backing from an unexpected ally at The WaPo: Ruth Marcus

Above, 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta's Florida Driver's License

While living in Arlington County, I followed the 9/11 Commission hearings VERY closely, more than just about anyone I knew, watching or taping many of them off of C-SPAN, and, consequently, often staying-up late at night to catch up on their activities. Though it seems obvious now, while I'd heard from many sources that some of the hijackers had used Broward County Library computers to access the Internet to send messages -and book their flights- it never dawned on me to think about where, specifically, they had lived in South Florida.

But despite how much of the hearings I watched, I couldn't see everything, so it wasn't until another Washington-area friend who worked on Capitol Hill -also originally from Florida- pointed it out to me one night at a sports bar, that I found out that 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta lived in Hollywood.
In fact, 4.6 miles from my father's home in Hallandale Beach.

(Not the subject of the column below, true, but just wanted to mention it all the same. Also relevant: On the morning of 9/11, I was working directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the Dept. of Justice, the FBI and The National Archives. I was working on a litigation project for the law firm Crowell & Moring, a project involving DOD that was supposed to send me and my team to Dayton for a few weeks that Fall, but that was cancelled for obvious reasons.
From the firm's large windows facing Pennsylvania Avenue -and even more so from the large balcony that overlooked the street that were clearly perfect viewing for Inauguration Day festivities- I and the dozens of us on my flooor could clearly see the dark smoke arising in the SW from The Pentagon, just past our view looking towards the Old Post Office.
More about my 9/11 experiences in Washington, D.C. here, from a Sept. 2011 post, 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-george-f-will-on-american-landscape.html)

Well, I've been sitting on them for a while now.
Wondering, wondering, wondering just when to run them in this space, but this excellent common sense perspective by liberal columnist Ruth Marcus in today's Washington Post about voluble Rep. Peter King of Long Island, and his resolve to finally have some long overdue congressional hearings on radical Islam in the U.S., despite protests from the usual suspects and however an imperfect a vehicle for that overdue development she thinks he might be, just might be the sign I've been waiting for.

So what's the them?
My sign to let you know that coming soon to the blog will be some delicious articles, columns and video about Islamic radicalism and not-so-democratic Muslim immigrants (not at all interested in assimilation) that I guarantee you you haven't seen or heard about elsewhere in the American Mainstream Media.

At least, as represented by the Miami Heralds and NPRs of the world, where news stories and real-life actualities that don't fit their political or social template never see the light of day in print or make the airwaves.

That's largely because even some liberals can see the lie of the fiction long articulated by the MSM, in the U.S. as well as in Europe, that EVERY Muslim -esp. immigrants- are just like Jane & John Q. Public, whether they live in Northern Virginia, Queens, London, Paris or Malmö.
Nope.

Some are but more than you think are NOT.
Just because the press wants it to be so doesn't change reality -or human behavior.

I know something of this first-hand because my first roommate at IU was a great guy named Salim who just also happened to be a Kenyan-born Muslim from Oman, who was at school on a World Health Organization (WHO) scholarship.

Salim was very appreciative of the opportunity he had to live and study in the United States and loved IU and the beauty and friendliness of Bloomington more than many of my other friends, who were blase about it, and because of his personality and willingness to talk about what he knew about growing-up in a life different than ours, Salim made friends easily.

A later roommate in the Washington area was a completely different story. I had known many Iranian-born friends as a kid growing-up in North Miami Beach, even seeing Grease at a drive-in with two -count 'em two- ridiculously cute and vibrant Iranian sisters in our family's convertible when I was in high school.

Their brother was a soccer teammate of mine and as I've related here previously, I sometimes went with him and his family to anti-Shah rallies at the JFK Torch of Freedom on Biscayne Blvd. in downtown Miami because members of his own family had been tortured or killed by the Savak. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912364,00.html

The Iranian-born medical student I was somewhat forced to live with in Arlington once another roommate moved-out just weeks before the lease was up -a know-it-all with with a real superiority complex- told me plenty of amazing stories about ways that Iranian students he knew played the State Dept. reps in Europe at the embassy or consulates for fools, in order to get visas.
They accomplished this by telling them the appropriate narrative that would allow them to be admitted into the country.

He said there even was a list of which State Dept. consular offices were more easy to fool than others, and since it was important to get to the U.S., they didn't mind the additional costs of flying out of whatever European country they might be living in in order to get to a consular office with a reputation for letting people in. Fly from Germany to Copenhagen or Portugal or... He knew that for a fact because it worked for HIM.

If college students knew how to game the system, do you honestly think that well-trained people with nefarious intentions and unlimited resources can't do even more?

Some people can never let go of their internal anger, never really want to fit in and are keenly disposed to wreck havoc on civil society wherever they can, even if that means corrupting freedoms or denying other people's guaranteed rights.

And when they're caught on film, they... yes, often celebrate their anti-social behavior.
That is, until they realize that it will make them look bad once it is shown on TV or the Internet. That moment of clarity is always a sight to see!

As you will soon see here for yourself, there's almost nothing better on TV then when the often-dubious world of Reality TV slams head-first into the behavior of the 'Real World' that the Left and its apologists in the media has been making excuses for for years.

That it happened in Sweden is not so surprising, sorry to say, but I can't help but think that if it had happened on a British TV show, where the conversation would've been in engelska, we'd all have long since seen the video by now and that it would be sure-fire water cooler conversation once 20/20 or Nightline or Sixty Minutes highlighted the behavior for Americans.

That is, if people still really have water cooler conversation as shown on The Office, instead of sipping their dopey Five-Hour drinks and $4 fruity organic drinks from their desk when there's a perfectly good cold Dr. Pepper in the soda machine looking to add drinking satisfaction.

-----

The Washington Post
Islamic radicalism: The questions that Rep. Peter King is right to ask
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, March 9, 2011

One of the odder exchanges I've ever seen during a congressional hearing involved Attorney General Eric Holder, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith and the phrase "radical Islam."

Smith, at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee last May, cited three recent terrorist incidents: the Fort Hood shooting rampage, the underwear bomber and the Times Square bomber. "Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?" he asked Holder.

The attorney general did his best not to go there.
"There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions," he said.
"I think you have to look at each individual case."

Smith tried again - and again.
Holder repeatedly resisted, before grudgingly acknowledging the obvious. "I certainly think that it's possible that people who espouse a radical version of Islam have had an ability to have an impact on people like" the accused Times Square bomber, he said.

Read the rest of the excellent column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030804487.html

----

Dr. Pepper TV commercial, 1960's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpByXzdMQfk

When I first got to Bloomington in August of 1979 and told people I met at my dorm, Briscoe Quad, or people I met on and off the IU campus that I was from North Miami Beach, it was very quickly obvious that they imagined that my life down here in high school on weekends was probably not unlike the end of this commercial, albeit many years later, with grill parties at the beach, throwing frisbees and footballs around and cute girls prancing around everywhere...

Believe me, it was very disappointing to have to tell them the truth about how boring and mundane late 1970's life in NMB was, or how many great opportunities or locales were wasted.

Haulover Beach on the Intercoastal side could get crazy on weekends, but it was never fun like life depicted in films or TV about teen life in SoCal, whom I envied.
You know, where people describe every other thing they go to as "epic"?
If only we had had cell phones and digital cameras and the Internet then...

Failed hit piece in 12/23/09 LA Times on Ileana by a hipper-than-thou Iranian regime apologist; WaPo's Robin Wright is correct about Iran

December 23rd, 2009

I'm neither a fan or opponent of Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, per se, but I know a hit piece
when I see one.

You know everything you need to know about
the essay below that appeared in Wednesday's
LA Times when you discover that author
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich's "associated" with
some group called Campaign Against Sanctions
and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII),
http://www.campaigniran.org/CASMII/index.php?q=node

So why is that NOT mentioned at the bottom of the
LA Times Guest Op-Ed, when a quick five-second
Google Search tells you that?
You know, since it actually has something
to do with the subject of the essay, sanctions?

Just more proof, as if needed, that the LA Times
isn't nearly what it used to be when I read their
great D.C. edition almost daily in the '90's, which
was nothing but news articles, opinions and essays,
with no ads -for a dollar.

It was fantastic for news junkies readers, even if it
was a loss-leader for Times-Mirror in their efforts
to have more influence in official Washington.
(I had a couple of friends in their DC bureau,
above the Farragut West Metro station.)
Their separate Foreign Policy section on Tuesdays,
usually with something insightful and original by
then-foreign affairs correspondent Robin Wright,
now at the Washington Post, was always
MUST READING for me and my friends
interested in foreign policy and strategy.

See also: http://robinwrightblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.robinwright.net/ and
http://www.usip.org/resources/irans-green-movement

Her latest column in the WaPo, on her being
underwhelmed by Obama's West Point speech,
was this one from Dec. 10th appropriately titled
The real stakes in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120903678.html

That column includes the following about Iran:

Obama's strategy will deeply affect India, the world's largest democracy. Long-standing tensions between Pakistan and India have taken the world closer to the brink of nuclear war than any conflict has since World War II -- and still could, since Pakistan has failed to contain extremists responsible for terrorist atrocities in India, including the Mumbai attacks last year. U.S. failure to help nuclear Pakistan expand or shift its military focus from India to the more immediate threat from its internal extremists risks allowing those tensions to deepen.

Just as worrisome are the stakes with Iran, which borders both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghanistan has become for Iran what Iraq once was: a surrogate battlefield with the United States. Once Afghanistan's rival, Shiite-dominated Iran has reportedly supplied the same weapons and explosives to Sunni Taliban fighters that it provided Shiite militias in Iraq, on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend -- at least for now.

Iran manipulated (and often fueled) the problems that ensued after the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In the process, it has become a regional superpower rivaled only by Israel. U.S. failures in Afghanistan and Pakistan would further strengthen Iran's position as its increasingly authoritarian government cracks down on a legitimate opposition movement and threatens to expand its nuclear program.

Since those of you who have always lived
in South Florida or the East Coast may not
be too familiar with it, that the Times Op-Ed
author is a grad of the USC Annenberg
School for Communication is nothing
to be impressed by, esp. if you've ever met
some of the grads I met in D.C.

It's no SAIS, that's for sure,
http://www.sais-jhu.edu/ which is apparent if
you've ever met some of the Annenberg
grads in Washington that I have, who seemed
to specialize in sounding-off at public policy
forums, bars and coffee shops by repeating
things smarter people once said and wrote.
And getting it wrong.

Remember that pompous ass of a Harvard
grad student that Matt Damon's character
in Good Will Hunting made mincemeat of
in his verbal barrage in the bar, about the
evolution of the 18th Century market economy
in the Southern Colonies?

If you forgot it, it's here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4PiVMasO6s
http://www.moviemistakes.com/film555/quotes

That's what I'm talking about!

(Somewhat unexpectedly, I actually had to play
the Matt Damon role a few times while I lived
in the D.C. area in order to put some Ivy-Ivy
wannbe grads who thought they were all that,
in their place.
That usually involved both politics, history and,
shocker, sports.)

Characterized by a real lack of intellectual honesty
and heft to say the least, regardless of what they
-or their anxious parents- paid for USC tuition.

Growing-up in South Florida in the '70's, I often
marched with my Iranian friends and their families
in the late '70's in anti-Shah rallies near the
Freedom Torch on Biscayne Blvd.
-back before that had been thoroughly rendered
into a tired South Florida media cliche, like the
Versailles Restaurant- and we were positive
that there were Savak agents taking photos of
everyone, since they were a little too obvious and
we could sometimes hear the cameras whirring.

That's why my friends and their relatives
wore masks.

Many of my friends' parents and relatives had
been unlawfully imprisoned by the Shah, and
had the permanent scars and injuries to
prove it.

Iran as a modern, secular democratic country
wasn't an abstract idea to them, certainly not
the same way it seems to have been for so many
of the apologists of the Shah, or the current crew
of well-dressed apologists who shop at
The Beverly Center in LA.

I realize that my circumstances are unique
in that I know a LOT more about Iran
and its people and history than the average
American, have many friends who have
Iranian-born spouses, so when I come
across this sort of agitprop in the LA Times,
an intellectually dishonest effort that will
hurt not help the likelihood of that secular
democratic Iran from ever coming into
being, you understand that I really don't
need to hear yet another round of verbal
intellectual gymnastics from the newest hip
crowd of Iranian regime apologists wearing
Ann Taylor.

Sometimes, things are exactly what they
appear to be.

Just saying...

--------
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-ulrich23-2009dec23,0,1257966.story Blowback

The hypocrisy of American bluster toward Iran

A U.S. representative who accused Tehran of sponsoring terrorism has a track record of supporting terrorists herself.

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

December 23, 2009

By now there is little doubt that hypocrisy has become Washington's standing policy on foreign affairs. What is astounding is the lack of shame in such overt duplicity as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's (R-Fla.) accusations in the Dec. 14 Times Op-Ed article that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorists -- when she herself has a track record of supporting terrorists.

In February 1988, Orlando Bosch was arrested in Miami and implicated in the 1976 plot to blow up Cubana Flight 455, a terrorist act that killed 73 passengers. Joe D. Whitley, the associate U.S. attorney general at the time, called Bosch "a terrorist, unfettered by laws or human decency, threatening and inflicting violence without regard to the identity of his victims." Bosch, however, had the distinct advantage of having Ros-Lehtinen make advocating for his release one of the cornerstones of her 1989 congressional campaign. Bosch had another advantage: Ros-Lehtinen's campaign manager was Jeb Bush, President George H.W. Bush's son. In 1990, after lobbying by Jeb Bush and Ros-Lehtinen, the Bush administration went against the Justice Department's recommendation to deport Bosch and authorized his release. Since then, Bosch has become a permanent resident of the United States.

Ros-Lehtinen also supports the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a group by the State Department as a foreign terrorist group. Leading up to the Iraq war, in October 2002, Ros-Lehtinen circulated a letter in Congress expressing support for the MEK. She continues her support.

Common sense dictates that Iran would want security in its two neighboring countries given the spillover effect. By now, it is also common knowledge that the Sunni Taliban and Shiite Iran have been hostile toward each other for years (several Iranian diplomats were killed by the Taliban in 1998), and no doubt this hostility led to Iran's decision to assist the Northern Alliance and the U.S. in efforts in the overthrow of the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks -- efforts that were rewarded with the infamous "axis of evil" brand. Yet Ros-Lehtinen would insult the American public's intelligence by telling them that Iran, without mentioning any history, has a hand in Afghanistan. Does Ros-Lehtinen ever wonder if other countries simply do not welcome occupation by any foreign force?

One has to question what motivates Ros-Lehtinen in her push to put financial sanctions on foreign and domestic companies that sell refined petroleum products to Iran. Doing so could lead to more job losses in America and more hostilities between U.S. allies and Iran. This is a time when our policy makers should be thinking about America and Americans, period.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer living in Glendale.

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Meanwhile...closer to home

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/1385736.html-
December 17th, 2009 Miami Herald Editorial

Getting serious with Iran -

OUR OPINION:

Stronger sanctions needed to persuade regime to drop nuclear-weapons program

It should be clear by now that Iran is on a collision course with the United States and other Western nations over its quest for nuclear weapons.
Years of diplomatic engagement, proposed deals and three rounds of sanctions by the United Nations have failed to deter Iran from getting closer to acquiring the capacity to produce nukes.

Indeed, the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has grown more defiant.
In the last few weeks, it has dropped all pretense of wanting to work with U.N. inspectors and Western nations, angrily refusing to comply with a U.N. demand to cease work on a nuclear-fuel enrichment plant and vowing to construct 10 more plants as soon as it can.
The latest bad news involves reports that Iran is getting closer to solving the most difficult aspects of making nuclear weapons.
The Times of London reported that Iran appears to be working on a ''neutron initiator,'' a device that could trigger an explosion in a nuclear warhead.
This means Iran is becoming self-sufficient in nuclear weapons technology and has no intention of putting an end to its clandestine weapons program.
Since the West can clearly not do business with this regime, it is time to get serious about sanctions.
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives by an overwhelming margin (412-12) approved a measure that dramatically increases the economic pressure on Iran by curtailing its ability to import refined products, such as gasoline.
Its key provision requires the president to impose sanctions on any company here or abroad that helps to supply Iran with refined petroleum.
Because Iran relies on imports for 40 percent of its refined petroleum, this would oblige the regime to consider the consequences of its continued defiance of the international community.
The effort was led by U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, and U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami, the ranking minority member of the panel. As a rule, multilateral sanctions are far preferable to unilateral moves, but it's hard to blame the House for deciding to take action.
Iran has a long record of deviousness and duplicity and the clock is ticking toward the day when it will become a nuclear power unless its leaders become convinced that the nations arrayed against it have finally lost all patience. The Obama administration has shown little enthusiasm for Congress' action, but it is working on its own set of sanctions, which officials hope will gain international support.
Both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have said in recent days that a broader package of sanctions is in the works.
As described by Mr. Gates, the point would be ''to persuade the Iranian government that they would actually be less secure with nuclear weapons'' because ''their people will suffer enormously'' from sanctions.
Clearly, the time has come to take such measures.

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