Update: added video
Propaganda Alert
compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
7 April, 2009
“So let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies.”
[US President Barack Obama’s speech in Prague, 5 April 2009] [1]
“The peace of the region will also be advanced if Iran forgoes any nuclear weapons ambitions. Now, as I made clear in Prague yesterday, no one is served by the spread of nuclear weapons, least of all Turkey.”
[US President Barack Obama’s speech to Turkey’s parliament in Ankara, 6 April 2009] [2]
_____________
from the archives:
“We find the latest package offered [to Iran] by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany positive. […] The time is running out, don’t miss this opportunity. Bush might strike [Iran] before leaving office. If the US were to strike, they would strike fiercely. As your neighbour, we wouldn’t want Tehran to be devastated like Baghdad.”
[Turkey’s President Gul meets Iran’s President Ahmadinejad in Istanbul, 17 August 2008] [3]
“[T]he Iranian way – I will say this loud and clear – is seen as undermining its neighbor’s hegemony. Turkey gives rise to hope, Iran gives rise to fear.”
[Israeli President Shimon Peres’ speech to Turkey’s parliament in Ankara, 13 November 2007] [4]
“Like other countries and especially the United States, we have been following Iran’s nuclear efforts with serious concern. Turkey can never welcome an Iran who possesses nuclear weapons. The nuclear states axis starting from North Korea, passing through Iran and extending to other possible powers in our region poses sensitivity on part of Turkey.”
[Turkey’s (then-Deputy) Chief of General Staff Ilker Basbug, 6 June 2005] [5]
______________
“While our public is regularly provided alarming media reports of nuclear dangers in Iraq, North Korea or Iran, what is supposed to be a well-informed western audience is living in ignorance of the destructive power of thousands of potential Hiroshimas stored in their backyards.”
[excerpt from the Mayors for Peace petition launched on 6 December 2007 by the European Mayors on whose territory US nuclear weapons are deployed, namely:
Stefano Del Cont (Aviano, ITALY), Anna Giulia Guarneri (Ghedi, ITALY), Theo Kelchtermans (Peer, BELGIUM), Dr. Joke W. Kersten (Uden, NETHERLANDS), Heinz Onnertz (Buechel, GERMANY) and Vedat Karadag (Incirlik, TURKEY) ] [6]
_________________
US Nuclear Weapons in Europe 2008
Country Air Base Estimated Weapons
Belgium Kleine Brogel 10-20
Germany Büchel 10-20
Holland Volkel 10-20
Italy Aviano 50
Ghedi Torre 20-40
Turkey Incirlik 50-90
source: Hans Kristensen, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Withdrawn From the
United Kingdom”, Federation of American Scientists, 26 June 2008
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/_images/EuroNukes.pdf
______________
Percentage of population desiring Europe to be nuclear free:
88.1% in Turkey
71.5% in Italy
70.5% in Germany
64.6 % in Belgium
63.3% in Netherlands
source: Hans Kristensen, “US Nuclear Weapons in Europe: A Review of Post-Cold War Policy, Force Levels, and War Planning”, Natural Resources Defense Council, February 2005
http://www.cnduk.org/pages/binfo/nato2005.pdf
_____________
related link:
CSIS report: Turkey would be the optimum route for a possible Israeli attack on Iran
16 March 2009
_____________
NOTES:
[1] Remarks by President Barack Obama in Prague as Delivered
White House website, 5 April 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/
[2] Remarks by President Barack Obama to the Turkish Parliament
White House website, 6 April 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Obama-To-The-Turkish-Parliament/
[3] ‘Tehran shouldn’t be devastated like Baghdad’
by Ugur Ergan, Hürriyet, 17 August 2008
[4] President Speaks to the Parliament in Ankara, Turkey, November 13, 2007
President of the State of Israel website, 13 November 2007
http://www.president.gov.il/defaults/default_en.asp
[5] Luncheon remarks by General Ilker Basbug, Deputy Chief of Turkish General Staff
Turkish General Staff website, 6 June 2005
http://www.tsk.mil.tr/eng/konusma/gnkurIIncibsk_atckonusmasiogleyemegi_eng__06062005.htm
[6] European mayors want withdrawal of US nukes from their territory marking INF 20th anniversary
2020 Vision Campaign website, 6 December 2007
http://www.2020visioncampaign.org/pages/319
***
Addressing the Turkish Parliament
President Obama speaks to US-Turkish relations in his address to the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara, Turkey on April 6, 2009. He discusses the progress of Turkey’s own democratic reforms, and reaffirms US support of the Turkey’s bid to become a member of the European Union.
(public domain)
see
Israel: Netanyahu threatens war on Iran, spurns “two-state solution” By Bill Van Auken
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I’m so sick of US foreign policy. Why can’t we just all come home and stop meddling??
I still have yet to hear a single anti-Iran hawk explain the US overthrow of Mossadeq.
We set ’em up to knock ’em down, as per the Taliban, Saddam.
I also have yet to hear how there’s so much talk about Iran’s alleged nuke program, yet not a word about Israel’s arsenal.
I also wanna know how any of this concerns Obama or the USA. It’s a regional issue of no threat to the USA, or are they worried Iran is gonna overwhelm the USA’s thousands of MIRV warheads and submarine-based nukes with Persian ICBM’s. It’s absurd.
Anyway, wasn’t there a NIE saying Iran stopped work on its bomb, and now a year later we’re again sure they are? Which is it? Haven’t we had enough of WMD claims in far-flung lands of no possible threat to the USA?
There’s a line in the right-wing US game-plan that claims Iran is controlled by suicidal terrorists, who care not that they would be incinerated if they ever launched a nuclear device at anyone. I’d like to know where this idea comes from.
We know better than anyone, If we want to stop a nuclear arms race in the middle east, we’d need to de-nuclearize Israel, which will not happen (since Israeli nukes apparently don’t exist), so the USA should retreat behind its borders and let the mideast region deal with its miserable pathetic insanity without our influence constantly making everything vastly worse. We have enough problems!
He may have more of a heart than his predecessor, but increasingly, I am seeing him as “Bush, With A Brain”.
I’ve also grown tired of the man’s crafty use of words and double speak. Yesterday he spoke out about abolishing nuclear weapons, then goes on to say that that probably won’t happen in his lifetime. Then he went on to push the ineffective, sham, missile defense system on the Czechoslovakian people, a majority of whom oppose the phony shield.
What a crock! The threat of nuclear weapons is posed by the US (the only country to have ever used them) and Israel. The alarm about the alleged development of nuclear weapons by Iran is being generated by the illegal Zionist government in Tel Aviv.
Obeyme is so naive and inexperienced that he is falling for this crock!