Just Say No to Khatami

[falcon]

This is a man that has been the head of Iran for years and has killed many in Iran, he also has support all the Terror groups around the world now we are giving him a FREE pass to come and speak in the US. Is this more of our State Department at work well if so they are going to get us KILLED with their policies. If DR. Rice approves this request then she is no better thatn he is. Burns works for her.

Just Say No to Khatami
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 24, 2006

Talk is cheap. At least, that’s what we are taught to believe in a society built not just on action, but on a respect for political minorities. But in a society where political minorities are considered enemies of the state, and where political discourse is tightly controlled, talk carries a far greater weight than it does here.

The disgraced former president of Iran, Hojjat-ol eslam Mohammad Khatami, wants to speak in Washington, D.C., next month, and the State Department has already indicated it will welcome his visit.

This is pure foolishness of the type Lenin described when he famously noted that the capitalists would sell the rope with which the Communists would hang them.

Although Khatami has not yet formally applied for a visa, his talk at the Washington National Cathedral next month was approved by the office of Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, according to the Washington Post.

This is the same Nicholas Burns who said last Friday that the United States would push for United Nations sanctions on Iran if Tehran does not accept a U.S.-backed package of incentives aimed at halting its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.

Okay, so this is Washington, where talking out of both sides of the mouth is taken as a career-enhancing fashion statement. Still, it doesn’t require an exceptionally brilliant mind to understand that the terror masters in Tehran plan to use Khatami’s visit to further their goals, not undermine them.

Former president Khatami is not a private individual, as we understand the term. As a senior member of the ruling clerical elite, he can only get an exit permit if the regime determines that his trip suits their needs. (I personally know other senior members of this regime who have had their foreign travel plans cancelled by the regime for various reasons).

So for starters, we need to understand that Khatami is coming to Washington as a standard-bearer for this regime. He is the smiley-face, the beaming turban so beloved by Christian Amanpour and former Los Angeles Times reporter Robin Wright (now a Washington Postie, but still as wrong as ever).

Indeed, it was Robin Wrong who used these breathless tones to break the news of Khatami’s upcoming visit:

Khatami, a former minister of culture once purged by hard-liners, was a dark-horse presidential candidate in 1997 who led a sweeping upset that began a period of freer press, talk of political reform, cultural openings and encouragement of exchanges with the outside world. American tourists even returned to Iran.

She forgot a few key events of Khatami’s presidency.

Just one year into his term, his intelligence service murdered in horribly brutal fashion Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar, leaders of the Iran Nation’s Party, then the best-organized opposition in Iran. The following year, Khatami quashed the student rebellion that began at Tehran University among INP members and sympathizers including Marzeporgohar (Iranians for a Secular Republic) and quickly spread to 18 other cities across Iran.

That was just the beginning of a crackdown on domestic dissent that occurred on Khatami’s watch and on his orders.

Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in a putsch on the night of Feb. 11-12, 1979, the State Department has been seeking “reformers” and “moderates” in Tehran.

Volumes have been written about these efforts. Some of them were contained in classified cables, shredded when the U.S. embassy was taken over by pro-Khomeini “students” in November 1979, and pieced together later on from the shredder sacks by Persian-carpet weavers.

In the beginning, some “moderates” truly opposed Khomeini’s Islamofascist system. Most of them were executed, wound up in jail, or have spent the rest of lives under house arrest.

But Khatami was never one of them. In 1984, as minister of culture and Islamic propagation, he presided over the creation of Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy army of terrorists in Lebanon and elsewhere. He thought that was exactly what the Islamic Republic of Iran needed to do to expand its influence around the world.

As president, Khatami never opposed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons technology, or long-range ballistic missiles to deliver them. On the contrary, it was on Khatami’s watch that Iran accelerated its once-secret nuclear weapons development, and flouted its success to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Khatami’s top nuclear expert, Hossein Mussavian, explained the ruse in an August 12, 2005, interview with Iranian state television, just days after Ahmadinejad took over as president. Ahmadinejad supporters were arguing that Khatami had made unacceptable concessions by negotiating with the European Union over Iran’s nuclear program. But those critics did “not know that at that stage – that is, in August 2003 – we needed another year to complete the Esfahan (UCF) project so it could be operational,” Musavian reminded his viewers. (The Uranium Conversion Facility in Esfahan is where Iran today has processed more than 120 tons of enrichment feedstock, enough to manufacture between 10 to 20 nuclear weapons.)

“[T] thanks to the negotiations with Europe we gained another year, in which we completed (the UCF) in Esfahan,” Mussavian said.

Khatami is being sent to Washington by the regime with a similar purpose: use happy talk to distract the United States from crafting serious international sanctions that would inflict real pain on this regime and possibly help spark a home-grown rebellion.

Would Washington have welcomed Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels to address the German Bund in 1940?

I don’t think so.

All the more reason why George W. Bush should step up to the plate and Just Say No, because Khatami’is purpose is similar to that of Joseph Goebbels in spreading Nazi propaganda.

If the State Department allows Khatami to visit Washington, they will create a new “paradigm,” a thought-shift in the way the Muslim “street” looks at the United States, Israel, and the West.

“Peace in our time” – that phrase identified with the appeasers of Munich who in 1938 negotiated away the sovereignty of Czechoslovakia and paved the autobahn to Poland. – will from now on be associated in the minds of the Islamofacists with Washington, DC and the State Department of Condoleeza Rice.

What can they possibly be smoking at Foggy Bottom to come up with a decision as contrary to the U.S. national interest as this one clearly is? Or perhaps, they are so cynically short-sighted they figure that during the dog days of August, with Congress in pre-election recess, no one will notice.

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile,” Winston Churchill said famously, “hoping it will eat him last.”

We cannot afford the luxury of appeasement, when this crocodile’s teeth are nuclear.

frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24047

[falcon]

US Islamic Group Hosting 'Moderate' Former Iranian President
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
August 25, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations is hosting a dinner for Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran, next month.

While Khatami is reputed to be a "moderate" by Iranian standards, he is a critic of U.S. Middle East policy, a foe of Israel, a supporter of Hizballah and Syria (see earlier story) -- and some Americans many not like what he has to say.

Khatami, speaking Friday at the U.N. University in Tokyo, defended Iran's "legitimate right" to develop nuclear energy, the Associated Press reported.

"Our nuclear program is a peaceful one completely," the AP quoted Khatami as saying. "We are not trying to create an international crisis, though some countries are trying to do that."

Khatami suggested that the United States and other "big powers" are "promoting violence...in the name of fighting terrorism." He described it as "pouring gasoline on a fire."

Khatami led Iran from 1997 until 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a radical bent on the destruction of Israel and the development of nuclear weapons, became president.

Khatami said the United States is hypocritical in calling on Iran to abolish its "peaceful" nuclear program: "We are seeking peaceful usage, we have no need for nuclear weapons," he said, adding, "If nuclear weapons are so bad, why do they [the U.S.] have hundreds of nuclear warheads?"

While Iran claims to be developing a nuclear energy program, the United States and its allies don't believe it.

Earlier this month, Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, told a press conference that Iran plans to expand its uranium enrichment activities, in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that Iran suspend its controversial work by the end of the month (see earlier story).

The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced this week that Khatami will be the featured speaker at a gathering in suburban Washington on Friday, Sept. 8. He will discuss "The Dialogue of Civilizations: Five Years After 9/11," the group announced.

According to CAIR, "When elected as president of Iran in 1997, Khatami sought increased freedom of the press, political reform and improved inter-cultural relations. He called for a dialogue of civilizations, a proposal taken up by the United Nations."

Although Khatami has been praised for his moderate, reformist tendencies, some have denounced him as a front-man for Iran's hardline mullahs.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Khatami's two terms saw little improvement in Iran's human rights record, its stance towards the West, or its support for anti-Israel terrorist groups.

While some argued that Khatami's reformist moves were undercut by Iranian hardliners, Iranian critics of the regime said that even the so-called reformists like Khatami do not support replacing the Islamic Republic with a democratic system.

Khatami once called the Islamic Republic "a great achievement of the most popular revolution in my lifetime."

Critics note that during Khatami's presidency, intellectuals were murdered, dozens of newspapers were closed, journalists and clergymen were imprisoned, and Iranian students were beaten and oppressed by the fundamentalist authorities -- and Khatami apparently could not prevent it from happening.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20060825a.html

[falcon]

This gov't has gone bad. Whatever happen to fighting the Terror states?

Ex-Iran President Khatami Gets U.S. Visa
By BARRY SCHWEID , 08.29.2006, 01:07 PM

Despite intense disagreement over suspected nuclear weapons and terrorism, the Bush administration decided Tuesday to allow former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to visit the United States.

A visa was granted Tuesday to Khatami and several Iranians who will accompany him, said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

There will be no restrictions on his travel.

Khatami plans to attend a U.N. conference and speak at the Washington National Cathedral.

No meetings with U.S. officials are anticipated, Casey said.

www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/08/29/ap2980348.htm

[falcon]

If we haven't been sold down the river by now we sure will be once Carter is down talking. I am sorry to say this about and expres. of this country, but Carter stands with the emeny in every case. Above all he will not help the Iranain people out in also.




Carter Agrees to Hold Talks With Khatami

Ex-President of Iran to Visit U.S. Amid Tensions Over Tehran's Nuclear Program

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; Page A13
For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week.
Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office.

Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise, the former president's aide.
"President Carter, in his role since leaving the White House, has made his office and services and center available to basically anybody who wants to talk. He believes that it is much better to be talking to people who you have problems with than not to, and that's the approach he takes now," Wise said. "I can confirm that President Carter is open to a meeting if the former president of Iran would like to have one."
Despite mounting tensions between Washington and Tehran over the latter's nuclear program, the Bush administration issued a visa for Khatami yesterday, as well as for about a dozen family and staff members, for a visit lasting about two weeks, the State Department confirmed. Khatami is expected to arrive in the United States tomorrow.
Khatami, a reformer who served as president from 1997 to 2005, is scheduled to speak at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 7. His schedule may include speeches at the University of Virginia and to an Islamic group in Chicago. He may also pay a private visit to Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, according to sources familiar with his trip. He will begin his visit in New York at a U.N. conference on the dialogue of civilizations.
The White House said yesterday that Khatami had been invited by private organizations and is not part of the current Iranian government.
"Mr. Khatami is free to meet with who he chooses and is able to speak freely in the United States -- the very freedoms that do not exist in Iran," a White House official said on the condition of anonymity.
"We expect that Khatami will face tough questions from his audience in the United States about the past and present behavior of the Iranian regime, especially with respect to human rights violations that occurred during his presidency," the official added.
Talks between Carter and Khatami, if they materialize, would be politically poignant.
"Carter, who has every reason to be angry about the way in which the Iranian revolution undid his presidency over the hostage affair, is willing to meet, with no hesitation, a person who was president of the Islamic republic and who has never disavowed Ayatollah Khomeini's actions when he was supreme leader," said William Quandt, a national security staffer in charge of the Middle East during the Carter administration.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...12.html?sub=AR




To protest Mohammad Khatami’s trip to USA :

Please Contact Jean F. Duff, Director of Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation at jduff@cathedral.org or
202-537-2178 to protest Khatami's visit.
This is the least we can do.

Do not forget the September 7th press conference at the National Press Club to reveal Khatami's crimes to the press and our demonstration at 6:00 PM in front of the Cathedral. Please forward this e-mail to the people on your list.

Thanks;


taken from the following site;

http://www.activistchat.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8228

[falcon]

Former Iran president faces snub in US

By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: August 31 2006 21:09 | Last updated: August 31 2006 21:09

Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s former president, embarks on a ground-breaking tour of the US this week to promote his vision of the role of religion in east-west reconciliation. But prospects for a breakthrough in US-Iranian relations appear bleak, with the Bush administration declaring it will not speak to him or attend his events.
Mr Khatami was expected to leave Tehran on Thursday, at a crucial moment in Iran’s relations with the international community because of the passing of a deadline for the Islamic republic to abide by a UN Security Council resolution calling for suspension of its controversial nuclear fuel programme.
Mr Khatami, a Muslim cleric who no longer holds an official position, will attend a UN conference in New York next week, led by Spain and Turkey under the Alliance of Civilisations initiative. He will also speak at the Washington National Cathedral, becoming the highest-ranking Iranian politician to visit the US capital since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Harvard and Georgetown universities will also host him.
However, Iranian sources told the FT it was unlikely that Mr Khatami would accept an invitation to meet Jimmy Carter, the former US president, even though the Iranian side had earlier indicated it would welcome such an offer.
A gesture of reconciliation between the two men would be of enormous symbolic importance. Mr Carter’s presidency was tormented by the 444-day hostage-taking of US embassy staff in Tehran, led partly by Iranians still closely associated with Mr Khatami, although he played no personal role.
A former Iranian official said Mr Khatami’s hesitation at meeting Mr Carter reflected the factional divisions inside Iran.
Any sort of apology for the hostage-taking “would melt a mountain of ice in Washington” but would be political suicide back home for his reformist associates.
But while conservatives in Iran are broadly in favour of launching dialogue with the US, hardliners in the US have expressed outrage at the Bush administration’s granting of a visa to Mr Khatami, noting he was in office in 2002 when President George W. Bush denounced Iran as part of an “axis of evil”.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to Mr Carter, said diplomacy had to be reciprocal to work, and that the US could not expect one side to “demean itself to gain the forbearance of the other”.
“The Bush administration has to be serious about finding a solution that avoids military confrontation,” he told the FT. He said there were “significant elements” in the administration that wanted negotiations with Iran aborted to clear the way for military action, but that this faction had been weakened by the departure of key figures and the crisis in Iraq.
Analysts said it appeared that Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and Nicolas Burns, under-secretary, were in favour of allowing the visit to go ahead, but did not have the will or political muscle to capitalise on the opportunity presented.
US spokesmen said officials would not meet Mr Khatami and would turn down invitations by the Washington cathedral to attend his address.
The boycott is in line with the Bush administration’s general rejection of high-level diplomatic engagement with countries deemed hostile to the US, notably Iran, Syria, Cuba and North Korea.
Karim Sadjadpour, Iran analyst for the International Crisis Group, said it would be a mistake to see Mr Khatami’s mission as part of a public relations effort by a weakened Iran worried about international sanctions. Iran was extremely confident in its position in the region and with regard to the nuclear dispute, he said. “They believe time is on their side.”




http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/nl31.html

[American Patriot]

Falcon, I mention this on the new podcast.. just for you my friend And for the rest of America.

Rick

[falcon]

Rick, thanks I look forward to listening to the latest release.

[Sean Osborne]

Allowing a visa to be issued to Iranian islamofascist Muhammad Khatemi is proof-positive that there are complete idiots operations within the Bush Administration. Specifically... at the helm of the US State Department. Period.

"This administration is doing terrible damage to itself by talking hawkishly and acting dovishly. This earns them the hatred of the doves for talking like hawks, and the contempt of the hawks for acting like doves."

Michael Ledeen

http://www.nysun.com/article/38963

Solons Irked Over Visit Of Khatami

BY ELI LAKE, Staff Reporter of the Sun, 1 September 2006




WASHINGTON - The State Department's decision to grant a visa to Iran's former president is sparking a rebellion among Republican members of Congress who seek a tougher line on the rogue country as it flaunts the latest U.N. deadline on its nuclear program.



Yesterday afternoon, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida, began collecting signatures in Congress for a letter that she plans to send next week to Secretary of State Rice expressing "grave concerns" about the visa for Muhammad Khatemi that will allow him to speak before audiences at the National Cathedral, Harvard University, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.>>



The letter says that allowing Mr. Khatemi to visit America

"undermines U.S. national security interests with respect to Iran and the broader Middle East."

It also says permitting Mr. Khatemi's

"unrestricted travel through the United States runs contrary to U.S. priorities regarding homeland security."

Not to be outdone, Senator Allen, a Republican of Virginia, facing a tough challenge to his seat this election cycle, tied the visa for Mr. Khatemi directly to Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

"The actions of the Iranian government under President Khatemi include the expenditure of billions of dollars on nuclear reactors and sophisticated weapons and the failure to implement reforms that are necessary for Iran to abide by its treaty obligations,"

the senator wrote in a letter to Ms. Rice yesterday.

"Granting this travel visa gives support to the current Iranian strategy of stalling action while it builds its nuclear capabilities and dividing the tentative coalition of states opposing Iran's nuclear weapons program."

Senator Brownback, a Republican from Kansas who authored the amendment in 2003 that created the first installment of federal funding for Iranian dissidents inside Iran, said yesterday that he also opposed the visa.

"Allowing a Khatemi visit signals that the United States is willing to ignore concerns about nuclear weapons, terrorism, and human rights - the very building blocks of our policy toward Iran,"

he said in a statement provided from his office.

"I urge the Administration to ensure that U.S. policy remains focused on defending our national interests and upholding our values."

While the decision to grant what is known as a G-4 visa to the former Iranian president is not the most significant policy disagreement that Iran hawks have had in recent months with the Bush administration, its timing and the high profile public relations victory it gives the Islamic Republic has unleashed the ire of the president's base this election year. The decision not only means that Mr. Khatemi will be meeting, among other luminaries, conservative bête noire Jimmy Carter, but that the State Department will afford a diplomatic security detail to guard the ex-president and his entourage.



The editor of National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez, sensed the hawk's opposition to the visa on Tuesday, when her website ran a symposium that included Senator Santorum, the third ranking Republican in the Senate, trashing the visa decision from the State Department.



On it, Mr. Santorum, who has cut his deficit against his Senate challenger in Pennsylvania to single digits, wrote that he should be granted a visa only if Iran allows their people to hear "free American voices."



Mr. Santorum wrote:

"We should insist, at a minimum, that the Iranian people can hear free American voices. Iran is frightened of freedom. They are jamming our radio and television broadcasts and tearing down television satellite dishes in all the major cities of the country. It seems only fair that we be able to speak to the Iranians suffering under a regime of which Muhammad Khatemi is an integral part."

"Folks, and I hope not just conservatives, feel a sense of urgency when it comes to Iran, and it is key, of course, to the whole war against Islamofascism,"

Ms. Lopez said in an email yesterday.

"This administration needs to project a similar sense of urgency, and quickly, or increasing numbers of critical conservatives will be the least of its new problems. This White House - and well, State Department in a big way - has long had a clarity problem in this war, communications never its forte. This Khatemi visit certainly doesn't help matters."

Another contributor to National Review Online and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen, summed up his frustration as follows:

"This administration is doing terrible damage to itself by talking hawkishly and acting dovishly. This earns them the hatred of the doves for talking like hawks, and the contempt of the hawks for acting like doves."

[falcon]

Romney bars state security for Iranian's Harvard visit
Cites unacceptable use of funds on `a terrorist'
By Farah Stockman and Scott Helman, Globe Staff | September 6, 2006

Governor Mitt Romney declared yesterday he would not allow any state resources to be used to protect a former Iranian president during his visit to the Boston area this weekend, and he sharply criticized Harvard University for inviting Mohammed Khatami to speak on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

``There are people in this state who have suffered from terrorism, and taking even a dollar of their money to support a terrorist is unacceptable," Romney, a potential candidate for the Republican Party's 2008 presidential nomination, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Romney said that he expected the State Department at a meeting scheduled for today to request a State Police escort and other traffic services, but that he had called yesterday to inform them that no such services would be provided.

Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, which invited Khatami to speak on Sunday, issued a statement yesterday saying it was "surprised and disappointed" by Romney's stance.

``We can understand and often share his disagreement with the positions of Khatami, the school nonetheless believes that active and open dialogue are a critical part of effective education and policy," the statement read.

But after Romney issued a statement yesterday outlining his position -- in which he called Harvard's invitation "a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists" -- the Boston Police Department said it would step in.

``We were asked by the State Department to assist in protecting a guest of the United States, and the Police Department plans to oblige," spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.

Khatami's tour of the United States is the most high-profile US visit of an Iranian leader since the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran, which led the two countries to cut ties. He has already traveled without incident to Illinois and New York.

As president of Iran from 1997-2005, Khatami was originally seen as a reformer who opened up ties to the West and allowed more freedom of expression in Iran. But he remained in office during a major crackdown on student protest, in which thousands were arrested, including some who are still in prison. He was replaced by hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has defied international demands to curb Iran's nuclear program and has called for Israel to be ``wiped off" the map.

Even before the Kennedy School formally announced the visit yesterday, newspapers including the New York Sun and the Boston Herald published editorials criticizing Harvard for inviting Khatami. They were especially critical of the timing of the speech.

Romney said yesterday that he became aware of Khatami's visit during a meeting planning the security for the Sept. 11 commemoration on Monday.

``The shock of the commemoration of a great tragedy coinciding with the visit of a terrorist to our state was too great to go unnoticed," Romney said. ``For that reason, I have directed state resources not to be used to ease or encourage his visit."

US officials say Iran played no part in the Sept. 11 attacks, but they still consider it one of the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism because of its funding of the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas .

The State Department issued Khatami a visa for a rare visit by an Iranian dignitary to the United States outside the United Nations headquarters, but US officials say that he is here as a private citizen and that he will be given no special treatment.

``President Khatami is here on a private visit. He is not here at the invitation of the United States Government," State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday. ``Private US citizens wanted to have this interaction with him."

Still, the State Department's bureau of diplomatic security is responsible for ensuring Khatami's safety. Such security is almost always provided in cooperation with local police, State Department officials said yesterday.

At least one Democrat was critical of Romney's decision. US Representative Stephen F. Lynch of South Boston, said that while Khatami should not have been invited to speak at Harvard, the state should provide him with security, if for no other reason than to avoid the potentially grave consequences if he were hurt or killed on US soil.

``It sets a very troublesome precedent to deny state protection," Lynch said by e-mail. ``He is here. While there may be no benefit to us from his visit, we should see that he leaves safely and as soon as possible."

Khatami's visit to other states has so far generated little notice from local authorities.

This past weekend, Illinois State Police provided one vehicle to escort Khatami through traffic on his way to the Islamic Society of North America convention in Rosemont, a suburb of Chicago, according to Lincoln Hampton, a spokesman for the Illinois State Police.

In New York, UN officials said they were providing for Khatami's security while he is on UN premises, but elsewhere in the city, the State Department has arranged for his security.

Khatami is scheduled to speak at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., as well as at Columbia University, Georgetown University, and the University of Virginia, according to Harvard's statement.

``Given this critical moment in the Middle East, and the attempt by the US and other nations to find a peaceful accommodation with Iran, a visit by Khatami seemed very much in the tradition of the free exchange of ideas that is a central part to the life of the University," it said in a statement. Khatami will give a lecture titled ``Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence."

But Romney said some figures should not be granted an audience. ``There are some people who we can all imagine who by virtue of their acts would not be welcome at a campus, and this is one of them," he said.

``The development of nuclear technology, the jailing of students, and religious oppression . . . suggest that his lecture on tolerance would be a farce."

Romney said that if the State Department was worried about Khatami's security in Massachusetts, ``they could consider canceling his visit."

www.boston.com/news/local...it/?page=2

[Jag]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090600265.html

U.S. Seeks to Encourage Iranian Visits




By GEORGE GEDDA
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 6, 2006; 9:08 AM
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration wants to open cultural exchanges with archrival Iran this fall despite tensions between Washington and Tehran about its nuclear program.

The administration has asked Congress for $5 million to fund visits by roughly 200 young Iranian professionals and foreign language teachers, and hopes the request can be approved before adjournment a few weeks from now.

A State Department official disclosed details of the proposal Tuesday, speaking anonymously because she was not authorized to comment for the record.
In the absence of official relations with Iran, the administration has been pursuing the proposal through non-governmental organizations in Iran and U.S.
embassies in the Persian Gulf region, the official said.

There have been no cultural exchanges with Iran for several years, reflecting the continuing hostility between the two countries.

Discussing the new approach Tuesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We encourage private contact between the Iranian nation and the American people. Those contacts, we believe, are healthy."

He said the administration hopes former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, who is on a private visit to the United States, will deliver that message when he returns home.

Khatami is taking part in a United Nations conference Tuesday and Wednesday. He also will travel to Washington, Charlottesville, Chicago and Boston.

His U.S. trip coincides with a Bush administration effort to rally international support for sanctions against Iran for its failure to meet a U.N. deadline for suspending uranium enrichment.

President Bush said Tuesday a nuclear-armed Iran would blackmail the free world and raise a mortal threat to the American people.

McCormack emphasized that Khatami is visiting the United States at the invitation of private U.S. organizations, not the U.S. government.

"We have no change in official U.S. government policy with regard to government-to-government contacts between the government of the United States and the government of Iran," he said.

U.S. relations with Iran were poor during Khatami's eight years as president, from 1997 to 2005.
He was elected as a reformer, raising hopes here for a new era in U.S.-Iranian relations. But decisions on national security issues in Iran were made _ and continue to be made _ by a council of mullahs deeply hostile to the United States.

But U.S. cultural exchanges with Iran were common early in Khatami's presidency, during the Clinton era.
At the time, the United States supported academic and athletic exchanges with Iran while Iran opened its doors to American wrestlers, scholars, graduate students and museum officers.

Jag

[falcon]

LIES THEY LOVED AT HARVARD

By AMIR TAHERI

September 13, 2006 -- SOME 40-odd years ago, Iranian filmmaker Shin Nazerian produced a movie about a tough guy from a rough Tehran neighborhood who ends up in New York. A comedy of the clash of cultures, it was an instant hit.

One of the first things our tough guy did on arriving in the Big Apple was to "edit" his name to Mr. Small, to reassure the natives. This week, another visitor from Tehran came to New York as part of a U.S. tour that included a session at Harvard University - and took a cue from Mr. Small.

The visitor was the former president of the Islamic Republic - Hojat al-Islam wa al-Moslemeen Sayyed Muhammad Khatami. He too, decided to "edit" his name to cut a less outlandish image with his American interlocutors. Gone was the title Hojat al-Islam wa al-Moslemeen ("Proof of Islam and of Muslims") and the sobriquet of Sayyed ("master") used by those who claim to be descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

Throughout, he presented himself as former president of "Iran," rather than of the Islamic Republic - although, legally speaking, there is no state known as Iran. He also insisted on describing himself as hich-kareh - someone with no official position at all - hiding the fact that he is a member of at least 11 organs of the Islamic Republic, including the all-important Assembly of Experts.

Khatami altered more than his identity: He edited Islam into a lovey-dovey cult that abhors the use of force, is uncomfortable with capital punishment, would never fight except in self-defense and actively welcomes other faiths.

He never mentioned his ideological guru, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - knowing that this would revive memories of the hostages seized by the late mullah. Nor the current "supreme guide," Ali Khamenei - who is, according to the constitution in force in the Islamic Republic, the world's only truly legitimate ruler.

He used a vocabulary carefully designed to hoodwink the Americans without angering his fellow Khomeinists back home. The trick was reinforced by the fact that he often said one thing in Persian, while the interpreter said something else in English for the benefit of the Harvard audience.

For example, Khatami would speak of khoshunat, which means "roughness," but the interpreter would translate it into "violence" or even "terror." Thus, the Harvard audience would think that Khatami admits that there may be terrorism in the realm of Islam - while back in Tehran, he would appear talking only about "roughness" and "coercion."

In Persian, he would speak of "sodomy," but the Harvard audience would hear "gay sex." Referring to the leader of al Qaeda, he would say "that gentleman" (Aan Agha) in Persian, but the interpreter would say "Osama bin Laden."

Asked what he thought of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's various outrageous statements, the Hojat al-Islam never mentioned his successor by name. In Persian, he took pains to endorse Ahamdinejad's basic position - but in English he gave the impression that he did not fully agree with his successor.

Khatami was also in total denial about the bloody history of his eight years as president. There was no mention of the 1,347 men and women executed during his two terms. And when it came to the murder of intellectuals and journalists by his henchmen, he pretended that other organs of the Islamic Republic had been responsible, without his knowledge. An Iranian student raised the murder of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi - and Khatami, with a broad smile, said he wasn't quite sure how the poor woman had died in one of his prisons.

He spoke a great deal about the need for dialogue, tolerance and understanding. But he made no mention of the fact that he had closed down 150 Iranian newspapers, imprisoned scores of journalists and unleashed his Hezbollah hounds to crush the student revolts against his regime. His "dialogue of civilizations" had not been extended to thousands of Iranian workers bullied, beaten, murdered or forced out of their jobs simply because they had gone on strike.

Khatami also forgot to mention that there was no dialogue among Iranians inside Iran itself while he was in power. Nor did he tell his Harvard audience that he had refused to meet with Iranian-Americans or grant interviews to their media, especially in California.

The Harvard audience applauded the Hojat al-Islam, forgetting that during his reign Iran had had the largest number of prisoners of conscience in the world, and that Khatami had been a member of the "Committee for Islamic Cultural Revolution" that shut all Iranian universities in the early '80s and purged tens of thousands of teachers and students because they opposed Khomeinism.

Khatami was practicing an art known as taqiyah, which could be translated into "dissimulation" or "obfuscation." This began as a theological tool to allow Shiites to hide their beliefs in hostile environments - but Khatami used it as a political tool to deceive Americans who obviously longed to be deceived.

Toward the end of the Harvard "Taqiyah fest," however, the tail of the cat began to show out of the Hojat al-Islam's bag. Someone mentioned Hezbollah - and Khatami began waxing lyrical about his love for what most Iranians regard as a terrorist outfit created and controlled by the Islamic Republic.

According to Khatami, Hezbollah has never been engaged in any act of terrorism and is nothing but a "national resistance movement" comparable to the French during the Nazi occupation. In other words, Israel is like Nazi Germany and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah's branch manager in Lebanon, is Gen. Charles De Gaulle.

Was Hezbollah justified in triggering a war without informing the Lebanese people and government? Yes, said the Hojat al-Islam. Why? The war was justified because Hezbollah had to liberate occupied Lebanese territory. What territory? He mentioned the Shebaa farms - a piece of land the size of Central Park which, in fact, belongs to Syria.

The "dialogue of civilizations," the discourse of deception, had reached its limit.

The Harvard people who gave Khatami a tribune from which to deceive the American people might want to know an old Persian saying: "When a mullah calls, an undertaker is sure to follow."

www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/lies_they_loved_at_harvard_opedcolumnists_amir_tah eri.htm

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Video Of Protest Against Khatami's Harvard Speech




http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...+Khatami&hl=en