Sarah and Iran: Salon Connects the Dots
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| Mon, 10-13-2008 - 6:25am |
The Palins’ un-American activities
Imagine if the Obamas had hooked up with a violently anti-American group in league with the government of Iran.
Editor’s note: You can find Salon’s complete coverage of Sarah Palin here.
By David Talbothttp://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/07/palins_unamerican/index.html

Todd Heisler/The New York Times/Redux
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, at a rally in Vienna, Ohio, on Sept. 16, 2008.
Oct. 7, 2008 | “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”
This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.
Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that’s the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. (“Keep up the good work,” Palin told AIP members. “And God bless you.”)
AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. “She’s Alaskan to the bone … she sounds just like Joe Vogler.”
Before his strange murder in 1993, party founder Vogler preached armed insurrection against the United States of America. Vogler, who always carried a Magnum with him, was fond of saying, “When the bureaucrats come after me, I suggest they wear red coats. They make better targets. In the federal government are the biggest liars in the United States, and I hate them with a passion. They think they own . There comes a time when people will choose to die with honor rather than live with dishonor. That time may be coming here. Our goal is ultimate independence by peaceful means under a minimal government fully responsive to the people. I hope we don’t have to take human life, but if they go on tramping on our property rights, look out, we’re ready to die.”
This quote is from “Coming Into the Country,” by John McPhee, who traipsed around Alaska’s remote gold mining country with Vogler for his 1991 book. The violent-tempered secessionist vowed to McPhee that if any federal official tried to stop him from polluting Alaska’s rivers with his earth-moving equipment, he would “run over him with a Cat and turn mosquitoes loose on him while he dies.”
Vogler wasn’t just a blowhard either. He put his secessionist ideas into action, working to build AIP membership to 20,000 — an impressive figure by Alaska standards — and to elect party member Walter Hickel as governor in 1990.
Vogler’s greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States “tyranny” before the entire world and to demand Alaska’s freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.
That’s right … Iran. The Islamic dictatorship. The taker of American hostages. The rogue nation that McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.
AIP leaders allege that Vogler, who was murdered that year by a fellow secessionist, was taken out by powerful forces in the U.S. before he could reach his U.N. platform. “The United States government would have been deeply embarrassed,” by Vogler’s U.N. speech, darkly suggests Clark. “And we can’t have that, can we?”
The Republican ticket is working hard this week to make Barack Obama’s tenuous connection to graying, ’60s revolutionary Bill Ayers a major campaign issue. But the Palins’ connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies.
Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama was revealed to have joined a black nationalist party whose founder preached armed secession from the United States and who enlisted the government of Iran in his cause? The Obama campaign would probably not have survived such an explosive revelation. Particularly if Barack Obama himself was videotaped giving the anti-American secessionists his wholehearted support just months ago.
Where’s the outrage, Sarah Palin has been asking this week, in her attacks on Obama’s fuzzy ties to Ayers? The question is more appropriate when applied to her own disturbing associations.


Look who's talking about Sarah. Even the Iranians worry that she will be elected. lol. OMG!
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/printer_26883.shtml
World
US Sarah Palin sings 'Bomb bomb bomb Iran'
By Mohammad Davari and Dex A. Eastman
Sep 26, 2008, 16:22
Governor Sarah Palin, in an undelivered speech, employed rhetoric similar to that of US Vice President Dick Cheney and sang "Bomb Iran into regime change" with a whole new rhythm.
She is the hockey mom from Alaska who is quickly emerging as the most priceless political asset in the neo-conservative arsenal.
She was identified as 'a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007'. Nearly a year later she shocked the world by questioning her own wisdom. "What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" Palin asked.
She, nonetheless, was tapped as Senator John McCain's vice presidential running mate in late August. Since then, the 44-year-old evangelical enthusiast has become a celebrity among Americans - some dissing her for being a blank page, some admiring her for ?
Her celebrity status, ironically, got her disinvited from the anti-Iran rally Stop Iran Now, which was staged to protest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's foray to the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Catering to the needs of the Jewish lobby and Americans who doubt her foreign policy knowledge, the McCain camp released the stunning speech she intended to make at the rally, proving to the public that weeks of schooling Palin in the neocon ways had not gone to waste.
The full text of the speech, probably written by McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, a Jedi master neocon, has been posted on Johnmccain.com.
The writer(s) clearly endeavored to demonstrate that not only is Gov. Palin - already an expert in US-Russia affairs - now capable of pointing to Iran on a map, but also has her finger on the pulse of the Middle Eastern nation.
"We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator's intentions and to call for action to thwart him. He must be stopped. The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us," reads the speech.
Plagued by fevered imaginations, upper echelons in Washington have been laughed out of their own court in recent years but have never been so entertaining.
Perhaps by 'dictator', she thinks Iran is still under US rule? After all, an oil-seeking Washington did restore monarchy to Iran after their 1953 overthrow of the democratically-elected Iranian prime minister of the time, Mohammed Mosaddeq, who sought to nationalize the country's oil industry.
President Ahmadinejad may be under fire at home over high inflation, but he has been democratically elected and enjoys immense popularity in Iran and among Muslims around the world.
Ahmadinejad tells it as it is. Senator McCain's motto Express Talk would rightfully belong to President Ahmadinejad if the Republican were not to annihilate the concept with his short-term memory.
"We must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build... If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions will be bolstered," Palin was supposed to declare.
While remarks made by an American politician regarding the necessity of bringing democracy may escape the logic of some, the neoconservatives running the McCain campaign only have humanitarian reasons for staying in Iraq. When one hears such rhetoric they need not let Abu Ghraib flash through their mind.
Maybe democracy is the reason for the United States wanting to sign an open-ended security deal with Iraq - to extend its mandate in the oil-rich country for hundreds of years to come.
In a March 2000 address, former US secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright touched on the long-time US tradition of hampering the progress of nations. Her address can give an insight into the grim reality that most of what comes out of Washington is barefaced lies.
"The Eisenhower administration believed its actions (the coup against the Iranian prime minister) were justified for strategic reasons," Albright said.
"But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs," she explained in reference to just one of the many US crimes committed in Iran.
As Gov. Palin was used to giving speeches to small audiences in her hometown just until four weeks ago, she may not be aware that when you make an assumption on the national stage without backing it with evidence, sooner or later, that very alluring assumption will hunt you down.
The 72-year-old Senator McCain himself, a so-called veteran politician, sometimes forgets that in the national arena scrutiny runs wild.
(There are just too many examples of statements McCain has been forced to change because of their factually incorrect basis. Refer to Factcheck.org.)
For more information on the issue of scrutiny, she can simply contact President Bush's office and ask about the WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destructions) in Iraq.
So, it appears that it would be asking too much too soon to expect Gov. Palin to pay real attention to what she says?
"Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran's official ideology and murder is part of its official policy... Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a 'Final Solution' - the elimination of the Jewish people," reads a part of her speech. "They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish."
This comes as Ahmadinejad told CNN's Larry King on Tuesday that he does not deny the Holocaust. "What I am saying is let more research be done," he said. He has repeated this statement over the years, but Western media outlets have apparently not been present.
Ahmadinejad's suggestion would allow historians to conduct research to reveal the real extent of the Holocaust and to find out whether details have been changed in support of the Zionist movement.
Iran has been among the few countries that has never 'persecuted' Jews. It is not only home to the Middle East's largest Jewish population after Israel, but is also one of the countries that played no role in World War II and has never had a Jewish ghetto.
Furthermore, Iran is not anti-Semitic; it is anti-Zionist. It does not recognize Israel because the Zionist regime did not spawn from the vote of Palestinians - the people native to the land.
The Iranian president's solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, as he told Larry King, is for the people of Palestine to be allowed to hold a referendum to decide their own fate - a suggestion he has called for over the years.
Ahmadinejad's 'Final Solution', as Palin suggested, would be for Iran to eliminate Israel, possibly using nuclear bombs - which the country does not possess.
"The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons," the speech further reads.
She quickly moves to announce Iran as 'not only a regional threat', but as a country that 'threatens the entire world'. Iraq suddenly rings a bell!
Sometimes it is hard to read between the lines, sometimes it is not. Since Gov. Palin is a newcomer to politics, the objective of the McCain-Palin ticket is clear.
John McCain, a Vietnam War vet, deep down has the heart of a warrior. Sarah Palin deep down has no clue...