Monday, June 05, 2006

Khamenei: Nukes are against islam

From a speech by Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran on Sunday, transposed in full by Juan Cole:
We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules.
That's right. The supreme leader of Islam in Iran says that using Nuclear weapons is against Islam. Yet what are our governments doing? Sabre rattling.

Garry Smith:
The Islamic republic, for all its many abuses, has never started a war and their Supreme leader yesterday said that they never will. He also said that the use of nuclear weapons is un-Islamic and it's probably fair to say that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran takes his religion really rather seriously.

These facts do not sit well with the narrative currently being constructed by the US and UK governments. Perhaps journalists would be better employed reporting the salient facts rather than using selective reporting to amplify and enhance the dubious pronouncements of government.
I'm not a fan od the Iranian regime. It has a dubious democracy, dodgy attitudes to rights, and relies on a theocracy for its legitimacy; this liberal atheist is always worried when political leaders justify a position via a belief in any god. That's Mr Bush, Mr Blair and most of the Iranian leadership all lumped together then.

Advantage of blogging; we can cut through the media spin and find the truth. When such a truth is found, we should spread the word. Didn't plan on writing about Iran much, still don't mean to. But sometimes, something needs to be given great publicity. Back to Khatemai:
"You speak about human rights. You speak about being against terrorism. How the hell can an administration that has Guantanamo Prison and Abu-Ghurayb Prison and crimes like the Haditha crime and the recent crime in Kabul and dozens and hundreds of other such things on its record dare to speak about human rights?
What was it Boris was saying the other day? They're using our own actions against us now?

Wonderful.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like somebody told Khatemai it will probably still be a decade before they can make a nuke small enough to fit on top of their missiles, so he decided to back away from the sabre rattling. Once they have a delivery system I'm sure that someone will be able to find a few verses where it says nukes are OK. 

Posted by chris

Anonymous said...

Two points:
1) It was never Khatemai doing the noise-making, it was the, democratically elected, Ame...jad who said that Israel should be wiped off the map.
2) Abu-Ghurayb and the Kabul incident cannot be attributed to the whole of the West or even the UK and US governments any more than suicide bombings can be laid at the door of all Muslims. 

Posted by Gavin Ayling