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05.17 Why American Colleges Are Becoming a Force for Inequality 05.17 Why Private Schools Are Dying Out Letters
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05.23 The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment 05.22 Global inaction shows that the climate sceptics have already won [6:22 video] 05.22 Dylan Ratigan & Life After Cable News [5:39 video] 05.21 Ellen Page [6:49 video] 05.20 Lisa P. Jackson [6:19 video] 05.20 Climate Change Denial is Costing us Trillions, Threatening Farming, Fishing, Animals (Video) 05.20 Blinding Us From Science 05.20 The Baltimore Lead Study [3:17 video] 05.19 A Black Mound of Canadian Oil Waste Is Rising Over Detroit 05.18 Four Examples from the Last Week Prove Obama Is Full of Hot Air on Climate Protection 05.17 The Murky World of Hospital Prices 05.17 New Jersey Hospital Is the Costliest in the Nation 05.17 Angelina Jolie has done something extraordinary 05.17 Obama must Make Fighting Climate Change National Project, or Die the death of a thousand Scandals 05.17 Study: Why Pot Smokers Are Skinnier 05.16 What Will It Take for Us to Recognize That the Way We Live Could Be Destroying Life as We Know It? 05.16 How Drug Companies Keep Medicine Out of Reach Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries News Media
05.23 WSJ Argues For Reducing Historically Low Corporate Tax Burden 05.23 PBS and the Koch Brother Scandal (plus “Koch Brothers Exposed”) [1:00:52 video] 05.22 Costs of Spying on the AP That the Establishment Ignores 05.22 Greg Sargent (and others) are playing us rubes! Daily FAIR Blog Justice Matters
05.21 Guatemala annuls Rios Montt's genocide conviction 05.21 Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes 05.21 The Criminal Case Against the Tea Party Cabal and Why the Justice Department Won’t Pursue It 05.21 Carl Hiaasen: IRS went after small fry, but let the big ones get away 05.18 Senator wants U.S. in oil price-fixing probe 05.18 Timothy Geithner Is Key To IRS Scandal 05.16 Why Won't the SEC Rein In the Firms That Tanked America's Economy? 05.16 Elizabeth Warren to Obama Administration: Take the Banks to Court, Already! US Politics, Policy & Culture
05.23 Six Facts Lost in the IRS Scandal 05.23 The Long, Sordid History of the American Right and Racism 05.17 The Great American Descent into Plutocracy 05.17 The Real Benghazi Scandal 05.16 Take Politics Away From the I.R.S. 05.16 Should 501(c)(4)’s Be Eliminated? 05.16 What We Mean When We Say 'Race Is a Social Construct' High Crimes?
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05.23 Deja Vu on the Hill: Wall Street Lobbyists Roll Back Finance Reform, Again 05.22 Even Before Apple Tax Breaks, Ireland’s Policy Had Its Critics 05.22 Apple Avoids Paying $17 Million In Taxes Every Day Through A Ballsy But Genius Tax Avoidance Scheme 05.22 David Dayen: The Uprising of the Second Tier in a Time of Late Capitalism 05.20 Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills 05.20 Is EVERY Market Rigged? 05.19 Can two senators end ‘too big to fail’? 05.18 Pope blames tyranny of capitalism for making people miserable[1:00 video] 05.18 A Simple Graph That Should Silence Austerians and Gold Bugs Forever [graph] 05.18 The Savings Heist 05.18 Sheila Krumholz and Danielle Brian on How Money Rules Washington [20:31 video] Ref. : Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly and Unfair [25:35 video] Ref. : Nurses vs. High-Speed Traders Ref. : We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income International
05.23 New Documents Reveal How a 1980s Nuclear War Scare Became a Full-Blown Crisis 05.22 C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh: The Great Jobs Disaster 05.21 Jobless Youth: Europe's Hollow Efforts to Save a Lost Generation 05.21 The Job Market of 2045 [14:32 podcast] 05.19 Italy coalition: Thousands rally in Rome against cuts [graphic] 05.18 Hans Rosling: the man who's making data cool [3:19 video] 05.18 Washington gets explicit: its 'war on terror' is permanent 05.17 Egypt 'suffering worst economic crisis since 1930s' 05.16 Catholic Church Finally Decides That Austerity is Bad We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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COMMENTARY:Is the United States serious about Iran?Bombing Iran will not help the cause. In fact, it will probably create either civil war, or some kind of desperate, lethal unity inside Iran. The more effective way to achieve regime change is to spend Iranian assets in the right way.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently asked Congress for $85 million to support pro-democracy groups inside Iran and also to assist Iranian groups outside Iran who oppose the Islamic regime in Tehran.It is a very kind gesture from President George W. Bush’s administration, but this program will not change anything in Iran. And it is not likely the $85 million (if Secretary Rice indeed receives it) will be used effectively and wisely. Yet, there is no denying Bush’s intent of support. In his 2005 state of union address, he again pledged his support for the Iranian people: “And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.” In Iranian polls, Bush won the 2004 election by a landslide, even though in America, Bush won by only a few hundred votes. Today, Bush is sinking in American polls, but his popularity continues to climb in Iran. Persian-speaking people have found a friend who says he cares about them. But, at this point, we must ask how serious is President Bush about Iran? Is it all words, with no action? For five years, President Bush has consistently supported the Iranian people in his state of the union addresses. But it’s been simply a big carrot on a long stick. Or, as they say in Texas, it’s all hat and no cattle. While we have supported the president’s efforts to liberate Iraq and bring democracy to the region, we know the key to peace in Iraq and the region is in the hands of the Iranian people. As long as they are powerless to overthrow the Islamic terrorist regime in Iran, Iraq will never see the light of democracy. America is spending over $200 million a day for the war in Iraq. In contrast, an $85 million proposal to bring change in Iran, administered over five years or more, is utterly unrealistic. After all, we are talking about the Islamic Republic of Iran—"the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism," according to the U.S. State Department. So, how do we understand the money problem? According to the Iranian Studies Group, an independent academic organization at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), more than one in four Iranian-Americans hold a master's or doctoral degree, the highest rate among 67 ethnic groups studied. Iranians are among the most highly educated people in the U.S. and annually contribute over $600 billion into the U.S. economy. It would be a travesty for the Iranian opposition groups to accept a mere $85 million while the Iranian-Americans are such large contributors to the U.S. economy. Yet, Iranian-Americans have not given big money to the cause of liberating their fellow Iranians in Iran, and the U.S. government hasn’t given any significant amount for the eradication of the world terrorist regime—the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, we’re back to square one. But consider this: the United States holds billions of dollars of Iranian assets in U.S. banks. Why not use this financial source to support the Iranian opposition groups who will actively seek regime change in Iran? This money must be returned to its legitimate heirs, the Iranian people, inside Iran and outside Iran. If the U.S. is serious about a regime change in Iran, if the U.S. is hoping for a democratic form of government in Iran, and if the U.S. truly advocates a broader democracy in the Middle East, the White House must turn the Iranian assets over to all the Iranian opposition groups who want democracy Iran. After all, Iranians know Iranian mentality better than any foreign governments. It is time for the U.S. government to get serious about regime change in Iran. Bombing Iran will not help the cause. In fact, it will probably create either civil war, or some kind of desperate, lethal unity inside Iran. The more effective way to achieve regime change is to spend the Iranian assets in the right way. We can create a secular, democratic Iranian nation with our own Iranian money, and obliterate the venomous theocratic regime in Iran—which the majority of Iranians consider to be alien occupiers. The clock is ticking and the majority of Iranians want to be free from the oppressors now. The Bush administration must stop the useless, wasteful bureaucracy and get down to the business of regime change, immediately. Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American Citizen and pro democracy activist living in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, poet, and novelist who speaks out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. His website is amilimani.com.
Copyright © 2006 The Baltimore Chronicle.
All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on April 24, 2006. |
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