Iran's foreign minister explains international law to Senate Republicans

H.R.A. · Mar 11, 2015

http://theweek.com/speedreads/54336...explains-international-law-senate-republicans

The next time Republicans in the Senate try to explain treaties and the U.S. Constitution to Iranian officials, they may want to pick someone other than a foreign minister with a masters and PhD in international relations from the University of Denver, plus two degrees from San Francisco State University. Javad Zarif, who is also Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, responded to a letter from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and 46 other GOP senators with an explainer of his own.

Not only are the senators shaky on their own Constitution's separation of powers, Zarif wrote, according to Iran's Tasnim News Agency, but "the authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states, and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations."

That's important, Zarif added, because "the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by U.S. domestic law." He continued:

Change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Iran's peaceful nuclear program.... I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with 'the stroke of a pen,' as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law. [Zarif]

Iran's foreign minister ultimately dismissed the GOP letter as having "no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy." But it also gives some propaganda ammunition to Zarif and Iran, notes Akbar Shahid Ahmed at The Huffington Post. Zarif used "the GOP misstep to seize an advantage that the Obama administration has said it does not want to give Iran: the chance to say the nuclear negotiations could fail because of the U.S.
Click to expand...

tecoyah · Mar 11, 2015

H.R.A. said: ↑

http://theweek.com/speedreads/54336...explains-international-law-senate-republicans
Click to expand...

Pretty sad when our legislators get schooled on the law by a nation that breaks it regularly....these morons are an embarassment to our country.

Sly Lampost · Mar 11, 2015

Robert Parry - Official Washington's Delusions on Delusions

Official Washington’s Delusions on Delusions
March 10, 2015

Exclusive: Official Washington operates in its own bubble of self-delusion in which the stars of U.S. politics, policy and media don’t realize how the rest of the world sees their sociopathic behavior. This craziness is now reaching a crisis point on Iran and Russia, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The chasm between reality and the U.S. political/media elite continues to widen with Official Washington’s actions toward Iran and Russia making “the world’s sole remaining superpower” look either like a Banana Republic (on Iran) or an Orwellian Dystopia (regarding Russia).

On Iran and the international negotiations to rein in its nuclear program, the American people witnessed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu striding into the U.S. Congress – like some imperial proconsul – to deliver a faux State of the Union address that undermined the sitting U.S. president. Then, 47 Republican senators furthered Netanyahu’s intent to denigrate President Barack Obama by sending an open letter to Iranian leaders designed to prevent a deal.

Big Brother poster illustrating George Orwell's novel about modern propaganda, 1984.
Big Brother poster illustrating George Orwell’s novel about modern propaganda, 1984.
Yes, I know many Republicans and their overwhelmingly white “base” don’t consider the African-American Obama the legitimate President despite his two election victories. But never in American history has a major political party as brazenly challenged the constitutional authority of a sitting president to conduct foreign policy.

The letter to the Iranian leaders warned that once Obama is out of office in 2017, “the next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.” In other words, the Republicans were telling Iran’s leaders that whatever they plan to sign with Obama and five other world leaders isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on.

This stunning congressional intervention into U.S. diplomacy was signed not just by a few backbenchers but by the Senate’s Republican leadership and several prospective GOP presidential candidates, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, who had been viewed by some on the Left as well as the Right as a person who would not toe the Israeli line on Middle East issues.

This double whammy of Netanyahu’s extreme rhetoric on Iran and the Republicans’ extraordinary subversion of the Iranian nuclear talks left people around the world wondering whether the U.S. government had completely lost its bearings. Meanwhile, the U.S. news media continued veering off into its own Bermuda Triangle.

What is particularly striking about this current moment is how the madness that permeates the U.S. government equally pervades the mainstream U.S. media, which is now incapable of covering major international events except through the lens of State Department propaganda, a situation that has reached extreme levels in the reporting on the Ukraine crisis.

The only filter that the MSM can place on the events in Ukraine is one endlessly vilifying Russian President Vladimir Putin. Though this technique of personalizing foreign policy disputes has become standard operating procedure for the U.S. press corps – think of Daniel Ortega, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Viktor Yanukovych, etc. – the U.S. media’s “group think” on Russia may even surpass those earlier examples.

Plus, nothing from the Ukraine crisis can ever be blamed on the U.S. government, even though Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland helped orchestrate the violent coup that overthrew Ukraine’s elected government in February 2014 and threw the nation of 45 million people into a bloody civil war.

Everything must be blamed on Putin and any alternative analysis, recognizing another side to the story, must be dismissed as “Russian propaganda.” [See, for instance, Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine.“]

‘Russian Propaganda’

On Monday, the Washington Post delivered what could become a textbook case of journalistic self-delusion – noting that the Russian people have developed an intensely negative view of the United States but only because the Russian media portrays the U.S. government in a hostile way.

The Post article by Michael Birnbaum blamed the collapse of U.S. popularity on “furious rhetoric [that] has been pumped across Russian airwaves … a passionate, conspiracy-laden fascination with the methods that Washington is supposedly using to foment unrest in Ukraine and Russia.”

Citing recent polling, the article noted that more than 80 percent of the Russian people hold negative views of the United States. But that couldn’t be because of American behavior! No, it’s impossible that anyone looking at the U.S. today could possibly find anything to criticize! It had to be Putin’s fault, spreading spurious criticism of the U.S. via Russian media. Or as the Post put it:

“Fed by the powerful antagonism on Russian federal television channels, the main source of news for more than 90 percent of Russians, ordinary people started to feel more and more disillusioned [about the U.S.]. The anger seems different from the fast-receding jolts of the past, observers say, having spread faster and wider.”

The article quoted Lev Gudkov, director of the polling firm Levada Center, explaining: “This anti-Western propaganda radically changed the atmosphere in the society. … It has become militarist.”

Another voice cited by the Post was Maria Lipman, described as “an independent Moscow-based political analyst,” saying: “What the government knew was that it was very easy to cultivate anti-Western sentiments, and it was easy to consolidate Russian society around this propaganda.”

In other words, it wasn’t what the U.S. government has done around the world that has provoked this antipathy – from the endless boasting about America’s “indispensable” and “exceptional” qualities to its destructive behavior, including spreading bloody havoc via “regime change” schemes in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

And, it’s not that the U.S. government looks clownish when the majority party in Congress expresses doubts about global warming and other scientific judgments. Nor is it the continued examples of racism and the police shootings of unarmed blacks. Nor the global spying by the National Security Agency. Nor the national self-degradation when members of Congress behave like trained seals jumping up and down to applaud Israel’s Netanyahu.

No, the only reason that the Russian people look askance at the United States is that they are being deceived by the lying “propaganda” dictated by the evil Vladimir Putin. By contrast, the American people always get the straight story from their mainstream U.S. news media, the gold standard for the world!

Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media have taken on the characteristics of a male stalker who can’t understand why his female target finds him repulsive. It must be because someone is poisoning her mind with negative comments about his sterling personality. We now live in a system of delusions built upon delusions.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Click to expand...

Oxymoron · Mar 11, 2015

H.R.A. said: ↑

http://theweek.com/speedreads/54336...explains-international-law-senate-republicans
Click to expand...

He is unaware that the US does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law, since we are the only ones in the position to enforce such "laws". Iran better wise up before we start bombing their upstart arrogant asses.

dixon76710 · Mar 11, 2015

tecoyah said: ↑

Pretty sad when our legislators get schooled on the law by a nation that breaks it regularly....these morons are an embarassment to our country.
Click to expand...

Article 46

Provisions of internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties

1) A State may not invoke the fact that its consent to be bound by a treaty has been expressed in violation of a provision of its internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties as invalidating its consent unless that violation was manifest and concerned a rule of its internal law of fundamental importance.

2) A violation is manifest if it would be objectively evident to any State conducting itself in the matter in accordance with normal practice and in good faith.

If it wasnt evident to Iran before, it now is.

Sly Lampost · Mar 11, 2015

Parry's referenced article in above on NYT. It's also a pretty reasonable backgrounder on how the Ukrainian coup developed.

NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine
January 6, 2015

Exclusive: The New York Times keeps insisting that last year’s Ukrainian coup wasn’t a coup and anyone who thinks so lives inside “the Russian propaganda bubble.” But a slanted Times “investigation” shows that the newspaper remains lost inside the U.S. government’s “propaganda bubble,” writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

During my years at Newsweek in the late 1980s, when I would propose correcting some misguided conventional wisdom, I’d often be told, “let’s leave that one for the historians,” with the magazine not wanting to challenge an erroneous storyline that all the important people “knew” to be true. And if false narratives only affected the past, one might argue my editors had a point. There’s always a lot of current news to cover.

But most false narratives are not really about the past; they are about how the public perceives the present and addresses the future. And it should fall to journalists to do their best to explain this background information even if it embarrasses powerful people and institutions, including the news organizations themselves.

The neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol on a banner in Ukraine.
The neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol on a banner in Ukraine.
Yet, rather than take on that difficult task, most major news outlets prefer to embroider onto their existing tapestry of misinformation, fitting today’s reporting onto the misshapen fabric of yesterday’s. They rarely start from scratch and admit the earlier work was wrong.

So, how does the mainstream U.S. news media explain the Ukraine crisis after essentially falsifying the historical record for the past year? Well, if you’re the New York Times, you keep on spinning the old storyline, albeit with a few adjustments.

For instance, on Sunday, the Times published a lengthy article that sought to sustain the West’s insistence that the coup overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych wasn’t really a coup – just the crumbling of his government in the face of paramilitary violence from the street with rumors of worse violence to come – though that may sound to you pretty much like a coup. Still, the Times does make some modifications to Yanukovych’s image.

In the article, Yanukovych is recast from a brutal autocrat willfully having his police slaughter peaceful protesters into a frightened loser whose hand was “shaking” as he signed a Feb. 21 agreement with European diplomats, agreeing to reduce his powers and hold early elections, a deal that was cast aside on Feb. 22 when armed neo-Nazi militias overran presidential and parliamentary offices.

Defining a Coup

One might wonder what the New York Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.

The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government operatives planted nasty propaganda about the targeted leader, stirred up political and economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come and then – as political institutions collapsed – chased away the duly elected leader before welcoming the new “legitimate” order.

In Iran, that meant reinstalling the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.

Coups don’t have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.

But the preferred method in more recent years has been the “color revolution,” which operates behind the façade of a “peaceful” popular uprising and international pressure on the targeted leader to show restraint until it’s too late to stop the coup. Despite the restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to justify his removal.

Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.

The Ukraine Reality

The reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. George Friedman, the founder of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called the overthrow of Yanukovych “the most blatant coup in history.” It’s just that the major U.S. news organizations were either complicit in the events or incompetent in describing them to the American people.

The first step in this process was to obscure that the motive for the coup – pulling Ukraine out of Russia’s economic orbit and capturing it in the European Union’s gravity field – was actually announced by influential American neocons in 2013.

On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has become a major neocon paymaster, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and an important interim step toward toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100 million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine – training activists, paying for journalists and organizing business groups.

As for that even bigger prize – Putin – Gershman wrote: “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine’s President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013 when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160 billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There was also the West’s demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International Monetary Fund.

Yanukovych wanted more time for the EU negotiations, but his decision angered many western Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to show restraint.

Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous $15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine’s political unrest as a black-and-white case of a brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly “pro-democracy” movement.

The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and told Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”

In the weeks before the coup, according to an intercepted phone call, Nuland discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who should lead the future regime. Nuland said her choice was Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “Yats is the guy,” she told Pyatt as he pondered how to “midwife this thing.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their challenge to the Ukrainian government.

As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist elements from Lviv and western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades or “sotins” of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners and even a Confederate flag.

Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire on police and some protesters, killing scores. As police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80 including more than a dozen police.

U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor extremists.

To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.

The precipitous police withdrawal then opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych’s people to flee for their lives. Yanukovych traveled to eastern Ukraine and the new coup regime that took power – and was immediately declared “legitimate” by the U.S. State Department – sought Yanukovych’s arrest for murder. Nuland’s favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime minister.

Media Bias

Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who fired on unarmed supporters of “democracy.” The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American people heard from the major media.

The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: “More than 80 protesters were shot to death by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February.”

The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and peaceful Maidan protests.

Any reference to a “coup” was dismissed as “Russian propaganda.” There was a parallel determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians simply became “Russian aggression.”

This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II – reached absurd levels as the New York Times and the Washington Post buried references to the neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.

The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by quoting one militia commander as calling them “romantic” gestures by impressionable young men. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s ‘Romantic’ Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]

Yet, despite the best efforts of the Times, the Post and other mainstream outlets to conceal this ugly reality from the American people, alternative news sources – presenting a more realistic account of what was happening in Ukraine – began to chip away at the preferred narrative.

Instead of buying the big media’s storyline, many Americans were coming to realize that the reality was much more complicated and that they were again being sold a bill of propaganda goods.

Denying a Coup

To the rescue rode the New York Times on Sunday, presenting what was portrayed as a detailed, granular “investigation” of how there was no coup in Ukraine and reaffirming the insistence that only Moscow stooges would think such a thing.

“Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych’s ouster to what it portrays as a violent, ‘neo-fascist’ coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular uprising,” wrote Andrew Higgins and Andrew E. Kramer. “Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin’s line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych’s government, questions remain about how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely.”

The Times’ article concluded that Yanukovych “was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone else. The allies’ desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych’s own efforts to make peace.”

Yet, what is particularly curious about this article is that it ignores the substantial body of evidence that the U.S. officials were instrumental in priming the crisis and fueling the ultimate ouster of Yanukovych. For instance, the Times makes no reference to the multitude of U.S.-financed political projects in Ukraine including scores by Gershman’s NED, nor the extraordinary intervention by Assistant Secretary of State Nuland.

Nuland’s encouragement to those challenging the elected government of Ukraine would surely merit mentioning, one would think. But it disappears from the Times’ version of history. Perhaps even more amazing there is no reference to the Nuland-Pyatt phone call, though Pyatt was interviewed for the article.

Even if the Times wanted to make excuses for the Nuland-Pyatt scheming – claiming perhaps it didn’t prove that they were coup-plotting – you would think the infamous phone call would deserve at least a mention. But Nuland isn’t referenced anywhere. Nor is Gershman. Nor is McCain.

The most useful part of the Times’ article is its description of the impact from a raid by anti-Yanukovych militias in the western city of Lviv on a military arsenal and the belief that the guns were headed to Kiev to give the uprising greater firepower.

The Times reports that “European envoys met at the German Embassy with Andriy Parubiy, the chief of the protesters’ security forces, and told him to keep the Lviv guns away from Kiev. ‘We told him: “Don’t let these guns come to Kiev. If they come, that will change the whole situation,”’ Mr. Pyatt recalled telling Mr. Parubiy, who turned up for the meeting wearing a black balaclava.

“In a recent interview in Kiev, Mr. Parubiy denied that the guns taken in Lviv ever got to Kiev, but added that the prospect that they might have provided a powerful lever to pressure both Mr. Yanukovych’s camp and Western governments. ‘I warned them that if Western governments did not take firmer action against Yanukovych, the whole process could gain a very threatening dimension,’ he said.

“Andriy Tereschenko, a Berkut [police] commander from Donetsk who was holed up with his men in the Cabinet Ministry, the government headquarters in Kiev, said that 16 of his men had already been shot on Feb. 18 and that he was terrified by the rumors of an armory of automatic weapons on its way from Lviv. ‘It was already an armed uprising, and it was going to get worse,’ he said. ‘We understood why the weapons were taken, to bring them to Kiev.’”

The Times leaves out a fuller identification of Parubiy. Beyond serving as the chief of the Maidan “self-defense forces,” Parubiy was a notorious neo-Nazi, the founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine (and the national security chief for the post-coup regime). But “seeing no neo-Nazis” in Ukraine had become a pattern for the New York Times.

Still, the journalistic question remains: what does the New York Times think a coup looks like? You have foreign money, including from the U.S. government, pouring into Ukraine to finance political and propaganda operations. You have open encouragement to the coup-makers from senior American officials.

You have hundreds of trained and armed paramilitary fighters dispatched to Kiev from Lviv and other western cities. You have the seizure of an arsenal amid rumors that these more powerful weapons are being distributed to these paramilitaries. You have international pressure on the elected president to pull back his security forces, even as Western propaganda portrays him as a mass murderer.

Anyone who knows about the 1954 Guatemala coup would remember that a major element of that CIA operation was a disinformation campaign, broadcast over CIA-financed radio stations, about a sizeable anti-government force marching on Guatemala City, thus spooking the Arbenz government to collapse and Arbenz to flee.

But the Times article is not a serious attempt to study the Ukraine coup. If it had been, it would have looked seriously at the substantial evidence of Western interference and into other key facts, such as the identity of the Feb. 20 snipers. Instead, the article was just the latest attempt to pretend that the coup really wasn’t a coup.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Click to expand...

Sly Lampost · Mar 11, 2015

Oxymoron said: ↑

He is unaware that the US does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law, since we are the only ones in the position to enforce such "laws". Iran better wise up before we start bombing their upstart arrogant asses.
Click to expand...

Well, Parry is an American and clearly does give a flying **** about it.

Together with many more Americans and growing numbers of people outside the US who see the increasingly bizarre reports of the US main media as a modern day re-enactment of the odious mentality that supported the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) disgrace of the 1950's. Just substitute the word "Neoncon" for "McCarthy" and you're on solid ground.

Talon · Mar 11, 2015

H.R.A. said: ↑

Iran's foreign minister explains international law to Senate Republicans

...That's important, Zarif added, because "the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by U.S. domestic law."
Click to expand...

Please permit me to explain something to you and your clueless foreign minister, H.R.A.:

The United States is not the world, and the ratification of treaties is governed by U.S. domestic law.

Class dismissed. Javad Zarif gets an F in Civics 101.

Jonsa · Mar 11, 2015

Oxymoron said: ↑

He is unaware that the US does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law, since we are the only ones in the position to enforce such "laws". Iran better wise up before we start bombing their upstart arrogant asses.
Click to expand...

Seems arrogance is contagious.

Seems there are some "humble Americans" that believe that every problem America has in the world can be solved with a few well placed bombs.
Nothing like a little jingoism to go with their parochial rabid partisanship.

Oxymoron · Mar 11, 2015

Jonsa said: ↑

Seems arrogance is contagious.

Seems there are some "humble Americans" that believe that every problem America has in the world can be solved with a few well placed bombs.
Nothing like a little jingoism to go with their parochial rabid partisanship.
Click to expand...

We have a right to be arrogant, because we can back it up. Iran should figure this out sooner then later, otherwise the Mullahs will have some Hellfires upside their heads.

Jonsa · Mar 11, 2015

Oxymoron said: ↑

We have a right to be arrogant, because we can back it up. Iran should figure this out sooner then later, otherwise the Mullahs will have some Hellfires upside their heads.
Click to expand...

"right to be arrogant"? Is that in the constitution or is that just an expression of exceptionalism?

And some Americans scratch their heads about why they aren't loved by many around the world.

junius. fils · Mar 11, 2015

Oxymoron said: ↑

He is unaware that the US does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law, since we are the only ones in the position to enforce such "laws". Iran better wise up before we start bombing their upstart arrogant asses.
Click to expand...

Changed to read (accurately) He is unaware that the republican party does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law, the onstitution, or any other law, for that matter, which they either don't like or think they can make political hay out of grandstanding against it, since they think they are the only ones in the position to enforce such "laws".

As for "Iran better wise up before we start bombing their upstart arrogant asses." A minor fact unknown or ignored by the ignorant or the morons, there exist in the world something known as OPTHER COUNTRIES. These other countries, whether or not the resident signatories of the GOP's clown college know or like it, are legal entities having the rights and status of sovereign states. After WW II, we hung people who thought they had the right to attack others just because their resident idiots and their supporters wanted to.

I have my doubts that those so eager for war are willing to fight in it.

dixon76710 · Mar 11, 2015

junius said: ↑

Changed to read (accurately) He is unaware that the republican party does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law, the onstitution, or any other law, for that matter,
Click to expand...

Thats a funny thing to say during the Obama administration. AND the requirement of Congress' assent to any international treaty or agreement is in the "onstitution"

Oxymoron · Mar 11, 2015

Jonsa said: ↑

"right to be arrogant"? Is that in the constitution or is that just an expression of exceptionalism?

And some Americans scratch their heads about why they aren't loved by many around the world.
Click to expand...

I rather be feared then loved in the world, yes America is exceptional and it is the only Hyper power on the globe. So we have far more leeway in what we can and cannot do, Iran on the other hand has not learned its lesson yet, I am affraid we will have to teach them soon enough.,

- - - Updated - - -

junius said: ↑

Changed to read (accurately) He is unaware that the republican party does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law, the onstitution, or any other law, for that matter, which they either don't like or think they can make political hay out of grandstanding against it, since they think they are the only ones in the position to enforce such "laws".

As for "Iran better wise up before we start bombing their upstart arrogant asses." A minor fact unknown or ignored by the ignorant or the morons, there exist in the world something known as OPTHER COUNTRIES. These other countries, whether or not the resident signatories of the GOP's clown college know or like it, are legal entities having the rights and status of sovereign states. After WW II, we hung people who thought they had the right to attack others just because their resident idiots and their supporters wanted to.

I have my doubts that those so eager for war are willing to fight in it.
Click to expand...

The only reason we hung anyone, was because we had won not because they were any more criminal then our military that wiped cities from maps. There are no good or bad countries, there is only national interests. The only war crime is losing.

katzgar · Mar 11, 2015

like general Curtis lemay said after dropping the bombs on japan. we would have been tried and hung for doing it if the Japanese had won the war.

H.R.A. · Mar 11, 2015

The US politicians are too crazy and illiterate! It is not wisely the US be the world police! hmmmmmm....

Oxymoron · Mar 11, 2015

H.R.A. said: ↑

The US politicians are too crazy and illiterate! It is not wisely the US be the world police! hmmmmmm....
Click to expand...

We do not ask for permission, or care what others think. We are the worlds Police, because we can be. You and your Persian friends should think about getting rid of your insane leaders, before we break you.

Merwen · Mar 11, 2015

Oxymoron said: ↑

We have a right to be arrogant, because we can back it up. Iran should figure this out sooner then later, otherwise the Mullahs will have some Hellfires upside their heads.
Click to expand...

Speak for yourself

They are doing the Right Thing right now, on the ground under a heroic Iranian General, Qasem Soleimani, leading the battle against ISIS in Tikrit [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31833592 ]

Would you go join him?

Put up or...you know the rest.

Iran is an old civilization and full of intelligent people worth getting to know. It would be a real waste to get into a war with them. Maybe if you were a parent over there trying to get decent baby formula despite US trade sanctions you would feel quite different.

Ditto for the Russians.

Don't try to make it seem that in the US we all agree with you. I can understand after 9-11 why you might feel as you do, but it seems to me that the world is more complex than your vision of it.

Frankly, I worry for Parry's safety; he seems to be speaking truths that are being kept from most of us by a powerful, wealthy cabal.

Oxymoron · Mar 11, 2015

Merwen said: ↑

Speak for yourself

They are doing the Right Thing right now, on the ground under a heroic Iranian General, Qasem Soleimani, leading the battle against ISIS in Tikrit [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31833592 ]

Would you go join him?

Put up or...you know the rest.

Iran is an old civilization and full of intelligent people worth getting to know. It would be a real waste to get into a war with them. Maybe if you were a parent over there trying to get decent baby formula despite US trade sanctions you would feel quite different.

Ditto for the Russians.

Don't try to make it seem that in the US we all agree with you. I can understand after 9-11 why you might feel as you do, but it seems to me that the world is more complex than your vision of it.

Frankly, I worry for Parry's safety; he seems to be speaking truths that are being kept from most of us by a powerful, wealthy cabal.
Click to expand...

Good thing that no one respects or cares about what you silly peacenicks think.

katzgar · Mar 11, 2015

mostly I agree but lets not forget that they are also manipulative and less given to the truth than we are. a deal is not a deal to an Iranian.
m

Merwen said: ↑

Speak for yourself

They are doing the Right Thing right now, on the ground under a heroic Iranian General, Qasem Soleimani, leading the battle against ISIS in Tikrit [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31833592 ]

Would you go join him?

Put up or...you know the rest.

Iran is an old civilization and full of intelligent people worth getting to know. It would be a real waste to get into a war with them. Maybe if you were a parent over there trying to get decent baby formula despite US trade sanctions you would feel quite different.

Ditto for the Russians.

Don't try to make it seem that in the US we all agree with you. I can understand after 9-11 why you might feel as you do, but it seems to me that the world is more complex than your vision of it.

Frankly, I worry for Parry's safety; he seems to be speaking truths that are being kept from most of us by a powerful, wealthy cabal.
Click to expand...

Jonsa · Mar 11, 2015

Oxymoron said: ↑

I rather be feared then loved in the world, yes America is exceptional and it is the only Hyper power on the globe. So we have far more leeway in what we can and cannot do, Iran on the other hand has not learned its lesson yet, I am affraid we will have to teach them soon enough.,
Click to expand...

Of course you would rather be feared.
There sure as hell ain't nothing exceptional about that attitude since every dickhead despot and tin pot tyrant in history has said exactly the same thing.

Its sad when "patriots" equate exceptionalism with bullying military power and unwarranted arrogance.

Jonsa · Mar 11, 2015

Oxymoron said: ↑

Good thing that no one respects or cares about what you silly peacenicks think.
Click to expand...

The only people who respect war mongers are themselves and the cowards that hide behind them.

Phoebe Bump · Mar 11, 2015

I'm wondering how many U.S. GI lives are on the line because of 47 Fools trying to make a tough guy statement.

Phoebe Bump · Mar 11, 2015

He is unaware that the US does not give a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law,
Click to expand...

Speak for yourself; this particular American GIVES a flying (*)(*)(*)(*) about international law.

Phoebe Bump · Mar 11, 2015

I am affraid we will have to teach them soon enough.,
Click to expand...

Go ahead and teach them. You be da guy, eh?

Log in or Sign up

Iran's foreign minister explains international law to Senate Republicans

H.R.A. Member

tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

Sly Lampost New Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

dixon76710 Well-Known Member

Sly Lampost New Member

Sly Lampost New Member

Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

junius. fils New Member

dixon76710 Well-Known Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

katzgar Banned

H.R.A. Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

Merwen Well-Known Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

katzgar Banned

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

Phoebe Bump New Member

Phoebe Bump New Member

Phoebe Bump New Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Iran's foreign minister explains international law to Senate Republicans

H.R.A. Member

tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

Sly Lampost New Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

dixon76710 Well-Known Member

Sly Lampost New Member

Sly Lampost New Member

Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

junius. fils New Member

dixon76710 Well-Known Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

katzgar Banned

H.R.A. Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

Merwen Well-Known Member

Oxymoron Well-Known Member

katzgar Banned

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

Phoebe Bump New Member

Phoebe Bump New Member

Phoebe Bump New Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches