Crocker Shit

GENOCIDAL THEOCRASSHOLE

I still have not found a transcript of the deer in the headlights Crocker presser I saw on CNN very early yesterday morning, but when I do I'll add it here.

RYAN CROCKER

PAY VERY CAREFUL ATTENTION TO THE LANGUAGE.. in this case and in ALL THINGS.

Here is what I meant:

If you understand boxing ....there is a ring generalmanship involved in being an effective fighter.

In other words, he who controls the ring with his body dictates the parameters and the space of the fight itself - the person showing ring generalmanship determines the size and shape of the battle and where it will be fought, how much room the opponent has to move, and various other factors.

You can read this sort of ring generalmanship in language if you are looking for it.

Try it out. You tell me who is controlling this ring:

HE WHO CONTROLS LANGUAGE CONTROLS THOUGHT

It is not for no reason Uncle Chom is a linguist...

Briefing With U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker on His Meeting With Iranian Officials

5/28/07

Via Teleconference

OPERATOR: Hello, and welcome to today's teleconference. At the request of the company, this conference is being recorded. Mr. Casey, you may begin.

MR. CASEY: Okay, thank you, everyone, for joining us. Sorry it's taken us a few minutes to get to you. Appreciate you joining us on Memorial Day and appreciate having with us as well Ambassador Ryan Crocker from Baghdad. As you know, he has met today with his Iranian counterpart to discuss some of the common concerns and issues that the United States and Iran have related to Iraq. And I'll just turn it over to you, Ryan, let you make a couple of introductory remarks, and then we'll go right to questions.

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Thanks, Tom.

[SNIP]

I would repeat what I said earlier, that I would call these discussions businesslike. At the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position, as articulated by the Iranian Ambassador, was very close to our own: support for a stable, secure, democratic, federal Iraq that is able to control its borders, is at peace with its neighbors and is bringing prosperity to its citizens. Though again, on that level, there was fairly broad agreement.

[SNIP]

We told the Iranians today that their support for armed militia groups that are challenging the authority of the Iraqi Government and attacking coalition soldiers needs to stop, and we were quite, quite clear on that point.

The final thing I'd say before I go to your questions is that the Iraqi side indicated that they would want to issue an invitation for another meeting sometime in the near future. Once we receive that invitation, obviously we'll give it close consideration, but nothing was fixed in this meeting with respect to a follow-on meeting. And with that, I'm happy to take your questions.

Our first question comes from:

QUESTION: Sue Pleming, Reuters. Yes, hello. I wonder, do you think that this meeting marks a sort of a change in your relationship, in the relationship between the United States and Iran? And did you discuss at all that the next meeting could be at a ministerial level or higher than the envoy level?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Thank you for asking that. The subjects and focus of the meeting was Iraq and how the United States and Iran can help and support the government and people of Iraq in improving conditions here, particularly security conditions. There was no other item on the agenda; nothing else was discussed.

AGAIN ......because we were ordered very clearly before hand we were not allowed to speak on any other subject. ORDERED and ALLOWED. Yes.

[SNIP]

QUESTION: What was the -- you said the mood was businesslike. I mean, is this someone you think you can do business with? Do you think that they will act on the requests that you made in terms of trying to reduce violence and stopping support for militias?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, that is what we need to see. Again, we were quite clear on what we see on the ground and quite clear in describing how damaging we believe it is to Iraq's own efforts to establish security and stability, and that it needs to stop. So we'll obviously be watching closely to see what the results are.

QUESTION: Thanks.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from:

QUESTION: Jonathan Beale, BBC. Thank you, Ambassador. You said no other issues were discussed, so I take it that you didn't raise the issue of the Iranian Americans who have been arrested by Tehran. And also, I'd just like to ask you when you said that when you told them that their policy was inconsistent with their actions, was there any acknowledgement that there was an inconsistency there, that they had been involved in supporting militants -- militia in training and arms?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: On the first, you're right; the meeting was exclusively about Iraq. We're dealing with the issue of the detained American citizens via the Swiss Government, which is our diplomatic -- formal diplomatic channel to the Iranians. And through that channel, we've made it clear that the Iranians should let these private citizens go; they are not a party to any policy differences between our governments. But that was not on the agenda here in Baghdad today.

And remind me -- it's been a long day -- what the second part was?

QUESTION: The second part was about -- you mentioned the inconsistency between the states policy of Iran and their actions. I think I'm just trying to get to whether there was any acknowledgement that there may have been inconsistency, any acknowledgement that they were involved in supporting militants.

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: No, there was no acknowledgment. In fact, there was very little comment on the issue from the Iranian delegates. They reserved their right to respond at some point in the future, but made no detailed response during our discussions today.

QUESTION: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from:

QUESTION: Eli Lake, New York Sun. Hi, Ambassador Crocker. I wanted to ask if you could get into any more detail about the presentation that you made to the Iranians. And also, can you give us a sense -- I mean, there have been talks with the Iranians on and off for a long time at certain levels in Iraq. What gives you -- do you have any sense of -- are more optimistic that this time they'll stop what you say they are doing?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, on the first part, I laid out the fact that we have solid evidence linking Iran to the support of armed militant groups that are attacking our soldiers, Iraqi security forces and innocent civilians. We made clear we are aware that Iraq is supplying -- Iran is supplying such groups with arms and ammunition and explosives, including explosively formed projectiles; that we know this, that we know the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force is the lead instrument in pursuing this policy, and that they need to stop this behavior that is killing our soldiers, Iraqi soldiers and innocent Iraqis.

This was not a presentation of judicial quality evidence. It was simply making it clear to the Iraqi -- the Iranians that we know what they're doing. They already presumably know what they're doing, so this was a way of making it clear that we know what they're up to.

In terms of contacts, you know, there have been very brief contacts here in Baghdad in March at a working level meeting of neighboring countries and others, and a brief contact when I was in Sharm el-Sheikh but -- earlier this month. But essentially, we have not been in direct discussions with the Iranians.

Whether that will actually produce results, I think right now is up to them whether they choose to align their behavior on the ground with their stated policy, because right now it isn't.

QUESTION: Can I just follow up? Can you say what groups you said they were providing the explosives to and can you say whether you're -- when you say armed militant groups attacking our soldiers and coalition forces, are you referring to groups that we would consider Sunni groups?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: We believe that the Iranians have variously supported both Sunni insurgent groups that are attacking us, as well as radical Shia groups such as some elements of the Jaish al-Mahdi.

QUESTION: Barbara Slavin of USA Today. Hi, Ryan.

QUESTION: Thanks for doing this. I wanted to ask, the way you portray this is you say it's not bilateral. I mean, did we do this really just because the Iraqis were urging us to do this? Did we agree to do this because the Iraq Study Group proposed it? Why now, when there had been a reluctance to have these kinds of meetings so much in the past?

And also just on the atmospherics, was there anyone in the room that you had met before? How would you compare this with the talks that you conducted that were not publicized back in 2001 and 2002? Did you speak in English? Did you eat together?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Okay. On the first, we see these talks as growing out of the neighbors conference initiative, that you remember in March there was a brief direct exchange here in Baghdad. We had another brief direct exchange in Sharm el-Sheikh in which we discussed the possibility of sitting down more formally. The Iraqis made clear that they thought that would be a good step, so we've done it. But again, the progression is it flows out of the neighbors conference initiative. That got started in March and so here we are at the end of May having this meeting. As I noted, the Iraqis did urge it and that's obviously -- we take their positions on this and other matters, obviously, very seriously. But it really fits in, I think, to the neighbors conference initiative.

No, I had not previously met any of the members of the Iranian delegation. The talks that we had had previously on Afghanistan were, I think, you know, less formal in nature. They were under UN auspices rather than any governmental auspices, and I think for those reasons maybe a little less formal in their nature than we were today.

NO ANSWER AT ALL ON BAKER, DIPLOBABBLING TURNSPEAK ALL OF IT

QUESTION: Did you speak in English? Did you break bread together?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: We -- well, we drank tea together. How's that? Actually, a variety of languages; English, Farsi and Arabic were all in play at various times.

[SNIP]

QUESTION: And if I could just follow on that, you said you'll be watching to see what action is taken. What are you anticipating or what will you specifically be watching for?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, what we would obviously like to see and I think the Iraqis clearly would like to see is action by Iran on the ground to bring what it's actually doing in line with its stated policy. Its stated policy is very close to our own. Their actions don't support the policy. That's what we'd like to see change: the support for the militants and so forth that I was describing earlier.

QUESTION: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from:

QUESTION: Zane Verjee, CNN. Thank you, Ambassador Crocker. Could you give us a little bit more detail on what this idea of a three-way mechanism is that Iran proposed to you in the meeting? What specifically did they propose? Can you give us details about that?

And secondly, was there any more ground that you wanted to cover in this meeting but you didn't?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: The Iranians proposed a security mechanism to deal with issues relating to security, and that's about all the detail that there was. My comment at the time was that that sounded very much like the meeting that we were sitting in, since we had agreed that since we had reasonably good alignment at the level of policy and principle, the area that required our focus was security both because it is a critical concern for Iraq and because there we obviously have differences. So it was not apparent to me exactly what the distinction was between what they were proposing and what we were already doing.

And again, you'll have to forgive me. I have managed to forget the second part of your question.

NO ANSWER ON TRILATERAL MECHANISM AND THE SPECIFIC LANGUAGE USED, JUST MORE DIPLOBABBLING DISSEMBLING.

[SNIP]

QUESTION: Were you disappointed with the extent of their response, at least detailing to you their own perceptions, for example, on the security mechanism? Would you characterize it that way? Were you a little bit disappointed?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: I wouldn't say I was disappointed. I think it would not have been reasonable to expect that going into this meeting that a single meeting was going to produce instant, measurable, positive results. I just don't -- I didn't think that was realistic before and therefore I'm not particularly disappointed now.

I was, you know, again, somewhat encouraged that the Iranians took the opportunity to lay out their policy in positive terms. And again, as I said, it matched pretty closely to our own. They obviously could have come at this in a variety of different ways, you know, many of them negative. They didn't do that. They led with a positive policy declaration. So, you know, I found that, you know, somewhat encouraging. I wouldn't make a huge amount out of this single meeting and what was said in it either positive or negative. Again, what really counts is what actually happens that affects for the better security in Iraq.

[SNIP]

MR. CASEY: Okay, I think we've got time maybe for just one more here, so why don't we take the last question.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from:

QUESTION: Guy Dinmore, Financial Times. Ambassador, thank you very much. Guy Dinmore from the FT here. At the weekend, Muqtada al-Sadr gave this very powerful speech, his first appearance in some months. Can you say whether or not you discussed his role in Iraq and his relationship with Iran? And did the Iranians raise at all what they have said in public, which is that they have accused both U.S. and British forces of also destabilizing Iran across the border by supporting anti-Iranian elements? Thank you very much.

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Let's see. Working back to front, no, the Iranians did not raise in this meeting their public accusations of the last day or so.

With respect to Sadr, they did not address him at all. I addressed the problem of Iranian -- specifically Quds Force -- support for radical elements in the Jaish al-Mahdi. As you know, Guy, the Sadrist movement is a highly diversified one, not to say fragmented, and it is by no means clear to me, for example, that Muqtada al-Sadr has control over some of these elements in Jaish al-Mahdi. But it's pretty clear to us that the Iranians do.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. CASEY: Okay. And I think with that, Ambassador Crocker, thank you again very much for taking the time to talk with everyone today. And to all of you out there, thanks for joining us and I hope that we all enjoy the rest of Memorial Day weekend. Talk to you all later.

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Thanks, Tom. Thank you, all.

Following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which aired on various Iranian TV channels on May 24, 2007:

Esfahan TV (Iran)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Look at the Zionist regime. For 60 years, is has been turning an entire people into refugees. It attacks them on a daily basis. They kill the women and children in their homes. Not only do some of the superpowers keep silent, without protesting, but they even smile in approval and in support. Along they came and occupied Palestine, turning the Palestinian people into refugees, oppressing them for 60 years in order to...

Crowd chants: Death to Israel... Death to Israel...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: They did this in order to establish a safe base, from which they would get all the peoples of the region under their rule. But thanks to your movement and the sacred fighting of the martyrs, Islamic revival and monotheistic belief have spread throughout the world, and today, the Palestinian people is uprising. In your presence, I would like to address a few words to the occupying Zionist regime and its supporters. Listen very carefully. I would like to tell you that if you think that just like 60 years ago, the Palestinian people and the peoples of the region are asleep, you are wrong. Today the peoples have awoken. If you believe that by oppressing the Palestinian people, and by bombing and terrorizing the Palestinian leaders, and by trying to "calm things down" in Palestine, as you call it, you can prepare the ground for a renewed attack against courageous Lebanon in the summer – let me tell you that you are severely mistaken.

Let me tell you that if this year you repeat the despicable mistake of last year, the ocean of the rage of the peoples of the region will surge and will eradicate the Zionist regime.

Crowd chants: Allah Akbar

Allah Akbar

[...]

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: With the grace of God, we have almost reached the end of the path where we can take complete advantage of all nuclear capabilities. We are very near the summit. The resistance of the enemies grows weaker every day. If last year, they could place obstacles in our path to the level of ten units – this year, with God's grace, and thanks to your unity and steadfastness, they could not even do this to a level of two units. If last year, the strength of the Iranian peoples was to the level of ten units - let the world know that this year, our strength has reached a level of over 100 units.

[...]

They want to intensify their sanctions now. They said 50 individuals are banned from traveling, and now they want to say 500. Let them say 70 million... What do we care... We don't want to travel to their countries anyway. When have we ever asked to travel to Western countries? If they don't want to sell us their merchandise – fine. To hell with them. We're happy they won't sell it to us. They have been pressuring us for 28 years. Has this harmed us in any way? They still don't understand that if they had not pressured us, and if they had given us all these products – we wouldn't be where we are today in terms of progress. We would lag behind by 20 years.

[...]

Now they are mustering all their power, in order to cause some commotion – some resolution, some pressure, some uproar... But let me tell you that with the help of God, they are done for. Like a battery about to run out, they muster the remainder of their power but Allah willing, nothing will happen. We've passed that. Wait one month, two months, three months... Allah willing, as soon as possible, we will pass that. Their situation is much worse than one can imagine. Their foundations are shaking. Nobody is with them. They though that if they used threats, people here would withdraw voluntarily. When they used threats nobody withdrew. When they used their fist – it boomeranged back at them. What's left for them to say? A few months ago, they threatened us militarily. Do you remember? They specified the date. They said: "On March 27, at 5 a.m., we will bomb these 20 sites." From this position of making military threats, they've got themselves to the point where they want to have talks with us, and they say: "It wasn't us making threats."

VIDEO at LGF