Reader/subscriber notice

A notice to our readers and blog subscribers:

Because Andy Martin is currently a candidate for United States Senator from Illinois [www.AndyforUSSenator.com], some of his commentary has been shifted to separate senatorial platforms:

www.AndyforUSSenator.blogspot.com
www.AndyforUSSenator.wordpress.com

You may want to check those blogs for additional commentary written by Andy; the senate blogs are sizzlers.

The Editors

Andy Martin remembers Walter Cronkite and yesterday’s media

Walter Cronkite’s passing prompts a reflection and reminiscence by the dean of Illinois’ media and communications

ContrarianCommentary.com
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Walter Cronkite’s passing reminds us how much our own news media have changed since the 1960’s

Andy Martin began in a world that was remarkably similar to Walter Cronkite’s formative years; with his 42 years of news and information gathering experience, Andy connects Cronkite’s world to our own modern media

(NEW YORK)(July 18, 2009) At the bottom of most of our columns we usually refer to me as the “dean” of Illinois media and communications. Watching the coverage of Walter Cronkite’s death was enough to make me feel older, and once again remember the 1960’s.

NBC News offered me a job 42 years ago. Ultimately I turned the position down. I spent part of 1967 and 1968 in Viet-Nam as part of fly-on-the-wall efforts to create a back channel in Washington (see www.AndyMartin.com for pictures). In 1968 I became an FCC-approved TV station owner. “Video tape” was two inches wide. It all seems so long ago.

News then. News now. Cronkite’s news-gathering world has long since passed. But today we still crave the authenticity and experience that Cronkite offered his audience. Here are my thoughts about then and now.

Despite the fact I am closing in on a half century of broadcasting experience, and therefore entitled to be called a “dean” (or perhaps something more sinister), I did not come into my own until the Internet era. And so in the age of today’s blow-dried mannequins, I approach commentary and communications just as energetically as the most fresh-faced college graduate.

Cronkite started out when video “news” traveled slowly, by film and propeller airplane, and was displayed in move theaters. Transatlantic telephone service was still a new medium in World War II. When I arrived in Viet-Nam in 1967, “news” was little changed from the Second World War.

We look back and think of Viet-Nam as the “first television war.” In some ways it ways; in others not. When you left Saigon or DaNang you were in another world. The war was real. You were alone.

Camera crews in Viet-Nam still used film; that film had to go to Hong Kong or the West Coast for processing. Associated Press and United Press International sent still pictures by wire; and newspaper stories left Saigon by wire. But TV film could not be transmitted directly from Saigon to New York.

Network correspondents and cameramen went into the field; days later their material would pop up on the evening news. Then Walter Cronkite went to Viet-Nam during the later stages of the Tet Offensive in 1968. He wanted to “see for himself.” When he arrived, the news cycle moved with him. Unlike an ordinary correspondent, Cronkite’s remarks were transmitted through extraordinary efforts to get the material out fast. Change had come to the battlefield.

Today we routinely expect instant coverage of every event. We are quite surprised when live coverage is unavailable, as it was last month after the Iranian election.

Has “instant” news changed the nature of our information? Indeed it has.

Cronkite was called the “most trusted man in America” because his judgment had been forged on remote battlefields, where independent knowledge and enterprise were essential. That was how he became a “newsman.” People trusted his judgment because his judgment was real.

Today, college graduates in “media” programs expect to start in Podunk markets; they will work themselves up the media food chain to New York or LA or Chicago due primarily to their personal appearance and not their news-gathering expertise. These “talking heads” have never been alone on a battlefield. They have never been cut off from their world while they sought to gather information. They have satellite uplinks and sat phones.

By comparison, the judgments and opinions formed by people such as Cronkite, who were forced to develop independent expertise, were vastly different than the judgments formed today by “reporters” who are merely passive observers of news events.

We no longer have the same trust in media. Cronkite was different. People relied on him because he new what he was talking about. He had experience. There is something about being shot at and dodging mortar rounds while you are out there in the middle of hell-on-earth gathering information that changes you. You develop a desire to get the facts right. Today news gathering is a more antiseptic enterprise.

There was one special aspect Cronkite’s journalism that no one mentioned in all the coverage of his death yesterday. He was the consummate “outsider.” No president ever called Walter Cronkite a crony. “Uncle Walter” was distant and remote from Washington and the political machinations of Washington.

ABC was recently criticized for setting up shop to do “news” about “health care” from the White House. That’s what passes for “news” in Obama’s Washington. Previously, NBC News also received criticism for allowing Brian Williams to appear as a tool of the Obama administration.

No one ever accused Walter Cronkite of being a tool of anyone, least of all a tool of any politician. Cronkite’s gravitas was in part a manifestation of the fact that he kept himself at a distance from politicians, and reported the news independently of DC influence brokers.

The bottom line? Cronkite was a great man. He was independent; he garnered his experience on the battlefield, not in the make-up room. His character was molded by the real world, not in a media hothouse.

Perhaps Cronkite’s world was also an easier one for us. There were three networks to choose from, and that was that. One or two dominant newspapers. Today there are dozens of networks. Newspapers are vanishing. I don’t know when I last tuned to a network “evening news” broadcast: twenty years ago? Thirty? Newspapers? Don’t ask.

Today news comes at us from all directions, not just one source.

ContrarianCommentary.com now draws on information from our resources around the world; we assemble columns and occasionally breaking news from our own independent perspective. But I never felt so alive as when I was out in the field, alone, cut off from the world and forced to rely on my own instincts to search for the truth and find the facts. I was doing that in Viet-Nam 42 years ago, in Iraq six years ago and in Hawai’i ten months ago. I’m still on the same mission. If you don’t believe me, just ask Barack Obama. He knows how hard I search. For the facts.

The modern “news” environment is more challenging for the viewer, listener, reader. Everyone must be more alert, observant and critical. The “wheat” is often overwhelmed by the “chaff.”

Each of us has become our own “managing editor,” filtering in what is credible and filtering out information that that lacks authenticity. It’s not easy work.

The job that Walter Cronkite used to do for us every night, we now have to do for ourselves.

And that’s the way it is. Good night.

—————————–
Readers of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, say the book is still the only gold standard and practical handbook on Barack Obama’s unfitness for the presidency. Buy it.
Book orders: Amazon.com or http://OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from Amazon.com or signed copies (delayed for signing) from the publisher are available.
——————————
URGENT APPEAL: The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama raises money to oppose President Barack Obama’s radical agenda and also to support www.BoycottHawaii.com.
www.CommitteeofOneMilliontoDefeatBarackObama.com
Please give generously. Our ability to fight and defeat Barack Obama’s political agenda is directly dependent on the generosity of every American.
“The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama has no bundlers, no fat cats and no illegal contributions. Obama is opposed to almost everything America stands for,” says Executive Director Andy Martin. “But while Obama has raised a billion dollar slush fund, his opponents lack sufficient resources. Americans can either contribute now, or pay later. If we do not succeed, Obama will.”
———————————–
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He is currently promoting his best-selling book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask and producing the new Internet movie “Obama: The Hawai’i years.” Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Martin comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York. He is an announced candidate for Barack Obama’s former U. S. Senate seat.

UPDATES:
www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA
www.facebook.com/AndyMartin

His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
[NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 (cell not always on)
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
© Copyright by Andy Martin 2009.

Did Sonia Sotomayor’s “mentor” at Yale provide her with cocaine?

Internet Powerhouse Andy Martin was born in Connecticut and is familiar with the “players” in the sordid drama of “Cocaine Cabranes” and his Puerto Rican students at Yale University. Martin suggests that Sotomayor, a married student at the time, may have been compromised by José Cabranes.

Internet Powerhouse Andy Martin on the “Secret Life of Sonia Sotomayor, Part II”

ContrarianCommentary.com
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

DID JUDGE JOSÉ CABRANES PROVIDE PUERTO RICAN STUDENTS AT YALE WITH COCAINE?

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SONIA SOTOMAYOR AND JOSÉ CABRANES BEARS DEEPER ANALYSIS; “COCAINE CABRANES” MAY HAVE PLIED SOTOMAYOR WITH COCAINE AND BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BREAKUP OF HER MARRIAGE

(WASHINGTON, DC)(July 13, 2009) The U. S. Senate should explore the relationship between Sonia Sotomayor and her “demented mentor” Judge José Cabranes. “Cocaine Cabranes” may have plied Sotomayor with cocaine at Yale University and been the cause of the breakup of Sotomayor’s marriage.

Cabranes has sought to portray himself as a paterfamilias of Puerto Ricans at Yale and in New York:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/us/politics/
22mentors.html?pagewanted=1

But the “back story” involving Cabranes and Sotomayor may be even more interesting than the mainstream media’s whitewashed presentation.

“Joe” Cabranes was one of the great racial hucksters of his generation, promoting himself as “José” in public while living an Anglo double life in private as plain old “Joe.” Cabranes also led a dual life on the streets of El Barrio in New York, where he regularly returned, and at Yale, where his marital infidelities and drug use were legendary.

Cabranes undoubtedly has a first rate intellect. But the inferiority complex engendered by being the son of Manny Cabranes, a radical, proto-communist labor “syndicalist,” left indelible scars on José’s psyche.

As a federal judge in Connecticut, Cabranes was despised by both colleagues and court staff.

[Full disclosure: I encountered Cabranes in the 1980's. Many days he was incoherent in court, apparently coming off a drug high the night before. Cabranes was notoriously indifferent to and abusive of the court staff. ContrarianCommentary.com also has FBI records that document wholesale violations of federal law by "Cocaine" Cabranes. I believe, but cannot prove, that Cabranes may have participated in the fatal drug overdose of a lover. Yale University and the surrounding community is one of the sickest and most incestuous academic societies in America. Because I taught college in the Bronx, I came to have a special knowledge of and sensitivity to El Barrio, Cabranes, Sotomayor and the others who profited from affirmative action in the 1970's and 80's.]

What was a poseur and rake of Cabranes’ legendary status doing “mentoring” a married woman during his days as a Yale attorney? (Sotomayor was married in 1976 and went to Yale as a married woman.)

Having Cabranes as a “mentor” would expose any impressionable young woman, even a married one, to extreme conflicts, particularly if she came from El Barrio. If indeed Sotomayor did use cocaine in conjunction with Cabranes, that use would have been extremely high-risk behavior given her medical situation. Sotomayor continued to smoke well into adulthood despite her illness.

I don’t doubt that Sonia Sotomayor is also a highly intelligent person. But there are a lot of highly intelligent attorneys out there. Other than playing racial politics, and payback to a significant voting group, Sotomayor does not have any visible qualifications to be rewarded with appointment to the Supreme Court.

In the “Secret Life of Sonia Sotomayor, Part I,” we analyzed Sotomayor’s ambiguous social life and the serious questions raised by her peculiar martial status. Since we published Part One, the New York Times has provided additional reporting that tended to confirm our original concerns and conclusions.

Sadly, the hearings that begin in Washington today are likely to bogged down by conservative “Guerilla Theater,” seeking to pinpoint Sotomayor’s views on controversial issues. But it is Sotomayor’s psyche and her relationship with her “demented mentor” Cabranes that raise the most serious questions about her fitness to sit on the Supreme Court.

Committee Staff for the Senate Judiciary Committee should be charged with undertaking an extensive study of the relationship between Cocaine Cabranes and Sonia Sotomayor during the 1970’s and 80’s.

Ultimately, like her “mentor” Cabranes, Sonia Sotomayor is a deeply conflicted person. If she is confirmed, she is probably going to disappoint Democrats and delight Republicans. Thus, the drama over her confirmation has a hollow air to it.

Barack Obama’s first appointment to the Supreme Court will be seen in time as nothing more than a case of Supreme Court cuchifritos.

—————————–
Readers of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, say the book is still the only gold standard and practical handbook on Barack Obama’s unfitness for the presidency. Buy it.
Book orders: Amazon.com or http://OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from Amazon.com or signed copies (delayed for signing) from the publisher are available.
——————————
URGENT APPEAL: The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama raises money to oppose President Barack Obama’s radical agenda and also to support www.BoycottHawaii.com.
www.CommitteeofOneMilliontoDefeatBarackObama.com
Please give generously. Our ability to fight and defeat Barack Obama’s political agenda is directly dependent on the generosity of every American.
“The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama has no bundlers, no fat cats and no illegal contributions. Obama is opposed to almost everything America stands for,” says Executive Director Andy Martin. “But while Obama has raised a billion dollar slush fund, his opponents lack sufficient resources. Americans can either contribute now, or pay later. If we do not succeed, Obama will.”
——————————
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He is currently promoting his best-selling book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask and producing the new Internet movie “Obama: The Hawai’i years.” Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Martin comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York. He is an announced candidate for Barack Obama’s former U. S. Senate seat.

UPDATES:
www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA
www.Facebok.com/AndyMartin

His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
[NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 (cell not always on)
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
© Copyright by Andy Martin 2009.

Andy Martin asks Hawai’i Supreme Court to consider Obama “hospital” conflict

Martin cites an article from the Internet ezine www.WorldNetDaily.com that collects conflicting claims about the actual hospital where Barack Obama was born. “Where’s the truth?” asks Martin? “Does anyone in Hawai’i care about the truth? Or don’t they care that Hawai’i is increasingly looking like Obama’s own ‘gangster republic?’” WND.com has carried new concerns about media “swapping” of Obama’s birth location, see:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103465
[Best document view is usually at www.ContrarianCommentary.com]
——

ANDY MARTIN
Petitioner Pro Se

NATIONAL LITIGATION CENTER
Post Office Box 1851
New York, NY 10150-1851
Toll-free tel. (866) 70-6-2639
Toll-free fax (866) 707-2639
E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com (text only)

Additional courtesy copy requested to:

ANDY MARTIN
REGIONAL LITIGATION SUPPORT
30 E. Huron Street, Suite 4406
Chicago, IL 60611-4723

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF HAWAI’I

SUPREME COURT DOCKET NUMBER:

ANDY MARTIN,

Petitioner,

v.

HON. LINDA LINGLE, in her
official capacity as Governor;
DR. CHIYOME FUKINO, in her
official capacity as Director
of the Department of Health,
HON. BERT AYABE, in his official
capacity as Circuit Judge,

Respondents.

___________________________________

REQUEST TO TAKE JUDICIAL NOTICE IN CONNECTION WITH
APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

The question of where Barack Obama was born continues to be clouded and occluded. As the accompanying certiorari papers were being prepared, yet another article crossed Petitioner’s desk with conflicting documentation (see attached): http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103306.
Whether the article in question is accurate, vel non, is impossible to determine because the article contains conflicting claims emanating from the Obama family itself as well as other reputable sources.
Petitioner has never made any claims about Obama’s origins, because he has accepted at face value the claims of Hawai’i officials that there is an actual, original, typewritten 1961 birth certificate. He has merely sought access to an indisputably archival, historical record of the American presidency.
Where conflicts in the public records and conflicting claims exist about the highest elected official in the United States, a court should be particularly wary in covering up the original document that can answer the conflicting claims with reasonable finality.
When a court or a judicial system aids and abets in a cover-up of historical truth, ultimately the court itself will become the victim of its own machinations.
No reasonable person could claim that Hawaii’s “secrecy” statutes for birth information were intended to conceal archival, historical material about the American presidency.
This Court should take decisive action before the Court itself becomes a part of a questionable pattern of behavior concerning a document that is obviously relevant to American history.
Petitioner seeks only the facts; he is dedicated solely to the truth. Nothing more. And nothing less.
CONCLUSION
Most respectfully, Petitioner asks that this Court judicially notice the attached article, not for the truth of the contents of the attached report—since the article itself contains conflicting claims—but for the fact that the question of the Hawai’i birth certificate is taking on greater, not diminished, significance for a growing segment of the American people.
Given Hawaii’s historical commitment to open records and open history, as exemplified by the Uniform Information Procedures Act and the prior decision of this Court, the time is long past when the historical truth about the birth certificate should be revealed by ordering the release of the archived document.
No one—not a public official, not a judicial officer—should be allowed to play fast and loose with the historical truths of the American people.

DATED:
July 8, 2009

New York, NY
Respectfully submitted,

ANDY MARTIN
Petitioner Pro se

NATIONAL LITIGATION CENTER
P. O. Box 1851
New York, NY 10150-1851
Toll-free tel. (866) 706-2639
Toll-free fax (866) 707-2639
E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com (text only)

Additional courtesy copy requested to:

ANDY MARTIN

REGIONAL LITIGATION SUPPORT
30 E. Huron Street, Suite 4406
Chicago, IL 60611-4723

SERVICE OF NOTICES IS RESPECTFULLY
REQUESTED BY FAX OR E-MAIL

Additional e-mail address available upon request

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I certify I have served the Hawai’i Attorney General by fax to (808) 587-3077 and the Hon. Bert I. Ayabe by fax to (808) 539-4108 on July 8, 2009.

ANDY MARTIN

Andy Martin calls State of Hawai’i a possible “gangster republic”

Martin says the Hawai’i courts are obstructing access to historical archives concerning President Barack Obama. In a sharply worded petition to the Hawai’i Supreme Court, to be docketed July 9th, Martin recites a history of abuse, harassment and procrastination by Hawai’i judges, clerks and the state’s Attorney General. “There is no explanation for the behavior of Hawai’i officials,” Martin says, “Unless someone has something to hide.”
—–

ANDY MARTIN
Post Office Box 1851
New York, NY 10150-1851
Toll-free tel. (866) 70-6-2639
Toll-free fax (866) 707-2639
Petitioner Pro Se

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF HAWAI’I

SUPREME COURT DOCKET NUMBER:

ANDY MARTIN,
Petitioner,

v.

HON. LINDA LINGLE, in her
official capacity as Governor;
DR. CHIYOME FUKINO, in her
official capacity as Director
of the Department of Health,
HON. BERT AYABE, in his official
capacity as Circuit Judge,

Respondents.
_______________________________

APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

INTRODUCTION AND PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
The question of the authenticity and public availability of the original, typewritten 1961 birth certificate of President Barack Obama (hereinafter “Obama”) has become a source of increasing embarrassment for the Hawai’i state government and especially for the Hawai’i judicial system.
Although Obama purportedly posted a “copy” of his birth certificate on his own web site, and others claim to have posted other versions, those documents were not a copy of the original typewritten document but merely a computer-generated “certificate of live birth.” To date Obama has refused to allow public access to the official records of the State of Hawaii.
Petitioner is an author and columnist who came to Hawai’i to research Obama’s years in this state. After arriving in Honolulu, Petitioner decided he needed a copy of the original birth certificate, as well as any official files relating to the issuance of said certificate.
The Hawai’i Department of Health has repeatedly and egregiously mischaracterized the Hawai’i statute governing access to birth certificates.
Petitioner filed a lawsuit in the circuit court, where the treatment he received from the court was appallingly mean-spirited and unprofessional. Petitioner then appealed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals (“ICA”).
Waiting in ambush at every stage of the proceedings was the Hawai’i Attorney General. That office has sought to use and abuse the judicial system to delay and prevent review of the litigation involving access to Obama’s birth certificate.
It should not literally take a “supreme court case” to obtain access to an archival document of American history such as a president’s birth certificate.
After full briefing by the petitioner, the ICA dismissed the appeal on the basis that the trial court had failed to enter a final judgment. Thirty years after the U. S. Supreme Court eliminated such jurisdictional gymnastics in federal courts, the Hawai’i court system continues to use dirty tricks and unsavory procedures to delay and deny appellate review. For shame.
This petition raises the question of whether a prior decision of this Court should be brought into conformity with the federal standard, and whether the Attorney General, as a constitutional officer of this Court, should be allowed to use dirty tricks and ambush tactics to create confusion and chaos for appellate litigants and for the appellate judiciary as well.
This is the second time the underlying “birth certificate” issue has reached this Court. Hopefully, there will not be a need for a third visit.

I.
JURISDICTION
This court has jurisdiction of this Petition pursuant to HRS § 602-5 and HRAP 40.1.

II.
STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE PRESENTED
Should this Court reconsider Jenkins v. Cades Schutte, 76 Haw. 115, 869 P.2d 1334 (1994) and adopt the federal “waiver” standard created in Bankers Trust v. Mallis, 435 U.S. 381, 98 S. Ct. 1117 (1978)?

III.
PRIOR PROCEEDINGS
The Circuit Judge dismissed this lawsuit with prejudice. Petitioner then filed a timely motion for reconsideration. The judge then denied that motion and Petitioner filed a timely notice of appeal. Petitioner filed his administrative paperwork in the ICA and filed his brief on the merits with that Court.
On June 9th, the ICA dismissed the appeal on the basis of Jenkins, saying that Petitioner’s appeal was premature. Petitioner did not learn of this action until June 25th because the Clerk’s office disregarded HRAP 35 (d) and failed to fax a copy of the order to someone thousands of miles away. Therefore, Petitioner was prevented from filing a timely petition for reconsideration through no fault of his own.
On the same day that Petitioner learned of the ICA’s action (from one of his readers at ContrarianCommentary.com, not the Clerk’s office) Petitioner sent a sharply worded letter to Circuit Judge Ayabe.
In response, on June 26th Petitioner received a letter from the Attorney General dated June 26th, purporting to prepare a “final judgment.” A copy of the letter is attached hereto. On information and belief, as of this date (July 7, 2009) no judgment has yet been entered by Ayabe or the Clerk.
Petitioner is both asking the ICA to reinstate the appeal and asking this Court to grant a writ of certiorari.

IV.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
It is painfully obvious that circuit judges and clerks are not entering “judgments” in the rote or mechanical manner contemplated by this Court in Jenkins. Six months after entry of a dispositional, appealable order, no judgment exists and, presumably, no right of appeal has yet been triggered.
The proposed “judgment” prepared by the Attorney General appears to have been drafted in bad faith. The proposed judgment appears to clearly violate Rule 54 (a), which states “A judgment shall not contain a recital of pleadings…”

V.
ARGUMENT
Six months after a circuit judge entered a final, appealable order, Petitioner is being told he cannot yet appeal.
Rule 58 is being used to deny appeal, not to facilitate it.
What is strange is that Jenkins suggested “[Rule 58] was not designed as a trap…” But that is how Jenkins is being used.
In the course of litigation in Hawai’i courts, Petitioner has seen numerous instances where this Court follows federal procedure, see e.g. Harada v. Burns, 50 Haw. 528, 445 P.2d 376 (Haw. 1968), Kawamata Farms v. United, 86 Haw. 214, 948 P.2d. 1055 (1997). There are numerous similar ICA citations.
Apparently the only place where Hawai’i law departs from federal procedure is in the case of Rule 58. The Attorney General obviously uses Rule 58 as a “secret” weapon to harass opposing litigants.
The petitioner is not part of the court system. The Attorney General, circuit judge and circuit clerk are all part of the judicial machinery. Yet the Petitioner is being harassed and punished because these three officers of the court system have refused or failed to perform their duties. If this is not abuse and harassment, what is?
For over three decades federal courts have found no problem with Mallis. Jenkins, on the other hand, has proven a failure, when the judge, the clerk and the AG all fail to comply with Rule 58, and the AG and ICA then pop up, jack-in—the-box style, and demand that the petitioner start all over again. Can this nonsense really be in the interests of justice? Does this harassment and abuse of litigants really enhance the prestige of the Hawai’i courts? The answer is apodictic.
Through no fault of his own, Petitioner is being told he is subjected to endless delays in appealing because judicial officers and quasi-judicial officers are refusing and failing to perform their assigned and proper functions. The Civil Rules appear to contemplate that the Clerk enter a judgment, not a party.
Trial court procedure appears to reflect that the prevailing party prepare the order. Yet the AG, which prepared every prior order, suspiciously failed to prepare a judgment, subsequently using the “lack of a judgment” as a potential ambush and trap in the ICA. This is disgraceful behavior by a constitutional officer of the court. As the U. S. Supreme Court said long ago said regarding the Attorney General of the United States, “The [Hawai'i Attorney General] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty…he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.” Berger v. U.S., 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S. Ct. 629 (1935). See also State v. Maluia, 107 Haw. 20, 108 P.3rd 974, 982-983 (Haw. 2005)(Acoba, J, concurring); State v. Wong, 97 Haw. 512, 40 P.3rd 914, 929-930 (Haw. 2002).
Rather than being the “servant of the law” contemplated in Berger, the Attorney General has acted as an unscrupulous adversary who sought to use and abuse the judicial system to delay a meritorious appeal.
The record below reflects that Petitioner has treated the circuit judge with the utmost respect. That respect and professional courtesy has not been reciprocated. Now the AG has proposed a “judgment” that looks suspiciously prolix.

CONCLUSION
Is Hawai’i part of the United States? Or is it some gangster republic that manifests contempt for the United States of America? This Court should not have to become embroiled, over and over again, in supervising the release of a simple and obviously archival document of American history.
It is axiomatic that the birth certificate of an American president is a historic document that should be on display in the state archives, not the subject of guttersnipe litigation tactics by the Hawai’i Attorney General.
Unless someone has something to hide.

CONCLUSION
Most respectfully, but with a growing sense of exasperation and frustration, this Court is asked to (i) reconsider Jenkins and adopt the Mallis rule allowing a waiver of Rule 58, to avoid future legerdemain of the type documented in this record, and (ii) either assume jurisdiction of this appeal or direct the ICA to expeditiously hear Petitioner’s arguments.

DATED:
July 8 2009
New York, NY

Respectfully submitted,

ANDY MARTIN

NATIONAL LITIGATION CENTER
P. O. Box 1851
New York, NY 10150-1851
Toll-free tel. (866) 706-2639
Toll-free fax (866) 707-2639
E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com (text only)

Additional courtesy copy requested to:

ANDY MARTIN
REGIONAL LITIGATION SUPPORT
30 E. Huron Street, Suite 4406
Chicago, IL 60611-4723

SERVICE OF NOTICES IS RESPECTFULLY
REQUESTED BY FAX OR E-MAIL

Additional e-mail address available
upon request

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I certify I have served the Hawai’i Attorney General by fax to (808) 587-3077 and the Hon. Bert I. Ayabe by fax to (808) 539-4108 on July 8, 2009.

ANDY MARTIN

Andy Martin on the Sarah Palin brouhaha

Martin says John McCain defeated himself in 2008. Sarah Palin was not and is not to blame for McCain’s incompetence as a presidential candidate.

ContrarianCommentary.com
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

John McCain lost the presidential campaign, not Sarah Palin

Memo to John McCain’s anonymous backstabbers: man up

(NEW YORK)(July 8, 2009) One of the last stories in my book, “Obama: The Man Behind the Mask,” is a riff on my contact with the Obama and McCain campaigns over a fax number (see pp. 412-413). Obama’s people promptly gave me a fax contact. McCain’s munchkins were incompetent to manage a fax number. They refused to give one out. That was not a good omen.

Some time in June, 2008 I came to the conclusion that the only way McCain could win was to pick a woman as vice president. It was the natural decision. At the time, Sarah Palin was not on my list. I thought he would go with someone more experienced in national politics. He didn’t. He made a bold choice, and that brave decision succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. But he failed to follow-up and follow-through.

Sarah Palin jump-started and energized more than the Republican “base.” She got the electorate to pay attention to a fumbling elderly man who had up to then run a mediocre campaign.

At this point, I stop. Perhaps I am not the right one to be defending Sarah Palin in the wake of her resignation as governor. I am not a particular fan of hers. But perhaps I am a proper person to come to her defense exactly because I am not a wild Palin enthusiast.

Let me blunt: recent Republican efforts to demonize Sarah Palin and to ascribe blame to her for the loss of the McCain-Palin ticket are grossly untrue and unfair.

John McCain lost the presidential election, not Sarah Palin. She did everything that could have been expected of her, and more. He was a worthless candidate, the worst in recent memory.

It is time for McCain to “man up” and tell people he lost the election, not Palin. Using his unhappy campaign workers to stab Palin in the back is wrong.

Yes, Palin was not an expert in national and international affairs. But if McCain was thinking of picking her, why didn’t he send a coach up there to Alaska to brief her? Yes, her interviews with national media were weak. But why wasn’t she properly briefed by “her staff?”

The senator who created a campaign that couldn’t manage a fax machine (its in my book, yea) became the senator that couldn’t really campaign at all. And yet up until the middle of September, McCain was neck and neck with Obama, thanks to the “Palin effect.”

Then the senator threw his big hissy fit, suspended his campaign and suggested he would not debate because he had to go to Washington to save the world. Wrong move. He cratered. Obama handled his reaction beautifully. He allowed McCain to self-destruct.

The media themselves documented that there were serious questions about Obama’s background and qualifications. I ended up being lashed on Page One by the New York Times as a way of deflecting national concern over Obama’s opaque family history. McCain was oblivious. He never raised doubts, even slightly, about Obama’s qualifications. The doubts were there; McCain ignored them. Some candidate. He forfeited the election.

McCain demonstrated the competence and subtlety of block of wood, and he deservedly lost. Obama may not have been the better man, but he was indisputably the better candidate. I voted for McCain because I knew what an Obama administration would mean. But it us hard not it look back and realize that John McCain handled the presidency to Barack Obama on a silver platter.

McCain was incapable of assembling a competent campaign staff, although he had two bites of the apple (we often forget his humiliating 2007 campaign collapse, after McCain wasted tens of millions of dollars).

Now in 2009 McCain’s losers want to blame Palin. No thank you. I place the blame where the blame is due. If McCain had run a minimally competent campaign for the presidency, and prepared for each step of the process in a minimally coherent fashion, he would be sitting in the White House today. He had six months to pick a vice presidential candidate. Any problems with Palin were McCain’s, not Palin’s.

Back to Sarah.

I unhesitatingly believe that despite her missteps, Palin was a net plus to the campaign.

But her performance since November, 2008 raises troubling questions. And, yes, whatever her future plans, resigning office in the middle of a term is not a good strategy. Unless.

Unless Palin is negotiating a national media gig, say a TV program, and wants to be free to move her personal life to a national platform without the baggage of managing the state of Alaska. If that turns out to be the case (and no one knows as of today) her premature resignation will be long forgotten by 2010 or 2012.

The claim that Palin resigned because she was subjected to frivolous ethics complaints is insulting to the intelligence. By definition, if a claim is baseless or unsubstantiated, defeating such a complaint should not cost “thousands of dollars” as one conservative publication has suggested. I don’t for a minute believe such tommyrot.

If Palin has an as-of-yet-undisclosed plan, or is negotiating a deal for a national TV platform, her resignation makes sense. If she had asked me for advice, however, I would have suggested she make the transition from public official to commentator or
entertainer at the same time, without triggering all of the suspicion and paranoia that filled the 4th of July weekend.

People usually announce decisions on a holiday weekend when they have something to hide (that tactic is a favorite Obama maneuver). By acting as she did when she did, Palin left the impression she had something to hide.

Finally, Palin should have learned one thing from John McCain. The public can accept the occasional lapse or quirky behavior from a national politician. We’re all human, and we all make mistakes. But an approach to media and communication that constantly involves herky-jerky behavior will grow old quickly. Whatever her ultimate goal, Palin handled the 4th of July weekend poorly.

Nevertheless, the effort to blame Palin for McCain’s loss is unmanly. McCain should publicly apologize to Palin for the abusive behavior of McCain’s anonymous backstabbers. McCain’s incompetence as a candidate was there for everyone to see. It was so obvious, so early that his deficient campaign management was included in my book, published in July, 2008, and should have come as no surprise to anyone. If anything, McCain’s campaign jokers misused and abused Palin, not vice versa.

I don’t agree with Sarah Palin on many issues, but I wish her the best as she goes forward. As for McCain, his incompetence stuck us with Barack Obama and Obama’s left-wing posse in control of our nation.

What do you say to McCain? Maybe that John McCain is the one who owes us a continuing apology, not Sarah Palin.

—————————–
Readers of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, say the book is still the only gold standard and practical handbook on Barack Obama’s unfitness for the presidency. Buy it.
Book orders: Amazon.com or http://OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from Amazon.com or signed copies (delayed for signing) from the publisher are available.
——————————
URGENT APPEAL: The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama raises money to oppose President Barack Obama’s radical agenda and also to support www.BoycottHawaii.com.
www.CommitteeofOneMilliontoDefeatBarackObama.com
Please give generously. Our ability to fight and defeat Barack Obama’s political agenda is directly dependent on the generosity of every American.
“The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama has no bundlers, no fat cats and no illegal contributions. Obama is opposed to almost everything America stands for,” says Executive Director Andy Martin. “But while Obama has raised a billion dollar slush fund, his opponents lack sufficient resources. Americans can either contribute now, or pay later. If we do not succeed, Obama will.”
———————————–
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He is currently promoting his best-selling book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask and producing the new Internet movie “Obama: The Hawai’i years.” Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Martin comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York. He is an announced candidate for Barack Obama’s former U. S. Senate seat.

UPDATES: www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA
www.facebook.com/AndyMartin

His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
[NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 (cell not always on)
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
© Copyright by Andy Martin 2009.

Barack Obama’s birth certificate “industry”

When Internet Powerhouse Andy Martin wrote his first column on Barack Obama’s family history and birth certificate, Andy had no idea he was creating an “industry” that would pursue Obama’s records to the ends of the earth. Although Obama’s mouthpiece Robert Gibbs says the BC has been released (Gibbs lies) and Fox News’ Shepard Smith has insulted people who question Obama’s missing records, Andy’s Army continues to battle Obama & Company to find the facts and tell the truth about Obama’s hidden “roots.”

Internet Powerhouse Andy Martin on the firestorm he created about Barack Obama’s bogus “birth certificate”

ContrarianCommentary.com
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

“What hath Andy wrought?”

Obama continues his obsessive self-destruction by playing endless games over his original, typewritten 1961 birth certificate

When Andy Martin “outed” Barack Obama’s family history in 2004, and raised questions about Obama’s birth certificate in 2007, he had no idea he was creating the “birther” industry

(NEW YORK)(June 24, 2009) Today brought me another basketful of e-mails about Barack Obama and his mysterious birth certificate.

Colonel Robert Pappas is badgering Hawai’i Governor Linda Lingle about Obama’s missing document. (I was doing that a year ago.) Attorney Orly Taitz is asking a federal court enter a default judgment against Obama for failing to produce vital records including his birth certificate. Been there, done that.

Shepard Smith of Fox News is being criticized for seeking to “cover-up” the birth certificate controversy. (He’s guilty as charged.) For insulting some of Fox News’ loyal viewers Shep ended up with coverage in the New York Times. How could ya, Shep? And, oh, welcome to the “club.”

Obama’s own White House opened a public access site, and was swamped with birth certificate arguments.

On and on it goes.

When I first started exposing Barack Obama in 2004, and later wrote about his missing birth certificate in 2007, I had no idea I was creating an industrial-strength controversy that would linger long after January, 2009.

And I had no idea who my partner-in-crime would be: Barack Obama. Instead of being open and honest, and coming clean, Obama’s refusal to open his files has spawned a cottage industry of suspicion and even paranoia.

As for myself, I have not profited from this explosion of entrepreneurial activity concerning his birth records. We do receive contributions to cover the costs of our operations (see below), nothing more. But others have made small fortunes collecting donations from angry partisans who are convinced Obama was born in Kenya, or elsewhere.

Why has Obama refused to “lock down” the controversy?

Because he suffers from a deep character flaw, and receives intense, almost sadistic, delight seeing people distressed by confusion about his personal identity. He suffers from the same affliction: who am I? Obama morphed from a confused young man into president of the United States. But the doubts still gnaw at him.

I had no idea Obama would use his attack dogs to smear me on national television (Fox News), or use his lapdogs at the New York Times to publish lies about me (I sued them; case pending).

Some of the mainstream media may not be impressed by my efforts, but Barack Obama & Co. have always taken me very seriously. As well they should have. My work and the birth certificate and religion questions I raised ultimately cost Obama millions of votes. That’s how we earned the title “Internet Powerhouse.”

In October, 2008 I went to Hawaii to do research on Obama’s family history. I was the first investigative analyst to arrive there. Where were all the others?

After arriving, I came to the revelation (?) that the only place to file a lawsuit over Obama’s missing birth records was Hawai’i. That’s where the original paperwork was located. I filed. That night nearly 100,000 persons viewed one of my web sites. Not bad for a day’s work.

My pending Hawai’i lawsuit elicits several comments every day. What is the status? What is happening? When will it be heard?

Uniformly I advise people that the judicial process is slow, and just as slow in Hawai’i as anywhere else.

My case is currently pending in the Hawai’i Intermediate Court of Appeals. (You can check their online docket, Martin v. Lingle.)

In April, 2009, we hosted a conference on the missing birth and college records (see video below). The questions and doubts keep growing.

Obama’s birth certificate mystery has become a modern day version of Charles Dickens’ Jarndyce v. Jarndyce:

Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.

What will tomorrow’s e-mail hold? Maybe Barack Obama will give up the chase and release his birth certificate. He should. He is the biggest casualty of his own shenanigans. He undermines his own legitimacy and clouds his own future as president.

But until Obama releases his records I will be on the job, and on the case, seeking access to basic historical records that Hawai’i officials and Barack Obama refuse to produce. For shame.

I just wish I knew why Obama is inflicting this punishment on himself. I do not bear him any ill will. I just wish he would, in Keith Olbermann’s locker-room lingo, “man up” and release his birth certificate and college records as well. Millions, probably tens of millions of Americans, would feel better about Barack Obama if he acted openly and honestly. To date, he hasn’t. In due course he will pay the price.

You can learn more at www.BoycottHawaii.com. My appellate brief is posted on my blogs (see below).

If you wish to financially support our research and litigation you are invited to do so (see below, www.CommitteeofOneMillion… and www.BoycottHawaii.com).

P.S. At the end of all this, I am not even remotely a “birther.” I am a doubter.

I honestly believe Obama was born in Hawai’i. And although I don’t have a DNA test, yet, all my research leads me to believe Barack Obama is actually the biological son of Frank Marshall Davis. A new Barack Obama mystery waiting to be born.

Watch for our “Obama; The Hawai’i years,” currently in production but delayed by lack of funding. A blockbuster movie coming with new information about Obama’s forbearers in the Aloha State. Who knows? Maybe we will be creating a new and improved Obama birth-and-family-inquiry industry.

Who is that masked man? Barack Obama. The Man Behind The Mask.

Video archive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEygm9cmvck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZwON6dKHks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKSq2oJ0W1c&feature=related
[click on Part Two]

—————————–
Readers of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, say the book is still the only gold standard and practical handbook on Barack Obama’s unfitness for the presidency. Buy it.
Book orders: Amazon.com or http://OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from Amazon.com or signed copies (delayed for signing) from the publisher are available.
——————————
URGENT APPEAL: The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama raises money to oppose President Barack Obama’s radical agenda and also to support www.BoycottHawaii.com.
www.CommitteeofOneMilliontoDefeatBarackObama.com
Please give generously. Our ability to fight and defeat Barack Obama’s political agenda is directly dependent on the generosity of every American.
“The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama has no bundlers, no fat cats and no illegal contributions. Obama is opposed to almost everything America stands for,” says Executive Director Andy Martin. “But while Obama has raised a billion dollar slush fund, his opponents lack sufficient resources. Americans can either contribute now, or pay later. If we do not succeed, Obama will.”
———————————–
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He is currently promoting his best-selling book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask and producing the new Internet movie “Obama: The Hawai’i years.” Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Martin comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York. He is an announced candidate for Barack Obama’s former U. S. Senate seat.

UPDATES: www.Twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA
www.Facebook.com/AndyMartin

His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
[NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 (cell not always on)
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
© Copyright by Andy Martin 2009.

Andy Martin on the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan and the civil war in Iran.

Martin says the “Mafia Mullahs” and their “Basij” are an embarrassment to Islam

ContrarianCommentary.com
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Iran

Andy Martin on the death of Neda Agha-Soltan and the continuing conflict in Iran

Martin says the “Mafia Mullahs” are an embarrassment to Islam

“The doctrine of unintended consequences” has finally caught up with the Mullahs.

Memo to John McCain: shut up

(PALM BEACH)(June 23, 2009) Of course I have watched the video of the young woman Neda Agha-Soltan assassinated by Iranian gangsters acting at the behest of the “Islamic Republic.” Truly, the bullet that killed Neda was the shot heard round the world.

Obviously, the Iranian government has lost control of its own storm troopers.

As I always remind my readers, I do not view events in Iran from an unemotional perspective. I lived through firefights and killings in Iran. Although my events took place three decades ago, the current violence has brought them to the forefront of my consciousness.

And although I am a critic of the Iranian government, I view the Iranian people with great affection. My exposure to Shi’a Islam is also quite unique for an American: few have traveled as I have to the four holiest cities of the Shi’ite religion: Qum and Meshad in Iran, and Najaf and Karbala in Iraq. (You can see a picture of me in front of the mosque in Karbala at www.FirstRespondersonline.us.)

And so as I try to sort through the violence of the past few days, and the flatulent rhetoric of Senator John McCain and his senatorial publicity addicts, my emotions are intertwined with my memory.

All Abrahamic religions celebrate their martyrs. In my own Christian religion, the early theologian Tertullian wrote that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

I would not be surprised to find Ms. Soltan’s blood become the seed of a second Iranian revolution.

Shi’a Islam is particularly focused on martyrdom. Being in Qum during Muharram, I observed the faithful beating themselves with chains as a symbol of remembrance for the martyred Imam Ali.

Can one person’s brief life and brutal death make a difference? One person who is now described as having been “nonpolitical?”

Indeed she can.

First, a word about a double standard. Our eyes do not deceive us. If the martyr has been a man, particularly a man with a scruffy beard, his death might not become the icon of a new revolution. But Ms. Soltan was strikingly beautiful. Yes, there is a double standard. Indeed, others were slaughtered last weekend. Only one image will be fixed in time forever: Neda. The camera loves beautiful images.

The cowardly sniper who fired into a crowd may have killed an innocent bystander. But he also created an image that will endure in Iranian culture and history. The “doctrine of unintended consequences” finally caught up with the mullahs. After slaughtering tens of thousands of their own people during the past three decades, a single life snuffed out has become the martyr that will demolish their demonic “republic.” Allah Akbar.

The fate of the “Islamic Republic” is sealed. The religious junta is doomed.

It is impossible to predict whether the regime will fall sooner, or later. Truly that is in God’s hands. But the mullahs will be swept off the face of Iranian government and returned to their proper place of worship because of a single shot heard round the world: the bullet that killed Neda Soltan.

The theocratic experiment has not only failed, the experiment has embarrassingly failed. The “Mafia Mullahs” have disgraced Islam. Murdering peaceful demonstrators, or innocent bystanders in the case of Neda Soltan, is a disgrace to any religion. Creating “Basij” storm trooper cells that prey on their own people is disgraceful. Is this the “supreme leader’s” interpretation of Islam? His revelation from God? For shame.

In Tehran, I used to chuckle at the envelopes we still used at the Intercontinental Hotel, celebrating the “Pahlavi Dynasty.” The Pahlavis lasted fifty years; the mullahs only thirty (even if they hang on a little longer). Only Ozymandias could appreciate these characters.

The Pahlavis fell because they would not kill their own people; the mullahs will fall because they are willing to kill their own people. Sadly, the Iranian people have been victimized through both Islamic and secular dictatorships.

This week I called the conflict in Iran a civil war. Will anyone deny that fact?

Tonight Neda lies in a cold grave.

And somewhere in the Ayatollahs’ arsenals, among the boxes of bullets and racks of rifles, some sane man must be asking himself: “Was this God’s retribution? We killed an innocent woman. Blood is on our hands. We have sealed our fate.”

Ins’allah.

————
Some quick thoughts. I voted for Senator John McCain for president. But he should really give his media addiction a rest. His ideas on how to deal with Iran are seductively enticing. Emotionally, I agree with him. Yes, we should be on “the right side of history,” the latest catch-phrase of cable TV bobblehead conservatives. But McCain is wrong to state that what worked against the Soviet empire in the 1980’s is the only template that respects “history.” Sometimes, common sense tells us to keep our mouths shut; not because we don’t sympathize with the efforts of a proud nation to shuck off the slime of a vile dictatorship, but rather because we are powerless to influence the outcome and could negatively impact the result by intemperate blather. With all due respect, Senator McCain, please shut up. Sometimes knowing when to hold your tongue places you on the right side of history. Your need to give your insatiable appetite for TV a rest, and actually read some history.

—————————–
Readers of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, say the book is still the only gold standard and practical handbook on Barack Obama’s unfitness for the presidency. Buy it.
Book orders: Amazon.com or http://OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from Amazon.com or signed copies (delayed for signing) from the publisher are available.
——————————
URGENT APPEAL: The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama raises money to oppose President Barack Obama’s radical agenda and also to support www.BoycottHawaii.com.
www.CommitteeofOneMilliontoDefeatBarackObama.com
Please give generously. Our ability to fight and defeat Barack Obama’s political agenda is directly dependent on the generosity of every American.
“The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama has no bundlers, no fat cats and no illegal contributions. Obama is opposed to almost everything America stands for,” says Executive Director Andy Martin. “But while Obama has raised a billion dollar slush fund, his opponents lack sufficient resources. Americans can either contribute now, or pay later. If we do not succeed, Obama will.”
———————————–
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He is currently promoting his best-selling book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask and producing the new Internet movie “Obama: The Hawai’i years.” Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Martin comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of experience. He has over forty years of experience in Asia and the Middle East, and is regarded overseas as America’s most respected independent foreign policy, military and intelligence analyst. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York. He is an announced candidate for Barack Obama’s former U. S. Senate seat.

UPDATES: www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA
www.facebook.com/AndyMartin

His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
[NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 (cell not always on)
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
© Copyright by Andy Martin 2009.

Civil War in Iran

Foreign policy expert Andy Martin says the conflict in Iran has become a civil war. Barack Obama is essentially powerless to act or react.

Andy Martin on the evolving civil war in Iran

ContrarianCommentary.com
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Iran

Andy Martin breaches a taboo by becoming the first analyst to call the conflict in Iran a “civil war”`

America’s most experienced independent foreign policy and intelligence analyst predicts the destabilization of the entire region

Martin says President Obama is helpless to act.

(PALM BEACH)(June 21, 2009) As I wrote on June 15th, the most terrifying night of my life was spent in the middle of a riot in Iran thirty years ago. The images of what was a living bedlam are still vivid in my memory. I jumped into a crowd of people who were preparing to attack an opposition strongpoint and rescued a woman who was probably doomed. There were crowds of opposing Iranians fighting each other, tracer rounds flying everywhere, machine guns in the distance, people rushing to the “front.” The night culminated in my arrest as an alleged spy. I have never had another night like that, neither before nor after.

Even after leaving Iran, I went back. Watching the constant images of the violence in Tehran today reminds me of my earlier experiences. You can almost feel the tension and terror of a taunt crowd, just before it explodes. A civil war has begun.

I am experiencing the emerging Iranian civil war in a multitude of ways.

So what do my feelings tell me?

First, Joe Biden was ridiculed during the campaign for predicting that Barack Obama would be “tested” in the first six months of his administration. Iran is that challenge.

What Biden did not understand was that the “challenge” he anticipated would not come from a direct threat to the United States but rather from the need to navigate policy in the unknown byways of what is becoming the Iranian civil war. (Yes, I am the first analyst to use the term “civil war.”)

Because of my reputation as a critic of Barack Obama (and that is a correct characterization of my views) I am usually criticized by Obama’s opponents when I apply impartial analysis to BHO’s actions or don’t reflexively attack his every action. But my sense of personal integrity and independence compel me to write what I believe, not what some people want to hear.

I have two completely contradictory views on what is unfolding in Iran.

First, within the United States, Republicans are winning the Iranian presidential election. They are demanding tough words and concrete actions. Politicians will always play to their “base,” and the Republican base feels frustrated and helpless watching events in Iran. There is a tremendous temptation to “do something.” Something. Yet nothing could be more detrimental to the foreign policy interests of the United States.

Second, despite criticism of Obama’s restrained approach, and perhaps despite Obama’s own misguided beliefs behind his limited actions, his policy in Iran is the correct one.

Obama is caught in a situation where he will almost certainly lose politically, but where has to run the risk of loss in order to maintain the strategic stability of his foreign policy.

Published reports Saturday night indicated that presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi has stated he is ready for “martyrdom.” If this statement is true, then the challenge facing Obama has just metastasized far beyond his control.

No revolution can survive without a martyr; indeed, every revolution often begins with an act of self-denial and martyrdom. “Martyr” comes from the Greek word for “witness” and can invoke both observation and testimony or disclosure.

The long night I endured thirty years when I risked my life and was arrested, occurred in Moussavi’s home town of Tabriz, located in the Azerbaijan region of Iran. Moussavi’s “roots” become critical to comprehending what he has now done and to explaining where the Iranian civil war is headed. Azerbaijan is a very different part of Iran. Although Moussavi’s strongest support comes from the great urban areas, including Tabriz, Azerbaijani Moussavi’s independent streak is driving his willingness to suffer the consequences of risking his life.

The leading opposition ayatollah to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was an Azerbaijani. No doubt that rebel religious leader (who favored a form of government nearer to separation of church and state) was close to Moussavi. No one has previously made this connection; but now it is out in the open. The Azerbaijani angle will prove crucial in the days ahead.

What transpires inside a human being when they literally move beyond their own bodies to become a sacrificial vessel for rebellion or revolution? No one really knows. If Moussavi has indeed passed into that zone, where he has abandoned and renounced his own personal needs, he has become the missile that will hit the ruling junta in Tehran with lethal impact.

The Russian Revolution managed to hang on for seventy years. That was in an age when communications were nonexistent to primitive. Today communications are instantaneous.

The thirty-year-old “Islamic” revolution appears to have reached its end on a truncated timetable.

Abraham Lincoln was not elected to wage a civil war; he sought to save the union. He ended up fighting a war in order to succeed. Gorbachev and Yeltsin did not believe their demands for reform would bring down the Soviet empire; on the contrary their goal was to preserve and liberalize the existing system. But they demolished a government that was already dead.

Likewise, Moussavi did not become a presidential candidate to eradicate the Islamic revolution. But he too has fallen into the unplumbed and uncontrollable clutches of history. He has become a martyr to, of all things, open and honest elections, freedom of speech and respect for the human rights of every individual.

Republicans and conservatives, of course, are demanding stirring rhetoric strong action from Obama. But this is one time when Obama must stand virtually mute. Yes, he has proclaimed support for universal rights of peaceful assembly and free speech. And yes, as bloodshed escalates his remarks can also increase in intensity. But no, the Republicans are wrong.

It is precisely by being a bystander that America will exercise its greatest influence over events. The very essence of a civil war is that the conflict is between two competing domestic narratives. When the conflict is between slavery and freedom, there is very little outsiders can add. When the test concerns communism versus free markets, likewise bystanders are helpless. When the question is whether there will be separation of mullah and state, no one can insert themselves into this most personal of conflicts.

Ironically, Obama faces a multiplied and magnified threat of the same dimension I faced thirty years ago. If I had fought back, or raised my voice, I was a dead man (a rifle was pointed at me). I had to stay quiet. It was wrenching. A friend who came to my aid and raised his voice was threatened with getting both of us shot. I said “thanks,” and asked him to go away. I had no idea what I faced, but I knew I had to stay calm and stand still. And alone.

In a global sense, Obama faces the identical crossroads. He sees the Republicans nipping at his heels, and he probably wants to offer more vigorous encouragement to the demonstrators. He certainly sees that his carefully calibrated approach to Iran, seeking a deal with the existing regime, is disintegrating.

Because U. S. understanding of Iran is notoriously deficient, Obama has been given no clear conception of what could unfold (he better be reading this column). So he is antsy. And so is his staff. Who expected the “great challenge” to come from a civil war in Iran? Who?

How do you respond to a civil war? How do you react when people of a nation are killing each other, when neighbor is bludgeoning neighbor, when literally “all hell breaks lose?”

Throughout the Cold War American leaders repeatedly faced similar challenges.

President Eisenhower was urged to “bomb Hanoi.” In 1954. He resisted the temptation. Two years later, the Hungarian revolution created calls for direct U. S. action. Ike again resisted calls for intervention.

In 1968, I sat on the Danang River in Vietnam and watched from the sidelines as a revolution unfolded in Czechoslovakia. Then came the Russian invasion. Alexander Dubcek was the martyr in that conflict.

During the Islamic revolution in 1979, President Carter was castigated for failing to attack to free the U. S. Embassy hostages. In all of the foregoing instances, “conservatives” called for robust action, and action was exactly the wrong approach.

Ronald Reagan finally won the Cold War without ever dropping a bomb or launching an invasion in Europe. The Soviet Union imploded without any U. S. action. Reagan made the hostages “too hot to handle” and the ayatollahs relented.

The “Islamic Revolution” is now doomed. But whether it falls in five hours or five days or five months or five years, America is helpless to determine. Much as we like to think we can influence, and even control, events we are helpless observers as the civil war in Iran expands.

No, Islam is not going to disappear as a force in Iran. But Islam as a controlling set of principles to organize a complex modern society has failed.

The inevitable “liberalization” which we are likely to see in the months and years ahead will not be because American military power was projected anywhere, but simply as an unanticipated dividend of the implosion of the Iranian theocracy.

The sixty years of the Soviet empire are likely to be compressed as a result of modern communications into the thirty years of the doomed Islamic experiment.

No one, not even the anointed one some people have been waiting for, Obama himself, can control the pace of the Iranian civil war. No one.

Politically, Obama has been thrust into the same situation as Jimmy Carter. He appears weak because he can’t project strength. If he attempts to act strong, he will be immeasurably weakened.

So what does all of this mean politically?

First, Obama is not acting because he is powerless to act. There is no time at which a foreign military power is as helpless as when another nation is undergoing the catharsis of a civil war.

Second, Obama will pay a price domestically for exercising restraint internationally. He is powerless to do otherwise.

Third, ultimately the 2010 election is not going to turn on what happens in Iran. Iran was a problem, and Iran will continue to be problem. Obama’s star will rise or fall not based on what happens in and what comes of the Iranian civil war. Obama’s political prospects are controlled by the American economy and nothing else.

In closing, I am reminded once again of the great legacy we received from the founding generation of Americans: separation of church and state.

America has no “established” church and yet we are the most religions of nations. Mullahs have tried to impose Islam on a great nation. The people of Iran are in rebellion. All they are asking for is the freedom to choose. To choose when and when not to pray; how and how not to dress; when and when not to think as they wish.

But whether a dictatorship is run by religious extremists in Iran, or political extremists in the former Soviet empire, or by a local madman as in Venezuela, these regimes inevitably collapse.

This I know: On Monday, June 22nd the United States of America will open for business. Some of us love Barack Obama (I am not among that deluded minority) and some of us reject Obama (yes, that’s me) and some of us are disillusioned with Obama (a growing group). We will have our say, and we will vote in adequate but not perfect elections in 2010.

We have room for Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on one side and Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly on the other, and everyone in between and even outside those four corners (I’m in there somewhere). And out of this great gumbo every day there comes a national commitment to peaceful debate and decision.

So, God bless America. And please ask him to keep his mitts off our government. Right now he has his hands full in Iran.

I wish the wonderful people of Iran peace and freedom. It is your battle to win or lose. Today, tomorrow, whenever. Your “religious republic” is dead. What will follow in its place, and when, is unknown. As for Mr. Moussavi, “welcome to the club.” History called. You answered. Now what?

—————————–
Readers of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, say the book is still the only gold standard and practical handbook on Barack Obama’s unfitness for the presidency. Buy it.
Book orders: Amazon.com or http://OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from Amazon.com or signed copies (delayed for signing) from the publisher are available.
——————————
URGENT APPEAL: The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama raises money to oppose President Barack Obama’s radical agenda and also to support www.BoycottHawaii.com.
www.CommitteeofOneMilliontoDefeatBarackObama.com
Please give generously. Our ability to fight and defeat Barack Obama’s political agenda is directly dependent on the generosity of every American.
“The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama has no bundlers, no fat cats and no illegal contributions. Obama is opposed to almost everything America stands for,” says Executive Director Andy Martin. “But while Obama has raised a billion dollar slush fund, his opponents lack sufficient resources. Americans can either contribute now, or pay later. If we do not succeed, Obama will.”
———————————–
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He is currently promoting his best-selling book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask and producing the new Internet movie “Obama: The Hawai’i years.” Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Martin comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of experience. He has over forty years of experience in Asia and the Middle East, and is regarded overseas as America’s most respected independent foreign policy, military and intelligence analyst. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York. He is an announced candidate for Barack Obama’s former U. S. Senate seat.

UPDATES: www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA

His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
[NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 (cell not always on)
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
© Copyright by Andy Martin 2009.

Andy Martin on Iran

Martin says the best Persian policy is no policy at all. Once again, America’s uniquely qualified and experienced Middle East expert comes up with a contrarian point of view. “Masterly inactivity” is his his proposal for topping the Ahmadinejad regime.

Andy Martin on why no policy is the best policy on Iran

ContrarianCommentary.com
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

IRAN

BARACK OBAMA’S “POLICY” ON IRAN IS DESTINED FOR THE SCRAP HEAP, ALONG WITH EVERY PRIOR U. S. POLICY OF THE PAST SEVERAL DECADES

ANDY MARTIN ON EVENTS IN IRAN, AND THE FUTURE

OBAMA HAS INHERITED AND ADOPTED GEORGE BUSH’S FLAWED APPROACH TO IRAN, AND HE WILL FAIL JUST AS BUSH DID

(NEW YORK)(June 15, 2009) For an expert on Iran, I have an unusual background. I spent the longest night of my life—a lifetime really—under arrest as a spy in an Iranian town few have ever heard of. In 1979. One false move and the end would have been the end. I made it out. And went back again. But that night is still very vivid in my mind.

My policy recommendations were ignored in 1980, and they will no doubt be ignored thirty years later. I was right then, and I am right now: the best “policy” on Iran is no policy at all.

Allow me to explain.

Politicians gain public office and power by creating promises about “policies.” Obama’s “policies” include promises concerning the triad of “energy, health and the economy,” as well as “negotiation” abroad. But these “policies” are complete nonsense. They assume that the world reacts to our commandments, and they assume that someone, maybe even the president of the United States, can control the world.

“Policy” rarely makes it into the real world and when “policy becomes reality” the result is often disaster. In 1999 Governor George Bush and his brother Jeb unleashed a torrent of abuse on me after I aired a commercial stating GWB wanted to “bomb Iraq.” I understood what no one else in the media did: George Bush was obsessed, yes obsessed, with Iraq.

Bush’s Iraq obsession destroyed his family’s legacy, destroyed his own administration and very nearly destroyed the United States. Our “victory” in Iraq is truly a Pyrric one. Our armed forces “won” a conflict that made the world more dangerous, more unstable and more unmanageable for America.

In 2003 I predicted that Israel would be the big loser in “George Bush’s war,” and received more abuse for that view. I have been proven correct. Few would deny that Israel is more endangered today than it was in 2003. For my perspicacious analyses I was called an “anti-Semite.” Thanks but no thanks.

Politicians, especially successful ones at the pinnacle of power in Washington, in the White House and Congress, are almost psychologically unable to admit that their “policies” are usually just political nonsense, and often self-defeating nonsense, intended merely for campaign donor consumption.

What about Iran? How about a thumbnail history? Our policy before 1979 was to support the Shah. The Shah’s regime unleashed obscene excesses, all of which created a populist backlash. The Shah also tortured Iranians. The Israeli Mossad played a large role in training the Shah’s Savak how to abuse Iranians. Because of the U.S.’s close relationship with Israel, we got the “credit” for Israel’s torture teaching in Iran. Again, thanks but no thanks.

After the fall of the Shah, we entered into a cold war with Iran. It was then that I pitched up in Iran and was arrested in 1979, released, and went back again in 1980.

When I later developed a plan to secure the release of the U. S. embassy hostages, President Jimmy Carter was not interested. He was “using” the hostage situation to conduct a “Rose Garden” strategy for reelection. The “crisis” furnished a basis for Carter to avoid going on the hustings to debate Senator Ted Kennedy. Carter, of course, was deeply unpopular. Carter did win renomination, but the rest is history. Ronald Reagan became president and Carter’s years in office were completely discredited. The Rose Garden strategy had succeeded in the short run only to backfire in the long run.

So I go back along way with Iran and the Middle East. People don’t always want to hear what I have to say (these views will no doubt prompt more attacks) but I have been more right than wrong over the past forty years.

This column and the insights I offer have been in the writing for many months, maybe years. Writing has been pushed aside by other breaking news. Now Iran is the breaking news.

Some time ago, probably a year or two ago, the Washington Post Travel section had an article on visiting Iran:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2006/09/01/AR2006090100511.html

The Post travel story on Tehran fit perfectly into my column-in-the-writing because the innocuous report documented a warm welcome for Americans. The travel section showed how absurd our foreign policy had become. We received more accurate “foreign policy” information from the travel pages than we did from the editorial or news sections.

The reason for this information anomaly was that Iran has become our latest demon. We don’t understand the Persians (as I usually call them), and what we don’t understand we simply cannot accept. So we develop a “policy” to deal with our national ignorance.

In the case of Iran we have an even more dangerous situation. Iran is led by a demonstrably malicious and malignant leader. Israelis, never at a loss to create an opportunity to lose an opportunity, have used Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to substitute for the fallen Saddam Hussein. It was Israelis, after all, who promised Bush that the “road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad.” Anyone heard that corker recently?

Today, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to sell the story that there can be no peace in Palestine until Iran is resolved. He likes that song because “Iran” is not going to be resolved. Persia is a nation state with a history going back thousands of years.

Although Israelis are not responsible for our invasion of Iraq (George Bush is), Israeli diplomats helped inveigle Bush into thinking that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world and an “existential” threat to Israel. The same poppycock is now being rebranded to justify an Israeli attack on Iran.

What is the real world story? What should our “policy” be?

No policy at all.

President Obama should declare that the United States is ignoring Iran, and will let the Iranian people resolve their own differences. The less we say about Iran, the sooner change will come in that unfortunate nation. The only issue which Ahmadinejad has to unify his nation is American “policy” moves, and Israeli threats to trigger yet another Middle East war.

Just to insert a “joke” (no joke at all) at this point. Last year people said if I voted for John McCain, I would get “Bush III.” I voted for McCain. And got? Bush III. Obama’s foreign policy is indistinguishable from a Bush III approach to Iran.

We have American threats. Israeli saber rattling. U. N. sanctions. Diplomacy. Demands. The usual suspects.

All of these “policies” are sheer nonsense. Sanctions are not going to stop much of the world from trading with Iran. And sanctions will lose their effectiveness against Iran the same way they lost their impact on Iraq. Iran sells millions of barrels of oil every day. The day Iran is prevented from selling oil the price of a barrel will top $200 or more.

Israel has nuclear weapons. We know it. Everyone in the Middle East knows it. Weaponry brings prestige. Eventually everyone is going to have nuclear weapons. This is really difficult for anyone (including me) to accept. But technology cannot be stopped.

The idea that a nation of seven million is going to be allowed to retain nuclear armaments (Israel) while a nation of seventy million will be denied nuclear defenses (Iran) is one of the conceits that foreign policy pays to political campaign fund raising in America. Real world? It ain’t gonna happen. So let’s get real.

Iranians just had an election. I don’t have a clue whether the voting was rigged or not. There are opinions on all sides, and I respect most of those opinions. Surprise: whether the election was rigged or not doesn’t make a darn bit of difference to my non-policy. Whether the election was rigged or not is not going to change our need for a hands-off approach.

Here are the opening parameters for our non-policy.

1. U. S. “culture” is still our most potent “nuclear” weapon. We are the undisputed center of the universe when it comes to freedom, with all of the good and bad that such cultural and political and economic freedom can generate. Every day the best and worst that our culture can produce is dumped on the Internet and instantly spread worldwide.

President George Bush was completely correct when he said we should foster freedom and democracy. But we should promote freedom and democracy with electrons, not invasions.

People abroad are free to pick and choose what they want (unless they live in China, where a government of thuggish leaders think they know best what one billion Chinese should receive). Given a choice, people will choose freedom and, eventually, they will fight for freedom. In 1979, Iranians deposed the Shah. No one could stop them.

As soon as Iran exploded this weekend, Iranian goons tried to shut off phone and Internet access. They know where the threat to their regime lies.

2. We should stop fooling ourselves and think we can fool the world. No one was deluded by our previous foreign policy towards Iran and the Middle East; we were marching to the tune of an Israeli military band. With disastrous consequences for the Israelis.

Pro-Israel Americans need to accept that Israel is often a poor judge of what is in that nation’s long-term interest. Israelis were welcomed as liberators in Palestine in 1967. If they had given Palestinians freedom instead of occupation, the two nations would be closely joined today. No one wants to remember 1967 because 1967 was a lost opportunity. For Israel. (In all fairness, in 1967 many seasoned Israeli leaders predicted disaster if the occupied territories were retained. History has vindicated their warnings.)

3. Iran has attacked no one. Iran was attacked by Iraq. Iraq was aided by the United States in continuing a murderous invasion of Iran. Americans may have forgotten this “inconvenient truth,” but no one in Iran has. We need to remember our failures.

4. U.S. and Israeli politicians routinely use lies and hysteria and disgraceful exaggerations to keep themselves in power. Why not Iranians? Aren’t Iranian politicians capable of the same abuses? Most of the world—and, as it turns out—most Iranians–realize that Holocaust denial is disgraceful. Instead of falling for the Israeli catnip that Holocaust denial is the tip of an imminent Iranian nuclear-armed attack, we should apply the same level of scrutiny and skepticism to Iranian political rhetoric that we devote to our own. How about this racist, ignoramus, anti-Obama video on Haaretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090967.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1092485.html

Should Obama view the video and bomb Israel? Ban travel to Tel Aviv? Impose sanctions? These are obviously absurd suggestions. But Iranians have no monopoly on ignorance. Watch the videos. (The videos are particularly pernicious because the morons who are speaking are American Jews who are invited to Israel to “learn” the truth. Scary.)

May I also remind readers that laws have been passed by almost every recent congress to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? These laws are wonderful “fetchers,” as we use to call them in the Illinois legislature. They “fetch” campaign dollars. Sixty years after Israel was created, the U. S. embassy remains in Tel Aviv.

There is a giant disconnect between political rhetoric and reality and public policy in America; why can’t we accept the same standard for analyzing our critics?

5. The nuclear monopoly is dying. We can pop and toot about Iran and North Korea all we want. Nuclear weapons are going to spread, slowly at times, more rapidly at others. We have not yet reached the stage where a bunch of MIT students can fashion a nuclear weapon as a prank, but we are not far off.

In this regard, Americans often harbor racist misconceptions about other nations. We think our technology is the best (it is) but that everyone else is second-class. Second class can still be world class. Iraq supposedly had modern technology (after all that’s why we went to war, isn’t it) and Iran today has world-class technology (which is why we have a new round of Israeli hysteria trying to trigger a war).

Instead of discouraging the spread of nuclear technology, which has been an abject failure, we should probably do precisely the opposite, and offer to arm anyone who can pay (no foreign aid here) with nuclear facilities, weapons, labs. So what? In an extreme situation, we should offer Iran a bomb, put the bomb in a public square, and leave a U. S. Air Force sergeant behind to dust off the weapon from time to time. The bomb will rust away before it is ever used.

6. Iran is going to change. But Iran is going to change not when Israelis bomb Tehran but only when Iranians topple their own regime the same way they did in 1979. The Iranian regime is a soulless (for a theocracy) government in which human rights and human beings are fodder for religious extremists. But so what? When was the last time Iran invaded another country? I can’t remember. Can you? Iran’s bad government is no reason for America to start or condone another self-destructive war.

7. I am known (and revered and reviled) as a critic of Barack Obama. But Obama—give the devil his due—is smart enough to realize that triggering a war, or letting Israelis start a war, is insane. Stop. Iran supports Hizballah? Hamas? Of course they do. Is Israel free to mau mau Iran while Iran is not free to do the same? As long as Palestinian rights are denied, Iran will be able to profit from subsidizing Palestinian liberation movements. Hint: the road to Tehran lies through Tel Aviv (U.S. embassy) or Jerusalem (Israel government) not vice versa as Netanyahu suggests.

Netanyahu has reversed the route because he never wants to recognize a Palestinian state. If anyone is in denial, it is the “democracy” of Israel that believes it can appropriate Palestinians lands forever, and maintain a perpetual occupation of the Palestinian people with a peace “process” that is all process and no peace. Now there’s a real delusional “policy” for you.

Israeli military leaders (virtually the entire government) claim they would rather start a war with Persia than run the risk of peace. Is that a sensible policy evaluation? Not in my opinion. Israel’s existence is threatened by endless war, not endless peace.

The bottom line: I don’t know when or how the Iranian people are going to topple their leadership. It may come soon, or not for decades. No one can predict. That’s for Iranians, not Americans or Israelis, to decide. The more input we have, the more likely the “output” will backfire on our strategic interests. Our long-term interests lie in leaving Iranians alone, taking a “hands-off” position and having no “policy” whatsoever.

At Britain’s MI5 they would call my proposal a plan for “masterly inactivity.” Perhaps were Iran is concerned we meet to master both our emotions and our rhetoric.

The maraschino cherry: If Hillary or Obama called me and said, “What can we do to help the Iranian people?” I would say “end the sanctions, lift the embargo.” The only way to torpedo the Ahmadinejad regime is with freedom, not firearms.

Contrarian? Sure. Common sense? Absolutely. Sanctions have never worked, and they will not work in Iran. Freedom can bring down the regime. By essentially doing nothing and ignoring the regime instead of making them central to our national agenda we become more, not less, powerful in Iran. “Iran for the Iranians” is the biggest threat we can direct at Persia.

Why not end thirty years of failure and try an approach that is sure to succeed? Because politicians have to have “polices,” and policies are merely prescriptions for failure.

—————————–
Readers of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, say the book is still the only gold standard and practical handbook on Barack Obama’s unfitness for the presidency. Buy it.
Book orders: Amazon.com or http://OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from Amazon.com or signed copies (delayed for signing) from the publisher are available.
——————————
URGENT APPEAL: The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama raises money to oppose President Barack Obama’s radical agenda and also to support www.BoycottHawaii.com.
www.CommitteeofOneMilliontoDefeatBarackObama.com
Please give generously. Our ability to fight and defeat Barack Obama’s political agenda is directly dependent on the generosity of every American.
“The Committee of One Million to Defeat Barack Obama has no bundlers, no fat cats and no illegal contributions. Obama is opposed to almost everything America stands for,” says Executive Director Andy Martin. “But while Obama has raised a billion dollar slush fund, his opponents lack sufficient resources. Americans can either contribute now, or pay later. If we do not succeed, Obama will.”
———————————–
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He is currently promoting his best-selling book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask and producing the new Internet movie “Obama: The Hawai’i years.” Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Martin comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of experience. He has over forty years of experience in Asia and the Middle East, and is regarded overseas as America’s most respected independent foreign policy, military and intelligence analyst. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York. He is an announced candidate for Barack Obama’s former U. S. Senate seat.

UPDATES: www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA

His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com.
[NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 (cell not always on)
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
© Copyright by Andy Martin 2009.