American Foreign Policy Council Ads Re: Iran (Running Inside the Beltway)

[CorpGovActivist]

For a few weeks now, I've noticed these ominous anti-Iran ads running during certain "news" segments on CNN (e.g., Lou Dobbs).

I kept waiting for someone on here to mention them, but - unless I've missed the thread - I haven't seen anything.

Today, I finally broke down and went and looked at their website, and found out why:

"AFPC launches ad campaign on Iran
On January 23rd, the American Foreign Policy Council advertising campaign aimed at educating the American public about the growing threat posed by a nuclear Iran. The ad campaign consists of two 30-second spots that began running Tuesday on CNN, MSNBC, Headline News and the Fox News Channel in Washington, DC, Maryland and northern Virginia."

*************************************************************

Ad Script #1:

The nuclear clock is ticking… and time is running out.

Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism<1> - supporting attacks that have killed hundreds of Americans.<2>

An Iranian group boasts 25,000 members who are ready to become suicide bombers in the US and Europe.<3>

Now, in violation of the UN, Iran is developing a dangerous nuclear capability<4> and has threatened to share it with others.<5>

Stand up for peace. Call the White House and tell them to enforce sanctions against Iran today.

SOURCES:
<1> Pam O'Toole, "Rice: Iran is Terrorism 'Banker'," BBC News, February 17, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4722498.stm.
<2> “Iran Responsible for 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing, Judge Rules,” CNN.com, May 30, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/30/iran.barracks.bombing/.
<3> Ahmad Rafat, "Europe a Target of Iranian Suicide Bombers," Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, May 26, 2006, http://daneshjoo.org/publishers/currentnews/article_6031.shtml.
<4> "Iran 'Ignores Nuclear Deadline,'" BBC News, August 31, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5303086.stm.
<5> "Iran Prez: I'll Share My Nuclear Technology," CBS News, December 16, 2006, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/16/world/main2274308.shtml.
*************************************************************

Iran’s President denies the Holocaust<1>, says he wants to wipe Israel off the map<2> and has supported attacks that killed hundreds of Americans.<3>

Iran sent thousands of children marching to their deaths to clear minefields, armed only with plastic keys to unlock the gates of heaven.<4>

Now, in violation of the United Nations, Iran is trying to go nuclear<5> and has threatened to share the technology with others.<6>

Stand up for peace. Call the White House and tell them to enforce sanctions against Iran today.

SOURCES:
<1> Karl Vick, "Iran's President Calls Holocaust 'Myth' in Latest Assault on Jews," Washington Post, December 15, 2005; "Ahmadinejad: Courting controversy," Al-Jazeera (Doha), December 14, 2005, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/39AF3EA0-C8E9-456A-99D3-438045D4431F.htm.
<2> David Pryce-Jones, "A Particular Madness - Understanding Iran's Ahmadinejad," National Review, May 8, 2006.
<3> “Iran Responsible for 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing, Judge Rules,” CNN.com, May 30, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/30/iran.barracks.bombing/.
<4> Matthias Kuntzel, "Ahmadinejad's Demons," The New Republic, April 24, 2006, http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060424&s=kuntzel042406.
<5> "Iran 'Ignores Nuclear Deadline,'" BBC News, August 31, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5303086.stm.
<6> "Iran Prez: I'll Share My Nuclear Technology," CBS News, December 16, 2006, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/16/world/main2274308.shtml.
*************************************************************

The group has an Iran Freedom Initiative:

http://www.afpc.org/IFI/Iranfreedom.shtml

If you do call the White House to demand that they enforce the sanctions regime in place against Iran, be sure to ask them about Halliburton's operations there:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=halliburton+iran

http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/iran/iran.shtml

Best,

- Dave

[mmonk]

1. A recommend from me.

Thanks for the heads up.

[CorpGovActivist]

2. Inside the Beltway Ads...

... rarely come with a press release that flat-out say they're only running inside the Beltway.

- Dave

[Eugene]

3. Ominious indeed! This is a re-run of the Iraq invasion campaign.

* Iran is making WMD's/nukes? Check!
* Iran threatens to share WMD technology, possibly with terrorists? Check!
* Iran violates UN mandates? Check!
* Iran sponsors suicide bombers? Check!
* Iran's president is a hateful sonofabitch? Check!

They're off to a running start.

* Iran sponsored terror attacks against Americans? Kind of old, but it may pass.

That 20+ year old score isn't up there with Saddam-9/11, but give them time to work with it.

This campaign is the second verse of the same song from 2002.

[CorpGovActivist]

4. For Good Measure...

... they threw in the thing about kids being sent into minefields with nothing more than plastic keys to open the gates of heaven.

- Dave

[DemReadingDU]

5. more info on link from The DailyKos

Iran and Beating the Fear Drums at Home: AFPC Runs 30 Soundbytes
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/26/165040/570

[CorpGovActivist]

6. The AFPC Point Man on Iran

Ilan Berman: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ilan+berman

- Dave

[conscious evolution]

7. This guy sure pops up

in a lot of freeper type places and publications.
What makes him an expert on regional security in the Mid East?I sure didn't see anything that listed his qualifications for making such a claim.
I also wonder who funds his organization and how.

[CorpGovActivist]

8. As a Non-Profit...

"The American Foreign Policy Council is a non-profit public policy institution under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Code, and relies on foundation grants and private donations. Currently, two methods of support are available to those interested in supporting our work."

...

AFPC must file a Form 990, which is open to public inspection: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f990.pdf

- Dave

[CorpGovActivist]

9. His Bio

"Ilan Berman is Vice President for Policy of the American Foreign Policy Council. An expert on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation, he has consulted for both the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Department of Defense, and provided assistance on foreign policy and national security issues to a range of governmental agencies and congressional offices. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, and his writings have appeared in such publications as The National Interest, the International Herald Tribune, and the Financial Times.

Mr. Berman is the author of Tehran Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United States (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) and co-editor, with J. Michael Waller, of Dismantling Tyranny: Transitioning Beyond Totalitarian Regimes (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005)."

[conscious evolution]

18. I saw that so called bio

I still do not know what makes him an expert on MidEast security.
Just because some prepaid cold war er govt/neocon controlled propaganda mill that has been brought out of storage,dusted off and updated for the crises du jour says he he is an expert doesn't necessarily mean he actually is one.
I thought there were laws forbidding using propaganda/perception management on US citizens.There oughta be.

[annabanana]

10. Sweet JESUS this stinks!!

I hope the nations 'decision makers' know they are being direct targeted for this abuse of OUR airwaves....

[CorpGovActivist]

11. It's Like ADM or GE Commercials during MTP...

... those always make me laugh, because they're so obviously aimed at the elected officials.

- Dave

[CorpGovActivist]

12. YouTube of One of the Ads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcBPZiN-AZk

FYI, for those who live outside the Beltway.

- Dave

[Nikki Stone1]

15. This ad gives all the reasons why Israel should fight Iran

Not us

[CorpGovActivist]

16. Interesting to See the Foreign Press' Take on This

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=iran+israel+nuclear

- Dave

[rustydad]

13. Foxxxxxxx

Fox is running a series called Radical Islam or something to that effect. It is pure anti-Islamic propaganda and war building propaganda. Orwell was sooooo right. Bob

[CorpGovActivist]

14. Available on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=radical+islam+fox+news

Thanks for the heads up.

- Dave

P.S. Orwell had a real bead on how the post-war world was going to shake out. (But maybe he didn't foresee how "ordinary" citizens would use the available technology to fight back.)

[struggle4progress]

17. Some of the alleged facts are so questionable that one has trouble ..

.. taking this war-propaganda seriously.

If Iran posed an enormous threat, one ought to be able to do better than to dredge up events from twenty years ago and to insist loudly that we are now sure of what happened then.

Consider, for example, the claim that "Iran sent thousands of children marching to their deaths to clear minefields, armed only with plastic keys to unlock the gates of heaven," the reference for which is an article written two decades after the alleged event occurred. If you read the referenced article, the evidence provided for the claim is sketchy at best. Frankly, I consider Khomeini was enough of a wacko to sanction such a thing -- but the clerics couldn't have stayed in power if much of that had gone on: humans typically love their children much better than to let them be treated that way, and countries that treat their school-children in such manner won't survive long.

Similarly, the claim "Iran Responsible for 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing" is based on a ruling two decades after the event. We know that a truck bomb was involved -- and we know that the bombing was a major intelligence failure at the time. It was followed by even more spectacular intelligence failures, such as the failure to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea that, twenty years later from half a world away, someone could determine with certainty exactly who helped the truck-bomber is ridiculous on its face. Again, the Iranian state might have been involved -- but we really can't know that with anything approaching reasonable certainty.

It's clear that Ahmadinejad is an antisemitic asshole: if I were a descendent of holocaust survivors, I would want to scream every time he opens his ugly yap. On the other hand, the simple fact that a country has an asshole as president doesn't per se justify launching a war against that country: if it did, Americans would find the whole world bombing us.

And the nuclear hysteria is orchestrated. We can begin to deal with any evidence that the Iranians are actually trying to produce nuclear weapons, whenever such evidence appears. But none has yet. To date, any highly enriched uranium contamination found in Iran seems to be residual on second hand equipment sold to the Iranians on the blackmarket by the Pakistani AQ Khan.

Since one might reasonably consider international nuclear smuggling -- from a nuclear weapons state (Pakistan) not signatory to the nonproliferation treaty (NPT) -- boded ill for the future, it is somewhat curious that the Administration swept this a international problem under the rug. Or maybe not. The real purpose of the nuclear hysteria may be the Administration's desire to undermine the NPT -- for which it has exhibited the same contempt it has for all other international agreements. The Administration's anti-diplomacy has already managed to drive North Korea from the NPT. And the Administration has further sought to undermine the NPT by ignoring traditional understandings to provide nuclear technology to the nuclear weapons state India, also not a treaty signatory. The motive, of course, would be to free the US to resume development of a new generation of nukes, such as the "bunker-busters" they covet, and to resume nuclear testing.

Iran, unlike India or Pakistan, is an NPT signatory -- and appears not to demonstrably out-of-compliance with the treaty. It is, of course, somewhat odd that the US, with its enormous nuclear arsenal that the Administration seeks to "modernize" and with a nuclear enrichment industry that is not subject to international inspection should rush about screaming about the current status of Iran.

It is even stranger to realize that when Iran reached out in 2003 to the United States through a Swiss diplomat, the entire US response was simply -- to rebuke the Swiss diplomat for relaying any message.

[CorpGovActivist]

20. You Did Something...

... most viewers won't: you checked the sources.

- Dave

[radfringe]

19. have you seen the military recruitment commercials?

if you contact the army/navy etc recruitment center and ask for information they will also send you a hat, or a watch, or some other "free gift"

I think they are trying to a box of TRIX breakast cereal