- Pacific
The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was slapped in the face by the head of the country's Revolutionary Guard, according to the latest WikiLeaks release.
The February 2010 cable, classified secret and puckishly headlined, 'He Who Got Slapped,' quotes an intelligence source recounting a contentious meeting.
Ahmedinejad had suggested new measures easing restrictions on the press to Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
The Iranian ruling body were trying to work out their response in the wake of Tehran's explosive pro-democracy street protests of 2009.
'Ahmadinejad claimed that "people feel suffocated" and mused that to defuse the situation it may be necessary to allow more personal and social freedoms, including more freedom of the press,' the cable says.
It continues, 'Ahmadinejad's statements infuriated Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari, who exclaimed 'You are wrong! \it is YOU who created this mess! And now you say give more freedom to the press?!'
'Source said that Jafari then slapped Ahmadinejad in the face, causing an uproar,' the cable says.
Iran denies the slap ever occurred. A Revolutionary Guard spokesman told the Fars News Agency that WikiLeaks' publishers 'invent false stories.'
One leaked State Department cables painted Iran as a great global pariah, with many Arab countries privately urging the U.S. to attack before Tehran can get a nuclear bomb.
Another leaked diplomatic memo today continues to add to the picture of hard-liners ruling the roost in Iran.
It describes Ahmedinjejad as willing to accept a U.N.-backed deal for swapping nuclear fuel more than a year ago, but facing a hard-line backlash at home.
The memo quotes Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, as saying the Iran PM backed the general idea of reactor fuel in exchange for giving up control of Iran's low-enriched uranium.
But Davutoglu told a senior U.S. diplomat in late 2009 that Ahmadinejad was worried about criticism from powerful opponents in Iran who viewed it as a defeat for the country.
Talks later broke down and resumed in Geneva last month. The next round is scheduled to be hosted by Turkey later this month.
Meanwhile, Iran's decision to stop up to 2,500 fuel trucks at its border with Afghanistan is tantamount to an 'embargo', an Afghan commerce official said today.
He warned the move could leave millions of Afghans shivering as winter rolls in.
The unofficial ban, now in its second week, has pushed up wholesale domestic fuel prices as much as 70 per cent.
The shortage of fuel also threatens to stop trucks loaded with commercial goods from reaching the capital along a key southern transport route.
Iran today acknowledged a link between the ban and its recent decision to slash domestic fuel subsidies in a bid to cut costs and boost an economy squeezed by international sanctions.
Afghan officials say Iran has also told them it is concerned the shipments are destined for NATO forces operating in Afghanistan, though Afghan and NATO officials deny that. (Mail Foreign Service, 1.05.2011) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344073/Ahmedinejad-slapped-head-Revolutionary-Guard-supreme-council-meeting-claims-WikiLeaks-cable.html#ixzz1AHbsC6dZ
"To Achieve World
Government it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism,
their loyalty to family traditions and national identification" Brock Chisholm - Director of the World Health Organization
"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to
believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a
reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police
State Dictatorship it's going to
get." Ian Williams Goddard
The fact is that "political correctness" is all about creating uniformity. Individualism is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of the New World Order. They want a public that is predictable and conditioned to do as it's told without asking questions.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson