Brazzil

Peres did not even get the chance to take part in a planned public discussion as his security team said the hotel where it was due to take place was not safe enough.

Peres might not have got "the chance to take part in a planned public discussion", but he did spend almost a week in Brasil and managed to sell Israeli made UAVs worth around $350 Millions! Peres must consider his visit as profitable.

These visits certainly did not make Brazil's Jews feel that any breakthrough had been made.

I don't think that "Brazil´s Jews" nor our "Turcos" are going to lose their sleep, because no "breakthrough" was made.

..maybe these two were prison "buddies"

The author of the above article said: “The visit drew the world's attention and has perhaps taken some of the gloss off Lula's image on the international stage.”

When in reality with Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Brazil, President Lula has become a new channel of communications between the United States and Iran.

And if anything Lula's image on the international stage has become even more important than before, since president Lula has been showing signs of independency on his thinking from the existing status quo and Brazil acquires a rep**ation of neutrality by showing that it does not intend to subordinate its interests to those of the United States.

If the author thinks that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in Iran it was rigged then I wonder what the author must think about that “Pathetic” staged re-election of Karzai that the United States validated in Afghanistan.

Correction: re-election of Karzai the president of Kabul, since the rest of Afghanistan is under the control of many warlords and their tribes.

Talking about real corruption, and staged election then Afghanistan gets the prize and also the blessings of the United States government.

The above article also said: “The Brazilian government also mentioned the fact that Lula had met Israel's President Shimon Peres and the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, separately during visits they had made to Brazil during the previous two weeks. Just what these meetings achieved is anyone's guess. Peres did not even get the chance to take part in a planned public discussion as his security team said the hotel where it was due to take place was not safe enough.”

The truth is: a concerned Israel even sent President Shimon Peres to Brazil to preemptively meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva before the meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s – a meeting that for all practical purposes has achieved nothing for Israel since Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad achieved all his goals regarding his trip to Brazil.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s also had cancelled a planned public discussion at a local university in Brasilia because of security issues.

In a Nutshell: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Brazil to meet President Lula has established a new major channel of communications between the United States and Iran.

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then I wonder what the author must think about that “Pathetic” staged re-election of Karzai that the United States validated in Afghanistan.

Dont be so cruel to ask such uncomfortable question, Ricardo. Young Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Al-Maliki of Iraq are the blue eyed boys of Rumsfeld and Dick Cheyney, aren't they?

After Karzai was installed into power in Afghanistan by the United States, his actual authority outside the capital city of Kabul was said to be so limited that he was often mentioned as the "Mayor of Kabul".

Hamid Karzai enjoys wearing his superman cape on a regular basis, but his cape is not red like in the Little Red Riding Hood famous fairy tale, he prefers to make his fashion statement by wearing his cape in green color to match his green hat.

And the big bad wolf on Karzai’s version of his fairy tale is called the “Taliban.”

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Tonight I did watch a movie that was made in 2000 called “Thirteen Days” with Kevin Costner.

That movie shows how close the United States and the Soviet Union came in 1962 from starting a nuclear war. After the discovery of Soviet weapons in Cuba, events and tension escalated very quickly between the two military superpowers bringing it to the brink of nuclear war.

It is a very good movie, but at the same time make you think how quickly things can go wrong and out of control.

I hope the United States never again place itself on a similar situation as in October of 1962.

I don’t know if the United States has learned a lesson during the nuclear war crisis of October of 1962, but Israel talks all the time how they are going to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Israelis are trigger-happy and those fools someday will get themselves on a similar situation such as the US and the Soviets in 1962 – it could be even a nuclear war between Israel and Pakistan with few nuclear warheads being shot in both ways.

I wonder why Israel is so neurotic about Iran being armed with nuclear weapons a few years from now, when Pakistan is on the brink of chaos and a real possibility that some religious fanatic might get access to Pakistan’s 100 nuclear warheads.

The Iranians are well-educated and rational people, and I could careless if they ever were able to develop nuclear weapons. But in Pakistan the major problem is that the nuclear weapons could end up on the hands of religious fanatics – since that group is not rational and they are willing to blow themselves up in the name of religion – and they probably would not mind if they also got killed on a nuclear war exchange with Israel.

Israel likes to play with fire and someday they will also get burned.

It would be an enlightening experience if the leaders of Israel took the time to watch the movie “Thirteen Days” with Kevin Costner.

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Tonight I did watch a movie that was made in 2000 called “Thirteen Days” with Kevin Costner.

I haven't seen it and will check if it is available for rent.I like Kevin Costner.

I wonder why Israel is so neurotic about Iran being armed with nuclear weapons a few years from now, when Pakistan is on the brink of chaos and a real possibility that some religious fanatic might get access to Pakistan’s 100 nuclear warheads.

Not only you, but many well informed Brasilians also wonder why!

Hamid Karzai enjoys wearing his superman cape on a regular basis, but his cape is not red like in the Little Red Riding Hood famous fairy tale, he prefers to make his fashion statement by wearing his cape in green color to match his green hat.

"Pavão" is the appropriate word to describe Hamid Karzai!! Last year a friend of mine lent me a book titled "Caçador de Pipas" written by an Afghan living in the U.S. I think the original title in English is "Kite Runner". Their culture & social structure are quite different from the Western world.So one wonders how their "hearts and minds" are going be won by the NATO forces.

I saw the movie version of “The Kite Runner” and it was a very good movie.

If you read some of my articles going back to 2002 then you see that I have been saying all along that Afghanistan is where former superpowers go to die a slow death – and without exception.

Here is an article published on the Financial Times (UK) of today that hits the nail right on the head:

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“Veterans of Soviet war see the same mistakes being made”
By Charles Clover in Moscow
Financial Times (UK)
Published: December 1, 2009

It was May 1985 when General Igor Rodionov stepped off a military transport aircraft at Kabul airport, assuming command of the Soviet Union's 40th Army fighting in Afghanistan.

His now-creased face tells the ensuing story better than words. He was the fifth of seven Soviet commanders, sharing a place in history with a singular brotherhood: foreign generals sent to conquer Afghanistan. The line, stretching from Alexander the Great to the present day, is distinguished by one conspicuous characteristic - all ultimately failed.
One not very optimistic piece of advice he wishes to share with those treading in his footsteps is this: "Everything has already been tried."

On the eve of an expected decision by the US administration to commit thousands more soldiers to the struggle against the Taliban, Gen Rodionov and other Soviet veterans feel a mixture of Schadenfreude and sympathy for the latest foreign invaders in the mountainous land they left in 1989 after a bloody 10-year counter insurgency.

From his base in the sumptuous Tajbeg palace, on a commanding hill on the outskirts of Kabul, Gen Rodionov quickly learned "there was no front. The bullets could come from anywhere".

The Soviet 40th Army comprised 120,000 troops at the height of the war, and operations focused on manoeuvring helicopter-borne paratroopers on to mountains, to control high ground, and then moving tanks through the valleys.

In a decade nearly 15,000 Soviet troops lost their lives - and hundreds of thousands of Afghans - in many of the same places that US forces and their allies are struggling to control today: the border regions in the south-east of the country near Pakistan, and the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

"The war, all 10 years of it, went in circles. We would come and they [the insurgents] would leave. Then we leave, and they would return," Gen Rodionov said.

Other former senior Soviet officers see a similar futility in US efforts in Afghanistan.

"More soldiers is simply going to mean more deaths," said Gennady Zaitsev, former commander of the KGB's elite Alpha commando unit, which took part in some of the most critical operations of the war.

"US and British citizens are going to ask, quite rightly, 'why are our sons dying?' And the answer will be 'to keep Hamid Karzai [the Afghan president] in power'. I don't think that will satisfy them."

For Gen Rodionov, the news emanating from the conflict is disturbingly familiar.

"They [the US and its allies] have to understand that there is no way for them to succeed militarily. The only way is politics. And Karzai has no popularity amongst the people, he just runs a mafia."

Relations between the Afghan people and the Soviets determined the outcome of the war, Gen Rodionov believes. "It was a social, a political problem which we utterly failed to grasp with our military mindset," he said.

Like the Nato forces, the Soviets had a honeymoon for one to two years after their 1979 invasion. Infrastructure projects went ahead - most of the high-rise buildings in Kabul are of Soviet make to this day. But then, as Gen Rodionov remembered, around 1982 things drastically worsened.

"Of course the problem was the same - the 40th army was a highly armed and trained force. It answered every shot directed at them with 10 shots. They created many casualties among civilians.

"We would bomb a village because there were one or two Mujahideen there. Women and children would die and this created the insurgent movement. It was a classic partisan war."

Russia's Afghanistan veterans say the US is in danger of winning militarily but losing politically, echoing their own experience.

Pyotr Suslov, a former operative for a KGB special operations unit in Afghanistan, said Nato's main mistake was in not paying proper attention to the balance between Afghanistan's tribes, particularly the Pashtun, who make up just under half of the population. Instead, the US focused its initial attention on the Tajik-led Northern Alliance, the guerrilla movement that swept the Taliban from power in 2001 with US backing.

"They ignored the Pashtun," said Mr Suslov. "The Northern Alliance was in power after the Taliban fell, they were just a bunch of different commanders, all different tribes, ethnicities. The Pashtun were ignored. That is where the problem has come from. It is important for the US to agree with the Pashtun tribes."

Gen Rodionov said that he had come to Afghanistan harshly critical of the war, and his criticism only grew throughout his term.

During this time, senior officers, watching the futility of their methods, began openly to discuss withdrawal. "It was a very narrow circle at first, and then it grew. The attitude at the time of the withdrawal was simply 'we should have done it earlier'."


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“Veterans of Soviet war see the same mistakes being made”
By Charles Clover in Moscow
Financial Times (UK)
Published: December 1, 2009

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/333a...ck_check=1

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a permanent seat on the UN Security Council

Let's be honest about the UN, do you really enjoy that your tax money is being wasted in a club of clowns and elites? Or are you willing to pay "more" to the same club that nothing gets done?

I don't. Do you?

Just like the G-7, The UN, is dead.

Lula may be eager to take a roll on the world stage, but this only sets him on the side of a ruthless tyrant, a holocaust-denying thug who tortures and kills his own people for protesting peacefully. John Fitz, you nailed it with this story. I lived in Brazil for 2.5 years and respected Lula for his advocacy for the poor, but this stunt totally turns me against him. Lula looks silly at best, at worst, he looks like an insensitive reckless leader and statesman who would suck up to a dictator for some inexplicable reason. Is there some oil exploration deal in the works? Some trade? How ugly? Wake up Lula! It's obvious to most world leaders that Iran is a loose canon, repressing it's own people, and tooling up to make nukes to deliver to Israel. It makes the Brazilian intelligence service he relies on look asleep. Somebody show Lula how to find the BBC online in Portuguese and have him read the obvious: Ahmadinejad has openly said that Israel should be obliterated from the map. I am no fan of Israel and the way they treat the Palestinians, but that doesn't justify such maniacal talk. Along with any country subjected to the horror of nuclear war, the world would suffer from the disruption and chaos of any such attack. Hugging this man who has the blood of his own people own their hands? People who are just peacefully demonstrating in the streets? shame on you Lula! Your esteem has fallen in my eyes, and in the world's as well.

Ricardo, claims that Lula opened a "new channel of communication" between the US and Iran. This is ridiculous and delusional. Instead, he has only offended peace-loving, democratic-minded people throughout the world, including the Iranian students and others peacefully demonstrating now in Iran. Most of the world knows Ahmadinejad for what he is: a ruthless dictator . When Lula hugs him and welcomes him to Brazil, he only legitimizes a criminal government. Lula is trying to make a deal for Brazil that will benefit them economically and strategically, so don't present this as some kind of advancement for peace and dialogue. If Lula supports Iran's developing a nuclear arsenal, and if Iran attacks Israel of any other country, Brazil will be complicit. This is a shameful moment for Lula and Brazil. And when I hear people like you trying to spin this into something positive, I am reminded of so many other posts by jingoistic Brazilians here who present Brazil as a paradise on earth, an investors dream, with clever enlightened leaders, and a warm and friendly culture and people just loving and dancing day and night to samba and carnival. This is a fairy tale people love to spin about Brazil, and this recent attempt by Lula to befriend a tyrant, only reminds me of how silly and noxious the myth is. Jingoism and blind arrogance is ugly whether it is whether it's from rednecks in the US or Brazilian jingoism so common to this blog. While I read many reasonable and measured opinions here, many are blind to the realities of Brazil. It's time to wake up and "smell the coffee" as we say up North: Brazil is not the paradise you try to sell the world in vacation advertisements; its rivers are poisoned with raw sewage and toxins; beaches strewn with trash; streets haunted by criminals; rampant political corruption; and now Lula, who seemed to have chance of distinguishing Brazil, befriends a war-mongering, holocaust-denying tyrant. Lula thumbs his nose at the US to make Brazil appear strong and independent, and many Brazilians love this rhetoric. Yet when Lula blamed the world recession on the "blue-eyed people" of the North, we glimpsed the deep resentment and bitter, irrational anti-americanism flourishing in Brazil. Stop blaming all your problems on the US, and look at your own unique culture and people who have perpetuated the majority of internal problems Brazil suffers. You will know that Brazil has really arrived as a world player when it starts taking responsibility for its own internal mess. Americans generally think very positively of Brazilians,only wishing for their success, seeing them as an ally. So we are very saddened to hear Lula and other Brazilians gloat and take pleasure in seeing the US in a deep recession, which shows how many Brazilians dislike or even hate Americans. I would be sickened if Americans laughed and boasted about how our economy is doing well while another is suffering, but this is what happened. Yet many Brazilians don't see the insensitivity and hypocrisy of such sentiments. And while it is reasonable for Brazil to disagree with the US, particularly in cases like Honduras where Brazil is endorsing democracy, Lula's support for Iran is a real setback for democracy. The majority of Iranians were against Ahmadinejad in the election. While Lula supports democracy in Honduras, he ignores democracy in Iran. Why? Some ugly economic/political deal is brewing, surely. Lula advocates for Iran's right to a nuclear arsenal, but does Lula or anyone really want more nuclear weapons anywhere in the world? It's a waste of money and a threat to humanity. And nuclear weapons for a dictator who wants to "wipe Israel off the face of the Earth"? If Lula wants Brazil to be an important and respected actor on the world stage, he should choose more humane bed-fellows. Brazil and Lula might have had the potential to position themselves as a unique moral voice by taking a strong position against deforestation of the rainforest, or by exporting a supportive model for dealing the landless movement or even its "bolsa de famila" plan for poor families worldwide, or Lula could have even fashioned some robust plan to support indigenous people of the Amazon, or Brazil could have marketed itself as a non-militaristic regional superpower of South America, committed to peaceful diplomacy, bilateralism and not relying on the repressive, divisive, and militaristic posturing of leaders like Chavez, or it could have presented itself as a sane voice speaking out against US imperialism, wars and other injustices. However, Brazil is not distinguishing itself on a higher moral plane with this Iran alliance, nor has it "opened channels of communication". Yet it has tarnished Lula's image around the world as an enlightened progressive leader striving for peace and democracy. be for Lula (and Brazil) for hugging and befriending a war-mongering tyrant.

Ricardo and Joao: You wonder why any country should be afraid of Iran having nuclear weapons but not be afraid of Pakitsan. Well, in truth India and other nations are concerned about Pakistan using their nuclear arsenal. And if the Taleban were to come to power, for instance, they would be even far more alarmed. However, as it is now, the Taleban are a significant force there and in Afghanistan, and while they are capable of deadly attacks in markets and cities by car bombs and people who blow themselves up, they are not in a likely position to gain access to nuclear weapons sites. Lord help us if they do. And of course this is not just an issue that would affect the US if, for example, the Taleban came to power and used a nuclear bomb on Mumbai (Bombay). Being that it is a megalopolis like Sao Paulo, the repercussions worldwide would be immense. Not only in terms of slaughter of millions of innocent people, but the ensuing chaos and contraction of economies and security precautions between so many nations would lead to immense tension and distrust worldwide. Witness the now routine security pre-cautions while entering the US after 9/11, which despite how Brazilians feel they are singled out by such searches, they are quite common for American citizens as well. You may be surprised to hear that I am an American, and while flying to Brazil I was taken out of line and carefully searched with a metal detector in a back room. It was a spooky ordeal, but I was not offended since I knew it was for the security of the country against other attacks such as 9/11. Well, if this kind of atmosphere is offensive to you when passing through US airports, the security pre-cautions worldwide in response to a nuclear attack will be even far more intense. More importantly, countries fear Iran using nuclear weapons because the current leadership there has been erratic, undemocratic, corrupt, and war-mongering, and in a word, they see Iran as a "loose canon", which needs to be watched carefully. This is not just the US "dictating" policy, but driven even more so by neighbors of Iran, including the EU. The current regime in Iran is beating and killing their own people peacefully protesting on the streets. In addition, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly declared that the holocaust did not happen, and he slanders Jews with the same kind of vile rhetoric and conspiracy theories that Hitler used. Likewise, he has repeatedly said that he would wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. Now, do you really not see a difference between Pakistan and Iran? The current Pakistani government is more committed to diplomatic negotiations, while Iran is a run by a war-mongering ruthless tyrants, willing to rig elections and beat and kill the majority of its own people who voted for change, has armed various military campaigns such as Hamas to attack, and furthermore has openly vowed to obliterate Israel. Clearly, this is a unique case, which should concern every peace-loving democratic nation, and Lula with his lack of sensitivity or concern about the past and current actions of Ahmadinejad has brought shame on Brazil by hugging and befriending this tyrant, no matter what kind of expedient economic or political gain he seeks to get out of it.

Lula looks like a smelly Rabbi jew. Does anyone know if Lula is a jew?