(AFP)
21 August 2005
TEHRAN - Iran’s hardline President Mahmood Ahmadinejad put his proposed cabinet to parliament on Sunday, lashing out at the West and liberalism and promising a government that will ”promote virtue and prohibit vice.”
Signaling his shock election win had delivered a clean break from the previous reformist administration of Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad pledged to fight off liberalism that he argued threatened Islamic values.
“The international community they go so far as to condemn us. What sort of balance is this? This is injustice and oppression, and our nation will not accept this in international affairs,” Ahmadinejad, who took office on August 3, told parliament.
It was a clear reference to threats against Iran in the wake of Tehran’s decision to resume sensitive nuclear work earlier this month. The regime has refused to return to a full freeze of nuclear fuel work the focus of fears the country is seeking atomic weapons.
Ahmadinejad also vowed a more assertive trade policy.
“Currently we are importing from some countries billions of dollars whereas they are not buying our oil and they are also not buying our products,” he said in a speech one MP described as “more about ideals than strategies”.
“These countries should be thankful to us because we are helping their economies boom, but they are not thankful and are looking at us as if we were indebted to them,” the 49-year-old former commando told the conservative-controlled assembly.
The speech to the Majlis, carried live on state television and radio, opened a debate that could last several days on the former Tehran mayor’s proposed 21-member cabinet.
Although right-wingers dominate the assembly, the procedure may not be a mere formality. Of those nominated, only two have previously held ministerial posts while the others are mostly unknowns.
Ahmadinejad said four principles would guide the policy of his new government: “expansion of justice, serving people, elevating the country financially and spiritually, and kindness to people”.
“Liberal thought justifies and recognises all abnormalities and deviations (and) isolates the values defined by religious training such as equality, forgiveness, selflessness, chastity and immaculacy,” he told the 290-seat Majlis.
“Our nation does not and will not tolerate such a thing,” he said, vowing a “culture of spirituality” in the Islamic republic.
“We should expand a culture that promotes virtue and prohibits vice, and also favourable to Islamic traditions such as respect to parents, visiting relatives, generosity to orphans and philanthropy... and we should fortify the education, universities, mosques, seminaries and genuine cultural groups.”
Ahmadinejad has allocated political posts such as the interior ministry, intelligence and culture to fellow ultra-conservatives, while technocrats have been appointed to head the oil and foreign ministries.
Since Ahmadinejad announced his team earlier this month, eyebrows have been raised over some nominees’ qualifications including Ali Saidloo, nominated for the sensitive oil ministry, science portfolio nominee Mohammad-Mehdi Zahedi and health ministry nominee Kamran Baqeri-Lankarani.
“If the parliament behaves reasonably and logically, some nominees will not receive the vote of confidence. If the parliament behaves politically, all the ministers would be approved,” Mohammad Khoshchehreh, an MP from Tehran, told IRNA.
One MP, Hassan Sobhani, was quoted as saying by IRNA that ”strategies to remove administrative corruption were missing” from Ahmadinejad’s programme, and cautioned that faced with globalisation, “we should not be passive and wait for the Islamic civilisation to appear.”
Another MP, Bijan Shahbazkhani, warned that government plans to give ordinary Iranians a share of the nation’s oil wealth appeared to contradict efforts to contain inflation.
But Iran’s all-powerful leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given his backing to Ahmadinejad’s line-up, calling Friday for the Majlis to “complete its legal duty” so the “the new administration is in place as soon as possible”.
The lady that wrote this letter is Pam Foster of Pamela Foster and Associates in Atlanta. She's been in business since 1980 doing interior design and home planning. She recently wrote a letter to a family member serving in Iraq.
WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS?
"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, as well as across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in addition a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?? Well, I don't. I don't care at all! I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.
I'll care when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tells the world he is sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling, slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana (or Allah's Paradise) care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.
I'll care when judges stop ordering my government to release photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, which are sure to set off the Islamic extremists just as Newsweek's lies did a few weeks ago.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.
When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college hazing incident, rest assured that I don't care.
When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don't care.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I don't care.
And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and -- you guessed? it -- I don't care!"
Written by Pam Foster