Posted on 09/21/2006 5:12:00 AM PDT by TexKat
NEW YORK - Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad broke away from events at the U.N. General Assembly to hold an informal question-and-answer session with high-powered members of America's most prestigious foreign policy think tank — despite objections from some Jewish groups and the Bush administration.
The Council on Foreign Relations said afterward that Ahmadinejad had engaged in a "protracted punch and counter-punch" with 19 members for about 90 minutes in the conference room of a New York City hotel late Wednesday.
But it said the controversial Iranian leader had offered no new policies or opinions other than those he has aired widely on issues raging from his country's disputed nuclear program to the Holocaust.
"I'm not sure we learned anything new," CFR president Richard Haass said in a statement after the meeting. But Haass added that the Iranian leader may have learned about American attitudes from those who he sparred with — some of them Jewish panelists who had visited former concentration camps in Poland.
Ahmadinejad has engaged in a media blitz during his trip to New York to attend the General Assembly — giving interviews to Time magazine and CNN, among others.
But the trip to the think tank was controversial, provoking protests from Jewish groups and the Bush administration.
The New York Times, which had a reporter who is a CFR member at the private meeting, said Ahmadinejad spoke "with a tone that oozed polite hostility." He entered with "a jaunty smile, a wave and an air of supreme confidence" and ended the evening by asking Council members "whether they were simply shills for the Bush administration," the newspaper reported. It said there were no introductory handshakes before the talk began.
The newspaper also reported that the group's invitation to Ahmadinejad to talk had stirred objections from Bush administration figures and prominent Jewish leaders. It did not specify if the Bush administration had actively sought to stop the meeting.
Some Jewish leaders responded to invitations to the event by asking whether the council would have invited Hitler in the 1930s, and considered resigning from the group en masse, the Times reported. They decided not to resign after the event was changed from a dinner to a meeting, it said.
"It is more offensive to break bread with the guy," Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Times. "I thought dinner was crossing the line."
Ahmadinejad has frequently called the Holocaust a "myth" and has demanded more research to determine whether six million Jews really perished in World War II.
CFR chairman Peter G. Peterson told him Wednesday that the majority of Americans — Jews and non-Jews alike — were "horrified" by his assertions, CFR said in a statement.
Ahmadinejad replied that he doubted that was the case for all Americans, it said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the General Assembly session that the international community must stand up against Iran, which she claimed is pursuing nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
"There is no greater challenge to our values than that posed by the leaders of Iran," Livni said Wednesday. "They deny and mock the Holocaust. They speak proudly and openly of their desire to wipe Israel off the map. And now, by their actions, they pursue the weapons to achieve this objective, to imperil the region and to threaten the world."
The United States is embroiled in a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Tehran claims its goal is to generate electricity, but the U.S. says Iran aims to produce nuclear weapons.
The U.S. was required to grant Ahmadinejad a visa to travel to the General Assembly in New York this week, under an agreement with the United Nations.
The foreign policy group is filled with the country's government elite: Haass worked at the State Department under President Bush's first term while member Brent Scowcroft served as national security adviser under Bush's father, and Robert D. Blackwill directed Iraq policy at the White House. All attended the event, the Times said.
Now you're gettin' it...
The newspaper also reported that the group's invitation to Ahmadinejad to talk had stirred objections from Bush administration figures and prominent Jewish leaders. It did not specify if the Bush administration had actively sought to stop the meeting.
Most everyone in the current administration, and many in congress are members of the CFR...
They are all globalists and could care nothing about the United States of America...Of course the administration didn't object too loudly to the meeting...They ARE the CFR...
The CFR runs the country...
"Do NY and DC's elite run this country, or do we?"
Consider the laws on the books and the billions of our tax dollars spent in foreign aid (much goes to terrorists) that you,I, and perhaps millions of other Americans would have/still do oppose.
Not sure exactly who it is that is running this country, but am sure it ain't us..."we the people."
Do you want the truth or do you want to believe that the people still (if they ever did) call the shots in America?
Well, since we have ZERO actual reporting and informing the public anymore, maybe we should start our own paper reporting actual facts, and reporting on the MSM since they are now part of government.
This monopoly of elite press and gov needs to be destroyed.
I think most Americans believe what they see and hear on TV.
Television is our God.
Council Refuses To Cancel Meeting With Iran's Leader
By ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 19, 2006
WASHINGTON — The Council on Foreign Relations is rebuffing a suggestion from the Senate's third-ranking Republican to call off its proposed meeting with the president of Iran.
Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania, wrote a letter yesterday to the council's president, Richard Haass, saying the invitation to President Ahmadinejad demonstrates that the council "draws no distinction between world leaders who deserve respect and those that undermine the very values of the international system the United States seeks to uphold."
A spokeswoman for the council, Lisa Shields, declined to address the specifics of Mr. Santorum's letter. "The council has no plans to revoke the invitation to the Iranian president. Richard Haass will respond this week directly to the senator," she said. Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has questioned the Holocaust and said Israel should be wiped off the map, will meet with members of the council at his hotel in Manhattan tomorrow. On the same day, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations will host a solidarity rally outside the United Nations to protest Mr. Ahmadinejad's presence there.
The Iranian leader "does not afford his own people the freedom of speech," Mr. Santorum wrote. "By allowing him the opportunity to address a public forum in the United States, you are sending the wrong message to the people of Iran."
Mr. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly today. He said last week that Iran offers a better model in the world for global leadership, and requested a public debate with President Bush.
Mr. Bush, who rejected that request on Friday, is expected to ask the United Nations today to take swift action on a resolution to sanction Iran for its continued enrichment of uranium.
As The New York Sun reported yesterday, at least six major Jewish leaders in New York have declined an invitation to meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad.
http://www.nysun.com/article/39947
The same think tank that wants to form a North American Community. How comforting and quaint that they should be cavorting with the devil.
My intent was to pique Owl_Eagle's interest.
Did he also meet with the Trilateral Commission?
Okay...the CFR is the core of the NWO. The Trilateral commission formed in 1972 established the upcoming agenda for the NWO to formulate their strategy.
I won't bother you; just thought, I would join. I've been studying this for years and come to see a lot of the history and also where it's going.
have a good weekend.....
We do not run this country........no question that the CFR and the Round Table Groups (Royal Institute of International Affairs (England) are running this train and have no aversion to cooperating with communist (when they were in full control and at their strongest influence over the decades) or any other groups and they actually do this.
Names to reference....Rhodes, Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, Rothschild, Whitney, Lazard, and Grenfell.....
Read Carroll Quigley, "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time". The Macmillian Company, New York, 1966, Page 950.
No word on the Trilateral Commission that I believe you are referring to, however Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan set to establish joint commission - Ahmadinejad
Iran-President-Trilateral Commission
Iran's President Ahmadinejad said here on Wednesday evening that Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan will soon establish a cultural cooperation commission.
Speaking to reporters at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport upon his arrival from Turkmenistan and Tajikistan visit, Ahmadinejad said, "Heads of the commission will be cabinet ministers from the three countries and it will be convened twice annually at ministerial, and once at summit level.
He added, the first meeting of the commission will be convened within the next two months in Kabul.
The president described the trilateral meeting of the three presidents in Dushanbe as "an important part of his trip" and said that the three countries have plenty of cultural commonalties.
He added that Iran has common borders with Afghanistan and Afghanistan has a common borders with Tajikistan, and therefore a large volume of the three countries' business transactions and transportations can take place through the Afghan soil.
Ahmadinejad said, there is plenty of ground for cooperation among the three countries, especially in the fields of transportation and energy and in that regard, during the Dushanbe trilateral Summit six cooperation documents were signed.
Concerning his 2-day visit to Turkmenistan, the IRI President said, "six cooperation documents in the fields of economics and culture were signed during these two days."
Opening Iran's Trade and Industry Exhibition in Ashkhabad and inaugurating the Bajgiran Border Terminal were among the Iranian president's activities during his Turkmenistan visit.
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