Replies to post #629 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[jdaasoc]

Zeev this is frist time I had heard that Iran got serious tensions between reformers and mullahs.

http://www.dawn.com/2002/11/11/top13.htm

Iran MPs okay bill to clip judiciary powers

TEHRAN, Nov 10: Iran's parliament on Sunday approved a draft bill to allow President Mohammad Khatami curb the powers of the hardline judiciary, part of a bid to assert his authority over conservative rivals.

Khatami is locked in an apparent collision course with his hardline rivals with legislation that directly challenges their powers which they have used to block successive stabs at reform.

"Khatami presented the bill in order to stop constitutional violations," Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told parliament.

Elected in 1997 and re-elected last year with landslide wins, Khatami has found his efforts to promote democracy blocked by conservatives who control the judiciary, armed forces and broadcast media.

He has introduced two bills to parliament aimed at limiting the power of the judiciary and curbing the Guardian Council's veto power over election candidates.

A large majority of deputies in the reformist-dominated parliament on Sunday backed the outlines of the bill which would give Khatami the power to recommend the sacking of officials who violate the constitution.

Another bill passed last week limits the conservative Guardian Council's power to veto election candidates. The bills have to go through another reading in parliament. But once passed, they, like all legislation, require the approval of the 12-man Guardian Council. Analysts say it is most unlikely the conservatives would agree to limit their own power.

The council has used its power to veto more than 50 bills in the past two years after judging them incompatible with Islamic law and the constitution, thus effectively blocking most of parliament's reform efforts.

DICTATORIAL POWERS: Khatami's conservative rivals said the constitutional powers bill would give too much authority to the head of executive and accused Khatami of seeking dictatorial powers.

Abtahi rejected the charges. "The only element in the system that is chosen by the people's direct vote and is supervised by different organizations cannot become a dictator," he said.

Analysts say the recent arrest of a number of reformists, the death sentence against one and the closure of polling centres shows hardliners are in no mood to compromise over reform.

"The recent crackdown on the reformist camp shows they won't give the bills any chance," said one. Khatami's allies said hardliners were trying to intimidate reformists, especially the president, to withdraw the bills.

"The jailings and heavy sentences against outspoken reformists are to put pressure on Khatami to take back his bills," said MP Rajabali Mazroui.

The death sentence last week against reformist Hashem Aghajari for blasphemy after he questioned the clergy's right to rule the Islamic Republic has led to an outcry from reformists and protests from students.-Reuters

[jbennett53]

1. There can be no comparison between the brutality of the Anglo-American bomber offensive, on one hand, and the minimality of the German-Italian efforts, on the other. As the commander of the British strategic air offensive, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris shows in his Bomber Offensive (Macmillan, New York, 1947) 23 German cities had more than 60 percent of their built-up area destroyed; 46 had half of it destroyed. 31 communities had more than 500 acres obliterated: Berlin, 6427 acres: Hamburg, 6200 acres; Duesseldorf, 2003; Cologne (through air attack), 1994. By contrast, the three favorite targets of the Luftwaffe: London, Plymouth and Coventry, had 600 acres, 400, and just over 100 acres destroyed.

2. Anglo-American strategic bombers, according to official sources of the West German government in 1962, dropped 2,690,000 metric tons of bombs on Continental Europe; 1,350,000 tons were dropped on Germany within its 1937 boundaries; 180,000 tons on Austria and the Balkans; 590,000 tons on France; 370,000 tons on Italy; and 200,000 tons on miscellaneous targets such as Bohemia, Slovakia and Poland. By contrast, Germany dropped a total of 74,172 tons of bombs as well as V-1 and V-2 rockets and "buzz bombs" on Britain - five percent of what the Anglo-Saxons rained down on Germany. The Federal German Government has established the minimum count - not an estimate - of 635,000 German civilians were killed in France, Italy, Rumania, Hungary, Czecheslovakia, and elsewhere.

3. Both Germany and Britain initiated air raids on naval and military targets as of 3 September 1939. However, when the British attacks on port installations in Northern Germany ended in disaster, with a devastating majority of bombers downed - the Battle of the German Bight - Britain switched over to less costly night air raids on civilian targets such as Berlin and the Ruhr industrial region. By contrast, Germany replied in kind only in the winter months of 1940/41, a year later. Observers indubitably British, such as the late Labour Minister Crossman, the scientist and writer C.P. Snow, and the Earl of Birkenhead, have demonstrated that it was not Germany but Britain that, after May, 1940, unleashed an official policy of unrestricted and unlimited raids on civilian populations under its new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and his science advisor, Dr. Lindemann. Professor Lindemann, the later Viscount Cherwell, coolly calculated that, by using a force of 10,000 heavy bombers to attack and destroy the 58 largest German cities, one-third of the population of Germany would be "de-housed." The assumption, of course, also was that out of those 25-27 million homeless at least ten percent - 2.5 to 3 million people - would be killed. On this score alone, Winston Churchill and his advisors deserve to rank among the maddest mass murderers in history. In fact, as West German records show, 131 German towns were hit by heavy strategic raids. Only the courage of the Luftwaffe pilots, the effectiveness of the air defense network and the strength of the fire fighting organization worked together to prevent a bloodbath to the extent envisioned by the Prime Minister.

4. Blood baths did occur when conditions were right. When the Anglo-American bombing policy reached its first grand climax in a raid on Hamburg that stretched over several days and nights in July, 1943, a minimum of 40,000 to 50,000 civilians burned to death. With the defensive power of the Reich worn down in the second half of 1944 and in 1945, the Anglo-Saxons indulged in ever more massive extermination raids against Europe. Communities of little or no military value, even if attacked previously, were now pulverized, preferably under conditions of the utmost horror. Christian holy days, and dates and sites of famous art festivals were select occasions for raids. Many of the most beautiful cities of Europe and the world were systematically pounded into nothingness, often during the last weeks of the war, among them: Wuerzburg, Hildesheim, Darmstadt, Kassel, Nürnberg, Braunschweig. Little Pforzheim in south-west Germany had 17,000 people killed. Dresden, one of the great art centers and in 1945 a refuge for perhaps a million civilians, was decimated with the loss of at least 100,000 souls. Europe from Monte Cassino to Luebeck and Rostock on the Baltic, from Caen and Lisieux in France to Pilsen, Prague, Bruenn, Budapest and Bucharest reeled under the barbaric blows of the bombers.