By Randy Talbot, United for Peace of Pierce County, 24 June 2007
On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an embarrassing AIPAC-designed resolution calling on the U.N. Security Council to take up genocide charges against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” — The resolution is an absurd one and the House should be ashamed of its 411-2 vote, since in fact the Iranian president never said any such thing. — Kucinich raised the question of the mistranslation of Ahmadinejad’s remarks and tried to correct the record by having alternative translations read into the record, but the House preferred to remain in its AIPAC-induced state of error. — “Kucinich attempted to insert into the Congressional Record two independent translations of the speech from the New York Times and Middle East Media Research Institute, which contain significant differences in the translations of the speech compared to the resolution before the House. However, Members objected formally and the attempt was blocked.”[1] — Indeed, the record shows that one third of the debate on the floor of the House consisted of Dennis Kucinich’s unsuccessful attempt to have more accurate translations of Ahmadinejad’s remarks — from the New York Times no less! — inserted into the record. — Since these remarks were supposedly the reason for the resolution, nothing could have been more germane, but unanimous consent was denied, on the grounds that the speech contained the very ideas that Kucinich questioned whether it contained — a very nice petitio principii, or begging of the question. — The only other representative voting against the resolution was Ron Paul (R-TX 14th), who called it “an exercise in propaganda that serves one purpose: to move us closer to initiating a war against Iran.”[2] …