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Saturday, June 28, 2008

Deliberate Misquotes at Joint Force Quarterly

There is a deliberate misquote and quote taken out of context regarding Iran's leaders in the article Israel’s Survival Instincts and the Dangers of Nuclear Weapons in Iranian Hands by Richard L. Russell. This article is published by Joint Force Quarterly in PDF form.

Russell claims President Ahmadinejad said that Israel "must be wiped off the map". What Ahmadinejad actually said was "This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

Russell then claims that Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rasfanjani "mused that a single nuclear weapon could obliterate Israel, whereas Israel could 'only damage' the world of Islam". What Rasfanjani actually said was "If one day ... Of course, that is very important. If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."

Joint Force Quarterly is published for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, by the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, to promote understanding of the integrated employment of land, sea, air, space, and special operations forces. The journal focuses on joint doctrine, integrated operations, coalition warfare, contingency planning, military operations conducted across the spectrum of conflict, and joint force development. That it would publish Russell's work containing a one-dimesional perspective of Iran and Israel's nuclear issue is yet another indicator of the US military and political climate surrounding a potential strike against Iran.

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