Afshin Rattansi and Gore Vidal on Iran & Power June 2008

Gore Vidal speaks to Afshin Rattansi about another of President Bush's attorney-generals facing a subpoena, the White House becoming Persepolis and military action against Iran.

Afshin Rattansi: We hear that Michael Mukasey is going to become the latest of the President's Attorney-Generals to be subpoenaed, this time over his conversations with Bush and Cheney -- does this show that Congress is serious about calling the executive to account?
Gore Vidal: No, Congress has never been more cowardly, nor more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that's end of any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of Congress is Denis Kucinich who brought the article of impeachment in to the well of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives must then try the president, and then after that it goes to the Senate for judgment. However, none of these things will happen because there's nobody there except for Mr. Kucinich who has the courage to take on a sitting president who is kind of a Mafioso.
Afshin Rattansi: How can it just be one person among so many hundreds of Congressmen who wants the impeachment of George W. Bush in these circumstances?
Gore Vidal: Well it's because we no longer have a country. We don't have a republic any more. During the last 7 or 8 years of the Bush regime, they've got rid of the Bill of Rights, they've got rid of habeas corpus. They have got rid of one of the nicest gifts that England ever left us when they went away and we ceased to be colonies -- the Magna Carta -- from the 12th century. All of our law and due process of law is based on that. And the Bush people got rid of it. The president and little Mr. Gonzales who for a few minutes was his Attorney General. They managed to get rid of all of the constitutional links that made us literally a republic.
Afshin Rattansi: You have often written about the United States' superpower status in terms of the history of previous superpowers. Do you think we're witnessing the end of U.S. power as some suggest. Will the White House be seen like Persepolis?

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• gore
• vidal
• afshin
• rattansi
• bush
• cheney
• kucinich
• impeachment
• iran
• tehran
• war
• israel
• obama
• clinton
• mccain
• plame
• mukasey

[trails46]

ISRAEL is going down and when it does the entire WORLD will applaud.

[SirianKings]

The sooner Israel nukes Iran, the better.

[italstal07]

israel is that stupid and they would use their nukes they don't care..they think the world has to end anyway..we need to end zionism

[IamJacksColon4]

what news channel is this?

[Drolkin]

Iran would demolish any US invasion.

Not only that but the US invading Iran is exactly what China/Russia/North Korea wants, it will give them a reason to unleash their militaries to protect their "ally".

No one is going to launch nukes, no one is that stupid, and this is why these 4 countries have such enormous militaries which they try to hide by having most of them classified as paramilitaries(mercs).

[bboucharde]

Maxime32,

The channel name is "rattansifan" and you are watching it now. Just click on SUBSCRIBE in the upper-right-hand frame, and it will be added to your subscriptions, which are free.

I hope this answers your question. If you click on the "rattansifan" blue link in the upper right, it will take you to the homepage of the channel, with an archive of past interviews. This is an interesting channel that gives us a window into the minds of the Tehran leadership.

[maxime32]

How do you get access to this news channel?

[44MONTEREY]

You can fool some of the people all the time. A Lincoln

Even if he tells the truth,

No one believes a liar.

A.Lincoln

The reason I think is there is a government of the industrialists who divided Arabia and appointed Emmerets and Shaws to take their one dollar a barral for oil and were told to control the indiginous. Iran rejected their shaw and will never be forgiven. Never ever. That's what I think.

[EditHistory]

visit votenader (dot) org to find out more about the Nader/Gonzalez position on issues that Matter for 2008.

[bboucharde]

Mr. Afshin Rattansi:

I appreciate your news channel and watch it regularly. Though I am troubled by the lack of civil rights in Iran and the oppression of women there, I am FIRMLY AGAINST any US attack on Iran--and millions of Americans agree with me. Both the US and Iran have serious internal problems that need fixing.

One of our worst problems is that the AIPAC lobby controls US foreign policy: Our military are Hessians for Tel Aviv. Maybe your new S-300 system will deter US-IDF air attack.