Rotary Business

Guests:  None

Visiting Rotarians:  None

Potential Members: Nathan Seckinger (Pam Henshall); Debra Branch (Sandi Lichtman)

Rotary Business

To commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11 President Fred Levin read a poem written by John Kerry in 2002.

Joel Gardner reported that as of September 8th, 2006,  $3978 had been collected for RI Foundation. The goal for the 2006-2007 year is, $10,000.

Marv Axler shared Strike Out Hunger Night had resulted in $1785 Foundation credits.

President Fred Levin reminded Rotarians that 25.00 will be paid to our club  for each Rotarian who obtains a Rotary MasterCard, if $75 is spent in the first ninety days after receiving the card.  One quarter of one percent of the monies spent by Rotarians worldwide is donated to RI. To date, four million dollars has been earned for RI.

Rotary Calendar

Current--Joel Petchon has 2007 Entertainment Books for sale for GSR--South Jersey-30.00 & Philadelphia--25.00.  Twenty percent of the proceeds benefit GSR.

September 20th--Kennedy Hospital in Cherry Hill is offering a free course in CPR.  It is a three hour class beginning at 6pm. Our very own Roseanne Myers will be the instructor.  The following Rotarians are seeking CPR certification: Jeff & Barbara Schnepper, William Tobolsky, John Zearbaugh, Fred & Robin Levin, Angela Grasso, Pam Henshall, Dave Pilla, Sandi Lichtman, EJ, Alan & Ilean Stein, Bonnie Natal, Joel & Hedy Petchon.

September 22nd--8:00--2:00pm--Stand Down--Once a year in Camden County Homeless Veterans are brought to the Armory in Cherry Hill to receive a hot meal and a medical check-up. Volunteers are needed, no experience necessary. Contact Joe Eisberg (424-4878).   The following Rotarians have signed up:  Joe Eisberg, Sandi Lichtman, Juliann Mitchell, Joel Gardner, William Tobolsky.

December 3rd--Holiday Party--Cafe Aldo Lamberti's, Route 70, Cherry Hill.  The fun begins at 6 pm. 

Last Week's Meeting--Joseph Pruder--The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin

 On The Middle East--America Must Settle Score With Carter First Before Turning To Iran

In Pruder's own words,

In settling the score with Iran, America must first settle the score with former president Jimmy Carter. Carter weakened the U.S. position in the Middle East by undermining the Shah of Iran, a major pillar of stability in the region. Today, we are faced with the consequences of Carter's miserable foreign policy failures-a nuclear Iran, instability in the Middle East, Islamic terrorism inspired and led by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and an immediate threat to America and the West.

Carter's actions as President of the U.S. helped bring down two vital American allies: the Shah of Iran and President Samosa of Nicaragua. The results were devastating for America and the free and democratic world - it ushered the age of Islamic terrorism.

Iran under the Shah provided stability, moderation and the secure flow of Middle East oil in the 1960's and 1970's. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - the Shah of Iran, was able to keep Saddam Hussein's maniacal ambitions in check, and suppress Islamic (Shia) radicalism. Iran, under the Shah, had good relations with Israel and the two countries traded oil for technology Israel provided to Iran.

The Soviets sought to destabilize the Shah's regime in every possible way, and it is likely that they funded the radical Islamist Ayatollahs. The Shah was able to arrest radical mullahs and pro-Soviet agents, his strong military machine along with that of Turkey and Israel were a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Middle East.

The former Soviet Union found in Jimmy Carter one of its most effective weapons in the war against America and the West. Carter, touting human rights (selectively of course) criticized the Shah's human rights record and ordered the CIA to stop bribing the mullahs to quell their anti-Shah agitation. Saudi Arabia, a much worse offender of human rights, was deliberately and selectively overlooked. While the Shah provided equal rights for women and sought to emulate the West by modernizing Iran, the Saudi's suppressed their women and, its Wahhabi Sunni Muslim establishment maintained an anti-Western posture.

In 1979, when demonstrations in Teheran instigated by the Ayatollah Khomeini began, the Shah's army and police could have easily dealt with the menace. Pressure by the Carter administration to use a soft-hand on the demonstrators soon lead to the downfall of the Shah and victory of the forces that would become America's greatest threat since Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union-The Islamic Republic of Iran: a terrorist sponsoring state with a Jihadist Islamic ideology.

Carter's cowardly refusal to shelter the ailing Shah provided further encouragement for the America-hating mullahs to suppress the democratic forces in Iran and neutralize its armed forces. Carter is therefore responsible to a large degree for the rise of radical Islam and the current Iranian threat to America and the free world. Moreover, Carter's inaction in the face of the Ayatollah's seizing the U.S. embassy in Teheran - in effect a declaration of war against America - and his subsequent faint attempt to launch a limited military operation that failed miserably, made America a "paper tiger" in the eyes of Islamist Iran.

It was the perception of America as a "paper-tiger" that emboldened the theocratic regime in Iran to launch probing attacks on Americans and American interests. Carter, more than any other American president is responsible for it. Had his administration responded to the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Teheran with effective military force the regime could have been removed and Islamic terrorism would have been chocked in its infancy. American show of determination and force would have been accepted as legitimate by the Soviets and, it might have deterred them from invading Afghanistan.

Regrettably, the Reagan administration failed to tackle Iran too. President Reagan ultimately won the Cold War against the Soviets but never punished Iran for its transgressions against the U.S. In the aftermath of Israel's "Peace for the Galilee" war in 1982, U.S. and French peacekeeping forces arrived in Lebanon. On April 18, 1983, under orders from the Mullah's in Teheran, the Hezbollah ("Party of God" - the Shiite -Muslim terrorist group created by Iran in 1982) used a suicide bomber to destroy the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The death of 63 embassy workers resulted. Later that year, on October 23, a Hezbollah suicide bomber bombed the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, 241 U.S. marines were killed, and the U.S. pulled its peacekeepers out of Lebanon.

America never punished the perpetrators nor for that matter their masters in Teheran. Once again, super-power America proved to be a "paper-tiger." The Islamic Republic of Iran was further empowered by U.S. reluctance to engage the Iranians militarily. Ironically, later in the 1980's the U.S. sold Tow missiles to the Iranians in what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair. Hezbollah would kidnap Americans and hold them as hostages. To obtain their release the U.S. agreed to sell the besieged mullahs (during the height of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war) weapons at an inflated price, which helped fund the Contra's in Nicaragua (who were fighting against the leftist Sandinistas, then in power). To the Iranians, it displayed the bankruptcy of America and the West.

Somali gang leader Muhammad Aidid, with Iran's support killed 20 U.S. soldiers, sent to Somalia in December 1992, to provide relief to the hunger stricken Somalis. President Clinton, taking over from President Bush dispatched Jimmy Carter to negotiate with Aidid. Carter, who never met a killer-dictator he did not like, was an abject failure. Iran's behind the scenes killing of Americans went unpunished once again.

On the morning of June 25, 1996 the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, housing American servicemen, were blown to pieces by a large bomb supplied by Hezbollah with Iranian complicity and sponsorship. 19 U.S. servicemen were killed and hundreds wounded. The Clinton administration took no action to punish Iran.

By now, it is painfully clear that the Islamic Republic of Iran is undeterred by the U.S. super-power status. Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, has arrogantly dismissed European and American calls to negotiate its nuclear plans. Years of inflicting pain on Americans with impunity have made Iranians feel that they could get away with terrorism and murder. Western diplomacy and sanctions will not end Iran's terror sponsoring campaign that targets American and U.S. interests worldwide. Only a full military attack on Iran that would bring down the Teheran regime will settle the score with Iran.  For more on Pruder's viewpoints-www.theeveningbulletin.com

Speaker's Calendar

Birthdays

September 3--Brian Backensto

September 14--Claudia Sumler

September 25--Jeff Schnepper

September 27--Gladys Glass