Obama Beats the Drum on Iran - Where's the change?

It's ironic and hypocritical that the USA fires off missiles as a regular part of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq for years, killing hundreds and thousands of innocent women and children and then raises a political stink about Iran test firing unarmed missiles within their own territory. The irony and the hypocrisy hardly ends there. The USA must look to its own non-compliance as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Scott Ritter was one of the more out-spoken UN weapons inspectors in Iraq who campaigned to continue weapons inspections in order to end the murderous sanctions and avoid war. He was also very vocal about denying the Bush/Cheney claim of WMDs in Iraq.
Go to Mr Ritter's article in the Guardian entitled,
"Keeping Iran Honest; Iran's secret nuclear plant will spark a new round of IAEA inspections and lead to a period of even greater transparency."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/25/iran-secret-nuclear-plant-inspections

Then watch his interview on Democracy Now!
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Kissinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Iran's Nuclear Program

Those beating the drum about Iran’s nuclear program should be made aware that the United States has been complicit in the Iranian program since the Ford administration. Then Secretary-of-State, Henry Kissinger offered a ‘strange deal’ to Pakistan that had been formulated by Richard Cheney, Ford’s Chief -of-Staff and Donald Rumsfeld, Ford’s Defense Secretary according to an extremely well-researched and copiously foot-noted book by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark entitled, ‘Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons’.

While focusing on Pakistan’s nuclear program and the Reagan administration’s turning a blind eye to it and General Zia’s blood-thirsty military rule while recruiting and funding the Afghani Freedom Fighters (better known as the mujahedeen, a.k.a. Al Qaeda), ‘Deception’ references the unlawful proliferation of nuclear technology by the United States to Iran under the Shah.

The ‘strange deal’ that Cheney and Rumsfeld devised and which Kissinger offered to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s Prime Minister (before Zia had him executed), was an effort to persuade Pakistan to forego its plans to pursue a nuclear program. In 1976, Kissinger begrudgingly proposed that if Bhutto terminated Pakistan’s own nascent uranium enrichment project, the United States would arrange to supply Pakistan with its needed enriched materials from a facility, funded and supplied by the US, and based in Iran.

Cheney and Rumsfeld had master-minded the scheme, arguing that Iran – even though awash in oil and gas - would need a nuclear program to meet its future energy needs. This plan was to be the first nuclear deal with Iran and would have been extremely lucrative for US corporations such as Westinghouse and General Electric “which stood to earn $6.4 billion from the project”. (The plan to lead Iran into the Nuclear Age was supported by Kissinger although the offer to involve Pakistan was not to his liking, hence his reluctance to propose the plan to Bhutto.)

Furthermore, according to an article in the Washington Post, written by Dafna Linzer, published on March 27, 2005, confirms “US involvement with Iran’s nuclear program until 1979” which involved “large-scale intelligence-sharing and conventional weapons sales”. The Linzer article goes on to assert that “Even with many key players in common” (editor’s note: such as Cheney and Rumsfeld), “the U.S. government has taken opposite positions on questions of fact as its perception of U.S. interests has changed.”

The compete Washington Post article can be read at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3983-2005Mar26.html

Although publicly opposed to President Bush’s hard-line stance on Iran and while favoring diplomacy over force of arms, the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, has voiced her dismay over Iran’s nuclear program. It has been reported by Cheryl Biren-Wright at OpEdNews.com that Madam Pelosi stated at a recent event that Iran has received "a lot of technology from China, from Pakistan, probably from Russia and other places…”.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Nancy-Pelosi-Book-Signing-by-Cheryl-Biren-Wrigh-080807-772.html

It would be very surprising, indeed, ludicrous to think Madam Speaker was not aware that the United States – one of those ‘other places’ - had initiated the proliferation of nuclear technology in Iran. Moreover, it is not surprising that Ms Pelosi purposely omitted reference to the US role in the unlawful proliferation of nuclear technology. By avoiding a mention of the US complicity in Iran’s nuclear program, Pelosi avoided the obvious pit-falls of obfuscation and deflected attention to tried and true adversaries past and future; the People’s Republic of China, Pakistan and the Russian Confederation.

Once again, the chickens - hatched by brood hens obsessed with imperial foreign policies - are coming home to roost. What is more, they once again carry nuclear eggs in flimsy baskets.

Post Script: A truly illuminating speech given at the World Affairs Council of Northern California by ‘Deception’ co-author Adrian Levy can be viewed at FORA.TV. http://fora.tv/2007/10/30/Pakistan_and_the_A_Q__Khan_Network

Stop the War with Iran

Stop the War in Iran before it gets started.

Bush and his Boys are not about to let this one go. We won’t be any safer from terrorism – quite the opposite – but their compadres, the CEOs at Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Bechtel , Exxon-Mobile, etc, ad nauseam would be thrilled to death if the war widens to include Iran along with Afghanistan and Iraq.

CounterPunch.org is reporting President Bush has signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime. Bush’s secret directive covers actions from Lebanon to Afghanistan. Journalist Andrew Cockburn reports the directive is “unprecedented in its scope” and permits the assassination of targeted officials. http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew05022008.html

Of course, actions like this cost money. Not to worry. An outlay of $300 million has been approved with bipartisan support. Way to stand on your hind legs, Dems! So much for will of the people, you bunch of self-serving back-stabbing slackers.

Now, Hill the Pill is declaring she’ll unleash Armageddon on Iran if they attack Israel. Break out the testosterone suppositories! She’s gonna grow her some ‘nads!

'What’s wrong with saying that?', she asks in her campaign delirium.

“Why would I have any regrets? I’m asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally, a country that many of us have a great deal of, you know, connection with and feeling for, for all kinds of reasons.”

And stuff like that there…

Lord, Sister Hill, why are you buying into Cheney’s paranoid propaganda? Are you trying to get some wack-o swing votes from McCain supporters who think he’s ‘soft’ on terror? McCain has that area of Psycho-town nailed down with his 100 years in Iraq vision. Meanwhile, he’s getting spa treatments and taking meetings with Carl Rove clones while you and Obama dance the dance from ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’. Fire your advisors and stop shooting yourself and your party in the foot.

Let's all take a reality break!

As mentioned here a fortnight ago, Iran is in no position at all to attack Israel. They have no nuclear capability according to the current NIE report while Israel has hundreds of active nukes. That would hardly be stepping into a fair fight let alone provoking one. The old saw about bringing a knife to a gun-fight springs to mind.

Oh, and has anybody in the Clinton campaign or anyone else covering the ‘situation’ with Iran looked at a friggin’ map? Just how is Iran planning to attack Israel? (Sure, they’ve blustered about it. Look at all the trash talking coming from Washington and Jerusalem.) Let’s get practical: just how would the Iranians go about attacking Israel? March, unseen, 1200 kilometers across Iraq and Jordan to wage war against the second-best equipped army in the world?

That ain’t gonna happen.

Or would Tehran, just go ahead and toss all caution and sense of self-preservation aside and simply attack Israel with air-strikes – just to start a pissing contest? Right. No matter what the state of Iran’s air force, the US and Israel have them trumped, hands down. Especially when the Israelis have the capability to launch nuclear devices from their specially equipped, American supplied fighters.

Not a single Iranian plane would even be allowed to approach Iraq air-space unchallenged. How in hell would Iranian planes make it across Iraq to Israel? Even the attempt, even the feint of an attempt at such an insane self-destructive act of aggression would mean a shit-storm descending on Tehran.

And does anybody out there really think that given the chance, the Israeli leadership would think twice about letting a couple of tactical nukes find a worthy target or two for the sake of future deterrence? Not that the presence of 300 more nukes just like those aren’t deterrent enough.

I, for one, am inclined to think that Iran would rather err on the side of caution than seek the destruction of its republic and the death of a substantial number of its people.

Call me crazy.

Stop the War in Iran before it gets started.

Our Creepy Veep on the Warpath in Bizarr-o World

It’s time for another visit to Bizarr-o World, my friends. Break out the thorazine, open a fresh party pack of chocolate-covered Prozac and enjoy the fun as America’s zaniest bunch of psychopaths try for the trifecta of World Political Disasters.

Dan Froomkin wrote an article entitled ‘Cheney on the Warpath Again?’ for the Friday, April 11, 2008 on-line edition of the Washington Post. (Imagine that; the press may actually be getting savvy to the fact that Cheney, Bush, and the gang are role-playing ‘Armegeddon’.) In the article, Froomkin quotes our curmudgeonly VP telling Sean ‘the Bean’ Hammity that Iran was filled with nasty apocalyptic zealots who might have a nuclear bomb sometime soon. (Hmm, this rings a bell.) Of course, the only appropriate action hinted at by our creepy Veep is - wait for it - showing them who’s the boss in Bizarr-o World. He started off by sowing his black magic seeds of ‘FEAR!’.

Quothe the Cheney:

"But Ahmadinejad is I think a very dangerous man. On the one hand, he has repeatedly stated that he wants to destroy Israel. … mutual assured destruction in the Soviet-U.S. relationship in the Cold War meant deterrence, but mutual assured destruction with Ahmadinejad is an incentive.”

So, let me get this straight, Dicky-doodle: the president of Iran is even crazier than you are. Is that what you’re saying?

Cuz, he doesn’t have any nuclear weapons. He doesn’t have any fissile material. And he hasn’t even had a weapons program for 5 years according to the latest report by the National Intelligence Estimate. The NIE reported "with high confidence" that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program until 2003, but that this was discovered and Iran stopped it. (Naughty Billies!) It also assessed that the earliest date by which Iran could make a nuclear weapon would be late 2009 but that this is "very unlikely" given that Iran appears "less determined" to develop nuclear weapons than US intelligence had previously thought. In other words, no nukes and nearly a zero level chance of producing one.

On the other hand, Mr C, at last count - I suspect counting them over and over is how you fall asleep in the wee hours - how many nuclear devices are there currently in the DOD inventory, cringing from your clammy touch? An estimated 5,736 active stockpile warheads scattered round the US (and elsewhere) – give or take. That’s what I’d call a very active nuclear weapons program. It’s been going on since the ’Manhattan Project’ without abatement for over 60 years.

Oh, and not to mention – and in polite, elitist intellectual company one simply doesn’t, you know – courtesy of the super sense of fair play and the hyper-sensitivity to anti-Semitism that are the hallmarks of US foreign policy - the state of Israel is the 5^th largest nuclear power in the world. It has between 200 and 300 nuclear warheads just waiting for the ‘okay’ from Washington should an Arab or Iranian dare look cross-eyed at them.

And you think that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and all of his advisors are crazy enough to try to build a nuclear bomb and use it to destroy the Zionist State precisely, explicitly, because they, the Iranians, would then be annihilated by US and Israeli retaliation, destroying 6,000 years of history, culture and tradition and subjecting the Iranian population of over 70 million to a nuclear holocaust? Even when we’re talking about apocalyptic zealots – and that’s talking way crazy – nuking Israel and assuring self-induced annihilation is straight out looney-tunes. We’re well past thorazine party favors, booby. That’s more of your Bizarr-o world up-is-down, black-is-white, thinking at work there.

What is beyond question is that Vee-Pee Dick (in the role of Iago) leads a faction of officials in the Pentagon, State Department and elsewhere, who argue that before Dubya hands over the keys to 1600 (none too soon), the US should kick some more boo-tay there in oil-rich Asia, destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, punish them for not keeping the Shah in power and thwarting U.S. aims in Iraq.

(Which are what again? Oh, yeah, the ‘democracy’ thing.)

Froomkin added that some observers suspect Cheney of encouraging Israel to attack Iran as a proxy while he was there spreading sunshine and love from an Israeli check-point two weeks ago and accusing Hamas of trying to scuttle ‘peace talks’. (Those words must curdle in the man’s mouth.)

And Twisted Dick thinks Ahmadinejad is a very dangerous man? Oh, yeah…

So, if this Mahmoud joker is actually planning to pull a nuclear weapon out of his burnoose and use it on Israel, he must be without a doubt, top-to-bottom, upside-downside, backwards and forwards a whole lot crazier than you are, Sour-Puss Dick.

And if you think we are stupid enough to fall for that ol’ WMDs gag again, you ought to try re-doubling your dose of Prozac and start thinking how you’re going to spend your yard time in Leavenworth, Dicky-boy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/11/BL2008041102216_pf.html

BBC News, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4031603.stm

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Wpngall.html

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