Demonizing Iran: making the lies respectable

[Toedancer]

Love that smiley A!

Not sure whether to post this, but yeah it goes.
Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying         activity in the United States

The observant   now know that Israel’s massive, clandestine nuclear arsenal remains a   thorn in the side of U.S. nonproliferation efforts. Building it required   many unfriendly acts, such as materials theft   and covert financing from U.S. donors. The Israeli nuclear arsenal   story remains curiously under-reported in America, though not throughout   the rest of the world. But have media outlets such as The Atlantic received assistance from Israel and its lobby for publishing helpful – but equally misleading – content? The answer is Yes. “Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who’s Who in America… And that sucks.

[Croghan27]

Welcome to the real world of nuclear development, Israel, Iran. I cannot recall any nuclear project in the world that has come in on budget and according to projected time lines.

Canada, that has a fairly sophisticated nuclear history and culture, recently illustrated (and illustrates) this with Chalk River and the New Brunswick Point Lepreau plants. (There is a good chance that Point Lepreau may bankrupt NB Power.)

[Antonia]

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/08/20/christopher-hitchens-the-price-of-not-disarming-iran/

Hitchens makes another accurate prediction.
 

[Croghan27]

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/08/20/christopher-hitchens-the-price-of-not-disarming-iran/

Hitchens makes another accurate prediction.
 

I am sorry 'A' - his predictions seem to be based on the premise that Iran is making nuclear arms. As I see it, this has the same genesis as the Saddam's famous WMD that never did exist. But evidence of that only came to light after a major invasion as a sort of; "OOPs - we goofed!" 

As for: The concept of “nonproliferation,” so dear to the heart of the   right-thinking, will go straight into the history books along with the   League of Nations. Methinks that India, Pakistan, N. Korea and Israel trashed that idea long ago.

[Antonia]

Hey, did ya miss the irony in my post? 

[Croghan27]

Hey, did ya miss the irony in my post? 

Obviously I did.

I am currently under some fancy medication from an infection and am missing a lot of things ... 
"I shudda known better with a gurl like you ... That I would love everything that you do ...."

[Antonia]

I love that song.

[skdadl]

Hitchens -- more utterly an utter rant than usual, eh? Poor man. We must pity him.

[pogge]

Obama may be a profound disappointment but it's possible that he's not completely insane.

Obama Resists Pressure for Red Line on Iran's Nuclear Capability

WASHINGTON, Aug 26, 2010 (IPS) - President Barack Obama's refusal in a White House briefing earlier this month to announce a "red line" in regard to the Iran nuclear programme represented another in a series of rebuffs of pressure from Defence Secretary Robert Gates for statement that the United States will not accept its existing stocks of low enriched uranium.

The Obama rebuff climaxed a months-long internal debate between Obama and Gates over the "breakout capability" issue which surfaced in the news media last April.
...
Obama appeared to suggest that there are ways for Iran to demonstrate its intent not to build a nuclear bomb other than ending all enrichment and reducing its stock of low enriched uranium to a desired level.

[pogge]

Iran nuclear program disrupted by cyberattack, experts believe

A computer virus that attacks a widely used industrial system appears aimed mostly at Iran and its power suggests a state may have been involved in creating it, an expert at a U.S. technology company said on Friday.

If that's true, could it be considered an act of war?

[skdadl]

Iran nuclear program disrupted by cyberattack, experts believe

A computer virus that attacks a widely used industrial system appears aimed mostly at Iran and its power suggests a state may have been involved in creating it, an expert at a U.S. technology company said on Friday.

If that's true, could it be considered an act of war?

And what's more, committed by an "unlawful enemy combatant," like the guys at Langley not in uniform who are guiding drone strikes ... kinda like Omar Khadr in strictly legal terms, as more than a few people have noticed?

[pogge]

The "dean of the Washington press corps" claims that he's "not suggesting ... that the president incite a war to get reelected" even though he does exactly that.

Look back at FDR and the Great Depression. What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II.

Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.

Broder justifies this with:

...Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century.

[pogge]

Paging David Broder: Iran envoy: atom bomb would be strategic mistake

VIENNA (Reuters) – Building nuclear bombs would be a strategic mistake for Iran, its envoy to the U.N. atomic agency said on Monday, and a leading Western expert said Tehran should be taken seriously when it insists it will not obtain such arms.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), suggested the Islamic Republic could never compete in terms of the numbers of warheads possessed by the nuclear-armed major powers.

It would therefore be at a disadvantage in relation to these countries if it developed atomic bombs, Soltanieh said.

[Alison]

At the Halifax International Security Conference today, US Senator Lindsey Graham -Armed Forces and Homeland Security committees - advocated pre-emptive bombing of not just Iran's nuclear program but also the navy, air force, the army.
 
Conference speakers and panellists : Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security; Condoleezza Rice; Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Mark Udall ; Stephen Hadley; Ehud Barak, Minister of Defense, Israel; Amos Gilad, Political-Military Affairs, Israeli Ministry of Defense; Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute; Ron Covais, Lockheed Martin; John Manley, CEO Canadian Council of Chief Executives; ; Janice Gross Stein, Munk School of Global Affairs; Walter Natynczyk, Chief of Defence Staff; Mark Carney, Governor Bank of Canada; Vic Toews.

[skdadl]

Ye gods and little fishes. And there are a lot of the little fishes who think they're big fishes, and I guess they are, since they can kill us all.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) -- which is still under Dem control, which means chair Sen Carl Levin of Michigan, pretty good guy -- is a fantastic committee in many ways. Their investigation of Guantanamo, which spread out to investigate how the system had spread from Washington to GTMO to Bagram to Iraq, etc, is an absolutely essential document (and riveting series of hearings).

Lindsey Graham is a senior minority member on that committee. (I think McCain is still ranking member but he never shows up, so Graham kind of leads the charge.) He's also a former JAG, and he sometimes makes noises about torture because he knows he's supposed to. But I've come to understand you can't believe a word of it, and he has also become a major cheerleader for an attack on Iran. He has immense influence at the White House.