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Showing posts with label Juan Cole. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juan Cole. Show all posts
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Lied To Again - Iranian Uranium Edition
Liberally excerpted from Juan Cole's Informed Comment: IAEA Inspectors: Iran not Producing Weapons-grade Uranium and a follow up comment at another posting.(For a complete trip down the "Orwellian memory hole", watch Norman Solomon's War Made Easy: How Presidents and pundits keep spinning us to death. Narrated by Sean Penn.
Torrents are probably available [Here]).
Also see: How To Sell a War, A writeup on the Rendon Group, the folks who brought you the Firdoz Square, Iraq "Saddam Statue 'Teardown'", for more on how the media has a hold on your 'Believe Button', versus what is real and truthful.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
IAEA Inspectors: Iran not Producing Weapons-grade Uranium
As I mentioned yesterday, Iran is not producing weapon-grade uranium, and could not easily do so without detection. The Hindu, which despite its name is left of center (and which is one of India's finest newspapers) writes:' Iran has not converted the low-grade uranium that it has produced into weapon-grade uranium, inspectors belonging to the International Atomic Energy Agency have said.
The Austrian Press Agency quoted an IAEA expert as saying that the uranium substances that Iran has produced at its Natanz enrichment facility have been carefully recorded and remote cameras have been installed to supervise part of the stockpile.
“If the Iranians intend to transport these uranium substances to a secret location for further processing, agency’s inspectors will find out,” he said.
The expert added that “so far, Iran has carried out good cooperation with us in relevant verifications”.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has said that Iran has slowed down its uranium enrichment programme.'
US newspapers are complaining that they are losing money and may not survive. After they put all sorts of falsehoods about Iraq on their front pages, it may be that they fatally wounded their credibility with the US public. In any case, the above report does not show up anywhere on the web or in Lexis that I can find, except here in The Hindu, which tells me that someone is not doing their job.
(See also Dr. Jeffrey Lewis).
So... HOW IS the Western media 'reporting' on this?
(and I AM using the term 'reporting' rather loosely here...)
Anonymous said...
I don’t think it is entirely correct to say that there has been no press response to the IAEC report. Consider the following headlines:
“Iran holds enough uranium for bomb”Financial Times 19 Feb 09
“Iran has enriched enough uranium to make bomb, IAEA says”
Guardian 19 Feb 09
“Iran Has More Enriched Uranium Than Thought”
NYT 19 Feb 09
(A Buffalo favorite... RFE/RL makes it sound like a 'sport')
"New IAEA Report Shows Iran Nearing Nuclear Breakout Capability”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 20 Feb 09
Clearly there is a difference in slant between the Hindu article and those listed above.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
"peace is our profession," "war is our hobby." - Leaving (but never REALLY leaving) Cheyenne Mountain - William Astore, War Games
Gee Whiz! Wish I Had One Of Those!
posted April 17, 2008 11:04 am
Tomgram:
William Astore, War GamesWilliam J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), has taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. He now teaches at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.In 1986, the year President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev teetered on the brink of eliminating superpower nuclear weapons at their summit meeting in Reykjavik, I participated in a computerized war game inside Cheyenne Mountain. It ended in a simulated nuclear attack against the United States.
By today's standards, our computers were primitive leviathans: IBM mainframes with old-fashioned tape drives -- roughly the size of jumbo, sub-zero refrigerators in today's McMansions; they had disc drives or "packs" roughly the size of dishwashers. Our computer screens were a monochromatic green. From a Hollywood special-effects perspective, they were poorly lit and relentlessly boring -- not at all like the glitzy nuclear war room in the 1983 film WarGames that starred a fresh-faced Matthew Broderick.
As those monochromatic missile tracks crossed the Arctic Circle and began to terminate at various U.S. cities, the mood among the battle staff grew reflective. Yes, it was only a game, but everyone present knew that nuclear Armageddon with the Soviet Union was possible, and that it would kill tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of people in both countries. That day, in that command center, we were virtual witnesses to our worst nightmare: a nuclear holocaust that might not only destroy our country and the Soviet Union, but perhaps civilization as we knew it.
How We Never Left Cheyenne Mountain
When the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in 1989, few people were more surprised than our intelligence agencies and our military (myself included). After putting decades of thought and planning into mutually assured destruction, after planning not just to fight but to win nuclear wars, we now faced a brighter, potentially less nuclear, or even non-nuclear future. And all this had come about -- under the shadow of true global terror -- without a Department of Homeland Security, or an Orwellian "Patriot Act," or so many of the other accoutrements of our present homeland security moment. (Without, in fact, even the emotive, vaguely un-American word "homeland" being in use.) Indeed, when it was over, we claimed victory on the very basis that our freedoms -- and our political system -- were stronger than our rival's...
In Full @ Tomgram: William Astore, War Games
This piece is a shared venture of Tomdispatch on-line and the Nation magazine in print. Tom
Friday, April 18, 2008
Isn't That Special? Israeli Politician Says 9/11 Benefitted Israel - Informed Comment
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," adding that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor." [src]Ollie North, American War
Criminal with Netanyahu
From Juan Cole's Informed Comment
Far rightwing Israeli politician Binyamin Netanyahu of the Likud party says that 9/11 was good for Israel. Even if it were true, couldn't Netanyahu have the decency not to say it? Netanyahu also made crazy allegations against Iran of preparing for global domination or something. Hmmm. I should have thought people who are the objects of bizarre conspiracy theories themselves would be sensitive about spreading them around about other people. Iran isn't even very powerful in its own neighborhood and has not aggressively invaded another country in its modern history. It isn't colonizing anyone else's land and hasn't dropped bombs on its neighbors. It doesn't have an atomic bomb and there is no evidence it is seeking one. In all these ways, the contrasts favor Iran over the Israeli Right.
More @ Juan Cole's Informed Comment
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Battle Rattle - John McCain thinks he's Harry Truman and it's August 1, 1950 in Korea
Informed CommentGlad to see Frank Rich @ the NY Times agrees...
Iraq - Basra Police Mutiny, Refuse to attack Sadrists, Clashes continue in Basra, Sadrists open New fronts throughout Shiite South
Two Words: Tet Offensive
Also see, Stan Goff, Feral Scholar, for a strategic/tactical perspective: Good Morning, Vietnam!
Juan Cole's Informed Comment
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Rich, McCain, and the Coming Heartbreak Ridge
Frank Rich's "Tet Happened . . . and No One Cared" is an elegantly written and argued examination of the current situation in Iraq that seems to me to pretty much nail it.
Rich demolishes so many of the myths put out by McCain and the American Right generally. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Da'wa Party, which back Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, are closer to Iran than the Sadr Movement. It was al-Maliki's parliamentary coalition that sought the cease fire by asking their Iranian patrons to broker it. The main motivation for the attack on Sadrist neighborhoods in Basra was to ensure that ISCI wins the elections in that key oil province in October.
It is so refreshing to see an American commentator who clearly has the facts at hand and a sense of proportion in interpreting them.
Rich begins and ends provocatively in arguing that the charge that Sen. John McCain has advocated a hundred-years war in Iraq is a canard, and takes the focus off much more substantive errors that McCain does make.
The only thing I would say is that McCain's analogy to South Korea, which comes from rightwing imperialist historian John Gaddis of Yale, has two implications. The first is that Bush is Harry Truman and it is July 23, 1950 (just after the US lost the Battle of Taejon and had to retreat) and there is a danger of the Communists overwhelming the South.
In McCain's mind, 'staying the course' and supporting the surge is akin to Truman committing large numbers of troops to make sure that we fight to a stalemate, containing America's enemies in Iraq.
The second implication is that once a stalemate is achieved and acknowledged, as in Korea from 1953, there can be an enduring US military presence in Iraq...
In Full @ Informed Comment
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