News Across the Spectrum that May Help Explain the Mess We're In. Or Not.
January 30, 2008
Dear Peacemakers,
Our good friend Carl Sack has started a monthly calendar for peace and justice events in the Northwoods that is just fabulous. Rather than duplicate his work I am going to encourage all calendar items be sent to Carl and then I (and everyone else) can forward his calendar to everyone we know. That way this newsletter can concentrate on news and views.
Before we get into the doom and gloom report I gotta share this. In the last issue we sent a link to get folks to Neil Young's Living With War Today website so you could listen to our band's version of Shovelin' Shit on the Farm. Well, a lot of you must have played the song because in just a few days we moved from 592 on the chart to 122. Keep it up!! Let's see how far up the list we can kick this song. Just go to Living With War Today, click on Shovelin' Shit, and it will take you to our music web page. We keep adding new songs so there are some pretty sweet tunes to listen to. As they say, if I can't sing I don't want to be part of your revolution (thanks Emma).
So the economy has become THE news story going into the 2008 presidential election. Iraq has fallen back to the #4 spot behind the economy, terrorism, and immigration (according to ABC World News Tonight). I think Iran is still the big one to pay attention to. Today's stories are going to focus on Iran and the National Intelligence Estimate which Scott Ritter and others have been calling a Trojan horse. The trap that way too many people have fallen into is this: The NIE states that Iran suspended a secret program to develop nuclear weapons in May of 1993. Iran, Russia, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) contend that Iran NEVER had a nuclear weapons program at all. By accepting the NIE and contending that it vindicates Iran from US accusations that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons, what has actually happened is that Iran has stumbled into admitting that they at one time DID have a secret nuclear weapons program that they SUSPENDED. Ritter calls this intelligence jujitsu "genius on the part of the Bush administration".
The danger here is that there was no intelligence "coup" that is making it impossible for Bush to attack Iran as so many pundits are saying. The only thing that has happened is the whole world has been taken off its guard. If anything, the US is more likely to attack Iran than before the NIE because no one is expecting it. In a recent presentation in Chicago, Scott Ritter suggests the widow to attack Iran may be sometime between March and June of 2008.
I think the flash point for the attack on Iran is the Russian built Bushehr nuclear reactor. The last load of Russian fuel rods to be used in the reactor has just been delivered to Iran. They are scheduled to be installed into the reactor this summer. If either the US or Israel preemptively destroy a nuclear reactor that is full of radioactive fuel rods, the international community will condemn such an attack in the strongest possible terms. Therefore the reactor has to be bombed before it is loaded with the fuel rods. I think this is what the Israeli attack in Syria was about-clandestine, accurate, across international borders. A trial run for Bushehr. If the reactor is destroyed before it is filled, Iran will be left with 132 tons of enriched uranium fuels rods with no where to put them. If they continue to enrich uranium they will certainly be accused of doing so for a weapons program. Read on. Let's hope I am wrong.
This collection of articles should cast doubt on any illusions that the US won't attack Iran because of the so called "coup" by the intelligence agencies
"Many have been quick to characterize yesterday’s National Intelligence Estimate report [1] on Iran’s nuclear program as a long overdue “Honest Intel” [2] that will suck the air out of warmongers’ sails because it clearly states “with high confidence that in fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”. Forgive this writer for being a spoiler, but haven’t report after report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the many years since repeatedly confirmed non-existence of such nuclear weapons program in Iran?"
"Now we have a National Intelligence Estimate that is released that says, “Time out. There hasn’t been a nuclear weapons program in Iran since 2003.” Now I need to make a point here: I continue to say that there’s never been a nuclear weapons program in Iran. And the National Intelligence Estimate doesn’t provide any evidence to sustain its assertion that there was a nuclear program."
"With the US intelligence community on the defensive since the post-Iraq-invasion revelations still plaguing the George W Bush administration, the latter may have managed a mini-coup with the intelligence community by procuring a new report that confirms an Iranian nuclear weapons program, albeit one that it claims has been "halted". "
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi Asia Times online December 5, 2007
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In fact, according to Kaveh Afrasiabi at Asia Times Online, "The temporary freeze on the military option [resulting from] the new intelligence report has nested within it its exact opposite." In other words, a Trojan horse.
"The AIPAC was quick to announce: "Far from acquitting Iran, the NIE reveals that Tehran continues to violate the international community's calls to end the pursuit of the fuel cycle and the ability to make highly enriched uranium, concludes that Iran has utilized and has at its disposal a hidden, secret second unacknowledged, unmonitored track for enriching bomb fuel, and has engaged in a nuclear weaponization program, an assessment never before made public by the American intelligence community". "All in all, it's a clarion call for additional and continued effort to pressure Iran economically and politically to end its illicit nuclear programs”
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann LeverettDec. 7, 2007 Salon.com
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"Russia's foreign minister said Wednesday there was no proof that Iran has ever run a nuclear weapons program, and praised Teheran for its readiness to cooperate with the United Nations nuclear watchdog."
MOSCOW Dec 5, 2007 17:45 | Updated Dec 24, 2007 18:48
Last week the Wall Street Journal ran the following editorial by the god father of the neocon Zionists (and father in law to Elliot Abrams). Why would they promote the opinion that there is no choice left but to preemptively bomb Iran?
"The only alternative that seemed even remotely plausible to me was that he (Bush) might be fixing to outsource the job to the Israelis. After all, even if, by now, it might have become politically impossible for us to take military action, the Israelis could not afford to sit by while a regime pledged to wipe them off the map was equipping itself with nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. For unless Iran could be stopped before acquiring a nuclear capability, the Israelis would be faced with only two choices: either strike first, or pray that the fear of retaliation would deter the Iranians from beating them to the punch."
By NORMAN PODHORETZ January 23, 2008 Wall Street Journal
A must see video on BBC 4 that will show you a side of Iran that will never be seen in the US. We cannot let them bomb Iran.
Rageh Omaar embarks on a unique journey inside what he describes as one of the most misunderstood countries in the world, looking at the country through the eyes of people rarely heard - ordinary Iranians. It took a year of wrangling to get permission to film inside Iran but the result is an amazing portrayal of an energetic and vibrant country that is completely different to the usual images seen in the media.
