US to attack Iran? - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Tully Mars · 04-12-2008, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Just as the monster Dr. Frankenstein created, turned out to be, Iraq has turned into the Bush administration's worst nightmare....the thing it was kept from becoming, under Saddam's harsh rule, a shi'a dominated Islamic republic, closely aligned with it's next door neighbor, shi'a dominated Islamic republic, Iran. I don't see the sunni Saudis welcoming this development or being swayed by Bush/Crocker demands.

I'm getting closer and closer to believing this isn't a Bush and Co. nightmare but rather exactly what they want. A self fulfillling, endless reason to poor billions into the pockets of defense contractors with a side bonus of scaring the living crap out of citizens to the point where many have no problems giving up basic, well defined, civil rights and liberties.

host · 04-12-2008, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

I'm getting closer and closer to believing this isn't a Bush and Co. nightmare but rather exactly what they want. A self fulfillling, endless reason to poor billions into the pockets of defense contractors with a side bonus of scaring the living crap out of citizens to the point where many have no problems giving up basic, well defined, civil rights and liberties.

tully, they got it up and running and they can't shut it down now, but they probably never intended to....

"The wheel is turning
and you can't slow down...

...Everytime that wheel turn round
bound to cover just a little more ground"

Quote:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill
article | posted March 15, 2007 (April 2, 2007 issue)
Bush's Shadow Army
Jeremy Scahill

Jeremy Scahill reports on the Bush Administration's growing dependence on private security forces such as Blackwater USA and efforts in Congress to rein them in. This article is adapted from his new book, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill">Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books).</a>

On September 10, 2001, before most Americans had heard of Al Qaeda or imagined the possibility of a "war on terror," Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush. Standing before the former corporate executives he had tapped as his top deputies overseeing the high-stakes business of military contracting--many of them from firms like Enron, General Dynamics and Aerospace Corporation--Rumsfeld issued a declaration of war.

"The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America," Rumsfeld thundered. "It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk." He told his new staff, "You may think I'm describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world.... [But] the adversary's closer to home," he said. "It's the Pentagon bureaucracy." Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, supplanting the old DoD bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector. Announcing this major overhaul, Rumsfeld told his audience, "I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself."

The next morning, the Pentagon would be attacked, literally, as a Boeing 757--American Airlines Flight 77--smashed into its western wall. Rumsfeld would famously assist rescue workers in pulling bodies from the rubble. But it didn't take long for Rumsfeld to seize the almost unthinkable opportunity presented by 9/11 to put his personal war--laid out just a day before--on the fast track. The new Pentagon policy would emphasize covert actions, sophisticated weapons systems and greater reliance on private contractors. It became known as the Rumsfeld Doctrine. "We must promote a more entrepreneurial approach: one that encourages people to be proactive, not reactive, and to behave less like bureaucrats and more like venture capitalists," Rumsfeld wrote in the summer of 2002 in an article for Foreign Affairs titled "Transforming the Military."

Although Rumsfeld was later thrown overboard by the Administration in an attempt to placate critics of the Iraq War, his military revolution was here to stay. Bidding farewell to Rumsfeld in November 2006, <h3>Bush credited him with overseeing the "most sweeping transformation of America's global force posture since the end of World War II." Indeed, Rumsfeld's trademark "small footprint" approach ushered in one of the most significant developments in modern warfare--the widespread use of private contractors in every aspect of war, including in combat. </h3>

The often overlooked subplot of the wars of the post-9/11 period is their unprecedented scale of outsourcing and privatization. From the moment the US troop buildup began in advance of the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon made private contractors an integral part of the operations. Even as the government gave the public appearance of attempting diplomacy, Halliburton was prepping for a massive operation. When US tanks rolled into Baghdad in March 2003, they brought with them the largest army of private contractors ever deployed in modern war. By the end of Rumsfeld's tenure in late 2006, there were an estimated 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq--an almost one-to-one ratio with active-duty American soldiers.

To the great satisfaction of the war industry, before Rumsfeld resigned he took the extraordinary step of classifying private contractors as an official part of the US war machine. In the Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Review, Rumsfeld outlined what he called a "road map for change" at the DoD, which he said had begun to be implemented in 2001. <h3>It defined the "Department's Total Force" as "its active and reserve military components, its civil servants, and its contractors--constitut[ing] its warfighting capability and capacity. </h3>Members of the Total Force serve in thousands of locations around the world, performing a vast array of duties to accomplish critical missions." This formal designation represented a major triumph for war contractors--conferring on them a legitimacy they had never before enjoyed.

Contractors have provided the Bush Administration with political cover, allowing the government to deploy private forces in a war zone free of public scrutiny, with the deaths, injuries and crimes of those forces shrouded in secrecy. The Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress in turn have shielded the contractors from accountability, oversight and legal constraints. Despite the presence of more than 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq, only one has been indicted for crimes or violations. "We have over 200,000 troops in Iraq and half of them aren't being counted, and the danger is that there's zero accountability," says Democrat Dennis Kucinich, one of the leading Congressional critics of war contracting.

While the past years of Republican monopoly on government have marked a golden era for the industry, those days appear to be ending. Just a month into the new Congressional term, leading Democrats were announcing investigations of runaway war contractors. Representative John Murtha, chair of the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Defense, after returning from a trip to Iraq in late January, said, "We're going to have extensive hearings to find out exactly what's going on with contractors. They don't have a clear mission and they're falling all over each other." Two days later, during confirmation hearings for Gen. George Casey as Army chief of staff, Senator Jim Webb declared, "This is a rent-an-army out there." Webb asked Casey, "Wouldn't it be better for this country if those tasks, particularly the quasi-military gunfighting tasks, were being performed by active-duty military soldiers in terms of cost and accountability?" Casey defended the contracting system but said armed contractors "are the ones that we have to watch very carefully." Senator Joe Biden, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, has also indicated he will hold hearings on contractors. Parallel to the ongoing investigations, there are several bills gaining steam in Congress aimed at contractor oversight.

Occupying the hot seat through these deliberations is the shadowy mercenary company Blackwater USA. Unbeknownst to many Americans and largely off the Congressional radar, Blackwater has secured a position of remarkable power and protection within the US war apparatus. This company's success represents the realization of the life's work of the conservative officials who formed the core of the Bush Administration's war team, for whom radical privatization has long been a cherished ideological mission. <h3>Blackwater has repeatedly cited Rumsfeld's statement that contractors are part of the "Total Force" as evidence that it is a legitimate part of the nation's "warfighting capability and capacity."</h3> Invoking Rumsfeld's designation, the company has in effect declared its forces above the law--entitled to the immunity from civilian lawsuits enjoyed by the military, but also not bound by the military's court martial system. While the initial inquiries into Blackwater have focused on the complex labyrinth of secretive subcontracts under which it operates in Iraq, a thorough investigation into the company reveals a frightening picture of a politically connected private army that has become the Bush Administration's Praetorian Guard.

PAGE 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 NEXT

The "for profit" arm of the "Total Force", is not going to accept "slowing quarterly revenues", a cessation of hostilities that would result in a "hit to it's bottomline".

Tully Mars · 04-12-2008, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

tully, they got it up and running and they can't shut it down now, but they probably never intended to....

"The wheel is turning
and you can't slow down...

...Everytime that wheel turn round
bound to cover just a little more ground"

The "for profit" arm of the "Total Force", is not going to accept "slowing quarterly revenues", a cessation of hostilities that would result in a "hit to it's bottomline".

I honestly don't know what to believe anymore. One thing I do believe is even they don't believe what they're saying anymore. Then that happened I haven't a clue. Did they know the intel on the WMD's was BS? Did they know the insurgency was going to be a huge problem? Did they know this was going to cost 100's of billions? Did they know the surge wasn't sustainable? I don't know but I'm sure at some point they knew "we've turned or are turning a corner" was and is a BS statement.

host · 04-12-2008, 11:40 AM

/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

I honestly don't know what to believe anymore. One thing I do believe is even they don't believe what they're saying anymore. Then that happened I haven't a clue. Did they know the intel on the WMD's was BS? Did they know the insurgency was going to be a huge problem? Did they know this was going to cost 100's of billions? Did they know the surge wasn't sustainable? I don't know but I'm sure at some point they knew "we've turned or are turning a corner" was and is a BS statement.

I think that for what you said in your previous post to be true, it would follow that they at least knew before 9/11 that an attack was coming and decided to let it play out and then "follow on", and that they deliberately handled the Katrina disaster in a way that would maximize profits for crony contractors, even it is minimized support and aid for the disaster victims. Every where you look.... fired Arabian horse judge appointed to head FEMA, after equally unqualified former Bush campaign manager resigns as FEMA head, to John Bolton, on record, AFTER 9/11....saying it would improve UN if top ten stories of it's HQ buikding were removed.....is appointed by BUSH to head US mission to UN....counter to senate approval, Hans von Spakovsky, accused , at DOJ, of interfering with the minority right to vote, appointed by BUSH to FEC, counter to senate approval,

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It's not just the military, Tully...they are trying to advance Grover Norquist's quest to "drown government". like a baby in a bathtub, by first, fucking it up intentionally, soooo badly that they can "prove" it doesn't work. Then, what is left of it can be privatized, but mostly eliminated.

Junior, just 4 or 5 months from now, will have succeeded in piling $4 trillion in new debt on top of the existing, on January 20, 2001, $5.7 trillion debt that took 200 years to rack up. Even Junior's dad and king Reagan needed 12 years to turn a $995 billion debt into a $4.2 trillion debt!

There is no large protest of all of this, from the American people, so the willful official sabotage and massive destruction it results in, will continue until the results are so terrible that the bulk of people wake up. If it was all stopped today, it would take 15 or 20 years of competent government to even return things to conditions existing on Jan. 20, 2001....maybe.

roachboy · 04-12-2008, 12:52 PM

i don't think you need to go in this direction to explain the bush squad's irrational posture relative to iran, host---i think alot of what's in the above is acccurate in itself, but doesn't necessarily point in this direction.

remember the centrality that the iranian "hostage crisis" and its "nightline" DAY 400 opening played in generating opening the way to the reagan "landslide" (27% of the registered voters, but whatever)...the fumbling and bumbling of the reagan period is really quite funny--there's a book that details it by the former head of savak no less, but i can't remember the title at the moment...but iran is an old populist right bogeyman. by extension, there would be, and apparently is, a republican-specific Problem with chi'a islam--i don't really understand it except as a function of their interpretation of the iranian revolution by looking only at its outcome (not its dynamics) and by extension not thinking about why it is that the revolution was as it was--so basically, it seems that the neo-cons can be understood as still being a bit pissy about the overthrow of that lovely american lap-dog and really quite brutal dictator the shah.

the motivations behind iraq in 2003 seem to me to follow from the neo-con's update of that hoary old "stabbed in the back" theory to "explain" why the americans didn't johnwayne their way into baghdad during the first gulf war--shanked by the evil united nations, you see, and prevented thereby from fulfilling their manly destiny blah blah blah.

so you can see i think that the bush people's irrational attitude toward iran is a direct imprint of the history of the contemporary neo-con right, which is the foreign-policy adjunct to the populist conservative-as-perpetual-victim right that we know and love so well o yes.

this at the level of general narrative, naturlich.

powerclown · 04-12-2008, 01:05 PM

I can only hope the next President of the United States deal more effectively than the current one to contain the threat of a nuclear armed religious theocracy.

Quote:

Stopping Iran:
Why the Case for Military Action Still Stands

NORMAN PODHORETZ
February 2008

Up until a fairly short time ago, scarcely anyone dissented from the assessment offered with “high confidence” by the National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] of 2005 that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.” Correlatively, no one believed the protestations of the mullahs ruling Iran that their nuclear program was designed strictly for peaceful uses.

The reason for this near-universal consensus was that Iran, with its vast reserves of oil and natural gas, had no need for nuclear energy, and that in any case, the very nature of its program contradicted the protestations.

Here is how Time magazine put it as early as March 2003—long before, be it noted, the radical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had replaced the putatively moderate Mohamed Khatami as president:

On a visit last month to Tehran, International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] director Mohamed ElBaradei announced he had discovered that Iran was constructing a facility to enrich uranium—a key component of advanced nuclear weapons—near Natanz. But diplomatic sources tell Time the plant is much further along than previously revealed. The sources say work on the plant is “extremely advanced” and involves “hundreds” of gas centrifuges ready to produce enriched uranium and “the parts for a thousand others ready to be assembled.”
So, too, the Federation of American Scientists about a year later:

It is generally believed that Iran’s efforts are focused on uranium enrichment, though there are some indications of work on a parallel plutonium effort. Iran claims it is trying to establish a complete nuclear-fuel cycle to support a civilian energy program, but this same fuel cycle would be applicable to a nuclear-weapons development program. Iran appears to have spread their nuclear activities around a number of sites to reduce the risk of detection or attack.
And just as everyone agreed with the American intelligence community that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons,” everyone also agreed with President George W. Bush that it must not be permitted to succeed. Here, the reasons were many and various.

To begin with, Iran was (as certified even by the doves of the State Department) the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it was therefore reasonable to fear that it would transfer nuclear technology to terrorists who would be only too happy to use it against us. Moreover, since Iran evidently aspired to become the hegemon of the Middle East, its drive for a nuclear capability could result (as, according to the New York Times, no fewer than 21 governments in and around the region were warning) in “a grave and destructive nuclear-arms race.” This meant a nightmarish increase in the chances of a nuclear war. An even greater increase in those chances would result from the power that nuclear weapons—and the missiles capable of delivering them, which Iran was also developing and/or buying—would give the mullahs to realize their evil dream of (in the words of Ahmadinejad) “wiping Israel off the map.”

Nor, as almost everyone also agreed, were the dangers of a nuclear Iran confined to the Middle East. Dedicated as the mullahs clearly were to furthering the transformation of Europe into a continent where Muslim law and practice would more and more prevail, they were bound to use nuclear intimidation and blackmail in pursuit of this goal as well. Beyond that, nuclear weapons would even serve the purposes of a far more ambitious aim: the creation of what Ahmadinejad called “a world without America.” Although, to be sure, no one imagined that Iran would acquire the capability to destroy the United States, it was easy to imagine that the United States would be deterred from standing in Iran’s way by the fear of triggering a nuclear war.

Running alongside the near-universal consensus on Iran’s nuclear intentions was a commensurately broad agreement that the regime could be stopped from realizing those intentions by a judicious combination of carrots and sticks. The carrots, offered through diplomacy, consisted of promises that if Iran were (in the words of the Security Council) to “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA,” it would find itself on the receiving end of many benefits. If, however, Iran remained obdurate in refusing to comply with these demands, sticks would come into play in the form of sanctions.

And indeed, in response to continued Iranian defiance, a round of sanctions was approved by the Security Council in December 2006. When these (watered down to buy the support of the Russians and the Chinese) predictably failed to bite, a tougher round was unanimously authorized three months later, in March 2007. When these in turn failed, the United States, realizing that the Russians and the Chinese would veto stronger medicine, unilaterally imposed a new series of economic sanctions—which fared no better than the multilateral measures that had preceded them.

_____________

What then to do? President Bush kept declaring that Iran must not be permitted to get the bomb, and he kept warning that the “military option”—by which he meant air strikes, not an invasion on the ground—was still on the table as a last resort. On this issue our Western European allies were divided. To the surprise of many who had ceased thinking of France as an ally because of Jacques Chirac’s relentless opposition to the policies of the Bush administration, Nicholas Sarkozy, Chirac’s successor as president, echoed Bush’s warning in equally unequivocal terms. If, Sarkozy announced, the Iranians pressed on with their nuclear program, the world would be left with a choice between “an Iranian bomb and bombing Iran”—and he left no doubt as to where his own choice would fall. On the other hand, Gordon Brown, who had followed Tony Blair as prime minister of the UK, seemed less willing than Sarkozy to contemplate military action against Iran’s nuclear installations, even as a last resort. Like the new chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, Brown remained—or professed to remain—persuaded that more diplomacy and tougher sanctions would eventually work.

This left a great question hanging in the air: when, if ever, would Bush (and/or Sarkozy) conclude that the time had come to resort to the last resort?

Obviously the answer to that question depended on how long it would take for Iran itself to reach the point of no return. According to the NIE of 2005, it was “unlikely . . . that Iran would be able to make a nuclear weapon . . . before early-to-mid next decade”—that is, between 2010 and 2015. If that assessment, offered with “moderate confidence,” was correct, Bush would be off the hook, since he would be out of office for two years at the very least by the time the decision on whether or not to order air strikes would have to be made. That being the case, for the remainder of his term he could continue along the carrot-and-stick path, while striving to ratchet up the pressure on Iran with stronger and stronger measures that he could hope against hope might finally do the trick. If he could get these through the Security Council, so much the better; if not, the United States could try to assemble a coalition outside the UN that would be willing to impose really tough sanctions.

Under these circumstances, there would also be enough time to add another arrow to this nonmilitary quiver: a serious program of covert aid to dissident Iranians who dreamed of overthrowing the mullocracy and replacing it with a democratic regime. Those who had been urging Bush to launch such a program, and who were confident that it would succeed, pointed to polls showing great dissatisfaction with the mullocracy among the Iranian young, and to the demonstrations against it that kept breaking out all over the country. They also contended that even if a new democratic regime were to be as intent as the old one on developing nuclear weapons, neither it nor they would pose anything like the same kind of threat.

All well and good. The trouble was this: only by relying on the accuracy of the 2005 NIE would Bush be able in all good conscience to pass on to his successor the decision of whether or when to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. But that estimate, as he could hardly help knowing from the CIA’s not exactly brilliant track record, might easily be too optimistic.

To start with the most spectacular recent instance, the CIA had failed to anticipate 9/11. It then turned out to be wrong in 2002 about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, very likely because it was bending over backward to compensate for having been wrong in exactly the opposite direction in 1991, when at the end of the first Gulf war the IAEA discovered that the Iraqi nuclear program was far more advanced than the CIA had estimated. Regarding that by now notorious lapse, Jeffrey T. Richelson, a leading (and devoutly nonpartisan) authority on the American intelligence community, writes in Spying on the Bomb:

The extent that the United States and its allies underestimated and misunderstood the Iraqi program [before 1991] constituted a “colossal international intelligence failure,” according to one Israeli expert. [IAEA’s chief weapons inspector] Hans Blix acknowledged “that there was suspicion certainly,” but “to see the enormity of it is a shock.”
And these were only the most recent cases. Gabriel Schoenfeld, a close student of the intelligence community, offers a partial list of earlier mistakes and failures:

The CIA was established in 1947 in large measure to avoid another surprise attack like the one the U.S. had suffered on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. But only three years after its founding, the fledgling agency missed the outbreak of the Korean war. It then failed to understand that the Chinese would come to the aid of the North Koreans if American forces crossed the Yalu river. It missed the outbreak of the Suez war in 1956. In September 1962, the CIA issued an NIE which stated that the “Soviets would not introduce offensive missiles in Cuba”; in short order, the USSR did precisely that. In 1968 it failed to foresee the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. . . . It did not inform Jimmy Carter that the Soviet Union would invade Afghanistan in 1979.
Richelson adds a few more examples of hotly debated issues during the cold war that were wrongly resolved, including “the existence of a missile gap, the capabilities of the Soviet SS-9 intercontinental ballistic missile, [and] Soviet compliance with the test-ban and antiballistic missile treaties.” This is not to mention perhaps the most notorious case of all: the fiasco, known as the Bay of Pigs, produced by the CIA’s wildly misplaced confidence that an invasion of Cuba by the army of exiles it had assembled and trained would set off a popular uprising against the Castro regime.

On Bush’s part, then, deep skepticism was warranted concerning the CIA’s estimate of how much time we had before Iran reached the point of no return. As we have seen, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, had “discovered” in 2003 that the Iranians were constructing facilities to enrich uranium. Still, as late as April 2007 the same ElBaradei was pooh-poohing the claims made by Ahmadinejad that Iran already had 3,000 centrifuges in operation. A month later, we learn from Richelson, ElBaradei changed his mind after a few spot inspections. “We believe,” ElBaradei now said, that the Iranians “pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich. From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge.”

We also learn from Richelson that another expert, Matthew Bunn of Harvard’s Center for Science and International Affairs, interpreted the new information the IAEA came up with in April 2007 as meaning that “whether they’re six months or a year away, one can debate. But it’s not ten years.” This chilling estimate of how little time we had to prevent Iran from getting the bomb was similar to the conclusion reached by several Israeli experts (though the official Israeli estimate put the point of no return in 2009).

_____________

Then, in a trice, everything changed. Even as Bush must surely have been wrestling with the question of whether it would be on his watch that the decision on bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities would have to be made, the world was hit with a different kind of bomb. This took the form of an unclassified summary of a new NIE, published early last December. Entitled “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” this new document was obviously designed to blow up the near-universal consensus that had flowed from the conclusions reached by the intelligence community in its 2005 NIE.1 In brief, whereas the NIE of 2005 had assessed “with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons,” the new NIE of 2007 did “not know whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

This startling 180-degree turn was arrived at from new intelligence, offered by the new NIE with “high confidence”: namely, that “in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear-weapons program.” The new NIE was also confident—though only moderately so—that “Tehran had not restarted its nuclear-weapons program as of mid-2007.” And in the most sweeping of its new conclusions, it was even “moderately confident” that “the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear-weapons program.”

Whatever else one might say about the new NIE, one point can be made with “high confidence”: that by leading with the sensational news that Iran had suspended its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, its authors ensured that their entire document would be interpreted as meaning that there was no longer anything to worry about. Of course, being experienced bureaucrats, they took care to protect themselves from this very accusation. For example, after dropping their own bomb on the fear that Iran was hell-bent on getting the bomb, they immediately added “with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.” But as they must have expected, scarcely anyone paid attention to this caveat. And as they must also have expected, even less attention was paid to another self-protective caveat, which—making doubly sure it would pass unnoticed—they relegated to a footnote appended to the lead sentence about the halt:

For the purposes of this Estimate, by “nuclear-weapons program” we mean Iran’s nuclear-weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.
Since only an expert could grasp the significance of this cunning little masterpiece of incomprehensible jargon, the damage had been done by the time its dishonesty was exposed.

The first such exposure came from John Bolton, who before becoming our ambassador to the UN had served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, with a special responsibility for preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Donning this hat once again, Bolton charged that the dishonesty of the footnote lay most egregiously in the sharp distinction it drew between military and civilian programs. For, he said,

the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses [emphasis added]. Indeed, it has always been Iran’s “civilian” program that posed the main risk of a nuclear “breakout.”
Two other experts, Valerie Lincy, the editor of Iranwatch.org, writing in collaboration with Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, followed up with an explanation of why the halt of 2003 was much less significant than a layman would inevitably be led to think:

[T]he new report defines “nuclear-weapons program” in a ludicrously narrow way: it confines it to enriching uranium at secret sites or working on a nuclear-weapon design. But the halting of its secret enrichment and weapon-design efforts in 2003 proves only that Iran made a tactical move. It suspended work that, if discovered, would unambiguously reveal intent to build a weapon. It has continued other work, crucial to the ability to make a bomb, that it can pass off as having civilian applications.
Thus, as Lincy and Milhollin went on to write, the main point obfuscated by the footnote was that once Iran accumulated a stockpile of the kind of uranium fit for civilian use, it would “in a matter of months” be able “to convert that uranium . . . to weapons grade.”

_____________

Yet, in spite of these efforts to demonstrate that the new NIE did not prove that Iran had given up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, just about everyone in the world immediately concluded otherwise, and further concluded that this meant the military option was off the table. George Bush may or may not have been planning to order air strikes before leaving office, but now that the justification for doing so had been discredited by his own intelligence agencies, it would be politically impossible for him to go on threatening military action, let alone to take it.

But what about sanctions? In the weeks and months before the new NIE was made public, Bush had been working very hard to get a third and tougher round of sanctions approved by the Security Council. In trying to persuade the Russians and the Chinese to sign on, Bush argued that the failure to enact such sanctions would leave war as the only alternative. Yet if war was now out of the question, and if in any case Iran had for all practical purposes given up its pursuit of nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future, what need was there of sanctions?

Anticipating that this objection would be raised, the White House desperately set out to interpret the new NIE as, precisely, offering “grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically—without the use of force.” These words by Stephen Hadley, Bush’s National Security Adviser, represented the very first comment on the new NIE to emanate from the White House, and some version of them would be endlessly repeated in the days to come. Joining this campaign of damage control, Sarkozy and Brown issued similar statements, and even Merkel (who had been very reluctant to go along with Bush’s push for another round of sanctions) now declared that it was

dangerous and still grounds for great concern that Iran, in the face of the UN Security Council’s resolutions, continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment. . . . The Iranian president’s intolerable agitation against Israel also speaks volumes. . . . It remains a vital interest of the whole world community to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
As it happened, Hadley was right about the new NIE, which executed another 180-degree turn—this one, away from the judgment of the 2005 NIE concerning the ineffectiveness of international pressure. Flatly contradicting its “high confidence” in 2005 that Iran was forging ahead “despite its international obligations and international pressure,” the new NIE concluded that the nuclear-weapons program had been halted in 2003 “primarily in response to international pressure.” This indicated that “Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.”

Never mind that no international pressure to speak of was being exerted on Iran in 2003, and that at that point the mullahs were more likely acting out of fear that the Americans, having just invaded Iraq, might come after them next. Never mind, too, that religious and/or ideological passions, which the new NIE pointedly neglected to mention, have over and over again throughout history proved themselves a more powerful driving force than any “cost-benefit approach.” Blithely sweeping aside such considerations, the new NIE was confident that just as the carrot-and-stick approach had allegedly sufficed in the past, so it would suffice in the future to “prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear-weapons program.”

The worldview implicit here has been described by Richelson (mainly with North Korea in mind) as the idea that “moral suasion and sustained bargaining are the proven mechanisms of nuclear restraint.” Such a worldview “may be ill-equipped,” he observes delicately,

to accept the idea that certain regimes are incorrigible and negotiate only as a stalling tactic until they have attained a nuclear capability against the United States and other nations that might act against their nuclear programs.
True, the new NIE did at least acknowledge that it would not be easy to induce Iran to extend the halt, “given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear-weapons development and Iran’s key national-security and foreign-policy objectives.” But it still put its money on a

combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways.
It was this pronouncement, and a few others like it, that gave Stephen Hadley “grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically.” But that it was a false hope was demonstrated by the NIE itself. For if Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons in order to achieve its “key national-security and foreign-policy objectives,” and if those objectives explicitly included (for a start) hegemony in the Middle East and the destruction of the state of Israel, what possible “opportunities” could Tehran be offered to achieve them “in other ways”?

_____________

So much for the carrot. As for the stick, it was no longer big enough to matter, what with the threat of military action ruled out, and what with the case for a third round of sanctions undermined by the impression stemming from the NIE’s main finding that there was nothing left to worry about. Why worry when it was four years since Iran had done any work toward developing the bomb, when the moratorium remained in effect, and when there was no reason to believe that the program would be resumed in the near future?2

What is more, in continuing to insist that the Iranians must be stopped from developing the bomb and that this could be done by nonmilitary means, the Bush administration and its European allies were lagging behind a new consensus within the American foreign-policy establishment that had already been forming even before the publication of the new NIE. Whereas the old consensus was based on the proposition that (in Senator John McCain’s pungent formulation) “the only thing worse than bombing Iran was letting Iran get the bomb,” the emerging new consensus held the opposite—that the only thing worse than letting Iran get the bomb was bombing Iran.

What led to this reversal was a gradual loss of faith in the carrot-and-stick approach. As one who had long since rejected this faith and who had been excoriated for my apostasy by more than one member of the foreign-policy elites, I never thought I would live to see the day when these very elites would come to admit that diplomacy and sanctions had been given a fair chance and that they had accomplished nothing but to buy Iran more time.3 The lesson drawn from this new revelation was, however, a different matter.

It was in the course of a public debate with one of the younger members of the foreign-policy establishment that I first chanced upon the change in view. Knowing that he never deviated by so much as an inch from the conventional wisdom of the moment within places like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, I had expected him to defend the carrot-and-stick approach and to attack me as a warmonger for contending that bombing was the only way to stop the mullahs from getting the bomb. Instead, to my great surprise, he took the position that there was really no need to stop them in the first place, since even if they had the bomb they could be deterred from using it, just as effectively as the Soviets and the Chinese had been deterred during the cold war.

Without saying so in so many words, then, my opponent was acknowledging that diplomacy and sanctions had proved to be a failure, and that there was no point in pursuing them any further. But so as to avoid drawing the logical conclusion—namely, that military action had now become necessary—he simply abandoned the old establishment assumption that Iran must at all costs be prevented from developing nuclear weapons, adopting in its place the complacent idea that we could learn to live with an Iranian bomb.

In response, I argued that deterrence could not be relied upon with a regime ruled by Islamofascist revolutionaries who not only were ready to die for their beliefs but cared less about protecting their people than about the spread of their ideology and their power. If the mullahs got the bomb, I said, it was not they who would be deterred, but we.

So little did any of this shake my opponent that I came away from our debate with the grim realization that the President’s continued insistence on the dangers posed by an Iranian bomb would more and more fall on deaf ears—ears that would soon be made even deafer by the new NIE’s assurance that Iran was no longer hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons after all. There might be two different ideas competing here—one, that we could live with an Iranian bomb; the other, that there would be no Iranian bomb to live with—but the widespread acceptance of either would not only preclude the military option but would sooner or later put an end even to the effort to stop the mullahs by nonmilitary means.

_____________

And yet there remained something else, or rather someone else, to factor into the equation: the perennially “misunderestimated” George W. Bush, a man who knew evil when he saw it and who had the courage and the determination to do battle against it. This was also a man who, far more than most politicians, said what he meant and meant what he said. And what he had said at least twice before was that if we permitted Iran to build a nuclear arsenal, people fifty years from now would look back and wonder how we of this generation could have allowed such a thing to happen, and they would rightly judge us as harshly as we today judge the British and the French for what they did at Munich in 1938. It was because I had found it hard to understand why Bush would put himself so squarely in the dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to an Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, or even of the ability to build them, that I predicted in these pages, and went on predicting elsewhere, that he would not retire from office before resorting to the military option.

But then came the new NIE. To me it seemed obvious that it represented another ambush by an intelligence community that had consistently tried to sabotage Bush’s policies through a series of damaging leaks and was now trying to prevent him from ever taking military action against Iran. To others, however, it seemed equally obvious that Bush, far from being ambushed, had welcomed the new NIE precisely because it provided him with a perfect opportunity to begin distancing himself from the military option.4

But I could not for the life of me believe that Bush intended to fly in the face of the solemn promise he had made in his 2002 State of the Union address:

We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.
To which he had added shortly afterward in a speech at West Point: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.”

How, I wondered, could Bush not know that in the case of Iran he was running a very great risk of waiting too long? And if he was truly ready to run that risk, why, in a press conference the day after the new NIE came out, did he put himself in the historical dock yet again by repeating what he had said several times before about the judgment that would be passed on this generation in the future if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon?

If Iran shows up with a nuclear weapon at some point in time, the world is going to say, what happened to them in 2007? How come they couldn’t see the impending danger? What caused them not to understand that a country that once had a weapons program could reconstitute the weapons program? How come they couldn’t see that the important first step in developing a weapon is the capacity to be able to enrich uranium? How come they didn’t know that with that capacity, that knowledge could be passed on to a covert program? What blinded them to the realities of the world? And it’s not going to happen on my watch.
_____________

“It’s not going to happen on my watch.” What else could this mean if not that Bush was preparing to meet “the impending danger” in what he must by now have concluded was the only way it could be averted?

The only alternative that seemed even remotely plausible to me was that he 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. Yet a former president of Iran, Hashemi Rafsanjani, had served notice that his country would not be deterred by the fear of retaliation:

If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession, . . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.
If this was the view of even a supposed moderate like Rafsanjani, how could the Israelis depend upon the mullahs to refrain from launching a first strike? The answer was that they could not. Bernard Lewis, the leading contemporary authority on the culture of the Islamic world, has explained why:

MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [the mullahs ruling Iran] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights.
Under the aegis of such an attitude, even in the less extreme variant that may have been held by some of Ahmadinejad’s colleagues among the regime’s rulers, mutual assured destruction would turn into a very weak reed. Understanding that, the Israelis would be presented with an irresistible incentive to preempt—and so, too, would the Iranians. Either way, a nuclear exchange would become inevitable.

What would happen then? In a recently released study, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that Rafsanjani had it wrong. In the grisly scenario Cordesman draws, tens of millions would indeed die, but Israel—despite the decimation of its civilian population and the destruction of its major cities—would survive, even if just barely, as a functioning society. Not so Iran, and not its “key Arab neighbors,” particularly Egypt and Syria, which Cordesman thinks Israel would also have to target in order “to ensure that no other power can capitalize on an Iranian strike.” Furthermore, Israel might be driven in desperation to go after the oil wells, refineries, and ports in the Gulf.

“Being contained within the region,” writes Martin Walker of UPI in his summary of Cordesman’s study, “such a nuclear exchange might not be Armageddon for the human race.” To me it seems doubtful that it could be confined to the Middle East. But even if it were, the resulting horrors would still be far greater than even the direst consequences that might follow from bombing Iran before it reaches the point of no return.

In the worst case of this latter scenario, Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq and by attacking Israel with missiles armed with non-nuclear warheads but possibly containing biological and/or chemical weapons. There would also be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. And there would be a deafening outcry from one end of the earth to the other against the inescapable civilian casualties. Yet, bad as all this would be, it does not begin to compare with the gruesome consequences of a nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran, even if those consequences were to be far less extensive than Cordesman anticipates.

Which is to say that, as between bombing Iran to prevent it from getting the bomb and letting Iran get the bomb, there is simply no contest.

_____________

But this still does not answer the question of who should do the bombing. Tempting as it must be for George Bush to sit back and let the Israelis do the job, there are considerations that should give him pause. One is that no matter what he would say, the whole world would regard the Israelis as a surrogate for the United States, and we would become as much the target of the ensuing recriminations both at home and abroad as we would if we had done the job ourselves.

To make matters worse, the indications are that it would be very hard for the Israeli air force, superb though it is, to pull the mission off. Thus, an analysis by two members of the Security Studies Program at MIT concluded that while “the Israeli air force now possesses the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence,” the problem is that for the mission to succeed, all of the many contingencies involved would have to go right. Hence an Israeli attempt could end with the worst of all possible outcomes: retaliatory measures by the Iranians even as their nuclear program remained unscathed. We, on the other hand, would have a much bigger margin of error and a much better chance of setting their program back by a minimum of five or ten years and at best wiping it out altogether.

The upshot is that if Iran is to be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, it is the United States that will have to do the preventing, to do it by means of a bombing campaign, and (because “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long”) to do it soon.

When I first predicted a year or so ago that Bush would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities once he had played out the futile diplomatic string, the obstacles that stood in his way were great but they did not strike me as insurmountable. Now, thanks in large part to the new NIE, they have grown so formidable that I can only stick by my prediction with what the NIE itself would describe as “low-to-moderate confidence.” For Bush is right about the resemblance between 2008 and 1938. In 1938, as Winston Churchill later said, Hitler could still have been stopped at a relatively low price and many millions of lives could have been saved if England and France had not deceived themselves about the realities of their situation. Mutatis mutandis, it is the same in 2008, when Iran can still be stopped from getting the bomb and even more millions of lives can be saved—but only provided that we summon up the courage to see what is staring us in the face and then act on what we see.

Unless we do, the forces that are blindly working to ensure that Iran will get the bomb are likely to prevail even against the clear-sighted determination of George W. Bush, just as the forces of appeasement did against Churchill in 1938. In which case, we had all better pray that there will be enough time for the next President to discharge the responsibility that Bush will have been forced to pass on, and that this successor will also have the clarity and the courage to discharge it. If not—God help us all—the stage will have been set for the outbreak of a nuclear war that will become as inescapable then as it is avoidable now.

Ustwo · 04-12-2008, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

I can only hope the next President of the United States deal more effectively than the current one to contain the threat of a nuclear armed religious theocracy.

Agreed, Bush dropped the ball on this one.

roachboy · 04-12-2008, 02:27 PM

a norman podhoretz editorial from commentary powerclown?

commentary:

Quote:

Commentary is America’s premier monthly magazine of opinion and a pivotal voice in American intellectual life. Since its inception in 1945, and increasingly after it emerged as the flagship of neoconservatism in the 1970’s, the magazine has been consistently engaged with several large, interrelated questions: the fate of democracy and of democratic ideas in a world threatened by totalitarian ideologies; the state of American and Western security; the future of the Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture in Israel, the United States, and around the world; and the preservation of high culture in an age of political correctness and the collapse of critical standards.

this is why it is customary to cite sources.

as for the article, in order to get it's shabby logic up and running, our boy norman has to rely on pushing buttons the consensus of which is entirely limited to the manly-man but information-scarce neo-con set.

podhoretz's piece relies on a series of rhetorica flourishes to claim credibility for information that is in fact disputed at every point.

because it amuses me, i'll bite them and put them in a little row:

Up until a fairly short time ago, scarcely anyone dissented
Correlatively, no one believed the protestations
The reason for this near-universal consensus
And just as everyone agreed
To begin with, Iran was (as certified even by the doves of the State Department) the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world
Nor, as almost everyone also agreed,
Although, to be sure, no one imagined that Iran would acquire the capability to destroy the United States, it was easy to imagine that
Running alongside the near-universal consensus
was a commensurately broad agreement

all in the first section.
methinks me doth protest too much.

then the article begins, which is basically an entirely partisan argument based on flimsy information, contestable at EVERY point, buttressed only by this rhetorical hand-waving, that the americans should undertake the insane and worse not-doable campaign of bombing iran.

problem with all this is reality.
well that and the recent history of consequences that derive from actions launched that are rooted in the neo-con reality problem.

host · 04-12-2008, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

a norman podhoretz editorial from commentary powerclown?

Ahhh, yes...the CIA's maestro of the "mighy Wurlitzer", Norman Podhoretz, later of the Neo-con ...."der homeland" fame.....

..."weighs in" to "support powerclown's opinion:

Quote:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...om&btnG=Search
Reason Magazine - Cold WarriorWhat many didn't know was that the CIA displayed considerable enlightenment in funding the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which included a menu of Europe ...
www.reason.com/news/show/33597.html - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

Quadrant Magazine... at a splendid celebration of Norman Podhoretz's twenty-five brilliant and ... in the mid-sixties, of CIA funding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom ...
quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=869 - 16k - Cached - Similar pages

My Love Affair with America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful ... - Google Books Resultby Norman Podhoretz - 2000 - Political Science - 256 pages
In 1967, when the CIA's sponsorship of the Congress for Cultural Freedom would be exposed, the debates triggered by the resulting scandal would provide an ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=0743205766...

An Unholy AllianceHer husband, Norman Podhoretz,also a member of CPD and CFW, ... associated with the now-defunct Congress for Cultural Freedom,the major US post-war cultural ...
www.wcml.org.uk/internat/leveller52.htm - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

JSTOR: Anticommunism, Anti-Anticommunism, and Anti-Anti-AnticommunismThe Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the .... Irving Howe, Norman Podhoretz, Les- lie Fiedler, and Sidney Hook. ...
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0048-7511(199009)18%3A3%3C406%3AAAAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P - Similar pages

<h2>CIA and the Press: The Mighty Wurlitzer</h2> Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the .... Norman Podhoretz Dan Rather Stephen S. Rosenfeld A. M. Rosenthal ...
www.geocities.com/capitolhill/8425/CIAPRESS.HTM

Back on 12-24, I posted this question and this articel:

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=14
<h3>Can anyone recall, or post an example of when the US mainland was ever commonly, or familiarly referred to frequently, before these guys, as "the homeland"? </h3>

Quote:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/034...g,47830,1.html
The Widening Crusade
Bush's War Plan Is Scarier Than He's Saying
by Sydney H. Schanberg
October 15 - 21, 2003

.....yet if the Bush White House is going to use its preeminent military force to subdue and neutralize all "evildoers" and adversaries everywhere in the world, the American public should be told now. Such an undertaking would be virtually endless and would require the sacrifice of enormous blood and treasure.

With no guarantee of success. And no precedent in history for such a crusade having lasting effect......

...For those who would dispute the assertion that the Bush Doctrine is a global military-based policy and is not just about liberating the Iraqi people, it's crucial to look back to the policy's origins and examine its founding documents.

The Bush Doctrine did get its birth push from Iraq—specifically from the outcome of the 1991 Gulf war, when the U.S.-led military coalition forced Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait but stopped short of toppling the dictator and his oppressive government. The president then was a different George Bush, the father of the current president. The father ordered the military not to move on Baghdad, saying that the UN resolution underpinning the allied coalition did not authorize a regime change. Dick Cheney was the first George Bush's Pentagon chief. He said nothing critical at the time, but apparently he came to regret the failure to get rid of the Baghdad dictator.

A few years later, in June 1997, a group of neoconservatives formed an entity called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and issued a Statement of Principles. "The history of the 20th Century," the statement said, "should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire." One of its formal principles called for a major increase in defense spending "to carry out our global responsibilities today." Others cited the "need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values" and underscored "America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity and our principles." This, the statement said, constituted "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."

Among the 25 signatories to the PNAC founding statement were Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff), Donald Rumsfeld (who was also defense secretary under President Ford), and Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's No. 2 at the Pentagon, who was head of the Pentagon policy team in the first Bush presidency, reporting to Cheney, who was then defense secretary). Obviously, this fraternity has been marinating together for a long time. Other signers whose names might ring familiar were Elliot Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, <h3>and Norman Podhoretz</h3>.

Three years and several aggressive position papers later—in September 2000, just two months before George W. Bush, the son, was elected president—the PNAC put military flesh on its statement of principles with a detailed 81-page report, <a href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf">"Rebuilding America's Defenses."</a> The report set several "core missions" for U.S. military forces, which included maintaining nuclear superiority, expanding the armed forces by 200,000 active-duty personnel, and "repositioning" those forces "to respond to 21st century strategic realities."

The most startling mission is described as follows: "Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars." The report depicts these potential wars as "large scale" and "spread across [the] globe."

Another escalation proposed for the military by the PNAC is to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions."

As for homeland security, the PNAC report says: "Develop and deploy global missile defenses <h3>to defend the American homeland</h3> and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world. Control the new 'international commons' of space and 'cyberspace,' and pave the way for the creation of a new military service—U.S. Space Forces—with the mission of space control."

Perhaps the eeriest sentence in the report is found on page 51: "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, <h3>absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor."....</h3>

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=2
By WILLIAM J. BROAD AND JUDITH MILLER
Published: January 28, 1999

....The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Nojeim said, already has the money, authority and manpower to handle such crises.

But Fred C. Ikle, an Under Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, applauded finding ways for the military to deal better with terrorism on American soil.

''Only the armed services have the managerial and logistical capabilities to mount the all-out defensive effort,'' Dr. Ikle said in a report on homeland defense being prepared for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private policy group in Washington.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=2
China Syndrome; Seeing Beyond Spies Is the Hard Part

By TIM WEINER
Published: March 14, 1999

....But how real is that threat? China's nuclear arsenal is not much more potent than America's was when Chairman Mao took charge 50 years ago and American deterrent power is overwhelming. China has perhaps two dozen weapons capable of striking the American homeland....

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=3
Get Ready, Here Comes the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle

By PETER MAASS
Published: September 26, 1999
These are what the Pentagon calls ''homeland threats,'' a phrase echoing from the 1950's and 1960's, when fallout shelters and duck-and-cover drills were the rage. The millennial makeover of homeland defense does not mean arming the citizens of Santa Monica with revolvers to repel Communist frogmen. The Pentagon, along with the F.B.I. and C.I.A. and Justice Department, among other agencies, is increasing its focus on combating terrorism, cyber attacks, germ warfare, biological warfare, suitcase nuclear bombs, ICBM's -- the works.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=2
McCain Calls for Overhaul Of National Security Policy

By ALISON MITCHELL
Published: December 8, 1999

....In His Own Words: JOHN McCAIN

Remarks about defense policy prepared for delivery here last night aboard the aircraft carrier Intrepid:

''I have spoken before about the unique 'unipolar moment' in world affairs for the United States and the necessity to extend this period of American pre-eminence for as long as we possibly can. In a remarkably changed world, and on the eve of the next American century, our core strategic interests, like our founding ideals, remain constant: protecting our <h3>homeland</h3> and hemisphere from external threats; preventing the domination of Europe by a single power; strengthening our alliances; securing access to energy resources; and sustaining stability in the Pacific Rim.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...52C0A9669C8B63
Military Terrorism Operation Has a Civilian Focus

By ELIZABETH BECKER
Published: January 9, 2000

Originally, the Pentagon contemplated creating a commander in chief for the defense of the United States -- a ''homeland defense command,'' in military shorthand. Civil rights groups of all political persuasions knocked down that idea out of fear that it would open the door to an increase in the military's influence inside the country.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=2
Gore, on a Personal Note, and Bush, Less So, Pay Homage to the Nation's War Dead

By JAMES DAO WITH FRANK BRUNI
Published: May 30, 2000
Mr. Bush reiterated his own position in a context of a general plea for strengthening the country's armed forces.

''Those who man the lighthouse of freedom ask little of our nation in return,'' he said. ''But what they ask, our nation must provide: a military of high morale, a military that's well paid and well housed, a military well prepared and well equipped, a military respected by those in authority, a military that's got a coherent vision of America's duties -- a clear military mission in a time of crisis -- and a modern defense system aimed to protect our <h3>homeland</h3> and to protect our allies.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...50C0A9669C8B63
Clinton Enters Confederate Flag Debate

By MARC LACEY
Published: March 30, 2000

Mr. Verdin believes passionately in his cause. ''Any so-called 'compromise' would be dishonoring to the 20,000 plus South Carolinians who gave their lives for the cause and dishonoring to the more than 75,000 others who defended hearth and <H3>homeland</h3> from ruthless and barbarous invaders without giving their lives for the cause,'' he said in a memo on his Web site.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...51C0A9679C8B63
Bush Warns Against 'Overdeployment'

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: February 15, 2001
President Bush said today that he would send American forces overseas more judiciously, warning that ''overdeployments'' strained troops, their families and, in the case of members of the National Guard and Reserves, their civilian employers.

''I'm worried that we're trying to be all things to all people around the world,'' Mr. Bush told a group of those employers in a meeting today at the headquarters of the West Virginia National Guard in Charleston.

Mr. Bush, who often warned in last year's presidential campaign that proliferating peacekeeping and humanitarian operations were sapping the military, said his administration would not precipitously withdraw from operations already under way, like those in Bosnia and Kosovo.

He pledged, however, to redefine the military's mission so that the armed services ''trained and prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.''

He also said he intended to focus the mission of the National Guard on <H3>''homeland defense''</H3> against terrorist attacks -- a recent recommendation of a panel on national security headed by two former senators, Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman.

THEN, FOR THE THREE WEEKS AFTER 9/11...IT WAS ALL "HOMELAND", ALL OF THE TIME!

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/search/quer...25&submit.y=10

A NATION CHALLENGED: HOMELAND SECURITY; Bush Chooses Old Ally For Cabinet-Level Post
President Bush tonight chose Governor...head a new Office of Homeland Security. Governor...governor, was one of Mr. Bush's leading candidates...overhaul, prompted many Bush supporters to see him...NATION CHALLENGED: HOMELAND SECURITY

September 21, 2001 - By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS - U.S. - 639 words
A NATION CHALLENGED: HOMELAND SECURITY; New Office to Become a White House Agency
The Office of Homeland Security announced by President Bush after the Sept...15, President Bush announced that...House Office of Homeland Security. But...President Bush said today. Tonight...Mr. Ridge, as homeland security adviser...

September 28, 2001 - By ELIZABETH BECKER and TIM WEINER - U.S. - 1084 words
A Nation Challenged
...is taking another look at the Bush administration's anti-terrorism...Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald R...SECURITY OFFICE -- The office of homeland security announced by President Bush will be elevated to a new White...

September 28, 2001 - New York and Region - 994 words
How to Protect the Homeland
...to action, despite President Bush's decision to name Gov. Tom...Pennsylvania to head a new Office of Homeland Defense. By using the rhetoric...the terror attacks, President Bush has marshaled the public's...be a mistake if the Office of Homeland Defense merely added another...

September 25, 2001 - By Joseph S. Nye - Opinion - 688 words
The Home Front; Tom Ridge's Task
...America. That is why President Bush is creating the cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security under the direction...preside over so-called homeland security forces -- creating...departments into a National Homeland Security Agency that would...

September 23, 2001 - Opinion - 537 words
Liberties; Old Ruses, New Barbarians
...that the U.S. should have a homeland defense plan. This week, when Bush diplomats should have been riveted...theology, it will be hard for the Bush crowd to engender the trust...senators last Thursday, Mr. Bush asked, What's the sense of...

September 19, 2001 - By MAUREEN DOWD - Opinion - 716 words
Race for Governor of Pennsylvania Gets Even Harder to Call
...has been a difficult contest to read from the start. And President Bush compounded that difficulty Thursday night when he tapped Gov. Tom Ridge to head the new Office of Homeland Security. Until then, two Republicans and two Democrats were vying...

September 23, 2001 - By B. DRUMMOND AYRES Jr. - U.S. - 739 words
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE APPOINTEE -- Man in the News; Rising Star in Crucial Job -- Tom Ridge
...Washington on Thursday when President Bush, in his address to a joint...director of the Office of Homeland Security, where he will coordinate...Flyers hockey game watched Mr. Bush's speech on huge TV screens...Party, was said to be Mr. Bush's choice of running mate...

September 22, 2001 - By SARA RIMER - U.S. - 1124 words
The Way We Live Now: 9-30-01: On Language; Words At War
...tire, falter and fail.) The Bush speech showed a heightened concern...words not chosen. For example, Bush castigated the power-seeking...noun that was not there in the Bush address to Congress was defense...phrase in Washington today, homeland defense. The earliest citation...

September 30, 2001 - By William Safire - Magazine - 975 words
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BIOLOGICAL THREAT; Nation's Civil Defense Could Prove to Be Inadequate Against a Germ or Toxic Attack
...some of the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction. Many experts approve of President Bush's decision to appoint a cabinet secretary for Homeland Security, calling it an important step toward protecting civilians against terrorist arms...

September 23, 2001 - By WILLIAM J. BROAD and MELODY PETERSEN - Science - 1227 words

<h3>Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next » </h3>

Isn't it at least something to think about, to ask questions about.....that the most prominent display of the word "homeland".... not in reference to a foreign place, was in the PNAC manifesto....there are no quotes of Clinton or Gore using the word to refer to the US, that I can find, during their 1993 to 2001 term, and almost no reference of the word in news reports, except by George Bush and John McCain in their 2000 campaigns.....but only very infrequently.....but from Sept. 12, 2001, to the end of that month, use of the word by Bush exploded into a cabinet level department.....it appeared in a matter of days.....with it's shiny PNAC name!!!

We can show that you've been conned powerclown....by neo-cons. Why not be man enough to admit it, instead of sharing a Podehertz rant?

Willravel · 04-12-2008, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Powerclown

I can only hope the next President of the United States deal more effectively than the current one to contain the threat of a nuclear armed religious theocracy.

This thread is about Iran, not Israel.

Ustwo · 04-12-2008, 04:03 PM

Bah, fuck it, glass parking lot for the thread, I'm out.

reconmike · 04-12-2008, 08:54 PM

Homeland was refered to by Slick Willie, only it was a reference to what was behind his zipper, ya know like "come on Monica the homeland needs a little attention".

host · 04-13-2008, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Homeland was refered to by Slick Willie, only it was a reference to what was behind his zipper, ya know like "come on Monica the homeland needs a little attention".

reconmike, powerclown, Ustwo....how do you know what you know? You were wrong about WMD, about al Qaeda being in Iraq with Saddam's "approval", "before we got there"....wrong about Iran's "ongoing" nuclear weapons development program.... why don't these "setbacks" trigger any reticence, any reflection about your political opinions?

Aren't people going to die, avoidably, and for no fucking reason, when your wrong? Doesn't that matter to you, even if those killed are American troops?

You've forged quite a reputation on this forum, because of the absurdity of your positions, yet you evidently see no need to seriously back them up, except of course for eye rolling, emotional theatrics, snide, one line drive by posts, and Clinton pee pee jokes.

What's Bush's "saying"....? "Fool me once....shame on...we won't get fooled again". Yet he fools you....a fool fooling you...time after time....and you clamor for more....why?

Could the US treasury be in more dire financial straits, could the US military be more hollowed out....would more Americans be dead, would more middle easterners be dead, would US relations with the rest of the world be worse, had Bush done nothing since 9/11? He's done all of it with your blessings. I never forget that, when I read your posts....do you ever forget that?

Are US troops or citizens, "safer" when they are captured now, by US adversaries, or when the US respected the Geneva convention clauses and did not torture? Are there less foreigners today with deep greivances against the US, than there were on 9/12/01? Could it be conceivable that there are hundreds of thousands of addtional foreign folk with deep seated greivances against the US today, than there were in 2001?

What are your goals? What do you want for the US? What part of them has "Bush team" accomplished?

Quote:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/...nians-wer.html
U.S.: Iranians 'Were a Heartbeat From Being Blown Up'

January 07, 2008 12:57 PM

Jonathan Karl Reports:

The standoff between three U.S. Navy ships and five Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz Sunday was one step away from turning violent.

"They were a heartbeat from being blown up," a Pentagon official, speaking of the Iranians, told ABC News.

According to the Navy intelligence report on the incident, the Iranians radioed, "I am coming at you. You will blow up in a couple of minutes."

The Navy ships radioed back, presumably transmitting a warning. All three ships also engaged in "evasive action," and according to senior Pentagon officials, the "prepare-to-fire" order had been given and the gun stations manned.

Pentagon officials today expressed surprise the Navy ships allowed at least one of the Iranian speedboats to get so close -- just 200 yards away -- without firing.

They say at least one of those speedboats boasted a machine gun, and all were behaving as if they were packed with explosives.

A Navy official told ABC News that while there have been similar incidents in the Gulf, Sunday's differed because of the "aggressive actions" taken by the Iranians.

"I've never seen a provocation like this is in international waters," another military official who has served for more than 25 years said.

The White House seconded that notion.

"We urge the Iranians to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to dangerous incidents in the future," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said.

Published reports cite the Iranian Foreign Ministry as confirming the incident but calling it "ordinary."....

Quote:

Press Gaggle by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Press ...
Jan 9, 2008 ... HADLEY: This was a serious incident, and it almost involved an exchange of fire between our forces and Iranian forces. ...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20080109.html

President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert Participate in Joint ...
We have made it clear publicly, and they know our position, and that is, there will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple. ...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0080109-4.html

http://www.voanews.com/persian/archi...TOKEN=82118255

News and Views January 11 reported that Iran aired a new tape meant to reinforce Tehran’s argument that the incident between Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrols and US warships on Sunday was a “normal inspections of vessels,” not a hostile act. In an exclusive interview with PNN, Commander Lydia Robertson, spokesperson for the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, said the fast boats – highly maneuverable patrol craft – were “visibly armed” and began aggressive maneuvers against the three American ships, steaming in formation into the Persian Gulf.....

<h3>VS. REALITY:</h3>

Quote:

DefenseLink News Transcript: DoD News Briefing with Vice Adm ...
Jan 7, 2008 ... And I didn't get the sense from the reports I was receiving that there was a sense of being afraid of these five boats. ...

...The behavior of the Iranian ships was, in my estimation, unnecessary, without due regard for safety of navigation and unduly provocative in the sense of the aggregate of their maneuvers, the radio call and the dropping of objects in the water......

....Q Admiral, Jim Miklaszewski with NBC.

At any time, <h3>did any of the crew members radio to these five boats, warning that they could come under fire?</h3> And given the experience of the suicide bombing on the USS Cole, why did not any of these ships at least fire warning shots?

ADM. COSGRIFF: I think that without getting into the specifics of our tactics, it's fair for you and your readers and listeners to assume that we do have procedures that are measured. They are escalatory. Radio calls were made from the U.S. warships. They were not heeded. The ships were stepping through the procedures, including increased readiness, onboard readiness. It is the judgment of the commanding officer, in the totality of the situation, what the next step is to take and when to take it. <h3>In this case, the commanding officers did not believe they needed to fire warning shots. </h3>
Indeed, I should also say, this happened fairly quickly. So the time from when you might consider a radio call, to maybe some additional measures up to but before warning shots, transpired fairly quickly. But again they followed the procedures to the letter, and <h3>it was their judgment in the totality of the information they had in the situation, that warning shots were not necessary.</h3>
.......
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...nscriptid=4116

Iranian Boats May Not Have Made Radio Threat, Pentagon Says
Jan 11, 2008 ... "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats. But when they hear it simultaneously to the behavior of ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...000692_pf.html

Iran Shows Its Own Video of Vessels’ Encounter in Gulf - New York ...
Jan 11, 2008 ... Pentagon officials said they could not rule out that the broadcast had come from shore, or from another ship nearby. They said it might have ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/wo...muz.html?fta=y

Quote:

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/navy...an-speed-boats
Navy commanders detail incident with Iranian speed boats

U.S. Navy Captain David Adler, right, and Commander Jeffery James, left, at the U.S. Navy base in Manama, Bahrain, on Sunday. (Hasan Jamali | AP)

By Steve Stone
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 14, 2008

..."We saw Iranian flags on at least one," Adler said. And one had what appeared to be a weapons mount but "it was just too far away to tell" if there was a weapon on it...

.....The packages were placed in the water alongside the warships and ahead of them.

"I saw them float by," Adler said. "They didn't look that threatening to me."

Meanwhile, "We were going through our pre-planned response and our measured, very disciplined responses trying to warn them off before we had to take any lethal action," James said. "And, fortunately for everybody involved, <h3>they turned outbound before we got to the point where we needed to open fire."...</h3>

More Official US "Iran bashing":

Quote:

Then there was the Explosively Formed Projectile (EFP) story of Iranians supplying Shia militias with especially lethal IEDs which the military and intelligence community pitched to credulous journalists. On February 10, 2007, Michael Gordon came out with the first of several pieces at the New York Times which were notable for their anonymous sourcing and unsubstantiated claims. These articles were heavily criticized in the blogosphere but it didn't stop Gordon from revisiting the subject on March 27, 2007 and August 8, 2007 and recycling many of the previous charges.
....<h3>In Gordon's original piece the accusation was made that the smuggling of EFPs into Iraq was "approved by Supreme Leader Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force." This claim quickly fell apart but it did not stop Bush without any additional evidence from asserting</h3> in a February 14, 2007 Valentine's Day presser:

I can say with certainty that the Quds Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated I.E.D.'s that have harmed our troops . . . And I'd like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of the government. But my point is, what's worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and its happening?

Blaming the Iranians for American deaths in Iraq provided a useful excuse for Bush's failures there and helped gin up the case for a future conflict with Iran.

<h3>Boys, how many times will the NeoCons manipulate your concern and emotions, your patriotic "fervor"? They can only do it to you if you're already open to it, and you let them.....</h3>

The editor, Bill Keller, and the public editor of the NY Times admit that they willingly allowed themselves to be fooled by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney concerning justification for invading Iraq. Surely these NY Times staffers are not men of greater integrity, higher principle, than you guys are?

Quote:

February 25, 2007
The Public Editor
Approaching Iran Intelligence With Intelligent Skepticism
By BYRON CALAME

COVERAGE of the American saber- rattling about Iranian intervention in Iraq posed an important test for The New York Times, <h3>given the paper’s discredited pre-war articles about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.</h3> And it has triggered a rash of complaints from readers who believed The Times was again serving as a megaphone for the White House.

I decided to review The Times’s articles of the past month, focusing on two key aspects of newsroom culture that affect the coverage of intelligence and national security. The degree of skepticism was an obvious choice, given the lack of it during the pre-war embarrassment. The other was the level of editing vigilance reflected in the stories.

This time the issue is whether the Iranian government is providing weapons and support to Shiite militias in Iraq. The Times and other media had frequently mentioned, as early as 2005, the military’s belief that some sophisticated roadside bombs were coming from Iran. By late 2006 these bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, or E.F.P.’s, were killing a larger number of Americans. The growing death toll caused the commanders in Iraq to call for action.

The problem came front and center early this year after President Bush had authorized raids on Iranian facilities in Iraq in an attempt to confirm and disrupt the suspected flow of E.F.P.’s. When the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, among others, called for an explanation of the raids, the Bush administration promised to provide one shortly. Then a Page 1 story in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/world/middleeast/10weapons.html">The Times on Saturday, Feb. 10</a>, reported an intelligence community consensus that Iran is providing the deadly E.F.P.’s, and offered fresh details. That Sunday in Baghdad, military officials gave an anonymous briefing about the bombs. Later in the week, at a news conference, the president addressed the issue.

The situation closely parallels the pre-war period when The Times prominently reported that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Deeply shamed when they were not found, the paper <a href="http://nytimes.com/ref/international/middleeast/20040526CRITIQUE.html">publicly acknowledged</a> that its coverage had been “insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged.”

Times editors clearly were mindful of the W.M.D. coverage as they pursued the Iranian weapons issue. “W.M.D. has informed everything we’ve done on Iran,” Bill Keller, the executive editor, told me three days after the Baghdad briefing. “We don’t have to tell the reporters to be as skeptical as possible. W.M.D. restored a level of skepticism.”

The skepticism and qualification, for example, were woven into <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/world/middleeast/12weapons.html">The Times’s Feb. 12 article</a> about the Baghdad briefing. The result was solid journalism that helped readers sort out the physical evidence — such as captured roadside bombs with serial numbers — from the intelligence assessments based on inferences and deductions.

Consider this healthy skepticism in the third paragraph of the story by James Glanz from Baghdad: “The officials also asserted, without providing direct evidence, that Iranian leaders had authorized smuggling those weapons into Iraq for use against the Americans. The officials said such an assertion was an inference based on general intelligence assessments.”

Qualifications appropriately permeated the article. The unnamed military officials, it said, asserted “without specific evidence that the Iranian security apparatus, called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force controlled delivery of the materials to Iraq. And in a further inference, the officials asserted that the Quds Force, sometimes called the I.R.G.C.- Quds, could be involved only with Iranian government complicity.”

The Times’s in-depth Saturday article laying out details of the E.F.P. issue contained a clear-cut qualification, prominently placed right in the second paragraph: “The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.” The story by Michael R. Gordon, the paper’s chief military correspondent, had been in the works for more than two weeks and was published after The Times learned on Friday that the military briefing was scheduled for Sunday, Mr. Keller said.

(Mr. Gordon has become a favorite target of many critical readers, who charge that the paper’s Iran coverage is somehow tainted because he had shared the byline on a flawed Page 1 W.M.D. article. I don’t buy that view, and I think the quality of his current journalism deserves to be evaluated on its own merits.)

While the Saturday scoop relied heavily on anonymous sources from unnamed agencies, the article described an admirable search for those likely to have differing views. It cited interviews with “civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies,” and pointed out that group included “some whose agencies have previously been skeptical about the significance of Iran’s role in Iraq.”

One intelligence “assessment” in the Saturday article, however, needed some qualification. “As part of its strategy in Iraq,” the story said, “Iran is implementing a deliberate, calibrated policy — approved by Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force. ...” To the extent that the assessment was based on inferences, readers deserved to be reminded of that. And they deserved a clearer sense of the extent to which the “broad agreement” cited high up in the article applied to this specific assessment.

The Times continued to seek reaction to the E.F.P. intelligence from a variety of government officials, turning up <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/world/middleeast/13weapons.html">what a Page 1 article on Feb. 13</a> termed a “healthy dose of skepticism.” The next day, President Bush addressed the credibility of the intelligence assessments at a news conference, saying he was certain that factions within the Iranian government had supplied the roadside bombs. But he carefully added: “I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of the government” — a point made in the lead paragraph of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/15/world/middleeast/15prexy.html">The Times’s story on Feb. 15</a>.

Editing vigilance on intelligence and national security coverage means dealing with the <a href=""http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/opinion/30publiceditor.html>anonymous sourcing</a> that many deem essential to bringing vital issues to light in that murky area. So editors need to ensure that unnamed sources are in a position to know and that any biases are clear to the reporter.

The Times’s most important requirement for anonymous sources — that an editor must know their identity — was followed for Mr. Gordon’s Feb. 10 story. Douglas Jehl, a deputy chief of the Washington bureau and his editor, told me he knew the name of each anonymous source in the article. The story also attempted a generalized explanation of why the officials were willing to talk. I do wish, however, that the article had found a way to comply with the paper’s policy of explaining why sources are allowed to remain unnamed.

The risk that the anonymity masked a policy-driven leak such as those that fed some of The Times’s pre-war W.M.D. coverage was reviewed before the Feb. 10 article was published. In an e-mail, Philip Taubman, the Washington bureau chief, wrote that he asked early on: “Did a tip or information come from the policy echelons of the government, from intelligence agencies, from American commanders and troops in Iraq?” In this case, he said: “Michael Gordon’s coverage started at ground level in Iraq, and has not been based on policy-driven leaks in Washington.”

Failing to reach out for dissenting views was a pre-war shortcoming, The Times has previously acknowledged. So even after Mr. Gordon had “nailed” key parts of the Feb. 10 article, according to Mr. Keller, editors specifically asked him “to talk to places in government that had been skeptical of W.M.D.,” such as the State Department.

Still, editors didn’t make sure all conflicting views were always clearly reported. For example, the article on Mr. Bush’s news conference pointed out that the position of the president — and the similar position taken earlier in the week by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — differed from the suggestion at the Sunday Baghdad briefing that the weapons effort involved top levels of the Iranian government. That story also should have noted, however, that the president’s view on this point differed from the intelligence assessment given readers of the Feb. 10 article.

On balance, The Times’s E.F.P. stories of the past month — especially the carefully qualified Baghdad briefing article — reflected healthy levels of skepticism and editing vigilance. They also showed that it’s possible for coverage not to be totally dictated by government intelligence leaks. And that lesson could serve Times readers well if the administration should ever decide to publicly invoke intelligence assessments in its simmering struggle to restrain Iran’s development of a nuclear capability.

The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this section.

Willravel · 04-13-2008, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

reconmike, powerclown, Ustwo....how do you know what you know? You were wrong about WMD, about al Qaeda being in Iraq with Saddam's "approval", "before we got there"....wrong about Iran's "ongoing" nuclear weapons development program.... why don't these "setbacks" trigger any reticence, any reflection about your political opinions?

I'd be very interested in a response to this, actually.

host · 04-13-2008, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanxter

Blah Blah Blah

Just to highlight your contribution to this discussion, or are you sending a message directed at me? I think I have reacted reasonably, at all times, to you. So, what is this about?

Here is Bush at his best, just the other day, threatening Iran, rehashing his "axis of evil" theme, and lumping Iran with al Qaeda, and the attacks on 9/11:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0080410-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 10, 2008

President Bush Discusses Iraq

....The regime in Tehran also has a choice to make. It can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties. Or it can continue <h3>to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups</h3>, which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran. If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests, and our troops, and our Iraqi partners....

.....Today, we face an enemy that is not only expansionist in its aims, but has actually attacked our homeland -- and intends to do so again. Yet our defense budget accounts for just over 4 percent of our economy -- less than our commitment at any point during the four decades of the Cold War. This is still <h3>a large amount of money, but it is modest -- a modest fraction of our nation's wealth -- and it pales when compared to the cost of another terrorist attack on our people.</h3>

We should be able to agree that this is a burden worth bearing. And we should be able to agree that our national interest require the success of our mission in Iraq.

<h3>Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century -- al Qaeda and Iran.</h3> If we fail there, al Qaeda would claim a propaganda victory of colossal proportions, and they could gain safe havens in Iraq from which to attack the United States, our friends and our allies. Iran would work to fill the vacuum in Iraq, and our failure would embolden its radical leaders and fuel their ambitions to dominate the region. The Taliban in Afghanistan and al Qaeda in Pakistan would grow in confidence and boldness. And violent extremists around the world would draw <h3>the same dangerous lesson that they did from our retreats in Somalia and Vietnam</h3>. This would diminish our nation's standing in the world, and lead to massive humanitarian casualties, and increase the threat of another terrorist attack on our homeland.

On the other hand, if we succeed in Iraq after all that al Qaeda and Iran have invested there, it would be a historic blow to the global terrorist movement and a severe setback for Iran. <h3>It would demonstrate to a watching world that mainstream Arabs reject the ideology of al Qaeda, and mainstream Shia reject the ideology of Iran's radical regime. It would give America a new partner with a growing economy and a democratic political system in which Sunnis and Shia and Kurds all work together</h3> for the good of their country. And in all these ways, it would bring us closer to our most important goal -- <h3>making the American people safer here at home.</h3>

If President Bush is at all close to accomplishing his "vision", can anyone who supports him and what he says he is doing, answer a few questions?

<h3>Why can the Iranian president preannounce his visit to Iraq, receive an enthusiastic (unprecedented?) official "head of state" welcome from all Iraqi government officials, except sunnis....move from the airport, and around Baghdad with minimal security and in a regular sedan (no armour), stay and sleep outside the green zone, with no US military provided security. Versus, in the same month, Cheney and McCain are observed sneaking into Iraq (no preannouncement of either of their visits)....under extremely tight security...roads pre-swept for IEDs, US troops lining roads, combat helicopters overhead, spending the bulk of their visits in the green zone.....?</h3>

Iran president on landmark Iraq visit - CNN.com
Story Highlights; Ahmadinejad is the first Iranian president to visit Iraq and ... He noted that Iraq has a new government, and is an "independent state." ...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/...jad/index.html - 78k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 03/02/2008 | Visit by Iran's ...
Mar 2, 2008 ... BAGHDAD — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday became the first Iranian head of state to visit Iraq in three decades and ...
www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/29212.html - 37k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

President Ahmadinejad of Iran to make first visit to Iraq in March ...
Feb 14, 2008 ... President Ahmadinejad of Iran to make first visit to Iraq in March. ... A State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the United States ...
www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/14/mideast/iraq.php

<h3>Why did Bush accuse Iran</h3> "to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups"....when the following strongly indicates that Bush himself allowed a US designated terrorist organization, "feed" him false information that he continued to repeat to the American public, and let shape his Iran policy, for years?

Quote:

President's Press Conference
March 16, 2005. President's Press Conference .... but because a dissident group pointed it out to the world, and -- which raised suspicions about the ...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050316-3.html

Quote:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/51715
TERROR WATCH
Michael Isikoff and
Mark Hosenball
Terror Watch: Consider the Source

The State Department says Mek is a terror group. Human rights watch says it's a cult. For the White House, Mek is a source of intelligence on Iran.
May 18, 2005 | Updated: 3:27 p.m. ET Oct 16, 2007

.....Despite the group's notoriety, Bush himself cited purported intelligence gathered by MEK as evidence of the Iranian regime's rapidly accelerating nuclear ambitions. At a March 16 press conference, Bush said Iran's hidden nuclear program had been discovered not because of international inspections but "because a dissident group pointed it out to the world." White House aides acknowledged later that the dissident group cited by the president is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), one of the MEK front groups added to the State Department list two years ago.

In an appearance before a House International Relations Subcommittee a year ago, John Bolton, the controversial State Department undersecretary who Bush has nominated to become US ambassador to the United Nations, was questioned by a Congressman sympathetic to MEK about whether it was appropriate for the U.S. government to pay attention to allegations about Iran supplied by the group. Bolton said he believed that MEK "qualifies as a terrorist organization according to our criteria." But he added that he did not think the official label had "prohibited us from getting information from them. And I certainly don't have any inhibition about getting information about what's going on in Iran from whatever source we can find that we deem reliable......

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080101453.html
Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb
U.S. Intelligence Review Contrasts With Administration Statements

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 2, 2005; Page A01

A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.

The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that "all options are on the table."

The new National Intelligence Estimate includes what the intelligence community views as credible indicators that Iran's military is conducting clandestine work. But the sources said there is no information linking those projects directly to a nuclear weapons program.....

<h3>Why did Bush and Cheney, et al surpress the NIE finding on Iran, for a year, and continue to proclaim the exact opposite of the NIE's conclusions ?</h3>

Quote:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/03/iran-white-house/

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/03/nie-iran/">Despite Knowledge That Iran Halted Nuke Program</a>, White House Continued To Warn Of False Threat»

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released today concludes that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” It adds that “Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007,” and the country is “less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.”

The assessment, which relies on <a href="http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf">data collected through Oct. 31</a>, was <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39978">reportedly completed in 2006</a>, but was blocked by administration officials who wanted it to be more in line with Vice President Cheney’s hardline views.

As The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum notes, the NIE’s “basic parameters were almost certainly <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_12/012623.php">common knowledge in the White House”</a> at least by last year, when the document was finished. Yet even in the past two months, the administration has continued to push its faulty, inflammatory rhetoric and claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Some examples:

“The problem is Iran, and Iran has not stepped back from trying to pursue a nuclear weapon, and — or reprocessing and enriching uranium, which would lead to a nuclear weapon.” [White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071026-6.html">10/26/07</a>]

“We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace.” [Bush, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071107-5.html">11/7/07</a>]

“We’re in a position now, clearly, especially when we look at Iran, where it’s very, very important we succeed in our efforts, our national security efforts, to discourage the Iranians from enriching uranium and producing nuclear weapons.” [Cheney, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071109-11.html">11/9/07</a>]

“We are convinced that they are developing nuclear weapons.” [Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, <a href="http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/12/03/iran/index.html">11/13/07</a>]...

...UPDATE: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently said, “It would be a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/73362">strategic calamity</a> to attack Iran at this time.”

<h3>Why did Bush administration officials and Foxnews have such close ties to a terrorist organization spokesperson, Alireza Jafarzadeh, a man totally discredited in both the 2005 and 2007 NIEs on Iran?</h3>

Quote:

http://web.archive.org/web/200209301...3579.asp?cp1=1
Ashcroft’s Baghdad Connection
Why the attorney general and others in Washington have backed a terror group with ties to Iraq
By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Sept. 26 (2002)— When the White House released its Sept. 12 “white paper” detailing Saddam Hussein’s “support for international terrorism,” it caused more than a little discomfort in some quarters of Washington.

THE 27-PAGE DOCUMENT—entitled “A Decade of Deception and Defiance”—made no mention of any Iraqi ties to Osama bin Laden. But it did highlight Saddam’s backing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an obscure Iranian dissident group that has gathered surprising support among members of Congress in past years. One of those supporters, the documents show, is a top commander in President Bush’s war on terrorism: Attorney General John Ashcroft, who became involved with the MKO while a Republican senator from Missouri.

The case of Ashcroft and the MKO shows just how murky fighting terrorism can sometimes get. State Department officials first designated the MKO a “foreign terrorist organization” in 1997, accusing the Baghdad-based group of a long series of bombings, guerilla cross-border raids and targeted assassinations of Iranian leaders. Officials say the MKO—which originally fought to overthrow the Shah of Iran—was linked to the murder of several U.S. military officers and civilians in Iran in the 1970s. “They have an extremely bloody history,” says one U.S. counterterrorism official.

But the MKO, which commands an army of 30,000 from bases inside Iraq, has tried to soften its image in recent years—in part with strong backing from politically active Iranian-Americans in the United States. The MKO operates in Washington out of a small office in the National Press Building under the name the National Council of Resistance of Iran. According to the State Department, the National Council of Resistance is a “front” for the MKO; in 1999, the National Council itself was placed on the State Department terrorist list. But National Council officials adamantly deny their group has earned the terror label and have aggressively portrayed itself to Washington lawmakers as a “democratic” alternative to a repressive Iranian regime that itself is one of the world’s leading sponsors of terrorism. “You’re talking about a really popular movement,” <h3>says Alireza Jafarzadeh, the National Council’s chief Washington spokesman, who insists that the MKO “targets only military targets.”</h3>

Only two years ago, these arguments won sympathy from Ashcroft—and more than 200 other members of Congress. When the National Council of Resistance staged a September 2000 rally outside the United Nations to protest a speech by Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, Missouri’s two Republican senators—Ashcroft and Chris Bond—issued a joint statement of solidarity that was read aloud to a cheering crowd. A delegation of about 500 Iranians from Missouri attended the event—and a picture of a smiling Ashcroft was later included in a color briefing book used by MKO officials to promote their cause on Capitol Hill. Ashcroft was hardly alone. Among those who actually appeared at the rally and spoke on the group’s behalf was one of its leading congressional supporters: Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Torricelli.

That same year, Senator Ashcroft wrote a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno protesting the detention of an Iranian woman, Mahnaz Samadi, who was a leading spokeswoman for the National Council of Resistance. The case quickly became a cause celebre for the MKO and its supporters in the United States.
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents had arrested Samadi at the Canadian border, charging her with failing to disclose her past “terrorist” ties as an MKO “military commander”—including spending seven months in a MKO military-training camp inside Iraq—when she sought political asylum in the United States several years earlier, according to court documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.
Senator Ashcroft saw the case differently. In his May 10, 2000, letter to Reno, the Missouri lawmaker expressed “concern” about the detention, calling Samadi a “highly regarded human-rights activist” and a “powerful voice for democracy.” (As part of a later settlement with the INS, Samadi admitted her membership in MKO but denied that she personally participated in any “terrorist activity.” While her grant of political asylum was revoked, the INS dropped its deportation proceedings and she was permitted to remain in the United States.)

<h3>Alireza Jafarzadeh, the National Council’s top Washington lobbyist, said he had “several” meetings with Ashcroft aides</h3> about the matter and that he “certainly” viewed the Missouri senator as a supporter of his group. But backers of the MKO acknowledge the real lobbying was done by Iranian-Americans in Missouri who wrote letters and made repeated phone calls on Samadi’s behalf. How much Ashcroft got personally involved isn’t clear. A Justice Department spokeswoman told NEWSWEEK that Ashcroft’s letter to Reno was the result of a “straightforward, constituent-type inquiry,” adding that the current attorney general would never “knowingly” back any terrorist group. When he signed the joint statement with Bond that was read at the National Council rally at the United Nations, Ashcroft did not “intend to endorse any organization,” the spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, said. “He was supporting democracy and freedom in Iran,” she said. Comstock said Ashcroft currently has “no problem” prosecuting all U.S.-based terror groups, including the MKO.

Ashcroft isn’t the only one now distancing himself from the MKO. The Senate’s most aggressive promotor of the MKO for years has been Bob Torricelli, who in recent years has circulated numerous letters among his colleagues—including one as recently as last year—describing the MKO as a “legitimate” alternative to the repressive Iranian mullahs and urging that the group be taken off the State Department terrorist list. Torricelli told NEWSWEEK he saw his support for the group as a way of putting pressure on the Iranian regime. “They [the MKO] were the only game in town,” he said. But Torricelli also said last week said he would no longer push the group’s cause after getting hammered over the issue by his GOP opponent, Doug Forrester, who accused Torricelli of receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Iranian-Americans who supported the group. (Torricelli aides say the amount is exaggerated and that others, including some leading Republicans, have also received contributions from some of the same Iranian-Americans.) As a result of the September 11 attacks and new concerns about any allegations of terrorism, Bond also has put his backing for the group “in abeyance,” an aide said.

Much of the new skittishness among MKO’s congressional backers also stems from the decision by the Bush White House to emphasize the connections between MKO and Saddam. It isn’t the first time this was done. Former Clinton administration official Martin Indyk, who served as assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs in 1997, told NEWSWEEK that one of the reasons the group was put on the terrorism list in the first place was part of a “two-pronged” strategy that included ratcheting up pressure on Saddam. Like the Bush White House, the Clinton administration was eager to highlight Iraqi ties to terrorism and had collected extensive evidence of Saddam providing logistical support to the MKO in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War. (The MKO’s headquarters are located on a heavily guarded street in central Baghdad.) But the United States could find no other hard evidence linking Saddam to terror groups, Indyk said. “That was about all we had on [Saddam] when it came to terrorism,” Indyk told NEWSWEEK.

National-security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in an interview Wednesday on PBS’s “The NewsHour” that the United States had new evidence from “high-ranking detainees” that Iraq has provided “some training to Al Qaeda in chemical-weapons development.” But a top U.S. law-enforcement official recently cast some doubt about the strength of the evidence connecting Saddam and Al Qaeda, telling NEWSWEEK there is far more substantial evidence that Iran was harboring top Al Qaeda leaders.)
The other “prong” in the Clinton strategy that led to the inclusion of the MKO on the terrorist list was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. At the time, President Khatami had recently been elected and was seen as a moderate. Top administration officials saw cracking down on the MKO—which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace—as one way to do so. Still, Indyk said the basic decision to label the MKO as terrorists could be justified anyway. “Yes, they’re bad guys,” he told NEWSWEEK. “But no—they’re not targeting us.”

Indyk’s comments lend partial support to one of the main contentions of MKO and its congressional supporters: that geopolitical strategy—a tilt toward Iran—was an important factor in the State Department decision to accuse MKO of terrorism. “They wanted to appease the Iranian regime,” said Jafarzadeh, the National Council of Resistance lobbyist.
Still, the Justice Department appears only to be stepping up investigations into MKO members. Early last year, the FBI broke up a ring of Iranians who were raising money at the Los Angeles airport under the guise of helping suffering children when, according to a court complaint, they were routing the funds to the MKO. (A federal judge recently tossed the case out of court, but the Justice Department is appealing.) <h3>Then, last December, FBI agents showed up at the home of Jafarzadeh. Armed with a search warrant, the agents hauled away boxes of documents, including files on the group’s dealings with members of Congress. One in particular must have gotten the agents’ attention. It was labeled ASHCROFT. </h3>

<h3>Why is foxnews still employing fomer terrorist organization spokesman, Alireza Jafarzadeh, allowing him to quote the current NCRI spokesman and other MEK terrorists, in a frequent series of articles still regularly published on the foxnews site?</h3>

Quote:

Do YOU think Iran is developing nuclear weapons? - Page 7 - Tilted ...
FNC Foreign Affairs Analyst Alireza Jafarzadeh. FNC Foreign Affairs Analyst ... http://www.newshounds.us/2006/09/02/..._terrorist.php Is FOX News’ Foreign ...
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...&postcount=248

Alireza Jafarzadeh attempted to refute the newly released 2007 NIE on Iran, with this. He's in the same position, spokesman for the NCRI/MEK/MKO, that he was in for twelve years, before the US closed his DC office...only now he is paid by foxnews to distribute his terrorist organization's propaganda:

Quote:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...fnc/world/iran
Dissident: Iran's Top Commanders Are Nuclear Weapons Scientists

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

By Sharon Kehnemui Liss

WASHINGTON — Twenty-one commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are the top scientists running Iran's secret nuclear weapons program, says the man who exposed Iran's nuclear weapons program in 2002.

On top of that, the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate published last week saying Tehran shut down its weaponization program in 2003 failed to mention that the program restarted in mid-2004, said Alireza Jafarzadeh, an Iranian dissident and president of Strategic Policy Consulting.

The scientists working on the alleged civilian nuclear centrifuge program are IGRC commanders, said Jafarzadeh, who was providing a list of names to the press on Tuesday. But their intention is not a nuclear energy source for civilians.

"It's the IRGC that is basically controlling the whole thing, dominating the whole thing," Jafarzadeh told FOXNews.com. "They are running the show. They have a number of sites controlled by the IRGC that has been off-limits to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and inspectors, including a military university known as Imam Hossein University. ... That site has not been inspected. They have perhaps the most advanced nuclear research and development center in that university."....

<h3>How can there be any doubt that Alireza Jafarzadeh was and still is a spokesman for a terrorist organization? :</h3>

Quote:

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/20072.htm
On-the-Record Briefing
Ambassador Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Remarks at On-the-Record Briefing on the Release of the Annual Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002 report
Washington, DC
April 30, 2003

....QUESTION: What does the State Department think about the ceasefire that was signed between the MEK and the U.S., U.S. CENTCOM, in Iraq?

Since this group is still on the terrorist list, as I understand it, Americans are not supposed to deal with them at all. And that's always been kind of a -- there is a problem in Washington, D.C., because they keep an office open here.

So can you tell me how this squares with the MEK's terrorist status?

AMBASSADOR BLACK: Sure, I'll be happy to, happy to try. The Secretary has recommended that the President determine that the laws that apply to countries that support terrorism no longer apply to Iraq. The President's determination to provide greater flexibility in permitting certain types of trade with and assistance to Iraq; thus, we can treat Iraq like any other country not on the terrorist list.

I think it's important to underscore some facts here. MEK is designated by the U.S. Government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. This organization mixes Islam and Marxism in their battle to establish what they claim would be a secular state in Iran.

Until the recent war in Iraq, they were allied with the government of Saddam Hussein and received most of their support from this regime. They have assisted the Hussein regime in suppressing opposition within Iraq, and performed internal security for the Iraqi regime. MEK, or as some recently referred to as the People's Mujahedin, has also attacked and killed Americans.

<h3>The MEK and its many aliases, including the political NCRI, are designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.</h3> The United States Government does not negotiate with terrorists. MEK's opposition to the Iranian Government does not change the fact that they are a terrorist organization. We understand the agreement on the ground in the field is a prelude to the group's surrender. Commanders make tactical decisions to end conflict with enemy combatants successfully.

There's a lot of activity in various areas underway in Iraq -- of which this is one -- I would refer you to CENTCOM and their briefers to get better insight to the decision-making and the actions of our commanders, coalition commanders on the ground.

This is a pretty special group. They are a Foreign Terrorist Organization. They are not well liked in Iraq; they could not be put with the general prisoner population. They are following the orders of the coalition commanders, and their situation will be addressed in the coming days and weeks.

<h3>Doesn't the following article demonstrate that the US is guilty of exactly the same thing that Bush accuses Iran of doing:...</h3>"arm and train and fund illegal militant groups" ? Can anyone argue that the US policy is much more estranged from the POV of the Iraqi majority than it is in common with it?

Can you make any case that Bush's opinion and goals are not hypocritcal, contradictory and unrealistic? Witness the cooperation described in the following article, of the US military with a US state dept. designated terrorist organization, an organization unwelcome in Iraq in the opinion of the Iraqi government, so that:

Quote:

....[Mek] have hosted dozens of visitors in an energetic campaign to persuade the State Department to stop designating the group as a terrorist organization.

Now the Iraqi government is intensifying its efforts to evict the 3,800 or so members of the group who live in Iraq, although U.S. officials say they are in no hurry to change their policy toward the MEK, <h3>which has been a prime source of information about Iran's nuclear program.</h3>....

...during a time when Bush or Cheney, or both, as well as those in charge of US intelligence agencies, including Sect'y of Defense Bob Gates, had to know that the "prime source of information about Iran's nuclear program" coming from MEK and NCRI, and from foxnews mouthpiece, Alireza Jafarzadeh, <h3>conflicts with the determinations about Iran contained in both the 2005 and 2007 NIEs.....</h3>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...301782_pf.html
Iraq Intensifies Efforts to Expel Iranian Group
Though Labeled Terrorist, MEK Has Updated U.S. on Tehran's Nuclear Program

By Ernesto Londoño and Saad al-Izzi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 14, 2007; A10

BAGHDAD -- For three years, thousands of members of a militant group dedicated to overthrowing Iran's theocracy have lived in a sprawling compound north of Baghdad <h3>under the protection of the U.S. military.

American soldiers chauffeur top leaders of the group, known as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, to and from their compound, where they have hosted dozens of visitors in an energetic campaign to persuade the State Department to stop designating the group as a terrorist organization.</h3>

Now the Iraqi government is intensifying its efforts to evict the 3,800 or so members of the group who live in Iraq, although U.S. officials say they are in no hurry to change their policy toward the MEK, <h3>which has been a prime source of information about Iran's nuclear program.</h3>

The Iraqi government announced this week that roughly 100 members would face prosecution for human rights violations, a move MEK officials contend comes at the request of the Iranian government.

"We have documents, witnesses," Jaafar al-Moussawi, a top Iraqi prosecutor, said Monday, alleging that the MEK aided President Saddam Hussein's campaign to crush Shiite and Kurdish opposition movements at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Moussawi said the criminal complaint would implicate MEK members in "killing, torture, [wrongful] imprisonment and displacement."

The group denied involvement in Hussein's reprisals.

"These allegations are preposterous and lies made by the Iranian mullahs and repeated by their agents," it said in a statement issued this week.

The case highlights the occasional discord between the U.S. and Iraqi governments on matters related to Iran. While the U.S. government has accused Iran of supplying Iraqi Shiite militias with sophisticated weapons that it says have been used to kill American troops, Iraq's Shiite-led government has expanded commercial and diplomatic ties with its majority-Shiite neighbor.

"This organization has always destabilized the security situation" in Iraq, said Mariam Rayis, a top foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, adding that the MEK's continued presence "could lead to deteriorating the relationship with neighboring countries."....

Tully Mars · 04-13-2008, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I'd be very interested in a response to this, actually.

Good luck with that. So far it seems if the argument to bomb Iran is shown to be completely irrational the next move is to either tap out and call for the thread to be a "glass parking lot" or start making references to Bill getting a BJ.

Not surprised really, if the neo-cons have proved anything it is denial is alive and well.

ottopilot · 04-13-2008, 06:07 PM

Well isn't this a classic hootenanny ho-down for the TFP Politics board ... both wacky and fortified with wing-nuts.

For all the zany extremes on this argument, it is highly unlikely that issues of such scope and magnitude happen in an absolute vacuum. For as much as some of us would love to pin the blame on singular entities, leaders, and governments, our apparent predicaments are more likely cumulative and complicit by a variety of participants acting seamlessly in the background (or broad daylight) spanning multiple presidential administrations, congress(es), and political parties.

We've been down this road before.

Willravel · 04-13-2008, 06:09 PM

Oh hey otto, I'm glad you're here. A few posts back Host asked an intriguing question of conservatives that I think a lot of people might be interested in your answering.

roachboy · 04-13-2008, 06:11 PM

i think i said that too otto, though i can't tell if that means we agree on this or not. maybe it's the last sentence, following on whatever the hell just happened above.

ottopilot · 04-13-2008, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Oh hey otto, I'm glad you're here. A few posts back Host asked an intriguing question of conservatives that I think a lot of people might be interested in your answering.

Is this a saddistic request for entertainment value?

Which post are you referring?

Willravel · 04-13-2008, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Is this a saddistic request for entertainment value?

Which post are you referring?

Hardy har har. Okay, touche.

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

how do you know what you know? You were wrong about WMD, about al Qaeda being in Iraq with Saddam's "approval", "before we got there"....wrong about Iran's "ongoing" nuclear weapons development program.... why don't these "setbacks" trigger any reticence, any reflection about your political opinions?

ottopilot · 04-13-2008, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i think i said that too otto, though i can't tell if that means we agree on this or not. maybe it's the last sentence, following on whatever the hell just happened above.

Yeah ... Definitely the last line.

But I was telling willravel the other day ... I agree with some of you on many subjects, I often just don't have much to add. It's these lopsided conspiracies and broad generalizations that bring me from out of the woodwork. I've been trying to avoid flame feuds lately. I probably need to jump in on things I agree with more often to show support.

Willravel · 04-13-2008, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Yeah ... Definitely the last line.

But I was telling willravel the other day ... I agree with some of you on many subjects, I often just don't have much to add. It's these lopsided conspiracies and broad generalizations that bring me from out of the woodwork. I've been trying to avoid flame feuds lately. I probably need to jump in on things I agree with more often to show support.

One does get enveloped into a sea of liberal when they agree with the majority, I know. Still, it's nice to be a part of the big group when you agree with them.

host · 04-13-2008, 06:30 PM

A distillation of my last post:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0080410-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 10, 2008

President Bush Discusses Iraq

....The regime in Tehran also has a choice to make. It can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties. Or <h3>it can continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups</h3>
, which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran. If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests, and our troops, and our Iraqi partners....

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...301782_pf.html
Iraq Intensifies Efforts to Expel Iranian Group
Though Labeled Terrorist, MEK Has Updated U.S. on Tehran's Nuclear Program

By Ernesto Londoño and Saad al-Izzi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 14, 2007; A10

BAGHDAD -- For three years, thousands of members of a militant group dedicated to overthrowing Iran's theocracy have lived in a sprawling compound north of Baghdad <h3>under the protection of the U.S. military.

American soldiers chauffeur top leaders of the group, known as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, to and from their compound, where they have hosted dozens of visitors in an energetic campaign to persuade the State Department to stop designating the group as a terrorist organization.</h3>

Now the Iraqi government is intensifying its efforts to evict the 3,800 or so members of the group who live in Iraq, although U.S. officials say they are in no hurry to change their policy toward the MEK,
which has been a prime source of information about Iran's nuclear program....

Witness the president of the United States, just the other day, accusing Iran of "continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups", while the US military in Iraq coddles a US state dept. designated terrorist group, allowing it to buy time while it tries to convince the state dept. not to designate it as a "terrorist" organization, because, even though <h3>the information the terrorist group provides to the US government on Iran's nuclear weapons development clearly contradicts the conclusions in the last two NIEs,</h3> the president and the vice-president clearly agree with the propaganda of the terrorist group it has permitted the US military in Iraq, to coddle, against the express wishes of the Iraqi government.

<h2>People !!! Our troops are dying to maintain this dysfunction !!!</h2>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080101453.html
Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb
U.S. Intelligence Review Contrasts With Administration Statements

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 2, 2005; Page A01

A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis....

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/03/iran-white-house/

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/03/nie-iran/">Despite Knowledge That Iran Halted Nuke Program</a>, White House Continued To Warn Of False Threat»

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released today concludes that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” It adds that “Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007,” and the country is “less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.”...

ottopilot · 04-14-2008, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

One does get enveloped into a sea of liberal when they agree with the majority, I know. Still, it's nice to be a part of the big group when you agree with them.

Regarding the questions: Because of the way host frames his questions, I'm not the guy to ask. I see a much bigger picture than rabidly obsessing about evil GW Bush and the evil neo-cons ... one worn spoke on a giant wheel. If someone is REALLY interested in getting some answers, I say why stop there? There are multifaceted and multidimensional interests at play on every level of the game. In keeping with my ongoing self-rehabilitation on TFP ... and until host is willing to venture beyond tediously litigating his obsession ... I'm not interested.

Tully Mars · 04-14-2008, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Regarding the questions: Because of the way host frames his questions, I'm not the guy to ask. I see a much bigger picture than rabidly obsessing about evil GW Bush and the evil neo-cons ... one worn spoke on a giant wheel. If someone is REALLY interested in getting some answers, I say why stop there? There are multifaceted and multidimensional interests at play on every level of the game. In keeping with my ongoing self-rehabilitation on TFP ... and until host is willing to venture beyond tediously litigating his obsession ... I'm not interested.

One giant spoke on a worn wheel? I'd say Bush and the neo-cons make up an entire wheel.

Seriously what have these people accomplished? What have they done to make this country better? What has turned out the way they told us it would? Why would anyone still believe anything they say.

roachboy · 04-14-2008, 06:35 AM

i think that the historical bloc we are looking at here extends back to the formation of the neo-con movement itself, so we are looking at the mid-to-late 1970s with the reagan administration as the surfacing of the Beast. this is the period of the construction of neoliberalism out of thatcherite and reagan-cadre political/ideological materials. what the bush people appear to be the endgame of is the hegemonic period of neoliberalism (noeliberalism being the term used to refer to what you see sometimes called "market fundamentalism" in the states--for some reason, this ideology has gone largely unnamed here, which i think is a HUGE problem because it explains such purchase as this vacant ideology still has on folk--the don't necessarily see it as an ideology, but more as just how the world operates...the problems with the bush administration, had they been more competent, could have been confined to problems for the right--but i think it's much bigger than that now, given the convergence of the financial system crisis and the political fallout from the idiocy of the "war on terror"--this not even to begin really thinking about what it would mean were these asshats to invade or bomb iran...)

i don't see any particular difference ideologically between the reagan, bush 1, clinton and bush 2 administrations--i see differences in tactics within the same basic conceptual world. clinton is a neoliberal who favored multi-lateral arrangements; bush a neo-liberal who favors bilateral agreements. in the difference between the two lay the space of radical nationalism, that lovely neofascist element that the bush people used and used and used in a context of such radical and sustained ineptness that they've managed to shatter much of its appeal...

if you look at the bush people in this longer-term context, much of what's happening makes more sense--and the formation of the neo-con movement and its rise to maxmimized incompetence is a central organizing feature.

that's a frame.

ottopilot · 04-14-2008, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

One giant spoke on a worn wheel? I'd say Bush and the neo-cons make up an entire wheel.

Seriously what have these people accomplished? What have they done to make this country better? What has turned out the way they told us it would? Why would anyone still believe anything they say.

edit ... Tully Mars, sorry for the jab in my original response.

What people? And what do you assume has not been accomplished? The point is, "they" have accomplished much. Try broadening your sense of "they". What's obvious is the tip of the iceberg, I'm not defending anyone here.

"Move ahead, try to detect it" Devo - Whip It

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i think that the historical bloc we are looking at here extends back to the formation of the neo-con movement itself, so we are looking at the mid-to-late 1970s with the reagan administration as the surfacing of the Beast. this is the period of the construction of neoliberalism out of thatcherite and reagan-cadre political/ideological materials. what the bush people appear to be the endgame of is the hegemonic period of neoliberalism (noeliberalism being the term used to refer to what you see sometimes called "market fundamentalism" in the states--for some reason, this ideology has gone largely unnamed here, which i think is a HUGE problem because it explains such purchase as this vacant ideology still has on folk--the don't necessarily see it as an ideology, but more as just how the world operates...the problems with the bush administration, had they been more competent, could have been confined to problems for the right--but i think it's much bigger than that now, given the convergence of the financial system crisis and the political fallout from the idiocy of the "war on terror"--this not even to begin really thinking about what it would mean were these asshats to invade or bomb iran...)

i don't see any particular difference ideologically between the reagan, bush 1, clinton and bush 2 administrations--i see differences in tactics within the same basic conceptual world. clinton is a neoliberal who favored multi-lateral arrangements; bush a neo-liberal who favors bilateral agreements. in the difference between the two lay the space of radical nationalism, that lovely neofascist element that the bush people used and used and used in a context of such radical and sustained ineptness that they've managed to shatter much of its appeal...

if you look at the bush people in this longer-term context, much of what's happening makes more sense--and the formation of the neo-con movement and its rise to maxmimized incompetence is a central organizing feature.

that's a frame.

That's a reasonable approach ... however, and we've explored this as well, maintaining the status quo in the media (complicit or unaware), global corporatism, and the like. I see lot's of layers managing perceptions and providing/indulging diversions. We can only guess at the end game ... is there an end game?

host · 04-14-2008, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

One giant spoke on a worn wheel? I'd say Bush and the neo-cons make up an entire wheel.

Seriously what have these people accomplished? What have they done to make this country better? What has turned out the way they told us it would? Why would anyone still believe anything they say.

It isn't only that they have not gotten anything right....they don't seem to even want to get it right.

The 2005 and 2007 NIEs refute the core claims of their "prime source", and they're pissing off the Iraqi government as they coddle these terrorists who worked closely with Saddam....terrorists who the administration linked to Saddam in 2002 as a reason to justify invading Iraq!

Quote:

BAGHDAD -- For three years, thousands of members of a militant group dedicated to overthrowing Iran's theocracy have lived in a sprawling compound north of Baghdad
under the protection of the U.S. military.

American soldiers chauffeur top leaders of the group, known as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, to and from their compound, where they have hosted dozens of visitors in an energetic campaign to persuade the State Department to stop designating the group as a terrorist organization.....

.....U.S. officials say they are in no hurry to change their policy toward the MEK, which has been a prime source of information about Iran's nuclear program........

There was no coherence in Bush's statement the other, day, accusing Iran of supporting "militants", as the US supports MEK on the ground, but brands it as a terrorist organization, Bush quotes it's former spokesman's propaganda, and his government permits the man to live here and work for Foxnews, posting new pro-Mek/NCRI "reports" on Fox, several times per month.

Bush talks of reducing Iranian government influence on Iraqi shi'a, even as his policies refuse to recognize the strength of the ties, and deliberately aggravate our own government's relations with the shi'a majority and it's government. MEK has not provided accurate information on Iranian nuclear weapons development, according to two NIEs in a row.....both fiercely challenged by Cheney and his staff....suppressed, delayed, altered....but finally realeased.

So, why not comply with Iraqi demands, and stop supporting MEK?

Bush has come right out and discredited the latest NIE...he has his "own intelligence".....is he fucking nuts?

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...401233_pf.html
<B>Bush Chooses What to Believe</B></FONT><br/><P><FONT SIZE="-1">By Dan Froomkin<br/>Special to washingtonpost.com<br/>Monday, January 14, 2008; 2:06 PM<BR></FONT><P><p>President Bush has apparently found a way to reconcile his bellicose views of Iran with the recent National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program four years ago.</p><p><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/91673" target="">Michael Hirsh</a> writes for Newsweek that "in private conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week, the president all but disowned the document, said a senior administration official who accompanied Bush on his six-nation trip to the Mideast. 'He told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views' about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, said the official, who would discuss intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity. . . .</p><p>"A source close to the Israeli leader said Bush first briefed Olmert about the intelligence estimate a week before it was published, during talks in Washington that preceded the Annapolis peace conference in November. According to the source, who also refused to be named discussing the issue, Bush told Olmert he was uncomfortable with the findings and seemed almost apologetic."</p><B>Bush's Fresh Round of Sabre Rattling</B><br/><p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/13/AR2008011300342.html?hpid=topnews" target="">Michael Abramowitz</a> writes in the Washington Post from Abu Dhabi: "President Bush on Sunday accused Iran of undermining peace in Lebanon, funding terrorist groups, trying to intimidate its neighbors and refusing to be open about its nuclear program and ambitions.</p><p>"In a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080113-1.html" target="">speech</a> described by the White House as the centerpiece of his eight-day trip to the Middle East, Bush urged other countries to help the United States 'confront this danger before it is too late.'. . .</p><p>"Bush is trying to persuade Arab countries to join U.S. efforts to pressure Iran, though many appear ambivalent about the administration's campaign following a new U.S. intelligence report that concluded Iran stopped a nuclear weapons program in 2003."</p><B>About That NIE</B><br/><p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120027737099687613.html?mod=blog" target="">Jay Solomon and Siobhan Gorman</a> write in the Wall Street Journal: "The December report by the U.S.'s top spy office stating Iran had abandoned its effort to build nuclear weapons was one of the biggest U-turns in the recent history of U.S. intelligence.</p><p>"Behind the scenes in Washington, it marked a reversal of a different sort: After years in which Bush appointees and White House staff won out on foreign-policy matters, career staffers in the intelligence world had scored a big victory. . . .</p><p>"In the case of the Iran report, the about-face was made possible in part by a 2004 restructuring that gave intelligence chiefs more autonomy."</p><p>Solomon and Gorman write that the result of "new procedures for vetting and authenticating reports" was that "the White House was essentially locked out of the process. This marked a big change from the years leading up to the Iraq war, when Mr. Cheney and his top aide, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, made repeated visits to Langley to query analysts about their findings on Iraq's weapons capabilities.</p><p>"Through the summer and fall of 2007, as rumors leaked, officials in Mr. Cheney's office and on Capitol Hill grew increasingly concerned about the report's possible conclusions, according to people working at the White House and on Capitol Hill. . . .</p><p>"People in Vice President Cheney's office saw the Dec. 3 announcement as a death blow to their Iran policy. The report's authors 'knew how to pull the rug out from under us,' says a long-time aide to the vice president, referring to the way the key judgments were presented."</p><B>Cheney's Options</B><br/><p>But what if Cheney is still intent on taking military action against Iran before leaving office? (See, for instance, my June 4 column, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/04/BL2007060400819.html" target="">Cheney, By Proxy</a>, or my Aug. 10 column, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/08/10/BL2007081001161.html" target="">Cheney's Secret Escalation Plan?</a>)</p><p>With the nuclear argument diminished, he could push for an attack in response to some other Iranian provocation -- real or embellished. Or he could get Israel to make the move.</p><B>Provocation Watch</B><br/><p>Twice last week, Bush criticized an encounter between three enormous U.S. warships and five tiny Iranian motorboats as provocative and warned of "serious consequences" if it happens again. But the U.S. version of events continues to unravel.</p><p><a href="http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_hormuz_iran_radio_080111/" target="">Andrew Scutro and David Brown</a> write in the Navy Times: "The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the 'Filipino Monkey.'"</p><p>And <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103730.html" target="">Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson</a> write in The Washington Post: "The small, boxlike objects dropped in the water by Iranian boats as they approached U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday posed no threat to the American vessels, U.S. officials said yesterday, even as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff charged that the incident reflects Iran's new tactics of asymmetric warfare."</p><B>Emboldened Israel</B><br/><p>And there's certainly no sign that Bush tried to dissuade the Israelis from attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. Quite the contrary.</p><p><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3493934,00.html" target="">Amnon Meranda</a> writes for Yedioth Aharonot: "Israel will not accept a nuclear Iran and all options are being considered in this regard, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday during a meeting of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. . . .</p><p>"'Despite what has been said in the US National Intelligence Estimate, Iran was a danger and continues to be a danger. There is room to act in order to remove this danger, and the US is definitely aware of this,' the prime minister said Sunday during the weekly cabinet meeting. . . .</p><p>"According to Olmert, although the US intelligence report concludes that Iran had halted its nuclear program, 'Our conclusions are not necessarily similar to what may be understood from the report's wording.</p><p>"'As far as Israel is concerned, the Iranians are continuing their efforts to create unconventional abilities, and we must therefore use all means to stop them.'</p><p>"The prime minister added that he had discussed the issue with President Bush. 'He too said, in the sharpest way, that Iran was and still is a danger in terms of its desire to create nuclear abilities, and this is where the conclusion on what should be done is derived from.. . . .</p><p>"'I made it clear that Israel would not be able to accept a nuclear Iran, and there is no option being rejected in advance. Anything that could lead to the prevention of Iran's nuclearization is part of the legitimate context of dealing with the issue,' Olmert said."</p><B>Bush's Democracy Talk</B><br/><p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/13/AR2008011302848.html?hpid=topnews" target="">Michael Abramowitz</a> writes in The Washington Post about "the sharp disappointment with Bush among democracy advocates and dissidents in the region, who were buoyed by Bush's clarion call in 2005 for freedom and democracy in the Middle East. They say the White House has backtracked because of a need to cultivate an alliance against Iran with the region's autocratic leaders and, perhaps, because elections in the Palestinian territories did not go the way it had wanted."</p><p>Bush is ostensibly placing the promotion of democracy and freedom at the top of his agenda as he makes his way through the Middle East. Writes Abramowitz: "At every stop, from Jerusalem and Ramallah to Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, Bush has discussed the issue, although he has done so with politeness and courtesy to his hosts in a region where most of the countries practice some form of monarchy, or rule of one."</p><p>In his <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080113-1.html" target="">speech</a> in Abu Dhabi yesterday, Bush described the promotion of freedom as a key pillar of U.S. foreign policy and asserted that "stability can only come through a free and just Middle East."</p><p>But, writes Abramowitz: "The reaction in the region to Bush's speech appeared at best mixed, if cynical in some quarters, owing to a widespread belief that the president has practiced a double standard in refusing to recognize Hamas, the armed Islamic movement that won free elections in the Palestinian territories before seizing power in the Gaza Strip last summer. The U.S. government considers Hamas a terrorist group.</p><p>"Many activists, meanwhile, say they believe the White House has flinched from aggressively challenging Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. . . .</p><p>"Oraib al-Rantawi, director of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, Jordan, said reformers have lost faith in the White House, while governments in the region believe they can crack down on the opposition without fear of a stern reaction from the administration.</p><p>"'Nobody believes anymore what Mr. Bush is saying,' he said."</p><p><a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/24721.html" target="">Hannah Allam</a> writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Bush appears unlikely, based on the regional reaction to his address, to find many Arabs to heed his alarms against Iran, a powerful neighbor and trading partner. Nor did many endorse his speech's other theme -- a vision of 'free and just society' featuring broad political participation and a voice for moderate Muslims in a region where money and family are common keys to leadership.</p><p>"Even political analysts here who share Bush's democratic vision said that his speech painted over the daily reality for most inhabitants of the Middle East, an oil-rich region where power is largely inherited and human rights violations abound.</p><p>"Whether chastising Iran or praising Palestinian elections, analysts said, Bush left out key facts that would have offered a messier -- and more true-to-life -- portrait of the modern Middle East. . . .</p><p>"'You have all types of contradictions,' [Manar Shorbagy, an associate professor who teaches a course on U.S. politics at the American University in Cairo] said. 'Talking about freedom when you're occupying two countries in the region: Afghanistan and Iraq. Talking about justice while you're against the (Palestinian) right of return. Talking about democracy while you're against elected groups you don't like. . . . Was he listening to himself?'"</p><B>What Bush Has in Mind for Iraq</B><br/><p>In a short interview with <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22607102#22607102" target="">David Gregory</a> on Friday, Bush indicated that he intends for U.S. forces to be in Iraq for the long term.</p><p>Gregory: "John McCain has been saying on the campaign trail that the American people would accept U.S. troops remaining in Iraq for 100 years. Do you agree with that?"</p><p>Bush: "I -- I don't know if 100 years is the right number. That's a long time."</p><p>Gregory: "Sort of long-term presence?"</p><p>Bush: "It could very well be. But it's going to be on the invitation of the Iraqi government. A long-term presence -- and again, I'm not exactly sure how you would define long-term, but it's --"</p><p>Gregory: "Ten years?"</p><p>Bush: "Yeah, it could easily be that, absolutely."</p><p>The president's cavalier attitude aside, what makes him so confident about what will happen long after he leaves office?</p><p>Newsweek's <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/91651" target="">Michael Hirsh</a> writes from Kuwait on Saturday: "In <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080112-2.html" target="">remarks</a> to the traveling press, delivered from the Third Army operation command center here, Bush said that negotiations were about to begin on a long-term strategic partnership with the Iraqi government modeled on the accords the United States has with Kuwait and many other countries. [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C.] Crocker, who flew in from Baghdad with [Gen. David] Petraeus to meet with the president, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080112-6.html" target="">elaborated</a>: 'We're putting our team together now, making preparations in Washington,' he told reporters. 'The Iraqis are doing the same. And in the few weeks ahead, we would expect to get together to start this negotiating process.' The target date for concluding the agreement is July, says Gen. Doug Lute, Bush's Iraq coordinator in the White House -- in other words, just in time for the Democratic and Republican national conventions.</p><p>"Most significant of all, the new partnership deal with Iraq, including a status of forces agreement that would then replace the existing Security Council mandate authorizing the presence of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, will become a sworn obligation for the next president. . . .</p><p>"Last month, Sen. Hillary Clinton urged Bush not to commit to any such agreement without congressional approval. The president said nothing about that on Saturday, but Lute said last fall that the Iraqi agreement would not likely rise to the level of a formal treaty requiring Senate ratification. Even so, it would be difficult if not impossible for future presidents to unilaterally breach such a pact. . . .</p><p>"The upshot is that the next president, Democrat or Republican, is likely to be handed a fait accompli that could well render moot his or her own elaborate withdrawal plans, especially the ones being considered by the two leading Democratic contenders, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton."</p><p>For background, see my Nov. 27 column, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/11/27/BL2007112701239.html" target="">Locking Us Into Iraq?</a></p><p>And here's Bush <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080112-3.html" target="">talking</a> to U.S. troops in Kuwait: "There is no doubt in my mind that we will succeed. There is no doubt in my mind when history was written, the final page will say: Victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world; that by doing the hard work now, we can look back and say, the United States of America is more secure, and generations of Americans will be able to live in peace."</p><B>Benchmark Watch</B>......

....and Ottopilot, considering the record of the administration since August, 2001, further aggravated by all of the lies they publicly told about the threat from Iran....right before they knew that the NIE would be released, your attempt in your response to make me look like I'm lowering the level of the discussion here, when you add nothing in your post but vague...."big picture", "higher level", nuances.....is amusing and quite telling.

Tully Mars · 04-14-2008, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Great, another non-reader making a non-point with a redirected misquote. What people? And what do you assume has not been accomplished? The point is, "they" have accomplished much. Try broadening your sense of "they". What's obvious is the tip of the iceberg, I'm not defending anyone here.

"Move ahead, try to detect it" Devo - Whip It

Actually I read a lot.

I read this:

What people? And what do you assume has not been accomplished? The point is, "they" have accomplished much.

In three sentences you seemingly don't know who "they are" and then proceed to exclaim "they" have accomplished much. And I'm the one making a "non-point."?

As to you're not defending anyone, sometimes the best defense is offense. You attack rather often.

host · 04-14-2008, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

....how do you know what you know? You were wrong about WMD, about al Qaeda being in Iraq with Saddam's "approval", "before we got there"....wrong about Iran's "ongoing" nuclear weapons development program.... why don't these "setbacks" trigger any reticence, any reflection about your political opinions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ottopilot

Regarding the questions: Because of the way host frames his questions, I'm not the guy to ask. I see a much bigger picture than rabidly obsessing about evil GW Bush and the evil neo-cons ... one worn spoke on a giant wheel. If someone is REALLY interested in getting some answers, I say why stop there?...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ottopilot

...What people? And what do you assume has not been accomplished? The point is, "they" have accomplished much. Try broadening your sense of "they". What's obvious is the tip of the iceberg, I'm not defending anyone here....

Thanks Ottopilot.....at least you bother to post vague responses. The silence from the rest of what was once a "Mighty Wurlitzer", has lately only been broken to bring us a piece authored by Norman Podheretz to read....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norman Podheretz

....The upshot is that if Iran is to be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, it is the United States that will have to do the preventing, to do it by means of a bombing campaign, and (because “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long”) to do it soon.

When I first predicted a year or so ago that Bush would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities once he had played out the futile diplomatic string, the obstacles that stood in his way were great but they did not strike me as insurmountable. <h3>Now, thanks in large part to the new NIE, they have grown so formidable that I can only stick by my prediction with what the NIE itself would describe as “low-to-moderate confidence.”</h3> For Bush is right about the resemblance between 2008 and 1938. In 1938, as Winston Churchill later said, Hitler could still have been stopped at a relatively low price and many millions of lives could have been saved if England and France had not deceived themselves about the realities of their situation. Mutatis mutandis, it is the same in 2008, when Iran can still be stopped from getting the bomb and even more millions of lives can be saved—but only provided that we summon up the courage to see what is staring us in the face and then act on what we see...

Ahhh...the pesty, but apparently irrelevant new detail that the NIE finds no imminent danger of Iran producing a nuclear weapon! It couldn't be the hopelessly flawed, paranoid, "crimes against humanity be damned", blind ambition and aggression of Podheretz & Co., that is the real problem....it has to be that damned NIE that gets in the way of neocon "reality"!

The US used to believe that preemptive military attack was a war crime....now we have people on this forum. and a US president who seem not even to believe that an NIE defining the imminent threat is a necessary prelude to justify such an attack!

Yet, according to Ottopilot, "the big picture", means that host's posts are the flaw....host asks the wrong questions....too narrow and Bush-centric!

ottopilot · 04-14-2008, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

Actually I read a lot.

I read this:

What people? And what do you assume has not been accomplished? The point is, "they" have accomplished much.

In three sentences you seemingly don't know who "they are" and then proceed to exclaim "they" have accomplished much. And I'm the one making a "non-point."?

As to you're not defending anyone, sometimes the best defense is offense. You attack rather often.

Fair enough, please accept my apology ... I meant for some of my questions to be philosophical questions. The "what people" was asking for a clarification of your question. The "they" I refer to are players on a broader spectrum. My earlier comments to roachboy were:

Quote:

That's a reasonable approach ... however, and we've explored this as well, maintaining the status quo in the media (complicit or unaware), global corporatism, and the like. I see lot's of layers managing perceptions and providing/indulging diversions. We can only guess at the end game ... is there an end game?

I was in agreement with not liking what Bush and others have done. However, I see cause and effect in these matters with broader diversity.

Regarding attacks, I believe you'll find that I challenge more than attack. If you felt attacked, again, my apologies.

host · 04-14-2008, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Fair enough, please accept my apology ... I meant for some of my questions to be philosophical questions. The "what people" was asking for a clarification of your question. The "they" I refer to are players on a broader spectrum. My earlier comments to roachboy were:
I was in agreement with not liking what Bush and others have done. However, I see cause and effect in these matters with broader diversity.

Regarding attacks, I believe you'll find that I challenge more than attack. If you felt attacked, again, my apologies.

Still....three posts, and not one single specific from you.....

Wait....there is one:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

.....Regarding the questions: Because of the way host frames his questions, I'm not the guy to ask. I see a much bigger picture than rabidly obsessing about evil GW Bush and the evil neo-cons ......

I share....to a fault in the eyes of some....what are you sharing?

highthief · 07-11-2008, 07:41 AM

It always amazes me how bent out of shape Americans get about Iran.

Just how many nations has Iran invaded over the last 50 or 60 years?

Baraka_Guru · 07-11-2008, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highthief

Just how many nations has Iran invaded over the last 50 or 60 years?

Considering the hostile neighbourhood? It's surprising.

But, hey, they went through a revolution and were brutalized by Iraq.... they've been kind of busy.

highthief · 07-11-2008, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Considering the hostile neighbourhood? It's surprising.

But, hey, they went through a revolution and were brutalized by Iraq.... they've been kind of busy.

The point being Iran hasn't invaded anyone. They sit there, occasionally rattle a sabre or some students hold a few Americans hostage ... their record says they are a relatively peaceful nation. Not to say they don't agitate but that's a pretty minor crime.

Meanwhile, the US and the UK - how many nations have they invaded in the same time frame?

xepherys · 07-11-2008, 07:18 PM

Well, here's something interesting for you... I'm not sure if the allegations about Iran are true or not, but I can assure you 100% that as of Spring 2007, the US was prepared to send troops into Iran from Afghanistan. In fact, there was a troop mass-up on the western border of Afghanistan for exactly that reason... in areas that are not under US-led forces (but rather other coalition forces). Who knows what happened, but the troops were redisbursed into US-occupied areas about mid-summer.

If you want the next big war, look at Pakistan. With the new government working to appease the "wild west", aka the lawless border region with Afghanistan, they have been putting less pressure on the regional tribes, most of whom are pro-Taliban. A large spike of cross-border snatch and grabs of Afghan citizens known to be working with the US for the sake of execution on the Pakistan side of the border is making things rather uncomfortable in many eastern provinces. An example of this... look up news over the past year or so on Khost province. During the entirety of 2007 and early 2008, it was THE de facto model of the US counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. That status is rapidly falling apart, in great deal due to what I mentioned above. The locals are becoming alarmingly less willing to cooperate with US forces.

At any rate,1) the Iran thing almost escalated heavily and, 2) expect troops on ground in Pakistan before Bush leaves office.

host · 07-12-2008, 12:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xepherys

....At any rate,1) the Iran thing almost escalated heavily and, 2) expect troops on ground in Pakistan before Bush leaves office.

Cynical..... moi?

Quote:

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07062008.html

..Michael Scheuer, former CIA chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station, made this statement at a recent conference at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC: "Afghanistan is lost for the United States and its allies. To use Kipling's term, 'We are watching NATO bleed to death on the Afghan plains.' But what are we going to do. There are 20 million Pashtuns; are we going to invade? We don't have enough troops to even form a constabulary that would control the country. The disaster occurred at the beginning. The fools that run our country thought that a few hundreds CIA officers and a few hundred special forces officers could take a country the size of Texas and hold it, were quite literally fools. And now we are paying the price."

Scheuer added, "We are closer to defeat in Afghanistan than Iraq at the moment."

Scheuer's pessimism is widely shared among military and political elites. The situation on the ground is hopeless; there is no light in the tunnel. ..

....Bush could care less about drug trafficking. What matters to him is stabilizing Afghanistan so that the myriad US bases that are built along pipeline corridors can provide a safe channel for oil and natural gas heading to markets in the Far East. That's what really counts. The administration has staked America's future on a risky strategy to establish a foothold in Central Asia to control the flow of energy from the Caspian to China and India.

But US policymakers are no longer confident of victory in Afghanistan. In fact, according to a Pentagon report: "Taliban militants have regrouped after their initial fall from power and 'coalesced into a resilient insurgency.' The report paints a grim picture of the conflict, concluding that Afghanistan's security conditions have deteriorated sharply while the fledgling national government in Kabul remains incapable of extending its reach throughout the country or taking effective counternarcotics measures."

The situation is dire and it's forcing Bush to decide whether to shift more troops from Iraq or face growing resistance in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the violence is spreading and combat deaths are on the rise. Pentagon chieftains now believe they can only defeat the Taliban by striking at bases in Pakistan, a reckless plan that could inflame passions in Pakistan and trigger a regional conflict. Gradually, the US is being lured into a bigger quagmire.

ONWARD FIELD-MARSHALL OBAMA

Presidential candidate Barak Obama, "The Peace Candidate", supports a stronger commitment to the war in Afghanistan and has proposed "sending at least two additional combat brigades -- or 7,000 to 10,000 troops -- to Afghanistan, while deploying more Special Operations forces to the Afghan-Pakistan border. He has also proposed increasing non-military aid to Afghanistan by at least $1 billion per year." (Wall Street Journal) Obama, backed by Brzezinski and other Clinton foreign policy advisers, has focussed his attention on the "war on terror", that dismal public relations coup which conceals America's desire to become a major player in the Great Game, the battle for supremacy on the Asian continent.

Quote:

.....I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

As Obama put it just two weeks ago:

Quote:

http://thepage.time.com/obama-remark...d-afghanistan/

“The people who were responsible for murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11 have not been brought to justice. They are Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and their sponsors – the Taliban. They were in Afghanistan. And yet George Bush and John McCain decided in 2002 that we should take our eye off of Afghanistan so that we could invade and occupy a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11…

…We had al Qaeda and the Taliban on the run back in 2002. But then we diverted military, intelligence, financial, and diplomatic resources to Iraq. And yet Senator McCain has said as recently as this April that, ‘Afghanistan is not in trouble because of our diversion to Iraq.’ I think that just shows a dangerous misjudgment of the facts, and a stubborn determination to ignore the need to finish the fight in Afghanistan.”

Obama appears to be even more eager to repeat history than his opponent, John McCain. (9/11.....9/11.....9/11.....9/11.....9/11....9/11.....)

In November, voters will be asked to pick one of the two pro-war candidates. McCain has made his position clear; his focus is on Iraq. Now it is up to Obama to point out why it's more acceptable to kill a man who is fighting for his country in Afghanistan than it is in Iraq. If he can't answer that question, then he deserves to lose.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com

04-12-2008, 12:52 PM	#85 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i don't think you need to go in this direction to explain the bush squad's irrational posture relative to iran, host---i think alot of what's in the above is acccurate in itself, but doesn't necessarily point in this direction. remember the centrality that the iranian "hostage crisis" and its "nightline" DAY 400 opening played in generating opening the way to the reagan "landslide" (27% of the registered voters, but whatever)...the fumbling and bumbling of the reagan period is really quite funny--there's a book that details it by the former head of savak no less, but i can't remember the title at the moment...but iran is an old populist right bogeyman. by extension, there would be, and apparently is, a republican-specific Problem with chi'a islam--i don't really understand it except as a function of their interpretation of the iranian revolution by looking only at its outcome (not its dynamics) and by extension not thinking about why it is that the revolution was as it was--so basically, it seems that the neo-cons can be understood as still being a bit pissy about the overthrow of that lovely american lap-dog and really quite brutal dictator the shah. the motivations behind iraq in 2003 seem to me to follow from the neo-con's update of that hoary old "stabbed in the back" theory to "explain" why the americans didn't johnwayne their way into baghdad during the first gulf war--shanked by the evil united nations, you see, and prevented thereby from fulfilling their manly destiny blah blah blah. so you can see i think that the bush people's irrational attitude toward iran is a direct imprint of the history of the contemporary neo-con right, which is the foreign-policy adjunct to the populist conservative-as-perpetual-victim right that we know and love so well o yes. this at the level of general narrative, naturlich. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-12-2008, 04:03 PM	#91 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Bah, fuck it, glass parking lot for the thread, I'm out. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. Last edited by Ustwo; 04-12-2008 at 04:07 PM..

04-12-2008, 08:54 PM	#92 (permalink)
reconmike Thank You Jesus Location: Twilight Zone	Homeland was refered to by Slick Willie, only it was a reference to what was behind his zipper, ya know like "come on Monica the homeland needs a little attention". __________________ Where is Darwin when ya need him?

04-13-2008, 06:07 PM	#97 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	Well isn't this a classic hootenanny ho-down for the TFP Politics board ... both wacky and fortified with wing-nuts. For all the zany extremes on this argument, it is highly unlikely that issues of such scope and magnitude happen in an absolute vacuum. For as much as some of us would love to pin the blame on singular entities, leaders, and governments, our apparent predicaments are more likely cumulative and complicit by a variety of participants acting seamlessly in the background (or broad daylight) spanning multiple presidential administrations, congress(es), and political parties. We've been down this road before. __________________ "It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

04-13-2008, 06:11 PM	#99 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i think i said that too otto, though i can't tell if that means we agree on this or not. maybe it's the last sentence, following on whatever the hell just happened above. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-13-2008, 06:09 PM	#98 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Oh hey otto, I'm glad you're here. A few posts back Host asked an intriguing question of conservatives that I think a lot of people might be interested in your answering.

04-14-2008, 06:35 AM	#107 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i think that the historical bloc we are looking at here extends back to the formation of the neo-con movement itself, so we are looking at the mid-to-late 1970s with the reagan administration as the surfacing of the Beast. this is the period of the construction of neoliberalism out of thatcherite and reagan-cadre political/ideological materials. what the bush people appear to be the endgame of is the hegemonic period of neoliberalism (noeliberalism being the term used to refer to what you see sometimes called "market fundamentalism" in the states--for some reason, this ideology has gone largely unnamed here, which i think is a HUGE problem because it explains such purchase as this vacant ideology still has on folk--the don't necessarily see it as an ideology, but more as just how the world operates...the problems with the bush administration, had they been more competent, could have been confined to problems for the right--but i think it's much bigger than that now, given the convergence of the financial system crisis and the political fallout from the idiocy of the "war on terror"--this not even to begin really thinking about what it would mean were these asshats to invade or bomb iran...) i don't see any particular difference ideologically between the reagan, bush 1, clinton and bush 2 administrations--i see differences in tactics within the same basic conceptual world. clinton is a neoliberal who favored multi-lateral arrangements; bush a neo-liberal who favors bilateral agreements. in the difference between the two lay the space of radical nationalism, that lovely neofascist element that the bush people used and used and used in a context of such radical and sustained ineptness that they've managed to shatter much of its appeal... if you look at the bush people in this longer-term context, much of what's happening makes more sense--and the formation of the neo-con movement and its rise to maxmimized incompetence is a central organizing feature. that's a frame. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-11-2008, 07:41 AM	#114 (permalink)
highthief Junkie Location: Ontario, Canada	It always amazes me how bent out of shape Americans get about Iran. Just how many nations has Iran invaded over the last 50 or 60 years? __________________ Si vis pacem parabellum.

07-11-2008, 07:18 PM	#117 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	Well, here's something interesting for you... I'm not sure if the allegations about Iran are true or not, but I can assure you 100% that as of Spring 2007, the US was prepared to send troops into Iran from Afghanistan. In fact, there was a troop mass-up on the western border of Afghanistan for exactly that reason... in areas that are not under US-led forces (but rather other coalition forces). Who knows what happened, but the troops were redisbursed into US-occupied areas about mid-summer. If you want the next big war, look at Pakistan. With the new government working to appease the "wild west", aka the lawless border region with Afghanistan, they have been putting less pressure on the regional tribes, most of whom are pro-Taliban. A large spike of cross-border snatch and grabs of Afghan citizens known to be working with the US for the sake of execution on the Pakistan side of the border is making things rather uncomfortable in many eastern provinces. An example of this... look up news over the past year or so on Khost province. During the entirety of 2007 and early 2008, it was THE de facto model of the US counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. That status is rapidly falling apart, in great deal due to what I mentioned above. The locals are becoming alarmingly less willing to cooperate with US forces. At any rate,1) the Iran thing almost escalated heavily and, 2) expect troops on ground in Pakistan before Bush leaves office. __________________ The prospect of achieving a peace agreement with the extremist group of MILF is almost impossible... -- Emmanuel Pinol, Governor of Cotobato My Homepage