MSNBC is spreading more propaganda. The headline states that Iran "vows" to seek nuclear weapons, "Iran president vows no retreat on nukes".

But Iran's president did not "vow" to make weapons, and the article itself does not even claim that is what he said.

First, the article admits that Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons: "The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power program. Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, denies the charge."

Next, MSNBC quotes Iran's president as stating that Iran will not retreat from its "nuclear right." If Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, then this nuclear right must mean nuclear energy.

Which is exactly what the articles tells us next: "Enrichment can provide fuel for power plants, which Iran says is its aim, but also material for bombs if refined more."

In MSNBC's universe, which is apparently devoid of logic, if Iran seeks nuclear power, and that nuclear power, once had, can be converted into a nuclear bomb with additional work, and if Iran explicitly states that they are not working on nuclear weapons, and if Iran explicitly states that they have a right to nuclear power, then what Iran was really saying was that Iran is trying to build a bomb.

Under that fantasy, Japan is building a bomb (55 reactors). And so are Switzerland, Slovakia, and Mexico. They all have more reactors than Iran, which has zero reactors.

Propaganda and deliberately misleading the public only makes this tense situation more difficult.

Shame on you, MSNBC.

Labels: Middle East

Iraq official presses U.S. for pullout plan - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com: "National security adviser says any security deal must contain timetable"

Iraqi leaders are publicly demanding a timetable for troop withdrawal. Over the past seven years, when an American, however, has demanded a timetable for withdrawal the Bush administration attacks the timetable as foolish or even favorable to the terrorists. Yet, last week the Prime Minister of Iraq demanded a timetable, and the national security advisor demanded one today. Are the Iraqi leaders asking for something that will help the terrorists? I doubt it.

Consider the following typical statement from President Bush when he was at a 2005 press conference with the Prime Minister of Iraq: (emphasis added)

There's not going to be any timetables. I mean, I've told this to the Prime Minister. We are there to complete a mission, and it's an important mission. A democratic Iraq is in the interest of the United States of America, and it's in the interest of laying the foundation for peace. And if that's the mission, then why would you -- why would you say to the enemy, you know, here's a timetable, just go ahead and wait us out? It doesn't make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you're -- you're conceding too much to the enemy.

The above quote is from 2005, but the policy has not changed; President Bush said only three weeks ago: "There should be no definitive timetable. I am confident that [British Prime Minister Brown], like me, will listen to our commanders to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward won't be unraveled by drawdowns that may not be warranted at this point in time."

If it is true that timetables help the enemy, then the Iraqi leadership is supporting a policy that helps their enemy. That is absurd. The truth is that timetables, per se, do not help or hurt the enemy. The fact that the leaders of Iraq are calling for a timetable helps to prove this point. The Bush administration, and the right-wing press, need to stop asserting such a ridiculous claim.

In fact, now that the Iraqi government has called for a timetable, we must provide one because President Bush essentially promised to make a timetable if the Iraqis asked for one. (Thank you to Michael DeCrane for reminding me of this. See also Vote No on JOE (Knollenberg))

For the Iraqis, the main goal of the timetable is the complete withdrawal of US troops. Iraqi national security advisor, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said yesterday, "We're unambiguously talking about their departure." The President promised to leave when the Iraqis asked the troops to leave:


The Iraqi government wants the troops to leave and it wants a timetable for the withdrawal. President Bush promised to leave when asked, so he is honor-bound to provide a timetable.

Finally, President Bush's heated rhetoric about timetables is hypocritical: in 1999, Governor Bush demanded that President Clinton set a timetable for withdrawing from Kosovo.

Labels: Middle East

Christopher Hitchens from Slate.com is proud that his support of the Iraq War has never wavered. In this piece, he does a pretty good job of explaining why we should support the war. It's so good, that the White House should hire him. But, he is still wrong.

He thinks it was scandalous that Iraq defied UN resolutions for 10 years and that the UN's credibility was at stake. Not true. First of all, many nations defy UN resolutions - Israel, Syria, North Korea, etc - and that doesn't reduce the UN Security Council's ("UNSC") credibility. Most of the time, the UNSC is good because they do nothing. With Rwanda and Darfur, it is terrible that nothing is happening, because many people are dying at sanctions will not help. But, Iraq was contained and violence was not necessary in March 2003. The best thing for the UNSC to do was to make a lot of noise and do nothing.

" The Security Council, including Syria, voted by nine votes to zero that Iraq must come into full compliance or face serious consequences." There are 15 members on the UNSC. The other 6 votes were abstentions. So, instead of voting against the resolution, they abstained to save face. "Serious consequences" didn't mean war - we know that because the UNSC didn't vote for war.

I agree with him that sending troops to the region was a good way to force the inspection process. The inspection process started up, but we invaded anyway. That means the next time we try to use this trick - "let us inspect or we will invade" - the country will not believe us. They will believe we will invade, but they will not believe that allowing inspections will stop the invasion. If you are about to fight a war, you should not let the enemy come in and do inspections!

All western intelligence agencies thought he had WMD. So what? Lots of countries have them. If we had allowed the inspections to continue, we might have discovered that he didn't have them. Ignorance is not a justification for war. And neither is universal ignorance.

"Was the terror connection not exaggerated? Not by much." So? How did the war stop or reduce terrorism? It didn't. There was no reason to think it would. There were lots of reasons to think that war would increase terrorism. The real terror "link" here is that American belligerence promotes terrorism.

"So, you seriously mean to say that we would not be living in a better or safer world if the coalition forces had turned around and sailed or flown home in the spring of 2003? That's exactly what I mean to say."

Let's pretend that Qaddafi has become more peaceful because of the Iraq war. The rest of the world is still more dangerous. We didn't invade North Korea because they had a nuke. Every other country now knows that to prevent an American invasion, they need to actually have WMD (like NK), not just pretend to have WMD (like Iraq). That is why Iran really wants a bomb.

The world is less safe mostly because other countries think we might attack them. Sad.

Labels: Middle East

The US vetoed a UN Security Council ("UNSC") resolution today. Generally that is not a big deal, but the specifics of the vote are suspicious. I think that situations like this damage US credibility (and the UN's credibility). And I think it is much more damaging than scandals like the Oil-for-food bribing.

The draft resolution was critical of Israel's recent military moves in Gaza. I have not followed this latest skirmish closely, so I don't have an opinion about it - plus the point of this article is not Israel's actions. The point is that the vote looks like the US may have abused its veto to protect Israel's reputation. There are 15 members on the UNSC, 10 voted for it, the US voted against it, and the other 4 abstained. Worse, the other 4 are allies of ours - Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia. If Britain really opposed the resolution wouldn't they have voted against it instead of abstaining?

To people outside the US, this looks like we are abusing our power at the UN to further our own policies. TO some it may even seem like the UN is just a branch of our State Dept. and not a neutral place to resolve differences. Both appearances will hurt us in the long run.

Some Americans like to complain that the UN is not a credible place because of the oil-for-food scandal. I disagree. Corruption is part of politics. It's not that we should accept corruption, it is that we should accept that it exists and then try to fight it. All governments have corruption, and all citizens should try to minimize it. If we think the UN should be abolished just because there is corruption, then we should also abolish the US government!

I think that this veto is much more problematic. The oil-for-food scandal was a perversion of the process. Some people covertly manipulated the system and did things that were outside of the rules. (And they got caught). But, this veto is actually part of the rules. The US didn't have to do anything covertly in order to abuse their power.

If other countries think the process is rigged, then they will not want to participate. While the permanent members have vetos, they should use them sparingly or other countries will stop participating and then the veto will mean nothing.

Labels: Law, Middle East