Iran Affairs

Fishy goings-on in Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear smuggling claims

There's some fish goings-on in the Abdul Qadeer Khan affairs -- the Pakistani scientist said to be responsible for smuggling centrifuge technology out of Holland to Pakistan, and allegedly other places.

He's been doing some interviews after maintaining a period of silence while under house arrest while Musharraf was still in power in Pakistan.

Apparently the Swiss government has shredded signficant documents linking the Khan smuggling ring to Libya. Lets not forget that according to former Dutch PM Ruud Lubbers, the CIA pressured the Dutch to let Khan go, and then they "lost" his court file too...

Something is not right, we just don't lose things like that," judge Anita Leeser told Dutch news show NOVA late Friday. "I find it bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on request of the CIA. It is unheard of," she added...

A month ago former Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers said Khan was let go at the request of the US intelligence services. Leeser said that when she heard Lubbers, the disappearance of Khan's files at the Amsterdam court's archive fell into place for her.

She has asked to see the Khan case files several years ago but they had disappeared from the archives. "Now I think somebody lost the files on purpose ... I think that there was some political influence at play nationally and internationally," she said.

Israel bombing Iran? The return of the false-choice fallacy

Joschka Fischer, Germany's former foreign minister, is pushing the old "false choice" fallacy to frame the debate over Iran's nuclear program

Although it is acknowledged in Jerusalem that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

No, Joschka, it is not clear. Stop trying to legitimize Israeli aggression. Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, isn't out to get them, and has offered several compromise solutions that would address any real concerns about proliferation -- it is Israel that has the nuclear weapons, and has refused to sign the NPT, and has consistently rejected the notion of creating a nuclear weapons-free middle east that Iran first suggested back in the 1970s.

It is Israel that is a regional threat, not Iran.

3500 pageviews and going!

So yesterday, my blog had more than 3500 pageviews, specifically for my post about the New York Times' misrepresentation of the IAEA report on Iran, and the traffic continues today!

That's much more than the measly 500 or so pageviews I normally get.

Thank you Hoder! And Moon of Alabama and Newshoggers and Informed Comment and of course Google which was widely used to locate my post, and even the whacko right-wing hate blogs that regularly sent vituperative hate comments my way.

Iraq's debts, proxy wars and Arab creditors

There's a conference going on right now in the Mideast about the state of Iraq's foreign debt, owed mostly to the Arab states such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.  The media won't tell you this, but this debt consists mostly of loans made to Saddam Hussein by these same Arab states in order to wage war against Iran back in the 1980s.

In the midst of all of this, Iran -- the truly aggrieved party which was the victim of a war of aggression - has effectively given up on its claims on Iraq arising from Saddam's invasion, and is instead engaged in reconstruction projects in Iraq. The US has also written off Iraq's 4.1 billion dollar debt along with several other Western nations too.

But the same Saudis and Kuwaits which backed Saddam aren't willing to write off this debt, despite Iraq's appeals, because they see it as a way to gain leverage over Iraq, which is too soft on Iran for their tastes -- despite the fact that the debts are crippling Iraq's economy.

So remember that the next time they claim that Iran is responsible for the mess in Iraq or is using Iraq to wage a "proxy war". The Saudis and Kuwaitis are waging this proxy war, using economic pressure on Iraq in addition to allowing "foreign fighters" to enter Iraq.

Is Iran facing an economic crisis?

(UPDATE: see this article about Tehran's real estate market)

I returned recently from a rather harrowing trip from a certain city where children sleep in the streets and sniff glue from bags to get high, where streets are open sewers, where entire families pick their living in the trash, where the rich travel in helicopters and bullet-proof cars with armed bodyguards for fear of the pervasive crime that results in a murder rate akin to a war zone, which is home to 40% of the region's HIV/AIDS victims, and where a more people live their entire lives in fetid slums than the population of some of the world's largest cities.

No, this wasn't in Iran (Thank God) - it was in Latin America, a country that Americans regularly go as tourists and investors. But the funny thing is that the media in the US insists on portraying Iran as economically-backwards.

Here are some facts from Is Iran Facing an Economic Crisis? by Kelly Campbell. U.S. Institute of Peace, May 2007:

The belief that Iran suffers from dire economic conditions is one of four myths circulating about Iran's macroeconomic performance. Iran's economy has actually performed well in aggregate terms, with a moderate rate of growth in the last ten to fifteen years, including healthy GDP and per capita growth in investment. In the last three years, Iran's actual growth rate has averaged 5.8 percent. 

Nor do economic indicators support assertions by some observers that inflation is much higher than the rate stated by the Iranian government. In the last fifteen years, the consumer price index (CPI) has increased by a factor of forty-two; if the inflation rate were actually twice the reported rate, the CPI would have increased by a factor of 950. Prices have increased by a factor of five in the last ten years, not twenty, as some claim. While this rate of inflation is cause for concern, it is in line with the depreciation of the exchange rate.

The third myth is that Iran suffers from widespread poverty and rising inequality. The poverty rate actually declined throughout the 1990s and continues to fall, and is low by international standards—especially when compared to that of other developing countries. Government public service and social assistance programs have helped to reduce poverty, particularly in rural areas. In addition, economic inequality throughout Iran has remained fairly stable and does not appear to be increasing.

The final myth is that unemployment in Iran is twice the official rate. Although the unemployment rate is high, it has declined since 2000 and reached 11.2 percent in 2004.2 While official statistics match World Bank estimates, the current government has failed to generate sufficient job growth to meet the needs of Iran's young, educated population. For these youth, unemployment often lasts two to three years, which has resulted in more young Iranians living with their parents well into their twenties...

To this I would add that since the Revolution, the average Iranian has gained better access to healthcare, clean water, electricity, and literacy (particularly for women) Iranians are now living longer than ever, and their children have far less infant mortality rates than ever. (In fact, there is a obesity crisis brewing among Iranian children)

From 1975 through 1980 Iran's Human Development Index remained stagnant at 0.569. By 1990 it was up to 0.693, and in 2002 it was 0.732. Life expectancy at birth in 1970-1975 was 55.3 years. For 2000-2005, it is now 70.3 years. Under-five mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) in 1970 was 191. Today its 42. Today about 90% of the people have access to basic healthcare, and even remote villages have obtained clean water, electricity, schools and roads. Iran produced about one million passenger cars this year, compared with the 12,000 manufactured in 1989.

The improvement of social indicators for women in particular were even grudgingly recognized by the habitually-sourpussed Economist magazine as early as 1997:

"Above all, prospects for girls have improved... They are now more likely to go to school and stay there; about 40% of the students in higher education are women, and they are doing better at their  studies than men. Iranian women nowadays, despite Islamic customs oppressively enforced by the state, have more chance than they did of  getting a job outside the home, competing with men professionally and asserting their rights as individuals in the face of their fathers',  brothers' or husbands' prejudices."
("The Mullah's Balance Sheet" - The Economist, January 18 1997)

This isn't  to say that Iran is an economic miracle or heaven. It most certainly is not; it has all the problems of a developing country. But you won't find slums in Tehran, nor will you find children sniffing glue on street corners.

What does this mean? It means that the Neocons who insist that Iranians are on the verge of toppling their government due to economic conditions are simply lying in order to undermine any potential US-Iran talks because they fear an potentially improved US-Iran relations would come at the expense of Israel's regional ambitions.

Washington Post, NY Times continue the anti-Iran propaganda line

Update on my last post pointing out the US media's overt lying about the latest IAEA report on Iran:

A commentator points out that the Malaysian news agency Bernama has thus far the fairest account of the IAEA report, while both the NY Times and the Washington Post have editorials today  repeating the same lies and attacking the IAEA. They both for example claim that Iran has "blocked inspections" without mentioning that according to the IAEA report itself, these were "transparency visits" that Iran was not legally required to permit but Iran had otherwise allowed all the required inspections. The Washington Post claims that Iran installed centrifuges without providing the "required notification" (nevermind that the notificiation was not in fact required, according to the report itself.) The NY Times tries to make a big deal out of alleged involvment of Iranian defense industry involvement (as if defense contractors such as GE or Lockheed in the US aren't similarly involved in civilian industries too.)

Sort of sad when you have to go to Malaysia to get the truth.

NY Times again misrepresents IAEA report on Iran

UPDATE: to link to this post, use this URL: http://tinyurl.com/6qmtzj

I finally got the May 2008 IAEA report on Iran and just as I guessed, the media have totally mischaracterized it, as usual.

As usual, the New York Times is the worst. According to the Times, the IAEA has accused Iran of a "willful lack of cooperation" -- but the report contains no such accusation whatsoever. That's the Times' own editorial commentary, inserted as if it was news and falsely attributed to the IAEA. This is the second time that the NY Times has put words in the IAEA's mouth - previously the NY TImes falsely claimed that the IAEA had determined Iran's disclosures were "inadequate" and that Iran had missed a critical deadline -- neither assertion was true, as I have discussed before.

There are similar omissions and outright lies in this report.

For example, as evidence of what the NYTimes claims is the IAEA's supposed "frustration with Iran's lack of openess",  the article points out that IAEA has said that Iran's installation of new centrifuges were “significant, and as such should have been communicated to the agency.” The NY Times implies that Iran was caught doing something secret by the IAEA. 

Aha, but that's not what the IAEA report says.  In paragraph 11 of the report, the IAEA states that the Iran should have informed the IAEA of the centrifuge installation IF the "Subsidiary Arrangements" (which sets a 60-day notice period) was in force -- and paragraph 10 specifically says that this subsidiary arrangement is not in force with respect to Iran. So, Iran did  inform the IAEA of the installation of the centrifuges, but just not within the full 60-day notice period specified in the Subsidiary Arrangements. (Iran had at one time voluntarily implemented these subsidiary arrangements when it had temporarily suspended enrichment under the terms of the Paris Agreement, but stopped doing so when it quite legally restarted its enrichment program after the EU-3 tried to cheat on the Paris Agreement by demanding that Iran turn its temporary suspension of enrichment into a permanent halt.)

 Furthermore, the NY Times totally fails to mention the last sentence in paragraph 11 which states that the IAEA was nevertheless able to monitor the newly-installed centrifuges, and all the necessary safeguards were in place before the centrifuges were put into use.

Next, according to the NY Times, Iran is using "more powerful centrifuges" too, and so "That means that the country may be producing enriched uranium — which can be used to make electricity or to produce bombs — faster than expected." 

Of course, the NY Times fails to mention that  according to paragraph 5 of the same IAEA report, the centrifuges are all operating under IAEA safeguards, "continue to be operated as declared", and have been the subject of 14 surprise visits -- and so there's nothing particularly "unexpected" about Iran's activities, nor can the centrifuges be used to make bombs since they"re under 24-hour monitoring by the IAEA.

The NY Times claims that the IAEA "was denied access to sites where centrifuge components were being manufactured and where research of uranium enrichment was being conducted." -- totally leaving out that according to paragraph 13 the same IAEA report, these were "transparency measures" which is the IAEA's way of referring to requests for inspections over and above what Iran is obligated to provide to the IAEA. Iran had a policy of allowing such transparency measures in the past but on an "ad hoc" basis, and is under no obligation to allow them at all since they exceed what the IAEA Safeguards Agreement require of Iran.

The NY Times says that according to ElBaradei himself, some components of Iran's nuclear program were "produced by Iran's military" suggesting that it means that Iran was making nukes for military use. Ooooh Sppooookyyy! But actually, in paragraph 14, the IAEA report says that some components of Iran's nuclear program may have been produced by "companies belonging to defence industries" which is hardly the same thing. After all, General Electric, a major US defense contractor, owns NBC studios too. Does that mean that NBC is owned by the US "military"? There's nothing particularly incriminating about a military company role, even if it is true. The defense industries in many countries are active in civilian industries -- the Chinese military makes washing machines, and Brazil's navy is a major driving source for their nuclear program.

The NY Times claims that Iran has "refused to provide documentation and access to its scientists to support its claims" that documents about "alleged studies" into nuclear weaponization were forgeries, and then the NY Times selectively quotes the report's conclusion that the outstanding matters "remain a matter of serious concern" in order to imply that Iran has failed to address these issues.

Actually, nowhere in the IAEA report does it say that Iran "refused" to provide documentation regarding the alleged studies. Quite the opposite, the IAEA report states that the Iranians have agreed to respond to the allegations and have provided detailed answers "which are being assessed by the Agency." (paragraph 15)  

Furthermore, the IAEA report list instances in which the Iranians did respond to the allegation as part of Iran's "overall assessment of documents presented to it." (paragraph 18) For example, the Iranians have pointed out that they had no need to develop a secret "green salt" project when they were already successfuly converting uranium (paragraph 19) There are other similar instances in the report.

But this is where things get really funny - and so it is too bad that the NY Times decided to leave it all out:

According to the report, the IAEA was in several cases not able to actually provide these same "alleged studies" documents to Iran, because the IAEA didn't even have the documents itself or was not "permitted" to share them with Iran. So, rather than Iran "failing" to provide documentation, it was the IAEA which failed to provide documentation. Iran was nevertheless expected to disprove allegations supposedly contained in documents that the IAEA itself didn't have or was not allowed to show to Iran.

For example, in paragraph 21, the IAEA report states: "Although the Agency had been shown the documents that led it to these conclusions, it was not in possession of the documents and was therefore unfortunately unable to make them available to Iran." Also, in paragraph 16, the IAEA report states: "The Agency received much of this information only in electronic form and was not authorised to provide copies to Iran."

Other significant facts about the IAEA report that the NY Times sees fit not to print: that the IAEA doesn't have any nuclear weapons information (paragarph 24), Iran has continued to provide access to the IAEA inspectors and allowed inspections required by its safeguards agreement, and the IAEA has still found no diversion of nuclear material for non-peaceful uses (which legally means Iran is still in full compliance with the NPT) (paragraph 26) and that all of Iran's enrichment activities, reprocessing activities, uranium conversion and heavy water reactor construction programs continue to be operated under IAEA safeguards, exactly as they're supposed to be conducted.

So, there you have it - the reality of what the IAEA report says, versus what the NY Times misrepresented.

Monopolizing nuclear energy?

Q: Is the US seeking to monopolize nuclear energy technology?

A: TBD (To be determined)

Of course, I wrote about this a few years ago:

Under the guise of non-proliferation, the EU and the US are not only undermining the grand bargain between nuclear-armed and non-nuclear armed states that is the NPT; they also want to create an underclass of nuclear energy have-nots, concentrating what could become the world’s sole major source of energy in the hands of the few nations that have granted themselves the right to it.

Brzezinski, Odom on Iran

I have some quibbles with the editorial by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Lt. General William Odom in today’s Washington Post, which claims that the current U.S. strategy towards Iran “will almost certainly result in an Iran with nuclear weapons.” They write that “such a heavy-handed ’sticks’ and ‘carrots’ policy may work with donkeys but not with serious countries,” proposing instead to see if negotiations with Iran could be effective:

The United States could indicate that it is prepared to negotiate, either on the basis of no preconditions by either side (though retaining the right to terminate the negotiations if Iran remains unyielding but begins to enrich its uranium beyond levels allowed by the Non-Proliferation Treaty)...

Well, that's very nice. BUT the NonProliferation Treaty does not impose any limit to uranium enrichment. In fact, no international law imposes such a restriction. The Iranians have limited their enrichment to under 5% thus far as purely a voluntary measure. If they (or any other country) wanted to enrich uranium to 90%, they're perfectly entitled to do so under international law. And, the Iranians aren't going to give up that right because they don't want to set the precedent of being a "second-class" member of the NPT. Furthermore, they're not going to give up their inalienable right to have access to the only power source of the future in return for the US giving up on sanctions either.

If Brazil and Argentina can have enrichment, so should Iran. The NPT in fact explicitly prohibits discrimination between countries in access to nuclear know-how. Nor is there any reason to believe that Iran will inevitably have nuclear weapons as the editorial claims in the opening sentence. Many countries have developed nuclear technology without building weapons. Why is no one claiming that Brazil or Argentina will inevitably have nuclear weapons too? Iran's nuclear program is under full IAEA safeguards which are specifically intended to catch any such weapons work - and after 5 years of inspections, the IAEA has said that it has found no such evidence in Iran.

Iran nuclear report: don't believe the media reports.

I have already received questions about the recent IAEA report. My only answer for now is wait until you read the actual report, and do not rely on the characterizations of the report by the media which have thus far always put the worst possible spin on such reports, with the NY Times usually being the worst but followed closely by the Washington Post, and the rest of the media take their cue from them. So, until someone finds me the actual report, don't assume that the media's accounts are correct or accurate. Don't forget, the IAEA itself has accused Western powers of using the same "hype tactics" against Iran as they did against Iraq.

There are some facts to keep in mind in the meantime. First, that the Feb 2008 IAEA report and ElBaradei  stated explicitly that all of Iran's prior nuclear activities had been accounted for, with no evidence of a nuclear weapons program -- save for the "alleged studies" supposedly carried out by Iran in making missiles with nuclear warheats etc, evidence of which was provided by the US from the so-called "laptop of death" to the IAEA at the lasts minute in order to prevent the IAEA from giving Iran a "clean bill of health."

Note further that Iran most certainly does have a missile program, and there's nothing wrong with that since it is perfectly legal. I suspect that the IAEA has been asking questions about such programs that technically fall outside of the IAEA area of authority (remember, the IAEA can only inquire about nuclear matters, and the Feb 2008 IAEA report explicitly stated that it had  "not detected the use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have credible information in this regard" -- and so the IAEA has no real authority to demand information on Iran's missile program.) And, I suspect therefore that the Iranians have drawn a line at providing non-nuclear information on sovereignty grounds, seeing no end to the process.

So, the IAEA has therefore reported that it hasn't received the information (which it technically isn't entitled to receive) and the media are seizing on that as evidence that the "alleged studies" have been proven to be right.

But like I said, lets wait until we see the actual report. 

Obama and talking to Iran -- "Jewish voters" don't approve!

Jewish voters (well, more like AIPAC and the pro-Israeli Right who always claim to speak on behalf of all American Jews) have a problem with Obama and are trying to pressure him to change his policy on talking to Iran. This has been a major concern for the pro-Israeli lobby since the earliest days of Obama's candidacy.

So, they resort to fear-mongering and smearing Obama, which is to be expected, but since he's Black, there's an appeal to good old fashioned racism as well. As one voter mentioned in a NY Times article, it boils down to his skin color:

“They’ll pick on the minister thing, they’ll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color,” she said, quietly fingering a coffee cup. . . But Ms. Grossman does not tell the neighbors. “I keep my mouth shut,” she said.

The irony, of course, is that McCain's best-buddy, the apocalypse-spewing Reverend Hagee, who was warmly embraced by AIPAC and has been totally endorsed by all the major pro-Israeli Jewish organizations in the US, is a classical anti-semite who believes that the Holocaust was God's retribution on the Jews.

But hey, why expect these thugs to be consistent?

Remember when ... Bush threatened nuclear genocide against Iran?

Today is the 2nd anniversary of when White House spokesman Tony Snow confirmed President Bush's threat that committing genocide by nuking Iran was an "option on the table" -- thus violating international law that prohibits threats of aggression with nuclear weapons, as well as committing a war crime under Nuremberg Charter Principle 6(a) and other US laws (Yes more war crimes in addition to the others) :

Q. Sir, when you talk about Iran, and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possibility of a nuclear strike? Is that something that your administration will plan for?

THE PRESIDENT: All options are on the table . . .

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist,

"The president of the United States directly threatened Iran with a preemptive [?] nuclear strike. It is hard to read his reply in any other way."

And before you whine and moan that it wasn't really a threat, ask yourself what your reaction would have been had Ahmadinejad said that nuking the US was an "option on the table".

Bush laughs his way out of office

More than a million dead Iraqis, over 4000 dead American soldiers, God know how many dead Afghans, two wars lost, CEOs that earn 400 times the averge worker, the American constitution turned into toilet paper, war crimes, torture, etc etc etc . . . When you watch this video, remember: they're laughing at you, America. The joke's on you, America.

Bush's farewell song Videovideo

Iran "Yellow badges for Jews" anniversary

Today is the 2nd anniversay of the "Yellow badges for Jews" disinformation campaign against Iran, started by NeoCon cabalist Amir Taheri in the National Post, and perpetuated by the Simon Weisenthal Center which claimed (falsely) to have "confirmed" the story.

The National Post eventually published a retraction but the New York Post, the New York Sun, the Washington Times, and the American Jewish Congress all ran with the story -- some even after it had been debunked. CBSNews didn't run with the story -- which raises the question: If blogger with Taylor Marsh and CBS could bother to check the story, why didn't other papers? Or were they part of the disinformation campaign?

Typical of the NeoCons, having been caught in a lie, Taheri simply sticks by it as seen in his article posted by the Benador Associates PR firm.

Read also Jim Lobe's article.

And what happened to Taheri after this fiasco? He was invited to brief British PM Blair, as a representative of the Iranian "opposition".

And this was just one example of propaganda operations.

[As a sidenote, I think it is important to have these sorts of "anniversary" posts because people need to remember the historical context of today's news items. We all supposedly have a 20-minute attention span, and tend to forget important facts -- especially when faced with a 24-hour news cycle that is constantly churning out hype. So, I will be making a particular effort to follow-up on past matters. ]

Iran is NOT the cause of nuclear proliferation

The Associated Press reports that that according to British think tank, Iran's nuclear program is the cause of a "cascade of proliferation" of nuclear programs in the Mideast:

Iran's disputed nuclear program has sent a wave of interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, a think tank said Tuesday, warning that it risked setting the scene for a regional nuclear arms race.

This is total bullshit of course. Every once in a while you see these sorts of articles making the old "Iran is the cause of proliferation of nuclear energy" arguments which don't hold any water when read a bit more closely past the hyped headline.

There's a "cascade" of interest in nuclear energy throughout the entire world, and countries in the Mideast (including Iran) are simply following along. Some are more advanced than others, but this is worldwide phenomenon not restricted to the Mideast. And in fact, several countries in the Mideast in particular have nuclear programs that are just as old as Iran's - such as both Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Both developed and developing countries around the world are building new nuclear reactors, and many nations are also developing their own fuel enrichment programs. South Africa, Brazil and Argentina, etc are all recent entrants into this field too -- is Iran the cause of their nuclear programs too? Is it Iran's fault that world wide demand for nuclear energy has caused uranium prices to rise to record levels too? Give me a break!

Oil near $100 and rapid economic growth are giving growing momentum to Middle East plans to develop nuclear energy to help meet escalating power demand. -Middle East speeds up shift to nuclear power Reuters, Jan 21, 2008

The price of uranium has recorded its biggest percentage increase since dealings were first reported almost 40 years ago . . . Demand for uranium is soaring thanks to a renaissance in the nuclear power industry. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 168 new nuclear reactors will be built over the next 15 years. There are currently 440, generating around 16pc of the world's electricity. - The Telegraph - November 14 2007

Aside from the increased worldwide demand for nuclear energy alternatives, there is another reason for the proliferation of nuclear programs which the think tanks don't want you to know about: the efforts by some countries such as the US and Britain to monopolize nuclear enrichment technology and to create a new division between the haves and have-nots. In other words, the same policy of attempting to restrict access to nuclear technology is causing nations to rush to ensure that they're among the haves rather than the have-nots, because they don't trust these few countries to be reliable suppliers of nuclear fuel to the rest of the world:

Some developing nations are skeptical of the intentions of the five original nuclear states and are reluctant to give up the option of enriching uranium. Developing nations say they don’t want to give up their rights to uranium enrichment and don’t trust the United States or other nuclear countries to be consistent suppliers of the nuclear material they would need to run their power plants. - New Global Nuclear Order; Los Angeles Times October 15, 2006

Almost all the new and prospective entrants in the enrichment business appear anxious to establish their credentials as having existing technology in place. Driving this process, in part, is the perception that all countries will soon be divided into uranium enrichment "haves" (suppliers) and "have-nots" (customers) under various proposals to establish multinational nuclear fuel centers and fuel-supply arrangements.
- Lining up to enrich Uranium, International Herald Tribune, Sept 12 2006.

The reason why you see articles from think tanks blaming Iran for a worldwide interest in nuclear power is because that's one of the favorite talking points of those who are opposed to Iran's nuclear program in particular. They claim that Iran's nuclear program will spark a regional interest in similar nuclear programs that could perhaps one day be used to make bombs. Now that there is such a regional interest, they argue, therefore it must be Iran's fault.

Like I've written before, this is simply the old "slippery slope" fallacy and is total nonsense:

When applied to Iran's nuclear programme, the slippery slope fallacy usually predicts that if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear technology, the result will be an uncontrollable wildfire of proliferation and a regional nuclear arms race:

If Iran goes nuclear, Egypt will follow, then Saudi Arabia (more likely buying than making) and possibly Syria. Contemplate the consequences of such a nuclear alms race for Israel's security and the stability of energy supplies.

There are some very basic problems with this theory. For one thing, it is highly ironic that Iran's mere capability to build nuclear weapons can supposedly spark this uncontrollable cascade of nuclear proliferation, and yet Israel's existing nuclear weapons are not believed to have this effect. Indeed, if we are to accept, as the fallacious argument assumes, that one country's nuclear capability will force other countries to acquire their own nuclear deterrent, then the real regional culprit for proliferation must be the original nuclear power in the region: Israel. Note also that similar predictions of regional arms races have not been made when, for example, Brazil recently acquired the same nuclear technology that Iran is seeking to develop.

Musings about the Chador in Iran

The Iranian has a photo essay on that favorite controversy in the West, the chador in Iran. There's the tiresome usual debate in the comments -- oh how terrible of the mullahs who "force" women to dress like this, etc. versus complaint about how "Westernized" Iranians want to impose their values, etc.

Anyway, this brings back memories of a recent chat I had with a tea shop owner along a hiking trail in Darekeh, near Tehran. The fellow was remiscing (negatively) about the days when wearing a "minijupe" was fashionable among certain classes of women in Iran. (For those of you who don't know, a minijupe is defined by Wikipedia as "une jupe très courte" -- and is also known as a miniskirt.)

I was just a child then, and so girls were not yet terribly interesting to me but I do have memories of playing in the sand near our home by the Caspian Sea and seeing female beach-goers dressed in bikinis walking around town, as if they were in the south of France and not in a predominantely conservative and Moslem country where average "decent" women would not ever want be seen in public without a black chador. The tea seller's point was that some men -- especially the "provincials" -- would get out of hand at times when seeing so much flesh, and could do things like pinch the women (which was also common at the time in Italy, as my female relatives would atest) and inevitably that would result in a fight when the woman's relative rushed in to defend her honor etc. To the tea seller, this reaction of males was reason enough for the state to enforce the hijab on women. I didn't argue the point. After all, banning something because some other people can't handle it may sound bad in an idealized world, but is common: ie we ban smoking marijuana in the US because some people may abuse it -- nevermined the majority that don't.

Such was the schizophrenia of Iranian culture at the time, a problem I think was created by the superficial adoptation of Western affectations enforced and encouraged by the Shah's regime. Iranian society was not allowed to develop its own values in the case of "appropriate clothing" and so instead things went to extremes: the chador vs. the miniskirt -- and so inevitably, women's bodies became a battleground in the revolution and the backlash against the Shah. This schizophrenia is still around, but this time was enforced from the other direction, inevitably resulting in the same sort of backlash ... but is also being resolved in a way, on its own.

Perhaps one day this schizophrenia over clothing will reach relative stasis. I think one thing can help this process along: a fashion industry that dominates society and dictates what is "right" and "acceptable" clothing.

Of course, people will say that women should be "free" to wear whatever they choose. That's silly. There is no such thing as free choice -- we are all shaped by our own society's conceptions of right and wrong. What is "normal" to one person may be "oppressive" to another. In no society do people wear what they choose -- every society has its standards. We have a multi-billion dollar fashion industry that attacks the minds of young girls to look and dress a particular way -- are they really "choosing" to wear certain fashions? Some African tribeswomen walk around nude or semi-nude -- if they "chose" to dress like that in the US, they'd be arrested on the spot. Does that make the Africans "better" or "more liberated" than Americans? In some countries, women place rings around their necks to elongate them -- are they "oppressed" as a result of following this tradition? In some societies, breasts are not covered because they're not even considered to be sexual -- in others, there's an obssession with covering the breasts. Who is judge which is correct? In a globalizing world, we had all better learn to accept relative rights and wrongs.

Anyway, the chador was not just about religion though. Plenty of not-very religious people wear it, for the same reasons that in the West a woman might wear a pair of jeans: it is simply part of the normal attire. In fact, the chador predates the arrival of Islam, and far from being a sign of "repression" it was evidence of the high status of a woman to be veiled. Veils were also common in Europe -- Venice and Portugal, for example.

The tourist's reaction to the chador in Iran is amusing. Most think "Oh there goes a subservient, oppressed woman". But I suspect that more than 80% of Iranian women are naturally "chadori", and so no, they're not all just yearning to wear the latest Western clothing styles -- sorry to burst the ethnocentric bubbles of those who think that Iran is on the verge of another revolution.

Iran Poop Report

This one is pretty funny if gross.

I was going to state a little known fact about Iranian men's toilet habits. . . but I'm eating lunch at the moment.

OK, ok: traditionally, men pee whilst kneeling. It's a hygeine thing. I don't want to go into specifics.

Anyway I once saw a traditional, Iranian-style squat toilet in Japan. My Japanese friends assured me that it wasn't an Iranian import -- it was the traditional Japanese toilet too, before they got all fetishistic about it using high-tech toilets that automatically wash your bum and play music and spray perfume etc.

Dirty public toilets and bad driving habits -- twin causes of national shame for Iran.

Iran broke CIA intelligence ring . . .

There are reports that Tehran has broken a CIA intelligence ring. Now, before you dismiss that as baseless propaganda, better remember the last time that Iran made a similar claim -- because it was true:

Iran Broke C.I.A. Spy Ring, U.S. Says

By STEPHEN ENGELBERG WITH BERNARD E. TRAINOR, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
New York Times August 8, 1989

Early this year, Government officials say, Iran ended what was thought to be one of the Central Intelligence Agency's rare successes in that country: a network of agents who provided intimate details and documents about Iranian military planning.

As the operation collapsed, American analysts learned that the Iranians had detected the network months earlier and were using it to pass on false information, the officials say. But several of them insist that before it was compromised, the effort yielded a valuable harvest of military intelligence, particularly about Iranian operations in the Persian Gulf at a time when American naval forces were confronting the Iranians.

The American officials, for the first time confirming Iranian claims this year about the arrest of spies, said the episode illustrated the difficulty the Central Intelligence Agency has had in collecting intelligence in Iran . . .

Several officials suggested that Teheran engineered its announcement that large numbers of people were arrested because most of those identified were double agents controlled by Iran.

Why those sneaky Eye-ranians!

Lucy, someone has some 'splaining to do!

July 4th, 20th anniversary of an atrocity

The USS Vincennes: Public War, Secret War July 1, 1992

Ted Koppel: [voice-over]

Four years ago this week—A tragedy in the Persian Gulf. The shooting down of an Iranian Airbus. By the USS Vincennes. The lives of 290 civilians lost.

And the inevitable question:

How could this have happened?

There was the “official” story:

George H.W. Bush (U.S. Vice President, Jan. 20 1981-1989 Jan. 20) [July 14, 1988]:

“One thing is clear, and that is that the USS Vincennes acted in self-defense.”

Ted Koppel [voice-over]:

An official story— Of the American warship as victim.

At the right place.

At the right time.

Minding its own business:

Richard S. Williamson (Assistant Secretary of State, International Organization Affairs, 1988-1989) [July 13, 1988]:

“The ship was, at the time of the incident, in international waters.”

Ted Koppel [voice-over]:

It was official.

And untrue.

Tonight, the real story of what happened . . .

Bush in Israel: Now who is the religious nut?

Speaking of the "promise of God" for a "homeland for the chosen people" in Israel, Bush told the Israeli parliament after a visit to the Roman-era Jewish fortress at Masada: "Masada shall never fall again, and America will always stand with you."

He predicted the defeat of Islamist enemies Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda in a "battle of good and evil."

Incitement to terror by US General

Courtesy of Crooks n Liars:

Pentagon Propagandist General Calls for US to Sponsor Terrorism Against Iran

Last month on Fox News, Ret. Gen. Thomas McInerney, one of the Pentagon’s propaganda team of military analysts exposed by David Barstow in the NYT, openly called for the US to begin committing “tit-for-tat” terrorist attacks by proxy inside Iran.

McInerney: Here’s what I would suggest to you. Number one, we take the National Council for Resistance to Iran off the terrorist list that the Clinton Administration put them on as well as the Mujahedin-e Khalq at the Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Then I would start a tit-for-tat strategy which I wrote up in the Wall Street Journal a year ago: For every EFP that goes off and kills Americans, two go off in Iran. No questions asked. People don’t have to know how it was done. It’s a covert action. They become the most unlucky country in the world. …

Obama APPEASER! ... wait, who the heck is Chamberlain again?

Talk show host Chris Matthews proves that moronic rightwingers who equate talking to Iran with Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, quite obviously don't actually know who Chamberlain was nor what he did.

Hey, why let things like facts get in the way of mindlessly repeating worn-out talking points issued by the Israeli embassy?

Remember when McCain showed that he didn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia?

Well that was hardly the first time that officials proved they're actually ignorant of such a basic fact.

Remember, this is what Jeff Stein wrote back in 2006:

Most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?

(Sadly, this whole thing reminds me of a dear cousin of mine who is a graduate of one of the finest universities in the United States, and who asked me "Who won World War II?" -- I kid you not. I assured him that the Mongols won that one.)

The Truth about Iran and Hezbollah

The Christian Science Monitor's editorial pages have started to sound more and more like that of the far-right neocon Wall Street Journal editorial pages.

For example, todays editorial in the CSM entitled "Iran Pumps Iron in the Mideast" (which, incidentally does not sufficiently distinguish itself as an editorial, and so is likely to be confused with news) resorts to the usual Shia scaremongering and repeats the claim that Iran is arming militias in Iraq ... even though the US Defense Department has had to grudgingly back off of that allegation.

And, the CSM goes on to repeatedly refer to the Hezbollah and even Hamas as "Iran's proxy" and the highly unpopular Sinora government as "democratic". Well, guess what -- one of the allies of Hezbollah in Lebanon in the recent fighting happened to be an organization known as the SNSP which has both Muslim and Christian members; more than half are Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic. Also, one of the strongest allies of the Hezbollah has been the former Lebanese general Michel Aoun, who is deemed 'anti-Syrian'.

So while it certainly is true that Iran and the Shia in Lebanon have longstanding relations, to portray Hezbollah as some sort of puppet of Iran as the rightwing media in the US like to portray it. Rather, the US media labels the Hezbollah as "pro-Iranian" because the Israelis and their supporters in the US want to try to deny the organization's legitimacy.

However, like it or not, the Hezbollah is Lebanese and also quite popular among the Lebanese. Deal with it.

Here's a bit of background on Hezbollah that you should know about:

Hezbollah arose to battle Israel's occupation of south Lebanon from 1982-2000 and, more broadly, to advocate for Lebanon's historically disenfranchised Shi'i Muslim community. While it has many political opponents in Lebanon, Hezbollah is very much of Lebanon.

Bush visits Israel = new "settlements" built.

Funny how everytime Bush supposedly promotes "peace" in the Middle East, Israel announces new settlements will be built on the stolen, blood-soaked Palestinian land.

Same thing happened the last time that Bush visited Israel...

But the good news is that Bush and Israel both agree that its all Iran's fault.

LOL!

Remember folks, there are only 250 days, 20 hours, 52 minutes, and 39 seconds until George W. Bush is no longer President of the United States.

Muslim-bashing is perfectly acceptable in US elections

The "Reverend" Hagee, Bush confidant, AIPAC darling, and John McCain's spiritual advisor, has apologized for his anti-Catholic rants . . . but not for his anti-Muslim scaremongering rants.

Note that no one was terribly concerned about Hagee's Islamophobia compared to his anti-Catholic prejudice.

Hmm...what does that say about our current political culture?

935 Lies to start a war on Iraq

Just in case you missed it, here is a compilation of 935 lies told by the Bush administration to get us into a war on Iraq. No, these were not "intelligence errors", and no, these were not due to "Saddam's efforts to mislead Iran" -- these were LIES plain and simple. Deal with it.

935 Lies
Uploaded by MyDamnChannel

"An Increment" to war by Ignatius

David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post, has sold the movie rights to a fictional novel entitled "An Increment" (about a group of British intelligence agents who help alleged Iranian nuclear scientists escape from Iran) to Walt Disney.

I suppose someone was bound to figure out a way to make money off the constant speculation about a US attack on Iran. So, the question is, how will the Washington Post deal with the fact that David Ignatius now has a conflict of interest when writing about US-Iran relations? What is the Washington Post's policy in such circumstances?

The book is due to be published by WW Norton next year. An attack on Iran would be a great promo for the book, wouldn't it?)

Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel,Iran, and the United States

Dr. Trita Parsi's book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel,Iran, and the United States (Yale University Press) has won a Arthur Ross Book Award by the Council on Foreign Relations.

According to CFR:

This unique and important book takes a closer look at the complicated triangular relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States that continue to shape the future of the Middle East . . . CFR’s Arthur Ross Book Award is the most significant award for a book on international affairs.

And according to me:

If you don't read this book, you don't know anything about the subject and you have no business having an opinion on the subject, let alone inflicting it on others.

Needless to say, the "Bomb Iran for Israel" crowd are not happy at all about the book's thesis that Israel, the US and Iran have often cooperated with each other, and furthermore the real "threat" posed to Israel is that the US and Iran may start to get along, thus (in Israel's opinion) undermining Israel's regional ambitions and strategic value to the US.

Iraq interferes with Bush's golf game.

Bush is just so utterly dedicated and caring about the people who have died in Iraq that he has stopped playing golf.

OH MY GOSH such self-sacrifice! Consider that - a war ... interfering with a golf game! See, he cares ... he truly cares! Damn those Bush haters who say things like "He lied about the WMDs in Iraq". The man has STOPPED PLAYING GOLF!

And its not like he didn't enjoy golf either. He did. A lot. In Michael Moore's film, "Fahrenheit 911", immediately after the twin towers were blown up, Bush is shown on a golf course. When asked what he is going to do about the terrorists, he replies "We must stop the terrorists. Now watch this drive"

Gosh, don't that just bring a tear to your eye?

Palestinians to Israelis: "That is my house!"

Israeli PM Golda Meir once lets slip the genocidal agenda of Zionists by boldly stating "There are no such things as Palestinians" -- well, there were lots of them -- and they all remember the homes that were stolen from them. Do you suppose that professional Holocaust-hustler Elie Weisel will rush to defend the humanity etc etc of these people too? Don't bet on it.

60 years on, refugees visit lost Jerusalem homes By Wafa Amr

JERUSALEM, May 11 2008 (Reuters) - Eighty-year-old Beatrice Habesch sobbed when she caught sight of her father's house in Jerusalem on Sunday and remembered how it was taken over by Jews in 1948.
"This is our house! This is my house!" she shouted as fellow Palestinians held her back from running towards the building.

Some 300 Palestinians marked 60 years since Israel's founding in May 1948 with a protest walk through affluent Jewish parts of west Jerusalem that were once home to many Arabs. They wore black T-shirts with "This is my House" printed on the back.

The Palestinians said their families had owned houses in Talbiyeh, German Colony and other districts until Israelis drove them away or they fled in the Arab-Jewish fighting that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel.

Habesch said her father, a merchant, had owned property in Talbiyeh and that he had had friendly relations with his Jewish neighbours, letting part of his property to them.

One of their neighbours, she said, was Golda Meir, who as Israel's prime minister in the 1970s refused to acknowledge the existence of Palestinians.

"I was 19 during the war in 1948. I remember two men and a woman came to our house and told us to leave. They said our house would be bombed if we did not leave," Habesch said.

Like many of the 700,000 or so Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948, the Habesch family thought they would return after the war between Israel and the Arab states was over.

But they never did.

The demonstrators pointed at houses, many decorated with Israeli flags marking the 60th anniversary of independence, and recalled their former Palestinian owners: "This is the Dajani house. That is the Nammari house. This is the Halaby house."

ISRAELIS LOOK ON

Israelis watched from porches, mostly in silence, though one man who trailed the marchers yelled: "Arabs out!"

"Most Israelis react defensively or aggressively," said Tomer Belity, an Israeli teacher at a school in Talbiyeh.

"They are afraid and full of hate because they think the Palestinians want to get us out of here."

Nahla Assaly, 70, was 10 when she and her family left their house in the German Colony, now a haven for well-heeled bohemians. "We left our house because we panicked," she said. "People panic during wars."

Assaly said her family heard of the killings of dozens of Arabs by Jewish guerrillas at Deir Yassin, a village near Jerusalem, in April 1948. Fear set in. When the shooting came closer to home, it was time to leave.

"Bullets came through our doors and windows, so my father took us to Damascus for what he thought would be a couple of weeks," Assaly recalled. "But we never came back."

She said she felt bitter about the festivities surrounding Israel's 60th Independence Day, including this week's visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, who is sponsoring a drive for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of this year.

"Bush is coming to celebrate. Why? Did anybody go to South Africa to celebrate apartheid? This whole idea of celebration is a mockery of peace."

"Let the Israelis admit their wrongdoing in 1948," said Assaly. "Then there will be room for healing." (Editing by Kevin Liffey)

William Kristol thinks Jewish terrorists are wonderful

William Kristol has an op-ed in the New York Times extolling the virtues of Israel is almost mystical-mythical proportions as the fulfilment of some sort of many-thousand-year old prophecy that will supposedly save us all from a holocaust, etc. etc.

It is frankly sort of embarrassing that a a political entity should be discribed in such grandiose, fawning terms in what is supposedly a sober, secular newspaper -- and it says a lot about the fascistic mindset of pro-Israeli crowd in the US.

But what's really funny is how, whilst resorting to the usual, tiresome Hitler comparisons, Kristol compares Ahmadinejad with known Zionist terrorists like Weizmann and Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion and Begin:

I hate to dignify him by even taking note of his comments. I meant to pay tribute to the Zionists — men like Weizmann and Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion and Begin — who made possible the almost miraculous redemption of the Jewish people

Well, lets see now:

Jabotinsky was a lunatic even in the judgment of fellow Zionists, who along with Menachem Begin, was a founder of the Irgun, a terrorist organization responsible for the mass murder of Palestinian civilians in places like Deir Yassin as well as terrorist bombing campaigns (including the bombing of the King David hotel.)

Yitzhak Shamir was a member of the Lehi (the "Stern gang") which, in addition to murdering Swedish Count Bernadotte and British Lord Moyne, claims the questionable "honor" of the first use of letter bombs. In 1946, 70 letter bombs were sent in official British government envelopes to all members of the British cabinet, the heads of the Tory opposition, and several military commanders. (The remains of the murderers of Lord Moyne, by the way, were brought to Israel and reburied with full honors in Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem, and Israel has a formal military decoration which was created in celebration of the Lehi.)

Ben-Gurion was responsible for the policy of "cruel Zionism" which consisting of bombing fellow Jews in Arab nations in order to convince them to move to Israel (so as to create population pressure to force out innocent Palestinians.) Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres were also responsible for the Lavon Affair, when Israeli agents posing as Arabs placed bombs in British and American centers in Cairo, in an attempt to harm the relations of Britain and the US with Egypt. (Note that in 2005, the Lavon Affair terrorists were formally thanked and rewarded by the Israeli government.)

And that's just for starters. I won't get into Sharon's deeds at Qibya, for example.

So tell me, William Kristol, these are the men you adulate?

Israeli spying in the US prior to 9-11

I ran across this interesting memorandum of sort on the topic of the Israeli "art students" who were caught in the US purportedly attempting to infiltrate the offices of various US governmental agencies (such as the Drug Enforcement Agency) just prior to 9/11. A secret, redacted DEA report on the matter was made public.

I remember reading about these "art students" in the news at the time too.

Anyway, I think this memo makes for quite interesting reading too. Personally I am of the opinion that it is quite likely that some people could have stopped the 9/11 hijackers -- and deliberately didn't, just as in the first World Trade Center bombing. The memorandum too states:

There was no implication in these reports that the Israelis were involved in planning for or carrying out the September 11 attacks. Rather, it was suspected that the Israelis gathered advance information about the attacks and decided not to share it.

Add to that the news report about the 9/11 warning given to an Israeli messaging service which has never been adequately pursued:

Odigo says workers were warned of attack By Yuval Dror Haaretz Sun., May 11, 2008

Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack . . .

The Hamas candidate: Obama

Republican presidental candidate John McCain has accused his rival Democrat candidate Obama of being Hamas's representative:

“I think it is very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States,” Mr. McCain said to the bloggers. “If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly.”

Ah, nothing like more standard Rightwing fear-mongering and smearing. Do these people actually have something to contribute to the world, or are they simply here to use up space?

Book: Torture Team

Torture Team
by international lawyer Philippe Sands

The background

On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation - techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition.

The book
From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, leading international lawyer Philippe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law. The Torture Team delves deep into the Bush administration to reveal:

* How the policy of abuse originated with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was promoted by their most senior lawyers

* Personal accounts, through interview, of those most closely involved in the decisions

* How the Joint Chiefs and normal military decision-making processes were circumvented

* How Fox TV's 24 contributed to torture planning

* How interrogation techniques were approved for use

* How the new techniques were used on Mohammed Al Qahtani, alleged to be "the 20th hijacker"

* How the senior lawyers who crafted the policy of abuse exposed themselves to the risk of war crimes charges

US crocodile tears for Lebanon

So the Bush administration is just SO upset at the civilian deaths in Lebanon's conflict that they take this opportunity to condemn Iran (I'm so surprised.)

Of course, when the Israelis were committing war crimes and bombing the crap out of civilians in south Lebanon and flattening Beirut, the same Bush administration couldn't be happier and encouraged Israel to step up attacks.

Warning: this video of Israeli atrocities at Qana accurately shows what the bastards did. You may not be used to seeing the reality of Israel this much.

Iraqi weapons Made in Iran? Not necessarily

Tina Susman of the LA Times reports from Baghdad:

Iraqi officials also have accused Iran of meddling in violence and had echoed the U.S. accusations of new Iranian-made arms being found in Basra. But neither the United States nor Iraq has displayed any of the alleged arms to the public or press, and lately it is looking less likely they will. U.S. military officials said it was up to the Iraqis to show the items; Iraqi officials lately have backed off the accusations against Iran.

A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in danger? LOL!

So the nuclear-armed states of the world are supposedly claiming that the Non-Proliferation Treaty is at risk and have the gall to cite Iran as the cause.

This is laughably hypocritical in light of two things: first, the openly announced US/UK/French endorsement of the first-use of nuclear weapons against even non-nuclear armed states, and second, their absolute refusal to abide by their NPT obligation to disarm.

Background: the NPT
The Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is a bargain between the five recognized Nuclear Weapon States (China, US, UK, France, Britain, Russia) and Non-Nuclear Weapon States (everyone else who signed the treaty). Israel, Pakistan and India are non-signatories.

The bargain consists of:

1- the Non-Nuclear Weapons states agree to suspend their right to build nuclear weapons, and to allow IAEA inspections to ensure that they are not using civilian nuclear technology for non-peaceful uses.

2- the Nuclear Weapons States in return promise to share civilian nuclear technology and recognize the absolute, inalienable right of Non-Nuclear Weapons States to have nuclear technology, to work toward the disarmament of their own nuclear arms, and to not share nuclear technology with non-NPT signatories like Israel and India.

The First Use Issue
Note that these article comes at the eve of an NPT review conference, in which the nuclear-armed states are going to try (as usual) to strengthen their advantage by imposing further restrictions on the nuclear rights of non-nuclear weapon states.

This is part of a long, long pattern: originally, the NPT was given a 25-year lifespan. In 1995, under extreme US pressure, the signatories agreed to extend the NPT indefinitely, even though the nuclear-armed states had blatantly failed to live up to their end of the nuclear bargain. Still, the meeting was unable to adopt a final resolution because there was deep disagreement between the nuclear-armed states versus the non-nuclear armed states:

The disagreements cut across North-South lines. Notably, criticism of the nuclear-weapon States on issues of disarmament brought together members of the NAM [Non-Aligned Movement] and some members of the Western European and Other States Group.

Iran tried to include language favoring the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the mideast, but that met with the typical resistance by the backers of Israel. Also, with regard to the nuclear fuel cycle, although some countries tried to impose limits on others,

the Conference confirmed "that each country's choices and decisionsin [this] field .. should be respected without jeopardizing its policies or international cooperation agreements and arrangements ... and its fuel-cycle policies".

But despite that language, the US is still trying to impose limits on other the nuclear fuel cycle development in other countries, as well as imposing arbitrary limits on their NPT duty to share civilian nuclear technology -- thus in effect attempting to monopolize nuclear technology for themselves.

More importantly, note also that to get that indefinite extension in 1995, the Clinton administration re-stated a promise to not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear armed states except in self defense (the Negative Security Assurance)

This promise not to use or threaten the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear armed country is enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 984 which states:

[I]n case of aggression with nuclear weapons or the threat of such aggression against a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, any State may bring the matter immediately to the attention of the Security Council to enable the Council to take urgent action...

But no sooner had the ink dried on the indefinite extension than the US blatantly violated its promise:

Since then, the backtracking by the NWS [Nuclear-Weapon States] on their existing unilateral nuclear security assurances, as well as the pledges made in 1995 and in 2000, have become a considerable concern. These concerns were triggered by statements made by senior U.S. and U.K. officials, the 2001 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), and the release of the U.S. National Defense Strategy, which included the possible use of nuclear weapons against NNWS [Non-Nuclear Weapon States] —in some cases preemptively. . . despite the solemn pledges and agreements reached in 1995 and 2000, the United States has clearly decided to walk away from the concept of NSAs [Negative Security Assurances] that have for more than 30 years been central to the deal embodied in the NPT. Less than two months after the release of the NPR, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security State John Bolton made it clear that the United States no longer felt bound by any NSAs...

Despite promising to disarm, the US is building new, more user-friendly nuclear weapons (that are specifically meant to be used offensively, and NOT as a deterrent of last resort) Though the US has made some reduction in its nuclear arsenal size, these are only unilateral and reversible reductions that still leave thousands of nuclear weapons untouched. And despite the promise not to use nuclear weapons, the Bush administration states that "no options are ruled out."

So, contrary to the negative security assurance, not only has Bush explicitly threatened to nuke Iran, and not only has Senator Clinton parrotted the same threat, but the the first-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear armed states is part of the official military doctrine of the United States, whether in response to the threat of chemical or biological weapons, or simply "in the event of surprising military developments".

The UK has adopted an even less restrictive position on the first-use of nuclear weapons, according to which nuclear weapons could be used to "deliver messages" or punish countries ...

"aimed at a non-critical, possibly [!] uninhabited area, with the message that if the country concerned pursued its present course of action, nuclear weapons will be aimed at a high-priority target. Finally, there is the punitive role, where a country has committed an act, despite specific warning that to do so would incur a nuclear strike."

France has recently stated that it too would use nuclear weapons on a first-strike basis under equally vaguely defined conditions.

Second Issue: Disarmament
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligates the Nuclear-Armed States to work towards disarmament. This has simply not happened, and in fact both the US and UK have simply thumbed their noses at their NPT obligations. Britain has stated that it will be keeping its nuclear arsenal no matter what, and worse yet, the United States is not only envisioning the first use of nuclear weapons but is also developing a generation of smaller "tactical" nuclear weapons which are intended to be more "useable" in combat.

This, despite the fact that the 2000 NPT review conference adopted a document specifically requiring the Nuclear Weapons States to engage in "13 Steps" to achieve disarmement.

But again, no sooner had the ink dried on this agreement than the US blatantly violated it by endorsing a new nuclear doctrine. The US now claims that the 13 Steps were merely irrelevant suggestions:

During the last NPT review cycle, much controversy arose over the present day import of certain positions related to nuclear disarmament, i.e. the “Thirteen practical steps”, which were articulated in the Final Document of the NPT Review Conference held in 2000. The security environment has changed substantially since 2000, and we cannot assume that all suggestions made then necessarily remain relevant today.”

Conclusion
So, here we have a situation that Iran is doing exactly what it is legally allowed to do under the NPT, as are many other nations who have obtained or are working on the nuclear fuel cycle. On the other hand, the nuclear-armed states have blatanly refused to abide by their own end of the NPT bargain to disarm their nuclear weapons and have instead resorted to blatant threats of nuclear attack -- and yet the nuclear-armed states have the gall to claim that countries like Iran are undermining the NPT.

Yeah, sure.

Israel turns 60 - fact and fiction

Gershom Gorenberg has published an article entitled Seven myths about Israel on the occasion of thr 60th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their God-given lands -- which is essentially apologia about Isael, as is his psuedo-liberal book "The Accidental Empire" (thesis: Israel just 'accidentally' came to dominate Palestinians but didn't really mean to.)

I thought it would be nice to take apart his explanations of these "myths"

Myth 1: "Israel is a successful democracy." Sort of. From what began as an impoverished and war-ravaged country flooded with Jewish refugees from Europe and the Arab world, Israel has grown into a regional military power with a per capita gross domestic product that exceeds all its neighbors'. . .

Well, there is the little unmentioned fact that Israel is also the recipient of the largest peace-time transfer of wealth EVER -- exceeding even the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after WWII. Gee, do you suppose THAT has anything to do with Israel's economic "success"?? Look, even apartheid-era South Africa was an economic success and "democratic" -- as long as you were white. Israel, similarly, is still an apartheid state. And in fact US money is being used to secure what are really the shaky crumbling socialist basis of Israel's economy.

Myth 2: "Israel is a Jewish state." Not in the way you think. Israel's secular Jewish majority is heir to that conception. For Israel's secular elite, being a Jew means speaking Hebrew, living in the Jewish homeland and belonging to Israeli society...

No, when they speak of Israel as "Jewish State" they mean a state in which one group (the Jews) have ethnically cleansed the others (the non-Jews) in order to artificially maintain the dominance of Jews over non-Jews. Gorenberg keeps referring to the Arab "minority" without nothing that they're only a "minority" because the rest of the "Arabs" (aka Palestinians) continue to be murdered and exiled.

Myth 3: "Israel was born of the Holocaust." No. Israel was born despite the Holocaust.

Every visiting foreign dignitary is taken to Yad Vashem, the official Holocaust memorial. The route proceeds from exhibits on the horrors of the death camps to the establishment of the Jewish state. The stress on the Holocaust reflects the emotional trauma that the horror still inflicts on Jews. It also underpins the political message that Jews can be safe only in their own state.

Gorenberg seems to think that Israel's abuse of the Holocaust to justify its own existence is some sort of accident or "mistaken" impression of outsiders. It is not. It is a deliberate manipulation by Israel of US and European Holocaust guilt in order to to justify the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Myth 7: "The Israel lobby controls U.S. policy." Never. In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt hold the lobby largely responsible for U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East. The book's greatest flaw might be that it serves as an unintended advertisement for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is eager to play up its own influence.

Although AIPAC does lobby the Congress effectively, its influence on policy has limits. It could not prevent President George H.W. Bush from using loan guarantees as a means of pressuring Israel on West Bank settlement. In 2006, despite AIPAC's efforts to pass a version of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act that would have virtually cut off U.S.-Palestinian relations, the Congress opted for a more moderate bill.

"Never" huh? LOL! Note that as evidence he's citing Bush I's effort to pressure Israel to end West Bank settlements -- but Bush I himself said that he had never come under as much pressure as a result of that decision, that he was "one lonely guy" who was battling "something like a thousand lobbyists" (and all he managed to do was delay the loan guarantees for 4 months.) That decision may have cost Bush I his second term in office too.

Gary Sick on Clinton's Iran Policy and Martin Indyk

As you may have seen, Dr. Gary Sick of Columbia University has published an essay on Hillary's Clinton's "obliterate Iran" comment and her general Middle East policy:

In fact, the "Bush Doctrine" toward Iran and the Arab states was nothing but a continuation of the "Clinton-Indyk Doctrine" that preceded it, and it now appears that if Hillary should win the presidency, we will come full circle back to Clinton-Indyk redux.

I have known Martin Indyk since we were at Columbia together, and I respect him as a professional. But I thought dual containment was a terrible idea from the first time I heard it, and Martin knows it. By emphasizing threats and sanctions above even the most minimal engagement, I think this concept was the origin of many of our worst mistakes and missed opportunities over the past 15 years.

I have nothing to add to that except to note that Martin Indyk was associated with the Pro-Israeli lobby before he was appointed by Bill Clinton (perhaps as a result of this pre-election promise to AIPAC.) Among other things, Indyk founded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy with AIPAC money, which has since then essentially joined the other "think tanks" like AEI and JINSA as a front and mouthpiece of the NeoCon/AIPAC war cheerleaders.

Indyk took a six-month sabbatical at Columbia University in 1982. While in New York, an old friend invited him to Washington to help set up a research department for the powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Within a year Indyk became frustrated anew: His research was not taken seriously because AIPAC was seen as an Israeli propaganda organ. At the same time, he felt that the traditional think tanks in Washington were too pro-Arab.

With the backing of an AIPAC board member and $100,000 in contributions, largely from the Jewish community, he became executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in early 1985.

This was never going to be just another academic study group.

"We were very driven with this sense that we were not just around spinning ideas," an early participant said. It was clear "that we were really trying to influence policy. We focused narrowly on the Washington policy-making community, and we were going to try to influence them and to educate them. We felt that the [U.S.] policy at that time was based on false assumptions and that we should try to change that" to a more
pro-Israel view, the participant said. -- (Choice for Israel Took Unconventional Route; Quick Rise By Al Kamen Washington Post 2nd February, 1995)

So naturally, you can't expect pro-Israeli lobbyist to offer anything except the usual tried-and-failed policies towards Iran because these people don't have US interests in mind. They serve Israeli interests first. Fundamentally, they don't want to see the US and Iran starting to get along -- that would be a threat to their Israel. Instead, they want to create as many obstacles as they can to any improvement in US-Iran ties as they can -- which is why Israeli lobbyists have been pushing so hard to get the US to attack Iran.

MEK - PMOI no longer a terrorist group; Mullahs cheer UK decision

The Brits have ruled that since the MEK supposedly was disarmed and gave up using violence as of 2003 then it is no longer a terrorist group (as if they gave up violence by choice - nevermind that their base camp Ashraf in Iraq was surrounded and bombed by occupation forces in Iraq.)

Iranians, of course, don't give a damn what the Brits have to say about this matter and they all remember the MEK for siding with Saddam against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, so this decision by the British courts is really an irrelevant issue to them.

But, I am sure you can just hear the mullahs cheer in Tehran. After all, if your regime has to have an opposition (as all regimes inevitably do) what better than a discredited, worn-out, tainted, reviled and compromised bunch of Saddam-backed, Kurd-killing, middle-aged proto-fascistic lunatic Marxist-Islamist cultists who kidnap children to force their Iranian exile parents into committing acts of self-immolation as proof of their loyalty . . . And (deep breath) who were being backed by the Pro-Israeli NeoCons who openly and contemptuously endorse using the MEK as a tool for their own anti-Iran purposes? And...(gasp) who now will be viewed as having the imprimatur of the "Evil British" too.

You want to know why some people in the US Congress have supported this cult? Congressman Ackerman of New York says:

"I don't give a shit if they are undemocratic," he told the Voice. "OK, so the [MEK] is a terrorist organization based in Iraq, which is a terrorist state. They are fighting Iran, which is another terrorist state. I say let's help them fight each other as much as they want. Once they all are destroyed, I can celebrate twice over."

(With Friends Like These, Village Voice, December 5, 2001)

Yup. It really says a LOT that THESE people are supposedly our "only democratic alternative" to the Iranian regime. Is it any wonder that the Islamic Republic has been around for 30 years then?

lol.

(PS: The photo is of the MEK head Rajavi shaking hands with Saddam Hussein)

"Sources say" Michael Gordon is peddling propaganda - yes, again.

The NeoCons are turning out to be one-trick ponies in using the same old discredited reporters to peddle the same old discredited Bush administration propaganda to link Iraq to Iran.

As Editor & Publisher notes, Michael Gordon of the NY Times is at it -- yet again -- parroting Bush claims. (As Fair notes, the Washington Post is doing no better either.)

Here is a list of Gordon’s sources in his Times article:

-- “An American official”

-- “But the Americans say”

-- “American officials”

-- “American officials”

-- “The Americans “

--“American officials”

--“An American official”

-- ditto, and so on

Gee, does that sound familiar or what?

More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today.

In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. American officials said several efforts to arrange the shipment of the aluminum tubes were blocked or intercepted but declined to say, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence, where they came from or how they were stopped..

Substandard gear to US troops in Iraq

Two ex-employees of Sioux Manufacturing Corp. revealed in a 2006 whistle-blower lawsuit that the company had been shorting the quality of the Kevlar in more than 2 million combat helmets sold to the Pentagon during 1994-2006, and in February 2008, Sioux agreed to pay $2 million to settle the dispute. The company did not contest that the Kevlar threading was lighter than the contract required, but the Pentagon said it knew of no troop injuries linked to the substandard threading.

In August 2007, however, while the Pentagon was still investigating, it nonetheless contracted with Sioux to produce new Kevlar combat helmets and mine resistant vehicles.

Why Iran needs nuclear energy and uranium enrichment

As you know from my previous post, I've been watching the uranium business for a while now, and there are some surprising things going on.

Nuclear energy is now considered the world's only sure alternative to the diminishing reserves of fossil fuel. In the year 2000, the price of uranium was approximately US$7.00 per pound. As of Oct 30th 2006, U3O8 reached over $60 per pound. That's a price increase of over 700%. Spot prices for uranium then jumped to a record high of $136 in June 2007 before settling back to a $70-$110 price range since then (there is a seasonality to the uranium requirements at power plants—they tend to take deliveries and reload
their uranium in the fall.)

World electricity use is expected to double in the next few decades, and so nearly every industrialized country is building new nuclear power plants. There are currently 438 nuclear power plants operating around the world, which generated a total of 2,808 terawatts of power in 2006 (about 15%
of the world's electricity production.) These existing plants consumed about 165 million pounds of enriched
uranium, almost all purchased via long-term contracts.

In addition to the existing nuclear power plants, there are now another 32 plants under construction worldwhide, of which 23 are in China. The most uranium hungry country at the moment is China. With an increasing population, as well as an insatiable appetite for power, China has plans to build multiple, new nuclear power facilities throughout the next decade. Also, there are more than 180 plants in the planning stages. The initial core fueling for a new plants requires another approximately 2 million pounds of uranium.

In December 2007 and January 2008, President Nicolas Sarkozy has visited Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, to sell French nuclear technology. The state-owned French nuclear Areva has agreed to build two reactors for China, at a cost of $12 billion. India is next and Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, Vietnam, and Turkey may follow. Even Thailand has announced plans to build its first reactor and hopes to ultimately produce 25 percent of the country's electricity from nuclear power. In South Africa alone, five new nuclear power stations will probably be built in the next 20 years

In 2006 the uranium producers met only 62% of demand. (The rest was recycled from a diminishing supply of decommissioned warheads or taken from dwindling Cold War stockpiles.) This means that some nuclear-power utilities have yet to secure supplies for operadons for their near-term operadons and will need to negotiate new long-term supply agreements in the near future. The increasing worldwide nuclear demand means that nuclear fuel supplies may need to double, triple, or even sextuple by 2050 to meet demand -- and so more and more countries are opting to develop uranium extraction and enrichment capability. The World Nuclear Association says uranium mining could need to increase by almost 300% in the next two decades. Tthat could mean at least 25 new uranium mines have to be found by 2020.

I've already mentioned Uganda and Namibia's plans to enrich uranium in a previous post, and well as the agreement between Brazil and Argentina to jointly enrich uranium. South Africa has drafted plans to develop the full nuclear cycle. Australia is planning to develop uranium enrichment and Argentina, Brazil, and Canada are so too. Kazakhstan has joined Russia to build a new enrichment facility in Siberia. Algeria is planning a fresh uranium exploration program in an effort to increase its reserves and boost its use of nuclear energy. More than 400 uranium companies are now listed publicly, hedge funds buy warehouses of the stuff, and old U.S. uranium mines are coming back to life. Applications for new mines in Colorado and Utah have risen more than 200% since 2003, for example.

The increase in the value of uranium is so significant that the US Department of Energy -- which has been enriching uranium since the 1940s -- is planning to process their left-over uranium waste ("tailings") to generate $7.6 billion dollars (according to the Government Accounting Office estimate.)

Kazakhstan holds 17% of known global uranium reserves and is opening more new mines than any other country in the world, followed by Australia and then Canada at 9%. The US has only 4% of the world's known uranium reserves. Several other countries also have uranium. Africa was the world's top producer of uranium in 1980, with South Africa, Namibia and Niger together accounting for a third of the total global output. Niger is the biggest uranium supplier on the continent. Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, perhaps even Malawi also have siginificant proven reserves.

The largest uranium mining companies are Cameco (Canada), Rio Tinto
(England), Areva (France), KazAfomProm (Kazakhstan), TVEL (Russia) and BHP Billiton (Australia). Currently Iran obtains its uranium fuel for the Bushehr reactor from Russia's TVEL.

And in the middle of all this, the US and EU are demanding the Iran simply walk away and forsake her nuclear right, despite the fact that Iran needs nuclear power as much as anyone else.

Incidentally, Thorium is a promising substitute for Uranium. Thorium is a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive metal similar to uranium, but it's three times as abundant, easier to mine, and leaves less waste behind. India has a lot of the stuff but so far the only working Thorium reactor is a test plant in Russia. An American company based in McLean, Virginia owns a patent to using the stuff.

Iranian fights discrimination in Canada, wins a millon dollars

An Iranian victim of racial discrimination by the Canadian police has won a million dollars after filing a discrimination lawsuit against them.

Sure, these are Canadian dollars, but nowdays they're worth almost exactly as much as US dollars.

The lesson: if you're discriminated against - SUE THE BASTARDS! You owe it not just to yourself but also to your kids, friends, relatives, fellow human beings who will also have to face similar treatment unless it is stopped.

Train from Isfahan to Tehran

Paul Evans of the Guardian takes the train between Isfahan and Tehran. There's apparently a high-speed train now too, but he took the "normal" one. I'll have to try this out next time I'm there. In the meantime, if anyone has any photos, please let me post them!

Iran to have nukes by 2009! JIMMINY CRICKETS!

The Jerusalem Post has "learned" that Iran is "racing forward" and will be able to begin enriching uranium "on a military scale" ... whatever that means.

Ahem...add that to the long, long list of Israeli predictions and scaremongering about Iran's Flying Gas Chambers! Iranian nukes falling on Europe! A second Hitler! 1939 All Over Again! (insert standard Holocaust Porn reference here)

TIME's strawman "doubts" about Iran's role in Iraq

There's an article in TIME entitled Doubting the Evidence Against Iran which actually misrepresents and downplays the real reasons to doubt the US claims regarding Iran.

For example, it says that the reason to doubt US claims about Iran's role in building EFPs is because no one knows whether the Iraqis have the capability to do the "precision machining" that the US claims is necessary to make EFPs.

Well, that's not really the main reason to doubt this claim. There's a host of other reasons that TIME leaves out. For one thing, TIME never asks whether precision machining is really necessary to make an EFP as the US claims. They simply swallow that premise whole, and take it as a granted. Second, they overlook the repeated reports of EFP factories that have been discovered in Iraq already. In fact EFPs are used in the oil business, and in Iraq, anyone can make EFPs and the copper disks:

But in November, U.S. troops raiding a Baghdad machine shop came across a pile of copper disks, 5 inches in diameter, stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order.

Nor is this exactly the first time that a US media source has left out that inconvenient bit of information.

TIME bolsters the claim about Iraqi fighters being trained in Iran by mentioning that they interviewed some fighters who alleged to have been trained in Iran -- thus essentially vouching for the US claim. However, not long ago another reporter interviewed "Leone" who presented himself as an Iraqi nuclear-bomb maker, and who proceded to carefully draw diagrams of the non-existent Iraqi nuclear bomb. In short, just because someone says something is no reason to believe them, especially in the heated and highly partisan environment of Iraq, and especially when people "admit" to things under "interrogation". Indeed it would come as no surprise that some Iraqis were trained in Iran; most of the Iraqi exiles lived in Iran for decades, and Iran trained most of the Badr corp -- a fact that TIME conveniently leaves out.

In short, the "doubts" that the TIME article presents about the US claims are simply strawman arguments, intended to be weak or easily refuted, thereby actually bolstering the US case for suspicions about Iran.

I don't know what Iran is up to in Iraq, if anything. I do know bad reporting when I see it.

Clinton, meet Hiroshima

If you thought that photos of piles of emaciated dead bodies being shoved into mass graves only came out of Nazi death camps, you'd be wrong. Take a close look, Hillary, at the photos that some people wanted hidden from the American people.

Anyway, the flap about Hillary's "totally obliterate Iran" threat misses a point. Of course she was simply pandering to Jewish and redneck voters. And, she may have voiced it as a hypothetical reaction to an even more hypothetical Iranians nuclear attack on Israel. But the fact remains that Iran has already been threatened with a nuclear first-strike, and in fact the US nuclear defense doctrine has been changed since the end of the Cold War to envision the first use of nuclear weapons against even non-nuclear armed countries.

The US is also building a new generation of "user friendly" mini-nukes.

Whatever was the case during the Cold War, the use of nuclear weapons is no longer a hypothetical, it is no longer a MAD last-resort deterrent.

Justice Denied: How Rumsfeld has evaded war crimes charges

Some day, someone is going to do a legal post-mortem of the War on Iraq. Among the various issues they'll hopefully cover is the legality of the invasion, the state of prosecutions for war crimes and human rights abuses, the performance of the US military tribunals, the number of US troops charged (and dismissed or lighly reprimanded) for war crimes, and of course, ultimately, the responsibility of the likes of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell and Rice for their role in war crimes.

There was a time when the US was at least nominally at the forefront of bringing human rights abusers to justice. Not any more. Here's a nice little retrospective of just one event for those who may not know how Rumsfeld and the Bush administration have evaded responsibility for war crimes thus far. It can be summarized in two phrases: "official immunity" and "state secrets".

Back in 1993, Belgium used to have a law on the books that allowed Belgian courts to pursue torturers and human rights abusers, regardless of where their crimes may have occurred, or whether the victims or accused had any relationship to Belgium. In 1999 the law was amended to say that the principle of "official immunity" would not prevent the application of the law.

Belgium was not the first country in the world to proclaim universal jurisdiction over human rights abuses, but this was the broadest law in force at the time since it did not require any link between Belgium and the the suspect, victims, or events. Anyone who was tortured anywhere by anyone could initiate proceedings in Belgian courts.

The law was effectively used in 2001 to try four Rwandans for their participation in the genocide. All four were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of 12-20 years, to universal applause. The Belgian courts also started investigating criminal complaints against Cuban President Fidel Castro, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a former minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, and others.

But then, in June 2001, 23 survivors of the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees by Israeli-backed Lebanese Phalangists at the Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon filed a criminal complaint against Ariel Sharon, who was the Israeli defense minister at the time. Another Israeli official, Amos Yaron, who had been the Israeli general in charge of the Beirut sector in 1982 was also named.

Sharon and 33 other Israelis retaliated by initiated proceedings against YasirArafat under the same law. And that's when the Belgians started to lose their spine.

In December 2001, four members of the Belgian Parliament tried to introduce legislation to limit the law to cases where individuals had not been tried for the same offense elsewhere and to channel such cases to certain "special" panels of judges.

As for Sharon's case, a Belgian appeals court ruled in June 2002 that he and Yaron could not be tried because such cases were inadmissible when the defendant was not in Belgium. But in Feb 2003, a higher Belgian court overruled that decision, stating that the presence of the accused was not necessary under Belgian law for the case to proceed. However, the higher court claimed that found that sitting heads of state had "official immunity" under customary international law, and so dismissed the case against Sharon but allowed the investigation against Yaron to proceed.

However, the ruling by the Belgian courts left open the possibility that Sharon could be tried after he left office. Nevertheless, when the French also threw out a similar case against Rumsfeld, they claimed that the "customary immunity for heads of state" extended to after they left office as well.

In response, Israel vehemently protested the action and withdrew its ambassador to Belgium.

Things got even hotter when in March 2003, seven Iraqi families requested an investigation of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Vice President (and former Secretary of Defense) Dick Cheney, Secretary of State (and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff) Colin Powell, and retired general Norman Schwarzkopf for allegedly committing war crimes during the 1991 Gulf war.

The US starting pressuring the Belgians to drop the case. Secretary Powell warned the Belgian government that Belgium was risking its status as a diplomatic capital and the NATO host state. As a result, amendments were almost immediately applied to the law, to limit it scope. According to the amendments, more discretionary power was given to the Belgian federal prosecutor to decide whether to pursue a case.

After the amendments, Israel decided to sent its ambassador back to Belgium -- but the U.S. officials were still not happy.

On June 12, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that the United States would refuse to fund a new headquarters building for NATO in Belgium and consider barring its officials from traveling to meetings there unless Belgium rescinded its law. Rumsfeld stated, "Belgium appears not to respect the sovereignty of other countries."

Within two days, the Belgians agreed to further amend the law's scope to apply only to cases with a direct link to Belgium. In introducing the amendments to the Belgian parliament, the Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt claimed that the law had been subjected to "manifestly abusive political use."

Yes folks, when human rights laws are applied to the US or Israel, that's "manifestly abusive" and political.

Nor was this the first and only time that Rummy evaded interational criminal charges. There were a host of other suits against Rummy which had to be dismissed under similar legal technicalities.

For example, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed a lawsuit by Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen who had been kidnapped by the CIA in an "extraordinary rendition" in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan where he was visciously tortured. El Masri's case in US courts was dismissed when the Bush administration invoked the "state secrets" privilege. A lawsuit brought in Germany on his behalf continued. However according to Speigel Online (translated text here), German authorities decided to simply drop requests for the extradition of CIA agents involved in El Masri's kidnapping since the request had "unofficially" met with a negative response from US authorities. El Masri's German lawyer summarized it best: "The German government has decided that relations with the U.S. are more important than the fate of one of their citizens . . . The German government is thus accomplice to the dark machinations of the USA."

The same thing happened in a similar lawsuit by Canadian citizen Maher Arar who was picked up on US soil, "renditioned" to Syria where he was tortured before finally being released. The same happened in the case of Ali v Rumsfeld and many others.

So, in effect, if you're being "officially" tortured, you have no claim and no legal right to redress -- not in the US (since the "state secrets" privilege can be arbitrarily invoked to kick our case out the courthouse doors) and not in any other country (since "official immunity" protects the tortureers.)

So much for international humanitarian law.

Iran arming Iraqi insurgents, eh?

So Iran is arming the insurgents in Iraq, eh? Well, this is what the Iraqis have to say:

"We are fed up with past tensions that we have paid a costly price for because some parties have pushed Iraq (in the past) to take an aggressive attitude to Iran."

Hm. Who do you suppose these "some parties" are?