By John R. Bolton
Thursday, December 6, 2007; Page A29
Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the "intelligence community" on issues such as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Bush: Iran must explain nuclear program
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday called on Iran to explain why it had a secretive nuclear weapons program, and warned that any such efforts must not be allowed to flourish "for the sake of world peace."
10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday called on Iran to explain why it had a secretive nuclear weapons program, and warned that any such efforts must not be allowed to flourish "for the sake of world peace."
Monday, December 10, 2007
World powers set to discuss Iran sanctions Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World powers will hold talks on Tuesday over finalizing the text of a third U.N. sanctions resolution against Iran which could be voted on in the coming weeks, said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday.
Friday, December 7, 2007
WKGB-TV: Putting the big dots together
All we heard, after 9/11, was that the intelligence community had failed, and failed miserably - failed to " put the dots together." And we accepted it, in the haze of a traumatic aftermath, just as the South Vietnamese were once upon a time in the early 1970s, told that they would have to accept being ruled by the communist North Vietnamese.
We accepted it as a function of traumatic stress and the state of partial cognitive incapacitation it induced, which is why many Americans sympathize with the alleged " enemies " who've been tortured. Americans have also been tortured, by the trauma of 9/11, and then the fact that we'd be forced to accept our own willingness to believe things that have since been dispelled and disproven, things like WOMDS, things like " Saddam attacked us on 9/11;" things that are, in fact, not little things, but big things, things intent on deceiving the American public into supporting an illegal invasion and now longstanding occupation in Iraq that has strained alliances across every continent.
Things that could get us attacked again by Osama bin Laden, who will never have the explicit support of the International Community, but will have gain the willingness of many to look the other way because of how America is currently perceived as a function of the actions and decisions of the Bush administration.
Why are the lies important and serious ? Because a democratically-controlled Congress would normally have the ability to end a war that could result in terrorist attacks on the American people, a war that would threaten the public safety of every American in the face of a government incapable of stopping attacks that prior to 9/11, countless governments warned the adminstration were imminent. It didn't matter. 9/11 was not stopped even though the CIA knew was told by French Intelligence, and the Director of the CIA, George Tenet, told the National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice. John Ashcroft wanted to know why the FBI didn't know. Maybe he could have asked Agent Hanssen. Or, better yet, maybe Hanssen should never have been prosecuted.
So the problem here is not entirely in the intelligence ranks, but also in the diplomatic ranks.
Somehow it's our fault. Either we've done wrong in the Middle East at some point and probably aren't aware of it because we're in the process of being systematically deceived by our own government and Pentagon-controlled media which, together form what President Dwight Eisenhower, Noam Chomsky, C. Wright Mills and others called the " military-industrial complex," which might also be referred to as the " media-industrial " complex; or we've been deceived and can't respond as a result of the trauma of 9/11 combined with the denial that resulted from 9/11 and an increased willingness to fall victim to deception, which compounds that same denial, because we're forced to accept our own fallibility, or that we can be deceived, and those doing it will never be held accountable.
Truth be told, the Vietnam war will always be a part our both our politics and our national identity, as it is very much a part of the current war in Iraq, both in rhetorical form, and in real strategic and domestic political-ideological terms. Why was south bombed by the north when American troops finally vacated in 1975 ? Did it have anything to do with Russian and Chinese military support ?
That's only a part-rhetorical question ? Again, it has real connotations. 9/11 was entirely surreal, or symbolic, even as watching it on television may have led us to believe otherwise. The surreal, although vile and evil in the most hideous of ways, is also captivating to the human imagination. Our response is invariably a rhetorical, diplomacy-seeking one; hence, we were against the war, and we were right. Saddam was exonerated. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. But neither did he possess weapons on mass destruction, even as Washington still occupies Iraq while the vast majority of Americans are against it.
Bush appears to be incapable of understanding the American people in as much what has evolved since Vietnam is a very keen distaste for war. Republicans still whine that public opposition to the Vietnam war is the reason why we lost.
We lost a proxy war we were fighting, and still are, with Russia and China, in Vietnam, only now it's in Iraq. Did we fight a second proxy war in Afghanistan in late 1970s, that included support for Osama bin Laden and the mujahideen, against Russia ? Yes. And Russia has suffered dramatically because of it and Vladimir Putin is capitalizing, as any nationalistic dictator might be inclined to do. It's not entirely politically irrational at 'this particular juncture ? to either demonize the west or join in the spirit of demonization that permeates much of the extremist Islamic Middle East, and parts of Europe, South America, Africa and Asia.
Our response to 9/11 was invariably rhetorical, and bureacratic, because we're invariably human and we want to know why they'd want to kill us, whomever they are. and what we did wrong in some foreign land, again probably unbeknownst to most Americans, as were many of the sins of Vietnam, some of which, like waterboarding, have appeared to recur, or repeat themselves in Iraq.
Does that make Iraq, Vietnam ? Strategically, no, but relative to public perception and support competing with opposition to the war, and war competing for the human soul, or where " soul meets body, " yes. Was it, as in Vietnam, agent orange, which is - for those of us Generation X'ers who have, even though we still listen to R.E.M., religiously, lost our religion - also known as " Orange Crush " ?
Probably not. But for Saddam it may have been. He did not hesitate to use gas during Desert Storm which many inside of the Beltway believe is the real reason Bush went to war. Hundreds of thousands of veteran's suffer from Gulf War Syndrome today.
So now that Russia appears to have tested and featured on Russian television, which one might might be inclined to refer to as KGB-TV, or, better yet, WKGB-TV, and which I'm sure every cable operator in the West would die to be able to offer as part of a package that might also include Al-Jazeera and the Red Hugo Channel, featured " the bomb " which actually is, according to some, the most powerful non-nuclear weapon known to the intelligence and miltary community; featured the bomb on, of all days, 9/11, hopefully, in the spirit of a vast departure from the failure to put the together prior to 9/11, Washington will be able to, in the very least, begin a process of putting the big dots together.
We accepted it as a function of traumatic stress and the state of partial cognitive incapacitation it induced, which is why many Americans sympathize with the alleged " enemies " who've been tortured. Americans have also been tortured, by the trauma of 9/11, and then the fact that we'd be forced to accept our own willingness to believe things that have since been dispelled and disproven, things like WOMDS, things like " Saddam attacked us on 9/11;" things that are, in fact, not little things, but big things, things intent on deceiving the American public into supporting an illegal invasion and now longstanding occupation in Iraq that has strained alliances across every continent.
Things that could get us attacked again by Osama bin Laden, who will never have the explicit support of the International Community, but will have gain the willingness of many to look the other way because of how America is currently perceived as a function of the actions and decisions of the Bush administration.
Why are the lies important and serious ? Because a democratically-controlled Congress would normally have the ability to end a war that could result in terrorist attacks on the American people, a war that would threaten the public safety of every American in the face of a government incapable of stopping attacks that prior to 9/11, countless governments warned the adminstration were imminent. It didn't matter. 9/11 was not stopped even though the CIA knew was told by French Intelligence, and the Director of the CIA, George Tenet, told the National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice. John Ashcroft wanted to know why the FBI didn't know. Maybe he could have asked Agent Hanssen. Or, better yet, maybe Hanssen should never have been prosecuted.
So the problem here is not entirely in the intelligence ranks, but also in the diplomatic ranks.
Somehow it's our fault. Either we've done wrong in the Middle East at some point and probably aren't aware of it because we're in the process of being systematically deceived by our own government and Pentagon-controlled media which, together form what President Dwight Eisenhower, Noam Chomsky, C. Wright Mills and others called the " military-industrial complex," which might also be referred to as the " media-industrial " complex; or we've been deceived and can't respond as a result of the trauma of 9/11 combined with the denial that resulted from 9/11 and an increased willingness to fall victim to deception, which compounds that same denial, because we're forced to accept our own fallibility, or that we can be deceived, and those doing it will never be held accountable.
Truth be told, the Vietnam war will always be a part our both our politics and our national identity, as it is very much a part of the current war in Iraq, both in rhetorical form, and in real strategic and domestic political-ideological terms. Why was south bombed by the north when American troops finally vacated in 1975 ? Did it have anything to do with Russian and Chinese military support ?
That's only a part-rhetorical question ? Again, it has real connotations. 9/11 was entirely surreal, or symbolic, even as watching it on television may have led us to believe otherwise. The surreal, although vile and evil in the most hideous of ways, is also captivating to the human imagination. Our response is invariably a rhetorical, diplomacy-seeking one; hence, we were against the war, and we were right. Saddam was exonerated. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. But neither did he possess weapons on mass destruction, even as Washington still occupies Iraq while the vast majority of Americans are against it.
Bush appears to be incapable of understanding the American people in as much what has evolved since Vietnam is a very keen distaste for war. Republicans still whine that public opposition to the Vietnam war is the reason why we lost.
We lost a proxy war we were fighting, and still are, with Russia and China, in Vietnam, only now it's in Iraq. Did we fight a second proxy war in Afghanistan in late 1970s, that included support for Osama bin Laden and the mujahideen, against Russia ? Yes. And Russia has suffered dramatically because of it and Vladimir Putin is capitalizing, as any nationalistic dictator might be inclined to do. It's not entirely politically irrational at 'this particular juncture ? to either demonize the west or join in the spirit of demonization that permeates much of the extremist Islamic Middle East, and parts of Europe, South America, Africa and Asia.
Our response to 9/11 was invariably rhetorical, and bureacratic, because we're invariably human and we want to know why they'd want to kill us, whomever they are. and what we did wrong in some foreign land, again probably unbeknownst to most Americans, as were many of the sins of Vietnam, some of which, like waterboarding, have appeared to recur, or repeat themselves in Iraq.
Does that make Iraq, Vietnam ? Strategically, no, but relative to public perception and support competing with opposition to the war, and war competing for the human soul, or where " soul meets body, " yes. Was it, as in Vietnam, agent orange, which is - for those of us Generation X'ers who have, even though we still listen to R.E.M., religiously, lost our religion - also known as " Orange Crush " ?
Probably not. But for Saddam it may have been. He did not hesitate to use gas during Desert Storm which many inside of the Beltway believe is the real reason Bush went to war. Hundreds of thousands of veteran's suffer from Gulf War Syndrome today.
So now that Russia appears to have tested and featured on Russian television, which one might might be inclined to refer to as KGB-TV, or, better yet, WKGB-TV, and which I'm sure every cable operator in the West would die to be able to offer as part of a package that might also include Al-Jazeera and the Red Hugo Channel, featured " the bomb " which actually is, according to some, the most powerful non-nuclear weapon known to the intelligence and miltary community; featured the bomb on, of all days, 9/11, hopefully, in the spirit of a vast departure from the failure to put the together prior to 9/11, Washington will be able to, in the very least, begin a process of putting the big dots together.
Russia sends warning to the West
By Jonathan Marcus
BBC diplomatic correspondent
President Putin wants Russia to be treated as an equal by the US.President Vladimir Putin's decision to suspend Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe, or CFE, treaty is a potent political signal.
BBC diplomatic correspondent
President Putin wants Russia to be treated as an equal by the US.President Vladimir Putin's decision to suspend Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe, or CFE, treaty is a potent political signal.
Russia tests giant fuel-air bomb ( on 9/11 )
Wednesday, 12 September 2007, 12:29 GMT 13:29 UK
Russia tests giant fuel-air bomb
Russia's main TV channels carried reports on the test
The Russian air force has tested a giant fuel-air bomb which the military says is the biggest non-nuclear explosive device in the world.
Russian TV showed a Tupolev bomber dropping the bomb over a test range, a powerful explosion and a four-storey building reduced to rubble.
Russia tests giant fuel-air bomb
Russia's main TV channels carried reports on the test
The Russian air force has tested a giant fuel-air bomb which the military says is the biggest non-nuclear explosive device in the world.
Russian TV showed a Tupolev bomber dropping the bomb over a test range, a powerful explosion and a four-storey building reduced to rubble.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ( who ) has become the public face of opposition to new U.N. sanctions
Rice seeks Russian backing on Iran By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
49 minutes ago
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Armed with support from NATO allies, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will try to convince a skeptical Russia that it should back U.S. plans to step up pressure on Iran to suspend its nuclear activities
49 minutes ago
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Armed with support from NATO allies, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will try to convince a skeptical Russia that it should back U.S. plans to step up pressure on Iran to suspend its nuclear activities
The American people should march to the White House and immediately tar and feather Bush & Cheney and toss them into the Potomac.
The Bush/Cheney administration claims that the NIE proves they were right is the most amazingly ridiculous spin I have ever seen. The American people should march to the White House and immediately tar and feather Bush & Cheney and toss them into the Potomac. Their claim is like a cop arresting someone based on bad information, then that person is found to not have done anything wrong, and the cop claims that law enforcement policies are working because they deterred the guy from committing a crime. What a crock.
Bush lied then, so why should we trust him now?
Prior to the Powell presentation to the UN and proior to the State of the Union on Iraq's WMD, it was known that the Engineers at the TVA Nuclear Lab had reported that the Iraqi aluminum tubes were not adequate for nuclear reactor use, the CIA had researched and determined that there was no meeting between Al Qaida and Iraqi representatives in Czechoslovakia/
A Blow to Bush's Tehran Policy
By Peter Baker and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; Page A01
President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; Page A01
President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.
U.S. Renews Efforts to Keep Coalition Against Tehran
Bush Says New NIE Shows Iran Is Still a Threat
By Peter Baker and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 5, 2007; Page A23
President Bush scrambled yesterday to hold together a fragile international coalition against Iran, declaring that the Islamic republic remains "dangerous" and that "nothing has changed" despite a new intelligence report that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
By Peter Baker and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 5, 2007; Page A23
President Bush scrambled yesterday to hold together a fragile international coalition against Iran, declaring that the Islamic republic remains "dangerous" and that "nothing has changed" despite a new intelligence report that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
Comparing Two Intelligence Estimates on Iran
" Assess with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons...
U.S. nuclear report opportunity for Iran: IAEA chief
By Isabel Versiani
BRASILIA (Reuters) - A U.S intelligence report saying Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 offered Tehran a "window of opportunity" to resolve the crisis, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, said on Wednesday
BRASILIA (Reuters) - A U.S intelligence report saying Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 offered Tehran a "window of opportunity" to resolve the crisis, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, said on Wednesday
U.S. Finds That Iran Halted Nuclear Arms Bid in 2003
By Dafna Linzer and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; Page A01
A major U.S. intelligence review has concluded that Iran stopped work on a suspected nuclear weapons program more than four years ago, a stark reversal of previous intelligence assessments that Iran was actively moving toward a bomb.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; Page A01
A major U.S. intelligence review has concluded that Iran stopped work on a suspected nuclear weapons program more than four years ago, a stark reversal of previous intelligence assessments that Iran was actively moving toward a bomb.
Lessons of Iraq Aided Intelligence On Iran
By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 5, 2007; Page A01
The starkly different view of Iran's nuclear program that emerged from U.S. spy agencies this week was the product of a surge in clandestine intelligence-gathering in Iran as well as radical changes in the way the intelligence community analyzes information.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 5, 2007; Page A01
The starkly different view of Iran's nuclear program that emerged from U.S. spy agencies this week was the product of a surge in clandestine intelligence-gathering in Iran as well as radical changes in the way the intelligence community analyzes information.
Iran declares victory after U.S. nuclear report
By Reza Derakhshi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president declared victory over the United States on Wednesday and the head of a U.N. watchdog said Iran had been "somewhat vindicated" by a U.S. report that it halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president declared victory over the United States on Wednesday and the head of a U.N. watchdog said Iran had been "somewhat vindicated" by a U.S. report that it halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
Monday, December 3, 2007
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.
Report contradicts Bush on Iran nuclear program
By Matt Spetalnick
44 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new U.S. intelligence report says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and it remains on hold, contradicting the Bush administration's earlier assertion that Tehran was intent on developing a bomb.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released on Monday could undermine U.S. efforts to convince other world powers to agree on a third package of U.N. sanctions against Iran for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment activities.
Tensions have escalated in recent months as Washington has ratcheted up the rhetoric against Tehran, with U.S. President George W. Bush insisting in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War Three.
44 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new U.S. intelligence report says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and it remains on hold, contradicting the Bush administration's earlier assertion that Tehran was intent on developing a bomb.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released on Monday could undermine U.S. efforts to convince other world powers to agree on a third package of U.N. sanctions against Iran for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment activities.
Tensions have escalated in recent months as Washington has ratcheted up the rhetoric against Tehran, with U.S. President George W. Bush insisting in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War Three.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
