Tag: Nuclear Weapons

And the lies just keep on coming.  When Iran announced the existence of its second nuclear site, something the U.S. has apparently known about for years, Barack Obama once again followed Bush-Cheney policy by lying about Iran’s nuclear activities.

Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.

Obama should try reading intelligence reports, like 2007’s National Intelligence Estimate (the combined consensus report by all sixteen known U.S. intelligence agencies), which stated quite clearly that there is no concrete evidence of a weapons program in Iran.  In July and August of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the lack of evidence although it refuses to state anything definitively.  Yet still Obama, the D.C. political establishment, and the corporate media continue to lie to the contrary.

We’ve already been lied into one failed war, lied into ramping up another failed war, are so hurting for fresh soldiers that the Pentagon is now actively accepting white supremacists, yet still the establishment seeks to lie us into another conflict.

For THIS we elected a Democrat to the presidency?

North Korea has once again pushed its self into the worlds headlines with the testing of a second nuclear device on Monday morning followed my the test launching of 5 short range missiles.  As is common the guessing game is in full throttle as to what North Korea really wants if anything.

First the nuclear test:  North Korea might be trying to achieve what India and Pakistan did when they first tested nuclear devices in 1998. Recognition by the worlds governments as independent nuclear powers. First India at that time and continuing to this today is a rising world economic power. Pakistan has since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has been at the forefront in the worlds fight against terrorism. So what can North Korea offer the world? No natural resources, a collapsed economy and little else.

Sanctions: There are sanctions in place voted on by the United Nations plus additional ones from Japan and South Korea that deal with remittances, travel, trade, humanitarian aid and fuel oil deliveries. China the North’s closer ally has worked around or ignored these sanctions out of fear. Fear that if economic aid was cut off North Korea would collapse leading to a mass influx of refugees across the boarder into China which the Chinese government believes would lead to instability which it would be unable to control. South Korea would also suffer from a sudden collapse.

North South relations: Over the previous ten years the governments of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun worked to engage the North under the Sunshine Policy. With the election of Lee Moon-bak a conservative politician who once worked as an executive for Hyundai all that changed. Believing that North Korea would never adhere to any agreements unless there were consequences for violations. Thus Lee’s government reduced humanitarian aid along with fuel oil shipments causing strained relations which led to the expulsion of South Korean workers from the Kaesong industrial zone after the government accused a worker of spying.

Finally there is the question of succession:  Its believed that last August Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke adding to already existing medical problems. So the question of succession became a hot topic. Who would succeed Kim Jong-il is eldest son who once tried to enter Japan on a fake Jamaican passport for the sole purpose of going to Tokyo Disneyland. Perhaps his 26 year old son Kim Jong-un who was recently given a minor post on North Korea’s Defense Council.

So what is the reason behind North Korea’s testing of a nuclear device your guess is as good as anyone else’s as reading the tea leaves of reclusive North Korea are almost impossible. Many expect North Korea is looking for recognition from the United States giving them, in their minds equal status among the worlds nations.

At the end of June, North Korea destroyed a 60-foot cooling tower at its main nuclear power plant. The tower’s destruction was seen as a positive sign of international diplomatic progress of North Korea halting its nuclear weapon program.

The news was hailed as “A Diplomatic Success That Defies the Critics” by The New York Times in June.

North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear activities is a triumph of the sort of diplomacy – complicated, plodding, often frustrating – that President Bush and his aides once eschewed as American weakness.

A little more than two months later that “diplomatic success” of Bush is on the verge of collapsing in a “heap of shattered concrete and twisted steel” like the cooling tower in June. At the time of the tower’s demolition, the NY Times dubiously noted “the tower is a technically insignificant structure, relatively easy to rebuild.”

Now The Guardian and others reports North Korea is rebuilding its reactor. “North Korea has begun rebuilding a nuclear reactor it recently knocked down as part of a disarmament agreement, in an apparent reprisal for delays in the delivery of Washington’s end of the deal.”

There is another voice calling out the US establishment media on their less than truthful portrayal of a threat from Iran. While at it, Kaveh L Afrasiabi, writing for Asia Times Online cites UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon for having repeatedly condemned Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric against Israel, while remaining “ominously, and inexcusably, silent” about on Israeli threats of military attacks on Iran.

Unfortunately, compounding the UN’s shortcoming above-cited is a related failure of mainstream media in the US and Europe to criticize Ban’s flawed approach to the Iran crisis, or to address the systematic disinformation and planned paranoia about Iran’s nuclear program put forth by Israel and its allies.

Of particularly important significance in this affair is the fact that the head of the IAEA, (International Atomic Energy Agency) Mohammed ElBaradei, has stated that if a military attack is launched against Iran that he would resign immediately and that such an attack would inflict serious civilian casualties and “trigger the volatile region into a fireball.”

The present administration, as we all know, have done a totally distructive job in the policies it has set forth, with the help of those in congress that fall under the same political umbrella, or at least say they are, Republican and Conservative, as they tried to set about to enforce an Imperialist Presidency!

One has been the total destruction of the Nuclear Disarmament Table of discussion and diplomacy on ridding the Planet of Nuclear Weapons. Instead they threaten other countries with their fear propaganda and than act surprised that these countries start to seek their own defense under the Nuclear Umbrella, and attempt to put fear into the American Public, and others, on the growing Nuclear threats which they themselves have been forcing on others! As the United States developes other uses of Nuclear Weaponry and uses it!

Since about five minutes after Israel sent its warplanes to attack a site near Al Kibar, Syria, became known eight months ago, the speculation has been that Israel took out a nuclear reactor. Although the immediate public response from Washington officials was that the target wasn’t a nuke, we now know that those officials thought they knew better and had for months. The question now is whether this attack last September was a prelude to an attack on a nuclear reactor in Arak, Iran.

Six weeks after the attack, the Institute for Science and International Security provided some details and photos, a “confirmation” that the Syrians had been building a reactor near Al Kibar. Moreover, ISIS seemed to agree with U.S. officials who, in early October had said that satellite photos indicated the Syrian site bore the “signature” of a small reactor. ISIS made clear that this structurally resembled a site in Yongbon, North Korea, where plutonium has been extracted for that country’s nuclear weapons.  In December, Clayton Keir explored Syria’s nuclear capabilities for GlobalSecurity.org.

Hence, senior officials of the Cheney-Bush Administration, assisted with visual aids, didn’t provide any real surprises during Thursday’s  all-day briefing of Congress. No doubt it was nuke, they said. North Korea built or helped build it. And, yes, the White House had held extensive discussions with Israel prior to the September 6 attack. About whether the Syrians were actually pursuing the building of a plutonium Bomb the senior officials were less willing to be certain. That’s because there were some crucial missing pieces, including a chemical reprocessing facility capable of separating plutonium.

The timing of the release of intelligence regarding the link between North Korea and Syria over an alleged nuclear reactor facility that the Israeli’s bombed inside Syria is being questioned by the international community.  

Of course, rightly so because of where the intelligence information is coming from.  The Bush Administration.  Not the most trustworthy group of people on the world stage today, I think we can all agree.

From BBC:

The US has made explicit allegations that the target hit by Israeli warplanes in Syria last September was a nuclear reactor under construction.

But the White House statement – after a series of intelligence briefings on Capitol Hill – raises many questions.

As does the decision to go public just as international talks to try to roll back North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme have hit a critical stage.

Original article via Agence France-Presse.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – CIA chief Michael Hayden expressed his personal belief Sunday that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but also stood by the agency’s assessment that the program was suspended in 2003.

So much has happened over the last 48 hours that I cannot report it all. Also I am no expert on Pakisatan. But from what I have read,  it soumds like, once again, the US is continuing on a collision course with ‘reality’ only this time the tinder box has exponentially broader potential consequences. There’s more…

TERRORISM TAKES A HOLIDAY: So, today is http://www.infopleas… >the day the Brits celebrate an anti-Christian, civilian-bombing, government-hating insurgent by going door-to-door and asking for money (“Penny for the Guy?”). Why do the British hate America? . . . . Michael Mukasey would approve: After he was captured, before he could detonate his bomb that was intended to destroy the Protestant Parliament, Fawkes was tortured, at the explicit direction of King James, who instructed that the torture should be gentle at first, and increase in severity. (And yes, I’m sure King James had a note from his solicitor general saying that the whole thing was perfectly OK, provided there was no organ failure.) “The torture only revealed the names of those conspirators who were already dead or whose names were known to the authorities,” according to Wikipedia. Why does Wikipedia hate America?