Tuesday, June 10th, 2003
FINALLY….A BLOGROLL FOR ZENPUNDIT
Gee…it only took me since last February. Someday I’ll even get a comment board running.
Archive for 2003
Monday, June 9th, 2003
LIBERALS AND THE MISSING WMD’S
I’ve been highly skeptical since the ” Bush lied ” WMD frenzy has been whipped up that this whole controversy would amount to much in the long run – much like the last Liberal Iraq frenzy where they called for the Head of Rumsfeld because of the ” looting ” of the national museum the Bush administration ” callously allowed “. Turns out most of the looting was a hoax to cover the secret removal of ancient treasures by Baathist loyalists to secret vaults and coalition forces have recovered most of them. In the case of WMD I’ve been on other sites asking simply why, if WMD’s were a fiction that Putin, Chirac and Schroeder didn’t denounce it and demand Iraq be certified as being free of WMD ? I’ve gotten no takers as of yet and frankly I don’t expect any because the SVK and French intelligence were saying the same things to their officials that the CIA/DIA/NSA/NRO reports said to Bush – that Iraq had illegal WMD programs to some extent.
( Apparently, even in the midst of this new Liberal meme campaign, Hans Blix refuses to state that Iraq did not have WMD in his new report.)
So why the hard spin on the interpretation the Bush administration took from the evidence ? It has a great deal to do with internal polling – the Democratic position on national security with the public is ( rightly so) essentially hopeless, not just with the average voter but even with moderate Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Here is a recent media poll giving the same results as what Democratic insiders already know.This appears to be a make-or-break issue in the voting booth for swing voters in a narrowly divided electorate and right now Bush has a lock on the issue of national security. The Left does not need to prove this case that Bush allegedly ” lied ” about Iraqi WMD but they do need to chip away at Bush’s lead in this area and create enough of a reasonable doubt in the minds of independents that this issue doesn’t loom so large over 2004 swing voters as it does presently. ( This argument will not affect partisans – finding nuclear bomb components in Kirkuk tomorrow won’t switch a single hard-core Democrat to the Bush column. No WMD’s turning up won’t cause conservative types to vote for Al Sharpton) The Democratic Party is about as trusted in their ability to prosecute the War on Terror with vigor as the GOP is trusted to safeguard a woman’s right to an abortion.
And in both cases, the voters have good reason for their qualms
Monday, June 9th, 2003
THE SILICON SPEAR – SUN-TZU,CYBERWAR AND THE REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
If you have the stomach to do a little more reading than the typical blog link the ” Silicon Spear “ is a conceptually-rich, fast-moving paper on the future of strategic military power and the implications for American foreign policy. The use of jargon is limited and the writing is accessible to most well-informed readers even if they are not military specialists.
Monday, June 9th, 2003
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The multitude is wiser and more constant than a Prince “
– Machiavelli
Monday, June 9th, 2003
IRAN AND THEIR QUEST FOR NUKES
From the Associated Press: If after you read the article below and you still feel sanguine, like this might be mere exaggeration, scroll back up and click the link to an article to the Iran Press Service and see what Teheran’s second highest ranking theocratic nut has to say on the topic
Iran Admits Not Reporting Uranium to U.N.
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran admitted Sunday it failed to inform U.N. authorities that it imported a small quantity of uranium 12 years ago but said that failure did not violate the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, Iran’s nuclear energy chief, also urged the International Atomic Energy Agency to widely publish the report it released to member nations last week on Iran’s nuclear program.
The Bush administration accuses Iran of wanting to build a nuclear bomb and wants the U.N. agency to declare Iran in breach of the treaty. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Aghazadeh said the IAEA report did not back up U.S. claims that Iran was violating international atomic protocols.
“There is no mention of the word ‘violation,'” he told state-run television. “The report only mentions ‘failure,’ which is still a legal debate between us. And these are normal differences.”
On Friday, a diplomat from an IAEA member state said the report indicated Iran had imported some nuclear material and processed it without declaring it to the Vienna, Austria-based agency.
Aghazadeh said the report notes that in 1991 Iran imported a small quantity of uranium hexofluoride, the chemical form of uranium used for the enrichment process.
IAEA regulations at the time did not require Tehran to inform the agency of the acquisition, he said.
Aghazadeh did not say why Iran imported the uranium but acknowledged that the report says Iran “should have informed” it of the acquisition.
Iran has since identified the materials to the IAEA, which now has them under “safeguard,” he said.
The report will be discussed publicly when the agency’s board meets June 16.
Three IAEA inspectors arrived in Iran on Saturday to assess the country’s nuclear activities. The visit is widely seen as a chance for Iran to counter U.S. accusations of a nuclear weapons program and show it is eager to cooperate with the agency.
In February, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, visited the incomplete Natanz nuclear plant about 200 miles south of Tehran. Diplomats accompanying him said he was taken aback by the advanced stage of a project there using hundreds of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
Also Sunday, Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Washington’s outcry over Iran’s nuclear capabilities is an attempt to block Iran’s economic progress.
“By making accusation against Iran, the United States wants to play down the social progress the Iranian nation has achieved in the past 24 years,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted him as saying.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told CNN’s “Late Edition” Sunday that Washington was not seeking regime change in Iran but said many young Iranians were dissatisfied with Tehran’s political leadership.
“What we have to do is keep showing to the Iranian people that there is a better world out there waiting for you, and you can become a more responsible member of the international community if you stop supporting terrorist activity and if you stop trying to develop weapons of mass destruction,” Powell said.
Washington accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorist groups and recently claimed Tehran was harboring members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. Iran rejects the claims, but admits to holding unidentified al-Qaida members in custody and says it will deport them to their home countries once their identities are confirmed ”
