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The Iran Question – What Next?

Saturday November 16, 2013

Rouhanip5 1

It is only natural if there is a sense of deja vu over the inconclusive end to the P5+1 and Iran talks in Geneva over the weekend – and of course its photo finish dripping with high drama. The United States-Iran standoff has edged tantalizingly close to resolution many a time in the past in its three decades of history but only to remain on track. 

This time around, however, there could be a qualitative difference, although the templates of an adversarial relationship hardened through decades cannot be made to shift easily, even with the best of intentions. 

The first thing, of course, is to comprehend what really happened in Geneva to dash the high hopes that were aroused. Different interpretations are available, but most accounts agree that France was at its epicenter. The French motives in apparently throwing the wrench at the wheel need to be understood. The French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius publically implied that Israel’s concerns were not adequately reflected in the interim agreement that the US, EU and the Iranian diplomats worked out. But beyond that, an impression has also gained ground that France was actually bidding to please Saudi Arabia and the other petrodollar-rich Gulf Arab regimes while ingratiating itself with Israel…
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Quitting Over Syria

Friday November 15, 2013

No War Syria

The release of the White House “Government Assessment” on August 30, providing the purported evidence to support a bombing attack on Syria, defused a conflict with the intelligence community that had threatened to become public through the mass resignation of a significant number of analysts. The intelligence community’s consensus view on the status of the Syrian chemical-weapons program was derived from a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) completed late last year and hurriedly updated this past summer to reflect the suspected use of chemical weapons against rebels and civilians.

The report maintained that there were some indications that the regime was using chemicals, while conceding that there was no conclusive proof. There was considerable dissent from even that equivocation, including by many analysts who felt that the evidence for a Syrian government role was subject to interpretation and possibly even fabricated. Some believed the complete absence of U.S. satellite intelligence on the extensive preparations that the government would have needed to make in order to mix its binary chemical system and deliver it on target was particularly disturbing. These concerns were reinforced by subsequent UN reports suggesting that the rebels might have access to their own chemical weapons. The White House, meanwhile, considered the somewhat ambiguous conclusion of the NIE to be unsatisfactory, resulting in considerable pushback against the senior analysts who had authored the report.
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Handing Off Ron Paul's Chevette 'Green Pea'

Thursday November 14, 2013

We gathered last weekend at Dr. Paul's house in Texas to hand over the keys to the famous 1979 Chevette "green pea" to generous Ron Paul Institute donors Jonathan and Nita Cole. Readers will recall that this is the car that made then-Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill see red when Paul's then-chief of staff Lew Rockwell had the House photographer take a picture of it parked next to the Speaker's gas guzzler as he was calling for rationing for everyone else.

In addition to the Chevette, Mr. Cole was given some related memorabilia, including a signed photograph of the Chevette next to O'Neill's limo, the press release issued when the photograph was taken -- signed by then chief of staff Lew Rockwell -- and magnetic Ron Paul campaign signs to go on the side of the car.
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What Is The Real Agenda Of The American Police State?

Thursday November 14, 2013

SWAT

In my last column I emphasized that it was important for American citizens to demand to know what the real agendas are behind the wars of choice by the Bush and Obama regimes. These are major long term wars each lasting two to three times as long as World War II. Forbes reports that one million US soldiers have been injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. RT reports that the cost of keeping each US soldier in Afghanistan has risen from $1.3 million per soldier to $2.1 million per soldier.  Matthew J. Nasuti reports in the Kabul Press that it cost US taxpayers $50 million to kill one Taliban soldier. That means it cost $1 billion to kill 20 Taliban fighters. This is a war that can be won only at the cost of the total bankruptcy of the United States.

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have estimated that the current out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars is at least $6 trillion.

In other words, it is the cost of these two wars that explain the explosion of the US public debt and the economic and political problems associated with this large debt.
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Obama’s Refusal to Respect Iran’s Sovereignty and Treaty Rights is Leaving America on the Self-Defeating Path to War

Thursday November 14, 2013

Kerry P5 1

Notwithstanding France’s simultaneously arrogant and craven grandstanding over Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, the main reason for the failure of last week’s nuclear talks between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 was the Obama administration’s imperious refusal to acknowledge Tehran’s right to enrich uranium under international safeguards.  On this point, we want to highlight a recent post by Dan Joyner on Arms Control Law, titled, “Scope, Meaning and Juridical Implication of the NPT Article IV(1) Inalienable Right.” 

Dan opens with a favorable reference to our recent post on the issue, see here; he then focuses on how to interpret the NPT Article IV(1) right to peaceful nuclear energy—a subject he has already written about at some length.  He usefully inserts an excerpt from his excellent 2011 book, Interpreting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Interpreting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Pages 79-84.  This excerpt lays out Dan’s argument that the right to peaceful use of nuclear technology should be interpreted as “a full, free-standing right of all NNWS [non-nuclear-weapon states] party to the treaty, and not as a contingent right, contrary to the interpretation of some NWS [nuclear-weapon states].”
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FBI v. The First Amendment: The US Government's Investigation of Antiwar.com

Wednesday November 13, 2013

Antiwar Magnify

Federal Bureau of Investigation documents released last week reveal the FBI investigated antiwar.com, a website regularly publishing content critical of US foreign policy, for at least six years based on the content and audience of the antiwar.com website. as well as an asinine mistake by the FBI.

According to Julia Harumi Mass of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which is representing Antiwar.com in a lawsuit against the FBI, the FBI produced in response to a document request in the lawsuit documents confirming "that the FBI targeted and spied on Antiwar.com [and the website's founding editors Eric] Garris and [Justin] Raimondo based on their First Amendment protected activity and kept records about that activity in violation of federal law."
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Who’s to Blame for Battlefield America? Is It Militarized Police or the Militarized Culture?

Monday November 11, 2013

It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly is responsible for the growing spate of police shootings, brutality and overreach that have come to dominate the news lately, whether it’s due to militarized police, the growing presence of military veterans in law enforcement, the fact that we are a society predisposed to warfare, indoctrinated through video games, reality TV shows, violent action movies and a series of endless wars that have, for younger generations, become life as they know it—or all of the above.

Whatever the reason, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by militarized police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve.

The latest comes out of New Mexico, where cops pulled David Eckert over for allegedly failing to yield to a stop sign at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Suspecting that Eckert was carrying drugs because his “posture [was] erect” and “he kept his legs together,” the officers forced Eckert to undergo an anal cavity search, three enemas, and a colonoscopy. No drugs were found.
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Thoughts on Veterans Day

Monday November 11, 2013

War Grave

Of course I have a lot of thoughts on Veterans Day. It’s kind of hard not too, as you are basically hit with a torrent of gratitude, most of it applied with the same amount of care and specificity of a fire hose.

I wrote this last year, but it still encapsulates much of my feelings towards Veterans Day. I am less angry than I was a year ago, but that anger is still there and will always be. It is something I have recognized about myself and something I will have to manage the rest of my life.

A Few Days After Veterans Day

I get lots of notes thanking me for my service on Veterans Day. I am grateful and appreciative. My friends, both veterans and active duty service members, receive the same affections of respect and esteem and, of course, value those sentiments.

There comes a time, however, when a line is breached. I have difficulty receiving a message from a teacher thanking me for what I have done for my country. I blush at the hand shakes, emails, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets and banners from police officers, fire fighters, nurses, nonprofit organizers and volunteers, clergy, utility workers and good parents; people who do more on a daily basis for our nation than I have ever done.
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US Expands Missile Defense Plans in Romania

Saturday November 9, 2013

NATO Russia

On October 28 Romanian President Traian Basesku, Romania's Minister of Defense Mircea Dusa, US Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller, James Syring, director of the US Missile Defence Agency, and NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow attended the groundbreaking ceremony held on the territory of Deveselu military facility, a former air base located at 180 kilometers east of Bucharest, the Romania's capital. 

The move confirms that Romania has become one of Washington’s main security partners in Europe. "This is an historic occasion", Mr. Vershbow noted. 

A disused airfield is to be revamped and converted into a missile defence base which will remain under Romanian command to host an average of 200 US troops (up to a maximum of 500). The facility will be manned by U.S. Navy and civilian personnel with the Romanian military providing security.
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Welcome to Deming, New Mexico -- Where Police Rape is a Matter of 'Protocol'

Friday November 8, 2013

Deminc NM

David Eckert was stopped by police in Deming, New Mexico without cause, subjected to an illegal search of his vehicle and person, and eventually forced to undergo what amounts to object rape in the form of multiple rectal probes, forced enemas, and a colonoscopy.

The purported reason for this treatment was suspicion of narcotics possession. A more credible explanation is that the police wanted to punish Eckert for politely asserting his rights during an encounter a few weeks earlier.

There is something at once infuriating and appropriate about the treatment inflicted on Eckert: If the beast called the Homeland Security State has a cloacal tract, its aperture might very well be located in Deming, New Mexico. The uniformed degenerates who kidnapped Eckert and subjected him to Gitmo-trade torture claimed to be working with a federally supervised narcotics task force. This part of their story is entirely plausible, given the extravagant and impenitent corruption that typifies federal counter-narcotics operations in the New Mexico border region.


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