Korean Job Discussion Forums

[catman]

[Gopher]

[Ya-ta Boy]

It's too bad we don't live in a perfect world where people didn't lie, governments didn't float balloons, opponents didn't spread misinformation etc.

Did Cheyney really say that? It's plausible. Is it true? Who knows? We know it came from The New Yorker, a reputable magazine. Hersh is more often right than wrong.

Let's say Cheyney really did say it. What was his purpose? Simply to say what he really thinks? Possibly. Was he sending a veiled threat to Iran? That's also possible.

I'm most disturbed with the fact that people are discussing military action before seriously negotiating.

[Gopher]

I do not doubt that the Administration has discussed and/or is discussing military options in Iran. I would hope that all American govts continue to discuss and debate all options before deciding and acting.

I do doubt Hersh's reporting, however. My take on Hersh is that he seems to define his role as a journalist as intervening in policymaking debates, and publishing what he wants if it serves his purposes by cultivating public backing and, if he needs to, outrage, over sometimes non-existent positions, all in order to pressure the govt to do what he wants it do to (embrace this policy, repudiate that policy, launch Senate investigations, etc.) He does not passively report and analyze the news. He aims to make it himself.

I would advise taking this into consideration when reading anything Hersh tells us through any of his outlets.

[Kuros]

The administration wanted Hersh to leak this.

An attack would be more likely if this had not been leaked.

The administration is lame ducked.

[Gopher]

I have reordered your three assertions.

[ernie]

"President Dick Cheney prefers US attack on Iran rather than Israel as Washington has much more firepower. "

is this a quoted line? this must be the most confusing sentence ever written... why would anyone use 'on' to mean 'against' instead of 'with' or 'supported by'? those meanings are opposites! why not just say 'attack Iran'? why use 'as' if you mean 'because'? maybe it should read:

"[Vice] President Dick Cheney prefers that the US, not Israel, attack Iran because the US has more firepower."

[Ya-ta Boy]

I've never in my life seen 'lame duck' used in the past tense in that way.

[Gopher]

Yes, indeed. That is because we at Dave's ESL Cafe represent the cutting-edge of English. "To lame-duck" is now a verb. The American electorate lame-ducked the W. Bush Administration in the mid-term elections 2006.

Ernie: nice catch and nice edit. Yours reads far better than the newspaper's.

[ernie]

"The administration is lame ducked."

i believe 'lame ducked' is being used as an adjective, not a past-tense verb in this sentence...

[Gopher]

Actually, a past-participle as an adjective. And a past-participle derives from a verb, no? In any case, I think we have now established multiple uses of the thing.

Anyone care to use it as a gerund...?

[RJjr]

I would believe Cheney talked to Hersh before I would believe Jesus told Bush to invade Iraq and kill 650,000 Iraqis.

[spliff]

Me too....why should the Joooo's get all the glory?

[Milwaukiedave]

Catman,

I was going to post this article by Hersh as an OP, but since you posted another one of his articles, I'll just add this to the thread.

I found this one pretty informative, though I'm not quite done reading it I'll post it anyway (I often print certain longer articles to read during my 15 minute walk to work, I started this one this morning). It's a bit longer then the one you posted.

Annals of National Security
Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
July 7, 2008

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country�s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran�s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of �high-value targets� in the President�s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees�the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

�The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran�s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,� a person familiar with its contents said, and involved �working with opposition groups and passing money.� The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.

Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and �there was a significant amount of high-level discussion� about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership�Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections�were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party�s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.

The request for funding came in the same period in which the Administration was coming to terms with a National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that it was committed to diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to counter the Iranian nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the N.I.E.�s conclusions, and senior national-security officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements. (So did Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee.) Meanwhile, the Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods. (There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the Times, among others, has reported that �significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement.�)

Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House�s concern about Iran�s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a pre�mptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, �We�ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.� Gates�s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates�s answer, the senator told me, was �Let�s just say that I�m here speaking for myself.� (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator�s characterization.)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were �pushing back very hard� against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that �at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders��the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world��have weighed in on that issue.�

The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last year he told the Financial Times that the �real objective� of U.S. policy was to change the Iranians� behavior, and that �attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice.�


Read the rest here:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

The 655,000 number has been debunked.

Also why ought the US be charged with those the insurgents or Al Qaeda kill?

And in fact the US ought not be charged for insurgents dead either.