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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject: Will Israel Attack Iran�s Nuclear Facilities? |
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Will Israel Attack Iran�s Nuclear Facilities Before the End of the Bush Administration? Joschka Fischer Argues Yes
I had the pleasure to meet and speak at length over the weekend with Joschka Fischer, former Foreign Minister of Germany and one of the deepest geo-strategic thinkers in the world. He argued with me that � as he fleshed out in a a recent article he wrote for the Project Syndicate � Israel will attack Iran�s nuclear facilities before the end of the Bush administration and that Israel effectively received the green light to this action from Bush during his recent visit to Israel. Fischer was recently in Israel to attend the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of Israel creation. A variety of factors and conversations � fleshed out in his article � have led him to the conclusion that Israel will attack Iran before the end of the Bush administration.
First, even before Iran may try to retaliate to this action by trying to block the flow of oil from the Gulf, oil prices would spike above $200 dollar a barrel.
Second, Iran could react militarily to such Israeli action (that would be taken with the tacit support and the military logistic support of the US) by unleashing its supporters in Iraq against the US military forces there. That would trigger a military reaction by the US that would start a sustained air-led bombing campaign against Iran�s military capabilities (air force, anti-aircraft defenses, radar and other military installations, etc.)
Third, Iran would unleash its supporters in Lebanon and Gaza (Hezbollah and Hamas) in a military confrontation with Israel. A broader war will follow in the Middle East.
Fourth, Iran would use both the threat of blocking the flow of oil out of the Gulf and an actual sharp reduction of its exports of oil (an embargo) to spike the price of oil. Oil prices would rapidly rise above $200 per barrel and the US and global economy would spin into a severe stagflationary recession (like those triggered by the sharp spikes in the prices of oil following the staflationary shocks of the Yom Kippur war in 1973, the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990).
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http://www.rgemonitor.com
Here is another op-ed on the topic:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=92572
If Israel did, and I'm not that interested in the politics of it, global financial markets would recoil in horror. America is in recession, Asia on the brink of a crises and then 200-300$ oil? From an economic standpoint, this would be a historical disaster. |
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traveler81
Joined: 18 Mar 2008
Location: Byeongjeom, Gyeonggi-do
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:22 pm Post subject: Re: Will Israel Attack Iran�s Nuclear Facilities? |
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[quote="mises"]
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| America is in recession. |
America is not in a recession. A recession is defined as two sequential financial quarters of negative growth--meaning the GDP is in the negative. That hasn't happened yet. The American economy is sluggish, but it has been growing at a nominal rate.
All this talk of recession is fear-mongering. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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It really depends on which measures of calculating GDP you use etc. Especially if you use an honest assessment of inflation. Anyways, I trust shadow stats more than the government data.
You can read their methodology for coming to these figures here:
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/57
There is considerable academic debate especially about CPI data. The methodologies used to construct the figure were revised under Regan and Clinton and there is not anything near unanimous support for the new methodology.
This isn't really all that relevant to the OP anyways. |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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The government figures are an absolute joke. According to the government, the annualized rate of inflation for the 1st quarter of this year and the previous three are as follows:
2008: 2.6%
2007: 4.2%
2006: 3.4%
2005: 3.9%
I doubt anyone outside of the Fed or Bush Administration actually believes inflation this year has been substantially lower.
Back to the topic of the thread:
AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr once bragged, "Quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq was one of AIPAC's successes over the past year."
The Israel lobby brags about getting our young men and women stuck in Iraq and now they're lobbying to get our government to make them fight the Iranians too. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| RJjr wrote: |
The government figures are an absolute joke. According to the government, the annualized rate of inflation for the 1st quarter of this year and the previous three are as follows:
2008: 2.6%
2007: 4.2%
2006: 3.4%
2005: 3.9%
I doubt anyone outside of the Fed or Bush Administration actually believes inflation this year has been substantially lower.
Back to the topic of the thread:
AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr once bragged, "Quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq was one of AIPAC's successes over the past year."
The Israel lobby brags about getting our young men and women stuck in Iraq and now they're lobbying to get our government to make them fight the Iranians too. |
Right cause it is not as if the Iran hasn't been after the US?
Iran and Al Qaeda is not just something that changed.
It seems to have been going on for a while.
9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran
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| Senior U.S. officials have told TIME that the 9/11 Commission's report will cite evidence suggesting that the 9/11 hijackers had previously passed through Iran |
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html
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Is there a link between Mugniyah and al-Qaeda?
Mugniyah met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the mid-1990s, according to the court testimony of Ali Abdelsoud Mohammed, a naturalized U.S. citizen and former U.S. army sergeant who later became a senior aide to bin Laden. After his arrest in 1998 in connection with the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Mohammed testified that he arranged several meetings between bin Laden and Mugniyah in Sudan. Bin Laden reportedly admired Mugniyah's tactics, particularly his use of truck bombs, which precipitated the United States' withdrawal from Lebanon. According to Mohammed, bin Laden and Mugniyah agreed Hezbollah would provide training, military expertise, and explosives in exchange for money and man power. It is not known, however, whether this agreement was carried out. The relationship between Hezbollah and al-Qaeda is not entirely friendly, as explained in this Backgrounder. |
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11317/#8
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By Noah Pollak
It is long past time that one important piece of fantastical rubbish be finally sent on its way: this is the idea that Islamists maintain some kind of fastidious ethnic and theological separatism when it comes to who they're willing to work with on killing people. The co-option of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (Sunni Arab) by Iran (Shia Persian) is one piece of reality that intrudes on this comforting notion; so is the Iran-Syria alliance, along with the reality of Iranian support for both Shia and Sunni insurgents in Iraq.
A final nail in the coffin comes today from Eli Lake, the New York Sun's talented national security reporter (and good friend). Eli's scoop is about the National Intelligence Estimate, an unclassified summary of which will be released today, but whose classified final working draft concludes that:
One of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils meets regularly in eastern Iran, where the American intelligence community believes dozens of senior Al Qaeda leaders have reconstituted a good part of the terror conglomerate's senior leadership structure.
Iranian hospitality toward Al Qaeda is not a new story -- but what is new is the apparent fact that one of two Qaeda leadership councils meets in Iran, and with the complicity of the regime. As Eli notes:
An intelligence official sympathetic to the view that it is a matter of Iranian policy to cooperate with Al Qaeda disputed the CIA and State Department view that the Quds Force is operating as a rogue force. "It is just impossible to believe that what the Quds Force does with Al Qaeda does not represent a decision of the government," the official, who asked not to be identified, said. "It's a bit like saying the directorate of operations for the CIA is not really carrying out U.S. policy."
Stories like these reinforce another very basic idea: terrorism has a return address. |
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001492.html
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| On al-Qaeda, the picture is more murky. Iran and Osama bin Laden's movement are hardly natural allies � Tehran almost went to war with al-Qaeda's Taliban hosts in Afghanistan in 1998, following Taliban massacres of Afghan Shiites. The extremist theology that inspires both the Taliban and al-Qaeda sees Shiites as infidels, although bin Laden is on record advocating unity for purposes of anti-American jihad. The reformist elected leadership in Tehran has sought to repair its relationships with the West and rehabilitate Iran diplomatically, but the hard-liners may have hedged their bets. It remains unlikely that the government of President Mohammed Khatami has made common cause with al-Qaeda operatives, although it has long been alleged that hard-liners in the Revolutionary Guard have unofficially provided some with shelter in Iran. Al-Qaeda may also have set up shop in the predominantly Sunni border region of eastern Iran, where central government authority is more limited and the authorities have lost thousands of men in battles with smugglers. |
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,455276,00.html
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Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Iran's Timeline of Terror
I followed the link at the end of the article to his essay published September 11, 2007 at The Claremont Institute.
"Iran's Proxy War Against America, (PDF)" covers the evidence of Iranian links to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups regardless of their Sunni, Shiite or Palestinian sympathies. ......
November 4, 1979
Fifty-two American citizens are taken hostage by �students� loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini. They are held for more than a year, until January 20, 1981. The kidnappings are part of the Iranian revolution, which serves as a model for Sunni terrorist groups like Ayman al-Zawahiri�s Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
April 18, 1983
Iran�s master terrorist, Imad Mugniyah, orchestrates the first significant Islamist suicide attack against America: the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Establishing a modus operandi for terrorists in the years to come, the attacker utilizes a van packed with explosives.
October 23, 1983
Using massive truck bombs, Hezbollah�s suicide bombers simultaneously attack the U.S. Marine Barracks and a housing complex for French Paratroopers in Beirut, Lebanon. Al-Qaeda would later adopt simultaneous suicide bombings as its preferred method for committing attacks.
December 12, 1983
Iranian-backed terrorists bomb the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. A close relative of Imad Mugniyah is convicted by a Kuwaiti court and sentenced to death for his role in the bombing. Other attackers,
also supported by Iran, are imprisoned. The terrorists come to be known as the �Kuwait 17� or �Dawa 17.� 75 iran�s proxy war against america
March 16, 1984
William Buckley, the CIA�s station chief in Beirut, is kidnapped and later tortured-to-death by Imad Mugniyah�s Hezbollah. Buckley�s kidnapping is one in a series of Hezbollah�s kidnappings from the early 1980s through the early 1990s. Dozens of Americans are kidnapped and Hezbollah frequently demands an exchange for the Kuwait 17. Hezbollah�s kidnappings lead to the biggest scandal of President Ronald Reagan�s tenure, the Iran-Contra affair, after the Reagan administration agrees to exchange arms for the hostages.
September 20, 1984
Hezbollah terrorists strike the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut with a truck bomb.
December 3, 1984
Mugniyah�s operatives hijack Kuwait Airways Flight 221. The hijackers attempt to barter for the release of the Kuwait 17.
June 14, 1985
Mugniyah�s terrorists hijack TWA Flight 847. Once again, the hijackers attempt to barter for the release of the Kuwait 17. When the hijackers� demands are denied, they beat and kill a U.S. Navy serviceman, Robert Dean Stethem, who happened to be on the flight. Incredibly, Germany granted parole to one of the hijackers in December 2005.
1990
According to Ali Mohamed, a top al-Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, Ayman al-Zawahiri�s Egyptian Islamic Jihad partners with Iran in a planned coup attempt in Egypt. Tehran trains EIJ terrorists for the coup attempt, which is ultimately aborted. Iran also pays al-Zawahiri $2 million for sensitive information concerning 76 national security studies the Egyptian Government�s plans to raid several islands in the Persian Gulf.
1991
Iran and Sudan, then the world�s only Islamist states, forge a strategic alliance. They begin to jointly export terrorism throughout the world.
April 1991
Hassan al-Turabi hosts the first Popular Arab Islamic Conference in Sudan. The conference provides a forum for disparate forces in the Middle East who oppose American presence in the region to come together. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iraqi and Iranian representatives all attend the meeting.
February 26, 1993
Terrorists connected to al-Qaeda and the global terror network bomb the World Trade Center using a rental truck packed with explosives. The bombers� colleagues plot a follow-on attack against landmarks in the NYC area. There is no known evidence that Iran had a hand in these events. It is clear, however, that several of the plotters had ties to Hassan al-Turabi�s Sudan. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of the two leading Egyptian terrorist groups (both of which will join al- Qaeda) and who was living in the New York metropolitan area, is later convicted for his involvement in the attacks. Reports surface that he and his organization received financial assistance from Iran.
1993
According to Ali Mohamed, Imad Mugniyah and Osama bin Laden meet in Sudan. Bin Laden expresses his desire to model al- Qaeda after Hezbollah. In particular, bin Laden expresses interest in Mugniyah�s bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983 77 iran�s proxy war against america and similar attacks. They agree to work together against America and the West.
1993
According to Jamal al-Fadl, an al-Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, bin Laden meets a leading Iranian sheikh in Sudan. The purpose of the meeting is to put aside any differences between their competing brands of Islam in order to come together against their common enemy: the West. The meeting is just the first of several between bin Laden and Iran�s spiritual leaders.
1993
Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps train al- Qaeda�s terrorists in camps in Sudan, Lebanon and Iran. Among the terrorists trained are some of bin Laden�s most trusted lieutenants and al-Qaeda�s future leaders.
1993
Egypt and Algeria cut off diplomatic ties with Iran. Both nations accuse Iran and Sudan of supporting Sunni terrorism, including terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. Egypt will blame Iran for supporting both the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Group throughout the 1990�s.
November 13, 1995
Two bombs are detonated, nearly simultaneously, at the Saudi National Guard training facility in Riyadh, killing five Americans. The suspects are captured and confess to being inspired by Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden denies responsibility, but praises the attack. It is likely al-Qaeda�s first terrorist attack inside the Saudi Kingdom. 78 national security studies
November 19, 1995
An al-Qaeda suicide bomber destroys the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. The CIA�s Bob Baer later learns that Mugniyah�s deputy assisted al-Qaeda in the attack and that one of bin Laden�s top terrorists remained in contact with Mugniyah�s offi ce months afterwards.
May 1996
Bin Laden is expelled from Sudan, but the 9/11 Commission reports that �intelligence indicates the persistance of contacts� between al-Qaeda and Iran even after al-Qaeda�s relocation to Afghanistan. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda maintain an ongoing presence in Sudan, despite not being �formally� welcome.
June 21 - 23, 1996
Tehran hosts a summit for the leading Sunni and Shiite terrorist groups. It is announced that the terrorists will continue to focus on U.S. interests thoughout the region. Mugniyah, bin Laden, and a leading member of the EIJ reportedly forge the �Committee of Three,� under the leadership of Iran�s intelligence chief, to focus their joint efforts against American targets.
June 25, 1996
Hezbollah terrorists, operating under the direction of senior Iranian officials, bomb the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Saudi Arabia. Contemporaneous reports by both the State Department and the CIA note that al-Qaeda is also suspected of playing a role. The 9/11 Commission would later find �indirect evidence� of al-Qaeda�s involvement. The evidence includes intelligence indicating that al-Qaeda was planning a similar operation in the months prior and that bin Laden was congratulated by other al-Qaeda operatives, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, shortly after the attack. 79 iran�s proxy war against america
July 1996
According to Bob Baer, the Egyptian Islamic Group�an ally of bin Laden�s al-Qaeda�is in contact with Mugniyah.
1996
According to Bob Baer, there is �incontrovertible evidence� of a meeting between bin Laden and a representative of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
August 7, 1998
Al-Qaeda�s suicide bombers simultaneously destroy the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It is al-Qaeda�s most spectacular attack prior to 9/11. The attack is clearly modeled on Hezbollah�s attacks in the early 1980s. Indeed, the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible were trained by Hezbollah in the early 1990s. There is evidence that Iran also provided explosives used in the attack.
October - November 2000
Imad Mugniyah and his lieutenants personally escort several of the 9/11 muscle hijackers out of Saudi Arabia on flights to Beirut and Iran. In all, eight to ten of the hijackers travel through Iran on the way to 9/11.
December 2000
Ramzi Binalshibh, al-Qaeda�s key point man for the 9/11 plot, applies for visa at the Iranian Embassy in Berlin. His visa application is approved.
January 31, 2001
Ramzi Binalshibh arrives at Tehran International airport. He does not return to Germany until February 28, 2001. The purpose of his trip to Iran remains a mystery. The 9/11 Commission does not mention Binalshibh�s trip to Iran. 80 national security studies
Early September 2001
Binalshibh flees to Iran shortly before the 9/11 attacks.
September 11, 2001
Nineteen al-Qaeda hijackers execute al-Qaeda�s largest operation to date, killing nearly 3000 Americans. Many of the details surrounding the plot, including who financed the attack, remain a mystery.
October 2001
According to a high-level Taliban detainee at Gitmo, Iran offers the Taliban Government assistance in retreating from Afghanistan.
October 2001
Numerous press reports indicate that Iran aids the retreat of hundreds of al-Qaeda and Taliban members from Afghanistan. Some al-Qaeda operatives enjoy safehaven in Iran to this day. Among them is Said al-Adel, who is reportedly the third highest ranking member of al-Qaeda and was trained by Hezbollah during the early 1990s, and Saad bin Laden, Osama�s heir apparent.
April 11, 2002
Al-Qaeda carries out the first attack ordered by bin Laden since 9/11: a suicide bomber destroys a synagogue in Tunisia, killing nineteen people. According to NBC News, Saad bin Laden contacted the cell responsible for the attack from his safehaven in Iran. Suleiman Abu Ghaith, bin Laden�s spokesman, also claims al-Qaeda�s responsibility for the attack from his abode in Iran.
End of 2002 - Spring 2003
According to former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, senior al-Qaeda leaders discuss the acquisition of nuclear weapons from their safe haven in Iran. In fact, al-Qaeda�s �nuclear 81 iran�s proxy war against america chief,� Abdel al-Aziz al-Masri, is one of many senior terrorists living in Iran.
May 12, 2003
Under orders from Saif al-Adel and Saad bin Laden, who are operating from Iran, al-Qaeda�s terrorists simultaneously strike three separate housing complexes in Riyadh Saudi Arabia. Another al- Qaeda agent thought to be responsible for the attack flees to Iran before he can be captured.
May 16, 2003
One dozen al-Qaeda bombers attack several targets in Casablanca, Morocco. Saad bin Laden, living in Iran, is reportedly in contact with the cell shortly before the attack.
2004 � present
Iran supplies advanced IED technology to the insurgents in Iraq. There is growing evidence of Iranian support for both Sunni and Shiite insurgency groups in Iraq. Iran continues to harbor senior al-Qaeda leaders as the terrorist network reorganizes.
January 20, 2007
IRGC and Hezbollah terrorists kill five American soldiers in Karbala, Iraq
January 2007 � present
Numerous IRGC and Hezbollah terrorists, who are responsible for arming and training terrorist groups in Iraq, are captured by American and Iraqi forces. 82 national security studies. |
http://demediacraticnation.blogspot.com/2007/10/irans-timeline-of-terror.html |
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nautilus
Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:27 am Post subject: |
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| In short, lets all hope so for all concerned |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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You conveniently left out the US and Israel training SAVAK to torture and murder Iranians from 1957 through 1979. How many Iranians died from the weapons, including chemical weapons, we supplied Hussein in the '80s? And we're always sanctioning them.
We're always concerned about what others might do, but we never do anything to stop our own psychopathic ways. What did the Iraqis ever do to America? How many more Iraqis must we kill before we've finally freed the shit out of them? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="RJjr"]
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| You conveniently left out the US and Israel training SAVAK to torture and murder Iranians from 1957 through 1979 |
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The US did make a mistake by getting involved in Iran in 1953 but is the US responsible for everything SAVAK did. Besides at least SAVAK was an enemy of the Khomeni types who were worse.
Besides how does that justify attacks like Khobar on US forces in placesl in other nations years after the faxt.
I bet other nations had relations with the SAVAK too.
| Quote: |
| How many Iranians died from the weapons, including chemical weapons, we supplied Hussein in the '80s? |
That was cause Iran was attacking US forces and trying to spread its revolution that came first. Anyway the US never gave Hussein Chemical weapons. They let him by agents. More to the point Husseins chemical plants came from Germany not the US.
In fact most of Saddam's weapons came from France and the USSR and Germany not the US.
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| And we're always sanctioning them. |
cause they do bad stuff. What the US doesn't have not to trade with another nation if it chooses too? So that justifies attacks on the US? Appeasement.
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| We're always concerned about what others might do, but we never do anything to stop our own psychopathic ways. |
Most of the time the US has been on the right side of history.
The cold war was defensive. Were it not for the cold war you not have a job.
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| What did the Iraqis ever do to America? |
In 1991 he tried to conquer the gulf. One of the reasons was he wanted to use oil to gain strategic leverage over the west.
If Saddam had been able to have gulf oil and nukes Iraq would have been a powerful nation.
The US didn't have to allow Saddam to become powerful by his illegal invasion at the expense of the US.
Saddam had no right to Kuwaiti oil and the US didn't have to let him have it.
after that Saddam shot at US planes. He tried to kill a US president .
He continued to threaten Kuwait. He supported terror groups. And his regime taught hate and incited violence. Incitment and teaching hate is one of the main causes of terror.
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| How many more Iraqis must we kill before we've finally freed the shit out of them? |
Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis and if you include his war with Iraq the number probably goes up 4x. What was he going to do if he got free? Remember his sons were coming up next.
I dunno US actions saved the Kurds and Kuwaits from Saddam. Lives saved cause of US actions count too, not in your book but never the less they count too. |
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SirFink
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 1:04 am Post subject: Re: Will Israel Attack Iran�s Nuclear Facilities? |
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| mises wrote: |
| If Israel did, and I'm not that interested in the politics of it, global financial markets would recoil in horror. |
Possibly. Forget America for a second and focus on Russia and China. Both have major oil supply agreements with Iran. China, especially, is growing increasingly thirsty for oil. Anything that could jeopordize the flow of oil into China and Russia would draw the ire of both countries. And look at how anti-West Putin's Russia is these days. They are chomping at the bit to flex their national pride. China's developing a similar mindset. World War III? Awesome! |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 1:14 am Post subject: Re: Will Israel Attack Iran�s Nuclear Facilities? |
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| SirFink wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| If Israel did, and I'm not that interested in the politics of it, global financial markets would recoil in horror. |
Possibly. Forget America for a second and focus on Russia and China. Both have major oil supply agreements with Iran. China, especially, is growing increasingly thirsty for oil. Anything that could jeopordize the flow of oil into China and Russia would draw the ire of both countries. And look at how anti-West Putin's Russia is these days. They are chomping at the bit to flex their national pride. China's developing a similar mindset. World War III? Awesome! |
Not gonna happen. China will not go to bat for Iran. Not in a million years. Attacking Iran will be a huge deal. But, its going to take more than American/Israeli strikes on a ME oil-producing nation to cause WWIII. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:43 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, not gonna happen.
China has other tools it can use to manipulate the United States. She could stop absorbing American debt, for one example. |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:11 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The US did make a mistake by getting involved in Iran in 1953 but is the US responsible for everything SAVAK did. Besides at least SAVAK was an enemy of the Khomeni types who were worse.
Besides how does that justify attacks like Khobar on US forces in placesl in other nations years after the faxt.
I bet other nations had relations with the SAVAK too. |
The CIA and Mossad trained SAVAK and we financed them.
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
That was cause Iran was attacking US forces and trying to spread its revolution that came first. Anyway the US never gave Hussein Chemical weapons. They let him by agents. More to the point Husseins chemical plants came from Germany not the US.
In fact most of Saddam's weapons came from France and the USSR and Germany not the US. |
| Sunday Herald (Scotland) wrote: |
Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.
Classified US Defence Dep-artment documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.
The Senate committee's rep orts on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.
One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989; the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry of Health in April 1985 and Officers' City, a military complex in Baghdad, in March and April 1986.
The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.
The Senate report also makes clear that: 'The United States provided the government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programmes.'
This assistance, according to the report, included 'chemical warfare-agent precursors, chem ical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment'.
Donald Riegle, then chairman of the committee, said: 'UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licences issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programmes.' |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Most of the time the US has been on the right side of history. |
Yes, most of the time, but this decade has been one collossal phuck-up, just like the Vietnam War.
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| The cold war was defensive. Were it not for the cold war you not have a job. |
No, we went to Vietnam. Over 50,000 Americans died while we were there. How many Americans were killed by Vietnamese after we left? Zero. Defensive war my ass.
Men in my family farmed before the Cold War and after the Cold War. I'd probably be here farming even if the Cold War hadn't happened.
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
In 1991 he tried to conquer the gulf. One of the reasons was he wanted to use oil to gain strategic leverage over the west.
If Saddam had been able to have gulf oil and nukes Iraq would have been a powerful nation.
The US didn't have to allow Saddam to become powerful by his illegal invasion at the expense of the US.
Saddam had no right to Kuwaiti oil and the US didn't have to let him have it. |
Paul Wolfowitz, one of the instigators of the war in Iraq, says the invasion was about of oil. Alan Greenspan also says it's about oil. Nearly all of us understand the war is about oil, and it makes our invasion of Iraq eerily similar to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis and if you include his war with Iraq the number probably goes up 4x. What was he going to do if he got free? Remember his sons were coming up next.
I dunno US actions saved the Kurds and Kuwaits from Saddam. Lives saved cause of US actions count too, not in your book but never the less they count too. |
We've already caused more Iraqi deaths than Saddam did, and there's no guarantee that the religious fanatics who will take over will be any better than Uday and Qusay.
The lost lives of American soldiers count too, not in your book, since you want this war so badly but refuse to fight in it. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:39 am Post subject: |
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| RJjr wrote: |
| The CIA and Mossad trained SAVAK and we financed them. |
Can you produce any evidence to support your implied allegation that the United States encouraged, advised, and/or directed SAVAK to behave as it did, though? Or even that SAVAK's behavior pleased the Americans?
And the Israeli govt, or one of its factions at least, has apparently answered the question this thread poses...
| Quote: |
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- An Israeli Cabinet member said the Jewish state "will attack" Iran if it doesn't halt its efforts to develop nuclear weaponry, according to a newspaper report Friday.
"If Iran continues its program to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it," Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz told Yediot Ahronot, Israel's largest mass-circulation daily. "The window of opportunity has closed. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear program."
Mofaz's threat is one of the most explicit made against the Islamic Republic of Iran by a member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Cabinet.
It has significant political resonance in Israel amid talk that Mofaz has begun jockeying to replace Olmert, who is embroiled in a corruption probe, as the ruling Kadima Party's leader and prime minister.
At least one Cabinet member, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, has called for Olmert to step down... |
If Olmert steps down and Mafaz replaces him, I would say Tehran ought to consider changing its negotiating style on this issue, because Israeli politics, will, by that time, have coalesced into a very pro-war politics re: Imadinnerjacket and his politics.
CNN Reports |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Can you produce any evidence to support your implied allegation that the United States encouraged, advised, and/or directed SAVAK to behave as it did, though? Or even that SAVAK's behavior pleased the Americans? |
Jesse Leaf, the CIA's chief analyst on Iran for five years during the Shah dictatorship said senior CIA officials were involved in instructing SAVAK officials on torture techniques. He said they "were based on German torture techniques from World War II." He said that nobody protested because, "Why should we protest? We were on their side, remember?" He also said, "I do remember seeing and being told of people who were there seeing the rooms and being told of torture. And I know that the torture rooms were toured and it was all paid for by the USA."
| Gopher wrote: |
| And the Israeli govt, or one of its factions at least, has apparently answered the question this thread poses... |
And then oil shot up $11. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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| RJjr wrote: |
| Jesse Leaf, the CIA's chief analyst on Iran for five years in the late 60s and early 70s said senior CIA officials were involved in instructing SAVAK officials on torture techniques. He said they "were based on German torture techniques from World War II." He said that nobody protested because, "Why should we protest? We were on their side, remember?" He also said, "I do remember seeing and being told of people who were there seeing the rooms and being told of torture. And I know that the torture rooms were toured and it was all paid for by the USA." |
Can you cite the source? Where do Leaf's allegations appear? What other evidence have you reviewed? Which "senior officials" exactly are you talking about? Do they include officials sanctioned by Carter and Turner?
A lot of former officials say all kinds of things, and for all kinds of reasons, Scott McClellan representing only the latest example in a long line of examples. How have you critically evaluated what you have read from Leaf? For example, you describe him as CIA's chief analyst, and not an operator. If true, if Leaf worked in the DI and not the DO, then I doubt he would have been sufficiently positioned to see what you say he says he saw, especially in the late-1960s and early-1970s when, according to everything I have taken in on the subject, a veritable Chinese wall separated the two divisions.
Last edited by Gopher on Fri Jun 06, 2008 1:05 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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