The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Hedley Lamarr]

VIENNA: Israel's secretive nuclear activities may undergo unprecedented scrutiny next month, with a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency tentatively set to focus on the topic for the first time, according to documents shared with The Associated Press.

A copy of the restricted provisional agenda of the IAEA's June 7 board meeting lists "Israeli nuclear capabilities" as the eighth item - the first time that that the agency's decision-making body is being asked to deal with the issue in its 52 years of existence.

The agenda can still undergo changes in the month before the start of the meeting and a senior diplomat from a board member nation said Friday the item, included on Arab request, could be struck if the US and other Israeli allies mount strong opposition. He asked for anonymity for discussing a confidential matter.

Even if dropped from the final agenda, however, its inclusion in the May 7 draft made available to The AP is significant, reflecting the success of Islamic nations in giving concerns about Israel's unacknowledged nuclear arsenal increased prominence.

The 35-nation IAEA board is the agency's decision making body and can refer proliferation concerns to the UN Security Council - as it did with Iran in 2006 after Tehran resumed uranium enrichment, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons.

A decision to keep the item would be a slap in the face not only for Israel but also for Washington and its Western allies, which support the Jewish state and view Iran as the greatest nuclear threat to the Middle East.

Iran - and more recently Syria - have been the focus of past board meetings; Tehran for its refusal to freeze enrichment and for stonewalling IAEA efforts to probe alleged nuclear weapons experiments, and Damascus for blocking agency experts from revisiting a site struck by Israeli jets on suspicion it was a nearly finished plutonium producing reactor.

Iran and Syria are regular agenda items at board meetings.

Elevating Israel to that status would detract from Western attempts to keep the heat on Tehran and Damascus and split the board even further - developing nations at board meetings are generally supportive of Iran and Syria and hostile to Israel.

That in turn could stifle recent resolve by the world's five recognized nuclear-weapons powers - the US, Russia, Britain, France and China - to take a more active role in reaching the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East.

Inclusion of the item appeared to be the result of a push by the 18-nation Arab group of IAEA member nations, which last year successfully lobbied another agency meeting - its annual conference - to pass a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program.

Unlike the board, the conference cannot make policy.

Still, the result was a setback not only for Israel but also for Washington and other backers of the Jewish state, which had lobbied for 18 years of past practice - debate on the issue without a vote.

A letter to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano by the Arab group that was also shared with the AP urged Amano to report to the board what was known about Israel's nuclear program "by including a list of the information available to the Agency and the information which it can gather from open sources." The April 23 Arab letter urged Amano to enforce the conference resolution calling on Israel to allow IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities.

Israel has never said it has nuclear weapons but is universally believed to possess them.

The latest pressure is putting the Jewish state in an uncomfortable position. It wants the international community to take stern action to prevent Iran from getting atomic weapons but at the same time brushes off calls to come clean about its own nuclear capabilities.

Additionally, Amano, in a letter obtained Wednesday by the AP, has asked foreign ministers of the agency's 151 member states for proposals on how to persuade Israel to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Egypt has proposed that a Nonproliferation Treaty conference now meeting at UN headquarters in New York back a plan calling for the start of negotiations next year on a Mideast free of nuclear arms.

The US has cautiously supported the idea while saying that implementing it must wait for progress in the Middle East peace process. Israel also says a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement must come first.

Still, Washington and the four other nuclear weapons countries recognized as such under the Nonproliferation Treaty appear to be ready to move from passive support to a more active role.

In her speech to the UN nuclear conference on Monday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington would support "practical measures for moving toward that objective." Washington also has been discussing it with the Israelis, said a Western diplomatic source, who asked for anonymity since he was discussing other countries' contacts.

Russian arms negotiator Anatoly I. Antonov, speaking on behalf of the five Nonproliferation Treaty nuclear powers, said these nations were "committed to full implementation" of a Middle East nuclear free zone.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Israel can't conceal nukes now
There is a subtle shift in US policy that indicates Israel can no longer conceal its nuclear weapons under its so-called policy of "nuclear ambiguity."

For decades, American leaderships have emulated the three wise monkeys whenever anyone has challenged them on the topic. When it comes to their Middle East ally Israel, they've chosen to see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil, even when such a stance has made them vulnerable to accusations of bias and cut the ground from under their WMD disarmament arguments vis-à-vis the rest of the planet.

American officials regularly shy away from the subject seen as an absolute taboo in Washington akin to Holocaust denial, but behind closed doors many would say that there is no moral equivalence between a responsible democracy such as Israel being armed with nuclear weapons and Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions. Translated, this means that Israel is "our friend" whereas Iran isn't.

However, given that Israel has twice been on the point of unleashing its nukes, such arguments fail to stand up to scrutiny. Ernst David Bergmann, the man who from 1954 to 1966 was the chairman of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, said it all: "There is no distinction between nuclear energy for peaceful purposes or warlike ones...We shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan together with many of the region's leaders has frequently condemned "the West's silence" on the topic.

When Middle East leaders have called for a nuclear-free Middle East, until recently, Washington has shown little enthusiasm because the only country in the region that actually possesses nuclear bombs — as far as is known with any certainty — is Israel. Indeed, in 2006, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted as much during an interview when he said Iran aspires "to have a nuclear weapon as America, France, Israel and Russia." Olmert subsequently attempted to eat his words by saying the quote was taken out of context.

Worse, Israel has been handed carte blanche to accuse other nations of covertly developing nukes and attack them. The irony is that Israel has had an undeclared nuclear weapons program since the 1960s and is estimated to possess more than 400 thermonuclear weapons and warheads as well as nuclear submarines. Israel is also alleged to have undeclared capabilities for biological and chemical warfare.

In June, 1981, Israel bombed Iraq's French-built Osirak reactor at Tuwaitha, which resulted in Saddam Hussein ordering his nuclear scientists to build a bomb. Then in September, 2007, Israel attacked an unused military site in Syria's eastern desert, while accusing Damascus of colluding with North Korea to construct a nuclear facility. In both instances, Israel got away scot-free with its unprovoked military aggression.

But signs are that Israel may not be able to wrap an invisible cloak around its nuclear weapons for very much longer. In the first place, Iran has agreed in principle to a uranium exchange scheme proposed by its allies Brazil and Turkey. This would involve Tehran swapping its low-level enriched uranium with nuclear rods enriched abroad to a level of 20 percent, required for medical purposes. If Iran were to accept the plan — monitored by the nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – it would go a long way to dousing the international heat on that country leaving Israel trapped in the headlights.

Secondly, and more importantly, US President Barack Obama says he is committed to turning the Middle East into a nuclear-free zone and is believed to be working closely with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak to arrange a conference on ways to tackle this.

Egypt has long attempted to create a level playing field with calls to bring Israel's nukes out of the shadows. "If major countries wish to address Iran's nuclear dossier, they can do that by bringing Israel and Iran to the negotiating table," said Egypt's Ambassador to the UN Maged Abdelaziz during a recent newspaper interview.

Thirdly, following an NPT Review Conference held last week in New York, the United Nations Security Council issued a statement urging all states to join the NPT and confirming its members' commitment to a nuclear-free Middle East. The five permanent UNSC members are also open to studying proposals "aimed at taking concrete steps in this direction." The statement is clearly targeted at Israel since Iran is already a signatory to the NPT, under the terms of which Tehran has been obliged to open its doors to IAEA inspection and monitoring.

And last but not least, for the first time ever, an IAEA board meeting scheduled for June 7 is set to focus on "Israel's nuclear capabilities", according to a leaked provisional agenda. However, there are no guarantees, as objections from the usual pro-Israel suspects the US, Britain and France could quash the discussion. If those countries decide not to interfere, this would go a long way in assuring the rest of the world that, at last, the international community is serious about its non-nuclear weapons objectives.

But let's not get too excited. Until now, Washington's references to Israeli nukes have been couched or implicit. Unless President Obama takes Israel publicly to task on the issue and spells his demands out clearly, Israel will remain off the hook. Naming and shaming Israel is important else Obama's motives may come into question. Does he seriously want Israel to abandon its policy of nuclear ambiguity and join the NPT? Or is this a ploy designed to persuade Arab nations to put pressure on Iran and/or to "encourage" Israel to quit settlement expansion and pursue peace.

Whatever President Obama's true intentions, Israelis are getting nervous. "Jerusalem is increasingly jittery that cracks are appearing in the nearly half-century-old US policy of upholding Israel's right to maintain its nuclear ambiguity," writes the Jerusalem Post. I, for one, can't wait to see whether those "cracks" will be wide enough to shatter Israel's nuclear fortress ending its status of exceptionality once and for all.

[Hardy]

Whatever President Obama's true intentions, Israelis are getting nervous. "Jerusalem is increasingly jittery that cracks are appearing in the nearly half-century-old US policy of upholding Israel's right to maintain its nuclear ambiguity," writes the Jerusalem Post. I, for one, can't wait to see whether those "cracks" will be wide enough to shatter Israel's nuclear fortress ending its status of exceptionality once and for all.

When Israel gets nervous, things get more dangerous. When Israel gets jittery, there usually follows a war. If Israel sees its nuclear capability under threat, Israel will find a way to take that off the agenda, probably by putting Mossad to work and concocting some incident that will purport to show Israel under imminent threat itself and following up with another mini-war.

For some reason, I find all this more frightening than reassuring. Obama better know what he's doing or the Israelis will run rings around him.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Whatever President Obama's true intentions, Israelis are getting nervous. "Jerusalem is increasingly jittery that cracks are appearing in the nearly half-century-old US policy of upholding Israel's right to maintain its nuclear ambiguity," writes the Jerusalem Post. I, for one, can't wait to see whether those "cracks" will be wide enough to shatter Israel's nuclear fortress ending its status of exceptionality once and for all.

When Israel gets nervous, things get more dangerous. When Israel gets jittery, there usually follows a war. If Israel sees its nuclear capability under threat, Israel will find a way to take that off the agenda, probably by putting Mossad to work and concocting some incident that will purport to show Israel under imminent threat itself and following up with another mini-war.

For some reason, I find all this more frightening than reassuring. Obama better know what he's doing or the Israelis will run rings around him.

The hawks in the Israeli government have been trying to escalate things with Lebanon and Syria over the past few months.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Mideast tension could spark catastrophe: Medvedev
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 11, 2010 22:56 Updated: May 11, 2010 22:56

DAMASCUS: Russia's president said Tuesday that Israeli-Arab tensions threaten to draw the Middle East into a new catastrophe, adding Moscow's weight to a diplomatic push to ease antagonism between Israel and Syria.

The Russian and Syrian presidents, meeting in Damascus, also affirmed ally Iran's right to develop a peaceful nuclear energy program, as world powers press for new economic sanctions to try to stop what they say is really a drive for an atomic weapons capability.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose country has been building up its influence as a Middle East mediator, pledged its assistance in pushing the region toward peace.

"Tensions in the Middle East threaten to lead to a new explosion or even a catastrophe," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged Tuesday that Iran is trying to provoke a conflict between Israel and Syria.

"They are spreading falsehoods in order to escalate tensions, and it has no basis," he said during a tour of military installations near the Israel-Lebanon border. "We want stability and peace," he said, offering Syria peace talks without preconditions.

Last month, Israeli President Shimon Peres accused Syria of providing Scud missiles to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and adding to an arsenal that the Iranian-backed Shiite militants say can reach all parts of the Jewish state. Syria denied the accusation and warned such talk seemed calculated to set the stage for military action.

Before Medvedev's visit, Peres' office said the Russian president agreed to deliver a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad seeking to ease the tensions.

At a joint news conference with Assad, Medvedev did not mention whether he had delivered a message.

Assad, addressing the reporters, leveled more accusations against Israel over its conflict with the Palestinians.

"Expelling Palestinians from Jerusalem, attacking holy sites and besieging Palestinians in Gaza are steps and measures that could completely derail the peace process," he said.

US-mediated indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians began last week after 17 months of deadlock.

Syria had also been expected to use Medvedev's two-day visit to lobby Moscow to block new UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Russia, which has veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council, has been reluctant to back a fourth round of tougher penalties.

Assad said sanctions would be "useless and would complicate chances of reaching a solution." Diplomacy and sanctions have so far failed to persuade Iran to stop parts of its nuclear program that could serve as a possible pathway to weapons production. Iran insists its program is only geared toward peaceful uses like energy generation, but Tehran has not fully cooperated with an investigation by the UN nuclear watchdog agency.

In a joint statement issued after their talks, Assad and Medvedev called for a nuclear weapons free Middle East and urged Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open up its nuclear facilities to the UN monitoring agency.

Israel is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal, though it does not acknowledge that.

On Monday Assad met with the leaders of two other Mideast mediators, Turkey and Qatar. Turkey, which mediated four rounds of indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel in 2008, offered to try to revive those efforts.

[Hedley Lamarr]

US in quagmire
Seeing the warm welcome extended to the Afghan president on his US trip, it is hard to believe that only weeks ago Washington was seething with anger and frustration at Hamid Karzai's behavior and there were even dark mutterings by US officials that he might be mad.

Karzai is in fact far from insane but he faces a range of daunting challenges that might drive a lesser man to distraction. The American problem is that despite the lessons they ought to have learned from their woeful blunders in Iraq, they still insist on viewing the struggle in Afghanistan purely through their own eyes. Only perfunctory efforts seem to have been made to understand the range of contrary pressures that are pulling the Afghan administration in several different directions at the same time.

Yes, Karzai is corrupt. Yes, he made a blatant and pathetic attempt to fix his re-election. Yes, his government is inept. Yes, the entire bureaucratic system is shot through with payola to the fury and despair of ordinary Afghans. The Americans have two reactions to these realities and neither is right. The first is that it is an outrage that those who hold power in Afghanistan should betray the commitment in lives and coin that Washington and its allies have invested in defeating the Taleban and rebuilding the country. The second, more dangerous response is that Afghanistan is a hopeless case, a sink of corruption incapable of reforming itself. In this analysis Karzai is a pawn to be kept in power while NATO continues to train up the Afghan security forces and focuses on the military defeat of the insurgency.

The danger of this latter analysis is that it will further undermine Karzai's already weak political position with his warlord allies and confirm the Taleban's characterization of his administration as a US cipher. One very good reason Karzai has tried to distance himself from Washington is the continuing flow of civilian casualties caused by NATO actions. He is also impatient of US advice. Time was when the Bush White House forbade any overtures to "moderate" Taleban and Karzai complied. When the British were discovered to be conducting secret negotiations, two key Pashtun experts, one of them a Brit, were expelled from the country. Now Obama has reversed the policy and talks are on with some Taleban leaders, but it seems clear this is a NATO-led initiative with Karzai playing a back-up role.

While this reflects the low esteem in which Washington holds the Afghan president, despite all the glad-handing during his US visit, it also undermines Karzai at home. And therein lies the Catch-22 in the US-led Afghan policy. The Taleban insurgency can only ever end if there is an accommodation with the Afghan government, which includes the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Aimaks, Hazaras as well as Karzai's majority Pashtun community, from whom the Taleban also draw their strength. But as long as Karzai is seen to be kept in power by NATO, some part of the Taleban insurgency will always continue.

[J70]

Lewis Black's take on Glenn Beck and the Nazi card...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxUprB7rhBo

[Oraisteach]

Brilliant, J70.  Brilliant.  Thanks for posting the link.

[Hedley Lamarr]

CAIR questions silence on Florida mosque bombing
By AGENCIES

Published: May 15, 2010 03:40 Updated: May 15, 2010 03:40

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) questioned the silence of public officials and national media about a bomb attack Monday on a Florida mosque.

CAIR, which on Wednesday offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator, said media coverage has for the most part been restricted to Florida and that there have been no public condemnations of the bombing at the national level.

On Monday evening, a bomb exploded outside the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida in Jacksonville. Local, state and national law enforcement authorities are investigating the attack as a possible act of domestic terrorism.

"It is disturbing that, outside the state of Florida, our fellow citizens are largely unaware of the fact that a potentially-deadly bomb exploded at an American house of worship," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "One can only imagine the public and media response if someone with a Muslim name was the perpetrator of this apparent terror attack."

He congratulated local, state and national law enforcement agencies for their work on the case, but said he knows of just one national media outlet — AOL News — that reported on the bombing.

Awad attributed the attack to a "growing atmosphere of anti-Muslim sentiment" nationwide, and in particular in Florida.

Last week, CAIR called on national Republican leaders to repudiate Islamophobic campaign advertisements for a Florida GOP congressional candidate.

Last month, CAIR reported that a Muslim university professor was appointed to the Jacksonville, Fla., Human Rights Commission despite a prolonged smear campaign by the anti-Islam hate group ACT! for America, whose leader says Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office.

The FBI has been asked to investigate allegations that the same hate group has been harassing members of Florida's Muslim community.

In Miami, anti-Islam advertisements were initially pulled from buses because of community concerns. The ads were later re-instated following threats of legal action by the sponsors, whose leader Pamela Geller has written on her personal blog that "Hitler and the Nazis were inspired by Islam" and that "lies and deception [sic] to advance Islam is a mandate."

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.


All quiet on the western front

[Hedley Lamarr]

A day after releasing security video of the man suspected of firebombing a Jacksonville mosque, law enforcement officials acknowledged they had not gotten nearly as many calls as they expected.

"Someone out there knows who this person is," said FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Jim Casey of Jacksonville office. "Anyone who recognizes this individual needs to contact us."

Casey declined to reveal how many calls the FBI has gotten.

Authorities found remnants of a crude pipe bomb in the explosion, which occurred about 9:30 p.m. Monday at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida on St. Johns Bluff Road.

"This was not a harmless prank," Casey said. "We found shrapnel from the blast a hundred yards away close to [Florida] 9A."

At the time of the blast about 60 people were inside. The firebomb caused minor damage to the building. There were no injuries.

Casey said the minor damage was primarily due to the strength of the mosque building. If anyone had been closer to the blast, they would have been injured or killed, he said.

The video has been sent to the main FBI office in Quantico, Va., to be run for facial analysis along with video of another incident on April 4. The April disturbance occurred when a man entered the center and shouted "Stop this blaspheming," before people chased him away. He's also wanted for questioning although authorities say they don' think it's the same man in Monday's video.

Officials with the FBI, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, U.S. Attorney's Office and Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said they were following several leads in the case. But they declined to discuss those leads or speculate on a motive.

The case is being investigated as a possible hate crime on suspicion of domestic terrorism. The perpetrator also could face civil rights charges. Kevin Frein  with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Jacksonville said it is difficult to say exactly what charges until more is known about the motive.

Authorities said it was unclear if the bombing had anything to do with the recent controversy over Parvez Ahmed's appointment to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. Ahmed, who is Muslim, attends the center.

Lt. Mike Williams with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Homeland Security Division said there is no evidence that hate groups in North Florida are behind this.

Times-Union writers Jeff Brumley and Jim Schoettler contributed to this report.

larry.hannan@jacksonville.com,

[magickingdom]

Lewis Black's take on Glenn Beck and the Nazi card...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxUprB7rhBo

that deserves its own thread.... classic

[FL/MAYO]

Lewis Black's take on Glenn Beck and the Nazi card...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxUprB7rhBo

that deserves its own thread.... classic

Very good.

[Hedley Lamarr]

RIYADH: In an attack on US policy in the Middle East, former Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Turki Al-Faisal on Saturday said President Obama had until September to push for a settlement of the Palestinian issue.

If nothing happens by then, then the US president has to make "the morally decent" gesture and recognize Palestine as a sovereign independent state, he said.

Prince Turki also attacked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for sending out "confusing signals" on nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East, describing them as "unacceptable."

He also said that the US had lost "the moral high ground" it had acquired after 9/11 in the Middle East because of its "negligence, ignorance and arrogance."

Prince Turki, who now heads the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, was speaking in Riyadh at a symposium to mark the 35th anniversary of Arab News. The event was also attended by diplomats and Saudi business figures as well as Prince Faisal bin Salman, chairman of Arab News' parent company, the Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG), Khaled Almaeena, editor in chief of Arab News, and other leading SRMG figures.

In his hard-hitting speech, the prince said that there had to be a UN resolution guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Iraq to prevent some of its neighbors from trying to seize parts of the country. He accused Iran in particular of having territorial ambitions there. He also accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki of trying to hijack the recent elections. On Afghanistan, he said the policy there had to shift from nation building to destroying the terrorists.

He added that a UN resolution on Iraq's territorial integrity is the only way of thwarting the "sinister" designs of those of its neighbors intent on exploiting its conflict to their own advantage. The "forces of evil" are still very much alive and active within the country, he said.

Making a grim prediction of upcoming events in Iraq, he asked his audience to imagine what would happen "once internal strife and fighting escalates." Making matters worse has been the "deliberate effort on the part of the incumbent Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to hijack the result of the elections and deny the Iraqi people their legitimately elected government."

The consequences, he said, would be more bloodshed and potential civil war. He said there has to be international guarantees ensuring Iraq remains a functioning sovereign state. The alternative would be "regional conflict on a scale not seen since the Ottoman-Safavid wars of the 17th and 18th centuries."

It was the Obama administration, however, that bore the brunt of his criticism. Prince Turki said President Obama had proved eloquent in his vision of a two-state solution of the Palestinian issue, but this was not enough. He has to be "equally eloquent" in implementing it. The US has to be the "Big Bear pushing us all" — Israelis and Arabs alike — to make it happen, he said. "It is not enough to talk the talk. He has to walk the walk."

If there is no resolution by the September deadline set by the Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo earlier this month, the US should recognize the Palestinian state "and then pack up, leave us in peace and let the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese negotiate directly with the Israelis." From Obama there must be "no more platitudes, good wishes and visions, please."

In Afghanistan, the prince called on the White House to likewise change its policy. "The inept way in which the US has dealt with President Karzai beggars belief." The result is that both sides are resentful of each other with a "sour taste in their mouths." The aim has to be to destroy the terrorists, then withdraw and leave the Afghans to sort their country out themselves.

"The US should hunt down the terrorists on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, arrest them or kill them and get out and let the Afghans people deal with their problems," he said.

A continuing US presence only fuels the conflict. "As long as GI boots remain on Afghan soil they remain targets of resistance for the Afghan people." The Taleban of today, he said, were not the same a decade ago. They are no longer exclusively Pashtun warriors. "They are now any and every Afghan of whatever ilk who raises arms against the foreign invaders," he said.

By declaring them the enemy "America has declared the people of Afghanistan enemy," he warned.

On Iran, the prince said that the international community's stance over its nuclear ambitions has been on the wrong footing since the start; the "reset button" needs to be pushed. The stick and carrot approach will not work and there has to be a level playing field, he said. "You cannot ask Iran to play on one level while you allow Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea to play on other levels."

He was highly critical of the way in which the US has handled the nuclear issue and its wider regional implications, singling out Hillary Clinton in particular. She has damaged efforts to make the Middle East nuclear-weapon-free when — following the UN's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in New York at the beginning of the month which supported the idea — she said that the conditions for such a zone do not as yet exist.

"I hope President Obama, who has made universal disarmament his goal ... will find the way to correct his secretary of state's nullification of making our area free of weapons of mass destruction," the prince said.

The speech is not the first occasion that Prince Faisal has criticized the Obama administration. In May last year, in an interview with the German press agency DPA he said that President Obama had said "all the right things" about the Palestine issue, but "what we need now is some action." Last September, he labeled Obama's talk about energy independence as unrealistic "demagoguery." However, on Saturday diplomats and others attending the symposium were in agreement that it was the most hard-hitting to date. There were noticeable deep intakes of breath in the halls when he referred to American "arrogance."

On a lighter note, responding to a question about reported efforts by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to whip up anti-Saudi sentiment, he was decidedly unperturbed. He said that Lieberman had done more to serve the Arab cause than any other Israeli — a reference to Lieberman's extreme political views and the distaste with which they have been received, particularly in Europe.

[Massey-135]

Stew -  The US needs illegal workers, it really does. Maybe the current economic crisis has hurt many people - but all the people I hear bitching on the job forums and news lines in Reno are more than welcome to apply for the janitorial jobs, the McDonalds jobs and so on. They dont however. They would rather sit at home and bitch about whatever administration is in power and live off the state - at the same time crying about the mexicans taking their jobs. I would have GLADLY worked in McDonalds - or any other minimum paying job during the 8 months I was jobless - but my hands were tied in that I could only work in an area related to my degree in order to maintain legal status. I dont see the average unemployed american taking their future in their own hands right now and doing lower paying jobs just to be doing something. A slice of bread is better than no loaf - but they cant see that.

reminded me of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-PII2rSLVo

[Hedley Lamarr]

Itching to fight another Muslim enemy - Robert Parry
Nobody in the major US media or in politics will ever be hurt by talking tough and flexing muscles

If you read the major American newspapers or watch the propaganda on cable TV, it's pretty clear that the US foreign policy establishment is again spoiling for a fight, this time in Iran.

Just as Iraq's Saddam Hussein was the designated target of American hate in 2002 and 2003, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is playing that role now. Back then, any event in Iraq was cast in the harshest possible light; today, the same is done with Iran.

Anyone who dares suggest that the situation on the ground might not be as black and white as the Washington Post's editors claim it is must be an "apologist" for the enemy regime. It's also not very smart for one's reputation to question the certainty of the reporting in the New York Times, whether about Iraq's "aluminum tubes" for nuclear centrifuges in 2002 or regarding Iran's "rigged" election in 2009.

It's much better for one's career to clamber onto the confrontation bandwagon. Nobody in the major US media or in politics will ever be hurt by talking tough and flexing muscles regarding some Muslim "enemy." And, if the posturing leads to war, it will fall mostly to working-class kids to do the fighting and dying while the bills can be passed along to future generations.

Even groups that should know better — like Votevets.org representing veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars — have been piggybacking on the organized hate campaign against Ahmadinejad and Iran to advance other political agendas. In cable TV ads, Votevets.org uses Ahmadinejad's face and Iran's alleged manufacture of some Improvised explosive devices to press the case for alternative energy.

Indeed, looking at this American propaganda campaign objectively, you would assume that the only acceptable outcome of US differences with Iran is another Iraq-like ratcheting up of tensions, using Washington's influence within the UN Security Council to impose escalating sanctions, leading ultimately to another war, as if the lessons of Iraq have already been forgotten.

This warmongering attitude was on display again Monday, when a possible breakthrough regarding Iran's refining of nuclear material — its agreement to ship a substantial amount to Turkey in exchange for nuclear rods for medical research — was treated more as a negative than a positive.

The New York Times promptly framed the agreement reached by Iran, Turkey and Brazil as "complicating sanctions talk," while the Washington Post rushed out an analysis with the headline, "Iran creates illusion of progress in nuclear negotiations."

The Post's analysis followed a Saturday editorial denouncing Brazil's President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva for even trying "yet another effort to 'engage' the extremist clique of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." The Post's neocon editorial writers reprised the usual anti-Iran propaganda themes with all the arrogance that they once showed in declaring as flat fact that Saddam Hussein possessed stockpiles of WMD. After the US invaded Iraq and found no WMD caches, the Post's editorial page editor Fred Hiatt acknowledged to Columbia Journalism Review that if there indeed were no WMD, "it would have been better not to say it."

(More than 4,300 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, in part, because of Hiatt's mistake.)

On Saturday, an unchastened Hiatt and his crew were back again spouting more fictions, this time about Iran, like the oft-repeated claim that the Iranian election last June was "fraudulent," apparently because the Post's preferred candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, lost.

An analysis by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes earlier this year found that there was little evidence to support allegations of fraud or to conclude that most Iranians viewed Ahmadinejad's reelection as illegitimate.

Not a single Iranian poll analyzed by PIPA — whether before or after the June 12 election, whether conducted inside or outside Iran — showed Ahmadinejad with less than majority support. None showed the much-touted Green Movement's candidate Mousavi ahead or even close.

"These findings do not prove that there were no irregularities in the election process," said Steven Kull, director of PIPA. "But they do not support the belief that a majority rejected Ahmadinejad."

So, while many in the West may agree that Ahmadinejad is an unpleasant politician who foolishly questions the historical accuracy of the Holocaust and makes other bombastic statements, it is nevertheless a propaganda fiction to continue asserting that he was not the choice of most Iranian voters.

The point is not insignificant, because the claim about Iran's "fraudulent" election has been cited repeatedly as fact by the Post, the Times and other major US news outlets, feeding the rationale of Israel and US neocons in demanding "regime change."

If Ahmadinejad was actually elected — even if the process had flaws — then the goal of "regime change" would involve ousting a popularly chosen leader, much like the CIA helped do in 1953 when another anti-Western Iranian leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, was removed from office and replaced by Washington's preferred choice, the Shah of Iran.

But the American hostility toward Ahmadinejad — and the US media's annoyance at any rapprochement between Washington and Tehran — present other dangers, particularly now that Iran has agreed to a previous Western demand that it transfer 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium out of the country, in this case to Turkey, where it would be stored.

The Iran-Turkey-Brazil agreement would then give Iran the right to receive about 265 pounds of more highly enriched uranium from Russia and France in a form that could not be used for a nuclear weapon, but could be put to use for peaceful purposes, such as medical research.

Even though this new deal parallels a plan that the Obama administration favored last October, US officials have indicated that they might balk at the agreement now because the 2,640 pounds of low-enriched uranium represents a lower percentage of Iran's total supply than it did last fall, possibly more like half than two-thirds.

"The situation has changed," one diplomat told the New York Times.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs also indicated that the new agreement would not stop the United States from seeking harsher sanctions against Iran.

"The United States will continue to work with our international partners, and through the United Nations Security Council, to make it clear to the Iranian government that it must demonstrate through deeds — and not simply words — its willingness to live up to international obligations or face consequences, including sanctions," Gibbs said.

The Washington Post's analysis by Glenn Kessler portrayed the new agreement as "a victory" for Iran that has allowed it to create "the illusion of progress in nuclear negotiations with the West, without offering any real compromise to the United States and its allies."

However, perhaps the bigger concern among American neocons is that the Iran-Turkey-Brazil accord might weaken the rationale for pressing ahead either with a military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities or with a "regime change" strategy that would use sanctions and covert political operations to turn the Iranian people against their government.

By reducing the prospects of Iran building a nuclear weapon — something that Iran has vowed that it has no intention of doing and that US intelligence agencies concluded in 2007 that it wasn't doing – the new agreement could remove the scariest claim that Israel and its supporters have used in justifying a confrontation with Iran.

So, what might otherwise appear as good news — i.e. an agreement that at minimum delays the possibility of an Iranian bomb and could be a first step toward a fuller agreement — is presented as bad news.

"The Obama administration now faces the uncomfortable prospect of rejecting a proposal it offered in the first place — or seeing months of effort to enact new sanctions derailed," Kessler explained.

As usual, too, the articles by the Washington Post and the New York Times left out the relevant fact that Israel, which has been aggressively pushing for greater transparency from Iran over its suspected interest in nukes, itself has one of the world's most sophisticated – and undeclared – nuclear arsenals.

Even as President Barack Obama has demanded more nuclear transparency from all countries, he himself continues the longstanding charade of US presidents, dating back to Richard Nixon, pretending that they don't know that Israel has nuclear weapons.

In line with that history of double standards, Washington's neocon opinion leaders now are framing what could be a positive step toward peace — the Iran-Turkey-Brazil accord — as another failure.

But the larger truth may be that the neocons are simply chafing under the possibility that their hunger for a new conflict in the Middle East might be delayed indefinitely and that — heaven forbid — cooler heads might prevail.