@@ Liar, liar, pants on fire @@
Arash
October 16, 2005
Liar, liar, pants on fire
By The Hue and Cry
The latest aggressive posturing by the U.S. and U.K. toward Iran, and why we should
all be a bit more concerned.
I was disturbed this morning to read more inflammatory rhetoric from the U.K.
concerning Iranian nuclear ambitions, and the ongoing (and escalating) confrontation
brewing within the U.N. Note that the linked stories make a number of aggressive
doomsday accusations against Tehran, but provide no credible evidence to support
those claims other than the usual litany of nebulous statements beginning with,
"officials believe that..." or "we think it's probable..." or "her view is..."
America's favorite diplomatic tough-guy, John Bolton, weighed in on BBC2's Newsnight
with similar certainty, saying that,
"(Iran was) determined to get nuclear weapons deliverable on ballistic missiles it
can then use (them) to intimidate not only its own region but possibly to supply to
terrorists."
Gee, John, that would be really scary news, if it were backed up by anything remotely
resembling fact from IAEA inspectors who've actually been in Iran. I'm reminded
constantly in this developing scenario of Tom Cruise's response to unsupported
allegations in the film A Few Good Men, when his character dismissively states,
"He did? That's great! And, of course, you have proof? Oh, I keep forgetting, you
were sick the day they taught law at law school..."
Now, as I've written repeatedly, I have no abundance of love for the theocratic state
of Iran. It is certainly no friend to the U.S. or Israel, and needs to be monitored
closely, as the IAEA has promised to do. But given the track record of this
Administration (anyone remember "aluminum tubes" and "yellowcake uranium" and
"stockpiles of WMD's" and "the spectre of mushroom clouds"?), we have no reason to
trust that the accusations made daily by Bush minions and their pals in the U.K. are
based on factual evidence either.
The New York Observer's Joe Conason echoes these thoughts in new commentary about
IAEA head (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Mohammed ElBaradei. Mr. Conason writes:
Failing to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons will someday lead to
consequences even more dire than the worst hurricane or earthquake. Yet the geniuses
now in charge of the world's most powerful government have consistently botched and
undermined that effort.
The invasion of Iraq was among the worst blows in recent years to the
international campaign against the expansion of nuclear weapons. Back when President
Bush, Vice President Cheney and other U.S. officials accused Saddam of seeking to
build a nuclear capability, other nations feared that this charge would merely serve
as a pretext for pre-planned aggression.
Those same nations noticed how U.S. officials accepted the most dubious proof of
an Iraqi nuclear program, swept aside all contradictory evidence, and precipitated
war before the IAEA could complete its intrusive inspections.
http://www.observer.com/opinions_conason.asp
My 22-year-old son told me recently that he's shocked at the apparent lack of
objective MSM coverage of this volatile situation, and that he's forced to regularly
rely on my personal blog for any semblance of information. And that, while
flattering, is simultaneously a terrible shame. http://www.thehueandcry.com/
The frighteningly familiar campaign of "Liar, liar, pants on fire" being waged
against Iran by the Bushies deserves wider attention and criticism in the American
press before things cross, once again, a point of no return. And American citizens
need to demand that their leaders produce more clear-cut evidence this time around
than dubious slide shows of mobile weapons labs and a reckless official position of
"'Cause we say so".
In this debate, the stakes are a lot higher than Harriet Miers' church of choice.
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/16/124244/72
So, so right. Keep banging away at it is all I have to say. It's like we've forotten
what the Project for a New American Century actually entailed.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
By GFunk
Good link, G, and a worthwhile reminder about the PNAC. Funny how chilling some of
the language in its Statement of Principles is, when viewed in the context of current
Middle Eastern events.
I also found Executive Director Gary Schmitt's August 2nd memorandum interesting,
particularly his admission that,
The fact is... U.S. intelligence knows very little about what is going on Iran.
Indeed, given how little we know, the intelligence community estimate is just as
likely to be wrong as right when it comes to predicting Iran’s program.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iran-20050802.htm
Hardly an assessment that would logically lead to an urgent push for Security Council
sanctions as our primary approach. Thanks for the info.
By The Hue and Cry
Hardly an assessment that would logically lead to an urgent push for Security Council
sanctions as our primary approach.
Indeed. Nor is this, from the same memo:
None of this means that the U.S. should be planning an attack tomorrow. There
are numerous practical problems we would confront in carrying out that decision, even
if that were in theory the right one to make. Wait for it, wait for it...Ah, there it
is:
But it does mean that we have no reason to relax, nor can we postpone difficult
decisions indefinitely. As an aside, how amazing that we have to go to the British
press to get this stuff.
An honest question: is it too far-fetched to imagine that the U.S. played bad guy to
the UK's putative moderation last time, so now it's the UK's turn to pick the fight
that the U.S. would be "constrained" to support?
Like you, I'm seeing an eery pattern
By GFunk
By the way, Hue and Cry, your post inspired me to do a little drumbeat and roundup on
the Iran-runnup here. http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/17/8832/4102
Thanks for the nudge.
I'd be curious to hear what you make of the British Iran-is-in-Iraq claims and
Iranian Britain-is-in-Iran counterclaims. Are we trying to legitimize taking
military action in Iran?
By GFunk
Excellent post, G. I weighed in with some responses and additional links there. Glad
to know that at least two of us in the nation are taking note of this issue!
By The Hue and Cry