This is not the kind of news I want to read:
US President George W. Bush branded Iran’s president a tyrant and compared leaders in Tehran to Al-Qaeda terrorists who cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
“America will not bow down to tyrants,” he said in the second of a series of election-year speeches defending his handling of the war on terrorism and Iraq. “The world’s free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.”
Bush accused Iran of funding the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and other groups “to attack Israel and America by proxy” and said Hezbollah was second only to Al-Qaeda in the number of US citizens it has killed.
I tend to agree that the Iranian president is a tyrant. I agree they are developing, trying to develop, or dying to develop nuclear weapons. I also agree they should not be trusted with them.
But I honestly do not know what can be done about it, what should be done about it, or whether I trust the current adminstration to do anything about it.
You could say I am gunshy.
Zifnab
Ok. So here’s the plan. We build this time machine, right? And then we go back to March 2003 and we DON’T INVADE IRAQ! Now we’ve got about a $1 trillion and an extra 150,000 troops to play with. Problem solved.
Richard Bottoms
>Ok. So here’s the plan. We build this time machine, right?
Just a little further back if you would to November 2000 and not vote for Bush too.
MAX HATS
Bit of a typo: you forgot a “know.” Or a “care.” Or something between the ‘not’ and the ‘what.’
ThymeZone
An absolutely rational and sensible response today.
Kudos for the post.
VidaLoca
Two proposals, not entirely unserious:
1. Total and complete diplomatic recognition. Because:
Zifnab
That doesn’t work. I’m not on the Supreme Court.
Zifnab
I’m totally waiting for Bush to issue Iran an ultimatum.
Bush: “You stop making nukes right now, or I’ll come over there and beat you up.”
Iran: “Oh yeah? You and what army?”
Bush: “… … … Shit.”
VidaLoca
Well that didn’t work so well…
Two proposals, not entirely unserious:
1. Total and complete diplomatic recognition. Because:
a. It never hurts to try negotiating before you consider more drastic means.
b. Embassies make great places to keep spies (which we have little of right now).
2. Put Beyonce on the diplomatic staff.
3. Have a drive-up window in the back of the embassy where the kids can pick up the CD’s.
Punchy
He’s talking about North Korea, right? Surely he’s describing That Fat Korean Guy, correct? Oh…wait…
He then finshed with, “But we’ll let tyrants WITHOUT OIL possess and handle all the nuclear weapons they want. Until they find oil. And then, we’re not going to bow down to them any longer, becuase, ya know, we cannot trust ’em. NOBODY mixes oil and plutonium on MY watch!”
Pb
Pfft, anyone can rattle a sabre and lob insults, and it means just about as much… but it isn’t at all productive or helpful. Madlibs time:
The Other Steve
Here, I thought Bush would be out Praising Ahmadinejad for eliminating Liberal/Secular professors
RonB
Zzzzzz…huh? Someone say something about a lame duck?
jg
This is the same mentality that imagines dems to be soft on security because they aren’t warmongers.
You’re not ‘gunshy’, you’re a reasonable person. That’s all. Its not a character flaw to want to know all the information, to want to know if war is the right choice, before you go to war.
Tsulagi
Well, the first freedomizing has been going so well why would you want to stop?
I’m just on pins and needles waiting for Condi to start telling us about mushroom cloud sunsets. Can’t wait to see how her sales job in the U.N. compares to Powell’s. We got any Iranian defector’s yet giving us inside information?
If so, if it was the same intelligence analyst who titled a PNB “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within U.S.” and gave Curveball his name, maybe s/he can code name the next defector Areyoustillthatfuckingbraindead?! as a helpful clue. Wish that analyst would stop being so subtle. Know your audience.
Leo
There is to much hyperbole on this topic. We do know that Iran doesn’t have the centrifuge capacity to produce wepons grade uranium. What centrifuges they do have a under producing what was projected for them. Even if someone handed the Iranians wepons grade uranium, they would only be capable of Hiroshima type bombs aka 15 kiloton. Plus the bomb would be huge monstrosity you would have to spend years of engineering effort to put on a missle.
There is no reasonable scenario for transfering a beg heavy barely sheilded nuclear device to a bunch of terrorists. It gets even further implausable that those terrorists would be able to transport such a device into the US undetected. Try to remember Big Man and Little Boy took 2-3 billion dollars and had to be delivered in a bomber that could barely take off the ground because the devices were so huge and heavy.
Finnally it took the US, in an arms race, nearly 10 years to produce a Fusion Bomb and even more years to place them on the tips of missles.
My bottom line is we have time. Time is on our side. I read some factoid that lik %50 of Iranians are under 25. Futher it is claimed by people smarter than I that the young Iranians are fairly pro-US. Open up diplomatic relations, spy alot, and build relationships that we can use as leaverage against a more US freindly government in the future.
Otto Man
Funny. Given the recent developments in Tehran, I would’ve thought Bush would see Ahmadinejad as his new bestest buddy.
Attacking liberal and secular professors? Replacing government officials with unqualified hacks and religious wackos? Sounds like a match made in fundamentalist heaven.
DougJ
Good post, John.
Tsulagi
Actually, if you’re going Hiroshima, the bomb itself is not that big nor that heavy. Nor is it that technically challenging. For their first bang, the Los Alamos guys adhered to the KISS principle. For very good reason.
The Hiroshima bomb was a very simple gun assembly design. It was contained within a pipe 6 inches in diameter by six feet long. Capped at both ends. At one end was high explosive. When fired, it propelled a mass of HEU in the middle to another at the other end of the pipe. BOOM. The world’s nastiest pipe bomb.
demimondian
Just a small quibble in an otherwise excellent post:
Actually, it was both big and heavy. To be sure, it was not as large as the Nagasaki bomb, but it was still a huge device. _Enola Gay_ had to be stripped to carry the payload, and, even so, jumped many feet upwards when the bomb was released.
Leo
I don’t want to be to argumentative but acording to wikipedia Little Boy was “10 feet (3 m) in length, 28 inches (71 cm) in diameter and weighed 8,900 lb (4000 kg)”. By my personal definition that is still “huge monstrosity”.
Richard Bottoms
Holy crap.
Max Cleland just blasted Atty. General Gonzales with both barrels on CNN for not focusing on Bin Laden & Al Quaeda.
Asked to comment by Wolf Blitzer immediately after a Gonzales interview, Cleland said:
“I don’t agree with damn thing the Attorney Genral said….”
Proud Liberal
One of the disastrous consequences of the Iraq misadventure is that rather than projecting strength, it projected American weakness. You hear all the right wingers simplistically say over and over, “all they understand is strength”. Well we blew that one big time by Bush/Rumsfeld’s miserable failure in Iraq.
But, I don’t know why everyone is so concerned with Iran possibly having a nuke in five to ten years when this country has quite a few nukes already:
Why isn’t this more worrisome than Iran?
Bruce Moomaw
No, John, you’re not gunshy. You’re just sensibly wary (like Greg Djerejian) of entrusting your safety in this matter to the Fearless Fosdick Administration. (You may recall that he once killed 47 innocent bystanders while trying to arrest an illegal balloon vendor.)
And if Seymour Hersh’s latest New Yorker article is to be believed (admittedly not a total slam-dunk), the Administration is already leaning toward the BRILLIANT stratagem of devoting most of our bombing not to actually trying to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, but instead to trying to “destabilize its government”, on the grounds that the people of Iran will be simply itching to come out on the side of the country that is bombing the shit out of them.
RonB
While we have this nifty time machine, howza bout we go back to 1954 and don’t overthrow the Mossadeq government via CIA/MI6 engineered coup.
HyperIon
John Cole wrote:
i thought a tyrant was an oppressive dictator.
the Iranian president is not in charge in Iran. he’s got a big mouth but i don’t think he is running the country. of course our moron-in-chief doesn’t pay attention to little details like that. but i wish others (for instance the owner of this blog) would.
The Other Steve
It’s interesting. Bush and his Republican buddies whine endlessly about how Bin Laden thinks we are not willing to take causualties.
But he launches a war in a manner which basically proves we’re not willing to take causualties. That is relying too much on air power, not putting enough soldiers on the ground and the ones we do put down we hide in bunkers. The whole time promising the American people this isn’t going to cost hardly anything, and we won’t lose any soldiers because they’ll be greeted with fruits and nuts.
So all Bush succeeded in doing was proving Bin Laden right. Played right into his hands.
Now, I personally think Bush and Bin Laden are wrong. I think the American people will take causualties in a military action, if there is no other choice to defend the nation.
And that’s the problem with the Bush foreign policy, and it’s why John Cole is a bit gunshy. Because we’re convinced Bush doesn’t give a shit enough about our soldiers to make certain he’s tried everything else prior to going to war.
The Other Steve
Hyperlon raises an interesting point. The other day I was watching CNN or NBC or something and they were interviewing people on the street in Tehran.
This doesn’t happen in North Korea. It didn’t happen in the Soviet Union, or Communist China under Mao. This does not seem to me to be evidence that we’re dealing with a Tyrant.
I have a suspicion that he’s just barely in control of things. The article talking about him ousting professors noted, it was met with great protest.
I think he comes from a generation who is out of touch, and as someone else noted with half the population under 25, he’s not long for this world should he push it too far.
J. King
One thing you can say about crackhead Bush and all his crackhead buddies–they’re good at schoolyard name calling. Unfortunately, that’s the beginning and the end of their abilities. Oh, besides smearing, I mean
Zifnab
The mullahs, unlike – say – the Chinese, are a people powered movement. They do not have all the cards, they are not geographically isolated, and they can’t afford the “purges” so popular in N.Korea, China, and Russia. However, they can shut down newspapers, throw dissidents in jail indefinitely, and generally cause their opposition all sorts of hell if you’re not important enough to be supported by your own insular community.
The Iranian university professors aren’t just average Toms and Joes teaching courses, they’re political forces in their own right, something University Professors here could take a page from. The very university system is structured differently – there’s no grants Tehran can yank, no scholarships they can deny, no research funding they can cut, no administrative board they can buy off – which limits government involvement in academia. When the President of Iran talks about “getting rid of those liberal professors” he’s talking about sending in the police.
Unfortunately, our university professors don’t have quite the same degree of freedom as those in Tehran. Thankfully, they aren’t quite as vulnerable to retaliation.
Perry Como
It’s worse than that. bin Laden is getting a free pass:
But there’s more!
Can’t wait to hear the spin on this one…
CaseyL
Well, hell, is anyone buying the latest truckload of crap other than Bush’s Braindead 30-something percent?
So far, I’m not seeing it. I’m not seeing the same mindless mass media jump onto the war bandwagon. I’m not seeing a lot of LTEs saying “We gotta hit Iran, now!” The only place gettin’ all frothy and steamy for war with Iran is Wingnuttia.
Look, if Bush wants a war, the only thing that’ll stop him is if the military pushes back hard, and it seems they’re doing just that.
If Bush is using the latest scaremongering for political effect (which is probably the case), I really don’t think it’ll work this time. It took a while – too damn long, if you ask me – for Americans to get up enough nerve to call a spade a bloody shovel, but they do seem to be doing so.
Tsulagi
No worries, me neither, I’m not going to be argumentative. Little Boy got to that size and weight due to its delivery system and protection. Now if some weren’t that worried about it being able to be bounced around in flight and dropped from a bomber, didn’t care what altitude their bomb detonated at, and getting rid of a few niceties, size and weight could be pared down considerably. Could easily be assembled here too.
Here’s a Congressional Research Report on nuclear threats to seaports. Page 2, “Build a Bomb” gives a little info about the Hiroshima pipe bomb.
demimondian
I think that pretending Ahmadenijad is not a tyrant is a bit of a stretch. That he’s not managed to create an effective dictatorship is unquestioned — as Zifnab says, the mullahs don’t have quite the effective totalitarian power that the Chinese Communists have. However, given time, they will either lose their demographic battle, or develop a full-blown totalitarianism.
Of course, I have not entirely missed the subtlety that a war with Iran will help to build that totalitarian government, just as a war with Iraq created the bloody failed state that currently exists there. Thanks, George!
Darrell
“I blame George Bush for it all!” = all leftist shitbags
demimondian
Look, Darrell “likes pie!” Darrell, we’ve heard that before…do you have anything else interesting to add?
Perry Como
Whipped cream?
fwiffo
Dammit, that was gonna be my suggestion. While we’re at it, can I take it back a few thousand more years and kick Abraham in the balls?
Zifnab
Pakistan is cutting and running!
Darrell
On this very blog a majority of leftists have posted that it’s “no big deal” if Iran gets access to nuclear weapons. The leftists here like to pretend that they’re normal people rather than the unhinged whackjobs that they really are
Krista
I have to wonder if Bush has any grasp on reality at all. Where does he think he’s going to get the force to back up the saber-rattling in Iran? His erstwhile allies? They were with him all the way in Afghanistan, and then a bunch of them said, “Thanks, but no thanks” to Iraq. Does he honestly think he’s going to get some sort of international coalition to invade Iran? And in regards to his own troops…where precisely does he think he’ll get enough troops for any sort of show of strength?
It just pisses me off, really, because Iraq was no immediate threat. And all that goodwill from other nations, and all of those troops’ lives, and all of that money — squandered.
Zifnab
What Bush, and so many other American politicians, seem to constantly forget in their warmongering is that America can and does lose military engagements often enough to make war a risky endevour. Our President wants to throw American military might that doesn’t exist at Iran. At the risk of sounding like a “I just want to see soldiers die” liberal, I’m actually eager to see him try an invasion with whatever military force Chairman Pace can scrap together. More than anything, I just want to see Republicans try and push for a draft. That’ll be the comic high point of this entire Administration.
Darrell
Oh Krista, how horrible, that Bush “squandered” all that goodwill from nations like France who were trading directly with Saddam, like they’re doing right now with Iran. The horror of it all!
fwiffo
I seem to recall that it was just barely newsworthy when Pakistan got the bomb, and now they’re offering safe harbor to Bin Laden. But Iran is, at a minimum, several years away and it’s time to freak out? Just gotta check… Is 2006 an even number?
fwiffo
So you’ll agree that it’s bad that American companies also abused the oil-for-food scandal? And that it was bad for Haliburton to be trading illegally with Iran?
Darrell
As I understand it, the “abuses” of the oil-for-food program were overwhelmingly Eurotrash. But yes, for any American companies, what few are guilty that abused the program.. hell yes they should be hung out to dry.
Krista
Afghanistan: The Afghan Northern Alliance provided the majority of forces, while the U.S. and fellow NATO members the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Germany, along with Australia, Pakistan, and New Zealand, provided support.
In Iraq, the only two countries providing any sizeable number of troops are the U.S. and the U.K.
That goodwill.
Gone.
Darrell
France honors itself by naming street after American cop killer . There is no honest doubt to his guilt. This is a classic example of the “world opinon” which so many leftists say that we should give a shit about.
Darrell
B-B-B-B-B-BUUSHHHH! The whackjob left is out in full force, and they have deluded themselves into believing that they’re normal.
demimondian
Darrell, we know that you “like pie!” Really, so what?
Once-ler
So, he’s not a tyrant, but he is a tyrant, because someday, he might become a tyrant? Sure. Anyway, I think you’ve missed the point. The President of Iran isn’t a tyrant because his constitutional powers are too limited. Ahmadenijad can talk a lot, but The Supreme Leader, Khamenei, has the real power, not the President.
JWeidner
I say
“I hold this administration completely blameless” = all rightie shitbags.
There. That was easy. Let the poo flinging commence anew!
Zifnab
Ahmadenijad was hand picked by Khamenei, so anything he “does” is almost inevitably sanctioned by the Supreme Leader. But even then Khamenei’s powers are limited by the tolerance of the people. Thus Khamenei is a tyrant, just not a powerful one.
Zifnab
“I enjoy pie for it is tasty!” = Darrel
“Stop talking about my teddy bear!” = scs
“Please e-mail me sometime in the near future.” = Thymezone
“I hold
DarrelLee Seigel completely blameless for his comments.” =Par Rspeetznatz(or whatever it was)Once-ler
Ahmadenijad was elected. He had an opponent and everything. In fact, as I recall, his election was something of a surprise.
During that election campaign, some people were saying things to the effect that “Sure Iran can elect a President, but it’s not a real democracy because the President doesn’t have any real power anyway”. Now, all the sudden, this elected President without any real power is a tyrant.
Otto Man
Nope. Sen. Cornyn’s office has been closed for the Labor Day weekend.
demimondian
His election was not a surprise — the Guardian Council disallowed all the credible competing candidates, and Ahmadenijad’s thugs on the streets of Tehran saw to the rest.
As to the “figurehead” argument some people were advancing…well, this people wasn’t one of them. So your criticism doesn’t apply.
Once-ler
From the BBC, shortly before the election:
Of course, Ahmadenijad (surprise!) and Rafsanjani advanced to the second round.
Again, from the BBC, shortly after the election:
Zifnab
Looking at the current little mess in Pakistan, it seems fairly obvious that Iran’s biggest fatal mistake was its inability to bow its head for one tensy second. All Khamenei had to say was “Sure, Mr. President, I’ll join your war on terror” and blamo – he can deal with terrorists, sign treaties with American enemies, and harbor known 9/11 masterminds – and the US won’t lift a finger.
I have to give Abizaid credit, he played it shrewd on this one. And he’s got nukes and everything. What a sweet deal. I bet Iran is just drooling with envy.
Zifnab
Once-ler, I think you’re confusing “surprise” – “I had no idea Ahmadinejad was so popular” with “surprise” – “Oh look, the mullahs rigged the election”.
Ahmadinejad’s win was a surprise to anyone who assumed the election was supposed to be fair and impartial. To anyone reading the Iranian political playbook, it went off exactly as planned.
Once-ler
From CNN, before the election:
Yes, Iranians are people. In fact, being Iranian, they might know more about Iran than you.
CaseyL
I was going to post the news about Pakistan declaring itself a sanctuary for OBL, but Perry Como beat me to it.
The guy who really did have “something to do with 9/11” – and who Bush says “doesn’t really concern me anymore” – is home free in our “ally,” Pakistan.
And the guy who hasn’t done doodly except talk a big game – he’s the one the Bushists have their knickers in a twist over.
So tell me again: what, exactly, is the “WoT” supposed to be about?
Once-ler
That’s just assuming the election was rigged because you don’t like the result. Show me some evidence.
Yes, the candidates were prescreened. But they were not identical – there were real, substantial differences between them.
Your position seems to be that Ahmadinejad is not a figurehead, he’s a puppet. How can either one be a tyrant?
If you say that Khamenei is a tyrant, I won’t argue with you. But Ahmadinejad? He’s just a loudmouth.
Perry Como
So, like, seriously. When are we invading Pakistan for harboring terrorists? Before, during or after we attack Iran?
Serious. Smart. Strong.
demimondian
Pakistan is not harboring terrorists, you leftist whackbat. Pakistan is helping Afghanistan by providing a respite from the unceasing attacks those Pashto tribesmen would otherwise aim at the government in Kabul.
As long as they’re at peace in Pakistan, they’re not terrorists, you see. They’ll only become terrorists if they aren’t at peace.
Perry Como
Looney, liberal, leftist Bill Roggio says that the Taliban has set up “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.”
Once-ler
Quoting Zifnab:
and, quoting myself:
So, my apologies for not noticing that you said exactly that. But the idea of a tyrant without much power mystifies me a bit.
You might wonder what difference it makes if it’s Khamenei or Ahmadenijad that’s the tyrant. The difference is, Khamenei doesn’t seem to go around saying crazy things in public. In this world, tyrants are a dime a dozen, it’s just the crazy ones you have to watch out for.
Once-ler
Quoting Zifnab:
and, quoting myself:
So, my apologies for not noticing that you said exactly that. But the idea of a tyrant without much power mystifies me a bit.
You might wonder what difference it makes if it’s Khamenei or Ahmadenijad that’s the tyrant. The difference is, Khamenei doesn’t seem to go around saying crazy things in public. In this world, tyrants are a dime a dozen, it’s just the crazy ones you have to watch out for.
demimondian
Yeah, well, Roggio is just another Defeatocrat, isn’t he? I mean, what kind of coward would serve for five years in the Army, then for many years more in the National Guard, and get published in such left-wing tracts as _The Weekly Standard_ or _The National Review_? Real men dodge their military obligations on the strength of Daddy’s connections.
This is just another attack on America by the facts. The facts are notoriously biased, and so we must simply make sure that they don’t get in the way of us knowing which things are true.
Once-ler
Sorry for the double post.
Perry Como
Finally found the spin. This is actually a ploy to make bin Laden feel safe and lure him out of his hidey hole. Brilliant!
demimondian
Exactly! And our maximum leader is executing his brilliant strategery based on the simple fact that this region is no bigger than New Jersey. I mean, come on! New Jersey? It’s a tiny state!
just me
Darrell,I’ve never posted here that it’s no big deal if Iran gets newquler weapons,but this leftist doesn’t think it is a particularly big deal if they do.In fact,if I had one to give them,I would,since by my calculation it would do more to deter US aggression than any 100 antiwar demonstrations I might attend.But I would be willing to listen if you would walk me through the reasons it is a big deal,or a bigger deal than the newquler status of China,or Russia,or Pakistan,to mention just 3 of the known newquler states.Other than the nonsense spouted by their relatively powerless president,nothing about their behaviour is necessarily irrational.I really think there’s better reasons for you guys to be soiling your pants.
Proud Liberal
Darrell attacks France for trading with Iraq and Iran:
but apparently is ok with this:
I’m sure Darrell will find some reason why France is Bad and Cheney is good. that is how the mind of a Darrell works. Facts are irrelevant, just attack those you disagree with and applaud those that you do. I really is so tiresome isn’t it?
Vlad
“He’s talking about North Korea, right? Surely he’s describing That Fat Korean Guy, correct? Oh…wait…”
That’s odd, I thought he was finally agreeing to some limits on the scope of presidential power.
The Other Steve
Sorry, still not convinced that Iran is such a threat that we need to nuke them from orbit.
Are they are friends? Nope.
But that doesn’t mean we need to go to war with them.
A bad peace is better than a just war.
The Other Steve
And since I’m going to be called a pacifist for that last comment.
Kirk Spencer
Zifnab, re the elections…
For what it’s worth every indicator is that the elections themselves weren’t rigged at all – after the removal of the candidates deemed too, ummm, improper, of course.
The single largest factor that pushed the victor over the top was George Bush’s actions and speeches. It appears the thinking went something on the lines of:
Here’s this guy in that nation over there making serious threats, with the capability to actually follow through, AND he’s already attacked two nations on our borders. We’ve got this host of candidates, most of whom don’t mention him at all. Of those that do, all but one speaks of negotiation and diplomacy, but one is promising to ‘Resist and destroy all threats to our nation.’ He also picked up a little more by speaking of cleaning up the moral laxness the nation had developed, but that was really a secondary issue in which he wasn’t alone.
So do you vote for the wonk or the jock? In Iran, just as the US, they chose the jock. The god-fearing, pulpit pounding, never-back-down jock.
A sad point of interest is that if you reverse “US” and “Iran” (and God/Allah), an amazing number of speeches made by Bush and Ahmadinejad look the same.
Punchy
I love the comparison to New Jersey. Now are we all supposed to envision that the Taliban is living among landfills, Superfund sites, and medical waste and syringes washing up on mountainous glaciers?
Andrew
And those are the nice parts of Waziristan!
alkali
This odd issue keeps coming up where the administration labels the bad guys with an oddly inappropriate term: the suicide pilots of 9/11 are “cowards,” the elected president of Iran is a “tyrant.” I suppose next we’ll be calling Osama bin Ladin a witch. It would seem to me that there are lots of perfectly appropriate bad names to call these people that wouldn’t provoke uncomfortable questions.
Lindata
Thank you.
I believe that after WWII the world was collectively gunshy. This marginalized the militant right enough to allow the moderates non-communist left to formulate the basic containment strategy of the cold war. Over the next fifty years the right kept trying to heat things up, but basically we held to containment and won.
Gunshy is, perhaps, a wise attitude to take when formulating policy.
The Other Steve
A Witch!?
Burn her!
John S.
She turned me into a NEWT [sic Gingrich]!
I got better.
chopper
and populated by a bunch of crappy drivers and annoying pakistani women with big hair and ugly accents.
Sojourner
Why is anyone surprised? The only strategy the Bushies have is to scare the American people into voting for the Repubs.
Start a war with Iran and, oh boy, the American people will have a serious reason to be afraid.
Great plan.
Proud Liberal
I’m getting whiplash trying to follow this administration’s positions. First Osama bin Laden was “Wanted, Dead or Alive” “he can run but he can’t hide”. Well, apparently he could hide and very well it seems. Since the great Decider couldn’t find bin Laden he changed his tune. Do we all remember this?
So… bin laden is not so important anymore? his network is destroyed? Good fucking news right?
whoo nellie… but what about the speech Bush just gave? bin Laden seems to be the next Hitler or Stalin? His “destroyed” network the next Nazi’s or Communists… He just said:
So which is it Mr. President? Do you take him “seriously” or you don’t pay attention to him anymore?.
peteathome
I’m one of those people who’s not super worried about Iran having the bomb. Basically, any nation state that gave an atomic bomb to a terrorist group to use against the USA would have to be crazy.
Why? because we would easily trace the bomb back to that nation state from the relative isotope levels and other fingerprints. And we have MANY nuclear bombs and would probably use them against said nation state.
N. Korea comes to mind when I think of nation states that MIGHT be crazy enough to do such a thing.
Of course, just because a nation state is not currently crazy doesn’t mean it can’t become crazy with a change of government or out of desperation. And a bomb of the size being discussed could easily be shipped in a container through our not very secure borders.
So I’m not completely sangfroid about this. it seems that a few well-placed conventional bombs could set Iran back many years. Something to be considered.
Meanwhile, I’m much more concerned about all the highly radioactive nucleotides left lying around by the Soviets that would be great for a terrorist to use to make a dirty bomb. Something the administration seems not at all concerned with, as far as I can tell.
HyperIon
huh? i guess you mean radioactive materials related to nuclear weapons. i am not aware of any nucleotides that are radioactive….glowing DNA?
peteathome
I suppose th ey probably DO make radioactive nucleotides for labeling studies.
But yes – I was trying to say radioactive nuclear materials. Somehow I abbreviated that into nucleotide.
demimondian
HyperIon — in fact, radioactive nucleotides are a routine part of DNA and RNA experimentation, although they’re used less often than they used to be. By replacing the prosphorus in the nucleic acid with P32, one obtains a band on a gel where the segments localize.
me
“I tend to agree that the Iranian president is a tyrant.”
an elected tyrant ??
with a less contested vote than in the US?
maybe you don t like him but calling him a tyrant is dubya level amateurish
ats
“I tend to agree that the Iranian president is a tyrant.”
“me” is right, and for the rest of the story consider who is translating what the Iranian President has said (MEMRI, a Mossad operation).
“Two Iranian troops found dead in ditches in Lebanon!!!” Then not a word of confirmation.
“Jews in Iran forced in wear yellow stars!!” Soon refuted, but author later invited to closed White House confab.
“Wipe Israel off the map!” MEMRI at work.