It's The End of the World As We Know It, And I Feel Fine

NYT Headlying:

U.N. Says Iran Has Fuel for 2 Nuclear Weapons

In their last report before the United Nations Security Council votes on sanctions against Iran, international nuclear inspectors declared Monday that Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons.

Ahh, there's the rub that their hysterical headline reduces a mountain to a molehill. See, if the standard of having a nuclear weapon is dependent on "further enrichment" then every country in the world has a nuke.

So what we need to take away from this is that Iran doesn't have weapons grade uranium, AKA nuke. And to acquire it they would need to enrich uranium well beyond their current technical expertise. The last 1% takes as much refining as the first 99%, and they would have a lot less resultant material.

One would hope that the NYT, or us, had learned their lesson after lying us into one war, but I guess to them that's a feature, not a bug.

Brain bleach begins in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..

And incidents arose from circumstance

I don't know what to make of North Korea's alleged nuclear test:

North Korea announced Monday that it successfully carried out an underground nuclear test, weeks after threatening to restart its rogue atomic program.

The country's official Korean Central News Agency called Monday's test "part of measures to bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defense."

President Lee Myung-bak convened an emergency security session. His spokesman, Lee Dong-kwan, confirmed that a nuclear test may have been carried out in the North.

Seismologists from the U.S., South Korea and Japan reported earthquakes in an northeastern area, where North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006.

Still, one thing's pretty clear: the GWBush administration had no real plan nor strategy for dealing with N. Korea beyond calling it part of the "Axis of Evil". That said, they did stop sanctions last year:

President Bush announced Thursday that he will lift U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea — a charter member of the "axis of evil" — and remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist now that Pyongyang has met a key requirement of its promise to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

But that lifting of sanctions seems schizophrenic when just 2 weeks earlier:

Further signs are emerging that the US is moving toward a more aggressive stance over North Korea. While there are internal differences over timing and tactics, the Bush administration has taken a series of new steps to isolate and menace Pyongyang over its nuclear programs.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed on Monday that Washington remained committed to restarting six-party talks on North Korea, dismissing comments by an unnamed senior US defence official on Sunday that the US was about to take the issue to the UN Security Council. She did not, however, completely rule out the possibility, instead describing the remarks as “a little forward-leaning”. She declared that no timetable had been set.

So how's all that working out now, Pres. Bush and Sec'y Rice? Oh wait, you don't give a shit. Elvis has left the building.

Now, of course, it's just one more BushCo fuck-up the Obama administration has to clean up. Kind of like international diarrhea: the shit's everywhere.

Supplying Smoking Guns to the Mushroom Cloud Crowd

Is our politicians learning? Uhhh, no!

US Defense Chief in India to Push Arms Sales, Military Ties

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates plunged into one of the world’s hottest arms market Tuesday, saying rapidly expanding US-Indian defence ties were in both countries’ interests.

His arrival coincided with news that India successfully tested its first nuclear capable missile from a submerged platform, completing its goal of developing air, land and sea-based ballistic missiles.
[...]
“India is the world’s largest democracy. It is in our interest to develop this relationship, just as it is in India’s,” he told reporters in New Delhi after strolling the grounds of the tomb of 16th century Mughal emperor Humayun.
[...]
He also expressed hope for completion of a US-Indian civil nuclear technology agreement that has been held up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s communist allies, but said that was not part of his talks here.

Gates flew in from Indonesia, where he also pledged strong US support for arms sales to the Indonesian military and its emergence as a power in southeast Asia.
[...]
India traditionally has relied on Russia as its primary military supplier but is now diversifying as the country modernises its military with an eye to China’s parallel drive to develop a military capable of projecting power in the region.

So Bushco & Gates want to sell arms to Indonesia, (the world's 4th most populous country, and had their first free elections in 2004), and to India, (a country with full nuclear capability and close communist ties.)

America sold arms to afghanistan to defeat the USSR, America sold arms to Iran to defeat Iraq, America sold arms to Iraq to defeat Iran.

Is anyone else detecting a trend?



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Libera te tutemet ex infernis ... or ... liberate me ex infernis

The Self Fulfilling Prophecy of Doom:

Pre-Emptive Nuclear Strike a Key Option, NATO Told

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
[...]
"The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."
[...]
The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them.

This is the scariest, most insane thing I've ever read.

And not only do these idjits have nukes, they even have bullet points:

The key threats are:

· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.

· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.

· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.

The hypocrisy astounds! George Bush and the GOP also preach 'Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.' They've brayed to the world about 'the axis of evil' and called the Iraq invasion a crusade!

And the 'dark side of globalization'!? Of course there is a 'dark side' to globalization! Countries that don't respect human rights or the environment can always make a product cheaper! Not to mention we also sold their governments arms, WMD chemicals and gave them nuke weapons technology. (See Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan.)

And since Bush has 'unsigned' the Kyoto protocol and refused to reduce emissions or even to seriously acknowledge climate change the 'migrate or drown' is forced upon low lying areas in the world due to the greenhouse gasses we refuse to curtail.

And The UN is weak because the US weakened it! We don't even pay our dues. This is like killing your parents and asking mercy from the court because you are an orphan!

To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new "directorate" of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU "obstruction" of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:

· A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.

· The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.

· No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.

· The use of force without UN security council authorisation when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings".

The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war against folks you just don't like is now supposed to be a NATO strategy ... with the generals in charge ... and nuclear hell is the opening gambit.




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak