[News] The New York Crimes: All The Lies That Fit to Print
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Dec 30 11:08:11 EST 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2009/12/new-york-crimes-all-lies-that-fit-to.html
<http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2009/12/new-york-crimes-all-lies-that-fit-to.html>The
New York Crimes:
<http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2009/12/new-york-crimes-all-lies-that-fit-to.html>All
The Lies That Fit to Print
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human
stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
- Albert Einstein
"The age of military attacks is over, now we've
reached the time for dialogue and understanding.
Weapons and threats are a thing of the
past...even for mentally challenged people."
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6646115/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-US-and-Israel-dont-have-the-courage-to-attack-Iran.html>11/23/2009
The American political, academic, and media
establishment has long been
<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1676826,00.html>beating
the
<http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/28/analysis-iran-debate-pretty-much-over/>drums
of
<http://original.antiwar.com/roberts/2009/09/28/another-war-in-the-works/>war
with Iran and, as the author of New York Times'
latest
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/opinion/24kuperman.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all>OpEd
encouraging the US bombing of that country,
University of Texas professor Alan J. Kuperman
has now emerged as the Keith Moon of sensational
jingoism and, considering his concept of reality,
morality, and legality, is probably twice as crazy.
<http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/faculty/alan-kuperman/>Mr.
Kuperman, in a piece published on December 23rd
and titled "There’s Only One Way to Stop Iran",
stridently advocates for an immediate,
unilateral, unprovoked and devastating aerial
assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. He writes,
"Since peaceful carrots and sticks cannot work
[with Iran], and an invasion would be foolhardy,
the United States faces a stark choice: military
air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities or
acquiescence to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons."
Apparently, Mr. Kuperman's "one way" is a
premeditated act of war, a preemptive attack on a
sovereign nation that has not threatened nor
invaded any country in over two and half
centuries. The "stark" choices that Mr. Kuperman
proposes do not include the obvious legal answer:
for US policy to abide by international law and
ratified treaties guaranteeing the right of Iran
to a peaceful nuclear energy program and
therefore cease threatening Iran with homicidal military action.
Though Mr. Kuperman claims to believe that
"negotiation to prevent nuclear proliferation is
always preferable to military action," he
immediately turns around to state, "We have
reached the point where air strikes are the only
plausible option with any prospect of preventing
Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons." He
concludes with the dire warning that "Postponing
military action merely provides Iran a window to
expand, disperse and harden its nuclear
facilities against attack. The sooner the United
States takes action, the better."
Mr. Kuperman even believes that "Iran's atomic
sites might need to be bombed more than once to
persuade Tehran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear
weapons." His suggestions not only defy all basic
logic and reason, but, more perversely,
demonstrate his utter contempt for global
jurisprudence, basic facts, and human life.
Despite being a highly educated scholar, Mr.
Kuperman, who has a Ph.D. in political science
from MIT, reveals a stunning lack of historical
knowledge, a general disinterest in providing any
sort of supporting evidence or documentation for
his baffling assumptions, and a bewildering
inability to discern truth from propaganda, all
of which, unfortunately, inform his outrageous
conclusions. In fact, there are so many
unsubstantiated claims and outright lies packed
into the relatively short article, it's an
absolute wonder that The New York Times chose to
print it. Has the
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2007/11/iran-iaea-repor.html>Grey
Lady laid off all its fact-checkers?
Then again, it should probably come as no
surprise that the "newspaper of record" has no
qualms about printing
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org%2Fcockburn08182003.html&ei=hm45S4rXKJPmlAfE_Z2aBw&usg=AFQjCNEWOQq5agZKAZR9maRvUk3gPF4LHw&sig2=OlhWeOpdsglcHG6sUyuXlw>fiction
masked as truth, as seen with the
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2362/>relentless
build-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq just seven years ago.
First of all, Kuperman's constant
<http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/11/politics-of-reporting-on-iaea-reports.html>mischaracterizations
of Iran's wholly legal energy program as an
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/files/IAEA_Iran_Report_May2008.pdf>illicit,
<http://tinyurl.com/6qmtzj>covert effort to
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2009/05/new-york-times-lies-about-irans-nuclear-program-yes-again.html>build
a
<http://mondoweiss.net/2009/05/is-david-sanger-judy-miller-deja-vu-without-the-neocon-fixins-.html>nuclear
bomb stands in stark contrast to all available
information provided and accepted by both the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which
monitors Iran's nuclear program, and the
intelligence community of the United States,
which spies on Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA
has repeatedly
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/files/IAEA_Iran_Report_May2008.pdf>found,
through intensive, round-the-clock monitoring and
inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities -
including numerous surprise visits to Iranian
enrichment plants - that all of Iran's
centrifuges operate under IAEA safeguards and
"continue to be operated as declared."
In an
<http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2003/gov2003-75.pdf>IAEA
report from as far back as November 2003, the
agency states that "to date, there is no evidence
that the previously undeclared nuclear material
and activities referred to above were related to
a nuclear weapons programme." Then, after
extensive inspections of Iran's nuclear
facilities, the IAEA again concluded in its
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2004/gov2004-83.pdf&ei=OWo2S-WBPIvDlAfVxZyiBw&sa=X&oi=nshc&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CAkQzgQoAA&usg=AFQjCNFijLDy6vYvuTkZRzQ5xJwivOZwwg>November
2004 report that "all the declared nuclear
material in Iran has been accounted for, and
therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."
In May 2008, the IAEA reported that it had found
"no indication" that Iran has or ever did have a
nuclear weapons program and affirmed that "The
Agency has been able to continue to verify the
non-diversion of declared nuclear material [to
weaponization] in Iran." Earlier this year, IAEA
spokesperson Melissa Fleming even issued a
statement clarifying the IAEA's position
regarding the
<http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/20/world/fg-iran-nuclear20>flurry
of
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/world/middleeast/20nuke.html>deliberately
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,455024,00.html>misleading
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/4731092/Iran-has-enough-uranium-to-build-a-nuclear-bomb.html>articles
in the US and European press
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1150804/Iran-fuel-build-nuclear-bomb.html>claiming
that Iran had enriched enough uranium "to build a
nuclear bomb." The
<http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/7517>statement,
among other things, declared that "No nuclear
material could have been removed from the
[Nantanz] facility without the Agency's knowledge
since the facility is subject to video
surveillance and the nuclear material has been kept under seal."
This assessment was reaffirmed as recently as
September 2009, in response to various media
reports over the past few years claiming that
Iran's intent to build a nuclear bomb can be
proven by information provided from a
<http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/06/03/report-ties-dubious-iran-nuclear-docs-to-israel/>mysterious
stolen laptop and a dubious, undated - and most
likely
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121538870>forged
-
<http://www.isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/new-document-reopens-question-on-whether-irans-nuclear-weaponization-work-c/>two-page
document. The IAEA
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hpiOh8HRiFE6Sa_idQiCow5EBu1A>stated,
"With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA
reiterates that it has no concrete proof that
there is or has been a nuclear weapon programme in Iran."
Both the out-going and in-coming
Director-Generals of the IAEA,
<http://payvand.com/news/07/oct/1291.html>Mohamed
ElBaradei and
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL312024420090703>Yukiya
Amano, respectively, have stated that there is
absolutely
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/30/iranian-nuclear-weapons-mohamed-elbaradei>no
evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Even the United States' National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE), which aggregates classified
information from 16 American intelligence and
security agencies,
<http://www.blogger.com/www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf>concluded
in a formal evaluation of Iran's "Nuclear
Intentions and Capabilities" in November 2007
that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program.
A recent Newsweek
<http://www.newsweek.com/id/215529>report, from
September 16, 2009, indicates that, despite what
is constantly repeated by administration
officials and warmongers like Mr. Kuperman, the
NIE stands by its 2007 assessment and that "U.S.
intelligence agencies have informed policymakers
at the White House and other agencies that the
status of Iranian work on development and
production of a nuclear bomb has not changed."
Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal
accurately
<http://blog.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/12/17/the-bottom-line-on-irans-nuclear-program/>points
out the "important difference between the U.S.
intelligence community’s and the IAEA’s
assessments," continuing, "According to the 2007
NIE, Iran had a nuclear weapons program until
2003. According to the IAEA - the international
nuclear watchdog agency actively monitoring
Iran’s program and conducting inspections in the
country - there is no proof Iran ever had a nuclear weapons program."
Nevertheless, in a mere 1492 words, Mr. Kuperman
refers to, what he terms, Iran's "bomb program"
eight times and makes ten additional references
to Iran's so-called pursuit of a nuclear weapon
arsenal, nuclear weapons techniques,
weapons-grade enrichment, and weapons
trafficking. One can only assume, then, that he
has information that neither the IAEA inspectors
nor the United States government has yet to uncover and examine.
Perhaps, devoid of any actual evidence, Kuperman
simply takes as a matter of faith that the
Iranian government is intent on and committed to
acquiring nuclear weapons. Maybe he's just
worried about supposed apocalyptic ideologies of
modern governments which blend theocracy and
republicanism and agrees with
<http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/11699>war
<http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node/10>criminal
Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned during his
September 24
<http://www.nowpublic.com/world/benjamin-netanyahu-un-speech-full-text-transcript-sep-24-2009>speech
at the UN, in what may have been the single most
ironic and self-unaware statement since "Let them
eat cake", that "the greatest threat facing the
world today is the marriage between religious
fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction."
This amazing statement came from the designated
(not elected) Prime Minister of a self-described
"Jewish State" which currently has
<http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/>upwards
of 400 nuclear warheads yet has never signed the
NPT and is therefore not subject to inspection and monitoring.
But if faith really is a consideration, due to
the fact that Iran is a deeply religious society
and a constitutionally mandated Islamic Republic,
perhaps Mr. Kuperman should be aware that, on
August 10, 2005, Iranian nuclear negotiator Sirus
Naseri informed an emergency meeting of the IAEA
Board of Governors that a religious decree
unconditionally prohibiting the acquisition of
nuclear weapons was in effect. He
<http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/nuke/mehr080905.html>stated,
"The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the fatwa that
the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear
weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the
Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire
these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who
took office just recently, in his inaugural
address reiterated that his government is against
weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue
nuclear activities in the peaceful domain.
The leadership of Iran has pledged at the highest
level that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon
state party to the NPT and has placed the entire
scope of its nuclear activities under IAEA
safeguards and Additional Protocol, in addition
to undertaking voluntary transparency measures
with the agency that have even gone beyond the
requirements of the agency's safeguard system."
Furthermore, Congressional foreign policy advisor
Gregory Aftandilian, speaking at a Center for
National Policy event titled “A Nuclear Middle
East” in October 2008,
<http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1247&Itemid=2>stated
rationally that Iran is "not stupid" and "has a
long history, thousands of years, of statecraft
Tehran is not suicidal."
Even more to the point, the government and
military of Iran has a strict
"<http://www.juancole.com/2006/06/khamenei-no-nuclear-weapon-program-no.html>no
first strike" policy, something that countries
like the United States and Israel obviously don't
have. Iranian government and military officials
have
<http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2008/06/trick-or-threat-us-and-israels-visions.html>long
stated that they will act in self-defense only if
their country is attacked and have never issued
threats about initiating aggression against
another nation. As General Hoseyn Salami,
commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Air
Force,
<http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/irgc-air-force-commander-missile-tests.html>remarked
on an Iranian news program on September 28, 2009,
"As long as our enemies act within a political
domain, our behavior will be completely
political. However, if they want to leave the
domain of political action and enter the domain
of military threat, then our action will be exactly and completely military."
Whereas Iran operates legally with defensive
consideration for its own security in the face of
constant
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574418813806271306.html>bellicose
rhetoric and
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6715412.ece>aggressive
posturing from both
<http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/22/obama-orders-update-to-iran-attack-plan/>Washington
and
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255547721120&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull>Tel
Aviv, Mr. Kuperman's advice to the US government
directly contravenes international law. In fact,
even the threat of attack is prohibited by the
<http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml>Charter
of the United Nations, which states, "All Members
shall refrain in their international relations
from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence
of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent
with the Purposes of the United Nations." (Article 2, paragraph 4)
In July 1946, Robert Jackson, the chief US
prosecutor at Nuremburg after World War II,
stated in his
<http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-man/speeches-articles/speeches/speeches-by-robert-h-jackson/closing-address-before-the-international-military-tribunal/>Closing
Argument of the Trial of the Major War Criminals
before the International Military Tribunal that
of all Nazi war crimes, including invasion,
occupation, mass displacement, concentration and
extermination camps, ethnic cleansing, and
genocide, "the central crime in this pattern of
crimes, the kingpin which holds them all
together, is the plot for aggressive wars."
When the
<http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judnazi.asp>judgment
of the IMT was delivered a few months later, it
maintained that "To initiate a war of
aggression...is not only an international crime;
it is the supreme international crime, differing
only from other war crimes in that it contains
within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
The Nuremburg judgment had a profound influence
on subsequent international law; its findings and
conclusions served as the framework for UN
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide (1948), The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948), The Geneva
Convention on the Laws and Customs of War (1949)
and its additional protocols (1977), The
Nuremberg Principles (1950), The Convention on
the Abolition of the Statute of Limitations on
War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (1968),
and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998).
Considering Mr. Kuperman has a Masters degree in
international relations and international
economics from the Bologna-based Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International
Studies, one might assume he would have a strong
grasp on these governing principles of
international law. Alas, as his policy
suggestions seem based upon myriad
misunderstandings of simple information and are
tantamount to the supreme war crime of
aggression, it appears that his higher education
is not the only thing about Kuperman that's bologna based.
Kuperman begins his OpEd by declaring that the
recent draft agreement proposed by the five
permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council (all of them nuclear weapons states) and
Germany (which engages in
"<http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/euro/euro.pdf>nuclear
sharing" with the United States,
<http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2000nuclearsharing1.htm>widely
<http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/statements/npt02malaysia.pdf>seen
as a
<http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom08/ngostatements/NuclearSharing.pdf>major
<http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Notes/1998criticismnato.htm>breach
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty itself)
was defective from the outset and would have
aided Iran on, as Kuperman would have us believe,
its nefarious quest to build nuclear bombs. He
<http://www.blogger.com/www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/opinion/24kuperman.html>claims
that the proposal, which called for roughly 70%
of Iran's accumulated low-enriched uranium to be
sent to Russia and France for further processing
before it was returned (sometime in the future)
for use in a medical reactor core in Tehran,
would have "rewarded [Iran] with much-coveted
reactor fuel despite violating international law"
and "fostered proliferation" because "the vast
surplus of higher-enriched fuel Iran was to get
under the deal would have permitted some to be diverted to its bomb program."
The Western proposal was met with considerable
and understandable skepticism from all segments
of Iranian establishment who see the offer as
being a way to permanently stop Iran's enrichment
capabilities, which are legally guaranteed by the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran
has been a
<http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/text/npt3.htm>signatory
for over 40 years. Iran's Speaker of Parliament
Ali Larijani
<http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=109516§ionid=351020104>warned
on October 24 that "Westerners are insisting to
go in a direction that suggests cheating." Iran's
head-of-state Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
speaking on November 4, also cautioned against
the deal,
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/03/AR2009110301397.html?sub=AR>stating,
"When we carefully look at the situation, we
notice that [the United States and its allies]
are hiding a dagger behind their back."
Even Mir Hossein Mousavi, presidential challenger
and leader of the current opposition movement,
criticized the proposal in late October when he
declared, "If the promises given [to the West]
are realized, then the hard work of thousands of
scientists would be ruined." Mehdi Karroubi,
another opposition leader and presidential
hopeful,
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091108/wl_nm/us_iran_karoubi>accused
Ahmadinejad's administration of
<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/24/waiting_for_tehran>abandoning
national interests by negotiating with the IAEA.
Nevertheless, Time reported that "President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
<http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/29/worldupdates/2009-10-29T144319Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-435242-3&sec=Worldupdates>insisted
on October 29 that 'conditions have been prepared
for international cooperation in the nuclear
field' and his administration is 'ready to
cooperate.'" Furthermore, Iran's nuclear
negotiator
<http://televisionwashington.com/floater_article1.aspx?lang=en&t=1&id=15483>Saeed
Jalili, Armed Forces chief of staff
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gKiooKb-o9ruNXNJEjjNtTtn6E-g>General
Hassan Firouzabadi, and Iran's representative to
the IAEA,
<http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=208519>Ali
Asghar Soltanieh all expressed a desire to use
diplomatic efforts to find a reasonable and
suitable solution to the current standoff.
In early December, Iran’s Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/world/middleeast/13iran.html?_r=1>stated
that Iran was "willing to exchange most of its
uranium for processed nuclear fuel from abroad"
in a phased transfer of material with
<http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=1006503>full
guarantees that the West "will not backtrack an
exchange deal." Mr. Mottaki proposed that Iran
would agree to initially hand over 25% of its
uranium in a simultaneous exchange for an
equivalent amount of enriched material in order
to fuel the medical research reactor. The
remainder of the uranium would be traded over "several years."
In response, The New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/world/middleeast/13iran.html?_r=1>reported
that this proposed timetable was immediately
rejected by Western powers. The US
government-sponsored Voice of America
<http://www.payvand.com/news/09/dec/1131.html%20>quoted
an unidentified senior US official as claiming
that the Iranian counter-proposal inconsistent
with the "fair and balanced" draft agreement.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has
<http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWgSBd8knYlaq-D0zQjSHKiT2nAQ>previously
threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran,
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1109/Clinton_says_Iran_should_accept_nuclear_deal_as_is_.html>urged
Iran to "accept the agreement as proposed because we are not altering it."
Apparently, the US government is unaware of what
a "draft agreement" is. By definition, it is a
proposal - a "draft" - not a final, binding
accord. It is a primary piece of negotiation that
can and should be revised by all parties until a
mutually beneficial agreement is reached. The
West appears to only accept its own offers and
dismisses any other suggestions. This is not
diplomacy, this is no "outstretched hand." This
is, quite simply, an illegal and imperial
ultimatum dictated to the sovereign nation of
Iran by historically aggressive, colonial powers.
As The New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/world/middleeast/13iran.html?_r=1>reported,
"Mr. Mottaki also suggested that the Western news
media had helped torpedo the October agreement by
framing it in hostile terms that confirmed Iran’s
fears of losing its nuclear supplies.
'We said we are in agreement on the principles of
the proposal, but suddenly the Western media
announced that 1,200 kilograms of uranium would
be leaving Iran to delay the construction of a
nuclear bomb,' Mr. Mottaki said, according to
Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency. 'Is this
the answer to Iran’s confidence-building?
Still, Mr. Kuperman mischaracterizes Iran's
supposed acceptance-then-rejection of the absurd
Western proposition. "President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad initially embraced the deal because
he realized it aided Iran's bomb program," he
writes, and then claims that "under such domestic
pressure, Mr. Ahmadinejad reneged."
Mr. Kuperman declares that "Tehran’s rejection of
the deal was likewise propelled by domestic
politics - including last June's fraudulent
elections and longstanding fears of Western
manipulation." Not only does this statement
simply assume that the reelection of President
Ahmadinejad was stolen and illegitimate
(<http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2009/06/in-fraud-we-trust_23.html>a
tired narrative devoid of any substantiated
evidence), he dismisses
<http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2009/06/ajax-redux-us-heavy-meddle-in-iran.html>foreign
involvement - namely that of the US - in Iranian
affairs by employing the word "fears" rather than "facts."
Perhaps Mr. Kuperman is unaware that in 2007, ABC
News
<http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3206417>reported
that George W. Bush had signed a secret
"Presidential finding" authorizing the CIA to
"mount a covert 'black' operation to destabilize
the Iranian government." These operations,
according to current and former intelligence
officials, included "a coordinated campaign of
propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative
newspaper articles, and the manipulation of
Iran's currency and international banking
transactions." The Sunday Telegraph corroborated
this information when it
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1543798/US-funds-terror-groups-to-sow-chaos-in-Iran.html>stated,
"Mr. Bush has signed an official document
endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and
disinformation campaign intended to destabilize,
and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs."
It is also well-known that, a year later, the
Bush administration was granted $400 million with
which to further destabilize Iran via, as the
Washington Post
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901881_pf.html>reported
at the time "activities ranging from spying on
Iran’s nuclear program to supporting rebel groups
opposed to the country’s ruling clerics
" The
<http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/5551>rebel
groups supported by such funding and training
include, according to both
<http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew05022008.html>Counterpunch's
Andrew Cockburn and the
<http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh>New
Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the militant Sunni group
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/10/jundallah.html>Jundullah,
or "army of god," and the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK
or PMOI), which maintains an "enduring position
on the State Department's list of terrorist groups."
Although Washington officially denies
involvement, the Sunday Telegraph
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1543798/US-funds-terror-groups-to-sow-chaos-in-Iran.html>reports
that funding for Jundallah's "separatist causes
comes directly from the CIA's classified budget
but is now 'no great secret', according to one
former high-ranking CIA official," whose claims
were confirmed by former US State Department
counter-terrorism agent Fred Barton, who said
that Jundallah's
<http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/28/at-least-30-killed-in-mosque-bombing-in-iranian-balochistan/>terrorist
activities "inside Iran fall in line with US
efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic
minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."
Among the bombings and violent attacks for which
Jundallah has claimed
<http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=108982§ionid=351020101>responsibility
are the killings of nine Iranian security guards
in 2005, another 11 in a 2007 bombing, at least
16 Iranian police officers in a 2008 attack, and,
most recently, the deadly bombing of a security
gathering in southeast Iran on October 18, 2009
which killed 35 people including several top
regional security officials and provincial
commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Further, ABC News has
<http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html#>reported
that, according to Pakistani and U.S.
intelligence officials, Jundallah is "responsible
for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside
Iran" and "has been secretly encouraged and
advised by American officials since 2005." The report continued,
"U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so
that the U.S. provides no funding to the group,
which would require an official presidential
order or "finding" as well as congressional
oversight. The money for Jundullah was funneled
to its leader, Abdelmalek Rigi, through Iranian
exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states."
These connected Iranian exiles are members of the
MEK, the Iranian opposition network that, in
1981, assassinated about 70 high ranking Iranian
officials including cabinet members, elected
parliamentarians, and the new Chief Justice when
it bombed state headquarters. After the Iranian
Revolution, the group moved its headquarters to
Iraq and was supported by Saddam Hussein during
the eight-year Iran-Iraq War that claimed the
lives of over a million people. The MEK also
claims
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17086418/site/newsweek/print/1/displaymode/1098/>responsibility
for informing the United States and its allies
about Iran's supposed nuclear weapons program,
for which no verifiable evidence has ever been found.
On December 15, 2009, Texas Representative Sheila
Jackson-Lee
<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r111:2:./temp/%7Er111d53nsq::>addressed
Congress regarding that fate of MEK exiles
currently living in
<http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs08212009.html>Camp
Ashraf in Iraq. The Congresswoman pleaded for the
Obama administration to "save" the "Iranian
dissidents [who] are now huddled [at Camp
Ashraf], fearful for their lives." She claimed
that the
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/opinion/22sat3.html?_r=1>Iraqi
government, which is now tasked with guarding the
camp after US forces recently handed over
control, had put the exiles "at risk of arbitrary
arrest, torture or other forms of ill treatment
and unlawful killing," and described the MEK -
which, again, is designated as a terrorist group
by the US State Department - as "dissidents who
simply want to live in peace and alone."
Apparently, Ms. Jackson-Lee saw nothing wrong
with begging the United States to support
terrorists, as long as those terrorists have the
goal of toppling the Iranian government.
Plus, just last week, Iranian Intelligence
Ministry
<http://presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=114774§ionid=351020101>announced
that a number of MEK members have been arrested
for violent activity and destruction of public
and private property at recent anti-government protests in Tehran.
American involvement, both overt and covert, in
Iranian affairs is beyond doubt, thereby making
Mr. Kuperman's blow-off of Iran's "fears of
Western manipulation" completely absurd.
In a June 24, 2009
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr2SALuISyk>interview
on Al Jazeera reporter Josh Rushing asked former
National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft if the
US has "intelligence operatives on the ground in
Iran," to which Scowcroft simply replies, "Of course we do."
The very next day, USA Today
<http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-06-25-iran-money_N.htm>reported
that "the Obama administration is moving forward
with plans to fund groups that support Iranian
dissidents" via the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) program which has long been
known as a cover for the US government to fund
regime change operations in various parts of the world.
A few days later, during a June 28 CNN
<http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0906/28/fzgps.01.html>interview
with Robert Baer, Fareed Zakaria asked the
retired 21 year CIA veteran and former Middle
East undercover operative, "Isn’t it true that we
do [try to destabilize the regime]? Don’t we fund
various groups inside and outside Iran that do
try to destabilize the government?" Baer
answered, "Oh absolutely," adding, "There is a
covert action program against Iran where the
[U.S.] military is running; a covert action
against Iran from Iraq and Afghanistan."
One month later, on July 26, Mr. Zakaria
interviewed
<http://inaes.ut.ac.ir/Static/American/Marandi.htm>Seyyed
Mohammad Marandi, a North America studies
professor and political analyst at the University
of Tehran. Mr. Marandi
<http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/26/fzgps.01.html>revealed
that "Right now you have almost 40 television
channels in Persian being broadcast into Iran
from the United States and Europe - basically
funded by the American government and European
governments, or in some cases owned - which have
played a very negative role over the past few
weeks, turning people against one another... in
many cases, they call for riots, and they call
for violence." Mr. Zakaria, for unknown reasons,
took it upon himself to deny these
<http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=32997>widely-accepted
and
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/14/bias-found-in-voa-broadcasts-to-iran/>well-<http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/anti-iranian-ahwaz-tv-back-on-satellite>evidenced
<http://www.payvand.com/news/09/feb/1080.html>allegations.
The veracity of such claims was confirmed a
couple of weeks later, on August 9, when
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcI2cEI2R_30663RxlsVetrBx_dg>declared
"Now, behind the scenes, we were doing a lot,"
Clinton said. "We were doing a lot to really
empower the protesters without getting in the
way. And we're continuing to speak out and support the opposition."
Even John Limbert, embassy
<http://middleeast.about.com/od/usmideastpolicy/a/me090413a.htm>hostage
turned
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/wilayto111109.html>Deputy
Assistant Secretary for the Near East at the US
State Department, chimed in during a December 10,
2009 interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He
<http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0912/10/ampr.01.html>stated
that the United States government "will not sit
silently" and "will not ignore what happens on
the streets of Tehran," continuing that, "we
believe, as we have always believed, that the
Iranian people deserve decent treatment from their government."
This is a truly amazing thing for a US official
to say, especially one who worked in Tehran
during the
<http://www.pri.org/theworld/?q=node/3567>Iranian
Revolution thirty years ago. At that time, the
United States government supported, both vocally
and materially, the brutal dictatorship of the
Shah of Iran,
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/e_hostage.html>referred
to as "an island of stability" by President
Carter in 1977. Under the Shah's tyrannical rule,
a
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923854,00.html>Time<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923854,00.html>
article from January 7, 1980, tells us, "Dissent
was ruthlessly suppressed, in part by the use of
torture in the dungeons of
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912364,00.htm>SAVAK,
the
[<http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iran/savak/index.html>US
and Israeli-trained] secret police."
Furthermore, the Time
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923854,00.html>article
continues,
"The depth of its commitment to the Shah
apparently blinded Washington to the growing
discontent. U.S. policymakers wanted to believe
that their investment was buying stability and
friendship; they trusted what they heard from the
monarch, who dismissed all opposition as 'the
blah-blahs of armchair critics.' Even after the
revolution began, U.S. officials were convinced
that
'<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,916526-2,00.html>there
is no alternative to the Shah.' Carter took time
out from the Camp David summit in September 1978
to phone the Iranian monarch and assure him of
Washington's continued support." [emphasis mine]
Limbert, of all people, should know better than
to claim that the US government cares about the
rights and desires of the Iranian people. What it
really cares about, and has always cared about,
is fueling protests of anti-imperial governments
and bolstering opposition to administrations that
repel American hegemony, hubris, and dominance.
It may also be interesting to note that, whereas
the
<http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/14/dod_training_manual_protests_are_low-level_terrorism>US
Department of Defense considers "protests" to be
a type of
"<http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/22/dod_deletes_protest_terrorism_problems_remain>low-level
terrorist activity," according to one of its
<http://www.aclu.org/images/general/asset_upload_file89_39820.pdf>2009
training manuals, State Department official
Limbert takes great pride in
<http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0912/10/ampr.01.html>saluting
the "brave people of Iran...who are going out on
the street and demonstrating." One wonders if he
also salutes
<http://www.opednews.com/populum/print_friendly.php?p=Protest-What-Protest-Ame-by-Dave-Lindorff-091214-754.html>anti-war
protesters here in the United States.
But this is all just the tip of Mr. Kuperman's
iceberg of deliberate disinformation.
Insisting multiple times during his piece that
Iran is "violating international law" by not
responding to UN Security Council resolutions
calling for an immediate halt to its enrichment
program, Mr. Kuperman again demonstrates his own
lack of awareness of the fundamental principles
of jus cogens, or peremptory norm, as it applies
to the authority of UNSC resolutions and the NPT
agreement. Again, this is surprising due to Mr.
Kuperman's current role as director of the
Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the
University of Texas at Austin and his former
stint as Senior Policy Analyst for the
nongovernmental Nuclear Control Institute.
Mr. Kuperman might want to review the tenets of
the
<http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf>Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty first. Article IV of the treaty states:
1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as
affecting the inalienable right of all the
Parties to the Treaty to develop, research,
production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes without discrimination and in conformity
with Articles I and II of this Treaty [which
prohibit the transfer or acquisition of nuclear weapons].
2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to
facilitate, and have the right to participate in
the fullest possible exchange of equipment,
materials and scientific and technological
information for the peaceful uses of nuclear
energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do
so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or
together with other States or international
organizations to the further development of the
applications of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes, especially in the territories of
non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty,
with due consideration for the needs of the
developing areas of the world. [emphasis mine]
As neither the IAEA nor the US intelligence
community has found any evidence of an Iranian
nuclear weapons program, Iran not only has the
legal right to develop and produce peaceful
nuclear energy on its own soil, but it has the
inalienable right to do so, under the terms of
the NPT. Under these terms, no one and nothing -
government, agency, council, resolution, draft
agreement - can infringe upon Iran's right to
operate power plants and enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear program.
Therefore, any resolutions calling for Iran's
inalienable right to be relinquished are, in and
of themselves, wholly illegal. Paranoid
suspicions, demonizing propaganda, and
allegations without evidence are totally
insufficient to demonstrate
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2008/01/iran-did-not-vi.html>any
violations of the NPT by the Iran government.
Cyrus Safardi of IranAffairs, in addition to
supplying supporting documentation from the UN's
own
<http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/G06/610/77/PDF/G0661077.pdf?OpenElement>International
Law Commission and the British Institute of
International and Comparative Law,
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2007/08/i-have-received.html>explains,"
Article 103 of the UN Charter says that UNSC
resolutions trump obligations under international
treaties such as the NPT. However, Article 103
does not apply to sovereign rights and jus
cogens. It is a general and well-recognized
principle of international law that UNSC
resolutions that are contrary to jus cogens are ultra vires and NOT binding."
With this in mind, it is clear that all UNSC
resolutions that
"<http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8792.doc.htm>demand"
Iran suspend enrichment and close its intrusively
monitored and meticulously inspected nuclear
facilities - UNSC resolutions 1696 (2006), 1737
(2006), 1747 (2007), and 1803 (2008) - are
contradictory, illegal and consequently non-binding.
Furthermore, Safardi
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2007/08/the-legality-of.html>writes
that "Iran's safeguard agreement with the IAEA,
and the IAEA statutes, only permit a referral to
the UNSC when there has been a diversion of
fissile material for non-peaceful use." Since the
IAEA had previously confirmed that there had been
no such diversion and without any evidence of a
nuclear weapons program, its referral of the
Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security
Council was, as
<http://www.campaigniran.org/>CASMII founder
Abbas Edalat points out,
"<http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/1753/print>politically
motivated and illegitimate." Edalat continues,
"On February 15th [2007], Stephen Rademaker, the
former US Assistant Secretary for International
Security and Non-proliferation confessed that the
two crucial votes by India against Iran in the
Governors’ Board of the IAEA which led to Iran’s
referral to the Security Council were indeed the
result of US coercion. Incidentally India, like
the other US allies Pakistan and Israel, is not a
signatory to the NPT and has developed nuclear
bombs which is tolerated and supported by the US.
Because the IAEA's referral of Iran's file to the
UNSC was
<http://www.payvand.com/news/07/dec/1044.html>unwarranted
and because the UNSC resolutions are themselves
<http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/04/08/irans-outlawed-nuclear-program/>illegal,
Iran has no reason to abide by them and is
therefore under no obligation to halt its nuclear
program, as Mr. Kuperman keeps insisting.
In fact, the United States is currently in
<http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner%7Ey2009m9d29-Irans-Nuclear-Program-Iran-in-treaty-compliance-USIsrael-lying-and-out-of-compliance>violation
of the NPT itself, insofar as "the US has refused
to negotiate for complete disarmament and
verification per treaty terms and
<http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner%7Ey2009m12d9-Official-US-policy-Nuke-Iran-because-nuclear-program-might-wipe-Israel-off-map>actively
plans to use nuclear weapons, including
first-strike use against 'enemies' who may only
become threats in the future," according to Carl
Herman of the
<http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner%7Ey2009m12d11-WMD-treaty-violations-and-inspection-refusal-for-biological-nuclear-chemical-weapons-Iran-No-US>Examiner.
Even though Mr. Kuperman deems violations of
international law cause enough to justify
military campaigns, he doesn't seem to mind
Israel's constant trespasses and consistent
ignoring of
<http://www.mediamonitors.net/michaelsladah&suleimaniajlouni1.html>numerous
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=ogxeTxD_kZ4>Security
Council <http://www.jatonyc.org/UNresolutions.html>resolutions since 1967.
Continuing, Mr. Kuperman declares that "while
Iran permits international inspections at its
declared enrichment plant at Natanz, it ignores
United Nations demands that it close the plant,
where it gains the expertise needed to produce
weapons-grade uranium at other secret facilities
like the nascent one recently uncovered near Qom."
Isn't everything "secret" until it's announced?
What Mr. Kuperman probably knows, but refuses to
say since it would weaken his argument for
illegally bombing another country and willfully
murdering innocent people, is that the new Fordo
nuclear facility was actually
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58O1N420090925>announced
to the IAEA by Iran itself, in advance of the
panicky press conference held on September 25 by
President Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown
of Britain and French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
"I can confirm that on 21 September, Iran
informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot
fuel enrichment plant is under construction in
the country," IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire
<http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=107088§ionid=351020104>said.
Under its current
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/09/has-iran-violated-its-nuclear-safeguards-obligations.html>safeguards
agreement with the Agency, Iran is not obligated
to inform the IAEA of any new facilities until
six months before the introduction of nuclear
material to the site. Since the Fordo enrichment
plant is not yet operational, and won't be for
another 18 months, Iran has broken no rules. In
fact, the site was announced a full year before
it needed to be. As Ali-Akbar Salehi, Iran's
nuclear chief, remarked, "This installation is
not a secret one, which is why we announced its existence to the IAEA."
Ahmadinejad even pointed out that the agreements
and guidelines between Iran and the IAEA do not
require approval by the United States. "We have
no secrecy, we work within the framework of the
IAEA," he
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6850325.ece>said.
"This does not mean we must inform Mr Obama’s
Administration of every facility that we have."
That Mr. Kuperman would claim the Fordo site near
Qom was "secret" is unsurprising, considering the
same constant refrain in media outlets like the
New York Times. What is interesting is his
allegation that the facility allows Iran to
acquire knowledge about producing nuclear weapons
is especially bizarre considering that, after
inspectors surveyed the new plant, IAEA
Director-General ElBaradei
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126198.html>declared
that the agency's monitors found "nothing to be
worried about," continuing, "It's a hole in a mountain."
"The idea was to use it as a bunker under the
mountain to protect things," ElBaradei said. Due
to the constant threats by the US and Israel to
bomb Iran, especially by arm-chair warriors like
Mr. Kuperman, it should come as no surprise that
the Iranian government might be interested in
<http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23200>defending
their scientific facilities and technological
progress from such attacks. In fact, not doing so would be irresponsible.
Without providing even a shred of evidence, Mr.
Kuperman states that "Iran supplies Islamist
terrorist groups in violation of international
embargoes." He is obviously referring to Hamas
and Hezbollah, two democratically-elected
resistance groups, which are consistently
demonized in the Western press for being opposed
to Israeli settler-colonialism, illegal and
oppressive occupation, and American military
imperialism. What is left out, of course, is that
the US-supported Israeli siege of Gaza is itself
"illegal" and displays "profound inhumanity,"
according to
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/un-official-says-israels-siege-of-gaza-breeds-extremism-and-human-suffering-760096.html>John
Ging, Gaza's director of operations for the
refugee agency UNRWA. Furthermore, according to
the Policy Declaration of the new Government of
the Republic of Lebanon, issued on November 26, 2009,
“It is the right of the Lebanese people, Army and
the [Hezbollah led-]Resistance to liberate the
Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills and the
northern part of the village of Ghajar as well as
to defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in
the face of any enemy by all available and legal means.”
As a result, Lebanon expert Franklin Lamb
<http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2009/11/27/lebanon-accepts-hezbollah-s-weapons-and->explains,
"Legally, constitutionally, and politically,
Lebanon’s new National Unity Government policy
legitimizes, embraces, and incorporates by
reference, according to some Pentagon and State
Department analysts, the National Lebanese
Resistance," and affirms that Hezbollah and the
State of Lebanon are "inseparable and indivisible
with respect to defending this country from
foreign interference and occupation. It affixes
the Governmental imprimatur for liberating
Lebanese lands still occupied by Israeli forces." Lamb continues,
"According to some international lawyers, it also
fulfills UN Security Council Resolution 1559
regarding disarming militias because Lebanon has
in effect declared that the arms of the Hezbollah
led Resistance are part of the defense of Lebanon
itself and not a particular movement or political
party. This Policy statement satisfies UNSCR 1701 for the same reason."
Mr. Kuperman also does not address how American
funding of the Israeli occupation and
<http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10303.shtml>military
support for its frequent invasions,
<http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2009/01/gazacre-new-years-neo-nakba.html>massacres,
and
<http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2009/11/goldstonewalled-us-congress-endorses.html>war
crimes violate numerous
<http://www.endtheoccupation.org/downloads/arms_transfers_11_09.ppt>US
statutes including the Arms Export Control Act
(P.L.80-829) which states that exported weaponry
must be relegated to "internal security” and
“legitimate self-defense” only, the Foreign
Assistance Act (P.L.97-195) which holds that “No
assistance may be provided
to the government of
any country which engages in a consistent pattern
of gross violations of internationally recognized
human rights,” and the Foreign Ops Appropriations
Act's "Leahy Law" which demands that no aid be
provided to "any unit of the security forces of a
foreign country if the Secretary of State has
credible evidence that such unit has committed
gross violations of human rights." One look at
the UN
<http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm>Goldstone
Report proves that the United States has
consistently violated its own legislation with
regard to Israel, as well as numerous
international laws. For example, the US is
violating the
<http://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/articles/>Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC), which the US claims it
will
<http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i04/8504disposal.html>not
fulfill until 2023, even though the convention
requires the elimination of these weapons by 2012
(already an extension from 2007). Also, Obama has
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B82DG20091209?type=politicsNews>rejected
inspection protocol for
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9685>US
biological weapons despite his stated dedication
to strengthen the
<http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/%28httpPages%29/04FBBDD6315AC720C1257180004B1B2F?OpenDocument>Biological
Weapons Convention (BWC) and has
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/26/obama-landmine-ban-treaty>refused
to ratify the international antipersonnel
landmine ban, despite being lauded by the Nobel
Peace Prize committee for his commitment to
"disarmament and arms control negotiations."
In his New York Times piece, Mr. Kuperman warns
that "If Iran acquired a nuclear arsenal, the
risks would simply be too great that it could
become a neighborhood bully." Clearly, the
argument assumes, only the United States and
Israel should be allowed to bully Middle Eastern
countries with their own nuclear arsenals,
invasions, occupations, and international impunity.
He then goes on to state that "history suggests
that military strikes could work," claiming that
"Israel's 1981 attack on the nearly finished
Osirak reactor prevented Iraq's rapid acquisition
of a plutonium-based nuclear weapon and compelled
it to pursue a more gradual, uranium-based bomb program."
This is a dubious conclusion to draw based on the
fact that the Iraqi nuclear program before 1981
was
<http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1242>peaceful,
under intensive safeguards and monitoring, and
that the Osirak reactor was, as Harvard physics
professor Richard Wilson has
<http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200503/letters>explained,
"explicitly designed by the French engineer Yves
Girard to be unsuitable for making bombs. That
was obvious to me on my 1982 visit."
What Mr. Kuperman also omits is that the Israeli
attack, code named Operation Opera, took the
lives of ten Iraqi soldiers and one French
civilian researcher and was widely lambasted by
the international community, prompting a UN
General Assembly
<http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/8744542.00267792.html>resolution
(36/27) on November 13, 1981 that "strongly
condemn[ed] Israel for its premeditated and
unprecedented act of aggression in violation of
the Charter of the United Nations and the norms
of international conduct, which constitutes a new
and dangerous escalation of the threat to international peace and security."
The
<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/unga36_27.html>resolution
also reaffirmed Iraq's "inalienable sovereign
right" to "develop technological and nuclear
programmes for peaceful purposes" and stated
that, not only was Iraq a party to the NPT, but
had also "satisfactorily applied" the IAEA
safeguards required of it. Conversely, it noted
"with concern" that "Israel has refused to adhere
to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, and, in spite of repeated calls,
including that of the Security Council, to place
its nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards."
In addition to condemning "the misuse by Israel,
in committing its acts of aggression against Arab
countries, of aircraft and weapons supplied by
the United States of America," the resolution
reiterated "its call to all States to cease
forthwith any provision to Israel of arms and
related material of all types which enable it to
commit acts of aggression against other States"
and requested "the Security Council to
investigate Israel's nuclear activities and the
collaboration of other States and parties in
those activities" and "institute effective
enforcement action to prevent Israel from further
endangering international peace and security
through its acts of aggression and continued
policies of expansion, occupation and annexation."
Furthermore, the General Assembly demanded that
"Israel, in view of its international
responsibility for its act of aggression, pay
prompt and adequate compensation for the material
damage and loss of life suffered" due to the illegal and lethal attack.
For Mr. Kuperman, this constituted a successful
mission (which, considering that none of the UN's
demands have ever been met over the past 30
years, perhaps it was). Truth be told, this is an
unsurprising conclusion for someone who claims
that "the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown
that the United States military can oust regimes
in weeks if it wants to." Perhaps Mr. Kuperman doesn't get out much.
That might explain why Mr. Kuperman also claims
that "Iran could retaliate [in response to a US
air strike] by aiding America’s opponents in Iraq
and Afghanistan, but it does that anyway,"
without any evidence to back up that assertion.
Is he unaware that Iran is a longtime enemy of
both the Taliban and Al Qaeda and enjoys
moderately good relations with the puppet
government in Iraq? Does he not remember that
Iranian intelligence provided valuable
<http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=8590>assistance
to the US military before the invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001? Does he not know that the
claims that Iran supplies weapons to Iraqi
militias and resistance fighters have been repeatedly debunked?
Take, for example, the time in 2008 when a cache
of thousands of weapons was seized during raids
of Mahdi Army arsenals around Karbala. Military
spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner, when asked
in May 2008 about the proportion of Iranian
weapons then in the hands of Iraqi fighters,
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE24Ak02.html>muttered
the standard deflection and insinuation that the
resistance groups "could not do what they're
doing without the support of foreign support
[sic]" and then broadly defined such "support" as
training, funding, and arming fighters with
weapons. The evidence, eventually handed over to
the Iraqi government by US forces a few months
later, was found to provide no solid proof that
the weapons came from Iran and the charges were
withdrawn after a meeting with Iranian officials.
The allegations
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/05/iraq-the-elusiv.html>collapsed
once and for all when the weapons were looked at
again by the Americans who, via a military
spokesman, "attributed the confusion to a
misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army
general in Karbala erroneously reported the items
were of Iranian origin." The entire embarrassing
episode was
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/24586408#24586408>summed
up by Keith Olbermann on Countdown at the time:
"Major General Kevin Bergner convened a news
conference in Baghdad last Wednesday to list
20,000 items of ammunition, explosives, and
weapons captured or uncovered by US and Iraqi
governmental forces in the last few weeks of
fighting. 45 rocket-propelled grenades, 570
assorted explosive devices, 1800 mortars and
artillery rounds. The point? This was the big
day, this was the day, according to the LA Times,
that the American military was to show the media
of the world the conclusive evidence that at
least some of the weaponry used by Iraqi
insurgents had been supplied by Iran. The US
military spokesman confirming to that newspaper
that that's what the dog-and-pony-show was to
include. They were all ready to show off Iran's
tangible responsibility for some of the haul of
the machinery of death, to establish the link
between American fatalities and Iran: trademarks
or company logos or Made in Tehran stickers or something.
When US experts took a second look at all this
stuff, they then said 'None of this is from
Iran.' 20,000 blowing-up things? Hard count of
those supplied by Iran: zero. Percentage of the
whole imported from Iran: no percent. Amount of
tangible evidence linking Iran to anti-American
uprisings in Baghdad: none. You do realize, they
are making this up about Iran!"
And still, despite all the painfully obvious
truth of the matter, US military officials
continued to accuse Iran of channeling weaponry
to Shia militias who are opposing the illegal US
occupation in Iraq. In late May 2008, Gareth
Porter
<http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/86280/>reported
in IPS News that the alleged weapons were clearly
not of Iranian origin (they were mostly
manufactured in China, Russia, and the former
Yugoslavia) and were obtained by Iraqi militias
on the international black market.
With a quick look at some other facts, it can
even be argued that the US military has itself
provided lethal weaponry to Iraqi "insurgents" on
a scale that could easily be called negligent
collaboration. In August 2007, the Pentagon
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pentagon-admits-190000-weapons-missing-in-iraq-460551.html>admitted
to losing track of a whole third of the total
weapons distributed to Iraqi security forces in
2004 and 2005. As a result,
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20080512&articleId=8957>states
Global Research, "The 190,000 assault rifles and
pistols roam free in Iraqi streets today."
As his battle cry draws to an end, Mr. Kuperman
suggests that "air strikes could degrade and
deter Iran's bomb program at relatively little
cost or risk, and therefore are worth a try."
The costs and risks that Mr. Kuperman so deftly
avoids addressing are the lives and livelihoods
of the people of Iran. No type of "surgical" or
"precision" bomb-dropping can avoid the loss the
human life. A country of 70 million living,
breathing, working, walking, talking, laughing,
crying, dissenting, protesting,
counter-protesting, praying, not praying,
dreaming, wishing, hoping, loving human beings
deserves far more consideration and calculation
than what Mr. Kuperman provides or could ever understand.
New York politician Charles Evans Hughes, who, in
the early 20th Century, served as Governor of New
York, United States Secretary of State, and Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, once said, "War
should be made a crime, and those who instigate
it should be punished as criminals."
With this in mind, let's hope there's a special
cell in hell reserved for lying warmongers like
William Kristol, Judith Miller, and now, Alan Kuperman.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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