Day: February 25, 2007

Actions Show U.S. Doesn’t Believe Its Iran Lies Either

Trish

Think about it: if the United States really believed Iran had nuclear defense capability, would we be so belligerent and overbearing toward it? Or, as with North Korea, would we call upon others to help us take the diplomatic route? Our behavior tells me we’re lying.

A story in the L.A. Times reports that with regard to Iran, everyone else thinks we’re lying too.

IAEA officials remain suspicious of the information in part because most of the papers are in English rather than Persian, the Iranian language

“Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that’s come to us has proved to be wrong,” a senior diplomat at the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] said. Another official here described the agency’s intelligence stream as “very cold now” because “so little panned out.”

…American officials privately acknowledge that much of their evidence on Iran’s nuclear plans and programs remains ambiguous, fragmented and difficult to prove.

The IAEA has its own concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, although agency officials say they have found no proof that nuclear material has been diverted to a weapons program.

Another way of stating that last sentence is, “The objective international agency that has been investigating Iran for five years has never found a single thing to indicate the country is building nukes.”

On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence the United States is making crap up again.

Diplomats here were less convinced by documents recovered by U.S. intelligence from a laptop computer apparently stolen from Iran. American analysts first briefed senior IAEA officials on the contents of the hard drive at the U.S. mission here in mid-2005.

The documents included detailed designs to upgrade ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads, drawings for subterranean testing of high explosives, and two pages describing research on uranium tetrafluoride, known as “green salt,” which is used during uranium enrichment. IAEA officials remain suspicious of the information in part because most of the papers are in English rather than Persian, the Iranian language.

Oh please! They were written in English? Does that not have the mark of Rover and Dirty Dick all over it?

Iran’s representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, dismissed the laptop documents as “fabricated information.” Iran, he said, has produced 170 tons of “green salt” at a uranium conversion facility in Esfahan that is monitored by the IAEA.

“We are not hiding it,” he said in an interview. “We make tons of it. These documents are all nonsense.”

All anyone can prove the Iranians guilty of is the same thing Hussein actually did — scoffing at inspectors and resisting cooperation with what they view as coercion. And while I wish no one had nuclear weapons — including us, Russia, China, Israel, and North Korea — I can’t follow our reasoning about who can and who can’t.

Where is this all going, anyway? The countries that do not today have nuclear weapons can easily have them tomorrow. The only way we’ll ever be safe is if we focus on moving the world away from conflict, not on stacking the deck so we can always win the wars we keep starting. That strategy hasn’t worked in Iraq or Afghanistan and it’s doubtful it will work in Iran. It’s time to try something else.

Times of London: U.S. Military Leaders Threaten to Resign if Bush Attacks Iran

Jon Ponder

Finally, a glimmer of hope for our country:

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

Unfortunately, these military officers are now marked men.

Preacher Arrested for Gay Sex Invitation Claims No Law Was Broken

Jon Ponder

Early last year, Rev. Lonnie Latham, a Baptist preacher who railed against the evils of homosexuality, was arrested for inviting a male undercover cop in a seedy part of Oklahoma City up to his motel room for oral sex. Latham’s trial is underway now, and his lawyer’s opening gambit is interesting in light of the fact that many of Latham’s co-religionists would make homosexuality illegal if they could:

Latham’s attorney, Mack Martin, filed a motion to have the misdemeanor lewdness charge thrown out, saying the Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.

“Now, my client’s being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that’s legal,” Martin said.

Both sides agree that there was no offer of money, but prosecutor Scott Rowland said there is a “legitimate governmental interest” in regulating offers of acts of lewdness.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has filed a brief alleging that Latham’s arrest also violated his right to free speech.

Before his arrest on January 3, 2006, Rev. Latham was a member of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and preached against civil marriage rights for gays and supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their “sinful, destructive lifestyle.”

But Rev. Latham is not on trial for hypocrisy, unfortunately, or for sleazy and stupid behavior. He’s on trial for offering legal sex to a stranger, who happened to be a cop.

If he’d made the same offer on the Internet or in a bar, rather than on a street corner, he would have gotten what he wanted without having to give up his pulpit — or his hypocrisy.