Despite Deal, US Officials Still Talk Up Attacking Iran
USA Today Cites Military Planners Talking 'Comprehensive Attack'
by Jason Ditz, August 23, 2015
Through years of diplomatic efforts, US officials have threatened to attack Iran on a regular basis. Exactly how often they should threaten Iran has often been a matter of contention, but there appeared to be bipartisan agreement that threatening Iran made some sort of sense.
Since all the threats at the time were based nominally on disputes over Iran’s nuclear program, one would think the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, of which the US is a party and which the administration is championing, would stop the loose talk of war. That’s not the case, however.
If anything, in the weeks since the deal was reached, US officials have threatened Iran even more often, with the latest being a USA Today articlequoting two “senior” military officials, described as being involved in the planning of attacks against Iran, describing the “comprehensive attack” on the nation.
The officials expressed “moderate confidence” that attacking Iran would set back its nuclear program “by as much as two years.” This is the same civilian nuclear program whose status was already resolved diplomatically.
And while the article treated this as pushing back Iran’s non-existent weapons program by two years, analysts and even some officials have warned that nothing would convince Iran of the need to have an active nuclear weapons program so much as a US attack on them.
It would also be a war crime of the highest order, as since Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program, a fact the US intelligence community has repeatedly attested to, means that attacking Iran’s nuclear program would mean attacking openly civilian infrastructure, things like power plants and the medical isotope reactor, simply to damage their infrastructure.
Israeli PM Condemns Upcoming Talks, Demands More ‘Credible’ US Threats to Attack Iran
ReplyDeleteby Jason Ditz, November 07, 2010
Though the Obama Administration has used the threat of military assaults on Iran the way past administrations might have used punctuation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to formally complain to Vice President Joe Biden that they’re not threatening Iran often enough.
Does anyone wonder why Iran would mistrust the US and despise Israel?
DeleteIs it any wonder that Iran, who has invaded American sovereign territory, held US hostages more than once, supplied hundreds of thousand of rockets to hezbollah and hamas, bombed civilian and jewish american targets across the globe, planned to bomb a restaurant in Washington DC to murder a Saudi Diplomat, ignored Security Council resolutions (repeatedly), lied about it's nuclear infrastructure repeatedly, executes gays and women would be not trusted by the USA?
DeleteAs for Israel? Iran has called for it's genocide. It openly despises her.
Maybe Israel should not do the talk talk and do the bomb bomb thing and use a few dozen nukes on selected iranian nuke sites….
Then what would you say?
Better yet, Israel should arm fund and train those opposed to the Iranian Regime.
DeleteShip them several hundred thousand rockets on Iran's border and start to bomb their civilians every day for the next 10 years...
CAN BIDEN’S EXPERIENCE WITH NETANYAHU HAVE INSPIRED THIS?
ReplyDeleteThe hints are growing stronger that Joe Biden might decide to run for President after all, and there’s no reason we can’t join the frolic among the tea leaves. Especially fascinating is what a Biden run would signal about Hillary Clinton’s political and legal vulnerability over her emails and Clinton Foundation donations.
The Vice President met privately with Elizabeth Warren on Saturday, a meeting no doubt leaked by the Biden team. The Massachusetts Senator is the patron saint of the Democratic left these days and Mr. Biden would love her support if he does run. Then on Sunday our colleagues in the Journal’s Washington bureau reported that the Veep is leaning toward a run. Other media reinforced the story.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest added to the intrigue when he volunteered to reporters on Monday that President Obama thinks his decision to choose Mr. Biden as his running mate was “the smartest decision he’s ever made in politics.” Mr. Earnest is a careful man who wouldn’t say this without clear presidential authorization.
BIDEN HAS PLENTY OF REASONS TO HAVE CONTEMPT FOR NETANYAHU
ReplyDeleteOpinion | March 12, 2010
In Israel, Why Netanyahu Humiliated Biden
By: Martin S. Indyk
What happened to Vice President Biden this week in Jerusalem was egregious but hardly new. Right-wing governments in Israel have regularly embarrassed high-level U.S. officials by making announcements about new settlement activity during or just after their visits. But it usually happens to secretaries of state. It infuriated James Baker, confounded Condoleezza Rice, and appalled Madeleine Albright.
When I served as Albright's ambassador in Israel, during Bibi Netanyahu's first term as prime minister, he announced a major extension to an existing West Bank settlement as she departed Israel after one of her efforts to move the peace process forward. When she heard the news, she called me on an open line and shouted: "You tell Bibi that he needs to stop worrying about his right wing and start worrying about the United States."
It was good advice, but it went unheeded. Antagonizing the Clinton administration eventually contributed to Netanyahu's downfall. Israeli voters punished him for mishandling the relationship with Israel's only true ally.
The second time around, one might have expected Netanyahu to be more circumspect about his relations with the Obama administration, especially because Israel is now so dependent on the United States to deal with the growing threat from Iran.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2010/03/12-biden-israel-indyk
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DeleteIf Biden were to run, I would have to take a look at him something I have never done in the past. Though I always kind of liked him, I have never thought of him seriously because of his many slip-o-the-lips.
I don't now were he stands on domestic policy but I considered him pretty knowledgeable on foreign policy, at least up to the point where the media reported him to be advocating the breakup of Iraq into three separate states along sectarian lines, Kurds, Sunni, and Shia. This is a claim that was constantly parroted here by one of our now long departed.
I always felt that the breakup of Iraq along sectarian lines was inevitable once the US pulled out. Where I was wrong was that I expected it to have happened by now through an all out civil war. Even given that supposed inevitability, it would have been stupid for the US to try to manage the process. The sectioning of Iraq into three states couldn't be done peacefully because of the only resource Iraq has, oil, as well as, the impossibility of finding an acceptable allocation of that resource between the three states.
However, the story was a false one and Biden has denied it. What he actually suggested was the creation of three autonomous regions within a federal system with Baghdad as the center of that federal government. It would have provided each region with the autonomy to govern themselves while sharing tax revenues and income from resources. As we have seen, given the sectarian hostilities that exist the system would have been fragile at best and perhaps ultimately doomed but at least it was a legitimate alternative to offer up given what we knew 'then'.
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I would make an additional point to all those who claim that the current situation in Iraq was caused by Obama pulling out US troops rather than Bush who, even though he got us in there in the first place, ending up 'winning' the war. Bushwa.
I've posted numerous reason arguing against Bush's surge as being the factor that finally won the war. I've argued against the idea American deaths at the hand of ISIS. I won't go into those again. However, i would point out that it was the GWB administration who vetted the candidates for the Iraqi elections and helped install al-Maliki and that al-Maliki exacerbated the existing sectarian divides that eventually helped facilitate the ISIS move through Anbar.
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ReplyDeleteWant to Bomb Iran, Pass the Agreement
Want to bomb Iran? Then support the nuclear deal.
That’s the provocative argument coming from Obama administration officials and other backers of the deal as they promote it before a crucial vote in Congress next month.
In meetings on Capitol Hill and with influential policy analysts, administration officials argue that inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities under the deal will reveal important details that can be used for better targeting should the U.S. decide to attack Iran.
“It’s certainly an argument I’ve heard made,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “We’ll be better off with the agreement were we to need to use force.”
Schiff has already announced his support for the Iran deal. But the argument could be useful as the administration tries to persuade centrist Democrats with a hawkish view of Iran to support the agreement, which provides relief from sanctions for Iran in return for curbs and inspections of its nuclear program. Congress is expected to vote on the deal next month.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/iran-nuclear-deal-argument-bomb-121613.html#ixzz3jn2cJzI0
Unbelievable.
The more you know about Iran's nuclear facilities the easier it becomes to employ a host of options including military. That's obvious. But why in the world would you broadcast it to the world.
The US is truly the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
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No weapon ever invented provides a nation with more security than the nuclear bomb. The power of nuclear deterrence and the ability of a country to threaten catastrophic damage upon an enemy practically guarantees a nuclear state respect from belligerent neighbors. The Iranians know about Israel’s intensions and deeds in the Middle East.
ReplyDeleteNo exclusive weapon system has ever remained exclusive. Israel is fatally flawed in the arrogant assumption that it will maintain a hegemon, and that its seven million in a sea of over a billion and a half will be secured by any military technology let alone the exclusive title to nuclear weapons.
Israel as a state under the Likud is a hate and revenge generating machine. It all but guarantees future generations of vengeful people that will be willing to kill and die to balance and up the score with Israel. The US with its unquestioned sanctioning of Israeli bad behavior has already paid a terrible price for its support of Israel and will likely to continue to do so, especially with the results of the ME instability caused by the US military.
The US public is getting a clear and ugly picture of US politicians, abetted by US Christian cults, subordinating the health and welfare of US citizens to the interests of a religious cultist controlled state, Israel under the Likudites. Aipac and the Israeli-firsters should be grateful if the Iranians are brought in from the cold by intelligent rational non-religious citizens of Israel and the US.
Without normalization and pacification of the Middle East, Israeli future is fatally broken. US Christians and their delusions to meet Jesus will end about as well at the Islamists will cash in their virgin cards. Israel will pay the price.
A controversial televangelist has suggested the US stock market dive on Monday is related to the Government’s decision to support and fund women’s abortions.
DeleteThe effects of ‘Black Monday’ in China reverberated across the world, with the Dow Jones falling 1000 points in early trade.
As traders panicked and analysts struggled to comprehend what was happening, Pat Robertson stepped up to his televised pulpit to tell viewers that the Government’s decision to fund Planned Parenthood was related to the stock market crash.
The organisation has been hit by claims it sold foetal tissue for a profit to research laboratories, allegations it has denied.
Robertson made his comments on his flagship programme, The 700 Club, where he warned the crash was “just a little taste’ of what was to come.
“We will pay dearly as a nation for this thing going on. And possibly if we were to stop, stop all of this slaughter, the judgment of God might be lifted from us. But it’s coming, ladies and gentlemen," he said. “We just have a little taste of it in terms of the financial system.
Last year, the United States brought online as much solar energy every three weeks as it did in all of 2008, and the solar industry added jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy. Since the beginning of 2010, the average cost of a solar electric system has dropped by 50 percent. In fact, distributed solar prices fell 10 to 20 percent in 2014 alone and currently 44 states have pricing structures that encourage increased penetration of distributed energy resources.
ReplyDeleteIsrael as a state under the Likud is a hate and revenge generating machine.
ReplyDeleteHardly...
But America?
Has bombed the arabs over 4000 times alone in the last 30 months. Killing tens of thousands. In the past 10 years? America has helped create the conditions in at least 4 nations of absolute chaos.
From Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Sudan and Yemen America has created tens of thousands that are now angry with the west.
A new report says that 57% of all Arabs that live in Jerusalem prefer living as Israeli citizens than becoming Palestinian citizens.
Delete:)
Israel as a state is the freest and safest place for arabs in the middle east.
Israel's seven million in a sea of over a billion and a half will be secured by any military technology let alone the exclusive title to nuclear weapons.
ReplyDeleteThe sea of 1.5 billon moslems? Is killing each other as we speak. It is imploding..
In syria and iraq? 850,000 are dead. over 14 million are refugees.
There is not one stable decent moslem nation in the world.
From Pakistan to Indonesia, From Libya to Egypt Islam is hacking and stabbing, blowing up and murdering one another (and others) across the globe.
Israel defeated every Arab Army in the past, now syria? once the biggest threat is now being beaten down by savages.
Iran's nukes are the biggest threat.
And that's why Iran, the world's largest sponsor of terror, is on a path to get one. Either thru domestic production or purchase from the Nkor's....
But Iran's wrath may actually be aimed at others than Israel.
If I were Egypt, Arabia? I'd be nuking up asap...
One again Deuce you are biting off too big a bite... (hope you choke on it)
ReplyDelete" subordinating the health and welfare of US citizens to the interests of a religious cultist controlled state, Israel under the Likudites. Aipac and the Israeli-firsters should be grateful if the Iranians are brought in from the cold by intelligent rational non-religious citizens of Israel and the US. "
"religious cultist controlled state, Israel under the Likudites. "
where do you get this drivel?
really?
Do you have no grounding in fact or reality?
America, by the leadership of Obama and Bush, have invaded, destablized and destroyed the middle east.
israel has done nothing to contribute to America folly.
Israel is the ONLY stable place in the middle east.
That's why arabs and moslems are dying to break into Israel for sanctuary.
If America was smart and concerned about it's interests?
It would not be on it's knees giving Iran and it's mullahs 150 billion and a path to a nuke.
It would be helping the kurds.
it would be exporting LP gas to the ukraine, europe and the world.
It would be mandating (in America) geothermal and solar for every new construction project.
American interests?
Surely would not be bringing into America 700,000 islamic refugees a YEAR (not to worry only 10% are radical)
LOVE THIS LINE...
ReplyDeleteWithout normalization and pacification of the Middle East, Israeli future is fatally broken. US Christians and their delusions to meet Jesus will end about as well at the Islamists will cash in their virgin cards. Israel will pay the price
Israel's future?
You hate Israel and want it destroyed....
If Israel laid down it's arms tomorrow? It would be genocided by the arabs and iranians.
Now if the Iranians gave up their pursuit of nukes and stop suppling, funding, training and empowering terrorists across the region and the globe? There would be stabilization and more peace...
From Al-Monitor:
ReplyDeleteThe happy Muslim woman is the veiled one who abides by the teachings of Islam. This image should be generalized in society to become a role model for other women.”
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/08/iraq-women-veil-religious-secular.html#ixzz3jpddlAid
Now who's your religious cult run nation?
LOL
Deuce ☂Mon Aug 24, 07:51:00 PM EDT
ReplyDeleteBIDEN HAS PLENTY OF REASONS TO HAVE CONTEMPT FOR NETANYAHU
Vice President Joe Biden stressed Monday that he and Benjamin Netanyahu are "still buddies" during remarks to the Jewish Federation, less than two weeks after a senior Obama administration official was quoted calling the Israeli prime minister "chickens---"
"You better damn well report to Bibi that we're still buddies," Biden said at the top of his remarks, speaking specifically to Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer, who was in the audience. ("Bibi" is a nickname for Netanyahu.) ...
Biden continued to emphasize that "we really are good friends" and later called him a "great, great friend,"
Sorry if your sound bites, politics and spin doesn't match up with reality.
Deuce posts:
ReplyDelete"You tell Bibi that he needs to stop worrying about his right wing and start worrying about the United States."
This from a former Sec of State Albright (Bill Clinton's presidency)
So somehow it's more important for Israel to suborn it's OWN sovereign interests over the interests of the USA?
Hmm..
You'd never want America to suborn it's interests for Israel...
One standard for israel? No standards for anyone else?
Deuce exclaims:
ReplyDeleteNetanyahu Wanted to Attack Iran During a Joint US Israeli Military Exercise!
And yet he didn't…
Hmm...
Didn't you relish the high ranking Obama administration official calling BIBI a "chickenshit" for NOT attacking Iran?
DeleteDamned if he does, damned if he doesn't, damned if he even thinks about it..
He didn’t because he was given a deal he couldn’t refuse.
DeleteThere are now 2 options to deal with Iran.
DeleteRegime change or bombing
Why would Iran possibly hate the Israelis? Why would they not want to have a nuclear response?
DeleteWhy would Israel wait?
DeleteIran have proven it's hostile intentions openly.
Iran is the pariah nation with multiple UNSC resolutions against it.
Iran is the ONLY nation in the world that calls for a member of the UN to be destroyed…
Iran hates Israel sure… But it also hates America. In case you forgot..
It would also be a war crime of the highest order, as since Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program, a fact the US intelligence community has repeatedly attested to, means that attacking Iran’s nuclear program would mean attacking openly civilian infrastructure, things like power plants and the medical isotope reactor, simply to damage their infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteSo when Iran helps, supplies and assists Hezbollah and Hamas in trying to hit civilian infrastructure it is a war crime of the highest order…..
Good to know.
So what are the top 25 military and nuclear sites Israel should attack?
ReplyDeleteI have complied a short list…
I figure since Iran is already at war with Israel? It's not a declaration of war, but a response to Iran's attacks on Israel via it's proxies.
You really are a genius. You don’t think Iran could procure a nuclear warhead from Pakistan, North Korea or Russia and respond to an Israeli strike against Iran. You are crazy.
DeleteWho is to say they haven't already, all the more reason to level their military industrial complex
DeleteBetter to destroy Iran asap then allowing them to nuke up.
Deletedo the world a service.
Israel will need to take all Republican Guard major sites in addition to taking out the nuclear sites.
DeleteIsrael will not have to use nukes to do this.
Now of course, America could do it better, but America at this time in history is too busy bombing Sunni civilians to death to do anything about Iran.
GOD DEMANDS ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
ReplyDeleteIsraeli President Reuven Rivlin on Monday declared Israeli squatting on the Palestinian West Bank a “right” and as an essential Zionist principle.
Reuven, a former chairman of the far-right Likud Party now in power, is known to favor a paternalist form of the one-state solution. He has said he would rather give Palestinians citizenship than give up Israeli squatter settlements in the West Bank. (Although, it must be pointed out, he hasn’t actually done anything practical to end Palestinian statelessness and lack of basic rights in the West Bank, and Israeli squatter settlements there often disadvantage native Palestinians by stealing land, water and other resources without offering compensation). Reuven, who speaks fluent Arabic, has a vision of Israel as a multi-ethnic state, and has championed rights for Palestinian-Israelis, even the right to dissent from Israeli government policy. But he clearly also gets the confidence for this relative generosity to minorities from a conviction that Jews will remain on top of the political and social hierarchy. His supremacism extends to the Orthdox/ Conservative/Reform/Reconstructionist divide in contemporary Judaism. Reuven has been dismissive of Reform and Conservative Judaism, the major denominations in the United States, as not really Jewish, insisting that a fundamentalist approach to law is what makes for the essence of Judaism (in the same way that Muslim fundamentalists see sharia as the essence of Islam. He is not himself terribly observant, though).
Rivlin said, “I love the land of Israel with all my heart. I have never and will never give up on this land. For me, our right to this land is not a matter of political debate. It is a basic fact of modern Zionism . . We must not give anyone the sense that we are in any doubt about our right to our land. For me, the settlement of the land of Israel is an expression of that right, our historical right, our national right.”
Yes, and Mussolini thought he had a historic right to rule Libya, too, and Italians saw themselves as “returning” to North Africa in 1911 and after, since it had been part of the Roman Empire. People who say they love the fatherland with all their heart and that its borders extend beyond the present map should be viewed with suspicion. Such claims to supremacism over other people and their territory are frankly absurd, and doomed to the dustbin of history.
The Fakeistinians have no historic ties to the lands of Judea and Samaria.
DeleteThat is the truth, of course they are there now…
But what Syria and Iran have taught us?
11 million people can be moved…
LOL
Oh the crime, Jews building and settling their historic lands…
DeleteWell at the rate of the palestinians (fakistinians) own dissolving as a people? In 20 years? there will be no nationalistic movement anymore, weather they will de-evolve into the clans that they are…
Just look to Syria, the "west bank" and other enclaves of "Fakistinas", they are arabs. Nothing more or less, just arabs.
100 years ago? most claimed syrian allegiance.
What is worrisome is that past Likud leaders, such as Ariel Sharon, staked out claims to the Ghur Valley in Jordan or to southern Lebanon (or once upon a time, Egypt’s Sinai). Zionist leader David Ben Gurion once boasted that Israel had not fixed its borders.
ReplyDeleteThe question is whether Rivlin’s dream of subjecting the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank to permanent Israeli annexation, and his placing of this project at the center of the Zionist project, heralds a permanent split between Jewish Americans and the Likud government of Israel. Because most American Jews don’t approve of this kind of annexationist project.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/president-squatting-palestinian.html
League of Nations promised all of modern Jordan to the Jews as well..
DeleteAfter all it is all historic Jewish lands.
Most of Judea and Samaria have been written off and given to the Fakistinians.
Delete5- 8 % will be annexed by Israel.
Now if the Fakistinians ever get their act together and seek peace?
I am sure there could some land swaps to connect gaza to the arab occupied parts of judea and samaria.
Til then?
Israel should grow, innovate, seek peace with one hand and carry an uzi with the other…
Don't let the olive branch fall from the peaceful hand…
LOL - a cryptic reference to Yasser Arafat's historic armed speech at the UN (the only person ever to openly threaten war with an actual weapon from the UN podium)
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DeleteMost of Judea and Samaria have been written off and given to the Fakistinians.
5- 8 % will be annexed by Israel.
Only a fool would believe Israel will ever give up the West Bank.
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DeleteLeague of Nations promised all of modern Jordan to the Jews as well..
Pure nonsense.
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DeleteZionist leader David Ben Gurion once boasted that Israel had not fixed its borders.
Actually, it's been argued that Israel actually did declare its borders in the Epstein letter and that is the only reason the State of Israel was recognized by the US. Although Ben-Gurion did argue that they be kept vague so that everything in Palestine became 'disputed territory'. Sounds familiar.
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From the River to the Sea, Israel will be free…..
ReplyDelete:)
Deuce you have proved your point.
ReplyDeleteIran must be destroyed at once.
Thanks
How would an EMP over Iran work?
DeleteWould that be effective?
Or just hit the nuke sites and 'Publican sites.
If I was in charge, I'd hit the nuke sites, the 'Publican Guard sites, AND THEIR OWNED ASSETS like the factories they own and run… I'd ship all sorts of weapons and rockets to anyone that promised to shell the Shia population of Iran…
Yep that would be cool…
To see Iranians fleeing rocket attacks…
Every day for 8-10 years…
LOL
Deuce you have made it clear.. Iran would nuke Israel if given the chance.
DeleteKill or be killed…
I choose KILL
U.S. Air Force Primed and Ready to Attack Iran’s Nuclear Sites
ReplyDeleteNearly a decade ago, the Pentagon concluded that dropping its one-ton bombs on buried targets was like using a peashooter against an elephant. “Our past test experience has shown that 2,000-pound penetrators carrying 500 pounds of high explosive are relatively ineffective against tunnels, even when skipped directly into the tunnel entrance,” a 2004 report said. “Instead, several thousand pounds of high explosives coupled to the tunnel are needed to blow down blast doors and propagate a lethal air blast throughout a typical tunnel complex.”
The $15 million MOP has six times the heft of existing GBU-28 bunker busters. Glided into its destination by GPS-guided lattice-type fins, its alloy steel hull – some 80% of its weight – is designed to remain intact as it drills through rock or reinforced concrete before setting off its 5,300-pound warhead. Air Force officials say it represents a “bridge” capability between existing bunker busters and nuclear weapons themselves.
The Pentagon doesn’t have an unlimited supply of MOPs: it initially bought 20, for $314 million. The Boeing-built weapon can only be carried by the Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber. It’s also extremely shy: there are few photographs of the real thing. But the Air Force has released a pair of photographs of a MOP mockup. It’s a safe bet the mockup has been tweaked from the actual weapon to avoid betraying its precise design and dimensions.
yummie
Of course if Israel should attack Iran, Iran will blame America…
ReplyDeleteIranian commander: We have targets within America
A top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards boasted Saturday that his forces have plans in place to attack the United States from within, should the U.S. attack the Islamic Republic.
“America, with its strategic ignorance, does not have a full understanding of the power of the Islamic Republic,” Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami said in a televised interview. “We have recognized America’s military strategy, and have arranged our abilities, and have identified centers in America [for attack] that will create a shock.”
Reports indicate that terrorist Hezbollah forces — allies of Iran — have infiltrated the U.S. and have mapped out targets.
“We will conduct such a blow in which they [America] will be destroyed from within,” Salami said.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/01/iranian-commander-we-have-targets-within-america/#ixzz3jr8Znssj
I guess hasn't told his friends "the Iranians" that America loves Iran and it's mullahs.
Unnatural Obsessions
ReplyDeleteAUGUST 25, 2015 10:56 AM August 25, 2015 10:56 am 64 Comments
One enduring constant of the world economy since 2008 is the chorus of sober-sounding people declaring that the Fed must act responsibly and raise rates. A few years back, rising commodity prices and a flood of money into emerging markets were proof that low rates were dangerously inflationary and must be hiked. Now we have plunging commodity prices and a flood of money out of emerging markets; clearly, this shows that the Fed must do the right thing, and raise rates.
The underlying claim in all such demands is that the low interest rates we’ve had since 2008 are “unnatural” or “artificial”. So it’s probably worth repeating that while very low rates may seem strange, they also seem fully justified by the economic situation. The original Wicksellian concept of the natural rate of interest defined that rate as the rate consistent with stable prices, with an economy that was neither too hot nor too cold. If we had had an unnaturally low rate these past 7 years, we should have seen accelerating inflation; we haven’t.
Quantitative easing, by the way, is just more of the same. If you are claiming that the Fed has created artificially easy credit, you have to explain how it can do that year after year without producing inflation or an overheating economy. Nobody has ever produced a coherent story about how Fed policy can drive interest rates below their natural level without inflationary effects.
So even if you believe that a low-rate environment is helping to feed a series of bubbles, you have to ask how it can possibly make sense to raise rates when the underlying problem is overall economic weakness, which a rate hike would make worse.
One last point: many people have noted the resemblances between current events and the market instability of 1998. However, few have pointed out that the volatility of 1998 followed a long period in which long-term interest rates never dropped below 5 percent. Hot money doesn’t need ultra-low rates to be subject to enthusiasms and sudden losses of confidence.
Paul Krugman
Patty Murray is a "go."
ReplyDeleteObama needs just one more from the uncommitted list.