5 ms·

Why is okay for NYTimes to advocate bombing Iran?

3 points by techdog 12y ago

mark_l_watson 12y ago
The NYT was also complicit in the propaganda run-up for selling the ill-conceived attack and invasion on Iraq. The author of the NYT article, John Bolton, is a card carrying neoconservative - a group that I think is motivated both by war profiteering and flawed ideology. The war mongers never go back and look at the history of bad outcomes from US interventions in other countries (e.g., overthrowing the popular democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1950s, what we did in Guatemala, etc.)
maxharris 12y ago
Why is it okay to sit back and do nothing as Iran builds nuclear capability while shouting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America?" Why is it okay to sit back as Iran forces other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia to restart their own nuclear programs? Iran's leadership is under the grip of a expansionistic, fundamentalist religious ideology. If nothing changes, this could result in a nuclear war within the next fifteen years.
- dalke 12y ago
  "this could result in a nuclear war within the next fifteen years" We've been hearing these exact warnings for over 20 years. There's even a timeline of these warnings at http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1108/Imminent-Iran-nuclear-threat-A-timeline-of-warnings-since-1979/Earliest-warnings-1979-84 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1108/Imminen... : > Fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution > 1984: ... US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon. > 1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells his colleagues that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – and that the threat had to be "uprooted by an international front headed by the US." > 1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells French TV that Iran was set to have nuclear warheads by 1999. "Iran is the greatest threat and greatest problem in the Middle East," Peres warned, "because it seeks the nuclear option while holding a highly dangerous stance of extreme religious militanCY." > in early 1992 a task force of the House Republican Research Committee claimed that there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two or three operational nuclear weapons." > 1997: The Christian Science Monitor reports that US pressure on Iran's nuclear suppliers had "forced Iran to adjust its suspected timetable for a bomb. Experts now say Iran is unlikely to acquire nuclear weapons for eight or 10 years." > 1998: The same week, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reports to Congress that Iran could build an intercontinental ballistic missile – one that could hit the US – within five years. The CIA gave a timeframe of 12 years. > 2007: A month later, an unclassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran is released, which controversially judges with "high confidence" that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons effort in fall 2003. > June 2008: Then-US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton predicts that Israel will attack Iran before January 2009, taking advantage of a window before the next US president came to office. (Bolton is the author of this op-ed piece. He was wrong then. Why should I believe he's right now?) > May 2009: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee reports states: "There is no sign that Iran's leaders have ordered up a bomb." ... Despite decades of warnings of nuclear war within the next decade or so, the response so far has not been to bomb Iran. What's different now that we need to bomb them, that we didn't need to do so a decade ago? I also see plenty of evidence that there are more than the two options of "war with Iran" and "ignore Iran completely." Few say that we should sit back and do nothing at all.
  - maxharris 12y ago
    Here's a timeline of the North Korean nuclear program: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/20/world/asia/northkorea-timeline.html?_r=0#/#time238_7104 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/20/world/asia/nor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass... After reading through these, I am comfortable in sweeping aside your argument. Time and time again, North Korea claimed it was pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. In every negotiation they stalled for more time, more money and more food, until one day when they tested their first bomb. Sure, that one fizzled out, but it wasn't that long until they tested another another, which worked, and that was followed by another. With each test they have grown in capability, and now they openly admit that their reactors are operating to build nuclear weapons. North Korea is widely acknowledged to be one of the world's poorest, most isolated and backward countries. If they can get the bomb, Iran can do it too, and faster.
    - dalke 12y ago
      I asked what changed with respect to Iran, such that bombing the country is appropriate now when it wasn't appropriate earlier, despite warnings earlier that they would be able to produce a bomb within 10-15 years. Your answer is to point to North Korea. However, in the NYT timeline you pointed to: > 1994: North Korea Quits Atomic Agency > 2002: Confronted by Bush administration officials with evidence that it had cheated on the 1994 agreement, North Korea admits that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. > 2006: First Nuclear Test Unlike what you implied ("[NK] claimed it was pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes ... until one day when they tested their first bomb"), the NYT says NK said they were pursuing a weapons program at least three years before they did their first tests. Iran does not fit that profile. It is a member of the IAEA and admits inspections. The reports are at http://www.iranwatch.org/authoring-agency/iaea-report http://www.iranwatch.org/authoring-agency/iaea-report . Similarly, if you're going to make comparisons, I can point to reports about the nuclear and biological weapons capabilities in Iraq, including the aluminum tubes supposedly only used to enrich uranium, or the "significant quantities of uranium from Africa" that Iraq supposedly bought, or how Iraq needed only "45 minutes" in order to prepare its chemical weapons. All of which turned out to be false, but which were used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Why is North Korea a better comparison than Iraq, enough to "sweep aside" any objection of mine? Everything you have said about Iran was true 10 and 20 years ago. What has changed to warrant bombing now, that wasn't true then?

3 points by techdog 12y ago

The NYT was also complicit in the propaganda run-up for selling the ill-conceived attack and invasion on Iraq. The author of the NYT article, John Bolton, is a card carrying neoconservative - a group that I think is motivated both by war profiteering and flawed ideology. The war mongers never go back and look at the history of bad outcomes from US interventions in other countries (e.g., overthrowing the popular democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1950s, what we did in Guatemala, etc.)

maxharris 12y ago

Why is it okay to sit back and do nothing as Iran builds nuclear capability while shouting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America?" Why is it okay to sit back as Iran forces other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia to restart their own nuclear programs? Iran's leadership is under the grip of a expansionistic, fundamentalist religious ideology. If nothing changes, this could result in a nuclear war within the next fifteen years.

dalke 12y ago
"this could result in a nuclear war within the next fifteen years" We've been hearing these exact warnings for over 20 years. There's even a timeline of these warnings at http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1108/Imminent-Iran-nuclear-threat-A-timeline-of-warnings-since-1979/Earliest-warnings-1979-84 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1108/Imminen... : > Fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution > 1984: ... US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon. > 1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells his colleagues that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – and that the threat had to be "uprooted by an international front headed by the US." > 1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells French TV that Iran was set to have nuclear warheads by 1999. "Iran is the greatest threat and greatest problem in the Middle East," Peres warned, "because it seeks the nuclear option while holding a highly dangerous stance of extreme religious militanCY." > in early 1992 a task force of the House Republican Research Committee claimed that there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two or three operational nuclear weapons." > 1997: The Christian Science Monitor reports that US pressure on Iran's nuclear suppliers had "forced Iran to adjust its suspected timetable for a bomb. Experts now say Iran is unlikely to acquire nuclear weapons for eight or 10 years." > 1998: The same week, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reports to Congress that Iran could build an intercontinental ballistic missile – one that could hit the US – within five years. The CIA gave a timeframe of 12 years. > 2007: A month later, an unclassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran is released, which controversially judges with "high confidence" that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons effort in fall 2003. > June 2008: Then-US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton predicts that Israel will attack Iran before January 2009, taking advantage of a window before the next US president came to office. (Bolton is the author of this op-ed piece. He was wrong then. Why should I believe he's right now?) > May 2009: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee reports states: "There is no sign that Iran's leaders have ordered up a bomb." ... Despite decades of warnings of nuclear war within the next decade or so, the response so far has not been to bomb Iran. What's different now that we need to bomb them, that we didn't need to do so a decade ago? I also see plenty of evidence that there are more than the two options of "war with Iran" and "ignore Iran completely." Few say that we should sit back and do nothing at all.
- maxharris 12y ago
  Here's a timeline of the North Korean nuclear program: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/20/world/asia/northkorea-timeline.html?_r=0#/#time238_7104 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/20/world/asia/nor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass... After reading through these, I am comfortable in sweeping aside your argument. Time and time again, North Korea claimed it was pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. In every negotiation they stalled for more time, more money and more food, until one day when they tested their first bomb. Sure, that one fizzled out, but it wasn't that long until they tested another another, which worked, and that was followed by another. With each test they have grown in capability, and now they openly admit that their reactors are operating to build nuclear weapons. North Korea is widely acknowledged to be one of the world's poorest, most isolated and backward countries. If they can get the bomb, Iran can do it too, and faster.
  - dalke 12y ago
    I asked what changed with respect to Iran, such that bombing the country is appropriate now when it wasn't appropriate earlier, despite warnings earlier that they would be able to produce a bomb within 10-15 years. Your answer is to point to North Korea. However, in the NYT timeline you pointed to: > 1994: North Korea Quits Atomic Agency > 2002: Confronted by Bush administration officials with evidence that it had cheated on the 1994 agreement, North Korea admits that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. > 2006: First Nuclear Test Unlike what you implied ("[NK] claimed it was pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes ... until one day when they tested their first bomb"), the NYT says NK said they were pursuing a weapons program at least three years before they did their first tests. Iran does not fit that profile. It is a member of the IAEA and admits inspections. The reports are at http://www.iranwatch.org/authoring-agency/iaea-report http://www.iranwatch.org/authoring-agency/iaea-report . Similarly, if you're going to make comparisons, I can point to reports about the nuclear and biological weapons capabilities in Iraq, including the aluminum tubes supposedly only used to enrich uranium, or the "significant quantities of uranium from Africa" that Iraq supposedly bought, or how Iraq needed only "45 minutes" in order to prepare its chemical weapons. All of which turned out to be false, but which were used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Why is North Korea a better comparison than Iraq, enough to "sweep aside" any objection of mine? Everything you have said about Iran was true 10 and 20 years ago. What has changed to warrant bombing now, that wasn't true then?