IAEA and Israel's Nuclear Weapons

The US ambassador to the IAEA, Glyn Davies, has urged Arab states to withdraw a resolution calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Davies warns that the resolution could have a negative impact on the US-backed talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The European Union joined the United States in arguing at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting that zeroing in on the Jewish state would jeopardize a proposed conference in 2012 on the creation of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, politicians, lobbyists, and propagandists have spent nearly two decades pushing the lie that Iran poses a nuclear weapons threat to the United States and Israel.

Nuclear Detonation Timeline 1945-1998

The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are plotted visually and audibly on a world map.

As the video starts out detonations are few and far between. The first three detonations represent the Manhattan Project and the two bombs that ended World War II. After a few representative minutes the USSR and Britain enter the nuclear club and the testing really starts to heat up.-source



video via Miss Atomic Bomb

Either Nuke 'em or Back Off

Well, it looks like Iran is well on its way to creating nuclear power. John Bolton, that tool picked by the Bush Administration to be the UN ambassador, said that weIsrael had 8 days to stop a nuclear Iran. Like there was going to be some big apocalyptic event that would destroy civilization as we know it. Sorry, but that honor is reserved to the banksters and the toolbag politicians who like their feet in reverence.

The problem with our foreign policy is that it is the most insane and stupid plan I've ever seen. You think that the United States' domestic policies were annoying, try applying them overseas with military force. Here we just have to put with the police if we go against the government, which in some ways is pretty bad, but overseas, they have to put up with the military which is always armed and has bigger guns than the police (although that gap is rapidly becoming smaller).

For some reason, following a series of total wars, our political class decided that we needed to police the rest of the world in order to fix things. This foreign policy is what many call interventionism and it crept into the conservative movement because of a nuclear bomb scare (thank you Julius Rosenburg) and William F. Buckley, Jr. Yes, the conservative icon of the 1950s would rather see the Soviet nuked than the policies of FDR revoked. And many social conservative politicians were all too willing to accept his help. A politician will love you so long as you provide ideas that expand their power. That's why Keynesian is still in vogue in DC.

The problem is that there is ultimately only one thing that will make other nations fear us enough to obey our every whim. The American people and the political class, however, are both unwilling to do this because they all do not wish such a horror to be unleashed on even the Devil himself. I speak, of course, of using nuclear weapons against our enemies.

Understand that I have no desire to see nuclear weapons used against anyone, anymore than I'd like to see 'conventional' bombings, guns, knives, swords, or rubber chickens inflicted on other people. I am a man of peace. But I'm also not a fool who plays games. If we are going to continue to insist on fighting people, we must be willing to use every weapon at our disposal. To do otherwise is, well, quite stupid and makes us look like pussies.

Because we are unwilling to use nuclear weapons, in other words go all out, in our foreign wars, 'rogue' nations will continue to act in defiance to us and build up their own arsenals to be used against us should we cross them in the future. If our central planners really wanted to stop Iran, they could have years ago and no one would have been able to do anything against it. They managed to bail out the banks, after all, and didn't suffer any real consequences.

All you warhawks, listen up: if you continue to insist on winning the 'wars' we are fighting overseas and don't call for nuclear bombings, then you are a coward and a fool. It's all or nothing, there is no in-between when it comes to war. Or rather, when there is a war not being fought to fullest, then you are just wasting the lives of soldiers. This is what Obama is doing right now with our troops overseas and this is what Bush was doing during his final term.

To my shame, I was a warhawk myself, like so many others. But now I've come to my senses and realized that I was wrong. It's a hard thing for people to admit they're wrong, but when the lives of literally millions of people are at stake, you'd better be right. And this time, you aren't.

Unfortunately, I doubt things will change for better because most people are selfish idiots. Not that there is anything wrong with either trait on its own (being blissfully ignorant has its benefits after all), but when combined, they make for a volatile cocktail of unpredictable nightmares. When you push that to a global stage, billions of lives are now hanging in the balance because of a few assholes who think they know better.

Keeping America At Risk For Fun and Profit

...in 1975, Israel agreed to sell South Africa nuclear weapons. South Africa then released an arms agreement signed by current Israeli President Shimon Peres. This is the document “heard round the world.”

...

Meetings being held in New York to set up a conference for 2012 to guarantee that the Middle East is nuclear free. Israel has been informed that it will not be able to hide behind denials and that the nuclear arsenal put on the sale block by Israel in 1975 and nobody knows how many times since, has to go.

...

What does it mean? Neither South Africa nor Israel are admitting that the nukes were delivered. General beliefs are that they were, a real shock to Nelson Mandela when he took office, from prisoner of apartheid to commander of a nuclear power. What is proven by this is that Israel was, even 35 years ago, a nuclear state, in direct violation of numerous international treaties. It also proves that Israel offered nukes to South Africa, a rogue nation under sanctions that covered not only any weapons but trade as well. This made Israel a criminal state and Mr. Peres a war criminal.

The Arms Circus, Israel Keeping The World In Turmoil

The First Official Evidence of Israel Possessing Nuclear Weapons

via Ignorance Hurts

IAEA May Investigate Israel's Nuclear Capability! (I Will Believe That When I See It!)

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

No Nations! No Nukes!

video via Francois Tremblay

One YouTube commenter's response to the video was "And what kind of world will the one world be like? Cuba? China?"

Replied another "Cuba has a state. China has a state. What are states other than bands of criminals, such as Castro's henchmen or Mao's? For a state to be a state, it by definition must violate natural law. Either it steals (taxes), enslaves (regulates), or outlaws competition in the provision of security services. If it stops committing crime, it ceases to be a "state" and instead becomes a voluntary and defendable institution".

So let's abolish states and nuclear weapons and live in a world of peace and cooperation.

Has Obama really “bent over backwards” for Iran?

In a recent press conference, Barack Obama said:

“I think that we have bent over backwards to say to the Islamic Republic of Iran that we are willing to have a constructive conversation about how they can align themselves with international norms and rules and reenter as full members of the international community.

“The most obvious attempt was when we gave them an offer that said we are going to provide the conversion of some of the low-enriched uranium that they already have into the isotopes that they need for their medical research and for hospitals that would serve up to a million Iranian citizens. They rejected it—although one of the difficulties in dealing with Iran over the last several months is it’s not always clear who’s speaking on behalf of the government, and we get a lot of different, mixed signals. But what’s clear is, is that they have not said yes to an agreement that Russia, China, Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States all said was a good deal, and that the director of the IAEA said was the right thing to do and that Iran should accept.

“That indicates to us that, despite their posturing that their nuclear power is only for civilian use, that they in fact continue to pursue a course that would lead to weaponization.”

The president’s narrative here is partially true. Just as he claims, the West made Iran an offer regarding its supply of low-enriched uranium. But by no means did the West “bend over backwards” or show its willingness to have a “constructive conversation.” Yes, there was a deal, but no, it wasn’t a good deal, at least not from Iran’s perspective; it certainly wasn’t a deal that anyone should have expected Iran to accept.

The two sides first met in Geneva last October. At issue was what to do about Iran’s supply of low-enriched uranium. At the time, Iran had been enriching its uranium to 5%. It had long made it known that, in order to continue operating a reactor that produces medical isotopes, it would need to start enriching to 20%. (Iran is running out of its existing supply of isotopes, which it purchased from Argentina in 1993. Sanctions prevent it from purchasing any more uranium from abroad.)

But the West didn’t want Iran enriching at all. So it proposed that Iran send three-fourths of its uranium to Russia and France, where it would then be enriched to 20% and finally sent back to Iran. The Obama administration told reporters that “forestalling Iran would allow time to negotiate a more comprehensive and difficult agreement, one intended to end all of Iran’s production of new nuclear material.” Iran said it would accept the deal, and the two sides planned to meet in Vienna later in the month to work out the details.

But the devil proved to be in the details, and to date the two sides have still not reached a deal. According to Mohamed ElBaradei, who headed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until November 30, Iran wants a simultaneous swap. In other words, instead of having to wait around a year to receive back its uranium, it wants to receive a batch of 20% uranium as soon as it ships out its own stock. According to ElBaradei, Iran doesn’t believe that France can be trusted to return the uranium.

Iran’s lack of trust is certainly well-founded. As Muhammad Sahimi explains, in the 1970s Iran, under the rule of the Shah, paid France over $1 billion for enriched uranium. But then the 1979 Revolution occurred, and ever since then, France has refused to hand over the uranium or refund the money Iran had paid for it. Sahimi explains that Iran has even more reasons to distrust Russia.

Although Iran refuses to send out the bulk of its uranium all at once, it continues affirming that it’s willing to send out its uranium to be further enriched by another country. It’s simply insisting upon a simultaneous swap.

Not an unreasonable demand, if you ask me. As a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) [.pdf], Iran is entitled to keep and enrich its uranium to 20%. And lest anyone fear that Iran might try to make a nuclear weapon, it should be remembered that, in accordance with the NPT, Iran has established a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. Which means that Iran cannot produce weapons-grade uranium (that is, uranium enriched to over 90%) without the Agency, and thus the entire world, knowing about it.

But none of this matters to President Obama. He wants Iran to get rid of its uranium supply pronto, and that’s all there is to it. And if Iran doesn’t comply, he’s made it clear that it will face a “significant regime of sanctions.” “Bending over backwards”? Trying to have a “constructive conversation”? Only in Obamaland.

The Most Dangerous Weapons Production Site in the Middle East