The International Atomic Energy Agency has referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council, where it is likely to face at least some level of sanctions for conducting a nuclear energy program that it claims is exclusively for peaceful purposes but that other nations, including the United States and Israel, believe is to the end of producing a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Those who accuse Iran of building nuclear bombs make estimates of wildly varying time frames on when Iran could achieve nuclear weapons-possessing status: some projections put the time frame at five years or more, while others claim that Iran could test a nuclear device by the end of March of this year.
Regardless of whether or not the accusations against Tehran are legitimate, some nations may be preparing to conduct military operations to destroy its nuclear research and development facilities. Below is your opportunity as readers to vote in a special poll offered at The Dark Wraith Forums Polling Center.
An Exclusive Online Poll by The Dark Wraith Forums
Iran on the brink: Will Iran be attacked; and if so, by whom?
Published 2/05/2006 09:28:00 PM
<< 46 Comments Total
I'm sorry to say this, but that's an awful poll - because I would rather ostrich myself and not think of the possibility of more war type deaths with different countries than already occupied. I really hope Iran does not get attacked. There has been too much bloodshed in the Middle East. I've read that Isreal has nuclear capabilities, but they don't want any of the other Middle Eastern countries to have same. We've proved that no one can be trusted with horrible war weaponry, especially us.... so why shouldn't everyone have it? I guess I had better go vote.
PoLT ventures the opinion that the PRIMARY, and possibly the only, reason Iran will be attacked is because the Iranians plan to start selling their oil for Euros instead of dollars.
Oh, Peter, you're such a cynical person. Just because a move to denominate Iranian oil in euros would cause a fairly swift slide of the dollar by, oh, say, 30%, which would plow the American economy into an economic crisis as we would have to produce that much more currency very quickly to pay the skyrocketing costs of imported oil, which would induce the Fed to monetize the price shock, which would cause the latent inflation pressures already waiting to smack us around to explode into consumer and producer prices with a fury that even the Bureau of Labor Statistics couldn't cover up with its high-powered data massaging techniques.
Gracious, Peter.
The very thought of a war based on a threat of emerging economic power that needs to be checked is just plain outrageous. America would never sacrifice soldiers for such things.
The Dark Wraith needs to stop before this smelly stuff gets up past his boots.
Good evening, Old White Lady.
I am quite interested in how average Americans are going to react as the mainstream media outlets start informing them of the growing prospect of some kind of military action against Iran. It seems to me that, right now, people are aware on a vague level that something's coming, but I don't think the full range of consequences nor the high and real probability of American involvement has quite sunk in yet.
We'll see what they think if we enter our third war under Mr. Bush.
The Dark Wraith wonders how many more of those "Support Our Troops" ribbon car magnets can be produced before they start having the parenthetical statement appended, "Kick that idiot out of the White House."
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
I was about to say the same thing, but Peter of Lone Tree said it before I got here...
I think the people are still to sleepy to care about Iran - and they still think shock and awe will do it in the Mideast(hey - we still have the finest, most expensive military in the world, and right now it's the only thing proping up the economy).
Can anyone else see us turning into North Korea, slowly but surely??
Good morning, SB Gypsy.
I had an ugly, ugly thought about your suggestion that the U.S. is traveling a road that leads to a state like North Korea. North Korea's current "Dear Leader" is the progeny of the last dictator there.
Dear God, that means we could see Jenna Bush as President some day.
The Dark Wraith reaches for his pistol to kill himself.
Unless diplomacy produces a result acceptable to them, I believe Israel will act pre-emptively with logistical/intelligence support from the US and the Kurds.
- oddjob
In the event that you are correct, OddJob, let us hope that this time our naval ships are better armed for a black-out attack.
Oh, that's right: it was an accident that time.
The Dark Wraith was just being unfair.
And today's irony. "We are on the verge of an exciting time," the nation's top nuclear weapons executive, Linton Brooks, said last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory.
For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards.
a caveat to peters comment:
I remember reading something about Iraq wanting to shift to Euro's shocking we went to war not long after that, I think Chavez (Venezuela) has or is, and yes Iran has mentioned it. It isn't beyond the realm of possibilities for war to happen we have 3 more years of this administration and things don't seem to be getting better internationally.
Can anyone say WWIII.....
Good afternoon, donviti.
Iran has more than mentioned it: Tehran is within several months of actually opening its oil bourse. It isn't something on the drawing boards; it's going to become a reality, and the only way that reality won't happen is if there is such a disruption of the country's economy and information infrastructure that would make it impossible to deploy the necessary parts of the petroleum trading forum.
The actual effect of this bourse, operating as it would in a wider move away from dollar-denominated contracts, is somewhat speculative. It wouldn't cause any instantaneous collapse of the U.S. dollar, but it would be a factor in an accelerative decline in the importance of the dollar.
The Saudis would not participate, and most other Gulf states wouldn't either unless they were to be put directly in the gunsights of a militarily powerful Iran. Tehran has already begun to call upon such states to abandon the military protection they presume would come from the U.S. naval fleet; and it has severely cut back on the amount of natural gas being pumped to Turkey as a display of economic strength over energy-dependent states in the region.
The point is that Iran's current and possible future actions are and will be disruptive but not catastrophically so, not in the very short run; but the longer run is a different matter. Also, if the U.S. dollar is even near some fearsome tipping point with respect to international legitimacy as a denominating currency of choice, what Iran does with its little oil bourse could be more decisive than I outlined above.
The reasons for an attack against Iran are many. The reasons to stand down are few, and the United States does not have control over the situation. That is a failure of long-term diplomacy, intelligence (both kinds), and military readiness for real trouble rather than the childish stuff the neo-cons dreamed up years ago.
A war following the attack is not a foregone conclusion. Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear weapons production facilities into rubble, and nothing much ever came of it: certainly no war ensued. Although there is no doubt that a tense, violent, and perilously dangerous period would follow any bombing raid on Iran's nuclear manufacturing works, the ultimate direction the conflict and resolution would take is not clear at all.
Unfortunately, if the Bush Administration's incompetents are centrally involved, no recovery of a relatively peaceful kind will result.
The Dark Wraith will, for his own peace of mind, keep working on his bunker.
I think our "sheriff" thinks he's the "baddest ass" on earth & his neocon posse is right there w/ him. I don't think there's a single one w/ any perspective on war except as a game to be played by candy ass, pseudo-royal, arm chair caressing neophytes who like to push the pieces around on the game board in the "war room."
He's already proven he's untrustworthy & lacks judgement. Congress is showing there is no "fail-safe" to deter our "sheriff" from riding out & committing us to Armageddon. Watch out America. Watch out world.
OT, but of interest:
Halliburton receives Dept. of Homeland Security contract to build prison camps on US soil (location(s) classified).
- oddjob (Hat tip, Towleroad)
One of the economic newsletters that I get has been predicting for about a year now that Euros’ or Yuan are poised to replace dollars as The World Bank's fall-back currency. If Venezuela and Iran move - war will become an economic necessity, without which America’s monetary infrastructure would more than likely collapse. At best, I fear any propping up this will bring about would be temporary. I'm really worried things will move suddenly, and escalate to out of hand before any internal or external intervention can occur.
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
From Oddjob's link above:
The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.
(emphasis mine)
Looks like they are getting ready to round us all up. The temporary part of it is chilling: are they warming up the ovens? Is it time to get on the list to emigrate to Canada, and will Canada be far enough away????
Bush will issue a contract for $385 million for building "detention and processing" camps in the US, but proposes slashing an estimated $157 million from PBS. I guess since the 'toon himself lives on Sesame Street we don't need it on TV, right?
I can't wait for the Dark Wraith's rant on the 2007 budget request...
Good afternoon, Dark One,
Frist, back away from that pistol! Here, let me fix ya a Jenna Tonic.
Here's the deal.
Surely our Ruler's policies can't screw up the American economy for a generation, can they?
I've thrown my extra money ($2.50) into a low-cost index fund. Is this wise? I have also started investing in a foreign firm with hopes that as the dollar weakens, my investment might be worth more.
The thing is, I have no idea where to channel my financial anxiety. Any suggestions?
It all makes my Blonde head hurt. I think I'll go roll around in some coal.
a response to your response to my response regarding your response
ugh
sigh
bonk (head hitting keyboard)lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
head stuck on L
The Dark Wraith skids back into the picture, if only to see the merriment of the council members as they contemplate the walls coming down about us.
First of all, Mr. Goat, I can assure you that I will have plenty to say about the moron's skewed priorities. There comes a point—and I am speaking here as a teacher—when enough evidence should make even the thickest dunderhead understand that a policy path is simply not working. We are pushing deficits through the roof, and the Administration is about to be forced to seek an increase in the national debt ceiling once again, and all because of these tax cuts that those neo-con/economics class flunkies simply won't acknowledge as being the cause.
And there's ol' brainless himself sniveling to make his first-term tax cuts permanent. That's like saying the knife in your spleen has done such wonders that you want to smear super glue on it so no one can ever take it out.
And don't get me started on those education funding cuts.
Okay, you got me started. That $380 million to train new teachers? That's going to be nothing but bait for a bunch of lazy-ass academic grant writers to get funding for yet another round of useless programs in universities that already churn out teachers as it is. Those grants are going to do nothing but get little, preening academic prima-donnas another big office and another nice little staff of sycophants so they can strut around showing off their show-piece teacher education programs. Meanwhile, the schools are dying, the kids aren't learning, and teachers are leaving the profession as fast as they can... if they can.
The old saying is right: the best swimming rats abandon the ship first.
And another thing. There was that imbecile Treasury Secretary Snow up there repeating the new Fed screed about how there's plenty of savings in the global financial markets to keep buying up the Treasury paper these Republicans keep creating. My god! We might as well just hang up the sign, "A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of China, Inc."
The party animals of Tiannanmen Square together with the good-times architects of Abu Ghraib. What a combo!
Whee.
The Dark Wraith needs to stop.
[There's that odd shooting pain in my left arm again. Huh.]
And notice, SB Gypsy, how those prisons are being shielded behind the word "immigration" to race bait the whole monstrous idea past anyone who might be noticing that we're creating a gulag system right here in the United States of America.
Right here on our own continent, for Lord's sake!
Those prisons aren't for immigration purposes; and they aren't even detention facilities.
Those nightmares are retention facilities: home-based holding fields to lock down populations. I'll bet you my bottom dollar those things are going to look like a cross between the huge barracks-based structures the Third Reich built and the open field designs of movies like... never mind. No one's going to believe me until the things are completed and operational.
Now, here's a question for every last candidate in 2006 and 2008: are you going to stop those things right in their tracks? And I don't mean just putting them on hold; I mean tearing them down and burying everything about them?
Any candidate who equivocates on the right answer to that question gets slapped with a big billboard that read: "I am in favor of American gulags."
This is just ridiculous. For one thing, this is a neo-conservatism that's seen one too many B-rated science fiction movies about America in the 21st Century.
Someone needs to drag these people to some theatre that's showing something wholesome... like maybe the Evil Dead trilogy.
The Dark Wraith is ranting excessively.
Where was I?
Oh, yes. If you haven't already seen it, over at Night Bird's Fountain, I put up an example of a push-poll.
Also, at Big Brass Blog, Charlie from Shades of Gray posted an article entitled, "Blogging and the Democratic Party," which I used as a launching point for a brief essay, "Response on Blogging and the Democratic Party."
Of course, all the nonsense these thundering Republican merchants of stupid are pushing out right now is sorely testing my general desire to moderation.
And that brings me to something else that's been drifting in the periphery of my radar for about a month now. On the one hand, I haven't enough hard evidence yet to say anything, but I'm getting this increasingly persistent little voice in the back of my head that's telling me that my better judgment needs to come to bear as soon as possible on one important issue.
It's bothering me quite a bit right now, and I'm proceeding with some investigation that would give me at least enough evidence to post the matter as something for others to consider.
I'm just not there, yet; but I will be. I just hope I'm there before too much more time elapses.
The Dark Wraith is waxing undeniably obtuse.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council, where it is likely to face at least some level of sanctions for conducting a nuclear energy program
I will predict two things:
1, If the Security Council wanted to, say, slap the Iranian President's wrists, they will write this down in the diplospeak equivelant of "And by this we mean a single slap with a hand on the wrist, sufficient to sting, but not to cause any further pain, without any other action being called for without our say so."
2, The Bush Administration will tell Americans that when the UNSC said that the Iranian President's wrists shall be slapped, this was a mandate for the US to drop bombs on nuclear facilities, oil bourses, camels with anti-American graffiti on them, and anything else that catches their eye. Oh, and send in troops, should they have any to spare/
Good evening, Pheoenician in a time of Romans.
Actually, I think the U.S. delegation to the UN, led as it is by the ever-temperate and mentally well-balanced John Bolton, would consider an inadvertent breaking of wind by Kofee Annan as proof that America has the support of the world for a good "Shock and Awe" campaign.
Goodness. Anything to boost the President's popularity is worth a try, y'know.
The Dark Wraith will mail the Secretary-General some Gas-X so he doesn't inadvertently send the wrong signal to the trigger-happy neo-con warhawks.
"The Dark Wraith will mail the Secretary-General some Gas-X so he doesn't inadvertently send the wrong signal to the trigger-happy neo-con warhawks."
HOOF HEARTED? ICE MELTED!
Think of the overall benefits that might ensue if enough Gas-X were distributed. From http://tinyurl.com/8qpyb
"There has been a lot of hubbub lately around the theory of Global Warming. Apparently some people think that we humans are the cause, even though the problem was clearly identified years ago as being caused by cow emissions. (yes, cow emissions) Just check out this BBC (http://tinyurl.com/awq4v) article on how the EU was preparing to regulate such bovine flatulence."
No one's going to believe me until the things are completed and operational.
Why do you think anyone will believe you then? Do you actually expect them to be available for public (by which by the loosest of definitions I am also including the present incarnation of the press) scrutiny???
- oddjob
Actually, OddJob, I wouldn't expect any hugely important people to believe me even if the Lord God of All Creation were standing with me at a news conference (although I would like to see how the other Right-wing pundits react when the first one asks a sneering question and gets summarily dispatched in a burst of flame and heartfelt fussing).
Call it a personal vice, but the main point of the exercise would be the satisfaction of saying, "I told you so."
That and the gratuitous, "Neener-neener," I would append.
I don't know, right now, though. I smell a rat in this whole run-up, and it looks like the same variety we saw a couple of years ago. The problem is that it looks so much like the same kind we saw a couple of years ago, it might be the same one.
The problem with that possibility is this: the 2002/2003 appearance of the rat had "American Neo-Cons" written all over it; but this one has "International Community" written all over it, and it has a well-placed special advertisement for the European Union blinking on its nose.
If it's the same rat, that would mean its previous stage appearance was more auspicious than we've been thinking all along. Either that, or the old rat's performance was a lot more well received than we thought, and its new song and dance has a bunch of sponsors who were waiting to see how the debut would pan out.
And, yes, I'm being as metaphically obtuse as an existentialist novel that's being read while under the influence of a liter of straight whiskey.
What can I say? Clarity doesn't kill rats. Neither does whiskey. The latter, however, has the advantage lacking in the former of making the rats tolerable as they tear up the kitchen.
The Dark Wraith, himself, is not sure how this comment turned out so brutally opaque.
And furthermore, Peter of Lone Tree, that whole flatulence-causing-global-warming idea concerns me deeply.
Until recently, I was under the impression that it was only my preference for fossil fuel burning engines that made me culpable; but this whole thing about gas has me up in arms. Lord knows, I've contributed my share, but it wasn't as if I knew the global consequences of what I thought was nothing more than passive-aggressive expressions of angst issued forthrightly and then followed quickly by a falsely contrite, "Whoa. My bad."
Now, you're saying I need to stop. What am I supposed to do?—wait until I detonate?
And the cows? What do we do?—cork and tether them so they don't float away, but instead hover like fleets of bovine dirigibles over the Heartland of America?
Lord! but these times are complicated.
The Dark Wraith contemplates the implications of flatus interruptus.
About ten years or so ago there was some joking about research money being spent on measuring gas production in cattle and in termite mounds and such, but it actually goes to a real issue.
There's more methane now in the atmosphere than there has been in at least the last 500,000, and the only reason we can't measure better than that is no one has figured out a way to find methane concentrations from times prior to that. The present concentration is significantly higher than it ever has been in that last half million years (I'm recalling this from a National Geographic article I read a few years back).
If one is aware of such info. it behooves you to figure out the Earth's methane budget, to the best of your ability to do so....
- oddjob
Oh, for those who aren't aware, methane is a vastly more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide is (and carbon dioxide levels are also up, but that's better understood).
- oddjob
Good morning, OddJob.
There are several related issues with methane. One problem is that carbon dioxide could start a global warming trend, but the process would accelerate rapidly (perhaps exponentially) as methane production increased as a result. The mechanism works like this: the initial warming phase caused by carbon dioxide causes possibly minor melting of far northern and (to a much lesser extent) far southern permafrosts. Melting permafrost is enormously productive soil in biological terms; so as the permafrost begins to melt, aerobic and anaerobic biological activity increases. With little in the way of initial limits on food supply, the bacterial (and fungal and probably viral) load in the soil increases at an exponential rate, producing both methane and carbon dioxide, thereby increasing the atmospheric load of both gasses (and, not inconsequentially, the lithospheric load of rich organics). As the atmosphere is infused of more and more methane and carbon dioxide, the "global warming" accelerates, thereby accelerating the melting of the permafrosts both in terms of latitude and in terms of depth. This second point is important because it implies a building reservoir of the gasses (and nutrients) that will, to some extent, percolate through the soil, but that will also offer further ecological reconstruction of the lower depths of the soil base to make those areas even more receptive to the aerobic and anaerobic processes (some of which can be quite nasty in and of themselves).
In other words, global warming might be a chain reaction; and this chain reaction might have happened before in the history of the Earth. That doesn't mean human activity is off the hook: these run-away processes have probably almost always been triggered by some shift in the distribution of organisms on the planet and the resulting shifts in by-product composition. This time, we're looking at a process that's been started at least in part by an organism that is keenly aware of its ability to alter the environment around it.
In fact, that's what we do best: it's our adaptive advantage. That means, if we want our species and its peculiar advantage called "intelligence" to survive, we had better figure out how to apply that adaptation to the problem we're partly responsible for creating.
That's the Dark Wraith's opinion, anyway.
An opinion I share. As a well known conservationist (Aldo Leopold) once said, "The first rule of intelligent tinkering is not to lose the parts."
- oddjob
my juvenile mind was happy to read about the methane portion of this comments section
I do admire how everyone was able to avoid saying "fart". It cheapens the arguement and brings it down to my level
I do admire how everyone was able to avoid saying "fart". It cheapens the arguement and brings it down to my level
We are educated here. We say "methane clathrates" instead of "fossil farts".
And when Karl Rove's remains are found in a million years, they will be identified as a coprolite blossom.
The Dark Wraith has thus moved.
I do admire how everyone was able to avoid saying "fart". It cheapens the arguement and brings it down to my level.
But to dismiss it all as farting ignores significant sources of methane. Garbage landfills don't fart, but since their underground decomposition involves very little surface air the primary vehicle of decomposition is anaerobic bacteria, and a typical end product of such decomposition is methane. The landfills near me have large pvc pipes rising out of them in various places. They were placed there to vent that produced methane into the atmosphere, thus reducing the explosive risks such landfills present as the garbage decomposes.
But that methane becomes a part of the atmosphere....
Methane also is extracted as "natural gas", unless I'm grossly mistaken.
(Nice touch with the coporlite reference! :-))
- oddjob
Donviti,
The Dark Wraith never farts, but he is known for cutting the cheese, both before and after his Spam sandwich.
Good Afternoon Dark Wraith,
In Scandinavia they are harvesting that methane to use for heating govt buildings, and power govt cars.
And notice, SB Gypsy, how those prisons are being shielded behind the word "immigration" to race bait the whole monstrous idea past anyone who might be noticing that we're creating a gulag system right here in the United States of America.
I was just reading an article in Science News about the Bird Flu, and flashed on just what those camps may be meant for.
I blogged last fall on what I think this administration's ultimate intentions are, and this internment camp thingy just dovetails nicely with that. In fact, they were talking last summer about the logistics of quarantining large swaths of our countryside, and how difficult that would be. Well, if a large number of sick people go to the hospital for help, it would be simple to schlepp them right into the camps to die. They could even use ambulances for transport.
They've had four years to get ready for a pandemic, and they've done nada. Now this camp construction. How paranoid do ya have to be with this crew, I ask ya!
Paranoia may be a mental illness, but a sense of personal safety is unmitigated insanity.
Thus spake the Dark Wraith.
H5N1 avian flu outbreak in sub-Saharan Africa.
- oddjob
OT, but needs to be circulated widely:
Read this. (Hat tip, Americablog.)
- oddjob
Unfortunately war in Iran is inevitable, since the boy king needs to increase his empire. This is how he intends to free the country from its' dependence on Mid-East oil. He and his corporate buddies will own it.
As for the "support our troops" saying, that is all it is to the Bush crime family - a saying for a bumper sticker.
Read this article which tells us how these warmongers give their support.
As an aside, the book being featured over in the sidebar is by a fellow named Dan Marvin, a colonel who was just successful in a federal trial in which the Pentagon had accused him of lying in that book.
Some of his events he recounts both in the book and in other forums is almost over the top, or at least a reasonable person might hope to God it were, anyway. I was somewhat surprised by the outcome of the trial, especially considering that the good colonel has been something of a favorite among certain conspiracy theorists.
I'll let it go at that; but I did want to warn the unsuspecting that what you're seeing in that featured book has a story behind the story, and it's not exactly what you'll see on the mainstream news.
The Dark Wraith believes in truth in advertising.
[Perhaps to his own detriment in this case.]
Good evening, Canuk.
Thank you for the link. I swear, I've read so many articles exposing the various facets of the Bush era multi-dimensional insanity that I'm convinced of one thing: the terrible record of this Administration and its cronies really is available for anyone to see. For only a relatively small percentage is this messy nightmare all great news; for many, though, the problem is an utter incuriosity and sloth.
Lord! but I sound like some kind of bad, modern mutation of an old-time Protestant.
The Dark Wraith should start his own church.
Good afternoon, Dark Wraith.
One thing I've yet to hear in all this talk of methane contributing to global warming is that methane is a natural by-product of oil drilling, that is, that an oil well is a gas well, equipped somewhat differently. That's what those flares are on the tops of those derricks is the methane burning off. Sometimes the well is just capped. There are a lot of exploratory wells that produce mainly methane sitting capped throughout the high plains, waiting for the price to go up.
I know that in Prudhoe Bay, the gas is being pumped back into the ground, or, at least, it was.
In Scandinavia they are harvesting that methane to use for heating govt buildings, and power govt cars.
What, they heat government buildings by sticking hoses up people's butts and confiscating the gas? Those lousy Scandinavian socialists have gone too far this time - no wonder suicide is so common there!
(There goes the neighborhood.....)
- oddjob