U.S. to sell Israel 5,000 smart bombs, including 500 bunker busters.

[Whois]

War by proxy against Iran since American analysts say a US attack on Iran is a bad idea?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/479587.html

U.S. to sell Israel 5,000 smart bombs
By Aluf Benn

The United States will sell Israel 5,000 smart bombs, for $319 million, according to a report made to Congress a few weeks ago.

The funding will come from the U.S. military aid to Israel, and the bombs range from airborne versions, guidance units, training bombs and detonators. The bombs are guided by satellite, in a system already in the Israel Defense Forces arsenal. The guidance unit receives a signal from a satellite, correcting the bomb's course to the target.

The Pentagon told Congress that the bombs are meant to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage, and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests.

Among the bombs the air force will get are 500 one-ton bunker busters that can penetrate two-meter-thick cement walls; 2,500 regular one-ton bombs; 1,000 half-ton bombs; and 500 quarter-ton bombs.

Government sources said the bomb deal, one of the largest weapons deals of recent years, did not face any political difficulties, despite the use Israel has made of U.S.-made F-16s in some of its assassinations in the territories. The IDF used a one-ton bomb to kill a senior Hamas officer, Salah Shehadeh, in July 2002, an assassination that also took the lives of 15 Palestinian civilians, including children. In September 2003, the air force used a smaller, quarter-ton bomb, to strike at Hamas leaders, but missed. In other cases, half-ton bombs have been used.

The government sources said Israel will not be asking for any new weapons systems or purchases until after the upcoming November elections. On October 12, delegations from the two countries meet for their regular six month session for strategic cooperation.

[Echewta]

After Isreal has broken so many U.N. resolutions (the most of any country I believe), how can we sell them weapons? We should invade.

[ASsman]

Those jews are up to something, with their mozza balls of mass destruction.

[Whois]

Those jews are up to something, with their mozza balls of mass destruction.

300+ nuclear weapons is a lot of clout.

P.S. Matzo

[sneakyimp]

I can kind of understand selling them bombs...at least from a capitalistic perspective--we make money! american jobs et. al.

what i don't understand is the MILITARY FOREIGN AID! They are either the largest or second largest recipient of american foreign aid, much of it military. I've heard estimates as high as 12 billion but i think it's closer to 3.

[Whois]

I can kind of understand selling them bombs...at least from a capitalistic perspective--we make money! american jobs et. al.

what i don't understand is the MILITARY FOREIGN AID! They are either the largest or second largest recipient of american foreign aid, much of it military. I've heard estimates as high as 12 billion but i think it's closer to 3.

Combined aid is around 4 billion, Egypt gets about 3 billion (payment for making peace with Israel).

[sneakyimp]

that's $600 for every man woman in child in Israel. Why aren't the republicans all over that??

[EN[i]GMA]

Because the Neo-Cons have them by the balls. If they say anything harsh about Isreal they get black balled.

[Whois]

GMA']Because the Neo-Cons have them by the balls. If they say anything harsh about Isreal they get black balled.

AIPAC has everyone by the balls...criticize Israel and you are an anti-semite.

[ASsman]

Sons of bitches. Jews really piss me off. What God's chosen people? STOP SHEDDING BLOOD, FOR GOD WILL JUDGE ALL ALIKE, AND SMITE THEE ACCORDINLY!
Yah Israel makes me angry. I even chuckle a bit every once in a while I hear someone blew up a bus. But thats only when I'm feeling sadistic.

[Funkaloyd]

War by proxy against Iran

6 million Israelis against 60 million Iranians? Suicide. I'm thinking strikes on Iran's nuclear technology.

[Tone Capone]

War by proxy against Iran

6 million Israelis against 60 million Iranians? Suicide. I'm thinking strikes on Iran's nuclear technology.

Sounds about right. And it wouldn't be a suprise considering that the
current Iranian regime has and continues to provided support and assistance to terrorist organizations around the world including but not limited to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda. Also, they continue to provide assistance to those groups attempting to destabilize both Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the same groups that are behind most of the gruesome beheadings of civilians.

[SobaViolence]

Commondreams (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0922-08.htm)

The more nuclear arms are lying around, the more the chances of them being used. So to persuade Iran to forgo nuclear weapons is a laudable objective. But for the United States, Britain and France to insist on it is hypocritical.

These Western powers have argued convincingly for decades that nuclear deterrence keeps the peace - and themselves maintain nuclear armories long after the cold war has ended. So why shouldn't Iran, which is in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods, have a deterrent too?

[Funkaloyd]

Because Iran's crazy! They just... are.

[Tone Capone]

supporters of terrorism + nukes = BOOM!!!

What part of that is so hard for you people to understand? :confused:

[Tone Capone]

Because Iran's crazy! They just... are.

Again...

the
current Iranian regime has and continues to provided support and assistance to terrorist organizations around the world including but not limited to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda. Also, they continue to provide assistance to those groups attempting to destabilize both Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the same groups that are behind most of the gruesome beheadings of civilians.

[Funkaloyd]

Is there a reason to believe that Iran would be more willing to give nuclear material to Hamas than the United States was to the Contras?

[sneakyimp]

using nukes means suicide...even the "crazy" russians figured that out. everyone should also remember that the "crazy" pakistanis also have nukes.

i would fully agree it's just plain stupid to have more nukes lying around, but attacking a country that wants to develop them is only going to increase the desire to actually use them.

i can't remember who said it, but "the only thing war ever prevented was peace"

I think we should try and persuade them not to make nukes, but there should be no conflict to do so--terrorist support or not. there was no war against ANY of the other countries who did it. And after all--it was US who sold arms to them to fund the war in nicaragua. were they not "crazy" then?

[Echewta]

Boy, are we reaping what we sowed with the Shaw.

[Whois]

War by proxy against Iran

6 million Israelis against 60 million Iranians? Suicide. I'm thinking strikes on Iran's nuclear technology.

Exactly, war by proxy...

[Whois]

everyone should also remember that the "crazy" pakistanis also have nukes.

Let's see, the Taliban mostly came from Pakistan and were supported by the Pakistani government until...9/11.

Interesting that a military dictatorship is more trustworthy than a democracy...and yes, Iran is a democracy albeit a limited and theocratic one.

/irony

[D_Raay]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3683074.stm

Iran has warned Israel it will react "most severely" if Israel uses force to try to destroy its nuclear facilities.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi was responding to reports that the United States is to sell Israel hundreds of "bunker-busting" bombs.

Israel urged the United Nations Security Council to take action to stop Iran's nuclear programme.

The US and Israel have accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.

Iran recently defied calls by the UN's nuclear watchdog to suspend all enrichment-related activities, insisting its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes only.

Nuclear 'nightmare'

According to reports, the US is to sell Israel 5,000 hi-tech bombs, including 500 one-ton "bunker-busters", which can penetrate two metre (6.5ft) thick walls.

In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor when it believed Saddam Hussein was close to producing a nuclear bomb.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the UN must deal with the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons before it is too late.

"[The Iranians] are trying to buy time, and the time has come to move the Iranian case to the Security Council in order to put an end to this nightmare," he told reporters after meeting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

"We know that the Europeans are trying now to engage with the Iranians, but we know that the Iranians will never abandon their plans to develop nuclear weapons. They're only trying to hide it."

However, Kamal Kharrazi said Israel, not Iran, was a threat to world peace.

"Israel has always been a threat, not only against Iran, but all countries."

When questioned about Israel's reported purchase of the bombs, Mr Kharrazi said, "be sure that any action by Israel certainly will be reacted by us most severely".
------
World War 3 anyone?

[SobaViolence]

Again...

the
current Iranian regime has and continues to provided support and assistance to terrorist organizations around the world including but not limited to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda. Also, they continue to provide assistance to those groups attempting to destabilize both Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the same groups that are behind most of the gruesome beheadings of civilians.


but when america does the same thing to terrorists fighting a leftist and/or non-friendly gov't they are called freedom fighters and given training, money and weapons...fuck you, moron.

[Echewta]

Like I've said.

Iran:Lets see whats going on around the world. Hmmmm, Bush has us as the Axis of Evil. One of three, thats no good. Hmmm, hey! Bush invaded one of the Axis of Evil and now the country is under U.S. control! Wait! They are right nextstore! Oh crap! What can I do to defend myself? What does the U.S. not attack? Countries with nukes. OK! In order to protect myself from an overseas country who now as set up shop right near me and still threatens me, I must get nukes and nukes now.


Regardless of what you think of Iran, they aren't stupid. Do you want to protect yourself from the U.S.? Either build nukes or McDonalds. I guess Iran sees nukes as safer.

[B I N G O]

but when america does the same thing to terrorists fighting a leftist and/or non-friendly gov't they are called freedom fighters and given training, money and weapons...fuck you, moron.

I can't believe how stupid you are...

[Whois]

Regardless of what you think of Iran, they aren't stupid. Do you want to protect yourself from the U.S.? Either build nukes or McDonalds. I guess Iran sees nukes as safer.

You guess right, just look at N. Korea.

[Whois]

Another article to flame the fire:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/wanniski/wanniski22.html


September 23, 2004

Regime Change in Iran?

by Jude Wanniski

Memo To: Senator Rick Santorum [R PA]
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: What about those Iranian Nukes?

Dear Senator, I see that you are sponsoring legislation supporting "regime change" in Iran, which suggests you have had the neo-cons whispering in your ears again about the "axis of evil." You are probably going to get support for your bill for the same reason the neo-cons led us into the unnecessary war in Iraq, which is the propaganda that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. You should be careful, Senator, especially what you read in the newspapers, including the NYTimes, as most general assignment reporters covering these issues don't know the difference between a nuclear power plant and a nuclear weapons program. I'm afraid our Secretary of State does not either.

In yesterday's Times, Steve Weisman makes a crucial error in his report on how Bush officials are divided on how to handle Iran: "Like Iraq in its final years under Saddam Hussein, Iran is believed by experts to be on the verge of developing a nuclear bomb. In Iraq, that proved to be untrue, though this time the consensus is much stronger among Western experts."

The fact is, Senator, that no nuclear "experts" believe Iran is on the verge of developing a nuclear bomb, least of all the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As I wrote to Weisman, a reporter whose work I admire when he is not covering topics outside his realm of expertise:

The problem is John Bolton, the Undersecretary of State for non-proliferation, who broadcasts this kind of stuff all over the world in the service of his real boss, Richard Perle, the neo-con looney who cooked up the war with Iraq and now would like to do Iran. In his plan to run the world via his neo-con network, Perle made sure Bolton, a fellow "fellow" at the American Enterprise Institute, got the job at State in order to poison the mind of Colin Powell. How does Powell know Iran has a nuke program? The IAEA doesn't know that. And Senator Kerry's position is exactly the same, as I understand it, as the Russians, Germans and Brits, who propose guaranteeing Iran the fissile material it needs to run its power plants. The Bush (Bolton) position seems to be that Iraq must waive the rights it is supposed to have as an NPT signator (or maybe the Israelis will have to bomb the Iranian power plant at Bushehr).
As a matter of fact, Dr. Gordon Prather, a nuclear physicist who was the top scientist for the army in the Reagan years, tells me that Iran has not only been living up to the letter of its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but going beyond the commitment in order to satisfy international concerns.

Prather points to another piece in yesterday's NYTimes by Craig Smith, which has an ominous headline, "A Defiant Iran Starts Enriching Uranium," but which includes the following:

Iran has offered to accept any safeguards imposed by the United Nations agency to ensure its enrichment activities do not go beyond the 3.5 percent concentration of the uranium-235 isotope needed for its power plant.

But some American analysts warn that the international community has only a year or so left to stop the Iranian program from achieving self-sufficiency. After that, they warn, the country will have the means to create a nuclear arsenal without outside help, forever altering the Middle East balance of power.

The atomic energy agency is trying to force the country to voluntarily accept limits to its rights under the nonproliferation treaty without setting off an Iranian withdrawal from the accord.

Iran, however, says it is reluctant to accept such limits, arguing that such discrimination is specifically prohibited under the treaty and that accepting any such limits would set a dangerous precedent for other treaties that it has signed.

"We are determined to obtain peaceful atomic technology even if it causes a halt to international supervision," President Mohammad Khatami of Iran said in Tehran today. He reiterated the country's claim that it has no interest in developing nuclear weapons and wants a nuclear capability only for peaceful purposes, such as power generation. The country is nearing completion of a 1,000-megawatt light-water nuclear reactor and plans to build seven more.

In other words, Iran is willing to do anything it is required to do under the terms of the NPT, to which it is signator, but that it will not submit to international pressure that it "voluntarily" give up its right to enrich uranium to a rate suitable for use in a power plant, but not nearly enriched to a point where it becomes suitable for a nuke.

You've known me for many years, Rick, and know I am not a man who plays fast and loose with the facts. Before I take a position on a matter of this great importance, I spend as much time as I need to satisfy myself that I am on solid ground. It was because of this due diligence on my part that I concluded before the pre-emptive war decision by President Bush that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, that he had in fact destroyed what he had in 1991 and did not reconstitute them, and that he had no operational ties to Al Qaeda. You were snookered by the Perle Cabal at the time and came to believe that the war was justified, and now must admit you were wrong. Don't make the same mistake a second time. Before you proceed, please ask a lot more questions than you have so far. In fact, give Dr. Prather a call if you are really serious about getting to the bottom of things.

September 23, 2004

[SobaViolence]

I can't believe how stupid you are...

and who the fuck are you, poindexter?

[Ali]

using nukes means suicide
So does strapping explosives to yourself, or flying a plane into a building...

[Ali]

US vetoes UN resolution to end Gaza operation

Tovah Lazaroff and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 5, 2004

The United States on Tuesday vetoed an Arab-backed resolution demanding an immediate end to a large-scale Israeli military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 11 in favor, one against, and three abstentions - Britain, Germany and Romania.

US Ambassador John Danforth cast the US veto after British and German efforts to find compromise language failed.

"Once again, the resolution is lopsided and unbalanced," Danforth told the council just before voting "no." more (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1096959301911&p=1006688055060)

So, let's see. UN votes against attacking Iraq, US attacks Iraq. UN votes to stop Israelis slaughtering Palestinians, US vetoes it.

Any idea WHY the Arab world hates and despises the US?

"War by Proxy" indeed, this is the way we Europeans and our descendents loke to fight. Stir up religious/tribal conflict and let the natives fight it out while we steal their natural resources, loudly proclaiming that they are too savage to govern themselves.

Ashamed to be British.

[Ali]

Israel urged the United Nations Security Council to take action to stop Iran's nuclear programme.

The US and Israel have accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the UN must deal with the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons before it is too late.


Pot calling Kettle Black (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3340639.stm)

While Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, few international experts question the Jewish state's presence on the world's list of nuclear powers.
Its nuclear capability is arguably the most secretive weapons of mass destruction programme in the world.

Unlike Iran and North Korea - two countries whose alleged nuclear ambitions have recently come to the fore - Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.

As a result, it is not subject to inspections and the threat of sanctions by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The shrouds of secrecy have lifted only once, in the mid-1980s, when a former worker at the plant, Mordechai Vanunu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu), gave a British newspaper descriptions and photographs of Israeli nuclear warheads.

Mordechai Vanunu was kidnapped by Mossad (although upon release Vanunu claimed it was the CIA), tried in secret, convicted of treason, and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Amnesty International described his treatment as constituting "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment [...] such as is prohibited by international law." However, the Israeli government considers him a traitor.