Tuesday’s Mini-Report

December 4, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The U.S. intelligence community is convinced, but Israeli intelligence officials are not: “Israeli officials, who’ve been warning that Iran would soon pose a nuclear threat to the world, reacted angrily Tuesday to a new U.S. intelligence finding that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and to date hasn’t resumed trying to produce nuclear weapons…. “It seems Iran in 2003 halted for a certain period of time its military nuclear program, but as far as we know, it has probably since revived it,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

* Reuters: “U.S. assertions about the growing independence of Iraqi security units are often based on conflicting claims or assessment methods that do not allow for ‘independent’ ratings, a U.S. watchdog agency said on Monday. A report by the Government Accountability Office said the Defense Department and top military officials including U.S. Commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus have sought to show progress by repeatedly citing numbers of Iraqi Security Force (ISF) units deemed ‘independent’ or ‘fully independent.’ But it is unclear how the Pentagon and its officials have reached those conclusions, according to the GAO.”

* ABC: “U.S. government officials who have overseen the controversial Blackwater security firm’s activities in Iraq are slated to receive thousands of dollars in performance bonuses, despite controversy surrounding the company. A State Department document obtained by ABC News shows Diplomatic Security officials Kevin Barry and Justine Sincavage will receive between $10,000 and $15,000 for their ‘outstanding performance.’ Barry and Sincavage, who managed Blackwater’s contract for the department, recently received promotions as well, ABC News reported in October.”

* Bush only learned about the NIE’s contents last week? Um, no: “[O]ne highly reliable intelligence community source I consulted immediately after Hadley spoke answered my question this way: ‘This is absolutely absurd. The NIE has been in substantially the form in which it was finally submitted for more than six months. The White House, and particularly Vice President Cheney, used every trick in the book to stop it from being finalized and issued. There was no last minute breakthrough that caused the issuance of the assessment.'”

* On a related note, Robert Farley raises a good point: “For the last two years, we have justified putting a missile defense system in Eastern Europe explicitly around the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles. In addition to the extraordinary financial costs, this project has resulted in increased Russian hostility to the United States and to Russia’s neighbors.”

* The new conservative line is that Bush still deserves praise for Iran stopping its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, because it was Bush’s war in Iraq that motivated Tehran. First, that’s a pretty silly argument. Second, at least one friend of mine saw this coming.

* WSJ: “Fifty-two percent of Americans say the economy and health care are most important to them in choosing a president, compared with 34% who cite terrorism and social and moral issues, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. That is the reverse of the percentages recorded just before the 2004 election.” That’s a pretty fascinating reversal, which may have major ’08 implications.

* At his press conference this morning, Bush said, “I’ve tried to be respectful to all parties.” The record really shows otherwise.

* Bush wants former Rep. James Rogan (R-Calif.), perhaps best known as one of the leading Clinton impeachment managers, to serve as a federal judge. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is blocking the nomination. Good for her.

* Gary Kamiya: “Barring a miracle, Bush’s Annapolis charade will make matters in the Middle East much worse.”

* Eric Boehlert: “Republican bloggers need to grow up and stop their schoolyard whimpering.” We should be so lucky.

* For the record, Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-Idaho) alleged gay-sex partners approached the Idaho Statesman, not the other way around.

* Truly nauseating: “James Michael McHaney, an aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) until he was fired Friday, was arrested for attempting to sexually exploit a teenage boy. McHaney was fired from his job as Cantwell’s scheduler hours after the arrest. In a charging document, the FBI said McHaney, known as ‘Mike,’ allegedly tried to set up a meeting with an undercover witness posing as someone who could give him access to sex with a 13-year-old boy.”

* I’ll gladly concede I don’t really know who Sherri Shepherd is, I don’t know why she’s always on TV, and I’ve never seen “The View,” but every time I hear about something Shepherd has said, she frightens me more and more. Perhaps, for the public’s benefit, producers of the show should take her off the air?

* Whatever happened to that sleepy little town known as Los Angeles?

* And finally, Rudy Giuliani said today that “it wouldn’t quite be fair to say September 11, like, made my career.” Oh, that Rudy; he’s got quite the sense of humor, doesn’t he?

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

The U.S. intelligence community is convinced, but Israeli intelligence officials are not: “Israeli officials, who’ve been warning that Iran would soon pose a nuclear threat to the world, reacted angrily Tuesday to a new U.S. intelligence finding that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and to date hasn’t resumed trying to produce nuclear weapons…. “It seems Iran in 2003 halted for a certain period of time its military nuclear program, but as far as we know, it has probably since revived it,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

It doesn’t support right-wing Israelis’ politics- it’s going to make American Jews less militaristic.

  • I’ll gladly concede I don’t really know who Sherri Shepherd is, I don’t know why she’s always on TV, and I’ve never seen “The View,” but every time I hear about something Shepherd has said, she frightens me more and more. Perhaps, for the public’s benefit, producers of the show should take her off the air?

    For what it’s worth, it’s not the Greeks who are commonly regarded as having fed early Christians to lions, it’s the Romans. I don’t know whether or not the Greeks did anything like that to Christians, but the Greeks are notable in the early history of Christianity for harboring and nurturing Christianity (one of the earliest copies of the Gospel was in Greek in Greece), and the Romans are notable in the early history of Christianity for first persecuting Christians, and then largely converting and spreading Christianity back across those Roman roads to the rest of the ancient Western world.

  • (one of the earliest copies of the Gospel was in Greek in Greece),

    It was written in Greek in Greece, circa 70-90 years after Christ’s birth.

  • Even the word “Christ” comes from the Greek “Cristos” (means “the annointed one” and the Hebrew equivalent is “messiah”). It’s not a Hebrew or Aramaic word, or anything he was actually even called during his lifetime. But we’ve still got this Greek addition to Christianity that inspires the English name of the religion to this day.

  • * For the record, Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-Idaho) alleged gay-sex partners approached the Idaho Statesman, not the other way around.

    Did they tap their foot under the Statesman’s door?

  • It actually took the ancient Romans quite a while after Christ’s death to be converted to Christianity. They were pretty fervent pagans. That throwing-Christians-to-the-lions stuff is exactly the same thing as what the native North and South Americans did to the Christian missionaries, in many times and places. You may recall the opening scene of the Robert DeNiro movie The Mission, or you can read about how Saint Isaac, a Jesuiet missionary to North American Indians, was repeatedly tortured by them. The same thing happened to the pacifist Quakers, who had a big belief in proselytizing. This scene was paralleled again and again in the Romans’ treatment of the early Christians.

    But you know who liked the Romans? The Nazis. The look of the Nazi German military was patterned after the Romans’ in a few details, from the elevated-and extended-arm salute, to the carrying of standards when the troops marched in formation. Also “Reich” translates as “Empire” and the Nazis emulated the Roman idea of empire. And just like the Romans discouraged Christianity, the Nazis did as well- tacitly- they only openly couldn’t criticize it, without risking becoming unpopular. They even tried to nazify the celebration of Christmas, but it didn’t quite catch on like the nazification of other holidays.

  • “It seems Iran in 2003 halted for a certain period of time its military nuclear program, but as far as we know, it has probably since revived it,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

    “Probably” doesn’t cut it. FWIW, Barak said more than this though.

    [From the link] Defense Minister Ehud Barak directly challenged the new assessment in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the new finding wouldn’t deter Israel or the United States from pressing its campaign to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability.,,,

    “Even after this report, the American stance will still focus on preventing Iran from attaining nuclear capability,” Olmert said. “We will expend every effort along with our friends in the U.S. to prevent the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons.”

    So has the Bush administration put Olmert in charge of America’s foreign policy now? Where the hell does he get off saying what the US will and will not do?

    Furthermore, Israel has absolutely no standing to criticize Iran regarding ANYTHING nuclear. Israel developed nuclear weapons in secret, so he should just shut up and take his lumps.

  • Given the praise for Brownie after Katrina and the bonuses for excellence given the the Blackwater monitors, I must insist that someone in the Bush administration visit my bathroom and give my housekeeping skills the award only they could deliver.

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  • “It seems Iran in 2003 halted for a certain period of time its military nuclear program, but as far as we know, it has probably since revived it,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

    Good grief! Is Israel basing its defense strategy on ‘as far as I know’ arguments? Isn’t that phrase typically used to indicate complete ignorance on a subject?

    Example: “As far as I know, the moon might be made of goose liver pate.”

  • wow, …. we’re supposed to believe that the NIE had a change within the last 2 weeks, that allowed Bush to say with certainty that Iran wasn’t making any nuclear weapons.

    Could it be possible that they’ve known this for at least 6 months, but since they didn’t like the news, and couldn’t afford making up their own reality (hint: WMD – mushroom cloud) they just sat on it, and told us about World War III being imminent. That way there is ‘plausible deniability’ because he didn’t offer any ‘proof’ that can later be proven wrong.

    In regards to the diplomacy…. Iran is been reaching out for many years, unfortunately the Bush administration has been ignoring them. There is ample evidence out there that proves the Iranian’s efforts in the past.

    It will be so nice to see this Bush cabal gone at the end of next year — hopefully without starting world war III.

  • * The U.S. intelligence community is convinced, but Israeli intelligence officials are not — CB

    Both Ehuds are like our Deadeye Dick and the Clueless George: chickenhawks. And what pisses me off is that they speak for the country at large to about the same extent as our own misbegotten ones, which is to say: “mostly not at all”. In the meantime, they inflame assholes like Podhoretz and Lie-berman and even some non-Jews *here* into trying to out-asshole them. Which, in turn, turns the majority of this country — Jews and non-Jews alike — more and more against Israel. It’s so stupid, it’s almost un-Jewish 🙂

  • In fairness to the Romans, if I recall correctly their dstaste for the Christians had more to do with their disrespect for some Roman laws than for the Christians’ monotheism. Also if I recall correctly, interest in paganism was on the decline in Rome by around the time Christianity came around. The Romans of that time were therefore probably less-fervent pagans relative to the Native Americans who met, and killed or tortured, the first Christian missionaries to reach out to them.

  • Ummmm….perhaps a bit of a history lesson here, Swannie. Roman “distaste for the early Christians” was based on the foundation that the new religion was a cult of heresy against both the Republic and its officially-recognized pantheon; a philosophical “virus” that might well have been on the minds of the Founders when they established the “firewall” of church/state separation. “Monotheism” WAS deemed heretical at the time; no less a crime then, as naming a teddy-bear “Muhammad” is in some Islamic thought-cultures today.

  • Steve:

    Ok, but was that just what some people said, or was that the prevailing feeling among Romans? Was it just technically a crime, or did the classification as heresy specifically motivate the persecution? I sure can’t remember any stories of the Romans throwing the monotheist Jews to lions to punish them for being monotheists, or anything. And Judah Ben Hur and that Roman dude certainly seemed to get along well in that movie Ben Hur. Anyway… I don’t doubt that what you say is true, but it sounds to me like you think there is some reason to challenge what I say and you are just throwing the first thing you find up there without examining the context of it, which is of course everything. Sorry but I don’t feel like looking all this stuff up as I thought I was generally right, don’t think this is too important, was just putting this stuff up for trivia and to guard against the (conservative) modern version of Roman-worship gaining any points by portraying Romans or Greeks inaccurately.

  • If you just don’t like that I mentioned the Native Americans committing atrocities, rest assured, the Romans and other white people in the ancient world did a lot of horrible things to a lot of people over a very long time, and it’s a record that perhaps at least the Americans and the Africans of the ancient world possibly can’t match (I wouldn’t be so quick to apply my inexpert-judgment to the atrocities of the acient Asian world to make that judgment, though) and I fully acknowledge that. It’s an open question whether or not the Americans or Africans would have matched the Romans for atrocities if they just had as much technical and economic might as the Romans did, and for all I know, if their self-development had been allowed to continue, they would have reached a similar level of ecnomic wealth and technical power as the Romans but had a more chilled-out worldview that did not include torture-killings (such as crucifixions) or arena-killings of “criminals,” as well as slaver, like the Romans had, but only (at most) continued their once-in-a-while sacrificial human killings (which the native American victims probably mostly believed in and willingly submitted to, anyway) and killing non-combatants in warfare (a widespread, although I can’t say whether it was uniform, practice among the portion of Native American tribes who were not pacifists).

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