Iran has no bombs, hasn't tested any bombs, and signed the NPT

[bigtree]

India has had several nuclear tests and hasn't signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But Rice said yesterday that India differs from Iran because the U.S. had asked India to "adhere to many of the important elements of the guidelines that are making up the nonproliferation regime".

That's right. India is different from Iran because they were "asked" to "adhere" to "many" of the "important elements" of the "guidelines" that make up the "non-proliferation regime.

If that statement represents the totality of India's obligations and actually intends to distinguish India from Iran, it should give the international community reason to wonder about what the "important elements" actually are.

I don't see how the U.N can contemplate sanctioning Iran and not take into account India's nuclear program, especially since the U.S., a signatory of the NPT, just made this deal with India to supply them with nuclear fuel.

Also, Rice told a senate committee that the Bush regime - who broke the U.S. committment to adhere to the NPT by seeking to build new nuclear weapons with new justifications for their use - now wants to re-write the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.


here's an article about her testimony yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

Rice talks tough on NPT-adhering nations

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/06ndeal.htm

Even while seeing the Non-Proliferation Treaty as the cornerstone of its nuclear policy, the Bush administration is also working on 'rules of the game' that the Nuclear Suppliers Group has on 'certain' standards of behaviour, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, while making a robust defence of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.

"We have to recognise that the NPT is the cornerstone, but one part of a maturing non-proliferation framework within which we are also working to have rules of the game that the NSG has on certain standards of behaviour," she added.

"We are working, through the missile control technology regime, which India is agreeing to adhere to unilaterally; efforts to get states to give up enrichment and reprocessing for assured fuel supplies...and making certain that those who signed the NPT and then violate it and disregard it are really the ones who come under punishment from the international system," Rice said.

Rice told lawmakers that 'I have to say there's a very big difference between the behaviour of Iran and North Korea, who callously signed the NPT and then have not been in compliance with it'.

"India never signed the NPT, but we are asking India to adhere to many of the important elements of the guidelines that are making up the nonproliferation regime," Rice told Republican Senator Richard Lugar, the chair of the Panel.

full text Rice's speech: http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/05ndeal7.htm

So, Rice and the Bush regime want us to suspend judgement of India, condem the Iranians (the only actor in the bunch with no nuclear capacity or potential for any), ignore their own disregard of the non-proliferation treaty, and change the 'rules of the game' to accomodate their own plans to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Is anyone at the U.N. paying any attention to this? I've been pushing info on the Bush regime's nuclear ambitions since 2003. Now the Bush regime has come out into the open with his bid for a new generation of nuclear weaponry: smaller, 'usable' nukes. I wonder when we'll get jazzed enough about this to put this nightmare back into its box?


Here's my article: Strange How This Generation Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

[seabeyond]

1. one guy i trust, i dont remember his name. goes on jon stewart

say iran has no nuclear and wont for a while. i am with him. he is a straight shooter, and smart. which i remembered his name. he seems to be middle east but is american now. smart man. i always love listening to him. not partisan, just informative

[bigtree]

2. Fareed Zakaria?

I've heard from 3 to 5 years, but the important point is that they aren't anywhere near the capacity to build a bomb. Even our own Intelligence director, Negroponte, admitted it in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing earlier in the year.

[seabeyond]

6. yes. i like that man. he wrote a book. i tried remembering

his name so i could buy the book. lost cause and forget about it. he was on the other night. i really like listening to this man. thanks

[havocmom]

4. Scott Ritter or Larry Johnson meet that description.

And they both say Iran is not in the market.

Companies in India also have contracts to process lots of US Tax Returns too. We don't wanna piss THEM off ;)

[seabeyond]

7. Fareed Zakaria

thanks to poster above

[fujiyama]

14. Fareed Zacharia

He's not middle eastern though. He's from India. He's pretty smart. I don't always agree with him, but his analysis is usually pretty reasonable.

[seabeyond]

15. thank you for country. seems more india. thanks. and yes....

i dont have to agree 100% with anyone, not going to happen, but i dont think he does agenda bais

[bullimiami]

3. of course they are all a pack of lies and deceptions

designed to make us frightened of iran.

bushco has nothing left to play but fear, and nothing left to improve their lot except war.
i think both have been played out, but rove doesnt.

[havocmom]

5. Does Likud rail against India?

There's your answer.

[bigtree]

9. Bill Clinton supported sanctioning India over their nuclear tests

but Israel declined.

[havocmom]

10. Thanks for the backup

Interesting, isn't it?

I have been pro-Isreal since I was a pup just getting interested in politics and global events. But the Right Wingers there have not made a believer out of me any more than the Right Wingers here have. I oppose foreign policy based on RW thinking.

[fujiyama]

16. And the sanctions were meaningless and ineffective

Amusing, how the "Big Five" nations got all pissy when India tested a nuke. The same nations had been doing the same exact thing for years.

[babylonsister]

8. Then this thread will make your heart sink:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x879641

[bigtree]

11. I've seen the story. Seymour takes what we already knew

and puts the hat on the Bush regime. We'll see what impact it has in driving them back, at least rhetorically. I do think they have to move the troops out of the hunkered down position in the 'green zone' before they do any kind of strike. The vulnerability to reprisals is enough alone to give them pause, not to mention the fallout effect of a nuclear attack with some new, small bomb. That's why they're testing the non-nuclear one in Nevada. That's why they are allowing a mushroom cloud, to gauge the fallout effect along with other measures of the effectiveness.

[babylonsister]

12. When has logic or forward planning ever stopped these maniacs?

I am honestly frightened that they are in office and have the capability as well as the will to strike Iran despite your OP indicating there is no current risk.

[bigtree]

13. no current risk? I can't find that in my op.

This is a complicated dance. There's always the prospect of Bush rushing forward, as he did in Iraq, without international cover, and against the law and morality.

But, there are obstacles in their way, not that concern for lives lost has restrained them so far. What I want to keep focusing on are ways to enhance those obstacles and try not to create an air of inevitability to some future strike, nuclear or non-nuclear, on Iran or on anyone else. And, at the same time, try keep a heightened awareness going about the extent of their agenda so that we can confront them whenever they try to move forward.

This is a critical point, another one. Time to use every instigation of democracy to effect the change we seek.

[babylonsister]

21. I meant no immediate threat from Iran. This admin,

I'm not sure of at all.
I applaud your efforts to bring out the truth regarding the real, big picture. If our government attempts something irrevocably foolish, at least we'll know the true story.

[SPKrazy]

17. India Didn't Threaten To Wipe Israel Off The Map

and India doesn't have oil, and they are an enemy of a Muslim nation, Pakistan, which Bush wants to befriend as long as he can use them for his purposes, but they are useless to him in the long run unless they have natural resources, or are truly allies of us.

India is a shaky ally right now, and I'm sure that is why the Bushites aren't pushing them. Besides, what are we gonna do? Attack a billion Indians?

[bigtree]

19. got all of that

still, there it be a dishonesty if the U.N. gives cover to condemn Iran for having no program while most of the major member states sit on their own nuclear programs, some like India, having engaged in nuclear activities that far exceed the standards of the NPT.

Now, Bush wants to shift the starting line to accomodate India - ignoring past abuses - while at the same time castigating Iran for something they are accused of contemplating for the future.

Of course, we won't attack India. And, Bush doesn't feel he needs the permission of the international community to act pre-emptively against Iran. But, he shouldn't be allowed to get cover for his hypocricy from the U.N., or anywhere else.

[Trillo]

18. What I don't understand is why my country, the U.S.,

needs to have 'an enemy'. From what I've been able to tell from reading a little history, civilizations have always practiced "inward peace and outward violence," to use Durants' words to the best of my recollection.

With the police state mentality where citizens are the enemy that's been in effect since I've been alive, the police who seem to routinely mistreat a large number of citizens with physical violence including murder with apparent impunity at times and investigative rituals to pretend they were justified, the anesthetic-free circumcision of males when born, the authoritarianism in schools where the children are the enemy to be manipulated and cast away if a single manipulation fails, the excessive anger and physical violence that parents in today's society use when raising their own children, and the parasitic economic system where certain favored professionals who received the approval of the manipulators prey off everyone else for an entire lifetime; generally, fostering a society of zero-tolerance for any imperfection under threat of punishment: the question I have about our country is if we're practicing such inward violence toward either most or many citizens, both literal and metaphorical, then isn't that enough to satisfy the human beasts' historically-proven desire for violence?

Why do we also need to practice outward violence when so much is now and has been occurring inwardly? Isn't the inward enemy enough to satisfy?

[bigtree]

20. We have a phenomenon in America of a leadership which has never had to

sacrifice anything of themselves. Bush declined to serve in Vietnam and shirked the duty he was assigned to during the war. Everything he possesses has been bequeathed to him. Everything he's been given he's run into the ground. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice . . . all members of that two-percent confederation of corporate interests who routinely divide the product of our sacrifices for the furtherment of their own monied empires.

They will not be made to suffer the consequences of their own aggression. Those soldiers they've put at the point of their politics have been made to endure those consequences as they are charged with the killing and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course the reality in Iraq and in Afghanistan is failure. Bush's "inward enemy" doesn't allow for any self-correction. Lie upon lie covers up failure after failure. Until his regime faces up to their lies that resulted in hundreds of thousands killed, they'll never be satisfied. They're still looking for some validating kill that will establish their dominance there. But, it will never come. They'd rather pursue validation of their initial decision to invade then face up to the disaster and set it right by bringing our soldiers home.

Arrogance never satisfies.