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I’m somewhat surprised, but very pleased, that these numbers are so high. The American people know right from wrong, and we believe that it should apply to the international arena. We are perhaps the most dangerous idealists in world history.
Apollo posted this at 6:52 PM EDT on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 as Amer-I-Can!, Mullah Mullah--whoa baby let my people go
When puttering through the Obama speech that contained his low attack against McCain, I found this:
The war in Iraq has emboldened Iran, which poses the greatest challenge to American interests in the Middle East in a generation, continuing its nuclear program and threatening our ally, Israel.
Wait a minute. I have a memory that extends more than a few days, and I can remember back when Obama believed, hook line and sinker, the National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had stopped its nuclear program. In fact, with a pretty much effortless search, I found him buying in to the NIE on December 18, just three short months ago.
I continued the googling. Two months before he bought into the Iranian NIE, he faulted members of Congress for believing the “unconvincing” NIE on Iraq in 2002. Two months earlier-August-here he is citing an NIE about al Qaeda. In 2006 he approvingly cited an NIE which concluded, in his words, that we were “creating more terrorists in Iraq than we’re defeating.” Here (9/12/07) he approvingly cites to Bob Graham disbelieving the NIE before the Iraq war. In this undated PDF he cites as authority an NIE regarding al Qaeda in Pakistan.
I can’t find much more, since the extensive message boards makes his site difficult to search, but I had no idea he had such a love/hate relationship with published intelligence information. Sometimes (i.e. when it cuts against the administration) it’s authoritative; other times (i.e. when it leads to military action) it’s just patently unconvincing. And I can’t track down what has happened in the last three months to make Obama start believing that Iran was still working on its nuclear program.
Apollo posted this at 10:12 PM EDT on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, Mullah Mullah--whoa baby let my people go
Their crime: adultery. Or was it?
The two were found guilty of adultery — a capital crime in Islamic Iran — after the husband of one sister presented video evidence showing them in the company of other men while he was away
[snip]
The pair admitted they were in the video presented by the husband but argued that there was no adultery as none of the footage showed them engaged in a sexual act with other men.
Iranian sperm must be a powerful force if adultery is possible without sex!
Dorothy posted this at 2:13 PM EST on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 as Those Wacky Foreigners, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!, Mullah Mullah--whoa baby let my people go
My father — who served on the National Intelligence Council during the Regan Administration — has an excellent piece at the American Thinker about the new intelligence estimate on Iran:
To understand what to do next, keep in mind that all NIEs consist of two parts: the “Key Judgments” and the text itself. It’s the text that includes, or should include, the evidence that our intelligence agencies have gathered relevant to the issue at hand. Obviously, you complete the text before writing the Key Judgments, which emerge from the text itself.
…
What was released on Monday is only the Key Judgments. The text itself hasn’t been released — and won’t be, because the text presumably contains highly classified data relating to what we’ve learned about Iran’s nuclear programs from all sources including, of course, our spies and satellites.
But the text is available to leading members of Congress, including members of both the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees. Today — right now, this instant — every one of these individuals should get hold of a copy of the NIE and read it. More precisely, they should cancel whatever appointments and public events are on their calendars, turn off their cell phones, then sit quietly with a pen in hand and work their way, slowly and carefully, through the text of the NIE. And when they’ve done that, each Representative or Senator should step forward to report - without giving details - whether the Key Judgment about Iran’s nuclear weapons program is, or isn’t, supported by the evidence.
But given Congress’ track record…
Alas, given today’s partisan political atmosphere — and, even more distressing, the limited intellectual abilities of the people we elect — this may not be sufficient to provide the confidence we need. If ever there was a time for a fast-track Presidential commission - this is it. Why not ask a half-dozen or so of the sharpest minds in our country to read through this NIE and to tell us - again, without providing details — whether the Key Judgment is supported by evidence within the NIE’s text. Not all members of this commission need be intelligence experts - or Iran experts, for that matter. In fact, it would be better if most aren’t. The two qualities required are intellectual firepower and credibility. We ought to be able to find six such souls among the nearly 300 million of us. And the whole thing shouldn’t take more than a week’s time, if that.
Tom posted this at 10:51 AM EST on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 as Mullah Mullah--whoa baby let my people go
So Iran stopped trying to build a bomb, but they’re still enriching uranium?
The estimate noted that Iran continues to enrich uranium for a civil nuclear energy program. But the intelligence experts said they did not consider this a weapons program because it is being done at openly declared facilities under international supervision.
Uh huh. And if they were to take that enriched uranium, walk across the street, and hand it to their weapons developers, the international supervisors would do what, exactly? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you trust the considerations of the American intelligence community? We’re flying blind. If the NIE said the sky was blue, I would verify it for myself.
From the AP story:
The intelligence officials said they do not know all the reasons why Iran halted its weapons program, or what might trigger its resumption. They said they are confident that diplomatic and political pressure played a key role, but said the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Libya’s termination of its nuclear program and the implosion of the illegal nuclear smuggling network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan also might have influenced Tehran.
Uh huh. Us toppling their neighbor because he kept his WMD program opaque “also might have influenced” the Mullahs to stop building a bomb? But intelligence officials “are confident that diplomatic and political pressures played a key role”?
Apollo posted this at 12:16 PM EST on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 as Mullah Mullah--whoa baby let my people go
Reading this George Will column about the Curveball intelligence fiasco gave me horrid feelings of being back in 2002. What goes too much unsaid is that the treaty that ended the first gulf war was the most disastrous foreign agreement in at least the last hundred years of American history. Characters like Curveball were only believable because the treaty set up a cockamamie system of inspections and “presidential sites”. In a situation in which there can be no truly reliable intelligence, everything becomes equally reliable in the minds of readers. I had hoped that one of the outcomes of toppling Saddam is that it would establish in the minds of rogue states that the burden of proof was upon them to show that they were not in possession of WMD. Instead, I now fear, as Will seems to, that instead the burden of proof is again on us, and the standard of evidence is now too high for us to ever meet it again.
Apollo posted this at 5:07 AM EST on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 as Iraq, Global War on Terror, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!, Mullah Mullah--whoa baby let my people go