General Chat (Non-Music-Related)

After reading the article below, how do you feel about letting Iran continue with nuclear development, in light of their new outcries of "Death to America"? They now have over 20,000 centrifuges and presumably many more that are hidden underground. They are indeed serious about sending nukes here to destroy America. They will target highly populated coastal cities for maximum effect. You might want to ask yourself, what would a jihadist or a madman do if they could gain control of American policy? Would you feel any safer than you do now, with this guy in the White House? Just curious.

ttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/washington ... 94514.html

Going Nuclear: AIPAC Targets Obama's Negotiations With Tehran
Posted: 03/05/2015 6:22 pm EST Updated: 03/06/2015 3:59 pm EST

This article originally appeared in The Washington Spectator.

By Lou Dubose

When George W. Bush included Iran in the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union speech in January 2002, Iran had 200 centrifuges it could use to enrich uranium.

When Bush left office in 2009, Iran had 7,000 centrifuges.

There was a moment when his administration might have contained Tehran's nuclear program. By 2003, the Iranians had seen how quickly the U.S. military disposed of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and feared they might be next.

In May of that year, Iran sent a letter by way of the Swiss embassy in Washington to the U.S. State Department, offering to negotiate several concessions, including Iran's nuclear program and its relations with Israel.
Iran's president in 2003 was moderate reformer Mohammad Khatami. Secretary of State Colin Powell wanted to pursue the offer, but Vice President Dick Cheney said no. Cheney adhered to the principle that governments don't negotiate with their enemies.

AIPAC was pressuring the U.S. Senate to replace Obama's Iran policy with Netanyahu's Iran policy. The bill also committed the U.S. military to support Israel in any unilateral attack against Iran's nuclear facilities. Netanyahu's non-negotiable position is that Iran cannot enrich uranium even for a domestic energy program.

By 2010, Iran was enriching uranium to 20 percent, a critical step in the process of enrichment to 90 percent weapons-grade uranium, according to Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the bipartisan Arms Control Association.

By 2013, Iran had 20,000 centrifuges, with 10,200 in operation. Iran also had a 200-kilogram stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium, closing in on the 225-240 kilograms required for a bomb--the point Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was a red line beyond which Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran was also expanding a heavy-water reactor, which could be used to produce plutonium, another route to a nuclear weapon.

Sanctioned Nuclear Expansion
Every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter has imposed economic sanctions on Iran. But the measures were "too weak to have a critical impact," according to an April 2013 report published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a D.C.-based national-security think tank.

Obama upped the game. During his first term, he pushed the Congress to pass "four major sanctions acts, impacting hundreds of companies, people, and assets," according to CSIS. The European Union joined the U.S., enacting six major sanctions bills.
The sanctions took a toll. In 2013, according to the CSIS report:

• The value of the Iranian rial dropped 40 percent (against the dollar), • Oil revenue, in decline for a decade, fell from $95 billion to $67 billion, • The rate of inflation reached 24 percent.

In 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Oman for secret meetings with representatives of Iran's government, as she recounts in her memoir.

In June 2013, moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani was elected president, winning more than the total vote of all five hardliners running against him. Five months later, in November 2013, Iran signed a "Joint Plan of Action" with the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States).

In exchange for limited relief from sanctions, access to $7 billion of frozen revenue, and a promise that no new sanctions would be imposed during negotiations (now extended through this month), Iran suspended its nuclear program, stopped most work at its heavy-water reactor, and began diluting its enriched uranium.

"Iran's progress on its nuclear program was halted," Davenport said in a webinar organized by Women's Action for New Directions. "Iran also agreed to increased monitoring and verification, including snap inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]."

The day after the November 2013 accord was signed in Geneva, Netanyahu protested that Iran had been given an "unbelievable Christmas present, the capacity to maintain this [nuclear] breakout capability for practically no concessions at all."

When the U.S. Congress convened in January 2014, Israel--working through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee--set out to subvert the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran. Its vehicle was a "trigger sanctions" bill sponsored by Senators Bob Menendez, D-NJ, and Mark Kirk, R-Il.

AIPAC is not a political action committee and doesn't donate to candidates. But its 100,000 members include many of the largest Jewish donors in the country. Their political contributions are best measured by the contributions of regional pro-Israel PACs. At $341,170, Menendez was the third-highest recipient of pro-Israel PAC money between 2008-2014, according to MapLight, a nonprofit group that tracks political money. Kirk topped the list with $687,569.

Their bill included provisions that would have forced the Iranians to end the negotiations. In fact, it would have triggered more than sanctions. AIPAC was pressuring the U.S. Senate to replace Obama's Iran policy with Netanyahu's Iran policy. The bill also committed the U.S. military to support Israel in any unilateral attack against Iran's nuclear facilities. Netanyahu's non-negotiable position is that Iran cannot enrich uranium even for a domestic energy program. Although the bill had 60 Senate sponsors, it was blocked by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid.

A 2015 version of the Menendez-Kirk bill, stripped of some of the more egregious provisions, was voted out of the Banking Committee in January and is scheduled for a Senate vote this month.
Two Votes Shy
Jamil Abdi, a former congressional aide now working at the National Iranian American Council, predicts that 65 senators (53 Republicans and 12 Democrats) will vote for the bill--two votes shy of a veto-proof majority. The House passed a sanctions bill by a huge margin last year. As in 2014, Israel's government and AIPAC are engaged in a campaign to pass the bill, which would almost certainly compel Iran to abandon the P5+1 negotiations.

Until Obama phoned him on January 12 to protest, Netanyahu was personally calling members of the U.S. Senate, urging them to vote for the Menendez-Kirk bill. He and AIPAC only need to move a few senators to reach a veto-proof majority. As we go to press, Netanyahu was not dissuaded from accepting House Speaker John Boehner's invitation to address the Congress (in a March 3 address)--an unprecedented demonstration of contempt for an American president.

"If the negotiations end, there are no constraints on Iran," Davenport said. "Enrichment of uranium resumes and the IAEA inspectors leave."

And we come full circle to "axis of evil" foreign policy: a diplomatically isolated Iran operating an opaque nuclear program, with no incentive, other than Israel's threat of war, to slow it down.

Slacker, are you suggesting the Iranian Navy will be off our coastal waters, (30 miles) and detonating EMP (electromagnetic pulse bombs) destroying the electric grid and internet destroying us and having up to 90% of us dead within a year because we were not smart enough to leave the large cities? and prepare for the agrarian lifestyle like it was in the 1800's? because the whole "modern" infrastructure is destroyed? including Wall St.? maybe?r

is that PEG??!??!???!?

Slacker, are you suggesting the Iranian Navy will be off our coastal waters, (30 miles) and detonating EMP (electromagnetic pulse bombs) destroying the electric grid and internet destroying us and having up to 90% of us dead within a year because we were not smart enough to leave the large cities? and prepare for the agrarian lifestyle like it was in the 1800's? because the whole "modern" infrastructure is destroyed? including Wall St.? maybe?r

Dayne they already have the missile technology in place all they need is a warhead to strike the US from within Iranian borders!

I just spent the past half hour poking around, can't find anything definitive. Some sites say Iran does not have ICBM capability and will not any time soon, others say maybe sometime in 2015. Nothing reputable that I know of says they have ICBM now.

What they do have is an orbital launcher, used a few times already to launch satellites, and could be converted to ballistic duty without a lot of trouble, but current ballistic launchers are not capable of carrying the payload of a nuclear warhead or getting distances that would hit targets outside the middle east or parts of Europe.

So far Iran has been saying they do not plan to develop ICBM, I'd be foolish to believe it. They seem to be insisting that's their position. I'd still be a fool to believe it. But so far they don't have it as far as I can find. Nothing capable of carrying a nuclear payload, and nothing capable of reaching targets this side of the pond. Except for the space launcher, which would have to be converted. And so far that has not happened.

Guys - while I do not check under the bed for Iranians I must admit that it looks like crisis points are popping up all over the place.

This is the one that worries me most:

In the 90s Ivan came up with a decent EMP device. Then the USSR went under. Some sources believe those munitions made their way to NK, Pakistan and / or Iran. The NK tests were mocked but maybe shouldn't have been - perhaps they weren't going for the whole tamale eh?

Meantime - back at the holocaust - the Russians had launchers for those gadgets that fit on regular cargo vessels and looked like containers.

That would mean both coasts are vulnerable. There are those who say EMP weapons are over-rated. I'm not one of them. As previous blackouts have proven - a little bit of power outage goes a long way.

What I continue to fail to understand however - is why Iranians with a few bombs should scare me more than the Soviets I grew up with? Iran is essentially, Pennsylvania. USSR was truly the 'evil empire,' the most murderous in history. The Soviets murdered a total number of people somewhere around three times the entire population of Iran! Is there some disconnect here I'm missing? Is there truly a level of nuttiness beyond that? (I hope not)

Talbot

Mike - Good points, especially the first line, Crisis popping up everywhere you look these days. Yemen is utter chaos, ditto for Iraq, northwest Africa looking like a war zone, Russia making land grabs, N Korea crazy as ever, and here in the US everybody against everybody else, if we don't end up in a civil war before Obozo leaves office I'll be surprised..if he leaves office at all, which is something to consider. Everything about this guy looks more like dictator every day.

I do worry about Iran getting nuclear weapons, their #1 target is Israel, #2 is right here in my back yard. Only because they've hated Israel longer than they've hated us. And I'm pretty close to one of their primary targets, which would be Nasa, which would in addition also be a hit on a huge coastal city, Houston, no more than 30 minutes from Trinity bay and less than an hour from the Gulf outside Port Arthur, as well as one of the biggest refinery clusters in the US. which covers Houston, Beaumont and Port Arthur. Right next door is Lake Charles, with some good sized refineries there too. Those refineries are a primary target, as well as Nasa because of the rocket research going on there. Not to mention communications center for things like space station and satellites. I hope they had sense enough long ago to duplicate that somewhere else, they have to know Nasa is a target and has been for a long time. Being 20 minutes from South Houston, and Houston is a target, one hit would take out both, so redundancy would be prudent.

But what about Russia? Russian planes flying over just about every country they want, including the US, at least off the coast, apparently with no worries about retaliation. Putin is only doing all this because he knows Obama is spineless and won't do anything about it.

Then there's the Chinese, their military planes have been buzzing our planes and ships in International waters all last summer, commercial flights too if I remember correctly. Both China and Russia building their military up while ours is being whittled down to its smallest size since WWII. Military budgets slashed to the point they can barely operate at all any more, morale at an all time low...

It's all getting scary when you look at the overall picture and ignore most of the so called news. Or read between the lines...nobody knows how many truly dangerous people have crossed our border along with over 100,000 illegal immigrants last year, the news you did get didn't really give you a good idea how many of the "children" who crossed our border were actually 14-17 year old male gang members. The majority actually, but you don't hear that on the news. It doesn't make Obama look good.

People as a rule aren't looking at the overall picture, instead zooming in on a few incidents or crises in various places, without connecting the dots. Everything going on in Iraq, Nigeria, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and more all goes back to the same basic group, with different and disjointed facets all working toward the same goal. Destruction of all who don't follow their religion.

But has anybody noticed you don't hear about them attacking Russia or China? They know what would happen. I see WWIII an increasing threat, and very soon. It will start in the middle east, no doubt. The entire area is one big war zone at this point, and most of them hate us. it got worse today, Saudi Arabia just started getting into the act in Yemen today, I'm watching a news report on it right now, I'll have to look up more details online later.

And we don't have anybody in the white house who knows how to deal with any of it...if we did, it wouldn't be happening.

America capitulated today.


http://freebeacon.com/national-security ... -together/


Iran got everything they wanted and O has a piece of paper not worth the ink.

You fail to mention that our budget covers the national security of most nations on that list. Like it or not, many nations choose not to spend on their own military because (a) they depend on the USA to protect them and keep the petro-dollars flowing or (b) they realize they can't compete with the US military.

If only the rest of the world would just chill, we could stop.

Or we could elect Ted Cruz & Rand Paul.

Military budgets slashed to the point they can barely operate at all any more, morale at an all time low....

That is the truth. We are inviting a war by being so weakened.

"What I continue to fail to understand however - is why Iranians with a few bombs should scare me more than the Soviets I grew up with? Iran is essentially, Pennsylvania. USSR was truly the 'evil empire,' the most murderous in history. The Soviets murdered a total number of people somewhere around three times the entire population of Iran! Is there some disconnect here I'm missing? Is there truly a level of nuttiness beyond that? (I hope not)"

Yes my friend you did leave something out of the equation.

The Russians do not believe that their god insists on the destruction of Israel and America. The Russians do not believe that total chaos will bring back their spiritual leader and bring the world into subjection under him. The Russians don't think they will find a bunch of virgins awaiting them when they die. The Russians do not have holy leaders that cry out "Death to America and Israel" and mean it with all their black little hearts. The Russians only want conquest, the Iranians want the complete destruction of all those who do not worship their god. The Iranians are wackos, the Russians are conquerers. The Iranians practiced delivering payloads at the point in the atmosphere where an EMP would need to be exploded, with rockets that can be launched from ships. The Russians do not fight faith based religious wars. What would it take for you to deny your god? ... I could go on and on, but do I need I go on with the list as to why the Iranians are more dangerous than the Russians?