US looks to arm Gulf states against Iran

[bigtree]

Why isn't U.S. provocation against Iran a crime? There's nothing but a trumped up threat. Now we're arming the countries that surround Iran, even though they haven't threatened anyone . . .


5/19/2006 REUTERS
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=May2006&file=World_News2006051942552.xml

washington • Iran’s neighbours — including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE — are talking to the United States about ways to bolster their defences, the general in charge of US arms sales said on Thursday.

“We’re in discussion with their services and their leaders to see what capabilities are required and how the US can best fulfill those needs,” said Kohler, who heads the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which handles US government-to-government arms sales.

Kohler’s organization oversaw $10.6bn in US government arms sales last year and is on track to approve about about $13bn this year, he said.

“Our job is not to rack up sales,” Kohler added. “Our job is to help people get the capabilities they need.”

Asked which Middle East countries were involved in talks sparked by Iran concerns, he said: “Let’s just say everybody that is not Iran.”

[Erika]

1. Can't we just offer health care and rebuilding of infrastructure

to our own citizens?

W's warring and imperialism is getting just a touch old.

[Kutjara]

3. Well,...

...healthcare and infrastructure cost money. Weapons make money. Lots of money.

Healthcare and infrastructure benefit little, unimportant, people. Weapons benefit big, rich, important people.

Healthcare sounds soft and weak. 'Health.' 'Care.' These are weak words. 'Weapons.' That's a strong word.

Simple really. In the infantile world we inhabit, strong beats weak every time. Death is more powerful than love. Amen.

[Erika]

4. How about telling the GOP we'll tear their limbs apart

if they don't knock off giving our money elsewhere?

It's getting very personal.

[Kutjara]

6. It might very well come to that.

Hate and violence are the language of the Right. We may decide that we need to speak their language to make them understand.

If we take that course, however, we run a terrible risk. We validate that their poison is the only way to get things done. Then, when the next enemy comes along, we dispose of them the same way. Before long, we become the very thing we hate. This has been the fate of many leftist movements. Their ideals of equality and justice sink beneath the reality of anger and vengence.

We have to take the course of peace and compassion. There is no alternative. All other roads lead to death. I've posted the following poem a few times on DU, but it has always been a comfort to me in dark times, ever since I first read it as a child. I hope it may offer similar comfort to you:

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
W.H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.


Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

[bananas]

2. Oh good, we'll give nukes to every country that is not Iran.

Mutual Assured Destruction for them.

[azurnoir]

5. Wow that has all the promise

of "bringing democracy to the mideast".

[magellan]

7. Don't we have a bad enough track record of arming nations and factions

...who later on wind up becoming our enemy, to finally say, "Gee, maybe we should try something different this time"?

[Erika]

8. Yeah, telling the GOP we'll tear their limbs apart

might stop their madness and keep our money here.

[magellan]

9. I'd prefer to see them off to the Hague

Or impeach, indict, throw their butts in jail here. Either way, I'm envisioning future generations spitting on their decaying remains through the bars of their former cells.

[The_Warmth]

10. Repercussions from an attack on Iran

For a moment, imagine the United States has just attacked Iran. With the current conditions of our military, an air strike was chosen for a first attack. These attacks would be targeted towards military structures, namely nuclear power sites. How would the American Society react? What could the American Society do? It is quite apparent that the Bush Administration will have its way when dealing in Washington. Any opposition towards these decision makers will have to be generated in the masses of the population. Would this action provoke enough of the country to demand change in our government? Or, will we again speak our words of doubt, knowing the wrongs that are done throughout the world by our government in our name? In summary, given the chance that enough Americans are routed by an attack on Iran, what would we do?

[bigtree]

11. Bolton in a pout over Japan relationship with Iran's oil

Bolton says Tehran manipulating Japan

05/19/2006
BY SHINICHI IKEDA, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200605190358.html

NEW YORK- In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun here on Thursday, John Bolton asserted that Tehran is seeking to manipulate Japan. He also questioned Tokyo's decision to help develop Iran's huge Azadegan oil field.

"This is what we've been worried about, about Iran's very savvy use of its oil and natural gas resources to apply leverage on countries like Japan and India and China that have large and growing energy demands," Bolton said.