How North Korea happened to get nuclear weapons

I’m kind of dense…this story initially didn’t make sense to me. Now that some bloggers have spoken slow and loud, I think I understand:

Back in the Clinton years, North Korea had a plutonium-based bomb program but no bomb.

Clinton made a deal with North Korea in which the North Koreans stopped their plutonium bomb program.

In 2002, Bush and his (?)crack intelligence analysis team decided that North Korea had a URANIUM-based nuclear bomb program.

So Bush basically blew up the Clinton agreement with North Korea, cut off the oil, so NK threw out the inspectors.

North Korea apparently didn’t have a uranium based program…so after Bush blew up the agreement, they just went back to their plutonium program, and made a bomb, which they detonated last year.

That, friends and neighbors, is how North Korea became a nuclear power on Bush’s watch.

countdown to US attack on Iran: x minus 30 days: In the land of the blind, the MEK is king

An exiled Iranian terrorist group called MEK is probably the source of the discredited stories of Iranian involvement in IEDs in Iraq.

One of the major obstacles to American foreign policy in the Middle East is our lack of what is called “human intelligence,” by which is meant “people who can and will give us information about what’s going on.” In other words, we are largely “blind.” What one-eyed man stepped in to give us information about Iraq? well, there were actually two major sources, only one of whom, Ahmed Chalabi, wanted to be king. Chalabi and his band of Iraqi exiles purported to have all sorts of damning information about Saddam’s weapons programs, his ties to al-Qaeda, and the degree to which Americans would be greeted with flower petals spread in the streets. The other one-eyed man who led us astray on Iraq was a crazy man who initially told his stories of WMDs to the Germans, who gave him the code name “Curveball.” In spite of the fact that German intelligence considered him deranged and unreliable, his stories, like those of the opportunist Chalabi, were “stovepiped” to the top of the US intelligence credibility pile, reportedly by the neoconservative warmongers at the very top of the US government.

The same thing is happening with Iran. There are two main one-eyed men; one is a “Curveball” wannabe named Ali, who will not be further discussed here. The other one-eyed man is the exiled Iranian terrorist (yes, US government certified terrorists) cult known as MEK, now based in Diyala province in Iraq. MEK has been seen by the Bush administration since 2003 as a fine tool to use against Iran, in spite of the fact that US support of the MEK cost us the invaluable support and cooperation of Iran against al-Qaeda.

Iran offered to take “decisive action against any terrorists (above all, al-Qaeda) in Iranian territory.” In exchange, Iran wanted the U.S. to pursue “anti-Iranian terrorists”—i.e., the MEK. Specifically, Iran offered to share the names of senior al-Qaeda operatives in its custody in return for the names of MEK cadres captured by the U.S. in Iraq.

link

The MEK is probably the major source of the IED/ESP disinformation program which is being used to blame Iran for US casualties in Iraq.

U.S. officials have said that attacks with such weapons increased 150 percent in the past year. But a review of bombings by location shows that less than 10 percent of attacks that killed at least two American service members in the past 14 months were in areas where Shiite militias are dominant.
link

Nonetheless,the Bush administration continues to try and push this propaganda:

U.S. military officials point to the discovery of a weapons cache in a Shiite village near Baqouba, about 40 miles from Baghdad, as the latest evidence that Iran is supplying Shiite militants with weapons.

Their claim, however, is happy horseshit:

During late 2006, however, Baqubah and much of Diyala province were reported to have come under Sunni insurgent control. [2] On January 3, 2007 the previous Iraqi government in Baquba was reported to have fallen, leaving the city in the hands of insurgents fighting against the American led coalition in Operation Iraqi Freedom.This insurgent control is reported to have continued as of early 2007[3]. In January 2007, it was reported [4] that Sunni insurgents were able to kidnap the mayor and blow up his office, despite promises from American and Iraqi military officials that the situation in the city was “reassuring and under control”. The city at its peak had over 300,000 residents, but a February 2007 report labeled the city a “ghost town” as residents either fled criminal and sectarian violence or remained in hiding at home. [5]
link

Furthermore:

The recently discovered cache of weapons in Diyala province should be viewed with great suspicion. The Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK base is in Camp Ashrafiya in that province, and they have been boasting in Washington of having had a great success in convincing the US military that the Explosively Formed Projectiles came from Iran. Yeah, and they are likely the ones importing them. MEK is a manipulative cult that wants to get up a war between the US and Iran, and is linked in with the Neoconservatives.
link

The MEK is making fools of us in front of the world. Even a few naive reporters have within a few minutes been able to discredit the lies that the US military has accepted as God’s truth. Even worse, Bush and his neoconservative handlers are trying to use this stuff to create a cause, or just an excuse, for war.

The idiocy is astonishing. This is one of the many reasons why Bush’s noted inability to admit mistakes is so important: he’s making the same damned ones over again.

[to see previous posts in this series beginning at x-40 days, click category "Countdown to attack on Iran," at right. ]

San Francisco landslide “backdoors” strippers

A little after 3am yesterday, A big land/rock slide fell from the Telegraph Hill cliff between the 400 block of Vallejo and the 400 block of Broadway (between Montgomery and Kearny) damaging and threatening several buildings. Hardest hit was an “adult entertainment” establishment at 412 Broadway, where the slide came thundering in the back door. No one was hurt, but a number of buildings have been evacuated.

San Francisco, city of romance.

I can hardly wait to hear what Pat Robertson has to say; yes, I’ll post it.

International madman of mystery: “senior administration official”

While flying around South Asia with the movie money given to him by Karl Rove, Dick Cheney held forth with his customary views of reality and Nancy Pelosi, but insisted he be identified only as “a senior administration official.” He then proceeded to identify himself in his comments, which have been published, yet Mr. Cheney refuses to concede that he is the person “in question.”

“Let me just make one editorial comment here,” the official said. “I’ve seen some press reporting says, ‘Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.’ That’s not the way I work. I don’t know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn’t know what I’m doing, or isn’t involved in it. But the idea that I’d go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.

“I would describe my sessions both in Pakistan and Afghanistan as very productive. We’ve had notable successes in both places. I’ve often said before and I believe it’s still true that we’ve captured and killed more al-Qaida in Pakistan than anyplace else. And I think we’re making progress in Afghanistan.”

He’s either
a) nuts, or
b) totally contemptuous of the rest of the world

and, aren’t those two choices really nearly the same?

you think he wouldn’t bomb Iran without a second thought?

I think this was a real misstep by Cheney, and not just the public embarrassment. In case you don’t know what the expression “movie money” means, it refers to getting the family dufus out of the house when important visitors are coming. In this case, we are talking about getting Cheney away from the press while the CIA leak case and the military budget hearings are in full swing. I don’t think he was supposed to be shooting his mouth off.

Beltway rumors are starting to swirl about Cheney stepping down. I can see why. Cheney is becoming a major liability, even more than he has been. Plus, the GOP is probably clamoring for a fresh electable face to be elevated to prominence in the administration, something that is in damned short supply at present.

This doesn’t seem any better than our old TeeVee…

According to a recent survey by Leichtman Research Group, there are about 24 million households with HDTV sets. Of these, only half are watching HiDef. Of the other 12 million who have sets but aren’t watching HD, 6 million haven’t yet gotten the proper hardware from their service providers, and the other 6 million don’t even realize they’re not watching HD.