Seymour Hersh has yet to get it wrong, no matter how much the King George and his men attack.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact
Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread
I think pretty much this debate was McCain's best hope. His strength, according to most, is foreign policy. I thought that all O really needed to do was avoid being seen as weak on foreign affairs. He more than lived up to that. The clear frontrunner is O. This debate did not change that. The next two pres debates will show O's strengths and Mc weaknesses. The Sarah/Joe debate is going to be high theatre. I am so looking forward to that one.
Another point. I don't get all misty when Mc tells his bracelet/POW stories. I think they are blatant attempts at pulling emotional strings and I cringe when anyone, anywhere tries to manipulate me. I am saying he uses stories for his benefit instead of feeling them. So as far as I am concerned they backfire.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The official witnesses to Saddam Hussein's impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.
With U.S. forces on high alert for a surge in violence, the Iraqi government readied all the necessary documents, including a red card - an execution order introduced during Saddam's dictatorship. As the hour of his death approached, Saddam received two of his half brothers in his cell on Thursday and was said to have given them his personal belongings and a copy of his will.
Najeeb al-Nueimi, a member of Saddam's legal team in Doha, Qatar, said he too requested a final meeting with the deposed Iraqi leader. His daughter in Amman was crying, she said 'Take me with you,' al-Nueimi said late Friday. But he said their request was rejected.
An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday EST. Also to be hanged at that time were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said.
The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Saddam will be handed over shortly before the execution, the official said. The physical transfer of Saddam from U.S. to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged. Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003.
Al-Nueimi said U.S. authorities were maintaining physical custody of Saddam to prevent him from being humiliated before his execution. He said the Americans also want to prevent the mutilation of his corpse, as has happened to other deposed Iraqi leaders.
The Americans want him to be hanged respectfully, al-Nueimi said. If Saddam is humiliated publicly or his corpse ill-treated that could cause an uprising and the Americans would be blamed, he said.
Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said he was ready to attend the hanging and that all the paperwork was in order, including the red card.
All the measures have been done, Haddad said. There is no reason for delays.
As American and Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to set the hour of his death, Saddam's lawyers asked a U.S. judge for a stay of execution.
Saddam's lawyers issued a statement Friday calling on everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution. The statement also said the former president had been transferred from U.S. custody, though American and Iraqi officials later denied that.
Al-Maliki said opposing Saddam's execution was an insult to his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.
Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence, al-Maliki said.
State television ran footage of the Saddam era's atrocities, including images of uniformed men placing a bomb next to a youth's chest and blowing him up in what looked like a desert, and handcuffed men being thrown from a high building.
About 10 people registered to attend the hanging gathered in the Green Zone before they were to go to the execution site, the Iraqi official said.
Those cleared to attend the execution included a Muslim cleric, lawmakers, senior officials and relatives of victims of Saddam's brutal rule, the official said. He did not disclose the location of the gallows.
Raed Juhi, spokesman for the High Tribunal court that convicted Saddam, said documents related to the execution would be read to Saddam before the execution. The documents included the red card, al-Maliki's signed approval of the sentence and the appeal court's decision.
On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator's defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told The Associated Press by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.
A senior official at the Iraqi defense ministry also confirmed the meeting and said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Saddam's lawyers later issued a statement saying the Americans gave permission for his belongings to be retrieved.
An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the hanging should take place within 30 days.
There had been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies had to approve it.
In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution God's gift to Iraqis.
Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves, said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, a dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam.
Final Palin segment
I was very impressed with Charlie Gibson. I am not an ABC news watcher, so I did not know what to expect. He brought up all the important issues involved in the contradictions between Maverick and Reformer claims including per diem, keeping the money from bridge to nowhere, lobbyists for Alaska, abuse of power in Troopergate, etc. I thought he allowed her to expose her lack of knowledge on foreign affairs. I thought he, for the most part, keep questioning her on points when she tried to evade questions by throwing out the slogans and talking points.
The one point that I had not heard before was the fact that the sendoff for the soldiers she staged in Alaska was timed to be on 9/11 for the publicity, and that the soldiers were not in fact going to leave for 2 to 3 more weeks.
All in all, I thought it was a good introduction of the actual Sarah Palin. When you add the tape of McCain disparaging mayors and short-time governors, it was a definitive package for those who have not yet made up their minds in this election.
Head in the sand....final thoughts
You said: I am truly sorry that any of you on the right equate not wanting to fight, not wanting to kill, eshewing revenge shrouded as justice and preferring diplomacy to preemptive attacks with **lily-liveredness.**
My answer: First of all, to say that going into Iraq was revenge does a huge disservice to the people who died on 9-11 and to the soldiers who have died in Iraq since. I think a statement like that is unconsciable. It is your right to say it, my right to disagree strongly, which I do. I have a hard time understanding how any American could think that.
Second, I have never referred to anyone as lily-livered. No one WANTS to kill. You and the left keep saying that like Republicans or anyone NOT liberal (sound familiar?) WANTS to kill. That is just nuts. However, some people do believe that our way of life, our country, are worth dying for or killing for if necessary. That being said, for diplomacy to work, both sides have to be interested in a peaceful outcome. In what alternate reality do you imagine that Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, Al-Zawahiri, the Taliban, or ANY terrorist would be interested in a peaceful outcome, when their stated purpose is the destruction of the United States and Israel, and eventually anything not Muslim? Where in there do you see ANY room for diplomacy? THAT is what I mean when I (not others who post, I cannot speak for them) say *head in the sand.* Do you actually believe that diplomacy will work with these people? I do not for the life of me understand how you can look at the history of terrorist attacks, their escalation, and say that somehow talking with these people will make a difference. Perhaps you can clue me in on the possibility that you see in diplomatically stopping the terrorist threat? How that could possibly happen? I would be willing to listen.
You said: I see those as strength of character, the courage of conviction and fairhandness.
I say: Strength of character is also standing tall and saying *your plan of terrorizing and separating this country and her people will not work. If you plan to attack us, know that we will fight back.* Strength of character is also not kowtowing to bullies. Common sense tells you bullies do not respond to diplomacy. Bullies win by intimidation, sneak attacks, and fear. It is impossible to negotiate with these people, because you cannot give them what they want. Saddam violated how many UN resolutions before 9-11? His word was worthless, absolutely worthless. Simply because YOU desire that kind of diplomacy and YOU have those kinds of values, if they are absent on the other side, you might as well chop your own head off and save them the trouble. Yes, I remember how you said you did not fear having your head chopped off. The trouble is, it is not just YOU they are after, and your seeming lack of caring for what happens to your country and other Americans is pretty darn scary. THAT is what I mean when I say the left has become about me, me, me and the heck with the rest of you. And look at Kim Jong Il and Admadinejad...diplomacy is really working with them, isn't it? When are you and the left going to learn, for it to work both sides have to WANT it to work.
Please demonstrate to me how terrorists will respond to courage of conviction or fair-handedness. When did they ever show fair-handedness? They make cowardly craven attacks designed to murder as many as possible in one strike. There is no courage or fair-handedness in 9-11, in the Achille Lauro, in Beirut marine bombing, in the Cole, and the gazillion suicide bombings over the years, the embassy bombings...where in ANY of that do you think diplomacy would work? They are not of a country with whom you CAN negotiate. And you are willing to just keep the courage of your convictions, even knowing there is no possibility that will work, and allow yourself AND your fellow Americans who might not be like-minded to be murdered? And that is okay with you? No, sorry, I will NEVER understand that.
You said: No need for you to comment on this because I already know **I have my head in the sand** and do not need to hear you tell me again what a naive person I am, but they are my beliefs and I honor them and are proud of them because, no matter what happens, they are good and decent values and Iraq will not change my mind or my values.
I say: I do not believe you are naive. I believe you just choose to ignore and or rationalize what does not fit with your stated ideals, and I believe you have some noble ideas, and perhaps with a strong charactered, fair-handed enemy those ideals would be fruitful. They are not. They are the antithesis of strong character and fair-handedness.
But, I am sure you will be relieved to hear, I get it. I will not be foisting my opinion on you any longer, because as you say, there is no changing your mind, which is EXACTLY the point I am trying to make. As married as you are to your ideals, multiply that by about a gazillion and you know how the terrorists are married to their ideals. THEY are not going to change THEIR minds either, and we are NOT going to change THEIR minds by talking to them about strength of character and fair-mindedness.
And the rest of the story is that as long as there are still some Americans like us remaining, who are willing to go to the mat for America and ALL Americans, perhaps you will not ever have to give up the country and the way of life that let you form and hold those ideals.
this article is just tooooooo good. I would LOVE to see the Bush supporters actually really "go to Iraq," and for free!!!!
Published on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 by UExpress.com
Sacrifice? Count Me Out If You Supported the War, Pay For It
by Ted Rall
If America is truly on a war footing," Thom Shanker asks in the New York Times, "why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?" Military recruiters are coming up short of volunteers, yet neither party is pushing for a draft. No one is proposing a tax increase to cover the $60 billion annual cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. There are no World War II-style war bond drives, no victory gardens, not even gas rationing. Back here in the fatherland, only "support our troops" car ribbons indicate that we're at war--and they aren't even bumper stickers, they're magnetic. Apparently Americans aren't even willing to sacrifice the finish on their automobiles to promote the cause.
"Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," the paper quotes an officer who just returned from a year in rose-petal-paved Iraq. "[Symbolic signs of support are] just not enough," grumbles a brigadier general. "There has to be more," he demands. "The absence of a call for broader national sacrifice in a time of war has become a near constant topic of discussion among officers and enlisted personnel," the general claims.
Northwestern University professor Charles Moskos says: "The political leaders are afraid to ask the public for any real sacrifice, which doesn't speak too highly of the citizenry."
To which I say: Screw that. It's not my duty to suffer for this pointless war. I've been against it all along, and you can stick your victory garden where the desert sun can't penetrate.
I was among hundreds of thousands of Americans who marched against invading Iraq in early 2003. Tens of millions cheered us on. The largest mass protest movement in history (so designated by the Guinness Book of World Records) brought together pacifists, humanists and people like me. We knew Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We didn't believe that the same White House that propped up dictatorships in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia--that had, when it suited them, supported Saddam--could possibly be interested in liberating the people of Iraq. When we scrutinized coverage of the CIA's prewar analyses, we found that there wasn't any. There were only reports dating back to 1998, ancient history in the intelligence business. We absolutely didn't trust Dick "cakewalk" Cheney's breezy predictions.
Bush and Cheney ignored our concerns. Instead of building a solid case and bipartisan political consensus, they bullied and lied to Congress and the UN to scam us into this unwinnable war. Who can blame them? They work for ExxonMobil and Halliburton, not the American people. But they, not us, broke Iraq. It can't be fixed, it's not our fault and it's not our problem. There's no reason to relinquish our creature comforts to back their grubby little oil grab.
The most galling aspect of this fiasco is that it was entirely predictable. I know; I predicted it. Here's my column written back in July 2002:
"Most experts expect Iraq to disintegrate into civil war after an overthrow of Saddam's oppressive Ba'ath Party," I wrote. "Opinion of the United States is now at an all-time low among Muslims around the world. Going after Iraq will make matters worse. Why give radical anti-American Islamists even more political ammunition with which to recruit suicide bombers and attract the financial donations that fund their assaults?"
I'm no genius, but even I could see that this war was doomed eight months before the invasion:
"Do the Kurds deserve a homeland? Sure. Would Iraq be better off without Saddam? Probably. But if we're smart, we won't be the ones to blow over this particular house of cards. We have too much to lose and too little to gain in the mess that would certainly ensue."
Did I call that one or what?
David Hendrickson, a scholar at Colorado College, tells the Times: "Bush understands that the support of the public for war--especially the war in Iraq--is conditioned on demanding little of the public." Of course, Bush himself hasn't given up a second of vacation or a single donated dollar, much less one of his hard-partying daughters, to the "war effort." Sacrifice is a hard sell down here among the citizenry when we don't see it starting where it should start, among our leaders.
I'm already sacrificing too much for a war I always believed was stupid and wrong. I'm paying three dollars a gallon for buck-fifty gas and walking through gauntlets of over-armed National Guardboys at airports and bus stations. I'm in greater danger than ever before of getting blown up by a pissed-off fanatic. And I dread the giant tax hike we'll eventually need to pay off Bush's deficit. But these aren't enough sacrifices for Bush and his vainglorious generals, who are planning "a Civilian Reserve, a sort of Peace Corps for professionals. . . a program to seek commitments from bankers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, electricians, plumbers and solid-waste disposal experts to deploy to conflict zones for months at a time on reconstruction assignments, to relieve pressure on the military."
If you voted for Bush, here's your chance to plant your butt where your ridiculous car magnet is, smack dab in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Good luck.
This is definitely a campaign against the First Amendment, and I believe Bush will do whatever he can to silence people who either disagree with him or who catch him in lies (a full-time job in and of itself).
Bob Geiger - see 2nd paragraph The last paragraph is why I posted it.
I am not at all convinced that the issue of abortion is a liberal or conservative stance. I think it tends to be tied to conservative because of its religious roots, but even that is debatable. Women throughout history regardless of religion have been having abortions. I believe it simply to be your own belief that really should not be attached to a political process.
As war is always a political process, the comparison isn't really fair is it? and I really, really hope that you are not referring to the war on Iraq because there is just too much refuting evidence to continue to believe we were justified in invading Iraq in the guise that we were defending ourselves.
How can you be pro-choice in the voice of war knowing that the very nature of it kills more people than abortion ever could? Just the war in Iraq alone has probably killed more people than the abortions in the United States in the past 100 years.
You have outlined and described in perfect detail the problem with why your arguments can never be recognized as anything but dividing. Gt, believe me, this is not all about you, which it always seems to end up being about in your posts. The fact that you refuse, not fail, but refuse to accept anything, any explanation, any single example of the image you project as well as your close-minedness, is illustrated in every post that you make.
I agree with the assessment in the last paragraph.sm
They will use kiddie porn and so-called domestic terrorism to limit our use of the Internet. Everything is greatly exaggerated to induce fear, and then you will allow them to slice up more of your liberties.
Here's your answer, 1st paragraph, 2nd line.
...Parade Magazine ASKED the President-elect, who is also a devoted family man, to get personal and tell us what he wants for his children.
He didn't take out an ad in the newspaper. He simply answered a simple question posed to him by a reporter on assignment. If you had taken the time to read more carefully and weren't in such a hurry to slam the man, you might have noticed that.
"The announcement comes less than a month after the world's largest maker of microprocessors used in personal computers said it would close plants in Southeast Asia and scale back U.S. operations under a restructuring that affects as many as 6,000 employees."
What do they know? Are they afraid O is going to put extra taxes on businesses that do business overseas (which I hope), or are they being smart? Sorry if my sarcasm shows, but this will still affect 6,000 jobs in the U.S.? Why? Need to do some digging here.
That's where DH is. Forced to retire because of no work (road construction). The stimulus money went to 2 cities in my state. The rest of the state got nothing towards road construction or very little.
We didn't get last year's stimulus check because we owed taxes and they put the money towards that. Now he's getting screwed out of the $250 because he wasn't retired when this happened. Never fails.
Remember that cartoon of the guy always under the grey cloud? That's us.
And you know this how? I would say show me the evidence to back up this ridiculous claim, but I already know you have none. It's your opinion/religious propaganda, and it's blantantly false. You also have it backwards. You're implying people start out being athiest, then convert to religion. It's the other way around, when religious or secular people start questioning all the improbable/impossible things the bible is overflowing with, in addition to all of its inconsistenties and outright contradictions.
Forgive me if I doubt that you're an expert on athiests, and forgive me if I doubt your critical thinking skills, because religion frowns upon that - you're not supposed to question god or think for yourself, just obey his commands, or should I say, various human interpretations of his commands...
If there was indeed
'too much evidence to prove that He does exist' then everyone would believe in him. How could anyone deny it? They couldn't. But that's just it, there is no evidence to prove it, whereas there actually IS scientific evidence to the contrary, that you apparently are unaware of or haven't investigated.
Instead, you're willing to believe something based only on 'faith.' In every other area of your life where you'd want or even *demand* facts, proof, or concrete evidence before believing something so important, with religion (some) people are all too willing to blindly accept it on faith.
BTW, an athiest doesn't have to DISprove god (you can't prove a negative, anyway), you have to prove that he *does* exist, and you can't. And wouldn't you think if he really existed, he would prove it to the entire world's satisfaction anyway and put an end to the debate and all the relious wars, conflict, genocide, misery, suffering, etc? He'd rather we kill each over it? I think not. It makes no sense.
You also wrote: 'You can say all you want, but you just can't argue with a completely changed life'
Yes, I can argue it. You changed your life because *you* wanted to change it. You! Not some mystical, magical, invisible being in the sky who cares about your every thought and action. People change their lives for the better every day, without religion. IMO, if you hadn't found religion, you would've kept looking until you found something else that worked for you, and it probably would've been a lot healthier than the brainwashing, closed-minded, divisive phenomenon that is religion. a spokesman for M/P issued the last paragraph so not sure how reliable
that would be. Odd how they added it at the end but did not say if it was a fact. It was supposed to be an investigative article. There is no way of knowing if that is fact, it is only what the McCain people say is true.
That's not to say that they are not entitled to feel what they feel and they are entitled to their opinions/voice..even though I just reread my post and it could be interpreted that way (and sorry for that) -
It is not possible for other countries to differentiate between the people of Iran and the government leaders. They deal with the leaders.
You know, we were fed a line in this country as far as back the first George Bush administration back in 1988-1992 that the people of Iraq did not support Hussein and that he would be overthrown by internal forces. That did not happen. We went in there 3 years ago to free the Iraqi people and it is now a huge mess that has cost thousands of lives, mostly Iraqi, and cost an unbelievable amount of money. Now Iran is making more noise. They hated the Shah because of his close ties to the West, so they put in a lunatic Islamic cleric and turned the country into a religious state. Islam teaches brotherhood and tolerance, so why are the leaders of this religious state so full of hate and spite?
Frankly, I think we should completely withdraw from the Middle East, including Israel. We should deport all Middle Easterners from this this country and from our American territories. We should quit buying your oil and anything else you produce. Leave us alone and we'll return the favor.
I think it is apparent that democracy is not possible in Arab Islamic countries. It works in other Muslim countries, like Turkey and some other places, but obviously the Middle East is not evolved enough to be able to tolerate other people's viewpoints and value systems. Until that happens, there can be no democracy.
Iran
" Rafsanjani, one of the most influential politicians in Iran, supports opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says that June 12 elections were rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That puts him in conflict with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has approved of the electoral win. "
" In Washington, President Barack Obama urged an end to the crackdown. “We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people,” he said in an e-mailed statement. "
Till now the verbal support of Obama suffice to give the protesters enough moral support to continue with their just protests. Khatami is detaining his own people and their relatives!
I was listening to a variety of news shows and visiting a number of news sites this morning for my "daily dose" when it struck me that the coverage about Iran is already diminishing - even on sites like Fox News.
Sometimes I think that we Americans have the attention span of a fruit fly...and I also think that people like the Ayatollah rely on the fact that after a brief period of outrage, Americans will forget that there may be thousands of Iranians either in hospitals or sitting in cells waiting to hear exactly how they will be executed.
Iran's increasingly isolated opposition leader effectively ended his role in street protests, saying he'll seek permits for future rallies. A leading cleric demanded in a nationally broadcast sermon Friday that leaders of the unrest be punished harshly and that some are "worthy of execution."
Well, here it is, folks. The beginning of the end of humanity, as Congress sits paralyzed and watches it happen (unless they finally grow a backbone and say *ENOUGH* to Bush).
The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.
The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.
That's the name they're using, the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.
A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war.
The former intelligence officials depicts planning as enormous, hectic and operational, Hersh writes.
One former defense official said the military planning was premised on a belief that a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government, The New Yorker pointed out.
In recent weeks, the president has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of the House of Representatives, including at least one Democrat, the report said.
One of the options under consideration involves the possible use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to insure the destruction of Iran's main centrifuge plant at Natanz, Hersh writes.
But the former senior intelligence official said the attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the military, and some officers have talked about resigning after an attempt to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans in Iran failed, according to the report.
There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries, the magazine quotes the Pentagon adviser as saying.
The adviser warned that bombing Iran could provoke a chain reaction of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world and might also reignite Hezbollah.
If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle, the adviser is quoted as telling The New Yorker.
I believe he made the statement concerning Iran...
because Ahmadinejad has said publically that Israel should be wiped off the map and he had a vision of the world without the United States. Don't recall North Korea saying anything remotely like that. The big difference in Kim Jong IL and Ahmadinejad is that Ahmadinejad does not care what happen if he nuked Israel or the US...because to him, being martyred is the most wonderful thing that can happen to anyone. And if his attack ushered in the coming of the 12th Imam, mores the better. If you will look at his statements, especially the one about the 12th Imam...that will tell you why he could very well be the one to start a world war III if he had nukes. I believe that is what was meant.
And one could surmise he used that word to shock some out of their complacency.
These remarks from Iran and Russia may not
RE: Response to Obama's election by Iran: What I see here is an opening for dialog in the recognition that there is a capacity for improvement of ties, not exactly the "Death to America" sentiments expressed in the past, this despite Obama's statement directed at those who would tear the world down (we will defeat you). I also see several implied preconditions. After all, preconditions are a two-way street:
1. I would be curious to have Aghamohammadi expand on what he means by Bush style "confrontation" in other countries. He is the spokesperson for the National Security Council in Iran, has been involved with the EU, Britian, France and Germany as a nuclear arms negotiator and would be directly involved in any dialog with the US on the subject of nuclear arms nonproliferation. We hardly have a leg to stand in this arena with our current "do as I say, not as I do and never mind the nuclear stockpiles in Israel we financed" approach. My guess would be he is condemning military invasion and occupation, hardly a radical position for any sovereign nation to take. In his own capacity, he should understand the US has unfinished business in Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan, so it is impossible to know in the absence of dialog what alternatives to military invasion may be possible. It might be worth a look-see.
2. His implied request for the US to "concentrate on state matters" might be seen by some as a little progress, especially since, at the moment, we do not even have an embassy in Iran. This also implies a possible opening to US business interests there (which were abundant under the Shah), a staging ground for diplomacy and establishing an avenue for articulating US foreign policy within their borders.
3. Concentrating on removing the American people's concerns would imply a desire on his part to repair and improve Iran's image abroad.
A well thought out response to these implied preconditions would be a logical place for Obama to start when speculating on his own preconditions.
RE: Russia's recent behavior and rhetoric is worrisome on many levels to more than a few countries in the region. Cold war with Russia is in NOBODY'S interest, including Russia's I fail to see how turning our backs, isolating ourselves or ratcheting up bellicose rhetoric toward them would do anything except give them a green light to proceed. It's an ugly world out there and Obama will inevitably be taking either a direct or an indirect diplomatic role in addressing this issue. Russia has expressed that same expectation.
I agree with you and find humor in the remarks from Sudan. Anyway, wait and watch is all we can do at this point. It certainly beats the heck out of prognostications of failure or defeat.
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