Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:36:58
Presidential hopeful Ron Paul says President Bush has started empire-building by invading Iraq and Afghanistan and beating the drums of war with Iran.
The decision to invade Iraq in 2003 without a declaration of war by Congress was the most egregious violation of the Constitution in the last 20 years, Paul told Lahontan Valley News (LVN) prior to a campaign speech in Fallon.
He also rejected that there is any military threat to the US and said "to try to propose that the Iraqis were trying to attack us was ridiculous. Now they are doing it with the Iranians and they have proven wrong again."
During his campaign speech the Republican presidential candidate affirmed that no country has the power to control the world.
"There's no constitutional authority to rule the world," he said.
Regarding the threats the US is facing the Texas congressman said that the Chinese could bring the US to their knees with or without any other nation by just rejecting our dollar.
Paul believes financial problems, Washington's invasion of the US citizens' privacy and taxation are the major threats to the US.
Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Bush: Iran Must Explain Hidden Nuclear Weapons Program
By Scott Stearns
White House
11 December 2007
President Bush says Iran must explain why it hid a past nuclear weapons program from United Nations inspectors. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns reports, Iran says it is enriching uranium only for a peaceful civilian program to generate electricity.
President Bush speaks about Iran during a meeting with Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano, not pictured, 11 Dec 2007
President Bush speaks about Iran during a meeting with Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano, not pictured, 11 Dec 2007
President Bush is trying to keep international pressure on Iran after last week's National Intelligence Estimate found that Tehran stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
Mr. Bush says the U.S. intelligence report proves that Iran was lying to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency.
"Iran must explain to the world why they had a program. Iran has an obligation to explain to the IAEA why they hid this program from them," he said. "Iran is dangerous, and they will be even more dangerous if they learn how to enrich uranium."
The president spoke following a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano during which the two men discussed the nuclear standoff.
Iran's Fars news agency says Tehran has begun a new round of talks with U.N. experts who are seeking information on past nuclear activities.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the latest U.S. intelligence report is a step forward. He told reporters if further such steps are taken, the way will be open for resolving regional and bilateral issues
White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino called this "fanciful thinking."
"It's a very opaque society in Iran," she said. "The president asked for more information from our intelligence community. He got more information. And it confirmed what he thought to be true, which is that Iran was a threat, is a threat, and will certainly continue to be a threat if we don't stop them from obtaining that capability to have a nuclear weapon."
The Bush administration is pushing for another round of U.N. sanctions against Iran. Officials from the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany are to discuss the draft of a new sanctions resolution Tuesday.
President Ahmadinejad says there is no legal basis for new sanctions against Iran.
White House
11 December 2007
President Bush says Iran must explain why it hid a past nuclear weapons program from United Nations inspectors. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns reports, Iran says it is enriching uranium only for a peaceful civilian program to generate electricity.
President Bush speaks about Iran during a meeting with Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano, not pictured, 11 Dec 2007
President Bush speaks about Iran during a meeting with Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano, not pictured, 11 Dec 2007
President Bush is trying to keep international pressure on Iran after last week's National Intelligence Estimate found that Tehran stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
Mr. Bush says the U.S. intelligence report proves that Iran was lying to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency.
"Iran must explain to the world why they had a program. Iran has an obligation to explain to the IAEA why they hid this program from them," he said. "Iran is dangerous, and they will be even more dangerous if they learn how to enrich uranium."
The president spoke following a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano during which the two men discussed the nuclear standoff.
Iran's Fars news agency says Tehran has begun a new round of talks with U.N. experts who are seeking information on past nuclear activities.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the latest U.S. intelligence report is a step forward. He told reporters if further such steps are taken, the way will be open for resolving regional and bilateral issues
White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino called this "fanciful thinking."
"It's a very opaque society in Iran," she said. "The president asked for more information from our intelligence community. He got more information. And it confirmed what he thought to be true, which is that Iran was a threat, is a threat, and will certainly continue to be a threat if we don't stop them from obtaining that capability to have a nuclear weapon."
The Bush administration is pushing for another round of U.N. sanctions against Iran. Officials from the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany are to discuss the draft of a new sanctions resolution Tuesday.
President Ahmadinejad says there is no legal basis for new sanctions against Iran.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Monitoring Agency Praises U.S. Report, but Keeps Wary Eye on Iran
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: December 5, 2007
PARIS, Dec. 4 — The International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday publicly embraced the new American intelligence assessment stating that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons effort, but in truth the agency is taking a more cautious approach in drawing conclusions about Iran’s nuclear program.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Joe Klamar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A report last month by Mohamed ElBaradei, the international agency’s leader, was less categorical than the American finding.
Enlarge This Image
Hasan Sarbakhshian/Associated Press
The International Atomic Energy Agency says it has "outstanding issues" about Iran’s nuclear enrichment complex in Natanz.
“To be frank, we are more skeptical,” a senior official close to the agency said. “We don’t buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran.”
The official called the American assertion that Iran had “halted” its weapons program in 2003 “somewhat surprising.”
That the nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna is sounding a somewhat tougher line than the Bush administration is surprising, given that the administration has long criticized it for not pressuring Iran hard enough to curb its nuclear program.
But the American finding has so unsettled governments, agencies and officials dealing with Iran that it has suddenly upended commonly held assumptions.
There is relief, as one senior French official put it, that “the war option is off the table.” There is also criticism and even anger in some quarters that the American intelligence assessment may be too soft on Iran.
Israel, for example, on Tuesday took a darker view of Iran’s nuclear ambitions than the American assessment, saying that it is convinced that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and that it has probably resumed the weapons program the Americans said was stopped in autumn 2003.
The British government said the international community should maintain pressure on Iran over its uranium enrichment efforts. “It confirms we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters. He said the American assessment had also shown that past international pressure on Iran had succeeded “in that they seem to have abandoned the weaponization element.”
He added, “But it also tells us the intent was there, and that the risk of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons remains a serious problem.” That, he said, justified maintaining pressure on the Tehran government to abandon efforts to enrich uranium and to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, processes that could provide fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told state-run radio that Iran welcomed the change of opinion about its nuclear program. “Some of the same countries which had questions or ambiguities about our nuclear program are changing their views realistically,” he said.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said the report showed that American accusations about Iran’s secret weapons activities were baseless, reported ISNA, the Iranian student news agency.
“This report can be good news for U.S. allies so that they would change their unreasonable policies,” he said, ISNA reported.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s public stance, and the main message of Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general, was to praise the new finding as proof that his agency had been right in its analysis.
The American assessment “tallies with the agency’s consistent statements over the last few years that — although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities — the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran,” Dr. ElBaradei said in a statement.
He said the American intelligence assessment “should help to defuse the current crisis.”
But the agency has been frustrated by shrinking access for its inspectors in Iran, and Dr. ElBaradei also called on Iran to “accelerate its cooperation,” adding that the new American finding “should prompt Iran to work actively with the I.A.E.A. to clarify specific aspects of its past and present nuclear program.” He urged Iran to allow more intrusive inspections of its facilities.
Inside the agency, officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules, said that Iran must not assume that the American report relieves it of pressure to work with the agency, and that the country must do more to prove its good will.
“We are still worried about certain aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, and we need answers, particularly about so-called military aspects of the program,” said the senior official close to the agency.
Dr. ElBaradei’s most recent report to his agency’s 35-country board last month is less categorical in its conclusions than the American finding.
The agency acknowledged there were still “outstanding issues” regarding the scope and nature of the nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz and activities that could have military applications, Dr. ElBaradei said.
The American analysis twice describes the Natanz enrichment program as civilian, and omits the administration’s oft-cited analysis that there is no logical application for enriched uranium other than eventual military use. Referring to the finding’s characterization of uranium enrichment, the official allied with the international agency said, “We wouldn’t go that far.”
The official also refused to rule out the possibility that Iran might have programs involving centrifuges — the machines that spin enriched uranium — that it had not disclosed to the agency.
The agency plans to use the new assessment’s revelation that Iran had a nuclear weapons program in the past to pry more information out of it about its suspicious past activities.
“If they had a weapons program, they better tell us now,” the official said. “We need to know where they ended up with their program before they terminated it.”
John F. Burns contributed reporting from London, and Nazila Fathi from Tehran.
Published: December 5, 2007
PARIS, Dec. 4 — The International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday publicly embraced the new American intelligence assessment stating that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons effort, but in truth the agency is taking a more cautious approach in drawing conclusions about Iran’s nuclear program.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Joe Klamar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A report last month by Mohamed ElBaradei, the international agency’s leader, was less categorical than the American finding.
Enlarge This Image
Hasan Sarbakhshian/Associated Press
The International Atomic Energy Agency says it has "outstanding issues" about Iran’s nuclear enrichment complex in Natanz.
“To be frank, we are more skeptical,” a senior official close to the agency said. “We don’t buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran.”
The official called the American assertion that Iran had “halted” its weapons program in 2003 “somewhat surprising.”
That the nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna is sounding a somewhat tougher line than the Bush administration is surprising, given that the administration has long criticized it for not pressuring Iran hard enough to curb its nuclear program.
But the American finding has so unsettled governments, agencies and officials dealing with Iran that it has suddenly upended commonly held assumptions.
There is relief, as one senior French official put it, that “the war option is off the table.” There is also criticism and even anger in some quarters that the American intelligence assessment may be too soft on Iran.
Israel, for example, on Tuesday took a darker view of Iran’s nuclear ambitions than the American assessment, saying that it is convinced that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and that it has probably resumed the weapons program the Americans said was stopped in autumn 2003.
The British government said the international community should maintain pressure on Iran over its uranium enrichment efforts. “It confirms we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters. He said the American assessment had also shown that past international pressure on Iran had succeeded “in that they seem to have abandoned the weaponization element.”
He added, “But it also tells us the intent was there, and that the risk of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons remains a serious problem.” That, he said, justified maintaining pressure on the Tehran government to abandon efforts to enrich uranium and to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, processes that could provide fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told state-run radio that Iran welcomed the change of opinion about its nuclear program. “Some of the same countries which had questions or ambiguities about our nuclear program are changing their views realistically,” he said.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said the report showed that American accusations about Iran’s secret weapons activities were baseless, reported ISNA, the Iranian student news agency.
“This report can be good news for U.S. allies so that they would change their unreasonable policies,” he said, ISNA reported.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s public stance, and the main message of Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general, was to praise the new finding as proof that his agency had been right in its analysis.
The American assessment “tallies with the agency’s consistent statements over the last few years that — although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities — the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran,” Dr. ElBaradei said in a statement.
He said the American intelligence assessment “should help to defuse the current crisis.”
But the agency has been frustrated by shrinking access for its inspectors in Iran, and Dr. ElBaradei also called on Iran to “accelerate its cooperation,” adding that the new American finding “should prompt Iran to work actively with the I.A.E.A. to clarify specific aspects of its past and present nuclear program.” He urged Iran to allow more intrusive inspections of its facilities.
Inside the agency, officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules, said that Iran must not assume that the American report relieves it of pressure to work with the agency, and that the country must do more to prove its good will.
“We are still worried about certain aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, and we need answers, particularly about so-called military aspects of the program,” said the senior official close to the agency.
Dr. ElBaradei’s most recent report to his agency’s 35-country board last month is less categorical in its conclusions than the American finding.
The agency acknowledged there were still “outstanding issues” regarding the scope and nature of the nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz and activities that could have military applications, Dr. ElBaradei said.
The American analysis twice describes the Natanz enrichment program as civilian, and omits the administration’s oft-cited analysis that there is no logical application for enriched uranium other than eventual military use. Referring to the finding’s characterization of uranium enrichment, the official allied with the international agency said, “We wouldn’t go that far.”
The official also refused to rule out the possibility that Iran might have programs involving centrifuges — the machines that spin enriched uranium — that it had not disclosed to the agency.
The agency plans to use the new assessment’s revelation that Iran had a nuclear weapons program in the past to pry more information out of it about its suspicious past activities.
“If they had a weapons program, they better tell us now,” the official said. “We need to know where they ended up with their program before they terminated it.”
John F. Burns contributed reporting from London, and Nazila Fathi from Tehran.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
What Ron Paul thinks about Globalism
The recent defeat of the amnesty bill in the Senate came after outraged Americans made it clear to the political elite that they would not tolerate this legislation, which would further erode our national sovereignty. Similarly, polls increasingly show the unpopularity of the Iraq war, as well as of the Congress that seems incapable of ending it.
Because some people who vocally oppose amnesty are supportive of the war, the ideological connection between support of the war and amnesty is often masked. If there is a single word explaining the reasons why we continue to fight unpopular wars and see legislation like the amnesty bill nearly become law, that word is “globalism.”
The international elite, including many in the political and economic leadership of this country, believe our constitutional republic is antiquated and the loyalty Americans have for our form of government is like a superstition, needing to be done away with. When it benefits elites, they pay lip service to the American way, even while undermining it.
We must remain focused on what ideology underlies the approach being taken by those who see themselves as our ruling-class, and not get distracted by the passions of the moment or the rhetorical devices used to convince us how their plans will be “good for us.” Whether it is managed trade being presented under the rhetoric of “free trade,” or the ideas of “regime change” abroad and “making the world safe for democracy” – the underlying principle is globalism.
Although different rhetoric is used in each instance, the basic underlying notion behind replacing regimes abroad and allowing foreign people to come to this country illegally is best understood by comprehending this ideal of the globalist elite. In one of his most lucid moments President Bush spoke of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Unfortunately, that bigotry is one of the core tenets at the heart of the globalist ideology.
The basic idea is that foreigners cannot manage their own affairs so we have to do it for them. This may require sending troops to far off lands that do not threaten us, and it may also require “welcoming with open arms” people who come here illegally. All along globalists claim a moral high ground, as if our government is responsible for ensuring the general welfare of all people. Yet the consequences are devastating to our own taxpayers, as well as many of those we claim to be helping.
Perhaps the most seriously damaged victim of this approach is our own constitutional republic, because globalism undermines both the republican and democratic traditions of this nation. Not only does it make a mockery of the self-rule upon which our republic is based, it also erodes the very institutions of our republic and replaces them with international institutions that are often incompatible with our way of life.
The defeat of the amnesty bill proves though that there is no infallible logic, or predetermined march of history, that forces globalism on us.
Dr. Pauls views on the war.
War and Foreign Policy
The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars. We must have new leadership in the White House to ensure this never happens again.
Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft of our young men and women.
We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing America and bring the troops home. No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as required by the Constitution.
Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations.
Too often we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we become despised. Too often we have supported those who turn on us, like the Kosovars who aid Islamic terrorists, or the Afghan jihadists themselves, and their friend Osama bin Laden. We armed and trained them, and now we’re paying the price.
At the same time, we must not isolate ourselves. The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe. Many have thanked God for it, in many languages. Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.
The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars. We must have new leadership in the White House to ensure this never happens again.
Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft of our young men and women.
We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing America and bring the troops home. No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as required by the Constitution.
Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations.
Too often we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we become despised. Too often we have supported those who turn on us, like the Kosovars who aid Islamic terrorists, or the Afghan jihadists themselves, and their friend Osama bin Laden. We armed and trained them, and now we’re paying the price.
At the same time, we must not isolate ourselves. The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe. Many have thanked God for it, in many languages. Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.
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