If this poll doesn't work, i quit.

It works,
don't quit.

Watch Power of Nightmares, and then think about the Iran situation.

They are lying to you. Iran is a threat to nobody.

LIES.

I agree. The guy with the stinger on his ass is right

This just struck me as quite funny for some reason.

Perhaps its time to bring back old Trotsky

But they have WMD's and they aren't listening to the UN and they support terrorist and their leaders don't like bush and they have oil but thats not important. What is important is that this is 2003...2006 and iraq...iran is a major threat.

Wait, what about Syria? Shouldn't I be afraid of the Syrians too?

You are basing this off of the claims made by the US gov't.

Iraq had nuclear weapons too, remember? Condi said so.

Psssst.

Scorp.







He's being sarcastic.




I think.

I'm against War.

Look back a bit. Get that old Doc "Rebuilding America's Defenses" out again. Search for the word "Iran".
That's the plan, that's why the cartoon hype is being fueld by Dubya, Condi, Angela et al. Iran is next and they're gonna push the SC to impose sanctions OR they'll be tesing the neat little mini A-Bombs by the end of the year. Let's hope I'm wrong.

Missed the sarcasm.

Apologies.

Who would vote 'yes' to this after the utter chaotic fiasco that is Iraq is still going on.

You can bet that there are powerful forces in the Bush administration who would love an armed conflict with Iran and to see Iran basically gutted (like Iraq) and their own "Democracy" installed by force. Shit, you KNOW they have a major hard-on for this.

If our forces were not already so bogged down in Iraq, how much closer to war with Iran would we be right now?

I suspect that if the Military wasn't already stretched to the limit,
and if domestic issues were not about to boil over,
we'd already have bombed Tehran!


I believe Iran was and has always been the next step in the PNAC master plan for one world government.

Vote? They don't need no stinkin' vote!

Iran is the next step. The Russians say the invasion will begin March 28, timed to Israel's elections. We'll see if that happens or not, but put that together with the Muslim cartoon propaganda, and the bit that Bolton's speech declaring unilateral action is ready to go, and they're displacing knowledgeable people at State with lackeys who will cooperate (and this new lady at ICE sounds like the same thing to me)..... It all adds up to getting ready to conquer Iran.

Also, latest theory, the camps will be filled with Arabs or folk of Arabic descent, living in the US, like we did with the Japanese during WW2.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11829.htm
State Department sees exodus of weapons experts
By Warren P. Strobel

02/08/06 "Knight Ridder" WASHINGTON - State Department officials appointed by President Bush have sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with less experienced political operatives who share the White House and Pentagon's distrust of international negotiations and treaties.

The reorganization of the department's arms control and international security bureaus was intended to help it better deal with 21st-century threats. Instead, it's thrown the agency into turmoil and produced an exodus of experts with decades of experience in nuclear arms, chemical weapons and related matters, according to 11 current and former officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder.

The reorganization was conducted largely in secret by a panel of four political appointees. A career expert was allowed to join the group only after most decisions had been made. Its work was overseen by Frederick Fleitz, a CIA officer who was detailed to the State Department as senior adviser to former Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a critic of arms agreements and international organizations.

Bolton's nomination to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was nearly derailed last year by allegations that he'd harassed and bullied his staff. Some State Department weapons experts from offices that had clashed with Bolton were denied senior positions in the reorganization, even though they had superior qualifications, the officials and documents alleged.

Fleitz, who works for Robert Joseph, Bolton's successor, later telephoned State Department employees who signed a letter protesting the moves and registered his displeasure, one official said.

The political appointees who crafted the shakeup sought and received assurances from the State Department's legal and human resources offices that what they were doing was legal.

But other officials charge that it violated long-standing management and personnel practices.

"The process has been gravely flawed from the outset, and smacks plainly of a political vendetta against career Foreign Service and Civil Service (personnel) by political appointees," a group of employees told Undersecretary of State for Management Henrietta Fore on Dec. 9, according to notes prepared for the meeting.

A dozen State Department employees delivered a rare written dissent to Fore and W. Robert Pearson, the director general of the Foreign Service, on Oct. 11. Some also sought, but failed to get, a stay from the Justice Department to stop the plan.

Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the changes might have been painful to some but were necessary.

"Reorganizations are never easy. They inevitably mean change," he said. "The reorganization ... was essential to better position us to further the president's strategy against WMD (weapons of mass destruction) proliferation and (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's) emphasis on transformational diplomacy."

"Yet the reorganization also offers important new professional opportunities for the employees of the State Department," he said.

Much more than personnel disputes are at stake, said the officials who are critical of the changes.

They said they were concerned that Rice, who announced the changes last July but apparently hasn't been deeply involved in their execution, will be deprived of expertise on weapons matters. Among those who have left is the State Department's top authority on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of the international regime to curb the spread of nuclear arms.

"We had a great group of people. They are highly knowledgeable experts," said former Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf, who frequently clashed with Bolton. "To the extent they now are leaving State Department employ, or U.S. government employ, it's a real loss to State Department. It's a real loss to the government."

A half-dozen current department officials expressed the same view, but spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, they feared retaliation.

Jonathan Granoff, the director of the Global Security Institute, an arms control advocacy group, said the loss of State Department arms-control expertise was especially worrisome because the only mechanism for verifying U.S. and Russian nuclear arms cuts - the 1991 START I treaty - is due to expire in less than three years.

That also will eliminate the most effective way of verifying that the former rivals are abiding by their Non-Proliferation Treaty commitments to eliminate their nuclear arsenals eventually, he said. "Rather than nurture our experts, the administration seems to have brought in neophytes without a passion for progress in this field and, worse, undermined the international institutions that are most effective in stopping proliferation," he said.

More broadly, the clash is the culmination of a generation-old battle over arms control.

In one corner are specialists who argue that negotiated arms agreements help U.S. security; in the other are those who argue that the United States should rely mostly on the threat of force, sanctions and other unilateral steps to curb the spread of dangerous weapons and maintain a credible deterrent against an attack.

When she announced the reorganization, Rice declared that more than deterrence and arms control treaties are necessary to safeguard America. "We must also go on the offensive against outlaw scientists, black-market arms dealers and rogue state proliferators," she said.

Bush has demanded maximum presidential flexibility on national security matters, avoiding major new arms treaties and pushing the limits of executive power on issues from domestic eavesdropping to the treatment of terrorism suspects.

Many career government experts didn't dispute the need to reorganize U.S. policy offices that deal with weapons of mass destruction. But they said they worried that future administrations with a view different from Bush and Rice's would have to build the expertise they'd need from scratch.

An inquiry by Knight Ridder has found evidence that the reorganization was highly politicized and devastated morale:

-Thomas Lehrman, a political appointee who heads the new office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism, advertised outside the State Department to fill jobs in his office. In an e-mail to universities and research centers, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder, he listed loyalty to Bush and Rice's priorities as a qualification.

Lehrman reportedly recalled the e-mail after it was pointed out that such loyalty tests are improper.

-Specialists in the department's old Nonproliferation Bureau, which frequently battled Bolton on policy toward Iraq, Iran and North Korea, largely were frozen out of important jobs when offices in that bureau merged with those in another.

"Bolton had blood in his eyes for the Nonproliferation Bureau," said another official who's still working at the State Department.

One of the government's top experts on the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which helps stem the spread of nuclear weapons but disputed the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's weapons programs, returned from two and a half years at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, and was blocked from assuming an office directorship that had been offered to him, the officials and a complaint document said.

The post, which oversees U.S. diplomacy regarding international efforts to contain suspected nuclear-weapons programs such as those in Iran and North Korea, went to a more junior officer who numerous officials said shared Bolton's views.

Five higher-ranking officers were passed over, the document says, adding that none had negative work histories "aside from intimations that they were not as `trusted' politically by the political management level."

In August 2005, the officer chosen for the job sent an e-mail sarcastically titled: "A Nobel for the IAEA? Please." The agency and its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October.

-None of the most senior posts in the new organization was filled by a woman, although several highly qualified female candidates were available.

-The effort was at odds with the recommendations of four December 2004 reports by the department's inspector general, also obtained by Knight Ridder.

The reports praised the nonproliferation unit as "having remained center stage following the events of September 11, 2001." The unit it merged with, the Arms Control bureau, was described as "largely in search of work."

A third unit overseen by Bolton - and now Joseph - which deals with overseeing compliance with arms treaties, was recommended for downsizing. Instead, it's been expanded.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a veteran nonproliferation expert who recently left the State Department, said he was worried about what he called an "exodus" of qualified specialists from the department.

"It seems about a dozen or so have left since the merger came about, many out of frustration," said Fitzpatrick, who's now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "I'm concerned that the ability of the merged bureaus to provide to Condoleezza Rice the same kind of high-quality advice they provided Colin Powell on the very dire proliferation issues facing the world will be diminished by the exodus."

The American Foreign Service Association, which represents foreign service officers, wrote to Rice on Nov. 28, citing allegations that political considerations drove the reorganization.

Dissidents had a second meeting last month with Fore, the undersecretary of state for management.

---

Key arms-control issues since President Bush took office:

The Bush administration's arms control policies began with a refusal to submit a global treaty to ban underground nuclear-test blasts indefinitely for Senate ratification.

The administration withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and blocked international efforts to conclude a pact on verifying compliance with a global biological-weapons ban.

The administration also rejected a mechanism for verifying that the United States and Russia are adhering to a 2002 accord to cut deployed nuclear warheads, has embraced new uses for nuclear arms and is spending billions modernizing

You're getting a lot of mileage out of that artile Ping!

Well, what they teach us at school and on the TV is that if it's important you'll hear it at least 3 times. As an adult, I have learned that it's the things you only hear ONCE that tend to be important.

And I do hope I'm wrong....

http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/749...Detention_Camps

New Detention Camps
Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:25:25 -0800
Summary:

It is clear that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about martial law. Many critics have alleged that FEMA’s spectacular failure to respond to Katrina followed from a deliberate White House policy: of paring back FEMA, and instead strengthening the military for responses to disasters. A multimillion program for detention facilities will greatly increase NORTHCOM’s ability to respond to any domestic disorders.
[Posted By ShiftShapers]
By Peter Dale Scott
Republished from Pacific News Service via GlobalResearch.ca
A Halliburton subsidiary has just received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to provide "temporary detention and processing capabilities."

Editor’s Note: A little-known $385 million contract for Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build detention facilities for “an emergency influx of immigrants” is another step down the Bush administration’s road toward martial law, the writer says.

The contract—announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR—calls for preparing for “an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs” in the event of other emergencies, such as “a natural disaster.” The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when.

To date, some newspapers have worried that open-ended provisions in the contract could lead to cost overruns, such as have occurred with KBR in Iraq. A Homeland Security spokesperson has responded that this is a “contingency contract” and that conceivably no centers might be built. But almost no paper so far has discussed the possibility that detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.

For those who follow covert government operations abroad and at home, the contract evoked ominous memories of Oliver North’s controversial Rex-84 “readiness exercise” in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary “refugees,” in the context of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States. North’s activities raised civil liberties concerns in both Congress and the Justice Department. The concerns persist.

“Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters,” says Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. military’s account of its activities in Vietnam. “They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ‘special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”

Plans for detention facilities or camps have a long history, going back to fears in the 1970s of a national uprising by black militants. As Alonzo Chardy reported in the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987, an executive order for continuity of government (COG) had been drafted in 1982 by FEMA head Louis Giuffrida. The order called for “suspension of the Constitution” and “declaration of martial law.” The martial law portions of the plan were outlined in a memo by Giuffrida’s deputy, John Brinkerhoff.

In 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 188, one of a series of directives that authorized continued planning for COG by a private parallel government.

Two books, James Mann’s “Rise of the Vulcans” and James Bamford’s “A Pretext for War,” have revealed that in the 1980s this parallel structure, operating outside normal government channels, included the then-head of G. D. Searle and Co., Donald Rumsfeld, and then-Congressman from Wyoming Dick Cheney.

After 9/11, new martial law plans began to surface similar to those of FEMA in the 1980s. In January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on American streets. One month later John Brinkerhoff, the author of the 1982 FEMA memo, published an article arguing for the legality of using U.S. troops for purposes of domestic security.

Then in April 2002, Defense Dept. officials implemented a plan for domestic U.S. military operations by creating a new U.S. Northern Command (CINC-NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called this “the most sweeping set of changes since the unified command system was set up in 1946.”

The NORTHCOM commander, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced, is responsible for “homeland defense and also serves as head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).... He will command U.S. forces that operate within the United States in support of civil authorities. The command will provide civil support not only in response to attacks, but for natural disasters.”

John Brinkerhoff later commented on PBS that, “The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war.”

Then in response to Hurricane Katrina in Sept. 2005, according to the Washington Post, White House senior adviser Karl Rove told the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, that she should explore legal options to impose martial law “or as close as we can get.” The White House tried vigorously, but ultimately failed, to compel Gov. Blanco to yield control of the state National Guard.

Also in September, NORTHCOM conducted its highly classified Granite Shadow exercise in Washington. As William Arkin reported in the Washington Post, “Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military’s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.”

It is clear that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about martial law.

Many critics have alleged that FEMA’s spectacular failure to respond to Katrina followed from a deliberate White House policy: of paring back FEMA, and instead strengthening the military for responses to disasters.

A multimillion program for detention facilities will greatly increase NORTHCOM’s ability to respond to any domestic disorders.

Peter Dale Scott is author of “Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). He is completing a book on “The Road to 9/11.” Visit his Web site.

Wow, I'm gonna post this over at Catherine's Halliburton string ...thanks Ping

OF COURSE we should be afraid of the Syrians. According to all of my VERY knowledgable repub office mates, THAT'S where Sadam hid all the WMD's. Look at that, right under our noses the WHOLE TIME and we didn't even notice!

What dumbasses we are.

Does anyone have that Soviet article link about US attacking Iran in possibly March? I think Catherine posted it somewheres, I'm not sure. I'd like to post it at other website forums Thanks! Yank

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/02/07/vzhiriran.shtml

I answered "no" but you should have included a "damn it hell no" option. I'm sure your response would have been better.

Was it you Pinget? Thanks again!
Yank
PS Will post at other sites