Geopolitics // Current

The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex Pt2

Wilkerson: From US debt to the geopolitics of oil, the US empire will come to an end

therealnewsnetwork
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Ten Things You Need To Know About Iran

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the U.S.

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the U.S. or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of "no first strike." This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to "wipe it off the map."

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of 'no first strike' to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.

Belief: But didn't President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to "wipe Israel off the map?"

Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that "this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

Belief: But aren't Iranians Holocaust deniers?

Reality: Some are, some aren't. Former president Mohammad Khatami has castigated Ahmadinejad for questioning the full extent of the Holocaust, which he called "the crime of Nazism." Many educated Iranians in the regime are perfectly aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. In any case, despite what propagandists imply, neither Holocaust denial (as wicked as that is) nor calling Israel names is the same thing as pledging to attack it militarily.

Belief: Iran is like North Korea in having an active nuclear weapons program, and is the same sort of threat to the world.

Reality: Iran has a nuclear enrichment site at Natanz near Isfahan where it says it is trying to produce fuel for future civilian nuclear reactors to generate electricity. All Iranian leaders deny that this site is for weapons production, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly inspected it and found no weapons program. Iran is not being completely transparent, generating some doubts, but all the evidence the IAEA and the CIA can gather points to there not being a weapons program. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate by 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed with fair confidence that Iran has no nuclear weapons research program. This assessment was based on debriefings of defecting nuclear scientists, as well as on the documents they brought out, in addition to U.S. signals intelligence from Iran. While Germany, Israel and recently the U.K. intelligence is more suspicious of Iranian intentions, all of them were badly wrong about Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction and Germany in particular was taken in by Curveball, a drunk Iraqi braggart.

The rest wouldn't fit.Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the... more

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Center for Energy Policy Hosts Former Shell Oil President

HOBBS, N.M. September 14, 2009 – New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy will... more

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Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is 'to destabilize Pakistan'

In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul... more

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Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security

WASHINGTON — The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to... more

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Current TV Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee Released From North Korean Prison

CurrentCurrentCurrent, the TV network and social news web site that counts Al Gore as... more

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Obama has no legal authority for Afghan war

-President Obama has no legal authority either from the United Nations or the U.S. Congress under the War Powers Resolution(WPR) to escalate the war in Afghanistan, a distinguished professor of international law says.

"President Obama's surge of 21,000 troops now engaged in combat in Afghanistan comes on top of the 60,000 we already had there," says Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law at Champaign.

"The Obama Administration simply ignored Section 4(a)(3) of the WPR when it announced the escalation," Boyle noted. "U.S. armed forces are in Afghanistan originally pursuant to WPR. Its requirement that the President get Congressional consent on substantial enlargement (of forces) was put there to deal with the kind of gradual escalation we saw in Viet Nam that eventually led to 550,000 troops being there," Boyle said.

"Clearly," Boyle added, "President (George W.) Bush never had authority from Security Council in the first place to invade Afghanistan, and the WPR requires that any enlargement of U.S. troops in a foreign nation be authorized by Congress." Boyle made his comments in a telephone interview with columnist Sherwood Ross of Miami, Fla.

President Obama "has now escalated the conflict into Pakistan and has set off a humanitarian catastrophe for 2-million of its people similar to what President Nixon set off in Cambodia," Boyle said. "What Obama is doing is destabilizing Pakistan and setting off a civil war there. It's a very dangerous, illegal, unconstitutional policy," Boyle said.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the first place because the Taliban government refused to allow UNOCAL oil to build the TAPI pipeline across its territory, Boyle said. He noted the route U.S.troops are taking in Afghanistan is that of the proposed pipeline. "I think
this (escalation) is about getting the oil and gas out of Central Asia by
avoiding Russia and without dealing with Iran," Boyle added.

The easiest way to do that, he said, is to construct pipelines south through Afghanistan, into Pakistan and then out to the Arabian Sea. The oil and natural gas resources of Central Asia, Boyle noted, are reported to be the second largest in the world after the Persian
Gulf.

In his new book, "Tackling America's Toughest Questions,"(Clarity) Boyle wrote, "What is going on now in Afghanistan is not self-defense. Let's be honest. We all know it. At best this is reprisal, retaliation, vengeance, catharsis. Call it what you want, but it is not
self-defense. And retaliation is never self-defense."-President Obama has no legal authority either from the United Nations or the U.S.... more