U.N. Nuke Watchdog Chief Visits Israel

[DreamTone7]

I call myself an American because I am a citizen of the nation known as The Republic of the United States of...



...America!

[questionnaire]

Look, DT, will you stop talking rubbish and read through what I have just posted? It has been gathered from reputable scholars. Did you not catch the bit where I pointed out that a stable Hebrew state actually only existed for 78 years? And the other bit about the gradual conversion to Islam of the majority of the population?



Your information is wrong. You are steeped in misleading myth and legend taken from religious texts.



The Palestinians have every historical, legal and ethical right to that land. It is theirs, and the British and the UN had no right to give it away. The Palestinians were willing to compromise and allow an Israeli state within their lands, but when the Zionists got in and instituted the 'Law of Return' they that they rode roughshod over that goodwill and started the illegal expansion and the murder of Palestinians. Many liberal Jews both in and out of Israel want to see a stop to the illegal settlements.



So, what we have at the core of this is the illegal expropriation of Palestinian lands and the illegal invasion of a sovereign state by a US/UK coalition. The USA, Israel and the UK are now considered by many to be 'rogue nations', and wouldn't you agree that Arab hostility is rather understandable?

[questionnaire]

DT, I've just given your long post a closer read.



Apart from the occasional correct fact here and there, in the main it is complete unadulterated rubbish that would be laughed at in any university history department.



Where on earth did you get that load of crap?

[DreamTone7]

The Palestinians have no grounds to allow anybody on said land because it's not their land to begin with! It's like you're camping out on my front yard when I'm away from home and making me ask you permission to enter my house when I have the title (am the nation). Meanwhile, your house (Saudi Arabia) sits right across the street.



The problem is that once a person has accepted (as many "expert" scholars have) a lie, it almost requires an epiphany of sorts to understand the truth. But I'm honestly not expecting one here.

[Galmin]

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We all know that Israel has nuclear weapons just as we all know Iraq had chemical and biological weapons

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Does the President know this? Rummy? Don't tell because then it will be presented as a watertight case, a 'slam-dunk' and all hell will brake loose. No? Well, in a parrallel world it might.



I can hear the next state of the Union now:



'Year after year, Ariel Sharon has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack'.

Quote:

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Just because they have the capability does not mean they have them.

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That's right. Even 'A Program' written down in a piece of paper is enough. INCOMING!!

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It is only interested in holding onto what it has

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.

Yep. A piece here and there of occupied territory where they have built 'illegal housings' condemded in several UN Resolutions. (UN Resolution, hmmmmm.....sounds familiar in a sort of way, where have I heard this before?)

Quote:

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Either you condemn both Iraq and Israel on the same grounds...or not

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EXACTLY! I am waiting, DT.

[HKRockChick]

right wingers shoot themselves in the foot everytime and don't even realise it...



[edited out the rest cause it didnt add anything...]



on a different tack, I'm going to start a thread with bushisms next... just so we can all have some light moments here... people can feel free to post anyone elses quotes too, like that crazy iraqi minister who kept announcing good stuff, but I guarantee they wont beat bush

Edited by: HKRockChick at: 7/8/04 9:43

[DreamTone7]

The woman is obsessed with this man!

[questionnaire]

"The Palestinians have no grounds to allow anybody on said land because it's not their land to begin with! It's like you're camping out on my front yard when I'm away from home and making me ask you permission to enter my house when I have the title (am the nation). Meanwhile, your house (Saudi Arabia) sits right across the street.



The problem is that once a person has accepted (as many "expert" scholars have) a lie, it almost requires an epiphany of sorts to understand the truth. But I'm honestly not expecting one here." - DT



So, DT, what you're saying here is that all the world's expert scholars have been taken in by a lie, despite the fact that they are professionals who spend all day checking the evidence, and you and your Judaeo-Christian right-wing pals, who have never seen any evidence and probably haven't read a scholarly book in their lives, are privy to god's eternal truth, so the scholars need an 'epiphany' to discover this 'truth'?



Epiphany, for anyone who isn't familiar with the term, is a blinding moment of revelation, where the truth comes flooding into your mind from divine sources.



Is that what you're saying? Seriously?



Now, if this isn't evidence that the extreme Judaeo-Christian right-wing in the USA isn't every bit as psychotic and dangerous as the fundamentalist Islamic clerics and terrorists, I don't know what is!!



Between them, these two groups scare the sh*t out of me, they really do!

[DreamTone7]

I said what I said...not what you say I said. And I'm satisfied with it, so that's all I'll say...for now, anyway.

[RonOnGuitar]

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I said what I said...not what you say I said. And I'm satisfied with it, so that's all I'll say...for now, anyway.

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Heh. But in regard to the topic at hand, I'd only hope for two things. First, that Israel's nukes are in fine working order and , secondly, the "UN" is sending some dullard who is every bit as incompetent and gullible as Hans Blix there.

[Galmin]

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the "UN" is sending some dullard who is every bit as incompetent and gullible as Hans Blix there.

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[Galmin]

"'We will not hesitate to discredit you"



-Dick Cheney

[LarreeMP3]

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This has to be stopped and Israel pushed to it's limits.

I'm rather sick of hearing any defense for the actions of the Israeli government. All government members belong in front of a international war crime tribunal.

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Israel doesn't have enough nucleor weapons, as far as I am concerned. Israel's neighbors want to destroy her.

Click here to listen to three decades of original Larree music!

[LarreeMP3]

Israel isn't civilized?



Ummm... When was the last time an Israeli beheaded anyone?



You people are so totally blinded by your hatred for America, Israel, and the Jewish people as a whole.



May those who wish me dead die first.

Click here to listen to three decades of original Larree music!

[RonOnGuitar]

Actually, Gal, it is Blix's own previous boss who has designated him as "a bit of a fool". Saddam (and other regimes)had a very easy time fooling the clueless Blix for many years. It's a matter of public record, not opinion.

=====================================



From MSN -



Hans Blix

Incompetent bureaucrat or cowardly diplomat?

By Chris Suellentrop

Updated Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2002, at 4:16 PM PT



When the United Nations named Hans Blix its chief weapons inspector, it chose a henhouse to guard the fox. Blix's record suggests that he's too cautious, too respectful of Iraq's official pronouncements, and too concerned with diplomatic niceties to carry out the kind of forceful inspections needed to disarm Iraq. American hawks fret that Blix's desire to avoid war will lead him to tolerate small acts of deception by Saddam Hussein, drawing out the weapons-inspection process and deflating the international consensus on the need to topple the Iraqi dictator. But American doves may have more reason to worry: It's just as likely that Blix will give President Bush a valid reason to go to war.



If Blix's goal was to lower expectations before his team begins searching Iraq tomorrow for hidden caches of chemical and biological weapons, he's done a masterful job. Time and again, he and his aides have stressed that they will not "humiliate, harass, or provoke" the Iraqi government. "We always stress the importance of being proper," Blix told the New York Times. "That doesn't mean timid—not at all. But yes, [inspectors] must be respectful in all their work." To that end, Blix's team has taken "cultural sensitivity" courses to teach them how not to offend Iraqis, and they are expected to begin Wednesday by examining sites that won't produce any evidence.



During the 74-year-old Blix's tenure as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency—the U.N. organization that enforces compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty—from 1981 to 1997, the Swedish diplomat developed a reputation as Mr. Magoo crossed with Inspector Clouseau. His most dramatic failure occurred when IAEA failed to uncover Iraq's nuclear program during the late 1980s. As Blix told the Guardian earlier this year, "It's correct to say that the IAEA was fooled by the Iraqis." When the Security Council settled on Blix as chief weapons inspector in 2000 (reportedly as the committee's 24th choice), the New York Times editorial page blasted him as a "man of uncertain resolve," a "disappointing choice," and "a disturbing sign that the international community lacks the determination to rebuild an effective arms inspection system in Iraq."



The Times' criticism seems mild when compared to the insults that have been hurled at Blix over the past month. The debate resolution appears to be, "Hans Blix: Incompetent bureaucrat or cowardly diplomat?" He has an "unsurpassed record of failure in dealing with Saddam Hussein," wrote Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Program on Nuclear Arms Control in the Wall Street Journal. Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute questioned whether Blix "has the backbone to be confrontational … the first requirement for effective inspections." Former weapons inspector David Albright complained that he is a man who "ran a toothless agency." But the topper came from Sweden's former deputy prime minister Per Ahlmark in the Washington Times, who wrote that Blix was "weak and easily fooled," "easily misled," and "a wimp." "I can think of few European officials less suitable for a showdown with Saddam," Ahlmark concluded. This morning on CNN, even former chief weapons inspector Richard Butler admitted that in the past, Blix "turned a bit of a blind eye to some things that maybe he shouldn't have."



There is some evidence—though not much—that Blix won't be awful. After being deceived by Iraq in the 1980s, Blix demanded new, tougher IAEA inspection guidelines, such as the right to unannounced "pop quiz" searches. He used those tools to uncover North Korea's nuclear program in the 1990s, leading the United States and North Korea to the brink of war. So far, Blix hasn't shown any signs of being very tough with Iraq—for example, he says he doesn't plan to take Iraqi scientists and their families out of the country for interviews (where they could testify without fear of reprisals). But he may change his mind. The inspections that begin tomorrow are the equivalent of football training camp—inspections without pads. The real game won't start until after Iraq issues its Dec. 8 declaration of its "full and complete" chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs.



At that point, the United States will likely demand spot inspections of weapons sites that its intelligence suggests were left off the list. And when that happens, the hawks may actually prefer Blix to a strong, forceful inspector. After all, most of them opposed the return of inspectors to Iraq in the first place. Iraq surely has the edge in its game of hide-the-smallpox—many experts believe its biological weapons program has "gone mobile" by being placed on roving Winnebagos that a team of merely 100 weapons inspectors can't hope to find. Nor do hawks evince much confidence that any weapons inspector, much less Blix, can turn up documents stored on CD-ROMs that might be hidden anywhere in the country.



If you're a hawk who believes that a war that topples Saddam is the ideal conclusion of the weapons-inspection process, the best-case scenario is a strong inspector who turns up clear and convincing evidence of Iraq's weapons programs. But few expect that to happen, no matter who's in charge. The next-best option for hawks is someone like Blix—a man whose record of incompetence can be publicized and whose conclusions, if necessary, can be easily cast into doubt. President Bush won't need a pretext for war if Blix doesn't faithfully execute the mandate given to him by the Security Council. He'll have a real reason. Either way, the hawks win: If Blix finds weapons or complains of Iraqi non-compliance, that's a "material breach" that will justify war. If Blix finds nothing, the administration can point to his incompetence and go in anyway.



For hawks, the worst-case scenario is actually a strong inspector who, without finding incontrovertible evidence of an Iraqi weapons program, succeeds in convincing large numbers of people that Iraq has been disarmed or at least disarmed enough. That's one reason hawks fear inspections. But luckily for them, Hans Blix doesn't much like inspections either.