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May 30, 2011
New Iran Bomb Piece by Hersh at New Yorker

Request on an email-list:

Behind a pay wall. I urgently need to see.

As it was the requesting person's birthday the following response was seen:

Pay wall … yawn … googled "username password new yorker" … found "username: libsurvey@fordham.edu password: library" … hey, that works … print article … printer: PDF creator … upload … see link

Major points in the Hersh piece:

  • Iran does not have a current nuclear bomb program
  • Some U.S. intelligence folks think Iran had one until 2003 because it feared Iraq had one
  • U.S. pressure on Iran is not because of anything nuclear but "to change its political behavior"

 

Posted by b on May 30, 2011 at 19:31 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Thanks for finding this piece, b.
I am not sure, though, that the US government responds to real facts. Only to perceptions.

Posted by: alexno | May 30 2011 21:36 utc | 1

The gap between advertised policy and actual behavior has never been greater. The invasion and occupation of Iraq were advertised to be about a lot of things, all disproved. The one thing that it was about — control of oil — was never talked about. Same for Afghanistan. Same for Libya. Same for Iran.
Yet most Americans take their government leaders word at face value. Even some well-informed Americans, like Juan Cole, are eager to accept that Libya was a humanitarian intervention. Most cannot internalize the fact that their government routinely lies, concocting whatever noble sounding narrative needed to justify the most ignoble behavior. Public discourse is generally limited to the merits of the official versions.
Worse yet, it seems that word is getting out to those who do business with the government and also write blogs. There appear to be increasingly rigid boundaries around proper discourse. Questioning the basic motivation and integrity of government behavior seems off limits. Also, lines are being draw against pointing out the extent of the gap between the official narrative and actual behavior.
A while ago I posted on Col. Lang’s site, noting the theatrics of the Bin Laden assassination, commenting that it looked too much like a Hollywood script, and speculating on reasons Obama might have chosen to take Bin Laden out a that particular time. I haven’t been allowed to comment since.
More recently I commented on Juan Cole’s site, wondering what democracies democracy promotion had actually spawned. The comment was not allowed.
Of course, maybe none of this is new. After a Warren Olney show that discussed the official democracy promotion narrative about Iraq, I called in and asked, “is Bush really in favor of democracy? What evidence do you have?” The person on the other end of the line thought it was a good question. But, to my knowledge it never came up for discussion on the show.
Nonetheless, it seems that bloggers doing business with the government are getting more sensitive about what their posters say. Maybe they are being threatened with being held accountable for the opinions expressed by anyone who posts on their sites?

Posted by: JohnH | May 30 2011 23:30 utc | 2

thanks b, i just started it. note the scare in the third paragraph about israel’s anxiety being firmly grounded. which begs the question ‘if israel anxiety is firmly grounded then what would he call iran’s?’ cemented perhaps.

Posted by: annie | May 31 2011 2:49 utc | 3

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