Thursday, October 12, 2006

Credibility Watch

From a BBC piece, courtesy of a reader:
According to Israeli intelligence sources, Iran's scientists are now within a year of reaching the technical point when they could enrich uranium to the level required for atomic arms. This is regarded in Israel as the point of no return, after which Iran would allegedly be able to produce the uranium needed at secret sites.
From September:
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Sunday that the world may have as little as "A few months" to avoid a nuclear Iran and called for sanctions.

"The crucial moment is not the day of the bomb. The crucial moment is the day in which Iran will master the enrichment, the knowledge of enrichment," she said on CNN’s "Late Edition."
Either Iran is regressing in its nuclear work, or desperate public officials in Israel (and the U.S., of course) will say anything they feel is necessary. Which might it be?

By the way, here's a gem from that BBC article:
Despite Iran's frequent diplomatic reminders that its nuclear objectives are entirely peaceful, there is a sense of foreboding inside Israel.

The former Prime Minister Ehud Barak sums up his own feelings by drawing on a personal experience after the Yom Kippur war in 1973, when he returned from Israel to live in America.

He said he realised - while watching a football game - that if Israel had lost the war, it would have become a part of history and not a single game of football would be cancelled.

"And I carried this memory with me to the chair of the prime minister. Ultimately we are standing alone."
Yes, it must have been devastating to realize that there's an entire world beyond Israel's borders, and that mankind (and the NFL) somehow struggles on independent of Israel's interests.

Can someone please keep Israeli public officials away from the TV on autumn Sunday afternoons? Please?

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

CR, you are soooo naïve sometimes.

Iran can be ten years, one year, and months away from developing nukes because evil Allah gave them a time machine so they could defeat the righteous warriors of Jesus. Open your eyes and face reality, man!

10/12/2006 10:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

respectfully snipped...

Yes, it must have been devastating to realize that there's an entire world beyond Israel's borders, and that mankind (and the NFL) somehow struggles on independent of Israel's interests.
------------

CR, before someone accuses you of being anti-semtic again, I would like to congratulate you for being a realist, and a witty one at that.

It is to Israel's advantage to have the US wage war with its unfriendly nieghbours, so can you blame them for trying to a little inciting here and there.

It is up to the US to decide whether or nor it is to our advantage to champion Israel's cause.

10/12/2006 10:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=6628

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24677-2005Jan20.html

10/13/2006 1:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cheap shot, CR. Cheap shot.

But I guess it was just tooooooooooo difficult for you to go a few months without blaming Israel for all the world's problems.

You know what Barak meant when he said that. But you just couldn't miss the opportunity to twist it, and use it as Exhibit J in your "Israel is to blame for everything that's wrong everywhere" campaign.

It's amazing that someone (you) could be so cogent, so sharp, so "right" about almost everything, yet fall into this simplistic little trap of reducing complex troubles to one cause.

Which is mightly ironic, based on the rest of the things you say.

But whatever, everyone has a weakness, everyone has that place where the irrational sneaks out and sullies up the otherwise clear waters.

Carry on . . .

10/13/2006 11:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shewt, Mike.

I was with you until you said the word "Israel".

CLEARLY, CR has a problem, but it's not with this "Israel" thing you talk about. No sir, it's with the NFL.

I can only assume that Mr. CR is a fan of the college game instead. Or possibly one of those "soccer" effetes that insists that only soccer can be called 'football'.

10/13/2006 1:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, CR's a Yankee fan, so what can you expect?

Ok, that was my cheap shot, but I couldn't resist.

10/13/2006 1:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=9399

10/13/2006 8:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You people don't understand Israel's position. Their intelligence apparatus is infallible and all-emcompassing -- remember the timely warnings they've given the US over the years, all the lives they've saved? But they have this crippling blind spot about rockets and missiles.

Whether it's the New Russian RPG (tested in Iraq, big debut in Lebanon) that nullifies reactive armor and makes untidy holes in Merkava and Abrams tanks, or a total inability to figure out where guerrilla Scud-ette launching sites are, even when the missiles pass over their entire mobilized army on the way to pounding the same small town over and over for days on end, they just can't get it all in one sock. It's desperately important that they destroy the Kryptonite Bomb Factory before the warheads are safely tucked away in lead-lined delivery systems -- X-ray vision has limits, you know. Remember when Saddam dropped his entire poison gas factory and stockpile into a portable hole, folded it up and hid it inside a hollow Koran, severely embarrassing Little Boots and Co.? Do you want that to happen again?

10/14/2006 3:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Remember when Saddam dropped his entire poison gas factory and stockpile into a portable hole, folded it up and hid it inside a hollow Koran, severely embarrassing Little Boots and Co.? Do you want that to happen again?"

Clever, but not quite at the level of the IDS Art Students.

10/14/2006 3:32 AM  

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