Glenn recaps the latest U.S. hypocrisy, disdain for the rule of law and reflects on "why they hate us"

glenn offers a detailed run-down on the pakistan/cia/raymond davis affair here and here, laments the u.s. veto of the u.n. security council condemnation of the continuing israeli settlements in palestine here and reflects generally on the abysmal job the u.s. does in "winning hearts and minds" in both of those posts...

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The U.S. will send airplane parts to Syria for "the safety of civil aviation"... What about Iran...?

there have been a series of civil aviation disasters in iran dating back to before 2001...

Following is a timeline of aircraft crashes involving Iran in the last 10 years:

Feb. 2, 2000 - An Iranian Air Force C-130 runs out of control while taking off from Tehran airport and crashes into an empty Iran Air A300. Both aircraft are destroyed and all six aboard the C-130 are killed.

May 17, 2001 - A Russian Yak-40 plane carrying 29 people, including Iranian Transport Minister Rahman Dadman and some deputy ministers crashes in northern Iran killing all on board.

Feb. 12, 2002 - An Iran Air Tours Tupolev-154 crashes near the western city of Khorramabad. All 118 aboard are killed.

Dec. 23 - A Ukrainian Antonov An-140 plane crashes into a mountain in central Iran, killing all 46 aboard. Most of the passengers were top Ukrainian and Russian aerospace officials travelling to Iran to test fly an Iranian-built copy of the plane. The crash was blamed on pilot error.

Feb. 19, 2003 - An Iranian Ilyushin-76 troop carrier crashes in southeast Iran killing all 276 Revolutionary Guard soldiers and crew aboard.

Feb. 10, 2004 - A Kish airlines Fokker-50 plane crashes while landing at Sharjah airport in the United Arab Emirates killing 43 of the 45 passengers and crew aboard.

Dec. 6, 2005 - An Iranian Air Force C-130 aircraft with 94 people on board crashes into a 10-storey apartment block in the Shahrak-e Towhid area of Tehran, killing all on board and at least 22 people on the ground.

Jan. 9, 2006 - An Iranian military plane crashes in northwest Iran, killing at least 11 people on board, including several Revolutionary Guard commanders.

Sept. 1 - An Iran Air Tour Tupolev 154 passenger plane catches fire on landing at an airport in the northeastern city of Mashhad, killing 29 people.

Nov. 27 - An Antonov-74 military aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from a Tehran airport, killing 36 people on board.

Aug. 24, 2008 - A Boeing 737-200 belonging to private Kyrgyz company Itek-Air, chartered by an Iranian company and bound for Iran, crashes at Bishkek airport. Around 70 people, including members of a local teenage basketball team, die.

July 15, 2009 - A Caspian Airlines Tupolev aircraft, carrying 153 passengers and 15 crew from Tehran to Yerevan in Armenia, crashes near the city of Qazvin killing all aboard.

July 24, 2009 - A passenger aircraft with 153 people on board catches fire while landing at Mashhad airport in northeast Iran, killing 17 and injuring 23, the state broadcaster's website quotes an airport official as saying.

it's a pretty grim record, due in no small part to the sanctions the u.s. and, through u.s. pressure, the u.n. security council, has imposed on iran, particularly the ban on selling aircraft and repair parts to iranian aviation companies that's been in place since 1995...

now we learn that that same restriction is going to be eased against syria...

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would take new steps to ease American sanctions against Syria on a case-by-case basis, the latest sign of a diplomatic thaw.

[...]

Under the Syria Accountability Act, as the sanctions are known, the president can work through the Commerce Department to grant exemptions for national security reasons in one of six categories, including one that allows for the sale of airplane parts to ensure safe civil aviation. Under the Bush administration, however, a limited number of such exemptions were granted.

“We are going to look at these waivers, especially on airplane spare parts, and our predisposition is going to be, view them favorably, as opposed to the prior administration’s policy,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

given the abominable track record for aviation in iran over the past eight years, wouldn't it stand to reason that the great benevolent united states of america might see fit to ease the restriction for iran in the interest of reducing civilian deaths from aviation accidents...?

sigh...

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Juan Cole on how Israel controls U.S. policy

you simply MUST read juan cole's excellent analysis of the bush, olmert, rice, khalilzad intrigue related to the un security council cease-fire resolution on gaza... it's complete, insightful, and probably pretty damn accurate...

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War profiteering must have hit a plateau

yesterday's story from the new york sun...

Attack on Iran Said To Be Imminent

UNITED NATIONS — In a sign that U.N. Security Council-based diplomacy is losing steam, a number of sources are reporting that a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities may be imminent. France and America also are pushing for tighter economic sanctions against Tehran, without U.N. approval.

prompted a few thoughts from moi...

the 2001-2002-2003, staged rollout of the latest cash generation war videogame and its related software, kicked into high gear by the gwot, has started to plateau, so it's time to crank it up a notch, dontcha know... after cutting all those recent arms deals in egypt, the near east, the middle east and south asia, it'd be a damn shame if there wasn't an opportunity to USE 'em... and, yeah, the aftermarket (parts, spares, replacements) is damn near as lucrative as it is for the new models, but if ya don't have SOMETHIN' goin' on SOMEWHERE, nothin's gonna fall to the bottom line... those pesky profit margins and quarterly results just gotta keep trending up, up, up... you know what it's like with those wall street analysts... it's the same old story... "what have you done for me LATELY...?" damn, running a business is just so LOADED with daily challenges...!

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Bush: one of the more monstrous figures in recent world history

juan cole...

Bush-Aznar Transcript: The War Crime of the Century

I made two claims about the transcript published by El Pais of Bush's conversations with Spanish leader Jose Maria Aznar on 22 February, 2003, at Crawford, Texas.

The first is that the transcript shows that Bush intended to disregard a negative outcome in his quest for a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a war against Iraq.

[...]

Bush made it very clear that he was willing to trash the charter of the United Nations and to take the world back to the 1930s,to an era of mass politics when powerful states launched wars of choice at will on the basis of fevered rhetoric and fits of pique.

The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected, an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia, presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some documents on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

[...]

By refusing to allow Saddam to flee with guarantees, Bush ensured that a land war would have to be fought. This is one of the greatest crimes any US president ever committed, and it is all the more contemptible for being rooted in mere pride and petulance.

Note that even General Pervez Musharraf allowed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to go to Saudi Arabia with similar guarantees, even though Sharif was alleged to have attempted to cause Musharraf's death. A tinpot Pakistani general had more devotion to the good of his country, and more good sense, than did George W. Bush.

The passage in which Bush agrees with Aznar that it would be better if Baghdad fell without a fight refers to the possibility that the Iraqi officer corps would assassinate Saddam and decline to put up a fight. Bush would very much have liked such a fantasy to come true.

But he did not need to fantasize. He had a real offer in the hand, of Saddam's flight. He rejected it. By rejecting it, he will have killed at least a million persons and became one of the more monstrous figures in recent world history.

you can read the transcript here...

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Turning to the U.N. for Iraq help

oh, man... after dissing the u.n. before, during and AFTER the illegal invasion of iraq, lying to the security council about iraq wmd, sending john "raging bull" bolton to take it down from the inside, and, in general, choosing to impugn the opportunities to engage in multilateral, global efforts, bush NOW wants u.n. help to fix the unparalleled disaster HE created...?

The Bush administration is developing plans to "internationalise" the Iraq crisis, including an expanded role for the United Nations, as a way of reducing overall US responsibility for Iraq's future and limiting domestic political fallout from the war as the 2008 election season approaches.

The move comes amid rising concern in Washington that President George Bush's controversial Baghdad security surge, led by the US commander, General David Petraeus, is not working and that Iran is winning the clandestine battle for control of Iraq.

actually, i think this is the first iraq option i've heard that actually makes some sense, if and only if it is accompanied by u.s. withdrawal... do i think it is going to happen...? read this and then ask the question again...

[A] former senior administration official who is familiar with administration thinking, predicted Mr Bush would instead ask Congress to agree a six-month extension of the surge after Gen Petraeus presented his "progress report" in early September.

and now that bush has a blank check, why would we expect anything different...?

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OMG! The U.S. is going to TALK to Iran and Syria?

look what happens when darth leaves town... everything goes straight to hell...

US officials will take part alongside Syria, Iran and other regional states in a planned March meeting in Baghdad on Iraq's future, a senior US official said Tuesday.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed the meeting, expected to take place next month, and would not rule out possible bilateral contacts between US envoys and their Syrian and Iranian counterparts.

"The Iraqi government has convened this meeting of its neighbors plus the permanent members of the (UN) Security Council," McCormack told reporters.

"It is an opportunity for all states attending to enunciate their positive vision for Iraq and to play a responsible role in Iraq's future, contribute to that, including Iran and Syria," he said.

who would have thunk it...?

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It's all part of provoking a confrontation

and proving who's the big dog...

Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday the United States, Europe and the U.N. Security Council are "humiliating" Iran by demanding that it suspend uranium enrichment before any negotiations and then dictating its rewards.

He said the package of economic and political incentives put forward in June 2006 by the U.S. and key European countries, which was later endorsed by the council, did not mention the key issue of security guarantees for Iran or adequately address the possibility of U.S. diplomatic recognition if Tehran renounces enrichment.

"The first incentive, I think, is to sit down with them in a direct talk rather than saying to them 'you do this, thereafter we will sit down at a table and tell you what you get for it,'" Blix said. "That's getting away from a humiliating neo-colonial attitude to a more normal (one)."

"People have their own pride whether you like them or don't," he told a media briefing ahead of a daylong conference on "Weapons Threats and International Security" organized by The Century Foundation, a Washington-based research institute on domestic and international challenges.

hearkening back to yesterday's post on chomsky...

[I]ndependence is not tolerated. [...] International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places.

because, after all, as both arthur silber and chomsky note...

arthur...

We see our success, and our power on the world stage, as inherently tied to superior moral virtue. We are so successful because we are uniquely virtuous, and our national power confirms our morality, in relation to which all other peoples and all other countries can only suffer in comparison.

chomsky...

It's a principle that anything our leaders do is for noble reasons. It may be mistaken, it may be ugly, but basically noble. And if you bring in normal moderate, conservative, strategic, economic objectives you are threatening that principle. It's remarkable the extent to which it's held.

and, because it's US doing it, it HAS to be right...

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"Of course we would"

of COURSE they would...

At a White House press briefing on Friday, Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto was asked whether the Bush Administration would oppose "any effort to revoke" the 2002 congressional resolution which authorized the war in Iraq.

"Of course we would," said Fratto. "You know, the plan that we're in right now and that we're going forward on is to carry out the president's proposal to bring security to Baghdad. And the authorization in the Security Council resolution is clear."

read this tortured rationale and feel the pain...

[A] reporter asked why it would be "unreasonable" for Congress to consider a different resolution since "the threat that was envisioned at the time that resolution was passed was obviously Saddam Hussein."

"He has been gone now for nearly four years," the reporter continued. "Why would it be unreasonable for the Congress to consider that since the first of those two conditions has long since been met, that you wouldn't be in need of a different kind of resolution?"

Fratto replied, "Because it's simply not necessary. I mean, I think the second part of that section on authorization is still important and envisioned the changing nature there."

"I mean, the president -- you know, the president said this isn't the fight we entered in Iraq, but it's the fight we're in," Fratto continued. "I think that is what is recognized in the international community now. Certainly at the U.N. Security Council it envisioned changing circumstances in Iraq. There have been a lot of changing circumstances in Iraq. We went in as a multinational force under U.N. authorization to take military action in Iraq. We were there as an occupying force, and now we're there at the invitation of the sovereign elected government of Iraq."

The White House deputy press secretary said that "the war authorization spoke to and certainly envisioned subsequent U.N. Security Council resolutions, and the authorization's very clear in that the president has the authority to strictly enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions." Fratto then said he wasn't "sure if the Democrats are contemplating that the United States should not enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions."

"If that's something that they're contemplating, I think that would be interesting to some people to say the least," Fratto said.

lemme see... as i recall, john bolton, the former recess-appointed u.s. ambassador to that selfsame united nations, was of the opinion that the top floors of the u.n. hq could easily be removed without a noticeable difference... so, we're now beholden to the u.n...?

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