Countdown to Zero is now playing in a theater near you, at least if you live in a very “blue state” or a “blue neighborhood,” for example, Cambridge, MA, my hometown, or San Francisco. The movie is aimed squarely at the antiwar, anti-nuclear pro-Obama audience, which dwells therein and is all too susceptible to the “humanitarian” streak of imperialism. It is a very shrewd propaganda flick, as Darwin Bond-Graham demonstrated in his superb review, a film which in fact helps to pry open a little bit further the door to a war on Iran.
"If I was president Ahmadinejad’s national security advisor, and he asked me what to do, I would tell him to acquire a nuclear deterrent." – Professor John. J. Mearsheimer, July 9, 2010 [1]
John Mearsheimer’s imagined advice to Ahmadinejad leads to a simple and obvious conclusion. A country like Iran, which has been placed on the executioner’s list known as the “axis of evil” may have only one option if it is to survive. Get a nuclear deterrent – and notice Mearsheimer’s carefully chosen word is “deterrent.” The nukes need never be used, but they must be in one’s hand to keep one’s neck out of Empire’s noose. Given the fate of bloodied, ravaged and occupied Iraq, which did not get a nuke, and North Korea which did, the lesson is clear. It follows that the principal impulse for nuclear proliferation comes from the United States and Israel, since they are the countries now issuing threats of invasion, destruction, occupation and servitude, threats routinely carried out. This is a message that will not be found in the allegedly anti-nuclear flick Countdown to Zero, demonstrating one more time that the most effective lies are those of omission.
Countdown to Zero is now playing in a theater near you, at least if you live in a very “blue state” or a “blue neighborhood,” for example, Cambridge, MA, my hometown, or San Francisco. The movie is aimed squarely at the antiwar, anti-nuclear pro-Obama audience, which dwells therein and is all too susceptible to the “humanitarian” streak of imperialism. It is a very shrewd propaganda flick, as Darwin Bond-Graham demonstrated in his superb review, [2] a film which in fact helps to pry open a little bit further the door to a war on Iran.
The film is divided roughly into two parts, the first warning of “nuclear terrorism,” emanating mainly from the brown-skinned world of Arabs and Muslims, although a few seconds are devoted to Japanese terrorists. The second part considers the possibility of an accidental nuclear war and the very fallible command and control systems for these instruments of mass murder. The problem is that these two issues are equated. A “terrorist” nuclear attack with one or even a few nuclear bombs would be a crime against humanity on the scale of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But terrible as this is, it is quite different from the existential threat posed by the nukes of US and Russia, thousands of them on hair trigger alert, subject to all the vagaries of technical failure, misjudgment and miscalculation. An accidental or ill-considered nuclear exchange of this magnitude is of an entirely different scale, a slaughter worse than all the previous ones in human history combined, and a threat to the very existence of the species, given the real possibility of a nuclear winter. Osama bin Laden looks like a pesky mosquito compared to this danger. Countdown fails completely to draw that distinction.
The compulsory scenes of Muslim men chanting thanks to Allah for giving Pakistan the bomb were prominent in the Countdown, but Harry Truman’s televised speech to the nation after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so vividly shown in the classic documentary Atomic Café, is missing. Truman told America that the Bomb was a great gift and that God had given it to us. In his enthusiastic praise of the pro-American Deity, dispensing radioactive hellfire even as Japan was scrambling to surrender, Truman did not thunder “God is great,” but he did not have to. The explosions that incinerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese were loud enough. America was out to show the world, and especially the Soviets, that it not only had nukes, but would not shrink from using its God-given gifts.
The segment of Countdown that deals with the possibility of a nuclear accident or miscalculation is of some worth and drew the participation of some well-meaning activists. In fact most people do not know how close we have come to nuclear Armageddon on more than one occasion since the end of the Cold War. But it seems to this observer that this segment was used to sell the demonization of Iran and the Muslim world in the earlier segment. It also seems that removing the thousands of US and Russian nukes from hair trigger alert, which is a major threat now, can be readily accomplished. Obama and Medvedev ought to be able to do it with the stroke of two pens. But the US and Russian heads of state are apparently unable to perform this simple act that would remove the sword of a nuclear Damocles dangling so dangerously above us. The is due to the modern culture of empire, in part a product of the missionary zeal of Western civilization, which runs deep from Washington all the way to Moscow.
Coming at this time Countdown appears designed in large part to scare those who are likely to be antiwar into supporting further moves by the Obama administration against Iran. The hoax of weapons of mass destruction, most notably nuclear weapons, was employed to frighten the American public into a war on Iraq. And now the same is being done with Iran. As “W” told us, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, …..” Well, you know.
__________________
Notes:
[1] “Israel’s Nukes Harm US National Interests.” by John Mearsheimer, July 09, 2010. The entire piece deserves reading but to put the quote in context, here is a slice:
“There are going to be cases where it’s in Israel’s interest to do certain things, and not in America’s interest to allow Israel to do those things. And there is no issue I believe where that is clearer than the nuclear issue. As I made clear in my opening set of remarks, I do believe it was in Israel’s interest to develop nuclear weapons. By the way, I think it’s in Iran’s interest today to develop nuclear weapons. If I was president Ahmadinejad’s national security advisor, and he asked me what to do, I would tell him to acquire a nuclear deterrent. Is that in America’s interest?
“Absolutely not.
“Iran and the United States have different interests. No two states have the same interests. I believe it was in Israel’s interest to acquire nuclear weapons. But it was not then in America’s interest for Israel to acquire nuclear weapons and it is not in our interest now for Israel to have nuclear weapons.” [↩]
[2] “Disarmament for Some: Co-opting the Anti-Nuclear Movement.” [↩]
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"Countdown to Zero": Hollywood movie promotes war on Iran
24.08.2010 07:26
"Iraqi threat" (2002) - "Iranian threat" (2009)
source: “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government”, 24 September 2002
[illustration 2] Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2009
______________________________________________________________________
"Countdown to Zero": Hollywood movie promotes war on Iran
A review
by Rady Ananda, 5 August 2010
Seductive, fascinating and frightening, Countdown to Zero motivates the public to support complete nuclear disarmament and to fear Iran, which is conveniently the next country the US wants to invade. Framed in no-nuke rhetoric, Countdown to Zero is not-so-subtle agitprop. The film relies on conventional geopolitics to whip up conventional audiences into another conventional state of panic. Islamo-terrorists just can’t acquire this technology! This is painfully similar to what we were told prior to the invasion of Iraq.
Director and writer: Lucy Walker
Producer: Lawrence Bender
Magnolia Pictures, Participant Media, The History Channel, World
Security Institute (89 mins.)
Website:
In 2002, Condoleezza Rice warned the world, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Invading forces never found weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. They did find plenty of oil, though, which corporations seized for pennies on the dollar. [1] The same reason – WMDs – is now being used against Iran. When Zero mentions Islamo-terrorists seeking nuclear technology, it spotlights Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Repeatedly.
Zero features war hawks Tony Blair, Ronald Reagan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Baker, and Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf, as well as spies and analysts, including Valerie Plame. Past or current members of the Carlyle Group, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations share the screen with well-financed groups ostensibly focused on nuclear nonproliferation.
Some of the film’s talking heads promoted, engaged in and/or profit from the “War on Terror,” which critics deem a euphemism for Western resource wars in the Middle East. James Baker, who served under both Bushes, makes a brief appearance. Until 2005, he legally represented the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm dominated by former heads of state who profit enormously on Middle East wars. [2]
Joe Cirincione of the Council on Foreign Relations (and of Ploughshares, a non-proliferation group) [3] delivers most of the Iran-is-bad message:
“Iran is the tip of the spear. It’s the big problem that we have to solve.”
This marks a 180-degree reversal from his position in 2007 when he described to Asia Times:
“ ‘a group of people inside the administration who view Iran as Nazi Germany’ and who are ‘constantly exaggerating’ the threat from Iran.” [4]
But that isn’t the only inconsistency.
Nine nations reportedly have nuclear weaponry: the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Of these, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are not current signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). [5]
Leaving India and Israel free of criticism, Zero disparages nuclear members Pakistan and North Korea. Key information on these two nations presented in the film conflicts with other information publicly available – in some cases for over a decade.
First keep in mind that invading Iran is part of the “Long War” in which the US and its allies seek control of the entire region for access to its gas, oil and minerals. Long War proponent, Zbigniew Brzezinski, briefly appears in Zero. In 1997, he published The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. [6] Among those imperatives is the need to control Iran, a “primarily important geopolitical pivot.” [p.47]
Iran stands in the way. India does not. Neither does Pakistan or Israel. Brzezinski writes of the Central Asian states:
“Moreover, they are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.” (p.124, emphasis added)
Johannes Koeppl, a former German defense ministry and NATO official, called Grand Chessboard “a blueprint for world dictatorship.” [7] Iran is pivotal in those plans; Zero demonizes Iran. This is precisely the same fear mongering elites used when leading us into war on Iraq.
Zero isn’t even wholly anti-nuke; it only condemns nuclear arms. The film spends time, for example, on the Reagan-Gorbachev nuclear disarmament talks without mentioning what drove Gorbachev to the table: the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion. [8] The Ukraine government reports that the explosion released 100 times more radiation than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [9] But Zero doesn’t mention this or any other civilian nuclear accident. [10] The goal is not to ban all nuclear use, even though a nuclear power incident (by accident or sabotage) is just as deadly.
And, it presents absurdities. According to Zero, Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in Pakistan, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also recently asserted. [11] Never mind that a dialysis-dependent man [12] on the run in rugged terrain for nine years would have likely died by now. [13] Elites refuse to give up their bogeyman.
A closer look into those nations that refuse to sign the NPT reveals different treatment by the US based on corporate investment deals. That difference is reflected in Zero. Though sanctions are applied against North Korea on the grounds it refuses to reach a nuclear accord, the U.S. trades nuclear technology with Israel, India and Pakistan, according to sources enumerated below.
A Look at India
It’s hard to take the nuclear powers seriously about disarmament, writes Russ Wellen in Foreign Policy in Focus. [14] India refused to sign not only the NPT, but also the Proliferation Security Initiative, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Missile Technology Control Regime. India is now gearing up its anti-satellite system for deployment by 2015.
In India’s Quest for Dual-Use Technology, [15] nuclear research scientist Matthew Hoey mentions an India defense paper “that demonstrated a clear interest within the Indian military of deploying not only a space-based [directed-energy] laser but also a hypersonic suborbital delivery system with global-strike capability.”
Yet, somehow, India escapes “rogue state” status, with its attendant economic sanctions. Wellen cites Hoey who reported that the Bush Administration lifted the 1998 sanctions against India for its nuclear tests, “and then progressively loosened export and commerce laws against India.” Going even further:
“[In 2008] the United States approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group … to grant a waiver to India to commence civilian nuclear trade.… The implementation of this waiver makes India the only known country with nuclear weapons which is not a party to the Non Proliferation Treaty … but is still allowed to carry out nuclear commerce with the rest of the world.” (emphasis added)
So why the focus on Iran in this film? Why no concern about India, with its internal “insurgencies” necessitating ‘Operation Green Hunt’ (as the natives call it)? Wellen explains:
“As Andrew Lichterman and M.V. Ramana write in Beyond Arms Control (2010, Critical Will), ‘… the nuclear deal is part of a broader set of [US-Indian] agreements [which] US-based multinationals are … hoping to use … as a wedge to further open India to foreign investment and sales.’ ”
Oh, corporate profits are at stake. Zero’s talking heads don’t condemn India for refusing to sign the NPT, likely because India has opened its tribal areas to multinational mining companies. [16] Once those pesky tribes are removed (via Operation Green Hunt), massive profits can be made in destroying ecosystems for the underlying minerals.
A Look at Pakistan
Nuclear member Pakistan also refused to sign the NPT, but its relationship with the US has been fitful. In 1979, President Carter suspended aid after discovering a nuclear enrichment facility. After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan later that year, aid resumed in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan. In 1990, President Bush suspended all aid after confirming that Pakistan had acquired a nuclear bomb. [17]
In good graces once again, Pakistan just learned it will receive $7.5 billion in aid from the US. [18] Since 2001, Pakistan has received at least $12 billion in aid and “military reimbursements” from the U.S.
While speaking at the Brecht Forum last year, [19] Noam Chomsky (not in the film) accused the US of facilitating both India and Pakistan’s development of nuclear weaponry.
“Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals were developed with Reagan’s crucial aid. And India’s nuclear weapons program got a major shot in the arm with the recent US-India nuclear agreement.”
Former CIA expert on Pakistan’s nuclear secrets, Richard Barlow, may be the source of Chomsky’s accusation. In the 1980s, Barlow blew the whistle “that senior officials in government were … breaking US and international non-proliferation protocols to … sell it banned WMD technology.” [20]
Zero makes no mention of US involvement in Pakistan acquiring nuclear capability. It tells us that China gave Pakistan a blueprint for a nuclear bomb, and that Pakistani nuclear weapons scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, provided the rest. We’re told that A.Q. Khan set up a “full service” nuclear trade “in the early 1980s.” CIA operative Valerie Plame then tells us that the US didn’t begin focusing on Khan “until the late 1990s,” long after Pakistan joined the nuclear club.
This is simply not plausible, even if Richard Barlow was not the expert on Pakistan nuclear secrets in the 1980s as he asserts. Someone in the US was watching Khan in the 1980s or Bush would not have had been inspired to suspend aid to Pakistan in 1990.
Another discrepancy between these two sources: Zero reports that Pakistan joined the nuclear club in 1990, whereas Barlow asserts it was in 1984, two years after Reagan renewed aid to the country. Regardless, US aid was not cut off until after Pakistan acquired the bomb.
A Look at Israel
Zero also does not condemn Israel for its nuclear program, despite its refusal to sign the NPT. The film asserts Israel has 80 nuclear weapons, which contradicts revelations made by nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, in 1986. [21] An independent nuclear physicist examined Vanunu and his documents and reported that, in 1986, Israel had enough material for 150 nuclear bombs. [22]
Of note, Obama expanded nuclear trade with Israel last month. [23]
Another absurdity asserted by Valerie Plame in Zero is that “Hamas is a terrorist organization.” But, since when is defending your homeland from invasion an act of terrorism? Take a look at this map of Palestine lands seized by Israel over the past 60 years:
Plame won global sympathy when the Bush Administration outed her as a CIA spy. [24] Then, it was that Iraq had obtained yellowcake uranium from Nigeria, which her husband, former US Ambassador Joe Wilson, refuted in a New York Times piece in 2003. [25] For this, she was outed as a spy. How ironic that she would now help advance the cause of war today with terrorist fear mongering – the same propaganda that Bush used.
Why even mention Hamas? Gaza’s popularly elected government clearly has no capability of acquiring and deploying WMDs. It’s barely alive under Israel’s military strikes and continual (and deadly [26]) blockade of food, medicine and building materials.
That statement – ‘Hamas is a terrorist organization’ – stands alone in the film, with no further comment. It’s pure psyops. The U.S.’s unending support [27] of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine [28] does more to create instability than it does to secure peace in the region.
A Look at North Korea
Zero mocks nuclear club member North Korea, using old black and white footage of a stern Kim Jong II, yet worries about its potential to trade nuclear secrets regionally. Its fears are realized as North Korea may be assisting Myanmar (Burma) in achieving nuclear capability, according to several sources reported in Bloomberg recently. [29]
Hillary Clinton just increased sanctions against North Korea for its continuing refusal to sign nuclear accords, but the US may have a tougher time in Myanmar, given Chevron’s lucrative arrangement with the military junta. [30] The Carlyle Group, with its many business interests in South Korea, [31] also held (and may still hold) business interests in Myanmar. [32]
Given US handling of India and Israel, and its massive infusion of cash into Pakistan, three states which have not signed the NPT, can we expect a similar pass on a nuclear Myanmar (but not North Korea) given corporate interests in that regime?
A Well-Made Film
Put aside for the moment Islamo-terrorist bashing, elite plans for invading Iran, and the deadly hypocrisy of the US using depleted uranium in Iraq after finding it did not have its own WMDs. Watching war hawks demand complete nuclear disarmament is sobering.
Filmmaker Lucy Walker uses potent imagery, like the tennis ball representing how much highly enriched uranium is needed to destroy an entire city.
She also shows numerous accidents with planes carrying nuclear weapons. Citizens do need to be concerned that nuclear accidents are possible. This is one of the supporting themes of the film. “If the probability isn’t zero, it will happen,” warns nuclear physicist Frank von Hippel.
Mentioned in Zero under “Accidents” is the B-52 flight over the US in 2007, which carried six nuclear warheads. News reports in the film assert, “nobody knew – not the aircraft’s crew, not the commanders on the ground.” Six nuclear warheads could never be loaded onto a plane and flown 1,500 miles across the U.S. without anyone having a clue. This was no accident.
One unintended message may be that rogue forces within the US military are a threat. Indeed, former UN Ambassador Gordon Duff recently speculated about such a frightening scenario. [33] Decommissioning the US arsenal is just as important as all other nuclear arsenals. The US, in fact, is the only nation confirmed to have used all three WMDs: nuclear, biological and chemical. This is a claim that not even the immortal Osama bin Laden can make.
“Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah. And so it turns out that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, though not until we arrived and started using them.” Bob Koehler, “The suffering of Fallujah.” [34]
As presented, the history of nuclear proliferation is morbidly fascinating. Rare video footage offers a glimpse into the eyes of Robert Oppenheimer, the man who understood – and yet created – the means to end life on Planet Earth. He admits that the technology will spread; that it cannot be made secure.
Mikhail Gorbachev also appears, calling for complete nuclear disarmament. He put it most succinctly in a 2007 article: “It is becoming clearer that nuclear weapons are no longer a means of achieving security; in fact, with every passing year they make our security more precarious.” [35]
We can all agree on complete nuclear disarmament. We can all take Zero’s suggestion to pressure our public servants into bringing the number of nuclear weapons down to zero, a process begun in 1963.
But, let us also recognize war propaganda when it surfaces. The film’s sincerity in promoting complete nuclear disarmament is undermined by its transparent promotion of war on Iran and by its failure to condemn nuclear energy. By not condemning all nuclear power, Countdown to Zero misses a golden opportunity to unite peace activists with safe-energy ones to rid the world of such a dangerous, destructive technology. Nuclear fallout is deadly – whether from weapons or energy plants.
__________________
Notes
[1] Iraq Revenue Watch, “Iraqi Fire Sale: CPA Rushes to Give away Billions in Iraqi Oil Revenues,” June 2004.
Also see: Terry Macalister, “Iraqi government fuels ‘war for oil’ theories by putting reserves up for biggest ever sale,” The Guardian, 13 Oct 2008.
[2] Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger, “The ex-presidents’ club,” The Guardian, 31 Oct 2001.
See also: Dan Briody, “Carlyle’s Way,” Red Herring, 10 Dec 2001.
[3] SourceWatch, “Joseph Cirincione.” Accessed July 2010.
[4] Gareth Porter, “US frets at Iran’s ‘strategic dominance’” Asia Times, 28 Sep 2007.
[5] Wikipedia, “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” Accessed July 2010.
[6] Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,” Basic Books, 1997.
[7] Michael C. Ruppert, “A War in the Planning for Four Years” From the Wilderness, 7 Nov 2001.
[8] Richard Rhodes, “Arsenals of Folly,” Knopf, 2007, as reviewed by Charles Matthews in “Life and death in the Bomb’s shadow,” The Houston Chronicle, 19 Oct 2007.
[9] Ukraine Chernobyl InterInform, “The explosion of the reactor,” n.d. Accessed July 2010. (The site is now being administered by the United Nations Development Programme.)
[10] Wikipedia, “List of civilian nuclear accidents.” Accessed July 2010.
[11] Regional Times, “US-Pak nuke deal unlikely without satisfying Int’l community: Hillary—Bin Laden & Mullah Omar are hiding in Pakistan,” 20 Jul 2010
[12] Adam Sage, “Ailing bin Laden ‘treated secretly for kidney disease,’” London Times, 1 Nov 2001. Reposted at
[13] Lionel U. Mailloux, MD and William L. Henrich, MD, “Patient survival and maintenance dialysis,” 2010.
[14] Russ Wellen, “Would You Trust a Country that Named Its First Nuke Test ‘Smiling Buddha’?” Foreign Policy in Focus, 28 Jun 2010.
[15] Matthew Hoey, “India’s Quest for Dual-Use Technology,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept-Oct, 2009.
[16] Arundhati Roy, “Walking with the Comrades,” Outlook India, 29 Mar 2010.
Also see Roy’s speech opposing Operation Green Hunt, India’s ongoing genocide of tribal people to seize their lands scheduled for mining, 2 Jun 2010. Video and transcript.
[17] K. Alan Krondstadt, “U.S.-Pakistan Relations, Congressional Research Service, 6 Feb 2009.
[18] Matthew Lee, “Clinton cajoles Pakistan on security, offers $7.5-billion in aid,” Associated Press, 19 Jul 2010.
[19] Noam Chomsky, “Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours” speaking at Riverside Church in Harlem 12 Jun 2009. Transcript by Democracy Now!
[20] Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, “The man who knew too much,” The Guardian, 13 Oct 2007.
[21] The Sunday Times, “Revealed – the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal/ Atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu reveals secret weapons production,” 5 Oct 1986, web posted 21 Apr 2004 at
[22] Charles F. Barnaby, Ph.D., “Expert Opinion of Charles Frank Barnaby in the Matter of Mordechai Vanunu,” Federation of American Scientists, 14 Jun 2004.
[23] Haaretz Service, Barak Ravid, Reuters, “Report: Secret document affirms U.S.-Israel nuclear partnership” Haaretz, 07 Jul 2010.
[24] SourceWatch, “Valerie Plame.” Accessed July 2010.
[25] Joseph C. Wilson, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” New York Times, 6 Jul 2003.
[26] Cultures of Resistance, “Israeli Navy Attacks Gaza Freedom Flotilla,” 11 Jun 2010.
[27] 111th U.S. Congress, “House Resolution 867: Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora.” Passed 3 Nov 2009.
[28] United Nations, “Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,” UN Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 15 Sep 2009.
[29] Peter S. Green, “Myanmar Nuclear Weapon Program Claims Supported by Photos, Jane’s Reports,” Bloomberg, 21 Jul 2010.
[30] Gemma Richardson, “Corporations in Burma: Companies Operating in Myanmar Profit at the Expense of the People,” Social Corporate Responsibility, 22 Mar 2009.
[31] Moon Ihlwan, et al., “Carlyle Group’s Asian Invasion,” Bloomberg, 14 Feb 2005.
Also see: Ellen Sheng, “Carlyle Group Invests US$140 Mln in Four Asian Companies,” Wall Street Journal, 7 Jun 2010.
[32] Norwatch, “Drilling for the Burmese Junta,” 7 July 2006, translated into English at Business and Human Rights Resource Centre,
[33] Gordon Duff, “Did the Military Stop Cheney from Destroying the World?” Veterans Today, 7 Jul 2010.
[34] Robert C. Koehler, “The Suffering of Fallujah,” 29 Jul 2010.
[35] Mikhail Gorbachev, “The Nuclear Threat,” Wall Street Journal, 4 Jan 2007, reposted at
______________________
Rady Ananda
Homepage:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20484
WikiLeaks and the Iran-Al Qaida connection
24.08.2010 08:46
WikiLeaks and the Iran-AQ connection
by Marc Lynch, 27 July 2010
Most of the response to the WikiLeaks Afghanistan document release thus far has focused on the absence of major revelations, with most of the details reinforcing existing analysis rather than undermining official discourse about the war. A similar response is appropriate to a story making the rounds that the documents bolster the case for significant connections between Iran and al-Qaeda. Information in the documents, according to the Wall Street Journal, "appear to give new evidence of direct contacts between Iranian officials and the Taliban's and al Qaeda's senior leadership." What's more important in these stories than the details found in the documents about Iran's activities in Afghanistan is the attempt to spin them into a narrative of "Iranian ties to al-Qaeda" to bolster the weak case for an American attack on Iran.
There's no secret about Iran's role in Afghanistan, of course -- this has long been a staple of the debate over Afghan policy, and has also long been pointed out as an area of potential cooperation or conflict between Washington and Tehran. As with much of the rest of the WikiLeaks documents, much of what has been found about Iran's role in Afghanistan is already generally known, while other information in them is of dubious provenance. It's not like we didn't know about Iran and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. These new details do add to the case for taking Iran into account more effectively when designing Afghanistan policy, on both the military and political dimensions. But they don't add up to some kind of smoking gun demonstrating an Iranian alliance with al-Qaeda.
This use of the WikiLeaks documents brings back some old memories, of a long time ago (March 2006) in a galaxy far far away when the Pentagon posted a massive set of captured Iraqi documents on the internet without context. Analysts dived into them, mostly searching for a smoking gun on Iraqi WMD or ties to al-Qaeda. The right-wing blogs and magazines ran with a series of breathless announcements that something had been found proving one case or another. Each finding would dissolve when put into context or subjected to scrutiny, and at the end it only further confirmed the consensus (outside of the fever swamps, at least) that there had been no significant ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda. But the cumulative effect of each "revelation", even if subsequently discredited, probably fueled the conviction that such ties had existed and did help maintain support for the Iraq war among the faithful. The parallel isn't exact -- in this case, there actually is something real there, and these documents were released against the government's will -- but it does raise some flags about how such documents can be used and misused in the public debate.
That experience is something to remember when an "Iranian ties to al-Qaeda" claim, loosely backed by reference to these documents, enters into the argument to attack Iran which I expect to heat up in the coming few months. It would be irresponsible and misleading to use of the documents to bolster the weak case for war with Iran by raising the specter of "ties to al-Qaeda". But then, the agitation to attack Iran is already following the Iraq script so faithfully that it really only seems natural that we'd get some questionable or exaggerated reports about Iranian ties to al-Qaeda to complete the loop. The tragedy may not yet be over, but farce is impatiently waiting in the wings.
Marc Lynch
Homepage:
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/10588
Iran would have been attacked years ago, there are no plans to attack Iran!
24.08.2010 10:41
Poster
When the truth is inconvenient: A preview of 'Countdown to Zero'
24.08.2010 11:17
from the archives:
When the truth is inconvenient: A preview of 'Countdown to Zero'
by Nima Shirazi, 18 July 2010
A new documentary, directed by Lucy Walker and produced by Lawrence Bender, entitled Countdown To Zero, is set for wide release on July 23, 2010. The film has been heavily publicized and promoted for many months now and is surely already a heavily-favored Oscar contender.
Though the stated goals of the film, exposing the horrifying danger of nuclear weapons and reducing the planet's nuclear stockpile to zero, are noble and necessary indeed, some ideas promoted within the film - which can be gleaned solely from the film's trailer and recent interviews with film contributor Valerie Plame and producer Lawrence Bender - appear to ominously echo the same sensational claims made about Iraq's non-existent WMD, this time about the United States' favorite scapegoat, Iran.
Countdown To Zero acknowledges that there are currently an estimated 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world, spread among nine nations. Though I have not yet seen this film, I am confident that it omits some vital information when mentioning these nuclear-armed countries and their stockpiles, namely that the list consists of all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (The United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom), the only three states on earth to refuse to become signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Israel, Pakistan, India), and the only country to have ever withdrawn its membership from the Treaty (North Korea).
Additionally, the film states that Israel only has about 80 nuclear bombs, in stark contrast with many estimates that put its nuclear arsenal somewhere between 200 and 400 warheads.
The film lauds the Obama Administration's position on nuclear weapons and promotes the claim that Obama is really interested in reducing the US stockpile, using the START treaty with Russia as an example, as if agreeing to decommission a few hundred old nukes is evidence of an "historic" commitment to disarm. This seems a bit hard to believe considering that Obama has already requested $80 billion for rebuilding and upgrading the US nuclear arsenal in clear violation of the requirements of the NPT. Obama's twenty-year spending plan calls for the United States to actually increase the nuclear weapons budget to about $8 billion a year and while spending $175 billion between 2010 to 2030 on new weapons production, testing and simulation facilities, and on extending the life of nuclear weapons already in the arsenal. Meanwhile, the Pentagon's current and future spending to maintain and operate the equipment that delivers the warheads, such as missiles, bombers and submarines, is not even included in this plan. The Los Angeles Times reports that "spending for the weapons complex would peak between 2014 and 2018 under the plan."
The legal transgressions of the United States with regard to its NPT obligations are legion. In fact, the US has nuclear deals with both India and Israel, despite the fact that neither country is a member to the NPT. These deals, as per the US' non-proliferation requirements, are illegal. Ironically, the US opposes China's recent nuclear deal with Pakistan citing, of all things, the terms of the NPT.
Additionally, the Obama Administration's new Nuclear Posture Review, which is praised by the film's producer, actually leaves the door wide open for a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran, which it accuses of NPT violations on par with North Korea, thereby demonstrating a startling lack of truth in the Pentagon's assessment of the Iranian program. The NPR doesn't even mention India, Pakistan, or Israel at all.
The film's trailer features scary music, lots of mushroom clouds, and menacing titles like "Rogue Nations" and "Terrorists" over montage clips of Kim Jong Il, Osama bin Laden, flag-waving Iranian crowds and images of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a lab coat. It's clear what the agenda is here.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is one of Countdown To Zero's talking heads-of-state. More than living up to his war criminal track record of inventing pretenses for foreign invasions, Blair (with his serious face on) looks into the camera and states, "Iran. North Korea. They are prepared to start trading nuclear weapons technology." This is coming from a man who lied about Saddam Hussein's capabilities, is unrepentant in the face of reality, and who actively advocates military strikes on Iran in order to destroy its nuclear energy program. In January 2010, during the British Iraq Inquiry, Blair made it clear that "Tehran's actions have made him even more worried today that a rogue state could supply weapons of mass destruction to terrorists than he was when he took Britain to war with Iraq." He told the Chilcot committee,
"My judgment – and it may be other people don't take this view, and that's for the leaders of today to make their judgment – is we don't take any risks with this issue.
"My fear was – and I would say I hold this fear stronger today than I did back then as a result of what Iran particularly today is doing – my fear is that states that are highly repressive or failed, the danger of a WMD link is that they become porous, they construct all sorts of different alliances with people."
Since then, former UK ambassador to Tehran Sir Richard Dalton has revealed that Blair's view that Iran had cooperated with and aided al-Qaeda due to "common interest" was an "exaggeration" and a "misreading" and misinterpretation of the truth. Dalton recently stated that the Iranian "objective was never to destabilise Iraq."
In fact, the film intentionally blurs the lines between sovereign states and terrorist organizations and concentrates on the devastating consequences of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of nefarious groups. A review of the film points out that Countdown To Zero "claims that the pieces are all in place: that al-Qaeda, and also Iran, badly wants a nuclear weapon," then questions the film's sensationalism by musing, "if it really is that easy, then why hasn’t it been done?"
In a recent interview with Keith Olbermann, outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, who believes fervently that al-Qaeda wants a nuclear bomb and has been actively seeking the build or acquire one and says so in the film, had the opportunity to dispel some of the widely-held myths about the Iranian nuclear program, but chose instead to repeat and bolster them. Olbermann, left the door to truth wide open, as he asked:
"2002, as you will recall, we were told nukes, nukes to terrorists: Iraq. Now we’re told, nukes, nukes to terrorists: Iran. How much of it is hysteria and how much of it is real? And how can that threat and the idea that a state sponsor for some sort of terrorism might actually, that connection might actually exist at some point?"
Plame slammed the door in his face. "That’s the scary part," she replied. "That it is not hysteria. The threat is very real." She also revealed that Countdown To Zero doesn’t tackle the issues of nuclear fuel, enrichment, or energy in any way.
Beyond the single off-hand mention, it is highly unlikely that Israel's massive nuclear arsenal is addressed any further in the film, especially with Lawrence Bender, a Reagan-loving Zionist, at the helm. During an April 2010 broadcast of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Bender, who also produced An Inconvenient Truth Pulp Fiction, was a featured guest and Maher steered the conversation around to discuss which countries actually have nuclear weapons. The discussion proceeded like this:
Maher: I want to give the people some facts here so they have something to work off of, because I think this is an issue that people don't know a lot about. You bring it up in the movie, people have no clue like how many nations have nuclear weapons, how many nuclear weapons there are in the world. There are about 25,000, most of them in Russia and the United States, of course.
Bender: About 15,000 in Russia, 10,000 in the United States.
Maher: But nine countries have them that we know of, I mean, I would say the ones that worry us the most: India, Pakistan, and Israel.
Bender: [scoffs]
Maher: Ok...
Bender: [mockingly] Right right right, cuz we're real worried that Israel's gonna blow up the world.
Maher: Well..the...I...no. [Audience laughs] But they might have cause to use one, let's say that.
Bender: [dismissive] Ok, I don't...yeah...I don't think so, but...I mean they, y'know, I guess Israel...
Maher: Israel's hardcore. [Audience and Bender laugh] I love Israel, but, y'know, but if you fuck with them, they will blow the fuck out of you.
[Audience erupts into applause]
Bender: They do have a pretty strong conventional army, though, that we support and I think is - [trails off]
Later in the show, when filmmaker Laura Flanders finally starts questioning Maher and Bender's praise of Obama's lip-service nuclear initiatives and Israel's denial of having nuclear weapons, editor-in-chief of The New Yorker David Remnick steps into the fray in order to further laud Israel and classify their nuclear arsenal as a non-issue and non-threat (during a conversation that's supposed to be about global disarmament, no less!). Remnick states, "The idea that Israel is gonna use first-strike nuclear weapons is just wrong, I think...they're not gonna use this as a first strike weapon, nor is Russia, nor is the United States. I think the real fear, and maybe you [Flanders] don't agree, but the real fear has to do with Pakistan and Iran becoming a nuclear weapon country."
Bender enthusiastically concurs, exclaiming, "Absolutely!"
Then, to his credit, Maher jumps in and says, "There is a big double standard when it comes to Israel and nuclear weapons, I mean, let's get real," to which Bender replies, in horror, "No, I don't think so." Remnick counters, "But we're talking about use and this is quite a different issue from the Israeli-Palestinian issue which is, I think we'd agree on."
At this point, Bender, in an effort to take the heat off Israel, chimes in, "But let's not focus on, there's no reason to focus on this issue..."
The conversation then moves on to another topic.
So, according to the producer of the film itself, we should all just ignore Israel's deadly arsenal of up to 400 nuclear weapons, which is unmonitored and unsupervised by the International Atomic and Energy Agency (IAEA), in contrast to Iran's wholly legal civilian nuclear energy program. Iran's nuclear sites and facilities are all under the 24-hour video surveillance by the Agency, which has unfettered access to inspect and monitor all activity, and has conducted 38 unannounced inspections since March 2007. Every single IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program have consistently affirmed that, not only does Iran not even have the technology to enrich uranium to bomb grade (over 90%), Iran is not deviating nuclear material to any unknown applications and never has, Iran's stockpile of fissile material is fully accounted for, and Iran's known nuclear facilities are fully monitored and there's no way they could be used to build a secret bomb without first kicking the IAEA out of the country.
Apparently, according to Bender, of all the countries in the world that actually have nukes, Israel is the non-threat, as opposed to the country that abides by international treaties and doesn't even have a single nuclear warhead. With Israel's history of violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the use of illegal and banned chemical weaponry on civilian populations, who could argue? It's not like they've ever shown criminal disregard and outright contempt for international law or anything, right?
Meanwhile, the IAEA has passed a resolution "expressing concern about the Israeli nuclear capabilities and called upon Israel to accede to the NPT and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards," which Israel defiantly rebuffs and the United States ignores.
Furthermore, this Spring, when the 189 member nations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty agreed to "the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction," Israel denounced the accord, describing it as "deeply flawed and hypocritical," and declared, "As a nonsignatory state of the NPT, Israel is not obligated by the decisions of this Conference, which has no authority over Israel. Given the distorted nature of this resolution, Israel will not be able to take part in its implementation."
Obama, the hero of Countdown To Zero for his supposed non-proliferation efforts, also criticized the document (even though the U.S .signed it), saying that his administration "strongly oppose[s] efforts to single out Israel, and will oppose actions that jeopardize Israel’s national security." National security adviser, General James L. Jones, also released a statement which read, "The United States deplores the decision to single out Israel in the Middle East section of the NPT document."
The document, in fact, calls upon Pakistan, India, and Israel to all sign the treaty and abide by its protocols "without further delay and without any preconditions," and demands that North Korea abandon "all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs."
During his address to the UN General Assembly last September, Obama spoke of the necessity of supporting "efforts to strengthen the NPT" and warned that "those nations that refuse to live up to their obligations must face consequences." He continued,
"Let me be clear, this is not about singling out individual nations - it is about standing up for the rights of all nations that do live up to their responsibilities. Because a world in which IAEA inspections are avoided and the United Nation's demands are ignored will leave all people less safe, and all nations less secure."
Obama then accused the government of Iran of ignoring "international standards" by putting "the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of [its] own people." Obama promised to hold Iran "accountable," and declared that "The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced." And when, Mr. President, will Israel be held accountable...for anything?
This past April, Obama held a nuclear conference in Washington which was attended by representatives of 47 countries and hailed as "the largest assembly of world leaders hosted by an American president since the 1945 San Francisco conference that founded the United Nations." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to attend for fear that his state's unacknowledged nuclear arsenal would not only be a topic of conversation, but of consternation. Representatives of Iran and North Korea were not invited.
Five days later, Tehran held its own nuclear conference, entitled "Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for None." Prior to the gathering, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki laid out the official Iranian position on nuclear arms. "Iran does not believe in nuclear weapons nor does it need one," he stated. "Iran believes that the era of nuclear weapons is over. These weapons are not even of use to those who possess them. If they were, they would have prevented the collapse of the Soviet Union. They would have prevented the Zionist regime's losses in Gaza and Lebanon."
A statement by Iranian head of state, Ayatollah Khamenei, declared that "any use of or even threat to use nuclear weapons is a serious and material violation of indisputable rules of humanitarian law and a cogent example of a war crime." His message concluded, "We regard the use of these weapons to be illegal and haram [forbidden by religion], and it is incumbent on all to protect humankind from this grave disaster."
The President of the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons (on civilians, no less) has made no such pronouncements, yet he has won a Noble Peace Prize while presiding over two deadly occupations and bankrolling another. During his acceptance speech for the prize, Obama took the opportunity to justify war and point out the limitations of non-violent resistance, saying that, "The instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace." He also made time for some threats. "Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable," he declared, in reference clearly implicating Iran.
The two-day Tehran conference, which was attended by official delegations and "eminent experts" from about 60 countries, resulted in a statement which "stressed the importance of redoubling efforts to overcome the current deadlock to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects and promotion of multilateralism in the field of nuclear disarmament and non proliferation."
The declaration also "affirmed the inalienable right of the NPT State Parties to use nuclear energy in all its aspects," called for the promotion of international cooperation as an obligated by Article IV of the treaty, and "emphasized that attacking the peaceful nuclear facilities results in grave negative consequences for human beings and the environment, and is a gross violation of international law and the UN Charter."
Meanwhile, U.S. officials, from the President on down, frequently warn Iran that "all options are on the table" with regard to a military attack on its nuclear facilities if Iran doesn't give up its inalienable rights and do what they say. This was made perfectly clear, especially in relation to the Obama Administration's Nuclear Posture Review, when Robert Gates sent, what he termed, "a message for Iran," during an April 6, 2010 press conference held alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. With regard to an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran, as now authorized in the NPR, Gates stated that "if you're not going to play by the rules, if you're going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you." Gates chose not to elaborate on which rules Iran wasn't playing by, nor did he address the rules by which Israel plays.
Two weeks ago, Obama reaffirmed his administration's commitment to double standards when it comes to Israel during Netanyahu's conjugal visit to the White House. Stating that, of all countries in the world, "Israel has unique security requirements," Obama then pledged to the Israeli Prime Minister that, with regards to any international efforts towards weapons control and decommissioning nuclear weapons, "United States will never ask Israel to take any steps that would undermine their security interests." Obama also promised to maintain Israel's "qualitative military edge" in the region.
A Time article published this past week reports that "the U.S. Army's Central Command, which is in charge of organizing military operations in the Middle East, has made some real progress in planning targeted air strikes [on Iran]." Reporter Joe Klein reveals that an Israeli military source told him, "There really wasn't a military option a year ago...But they've gotten serious about the planning, and the option is real now."
This, Mr. Bender, is your Noble laureate. This is your champion of peace.
Furthermore, apparently Israel has been brought into the planning process for an Iran assault in order to curb the possibility of Israel acting alone. This means that two powerful nuclear-armed states, one that violates the NPT with abandon and one that refuses to even sign the treaty, are actively planning on attacking a third country, which has no nuclear weapons of its own, on the suspicion that this third country might decide to build nuclear weapons at some undetermined point in the future, a suspicion for which there is absolutely no evidence.
It should not need repeating that Article 2 of the U.N. Charter, to which both the United States and Israel are bound, clearly forbids "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."
Basically, based on the trailer for this film and hearing interviews with its own producer and participants, all of which ignore Israel's arsenal in favor of scaremongering about Iran, it becomes clear what one of the purposes of Countdown To Zero really is: yet another glossy attempt to jump on the Obama bandwagon and further beat the drums of war against the Islamic Republic on behalf of Israel.
It is a shame that a film on such an important topic and vital goal should, in part, just repackage anti-Iran rhetoric and Israeli exceptionalism as a call for non-proliferation and disarmament. It would have been refreshing for the filmmakers of Countdown To Zero to abandon the same old propagandistic falsehoods in favor of revealing to its audience some vital truths, however inconvenient they may be to the current 'Iranian Threat' narrative.
Entertainment Weekly describes Countdown To Zero as "a piece of responsible fear-mongering" and "nuclear-anxiety porn."
Bender, in a recent interview on the ABC News/Washington Post broadcast Top Line, credited the overwhelmingly positive response to the film to "good story-telling."
Unfortunately, not all documentaries tell true stories. This one, in particular, appears to be chock full of pulp fiction.
Nima Shirazi
Homepage:
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2010/07/when-truth-is-inconvenient-preview-of.html
CIA
24.08.2010 20:17
anon