Friday Afternoon Roundup - Against the Coming of the Dark

Iran and the diplomats and their friends in the CIA are celebrating the NIE report. A number of people are doing an excellent analysis of the dubiousness of the NIE report and I will link to them here. First though I will point out that the same intelligence community was certain that India and Pakistan had no nuclear capability until India and Pakistan actually detonated nuclear weapons.

Does anyone seriously think that our intel capabilities in Iran are better than in India and Pakistan, two friendly nations?

Caroline Glick covers it in The Abandonment of the Jews, an article title that summons up the lies and deceptions diplomats told about the Holocaust during WW2

Indeed, contrary to that earth-shattering opening, the NIE acknowledges that the Iranians have an active nuclear program and that they are between two and five years away from nuclear capabilities.

The report's primary authors, Thomas Fingar, Vann Van Diepen and Kenneth Brill are all State Department officials on loan to the office of the Director of National Intelligence. According to the Wall Street Journal, all three are reputed to be deeply partisan and hostile to Bush's foreign policy goals. Furthermore, for the past four years the three have reportedly worked studiously to downplay the danger of Iran's nuclear weapons program and to discredit their opponents within the administration.

Thursday The New York Times ran a story detailing the process in which the NIE was collated that lends credence to the view that Bush was compelled to accept it. According to the Times, in the months preceding the NIE's publication, Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, purposely prevented the White House from seeing any of the raw intelligence data on which the NIE's radical conclusion on Iran was drawn. This alone indicates that the intelligence community may well have presented Bush with a fait accompli.

For instance, Agence France-Presse reported that in 2005 Iran bought 18 Russian SS-N-6 ballistic missiles from North Korea. The North Koreans had modified the missiles, which were originally submarine-launched, to enable them to be launched from land-based mobile launchers and renamed them BM-25s. What is notable about these missiles is that the Soviets designed them specifically to carry one megaton nuclear warheads.

As the on-line intelligence newsletter NightWatch noted this week, "Curious minds want to know why would Iran buy such a system from North Korea in 2005, if it had abandoned its nuclear warhead program in 2003?"

Beyond that, the NIE makes a strange distinction between Iran's "civilian" nuclear program which has not stopped for a moment and its "military" program which supposedly ended in 2003. Since both programs are controlled and run by the Revolutionary Guards, it is obvious that no such distinction exists for the Iranians.

For their part, the Iranians are celebrating the NIE's publication as a major victory. And they are right to do so. With the stroke of a pen the US this week has let it be known that it doesn't have a problem with Iran acquiring the means to carry out the second genocide of the Jewish people in 70 years.

The NIE's message to Israel and world Jewry is clear. Again we are alone in our moment of peril. It is high time that our political and military leaders acknowledge this fact, stop hoping that someone else will save us, and get to work on defending us.

Via Doc's Talk

At Yid with Lid, 3000 CENTRIFUGES HAVE NO CIVILLIAN PURPOSE: Another Reason Why the NIE is WRONG ABOUT IRAN

Three Thousand Gas Centrifuges...a Heavy Water Reactor. When you get past all of the emotion about the NIE report, whether they found the information on some piece of scrap paper, that they are not confident that Iran hasn't restarted their program...all of those arguments it still comes down to Three Thousand Gas Centrifuges and a Heavy Water Reactor.

Just recently Iranian President Ahm-a-Sheethead announced that Iran has build those 3,000 Centrifuges. The Job of those machines is to create enriched Uranium. But Russia is already supplying Iran all of the enriched Uranium it needs for its "peaceful" atomic energy program. So the centrifuges must have another purpose, and I doubt its for making potato latkes.

Iran's Civilian Energy program does not use Plutonium, which is the product of a heavy water reactor. Yet Iran just built a heavy water reactor---but a nuclear bomb uses plutonium.

Until the NIE explains away Iran's new Nuclear Bomb making tools, its recent report has no credibility.

Via Boker Tov Boulder

Disappointed after failing to make their case on Iran and influence the outcome of the United States's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released this week, Military Intelligence will present its hard core evidence on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program on Sunday to the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during a rare visit he will be making to Israel.

Mullen's visit will be the first time a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has visited Israel in the past decade. During his visit, Military Intelligence plans to present him with Israel's evidence that Iran is in fact developing nuclear weapons.

Via IsraPundit, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”

The US began to paint Iran as a threat to the US, Israel and the Arabs in aid of building such a coalition. It also began to promote Abbas and Fatah as moderates, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, in order to elicit their support in fighting Hamas and it began to openly support the Siniori government in Lebanon to resist Hezbollah and Syria. All to no avail. Saudi Arabia had plans of its own. It was not worried about the “radicals” because it is a radical itself. It arranged to reconcile the radical, Hamas, with the “moderate” Fatah in defiance of US policy. It forced the US to invite a radical, Syria, to Annapolis and ceded Lebanon to Syrian influence. To cap it off, the Saudi King Abdullah walked hand in hand with Ahmedinejad for all to see.

Meanwhile Eric Dondero over at Libertarian Republican reports that Ron Paul keeps trying to have it both ways

As a constituent of Ron Paul's living in the heart of his District, I get every mailing from the Congressional office. Around election time, the mailings become more and more Pro-Military, Pro-Veterans and loaded with "Support the Troops" rhetoric. One taxpayer-funded mailing I received from Ron Paul's Congressional office last August, had headlines like "Ron Paul supports legislation to get tough on Terrorists," and "Ron Paul shows support for our Troops in Iraq." Not a single mention in the entire mailing of his opposition to the War.

Now, the mainstream media is finally catching on to Ron Paul's deceptions.

Finally Lemon Lime Moon is running an interesting series on the meaning of each night of Chanukah, Kumi Ori Day Four , Hannukah Day Three Moving Toward Redemption and Lights in the Darkness

There is no precious stone, no precious metal without chipping away what is wrong,without adding heat and pressure. There is pressure and constant chipping away of flaws with firey hot trials in the world. The crucible that will produce the final pure precious metal. Keep going, keep looking up, keeping walking, don't turn back. Do not falter along the way, do not lose hope, do not murmur in this wilderness we find ourselves in. Keep your lights burning.

The Sabbath and the Fourth Night of Chanukah are almost here. With each night we light another candle and yet another until we have eight. This was once the subject of a dispute between the sages Hillel and Shammai, with Shammai favoring reducing each night by a candle and Hillel in favor of adding a candle. In the end the school of Hillel triumphed as it usually did, and so in defiance of the Greens, another night means another candle as we add light instead of taking it away.

There is a growing darkness sweeping across the world and we light our brave lonely candles against the coming of the dark.