Has Bush decided to bomb Iran?

Because clearly… given past actions… if he has, then it really seems inevitable. (either by the US or it’s effective proxy, Israel which just practiced the first 1/4 of the run across northern Syria towards Iran when it was shot at by Syrian Air Defenses.).

What past actions? Well Iraq obviously, but not for the reasons we thought we know… but for the reasons we now know for sure.

Both the French intelligence service and the CIA paid [Naji] Sabri [-- Saddam's foreign minister --] hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least $200,000 in the case of the CIA) to give them documents on Saddam’s WMD programs. “The information detailed that Saddam may have wished to have a program, that his engineers had told him they could build a nuclear weapon within two years if they had fissile material, which they didn’t, and that they had no chemical or biological weapons,” one of the former CIA officers told me.

The next day, Sept. 18, Tenet briefed Bush on Sabri. “Tenet told me he briefed the president personally,” said one of the former CIA officers. According to Tenet, Bush’s response was to call the information “the same old thing.” Bush insisted it was simply what Saddam wanted him to think. “The president had no interest in the intelligence,” said the CIA officer. The other officer said, “Bush didn’t give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up.”

I wonder if that is the simple explanation why there was such a sudden about-face by France in late-summer of ’03 when Chirac was at one point rallying his own troops for war… and then a few weeks later the largest obstacle to Bush and Blair.

Perhaps it’s as simple as… Chirac trusted his own Intelligence Agency… Bush, chose not to listen… who is Bush listening to now?

The Presidential Elections simply can’t come fast enough.

Two Days of Melt in the Arctic

See the images below… to see how fast the ice is receding in the Arctic. The difference is quite striking.

As I blogged on the 9th, the Arctic is at a record minimum for ice cover.

Here is the image from the 9th:
Aug92007ArcticIceMinimum

Here is todays image (11th):
Aug112007Arcticicecover
(click this one to see a bigger version)

Look at the difference just 2 days makes… the large hole developing in the Western Canadian Arctic… the widening of the western entrance to the NW Passage… the clearing of ice in the Canadian archipelago… and the extreme thinning of the Russian side towards the North Pole (deepest purple is thicker.. red–>yellow is thinner.) The north pole is the white dot.

(Now… would all this worry about sovereignty in the Arctic really be happening if our oil reserves really were all hunky dory?)

Oh.. and if you’re curious about where the new Canadian port at Nanisivic and expanded arctic base at Resolute Bay is… here’s a map…

Aug92007ArcticIceMinimumwithmap

North Pole ice reaches all-time low

According to “The Cryosphere Today“:

Thursday, August 9, 2007 – New historic sea ice minimum
Today, the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area broke the record for the lowest recorded ice area in recorded history. The new record came a full month before the historic summer minimum typically occurs. There is still a month or more of melt likely this year. It is therefore almost certain that the previous 2005 record will be annihilated by the final 2007 annual minima closer to the end of this summer.

In previous record sea ice minima years, ice area anomalies were confined to certain sectors (N. Atlantic, Beaufort/Bering Sea, etc). The character of 2007′s sea ice melt is unique in that it is dramatic and covers the entire Arctic sector. Atlantic, Pacific and even the central Arctic sectors are showing large negative sea ice area anomalies.

Not much else to say… you can read the rest at the site itself.

Arctic Minimum August 9 2007
The Northwest Passage is open.

But it’s worth noting…. if this trend holds, then those little ice-breaking patrol boats Stephen Harper has promised the military will be all we really need to secure the waters up there, Summer or Winter. Maybe Stephen Harper isn’t being cheap… he’s just freakin’ psychic!!

(Here’s a description from the Canadian American Strategic Review at Simon Fraser University of what what this small ice breakers “should” look like)

Congratulations to Iraq

There is so little good news from Iraq, this should be the top story on every newcast and blog around the world.

The Iraqi National Soccer team (The Lions) has won the Asian cup in a major upset. They beat Australia, South Korea and finally Saudi Arabia today in the final. (See the link for great pictures).

The team is made up of all Iraqis, Sunni, Shia and Kurd.

All of Iraq rejoiced today, even as bombs went off.

This is the type of thing that can truly revive a nation and allow it to remember the pride it always had.

May Iraqis revel in this victory.. and may it help them continue being strong in the face of terrible, terrible circumstances.

(It was so very special today, to see my RSS feed for Iraqi blogs, and every single one was positive and cheering… wonderful wonderful day)

August 2008 – US a Dictatorship warring with Iran

I don’t believe it… but a former Reagan official does…

Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney…. a year from now, the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran

Listen to the Interview with Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary to the Treasury during the Reagan administration. (And so called “father” of Reaganomics).

And he doesn’t think his words are very inflammatory…