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The Forum > Article Comments > It's all about oil > Comments

It's all about oil : Comments

By Marko Beljac, published 5/2/2007

Contrary to scare-mongering antics from the US, the Iranian nuclear threat, such as it is, is not a particularly acute one.

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I agree Bushbred, although I was just marginally pre baby boomer, born Jan 1945 but experienced the horror of Vietnam, but

Marko Beljac is a Monash University PhD student . He maintains the blog Science and Global Security. He is co-author of An Illusion of Protection: The Unavoidable Limitations of Safeguards on Nuclear Materials and the Export of Australian Uranium to China. Marko tutored under Professor Joe Camilleri at Latrobe University.

Joe Camilleri is a singer [Black Sorrows] and this dude is Joseph Camilleri - looks to me a bit like "cashing in" on a name
Posted by Divorce Doctor, Tuesday, 6 February 2007 11:41:02 AM
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The call by the QPU for more cameras fails to understand or acknowledge that custody means in custody of police in any circumstances that can range from being detained to being transported to actually being confined in a police lock up.

Sixty-three of the deaths from the Royal Commission research were associated with “police- custody”, thirty-three with prison custody and three with juvenile detention.

CCT Cameras won't film every possible incident or record what happens when police apprehending people before being locked up outside the view of the camera.

I find their sudden concern for the custodial safety of Aboriginal people pretentious and insulting to those who have already died in their care. There sense of public good is clearly not about Aboriginal people but about appeasing the political and public perceptions of public good.

So if we continue to expand our use of imprisonment, if we continue to build more prisons to incarcerate more people, without a doubt we will continue to have increases of deaths in custody. This simple equation is appears to be beyond the intellectual capacity of policy makers.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/rciadic/national/vol1/index.html
Posted by Rainier, Tuesday, 6 February 2007 6:49:36 PM
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Peter,

Yeah, I agree with you and checked out your blog; interesting and wide ranging. It really wouldn't matter much if the IAEA was to get some info from the other intelligence agencies. The same point would apply. The IAEA needs its own independent intelligence "agency" esp since the post Iraq system of safeguards is gonna rely a lot on intelligence. Otherwise, the IAEA will not be seen as a neutral international organisation. This perception would be critical in overcoming incentives for non-disclosure.
Posted by Markob, Wednesday, 7 February 2007 11:05:29 AM
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Thanks Marko

Yes its now clear (as an example of what independent intelligence "agencies" can do) that the the UN Inpection team (UNSCOM) in Iraq was effective in detecting WMDs in that country and ultimately encouraging Iraq to cease its WMD programs. That was the collection and action side.

Yet UNSCOM, like the UN generally, was frequently vilified by the US as being ineffective.

In terms of analysis an independent agency has advantages as it may be less policy lead than many national agencies (I understand the ONA has been improving).

Case in point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter is the analysis by Scott Ritter (former Chief Weapons Inspector (UNSCOM)) "Ritter had become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq possessed significant WMD stocks or manufacturing capabilities, the primary rationale given for the US invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. His views at that time are well summarized in War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know".

Over the next big matter (Iran) an independent IAEA intelligence agency might, at a minimum, backup assesments that are at variance from those of the dominant UK/US/Israeli alliance in the Middle East.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 8 February 2007 4:33:33 PM
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Firstly any nation has the right to protect itself, moreso, after a full and tortured century of colonial meddling, plunder and rape of the gulf's oil resources. Once more, the old lies are being dusted off and repackaged, such as - Iran has weapons of mass destruction etc.,
Recently ex-national security adviser Mr. Brzezinki's warned that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack Iran.
Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran.” Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war. “I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: ‘The memo states that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.
Full story at ’http://wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/brze-f02.shtml
Posted by johncee1945, Monday, 12 February 2007 11:49:20 AM
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Well Bush certainly has it up there for thinking

he has seen an atlas and knows iran/iraq are both "over there together" so he can just flip his black troops across the border and save the fare home and back

by the time iran war is over it will be time for a cyclone "down there where those blacks live in America" so he can bring em home and drown em to save on repatriation
Posted by Divorce Doctor, Monday, 12 February 2007 1:07:31 PM
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