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Today's Top News
What Are Iran's Intentions?
The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option,” by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat.
The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression—thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.
As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the air. Feverish U.S. primary campaign rhetoric adds to the drumbeat.
Concerns about “the imminent threat” of Iran are often attributed to the “international community”—code language for U.S. allies. The people of the world, however, tend to see matters rather differently.
The nonaligned countries, a movement with 120 member nations, has vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium—an opinion shared by the majority of Americans (as surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org) before the massive propaganda onslaught of the past two years.
China and Russia oppose U.S. policy on Iran, as does India, which announced that it would disregard U.S. sanctions and increase trade with Iran. Turkey has followed a similar course.
Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, Iran is disliked but seen as a threat only by a very small minority. Rather, Israel and the U.S. are regarded as the pre-eminent threat. A majority think that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons: In Egypt on the eve of the Arab Spring, 90 percent held this opinion, according to Brookings Institution/Zogby International polls.
Western commentary has made much of how the Arab dictators allegedly support the U.S. position on Iran, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the population opposes it—a stance too revealing to require comment.
Concerns about Israel’s nuclear arsenal have long been expressed by some observers in the United States as well. Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, described Israel’s nuclear weapons as “dangerous in the extreme.” In a U.S. Army journal, Lt. Col. Warner Farr wrote that one “purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is their `use’ on the United States”—presumably to ensure consistent U.S. support for Israeli policies.
A prime concern right now is that Israel will seek to provoke some Iranian action that will incite a U.S. attack.
One of Israel’s leading strategic analysts, Zeev Maoz, in “Defending the Holy Land,” his comprehensive analysis of Israeli security and foreign policy, concludes that “the balance sheet of Israel’s nuclear policy is decidedly negative”—harmful to the state’s security. He urges instead that Israel should seek a regional agreement to ban weapons of mass destruction: a WMD-free zone, called for by a 1974 U.N. General Assembly resolution.
Meanwhile, the West’s sanctions on Iran are having their usual effect, causing shortages of basic food supplies—not for the ruling clerics but for the population. Small wonder that the sanctions are condemned by Iran’s courageous opposition.
The sanctions against Iran may have the same effect as their predecessors against Iraq, which were condemned as “genocidal” by the respected U.N. diplomats who administered them before finally resigning in protest.
The Iraq sanctions devastated the population and strengthened Saddam Hussein, probably saving him from the fate of a rogues’ gallery of other tyrants supported by the U.S.-U.K.—tyrants who prospered virtually to the day when various internal revolts overthrew them.
There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by U.S. military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn’t pose a military threat.
Iran has very limited capacity to deploy force, and its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to take effect. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons (which is still undetermined), that would be part of its deterrent strategy.
The understanding of serious Israeli and U.S. analysts is expressed clearly by 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who said in January, “If I was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons” as a deterrent.
An additional charge the West levels against Iran is that it is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries attacked and occupied by the U.S. and Britain, and is supporting resistance to the U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in Lebanon and illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Like its deterrence of possible violence by Western countries, Iran’s actions are said to be intolerable threats to “global order.”
Global opinion agrees with Maoz. Support is overwhelming for a WMDFZ in the Middle East; this zone would include Iran, Israel and preferably the other two nuclear powers that have refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: India and Pakistan, who, along with Israel, developed their programs with U.S. aid.
Support for this policy at the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 was so strong that Washington was forced to agree formally, but with conditions: The zone could not take effect until a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors was in place; Israel’s nuclear weapons programs must be exempted from international inspection; and no country (meaning the U.S.) must be obliged to provide information about “Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel.”
The 2010 conference called for a session in May 2012 to move toward establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.
With all the furor about Iran, however, there is scant attention to that option, which would be the most constructive way of dealing with the nuclear threats in the region: for the “international community,” the threat that Iran might gain nuclear capability; for most of the world, the threat posed by the only state in the region with nuclear weapons and a long record of aggression, and its superpower patron.
One can find no mention at all of the fact that the U.S. and Britain have a unique responsibility to dedicate their efforts to this goal. In seeking to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, they invoked U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), which they claimed Iraq was violating by developing WMD.
We may ignore the claim, but not the fact that the resolution explicitly commits signers to establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.
Comments
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69 Comments so far
Show AllIraq WMD redux. A strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would blow up a whole bunch of nuclear particles into the atmosphere. It would in effect be a nuclear blast. Even though most Americans don't want war, the power of media repetition has proven reliable in manufacturing consent. So when a nuclear blast occurs in your country, how do you think you'll react?
The goal is to destabilize the eastern gulf without affecting the western gulf. Are they freaking crazy? The consequences will be over the top and unforeseen. The breadth and depth of stupidity in such an act is so mind numbing as to induce a mild catatonic state. Smoking war makes smoking crack seem like child's play. Too much LSD in the Kool-aid. Like a drop of water that evaporates before it reaches the ocean -- that is the sum total effect of one dissenter in the blare of mindless repetition. If this happens, then I know we are, in fact, too stupid to live.
THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY.
The terrorist threat from Israel and the United States is probably having the effect of persuading Iran's leaders to reconsider whether they should continue denouncing nuclear weapons as immoral and instead force them to change their minds and develop these weapons in order to defend themselves against the zionist lunatics in Israel and America. It makes perfectly good sense to me for Iran to have these weapons.
I wish Iran had military parity with the USA or israel, but that will never happen. Israel has admitted to recently destroying Irans most advanced missiles. If Iran cannot even produce missiles that will accurately target israel, without israel destroying them, Iran has zero chance of creating weapons systems or even protecting purchased systems that will eventually be capable of militarily protecting Iran from destruction. I understand tankers can no longer buy insurance for Iran's major ports (sanctions). Russia has backstabbed Iran by not providing paid for missile defense systems and giving israel codes to existing systems. Iran has no military chance and we have no meaningful way of peaceful petition. A nation that slaughters millions out of greed needs to be unincorporated. All resistance is defensive.
The last thing Iran needs is ANY hint that it's diverting nuclear material and trying to weaponize it. It knows this well and has returned to the idea of allowing the more intrusive set of inspections demanded by the US Empire but not required by the NPT. That is an Iranian intention, but Chomsky omits that--why? Indeed, the article is mis-titled as it's more about the Terror States's intentions than Iran's.
The greatest terrorist threat to world peace , the rule of law and the stability of nations is the USA. Our policies are obviously insane; who but a nut job believes that the way to secure peace from a nation is to threaten it constantly? If Iran wants nuclear generating plants, heck, build them for that country, and at cost!
We give six billion a year in aid to the next worst threat in this world, Israel. Yet they tell us that they will refuse to inform us in advance if they bomb Iran. Thank you Barack Obama, for your cowardice, incompetence and continuation of the rule of corporations and the continuation of the Bush/Cheney policies.
March 20,2012 is the date when Iran will no longer sell their oil in American petro-dollars, after that date, countries will have to use gold in order to purchase Iran's oil. Look for an attack on Iran in the next 30- 45 days. That is the real nuclear weapon of the mass destruction of the dollar, that the 1% fear the most. Just like in Iraq, the sanctions on Iran, are nothing but a pre-text for war. Case in point: Iraq was attacked about the time Saddam was phasing out the petro-dollar; Libya was attacked about the time that Kaddafi was changing his oil bourse to gold dinars. Looks like the same scenario to me! Wars, sanctions, blockcades, demonization of foreign countries and governments ( Like Venezuela ) are always about power and $$$$$$. When the whores in the MSM tell you it is about national security, they are correct, except what they don't tell you is it is not the security of the 99% that worries them, because it is evident to any American citizen, unless one is brain dead that the war mongers only care about the security of the 1%.
Exactly correct. All of the 'foreign affairs' around the world are orchestrated by the global plutocrats - the 1% as you say - who all seem to be megalomanical sociopaths.
It's very sad that in the course of their quest for wealth and power they will destroy human civilization (including themselves and their spawn), if not the entire ecosystem of the Earth. Gawd will not be pleased.....
It's not sad, we can only hope they destroy "civilization". Our brand of civilization was invented to enrich the .1% and rape the earth. It is nothing but a blight on the planet.
Yes absolutely 100% correct Paul Revere. These power brokers are so slick they even use people like Dominique Strauss-Kahn to distract and destroy. It is no accident that DSK was set-up. Look back at some of his positions relative to internatonal currency and the demise of the US dollar. The shadow powers use anyone and everyone's weaknesses (DSK was a bit of a slut and brute) to accomplish their objectives and that is self enrichment. They are the faceless, nameless 1% (big money) who only have those in public (congress and government elites) doing the bidding, the whores that they are. How many times must we go to war and lose lives in their name? Time for talk is over. Watch and learn everyone. Paul Revere has it correct.
Thank you for your sagacious and kind comments Bicycle60 and amitola. Paul
First we should empathize ( a trait that has been conditioned out of many USAan's) with the Iranian victims of this possible escalation of these ongoing criminal acts of war. USAan's have been bred to think of themselves and their financial inconvenience before considering the crime of spilling innocent blood. Second we should consider 13 Million people world wide marching against the Iraq war, on one day, did nothing to delay USA warmongers. Next we should consider what to do in good conscience. But DO what you must and remember all resistance is defensive.
I've been talking about strikes for some years now (I lived in Florida in 2000) without any success but I think now is definitely the time. A general strike across the U.S is the only way I can think to stop this march to war. Not everyone would join of course but since we put 15million on the streets around the world unsuccessfully in 2003 perhaps this time those in this country who were on the streets then would be willing to strike this time. I would welcome anyone's thoughts on this.
first off - most respects to professor chomsky - a great american and a wise and brave man
he tells the truth - no wonder very few people know who he is
hard to believe that his main body of work is linguistics - he is widely considered to be the father of modern linguistics
he has been telling us about the amerikan war machine for what 50-60 years
anyway, god bless live long professor
the amerikan/israeli/nato attack on iran is purely for political gain - iran is one of the few countries in the world today that does not central bank
they are a peace loving people
they are being threatened by the madmen in israel like netanyahu and lieberman who feel an "existential" threat -two crazy mad dogs
as for obummer - he is doing what he is told
this weekend he will be at aipac kissing all the butt he can get his lips on
as the zionist madmen egg him on to once again put up amerikan men and resources to fight yet another war for zion
it is the nwo/santanic death cult/oligarch/fascist machine and it is bringing about the destruction of the world with endless wars and financial bankster terrorism
it is not the jews - its the zionists - the rothschild created killing machine that has been killing unarmed and defenseless arabs for over 60 years all in the name of peace
working arm in arm with amerikan corporations who's end game is total world domination and the enslavement of mankind
iran is just a footnote in a long and deadly process
and as the last few years have shown us - we are not that important to these plans either
we, the sheeple, have been discarded and left to die on the side of the road and it all happens because we sit back and do nothing to defend ourselves
time to occupy...
Yes, great appreciation and respect for Noam Chomsky. His enduring efforts inspire and help us all. He continues, even after the death of his wife of many years.
Yes, we've been discarded and left on the side of the road to die. Our responses, collectively and individually, seal our fate. Let's fight to win the war against the imagination.
"hard to believe that his main body of work is linguistics - he is widely considered to be the father of modern linguistics"
Chomsky's work in linguistics led him to politics. He developed the idea that humans have an innate ability to learn language from observations that children in all cultures learn their particular language at exactly the same rate and age no matter the language. This led him to the conclusion that humans are all the same genetically and thus equal politically, and so he has opposed the elite for decades. (a little simplified).
thank you CD for posting chomsky's essay, thank you dr chomsky for being objective vis a vis the invisible israeli nuclear program (in eyes of US public opinion).
"Global opinion agrees with Maoz. Support is overwhelming for a WMDFZ in the Middle East; this zone would include Iran, Israel and preferably the other two nuclear powers that have refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: India and Pakistan, who, along with Israel, developed their programs with U.S. aid."
yes, and american nuclear weapons on ships and at US military installations around the region also should be dismantled. i like the idea of WMDFZ - but israel is not a signatory to the NPT, and refuses to acknowledge they even posses nuclear weapons. if the americans were to threaten them, say w/ a threat of suspending aid (considering aipac's influence seems highly unlikely), they in turn could blackmail the US by threatening their neighbors w/ these weapons regardless of the consequences (samson option). we've created and fostered a frankenstein.
WMDFZ would only work if israel allowed inspectors into their facilities. sadly, i don't see israel coming to the table until it has been defeated by it's foes. this can only happen if the US does not support israel and allows iran to retaliate against israeli cities. as long as israel imagines they can defeat any perceived foe in the region, it will continue to bully, intimidate and strike out at its neighbors.
...peace...
I have long admired Noam Chomsky but I think that the responses I am reading to this essay are flawed. While I agree that we the US are the worlds biggest threat to peace, we cannot and must not disregard those nations who would take our place in that hierarchy if able. Make no mistake, we (the US) has and is to date the only nation to have used a nuclear weapon against a civilian population. I fear that we and/or our surrogate Israel may be soon to do so again. But, the regimes in Iran and Syria must not be minimized in an effort to prevent our own government from going over the cliff. I have no doubt that if they could, both Syria and Iran would destroy any and all opponents to their status quo. This does not in any way excuse what the US and Israel are attempting to do, which in MHO is to fan the flames of war to distract from the more pervasive issues both socially and economically of the present state of affairs. Obama is no different from his predecessors in that regard. He is a corporate hack and will continue to hold a blind eye to everything he claimed to be for while running. Status quo folks with very little analysis that reflects the reality. We will enter into war once again as an economic plan to move forward while the milirtary industrial complex and its allies enrich themselves beyond measure.We ahve and continue to be distracted from the real enemy. Wake up!!
Yes, a WMD free-zone for the entire region makes much more sense than allowing some to have WMDs, while bombing those who might acquire them.
Humans have to achieve far more of the obvious, common sense solutions to large scale problems, or we will experience the kind of mass die-off that we've inflicted on lots of other species. Either way, life will prevail and our heartless abuse will end. Let's collectively make the choice to become wiser.
Here's a link to a video for my song, Refugee: http://youtu.be/-dF7y2T-Amk
Good job Paul. Your video is powerful.
Excellent video, Paul. I passed it on.
Keep in mind it is global corporations who are destroying the USA along with any other nation targeted. I believe Chomsky should have included in this essay mention of the France/Iran/Turkey/Brazil brokered fissile material trade agreement between France and Iran which overcame all of the barbarians false concerns related to Iranian fissile material but was squashed by the fascist imperial democrat OilyBomber. Also Chomsky uses the more accurate 0.1%.
The Holy Land.
There is no other region which can claim that it has produced more demons.
Just as Abrahamists believe that their god's favorite angel became the most powerful devil, here we again have the source of immense smug oppression, bloodlust, and delusion being celebrated as "holy."
I'm inclined to search for what these Abrahamic perverts would call a hell-hole of lies because they obviously are living in Opposite-ville and they worship the opposite of truth and justice.
Holy, schmoly, the place is no more sacred than the violence it is constantly producing.
Jews, christians, and muslims (as is also true of the other so-called great religions) are all supporting a lie. The lie of the true faith. They have little faith in god because, if they did, no land would be any more sacred than any other and no belief would be superior to any other, including the belief that god is created by men.
They have no faith in their god or else they would not do so much for him and the fact that they are insistent on determining how their god is worshipped means that he is obviously an impotent fraud who depends upon the violence and oppression of his devotees.
Finding the world within a grain of sand is possible anywhere, but it is the last thing these religious perverts want us to do.
Bb.Alley:
“They have little faith in god because, if they did, no land would be any more sacred than any other and no belief would be superior to any other,”
[“...”] X 2. I could not agree with you more. As technology allows a greater and greater buffering between the cheer leaders of conflicts with that of the participants, the conversation with one's adversary will continue to be an aggressive one.
“Our leaders order us as cattle
And beat our plowshares into swords,
Thus we gird our young for battle
And fill their minds with empty words.
Not for those who give the orders
Any place in this charade,
Safe behind their chartered borders
Not for them the grim parade.”
Garnet Rogers
Does israel infact have missiles of the range to strike the USA? But of course they could, by other means, very easily destroy USA facilities in der fatherland or abroad as they have destroyed Iranian military facilities.
Probably not, but they have nuclear-armed subs. It is not clear what the range of those subs is or whether they are powered by nuclear reactors, which is a whole other problem if they sink in the Mediterranean or Atlantic. Maybe they even have one in the Indian Ocean targeting Pakistan.
It is not logical for Israel to attack the US, even in provocation. Besides, they get pretty much everything they want from the US anyway and have little trouble running their agents in the US Congress and the White House.
But then, very little of this stuff is logical. Nukes in any form are so suicidal and idotic that any nation that has reactors and/or weapons cannot be called logical.
they're diesel electrics, or similar conventional fueled, with nuclear armed torps and the ability to fire cruise missiles. I'm not sure they'd be crazy enough to actually threaten to use them on the USA, but that's only a failure of my own imagination.
The answer, with their submarines, is of course yes, but this is silly and misses the point. Israeli nuclear weapons serve to coerce the US into supporting Israel not because Israel might use them against the US, but because Israel might use them against its neighbors if "compelled" to do so. This would be disastrous for the US and global security, and could well trigger a global holocaust.
It was precisely in order to prevent this that the US was forced to come to Israel's aid in 1973 when a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria placed Israel in danger of being overrun. The US rushed in heavy military supplies including US Air Force planes flown by US Air Force pilots "leased" to Israel. This turned the tide -- but nearly resulted in WW3 when the Israelis crossed the Suez and marched toward Cairo, and the Soviets threatened to intervene. Nixon placed US strategic nuclear forces on high alert and demanded that the Israelis halt their advance.
It is believed that Israel may already have possessed one or a few nuclear weapons in 1967 when it launched that war, and this fact may well have played a role in US acquiescence to the continuing occupation as well as the building of a close military relationship between the US and Israel (despite the Liberty incident).
Mark Gubrud,
"Israel might use them against the US, but because Israel might use them against its neighbors if "compelled" to do so. This would be disastrous for the US and global security, and could well trigger a global holocaust."
that's the conundrum in a nutshell -
...peace...
The threat to the US isn't that Israel would shoot the missiles at the US, but rather that Israel would shoot them at someone else and force the US to take a side. They hold the US hostage the same way home invaders do when they point a gun at a person's loved one and order the person to open the safe or else.
There is no such word as "infact".
Remember the false flag underwear bomber ( tried to ignite explosives that require percussion) passed through a zionist owned security checkpoint in the Amsterdam airport to the USA without a passport. Also the same zionist corp controled the Boston security the 9/11 hijacking pilots passed through.
No matter how much Obama chooses to abase the US Presidency, there is no amount of appeasement that will ever satisfy Israel. Obama is the weakling Netanyahu counts on.
Do you think Santorum or Romney would be less of a weakling with Netanyahu?
Romney would baptize all the Jews.
Duopoly is dead unless one can not see beyond it. I would be stronger than all three puppets as would many commentors on CD. Wake up and join the revolution!
Definitely yeah...in your dreams
No one has the "right" to nuclear power, the nuclear fuel cycle and its toxicity, to enrich uranium, to use uranium's depleted form, or to nuclear weapons.
It is a misuse of the language - you may as well say we have the right to ecocide.
Ditto all weapons of mass destruction.
Clearly in this adolescent phase of human development, strategy has been confused with tactics.
Surely the strategy of all human beings must be to find a habitable planet, for we have made this one virtually uninhabitable on our current geopolitical trajectory.
Perhaps we could try growing up - and rather than trying to terra-form Mars - we might work on maintaining habitability on this planet, whose name is Earth.
Manysummits
=======
Fully agree. But as long as oligarchs and their conservative tools run the world, we have to deal with them in power terms, the only terms they understand, to stop their ecocidal blitz.
Iran doesn't need nuclear power. It needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Just as only an armed public can protect democracy from conservatives, only under such a global threat as nukes would reactionary cons crawl back in their holes and liberal government can have a chance to flourish.
Hello ezeflyer
Unfortunately, there are actually no winners in the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.
The toxic fruits of nuclear proliferation treaties are now upon us. Over four hundred unbelievably poisonous nuclear reactors now exist on Earth - with absolutely no sane way of decommissioning any one of them, or of disposing of the astronomical amount of spent nuclear fuel rods.
Then there are the weapons, fission and fusion bombs, depleted warheads and ammunition...
No - another way must, repeat MUST be found to settle disputes, and to engage the natural adventurous predispositions of our species.
Manysummits
=====
"Unfortunately, there are actually no winners in the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction."
It kept us from incinerating Russia and ourselves and is keeping China and N.Korea safe from US attack. That's a win. Would there have been a Hiroshima and Nagasaki if Japan had MAD capability then? I think not.
I fully agree with your comments on nuclear power plants and depleted uranium ammo and I do agree with your wishes concerning nuke weapons.
ezeflyer
We were lucky.
When I climbed full-time I learned a few things, and one of them was distinguishing between luck and skill.
Amateurs climb right under cornices and across avalanche-prone slopes all the time, in many cases oblivious to the risks they are taking. Some might think themselves skilled, when in fact they were not - just the opposite - and lucky.
The cases we already know of during the Cold War in which we escaped nuclear holocaust by a hair's breadth, by having the right commander in the right place at the exact right time are similar to the mountain story I related.
More luck than skill - and further - were we to continue down the MAD path - nuclear winter through bad luck or miscalculation is a dead certainty.
Another example which jumps to mind is the catastrophic threat we now face of a massive geomagnetic storm caused by a coronal mass ejection or its equivalent from our Sun. Such an event is also a dead certainty - it was so reported by the National Academy of the Sciences in 2008, among other similar studies - and we are still unprepared. In 1921 and 1859 massive geomagnetic storms occurred - the difference this time is our utter dependence upon modern infrastructure.
Likewise nuclear proliferation, be it in the form of commercial reactors or weapons - is a disaster certain to occur if we do not take the appropriate measures to protect ourselves by some other means than playing chicken.
-----------
An Irish story to illustrate - and a true one at that:
(from Synge's classic "The Aran Isles", as related by an old Aran Isle fisherman:
"A man who is not afraid of the Sea will soon be drownded;
but we do be afraid of the Sea - and we do be drownded only now and again."
Mike
====
I take your points about luck and skill and think humans, by physiological and cultural predisposition. are going to be a relatively short-lived species. I would argue that we are, as a species, incapable of long-term survival in the world we are shaping due to the inability of our brains to encompass or truly appreciate the consequences of our choices and the reality of our own extinction.
One can perhaps identify numerous reasons for this - our facility with technology that creates (I would argue) false assumptions that future technological 'fixes' will always bail us out of the problems caused by our current technology; our irrational creation and dependence upon religiously-engendered 'eternities' and the idea that we shall somehow survive after death (including but not limited to multiple lives) abetted by our brains' inability to comprehend its own dissolution; our psychological inability to deal with realities we find unpleasant, etc..All, for whatever adaptive reason, are wide-spread throughout the species and which are problematic for our survival.
I would argue that it is an endemic problem (complicated by the above) with our species that we are incapable of adapting quickly enough to a changing reality; and that is, historically, always fatal. Ask a dinosaur should you come across one.
While I agree with your sentiments, and would feel far better about our chances at long-term survival if what you suggest would be pursued, your claim that the 'right to nuclear power' is a misuse of the language is a naive view. The reality is that we have only the rights that the politically powerful allow. The iron rule of politics is that the strong do as they wish, the weak do as they must. This has been a rule for as long as there's been government and I don't see it changing anytime soon. If the powerful demand that nuclear power is a 'right' (granted, a man-made right) then the weak have little recourse - except, I suppose, to get politically powerful enough to change things - and the language - which is what you seem to be saying. Remember that governments are not ethical entities, but nexi of power. It is irrational to expect them to behave morally. Remember too that 'freedom' and 'privacy' are man-made rights as well and available only as long as the powerful allow them to exist - a truth we are just beginning to learn here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Tirebiter
You confuse the issue - but I agree that rights are an invention of mankind, and all are therefore equally abstractions.
Yet we can make progress, perhaps especially on a linguist's article (Chomsky), by using language properly.
As for true power - it resides with the people - always has - always will.
We cede functional powers to authoritarians, while we get on with the business of life - they with death. Both are part of our human makeup.
Soon there will be mostly death, and we will change out the current authoritarian gang.
Whether this change will be for the better or for the worse is a function of contingency, i.e., luck. Some think we can evolve intellectually and morally. Science says this is possible. And trial will speed the process. But I wouldn't bet the bank on the timely evolution of consciousness.
Manysummits
=====
Sir,
How do I confuse the issue?
Not only are man-made rights equally abstract, they are equally disposable by more powerful men. The founders were not gods but, among other things, social/political climbers on the make. They first made sure their privilege was maintained whatever social order they created. Otherwise, among other things, women would have been given equal power, slaves would have been freed, and native americans would have been treated with respect as equals. But this did not happen..
What criteria do you use to determine proper language usage? How does your hyperbolic talk about 'death', the 'business of life', the 'current authoritarian gang' use language any more 'properly' than those you criticize?
If power actually resided with the people (an enlightenment idea with apparently little or no practical current value in spite of its apparent appeal), their will would be paramount - which is not what happens in the US. The working class make up the greatest number of people in the US but their needs/desires are seldom if ever addressed - so where is the power that you suggest 'the people' have? When politicians talk about how 'the people' want this and 'the people' want that, chances are good they're not talking about you and me.
Why would Israel ever want to attack us (except as a false flag)? They OWN the whole Congress, and the president. As Chomsky would say "but this is too obvious to require further comment".
Also, speculation about Israeli posession of nuclear subs is just that. They admit nothing, they deny everything.
"one “purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is their `use’ on the United States”—presumably to ensure consistent U.S. support for Israeli policies."
WOW!
Zionists live in fear, like all conservatives do. They will never give up their nukes.
Let Iran have their nukes. MAD solves the problem.