Letters to the Editor
Rowan Berkeley
Published Letters: 176
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Not even Laura Rozen has spotted this yet
[Read the article: "Actual journalists" as government spokespeople]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Syria’s Short Stack
James Acton, Arms Control Wonk, May 13, 2008
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1881/syrias-short-stack
ISIS have released an impressive and comprehensive report
http://tinyurl.com/3kvzez (pdf)
detailing the deception techniques used by the Syrians for the Box On the Euphrates. It answers a question that has been bugging me for a while: Where are the protrusions? North Korea’s reactor has two such protrusions. There is the tall, thin stack attached to the reactor building itself and the much thicker but shorter cooling tower to the South. The stack is for venting carbon dioxide from the primary cooling circuit. The cooling tower is for the secondary water-cooled circuit. Syria’s reactor has (or more relevantly had) neither. You can do without a cooling tower if you happen to have a large river nearby that you can discharge the hot water into and, well, the Box On the Euphrates is not called that for nothing. But where is Syria’s stack? I had blithely been asserting for a while before USIC presented its evidence that if the BOE was a reactor it couldn’t have been all that close to completion because there was no stack. I was wrong. Abright and Brannan explain:
"According to US government experts, the reactor’s ventilation system was carefully hidden. The air intakes of the ventilation system are assessed to be along one wall of the building, according to these experts (see figure 23). They noted that two rectangular structures located against the wall have louvers at the top through which air can enter. One structure visible is what the intelligence community assessed could be the foundation and remaining part of the stack (see figure 25). According to US government experts, a pipe or small stack could have been extended through the fake roof after the reactor started operating. Until that time, the top of the stack may not have been more than a hole or cover in the fake roof, according to U.S. government experts (see figure 24)."
Cunning. I’ll add that reading it made me feel a bit sorry for the workers in the plant. Stacks are tall for a reason ; they contain slightly radioactive carbon dioxide that ought to be dispersed away from ground level. Makes you wonder what other safety corners Syria cut.
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I just wanna say I appreciate the nice mood that people maintain around here
[Read the article: "Actual journalists" as government spokespeople]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]there's only three or four places I can go on the web to say how I really feel, and so far this has been one of them. so, thanks.
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peak david - thanks - have you seen this?
[Read the article: Tom Friedman's latest declaration of war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Charlie Rose interviews himself, in a Samuel Beckett style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFE2CCfAP1o
Lots of reaction shots, all over the top and out of context.
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n/t
[Read the article: "Actual journalists" as government spokespeople]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]CreekDog Donating Member (1000+ posts)
Tue Oct-23-07 01:14 AM
Original message
I think "n/t" should be nt
no/text ??? That makes no/sense.
nt.
better, should be in the DU manual of style
- http://tinyurl.com/3p9esp
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Finkelstein is certainly a zionist.
[Read the article: "Actual journalists" as government spokespeople]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Finkelstein is too straight for most people to be able to understand, in the sense that his thought proceeds in absolutely straight lines, whereas for most of us, thought is curved, like light in relativity theory.
It is rather a trivial question to ask, whether Walt and Mearsheimer are zionists. They aren't Jewish, and they certainly aren't Christian zionists either. They are 'zionists' in the weak theoretical sense, of accepting the legitimacy of the idea of a Jewish state. But I wouldn't call that zionism in the proper sense, because to me 'zionism in the proper sense' is a roaring passion, as are most practical nationalisms when in crisis, as zionism perpetually is.
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nationalism isn't racism
[Read the article: "Actual journalists" as government spokespeople]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]it is possible to develop conventional nationalism in the direction of any one of a number of racisms, for instance, by positing a 'core race' or 'hegemonic race' within the existing nation and proposing to enslave or expel the supposedly 'subaltern races'. Alternatively, and more sophisticatedly, it is possible to accept that the existing nation is a mere melange of 'races' but to argue that a sufficiently robust nationalism will allow the eventual merging through intermarriage of these 'races' to produce a new 'race'.
It is probably wiser not to think in terms of 'races' in the first place though, don't you think? there is an unhealthy materialist mysticism involved in the whole notion.
The problem with zionism, as I see it, is that via the mystification of religion it has been harnessed to a white supremacist form of racist evangelical christian american imperialism. In addition, Jews trying to expose this have been stigmatised as 'leftists.' However, they, or we, or whatever it is, are beginning to get our, or their, shit together and speak more clearly, as the imminent catastrophe itself becomes more and more obvious:
http://www.counterpunch.org/weitzel05142008.html
is pretty clear - and incidentally, since it discusses the Council for National Policy, I want to mention again that one of its leading members is also a luminary of the Lew Rockwell stable - Gary North.
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i don't want to be accused of exaggerating
[Read the article: "Actual journalists" as government spokespeople]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gary North isn't a "leading member" is any obvious sense, but he is the only systematic theologian I know of in the CNP, and his position is a very clever and subtle one, in that he isn't a Dispensationalist, and can afford to write erudite articles making fun of the Rapturists. You will find a lot of people who try to keep track of the theocratic movement in the USA are confused by this, as I was for a while. Just bear in mind, he has never had any problem sitting with the Dispensationalists in the CNP. The difference between pre- and post-millennialism doesn't prevent them from collaborating very closely on one and the same theocratic agenda. The difference lies in whether they believe, or profess to believe, that Jews as Jews have a future in the millennium. Pre-mils say yes, post-mils say no. At least, that is my impression, but I'm just a voyeur.
I'm outta here, g'night