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Monday, January 12, 2009 12:00 AM

Obama v. the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

Last year, the NIE famously concluded with "high confidence" that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Why did Obama say yesterday that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons?

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  • Monday, January 12, 2009 06:21 PM

    Indeed, Steele

    Hasn't it ever occured to you that there is a strategic way to have a discourse? Right wing zealots and pro-Zionists attract power worshipping people with little reasoning skills and an angry disposition. These are a small portion of the population, but often the much larger group who are capable of reason are turned off by what they see as unconvincing, emotional arguments from the other side. A Zionist doens't have to make sense--indeed, their rants have to be hateful to satisfy their energetic constituency. But someone who opposes the kind of things Israel does in the occupied territories and in places like Lebanon, has to access a different group for support. A group not vulnerable to frothing emotional appeals to inner rage, but to human appeals to their better nature that incorporate concepts of justice, fairness and equality.

    Your anti-Jewish rants belong on the other side of the fence. They turn off people who would normally be your ally. Racism and ethnic hatred for its own sake are the stuff of the right wing noise machine. Besides being rationally untenable, and for the most part absurdly generalized and anecdotal, they are simply not very effective ways of getting your message across.

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