"Not to try and get you to feel all warm and runny inside-- but I really enjoy your comments. We have a very similar take on things.

I'm not much of a drinker or bar-frequenter, but if Glenn served drinks I'd insist you name your poison so that I could buy you a round."

Why you are too kind.

And if I'm ever in America I'll take you up on your offer of a drink. Least ways, that's if I can lift a glass to my lips whilst wearing those manacle things the Department of Homeland Security will no doubt insist I wear whilst rigorously examining my back passage looking for the root cause of my subversive attitudes.

I meant you couldn't have read what I wrote, because your responses had nothing to do with what I wrote.

Bravo, Glenn Greenwald! The Russians are very close to Iran's civilian nuclear power program, and they do not think Iran is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons or to be able to build them. Mohammed ElBaradei thinks Iran does not have a secret nuclear weapons development program, and he is the head of the IAEA which conducts frequent surprise inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities.

Why would Obama pander to the Israeli militarists who are trying to frighten and deceive the American public? We got this same sort of smear campaign and fear-mongering in the lead-up to the insane invasion of Iraq.

Was the subject of KPFA's Guns and Butter show in July, 2008. Economist and economics professor Michel Chossudovsky on why the US wants to go to war w/ Iran even though Iran is aggressively privatizing.

At once enlightening and sickening: http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/43228

Look out world...

If funny how people who are normally considered subhuman, suddenly become "human" when someone allegedly decides to use them as shields isn't it?

Aside from that aside, you said that there are no independent journalists in Gaza. Not sure how you feel about Al Jazeera (it's really the old Beeb Arab bureau you know), but they are there, and IMHO, are doing a fine fine job. Have a look, they and see them there, the video is better than the one on their site. And like they say, it's live.

As for human shields, it's been pretty well documented that the IDF has done this many times, it may even be SOP, but not the kind that you write down...

...hearing the rubbish coming out of his cake-hole...

In this country, we call it a pie-hole.

http://www.piehole.net/

You're welcome.

Obama: Iranians "are pursuing a nuclear weapon that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race"

It's difficult to take this statement out of the context of Obama's pandering to the Israeli Lobby, not just on Gaza, but on the crucial fabrication required to demonize Iran. If the "pursuing a nuclear weapon" story is false, as all of our intelligence agencies and U.N. inspectors say it is, then Isreal has lost the satanic threat that justifies U.S. support for their overwrought military establishment.

On the other hand, Obama may have simply misspoken, omitting the critical qualifier of most administration allegations of an Iranian desire to pursue a nuclear weapon. This is a Bushism: merely wishing it to be so is a terrorist act, justifying preemptive retaliation (ala Iraq).

The most interesting element of this evasion of truth is the notable absence of any mention of the fact that Israel long ago instigated the motive for a "nuclear arms race" in the Middle East, by producing dozens - maybe hundreds - of nuclear weapons in total secret, violating many international treaties, and offering no public commitment to restraint in using them.

An act of courage for Obama would be to call on Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] on nuclear weapons and submit themselves to U.N. inspections. That would certainly earn him a Badge of Courage from those who believe truth should dictate foreign policy, not whimsical fears.

Iran is pursuing nuclear power and even if it wanted to develop nuclear weapons it is a decade away from producing sufficient material for a single device. Contrast that to India, Pakistan, or even Israel that is believed to have more than 100 nuclear bombs at hand. Consider that the Bush administration is pushing for approval to provide UAE with nuclear capabilities. Then look at a map and see where Iran sits surrounded by Iraq on one side and Afghanistan on the other side, both occupied by the US which is busily building permanent military bases in both countries, and then there is Israel and soon the UAE (with USA assistance) with nuclear weapons. Iran has every right to be paranoid considering the actions of the past three US administrations and the type of people that Obama has selected to advise him at the White House. Obama's foreign policy, rhetoric aside, appears to be less a change in direction than a change of actors.

Iran is pursuing nuclear power and even if it wanted to develop nuclear weapons it is a decade away from producing sufficient material for a single device

Iran has lots of oil and gas, and doesn't need nuclear anything. What you wrote about "a decade away" is false, not to mention that we don't know the true extent of their nuke program (they are a closed religio-fascist society).

soon the UAE (with USA assistance) with nuclear weapons

False (who the hell told you that?)

...the nuclear arms race in the Middle east started when Israel acqired them. Seems to me that Obama's selective memory is typical and personifies the reasons that the Arab, Persian and Muslim world so dislikes America and it's hypocritical and ignorant foreign policies. How come none of you intellectual giants there have made this fact obvious to the "Super Jesus man from The other side of the tracks, saviour of America, truth and Justice"? Seems like you all ahve such a limited capacity to absorb facts. Is it because of the water you drink?

Want to hear an oxymoron? American intelligence.