Iran’s Ad Should Send Shivers
Thanks to Bon Bon for this disturbing link:
Among the surreal events becoming ever more frequent in the nuclear showdown with Iran was the appearance of an ad last week in the International Herald Tribune, inviting bids to build “Two Large Scale Nuclear Power Plants in Iran.”
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The ad ran in all editions of the paper, which is owned by the New York Times, and reaches more than 240,000 readers in more than 180 countries. Somehow this outrageous solicitation escaped the notice of major world media. That’s remarkable, at a time when Iran has been flagrantly defying United Nations Security Council resolutions calling on Tehran to halt its nuclear bomb program — with both the U.N. and U.S. Treasury calling for a freeze on the assets worldwide of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, on behalf of which the ad was placed.
The ad did get noticed in Israel, a country that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he would like to see wiped off the map. Bloggers picked up the story, and a scanned version of the ad began circulating, with commentary, on the Internet. It smacked of Iranian nose-thumbing so extreme one had to wonder if it was a spoof.
It’s no joke. The ad, which reads like something out of a Graham Greene novel, includes an e-mail address for a “Mr. Esmaeili,” the address of Iran’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. in Vienna, and a bank-account number at Austria Bank-Creditanstalt, complete with SWIFT code, for interested bidders to pay a nonrefundable fee for a set of bidding specifications. The ad further spells out that any ensuing bids are to be accompanied by a bid bond, all leading to the appointed day, Aug. 8, when the bids are to be opened at Atomic Energy Organization of Iran headquarters in Tehran.
The ad includes a telephone number in Austria. I phoned yesterday and reached a man, who in broken English, gave me the number of the Iranian ambassador’s office at Iran’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. in Vienna. A polite woman answered, and confirmed, in good English, that, yes, the ad was genuine.
What’s going on? Is this an unsubtle attempt by Iran to leverage its bargaining power at the various summits in the carrot-and-stick “dialogue,” which has failed for years to stop the march of the Iranian mullocracy toward the bomb? Is it connected to backroom brawls in Iranian politics? An attempt to slide around U.N. sanctions by using diplomatic missions to the U.N. itself as a corridor for nuclear deals?
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May 7, 2007 - 02:54 PM on May 7th, 2007
“Two Large Scale Nuclear Power Plants” /= “Nuclear Weapons”
The international concern has been over Iraq’s plans to enrich it’s own uranium, not the establishment of power plants in which uranium can be used.
This is probably why there was no “OMFG
” reaction in the press, BonBon, et al.
May 7, 2007 - 03:19 PM on May 7th, 2007
The problem is that U235 (enriched uranium) is what is used as fuel in nuke power plants. The same material is used for fission bombs. So they build two plants, enrich U235 to use as fuel, and guess what they do with the extra 235?
May 7, 2007 - 03:26 PM on May 7th, 2007
I’d suggest three reasons why the MSM hasn’t taken notice:
1. They don’t understand the issue.
2. No one from a politically-approved source has force-fed them the story.
3. This might help Bush. Can’t have that!
May 7, 2007 - 04:32 PM on May 7th, 2007
Exactly my point Robert. I saw a history channel special that laid out the blueprint for a nuclear weapon, courtesy of AG Khan. Bottom line is that you can use use uranium in a complex way and get a very powerful bomb or a simpler way that uses materials needed only for energy and get a bomb that can still wipe out a small city. I’m not a scientist but I even I understood what they were saying.
Iran, a country that sits on huge amounts of oil does not need nuclear reactors.
May 7, 2007 - 05:20 PM on May 7th, 2007
i can understand why any country (including the U.S.) would and should want to nuke for electric power generation—it makes total sense. But not when a nation’s leader has vowed to destroy other nations and fervently believes in the imam coming out of the well (after they’ve killed enough infidels) story.
Sorry, kiddies, but if you can’t play nice it’s up to the adults to take away your toys.
So why should the U.S. and other civilized nations decide whats best? Because we don’t want to wait around to find out what happens if we don’t, that’s why.
May 7, 2007 - 05:24 PM on May 7th, 2007
It all goes back to good and evil and the reasons why each one fights. The good do it to free the oppressed, preserve freedoms of religion, speech, etc., and evil does it to control, oppress and murder those that don’t abide by their rule.
May 7, 2007 - 08:41 PM on May 7th, 2007
Yes.
I see the newly-elected democratic (?) government of Iraq with its over-zealous Parliament is so concerned it’s planning a two month recess during this coming summer.
May 7, 2007 - 09:17 PM on May 7th, 2007
Children, children…
First, a nuclear power plant, by design, cannot “enrich” uranium.
Second, most nuclear power plant technologies do not require anywhere near ‘weapons-grade’ uranium. (For Roberts sake, the U235 isotope is present in all existence of Uranium, dug out of the earth or ‘enriched’.)
Third, no hysteria is warranted over this as the international community cannot deny this cheap (yet dirty) resource for energy production. I live less than 15 miles from a nuclear power generation plant.
May 7, 2007 - 09:51 PM on May 7th, 2007
8 A desperate attempt to salvage some of your argumentive dignity, eh?
The reality is that if they are in the enriching business, they’ll have weapons grade.
If you can’t acknowledge that, then you are the child-like one.
May 7, 2007 - 10:30 PM on May 7th, 2007
9-“The reality is that if they are in the enriching business, they’ll have weapons grade.”
Right, but this article was about fanning hysteria over building nuke power plants (which don’t enrich uranium). So why are you panties in a bunch over this story?
May 7, 2007 - 10:33 PM on May 7th, 2007
Hey wheres hanoi jane and the wackos from GREENPEACE to object to nucular power plants like they do here THATS BECUASE THOSE GREENPEACE JERKS WOULD END UP DEAD:roll:
May 7, 2007 - 10:41 PM on May 7th, 2007
Now there’s an idea Snowy! Send Hanoi Jane, the NRDC and Al Gore over to stop the Iranian nuclear program! They can show “The China Syndrome” in theaters all over the country! In short order maybe Iranians will rise up and stop Nuclear deployment just like the sheeple did here in the U.S.!
May 8, 2007 - 06:36 AM on May 8th, 2007
Tofu,
A uranium power plant does make Plutonium, the material used for the “Fat Man” bomb of WW2.
What you don’t know about nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and the fueling of each is immense, Tofu. Stick to being a scared little gay blade in Ohio. It is the height of your ability.
May 8, 2007 - 08:11 AM on May 8th, 2007
Right, but this article was about fanning hysteria over building nuke power plants (which don’t enrich uranium). So why are you panties in a bunch over this story?
Good Lord! Are you pulling our legs, our are you really that dense? The nuclear reactors are perfect cover for their bomb making efforts!
(shakes his head in disbelief that anyone could fail to grasp the obvious)
May 8, 2007 - 08:32 AM on May 8th, 2007
14, Robert, when one hates America as much as Tofu does, any excuse by America’s enemies is the Gospel Truth to them.
I could go on for days about Uranium enrichment, Plutonium creation, and nuclear bomb making. The saddest thing is dunces like Tofu don’t understand that you just can take spent fuel rods and make a dirty nuclear bomb. It won’t achieve fission, but look at the cancer problems down wind of Chernobyl.
Doofuses like Tofu don’t see it coming, but are more than happy to hancuff Uncle Sam each and every way they can to make the world fair.
I don’t want fair! I want every son-of-a-bitch out there scared Sh*tless that Uncle Sam will wipe their sect, religion, country, family or whatever off the map if they attack the US, period.
May 8, 2007 - 11:21 AM on May 8th, 2007
13.
Stick to being a scared little gay blade in Ohio. It is the height of your ability.
What does Ohio have to do with this?
May 8, 2007 - 09:33 PM on May 8th, 2007
to be perfectly honest, iran doesn’t scare me one f-ing bit.
May 9, 2007 - 04:59 PM on May 9th, 2007
I can highly recommend Jane’s new movie Georgia Rule.
She’s tremendous in it.
May 18, 2007 - 05:51 AM on May 18th, 2007
Blessed are the peacemakers:
for they shall be called the
Children of God
(Mat 5:9)
Jesus’s way is not by sword but by cross
http://club.us.cyworld.com/prcc
May 18, 2007 - 07:28 AM on May 18th, 2007
20. Good luck with that line of argument here.