BIAS IN NEWS REPORTING ABOUT IRAN

Here is text of an email I sent to Martin Savidge and World Focus, the new internationally centered news broadcast. I take objection to the seemingly biased attitude of World Focus towards Iran.

I watch World Focus almost every night and enjoy your international news. However, I find your treatment of stories about Iran to be biased in favor of the neo-con Bush/Cheney approach of solving all international problems by shooting missiles and dropping bombs.

Why did you need to ask your NYT guest the other night whether "all options are still on the table," implying that the US would be justified in starting a war with Iran?

How about giving Ahmadinejad some credit for establishing closer relationships with Bolivia and Venezuela?

Why not talk about Israel having nuclear weapons in violation of the NPT instead of implying that Iran wants to develop nuclear technology for purposes of developing nuclear bombs?

BUSH ADDS TO LEGACY OF MISTAKES - OFFERS INDIA UNLIMITED NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY

The agreement to sell nuclear technology to India is another of the Bush/Cheney foreign policy disasters.

India is not a signer or party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has not agreed to use nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes. Contrast India's refusal to join the NPT with Iran which is a member. Yet the U.S. Congress just last week went along with Bush's illogical and dangerous agreement to give India full access to nuclear technology.

Now Pakistan wants the same deal. India is its arch rival and potential lethal enemy. It makes nothing but sense for Pakistan to ask its "ally" in the "war on terror" to extend the same access as Bush has now extended India.

And what must Teheran be thinking? Bush and Cheney froth at the mouth over Iran's pursuit of nuclear power, yet so cavalierly give a non-signer to the NPT full access.

And what must Russia and China be thinking? I suggest both these nuclear powers interpret the move as a ratcheting up by the Americans of the nuclear arms race. The lesson for both Russia and China is clear - stop dismantling your nuclear arsenals; instead, fortify them!

Bush has done great damage in lives and resources with his foolish war in Iraq. But his legacy of disasters surely will include this dangerous and unwise nuclear agreement with India.

IN ZEAL TO START WW-III, BUSH & CHENEY DISMISS INTELLIGENCE ON IRAN

Bush is exasperating. The National Intelligence Estimate says Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, yet Bush insists Iran is a threat. Talk about making up stories from whole cloth!

The BBC reports:

"Iran remains a threat to the world despite new intelligence saying the country may not be building nuclear weapons, the US president says.


"Mr Bush said the report released on Monday was a "warning signal" and his view that a nuclear Iran would be a danger "hasn't changed"."

This is another example of George Bush the Irrational. As if he is saying (as he has said on numerous instances before), "I know what is happening . . ., the facts and intelligence don't count . . ., I refuse to negotiate with myself."

By the way, Iran, as a signer to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has every right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Here are the words of the NPT:

"ARTICLE IV

"1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the
Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

"2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in. the
fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information
for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the
further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially
the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the
needs of the developing areas of the world."

So what is Bush talking about? Iran as a signer to the NPT has every right under Article IV to enrich uranium "for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty." Iran states that it has no desire for nuclear weapons which many of its imams have called "un-islamic." The IAEA has discovered no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons. And yesterday we learn that even American intelligence agencies believe Iran has no program.

Where does this leave Bush? Just as the Iraqi intelligence was "sexed up" so that Bush/Cheney could fit it around their policy of invading and occupying Iraq, so we see another instance of these rogues doing the same thing with intelligence about Iran. Bush and Cheney have been obsessed in their quest to start another militaristic conflagration, this time with Iran. I can only hope that the embarrassment of the release of this assessment from the N.I.E. will shame them into abandoning or at least tabling their reckless and irrational war-mongering.