End Wars and Occupations IOT Monthly Conference Call - Progressive Democrats of America

 January 2012
sound  chat room 
 
Link to Sound File  Link to Chat Room Archive

Sandy Davies & Mark Levin covered the potential upcoming attack on Iran and what's going on in Afghanistan. There's really no excuse for the US to attack Iran. The US “proof” that Iran is implacably hostile to us is based on a mistranslation of a single statement. G.W. Bush claimed that the NIE on Iranian nuclear arms made it impossible for him to attack Iran as it revealed that he had no reason to do so. The fact that tensions with Iran are occurring in an election year is very dangerous as there is always the possibility of the two parties “bidding against” each other to prove who's tougher on it.

Paul Stokes brought up the cheerful fact that Defense Secretary Panetta has denied that Iran has a nuclear program. As a former nuclear weapons inspector, Stokes advocates an inspection regime for Iran as that would produce confidence within the US.

Israel is carrying out joint military exercises with the US, the US is denying that the exercises are aimed at threatening Iran, but there are a number of suspicions on that score.

There will be twice as many troops in Afghanistan in late 2012 than when Obama took office. The US conducted over 12,000 airstrikes since Obama took office (BTW, airstrikes are pretty useless in the Afghanistan context as guerrilla-type wars require extremely precise targeting). The US apparently wants to keep hold of Afghanistan, partially for its resources, but also for its strategic position in the middle of many other countries. China is investing in oil fields in Afghanistan as the US seems to be rattling its sword towards China.