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“Hysteria” or Not, the Iran Deal Will Happen

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“There’s a lot of hysteria about this deal [with Iran over nuclear research],” US Secretary of State John Kerry told Israeli TV’s Channel 10 on May 3. “People really need to look at the facts, look at the science of what is behind those facts.”

So let’s look at three key facts and one key question.

Fact #1: There is not now, nor has there in more than a decade, been so much as a crumb of evidence that the Iranian regime is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. If you don’t believe me, ask the US Central Intelligence Agency or Israel’s Mossad — they say so too.

Fact #2: It follows from Fact #1 that the purpose of negotiations is not to prevent Iran from doing something it isn’t doing.

Fact #3: It follows from Fact #1 and Fact #2 that there must, then, be some other reason for these negotiations and the proposed deal.

These three facts bring up the big question: Why do the politicians of P5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany) and Iran want a deal so badly?

Working backward, Iran’ s politicians are willing to negotiate because they want US and UN sanctions lifted.

Politicos from Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany want a deal for perfectly obvious reasons: Their countries sell things that Iranians want to buy (including but not limited to arms and nuclear reactor technology) and Iranians sell things that people from those other countries want to buy (including but not limited to oil).

US politicians are, on the other hand, divided on the matter.

Congressional Republicans (and some Democrats) don’t want a deal because for the last 40 years or so “we stand with Israel” has always been a winning political bet. Even more so recently, since casino mogul Sheldon Adelson started dangling large sums of money over the heads of Republican presidential aspirants who evince a willingness to obey the commands, no matter how cockamamie, of Benjamin Netanyahu.

US president Barack Obama and his administration want a deal for two reasons.

One is that thawing relations with Iran would make great “legacy material” for a president whose real accomplishments over 1 1/2 terms in office seem rather sparse.

The other is, really, the nut of the matter. Obama and Kerry know that if the US bucks out of these negotiations on some pretext, at least four of the other five countries (the possible exception being the UK, and that’s only a possibility) will negotiate their own deals with Iran, leaving the US odd man out and bringing “The American Century” to an ignominious end.

What’s at stake here is America’s claimed post-WWII “leadership of the free world.”

As a libertarian, this looks to me like a win-win situation. If Obama gets his way, peace breaks out (sort of, anyway). If the hawks get theirs, they will have painted themselves (and their constant proposals for military American misadventures) into a corner from which escape seems unlikely.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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For Religious Freedom, Separate Marriage and State

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U.S. Supreme Court building.
U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

As the Supreme Court takes up the matter of marriage apartheid — an institution of forcible segregation and exclusion aimed at same-sex couples and codified in state laws which defy both the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause and its 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” clause —  its supporters once again rally to the banners of family and marriage, feigning support for the very institutions they assail.

“We will not obey!” thunder headlines covering their latest barrage, an open letter signed by numerous American religious leaders. But those headlines lie. The actual content of the letter consists not of a refusal to obey others, but of a demand that others be made to obey them. They want their own religious beliefs to remain codified in law at the expense of all whose beliefs differ.

They call for this establishment of (their) religion, naturally, in the name of “religious freedom.” It seems there’s no concept the anti-marriage, anti-family bigots aren’t willing to turn on its head.

There’s certainly a religious freedom issue at stake here, but the opponents of same-sex marriage are opponents, not supporters, of religious freedom.  For example, until it was struck down, Missouri’s anti-marriage law (passed in 2004 with strong support from this same crowd) provided for a jail sentence of 10 days and a $500 fine against clergy who officiated at unapproved religious ceremonies — “unlicensed” same-sex weddings.

Are the opponents of marriage and family sinned against as well as sinning? Certainly. They don’t believe they should be enslaved to bake cakes (or pizzas) and so forth for couples and families of whom they religiously disapprove. I agree. They shouldn’t. But then, the anti-marriage bigots and the pro-slavery bigots are peas in a pod. They’re both fighting for control of others, not for the freedom of all.

The solution to this whole set of problems is simple: Just as we’ve tried to separate church and state, let’s separate marriage and state! If that’s not feasible in its entirety, then let’s do so to the greatest degree possible.

Instead of government-approved, “licensed” marriages, let the civil form of marriage be by contract. The terms of those contracts can be whatever the parties negotiate. Although I suspect most of them would tend toward the current norms, there’s no call to require that. Different strokes for different folks. The only necessary state involvement, then, would be adjudication of contractual disputes (if even that — the contracts could specify private arbitration).

As for those of particular religious persuasions, let them and their churches celebrate whatever weddings and recognize whatever marriages they choose, and not others (including in their commercial relations). This is the only right which they might reasonably demand others respect.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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From 11/22 to 9/11: Too Many Secrets

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English: United Airlines Flight 175 crashes in...
United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City during the September 11 attacks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Inquiring minds want to know: What, precisely, do 28 pages of the US Senate’s report on the 9/11 attacks say? Those particular 28 pages have remained classified since the report was issued in 2002.

Former US Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), lead author of the report, wants those pages released. He’s been somewhat forthcoming as to their content: “They point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the [9/11 attackers’] principle financier.”

If you’re surprised that such information remains under wraps after nearly a decade and a half, you shouldn’t be. More than 50 years after the assassination of president John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, our masters in Washington still deem us unworthy to see certain documents relating to his murder.

The excuse for keeping such secrets, of course, is “national security.” It’s formally illegal for information to be classified and kept from the public for any other reason (including but not limited to concealing the crimes of, or avoiding embarrassing, politicians).

But “national security” is a malleable concept in the hands of the political class, easily shaped to serve those other ends.

If you’re Scooter Libby, you can blow the cover of a working CIA agent, be tried for lesser offenses and, when convicted, have your sentence presidentially commuted.

If you’re David Petraeus, you can hand over military secrets to your lover/biographer and avail yourself of a sweet plea bargain requiring not so much as a single inconvenient day in jail.

But if you’re Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden and you dare expose actual government crimes to legitimate public scrutiny, just go ahead and pencil in a 35-year prison sentence, or indefinite exile in Russia, on your social calendar.

In what profession, other than politics, may the putative employee (the “public servant”) simply refuse to show his work product to the putative employer (the “public”)? None that I’m aware of.

What really happened on, and leading up to, 9/11?

What do those 28 pages have to say about it?

I don’t know. Unless you’re one of a handful of special, privileged people, you don’t either.

But we should. Even, nay, especially, if those pages establish that for nearly 14 years now, US foreign policy — both in its general outlines and more specifically the “war on terror” — has been based on falsehood.

That we don’t know makes it clear who’s really in charge: Not us.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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