More on Tiny Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias do the hard work that I wanted to do but was too lazy to find on explaining how Iran is in fact quite tiny when compared to the USSR or the U.S.  Which is what Barack Obama was saying after all.  So seriously how scared should we be of a country who we outspend on defense by a factor of 100? (Ezra's number don't include Iraq or Afghanistan).  How scared should we be about a country that has the GDP the size of Flordia's?

Iran is a serious national security concern.  And that is how it should be treated. But to imply that it an existential threat to the security of the United States is absurd.

 

Comments

[Jeff]

I would have to agree with you here in that Iran does not pose a significant threat to the U.S. compared to many other countries but to call it absurd would seem to be a bit too extreme. Iran is literally a ton smaller than both the U.S.A. and the Russian Federation but it clearly must still pose a decent threat to the U.S. for so many politicians to be so concerned about this small nation.

Iran may only have a GDP that rivals Florida, only one of fifty states but you also have to consider that Florida has one of the highest Gross Domestic Products when compared to the other states.

Not fearing our enemies, no matter how small, can clearly lead to our downfall. Throughout history we see many examples of smaller and supposedly weaker nations defeating countries with a much stronger military. The American Revolution and the Vietnam war are just some examples of this.

While Iran is clearly not an "existential threat" right now, i think we ought to still have some fear and remain wary of this country that may potentially have a nuclear arsenal.

[WHD2]

Michael Phelps, the Beijing Olympics and
the U.S./Georgian proxy Invasion of South Ossetia,
August 29, 2008 Update

Phelps did not win the Olympic Butterfly 100 meter final. Milorad Cavic of Serbia won the event and after the race stated that he had won the event. Cavic had already soundly beaten Phelps in the Semifinals of that event! After the race Phelps also stated that he thought he had lost. And even Phelp’s mother first acted as though she thought Phelps had lost! She appeared totally dumbfounded but accepted it! Cavic’s coach said that he would launch a protest. Serbia also “launched a protest.” Then later both the Serbian government (a U.S. proxy/puppet regime installed after the U.S./NATO-led dismemberment/ethnic cleansing of the sovereign country of Yugoslavia, where under Tito everybody lived together in peace) and Cavic and his coach both withdrew their complaints. U.S. Puppet/Proxy Serbia was clearly under extreme pressure from the United States. Serbia in turn put extreme pressure on Cavic and his coach who withdrew their complaint. The United States wanted their “Golden Boy” (Bloomberg TV, August 18, 2008), and refused to permit the reality of the loss to Cavic to spoil the headline heralding Phelps: “A PERFECT FINISH, AN UNMATCHED RECORD.” New York Times (August 17, 2008) The U.S. intends to use Phelps as part of the capitalists’ fraudulent propaganda campaign that Phelps supposedly represents “victorious capitalism” while the capitalists are in fact losing all over the world as the world enters the beginning of another Great Depression!

The FINA executive Director, Cornel Marculescu, first stated that FINA would not permit the release of the footage by Omega the official timekeeper for the Beijing Games of the finish under the phony hard-sell pretext: “We are not going to distribute the footage. We are not doing THESE KINDS OF THINGS. (!) EVERYTHING IS GOOD. (!?) What are you going to do with the footage? See what the Serbians already saw? It is clarified for us beyond any doubt. He’s the winner in any way. (?) He’s the winner no doubt. Even if you could see the pictures, I don’t know how you could use them.” And Cavic the actual winner stated: “If you ask me, it should be accepted and we should move on. I’ve accepted defeat, and there’s nothing wrong with losing to the greatest swimmer there has ever been.” (!?) (New York Times, August 17, 2008) Parentheses added. The answer to this sort of tripe is simply: “What are you afraid of? What do you have to hide from an actual frame-by-frame analysis? Except the victory of Cavic over Phelps! You sound like a liar caught in a clumsy cover-up! You don’t make decisions for me Big Brother!”

Under public Pressure FINA later was forced to release what they said were digital frame-by-frame footage of the finish which they claimed showed that Phelps had won but actually DID NOT show that Phelps had won (New York Times, August 24, 2008). The images show conclusively that Cavic touched the wall fist without a doubt! But according to Dale Neuberger, Vice President of FINA the system that determines who wins the race actually measures “the instant of depression, of activation of the touch pad, not contact with the pad.” Careful observation reveals that Cavic touched the wall first and that his elbows were slightly bent indicating that he had depressed the touch pad with sufficient pressure (only 1.5 kilograms of pressure per square centimeter, according to Neuberger) to stop the clock.

The event was apparently also not actually shown LIVE. There was on a time delay despite the LIVE claim on the TV screen. Within seconds of the finish which showed Phelps in the water after the race he was suddenly being interviewed on the tarmac! Not credible! It is very easy to rig such an event if the race is that close. The U.S. knew that it might be close because of the fact that Cavic had already beaten Phelps in the Semifinals and they could not let anything alter their propaganda use of Phelps in order to try to improve the image of the U.S. The reality, of course is that the United States is the most hated and despised country in the world. The majority of the world’s citizens recognize that the United States, which reflects the naked dynamic of capitalism, as the source of all war as well as all economic disparity. A software program can be easily written to cover all eventualities in such a situation where the finish of the 100 meter Fly was expected to be very close. The U.S. government can and does routinely hack computers of their adversaries and send computer viruses which completely destroy their adversaries’ hard drives and the entire computer, for example, and more (e.g. monitors by overloading them and simultaneously corrupting multiple Debit Card accounts with Dell Computer and Paypal, for example), as this writer and his roommate have experienced firsthand. The bottom line for this particular computer program, which undoubtedly gave Phelps his false “victory” was that unless Cavic won by a clearly visible margin he would “lose” in a very close race, even if he actually won! And that is exactly what happened!! The 2 electronic touch pads on the walls of the pool can be reversed in their polarity in a digital twinkling, so that even if Cavic touched the wall first it would simply register as Phelps touching the wall. Because if you look closely in that part of the replay which was permitted directly after the race and the images which were later release and printed in the New York Times (see above) it is quite clear that is what happened. Phelps lost! And he and the majority of viewers, including his own mother, knew that he lost! But he was very happy to accept the false victory! It should be recalled that with the Zapruder film of the JFK Assassination the “commentator” Dan Rather lied about what it showed, falsely stating that Kennedy’s head flew backwards due to totally fabricated so-called “jet effect” violating all laws of physics in response to a supposed bullet fired from behind him, when in fact JFK was hit only by 2 shots both fired from the front. One went through his tie knot and the other was the Dum-Dum bullet that hit him in the right forehead and killed him instantly. (Writer is number one authority on JFK assassination who gave keynote talk on JFK at Ethical Culture Society on November 12, 1975, twelfth anniversary of JFK Assassination but who is not permitted to speak on anti-Communist WBAI radio!)

Both Serbia and the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) went along with the fraudulent Phelps’ victory in the 100-meter Fly because of political pressure from the United States. China was indubitably blackmailed and threatened that unless they went along with the crime the U.S. would push the age issue with the clearly underage Chinese girl gymnasts and take away their Olympic Team gold medal. Humiliation the Chinese did not want to accept! This is also the reason that the PRC went along with the U.S. all around victory in girls’ gymnastics which was accomplished by U.S. puppet judges grossly inflating the level of difficulty and execution by the U.S. and doing the reverse and chiseling big-time the level of difficulty and the execution of the vastly superior Chinese girl gymnasts. Shawn Johnson for example, was permitted to usurp second place in the all-around title after putting in very simple routines in the uneven bars and balance beam. Even in the floor exercise Johnson’s level of difficulty and execution were pumped up like a balloon. This modus operandi occurred over and over!

The Serbian government is a U.S. puppet/virtual proxy state which was installed after the U.S. division of Yugoslavia, a country where everyone got along. Serbia is a U.S. puppet just like the government of Georgia, which was incidentally authorized and directed by the U.S. The U.S. openly encouraged Sakashvilli to invade South Ossetia and now falsely denies it. In July 2008 Kindasleezy Rice standing beside him in Tbilisi, offered encouragement to Sakashvilli similar to that given to the later-sacrificed Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990 by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, to invade Kuwait. Glaspie gave Saddam Hussein the green light to invade Kuwait by telling him: “We have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” (New York Times, 9/23/90)) The U.S. told Sakashvilli to invade the independent area of South Ossetia while the world was being distracted by the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Rice also blurted out at a dinner in Spring 2004 in Washington, D.C. that she was the mistress of the usurper Bush!)

In addition, the U.S. and so-called “Israel” has supplied virtually all of Georgia’s military hardware and the U.S. has admitted to having 2000 military “advisors” and “trainees” in Georgia. Russia Today TV initially reported that “American mercenaries” (all U.S. military personnel today “volunteers” a euphemism for mercenaries) accompanied the invading force into South Ossetia and that some may have been killed. These reports were re-confirmed August 29, 2008 on Russia Today TV. The U.S./Georgian Invasion of South Ossetia was carried out with the primary objective of trying to create ethnic division in the U.S. attempt to discredit, weaken and divide Russia just like they did with Yugoslavia! The U.S.-led capitalist media is a privatized arm of the U.S. government’s so-called “intelligence community” and United Nations have focused only on Russia’s response to the U.S./Georgian invasion of South Ossetia by sending its forces into Georgia. The United States long-range objective is to try to eventually overthrow the Russian government, install a puppet government as in the Ukraine, Georgia and the former Baltic Soviet Republics, and steal Russia’s unbelievable wealth of natural resources just like the U.S. is doing in Iraq. The situation surrounding Russia today looks dangerously similar to the beginning of a replay of 1940 with the NAZIS on the border of the USSR preparing to invade. In fact Senator Prescott Bush, the father of George Herbert Walker Bush, George Herbert Walker both fanatical anti-Communists, funded the NAZIs before WWII. The grandson of Prescott Bush is the current “Usurper” in the White House. Barack Obama has stated that he intends to continue the same policies of encirclement of the former USSR just like the NAZIs did in 1940! Biden forcefully echoes this anti-Russian plan.

The invasion of South Ossetia was thus a deliberate provocation which Russia had no choice but to respond to and was carried out to achieve several objectives, the first of which is described above but it also has disturbing parallels to the Full Court Press Nuclear Arms Race that the Reagan Regime put on the USSR in the 1980’s which ultimately forced the surrender by Mikhail Gorbachev to the threat of a nuclear war. Capitalist media focus on the Russian response to the invasion of South Ossetia, rather than the U.S./Georgian Invasion of South Ossetia, has been used to build public support in Poland for the so-called U.S. “Missile Defense” to be placed in Poland and later the radar to be built in the U.S.-puppet Czech Republic. Public support in Poland, which opposed the U.S. “missile defense” prior to the Russian response in South Ossetia, now supports it! The U.S. was able to place Pershing Nuclear First Strike Nuclear Missiles in Germany 10 minutes from Moscow only after carrying out the 1983 Korean Airliner Provocation in order to discredit the European opposition to the placement of Pershing II First Strike nuclear missiles in Germany, which later caused the surrender by Gorbachev in 1988 to the threat of an imminent nuclear war. (There was no Soviet “economic collapse” as testified by the CIA on U.S. network TV news in 1990, who stated that they saw no indications of an incipient “economic collapse in the USSR.” This was because there was no economic collapse, but a Soviet surrender to the threat of a nuclear war followed by a long and painful dismantlement of the Soviet Workers’ State during the 1990’s leaving the leadership structure in place.) Richard Nixon was present at the takeoff of the Korean Airliner and undoubtedly assured the pilot of the Korean Airliner that he would be safe on his last flight of provocation.

Russia in typical Stalinist opportunist fashion has now agreed to the fraudulent U.S. claim of “economic collapse” in order to try to guarantee peace with U.S.-led world imperialism. Now they find how far that “peace” has gone with the U.S. breaking virtually all of the U.S.-Soviet Peace Treaties of the 1990’s. The false claim of “economic collapse of the Soviet Union” was fabricated by the United States in order to try to demoralize the masses to the only solution to the complex of problems created by capitalism-imperialism. That solution is Socialism! Mikhail Gorbachev’s Op-Ed column in the New York Times, August 20, 2008, was the typical Stalinist (Not Communist!) opportunist response, which did not explain the clever U.S. strategy of provocation and that Russia is forced to respond to these provocations. He also lied through omission by omitting the obvioius long-range U.S. objectives of these provocations. By honestly explaining the provocations Russia would be able to explain how the U.S. intends to manipulate public opinion. This way the public in all countries would be on guard not to allow itself to be manipulated by the country which lied about “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq.

The U.S. has just signed an agreement to build a so-called “missile defense” system in Poland which includes missile interceptors. Russia has promised a “military response” if the missiles are installed in Poland. This sound like Russia would take the installation(a) out in an air strike similar to the U.S./”Israel” bombing of the Osirak Reactor in Iraq in 1981 and the planned bombing of Iran, etc., etc. etc. Obviously the number of missiles in Poland will begin to increase exponentially as the U.S. orchestrates provocation after provocation on the border of Russia. This so-called “missile defense” is actually part of a Nuclear First Strike plan by the United States as was explained back in the 1980’s when the U.S. put a full court press on the USSR with a runaway nuclear arms race and “Star Wars” to force the Soviet surrender by Gorbachev in 1988. Today the United States and NATO want to force the former Soviet Union into a second surrender as explained above! The so-called “Missile Defenses” are used simultaneously with a U.S. Nuclear First Strike in order to try to cripple the Russian response to the U.S. First Strike. The U.S. is hoping that they will win the game of “chicken” like they did in the 1980’s and that the Russians will back down and make a second surrender as they did in 1988. This is the present strategy centerpiece of U.S. “statecraft” with Russia.

Today ninety-five percent of New Yorkers agree that we need a new system based on human need not private profit. A Socialist Revolution in the United States will end the basis for all war and set the stage for solving the entire complex of problems created by capitalism, which threaten the survival of humankind. Capitalism cannot be reformed through elections or by any other means because the capitalist dictatorship is left in place and because capitalism has an internal dynamic of its own which leads to a constantly hardening capitalist dictatorship finally to Fascism, barbarism and the end of civilization. Politicians rise to the surface to the extent that they express and further this almost entirely one-way dynamic. The “presidential elections” are the primary weapon of the capitalists, which is used to try to perpetuate the illusion of “democracy” in what is a constantly hardening capitalist dictatorship. If you vote for anyone you are neutralized and are a sucker! Today capitalism is in its Final Stage of Permanent War and State Terrorism.

The United States Invasion of Iraq is one more act of State Terrorism and has resulted in the deaths of 1.2 million Iraqis by September 2007 according to National Public Radio. Now the number is probably more than 1.5 million dead Iraqis. Capitalism offers a world with no future! Remember that in the end all wars are won and lost on morale and every movement begins with the call. Do not be intimidated! The first call must be to deprive the capitalists of bodies of armed men to send against the masses, by calling for the only political position with successful historical precedent: Call for Mutiny in Iraq as in Vietnam, the real reason and the ONLY reason the Vietnam War ended on the spot in 1975 after the Third Marine Division turned their guns around on their officers forcing the immediate and total evacuation of all U.S. troops in days and hours. The capitalist demagogues/stooges Obama, Clinton, McCain, etc. all call for “Phased Redeployment,” which means in practice simply transferring some forces from Iraq to Afghanistan (Obama, e.g.) or elsewhere and leaving a puppet government in place in Iraq. Mutiny Saves Lives! Mutiny is provided for by the Declaration of Independence which is actually a transitional document which supports a Socialist Revolution in the United States! Please read that document now! Remember that when the U.S. invades a country they never leave. The U.S has a military presence in over 130 countries right now...and counting. Blackwater USA, Custer Battles, Dyncorp, etc and all 45,000 armed military contractors are paid 4 times what the regular U.S. mercenary marauder/cutthroat forces are paid in order to induce loyalty to the officer corps and are a NAZI-like SS (Schutzstaffel) formation which is in Iraq for one purpose only—to protect the Officer Corps in the event of another Mutiny—NOT to protect “diplomats,” the phony cover story foisted on an unsuspecting public. The U.S. created a mercenary army to replace the previous enlisted army used in Vietnam as the yet another tactic to try and prevent reoccurrence of mutiny. Therefore the present U.S. military mercenary army must get its act together, realize that their interests as well as the interests of all humankind are violated by the invasions of Iraq, etc. They will have to turn their guns around on their officers who must all be immediately arrested unless they join and support the Mutiny and then they must fight and decisively defeat Blackwater and the other 45,000 military contractors, which they can easily do if they organize themselves to do it, because the regular army is much larger and has heavier weapons. The key is organization. This will open the door to all further social progress and is the first step in ending the War Against Iraq and carrying out a Socialist Revolution in the United States. Patriotism is a capitalist gimmick, a deception to divide up the International Working Class against itself—once more—divide and conquer! Don’t be fooled! Remember that this is NOT our country! It is the capitalists’ country. We just live here! Only a Socialist Revolution can establish real democracy and freedom and make it our country! Under capitalism “democracy” is just a euphemism for capitalist dictatorship and enslavement and “freedom” is merely a euphemism for the capitalists freedom to exploit and super-exploit. That is the fundamental basis of “globalism” where the worlds’ capitalists compete for the lowest wage for workers! That is why the Call for Mutiny in Iraq must come from the United States!

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