Remember…Iran is trying to develop a civilian nuclear power program. The suspicion is that they will use that civilian program to seed a covert nuclear weapons program, but there is currently no evidence that they are doing so. That makes the following all the more curious:
The White House on Monday said it had little information about Egypt’s plans to relaunch its nuclear power program but declared itself “generally supportive” of civilian atomic power.
“I don’t know a lot about it. In general, we are supportive of countries pursuing civil nuclear energy. It’s clean burning. It provides electricity in a clean-burning and affordable way for citizens,” said spokeswoman Dana Perino.
“We are working with some countries in order to help them get there. But in regards to the Egyptian program, that report just came across. I don’t know any more specifics about it,” Perino told reporters.
She was speaking shortly after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that Egypt planned to build several nuclear power stations, relaunching a nuclear program frozen more than 20 years ago.
None of the 19 hijackers were Iranian, but the lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta, was Egyptian. Al-Qaeda is co-led by Egyptian dissident Ayman al-Zawahiri. You might also remember Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheikh, who planned to ‘to set off five bombs in 10 minutes, blowing up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and a federal building housing the FBI.’ Abdel-Rahman was an Egyptian. And, just to give you a little anecdotal evidence of the potential problem of nuclear power in the hands of the Egyptian government, my friend noz just returned from a trip to the land of the pyramids and had the following observation:
it took me almost two weeks, but yesterday i actually found someone who doesn’t hate mubarak in egypt.
i have yet to find anyone who doesn’t hate bush.
So, please tell me…why is it fine and dandy for Egypt to have nuclear power, but not Iran?
Turkey.
There’s no oil under Cairo.
Next question.
You were expecting our foreign policy to make sense? When has it ever?
To answer your question about Egypt getting nuclear power and that being fine/dandy, well because li’l bushie says so. He’s no doubt looked deep into the eyes and soul of Egypt and found them all to be good guys…with nothing but peace, love and understanding in their pure pure hearts.
they do BushCo™s bidding.
lTMF’sA
Umm, ’cause Bush believes himself to be Pharoah and wouldn’t want to attack the land of his spiritual ancestors?
Oh Condi, what have you done now?
it is simple. The Army has born the brunt of the Iraq debacle. The have had the opportunity to try out the new technology and the methods that they have practiced for years. At the same time, the Navy and the Airforce have not had that chance to prove out their theories and practices as well as their technology.
Also, the straussian influence geopolitically calls for the encirclement of Russia and the positioning of US holdings has to continue to grow. Thus, its’ Flyboy time! And its Guided Missle time. The admin is counting on the concept of a “no ground invasion” plan that they believe they can sell to the lemmngs. And given the latest Zogby Poll, it appears to be working. What is lost is the simple fact that there is a religious factor that is not being taken into the mix. This is the flaw. And it will be the downfall of this adventure. As “Blowbacck”- Johnson book clearly points out- the results of the US actions will result in the most horrific Blowback this world has ever seen.
“why is it fine and dandy for Egypt to have nuclear power, but not Iran?”
Egypt is not on the Clean Break agenda.
“why is it fine and dandy for Israel to have nuclear power, but not Iran?”
Got me. Just kidding.
“why is it fine and dandy for Israel to have nuclear power, but not Iran?”
gotta quote this first, and very much agree with the sentiment, though it should be ‘nuclear weapons’, about 150-200 warheads to be more or less inexact
the short answer is Empire. the long answer is Empire.
does anyone remember LBJ’s remarks about Somoza in nicaragua? someone was probably complaining about what a cruel heartless dictator he was, and LBJ said something like, “he’s a son of bitch alright, but he’s our son of a bitch.”
that’s why it’s ok for the cruel heartless mubarak to go ahead with nuclear power (some part of which of course will someday fall into radical islamic hands) – because mubarak is our bastard i mean son of bitch. and our bastards get what they want, as long as they are in power and give up a lot of something in return, like a peace treaty with israel which totally sells out the palestinians etc etc
So, please tell me…why is it fine and dandy for Egypt to have nuclear power, but not Iran?
several reasons:
(1) because egypt recognizes israel and has a peace agreement with them, whereas iran has neither and is instead rather hostile to our favorite client state in the region.
(2) because mubarak both anti-islamists and also has no history of trying to kill the president’s daddy (unlike saddam).
(3) because egypt’s biggest natural resources are a bunch of 3000 year old monuments (drawing tourist dollars), and its second biggest is cotton. neither interest the bush administration all that much.
(4) because the bush administration has its sights set on iran and it can only focus on one country at a time. it wasn’t interested in iran as much when it wanted to go into iraq. and because it was focused on going to iraq and now iran, it is ignoring proliferation issues with north korea and pakistan.
(5) with syria now on the u.s.’ shit-list the bush administration needs at least a few friendly oppressive regimes in the region to render detainees. syria used to be the top choice, but when asad refused to back the iraq war, relations with that country got too chily to trust them with torturing our prisoners. now egypt does a lot of the human-right abusing outsourcing work.
(6) the bush administration is generally pro-nuclear power. it gets a lot of support from the nuclear industry and so long as the regime building the reactor isn’t saying “death to america” in its speeches, the bush administration will generally be supportive of any new business opportunities for its cronies in the nuclear power industry.
General Electric.
They build this kind of thing.