No, America must say, to war in Iran. As Iraq continues to strain the country unimaginably, an attack on Iran remains off the table. George W. Bush’s unpopularity should help Congress find the nerve to do something closer to its historical role as an important branch of government–and everyone that can influence their elected representatives (and contacting them is nice but I am actually talking about people with money) needs to let them know that two war theaters in that part of the world is already more than enough.
A civilian nuclear power program is probably within Iran’s rights. The war mongers in the Bush administration will do whatever they can to hype any perceived threat from Iran.
The propaganda is coming in. From far-right web site Newsmax.com:
‘A just-released staff report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy concludes that the United States lacks critical information needed for analysts to make many of their judgments with confidence about Iran.
Entitled “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States,” the report points to “many significant information gaps.”
Threats against the United States and Israel by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — coupled with advances in the Iranian nuclear weapons program, support for terror, and resistance to international negotiations on its nuclear program — demonstrate that Iran is a security threat to the nation that requires high caliber intelligence support, the report concluded.
Noted for special concern are major gaps in U.S. knowledge of Iranian nuclear, biological, and chemical programs.’
Israel was quite mad to take on Hizbollah, and it is hard to imagine that they would dare risk an attack on Iran. So this Martin Peretz post from tnr.com should be seen as a more an attempt to egg on America to get on board for a war against Iran than a serious threat:
‘Some of these perils revolve around Iran‘s nuclear capabilities. Will the United States take them out? Or will Israel be forced to do it?
This is my view about the last question; I don’t know if it’s Shavit’s: If the United States doesn’t, Israel will. The world will be shocked, positively shocked. It will also condemn Israel, protesting that the diplomatic option had been cut off … and other such nonsense. The diplomatic option is a figment in the imaginations of a few Democrats, a few Europeans, and Kofi Annan. But, if truth be told, the world will be grateful to the Jewish State for committing the deed.’
These bizarre, bellicose delusions are perhaps less due to rational analysis than a need to lash out after this summer’s Lebanon failure. The world was not grateful for the war crimes in Lebanon and no gratitude would be due an Israeli attack on Iran either.

A well-fed and energetic gang of pigeons caught my attention at a Mission neighborhood gas station where I was filling the tire of up my bike when I saw them pecking up and down rhythmically at tiny scraps while each walked in its own zig-zag pattern. I rode the north drive through Golden Gate Park on the way there and captured the carless street of a summer Sunday.
[photos: Daniel J. McKeown]

David Corn has a piece on the website of The Nation magazine. The following is a small portion, discussing former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage:
“Though Armitage’s role as Novak’s primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage’s conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department’s intelligence branch at the time, told us–on the record–that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, “I’m afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing.”
…
Shortly after [Robert] Novak spoke with Armitage, he told [Karl] Rove that he had heard that Valerie Wilson had been behind her husband’s trip to Niger, and Rove said that he knew that, too. So a leak from Armitage (a war skeptic not bent on revenge against Wilson) was confirmed by Rove (a Bush defender trying to take down Wilson). And days later–before the Novak column came out–Rove told Time magazine’s Matt Cooper that Wilson‘s wife was a CIA employee and involved in his trip.
As Hubris also reveals–and is reported in the Newsweek story–Armitage was also the source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003 that Joe Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA.”
(Michael Isikoff has his article about Armitage on the Newsweek website.)
[photo of Richard Armitage: AP]

“Please George Bush, please Tony Blair,” pleads Fox News reporter Steve Centanni, “open your minds to Islam, and bring peace to all people around the world.” Of course, the statement was made under duress after being abducted.
The Guardian writes:
“Two journalists from the American Fox News channel were freed unharmed in Gaza yesterday after being forced at gunpoint to convert to Islam at the end of a two-week kidnapping ordeal.
Hours before their release, the two men appeared in a video, dressed in Arab robes. They announced their conversion and criticised American and British foreign policy in the Middle East.
Steve Centanni, 60, an American correspondent, and his freelance cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, a New Zealander, were later released and dropped off by Palestinian security forces at a hotel in Gaza City. They were then driven to Israel.
…
“Then they forced us to convert to Islam at gunpoint,” said Centanni. “I have the highest respect for Islam and learned a lot of very good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had guns and we didn’t know what the hell was going on.””
But the arguments Centanni was forced to make on the video released by his captors were generally designed to sound moderate: “Islam is not fascism” is true, and worth noting, after George W. Bush resorts to the obnoxious (and perhaps fascist itself) term “Islamic-fascism” in a press conference. The most offensive comment in the forced speech was something Centanni said about Islam that Bush would probably say himself about his own religion:
“It is the true religion for all people for all times.”

[photo via AP-Yahoo]

An Amnesty International report describes the scale and nature of Israel‘s war crimes during its recent campaign in Lebanon. In part, it reads:
“First-hand information gathered by recent Amnesty International research missions to Lebanon and Israel points to an Israeli policy of deliberate destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure during the recent conflict.
The long-term impact of the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure on the lives of the country’s men, women and children is incalculable. Many have lost their homes while having to cope with the deaths of loved ones or struggling to overcome severe injuries. Many more have lost their livelihoods. Records showing home and property ownership have been destroyed, adding to the difficulties of rebuilding lives.
The head of the country’s Council for Development and Reconstruction, Fadl Shalak, said on 16 August that the damage incurred amounted to US $3.5 billion: US $2 billion for buildings and US $1.5 billion for infrastructure such as bridges, roads and power plants.”
Leon Wieseltier, a supporter of Israel’s side in the Lebanon war of 2006 writing in the New Republic, still considers the cowardice of the claims of Israel’s leaders to moral superiority after committing atrocities themselves:
“But a right war in which such outrages occur–surely it is not enough to refresh one’s sense of the admirable nature of one’s principles and be done. The fact that you are not a monster is beside the point when you have just done something monstrous. One should not be consoled for one’s misdeeds, one should regret them; and regret is genuine only when it is beyond the reach of consolation. If your guilt reminds you of how otherwise guiltless you are, then you have not been improved by the discovery of your sin, you have been corrupted by it. It is important also to be wary of the pride of self-criticism. At least we worry about such things: this proves only that the standard is low. To congratulate oneself upon the severity of one’s self-reckoning is to vitiate it–to nullify conscience by reference to its very exercise.”
An AP article reports Israel‘s defensive reaction, much in line with what Leon Wieseltier warns against in the previous passage:
“Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel‘s Foreign Ministry, said his country acted legally.
“Israel’s actions in Lebanon were in accordance with recognized norms of behavior during conflicts and with relevant international law,” he said. “Unlike Hezbollah, we did not deliberately target the Lebanese civilian population. On the contrary, under very difficult circumstances, we tried to be as surgical as is humanly possible in targeting the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”
Regev said that Lebanese infrastructure was “targeted only when that infrastructure was being exploited by the Hezbollah machine, and this is in accordance with the rules of war.”
Israel suffered international condemnation when it attacked targets in southern Lebanon hours after Hezbollah guerrillas operating there killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two in a cross-border raid July 12.
The Israeli Defense Force has said that between that raid and the Aug. 14 U.N.-brokered cease-fire, it launched more than 7,000 air attacks on Lebanese targets and the navy conducted about 2,500 bombardments.
The United Nations children’s fund,
UNICEF, estimates that some 1,183 people died, mostly civilians and about a third of them children, while the Lebanese Higher Relief Council says 4,054 people were injured and 970,000 displaced. U.N. officials reported that around 15,000 civilian homes were destroyed.”
[photos: Ehud Olmert by Reuters; IAF General Dan Halutz by AFP; south Beirut by Reuters]

Xena, another small celestial entity in the outer reaches of the solar system, was being considered as an addition to the solar system’s planets. But it now appears, in a surprising but perhaps inevitable development, Pluto is being decertified as a planet instead. This is what the New York Times says in Wednesday’s edition: “The new definition offered yesterday would set up a three-tiered classification scheme with eight ‘planets’; a group of ‘dwarf planets’ that would include Pluto, Ceres, Xena and many other icy balls in the outer solar system; and thousands of ‘smaller solar system bodies,’ like comets and asteroids. The bottom line, said the Harvard astronomer Owen Gingerich, chairman of the Planet Definition Committee of the union, is that in the new definition, ‘Pluto is not a planet.’”
A long argument may ensue over whether Pluto is really a kind of planet or not. Reuters reports a slightly different interpretation:
“Under the new definition, schoolchildren will be relieved to know that, just as they were taught, Pluto will remain a planet. But it would also fall into a newly created category called plutons, which are distinguished from classical planets in that they take longer than 200 years to orbit the sun. Pluto would be joined in this new category by two other celestial bodies, Xena and Charon, while another, Ceres, would be known as a dwarf planet.”
Another development of note is the recent claim that proof now exists for dark matter because of a galactic collision. A BBC science article describes the findings:
“The researchers have discovered what is effectively the gravitational signature of dark matter. This signature was created by dark matter and ordinary matter being wrenched apart by the immense collision of two large galaxy clusters.”
[illustration of Xena: NASA/AP]

Norm Coleman loudly called for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to resign in 2004. As CNN reported:
“The U.S. senator leading the investigation into allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the Iraq oil-for-food program is urging U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign, saying the ‘massive scope of this debacle demands nothing less.’
Annan declined to comment on the call, made by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, in an opinion piece in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal.”
Now Annan is still in his position even after the oil-for-food investigation and his pronouncement that the Iraq war was illegal. I wondered if Coleman, a Senator from Minnesota, still longed for Annan’s removal so I called his Washington office.
“Where are you calling from sir?” After asking for my name and web site, the staffer that answered the phone checked if the press secretary was in, but unfortunately he wasn’t. Offered voicemail, I decided instead to see if she could help me. After she deflected two questions about Annan, I went with a pretty straightforward one, but still faced obfuscation–here’s the exchange:
“Dinosaur Country Tribune: Is he in touch with the people of Minnosata on the Iraq, um, issue?
Coleman staffer: Sir, I would definitely will have to get you the press–the senator’s press secratary, I cannot comment for the Senator on this issue.”
[photo: Reuters – Coleman with Richard Lugar and John Bolton in July 2006]

This picture from 8-15-2006 was taken from Lombard Street and looks out over the Coit Tower, the Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco Bay beyond the city.

Hysteria led to a loud, obnoxious woman on a trans-Atlantic flight with “a tub of handcream that should have been detected” to be put in handcuffs and the plane to be diverted, reports The Times of London:
“Airline passengers throughout the European Union face tougher security measures as part of a seven-point anti-terrorism package outlined after a meeting of interior ministers yesterday. Two key measures are to be discussed by EU transport ministers next week, including extending the British hand baggage restrictions to all member states. The EU is also to look at introducing a requirement on airlines to provide advance information on passengers, as already happens on flights to the United States. The concern over airline security was highlighted yesterday when a United Airlines flight to Washington from Heathrow was diverted after a passenger suffering from claustrophobia caused a security alert. Two F16 fighter jets escorted Flight 0923 to Boston Logan airport after the pilot announced a mid-air emergency. The woman, 59, from Vermont in the US, became disruptive and agitated several hours into the eight-hour flight and argued with a flight steward. A crew-member provided handcuffs and two male passengers sat on either side of her until the Boeing 763 landed.”
The Times also reports on the feelings of the British public about the recent bomb scare and terror arrests:
“A majority of voters support moves by the Government to introduce security screening at airports that focuses on the passengers who pose the greatest risk. A poll in today’s Spectator shows that 55 per cent backed the idea of passenger profiling and only 29 per cent opposed it. The Times disclosed this week that the Government was in talks with airlines about profiling people who behave suspiciously, have unusual travel patterns or, more controversially, are from certain ethnic or religious backgrounds. Half of the 1,700 respondents said that most British Muslims were moderates but 28 per cent disagreed and almost as many said that they did not know.”
Glenda Jackson, a Labour member of Parliament, questions the value of the current widespread anti-Muslim feeling and clamor for profiling in Britain’s Guardian:
“Do ministers really believe the way to convince disaffected young Muslims that our war is with the terrorists, rather than the Islamic faith, is to start body-searching them on the basis of their race and religion? Does the prime minister really believe that Muslim leaders will be able to convince their communities that current investigations are following due process when his home secretary passes verdict on “the main players” before a single person has been charged? And does anyone seriously believe that benefits from blanket profiling will make up for the commensurate breakdown in trust between those who are subject to this scrutiny and the security services who depend on their cooperation to avert future atrocities?”
A BBC report (video) about the bomb plot case claims that “some suspects will be charged,” and that some will “almost inevitably be released.”
[photos: British police on Downing Street by AP; John Reid by AFP]

These pictures were taken today in San Francisco’s Panhandle neighborhood, around Lyon Street and Grove Street.