President Obama’s announcement of even more sanctions against the Iranian government was virtually uniformly praised among political leadership, and the argument that Iran’s government was circumventing previous sanctions was largely accepted as justification.
The argument has some validity. Indeed, most indications are that the Iranian government has been able to find workarounds on many of the sanctions, and the desperate efforts to halt the flow of crude oil from the country seem to be doomed to failure.
Nevertheless, every new round of sanctions takes a toll on the civilian economy of Iran and cripples private industries that don’t have access to the loopholes that state industry does. This has fueled inflation, unemployment, and, increasingly, soaring food prices.
Iran’s state oil company is still shipping crude, but the cooking oil that Iranian companies buy from abroad isn’t getting in so easily. Corn and rice shipments are down, payments to suppliers are defaulting, and once again the US sanctions have made Iran’s civilian population even more desperate, with no one to turn to but the government.
Only rarely do such sanctions work against the leaders of a country, None other than the recently deceased despot of North Korea was the Worlds biggest consumer of Hennessey's Cognac. Same in Iraq no medicine for the civilians but I bet Sadaam never went with out! One only has to go back to WWII and the difference between what the officers could obtain and the normal soldiers got!
The Privelidged will always have what they want the lower classes wont!
Also remember that the soldiers will also have more than the civilians as well, Nth Korean Soldiers are fed more than the civilians, When the Soviet Union was breaking up the soldiers were paid, with the Nuclear weapons crews being paid well after their Soviet soldiers no longer were paid!
More stupid war when the US can not afford it
The U.S. intends to kill Iran civilians with its sanctions just like it did with Iraqi civilians. You sanction, starve, and kill by starvation before you send in the bombers. It's the American way.
The U.S. is amoral. Its leaders should all be hung for war crimes.
Not the US leaders; there exist none, Just Obama, who has shown to be blood thirsty. Libya was destroyed and is staying so, with no help from anyone. Shame on America, now on its knees.
It won´t appear. because I am anti Obama.
Yeah, this is always the case w/ sanctions: a P.R. move to seduce the electorate here @home & punish the rabble abroad. & All this v. the only genuine democracy in Central Asia?
But L&M (leadership & mgt.) rarely suffers anywhere in the world. Why I’m anti-authority & why we don’t need leadership & we don’t need mgt. No, we don’t even need the President anymore: an office filled for the past 40 yr by corporate-oligarchy Real Dolls.
Of course, these sanctions hurt the general civilian population the most. Take a good close look at people like Hillary Clinton, "Bibi" Netanyahou, John McCain, John Bolton, etc. They are cruel and evil people. Maybe they are not even self-aware of their true nature. They are also ugly people because the hatred they have so much of, permeates their whole being and radiates out of them like an aura. Everything these "leaders" do, is guaranteed to hurt someone; generally those least able to hit back (cowardice also being part of their nature). We destroyed Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and now we want to destroy Syria and Iran. Not because of any valid reason, it is just destruction for destruction's sake. These leaders are like weasels in a chicken house – killing from instinct.
Do I smell an Iran-India strategic partnership a-brewing?
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2012/02/09/…
And all this is being done to 'make them stop what they aren't even doing': making a nuclear weapon.
Sanctions: Low limited warfare, just like the United States did to Japanese before world War 2. Sanctions, trade embargoes which hurts the free market. Affecting rice and cooking oil, just because AIPAC wants to control the political process. WAR is a CHOICE. When you vote for Obama or Romney , or the fool Santorium you support the choice of war. The small people are often hurt in these. Russia becomes more undemocratic, and now countries go streaming to them to resist pressure. Everyone suffers. THEY HIDE BEHIND THE LIES of CHEAP FICTION. The lie that a used car salesman was going to hire a drug cartel assassin in Mexico fly and set it up in the Nations capital. Nobody, beyond a sixth grader would believe this.
Jason Ditz, “your comment must be approved by the site admins before it will appear publicly”. The antiwar.com’s no fly list? Do you want people to listen to your antiwar message. If so, those who care enough to comment, shouldn’t be delayed or blacklisted. Otherwise, people just think your a tool of somebody.
[moderator’s note: We use IntenseDebate commenting, with built-in moderation tools, to keep the site from being flooded by a) links to sites selling Viagra and Ugg Boots, and b) screeds from Stormfront. No moderation setup is perfect, and a lot of comments get caught in the filters and have to be manually approved. If you “think” that makes us a tool of somebody, whatever it is you’re doing isn’t “thinking” – TLK]
In the US nobody is allowed to criticize Obama, the illegal president. What is this?
What dumb headline: "US sanctions hit civilians, not the regime" as it would be an unwanted mistake. HITTING CIVILIANS IS ALWAYS THE ACTUAL and INTENDED AIM in order to motivate or press the people to government change! This is the case in any country: Cuba, North-Korea, Vietnam, Libya .everywhere. And this is only one of many integrative part of a huge set of tactics crashing down governments and conqering countries.
It begins with typically: (with samples from already finnished plots)
1. strategic decisions: conqering all former soviet client states as long Russia will not intervene (a time window of some ten years was subsumed):
2. Preparing dissidents of the target countries (Sleeper puppet governments):
CIA and partner agencies try to organize suitable rebels (for Libya Al Qaeda fighters, who are actually al CIAda) . Their new rebel leader Hifter has lived IN THE USA next to CIA HQ for the past 20 years. Or Ali Tarhouni from the US puppet government, now new "libyan finance minister" fresh form his sleeper job at Washington university:
US TV Interview about his robbing the libyan central bank.
3.
Tactic: Al CIAda fighters are the minimal invisible military part of alleged peaceful civilian unarmed protestors who want "democracy". This initially small part is used for taking police and government offices and weapons storages and prisons (for loyal additional brutal fighters- propaganda speech: liberation of suppressed of dictatorship). These guys were the looters and rapers of their own people and surly got rich. I know videos were they fill big transporters with stolen goods or e.g. this in Tripoli: or just at checkpoints: watch?v=WXDLLX2InWs Normally a few Al CIAda fighters kill some peaceful protesters in order to spark hate among them against the regime – and of course for the public in the NATO countries since only hate against alleged brutal dictators will bring support or at least no resistance against the later war when the people are long enough massaged with hate and non-action – till the propaganda reaches the point "why nobody stops this murdering?". You well know the whole firework of hate-creating stuff:
– Libyan Porno Used By CNN watch?v=2LtaE1jknkc
– Shelling "their own people" with cluster bombs:
– opposing news that shows that NATO rebels are not always they claim, is censored:
Libyan rebels stick a pole through child's body as they find him with the flag of his country(Green flag) (Rebel crimes) watch?v=gfl-uSCZGBA
– results of the happy shooting at their own towns:
– Looting to become rich: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnSxw77WES0
– NATO Crimes In Libya THE MUSLIM DICTATORSHIP watch?v=JlyS5klYwOc
– looting storage watch?v=rnSxw77WES0
– Libyan Rebels Executed Innocent Nigerian Worker watch?NR=1&v=VQHBq8-xyLs
3. Fine tuning of the uprise organizing is done by revolution professionals like OTPOR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=lpXbA6yZY-8
Since they do organize the demonstrations (actually small flash mobs of 30-60 people, mostly curious children, sometimes drugged and paid as in Libya) the coroprate media is already there to shoot close-ups and expressive crying good looking actors in good English and elaborated posters also in English to impress the couch potatoes in the NATO countries. The target country even does not notice this "revolution" and says there are no demonstrations and we did not klill anybody, but nobody is informed about this and even if, anybody has seen "the truth with its own eyes" and get angry over those "liars and murderering dictators". Ambulance and reporters were waiting for the "Serbian bread chain massacre" in Sarajevo. And their cameras turned from the lake of blood over the death body of an innocent human, than cut: The hights, where the Serb artillery is located – nobody says they were it, but any body knows who were the killers. Only an UN report (later supressed and censored) says, the shells came from muslim territoy.
There are thousands of stories like this.
4. When propaganda has reached sufficient people, UN makes a non-fly -zone, which enables to bomb power plant, water supply and other utilities, food storages, schools, universities, residential areas, even marketes and demonstrations and using FAE Bombs (the poor mans atomic bomb) when the rebel actors can not savely enter the carpet bombed towns, since there is still resistance without FAE-bombs (happend in Sirte and Bani Walid, Libya)
re. FAE BOMB: NATO used a large thermobaric bomb (called the nuclear bomb of the poor) in Bani Walid which killed all live within 2 square meteres by burning or suffocate. A family hiding in a shell proof basement has no chance. 1200 deaths was the result. details algeria-isp. com/actualites/politique-libye/201110-A6546/libye-otan-utilise-une-bombe-fae-fuel-air-explosive-surnommee-bombe-atomique-pauvre-bani-walid-octobre-2011.html
Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon
TEHRAN—Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America's uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. "Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran," said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, adding that Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and "everything they need" to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material. "Obviously, the prospect of this happening is very distressing to Iran and all countries like Iran. After all, the United States is a volatile nation that's proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat." Iranian intelligence experts also warned of the very real, and very frightening, possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/iran-worried-us-…