Saddam's Uranium: The Sequel

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

-President George W. Bush

The latest escalation of the propaganda war against people desiring a return to some semblance of normalcy as existed prior to September 11, 2001 – the day when everything changed – is the claim that the bad-ass Islamic bogeymen ISIS has taken control of 88 pounds of Uranium in Iraq. The dirty bomb card has now been dealt and will be hyped by the corrupt state-corporate media as one more reason to ratchet down civil liberties, subject citizens to more invasive search and confiscate tactics in airports and most of all serve as a cudgel during the coming election cycle.

The tale of the Iraqi Uranium redux and the weapons of mass destruction threat – remember, we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud – first surfaced back in June with the story that ISIS had taken control of one of Saddam’s old chemical weapons plants at Muthanna. That one didn’t get much traction other than on selected right-wing echo chamber blogs and bottom-feeder websites because it was hasty and sloppy. The 88 pounds (nice round and memorable number isn’t it?) that are now claimed to have been seized from Mosul University has the official backing of the government of Iraq, the UN Ambassador who per a Reuters story told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a recent letter.

The Reuters story, “Exclusive: Iraq tells U.N. that ‘terrorist groups’ seized nuclear weapons” states:

Insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country's north, Iraq told the United Nations in a letter appealing for help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad."

Nearly 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the July 8 letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

"Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state," Alhakim wrote, adding that such materials "can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction."

"These nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorist groups, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts," said Alhakim.

He warned that they could also be smuggled out of Iraq.

Libertarian financial blog Zero Hedge also cites the story of the 88 pounds of uranium in a posting entitled “ISIS Has Seized 88 Pounds Of Uranium In Northern Iraq” from which I excerpt:

With the mainstream media having moved on in the news cycle to Dow 'almost' 17,000 and the 'Border Crisis' Scandal, it seems The Islamic State (the terrorists formerly known as ISIS) have stepped up their game and come out swinging... by seizing 88 pounds of nuclear material (uranium compounds) from Mosul University. As Iraq's UN Ambassador warned, "these nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, "can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction... or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts."

First, the sitting government of Iraq as besieged as it currently is has a huge interest in putting down the mysterious ISIS eruption so anything that comes out of it, such as claims made by the Iraqi UN Ambassador about 88 pounds of uranium needs to be taken with extreme skepticism. The timing also serves western regimes in Washington and London who are continually confronted with their rogue behavior, specifically NSA/FBI/CIA unconstitutional and unjustifiable surveillance - as in prominent American-Muslim leaders being subjected to targeting because they are Muslims and two US spies turning up within the German government. The renewed threat of that "smoking gun as a mushroom cloud" gives the ruling regimes of both nations an excuse to rebut critics and launch a crackdown in the always invoked interests of "national security". This is already happening in the UK where Prime Minister David Cameron has called for an emergency law to circumvent the process in order to lock their surveillance systems into place as a matter of protecting the populace from "terrorists" (never mind that the real terrorists are embedded in the increasingly Norsefire leaning government) and using ISIS as the excuse.

The Obama administration hasn't gone that route yet but it's coming and if it isn't Obama then it will be Republicans in Congress after they retake the Senate in November and begin the impeachment proceedings. Having a dirty bomb go off  - or better yet, an alleged plot being foiled -would be an enormous boon to the security state apparatus and will provide Republicans with the added charge that Obama "did not keep America safe from the terrorists". The chatter from those seemingly in the know, for example Dick Cheney with his promise of a new 9/11 and Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham is extremely suspicious and grows louder with each subsequent Sunday morning bloviation circuit cycle.

The story of the 88 pounds of death and destruction though, at least of this morning is primarily being promulgated once again on right-wing blogs and websites such as The Gateway Pundit with “Caliphate Goes Nuclear”, Free Republic with “ISIS has seized 88 pounds of Uranium in Northern Iraq” (taken from Zero Hedge) and trashy site BuzzFeed with “ISIS Militants Seize Nuclear Materials in Iraq that Could Be Used for WMD’s”, It has all of the hallmarks of one of those propaganda dispersals that were commonplace during the Bushreich and nothing could be better for the future prospects of Republicans than to resuscitate that monster again. Not that the Democrats don't deserve to be nailed to the wall on their abysmal record on "terrorism" - Obama has vastly expanded the surveillance state, formally put into law the right of the president to have American citizens extra-judicially killed and continued the meddling in the Middle East that does the exact opposite of win hearts and minds. - The administration is also standing by while Israeli extremist nutjob Bibi Netanyahu is engaging in another bloody attack on Gaza after his demagoguery over the tragic abduction and murder of three young Jews that created a climate of racism and lust for blood vengeance much like the one that gripped the USA! USA! USA! after 9/11.  While the nature of ISIS itself is still unknown as to the origin, funding and state backing behind it the region continues on a slow rolling boil. 

Onward goes this sweltering summer of fear...

The Executive Order Hypocrisy of John Boehner

Finally free from having to constantly defend himself from an overthrow by the back-stabbing little guttersnipe Eric Cantor, House Speaker John Boehner is cranking up the election year outrage. Boehner is filing a lawsuit against President Barack Obama's use of executive orders to bypass a gaggle of paid off obstructionists hellbent at wrecking America. Braying about Obama's circumventing of Congress in issuing the orders to deliberately flout the quaint and antiquated system of checks and balances that is pretty much extinct in the corrupt, lawyered-up and spied upon modern political system is pure hypocrisy on Boehner's part. But when it comes to the day to day operations within the brothel that is housed within the US Capitol building hypocrisy is the coin of the realm.

Boehner's publicity stunt is par for the course - he will inevitably call a press conference and may even break down into one of those fake crying jags that he was famous for prior to his ascension to Speaker - but his ridiculous lawsuit is going nowhere. The issuance of executive orders has always been used and abused by US Presidents although it is particularly dangerous in the era of the Unitary Executive which bestows the powers of a king upon the sitting president. Further exposing Boeher's cynicism and his grandstanding in rolling out this dog and pony show prior to the mid-terms in November is that Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush issued nearly three hundred such orders and I don't seem to recall any objection from the luminous, orange-tinted wino from Ohio. In fact Mr. Boehner himself personally wrote to President Bush requesting an executive order to be issued to exempt the historic steamboat Delta Queen from a certain maritime law so the suit against Obama is more of the same cheap political horseshit.

In fact the hallowed Ronald Reagan, who has become to Republicans what Vladimir Lenin once was to the communists in Russia issued 381 such orders (more than Bush or Obama) with the most dangerous being Executive Order 12333. Reagan, who in signing off on what is referred to by insiders as "twelve-triple-three" could even be tabbed as the father of the modern surveillance state instead of the father of the country that Boehner and the rest of his sleazy criminal syndicate party try to sell him to voters as being. According to a recent McClatchy story, Reagan's 12333 is the basis for all of the ongoing unconstitutional NSA mass warrentless surveillance and data-mining that has been ongoing and exposed by patriotic whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The McClatchy story on 12333 is entitled "Most of NSA's data collection authorized by order Ronald Reagan issued"and I excerpt the following from this story:

The National Security Agency's collection of information on Americans' cellphone and Internet usage reaches far beyond the two programs that have received public attention in recent months, to a presidential order that is older than the Internet itself.

Approved by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Executive Order 12333 (referred to as "twelve-triple-three") still governs most of what the NSA does. It is a sweeping mandate that outlines the duties and foreign intelligence collection for the nation's 17 intelligence agencies. It is not governed by Congress, and critics say it has little privacy protection and many loopholes. What changes have been made to it have come through guidelines set by the attorney general or other documents.

The result is a web of intelligence law so complicated that it stymies even those tasked with interpreting it. As one former executive official said, "It's complicated stuff."

Confusing though it may be, the order remains the primary authority under which the country's intelligence agencies conduct the majority of their operations.

Neither the office of Attorney General Eric Holder nor that of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper would comment about 12333.

AND

The impact of 12333 is enormous -- and largely unknown. Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggest that less than half of the metadata the NSA has collected has been acquired under provisions of the USA Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the two laws that have received the most attention for permitting NSA programs.

Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director, has ratified that impression, saying that the majority of NSA data is collected "solely pursuant to the authorities provided by Executive Order 12333."

Boehner never really challenges the NSA Stasi does he? That is other than the standard lip service that is paid by the pack of thieves, liars, grifters, obstructionists and de-facto lobbyists when it comes to putting an end to bulk collection of metadata (a limited hangout) but not real reform or accountability. He also is one of the many rats in high places who has referred to Snowden as a "traitor" for his act of great service to the American people. Just like the slime-coated Darrell Issa with his abuse of taxpayer funds to conduct his inquisitions into Benghazi and the IRS allegedly targeting right-wing political front groups abusing non-profit status Boehner is all about his own political survival. That is because his survival means a permanent tax payer funded occupation of his congressional seat where he can suckle at the teat of the very big government that he decries for the purpose of his own self-enrichment and aggrandizement. Neither Boehner nor Issa will do one damned thing about the rogue activities of the NSA nor address the executive order that their idol Reagan imposed upon the American people that has led us to the brink of turnkey totalitarianism. No, it is all about sticking it to the BLACK guy in the WHITE House and nothing fires up the rabble in an off year election than some good-old fashioned race baiting, we saw it in 2010 and will see it again in 2014.

In a functional democratic system as was set out by the Founding Fathers the suing an out of control Executive Branch in order to maintain that bygone system of checks and balances would be both right and admirable, too bad that we don't live in one and it is largely due to the corruption and moral bankruptcy of reprobates like John Boehner and his ilk.