I must admit I should have had a premonition that this was coming. A source of mine over at the Island of Nantucket told me about a month or so ago he heard Secretary of State John Kerry singing that old song that begins with the words: “Days are long since you went away, I think about you all through the day, my buddy, my buddy, my buddy – Sergey I miss you so.”
I laughed when he told me that. I told him: “How could he miss Sergey Lavrov? Putin’s Russia is not our friend. Putin’s the world number one troublemaker even trying to let Greece collapse so that he could bring it under his control. He has been preaching that the United States is the great Satan even more so than the Ayatollah in Iran.”
Saying the word “Iran” made me stop short in my tracks! The negotiations had not been completed but were at a critical stage as we were talking. My fisherman buddy nodded: “You got it. We need Russia to get the Iran deal. You got to figure we’re going to pay a big price for it.”
It now appears John and Sergey are in touch a lot these days. Did the clever Sergey lure John in by playing hard to get? Did we think we direly needed Russia’s help putting the final touches on the Iran treaty? Did our lust for it blind us to what damage could come from it?
“According to the White House, President Barack Obama “thanked President [Vladimir] Putin for Russia’s important role in achieving this milestone” during a July 15 telephone conversation. This was followed a couple of days later when Putin and members of Russia’s Security Council — including Russia’s top military, intelligence and security officials, . . . — “ noted again that the leading role and constructive position taken by the United States played a big part in making it possible to finalize the agreements” during a meeting chaired by Putin.”
It makes me a little nervous when the Russian leaders who have been demonizing us so that only 15% of their people have a favorable view of the United States begin to say nice things about us.
We know trade is the reason why France, England and Germany went along with the deal. They are looking to Iran and its almost 80 million people to help their home manufacturers. China also is looking for other overseas places to sell its wares so it had no problem. But Russia, it has nothing to sell but turmoil and oil and allowing another oil producing nation an opening to the world markets seems to be against its interest.
I was for the Iranian deal as you know I saw it as a way to avoid going to war with Iran. I saw it as tying the hands of the next president who will be under tremendous pressure to attack Iran by the members of the Netanyahu Party in Congress and the big money supporters of the Republican Party who are Israeli-firsters.
The deal prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons which after all was the purpose behind the negotiations. I also see it as being in Israel’s interest in the long run to have an Iran more involved in the world than isolated. Israel has been able to make peace with former adversaries before so there is no reason that such a rapprochement could not come about. In fact, Netanyahu is just the guy who could bring it about like Nixon did with China
The puzzle is what did Putin get out of it? That is what I want to know. I ask myself how can I want to see the Iranian deal go through when I have no idea whether there was a secret deal? Did Obama and Kerry give Putin: a free hand in Ukraine; (Britain’s Independent on Sunday newspaper reported that Ukrainian military authorities believe the number of Russian troops within and close to its borders has risen to more than 50,000,) a guarantee not to topple Assad; a lifting of the sanctions; or something even more worrisome.
While thinking that I had one of those eureka moments. Russia was always going to go along with an Iranian deal. Whether it got some extras in a secret side deal is only icing on the cake to it but does show the weakness and blindness of our negotiators. (Kerry’s obtuseness is well know as shown when as a Massachusetts senator with a residence on Nantucket he registered his yacht in Rhode Island to avoid taxes.)
The deal was the thing. Whatever it took Kerry and company were going to get it. One thing they were going to show was that Israel could not push them around. Obviously that is good; American negotiators should make deals that are good for American and not Israel. But by looking over their shoulders at Israel; and playing nice with Russia; and Kerry having visions of a Nobel Peace prize dancing in his head, the Iranian deal was signed.
Even Israel, the most obdurate opponent to the deal was blinded by its true ramifications. This deal may go down as the worst ever executed by an American government; the equivalent to the Louisiana give away by France. Perhaps it is the Russian revenge for giving us Alaska.
(Continued tomorrow)
Furthermore, Russia and Iran stand to benefit from some trade opportunities on nuclear fuel, military equipment, and sale of the advanced S-300 anti-missile system.
“Russia had long been Iran’s primary arms supplier, with total sales of nearly $3.4 billion between 1991 and 2010,” Schwartz noted. “Russia hopes that the lifting of US sanctions will lead to a resumption of large-scale arms transfers.”
———–
yep
Double-ditto.
Triple ditto!
In other news
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2015/08/19/coverup-federal-appeals-court-blasts-doj-lawyer-misconduct-in-police-prosecution/#undefined
Coverup: Federal Appeals Court Blasts DOJ Misconduct in Police …
The district court also found that cooperating defendants called to testify by the government lied, an FBI agent over stepped, defense witnesses were intimidated …
Double yep
In other news
‘RIDICULOUS’: FBI WARNS OF NEXT BIG TERROR ATTACK
Leaked document blames Fox, WND, Pam Geller for fueling militias
August 18 2015
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/08/ridiculous-fbi-warns-of-next-big-terror-attack/#UZZ7JFOKAg5IzYxr.99
Also see
Documents reveal Paul Harvey’s long friendship with FBI | Muckety …
http://news.muckety.com/2010/01/25/documents-reveal-paul-harveys-long-friendship-with-fbi/24031
Jan 25, 2010 – Folksy radio commentator Paul Harvey, who died a year ago at age 90, was a sub rosa broadcast voice for the FBI.
Also see
How the Media Conned the Public into Loving the FBI – WhoWhatWhy
whowhatwhy.org/2014/04/…/media-conned-public-loving-fbi-book-review…
Apr 9, 2014 – A review of “Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate: The Campaign to Control the Press and the Bureau’s Image” by Matthew Cecil.
http://whowhatwhy.org/2014/04/09/media-conned-public-loving-fbi-book-review/
Matt
Unanswered questions include when
the US Empire gets nuked will it be from
someone we pissed off in the
Middle East or an inside job?
FBI back story….
FBI agents tried to kill Vietnam Marine vet
Scott Camil who was with Kerry at the 1971 circa
meeting of Winter Soldiers
See
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Camil,
msfreeh,
You seem to have a mild streak of conspiracy theorist in you.
Just curious on your thoughts on who or what was really behind 9/11…?
Specifically…
Why the damage to the Pentagon was allegedly not consistent with a jetliner crashing into it?
Allegation of foreign object (a missile fired at the tower a split second before impact) attached to fuselage of 2nd jet that crashed into the World Trade Center?
Thanks,
R.N.
Thanks for reading my post Rather Not
I would rather not answer your question.
In other news
http://metro.co.uk/2015/08/19/if-the-fbi-thinks-youre-a-terrorist-heres-something-you-could-do-5348476/
If the FBI thinks you’re a terrorist, here’s something you could do
Francesca Kentish
Francesca Kentish for Metro.co.ukWednesday 19 Aug 2015 7:42
Also see
http://www.dailyclimate.org
Lobsters in New England shift north as ocean gets warmer; boom in the north, bust in the south
Aug 18, 2015
— The lobster population has crashed to the lowest levels on record in southern New England while climbing to heights never before seen in the cold waters off Maine and other northern reaches — a geographic shift that scientists attribute in large part to the warming of the ocean.
The trend is driving lobstermen in Connecticut and Rhode Island out of business, ending a centuries-old way of life.
Restaurant diners, supermarket shoppers and summer vacationers aren’t seeing much difference in price or availability, since the overall supply of lobsters is pretty much steady.
But because of the importance of lobsters to New England’s econom
msfreeh,
You are welcome. I enjoy your posts.
Interesting that you would “rather not” answer that one,… not even to denounce it.
How about your thoughts on TWA Flight 800 going down over Long Island in 1996?
Thanks,
R.N.
msfreeh,
Or, your thoughts on….
•The JFK Assassination?
•Area 51 and the Aliens?
•Paul Is Dead?
•Secret Societies Control the World?
•The Moon Landings Were Faked?
•Jesus and Mary Magdalene?
•Holocaust Revisionism?
•The CIA and AIDS?
…and last but not least,…where are the Gardner items?
Thanks,
R.N.
RN
For the uneducated and uneducable
A Reality Sandwich
hold the MTC
From 1989-2002 I helped organize an annual
conference that looked at crimes committed
By FBI agents
During these conferences we brought an honor roll list of speakers that presented evidence that FBI agents
created a wide range of crimes including creating
1. the 1993 1st World Trade Center bombing
Speakers Included FBI Lab whistleblower
Dr Frederick Whitehurst , lead forensic bomb
expert at the FBI Lab on the 1993 bombing
and Oklahoma City bombing
2. 1995 Oklahoma City bombing
Speaker Republican State Representative
For Oklahoma City Charles Key and member
of the OKC bombing Grand Jury Hoppy
Heidelberg
See
Final Report – Charles KeyCharles Key
http://charleskey.com
Welcome to Charles Key.com!
The Final Report Charles is a former State Representative and author of The Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah …
Google Hoppy Heidelberg okc bombing grand jury
We did attempt to bring ex copJames Sanders and ultra conservative Jack Cashill to discuss
their film Silenced about the FBI coverup
of TWA flight 800 by a US missile
over Long Island
In 2002 I worked with Kyle Hence to help shoot
911 Press For Truth
and helped
him produce this film about 911 by introducing him
to Danny Schecter at Globalvision
911 Press For Truth
9/11: Press For Truth – Top Documentary Films
topdocumentaryfilms.com › 9/11
Rating: 8.2/10 – 37 votes
9/11: Press for Truth follows three of the Jersey Girls (widows of individuals killed … You will have many questions about 911 after watching this movie and have …
Since 2006 I have been shooting a documentary
about Maine artist Robert Shetterly who recently
painted the portrait of filmaker Kristina Borjesson
See
http://flight800doc.com/pr/
Sigh!
The Fulbright Hearings
The 22 hearings, titled “Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia”, were held on eleven different days between April 20, 1971, and May 27, 1971. The hearings included testimony and debate from several members of Congress, as well as from representatives of interested pro-war and anti-war organizations.
April 22, 1971. Testimony by John Kerry (Representative of Vietnam Veterans Against the War [VVAW]) on the necessity of immediate and unilateral withdrawal based on Vietnam veterans’ personal experiences. Discussion then followed on means of disengagement from war and how to achieve political settlement in Indochina, as well as discourse on the viability of the American political system. Kerry was the only representative of Vietnam Veterans Against the War who testified on April 22, but others in VVAW were in the audience and at times supported his remarks with applause. Kerry gave a prepared open statement and was then questioned by the Senators.
During this testimony Kerry asked his often-quoted question, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
More recently, during the 2004 United States presidential campaign, some critics of Kerry have focused current media attention on his participation in those Senate hearings and have alleged that parts of his testimony that day portrayed American war veterans of that era in an unduly harsh light. Other critics have gone farther and alleged that Kerry’s testimony about US atrocities emboldened the North Vietnamese to torment the USA POWs who were still imprisoned at the time.[1]
Opening statements[edit]
Senator Fulbright’s opening statement was appreciative of Kerry’s views, and also mentioned a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, subsequently reversed, which ruled that Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the group for which Kerry was a leader and spokesman, did not have a constitutional right to use the National Mall.
Kerry’s testimony[edit]
After a brief supportive statement from Senator Javits, Kerry read his prepared opening statement, and stated:
“I would like to say for the record, and also for the men behind me who are also wearing the uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony.”
“The men behind me” refers to members of VVAW and others who came to the committee to hear Kerry testify, which by all accounts was very crowded with supporters and media.
Kerry then explained the Winter Soldier Investigation, which took place earlier that year in Detroit, Michigan. This part of the testimony is considered controversial:
“…I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.”They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”
After defining “Winter Soldiers” as a play on words from Thomas Paine, Kerry summarized the reason he and his supporting veterans were speaking out:
“We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.”
Kerry described the anger and betrayal felt by Vietnam War veterans, then moved on to political issues:
“In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to use the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.”
Kerry expressed his belief that nothing in Vietnam threatened the United States, and that the war was merely a Vietnamese civil war instead of part of a global struggle against Communism. He added:
“We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw firsthand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Vietcong.”—-John Kerry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulbright_Hearings#Kerry.27s_testimony
According to Wikipedia…
“In a 1992 interview, Camil revealed for the first time that he had considered shooting “the most hardcore hawks” in Congress as an alternative to returning medals during the Dewey Canyon III demonstration in April 1971. In Camil’s words, “I didn’t think it was terrible at the time … I was serious. I felt that I spent two years killing women and children in their own fucking homes. These are the guys that fucking made the policy, and these were the guys that were responsible for it, and these were the guys that were voting to continue the fucking war when the public was against it. I felt that if we really believed in what we were doing, and if we were willing to put our lives on the line for the country over there, we should be willing to put our lives on the line for the country over here.”[3][4] Six months later at a November 1971 meeting, after recruiting participants and describing his weapons training range, Camil proposed to the VVAW his idea about the assassination of the members of Congress who showed the most support for the war. The proposal was voted down.”
Recognized by the FBI as an “extremist and key activist,” Camil was on President Nixon’s “enemies list.” On December 22, 1971, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a classified memo to the Jacksonville office regarding Camil, referring to him as an “extremely dangerous and unstable individual whose activities must be neutralized at earliest possible time.” Other memos about Camil used the same word, neutralize, less ambiguously: “Jacksonville continue to press vigorously to insure (sic) that all necessary action taken to completely neutralize subject without delay.” Camil explained, “When you pin the government down, they’ll say ‘Well, “neutralize” just means to render useless.’ But if you talk to guys in the field, they say it means to kill.”
“Indeed, Camil was eventually shot by FBI and-or DEA agents in 1974 in a drug entrapment sting, and nearly died.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Camil#Vietnam_war_activism
FREEDOM FIGHTER
BY DAVID RHEA
Scott Camil lay bleeding on a Gainesville Street. He was telling someone his blood-type while a man who’d just shot him in the back identified himself as an officer of the law.
“My blood-type is A negative,” Camil said. “I am having trouble breathing. I am a disabled vet. Take me to the V.A.”
A bullet from Dennis Fitzgerald’s .380 Llama pistol collapsed Camil’s left lung and damaged his liver and kidneys. Camil, who had been twice wounded in the Vietnam War, once again felt the bite of metal in his flesh.
Fitzgerald and another agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency had been introduced to Camil through a girlfriend, Barbara Davis. It was later revealed she was working as an informant for the DEA. Camil says they were driving to get some cocaine. It was March 31, 1975.
“One of them was driving,” Camil says. “I was sitting in the shotgun seat, and one of them was behind me. The one behind me grabbed me around the neck, pulled my head to the headrest and shoved a gun to my head behind my right ear.”
Camil says he didn’t know they were agents. He thought they were trying to rob him.
“I grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the headrest of the car,” Camil says. “I unlocked the door, and I was going to jump out into traffic. I figured if they tried to shoot me in front of people, they would get into trouble, so they wouldn’t do it.”
He figured wrong. Fitzgerald shot him in the back as he opened the door.
“The impact left my shoes in the car but put me out in the street,” Camil says. “I was wearing five-lace Converse tennis shoes. You are talking about a lot of force to just pick you up so fast that your shoes stay in the car.”
Camil was hospitalized for a month before going to trial in a federal court. Forensic evidence supported his version of the events, and he was acquitted of the charges brought against him. On the morning following the trial, Camil says the jury foreman “went to the state attorney’s office and told the state attorney that the jury felt the shooting was deliberate and the federal agents should be indicted for attempted murder.” But the government agents were never tried for the shooting.
War Sucks
Camil still wears his long hair tied back, much the way he did back then. He sports a thick mustache, all that remains of his trademark bushy beard of the ’70s. Both his hair and mustache have turned gray. Penetrating brown eyes peer from behind glasses a recent addition for the thin 51-year-old father of three. Camil lives in a two-story house on 10 acres on the outskirts of Gainesville. He is active in community politics and elections and is writing an autobiography. He speaks to UF history classes and local schools. He says it’s his way of warning young people about the realities of war a warning he never received.
“What would have happened to me,” he asks, “if veterans from the Korean War would have come to my history class and said, ‘Hey man, war sucks. It’s not any fun. It hurts when you get wounded. It hurts when you see your buddies get killed’?”
Camil saw too many friends killed in the war. As a forward observer with Charlie Company, 1/1, 1st Marine Division, he lived in the field with the infantry and called in artillery for them when they made contact with the enemy.
“When you talk to someone who was in the war,” he says, “you should find out what that person did in the war. Nine out of every 10 who were in ‘Nam were support troops who stayed in the rear with the gear. A lot of bull has been spread around about the war by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Camil was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1946, and later moved to Miami with his mother, stepfather, sister and two stepbrothers. He joined the Marines while still in high school and shipped out to Parris Island, S.C., after he graduated in 1965. He served two tours in Vietnam, earning two Purple Hearts, the Presidential Unit Citation, the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry and several other awards. He was honorably discharged as an E-5 sergeant.
When he returned from Vietnam in 1967, Camil began pursuing a philosophy degree at UF, where he heard Jane Fonda speak out against the war. He became heavily involved in anti-war protests as the Southeast coordinator of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. At the 1971 UF homecoming parade, VVAW members performed “guerrilla theater.” They carried a flag-draped coffin with a sign that read, “The Impossible Dream No More War” and dressed in jungle fatigues with toy M-16 rifles. Camil threw smoke bombs and VVAW members began “stabbing” people planted in the crowd. As fake blood flowed, people panicked. Camil had made his point.
The Gainesville 8
Camil gained national attention when he and seven others became defendants in the 1973 Gainesville 8 Trial, which received extensive media coverage. The U.S. Justice Department indicted Camil, John Kniffen, Alton Foss, Donald Perdue, William Patterson, Stan Michelsen, Peter Mahoney and John Briggs on charges of conspiracy to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami.
“Scott was basically the focal point of the whole thing,” says the Gainesville 8’s only non-veteran, John Briggs.
According to FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI was keeping tabs on Camil and referred to him as an “extremist and key activist” as well as a “dangerous and most volatile person.” A teletype to the Jacksonville office instructed them “to completely neutralize subject without delay,” and to “consider any counterintelligence techniques or pretext operation.”
While the FBI declined to officially define these terms, Camil says they were orders to kill him.
Camil says he decided to represent himself during the trial because he wanted to directly address the jury and cross-examine witnesses. In his opening statement he told the jury, “I want you to know me as a human being, not as a silent object of controversy. My buddies died in the rice paddies while the president watched the all-star game. Asians were murdered for defending their homes and families while their only crime was their geographic place of birth. It all made me sick.”
Larry Turner, who is now an Eighth Judicial Circuit Judge, was Camil’s attorney before the trial and helped with the defense. He was surprised by the tactics of the federal prosecution.
“When the government came after Scott, it was with such vehemence and with every dirty trick you could imagine,” Turner says. “It made it easy to stay angry and fired up to fight. The government did such a bad job that it was just like a comedy, particularly in hindsight. It was like, ‘what is the dirty trick de jour that we caught the government in?'”
Undercover federal agents and informants had infiltrated the VVAW. Turner says when it was shown in court that they were
the ones initiating VVAW’s drastic, illegal activities, the prosecution’s credibility plummeted.
“My experience with Scott and with that case convinced me that the government was cheating like crazy, and it changed my view toward government forever,” Turner says. “At that point in America’s history, we trusted government. Our government wouldn’t cheat, we thought. It certainly wouldn’t cheat against us. Well, they did. After a while, there was only one explanation: They were cheating every way they could to win.”
Turner says Camil is one of his dearest friends. “He has a really good heart and such a strong sense of justice and a strong sense of ethics. What he believes is right, he believes is right. And he adheres to that. I don’t always agree with his beliefs in what is right or wrong, but I really like the fact that he doesn’t deviate from his beliefs.”
And Camil still stands by his beliefs. Unlike many activists of the ’60s and ’70s, Camil has continued to speak out against government policies he feels are wrong and is active in humanitarian efforts worldwide. In 1990, he went to Central America as an official observer to the Nicaraguan elections. Also in 1990, he traveled to the Middle East on a fact-finding trip in which he represented the Veterans for Peace organization. In 1994, he returned to Vietnam as the U.S. representative for the Vietnam Friendship Village Project, an international effort to build a village with a school, an orphanage, a hospital and housing.
Gun Control, Waco and Oklahoma
Camil sees additional gun control legislation as an attempt to erode personal freedom. He worries about government abuse of power, citing the incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge where government agents killed Americans. He says he wonders if we are being told the truth about the Oklahoma bombing and fears there are parallels between it and the experiences he had protesting the war.
“We see these things happen at Waco and at Ruby Ridge just like we saw at Kent State and with the Black Panthers and the Native American movement,” Camil says. “We saw the American government murdering citizens. McVeigh sees the American government murdering citizens, and I see it too.”
Camil wants people to remember the children who were killed at Waco, as well as those who were killed in the federal building in Oklahoma City. “All of those kids equally had the right to live their lives, and that right was taken away from them. All of those kids deserve justice, not only those in Oklahoma, but at Waco and Ruby Ridge too. The government needs to be held accountable.”
Camil also disagrees with the government’s war on drugs, which he says causes more problems than it solves. According to him, the government has ruined its credibility by jailing people for marijuana while alcohol and tobacco remain legal.
“The government has reformed the welfare system because it wasn’t working. Why not do the same with this so-called war on drugs?” Camil asks. “We’re spending more money on keeping people locked up in prisons than we spend on our kids. As a taxpayer, I would much rather see my tax dollars going on education than to jail a bunch of pot-smokers. Many Americans have smoked marijuana and know that it doesn’t make them violent or aggressive. For the government to be having a war against this, to be putting away our children and fathers and mothers and sisters and friends, is totally unacceptable. Not one person belongs in prison for marijuana.”
Not Your Usual Route to a Degree
Camil completed his degree requirements and graduated from UF during the Gainesville 8 Trial. He attributes his successful completion to teachers who worked with him and understood his outside pressures.
“When I was going to the University of Florida and doing all my anti-war activity and getting arrested, my professors brought homework to the jail so that I wouldn’t be penalized,” Camil says. “Talk about pressures. Getting arrested, getting thrown in jail, having major trials and trying to finish college at the same time is quite a job,” he says. “I never could have done it if the teachers had done it by the book, like, ‘Sorry, you had three unexcused absences, you’re getting an F.'”
Camil says he has tremendous respect for teachers. He says teachers help develop America’s future, our children. He feels that one of the country’s biggest problems is that teachers are underpaid.
“If we scrimp [on education], then we undermine everything that comes after that,” he says. “It helps us to grow and think about things when we see them from a different perspective.”
Camil says he wants students today to step back and take a look at the government. “I always say to them, ‘you don’t have to believe me. Go and do some research, do some reading, find out for yourself who’s telling the truth and who’s not.’ Because it’s really important that they’re able to tell the difference between lies and truths, and double-speak and propaganda.”
http://www.jou.ufl.edu/Pubs/onb/F98/freedom.htm
“The puzzle is what did Putin get out of it? That is what I want to know. I ask myself how can I want to see the Iranian deal go through when I have no idea whether there was a secret deal?”…Matt Connolly
Matt,
…a partial answer to your question, by Paul N. Schwartz, nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Russia is … poised to benefit geopolitically from the nuclear accord, because Iran is likely to emerge from this process as a newly empowered state,”
“Iran and Russia are the primary supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which has been fighting largely Sunni uprising for more than 4 years, and both oppose many Saudi initiatives.”
“In general, such an outcome would accrue to the benefit of Russia, which stands to gain the most from a newly empowered Iran able to more effectively pursue its Middle East agenda,” Schwartz wrote.
Furthermore, Russia and Iran stand to benefit from some trade opportunities on nuclear fuel, military equipment, and sale of the advanced S-300 anti-missile system.
“Russia had long been Iran’s primary arms supplier, with total sales of nearly $3.4 billion between 1991 and 2010,” Schwartz noted. “Russia hopes that the lifting of US sanctions will lead to a resumption of large-scale arms transfers.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-likes-the-iran-deal-2015-7#ixzz3jGd09ogj
Matt, your suspicions are well founded.
R.N.
World powers and Iran struck a landmark deal on Tuesday to curb Iran’s nuclear program for at least 10 years in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.
It appears Russia is in a position to benefit both strategically and financially.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin…
“bilateral relations with Iran will receive a new impetus and will no longer be influenced by external factors.” (Really?)
http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-likes-the-iran-deal-2015-7#ixzz3jGZEJAeN
More thoughts by other world leaders on Iran Nuclear Deal…….
Here are some of the quotes from the main protagonists in the talks between Iran and P5+1, made up of the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany:
US president Barack Obama…
“This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon. I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies and our world safer.
This deal is not based on trust. It’s based on unprecedented verification.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif…
“The effect of this will be, when we implement our measures there won’t be no sanctions against the Islamic republic of Iran.
And that I think would be a major step forward. We have stopped a cycle that was not in the interest of anybody, not in the interest of non-proliferation.
We have built mutual distrust in the past…So what I hope is that through courageous implementation of this some of that trust could be remedied. But that is for us all to wait and see.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry…
“Diplomacy had paid off, insisting that “simply demanding that Iran capitulate makes a nice sound bite, but it’s not a policy”.
“If we find at any point that Iran is not complying with this agreement, the sanctions can snap back into place.”
“In return for Iran’s future cooperation, we and our international partners will provide relief in phases from the sanctions that have impacted Iran’s economy.”
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond…
“This is well beyond what many of us thought possible even 18 months ago and a good basis for what I believe could be a very good deal. But there is still more work to do…”
Russian foreign ministry…
“This deal contains the principal put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which is Iran’s unconditional right to a peaceful nuclear program.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel…
“The international community had never “been so close to an agreement preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons”.
French President Francois Hollande…
“France will be watchful … to ensure that a credible, verifiable agreement be established under which the international community can be sure Iran will not be in a position to have access to nuclear arms.”
UN chief Ban Ki-moon…
“The deal will pave the way to bolstering “peace and stability” in the Middle East and allow cooperation on the “many serious challenges (countries) face” in the region.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…
“The accord is a “historic mistake”.
“The final deal based on this agreement “would threaten the survival of Israel”.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/04/world-leaders-react-iran-nuclear-deal-150403020548163.html
For your reading pleasure……
“Liveshot“ John Kerry Quotes on Iranian Deal…..
“From the day these talks began, the United States and our partners have been crystal clear that we would not accept anything less than a good deal — a deal that shuts off all of Iran’s pathways towards fissile material for a nuclear weapon and resolves the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.” — John Kerry
“We have the support of Russia, China, Great Britain, France, and Germany. If we suddenly went off by ourselves and said no to this, we’re not only going to lose the support of the international community, we’re going to lose the access, lose the accountability. We would have no mechanism to verify that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. Without this deal, Iran could go do what it wants unchecked by the international community.”– John Kerry
“Put simply, this deal has a permanent prohibition on Iran having a nuclear weapons program and a permanent inspections regime that goes beyond any previous inspections regime in Iran. Iran is obligated as a party to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) not to seek or acquire nuclear weapons, commitments expressly defined in the JCPOA. Any Iranian attempt to design, pursue, build or otherwise seek a nuclear weapon would be an explicit and detectable violation of the NPT. In the event of Iranian non-compliance, the JCPOA will enable the United States to mobilize the international community to take swift action, including snapping sanctions back into place.” –John Kerry
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) advances critical U.S. interests related to preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, strengthening global nuclear safety and security, and promoting the peaceful applications of nuclear energy. Founded in 1957, the IAEA is the global focal point for supporting the safe, secure, and peaceful development and use of nuclear science and technology. The IAEA contributes to a central U.S. national security objective: Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It applies nuclear safeguards — consisting of monitoring, inspection, information analysis, and other activities — to detect and deter the application of peaceful nuclear activities to weapons-related purposes.” — John Kerry
“The relief from sanctions will only start when Iran has taken key nuclear steps and extended its breakout time from to one year. For certain sanctions to lift, Iran must:
•Complete the removal of excess centrifuges and infrastructure in Natanz and Fordow
•Reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium down to 300 kg
•Remove the calandria (the core of the reactor) at Arak and fill it with concrete
•Take agreed measures regarding issues relating to possible military dimensions
•Submit the initial declaration described in Article 2 of the Additional Protocol, which will include Iran’s own long term enrichment and enrichment R&D plan
“Only then will sanctions relief begin to be implemented in phases.” — John Kerry