I hope no one shows this to Hillary!

But are the Syrians bitter? (I'm assuming they don't wear flag pins.)

Don't look for much serious media coverage on this topic. Perhaps a blurb or two to let us know they still care.

This is all very strange - if this were true, Bush and his warmongering cronies wouldn't have hesitated to bomb Syria into the Stone Age. Something is up here and progressives need to be very skeptical of anything the spooks from the CIA say. There is a story below the surface here that is not being reported. Calling Seymour Hersch and/or Robert Parry.....

Wait, aren't nuclear reactors a good thing? Y'know, no greenhouse gases?

I'm so confused.

Kevin - please stop shilling for the neo-cons. Trust Uncle Sy.

All very exciting but I don't believe it.

Oh there we go again

We know that newspapers don't bother fact-checking things like whether “plutonium based reactors� exist, but at least the neocons who have been spreading different incompatible variations of this story under “not for attribution� agreements every time the agreed framework is discussed in the white house could have learned something from the time when the “senior administration official� crowd complained about a “light water reactor of north Korean design�

There are huge advantages to using a “light water reactor of north Korean design�:
A. they are easy to conceal, because they don't exist. (Canadian design yes, North Korean no)
B. they are unsuitable for producing weapons grade plutonium so the rest of the world won't suspect a thing! In fact thats why everyone wanted to give the North Koreans light water reactors (of Canadian design?) as part of the agreed framework if only they got rid of their graphite moderated reactor (a knockoff of a British design?).

One slight downside, light water reactors need uranium enriched to low level as fuel. But Syria can just get that from the west by saying they intend to use it as paper weights I guess. A “plutonium based reactor� would improve on this non existence paradigm of concealment. The whole point of reactors in weapons programs is producing plutonium for bombs so if you already have the plutonium to “base� your reactor on then not only can you have you reactors, but you can have the nukes to defend the reactors while you build them! Somehow I doubt that is the story those pussy, sorry, “risk averse� guys at the CIA will tell you though.

The “not for attribution� arm of team Cheney started out with a claim this box in the Syrian desert was a plant that separated natural uranium from phosphor fertilizer. Maybe they should have stuck with that story since it may not have scared anyone, but at least it didn't sound like a coconut based space program of Inuit design. Or maybe they just should just stop trying to include scary sounding technical details they don`t understand and just say “reactor�.

Lets not forget that it was the 2002 accusation of the US of a North Korean Uranium based nuclear weapons program that blew up the talks over continuing the Clinton era agreed framework. Then the US ignored the problem. Then North Korea tested a plutonium based nuke and Bush had to beg if he could please have the agree framework back. So the US had to admit that there would be no need to dismantle a uranium weapons program as part of the new deal, that was just an “intelligence failure�, sorry about that new nuclear weapons state on your border people of Seoul. Heck of a job. So we know its not north Korean fuel or enrichment expertise that would fuel the supposed Syrian reactor.

And there was the time John Bolton got all worked up because he just knew those Cuban medical labs could only be meant for one thing: bioweapons! For some reason he never mentioned this growing threat so close to the shores of America again...

The less said about Iraq the better.

At this point I would like to mention the totally unrelated issue of the neocon attitude toward treaties like the test ban treaty, disarmament treaties, the conventional forces in Europe treaty, weapons in space, etc etc. Oh and lets not forget the fondness of the phrase “lawfare� in neocon and cheney-ite circles. I don't know why but I always feel the need to bring that up when neocons accuse the governments they are in childish ideological shouting matches with of supposedly breaking the very treaties the neocons themselfs couldn't care less about.

Isn`t it interesting that suddenly there is a nuclear weapons program right on Israels border, but all the neocons want to talk about is North Korea? The LA times quotes what, 7 sources? and not one is pro-agreed framework. There is an anonymous senate aide at the end who asks “what would their [the anti-diplomacy crowd] alternative be?� That doesn't exactly help clear up the reactor rumors now does it?

I don't believe it at all.

After all the fiascoes all these responsible government official keep getting us involved in, the "temporary" surge that turns out to be a permanent increase in troops when everyone was calling for a decrease, and so on, their word is worth as much as Al Capone's.

If this is what it really was, why didn't they just tell us that when it happened? Answer: because it wasn't a reactor, and they were covering up a fiasco of the "Oops, we just hit an aspirin factory" variety.

In my opinion, anyone who believe this line of bullshit is a sucker, and is letting the administration get away with more of what they've already been doing to us again and again for 7 years.

Assertions aren't facts.

Remember, these are the guys that make their own reality.

OT--

McCain gets about 60K a year (tax free) as a Navy disability pension. He is classified as 100% disabled.

100% disability classification means that he is incapable of being trained for ANY gainful civilian employment.

Does that fit with working as a Senator or President?

Neal,
The answer to your question at 10:48 is currently holding office as President. Next question?

I think the Syria military building without any real security, that the Israelis bombed was probably a low tech missile or perhaps storage facility related to chemical warfare that was yes very possibly illegal, but very unlikely to be the start of a plutonium nuclear reactor, which was the Israeli and the CIA 'groupthink' fear.

Seymour Hersh debunked the nuclear reactor cover story pretty extensively in his New Yorker piece 'A Strike in the Dark' over two months ago.

Retired Brigadier General Shlomo Brom, who served as deputy national-security adviser under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, told me that Israel wouldn't have acted if it hadn't been convinced that there was a threat. "It may have been a perception of a conviction, but there was something there," Brom said. "It was the beginning of a nuclear project." However, by the date of our talk, Brom told me, "The question of whether it was there or not is not that relevant anymore."

Robert Carlin, an expert on North Korea who retired in 2005 after serving more than thirty years with the C.I.A. and the State Department's intelligence bureau, "People think they know the ending and then they go back and find the evidence that fits their story," he said. And then you get groupthink--and people reinforce each other.

As mentioned above, probably not true.

"Apparently this isn't expected to affect our current negotiations with North Korea"

No, but it does establish the efficacy of preemptive strikes for taking out nuclear threats. Wonder where that argument would be useful?

At the 'at largely' blog Larisa A seems to have this story pegged as a Rupert Murdoch 'yellow press' exhibit:

http:www.atlargely.com/2008/04/massive-propaga.html

Looks like something's going on:
http://www.isis-online.org/images/main_satellite_index.html

Even with the twisted reality of Washington doublespeak, It's no stretch to consider the possibility of Syrian - North Korean weapons friendship. They don't have many others friends to love. It is also easy to believe that the Israelis and US Special Forces surveiled, had shipping documents, had a truck driver and engineer inside, had originals of the blueprints. Probably not an aspirin factory. Could've supplied the generators. Who else designs and manufactures precision nuclear engineering stuff? Westinghouse, GE, Siemens, Flour, Mitsubishi, etc.
Israel uses little restraint when feeling threatened. Knocking out a likely threat is COMPLETELY expected. Gee folks, The only slightly realigned Axis of Evil is systematically being assaulted permanently. Surprise!