I try to keep up with the news like all the other “medium information” voters out there. I try to highlight omissions in the mainstream media.
Right or wrong – always extreme – I write only about what frustrates me and what is just plain wrong.
This morning I stumbled on a little tidbit that really rankles. It’s so utterly, totally and completely out of sync with what is the stated and implied position of the United States… it has been so successfully blacked out by all the media; well, I do what I always do – I dig in for some pertinent facts and write about them.
I found this story at Reuters, dateline December 7, 2012 at 5:50 PM. U.S. Extends Waivers on Iran Sanctions to China and India. The story begins thus:
“The United States granted 180-day waivers on Iran sanctions to China, India and a number of other countries on Friday in exchange for their cutting purchases of oil from the Islamic Republic.”
This order, executed by Secretary of State Clinton, voids all sanctions by 20 nations including most of Europe – Doh! – essentially all of Iran’s major trading partners in the region. They were, none of them, required to enforce other sanctions other than an unnamed decrease in oil bought from Iran.
(Keep in mind that this was an EXTENSION of this waiver to all these parties.)
The rest of the story goes on to describe how Iran’s exports are only 50% of their peak, how their currency reserves are depleted and how clearly they are hurting. Not one single solitary word is said about what sanctions were waived.
Presumably, this waiver applies to everything but oil and perhaps stainless steel casings for nuclear reactor control rods which Iran can now manufacture by themselves. Or maybe uranium ore centrifuges which Iran can manufacture as well, thank you very much.
Was it America’s sanctions against China, India et al for buying Iranian oil? What kind of sanctions are they anyway if they only reduce Iran’s exports by 50%. That’s nothing. Hell, with oil prices what they are these days, Iran’s still rolling in the dough.
So, everybody can buy Iranian oil and everybody can sell whatever they want to Iran. All Iran has to do is to be a little bit thrifty with their humongous oil wealth income and buy tuna instead of salmon.
What oil Iran doesn’t sell to this coalition of the unwilling, they put on Liberian tankers and sell to everybody else in the world under a different name. End of problem. Sanctions are nul, void, laughable and utterly duplicitous.
I can see now why this story was released at zero-dark-thirty on Friday afternoon on Pearl Harbor Day.
It clearly says the Obama administration is pandering to Iran and terrorism in general, just the kind of news to reignite the whole Benghazi investigation.
No wonder Iran likes Obama so much.
