Left I on the News

So implies the Los Angeles Times:

The Justice Department will announce today the creation of special task forces around the country to prevent unfriendly nations such as Iran from illegally obtaining U.S.-made parts and technology for their militaries and fledgling nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.

So now Iran not only is developing nuclear weapons, but has "fledgling" biological and chemical weapons programs as well. No, the sentence doesn't exactly say that, an English major could no doubt argue that the phrase "such as Iran" is just an example of an "unfriendly nation," and that it's other unfriendly nations who have those fledgling programs, but rest assured that 99% of the readers of this article won't read it that way.

Incidentally, this move is far from benign. Recall that one of the major causes of the deaths of more than a million Iraqis from the U.S./U.K. ("U.N.") sanctions was the prohibition against importing "dual-use" chlorine for use in water purification plants. No doubt we can expect to see efforts to block the sale of such items to Iran as well. Which just illustrates the absurdity of the "logic" that Iran should be willing to purchase fuel for its future nuclear power plants from other countries rather than producing it itself. Placing your country at the mercy of others is a recipe for future blackmail, or worse.

Update: And, since "genocide" is in the news, let's remember that the deaths caused by the deliberate destruction of the Iraqi water supply followed by the use of sanctions to prevent their reconstruction was a deliberate act of genocide on the part of the U.S. government. One for which the U.S. Congress won't be apologizing any time soon.