Remember Scott Ritter? Arms inspector, made the rounds with Seymour Hersh about a decade ago with "Target Iran", when the Bush administration was in a very bellicose posture vis-a-vis Iran.

Interesting guy, often amongst the first to call out attempts to fabricate a casus belli on Middle Eastern nations.

He had a go at the NSA document supposedly leaked by Leigh Winner. Check it out: Leaked NSA Report Short on Facts, Proves Little in ‘Russiagate’ Case

"In many ways, the rush to blame Russia for attempting to undermine American democracy by meddling in our election system has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. The damage done to the credibility of our democratic institutions as a result of the politicized congressional proceedings has been incalculable, and by all accounts the worst is yet to come.

The Russians barely had to lift a finger—the wounds derived from this political maelstrom have all been self-inflicted. The fact that the mainstream media have been unable to accurately report on the issue only underscores the depths to which institutions and agencies will fall to deride and destroy that which they detest and abhor, namely President Trump."

Spoiler, Hitchens 'wins' the debate. I can't honestly say I've watched or listened to a debate between him and anyone were that did not seem to be the case. As often is the case though too, his grandest victory is understated, brief and easily overlooked.

Ritter thumps hard on the absence of WMD in Iraq to condemn the invasion, which on it's surface seems a strong argument. Hitchens casually references an unwillingness to be lectured on WMD's by those who cautioned against invasion for fear that Saddam would use those WMD on US troops. Scott Ritter went on Crossfire before the invasion to state that Saddam could easily reconstitute his chemical weapons and invading was too risky.

The very first video I ever submitted to VideoSift was a discussion by Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh primarily about the US posture towards Iran, taped on 10/26/06. It's still available on FORA.tv, and despite everything that happened since then, it's still worth watching.

*quality

The first one, Target Iran, didn't cut it. So my first actual sift would be Wilhelm Kempff playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata -- and the quality went downhill ever since.

^The smear-scandal technique feels similar to me. Scott Ritter and Valerie Plame got similar treatment. Perhaps efforts were made to keep Assange from releasing his info - blackmail, bribery - and the sudden urgency came about when it was clear that those efforts had failed?

The urgency to get Assange seems to have intensified greatly over the last month. Other than the B of A announcement, there were also a number of embarrassing (but not super damaging) leaks released: Karsai = 'paranoid' Ahmahdinijad = 'Hitler'. I wonder if there is more to that round of leaks than meets the eye. Perhaps the source(s) of those more innocuous leaks are connected to much more dangerous information, sending vulnerable parties into a panic?

Thanks

In reply to this comment by Ornthoron:
*promote

>> ^NordlichReiter:
>> ^rychan:
The only thing: Al Qaeda will make a bomb whether we take them to 6 party talks or teaty talks or not. Iran, may not.
Cannot compare criminals with nations. If that were true then US, Canada and any other nation worthy of the title would be comparative to criminal.


Scott Ritter seemed to be using Al Qaeda and Iran in the same argument. I don't see why he'd be intentionally vague and use the term "Islamic [nuclear] weapon" instead of "Iranian nuclear weapon".

If he said "If we nuke Iran, they Iran nuke us" his argument would make some sense as far as proportionality, but no sense as far as where they'd be getting their nuclear weapon since our attack was to destroy their nuclear facilities. Maybe it failed. And he thinks Iran will nuke a city in response. Sounds like a terrible thing to do, but OK. His argument is that Iran is reckless and dangerous with nuclear weapons.

If he said "If we nuke Iran, then Al Qaeda will nuke us" his argument is dumb, because like you said, Al Qaeda will do anything to nuke us already.

Scott Ritter seems like a total hack to me. Never believe someone who claims to see all ends as this guy does (or as George Bush would). His bombast and theatrics are just terrible.

"And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie aint going back in the bottle, until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation....so tell me...you want to go to war with Iran, PICK YOUR CITY!"

This is the same argument that weasel George Galloway tries to make -- painting the Iranians (or muslim world in general) as harmless, saying that the Bush administration are complete fear-mongers, but saying that we should shape our foreign policy on the belief that they'll perform terrorist atrocities on us if we don't do as they tell us.

How can the talks of a nuclear Iran be fear-mongering when you're using the threat of a nuclear Iran to discourage attacking them?

Or was he not talking about Iran. What then, Al Qaeda? Do you think they spend a lot of time debating proportionality of response? Do you think the group that crashed jumbo jets into skyscrapers full of civilians are holding back on their nuclear ambitions because they think the US is playing nice now?

You know what, I don't really know the answer to all these, but I know that anyone who speaks with the certainty that Scott Ritter does is full of it.

edit - and his statement is all based on a ridiculous premise, anyway. Why on Earth would we use nuclear weapons against Iran.

"My concern is that we will use nuclear weapons to break the backbone of Iranian resistance, and it may not work.

But what it will do is this, it will unleash the nuclear genie.

So for all those Americans out there tonight who say, "you know what, taking on Iran is a good thing", I just told you if we take on Iran, were gonna use nuclear weapons.

And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie aint going back in the bottle, until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation....so tell me...you want to go to war with Iran, PICK YOUR CITY!"
- Scott Ritter, UN Weapons Inspector.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'UN Inspector, Scott Ritter, war, iran' to 'UN Inspector, Scott Ritter, war, iran, nuclear' - edited by calvados

Lets all remember who Scott Ritter is exactly, he was chief UN inspector for WMDs in Iraq, in March 2003 he said that the US case for invading Iraq based on WMD was bullshit, he was publically ridiculed and sidelined as Condi Rice declared that we shouldn't let the "smoking gun be a mushroom cloud".

And yes invading Iran would create a huge problem it would mean the US is implicit in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and undue support of Isreal in the oppression of Palestinan people. Already the invasion of two soverign states is a violation of UN charters on aggression and are considered war crimes by Nuremberg standards.

But somehow bombing civilians is far more legit then someone fighting the oppression of a imperalistic power. People should take their blinders off and realize that the War on Terror is simply the new logic of the Cold War fighting communism applied in a new context in order for the US to project power and influence, first how does on fight a tactic? Second how many states were invaded or destabalized during the 60s, 70s and 80s in the fight against the red menace (guatemala, chile, bolivia and so many others)? How many inhumane states are supported now in their regimes if they are against terrorism (egypt, jordan, uzbekistan and many others)?

Well, first i'd like to see if this is of any interest at all. One part of this is already climbing the top 15 list, another one just got sifted as well. No need for another Ron Paul-esque overload, even though this, at least to me, is really worth watching.

There's an equally interesting talk by Scott Ritter at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY, and can be found here: http://www.freespeech.org/videodb/index.php?action=detail&video_id=10829&browse=0

If it wasn't a RM stream, i would have posted that one instead.