Carol Giacomo, "Bad Decision by Senator Schumer": Giacomo Threatens a US Senator

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Labeling Senator Chuck Schumer "wrong-headed and irresponsible" for his decision to oppose Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, Carol Giacomo writes in a New York Times "Taking Note" opinion piece entitled "Bad Decision by Senator Schumer":

"Democrats may want to reconsider whether he is the best candidate to be their next leader in the Senate, a job he desperately wants."

Apparently, this is what happens when you vote your conscience and oppose Obama. If you oppose he who must be obeyed, The New York Times, i.e. the unofficial mouthpiece of the Obama administration, is quick to demand blood.

But beyond Giacomo's ad hominem attack and thinly veiled threat, Giacomo also writes:

"While supporters of the deal, including the major powers and most nuclear experts, acknowledge it has weaknesses, the fact is, it offers strong and unprecedented curbs on Iran’s nuclear activities.

. . . .

In fact, no arms control agreement should depend on governments moderating their behavior – certainly those signed by the United States and the Soviet Union did not – and that’s a major reason why the strict controls stipulated in this agreement must be put in place to prevent Iran building a weapon."

"Strong," "unprecedented" and "strict"? In your dreams, darling Carol. Does Giacomo know what governs IAEA inspections in Iran, when even Kerry and Muniz have not seen the secret side agreements between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran? A provision allowing Iran itself to provide the IAEA with soil samples from the Parchin military site is a mere "weakness"? Yeah, right.

Giacomo's rant comes at a time when Iran is busy cleaning up Parchin, yet claiming that it is engaged in road works.

Giacomo continues:

"Any opponent of the deal bears a responsibility to propose a credible alternative but Mr. Schumer has repeated the same fanciful talking points that Mr. Netanyahu and the Republicans have espoused. 'Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations, and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be,' Mr. Schumer said. Such suggestions ignore the fact that the major powers are more likely to abandon the sanctions altogether if the United States reneges on the deal and to refuse, along with Iran, to reopen negotiations."

According to Giacomo, the US is now too weak to demand that the Europeans toe the line if the US decides to demand stronger sanctions. This is asinine. I would love to see any European bank thumb its nose at America and ignore stronger sanctions. Moreover, without the banks, no business can be done with Iran.

A pity that Giacomo and Rosenthal don't take the time to read the 2001 New York Times essay "Turning Away From the Holocaust" by former Times executive editor Max Frankel, in which Frankel declares:

"AND then there was failure: none greater than the staggering, staining failure of The New York Times to depict Hitler's methodical extermination of the Jews of Europe as a horror beyond all other horrors in World War II -- a Nazi war within the war crying out for illumination.

. . . .

And to this day the failure of America's media to fasten upon Hitler's mad atrocities stirs the conscience of succeeding generations of reporters and editors. It has made them acutely alert to ethnic barbarities in far-off places like Uganda, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. It leaves them obviously resolved that in the face of genocide, journalism shall not have failed in vain."

Instead, there is a constant flow of op-ed and guest op-eds from the Times, excoriating Israel.

Shame on Carol Giacomo, shame on Andrew Rosenthal, and shame on The New York Times.

Carol Giacomo, "An Unsettling Report on Iran and North Korea": Wearing Her Naivete on Her Sleeve

In a New York Times "Taking Note" opinion piece entitled "An Unsettling Report on Iran and North Korea," Carol Giacomo, a member of the Times's editorial board, examines a recent report that "North Korean nuclear and missile experts visited a military site near Tehran in April." Giacomo begins by questioning the veracity of the information:

"There are reasons to doubt the report. The Iranian embassy in Paris has already repudiated it. It was based on information from the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has spent years working to undermine the Iranian republic. Although the group’s disclosure in 2002 about Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz was accurate, its track record overall has been spotty."

Of course, if the Iranian embassy in Paris denied the report, it must be wrong . . . not. For example, as reported by the Institute for Science and International Security, the Fordow fuel enrichment plant was "publicly revealed by U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in September 2009, shortly after these nations presented evidence of the facility to the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Giacomo's conclusion:

"Such cooperation would belie Tehran’s insistence that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon and would necessarily blow up any nuclear agreement. But even if a nuclear deal is reached, the major powers will need to watch vigilantly to make sure that Iran doesn’t switch from developing the technology that could enable it to produce a bomb to buying one from North Korea."

Giacomo is concerned that Iran could "switch from developing the technology that could enable it to produce a bomb to buying one from North Korea"? For Pete's sake, none other than President Obama acknowledged in April 2015 that Iran's "breakout times are only about two to three months by our intelligence estimates." Or stated otherwise, Iran doesn't need to buy an atomic bomb from North Korea. On the other hand, Iran could certainly continue developing its first nuclear weapon and ballistic missile delivery capabilities in North Korea without fear of Western surveillance or interference.

Go back to sleep, Carol, before you hurt yourself.