Iran Nuclear ISsuw

RISHAB MEHTA

The article is based upon the diplomatic scenario surrounding the concerns of the P5 countries (UK, USA, China, Russia, France) about Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme. For a period of nearly two decades, the western nations have been suspicious of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It is important to note that all these P5 countries are declared nuclear countries. Obviously its hypocritical of them to state that Iran does not have a right to nuclear technology since they themselves refuse to discard their nuclear weapons. They perceive Iran to be misusing its nuclear technology to make nuclear weapons while the Iranians object that they are only using nuclear technology for useful civilian purposes. While considering from a neutral point of view, it is hard to reason that nuclear weapons in the hands of Iranians are unsafe while weapons anywhere else in the world, including south Asia, are in safe and secure hands. Especially when you look at the proliferation records in history, Pakistan, for instance, has proliferated nuclear technology to both Iran and North Korea, however, there have been no sanctions or embargos or even diplomatic pressure on Pakistan like the ones Iran is facing. This could be due to the bias and support of the United States Of America towards Pakistan for its help in battling terror.
The article narrows down its focus to the resumption of dialogue between Iran and the P5 countries. Iran, while does not hold any objections for the holding of these talks, remain uncommitted about the issue of nuclear weapons enrichment coming up during the discussions. When one does look form the western perspective, it is not hard to align unanimously with that stream of thought. Iran is situated in a perpetually volatile environment in the Middle East, with the threat of a full-blown war against Israel always on the horizon. Thus in such instances, the procurement of a nuclear weapon by Iran or any other Middle Eastern countries for that matter, may totally change the balance of power scenario in the Middle East, leading to unnecessary complications and could even cause a nuclear war. This would not only be disastrous for the Middle East, but the entire planet’s environment would be on the threshold of extinction. It is thus in the interest of every nation to stop Iran from procuring nuclear weapons. Given the above terms, the world countries shouldn’t have a problem with Iran using nuclear technology for civilian purposes (energy). But that very fact is the core issue, as since iran does not allow IAEA inspectors to inspect Iranian nuclear sites for weapons, the suspicions will never cease to exist. Iran must hence allow the talks to be construvtive for world peace.

“What is history but a fable agreed upon”

Theory Of Knowledge
“What is history but a fable agreed upon”
Did Hitler really kill himself? Was Gandhi really the most important piece in the jigsaw of India’s independence struggle? Are Nostradamus's prophecies really proven to be accurate in our history? Did the USA in reality have no idea about the Pearl Harbor attacks?
The precise answer to all these questions will in all likelihood always remain elusive to mankind. This is because there is no way foolproof method through which we can determine what really happened in our past. Maybe all the incidents that we do study in our textbooks are true. But we cannot be naïve enough to believe everything we study through these so-called “history” textbooks blindly. History is just like the passing of stories through the generations, either orally or in written accounts. But while it was passed from one generation to the next, it is inevitable that parts of these ‘stories’ may have been modified to suit the concerned parties. And since we have no other alternative than to believe these stories about crucial incidents in the past, we accept them as our history. Through out my school years, I always had reservations about the accuracy of all the incidents we studied in history. The authoritative tone adopted by these books only fueled my reservations. I just wondered that how could somebody recollect and retell tales of the past with such authority and command without any mention of evidences that would prove the same. For instance, “history” tells us that Gandhi tried hard to maintain the unity of India, is there any evidence to prove the same. But even he could have the desire to split the country into two (not necessarily a bad desire!) but just dint show the same and rather worked on it through a series of backroom dealings. These thoughts are ofcourse mere speculation with no concrete evidence, but we can see just how easy it is to manipulate what really happened in the past. Anyone with the authority and power can modify history to suit his/her propaganda and personal interests. A classic example of these ‘propaganda wars’ is the treatment of the issues of communism and capitalism in the history textbooks of the east and the west in the mid 1950s. While, the textbooks in Russia spoke of capitalism as the system for the rich, who had caused slavery and the massive differences in the standards of living between the rich and the poor in the west, it never mentioned anything about the evils of communism – Economic stagnation and government oppressions. Thus as a result the students grew up knowing only how Russia evaded the economic depression of 1929 through its communist structure but did not know anything about the large scale corruption and consumer slavery prevalent in Russia. The American textbooks too were biased to a similar extent. But in midst of all this, the world as a whole was deprived of the real truth. This case is true for almost every incident in history as textbook publishers’ main aim is profits and hence would not risk the government’s censure by going against the prevalent norm of the recollection of historical events. I hence agree completely with Bonaparte’s statement that history is merely a fable agreed upon

KOW SOURCES: REPORT TO DETAIL ALLEGED ABUSE INSIDE CIA SECRET PRISONS

SOURCES: REPORT TO DETAIL ALLEGED ABUSE INSIDE CIA SECRET PRISONS
The article comments about the unethical interrogation techniques of the CIA officials with respect to Al Qaeda prisoners. After the September 11 attacks, the treatment meted out to terrorist suspects has been made drastically stringent and in some cases inhuman. While there is no mention of the unethical nature of illegal interrogation techniques, a knower can perceive from the tone of the article that the author is reprimanding the CIA for using such severe methods to extract the truth from terrorist suspects. The neutral tone is compromised to convey the content of the article.
The author of the article cites an unnamed source that has access to a classified report of the probe on CIA interrogations. The author seems to share his source’s perception that the CIA officers are indeed guilty of using illegal interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That is the primary knowledge issue of the article. The knower (reader) can perceive that emotions are running high in the mindset of the author as he sympathizes with the prisoners. The article isn’t completely objective or neutral enough to help the reader to come to a knowledgeable and logical conclusion. For instance there is no concrete perspective in the article of the CIA officials with only a inconclusive remark by a spokesperson finding its way in the article. Without the CIA point of view about the interrogations, we cannot comment upon the ethical nature of such events. While the article primarily deals with the report about prosecuting CIA officials guilty of using such illegal interrogation techniques, we must concentrate on the macrocosmic issue of justifying the ethical nature of these interrogation practices. Though the article does not clearly mention the ethics issue, it is very clearly prevalent in the argument due to the language used. Can we really reason out using inhuman means to extract the truth from terrorist suspects? This could after all help in saving thousands of innocent lives by preventing such future incidents. But is inhuman treatment of terrorists the real answer. There are two points to reason before coming to a logical conclusion. Firstly, we must not forget that these prisoners are “suspected terrorists” and are not yet convicted of their crimes. One does not need to go back to far in history to validate the above statement. Mohammad Hafeez, the Indian doctor too was suspected of being a terrorist for a period of 4 months by the entire planet, only to be late proved innocent. They may just be ordinary innocent people. One can just imagine the state of one individual who may be a victim of circumstances and still be forced to undergo such severe interrogation practices. Secondly, even if these prisoners are confirmed terrorists, their jobs are most likely already done and we know enough about the Al Qaeda modus operandi to say that it is highly unlikely that they would play a major part in any future terrorist attacks. So what use would it be to hand out such treatment to them when we know that there is not much to gain?
If the knowledge claim of the article is indeed true, I think it is deeply regrettable that officials would stoop to such lows to interrogate prisoners. One must not forget and neglect the scientific advancements like the nuero polygraphic test among others, which could provide legal and ethical alternatives to using a gun and drill against helpless prisoners. I agree to the counter argument stressing on the importance of the information such prisoners potentially hold, but the officials and the government as such need to form legislations to prevent such future incidents. Officials to must know where to draw the line while interrogating such prisoners.