Is The Past The Future? The News Dissector Reports From And On Iran
The TV series House of Lies is about business but it could as easily be about government and foreign policy.
In a recent episode, one of the management consultants pitches a company about the need to launch a new product. She recounts the story of the Polaroid Company known as the Apple of its day, widely admired for the cool design of its instant cameras.
When I lived in Cambridge, Mass., Polaroid was one of the town’s biggest employers, an economic powerhouse.
But soon it was gone. It failed to see new competitive products on the horizon. It only saw the future as its past.
It went bankrupt.
That seems to be the case of our own bankrupt foreign policy that operates with a limited playbook, of negative “options” build around threats, warnings, covert actions and military adventures.
The gap between what we say and what we do has become a chasm, a paper tiger in words…
Obama Administration Selling Arms to Bahrain
Via Common Dreams:
As the Arab Spring unfolded last year, protesters in the streets saw something startling about the tools of repression being used on them. The Humvees, tanks, helicopters were from the US government; the canisters of chemical agents used to attack them said, “Made in the USA.”
Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet and close ally of Saudi Arabia, brutally suppressed the uprising among their citizens. More than 40 pro-democracy protesters were killed and thousands more were arrested and tortured. While speaking out loudly on Libya’s brutality, the Obama administration remained largely silent on Bahrain.
Last fall the Obama administration announced plans to sell Bahrain $53 million worth of military weapons including bunker buster missiles, armored vehicles and wire-guided missiles. The Pentagon said at the time the sale “will improve Bahrain’s capability to meet current and future armored threats. Bahrain will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional…
A Brief History of America’s Dumb Policies Towards Iran
It’s true: if you want peace, you must prepare for war; however, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it–so I guess war with Iran is inevitable. Tom Engelhardt writes at Alternet:
These days, with a crisis atmosphere growing in the Persian Gulf, a little history lesson about the U.S. and Iran might be just what the doctor ordered. Here, then, are a few high- (or low-) lights from their relationship over the last half-century-plus:
Summer 1953: The CIA and British intelligence hatch a plot for a coup that overthrows a democratically elected government in Iran intent on nationalizing that country’s oil industry. In its place, they put an autocrat, the young Shah of Iran, and his soon-to-be feared secret police. He runs the country as his repressive fiefdom for a quarter-century, becoming Washington’s “bulwark” in the Persian Gulf — until overthrown in 1979 by a home-grown revolutionary movement, which ushers in the…
Human Rights Equated With National Suicide
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Any nation that must abridge human rights to survive deserves to fall, and that includes Muslim and Christian nations. Via Al Jazeera English:
The Israeli government has repeatedly demanded that Palestinians recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”. Recent developments in the Knesset and High Court are exposing exactly what this means, and in doing so, throw the spotlight on the issue that the ‘peace process’ – and Western governments – refuse to tackle.
On Wednesday, Israel’s High Court rejected a legal challenge to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, by a six to five vote. The law, first passed as a ‘temporary’ measure in 2003 and renewed ever since, prevents Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (and those from ‘enemy states’) from living with their spouses in Israel.
For thousands of Palestinian families, Israel’s law means a choice between moving abroad, living apart, or living in Israel illegally. No wonder that the Association…
Israel Attacked From Saudi Arabia
Photo: Oren Rozen (CC)
A cyber attack that is, and it looks like a very successful first strike. From USA Today:
A hacker network that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of Israel’s stock exchange and national airline on Monday, escalating an international cyber war that has jolted this security-obsessed country.
Neither website contains sensitive information and trading and flights were not affected. But the ongoing salvos by hackers who use anti-Israel language in their posts has revealed how vulnerable Israel is to cyber warfare, despite its sophisticated computer security units in the military and advanced high-tech sector.
The attacks began earlier this month when hackers identifying themselves as group-xp, a known Saudi hacking group, claimed on an Israeli sports website to have gained access to 400,000 Israeli credit card accounts. The group called it a “gift to the world for the New Year” designed to “hurt the Zionist pocket.”…
[continues…
The New York Times Is Misleading The Public On Iran
Robert Naiman writes at Al Jazeera English:
It’s deja vu all over again. AIPAC is trying to trick the United States into another catastrophic war with a Middle Eastern country on behalf of the Likud Party’s colonial ambitions, and the New York Times is misleading the public with allegations that say that the country is developing “weapons of mass destruction”.In an article attributed to Steven Erlanger on January 4 (”Europe Takes Bold Step Toward a Ban on Iranian Oil”), this paragraph appeared:
The threats from Iran, aimed both at the West and at Israel, combined with a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran’s nuclear programme has a military objective, is becoming an important issue in the American presidential campaign [emphasis my own].
The claim that there is “a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran’s nuclear programme has a military objective” is misguided.
As Washington Post’s Ombudsman Patrick Pexton…
Saudi Arabia: The Arab Spring With A Media Blackout
Guernica notes that while recent uprisings in Egypt, Syria, et cetera received plenty of sympathetic press coverage, the third rail seems to be Saudi Arabia, with the Western media refusing to report on serious unrest that has occurred there this year:
Hear the one about the Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia that nobody noticed?No, this is not a joke. With the Syrian regime, long out of favor with the West, we heard about the uprising from the beginning. In the case of Libya, run by the fiercely independent and eccentric Qaddafi, much of the world’s press credulously rushed to print every rumor about regime excesses.
In the case of the mother of all petro-allies, Saudi Arabia, however, protests have been met with near silence by the media and no expressions of sympathy for the dissenters by Western governments.
Here’s the background: On November 21, government troops opened fire on demonstrators in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern…
Iran Prepares For War
The Telegraph reports that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been put on a war footing amid increasing signs that the West is taking direct action to cripple Iran’s nuclear programme. But should the headline really be “Mainstream Media Prepare The West For War Against Iran”?
An order from Gen Mohammed Ali Jaafari, the commander of the guards, raised the operational readiness status of the country’s forces, initiating preparations for potential external strikes and covert attacks.
Western intelligence officials said the Islamic Republic had initiated plans to disperse long-range missiles, high explosives, artillery and guards units to key defensive positions.
The order was given in response to the mounting international pressure over Iran’s nuclear programme. Preparation for a confrontation has gathered pace following last month’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that produced evidence that Iran was actively working to produce nuclear weapons.
The Iranian leadership fears the country is being subjected to…
Anonymous Takes On the Muslim Brotherhood (Video)
Michael Stone reports in the Examiner:
Anonymous targets Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt, claims Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to Egyptian revolution, plans a coordinated Distributed Denial of Service attack on Nov. 11. Those claiming to represent the nebulous and notorious international Internet hacktivist collective known as Anonymous released a YouTube video announcing an operation directed at the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to the announcement, the Muslim Brotherhood is a “corrupt” organization “bent on taking over sovereign Arab states in its quest to seize power.” The announcement goes on to compare the Muslim Brotherhood to the Church of Scientology, and declares the Brotherhood to be “a threat to the people.”
U.S. & Israel To Hold Their ‘Largest and Most Significant’ War Games (Video)
Via Press TV:
U.S. Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro says the U.S. and the Israeli regime are set to hold their ‘largest and most significant’ joint military maneuvers without offering details about the time and location of the war games.
More than 5,000 U.S. and Israeli forces will take part in the war drills, said Shapiro, in a Saturday speech at the Israeli-sponsored think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). He reportedly did not mention a specific time and location for what observers have described as part of the new U.S.-led publicity campaign aimed at raising the threat level against Iran.
The joint military maneuver will simulate Israel’s ballistic missile system and will allow Washington to ‘learn from’ Tel Aviv’s experience in warfare, the senior American official added.
The Butchering Of Gaddafi Is America’s Crime
“Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared like ghoulish despots at a Roman Coliseum, reveling in their Libyan gladiators’ butchery.”
Last week the whole world saw, and every decent soul recoiled, at the true face of NATO’s answer to the Arab Spring. An elderly, helpless prisoner struggled to maintain his dignity in a screaming swirl of savages, one of whom thrusts a knife up his rectum. These are Europe and America’s jihadis in the flesh. In a few minutes of joyously recorded bestiality, the rabid pack undid every carefully packaged image of NATO’s “humanitarian” project in North Africa – a horror and revelation indelibly imprinted on the global consciousness by the brutes’ own cell phones.
Nearly eight months of incessant bombing by the air forces of nations that account for 70 percent of the world’s weapons spending, all culminating in the gang-bang slaughter of Moammar Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and his military chief of…
Was The Iran Terror Plot A U.S. Fabrication?
Mere paranoia? Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, G6 of U.S. Army’s 94th Division, says last week’s alleged plot by Iran to conduct a bombing and assassination on U.S. soil may be a fabrication by the Obama administration, perhaps even to establish a cause for war:
Muammar Gaddafi Is Dead
Reuters reports that Libya’s longstanding leader has been killed in the NATO-sponsored revolution:
Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya’s interim rulers said.
His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.
“He (Gaddafi) was also hit in his head,” National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters. “There was a lot of firing against his group and he died.”
Mlegta told Reuters earlier that Gaddafi, who was in his late 60s, was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked. He said he had been taken…
Israel And Turkey, Friends No More
Istanbul, Turkey: Let me begin with shvitz, a Yiddish term I believe that refers to special baths.
When the hotel I was staying at in Istanbul advertised that guests were welcome to enjoy the Turkish Bath in their basement, I took them up on it. There were two other blondish guys in their birthday suits in the small room sweltering in the small room when I got there. They were drinking beer and conversing in a strange language I later identified as Swedish.
I was in town to speak at a session on Internet freedom at the 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2011) at Sabanci Center. They were there, as I slowly learned as engineers loaned out to the America’s Westinghouse Corporation to build some nuclear plants in Turkey. Apparently, they were to have been built by the Tokyo Electric company that now has a nuclear disaster of their own on their…
Turkey’s Military Chiefs ‘Resign’
Photo: ozgurmulazimoglu (CC)
With allegations of military officials, academics, politicians and many others campaigning to overthrow the government, over 400 people are estimated to be brought to trial. The head of the Turkish armed forces and other military officials have decided to resign due to extending circumstances. Al Jazeera reports:
General Isik Kosaner, the head of the Turkish armed forces, has quit along with the heads of the ground, naval and air forces.
The country’s state-run Anatolia news agency said the military chiefs have asked to leave their posts because of tensions with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the recently re-elected prime minister.
Antolia reported Kosaner as resigning “as he saw it as necessary”.
This is the first time so many top commanders in Turkey have resigned at once.
Al Jazeera Turk’s Elif Ural said while there has been no official comments yet, the prime minister will be releasing a written statement within the next hour or two.
[Continues at Al…
Israel Will Attack Iran In The Fall
Robert Baer
Well it won’t be much of a surprise then, will it? The presenter and narrator of three disinformation documentary films (the two Cult of the Suicide Bomber films and Car Bomb), ex-CIA Middle East agent Bob Baer lets the cat out of the bag, as reported by Al Jazeera:
A longtime CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East is predicting that Israel will bomb Iran in the fall, dragging the United States into another major war and endangering US military and civilian personnel (and other interests) throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Earlier this week, Robert Baer appeared on the provocative KPFK Los Angeles show Background Briefing, hosted by Ian Masters. It was there that he predicted that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is likely to ignite a war with Iran in the very near future.
Robert Baer has had a storied career, including a stint in Iraq in the 1990s…
Alex Jones On WWIII (Video)
Apply as many grains of salt as you see fit (personally I think he makes many good points, but WWIII? I’d be surprised), but here is Alex’s predictions on the impending WWIII:
Why Google Earth Can’t Show You Israel
Hamed Aleaziz writes in Mother Jones:
Since Google launched its Google Earth feature in 2005, the company has become a worldwide leader in providing high-resolution satellite imagery. In 2010, Google Earth allowed the world to see the extent of the destruction in post-earthquake Haiti. This year, Google released similar images after Japan’s deadly tsunami and earthquake. With just one click, Google can bring the world—and a better understanding of far-away events—to your computer.
There is one entire country, however, that Google Earth won’t show you: Israel.
That’s because, in 1997, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, one section of which is titled, “Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel.” The amendment, known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, calls for a federal agency, the NOAA’s Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs, to regulate the dissemination of zoomed-in images of Israel.
Iran To Introduce Islamically-Correct ‘Halal Internet’
I was initially excited, in the assumption that ‘Halal internet’ referred to a way of ordering mouth-watering kebabs online. Fast Company explains:
The Iranian government is planning to wall-off much of the country’s online access. A high-ranking Iranian official has their new solution: A “Halal Internet” that will run as a nationwide intranet and be subject to extensive censorship.
According to Iranian Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs Ali Agha Mohammadi, the ”Halal Internet” project is expected to be completed in 18 months. Mohammadi explicitly cited China’s extensive internet controls as an inspiration for the project, which will be completed with the help of what the Minister calls “foreign consultants.”
Iranian Minister of Information and Communications Technology Reza Taghipour Anvari is also on record as a supporter of the plan. Persian-language financial paper Donya e Eqtesad cited him as praising the nationwide intranet’s ability to censor “dirty and unethical” content.
In nearby Pakistan, Fast Company has already…
