Category Archives: Iran

UPDATED: Timing Iran Offensive for Nov. 2012? (FB Cyber-ejaculate)

Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Iran, Israel, War

“Four Iranian missiles can destroy tiny Israel,” blared Fars, The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) news agency. DEBKAFile counters as follows:

[these] sources point [to the fact] that the experiences of the Gulf war show that this number of ordinary missiles could not cause anything like the damage calculated by the writer. What Zarey may be referring to are the stubborn rumors going around Western intelligence circles since early 2005 that during the breakup of the Soviet Union, Tehran laid hands on black market nuclear cruise missiles form the Ukraine and 3 to 5 more from Belarus.

THE SAME SOURCE cites “Western intelligence as suspecting that Tehran obtained those warheads from Belarus or from unconventional arms traffickers based in the Muslim Republics which were part of the USSR up until the 1990s. And indeed the Fars report did not specify what warheads the ‘conventional’ missiles would carry.”

Equally disconcerting: War president extraordinaire Barack Hussein Obama knows too well that his waning popularity rises when he kills people abroad. DEBKAFile predicts that “Obama is set to attack Iran’s nuclear sites by the fall of 2012.”

Indeed, Iran apologists have framed Iran’s nuclear belligerence as the “ultimate safeguard against an American attack.” The reference is, presumably, to Iran’s legitimate quest to defend against an American army that advanced on a neighbor—Iraq—and conquered it in the absence of provocation. I agree. But this is not Iran’s sole reason for arming itself with nuclear capability.

Iran’s leaders have made no bones about the need to solve the Jewish Question for once and for all. (In case you’re a public school graduate, this is code for liquidation.)

That Iran fears an out-of-control, aggressive U.S. is likely—and understandable. However, Iran’s madman-in-chief hasn’t threatened the United States; he has threatened Israel. Yet Iranophiles seldom depict Israel’s nuclear program as an equally legitimate, last-ditch defense. Instead, they contort like Cirque du Soleil contortionists to downplay the real threat Iran poses to Israel.

UPDATE: Via PBS’s FrontLine: “At the same time, it is not just Israel that may attack Iran. The Guardian reported on Wednesday that the British military is rapidly developing contingency plans to aid the United States in case it attacks Iran, based on the belief that “the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities.” Efforts are evidently underway to determine the optimal location for deployment of the Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles to participate in such strikes.

Apparently, Iran’s resilience in the face of economic sanctions, as well as the cyberspace attacks on its nuclear facilities last year, has surprised Western observers. They believe that within a year, Iran will be moving all of its nuclear materials and more advanced centrifuges to the Fordow enrichment facility, built under a mountain near Qom. There they will be protected from most missiles and bombs, even though the Obama administration has quietly supplied Israel with bunker-buster bombs, something that even the George W. Bush administration refused to do.”

Read more.: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/11/news-rhetoric-suggesting-potential-israeli-attack-on-iran-escalates.html#ixzz1czfsz4Dp

As I pointed out in 2002/2003, when Bush was circling Saddam Hussein like a shark his prey: bluster has been a large part of the Islamic culture. It is possibly that Iran’s regime is putting on a show. But if Iran doesn’t intend to attack Israel, why does A-Jad (short for Ahmadinejad) not stop the threats? The Iranian leadership has never allayed Israel’s legitimate fears.

UPDATE II (Nov. 7): FACEBOOK CYBER-EJACULATE. I am interrupting this frivolous topic with news of the most “urgent” of facebook posts. I have been forced to post the following in response to “The white noise, the inability and unwillingness of Facebook participants to focus the mind on the topic of a post—their shameless habit of posting about every bowel movement experienced during the day to my Wall; the utter cyber-ejaculate spewed with confidence. I am expected (I have a life) to “moderate” what amounts to a meaningless stream of, “I hate Israel; I love Israel; Israelis should die; Israelis may live.”

What does it say about debate (at least on my FB thread)? I’m clearly permitting the wrong “friends” on the Wall, although FB has now made it near-impossible to be more selective in the posts allowed on a Wall.

I hinted at it before, here, but the more I am forced to interact online in the course of doing my thankless job; the more it repulses me. (And after experiencing this Cesspool of anti-Semitism and irrationality, my “professional” day of reckoning is closer.)

If you have a half a brain, you won’t enjoy this.

Dealing in Death

Foreign Policy, Iran, Just War, Middle East, Military, Morality, Political Economy, Propaganda, Terrorism, War

The US is better off in the imperial sense, says Lew Rockwell to Russia Today about the US government’s latest adventure in Libya. Americans using depreciated US dollars are not better off, but the “merchants of death” are doing swell—the Pentagon, the CIA, weapons suppliers, oil companies; every enterprise that is in cahoots with the government is living it up.

“We The People” suffer the impoverishment that comes with the Zimbabwefication of the coin associated with deficit spending (bailouts and war) in perpetuity. (To wit, the money supply has appreciated by 30 percent and QE3 is in the offing.)

Lew spells out the wealth-destroying nature of the obscene orgy enjoyed by our overlords in DC and their patrons and hangers-on.

UPDATED: Is A-Jad (Ahmadinejad) The Fall Guy for the AG (Attorney General)? Yes!

Conspiracy, Crime, Iran, Law, Middle East, Propaganda, Terrorism, The State

My latest WND.COM column, “Eric Holder, Gunrunning and a Pair of Iranian Numbskulls,” fleshes out the case that A-Jad (Ahmadinejad) is the fall guy for the AG (attorney general). Here’s an excerpt:

“… If we know anything about the Iranian Special Forces, it is that they are nothing like the schlemiels we’ve just indicted. The two remind me of Chipopo, the hero in a series of Hebrew children’s books I used to devour as a kid in Israel. Chipopo was a monkey. Defendants Mansour and Shakuri’s antics, as detailed in the legal brief that reads like a hastily written potboiler, conjure ‘Chipopo Joins the IDF,’ an adventure in this series. Needless to say, it was not his height that gave the monkey away during basic training.

Enter CS-1.

CS-1 is the chief witness against Holder’s aspiring terrorists, and ‘a paid confidential source,’ who had been ‘previously charged in connection with a narcotics offense by authorities of a certain U.S. state. In exchange for CS-1’s cooperation … the State charges were dismissed.’

Put it this way, allowing CS-1 to conduct a sting operation is a lot like letting a criminally minded attorney general run guns to Mexico’s drug cartels.

Oops. Holder has already done his subversive best to corner that ‘market’ by allegedly authorizing Operation Fast and Furious, in which a gang going by the acronym ATF—the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—sold assault rifles to Mexican gangsters and their local gun-runners, who later used their taxpayer-funded ammunition and immunity to gun down innocent Americans and many more, mostly unmentioned, Mexicans. …

CS-1 met Team Chipopo in Mexico. It’s almost like our sophisticates were tracing the smuggling routes of Operation Fast and Furious.

Or perhaps, these simpletons were simply drawn to the original scene of the crime. ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’

At this rate, it is not impossible to imagine America’s attorney general funneling arms to odd-balls in Iran using Operation Fast and Furious’ as a fig leaf. …”

Read the complete column, now on WND.

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UPDATE (Oct. 14): This alleged Tehran-directed terror plot was likely hatched in Disneyland (code name for D.C.). But John-bomb McCain is not in the habit of questioning a good cause for American aggression.

UPDATE II: The Perils of a Killer President (Parlaying Vice into Votes)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Iran, Islam, Justice, Law, Middle East, Natural Law, Ron Paul, Terrorism

He oversees nothing but destruction. But practically everyone except Rep. Ron Paul (and most assuredly Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio) is praising the exercise of an extrajudicial, unconstitutional execution by President Barack Obama.

Anwar al-Awlaki was terminated today in Yemen (in violation of that country’s sovereignty). According to the say-so of U.S. officials, this American-born cleric is said to have “played a ‘significant operational role’ in plotting and inspiring attacks on the United States.”

Good enough evidence in the court of the imperial presidency and his adherents and architects (like Dick Cheney).

Outside of a war zone, as Awlaki was, lethal force can only be employed in the narrowest and most extraordinary circumstances: when there is a concrete, specific and imminent threat of an attack; and even then, deadly force must be a last resort

(The Guardian)

“The targeted assassination program that started under President Bush and expanded under the Obama Administration essentially grants the executive the power to kill any U.S. citizen deemed a threat, without any judicial oversight, or any of the rights afforded by our Constitution. If we allow such gross overreaches of power to continue, we are setting the stage for increasing erosion of civil liberties and the rule of law.” (The Center for Constitutional Rights)

WARNING: Thanks to the wastrel ways of the killer-in-chief and his predecessor (Genghis Bush), America is getting weaker, not stronger. A weakened bully is extra vulnerable.

Note to all Americans who want to go out into the world and soak up the sensation of spring in Arabia, Asia and elsewhere: As hard as it is to grasp, the world is not your friend. Remember what befell a couple of American hikers who wondered into … Iran, after backpacking across … Iraq. You heard right. Their touchy-feely friends stateside vouched for their amaaazingness and thirst to embrace the world. Apparently, the feeling in Iran was not mutual. (By the way, who paid the million-dollar ransom for those bozos? Did taxpayers subsidize that stupidity?)

UPDATE I: A chilling thread on my Facebook Page. Having skimmed the general thrust of the comments, here is my response:

“What are you freedom fighters so afraid of? The rule of law? Due process? A court of law? Twelve jurors? A Judge? You can’t just assert a man’s guilt; you must prove it with credible evidence. You can’t accept the say-so of the state. What is most chilling in a thread I’ve only skimmed is that, if I were to be arrested tomorrow by the Obama-Bush bot apparatus, and you were all told I as was a militia member (read “Missouri Police State: Beware Of People Like … Mercer”; I qualify)—you’d all be, ‘Yeah, yeah , that makes sense. We could see it coming. Go get Ilana.’ All of you except for Bill Meyer and a few others.”

UPDATE II (Oct. 1): As I put it in my latest column, politicians parlay human vice into votes. The Obama fairy dust is dissipating. The president is good at coordinating terrorism-related killings. (Or perhaps he is simply lucky on this front.) Perhaps this most cynical and wily of politicians is simply playing to the crowd. Murder is one way to unite the bifurcated American voter.

Myron: Your analogy about attacker vs. attacked extinguishing borders doesn’t work in this instance. For one thing, Israel is attacked from Gaza and the West Bank with more than words. When last did Yemen attack the US? That “country” harbors a couple of clerics who write fiery tracts on the Internet. For another, I am unable to tell how bad al-Awlaki’s authentic words were because, er, I can’t access them in the original. I have to contend with US government filtered hearsay. Besides, US law gives wide latitude to speech. We’d have to show that this man was an organizer, a direct funder of terrorism and terrorists. Due process takes care of all that—you know, the pesky need to shore-up your case with evidence.

The BHO strategy works: “According to an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in late August, … 60 percent of those surveyed approved of his handling of terrorism. Just 36 percent approved of his handling of the economy, an all-time low for Obama.”