Category Archives: Iran

Update VI: Blow Them Out Of The Seas! (& No Somali Nation-Building)

Africa, Bush, Crime, Europe, Founding Fathers, Iran, Justice, Military, Neoconservatism, Terrorism, The West, Trade, UN

Pirates! That in itself is a romantic euphemism. These are terrorists on the high seas. They’ve been operating a criminal enterprise that targets innocents with impunity–and with great success. Yet the West does nothing. China, a country that seems to act in its national interests more so than do we, is, by The Washington Times’ account, “deploying vessels to secure their shipping since they can no longer rely on other powers to keep trade flowing unmolested.”

To recap: North Korea has committed no real aggression against the US with its measly missile. The Iranians shoot their mouths off. Both countries know that if they deign to aggress against the US, why, we’ll obliterate them. Yet, on-and-on the debate goes as to whether America should kill the innocent people of these lands. Conversely, when confronted with evil in action—plunderers thwarting the lifeblood that is trade—nothing much is done.

Or murmurs of negotiations ensue.

“Pirates” operate near “ the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Guinea and around the Strait of Malacca near Singapore,” and threaten peaceful commerce with raids on “cargo vessels, tankers, fishing vessels, cruise liners, yachts and the occasional tugboat.”

The first seizure of a U.S. flagged vessel by pirates in recent memory was thwarted yesterday as the crew retook the vessel. The taking and retaking of the Maersk Alabama has grabbed headlines, but it was one of six ships attacked in that area since last weekend. The only reason this ship was saved is that the American crew fought back.

This is an excellent opportunity for private companies to step in to fill the protection gap. But, knowing the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” “any vessels but clearly identified naval or other national forces,” are prohibited from “seizing pirate vessels.” As are “the rules of self-defense at sea somewhat murky.”

If ever there was a time to thumb the proverbial nose at the nosy UN, this is it. I say, “as President Washington said in 1786, lamenting payments being made to the Barbary Pirates, … ‘crush them into nonexistence.'”

Or, blow them out of the seas!

Update I: From the Wall Street Journal: “In the waning days of the Bush administration, the National Security Council issued a detailed yet little-noticed plan for combating piracy off the coast of Somalia.”

Commensurate with Bush’s emphasis on using force, mostly, when it was inappropriate to use it, the previous administration “was nearly silent … on what to do if a ship is taken by pirates and crew members are held captive. And what little guidance it provided was vague. U.S. naval forces were given authority to ‘terminate the act of piracy and any included hostage situation.’ Just how they were to do that was left unsaid.”

I hope he surprises me, but I doubt Barry will deviate from the perplexing policy of aggression against non-aggressors, and non-aggression against aggressors.

Update II (April 10): OBAMA AWOL The silence of this White House, so far, is deafening; the inaction of the best navy seals in the world perplexing. The brave captain of the Maersk Alabama attempted to escape. Stealthy seals were nowhere in sight to help him get away and annihilate his pursuers. He is recaptured.

Knowing that the US media would be covering for Obama, I went straight for the international coverage. The Times Online plasters an appropriate headline on its website: “US Navy misses chance to rescue American captain held hostage by pirates“:

Captain Richard Phillips fled through a back door in the covered lifeboat about midnight on Thursday local time and began swimming away, US officials said.

At least one pirate jumped in after him and brought him back aboard the boat, which is drifting without fuel, before the nearby US destroyer, USS Bainbridge, could intervene. The incident was captured on video by a US drone overhead. “He didn’t get very far,” one official said. …

The Bainbridge, backed by drones and surveillance aircraft, was standing guard a few hundred yards from the lifeboat, which had run out of fuel. The frigate USS Halyburton and the assault ship USS Boxer, armed with about two dozen helicopters and attack planes, sailed to the scene yesterday.

“[a] former US ambassador in Ethiopia and an expert on the Horn of Africa, advocated a tougher policy against pirates, including sinking their ‘mother ships.'”

This is a disgrace! Worse: it’s a disregard for American life.

While Obamby vacillates, President Sarkozy gave French commandos the order to storm a yacht captured by “pirates,” off the coast of Somalia. There is one casualty, but two families are freed. This operation is “the seventh in a year by French forces,” all ordered by the French president.

Hardly a softy is Sarkozy.

According to SPIEGEL ONLINE, “Over the last few days the spike in new pirate attacks has been dramatic. Ten ships, including the MV Hansa Stavager, a German freighter, have been taken. A total of 20 ships remain in the hands of pirates.”

Update III (April 11): SOMALI SHAMANS AND FOOLISH FBI TO THE RESCUE. The US navy’s lackluster efforts to free Capt. Richard Phillips ran aground today… again. Yesterday, a US drone captured, on video, Capt. Phillips making an attempted escape. Had the “vigilant” marines been glued to their monitors, they might have blown the pirates’ dingy out of the sea as soon as the Capt. jumped the craft.

Today, U.S. sailors tried to reach the lifeboat, but the “pirates” did what “pirates” are wont to do: fired on them. The US Navy responded by doing what the Navy, apparently, does when aggressed against: retreat: “The gunfire forced the sailors, who did not return fire, back to the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge,” reports CNN.

As if this faux pa were not enough, we learn that the this act of terror on the high seas will be bureaucratized:

“The U.S. Navy — which is in charge of the situation” [– and cannot handle it] has “requested help from the FBI to resolve the standoff.”

The FBI is launching a criminal investigation into the hijacking and hostage-taking, two law enforcement officials told CNN. The probe will be led by the FBI’s New York field office, which has responsibility for looking into cases involving U.S. citizens in the African region. Agents from the office were scheduled to leave for Africa sometime this weekend, the officials said.

Yes, I can think of nothing more appropriate in resolving a stand-off with criminals than to launch an “investigation.” Perhaps the FBI can call in their Behavioral “Sciences” pseudo-scientists, who can then draw up a profile of an African pirate. (Daddy had too many wives and didn’t spend quality time with pygmy pirate.)

Wait a sec, I know of an even better course of action for our bureaucrats. The Christian Science Monitor tells that “relatives of the four Somali hijackers, along with a group of Somali elders, are traveling to the coastal area nearby determined to ‘solve the problem peacefully … without any guns or ransom.'”

Now, if you believe that these are relatives of the hijackers rather than some wily old men from the tribe, who want to get their faces on CNN, and con stupid westerners, then, you must have believed, together with Fox and Friends, that WMD were probably moved to Syria, and al-Qaeda and the Ba’athists were an item.

I hope the savvy Somalis show the foolish FBI how to throw some bones and conjure the ancestral spirits. That ought to help free Capt. Phillips.

Update IV (April 12): To some degree, I agree with “Gunjam’s” comment hereunder. This is a top-brass issue. Although, the military is not exactly what it used to be any longer. Desperate people are being signed up these days. Affirmative action abounds in the military too. Read “OSAMA’S SNICKERING AT OUR MILITARY.” Enough of this Fox-News-type adulation of men just because they wear a uniform. This mission is a complete failure so far. Most of it may come from the top, but, it would seem, quite a bit of the blame rests on the men themselves. With the electronics the military has, with a drone straining on the poor captain as he jumped ship—not to have been there to fish him out is preposterous.

I am well aware that there are many forums where military groupies congregate.

(Update V): The details are still sketchy, but Capt. Phillips is free at last. What wonderful news! It is still unclear whether this exceptional mariner attempted, first, to escape again, and the navy picked him up as they picked-off the pirates. Or whether the order was finally given, and naval forces went in and did what needed to be done.

Either way; this is such a good day; such a fine conclusion to an unnecessarily protracted stand-off. The nightmare of a hostage unrescued, documented repeatedly during the unlawful, immoral invasion of Iraq in columns such as “AFTER THEIR HEADS ROLL, AMERICA’S DEAD REMAIN FACELESS,” has been averted.

Reuters: “Joseph Murphy, whose son, Shane, was Phillips’s second in command and took over the Alabama after pirates left with Phillips, said in a statement read by CNN, ‘Our prayers have been answered on this Easter Sunday.'”

Update VI: NO TO NATION BUILDING. Here’s what I’ve gleaned from all the disjointed reports: On Friday (only) the president had issued a standing order sanctioning force if the hostage’s life was in danger. Since the life of the captured master of the Maersk Alabama had always been in danger—is that not the definition of a hostage situation?—this would indicate only that Obama’s preferred option was to end this act of thuggery peacefully.

This, I might add, is in contrast to the French government’s actions.

Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said “the White House had given military operators ‘very clear guidance and authority’ if Phillips’ life was in danger.”

“The on-scene commander took it as the captain was in imminent danger and then made that decision (to shoot), and he had the authorities to make that decision, and he had seconds to make that decision,” he said.

Clearly Obama’s order gave the U.S.S. Bainbridge commander all the latitude he needed. All the while, negotiations had been ongoing, with the outcome that the pirate dingy was now fastened to the U.S.S. Bainbridge, was being towed by it, and was comfortably within sights. Supplies were being provided to the occupants.

A young pirate who’d been stabbed by the brave, unarmed sailors of the Maersk Alabama, was on board the Bainbridge, ostensibly “negotiating.” The mariners of the Maersk, incidentally, had never lost control of their vessel. If these stellar members of the American merchant marine had managed to hold off—and hurt—the pirates without any guns, just image what they’d have pulled off had they been armed!

While the navy had failed to rescue Phillips after he had heroically escaped the lifeboat the first time around, it is not exactly clear whether he had jumped this time too. What is apparent is that, “Capt. Phillips was pulled out of sea and transported to the Bainbridge.”

Sometime on Saturday, I believe, Navy Seals had been parachuted onto a vessel out of the pirates’ earshot. They made their way to the U.S.S. Bainbridge, and positioned themselves. “On the marksmanship of the snipers,” a very impressive Vice Adm. William E. Gortney said succinctly: “We pay a lot for their training and we got a good return on our investment.”

I’d say!

The Somali elders were disappointed that their “help” would no longer be needed, but judging from the prattle coming from neocon nation-builders on the left and right—these corrupt old coots may find themselves on call soon.

From CNN especially comes the notion that piracy is really poverty and powerlessness in disguise. (Donna Lemon, CNN’s cherubic, remarkably bad newsman-cum-woman, forgot to blame the “pale, patriarchal, penis people.”) Nevertheless, the consensus among the neocons, left and right, is that what Somalis really need is American boots on the ground to show them how democracy nullifies the need for piracy (NOT). And aid, lots of it.

Here we go again.

Updated: Mad Mahmoud Saner Than Bailout Bastards

Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Iran, Socialism

Who’s crazier; Mad Mahmoud Or the Bailout Bastards?

Ahmadinejad’s God gobbledygook aside, the Iranian loon has figured out something the newly crowned King Henry (Paulson) and his cronies reject root-and-branch:

“‘The U.S. government has made a series of mistakes in the past few decades,” Ahmadinejad said an interview with the Los Angeles Times. ‘The imposition on the U.S. economy of the years of heavy military engagement and involvement around the world … the war in Iraq, for example. These are heavy costs imposed on the U.S. economy.’”

“‘The world economy can no longer tolerate the budgetary deficit and the financial pressures occurring from markets here in the United States, and by the U.S. government,’ he added.”

Economist Robert Higgs has pegged all defense-related spending—the price of America’s empire—at approximately $1 trillion per year. That, and this, will do it.

Update: “THIS MASSIVE BAILOUT IS NOT THE SOLUTION, IT IS FINANCIAL SOCIALISM, AND IT IS UN-AMERICAN.” Who is Jim Bunning? He’s the only politician (other than Ron Paul) to have called the hideous thing by its name: socialism.

Senator Jim Bunning’s statement at the “Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Hearing on Turmoil in the U.S. Credit Markets”:

“We cannot make bad mortgages go away. We cannot make the losses that our financial institutions are facing go away. Someone must take those losses. We can either let the people who made bad decisions bear the consequences of their actions, or we can spread that pain to others. And that is exactly what the Secretary proposes to do – take Wall Street’s pain and spread it to the taxpayers. The plan has not even passed, and already Americans are paying for it because of the fall in the dollar as a result of all the new debt we will be taking on.

I know there are problems in the financial markets, and I share a lot of the same concerns that our witnesses do. However, the Paulson plan will not fix those problems. The Paulson plan will not help struggling homeowners pay their mortgages. The Paulson plan will not bring a stop to the slide in home prices. But the Paulson plan will spend 700 billion taxpayer dollars to prop up and clean up the balance sheets of Wall Street. This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American.” [My emphasis]

Update #II: Oops, Iran’s Innocent

Bush, Intelligence, Iran, Islam, Neoconservatism

A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s dormant nuclear program confirms the following:

* If a Pinocchio proboscis that grew with each lie uttered was a feature on the faces of political leaders, the Cheney-Bush-Rice gang would put the Ahmadinejad-Hussein knaves to shame in the nose department.
* The Intelligence community has been somewhat deterred by its failures in Iraq; not so the brazen Bush Administration.
* Since the Iranians halted their weapons program well before this latest unjust round of sanctions, economic punitive measures penalizing all Iranians seem more unjust than ever, to say nothing of futile.
* Americans remain criminally clueless about the Arab mentality and culture: Since national pride and honor are at stake, Arab leaders would sooner lie and claim to have the know-how to manufacture WMD, than admit to lacking it. Therefore, when habitual blowhards such as Saddam and Mad Mahmoud tone down their truculence and confess to having no weapons, they’re probably being truthful because truly terrified of an American invasion.
* Hillary has been a hawk on Iran except when the political expediency of the campaign has dictated otherwise. The new intelligence discredits the Democratic frontrunner—and all the GOP candidates bar Ron Paul.

Update #I: I just KNEW someone would take issue with my tagging of the Iranian leadership as typifying the Arab mentality. Everyone knows Ancient Persia was not Arab and that the Iranians are descendants of a medley of non-Arab people. However, since the Islamic conquest, the place has gone the way all places under Islam have gone—to the dogs.
With respect to more recent developments, I’ve written this on BAB: “Reza Shah and son hated Arab culture and identified themselves completely with pre-Islamic Persia. Not so the clerics who came to power after the Islamic revolution in 1979; they endeavored to expunge the Achaemenids, the Sassanids, and Zoroastrianism from Iran’s historical memory. To Islamists, history begins with Mohammad and his exploits; all that went before doesn’t count.
Shortly after the revolution, Islamic mobs in Iran tried to Talibanize Cyrus’s tomb. Persian names were changed to Islamic names, and references to the Achaemenid kings were banned on the state broadcaster. In post-revolutionary Iran, children were no longer named Darius or Cyrus (but Mo and Hussein, like one presidential candidate).”
In any event, I’m sticking with the “Arab-mentality” appellation for Iran’s leadership. It fits.

Update # II (Dec. 5): The neocons are still in power among the punditocracy. Their adherents are hanging on for dear life too. Not that they’ve been truly challenged; reality doesn’t seem to interfere with hereditary rights in American media. Still, I thought that by now they’d have the decency and sense to steer clear of the “left-liberal” libel when it comes to my views—and certainly not expect to be hosted on my blog. Alas, hubris is another of their distinguishing trademarks.
Libel aside, I’m extremely cautious about Iran, but I’d like to see other powers do the heavy lifting—let Israel take care of itself. The IAEA is a good option too, so long as an American president doesn’t kick them out of the inspected region to start a war.

Here are my pieces on the “Persian Pussycat”:

“The Persian Pussycat”
“Satan’s Little Helpers“

Iraq: The Only Way Forward

Economy, Energy, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Military, Socialism

Two of the seven soldiers who wrote a controversial New-York Times op-ed, “critical of some elements of the war just last month,” have died in Iraq. “Among the column’s statements: ‘In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear.’”

In an interview with Jim Lehrer yesterday (as the cable cretins were babbling about O. J. Simpson), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, amidst many obfuscations, brought himself to agree with Lehrer that “the casualty rates among American troops are about now what they were a year ago.”

Readers ask what I think ought to be done about Iraq. If the analysis in the column “The Petraeus-Crocker Crock“ is correct, as many of you have conceded, then the conclusions ought to follow closely.

We are powerless to do a thing about “the religious animus between Shia and Sunni that dates back to AD 680.” If anything, we are solely responsible for inflaming the vendetta by removing Saddam, the strongman that kept the lid on the cauldron of depravity that has now boiled over because of the invasion. Our soldiers can continue to serve as sacrificial lambs, giving their lives futilely in order to separate the warring sides. What on earth for? Cui bono?

As mentioned in the column—a no-brainer really—the American occupation is the other flame accelerator. Our presence there is contributing to the chaos. The Iraqis in all their factions hate our collective guts. Those who know the culture and have lived in the Middle East understand that the exquisite politeness with which Anbaris, for example, are treating their new-found American friends masks a cold hatred. Americans are naïve about the people they keep messing with. Michael Ware, the hardnosed reporter who has lived in the region for years, gets the unromantic, unvarnished picture exactly right:

“[W]e have to be careful about what we hear Iraqis say when we’re surrounded by American soldiers. If we’re on an embed and we’re dealing with these Iraqi forces, they’re going to be very careful in what they say, because their American paymasters essentially are standing around. We need to talk to these groups in their undiluted state. We were with those groups, not with Americans. And, to be honest, I have known many of these organizations for years. They hate al Qaeda, no problem. That’s a shared American agenda. They are vehemently anti-Iranian, which also makes them vehemently anti-Maliki government. They believe this is essentially Iranian influence. So, no, they don’t want to work with this central government. And this central government is working with them under great sufferance, being forced by the U.S.”

In other words, what they say is not what they are thinking and scheming.
As to what will transpire once we withdraw, listen to Ware’s words, when asked for his overall impression of the president’s imbecilic speech:

“Well, … my first impression is, wow. I mean, it’s one thing to return to the status quo, to the situation we had nine months ago, with 130,000 U.S. troops stuck here for the foreseeable future. It’s another thing to perpetuate the myth. I mean, I won’t go into detail, like the president’s characterizations of the Iraqi government as an ally, or that the people of Anbar, who support the Sunni insurgency, asked America for help, or to address this picture of a Baghdad that exists only in the president’s mind.”

Ware expounds on Bush’s parallel universe:

“Let me just refer to this, what the president said, that, if America were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened. They are now. Al Qaeda could gain new recruits and new sanctuaries. They have that now. Iran would benefit from the chaos and be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region. It is now. Iraq would face a humanitarian crisis. It does now. And that we would leave our children a far more dangerous world. That’s happening now.” (Emphasis added)

It’s done. We broke it. Since the actions taken by Bush to improve Iraq caused it to break, it follows that no amount of further “improvements” will do anything but break the place some more. We are incapable of fixing it because of what we did (The Original Sin of invasion, if you will), who we are (invaders and aggressors), what we wrought (destroy the place), and what we symbolize (invaders who destroyed Iraq).

How difficult is it for readers of this space to follow this simple logic/drift? Expressions such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions, or the idea that you can kill with kindness—these all go to illustrate that it is quite possible to do evil while firmly believing you are doing good. Americans refuse to accept this because they cannot seem to see things from the perspective of the people they insist on “helping.” It’s a pathology–terminally self-righteous–to only see one side, and believe that that is the totality of the reality at hand.

The only way out is to withdraw completely. If readers intend to repeat that Iraq will then fall into chaos, please, at least do me the courtesy of reading (above) Ware again (in my opinion one of the finest reporters in the field). Iraq is in chaos. It may in fact improve once we remove our imperious boots from the Iraqi backs.

After withdrawing, we must work out a system of reparations for individual Iraqis. Of the logistics I’m not clear, but it is the right thing to do for individuals whose country and future we’ve destroyed. Next, instead of threatening Syria, one of two countries that has taken in millions of refugees of our creation, Americans need to assist the refugees in Syria and Jordan with private funds. These nations are housing the millions displaced by our actions. How dumb is it to threaten them? Do we seek to bomb the Iraqi refugees again, now that they’ve fled to Jordan and Syria?

Once we leave, some Saddam-like strongman will fill the power vacuum left. Will there be massacres? Sure; just like there are now. (We should have thought about that before the invasion. Or our revered leaders, and the masses that blindly fell behind them, ought to have read about Tony Blair’s philosophical forerunner, Gertrude Bell, and what happened to the British in Iraq circa 1920. When Americans invaded Iraq, they didn’t know Shiite from Shinola.)

We had it good with Saddam because he was secular, an enemy of fundamentalist Islam. Can we have back what, in our folly, we fouled up? No. The dictator to emerge from the ruins of Iraq will impose Sharia, pray to the hidden Imam, and compel women to walk about in black nose bags.

Let this be a cautionary tale. Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson. But the idea that we can rehabilitate what we ruined is delusional—a function of a collective mindset that rejects reality and its lessons.

I can hear the shrieks, “Iran; Iraq will belong to Iran. The nukes, the oil, omigod, blah, blah, blah.” Oh for heaven’s sake, get a grip. We delivered Iraq to Iran. Live with it or continue to be bled bit-by-bit by an insurgency that is way stronger than we are. We can wipe Iraq and Iran off the map with one of our nukes. The idea that the new Shia axis is a threat to us is not a serious one. Israel has more to fear, of course. Not America. Israel will have to figure out how to neutralize Iran’s arsenal.

Oil independence? I can never understand the protectionist, bellyaching about oil independence. Has anyone heard of trade? Perhaps if we traded more with Iran, instead of boycotting their wares, they’d be less belligerent. Trade is the best antidote to war. Think clearly: Iran has to sell its oil. That’s its livelihood. We need to buy it. Voila! Trade! Oil independence is a foolish leftist notion. Do I grow carrots in my backyard so as to become less dependent on Costco? Why would I? Costco needs to sell its fabulous produce; I want to buy it. Case closed. The idea of oil independence belongs with the global warming wombats.

Over and out.