Clinton Rejects ‘Bush-Cheney Power Grab’ By Joe Conason — The senator rarely surrenders a juicy quote without a struggle. Yet her familiar preference for caution over candor is gradually changing with each step that she takes toward her party’s presidential nomination.

COVER
While Pakistan Burns
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross



EDITORIAL
Epitaph for a Congress
by William Kristol

<h3 id="post-320">Jewish Glasnost Update: Zionist Panic!</h3> Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
First Jimmy Carter, then Bishop Tutu… Now, Haaretz, the liberal Israeli daily is being singled out by Israel’s most ardent defenders in the U.S. as a threat requiring a response. It’s all more evidence of the panic among the Zionist right as they lose the battle for public opinion (even liberal Jewish public opinion). Their problem, as Daniel Pipes effectively concedes, is that for most young Jews today, Jewish nationalism is an anachronism.

White House Civil War
Promised real power as Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore found he had a rival for that role: the First Lady. And when Hillary decided to run for the Senate, a tense competition got ugly, writes Sally Bedell Smith.

The Campaign Spot
TRACK 2008 WITH JIM GERAGHTY

Ron Paul beating Fred Thompson in New Hampshire?

Seeing Four to Eight More Years of the Same in Brushfire Partisanship

McCain Missed DREAM Act Vote. Better Than a Yes, Worse Than a No

Controlling the Debate on Palestine, IsraelWhat Zionists in the US wish to overlook is the fact that some of the most ardent supporters of Palestinian rights are themselves Jewish, and that is simply because the question of justice and peace is not hostage to ethnic or religious identities, says Ramzy Baroud.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week Day 3
By: Donna M. Hughes
My talk at the University of Rhode Island -- about how and why Islamic fundamentalism demonizes, terrorizes and mutilates the female gender. More>

Naming the Enemy
By: Kathryn Jean Lopez
David Horowitz discusses why he brought Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week to American college campuses. More>

Have You Hugged an Islamo-Fascist Today?
By: Ann Coulter
The Left is ready for Islamo-Fascist Appreciation Week. More>

Rice urges US Congress to drop Armenia 'genocide' Bill
Forbes -
Right time, wrong genocide resolution Los Angeles Times
Thomas Sowell: Congressional resolution aggravates Turkey Kankakee Daily Journal

Jim Rogers quits dollar after declaring US recession

By Mark Kleinman in Hong Kong
Last Updated: 7:00am BST 25/10/2007


Jim Rogers, the veteran investor who predicted the 1999 commodities rally, declared that the US economy was "in recession" as he said he would take flight from the dollar and switch his investments into currencies including the Chinese yuan.

Japan and China lead flight from the dollar<li>Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright<li>Market Forces: Keep track of what's driving financial marketsMr Rogers, who ranks among the world's best-known investment figures, said he was putting his faith in China's politically-sensitive currency alongside the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc.

Legendary investor calls time on the dollar"I live in Asia. It is really not that strange that I am selling out of the US dollar," he told The Daily Telegraph. "All other things being equal during the next six months, that's the way I will go. But if the Swiss franc goes through the roof, I probably won't put money into the Swiss franc."

Mr Rogers' comments are followed slavishly by many members of the international investment communities, and his view that the US economy is in a worse state than that suggested by most economic commentators is likely to add to pessimism in some quarters about its health.

"The US economy is undoubtedly in recession," he said. "Many parts of industry are actually in a state worse than recession. If it were not for [Federal Reserve Governor Ben] Bernanke putting huge amounts of money into the market, the stock market would probably be down much more than it is."

Mr Rogers, a long-time enthusiast for investing in stocks hanging on the coat-tails of China's economic boom, said he had not altered his views about the booming Shanghai stock market.

<li>China beats Germany for world trade crown<li>Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Did the Fed apply the brakes too hard?<li>Merrill's loss stuns investorsEarlier this year, with the benchmark Shanghai index trading at around 4000, Mr Rogers, a former investment partner of George Soros, added his voice to the chorus of warnings about an incipient bubble forming in the mainland Chinese capital markets.

With the Shanghai Composite Index closing at 5843 points, Mr Rogers said he was relaxed about the market's continued growth.

"I still feel the same way. It's not a bubble yet - if it goes past 9000 in January I'll have to sell. Bubbles always end badly," he said. "I do not want to sell Chinese stocks. I want to own them forever and I want my [four year-old] daughter to own them."

Mr Rogers' comments came as Warren Buffett, the 'Sage of Omaha', urged investors to be cautious about the Shanghai market's surge, which has seen it rise by more than 125pc this year.

Speaking to Bloomberg during a visit to China, Mr Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company he fronts, shied away from buying into soaring stocks.

Mr Buffett has been a major beneficiary of Shanghai's growth, reaping a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars from his stake in PetroChina, one of the world's largest companies by market value.

Is It Game Over for U.S. Control of Iraqi Oil?

Jack Miles, Tomdispatch.com

War on Iraq: The oil game in Iraq may be almost up as the Iraqi government is trying to oust the U.S.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/65956/?page=entire
Neocons Embrace Islamic Terror Group

By Danny Postel, Common Sense. Posted October 23, 2007.

Daniel Pipes, one of America's premiere Islamophobes, has a soft spot for one deadly deadly Islamic terrorist organization.

During the week of October 22-26, an official announcement effuses, "The nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever - Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses." Ringmastered by David Horowitz, this circus will be performing under the tent of something called the "Terrorism Awareness Project."

The purpose of this ballyhoolooza, we are told, is to confront the "Big Lies" of the Left regarding terrorism and militant Islam. Worthy subjects, to be sure. Indeed I would like to help the sponsors of the "wake-up call" promote awareness of them. Toward this end, let's consider the American Right's "special relationship" with one group of terrorists.

The U.S. State Department officially considers the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) a Foreign Terrorist Organization. While those honors date back to 1994, they've been renewed during the Bush years. Indeed in 2003 Foggy Bottom went further, including the National Council of Resistance of Iran -- an MEK alias -- under the terrorist designation. (The MEK is also known as the People's Mujahedeen.)

To make a long and bizarre story short, the MEK got its start in early 1960s Iran, helped overthrow the Shah in 1979, but quickly turned on the revolutionary government it helped bring to power. Employing an ideological blend of Stalinism and Islamism, the tactics of a paramilitary guerilla faction, and the organizational structure of a cult, the group went into exile, eventually making their home in Iraq in the mid-1980s. Not only did Saddam give the organization cover: he armed, funded, and utilized them for a variety of ends over two decades.

The group's wicked political brew was on spectacular display on the old MEK flag (since abandoned), with its sickle and Kalashnikov positioned beneath a Koranic verse. (Not -- to state the obvious -- that the mere presence of a Koranic verse in and of itself implies Islamist political commitments, but in this case the shoe very much fits.)

Here you have virtually everything the Right claims to oppose all rolled into one: Islamism, Marxism, terrorism, and Saddam. Naturally, then, neoconservatives would utterly deplore the MEK and everything it stands for, right? The MEK would in fact make an ideal target for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and Terrorism Awareness efforts, no?

Well, no. At least one of the carnival's acts, it turns out, is rather fond of the Islamo-Stalinist-terrorist cult group, and has repeatedly argued for the removal of the MEK from the State Department's list of terrorist groups and indeed urged the U.S. government to embrace it. Daniel Pipes, who will be speaking at Tufts on October 24th as part of the Horowitz high jinks, has made the MEK a recurring theme in his writings going back several years: here, here, and here.

Pipes has also gone to bat for the MEK right in the pages of Horowitz's house organ.

But Pipes is far from alone on the Right in championing the MEK. He co-authored the first piece linked to above with Patrick Clawson of the right-wing Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Right-wing commentator Max Boot has argued not merely for the removal of the MEK from the terrorist list but for funding and unleashing it to do battle with Iranian forces -- this while casually acknowledging that it is a "political cult." (More on Boot's disfigured views here.)

In some cases the MEK plays a stealth role in the media machinery of the American Right. What the FOX News Channel tells viewers about Alireza Jafarzadeh when he appears on its airwaves is that he is an "FNC Foreign Affairs Analyst." What you have to go to the FOX News website to discover, however, is that Jafarzadeh served "for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesman for the U.S. representative office of Iran's parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran." But it is scarcely known that the sonorous-sounding National Council of Resistance of Iran is in fact a front name for the MEK.

Now, it's true that Jafarzadeh discontinued his post with the National Council of Resistance of Iran--but only when (and only because) its Washington office was forced to close in 2003 as a result of the State Department decision about it being a front for the MEK. It's not like he had a change of heart.

If you attend an "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" event, you might want to ask the speakers about this terrorist cult and whether they condemn it. Some of them might -- not all neoconservatives agree on the MEK. (See here and here for examples of right-wing criticism of the outfit -- though the lines of argumentation are sometimes bizarrely convoluted.)

But the fact that several prominent American conservatives have cozied up to an Islamist-Stalinist cult that was on Saddam's payroll and the State Department considers a terrorist organization -- this raises serious questions (to put it mildly) about the Right's bedfellows and the calculus that determines them.

It suggests the need for a little more terrorism awareness.

Insanity Compounded by Insanity: Bush Offers to Bomb Iraqi Kurds http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/66115/?page=entire
Insanity Compounded by Insanity: Bush Offers to Bomb Iraqi Kurds

The Herald Sun. Posted October 25, 2007.

Bush, in a deep hole, just keeps digging.

A few things to consider when reading this story. First, PKK guerrillas are believed to be holed up in highly-protected mountain redoubts and it's doubtful that airstrikes would have much of a long-term effect on their operational capabilities. Second, while the Iraqi Kurdish leadership has been taking a cautious approach to the escalating conflict, "Kurdistan" president Massoud Barzani has twice promised that the powerful Peshmerga militia -- estimated at more than 100,000 strong and arguably the most effective ground forces in Iraq -- would join PKK fighters in the case of a Turkish ground incursion. The Iraqi Kurdish leadership would be hard-pressed to make that move, but might not have a choice given their own domestic political calculus. Lastly, PKK fighters' cross-border attacks are seasonal; they slow during the winter when the mountainous border area where they operate becomes too difficult to negotiate. During the "off-season," they mover deeper into Iraqi Kurdistan, where the job of finding clean targets for airstrikes and/ or shelling becomes much more difficult. That means that if the U.S. did strike PKK camps, most of the fighters would likely to dissolve into the population and be ready to return next spring.

The Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.

The move would be an attempt to stave off a Turkish invasion of that country to fight the rebels.

President George Bush spoke with Turkish President Abdullah Gul by phone yesterday in an effort to ease the crisis.

And Prime Minister John Howard says the tensions on the Turkey-Iraq border will not help the west's battle for democracy in Iraq.

Mr Howard said there was some recent evidence that US forces were making headway in their battle against al-Qaeda in Iraq following the US troop surge.

"There is some evidence in recent weeks that the surge has been more successful than many of its critics wanted it to be or believe it would be," Mr Howard told an army land warfare conference in Adelaide today.

But he hoped the temperature between Turkey and the Kurds was kept as low as possible.

"It is in a strategic sense a complicating factor at a time when evidence is emerging of slow but nonetheless some progress being made in improving the security position in Iraq," he said.

"The message I would give to Turkey and Iraq is, like everybody else, just keep it as cool and at a lower temperature as possible," Mr Howard said.

According to an official familiar with the conversation, Mr Bush assured the Turkish President that the US was seriously looking into options beyond diplomacy to stop the attacks coming from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

"It's not 'Kumbaya' time any more - just talking about trilateral talks is not going to be enough," the official said.

"Something has to be done."

While the use of US soldiers on the ground to root out the PKK would be the last resort, the US would be willing to launch air strikes on PKK targets, the official said, and has discussed the use of cruise missiles.

But air strikes using manned aircraft may be an easier option because the US controls the air space over Iraq.

Another option would be to persuade the Kurdistan Regional Government, which runs that part of Iraq, to order its Peshmerga forces to form a cordon preventing the movement of the PKK beyond its mountain camps.

"In the past, there has been reluctance to engage in direct US military action against the PKK, either through air strikes or some kind of Special Forces action," said the official familiar with the Bush-Gul conversation, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"But the red line was always, if the Turks were going to come over the border, it could be so destabilising that it might be less risky for us to do something ourselves.

"Now the Turks are at the end of their rope, and our risk calculus is changing."

Meanwhile, Iraq said today it would shut down the operations of Kurdish rebels based on its soil, hoping to head off the threatened invasion by Turkish troops massed on the border.

"The PKK is a terrorist organisation and we have taken a decision to shut down their offices and not allow them to operate on Iraqi soil," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.

"We will also work on limiting their terrorist activities which are threatening Iraq and Turkey," Maliki said after crisis talks in Baghdad with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.

He gave no details on how the rebels could be prevented from launching attacks from their remote mountain bases. Analysts say military action would have to involve US forces in Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara was giving diplomacy a chance, but reminded Iraq that Turkey's parliament had given the go-ahead for a military incursion at any time.

And the publication of photographs said to show eight Turkish soldiers captured by the rebels increased pressure on Turkey's government to take swift action.

"Right now we are in a waiting stance but Iraq should know we can use the mandate for a cross-border operation at any time," Erdogan told a joint news conference in London after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

He later ratcheted up pressure by telling an investors' conference that Turkey might impose sanctions on exports to Iraq. Turkish exports to Iraq were worth $US2.6 billion ($A2.94 billion) in 2006.

PKK separatists, operating from northern Iraq, killed a dozen Turkish soldiers in weekend fighting.

The PKK said it also captured eight soldiers, and a news agency with close links to the rebels published what it said were photographs of the captives today. Turkey had denied soldiers had been captured but acknowledged eight were missing.

"The pictures show their health condition is pretty good," said the Firat news agency, which is based in western Europe.

With feelings running high in Turkey, and anti-PKK protests in several towns, the broadcasting watchdog banned news reports on the deaths of the 12 soldiers.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said PKK attacks on Turkey would not be tolerated.

"We have given the PKK the option to leave or disarm. We care for every drop of Turkish blood like we care for every drop of Iraqi blood," he said after talks with Babacan.

Washington has so far been reluctant to attack PKK rebels, fearing this could damage ties with Iraqi Kurds and destabilise the Kurdish region, the only area of Iraq to see relative stability and prosperity since Saddam Hussein was toppled.

Turkey estimates 3,000 PKK rebels are based in Iraq. Ankara believes US forces in Iraq have the capability of capturing PKK leaders hiding in the Qandil mountains, shutting down their camps and cutting off supply routes and logistical support.

Turkey's government says it will use all diplomatic options before launching any strike into northern Iraq against the PKK.

The easing in rhetoric has helped bring global oil prices down from record highs.

Turkey has deployed as many as 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, F-16 fighter jets and helicopter gunships along its border in preparation for a possible attack on rebel bases.

"If expected developments do not take place in the next few days, we will have to take care of our own situation," Erdogan said in Oxford, England, yesterday.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's visiting foreign secretary, David Miliband, said they had proposed a meeting in Istanbul next month of officials from the United States, Turkey and Iraq to discuss how to stop PKK attacks.

Iraq's Talabani said yesterday the PKK would announce a ceasefire. Later the guerrilla group said in a statement it was ready for peace if Ankara stopped its military offensive against Kurdish fighters. It made no mention of a ceasefire.

Babacan said any ceasefire offer would be meaningless as the PKK was a terrorist organisation, not a sovereign army.

An ambush over the weekend by 200 PKK guerrillas left 12 Turkish soldiers dead and eight missing.

The attack's sophistication and scope surprised not only the Turks but also the US and its Iraqi allies.

The US, with Iraqi help, also could squeeze the flow of supplies and funds for the PKK coming across the border, or through the airport in Irbil, the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Turkey yesterday said it would exhaust diplomatic channels before launching any military strike into northern Iraq.

The Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.

The move would be an attempt to stave off a Turkish invasion of that country to fight the rebels.

President George Bush spoke with Turkish President Abdullah Gul by phone yesterday in an effort to ease the crisis.

And Prime Minister John Howard says the tensions on the Turkey-Iraq border will not help the west's battle for democracy in Iraq.

Mr Howard said there was some recent evidence that US forces were making headway in their battle against al-Qaeda in Iraq following the US troop surge.

"There is some evidence in recent weeks that the surge has been more successful than many of its critics wanted it to be or believe it would be," Mr Howard told an army land warfare conference in Adelaide today.

But he hoped the temperature between Turkey and the Kurds was kept as low as possible.

"It is in a strategic sense a complicating factor at a time when evidence is emerging of slow but nonetheless some progress being made in improving the security position in Iraq," he said.

"The message I would give to Turkey and Iraq is, like everybody else, just keep it as cool and at a lower temperature as possible," Mr Howard said.

According to an official familiar with the conversation, Mr Bush assured the Turkish President that the US was seriously looking into options beyond diplomacy to stop the attacks coming from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

"It's not 'Kumbaya' time any more - just talking about trilateral talks is not going to be enough," the official said.

"Something has to be done."

While the use of US soldiers on the ground to root out the PKK would be the last resort, the US would be willing to launch air strikes on PKK targets, the official said, and has discussed the use of cruise missiles.

But air strikes using manned aircraft may be an easier option because the US controls the air space over Iraq.

Another option would be to persuade the Kurdistan Regional Government, which runs that part of Iraq, to order its Peshmerga forces to form a cordon preventing the movement of the PKK beyond its mountain camps.

"In the past, there has been reluctance to engage in direct US military action against the PKK, either through air strikes or some kind of Special Forces action," said the official familiar with the Bush-Gul conversation, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"But the red line was always, if the Turks were going to come over the border, it could be so destabilizing that it might be less risky for us to do something ourselves.

"Now the Turks are at the end of their rope, and our risk calculus is changing."

Meanwhile, Iraq said today it would shut down the operations of Kurdish rebels based on its soil, hoping to head off the threatened invasion by Turkish troops massed on the border.

"The PKK is a terrorist organization and we have taken a decision to shut down their offices and not allow them to operate on Iraqi soil," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.

"We will also work on limiting their terrorist activities which are threatening Iraq and Turkey," Maliki said after crisis talks in Baghdad with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.

He gave no details on how the rebels could be prevented from launching attacks from their remote mountain bases. Analysts say military action would have to involve US forces in Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara was giving diplomacy a chance, but reminded Iraq that Turkey's parliament had given the go-ahead for a military incursion at any time.

And the publication of photographs said to show eight Turkish soldiers captured by the rebels increased pressure on Turkey's government to take swift action.

"Right now we are in a waiting stance but Iraq should know we can use the mandate for a cross-border operation at any time," Erdogan told a joint news conference in London after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

He later ratcheted up pressure by telling an investors' conference that Turkey might impose sanctions on exports to Iraq. Turkish exports to Iraq were worth $US2.6 billion ($A2.94 billion) in 2006.

PKK separatists, operating from northern Iraq, killed a dozen Turkish soldiers in weekend fighting.

The PKK said it also captured eight soldiers, and a news agency with close links to the rebels published what it said were photographs of the captives today. Turkey had denied soldiers had been captured but acknowledged eight were missing.

"The pictures show their health condition is pretty good," said the Firat news agency, which is based in western Europe.

With feelings running high in Turkey, and anti-PKK protests in several towns, the broadcasting watchdog banned news reports on the deaths of the 12 soldiers.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said PKK attacks on Turkey would not be tolerated.

"We have given the PKK the option to leave or disarm. We care for every drop of Turkish blood like we care for every drop of Iraqi blood," he said after talks with Babacan.

Washington has so far been reluctant to attack PKK rebels, fearing this could damage ties with Iraqi Kurds and destabilize the Kurdish region, the only area of Iraq to see relative stability and prosperity since Saddam Hussein was toppled.

Turkey estimates 3,000 PKK rebels are based in Iraq. Ankara believes US forces in Iraq have the capability of capturing PKK leaders hiding in the Qandil mountains, shutting down their camps and cutting off supply routes and logistical support.

Turkey's government says it will use all diplomatic options before launching any strike into northern Iraq against the PKK.

The easing in rhetoric has helped bring global oil prices down from record highs.

Turkey has deployed as many as 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, F-16 fighter jets and helicopter gunships along its border in preparation for a possible attack on rebel bases.

"If expected developments do not take place in the next few days, we will have to take care of our own situation," Erdogan said in Oxford, England, yesterday.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's visiting foreign secretary, David Miliband, said they had proposed a meeting in Istanbul next month of officials from the United States, Turkey and Iraq to discuss how to stop PKK attacks.

Iraq's Talabani said yesterday the PKK would announce a ceasefire. Later the guerrilla group said in a statement it was ready for peace if Ankara stopped its military offensive against Kurdish fighters. It made no mention of a ceasefire.

Babacan said any ceasefire offer would be meaningless as the PKK was a terrorist organization, not a sovereign army.

An ambush over the weekend by 200 PKK guerrillas left 12 Turkish soldiers dead and eight missing.

The attack's sophistication and scope surprised not only the Turks but also the US and its Iraqi allies.

The US, with Iraqi help, also could squeeze the flow of supplies and funds for the PKK coming across the border, or through the airport in Irbil, the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Turkey yesterday said it would exhaust diplomatic channels before launching any military strike into northern Iraq.

AlterNet is making this material available in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Wall Street Democrats
by Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect
There is class conflict inside the Democratic Party, and investors stand to lose.

Dick Morris

Huckabee Is the Right Wing's Last Survivor
It's easy to see the disguises that the Democratic Party is planning to don for Halloween. Not this year, but in 2009, after they have elected Hillary as president and as many as 58 Democratic senators (possible takeaways in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon, Virginia, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico). While we can only speculate on the taxes they are planning to increase — "eve ...

David Sirota

The Invisible Culture of Corruption
Washington is a city of paper, specifically of letters. Congresspeople write letters to presidents. Agencies write letters to other agencies. Letters are an art form in D.C. — and the letter now blanketing Capitol Hill is a masterpiece of deceit. Forty-three former Democratic officeholders signed this letter, which demands Congress pass trade deals with Peru, Panama and Colombia — pact ...

US Measures aim at the heart of the Iranian Regime

By Walid Phares


After Andy Cochran's posting, here is a quick comment on the Designation of Iranian Entities and Individuals for Proliferation Activities and Support for Terrorism Today's documents revealing the US financial measures taken against Iran's military power hits the heart of the regime. The US official document can only be described as a master strategic strike into the financial web of the major power centers of the Iranian regime. See the full document. Following are three points:

Read More »

U.S. Announces New Sanctions Against Iranian Military, Banks, Leaders (updated)

By Andrew Cochran


Today, the State Department designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) for their proliferation activities. The Treasury Department also designated numerous Iranian parties for proliferation concerns: nine IRGC-affiliated entities and five IRGC-affiliated individuals; two state-owned banks, Bank Melli (its biggest) and Bank Mellat; and three individuals affiliated with Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO). The Treasury Department also designated the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) under for providing material support to the Taliban in Afghanistan and other terrorist organizations, and also designated Iran's state-owned Bank Saderat as a terrorist financier. Moreover, elements of the IRGC and MODAFL were listed in the Annexes to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747, which leads to a freeze on their assets by all member nations.

I recommend reading the detailed fact sheet on all of the designations on the Treasury website.

In my opinion, the broad scope of this sweeping announcement signals a decisive foreign policy decision, in concert with other countries, to significantly ratchet up sanctions against Iran to avoid a more dangerous confrontation (the Associated Press characterizes them as "the harshest since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979"). CTB Contributing Experts have posted so often on the potential for these sanctions and their impact - more often than any other website - that I can only point readers towards their individual archives:

Matthew Levitt
Victor Comras
Douglas Farah
Jonathan Winer
Michael Jacobson
Michael Kraft

UPDATE: Senior State and Treasury Department officials gave an on-the-record briefing after the announcement of the new sanctions. State Under Secretary Nicholas Burns noted that just since late March, "Iran has transferred arms to Hamas and to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to the Shia militant groups in Iraq and to the Taliban in Afghanistan." So that doubt is resolved in the opinion of the U.S. government, as is the question of Shia cooperation with Sunni terrorist groups against the U.S., which we have addressed here often.

Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey noted, "...we have Bank Melli handling transactions for Bank Sepah after its designation. We have Bank Melli handling transactions for the DIO, already designated, for SHIG, already designated both the United States and by the United Nations, and even taking deceptive actions to prevent others from knowing what they're doing, like asking -- taking precautions to take Bank Sepah's name off of transactions when they're handling transactions for it. Bank Melli also, even though it has designated for proliferation, was also handling business for the Qods Force. And from 2002 to 2006, was used to send over $100 million to the Qods Force." See these CT Blog posts on the Bank Sepah designation.

October 25, 2007 09:45 AM Link

Fact Sheet: Designation of Iranian Entities and Individuals for Proliferation Activities and Support for Terrorism

The U.S. Government is taking several major actions today to counter Iran's bid for nuclear capabilities and support for terrorism by exposing Iranian banks, companies and individuals that have been involved in these dangerous activities and by cutting them off from the U.S. financial system.

Today, the Department of State designated under Executive Order 13382 two key Iranian entities of proliferation concern: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). Additionally, the Department of the Treasury designated for proliferation activities under E.O. 13382 nine IRGC-affiliated entities and five IRGC-affiliated individuals as derivatives of the IRGC, Iran's state-owned Banks Melli and Mellat, and three individuals affiliated with Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO).

The Treasury Department also designated the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) under E.O. 13224 for providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, and Iran's state-owned Bank Saderat as a terrorist financier.

Elements of the IRGC and MODAFL were listed in the Annexes to UN Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747. All UN Member States are required to freeze the assets of entities and individuals listed in the Annexes of those resolutions, as well as assets of entities owned or controlled by them, and to prevent funds or economic resources from being made available to them.

The Financial Action Task Force, the world's premier standard-setting body for countering terrorist financing and money laundering, recently highlighted the threat posed by Iran to the international financial system. FATF called on its members to advise institutions dealing with Iran to seriously weigh the risks resulting from Iran's failure to comply with international standards. Last week, the Treasury Department issued a warning to U.S. banks setting forth the risks posed by Iran. (For the text of the Treasury Department statement see: http://www.fincen.gov/guidance_fi_increasi...t_iranian.pdf.) Today's actions are consistent with this warning, and provide additional information to help financial institutions protect themselves from deceptive financial practices by Iranian entities and individuals engaged in or supporting proliferation and terrorism.

Effect of Today's Actions

As a result of our actions today, all transactions involving any of the designees and any U.S. person will be prohibited and any assets the designees may have under U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen. Noting the UN Security Council's grave concern over Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program activities, the United States also encourages all jurisdictions to take similar actions to ensure full and effective implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747.

Today's designations also notify the international private sector of the dangers of doing business with three of Iran's largest banks, as well as the many IRGC- affiliated companies that pervade several basic Iranian industries.

Proliferation Finance – Executive Order 13382 Designations

E.O. 13382, signed by the President on June 29, 2005, is an authority aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters, and at isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems. Designations under the Order prohibit all transactions between the designees and any U.S. person, and freeze any assets the designees may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC): Considered the military vanguard of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is composed of five branches (Ground Forces, Air Force, Navy, Basij militia, and Qods Force special operations) in addition to a counterintelligence directorate and representatives of the Supreme Leader. It runs prisons, and has numerous economic interests involving defense production, construction, and the oil industry. Several of the IRGC's leaders have been sanctioned under UN Security Council Resolution 1747.

The IRGC has been outspoken about its willingness to proliferate ballistic missiles capable of carrying WMD. The IRGC's ballistic missile inventory includes missiles, which could be modified to deliver WMD. The IRGC is one of the primary regime organizations tied to developing and testing the Shahab-3. The IRGC attempted, as recently as 2006, to procure sophisticated and costly equipment that could be used to support Iran's ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL): The Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) controls the Defense Industries Organization, an Iranian entity identified in the Annex to UN Security Council Resolution 1737 and designated by the United States under E.O. 13382 on March 30, 2007. MODAFL also was sanctioned, pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act and the Export Administration Act, in November 2000 for its involvement in missile technology proliferation activities.

MODAFL has ultimate authority over Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO), which was designated under E.O. 13382 on June 28, 2005. The AIO is the Iranian organization responsible for ballistic missile research, development and production activities and organizations, including the Shahid Hemmat Industries Group (SHIG) and the Shahid Bakeri Industries Group (SBIG), which were both listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1737 and designated under E.O. 13382. The head of MODAFL has publicly indicated Iran's willingness to continue to work on ballistic missiles. Defense Minister Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said that one of MODAFL's major projects is the manufacturing of Shahab-3 missiles and that it will not be halted. MODAFL representatives have acted as facilitators for Iranian assistance to an E.O. 13382- designated entity and, over the past two years, have brokered a number of transactions involving materials and technologies with ballistic missile applications.

Bank Melli, its branches, and subsidiaries: Bank Melli is Iran's largest bank. Bank Melli provides banking services to entities involved in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, including entities listed by the U.N. for their involvement in those programs. This includes handling transactions in recent months for Bank Sepah, Defense Industries Organization, and Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group. Following the designation of Bank Sepah under UNSCR 1747, Bank Melli took precautions not to identify Sepah in transactions. Through its role as a financial conduit, Bank Melli has facilitated numerous purchases of sensitive materials for Iran's nuclear and missile programs. In doing so, Bank Melli has provided a range of financial services on behalf of Iran's nuclear and missile industries, including opening letters of credit and maintaining accounts.

Bank Melli also provides banking services to the IRGC and the Qods Force. Entities owned or controlled by the IRGC or the Qods Force use Bank Melli for a variety of financial services. From 2002 to 2006, Bank Melli was used to send at least $100 million to the Qods Force. When handling financial transactions on behalf of the IRGC, Bank Melli has employed deceptive banking practices to obscure its involvement from the international banking system. For example, Bank Melli has requested that its name be removed from financial transactions.

Bank Mellat, its branches, and subsidiaries: Bank Mellat provides banking services in support of Iran's nuclear entities, namely the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and Novin Energy Company. Both AEOI and Novin Energy have been designated by the United States under E.O. 13382 and by the UN Security Council under UNSCRs 1737 and 1747. Bank Mellat services and maintains AEOI accounts, mainly through AEOI's financial conduit, Novin Energy. Bank Mellat has facilitated the movement of millions of dollars for Iran's nuclear program since at least 2003. Transfers from Bank Mellat to Iranian nuclear-related companies have occurred as recently as this year.

IRGC-owned or -controlled companies: Treasury is designating the companies listed below under E.O. 13382 on the basis of their relationship to the IRGC. These entities are owned or controlled by the IRGC and its leaders. The IRGC has significant political and economic power in Iran, with ties to companies controlling billions of dollars in business and construction and a growing presence in Iran's financial and commercial sectors. Through its companies, the IRGC is involved in a diverse array of activities, including petroleum production and major construction projects across the country. In 2006, Khatam al-Anbiya secured deals worth at least $7 billion in the oil, gas, and transportation sectors, among others.

* Khatam al-Anbya Construction Headquarters
* Oriental Oil Kish
* Ghorb Nooh
* Sahel Consultant Engineering
* Ghorb-e Karbala
* Sepasad Engineering Co
* Omran Sahel
* Hara Company
* Gharargahe Sazandegi Ghaem

IRGC Individuals: Treasury is designating the individuals below under E.O 13382 on the basis of their relationship to the IRGC. One of the five is listed on the Annex of UNSCR 1737 and the other four are listed on the Annex of UNSCR 1747 as key IRGC individuals.

* General Hosein Salimi, Commander of the Air Force, IRGC
* Brigadier General Morteza Rezaie, Deputy Commander of the IRGC
* Vice Admiral Ali Akhbar Ahmadian, Chief of the IRGC Joint Staff
* Brigadier Gen. Mohammad Hejazi, Commander of Bassij resistance force
* Brigadier General Qasem Soleimani, Commander of the Qods Force

Other Individuals involved in Iran's ballistic missile programs: E.O. 13382 derivative proliferation designation by Treasury of each of the individuals listed below for their relationship to the Aerospace Industries Organization, an entity previously designated under E.O. 13382. Each individual is listed on the Annex of UNSCR 1737 for being involved in Iran's ballistic missile program.

* Ahmad Vahid Dastjerdi, Head of the Aerospace Industry Organization (AIO)
* Reza-Gholi Esmaeli, Head of Trade & International Affairs Dept., AIO
* Bahmanyar Morteza Bahmanyar, Head of Finance & Budget Department, AIO

Support for Terrorism -- Executive Order 13224 Designations

E.O. 13224 is an authority aimed at freezing the assets of terrorists and their supporters, and at isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems. Designations under the E.O. prohibit all transactions between the designees and any U.S. person, and freeze any assets the designees may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF): The Qods Force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), provides material support to the Taliban, Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).

The Qods Force is the Iranian regime's primary instrument for providing lethal support to the Taliban. The Qods Force provides weapons and financial support to the Taliban to support anti-U.S. and anti-Coalition activity in Afghanistan. Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged frequent shipments of small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, plastic explosives, and probably man-portable defense systems to the Taliban. This support contravenes Chapter VII UN Security Council obligations. UN Security Council resolution 1267 established sanctions against the Taliban and UN Security Council resolutions 1333 and 1735 imposed arms embargoes against the Taliban. Through Qods Force material support to the Taliban, we believe Iran is seeking to inflict casualties on U.S. and NATO forces.

The Qods Force has had a long history of supporting Hizballah's military, paramilitary, and terrorist activities, providing it with guidance, funding, weapons, intelligence, and logistical support. The Qods Force operates training camps for Hizballah in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and has reportedly trained more than 3,000 Hizballah fighters at IRGC training facilities in Iran. The Qods Force provides roughly $100 to $200 million in funding a year to Hizballah and has assisted Hizballah in rearming in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

In addition, the Qods Force provides lethal support in the form of weapons, training, funding, and guidance to select groups of Iraqi Shi'a militants who target and kill Coalition and Iraqi forces and innocent Iraqi civilians.

Bank Saderat, its branches, and subsidiaries: Bank Saderat, which has approximately 3200 branch offices, has been used by the Government of Iran to channel funds to terrorist organizations, including Hizballah and EU-designated terrorist groups Hamas, PFLP-GC, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. For example, from 2001 to 2006, Bank Saderat transferred $50 million from the Central Bank of Iran through its subsidiary in London to its branch in Beirut for the benefit of Hizballah fronts in Lebanon that support acts of violence. Hizballah has used Bank Saderat to send money to other terrorist organizations, including millions of dollars on occasion, to support the activities of Hamas. As of early 2005, Hamas had substantial assets deposited in Bank Saderat, and, in the past year, Bank Saderat has transferred several million dollars to Hamas.

REPORTS

* Treasury and State Department Iran Designations Identifier

US slaps broad new sanctions on Iran
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago

The Bush administration imposed sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday — the harshest in nearly three decades — cutting off key Iranian military and banking institutions from the American financial system for Tehran's alleged support for terrorism and nuclear weapons ambitions.

In the broadest U.S. unilateral penalties on Iran since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, the administration slapped sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a main unit of its defense ministry, three of its largest banks and eight people that it said are engaged in missile trade and back extremist groups throughout the Middle East.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the moves would further isolate the Islamic republic's government by further distancing it from the international economy and discouraging its trading partners from continuing to do business with it.

At the same time, they stressed that offers for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program remain on the table and that the sacnctions are not a sign of imminent military action. The U.S. officials insist — over Iranian denials — that the nuclear program is a cover for atomic weapons development.

"Unfortunately, the Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security," through its nuclear program, production and export of ballistic missiles and backing for Shia insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, Rice said.

The United States has long labeled Iran a state supporter of terrorism and has been working for years to gain support for tougher sanctions from the international community aimed at keeping the country from developing nuclear weapons. It has won two U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions but a third has been held up by Chinese and Russian opposition.

The State Department said at least two permanent members of the Security Council — Britain and France — had been informed of the sanctions before the announcement, but that Russian officials could not be reached and learned of the measures only afterward when Rice managed to get through to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the move, saying new international sanctions are not advisable.

"Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?" Putin said in a veiled reference to the U.S. push for harsher international sanctions. "It's not the best way to resolve the situation by running around like a madman with a razor blade in his hand."

Rice, who also noted Iran's hardline anti-Israel stance, said the moves were part of "a comprehensive policy to confront the threatening behavior of the Iranians" but that Washington remains committed to "a diplomatic solution."

Other officials echoed that sentiment, maintaining the announcement is not a prelude to armed conflict with Iran despite concerns from some allies that the administration is building a case for war.

"In no way, shape of form does it anticipate the use of force," said Nicholas Burns, the State Department's No. 3 diplomat.

Instead, officials said they hope the measures will increase pressure on Iran to take a deal offered last year that would give the oil-rich country economic and other incentives in exchange for dropping nuclear activities that could produce a bomb.

In Tehran, the Guards' chief, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, shrugged off increased U.S. pressure on the force.

"Today, enemy has concentrated sharp point of its attacks on the Guards," Jafari told a military ceremony in Mashhad, east of Tehran, according to the state news agency IRNA. "They have applied all their efforts to reduce the efficiency of this revolutionary body. Now as always, the corps is ready to defend the ideals of the revolution more than ever before."

Israel, on the other hand, said it was pleased.

"Israel welcomes the U.S. government's decision," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said in Jerusalem. "We see this as an important contribution to the international effort to intensify pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program."

Iran has ignored previous, smaller attempts to apply international and financial sanctions, and says the conditions Washington has set for talks are unacceptable. Iran is continuing work on its nuclear program, which it says is peaceful.

The sanctions target 25 Iranian entities, including individuals and companies owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Guard that play a major role in Iran's domestic economy and international trade. They are the first of their type taken by the United States specifically against the armed forces of another government.

In addition to freezing any assets they may have in U.S. jurisdictions, something officials acknowledged would be of minimal effect, the sanctions also bar Americans from doing business with them.

But of far greater impact, officials said, they will subject foreign firms to U.S. sanctions if they engage with the designated entities.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics — also known as IRCG — is the largest component of iran's military. It was designated as a proliferator of ballistic missile technology. The defense ministry entity is the parent organization for Iran's aerospace and ballistic missile operations.

Paulson called on "responsible banks and companies around the world" to end relationships with the three banks and companies and affiliates of the IRGC and noted that because of the IRGC's reach into business and other spheres, "it is increasingly likely that if you are doing business with Iran you are doing business with the IRGC."

State-owned banks Bank Melli, Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat were named supporters of global terrorist groups for their activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. Along with Bank Sepah, which was already under U.S. and U.N. sanctions, the institutions account for more than 50 percent of Iran's banking sector, Treasury officials said.

"As awareness of Iran's deceptive behavior has grown, many banks around the world have decided as a matter of prudence and integrity that Iran's business is simply not worth the risk," Paulson said. "It is plain and simple: Reputable institutions do not want to be the bankers for this dangerous regime."

The Quds Force, a part of the Guard Corps that Washington accuses of providing weapons, including powerful bombs blamed for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, was named a supporter of designated terrorist organizations.

The Revolutionary Guards organization, formed to safeguard Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, has pushed well beyond its military roots, and now owns car factories and construction firms and operates newspaper groups and oil fields.

Current and former members now hold a growing role across the country's government and economy, sometimes openly and other times in shadows.

The guards have gained a particularly big role in the country's oil and gas industry in recent years, as the national oil company has signed several contracts with a guards-operated construction company. Some have been announced publicly, including a $2 billion deal in 2006 to develop part of the important Pars gas field.

Now numbering about 125,000 members, they report directly to the supreme leader — Ali Khamenei — and officially handle internal security. The small Quds Force wing is thought to operate overseas, having helped to create the militant Hezbollah group in 1982 in Lebanon and to arm Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan wars.

___

AP Diplomatic Correspondent Anne Gearan and Associated Press Writer Jeannine Aversa contributed to this story.

Commentary Olivier Guitta: Plan B: Syria’s forgotten — but dangerous — nuclear program Olivier Guitta, The Examiner
2006-12-28 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 4 of 7,407

WASHINGTON - The Iraq Survey Group is calling for open negotiations with Syria, but new reports show that Damascus is up to no good. Indeed, while world attention is rightly focused on the nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea, Syria has been quietly — but quickly — advancing its own secret nuclear program.

The first signs appeared in 2003 when the Russian Foreign Ministry inadvertently revealed that a Russian-Syrian agreement for the delivery of a nuclear power plant in an undisclosed Syrian location had been signed.

In 2004, Syrian President Bashar Assad made a point to say that Syria would not dispose of its WMD program until Israel did the same. “Since some of my country is occupied,” Assad added, “Syria can legitimately use all the necessary means to liberate its territories.”

German magazine Der Spiegel revealed in March 2004 that Swedish authorities and the CIA were investigating a very likely Syrian nuclear program secretly developed in Homs in the northern part of the country. That July, investigators looking into the Pakistani nuclear network of A.Q. Khan pointed out that Syria may have procured centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to produce a bomb.

This fact was confirmed in May 2006 in a declassified report to the U.S. Congress on the acquisition of technology relating to weapons of mass destruction. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Syria also got help from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Keep in mind that Syria’s economy was very dependent on Iraq’s trade, especially oil-smuggling revenues. Sunday Telegraph journalist Con Coughlin affirmed in a September 2004 article that 12 Iraqi nuclear scientists — who were transferred to Syria and given new identities before the war — were on their way to Iran to assist their counterparts there in building a nuclear weapon. “The results of the research would then be shared with Syria,” Coughlin added.

But what really broke the camel’s back was a recent report from the well-informed Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Seyassah. It quoted European intelligence sources as saying that “Syria has an advanced nuclear program” in a secret site located in the province of Al Hassaka, close to the Turkish and Iraqi borders. British sources quoted by the paper believe that “it is President Assad’s brother, Colonel Maher Assad and his cousin Rami Makhlouf, who supervise the program.”

This nuclear weapons program is based on material that Saddam Hussein’s two sons shipped to Syria before — and during — the U.S. war against Iraq. According to the Kuwaiti newspaper, this explains why international investigative teams found no proof of Hussein’s nuclear program.

Furthermore, British sources in Brussels affirm that “Iranian nuclear experts contribute to the Syrian program along with 60 Iraqi experts who had taken refuge in Syria since 2003 and experts from the ex-Soviet republics.” British intelligence says this information is validated by their German counterparts, who were well established in the countries close to the ex- Communist block, including Syria.

Europeans fear that a focus solely on the Iranian nuclear program might facilitate a much quieter joint Iranian-Syrian program of uranium enrichment in Hassaka. The geographical choice for the Syrian nuclear site is very meaningful. Because it is located in an area with a Kurdish majority, the program evades Western suspicions. And striking against these installations would initially hurt the Kurds — who historically have sided with the West against the Baathist regimes in both Baghdad and Damascus.

In light of all these facts, it is not surprising that Syria might actually turn out to be “Plan B” for the mullahs’ regime in Tehran. This is, in fact, quite a smart strategy: While the world community focuses on Iran, Syria can continue its own nuclear program without unwelcome attention.

But because of the close links between Tehran and Damascus, sealed by an important defense agreement signed over the summer and the fact that Syria would do anything to please its benefactor, Syria getting the bomb would be exactly like Iran getting it. For proof, Al Seyassah reported on Dec. 13 that top Syrian leaders had transferred $3 billion to the Iranian central bank.

Need we say more?

Olivier Guitta is a foreign affairs and counterterrorism consultant in Washington, D.C.

Examiner http://www.examiner.com/printa-478177~Oliv...=tool-print-top

Al-Qaida Distributors Accuse Al-Jazeera of Distorting Bin Laden's Message on Iraq

By Evan Kohlmann


Al-Qaida's official online distribution network responsible for disseminating messages from Usama Bin Laden--known as the "Al-Fajr Media Center"--has issued a new statement strongly criticizing the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera satellite television network, which it has accused of "deceitfully manipulating" the latest audio recording from Bin Laden regarding the growing infighting within the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. According to the Al-Fajr Center, "Aljazeera editors in chief have counterfeited the facts by making the speech appear as exclusively targeting the brothers and sons inside Al-Qaeda organization. It looked as if it was an acknowledgment of their mistakes, a renunciation of their jihad and their loyalty to it." The letter went on to condemn the directors of Al-Jazeera for "shamefully choosing to back the crusaders’ side, and the defenders of hypocrites and the thugs and traitors of Iraq.”

An English-language version of the statement from the Al-Fajr Media Center and a matching transcript of the latest Usama Bin Laden audio recording are both available for download from the NEFA Foundation website.

See also: Robert Windrem (NBC News) - "Bin Laden disappointed by Iraq insurgents"
"Evan Kohlmann, an MSNBC counter-terrorism analyst, called bin Laden’s statements 'quite amazing,' adding that many in the counter terrorism community have expected it. 'There has been increasing divergence in Iraq between Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida,' he added. 'Some big insurgent groups have attacked al-Qaida in the past few weeks. It’s a serious thing for them. He had to deal with it'... Kohlmann said the next development could be critical. He said that Abu Omar al Baghdadi, the head of AQI’s political wing, the Islamic State of Iraq, is expected to speak in the next few days about the rift between al-Qaida and the insurgents. 'If he continues to be nasty, to call for violence, against the insurgents, this could lead to a real fracturing between the two,' said Kohlmann."

October 25, 2007 03:53 AM Link TrackBack (0) Print

Neighbors view nuclear-powered Iran as a useful political pawn
By Victor Davis Hanson
Article Launched: 10/25/2007 01:37:16 AM PDT

At first glance, it would seem a straightforward thing to stop a relatively weak but volatile Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. It would also seem to be something a concerned world community would be actively working to do.

After all, the Sunni Arab states surrounding Iran don't want a Shiite nuclear power on their borders.

Europe, which isn't all that far from Tehran and lacks a missile-defense shield, certainly doesn't want to be in range of Iran's missiles.

Israel can't tolerate an Iranian theocracy both promising to wipe it off the map and then brazenly obtaining the means to do so.

The Russians and the Chinese, both already concerned about India, Pakistan and North Korea, don't need another rival Asian nuclear power on their borders.

And the United States, already worried about Iranian threats to Israel and involved in daily military battles in Iraq with pro-Iranian agents and terrorists armed with Iranian-imported weapons, doesn't want a nuclear Iran expanding its Persian Gulf influence.

But in truth, most players don't care enough to stop Iran from getting the bomb, or apparently don't think it's worth the effort and cost. Some may even see some advantages to a nuclear Iran.

Hidden advantages

The Arab Gulf monarchies, for example, know that their enormous dollar reserves would likely buy them some reprieve from a nuclear Iran, or at least bring in the U.S.
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Navy to offer them deterrence from attack.

Meanwhile, the current tension and ongoing fear of disruption in the Persian Gulf sends billions in windfall oil profits the Gulf states' way.

Leaders of Arab states also have to fear their own populations' reactions to any action taken against Islamic Iran. Despite his religious Shiite background, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is far more popular among Sunni populations in the Gulf than George Bush - and even perhaps more popular than the autocratic Arab thugs and dictators who run most of the Middle East.

The European Union, like the Arab states, believes as a last resort that its economic clout and deft diplomats can always work out some sort of arrangement with Tehran's clerics, who, after all, need customers to buy their high-priced oil.

Unwelcome warning

So most in Europe bristle at French President Nicolas Sarkozy's warnings about an impending war to stop an Iranian bomb. Instead, they feel it's an American problem to organize global containment of Iran.

Israel also has reason to fear a war with Iran. If Israel were to attack Tehran, it could find itself in three instantaneous wars - and be hit with thousands of missiles from the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. That shower would make last year's Hezbollah barrage seem like child's play.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin's foreign policy is nursed on grievances about a lost empire, America as the sole superpower and the independence of cocky former Soviet republics. In the thinking of oil-exporting Russia, anything that causes America to squirm and world oil prices to soar is a win/win situation. That's why Russia supplies Iran with its reactor technology and stirs the nuclear pot.

China, like Russia, is a large nuclear power and doesn't fear all that much Iranian missiles that it thinks are more likely to be pointed westward anyway. True, it would like calm in the Gulf to ensure safe oil supplies, but thinks it still could do business with a nuclear Iran.

And, as in the case of Russia, anything that bothers the United States can't be all that bad for Beijing. While Ahmadinejad ties the U.S. down in the Middle East, China thinks it will have more of a free hand to expand its influence in the Pacific.

Then there's the complacent situation here at home. After Afghanistan and Iraq, most Americans don't feel we're up to a third war. Some point to nuclear Pakistan and believe we could likewise live with Iran having the bomb.

A few on the left even feel that a nuclear Iran would remind us of our own limitations in imposing our will and influence abroad. They belittle the current warnings of George Bush and Dick Cheney about Iran's nuclear program, shrugging that the two used to say similar things about Saddam and his non-existent arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world, represented in the United Nations' General Assembly, feels that a nuclear Iran offers comeuppance to a haughty United States, Israel and Europe without threatening anyone else.

Ahmadinejad may be viewed across the globe as a dangerous religious nut. But to many, he, like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, also represents an anti-capitalist, anti-globalization popular front against America and therefore shouldn't be ostracized.

So who wants a nuclear Iran?

No one and everyone.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON is a syndicated columnist and a classicist and historian at the Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Attack Iran And You Attack Russia By Pepe Escobar The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18617.htm

Israeli Foreign Minister Admits Iranian Nuclear Arms Pose Little Threat to Israel By Gidi Weitz and Na'ama Lanski Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said similar things about Iran.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18615.htm

Former Israeli foreign minister: New US sanctions a "historic move": Silvan Shalom (Likud), on Thursday expressed his approval of the US decision to impose additional sanctions on Iran, Army Radio reported..
http://snipurl.com/1spvr

Bush heads for a dreadful miscalculation over Iran: The White House once again seems hell-bent on being outwitted in the court of global opinion; and, maybe, on making a strategic miscalculation that could make the war in Iraq look like a sideshow.
http://snipurl.com/1spvs

Oil Rises Above $90 to a Record on Supply Drop, Iran Sanctions : ``It's not a question of when we'll hit $100 but how quickly,'' said Nauman Barakat, senior vice president of global energy futures at Macquarie Futures USA Inc. in New York. ``There are no bearish factors in the market right now.''
http://snipurl.com/1spvt

Romney open to Iran 'bombardment': Republican Mitt Romney said Thursday he would be willing to use a military blockade or "bombardment of some kind" to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071025/ap_po/candidates_iran

Goodbye dollar, hello inflation : The dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency. This is the statement you heard twice in one day if you were checking out the news on Bloomberg over the past 24 hours.
http://snipurl.com/1spvw

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11814

The War in the Media
The Iraq war and dueling narratives
by Justin Raimondo

The debate over the Iraq war has become a spectacle of dueling narratives. You'll recall, however, that in the beginning there was only one narrative, and that was the War Party's.

We were told that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction," a war machine that included nuclear, chemical, and biological components. Hardly anyone disputed this. Oh, there were a few, to be sure, such as former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, but he was not listened to: the mainstream media didn't consider him credible enough to quote. After all, what did a former UN weapons inspector know? Instead, they featured the sensational "revelations" of various Iraqi "defectors," notably one "Curveball" who wound up throwing us a real curveball when his story was exposed as an elaborate fabrication. This didn't happen until after the war – when US officials finally interviewed him in person, and determined he was a fraud – but by that time it no longer mattered: "Curveball" and his fellow Iraqi exiles associated with Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress had done their part in writing the narrative that sent us marching off to war. Mission accomplished.

In a piece for the New York Times magazine, published in October 2004, writer Ron Suskind related an incident that underscores the methods and madness of the mindset behind our forced march to war – and the administration's rationalization of the disastrous aftermath. Having written an article for Esquire that displeased the White House, Suskind was privy to a rare moment of candor during a meeting with a senior White House aide, who, after letting him know that he wasn't exactly the administration's favorite journalist, got down to brass tacks:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. ‘We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

At the time, Suskind didn't fully understand what the aide was talking about. However, as the events leading up to what General William E. Odom describes as the biggest strategic disaster in American military history unfolded, he began to see that the aide's remarks "get to the very heart of the Bush presidency."

In creating new realities, these Great Men of History are basically telling us a story that is mostly about themselves: about their role in history, and their will to shape it. They are weaving a narrative in which they are the heroes, and the rest of us are just spear-carriers, waiting for direction. As they cavort about on the world stage – invading countries on various pretexts, and changing regimes at will – they mesmerize their audience and draw them into a shared illusion. Their last performance was quite a success, at least for a while, one that so dazzled the media that hardly anyone who mattered dared challenge the administration's imaginative narrative – until it was too late….

Instead of stepping outside the box, reporters preferred to stay inside the echo chamber so skillfully constructed by the War Party, where it was warm, and safe, rather than go outside and face the scorn of what former CNN chief executive Walter Isaacson calls the "patriotism police." The efforts of the media vigilantes had an effect: even a hint that news anchors didn't share in the Bushian belligerence that swept the nation after 9/11 provoked a storm of outraged emails and phone calls. Isaacson sent out a memo soon after the invasion of Afghanistan telling his staff to "balance" reporting of civilian casualties with reminders of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As the administration began ginning up the invasion of Iraq, not a lot of intimidation was required to make the media malleable. As Howard Kurtz puts it in his recent book, Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War,

"For [Brian] Williams, it all went back to 9/11. As a citizen, he had thought on that fateful day, thank God that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell were on this team. How together we all seemed. In Williams's view, there was something about the murderous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that, in the eyes of the White House press corps, gave Bush a stature that could not be violated."

No wonder Williams does "not enjoy looking back on the run-up to war," as Kurtz puts it. And when he did look back, in an interview with the President in late summer of last year, the President's stature, at least in his eyes, was apparently still inviolate. When Bush stubbornly insisted that pre-war Iraq had "the capacity" to build WMD, Williams failed to challenge him. When Bush denied making a direct connection between Iraq and 9/11, Williams sat there similarly dumbstruck – although he might have cited the President's March 18, 2003 letter to Congress in which he contended that war with Iraq constituted "continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Williams's deference to the President and his policies persists, as Kurtz shows: " Every day, Williams asked the question: Did Baghdad correspondent Richard Engel have any news other than another twenty Iraqi civilians killed when an IED detonated, leaving the same smoking carcasses and pathetic scenes of loved ones crying?" Kurtz also reports that "No one in their right mind, [Williams] believed, would want America to pull out tomorrow. He did not want America to withdraw from Iraq," although he did recognize "how deeply the war had divided the country."

Over at CBS, the same sorts of questions are being asked: is there any "good news" to report? Kurtz relates the story of Lara Logan, "a stunning thirty-five-year-old South African" who had worked as a radio stringer in Afghanistan and braved the perils of Iraq, working in the frontlines alongside the troops. "Logan," Kurtz reports, "was accustomed to hearing demands for good-news stories from her bosses. They were tired of gloom and doom all the time." Her editors and producers wanted her to do "a reconstruction piece" – one of those "we're-building-schoolhouses-and-walking-little-old-ladies- across-the-street" stories about all the "progress" we're making. CBS president Sean McManus told her: "It doesn't have to be all serious hard news. You could do other things." His own suggestion: a piece on the Baghdad soccer team. The next day, the Los Angles Times reported that a member of the Baghdad team had been heading the ball and was struck with a stray bullet before he hit the ground. So much for that particular "good-news" story.

Ms. Logan, a reporter who risked her life several times in Iraq getting frontline footage, had to deal with a network that was determined to keep some of her most important reportage off the air – on the grounds, as Kurtz puts it, that it was "too raw for a television audience." The American people may be paying for this war, with the lives of their best youth and their tax dollars, but, according to CBS executives, that didn't mean they had a right to see what was really going on in Iraq. When Logan filed a report containing some pretty graphic footage, including an account of what the Iraqi "army" was doing to its own people – murdering and torturing Sunnis – producer Rome Hartman kept it off the air, in part because of "editorial concerns." There was "no room" for Logan's report, Kurtz tells us: so Logan had it posted on the CBS website, and sent out an email to friends and associates asking them to make sure it got some circulation. It was posted on a website, Mediachannel.org – and was immediately denounced by neocon bloggers, such as professional witch-hunter Michelle Malkin, who claimed CBS had gotten the video from … al-Qaeda! "If it's not off the Al-Qaeda video, then how did she get footage identical to the one used by Al-Qaeda? This needs to be explained," insisted Nibras Kazimi. "Was Logan a willing tool or an ignorant fool?" brayed Malkin. CBS spokesperson Sandy Genelius explained the obvious: "Occasionally, identifying a video source could put someone's life in danger. In that case, we do not identify the source. Such was the case with this video." Iraqis peddling the same video to al-Qaeda and CBS, which is why, as Genelius put it, "the same video from Iraq often shows up in multiple places."

Why is this so hard for Ms. Malkin to understand? Because it gets in the way of her attempt to smear as "anti-American" and "pro-terrorist" anyone who tells the truth about what is happening on the ground in Iraq.

In the midst of her report, Logan and crew were told that they were about to be targeted, and, on their way out of the area, a civilian was shot dead in front of them as they ran. What gets Logan – and this author – about the unconscionable charges thrown around by Malkin and her fellow bloggers is that Malkin & Co. have no credibility or standing in this matter. As Logan put it to Kurtz: "Why am I accountable to these f*cking idiots whose lives aren't at risk?"

The laptop bombardiers of the blogosphere, of which Malkin is among the most obnoxious, are constantly demanding that the media show the "good news" from Iraq, and pressure from the neoconservative regions of cyberspace has been constant. Yet the allegedly "antiwar" media is a myth that exists largely in the minds of the neocons, who see any deviation from their preconceived notions as the equivalent of treason. Logan, as Kurtz relates, was constantly hectored by superiors to do "softer" features: at one point, she was asked to do "a story on female soldiers who were distracting themselves by keeping cyber-pets online." Logan emailed back: "I would rather stick needles in my eyes than spend one second of my time on that story." Malkin and her pro-war comrades may see this as evidence of antiwar bias, rather than anti-trivial, and yet, given the imbalance of power between reporters and higher-ups, including the corporate suits, it's clear who is setting the agenda.

When news of the Haditha massacre hit the headlines, pro-war conservative media critics accused the media of blowing the story out of proportion and deliberately focusing on an "isolated incident," but, as Kurtz reveals, "the truth was that the media, especially television, had largely shied away from the story for two and a half months. Accusing American soldiers of atrocities was a risky business."

Newsmen risk their careers if they go up against the official narrative and fail to "balance" their reporting of Iraqi realities with the administration's make-believe "good news," as Chris Matthews revealed at the tenth anniversary party for "Hardball," where he told the assembled guests that White House officials – and he singled out some in Dick Cheney's office – had attempted to "silence" him by pressuring MSNBC executives. In an interview with TV Guide, Matthews elaborated, averring that there was a "concerted effort" to choke off discussion on his show about the key role played by the Cheneyites in hyping the alleged nuclear threat posed by Iraq: "It came," charged Matthews, "in the form of three different people calling trying to quiet me."

There is, by Matthews's account, a concerted effort to exclude alternative voices, especially when it comes to the war issue: "There's a lot going on among our producers, our young bookers, now that I never noticed before. There is an almost menacing call that you get whenever someone hears something they don't like – their people call up and threaten, or challenge, and get very nasty. That's now become the norm."

"We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." Such conceit is typical of the neoconservatives who have dominated this White House lo these many years, but that exemplar of hubris in the White House left one essential element out of his equation: the reality-based community will study, and also report, the tragedy in which we are all actors – and history's actors live in mortal fear of bad reviews. As the brazen wrongness of this war, in every sense, continues to grate on the American public, a change in policy is inevitable – unless the neocons can pull off a last minute "surge" that will enable them to stay the course.

In order to maintain even minimal support, the War Party must create an alternate reality, a Bizarro World where failure is success, civil war is civil society, and a theocracy is, in Bush's phrase, a "free Iraq." If they can project that impression to the American people, via the media, History's Actors can continue their bloody drama, "creating other new realities" in a looming confrontation with Iran.

However, the poll numbers are looking dismal for the War Party, with a substantial majority – 65 percent, according to a CNN/Opinion Research survey taken mid-October – flat-out opposing the war. A majority – 51 percent – say that, in retrospect, we should've stayed out. The failure to find even a hint of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq has led the American public, which once supported the war fervently, to believe that the Bush administration deliberately misled them – 60 percent, according to a September CBS/New York Times poll. As Mark Danner put it in a New York Times Magazine piece two and a half years into the occupation of Iraq, "the war has lost its narrative."

In understanding how the administration is trying to regain control of the narrative, it is useful to turn to the annals of imaginative literature, to see how the pros did it. It was Samuel Coleridge, in 1817, who referred to an inclination in the reader to "transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."

Poetic faith – now there's a phrase that neatly sums up the essence of the War Party's spirit and outlook. A poet, after all, is an artist, who has no use for facts that don't fit into his artistic vision. In telling his story, he selectively recreates reality according to his own value judgements. This, of course, is precisely the opposite of what happens in a news operation.

In a free society, it is the media's duty to expose the deceptions routinely practiced by government officials, especially when the lives of American soldiers and innocent civilians are at stake. In the run-up to the Iraq war, when mainstream "news" outlets became nothing more than transmission belts for government propaganda, American journalists went AWOL. Whether they will redeem themselves in the precis to the next war remains to be seen.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/62031/page/1
THE WORLD FROM WASHINGTON
Michael Hirsh
The Road to War, Part II

With new unilateral U.S. sanctions announced Thursday, America and Iran may now be headed for unavoidable hostilities.

http://www.jbs.org/node/6061/print
Rhetoric From President and Vice President Threatens War with Iran
By John F. McManus
Created 2007-10-23 16:41
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:

In his recent press conference, President Bush threatened Iran. A few days later, Vice President Cheney threatened Iran. The statements of our nation’s top leaders are frighteningly reminiscent of threats made against Iraq prior to launching U.S. forces against that nation.

Follow this link to the original source: "Cheney, Like President, Has a Warning for Iran [1]"

COMMENTARY:

During his October 17 press conference, President Bush went further than ever before in demanding that Iran cease its efforts to become a nuclear weapons power. His message for the world was, "If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems to me you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." Note that Mr. Bush upped his demand from having a weapon to having "the knowledge necessary to make" a weapon.

In his October 21 speech in Washington, Vice President Cheney echoed the President’s threat in what has been assessed by many as a significant ratcheting up of demands aimed at Iraq. Cheney said, "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences." He added: "The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." As one observer noted, the vice president’s former "not acceptable" reference to Iran’s potential nuclear designs had been upped to "will not allow."

The United Nations Security Council has imposed sanctions on Iran and has insisted that the government in Tehran abandon its nuclear weapons program. Prior to launching the 2003 attack on Iraq, UN Security Council issued resolutions containing demands on the government of Saddam Hussein. It was those resolutions that U.S. officials said "authorized" the invasion.

Saddam Hussein’s government was accused of harboring weapons of mass destruction and cooperating with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. It is now clear that there was no substance to either charge. Yet, four-plus years later, the war against Iraq drags on.

Are we about to see unwarranted charges used to create another war? Iran’s leaders have repeatedly stated that its nuclear program is being undertaken only to generate electricity. Producing electricity with nuclear power is several orders of magnitude less demanding than creating nuclear weaponry.

Those who made accusations against Iraq were wrong, but war was begun nevertheless. Are we to see the beginning of another war based on more false charges?

Also, in a world where many nations have developed their own nuclear weapons capability, who are we in the United States to insist that Iran cannot follow?

When a nation is at war or even under the threat of going to war, its people tolerate increases in government power, centralization of that power, and diminished personal liberty. Writers and historians throughout history have noted this and many have warned that all should be on guard to prevent unscrupulous leaders from taking their nations into conflicts in order to increase government power. Alexander Hamilton noted this when he wrote that misuses of military forces are "schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community."

It has become obvious to many Americans that the war against Iraq should never have been started. All who understand this today must ensure that a similar attack will not be launched against Iran.

McManus 200b.JPG
John F. McManus [1]

John F. McManus is President of The John Birch Society.

October 26, 2007
(Un)Fair Game
by Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch

Evidently, Blackwater, the now infamous private security company whose hired guns, working for the State Department, mowed down at least 17 Iraqis in a Baghdad square recently, wants to soften its image. (I wonder why?) The New York Times' Paul von Zielbauer just reported that the company has redesigned its logo. Once, according to him, it was "a bear's paw print in a red crosshairs, under lettering that looks to have been ripped from a fifth of Jim Beam" on a "menacing" black field. Like Daniel Boone, the company was evidently selling its ability to put "big game" in the crosshairs of its gun sights in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, subtly transformed, the logo is on a white background; the bear's paw more modest looking; and the crosshairs of that sniper's rifle have simply disappeared.

Maybe it will prove a tad late for Blackwater to take its rep out of the Wild West and into the mild and corporate, but it's certainly never too late to try. Americans (if not Iraqis) are a forgiving people, who believe in the second chance. While Blackwater sends in the marketing guys to humanize itself, it looks as if the U.S. military may be moving in another direction when it comes to big-game hunting, as Nick Turse, on the Tomdispatch military beat, reports today. Tom

(Un)Fair Game
Targeting Iraqis as "Big Game"
By Nick Turse

Earlier this month, news of the military's use of Human Terrain Teams – U.S. combat units operating in Afghanistan and Iraq that contain anthropologists and other social scientists who have traded in their academic robes for body armor – hit the front page of the New York Times. While the incorporation of academic experts into combat units has raised ire in some scholarly circles, their use as "cultural advisers" to aid the war effort has been greeted by the military as "a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations" and in the media as an example of increased cultural sensitivity as well as evidence of a new Pentagon willingness to think outside the box.

But the university is only one of a number of areas where an overstretched military, involved in two losing wars, is in a desperate search for new ideas. And humanizing allies and enemies alike has only been one part of the process. Dehumanizing them has been the other. At a recent conference on urban warfare in Washington, D.C., James Lasswell, a retired Marine Corps colonel who now heads the Office of Science and Technology at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, opened an interesting window into this side of things. He noted that, as part of an instruction course named "Combat Hunter," the Marines have brought in "big-game hunters" to school their snipers in the better use of "optics." According to a September 2007 article by Grace Jean in National Defense magazine, "[T]he lab conducted a war game with Marines, African game hunters and inner city police officers to search for ways to improve training." The program included a 15-minute CD titled "Every Marine a Hunter."

Earlier this year, according to an article by Kimberly Johnson of the Marine Corps Times, Col. Clarke Lethin, chief of staff of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) – a unit based in Camp Pendleton, California that took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and will be returning there soon – indicated that its commanders "believe that if we create a mentality in our Marines that they are hunters and they take on some of those skills, then we'll be able to increase our combat effectiveness." The article included this curious add-on: "The Corps hopes to tap into skills certain Marines may already have learned growing up in rural hunting areas and in urban areas, such as inner cities, said Col. Clarke Lethin, I MEF's chief of staff." Outraged by the statement, one Sgt. Ramsey K. Gregory wrote a letter to the publication asking, "Just what was meant by that comment about the inner city? I hope to God that he's not saying that people from the inner cities are experts in killing each other and that we all just walk around carrying guns."

While the colonel's language – defended by some – did seem to suggest that inner-city dwellers lived in an urban jungle of gun-toting hunters of other humans, none of the letters, pro or con, considered quite a different part of the Colonel's equation: the implicit comparison of enemies in urban warfare, today largely Iraqis and Afghans, to animals that are hunted and killed as quarry. As Lethin had unabashedly noted, "We identified a need to ensure our Marines were being the hunters… Hunting is more than just the shooting. It's finding your game."

That military men might indulge in this sort of description was perhaps less than surprising, given the degree to which "hunting" the enemy has been on the lips of America's commander-in-chief. George