A Child’s Guide to Iran-US Relations
by Russ Wellen / September 26th, 2007

There’s no denying that Iran is an unsavory state. It funds Hezbollah. Its record on women’s rights is abysmal. It hangs citizens — including gay teens — in public. Also, new evidence suggests that not Libya, but Iran, was responsible for the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. (Full article …)

Consequences of an Imposed Regime Change in Iran
by Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar / September 26th, 2007

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.
– Charles Sumner

In each war there are always winners and losers. The winners are those who make money and gather more power to themselves while all the others are the losers. It doesn’t matter if one has been on this side or that side; chances are that in the end the majority end up losing far more than they thought they will gain. Ask any parent that has lost a child in a war if he or she can in any way be compensated for that loss and you’ll have the answer.

One can expect the push for war from those who will gain from it, but not from those who lose. But the sad fact is that those who gain from war use all the communication means at their disposal to persuade the losers to support and even participate in the war. The American people were thus persuaded to participate in the war against Iraq. Those who were against it were labelled as unpatriotic fools who were working against their country’s interests.

But it wasn’t only the foreigners that wanted a war in Iraq. Some Iraqi exiles played an important role in this as well. They gave the Neocons the excuse to claim that they were not invading Iraq only to secure America, but also to “FREE” the Iraqi people. People such as Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, supported and funded by CIA and others, gave credence to the allegations against Iraq. Did these people do it on purpose or were they fooled? Did they sit and consider the consequences for the rest of the Iraqis, or were they thinking only of what was in it for them?

As the Neocons and their allies continue to push for a devastating war against Iran, they are joined by some Iranian exiles who profess that they cannot wait a minute longer for the war to start. They are claiming, as their Iraqi counterparts did, that they are supporting the Neocons because they want to free the long suppressed Iranian People. Here I am not going to question their motives, but their wisdom. Have these people considered the consequences of such an action? Do they know what it means to create chaos in Iran and what the consequences will be for Iranians and Iran? In case they don’t know, I would like to provide them with some information.

We all have heard of the Neocons’ plan for a new Middle East but had never seen a map of it until it was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, which as can be expected was greeted by protests from Turkey and other countries. The map resurfaced again in September 15, 2006 when it was presented at the NATO’s Defence College in Rome.


A (Full article …)

China Goes Shopping For More Arms Part 1
Moscow (UPI) Sep 26, 2007 - Due to the recent reshuffle in Russian corridors of power, it appears the defense minister will have to put off his visit to China, planned for this September, until spring. This is the second delay of such a visit. The first one happened in late March 2007, after Sergei Ivanov stepped down as defense minister and was appointed first deputy prime minister. His successor, Anatoly Serdyuk ... more

+ Bangladesh plans nuclear power plant
Dhaka (AFP) Sept 24, 2007 - Bangladesh plans to set up its first nuclear power plant at a cost of over one billion dollars to ease economically damaging electricity shortages which have sparked riots, an official said Monday. "The government has in principle agreed to set up a 600-1,000 megawatt power plant in the northern district of Pabna," the head of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Shafiqul Islam Bhuiyan, ... more


+ France ready to help any country get civil nuclear power
New York (AFP) Sept 24, 2007 - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday that France was prepared to assist any country that wants to have civilian nuclear power. "France is ready to help any country which wants to possess civilian nuclear energy," Sarkozy told a landmark UN summit on climate change. "It is the best response to those who, in violation of all the treaties, want to arm themselves with nuclear weap ... more


+ US, Israel shared intel before Syria raid: report
Washington (AFP) Sept 21, 2007 - Israel warned the United States that North Korea might be sharing nuclear know-how with Damascus before it carried out an air strike deep inside Syria, the Washington Post reported Friday. Washington was "deeply troubled" by the Israeli intelligence showing North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, but US President George W. Bush decided against an immediate response out of concern it co ... more


+ Nuclear energy to be key in low-carbon energy policy: Brussels
Brussels (AFP) Sept 21, 2007 - Nuclear power will remain a key element as the world seeks to move toward low carbon energy, the European Commission said Friday, announcing a new forum for nuclear energy research. The Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform will bring together industry and researchers to draw up a strategy "to prepare for the future and maintain European leadership in this sector," the EU's executiv ... more

Conservative Foreign Policy [.pdf] by David Keene, 9/19/2007

Without Hillary's Support, the War Might Never Have Happened by Ryan J. Davis, 9/20/2007

Washington Is Sending Mixed Signals on Nuclear Agreements by Jimmy Carter, 9/23/2007

Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater
www.waynemadsenreport.com

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politic...86f5e0759b9eb8b

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20070923 ( members only)

Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater/
By Wayne Madsen
Sept. 24, 2007

WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52
transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed
with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the
Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence
agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the
nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition
within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.

Yesterday, the /Washington Post/ attempted to explain away the fact that
America's nuclear command and control system broke down in an
unprecedented manner by reporting that it was the result of "security
failures at multiple levels." It is now apparent that the command and
control breakdown, reported as a BENT SPEAR incident to the Secretary of
Defense and White House, was not the result of a command and control
chain-of-command "failures" but the result of a revolt and push back by
various echelons within the Air Force and intelligence agencies against
a planned U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional
weapons.

The /Washington Post/ story on BENT SPEAR may have actually been an
effort in damage control by the Bush administration. WMR has been
informed by a knowledgeable source that one of the six nuclear-armed
cruise missiles was, and may still be, unaccounted for. In that case,
the nuclear reporting incident would have gone far beyond BENT SPEAR to
a National Command Authority alert known as EMPTY QUIVER, with the
special classification of PINNACLE.

Just as this report was being prepared, /Newsweek/ reported that Vice
President Dick Cheney's recently-departed Middle East adviser, David
Wurmser, told a small group of advisers some months ago that Cheney had
considered asking Israel to launch a missile attack on the Iranian
nuclear site at Natanz. Cheney reasoned that after an Iranian
retaliatory strike, the United States would have ample reasons to launch
its own massive attack on Iran. However, plans for Israel to attack Iran
directly were altered to an Israeli attack on a supposed
Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear installation in northern Syria.

WMR has learned that a U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and
conventional weapons was scheduled to coincide with Israel's September 6
air attack on a reputed Syrian nuclear facility in Dayr az-Zwar, near
the village of Tal Abyad, in northern Syria, near the Turkish border.
Israel's attack, code named OPERATION ORCHARD, was to provide a reason
for the U.S. to strike Iran. The neo-conservative propaganda onslaught
was to cite the cooperation of the George Bush's three remaining "Axis
of Evil" states -- Syria, Iran, and North Korea -- to justify a
sustained Israeli attack on Syria and a massive U.S. military attack on
Iran.

WMR has learned from military sources on both sides of the Atlantic that
there was a definite connection between Israel's OPERATION ORCHARD and
BENT SPEAR involving the B-52 that flew the six nuclear-armed cruise
missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale. There
is also a connection between these two events as the Pentagon's
highly-classified PROJECT CHECKMATE, a compartmented U.S. Air Force
program that has been working on an attack plan for Iran since June
2007, around the same time that Cheney was working on the joint
Israeli-U.S. attack scenario on Iran.

PROJECT CHECKMATE was leaked in an article by military analyst Eric
Margolis in the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, the /Times of London/,
is a program that involves over two dozen Air Force officers and is
headed by Brig. Gen. Lawrence Stutzriem and his chief civilian adviser,
Dr. Lani Kass, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who,
astoundingly, is now involved in planning a joint U.S.-Israeli massive
military attack on Iran that involves a "decapitating" blow on Iran by
hitting between three to four thousand targets in the country. Stutzriem
and Kass report directly to the Air Force Chief of Staff, General
Michael Moseley, who has also been charged with preparing a report on
the B-52/nuclear weapons incident.

Kass' area of speciality is cyber-warfare, which includes ensuring
"information blockades," such as that imposed by the Israeli government
on the Israeli media regarding the Syrian air attack on the alleged
Syrian "nuclear installation." British intelligence sources have
reported that the Israeli attack on Syria was a "true flag" attack
originally designed to foreshadow a U.S. attack on Iran. After the U.S.
Air Force push back against transporting the six cruise nuclear-armed
AGM-129s to the Middle East, Israel went ahead with its attack on Syria
in order to help ratchet up tensions between Washington on one side and
Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang on the other.

The other part of CHECKMATE's brief is to ensure that a media
"perception management" is waged against Syria, Iran, and North Korea.
This involves articles such as that which appeared with Joby Warrick's
and Walter Pincus' bylines in yesterdays /Washington Post/. The article,
titled "The Saga of a Bent Spear," quotes a number of seasoned Air Force
nuclear weapons experts as saying that such an incident is unprecedented
in the history of the Air Force. For example, Retired Air Force General
Eugene Habiger, the former chief of the U.S. Strategic Command, said he
has been in the "nuclear business" since 1966 and has never been aware
of an incident "more disturbing."

Command and control breakdowns involving U.S. nuclear weapons are
unprecedented, except for that fact that the U.S. military is now waging
an internal war against neo-cons who are embedded in the U.S. government
and military chain of command who are intent on using nuclear weapons in
a pre-emptive war with Iran.

CHECKMATE and OPERATION ORCHARD would have provided the cover for a
pre-emptive U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran had it not been for BENT
SPEAR involving the B-52. In on the plan to launch a pre-emptive attack
on Iran involving nuclear weapons were, according to our sources,
Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley; members of the
CHECKMATE team at the Pentagon, who have close connections to Israeli
intelligence and pro-Israeli think tanks in Washington, including the
Hudson Institute; British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, a political
adviser to Tony Blair prior to becoming a Member of Parliament; Israeli
political leaders like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Likud leader
Binyamin Netanyahu; and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who
did his part last week to ratchet up tensions with Iran by suggesting
that war with Iran was a probability. Kouchner retracted his statement
after the U.S. plans for Iran were delayed.

Although the Air Force tried to keep the B-52 nuclear incident from the
media, anonymous Air Force personnel leaked the story to /Military
Times/ on September 5, the day before the Israelis attacked the alleged
nuclear installation in Syria and the day planned for the simultaneous
U.S. attack on Iran. The leaking of classified information on U.S.
nuclear weapons disposition or movement to the media, is, itself,
unprecedented. Air Force regulations require the sending of classified
BEELINE reports to higher Air Force authorities on the disclosure of
classified Air Force information to the media.

In another highly unusual move, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked
an outside inquiry board to look into BENT SPEAR, even before the Air
Force has completed its own investigation, a virtual vote of no
confidence in the official investigation being conducted by Major
General Douglas Raaberg, chief of air and space operations at the Air
Combat Command.

Gates asked former Air Force Chief of Staff, retired General Larry
Welch, to lead a Defense Science Board task force that will also look
into the BENT SPEAR incident. The official Air Force investigation has
reportedly been delayed for unknown reasons. Welch is President and CEO
of the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), a federally-funded research
contractor that operates three research centers, including one for
Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the
President and another for the National Security Agency. One of the board
members of IDA is Dr. Suzanne H. Woolsey of the Paladin Capital Group
and wife of former CIA director and arch-neocon James Woolsey.

WMR has learned that neither the upper echelons of the State Department
nor the British Foreign Office were privy to OPERATION ORCHARD, although
Hadley briefed President Bush on Israeli spy satellite intelligence that
showed the Syrian installation was a joint nuclear facility built with
North Korean and Iranian assistance. However, it is puzzling why Hadley
would rely on Israeli imagery intelligence (IMINT) from its OFEK
(Horizon) 7 satellite when considering that U.S. IMINT satellites have
greater capabilities.

The Air Force's "information warfare" campaign against media reports on
CHECKMATE and OPERATION ORCHARD also affected international reporting of
the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution asking
Israel to place its nuclear weapons program under IAEA controls, similar
to those that the United States wants imposed on Iran and North Korea.
The resolution also called for a nuclear-free zone throughout the Middle
East. The IAEA's resolution, titled "Application of IAEA Safeguards in
the Middle East," was passed by the 144-member IAEA General Meeting on
September 20 by a vote of 53 to 2, with 47 abstentions. The only two
countries to vote against were Israel and the United States. However,
the story carried from the IAEA meeting in Vienna by Reuters, the
Associated Press, and Agence France Press, was that it was Arab and
Islamic nations that voted for the resolution.

This was yet more perception management carried out by CHECKMATE, the
White House, and their allies in Europe and Israel with the connivance
of the media. In fact, among the 53 nations that voted for the
resolution were China, Russia, India, Ireland, and Japan. The 47
abstentions were described as votes "against" the resolution even though
an abstention is neither a vote for nor against a measure. America's
close allies, including Britain, France, Australia, Canada, and Georgia,
all abstained.

Suspiciously, the IAEA carried only a brief item on the resolution
concerning Israel's nuclear program and a roll call vote was not
available either at the IAEA's web site -- www.iaea.org
< [link to www.iaea.org>] -- or in the media.

The perception management campaign by the neocon operational cells in
the Bush administration, Israel and Europe was designed to keep a focus
on Iran's nuclear program, not on Israel's. Any international
examination of Israel's nuclear weapons program would likely bring up
Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu, a covert from Judaism to
Christianity, who was kidnapped in Rome by a Mossad "honey trap" named
Cheryl Bentov (aka, Cindy) and a Mossad team in 1986 and held against
his will in Israel ever since.

Vanunu's knowledge of the Israeli nuclear weapons program would focus on
the country's own role in nuclear proliferation, including its program
to share nuclear weapons technology with apartheid South Africa and
Taiwan in the late 1970s and 1980s. The role of Ronald Reagan's Director
of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Ken Adelman in Israeli's
nuclear proliferation during the time frame 1983-1987 would also come
under scrutiny. Adelman, a member of the Reagan-Bush transition State
Department team from November 1980 to January 1981, voiced his
understanding for the nuclear weapons programs of Israel, South Africa,
and Taiwan in a June 28, 1981 /New York Times/ article titled, "3
Nations Widening Nuclear Contacts." The journalist who wrote the article
was Judith Miller. Adelman felt that the three countries wanted nuclear
weapons because of their ostracism from the West, the third world, and
the hostility from the Communist countries. Of course, today, the same
argument can be used by Iran, North Korea, and other "Axis of Evil"
nations so designated by the neocons in the Bush administration and
other governments.

There are also news reports that suggest an intelligence relationship
between Israel and North Korea. On July 21, 2004, New Zealand's
/Dominion Post/ reported that three Mossad agents were involved in
espionage in New Zealand. Two of the Mossad agents, Uriel Kelman and
Elisha Cara (aka Kra), were arrested and imprisoned by New Zealand
police (an Israeli diplomat in Canberra, Amir Lati, was expelled by
Australia and New Zealand intelligence identified a fourth Mossad agent
involved in the New Zealand espionage operation in Singapore). The third
Mossad agent in New Zealand, Zev William Barkan (aka Lev Bruckenstein),
fled New Zealand -- for North Korea.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff revealed that Barkan, a former
Israeli Navy diver, had previously worked at the Israeli embassy in
Vienna, which is also the headquarters of the IAEA. He was cited by the
/Sydney Morning Herald/ as trafficking in passports stolen from foreign
tourists in Thailand, Myanmar,
Laos, and Cambodia. New Zealand's One News reported that Barkan was in
North Korea to help the nation build a wall to keep its citizens from
leaving.

The nuclear brinkmanship involving the United States and Israel and the
breakdown in America's command and control systems have every major
capital around the world wondering about the Bush administration's true
intentions.

Today's Wall Street Journal carries a very thoughtful commentary by Judy Shelton, entitled "Our One-Dollar Dilemma," in the WSJ. Dr. Shelton has been worried about the fragility of the dollar-based global currency system for some time, as her comment of four weeks ago, reproduced below, illustrates. She makes a good case, for vigilance. In today's column, she again argues -- even more compellingly -- for American leadership to craft means of crisis prevention. Haven't seen much of that yet!

COMMENTARY


Ruble Rumble
By JUDY SHELTON
August 30, 2007; Page A10

American fighter jets scrambled to intercept Russian bombers earlier this month near the island of Guam. It was the first time since the end of the Cold War that the Kremlin sought to provoke a U.S. response. It likely will not be the last. Fueled by revenues from energy exports, Russia appears bent on ratcheting up tensions.

But don't expect the next foray to take place over international waters. Vladimir Putin laid bare his ambitions at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June by calling for a "new international financial architecture" to provide a base for economic development. Russia's next move is to challenge U.S. supremacy in world financial markets.

The notion of nudging America off its central perch in global economic affairs hardly seems plausible. But Russia's leader strikes a chord with other emerging-market economies -- Brazil, China, India -- when he describes current monetary and financial arrangements as "archaic, undemocratic and unwieldy."

Given the recent turmoil in world financial markets, Mr. Putin can expect heightened interest in his pitch for new regional alliances "based on trust and mutually beneficial integration" versus continued dependence on global institutions like the International Monetary Fund. Both Europe and Asia blame U.S. credit woes for their own unsettled markets. And newly independent nations on the periphery of established trade and security blocs have their own reasons to align with powerful patrons.

Mr. Putin even suggests that central banks should begin to hold reserves in a wider selection of currencies than dollars and euros in recognition of the "existing balance of power." It's hard to miss the implication: the ruble as a global reserve currency.

Is the man serious? The only reason the European Central Bank, say, or China's central bank, might hold reserves in rubles would be to pay for purchases from Russia. Today it is possible to buy Russian oil and gas using dollars or euros. The leading market exchanges for conducting international energy transactions are located in New York and London. But that is why officials at the White House, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury should be scrambling right now.

Mr. Putin is more than serious. He is determined to establish a world-class oil exchange on Russian territory and shift energy business away from existing global financial centers. A new facility is being readied in St. Petersburg's historic Bourse -- an imposing, white-colonnaded Greek Revival building that dominates the majestic sweep of the Strelka, or Spit, of Vasilievsky Island in the Neva delta and which is visible from the Winter Palace -- that will open to market traders within months and where transactions will be denominated in rubles.

It's a daring gambit and it constitutes no less than a demand for new international monetary arrangements on the scale of the post-World War II Bretton Woods agreement. "The global economy has experienced a transition," Mr. Putin notes pointedly. "Fifty years ago, 60% of world gross domestic product came from the Group of Seven industrial nations. Today 60% of world GDP comes from outside the G7."

Mr. Putin's plan to confront the privileged global role of U.S. currency resonates with Russians eager to recapture nationalist pride. Lampooning the sickly American dollar is popular with members of the Kremlin-financed youth group Nashi (meaning "ours"). And it potentially accommodates the burgeoning economic aspirations and swelling egos of Russia's partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China.

China, like Russia, bristles at its second-tier status within the global financial architecture. Harangued by the U.S. over exchange-rate policies, China has recently been flexing its monetary muscle by hinting that it might dump a portion of its considerable dollar reserves. The prospect of such a shock to the U.S. economy in the midst of a housing slump threatens to bring the whole edifice crashing down. Throw in statements of support from oil-producers Venezuela and Iran, and you have the makings of a devastating dollar rout.

If Russia insists that its energy clients pay in rubles, we cannot expect our allies to strenuously resist. Europe purchases nearly 30% of its energy from Russia. Rising energy demand in Asia will likewise boost demand for rubles as Russia targets China, India and Japan. Last month, Japan quietly acquiesced to Iran's request that it switch from dollars to yen in payment for Iranian oil.

Can U.S. leaders and financial authorities meet the challenge from the Kremlin? Is America prepared to offer its own proposals for establishing more stable currency and financial conditions for global trade? Or are we just interested in protecting our turf?

The next Bretton Woods should be launched as an earnest initiative from the nation that gave birth to democratic capitalism. Not as an act of aggression from a pumped-up Russian pretender.

Ms. Shelton is an economist and author of "Money Meltdown" (Free Press, 1994).

Here is the commentary in today's WSJ to which I referred in my previous posting. Worth reading closely, I think.

COMMENTARY

By JUDY SHELTON
September 27, 2007; Page A17
'The policy of this government is a strong-dollar policy." President Bush has consistently stuck to this story throughout his White House tenure, which spans three Treasury secretaries. Just last week, current Treasury chief Henry Paulson toed the line with the requisite statement: "I feel very strongly that a strong dollar is in our nation's interest and we believe currency values should be set in a competitive marketplace based on underlying economic fundamentals."

The dollar has become like the weather: Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.

To insist that the U.S. has a strong-dollar policy, while standing idly by as our money sinks against a basket of six currencies to its lowest level in 15 years, is to abrogate leadership in the global financial arena. The central banks of Europe and Asia are treading lightly, concerned about complaining too vociferously lest they precipitate the very dollar rout they fear. But as their own currencies rise, they are feeling the economic and political pressure from lost export competitiveness.

Meanwhile, the value of central-bank portfolios -- more than 60% of accumulated foreign-exchange reserves are kept in U.S. dollars -- is declining rapidly, causing great consternation. Should they sell their dollar assets, contributing to the tumult? Or ride the plunge all the way down at considerable loss?

When the Federal Reserve opted to reduce interest rates last week, it was clear that new doubts about its dedication to fighting inflation would take a toll on the value of the dollar. By saying that currency values should be set by the marketplace based on economic fundamentals, Treasury has taken a let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may approach, letting the dollar be the default mechanism for overly indulgent credit policies. While it is always a safe retreat to rely on market forces to determine the value of any product or service, the dollar is not just your average internationally traded good. It is the numeraire -- the world's predominant monetary unit for measuring the relative values of all those other assets, financial and physical, brought in good faith to the global marketplace.

At least, it was the world's primary reserve currency for most of the last century. It's the residual status of having served as the key currency under the 1944 Bretton Woods international monetary system -- the U.S. was obligated to maintain convertibility between the dollar and gold at a fixed price -- that feeds our current vanity about wanting a strong dollar while exhibiting a hands-off complacency.

If U.S. officials truly believe in the wisdom of exchange-rate markets, why even invoke a loaded word like strong when it can only suggest they want an overvalued dollar? Obviously, they don't. Or they wouldn't be pressing China so hard to raise the yuan.

So, is intervention the answer? Absolutely not; it would only exacerbate the dollar's untenable situation in the global financial system. And to its credit, the Bush administration has resisted efforts by Congress to intervene in foreign-exchange markets to manipulate the dollar's value.

Senate leaders have been seeking to correct what they view as tactical and strategic failures in U.S. international economic policy by mandating the Treasury to intervene if currencies become fundamentally "misaligned." In the process of finalizing legislation, it has become clear that politicians see a trade-off between imposing a tariff on goods exported from China -- making them more expensive for American consumers -- and raising the price of Chinese goods by strengthening the yuan, i.e., weakening the dollar (though they seldom put it the latter way).

The good thing about the debate is that it clarifies two very important points: (1) As irrational as foreign exchange markets can be, it would be worse to have the dollar's value artificially pegged by self-serving officials subject to political intimidation and (2) weakening the dollar is the same as imposing tariffs on goods imported from our trade partners.

And that's the travesty of the dollar and the tragedy of the international monetary system today. What we have is a non-system of chaotic exchange-rate movements that confounds rather than facilitates global free trade.

The massive currency swings that reign between the dollar, the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc wreak havoc on demand-and-supply outcomes for goods traded across borders. The New York Board of Trade's U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar's value relative to a basket of those six other currencies, has tumbled 34% since its July 2001 peak. Why pontificate about the importance of eliminating tariffs to promote open markets when the impact of a gyrating dollar is far more devastating, far more protectionist in its effect on global free trade?

It is time for the U.S. to acknowledge what we have tried to wave off under the pretense of allowing free markets to decree the value of our currency. For the intellectual record, we should recognize that markets are not free when entry is restricted; only governments can be suppliers of currency, which means the foreign-exchange market is already dominated by a cartel. And on the demand side, consumers of currency rarely have a choice that allows them to price their goods or services in violation of legal tender laws. In other words, foreign-exchange markets are inherently rigged in favor of a few players.

Meanwhile, the rest of us -- the ones who have to use money as a standard of value, a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value -- are forced to make business plans and conduct transactions using a moving target. We are asked to accept the morality and rationality of free trade and open global markets while having to contend with monetary arrangements that negate the benefits of comparative advantage.

It's a cynical approach that undermines genuine individual effort -- rewarding people who guess right about currencies rather than those who strive to deliver value. Exchange-rate movements transform an efficient supplier from a strong-currency country into a noncompetitive loser, while the supplier who has done nothing to produce an improved-quality good for less expense finds that the cheap-currency policies of his country make him a first-class competitor.

If we truly believe in a global marketplace where outcomes are determined by competition and competence, not localized monetary policies, we need a global monetary unit of measure. We need a meaningful global currency. It could start as a voluntary one -- a parallel currency available to buyers and sellers wherever they find themselves wanting to do business around the world or in cyberspace.

When can we expect U.S. leadership on the need for a new Bretton Woods? Prof. Robert Mundell, the Nobel economist who has long argued for a reformed international monetary system using gold as a reserve asset, should be consulted as soon as possible; ideally, by President Bush or one of the candidates who aspires to succeed him. The next best choice would be French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who needs to move away from simply browbeating monetary officials at the European Central Bank. If Mr. Sarkozy resents current policies, why not propose a new system entirely, one that would establish a level monetary playing field for international trade?

Someone with a bold vision for the future of democratic capitalism, someone who appreciates the entrepreneurial spirit, needs to seize the moment before money meltdown takes a terrible toll on world trade. If America does not take the lead on this issue, rest assured, one of our competitors will.

Ms. Shelton is an economist and author of "Money Meltdown" (Free Press, 1994).

Bill Clinton Rips Right Wing's "Feigned Outrage" Over MoveOn Ad [VIDEO]

Post by Adam Howard
Video: Clinton says, "It was just bait and switch. It was just, oh thank goodness, I can take this little word here and ignore what we’ve done in Iraq and what we’re gonna do." More »

Senator Hillary Clinton: IAF attack in Syria justified

Syria’s Illusory Nukes: More Propaganda

Fifty-seven people killed in Iraq bombings: Another 120 wounded










Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional: Because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled

Is America right to demonise Iran's President?

Putin Turns His Face to Tehran, His Back to Bush and Sarkozy

US readies new sanctions against Iran

US Senate brands Iran Guard 'terrorist organization': Vote was 76-22

Top American Physicists Challenge US Missile Claims: US using false data to reassure NATO allies about Defense system designed to protect Europe from Iran's missiles

BREAKING: Lieberman-Kyl's Iran amendment passes in the Senate By a vote 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to "combat, contain and [stop]" Iran via "military instruments." Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment "Cheney's fondest pipe dream" and said it could "read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action."

Breaking: House Votes to Condemn MoveOn check to see how your rep voted. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And they say they don't want to waste time on impeachment. What do they call this... getting important work done? Right-- as in supporting right wingers setting up their swiftboat ads for 2008. Brilliant!!

US Builds Military Base in Iran-Iraq Border U.S. officials described the move as "an extraordinary step" to curb the smuggling of Iranian weapons into Iraq, but the media sphere already smelled the "odor of war." Nameed Combat Outpost Shocker, the base hardly comes as a pleasant surprise to Iran that the United States will have a new base just 8 km from their border.

Still No Surge; Still No Success



An important analysis of General Petraeus’ Surge in Iraq and whether it has had a positive effect in Iraq has been revised and updated. The analysis is authored by one who is in a position to know but who requests to remain anonymous; he can only be identified a “Herman Mindshaftgap, a senior analyst in a think-tank or government.” The article makes important reading for any who think the surge has been a success - and for those who suspect it may not have been.



The article can be summarized to make six important points, as follows:



* Compared to previous troop levels for analogous periods of time, the “Surge” brings no significant increase in deployments in Iraq.
* New tactics and deployments in Iraq do not improve the prospects for success over previous periods.
* Conditions in Iraq for civilians there have not improved, as measured by civilian casualties and oil and electricity production. In fact, for the period since July 2007 when the “Surge” actually took effect, civilian casualties have increased measurably, and oil and electricity production have decreased.
* The expansion of Iraqi security forces has not resulted in better protection for Iraqi civilians.
* While circumstances have apparently improved significantly in Anbar Province, they have deteriorated elsewhere.
* Those best able to measure the success of the surge, Iraqi civilians, assert in polls that conditions in Iraq are worse than before, that the US and allied forces are unwelcome and should leave the country, and by a margin of 57 percent it is OK to attack coalition forces.



The full text of the article is available at http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/The%20Urge%20To%20Surge.pdf





Winslow T. Wheeler

Director

Straus Military Reform Project

Center for Defense Information

202 797-5271 in DC

301 840-8992 in MD

winslowwheeler@msn.com

Jonathan Cook
Why Did Israel Attack Syria?

Ray McGovern
Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy

Ron Jacobs
Joe Biden's Plan to Chop Up Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Quit the Party! Join the Mass Resignation Movement!

NEW: Debunking the Neocons' Iran War Measure

Gareth Porter, HuffingtonPost.com

ForeignPolicy: The Lieberman-Kyl Amendment is aluminum tubes all over again.

• "Iranian Leader Fails To Ease Tensions," By Robin Wright, The Washington Post

• "Israel Seeks Exemption From Atomic Rules," By George Jahn, Associated Press

• "New N Korea Nuclear Talks Begin," BBC News

• "BB Crosses the Line on AQ Khan?" Editorial, Daily Times

• "EU Insists on Closure of Armenian Nuclear Power Plant," EurasiaNet

• "Nuke Dump Structures Moved After Study," Associated Press

Iraq VP dismisses subdivision plans : Visiting Iraqi Vice-President Adel Abdel-Mahdi here Thursday dismissed Iraq subdivision plans, saying the country has been united for 5,000 years.
http://snipurl.com/1rbv9
Arab League condemns U.S. Senate view to segregate Iraq : The Arab League condemned Thursday the U.S. Senate view to separate Iraq into several sectarian parts, saying that the decision was reflecting a grim vision for the future of the fellow Arab country.
http://snipurl.com/1rbvb
US in Iraq in 2013? Democrats say maybe: All three leading candidates conceded that they could not guarantee that all U.S. combat troops would be gone from Iraq by 2013, the end of the next president's first term in office.
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1448626.html
US plans $2.3bn arms sale to Iraq : The US is ready to sell Iraq up to $2.3bn of weapons to help the Iraqi army grow and take over operations currently run by US and allied forces, the Pentagon has said.
http://snipurl.com/1rbvc

An account of Taliban activity in Pakistan. The author Hassan Abbas draws on personal experience. He served as the Sub-Divisional Police Chief in the NWFP from 1996-1998, and was the Deputy Director of Investigations in Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau from 1999-2000. Currently, he is a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and is the author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror.
Increasing Talibanization in Pakistan's Seven Tribal Agencies
By Hassan Abbas The government of President Pervez Musharraf is facing policy failure in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Taliban forces and their sympathizers are becoming entrenched in the region and are aggressively expanding their influence and operations (especially in Tank, Dera Ismail Khan and Swat Valley in the North-West Frontier Province). A lethal combination of Musharraf's political predicament and declining public support, a significant rise in suicide attacks targeting the army and the reluctance of soldiers deputed in the area to engage tribal gangs militarily further exacerbates this impasse. Observing this, many militants associated with local Pakistani jihadi groups have moved to FATA to help their "brothers in arms" and benefit from the sanctuary. In the midst of this, election season is descending upon Pakistan and Musharraf's survival prospects are diminishing. This dim scenario has consequences for Pakistan's policy in the FATA region. Pakistan will predictably revert to "peace deals" in the short-term, leading to a lowering of the number of military checkpoints in the area (Daily Times, September 23). If history is any indicator, this will help Talibanization in the region and provide more opportunities to the ISI to indirectly support some Taliban commanders sympathetic to Pakistan's objectives. Overall, this will likely reduce trouble in downtown Islamabad, but the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area will remain on fire.

Poor coordination between the Pakistani army and NATO/ISAF, Hamid Karzai's failure to make Afghanistan a functional state and the abundance of drug money in southern Afghanistan are some of the important variables in this context. Additionally, Musharraf himself admits that the crisis in the area is increasingly turning out to be a Pashtun insurgency. However, the factors that "limit" Pakistan's effective clampdown on all things Taliban in FATA remain linked to its fear about increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan if the Taliban are comprehensively defeated, and the lack of Pakistani public support for anything that appears to be done in pursuance of the U.S.-led global war on terrorism. These perceptions significantly affect the morale of army commanders and soldiers operating in the region. Musharraf has largely failed to make a strong case to his people about the need for strong military action against the Taliban in FATA. He has often called this policy as being in the "national interest," but has not convincingly explained how the army alone defines the national interest. More so, Pakistanis have seen the military defining such interests too often in the past with devastating effects for the state, and interpret Pakistan's current fight against the Taliban in terms of succumbing to U.S. demands and interests.

With this backdrop in view, this analysis outlines what is happening today in each of the seven tribal agencies in FATA and what the implications are for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.

Bajaur Agency

Bajaur Agency overlooks Afghanistan's Kunar province, where U.S. forces are battling al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri escaped the reportedly CIA-led attack at Damadola in Bajaur on January 13, 2006, while one of his close relatives was among the 18 killed. Damadola is considered a stronghold of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) units, and the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) has representation in parliament from Bajaur (Daily Times, February 13, 2006). Bajaur during the 1980s and 1990s was known as the "Poppy Kingdom," and many Afghan refugee camps (functioning until 2005) were a source of pro-Taliban recruitment in the area.

In August this year, talks between the Taliban and a tribal jirga (supported by the Pakistani government) to improve the law and order situation in Bajaur failed as the Taliban wanted the government to first release some arrested militants (Daily Times, August 7). Trouble had broken out in the area with the news of the proposed construction of a U.S. helipad in Afghanistan's Kunar province as the tribal leaders sympathetic to the Taliban framed it as a threat to Pakistan (Daily Times, June 17). The strength of the Taliban in the area can be gauged from two recent events: since July this year, they have successfully enforced Friday as the weekly holiday instead of Sunday, which is the official weekly holiday (Daily Times, July 14); secondly, Abdul Ghani Marwat, who headed the government's vaccination campaign in Bajaur, was killed in a bomb attack in February this year amid the Taliban-sponsored rumor that the Pakistani government-run polio vaccination drive was a U.S. plot to sterilize Muslim children (Daily Times, February 20). The rumor was so widespread (projected by Taliban fatwas) that, according to government estimates (which are always conservative), parents of around 24,000 children had refused to give them the polio vaccine (Daily Times, Feb 20).

Khyber Agency

Khyber Agency is the main artery connecting Peshawar to Kabul via the Khyber Pass. Today, many men are seen wearing traditional caps in the agency because of fear, as a local religious outfit sympathetic to the Taliban, Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam), has declared it binding on all men of the agency to wear caps. The leader of the group, Mangle Bagh, in his radio address last week issued this edict and announced that violators' heads will be shaved and they will face a monetary fine (Statesman, September 22). It is pertinent to point out that there is a serious battle going on in the agency between Ansar-ul-Islam—led by Pir Saif ur Rahman—and Lashkar-i-Islam—led by Gul Maiden and Mufti Munir Shakir—since 2005-06 (Daily Times, November 17, 2006, April 1, 2006, December 3, 2006). Both factions have built their militias over the last few years and have entrenched themselves in castle-like strongholds. In essence, this is an intra-Sunni (Deobandi vs. Barelvi) war (Daily Times, March 30, 2006).

After banning music in the tribal areas, the local Taliban in Khyber Agency have also started fining taxi drivers and citizens Rs 500 (about $8) for listening to music cassettes in their cars (Daily Times, March 1). Also recently, militants started distributing pamphlets in Bara Bazaar in Khyber Agency saying that the "Taliban have finally reached Bara," while warning that "if anyone tries to hinder our movement and activities, we will launch a holy war against them" (Mashriq, September 3).

In comparison to other tribal agencies, Khyber Agency (because of its proximity to Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province) is more accessible to Pakistani government functionaries and some development work has been done in the area. For instance, in 2005, Stephen Hadley, the then adviser on national security to President Bush, inaugurated a primary school building project in Surkamar town of Khyber Agency that was financed by the U.S. and Japanese governments in collaboration with the FATA Secretariat (Daily Times, September 28, 2005). Conditions have changed for the worse since then. The extent of the writ of the state can be ascertained from the fact that around a dozen people were killed in June this year when the Taliban attacked the house of the Khyber Agency political agent, Syed Ameeruddin Shah (Daily Jang, June 1).

Kurram Agency

Surrounded by lofty mountains and Afghan territory on three sides, Kurram Agency is the second largest tribal region in FATA. Its headquarters is in Parachinar, just about 90 kilometers from Kabul. According to intelligence estimates, it was also the first geographical point where fleeing al-Qaeda members from Afghanistan landed after the September 11 attacks. Within Pakistan, the route to Kurram goes through Kohat district of the NWFP where permits are obtained to travel to Kurram. Many al-Qaeda militants had moved on to Kohat because Kurram Agency is widely known as pro-Northern Alliance because of its significant Shiite population—a factor that has impacted Taliban objectives in the agency negatively. Shiite-Sunni violence remains the hallmark of this agency, as pro-Taliban factions believe that the Shiites of the area are active against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Various peace jirgas were instituted to bring peace to the area, but without much success (Mashriq, April 14). In April 2007 alone, around 100 people were killed in sectarian clashes (Daily Times, April 28).

The government of Pakistan is planning to construct two small dams in the agency at a cost of 400 million rupees in fiscal year 2007-08 to improve the agricultural sector and thereby improve the economic situation in the area. This will be an important test case for Pakistan, success of which can help the state machinery to increase its control at least in this area as it is an important transit point for cross-border movement into Afghanistan.

Mohmand Agency

Sandwiched between Bajaur and Khyber agencies, this area was considered to be a relatively peaceful region. Pro-Pakistan government tribal leaders still have some control, which is evident from the fact that houses of those giving sanctuary to some proclaimed offenders were attacked as recently as last week (Daily Times, September 23). This was in pursuance of a recent peace deal inked between the Mohmand Agency political administration and the Safi tribesmen, in which the Safi tribesmen agreed to not provide any sanctuary to foreigners (The News, September 15). They also agreed to protect government property and allow the government to move freely in the area, ensuring the safety of roads that pass through the agency. The presence of 200 tribal elders during the signing of the agreement shows some element of success on the part of the government, but the very nature of the deal explains that the government's writ was failing before.

The relative peace in the agency in the last few years owed a lot to the constructive work done by the Pakistani army in the area in 2003-04—by building roads, clinics and schools (Daily Times, July 15, 2004). One of the secrets of this success was sealing the agency's 68 kilometer border with Afghanistan by the Pakistani army in late 2003 (Dawn, July 14, 2004). Unfortunately, conditions have changed since then. In recent months, Taliban militants occupied two Khasadar checkpoints in the Qandharo and Halimzai areas of Mohmand Agency and snatched weapons from officials manning the post. In early September, 10 soldiers of the Frontier Corps were kidnapped in the area as well (Daily Times, September 3). The most tragic development, however, has been the blowing up of a hospital, al-Sehat, earlier this month. It was built by an NGO and located about 10 kilometers away from the Mohmand Agency headquarters, Galanai. It was meant to discourage NGOs operating in the area as the armed men mercifully forced the hospital staff to leave the facility before the attack (The News, September 17).

North Waziristan Agency

As early as late 2005, Pakistani Taliban leaders had declared an Islamic state in North Waziristan. Pakistan opted to cut a peace deal with the power brokers in the area in September 2006 (after convincing the U.S. administration of its utility), but the strategy failed (Daily Times, March 2). Now, abductions of government functionaries and soldiers of the Frontier Corps are a matter of routine. The Taliban of the area maintain that direct U.S. attacks amounted to a violation of the peace deal and hence they are retaliating. Roadside bombs are now a common occurrence. Even those providing food to the army units in the area are targeted (Dawn, September 24). For Musharraf, this is the worst of times because given his precarious political situation, any military action before his re-election as president in October this year is expected to backfire politically. Furthermore, he has committed to give up his position as the army chief after the presidential election, which means he will no longer be actively commanding the Pakistani army.

Orakzai Agency

Orakzai Agency was also largely considered a relatively better governed area within FATA until 2005, but Shiite-Sunni battles of the adjacent Kurram Agency spilled over, creating sectarian tension that consequently attracted the Taliban to this agency. The quarrel over a shrine that both communities venerate became a point of contention. The government was tardy in resolving the dispute and the political agent of Orakzai Agency unduly sided with one of the groups, further complicating the crisis (Daily Times, October 22). Even before this issue, the Taliban patron in Orakzai Agency, Akhunzada Aslam Farooqui, was known to be a close ally of Taliban leader Mullah Omar (Dawn, November 6, 2001).

Like other agencies, Taliban activities are expanding into adjacent districts of the NWFP from this agency as well. In a recent development in Kohat, which is part of the NWFP and borders Orakzai Agency, local Taliban have warned tailors to strictly observe religious codes while sewing clothes for men and women. In a letter sent to tailors, the Taliban threatened to blow up the shops of those not following the orders (Dawn, September 24).

South Waziristan

South Waziristan is at the center of Taliban and al-Qaeda activities in the region along with neighboring North Waziristan. Recently, Mehsud tribesmen aligned with Taliban forces abducted 205 Pakistani troops (135 army soldiers and 70 Frontier Corps troops) along with seizing 20 of their vehicles. The most striking fact, however, is that the government forces offered no resistance while being kidnapped. After more than three weeks, a majority of the soldiers are still in the custody of the Taliban, and the government has been practically forced to engage in negotiations with them. This reflects government weakness in the face of their growing strength and influence, to say the least. Pamphlets being distributed in the agency, while warning local tribes not to side with government forces, assert that "like in Afghanistan, we have established suicide squads for attacks on troops and their allies in Pakistan" (Daily Times, September 3).

Earlier this year, the Pakistani army partially succeeded in tackling al-Qaeda through supporting Maulvi Nazir, a Taliban leader somewhat sympathetic to government objectives. He started an effective campaign against Uzbek militants aligned with al-Qaeda in the area and largely accomplished his goal of evicting Uzbeks from the agency. However, he is pursuing his religious agenda unabatedly, and it is hardly distinguishable from the Taliban's worldview. The death of notorious militant leader Nek Mohammad (now remembered as a hero in the area) in 2004 has helped the Pakistani army take some control out of the hands of Taliban militants, but the vacuum created by his elimination seems to now be filled, and Taliban forces have revived their influence and control.

Conclusion

A UN report released earlier this month said that 80 percent of suicide bombers in Afghanistan had come from the Waziristan agencies. Yet while the Pakistani government has offered to introduce reforms in FATA, little has been done (Dawn, September 26). Political agents continue to dole out funds to handpicked people, often in an attempt to buy peace—hardly an inclusive policy. The $750 million worth of U.S. aid for the uplift of FATA is in the pipeline, but there is no publicly known strategy in place on how to channel the funds, leading to much apprehension and conspiracy theories about who will really benefit in the area.

Furthermore, Pakistan has been rattled by 39 suicide attacks in 2007, so far killing around 350 people, and most of these attacks targeted the Pakistani army, the Frontier Corps and government officials in FATA and the NWFP (GEO TV, September 19). A series of attacks in the Rawalpindi region in August this year were especially meant to attack the Special Services Group (an elite commando unit) and the ISI. This is unprecedented in Pakistan. Many interpret these attacks as a consequence of Musharraf's tough handling of the Red Mosque crisis in July. Clearly, a majority of these attacks relate to the volatile FATA situation and the Pakistani army is now on the defensive. The killings of Abdullah Mehsud and Mullah Dadullah were expected to hit Taliban forces hard, but the Taliban are showing uncommon resilience. Indeed, Musharraf's capacity to respond militarily is curtailed because of political compulsions. For Afghanistan and the United States, this means a troublesome scenario. Pakistan's return to democracy may potentially change things for the better, but Musharraf's move in this direction is sluggish and uncertain.

Economist.com

America and Iran

The limits of free expression
Sep 27th 2007 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition


A rough ride for Iran's president

NEW YORK is used to the drama (and the traffic) created by visiting dignitaries. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, caused more stir than most. He started by asking whether he could lay a wreath at Ground Zero as a show of respect. "Access of Evil" cried the tabloids; "Zero Chance", and "Go to Hell". Condoleezza Rice called the idea "a travesty". Fairly swiftly, the visit was ruled out by the New York Police Department on security grounds. But Mr Ahmadinejad then prompted an even bigger ruckus when he appeared at Columbia University's World Leaders Forum on September 24th.

Politicians, from city councillors to presidential candidates, were appalled that an invitation had been extended in the first place. Sheldon Silver, speaker of the New York State Assembly, threatened to withhold state support from Columbia. Mitt Romney, a Republican hopeful, released a television commercial condemning the visit. But Lee Bollinger, Columbia's president, refused to withdraw his invitation. It would offend against the principle of free expression, he said: a principle revered in America, but not in Iran. Perhaps to save face, he opened the forum by blasting Mr Ahmadinejad as a "petty and cruel dictator", questioning his "intellectual courage", and describing his take on the Holocaust as "ridiculous".

The campus was plastered with posters both supporting and condemning Mr Ahmadinejad's appearance. A list of children supposedly on Iran's death row hung on the campus gates. Audience members challenged him over reports that more than 200 people have been executed in Iran so far this year. Members of an ad hoc student committee wore black T-shirts with a quotation from Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks and answers drew applause in parts, but much of what he said was met with incredulity. He called for more research into the Holocaust as well as more investigation into the "root causes" of the September 11th attacks. When asked about the oppression of women in Iran, he retorted that they were exempt from many responsibilities "because of the respect culturally given to women". His audience laughed out loud when he said that, in Iran, "we do not have homosexuals like in your country".

The attention being paid to Iran, at Columbia and in Washington, is increasing pressure to do something about its fishy nuclear programmehough something short of war. The urge to turn the screws, combined with the meekness of UN sanctions, has led to new efforts to divest America's pension funds from companiesainly foreign ones, or subsidiaries of American groupshat do business with Iran. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, will soon sign a bill that will divest California's two main public pension funds (for civil servants and teachers) from all such companies. The funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, are the two biggest pension funds in the country; CalPERS alone manages $250 billion, of which about $2 billion will have to be pulled out of companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Alcatel, a telecoms firm. The bill's backers hope that other states will follow suit, and that eventually the federal government will be persuaded to tighten its own sanctions.


Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Ahmadinejad: Overall Columbia Experience Was Positive

Iran President Vows to Ignore UN Measures

Jewish Community in Iran Slams US Protest Against Ahmadinejad's Visit

Why Ahmadinejad Loves New York

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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Bolton 'Definitely Hears' That Israel Struck Nuclear Facility, or Maybe It Was a Missile Base

Assessing the Six Year Hunt for Osama bin Laden


Sep. 25, 2007 - By Michael Scheuer (from Terrorism Focus, September 25) - More than six years after the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden remains free, healthy and safe enough to produce audio- and videotapes that dominate the international media at the times of his choosing (Terrorism Focus, September 11). Popular and some official attitudes in the United States and its NATO allies tend to denigrate the efforts made by their military and intelligence services to capture the al-Qaeda chief. The common question always is, "Why can't the U.S. superpower and its allies find one 6'5" Saudi with an extraordinarily well-known face?" The answers are several, each is compelling, and together they suggest that the U.S.-led coalition's military and intelligence forces are too over-tasked and spread far too thin to have more than a slim chance of capturing or killing bin Laden and his senior lieutenants. The first factor is the issue of topography. Few U.S. citizens or Europeans have any idea of what the terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border looks like (Terrorism Monitor, October 19, 2006). This shortcoming must be attributed to the failure of Western leaders to educate their electorates using the abundant and commercially available satellite photography that depicts the nightmarish mountains, forests and road-less terrain in which Western forces conduct their search. The border area is genuinely a frontier in the sense of the American Old West, but with mountains that dwarf even the Rockies. Such use of satellite photography would likewise show voters that the Western concept of a "border" as a well-defined and manageable demarcation between two nation-states is not remotely applicable regarding the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

US study sees Russia, Pakistan most vulnerable to nuclear theft
Vienna (AFP) Sept 27, 2007 - A new study said Russia and Pakistan were particularly vulnerable to nuclear theft and more could and should be done worldwide to prevent nuclear weapons and materials from falling into "terrorist" hands. The report, commissioned by the US-run Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and published Wednesday, found that "the threat of nuclear theft and terrorism remains high in many parts of the world ... more

NATO nations must share the burden in Afghanistan: general
Kabul (AFP) Sept 27, 2007 - NATO nations must share the burden in Afghanistan, the alliance's top military commander said Thursday, repeating calls for more troops and a long-term commitment to the country. All NATO's nations signed up "very clearly and very consciously" to the mission to help stabilise Afghanistan and they had recognised it would be a long push, General Raymond Henault said. "There is a requiremen ... more

Debunking the Neocons' Iran War Measure

By Gareth Porter, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted September 27, 2007.

The Lieberman-Kyl Amendment is aluminum tubes all over again.

The Lieberman-Kyle amendment has just passed the Senate overwhelmingly after two sections were removed to satisfy Democrats that it will not serve as a backdoor authorization for war against Iran, using U.S. forces operating in Iran. Even after that compromise, it remains a poison chalice, because it endorses a set of "findings" that are fundamentally false and which are being used by the administration to lay the groundwork for a more aggressive policy toward Iran.

The amendment is based on the Bush administration's proxy war narrative which has been filling the news media for the past nine months. It cites General Petraeus's classic statement of the proxy war argument of September 12: "[I]t is increasingly apparent…that Iran through the use of the Iranian Republican [sic] Guard Corps Quds Force, seeks to turn the Sh'ia militia extremists into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq."

It is not unreasonable to view the proxy war narrative as the equivalent for Iran of the infamous White House Iraq Group's carefully contrived -- and stunningly successful -- fall campaign in 2002 to prepare public opinion to support an invasion of Iraq.

The following six points summarize some -- but certainly not all -- of the evidence contradicting the line on which the poisonous Liberman-Kyl amendment is based.

1. The administration has not come forward with a single piece of concrete evidence to support the claim that the Iranian government has been involved in the training, arming or advising of Iraqi Shiite militias.

* At the February 11, 2007 briefing, officials displayed one EFP and some fragments but did not claim that there was any forensic evidence linking that or any other AFP to Iran.

* One of the briefers admitted that it was only Iraqi smugglers who brought weapons into Iraq, explaining why no direct Iranian involvement could be documented.

* The official briefer who was a specialist on explosives, Maj. Marty Weber, claimed in a later interview that the use of "passive infrared sensors" in the deployment of EFPs in Iraq was "one of the strongest markers of Iranian involvement" in the traffic. But he admitted in the same interview that the electronic components needed to make the sensors found in Iraq were "easily available off the shelf at places like RadioShack."

* Another official who participated in the briefing, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, denied that the military was claiming that Iran was behind the traffic in arms to Iraq. He said in a follow-up press briefing on February 14, "What we are saying is that within Iran, that these EFP component parts are being manufactured. Within Iran weapons and munitions are being manufactured that are ending up in Iraq. And we are asking the Iranian government to assist in stopping that from happening. There's no intent to do anything other than that."

* Although one of the official briefers said shipments of EFPs had been intercepted at the border in 2005, only one press report about such a border interceptions has appeared, and there was no indication that such interceptions had produced any evidence of Iranian involvement. On the contrary, it quoted "coalition officials" as saying there was "no evidence to suggest that the government in Tehran is facilitating the smuggling of shape charges into Iraq." Despite that alleged interception, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita and Brig Gen. Carter Ham, deputy director for regional operations for the Joint Staff, continued to deny any knowledge of official Iranian complicity in EFP or any other arm supplies.

* Despite interrogations since last spring of a top official of an alleged Iraqi EFP network and the Hezbollah operative who was a liaison with the organization, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the U.S. Commander for southern Iraq, where most of the Shiite militias operate, admitted in a July 6 briefing that his troops had not captured "anybody that we can tie to Iran."

* On September 8, the commander for the northern region of Iraq, Maj. Gen. Thomas Turner II, admitted in a press briefing, "I don't think we have any specific proof of Iranians in our area other than reports. We have discovered caches….It has not been a lot. We have seen some evidence of some weapons that were employed against coalition forces that were made in…Iran, where they are coming from across the border, we're not sure."

* Despite the assertion by Gen. David Petraeus on September 12, quoted in the proposed Lieberman-Kyle amendment, that the U.S. military obtained evidence of the complicity of Iranian officials in arming and training Shiite militias from interrogations of the above detainees, it has not produced wither detainee or any transcript of the interrogations. Nor has it released a direct quote from either detainee. No apparent intelligence reason exists for withholding such evidence from Congress and the public.

* Despite Petraeus' assertion in September that the United States obtained "hard evidence" incriminating Iran from computer hard drives seized when the above detainees were captured March 22 , none of the documentation has been made public, nor have any specifics have been provided on what the files show. Earlier both Petraeus and Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner had discussed the contents of the 22-page memorandum as detailing the planning preparation, approval and conduct of military operations by the Shiite militia organization but without claiming that it showed any Iranian role in any of those activities.

2. The U.S. intelligence community has not endorsed the argument being made by some in the Bush administration that the Iranian government was responsible for the rise in Shiite military activity in Iraq.

* The National Intelligence Estimate, a brief summary of which was released to the public February 2 contradicted the official argument, stating, "Iraq's neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics."

* Instead of stating clearly that Iran had provided weapons or training to Shiite militias, the NIE offered a more ambiguous formula that "Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq." That formula, according to veterans of the NIE process, probably represents a negotiated compromise, indicating that some agencies refused to endorse the claim that Iran was supply weapons to Iraqi Shiites.

3. The main argument made in the February 11, 2007 briefing for an Iranian official role in providing EFPs to Shiite militias -- the allegation that only Iran had the capability to manufacture EFPs or components for EFPs that can penetrate U.S. armor -- was quickly proven to be untrue.

* As early as mid-2005, U.S. military intelligence officials had already concluding that they believe the technology for making such armor-penetrating bombs was "spreading among a variety of insurgent groups," obviously including Sunni insurgents with no ties to Iran or Hezbollah. At least one insurgent cell in Baghdad was already "attempting to make the charges locally."

* Israeli intelligence reported that Hamas guerrillas manufactured high grade EFPs during 2006 which were used in attacks on Israeli Defense Forces in four separate incidents in September and November 2006. The shaped charges penetrated eight inches of steel armor.

* Senior military officials in Baghdad told a reporter days after the February 11 briefing that U.S. forces had been finding an "increasing number of advanced roadside bombs being not just assembled but manufactured in machine shops." One official was quoted as saying that the impact of those Iraqi-machined EFPs on armored vehicles "isn't as clean but they are almost as effective" as the EFPs being imported.

* Journalist Andrew Cockburn reported in February that in November 2006 U.S. troops raiding a Baghdad machine shop had discovered a pile of copper discs "stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order."

* Maj. Marty Weber, the explosives expert who was one of the three briefers in the February 11 briefing, admitted in an interview with The New York Times less than two weeks later that "You can never be certain" that the cooper discs for the EFPs could not be manufactured with the required precision in Iraq.

* U.S. troops found a cache of components, including concave copper discs, for making EFPs in February 2007, in which the PVC tubes of varying widths appeared to have come from the open market, raising the likelihood that the liners were being manufactured locally so that they would be the right size to fit the discs.

* Another bomb-making factory discovered by U.S. troops in late February was reported to have forced U.S. officials to "reassess their belief that such bombs were being built in Iran and smuggled fully assembled into Iraq."

4. U.S. and British Military officers and civilian officials have expressed doubt that EFPs and other armaments in the hands of Shiites have actually come from Iran or that Iranian Quds force personnel have been involved in the supply.

* British Defence Secretary Des Browne said in an interview in August 2006, "I have not seen any evidence -- and I don't think any evidence exists -- of government-supported or instigated armed support on Iran's part in Iraq."

* Lt. Col. David Labouchere, commander of a few hundred British troops which began in late August 2006 to search the Iran-Iraq border for evidence of Iranian supply of weapons to Iraqi Shiites, said in October, "I suspect there's nothing out there. And I intend to prove it."

* "[S]ome military analysts have concluded there is no concrete evidence of…a link" between the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Shiite militias fighting U.S. troops, according to a Washington Post report published August 20, 2007.

5. The Quds Force of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the administration has claimed is the instrument of the alleged Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq, has apparently been withdrawn from Iraq.

* In the same testimony to the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees on September 11 in which he stated the proxy war argument, Gen. David Petraeus also said, "[T]he Qods Force itself -- we believe, by [and] large, those individuals have been pulled out of the country, as have the Lebanese Hezbollah trainers that were being used to augment that activity.

6. There is a substantial body of evidence that the Hezbollah in Lebanon -- not Iran -- has been the main source, if not the only source, of EFPs and other weapon used by Shiite militias in 2006 and 2007.

* Hezbollah was using EFPs to attack Israel Defense Forces armored vehicles as early as 1997 and provided EFP expertise to Palestinian militant groups after the start of the Intifada in 2000 (Michael Knights, Jane's Intelligence Review).

* Iraqi and Lebanese officials told a reporter in mid-2005 that Iraqi Shiite fighters had begun in early 2005 "copying Hezbollah's techniques in building roadside bombs and carrying out sophisticated ambushes." Those Hezbollah techniques included "shaped charges" (later renamed explosively formed penetrators by U.S. officials), according to those same officials.

* Hezbollah's CD-Rom instructional videos were captured in Iraq rather than Iran's, according to Michael Knights.

* All of the weapons systems captured in Iraq that are alleged to have been provided by Iran, including EFPs and 240 mm rockets, have been in the Hezbollah arsenal, as indicated by many sources on the weapons used by Hezbollah against Israel.

* One of those weapons systems, the RPG-29, which was used by Shiite militias against an American M-1 tank, is not manufactured by Iran and is known to have been acquired by Hezbollah from Syria rather than from Iran.

* There was reportedly intelligence in 2006 that Iran shipped machine tools to Lebanon that could be used to make EFPs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7092701657.html

The Wrong Way to Pressure Iran

By Karim Sadjadpour
Friday, September 28, 2007; Page A19

The Bush administration, following its own pronouncements as well as House and Senate legislation, is expected to decide soon whether to classify Iran's most formidable military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a terrorist organization. This would be a serious mistake. By labeling all 125,000 Revolutionary Guards untouchable "terrorists," Washington would forgo the possibility of exploiting the organization's internal divisions and further decrease the likelihood of diplomatic progress with Tehran.

Instead of making a disastrous military option more likely, the United States should seek to tip the balance within the guard in favor of pragmatists, rather than hard-liners who thrive in a state of isolation and confrontation.

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