US toothless against Iran rock: Pentagon seeks new superbomb

Having considered the toughness of the rock-hidden Iranian nuclear facilities, America’s Nutcracker military command has decided to save jaw and develop a new conventional superbomb, since the US still plans to do the job in Iran without nukes.

­Washington has once again reminded Tehran that it has the military capability to crack Iranian hard-target nuclear sites with conventional weapons, leaking to the Wall Street Journal plans to develop an even more effective bunker-buster bomb.

The American military is no longer in love with the most powerful non-nuclear weapon it possesses, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), a 13,600-kilogram mammoth capable of penetrating deep underground facilities.

The Pentagon paid around $330 million to Boeing to develop and produce 20 MOP bombs, specially developed to destroy bunkers in countries like Iran and North Korea.

US foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan

The sleep of reason brings forth monsters

­El sueño de la razon produce monstruos 

­Francisco José de Goya

­Afghanistan is in dire straits due to the United Kingdom’s ‘divide & rule’ colonial legacy and an unholy alliance with the United States circa Charlie Wilson’s endless War, which mutated from carefully inflamed anti-Soviet insurgency into anti-American jihad.

The most notorious hallmark of British Great Game machinations and resultant invasions is the Durand Line, which arbitrarily sliced through Pushtunistan, planting an irredentist time bomb between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  

While artificial demarcation has neither been addressed nor defused, it has continually undermined Afghan-Pakistani and American-Pakistani security cooperations via cross-border sorties and gunfire on both sides of the Durand Line.

West Underestimates Moral Strength Of Iran, At Its Own Peril

by Allen L Roland

The west underestimates the true moral strength of Iran at its own peril for Iran’s character and ancient Persian roots will not cave in to demonization, fear and sanctions and are far more likely to follow the words of their greatest poet, Rumi ~ Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real Sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.

The more I interact with Iranians, especially in my capacity as an online columnist and frequent interviews with Press TV, ~ the more I realize how resilient Iranians are and unafraid of an obvious policy of forced Regime Change by the West in their quest for oil and natural gas to fuel their on going imperialistic agenda and war machine.

Torture and Abuse in Libya

Stephen Lendman

NATO's alleged "responsibility to protect" was subterfuge. Months of terror bombings left Libya a charnel house.

Africa's most developed country was ravaged. Tens of thousands were killed, multiples more injured, and millions left on their own sink or swim.

When is war not war? It's when mass killing and destruction are called the right thing. It's also when terrorizing and traumatizing an entire population goes unaddressed.

Add horrific torture to other crimes and abuses, according to Amnesty International (AI), Doctors Without Borders, and Human Rights Watch (HRW). In its World Report 2012: Libya, HRW said Post-Gaddafi prison conditions are

"sub-standard, with overcrowding, inadequate food and water, and consistent reports about abuse, including beatings [and] use of electric shock."

Syria: looking for ways to make agrression legal

The recent weeks events in Syria give rise to new apprehensions. A regular UN Security Council session took place on January 24. Thanks to Russia’s efforts the situation in Syria was not formally included into the agenda, so the issue was considered indirectly.

The official agenda was “The situation in the Middle East”. Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, assistant Secretary-General for political affairs, started with the Palestinian issue (preparation of comprehensive talks between Israelis and Palestinians, escalation of violence in Gaza strip and the West bank of the Jordan river), then he smoothly passed to the Lebanon-Syria border, and then to Syria itself. O. Fernando-Taranto attracted attention to insecurity of the Lebanon-Syria border and the fact 5660 Syrian refugees were registered in Lebanon in the middle of January. A good start to get at those guilty of approaching “humanitarian catastrophe” – that is the Syrian authorities. That’s the way the plan adopted by Arab League on January 22 started to get pushed through the Security Council. But the session ended with no resolution agreed on. Russia and China took a firm stand against intervention into Syrian internal affairs. Russian Security Council representative emphasized the Middle East is going through wide scale transformation period and called for self determination of the region’s nations. He said the outside efforts to exert remote control and bring to power certain political, ethnic and religious groups instead of others to meet someone’ own interests may is fraught with the most severe consequences.

«Shoot First, Ask Questions Later»

The news of a plea deal for US Marine squad leader Frank Wuterich charged in connection with the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in 2005 neither caused a sensation nor even grabbed the headlines for a considerable period of time in the US media and the Internet. Initially, Wuterich faced three months of confinement, but when he apologized cordially to the families of the dead saying there were no words to ease their pain, the military judge had difficulty withholding tears and announced that the plea deal prevented any jail term for the Marine. In stark contrast, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, for example, was locked up behind bars for 21 months in 2007 for arranging deadly dog fights at his house in South Virgina, but obviously the US justice finds it appropriate to value the lives of America's dogs above those of Iraqi civilians. It should also be taken into account that the US Army would in no time run short of personnel and the US penitentiary system would likely be overwhelmed if occasional offenses like the above, which occur in the process of liberating nations across the world from dictatorial rule, suddenly become punishable by imprisonment.

By Ismail Salami – Tehran

Washington's double-edged sword of policies towards the Islamic Republic is not only exhausting the patience of the Iranian nation but it is provoking the ire of international conscience as well.

Goaded by Washington, EU foreign ministers decided on January 23 to impose a ban on oil imports from Iran under the fickle excuse that the country is pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

In a recent stance, Iran has threatened that it would never let a situation prevail where regional states could sell their oil while Iran couldn't. Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has said, "When there is an absence of Iranian supply, oil prices will soar up dramatically and the western countries are well aware of this fact; However, Iran will never allow itself to land in a situation in which it cannot sell oil but other regional states can."

By Uri Avnery

It finally happened. The Egyptian parliament, democratically elected by a free people, has convened for its first session.

For me this is a wonderful, a joyful occasion.

For many Israelis, this is a worrisome, a threatening sight.

I cannot but rejoice when a downtrodden people arises and wins its freedom and human dignity. And not by the intervention of outside forces, but by its own steadfastness and courage. And not by shooting and bloodshed, but by the sheer power of nonviolence.

Whenever and wherever it happens, it must gladden the heart of any decent person around the globe.

Compared to most other revolutions, this Egyptian uprising was bloodless. The number of victims ran in the dozens, not thousands. The current struggle in Syria claims that number of victims every day or two, and so did the successful uprising in neighboring Libya, which was greatly assisted by foreign military intervention.

Demanding justice for Yousef, a quiet boy killed by Israeli settlers

27 January 2012

Yousef Ikhlayl, top left-hand corner, attending a demonstration in Beit Ommar less than six months before he was killed by Israeli settlers.

(Palestine Solidarity Project)

On 28 January 2011 at 6:30am, Yousef Ikhlayl, 17, went with his father Fakhri to their farmland on the outskirts of the West Bank village Beit Ommar, where they prepared the land around their grapevines. At approximately 7am, two groups of Israelis from the illegal settlements Bat Ayn and Kiryat Arba were taking a “hike” in the privately-owned Palestinian agricultural land belonging to the residents of Beit Ommar (“Palestinian killed in clashes with settlers near Hebron,” The Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2011).

Profile of a Rogue State

Stephen Lendman

America is unmatched globally. However, pound for pound, based on size, its policies, and regional threat, Israel stands out. Daily, its crimes against humanity continue.

On January 23, Jerusalem police arrested two Palestinian officials, Khaled Abu Arafeh and Mohammed Totah.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said both men were wanted for unspecified "Hamas activities" with no further comment.

Hamas, of course, is Palestine's legitimate government. Israel and America spuriously call it a terrorist organization. Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said arresting both men was a "Zionist crime." Palestine's parliament hasn't functioned since Hamas and Fatah split in 2007.

Both men were arrested at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Sheikh Jarrah offices. For the past 18 months, they sought refuge there protesting Israel's illegal deportation orders after their ID cards were revoked.

Abu Arafah served as Hamas minister for Jerusalem affairs. Totah's a Hamas PLC representative. Months earlier, Hamas legislator Mahmoud Atoun was arrested. He also sought ICRC refuge.

The UK media has over the last three months obediently towed the line of western leaders in their increasingly hostile posturing towards Iran.

Despite their reporting of (to give a few examples) a covert war on Iran, the entry of a US spy drone into Iranian airspace, and the recent assassination of another Iranian nuclear scientist, our media overwhelmingly empathises with the concerns of the US and the UK governments.

The UK media echo the sentiments of David Cameron (Iran's chosen path 'threatens the peace and security of us all') or William Hague (Iran 'is continuing to breach United Nations resolutions and refusing to come to meaningful negotiations on its nuclear programme'), whose statements lack sufficient evidence and are based on little more than speculation. Yet the rhetoric goes unquestioned in news reporting.

NATO’s lost cause in Afghanistan

The Conundrum of Iran

The EU oil embargo recently slapped on Iran and the threats voiced by the US and other Western countries to come up with further sanctions against the country led watchers to conclude that an armed conflict between Iran and the West finally became imminent.

The first potential scenario in the context is that the current standoff would eventually escalate into a war. The US forces in the Gulf area currently number 40,000, plus 90,000 are deployed in Afghanistan, just east of Iran, and several thousands of support troops are deployed in various Asian countries. That adds up to a considerable military potential which may still fall short of what it takes to keep a lid on everything if armed hostilities break out. For example, Colin H. Kahl argues in a recent paper in Foreign Affairs that, even though “there is no doubt that Washington will win in the narrow operational sense” (1), the US would have to take a vast array of pertinent problems into account.

Islamic Revolution in Iran

33 years of Iranian revolution

Emerging piety power paradigm.

By Dr Ghayur Ayub

The Islamic Revolution in Iran marks it's 33rd anniversary this year. Despite facing strong opposing forces that any such revolution faces in its evolutionary phases it not only survived but thrived. The question emerges as to what constituted the mosaic of the revolution which gave it the resilience, strength and power to progress? Five reasons become apparent:

US electoral system, or Freedom House up to its usual tricks

What is the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher? A good teacher is at least the one who is able to solve the task he gives to his students. That is why I have always been puzzled by the fact that while “introducing democracy” all over the world Americans are evading this natural teaching “do as I do” method. They say what is right and what is wrong in the electoral systems of other countries, what is democratic and what is not democratic and even who is the right and who is the wrong candidate, according to Washington. It would be much easier to say “Hey, guys! You see how perfectly it works in our country. Do as we do and you will be happy!” But they don’t say it. Thequestionis: why?

Another child detained. (Tamar Fleishman)

Testimonies from the Heart of Darkness

By Tamar Fleishman – The West Bank

'This place is the carbuncle on the ass of the occupation,' said Dalit Baum as the gates of Ofer prison closed behind us.

The Palestinian residents of the West Bank, who had been living under occupation for over forty years and are deprived of their basic rights, are brought to justice in military courts.  This entire legal system- investigators, prosecutors and judges- is comprised of men and women, in uniform, who are subordinated to and serve, not the principles of justice and law, but the mechanism of the occupation.

Ofer prison/detention center/court sits on Palestinian lands that had been confiscated from their owners.  

Institute for Historical Review

The Vexing 'Jewish Question': A Nineteenth-Century Scholar's View

The author is Goldwin Smith (1823-1910), a prominent 19th-century educator, historian and author. He was educated at Oxford University, where he became regius professor of modern history in 1858. Moving to the United States in 1868, he joined the faculty of Cornell University as a professor of English literature and Constitutional History. He moved to Toronto in 1871, where he continued to write prolifically until his death.

A "classic liberal," Smith was ardently pro-democratic, anti-imperialist and anti-militaristic. An enemy of slavery and an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, he championed the cause of the North during the American Civil War. His booklet, Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery? (1863) had considerable impact on public opinion in Britain. As a life-long supporter of "Anglo-Saxon" unity, he worked for close ties between Britain, the United States and Canada.

Killing Iraqis Makes Us Safer -- And Other SOTU Lies

By David Swanson

25 January, 2012
Warisacrime.org

In the news around the world and even in the United States on Tuesday was the anger among Iraqis at the failure of the United States to hold anyone seriously accountable for the 2005 massacre in Haditha. The story was a useful reminder of how the operations of the U.S. military over the past decade have fueled hostility toward our nation.

President Obama began his State of the Union speech Tuesday night by absurdly claiming the exact opposite, asserting that the war on Iraq has made us safer and -- I kid you not -- "more respected around the world." He later equated the war on Iraq to World War II, a surefire way to put anything beyond criticism in the United States, provided you can get people to fall for it.

Remember, this is the guy who won the Democratic Primary in 2008 by the simple fact of having not yet been in the Senate in 2003 and thus having avoided voting for the war that he funded to the hilt as a senator beginning in 2005. He had called it a dumb war. Now he says it made us safer. If it was dumb, was he dumber? What is he trying to say?

America's Great Divide Between Rich and Poor

Stephen Lendman

In 1962, Michael Harrington's "The Other America" exposed the nation's dark side, saying:

"In morality and in justice, every citizen should be committed to abolishing the other America, for it is intolerable that the richest nation in human history should allow such needless suffering."

"But more than that, if we solve the problem of the other America we will have learned how to solve the problems of all of America."

Jack Kennedy was concerned enough to ask Walter Heller, his Council of Economic Advisor chairman, to examine the problem.

In his January 8, 1964 State of the Union address, poverty levels also got Lyndon Johnson to say his administration

"today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America."

In fact, he barely scratched it. However, he got Congress to enact measures helping America's poor.

The reprehensible drone attacks

US, the deadliest human killers

By S. M. Hali

The reprehensible drone attacks in Pakistan commenced in 2004, nearly three years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. They have been conducted by the Special Activities Division of CIA. The question of the drone attacks targeting terrorists in Pakistan’s Wild West, the tribal areas is rather complex. To date 285 drone attacks have been carried out, which have taken a toll of 2,692 lives. It is not clear how many were actually terrorists and what number of collateral damage was suffered. The role of the government of Pakistan has been rather duplicitous. Pakistan covertly permitted the drones to operate from two of its air bases, Jacobabad and Shamsi but publicly condemned the drone attacks. When public outcry over the drone attacks reached a crescendo, on 4 October 2008 “The Washington Post” reported that there was a secret deal between the US and Pakistan allowing these drone attack, while US Senator Dianne Feinstein disclosed in February 2009, that the drones were being operated from Shamsi Airfield, 310 km southwest of Quetta and 48 km from the Afghan border. This disclosure created a furor in Pakistan and initially the government denied it but in December 2009, Pakistan’s Minister for Defence, Ahmad Mukhtar admitted that the Americans were using Shamsi Airfield.

CFR Madmen Itching for a Nuclear Armageddon

George Soros predicts riots, police state and class war for America

Billionaire investor George Soros has a new prediction for America. While it might be as dire as it gets for the financial wiz, this bet concerns more than just the value of the buck. According to Soros, there's about to be an all-out class war.

Soros, 81, previously bet against the British pound in the early 90s and made $1 billion off its collapse. In the years since, he’s remained active in investing, but also in advocacy. He’s helped keep Wikipedia afloat thanks to impressive contributions and through donations to the Tides Center, has indirectly funded Adbusters, the Canadian anti-capitalist magazine that put Occupy Wall Street on the map. Speaking to Newsweek recently, Soros neglected to acknowledge his past successes, but instead offered a word of warning: a period of “evil” is coming to the western world.

IRAN: Is this what NATO has in store?

by Christof Lehmann, Jim Fetzer and Joshua Blakeney

In “USA: Massive Transports of Military Equipment”, Christof Lehmann, the first author, has reported the stunning videos taken by Mr. Andrew Tuckman on 19 January 2012, who began filming this after a dozen or so train cars went by on a stretch of track south of Santa Cruz, California. “Where are the military vehicles going? Why are they being shipped? What could this possibly be for? Barack Obama, what are you up to? We want answers….”

Jim Fetzer, the second author, contacted an associate with extensive military experience, who identified them as “woodland camouflage M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles with a few HEMTT refueling trucks. They don’t appear to have been modernized since they would have been repainted TAN. They may be going to an exercise for the California National Guard–or worse going into STORAGE because the U.S. Army has gone STUPID and is pissing away its cross-country maneuver war-fighting powers in favor of foot-slogging victims with hand weapons from wheeled trucks, which are easily blown up by land mines on roads/trails.”

Israel’s By-Pass Foreign Policy

The right-wing government of Israel has embarked on a novel foreign policy, one that seeks to develop close relations with sub-national state and provincial governments, thus by-passing national governments and avoiding the increasing hostility of national foreign ministries and local grass roots movements to Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians.

The establishment of state-to-state relations between Israel and such sub-national governments as American states, Canadian provinces, and even Native American tribal nations has increased under the ultra-nationalist Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The new aggressive policy by Israel to seek allies at sub-national levels results in internal pressure on national governments to take a less critical approach to Israeli policies on the West Bank and Gaza.

01/24/12

In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims

Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America...This is the war you don’t know about.”

This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department. In January 2011, when news broke that the department had used the film in training, a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened “a couple of times” for a few officers. A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training. During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.

Violence Rages in Libya

Stephen Lendman

Africans in US-NATO occupied Libya have been arrested,
beaten, tortured and killed by the CIA, MI-6 trained counter-
revolutionary rebels. The armed groups have targeted dark-
skinned people for liquidation. (Pan-African News Wire)

Occupied Libya isn't pretty. Libya SOS said its government "recognize(d) the presence of the forces belonging to 14 different nationalities in the country under the umbrella of the training, assistance and advice."

In mid-January, 12,000 US troops sent to Malta readied to occupy Libya. Around 6,000 or more now guard oil facilities. Perhaps contingents from other nations guard other strategic locations. People needs aren't addressed. Exploiting, not helping, them is planned.

On January 5, London's Independent headlined, "Libya's leader warns of civil war after Tripoli gun battles," saying:

Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Washington's man in Libya, commented after rival militia gun battles left "a trail of dead and injured."

According to Jalil: