8,000 US troops remain in Iraq
Press TV – December 28, 2011
Some 8,000 US troops have remained in Iraq despite Washington’s plan for the complete withdrawal of US forces by the turn of 2011, Press TV reports.
The troops, along with 14 warplanes, 125 helicopters and 28 drones, are mainly based in Iraq’s Kurdistan region in the north.
US troops have been stationed in Jordan and some Persian Gulf Arab countries as well as some new locations in Kuwait after leaving Iraq while a small number of them have returned to the United States, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The last US military base was handed over to Iraqi officials on December 16. However, Washington is reportedly seeking to pose threats against Iran by maintaining its troops’ presence in Iraq’s Kurdistan.
According to the report, a delegation of US military and security officials met with leaders of the anti-Iranian group of Komala at its headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah. The delegation was headed by an American general working for the US Consulate in Kurdistan’s capital Arbil.
US military officials have also held meetings with leaders of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group with the aim of stirring up violence and terrorist operations.
The PKK launched an armed campaign against Turkey in 1984 in a quest to force an independent Kurdish state in the southeast of the country.
Pentagon asks for extra $100 million to Israel for Iran defense (and Congress doubles the tip)
By Allison Deger | Mondoweiss | December 24, 2011
Congress approved an additional $235 million in U.S. military aid to Israel, Ynet reports. The U.S. allocates to Israel approximately $2.5 billion in aid, per year.
The request, which boosts the total amount allocated for 2012 to $25 million more than the last fiscal year (the 2011 budget was $3.075 billion), came from the Pentagon in order to help Israel in “development of safeguards against rockets and missiles that could be launched towards Israel by Hezbollah and Iran.”
Ynet reports:
Pentagon officials were the ones who requested that Congress approve a $106 million aid budget for Israel’s defense systems against missiles, on top of the Iron Dome budget. Congress chose to nearly double that amount, approving a budget of $235 million for 2012, amounting to $25 million more than in 2011.
Since 1949, Congress has distributed over $114 billion in U.S. aid to Israel.
New York to Host Israel’s Top Drone Lab
By Max Blumenthal | Al Akhbar | December 24, 2011
On December 19, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the establishment of a 2 million square foot engineering and applied sciences university campus in the heart of New York City. The New York-based Cornell University and the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology, were chosen to oversee the new institution.
“Thanks to this outstanding partnership and groundbreaking proposal from Cornell and the Technion, New York City’s goal of becoming the global leader in technological innovation is now within sight,” Bloomberg proclaimed. “When people look back 100 years from now, I believe that they will remember today as a signal moment in the transformation of the city’s economy,” Deputy Mayor Robert K Steel declared.
The Cornell-Technion partnership will result in a shimmering new university campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Island, a sleepy and long-neglected slice of land between midtown Manhattan and Queens. A US$350 million grant from the publicity shy philanthropist Charles Feeney supplemented by US$100 million in public money will fund the construction of the campus. The joint project was awarded after a well-publicized competition between several top-flight universities, and was enthusiastically trumpeted by the Mayor’s office, earning it coverage in the New York Times. However, neither Bloomberg or the Times bothered to mention a few facts that might have outraged the local taxpayers corralled into funding the project.
Presented as an anodyne research and development initiative that promises to produce thousands of jobs and hundreds of “spin-off” tech companies, the Cornell-Technion campus is also likely to be a boon to the military-industrial complex in the US and Israel. For decades, the Technion has provided the brains Israel required to create the elaborate mechanism of control under-girding its occupation of Palestine. Through its partnership with Israel’s burgeoning arms industry, Technion’s creations have been imported to armed forces around the world. In the words of Israeli researcher Shir Hever, the Technion “has all but enlisted itself in the military.”
In 2008, the Technion signed a joint research agreement with Elbit Systems, the Israeli weapons and security systems giant. Elbit is best known for providing the monitoring system for the Israeli separation wall, a 760 kilometer long concrete barrier that juts into the occupied West Bank, enabling Israel’s annexation of tens of thousands of dunams of Palestinian land. The company also produces weaponized aerial drones that have been procured by the Brazilian and US air forces, Elbit representatives routinely host recruitment seminars for ambitious Technion students.
In recent years, the Technion has distinguished itself in the field of robotic weapons systems, developing some of the latest in aerial drone and unmanned combat vehicle technology through its Arlene and Arnold Goldstein UAV & Satellite Center.
Here are a few Technion creations intended to streamline the maintenance of Israel’s occupation and enhance the violent capacity of America’s ongoing drone wars:
The unmanned “Black Thunder” D-9 bulldozer – The armored bulldozer is an essential weapon of Israel’s occupation, enabling the Israeli army engineering unit to demolish approximately 25,000 Palestinian homes since 1967, according to the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolition. On occasion, bulldozers have come under attack from Palestinian guerilla fighters and stone throwing children. But thanks to the innovative spirit of the Technion, which boasts of pioneering the unmanned bulldozer, the Israeli army can demolish homes, olive groves and tunnels without any risk to the physical safety of its soldiers. As Jerusalem Post military affairs correspondent Yaakov Katz reported, “The IDF Ground Forces Command plans to double the number of unmanned D9 armored bulldozers in the Engineering Corps arsenal after the vehicle provided exceptional results during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in January.”
The “Stealth UAV” drone – According to the website of the American Technion Society, in 2010 Technion students designed “a ‘Stealth UAV’ designed to fly up to 2,977 kilometers without refueling. It can carry two 499 kg ‘smart bombs,’ and be equipped with various sensors (electro-optic, infrared and radar) to enable operation in the dark and under all weather conditions.” The weapon appears to be an unmanned version of the US-made B-2 “Spirit,” also known as the Stealth Bomber.
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the Israeli military has killed 825 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since 2006. The New America Foundation, a Washington DC-based think tank, reported that the US military has killed over 1800 civilians and accused militants in Pakistan during the same period.
The “Dragonfly UAV” mini-drone – Tiny, remote controlled drones capable of flying through windows and into homes and buildings for delicate spying operations are the latest craze in UAV technology. Technion students recently designed a drone plane with a 9-inch (23cm) wingspan and a 7.9-inch (20cm) body modeled after the dragonfly insect. “The plane’s relatively low speed enables it to easily enter rooms through small windows and to send back photos from a miniature camera,” the American Technion Society’s website states.
As America’s manufacturing base enters its death throes, once industrialized cities are seeking out high-tech research and development projects to stimulate their cash-strapped economies while filling blighted urban centers with a young, upwardly mobile “knowledge class.” The Cornell-Technion NYC campus, with its direct link to the American military-industrial complex and the Israeli occupation, exposes the disturbing underside of a seemingly progressive model of urban renewal.
In the name of transforming the New York City’s economy, local taxpayers have been enlisted into the disturbing world of “asymmetrical” robotic warfare, in which faceless human targets are liquidated by remote control. And a generation of ambitious students seeking careers in the fields of engineering and science may wind up volunteering their talents to Israel’s occupation without ever seeing the consequences of their handiwork.
UK flexes nuclear muscles against Argentina
Press TV – December 23, 2011
Britain has once more resorted to threats of using nuclear weapons on non-nuclear armed states in a bid to intimidate members of the Mercosur bloc.
After Mercosur members, including Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, decided to ban British-flagged military vessels from using their ports, the former head of Britain’s Royal Navy said the British government should send a nuclear submarine to the British-occupied Las Malvinas (the Falklands).
The archipelago is located about 250 nautical miles from Argentina, which has been pursuing its rightful claim on sovereignty over the islands for over thirty years.
Argentina has accused the British government of violating international laws saying the UK’s oil-drilling operation is a clear instance of infringement on international laws.
“Malvinas is not an Argentine cause, it’s a global cause because they are taking our fisheries and oil resources,” said Argentine president Cristina Fernandez.
Furthermore, Uruguay president Jose Mujica considered solidarity among South America’s neighbors as the most significant issue concerning his country’s foreign policy.
“For the moment, this means accepting that this territory is a colonial British position in our America,” said Mujica.
In response to the South American countries’ solidarity, the British government decided to flex its nuclear muscles threatening to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.
This is not the first time that the British government proposes the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country.
In 2002, former British defence secretary Geoff Hoon announced that the British government was ready to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states such as Iraq.
British government’s boast of its nuclear arsenal unveils its hypocritical nature as it is bent on curtailing non-nuclear states’ energy programs while remaining a staunch advocate of other nuclear armed states including Israel.
Israel hosts British MPs to buy support
Press TV – December 18, 2011
A new investigative report has found that Israel pays for trips by the UK lawmakers to the occupied Palestinian territories in a desperate attempt to buy their support.
The report released by political activist David Cronin shows that lawmakers including Chloe Smith, Aidan Burley, James Morris and Neil Parish, who are also the members of the so-called Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) in the British political establishment, have visited occupied Palestine during summer this year, from 29 May to 3 June, a trip whose costs were partly paid by the Israeli foreign ministry.
The members of the lower house of the parliament (MPs) cited themselves in separate declarations based on Freedom of Information requests that the cost of their visit has amounted to £1,548 each.
They said that the Israeli foreign ministry has paid £574 of the amount and the remaining £974 was paid by the pro-Israeli lobby group (CFI).
The striking fact was that the visit coincided with the UK government changing its law on universal jurisdiction in favor of Israeli authorities, said Cronin.
The law enables a country to prosecute other countries’ officials or other entities’ authorities on charges of grave human rights violations irrespective of where they may have happened.
In 2009, Tzipi Livni, the then foreign minister of the Zionist regime, had to cancel a pre-planned trip to London, because some peace activists had sought an arrest warrant for her on charges of committing war crimes during the Zionist army’s murderous invasion of the Gaza Strip.
The Conservative Friends of Israel, which organized the MPs’ trip, has been working diligently to have the universal jurisdiction law watered down in favor of the Israeli authority.
According to the CFI’s website, the organised trips featured tours of production facilities run by the weapons manufacturing company Elbit.
Elbit designs and manufactures the Hermes drones that the Zionist army used to attack Palestinian civilians during its invasion of Gaza. The company also supplies the British army with the same drone aircrafts deployed in the war in Afghanistan.
Amnesty International has reported that engines used in Elbit’s drones have been fitted by a plant belonging to the company near England’s second largest city, Birmingham.
More than 80 percent of the Conservative members of the British parliament are actually member to the extremist pro-Israeli lobby group, the Conservative Friends of Israel.
Chicago Rally to Thank Obama for Supposedly Ending War in Iraq Turns Up 30 Speakers and 10 Audience Members
By David Swanson – December 17, 2011
Obama promised to make ending the war in Iraq his first act in office. Then he did what he could to avoid ending it. Forced by Bush and Maliki and the Iraqis to remove troops, he’s keeping troops nearby and filling bases with mercenaries, while expanding ground and drone wars around the region and claiming the power to make war anywhere he likes, including having already done so in Libya. Nonetheless a hearty band of Obama-Right-Or-Wrongers planned a rally in Chicago to praise the president for . . . well, for something or other.
The rally was sponsored by Marilyn Katz and Carl Davidson and “Chicagoans Against War in Iraq,” and was promoted as a big national event. I heard about the planning here in Virginia. Among the 30 speakers were the president of the Cook County Board Toni Preckwinkle, Alderman Joe Moore, and Tom Hayden. But an email report I’ve just been forwarded says the audience was “5-10,” and “Dozens and dozens of prepared placards that said ‘yes we can’ were in a box, untouched.”
Meanwhile, “In opposition, holding placards, were some 15 or more from March 19th Anti-War Coalition, Occupy Chicago, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Albany Park, North Park, Mayfair Neighbors for Peace and Justice, and others. The placards included slogans “The U.S. War on Iraq is NOT Over” “Obama Does Mot Deserve Praise,” “Obama is Continuing Illegal & Unjust Wars,” “Obama Is Threatening Iran and Syria,” “Free Bradley Manning,” “No War on Iran,” “Orambo,” “There Is Nothing to Celebrate” and others. Hundreds of leaflets from the March 19th Anti-War Coalition entitled “The Government is NOT bringing all U.S. troops home or ending its wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, or its threats against Iran and Syria and elsewhere” were distributed to passersby as well as those at the rally.”
U.S. Abandons Toxic Burn Pits as it Withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan
By Matthew J. Nasuti | Kabul Press | December 10, 2011
U.S. service members and their Iraqi and Afghan allies have a common enemy. It is not Iran, the Taliban or al-Qaeda, but the Pentagon which operated hundreds of toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the U.S. completes its withdrawal from Iraq and begins to draw down in Afghanistan, the American military, pursuant to its “pollute and run” policy, is abandoning millions of kilograms of toxic and potentially radioactive waste. Everything is being buried and covered over, just as it did in Vietnam and in the Philippines when the U.S. withdrew from Clark Air Base and the Subic Bay naval installation.
The Pentagon seems to hope that all the health problems of U.S. troops can likewise be buried and covered over.
The (U.S.) Air Force Times ran an editorial on March 1, 2010 that read: “Stamp Out Burn Pits” We reprint the first portion of that editorial:
“A growing number of military medical professionals believe burn pits are causing a wave of respiratory and other illnesses among troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Found on almost all U.S. bases in the war zones, these open-air trash sites operate 24 hours a day, incinerating trash of all forms — including plastic bottles, paint, petroleum products, unexploded ordinance, hazardous materials, even amputated limbs and medical waste. Their smoke plumes belch dioxin, carbon monoxide and other toxins skyward, producing a toxic fog that hangs over living and working areas.”
On April 12, 2010, the Richmond Times-Dispatch carried an article by David Zucchino who investigated the American burn pits in Iraq. He interviewed Army Sgt. 1st Class Francis Jaeger who hauled military waste to the Balad burn. Jaeger told Zucchino:
“We were told to burn everything – electronics, bloody gauze, the medics’ biohazard bags, surgical gloves, cardboard. It all went up in smoke.”
According to a website called the “Burn Pits Action Center” large numbers of American veterans who came in contact with burn pit smoke have been diagnosed with cancer, neurological diseases, cardiovascular diseases, breathing and sleeping problems and various skin rashes.
On October 28, 2009, President George W. Bush, signed into law H.R. 2647, which included the provisions of “The Military Personnel War Zone Toxic Exposure Prevention Act.” The Act was sponsored by Congressman Tim Bishop of New York and supported by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Guard Association of the United States, and the Military Officers Association banned the use of burn pits unless they were specifically deemed essential by the Secretary of Defense. Despite the law, burn pit use continued in Iraq and reportedly continues today in Afghanistan.
The impetus for H.R. 2647 was Lieutenant Colonel Darrin L. Curtis, Ph.D., who was a Bioenvironmental Engineering Flight Commander at Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2006. Lt. Col. Curtis wrote a December 20, 2006, report on the environmental and health impacts of the Balad burn pit. He stated that the burn pit was “the worst environmental site” he had seen in seventeen years of environmental work in the United States. He characterized the smoke released by the military as: “an acute health hazard” to everyone who has been deployed or will be deployed to Balad. Lt. Col. Curtis’ report was reviewed and endorsed by Lieutenant Colonel James R. Elliott, Chief of Aeromedical Services. The Pentagon ultimately ignored the report just as it had ignored the Fall 2004 study in (U.S. Army) “Engineer – The Professional Bulletin” which found that by 2002, Kandahar Airfield was facing “a growing human health and environmental threat” from the uncontrolled burning of hazardous waste.
In June 2008, the U.S. Army Center of Health (USACHPPM) issued a “Fact Sheet” that downplayed any health problems associated with the burn pits. It stated that the safety of the burn pits had been independently validated by the Defense Health Board (DHB). It went on to claim that:
“The DHB is an independent board comprised of experts from private industry and recognized universities.”
Research into the DHB reveals otherwise. The Board is primarily composed of retired Generals, Admirals and Colonels, along with political appointees from prior Administrations and civilian consultants currently under contract to the Pentagon and other government agencies. There is nothing independent about the Board. The Senate Democratic Policy Committee took testimony from Dr. Anthony Szema, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at SUNY and a physician with the Department of Veterans Affairs. He provided a detailed refutation of the DHB’s flawed findings regarding the burn pits. His testimony is available on the Internet under the phrase: “Are Burn Pits Making Our Soldiers Sick?”
On October 3, 2008, the Military Times published a damning report by Kelly Kennedy entitled “Army Making Toxic Mess in War Zones.” The article was prompted by the release in September 2008, of a Rand Corporation study that detailed a horrific series of environmental spills, releases and disposals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bruce Travis of the U.S. Army Engineering School told the Times that no environmental rules were complied with in Iraq from 2003-2008 (this would presumably apply to Afghanistan also). He went on to state that an estimated 11 million pounds of hazardous waste were disposed of in Iraq up to 2008. This practice did not end in 2008. A U.S. Government Accountability Report in 2010, detailed inspections in 2009/2010 of four American bases in Afghanistan and none were found to be compliant with environmental standards.
Most American military waste falls into one of the following twelve (12) categories. They are called the “dirty dozen:”
1. Paints, asbestos, solvents, grease, cleaning solutions.
2. Building materials that contain formaldehyde, copper, arsenic and hydrogen cyanide.
3. Hydraulic fluids (hazardous), aircraft de-icing fluids (toxic), antifreeze (poisonous) and used oil (cancer-causing).
4. Jet fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel.
5. Pesticides and various neuro-toxic poisons resulting from attempts to control flies, mosquitoes, ants, fleas and rodents. The military refers to such practices as “vector control.”
6. Lead, nickel, zinc and cadmium battery waste and acids (toxic/corrosive).
7. Electronic waste (or E-waste). This includes computers, printers, faxes, screens, televisions, radios, refrigerators, communications gear and test equipment. They contain cancer-causing chemicals such as the flame retardant PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), PCDD (polychlorinated dioxins), barium, copper, lead, zinc, cadmium oxides and cadmium sulphides and trivalent antimony.
8. Light bulbs containing hazardous levels of mercury. Disposal of these light bulbs in ordinary landfills is prohibited in the United States.
9. Plastics. When burned, many plastics release a deadly mix of chemicals including dioxins, furans, benzene, di 2-ethylhexyl phthalates (DEHP), hydrochloric acid, benzo(a)pyrene (BAP) and various acids and chlorine gas (which is a neurotoxin).
10. Medical/Infectious Disease waste and Biohazard Materials.
11. Ammunition waste. Lead, brass and other metals from ammunition along with all the constituents of the propellants, including trinitrotoluene, picric acid, diphenylamine, nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, potassium nitrate, barium nitrate, tetracene, diazodintrophenol, phosphorus, peroxides, thiocarbamide, potassium chlorate, vinyl fluoride, vinyl chloride, sodium fluoride and sodium sulfate.
12. Radioactive waste. The American military routinely uses a large number of devices and equipment that contain radioactive elements or radioluminescent elements. These materials are referred to as “Radioactive Commodities” by the military. The primary radioactive materials are: Uranium, Tritium, Radium 226, Americium 241, Thorium, Cesium 137 and Plutonium 239. A partial list of radioactive equipment that may have been disposed of in burn pits or buried in Iraqi and Afghan landfills includes: night vision devices, calibration sets, engine components, weapon sights, compasses, fire control devices, level gauges, collimators, sensors, test equipment, vehicle dials, radios, chemical agent monitors and communication equipment, along with laboratory and hospital machines. In addition to these commodities, the military also uses 120mm depleted uranium (DU) warheads and 20mm DU ammunition along with DU armor plating.
The Pentagon admits operating 84 “official” burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet Adam Levine from CNN reported on October 15, 2010, that at least 221 burn pits were operated in Afghanistan alone. That number is believed to be only half of the actual burn pits operated in Afghanistan. On February 10, 2010, CBS News published a report by Nick Turse entitled: “the 700 military bases of Afghanistan.” CBS claims that about 400 bases, posts and camps belong to Coalition forces, most of which are American. Each of these facilities may have one or more burn pits, landfills, or disposal pits. The number of U.S. military bases in Iraq may be double this. Each needs to be excavated, sampled and analyzed.
The latest and perhaps the most disturbing burn pit information was published last month on Wired.Com. Written by Katie Drummond, it was entitled: “Congressman: The Military’s Burn Pit Screwed Our Soldiers.” The Congressman is Todd Akin from Missouri. The outrage was over a press release issued on October 31, 2011 by the Institute of Medicine, which is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. It was unable to complete its report on the burn pits, a report that had been commissioned by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Institute of Medicine found 53 toxins in the air above the Balad air base in Iraq but could not determine the sources for each due to a lack of assistance by the Pentagon. The Institute was unable to obtain information from the Pentagon as to what it burned and buried. The Pentagon claims it kept no records and has no scientific data,. The reason is that it apparently never sampled and analyzed the material in any of its Iraq or Afghan burn pits. The U.S. military is now simply covering them all over with dirt as the U.S. prepares to withdraw from Iraq and begins to draw down in Afghanistan.
In summary, there has been no competent assessment of the long-term environmental harm to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan from the abandonment of such a massive volume of toxic waste. The Pentagon has likewise abandoned its own solders, sailors, marines and airmen whom it poisoned and injured. Until all the burn pits are excavated and sampled, there is no way to determine the full makeup of the toxic soup of pollutants that U.S. military personnel were exposed to.
This “pollute and run” policy should not be permitted. If invading countries had to clean up and restore the countrysides they invaded and damaged, and if they had to treat and care for all those they injured, perhaps they might in the future think twice before launching such wars.
Sources for Further Reading:
Houston Chronicle – February 7, 2010 – “GIs tell of horror from burn pits”
Los Angeles Times – February 18, 2010 – “Veterans speak out against burn pits”
Salem News – March 29, 2010 – “Sick Veterans Sue KBR Over Iraq and Afghanistan Burn Pits”
Kabul Press – April 25, 2010 – “EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Creating an Environmental Disaster in Afghan Countryside” (Part 1 of 3)
Kabul Press – May 2, 2010 – EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Burn Pits Pollute Afghan Countryside (Part 2 of 3)
Kabul Press – May 4, 2010 – EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Burn Pits Pose Risk to Future Generations of Afghans (Part 3 of 3).
US Fear and Loathing over Spy Drone
By Ismail Salami | Palestine Chronicle | December 14, 2011
Tehran – In what seems to be nothing but US-style barefaced arrogance, President Barack Obama has demanded the return of a spy drone which violated the airspace of the Islamic Republic but which was to the humiliation of the US officials downed by the Iranian army.
The top-secret RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which was used by Washington as part of the covert operations the US officials have already vowed to conduct inside Iran, was hunted down by an electronic ambush and landed with a minimal degree of damage over the city of Kashmar about 140 miles inside Iran.
Consciously blind to the realities of Washington’s abysmal policies, the Western media treated the report with a predilection for suspicion and disbelief and used the somewhat innocuous-sounding term ‘reconnaissance drone’. However, when Pentagon later acknowledged the “mysterious loss of a surveillance drone”, they had no choice but to face the truth.
What strikes as bizarrely ridiculous is the fact that Washington has demanded the return of the drone which they have confessed was sent on a secret mission for gathering information.
”We have asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond,” Mr. Obama has said.
Nonetheless, Iran says that it has no intention of returning the drone and that Washington should compensate Tehran for violating the country’s airspace.
Brushing aside the possibility of returning the drone, Chairman of Iran’s Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Tuesday that the White House must face the consequences of violating Iran’s airspace.
Washington’s insistence on having the drone returned springs from some secret concern over the nature of what the Iranians would glean technologically from the spy drone.
Iranian military experts are reportedly in the final stage of extracting information from the drone. The extracted information will be used to sue the United States, an Iranian official says.
When asked at a White House news conference if he was concerned that Iran could weaken US national security by obtaining intelligence from the downed drone, Obama said, “I’m not going to comment on intelligence matters that are classified.”
Without directly referring to the spy drone, Obama had earlier repeated the same old threat that ‘all options are on the table in dealing with Iran’, saying, “Today Iran is isolated, and the world is unified in applying the toughest sanctions that Iran has ever experienced. They can break that isolation by acting responsibly and forswearing the development of nuclear weapons . . . or they can continue to operate in a fashion that isolates them from the entire world.”
Obama’s threatening words against Iran evidently reek of the literature of his predecessor George W. Bush. In fact, he is following in the footsteps of Bush and has metaphorically metamorphosed into the belligerent personality of the latter.
It is manifest that Washington has recently ramped up its espionage activities in Iran.
On May 21, 2011, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry arrested an espionage network comprising of 30 individuals who were working for the CIA and another 42 CIA operatives who had links with the network. The CIA-linked network deceived citizens into spying for the agency under the pretext of issuing visas, assisting with US permanent residency, and offering job and study opportunities in American universities.
According to Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, the disbanded network was chiefly focused on targeting the country’s nuclear plants, energy fields, and sensitive oil and gas centers with the main purpose of sabotaging these areas.
Iranian intelligence officials have learned that the CIA agents had gathered information from universities and scientific research centers in the field of aerospace, defense and biotechnology industries.
Also, on November 24, 2011, Iran arrested another 12 CIA agents who were working with Israel’s Mossad and targeted the country’s military and nuclear program. Member of the Iranian Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Parviz Sorouri said that the CIA and Mossad espionage apparatuses were making efforts to damage Iran both from inside and outside and deal a heavy blow with the help of regional intelligence services.
“Fortunately, with the swift reaction of the Iranian intelligence department, their attempts proved abortive,” Sorouri said.
If truth be told, the downing of the spy drone has surely delivered a heavy blow to the intelligence apparatus of the CIA and rustled many feathers in Washington. In an atrociously antagonistic manner, former US Vice President Dick Cheney unleashed his anger on President Barack Obama, saying that he should have doubled down on being caught spying with an overt attack on Iran.
“The right response would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down,” Cheney said.
Confusing Iran with Iraq and Afghanistan, he suggested that this could have been done either with a land invasion to recover the lost drone or by bombing the area until the drone was destroyed.
“The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it. You can do that from the air. You can do that with a quick airstrike, and in effect make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone. I was told that the president had three options on his desk. He rejected all of them. They all involved sending somebody in to try to recover it, or if you can’t do that, admittedly that would be a difficult operation, you certainly could have gone in and destroyed it on the ground with an airstrike. But he didn’t take any of the options. He asked for them to return it. And they aren’t going to do that.”
The fury of poor Mr. Cheney is quite perceptible and pathetic and the predicament of President Obama is not hard to imagine.
However, it would be better if the US officials confessed to the military prowess of Iran instead of attributing the desperate loss of their drone to their President’s ineptitude.
The downing of the spy drone is a sign that Iran is militarily powerful and efficient. However, the secret mission of the drone, which is purported to have been the collection of secret data on the Iranian nuclear sites, consolidates the idea that Washington is more than ever bent on carrying out secret black operations inside Iran and that it is harboring a malicious plan to orchestrate an attack on the Iranian nuclear sites if not an Armageddon in the region.
– Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian author and political analyst. A prolific writer, he has written numerous books and articles on the Middle East.
Settler “professor” top attraction at EU-Israel science show
By David Cronin – The Electronic Intifada – 12/06/2011
A weapons inventor representing an illegal Israeli settlement will participate in an EU-sponsored conference on scientific research later this week.
Yitzhak Ben-Israel, a retired major-general, is among the speakers listed on the programme for Thursday’s event on “technology terrorism” in Brussels. He is a member of the board of trustees in Ariel University, which is located on occupied land in the West Bank. His resumé also states that he has headed the research divisions of both the Israeli military and its Ministry of Defense.
Although Israel is an active participant in the EU’s science programme, the Union says that firms and universities based in the settlements are not eligible for the programme’s research grants. So I asked the European Commission if it had any difficulties with Ben-Israel’s role in this week’s event, considering his links to Ariel. “To the best of our knowledge, Mr Ben-Israel does not have any direct role in the [‘technology terrorism’] project, apart from being a speaker at the workshop,” Carlo Corazza, a Commission spokesman, replied.
That lame response cannot be allowed to conceal how the EU is ingratiating itself with Israel’s military and political elite. Ben-Israel is regarded as an important strategist on “defense” issues and has received several awards for his work. He has been credited with developing a “C4 system” (to help commanders manage a range of operations) for the Israeli military, as well as Nautilus, a laser system designed to counteract the crude rockets that Hamas and other resistance groups have fired from Gaza and that Hezbollah have fired from Lebanon. Furthermore, he has served on the board of directors for Israel Aerospace Industries, a maker of warplanes used to slaughter Gaza civilians during Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and 2009. And I almost forgot to add that he has been a member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for Kadima, the party set up by that mass murderer Ariel Sharon.
Selective focus on violence
Thursday’s event marks the culmination of a €1 million ($1.3 million) project called FESTOS (Foresight of Evolving Security Threats Posed by Emerging Technologies). While most of the money for FESTOS comes from the EU taxpayer, the project is being coordinated by Yair Sharan from Tel Aviv University.
In a newsletter published in February, Sharan said the aim of the project is to assess how “terrorists” are availing of technology and to recommend what policy measures should be taken in response. “New technological horizons are opened to individuals and groups who are ready to abuse technology to accomplish their evil purposes,” he wrote.
It is probably superfluous to add that the project is highly selective. It only examines violence perpetrated in response to oppression and not the routine violence of oppressor states like Israel.
Corazzo tried to justify the project by saying that “FESTOS is not about developing weapons.” He added that developing weapons is not allowed by the EU’s scientific research activities as they belong to a “civilian programme.”
Don’t be fooled by that assurance. No matter what EU officials say, the Union is helping to nurture a “security” industry in Israel that is inseparable from that country’s military and its crimes against humanity.
Last week The Financial Times published a feature about Israel’s technology prowess. It was a piece of thinly-veiled propaganda by the paper’s correspondent Tobias Buck, yet it nonetheless underscored how many of the big shots in Israel’s technology sector were trained in Unit 8200, an electronic espionage division of the Israeli military.
Israel is taking part in 800 EU research projects at the moment, with a total value of €4.3 billion. As a European taxpayer, I don’t recall ever being asked for permission to fund a war machine that is an affront to everything I believe in.
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From the Archives
A Lesser “Grade” of Human
By Michael Hoffman | Revelation of the Method | January 3, 2024
Will the more than 100 Iranians killed by terrorist bombs today be mourned in the West as victims of terrorism? Certainly not. Allied doctrine has it that the killing of Israeli or American civilians is a crime of cosmic proportions, while shedding the blood of “enemy” women and children is perfectly acceptable; indeed commendable.
The West does not memorialize the hundreds of thousands of civilians bombed by the U.S. in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and every major German city 1943-1945. America’s fire-bombing of the city of Tokyo by General Curtis LeMay in March 1945 was followed by Harry Truman’s atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of that year. Truman never had a moment of doubt or regret over the murder of more than a 100,000 Asian children, mothers and non-combatant boys and men. It was business as usual for the “noble” Allies during the “Good War.”
In the West human rights signifies passionate concern only for civilians designated as truly human: Israelis first, then Americans and British, followed by their satraps.
This inhumanity is the legacy of Talmudic ideology, beginning with tractate Sanhedrin 57a from 400 A.D., concerning liability for capital punishment: “If a Jew murders a gentile, he is exempt.”
This teaching of contempt was reiterated in the dogma of Chabad Lubavitch founder Rabbi Shneur Zalman in the 18th century. … continue
Blog Roll
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- MOE: Nearly 22,000 Students and Education Workers Killed
- Guterres in Islamabad: Genocide, cowardice, and the cage of Imran Khan
- Johnson, Marandi say Yemen holds upper hand over Saudi Arabia
- False flags won’t save aggressors, Iran FM spokesman says
- The Makkah Pact Enters Into Force: The End of American Dominance or Its New Form?
- NATO’s top generals gather in Kiev
- EU’s continuing expansion – greater threat to Russia
- US Senator Murphy says Pentagon denied him entry to US base in Qatar
- Israel expands “incitement” charge to target Palestinian education and memory
- If Americans Knew
- Three Years of Genocide: How America’s Israel-First Media Filtered Out the Truth
- Israeli war chief briefs ministers on potential war against Palestinian Authority
- New Report: Israel Killed nearly 21,000 Palestinian Students and Education Workers in Past Three Years
- Israel’s flailing chatbot army
- Five Palestinians Killed, Others Injured by Israeli Fire in Gaza
- Israel is rewriting the Palestinian curriculum in East Jerusalem to erase Palestinian identity
- Three years of genocide: Israel turned prisons into killing grounds and torture sites
- Three years of genocide. Words fail. Daily Update
- ‘I’d rather die than go back’: A Palestinian teen’s 10-month nightmare in Israeli jail
- How Jared Kushner’s firm’s investment in an Israeli company could be a major conflict of interest
- No Tricks Zone
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
