"A nation's best defense is an educated citizenry" - Thomas Jefferson ------- Our enemy is coming again and we must be prepared ... our worst must be better than their best! – The Center for Strategic Information Application (CSIA) provides focused news - occasional analysis and interpretation ---- Recommended searches "absolutely" -"must read" - "troubling" - "9/11" - "jihad" - "sharia" - "Federal Reserve" - "Sibel".
* Why do they even bother? Their biggest shareholders are Arabs, their ads are mostly paid for by Arabs, only Al Bebeeceera would have more Arab-Muslim announcers for ‘balance’, and they promote the Haj as if there was no tomorrow. Their BS is indistiguishable from Al Jizz. That’s why they call it the Caliphate News Networx…
Quite a feat: CNN has pulled off the MSM equivalent of describing a spiral staircase without using one’s hands. It has managed to produce a segment on “honor killings” and related violence in the UK . . . without using the word “Muslim” or “Islam.” CNN Newsroom anchor Don Lemon introduced the segment this afternoon at 1:37 PM EDT.
DON LEMON: Women forced into marriages, or killed for having the wrong boyfriend. So-called “honor crimes” are often committed by fathers or brothers when daughters do something that supposedly brings shame on the family. It’s on the rise in Britain, and authorities, they are very worried about it. Our Paula Newton reports.
Honor crimes are “often committed” by father and brothers? And the crimes are “on the rise” in Britain? Now why would that be? Newton did little to elucidate. She told the story of Banaz Mahmod [seen here]: kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered at the order of her father, Mahmod Mahmod, for “bringing shame” on her family. Newton never mentioned that Mahmod was a Muslim, an Iraqi Kurd. ....
Instead of identifying the root of the problem, Newton said only that British authorities have instituted public awareness campaigns in “the few communities”where they’ve seen problems. She cited a figure of 17,000 honor crimes or forced marriages as possibly being only the tip of the iceberg in the UK. ....
The closest the segment came to revealing the truth of the matter was during an interview with a woman living in hiding for fear of her life for having converted to Christianity and refused an arranged marriage. She mentions that her family has justified killing her for her failure to obey Koran and Allah. And at another point in the segment, brief images of women in black burquas appear.
But the words “Muslim” or “Islam” are never heard during the segment. Newton again elliptically speaks only of “communities” where “young women still live in fear.” Which communities might those be? CNN doesn’t say.
The network deserves some credit, I suppose, for airing the subject at all. But CNN’s failure to mention by name the religion that lies at the root of the problem constitutes a particularly craven political correctness.
A number of seemingly unconnected events, as examined and analysed this week by World-Check, have resulted in our conclusion that compliance officers should raise their risk estimates for the Middle East. See why we are taking this position, and decide for yourself.
Look at the facts:
A Syrian general, Brigadier Mohammed Suleiman, was assassinated in the Syrian coastal town of Tartus. He was reportedly responsible for the delivery of long-range missiles into Lebanon for Hizballah.
Iran is reportedly moving weapons into Lebanon through Turkey, without the knowledge and consent of the Turkish government. News of the shipments, which are said to be both overland and via aircraft violating Turkish airspace, has been released by Israel.
Senior Hizballah officials have made several public bellicose statements in recent weeks, again utilising the transparent excuse of the Israeli occupation of the disputed Shebaa Farms area, part of Syria that Israel has held since the 1967 war.
Iran reportedly tested a new anti-ship weapon today, allegedly capable of reaching targets 300 km. away. The announcement was made by the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Seven members of the Bahai faith have been arrested in Iran, and charged with having set up an illegal organisation with connections to several countries, including Israel. The religion's governing council is based in Israel.
The deadline set by the United States and the other world powers has now expired, and Iran has threatened to close the Persian Gulf waterway in the event any military action is brought against it.
There's a pattern here, and you should carefully evaluate it yourself, and raise risk levels for the region.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Monday demanded that Russia end a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence in Georgia, agree to an immediate cease-fire and accept international mediation to end the crisis in the former Soviet republic.....
Eric Filiol, head scientist at the French Signals Academy's Virology and Cryptology Lab, recently reported that hackers could steal data from computers at the lab without disrupting its network.
At the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Filiol demonstrated how the attack, nicknamed “Windows Jingle Attack, works. The attack utilizes audio data to steal passwords and intrude into the system, InformationWeek reported. The hacker first encodes a user password into audio data and conceal that data into the Windows startup tone, a publicly audible sound that can be read from afar with a local or remote microphone and then decoded.
Windows Jingle Attack builds on a research conducted by National Security Agency (News - Alert) (NSA) into the signals that emanate from electronic devices and how to prevent the interception of those signals. It does require malware with audio processing code to encode the information to be stolen.
“The malware needs to be able to replace the Windows start-up tone,” Filiol was quoted as saying in the InformationWeek report. “And the person receiving the information needs some means to pick up the startup tone, a microphone that works over long distances or hidden locally, and software to decode the transmitted information.”
Most likely, Windows Jingle Attack is not easily executable like the other attacks. However, dangerous scenarios could arise from the attacker’s ability to steal data from a computer without a network connection.
Instances of similar attacks were reported in the past, InformationWeek said. In 1987, the NSA found that KGB, the intelligence and internal security agency of the former Soviet Union, had replaced the circuit boards and power cords in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in order to covertly siphon message data.
According to Filiol in the report, “an isolated computer is quite never really disconnected from the outside.”
The “Jingle” technique could also be used to create other covert channels of communication. For example, Filiol said, data could be encoded visually on-screen, using hard disk read/write noise, or computer fans.
Filiol demonstrated the Windows Jingle Attack technique using an actual altered Windows startup tone and showed impressive results. He demonstrated a startup tone where the encoded data could be heard and then he demonstrated an optimized version where the presence of hidden data was undetectable to the human ear.
Filiol said he would post a hidden message in his presentation in the Black Hat archives and announced a token prize to the first person to decipher the message. The presentation should be available in two weeks, said Filiol.
John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, on Monday upstaged George W. Bush’s administration over the Georgia crisis with his strongest statement so far calling on the US and its allies to come together in “universal condemnation of Russian aggression”.
Mr McCain, who gave his first response early last Friday several hours before any official word from the Bush administration, said the US should take steps to assist Georgia and other democracies in the region that he said were threatened by Russia’s actions.
....“Russia’s aggression against Georgia is both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance to the United States,” said Mr McCain. “The implications go beyond their threat to . . . a democratic Georgia. Russia is using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbours such as Ukraine, for choosing to associate with the west.”
....“What is interesting about the US response is that you have the McCain campaign in one corner immediately understanding the significance of Russia’s aggression and in the opposite corner you have the Bush administration standing with the Obama campaign taking a much more diluted stance,” said John Bolton, the former Bush administration ambassador to the United Nations. ....
....Mr McCain’s response, which included recommended policy actions for the administration, has also enabled his campaign to restate its support for a “league of democracies”, which would exclude Russia and include countries such as Georgia. Mr McCain pointed out at the weekend that Russia’s membership of the United Nations Security Council had prevented that body from taking any “meaningful action”. ....
....We all like to be right, myself included, but sometimes it is not so wonderful.I have written a series of articles over the last few weeks on the coming nightmare centered on the neo-con grand strategy.I predicted the outbreak of hostilities in Georgia and Russia and said that there is a strong link between what is happening there and to what is about to happen against Iran.I said that the war in Georgia was intended as a strategic distraction for Russia as America, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and others assemble their large naval blockade of Iran, but a strategic distraction that would backfire.I also described the massive US Naval armada headed for Iran; the make-up of this extremely large and powerful force is as I described it several days ago (this has now been confirmed by Israeli sources).
As Russian troops and air force pilots, and thousands of Russian civilians, die in combat in Europe for the first time since 1945, only miles from their homeland (on land that was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union for centuries), the sleeping Russian Bear has been awaken and filled with a terrible resolve.The fact that only within the last few weeks have the 1,000+ American Marines, sent in to train the Georgians for this very war, left is not overlooked by the Russians. The fact that (according to DEBKE the well connected Israeli strategy and military site) over 1,000 Israeli “mercenaries” are actively engaged in combat with the Russian Army on the side of the Georgians is also not overlooked. The fact that the American neo-con administration and the Israelis have been engaged in a furry of advanced arms sales and deliveries over the last year, and that these weapons are killing Russians on their historic territory, is not overlooked. The fact that the Bush administration tried very hard to get its European NATO partners to accept Georgia as a NATO member without success (too many European nations saw the trap and smelled a rather large rat), and the fact that had this neo-con gambit succeeded NATO would be in war against Russia now ~ this also is not overlooked by the Russian bear.The fact that the Georgian Defense Minister is a ‘former’ Israeli and many current and retired Israeli generals are deeply involved in Georgia is also not overlooked by the Russian bear.
The American supported, Israeli commando staffed, attack on the civilian population of South Ossetia ~ where Georgian troops conducted volley-fire artillery cleanings of a number of villages and settlements housing Russian citizens, destroying people’s homes and killing 1,500 civilians (and killing 10 lightly armed Russian peacekeeping troops and wounding 30) in the opening stages of the attack ~ is also not overlooked by the Russians. This is the Russian 9/11.
While the Russian 9/11 is/was taking place, the massive American/British/French naval armada was/is assembling to begin the blockade of Iran (a blockade is considered an act of war under international law), and the European Union, acting under cover of the media coverage of the Olympics, has formally approved a blockade of Iran (not using the word blockade but establishing tough new sanctions on Iran with cargo inspections and intercepts ~in other words a BLOCKADE). Neither Russia nor China, which gets a large percentage of its oil and natural gas from Iran, are willing to allow this to happen. The strategic distraction for Russia is not going to work; nor is China going to allow its distraction ~ the hosting of the Olympics ~ to rob it of its strategic source of oil and natural gas, so necessary for its economy.
We have the Israeli population, a majority who support an attack on Iran, “to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons of mass destruction”, who do not know that the Iranians already have advanced biological weapons of mass destruction with potential kill levels very similar to that of strategic nuclear war. They will pay with their lives for this lack of knowledge.On one level, the neo-cons are all about creating a new Middle East environment where Israel is safe from any regional Muslin power and holds regional military supremacy.On another level, the global bankers are using Israel and the neo-cons to bring about the End Game of their long quest to establish a New World Order with themselves as lords and masters of all those allowed to remain alive. At one level, the public is told that Iran “must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons” and that this is the reason for whatever action is necessary.Of course, we are not told ~ at least by the main stream news media ~ that even the American intelligence establishment (as well as United Nations inspectors) state clearly that the Iranian nuclear enrichment program is but several orders of magnitude below that necessary for a nuclear weapons program.The reality is that the nuclear enrichment issue is but a smokescreen for the on-going neo-con grand strategy.....
....If the well being of Israel is not the reason for the grand strategy at the highest level, we have to ask ourselves just what in the hell is the driving force. ....
....The blockade is not being set up to “stop” the Iranians ~ there is in reality nothing to stop in terms of a nuclear weapons program and they already have a global strategic advanced biowar (ABW) program that is as good as a global strategic nuclear war program at a fraction of the cost. The blockade is being set up to cause a war. ....To cause a war that will eventually result in the use of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.To cause World War III.
The “strategic diversion”, that is the war between Georgia and Russia, is being set up to drive Russia into the devil’s brew of the coming war; you can bet that China will also be given good “reasons” to be totally committed in the days and weeks ahead.
There are certain global banking families who have made countless billions and even trillions over the last 200+ years organizing wars, economic depressions, revolutions, etc. to profit on everyone’s misery. ...But it is simply too late in human history to be doing this now. The level of mass murder/destruction from 21st Century warfare is beyond our ability to recover. So why continue.Again, we get back to the question is this just totally crazy or just plain evil. ....
...I suspect that this is all simply unstoppable.However, being human we want to live not be killed in some insane Third World War.The trouble is, time is very short and most political leaders are totally corrupt, bought and paid for time and again by many of the same forces arranging the coming global war. ....
GUATEMALA CITY - Robbers armed with machetes hacked a U.S. tourist to death and seriously wounded his wife in an attack aboard the couple's sailboat in northeastern Guatemala, the woman told The Associated Press on Sunday.
In a telephone interview from her hospital bed, Nancy Dryden, 67, said her husband, Daniel Perry Dryden, 66, was killed by four men who boarded their boat late Saturday while it was anchored in Lake Izabal.
"They poked us and stabbed us with the machetes, and they were asking for money, specifically dollars," said Dryden, who was listed in stable condition at a hospital in the lakeside town of Morales.
The thieves were apparently unhappy with the take. "We had a few quetzales (Guatemala's currency), but we had no dollars with us on the boat," Dryden recounted.
The Drydens, who are retired and live near Anchorage, Alaska, had bought the boat in February. They were equipping the vessel in preparation for a voyage into the Caribbean and eventually to the eastern coast of the United States.
Dryden said the four assailants may have reached the boat by swimming from shore and brandished long machetes that "seemed liked curved swords."
After assaulting the couple, the men demanded she hand over the keys to the vessel, which has an auxiliary motor. When she didn't _ she was unable to tell whether they wanted the keys to the boat, or a small dinghy the couple used to get to shore _ the men left, also apparently by swimming.
Dryden struggled over to the boat's radio and sent out a distress call. "I said we need help ... I said my husband was not moving," Dryden recalled.
She said she expects her children to arrive in Guatemala Monday and plans to be transferred to the United States for medical care.
Assistant Police Commissioner Luis Say said the attack is being investigated.
Located near Guatemala's Caribbean coast, Lake Izabal is popular among tourists for its jungle scenery and wildlife.
In March, protesting farmers briefly kidnapped four Belgian tourists at Lake Izabal to press for the release of a jailed activist. They were released unharmed.
One of the major rhetorical tactics of the global Muslim Brotherhood can be characterized as “accuse others of that of which you yourself are guilty.” ....
As Russian forces attack the Caucasian republic of Georgia, many in the West are no doubt puzzled. While many might be familiar with Georgia, fewer will have heard of South Ossetia before Russia sent tanks into the region on Friday. Although this remote dispute is taking place in an unfamiliar area, its repercussions will undoubtedly impact global security. In order to understand, a discussion of the conflict's background is in order. ....
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Homeland Security Department swept aside evaluations of government experts and named Mississippi - home to powerful U.S. lawmakers with sway over the agency - as a top location for a new $451 million, national laboratory to study some of the world's most virulent biological threats, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Mississippi's lawmakers include the Democratic chairman of the department's oversight committee in the House and the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is expected to approve money to build the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at one of five sites being considered. The two lawmakers said they were unaware of the Homeland Security evaluation system that scored the Mississippi site so low.
The disclosure is the latest example of what critics assert is the Bush administration's politicizing of government decisions, such as efforts to steer science over global warming at the Environmental Protection Agency and hiring and firing practices at the Justice Department.
"It is very suspicious," said Irwin Goldman of the University of Wisconsin, a leader of the unsuccessful effort to build the lab in Madison. His community's offer was among nine sites rejected even though the government scored it more highly than Mississippi's. "We wondered how everybody else did. It's interesting to know that we came out ahead of one that was short-listed."
The states where locations were eliminated despite earning scores higher than Mississippi include California, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin. ....
* A nations ambassador has to represent his nations interest in the face of all odds, often in difficult circumstances. Lately, it seems the US has dispatched with this fundamental principle. When hiring adherents of the Muhammedan faith it should be clear that the loyalties of such people never lie with the infidel nation state, but always with their fellow Muslims. Here once again the particularly troubling case of Sada Cucumber, whom we already featured repeatedly: ....
....In the debate over that legislation, the most contentious elements dealt with working out the DNI's relations with the heads of Cabinet departments, particularly Defense. In 15 of the 24 sections of the amended Executive Order 12333 that detail the DNI's authority, he is given what one senior intelligence official describes as "the pen," meaning final sign-off authority. For example, the DNI has authority to require an agency to give access to and to disseminate all intelligence information -- even materials that in the past were kept inside special compartments by Pentagon agencies. ....
....Gates credited solving the contentious Defense Department issues in EO 12333 to Mike McConnell, a former Navy admiral and now DNI; Michael V. Hayden, a former Air Force general and now CIA director; James R. Clapper Jr., another former Air Force general and now undersecretary of defense for intelligence; and himself. He said they "trust each other, and we spent a lot of time together working through a lot of these problems. To be honest, I think with a different cast of characters it probably could not have been done."
But EO 12333 says the DNI "shall oversee and direct the implementation of the National Intelligence Program and execution of the National Intelligence Program budget." There is no mention of the Military Intelligence Program or the military intelligence budget, which runs about $10 billion annually. When it comes to this area the congressional language remains, giving the DNI essentially only broad consultation authority and the power to shift some Pentagon money around.
....Georgia’s desire for NATO membership was also a factor in this weekend’s Russian response. Putin has spoken very strongly against Georgian entry into the western alliance, seeing it as a threatening attempt to encircle Russia as well as an western intrusion into its traditional sphere of influence. This is also how the Kremlin regards the American military bases in Central Asia and NATO’s eastern expansion to its borders.
By attacking Georgia, Russia may have crushed its neighbor’s NATO hopes. The ruthless Russian invasion showed Europe’s more reluctant members they may eventually wind up in a bloody Caucasian war if they accept Georgia into their organization.
In reality, Russia wants the United States out of the Caucuses completely and probably regards its Georgia invasion as the first step toward this goal. America has built a pipeline from oil and gas-rich Kazakhstan through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey that breaks Russia’s stranglehold on supplying energy to Europe, lessening Europe’s dependence on Moscow. And it plans to build another. ....
....But there is another reason besides current political ones that prompted the Kremlin’s military action. By invading Georgia, Russia is also following its age-old historical pattern. When Moscow is weak, as it was after 1917 and in 1991, the states on its periphery break away. But when the center is strong, as it is again becoming now, it sets out to reincorporate those very same peripheral states. “Georgia is only the start,” said Saakashvili in an interview with a German newspaper six weeks ago. “Tomorrow the Baltic states, then Poland.”
While America has been fighting the war against Islamic terror, Russia has bided its time, solidifying its power at home and grabbing as much energy resources as possible. Once again, Russia has chosen to show its totalitarian and expansionist strength for all the world to see. America, meanwhile, with hands full in the terror war, appears only able to urge restraint -- while one of its key allies potentially faces its own ruin and loss of freedom.
(Compiler's note: Ever wonder why the American people have lost interest in the standard media? It has become another form of tabloid rather than a source of real news. rca) Today I was watching Fox News; yes I know it is becoming one of the least favorites sources of real news for me as well. However, I was hoping to glean some important information from the network. Suddenly, an alert flashed across the screen and it happened that Russia had invaded Georgia, a United States ally and possible future NATO member. The talking head was just getting ready to actually speak first hand to a witness to the incursion, when suddenly she told the witness to hold on because there was another breaking story that they had to report on first and then they would return to him.
What was this important story that Fox News deems more important than a Russian incursion into a U.S. ally’s territory? It was nothing more than former Presidential hopeful John Edwards had an affair on his wife and they broke in for a press release.I was dumbfounded and numbed by the utter absurdity of this situation. For one thing, Edwards is a non-news issue because he is no longer a Presidential contender, and secondly we have already seen this exact same farce play out with Rudy Giuliani. Remember, wife dying and he decides that he must have someone else.
I waited for quite some time for the news to revert back to the importance of the conflict between Russia and Georgia, but the more I watched the less likely it seemed that the news would return to anything of importance and the talking heads were very satisfied discussing what would be the political fallout of John Edwards’s political career. I have seen too many instances where the major media has not covered what is the important news and will instead declare themselves as “The Election Headquarters” of a political cycle which nobody is interested in. Yet, it seems that they are doing everything they can to entice us into getting interested into who wins. Honestly, I think that the majority of Americans do not care because they know that there will be no real change.
There are too many important things happening in the world than the Olympics, infidelity, and Paris Hilton. Although, I liked the way she made both candidates seem as irrelevant as they are within a thirty second spot. Quite simply, the media is not reporting the news that is important to the people of this country. I find it ridiculous that the major media would concentrate its efforts on issues that do not affect the average American citizen. However, any time there is a conflict in the world Americans will be affected whether it is economically, or emotionally.
There are a few things coming to light which seems to be painting a rather dim picture of events yet to come. The news this week was a Georgian attack on Russian soldiers in South Ossetia. South Ossetia is a break away territory from Georgia and requires foreign peacekeepers to protect them from Georgia. These peacekeepers do include Russian troops, but also troops from the United Nations. For some reason The Georgian government decided that it would be wise to start a war with Russia even though Russia is a much more powerful adversary.
Georgia is an ally of the United States in the war on terror and they even have some troops serving in Iraq with American soldiers. This US alignment is a thorn in the side of the Russian government. In recent years the Bush administration has been discussing the need to install a missile defense system in the region, something which the Russians have been steadfastly against. Russia sees the deployment of US missile systems in the region much the same as the United States saw the deployment of Russian missiles during the “Cuban Missile Crisis.”
However, we see now that Georgia is to be a member of NATO and Russia is fearful of this organization, mostly because it was developed with the intention of keeping the old Soviet Union in line. One thing that comes to mind is that at about the time that the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia was having some trouble with Chechen rebels and was hard pressed to attack Chechnya. Now the Jerusalem Post is reporting that the US is sending two more aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf. This is a definite buildup in the Middle East which can only serve one of two purposes. One possibility is that the United States is expecting Iran to attack troops or ships in the region, not very likely. The other is that the United States is placing Aircraft Carriers in strategic points to strike possible multiple targets.
This gives us the exact same scenario that we had before the United States invaded Iraq, the only difference being a couple of the players. In other words, substitute Georgia for Chechnya, and Iraq for Iran, and you have a carbon copy of the previous events. I must say that in my opinion this is much too coincidental for me to believe that there is not some underlying agenda at work here. We must wonder if this was a calculated plan carried out by the United States in order to preoccupy Russia while we go and take care of Iran, or if this just fell into our lap.
One thing is certain, a country is most likely to attack enemies in their own territory rather than go after enemies attacking allies in distant lands. It does seem that the little region of Georgia would be nothing more than a gnat to Russia and can be quickly extinguished. However, NATO troops are now moving into the region and this is sure to create an even more aggravated atmosphere. Then we must consider what if Chechnya decides to flare up again. Now we would have Russia facing a fight on three fronts and in no position to help its trade partner Iran.
Sounds like a hell of a gamble and a bit reckless, but I believe that there are some in the government that see the end of President Bush’s term and they are desperate for a war with Iran. Israel and the United States are in agreement in this matter and if you go to the Jerusalem Post website you will see a banner across the page that reads “The Iranian Threat,” with a big fat picture of Ahmadinejad plastered right in the middle. This is the time when we must watch world events very closely because they are fluid and changing every day. It is almost impossible to keep up with it all but there are certain patterns that we can see. The pattern in this circumstance is being repeated, but it is my belief that there may be slightly different outcomes than before.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended Israel's right to make its own decision about whether it takes military action against Iran, in an interview released over the weekend.
"We don't say yes or no to Israeli military operations. Israel is a sovereign country," she said in response to a question from The Politico Web site as to whether she was concerned that America would be blamed in the case of an IDF attack on the Islamic Republic. ....
Two additional United States naval aircraft carriers are heading to the Gulf and the Red Sea, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Kuwait Times.
Kuwait began finalizing its "emergency war plan" on being told the vessels were bound for the region.
The US Navy would neither confirm nor deny that carriers were en route. US Fifth Fleet Combined Maritime Command located in Bahrain said it could not comment due to what a spokesman termed "force-protection policy."
While the Kuwaiti daily did not name the ships it believed were heading for the Middle East, The Media Line's defense analyst said they could be the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan.
Within the last month, the Roosevelt completed an exercise along the US east coast focusing on communication among navies of different countries. It has since been declared ready for operational duties. The Reagan, currently with the Seventh Fleet, had just set sail from Japan.
The Seventh Fleet area of operation stretches from the East Coast of Africa to the International Date Line.
Meanwhile, the Arabic news agency Moheet reported at the end of July that an unnamed American destroyer, accompanied by two Israeli naval vessels traveled through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean. A week earlier, a US nuclear submarine accompanied by a destroyer and a supply ship moved into the Mediterranean, according to Moheet.
Currently there are two US naval battle groups operating in the Gulf: one is an aircraft carrier group, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, which carries some 65 fighter aircraft. The other group is headed by the USS Peleliu which maintains a variety of planes and strike helicopters.
The ship movements coincide with the latest downturn in relations between Washington and Teheran. The US and Iran are at odds over Iran's nuclear program, which the Bush administration claims is aimed at producing material for nuclear weapons; however, Teheran argues it is only for power generation.
Kuwait, like other Arab countries in the Gulf, fears it will be caught in the middle should the US decide to launch an air strike against Iran if negotiations fail. The Kuwaitis are finalizing details of their security, humanitarian and vital services, the newspaper reported.
The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman - lie just across the Gulf from Iran. Generals in the Iranian military have repeatedly warned that American interests in the region would be targeted if Iran is subjected to any military strike by the US or its Western allies.
Bahrain hosts the US Fifth Fleet, while there is a sizeable American base in Qatar. It is assumed the US also has military personnel in the other Gulf states, The Media Line's defense analyst said.
Iran is thought to have intelligence operatives working in the GCC states, according to Dubai-based military analysts.
The standoff between the US and Iran has left the Arab nations' political leaders in something of a bind, as they were being used as pawns by Washington and Teheran, according to The Media Line analyst.
Iran has offered them economic and industrial sweeteners, while the US is boosting their defense capabilities. US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have paid visits to the GCC states in a bid to win their support.
(Compiler's note: This may be from Dec 21, 2005, but well worth reading if you want a program to help follow the actions on-going in the world today. Read it carefully, I've tried to help with high-lights. rca)
By F William Engdahl from December 21, 2005
On December 15, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) inaugurated an oil pipeline running from Kazakhstan to northwest China.The pipeline will undercut the geopolitical significance of the Washington-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC)oil pipeline which opened this past summer amid big fanfare and support from Washington.
The geopolitical chess game for the control of the energy flows of Central Asia and overall of Eurasia from the Atlantic to the China
Sea is sharply evident in the latest developments.
Making the Kazakh-China oil pipeline link even more politically interesting, from the standpoint of an emerging Eurasian move towards some form of greater energy independence from Washington, is the fact that China is reportedly considering asking Russian companies to help it fill the pipeline with oil, until Kazakh supply is sufficient.
Initially, half the oil pumped through the new 200,000 barrel-a-day pipeline will come from Russia because of insufficient output from nearby Kazakh fields, Kazakhstan's Vice Energy Minister Musabek Isayev said on November 30 in Beijing. That means closer China-Kazakhstan-Russia energy cooperation - the nightmare scenario of Washington.
Simply put, the United States stands to lose major leverage over the entire strategic Eurasian region with the latest developments. The Kazakh developments also have more than a little to do with the fact that the Washington war drums are beating loudly against Iran.
The new China pipeline runs 962 kilometers (598 miles) and will take China a third of the way to Kashagan in the Caspian Sea, one of the world's largest accessible oil reserves. Kashagan is the largest new oil discovery in decades and exceeds the size of the North Sea. This is a major reason Washington has such a strong interest in supporting democratic regime change in the Central Asia region of late.
In the next 10 years, Kazakhstan plans to almost triple oil production, prompting the landlocked nation to seek new export routes because the country wants to avoid pipelines through Russia and excessive Russian dependence. China is now among Kazakhstan's major target markets.
Best public estimates are that Kazakhstan has 35 billion barrels of discovered oil reserves, twice the amount in the North Sea, and may hold about three times more, according to a Kazakh government report released on November 18 in London. German oil engineers have privately reported that recent drilling by Italy's AGIP, the current oil consortium leader for Kashagan, a huge field offshore Kazakhstan southwest of Tengiz, has confirmed enormous oil deposits there.
The government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev plans to produce 3.6 million barrels a day of oil from all fields in Kazakhstan, onshore and off, by 2015. For 2005, they expect to average about 1.3 million barrels a day, making Kazakhstan far larger than Azerbaijan, and second in oil production of the former Soviet states only to Russia.
The December 15 opening of the new Kazakh-China pipeline was a major event for Beijing. Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency, attended the opening. CNPC has invested more than $2.6 billion in Kazakhstan since 1997.
Beijing takes the geopolitical prize In October, Beijing scored a second major geopolitical coup when China completed a $4.18 billion takeover of PetroKazakhstan Inc. It was, in a sense, revenge on Washington for the blocking of the China acquisition of Unocal. US oil majors had made major efforts to lock up Kazakhstan oil after discovery of major oil offshore in the Kashagan field. They failed. ExxonMobil was charged with bribery of Kazakh officials to win a presence in the Kazakh oil business, and a senior Mobil executive was later jailed on US tax evasion in New York tied to the Kazakh bribery payments.
Nazarbayev enjoys good relations with Russia's President Vladimir Putin. He was general secretary of the Communist Party when Kazakhstan was part of the USSR, and is regarded as a sly fox in terms of dealing with Moscow, while also keeping a clear distance from Moscow.
In October, Russia's Lukoil failed in its bid to buy up the Kazakh state oil company, PetroKazakhstan, in a privatization. Nazarbayev indicated a major geopolitical shift in strategy, compared with a decade or more ago, when it appeared that Washington was to be the major foreign ally of Nazarbayev. At that time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's company, Chevron, became the lead oil contractor and operator in the Kazakh Tengiz oil field. That was just after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the US oil presence in Kazakhstan was a major US political priority supported by the Bill Clinton administration.
The Chevron Tengizchevoil consortium formed the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in 1993 amid great fanfare. After years of haggling with the Kazakh government, Chevron finally constructed a pipeline from Tengiz on the Caspian's northeastern shore to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. Following years of pressure, most members of the CPC group, including Chevron and Oman Oil Co, decided to not pursue future expansions of the CPC line.
Now, a decade later and with the scope of Kazakh oil deposits dwarfing any in the region, with its recent confirmed drillings in the Kashagan field, Nazarbayev has scored a political balance of power coup by turning to Beijing.
In October, Nazarbayev announced that CNPC had won the bid to buy PetroKazakhstan. What will be important to watch, now that Nazarbayev won re-election on December 4, further extending his 14-year reign, is to what extent Washington begins to play up "human rights abuses" by Nazarbayev.
A fledgling "Orange" revolution a la Ukraine has sprung up behind opposition candidate Zharmakhan Tuyakbai and his party, For a Just Kazakhstan. He came in second with 6.6% of the vote and cried fraud, but Washington's and the US media response were muted this time. Rice, in a major trip to shore up sagging US influence in Central Asia on October 10-13, held a private meeting with Tuyakbai. He is clearly being groomed for a possible future role, but clearly not yet.
Washington suffers strategic setback A major setback for Washington's Eurasian encirclement strategy vis-a-vis China and Russia came several months ago when Uzbekistan's autocratic president Islam Karimov told Washington it could no longer use the Karshi-Khanabad military air base in southeast Uzbekistan, a major piece in Washington's Eurasian chess board play, put into place after September 11, 2001.
Since strong US protest over the government's bloody suppression of protests against a state trial of alleged Islamic fundamentalists in Andijan last May, Karimov's relations with Washington have deteriorated. Karimov's decision to move so aggressively was no doubt influenced by the successful March "Tulip" revolution which toppled Askar Akayev in neighboring Kyrgystan and set the stage for the July election of opposition and US-backed candidate Kurmanbek Bakiev.
On July 29, Karimov announced he was evicting the US entirely from the airbase with a January 2006 exit date. In October, the US Senate, as retaliation, voted not to pay $23 million in base user fees to Uzbekistan for past use. Moscow and Beijing have both moved into the vacuum. A look at the map will indicate why. Uzbekistan is strategic for control or to prevent control by foreign powers such as Washington, of Central Asia and pipeline routes linking Russia, China and Kazakhstan.In October 2004, Moscow secured a long-term military base agreement to station troops in Dushanbe, the capital of nearby Tajikistan, a move by Russia to limit the spread of Washington-backed "color revolutions" in the region.
That appeared to redraw the Eurasian geostrategic map in Moscow's favor, with the recent US loss of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is now effectively Russia's main ally in Central Asia.
Washington's position in Eurasia and its future relations with Kazakhstan suddenly assumed high priority. Clearly, the Bush administration decided the time was not ripe to try a full-blown "Orange" revolution in Kazakhstan this month, at least not until Washington's position in the region was stronger. That was a clear purpose of the October Rice visit.
But now with the strong geopolitical turn of Nazarbayev toward playing Beijing to offset potential Washington domination in the region, the situation has begun to change dramatically. A year ago, China attempted to buy out a 16% share in the Kashagan consortium from British Gas, which was willing to sell. That sale was blocked by US consortium member ExxonMobil, the company subsequently charged with bribery and convicted. Now China has opened an oil flow out of Kazakhstan to the East, not the West.
This has major strategic implications for the future of the Washington-backed BTC oil pipeline. That pipeline was built by the Caspian Oil Consortium headed by British Petroleum, and was backed by both Clinton and George W Bush, despite the fact that it was the most costly and least viable oil route out of the Caspian.
Former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had been the chief Washington lobbyist advocating the BTC route to circumvent Russia. Its construction was undertaken on the assumption that it would carry not only Baku oil, but also a major share of Kazakh oil from Tengiz and offshore Kashagan oil fields. Oops!
A larger China energy strategy The December China-Kazakhstan pipeline opening is one part of a massive Chinese plan to secure as much Kazakh oil riches as possible.
The Chinese plan to connect several pieces of infrastructure - part Soviet-built, part Chinese-built - then reverse the flow of some of them and forge a new export corridor stretching from Kazakhstan's oil-rich Caspian basin, including Kashagan, through a series of western and central-Kazakh oil zones, and ultimately into China. With completion of this major project, China will for the first time have secured a source of imported energy not vulnerable to US aircraft carrier battle groups, as is the case with present oil deliveries from the Persian Gulf and Sudan.
Before opening the new pipeline, China imported only 25,000 bpd from Kazakhstan. Once the link between Kenkiyak and Kumkol is finished, connecting existing infrastructure near the Caspian with the portion inaugurated on December 15, the project will pump 1 million bpd. That would be about 15% of China's crude oil needs.
China then plans to tap into production from dozens of Kazakh sites it has acquired during the past several years. This is oil that currently goes west, or north through Russia.
Beijing still prefers the color 'red' Beijing has also studied the Washington-backed series of regime changes across Central Asia and the "color revolutions" from Georgia to Ukraine and most recently Kyrgystan, and has evidently decided to "nip in the bud" any similar non-governmental organization efforts within China, or in areas strategic to long-term China energy security.
Kyrgystan's "Tulip" revolution last July sounded alarm bells in Beijing. Possible Chinese pipeline links to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and or Russia would clearly be threatened by a ring of new pro-North Atlantic Treaty Organization neighbors and states between western China and its potential oil sources. Their alarm led to warmer ties between Uzbekistan's Karimov and Beijing in recent months, as well as an invitation from Moscow-tied Belarus President Yuri Lukashenko.
The Washington journal Foreign Policy ran a short item in its October edition by an apparent Chinese dissident. The article, titled, "China's Color-Coded Crackdown", is worth quoting:
In China's halls of power, the fall of post-Soviet authoritarian regimes has raised the uncomfortable specter of a Chinese popular uprising. According to the Hong Kong-based Open magazine, a report by Chinese President Hu Jintao, titled "Fighting the People's War Without Gunsmoke", is guiding the Chinese Communist Party's "counterrevolution" offensive. The report, disseminated inside the party, outlines a series of measures aimed at nipping a potential Chinese "color revolution" in the bud.
Some Chinese apparently call it the Battle of the Two Georges - George Bush and global financier George Soros. The Foreign Policy piece continues:
Perhaps the most telling sign of China's concern has been its crackdown on non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Beijing believes that international organizations, especially advocacy NGOs, have acted as Washington's "black hands" behind the recent regime changes in Central Asia. A recent issue of a biweekly journal run by the Communist Party Propaganda Department referred to Washington's "$1 billion annual budget for global democratization" and identified NGOs such as the International Republican Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Institute of Peace and the Open Society Institute as organizations that "brainwash" local people and train political oppositions.
In late August, ahead of a visit by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Chinese police raided the office of the Empowerment and Rights Institute, a human rights group supported by the NED. A new regulation offering more freedom to NGOs was initially expected later this year. No longer. The Ministry of Civil Affairs has now stopped processing registration applications, effectively freezing many groups' operations. Instead, the only government offices taking an interest in NGOs are the national security agency [China's secret police] and public security forces.
Both have launched investigations into local NGOs. Some senior Chinese managers working for international NGOs have been called in for "private talks" with authorities, though no related arrests or detentions have been reported. Some NGO offices have had plainclothes security officers show up in an effort to clandestinely ferret out information on foreign staff and organizations. Environmental groups have been singled out for a massive government survey, most likely because they have angered powerful agencies by successfully initiating public debates on controversial issues, such as genetically modified foods and huge dam projects, and because only around 10% of green groups are currently registered with the state.
Meanwhile, Beijing has commissioned researchers from several provincial academies of social science to study the activities of NGOs in China. NGO publications such as directories experienced unexpectedly strong sales in recent months, as they no doubt became convenient study tools. Likewise, experts have been dispatched to Central Asia to study how those color revolutions first sprung roots. In a May 19 Politburo meeting, senior administrators from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where foreign research funds are usually well received, were reminded of the "acute and complicated struggle in the ideological realm in the new millennium". In other words, be careful about the political implications of your research.
According to sources in Beijing, final decisions on the government's approach to NGOs will be made in a November meeting of the State Council, China's highest executive body. As long as the clouds of color revolution are hovering over Central Asia - some, for example, expect storms in Belarus - the Chinese government will stay on high alert ... Beijing's moves against the country's NGO community remain largely unnoticed outside China. If the international community wants an open and democratic China, it should pay more attention to the survival and growth of Chinese liberal institutions. Otherwise, the country will be destined to remain the same shade of red.
Beijing-Tehran-Moscow At the end of 2004, Beijing signed a $70 billion energy agreement with Tehran, China's largest Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries energy deal to date. China's state Sinopec agreed to buy 250 million tons of LNG over 30 years from Iran, as well as to develop the giant Yadavaran field. That agreement covered the comprehensive development by Sinopec of the giant Yadavaran gas field, construction of a related petrochemical and gas industry including pipelines.
As part of the huge Iran-China economic cooperation agreement, China's state-run military construction company, NORINCO, will expand the Tehran Metro underground.
A second phase in the Iran-China strategic energy cooperation will involve constructing a pipeline in Iran to take oil some 386 kilometers to the Caspian Sea, there to link up with the planned pipeline from China into Kazakhstan.
On signing the deal, Iran's Petroleum Minister announced that Tehran would like to see China replace Japan as Iran's largest oil importer. As well, Iran has what are estimated to be the world's second largest reserves of natural gas after Russia. Iran is a place of enormous strategic importance to China, to Japan, to Russia, to the European Union, and for all these reasons, to Washington as well.
Iran supplies about 14% of China's oil. Along with Russia, China has been involved since the late 1990s in supplying nuclear technology to Tehran. In 1997, Beijing, under Washington pressure, nominally agreed to stop nuclear-related shipments to Iran, but the flows are believed continuing as the Iran relation is strategic and critical to China's energy security.
China, a veto member of the UN Security Council, has repeatedly called for the issue of Iranian nuclear development to be dealt with by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA's chief, Nobel Peace Prize awardee, Mohamed ElBaradei, has earned the enmity of Washington war hawks for his open declarations of lack of evidence in both Iraq and now of Iranian atomic bomb capability.
Given the nature of the Bush administration's rush to war in Iraq in 2003, where China had a major stake in oil development, and the subsequent US blocking of other Chinese attempts at securing energy independence, including Unocal, it is not surprising that Beijing is taking extraordinary measures to secure its long-term oil and gas supply.
Energy is the Achilles' heel of China's economic growth. Beijing knows that only too well. So does Washington. A decision by Washington to take military action against Iran now would pull a far larger cast of actors into the fray than Iraq.
F William Engdahl is author of the book, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order from Pluto Press Ltd. He can be contacted via his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The Jerusalem Post.
....The Russian system, called the S-300, is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time. It has a range of about 200 kilometers and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters. ....Neutralization of one of the main components of Russian air defense would be a blow to Russian national security as well as to defense exports. "No country will want to buy the system if it is proven to be ineffective," the official said. "For these reasons, Russia may not deliver it in the end to Iran."
Remember how CAIR folded like a snowman in a sauna when Andrew Whitehead's lawyers started asking uncomfortable questions during the discovery process. They seem to have a great deal at stake here, and will be working hard to quash Savage's lawsuit again. ....
....So here you have leading the Democrats: A radical Islamist and Jeremiah Wright in a skirt, who just happens to be the CEO of the Democrat Convention.
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nightmare scenario of Washington.
