Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

As Israel bombs Gaza again, there are talks of a summer war in Lebanon

**Update June 4, 2015 from Richard Silverstein's Tikkun Olam Blog

 IDF Chief of Staff Promises 1.5-Million Lebanese Refugees in Next War
Israel’s chief of staff, Gadi Eizenkot told Israeli media that his forces were preparing for the next war with Hezbollah. He promised that when (not if) it happens, Israel will force 1.5-million Lebanese to flee for their lives while it invades the country and destroys it in worse fashion than it did in 2006 (the last time Israel came knocking). Israeli media only identified the source of this threat of war crimes as a “very senior IDF source.” But an informed Israeli source confirms that it was none other than Eizenkot himself.
Main Article

 Israel is bombing Gaza again this week after reporting rockets were fired at Southern Israel.

 Ma'an News Agency reports that the Arab League condemned Israel's attacks
The Arab League condemned the Israeli air strikes.
"The extremist Israeli government is trying to find pretexts to divert the international community's attention from resuming (peace) negotiations," Arab League deputy head Ahmed bin Heli told reporters in Cairo.
Wafa reports on Israeli airstrikes in several cities in Gaza.
There were no reports of any casualties.
Yesterday, Israeli media sources said a projectile which was fired from Gaza exploded in an open area near the port city of Ashdod, some 20 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip.
It said that there was no damages reported, but medical services said a 15-year-old girl from Ashdod arrived at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon suffering from shock, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. There was no immediate claim of responsibility in Gaza for the rocket launching.
Shortly afterwards, the Israeli army issued a statement saying it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad facilities in the southern Gaza Strip, and blamed Hamas for the rocket fire.
The Guardian reports that Hamas arrested members of Islamic Jihad who were behind the attacks but
An Islamic Jihad spokesman was not available to comment. Hamas officials had no comment on the reported arrests.
returning to my role as media critic, this is blatantly wrong from The Guardian
The region has been largely quiet since an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that halted seven weeks of fighting.
When you follow the daily news from Israel and Palestine even casually, you see how wrong that is immediately.

 News happens every day that is not reported, even within the country, because like in the US when it's Muslims who are the victims of white Christian violence, that is not considered “terrorism” by our news media standards


Israeli soldiers regularly shoot at Palestinian fisherman, and that is never reported in the West as violence.
Egyptian forces injured a Palestinian fisherman with live fire on Monday, shortly after two other Gazan fishermen were shot and injured by Israeli forces earlier in the day for allegedly leaving the designated fishing zone.
Israeli forces also reportedly opened fire on boats Sunday.
Restrictions on fishing zones off the coast of the Gaza Strip have been heavily enforced by Israeli forces as part of a blockade imposed on the strip since 2006, as forces repeatedly opened fire on Palestinians on land and at sea, confiscated fishing boats and equipment, and detained fishermen.
March alone witnessed a total of 35 incidents of shootings and incursions into the coastal enclave according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
Israel agreed to expand the fishing zone off Gaza's coast as part of last summer's ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups, however fishermen are regularly prevented from fishing within the agreed limits.
It is only when Palestinians retaliate that the media pays attention.

In contrast to The Guardian reporting that “The region has been largely quiet since an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that halted seven weeks of fighting” Ma'an News Agency reports that
Tuesday's rocket was the third fired from Gaza since the ceasefire, in addition to two mortar bombs reportedly fired at Israel since September, according to the Shin Bet internal security agency.
The UN Special Coordinator (UNSCO) released a report Monday saying the ceasefire that ended the latest war remains "perilously fragile."
While Palestinian armed groups have test-fired around 150 rockets into the sea, Israeli forces have carried out a range of military incursions into the coastal enclave, including two air strikes, the report said.
Gaza-based Israeli watchdog Al Mezan documented Israeli forces opening fire in the border areas inside of the Gaza Strip six separate times during the first ten days of May, leaving four injured including one child.
Wednesday's air strike was the third since the end of the 2014 war.
While Israel is bombing Gaza there is another war that is being talked about, a summer war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, possibly to strike a death blow to the Iran nuclear deal being reached by the P5 + 1

 Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council just wrote in Huffington Post that
There are signs Israel may be at war again this summer. This time, not with Hamas in Gaza but with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Such a war may be the result not only of spillover from the Syrian war or ongoing Israeli-Hezbollah tensions. The deciding factor may be an Israeli calculation that war will shift momentum in the U.S. Congress decisively against the pending nuclear deal with Iran -- a deal that critics say will increase Iran's maneuverability in the region, including its support for Hezbollah.
In spite of AIPAC, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Saudis and some of its GCC allies having done everything they could to kill the pending nuclear deal with Iran, they have failed. The negotiations are on track.
continued
a case for a war with Hezbollah has been made in Israel for the past few months. On May 12 the New York Times reported that Israeli is preparing for "what it sees as an almost inevitable next battle with Hezbollah." An Israeli official added in comments to the Times: "We will hit Hezbollah hard."
The Israelis argue that Hezbollah is engaged in a massive military buildup, and that Israel is publicizing Hezbollah's armament "to put the problem on the international agenda in case there is another conflict." According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah now has the capacity to hurl 1200 rockets a day at Israel.
Israel has been pushing this angle for several months. In February, 28 US lawmakers came to Israel's aid and wrote the Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon,demanding that the UN stop Hezbollah from rearming. The letter accused the UN of failing to enforce resolutions, including one that requires the "disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias."
Then I saw (via Uprooted Palestinians) that Press TV reported on a conference in Beirut of Islamic Scholars aiming to unite against Israeli aggression
Islamic scholars from around the globe participating in a conference in Lebanon’s capital Beirut have underlined the need for the Muslim world to unite against Israel, saying the Zionist regime has launched an open war on Muslims.
Participants, both Sunnis and Shias, at the International Union of Resistance conference in Beirut on Wednesday discussed ways to promote unity and solidarity in the Muslim world and focus on the problems facing the Islamic world. They highlighted the cultural and religious commonalities among Muslim countries and stressed the need for them to set aside their differences.
The organizer of the event, the International Union of Resistance, was formed in the Lebanese capital last year to create a unified front in the face of the Israeli threat in the strategically important region of the Middle East.
continued  
On January 8, 2015, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas called on all Islamic states to stand by the Palestinian nation in its struggles against Israeli atrocities.
We are seeing Israeli attacks against Gaza right now, and we may see another war in Lebanon, but the true goal may be broader than any stated goals.

 Israel has been playing up fears about Iran's nuclear ambitions for decades, despite Iran's right to nuclear enrichment for energy, and their long history of not wanting a nuclear weapon, even at the height of the 8 year long Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

 But efforts to keep the Middle East nuclear free were squandered once again as we found out when Netanyahu thanked Obama and Kerry for blocking an Egyptian proposal at the UN review conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty (NPT) (UNODA)
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, thanked the US secretary of state, John Kerry, for blocking an Egyptian-led drive on a possible Middle East nuclear arms ban at a United Nations conference, an Israeli official said on Saturday.
continued
A month-long review conference on the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) ended in failure on Friday, over disagreements on the issue of a Middle East atomic weapons ban. Washington blamed the failure on Egypt, which in turn blamed the US, British and Canadian delegations.
Netanyahu spoke with Kerry “to convey his appreciation to President Obama and to the secretary”, a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.
“The United States kept its commitment to Israel by preventing a Middle East resolution that would single out Israel and ignore its security interests and the threats posed to it by an increasingly turbulent Middle East,” the official added.
Israel also thanked Britain and Canada for joining the US in blocking consensus at the conference, the official said.
Last month, Egypt, backed by other Arab and non-aligned states, proposed that the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, convene within 180 days a regional conference on banning weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as called for at the 2010 NPT review meeting.
Ban voiced disappointment that NPT parties were “unable to narrow their differences on the future of nuclear disarmament or to arrive at a new collective vision on how to achieve a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction (WMD)”.
According to Egypt’s proposal the conference could take place with or without Israel’s participation, and could be held without agreement on an agenda or discussion of regional security issues – two of Israel’s conditions for participating.
Israel neither confirms nor denies the widespread assumption that it controls the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal. Israel, which has never joined the NPT, agreed to take part in the review meeting as an observer, ending a 20-year absence.
The call for a 2012 conference on a regional WMD ban, approved at the 2010 NPT review meeting, infuriated Israel, though it eventually agreed to attend planning meetings. The 2012 conference never took place, which annoyed Egypt and other Arab states. Egypt’s proposals, western diplomats say, were aimed at pressuring Israel.
Washington and Israel say Iran’s nuclear programme is the real regional threat.
Iran says its programme is peaceful. It is negotiating with world powers to curb it in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Israel has said it would consider joining the NPT only once at peace with its Arab neighbours and Iran.
But according to The Forward, quoted by Lobelog, while Israeli political leaders are "worrying" about a nuclear Iran, IDF fears Hezbollah more, showing more signs of agreement with Trita Parsi's reporting that there are rumors of a war in Lebanon this summer.
one key group of experts doesn’t buy into that threat assessment: namely, the heads of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The Forward’s J.J. Goldberg reported on Tuesday that:
Israel’s military General Staff and intelligence services are in the midst of a series of formal discussions focused on just the opposite assumption: the likelihood that the emerging nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers could minimize the Iranian threat for an extended period, allowing the military to redirect budgets and resources toward areas of more immediate concern. The discussions are chaired by the deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Major General Yair Golan, under the supervision of the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot.
And what does keep the IDF awake at night? “[The] likelihood of renewed flare-ups within the next few years with the heavily armed Islamist militias on Israel’s northern and southern borders, Hezbollah and Hamas,” reports Goldberg.
What keeps me up at night is Israeli and American misguided foreign policy that creates the enemies it tells us to fear.... 
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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Pakistan discusses possibility of sending troops to fight in Yemen

McClatchy 
Militant Pakistani Sunni groups that trained alongside al Qaida, fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan and launched terrorist attacks in India have pledged their support to Saudi Arabia, a key source of their funding, amid growing pressure on Pakistan to join the military coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In the last seven days, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has received calls from Saudi Arabia’s king, its crown prince, its foreign minister and its intelligence chief, each seeking unspecified support from Pakistan’s 550,000-strong military, one of the largest in the Muslim world.
The calls have, since Friday, prompted four meetings between Sharif and Pakistan’s powerful military chiefs, who’ve been working to craft a response to the Saudi requests that would keep Pakistan from becoming a combatant in Yemen but provide some Pakistani bolstering of Saudi defenses.





Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/03/31/261579/pakistani-militants-pledge-support.html#storylink=cpy
via Dawn News
Awami National Party president Asfandyar Wali Khan has asked the government to convene all-party conference before making a decision about sending army to Yemen.
The people of Balochistan would bear its brunt if the government decided to send army to Yemen, he told journalists after chairing a meeting of the working committee of ANP at the residence of MNA Ghulam Ahmed Bilour here on Tuesday.
Mr Khan said that Pakhtuns were suffering owing to the government’s decision to get involved in someone else’s war in Afghanistan. The government was repeating the same mistake by sending troops to Yemen, he said, adding it would cause disaster.

 And then there was a poll for readers





Here were the results when I saw this article


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Thursday, February 26, 2015

Some News Headlines and Tweets

Army to send headquarters group to Kandahar in first sign of revision to Afghan withdrawal plan McClatchy
I've been writing about Venezuela recently, but it's not the only place protests are happening



BiasedReporter
more than 2.2 million people in jail as of 2013 and more than 6.8 million under some form of “adult correctional systems” such as parole or probation

Israel
many people were happy to see SodaStream stock go down after 4th quarter profits fell below predictions, but I looked at the whole year

February 21st was the 50th anniversary of the assassination and martyrdom of Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (الحاجّ مالك الشباز)





A dream of mine....


It turns out ISIS started way before 2003 US invasion, but out of 30 years of war in Iraq
Do we think it that implausible that generations, raised in a society that rewarded brutality, and was brutalized by countries near and far, wouldn’t themselves be so traumatized that some of them would turn to brutality, too?





 Another sniper is on trial as alleged hit-man in attempted murder of DEA agents

A former Army sergeant with the nickname Rambo pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring to murder a federal drug agent and another man, in what the government has said was his post-military role as a contract killer.
The former sergeant, Joseph M. Hunter, 49, who had been a sniper instructor, was arrested in 2013 after he and two other men were ensnared in a sting operation in which they agreed to kill an agent of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and one of the agency’s confidential informers for $800,000.






no outrage over depiction of Prophet Muhammad here


Iran nuclear talks






Killer cop Ralph Friedman 
“My partner fires one round, and the guy grabs his shoulder. He goes down. I run up and am standing right over him, and he starts to lift his hand up, and I shoot him right in the head. That did it. He dropped the gun. His brains fell out onto the street. And when they get him downtown, would you believe I’d hit him like nine times — in a good grouping right around the belly?”
continued
“I was never traumatized,” he said. “I never felt bad. I felt I saved my life or someone else’s life.”

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Friday, January 16, 2015

Jeffrey Sterling Trial

The true legacy of the Obama Administration is not known when leak investigation trials (and other national security trials) are not covered by the mainstream media.  While there are articles about the trial, video and audio are also very helpful in understanding what is happening in the case.

 Op-ed News
Since Tuesday and continuing for the coming three weeks, an amazing trial is happening in U.S. District Court at 401 Courthouse Square in Alexandria, Va. The trial is open to the public, and among the upcoming witnesses is Condoleezza Rice, but -- unlike the Chelsea Manning trial -- most of the seats at this somewhat similar event are empty.
continued
The CIA drew up plans for a key part of a nuclear bomb (what a CIA officer on Wednesday described in his testimony as "the crown jewels" of a nuclear weapons program), inserted flaws in the plans, and then had a Russian give those flawed plans to Iran.
During the trial on Wednesday morning, the prosecution's witnesses made clear both that aiding Iran in developing a part of a bomb would be illegal under U.S. export control laws, and that they were aware at the time that there was the possibility of what they were doing constituting just such aid.
The trial is being covered here at ExposeFacts. (Many nes articles are just reprints of these blog posts).

 Some of the case files are here at FAS, and Cryptome has exhibits, and Marcy Wheeler has some documents, like the CIA response.

 Over at POLITICO is Josh Gerstein's Under the Radar blog, see here and here and other articles as well.

 CourthouseNews is also covering the trial.

Ray McGovern wrote about MERLIN here and why the case is so important.
The federal government claims it is prosecuting former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling for leaking information to a journalist about a risky covert operation in which the spy agency funneled flawed nuclear-bomb schematics to Iran. But the opening days of the trial suggest that the government may be using the case more to overcome its reputation for shoddy intelligence work.
continued
the real subtext of the Sterling case is how the politicization of the CIA’s analytical division over the past several decades has contributed to multiple intelligence failures, especially efforts to “prove” that targeted regimes in the Middle East were amassing weapons of mass destruction.
continued
the two issues – the bogus Iraq-WMD intelligence and the pressure to create another casus belli on Iran – are inextricably linked, as Risen himself explained in his affidavit submitted in connection with the Sterling case.
Risen wrote, “I believe I performed a vitally important public service by exposing the reckless and badly mismanaged nature of intelligence on Iran’s efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction, so that the nation would not go to war once again based on flawed intelligence, as it had in Iraq.”
continued
The most definitive study of a post-Iraq “uncorroborated, contradicted, or even non-existent” nuclear weapons program, this time in Iran, is presented in Gareth Porter’s Manufactured Crisis published a year ago (and viewed as untouchable by reviewers in the fawning corporate media). Porter brings together the results of his many years of research into the issue, including numerous interviews with former insiders.
emphasis mine
He shows that the origins of the Iran nuclear “crisis” were not in an Iranian urge to obtain nuclear weapons but, rather, in a sustained effort by the United States and its allies to deny Iran its right, as guaranteed in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to have any nuclear program at all.
Here is Iran's news agency PressTV's quick report.

The State Department said in its daily brief on Thursday that the trial isn't affecting continuing bilateral talks, because no one there seems to be following the trial.
QUESTION: We’re watching the Jeffrey Sterling trial on the – in that trial that’s going to come out about CIA Operation Merlin, where they were trying to give, essentially, incomplete nuclear weapon plans to Iran to kind of slow down their development of a nuclear weapon. Could the information coming out in this trial at all affect the ongoing talks between Kerry and Iran?
MS. HARF: Well, given I’m not familiar with the specifics of that trial, and I’m not sure our team that’s talking right now in Geneva is either, look --
QUESTION: It’s just kind of out in the public.
MS. HARF: We’re --
QUESTION: Anyone can pick it up, and I just (inaudible).
MS. HARF: Yeah. Well, so look, I’ll check with our folks. But broadly speaking, we are moving forward with these nuclear negotiations, with the P5+1, and with us, with our partners. Their teams are meeting right now with Wendy Sherman and the other negotiators for a couple days of bilateral talks, and then with the rest of the P5+1. That process is moving forward, and hopefully we can continue making progress. Obviously, there’s a lot of history here. We all are well aware of that. What we’re focused on now is what happens going forward.
While they seem not to be aware of the Jeffrey Sterling/James Risen trial, they are aware of the journalist that Iran has in prison, Jason Rezaian.
QUESTION: Can I go back to Iran?
MS. HARF: Yeah, and then I’m going to go to you. Yes, we can.
QUESTION: The case of Jason Rezaian.
MS. HARF: Yes.
QUESTION: Do you have any more information about what he’s been charged with? Have the Swiss been able to meet with him? Does he have a lawyer? What’s – what is his situation right now?
MS. HARF: Well, during the meetings yesterday, Secretary Kerry raised U.S. citizen Jason Rezaian’s case. They discussed the report stating that his case had been referred to a court. The Secretary reiterated our call for his immediate release, as well as for the immediate release of detained U.S. citizens, Saeed Abedini and Amir Hekmati, and of course, for the Iranian Government to work cooperatively with us in locating Robert Levinson, as we always do.
This is a discussion we have with them very frequently. I don’t have many more details than that. Of course, we continue to monitor the situation closely and are seeking further information about what might come out of this move to refer the case to the court. I know The Washington Post – one of their editors also said they hope this is a way the judicial process can be moved forward and Jason can be returned to his family. We certainly share that sentiment.
QUESTION: But you’re not aware of whether there have been any contacts between Jason and Swiss officials?
MS. HARF: I can check. I’m not aware of any, but I’m happy to check for you.

Reporters without Borders is relieved to see that James Risen will not be called to testify at the trial, and even The Intercept reports that DOJ is pulling back (a little bit) from its attacks on journalists and whistle-blowers, revising its media guidelines policy on gathering information from journalists.

 Many news outlets covered Condoleezza Rice's testimony where she said that publishing the story could have endangered Americans' lives, which made some of us laugh out loud at the irony of that statement.




Here is the Google News RSS feed for "Jeffrey Sterling" if you want to keep up with future articles.

 And now for the Youtube.

(YouTube)
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Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Update in James Risen case

James Risen testified at a pretrial hearing in the leak case against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on Monday.

Read more here:


Expose Facts, where Marcy Wheeler has been writing about the case since August, now has a second blog devoted to the Jeffery Sterling trial, called The Latest.

FAS has selected case files of the trial here






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