generalspeaking

Intelligence: Technological/Human

 

Israel is amazing, isn't it?  Its intelligence, its human intelligence that is, is so compelling that it is able to pinpoint the time and location and the identity of a sought-after terrorist with amazing accuracy.  What is truly amazing is that Israeli security can depend on the reliability and faithfulness of those willing to risk their lives to pass vital information on to Israeli authorities for the penalty of failure to protect their identity is wretchedly fatal.

Without being able to rely on human intelligence to convey inside information not nearly as much could be accomplished as has been evidenced in the past and more latterly.  If the fear and loathing of the virulent brutality behind Hamas's terrorist agenda isn't powerful enough to restrain those who seek to limit their predations on both Palestinian society and that of the Jewish State, it must indicate that there are those for whom the need to stop the deadly mission of Hamas remains vital.

But of course the need to maintain monitoring tools, drones that comprise an "eye on the sky" remains of paramount importance as well.  And those surveillance techniques do not compromise human lives.  Other than those targeted, responsible for taking human lives.  Israel makes good use of its Heron TP drone, a high-altitude, long-endurance drone, its largest and most sophisticated weighing in at 4-1/2 tonnes, aloft for a straight 36 hours of surveillance time.

These drones are also capable of carrying a 1,000-kilogram payload, capable of flying at altitudes of 12,200 metres, making them impossible to spot from ground level, if and when they attain higher levels.  Necessity makes for invention and as such Israel finds itself at the leading edge of such advanced military equipment design and production.  It has drones flying over the Gaza Strip, West Bank and south Lebanon.

Informing Israel's intelligence elite with real-time images and information on the location of potential targets and enabling them to get a heads-up on what those planning to do the country harm can be up to.  "Israel doesn't have an ability to track things in real time using satellites from space.  But they are able to track moving targets through drones for hours at a time", explained Scott Johnson, senior analyst at IHS Jane's intelligence and defence consultants.

Last year roughly $14.5-billion, 6.9% of the country's gross domestic product was allocated to the military with an increasing focus on intelligence gathering and high-tech weaponry.  The country's location, its contiguity with hostile neighbours demands such sacrifices.  That funding could be put to other uses, more compatible with the needs of a country that has sufficient internal problems of its own to solve from desalinization and energy solutions to medical advances.

Forced by circumstances beyond its control other than to defend its territory and its citizens, Israel has military laboratories staffed by physicists and engineers "all of whom hold scientific degrees ... are currently conducting research on lasers, so as to improve the technology used by forces in the field", according to the IDF website.

Lasers have a vast multitude of uses, both civilian and military.  In Israel's case, its military uses include the use by infantry units to locate objects and people in the field and for ensuring the accuracy of their weapons.  Targeted assassinations among them. 

Labels: Defence, Israel, Political Realities Middle East, Security, Technology

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, November 21, 2012

A rocket from Gaza killed three Israeli civilians in the highest death toll from a rocket attack since Palestinian militants began firing homemade pipe bombs a decade ago.

A day after Israel launched its largest offensive against Hamas in years, retaliatory rocket fire from Palestinian militants turned southern Israel towns like this one on Thursday into a war zone, with constant warning sirens, shuttered stores, and the deadliest single rocket attack ever from Gaza.
After the initial heady reports about Israel's surprise assassination of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaberi and the destruction of long-range missiles, the reality of an uncertain war settled in for about 1 million Israeli residents living within the range of fire.  

Though Israeli leaders said the purpose of the ongoing air assault on Gaza was to hit military infrastructure and deter future attacks, the goal appears far from achieved as rockets rained down in nearly every major population center in southern Israel, just as in Operation Cast Lead, the last major conflict in 2008-09.

The operation has "entered the stage of mutual attrition. The element of surprise has been exhausted," wrote military commentator Ron Ben-Yishai on the Israeli news website Ynet. "Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have learned the lessons of Operation Cast Lead and they are succeeding even now to launch Grad rockets even though dozens of aircraft are following after them."
Customers in a grocery store in Kiryat Malachi debated whether the hostilities would be over within a day or drag on into the weekend.

"This is something new here," says Angela Malaiyev, the store cashier. "We're used to hearing sirens, but not one after the other."

Hours earlier, two consecutive "Red Color" warning sirens went off in the town, located about 20 miles northeast of Gaza. Not far down the road from the supermarket in a hardscrabble Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, a rocket fired from Gaza at breakfast time slammed into the fourth floor of a nondescript apartment block, killing at least three residents and wounding a baby.

It was highest death toll from a rocket attack since Palestinian militants began firing homemade pipe bombs a decade ago, and it demonstrated the heightened potency of the Palestinian arsenal. The impact shook neighboring buildings, blew out the facade of an apartment balcony, and left the apartment walls scarred with shrapnel.

"There was a powerful explosion, and I realized it was a direct hit. Everything flew up in the air. It didn't reach us, thank God,'' says Nava Hayut, who was scurrying with her children two floors below to take cover in the stairwell. Ms. Hayut said one of those killed went to the window of the apartment to photograph the incoming missile. "There were shrieks. I took these kids back home to calm them down, and I began to recite psalms. I could barely hold the book.''

Meanwhile, military aircraft continued to strike in Gaza and Palestinians held a mass funeral for Mr. Jaberi. The Associated Press reports that 15 Palestinians, including seven civilians have been killed and more than 100 people wounded, citing Palestinian medical officials.

Israeli authorities said that 180 rockets landed in Israel in the 20 hours after the assassination.
Hours after the Kiryat Malachi hit, Israeli leaders, security officials, and even foreign diplomats rushed to the scene of the rocket attack. Avi Dicther, Israel's Homeland Security minister, said the deaths could have been avoided and urged Israelis to heed the attack instructions of the homeland command.

After inspecting the bloodstained apartment, British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould said that the "indiscriminate" attacks were "intolerable" and expressed solidarity with the residents in southern Israel, but called on both sides to "deescalate."

But as indicated by a nearby sign reading "Jewish blood isn't forsaken, conquer Gaza," many of the neighboring residents said they disagreed. Indeed, despite the limited goals for the operation mentioned by Mr. Netanyahu and the unlikely probability of a controversial reconquering of Gaza during an election season, neighbors said that nothing short of vanquishing Hamas would satisfy them.

"The army needs to widen the operation and destroy all of the weapons of Hamas,'' says Michael Vaysman, who lives in the next building over. "It's a heavy price, but afterward there will be quiet.''

Labels: Conflict, Gaza, Hamas, Islamism, Israel, Political Realities Middle East

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 15, 2012

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has recalled the Egyptian ambassador to Israel, Atef Mohamed Salem, Egyptian state TV reported on Wednesday evening.

In a televised statement, presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali said that Morsi has also summoned the Israeli ambassador in Cairo to convey Egypt's rejection of the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

"The president has ordered the Egyptian representative at the United Nations to call for an emergency meeting at the Security Council. In a phone call with the Arab League general-secretary, the president has also called for an emergency meeting for the Arab foreign ministers," Ali was quoted by the website of the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram as having said.

The Egyptian move was a reaction to the IDF’s Operation Pillar of Defense which was launched Wednesday afternoon.

The IAF fired a missile at a car in Gaza, killing the commander of Hamas's "military" wing, Ahmed Jaabari.  The IAF then also struck launch silos for Hamas's longer-range Fajr rockets, which can hit central Israel, in order to preclude their use.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak held a short news conference Wednesday evening in which they announced the goals of the operation. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the operation will be widened if necessary.

On Tuesday, even before the IDF operation in Gaza began, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the movement to which Morsi belongs, blamed Israel for escalating the situation in Gaza.

The statement by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party defined Israel as a “Zionist occupier” and a “racist state” while describing Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as being members of the “fringes of the extreme right.”

More on this topic

Labels: Conflict, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Islamism, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, Political Realities  Middle East, Political Realities Middle East, Prejudices, Security

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, November 14, 2012

US set for final campaigning day

BBC News online - 5 November 2012

Mr Romney is in Florida, where polls suggest he has the edge, and will head to Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio.

Mr Obama is scheduled to appear in Madison, Wisconsin, accompanied by Bruce Springsteen, before going on to Iowa and Ohio.

Analysts say the election will come down to a handful of swing states.

Mr Obama and Mr Romney are running almost neck-and-neck in national polls, in a campaign that has cost more than $2bn (£1.2bn).

But surveys of the nine-or-so battleground states that will determine the election show Mr Obama narrowly ahead.

The campaign has been most intense in Ohio - no Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning that state.
The candidates spent Sunday addressing crowds across the country, with Mr Romney speaking in Pennsylvania, a state his aides insist he can now win on Tuesday.

Mr Obama held rallies in New Hampshire and Florida and carried on to Ohio and Colorado in the evening.

Thirty million Americans have already cast their ballot through early voting across 34 states. In the 2008 presidential election, 130 million people voted.

In Florida, Democrats have filed a legal case demanding an extension of time available for early voting, citing unprecedented demand.

In Ohio, Republican election officials will go to court on Monday to defend an 11th-hour directive to local election officials.

Last month, a federal appeals court reinstated early voting on the last three days before Tuesday's election.

The ruling overturned a state law saying early voting should end on the Friday before the election, making an exception only for voters living overseas and for military personnel, who tend to favour Republican candidates.
A final poll published on Sunday by Ohio's Columbus Dispatch newspaper gave Mr Obama a 2% lead - 50% to 48% - over his rival, within the margin of error.

Both candidates visited the Buckeye State on Sunday, with Mr Romney telling crowds in Cleveland that Mr Obama has failed in his pledge to be a "post-partisan" president and criticising his record.
"He's been divisive, blaming, attacking, dividing and - by the way - it's not only Republicans that he refused to listen to, he also refused to listen to independent voices."

Later on Sunday, he spoke in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, his first visit there in the final stages of the campaign.

"The people of America understand we're taking back the White House because we're going to win Pennsylvania," Mr Romney told the crowd in Morrisville.

Democrats say the Romney team's last-minute decision to campaign in the state is a sign of desperation, but polls do show a tightening race.

The Democrats have responded by sending former President Bill Clinton to campaign at several events in Pennsylvania for Mr Obama on Monday.

Earlier in the day at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, Mr Obama said: "We have come too far to turn back now."

He said he would work across party lines to break the political gridlock in Washington, but would not compromise on priorities such as healthcare and college financial aid.

"It's now up to you," Mr Obama said in Concord, the state capital. "That's how a democracy works, right? That ultimately, it's up to you. You have the power. You are shaping the decisions for this country for decades to come. Right now. In the next two days."

Activists have been stepping up efforts across the crucial swing states.

In Wisconsin, student volunteers have been putting in 14-hour days in an effort to deliver the state for Mr Obama, the BBC's Paul Adams reports from Madison.

An opinion poll on Sunday for ABC News and the Washington Post put the two candidates at 48%, with even voters who term themselves independents split evenly on 46%.
Opinion polls published on Saturday showed Mr Obama well-placed in Iowa, Nevada and Ohio, but most remain within the surveys' own margins of error.

The election is decided by the electoral college. Each state is given a number of votes based on a mix of population and representation in Congress. The candidate who wins 270 electoral college votes becomes president.

A handful of governors, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are also up for election on Tuesday.

Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats were tipped to remain in sway of the Senate.

Labels: Communication, Democracy, Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, Human Relations, Political Realities Middle East, United States

posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 05, 2012

Iranians burn U.S. flags to mark embassy seizure

Thousands of Iranians chanting “Death to America” burnt U.S. flags on Friday to mark the 33rd anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, just days before the American presidential election.

The demonstrators also chanted anti-British and anti-Israeli slogans, and burnt Israeli flags, in front of the site of the former embassy, dubbed the “den of spies” by the authorities who sponsor the annual commemoration, an AFP photographer reported.

This year's rally came just days before Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election in which Republican challenger Mitt Romney has made Iran's controversial nuclear program a top foreign policy issue.

“The greatest threat the world faces is a nuclear Iran,” Romney said in a campaign debate with Democratic incumbent Barack Obama.

Iran dismisses Western suspicions that its nuclear program is cover for a drive for a weapons capability, insisting that it is for peaceful power generation and medical purposes only.

The United Nations, the United States and the European Union have levied a series of sanctions on Iran to stop its atomic program.

Speaking at Friday’s rally, the commander of Iran’s volunteer Islamist Basij militia, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, said the Islamic republic will face the sanctions head on.

“The Iranian nation has chosen its path and will overcome the sanctions by adopting the 'economy of resistence’,” he said, referring to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s policy of confronting the punitive measures.

After long denying the impact of these measures, Iranian leaders are now beginning to acknowledge the extent of the damage and denouncing what they say is an “economic war” against the Islamic republic.

“Those who say that by compromising with the U.S., the economic situation will improve... (should know that) this is a big lie and deceit,” Naqdi said.

“We have declared a 10 kilo (22 pounds) in gold reward for researchers and historians, who have 10 years to prove that there is a more criminal country than America in the world... the U.S. is the most hated among all nations.”

The anniversary of the November 4, 1979 embassy seizure, in which Islamist students captured and held 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days, is commemorated in Iran according to the Persian calendar.

The hostage-taking, which came just months after the Islamic revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed shah, was seen as a big factor in then U.S. president Jimmy Carter’s loss of the 1980 election.

Now painted with anti-U.S. murals, the former embassy is currently a training and educational facility controlled by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

Labels: Conflict, Iran, Islamism, Political Realities Middle East, United States

posted by Pieface @ Friday, November 02, 2012

Damascus car bombing wrecks Syria Eid al-Adha truce

BBC News - 26 October 2012

Activists said the device exploded near a playground in Daf al-Shouk, a residential area in southern Damascus.

State TV reported five people had been killed and more than 30 wounded, with children among the casualties.

The UN-brokered ceasefire began at 06:00 (04:00 GMT), but fighting has continued across the country.

The truce, to mark the Eid al-Adha holiday, was proposed by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who hoped it would lead to a peace process.

Both rebels and the army had said they would only observe the truce if the other side held their fire.
Activists said that by early afternoon about 20 people had been killed in sporadic clashes across the country, which is a lower figure than usual for a day's violence in Syria.

The BBC's James Reynolds on the Turkey-Syria border says fighting has been going on throughout the day near the frontier.

But the car bomb in Damascus appears to have wrecked any chance that the truce might take hold.
The uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's government started in March 2011.

Activists say more than 35,000 people have been killed since then, while the UN estimates that at least 20,000 have died.

Labels: Chaos, Conflict, Political Realities Middle East, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Friday, October 26, 2012

Germany and Israel mark Munich massacre in ceremonies

The audience at Fuerstenfeldbruck heard Christian and Jewish prayers, spoken against a backdrop of the faces of the victims, 11 Israelis and one German.

Wreaths were laid earlier inside the Olympic Village where Palestinian gunmen seized the athletes.
Most of the Israelis were killed by their captors at the airport.

Israeli fencer Dan Alon, who was part of the 1972 team, said he hoped such an attack could never happen again.

A petition by widows of the victims to remember the dead with a minute's silence at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics on 27 July was rejected by Jacques Rogge, head of the International Olympic Committee.

Instead, a minute's silence was observed at a ceremony headed by Mr Rogge inside London's Olympic Village.

Flags at half-mast

German, Israeli and Bavarian flags were lowered to half-mast at the beginning of the solemn ceremony at Fuerstenfeldbruck base. Relatives of the victims lit candles in their memory.
Prayers and addresses to the audience were interspersed with singing and music, including a muted piece by a jazz orchestra, played before an audience of at least 500 people.

"That day wasn't an attack against Israel, wasn't an attack against Jews," said Charlotte Knobloch, head of Munich's Jewish community.

"It was an attack against us all. Against the Olympic idea, the vision of freedom and peace for all human beings."

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and other German officials, including the head of the country's Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, were present as was Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom.

Among the Israelis expected to attend was the manager of the 1972 Olympic Delegation, Mr Shmuel Lalkin.

A tree was to be planted to remember the victims and an exhibition of photos depicting the massacre and its aftermath was being unveiled.

On 5 September 1972, eight gunmen burst into the Israeli athletes' quarters, killing two immediately and taking nine athletes and coaches hostage.

They demanded the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners by Israel, and took their hostages to the airport, where a rescue attempt was made by West German security forces.

During the fighting that followed, the gunmen killed their remaining nine hostages. Five of the gunmen were killed, as was one German policeman.
Israeli athlete Esther Roth-Shachamorov, who lost her coach Amitzur Shapira in the attack, had been scheduled to run in the semi-finals of the 100-metre hurdles on the day after the massacre.

"Instead of running, we found ourselves in the stadium for the memorial service," she told AFP news agency at her home near Tel Aviv this week. "There we stood, crying."

The West German authorities were accused by Israel of having failed to provide adequate security at the Games, recently declassified Israeli official documents show.

German police "didn't make even a minimal effort to save human lives", former Mossad head Zvi Zamir said at the time after returning from Munich. The documents also show evidence of failures by Israeli security forces.

A recent article in German news magazine Der Spiegel has suggested that German officials ignored explicit warnings that a terrorist attack might take place at the Munich Games.
In a statement to mark the anniversary, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague described the attack as a "shocking act of evil" which had "betrayed everything the Olympic movement stands for".

Labels: Germany, Israel, Political Realities Middle East, Psychopathy, Social-Cultural Deviations, Sport

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 05, 2012

"People Are Dying"

"We discussed this several times and I can't think of anything that I would have done differently from him.  It is definitely a very, very difficult mission."            Lakhda Brahimi, Algerian diplomat, UN envoy to Syria

His predecessor, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke to his friend Lakhda Brahimi, recently appointed by the UN to take over the role of envoy to Syria, of the "brick wall" that he faced in attempting to bring peace between the Alawite regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian rebels.  "I'm standing in front of the same wall.  I don't see a crack", said Mr. Brahimi in an interview.

The prospect of intervening between the regime and the revolution is one he finds most daunting, a fearsome outlook.  Although he agreed that he would try.  As a public duty.  He has had similar experiences as an envoy to Iraq and to Afghanistan.  As an Algerian, after all, living right next door to Syria, relations between the two countries have always been firm and mutually supportive. 

Perhaps no longer, not now.

"People are already saying, 'People are dying, what are you doing?  Indeed, we are not doing much.  That in itself is a terrible weight."

Even as he spoke in the BBC interview, Syrian warplanes were bombing targets in Aleppo and surrounding areas.  A car-bomb exploded near Damascus.  Violence is never-ending, capturing and ensnaring the  civilian population.  Sixty-two people died in Aleppo, killed when al-Bab and other neighbourhoods were under serial attack.  Another 57 died in Daraa.  A mass grave with 43 bodies was discovered in al-Hirak.

And in the south-east of Damascus where large Druze and Christian communities live, supportive of the Alawite regime, and fearful of their fate should the opposition Sunni come to power, a car bomb exploded.  There is no end to the slaughter, to the incessant attacks, to the disaster that is enveloping Syria, as tens of thousands of desperate civilians leave their homes to become refugees in over-burdened Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.

And, of course, it hasn't helped Lakhda Brahimi that he has refused the Arab League's position that President al-Bashar must step down to leave room for negotiations leading to a cessation of hostilities between the regime and the opposition.

Labels: Arab League, Conflict, Political Realities Middle East, Syria, Tragedy, United Nations

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 05, 2012

IAEA: Update Iran

"Iran continues to enrich uranium, which shows that sanctions are not having any effect.  More importantly, we are seeing them put the final pieces of the jigsaw into place.
"In full contempt of international opinion, the Iranians are racing toward the finishing line and they are now just metres away from it."  International diplomat

The International Atomic Energy Agency's latest quarterly report lays it out.  One thousand new, not yet operational centrifuges were installed at the Fordow facility since May.  That's the secret facility whose existence was unknown outside Iran until it was completely built in the interior of a mountain as a well protected underground uranium enrichment facility, close to the holy city of Qom.  Once word of its existence was revealed, the IAEA became involved.

According to Western diplomats, uranium has been enriched at the Fordow facility, in defiance of Western sanctions, close to weapons grade. According to the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, the Republic has increased stockpiles of high-grade enriched uranium in the past three months alone from 145 kilograms to 190 kilograms.  Additional news, that the country's mastermind of nuclear efforts has been recalled to duty was followed with interest.

As far as some, such as Israel, closely watching events as they proceed are concerned, the recall of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's top nuclear scientist, and the heavy stockpiling of nuclear-enriched uranium signals that the country has come closer than ever to proceeding with the final touches to build nuclear arms.  Fakhrizadeh has now re-taken charge of a research facility in Tehran that focuses on the building of nuclear weapons.

This determination was relayed to the Wall Street Journal by UN, American and Israeli officials.  The denial of Tehran to permit IAEA inspectors entry to the Parchin military base close to Tehran on suspicion that the facility there was used for military explosions and that the regime has been busy neutralizing the facility of any possible incriminating evidence of nuclear tests having taken place there, simply confirms suspicions.

Diplomats are anticipating that the IAEA report, expected to be circulated confidentially, will confirm that Iran sanitized the Parchin base to the point that an inspection would be useless.  It is strongly believed that tests on how to proceed to detonate a nuclear weapon were carried out at Parchin, even before Fakhrizadeh was recalled from his involuntary 'retirement'.

Despite Israel's increasingly agitated calls for military action, however, it seems clear that no alarm is warranted.  Catherine Ashton, the EU representative for foreign affairs has stated her intention to conduct ongoing talks with Iran's main nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili "in the coming days".  On the other hand, Iran has given its assurance that there is nothing amiss, that it is merely the fevered fantasizing of Israel and the U.S. that is the problem here.

Iran has no intention whatever, has no interest at all in pursuing any but peaceful nuclear research and development.  Did not Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, state as much at the Non-Aligned Movement's summit in Tehran this week?  "Our motto is nuclear energy for all and nuclear weapons for none." That's the problem here, there's not enough trust.

Or delusional naivete.

Labels: Iran, Political Realities Middle East, Technology, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 31, 2012

 The Banality of Evil

The Muslim world celebrates Al Quds day, and thus yet another opportunity presents itself to name the presence of the State of Israel within the Middle East, the very historical source of the Jewish people, as being contaminated by the presence of Jews.  The biblical-era city of Jerusalem, the city of David, has always represented Jewish national heritage.  Jerusalem represents the spiritual essence of Judaism, a tribute to the Tribe of Israel still functioning today despite three thousand years of repression, oppression and displacement.

Jerusalem has now been restored to the Jewish people, as their historical, state, political and spiritual capital.  In 1004 BCE, King David declared the city the capital of the first Jewish kingdom.  His son, King Solomon, built the First Temple in Jerusalem with its sanctuary dedicated to the world's first monotheistic religion, the worship of a single god.  The Babylonians destroyed the city and the temple four hundred years later, when the Israelites were forced into their first exile.

Paradoxically enough, many of the ancient Jews were permitted return to Jerusalem when the Persians conquered Babylon and gave Jews who languished there, and anguished after their own spiritual home, the right to return to Israel, encouraging them in their determination to rebuild the Beis haMikdosh, the holy temple.  Present-day Persians, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and succeeded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have decided to re-write history to suit their particular Islamist-centred needs.

Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in France with the downfall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, to grasp Iran's future and turn it to a pathological version of extreme Islamism of a type that puts the words 'fanatic' and 'fundamentalism' in a lesser class of moderation.  And from that time forward the modern era of the Islamic Republic of Iran became a reality with the Islamic Revolution that saw the country change from a moderate one reaching toward the future and modernity, to one ensconced in a glowering hatred of all but the most rigid Shia-led Islamism.

Twelve years ago when the former Prime Minister of Spain conversed with the second supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomenei, it was relayed to Jose Maria Aznar that "the mission of the Islamic Revolution always has been and always will be to rid the world of two evils: Israel and the United States".  Ayatollah Khomenei further explicated: "a gradual historical process involving the collapse of the Zionist state, or rather its physical-military termination".  This then was a militant theocracy, one completely invested in the destruction of another, neighbouring state.

The Iranian theocratic rulers and their Iranian political counterparts enjoy using the vocabulary of vulgar denigration, likening Jews, as did the Nazis, to "vermin".  On occasion lapsing to the nomenclature of medical terms, as its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is wont to do: "The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumour", he reiterated just recently at the annual opportunity to indulge in regional Israel-bashing to celebrate al-Quds day.

"The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land....  A new Middle East will definitely be formed.  With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"They (the Israelis) know very well they don't have the ability", to attack Iran according to an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman.  "If they make a mistake, our nation's reaction will lead to the end of the Zionist regime", to great acclaim by the crowd, holding up Palestinian flags and posters of Ayatollah Khamenei along with banners reading "Death to Israel" and "Death to America".

Islamists are obsessed with death; delivering it wholesale to those whom they hate, and wallowing in the rhetoric of their own deaths as loyal, worthy, honourable Islamist martyrs.

The chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari claimed proudly that "the Iranian nation has always been at the forefront of the (regional anti-Israel) resistance in showing its animosity with Israel", and likely that is perfectly true.  Iran has expressed its vitriolic contempt for Israel in every political and diplomatic arena open to it - inclusive of addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations. 

And it has taken heart at the fact that at those times there were no repercussions; no one rose to demand a retraction, an apology, an instruction to leave, as representing an unacceptable assault against a UN member-country.

Which goes far to explaining that the website of Supreme Leader Khamenei declares there exists within Islam ample religious "justification to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and Iran must take the helm".  Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi has declared for his part: "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause - that is the full annihilation of Israel."

The United Nations was formed to work toward ensuring that never again would genocide be unleashed in the world.  It has proven time and again to be impotent in that noble resolve, both through incompetence, and as a result of political games-playing influences.  Iran's President Ahmadinejad was able to state: "Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom", and where are the assembled nations of the world, to stand up in a chorus of outraged denial?

Indifference reigns supreme.  The bland and the disinterested stand by, proving once again Hannah Arendt's conclusion on the banality of evil....

Labels: Iran, Islamism, Israel, Judaism, Political Realities Middle East, Societal Failures, Traditions, United Nations

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 18, 2012

A Stronger Syria

"Today I tell you, Syria is stronger ...   In less than a week they were defeated (in Damascus) and the battle failed.  So they moved on to Aleppo and I assure you, their plots will fail."  Foreign Minister Walid Moualem

Minister Walid Moualem made his statements from Tehran.  Where he doubtless conferred with his country's major supporter, likely Syria's only supporter, aside from Hezbollah.  There is China and there is Russia, of course, but their support lies in the strategic fact that neither of those countries is enamoured with the very idea of any outside force interfering with the legitimate sovereignty of a country's interior situation.

And both of those countries, as suppliers of armaments and jealous of their hegemonic placement in the Middle East with its vast stores of fossil fuels, have their interests to tend to.  Their self-interests, however, are nowhere near as impressively vital as is Iran's in the potential outcome of this civil war that is wracking Syria.  The current administration is as close to secular in its governance as possible without abandoning its Islamic identity.

Many of its opposition are also secular minded, while of the Sunni sectarian demographic.  But far many more are both Sunni and religiously orthodox, deploring the secular aspects of the Alawite regime as un-Islamic and unsupportable.  The Muslim Brotherhood is present and accounted for among the opposition, prepared because of their majority status and longtime presence, along with their association with other branches of the Brotherhood, to reflect in Syria what has occurred in Egypt.

They have been complemented by members of al-Qaeda, and other Islamist Salafist groups eager to bring down the government and install their version of Islamic precepts and values where none now exist to their satisfaction.  Little wonder that there is no cohesion and co-operation between the political and the military groups each insisting they represent the major rebel factions.

Meanwhile, with Bashar al-Assad's government declaring its victory in retaking Damascus entirely, pounding the rebels, forcing them to retreat, and going street by street to roust supporters out of their homes, looking for rebels shielding their presence, they have been successful in reimposing themselves within the capital.  Aleppo is where the rebel fighters claim to be holding off the regime.
"I don't think the [Syrian] Army will come here.  We killed it before" said one of the rebels.  Yet they are there to face the regime, to bring themselves to battle again for its removal.  "If someone from the Free Army dies, we don't get said.  For sure they are in Paradise."  "We will not let the Syrian Army get into Salaheddin before we die", claimed another.

It is Aleppo that the regime must retake.  Damascus is important, but Aleppo is equally important, as the economic heart of the country, and with its more populous numbers.  Several hundred thousand of whom have fled the deepening battles, for other parts of the country not as unsafe, or for border areas where they hope their families will gain shelter.

“Those whose intentions are not for God, they had better stay home, whereas if your intention is for God, then you go for jihad and you gain an afterlife and heaven.”

Labels: Political Realities Middle East, Societal Failures, Syria, Traditions, Troublespots

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 31, 2012