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A Century of Genocides: Next Trigger-Man, Iran
- The first priority of most
Western governments today seems to sign a deal with Iran's Supreme
Leader, Ali Khamenei, who openly calls for Israel's and America's
destruction.
- The next priority of many European governments, and apparently
the Pope, is to entrust a state to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, a
movement that does not hide its genocidal intentions.
- Unless the Obama Administration and Congress stop Iran, we are
about to witness the world's next genocide, committed by Iran. By teeing
up Iran's nuclear capability and triggering a Middle East nuclear arms
race, the U.S. and the negotiators of the P5+1 are creating conditions
that can only lead to a disastrous war with catastrophic results.
On April 28, ceremonies were held to commemorate the seventieth
anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. It might
seem not a major event, as Dachau was not an extermination camp.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, the main Nazi killing center, had fallen three
months earlier. The absolute horror of Nazi crimes was fully known. The
end of World War II was near: ten days later, on May 8, 1945, the
surrender of Germany was signed.
Dachau nevertheless has a special meaning: it was the first camp.
After its doors opened in 1933, it became the model for all Nazi
concentration camps. [1]
More than 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps shortly after Kristallnacht
-- a wave of violent anti-Jewish demonstrations throughout Germany and
Austria on the night of November 9-10, 1938. At the instigation of the
Nazi party, Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes were attacked and
burned, nearly a hundred Jews were murdered and thousands injured, and
tens of thousands of Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
The rest of the world could still have saved Jews and stopped the
destruction machine. But the world did nothing. Hitler knew -- as Iran
knows now -- that the world would do nothing.
Six weeks earlier, on September 30, the Munich Agreement had been
signed. Britain's Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had presented the
agreement as "Peace for our time" -- in exchange for allowing Germany
to help itself to the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, later
known as Sudetenland. Chamberlain and France's Prime Minister, Édouard
Daladier, had accepted Hitler's conditions without even mentioning the
fate of the Jews.
Six months earlier, in July 1938, during the Evian Conference, no country had agreed to take in Jewish refugees. [2]
There were few consequences for Germany. Nothing had changed.
In May 1940, Auschwitz opened.
On January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference was held, during which
high-ranking German officials coordinated what they called, "The Final
Solution to the Jewish Question." [3] Auschwitz became an extermination camp a few days later.
The plight of European Jews, and the crimes at Auschwitz and other
extermination camps, came as no surprise. Witold's Report, written by
Captain Witold Pilecki, a secret agent of the Polish resistance, who
entered and escaped from Auschwitz, had been forwarded to the British. [4]
The report detailed the "selection process," the three crematoria that
could burn 8,000 people a day, and the so-called "medical experiments."
The British questioned the report's reliability. [5]
The recognition and commemoration of the Holocaust began in Israel several years after 1945. [6] For decades, however, the rest of the world remained silent.
Political considerations prevailed over ethical considerations.
Emphasizing the responsibility of Germany would have implied that many
more Germans than those tried at Nuremberg would have had to be tried.
Several Western political leaders could have been considered
accomplices. It was only when almost all the perpetrators and survivors
were dead that the time of remembrance came. But were any lessons
learned?
The crime of the Holocaust was the only attempt at the total
extermination of a people by industrial means, and it was committed on a
continent considered the "cradle of Western civilization."
The other horrific acts of extermination that took place during the
twentieth century were treated as of little importance -- and still are.
The crimes of Communism -- including the Communist killing fields of
Cambodia that took place during in the late 1970s -- were also immense.
They were committed on five continents and lasted several decades.
Communism killed about a hundred million people. [7]
Although the crimes of Communism are public information, the world is
still mostly silent. Again, political considerations prevailed over
ethical consideration. The Black Book of Communism was published
in 1999. The issue was then dropped. It is likely that there will never
be a Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communism.
Another genocide took place in Rwanda, in 1994: 70% of the Tutsis
living there were killed. One of the most horrifying aspects of the
Rwandan genocide was that international forces, sent by the UN, stood by
and remained passive. France launched a military operation to evacuate
French and Belgian citizens, but refused to evacuate any Tutsis.
Hundreds of people were massacred a few feet away from the French
forces. Once again, political considerations prevailed over ethical
considerations. The responsibilities of the international forces and the
responsibilities of France have been internationally ignored. [8]
An International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established; it will
end its work soon. Only Rwandans were incriminated. Hardly anyone in the
rest of the world remembers the Rwandan genocide.
A genocide also took place in the Ottoman Empire at the time of its
collapse, during World War I, a quarter century before the Holocaust.
Beginning in 1915, between 800,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were
slaughtered by soldiers of the Ottoman army. [9] Turkey has never recognized the massacre as a genocide. [10] The world was, again, largely indifferent to the fate of the Armenians. Hitler seized on this indifference
to say that if the world condoned what happened to the Armenians, it
would condone what would happen to the Jews. He was proven right. Again,
political considerations prevailed over ethical considerations. As
Turkey was an ally of the West against the Soviet Union, any decision
likely to annoy or offend the Turkish government was set aside. Since
the collapse of the Soviet empire, however, Turkey has lost some of its
geopolitical importance, but it contributes to new genocide-like
massacres. In recent months, tens of thousands of Christians and Yazidis
have been savagely murdered in Syria and Iraq by the Islamic State --
which could not exist without the support of Turkey.
Much of the oil sold by the Islamic State, and its needed military
supplies, pass through Turkey. The silence of the West continues. No
doubt. Political considerations are at work.
Seventy years after the fall of Dachau and Auschwitz, Israeli Jews,
Christians and Arabs are threatened with a second Holocaust by people
who deny the existence of the first Holocaust: Iran's leadership. The
West, apparently willing to vote Iran nuclear breakout capability, pays no attention and acts as if Iran's continual threats had no meaning.
The first priority of most Western governments today seems to sign a
deal with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who openly calls
for Israel's and America's destruction.
Iran's
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei (center), is shown meeting in May
2014 with Iran's military chief of staff and the commanders of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. (Image source: IRNA)
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The next priority of many European governments is to entrust a state
to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, a movement that does not hide
its genocidal intentions. Political considerations are at work, full time and at open throttle.
Since the Armenian genocide, one hundred years have passed, marked by
mass killings, massacres, and genocides. These culminated in the
Holocaust, but did not end with it. The Communist killing fields of
Cambodia took place during the 1970s. The Rwandan Genocide of the Tutsis
was perpetrated just twenty-one years ago.
The twentieth century was appropriately described by historian Robert Conquest as a "ravaged century." [11]
It is urgent that that ethical -- not political or monetary --
considerations receive priority. If not, this will be the second
"ravaged century."
[1] The Dachau Concentration Camp, 1933 to 1945: Text and Photo Documents from the Exhibition, with CD. Dachau: Comité International De Dachau, 2005.
[2] William R. Perl, The Holocaust Conspiracy: An International Policy of Genocide, Shapolsky Publishers, Inc, 1989.
[3] Mark Roseman, The Villa, The Lake, The Meeting: Wannsee and the Final Solution, Allen Lane, 2002.
[4] Witold Pilecki, The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, Aquila Polonica, 2012.
[5]
There were three other reports about the conditions in Auschwitz as
well: The "Polish Major's Report" by Jerzy Tabeau; the "Vrba-Wetzler
Report" by Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler in April, 1944, and a short
report by Arnst Rosin and Czelaw Mordowicz, who escaped from Auschwitz
in May, 1944.
[6]
Yom HaShoah ("Day of the Holocaust") became an annual memorial in
Israel in 1953. The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust
were held in the US for the first time in 1979, twenty-six years after
1945. The French government acknowledged France's responsibility in the
deportation of Jews in 1995. A Day of Remembrance of the Victims of
National Socialism was established in Germany in 1996. Holocaust
Memorial Day was established in the UK in 2001.
[7] Stephane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Lous Margolin, The Black Book of Communism, Harvard University Press, 1999.
[8] Gerard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, Fountain Publishers Limited, 1999; Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Arrow, 2004
[9] James Nazer, The first genocide of the 20th century: the story of the Armenian massacres in text and pictures, T&T Publishing inc., 1968.
[10] Fatma Müge Göçek, Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, Oxford University Press, 2014.
[11] Robert Conquest, Reflections on a Ravaged Century, W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.
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Labels: Armenians, Atrocities, Communism, Fascism, Holocaust, Iran, Rwanda, World Crises
The Year To Come
Mostly, in thinking of the year to come, people's minds turn to celebration, the turning over of the old year into the new. Hope springs eternal, just as eternally spring returns from the sere chill of winter and new life begins to prove that nature has not forgotten her duty to prolonging existence. But there are other things that will also be prolonged, and they have far more to do with the nature of man than the nature of science and existence, though man's nature threatens existence.
The incoming new year brings thoughts of beginnings, of celebrating the end of the last, and the incoming new possibilities. It would indeed herald change and hope for the future if we could simply bundle up everything of consequence in the global community that threatens our existence, as though we were preparing the kitchen waste for regular municipal garbage collection, and be done with it all, but that is the stuff of wishful thinking, not reality.
There is so much insecurity and uncertainty, unpredictability and volatility in the world. From the environment and climate change with all the worrying symptoms of warming oceans, melting icecaps, furious weather systems, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, droughts and floods all representing nature's impact on our well-being that we can do little about, but attempt to cope with.
We can hardly cope, as it is, with the overwhelming stresses on society caused by humankind's inability to accept one another, with the resulting masses of forced human migration creating more refugees in the world than ever before, fleeing conflict, and the dread of terrorist slaughter. People seeking haven, traumatized by losing their homes to pillaging marauders, women gang-raped, children abused, wounded, tormented by the fear that their parents have left them orphans.
The Kremlin's veering off under Vladimir Putin into a restoration of its former rapacious territorial and ideological ambitions, laying waste to the aspirations of its neighbours to resume their sovereign independence, hoping for more inspiring futures for their populations. A hungry bear is an angry, destructive bear, and Russia is now hungry for capital, dipping into recession, having helped to destroy Ukraine's economic future.
The economies of Iran and Venezuela look none too healthy at the moment, and they too buzz their societies like hives of angry bees waiting to sting those who complain. Eastern Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic States and Poland all waver in insecurity, never knowing whether the volatile Putin will chose to distract himself from concern over losing the economic advantage of high oil prices by selecting new geographies to inflate greater Russia with.
Turkey's government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan also entertains the world community with its lead into totalitarian Islamism while it and Qatar and Saudi Arabia proffer quiet assistance to Islamic State even while they deplore its excesses and assure NATO and the United States that this is no work of theirs and they swear to defeat the fanatics, as though they themselves are not fundamentalist fanatics of their pure version of Sunni Islam, equal to that of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Shiite version.
Radicalized Islam, to give it the more polite terminology than Islamofascism has broadened its appeal as a menace in a front across the Middle East, the Islamic Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, as tribalism and Islamism shake metaphorical hands on a mutually beneficial sprint toward a universal caliphate. Boko Haram rampaging across Nigeria, and Al-Shabab terrorizing Somalis, see their proud counterpart in the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham.
Humanity and vestiges of civilization are melting into a maelstrom of violent assertion through mass rape, bloodshed and carnage generally of the atrocity-laden type that horrifies those not fond of massacres and children disabled by the mental disequilibrium of witnessing death and destruction wherever they cast their sad, soulful eyes before they die of disease and malnutrition.
The spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran to join Islamist Pakistan, the wasting of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the swaggering domination of China whose predations have given due notice to its not-yet-cowering neighbours but forewarned of future disequilibrium; the flight of Christians from lands where that great religion was given birth and flourished on the world stage, all of this happened in 2014.
Just as well 2014 is almost behind us.
And that 2015 hovers before us, is that not an event to celebrate? Should we imagine that all the dreadful misery of the world will depart just as 2014 does, like a spirit exiting the body of the deceased?
Labels: World Crises
Speaking in Confidence ... With Confidence
"Great nations need organizing principles, and 'don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."
"Peace, progress, and prosperity. This worked for a very long time."
"And yeah, we don't want to see the world go to hell in a handbasket, and they don't want to see a resurgence of aggression by anybody."
(former) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
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| Interviewed by The Atlantic, Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized President Obama’s shorthand description of his foreign policy.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images |
In discussing the current American administration's careful doctrine on addressing global crises, the former Secretary of State is frank and frankly dismissive of her former boss's caution in engaging the United States in the affairs of the international community. Of course, he has his challenges, with one catastrophe on the world stage coming to the fore after another. It has been an impossibly busy and furiously troubling few years, to be certain.
She submitted to an interview with
The Atlantic, the results of which were published on its online website. Making such an appearance in the public eye and stating uncategorically what she would and would not do under similar circumstances herself, appears as positive an indication as any that she is still seriously mulling whether she will contest the next American presidential election, trading on her appearance and popularity in the public eye, her experience and her ambition.
She stoutly defended Israel's battle in Gaza against Hamas, arguing against her president's decision to withhold help from rebels in Syria to build a defence capable of confronting the onslaughts against his own civilian population by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. She had disagreed with Barack Obama's opinion that supplying the rebels with arms would not have stopped al-Qaeda's incursion across Syria and within Iraq today.
Failure of the administration to act on her recommendations as secretary of state, which also happened to jibe with the opinion of then-defence secretary Leon Panetta led, in her opinion, to the current situation:
"the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled", she explained. Americans, she said, want to take care of themselves in a manner rewarding to those who work hard and respect the rules. But they also want to be involved in the greater world community.
Despite her criticism of the man she once answered to as secretary of state, she expressed respect for President Obama's intelligence, sympathizing with the difficult decisions he must grapple with daily, from the Oval Office. As an example, she pointed out that while on vacation at Martha's Vineyard, she was aware that the president had to attend to issues respecting Iraq, Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, terrorism and Ebola in Africa.
"He's thoughtful, he's incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lot of different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he is cautious because he knows what he inherited, both the two wars and the economic front, and he has expended a lot of capital and energy trying to pull us out of the hole we're in", she explained. It wouldn't do much for her judgement, after all, to completely malign someone she once agreed to work with.
That said, they seem no longer to be personally involved, even as a gesture that they once worked in close tandem for their common cause. While Mrs. Clinton will happen to be at Martha's Vineyard for a book-signing at a local book shop Mr. Obama is known to visit often, he is not expected to attend that book signing, nor did Hillary Clinton plan to go out of her way to meet with her old adversary-colleague while in town.
Labels: Intercession, United States, World Crises
World leaders play nuclear terror game. Obama more worried about nuke in Manhattan than Russia
DEBKAfile Special Report March 26, 2014, 7:49 AM (IST)
A game simulating an unimaginable nuclear threat
World leaders meeting in The Hague this week took
time off from Ukraine Tuesday, March 26, to play a computer game that
was even less amusing: “Nukes on the loose” had President Barack Obama,
China’s Xi Jinping, British premier David Cameron and Chancellor Angela
Merkel among others testing their responses to a simulation of an
imminent threat of unnamed terrorists stealing nuclear material from an
unidentified country and assembling a dirty bomb for unleashing against a
Western city.
Actors played out the simulated threat in short films prepared for
the game. The players were told the dirty bomb could go off in the “City
of London, Wall Street, Milan or anywhere,” according to the London
Telegraph.
One of the films showed terrorists building a dirty bomb in a secret
laboratory. When the work is finished, an announcer tells the players
ominously that it is ready and capable of bringing sudden death to
hundreds of thousands of people. The leaders were then required to state
on the spot how they would respond – each pushing one of four buttons
on his/her computer tablet. Should they warn the public or keep them in
the dark? Should they decide alone how to handle the threat or work with
other countries?
Their choices were then presented anonymously on a big screen.
It turned out that in the end, the world leaders – caught this time
without advisers at their elbows - successfully averted the peril by a
fast, collective effort.
The game was designed by American nuclear experts as a scare tactic
“to make them think seriously about the security of their nuclear
materials.”
Obama used the occasion to say he is far more worried about the
possibility of a nuclear weapon exploding in New York City than he is
about Russia. The German chancellor grumbled that the world’s leaders
had more urgent business to attend to than playing games.
Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was speaking in real time
on March 10 when he commented in Eilat, against the background of an
Iranian consignment of Syrian-made rockets for terrorists being unloaded
from the Klos C: “Tomorrow Iran will hide nuclear suitcases.”
Obama’s nuclear game was therefore played out against a pretty grim
scenario, taking into account that global security and the world’s
international financial centers may suddenly find themselves at the
mercy of the unpredictable. Today’s airwaves are already filled with the
clamor raised by Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the scary enigma of
the vanished Malaysian airliner with 239 people aboard.
The nuclear game was held at the nuclear security summit taking place this week in the Netherlands and attended by 53 countries.
Ahead of the summit, Denis Flory, deputy director of the international
Atomic Energy Agency, said 140 cases of missing or unauthorized use of
nuclear and radioactive materials had been reported to the agency in
2013. Most concerned small quantities of radioactive material, he said,
but "even if they can't be used for making a nuclear weapon, they can be
used in radioactive dispersal devices, which is a concern” because al
Qaeda-style terrorists could try to use them to make a crude nuclear
device or a so-called "dirty bomb", experts say.
In a "dirty bomb", conventional explosives are used to disperse
radiation from a radioactive source, which can be found in hospitals,
factories or other places that may not be very well protected.
Labels: Nuclear Technology, World Crises
The Legacy of the Obama Administration
"I don't think any president has left more popular than he entered, except for maybe John F. Kennedy, for obvious reasons."
"We
asked questions about how's he doing on foreign policy, immigration,
federal budget, health care, economy and terrorism, and the only thing
he had in the plus column was a 10%-plus rating for terrorism.
Everything else was 15 points south."
"The
website glitches and the promise of better health care for millions of
people, when you promise that it doesn't happen, that goes right into
the American home. People who needed health care tried to get it, were
told they'd get it, and couldn't get it. They may eventually get it, but
this is something that affects your kids, affects your income, it's an
American home issue. So when it didn't happen, people took it
personally."
"He
needs a win. These are the worst ratings he's ever had with us. A
monumental foreign policy triumph right now sure would be welcome,
because on the domestic front, he's got real issues."
"ObamaCare
was going to be his legacy. It may still be. They could right the ship
here. Six months from now, maybe we won't be talking about this anymore.
The other side of the coin for the president right now is that the
stock market just went through 16,000 [on the Dow Jones Industrial
Average] for the first time. People's 401ks [pensions] are turning
around. Houses are starting to sell. The job picture is better."
"I'm
not saying this [trust problem] is a glitch, or something that's going
to go away in a few weeks, but the economy has gotten better since the
president became president. His supporters will say he took something
that was going over a cliff and saved it."
Tim Malloy, assistant director, Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Hamden, Connecticut
Doug Mills/The New York Times President
Barack Obama speaks to navigators hired to help people enroll in the
HealthCare.gov site at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 5, 2013.
Hope, trust, new beginnings, audacity, all
the buzz-words that Barack Obama used to great effect during his
election campaign, and relied upon during his re-election campaign,
vowing then to complete the job he set out to do when he first became
elected President of the United States of America. A global financial turndown
might not have been attributed to the inattention of a one-term
Senator, but as president he hewed to the same track as his predecessor
in rescuing financial houses and car manufacturing.
And
housing and unemployment and bankrupted cities kind of limped along
resurrecting themselves as time allowed them to do, gradually and
painfully, to achieve the inevitable. American corporations were long
realizing profits and sitting on them rather than reinvesting and making
jobs, fearful of moving themselves back into the red, and the
transition to a healthier job market took its daunting time. It has been
during this presidency that the reactive hostility between Republicans
and Democrats have reached their bitterest apex.
And the fiasco of unrolling ObamaCare
after the confident assurance and reassurance of the President that
people satisfied with their health provider, happy with their health
insurer need make no changes and others, uninsured and unable to afford
costly American health care, would now be in good hands clanged to the
reality of complete chaotic uncertainty. A man not given naturally to
apologizing for misleading people has had to humbly proffer an apology
and promise the mess will be swiftly rectified.
Guantanamo
Bay has not been closed down. Iraq has been vacated, and no good has
come of it, the country just as viciously conflicted as ever. Taking his
cue from Iraq, President Obama is pressing Afghan President Hamid Karzai
to sign on to keeping a level of American troops on standby to continue
guiding his country and countering the Taliban, when what Mr. Karzai
really wants is for billions in funding to be directed to his
administration, feeding on the guilt and responsibility of the West.
Those
billions, much of which has been pledged by Western sources, primarily
the United States, to ensure that the current corrupt government is
capable of expanding on the infrastructure aid and responsive
administration benefiting the country that foreign treasuries and
humanitarian aid agencies have channelled him toward might also offer a
type of insurance that the Taliban with whom Mr. Karzai has offered to share governing with, might not wish to tip the boat of international aid.
The
conflicted mess of abandoning old allies in the Middle East that the
Obama administration found itself in with Egypt, with Syria, with Iraq
and Libya has been compounded enormously by its blundering toward making
accommodation with the Islamic Republic of Iran -- a country whose
religious culture leads it to a fundamentalist political ideology
totally averse to peace with its neighbours, on a steady course to
achieve command-and-control by stealth and fearsome nuclear technology
in intimidation and terror -- has been given a mute blessing by the U.S.
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| Head of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission,
Ala'eddin Boroujerdi, says talks with the G5+1 will continue until all
tyrannical sanctions against the Iranian nation are lifted, IRNA reported. |
President Obama's
legacy looms into the future of American historical interpretation. The
promise that his election presaged as a true potential for change and
hope has been eclipsed by the reality of the man's own severe
limitations, his hesitation to take the lead and become a responsible
and intelligent leader when his time had come to demonstrate he was
capable of doing just that.
In his time he had to leap
over his biracial identity to achieve the presidency just as John F.
Kennedy had to convince Americans that his Catholic religion would not
detract from his capacity as the country's chief executive and Commander
in Chief. The hope that was invested in each of these men who presented
with youthful energy, optimism and promise of greatness was not
realized, much to the reluctant chagrin of their public.
President
Kennedy's untimely death through assassination kept him from achieving
his potential destiny. President Obama has been given opportunities,
trust and expectations and the space to expand on his promises, but none
of those anticipated moves intended to advance America's interests and
the world's hopes ever came to fruition. History will describe him as a
Nobel Laureate whom the unfortunate confluence of events restrained from
attaining his promise.
Skeptics will remember him as a
man in whom much trust and hope was placed, only to stagger back in the
realization that the trust and hope was, in effect, hugely misplaced.
"Trust is a muscle -- if not exercised effectively, it withers, and if torn, it takes a lot of time and luck to repair."
"You
don't get do-overs in politics. [To lose trust is to lose the]
essential political insulation he has enjoyed during these tumultuous
times.".
"Obama
has had a longer and luckier run [than recent presidents]. He is a
sober, straightforward type, broadly respected, in marked contrast to
Clinton's charming and needy sloppiness."
"He has enjoyed tremendous personal support from the American people, even when they have questioned his policies. The ObamaCare threatens to undo all that good work and goodwill."
"Pulling
off an Iranian deal somehow will certainly lead to articles talking
about how he shored up his credibility, but it won't be the kind of
boost that Reagan got for winning the Cold War."
"There is no excuse for blowing the website of your signature piece of legislation in the age of Facebook, Twitter and Google."
Gil Troy, historian, American politics and presidents, McGill University, MontrealLabels: Crisis Management, Health, Political Realities, United States, World Crises
Defending Religious Freedom
Strange, isn't it? The very
religion that claims vociferously and urgently that it is being
discriminated against world-wide, accelerating a concomitant rise in
self-protection through violent jihad has clamped down hard on the
presence or even the whiff of other religions
having a presence in land sanctified to Islam. The very thought that
the contaminating presence of another religion might share soil with the
followers of Islam is simply too disturbing to contemplate for the
Muslim faithful.
The fanatics who have perfected global
violent jihad to inspire terror and an ever-present fear of when the
next attack will occur, scream "Islamophobia"
with abandon, in justification of their acts of atrocities and rampant
bloodshed throughout the Muslim world as well as the world of the
despicable West with its notions of freedom and democracy. The two main
branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia simply cannot tolerate the presence in close geographic communion of one to the other.
Iraq, Syria, Iran have created a phalanx of Shia
terror squads with their proxy militias and their Republican Guards and
their auxiliary militias who inspire fear and loathing in the Sunni
populations that they seek to oppress and diminish in presence. The
Sunnis, who have taken with huge alacrity to their responding violent
militias have perfected their own methods of mass gore, slaughtering Shia civilians in suicide bombings, even engaging children on both sides to carry out these missions.
In
countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan where heresy is deemed to have
been committed if a Muslim determines that Islam does not adequately
fulfill his or her spiritual needs, and looks elsewhere for communion
with God, these individuals are either sentenced to life in prison -
which, given the state of torture and privation in those prisons is not
very long-lived - or execution.
A like fate, through
violent martyrdom, awaits the courageous among the Muslims who believe
that people should be free to exercise their private decision-making in
selecting their mode of worship and religious choice. And if one
happens to be a Christian in a Muslim-majority country, the inexorable
growth of fanaticism within Islam ensures that life will be uncertain,
sometimes painful and occasionally deadly.
Just as the
Jewish presence of ancient lineage has been cleansed in Arab and Muslim
countries in which a variety of religious minorities once lived, the
Christian communities in those countries have become increasingly
endangered and as a consequence, increasingly fewer in number, as
desperate people, having a wish to live lives of certainty free of everpresent danger, migrate elsewhere to save their children from misery and deprivation.
Roman
Catholicism has seen the ascension of a new pope. One of that living
embodiment of man's striving for ennoblement in spiritual devotion and
attention to the needs of their great flock, is to create a spirit of
collegiality with other faiths. The purpose being straightforward
enough; to hope that each religion will choose to view the other kindly,
and teach their followers to give equal respect to the beliefs of other
religions.
The new Pope Francis I will have his work
cut out for him in attempting to bridge the gap between Roman
Catholicism and Islam, given the unstoppable trend to Islamism.
Within Islam, the ayatollahs, the mullahs and clerics in their mosques
preach not brotherhood towards others of their faith who practise their
sectarian faith, but vicious reproach that they practise a vision of
Islam held to be 'haram' by the opposite sect.
The kind
of barbaric and intolerable inhumanity that Christian sects once
practised toward one another until enlightenment and practical
intelligence eventually led to mutual acceptance. Islam continues to heark
back with enraged relentlessness to the time of the Crusades, vowing
vengeance and a return to Islam of the lands of the West that were once
conquered in the military evangelizing of early Islam.
Where
most world religions have adapted to the modern world with an emphasis
on human relations and human rights and reciprocal respect for one
another - with occasional third-world lapses of gravely injurious
results - Islam appears to have reached a stage where it decided it
should look backward to its violent inception and conquering evangelism,
and a growing tide of barbarism has resulted, in the name of God.
How
to resist and protect the world against that relentless tide? A world
vastly complicated by instant communication, by weapons of mass
destruction, by human beings incapable of speaking the language of
peace, too busy raging belligerently in the language of conquest and
bloodshed? Deranged minds from North Korea to Iran, Hezbollah to Hamas and al-Qaeda, infest the future.
Labels: Conflict, Controversy, Human Relations, Islamism, Religion, Terrorism, World Crises
European countries with sizeable Muslim populations would do well to be cautious in the face of an Islamist backlash
Are Palestinians truly on the mind of Islamists in Mali?
On 24 January 2013 the commentator
It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far
transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that
pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations—the perhaps
irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our
Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide
expansion of both.
Whenever there are sectarian problems in Africa, the Middle East or
Europe, Islamism is more often than not the root cause. The recent
insurgency in Mali is simply the latest episode, and as Islamist rage
spreads across regional fault lines in Africa and the Middle East, the
battle between the West and Islamism is clearly intensifying.
In 2010, this conflict was described by the former British Prime Minister
Tony Blair
as an ideological war against the cultural and religious equivalent of
revolutionary communism. He believed this conflict would play out as a
‘generational-long struggle’, a view recently echoed by the current
British Prime Minister,
David Cameron.
It has long been assumed if the Israel-Palestine conflict was resolved,
political Islam across the globe would quieten down, and we would
co-exist peacefully. I have even recently heard this same spiel from the
mouth of a senior British UN Representative.
This notion – that creating a Palestinian utopia would quell the rage
boiling beneath the surface of so many Islamic communities worldwide –
is idle, ignorant and absurd.
Various events in recent years should have put an end to this outdated idea. If not the violence against
Christians in Nigeria from
Boko Haram, then surely this summer’s protests supposedly over the film Innocence of Muslims or even the Dutch cartoon episode in 2006.
What we are witnessing in Mali has nothing to do with Palestine. It has
nothing to do with the supposed oppression of Muslims globally, and
nothing to do with Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, or any recent
Western ‘imperialism’.
Yet, while many in the liberal establishment cower from saying so, it has
everything to
do with politicised Islam and its desire for imperialism, or rather the
recreation of the lost caliphate. Why else would Islamists be actively
working to enforce their religion, power and rule over the people of
Africa, thus condemning them to beggary and serfdom?
This desire for Islamic imperialism stems from the historic failings of
a tribal religion that has been forced to watch its own relative
decline during the last 300 years. Whilst Western civilisation has grown
from strength to strength, the Islamic world has idly stood by,
seething with envy.
The result is an unproductive and uninspiring civilisation, incapable
of contributing to progression, modernisation, and the advancement of
humankind. Indeed, what was the last great export from an Islamic
country that did not involve oil, poverty or terrorism?
Today, this anger is boiling over, spilling into the regional borders
of countries in the Middle East and Africa, and removing what remains
left of an existing order. The individuals trapped under tyrannical rule
won’t suffer alone; this development will have far-reaching
consequences for the West.
In the Middle East, the regional borders are exploding across two major
fault lines – ethnic and religious. Ethnically, it is played out
between the Sunni and Shia Muslims, while religiously between Wahhabi
and Salafist movements. These may be ideological divisions, but they
are also existential.
A former senior editor of the Jerusalem Post,
Douglas Davis,
has argued these conflicts will most likely involve the major regional
powers: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey (Sunni); Iran, and Pro-Salafi
Qatar (Shia). The latter have already hosted the 9/11 mastermind,
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, arm and fund Hamas, and are reportedly currently arming al-Qaeda in Syria.
Since 1945, wars between states have sharply declined. Most conflict
now takes place in the form of insurgencies which can devastate
societies, as seen in a variety of countries with sizeable Islamic
factions (Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, and the former Sudan).
In the case of Mali, the recent insurgency is of grave concern because
it is a large country, nearly double the size of France. It has seven
neighbours, whose large and weakly governed borders provide Islamic
militants with easy supply and escape routes. The Islamic off-shoots of
al-Qaeda acting in the region include groups such as: Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM), the Movement for Jihad and Unity in West Africa (MUJAO), Ansar
Dine and Boko Haram. Should Mali fall in to the hands of violent
Islamists, a domino effect in the region is highly probable.
Neighboring states Algeria (in the north) and Ivory Coast (south) have
both witnessed violence, extremism, and experienced instability from
Islamism. Both countries are ill-equipped to cope if
Mali implodes.
Algeria certainly does not wish to experience a repeat of its last
insurgency, which claimed approximately 100,000 lives. Despite this huge
loss of life, reports show militant Islamic cells continue to run in
the eastern mountains of Algeria, and in the desert next door to Mali.
On the Western border, Mauritania has also struggled with Islamic
militants who are associated with al-Qaeda.
If the prospect of a vast Islamic bloc in Africa is not frightening
enough, it is quite likely the conflict may spill over into Islamic
states in Asia, such as Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Of even more concern however is the position of France, and by
extension the rest of the European community. France may come to suffer
heavily from its intervention to save the Malian people. With over five
million Muslims in France, mainly of North and West African origin, it
is possible that some will seek revenge for the French intervention.
Concerned by this prospect, French President
Francois Hollande
has ordered greater public protection by security forces, whilst the
Interior Minister claimed they will be “watching individuals who want to
go to Afghanistan, Syria and the Sahel”. There are clear worries people
will return to French shores having been radicalised abroad, as was the
case with the Toulouse killer, Mohamed Merah.
European countries with sizeable Muslim populations would do well to be
cautious in the face of an Islamist backlash. Given recent history, it
is apparent Europe is not safe from retaliation whenever Muslim
sensitivities are offended.
And think: perhaps the next time an insurgency from Muslim rage occurs - such thugs may well be supported by a nuclear Iran.
Benjamin Lazarus is a freelance journalist based in London and Bristol. He tweets at @BLazarus1
Labels: Africa, Crisis Politics, Islamism, Middle East, World Crises
2012: From Arab Spring to Early Winter
From Egypt to Syria to Russia, reactionary forces are on the rise.
Meteorologists know seasons are predictable. In the weather
world, spring is always followed by summer. But the political world
is different. Spring can proceed to summer, or it can lead to a
sudden onset of winter.
That was the case this year in the Middle East, which in 2011
saw the Arab Spring. Egypt, which toppled longtime dictator Hosni
Mubarak last year, had a notable moment. "Egyptians choose their
leader for first time in 5,000 years," read a headline in
The
Daily Telegraph of London.
But after elected President Mohamed Morsi claimed sweeping
powers and rushed through a vote on a new constitution, tens of
thousands of protesters chanted, "Shave your beard, show your
disgrace, you will find that you have Mubarak's face!"
In Tunisia, President Moncef Marzouki, appearing at a ceremony
commemorating the first revolution of the Arab Spring, was greeted
by a stone-throwing crowd angry at police brutality. Human Rights
Watch accused the Iraqi government of carrying out mass arrests and
holding the detainees for months without charges and
incommunicado.
The government that took over in Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's
removal struggled to assert control over armed militias—including
one that killed the U.S. ambassador. Morocco's king, who responded
to the 2011 protests by agreeing to share power, was widely accused
of taking it back.
Syria's Bashar al-Assad declined to share power, preferring to
carry out a savage war against opposition rebels that left 40,000
dead.
Green shoots were scarce elsewhere as well. The
Islamist-dominated government of Turkey, a democracy that belongs
to NATO, now imprisons more journalists than any nation on Earth. A
15-year-old Pakistani girl survived being shot in the head by a
Taliban assailant for the sin of advocating education for
girls.
When it holds elections next year, Pakistan may achieve
something new. "No civilian, elected leader in Pakistani history
has ever completed a full term in office and then passed power to
an elected successor," noted
The Economist magazine.
China installed new rulers, making Hu Jintao,
The Wall
Street Journal noted, "the first Communist Chinese leader to
cede all formal powers without bloodshed, purges or political
unrest."
Chinese novelist Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature and
said the government's censorship was no more objectionable than
airport security measures. Liu Xiaobo, who won the 2010 Nobel Peace
Prize, may disagree, since he is serving an 11-year prison term for
signing a petition in favor of human rights.
A rare positive development came in Burma, whose government has
undertaken major political reforms. After spending most of the past
two decades under house arrest, dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi
led her party to victory in parliamentary elections.
"It's becoming difficult to find things to complain about,"
remarked an official of a dissident exile group. Barack Obama
marked the improvement by becoming the first sitting U.S. president
to visit the country.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been in power since
1999, won re-election despite runaway inflation and rampant crime.
Apparently unable to defeat the cancer for which he has undergone
multiple operations, El Comandante designated a preferred successor
in case he is not available to serve.
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who abetted terrorism,
murder, and rape in Sierra Leone's civil war, became the first head
of state convicted of crimes against humanity by an international
court since the Nuremberg trials.
In Senegal, Africa's oldest democracy, President Abdoulaye Wade
ran for a third term despite a two-term limit but lost. Mali
suffered two military coups. On Thursday, the UN Security Council
voted to send African troops to root out al-Qaida forces that have
taken over the northern part of the country, but set no
timetable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was inaugurated in May after
police beat protesters with nightsticks and arrested hundreds. His
spokesman later expressed regret about the police conduct: "I would
have liked them to act more harshly."
Labels: Political Realities, World Crises
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IAEA: Iran making steady advances on nuclear program
The UN nuclear watchdog says that Iran installed more centrifuges at
Fordow facility, but it isn't using more of them – yet. Nuclear talks
are due to resume soon.
Iraqi
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, right, speaks at a joint press
conference with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya
Amano of Japan in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday. The head of the U.N. nuclear
watchdog says apparent efforts by Iran to dismantle a suspected nuclear
site are continuing ahead of a visit by agency officials next month.
Karim Kadim/AP
The
UN's nuclear watchdog agency says
Iran
is making steady advances in its nuclear program, boosting its uranium
enrichment capacity as diplomatic efforts to limit it nuclear work are
due to resume.
Iran has, in the past three months, completed the installation of
centrifuges at the small Fordow facility, built beneath a mountain south
of
Tehran, according to a report issued today by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Echoing
past reports, the IAEA criticized Iran for "not providing the necessary
cooperation," which meant that the IAEA was unable to conclude that
"all nuclear material in Iran is [used solely] in peaceful activities."
Iran's
enrichment advances are monitored and conducted under IAEA safeguards.
But the agency said Iran had prevented access for almost a year to
Parchin – a site the IAEA believes was once used for weapons-related
tests – while apparent cleansing activities were under way.
The
IAEA also stated that "no concrete results had been achieved," despite
an "intensified dialogue," on resolving longstanding allegations of
weapons-related work. Iran rejects the charges, and the documents they
are based on, as fabrications of hostile intelligence organizations.
The IAEA noted that Iran was in breach of several
UN Security Council
resolutions that require it to halt all enrichment work – a crucial
sticking point in episodic nuclear negotiations this year, during which
Iran has insisted on its "right" to enrich as a signatory of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Today,
the IAEA reported that Iran added 644 centrifuges for a total of 2,784
at Fordow, completing the site where Iran enriches uranium to 20 percent
purity – a few technical steps away from weapons-grade of 90 percent.
But
the IAEA report said that Iran had not increased the number of working
centrifuges at the site – still just below 700, as it was three months
ago – nor indicated when Fordow might be fully functional.
While
the boost of capacity at Fordow grabs headlines, the IAEA also reported
that Iran has converted more than 41 percent of the higher-enriched, 20
percent uranium it has produced into reactor fuel – rendering it
virtually unusable for weapons.
The fate of Fordow has been a
critical issue during the three rounds of nuclear talks this in which
world powers aim to permanently prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear
weapon.
Amid
threats of military action from Israeli and American politicians – and
an ever-increasing array of sanctions that have sharply damaged Iran's
economy – negotiators of the so-called P5+1 group (the
US,
China,
Russia,
France, and the
UK, plus
Germany) met Iran in
Istanbul,
Baghdad, and
Moscow with little tangible result.
The P5+1 demands that Iran halt all 20 percent enrichment, remove
stockpiles from the country, and close down Fordow – which is
effectively immune from attack by all but the most powerful bunker
buster bombs.
Iran would also accept more intrusive inspections and other
measures to prevent it from going for a nuclear weapon if it ever chose
to – a step that US intelligence agencies say that Iran has not made.
So
far, the P5+1 has not put substantial sanctions relief on the
negotiating table, nor suggested officially that Iran can enrich uranium
on its own soil.
The IAEA's latest quarterly report comes as nuclear discussions are due to resume after a months-long hiatus.
Catherine Ashton, the
European Union foreign policy chief who has been been the lead negotiator for the P5+1, will meet political directors in
Brussels on Nov. 21 to strategize about next steps.
Separately,
Iran has agreed to meet with an IAEA delegation in Tehran on Dec. 13,
to finalize what the IAEA calls a "structured approach document" to
solve all issues.
President Obama, in his first post-election press conference on Nov. 14, said that he wanted a diplomatic solution.
"I
was very clear before the campaign, I was clear during the campaign and
I'm now clear after the campaign – we're not going to let Iran get a
nuclear weapon," Mr. Obama said. "But I think there is still a window of
time for us to resolve this diplomatically. We've imposed the toughest
sanctions in history. It is having an impact on Iran's economy."
Obama
said a balance should be able to be struck between Iran's desire to
"enjoy peaceful nuclear power" while also "providing clear assurances to
the international community that they're not pursuing a nuclear
weapon."
A way toward a solution would be left open to Iran, he
said: "If Iran is serious about wanting to resolve this, they'll be in a
position to resolve it."
Iran says its energy and research needs can only be met by the Fordow site and a far larger enrichment facility at
Natanz – which is designed for 50,000 centrifuges, but as of this week holds 10,414, to produce 5 percent low-enriched uranium.
The
IAEA especially grates at its lack of access to Parchin, a sprawling
military complex where the agency believes that Iran made a large
explosives containment vessel in 2000 and where experiments continued
until at least 2003.
The IAEA reported that there was "virtually
no activity at or near the building" for seven years prior to the IAEA
alerting Iran of its interest last January.
Since then, the IAEA
says that "extensive activities and resultant changes" have "seriously
undermined" its ability to assess the site for clues to weapon-relateds
work.
Satellite images indicate runoff of large amounts of liquid,
removal of "extensive pipework" from the building, and the complete
razing and removal of five nearby buildings, the IAEA reported.
Electrical
and water infrastructure had also been reconfigured, and an "initial"
scraping of earth from a surrounding area of 25 hectares was "followed
by further removal of earth to a greater depth at the location and
depositing of new earth in its place," the IAEA report said.
Labels: Iran, Nuclear Technology, Political Realities, United Nations, United States, World Crises
Stocks are tanking on Fiscal Cliff worries after U.S. vote
Getty Images
Concerns persisted whether Obama
could reach a timely deal with Republican lawmakers to avert the “fiscal
cliff” — the $600 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set
to kick in on Jan. 1.
NEW YORK — World shares and the
euro fell on Wednesday as traders turned their focus to the festering
fiscal problems in the United States and Europe after the re-election of
President Barack Obama signaled no dramatic shift in U.S. economic
policies.
Jittery investors scrambled for less-risky assets, with benchmark U.S. Treasuries poised for their best one-day move since May.
Concerns persisted whether Obama could reach a timely deal with
Republican lawmakers to avert the “fiscal cliff” — the $600 billion in
automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in on Jan. 1.
Economists warned such a move would tip the world’s biggest economy into
a recession.
“Unfortunately, the honeymoon doesn’t last very long in real time and
we knew that regardless of the outcome of the election, our focus would
immediately be shifted to the ’fiscal cliff,’ which is going to be
difficult in and of itself,” said Art Hogan, managing director of Lazard
Capital Markets in New York.
Traders also monitored the developments in Greece, where parliament
votes late in the day on an austerity package needed to secure a fresh
injection of EU/IMF aid and avert bankruptcy. There will be a follow-up
vote on Sun day on an austerity budget for 2013.
Greece’s solvency is seen as vital in the support of the euro and the
region’s economy, which has deteriorated due to slowing global demand
and a battered banking system.
European Central Bank President Draghi said the ECB expects the euro
zone economy to remain weak “in the near term” and euro zone governments
must press ahead with efforts to forge closer financial, fiscal,
economic and political union.
“A lot depends on this vote today in Greece, so I think it is a
little bit of wait-and-see,” said Mark Priest, Head of Index &
Equity Market Making at ETX Capital in London.
In early trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 240.30
points, or 1.81%, at 13,005.38. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was
down 26.57 points, or 1.86%, at 1,401.82. The Nasdaq Composite Index was
down 55.58 points, or 1.85%, at 2,956.36.
Energy
shares succumbed to intense selling pressure, as companies in the
sector will likely see more regulation in Obama’s second term, with less
access to federal lands and water even as the administration promotes
energy independence. James River Coal tumbled 20% to $3.77 a share.
The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of top European shares slid 1% to 1,103.62.
Bucking the market were French banking stocks. They were helped by
BNP Paribas’ forecast-beating quarterly earnings, which sent its shares
2% higher to 39.93 euros.
European and Asian stock markets rose initially on relief buying when
U.S. election results for the White House and Congress were clear cut
and reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve’s ultra-loose monetary
policy will continue.
The MSCI world equity index was briefly 0.4% higher before falling 1.1% to 328.12.
“The fact the election is over is obviously positive for the market.
Markets don’t like uncertainty and there was always the worry that it
was going to drag on,” ETX’s Priest said.
As worries over the U.S. fiscal cliff and Greece’s austerity votes
moved to the forefront, investors flocked to the safety of low-risk
assets, including the greenback, gold and U.S. and German government
bonds.
The dollar recovered from early losses, resuming its rally during
this week’s tense run-up to the U.S. election. It was up 0.2% against a
basket of currencies, touching a two-month high earlier.
The euro on the other hand fell 0.4% to $1.2755, retreating from a session high of $1.2876.
Gold rose for a third straight session. It was up 0.5% to a one-week high of $1,724.21 an ounce.
In the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes was 1.634%, a
12-basis point decline from late on Tu esday, on track for its biggest
single-day drop since May 30, according to Reuters data.
German Bund futures climbed 71 basis points, or 0.5%, at 142.80.
Worries about weaker energy demand caused a sell-off in the oil
market after it rallied on Tuesday. Brent crude oil fell $2.05 to
$109.02 a barrel and U.S. oil futures fell $2.56 to $86.15.
Labels: Economy, Finance, United States, World Crises
Turkey to request NATO missile defense on Syria border
Wednesday, 07 November 2012
NATO-member Turkey has already bolstered its own military
presence along the 910-km (560-mile) border and has been responding in
kind to gunfire and mortar shells hitting its territory from fighting
between Syrian rebels and Syrian government forces. (Reuters)
By Al Arabiya with Agencies
Turkey is to make an imminent official request to NATO to station
Patriot missiles along its border with Syria, a senior Turkish foreign
ministry official said on Wednesday.
NATO-member Turkey has already bolstered its own military presence along
the 910-km (560-mile) border and has been responding in kind to gunfire
and mortar shells hitting its territory from fighting between Syrian
rebels and Syrian government forces.
“This issue (Patriots) is also coming up on the agenda within the
framework of deliberations, preparations and contingency planning on the
security of Turkey and NATO territories,” foreign ministry spokesman
Selcuk Unal told AFP.
The official said there was a potential missile threat to Turkey from
Syria and that Turkey had a right to take steps to counter such a
threat. He gave no further details.
“The deployment of these type of missiles as a step to counter threats
is routine under NATO regulations,” an official said, adding that they
had been deployed in Turkey during the second Gulf War.
A NATO spokeswoman in Brussels said: “We haven’t received a request. As
the Secretary-General said on Monday, the allies will consider any
request that is brought to the North Atlantic Council.”
Labels: Islamism, Middle East, Political Realities, Societal Failures, Syria, Turkey, World Crises
"We Showed Them"
Belligerent, bellicose, roaring with anger and pride, the Cold War antagonists faced off in a showdown that would prove one or the other the victor in the game of chicken. In the final analysis, with what is now shown to have occurred, what did the face off represent? That one was more cold-bloodedly fearless than the other, certain of the outcome and prepared to wager that the other would blink, but not they?
 |
| A soldier looks at the outer casing of an old empty Soviet missile on exhibit as he works to paint it at the military complex Morro Cabana in Havana, Cuba. The world stood at the brink of Armageddon for 13 days in October 1962. |
Or, perhaps, that one was more rash and full of hubris than the other, unwilling to surrender the authority of his position as 'leader of the free world', while the other was in reality a more rational, realistic person who understood and recognized the finality of the intention, and thus chose to back down rather than provoke his adversary into a position from which no power could retrieve itself whole.
This was a serious game being played by two grown-up males, world leaders ostensibly aware of the toys they were playing with in their existential face-off. Their decisions would impact horrendously on their immediate world, send shock waves of terror and destruction through their countries, and take the world back to a primitive place from which it had long and laboriously elevated itself, only to be thrown back to the end of times.
When we think of what might have occurred, it hardly impinges on our consciousness because the raw reality of total destruction is too awful, too complex and too surreal to begin to imagine. And then, we are reminded that the very reality of total destruction that was avoided by a hairsbreadth back then is still quite possible, and possibly even more acutely possible than before.
Before, away back in 1962, two adversaries, two chiefs of the most powerful, technologically advanced nations of the time, flirted with the possibility and potential of goading one another into a first strike, each convinced the other meant to strike, and determined to take the initiative through proaction. Currently, there are lethal-minded terror militias for whom no act of destruction is too intense to consider.
In their inexorable march to impose terror and eventually, in their aspirations, control and power, they will employ every and any act of destructive force, slaughtering untold numbers by design, to achieve their triumphal purpose. Their mission is one guided by an imperial theocracy, and the use of nuclear weapons would only enhance their mission's purpose. Should they ever obtain atomic warheads, they will be used.
The sobering assessment of the Cuban Missile Crisis in retrospect is that, in fact, the two principles, in their passion of rage against one another, behaved little better than terrorists.
"It was not this masterful exercise in precise, rational crisis management that everybody thought it was. And it started to be this huge, scary thing that we got through by the skin of our teeth because a whole bunch of things broke in the right direction - and mostly because the two leaders in Moscow and Washington were scared out of their wits", according to David Welch, director, Balsillie School, interpreting the findings of historians Jim Blight and Janet Lang.
The two University of Waterloo historians analyzed the Cold War contretemps in a book they have just published
, The Armageddon Letters. Their conclusions are available also on www.armageddonletters.com. The two Americans, Blight and Lang, who joined the Balsillie School of International Affairs, make the informed claim that
"the conditions are all in place right now which make Armageddon possible."
John F. Kennedy placed a naval blockade in Cuban waters to prevent warheads from the Soviet Union reaching their intended Cuban launch sites. Nikita Khrushchev chafed at this interruption of his plans when he reconsidered, thinking of the potential consequences. His thought was of the
"abyss of a world nuclear missile war", that he would have helped bring into the commission of reality by continuing to challenge American
belligerence.
The United States could not, in fact, countenance its Cold War enemy placing nuclear weapons at its back door; the USSR would have reacted in a similar fashion had the U.S. been successful at that time in persuading Ukraine that it should place nuclear missiles on its soil. Moscow agreed it would dismantle the Cuban bases, the US. reciprocated by withdrawing nuclear installations from Turkey and Italy.
And the world exhaled.
Labels: Conflict, Nuclear Technology, Political Realities, Russia, United States, World Crises
All of Iran’s advanced enrichment centrifuges now removed to Fordo
DEBKAfile
Exclusive Report
October 16, 2012, 8:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
Iran's IR-2 centrifuge
As US president Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney
prepared for their duel on foreign policy in Long Island, Tuesday night
Oct. 16, Iran moved was on the move to present them with an accomplished
fact: Its nuclear program's high-speed uranium enrichment plant has
now been entirely sequestered in the fortified underground Fordo site
near Qom, debkafile’s intelligence sources report.
On Iran, the differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney are
significantly nuanced: Obama pledges not to let Iran acquire a nuclear
weapon, i.e., build a bomb, whereas Romney promises to prevent Iran
acquiring a nuclear capability, i.e., attain the capacity for building
one – a point which US intelligence believes will upon us in six months.
This estimate may not fully take into account Iran’s accelerating
momentum. With the advanced IR-2 and IR-4 centrifuges, its enrichment
plants can turn out more 20 percent enriched uranium at greater speed
than ever before and so reach Iran's one-ton target before then.
Our sources disclose that, racing against time, Tehran managed to
install the last four clusters of 174 centrifuges each inside in
“Fordo’s B Chamber” shortly before European Union foreign ministers
approved toughened sanctions in Brussels Monday, 15 Oct.
The 27-nation block tightened restrictions on Iran’s central bank,
halted the import of natural gas and listed 30 firms and institutions as
targets for asset freezes, including the National Iranian Oil Company
exporter and the National Iranian Tanker Company.
Tuesday, Iran denounced the new European Union sanctions as “inhuman,”
vowing they will not force any retreat on the country’s nuclear program.
The remarks by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast underlined
Iran’s insistence that it can ride out Western economic pressures. The
new EU measures will not force Iran to surrender and back down from
enriching uranium, he declared. “This sort of act will encourage the
Iranian nation to continue on its way, strongly.”
This is in line with Tehran’s consistent response to every form of
pressure, financial, economic, intelligence or military, which is to
whip up its nuclear program for an extra spurt and leave no assault
unanswered.
Saturday, Oct. 6, shortly after Fordo power lines were disabled by
sabotage, causing small fires which damaged some centrifuges, Tehran
sent Hizballah to launch a stealth drone over Israeli air space and beam
back images of the Dimona nuclear reactor. Those images will soon be
released. The lesson for the West was this: You may hit the Fordo power
supply, but our arm is long enough to reach the Israeli reactor. And our
payback for new European sanctions is faster centrifuges.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu thanked the EU for the
new sanctions at a reception Tuesday Oct. 16 for European envoys. “We’ll
know they are achieving their goal when the centrifuges stop spinning,”
he added.
He knew when he spoke that the sanctions had had the opposite effect.
And like Obama and Romney, he knows what Iran plans next. debkafile’s
military and intelligence sources report that the Iranians are
preparing to change the “active formation” of the Fordo centrifuges and
adapt them for refining uranium up to the 60 percent level, a short step
before the weapons grade of 90 percent. The conversion is expected to
be ready to go in the second half of December or early January, 2013.
US and Israeli intelligence experts on Iran recently arrived at a
consensual assessment that Fordo was the only site capable of producing
uranium enriched to the high 90 percent level.
Iran has therefore leapt across another red line in its steady advance
toward a nuclear capability and is about to across its next.
Conscious that a moment of decision was at hand, British Prime Minister
David Cameron Monday night informed Anglo-Jewish leaders that he had
called Netanyahu to ask him not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities but
allow more time for sanctions to have an impact.
Cameron was undoubtedly acting on a request from the White House in Washington.
But both the British and Israeli prime ministers haven’t forgotten that
only a few weeks ago, Israel had marked with a red line a fully
operational Fordo which had to be stopped before it was buried out of
reach in “an immune zone.”
That line was crossed this week and still Israel has refrained from action.
What this means for Tehran is that, so long as Israel heeds the
“advice” coming from Washington and London, and President Obama holds
back from the “October surprise” proposed by one of his insiders, Tehran
need not be afraid to go forward and start refining uranium up to 60
percent and, from there, all the way up to the manufacture of a nuclear
bomb without hindrance.
Labels: Conflict, European Union, Iran, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Nuclear Technology, Political Realities, United Nations, United States, World Crises
