Cable Cuts up to Six Now - Ominous

Is there a cable chewing whale out there, racing across oceans to appease his habit, perhaps even Moby Dick still trying to destoy Captain Ahab and mistaking the thick cables for his one good leg, or is, realistically speaking, active sabatoge going down for some malevalent purpose, such as an attack on Iran. Time will tell. They are starting to repair some of the cables this week, so if something is going down, it will go down soon.

Or perhaps, James Bond's SMERSH really exists, and they are getting ready to blackmail the planet.

Here is a news update from The Wayne Madsen Report (source):

February 6, 2008 -- Cable cuts now up to six
publication date: Feb 6, 2008

After four submarine cables carrying Internet and phone traffic were cut, two off of Alexandria, Egypt and two in the Persian Gulf, two additional cable cuts are now being reported, another in the Gulf off Iran and the other off the western coast of Malaysia.

.......The report continued, "Contrary to previous reports in the corporate media, Egypt's Communications and Information Technology Ministry said the two cables that were severed near Alexandria last week, FLAG Telecom and SEA-Me-We4, were not cut by the anchors of ships. Egyptian authorities examined photographic footage of the restricted maritime area and no ships were seen 12 hours before and 12 hours after the time of the cable cuts."

The fifth cable cut reportedly came off the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and affected the FLAG FALCON ring cable the serves the Persian Gulf. The other cut was on the SeaMeWe-4 cable off the city of Penang, Malaysia.

The six cable cuts are being blamed on a covert sabotage operation. A hundred million users in Iran, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Malaysia, and Maldives have been affected by the six verified cable cuts. Since Israel and U.S.-occupied Iraq have been unaffected by the sabotage, Middle East intelligence agencies and computer users are blaming the United States and/or Israel for the attacks.

The Buzz--Major GeoPolitical Events in Middle East

Cross-section of a submarine communications cable.

LAYERS:

1--Polyethylene
2--"Mylar" tape

3--Stranded metal "Steel" wires
4--Aluminum water barrier
5--Polycarbonate
6--Copper or aluminum tube
7--Petroleum jelly
8--Optical fibers

The Buzz in the Middle East is that the internet has been intentionally cut off...to add fuel to this fire both Israel and Iran are not affected by the current internet blackout. "Large areas of the Middle East, Asia. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.According to InternetTraffic.com, Iran has been completely cut off from the Internet, though Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's blog can still be accessed." (Source)

WhatReallyHappened.com speculates that skepticism was deserved with one cable being cut by a ship's anchor...You'd think the developers would have planned for such an occurrence (and they have.) Now four separate cables in different locations have been cut. Even more bizarre is the fact that Israel and Iran are the only two countries in the Middle East that aren't affected. Dr. Richard Sauder speculates that this is a Zionist Neo Con aggressive act of war against Iran. Sauder's theory encompasses the ability of the U.S. Navy to blakout the world wide web:

For the uninitiated it seems bizarre and unlikely, but the plain fact of the matter is that American military divers really go out onto the seabed from special submarines outfitted with airlocks and they actually cut undersea communications cables-- then patch in sophisticated surveillance equipment -- then they splice the cables back together. That is if the motive is espionage. If the purpose of the operation is garden variety sabotage, then simply cutting the cable suffices. It's like something out of a spy novel thriller, but the U.S. Navy really does have submarines and deep diving, special operations personnel who specialize in precisely this sort of operation. So cutting a few undersea cables in two or three days is well within the operational capabilities of the United States Navy. (Source)

Khaleej Times Online reports that Egypt's communications ministry states that no ship caused their outage:

The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged....The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships....

Two cables were damaged earlier this week in the Mediterranean sea and another off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to Internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia.

A fourth cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged on Sunday causing yet more disruptions, telecommunication provider Qtel said.

Folks in the middle east are worried that this internet blackout maybe the precursor to an American attack on Iran. Some people in the U.S. are worried that the Pentagon may cut on internet service in parts of the U.S. ( or the entire U.S.) in order to control information. This soundx outrageous until you read what the Pentagon says about the internet.

The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap Information Operations Roadmap is blunt about the fact that an internet, with the potential for free speech, is in direct opposition to their goals. The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system".....

"When implemented the recommendations of this report will effectively jumpstart a rapid improvement of CNA [Computer Network Attack] capability." - 7 "

Enhanced IO [information operations] capabilities for the warfighter, including: ... A robust offensive suite of capabilities to include full-range electronic and computer network attack..." [emphasis mine] - 7(Source)

Bottom Line--This is one way to control information in the Middle East for at least a few weeks. Wonder what the "instigators" are planning to do within the next few weeks.

We still have to fight to keep the corporations from trying to "own OUR web" and internet neutrality is not being talked about by either the Democrats nor Republicans. Now we have the Pentagon with plans to take over the net and control information.

It looks like there are some big fights ahead for those of us who cherish our freedom of speech.

Hopefully, enough government heads are questioning why this blackout has occurred and there will be no invasion of Iran and these cables will soon be fixed.