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.

The Joys of the Bush Paradigm in Iraq

What have we wrought?














Outside a morgue in Baquba, Iraq, family members cry near the body of a 17-year-old girl killed during a raid by Iraqi forces. It has been five years since the authorization of US military force in Iraq.
(Photo: Reuters) (source: Truthout.org)

The Buddha said over two thousand years ago that hatred will never vanquish hatred. Only love can vanquish hatred. This is an immutable law of the universe.

America, collectively, went into Iraq with hatred and racism in its heart. Underneath all the fine rhetoric was a deep lust to strike out and punish, if not destroy, a people we have never had any real awareness of, substituting instead decades of Hollywood stereotypes about evil, violent, thieving, lascivious Arabs. These stereotypes, although more subtle than the Nazis' fragrant stereotypes against the Jews, have been every bit as deadly. America has actually transferred this traditional Western and Germanic/Anglo-Saxon anti-Semitism against Jewish peoples, dating back hundreds of years, for a self-righteous anti-Semitism against the Arabs, because, if you even know, Arabs and Jews are both considered Semitic peoples. They were both cut from the same cloth geographically and ethnically. Moslems and Jews even share the same ancestral "grandfather", Abraham.

So if educated Americans have ever wondered how in the world the sophisticated German people could have gone along with the Nazi agenda, with the massive crimes against humanity, with the endless passion for war, violence and torture, all we have to do is look at ourselves for the last six years and how we have leisurely walked down the seductively negative path of fear, violence and loathing. We have now perpetuated a Holocaust in Iraq, with anywhere from half a million to over a million dead, with some two million plus Iraqis in external exile, another two million in internal exile. Hundreds of thousands are sick, wounded, depressed, deranged, unemployed or in prisons, overt or covert, some of which still practice torture beyond prying eyes.

This is America's self-expression in the world today, massive death and suffering, compliments of the traditional Right-wing, the corporate Merchants of Death, and the Trotskyite-style Neocon fanatics. They will inevitably say in their alienated, sophistic ways, "So what, who cares, they're sub-human, and enemies of Christ or Jehovah or the American Century anyway."

But it does matter, because now this is their and our Karma. And what goes around comes around. So how will America work its way out of such terrible crimes? Is this even possible, to offer contrition at this point and try to make amends?

Even worse, America has made itself less and less human by dehumanizing others, so cruelty and inhumanity will follow us home, so to speak. Our social and political interactions within America will coarsen and harden, indeed they already have. The faux Social Darwinism of the 19th Century has returned with a flourish - the survival of the fittest, the richest, best armed and most unscrupulous.

And then we have the walking wounded. For those who have literally shot and killed or tortured Iraqis, particularly women and children, they now have their demons and ghosts inside of them permanently, no matter how they try to repress this black hole through liquor and drugs and self-denial. And we have thousands of GIs or ex-GIs carrying this burden.

This is why I don't go and beat my neighbor and burn his house down in a fit of paranoia or sadism, because I know it will all come back on me, sooner or later, no matter how invincible I think I might be. The human ego, no matter how arrogant it is, is not running the Universe. A God of Truth and Justice is. And it isn't any different for nations.

Pity the nation.

Loose Lips Sink Fascist Ships

From the English Sunday Mail, Sept 30, 2007:

British MPs were shocked when White House foreign policy adviser Debra Cagan told them: "I hate all Iranians." When confirming the comment one of the six MPs said: "She is very forceful and some of my colleagues were intimidated by her muscular style." (For full article, click here)

Red leather coat, Iron Cross-type jewelry, slicked-back hair and aquiline features, White House foreign policy advisor Debra Cagan looks like a cariature of a Gestapo agent from the 1940s, except she should have a black coat on to totally replicate the stereotype. Actually red and black were the Nazi colors. How interesting that she attires herself like this and has asides about hating all Iranians. This just reaffirms what I have been saying for several years, that the forces running our government have pretensions to be the Fourth Reich, and have substituted the hatred of Arabs and Moslems, indeed all the perceived inferior races, Blacks included, for the Nazi hatred of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. This is the subtext going on beneath much of the official rhetoric.

The War on Terror is, in the psychological depths, a crusade against Islam and anchored in racial hatred of other races centered in the Middle East and Western Asia. You have only to research some of the ditties being sung in US Army and Marine Corps Boot Camps for this to be rammed home to your consciousness. It was a similar situation in Vietnam. Gooks then, Sandniggers now, both wars fueled by race hatred.

Ironically, Iran is Persian and of Aryan stock historically, the same Aryan ancestry that the Nazis idealized into blonde, blue-eyed Nordics.

The Demon Persian of Tehran Does New York

Wow, what an orgy of emotion was unleashed in New York City Monday, most of it rather nasty and negative, when President Ahmadinejad of Iran arrived to begin his Big Apple itnerary, which included a speaking engagement at Columbia University yesterday (where its president rudely attacked his guest for several minutes as an introduction) and a speech at the United Nations today, Tuesday September 25. AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations brought out their phalanxes of troops and ratcheted up the propaganda machinery to try to will him off the planet, which didn't work, and they probably would have torn him to pieces if there hadn't been lots of cops protecting the motor entourage to boot. For Ahmadinejad is, you see, the Demon Persian of Tehran, this image largely based on the infamous statement attributed to him that Israel should be "wiped off the map".

Unfortunately, it is hopelessly lost on those locked into total hatred of the man that this was never what he said. The original, above diabolical phrase was actually a terrible translation of what he had recited in Farsi (Persian language). He had originally quoted an old Ayatollah Khomeini statement that I am now going to let Arash Norouzi enlighen us about from his article dated January 18, 2007. Here is the original statement and Norouzi's commentary.

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "Regime", pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh", is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite never having uttered the words "map", "wipe out" or even "Israel".


THE PROOF:

The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

Word by word translation:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from). (Reference: click here)

So, we have been brought to the edge of war with Iran based largely on, as with Iraq, Neocon-hyped bullshit like this. To the global, maniacal Neocon movement, this of course doesn't matter. Any excuse will do to attack Iran. The Cheney faction in the White House and the Israeli Right-wing, which basically controls Israel these days, both simply want a cowed and broken Iran smoldering in ruins, just as Rome continuously had it in for Carthage in ancient times. Rome ultimately destroyed the entire city of Carthage after decades and decades of war and salted all its farming fields so crops would not grow again.

However, it would be naive not to think that Iran is a rival of Israel, but a rival not because it is a pseudo-Nazi enclave of not-so-blond Aryans who fanatically hate Jews (they have their own Jewish population which is not being oppressed), but basically because it supports the cause of Moslem Palestinians trapped in the giant concentration camp called Palestine, as well as being in strong solidarity with the large Shiite Moslem faction in Lebanon, whose spokesgroup is Hezbollah.

Just as most Jews around the world tend to act in solidarity when Israel is attacked, is it surprising that most Moslems tend to act in solidarity when Palestine or Lebanon are attacked? Of course not! The trick then is to stop the polarization between these two largely religiously-defined bodies, to get everyone to learn to live as harmonious neighbors, so that the Middle East is precisely not divided into armed camps. That means dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, trade, trade, trade, exchanges of students, culture, literature, and on and on.

Moreover, it is impossible for one side to vanquish the other militarily and live happily ever after atop a large pile of skulls and bones, because violence just sets mighty new problems in motion. You know, bad Karma, and all that.

Enough said now from my point of view. At this point I want to let you share the perspective of one of the most astute and well-sourced writers on the planet about what just transpired in New York with President Ahmadinejad. I am referring to Pepe Escobar, the ROVING EYE reporter for the widely read Asia Times, who just wrote a new piece entitled:

The Roving Eye:

'Hitler' does New York

By Pepe Escobar

Here are some excerpts from Escobar's article. I am inserting more than I would normally, but this is an exceptional situation, what with war against Iran a few stupid mistakes away. Note that Escobar is pointing out the larger, positive impact the Iranian President is making globally from this trip, no matter how many tomatoes may have hit him here in New York. I quote:

[The new "Hitler", at least for a while, has lodged in a prosaic midtown Manhattan hotel. Contrary to a plethora of demonizing myths, this Persian werewolf did not evade his abode to eat kids for breakfast in Central Park. Instead, he turned on a carefully calibrated public relations charm offensive. Whatever his polemical views, for a now-seasoned head of state like Ahmadinejad to turn astonishing US disinformation on Iran, the Middle East and US foreign policy for his own advantage ended up as a string of slam-dunks.

Articulate, evasive, manipulative, the Iranian president - even lost in translation -was especially skillful in turning US corporate media's hysteria upside down consistently to paint those in the administration of President George W Bush as incorrigible warmongers. Both at the National Press Club, via video-conference, and live at Columbia University, Ahmadinejad even had the luxury of joking about fabled Western "freedom of information" - as so many are still "trying to prevent people from talking".

He scored major points among the target audience that really matters: worldwide Muslim public opinion. Contrasting with a plethora of corrupt Arab leaders, Ahmadinejad has been carefully positioning himself as a Muslim folk hero capable of standing up to Western arrogance and defending the rights of the weak (the Palestinians). The way he deflected US ire on the enemy's own turf will only add to his standing.....

He was also clever in preempting ear-splitting rumors of a next war: "Talk about war is basically a propaganda tool." One of his key points may not have made an impact in the US, but resonated widely around the world, and not only in the Muslim street: "We oppose the way the US government tries to rule the world"; there are "more humane methods of establishing peace". He assured that no Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq, adding that "regional countries in the Middle East don't need outside interference".

On uranium enrichment, he repeatedly stressed that it is Iran's right, as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to conduct a "legal" and "peaceful" nuclear program. "Why should a nation depend on another?" But if the US would engage in peace talks, so would Iran: "International law is equal to everyone." As for the US and France, they "are not the world" - a reference to both the Bush administration's and the French saber-rattling. "France is a very cultured society, it would not support war." Humanitarian imperialist French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was summarily brushed aside: he needs to attain "higher maturity".

On Israel, Ahmadinejad said, "We do not recognize a regime based on discrimination, occupation and expansionism," and he said that country "last week attacked Syria and last year attacked Lebanon"; pretty much what most of the Middle East agrees with. He may have granted that the Holocaust did take place, but the world needs "more research on it". The Holocaust is not his main point: it always serves as an intro to one of his key themes - why should the Palestinians pay the price for something that happened in Europe? He said he wanted a "clear" answer. No one deigned to provide it.....

US corporate media's treatment of the new "Hitler" seemed to have been scripted by the same ghostwriter lodged in the same (White) House. On 60 Minutes, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was firing on all cylinders for a casus belli - from "There's no doubt Iran is providing the IEDs" (improvised explosive devices, in Iraq) to "Why don't you just stop denying that you're building a nuclear bomb?" Ahmadinejad was bemused, to say the least. CNN for its part could not resist proclaiming, "His state even sponsors terrorism ... in some cases even against US troops in Iraq."

Ahmadinejad succinctly unveiled to the Associated Press the reasons for so much warmongering - in a way that even a kid would understand: "I believe that some of the talk in this regard arises first of all from anger. Secondly, it serves the electoral purposes domestically in this country. Third, it serves as a cover for policy failures over Iraq."

An even more appalling measure of Western arrogance - also speaking volumes about "us" when confronted with the incomprehensible "other" - is the diatribe with which the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, chose to "greet" his guest, a head of state. Bollinger, supposedly an academic, spoke about confronting "the mind of evil". His crass behavior got him 15 minutes of fame. Were President Bush to be greeted in the same manner in any university in the developing world - and motives would abound also to qualify him as a "cruel, petty dictator" - the Pentagon would have instantly switched to let's-bomb-them-with-democracy mode.

Ahmadinejad, to his credit, played it cool. Stressing, in a quirky fashion, his "academic" credentials, he unleashed a poetic rant on "science as a divine gift" just to plunge once again into the Palestinian tragedy. He stressed how Iran "is friendly with the Jewish people" - which is a fact (at least 30,000 Jews live undisturbed in Iran). Then back to the key point: Why are the Palestinians paying the price for something they had nothing to do with? Iran has a "humanitarian proposal" to solve the problem - a referendum where Palestinians would choose their own political destiny.

In the absence of informed debate, Ahmadinejad stressed his points the way he wanted to. Iran does not need a nuclear bomb. Iran does not want to manufacture a nuclear bomb. But telling other countries what they can and cannot do is another matter entirely. He is more than aware that the nuclear dossier is "a political issue" - a question of "two or three powers who think they can monopolize science and knowledge". It's up to a sovereign Iran to decide whether it needs nuclear fuel. "Why should we need fuel from you? You don't even give us spare parts for aircraft."

He also stressed that Iran is a victim of terrorism - a reference to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a micro-terrorist group by any other name, formerly protected by Saddam, now supported by the Bush administration; but he was also referring to destabilizing black ops by US special forces in the strategically crucial provinces of Khuzestan and Balochistan.

Ahmadinejad was not questioned in detail on internal repression, intimidation of independent journalists, what his Interior Ministry is up to, from a crackdown on women not wearing the veil properly to more sinister, unsubstantiated "collaboration with America" charges. When executions were mentioned, he quipped, "Don't you have capital punishment in the US?" - and defended them on the ground that these were drug smugglers.

Nobody questioned him on his disastrous economic policies, on the competence of his ministers, on an embryonic pact between Iran and Saudi Arabia to prevent another war in the Middle East, on the upcoming, pivotal summit of the Caspian littoral states in Tehran where Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Vladimir Putin will discuss what happens next - from technical aspects of Iran's nuclear program to Bush's warmongering impetus. Anyway, Ahmadinejad made it clear: Iran is "ready to negotiate with all countries". The same could not be said about the Bush White House........]

To read Escobar's entire article, please click here.

Senator Warner--Talk is Cheap

Senator Warner is doing a little movement on the public relations front but the bottom line is this--

Talk is Cheap! Senator Warner is continuing to vote along the Bush/Cheney party line and is not acting in a way to block this Bush Republican Filibuster. He is aiding the Bushites in not "exposing" the Senators who are preventing the American people's elected representatives from voting on the Iraq war.

The "principle" behind the Republican filibuster is to protect Bush so he can continue to steer the same incompetent course under the new name of the week.

I'll be glad for 2008 when we can replace another VA Senator with someone who will choose NOT to represent a few right wing extremist neo cons and will work to represent the best interests of their constituents..