Once again, Ortega's impossible dislike, conjoined now with Chavez's true sickness remind us that while we focus properly on the dangers of salafist and khomeinist murderers, there are murderer's whelps around.

Iran making push into Nicaragua

Web Posted: 12/18/2007 10:25 PM CST

Todd Bensman
Express-News MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — The second military helicopter in as many days hovered over the jungle and then landed to a most unwelcome reception from several dozen angry Rama Indian and Creole villagers.

Rupert Allen Clear Duncan, a leader of some 400 Creole who live along the shoreline, confronted the foreigners dressed in suits and military uniforms that day in March and demanded to know the purpose of their aerial trespasses.

"This is our land; we have always lived here, and you don't have our permission to be here," Duncan spat, when refused the courtesy of an explanation.

Not until Duncan threatened to have his machete-waving followers damage the aircraft did they learn that some of the men were from the Islamic Republic of Iran and had come promising to establish a Central American foothold in the middle of their territory.

As part of a new partnership with Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, Iran and its Venezuelan allies plan to help finance a $350 million deep-water port at Monkey Point on the wild Caribbean shore, and then plow a connecting "dry canal" corridor of pipelines, rails and highways across the country to the populous Pacific Ocean. Iran recently established an embassy in Nicaragua's capital.

The real problem here is not juts this, but the greater than 30 members of the Iranian embassy and consulate staff, completely out of line with the sizes of both nations. What do Misters, Brill, Van Diepen, and Fingar have to say

about this?

The following are STILLL wanted for murder in Argentina:

1.  Ali Akbar Rafsanjani , Iranian president, widely heralded as a pragmatic moderate.
   

2.  Ali Fallahijan , Minister of Intelligence and Security.
3.  Ali Akbar Velayati , Foreign Minister.
4.  Mohsen Rezai , commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
5.  Ahmad Vahidi , commander of the Qods Force. 
6.  Mohsen Rabbani , in 1994 Iranian cultural attaché in Buenos Aires.
7.  Ahmad Reza Asghari , (also known as Mohsen Randjbaran ), third secretary of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires .
8.   Imad Moughnieh , head of Hezbollah's External Security Service in 1994, a position he holds to this day, as well as serving as Hassan Nasrallah's military deputy.

Israel: US report on Iran may spark war
JERUSALEM - Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state.

In his remarks — Israel's harshest criticism yet of the U.S. report — Avi Dichter said the assessment also cast doubt on American intelligence in general, including information about Palestinian security forces' crackdown on militant groups. The Palestinian action is required as part of a U.S.-backed renewal of peace talks with Israel this month.

Dichter cautioned that a refusal to recognize Iran's intentions to build weapons of mass destruction could lead to armed conflict in the Middle East.

He compared the possibility of such fighting to a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 by its Arab neighbors, which came to be known in Israel for the Yom Kippur Jewish holy day on which it began.

"The American misconception concerning Iran's nuclear weapons is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened," Dichter said in a speech in a suburb south of Tel Aviv, according to his spokesman, Mati Gil. "Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat."

Dichter didn't elaborate on the potential scenario but seemed to imply that a world that let its guard down regarding Iran would be more vulnerable to attack by the Islamic regime.

Actually the scenario I have in mind is more along the lines of an Israel isolated in a world which always has either participated in or ignored the killing of jews as a historical game, and did NOTHING (or helped) as the majority of jewish people on the planet were made the product of industrial extermination, STRIKES FIRST with the only weapons which can ensure that Iran's weapons program is destroyed

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had disputed the U.S. intelligence assessment this month, saying that Iran continues its efforts to obtain components necessary to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran still poses a major threat to the West and the world must stop it, Olmert said.

Israel has for years been warning that Iran is working on nuclear weapons and backed the United States in its international efforts to exert pressure on Iran to stop the program. Israel considers Iran a significant threat because of its nuclear ambitions, its long-range missile program and repeated calls by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for the disappearance of Israel.

Iran says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes.

Israel will work to change the American intelligence agencies' view of Iran, said Dichter, a former chief of Israel's Shin Bet secret service agency.

"A misconception by the world's leading superpower is not just an internal American occurrence," Dichter said.

Any future faulty U.S. intelligence on the actions of Palestinian security forces could damage peace efforts, Dichter said.

"Those same (intelligence) arms in the U.S. are apt to make a mistake and declare that the Palestinians have fulfilled their commitments, which would carry with it very serious consequences from Israel's vantage point," Dichter said.

Iran 'hoodwinked' CIA over nuclear plans - Telegraph UK

By Tim Shipman in Washington, Philip Sherwell and Carolynne Wheeler

British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.

	Analysts believe that Iranian staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation

The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.

The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.

The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.

A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East

and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.

The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. "We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.

"It's not as if the American intelligence agencies are regarded as brilliant performers in that region. They got badly burned over Iraq."

A US intelligence source has revealed that some American spies share the concerns of the British and the Israelis. "Many middle- ranking CIA veterans believe Iran is still committed to producing nuclear weapons and are concerned that the agency lost a number of its best sources in Iran in 2004," the official said.

The Gulf States and Iran
America and Israel aren't the only ones worried about the mullahs getting a nuclear bomb.

BY MAX BOOT
Sunday, December 9, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Sultan Qaboos of Oman, King Abdullah of KSA, and Mr. World without Zionism
on the day the NIE was released. Gravitation to the STRONG HORSE

The release of the new National Intelligence Estimate will provide more fodder for those who claim that "neoconservative ideologues" and the "Israel lobby" are overly alarmed about the rise of Iran. In reality, some of those most worried about the mullahs wear flowing headdresses, not yarmulkes, and they have good cause for concern, notwithstanding the sanguine tilt many news accounts put on the NIE.

I recently visited the Persian Gulf region as part of a delegation of American policy wonks organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Throughout our meetings in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the top issue was Iran's ambitions to dominate the region.

Evidence of those imperial designs is not hard to find. The Iranians are aiding extremists who are undermining nascent democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. The beneficiaries of Tehran's largess include Hamas, Hezbollah and even, the evidence indicates, al Qaeda. (Saudi officials are quietly furious that Tehran has given refuge to some suspects in the 2003 Riyadh attacks.) Iran is building up its military arsenal, and has threatened to shut down the Persian Gulf (or, as Arabs call it, the Arabian Gulf).

What particularly concerns Gulf Arabs is the possibility that Iran could go nuclear--a concern unlikely to be erased by the ambiguous findings of the new NIE. While this NIE claims that Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 (in direct contradiction to an NIE finding issued just two years ago that "Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons"), it concedes that "Iran's civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing." Such a "civilian" program could be converted speedily and stealthily to military use. As the new NIE notes, "Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so."

That thought fills Sunni Arabs with dread. "If we accept Iran as a nuclear power that is like accepting Hitler in 1933-34," warned one senior Arab official, using the kind of analogy that back in Washington would get him dismissed as a neocon warmonger.

It should be obvious to all that the result
of the NIE is that neither
Israel NOR the Arabs
see the USA as reliable

Read the whole damn thing

Apparently waiting for the moment we have 2 exemplars of what hideous spin is in this post NIE, reality. This is going to be a bruising battle, and make the partisan divide bitter beyond reclaim just in time for Iowa and New Hampshire

WaPo has published a comical op-ed by Vali Nasr,  a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, and the author of "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future."

Meet 'The Decider' of Tehran. It's Not the Hothead You Expect.
Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page B01

When most Americans think of Iran, they probably think of its incendiary president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since his election in 2005, Ahmadinejad has gleefully shocked the world with his defiance over Iran's nuclear programs, his ravings about a Shiite messiah, his jeremiads against Israel and his denial that the Holocaust occurred. But while Ahmadinejad is surely the regime's face, he's not its boss. Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death in 1989, the real power in Tehran has belonged to Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad makes the noise, but Khamenei pulls the strings.

Nasr then goes on to inform us how moderate and temperate and reasonable is the man who REALLY leads Iran.

The supreme leader is an enigma even to most of Iran's 70 million people. In fact, he's far more cautious, conservative and pragmatic than the bellowing Ahmadinejad. Khamenei wants a "Goldilocks" kind of Islamic Republic -- not too hot, not too cold.

Sorry, Mr. Nasr. but, here's a few samples of the words and thoughts of the 'hidden' Khameinei:

More from this moderate and even tempered, racist son of a bitch....

GERTZ - ABU DHABI — The United States plans to conduct a strategic dialogue with the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The U.S. delegation are attending the Manama Dialogue, scheduled for Dec. 7-9. Gates was expected to be the most senior official to participate in the forum, organized by Bahrain and the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was said to have been invited to the summit.

Yes, he can help us.Are you kidding me?

Gulf sources said Gates was to discuss security threats to the region. They said the secretary would later meet several GCC leaders.

"In response to a question about Iran's threat to destroy Israel, Gates said,"If Iran obtains nuclear weapons no one can promise it would not use them against Israel," but that he felt Iran was only developing nukes as a `deterent'." Robert Gates, Dec 06.

The Manama Dialogue includes all six GCC states as well as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Yemen. Sessions would address the U.S. military presence, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and energy security.

"(GATES), along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-headed a task force at the Council on Foreign Relations on US policy towards Iran.  One of the findings of the task force was that the US begin a dialogue with Iran."

Gates arrived in the region after the GCC summit, scheduled to take place on Dec. 3-4 in the Qatari capital of Doha. The sources said Iran, nuclear energy and the U.S. military presence would top the GCC agenda.

Former Secretary of State George Schultz (for Ronald Reagan), complained that Gates and the CIA had repeatedly tailored intelligence to fit the policy interests they favored."

"The plan to set up a joint nuclear energy plant for the production of power will top the agenda of the talks," GCC secretary-general Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah said.

"Is Bob Gates, Richard Haass (Amb. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former director of policy planning for the Department of State), likely to be more inclusive about who the US talks with.  For example:  on Iran.  Is he not more likely to urge that Iran come into a conversation with the US?

Richar Haass:  Well as.... Yogi Berra once said, Predictions are awfully tough, especially about the future. So I don't know if Bob Gates is going to explicitly say that, but all I can tell you is that

1) he's favored supporting a dialogue with Iran

2)  I believe it's highly likely that the Baker-Hamilton group will propose some sort of regional forum, akin to existed, if you recall, at the time of Afghanistan where the neighboring countries, the US, and Russia had a standing regional forum. 

I think we're probably moving towards some version of that for Iraq with a half dozen or so neighboring countries along with the US, Russia, and Europe -- and perhaps others --would have a regular set of consultations about what can be done to prevent either the breakup of the country or the civil war getting even worse.  So I would think this is likely to be US policy and I don't see where people who have not been part of the Administration would have problems, necessarily, with signing on to that."

Sounds like the Congress of Vienna to me ..the outdented material is ALL from late 2006.

From the evil heart of neocondom...The Weekly Standard

Consider that on July 11, 2007, roughly four or so months prior to the most recent NIE’s publication, Deputy Director of Analysis Thomas Fingar gave the following testimony before the House Armed Services Committee (emphasis added):

Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us. The United States’ concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of Iran’s neighbors. Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution.

DUH...no really? How much are you making for that conclusion?

MONEY LINE ALERT !!!!!!

We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons--despite its international obligations and international pressure.

This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.

This paragraph appeared under the subheading: "Iran Assessed As Determined to Develop Nuclear Weapons." And the entirety of Fingar’s 22-page testimony was labeled "Information as of July 11, 2007." No part of it is consistent with the latest NIE, in which our spooks tell us Iran suspended its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 "primarily in response to international pressure" and they "do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

The inconsistencies are more troubling when we realize that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Fingar is one of the three officials who were responsible for crafting the latest NIE. The Journal cites "an intelligence source" as describing Fingar and his two colleagues as "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials." (The New York Sundrew attention to one of Fingar’s colleagues yesterday.)

MEMRI:
Iran's Response to Western Warnings: 'First Strike,' 'Preemptive Attack,' Long-Range Ballistic Missiles, 'Asymmetric [Guerilla] Warfare'

As the Iranian nuclear crisis escalates, Iranian officials have stepped up their threats against the West. Although regime spokesmen have stressed that Iran's security doctrine is defensive,(1) the threats issued by senior Iranian leaders and officials indicate that Iran's actual strategy for responding to a Western attack is taking on increasingly offensive and deterrent characteristics.

While in February 2003, then-defense minister Ali Shamkhani stated, "Iran has a deterrent defensive doctrine, which means that it will in no way take an offensive measure... Iran's objectives are of a defensive nature,"(2) - the new strategy is gradually revealed in both deeds and statements by regime spokesmen.(3)

The offensive elements of this doctrine include a "first strike" and "preemptive attack"; the development of long-range ballistic missiles (the Qadr and the Ashura(4)) with ranges of up to 2,000 km; and the development of an "asymmetrical [guerilla] warfare" tactic – that is, suicide bombings in the Persian Gulf, whether to close off the Strait of Hormuz or to hit targets in the Gulf countries.

A September 24, 2007 article published in Sobh-e Sadeq, the mouthpiece of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei among Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), discussed economic and security threats issued by the West, particularly the U.S. The article stressed that following the West's escalation of threats, Iran had upgraded its military strategy to incorporate a doctrine of offense, including "first strike" and "preemptive attack" capabilities.

the principle of surprising the enemy is one of the best-known,
most accepted, and most logical tactics
that a country can adopt when facing imminent threats ...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran called on its Western foes on Friday to apologize to the Islamic Republic after the release of a U.N. nuclear agency report which Tehran said showed it had been telling the truth about its atomic plans, according to state media.

whoopsi.....

The International Atomic Energy Agency also said restrictions the Iranians put on U.N. inspectors two years ago mean it still cannot rule out that Iran has a secret weapons program, as suspected by Washington and its allies.

An Iranian envoy denounced the idea of further U.N. Security Council sanctions, saying the IAEA assessment shows it is cooperating.

The United States and Britain noted the report confirmed that Iran continues to ignore the Security Council's demands that it suspend uranium enrichment until questions about the nuclear program's intent are resolved.

Whoopsi....

VIENNA, Austria —  Iran has met a key demand of the U.N. nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said Tuesday.

Iran's decision to release the documents, which were seen by U.N. inspectors two years ago, was seen as a concession designed to head off the threat of new U.N. sanctions.

But the diplomats said Tehran has failed to meet other requests made by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its attempts to end nearly two decades of nuclear secrecy on the part of Iran.The agency has been seeking possession of the blueprints since 2005, when it stumbled upon them among a batch of other documents during its examination of suspect Iranian nuclear activities. While agency inspectors had been allowed to examine them in the country, Tehran had up to now refused to let the IAEA have a copy for closer perusal.

Associated Press:
BIRJAND, Iran - Iran has achieved a landmark with 3,000 centrifuges fully working in its controversial uranium enrichment program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday. blah blah blah....HERE. No further words in this story are meaningful.

Jersusalem Post:
"We have now reached 3,000 machines," Ahmadinejad told thousands of Iranians gathered in Birjand, in eastern Iran, in a show of defiance of international demands to halt the program believed to be masking the country's nuclear arms efforts.

Ahmadinejad on Wednesday reiterated his rejection of any suspension of Iran's enrichment activities, or even a compromise over how Teheran will proceed beyond the 3,000 centrifuges.

"They say they've swallowed (bitterly accepted) these 3,000 and want to reach an agreement with us on what to do, at what speed, how many (centrifuges) a day or week," Ahmadinejad said of latest Western pressures.

"Our response is: 'Who are you to make comments about the Iranian nation ... do we ask you how many machines you have,"' Ahmadinejad added.

He also said he had bluntly refused a recent offer to negotiate with the United States over Iran's nuclear activities.

"I, as your representative, told those who brought the message that we didn't ask for talks ... If talks are to be held, it is the Iranian nation that has to set conditions, not the arrogant and the criminals," Ahmadinejad said.

"The world must know that this nation will not give up one iota of its nuclear rights ... if they think they can get concessions from this nation, they are badly mistaken," he concluded.

AND THEN.......

U.S. Fifth Fleet in Gulf exercise for possible war in Iran

ABU DHABI — The U.S. Navy launched a series of exercises in the Gulf to enhance skills required in any war with Iran which, according to British press reports, could occur in early 2008.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet conducted a crisis response exercise that included amphibious, air and medical forces. The five-day exercise by the USS Wasp, led by Commander Task Force 59, was scheduled to end on Nov. 5.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet has been operating two strike groups in the Gulf. The USS Enterprise and USS Kearsarge have also been training in the region.

The U.S. Navy also said it would deploy the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group in the Middle East. The navy

said the Truman would be accompanied by the guided missile destroyers Oscar Austin and Winston S. Churchill as well as the guided missile cruiser San Jacinto and the submarine Montpelier.

Britain and Canada would also join the U.S. strike group, the navy said.

Officials said the exercise would evaluate the capability of the USS Wasp to respond to oil spills

Iran warned on Saturday it would fire off 11,000 rockets at enemy bases within the space of a minute if the United States launched military action against the Islamic republic.

"In the first minute of an invasion by the enemy, 11,000 rockets and cannons would be fired at enemy bases," said a brigadier general in the elite Revolutionary Guards, Mahmoud Chaharbaghi.

"This volume and speed of firing would continue," added Chaharbaghi, who is commander of artillery and missiles of the Guards' ground forces, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

The United States has never ruled out attacking Iran to end its defiance over the controversial Iranian nuclear programme, which the US alleges is aimed at making nuclear weapons but Iran insists is entirely peaceful.

Iran has for its part vowed never to initiate an attack but has also warned of a crushing response to any act of aggression against its soil.

"If a war breaks out in the future, it will not last long because we will rub their noses in the dirt," said Chaharbaghi.

"Now the enemy should ask themselves how many of their people they are ready to have sacrificed for their stupidity in attacking Iran," he said.

What are the odds that Iran has 11,000 guided missiles like these?

Or like these?

The Oxford Research Group said that any U.S.-British war with Iran would plunge the Middle East into violence. A report by the think tank concluded any U.S. air strike would invite Islamic retaliation against Western interests throughout the region.

"Going to war with Iran will make matters far worse, playing directly into the hands of extreme elements and adding greatly to the violence across the region," the report, released on Monday, said. "Whatever the problems with Iran, war should be avoided at all costs."

Last time I checked, war meant -be prepared to get hurt, but prepare to END THE ENEMIES EXISTANCE, because the point of the war was to effect just exactly that.

The report was released as the British government was said to be discussing war options against Teheran with the United States. British media reports said Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged that the British military would help Washington in any attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The Oxford Research Group urged a reassessment of the Western military strategy against Islamic adversaries. The report said the war against Al Qaida and its allies was failing and called for a Western withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq.

"If the Al Qaida movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and

systematically undercut," said Paul Rogers, the report's author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England. "Combined with conventional policing and security measures, Al Qaida can be contained and minimised but this will require a change in policy at every level."

Entitled "Alternatives to the War on Terror," the think tank said Iran and its ally Syria must be wooed by the West through diplomacy. Rogers said Islamic insurgency groups in Afganistan should be granted aid in an attempt to turn them into political partners.

"Failure to make the necessary changes could result in the war on terror lasting decades," the report said.

.

Oh. Ok. Who is the Oxford Research Group?
Got it?
Root causes?
Absolutely delusional group. Remember their name

GERTZ:

Mohammad Ali Aziz Jafari, the new commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, plans to focus on determining U.S. weaknesses in preparing for any war with Washington. Unlike his dismissed predecessor, Jafari, regarded as an expert in U.S. military capabilities, has eschewed politics for military strategy.

U.S. intelligence analysts said the appointment of Jafari marked Teheran's preparations for a war with the United States and a major crackdown on domestic unrest fomented by Washington and London. The analysts said Jafari would focus on the use of Iranian nonconventional weapons and terrorism in any war with the United States.

Since we know that Iran thinks they can damage the US economy and thus drive us away with $100+ oil, any takers on security in Elizabeth, NJ?

"Jafari is a professional that believes that any means justify the ends," an intelligence analyst said. "He is prepared to do anything to save the regime."

The analysts said Jafari was behind Iran's silent campaign to drive the U.S.-led coalition from Iraq. They said he organized the so-called Special Groups, comprised of Shi'ite cells trained and equipped by IRGC.

The Special Groups have become expertise in the assembly of improvised explosive devices, particularly the Iranian-origin explosively-formed penetrators. Special Groups operatives are sent for training either in Iran, Iraq or Lebanon. In Lebanon, the Iraqi Shi'ites are taught sabotage, EFP assembly and intelligence by Hizbullah.

Jafari has long been viewed by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei as the professional needed for any confrontation with the United States. But Khamenei was cautious in dealing with Jafari's predecessor, the politically-connected Yahya Rahim Safavi, who was IRGC commander for a decade.

GERTZ - NICOSIA — Iran's military reported it had achieved a fleet of 1,000 speedboats as part of a swarm strategy to overcome U.S. naval superiority in the Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz.

Officials said the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has procured the fleet over the last five years, with most of the speedboats delivered since 2005. They said the attack vessels have undergone a series of exercises to demonstrate the swarm strategy against the U.S. Navy fleet in the Gulf.

"IRGC is a major offensive and defensive force," outgoing IRGC commander Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi said. "We have advanced technology, and we have equipped our troops with the most advanced equipment that can defend our national interests."

In 2007, IRGC conducted two major naval exercises in the Gulf that tested the swarm doctrine. The doctrine stipulated the use of hundreds of speedboats to overcome U.S. aircraft carriers and destroyers in the shallow waters of the Gulf.

The IRGC Navy has also installed a network of anti-ship missile batteries along the Gulf coast. Safavi said the military could detect and target any enemy asset in the Gulf and Sea of Oman.

Now that one is a concern

"We have surface-to-sea missile systems that can cover the length and breadth of the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman," Safavi said in an Aug. 15 interview to Persian television. "No boat or vessel can cross the Persian Gulf without being within the range of our coastal missiles."

Safavi, replaced on Sept. 1 by Mohammed Jafari, said IRGC has revised its strategy to prepare for a confrontation with the United States and other Western powers. He said IRGC, a force of 125,000, contained a reserve force of 12 million members of the Basij militia.

"We are sure of our defense capabilities but of course we think about peace security and calm of the region," Safavi said. "The strategy is a defensive strategy."

As for the swarm strategy ....the speedboats com from docks and ports, don't they? If not....it's called the AC-130, or for more close in satisfaction ...say hello to, well, you know...

It also means there will be war.From Gertz:

Iran threatens counterstrike at Israel with 600-missile arsenal

Iran has prepared a vast intermediate-range missile arsenal for an attack on Israel and U.S. targets throughout the Middle East. Iranian military sources said Teheran has amassed an arsenal of 600 Shihab-3 and -4 missiles, with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers.

"A key target will be Israel's nuclear site at Dimona," a military source said.

Iran missile test in 2004 [ZOOM].

The sources said Teheran has deployed its arsenal in both western and northern Iran. They said much of the arsenal has been directed toward Israel and could destroy the Jewish state in a first strike.

Iran's missile arsenal has been tested several times. In January 2007, Teheran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted a massive missile exercise that demonstrated its capability to fire more than 100 missiles in a single salvo.

Capt. Mohammed Rostami, a member of the Iranian Center for Military Studies, said Iran has developed an arsenal that does not depend on Western suppliers. Rostami said Iran has developed an advanced command and control system that could ensure the launch of 600 Shihab-3 and -4 missiles within a minute.

The first salvo, Rostami said, would be followed by others as mobile launchers concealed by the huge Iranian mountains in the north and west of the country. He did not rule out that Iran would install nonconventional weapons in missile warheads.

Now we can either see this stuff as Saddam like WMD emptiness or not, but if it's a bluff, it is one which will guarantee actions by the people which it is intended to fake out, thus guaranteeing its own failure as a policy.

Today Ahmadinejad announced that the US govt was responsible for 9/11 as a pretext for invading the middle east (Afghanistan and Iraq among others).

What shall we make of such people who believe this stuff, threaten our people and our allies with extinction for  28 years WITHOUT CESSATION , and believe fervently that in the event of Armageddon, a perfect being will come out of a well to bring peace and happiness? Will the world be more stable if they do all this AND have nuclear weapons? Will our lives be better? WIll even people in the street in Teheran be better off if Israel maintains all 300-600+ nukes on launch on warning status? Who, there, would hesitate 5 seconds over a radar signature arcing towards a state a few miles wide given what all leaders there in Iran say and profess for more than a generation?

Back on 9/13 this blog featured a story about the end of Safavi and speculated as to why

Now this from Gertz:

New IRGC commander focusing on his strengths: WMD and assymetrical warfare
WASHINGTON — The new commander of Iran's elite military force is charged with developing weapons of mass destruction.

A report by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute asserted that Gen. Mohammed Ali Aziz Jaafari, the new commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), would focus on building Iran's military capabilities. The report said that unlike his predecessor, Jaafari was not involved in regime politics and would focus on enhancing Iran's missile arsenal.

A military truck carries a long-range Iranian Shihab-3 missile during an annual military parade in Tehran. AFP/Atta Kenare

"In speeches he has given since his appointment, Jaafari has outlined the strategy he means to promote as IRGC commander, reiterating his commitment to developing Iran's ballistic missile capabilities and the asymmetrical warfare capacities of the IRGC," the report, dated Sept. 19, said.

On Sept. 1, Jaafari replaced IRGC commander Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi in what was regarded as an unexpected appointment. Safavi, commander of IRGC for a decade, was replaced amid dissatisfaction by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei with rising domestic unrest. Safavi was said to have threatened to resign several times as part of a power struggle.

Of course, the IRGC, which for all purposes can be considered to be Hizballah, and HAMAS, and the Waffen SS all rolled in to one for both internal and external purposes, WILL be either the instrument of the mullahs actions or the victim of the US and or Israel. It's one or the other, and if you don't believe me ..you SHOULD believe the people who are responsible for guessing with money about what is ahead. They are betting on THINGS, not nations, now.

In speaking about the coming already decided defiance, if needs be, of Iran to the diplomatic efforts, some of which will be from the UN ..Ahmadi-Nejad remarks in the General Assembly, its "high time for these powers to return from the path of arrogance and obedience to Satan to the path of faith in God"

Now I know that in Iran, anyone not in love with the mullahs is an enemy of Islam and therefore a whelp of Satan. This gives them purchase when they look in the mirror, no never mind, that's the sin of vanity .. when they are about to go to sleep and random thoughts of needless executions among persians intrude. But now, other people in other places must hew to the same standards as the mistreated chador wearing, but free to choose to wear heavy black garments in the desert, ladies of Iran. No doubt, the idea of najis will quickly invade the Foreign ministry of Iran in their dealings.

I wonder why Bollinger, or someone from the Middle East Studies school at Columbia failed to ask about this when this execrable dwarf mentioned how happy, secure, and overrepresented the jews of Iran are. Perhaps they've never heard of it at Columbia, or taught it.

At any rate, as I have been saying for a long time, the Mullahs are on a national mission to acquire nukes. They are willing to have a war to ensure they get them. They believe in their hearts they WILL WIN such a war. Thye cannot be deterred from either getting nukes, OR using them once they have them. The successful creation of nuclear weapons in Iran will be the strongest evidence THEY need that they cannot be stopped, and that the west will never attempt to seriously do so.

The USA and Israel, the Great Satan and the little Satan, cast into an Islamic axis of evil long ago by the mullahs, and certainly nations under threat from them, need, to avoid KILLING EVERYONE IN IRAN, to demonstrate to the mullahs how utterly wrong they are about their attitude.

Right now, it looks like there is going to be a war in which:

1. We strike many nuclear, Mullah, and IRGC targets and attempt to do so in a fashion which kills few civilians.
2. They launch on Israel, including population centers, american troops, and ships, and loose Hizballah region wide AND INSIDE THE USA. There will be unpleasant surprises.
   
3. Israel strikes back with unimaginable savagery using every weapon short of nukes..
4. The USA strikes back.
5. Regional war ensures, including (eventually) use of nuclear weapons.
6. Economic chaos
   

If someone else can see any outcome other than abject western acceptance, I'd like to know it.

We stand today in a world where Brazil defends Iran's attempt to get nuclear weapons for obvious reasons. Now Brazil is not the mullahs, but it should be clear that we are on the way to a world where El Salvador, Venezuela, and the leaders in Ouagoudougou have nuclear weapons at their disposal if Iran succeeds. There will be no moral or real world justification, or real effort to prevent this if they succeed.

There is not one single reason to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

There is only the reason that we are too civilized to start a war, and win it, in order to survive to excuse us, and it is no excuse for lack of survival. We may be too civilized to survive.

The west, including Israel, had better make up its mind as to whether it is willing to absorb a first strike from those who think us on the path of Satan, and will strike in the name of their god, in order to know they have the moral right on their side.

To answer this question, think of what would have been said had Bill Clinton did what Bush did, in 1999. Overthrowing the regime in Afghanistan.

Has the moral right (i.e. the help of others in the unmistakable recognition of where right lies, and the unified populace here) been worth the 3000 dead?

The only question is, can Iran be deterred from using nuclear weapons - either directly or using them by subterfuge (deniable, Hizballah) ?

If the answer is yes, then we have the USSR. If the answer is no, the solution can only be of one kind.

Rome
June 28, 1943
His Excellency
The Minister of Foreign Affairs for Hungary
Your Excellency:

You no doubt know of the struggle between the Arabs and Jews of Palestine, what it has been and what it is, a long and bloody fight, brought about by the desire of the Jews to create a national home, a Jewish State in the Near East, with the help and protection of England and the United States. In fact, behind it lies the hope which the Jews have never relinquished, namely, the domination of the whole world through this Important, strategic center, Palestine. In effect their program has, among other purposes, always aimed at the encouragement of Jewish migration to Palestine and the other countries of the Near East. However, the war, as well as the understanding which the members of the Three-Power Pact have of the responsibility of the Jews for its outbreak and finally their evil intentions towards these countries which protected them until now - all these are reasons for placing them under such vigilant control as will definitely stop their emigration to Palestine or elsewhere.

Lately I have been informed of the uninterrupted efforts made by the English and the Jews to obtain permission for the Jews living in your country to leave for Palestine via Bulgaria and Turkey. I have also learned that these negotiations were successful since some of the Jews of Hungary have had the satisfaction of emigrating to Palestine via Bulgaria and Turkey and that a group of these Jews arrived In Palestine towards the end of last March. The Jewish Agency, which supervises the execution of the Jewish program, has published a bulletin which contains important information on the current negotiations between the English Government and the governments of other interested states to send the Jews of Balkan countries to Palestine. The Jewish Agency quoted, among other things, its receipt of a sufficient number of immigration certificates for 900 Jewish children to be transported from Hungary, accompanied by 100 adults.

To authorize these Jews to leave your country under the above circumstances and in this way, would by no means solve the Jewish problem and would certainly not protect your country against their evil influence - far from it! - for this escape would make it possible for them to communicate and combine freely with their racial brethren in enemy countries in order to strengthen their position and to exert a more dangerous influence on the outcome of the war, especially since, as a consequence of their long stay in your country they are necessarily in a position to know many of your secrets and also about your war effort. All this comes on top of the terrible damage done to the friendly Arab nation which has taken its place at your side in this war and which cherishes for your country the most sincere feelings and the very best wishes.

This is the reason why I ask your Excellency to permit me to draw your attention to the necessity of preventing the Jews from leaving your country for Palestine and if there are reasons which make their removal necessary, it would be indispensable and infinitely preferable to send them to other countries where they would find themselves under active control, for example, in Poland, in order thereby to protect oneself from their menace and avoid the consequent damages

Yours, etc.
Haj Amin Al Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem

Source: The Arab Higher Committee. Its Origins, Personnel and Purposes. Documentary Record Submitted to the United Nations, May 1947, by the Nation Associates. Hungary acceded to the Mufti's request and sent Hungarian Jews to the death camps ("where they would find themselves under active control") in Poland. The Nation Associates added their own note stating that as a result of this request, 400,000 Jews were killed. [Letter from Mufti ends here] http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/mufti6.htm#3

If I can help you any other way you dwarf like little twit, let me know.
And BTW, where were the Columbia University Middle Eastern History Prof's today, when this moron came up with this theory?

Ahmadinejad to Speak on Campus

By John Davisson

SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, has accepted an invitation to speak at Columbia from School of International and Public Affairs interim dean John Coatsworth, according to a spokesman.

The event is scheduled to take place on Monday, September 24--the same day that Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly--as part of the World Leaders Forum and will be sponsored by SIPA.

"Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most, or even all of us will find offensive and even odious," University President Lee Bollinger said in a statement. "We trust our community, including our students, to be fully capable of dealing with these occasions, through the powers of dialogue and reason."

"Opportunities to hear, challenge, and learn from controversial speakers of different views are central to the education and training of students for citizenship in a shrinking and still dangerous world. This is especially true for SIPA students, many of whose careers will require them to confront human rights and security issues throughout the globe," Coatsworth said in a statement.

I'm looking for a parallel analogy for the west with Iran, but you know, we just don't have one. The foreign minister of Iran sits with David Duke at a Holocaust Denial conference with banality, and what can I conjure up to compare with such a thing?

This is not a freedom of speech, or an academic freedom to inquire issue any more than it would be if we have David Duke there to examine why blacks are inferior and jews back them up, and in doing so control the world by proxy.

That has no cachet.

And let's be clear that THIS is what we are talking about.
This is Leonard Bernstein inviting the Black Panthers to the cocktail party on crack.
He will want the same thing from you at the end of the day as he does now.

Why not invite a chief theoretician for the salafi freaks? That WOULD make sense.

THEN invite Mesbah Yazdi or Jannatti to examine the effect on western civilization of a messianic religious superiority cult in charge of nuclear weapons and its strategic meanings?

Instead, invited by the ill advised, misinformed, cloistered morons we have the living combination of David Irving, David Duke and Hermann Goebbels, appointed by limited choice in elections, via those who accept the idea that if Armageddon occurs, the perfect being, the new mahdi will arrive in Qom via a well to lead us all to paradise on earth?

The only thing we can discover from Mahmoud Achmadinejad at this point are more reasons to ensure that the hojatieh led mullocracy must GO. Will those who count this man accepting an invitation as a bonus turn into the insistent version of Tim Russert when he speaks? Will they tolerate such a questioner?

Or will they have tasers ready?

Will a student be able to ask about this:

Ahmadinejad described the Holocaust as a "myth" that has been used to impose the state of Israel on the Arab world and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

"Ahmadinejad's Holocaust comment opened a new window in international relations on this issue. Twenty years ago, it was not possible to talk about [the] Holocaust and any scientific study was subject to punishment. This taboo has been broken, thanks to Mr. Ahmadinejad's initiative," Georges Theil of France told conference delegates on Tuesday.

Theil was convicted in France for "contesting the truth of crimes against humanity" after he said the Nazis never used poison gas against Jews.

WILL A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR BE PERMITTED TO ATTEND AND CROSS EXAMINE THE LEADER OF IRAN ABOUT HIS OR HER TATTOO?

FOX NEWS : U.S. Officials Begin Crafting Iran Bombing Plan

WASHINGTON —  A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime, FOX News confirmed Tuesday.

Germany — a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran's nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States — notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.

If sanctions won't go any further (which is really too bad), and Iran will not simply end enrichment in order to start real negotiations, the clock is at midnight.

Two more carrier task forces are on the way to the gulf RIGHT NOW

Why are the Germans itchy?

Sources say news leaks about the prospective designation (of the IRGC as terrorists) greatly worried European governments and private sector firms, which could theoretically face prosecution in American courts if such measures became law and these entities continued to do business with IRGC and its multiple financial subsidiaries.

I hope the Hojatieh are taking this seriously

New U.S. 'global strike' plan set for possible 'sovereign options' against Iran

GERTZ: U.S. military sources said the Pentagon has vastly increased its capabilities for conducting a major military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and other targets in Iran since 2001.

The upgraded capabilities are part a new “prompt global strike” plan and include the conversion of B-2 bombers to permit them to carry up to 80 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs; and the recent conversion of four Trident nuclear missile submarines into conventionally-armed cruise missile shooters, each carrying 150 submarine-launched cruise missiles. The submarines alone provide commanders with enough firepower to attack 600 aim points or targets with multiple missile salvos.

Additionally, Aegis cruisers have been upgraded and the first F-22 advanced fighter bombers have been deployed. The F-22’s electronics make possible sophisticated information operations capabilities.

The military also have fielded a new 15-ton deep penetrating bomb that is designed to attacks deeply buried targets, like Iran’s nuclear facilities, many of which have been built in hardened bunkers. The B-2 can carry two of the new bombs and B-52 also can be outfitted with the penetrator.

If you are RISK - AVERSE you will not like this.

Articles today quote source claiming that Russia has along with SU-30's, Kilo Subs and Pantsyr air defense systems, aling with the S-300 system now transferred the Yakhont missile (an updated version of the Sunburn missile) to Iran. (If you use the google links, be aware there are some hysterical type overhypes in the mix)

Who cares about this?

Well let's follow the trail from the Jerusalem Post today. The Israelis, of course, given their experience against Hizballah with a much lower tech missile have their own concerns.

However, the specs are these:

1. Missile launch vehicle: Land, Mobile, Naval patrol craft, Destroyer, SUBMARINE. 
2. Range: Up to 300km (THE ENTIRE PERSIAN GULF)
   
3. Warhead: ~ up to 300kg 
4. Speed: Mach 2-3 (time to target from launch - 5.9 minutes, time from 50 mile detection - 90 seconds)
   
5. Guidance: Over the horizon radar guidance via vehicle (helicopter or other ...a weakness), then active radar homing
6. Design: 1980's then updated

Since this missile can be launched from the mountains inside Iran from both fixed and mobile launchers and cover any ship in the gulf, and since these are cheap compared to aircraft, and since launched en masse (Soviet doctrine) could saturate defenses even if adequate to begin with, what would be the purpose of such sales by the Russians (the why for the Iranians is quite obvious). Certainly the BEST explanation would be deterrence of an american attack - and therefore the survival intact of the current Iranian regime (besides their ability to buy russian arms, what POSSIBLE advantage does this have for the Russians besides being a detriment to us?)

To defeat this missile will take early detection (E-3A's and Hawkeye's), early defense missile launch, and lavish point defense.

Do we have this? 

GERTZ:NICOSIA — Iran has reported a successful test-flight of its indigenous fighter-jet and announced plans for production beginning as early as next year.

Iranian officials said the Azarakhsh fighter-jet conducted a successful maiden test flight on Aug. 5 in the central province of Isfahan. The Azarakhsh was said to have been an Iranian variant of the U.S.-origin F-5 fighter-jet, sold to Teheran in the 1970s.

 

Official Photo of IRIAF "Azarkhsh" Jet Fighter

"The successful flight of the domestically manufactured fighter is a mark of our country's scientific and technical achievement," Isfahan Gov. Morteza Bakhtiari said.

The Azarakhsh, which means lightening in Farsi, was designed and produced by the Defense Ministry and the Iranian Air Force. Officials said serial production of Azarakhsh could take place in 2008.

"At a time when the United States plans to sell weapons to its allies in the region, our country's technicians have taken huge strides toward national defense self-sufficiency," Bakhtiari said.

Defense Minister Mostafa Najar said Azarakhsh would be deployed in the Iranian Air Force. Najar said Azarakhsh would play a major role in a forthcoming military exercise scheduled for over the next month.

"The Azarakhsh fighter plan is now at the stage of industrial production, and mass production will start in the future," Najar said on Aug. 6.

Najar said Iran was designing an upgraded variant of Azarakhsh. He said the platform would be tested in the near future.

The F-5 is no first line unit, but this story of home built, resdesigned jets should be viewed as a first step. Whether or not they wuill be building redesigned F-14's or SU-30's or not, 750 F-5's they have on their own UNDERGROUND assembly line will be plenty to obliterate their local enemies ALL OF WHOM SAVE ONE buy all their aircraft overseas, and when these are expended, cannot replace them quickly.

 

Jerusalem Post Israel is looking into reports that Russia plans to sell 250 advanced long-range Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to Iran in an unprecedented billion-dollar deal.

According to reports, in addition to the fighter jets, Teheran also plans to purchase a number of aerial fuel tankers that are compatible with the Sukhoi and capable of extending its range by thousands of kilometers. Defense officials said the Sukhoi sale would grant Iran long-range offensive capabilities.

Government officials voiced concern over the reports. They said Russia could be trying to compete with the United States, which announced over the weekend a billion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

I have held forth on this BEFORE .This is the Russians selling a 10 year later than F-15 design with LONG range. Now, while we are selling Jdams to the Al Saud and Al Sheikh's, and promising to maintain ISrael's edge simultaneously (F-22's, even I don't know how I feel about that yet?), the Russkies are selling long range 1st line fighters with stirke capability to the Iranians? Hey why not sell them strategic world range tankers as well?

Hey why not just bring the jewish peoples to Fargo after all and make it a sheet of glass from Morocco to the Chinese border. I mean, why wait? The outcome is OBVIOUS today, as obvious as the results of the treaties with the Islamic Emirates of Waziristan.

 

Isn't that the point, you moron?

Yes, Harry, what we want is a stable set of enemies to america, it's people and allies because then we are all safer.
Are they taking X before voting in Nevada?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected on Monday another prominent senator's call for a military strike against Iran, saying a U.S. attack would destabilize the Middle East.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said over the weekend the United States should be prepared to use military force to stop Iran from training and equipping Iraqi militants blamed for the deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Of course if correct this report means that Iraq is now Vietnam complete with safe havens for the enemies of our men. If this campaing is worth fighting then we should be prepared to WIN. Otherwise we have no business there. It's that's simple.

Iran has denied supplying Iraqis with armor-piercing munitions and U.S. officials say they cannot prove complicity on the part of the Tehran government. But Lieberman, appearing on CBS' Sunday program "Face the Nation," said the United States had "good evidence" that Iraqis were being trained to use the weapons at a camp inside Iran. He advocated a military strike in retaliation, saying much of the job could be done with air strikes.

 

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a senior Iranian official who has represented his government on official trips to Iraq and Egypt this year.

Gertz :Brig. Gen. Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council and a senior member of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, is being sought in connection with a 1989 assassination in Vienna.

Jafari was part of the formal Iranian government delegation that participated in a conference this spring on Iraq in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt.

In January, a major U.S. military operation sought to capture him in Irbil, Iraq according to reports in the London Independent and the Washington Post.

The Post reported: "In January, the United States again targeted two high-ranking Iranians, including Gen. Minojahar Frouzanda, the Revolutionary Guard intelligence chief, and Mohammed Jafari, deputy head of Iran's National Security Council, U.S. officials say. They eluded capture."

Iranian nuke official said to be in safe house protected by U.S. intelligence

 

Iranian defense official Ali Reza Asghari, involved in Iran’s nuclear program, defected to the United States after disappearing in Turkey in December, according to an Iranian political refugee.

Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, a self-professed close friend of Asghari, told Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper that Asghari was the deputy defense minister responsible for weapon purchases and production.

“He also continued to work outside" the ministry, Ebrahimi said. “For example, he was the head of marketing at Pars Electric, a secret state-owned company affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards. He ran all nuclear transactions on his own. For example, if radioactive material had to be purchased overseas, Asghari would sign the contract.

He also knew the locations of all nuclear facilities and reactors.”

American casualties in Iraq over 4 years are identical to those on Sept 17th 1862, on THAT ONE DAY, and yet we cannot sustain them.

On Sept 17th 1862, after repeated numerous significant lost battles, destroyed campaigns, and inept planning, execution, and abysmal failure, George McClellan, having been gifted with Robt E Lee's exact plans wrapped around some lost cigars, went out and actually attacked him  on Northern soil, near Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg, MD.

By day's end, there were 3650 dead, and 22,750 casualties. That represent 25% of all men engaged that day.

Since we conquered Iraq we have, according to CNN, 3,749 american dead, and 25,549 wounded. In 1500 more days, we have sustained as many casualties, yet a large majority of americans wants out of Iraq.

By the time Abe Lincoln wrote himself a letter (August 1864) predicting his own defeat in November because americans, he believed would not support a war to free slaves, there were ~850,000 casualties. HE thought that since the war had morphed from a war to preserve the Union to one of freeing the slaves (at his urging) he would lose

But it's not the Civil War, you say.

Well, THAT wasn't viewed in the way it is now, then either. No less than Horace Greeley said, let the "wayward sisters depart in peace". We see how consequential it all was today. Well many today, who view Iraq as part of the World War feel that way now. Most however do not.

But as (arch Reaganite) Peggy Noonan expressed today her separation from the admin:

The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me.

That mission's theory in which our security is guaranteed by democracy's spread is exactly the issue of what others see as the neoconservative ideal, as Ms. Noonan does.

Has this failed because it must, because it is wrong or cannot be?

Or has it failed because THIS TIME americans have lost faith with the underlying idea (as apparently we would have had Sherman not taken Atlanta, and then gutted Georgia).

		Richard Nott Antrim Born: 17 December 1907, Peru, Ind. Rank: Commander Organization: Unites States Navy Accredited To: New York Other Navy Award: N/A

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while interned as a prisoner of war of the enemy Japanese in the city of Makassar, Celebes, Netherlands East Indies, in April 1942. Acting instantly on behalf of a naval officer who was subjected to a vicious clubbing by a frenzied Japanese guard venting his insane wrath upon the helpless prisoner, Comdr. (then Lt.) Antrim boldly intervened, attempting to quiet the guard and finally persuading him to discuss the charges against the officer. With the entire Japanese force assembled and making extraordinary preparations for the threatened beating, and with the tension heightened by 2,700 Allied prisoners rapidly closing in, Comdr. Antrim courageously appealed to the fanatic enemy, risking his own life in a desperate effort to mitigate the punishment. When the other had been beaten unconscious by 15 blows of a hawser and was repeatedly kicked by 3 soldiers to a point beyond which he could not survive, Comdr. Antrim gallantly stepped forward and indicated to the perplexed guards that he would take the remainder of the punishment, throwing the Japanese completely off balance in their amazement and eliciting a roar of acclaim from the suddenly inspired Allied prisoners. By his fearless leadership and valiant concern for the welfare of another, he not only saved the life of a fellow officer and stunned the Japanese into sparing his own life but also brought about a new respect for American officers and men and a great improvement in camp living conditions. His heroic conduct throughout reflects the highest credit upon Comdr. Antrim and the U.S. Naval Service.

Iran on track to install 3,000 centrifuges in Natanz by June

GERTZ-WASHINGTON — Iran has made steady progress in its uranium enrichment program, the U.S. intelligence community has determined. Officials said most of the intelligence community, particularly the Defense Intelligence Agency, has concluded that Iran has succeeded in assembling and installing gas centrifuges at the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

The pace of work has been slower than promised by Teheran, but much faster than expected by the intelligence community.

When will this factor ever be different. SInce 1949 when the Russians eploded their first weapon, no intelligence agency has been even close in terms of years in predicting an adversary's first readiness to explode a nuclear weapon . Not once. Yet agencies persistin getting it all wrong. Why? Even a moron would start using a fudge factor.

"They are moving steadily and gaining experience and knowledge all the time," one official said. "This will allow them to increasingly accelerate the uranium enrichment project." Iran has installed more than 1,000 centrifuges at Natanz. The centrifuges are being tested in an underground facility to determine their suitability for uranium enrichment. At an April 9 ceremony at Natanz, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Teheran had reached the stage of industrial uranium enrichment.

They call it loss of deterrence. Happy you didn't go Sherman on Lebanon now, Ehud?

Strike against Iran seen precipitating new war on Israel

GERTZ-JERUSALEM — Israel's intelligence community has assessed that Iran and Syria are preparing for war later this year. The war could be sparked by a U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. At that point, officials said, Iran, Syria and Hizbullah would also attack Israel with a range of missiles and rockets.

"Nobody wants to initiate the war, but everybody is ready to join," an official said.

[On April 1, an Iranian military commander asserted that U.S. combat aircraft entered Iran's southwestern province of Khuzestan. The officer said two U.S. aircraft flew northwest of the southwestern port city of Abadan.]

On April 1, Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin said Israel could be attacked this summer along the northern front. Yadlin said Israel was monitoring military preparations in Lebanon and Syria, which included the deployment of short- and medium-range missiles and rockets.

 

Times UK - Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.

The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.

The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: "The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don't change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will.

"Iran has come out of this looking reasonable. If I were the Iranians, I would keep playing the same game. They have very successfully muddied the waters and bought themselves some more time. And in parts of the Middle East they will be seen as the good guys. They could do it time and again if they wanted to."

How stupid are we.....

Americans also expressed dismay that the British had suspended boarding operations in the Gulf while its tactics are reassessed. "Iran has got what it wants. They have secured free passage for smuggling weapons into Iraq without a fight," one US defence department official said.

 

 

But can the US walk that walk? The men of the USS Pueblo apparently did.

U.S. Revisits Procedures After Hostage Ordeal 

Questions remain about the circumstances of the March 23 capture in the northern Persian Gulf — confined, shallow waters off the coasts of Iraq and Iran patrolled around the clock by U.S., British and Australian naval forces. British military officials promise their own full review of the ordeal. But in the meantime, the head of the Royal Navy praised the actions of the British sailors soon after their return.

“I think our people have reacted extremely well in some very difficult circumstances,” First Sea Lord Adm. Sir Jonathon Band told the British press.

American sailors share the same risks in northern Persian Gulf. In an interview with CNN on April 5, Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of naval operations, said in plain terms that he expects U.S. naval personnel to prevent such circumstances.

“My expectation is that American sailors are never seized in a situation like that,” he said. “Individuals and units are guided by the right of self-defense; they don’t have to ask permission to take action to protect themselves. And they go into operations like this, and missions like this, with that understanding.”

In the event that sailors are captured, he added, it’s expected that sailors follow the six-point Code of Conduct that U.S. service members learn in boot camp. They are to provide their identity and little else, Mullen said, remaining “very limited in terms of any kind of response” to questions.

Sounds good, but are we ready for these thugs who are, if nothing else, inventive in their god driven aggressions?

It appears that societally we have diverged from the British over the conduct of their men and women. Maybe they are simply uncaring or blind to the issues past survival? Maybe they are right. Maybe not. I think not.

TEL AVIV — Iran has been working on a new-generation Shihab-class intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of striking most of Europe.

Gertz: Israeli intelligence sources said Iran has been developing the Shihab-4 missile, with a range of 3,500 to 4,000 kilometers. China, Belarus, North Korea and Russia are assisting. "The next generation of Shihab, which could hit London and Paris, would be ready by 2009," said parliamentarian Yuval Steinitz, former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The sources said Iran has been producing and fielding the Shihab-3ER, which could strike targets 2,000 kilometers away. Teheran launched an extended-range Shihab-3 during the Great Prophet exercise in the Gulf in November 2006.

Say, how about those negotiations guys? Making any headway?

"we're sorry"

"we apologize"

"we were in Iranian waters"

"hey, these pistachios are good" 

"can I kiss your ring?"

These hard nails, these Royal Marines, upon seeing the Iranians assaulting them, pre-echoed in their minds the attitude of the British Military expressed yesterday...

"Let me be absolutely clear: from the outset it was very apparent that fighting back was simply not an option"

Hougomont, Rorke's Drift, Tobruk, Maldon, Agincourt , Pasir Panjang, to name just a few are living rebuttals to such 'good sense'.

It's that Iran took the measure of Britons. They took the measure of the society that gave birth to these men and women who give up and apologized.

I'm sorry but I cannot help but feel that without the attitude that they were going to turn the approaching 'aggressive and agitated'  Iranians into PINK MIST it was a certainty that apologies would be in order, however the apologies they owe are to people like John Chard, an engineer, and Gonville Bromhead.