Monthly Archives: February 2012

Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

The Split Personality of Leon Panetta: Driving the Iranian Mullahs Crazy………

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“Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is one of several administration officials to express concern publicly that Israel is positioning itself for a surprise attack. Last month, the administration dispatched the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, to the Israeli capital for high-level discussions about the possibility of a unilateral Israeli strike. “Israel has indicated they’re considering this, and we have indicated our concerns,” Panetta told reporters Thursday after a NATO meeting in Brussels. Panetta declined to comment on published reports that he thinks the Israelis could carry out a strike this spring, possibly as early as April…………”

 

“US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a “strong likelihood” that Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear installations this spring, the Washington Post said Thursday in an editorial. When asked about the opinion piece by reporters travelling with him to a NATO meeting in Brussels, Panetta brushed it aside…………”


I wonder if the Iranian leaders are as befuddled, as lost in this fog of war and no war, of good cop and bad cop. Their heads must be spinning from all the conflicting statements form American and Israeli officials, named and anonymous. It has become like a war of wits and nerves, similar to the one that preceded the invasion of Nazi Europe at Normandy in 1944.
If Israel starts a war, the United States will get involved: what else can Obama do in an election years with the American Likud Party (GOP) hounding him? Some Arab countries will also have to get involved on the Israeli side: otherwise how can Israeli bombers reach Iranian territory? The most like candidate would be Saudi Arabia, whose semi-official media have been preparing their people for this with years of sectarian propaganda. Pro-Saudi media on the Gulf have also been opining that Iran is more dangerous than Israel as an enemy, for now. Neither Iraq nor Turkey will allow over-flights, if they can help it.
Of course they can be just applying the advice given by Tom Friedman a couple of years ago: make the Iranians think that they will be attacked if they don’t obey, then they will obey. It hasn’t worked yet, and unlikely to do so nay time soon. Or maybe it is just part of a process of desensitization of public opinion, such as it is, for another war.
Cheers
mhg


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9/11, Al-Qaeda, Iran, Islamophobia, Jihadis, Muslims, Terrorism, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

NYPD Keystones Mixing Shi’as and Oranges: Borrowing the Bahrain Tactics………..

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“The New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Shiite Muslims and their mosques, based solely on their religion, as a way to sweep the Northeast for signs of Iranian terrorists, according to interviews and a newly obtained secret police document. The document offers a rare glimpse into the thinking of NYPD intelligence officers and how, when looking for potential threats, they focused their spying efforts on mosques and Muslims. Police analysts listed a dozen mosques from central Connecticut to the Philadelphia suburbs. None has been linked to terrorism, either in the document or publicly by federal agencies. The Associated Press has reported for months that the NYPD infiltrated mosques, eavesdropped in cafes and monitored Muslim neighborhoods with plainclothes officers. Its spying operations were begun after the 2001 terror attacks with help from the CIA in a highly unusual partnership. The May 2006 NYPD intelligence report, entitled “US-Iran Conflict: The Threat to New York City,” made a series of recommendations, including: “Expand and focus intelligence collections at Shi’a mosques.” The NYPD is prohibited under its own guidelines and city law from basing its investigations on religion……………”After 1,400 years, the Shias are being targeted in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, everywhere,” Imam Malik Sakhawat Hussain said after being told that his mosque was in the NYPD document. “If U.S. authorities become suspicious of the Shias, I would say we are a very oppressed community of the world.”……… At the Masjid Al-Rahman, a prayer hall in the basement of a Brooklyn apartment building, manager Abo Maher was surprised to see his mosque on the NYPD’s list of Shiite locations. “This isn’t even Shia,” he said. “Their information is wrong” ……….”

That would be funny, about the “wrong” mosque. If it wasn’t so stupid and so typical and so nasty. We must all look alike to the Kestone Kops of the Big Apple. They get attacked, people are massacred, by Salafi Wahhabis. There are attempts at terrorism by Salafis from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Africa (admittedly some of them entrapped). Yet the geniuses of the NYPD seem obsessed that the Shi’as might be building a nuclear bomb in Brooklyn. They are apparently learning from the Bahrain regime agents. Maybe for a change it is New York that has sent their cops for training to Bahrain.



Of course increased surveillance of more mosques, be they Shi’a or Sunni or Episcopalian or Haredim, means more overtime pay for New York’s once finest, no?
Cheers
mhg


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