Category Archives: U.S. Congress

Iran, Israel, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Hormuz and Oahu: Dreaming of a Persian Gulf Pearl Harbor…….

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“The simmering standoff between Iran and the United States has some parallels with the origins of the Pacific war in 1941. To persuade Japan to withdraw its marauding army from China, the United States and other countries imposed ever-tightening sanctions, culminating with an oil embargo that put Japan’s back to the wall…….. Similarly, it’s politically untenable for President Barack Obama to fire the first shot at Iran. But Iranian military action that, say, closes the Strait of Hormuz for a time could result in the world’s begging for U.S. military action. Few doubt that Japan’s policymakers blundered badly when they opted for war against the United States. Yet these leaders also thought it was impossible to abandon their China policy. Iranian leaders are caught between demands for full International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its nuclear program and the U.S. 5th Fleet. Iran may have a card or two left to play, but it would be illogical for shooting to be on…………….”

 

“Will Israel attack? Is Obama, coerced by domestic politics in an election year, being dragged into war by the Israel lobby? Will he lunch the bombers? Is the strategy to force Iran into a corner, methodically demolishing its economy by embargoes and sanctions so that in the end a desperate Iran strikes back. As with sanctions and covert military onslaughts on Iraq in the run up to 2003, the first point to underline is that the US is waging war on Iran. But well aware of the US public’s aversion to yet another war in the Middle East, the onslaught is an undeclared one. The analogy here is the run up to Pearl Harbor. Let me quote from a useful timeline. On October 7, 1940, a US Navy IQ analyst Arthur McCollum wrote an 8 point memo on how to force Japan into war with US…………”

Two Democrat presidents were elected on ‘peace’ (and bread & butter) platforms but ended up leading the United States into the two greatest wars of history. The merits of WWI were doubtful, but not WW II. In a way Pearl Harbor was a good thing, otherwise the Nazis may have consolidated their hold on Europe in spite of their greatest folly, attacking the Soviet Union.
Now, another Democrat president who came to power on promises of peace may end up waging an unprovoked war against a country half-way around the world. As for closing the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians are no retro-Japanese, they are not suicidal types. Contrary to what some GOP politicians and media types may think, they do not worship their clerics the same way the Japanese worshiped the emperor. They do not worship their clerics the same way most members of the U.S. Congress, especially but not only Republicans, worship Benjamin Natanyahu. Or Ronald Reagan. And their clerics are not suicidal either.
Yet there is still a silver lining, some hope, for the war camp in the West: there is always a point when anyone who is cornered will strike back. Now that is not any ‘change’ you can believe in.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab League, Arab Politics, Libya, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress

The Late Qaddafi on Arab Parliaments and 112th U.S. Congress………..

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“Parliament is a misrepresentation of the people, and parliamentary systems are a false solution to the problem of democracy. A parliament is originally founded to represent the people, but this in itself is undemocratic as democracy means the authority of the people and not an authority acting on their behalf. The mere existence of a parliament means the absence of the people. True democracy exists only through the direct participation of the people, and not through the activity of their representatives. Parliaments have been a legal barrier between the people and the exercise of authority, excluding the masses from meaningful politics and monopolizing sovereignty in their place. People are left with only a facade of democracy, manifested in long queues to cast their election ballots. To lay bare the character of parliaments, one has to examine their origin. They are either elected from constituencies, a party, or a coalition of parties, or are appointed. But all of these procedures are undemocratic, for dividing the population into constituencies means that one member of parliament represents thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, depending on the size of the population. It also means that a member keeps few popular organizational links with the electors since he, like other members, is considered a representative of the whole people. This is what the prevailing traditional democracy requires. The masses are completely isolated from the representative and he, in turn, is totally removed from them………..”

Also sprach the late colonel Mu’ammar Qaddafi in his Green Book. For a moment I thought Colonel Qaddafi was referring to the 112th United States Congress. Amid all the gibberish, there are some possible nuggets in there. Oddly, though, his assertion that: “Parliament is a misrepresentation of the people, and parliamentary systems are a false solution to the problem of democracy….” is not uncommon in some Arab states, especially among the ruling oligarchs.
No doubt his Salafi foes strongly agree with his disdain for electoral democracy. No doubt his other foes, the top Saudi princes, believe in what Qaddafi said in the excerpted quote. In fact some of them have said exactly the very same thing in the past, as have columnists in their semi-official media. Other Arab leaders also believe what the colonel said, otherwise they wouldn’t go out of their way to either prevent the election of a parliament or subvert it to a rubber-stamp assembly.
They all try to get the parliaments, whenever they exist, closer to the people either by appointing members directly by the rulers (Saudi Arabia, UAE, most of Bahrain’s) or by helping along in deciding who gets elected. Maybe the late Colonel Qaddafi was, after all, speaking for the Arab League.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Iranian Paranoia, American Paranoia, a World to Conquer…………

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Official Iranian views about the West, especially about the United States, are reciprocated by the other side. There are many plots and conspiracies on each side against the other. Iranian officials and their media are full of foreign plots against their country and the Middle East. American media and especially the (not so hallowed these days) halls of Congress are full of Iranian plots to obliterate Israel and to take over not only the Arab side of the Persian-American Gulf , but the whole Middle East, and also to conquer Latin America. Here are some samples from Iranian news agencies today:

“Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has said that there is evidence that certain international inspectors, who have travelled to Iran to inspect (nuclear) facilities, have provided terrorist groups with Iranian nuclear scientists’ particulars.”
Mehmanparast means “guest worshiper, or worshiper of the guest in Persian. I suppose it implies unusual hospitality.

“The commander of the Iranian Navy says Iran has always had naval supremacy over the Strait of Hormuz and will not allow the arrogant powers and the Zionist regime to create tension in the region.”

“U.S. President Barack Obama recently announced that his government will soon unveil a new military strategy that switches focus to the Asia-Pacific region. The new focus shows that the United States fears the rise of China, which has enjoyed considerable economic growth over the past ten years.”

“The movements of Western countries’ warships and aircraft carriers in the region are part of the psychological warfare being waged against Iran, a military official said on Sunday.”

“Through sanctions against Iran the United States is seeking to eliminate its economic rivals, particularly China and India, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official argues.”

The above quotes show the degree of Iranian paranoia and suspicion about the West, especially the United States. These are not any wilder than Western (American) suspicions and paranoia and all the recent wild allegations of absurd Iranian plots.
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Iran, Israel, Mossad, Pakistan, Salafi, Terrorism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Legalized Bribery, Western Terrorism vs. Islamic Terrorism, a Most pro-Israeli Administration…………

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“In the peculiar American system of legalized bribery, AIPAC has bought most US congressmen by organizing thousands of Jewish and Christian Zionist groups to give money to Congressional campaigns. AIPAC ought to have to register as an agent of a foreign country, but is allowed to so function without any let or hindrance, by the FBI, which really ought to intervene here. The hypocrisy is so thick you could drown in it. The Israel lobbies have managed to configure the Hizbullah party-militia of Lebanon as a “terrorist” organization, when Hizbullah’s major military operations were defensive, aimed at expelling occupying, aggressive Israeli troops from Lebanese territory on which they had unlawfully squatted. But when Mossad (pretending to be Americans) buys Baluchi agents to blow up innocent worshippers in mosques in Zahedan, that is defined away as not terrorism…………”

Also sprach Juan Cole, not unreasonably; in fact quite reasonably.
All these revelations only reinforce deeply ingrained Iranian suspicions that go back almost six decades. Jundullah have committed some gruesome murders against Iranian civilians, like beheadings and slitting throats, Salafi al-Qaeda style crimes. It is not clear yet if it was the CIA that recruited the Salafi terrorists or the friendly Israelis in American disguise (nice friends, no?). But it all reminds the mullahs and ordinary Iranians of the American-British plot that ended their democracy in August 1953. That plot, Operation Ajax, handed absolute power first to the shah, then it lay the seeds for the 1979 revolution, the embassy hostage-taking, and the ongoing crisis.
As for the Israelis, if they were behind it, they certainly will not be punished, not even reprimanded. Not when they have the American Knesset running the show in Washington DC, and a terrified Democrat administration turning a blind eye in a way George W. Bush would never have allowed. This is truly the most pro-Israeli administration in American history. Unfortunately, pro-Israeli also means extreme pro-right-wing Likud.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Iran, Iraq, Israel, NATO, Sanctions, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Blockades from Cuba to Iraq to Iran, Netanyahu as King of NATO and the Confederacy ……………

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“But will an oil embargo work? Not as far as oil analyst Paul Stevens of London-based Chatham House is concerned. “If you look at history, oil embargoes have never, ever worked and never, ever been effective…so it’s not going to work,” he said. “It’s just going to cause a great deal of disruption.” Stevens says EU countries that depend on Iranian oil can find new suppliers – like the Gulf states. But Iran may also find new buyers for its oil in Asia. Iranian officials have downplayed the impact of Western measures – including new U.S. sanctions that could reduce Iran’s ability to sell oil and other exports. But Tehran also has threatened to close the critically important Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf………… For his part, Stevens of Chatham House doubts Iran will go through with its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz – in part because it relies on the waterway for its own oil exports. But he believes the deepening standoff between Tehran and Washington, in particular, is creating a dangerously unstable situation. “By trying to limit Iran’s oil exports, it [Washington] is essentially escalating the situation into what could very rapidly become a crisis,“………”

Every time Mr. Netanyahu threatens to wage his own war, Western powers (mainly the Obama administration) panic and tighten their sanctions, really a blockade, against Iran. It is Mr. Netanyahu, a supreme hustler if there ever was one, who calls the shots for the West over many things Middle Eastern, from Palestine to Iran. He exercises his veto power over the two branches of the American government. He has a direct route (hotline) to the leadership of the Congress, which is willing to kiss his posterior in a way he would never dream the Israeli Knesset ever would. He would never get a standing ovation in the original Knesset in Jerusalem. He is fawned upon so much by the American right (and some on the left) it is a wonder he doesn’t immigrate back to the USA and run for office in Georgia or Alabama or Tara.

Boycotts and sanctions rarely work, they never worked against Cuba (been over fifty years) or Iraq (led to an invasion). They do hurt the people. The Cuban boycott caused economic hardships, and the misery it caused only pushed many thousands of Cubans to leave their homeland and cross to Miami. It gave many U.S. administrations the alibi to blame Cuban misery completely on the Castro regime (the Castro regime was partly responsible for erecting inflexible out-dated Soviet-style institutions and stifling dissent). The Cuban boycott has no justification anymore. It has been sustained for decades only by one political pressure group in the United States and can be summarized by a seven-letter word: FLORIDA.
 
The Iranian boycott is even tougher than the Cuban one, it is nearly a blockade by all Western powers that could lead to a war. Yet it is also unlikely to work against Iran: the theocratic regime in Tehran is as confident of being on the right, as committed to not buckle in the face of foreign threats, as Castro was for so many decades. They are as ideologically stubborn, albeit at a stiff economic cost to their people. Besides, they have something the communist Castro has never had since at least July of 1956: they believe divinity (G-O-D) is with them, although I am not sure about h-i-s-t-o-r-y.

Then there are the petroleum and the gas fields. They possibly have the world’s second largest petroleum reserves and possibly the world’s largest gas reserves. Meaning they feel they can outwit and out-wait the West and its blockade. Besides, the way the petroleum markets work makes it hard to distinguish Iranian or Angolan petroleum: there will always be demand for Iranian crude and gas, probably at discounted prices. Both have been mainly sellers’ markets for some time, as countries try to secure sources of supply.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, Muslims, Sanctions, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Panetta the Wild Political Animal: repeating Iraq in Iran?………..

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“Panetta calls for further economic pressure on Iran. The US Defence secretary believes Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons but is not yet building a bomb. Leon Panetta called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step. As he has done previously, Mr Panetta cautioned against a unilateral strike by Israel against Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying the action could trigger Iranian retaliation against US forces in the region. “We have common cause here” with Israel, he said.
…………”

“We have common cause here“: it is more than a common cause. In fact U.S. Middle East foreign policy as regards the eastern Mediterranean and Iran is widely perceived in the region to be made by Israel, through the supremacy of its lobbyists in the U.S. Congress. The Obama administration has been relegated to rubber stamping it.


Leon Panetta is a political animal if he is anything: after all, he was White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton. You can’t get more political than that. He is talking as a politico here, not as US Secretary of Defense or a statesman. The sanctions against Iran are becoming nearly as tight as a blockade. The financial sector is sanctioned by the US Knesset Congress. The petroleum sector is about to be blocked by the US government and Western Europe. What might eventually be left un-blocked are food and medicine. In other words another Iraq blockade imposed solely by the West. We all know what the next step was in Iraq.
Fear and the desperate need for votes next November. That explain Penetta’s call for “further economic pressure on Iran“. We’ve come a long way from Mr. Obama’s 2009 speech to Muslims and Arabs in Cairo.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Middle East, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

American Politics: Yellow Rose of Texas to the Borders of Mesopotamia and Persia……….

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Yellow Rose of Texas

“There’s a yellow rose in Texas that I am gonna see
Nobody else could miss her, not half as much as me
She cried so when I left her, it like to broke my heart
And if I ever find her we never more will part
She’s the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew
You may talk about your Clementine and sing of Rosa Lee
But the Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me

Where the Rio Grande is flowin’, and starry skies are bright
She walks along the river in the quiets of her night
I know that she remembers when we parted long ago
I promised to return and not to leave her so
She’s the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew
You may talk about your Clementine and sing of Rosa Lee
But the Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me………” (Mitch Miller version)

Watched bits of the weekend Republican debate-acles in New Hampshire. Texas governor Rick (Boots on the Ground) Perry, who apparently has a lot missing upstairs, is promising to return to Iraq. The governor will now join John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and a gaggle of Republican saboteur-senators in re-invading Iraq. (The proper conservative way to say it is Eyeraq: Iraq sounds suspiciously foreign and liberal and even wishy-washy European).
They want to re-invade Eyeraq in order to keep Eyeran, the evil enemy du jour, out. So these senators and the governor will set up camp in al-Anbar or Diyali or Baghdad and try to proselytize, convert the former Ba’athists and current Shi’as to the joys of free unfettered unregulated unaccountable jungle markets of the sort that gave us the crash of 2008 and the ongoing lousy economy. Each will give their own version, be it the outlier convert right-wing Catholicism (Gingrich), outlier-er weird twilight-zone Catholicism (Santorum), Baptism (Boots-on-the-Ground Perry), WTF hybrid Christianity (John McCain), and the violent settler version of Judaism (Lieberman).
I wish them the worst of luck in staying at their new outpost in Eyeraq. I would also continue to urge them to make tat pilgrimage to the Eyeraq-Eyeran border, dip a few toes on the other side of the border, tease the scowling mullahs to make a grab. The ayatollahs may wish to powwow, have speaks, parley, chew the fat, shoot the breeze, with them on regional issues. In the warm privacy of the notorious Evin in the heart of Tehran.

(Something about Texas is not kosher, has bothered me in recent years. How come one of the biggest richest states with great universities and many good people, a state that elected Lyndon Johnson, now elects such a fuckhead as governor? Oh, and Texas has produced some of the greatest folk songs).
Cheers
mhg


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Human Right, Israel, Middle East, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Amnesty & NDAA, AIPAC-USA and the Middle East………….

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“Despite expressing serious reservations, the Obama administration has paved the way for legislation that will authorize indefinite detention. The bill places enormous power in the hands of future Presidents, and the only answer the President has is to say “trust me.” “Once any government has the authority to hold people indefinitely, the risk is that it can be almost impossible to rein such power in. President Obama has failed to take the one action – a veto – that would have blocked the dangerous provisions in the NDAA. In so doing, he has allowed human rights to be further undermined and given Al Qaeda a propaganda victory.”……… Amnesty International

He said, “Trust me”: famous last words? . Yet will he be in power a year and two weeks from now? Or will it be the Likudniks and Salafis of the Republican Party?
Mr. Obama is increasingly offering the people who supported him a ‘sort of’ Hobson’s Choice: accept this thing as it is or just live with it as it is. The Obama administrations is more like the Kadima of Ariel Sharon and Tzipi Livni as compared to the Likud of Netanyahu and Yisrael Beitenu of Lieberman (Avigdor not Joe). It has to show that it is as “tough” as the hardliners by bowing and buckling to the hardliners, which makes it seem not so tough after all.
For the Middle East it is like the difference between the frying pan and the fire since both American parties have contracted out (the term du jour is outsourced) their Middle East foreign policy to Netanyahu, Lieberman, and the Israeli Likud coalition. The next U.S. president may be the first ever to nominate a political lobbying organization for secretary of state: AIPAC.
Cheers
mhg


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Corruption, GCC, Muslims, religious police, Salafi, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

ANHRI: Saudi Religious Police Celebrate New Year’s, Santa Claus at Large…….

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“ANHRI condemns the ongoing severe deterioration of freedoms in Saudi Arabia, as well as the arbitrary detentions of citizens and expatriates. Most recently, the Saudi Morality Police detained an expatriate in Riyadh in the New Year’s Eve as he was walking on a street holding balloons on which it was written “happy new year 2012″. It is forbidden to celebrate this holiday in Saudi Arabia, and thus the Morality Police arrested him and handed him over to the competent authorities for investigation. The balloons have been seized. Severe restraints are imposed on freedoms in Saudi Arabia, as international organizations say that the authorities continue to detain dozens of people without a charge or trial. Torture and other forms of ill-treatment while in custody are widespread. Non-Muslims are still not allowed to practice their rituals publicly. Shiites are continuously suffering from discrimination. Expatriate workers and their families are deprived of their most basic rights. “Saudi Arabia is on top of the list of countries hostile to freedoms which use repression in the name of religion. The policy Saudi Arabia pursues is nothing but a desperate apparatus that will not work out, the same way it did not with other despotic regimes in the Arab world when the winds of change and freedom crossed over them. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia apparently has not learned the lesson” said ANHRI……………”

You’d think New Year’s or Christmas are Shi’a (Shiite) religious holidays, the way the Wahhabi Salafi religious police crack down on them. Yet these are the main holidays of the allies of the Saudi princes, the ones with whom they share such cherished (at least by me if not by the current U.S. Congress) American values as freedom and justice and equality. I suspect if
Prince Whatishisface were not a Wahhabi Muslim, he’d be given a standing
ovation in the U.S. Congress for sharing American values. I mean after a
hustler and serial bull-shitter like Bibi Netanyahu was granted the
honor last year, who is left?
That is not all: the baboons have also regularly raided private homes where “the wrong” people celebrate these occasions privately. “Wrong people” means people of little or no means and influence in the Kingdom without Magic (you can get beheaded for having anything to do with magic or maybe even Disney). Yet the religious cops of the Commission for the Propagation of Vice (affectionately called the Haia by the princes) turn a blind eye to “not-so-private” parties by the potentates where alcohol flows like water does outside the Arabian Peninsula, where alcohol is not the only thing flowing freely.
In December, the country’s top Muslim cleric and mufti Shaikh Abdel-Aziz bin Abdullah Al Al Shaikh, aka Al, fatwad that all celebrations of the New Year, birthdays and marriage anniversary are un-Islamic (aka un-Wahhabi). He did not, however, fatwa against observing the King.s anniversary.
Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Finance, Terrorism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

What Terrorism: Waffen-SS, USA?………..

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“Fargo treasures its placid lifestyle, seldom pierced by the mayhem and violence common in other urban communities. North Dakota’s largest city has averaged fewer than two homicides a year since 2005, and there’s not been a single international terrorism prosecution in the last decade. But that hasn’t stopped authorities in Fargo and its surrounding county from going on an $8 million buying spree to arm police officers with the sort of gear once reserved only for soldiers fighting foreign wars. Every city squad car is equipped today with a military-style assault rifle, and officers can don Kevlar helmets able to withstand incoming fire from battlefield-grade ammunition. And for that epic confrontation—if it ever occurs—officers can now summon a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret. For now, though, the menacing truck is used mostly for training and appearances at the annual city picnic, where it’s been parked near the children’s bounce house. “Most people are so fascinated by it, because nothing happens here,” says Carol Archbold, a Fargo resident and criminal justice professor at North Dakota State University. “There’s no terrorism here.”………………”

I don’t think they are all worried about some Texan used car dealer of Iranian origin coming to town with the mexican drug cartel in tow, hellbent on blowing up a Saudi minion in Fargo, ND (I loved that film). Do you?

It is all about the money, honey. A lot of money is being spent on expensive weapons that are not, will not, be needed in most townships. Weapons manufacturers, and their lobbyists, and some lawmakers, are doing quite well, thank you very much. Meanwhile American police forces are going around playing the Waffen-SS, practically raiding the equivalent of shoplifters with assault weapons.
National security my eyes.
Cheers
mhg


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