Thursday - January 22, 2009

Does Barack Obama have Iran’s number?  ( It won’t hurt to read this opinion people. )

I guess I just don’t understand or perhaps am unwilling to or even may be too thick to understand all this talk of winning hearts and minds.
What minds? Whose heart? I get lost in this.

Are the critics saying (as it appears to me) that all we have to do to become friends of all these folks, is agree with them?
I frankly read that sort of talk as allowing foreign peoples to make judgments on American affairs that we then MUST follow.  Am I reading that incorrectly?

I’m not talking about a situation where as Americans we move in on someone and insist they live and think as we do.  I don’t want that. I don’t wanna be the world’s policeman either except where American interests and security are concerned. 

It has been said that George W Bush alienated much of the world.  I suppose he may have but I still don’t understand exactly what he did to alienate them.
By defending our country?  The invasion of Iraq?  What?  Seems to me he alienated the left and they have never been on our side anyway. Unless we were paying them something under the table.

Not my job to make decisions but I’d sure like to better understand what’s behind those that are made and just why “the world” insists on making a big deal out of things like Guantanamo which aren’t anyones business but ours.  And I don’t like the idea that we should be sucking up to our critics. Screw em.

President Barack Obama’s popularity has even stretched to Tehran, where Ahmadinejad’s appeal is waning fast, says David Blair

By David Blair
Last Updated: 11:40PM GMT 21 Jan 2009

Hard on the heels of President Barack Obama’s soaring rhetoric comes the cold reality. On his first full day in the Oval office, he takes the helm of an America whose global reputation has sunk lower than at any time since the dismal era of Watergate and Vietnam. Worse, this precipitous decline has taken place at exactly the moment when appealing to the hearts and minds of millions is the indispensable condition for defeating terrorism.

Mr Obama’s inaugural address showed that he grasps this only too well. The lengthy passages aimed at an audience beyond America’s shores also carried an unspoken theme. “I know that we are losing the battle for world opinion,” the new President was subliminally telling us, “and I also know that turning this tide is central to securing the power and safety of the United States.”

This is especially so among Muslims, hence Mr Obama declared: “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Is he the man to do it? After George W Bush alienated much of the world, is Mr Obama the President who can win back global opinion?

On his first working day, it is hard to imagine anyone better qualified. Mr Obama has more goodwill than would have seemed possible for an American president during the Bush years. His oratorical prowess and obvious sensitivity to world opinion, his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and, of course, his race, all count in his favour. His first decision was to draw the sting of Guantanamo by suspending the trials presently being conducted by military tribunals.

“We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals,” said Mr Obama on the steps of the Capitol, adding that the “rule of law and the rights of man” would not be sacrificed “for expedience’s sake”. These words amounted to a barbed rebuke for Mr Bush, the architect of Guantanamo and the man who authorised the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

Meanwhile, the very name of Barack Hussein Obama might be calculated to appeal to Muslims. “Barack” is Arabic for “the blessed one”, while “Hussein” was the founder of Islam’s Shia faith who died in Iraq during the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.

Mr Obama’s daily security briefings will focus on a stark list of threats. The leading concern will probably be Pakistan’s steady descent into a failed state with nuclear weapons, providing a haven for al-Qaeda’s core leadership.

This is one conundrum which Mr Obama’s reassertion of America’s cultural appeal – or “soft power” – will do little to solve. In the end, only military, political and covert power can provide the answer to Pakistan’s possible collapse and the closely linked violence in neighbouring Afghanistan. Hence Mr Obama has already decided to deploy another 20,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan and replicate the successful “troop surge” in Iraq.

But there is one crucial foreign policy challenge where Mr Obama’s personal charisma and appeal might have a direct and decisive impact. Iran’s nuclear programme and its sponsorship of terrorism in the Middle East present America with a threat that comprehensively defeated Mr Bush.

Iran’s revolutionary Shia regime might be viscerally anti-American. The same cannot be said, however, of its youthful, culturally Westernised population. About two thirds of Iran’s 70 million people are under 30 and their view of America is often the very opposite of the official line.

Ask young Iranians which country they would most like to visit, and they will probably answer America. The superpower’s films, music and fashion are all immensely popular inside this revolutionary citadel, where millions of households openly defy an official ban on possessing satellite dishes. Visit the bookshops outside Tehran University and you will find dictionaries of “American English” and even guides to adopting an American accent.

For as long as Mr Bush was in the White House, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be confident of his ability to rally Iranians against the Washington administration, if not against America itself. At a stroke, Mr Obama’s arrival has removed this crucial reassurance.

“Ahmadinejad and the present crowd don’t know how to deal with anyone other than Bush,” said Dr Ali Ansari, an expert on Iranian politics at St Andrews University. “They would have much preferred it if John McCain had won. Then all they would have had to do is carry on shouting ‘death to America’. Now you’ve got Barack Hussein Obama as President and that’s a huge problem for them.”

Iran’s leaders will be only too aware that Mr Obama’s appeal will extend to millions of their own citizens. Place Mr Ahmadinejad alongside America’s new leader and he sinks to become a risible figure. If young Iranians were asked to choose between their president and Mr Obama, Dr Ansari said there was no doubt about who would win. “In a popularity poll, certainly among young Iranians, Obama would win. I don’t think there would be much of a contest.”

In the week last November when Mr Obama was elected, Iran’s regime unwittingly revealed its fear of the appeal of America’s new leader. A reformist news magazine in Tehran placed his face on its front cover and asked: “Who is Iran’s Obama?” The magazine was instantly banned.

Iran will hold presidential elections in June and Mr Ahmadinejad’s political career hangs in the balance. His disastrous management of the economy, rendered still worse by the recent collapse in oil prices, has alienated many supporters. A large faction of hardline conservatives has turned against the president, including Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament, and Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran.

Whether Mr Ahmadinejad will be allowed to seek re-election is ultimately in the hands of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The arrival of Mr Obama might tip the balance of this calculation against Iran’s president. “There’s a view among the educated in Iran that Ahmadinejad was right for Bush, but he’s not right for Obama,” said Dr Ansari.

On his first day in office, Mr Obama may already have made Mr Ahmadinejad’s survival less likely. If the Iranian president does fall in June, his possible successor is Mohammed Khatami, a liberal cleric. Mr Khatami, who served as Iran’s first reformist president between 1997 and 2005, remains extremely popular, despite achieving very little while in office.

If Mr Khatami decides to run for Iran’s presidency – and the Supreme Leader, who wields ultimate power, may still be able to thwart this – he would probably win. Despite all the limitations on the authority of Iran’s president, whoever holds this post sets the tone of foreign policy and makes key appointments.

The removal of Mr Ahmadinejad and the possible arrival of Mr Khatami – both of which are made more likely by Mr Obama’s arrival in the White House – could set the stage for a historic rapprochement between America and Iran. “There’s a real window of opportunity, there’s no doubt about it,” said Dr Ansari.

But Mr Obama will undoubtedly continue with a raft of policies which will offend Muslims across the world, including in Iran. America’s support for Israel will remain non-negotiable. Mr Obama might accelerate withdrawal from Iraq, but he will deepen its involvement in Afghanistan by sending yet more US troops to a Muslim country. The signs are that his stance towards Pakistan will be tougher than his predecessor’s and US forces in Afghanistan are highly unlikely to stop their cross-border missile strikes into al-Qaeda’s strongholds in the Tribal Areas, now almost weekly occurrences.

Mr Obama will eventually find a way of closing Guantanamo and dealing with its existing detainees. He will also ban the CIA and US forces from using any of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” that seem indistinguishable from torture. Yet on any day, he could receive vital information from the intelligence agency of an American ally, perhaps in the Middle East, which was extracted by torturing a suspect. Will he refuse to read this? Or will America under Mr Obama implicitly outsource torture to its less scrupulous allies?

These hard realities may yet jeopardise Mr Obama’s appeal in the Muslim world. But in Iran, at least, his powers of oratory and charisma could be a transforming factor.

THE ONE

Posted by peiper     on 01/22/2009 at 09:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Miscellaneous • RoPMA •  
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   Thursday - November 20, 2008

Joe Biden, Genius And Savant

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

DOT ONE: Remember how, 6 or 8 months ago, we were told that Iran wouldn’t have enough centrifuges to make enough enriched uranium to build a bomb with for at least the better part of a decade?


DOT TWO: Remember how, a few months before that, we were told that Iran really didn’t have nuclear weapons ambitions because they had stopped work on bomb design several years ago?


DOT THREE: Remember the news, a couple years before that, about the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, the guy who developed that country’s functional nukes, who had given the plans to every rogue islamic nation he could get in touch with? Then how Musharraf pardoned him, and how now he denies the whole thing and claims he was a scapegoat? Even though Libya, in the wake of 9/11, gave up it’s nuclear ambitions and turned the plans over to the US?


DOT FOUR: Remember how Iran has been playing games with the UN for ages, whining and crying and threatening, and how they spit on any and all sanctions against them a lie about their intentions and activities? That this has been going on so long it’s their standard behavior pattern, just like their buddies over there in North Korea?


DOT FIVE: Remember how far more sophisticated nuke plans turned up later, and even the nay-sayers at the UN couldn’t be sure if these had been distributed?


DOT SIX: Remember how Iran has made the news many times this year for testing more and more of their long range missiles? Ok, some of the pictures were “enhanced” a bit via faux-tography, but the missile tests were conducted, and they seemed to work.


DOT SEVEN:

Iran said to have enough nuclear fuel for one weapon

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.

Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.

“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”

For most of a decade the “intelligence” people in the West have continued to go out of their way to underestimate Iran as much as they could, and to tie a blindfold on themselves on a daily basis. Wouldn’t want to upset the sheeple you know. Or have to be pro-active or anything like that.


Got your pencils ready? Good.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/20/2008 at 09:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Insanity • Iran • Obama, The One • Terrorists •  
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   Thursday - October 30, 2008

Nice cache catch

via Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal, some news from the war in Iraq. Remember Iraq? Remember that there’s a war going on over there? Funny, it never makes the news anymore.

Iraqi troops uncovered a massive weapons cache and factory inside the northeastern neighborhood of Sadr City. The cache contained 34 of the deadly explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), the weapons that are the hallmark of the Iranian-backed Shia militias. This is the third large cache found in Sadr City since Oct. 20.

The find is “significant as it included the machines used by the enemy to manufacture explosively-formed penetrators – the number one killer of our US soldiers,” said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad.

The soldiers found 34 EFPs, 53 copper plates and 40 shaped plates, which are used for the EFP’s shaped warhead, 160 blocks of C4 explosives, and 14 107 mm rockets and launch rails. Also found were three presses and a punch, machinery that is thought to be used to mill the copper plates into the cone-shaped warhead.

Since Oct. 20, Iraqi troops found two other large caches in Sadr City. A raid by troops from the 3rd Battalion, 42nd Brigade of the 11th Iraq Army Division on Oct. 20 resulted in the discovery of 61 rockets, 368 mortar rounds, 263 mortar tubes, shape charges, an IED, 32,000 rounds of ammunition, seven DSHKA machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades launchers and grenades, and other equipment.

The same Iraqi Army unit also found a large cache in Sadr City the day prior. The troops found 15 EFPs, an IED, two 72.5 mm rockets, two 64 mm rockets, numerous RPG launchers and warheads and hand grenades, and other equipment.

In all, 49 of the deadly EFPs have been found by Iraqi troops since Oct. 20.

Sounds like the Iraqi Army is doing a pretty fine job. And, along with our guys, they’re rounding up “insurgents” and Qod Force fighters at a good rate - several dozen so far this month, including a couple of the money men.

Qods Force has supported various Shia militias and terror groups inside Iraq, including the Mahdi Army, which it helped build along the same lines as Lebanese Hezbollah. Iran denies the charges, but captive Shia terrorists admit to being recruited by Iranian agents, and then transported into Iran for training.

Bravo. Well Done. And there’s more, including the capture of 180 AQ “suspects”. Go read the rest.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/30/2008 at 06:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Iraq • Military • War On Terror •  
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   Tuesday - October 21, 2008

One Hell of a Rumor

A bit of an update on that pirated Iranian freighter, the MV Deyanat. The one with the mystery cargo that somehow killed a whole bunch of pirates. And they all showed signs of massive radiation poisoning.

Once again I’m a week late to the party with this story. But by being late, I’ve had the time to think things through a little bit. And this story leads me to think that an awful large part of the story is not being told. And I don’t know why. Actually I do know why. If this rumor is true, it’s one of the largest casus bellis that ever was. But we aren’t geared up to fight such a war right now, and 7 years into the Global War On Terror we’ve done absolutely nothing to even start those gears turning. NOTHING. This ship may have been an act of attempted terrorism on a scale many times greater than 9/11. And for some unknown reason, such attempts - big or small - are always denied and swept under the rug. Nothing to see here, move along. I have to call this one a rumor because not one of the many blogs covering the story have a source link or even a name for the Russian person or agency that is quoted. And that makes me wonder.

The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. The Somali pirates attempted to inspect the ship’s seven cargo containers but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the “access codes” and could not open them. Pirates have stated they were unable to open the hold without causing extensive damage to the ship, and threatened to blow it up. The Iranian ship’s captain and the engineer were contacted by cell phone and demanded to disclose the actual nature of the mysterious “powdered cargo” but the captain and his officers were very evasive. Initially they said that the cargo contained “crude oil” but then claimed it contained “minerals.” Following this initial rebuff, the pirates broke open one of the containers and discovered it to be filled with packets of what they said was “a powdery fine sandy soil” ....

Within a period of three days, those pirates who had boarded the ship and opened the cargo container with its gritty sand-like contents, all developed strange health complications, to include serious skin burns and loss of hair. And within two weeks, sixteen of the pirates subsequently died, either on the ship or on shore.

News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. and they witnessed some of the deaths due to exposure to ‘something on that ship.’

Although American intelligence and government sources are maintaining a strictly observed silence, the same does not apply to the Russians and so it is that we learn the real story of the MV Iran Deyanat. She was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.

Given the large number of deaths from the questing Somali pirates, it should be obvious that when the contents of the ship’s locked cargo containers finally descended onto the land, the death toll would be enormous. This ship was nothing more nor less than the long-anticipated Iranian attack on Israel. Not the expected rocket attacks (which could be intercepted by the Israelis) but an even more deadly and unexpected attack by sea.. It is very interesting to note that the Israeli government has in the past few weeks, been loudly demanding that the United States establish a naval blockade of Iran.

Ok, so somebody had some inside info, and somebody else put one and one together and came up with the largest Number Two in recent history. And the grim humor here is that one bunch of pisslamic loonies screwed up the plans of another bunch of pisslamic loonies. But like self-detonating Achmed, falling down the stairs while wearing his suicide vest (BOOM!), we’ve seen this Three Stooges routine many times before. Nothing new there either.

Now comes the really scary part.

Somali pirates release Iranian ship

(source: Iranian news agency) Somali pirates have released an Iranian ship, Dianat, two months after being hijacked in the notorious Gulf of Aden, Iran’s shipping company says.

On August 21, the pirates seized the Iranian bulk carrier, carrying 42,500 tons of minerals and industrial products.

“The ship Dianat was released on Friday morning after seven weeks of negotiations with Somali pirates and all 29 members of the crew are safe,” Said public relations office of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL).

The ship is sailing towards international waters, IRISL added.

And no word at all from anyone that this ship has been seized, searched, boarded, scanned, or anything by western naval forces which are in the area in strength. We just let them go on their merry way? To where? Something doe not add up here. Not at all.

A bit of an update, just as disquieting:

The ship was released by Somali pirates on October 10, after a $250,000 cash bribe was paid by the U.S. Navy for her release. The MV Iran Denyant was taken into immediate custody of a joint naval taskforce present, to include Russian and French ships. Crew members had all been interrogated and all of them, deemed “uninformed of the ship’s course or cargo” were duly released to their diplomatic representatives. The ship was boarded, occupied and thoroughly searched by U.S. Navy specialists but a subsequent report on the suspicious cargo containers has been heavily classified.(‘Top Secret- Galactic’)

Russian sources indicate that the ship was carrying a “highly radioactive” cargo in specially built” containers and that this cargo was falsely listed in the ship’s manifest.

A “ransom” of $250,000 was eventually paid by the U.S., the ship boarded by the Navy, her cargo secured and the crew interrogated and eventually released and the ship was moved, under her own power and with an American crew, to the Muscat port where the U.S. Navy has docking rights. Her manifest was entirely false. The ship was not going to Rotterdam and there was no “German businessman” to take charge of the fictional cargo.

The entire matter has been shut up and you will never see any mention of it in any mainstream media. The matter is now considered closed. There still remain a number of questions that need to be answered. Both Israel, and at her behest, from Washington, there has been a great outpouring of animosity directed at Tehran, and many threats; for economic sanctions by the United States and overt attacks by Israel. In light of this past behavior, the most important question is why this incident, with its horrifying implications, has been studiously ignored, even shut down, by both countries.

I know that Iran is the enemy. You know that Iran is the enemy. We all know it. Why does our country hide from this reality? Ok fine. We buy their oil on the international market. So what? If the US comes right out and says Iran is an enemy nation, then we can’t do that? Fine. Send in the Dutch to get the oil, then we’ll buy their oil from the Dutch. It’s all the same thing. And it’s not like the US isn’t internationally forever guilty of hypocrisy anyway. So what’s one more charge of it, even if this time it turns out to be mostly true. We’d just be being practical, like the fwench.

Did the US actually seize and search this vessel, find a radioactive cargo and evidence of it being rigged as a bomb, and then let the ship go, either armed or disarmed? And then not tell us? Horry Clap. Like I said at the top, this is one hell of a rumor. The author of the above linked post claims to have a copy of the ship’s manifest. Publish it then. But really, what good would that do? How could it be accepted, since it’s a copy (whatever that means). A lying media and Fake But Accurate destroyed any faith in any information source. Truthiness or not - no document can ever again be believed to be real.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/21/2008 at 10:31 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Iran • Middle-East • Military • Pirates, aarrgh! • War On Terror •  
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   Thursday - July 10, 2008

The other half of the circle matters too

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran test-fired more long-range missiles overnight in a second round of exercises meant to show that the country can defend itself against any attack by the U.S. or Israel, state television reported Thursday.  The weapons have “special capabilities” and included missiles launched from naval ships in the Persian Gulf, along with torpedoes and surface-to-surface missiles, the broadcast said. It did not elaborate.
...
The director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, said Iran’s missile tests have emphasized the urgency of going ahead with plans to place a proposed U.S. missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

Among the missiles Iran said it tested Wednesday was a new version of the Shahab-3, which officials have said has a range of 1,250 miles and is armed with a 1-ton conventional warhead.

That would put Israel, Turkey, the Arabian peninsula, Afghanistan and Pakistan all within striking distance.

Get out your Google Earth and play with it. Draw lines 1250 miles long from various points in Iran. You will quickly see that these missiles can target Moscow too. And damn near all of India. And a large part of Western China. And Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. Heck, they can hit Poland. And depending on the quality of their targeting systems, any ship in the whole eastern Mediterranean and the whole northern Indian Ocean. Egypt too. And we’re all enemy infidels as far as Tehran is concerned. Especially those heathen idolaters in India and the godless Chinese. Wake up world, the loonies have gone long range.

And if our estimates are off by as little as 15%, then a large part of Italy, including the Vatican, becomes a target as well. Austria too.  Just another couple hundred miles and they can bomb Finland. The world isn’t that big, and all ICBMs really need to do is go up and then have a little hang time. The world spins all by itself (at more than 700mph over Europe) and gravity takes care of the coming back down part just fine.

So why is it that only Condi seems to be having something to say? Ok, she isn’t all by herself, and (oh gag me, but it’s true) France may be taking the best approach:

Tehran’s standoff with the West took a new toll when French energy giant Total SA said it is too risky to invest in Iran for now. The decision raised questions about the future of major western involvement in developing Iranian gas reserves.

“The conditions are not present for investing in Iran today,” said Total spokeswoman Lisa Wiler. “We hope that the political relations will improve so that we can invest.”

Total had been in discussions for developing a liquefied natural gas project linked to Iran’s South Pars gas field with Malaysia’s Petronas.

Every world leader should be going ape shit. The UN ought to be gathering up armies, not just talking. Instead, they seem to be ignoring this completely.

How bad would it impact oil prices if the whole world stopped buying their crude? I really seriously think we, the planet, need to fully embargo these crazies. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Let them starve. Maybe they should have a couple accidental plagues while we’re at it. A side order of Ebola or something.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/10/2008 at 11:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • War On Terror •  
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   Friday - February 08, 2008

Legislating Terrorism: behold, the Caliphate arises

Hey, BDS sufferers. Think you’re living in a “christofascist tyranny”? This is what REAL TYRANNY looks like.

LEGISLATION has been brought by the government of President Mahmoud Amadinejad before the Iranian Majlis that would mandate the death penalty for apostates from Islam. The law’s reach would be worldwide, the legislation says.

Yeah? You and who’s army, goat fucker?

The Washington think tank, the Institute on Religion and Public Policy reported on Feb 5 the proposed “Bill for Islamic Penal” law will be the first time that Iran has by statute mandated the death penalty for conversion from Islam.

The legislation used the word “Hadd—meaning that it explicitly sets death as a fixed punishment that cannot be changed, reduced or annulled. In the past, the death penalty has been handed down, and also carried out, in apostasy cases, but it has never before been set down in law,” the Institute’s president, Joseph Grieboski said.

Islam’s five major schools of jurisprudence, the Madh’hab, currently hold that converts from Islam must be executed. However, in the Middle Ages several leading Islamic jurists rejected the death penalty --- as do a number of moderate modern scholars --- noting that while the Koran condemns apostasy as a sin, it does not mandate a penalty.

So this is a step backwards from the Middle Ages. Now that’s what I call progress!

However Islamic law distinguishes between apostasy of an adult and someone who has not reached puberty. The ‘Umdat as-Salik wa ‘Uddat an-Nasik (Reliance of the Traveller and Tools of the Worshipper, of the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence as practiced by the al-Azhar in Cairo rejects the death penalty for child apostates, as does the Hidayah, the Hanafi juridical work that guides Muslim jurisprudence in India and Pakistan.

The proposed Iranian law would enshrine the mandatory death penalty into the country’s civil code for men. Women apostates would be imprisoned.

So Iran will take the lead here. Watch all the other countries fall into line soon after. Heck, aren’t the Saudis already there? Kinda reminds me of old JRR’s “one ring to find them all and in the darkness bind them”.

Two types of apostasy are set down in the legislation: parental and innate.

Innate apostates are those whose parents were Muslim, declared themselves as Muslim as an adult and then leave the faith.

Parental apostates are those whose parents were non-Muslims, who had become Muslims as adults, and then left the faith.

Article 225-7 states the “Punishment for an innate apostate is death,” while Article 225-8 allows a parental apostate three days to recant their apostasy. If they continue in their unbelief, “the death penalty would be carried out.”

So if you leave the “faith” you get killed. But if you leave the faith, and hold true to that leaving for three entire days, you get killed. Such an enlightened perspective!

Article 112 would give the law an extraterritorial jurisdiction, extending its mandate to cover those who renounce Islam both inside and outside Iran.

Oh no you don’t motherfugger. Pass your own dumbass laws in your own country. Try and export them to my country and I’ll find an old rusty saw just the right size for your neck. But hey, this kind of gall is appropriate for the world-wide caliphate of the “religion of peace”.

The law criminalizes heresy saying that anyone who claims to be a Prophet, or a Muslim who “creates a sect based on that which is contrary to the obligations and necessities of Islam, is considered an apostate.” Those who practice “witchcraft” shall also be “sentenced to death.”

Ah Ha! Thought so. Not only will this make leaving pisslam illegal, it will make belonging to any sect other than the one approved by the state a capital offense. And you just know how every other religion, especially Hinduism and Buddism, and let’s not forget Judiasm and Christianity, will immediately be seen as a form of witchcraft.

There you have it folks: if Iran passes this law, and they probably will, they have in effect just declared war on the entire world. Total jihad. But hey, let’s just send Condi over there to talk at them again, or have the UN pass another wobbly resolution. Yeah, that’ll fix them.

Freedom of Choice. Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Thought. These things will not exist in the Caliphate.

Source article

Posted by Drew458     on 02/08/2008 at 10:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • RoPMA •  
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   Friday - December 07, 2007

Iran Claims to Have Built Supercomputer

ComputerWorld is reporting today that Iran is claiming to have built a reletively lightweight supercomputer based on Advanced Micro Devices’ Opteron Processor.  Problem is: AMD says it didn’t sell Iran any of these.  If they, in fact, have them, it is a violation of trade sanctions we have against Iran.

Iranians claim to have built Opteron-based supercomputer
Use of processors by research center would run afoul of U.S. trade sanctions; AMD says it hasn’t authorized any shipments to Iran, ‘directly or indirectly’

December 06, 2007 (Computerworld)—Despite federal antiterrorism trade sanctions that bar the sale of U.S.-made computer technology to Iran, a computing research center in Tehran claims to have used Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s Opteron processor to build the Middle Eastern country’s most powerful supercomputer.

The Iranian High Performance Computing Research Center (IHPCRC), which is located at Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology, said in an undated announcement on its Web site that it has assembled a Linux-based system with 216 Opteron processing cores. That’s a relatively small supercomputer, with a claimed peak performance level of 860 billion floating-point operations per second, or gigaflops. But the research center said that the system, which will be used for weather forecasting and meteorological research, is the fastest built in Iran to date.

This isn’t the first time that the Iranians have used U.S.-developed processor technology to build high-performance systems, according to a history posted on the research center’s Web site. For instance, the history says that in 2001, prior to the formation of the IHPCRC, researchers at Amirkabir University built a 32-node PC cluster based on Pentium III processors from Intel Corp. A year later, they used Pentium IV chips in another cluster, this one with eight nodes.

But how did the IHPCRC get Opteron processors for the new supercomputer if U.S. technology can’t be sold in or shipped to Iran? The research center may have provided a clue, though perhaps inadvertently, in a photo gallery that also can be found on its Web site.

The gallery includes a series of photos dated this year, showing workers assembling what the research center describes as the “cluster of IRIMO.” That acronym refers to an Iranian meteorological organization, which would be a perfect fit for the planned uses of the Opteron-based supercomputer.

The first picture in that series of photos shows a staffer using a screwdriver on what appears to be the components of a server. Behind him, on a table, is a stack of similarly sized boxes, all of which appear to have the word “Thacker” and the initials “U.A.E.” written in hand on their sides.

Thacker FZE is an authorized distributor of AMD products that is based in the United Arab Emirates, in the state of Dubai. The company is also listed under the name Sky Electronics on AMD’s Web site. Sky Electronics, whose managing director is named Manoj Thacker, says on its Web site that it is a business partner of Intel, Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Corp. and several other technology vendors in addition to AMD.

Maybe that’s why they need all of that enriched uranium...to predict the weather. 

Posted by Drew458     on 12/07/2007 at 08:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran •  
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   Wednesday - September 26, 2007

My Dinner With Dinner Jacket

I agree with Charles

My Dinner with Ahmadinejad
TIME

The invitation was on creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy: The Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran “requests the pleasure” of my company to dine with H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dinner is at the Intercontinental Hotel — with names carefully written out at all the place settings around a rectangular table. There are about 50 of us, academics and journalists mostly. There’s Brian Williams across the room, and Christiane Amanpour a few seats down. And at a little after 8pm, on a day when he has already addressed the U.N., the evening after his confrontation at Columbia, a bowing and smiling Mahmoud Admadinejad glides into the room.

This is now an annual ritual for the President of Iran. Every year, during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, he plots out a media campaign that — in its shrewdness, relentlessness, and quest for attention — would rival Angelina Jolie on a movie junket. And like any international figure, Mr. Ahmadinejad hones his performance for multiple audiences: in this case, the journalists and academics who can filter his speech and ideas for a wider American audience.

......

Finally, in response to a question about whether war with Iran was growing more likely, he says, “Mr. Bush is interested in harming Iran. But I believe there are wise politicians in America who will prevent such a war. We hate war. We would not welcome it. But we are prepared for every scenario. Yet I don’t think war will happen.”

With that, Ahmadinejad says he has an early morning appointment the next day, and that he welcomes greater dialogue like this evening. And then, still composed, and with the same slightly mysterious smile that never leaves his face all evening, he bows deeply and heads upstairs.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/26/2007 at 12:59 PM   
Filed Under: • Iran • News-Briefs •  
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   Thursday - September 20, 2007

Alabamadinnerjacket Visiting Hallowed Ground

More coverage here and here.

Of course not.  When you’re a crazed maniac, why should petty things like laws and official rulings make any dent in your plans?

People are starting to organize a “human ring” around the site to keep him out.  NYC has enough people, but do they have the will?

From Dr. Jeff: This guy makes me sick. He’s an international criminal and should be treated as such.

Don’t we have any snipers left in the country?

Posted by Drew458     on 09/20/2007 at 04:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Outrageous •  
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   Sunday - July 29, 2007

“How close were we to seeing an armed nuclear conflict?”

Mangun sends us this story:

US Sinks North Korean Ship Bound for Iran

“How close were we to seeing an armed nuclear conflict?” That is the question being asked as Syrian nationals temporarily vacated Beirut, Lebanon and the Jordan Valley during mid July according to sources close to ACG-CIS. Many security and intelligence officials believe that this behavior may have been related to the US sinking of a North Korean ship approximately 100 nautical miles from the coast of Iran. 

It was not immediately clear why, around July 10, 2007, the Syrian nationals, primarily engaged in construction, trades and agricultural occupations, should have vacated Lebanon without notice.  The nationals were noticed to have returned to Beirut and the Jordan Valley by July 21, 2007.

I’m not familiar with this source, and cannot quickly find anything to back it up, so the BS meter is twitching.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/29/2007 at 07:05 AM   
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   Friday - July 20, 2007

He Agrees Too

Remember my post last week positing that Iran could be attacked this summer?

Apparently, Alabamadinnerjacket agrees

Ahmadinejad: It will be a ‘hot’ summer

It’s going to be a “hot” summer in the Middle East, said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following a surprise meeting with Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus on Thursday evening, Channel 10 reported.

Nasrallah allegedly entered Syria via an underground tunnel, the television channel said.

“We hope that the hot weather of this summer will coincide with similar victories for the region’s peoples, and with consequent defeat for the region’s enemies,” Ahmadinejad added, in an apparent reference to Israel.

“The enemies of the region should abandon plans to attack the interests of this region, or they would be burned by the wrath of the region’s peoples,” the hardline Iranian leader said at a joint press conference with Assad.

“burned by the wrath of the region’s people”.  Hmmm Where have we heard rhetoric like that before? 

Posted by Drew458     on 07/20/2007 at 07:26 AM   
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   Wednesday - July 11, 2007

Taking Tehran by September

A friend sent me an email this morning that I found very interesting.  He has put together some various news stories that lead him to believe we will attack Iran before the end of the summer.

Here Bush asks Congress to wait till September before debating an Iraqi pullback.

WASHINGTON: Fearful of a Republican rebellion over Iraq that his own aides believe could force him to change course, President George W. Bush said Tuesday that the United States would be able to pull back troops “in a while,” but called on Congress to wait until September to debate the future military presence there.

And here we have a possible 3rd carrier headed to the gulf (best time to attack is when “swapping” carriers as all three are on station).

MANAMA (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier is heading to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet area of operations, which includes the Gulf, but the Pentagon said on Tuesday there had been no decision to increase naval power in the region.

U.S. defence officials said the deployment of the USS Enterprise was a routine measure to replace one of two U.S. Navy carriers now in the Fifth Fleet area.

And here we have Israeli intelligence stating that time is just about out for a strike on Iran.

Predicting that sanctions will ultimately fail to stop Teheran’s nuclear program, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of Military Intelligence’s Research Division, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that time to launch an effective military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was running out.

And perhaps (just perhaps) we’ll use a summer terrorist attack as the justification to attack Iran.

WASHINGTON - U.S. counterterror officials are warning of an increased risk of an attack this summer, given al-Qaida’s apparent interest in summertime strikes and increased al-Qaida training in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a “gut feeling” about a new period of increased risk.

What say you?

Posted by Drew458     on 07/11/2007 at 07:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Middle-East • Terrorists •  
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   Wednesday - April 11, 2007

Sock Puppets

_{Michael Ramirez - Investors Business Daily}

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/11/2007 at 01:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran •  
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   Friday - April 06, 2007

The Bad News

Yesterday was a day of mixed blessings for our Brit friends and allies. The Iranians finally released the 15 hostages they had been holding for nearly a week but in southern Iraq two female British soldiers were killed when the vehicle they were riding in was hit by an explosive device almost certainly provided by Iran to Shiite insurgents in Iraq.

These EFP’s (explosively formed projectiles) are coming into Iraq from outside and Iran is the only country in the region known to use them. I don’t understand why Iran hasn’t been bombed back into the Stone Age by now. What are we waiting for? Hand me the Big Red Button™. I’ll gladly push it if no one else will and send the Mad Mullahs and Ahmawhackjob to greet Allah. It’s overdue.

Outrage As Two Female Soldiers Die In Basra
BASRA (TELEGRAPH-UK) - 1:22am BST 06/04/2007

Two women were among four soldiers killed in Basra yesterday in an unprecedented day for the Army in Iraq. The women, a nurse and a member of the Intelligence Corps, were in a party of four patrolling the southern Iraq city in the early hours.

The Warrior armoured vehicle in which they were travelling was torn apart by a “colossal” bomb. A fifth soldier was “very seriously injured” and is being treated in the military hospital in Basra.

Iraqis were pictured waving one of the soldiers’ battered helmets while children held aloft fragments of the shattered vehicle collected as trophies.

The nurse, from Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, was the patrol’s medic. The men were from the 2Bn The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. A civilian interpreter was also killed. The patrol was returning to its base in Basra air station after providing protection for a “strike operation” that had seen British forces arrest a man said to be a senior member of the insurgency.

There have now been five female fatalities out of the 140 British dead in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In a war with no front line in the traditional sense, the 18,000 women in the Armed Forces are increasingly finding themselves in the fighting as medics, signallers and in logistics crews.

Yesterday, Mr Blair contrasted rejoicing at the release of the sailors and Royal Marines by Iran with the “sober and ugly reality” of the killings in Iraq. The Prime Minister also appeared to link Iran to the attacks.

“There are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming, terrorism in Iraq,” he said outside No 10. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Iran is playing a major role in fomenting the insurgency in southern Iraq by providing terrorists with bombs and advanced technical knowledge.

The Warrior armoured vehicle was ripped apart by a device known as an “explosively formed projectile”. The bombs are being used with increasing frequency in Iraq and have accounted for many American armoured vehicles and tanks.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/06/2007 at 05:23 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Iraq •  
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