Tomgram: Peter Galbraith, The Iranian Conundrum

Be careful what you wish for -- that might be the catch phrase for American relations with Iran since the CIA helped overthrow the elected government of that country in 1953 and installed the young Shah in power. Much of our present world -- and many of our present problems in the Middle East and Central Asia -- stem from that particular act of imperial hubris. The Shah's Iran was then regarded by successive American administrations not just as a potential regional power, but as our regional bulwark, our imperial outpost. The U.S. helped bulk up the Shah's military, as well as his fearsome secret police, and, under President Dwight Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program, actually started Iran down the nuclear road which today leaves some administration figures threatening bloody murder, even while former Centcom commander John Abizaid claims that an Iranian bomb would not be the end of the universe. ("There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran... Let's face it, we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we've lived with a nuclear China, and we're living with [other] nuclear powers as well.")

The White House has reportedly given secret approval for covert operations to "destabilize" Iran and, evidently, its backing to small-scale terror strikes inside that country, while Iranian influence inside Shiite Iraq remains (as it has long been) significant. Meanwhile, a war of words (and charges) only escalates. President Bush heightened the anti-Iranian rhetoric in his September 13th post-Petraeus-hearings address, while an escalating campaign of charges against the activities of Iran and its Revolutionary Guards in Iraq continues to intensify, just as reports are coming out that the Pentagon is building a new base in Iraq, right up against the Iranian border. The Iranian nuclear situation remains at a boil.

There are also regular, if shadowy, reports that Vice President Cheney's office is pushing hard for a shock-and-awe air campaign against Iran. Recently (and not for the first time), the Iranians shot back: General Mohammed Hassan Koussechi, a senior Revolutionary Guard commander, threatened to respond to any American action in his country by firing off missiles with a range of at least 1,200 miles against American and Western targets across the Middle East including, presumably, the enormous military bases the Pentagon has scattered across Iraq. ("Today the Americans are around our country but this does not mean that they are encircling us. They are encircled themselves and are within our range.")

While U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups slip in and out of the Persian Gulf, a murky Israeli air attack on a site in the Syrian desert, combined with a bizarre and unlikely nuclear tale involving the North Koreans, has added a further touch of paranoia to the situation. (According to the Israeli paper Haaretz, ex-United Nations Ambassador John Bolton has claimed that the Israeli bombing should be taken as "a clear message to Iran.... that its continued efforts to acquire nuclear weapons are not going to go unanswered.")

The President has indicated, more than once, that he would not hand the Iranian nuclear situation over to his successor unresolved (unlike the war in Iraq). Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a man who knows well the dangers a U.S. attack on Iran poses, continues to claim that "all options are on the table" when it comes to the Iranians. So consider the Iranian-American relationship, splayed on the "table" of Iraq, to be the potential crucible of disaster for the planet between now and January 2009. Former ambassador Peter Galbraith, author of The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, considers that essential relationship in the upcoming issue of the New York Review of Books in an essay that the magazine's editors have been kind enough to let Tomdispatch post. Think of it as an action-packed, information-filled, essential primer for the months to come. Tom

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174838/peter_galbraith_the_iranian_conundrum

Monitoring the U.S. Military Presence in Latin America

"....In 1999 and 2000, the U.S. government sought to replace the counternarcotics flight capacity that it lost when Howard Air Force Base ceased operations in Panama. It came up with the figure of “Forward Operating Locations,” later renamed “Cooperative Security Locations,” or CSLs.

Ten-year agreements allowed the establishment of three facilities where small numbers of military, Drug Enforcement Agency, Coast Guard and Customs personnel carry out counter-drug missions. The three CSLs are at Manta, Ecuador (the Eloy Alfaro International Airport); Aruba (Reina Beatrix International Airport) and nearby Curaçao (Hato International Airport) in the Netherlands Antilles; and at the Comalapa International Airport in El Salvador. The U.S. agencies’ personnel, plus private contractors, total about 450 at Manta and 250 at Curaçao, and a smaller number at the other sites. Most are aircraft maintenance, logistical, communications and intelligence specialists.

The 10-year agreements governing these facilities limit their use to counter-drug missions, mainly those of aircraft seeking to detect and monitor illegal drug-smuggling in the huge “transit zone” between the Andes and the United States’ southern border.

The agreements governing all three sites will be up for renewal within the next four years. The CSL whose future is most in jeopardy is Manta, Ecuador, which expires in 2009. In November 2006 Ecuadorans elected presidential candidate Rafael Correa, a critic of U.S. counter-drug policy who had promised during the campaign that he would close Manta. The day after his election, he said, “We are respectful of international treaties, but in 2009, when the Manta agreement expires, we will not renew that accord.”¹

Despite this uncertainty, it appears that CSLs, and even less formal arrangements, are the future for the U.S. military presence in much of the hemisphere. While the days of formal military bases appear to be over, “DOD’s proposal envisions a diverse array of smaller cooperative locations for contingency access” throughout the region, according to a 2004 Congressional Research Service report.²

Forward Operating Sites

In addition to the three CSLs, the Southern Command has a series of even looser arrangements, in which “smaller numbers of U.S. personnel on anti-drug missions have access to several foreign air bases for refueling, repairs or shorter missions.”³ These bases where U.S. personnel have access to facilities—known as “forward operating sites” or, more colloquially, “lily pads”—are a model being adopted even more vigorously in Africa and central Asia than in Latin America. The facilities usually have very few U.S. personnel or contractors on site, and in some cases are little more than refueling stops.

As security analyst Michael Klare describes the new “forward operating site” model:

In discussing these new facilities, the Defense Department has gone out of its way to avoid using the term “military base.” A base, in the Pentagon’s lexicon, is a major facility with permanent barracks, armories, recreation facilities, housing for dependents and so on. Such installations typically have been in place for many years and are sanctioned by a formal security partnership with the host country involved. The new types of facilities, on the other hand, will contain no amenities, house no dependents and not be tied to a formal security arrangement. This distinction is necessary, the Pentagon explains, to avoid giving the impression that the United States is seeking a permanent, coloniallike presence in the countries it views as possible hosts for such installations.⁴

Though this model is being pioneered more vigorously elsewhere in the world, the U.S. military does appear to have “lilypad” arrangements at several sites in South America—particularly Colombia...."

http://news.nacla.org/2007/09/18/monitoring-the-us-military-presence-in-latin-america/

Iraqi PM blasts Blackwater for other incidents

Blackwater security guards who protect top U.S. diplomats in Iraq have been involved in at least seven serious incidents, some of which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Wednesday.

Maliki didn't detail the incidents, which he said add to the case against the North Carolina-based security firm. Blackwater's license to operate here has been revoked while U.S. and Iraqi officials investigate a shooting Sunday that Iraqi officials now say left at least 11 people dead.

But Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al Askari told McClatchy Newspapers that one of the incidents was former Iraqi Electricity Minister Ahyam al Samarrai's escape from a Green Zone jail in December. Samarrai had been awaiting sentencing on charges that he had embezzled $2.5 billion that was intended to rebuild Iraq's decrepit electricity grid.

[...]

Askari didn't detail each of the seven incidents Maliki mentioned. But his inclusion of the Samarrai escape raised new questions about a strange and little-publicized incident of the war.

Until now, Iraqi officials hadn't named the private security company that they believe helped Samarrai, the only Iraqi cabinet official convicted of corruption, to escape from a jail that was overseen jointly by U.S. and Iraqi guards. He subsequently was spirited out of the country and is believed to be living in the United States.

The U.S. State Department made note of his escape in its December report on developments in Iraq, saying that "Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) said they believed he fled with the help of members of a private security company."

But the accusation that Blackwater, which earned at least $240 million in 2005 from contracts to provide security to U.S. officials in Baghdad, assisted in his escape raises questions about what American officials might have known about the breakout.

A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman couldn't be reached for comment....

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19838.html

3 airmen from Minot AFB and 2 from Barksdale AFB are dead

MINTOT AND BARKSDALE PERSONNEL DEATHS

Too Many For Coincidence?

DETAILS ONTHE RECENT USAF DEATHS AT THE TWO BASES INVOLVED IN THE NUCLEAR CRUISE MISSILE FLIGHT ARE STILL SCARCE...

THIS JUST IN - THIS EMAIL

Five military members that were "possibly" involved in helping to expose the "accidental" movement of 6 nukes August 30th from Minot air force base (AFB) in North Dakota to Barksdale air force base in Lousiana are dead.

In case you missed it, 6 nukes were flown between these two air force bases. The last time nukes were flown in the sky was over 40 years ago (and I'm sure you can figure out why they don't fly nukes). CNN just said it was a "mistake".

Now, ironically, 3 airmen from Minot AFB and 2 from Barksdale AFB are dead. Two died before this incident (therefore could have nothing to do with it but still rather odd that this many are dying from the same AFB):

Adam Barrs, navigation for the 5th squadron, dead July 3:
Weston Kissel, B-52 pilot for 23rd squadron, dead July 17:
Todd Blue, security forces for 5th squadron, dead Sept. 10:

A husband and wife couple from Barksdale AFB also died September 15th:

And there's a lot of talk around this John Frueh guy from the USAF that flew many missions in Afghanistan that last talked to his family - on August 30th. They just found his body September 8th.

Could be something, could be nothing. Just seems like a lot of airmen falling all of a sudden.

In my opinion, I think these brave souls have possibly held off "9/11 the second - attack Iran " by bringing this nuke issue to the public. I don't think people were supposed to find out about these nukes. I figure they were heading to Iran...
 
                             -----------------------------

"Six (five?) people dying within days of a world-record nuclear screw-up is decidedly newsworthy, and suspicious, in itself. The rate of fatalities in the military isn't that high even in war zones," comments Don Lee, a retired U.S. Navy E3 Electronics Warfare specialist with an inactive Top Secret Clearance. [www.komotv.com; www.bismarcktribune.com; www.kxmc.com; www.shreveporttimes.com; www.kfyrtv.com ]

http://www.willthomasonline.net/willthomasonline/Minot_Dead.html

How Chinese Military Hackers Took Over A Nuclear-Armed B52

The story sounded like a sequel to “Dr. Strangelove”. Leaked by the Pentagon's news service, Military Affairs to quell scuttlebutt racing through the ranks-and perhaps warn the world-a U.S. Air Force B-52 strategic bomber “mistakenly” loaded with six nuclear cruise missiles took off from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota on August 30, 2007 and flew for more than three hours over at least five states, before landing at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

The mistake was so egregious, the National Command Authority comprising President George BU.S.h and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates were quickly informed. The SecDef has since been assured that nuclear weapons “were part of a routine transfer between the two bases… at no time was the public in danger.”

Both statements are false.

In fact, nuclear weapons like these are carefully crated for shipment between bases, and placed inside the bomb bays or cargo compartments of transporting aircraft. In stunning contrast, this reporter has learned from two independent and highly placed sources that the six Advanced Cruise Missiles dangling from the B-52's fatigued and flexible wings were fully armed and ready to fire-except for a single fail/safe switch under the Command Pilot's control.

The quickly blacked out episode has prompted an Air Force investigation. Gates, whose official defense computer was hacked last June, necessitating the shutdown of the entire SecDef network, has ordered daily briefings on the Air Force inquiry. The Minot base commander, who might turn out to be the hero in this frightening affair, was relieved of his command.....

http://www.willthomasonline.net/willthomasonline/Command_Override.html

Germany: Staff of occupied bicycle factory take up production

Germany, FAU-IAA: Staff of occupied bicycle factory in the Thuringian
Nordhausen take up production in self-management
20 Sep 2007

Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union Fettstr. 23, 20357 Hamburg -
http://www.fau.org FAU-IAA Pressrelease ----- Hamburg/Nordhausen, 19th
of September in 2007:

Staff of occupied bicycle factory in the Thuringian Nordhausen take up
production in self-management again The 135 colleagues of the bicycle
factory Bike Systems GmbH in the Thuringian Nordhausen, who keep the
factory occupied since 10th of July 2007, decided to resume the
production of bicycles in self-management. For this aim 1,800 binding
orders on bicycles must be received till 2nd of October. So the
collegues are working together with the anarcho-syndicalist union FAU
(Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union -- Free Workers-Union), which
formed for this campaign the internetpage http://www.strike-bike.de.
Since more than two month the staff keep the factory in the south of
Harz Mountains in three shifts occupied. They want to prevent the
definite dismantling and sale of the factory. The file for bankruptcy
from 10th of august is against long odds: The factory is exploited and
ran down, the hall was emptied except for the coating line. The staff
receives unemployment compensation and hopes for a new concept and a new
investor.

The "Strike Bike" -- Solidarity-Bikes from Nordhausen

In the time of occupation and in the wake of discussions during the
visits of solidarity people, the colleagues of the factory developed the
idea to initially take up the production in self-management for a short
time. Because it's not the point to only prevent the evacuation of the
last machines and to wait for a new investor, the idea of an own
”Strike-Bike“ meet with more and more response. Now the opportunity
arises to show the ability to develop an own concept and to self-manage
production and distribution.

If it goes well to collect 1,800 advance orders for the bicycles
produced in self-direction, we spread solidary ideas and bolster the
colleagues in similar situations, not to let themselves easily being
restructured to zero. By whomsoever!

The staff gets assistancy by the solidary members of anarcho-syndicalist
union Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union (Free workers-union),
which will become active in whole germany to spread the knowledge of the
struggle of the bicycle-workers and to support the sale of the
"Strike-Bike."

More Informations can be received at: http://www.strike-bike.de
for background informations and history of the occupation
http://www.labournet.de/branchen/sonstige/fahrzeug/bikesystems.html

To get in contact with the staff and to take orders

»Bikes in Nordhausen e.V.«
c/o. Andrι Kegel,
Bruno-Kunze-Str. 39 - 99734 Nordhausen
Telefon: 03631 - 622 124 and 03631 - 403 591
Fax: 03631 - 622 170
eMail: fahrradwerk@gmx.de

For further informations about the campaign of the FAU-Strike
Bike-Solidaritygroup:
Spokesperson:
Folkert Mohrhof
- mobile 0179-4863252 and ...
respectively monday till friday from 10 am till 3 pm:
+49 40 - 20 90 68 96

 

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070921082139118

--
Dan Clore

News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

Iran Threats / Gaza Crisis

STEPHEN ZUNES, zunes@usfca.edu,
http://www.stephenzunes.org
    Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus, Zunes said:
"[Iranian] General [Mohammed] Alavi's comment regarding Iran's
contingency plans to attack Israel with air and missile raids was
explicitly in reference to how Iran would respond if attacked by Israeli
forces. Despite White House claims to the contrary, Iran was simply
re-stating the policy it has in common with most countries: if a foreign
power attacks your country, you defend yourself by attacking them as
well. Israel has certainly made clear its willingness to do so if
attacked by Iran. Why does Washington find this Iranian position so
surprising or provocative?"
    Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco
and the author of "Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of
Terrorism."
    The U.K.-based Center for International Studies and Diplomacy has
recently released a paper regarding U.S. plans for a possible attack on
Iran titled "Considering a War with Iran."
http://www.cisd.soas.ac.uk/index.asp-Q-Page-E-disarmament-and-globalisation--27216738

SARA ROY, sroy@fas.harvard.edu, http://www.counterpunch.org/roy10042006.html
    The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the Israeli government
has decided that it "would disrupt electricity and fuel supplies" to
Gaza. The United Nations Secretary General, Ban-Ki Moon, said Wednesday:
"Such a step would be contrary to Israel's obligations towards the
civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights
law." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/905693.html
Senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at
Harvard University, Roy is author of "The Gaza Strip: The Political
Economy of De-Development" and "Failing Peace: Gaza and the
Palestinian-Israeli Conflict."
    Roy said: "It is false to say that Hamas controls Gaza and Fatah
controls the West Bank. ... Israel controls all borders and hence, the
economy, all demographic and commercial movement, water and airspace.
Despite its 'disengagement' Israel still occupies Gaza as it does the
West Bank, where Israeli settlements and their infrastructure, and the
separation wall are the primary expressions of Israeli domination. It is
the occupation -- which gave rise to Hamas -- that is conveniently
overlooked, indeed forgotten, by many observers in the U.S."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org

Fujimori to stand trial in Peru

SANTIAGO (AFP) - Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori lost a long
legal battle Friday as Chile's Supreme Court ordered his extradition to
Peru to face trial on corruption and human rights abuses.

The decision, which cannot be appealed, will send Fujimori back to his
home country after seven years in exile to stand trial over alleged
massacres and rampant graft during his 1990-2000 rule.

"We have awarded the extradition," announced judge Alberto Chaigneau,
adding the court's decision was based on the weight of one human rights
charge -- covering two separate massacres -- and six corruption charges.

In Peru, rights groups and relatives of victims of Fujimori's regime
hailed the ruling while the government promised a fair trial.

Human Rights Watch called the decision an unprecedented step forward
for international justice.

"This is the first time that a court has ordered the extradition of a
former head of state to be tried for gross human rights violations in
his home country," the US-based organization said in a statement.

"After years of evading justice, Fujimori will finally have to respond
to the charges and evidence against him in the country he used to run
like a mafia boss," said HRW's Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco,
who was in Santiago for the announcement.

Under house arrest in Santiago since 2005, Fujimori, 69, fled Peru in
2000 to Japan amid a corruption scandal and resigned by fax from a
Tokyo hotel.

Once known as a master strategist, Fujimori appeared to have
miscalculated when he was detained in Chile in 2005 on his way to Peru
hoping to make a political comeback.
Instead of a triumphant return to Peru as a candidate, he will now be
coming back to stand trial on grave charges he backed death squads that
killed civilians, and misused public funds. He faces up to 30 years in
jail for the human rights charges and 10 for the accusations of
corruption.

As Chile prepared to transfer Fujimori later Friday by land and air,
Peru welcomed the ruling, pledging a fair legal process and dignified
treatment for the ex-president during his detention.

"The next step is to bring him to Lima and to offer guarantees of a
fair trial," Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Garcia Belaunde told CPN
radio.

He said the Chilean Supreme Court had carried out its work with
"responsibility, seriousness and independence."

Fujimori was officially notified of the court decision in Santiago and
his defense lawyer said he had accepted the ruling.

The ex-president said after the decision he had believed he would be
extradited on fewer charges, but said he would prove his innocence.

"According to my calculations there were four (charges for
extradition) ... but I am certain and secure in addressing the actions
of my government in this trial and will emerge with honor," Fujimori
said in a radio interview from the Santiago residence where he has been
under house arrest.

Lima has accused him of responsibility in the 1992 massacre by state
forces of nine students at La Cantuta University, and the 1991 killing
of 15 people in a neighborhood of Lima, blamed on a military death
squad.

The acts were carried out by the army's Colina Group squadron during
the Fujimori government's bloody campaign against the Maoist Shining
Path insurgency.

He also faces a range of corruption charges, including misusing 15
million dollars in public funds.

Peruvian Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo vowed his government would
not politicize the case and said Fujimori should be treated with
"equity and justice."

Anti-corruption prosecutor Carlos Briceno said the trial would take
three to four months but would not say precisely where Fujimori would
be held.

Chile's high court judges had reviewed the Fujimori case after a single
judge ruled in July in Fujimori's favor against the extradition.

Born to Japanese emigrant parents, Fujimori spent five years in Japan
after fleeing Peru in 2000.

He had risen from obscurity as an little-known academic to capture the
presidency in 1990, defeating renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who
was heavily favored in opinion polls.

A divisive figure, his tough crackdown against the Shining Path
insurgents won him loyal supporters but he was criticized for his
authoritarian style.

Japan, which confirmed Fujimori's citizenship, consistently refused
extradition requests from Lima before he flew unannounced to Chile in
2005 to launch another bid for Peru's presidency.

 

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070921185925.3csvnrtp.html