03/22 to 03/29 ***The***Winds***of***WAR

[Housecarl]

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use....
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/12408422.cms

Keep off South China Sea, India warned
The writer has posted comments on this article
Agencies | Mar 26, 2012, 02.54AM IST

BEIJING: Calling the South China Sea a disputed region, China has warned India to refrain from oil exploration in the Vietnamese blocks. "The area is a disputed one. So we do not think that it would be good for India to do that (explore oil)," deputy director general of Asian affairs in the foreign ministry Sun Weidong said. "We hope India would do more to ensure peace and security in the region."

Asking New Delhi not to get involved in the "disputes", the top Chinese foreign ministry official said the sovereignty of the islands in the region was a major issue and India should not carry out oil exploration till it was resolved.

"We want common development in the region. We hope Indian side is not involved in those disputes. We hope India would do more to ensure peace and security in the region," Sun told a group of visiting Indian journalists. Asked why China was objecting to India's exploration projects in the Vietnamese oil blocs when China were involved in carrying out infrastructure projects in PoK, the top official in-charge of India affairs said both issues are "totally different".

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/03/25/i...ority-complex/

India’s Military Inferiority Complex
March 25, 2012
By Trefor Moss
Comments 9

Indian officials are preoccupied by China’s growing military power. They would do better to fix their own incoherent defense establishment.

Modern India is economically and strategically buoyant, and has every reason to feel confident as the 21st century progresses. So it’s strange to think that this same confident place is developing an inferiority complex over China’s military power.

Never mind that New Delhi just announced a hefty 13 percent defense budget increase for 2012-13, or that the country is now the world’s biggest importer of military systems. Most Indian commentators seem to have digested these two pieces of news by focusing on the downside: that the country’s $39 billion defense budget remains quite modest compared with the $106 billion military budget at China’s disposal.

The critics should bear two things in mind before giving into defense budget envy. First, a 13 percent increase is actually very generous in the context of an Indian economy that’s only expected to grow by7.6 percent in the coming year. Larger increases aren’t only unaffordable but also strategically untenable, as they would alarm neighboring countries.

Second, the Indian military has long since accepted two facts of strategic life: that the Chinese military will always be bigger; and that it will always be richer.

That doesn’t mean the Chinese military will necessarily be better, and overcoming the comparative disadvantages of wealth and scale is what Indian military strategy, at least vis-à-vis China, is all about. The solution comes in two parts. First, the Indian military knows it has to focus on quality rather than quantity, investing in weapon systems that China, hindered by international arms embargoes, cannot match. It then also means capitalizing on regional unease about China’s rise and on forging smart alliances. China might be more powerful, but India knows it can be more popular.

The Indian media is therefore over hasty in viewing defense matters through the China inferiority lens. The Times of India, for example, headlined last week’s defense budget announcement by bemoaning the fact that the “Military plays catch-up but China [is] a long march ahead.”

That’s a self-defeating way to look at things. The important questions Indians should be asking are whether their government is giving defense the resources it needs – and based on successive double-digit spending increases, you’d have to say that it is; and whether that money is being used wisely to bankroll a coherent military modernization strategy. It’s when you look more closely at this second point that you begin to appreciate that India – not China – is its own worst enemy.

Writing in the Business Standard, Ajai Shukla observed this week that the Indian Army is being starved of funds, while the Navy and Air Force soak up all the investment. Indeed, the numbers don’t look good from the Army’s perspective. The Air Force has a capital expenditure to operational cost ratio of two to one; the ratio for the Navy is about three to two. By contrast, the Army spends six times as much on day-to-day running costs as it does on new equipment.

However, such ratios are a fact of life when you have an army of over a million active personnel whose poor pay and conditions you are attempting to upraise over time. China, with its 2 million increasingly well-paid troops, has exactly the same headache of rising everyday bills eating away at budget increases. And there’s also no getting away from the fact that India, despite its expanding resources, can’t buy everything at once. With several costly Air Force and Navy programs currently underway, such as the procurement of the Dassault Rafale fighter and new naval frigates, the Army has been obliged to wait in line. Now, it can rightfully claim to have moved to the front of the queue.

Of greater concern is the tenacious ineptitude of India’s defense bureaucracy. In the last financial year, as in most others, the Defense Ministry failed to spend all of the cash at its disposal thanks purely to red tape. That’s the first thing that needs to be fixed.

The government then needs to redouble its efforts to introduce a functioning procurement system. More often than not, India’s attempts to buy equipment become tortuous and wasteful. In January, Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh, himself a recent victim of his country’s eccentric bureaucracy, suggested wearily that, “the procurement game is a version of snakes and ladders where there is no ladder but only snakes, and if the snakes bite you somewhere, the whole thing comes back to zero.” His exasperation centered on the army’s efforts, initiated 10 years ago, to buy new artillery; the process has just resulted in the blacklisting of six foreign defense contractors but, as yet, no new guns.

Another example is the acquisition of 75 much-needed Pilatus PC-7 Mk II trainer aircraft, announced last year, which now faces delays – like so many procurements before it – over allegations of irregularities in the bidding process. Worryingly, though perhaps predictably, questions are now also being asked about the flagship Rafale procurement.

Third, the government should re-evaluate the role of the domestic defense industry, which currently does a lot of things badly. It should be made to start doing a few things well. India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) recently complained that it doesn’t have enough money – but that has never been its problem. The agency has a track record of initiating overambitious programs and then executing them poorly, as the travails of the Tejas light combat aircraft, to name but one example, continue to demonstrate. For the sake of both the taxpayer and the military, the Defense Ministry should focus the DRDO and the defense industry on developing a realistic core of indigenous capabilities, and then just import everything else.

So India is wrong to feel inferior just because China has more soldiers and more money. The problem is the incoherence of India’s defense establishment, from industry through to government – therein lies the inferiority. It’s a danger to Indian security that has nothing to do with China, and that’s within India’s own power to put right.

Related Features

* India, China Show Military Grit
* India Military Eyes Combined Threat
* India Boosts Afghan Military Role
* Will India’s Military Revolt?
* Indian Military Goes French

[Housecarl]

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/wo...s-schools.html

March 25, 2012
Wielding Fire, Islamists Target Nigeria Schools
By ADAM NOSSITER



MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — The teenager in the immaculate white robe stood in the ruins of what had been his school. There were no classrooms, no desks or chairs, no intact blackboards — there was, in fact, no longer any reason for him to be there.

Yet the teenager, Aruna Mustapha, and a friend had come to sign in anyway, just as they did every morning before the fire, expressing a hunger for education and a frustration with the insurgents bent on preventing it.

“We can’t stay at home any longer; we want to come to school, to learn,” explained Aruna, 16. “I’m fed up. I want to be in school.”

The insurgent violence stalking northern Nigeria has struck a long list of official targets, killing police and army officers, elected officials, high-ranking civil servants, United Nations workers and other perceived supporters of the Nigerian government.

Now it has an ominous new front: a war against schools.

Public and private schools here have been doused with gasoline at night and set on fire. Crude homemade bombs — soda bottles filled with gasoline — have been hurled at the bare-bones concrete classrooms Nigeria offers its children.

The simple yellow facades have been blackened and the plain desks melted to twisted pipes, leaving thousands of children without a place to learn, stranded at home and underfoot, while anxious parents plead with Nigerian authorities to come up with a contingency plan for their education.

Today, this dusty metropolis in northeastern Nigeria’s desert scrub is dotted with the burned-out shells of what were school buildings. The sun pours in as sheets of charred corrugated metal roof hang down into empty schoolrooms, clanging in the hot wind. In the sunny afternoons small children play in the ruins.

In recent weeks, at least eight schools have been firebombed, apparently the work of Boko Haram, the Islamist group waging a deadly war against the Nigerian government and suspected of cultivating links with Al Qaeda’s affiliates in the region. The group’s very name is a rallying cry against schools — “Boko” means “book” or “Western learning” in the Hausa language, and “haram” is Arabic for forbidden — but it has never gone after them to this degree before, analysts say.

“‘We are Boko Haram, and we will burn the school,’ ” the elderly watchman at Aruna’s school, the Abbaganaram Primary School, recounted the arsonists saying after they appeared out of the darkness, ordered him at gunpoint to lie down, doused the school with gasoline and set it on fire, lighting up the night sky.

A self-described spokesman for Boko Haram who frequently phones journalists in Maiduguri recently claimed responsibility for the school attacks. The spokesman, who calls himself Abul Qaqa, said they were in response to what he called a targeting of this city’s abundant open-air Islamic schools by authorities. Officials here have denied any such campaign. Indeed, young boys can be seen receiving Koranic lessons, untroubled, all over Maiduguri.

Around 2,600 students had gone to school at Abbaganaram, at the edge of a neighborhood considered a Boko Haram stronghold. Now, the quadrangle enclosing a sandy courtyard looks like a roofless war ruin. Fragments of a lesson, scrawled on what remains of a blackboard, can be glimpsed through a windowless opening.

A lone teacher, as eager to resume work as young Aruna, hung about in the school’s remains. “There is no public holiday. We are on duty,” said Babagana Kolo, who had taught primary school there. “We are supposed to be on duty.”

For several days after the attack in early March, students had come to be taught in the open air, under the hardy light-green neem trees in the courtyard, Mr. Kolo said. But he said the government had failed to provide materials, like chalk for a remaining blackboard, so the students had stopped coming.

“They bombed everywhere,” said Aliyu Adamu, a longtime teacher at Abbaganaram. “Everything. All the classes.”

Nobody has been killed in the school attacks, a notable exception amid a campaign of shadowy aims in which virtually anything associated with the Nigerian state is considered fair game. More than 900 people have been killed by Boko Haram in the last two years, according to Human Rights Watch.

Maiduguri, the birthplace of the Boko Haram insurgency, has become used to living under siege over the last two years. Fear and an army-enforced curfew empty the scruffy low-rise streets well before dark. Nervous public officials — prime assassination targets of the insurgents — avoid speaking the group’s name or blaming it. Army checkpoints are omnipresent. The soldiers, also a favorite target of snipers, are grim-faced and brusque.

“The Boko Haram are the ones controlling the state here,” said one of the lone human rights activists in Maiduguri, Maikaramba Sadiq of Nigeria’s Civil Liberties Organization. Residents fear that Boko Haram and its informants are everywhere.

“They are working 24 hours, looking, observing,” said Mr. Sadiq, who has been an intermediary between suspected Boko Haram members here and lawyers willing to represent them.

Yet the destruction of Maiduguri’s schools has bewildered and demoralized students, parents and teachers here in a way that the near-daily attacks, including one on a crowded market in February that killed 30, have not. The targeting of children, even indirectly, is seen as a new and sinister twist.

“I can’t even explain this,” said Musa Adam, a teacher at the Gwange III school, which endured a firebombing attempt but was not destroyed. “Is it an act of wickedness, or what? How can somebody destroy a school where children come to learn?”

Meanwhile, thousands of parents have seen one more prop supporting the illusion of normal life here destroyed.

“No one knows what this thing is all about,” said Musa Abakar, 39, father of two boys and a girl, ages 8 to 15, who attended the Abbaganaram Primary School before it was destroyed. “Burning schools, burning markets. How can one understand these things?”

Parents also wonder what to do about their marooned children since the Nigerian government has made no provision for them. The official in charge, Abba Ali Tijjani, the commissioner of Borno State schools, acknowledged as much in an interview.

“All our children are just staying at home,” said Isa Dauda, 27, who works in an open-air mattress workshop and has four children. “We don’t know what to do now. It’s more than a difficult situation.”

Opposite the Kulo Gumna Primary and Junior day school, where eight classrooms were destroyed in the heart of a Boko Haram-infiltrated neighborhood, Mamadou Youndusa, a barber cutting a child’s hair, lamented his own children’s newly imposed idleness.

He had children in both sections of the school. Now, “They are all at home. Which means a bleak future for them.”

A few of the classrooms at Kulo Gumna were untouched, but most of the students in them have not returned.

“They are afraid something will happen; that is why they are not coming back,” said a teacher, Fatouma Tujjani. Fewer than half of her 46 students have returned, she said. “They are just afraid.”

Elsewhere in Maiduguri, though, the will to resume schooling is overcoming fear, government lethargy and the absence of a plan. Early this month, several hundred children — laughing girls in blue-checked head scarves, and some white-shirted boys as well — showed up at the Abbaganaram ruins, preparing to trek a mile or so to another school that had agreed to take them in.

One of the older students, Adam Abagana, 18, expressed outrage at what had befallen his school.

“It’s an abomination. There is no justification for it,” he said. “We never thought the excesses of the gunmen would come down to burning schools.”

He added, “The only hope is, God has destined it.”

____

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/nige.../20120323.aspx

Hard Times Are Coming

March 23, 2012: Boko Haram is a serious problem for the Nigerian government because the national police are incompetent and the military, which is somewhat more competent, is not trained or equipped for police work. Thus defeating a better organized and motivated organization of religious zealots will be very difficult and time consuming. The prospect of Boko Haram establishing a religious dictatorship is not popular with most Nigerians. Even many Moslems (who are about half the population) oppose this. All the Christians are opposed to Islamic rule (and forced conversion). But it's difficult to get behind the government, which is corrupt, inept and dominated by liars, thieves, and people pretending to be virtuous. The best most Nigerians can hope for is the elimination of Boko Haram without too much collateral damage. The police and soldiers tend to shoot randomly and loot at every opportunity, so collateral damage is certain. In addition, local self-defense forces will increasingly go after Boko Haram and anyone else they don't like. Hard times are coming.

To no one's surprise, the large quantities of money the government has appropriated recently to provide security in the face of Boko Haram violence has led to more corruption. A lot of this money is not creating a lot of additional security but is promoting more opportunities to steal. Many security programs are announced but never happen.

March 21, 2012: Outside the northern city of Kano, Boko Haram gunmen attacked a bank and police station with bombs. The bank was destroyed but the money was not taken. The assault on the police did not work out well, and the police counter-attack left nine Boko Haram suspects dead and two captured. Earlier in the day gunmen, believed to be Boko Haram, shot dead three people.

An al Qaeda spokesman in Mauritania announced that his group had a German man who was kidnapped in Nigeria two months ago and were holding him for ransom (cash and the release of al Qaeda men held in Germany). Most likely, criminals kidnapped the man and then sold him to al Qaeda (which was safer, if less lucrative, than trying to get a ransom themselves).

March 18, 2012: Boko Haram announced that it would halt peace talks with the government. Boko Haram is demanding the release of many imprisoned Boko Haram members before any real negotiations begin. Boko Haram is on a mission from God, to impose a religious dictatorship over all of Nigeria and convert, expel, or kill all non-Moslems. All this makes negotiations difficult.

March 17, 2012: In the north (Kaduna State) dozens of Boko Haram gunmen attacked three villages and killed ten Christians, including a cleric. The Boko Haram then attacked a police station, causing some casualties.

[Housecarl]

And you thought the Nigerian E-mail scams were bad....

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Posted for fair use.....
http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news...sidential-aide

Nigeria loses over $20bn to illegal bunkering, oil theft yearly - Presidential aide

Monday, 26 March 2012

EVERY year, Nigeria loses about 40 million metric tonnes of petroleum products amounting to about $20 billion (N3 trillion) to crude oil theft and illegal bunkering, Mr Leke Oyewole, a Senior Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Maritime Affairs has said.

Oyewole made this known in Lagos, on Sunday, in an interview on a Channels Television programme tagged ‘Sunday Business’.

He said the loss was sequel to sharp practices characterised by numerous leakages, adulteration of products, as well as diversion of refined imported products by some of the players in the upstream and downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry.

The presidential aide, who stated further that the estimated loss was what obtained as of 2009, said diversion of petroleum products to neighbouring African countries by fuel importers amounted to a drain on the nation’s foreign exchange, adding that employment opportunities were being left to nationals of countries where fuel was being imported.

He pointed out that it was in order to put a stop to the revenue haemorr-hage arising from these leakages that President Goodluck Jonathan was resolute on the deregulation of the oil sector.

“Deregulation will allow investment in refineries, which will in turn create jobs in Nigeria and pave the way for export of products to other countries around us.

“Nigeria cannot claim to be poorer than Ghana or Chad where fuel is sold for about N170 per litre. Total removal of subsidy will enable the government to save more money for capital projects. Beyond that, it will minimise smuggling of the products across borders,” he said.

According to him, the porous nature of the country’s waterways also provided a lee way for unscrupulous importers to short-change government, by not paying duties to relevant government agencies.

“Our waterways are currently not so well monitored by the relevant maritime agencies. For instance, most of the vessels bringing products to Nigeria do not pay a dime to government, either though the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) or Customs. This constitutes serious revenue losses to the economy,” he added.

The presidential aide said although Customs had been told not to collect import duties from vessels coming into the country, its officials had the task of rummaging the vessels, adding that NIMASA and NPA ought to collaborate to address issues in the offshore operations in the oil industry and mitigate the insecurity arising therefrom.

[The Flying Dutchman]

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Monday, 26 March 2012, 4:34 pm
Press Release: Palestine News Network

Israel Warns of the Consequences
of Jerusalem Global March

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO120...obal-march.htm

Friday, 23 March 2012 / PNN - Israel issued a warning to the nearby Arab states if they allowed the global march to take place next Friday 30th March. Israel also stated that if anyone neared their borders, they would be accused of trespassing.

It claimed that the march is organized by “anti-Israeli parties” and said that this march won’t be allowed to reach Israel’s borders.

Political sources said that the Israeli government sent warning letters to governments including; Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Hamas’ in the West Bank and to the Palestinian authority, asking them to put a stop to the possible escalation of tension as a result of these marches.

Israeli military authorities put a “security plan” in place, to face the risk of the flow of protesters to the borders. The plan will be presented in a meeting of the Israeli government on Sunday, 25th March to implement it.

According to the Israeli correspondent of the Israeli official TV, this plan contains strategies to suppress the masses, which the Israeli military units in the Army and border guards have trained for.

Two months ago, the international committee of the Global March to Jerusalem began organizing the global march under the logo “Freedom for Jerusalem, No Occupation, No Ethnic Cleansing and Segregation, No for Judaising of Palestine, its land and holy sites.”

The committee chose 30th March to coincide with the anniversary of Palestinian “land day”; Palestine Land Day is a day celebrated by Palestinians on 30th March each year. The event marks the events of March, 1976, following the Israeli authority’s confiscation of thousands of dunums of private and public land in the majority of Palestinian areas, especially the Galilee. Following these events the Arab masses inside Palestine declared a general strike, confronting the Israeli authorities for the first time since the occupation of Palestine in 1948.

The Israeli response was militant and violent, as the Israeli troops, backed up by tanks, entered Palestinian villages and re-occupied them, causing a number of martyrs and many wounded and detainees among the civilians.

The march will unite the efforts of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and all citizens of conscience in the world to put an end to Israel’s disregard for international law through the continuing occupation of Jerusalem and Palestinian land.

Massive marches will be organized in Palestine, as well as from Asia, Africa and Europe to and in neighbouring countries to Palestine (Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon) and towards Jerusalem or to the nearest point possible according to the circumstances of each country and through the coordination between all groups and institutions of civil society taking part in the march, in coordination with the official and national bodies concerned.

Mass protests will also be organized in front of Israeli embassies in the capitals of different countries and in the main public squares in the big cities of the world, including the Arab and Muslim capitals and large cities.

ENDS






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Israel beefs up border security ahead
of Global March to Jerusalem

(Xinhua)08:56, March 26, 2012
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/7768483.html

JERUSALEM, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is gearing up for massive protests and possible infiltration attempts along its borders as part of the Global March to Jerusalem rallies on Friday, local media reported on Sunday.

IDF's preparations are based on the "Summer Seeds" operation prepared by the army to contain any riots during last year's Palestinian statehood bid.

Soldiers have been deployed along Israel's borders in order to prevent any infiltration attempts, after pro-Palestinian activists called for a Global March to Jerusalem the coming Friday.

The call urges participants to try to storm into Israel by sheer force, such as during the Palestinians' Nakba (disaster in Arabic) and Naksa (setback) day events, on May 15 and June 5 respectively, when dozens of protesters were killed trying to infiltrate into Israel from Syria and Lebanon.

Soldiers have also been instructed to cause minimum harm, if needed, to protesters in order to avoid any more flare-ups, the Ynet news service reported.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian activists arrived in Damascus on Sunday to participate in the protest, and it is expected that there will be infiltration attempts on the borders with Lebanon and Syria, where the IDF has already reinforced the fences.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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HRW:
Syrian forces using civilians as human shields

By: AFP | March 26, 2012 | 0
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...an-shields-hrw

BEIRUT - Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that regime forces in Syria have resorted to using civilians as human shields to protect themselves from attacks by rebel fighters.

Citing witnesses and YouTube videos, the watchdog accused the army and Shabiha pro-regime militia of forcing people to march in front of them as they advanced on opposition-controlled towns in northwestern Idlib province.

“By using civilians as human shields, the Syrian army is showing blatant disregard for their safety,” HRW emergencies researcher Ole Solvang said in a statement.

“The Syrian army should immediately stop this abhorrent practice.” In its statement, the New York-based rights group said that regime forces began using human shields in Idlib at the start of the year after rebels tried to attack the army. The tactic was reported to have been used in the Idlib towns of Al-Janudyah, Kafr Nabl, Kafr Ruma and Ayn Laruz.

In Kafr Nabl, one resident named only as Abdullah said the army forced him and several other people to walk in front of their armoured personnel carriers during a search and arrest operation on March 2. “As we were going to Friday prayer, soldiers from a base near the mosque were rounding up people. They took maybe 25 people, including me” and eight children, HRW quoted him as saying.

“They made us march in front and around the military vehicles to some houses where they were searching for wanted opposition activists. They arrested several people from the houses.

“Then they made us march back to their base, after which they released all of us, apart from the detained activists. The whole operation lasted for about two hours,” Abdullah said.

Raed Fares, an opposition activist in Kafr Nabl, said the army boosted its presence in the town when protests began seven months ago and started using human shields in January after an attempt attack on them with a roadside bomb.

Human Rights Watch said Fares posted videos on YouTube showing groups of people from the town walking in front of soldiers and armoured vehicles on two separate occasions in February.

The army also used residents to protect its checkpoints.

The watchdog provided several other similar accounts by residents and activists, and said the use of human shields was a violation of international human rights laws.

“The Syrian army’s use of human shields is yet another reason why the UN Security Council should refer Syria to the International Criminal Court,” Solvang said. “Somebody should be made to answer for these violations.”





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[Housecarl]

For links see article source......
Posted for fair use........
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/03/26/h...atellite-test/

How to Stop Kim’s Satellite Test
March 26, 2012
By Scott Snyder

North Korea’s promise to launch a satellite has prompted international condemnation. But the U.S. and others have options available to stop it.

As more than 50 world leaders gather in Seoul to address the task of how to more effectively secure nuclear materials, their landing path at Incheon airport will have taken them within range of North Korean surface-to-air missiles.

Although North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities aren’t formally on the agenda for the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, Pyongyang’s leaders have done their best to ensure that North Korea won’t be forgotten in the global confab, first by announcing plans to launch a satellite in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, and then by threatening war if the summit issues a statement on Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The United States and North Korea in their respective February 29 “Leap Day” statements tentatively seemed ready to hit the “reset” button in U.S.-North Korea relations, but Pyongyang has apparently hit the “replay” button instead by rewinding to the events surrounding North Korea’s long-range rocket launch in 2009.

Even more worrisome is that the recent satellite launch announcement puts North Korea on a collision course with the international community as North Korea seeks to consolidate political leadership under Kim Il-sung’s grandson, twenty-something Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-il’s formal succession was accompanied by the launch of a Taepodong missile in 1998, and plans for Kim Jong-un’s succession were marked at an early stage three years ago by the North’s 2009 satellite launch, which was roundly condemned by a United Nations presidential statement.

North Korea’s outraged response to international efforts to ban its freedom to use outer space for peaceful purposes in 2009 included threats to conduct a nuclear test, which North Korea carried out only a month later. The strong international reaction that’s building in response to defiant North Korea’s latest satellite launch announcement will heighten outrage in Pyongyang, while Pyongyang’s defiant insistence on its right to conduct a satellite launch will further outrage the international community.

For the United States, continued North Korean long-range missile testing (even under the guise of a satellite launch) highlights the priority concern of North Korean vertical proliferation, identified in the June 2010 findings of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Independent Task Force on Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula, and underscores the concern expressed by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in December 2010 that North Korea’s development of a long-range missile capability could become a direct threat to the United States.

The current path illustrates a fundamental dilemma for North Korea: actions taken to consolidate political leadership around Kim Jong-un may subject the country to international protest, while deference to international concerns may undermine internal political legitimacy. But what if there are efforts to call Pyongyang on its assertion that it’s only exercising its freedom to the peaceful use of space? What if the international community makes an offer that respects their right to send up a satellite but not a missile? If one sets aside the challenges of securing inter-agency support, North Korea’s clear efforts to wed the rocket launch to Kim Jong-un’s political consolidation, and the backdrop of electoral politics in South Korea and the United States, how might one construct a policy path that combines diplomacy and force in ways that offer Pyongyang a face-saving way of advancing its satellite aspirations without damaging internal legitimacy by backing down to international demands? Such a course might include the following steps:

1) The United States seeks a third party willing to offer North Korea launch services to place a North Korean satellite in orbit, and mobilizes support for such an offer among allies and partners in the six party framework.

2) The United States quietly puts into place assets designed to give the U.S. president a credible preemptive option by following through on the past policy recommendations of former Secretary of Defense William Perry and current Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter that a North Korean multi-stage rocket be the object of a preemptive strike if it is placed on the launch pad.

3) The U.S. pursues U.N. authorization in advance of a North Korean satellite test to enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 with action to preempt North Korea’s satellite launch, arguing that North Korea’s 2010 provocations have shown that limited use of force on the peninsula need not escalate into full-scale war.

4) The United States sends a special envoy to Pyongyang to make the offer of launch services, while underscoring American will to stop North Korea’s planned launch, with the understanding that acceptance of such an offer may be used by North Korean authorities as evidence of international support for North Korea’s new political leadership.

5) The United States coordinates with Beijing to underscore to Pyongyang the sincerity of the international community’s willingness to launch a North Korean satellite into orbit so as to uphold restrictions on North Korean long-range missile launches of any kind as stated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874.

6) Having sidestepped confrontation, the United States and North Korea implement “Leap Day” pledges, opening the way for the confidence building measures that North Korea called for in its own February 29 statement.

This admittedly unlikely script would avoid a serious case of déjà vu in which we are doomed to repeat the cycle of 2009. It would also deprive Pyongyang of the ability to use international outrage as a means to unite North Korea’s population in support of the succession process. It might also instigate a serious debate in Pyongyang over the future of North Korea and its relationship with the international community. But does the political will exist to pursue it?

Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously a senior associate in the international relations program of The Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum CSIS. He blogs at Asia Unbound, where this piece originally appeared.

Related Features

China’s Alarming, Puzzling, Missile Test
What Not to Do About North Korea
Let North Korea Save Face
Will China Stop Iran?
How Kim Death Risks China Crisis

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat..._another_1.php

AQAP takes control of another town in southern Yemen
By Bill Roggio
March 25, 2012 5:07 PM


The Yemen Post reported today that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has seized control of yet another population center in southern Yemen. The coastal town of Radum in Shabwa province is the latest to fall to AQAP:

Al-Qaeda announced on Saturday that it has taken control of the coastal town of Radum, in the Yemeni southeastern province of Shabwa.

In a statement released today, and confirmed by a security official, Ansar al-Sharia, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, had taken control today of the Radum town.

The militants moved from Azzan and other areas of Shabwa to Radum, according to the official, who indicated that the militants took control of town gradually.

AQAP controls Azzan in Shabwa province. In the neighboring province of Abyan, the cities of Zinjibar, Al Koud, Ja'ar, and Shaqra are currently run by AQAP. Also, AQAP seized control of Rada'a in Al Baydah in January but later withdrew after negotiating a peace agreement with the local government.

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/25/203019.html?PHPSESSID=h5t3c866h4v6fisuss4vudk7j7

Last Updated: Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:28 am (KSA) 08:28 am (GMT)
Islamists plot against Gulf, says Dubai police chief

Sunday, 25 March 2012
By AFP
KUWAIT CITY

The Muslim Brotherhood, the main Islamist force that emerged after the Arab Spring, is plotting to take over Gulf states, Dubai’s police chief said in remarks reported on Sunday.

Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan said he had his reasons to claim that the “Brotherhood was plotting to change the regimes in the Gulf,” in an interview published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas.

“My sources say the next step is to make Gulf governments (their ruling families) figurehead bodies only without actual ruling. The start will be in Kuwait in 2013 and in other Gulf states in 2016,” he said.

Khalfan has been involved in a tit-for-tat controversy with the Brotherhood after he threatened earlier this month to arrest cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a leading Brotherhood figure, for criticizing the United Arab Emirates for deporting Syrian protesters.

The police chief said he based his information on “leaks” from Western intelligence agencies and said this “had been known to us.”

“If these leaks from Western intelligence were to be correct, by 2016 all Gulf rulers” will be just figureheads with no actual power, Khalfan said. “I am warning Gulf states about these groups.”

All of the six oil-rich Arab states in the Gulf have been governed for centuries by ruling families that dominate almost every aspect of life and who have the final say on almost everything.

These states − Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE − together sit on more than 40 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and around a fifth of its natural gas.

Khalfan said the alleged plot will begin in Kuwait because “it is ready more than any other Gulf state... this is a strategy.”

Sunni Islamists made an impressive show in a Feb. 2 snap election in Kuwait, securing more than 20 seats in the 50-member parliament.

[The Flying Dutchman]

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poll -
Two-thirds of Israelis favor strike on Iran

March 26, 2012 - 15:29 AMT
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/100361/

PanARMENIAN.Net - Nearly two-thirds of Israeli Jews believe that the consequences for the Jewish state of a nuclear-armed Iran would be worse than those of an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic, a poll showed on Monday, March 26, according to AFP.

The poll, published in Haaretz newspaper, found that 65 percent of Jewish Israelis agreed with the statement that "the price Israel would have to pay for living with the threat of an Iranian bomb would be greater than the price it would pay for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities."

Commissioned by the right-leaning Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, the survey found 26 percent disagreed with the statement, while nine percent said they were unsure.

It also found that six out of 10 respondents - 60 percent - agreed that only military action could halt Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran claims is for peaceful civilian purposes but Israel and much of the international community believes masks a weapons drive.

But another 37 percent disagreed with the claim that only military action could halt Iran's nuclear program, which has prompted the international community to impose tough sanctions on Tehran's exports and financial sector.

A majority of respondents, 64 percent, said they were confident that Israel's military forces could "significantly" damage Iran's nuclear program, compared to 29 percent who disagreed. And 63 percent said they believed Israel would suffer the same consequences whether an attack against Iran was carried out by the Jewish state or the United States.

The poll surveyed 505 Jewish Israelis, religious and secular, Haaretz said, without specifying a margin of error.

Israel has said frequently it is keeping all options open for responding to Iran's nuclear program, which it says poses an existential threat to the Jewish state. But the United States and other countries have called for time to allow biting sanctions to take effect.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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March 25, 2012 at 09:20:11

US and Israel Prepare for War

By Mary Wentworth
http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-...120321-54.html

Planning for eventualities that may have a negative impact on US corporate interests is S.O.P. for the Department of Defense (aka the War Department). It is no surprise, then, that Secretary Leon Panetta told the National Journal, "The Pentagon is preparing an array of military options for striking Iran if hard-hitting diplomatic and economic sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to drop its nuclear ambitions."

[1]Diplomacy with Iran is proceeding on the order of that well-worn example of sophistry where the prosecuting attorney asks the defendant, "Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no?"

Even though both Obama and Netanyahu face opposition to a war on Iran within segments of their own military as well as from their civilian populations and intelligence personnel have concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is going after the bomb , preparations for war have been moving steadily forward, keeping the propaganda machinery working overtime.

The imposition of sanctions are supposed to force Iran to the negotiating table. While they undermine Iran's ability to defend itself as sanctions did in Iraq's case, they also allow time to put all the pieces in place as US elections go forward.

Almost 10,000 US forces have already been deployed to Israel -- for the first time ever. Obviously, to beef up Israeli defense capabilities. The military forces of both countries will engage in preliminary exercises to insure smooth operations at a later date. In addition, the Israeli Defense Forces now have a base in Germany from which to operate. [2]

The Navy's Fifth Fleet's area of operation from its base in Manama, Bahrain, is the Persian Gulf, both the Red and Arabian Seas, and part of the east coast of Africa. The USSEnterprise, the aging nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, has been dispatched to join two other carriers in the Gulf. Two guided-missile destroyers are ready to be dispatched soon to also join the Fifth Fleet. [3]

In looking back over the last months, it is now evident that much of Netanyahu's tough talk about launching an assault on Iran was a lot of bullying bluster. Israel has not had this capability because its planes could not carry enough fuel to fly over Iran and make it back. The US will remedy this deficiency by supplying planes that can be refueled in mid-air.

The fact that Bibi has no bunker-busting bombs has also been a problem. Sources report that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who gave his own speech to AIPAC last week, will send over our latest advanced bunker-busters that may have enough fire power to reach the many underground laboratories scattered around Iran. [4]

Netanyahu is ratcheting up Israel's defensive measures. In addition to boosting emergency services, an Israeli civil defense spokesman is hoping that cities will copy what Tel Aviv has done at the Habima National Theater whose lot has been made into a makeshift bomb shelter that is four stories underground and capable of accommodating 1600 people. [5]

This developing scenario looks very much like Israel is being given the go-ahead to attack first with US providing back-up forces if Iran fights back -- which it will undoubtedly do.

Accusing Iran of developing a nuclear bomb that their supposedly-crazy we-want-to-be-annihilated leaders will then drop on Israel and the United States has been shown to be effective in winning popular support for going to war.

If acquiring a bomb is simply a decoy to winning approval for war, what are the real reasons that Israel and the United States want to start another one? Do US corporations, and some foreign- based ones, want control of the oil? Do the Zionists want a cover of chaos for expelling the Palestinians and achieving their long-term goal of having all of Palestine?

We can be certain of one thing: Gandhi's statement that an "eye-for-an-eye" way of solving disputes will make the whole world blind will become a reality.







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[The Flying Dutchman]

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The Iranian crisis signals a turning point in warfare

Even a superpower like the US could in the future be
vulnerable to cyber attacks from a much smaller country

By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News
Published: 00:00 March 26, 2012
http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columni...rfare-1.999547

The Iranian crisis continues to dominate the news in the US and Israel with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak repeatedly stating that an Israeli assault on Iranian nuclear installations was likely within months. The New York Times described the debate as being dominated by the hawkish elements in Congress and among Israel’s friends in the US.

President Barack Obama’s warning against the unintended consequences of ‘casual talk’ of war was echoed by two respected European figures.

Carl Bildt and Erkki Tuomioja, foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland respectively, wrote on March 20 in the New York Times warning that an attack against Iran would be “a clear violation of the charter of the United Nations.” It could also have “severely negative repercussions” in the region. They urged that diplomacy be recognised as ‘the only alternative’ for a sustainable solution. The other options are, they concluded, “recipes for war.”

At about the same time the New York Times revealed that an American classified war simulation, called Internal Look, had been held earlier this month. It forecasts that an Israeli assault on Iran would lead to a wider regional war and drag the US into the war leaving hundreds of Americans dead.

However the Iranian crisis may ultimately be solved, and I personally subscribe to the view expressed by the two European ministers and quoted above, the Iranian crisis marks a turning point in the history of conflict.

And that is because of the unique nature of the undeclared war of sabotage, subversion and assassination that is being waged against Iran. This covert war includes the cloak and dagger materials of traditional espionage, but it also includes a weapon of sabotage that marks the beginning of a new form of warfare that may very well change the nature of traditional warfare -- possibly in more dramatic ways than what the artillery, the aircraft and the submarine did for conventional warfare.

The new weapon of sabotage used against Iran is a most nefarious computer virus named Stuxnet that was programmed to disable specific systems controlling Iranian centrifuges (used to enrich uranium), causing them to malfunction while fooling the Iranian operators into believing that the equipment was functioning well.

Stuxnet may have been the first computer virus to be weaponised in the sense that it was not intended, like other viruses, to deny access or steal information; it was designed to disrupt command and control of industrial or military installations with unforeseen consequences.

The New York Times revealed that Stuxnet was prepared by Israel and the United States — with help from the Germans and the British — and tested in Israel.

Stuxnet caused significant damage to some 3,000 Iranian computers and it is speculated that it set back the Iranian nuclear programme.

If this is confirmed, the implications can be mindboggling. First of all, this is a frontal attack against the sovereign state and its heretofore unchallenged monopoly of the instruments of violence. Since anyone with a computer and the necessary knowledge can wreak havoc on the institutions of the state itself. Or a one-man army can direct its disruptive malice or anger against the institutions of another state.

Second, the traditional army, especially in the industrialised world, will lose much of its relevance unless it continues to function as the guardians of imperial interests — as the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan testifies. That is because the ability to disrupt may preempt the enemy’s ability to attack and destroy.

Third, the ability to cause massive disruption can be cheaply developed without a huge military that has to be equipped, fed, trained and given a mission. A weaponised computer virus capable of mass disruption requires only readily available computers and readily available knowledge. The conventional army with all its expenses relies on sheer force (lethality of weapons and number of soldiers); a weaponised computer virus relies on brain power.

This brings a sense of equality to all since brain power is readily available and unlike conventional power does not depend on the size of territory, population or level of industrialisation, or sophistication of weapons.

A superpower like the United States may be vulnerable to cyber attacks from a much smaller country. This was in fact confirmed recently. General Keith Alexander, US Cyber Command, was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as having told a Congressional committee that it was only a matter of time before the US was subjected to a cyber attack of the destructive nature of Stuxnet. Alexander called for international agreements to regulate the use of cyber-war technology.

Take the case of the Iranian crisis, for instance. Measured by conventional power, Israel and the United States are undoubtedly far superior to Iran. But the gap narrows when brain power is the measurement.

The level of sophistication and technological development that went into ‘arming’ Stuxnet attests to the high degree of technological sophistication of the US and Israel.

But consider the case of the American stealth drone that was spying on Iran, and the Iranians — to the surprise of the Americans — managed to exploit navigational weaknesses and guide the pilotless plane to land in Iran.

Consider the implications of the Iranians being in possession of classified information about the systems onboard the US President’s Marine One helicopter.

Or consider the ability of groups or even a single individual being able to weaponise a virus and direct it at sensitive installations of another country.

This is what happened when a Saudi hacker, identifying himself as oxOmar, posted the details of more than 20,000 Israeli credit cards, and later disrupted access to the sites of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and to the Israeli national airline, El Al.

Never since the establishment of Israel in 1948 has an Arab country — let alone an Arab individual — had that kind of disruptive penetrability to the very basic installations of Israeli society, and indeed to the very notion of a fortress armed to the teeth.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Israelis prefer preemptive strike to nuclear Iran: poll

By AFP | AFP – 2 hours 21 minutes ago.. .
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/israelis-pr...092952868.html

Nearly two-thirds of Israeli Jews believe that the consequences for the Jewish state of a nuclear-armed Iran would be worse than those of an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic, according to a poll in the Haaretz newspaper

Nearly two-thirds of Israeli Jews believe that the consequences for the Jewish state of a nuclear-armed Iran would be worse than those of an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic, a poll showed on Monday.

The poll, published in Haaretz newspaper, found that 65 percent of Jewish Israelis agreed with the statement that "the price Israel would have to pay for living with the threat of an Iranian bomb would be greater than the price it would pay for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities."

Commissioned by the right-leaning Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, the survey found 26 percent disagreed with the statement, while nine percent said they were unsure.

It also found that six out of 10 respondents -- 60 percent -- agreed that only military action could halt Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran claims is for peaceful civilian purposes but Israel and much of the international community believes masks a weapons drive.

But another 37 percent disagreed with the claim that only military action could halt Iran's nuclear programme, which has prompted the international community to impose tough sanctions on Tehran's exports and financial sector.

A majority of respondents, 64 percent, said they were confident that Israel's military forces could "significantly" damage Iran's nuclear programme, compared to 29 percent who disagreed.

And 63 percent said they believed Israel would suffer the same consequences whether an attack against Iran was carried out by the Jewish state or the United States.

The poll surveyed 505 Jewish Israelis, religious and secular, Haaretz said, without specifying a margin of error.

Israel has said frequently it is keeping all options open for responding to Iran's nuclear programme, which it says poses an existential threat to the Jewish state.

But the United States and other countries have called for time to allow biting sanctions to take effect.

Earlier this month, a poll published by Haaretz showed that 58 percent of Israelis opposed a strike on Iran without US backing.

The same poll, conducted by among 497 Israelis, also found that over half of the respondents trusted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak to deal with the Iran issue.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Iranian president calls for immediate with
drawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan

Implementation of agreements on
Afghanistan unsatisfactory, says Tajik leader


26/03/2012 16:30
http://news.tj/en/news/iranian-presi...ps-afghanistan

DUSHANBE, March 26, 2012, Asia-Plus – Speaking at the Fifth Regional Economic Cooperation on Afghanistan (RECCA V) in Dushanbe, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on March 26 called for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from the country and proposed that NATO use part of its military budget to help revive the Afghan economy, Reuters reports.

Ahmadinejad reportedly said the United States could no longer dictate policy to the rest of the world and warned of growing instability in the West's relations with Pakistan.

According to Reuters, Iranian president noted that NATO and the United States should change their policy because the time when they dictate their conditions to the world has passed.

“It's better to respect nations than to scare them and colonize them. The time of imperialism has long gone. Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history will be punished.”

Reuters says the U.S. delegation to the conference, headed by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake, left the hall when Ahmadinejad began to speak and returned after the conclusion of his speech.

Washington has spearheaded international efforts to isolate Iran, including several rounds of sanctions, over a nuclear program that Tehran says is for peaceful purposes only.

Israel and Western nations say Iran is moving towards a nuclear bomb that could change the regional balance of power. Ahmadinejad made no reference to Iran's nuclear program during his speech.

Ahmadinejad reportedly said that NATO policy in Afghanistan and other countries would make Western relations with Pakistan worse.

“Relations between NATO and Pakistan - their unsteadiness and instability will only grow,” said he. “The main reason for the difficulties in the world is the policy of NATO member countries, undertaken with the aim of reviving colonialism.”

Ahmadinejad added he believed Afghanistan was capable of running its own affairs, without the presence of foreign troops.

Calling for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops, Ahmadinejad said: “The entire problem lies with NATO and with the policies of NATO members, most of all the United States, which entered Afghanistan under the guise of the war on terrorism and under the same banner is now surrounding India, Russia and China.”

The Iranian leader said NATO should help fund the revival of the Afghan economy by paying 25 percent of its military expenditure in Afghanistan, or 5 percent of the total military budget of NATO member countries, annually over the next decade.

He said Iran would offer technical and economic assistance to the country, including investment in education, healthcare and infrastructure projects.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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U. S. delegation leaves conference under attack by Iran

13:22 26 MAR 2012
http://www.agi.it/english-version/wo...attack_by_iran

(AGI) Dushanbe- Iran and the USA were at loggerheads at the regional Conference for Economic Cooperation in Afghanistan.

The conference is underway in Dushanbe, in Tajikistan. The U.S.
delegation left the room, and the meeting, when the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, criticized the United States' policy, saying it is the source of all of Afghanistan's problems.& 13; "The entire problem lies with NATO and with the policies of NATO members, most of all the United States", stated the Iranian leader in his speech. . .






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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2012-03-26

Is IAEA Greasing Skids to Iran War?

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=51402

The US press corps has embraced the integrity of the International Atomic Energy Agency as central to the case for bombing Iran. But WikiLeaks documents revealed how the IAEA’s new leader is a pawn of the West, and Gareth Porter explains at Inter Press Service how the IAEA has escalated the confrontation with Iran.

Middle East Online

[sizw="3"]The first detailed account of negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran last month belies earlier statements by unnamed Western officials portraying Iran as refusing to cooperate with the IAEA in allaying concerns about alleged nuclear weaponization work.

The detailed account given by Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, shows that the talks in February came close to a final agreement, but were hung up primarily over the IAEA insistence on being able to reopen issues even after Iran had answered questions about them to the organization’s satisfaction.

It also indicates that the IAEA demand to visit Parchin military base during that trip to Tehran reversed a previous agreement that the visit would come later in the process, and that IAEA Director General Yukia Amano ordered his negotiators to break off the talks and return to Vienna rather than accept Iran’s invitation to stay for a third day. [For more on Amano’s bias, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Slanting the Case on Iran’s Nukes.”]

Soltanieh took the unprecedented step of revealing the details of the incomplete negotiations with the IAEA in an interview with IPS in Vienna last week and in a presentation to a closed session of the IAEA’s Board of Governors March 8, which the Iranian mission has now made public.

The Iranian envoy went public with his account of the talks after a series of anonymous statements to the press by the IAEA Secretariat and member states had portrayed Iran as being uncooperative on Parchin as well as in the negotiations on an agreement on cooperation with the agency.

Those statements now appear to have been aimed at building a case for a resolution by the Board condemning Iran’s intransigence in order to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran in advance of talks between the P5+1 and Iran.

Soltanieh’s account suggests that Amano may have switched signals to the IAEA delegation after consultations with the United States and other powerful member states which wanted to be able to cite the Parchin access issue to condemn Iran for its alleged failure to cooperate with the IAEA.

Parchin had been cited in the November 2011 IAEA report as the location of an alleged explosive containment cylinder, said by one or more IAEA member states to have been used for hydrodynamic testing of nuclear weapons designs.

The detailed Iranian account shows that the IAEA delegation requested a visit to Parchin in the first round of the negotiations in Tehran Jan. 29-31 and that it asked again at the beginning of the three “intercessional” meetings in Vienna for such a visit to take place at a second negotiating round in Tehran Feb. 20-21.

Soltanieh recalled, however, that during three “intercessional” meetings in February with IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards Herman Nackaerts, and Assistant Director General for Political Affairs Rafael Grossi, the two sides had reached agreement that the IAEA request for access to Parchin would be postponed until after the Board of Governors meeting in March.

But when the IAEA delegation arrived Feb. 20, it renewed the demand to visit Parchin, according to Soltanieh’s account. “At the beginning of the meeting the first day, they said the director general had instructed them to give a message to us that they wanted to go to Parchin today or tomorrow, despite what we had clearly agreed two weeks earlier,” Soltanieh told IPS.

Soltanieh told the Board of Governors that the negotiating text on which the two sides were working at the Feb. 20-21 meeting provided specifically for a visit to Parchin as well as other sites in conjunction with Iran’s actions to clear up the issue of “hydrodynamic experiments” – the allegation by an unnamed member government published in the November 2011 IAEA report.

In response to the renewed request for a visit to Parchin, Soltanieh offered to let the delegation visit the Marivan site, where the same November report said the agency had “credible” evidence Iranian engineers worked on high-explosives testing for a nuclear device.

“We offered Marivan because it was the next priority,” Soltanieh told IPS, referring to the list of priority issues on which Iran was expected to take actions to be specified by the IAEA under the provision of the negotiating text. But the IAEA delegation rejected the offer, claiming that it had been given too little time.

Soltanieh’s account reveals that the IAEA also turned down a request to stay one additional day to complete the negotiations of the new action plan. “At lunch hour the second day, we wanted them to stay another day,” he told IPS, and the delegation told them it might be possible. But after consulting with Amano, the IAEA delegation said it could not stay.

Amano’s change of signals on Parchin and refusal to stay for a third day of negotiations were followed by condemnation of Iran as uncooperative by a “senior Western official” shortly before the IAEA Board of Governors meeting. The official was quoted by Reuters on March 2 as saying, “We think there needs to be a resolution that makes clear that Iran needs to do more, a lot more, to comply with the agency’s requests.” The official called Iran’s stance during the talks a “gigantic slap in the face of the IAEA.”

In the end, no resolution was passed by the Board. Instead the P5+1 – the US, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany – issued a joint statement urging Iran to allow access to Parchin but not blaming Iran for the failure to reach agreement. The negotiating text as it stood at the end of the February round of talks, which Soltanieh showed IPS, had relatively few handwritten deletions and additions.

A key provision in the draft text, which IPS was allowed to quote, says, “Iran agrees to cooperate with the Agency to facilitate a conclusive technical assessment of all issues of concern to the Agency. This cooperation will include inspections by the Agency, additional meetings, including technical meetings and visits, and access to relevant information, documentation and sites, material and personnel.”

The primary issue standing in the way of final agreement, according to Soltanieh, was whether the IAEA could reopen issues once they had been resolved. The text shown to IPS includes a provision that IAEA “may adjust the order” in which issues were to be resolved and “return” to issues even after they had been resolved.

The Iranians accepted the right of the IAEA to adjust the order but did not agree that it could reopen issues once they were completed satisfactorily, Soltanieh recalled, because Iran feared that giving the IAEA that power would lead to “an endless process.”

The other major issue, according to Soltanieh, was Iran’s demand that the IAEA “deliver” all the intelligence documents alleging that it had carried out covert weaponization activities to Iran before asking it for definitive answers to the allegation. The IAEA delegation said they couldn’t produce all the documents at once, he told IPS.

Iran then agreed that the agency could provide only those documents relevant to each issue when it comes up, the Iranian diplomat recalled. It is not clear, however, whether the IAEA has agreed to that compromise.

The United States has refused in the past to agree to turn over the “alleged studies” documents to Iran – a policy that Amano’s predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei had argued made it impossible to demand that Iran be held accountable for explaining those documents.

After Soltanieh’s presentation to the Board of Governors, Amano told reporters that some of Soltanieh’s statements had been inaccurate but appeared to confirm the main points of his presentation. “In fact, the February talks initially took place in a constructive spirit,” he said. “Differences between Iran and the Agency appeared to have narrowed.”

On the second day, Amano said, Iran had “sought to re-impose restrictions on our work,” which he said “included obliging the Agency to present a definitive list of questions and denying us the right to revisit issues, or to deal with certain issues in parallel, to name just a few.”

Amano’s spokesperson Gill Tudor declined to comment on the accuracy of Soltanieh’s account for this story, saying “(W)e would prefer to let the director general’s words speak for themselves.”

In response to a request for comment on this story, the US State Department deferred to Amano’s account on the talks but said, ” (D)espite the IAEA’s best efforts, Iran was unwilling to reach such an agreement” and had “failed an initial test of its good faith and willingness to cooperate by refusing an IAEA request to visit Parchin.”
[/size]





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[OldArcher]

For links see article source......
Posted for fair use........
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/03/26/h...atellite-test/

How to Stop Kim’s Satellite Test
March 26, 2012
By Scott Snyder

North Korea’s promise to launch a satellite has prompted international condemnation. But the U.S. and others have options available to stop it.

As more than 50 world leaders gather in Seoul to address the task of how to more effectively secure nuclear materials, their landing path at Incheon airport will have taken them within range of North Korean surface-to-air missiles.

Although North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities aren’t formally on the agenda for the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, Pyongyang’s leaders have done their best to ensure that North Korea won’t be forgotten in the global confab, first by announcing plans to launch a satellite in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, and then by threatening war if the summit issues a statement on Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The United States and North Korea in their respective February 29 “Leap Day” statements tentatively seemed ready to hit the “reset” button in U.S.-North Korea relations, but Pyongyang has apparently hit the “replay” button instead by rewinding to the events surrounding North Korea’s long-range rocket launch in 2009.

Even more worrisome is that the recent satellite launch announcement puts North Korea on a collision course with the international community as North Korea seeks to consolidate political leadership under Kim Il-sung’s grandson, twenty-something Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-il’s formal succession was accompanied by the launch of a Taepodong missile in 1998, and plans for Kim Jong-un’s succession were marked at an early stage three years ago by the North’s 2009 satellite launch, which was roundly condemned by a United Nations presidential statement.

North Korea’s outraged response to international efforts to ban its freedom to use outer space for peaceful purposes in 2009 included threats to conduct a nuclear test, which North Korea carried out only a month later. The strong international reaction that’s building in response to defiant North Korea’s latest satellite launch announcement will heighten outrage in Pyongyang, while Pyongyang’s defiant insistence on its right to conduct a satellite launch will further outrage the international community.

For the United States, continued North Korean long-range missile testing (even under the guise of a satellite launch) highlights the priority concern of North Korean vertical proliferation, identified in the June 2010 findings of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Independent Task Force on Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula, and underscores the concern expressed by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in December 2010 that North Korea’s development of a long-range missile capability could become a direct threat to the United States.

The current path illustrates a fundamental dilemma for North Korea: actions taken to consolidate political leadership around Kim Jong-un may subject the country to international protest, while deference to international concerns may undermine internal political legitimacy. But what if there are efforts to call Pyongyang on its assertion that it’s only exercising its freedom to the peaceful use of space? What if the international community makes an offer that respects their right to send up a satellite but not a missile? If one sets aside the challenges of securing inter-agency support, North Korea’s clear efforts to wed the rocket launch to Kim Jong-un’s political consolidation, and the backdrop of electoral politics in South Korea and the United States, how might one construct a policy path that combines diplomacy and force in ways that offer Pyongyang a face-saving way of advancing its satellite aspirations without damaging internal legitimacy by backing down to international demands? Such a course might include the following steps:

1) The United States seeks a third party willing to offer North Korea launch services to place a North Korean satellite in orbit, and mobilizes support for such an offer among allies and partners in the six party framework.

2) The United States quietly puts into place assets designed to give the U.S. president a credible preemptive option by following through on the past policy recommendations of former Secretary of Defense William Perry and current Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter that a North Korean multi-stage rocket be the object of a preemptive strike if it is placed on the launch pad.

3) The U.S. pursues U.N. authorization in advance of a North Korean satellite test to enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 with action to preempt North Korea’s satellite launch, arguing that North Korea’s 2010 provocations have shown that limited use of force on the peninsula need not escalate into full-scale war.

4) The United States sends a special envoy to Pyongyang to make the offer of launch services, while underscoring American will to stop North Korea’s planned launch, with the understanding that acceptance of such an offer may be used by North Korean authorities as evidence of international support for North Korea’s new political leadership.

5) The United States coordinates with Beijing to underscore to Pyongyang the sincerity of the international community’s willingness to launch a North Korean satellite into orbit so as to uphold restrictions on North Korean long-range missile launches of any kind as stated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874.

6) Having sidestepped confrontation, the United States and North Korea implement “Leap Day” pledges, opening the way for the confidence building measures that North Korea called for in its own February 29 statement.

This admittedly unlikely script would avoid a serious case of déjà vu in which we are doomed to repeat the cycle of 2009. It would also deprive Pyongyang of the ability to use international outrage as a means to unite North Korea’s population in support of the succession process. It might also instigate a serious debate in Pyongyang over the future of North Korea and its relationship with the international community. But does the political will exist to pursue it?

Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously a senior associate in the international relations program of The Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum CSIS. He blogs at Asia Unbound, where this piece originally appeared.

Related Features

China’s Alarming, Puzzling, Missile Test
What Not to Do About North Korea
Let North Korea Save Face
Will China Stop Iran?
How Kim Death Risks China Crisis

The United States will do nothing, but condemn the Norks' actions, while applauding Japan for shooting it down.

OA, out...

[OldArcher]

=

March 25, 2012 at 09:20:11

US and Israel Prepare for War

By Mary Wentworth
http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-...120321-54.html

Planning for eventualities that may have a negative impact on US corporate interests is S.O.P. for the Department of Defense (aka the War Department). It is no surprise, then, that Secretary Leon Panetta told the National Journal, "The Pentagon is preparing an array of military options for striking Iran if hard-hitting diplomatic and economic sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to drop its nuclear ambitions."

[1]Diplomacy with Iran is proceeding on the order of that well-worn example of sophistry where the prosecuting attorney asks the defendant, "Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no?"

Even though both Obama and Netanyahu face opposition to a war on Iran within segments of their own military as well as from their civilian populations and intelligence personnel have concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is going after the bomb , preparations for war have been moving steadily forward, keeping the propaganda machinery working overtime.

The imposition of sanctions are supposed to force Iran to the negotiating table. While they undermine Iran's ability to defend itself as sanctions did in Iraq's case, they also allow time to put all the pieces in place as US elections go forward.

Almost 10,000 US forces have already been deployed to Israel -- for the first time ever. Obviously, to beef up Israeli defense capabilities. The military forces of both countries will engage in preliminary exercises to insure smooth operations at a later date. In addition, the Israeli Defense Forces now have a base in Germany from which to operate. [2]

The Navy's Fifth Fleet's area of operation from its base in Manama, Bahrain, is the Persian Gulf, both the Red and Arabian Seas, and part of the east coast of Africa. The USSEnterprise, the aging nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, has been dispatched to join two other carriers in the Gulf. Two guided-missile destroyers are ready to be dispatched soon to also join the Fifth Fleet. [3]

In looking back over the last months, it is now evident that much of Netanyahu's tough talk about launching an assault on Iran was a lot of bullying bluster. Israel has not had this capability because its planes could not carry enough fuel to fly over Iran and make it back. The US will remedy this deficiency by supplying planes that can be refueled in mid-air.

The fact that Bibi has no bunker-busting bombs has also been a problem. Sources report that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who gave his own speech to AIPAC last week, will send over our latest advanced bunker-busters that may have enough fire power to reach the many underground laboratories scattered around Iran. [4]

Netanyahu is ratcheting up Israel's defensive measures. In addition to boosting emergency services, an Israeli civil defense spokesman is hoping that cities will copy what Tel Aviv has done at the Habima National Theater whose lot has been made into a makeshift bomb shelter that is four stories underground and capable of accommodating 1600 people. [5]

This developing scenario looks very much like Israel is being given the go-ahead to attack first with US providing back-up forces if Iran fights back -- which it will undoubtedly do.

Accusing Iran of developing a nuclear bomb that their supposedly-crazy we-want-to-be-annihilated leaders will then drop on Israel and the United States has been shown to be effective in winning popular support for going to war.

If acquiring a bomb is simply a decoy to winning approval for war, what are the real reasons that Israel and the United States want to start another one? Do US corporations, and some foreign- based ones, want control of the oil? Do the Zionists want a cover of chaos for expelling the Palestinians and achieving their long-term goal of having all of Palestine?

We can be certain of one thing: Gandhi's statement that an "eye-for-an-eye" way of solving disputes will make the whole world blind will become a reality.







=

"The US will remedy this deficiency by supplying planes that can be refueled in mid-air. " This is possible if only two things take place. One, Israeli pilots and crew use American aircraft, and have the skills/ability to efficiently operate all the aircraft's weapons systems. Not gonna happen... Two, Americans will fly the attack profiles, and traverse the most hostile antiaircraft battle space on the planet.

You make the call, but even in a "best case scenario," Americans will take casualties, potentially worse than what their fathers and grandfathers faced/experienced over North Vietnam...

OA, out...

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.debka.com/article/21860/

Baghdad heavily secured against Syrian or al Qaeda attack on Arab Summit
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 25, 2012, 11:06 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Baghdad Arab League security measures Al Qaeda Syria
100,000 troops drafted in to secure Baghdad's Green Zone

The three-day Arab summit, the first to be held in Baghdad in more than two decades, opens Tuesday March 27 after Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates obtained a promise from Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not to invite Iran and receive only a low-ranking Syrian official. Although Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to former summits,al-Maliki bowed to those conditions because he badly needed to boost Iraq’s credibility in the Arab world and demonstrate its recovery from years of violence.

And so, Iran will be absent and Syria represented by its foreign Minister Walid Moallem - not by it's president, Bashar Assad.

Gulf rulers also insisted in a low-profile Palestinian delegation. Palestinian leaders are in low standing in most Gulf Arab capitals these days.

Egypt is to send a low-ranking delegation because its acting ruler, Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, is unable to leave Cairo in the tense weeks leading up to the first post-Mubarak presidential election in June and the general state of domestic unrest.

Two days before the summit opening, Baghdad and its environs are in heavy security lockdown to ward off terrorist threats: Around 100,000 extra security forces were drafted in to man hundreds checkpoints along with SWAT teams. War-weary Baghdad citizens complain about huge traffic jams and other disruptions.

Large security and military teams armed with advanced anti-terrorist electronic gear have also flown in ahead of the Arab rulers.

At the same time, Western sources familiar with conditions in Iraq are skeptical about these blanket security measures being 100 percent proof against the various terrorist organizations active in Iraq, especially the local al Qaeda affiliate. Its lairs have never been so close to such an important gathering of Arab big wheels in one place.

Even a small attack in their general neighborhood would give any terrorist group unprecedented propaganda exposure and is therefore an opportunity not to be missed. It might help that al Qaeda gets most of its funding from Iraqi Sunni factions supported by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf emirates. They might well have forked out extra bonuses as incentives for al Qaeda to keep the peace for the three days of the summit, although the maze of violent groups in Baghdad is such that no one can be sure of controlling them.

Conducting the event in the heavily-fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, seat of government and foreign embassies, is no guarantee of safety. Even this enclosed enclave is frequently prey to mortar and rocket fire.

Western security experts also point out that Syrian President Bashar Assad has a beef with most Arab rulers, who denounce his brutality, especially those supporting the anti-regime rebels with arms and cash.

Only three months ago, Prime Minster al-Maliki accused Assad of sending terrorists to Baghdad to blow up explosives-packed cars and shell Iraqi government and foreign embassy buildings.

Iraqi intelligence experts are convinced that the heavy rocket attack on Turkish embassy in Baghdad, January 18, was carried out as warning message from Damascus to Ankara to stop meddling in the Syrian crisis.

[almost ready]

Kazakh connection in French killings By Jacob Zenn

Within hours of Mohammed Merah's death in Toulouse, France, on March 22, the Jund al-Khilafa (JaK) issued a statement claiming responsibility for Merah's killing spree in which four French Jews and three French paratroopers of North African descent were murdered in a 12-day period. This was the first sign of the JaK's existence in 2012. More than four months had transpired without any JaK attacks or claims of attacks.

The statement after Merah's death was originally posted on the Shmukh al-Islam online jihadi forum and then taken down. Later, the statement was reposted on the Ansar al-Mujahideen online jihadi forum, where it stayed. Unlike all previous JaK statements that focus on the situation in Kazakhstan, this statement justified

The JaK statement said:
We hereby claim responsibility for these blessed operations, and we say that what Israel is committing of crimes against our people on the blessed land of Palestine, and in Gaza specifically, will not pass without punishment. The mujahideen everywhere intend on avenging every drop of blood that was unjustly and aggressively shed in Palestine, Afghanistan and other Muslim homelands ... we avenge the honors of the free ones, our sisters who are sitting in the prisons of the Jews and in European countries ... We hereby call upon the French government to relook into its policies toward the Muslims in the world, and to surrender its aggressive discrimination toward Islam and its sharia [law], because such policy will only bring it calamities and destruction ... As for the Jews, we tell them ... Our date with you is near, and you will be stunned by what you will find from us, Allah willing.
The content of the statement shows that the JaK may now have decided to fight for international causes instead of causes in Kazakhstan. There are several reasons why this may have occurred.

First, the JaK has not carried out an attack in Kazakhstan since November 2011. One of its cells in Boraldai village outside of Almaty was broken up on December 3, 2011. The leader of the cell, Yerik Ayazbayev, who managed to escape from Boraldai village, was finally killed in Kyzlorda on December 29. It is unclear whether the JaK has any more cells in operation in Kazakhstan. The attacks the JaK carried out in the second half of 2011 may have maximized all of its operational cells within the country.

After the Uzbek government clamped down on any semblance of Islamic militancy in Uzbekistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) began focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan and, in recent years, Europe. The same may have occurred with the JaK after the Kazakh government redoubled its counter-terrorism efforts following the JaK's September to December run of attacks in 2011.

Second, in the first two videos that the JaK released in September and October 2011 it claimed to be operating with the Taliban in Khost to fight American forces in Afghanistan. Khost is a region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where the Taliban and senior members of the IMU operate. The JaK may have been co-opted by international jihadis in the area, including the IMU, and begun to prioritize international jihad before jihad in Kazakhstan.

Third, the JaK may be seeking funding from international jihadis who are attracted to terrorist groups with international ambitions and that can strike internationally, as opposed to only in Kazakhstan, a country that stands at the international jihadi periphery.

The JaK's claim may help it receive more funding, whether or not it actually trained Merah. The JaK statements were written in Arabic rather than Russian or Kazakh, which people in Kazakhstan understand could also be intended to appeal to wealthy funders in the Arab world.....

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NC27Ak03.html

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use......
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NC27Ad04.html

Greater China
Mar 27, 2012
Crisis closes in on China's inner circle
By Chris Stewart

Zhou Yongkang, a member of China's ruling Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) and head of the country's 1.5 million-strong police force, is the latest and most senior leader to fall in the battle for control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) if rumors of his downfall have any substance. It was certainly a fall foretold.

Rumors late last week of Zhou's crash from grace came after talk of an attempted coup in Beijing last Monday night or early on Tuesday, supposedly linked to his protege Bo Xilai, former party boss of the strategically important Chongqing municipality and until his dismissal this month a contender to succeed Zhou on the PSC when he steps down in November.

Bo's dismissal, announced on March 14, was "the most important political event in China in more than two decades"; that is, since the party schism that opened over the crackdown of Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He is now reportedly under arrest, though still a member of the 25-strong politburo, the stepping stone to the PSC. Any denunciation of Zhou would overshadow those events by a large margin. [1-3]

Existing PSC members have only until October to decide, with consultation down the line, on seven replacements to the nine-member body for approval by more than 2,000 delegates at the 18th National Congress of the CCP.

Vice President Xi Jinping, as things stand, is the presumptive president, Vice Premier Li Keqiang presumptive prime minister, in a once-in-a-decade change of the top two PSC posts. Only two, perhaps three, of the remaining vacancies are considered still unsettled. About 70% of the members of the Central Military Commission and the executive committee of the State Council, or cabinet, will also be changed.

Deep divisions exist in the PSC and the country at large over what the new government should do with its vast new wealth, and who should get their hands on it over the next 10 years. Zhou is reported to control the state monopoly of the oil sector as well as being head of the Political and Legal Committee. [4, 5]

The stakes could not be higher. Bo's downfall alters the balance of political forces involved in the selection process. Effective removal of Zhou, close to still powerful former president Jiang Zemin, could be akin to knocking over the chessboard. The future strength of putative president Xi Jinping, like Bo a "princeling" - son of a revolutionary - may be undermined.

The influence of Jiang, a promoter of the careers of Zhou, Bo and Xi, is being questioned in full public view. Coup rumors, however credible, ring truer by the day - on Friday, army officials in Shaanxi province west of Beijing called on the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to unite behind President Hu. [6]

The March 19 'coup' - real, attempted or non-existent?
Stock and bond market traders were among the first to hear of a Beijing "coup" early last Tuesday, March 20, thanks to reports sent out by, among others, United States market website Nasdaq.com, which at 4:53 am New York Time (09:55 GMT), identified "rumors" of a coup without saying where it got the information.

An hour later, at 10.41 GMT, fxstreet.com reported the same rumors in its "Morning Wrap" of breaking news for market traders, this time citing "Epoch Times" as the source, though failing to mention that Epoch Times' own source was another financial writer, Li Delin, "who is on the editorial board of Securities Market Weekly and lives in Dongcheng district of Beijing". [7, 8]

The prospect of a coup attempt in the world's second-biggest economy should have stunned markets - but they appear to have been unimpressed, given the absence of any physical sign of military activity in the capital.

Shares traded in Shanghai fell a mere 1.4%, although a 10 basis point jump in the cost of buying insurance on Chinese government debt and a 15% surge in the volume of shares traded, the most since November 9, indicated some traders were hewing to the market dictum of "buy on the rumor, sell on the news". [9]

Bo Xilai's name has since mid-February been linked by Epoch Times to a coup plot and identified Zhou as necessarily the next to fall. (At the time of writing, Zhou was seen on Friday, March 23, but failed to meet visiting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Saturday, despite the previous day anticipating a discussion.) [10]

Epoch Times reports are treated warily by the mainstream press for several reasons. Not least, it is backed by the Falungong spiritual group. Its teachings can be as beyond the non-believer's comprehension as those of any faith. The group also claims Bo and his former police chief Wang Lijun led a brutal (and award-winning) campaign of repression of the Falungong, including torture and live organ transplants, after then-president Jiang banned the group, with its membership of millions, in the late 1990s. [11]

The Falungong have strong support in the US Congress (see below), and still have large numbers of adherents in China subject to arrest for practicing their beliefs.

Epoch Times, in short, has an ax to grind. Its reports noticeably differ from mainstream publications in not favoring labels such as "rightist", "ultra-left", "charismatic" and so forth, to explain complex affairs. It seems to eschew the tag "reform", perhaps given Falungong's insights into how the CCP works. (For a graphic explanation of the pointlessness of these labels in the present context, see [12]).

The thread that Epoch Times runs through the CCP maze goes like this. A coup, initially timed for early next year, was to target the presumptive president Xi Jinping after he succeeded Hu Jintao in November's shake-up. [13] By the end of this year, Bo was to have followed Zhou Yongkang into the PSC, taking control of the public security forces, which would help supply the post-handover coup firepower.

Implicitly upsetting the coup apple cart, if there was one, was the intervening denunciation this month of Bo. Events had to be brought forward, making President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao the "coup" targets, as claimed on Chinese blogs last Tuesday.

Late last week, Mingjing News, a US-based website said to be affiliated to the "faction" of former president Jiang Zemin, opposed to the incumbent president, came out with its own version of the Bo-Zhou coup plot "to block the expected succession of Chinese vice president XI Jinping", Taiwan's Want China Times reported on March 22. Jiang has allegedly called Zhou a traitor for backing Bo, the report said. [14]

Race to the tape
The present crisis was triggered by the flight of former Chongqing Public Security chief Wang Lijun to the US consulate in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province adjoining Chongqing, carrying with him evidence of wrongdoing by Bo, Epoch Times reports, in line with other media. Its account then diverges from the trodden path.

Premier Wen, seeking a way to secure Bo's downfall for purely political reasons, had initiated investigation of Wang late in 2011, the website said on February 15, with the fruits of those inquiries to be used to undermine Bo. (Alternatively, He Guoqiang, former Chongqing party boss and current head of the disciplinary committee of the central CCP committee, initiated the probe; Bo previously executed He's Chongqing police chief.) [15, 16]

Bo got wind of the investigation, and on February 2 this year distanced himself from Wang by dropping him from his post as head of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau. (After his own downfall, he would have to go a step further and denounce Zhou to save his own skin, Epoch Times commented on February 16. [17]

Four days later, Wang did a runner - to secure political asylum, if lucky; more probably to see that (a) the US was made aware of his anti-Bo evidence, and (b) to ensure that he would be picked up by Beijing security forces rather than by the hotly pursuing Bo, in the form of Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan. [18]

The secrets Wang carried to the consulate included, according to Epoch Times, a plan, that also implicated nationwide police chief Zhou, to stage a coup against Xi. The evidence included a tape in which Bo proclaimed in damning and imperial terms his superiority over the present leadership, the report said on March 5, citing the "dissident" Boxun Chinese-language web site:

On the tape, Bo is reported to have said that former head of the CCP Jiang Zemin is the "current Empress Dowager Cixi'' - a powerful and charismatic woman who unofficially but effectively controlled the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years, from 1861 to 1908.

Bo described current CCP head Hu Jintao as the "Emperor Xian of Han", who was the last emperor (reigned 189-220) of the Han Dynasty and was thought to be nothing but a puppet, with even Han loyalists abusing his sovereignty.

Bo also talked about [vice president] Xi Jinping, ticketed to succeed Hu at the 18th Party Congress later this year. Bo said Xi is "Liu E'dou," the infant name of Liu Shan, the second and last emperor of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history. Liu Shan was commonly perceived as an incapable, even retarded ruler.

Bo said it is he that will lead China into its future, not the current nine incompetent and mentally retarded members, nor the new "incompetent and mentally retarded" members selected by the current members. Bo is referring to the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo ... [ 19]

Epoch Times continues:

The Boxun report went on to say that Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai had accumulated 8 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) before they moved from northeastern Liaoning province to Chongqing. Bo is said to have now transferred most of his money to the United States, Canada, Britain and France.

On February 13, the PSC agreed to a special investigation task force into the Wang Lijun affair; Jiang "insisted on the investigation", Epoch Times reported, commenting this was understood to be Jiang severing links to Bo. It cited Mingjing News, "connected to the political faction headed by Jiang Zemin" as the source. [20]

At the time of the decision, Vice President Xi Jinping, a recognized protege of Jiang, was set to fly to Washington, where he arrived "late on February 13" local time after a flight that takes 12 hours commercially; meaning he had to leave Beijing by midnight at the latest on February 13. His involvement in this decision - which could crucially affect the strength of his political support on the PSC when president - is not clear.

On March 20, the LA Times and other mainstream news outlets reported that a video recording posted on YouTube "purports to be a briefing made Friday to party officials in Chongqing explaining that Bo was dismissed because he tried to cover up a police investigation that touched on his family". The LA Times account said the US-based Boxun website published a Chinese-language transcript of the recording. [21]

The scandal around Bo's wealth is a decade old: journalist Jiang Weiping was jailed for six years in 2001, charged with supplying state secrets, after reporting on the finances of Bo and his family. He now lives in Canada, recipient of a Committee to Protect Journalists award. Details were also included in an Epoch Times report on February 14, saying Chinese government news agency Xinhua had also reported this, with uncensored Internet discussion of the topic allowed. [22, 23]

Success in Chongqing
Chongqing, a geographically small region with around 30 million people packed into an area the size of Scotland or South Carolina, is an important hub for road, rail transport between the vast southwest of Sichuan and Tibet and more northerly and eastern parts of China.

Bo's political success there is based on the view that he has built up the city's already booming wealth, cleaned out the local thugs, and attracted overseas investment. He pledged to built housing for 2.4 million people earning $480 or less a month. [24] Critics questioned the math, but the self-publicity persuaded some he was a shoo-in for the PSC.

Bo's last reported public appearances in Chongqing were with former Macau chief executive Edmund Ho on February 23, and with Taiwan's Terry Gou, boss of Apple iPhone maker Foxconn, China's largest employer with up to 1.3 million workers. Both meetings were seen as defiant demonstrations of strength. [25]

Another view, put by Epoch Times, is that Bo funded his political campaign with assets seized from local triad gangsters (with one notable exception, according to a report linking Bo's downfall to Macau that cites Economic Monitor, run by the US economist Nouriel Roubini). [26] Similar fates faced politicians and businessmen, (some innocent, as recounted by the Financial Times on March 4). [27]

Bo has also built on local disillusionment in political and military circles across the southwest, including Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet, to establish a base that would give him the strength to defy Beijing. [28]

The triad clear-out, overseen by later runaway police chief Wang, was tied to a revival of Mao Zedong-era enthusiasm for communist principles, expressed through mass sing-alongs. The campaigns were flagged by a much-bannered slogan translatable as "Striking Black and Singing Red". Originating political campaigns is the function of the central government, Epoch Times points out. "It is unheard of" for a provincial (in this case municipal) bureaucrat to launch one on his own initiative - let alone two simultaneously.

The campaigns were too successful for President Hu's and Premier Wen's liking; both leaders proclaim the need for "reform", but not in the direction Bo urges, or with such outright populism. Yet loyalty to communist principles and driving out corruption are both core goals of the Hu presidency. Other reasons had to be found to dislodge Bo. [29]

Bo's basis for seeking the presidency has several layers, according to Epoch Times, using widely sourced and cited material.
1. He considers the present leadership of President Hu and Prime Minister Wen as weak, and ineffectual (as in the "consulate" tape above). Those opinions are apparently widely shared, not least in the army. Senior officers with similar views were mentioned in Hong Kong's Sing Pao Daily News last April. Epoch Times quotes one senior officer, named as a chief-of-staff Zhang Musheng, as stating at a book launch, "Our country has been led into a serious political and social crisis by some weak, useless and inhuman leaders." [30]

This weakness was, ironically, reflected in a speech Hu made last July, after nine years in office, when he warned party members of a "lack of drive, incompetence, a divorce from the people, a lack of initiative, and corruption". [31]

2. Bo believes control of China is his birthright. His father, Bo Yibo (b 1908) was one of the "Eight Elders of the Communist Party of China" and a minister of finance. After a long period of imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution, when his wife was beaten to death, he was rehabilitated and was among those who urged a crackdown during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

One example of Bo's tendency to flaunt his ambitions: a prominent neon sign in Chongqing that proclaimed " 'Secretary Bo, You Work Hard', an obvious reference to a slogan popular from Mao’s days, "Grandpa Mao, You Work Hard!".

3. He considers he has the military muscle from like-minded officers to defy Beijing if necessary; or show he has the support necessary to achieve PSC status peacefully.

Bo feels he has widespread backing across a range of interests. In a February 16 article, Epoch Times linked:
(i) His military support to soldiers' discontent across the vast southwest over low pay relative to other regions. Military forces in Yunnan, bordering Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, have "the status of a secondary army";
ii) His local political support to taxes on medium- and state-owned enterprises, many of which are based in Chongqing, now going to the central government. That is helping to drag local authorities towards bankruptcy (carrying echoes of the 1911 revolution, which was initiated in southern China, ended the Qing Dynasty and established the republic);
iii) Civilian support to a false appreciation of Bo's charismatic nature and the benefits, such as social housing, he claims to bring them. [32]

Matters moved to a head late last year, when on November 12, Bo displayed his muscle, and defiance of central authority, through military exercises held in Chongqing, reports Epoch Times, timed to coincide with President Hu being out of the country, attending a conference of Asia and Pacific leaders in Hawaii. (The exercises also coincided with the last time credit default swaps on Chinese debt surged as high as they did during last Tuesday's "coup" scare. [33 ]

Officials who presented the military exercises included: Liang Guanglie, member of the Central Military Commission and state councilor and minister for National Defense; Li Shiming, Chengdu Military Region commander; Tian Xiusi, political commissar; Liu Changyin, deputy political commissar; Yang Jinshan, commander of the Tibetan Military Region; Jiang Jufeng, governor of Sichuan Province; Zhao Kezhi, governor of Guizhou Province; Huang Qifan, mayor of Chongqing City; Li Jiheng, acting governor of Yunnan Province and vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional government.

[34] (Immediately after Bo was exposed by Wang's flight to the US consulate, he visited the 14th Army Group in Yunnan, an area where his father held influence, on February 8 and 9, according to one report citing Chongqing Daily.) [35]

After Hu returned to Beijing from Hawaii, "all the top military generals" on January 12 this year "made a public statement supporting Hu's arrangements for the upcoming Chinese leadership changes", Epoch Times reported. [36] After receiving those pledges of loyalty, Hu set in train his entrapment of Wang and hence Bo, it said.

Why the power grab?
Before and after his fall, Bo has been consistently portrayed as a front-runner, among only a few others, for nomination to the Politburo Standing Committee. If that is the case, why such preparations to grab supreme power, if true?

His ambition to hold only the top job is one reason, according to Epoch Times. That may have been sharpened by setbacks along the way, including being passed over for promotion to the party central committee in 1998. But there were increasing signs that he was being isolated by senior party members. Last June, he took to Beijing a troupe to sing Mao-era anthems; none of the PSC attended, demonstrating publicly his isolation. [37]

More seriously, Bo knew at least a year ago, though most certainly before, that circumstances that led to his failure to secure a PSC seat in 2008 could still hold this year. According to a US consulate memo made public in the WikiLeaks trove released in November 2010, based on well-informed opinion, Bo would be excluded from the top table due to:
(i) The disdain of colleagues, potentially fatal when choosing someone to make joint decisions in any government.
(ii) Numerous lawsuits pursued around the world against Bo by Falungong would be embarrassing for the government if Bo were elevated to the PSC.

The late 2007 consulate memo states that one Luo Yi predicted that Bo's recent transfer to be party secretary in Chongqing "will be his final career move". Luo was then chief China representative of Carlyle Group, at the time the world's biggest private equity company.

The memo also noted that Nanjing University Professor Gu Su said in a November 27, 2011, discussion,

Bo's move to Chongqing puts an ambitious, arrogant and widely disliked competitor for a top position in a trouble-filled position far from Beijing. Gu noted that Bo had been angling for promotion to Vice Premier.

However, Premier Wen had argued against the promotion, citing the numerous lawsuits brought against Bo in Australia, Spain, Canada, England, the United States, and elsewhere by Falungong members.

Wen successfully argued Bo's significant negative international exposure made him an inappropriate candidate to represent China at an even higher international level.

Wen's arguments found fertile soil among officials who still harbor resentment against Bo for his treatment of his family - particularly his father - during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In order to make himself politically above reproach, Bo, at the time, had made a public statement denouncing his father and renouncing his kinship ties. Gu said that people value familial feelings above all else and many see Bo as a "base traitor" who is "less than human" for his actions. [38]

Bo's still influential father died in January 2007; Bo Junior was banished to Chongqing 11 months later; a further five years on, he is incarcerated by his political opponents, just as his father was some 50 years ago.

When Wen eventually got around to denouncing Bo after dragging out a news conference on March 14, he committed the party to reform and added that "the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution and feudalism have not been completely eliminated" - construed as a reference Bo Xilai’s "singing red songs" campaign.

In bringing up the party's decision to commit to reform and opening up in the context of Wang Lijun, while criticizing the Cultural Revolution, Wen made the basis of the competition with Bo not merely one of a competition for power - Wen reintroduced into the party "what had not been seen since Mao's time - a struggle between two ideological lines". [39 ]

If Bo wanted to save himself from accountability for his "Smashing the Black" campaign, with at least 2,000 arrests and 13 executions, he had to bring down his patron, PSC member Zhou, Epoch Times said on March 19 - which he sought to do in public in Beijing this month. Zhou's Political and Law Committee (PLC) has authority over all of the nation's police; it also overseas all the law courts, procuratorate and associated organizations. The body, established by Jiang Zemin in the early 1980s, has "over the past 10 years become the most powerful and most notorious instrument of the party" as it pursues wei wen, or "maintaining stability", says Epoch Times.

As Bo mentioned during the Chongqing media day at the National People's Congress, the "Smashing the Black" campaign in Chongqing was the joint effort of the Public Security, the court, the procuratorate, the state security, the armed police, and the Discipline Inspection Commission, under the coordination of the PLC .... That made Zhou Yongkang [not Bo] the real threat to Hu, Wen, and probably Xi. [40]

Epoch Times' account of Bo's downfall is open to criticism; nor does the Falungong have cause to celebrate, as it faces a new three-year campaign of oppression, according to the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), last March. [41]

Bearing out Wen's supposed premonitions, the CECC on February 14 this year told Vice President and Hu's heir apparent Xi Jinping, during his much-heralded visit to Washington, "to take concrete steps to improve human rights and the rule of law in China" and "reverse the course of his predecessors". [42] Specifically, among other demands, it said Xi should protect the freedom of religion and spiritual belief of all those in China, whether they be Buddhists, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics or Falungong practitioners".

Bo down, Zhou tottering - this is the patriarchal form of ex-president Jiang Zemin, reports of his death last year premature, marshaling his forces as best he can to ensure his political legacy lasts into the next generation of the PSC.

Back in Chongqing, Jiang's nephew, Tai Zhan, has been appointed to help run the municipal government [43] - to garner its riches or clear up the mess, who knows?

He Ting, a former head of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Ministry of Public Security, is the new boss of the local Public Security Bureau, Wang Lijun's old job, Xinhua reported on March 23. That meant short tenure for Guan Haixiang, the initial replacement for Wang and reportedly President Hu's ally. [44]

From Beijing to Chongqing and no doubt beyond, the bodies are piling up as silk and cashmere-suited party hacks, infused with a toxic brew of Marx, Lenin, Bernanke and nationalism, jostle and arrange murder as they squeeze to grab the best seats in the political train careering to its ultimate destination in Beijing this autumn.

On the sidelines, disenchanted civilians in their millions, wondering what will survive the wreckage of the impending party meeting, watch on through their blocked then unblocked Internet searches.

In case they have any thoughts of getting uppity, "reformist" Premier Wen last month told the National People's Congress that the party "will strengthen and improve the system of public security. We will improve the contingency response system, and enhance society's capacity to manage crises and withstand risks". That means more power for the seat Bo so cherishes, with or without a president Xi in charge. What a party this is.

Notes
1. See, for example, Jamil Anderlini, Financial Times March 15.
2. See Bo Xilai Placed Under House Arrest, Reports Suggest, Epoch Times, March 20, updated March 22, citing "Jiang affiliated" Foreign Reference News.
3. Why Zhou Yongkang is Doomed to Follow Bo Xilai Expect Zhou to be fired from his posts as the struggle inside the CCP continues, Epoch Times, March 19, updated March 22.
4. Bo Ouster Means State Capitalism in China Will Fade, Zhang Says Bloomberg News March 20.
5. See WikiLeaks: China's Politburo a cabal of business empires, The Telegraph, December 6, 2010.
6. Military official urges PLA to 'unite' behind Hu: Xinhua, Want China Times, March 25, citing Xinhua.
7. See community.nasdaq.com.
8. See Europe morning wrap: China in focus, fxstreet.com, March 20, and Coup in Beijing, Says Chinese Internet Rumor Mill, Epoch Times, March 20. The Epoch Times.
9. China's Stocks Fall Most in Almost a Week on Profit Concerns, Bloomberg News, March 20, and Beijing Calm as Cost of Insuring Chinese Government Debt Rises Bloomberg News, March 20.
10. In absence of facts, rumors of coup take centre stage, South China Morning Post, March 26.
11. See Would-be China Defector, Once Bo Xilai's Right Hand, Oversaw Organ Harvesting: Former Chongqing vice mayor involved in 'thousands' of transplantation operations, Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 20, and here for Chinese-language for award citation for Wang Lijun.
12. [Tea Leaf Nation graphic on "left", "right" and "reform" in Chinese politics, see here
13. Chinese Would-Be Defector May Have Revealed Coup Plot to US, Epoch Times, February 16.
14. Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang were planning coup, Want China Times, March 20.
15. Chinese Communist Party Head Targets Challenger Bo Xilai for Power, Chongqing Party chief looks like loser in power struggle, Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 17.
16. See Chinese Communist Party Head Targets Challenger Bo Xilai for Power, Chongqing Party chief looks like loser in power struggle, Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 17. On February 16, Epoch Times stated: "One of the previous Party chiefs of Chongqing was He Guoqiang, the current head of the Disciplinary Committee of the Central Chinese Communist Party Committee. He was very angry at how Wang and Bo treated his former associates in Chongqing and quietly began collecting evidence against Wang. By the end of the last year, He put several of Wang's former associates in the Tieling Police Bureau in Liaoning Province in jail for the crime of corruption, and obtained evidence of Wang's own crimes." The same report is replete with dating errors.
17. Will Western China Party Chief Become a Warlord? Bo Xilai's advancement blocked, but he has resources close to home, Epoch Times, February 167, updated February 24.
18. Bo Xilai's Conspiracy Is Just the Beginning, Others have ideas for displacing a weak CCP leadership, Epoch Times, March 7, updated March 11 and see Wall Street Journal , March 5, for an account by Huang.
19. Bo Xilai Recorded Proclaiming Himself China's Future, Website Says Chongqing Party chieftain showers CCP leaders with contempt, Epoch Times, March 5, updated March 14.
20. Reading the Bo Xilai Tea Leaves, US can tell the Chinese public what Wang Lijun knows, Epoch Times, March 1, updated March 8.
21 See Leaked video sheds light on controversial U.S. asylum bid in China, LA Times, March 20.
22. see Committee to Protect Journalists), Jiang Weiping: Awardee 2001.
23. Attempted Defection Reveals Depth of Power Struggle in China, Epoch Times, February 14, updated February 17.
24. See Forbes, March 15.
25. Reading the Bo Xilai Tea Leaves, US can tell the Chinese public what Wang Lijun knows, Epoch Times, March 1, updated March 8. See here for Foxconn employment. .
26. See Report links ousted Bo Xilai to Macau .
27. See Chinese infighting: Secrets of a succession war, The tale of a billionaire allegedly tortured in a crime crackdown offers a rare glimpse into infighting among the political elite, Financial Times, March 4, 2012.
28. See Will Western China Party Chief Become a Warlord? Bo Xilai's advancement blocked, but he has resources close to home, Epoch Times, February 16, updated February 24.
29. The Ouster of Bo Xilai Is Only the Beginning, An ideological power struggle has started in Beijing, Epoch Times, March 20, updated March 25 30. See Bo Xilai's Conspiracy Is Just the Beginning Others have ideas for displacing a weak CCP leadership, Epoch Times, March 7, updated March 11.
31. See http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2...t_12939016.htm China Daily, July 20, 2011.
32. See Will Western Chinese Party Chief Become A Warlord, Epoch Times, February 16, updated February 24.
33. Beijing Calm as Cost of Insuring Chinese Government Debt Rises Bloomberg News, March 20.
34. See Will Western Chinese Party Chief Become A Warlord, Epoch Times, February 16, updated February 24.
35. See Bo Xilai Seeks Support from his Father's Subordinates, also for further details of Jiang Zemin's debts to Bo's father and family.
36. Chinese Communist Party Head Targets Challenger Bo Xilai for Power, Chongqing Party chief looks like loser in power struggle Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 17.
37. See Arrest of Chongqing's Top Cop Suggests City's Communist Party Leader in Jeopardy, Shake up taking place in highest ranks of Chinese regime, Epoch Times, February 12, updated February 18.
38. See leakoverflow .
39. For an amusing account of Wen's use of reporters on this occasion, see The Ouster of Bo Xilai Is Only the Beginning, An ideological power struggle has started in Beijing, Epoch Times, March 20, updated March 25.
40. See Why Zhou Yongkang is Doomed to Follow Bo Xilai, Expect Zhou to be fired from his posts as the struggle inside the CCP continues, Epoch Times, March 19, updated March 22.
41. See Communist Party Calls for Increased Efforts To "Transform" Falun Gong Practitioners as Part of Three-Year Campaign . The CECC reports annually to the president and congress. Its account says that in 2010 "a three-year, national campaign had been launched in China that calls on local governments, Party organizations, businesses, and individuals to increase efforts to implement 'transformation through reeducation' ... against Falun Gong practitioners. Documents call on local governments to cooperate with Party organizations, or to make use of businesses or family members of Falun Gong practitioners to increase efforts to 'transform' Falun Gong practitioners.
42. See here.
43. See NDTV broadcast.
44. See here.


Chris Stewart is Asia Times Online's business editor.

Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

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[Housecarl]

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Middle East
Mar 27, 2012
Ankara ups the ante on Syria
By Jacques N Couvas

ANKARA - Enough calls to reason. It is time for collective action. That was the message Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu sent on Thursday to his European Union (EU) colleagues, whom he will be meeting later this week in Brussels.

This warning is the latest in a series of tough communications Ankara has issued over the past four months to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Davutoglu's call for force rather than dialogue came a day after the 15-member United Nations Security Council unanimously demanded that Damascus immediately implement a peace plan formulated by UN and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan and discussed with Assad earlier this month.

Since hostilities between Damascus and anti-regime demonstrators in Homs and other provincial cities began a year ago, at least 8,000 people have died, according to UN estimates, as protests have escalated into armed clashes.

Until October 2011, Turkish leaders attempted to convince Assad to use moderation. But those efforts led nowhere.

The Turkish position up to that point was consistent with a decade-long rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus, which followed 65 years of relations strained by a territorial dispute over Hatay, formerly an independent French protectorate and now part of Turkey.

In 2003, relations improved after the Turkish parliament voted against American troops crossing the country to enter Iraq from the north. At that time, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development (AK) Party held the majority position in parliament.

By 2009, a series of diplomatic exchanges and summits, culminating with reciprocal visits by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to Damascus in May of that year and Assad to Istanbul two months later, sealed what appeared to be close ties.

In addition to a score of commercial treaties, a military agreement was also signed and a joint strategic committee established. Visas were abolished; a telecommunications network linking the Black Sea with the Persian Gulf through Syria was agreed; and Turkish private investment flowed into southwards.

As a result, Ankara's about-face towards the Assad dynasty has surprised both business and political observers. But a closer look reveals several reasonable motives for Turkey's shift.

Turkey's new stance
One explanation is that Erdogan, a household name in the Arab world since he harshly criticized President Shimon Peres in 2009 for Israel's Cast Lead Operation against Gaza and downgraded relations with Israel after the Mavi Marmara Free Gaza flotilla incident in May 2010, could tarnish his image by appearing to condone Assad's bloody crackdown.

Indeed, Syria has become the black sheep of the Arab world, even for those who dispensed kisses on both of Assad's cheeks five months ago, and Muammar Gaddafi's fall in Libya in October also seems to have persuaded the Turkish leadership that Assad's end is inevitable.

Turkey is also trying to position itself as the democratic paradigm for Muslim statehood and society and restore its commercial pre-eminence in North Africa. In Libya alone, regime change has caused Turkish businesses to lose or put on hold contracts totaling US$25 billion.

In addition, Erdogan and Davutoglu's new tone coincides with warming relations with the White House, following Ankara's decision to be a loyal partner despite its earlier objections to foreign intervention in Libya.

Turkey and the United States
Turkey has become an indispensable ally for the United States, in part because of uncertainty over Iraq's future following the departure of US troops in December.

United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta held talks in Ankara the day after the troops' withdrawal ceremony. A few weeks earlier, American drones stationed in Iraq had been transferred to the US base at Incirlik, in southern Turkey.

"I suppose many more Turkey-based drones will be flying over Iraq in order to continue monitoring things," says Soli Ozel, a professor at Kadir Has University and expert on the Middle East.

In December, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said Washington had proposed to Turkey to take over the influential role of training Iraqi military personnel, after the US pullout.

"We will be considering it," confirmed Unal.

United States Vice President Joe Biden also held meetings with Gul and Erdogan in December, and on March 13, Central Intelligence Agency chief David Petraeus made a last-minute stop in Turkey to meet the premier and the director of the Turkish National Security Agency.

Similar activity by American high-ranking defense and intelligence officers had been observed last spring.

Opening Pandora's box
In addition to providing a safe haven for some 17,000 Syrian refugees, the Turks provide advice to the opposition Syrian National Council as well as some training and support to the Free Syrian Army, whose members have taken refuge in Turkey.

Some in political and diplomatic circles in Ankara speculate that Erdogan's AKP is keen to see a Sunni-led government in Damascus replace Alawite Assad and his regime, whose security forces, in particular, are dominated by fellow Alawis, who belong to a sect that is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

In the larger regional context, such an outcome would align with the interests of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which have called for greater foreign intervention in Syria, including supplying arms to the opposition. The AKP, which is an Islamist party, may also favor such a result, given that three of every four Turks are Sunni Muslims.

Ankara's concern is not Assad's fate, but the Pandora's box his demise would open. With some 30 million ethnic Kurds in the region, half of whom live in southern and southeastern Turkey and the rest in Iraq, Iran and Syria, the risk of a pan-Kurdish movement is real.

Kurds have not revolted against Damascus and are autonomous in northern Iraq, but have been politically and militarily active in Turkey and Iran for decades.

Turkey has been at war since 1984 with the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), a rebel group classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, the EU and Syria. The conflict has killed some 35,000 people, most of them in the southeast.

Since November 2011, Damascus has occasionally been accused by the Turkish media of assisting the PKK against Turkish security forces operating in the south. However, there is no evidence of such assistance, and Syrian Kurds, most of whom live near the Turko-Syrian border, do not seem disposed to take up arms.

"We want an autonomous, secular state where we can exist under democratic rules," says Ali Shemdin, a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria, in a statement that does not sound especially revolutionary.

But in recent weeks, Iraqi Kurds have given signals that they would be prepared to evolve from their autonomous status to an independent state. Dramatic events in Syria and strengthening of Turkish determination to annihilate the PKK could ignite cross-border nationalism.

This threat may be the best explanation for the gap between Ankara's anti-Assad punitive rhetoric and its corresponding actions.

(Inter Press Service)

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[Housecarl]

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Syria's opposition faces 'divided we fall' moment

Syria's opposition meets today after being shaken by resignations and splits. A united front could sway skeptical Syrians who don't particularly support Assad but fear the alternative could be worse.

By Nicholas Blanford, Correspondent / March 26, 2012

Beirut

Syria’s bickering opposition factions are gathering in Turkey today in an effort to forge a united front against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and gain international support ahead of a "Friends of Syria" summit next weekend.

Today's meeting comes as the top opposition body, the Syrian National Council, has been shaken by splits and internal rows that have ceded the initiative to armed groups and revolutionary councils inside Syria.

The fault lines divide opposition figures living abroad from domestic grass-roots activists, and secular liberals from religious cadres, reflecting to some extent Syria’s complicated sectarian, ethnic, and cultural mix.

“Overall, the Syrian opposition, because of the sectarian and diverse nature of the country, doesn’t tend to congeal as easily as elsewhere where identity is more solidified,” says Andrew Tabler, author of a new book on Syria under Mr. Assad's rule.

Who backs Syria's Assad? Top 4 sources of support

A united Syrian opposition could not expect the same level of Western commitment to its cause as that enjoyed by the well-funded and -equipped Libyan rebels because of the additional complications of intervening in Syria.

But a united opposition could have an impact at home by encouraging a broad swath of Syrian citizens who do not particularly support the Assad regime but fear the alternative could be worse. By presenting a clear political agenda – including promises of freedom and protection of minorities – a stronger, more cohesive opposition could help shift the internal balance of power away from the regime.

“The silent majority will be encouraged when they see hope for a better future and when they see concrete initiatives that will rebuild Syria and establish a democratic civil state where all people are treated with dignity and enjoy a free and prosperous life,” says Ausama Monajed, senior adviser to the secretary-general of the SNC. “A grassroots campaign needs to reach out to this group to gain their support even if they wish to remain at home.”
SNC criticized as toothless

The Syrian National Council (SNC) was founded in August 2011, bringing under its wing most established opposition groups as well as new factions that had emerged following the outbreak of unrest in Syria five months earlier.

Led mainly by veteran opposition figures who lived in exile, it lobbied the West for support and helped secure a raft of United Nations and European Union sanctions against the Assad regime. Since then its momentum has faltered amid worsening violence in Syria, internal squabbles, and international hesitancy over intervention.

IN PICTURES: Conflict in Syria

That has allowed the rebel Free Syrian Army to gain traction at the expense of the political opposition. The SNC has attempted to liaise with the FSA through the formation of a military council, but the armed opposition has shown little interest in dealing with the SNC so far.

Many grass-roots opposition activists accuse the SNC of being out of touch with the realities on the ground and toothless in the face of the Assad regime’s brute force bid to crush the uprising.

“They are a waste of time. They move from one capital to another arguing with each other and have no credibility at all inside Syria,” says Ahmad, a Syrian activist living in hiding in north Lebanon. “We are the people running the revolution and we’ll not allow the SNC to push us aside and take power once Assad is gone.”

Ahmad echoes complaints from other opposition activists about the lack of transparency within the SNC, particularly over the handling of funds.
Five groups create spin-off

On Saturday, five opposition groups announced the creation of a new coalition that would act independently from the SNC: the liberal National Movement for Change, the Islamist Movement of the Fatherland, the Bloc for Liberation and Development, the Turkmen National Bloc, and the Kurdish Movement for a New Life.

“We see the SNC as a temporary structure which will disappear with time, while our own coalition is a more long-term entity that will be there after liberation,” said Imamduddin al-Rashid, leader of the Movement for the Fatherland.

The establishment of a rival opposition group was just the latest blow to the SNC’s standing. Two weeks ago, three prominent figures in the SNC resigned, including Haitham al-Maleh, a member of the executive board and a veteran opposition campaigner who spent many years in prison in Syria, and Kamel Labwani, a lawyer who was released from a Syrian jail in December after seven years behind bars.

Mr. Labwani, a secular liberal, accused “well-organized” Islamists “financed primarily from abroad” of hijacking the SNC.

“They paralyzed the liberal face of the Syrian National Council, taking them out of the equation,” Labwani wrote in an opinion published by the online Fikra Forum. “Thus the revolution has been stolen and is no longer a catalyst towards a state of democracy and modernity. Instead, the future state of Syria will head toward a renewed form of despotism with a religious embodiment rather than secularism. This could lead to chaos and civil war ....”
Armed groups increasingly Islamist

The evolution of the Syrian uprising from peaceful protests into an armed insurgency has been matched by a corresponding rise in Islamist sentiment, manifested by the names chosen by some armed groups and in statements laden with Islamist rhetoric.

Among the latest additions to the Free Syrian Army is the “Allah u-Akhbar” or “God is Greater” Brigade, which proclaimed a "jihad" against the Assad regime. Clashes have taken on a sectarian dimension with the mainly Sunni opposition fighting the minority Alawites, an obscure off-shoot of Shiite Islam that forms the backbone of the Assad regime.

Al Qaeda has voiced support for the Syrian rebels and a previously unknown group called Jabhat al-Nusra claimed responsibility for twin suicide car bombings in Damascus on March 17, which killed 27 people.

IN PICTURES: Conflict in Syria

The gradual shift toward Islamist militancy in Syria has dismayed secular opposition figures and alarmed the West, leaving mainstream Syrian Islamists within the opposition scrambling to reassure skeptics.

“The regime is trying to show that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to control Syria alone,” Mohammed Riad al-Shaqfa, the head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and a member of the SNC, said on Sunday. “We want a democratic Syria and we do not want to control the country alone.”
Seeking support from 'Friends of Syria'

Syria’s feuding opposition factions now have an opportunity to resolve their differences in Istanbul and forge a united front ahead of a crucial “Friends of Syria” meeting scheduled for April 2 in the same city.

The United States and Turkey have agreed that they will use the Friends of Syria meeting to win backing from the participants for the provision of non-lethal aid, such as medical assistance and communications equipment, to the opposition in Syria. The April 2 gathering also will renew support for the six-point peace plan being pushed by Kofi Annan, the UN envoy to Syria. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned yesterday that Annan’s proposal represented the last chance for Syria to avoid plunging into civil war.

However, the political opposition groups risk being marginalized at the Friends of Syria meeting if they cannot reach agreement in the next few days, which, given their differences, looks unlikely.

“It’s an opportunity for the SNC to step up and assert itself,” says Tabler, the Syria expert. “So far, I don’t see that. I see the SNC breaking up into different parts.”

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Colombian troops kill 35 rebels in new blow to FARC

BOGOTA | Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:24pm EDT

(Reuters) - Colombian troops on Monday killed 35 leftist FARC rebels in a remote jungle region, President Juan Manuel Santos said, the second blow to the drug-funded group in less than a week.

The dawn attack in the central province of Meta takes the total number of FARC rebels killed by the armed forces to 68 after an attack last Wednesday killed 33 rebels who were resting in the northern plains region of Arauca.

"The most recent information we have is that 35 members of the FARC were killed and three people were captured," Santos said after a meeting of security officials in the provincial city of Villavicencio.

"We've never taken out so many members of the FARC in individual operations, 33 last week and 35 this week."

The operations form part of a new military strategy to fight the Marxist guerrillas by destroying their key armed and financial units, marking a shift from the previous focus of tracking down and killing their leaders.

Billions of dollars in U.S. military aid have helped Colombia lead a military offensive that has killed off top leaders of the communist group and pushed them further into isolated mountain and jungle regions.

The FARC's fighting force has dropped by close to half to about 8,000 in the past decade and many of the group's key commanders and founding members are dead.

The new strategy focuses on using intelligence to track down specific battle units and choke off their sources of financing, which include drug trafficking, illegal metals mining and extortion.

The group said last month it would abandon its decades-long policy of kidnapping for ransom and free military and police hostages it holds in jungle camps. The liberation is expected to begin at the start of April.

But the FARC, Latin America's longest-running insurgency, remains a formidable force and continues to attack towns and oil installations in efforts to weaken industries such as mining and energy that have helped Colombia's economy grow.

Just over a week ago, the group killed 11 soldiers in Arauca.

(Reporting by Monica Garcia and Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Bill Trott and Cynthia Osterman)

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Iran presents battlefield contingencies

Regime-affiliated website details Tehran's plans of defense in case West decides to mount ground offensive against nuclear facilities; says Iran can 'crush enemy'

Dudi Cohen
Published: 03.26.12, 22:22 / Israel News

The possibility of a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities may evoke images of an air strike, but the Islamic Republic is gearing to counter every scenario and according to Al-Mashreq website, Tehran has prepared a detailed plan of the defense in case of a ground offensive by the West.

The website, which is affiliated with top defense circles, detailed the plan sans Iran's previous threats against Israeli or American internets in the Persian Gulf.

Related stories:

Tel Aviv: 1,000 march against Iran strike
Report: Israeli soldiers scour Iran for nukes
Obama on Iran: Time for diplomatic resolution is short

The report notes Iran's ability to use upgraded landmines, which can be use as as both anti-personnel landmines and anti-vehicle ones; T-72 tanks, which can be camouflaged and maintain the element of surprise, and special laser cannons with a 4km range.

According to the report, Western ground troops would also encounter armored personnel carrier armed with Iranian anti-tank missiles and equipped with camouflaging system meant to protect them from enemy missiles.

Backing them up will be the Iranian military's motorcycle unit – scores of motorcyclists armed with automatic weapons, shoulder-fired missiles and RPGs.

The Iranians boast that these troops' specialty is to lie in wait and surprise the enemy with a crushing blow.

In case of battle, Iran's ground troops will also be assisted by cobra helicopters and Soviet-made planes, which can transport up to 30 soldiers.

Ground troops will also be equipped with SA-6 surface-to-air missiles, which can hit targets in an altitude of up to 14km.

The website stressed that despite showcasing most of these abilities during Iran's last war games, Tehran still has "many other capabilities that would surprise and crush the enemy."

Iran has often warned that any strike against it will meet an "unparalleled response."

[Housecarl]

A very good question....

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http://updatednews.ca/2012/03/26/who...fter-al-assad/

Who would take over after al-Assad?
Middle East
Monday, March 26th, 2012

For 12 bloody, horrific months, Syrian dissidents and world leaders have dreamt of one outcome for the Syrian crisis: the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

But who would take over the embattled country remains a mystery — one that could be fueling the bloodshed that has already killed thousands.

Murhaf Jouejati, a Syrian-born scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said foreign leaders may be reluctant to take stronger action against the regime because no one knows who would come to power.

“I think the international community would like a scenario that would be as clear as possible: Who would they be dealing with? Do they have a vision for the future? Or will it be total chaos?” Jouejati said. “So this uncertainty is prolonging the life of the regime — uncertainty both shared by Syrians sitting on the fence inside Syria and in the international community.”

Exactly who would lead Syria, he said, all depends on how al-Assad leaves.

A military coup

As remote as it may seem, al-Assad’s downfall could come in the form of an internal coup, said former U.S. ambassador to Syria Edward Djerejian.

“In many ways, this would be the best outcome because there would be regime change,” said Djerejian, director of Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

But staging a military coup with high-level defectors may seem like a pipe dream — one that could have deadly consequences.

“When generals get together, there are usually other generals looking over their shoulders,” Jouejati said, making it difficult to carry out a rebellion among top officers with unanimous support and without retaliation.

In recent weeks, opposition activists have reported dozens of defected soldiers killed at the hands of the regime.

Yet “if the Assad regime collapses violently, it is most likely that elements of the Syrian National Council, along with others, take over as an interim government,” Jouejati said.

The Syrian National Council

The Syrian National Council — an opposition coalition whose leadership resides outside of Syria — has gained recognition from the United States, France and other countries as a legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition.

Ausama Monajed, adviser to the president of the Syrian National Council, says his group already has a plan for a post-Assad era.

First, a presidential council would be formed in the transition phase to handle all affairs related to sovereignty, he said.

In addition, a transitional unity government would include opposition figures, representatives of revolutionary committees and “members of the regime who have no responsibility in crimes or major corruption,” Monajed said.

That transitional government would oversee the organization of elections to designate a Constituent Assembly. The assembly would be tasked with drafting a new constitution, a political party law, and a new election law, and would oversee parliamentary and presidential elections, Monajed said.

But some analysts are skeptical about the Syrian National Council acting as an interim administrator.

“There’s a lack of coordination amongst the insiders, and they represent the outsiders, not the insiders,” Djerejian said. “It’s not a coherent opposition leadership.”

The current president of the council, Burhan Ghalioun, is based in Paris. Other leaders are based in the United States, London or elsewhere.

And footage of some protesters in Syria shows demonstrators proclaiming, “Ghalioun, you do not represent us.” The SNC has also taken heat from some anti-Assad activists for not pushing harder on the international stage to help arm rebel fighters.

But Moanjed disputes the notion that the coalition is full of expatriates.

“The Syrian National Council’s majority of members are based inside Syria, but many of those names are not made public for their safety,” he said. “The Syrian National Council is a broad-based coalition of political, religious and ethnic blocs added to the majority of grass-roots and revolutionary members from the coordinating committees.”

Yet even if the SNC becomes a facilitator while a new government is formed, it’s uncertain who would lead that group at the time of an al-Assad ouster; the SNC presidency has a term of three months.

A rebel military leader

Although numerous armed opposition groups emerged after the government’s crackdown started, a top military defector from the rebel Higher Military Council announced last week that rebel forces have united under the leadership of the Free Syrian Army.

The FSA, comprised largely of al-Assad soldiers who have defected, is led by Col. Riad al-Asaad. But Jouejati doesn’t think the rebel army’s commander would be a shoo-in to lead Syria.

“There is the expectation of further defectors of the army — maybe defectors of a higher rank than Col. Riad al-Asaad,” he said.

Al-Asaad is commanding the FSA from Turkey. But Jouejati said there are no big names among the rebel ranks inside Syria that are emerging as possible interim leaders.

“The Assad regime has been particularly good at exiling, arresting or even killing charismatic leaders,” he said. “So there isn’t one obvious leader.”

The vice president

Then there’s the possibility of Syria’s vice president taking power after an al-Assad downfall.

“The opposition, at first, talked about Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa as interim president … but this is becoming highly unlikely” as the carnage and anger mount in Syria, Jouejati said.

“The vice president has been left in a very weak political position. He has a very small staff, he does not control anything. He does not influence anything in Syrian decision-making,” he said. “If the Assad regime collapses, he will collapse.”

But Djerejian says the vice president could still come into play, and the al-Assad family could still exert influence.

“If something happens to Bashar al-Assad, and the Baath party and Alawites still remain in power, a vice president might still be in power. The family would still rule,” Djerejian said.

Al-Assad’s younger brother Maher commands an elite division of the Syrian army and is accused of widespread human rights abuses. His cousin Rami Makhlouf is the richest man in Syria.

The al-Assad family is Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Syria’s Alawite minority has long dominated the Syrian government, despite a Sunni majority in the country.

But “even if someone from the regime takes over power, there is simply no going back to business as usual,” Jouejati said. “This revolution has gone on too far, too long, and it has been too bloody. … So Syria will be opening a new page.”

How would al-Assad go?

Getting rid of the current regime means much more than just ousting Bashar al-Assad. It means uprooting 42 years of al-Assad family rule.

Ribal al-Assad, the president’s cousin who is now a Syrian opposition activist in London, said Bashar al-Assad is “too scared to step down.”

“I think he’s very scared of the people around him and the different security apparatus,” said Ribal al-Assad, founder and director of The Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria.

“His father built the state. His father rose (through) the ranks of the army. He had all power in his hand,” Ribal al-Assad said. “Bashar is different. He inherited that system. He inherited all those people, he doesn’t control them.”

“It looks like the only way to get rid of that regime,” he said, “is you have to pry away people around Bashar.”

Djerejian said the president’s departure might require assassination — “his removal one way or another, or he goes into exile.”

Al-Assad does have options. Tunisia — the cradle of the Arab Spring uprisings and the first country last year to oust its longtime ruler — has offered asylum to the Syrian president in an attempt to spare further bloodshed.

And a cache of e-mails leaked to CNN indicates the daughter of Qatar’s emir has suggested exile in Doha.

But al-Assad leads a dynastic regime that shows no sign of backing down.

“I think they’re living in their own world of perception, and there’s an aspect of delusion,” Djerejian said.

To be objective, he said, the president still has support from the power elite, Alawites and other minorities “that are scared to death if he leaves, there’d be sectarian war. Better to live with the devil we know then than the devil we don’t.”

Jouejati acknowledges that if dissidents manage to oust the al-Assad regime, “there would be a very rapid mood change” among those proclaiming support for al-Assad.

“(But) most of these people you are not talking about, they are simply very, very fearful of what happens next,” he said.” They would prefer stability at any price instead of the unknown. I think when the unknown becomes the order of day, the Assad regime is past them, there will be a new mood, and they will smell the smells of freedom.”

(CNN)

[Housecarl]

Uh oh....



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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...82P10A20120326

Sudan, South Sudan armies clash in border region

JUBA/KHARTOUM | Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:54pm EDT

(Reuters) - Clashes broke out between the armed forces of Sudan and South Sudan in disputed border regions on Monday, both sides said in a rare direct confrontation ahead of a meeting of their two presidents that was meant to ease tensions.

Both countries have been at loggerheads over a series of sensitive issues since South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in July, taking with it most of the country's known oil reserves.

The neighbors have yet to agree on the position of their 1,800 km (1,120 mile) shared border or how much the landlocked south should pay to export oil - the lifeblood of both economies - through Sudan.

South Sudan's army, or SPLA, said the Sudanese air force attacked the disputed areas of Jau and Pan Akuach in the morning. The SPLA later repelled an attack by Sudanese ground forces in Teshwin inside South Sudan, SPLA spokesman Philip Arguer said.

"After repulsing the attack, the SPLA pursued the withdrawing SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) force and they captured two bases of SAF between Heglig and Teshwin," he said, adding that details were still unclear.

Sudan's army spokesman Sawarmi Khalid Saad confirmed fighting in the border area of Sudan's South Kordofan state and the southern Unity state. He denied there had been any fighting in Jau but did not name other locations or say who started the violence.

"The clashes there are still ongoing," he said. Heglig is a large oil producing area under the control of Sudan, though parts of the territory are disputed.

Saad said rebels from Sudan's Darfur region fought alongside the southern troops in South Kordofan. Darfur is the scene if a separate near decade-long insurgency against the Khartoum government.

Each country has accused the other of supporting rebels on either side of the border but direct confrontations are rare.

Sudan's army and SPLM-North rebels have been fighting in South Kordofan since June. Clashes spread in September to Sudan's Blue Nile state which also borders South Sudan.

South Sudan secured its independence in a referendum promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north.

Both South Kordofan and Blue Nile are home to large communities who sided with the south during the civil war but were left on the Sudan side of the border after the secession. Khartoum says the SPLM-North is supported by South Sudan, an accusation dismissed by the southern government.

Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is due to meet his southern counterpart Salva Kiir on April 3 in the southern capital Juba to try to resolve their disputes.

South Sudan shut down its oil production in January to protest against Khartoum's seizure of some crude. Sudan said it took the oil to make up for what it called unpaid transit fees.

(Reporting by Hereward Holland, Khalid Abdelaziz and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Analysis & Opinion

The unending warfare in Africa
We are letting Assad win

Related Topics

World »

[Housecarl]

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South Sudan accuses Khartoum of airstrikes, ground assault

AFP March 26, 2012 5:02 PM

JUBA, South Sudan — Sudanese aircraft and ground troops attacked multiple positions in South Sudan's oil rich border regions Monday, sparking fierce battles and prompting Southern President Salva Kiir to warn of war.

"This morning the (Sudanese) airforce came and bombed . . . areas in Unity state," Kiir said at the opening of a ruling party meeting in the southern capital Juba.

"After this intensive bombardment our forces . . . . were attacked by SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) and militia," he added, noting his troops had since fought back and crossed into a key northern oil field.

"It is a war that has been imposed on us again, but it is they (Khartoum) who are looking for it," said Kiir, adding that he did not want conflict to resume.

However Sudanese army spokesman, Sawarmi Khaled Saad, said only "limited clashes" had occurred between his forces and those of South Sudan along the disputed border between the two countries.

Kiir said Southern troops, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), had driven northern forces back across the undemarcated border and seized Khartoum's key oil field of Heglig, parts of which are claimed by both sides.

"They attacked our forces and our forces were able to repulse them.. and they ran," Kiir added. "The last information that came to me was that our forces have also taken over Heglig."

South Sudanese army spokesman Philip Aguer said that fighting was ongoing when he last spoke to frontline troops, just over an hour before dusk.

"There are casualties but we don't have the full report . . . at the last communication, which is very difficult, there was still fighting," Aguer said, but also added the army was not wanting the clashes to spiral into war.

"This was an act of self-defence on behalf of the SPLA, and we still commit ourselves to all the security agreements between us — despite all this fighting we are committed to peace," Aguer added.

© Copyright (c) AFP

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use....
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A Tale of Two Egyptian Armies
Lee Smith
March 26, 2012 2:21 PM

Last week, the Obama administration started releasing the $1.3 billion in U.S. military assistance to Egypt that’s been on hold since October. Over the objections of human rights advocates and democracy activists, Hillary Clinton signed a waiver allowing Washington to circumvent recent legislation tying military assistance to the State Department’s certification that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Egypt’s interim ruling body, is protecting the basic rights and freedoms of Egyptian citizens.

In spite of SCAF’s documented human rights abuses, the aid will begin flowing again because the Obama administration has come to recognize a little more than a year after the fall of longtime ally Hosni Mubarak that U.S. policymakers have no other instruments with which to influence a political system that may be spiraling out of control.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are unhappy, especially since charges against American democratic rights activists—including Sam LaHood, the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood—for interfering in Egypt’s political system have yet to be entirely resolved. It was clearly a case of political extortion, and there is no secret what Cairo wanted in exchange for letting the U.S. activists leave Egypt on bail—the military aid that the Obama administration was withholding in an effort to exercise leverage on the Egyptian regime.

In short, no matter how the administration plays it, Egypt right now is in a much stronger bargaining position than the U.S., and there is no sign the balance of power is going to shift anytime soon.

To be sure, many in Washington would like to cut off the Egyptian military or at least limit its share of U.S aid. Right now, only a fraction of the total assistance package, a little over $1.5 billion this year, is in economic aid, so why not tip the scales and give the whole package to the Egyptian people? With tourist receipts and foreign direct investment down, and foreign reserves dwindling, it would be an especially good time to pump cash directly into an economy in freefall.

The problem of course is that it would be almost impossible to bypass SCAF to get that money to ordinary Egyptians. And even if it were feasible, in the wake of the democracy activist trial, Washington is more sensitive than ever to claims of “interference.”

But the real issue is that Egypt’s rulers don’t see the country’s dire economic situation the same way Washington does. For the White House, Egypt is too big to fail. From SCAF’s perspective, Egypt has weathered famine and worse many times over the last several millennia and it will get through it this time, too. The fact that the Americans are scared of what might happen should Egypt crash means that SCAF’s in the driver’s seat—at least as long as it keeps threatening to steer the country off a cliff.

From this perspective, almost everything that seems bad for Egypt, or anything that terrifies the U.S., is good for the SCAF. For instance, a referendum recently passed in the new Islamist-dominated parliament to expel the Israeli ambassador, halt gas exports to Israel and identify the Jewish state as Egypt’s “number one enemy” only makes the Egyptian military look good by comparison. Since foreign policymaking as a whole, and the caretaking of the peace treaty with Israel in particular, is the exclusive privilege of the army, it is up to them to make the final call on any of those initiatives coming out of parliament. The point is: Yes, things could get even worse in Egypt, much worse, so the White House wants to keep the Egyptian army happy.

The fact that, as the Washington Post today reports, the Muslim Brotherhood may now feel more confident in challenging the army further concentrates the administration’s attention. Washington needs to maintain the stability of the army. After all, this is why American policymakers were finally able to convince themselves last February that they didn’t need Mubarak. The Pentagon knows the Egyptian army almost as well as its own; the U.S. military has trained Egyptian officers for thirty years and the relationship couldn’t be closer.

The reality is that there is not one Egyptian military—there are two. American policymakers are allied with the first, whom they have to support in order to prevent the second army from rising up.

The first is simply the large institution now headed by Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, who as head of SCAF became Egypt’s de facto ruler after Mubarak’s departure. This is the same junta that has governed Egypt since the 1952 revolution that deposed the monarchy and put in power a series of military officers, Mohamed Naguib, Gamal abd el-Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and then Mubarak. It’s the most powerful institution in all of Egypt, and therefore the most corrupt, but it also recognizes that there are certain limits it can’t transgress. Tantawi and the others are raising the price on Washington, but they’re not looking to throw away the U.S.-Egypt relationship.

It is that other, second Egyptian army that might choose to rewrite the rules. This is not the military or the vast business interests overseen by the 76-year-old Tantawi. It’s the army that, if the circumstances are right, might someday overthrow those senior officers the Americans trust. Right now, it exists only in the imagination of junior officers; a shadow army with its own agenda, shaped by smoldering resentments and soaring ambitions. This institution engendered the 1952 Free Officers’ Coup and Nasser, the Arab nationalist demagogue who set the template for half a century’s worth of radical Middle East politics. It’s an army of ideological commitment, regardless of the motivating ideas. Almost thirty years after deposing the king, this same army gave rise to the junior officers like Khaled Islambouli who made up the cell that assassinated Sadat.

The Islambouli plot only half-succeeded. Sadat was dead but the Free Officers’ regime lived on. With Mubarak at the helm, it entered its most stable—or, depending on one’s point of view, static—phase. That’s the military regime the White House seeks to preserve, essentially Mubarakism without Mubarak. The nightmare scenario is not merely a political system dominated by Islamists, or a country of more than 80 million on the verge of bankruptcy and threatening to break the peace treaty with Israel. Rather, it’s all of that, and governed by an ideologically ambitious military that wants to revive Egypt’s role as leader of the Arab world. The White House does not want to see that army take shape—but it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that $1.3 billion is going to keep it in the shadows forever.

[Housecarl]

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Afghan security forces kill 3 ISAF troops in south, east
By Bill Roggio
March 26, 2012

An Afghan soldier killed two British soldiers on a military base in southern Afghanistan today, while a policeman killed an ISAF soldier in the east. The Afghan soldier was killed by ISAF troops, who opened fire on the attacker. Afghan security personnel have now killed 16 ISAF troops this year.

An International Security Assistance Force press release identified the shooter in the south as an "individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform [who] turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members." The two ISAF soldiers' names and nationalities have not been disclosed, but the British Ministry of Defense later announced the deaths of two British soldiers in Lashkar Gah.

"The two servicemen, one a Royal Marine, and the other a soldier from the Adjutant General's Corps (Staff & Personnel Support), were serving as part of Task Force Helmand when they were shot and killed at the main entrance to Lashkar Gah Main Operating Base in Helmand province by an Afghan National Army soldier," the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement released on its website.

It is unclear if the Afghan was a disgruntled soldier or a Taliban infiltrator. ISAF said that a "joint Afghan and ISAF team is investigating the incident."

The attack took place on a military base in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand. ISAF operates a Provincial Reconstruction Team in the city.

In the second attack, a member of the Afghan Local Police shot and killed an ISAF soldier in eastern Afghanistan.

"According to operational reports, the ISAF service member was shot by an alleged member of the Afghan Local Police as the security force approached an ALP checkpoint," ISAF stated in a second press release. It is unclear if the policeman has been detained or if he escaped.

ISAF said Coalition and Afghan forces are investigating the shooting. ISAF did not identify the nationality of the soldier who was gunned down by the Afghan policeman.

ISAF: number of attacks on Coalition forces by Afghan personnel is "classified"

Today's "green on blue" attacks, the term used by the US military to describe Afghan attacks on Coalition forces, are the first such attacks to result in the death of ISAF troops since March 1, when an Afghan soldier and a teacher both opened fire on NATO troops in Kandahar province, killing two soldiers before being killed in return fire. That attack culminated a 10-day period in which seven ISAF troops had been killed by Afghan soldiers.

Afghan security personnel are now estimated to have killed 81 ISAF soldiers since May 2007. Sixteen of the ISAF soldiers, or almost 20 percent, were killed this year, according to press releases issued by ISAF [see below].

ISAF has not disclosed the number of incidents in which ISAF soldiers were wounded by ANSF personnel, or the attacks on ISAF personnel that did not result in casualties. ISAF told The Long War Journal that "these statistics ... [are ] ... classified."

"[A]ttacks by ANSF on Coalition Forces...either resulting in non-injury, injury or death....these stats as a whole (the total # attacks) are what is classified and not releasable," Lieutentant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, ISAF's Press Desk Chief, told The Long War Journal. Cummings said that ISAF is "looking to declassify this number."

Inquiries as to why the overall statistic is classified went unanswered.

The rise in attacks against ISAF troops by Afghan personnel takes place as ISAF is seeking to accelerate the transition of security responsibility to Afghan forces. The plan calls for an increase in the number of ISAF trainers as well as increased partnering of ISAF and Afghan units, and will heighten Coalition troops' exposure to green on blue attacks.

ISAF press releases documenting the murder of ISAF troops by Afghan security personnel in 2012:

March 26, 2012:
An International Security Assistance Force service member died following a shooting incident in eastern Afghanistan today. According to operational reports, the ISAF service member was shot by an alleged member of the Afghan Local Police as the security force approached an ALP checkpoint.

March 26, 2012:
An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two service members. The individual who opened fire was killed when coalition forces returned fire.

March 1, 2012:
Two individuals, one believed to be an Afghan National Army service member and the other in civilian clothing, turned their weapons indiscriminately against International Security Assistance Force and Afghan National Security Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two ISAF service members.

Feb. 25, 2012:
Initial reports indicate an individual turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in Kabul City today, killing two service members.

Feb. 23, 2012:
An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in eastern Afghanistan today, killing one service member. [Note this was later revised to two soldiers killed.]

Feb. 20, 2012:
An individual wearing the uniform of the Afghan Uniformed Police turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing one service member.

Jan. 31, 2012:
An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against an International Security Assistance Force service member in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing one service member.

Jan. 20, 2012:
Four International Security Assistance Force service members were killed today in eastern Afghanistan by a member of the Afghan National Army.

Jan. 8, 2012:
An International Security Assistance Force service member was killed today in southern Afghanistan apparently by a member of the Afghan National Army.

[Housecarl]

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North Korea Jeopardizes Deal
By Jason Miks
March 26, 2012

The United States and China are coordinating their response to North Korea’s vow to launch a satellite next month, a move that many analysts argue is simply cover for the testing of a long-range missile.

In a press briefing early this morning, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said that President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao had “agreed to coordinate closely in responding to this potential provocation and registering our serious concern to the North Koreans and of course to, if necessary, consider what steps need to be taken following a potential satellite launch.”

“I think the bottom line that the president had in his meeting with President Hu is a message that he’s been delivering over the course of the last two days, which is that North Korea’s new leadership has to understand that they’re not going to be rewarded for provocation,” Rhodes said. “That, in fact, they’re only going to suffer from engaging in provocative acts, and that they need to understand that a better future for North Korea is only going to come if they move in the direction of living up to their obligations, and again, meeting their responsibilities to the international community.”

The issue of “rewarding” the North Korean leadership is now tied to a deal announced only last month in which North Korea agreed to implement a moratorium on long-range missile launches, nuclear tests, and nuclear activities at Yongbyon, including uranium enrichment activities. According to a U.S. State Department statement at the time, North Korea also agreed to the return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors “to verify and monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment activities at Yongbyon and confirm the disablement of the 5-MW reactor and associated facilities.”

The United States is, for its part, offering 240,000 tons of nutritional assistance, and although the U.S. government is keen to stress that such humanitarian assistance isn’t tied to politics, it’s clear that the deal will be under serious threat if North Korea proceeds with the launch.

However, contrary to some media reports today, the agreement has not yet been suspended yet.

I talked with a State Department spokesperson this afternoon who confirmed that although a satellite launch would certainly be considered inconsistent with the so-called Leap Day agreement, that there has been no suspension of the agreement.

The administration is caught between a rock and a hard place now that it has made the deal. That North Korea is in need of food aid is in no doubt. Nearly two-thirds of North Koreans are dependent on the government-run Public Distribution System. During last year’s lean season, daily rations fell to below 7 ounces, which as the Los Angeles Times noted, “is roughly equivalent to a bowl of cereal.”

“North Koreans are still reeling from a particularly bad year in 2011 – potato and barley fields were frozen during a harsh winter in late 2010. Flooding last summer then destroyed fields of rice and maize. The number of children admitted to North Korean hospitals for malnutrition as much as doubled.

“The United Nations estimates that 400,000 metric tons of grain will be needed to prevent a food shortage this year, only half of what the country needed in 2011 but still a significant amount.”

But even if the food deal goes ahead, and even if North Korea decides against its missile test (the Council on Foreign Relations’ Scott Snyder writing in The Diplomat yesterday had a few ideas on how it could be dissuaded) and complies with its nuclear obligations, the regime’s shocking treatment of its own people would likely continue.

This treatment was underscored in an opinion piece in the Washington Post yesterday, an article that chimes with testimony to The Diplomat of Robert Park, a Korean American who was detained and tortured in North Korea after crossing into the country. Park talked of the country’s labor camps, forcible abortions and infanticide, and the forcible transfer and enslavement of children.

His views are echoed by the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt, who recounts the case of Shin Dong-hyuk, “who was bred, like a farm animal, inside a North Korean prison camp after guards ordered his prisoner-parents to mate.”

“Shin was born a slave and raised behind a high-voltage barbed-wire fence.”

There were hopes that the passing of Kim Jong-il, and the accession of his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, might spark some kind of rethink of North Korea’s policy. In part this was based on some tenuous wishful thinking – Kim Jong-un had spent time at school in Switzerland and liked basketball. The problem is, of course, that Kim Jong-il was also an avid consumer of American pop culture, and this doesn’t appear to have tempered his behavior in any discernible way. And the fact is that Kim Jong-un’s relative youth means he has an uphill struggle to persuade key North Korean players, including the military, that he is up to the task of filling his father’s shoes.

Thumbing his nose at the international community by firing a rocket is one way of doing that. Sadly, the well-worn cycle of make a deal, break a deal looks like it might be about to be played out again, but this time in record time.

[Housecarl]

OBAMA CAUGHT ON TAPE MAKING A SECRET DEAL WITH RUSSIA
Started by diamonds‎, Today 08:05 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...AL-WITH-RUSSIA
_____

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* ASIA NEWS
* March 26, 2012, 8:00 p.m. ET

Nuclear Summit Falls Short on Goal

* Article
* Comments

more in World | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ »

By EVAN RAMSTAD

SEOUL—As 54 world leaders gathered Monday for a second summit on nuclear security, the seemingly uncontroversial goal they set at their first meeting two years ago—securing and reducing radioactive materials that can be turned into bombs—has turned out to be difficult to do.

Working-level discussions have bogged down over issues of national sovereignty, competing corporate interests, trade priorities and differing perceptions about the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Even with the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan last year serving to focus world attention on the danger nuclear materials can present, the negotiations on nuclear security have become as complicated as those over the global financial crisis and climate change.

As a result, the agreement that emerges when the Nuclear Security Summit concludes on Tuesday is likely to be smaller in scope and vision than hoped by officials in several countries, including the U.S., as well as informed observers.

The U.S., for instance, pushed for countries to pledge to give up the use of highly enriched uranium in civilian settings, such as for medical isotopes in fighting cancer or nuclear power research, by 2015. Instead, a draft of the summit communiqué indicated the participating countries would simply commit to reducing the use of HEU, a material that can also provide the fuel for atomic weapons, without a specific deadline or amount.

Meanwhile, participants in the Seoul gathering were also waiting to see whether Russia, which is the second-leading possessor of nuclear materials after the U.S., would use the summit to announce steps to reduce its own stockpile of HEU.

"This is a summit that is going to have a lot of bureaucratic successes but not a lot of vision successes," said Ken Luongo, co-chair of the Fissile Materials Working Group, a U.S.-based consortium of about 60 think tanks and activist groups world-wide that concentrate on nuclear issues. "We need all the things that are being announced over the next two days, but it's not sufficient. We need a bigger vision of where we need to go."

In the days leading up to the summit, some smaller steps have been announced. Countries such asKazakhstan and the Ukraine said they had returned their supplies of HEU to Russia, which provided them in the 1950s and 1960s. China and Mexico said they had converted nuclear research reactors that had been fueled by HEU to low-enriched uranium. The U.S. and Canada helped with those efforts. South Korea touted its own work on such reactor conversions and offered to help other countries do it.

And Belgium, France and the Netherlands announced that they would convert their businesses that supply medical isotopes used in the treatment of cancer and heart disease away from HEU to low-enriched uranium by 2015. The U.S. will help the countries by supplying HEU during the transition period when companies are testing new production with low-enriched uranium.

The change poses a business risk for the European firms because, following the conversion, they will be competing with Canadian suppliers of medical isotopes made from HEU, which has cost advantages over the low-enriched alternative. Even so, Netherlands Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said the time had come for countries to "be really determined to contribute to the noble political goal of minimizing this production of highly enriched uranium."

The discussions among the nuclear-related advocacy groups and think tanks show the difficulty that national officials confront making compromises on nuclear security.

Mr. Luongo's group in recent months has urged nations to design a new level of international governance over nuclear-related matters and set hard deadlines for change, in part because a nuclear accident or terrorist act won't simply affect one country.

"This summit and the last summit have almost exclusively focused on the sovereign nature of nuclear security," he said. "What Fukushima proved is that radiation crises do not respect borders."

ButLi Hong, the secretary-general of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, an independent group in Beijing, said he disagrees with steps that take control of nuclear materials out of the hands of nations. "Some foreign groups have talked about new conventions, but I think on those measures we should exercise caution," Mr. Li said.

Write to Evan Ramstad at evan.ramstad@wsj.com

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

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FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
China's alliance strategy aims to contain U.S.
Beijing to press for wide-ranging ties with NATO members
Published: 32 mins ago

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

WASHINGTON – China is considering a change in its historical policy of avoiding alliances and is looking to establish military and strategic ties with other countries in an effort to counter U.S. military influence worldwide, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Chinese strategists suggested the move in a conference sponsored by China’s National Security Policy Commission, which is led by senior military officers who are virulently anti-American.

Already, recent Chinese strategic decisions have indicated a new policy already is under way.

“History of the world tells us that, whether it’s in political, economic or military arenas, Western nations, without any exception, always resorted to alliances,” said one Chinese security analyst.

“China must change its non-alliance policy,” he said. “We must consider forming alliances. Otherwise, in a future war with the U.S., we will not be able to politically or militarily counter America’s global alliance network just by ourselves.

“Without an alliance system of our own,” he said, “we will never be able to win.”

Yang Mingje of the Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations, China’s largest strategic think-tank run by the Ministry of State Security, said the view among Chinese strategists is that while the U.S. is looking to put more of its military forces in the Pacific, the U.S. continues to have a global agenda, since “China has become a global power.”

To fight a globalized China, he said, the U.S. also must act globally as it did during the Cold War.

Any alliance with neighbors may be questionable, since Beijing has upset many of them with claims of historical rights to disputed islands and in regions where there are disagreements over offshore drilling access.

For the rest of this report and other Intelligence Briefs, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin:

* China/Iran: Beijing, Tehran consider ties ‘strategic’
* Syria: WMD stockpiles al-Assad’s ace-in-the-hole
* Lebanon: Increasing signs of al-Qaida presence
* Poland/Germany: Warsaw’s desire for energy creating static
* Uzbekistan: Leveraging U.S. for concessions
* Russia: Offers supply base, with strings

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now

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Once again, thanks to you guys staying on top of all fast breaking events. Much more in depth here on Dutch's daily roundup to follow up from mere newsbytes elsewhere. In particular Turkey removing diplomats from Syria. This was the story of the day, lost in the Trayvon chatter. Their willingness to make moves independent of the rest of Islamic Brotherhood has my attention. This quote is interesting as far as an ex patriate base of operations: "...Turkey provides sanctuary to over 17,000 Syrians fleeing the violence, shelters soldiers from the rebel Free Syrian Army and allows the opposition to meet regularly in Istanbul. Ten generals, 19 colonels and dozens of junior officers have defected from Assad's army to take refuge in Syria..."
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/0...82P0GT20120326

[The Flying Dutchman]

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U.S. seeks missile-defense shields for Asia, Mideast

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON | Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:08pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...ldNews&rpc=401

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is seeking to build regional shields against ballistic missiles in both Asia and the Middle East akin to a controversial defense system in Europe, a senior Pentagon official disclosed on Monday.

The effort may complicate U.S. ties with Russia and China, both of which fear such defenses could harm their security even though the United States says they are designed only to protect against states like Iran and North Korea.

The U.S. push for new anti-missile bulwarks includes two sets of trilateral dialogues - one with Japan and Australia and the other with Japan and South Korea, said Madelyn Creedon, an assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs.

Such shields could help counter perceived threats to their neighbors from Iran and North Korea and help defend the United States from any future long-range missiles that the two countries might develop, she told a conference co-hosted by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

The model would be the so-called "phased adaptive approach" for missile defense in Europe, Creedon said. This includes putting interceptor missiles in Poland and Romania, a radar in Turkey and the home-porting of missile defense-capable Aegis destroyers in Spain.

Moscow fears that such a shield, given planned upgrades, could grow strong enough by 2020 to undermine Moscow's own nuclear deterrent force. It has threatened to deploy missiles to overcome the shield and potentially target missile defense installations such as those planned in NATO members Poland and Romania.

China likely would be even more opposed to an antimissile shield in its backyard, said Riki Ellison, a prominent missile-defense advocate noted for his close ties to current and former U.S. senior military officials involved in the effort.

Beijing "would take much more offense to an Asian phased adaptive approach than Russia is doing with the European one," he said, calling regional shields a good idea in theory but problematic in reality.

GULF STATES

In the Middle East, Creedon said Washington will work to promote "interoperability and information-sharing" among the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman - as they acquire greater missile-defense capabilities.

The biggest U.S. missile defense contractors include Boeing Co, Lockheed Martin Corp, Raytheon Co and Northrop Grumman Corp.

The Obama administration at the same time stepped back from an announcement this month that it was weighing the possibility of giving Russia certain classified missile-defense data as the price for winning its acquiescence to the European shield.

"We are not proposing to provide them with classified information," Ellen Tauscher, the administration's special envoy for strategic stability and missile defense, told the conference. Instead, she said, the Obama administration had offered Moscow a chance to monitor a flight test in international waters of a U.S. Standard Missile-3 interceptor.

This, she said, would let Russian officials see for themselves the accuracy of "what we are saying about our system." The United States argues that the U.S. system poses no threat to Russia's nuclear deterrent.

As recently as March 6, the administration had said it was continuing negotiations begun under former President George W. Bush on a pact with Moscow that could include sharing limited classified data, but said it was making no headway toward a deal with Russia.

Obama's administration was not the first "to believe that cooperation could be well-served by some limited sharing of classified information of a certain kind if the proper rules were in place to do that," Bradley Roberts, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, had told the House of Representatives' Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces at the time.

The idea of such data-sharing drew sharp criticism from Republicans in the U.S. Congress including a move to legislate a prohibition.

The rollback on any such deal involving classified data exchange came after President Barack Obama was caught on camera on Monday assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have "more flexibility" to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the November 6 U.S. presidential election.

Obama, during talks in Seoul, urged Moscow to give him "space" until after the vote, and Medvedev said he would relay the message to Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin.







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[The Flying Dutchman]

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'Israel needs double Iron Dome defenses'

by Staff Writers
Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI) Mar 26, 2012
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Isra...enses_999.html

Amid fears Israel faces a massive missile bombardment from Iran and its allies, former Defense Minister Amir Peretz says the country needs double the number of Iron Dome counter-rocket batteries it plans to buy to protect the home front.

Peretz's comments fueled the debate about Israel's scramble to develop defenses against what is seen as the worst threat the country has faced.

There's a certain irony in this since Peretz was defense minister during the 2006 war against Hezbollah, when the Iranian-backed group unleashed an unprecedented rocket bombardment against northern Israel.

That 34-day conflict, and the nearly 4,000 rockets Hezbollah fired at a rate of around 200 a day, forced Israel to acknowledge it faced the prospect of a sustained and missile bombardment against its cities by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Israel's military has plans to buy 13 batteries of Iron Dome, designed to shoot down short-range rockets, as the lowest-tier of a planned four-layer missile defense shield, a concept that arose out of the 2006 war.

But Peretz, who resigned in disgrace after that conflict in which Hezbollah's guerrillas fought Israel's vaunted military forces to a standstill, said Saturday, "If we want complete coverage we'll need to get between 20 and 26 batteries."

And he put his finger on a raw nerve when he stressed that Iron Dome, and indeed other anti-missile systems, should be used to defend population centers rather than strategic military bases, such as airfields, where the military has said it will deploy Iron Dome if a major conflict erupts.

"With all due respect," Peretz said, "the bases were not meant to be covered by Iron Dome. There's no way that bases will be preferred over civilians."

Iron Dome became operational in April 2011 but it underwent its most severe combat test in recent weeks when some 230 rockets were fired from Gaza. The military said it notched a success rate of intercepting 90 percent of the projectiles it engaged and Iron Dome only goes after rockets that its computer system tags as heading toward populated areas.

However, a report in the liberal daily Haaretz said the true figure was closer to 76 percent.

Even so, Iron Dome's expected to improve as combat lessons are incorporated into the system by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The state-owned company developed the concept that's currently the only operational system in the world that can shoot down short-range missiles with ranges of up to 43 miles.

Three Iron Dome batteries are deployed in the southern Negev Desert, primarily to protect the cities of Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod. A fourth is to be deployed soon, probably further to the north.

That would put it closer to Tel Aviv, Israel's largest urban area, with a population of around 2 million and a host of strategic and industrial targets.

This reflects the growing threat to Tel Aviv as the Palestinians' acquire rockets with longer range and more powerful warheads as well as from ballistic weapons.

Rafael's already developed two further batteries. Company sources say the system's success rate will likely mean greater funding will be made available despite defense budget cutbacks. That could also accelerate the development of other anti-missile systems in the works or being upgraded.

Many senior defense establishment figures oppose spending what funds are available on passive defense systems as opposed to offensive systems such as strike aircraft to knock out enemy missile launch sites.

It's worth bearing in mind that although the Israeli air force destroyed most of Hezbollah's longer range weapons in the first 36 hours of the 2006 war, it was never able to eliminate the militants' non-stop barrage.

In any new conflict, the greatest danger would come from ballistic missiles like Iran's Shehab-3b and Sejjil-2 and medium-range missiles from Syria and Hezbollah. That would put the onus on Israel Aerospace Industries' Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 high-altitude, designed to intercept enemy missiles outside the Earth's atmosphere and at lower altitudes.

Rafael's also developing David's Sling to counter intermediate-range missiles. But it's not likely to be in service until 2013 at the earliest.

Arrow-3, the upper layer of the defense shield, won't even start intercept testing until later this year. Both these remain unknown quantities.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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CNN Pushing Alarmist Tales
of Hezbollah Sleeper Agents

Posted on 03/26/2012 by Peter Hart
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/03/26/...leeper-agents/

With discussions of a military attack on Iran circulating among U.S. and Israeli political elites, CNN has added fuel to the fire with a series of alarmist reports about supposedly Iranian-linked terrorist operatives inside the United States who are ready to strike.

On the March 21 broadcast of the Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer announced that there could be "a terrifying new reason for all of us to be potentially very worried about U.S. tensions with Iran."

What's the terrifying potential worry? Some U.S. officials apparently claim:


Iran has a large terrorist-trained force right here in the United States right now. They say there may be hundreds, maybe even thousands of Hezbollah agents on American soil who could be ready and willing to attack.


Blitzer's words were accompanied by footage of what seemed to be Hezbollah militants marching and training. As CNN correspondent Brian Todd explained, witnesses at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing–many former U.S. officials–claimed that "many of Hezbollah's operatives have been in the U.S. for years, blending in, making a lot of money. A perfect resource for Iran if it's attacked and wants a quick counterstrike on the U.S. homeland."

Upping the fear factor, Todd added: "It's called Iran's A-team of terrorism. Hezbollah, a militant group that's killed more Americans than any other except Al-Qaeda." (This would seem to be mainly the 1983 attacks on U.S. Marines who were intervening in the Lebanese civil war.)

After all of this, though, Todd expressed some skepticism: "One law enforcement official tells CNN the cases they've been able to build against them involve things like fundraising, attempts to buy weapons, but no actual plot." Still, the point was that viewers should be extremely concerned. "The sophistication is almost breathtaking," Todd summed up. Blitzer was left only to say, "What a story."

Someone at CNN must think so. The same night a similar story was aired. "Stopping a threat to the homeland," anchor Erin Burnett announced on her show OutFront (3/21/12). Burnett focused on an official with the New York Police Department who suggested that Iranian operatives have been spotted "conducting surveillance"–taking photographs at Grand Central Terminal. (The train station is a New York City landmark; there are hundreds of thousands of photographs of it on Flickr, from every conceivable angle.) Another guest, former FBI official Michael Leverett, declined to answer Burnett's question about the approximate number of Hezbollah cells in the United States, but he nonetheless declared:


We don't know the exact number, but we know it's enough. We know there are enough people here that have military training and many more who are supporters and could be called upon or in some cases could be forced by extortion to do things they don't want to do.

On March 24, Blitzer was back to sounding the alarm: "A warning that Iran's A-team of terrorists have hundreds, maybe thousands of agents right here in the United States possibly ready to attack." He added:


Terrifying new reason to be worried about U.S. tensions with Iran. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and other U.S. officials are now warning that Iran has a large terrorist-trained force right in the United States. They say there may be hundreds, even thousands of Hezbollah agents on American soil who could be ready and willing to attack.

Again, correspondent Brian Todd was on the case, reporting that according to the testimony at the hearing, "many of Hezbollah's operatives in the U.S. have been here for years, blending in, making a lot of money–a perfect resource for Iran if it's attacked and wants a quick counterstrike on the U.S. homeland."

Todd mentioned that the "operatives" seem to be involved in fundraising, but closed his report by alluding to law enforcement concerns about those aspects: "They have people inside who know how to work the financial system, who have been here for work. Those are the people they're worried about, the infrastructure."

Throughout all of this, CNN gave little reason for viewers to feel anything but frightened. A more sober approach might note more forcefully that, as the Associated Press (3/21/12) noted, "government officials have said there are no known or specific threats indicating Iranian plans to attack inside the U.S." Or they would point out that at least one of these cases of "Hezbollah" agents didn't have much to do with Hezbollah, as Marcy Wheeler (Emptywheel, 3/21/12) noted. Or that the New York Police Department, currently embroiled in a scandal over spying on Muslims, might not be the most credible source of information on Hezbollah operatives (Salon.com, 3/22/12). A Huffington Post report (3/21/12) on the King hearing noted:


Most of the testimony–which came from former officials at the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Treasury, among others–concerned Iranian-linked attacks in other countries that dated back decades in some cases.

Reporting on allegations that link an official enemy state currently under threat of military attack to vague terrorist plots should be extraordinarily cautious. When such charges suggest without evidence that there are "thousands" of terrorist agents living among us "ready and willing to attack"–implying that we are all in grave danger from our ethnically or religiously suspect neighbors–journalists need to be even more skeptical. CNN is taking the opposite approach: breathlessly reporting the most terrifying scenarios, while occasionally noting that there's nothing to substantiate these speculations.

This puts CNN in the company of disgraced former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose reporting on the Hezbollah threat for the right-wing website NewsMax (3/21/12) sounds a lot like Wolf Blitzer.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Obama’s Slip Won’t Let Russia Veto Europe Missile Defense

By the Editors Mar 26, 2012 6:00 PM CT
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...e-defense.html

President Barack Obama got caught Monday talking with the microphone left on -- again. This time, he was telling Russia’s outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev that it would be better to leave talks about NATO’s contentious missile defense system until after U.S. elections in November, when Obama would have “more flexibility.”

No shock or awe there. Anyone who believes electoral politics don’t play a big role in driving foreign policy has been leading a very secluded life. Campaign-year outrage from Obama’s rivals over the remarks is probably inevitable, but it would also be disingenuous because we all know better. Besides, nuclear missile defense is a slow-burning fuse -- talks can wait until after November without any consequence.

Yet, there was something a little worrisome in this overheard conversation: Just how flexible does Obama plan to be with Russia on the missile defense, which he redesigned once already to take account of Russian concerns?

A quick recap is in order here. Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. withdrew in 2002 from the Cold War Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that had restricted U.S. and Soviet missile defense programs for 30 years. In 2007, the U.S. started preparations for a missile defense system -- ostensibly against an Iranian attack -- with its front legs in Europe. The forward radar for the system was to be in the Czech Republic, and Poland would host the missiles that would shoot down any long-range ballistic missiles Iran might let fly. Russia, however, saw the shield as a naked Cold War power play by the U.S. and was mad as hell.

A Diminishing Power

That anger was easy to understand. Poland is close to Russia, but a long way from Iran. A powerful U.S. radar in the Czech Republic would cover most of European Russia and the sensitive Caucasus region, as well as Iran. Above all, the plan was humiliating to Russia, challenging its already diminished strategic position in the region. The Soviet Union may have agreed in its final years to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and give up control of its central and Eastern European satellites, but replacing Russian tanks with U.S. missile systems in those countries was never part of the deal.

Fast forward to Obama’s “reset” of relations with Russia. A big piece of that policy involved a redesign of the missile defense plan, rolled out in September 2009. The system, rebranded as the European Phased Adaptive Approach, was made into a North Atlantic Treaty Organization program. It was more pragmatic than the original, because it would start small and cheap, using existing technology to address capabilities the Iranians might have in the immediate future. The system would eventually graduate to new technologies and be capable of shooting down long-range ballistic missiles by about 2020.

The early stages of the new plan don’t include Poland or the Czech Republic. The forward radar is now located instead in eastern Turkey, and the initial anti-missile batteries would be put on ships and in Romania. But by the fourth and final phase, Poland would be back in the picture.

Russia remains unhappy. It wants an equal role and a written legal guarantee from the U.S. that the missile defense system would never be turned against Russia’s nuclear arsenal. That’s something Congress would never agree to.

There was plenty of room 10 years ago for skepticism about the need for an expensive, untried missile system to protect U.S. bases, Europe and the U.S. from Iran. But the Middle East is changing quickly. In 10 or 15 years, the region may have several nuclear-armed militaries, including Iran’s, and possibly new and unpredictable regimes in charge. We think that in its revised form, NATO’s moving ahead on missile defense represents reasonable insurance against low probability but catastrophic future risks. If those risks fail to appear, the shield’s later and most expensive phases can be dropped.

Ideas for Cooperation

It would be best to have Russia on board with the program if that can be achieved. There are some interesting proposals available. Dean Wilkening, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, suggests building a joint U.S-Russian $500 million radar complex in central Russia, using U.S. technology. This, he says, would significantly improve both Russia’s dated early warning network and the coverage of NATO’s missile shield. That sounds smart to us. The U.S. and NATO have also been looking at ways to make the shield’s technology and capabilities transparent to Russia, to avoid any destabilizing paranoia. Those efforts should be redoubled.

Still, we suspect Russia’s objections are pretty much zero sum and will be tough to meet without ceding the Kremlin a veto over the system’s use, which is and should be a nonstarter. Vladimir Putin used the missile system’s alleged threat to Russia’s security to drum up votes during his recent presidential campaign -- he’ll take office again in May. Putin and Medvedev have threatened to build a new generation of missiles capable of penetrating U.S. defenses, at huge expense, if NATO’s plans are followed through. The White House should ignore this saber-rattling.

Renewing the arms race would be a terrible outcome of a missile shield’s construction, but it would damage mostly Russia. The Soviet Union discovered the risk involved in trying to match U.S. military spending from revenue that is dependent on fickle oil and gas prices. Putin would be unwise to repeat that mistake.

Obama should go on talking to the Russians about missile defense and yes, he can show some flexibility. But there is no pre-election urgency, and the decision on whether the NATO allies need a nuclear shield is for those countries alone to make. Russia’s threats should not be allowed to dilute the effectiveness of an insurance policy we might one day need.

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View. Today’s highlights:

The editors on health-care reform’s day in court and Russia’s objections to missile defense. Jeffrey Goldberg on Israel’s overconfident leaders. Ramesh Ponnuru on how Republicans will react if the Supreme Court upholds Obamacare. Edward Glaeser on regulation that can aid entrepreneurs. Simon Johnson and James Kwak on why the U.S. abandoned the gold standard.




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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12 countries may face US sanctions over oil purchase from Iran

PTI | Mar 27, 2012, 04.56AM IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...w/12422013.cms

WASHINGTON: The US will decide by the end of June whether to impose sanctions on 12 countries, including India and China, with regard to their purchase of crude oil from Iran, an official said on Monday.

It is by the end of June the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton will make a determination on the sanctions, State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland told reporters.

The United States is in conversation with these 12 countries on ways and means to avoid the American sanctions against them, she said.






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