The power struggle between Supreme Ruler Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad reached a high point today when the President threatened to resign and Khamenei told him to go right ahead! So apparently Ahmadi-Nejad has stopped going to his office.
What is interesting behind the scenes is that Ahmadi-Nejad's representatives met SECRETLY WITH OBAMA DELEGATES IN THE PERSIAN GULF to try to depose the Supreme Ruler.
Already furious at this, the Supreme Ruler clamped down on Ahmadi-Nejad's efforts, last week, to remove the Minister of Intelligence and take over that Intelligence and Security operation in favor of the IRGC (Revolutionary Guard Corps) which met with Khamenei's resistance and nearly 100 officers and guards of the IRGC were arrested for planning a coup. And the Minister "fired" by the President was told to go back to work.
Here are some headings of events:
According to Amir-Hossein Sabeti, Raja News columnist, Ahmadinejad has three preconditions for returning to the presidential office: Appointing Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei as first vice president, dismissal of Said Jalili as Supreme National Security Council secretary, and dismissal of Hojjat al-Eslam Heydar Moslehi as intelligence minister.
According to Aftab News, Ali Larijani, parliamentary speaker, and Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, Assembly of Experts head, have had a meeting with Ahmadinejad during the past couple of days.
Twelve parliamentarians call for impeachment of Ahmadinejad.
In an interview with Rooz Online, Hojjat al-Eslam Jafar Shojouni says "the destiny of [Abol-Hassan] Bani-Sadr is awaiting Ahmadinejad
Shojouni refutes having given an interview to "the counter revolutionary daily."
Rooz Online releases the audio tapes of the interview with Shojouni.
Sobh-e Sadeq criticizes Ahmadinejad's attempt to dismiss the intelligence minister "in the midst of a regional crisis."
The Student Basij distributes a CD-Rom containing Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei's thoughts on the school of Iran
100 parliamentarians sign a letter warning Ahmadinejad and reminding him that he has made a pledge to "serve the people and stand by the Supreme Leader of the revolution."
10 cabinet ministers met with Ahmadinejad Wednesday night.
According to Serat News, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei and Hamid Baqaei had a separate "secret meeting" Wednesday night.
Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani's Office dismisses rumors on the ayatollah's meeting with Ahmadinejad.
Ayatollah Alam al-Hoda: "Even if the entire country has voted for a public official, he would be illegitimate if the Supreme Leader does not approve of him." (Khamenei touted as teh 800 pound gorilla in charge)
Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Saidi, the Supreme Leader's Representative to the Revolutionary Guards, (split among the Guards) says Ahmadinejad can only preserve his popularity "by obeying the Supreme Leader." He adds: "Failing to obey the orders of the Guardian Jurist amounts to not obeying the commands of God and the Imam of the Era."
The various Guards units have splintered into groups with the three main ones being those who refuse to hurt Green Movement demonstrators, those who will follow the Supreme ruler and are ruthless against demonstrators and an ambivalent set of splinters who are devout followers of Ahmadi-Nejad (a former IRGC commander himself) but prefer to follow less violent and more "secular" activity.
Hopefully the power struggles will weaken all of them but they are already turning to their buddy Obama to help call the shots. And not to bother their Syrian allies where 10,000 of the IRGC have moved and are suppressing the populace in the same brutal fashion they used in 2009 in Iran and continually since then.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
SEE BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN
CLICK ON TITLE ABOVE TO VIEW SITE
An Israeli site to balance visitors' access to both sides of the coin. We may not agree but we deserve to see both sides. Funny way of putting it? Not really if you are a thinking person who wants to reach conclusions based on knowledge and differing viewpoints of facts, then this set of articles (which I have not fully read, nor about which I have formed an opinion or side) is simply an opportunity others may not give us. Even to just disagree.
This gesture was partly brought on by a meeting I had recently about a major illegal activity where a "source" tried to indict and involve American Jews in the illegal actions. And there was not even a remote basis for the accusations. Just his ingrained anti-Semitic agenda based on his personal faith. Yes, a fervent Moslem but NOT an active jihadist and generally a good enough guy and not out to destroy America.
But sadly carrying around a hang-up, the anti-Jewish/Israeli hang-up that is shared by Oba-Hussein's Oval Office, who along with his pro-Jihad, Islamic Moslem Brotherhood bosom buddies is far more dangerous to Jews. Amazing how American Jews have been and are so blind to the Sword of Damocles about to descend on their heads as Obama throws them under the bus like most of the other supporters he has had.
An Israeli site to balance visitors' access to both sides of the coin. We may not agree but we deserve to see both sides. Funny way of putting it? Not really if you are a thinking person who wants to reach conclusions based on knowledge and differing viewpoints of facts, then this set of articles (which I have not fully read, nor about which I have formed an opinion or side) is simply an opportunity others may not give us. Even to just disagree.
This gesture was partly brought on by a meeting I had recently about a major illegal activity where a "source" tried to indict and involve American Jews in the illegal actions. And there was not even a remote basis for the accusations. Just his ingrained anti-Semitic agenda based on his personal faith. Yes, a fervent Moslem but NOT an active jihadist and generally a good enough guy and not out to destroy America.
But sadly carrying around a hang-up, the anti-Jewish/Israeli hang-up that is shared by Oba-Hussein's Oval Office, who along with his pro-Jihad, Islamic Moslem Brotherhood bosom buddies is far more dangerous to Jews. Amazing how American Jews have been and are so blind to the Sword of Damocles about to descend on their heads as Obama throws them under the bus like most of the other supporters he has had.
 |
| "Where's your Jew baggage" |
Thursday, April 21, 2011
RAPID RECHARGE
Batteries that Recharge in Seconds
A new process could let your laptop and cell phone recharge a hundred times faster than they do now.
By Katherine Bourzac
A new way of making battery electrodes based on nanostructured metal foams has been used to make a lithium-ion battery that can be 90 percent charged in two minutes. If the method can be commercialized, it could lead to laptops that charge in a few minutes or cell phones that charge in 30 seconds.
The methods used to make the ultrafast-charging electrodes are compatible with a range of battery chemistries; the researchers have also used them to make nickel-metal-hydride batteries, the kind commonly used in hybrid and electric vehicles.
How fast a battery can charge up and then release that power is primarily limited by the movement of electrons and ions into and out of the cathode, the electrode that is negative during recharging. Researchers have been trying to use nanostructured materials to improve the process, but there's usually a trade-off between total energy storage capacity (which determines how long a battery can run before needing a recharge) and charge rates. "People solved half the problem," says Paul Braun, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Braun's group has made highly porous metal foams coated with a large amount of active battery materials. The metal provides high electrical conductivity, and even though it's porous, the structure holds enough active material to store a sufficient amount of energy. The pores allow for ions to move about unimpeded.
The first step in making the cathodes is to create a slurry of polymer spheres on the surface of a conductive substrate. Because of their shape and surface charge, the spheres self-assemble into a regular pattern. The Illinois researchers then use a common technique called electroplating to fill the space between the spheres with nickel. Next, they dissolve the polymer spheres, and most of the metal, to leave a nickel sponge that's about 90 percent open space. Finally, they grow the active material on top of the sponge.
"It's some distance to a product, but we have pretty good lab demos" with nickel-metal-hydride and lithium-ion batteries, says Braun. The Illinois group has made lithium-ion batteries that charge almost entirely in about two minutes. The method should be applicable to the cell sizes needed for laptops and electric cars, though the researchers have not made them yet.
"The performance they got is unprecedented," says Andreas Stein, a professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota. Stein pioneered the polymer-particle templating method that Braun's group used. Braun's work is described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Jeff Dahn, professor of physics at Dalhousie University, is skeptical that these electrodes will ever end up in products. "When you look at the flow chart for making this structure, it's pretty complicated, and that is going to be expensive," he says.
Braun acknowledges: "There are lots of people coming up with elegant [electrode] structures, but manufacturing them is tricky." He says, however, that his fabrication process combines existing methods that are currently widely used to make other products, if not to make batteries, and that it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt them. The process would add extra steps to making a battery, but these steps aren't particularly expensive or complex, Braun says.
Braun's group will next test the electrode structure with a wider range of battery chemistries and work on improving batteries' other half, the anode—a trickier project.
A new process could let your laptop and cell phone recharge a hundred times faster than they do now.
By Katherine Bourzac
A new way of making battery electrodes based on nanostructured metal foams has been used to make a lithium-ion battery that can be 90 percent charged in two minutes. If the method can be commercialized, it could lead to laptops that charge in a few minutes or cell phones that charge in 30 seconds.
The methods used to make the ultrafast-charging electrodes are compatible with a range of battery chemistries; the researchers have also used them to make nickel-metal-hydride batteries, the kind commonly used in hybrid and electric vehicles.
How fast a battery can charge up and then release that power is primarily limited by the movement of electrons and ions into and out of the cathode, the electrode that is negative during recharging. Researchers have been trying to use nanostructured materials to improve the process, but there's usually a trade-off between total energy storage capacity (which determines how long a battery can run before needing a recharge) and charge rates. "People solved half the problem," says Paul Braun, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Braun's group has made highly porous metal foams coated with a large amount of active battery materials. The metal provides high electrical conductivity, and even though it's porous, the structure holds enough active material to store a sufficient amount of energy. The pores allow for ions to move about unimpeded.
The first step in making the cathodes is to create a slurry of polymer spheres on the surface of a conductive substrate. Because of their shape and surface charge, the spheres self-assemble into a regular pattern. The Illinois researchers then use a common technique called electroplating to fill the space between the spheres with nickel. Next, they dissolve the polymer spheres, and most of the metal, to leave a nickel sponge that's about 90 percent open space. Finally, they grow the active material on top of the sponge.
"It's some distance to a product, but we have pretty good lab demos" with nickel-metal-hydride and lithium-ion batteries, says Braun. The Illinois group has made lithium-ion batteries that charge almost entirely in about two minutes. The method should be applicable to the cell sizes needed for laptops and electric cars, though the researchers have not made them yet.
"The performance they got is unprecedented," says Andreas Stein, a professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota. Stein pioneered the polymer-particle templating method that Braun's group used. Braun's work is described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Jeff Dahn, professor of physics at Dalhousie University, is skeptical that these electrodes will ever end up in products. "When you look at the flow chart for making this structure, it's pretty complicated, and that is going to be expensive," he says.
Braun acknowledges: "There are lots of people coming up with elegant [electrode] structures, but manufacturing them is tricky." He says, however, that his fabrication process combines existing methods that are currently widely used to make other products, if not to make batteries, and that it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt them. The process would add extra steps to making a battery, but these steps aren't particularly expensive or complex, Braun says.
Braun's group will next test the electrode structure with a wider range of battery chemistries and work on improving batteries' other half, the anode—a trickier project.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
"TAGHIYAH" (lying) VERSION OF "TRANSPARENCY" AT WHITE HOUSE
Transparency inquiry can't even get asked
Obama spokesman: 'I'm not going to take your questions'
(Alan Note: Remember the Openess Award awarded recently to Obama was finally done in private with the Press banned!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by WorldNetDaily
Jay Carney
The "transparency" in the Obama administration means sometimes a question can't even be asked.
The discovery came today at the daily White House news briefing with press secretary Jay Carney, who responded to a request to be allowed to ask about the president's positions: "I'm not going to take your questions."
Ironically, Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House and the No. 2 reporter on the White House beat, had wanted to ask about Obama's openness.
"In the Washington Post, the president of the Society of Professional Journalists wrote of the Obama administration, 'Reporters' questions often go unanswered. When replies are given they frequently are more scripted than meaningful. What is the White House response to this?" was what Kinsolving had wanted to ask.
He hoped to follow up with, "This Washington Post column also quoted AP's report that 'the Obama administration even censored 194 pages of internal emails about its open government directive.' Is the AP wrong in reporting this?"
But Carney, who had gone down the first two rows of the press gallery today allowing questions, skipped over Kinsolving when his turn arrived. And later when Kinsolving interrupted to ask to be allowed some questions, Carney refused.
It was in a commentary in the Post that the issue had been raised.
Written by Charles Ornstein, a senior reporter at ProPublica, and Hagit Limor, an investigative reporter at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati and president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the editorial cited Obama's promise for "openness.'
"We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration," he wrote in one of his first memos to federal agencies. "Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government."
But they wrote that they have found "little openness" from Obama.
"If anything, the administration has gone in the opposite direction."
They cited several examples, including a government ban on reporters seeking outside comment when the Food and Drug Administration announced changes to one of its processes. Also, they noted the Associated Press said in more than one-third of requests for public records, the administration refused to provide any information at all.
"Reporters' questions often go unanswered. When replies are given, they frequently are more scripted than meaningful. Public employees generally are required to obtain permission to share their expertise, and when interviews are allowed, a media 'handler' is listening in to keep control over what is said. And when replies come via e-mail, it's unclear who has written them," they wrote.
Read more: Transparency inquiry can't even get asked
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=288793#ixzz1JzfJFYyF
Obama spokesman: 'I'm not going to take your questions'
(Alan Note: Remember the Openess Award awarded recently to Obama was finally done in private with the Press banned!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by WorldNetDaily
Jay Carney
The "transparency" in the Obama administration means sometimes a question can't even be asked.
The discovery came today at the daily White House news briefing with press secretary Jay Carney, who responded to a request to be allowed to ask about the president's positions: "I'm not going to take your questions."
Ironically, Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House and the No. 2 reporter on the White House beat, had wanted to ask about Obama's openness.
"In the Washington Post, the president of the Society of Professional Journalists wrote of the Obama administration, 'Reporters' questions often go unanswered. When replies are given they frequently are more scripted than meaningful. What is the White House response to this?" was what Kinsolving had wanted to ask.
He hoped to follow up with, "This Washington Post column also quoted AP's report that 'the Obama administration even censored 194 pages of internal emails about its open government directive.' Is the AP wrong in reporting this?"
But Carney, who had gone down the first two rows of the press gallery today allowing questions, skipped over Kinsolving when his turn arrived. And later when Kinsolving interrupted to ask to be allowed some questions, Carney refused.
It was in a commentary in the Post that the issue had been raised.
Written by Charles Ornstein, a senior reporter at ProPublica, and Hagit Limor, an investigative reporter at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati and president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the editorial cited Obama's promise for "openness.'
"We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration," he wrote in one of his first memos to federal agencies. "Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government."
But they wrote that they have found "little openness" from Obama.
"If anything, the administration has gone in the opposite direction."
They cited several examples, including a government ban on reporters seeking outside comment when the Food and Drug Administration announced changes to one of its processes. Also, they noted the Associated Press said in more than one-third of requests for public records, the administration refused to provide any information at all.
"Reporters' questions often go unanswered. When replies are given, they frequently are more scripted than meaningful. Public employees generally are required to obtain permission to share their expertise, and when interviews are allowed, a media 'handler' is listening in to keep control over what is said. And when replies come via e-mail, it's unclear who has written them," they wrote.
Read more: Transparency inquiry can't even get asked
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=288793#ixzz1JzfJFYyF
Monday, April 18, 2011
LIVING PROOF AMERICA IS AN AGING DEMENTED NATION? ELECTED OBAMA?
There's still no foolproof way to predict who will develop dementia, but brain scientists say they have identified a new clue:
Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm.
A preliminary new study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the neurodegenerative process responsible for dementia also causes deterioration of regions of the brain responsible for detecting insincere speech.
"These patients cannot detect lies," study author Dr. Katherine Rankin, of the university's Memory and Aging Center, said in a written statement. "This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier."
It might also help them hold on to their money, researchers say, as the blind faith resulting from dementia can make older people easy marks for online scams and dishonest telemarketers.
For the study, 175 older volunteers - more than half of whom had Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), or some other neurodegenerative disease - watched videos of two people talking. At some points in the videos, one of the people would tell a lie or use sarcasm.
Healthy volunteers had little trouble spotting yerbal and non-verbal cues that indicated insincerity. Not so the volunteers with neurodegenerative disease.
And clueless may not be the only early sign of dementia, researchers say. Adopting a new political affiliation or religion late in life - changes sometimes attributed to a midlife crisis - may actually be the result of brain deterioration that might lead to dementia.
What's the study's take-away message? Older people should simply assume that everyone they talk to is lying.
Just kidding.
Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm.
A preliminary new study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the neurodegenerative process responsible for dementia also causes deterioration of regions of the brain responsible for detecting insincere speech.
"These patients cannot detect lies," study author Dr. Katherine Rankin, of the university's Memory and Aging Center, said in a written statement. "This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier."
It might also help them hold on to their money, researchers say, as the blind faith resulting from dementia can make older people easy marks for online scams and dishonest telemarketers.
For the study, 175 older volunteers - more than half of whom had Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), or some other neurodegenerative disease - watched videos of two people talking. At some points in the videos, one of the people would tell a lie or use sarcasm.
Healthy volunteers had little trouble spotting yerbal and non-verbal cues that indicated insincerity. Not so the volunteers with neurodegenerative disease.
And clueless may not be the only early sign of dementia, researchers say. Adopting a new political affiliation or religion late in life - changes sometimes attributed to a midlife crisis - may actually be the result of brain deterioration that might lead to dementia.
What's the study's take-away message? Older people should simply assume that everyone they talk to is lying.
Just kidding.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
SYRIA CRUSHING REVOLT BUT CRUMBLING - DESPITE OBAMA PROTECTION
Alan Note: with a marked steadiness, Obama is supporting the Islamic Mullah regime in Iran - against the oppressed populace, who have died in multiple thousands during and since 2009 demonstrations in the streets but because of the regime's support of the Obama Administration financially and with manpower, it has been given "immunity' from any of the actions he used to destabilize several other countries in the last few months. Syria still has some of the same immunity, partly because they are an Iranian partner in terror .
Also, Iran (despite being Shia instead of the larger Sunni sect) is already a ruthless Moslem regime and from Obama's point of view, does not need to be destabilized to allow radical Islam - through the Moslem Brotherhood or Al Qaeda - to take over the otherwise American allied governments he threw under the bus. To facilitate the coming Caliphate, which will be hard to avoid with Obama in charge.
Remember, Islamic Iran has been at the top of the State Department list of Terrorism enabling nations since the list came into being.
Syrian revolt spreads to ruling Alawite tribes. Cities sealed. Executions in army
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 13, 2011
Clashes in southern Syrian city of Daraa.The popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad is still spreading.
Tuesday, April 12, one of the Assad family's own Alawite tribes and the key Sunni city of Aleppo joined the movement demanding the president and his kin's removal. Assad fought back against the expanding threat to his survival by mobilizing all his military and security resources, including the loyal young thugs of the shabbiha gangs. They have orders to shoot to kill and not permit ambulances to collect the wounded. Tanks seal the most restive towns of Teraa, Bania,s Latakia and Hama.
Alawite unrest centers on the impoverished Knaan tribe centered in the village of Bhamra in the mountains of northern Syria. A second immediate danger to the regime comes from Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, where for the first time more than 10,000 protesters marched. The Druze mountain inhabitants are up in arms. So too are the Kurdish towns of the north such as Kamishli and the Shammar tribes of southeastern Syria around the border town of Abu Kamal.
Damascus University has been under siege for four days, although security forces have not been able to breach it.
A grave humanitarian crisis is spreading with the unrest. Army outposts and roadblocks have cut off main roads linking the north to southern and central Syria, as well as telephone and internet services and even food deliveries in many places. Mass arrests of thousands take place nightly including, according to debkafile's sources, members of the Syrian ruling establishment for the crime of appealing to Assad to abandon his violent methods of repression and meet some of the protesters demands for reforms. Some are journalists who support the regime but who wrote articles to this effect. They were not published.
For the first time, sources report that the protesters began returning the fire against security forces on Monday, April 11, in a number of places, especially Deraa in the south and Banias in the north. A well-laid ambush was laid on the main coastal road linking Latakia and Banias and nine Syrian officers and troops killed.
Middle East and intelligence sources report a three-way shooting war currently in progress in Syria, in which the army and security forces, the protesters, and the shabbiha gangs are taking part. The and bloody mayhem is such that the number of casualties is almost impossible to assess.
The troops open fire at protesters as soon as a few people gather in the street without waiting for a demonstration to form. The wounded are denied medical care and allowed to die in the streets as a deterrent to protesters. Tuesday night, the White House finally issued a harsh denunciation of the Syrian "government."
The statement read: "We are deeply concerned by reports that Syrians who have been wounded by their government are being denied access to medical care. The escalating repression by the Syrian government is outrageous, and the United States strongly condemns the continued efforts to suppress peaceful protesters. President Assad and the Syrian government must respect the universal rights of the Syrian people, who are rightly demanding the basic freedoms that they have been denied."
Sources in Washington say that the language used in this statement from the Obama administration continues to skirt the protesters' most pressing demand for the Syrian president to step down, because of the still unresolved internal debate on how to handle Assad.
Despite the mounting brutality of the Syrian ruler's methods to crush the revolt against his regime, some White House circles in Washington are warning that Assad's fall would open the door for radical Muslim elements to take over, even suggesting that this would put Israel in "mortal danger."
(Alan note: MORE so than in Libya, Egypt or Tunisia? The State Dept. is finally anxiously warning of Libya and other unrests/uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa resulting in a situation similar the 1979 overthrow of the late-Shah by Ayatollah Khomeini with the steady support of Jimmy Carter, the Soviet Union and the MEK Mojaheddin).
This argument was never heard in Washington when Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt.
And it by no means relates to the Assad regime's eight-year long record as primary accomplice and abettor of radical Muslim organizations such as Al Qaeda, the Lebanese (Iranian enabled, funded and armed) Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas.
Starting from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Damascus gave sanctuary and launching-pads for Muslim groups to strike American forces fighting in Iraq, including training camps and logistical aid for smuggling weapons and explosives for that purpose. Syria also facilitates the passage of arms and other support to the Hizballah radicals. And built a nuclear site which was bombed by Israel. A second, North Korean technnology site has since been discovered.
The extreme measures to which Assad has resorted as the revolt against him enters its fourth week have led to firefights within the army. Many cases are now reported of Syrian officers opening fire on other Syrian officers, killing them when they refuse to shoot protesters.
There have been incidents of Shabbiha gangs shooting two ways – on demonstrators and at times on army forces. In one such incident in Ras al-Naba'a, a quarter of Banias – the irregulars appeared to be goading the soldiers into using more force to disperse the protesters. In others, these pro-Assad street gangs appear to be shooting from demonstrations to make it look as though the protesters were killing the soldiers.
Contrary to the image the Assads have always presented that "the Alawites (minority) are the ruling class in Syria," it is worth pointing out that they in fact rule Damascus, while the rest of those minority tribes, which number 1.4 million (8 percent of the 26 million population) live in abject poverty with no electricity or running water in their villages and no ties to the Assads.
The paradox is that though lacking influence in the capital, their revolt against the regime could be the last straw for Asad.
These villages are now rising up for fear of being stigmatized, however unjustly, by the Sunni majority of collaboration with the Assads and targeted for revenge. In any case, they are so penurious and neglected that they have little to lose by the regime's fall.
The Shabbiha: This well-armed, roughly organized group derives most of its 9-11,000 members from Assad clans within the Alawite community and its allies. Their fighting skills were imparted by the Lebanese Hizballah or Iranian Revolutionary Guards instructors, but their loyalty to the Assad family is undivided. As smugglers, their strongholds are mostly along the coastal region, some of whose communities rely on the Shabbiha for their livelihood.
(Alan note: Syria is also part of the corridor of arms, missiles and potentially nuclear technology being sent by Iran into Venezuela and into South America).
Emphasis by AntiMullah
SITUATION UPDATE FROM WORLD TRIBUNE - IRAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARD (IRGC) OCCUPIES SYRIA
WASHINGTON — Iran has deployed 10,000 elite troops in Syria to protect the regime of President Bashar Assad and has been in effective control of the country for the past week, the opposition said.
U.S. intelligence sources said the IRGC is known to have maintained its presence in Syria since 2008.
The Reform Party of Syria (RPS) said Iran has deployed its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria to bolster Syria's defense. The Washington-based opposition group said the IRGC contingent in Syria includes 10,000 troops, with headquarters in the northern province of Homs.
"In essence, the IRGC now occupies Syria and has become its de facto ruler," RPS spokesman Farid Ghadry said. "Syria has become the 32nd province of Iran."
On April 10, at least five people were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters throughout Syria. All except one of the victims were identified as civilians.
RPS, regarded as authoritative, said IRGC was playing a leading role in regime security as well as Syrian defense, Middle East Newsline reported. The opposition said IRGC personnel included experts in missiles, nuclear development, security and training.
At first, IRGC monitored the anti-Assad protests. But since April 4, RPS said, IRGC has been directing all security operations through its command and control center in Homs, including monitoring the Assad family.
"All of Assad's high echelon security generals now report directly to the IRGC as of April 4, 2011," RPS said. "All the generals in Assad's army and security apparatuses, with emphasis on the Alawite generals, including Maher Assad, are being closely monitored by the IRGC for fear of a military coup."
Maher, Assad's younger brother, was said to be playing a leading role in quelling the uprising in Syria. RPS said IRGC, in an operation by Hisham Bikhtiar, was monitoring telephones and tracking the vehicles of senior government officials.
IRGC was said to have played a key role in security operations in the southern city of Dera. IRGC said senior officers directed Syrian security forces to employ live fire in which nearly 30 civilians were killed in Dera on April 8-9.
"It targeted the city of Dera because the IRGC deemed that breaking the people's will in Dera will demoralize the other cities," RPS said on April 9.
Also, Iran (despite being Shia instead of the larger Sunni sect) is already a ruthless Moslem regime and from Obama's point of view, does not need to be destabilized to allow radical Islam - through the Moslem Brotherhood or Al Qaeda - to take over the otherwise American allied governments he threw under the bus. To facilitate the coming Caliphate, which will be hard to avoid with Obama in charge.
Remember, Islamic Iran has been at the top of the State Department list of Terrorism enabling nations since the list came into being.
==================
Syrian revolt spreads to ruling Alawite tribes. Cities sealed. Executions in army
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 13, 2011
Clashes in southern Syrian city of Daraa.The popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad is still spreading.
Tuesday, April 12, one of the Assad family's own Alawite tribes and the key Sunni city of Aleppo joined the movement demanding the president and his kin's removal. Assad fought back against the expanding threat to his survival by mobilizing all his military and security resources, including the loyal young thugs of the shabbiha gangs. They have orders to shoot to kill and not permit ambulances to collect the wounded. Tanks seal the most restive towns of Teraa, Bania,s Latakia and Hama.
Alawite unrest centers on the impoverished Knaan tribe centered in the village of Bhamra in the mountains of northern Syria. A second immediate danger to the regime comes from Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, where for the first time more than 10,000 protesters marched. The Druze mountain inhabitants are up in arms. So too are the Kurdish towns of the north such as Kamishli and the Shammar tribes of southeastern Syria around the border town of Abu Kamal.
Damascus University has been under siege for four days, although security forces have not been able to breach it.
A grave humanitarian crisis is spreading with the unrest. Army outposts and roadblocks have cut off main roads linking the north to southern and central Syria, as well as telephone and internet services and even food deliveries in many places. Mass arrests of thousands take place nightly including, according to debkafile's sources, members of the Syrian ruling establishment for the crime of appealing to Assad to abandon his violent methods of repression and meet some of the protesters demands for reforms. Some are journalists who support the regime but who wrote articles to this effect. They were not published.
For the first time, sources report that the protesters began returning the fire against security forces on Monday, April 11, in a number of places, especially Deraa in the south and Banias in the north. A well-laid ambush was laid on the main coastal road linking Latakia and Banias and nine Syrian officers and troops killed.
Middle East and intelligence sources report a three-way shooting war currently in progress in Syria, in which the army and security forces, the protesters, and the shabbiha gangs are taking part. The and bloody mayhem is such that the number of casualties is almost impossible to assess.
The troops open fire at protesters as soon as a few people gather in the street without waiting for a demonstration to form. The wounded are denied medical care and allowed to die in the streets as a deterrent to protesters. Tuesday night, the White House finally issued a harsh denunciation of the Syrian "government."
The statement read: "We are deeply concerned by reports that Syrians who have been wounded by their government are being denied access to medical care. The escalating repression by the Syrian government is outrageous, and the United States strongly condemns the continued efforts to suppress peaceful protesters. President Assad and the Syrian government must respect the universal rights of the Syrian people, who are rightly demanding the basic freedoms that they have been denied."
Sources in Washington say that the language used in this statement from the Obama administration continues to skirt the protesters' most pressing demand for the Syrian president to step down, because of the still unresolved internal debate on how to handle Assad.
Despite the mounting brutality of the Syrian ruler's methods to crush the revolt against his regime, some White House circles in Washington are warning that Assad's fall would open the door for radical Muslim elements to take over, even suggesting that this would put Israel in "mortal danger."
(Alan note: MORE so than in Libya, Egypt or Tunisia? The State Dept. is finally anxiously warning of Libya and other unrests/uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa resulting in a situation similar the 1979 overthrow of the late-Shah by Ayatollah Khomeini with the steady support of Jimmy Carter, the Soviet Union and the MEK Mojaheddin).
This argument was never heard in Washington when Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt.
And it by no means relates to the Assad regime's eight-year long record as primary accomplice and abettor of radical Muslim organizations such as Al Qaeda, the Lebanese (Iranian enabled, funded and armed) Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas.
Starting from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Damascus gave sanctuary and launching-pads for Muslim groups to strike American forces fighting in Iraq, including training camps and logistical aid for smuggling weapons and explosives for that purpose. Syria also facilitates the passage of arms and other support to the Hizballah radicals. And built a nuclear site which was bombed by Israel. A second, North Korean technnology site has since been discovered.
The extreme measures to which Assad has resorted as the revolt against him enters its fourth week have led to firefights within the army. Many cases are now reported of Syrian officers opening fire on other Syrian officers, killing them when they refuse to shoot protesters.
There have been incidents of Shabbiha gangs shooting two ways – on demonstrators and at times on army forces. In one such incident in Ras al-Naba'a, a quarter of Banias – the irregulars appeared to be goading the soldiers into using more force to disperse the protesters. In others, these pro-Assad street gangs appear to be shooting from demonstrations to make it look as though the protesters were killing the soldiers.
Contrary to the image the Assads have always presented that "the Alawites (minority) are the ruling class in Syria," it is worth pointing out that they in fact rule Damascus, while the rest of those minority tribes, which number 1.4 million (8 percent of the 26 million population) live in abject poverty with no electricity or running water in their villages and no ties to the Assads.
The paradox is that though lacking influence in the capital, their revolt against the regime could be the last straw for Asad.
These villages are now rising up for fear of being stigmatized, however unjustly, by the Sunni majority of collaboration with the Assads and targeted for revenge. In any case, they are so penurious and neglected that they have little to lose by the regime's fall.
The Shabbiha: This well-armed, roughly organized group derives most of its 9-11,000 members from Assad clans within the Alawite community and its allies. Their fighting skills were imparted by the Lebanese Hizballah or Iranian Revolutionary Guards instructors, but their loyalty to the Assad family is undivided. As smugglers, their strongholds are mostly along the coastal region, some of whose communities rely on the Shabbiha for their livelihood.
(Alan note: Syria is also part of the corridor of arms, missiles and potentially nuclear technology being sent by Iran into Venezuela and into South America).
Emphasis by AntiMullah
SITUATION UPDATE FROM WORLD TRIBUNE - IRAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARD (IRGC) OCCUPIES SYRIA
WASHINGTON — Iran has deployed 10,000 elite troops in Syria to protect the regime of President Bashar Assad and has been in effective control of the country for the past week, the opposition said.
U.S. intelligence sources said the IRGC is known to have maintained its presence in Syria since 2008.
The Reform Party of Syria (RPS) said Iran has deployed its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria to bolster Syria's defense. The Washington-based opposition group said the IRGC contingent in Syria includes 10,000 troops, with headquarters in the northern province of Homs.
"In essence, the IRGC now occupies Syria and has become its de facto ruler," RPS spokesman Farid Ghadry said. "Syria has become the 32nd province of Iran."
On April 10, at least five people were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters throughout Syria. All except one of the victims were identified as civilians.
RPS, regarded as authoritative, said IRGC was playing a leading role in regime security as well as Syrian defense, Middle East Newsline reported. The opposition said IRGC personnel included experts in missiles, nuclear development, security and training.
At first, IRGC monitored the anti-Assad protests. But since April 4, RPS said, IRGC has been directing all security operations through its command and control center in Homs, including monitoring the Assad family.
"All of Assad's high echelon security generals now report directly to the IRGC as of April 4, 2011," RPS said. "All the generals in Assad's army and security apparatuses, with emphasis on the Alawite generals, including Maher Assad, are being closely monitored by the IRGC for fear of a military coup."
Maher, Assad's younger brother, was said to be playing a leading role in quelling the uprising in Syria. RPS said IRGC, in an operation by Hisham Bikhtiar, was monitoring telephones and tracking the vehicles of senior government officials.
IRGC was said to have played a key role in security operations in the southern city of Dera. IRGC said senior officers directed Syrian security forces to employ live fire in which nearly 30 civilians were killed in Dera on April 8-9.
"It targeted the city of Dera because the IRGC deemed that breaking the people's will in Dera will demoralize the other cities," RPS said on April 9.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
IRAN: FROM ESCATOLOGY TO 21ST CENTURY FOREIGN POLICY
Escatology = religious interest in the final history of the world - or "end times"
by Clare Lopez
http://lopez.pundicity.com/9357/iran-eschatology-foreign-policy
The United States faces no greater foreign policy challenge than managing the threat from the jihadist regime in Tehran while also standing unequivocally with the Iranian people in their struggle for liberty. Indeed, a succession of U.S. administrations has been wrestling with that challenge for over 31 years. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not easily compared to other nations or even other totalitarian dictatorships: after Arabia, Iran is the second state in the modern era to be captured by violence and ruled by the forces of Islamic jihad. The threat to U.S. national security and international stability derives from the primary mission of this regime, enshrined in its 1989 constitution: the establishment of an Islamic state worldwide and subjugation of all people on earth to Sharia, or Islamic law.
When Iran's constitutional mandate is coupled with a theological belief system that holds the Shi'ite messianic figure, the Twelfth Imam (or Mahdi), can be prompted to return to earth through the instigation of Armageddon, then 21st century U.S. foreign policy must reckon with 7th century eschatology in quest of the bomb. Whether or not the Supreme Leader and the clerical clique that supports him seek "martyrdom" on a national scale, Iran's aggressive militarization and international power projection via its terror proxies present U.S. foreign policymakers with a set of challenges that must top the list in terms of immediacy and import.
Nuclear Weapons Ambitions
The Ayatollah Khomeini founded the Iranian revolution in 1979 on a deep-seated hostility to modernization and secularization in an increasingly Westernized world. But it was his near-disastrous military face-off with neighboring Iraq that prompted the order to acquire nuclear weapons. Pursued in secrecy for years before the Iranian opposition's August 2002 revelations stunned the world, Iran's quest for the bomb was jump-started by substantial assistance from Pakistan's AQ Khan in addition to help from China, North Korea, and Russia. After years of defying UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands that Iran honor the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and come clean about the entirety and purpose of its nuclear program, today Iran appears closer than ever to achieving a deliverable warhead capability. The threat of Iranian weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation, perhaps to terrorist associates such as al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, represents an additional concern while other regional nuclear programs may well emerge under regimes that fear Iranian hegemony and perceive a diminution of the U.S. leadership role in the world.
Nuclear weapons enable this regime's key objectives: regime survival as an Islamic jihadist state; regional hegemony in the Middle East and maximization of broader geo-strategic influence; destruction of the State of Israel; and global domination of Islam and Sharia law. Grasping the primacy of these goals, it becomes easier to understand why years of U.S., European, and international negotiations with this regime have come to naught in achieving a voluntary slowing or halt to Iran's nuclear enrichment activities. Neither have stringent economic sanctions accomplished much beyond imposing additional hardships on the Iranian people. Only a covert campaign aimed at Iranian nuclear scientists, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and intelligence agency defections, and the introduction of sabotaged components into the Iranian nuclear supply chain, reportedly have achieved some involuntary setbacks to the program.
Despite such successes that at best will buy some time, continued U.S. failure to comprehend the eschatological and existential nature of Iran's nuclear weapons quest leaves it ill-prepared to meet this regime's hostile intent. Only credible threats to the existence of that regime are likely to have any effect on its determination to carry on. And only regime change in favor of a democratic opposition pledged to eschew WMD of all kinds can eliminate for good the possibility of nukes in the hands of the mullahs.
Alliances in the Axis of Terror
Iran's chummy relations with regimes hostile to U.S. and Western interests add complexity to dealings with Tehran. Iranian dependence on proliferation assistance for its chemical, biological, nuclear weapons, and missile programs from countries like China, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia has been problematic for many years. The ineffective international inspection and enforcement mechanisms that allowed nuclear proliferation to culminate in a nuclear weapons capability for Pakistan looks likely to end the same way for Iran. U.S., UN, and other efforts to impose sanctions, pass resolutions, and issue toothless condemnations are mostly disregarded with contempt by the Tehran regime.
Tehran's closest ally and partner in WMD development and sponsorship of terror is Syria. Iran is the dominant partner in the relationship, but both gain from an alliance that meets strategic needs of each. Iran receives logistical access to its terror proxy, Hezbollah, penetration for its revolution deep into the Arab world, and a frontline position from which to confront Israel. Syria receives a powerful ally that helps it dominate Lebanon (historically considered a Syrian province) and relieves Syria's isolation as a secular dynasty ruled by the Alawite minority Muslim sect, considered heretical by many Muslims. Given these mutual benefits, U.S. and Israeli fantasies about separating Syria from its Iranian orbit must be seen as the pipedreams they are.
The Iranian ballistic missile program owes much to its North Korean partnership. Tehran and Pyongyang often act as a tag team to demand or distract international attention, but their antics cannot minimize the underlying deadly intent to perfect a nuclear delivery system. Although the Iranians are not known to have achieved yet the difficult task of miniaturizing its warheads to fit ballistic missile nosecones, joint development of this technology with North Korea clearly appears headed in that direction. The threat from Iran's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) eventually will reach the U.S. homeland unless steps are taken to forestall that possibility.
Closer to home, the Iranian beachhead in Venezuela raises echoes of the 1960s Cuban missile crisis for strategists observing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's romance with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since 2001, the two have signed dozens of defense, economic, and political agreements to cement a relationship that provides Iran with intelligence and military outposts in America's backyard. Chavez assists Iran on myriad fronts, from evading UN sanctions to mining for uranium; Ahmadinejad reciprocates with an influx of military and intelligence operatives who train Venezuelan forces at covert Iranian facilities around the country. The relationship involves Hezbollah as well, as 2010 photos of Venezuelan officials meeting with Hezbollah officials in Lebanon demonstrate. Iran also has been courting other Latin countries, including Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.
Military Influence
Tehran's aggressive drive for expanded geo-strategic influence in the Persian Gulf, broader Middle East, and southwest Asia, harnessed to its determination to seize leadership of the international jihad, alarms neighboring Sunni regimes that also fear erosion of the traditional American defense commitment. Iran's IRGC, Qods Force, Bassij, and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) are Tehran's lead organizations for domestic control at home and jihadist terror projection abroad. Each of these demands attention by U.S. policymakers to understand its mission and capabilities, and to formulate effective countermeasures that check Iran's international agenda.
The IRGC was established by Khomeini in the early months of the 1979 revolution to augment the regular army's defense of Iran's borders and ensure the obliteration of Khomeini's domestic rivals. Later, its primary function became keeping the regime in power, especially after the widespread street demonstrations that followed the June 2009 presidential elections. Afterward, regime fears about survivability led to large infusions of resources to the IRGC to boost its ability to suppress internal regime opposition.
The Qods Force's stature and capabilities also have expanded in recent years. The operational terror arm of the Iranian regime, the Qods Force is responsible for liaison with Iran's terror affiliates, including al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban. Both the IRGC and Qods Force (in addition to the MOIS) maintain an undercover presence in Iranian diplomatic facilities worldwide, from which joint al-Qaeda-Hezbollah-Iran operations are launched. Together, they project Iran's writ in Lebanon, which the UN Special Tribunal on Lebanon looks unlikely to weaken, even with indictments expected to name Qods Force commander, Qassem Suleimani, for his role in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. IRGC and Qods Force operatives run training camps where Hezbollah explosives experts pass on their deadly skills; they also provide funding, training, and weapons to terrorist militias in Iraq and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
The Qods Force handles Iranian relations with organized crime and narco-traffickers, including Afghan drug lords. Investigative reporting from Africa and the Americas indicates an expanding presence of these terrorist elements in these areas as well.
Meanwhile, in the MOIS (Ministry of Intelligence and Security - VEVAK in Persian) , the Iranian regime fields a world-class, well-funded intelligence service that is directly commanded by the Iranian Supreme Leader. Numbering some 30,000 personnel, the MOIS is highly sophisticated as well as brutal and ruthless. Its number one mission is to defend the regime against all threats, domestic or foreign.
Together with the IRGC and Qods Force, the MOIS shares responsibility for infiltration and suppression of regime opposition by any and all means and liaison with terror organizations worldwide. U.S. national security leadership should not have too much trouble recognizing its tactics and tradecraft, as the MOIS was trained by the Soviet KGB.
The MOIS has developed an extensive network of individuals, groups, think tanks, and others that the Iranian media have openly referred to as "the Iran Lobby in America." The principal objective of this lobby is to infiltrate top U.S.-Iran policymakers and persuade them to take a conciliatory approach to the Iranian regime, oppose coercive diplomacy, stringent sanctions, and any sort of military action, and to urge instead a policy of concessions and negotiations. It is concerning that some of the individuals affiliated with the "Iran Lobby" should have found their way into influential government posts as well as positions of trust from which to advise and brief U.S. Iran policymakers.
Indeed, U.S. civilian, intelligence, policy, and military leadership have yet to either comprehend or counter the deadly activities of these regime actors.
A Terrorist Regime's Terror Ties
There is no clearer evidence of the Iranian regime's commitment to jihadist violence than the words of its own constitution, calling for the "continuation of that revolution both inside and outside the country." Regime preference to accomplish that relies on terrorist proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah as well as operational alliances with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other jihadist groups.
Thanks to Iranian funding and training, Hezbollah in 2011 stands on the brink of dominating Lebanon both militarily and politically. Its effective overthrow of the Lebanese government in January 2011, coupled with assumptions of impunity for its role in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, places the sovereignty of a free Lebanon in jeopardy and poses an important test for U.S. policymakers. Iran both aids and uses Hezbollah's rise to power in Lebanon as part of its own overall strategy to position itself as a rising regional power and rival to U.S. predominance.
U.S. leaders face a crucial choice: support the brave Lebanese who fought and died for the Cedar Revolution or see Tehran take a front-line position against the State of Israel—which it threatens regularly with genocide—as well as a foothold on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
Hezbollah not only has developed into one of the most tightly disciplined, superbly trained, and fanatically dedicated fighting forces in the world, but it also has grown into a global terrorist network with a presence in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. That presence directly threatens U.S. national security imperatives, not least because of Hezbollah's history of acting as the Iranian regime's cat's paw for a litany of bloody terror attacks, but also because of its expanding relationships with Mexican and South American drug cartels.
Iran also provides significant material support to Hamas, its Muslim Brotherhood terror proxy in Gaza. That support includes financial infusions, terror training conducted by the IRGC/Qods Force and Hezbollah, and the provision of thousands of rockets and missiles that Hamas launches across the border into Israel. Dismissive of any genuine attempts at nation-building, Hamas under Iranian tutelage instead implements Islamic law and assails Gazan Palestinians with an incessant barrage of media messages conveying Jew-hatred and glorification of suicide killings.
Effective defense of U.S. national security priorities in the Middle East as well as the homeland requires understanding that the Iranian regime has worked for years in close coordination not only with Hezbollah and Hamas, but also with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Qaeda to mount terrorist operations against U.S., Israeli, and Western interests around the world. This jihadist alliance began when Osama bin Laden contracted with Iran for explosives and other training from Hezbollah's global terror chieftain, Imad Mughniyah, in the early 1990s. Iran later hired out Hezbollah to Hamas, the Iraqi terror militias, and the Taliban.
Major terror attacks from the Khobar Towers bombing to the East Africa Embassy bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, September 11, and attacks against U.S. and Coalition partners in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, are the result of this tri-partite arrangement.
Iran and these jihadist organizations are unified in their enmity to the U.S., Israel, and all Western-style civilization. U.S. policymakers must prioritize the urgency of studying their motivation to wage doctrinally-commanded jihad against non-Muslim targets for the purpose of imposing Sharia worldwide. Unequivocal denunciation of Iranian-sponsored terrorism and refusal to legitimize terrorist policies even when supported by a radicalized electorate must be the cornerstones of American leadership.
Tehran's 21st Century Threat
The history of the Khomeinist regime in Iran has been written in blood: first and foremost, the blood of its own people, but also in every place the regime's emissaries—the IRGC, Qods Force, MOIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others—have extended their reach. The U.S. holds a leadership role in the free world; people everywhere yearning for liberty look to the U.S. for moral inspiration and a superpower's protection against tyranny. Tehran's naked ambition for geo-strategic hegemony, inexorable march to a nuclear weapons capability, embrace of terror as a policy tool, and horrific record of human rights abuses at home define a regime that is deeply and inherently destabilizing to the international system.
U.S. policy decisions about how to deal with this Iranian regime will be among the most crucial American leadership must make in the coming months. Underestimating the hostile intent of Iran's agenda or failing to recognize the compelling strength of the Islamic jihadist ideology that binds them and their terror allies together in enmity to free societies under rule of man-made law will lead to increasing global destabilization. U.S. leadership must grapple with the reality that this Iranian regime is a serious adversary that poses a grave threat to the democratic way of life everywhere.
Absent a strong, credible U.S. response, Tehran will interpret American resolve as lacking and react accordingly—advancing its hegemony over neighbors, threatening Israel, and holding U.S. policy hostage to terror and nuclear blackmail. Should Washington falter before this challenge, not only would it fail the American and Iranian people alike, but it would betray the United States' essential commitment to defend liberty wherever it is threatened by tyranny.
by Clare Lopez
http://lopez.pundicity.com/9357/iran-eschatology-foreign-policy
The United States faces no greater foreign policy challenge than managing the threat from the jihadist regime in Tehran while also standing unequivocally with the Iranian people in their struggle for liberty. Indeed, a succession of U.S. administrations has been wrestling with that challenge for over 31 years. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not easily compared to other nations or even other totalitarian dictatorships: after Arabia, Iran is the second state in the modern era to be captured by violence and ruled by the forces of Islamic jihad. The threat to U.S. national security and international stability derives from the primary mission of this regime, enshrined in its 1989 constitution: the establishment of an Islamic state worldwide and subjugation of all people on earth to Sharia, or Islamic law.
When Iran's constitutional mandate is coupled with a theological belief system that holds the Shi'ite messianic figure, the Twelfth Imam (or Mahdi), can be prompted to return to earth through the instigation of Armageddon, then 21st century U.S. foreign policy must reckon with 7th century eschatology in quest of the bomb. Whether or not the Supreme Leader and the clerical clique that supports him seek "martyrdom" on a national scale, Iran's aggressive militarization and international power projection via its terror proxies present U.S. foreign policymakers with a set of challenges that must top the list in terms of immediacy and import.
Nuclear Weapons Ambitions
The Ayatollah Khomeini founded the Iranian revolution in 1979 on a deep-seated hostility to modernization and secularization in an increasingly Westernized world. But it was his near-disastrous military face-off with neighboring Iraq that prompted the order to acquire nuclear weapons. Pursued in secrecy for years before the Iranian opposition's August 2002 revelations stunned the world, Iran's quest for the bomb was jump-started by substantial assistance from Pakistan's AQ Khan in addition to help from China, North Korea, and Russia. After years of defying UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands that Iran honor the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and come clean about the entirety and purpose of its nuclear program, today Iran appears closer than ever to achieving a deliverable warhead capability. The threat of Iranian weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation, perhaps to terrorist associates such as al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, represents an additional concern while other regional nuclear programs may well emerge under regimes that fear Iranian hegemony and perceive a diminution of the U.S. leadership role in the world.
Nuclear weapons enable this regime's key objectives: regime survival as an Islamic jihadist state; regional hegemony in the Middle East and maximization of broader geo-strategic influence; destruction of the State of Israel; and global domination of Islam and Sharia law. Grasping the primacy of these goals, it becomes easier to understand why years of U.S., European, and international negotiations with this regime have come to naught in achieving a voluntary slowing or halt to Iran's nuclear enrichment activities. Neither have stringent economic sanctions accomplished much beyond imposing additional hardships on the Iranian people. Only a covert campaign aimed at Iranian nuclear scientists, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and intelligence agency defections, and the introduction of sabotaged components into the Iranian nuclear supply chain, reportedly have achieved some involuntary setbacks to the program.
Despite such successes that at best will buy some time, continued U.S. failure to comprehend the eschatological and existential nature of Iran's nuclear weapons quest leaves it ill-prepared to meet this regime's hostile intent. Only credible threats to the existence of that regime are likely to have any effect on its determination to carry on. And only regime change in favor of a democratic opposition pledged to eschew WMD of all kinds can eliminate for good the possibility of nukes in the hands of the mullahs.
Alliances in the Axis of Terror
Iran's chummy relations with regimes hostile to U.S. and Western interests add complexity to dealings with Tehran. Iranian dependence on proliferation assistance for its chemical, biological, nuclear weapons, and missile programs from countries like China, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia has been problematic for many years. The ineffective international inspection and enforcement mechanisms that allowed nuclear proliferation to culminate in a nuclear weapons capability for Pakistan looks likely to end the same way for Iran. U.S., UN, and other efforts to impose sanctions, pass resolutions, and issue toothless condemnations are mostly disregarded with contempt by the Tehran regime.
Tehran's closest ally and partner in WMD development and sponsorship of terror is Syria. Iran is the dominant partner in the relationship, but both gain from an alliance that meets strategic needs of each. Iran receives logistical access to its terror proxy, Hezbollah, penetration for its revolution deep into the Arab world, and a frontline position from which to confront Israel. Syria receives a powerful ally that helps it dominate Lebanon (historically considered a Syrian province) and relieves Syria's isolation as a secular dynasty ruled by the Alawite minority Muslim sect, considered heretical by many Muslims. Given these mutual benefits, U.S. and Israeli fantasies about separating Syria from its Iranian orbit must be seen as the pipedreams they are.
The Iranian ballistic missile program owes much to its North Korean partnership. Tehran and Pyongyang often act as a tag team to demand or distract international attention, but their antics cannot minimize the underlying deadly intent to perfect a nuclear delivery system. Although the Iranians are not known to have achieved yet the difficult task of miniaturizing its warheads to fit ballistic missile nosecones, joint development of this technology with North Korea clearly appears headed in that direction. The threat from Iran's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) eventually will reach the U.S. homeland unless steps are taken to forestall that possibility.
Closer to home, the Iranian beachhead in Venezuela raises echoes of the 1960s Cuban missile crisis for strategists observing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's romance with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since 2001, the two have signed dozens of defense, economic, and political agreements to cement a relationship that provides Iran with intelligence and military outposts in America's backyard. Chavez assists Iran on myriad fronts, from evading UN sanctions to mining for uranium; Ahmadinejad reciprocates with an influx of military and intelligence operatives who train Venezuelan forces at covert Iranian facilities around the country. The relationship involves Hezbollah as well, as 2010 photos of Venezuelan officials meeting with Hezbollah officials in Lebanon demonstrate. Iran also has been courting other Latin countries, including Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.
Military Influence
Tehran's aggressive drive for expanded geo-strategic influence in the Persian Gulf, broader Middle East, and southwest Asia, harnessed to its determination to seize leadership of the international jihad, alarms neighboring Sunni regimes that also fear erosion of the traditional American defense commitment. Iran's IRGC, Qods Force, Bassij, and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) are Tehran's lead organizations for domestic control at home and jihadist terror projection abroad. Each of these demands attention by U.S. policymakers to understand its mission and capabilities, and to formulate effective countermeasures that check Iran's international agenda.
The IRGC was established by Khomeini in the early months of the 1979 revolution to augment the regular army's defense of Iran's borders and ensure the obliteration of Khomeini's domestic rivals. Later, its primary function became keeping the regime in power, especially after the widespread street demonstrations that followed the June 2009 presidential elections. Afterward, regime fears about survivability led to large infusions of resources to the IRGC to boost its ability to suppress internal regime opposition.
The Qods Force's stature and capabilities also have expanded in recent years. The operational terror arm of the Iranian regime, the Qods Force is responsible for liaison with Iran's terror affiliates, including al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban. Both the IRGC and Qods Force (in addition to the MOIS) maintain an undercover presence in Iranian diplomatic facilities worldwide, from which joint al-Qaeda-Hezbollah-Iran operations are launched. Together, they project Iran's writ in Lebanon, which the UN Special Tribunal on Lebanon looks unlikely to weaken, even with indictments expected to name Qods Force commander, Qassem Suleimani, for his role in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. IRGC and Qods Force operatives run training camps where Hezbollah explosives experts pass on their deadly skills; they also provide funding, training, and weapons to terrorist militias in Iraq and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
The Qods Force handles Iranian relations with organized crime and narco-traffickers, including Afghan drug lords. Investigative reporting from Africa and the Americas indicates an expanding presence of these terrorist elements in these areas as well.
Meanwhile, in the MOIS (Ministry of Intelligence and Security - VEVAK in Persian) , the Iranian regime fields a world-class, well-funded intelligence service that is directly commanded by the Iranian Supreme Leader. Numbering some 30,000 personnel, the MOIS is highly sophisticated as well as brutal and ruthless. Its number one mission is to defend the regime against all threats, domestic or foreign.
Together with the IRGC and Qods Force, the MOIS shares responsibility for infiltration and suppression of regime opposition by any and all means and liaison with terror organizations worldwide. U.S. national security leadership should not have too much trouble recognizing its tactics and tradecraft, as the MOIS was trained by the Soviet KGB.
The MOIS has developed an extensive network of individuals, groups, think tanks, and others that the Iranian media have openly referred to as "the Iran Lobby in America." The principal objective of this lobby is to infiltrate top U.S.-Iran policymakers and persuade them to take a conciliatory approach to the Iranian regime, oppose coercive diplomacy, stringent sanctions, and any sort of military action, and to urge instead a policy of concessions and negotiations. It is concerning that some of the individuals affiliated with the "Iran Lobby" should have found their way into influential government posts as well as positions of trust from which to advise and brief U.S. Iran policymakers.
Indeed, U.S. civilian, intelligence, policy, and military leadership have yet to either comprehend or counter the deadly activities of these regime actors.
A Terrorist Regime's Terror Ties
There is no clearer evidence of the Iranian regime's commitment to jihadist violence than the words of its own constitution, calling for the "continuation of that revolution both inside and outside the country." Regime preference to accomplish that relies on terrorist proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah as well as operational alliances with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other jihadist groups.
Thanks to Iranian funding and training, Hezbollah in 2011 stands on the brink of dominating Lebanon both militarily and politically. Its effective overthrow of the Lebanese government in January 2011, coupled with assumptions of impunity for its role in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, places the sovereignty of a free Lebanon in jeopardy and poses an important test for U.S. policymakers. Iran both aids and uses Hezbollah's rise to power in Lebanon as part of its own overall strategy to position itself as a rising regional power and rival to U.S. predominance.
U.S. leaders face a crucial choice: support the brave Lebanese who fought and died for the Cedar Revolution or see Tehran take a front-line position against the State of Israel—which it threatens regularly with genocide—as well as a foothold on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
Hezbollah not only has developed into one of the most tightly disciplined, superbly trained, and fanatically dedicated fighting forces in the world, but it also has grown into a global terrorist network with a presence in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. That presence directly threatens U.S. national security imperatives, not least because of Hezbollah's history of acting as the Iranian regime's cat's paw for a litany of bloody terror attacks, but also because of its expanding relationships with Mexican and South American drug cartels.
Iran also provides significant material support to Hamas, its Muslim Brotherhood terror proxy in Gaza. That support includes financial infusions, terror training conducted by the IRGC/Qods Force and Hezbollah, and the provision of thousands of rockets and missiles that Hamas launches across the border into Israel. Dismissive of any genuine attempts at nation-building, Hamas under Iranian tutelage instead implements Islamic law and assails Gazan Palestinians with an incessant barrage of media messages conveying Jew-hatred and glorification of suicide killings.
Effective defense of U.S. national security priorities in the Middle East as well as the homeland requires understanding that the Iranian regime has worked for years in close coordination not only with Hezbollah and Hamas, but also with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Qaeda to mount terrorist operations against U.S., Israeli, and Western interests around the world. This jihadist alliance began when Osama bin Laden contracted with Iran for explosives and other training from Hezbollah's global terror chieftain, Imad Mughniyah, in the early 1990s. Iran later hired out Hezbollah to Hamas, the Iraqi terror militias, and the Taliban.
Major terror attacks from the Khobar Towers bombing to the East Africa Embassy bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, September 11, and attacks against U.S. and Coalition partners in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, are the result of this tri-partite arrangement.
Iran and these jihadist organizations are unified in their enmity to the U.S., Israel, and all Western-style civilization. U.S. policymakers must prioritize the urgency of studying their motivation to wage doctrinally-commanded jihad against non-Muslim targets for the purpose of imposing Sharia worldwide. Unequivocal denunciation of Iranian-sponsored terrorism and refusal to legitimize terrorist policies even when supported by a radicalized electorate must be the cornerstones of American leadership.
Tehran's 21st Century Threat
The history of the Khomeinist regime in Iran has been written in blood: first and foremost, the blood of its own people, but also in every place the regime's emissaries—the IRGC, Qods Force, MOIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others—have extended their reach. The U.S. holds a leadership role in the free world; people everywhere yearning for liberty look to the U.S. for moral inspiration and a superpower's protection against tyranny. Tehran's naked ambition for geo-strategic hegemony, inexorable march to a nuclear weapons capability, embrace of terror as a policy tool, and horrific record of human rights abuses at home define a regime that is deeply and inherently destabilizing to the international system.
U.S. policy decisions about how to deal with this Iranian regime will be among the most crucial American leadership must make in the coming months. Underestimating the hostile intent of Iran's agenda or failing to recognize the compelling strength of the Islamic jihadist ideology that binds them and their terror allies together in enmity to free societies under rule of man-made law will lead to increasing global destabilization. U.S. leadership must grapple with the reality that this Iranian regime is a serious adversary that poses a grave threat to the democratic way of life everywhere.
Absent a strong, credible U.S. response, Tehran will interpret American resolve as lacking and react accordingly—advancing its hegemony over neighbors, threatening Israel, and holding U.S. policy hostage to terror and nuclear blackmail. Should Washington falter before this challenge, not only would it fail the American and Iranian people alike, but it would betray the United States' essential commitment to defend liberty wherever it is threatened by tyranny.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
OBAMA'S POLICY COMES FROM TERRORISTS AND THEIR ENABLERS
Another stunner behind Obama's Libya doctrine - You won't believe who helped devise policy used by president
By Aaron Klein
Hanan Ashrawi
TEL AVIV – A staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat served on the committee that invented the military doctrine used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya.
As WND first reported, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world's leading organization pushing the military doctrine. Several of the doctrine's main founders sit on multiple boards with Soros.
The doctrine and its founders, as WND reported, have been deeply tied to Obama aide Samantha Power, who reportedly heavily influenced Obama in consultations leading to the decision to bomb Libya. Power is the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights.
Now it has emerged that Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi served on the advisory board of the 2001 commission that originally founded Responsibility to Protect.
That commission is called the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. It invented the term "Responsibility to Protect," while defining its guidelines.
Ashrawi is an infamous defender of Palestinian terrorism. Her father, Daoud Mikhail, was a co-founder of the PLO with Arafat. The PLO was engaged in scores of international terrorist acts and was declared a terrorist group by the U.S. in 1987.
During the First Palestinian Intifada, or war of "resistance" against Israel, in 1988, Ashrawi joined what was known as the Intifada Political Committee, which sought to advance Palestinian goals through both politics and "resistance." She served there until 1993.
In 1991, Arafat appointed Ashrawi to serve as the PLO's Minister of Higher Education and Research. The Palestinian school system is notorious for its glorification of "martyrdom," or suicide bombings, and has long preached against the existence of Israel.
"Discover the Networks" notes Ashrawi has long defended the Hamas terror group as a legitimate component of the Palestinian "political spectrum."
She has stated she does not "think of Hamas as a terrorist group."
"We coordinate [with Hamas] politically," she said in April 1993, "the people we know and talk to are not terrorists."
In 1998 Ashrawi founded MIFTAH, a nonprofit that seeks to undermine Israel's legitimacy and refers to that Jewish state's 1948 creation as "Al Nakba," or "The Catastrophe."
Ashrawi has long been a Holocaust denier. In the July 2, 1998, edition of the official Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, she published an article calling the Holocaust "a deceitful myth, which the Jews have … exploited to get sympathy."
In 2001 Ashrawi became a spokeswoman for the Arab League.
Notably, Amre Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League, served as an adviser to the same 2001 commission that invented the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine.
Ashrawi, meanwhile, was a protégé and later colleague and close friend of late Columbia University Professor Edward Said, another notorious apologist for Palestinian terrorism.
Said was replaced by Rashid Khalidi, a close personal friend to Obama.
Soros funded doctrine
With Ashrawi on the advisory board, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty first defined the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine.
In his address to the nation on Monday, Obama specifically cited the military doctrine as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya.
Indeed, the Libya bombings have been widely regarded as a test of "Responsibility to Protect."
"Responsibility to Protect," or "Responsibility to Act" as cited by Obama is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of "war crimes," "genocide," "crimes against humanity" or "ethnic cleansing."
The term "war crimes" has at times been indiscriminately used by various U.N.-backed international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, or ICC, which applied it to Israeli anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip. There has also been fear the ICC could be used to prosecute U.S. troops.
The Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect is the world's leading champion of the military doctrine.
Two of global group's advisory board members, Ramesh Thakur and Gareth Evans, are the original founders of the "Responsibility" doctrine, with the duo even coining the term "Responsibility to Protect."
Soros' Open Society is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Government sponsors include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda and the U.K.
Board members of the group include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have recently made solidarity visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as members of a group called The Elders, which includes former President Jimmy Carter.
Annan once famously stated, "State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are ... instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa."
Obama cited doctrine multiple times
Aside from his direct citation of the "Responsibility" doctrine in his address explaining why the U.S. is acting against Libya, Obama alluded to the doctrine four more times in his speech.
The following are relevant excerpts from his address, with references to U.S. "responsibility" in bold:
In this effort, the United States has not acted alone. Instead, we have been joined by a strong and growing coalition. This includes our closest allies – nations like the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey – all of whom have fought by our side for decades. And it includes Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who have chosen to meet their responsibility to defend the Libyan people.
Last night, NATO decided to take on the additional responsibility of protecting Libyan civilians.
To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.
The task that I assigned our forces – to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger and to establish a No Fly Zone – carries with it a U.N. mandate and international support. So would the costs and our share of the responsibility for what comes next.
Soros: Right to 'penetrate nation-states' borders'
Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article entitled "The People's Sovereignty: How a New Twist on an Old Idea Can Protect the World's Most Vulnerable Populations."
In the article, Soros said "true sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments."
"If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified," Soros wrote. "By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states' borders to protect the rights of citizens.
Alan Note: Coming to America when other countries, mandated by the UN and the Arab League, invade us for not becoming Moslems and failing to allow Sharia law to govern us?!
"In particular, the principle of the people's sovereignty can help solve two modern challenges: the obstacles to delivering aid effectively to sovereign states and the obstacles to global collective action dealing with states experiencing internal conflict," he concluded.
More Soros ties
Responsibility founders Evans and Thakur served as co-chair, with Gregorian on the advisory board of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term "Responsibility to Protect."
In his capacity as co-chair, Evans also played a pivotal role in initiating the fundamental shift from sovereignty as a right to "sovereignty as responsibility."
Evans presented "Responsibility to Protect" at the July 23, 2009, United Nations General Assembly, which was convened to consider the principle.
Evans sits on multiple boards with Soros, including the Clinton Global Initiative.
Thakur is a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, which is in partnership with an economic institute founded by Soros.
Soros is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, a "crisis management organization" for which Evans serves as president-emeritus.
WND previously reported how the group has been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt, where longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was recently toppled.
Aside from Evans and Soros, the group includes on its board Egyptian (pro-Iran) opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
WND also reported the crisis group has also petitioned for the Algerian government to cease "excessive" military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.
Soros' own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.
'One World Order'
WND also reported that doctrine founder Thakur recently advocated for a "global rebalancing" and "international redistribution" to create a "New World Order."
"Toward a new world order," Thakur wrote in a piece last March in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, "Westerners must change lifestyles and support international redistribution."
He was referring there to a United Nations-brokered international climate treaty in which he argued, "Developing countries must reorient growth in cleaner and greener directions."
In the opinion piece, Thakur then discussed recent military engagements and how the financial crisis has impacted the U.S.
"The West's bullying approach to developing nations won't work anymore – global power is shifting to Asia," he wrote.
"A much-needed global moral rebalancing is in train," he added.
Thakur continued: "Westerners have lost their previous capacity to set standards and rules of behavior for the world. Unless they recognize this reality, there is little prospect of making significant progress in deadlocked international negotiations."
Thakur contended "the demonstration of the limits to U.S. and NATO power in Iraq and Afghanistan has left many less fearful of 'superior' western power."
Power pushes doctrine
Doctrine founder Evans, meanwhile, is closely tied to Obama aide Samantha Power. (Being viewed to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State!!)
Evans and Power have been joint keynote speakers at events in which they have championed the "Responsibility to Protect" principle together, such as the 2008 Global Philanthropy Forum, also attended by Tutu.
Then last November, at the International Symposium on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Power, attending as a representative of the White House, argued for the use of "Responsibility to Protect" alongside Evans.
With research by Chris Elliott
Read more: Another stunner behind Obama's Libya doctrine http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=281065#ixzz1IUwgigQG
By Aaron Klein
Hanan Ashrawi
TEL AVIV – A staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat served on the committee that invented the military doctrine used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya.
As WND first reported, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world's leading organization pushing the military doctrine. Several of the doctrine's main founders sit on multiple boards with Soros.
The doctrine and its founders, as WND reported, have been deeply tied to Obama aide Samantha Power, who reportedly heavily influenced Obama in consultations leading to the decision to bomb Libya. Power is the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights.
Now it has emerged that Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi served on the advisory board of the 2001 commission that originally founded Responsibility to Protect.
That commission is called the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. It invented the term "Responsibility to Protect," while defining its guidelines.
Ashrawi is an infamous defender of Palestinian terrorism. Her father, Daoud Mikhail, was a co-founder of the PLO with Arafat. The PLO was engaged in scores of international terrorist acts and was declared a terrorist group by the U.S. in 1987.
During the First Palestinian Intifada, or war of "resistance" against Israel, in 1988, Ashrawi joined what was known as the Intifada Political Committee, which sought to advance Palestinian goals through both politics and "resistance." She served there until 1993.
In 1991, Arafat appointed Ashrawi to serve as the PLO's Minister of Higher Education and Research. The Palestinian school system is notorious for its glorification of "martyrdom," or suicide bombings, and has long preached against the existence of Israel.
"Discover the Networks" notes Ashrawi has long defended the Hamas terror group as a legitimate component of the Palestinian "political spectrum."
She has stated she does not "think of Hamas as a terrorist group."
"We coordinate [with Hamas] politically," she said in April 1993, "the people we know and talk to are not terrorists."
In 1998 Ashrawi founded MIFTAH, a nonprofit that seeks to undermine Israel's legitimacy and refers to that Jewish state's 1948 creation as "Al Nakba," or "The Catastrophe."
Ashrawi has long been a Holocaust denier. In the July 2, 1998, edition of the official Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, she published an article calling the Holocaust "a deceitful myth, which the Jews have … exploited to get sympathy."
In 2001 Ashrawi became a spokeswoman for the Arab League.
Notably, Amre Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League, served as an adviser to the same 2001 commission that invented the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine.
Ashrawi, meanwhile, was a protégé and later colleague and close friend of late Columbia University Professor Edward Said, another notorious apologist for Palestinian terrorism.
Said was replaced by Rashid Khalidi, a close personal friend to Obama.
Soros funded doctrine
With Ashrawi on the advisory board, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty first defined the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine.
In his address to the nation on Monday, Obama specifically cited the military doctrine as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya.
Indeed, the Libya bombings have been widely regarded as a test of "Responsibility to Protect."
"Responsibility to Protect," or "Responsibility to Act" as cited by Obama is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of "war crimes," "genocide," "crimes against humanity" or "ethnic cleansing."
The term "war crimes" has at times been indiscriminately used by various U.N.-backed international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, or ICC, which applied it to Israeli anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip. There has also been fear the ICC could be used to prosecute U.S. troops.
The Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect is the world's leading champion of the military doctrine.
Two of global group's advisory board members, Ramesh Thakur and Gareth Evans, are the original founders of the "Responsibility" doctrine, with the duo even coining the term "Responsibility to Protect."
Soros' Open Society is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Government sponsors include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda and the U.K.
Board members of the group include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have recently made solidarity visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as members of a group called The Elders, which includes former President Jimmy Carter.
Annan once famously stated, "State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are ... instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa."
Obama cited doctrine multiple times
Aside from his direct citation of the "Responsibility" doctrine in his address explaining why the U.S. is acting against Libya, Obama alluded to the doctrine four more times in his speech.
The following are relevant excerpts from his address, with references to U.S. "responsibility" in bold:
In this effort, the United States has not acted alone. Instead, we have been joined by a strong and growing coalition. This includes our closest allies – nations like the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey – all of whom have fought by our side for decades. And it includes Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who have chosen to meet their responsibility to defend the Libyan people.
Last night, NATO decided to take on the additional responsibility of protecting Libyan civilians.
To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.
The task that I assigned our forces – to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger and to establish a No Fly Zone – carries with it a U.N. mandate and international support. So would the costs and our share of the responsibility for what comes next.
Soros: Right to 'penetrate nation-states' borders'
Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article entitled "The People's Sovereignty: How a New Twist on an Old Idea Can Protect the World's Most Vulnerable Populations."
In the article, Soros said "true sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments."
"If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified," Soros wrote. "By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states' borders to protect the rights of citizens.
Alan Note: Coming to America when other countries, mandated by the UN and the Arab League, invade us for not becoming Moslems and failing to allow Sharia law to govern us?!
"In particular, the principle of the people's sovereignty can help solve two modern challenges: the obstacles to delivering aid effectively to sovereign states and the obstacles to global collective action dealing with states experiencing internal conflict," he concluded.
More Soros ties
Responsibility founders Evans and Thakur served as co-chair, with Gregorian on the advisory board of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term "Responsibility to Protect."
In his capacity as co-chair, Evans also played a pivotal role in initiating the fundamental shift from sovereignty as a right to "sovereignty as responsibility."
Evans presented "Responsibility to Protect" at the July 23, 2009, United Nations General Assembly, which was convened to consider the principle.
Evans sits on multiple boards with Soros, including the Clinton Global Initiative.
Thakur is a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, which is in partnership with an economic institute founded by Soros.
Soros is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, a "crisis management organization" for which Evans serves as president-emeritus.
WND previously reported how the group has been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt, where longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was recently toppled.
Aside from Evans and Soros, the group includes on its board Egyptian (pro-Iran) opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
WND also reported the crisis group has also petitioned for the Algerian government to cease "excessive" military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.
Soros' own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.
'One World Order'
WND also reported that doctrine founder Thakur recently advocated for a "global rebalancing" and "international redistribution" to create a "New World Order."
"Toward a new world order," Thakur wrote in a piece last March in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, "Westerners must change lifestyles and support international redistribution."
He was referring there to a United Nations-brokered international climate treaty in which he argued, "Developing countries must reorient growth in cleaner and greener directions."
In the opinion piece, Thakur then discussed recent military engagements and how the financial crisis has impacted the U.S.
"The West's bullying approach to developing nations won't work anymore – global power is shifting to Asia," he wrote.
"A much-needed global moral rebalancing is in train," he added.
Thakur continued: "Westerners have lost their previous capacity to set standards and rules of behavior for the world. Unless they recognize this reality, there is little prospect of making significant progress in deadlocked international negotiations."
Thakur contended "the demonstration of the limits to U.S. and NATO power in Iraq and Afghanistan has left many less fearful of 'superior' western power."
Power pushes doctrine
Doctrine founder Evans, meanwhile, is closely tied to Obama aide Samantha Power. (Being viewed to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State!!)
Evans and Power have been joint keynote speakers at events in which they have championed the "Responsibility to Protect" principle together, such as the 2008 Global Philanthropy Forum, also attended by Tutu.
Then last November, at the International Symposium on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Power, attending as a representative of the White House, argued for the use of "Responsibility to Protect" alongside Evans.
With research by Chris Elliott
Read more: Another stunner behind Obama's Libya doctrine http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=281065#ixzz1IUwgigQG
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