IRA breakaway Irish National Liberation Army says it's renouncing violence, may disarm soon

 

The Irish National Liberation Army, an IRA splinter group responsible for some of the most notorious killings of the Northern Ireland conflict, renounced violence Sunday and signaled it could hand over weapons soon to disarmament officials.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/10/11/ira-splinter-group-renouncing-violence-in-ireland/

Speaking again on the unfolding scandal, UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide conceded today what everyone following the story has known for at least a month: that there was widespread fraud in August’s presidential election.

Eide followed up his admission by dismissing concerns about what, by all accounts, has been one of the most fraudulently run elections in history, insisting that the fact that the investigations hadn’t yet concluded proved that the “system is working.”

Eide’s role in the election fraud was brought to light following the firing of his chief assistant, Peter Galbraith. Galbraith says he was ordered by Eide to cover up the extent of the fraud, and claims Eide spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to assure him of his support after the UN had uncovered evidence that up to a third of Karzai’s votes were actually fraudulent.

 

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/10/11/uns-afghan-chief-admits-widespread-fraud-in-vote/

Ethiopia appears to have launched yet another incursion into Somalia, with hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers pouring across the border into Central Somalia and rounding up villagers suspected of having ties to the insurgency.

Locals say the Ethiopian forces were accompanied by soldiers affiliated with the self-proclaimed Somali government and the forces cut off the communication lines in the villages.

Ethiopia previously launched an invasion of Somalia in 2006 with the blessing of the US government. The invasion was an attempt to prop up the Somali government, which at the time was struggling in the face of growing support for the Islamic Courts Union.

 

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/10/11/ethiopian-troops-pour-into-central-somalia/

Here’s the thing: This may be our next “Vietnam moment,” but Afghanistan is no Vietnam: there are no major enemy powers like the Soviet Union and China lurking in the background; no organized enemy state with a powerful army like North Vietnam supporting the insurgents; no well organized, unified national liberation movement like the Vietcong, and that’s just a beginning. Almost everywhere, in fact, the Vietnam analogy breaks down – almost everywhere, that is, except when it comes to us. Because we never managed to leave Vietnam behind, even when we were proclaiming that we had kicked that “syndrome,” it turns out that we’re still there. Our military leaders, for instance, only recently dusted off the old Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine that once ended in catastrophe, shined it up, and are now presenting it as an ingenious new solution to war-fighting. Let’s face it: everything about American thinking still stinks of the Vietnamese debacle, including the inability of our leaders to listen to a genuinely wide range of options.

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/10/11/apocalypse-then-afghanistan-now/

Clashes between Israeli security forces and protesting Palestinians have subsided as several hundred Muslims agreed to evacuate Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque following a deal brokered by the Jordanian embassy in Tel Aviv Saturday.

But the Islamic Movement, whose members sought to take over the mosque, is at the center of intense controversy. In Israel, demands have risen for the arrest of Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raed Salah.

"War Is Peace," "Freedom Is Slavery," "Ignorance Is Strength."

I would add, "Lie Is Truth."

The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

The Nobel committee chairman, Thorbjřrn Jagland said, "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future."

Obama, the committee gushed, has created "a new climate in international politics."

Tell that to the 2 million displaced Pakistanis and the unknown numbers of dead ones that Obama has racked up in his few months in office. Tell that to the Afghans where civilian deaths continue to mount as Obama’s "war of necessity" drones on indeterminably.

No Bush policy has changed. Iraq is still occupied. The Guantánamo torture prison is still functioning. Rendition and assassinations are still occurring. Spying on Americans without warrants is still the order of the day. Civil liberties are continuing to be violated in the name of Oceania’s "war on terror."

Apparently, the Nobel committee is suffering from the delusion that, being a minority, Obama is going to put a stop to Western hegemony over darker-skinned peoples.

The non-cynical can say that the Nobel committee is seizing on Obama’s rhetoric to lock him into the pursuit of peace instead of war. We can all hope that it works. But the more likely result is that the award has made "War Is Peace" the reality.

Obama has done nothing to hold the criminal Bush regime to account, and the Obama administration has bribed and threatened the Palestinian Authority to go along with the US/Israeli plan to deep-six the UN’s Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes committed during Israel’s inhuman military attack on the defenseless civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto.

The US Ministry of Truth is delivering the Obama administration’s propaganda that Iran only notified the IAEA of its "secret" new nuclear facility because Iran discovered that US intelligence had discovered the "secret" facility. This propaganda is designed to undercut the fact of Iran’s compliance with the Safeguards Agreement and to continue the momentum for a military attack on Iran.

The Nobel committee has placed all its hopes on a bit of skin color.

"War Is Peace" is now the position of the formerly antiwar organization, Code Pink. Code Pink has decided that women’s rights are worth a war in Afghanistan.

When justifications for war become almost endless — oil, hegemony, women’s rights, democracy, revenge for 9/11, denying bases to al-Qaeda, and protecting against terrorists — war becomes the path to peace.

The Nobel committee has bestowed the prestige of its Peace Prize on Newspeak and Doublethink.

 

The committee approved renewing measures that include allowing broad warrants to be issued by a secretive court for any type of record, from financial to medical, without the government having to declare that the information sought is connected to a terrorism or espionage investigation. A proposal that would put limits on such requests was defeated.

 

 

According to top officials, President Obama’s latest thinking in the Afghan War is that the US will eventaully have to back off of its emphasis on destroying the Taliban and allow the group to become involved in the political process.

What’s curious is that this strategy of focusing on al-Qaeda while trimming back expectations that it will ever be able to defeat the Taliban is essentially the “Biden Option,” which President Obama publicly ruled out just yesterday. It seems that the president is having a hard time making up his mind on exactly which escalation to go with, and is just bouncing back and forth between them.

 

 

Is it time to put liberalism on trial? The Republican Party has not noticed that there are a lot of people here from former Soviet colonies. They are still angry that they were turned over to Stalin. That 50 million died in the gulags, while liberals here cheered. That women in concentration camps liberated by Russians were raped. That little girls were raped by Russians with U.S. approval as the Russians "liberated" the camps. For the GOP to survive it must connect with the Eastern Europens here now. It must force liberals to explain why they supported and still support such actions. (Anyone who is anti-Joe McCarthy obviously supports what the Russians did).

 

 

Exclusive report by Robert Fisk

The demise of the dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

By Robert Fisk

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html

Top Things you Think You Know about Iran that are not True

 

I thought I'd take the opportunity to list some things that people tend to think they know about Iran, but for which the evidence is shaky.

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the US

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of "no first strike." This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.


Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to "wipe it off the map."

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of 'no first strike' to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.

Belief: But didn't President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to 'wipe Israel off the map?'

Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that "this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

Belief: But aren't Iranians Holocaust deniers?

Actuality: Some are, some aren't. Former president Mohammad Khatami has castigated Ahmadinejad for questioning the full extent of the Holocaust, which he called "the crime of Nazism." Many educated Iranians in the regime are perfectly aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. In any case, despite what propagandists imply, neither Holocaust denial (as wicked as that is) nor calling Israel names is the same thing as pledging to attack it militarily.

Belief: Iran is like North Korea in having an active nuclear weapons program, and is the same sort of threat to the world.

Actuality: Iran has a nuclear enrichment site at Natanz near Isfahan where it says it is trying to produce fuel for future civilian nuclear reactors to generate electricity. All Iranian leaders deny that this site is for weapons production, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly inspected it and found no weapons program. Iran is not being completely transparent, generating some doubts, but all the evidence the IAEA and the CIA can gather points to there not being a weapons program. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate by 16 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed with fair confidence that Iran has no nuclear weapons research program. This assessment was based on debriefings of defecting nuclear scientists, as well as on the documents they brought out, in addition to US signals intelligence from Iran. While Germany, Israel and recently the UK intelligence is more suspicious of Iranian intentions, all of them were badly wrong about Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction and Germany in particular was taken in by Curveball, a drunk Iraqi braggart.

Belief: The West recently discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant in a mountain near Qom.

Actuality: Iran announced Monday a week ago to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun work on a second, civilian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom. There are no nuclear materials at the site and it has not gone hot, so technically Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it did break its word to the IAEA that it would immediately inform the UN of any work on a new facility. Iran has pledged to allow the site to be inspected regularly by the IAEA, and if it honors the pledge, as it largely has at the Natanz plant, then Iran cannot produce nuclear weapons at the site, since that would be detected by the inspectors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted on Sunday that Iran could not produce nuclear weapons at Natanz precisely because it is being inspected. Yet American hawks have repeatedly demanded a strike on Natanz.


Belief: The world should sanction Iran not only because of its nuclear enrichment research program but also because the current regime stole June's presidential election and brutally repressed the subsequent demonstrations.

Actuality: Iran's reform movement is dead set against increased sanctions on Iran, which likely would not affect the regime, and would harm ordinary Iranians.

Belief: Isn't the Iranian regime irrational and crazed, so that a doctrine of mutally assured destruction just would not work with them?

Actuality: Iranian politicians are rational actors. If they were madmen, why haven't they invaded any of their neighbors? Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. Israel invaded its neighbors more than once. In contrast, Iran has not started any wars. Demonizing people by calling them unbalanced is an old propaganda trick. The US elite was once unalterably opposed to China having nuclear science because they believed the Chinese are intrinsically irrational. This kind of talk is a form of racism.

Belief: The international community would not have put sanctions on Iran, and would not be so worried, if it were not a gathering nuclear threat.

Actuality: The centrifuge technology that Iran is using to enrich uranium is open-ended. In the old days, you could tell which countries might want a nuclear bomb by whether they were building light water reactors (unsuitable for bomb-making) or heavy-water reactors (could be used to make a bomb). But with centrifuges, once you can enrich to 5% to fuel a civilian reactor, you could theoretically feed the material back through many times and enrich to 90% for a bomb. However, as long as centrifuge plants are being actively inspected, they cannot be used to make a bomb. The two danger signals would be if Iran threw out the inspectors or if it found a way to create a secret facility. The latter task would be extremely difficult, however, as demonstrated by the CIA's discovery of the Qom facility construction in 2006 from satellite photos. Nuclear installations, especially centrifuge ones, consume a great deal of water, construction materiel, and so forth, so that constructing one in secret is a tall order. In any case, you can't attack and destroy a country because you have an intuition that they might be doing something illegal. You need some kind of proof. Moreover, Israel, Pakistan and India are all much worse citizens of the globe than Iran, since they refused to sign the NPT and then went for broke to get a bomb; and nothing at all has been done to any of them by the UNSC.


http://www.juancole.com/2009/10/top-things-you-think-you-know-about.html

GROUND TROOP ASSAULT THREATENED ON PAKISTAN, GENERAL SAYS PENTAGON BUREAUCRACY BLOCKING AFGHAN MOVES, JOHN KERRY ON AFGHANISTAN LACK OF STRATEGY

President Obama to go to Copenhagen and lobby for Chicago to get Olympics.

 I guess the President is too busy with the Olympics........
Asked how often he talks to the president, McChrystal said, "I've talked to the president since I've been here once on a VTC." "You talked to him once in 70 days?Martin asked. "That's correct," McChrystal replied.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/24/60minutes/main5335445.shtml

SAUDIS WILL LET ISRAEL BOMB IRAN NUCLEAR SITE