Weapons of Mock Translation from Iran

Deja vu

In what is looking like a re-run of the Weapons of Mass Destruction fabrication of evidence against Iraq preceding the war, we are now hearing of weapons being found in Iraq presumably manufactured in Iran.

The US Secretary of Defense appeared on television yesterday without all the evidence to hand to state that they now believe Iran has been aiding the insurgents in attacks against American troops.

Many things do not add up about this developing premise to adopt a belligerent and aggressive invasion of Iranian sovereign territory, we can only hope that such madness would be tempered with the realities on the ground in Iraq.

Suspect evidence

Generally, the Iranians have brotherhood with the Shiites of Iraq who make up the majority of Iraqis and now form the majority government of Iraq. Americans have mostly had trouble with the Sunnites who were the minority ruling Iraq during the time of Saddam Hussein.

It would be a more serious problem if Iran was selling or smuggling weapons to the Sunnites who make up the greater part of the insurgency, however, within the security situation and turmoil in the Middle East, the illegal trade in weapons would thrive, it would not require the legal sanction of the Iranian government for weapons to cross the porous and precarious borders.

However, what is quite interesting is why weapons made and traced back to Iran allegedly have English markings rather than Persian or probably Arabic markings – this is the Islamic Republic of Iran and the official language is Persian when I last looked or is something amiss in this terrifying saga?

From WhatReallyHappened.com

Beyond which America seems to be forgetting they are in a war zone, weapons would come from far and wide, like good old granny would say – Get out of the kitchen, if you think it is getting too hot – your enemies would not just fall over like dominoes – wake up and smell the darn coffee.

References

US accuses Iran over Iraq bombs

U.S. ties Iranian leader to bombs killing U.S. troops

U.S.-led forces show evidence of Iran arms in Iraq

Pentagon blames Iran for 170 US deaths

Planet Earth joins the Star Wars

More acronyms than nuclear weapons

When President Ronald Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) popularly known as Star Wars, many wondered about the militarisation of space and the consequences for peace.

We were still in the Cold War and though Russia and America were beginning to point less weapons at each other under the SALT treaties SALT I and SALT II which became START and then the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), one did wonder if the limitations in the use of nuclear weapons had not become a proliferation of multi-letter acronyms of the same agreements rehashed every few years to maintain the similitude of relevance to the world at large whilst others did their thing.

My gun is bigger

At least the impression people have had is that except in times of war, when any belligerent sovereignty wanted to flex their well-oiled Schwarzenegger muscles in some sophisticated arms, they had the common courtesy of informing their colleagues in this facile beauty contest of their intentions to test.

Greenpeace goes into overdrive, all the leftwing anti-nuclear groups excite their proxies in all political and news forums, some governments pronounce caution no condemnation, the UN does a bit of sabre-rattling coupled with an African rain dance and when enough publicity has been gained for the event, the test goes ahead as planned; condemnation follows displeasure, probably a boycott and sanctions in tow but nothing seriously binding.

The country proves its mettle and a tick goes into the acknowledgement register of all other countries that they are no more to be trifled with; such is the power of gun-boat diplomacy.

Get your gun, Xian

Little did we know that Star Wars did not have to cost that much and follow all that rigmarole of unnecessary protocols; simply find an ageing weather satellite and shoot it down, as China did.

China sent up an anti-satellite ballistic system to destroy the satellite; America, Australia and Canada have already criticised China for taking out the ageing man-made object which was put into orbit in 1999, others are supposed to follow suit very soon as news breaks across the globe.

As it transpired, “The US believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area”, if I read that right, it would appear someone forgot to put the agreement on paper, hence nothing about the letter of co-operation regarding conduct in the civil space area.

Next time you see a shooting star, just remember, the earth has now joined the Star Wars and it is China that did it first.

Daytime television a cure for current news

Cannot stand the news anymore

Even I cannot believe it; I have not sought, desired or watched any news for almost a week. It is strange, I am your news junkie doped up on an overdose of every snippet of news from all the networks, especially with a digital channels that give me access to at least 10 stations including Al Jazeera.

I can only attribute my lack of interest in the news to the gnawing propaganda machinery that has slanted the required objective assessment of issues in the Middle-East and the way global leadership conveniently tags every legitimate aspiration to self-determination as part of the war against terror.

The meaning of the war on terror

In fact, we can redefine the war against terror as any situation where America and the West have no immediate financial gain as their interests are threatened by people who have another perspective to the issue.

This is because this broad definition is what is happening in practice, each issue is assessed in some self-interest monetary terms or the ability to exert hegemony to emasculate other nation states.

Nowadays, suspicion is enough cause for proof of guilt as is the case of Iran’s nuclear experiments.

The peace of apathy

It allows Lebanon to be leveled in the quest to humiliate Hezbollah militarily in a 19^th Century strategy that believes in military solutions to what is essentially a historical situation that needs bold diplomatic moves that take full account of the affected people.

Anyway, the news becomes staple that creates apathy, as if I now care about how many rockets land anywhere or the collateral damage counted in innocent lives extinguished in the facelessness of an American precision weapon or some Syrian-technology missile.

It is obvious, this is no Six-day-war and there would be no winners in this fracas; the reoccupation of Lebanon would entrench the forces that Israel wants to uproot, but, who is to say Israel does not like living dangerously.

Is Judah also Israel?

Somehow, I am coming to the view that the situation in the Middle-East cannot continue as it is, people have striven to plant the land of Israel within the confines of what was the smaller kingdom of Judah – the more this happens the more it appears like an aberration.

Biblical scholars had better start dusting their biblical history and ancient cartography.

I would suggest that there would be most likely, like in the ancient times, be another dispersal of the Jews – etymology of Diaspora - before they are resettled again in places that might not bear any semblance to what we have today.

Those given to eschatology had better read the signs of the times again and look for deeper interpretation of prophecy – Peace, will not come to Israel on the edge of a sword or the tips of sophisticated weapons.

Peace eludes our time with appeasement

Peace eludes our time

Almost 78 years ago, Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich, a perfect English gentleman with a paper signed by Adolf Hilter which was a non-aggression pact securing peace in Europe [1]. We now view that supposed pact of peace as appeasement.

Today, amidst the propaganda and rhetoric that fuels the problems in Lebanon and Gaza as viewed from Israeli eyes, the blanket war on terror is appeased by everyone who can exert influence to halt these hostilities.

Looking like a military state

Each time I view my television an army spokesperson from democratic Israel comes on air, not speaking of their deployments and military activities but dabbling with the politics and wherefores of the conflict.

This is the type of speech one should hear from their political masters, but it appears the politics is becoming militarised and the military is becoming politicise, not of which bode well any democracy.

All weapons break the peace

Besides, we hear time and time again about the thousands of rockets the Hezbollah has, well, are we being naïve here? Israel has helicopter gun-ships, laser guided weaponry and nuclear weapons still undeclared.

Israel is seriously militarised that region in that quest for its defence, that has also lead to the regional militants arming themselves such that when Israel moves with aggression they and not just left with slings and stones to roll over and die.

The main part here is Israel really believes the Middle-East conflict can be resolved with their military might as world leaders pay lip service to the call for restraint and the lack of a determined purpose to see an end to that conflict.

The flytrap of implications

More and more we hear about Syria and Iran being called upon to rein in Hezbollah and Hamas, why they should escapes me.

In fact, I believe there is a more sinister ploy at hand; the need to find a way to implicate both Syria and Iran so that it can become a free-for-all battle royale, this would allow for nuclear sites in Iran to be targeted and destroyed and a possible assassination of the heads of government in those two countries.

The picture looks nasty and I fear for the ultimate effect of this situation.

It can now been argued that the Palestinians and Lebanese have already paid too high a price to return the soldiers unharmed and that is if the Israeli bombardments do not already crush the soldiers in some levelling escapade.

An eruption to wipe out hopes of peace

The world has looked on as the festering Middle-East conflict has ebbed and flowed like an indecisive volcano; it is about to rain lava and pyroclastic flows [2] that would engulf more than we have dared to imagine possible.

Back to the appeasement talk, rather than call to order the parties involved and get this situation to stop forthwith every influential nation has sent boats and evacuation teams to Lebanon to evacuate their citizens.

That, in my view is the license for this conflict to escalate, it says Israel can now maraud with impunity and as long as Hezbollah can still fire its rockets they would continue to descend like mega-hailstones on Haifa and beyond if they find the range.

If anyone should stop doing shit [3], it should start with the world leaders and their flimsy idea of sending in a Lebanon Peace Keeping Force [4] – how does that resolve issues on the ground today?

You need peace to keep it, and for now there is no peace but appeasement that is leading to the untenable, maybe when oil hits $100/barrel somebody might just feel the pinch enough to nip this Middle-East crisis in the bud.

References

[1] BBC ON THIS DAY | 30 | 1938: 'Peace for our time' - Chamberlain

[2] Pyroclastic flow

[3] BBC NEWS | Business | Bush lunch chat is caught on tape

[4] BBC NEWS | Middle East | UN calls for Lebanon peace force

Appeasement

Appeasement is a policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance. Since World War II, the term has gained a negative connotation, in politics and in general, of weakness, cowardice and self-deception. - Wikipedia

M'aider! M'aider! Mayday! Regime Change coming to you!

Talking to each other must help

I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if leaders of the world in areas of dispute, disagreement and discord; beyond their mediators and negotiators decided to have a direct heart-to-heart talk about the issues and tried that last diplomatic effort to seek resolution.

For example, if Mr George W. Bush had ever chatted to Saddam Hussein, would Iraq have been a better place?

It is utterly unconscionable that there is a feeling that if problem regimes meet with world leaders, they give those problem leaders legitimacy.

Well, I beg to differ, if that area of dispute would lead to sending young men and women to their deaths in the defence of the realm, then mediation is not complete till that area of human interaction is exhausted.

Bully-boy Yankie rhetoric

Just before the Iraqi war, the United States adopted a megaphone diplomacy stance of proxy brickbats. They did so much to undermine and denigrate legitimate negotiating organisations and reticent countries with the bully pulpit of a “them and us” rhetoric.

The IAEA, NATO, the UN and Old Europe got such a tongue lashing, but I recall no time when any attempt was made to see reason between the opposing parties.

Now, with the Iranian Nuclear Crisis, we see all the clamour and anxiety of the United States and its spokespeople in contrast to less frantic moves of the United Nations, Europe and the IAEA who seem to be pushed aside when their conclusions are not aligning with that of United States.

I do appreciate the fact that we in the world might not want a Nuclear Iran and we could a lot to stop the enrichment of Uranium to the extent that it might be used in weapons, however, it is impossible to suggest that they must not have that knowledge as Mr Bush says.

Iran really has not broken any laws or treaties rather, they have been remiss in engaging in activities that they have failed to reveal to the IAEA; as if, the US would reveal the extent of their developments to the selfsame IAEA.

Scientists do not stagnate, once they are on to something they are relentless in the pursuit of a breakthrough – that insatiable quest cannot be contained by barking from afar.

I would rather they had the knowledge we all know about than for them to find other novel ways that put them out of reach of our science. For, example, no one seems to have cottoned on how they powered the fastest under-water missile a few months ago.

Assumptions are just not good enough

To base the attacks on Iran on the assumption that they might rather than the reality that they have would take us down the same lane that ended up with Iraq having no weapons of mass destruction.

This War on Terror has done more to turn the world upside-down at the behest of belligerent Americans than the disconcerting views of the Iranian leadership or the lack of cooperation from the North Koreans.

The diatribes against Israel by the president of Iran should be seen in an additional context which Israel should do well to take good note of.

A thorn in the sides of the Israelis

How is it that the West in assuaging themselves of the guilt of the Holocaust, help create the land of Israel and left the big thorn of the Palestinian issue in their sides?

In 2 years, this classic misappropriation of land would clock 60 years and we are still nowhere near a final resolution.

Rather, Israel has usurped more land from 1967 and with impunity built more settlements and like the Communists in Berlin, built a wall to even take away more Palestinian land without the slightest rebuke.

The person who exposed the fact that Israel had nuclear weapons still languishes in jail in an extra-judicial process that belittles the context of democracy.

Cool heads required – Now!

I am not looking for a black and white world; however, no one seems to have the moral high-ground to demand anything of any other country, not the least the United States.

More so, it is not the world asking Iran to stop the development of nuclear weapons, but Americans speaking as though they are speaking for the world at large.

They are preparing for war, amazingly

The greater fear according the NewYorker and this is a worrisome read is how Iran has been infiltrated by American agents to discover sites that might have to be bombed including the use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons.

Scarier is the fact that they want to destabilise Iran such that people would rise for a regime change and ploy that failed woefully in Iraq only a few years before.

Iran does not need to attack Afghanistan or Iraq to retaliate, like retired four-star general did say, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.”

That, I would say, would be the beginning of the Armageddon with the destination of Megiddo just a few hundred miles away.

A country surrounded as depicted in the graphic below would be remiss to do nothing about maintaining its sovereignty, their quest for nuclear technology begins to gather support as that truth becomes self evident.

Surrounded by at least 22 US bases and almost 150 thousand soldiers - it is more than an "Annie get your gun" setting, this is serious business.

Map of the oil corridor

References

M’aider

Eureka! is Farsi for Enrichment

Globalisation of disaster relief

Weapons of Mass Relief

One could not help but wonder at the complete inadequacies of developed, developing and under-developed countries (used in the context of 3^rd-world dialogue) in dealing with the natural disasters that have hit their peoples in the last few months.

To surmise, one can see the sweeping global phenomena of globalisation, trade liberalisation, democracy and eradication of poverty through debt forgiveness and other do-gooder mechanisms have overlooked pertinent issues.

This is made ever so stark from the fact that “so-called” Nuclear powers with hefty defence budgets to defend the realm have forgotten that there would be no realm to defend if the citizenry of the realm have been wiped out and left destitute by natural disaster.

More so, these countries have their military forces pre-occupied with unnecessary wars and disputes that seem to foster more havoc than peace with their presence.

The political landscape is both littered and cluttered with intransigence and belligerence that make the Middle Ages seem rather tame.

What has happened to the civilisation of humanity that puts these quests for military aggrandisement over the welfare of its peoples?

We have come to cross-roads, is it weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the powerful or weapons of mass relief from the powerful to the weak?

I hear no leaders speaking up for this.

In the end, the global co-operation needed for attending to natural disasters should involve allocating part of the defence budgets to relief where Africa hosts relief materials for immediate despatch to Asia and Europe, Asia for America and Europe, Europe for America and Africa and so on.

This under the co-ordination of the UN or some other International body like NATO should despatch with immediate effect when disaster strikes at their support areas.

Military weaponry as drones, satellites, recognition and surveillance systems should come in to play to identify the worst affected places and assets brought to bear.

That would be global progress very much in the light of the establishment of the UN.