China Faces Tough Call in Iran Showdown

Source: Global Times

The Iran situation remains unpredictable as the country considers suspending oil exports to EU countries. China faces a tough diplomatic challenge.

Image: Iranian students hold photos of assassinated nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan and his son as they protest at the Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran Sunday during the arrival of the team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Photo: AFP

Despite these twists and turns, the general direction is clear. The US and Europe are determined to unseat the current Iranian regime. An oil embargo, aimed at choking Iran's economic lifeline, has been adopted. Overall oil embargoes will start in six months whether Iran stops oil exports to the EU or not.

It's the gamble that will decide the political fate of this major Middle East oil producer with a population of 60 million. Equally at stake is the future global geopolitical landscape. China will be deeply involved in the process, of which it should be under no illusion.

A showdown between the West and Iran will partly be turned into a West-China showdown, namely whether China should comply with the West's geopolitical decision. In previous major world political conflicts, China has sought to avoid direct confrontation with the US and Europe. The tradeoff is a relatively mild policy from the West toward China. Now the West has the same expectations of China.

But the Iran issue involves so much of China's interests that no other previous international conflict is comparable in this regard. Ten percent of China's oil is imported from Iran, and China cannot stay aloof from the affair.

While there is no other choice for China, it should have the courage to drop minor details and focus on the biggest realistic interests of China on this issue and China's diplomatic principles that need to be protected most. The former is continuing to import oil from Iran while the latter is opposing external forces to change a country's regime, particularly with threats of war.

The two basic stands are against EU and US policies toward Iran. But this opposition is inevitable due to the importance of the Iran issue for China. It is obvious that eventually the resolution of the problem will come to the point of forcing China to pull back from its stance. China should consider how to handle it when the time comes. China needs to prepare to face it squarely once the conflict becomes impossible to avoid.

U.S. to Send Floating Base to Mideast for Quick Strikes

Source: WSJ
Nathan Hodge and Julian Barnes

WASHINGTON—Within the president’s defense-budget plan is funding for an intriguing new item: a floating drone base that also could be used as a launching pad for commandos.

The vessel—called an “afloat forward staging base”—would be a platform that could be configured to carry and refuel small patrol boats, helicopters or pilotless aircraft.

Within the president’s new defense budget plan is funding for an intriguing new item: a floating drone base that also could be used as a launching pad for commandos. Nathan Hodge has details on The News Hub.

 

It would also give the U.S. military the ability to stage a small strike force offshore—without obtaining a permission slip from another country for access to a land base.

Details are still emerging, but the project offers insight into how the Obama administration envisions a military that in some ways is more lethal even as it contracts.

Plans for the specialized vessel fit neatly with the Obama administration’s plans to grow special-operations forces, while slimming down conventional forces such as the Army and Marine Corps.

Senior officials want to provide military commanders with affordable sea-base options without necessarily sending a big-deck aircraft carrier and a full complement of escort ships.

A defense official said the floating staging base was more like a freighter that would be outfitted for different kinds of missions, from countering mines to launching remotely piloted aircraft. It also could be used as a platform for launching commando operations.

The official said one option for the ship is a version of the Mobile Landing Platform, a logistics ship that is being built by General Dynamics NASSCO, a San Diego-based shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corp. General Dynamics didn’t respond immediately to requests for comment.

Threats of Nuclear Sabotage Against Pakistan – Analysis

Source: Eurasia Review

Muhammad Jawad Hashmi

As a nuclear weapons’ state, Pakistan faces a number of challenges, which if  unaddressed could cause a severe damage to Pakistan’s international image as well as to the safety and security of nuclear weapons of Pakistan.

It is acknowledged secret that Pakistan has a robust command control system with its weapons kept unassembled and dispersed at different places with multilayered security arrangements. As a result potential terrorists would have to toil a lot to obtain access to those weapons. These are extremely complex challenges and next to impossible for the terrorists to cross all the thresholds and layers of security undetected. Thus, the strict security arrangements around nuclear facilities and lack of nuclear knowledge may hinder terrorists to steal fissile material and attempt to manufacture a workable nuclear weapon. In a more plausible scenario it could be that terrorists may assemble an RDD (radiological dispersal devices) or dirty bombs.1 For the said purpose, terrorists would need fissile material and a lot of technical know-how to fabricate such device.

A Case Building Scenario: Threats of Nuclear Sabotage against Pakistan

Immense hype by global media, presence of agents like Raymond Davis and private forces like Blackwaters and DynCorp in Pakistan are the crucial reasons to forecast the alarming scenario vis-à-vis security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The literature reveals that US opinion makers like David Albright, David Sanger, Frederick Kagan and Michael O’Hanalon, Thomas Ricks and Peter Wonacott has raised the same kind of queries over the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets.2 The following discussion reveals the western efforts and covert agenda by the different tactics to discard Pakistan’s security arrangements. Thus, the prospects of filing a case of nuclear material’s theft/transfer or sabotage against Pakistan could be built.

Global Media Hype over Insecurity of Pakistan’s Nuclear Assets

Osama Bin Laden episode and PNS Mehran attack has added fuel in the ongoing crisis in Pakistan. The global media started raising questions about the role of Pakistan in WOT as dual or suspicious. There had been number of evidences which reveal that global media is creating sensational hypes to tag Pakistan as rogue state. For instance Mariot Leslie, who was the director general of Defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office but is now Britain’s ambassador to NATO said that recent intelligence indicates that Pakistan is not going in a good direction. He believed that “The UK has deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and China could play a big role in stabilizing Pakistan.”3 According to Wikileaks, UK, USA, and France have raised high concerns that Pakistani nuclear assets may fall into the hands of terrorists. The leaked documents revealed that in 2008, the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, cabled to Washington that a rogue scientist in the Pakistani nuclear programme could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon for a terrorist group.4 In another cable released by the Wikileaks, concerns has been raised that two main sources from which nuclear materials or a weapon could be obtained are Pakistan and the states of the former Soviet Union.5

Third Aircraft Carrier Group Coming To Iran

Source: Zero Hedge

For months now we have been following US naval developments and deployments in the Arabian Sea, which serve one purpose and one purpose only - to demonstrate US military strength in the Straits of Hormuz region and to keep Iranian 'offensive passions' subdued. Yet never has the US had a total of three aircraft carrier groups in the vicinity, always topping out at 2 in the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, most recently these being the CVN-70 Vinson and CVN 72 Lincoln, with a third boat present merely until a rotation in or out of the theater of operations was complete. That is about to change, and with it the prevailing price of Brent, which we are confident is about to take a new step wise price higher as the US makes it all too clear what the endgame is, because as Naval Today reports, the "US navy to deploy third carrier group to Persian Gulf", probably the CVN-77 George H.W. Bush which departed Norfolk two weeks ago according to the most recent naval update, or any other Norfolk-stationed aircraft carrier: there is a wide selection to chose from.

Source: Naval Today

The carrier group based in Norfolk, VA will also include a guided missile cruiser and three guided missile destroyers, reports Interfax.

USS Abraham Lincoln had already entered the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz on Jan 22. She is escorted by a guided missile cruiser and two destroyers (USN), one British and one French warships.

Meanwhile, another US Navy’s carrier strike carrier group headed by USS Carl Vinson is stationed eastward the Strait of Hormuz, in northern part of the Arabian Sea washing southwest coast of Iran.

At present, the US has 15,000-men force deployed in Kuwait, expeditionary marine battalion, and amphibious landing group.

Iran, Gold and Oil - The Next Bankster War

Source: BATR

Remember the real reason why Moammar Gadhafi is dead. He dared to propose and started creating an alternative currency to the world reserve U.S. Dollar. The lesson learned in Libya is now ready for teaching in Iran. Forget all the noise about going nuclear, the true message is that the banksters rule and nation states serve their ultimate masters. The hype and disinformation that surrounds the push for war is best understood by examining the viewpoint of Iranian MP Kazem Jalali. The Tehran Times quotes him in saying,

"The European Union must be aware that it can never compel the Islamic Republic to succumb to their will and undermine the Iranian nation’s determination to achieve glory and independence, access modern technologies, and safeguard its rights, through the intensification of the pressure."

"The European Union is seeking to politicize the atmosphere ahead of nuclear talks with Iran and is aware that sanctions on Iran’s oil exports cannot be implemented since the world is not limited to a number of European countries"

Many political commentators warn that an embargo is an act or war. Chris Floyd provides this observation of the recent oil embargo against Iran.

"This week, the warlords of the West took yet another step toward their long-desired war against Iran. (Open war, that is; their covert war has been going on for decades -- via subversion, terrorism, and proxies like Saddam Hussein.) On Monday, the European Union obediently followed the dictates of its Washington masters by agreeing to impose an embargo on Iranian oil.

The embargo bans all new oil contracts with Iran, and cuts off all existing deals after July. The embargo is accompanied by a freeze on all European assets of the Iranian central bank. In imposing these draconian measures on a country which is not at war with any nation, which has not invaded or attacked another nation in centuries, and which is developing a nuclear energy program that is not only entirely legal under international law but is also subject to the most stringent international inspection regime ever seen, the EU is "targeting the economic lifeline of the regime," as one of its diplomats put it, with admirable candor."

The most important aspect of the Iranian response lies in the way that changes oil settlement for delivery and the futile effect of the US/Anglo/EU imperialist dictates have in the marketplace.

Yet Again U.S. Department of Defense Can’t Account for Billions in Iraq

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Two new audits conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) have discovered that the United States Department of Defense (DOD) cannot account for a whopping $2 billion it was given to fund the reconstruction of Iraq.

To make matters even worse, the DOD is not even providing Iraq with a complete record of the construction projects funded by the United States, making the accounting even more difficult, if not impossible.

Back in 2004, Iraq provided $3 billion to the DOD to fund selected construction projects, but only about one third of those funds have been tracked according to the inspector general’s “January Quarterly Report and Semiannual Report” which was released recently and can be located here (along with other reports released by the inspector general).

The DOD claims that they have “internal processes and controls” in place to track the flow of money, yet they admit the “bulk of the records are missing,” and claim that they are in the process of searching for them.

Claiming you have internal controls while $2 billion is missing is laughable and shows just how ludicrously incompetent our government can be.

However, there is the very real possibility that this has nothing to do with incompetence and instead is yet another example of individuals in government conspiring to cash in.

This very well might be the case given that other documents including monthly reports which document the expenses have mysteriously gone missing as well.

Another indicator that this is something more than mere incompetence is the fact that in June of last year, the New York Federal Reserve refused to disclose details about the billions of dollars the Fed sent to Iraq during the beginning of the invasion.

The inspector general claimed it was not the fault of the New York Fed but instead the Iraqis since “They haven’t been sufficiently responsive.”

Furthermore, earlier that month it was reported that $6.6 billion in fresh $100 bills was sent by plane to Iraq and then could not be accounted for by the DOD.

Big Brother Internet

Source: Institute for Political Economy
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Do you remember the Safe-Cyber instructions they taught you in the mandatory Computer Ed class (operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology)? First you fire up your Secured Computing Device (SCD) and its hardware token authenticator.

Then you enter the six-digit algorithmically generated password displayed (a new one flashes every 60 seconds) and are asked to supply your biometric identifier. You place your thumb on the built-in fingerprint pad, click, and wait for the Internet connection to begin. But it doesn’t.

Instead, the screen goes black for a second before the dreaded words appear: “Malware has been detected on this SCD. As mandated by federal law, it has been placed in quarantine.” Then the machine shuts down.

This is not just conjecture, but an imminent scenario.

Policies, such as the White House proposed “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace,” which will transform the character, culture and freedom of the Internet, are already in place. The 20 cybersecurity-related bills introduced in the Senate in 2011, and the dozen introduced in the House of Representatives, have wound their way through committees and, according to Senator Harry Reid, are scheduled to be voted on in the first quarter of 2012. Almost all of them, with the blessing of the White House, would make the Department of Homeland Security the overseer of private-sector networks.
  

Considering the apocalyptic rhetoric coming from Washington and the ranks of cybersecurity experts – echoed by media reports that portray every picayune data breach as Armageddon – it would appear that the vulnerability of the Internet has been underplayed for many years.

In the Internet’s start-up decades, both industry and government were committed to establishing an atmosphere of trust that would draw the public into conducting more and more digital business. Though data breaches, theft of trade secrets, identity theft and bank robbery have been a fact of Internet life since its beginnings, there were few laws requiring disclosure. Banks and credit card firms ate their losses as a cost of doing business, and the giant corporations kept mum rather than roil the public. Recently, the pendulum has swung in the other direction and a raucous alarm has been sounded regarding the great danger posed by the Internet.