Wednesday 4 January 2012

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Iran to Washington: 'Learn to Fear Us'

IRAN AGAIN WARNS THE US

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

MB Expected to Become 'More Savage'

N. Korea Abuzz With Rumors, Gossip

Wild rumors abound, as reported here.

British Interplanetary Society Questions NASA Moon Landing

All that is solid melts….

The world's oldest space advocacy organization seems to believe that the 1969 moon landing was a hoax. Clickhere and here to read more.


Oil Surges, Gold Rallies

Fear trading is back. Click here and here.

Fatah Admits Plot to Kill Ariel Sharon

Syrian Rebel Leader Threatens to Step Up Attacks

N. Korea Stages Big Rally for Kim


More Madness …

THOUSANDS PLEDGE LOYALTY TO THE SUPREME LEADER,

Again, No Gloves Allowed -- Gloves Mean Gulag -- Because Kim
Didn't Wear Any Walking Alongside Car Carrying Father's Body




Iran War Could Mean $200-a-Barrel Oil



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: The following article is republished with permission from OilPrice.com . Although we at Foreign Confidential™ differ with Daly on what needs to be and should long ago have been done about the Iran threat, dating to the Carter administration's catastrophic complicity in the Islamist overthrow of the Shah--our view is that appeasement of Iran has made war inevitable, and that the regime in Tehran must be eradicated by any and all means necessary--we agree with the article's basic analysis and conclusions. War with Iran suddenly seems imminent, and the resulting spike in oil prices could wreck the world economy.

The Pearl Harbor analogy is apt, as well. Slowly strangling and, worse, merely wounding, instead of killing, the venomous Islamist snake could have deadly consequences for the United States and its allies, including Israel (whose capital is Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, which Daly should know, or, perhaps, does not wish to acknowledge so as to avoid offending many of his readers), given Iran's formidable arsenal of missiles, presumed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical weapons--and, possibly, also, one or more dirty bombs--strategically planted, international terrorist assets, alliance with Syria, and partnership with nuclear-armed North Korea. An Iranian sneak attack on Israel and/or U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and, maybe, even, on the U.S. homeland itself is not at all unthinkable. As Foreign Confidential™ has said over and again, not for nothing have Iran and North Korea test-fired missiles from cargo vessels.

It might be worth adding: not for nothing has Iran established IRGC (Quds Force) and Hezbollah cells in Venezuela and other Latin American countries. From threatening to halt the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf … to sending naval vessels into the Gulf of Mexico … Iran's escalating threats should be taken with the utmost seriousness. Unlike Adolf Hitler, who hid his intentions in order to wring concessions from pro-appeasement European powers in the run-up to World War II, Iran's Hitler-admiring (yet Holocaust denying) maniac-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his atomic ayatollah, missile-mad mullahs, and SS-like, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps military commanders are telling the world exactly what they plan to do.


Imminent War? $200-a-Barrel Oil?

By John Daly

The pieces and policies for potential conflict in the Persian Gulf are seemingly drawing inexorably together.

Since 24 December the Iranian Navy has been holding its 10-day Velayat 90 naval exercises, covering an area in the Arabian Sea stretching from east of the Strait of Hormuz entrance to the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden. The day the maneuvers opened Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told a press conference that the exercises were intended to show "Iran's military prowess and defense capabilities in international waters, convey a message of peace and friendship to regional countries, and test the newest military equipment."

The exercise is Iran's first naval training drill since May 2010, when the country held its Velayat 89 naval maneuvers in the same area. Velayat 90 is the largest naval exercise the country has ever held.

The participating Iranian forces have been divided into two groups, blue and orange, with the blue group representing Iranian forces and orange the enemy. Velayat 90 is involving the full panoply of Iranian naval force, with destroyers, missile boats, logistical support ships, hovercraft, aircraft, drones and advanced coastal missiles and torpedoes all being deployed. Tactics include mine-laying exercises and preparations for chemical attack. Iranian naval commandos, marines and divers are also participating.

Proximity to the U.S. Fifth Fleet

The exercises have put Iranian warships in close proximity to vessels of the United States Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, which patrols some of the same waters, including the Strait of Hormuz, a 21 mile-wide waterway at its narrowest point. Roughly 40 percent of the world's oil tanker shipments transit the strait daily, carrying 15.5 million barrels of Saudi, Iraqi, Iranian, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Qatari and United Arab Emirates crude oil, leading the United States Energy Information Administration to label the Strait of Hormuz "the world's most important oil chokepoint."

In light of Iran’s recent capture of an advanced CIA RQ-170 Sentinel drone earlier this month, Iranian Navy Rear Admiral Seyed Mahmoud Moussavi noted that the Iranian Velayat 90 forces also conducted electronic warfare tests, using modern Iranian-made electronic jamming equipment to disrupt enemy radar and contact systems. Further tweaking Uncle Sam’s nose, Moussavi added that Iranian Navy drones involved in Velayat 90 conducted successful patrolling and surveillance operations.

Thousands of miles to the west, adding oil to the fire, President Obama is preparing to sign legislation that, if fully enforced, could impose harsh penalties on all customers for Iranian oil, with the explicit aim of severely impeding Iran’s ability to sell it.

How serious are the Iranians about the proposed sanctions and possible attack over its civilian nuclear program and what can they deploy if push comes to shove? According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ The Military Balance 2011, Iran has 23 submarines, 100+ “coastal and combat” patrol craft, 5 mine warfare and anti-mine craft, 13 amphibious landing vessels and 26 “logistics and support” ships. Add to that the fact that Iran has emphasized that it has developed indigenous “asymmetrical warfare” naval doctrines, and it is anything but clear what form Iran’s naval response to sanctions or attack could take. The only certainty is that it is unlikely to resemble anything taught at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Heightened Risk of Confrontation

The proposed Obama administration energy sanctions heighten the risk of confrontation and carry the possibility of immense economic disruption from soaring oil prices, given the unpredictability of the Iranian response. Addressing the possibility of tightened oil sanctions Iran’s first vice president Mohammad-Reza Rahimi on 27 December said, “If they impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iran has earlier warned that if either the U.S. or Israel attack, it will target 32 American bases in the Middle East and close the Strait of Hormuz. On 28 December Iranian Navy commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari observed, "Closing the Strait of Hormuz for the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran is very easy. It is a capability that has been built from the outset into our naval forces' abilities."

But adding an apparent olive branch Sayyari added, "But today we are not in the Hormuz Strait. We are in the Sea of Oman and we do not need to close the Hormuz Strait. Today we are just dealing with the Sea of Oman. Therefore, we can control it from right here and this is one of our prime abilities for such vital straits and our abilities are far, far more than they think."

There are dim lights at the end of the seemingly darker and darker tunnel. The proposed sanctions legislation allows Obama to waive sanctions if they cause the price of oil to rise or threaten national security.

China is a Wild Card

Furthermore, there is the wild card of Iran’s oil customers, the most prominent of which is China, which would hardly be inclined to go along with increased sanctions.

But one thing should be clear in Washington – however odious the U.S. government might find Iran’s mullahcracy, it is most unlikely to cave in to either economic or military intimidation that would threaten the nation’s existence, and if backed up against the wall with no way out, would just as likely go for broke and use every weapon at its disposal to defend itself. Given their evident cyber abilities in hacking the RQ-170 Sentinel drone and their announcement of an indigenous naval doctrine, a “cakewalk” victory with “mission accomplished” declared within a few short weeks seems anything but assured, particularly as it would extend the military arc of crisis from Iraq through Iran to Afghanistan, a potential shambolic military quagmire beyond Washington’s, NATO’s and Tel Aviv’s resources to quell.

It is worth remembering that chess was played in Sassanid Iran 1,400 years ago, where it was known as “chatrang.” What is occurring now off the Persian Gulf is a diplomatic and military game of chess, with global implications.

Washington’s concept of squeezing a country’s government by interfering with its energy policies has a dolorous history seven decades old.

When Japan invaded Vichy French-ruled southern Indo-China in July 1941 the U.S. demanded Japan withdraw. In addition, on 1 August the U.S., Japan’s biggest oil supplier at the time, imposed an oil embargo on the country.

Pearl Harbor occurred less than four months later.

IRAN THREATENS TO ATTACK US CARRIER



IRAN WARNS 'ENEMY' AIRCRAFT CARRIER

Iran seems to be steadily and deliberately raising the stakes, intentionally seeking a confrontation that could spark a war with the United States. The escalation of tensions and rhetoric on Iran's part is tied both to the cold/covert war with the U.S, that is already underway over Iran's menacing and accelerating atomic arms program and to the crisis in Syria, where the intensifying, internationally-assisted revolt against Iran's secular ally, the Assad regime, threatens to put an end to Iranian plans for establishing military/missile bases in the country.

Iran's intentions are clear: to destroy Israel and to drive the U.S. from the Middle East.

Hitlerian Hezbollah Head Worth $250 Million


Iran's Lebanese proxy leader is said to be sitting atop a huge fortune. All told, he and his fellow turbaned terrorist chieftains are believed to have personally put away $2 billion in hundreds of offshore bank accounts. Click here forthe story.

Monday, January 02, 2012

North Koreans Forced to Attend and Cry at Dear Leader's Funeral Were Ordered Not to Wear Gloves or Hats in Freezing Weather


The Monstrous Regime that Jimmy Carter Would Engage ...

The nuclear-armed nut-cases controlling the country-sized concentration camp called North Korea ordered their inmates (citizens) not to wear hats or gloves in frostbite weather because the newly installed Supreme Leader had decided to go hatless while accompanying the imported, customized, Nixon-era, American car (a black Lincoln) carrying the body of his dead father, Dear Leader Kim Jong Il--a monster responsible for murdering and starving to death some three million people. Click
here for the story.

To paraphrase former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, speaking of the Nixon era, if the international community can't stop an impoverished Third World Country with no natural resources from threatening its neighbors and engaging in nuclear and missile proliferation and other crimes, then what meaning is there to the term international community?

New Libya to Restrict Women Assembly Seats

ASSAD BUILDING MOUNTAIN BASTION


DEBKAFILE REPORTS REGIME BUILDING REDOUBT


Foreign Confidential™ analysts interpret the report as a sign that the Syrian regime and Iran are preparing to make good on their threats to rain missiles down on Tel Aviv, close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, use weapons of mass destruction--e.g. chemical warheads--rather than surrender Syria to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian opposition, which is backed by the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and France. (Jerusalem could also be bombarded with missiles, as reported here.)

Syria is the flashpoint. A conflict that begins there could engulf the entire Middle East, including Iran and Israel. The fighting could start in Syria and end in Iran. Along the way, Israel could suffer horrible casualties, and be compelled to use its presumed nuclear arsenal to prevent a second Holocaust.

Tragically, appeasement of Iran has made war with Iran … and its proxies and allies … inevitable.

Tragically, too, the Syrian regime that follows Assad is likely to be just as bad or worse, as the Obama administration has no real interest in supporting secular democracies, only "Islamic democracies." In fact, the rise of secular democracy in either Iran or Syria--i.e. the overthrow of the Shiite Iranian Islamist Republic and reversing the Sunni Islamist tide in Syria--would amount to a nightmare for Obama, who has made outreach to, appeasement of, and support for what he insists on calling "the Muslim World" the foundation of his foreign policy. Islamist Turkey is Obama's model Islamocracy. The advent of an alternative model would undermine his strategy of seeking to manipulate rightwing political and overlapping organized Islam in order to extend the Arc (and sword) of Islam across the energy-rich Middle East and Central Asia in sync with a supposed "moral arc of history" (for Obama clearly perceives Islam as the religion of the global poor and political Islam as fundamentally progressive) and in line with the crackpot, geopolitical theories of a key advisor, Jimmy Carter's Israel-bashing, Islamist-backing former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

MUSLIM MOB MURDERS 'FATHER CHRISTMAS'

Why the US Would be Iran's Number 1 Nuke Target


The United States, assuming the reelection of Barack Obama, would be more in danger of an Iranian nuclear attack than Israel, according to Foreign Confidential™ analysts. The reason for this can be summed up in a word: deterrence.

The United States, unlike Israel, has no known deterrent against an anonymous atomic attack by Iranian proxies or terrorist groups backed by Iran.

Israel, which is presumed to have as many as 400 nuclear warheads with the ability to deliver them by intercontinental ballistic missile, aircraft, and submarine, is believed to have put in place systems for the automatic obliteration of suspect nations should a nuclear device of any kind ever be detonated on or above Israeli soil. Accent on automatic.

Under Obama, the U.S. would first investigate and try to determine the origin of such an attack before reacting militarily, and, regardless of the outcome of the investigation, would not necessarily retaliate with atomic arms of any kind. Such is the intensity of Obama's opposition to nuclear weaponry, dating to his undergraduate days at Columbia University. In 1983, during the Cold War, Obama, then a senior majoring in political science, wrote in a campus news magazine, Sundial, about his vision of a nuclear free world. During his Presidential campaign, Obama declared his desire to significantly reduce the world’s nuclear arsenal in pursuit of the “global zero” agenda. As President, he has emphasized disarmament over deterrence, promising to put an end to Cold War nuclear policies and thinking.

Put differently, it can be assumed that Obama would respond to an anonymous nuclear attack on the U.S. with a promise to bring the perpetrators to justice; an appeal for calm and reason; appointment of a special investigative commission; interfaith prayer meetings; nationally televised "healing" sessions; a vow to rebuild the devastated city; and, last but not least, a renewed commitment to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, and to arms control in general. Notice the word city. Should terrorists attack an overseas U.S. military base with a nuclear weapon on Obama's watch, it is extremely unlikely that a nuclear reprisal would even be considered. (A North Korean nuclear attack on U.S. troops in South Korea would be an entirely different matter; Obama would be under tremendous pressure to retaliate against the North with nuclear weapons, though the risk of triggering a response by the North's nuclear-armed ally, China, could cause the U.S. to limit its retaliation to conventional armaments.)

Given the near certainty of Islamist responsibility for the atrocity, Obama would naturally also reach out to "the Muslim World" for improved understanding and relations while finding a way to implicitly blame Israel for the new 9/11--i.e. for not withdrawing to indefensible borders as per his plan for the creation of a "contiguous Palestinian state."

This day in History, Jan. 2, 1933: Press Reported New Year Prediction by Germany's Liberal Party that Hitler Would Fail; 28 Days Later, He Took Power


How Horribly Wrong They Were: Germany's Liberal Party
(Not to be Confused With Today's American Liberals)
Forecast Complete Collapse of the Nazi Movement in 1933

Hitler Named Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Nazis had their internal differences and rivalries, as shown by the 1933 article's reference to the murder of a Dresden "Storm Troop" member, just as today's Islamonazis--commonly called Islamists--have their factional disputes. Today, of course, appeasers of rightwing political Islam point to the differences among Islamists over strategy, tactics, and ideology to argue in favor of "engaging" (code for collaborating with) supposed "moderate" Islamists. Perfidy!

Berlin, Jan. 2, 1933 (JTA) – A New Year's message issued by Adolph Hitler, the National Socialist leader and his chief lieutenant Paul Joseph Goebbels, head of the Berlin Nazi Party, bears a tone of pessimism unlike previous messages.

No longer is there any prediction of victory. It enumerates several victories claimed for Hitlerism during 1932, among them the retirement of Dr. Bernhard Weiss, the Jewish Vice-President of the Berlin police department, who was forced out of office as a result of sustained Nazi agitation and a campaign of scurrilities hardly equalled even in the annals of Hitlerist propaganda.

The only specifically anti-Jewish passage in the Nazi New Year's message is a call to Germans not to put their trust in the press controlled by the Jews.

A New Year's message was also issued by the Liberal party leaders in Germany. This message expresses the conviction that the year 1933 will see the ultimate collapse of Hitlerism because its power to attract the masses is already notably on the decline. The message also records undeniable sobering down of German public opinion with regard to the Nazis a result brought about by the disclosures concerning the death of Herbert Hentsch, a member of a Nazi Storm Troop in Dresden.

Hentsch, who disappeared on November 4th, was murdered by fellow Nazis, it is now learned. Until last Monday, efforts to locate him failed and his mother was informed by Nazi headquarters that they knew no one of his name.

Last Monday his body was fished out of the Matler Dam and an inquest established that he had been shot and his body mutilated before being tied up in a sack and dropped into the water.

Three members of Hentsch's Storm Troop are suspected of the crime. The three suspects fled to Italy and their extradition is urged upon the Foreign Office by the government of Saxony.

Iran TV Shows Missile Firing

IRAN CLAIMS ITS MISSILE CAN EVADE RADAR
AND ANNOUNCES NUCLEAR FUEL ROD FEAT


Sunday, January 01, 2012

Syria Sought Pakistan Nuclear Knowhow

NEW SULTAN MEETS GAZA HAMAS HEAD


US/BRITISH-BACKED TURKISH PM MEETS


"It has always been the policy of England to sustain Turkey as a bulwark against Russia. However cruel the Turk, he could always count on England's support whenever the integrity of his empire was endangered." - U.S. Consul General to Cairo Elbert E. Farman, Egypt and its Betrayal: An Account of the Country During the Periods of Ismail and Tewfik Pashas, and of How England Acquired a New Empire,The Grafton Press, 1908.

Europe's Inexorable March Towards Islam


Organized/Political Islam Transforming Europe

Muslim Brotherhood: No Recognition of Israel

In 2012, too, N. Korea News Will be All Bad

Foreign Confidential™ analysts warn more North Korean military provocations and missile and nuclear tests are in the works.

Nuclear-armed North Korea is an implacable enemy of the United States, South Korea, and Japan.

The North's nuclar-arming ally, Islamist Iran, is an implacable enemy of the United States and Israel.

There is no diplomatic solution to the North Korea problem.

There is no diplomatic solution to the Iran problem.

God help us.

Remembering Yaffa Yarkoni

Israel's Queen of Song, Dead at 86




Hamas Leader Flees Damascus

Santorum Right on Iran

GOP HOPEFUL SAYS HE WOULD BOMB IRAN