Tuesday, March 20, 2012
France: Killer May Have Videoed Attack
Iran Buying, Stockpiling US Wheat
Monday, March 19, 2012
Russia Reportedly Sends Elite Troops to Syria
French Neo-Nazis Sought in Terror Attack
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Iranian Advisors in Gaza
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
The murderer may be planning to post a video of his atrocity on the Internet, as reported here.
The radical right in France includes diehard members and supporters of the ultranationalistOAS, as reported here. The terrorist organization, which was a magnet for Nazi collaborationists, cooperated closely with the postwar Nazi underground in Europe and South America.
European neo-Nazis and neo-fascists constitute the Continent's hidden terrorist menace, largely overshadowed by the Islamist terrorist threat since 9/11. Some radical right groups have actually expressed support for the jihadist cause--an alliance of sorts that recalls Hitler's embrace of the Grand Mufti and postwar recruitment of Nazi war criminals by Arab intelligence agencies. Others, such as the suspect in the school attack, apparently, are violently anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish (and anti-black and anti-Asian).
Endnote: For all its "democracy promotion," the United States has basically ignored the neo-Nazi threat. (Washington may be sensitive to its perfidious past in this regard, having secretly saved and recruited legions of Nazi collaborators--and war criminals--during the Cold War and having also supported European far-right groups against Communists, socialists and trade unionists during the Cold War.) Russia, in contrast, has been quite outspoken about the rise of the radical right, as shown by this article. It should also be noted that the anti-Putin alliance, hailed (no pun intended) by so-called democracy promoters, includes avowed racists, anti-Semites and neo-fascists (as well as Stalinist Communists). But that's another story.
Agricultural Products Exempt
From US, European Sanctions
Iran is buying American wheat for the first time in three years as it seeks to hedge against the growing impact of sanctions and weather-related crop shortages. Some 120,000 tonnes of hard red winter wheat grown in the Plains is on its way to the Islamic Republic, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The sale of another 60,000 tonnes has been finalized, according to trade sources, and Iran may ultimately buy some 400,000 tonnes of U.S. wheat this year.
The purchases are part of a massive effort by the Islamic Republic to build up its grain stockpiles amid growing difficulties in financing imports of everything from steel to palm oil. At the same time, Iranian companies are devising elaborate workarounds to ensure find new markets for crude oil exports.
Exports of U.S. wheat to Iran are legal. U.S. and European sanctions against Iran exempt agricultural products. The major U.S. commodity traders -- Bunge, Archer Daniel Midland and Cargill -- won't comment on whether they were involved in the deals, but Cargill told CNN that it "does sell agricultural commodities to Iran as food is specifically excluded from the sanctions" implemented because of Iran's nuclear program….
Members of an elite, Russian anti-terror unit have reportedly arrived at Russia's naval installation in Tartus, Syria. Click herefor the (somewhat slanted U.S. news) story.
Foreign Confidential™ analysts believe the commandos have been sent to Syria for the following reasons: to protect Russian personnel and property; to protect and if need be to evacuate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle--Russia is determined to prevent them from falling into rebel hands--and as a signal to the Arab world that Moscow has no intention of letting Washington, Ankara, and Riyadh remake the Middle East without regard to Russian interests in the region.
None of this was necessary. The Obama administration's Russian relations reset failed; but the President, in fairness, inherited (and foolishly continued) an anti-Russian policy that Republican and Democratic administrations alike have pursued since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War more than 20 years ago.
Instead of sitting down with Russia (and China) to arrive at real understandings and, frankly speaking, to make order in the world, the United States has done the opposite. It has inexplicably and illogically treated post-Communist Russia (and Communist-in-name-only China) as a slightly better version of Communist Russia/USSR (and Maoist/Communist China).
The urgent need for cooperation concerning Shiite Islamist Iran--a nuclear-arming menace to the entire civilized world--doesn't seem to have even been considered, neither by the present U.S. administration nor by its predecessor (which stupidly invaded Iraq, among other strategic blunders, the likes of which the world has not seen since the Johnson administration tragically decided to extend containment, a policy designed for Europe, to Southeast Asia).
From the White House to Senator John McCain (a so-called maverick who seems to still support the Vietnam War) to the increasingly pathetic field of GOP Presidential hopefuls (none of whom have ever known war, in contrast with McCain, who is, after all, a real hero in this regard) all the American people get is more of the same--unnecessary interventions that backfire and boomerang in the name of "democracy promotion" and simplistic sloganeering in place of serious, informed discussion and analysis.
Neo-Nazis are sought in today's attack at a Jewish school that killed four innocent people--a teacher, his two children and another child. Click here for the report, a horrible reminder that the racist, fascist menace is unfortunately alive and well in Europe, and may even be on the rise again as a result of the Continent's worsening economic crisis, which is rapidly becoming a political crisis.
Related: Nazis March in Latvia
Escalation of Proxy War
Iranian military advisors are operating in Gaza and Sinai, as reported here.
Iran is also again threatening to cut off the strategic Strait of Hormuz to oil shipping; and the West is bracing for Iranian acts of aggression, as reported here.
Notwithstanding its covert intervention in Gaza and Sinai and encroachment in Latin America, Iran's world on the whole is shrinking--economically and politically. Banking and trade ties are being cut or tightened; and the embattled Syrian regime, which Iran has steadfastly supported, may be on its last legs. At the very least, the Syrian strife, which every day seems more like a civil war, has permanently ended Iran's dream of establishing military/missile bases in Israel's northern neighbor. (Israel's other northern neighbor, Lebanon, is still dominated by Iranian proxy Hezbollah, which is bristling with missiles capable of striking all over Israel.)
All of which means Iran is increasingly likely to lash out at its adversaries--directly and indirectly. Foreign Confidential™ analysts believe Iran could be preparing to take action in Hormuz around the middle of April, in tandem with the planned long-range missile launch by Iran's proliferation partner, North Korea, which Iran is now believed to be heavily subsidizing.
Asymmetric threats and multiple crises, missiles and mines, and Mumbai-style swarming attacks … Iran intends to fight the coming war, which appeasement has made inevitable, on its terms.
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