Wars and Rumors
If Iran goes nuclear it will change our world.
An Iranian atom bomb will force Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt to acquire their own atom bombs. Thus a multipolar nuclear arena will be established in the most volatile region on earth. Sooner or later, this unprecedented development will produce a nuclear event. The world we know will cease to be the world we know after Tehran, Riyadh, Cairo or Tel Aviv become the 21st century’s Hiroshima.
An Iranian bomb will bring about universal nuclear proliferation. Humanity’s greatest achievement since 1945 was controlling nuclear armament by limiting the number of members in the exclusive nuclear club. This unfair arrangement created a world order that guaranteed relative world peace.
[From Ari Shavit, New York Times, quoted in War News Update, whose editor comments, "This is the worse case scenario .... one that is unfortunately slowly unfolding in front of our eyes."]
* Claims come a month after government announced plans to monitor all online communications
* Players reportedly choose realistic war games to mask their plotting as harmless gamers' chatter
* Jihadis may even be using the ultra-realistic violent simulations as training for planned atrocities
A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead
Iran's navy does not have the size for a sustained physical blockade of the Strait, but does have mine-laying and missile capability to wreak some havoc, analysts said. ... the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet is nearby and keeping a close eye on Iran's activities in the Strait....
Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan. [h/t War News Updates]
Iraq War's 'Last Casualty' (The 4,483rd American) Is Mourned
A retired Chinese general recently revealed that his country might be planning a surprise missile attack on the United States. The public comment of Xu Guangyu came in response to WikiLeaks revelations that last year Washington had warned its allies beforehand of China's test of a missile interceptor. ... The Hong Kong paper noted that Xu said that "if China could no longer keep secret its missile launches, it would not be able to launch a surprise attack on the US." Is China really in the process of planning to destroy the American homeland with a preemptive barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles? Xu's comment, of course, is not proof, but it does reveal that Chinese flag officers are thinking about doing so.
NATO's war planners call it the "iron mountain," the $2.7 billion mass of military equipment that will be dropped on Afghanistan over the next eight months... 22,000 vehicles, including 514 new four-wheeled "mobile strike force" armored vehicles yet to be used in Afghanistan, 44 airplanes and helicopters, 40,000 weapons, and tens of thousands of radios and other pieces of communications gear... President Hamid Karzai and others say they are not interested in fielding an army and police force they cannot afford or sustain as American troops withdraw... [And WHO exactly are we arming and WHAT guarantees do we have this stuff won't be taken and used against us?]
Israeli Air Force strikes numerous sites in Strip overnight, Palestinian sources say; Hamas targets hit, casualties reported. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority warns Israel to act 'responsibly' in wake of terror offensive that left eight Israelis dead
These aren't pillow fights
Recently, reports surfaced of Iranian assistance to rebels fighting American forces in Iraq. In his first visit to Iraq as defense secretary, Leon Panetta stated, "[W]e're very concerned about Iran and the weapons they're providing to extremists in Iraq. We cannot sit back and simply allow this to continue." Yet thus far the United States and the rest of the world continue to sit back and wait -- wait for something to draw us into the inevitable. On October 14, 1962 President John F. Kennedy addressed the world: "It shall be the policy of this nation, to regard any nuclear missile, launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, as an attack, by the Soviet Union, on the United States." We can only hope that it will not take a nuclear attack for this country to realize that we are already at war.
a mob of young people attacking innocent fair-goers at the end of the opening night of State Fair, with some callers claiming a racially-charged scene. Milwaukee Police confirmed there were assaults outside the fair. Witnesses' accounts claim everything from dozens to hundreds of young black people beating white people as they left State Fair Thursday night.
Four young men with gang ties were arrested Wednesday night for an alleged attempted mugging and mugging in separate incidents on the east side, Madison police reported. Police said that brings to 18 the number of suspects arrested since April for a string of strong-arm robberies, batteries and disorderly conduct cases involving weapons, as officers crack down on street violence.
Militants in Pakistan seized 13 Afghanistan-bound trucks — one carrying two Humvees — without firing a single shot. ... Pakistani Taliban militants hijacked a convoy carrying wheat and military vehicles headed for Afghanistan Monday, underscoring for NATO forces the vulnerability of their only practical supply route into landlocked Afghanistan.
As drug smugglers from the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico sent a never-ending stream of cocaine across the border and into a vast U.S. distribution web in Los Angeles, DEA agents were watching and listening.
Iran's escalating activity on the territory of its western neighbor, Iraq, could end up becoming the real catalyst for a U.S.-Iranian conflict. That was the message conveyed by General Martin Dempsey, the incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at his July 26th confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. ... Iran has been allowed to wage irregular warfare against the United States and its Coalition allies for years with virtual impunity. Policymakers in Washington and European capitals, fearful of a drift into even greater regional conflict, have chosen largely to ignore Iran's provocations and keep the peace with the Islamic Republic. And as a result, Iran's leaders have become convinced that their extensive interference in Iraq is by and large a cost-free exercise. But all this could soon change. "[T]here is a high potential that Iran will make a serious miscalculation of US resolve," Gen. Dempsey told lawmakers in Congress. "As long as we've got those soldiers there, we're going to do whatever we have to do to protect them." Doing so could lead inexorably to conflict with the Islamic Republic.
The security situation in Iraq is more dangerous than it was a year ago, according to a government watchdog report issued Saturday that cites more attacks on U.S. troops, a continuing wave of assassinations targeting Iraqi officials and a growing number of indirect rocket strikes on Baghdad's Green Zone. ... The findings contrast with public statements by U.S. diplomatic and military officials in Iraq and come as Washington awaits a final decision by Iraqi leaders on whether they want U.S. troops to stay in the country beyond the expiration of a three-year security agreement in December. U.S. officials have said they are willing to extend the American military presence into 2012 only after receiving a formal request from Iraqi leaders.
Top US officer Admiral Michael Mullen on Monday acknowledged NATO was in a "stalemate" in its Libya campaign but still voiced optimism the strategy would lead to the departure of Moamer Kadhafi.
Police arrived at an island massacre about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn't have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn't find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred yards (meters) offshore. The assailant surrendered when police finally reached him, but 82 people died before that. ... The shooting came on the heels of what police told The Associated Press was an "Oklahoma city-type" bombing in Oslo's downtown: It targeted a government building, was allegedly perpetrated by a homegrown assailant and used the same mix of fertilizer and fuel that blew up a federal building in the U.S. in 1995. In all, at least 92 people were killed in the twin attacks that police are blaming on the same suspect, 32-year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik.
Iran's intelligence minister said Friday that his country has found a way to block the so-called "Internet in a suitcase," a program reportedly developed by the U.S. to bring online access to dissidents around the world. The minister, Heidar Moslehi, told Muslim worshippers that Iran was aware of the program from the start. "We prepared a solution for it,"
Three suspected US missile strikes in north-western Pakistan in less than 12 hours have killed at least 38 alleged militants, an unusually heavy barrage at a time when relations between the two countries are badly strained
Islamic terrorist groups are setting up shop in Mexico and forming alarming ties with the country's brutal drug cartels, according to a 2010 internal memo from the Tucson Police Department. The memo, leaked by the hacker group LulzSec as part of its Arizona Department of Public Safety hack, warns that Hezbollah has established operations — and a large arms stockpile — in Mexico. ... could be disastrous for Mexico's drug war, given Hezbollah's advanced weapons capabilities — specifically their expertise with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It notes that some Mexican criminal organizations have started using small IEDs and car bombs, a marked change in tactics that indicates a relationship with Islamic militants. Partnerships between Mexican organized crime and Islamic militants are mutually beneficial — and therefore terrifying. The cartels are able to gain smuggling and weapons expertise, as well as access to cheap heroin from Afghanistan and Iran. The terrorists benefit from Mexico's drug war lawlessness and its porous border with their primary target: The United States.
Iran is moving its nuclear program into a mountain facility able to withstand air and missile strikes ... Experts fear that Tehran's decision to begin moving some 3,000 centrifuges to Fowdrow could signal its final push for a nuclear weapon. ... [Gee, y'think?]
"The flight attendant just ran up to me and literally grabbed me by the shirt and said, 'You need to come with me now...." They came upon three men wrestling with another passenger who... had been in the restroom for 20 or 30 minutes and wouldn't come out.... They handcuffed the suspicious passenger and tied up his feet, but he started spitting and swearing.... "So we duct-taped his mouth shut.... He was able to get that off himself. He almost choked himself by swallowing the duct tape." Then they secured a surgical mask over his face "just to get him to kind of shut up and stop spitting all over everybody." man had a boarding pass but wasn't on the passenger list.
Iran said on Saturday it test-fired two long-range missiles into the Indian Ocean earlier this year, the first time it has fired missiles into that sea, according to state television.
The top U.S. military officer accused Iran on Thursday of shipping new supplies of deadly weapons to its militia allies in Iraq, in what he described as Tehran's bid to take credit for forcing American troops to go home. ... "Iran is very directly supporting extremist Shiite groups which are killing our troops," said Adm. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "There is no question they are shipping high-tech weapons in there…that are killing our people. And the forensics prove that."
A spray-painted sign threatening death for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents was found Friday next to a school in a northern Mexico state capital, officials said. Addressed with profanity to "Gringos (D.E.A.)," the unsigned graffiti warned: "We know where you are and we know who you are and where you go. We are going to chop off your (expletive) heads."
While it appears to be sparsely attended, it isn't because people didn't want to be there. It looks like a ghost town because people couldn't be there. Another enchanting American tradition clobbered by jihad. But let's pretend that it isn't happening.
The whole mission doesn't stand up to the sniff test; it has no place within the confines of sound American foreign policy. I'll reiterate that personally. There are three things that should be involved in a good policy: a belief in American exceptionalism, a belief in American hegemony, and assurance that American interests are the priority. This mission has struck out on all of them, and the public sees that. To begin quite simply, we have no national interest in what we're pursuing in Libya.
A U.S. drone aircraft fired on two leaders of a militant Somali organization tied to al-Qaeda, apparently wounding them, a senior U.S. military official familiar with the operation said Wednesday. The strike last week against senior members of al-Shabab comes amid growing concern within the U.S. government that some leaders of the Islamist group are collaborating more closely with al-Qaeda to strike targets beyond Somalia, the military official said.
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