Iran Sanctions Act Definite Step Toward War
by Rep. Ron Paul, November 05, 2011 -AntiWar.com

Statwement on Mark-up of HR 1905, the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011, House Foreign Affairs Committee

I would like to express my concerns over the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 and my opposition to it being brought to the Floor for a vote. Let us be clear on one critical matter: the sanctions against Iran mandated by this legislation are definite steps toward a US attack on Iran. They will also, if actually applied, severely disrupt global trade and undermine the US economy, thereby harming our national security.

I am surprised and disturbed that the committee viewed this aggressive legislation to be so bipartisan and uncontroversial that a recorded vote was not even called.

Some may argue that we are pursuing sanctions so as to avoid war with Iran, but recent history teaches us otherwise. For how many years were sanctions placed on Iraq while we were told they were necessary to avoid war? Thousands of innocent Iraqis suffered and died under US sanctions and still the US invaded, further destroying the country. Are we safer after spending a trillion dollars or more to destroy Iraq and then rebuild it?

These new sanctions against Iran increasingly target other countries that seek to trade with Iran. The legislation will severely punish foreign companies or foreign subsidiaries of US companies if they do not submit to the US trade embargo on Iran. Some 15 years after the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 failed to bring Iran to its knees, it is now to be US foreign policy to threaten foreign countries and companies.

During this mark-up one of my colleagues argued that if Mercedes-Benz wants to sell trucks to Iran, they should not be allowed to do business in the United States. Does anyone believe this is a good idea? I wonder how the Americans working at the Mercedes-Benz factory in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama would feel about banning Mercedes from the United States. Or perhaps we might ask the 7,600 Americans who work in the BMW factory in Spartanburg, SC how they would feel. Should the American consumer be denied the right to purchase these products? Is the United States really prepared to take such aggressive and radical action against its NATO ally Germany? …more

Saudi Arabia Names New Defense Minister
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE -5 Nov 2011 13:22

RIYADH – King Abdullah on Nov. 5 named his half-brother Prince Salman, who is governor of Riyadh, as Saudi Arabia’s defense minister to succeed the late Crown Prince Sultan, state television Al-Ekhbariya said.

Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz was appointed Riyadh’s governor in Prince Salman’s place, the report said, citing a series of royal decrees, under which Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the late crown prince’s son, was named deputy defence minister.

King Abdullah late last month named Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as crown prince succeeding his brother Sultan, who died in a U.S. hospital on Oct. 22.

Salman, who was born in 1935 and served as Riyadh’s governor since 1955, and Nayef are full brothers. He was considered close to Sultan, who he accompanied on his trips abroad for medical treatment. …source

AP Exclusive: CIA following Twitter, Facebook
By KIMBERLY DOZIER – AP Intelligence Writer

Va. (AP) — In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, in an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets — up to 5 million a day.

At the agency’s Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the “vengeful librarians” also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms — anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly.

From Arabic to Mandarin Chinese, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful blog, the analysts gather the information, often in native tongue. They cross-reference it with the local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted phone conversation. From there, they build a picture sought by the highest levels at the White House, giving a real-time peek, for example, at the mood of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden or perhaps a prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for revolt.

Yes, they saw the uprising in Egypt coming; they just didn’t know exactly when revolution might hit, said the center’s director, Doug Naquin.

The center already had “predicted that social media in places like Egypt could be a game-changer and a threat to the regime,” he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press at the center. CIA officials said it was the first such visit by a reporter the agency has ever granted.

The CIA facility was set up in response to a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission, with its first priority to focus on counterterrorism and counterproliferation. But its several hundred analysts — the actual number is classified — track a broad range, from Chinese Internet access to the mood on the street in Pakistan.

While most are based in Virginia, the analysts also are scattered throughout U.S. embassies worldwide to get a step closer to the pulse of their subjects.

The most successful analysts, Naquin said, are something like the heroine of the crime novel “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” a quirky, irreverent computer hacker who “knows how to find stuff other people don’t know exists.”

Those with a masters’ degree in library science and multiple languages, especially those who grew up speaking another language, “make a powerful open source officer,” Naquin said. …more

Why Israel Won’t Go It Alone
November 04, 2011 – By Meir Javedanfar – The Diplomat

With speculation intensifying over whether Israel is planning to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, it’s worth remembering that it’s the U.S. that will have the ultimate say.

If you want to know whether Israel is about to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities then you’d be better served looking at Iran-related policy and statements emanating from Washington DC than speculative reports from the Israeli press.

The possibility of an Israeli strike has been thrust into the spotlight again following reports in the Israeli media speculating that an agreement has been reached between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Netanyahu to take the military option against Iran’s facilities. Although these reports were later denied by Barak, new reports quickly emerged that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had also been convinced to back a military strike. Meanwhile, other members of the security cabinet, including Interior Minister Eli Yishai, are reported to be undecided and “losing sleep” over this matter.

The fact that Israel tested a new missile in the midst of all this added credibility to speculation that something could be afoot, especially with reports emerging that the Israeli Air Force recently took part in a joint NATO exercise focused on practicing long-range attacks.

Still, regardless of whether Netanyahu and Barak really do intend to attack Iran, it’s exceedingly unlikely Israel’s leaders, as hawkish as they may be, would attack Iran without U.S. permission. The Israeli government may feel comfortable challenging the United States over the issue of settlements, but striking Iran is a very different matter.

It wouldn’t matter who is in charge at the White House and how pro-Israel they may or may not be – a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran, without U.S. consent, would likely have severe consequences for Israel-U.S. relations. After all, the building of settlements doesn’t directly risk American lives and the U.S. economy. Attacking Iran without U.S. permission could and would.

For a start, the United States still has troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and any unilateral attack by the government of Israel against Iran could put the lives of U.S. soldiers there in jeopardy of Iranian retaliation. It could also create a massive spike in oil prices, something which could have severe consequences for an already struggling U.S. economy. To take such action without securing U.S. approval would risk undermining American interests in an unprecedented way, a reality that successive Israeli governments have been fully aware of. …more

Tensions rise over an Israel-Iran conflict
by Staff Writers – Washington (UPI) – Nov 4, 2011

Anxiety is rising in world capitals over possible pre-emptive military strikes by Israel against Iran over the threat posed by Tehran’s nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, together with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, are said to be lobbying Cabinet members to agree to attacks on Iranian military facilities, Israeli news reports state.

Punctuating those reports was news that Israel recently tested a Jericho missile, said to be capable of striking Iran.

British media are reporting that the country’s Ministry of Defense has ordered services to draw up contingency plans for supporting possible U.S. military operations against Iran if Washington were to back up Tel Aviv in any such scenario.

Tehran, meanwhile, is warning that any “Zionist regimes attack against Iran would lead to heavy damages to the U.S. as well as to the Zionist regime.”

The saber rattling and hand-wringing coincides with the imminent release of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that apparently will give unprecedented detail on Iran’s nuclear program and new evidence suggesting Tehran, despite repeated denials, is attempting to produce nuclear weapons. …more

Netanyahu Said Pushing for Strike on Iran
November 03, 2011 – Associated Press – by Josef Federman and Dan Perry

JERUSALEM — An Israeli official said Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to persuade his Cabinet to authorize a military strike against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program – a discussion that comes as Israel successfully tests a missile believed capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Iran.

It remained unclear whether Israel was genuinely poised to strike or if it was saber-rattling to prod the international community into taking a tougher line on Iran. Israeli leaders have long hinted at a military option, but they always seemed mindful of the practical difficulties, the likelihood of a furious counterstrike and the risk of regional mayhem.

The developments unfolded as the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to focus on the Iranian program at a meeting later this month. The West wants to set a deadline for Iran to start cooperating with an agency probe of suspicions that Tehran is secretly experimenting with components of a weapons program.

Israeli leaders have said they favor a diplomatic solution, but recent days have seen a spate of Israeli media reports on a possible strike, accompanied by veiled threats from top politicians.

In a speech to parliament this week, Netanyahu said a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a “dire threat” to the world and “a grave, direct threat on us, too.”

His hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was dismissive of the reports but added: “We are keeping all the options on the table.”

The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing sensitive internal deliberations, told The Associated Press that the option is now being debated at the highest levels.

The official confirmed a report Wednesday in the Haaretz daily that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak both favor an attack, but do not yet have the support of a majority of Cabinet ministers. The official also said Israel’s top security chiefs, including the heads of the military and Mossad spy agency, oppose military action.

It is generally understood that such a momentous decision would require a Cabinet decision. Israel’s 1981 destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor was preceded by a Cabinet vote.

Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment on the issue but did say there is a “decision-making process which has stood the test of time. … There have been precedents, and the process works.”

With most of its population concentrated in a narrow corridor of land along the Mediterranean, Israel’s homefront could be vulnerable to a counterattack.
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November 18-20, 2011: SOA Vigil at the Gates of Fort Benning, Georgia

STAND UP FOR DIGNITY, JUSTICE, SOLIDARITY AND SELF-DETERMINATION!

Join thousands of solidarity activists, torture survivors, union workers, people of faith, students, immigrants, veterans and others from November 18-20, 2011 at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to take a stand for justice, to close the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) and to resist U.S. militarization.

This December will mark the 30th anniversary of the massacre of close to 800 indigenous villagers in the El Mozote region of El Salvador. Still, graduates of the SOA are leading the repression, killing hundreds and displacing thousands of Hondurans. Mexicans and immigrants passing through Mexico are the target of drug cartels and death squads like the “Zetas” – another product of SOA training. In the midst of the continuing war in Colombia, fueled by SOA violence, killings of trade union activists touched 51 in 2010.

In Guatemala, General Mario Fuentes Lopez was arrested for genocide against that country’s indigenous people in the 1980s; General Fuentes Lopez was a graduate of the SOA. Pedro Pimentel Rios, a member of the notorious Kaibiles (Guatemalan Special Forces), who was became an instructor one month after his participation in the Dos Erres massacre in 1982, was arrested and extradited to Guatemala. A member of the Zetas and former Mexican Special Forces member, Jesus Enrique Rejón Aguilar, was arrested and confessed that he helped to recruit Mexican Special Forces members trained at Ft. Benning. …more

Iran Plot: A Pretext for War
By Richard Javad Heydarian, November 4, 2011

For many Iran observers, Washington’s latest accusations against Iran — implicating members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States — come off as surreal, if not wholly bizarre.

At this juncture, it may be too early to pass a credible judgment on the substance and validity of the allegations, but there are just too many reasons to dismiss them as another cynical attempt to further isolate Iran. In the greater scheme of things, such accusations might be part of America’s strategy to push its “regime change” agenda in Iran. Although only a trial in an impartial, credible, and civilian court could shed light on the truthfulness of the U.S. claims, we have every reason to take Washington’s allegations with a grain of salt.

In geo-strategic terms, these allegations might pave the way for a new stage of “cold war” between Iran on one hand, and the United States and its [Persian] Gulf allies, such as Saudi Arabia, on the other. As U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq and popular revolutions engulf much of the Middle East, the last thing Washington needs is to extinguish the prospect of a negotiated solution to Tehran’s nuclear program. Instead, Washington should accommodate Iran’s increasing interest in restarting nuclear negotiations and improving ties with its neighbors and the great powers. This is our best chance at avoiding another major clash in the region, embroiling America in an even more destructive conflict. …more

“We need more robust condemnation from them,” he told a seminar at the British parliament entitled ‘Bahrain; Time to support regime change and end occupation.’ He suggested that the UK government could at least call for the release of the political leaders in Bahrain and for the 3000 workers to be re-instated and compensated for lost income.

“Time for Regime Change in Bahrain”: London Seminar
5 November, 2011 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – “The UK Foreign Office together with other countries are not robust in the condemnation of the human rights abuses committed by the al Khalifa regime,” says veteran British peer Lord Avebury. Averbury, an elected Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, was also critical of the weak stance taken by the EU’s Foreign Affairs high representative Catherine Ashton about the brutal suppression of anti-regime peaceful protesters in Bahrain.

“We need more robust condemnation from them,” he told a seminar at the British parliament entitled ‘Bahrain; Time to support regime change and end occupation.’ He suggested that the UK government could at least call for the release of the political leaders in Bahrain and for the 3000 workers to be re-instated and compensated for lost income.

“Ultimately the people of Bahrain want to change their political system and we have to support them, not just for reform but for real transformation,” the 83-year old peer said. He referred to NATO intervening in Libya in support of regime change to maintain stability and asked “what was the difference with Bahrain?” “We can ask for Saudi Arabia to withdraw its forces so that Bahrainis enjoy peace and freedom,” Avebury further suggested.

“Pro-democracy activists have been languishing behind bars for months under the worst possible conditions such as Abdul Wahab Hussain, Hassan Mushaime, Abdul Jalil Al Miqdad, Mohammad Habib Al Miqdad, Dr Abdul Jalil Al Singace and Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja,” he said.

Also speaking at the seminar was renowned international lawyer Abdul Hamid Dashti, who highlighted the peaceful nature of the eight month uprising, corresponding with other revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

The anti-regime movement in Bahrain hoped that the world would support them as in other countries, but it has never happened because of “double standards, the narrow interests of some countries and the oil money of the Saudis,” Dashti said.
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The Reagan administration’s report claimed that “conscientious human rights and church organizations,” including Amnesty International, had been duped by the communists and “may not fully appreciate that they are being utilized.”

“If those promoting such disinformation can convince the Congress, through the usual opinion-makers — the media, church and human rights groups — that the present GOG [government of Guatemala] is guilty of gross human rights violations they know that the Congress will refuse Guatemala the military assistance it needs.

Reagan and Guatemala’s Death Files
5 November 2011 – by Robert Parry – Consortium News

A 9-foot-high bronze statue honoring President Ronald Reagan has been unveiled at National Airport, continuing the deification of the right-wing icon. Left out of the celebration was anything about Reagan’s dark side, as Robert Parry recounted in this article from 1999.

Ronald Reagan’s election in November 1980 set off celebrations in the well-to-do communities of Central America. After four years of Jimmy Carter’s human rights nagging, the region’s anticommunist hard-liners were thrilled that they had someone in the White House who understood their problems.

The oligarchs and the generals had good reason for the optimism. For years, Reagan had been a staunch defender of right-wing regimes that engaged in bloody counterinsurgency campaigns against leftist enemies.

In the late 1970s, when Carter’s human rights coordinator, Pat Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its “dirty war” — tens of thousands of “disappearances,” tortures and murders — then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should “walk a mile in the moccasins” of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. [For details, see Martin Edwin Andersen’s Dossier Secreto.]

Despite his aw shucks style, Reagan found virtually every anticommunist action justified, no matter how brutal. From his eight years in the White House, there is no historical indication that he was troubled by the bloodbath and even genocide that occurred in Central America during his presidency, while he was shipping hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the implicated forces.

The death toll was staggering — an estimated 70,000 or more political killings in El Salvador, possibly 20,000 slain from the Contra war in Nicaragua, about 200 political “disappearances” in Honduras and some 100,000 people eliminated during a resurgence of political violence in Guatemala.

The one consistent element in these slaughters was the overarching Cold War rationalization, emanating in large part from Ronald Reagan’s White House.

Yet, as the world community punishes war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, no substantive discussion has occurred in the United States about facing up to this horrendous record of the 1980s.

Rather than a debate about Reagan as a war criminal, the former president is honored as a conservative icon with his name attached to Washington National Airport and with talk of having his face carved into Mount Rushmore.

When the national news media does briefly acknowledge the barbarities of the 1980s in Central America, it is in the context of one-day stories about the little countries bravely facing up to their violent pasts.

At times, the CIA is fingered abstractly as a bad supporting actor in the violent dramas. But never does the national press lay blame on individual American officials.

Truth Commission

The grisly reality of Central America was revisited on Feb. 25, 1999, when a Guatemalan truth commission issued a report on the staggering human rights crimes that occurred during a 34-year civil war.

The Historical Clarification Commission, an independent human rights body, estimated that the conflict claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s.

Based on a review of about 20 percent of the dead, the panel blamed the army for 93 percent of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved.

The report documented that in the 1980s, the army committed 626 massacres against Mayan villages. “The massacres that eliminated entire Mayan villages … are neither perfidious allegations nor figments of the imagination, but an authentic chapter in Guatemala’s history,” the commission concluded.

The army “completely exterminated Mayan communities, destroyed their livestock and crops,” the report said. In the north, the report termed the slaughter a “genocide.” [Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1999]

Besides carrying out murder and “disappearances,” the army routinely engaged in torture and rape. “The rape of women, during torture or before being murdered, was a common practice” by the military and paramilitary forces, the report found.

The report added that the “government of the United States, through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support for some [of these] state operations.” The report concluded that the U.S. government also gave money and training to a Guatemalan military that committed “acts of genocide” against the Mayans.

“Believing that the ends justified everything, the military and the state security forces blindly pursued the anticommunist struggle, without respect for any legal principles or the most elemental ethical and religious values, and in this way, completely lost any semblance of human morals,” said the commission chairman, Christian Tomuschat, a German jurist.

“Within the framework of the counterinsurgency operations carried out between 1981 and 1983, in certain regions of the country agents of the Guatemalan state committed acts of genocide against groups of the Mayan people,” Tomuschat added. [NYT, Feb. 26, 1999]

The report did not single out culpable individuals either in Guatemala or the United States. But the American official most directly responsible for renewing U.S. military aid to Guatemala and encouraging its government during the 1980s was President Reagan.
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Two Cosponsors Added to Bahrain Arms Sale Resolution
POMED – 5 November, 2011

Two new cosponsors have been added to H.J. Res. 80, which calls for “limiting the issuance of a letter of offer with respect to a certain proposed sale of defense articles and defense services to the Kingdom of Bahrain.” The two cosponsors added are Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA). Last week, two additional cosponsors were added to the resolution.

This comes as Bahraini security forces used tear gas and armored vehicles to disperse demonstrators marching towards the Pearl Square after the funeral of Ali Hasan al-Dehi. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland noted in the daily press briefing that ”We, the US, would encourage full transparency as this case proceeds and we obviously call on everybody to exercise restraint… It is a fragile time in Bahrain as all sides wait for the Bahraini independent commission of inquiry report.” …source

For first time since ouster: Mubarak meets Arab leader
Published November 4th, 2011 – 16:16 GMT

In the first such visit by an Arab or foreign ruler since he stepped down on February 11, ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met earlier this week Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Issa, reports said on Friday. The rare meeting took place in Mubarak’s suite at the World Medical Center.

The visit lasted half an hour, during which Mubarak was crying. Their previous meeting was held a year ago. In that meeting, Mubarak voiced Egypt’s supports to Bahrain’s stability, independence and sovereignty.

According to an Egyptian newspaper, King Hamad bin Isa, has obtained an official permission to visit Mubarak. It is now expected that this visit will be followed by visits of a number of princes from the Gulf region. It is believed that in recent times, Mubarak’s wife has stepped up her contacts with a number of princes, kings and heads of state, to notify them about his deteriorating health conditions. Following the visit, the Bahraini leader decided to participate in the costs of treating Mubarak. He also expressed his readiness to fund the arrival of the German doctors who operated Mubarak last year. …source

More on the Bahrain State attack on funeral of 78 year old, Ali Hasan al-Dehi, on The Lede HERE

Tear gas used to disperse protesters after funeral of father of opposition leader, 78 year old, Ali Hasan al-Dehi was beaten to death by Security Forces police on his return home.

Bahrain national guard deploys armored vehicles to prevent funeral march by by mourner of 78 year old, Martyr Ali Hasan al-Dehi who was beaten to death. 4 November, 2011.