Recently in Iran Category

When NBC first ran with a story about this, I laughed and cheered. Now that the story is changing and there are three reported strikes, I am having a harder time believing it.

Not that either the US or Israelis are incapable of this, except politically, but it is very unlikely that this is the results of either airstrikes or drones. One strike might work, but three?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2009/03/exclusive-three.html

ABC News' Luis Martinez reports: Israel has conducted three military strikes against targets in Sudan since January in an effort to prevent what were believed to be Iranian weapons shipments from reaching Hamas in the Gaza Strip, ABC News has learned.

Earlier this week, CBSNews.com was the first to report that Israel had conducted an airstrike in January against a convoy carrying weapons north into Egypt to be smuggled into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

But actually, since January, Israel has conducted a total of three military strikes against smugglers transporting what were believed to be Iranian weapons shipments destined for Gaza, a U.S. official told ABC News.

The information matches recent reports from Sudanese officials of two airstrikes in the desert of eastern Sudan and the sinking of a ship in the Red Sea carrying weapons.

Jonathan Peled, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, would only say, "No comment," when contacted by ABC News on the matter.

Sudanese officials initially said this week that 39 people riding in 17 trucks were killed in a mid-January airstrike conducted by an unidentified aircraft in a desert area north of the Red Sea port of Port Sudan.

Today, a Sudanese Foreign Ministry representative said there were two separate bombing raids against smugglers in January and February. The Sudanese minister for highways was more specific, saying the airstrikes took place Jan. 27 and Feb. 11.

Arabic broadcaster Al-Jazeera also reported today a Sudanese official's claim that Israel had sunk a ship carrying weapons.

Israeli officials continue to refuse to confirm or deny the reports of airstrikes, but Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "Israel hits every place it can in order to stop terror, near and far."

In January, the United States signed an agreement with Israel to stop arms smuggling into Gaza. At the time, Israel was conducting a military operation in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas' firing of rockets on Israeli towns.

Shortly after the agreement was signed, the U.S. Navy twice boarded a Cypriot ship in the Red Sea that was traveling from Iran to Syria and believed to be carrying Iranian weapons bound for Hamas.

After the boardings were inconclusive, the United States asked Egypt and Cyprus to search the vessel when it made ports of call. Cypriot authorities ultimately found material that could be used to manufacture munitions, which they described as a violation of the U.N. ban on Iranian arms exports.

After the Media have tried to make the story about the Israelis and the US, it would be a shame not to elaborate upon the malfeasance of the Iranians and their lackeys.

A better report is at Report: Israel Attacked Sudan 3X Near Egyptian Border

So who did bomb the Iranian arms trucks in Sudan?

and also:

Sudan: Questions on an Airstrike
STRATFOR Today » March 26, 2009 | 1357 GMT

Reports emerged March 26 of an airstrike on a convoy of suspected arms smugglers in Sudan in January. Information is still sketchy at this point, and the story has unraveled with each new statement, but the report appears to have originated in Sudan, with Sudanese officials pointing fingers at the United States. (This comes after the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, who has maintained a defiant position despite the pressure.) A CBS report then emerged citing U.S. officials that in turn placed responsibility in Israel's lap.

At the moment, these reports raise more questions than answers.

These reports have already been circulated across various media outlets, and most reports read identically. Where did they come from, who leaked them and why now?

Are the reports accurate? At this point, the reports suggest that a 17-truck convoy was attacked north of the Sudanese city of Port Sudan (near the Egyptian border) by aircraft, killing some 39 people. The convoy was supposedly carrying arms bound for Hamas in Gaza -- weapons that originated from Iran. (STRATFOR has noted connections between Iran and Sudan.)

If accurate, what weapons were being smuggled? Small-arms ammunition, mortars and the occasional Grad artillery rocket? Advanced anti-tank guided missiles?

Who pulled off the reported attack and why? If reports of the scale of this attack are accurate, it would have taken more than a single unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to pull it off, even the more heavily armed MQ-9 Reaper. The U.S. military operates out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, the base of operations for counterterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa. Aircraft as large as the AC-130 gunship are thought to operate from there, though most of the presence there is thought to consist of CIA and special operations force elements. The Pentagon certainly has the assets in place to accomplish an operation like this.

It is a 600-mile flight down the Red Sea and the coast of Egypt before Israel planes could arrive at the Sudanese coast, and then get further inland for the actual strike. But Israel has aerial refueling capability and strike fighters capable of the inland leg that could then be refueled over the Red Sea before returning to base. Israel thus also certainly has the capability to do something like this.

Were any other countries' airspace violated?

Why were the Egyptian authorities not notified? The decision to proceed with a direct strike that would take significant planning suggests that it was more important to destroy the convoy immediately than to trust the Egyptians with the intelligence.

Finally, this was not a strike of opportunity carried out by a UAV that happened to be in the area. As mentioned, if reports of the scale of the attack are accurate, refueling aircraft had to be in place and manned strike aircraft armed and briefed on the mission. Even on a contracted timetable, that takes actionable intelligence with significant longevity.

What was this intelligence and where did it come from?

All of this leads me to believe that the Israelis are not to blame. I can easily picture the Jew-haters in the current White House and their Media butt-boys salivating at the chance to blame the Israelis for dead terrorists, especially if they know better. I can also picture a small group of Israeli commandos doing this with drones and direct fire missiles,

If you can think of a better idea, let me know.

I wonder how many incidents like this have happened. This is probably not a stand alone incident.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/03/us-jet-shoots-d.html

An American fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone as it was flying over Iraq, U.S. military sources in Baghdad tell Danger Room.

Details of the previously-unreported shoot-down, which occurred last month, are still sketchy.

This is an outrage! Why is the UN still allowed to operate in the US? They should have been banned at least a decade ago. They have been increasingly irrelevant to the Free World since the Great Communist Collapse.

Now we know where out of power Communists and failed tyrants end up. Why should the US foot the bill for this kind of abuse? If they want to investigate criminal activity, this "top UN official" should know all about it since he is/was the friend of a Communist tyrant who used death squads and torturers to keep his peons in line. Isn't that right Senor Brockmann? You support killing people for disliking you and your friends? And you shift the blame to the people who would really like to help those same victims of your abuse?

I can crap stuff that is smarter than most UN "diplomats".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504965,00.html

A top U.N. official accused the United States of committing inhuman "atrocities" in Iraq and Afghanistan during a speech Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.

D'Escoto claimed that U.S. actions have directly led to more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, a vastly inflated figure that does not correspond with the U.N.'s own estimates.

The U.N.'s health and medical agency, the World Health Organization, says 151,000 Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion. IraqBodyCount.org puts the death toll between 90,000- 99,245.

...D'Escoto, once the foreign minister for the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, ...

I highlighted two parts of this story that are slanted.

First, the crowd was not laughing at the thought of Chicago being nuked, they were laughing at the thought of Liberals thinking one nuked city is morally different from ten.

Second, if this is the objective mainstream media, why are they making wisecracks?

This report is not objective at all. It is mocking and almost slanderous.

Besides, Mr Bolton is right. Allowing the Iranians and their terrorist followers access to nuclear weapons is foolish. It does not matter if they have one Bomb or twenty, it is still too many.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Crowd-Laughs-at-Nuclear-Threat-to-Chicago.html

Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, had the audience in stitches with his comments about nuking Chicago.

Referencing remarks made by Barack Obama on the campaign trail, Bolton claimed the then-candidate said he thought "Iran was a tiny threat."

Crowd Laughs at Nuclear Threat to Chicago NBC Chicago.flv

ThinkProgress.org reported that Bolton tried to up the fear quotient in the room by raising the prospect of an Iranian-sent nuclear attack on an American city."

"It's [a] tiny [threat] compared to the Soviet Union," Bolton said to the group, "but is the loss of one American city -- pick one at random: Chicago -- is that a tiny threat?"

The audience erupted in cheers and laughter at the idea of Obama's home city being obliterated.

Unfortunately for Bolton, he got the then-candidate's quote wrong. Speaking in Pendelton, Ore., on May 18 last year, Obama said "strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean, think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela -- these countries are tiny, compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet, we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, 'We're going to wipe you off the planet.'" [YouTube Video]

We surmise that must mean the joke... well, bombed.

Is it an act of war when a government body, like these idiots are, declares war upon another government? I think it is. Iran has now declared war upon so many neighbors and other world powers that it is only fair to expect Israel and Egypt to work together to destroy Iran and its proxies in the region.

That is an interesting pairing, isn't it?

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/iranians-announce-1-million-reward-for.html

The regime-run news agency, Fars News reported that the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced a one million dollar reward for individuals who assassinate the president of Egypt. The news agency wrote:

"The ceremony for the designation of the reward for the revlutionary execution of the filthy traitor, Husni Mubarak has been organized through the justice-seeking movement of the (militant Basij) students as well as the cooperation of various other organizations. During this ceremony Forooz Rejaii, the secretary general of the organization entitled Rewarding The Martyrs of the World of Islam (and the suicide bombers brigade) spoke."

It is important to that the Rewarding The Martyrs of the World of Islam is an organization designed and supervised by the Iranian revolutionary guards.

The violence inherent in the Arab Muslim life style is slowly eroding their culture. Modern life is clashing with the antique ways of the Muslims who believe that Mohammad's time was the ultimate era.

Hamas thinks it is powerful because of Iranian influence and support. They know that other Iranian butt-plugs will be deployed in support of the anti-Israeli effort. Iran is even sending "volunteers" to die at Israeli hands to sow greater chaos in the region.

Everyone except the useful idiots of the "Peace" movement that will support anyone who wishes to defy Western Civilization. Morons.

Go Israel!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24860529-15084,00.html

THE bitter Israel-Hamas conflict has touched off Arab-Arab conflicts almost as bitter.

Responsibility for the war in Gaza, and for the Palestinian fatalities there, was placed squarely on Hamas by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"We called the leaders of Hamas and told them, 'Please, do not end the truce'," he said. Hamas ended a six-month truce with Israel two weeks before the Israeli attack.

An Abbas aide, Nimr Hammad, termed the rocket fire into Israel reckless. "The one responsible for the massacre is Hamas," he said. "Hamas should not have given the Israelis a pretext."

Bassam Abu-Sumayyah, a columnist for the daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, accused Hamas of megalomania and said it had acted without even a little bit of political and security sense. It had behaved like a superpower.

"They thought they have a number of missiles and can therefore prevail in a war of such size," he wrote.

A columnist for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, Abdallah Awwad, said that Hamas had made a major mistake in trying to be both a government operating in the open and a resistance organisation that operated underground. "We are paying the price of stupidity and the maniacal

love of being rulers," he said.

Beyond intra-Palestinian disputes, the eruption in Gaza has widened the rift between Egypt, supported by other moderate Arab states, and the Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alignment.

Cairo has long feared the radical influence of Hamas on its own Islamist parties. It regards Hamas as a proxy for Iran, which it sees attempting to wrest Muslim leadership in the Middle East from Egypt, even though Iran is not an Arab country.

However, Egypt attempted to broker a reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that would permit a leadership acceptable to all Palestinians to emerge in new elections. Hamas derailed the proposal, to Egypt's fury.

Egypt, in turn, refused to open the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt to Gaza residents, even during the Israeli attack when many Gazans were clamouring to get out. This infuriated Hamas and caused anti-Egyptian protests in much of the Arab world.

For Egypt, the most annoying criticism came from Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the formidable leader of the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Addressing Egyptian citizens, particularly army officers, Nasrallah called on them to protest at Cairo's lack of response to the Israeli attack.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said of Nasrallah's speech: "(He) practically declared war on us." As for Nasrallah's appeal to Egyptian officers, Mr Gheit said of Egypt's army: "They will also protect Egypt against people like you."

It is very hard to argue with Mr Bolton on this. Mr Obama will never do anything to worry our enemies. Which does mean that stopping the Iranians has to be done very very soon or not at all.

Please do something Mr Bush. Please.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20081205/cm_thenation/1096388155_1

But Bolton also said that neither the United States nor Israel will attack Iran to stop its nuclear program. "Neither one is willing to use military force," he said. Bolton said that until recently he believed that there was a small chance that Israel, on its own, might attack Iran before January 20, when Barack Obama becomes president. But Israel is mired in political confusion in advance of its coming elections, and there is no political will in Israel to go to war against Iran, he said.

Bolton also said that the likelihood of a US attack on Iran under Obama is nil. "Under an Obama administration, that possibility is essentially zero," he said. "After January 20, the chances are zero."

If strong action had been taken in the past, say, starting five years ago, Iran could have been stopped, Bolton said. Tough sanctions then would be biting now, he said. Alternately, the United States could have adopted a policy of "regime change," supporting ethnic minorities, disaffected youth, and Iran's youth, to create revolutionary unrest, even though nearly all experts on Iran have argued that regime change was never a viable option. Said Bolton: "If we had started it five years ago, we might be in a different place,. It was a good policy option. We should have pursued it. We didn't pursue it."