LATEST UPDATE: 20/08/2013
CIA finally admits role in Iranian coup of 1953
A previously classified CIA document that was made public on Monday confirms that the 1953 coup that toppled Iranian nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq was plotted by Washington and carried out by the US intelligence agency.
By Joseph BAMAT
The military coup that overthrew democratically-elected Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953 was conceived by the US government and carried out by its intelligence agency, a CIA document made public this week has confirmed.
Published for the first time ever on the website of the National Security Archive –a George Washington University-based research centre– the secret document confirms the US involvement that previous news reports and memoirs revealed, but that was never fully acknowledged by the American spy agency.
An internally-written CIA document meant to recount part of the agency’s history, “The Battle for Iran” was written in the mid-1970s and partially declassified in 1981, but the section confirming the CIA’s role was excised.
The newly published document was declassified in 2011 in response a to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made by a National Security archive research director Malcolm Byrne. However, Byrne waited until this week to make the document known to the public.
“I was hoping to get a more complete picture since there’s still so much that’s being withheld, but these things sometimes take a very long time,” Byrne told FRANCE 24 in an email on Monday. “My original [FOIA] request was from 2000, so it took 11 years to get this far. I decided not to wait any longer.”
The CIA confirmed that the codename for the CIA operation that ousted Mosaddeq and installed the exiled Shah of Iran was TPAJAX. The document was posted by the National Security Archive for the 60th anniversary of the overthrow.
The text also sheds light on the thinking of US leaders at the time, their concerns over a potential standoff between British and Russian forces, and their overriding interest to maintain access to Iranian oil.
“The execution of a US-assisted coup d’état seemed a more desirable risk than letting matters run their unpredictable course,” the document states.
British meddling?
However, the section of the document that details the planning, execution and the role of the Shah has been mostly excised by the CIA. Byrne has called for a more complete disclosure of the document and other accounts of the US-orchestrated coup.
“I have a pending request with the CIA for supplementary reviews, including of the “Zendebad, Shah!” document, but to date I have not received any further response,” Byrne told FRANCE 24.
The researcher said the document was significant because many details about the coup, such as the plotters and perpetrators, remain a subject of intense academic and political debate.
“The Iranian government, regularly invokes the coup to argue whether Iran or foreign powers are primarily responsible for the country's historical trajectory… whether Washington needs to apologise for its prior interference before better relations can occur,” Byrne noted.
And while an increasing amount of information is being shared, there's still pressure to keep the full story locked away.
On Monday the National Security Archive also released documents detailing British attempts to block American disclosure of intervention in Iran back in 1978.
At the time, Britain’s Foreign Office feared that a planned State Department publication would undermine the UK's standing in Iran.
But the National Security Archive queried Monday if current British meddling was not perhaps behind the stalled declassification of more key documents.
Why? It is obvious. If the liars and villains that rule us told the American people the truth, a truth hidden for sixty years, they would not have cover to continue their shitty wars and continued criminal aggression against Iran.
ReplyDeleteAny more questions as to why Iran would want a nuclear weapon?
What would Americans do if it happened to us?
Snowden and Manning deserve a parade for what they did.
ReplyDeleteToo bad there were no Manning and Snowden around in 1954.
How many millions have been killed and wounded, including US forces, because of the criminal acts committed by the US government in my name and yours?
If Snowden and Manning did their shit under Dubya you'd be calling for their heads.
DeleteYou will have to find me the thread where I was praising Bush.
Deleteyour analysis of events from 60 years ago is lacking.
Deleteyou accuse America of doing criminal actions alone, with no context or background of the events.
It's called "revisionist" history for a reason.
If we were proud of what we did, we would have released all the documents, not a partial dump with redactions. The revisionists are in the marble temples on the Potomac.
DeleteThere is not a wall long enough.
ReplyDeleteThis one year old video by RT is as close to the truth as you will get about the real situation with Iran.
ReplyDeleteYou've lost your mind. They were better off under the Shah than they are now. The repression is more complete now than it was in those days. And they were not nearly then the danger to the world as they soon will be now.
ReplyDelete"How many millions have been killed and wounded, including US forces, because of the criminal acts committed by the US government in my name and yours?"
Clinically, this is described as Terminal Exaggeration Disease, TED.
.
DeleteThe 1953 Iranian Coup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
The CIA trained SAVAK
A turning point in SAVAK's reputation for ruthless brutality was reportedly an attack on a gendarmerie post in the Caspian village of Siahkal by a small band of armed Marxists in February 1971, although it is also reported to have tortured to death a Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Sa'idi, in 1970.[14] According to Iranian political historian Ervand Abrahamian, after this attack SAVAK interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific training to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force.' Brute force was supplemented with the bastinado; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum; cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to the American space capsules. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked.[15] Despite the new 'scientific' methods, the torture of choice remained the traditional bastinado used to beat soles of the feet. The "primary goal" of those using the bastinados "was to locate arms caches, safe houses and accomplices ..." [16]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
Good Times!
.
.
That’s not for you to decide, no more than it is for me to decide that I don’t like you or your barn or the way you wear your hat and by the way, I’m going to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteThat is your business and who the Iranian people democratically elect is their business.
You are stone cold ignorant of any knowledge about Iran except for what which your blotter of a mind absorbs from propaganda. I cut you some slack there because of your chronic suffering from Asinine Simplistic Solutions Disease, ASS.
The instability that we created in Iran had consequences which are unknowable. The amount of destruction by US wars in the Middle East is.
They were better off under the Shah than they are now. The repression is more complete now than it was in those days. And they were not nearly then the danger to the world as they soon will be now.
Clinically, this is described as Head Firmly Up Ass Disease, HFUA.
.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous-Bob suffers from numerous ailments including the Star-Spangled Banner Syndrome (SBS) and Acute Chauvinistic Dyspepsia (ACD), a not uncommon condition in which the patient is forced to regurgitate the chauvinistic propaganda he has been fed throughout his life.
Likely, this latest case was brought on by that iced tea/chocolate milk concoction he was drinking last night.
.
.
ReplyDeleteMore humor from Detroit and Wayne County (and another example of why Detroit is in the condition it is in).
Two weeks ago a primary election was held to determine the candidates for Detroit 's mayor in an election coming up in November. It was reported that Mike Duggan (a write-in candidate) came in first with around 44,000 votes. Benny Napoleon, an ex-Detroit police chief had about 20,000 votes less and came in second. The Wayne County Board of Canvasser's had 14 days to verify the election results.
Yesterday, the fourteenth day after the election, they came out with their decision which was that 20,000 votes for Duggan were to be disqualified because of a discrepancy on how the counted votes were reported. In most of the districts the count was indicated by both the actual vote and hash marks, for example, five votes would be indicated by the number five accompanied by the usual four hash marks with a fifth drawn through them. In 179 districts, the only thing shown on the count was the number 5 with no accompanying hash marks. Because of this the Wayne County Board decided to 'invalidate' 20,000 votes thus putting Napoleon in the lead.
There had been question asked about the training given to poll workers and the difference in the counting methods should have been responded to; however, the obvious solution would have been to re-count the votes in question not invalidate them. Luckily, this has been kicked to the State Board of Canvassers and they have promised a decision within 10 days.
The actual election should be a gas.
.
.
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens to whistleblowers who 'do it the right way'.
The price Gina Gray paid for whistleblowing
President Obama, in his news conference this month, said that Edward Snowden was wrong to go public with revelations about secret surveillance programs because “there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions.”
This is a common refrain among administration officials and some lawmakers: If only Snowden had made his concerns known through the proper internal channels, everything would have turned out well. The notion sounds reasonable, as do the memorandums Obama signed supposedly protecting whistleblowers.
But it’s a load of nonsense. Ask Gina Gray.
Gray is the Defense Department whistleblower whose case I have been following for five years. She was the Army civilian worker who, before and after her employment, exposed much of the wrongdoing at Arlington National Cemetery — misplaced graves, mishandled remains and financial mismanagement — and she attempted to do it through the proper internal channels. Pentagon sources have confirmed to me her crucial role in bringing the scandal to light.
For her troubles, Gray was fired. The Pentagon’s inspector general recommended corrective action to compensate Gray.
According to documents just obtained by Gray’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, Army Secretary John McHugh rejected the inspector general’s suggestion. McHugh wouldn’t offer Gray anything because she was on “probationary status at the time of her termination.”
Gray, who worked in Iraq as an Army contractor and Army public affairs specialist, is now unemployed and living in North Carolina.
“I went all the way up the channels,” Gray told me on Tuesday. “This is what happens when you do that.”
In response to my inquiries to the Pentagon, an Army spokesman, Col. David H. Patterson Jr., issued a statement saying that Gray’s status as a whistleblower was limited and that her firing was unrelated. “We consider the matter closed,” he said, calling the Army’s position “validated” by a federal court’s “dismissal of Ms. Gray’s lawsuit — with prejudice.”
The lawsuit was dismissed this week — because Gray dropped it. She could no longer afford the legal fees...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-price-gina-gray-paid-for-whistleblowing/2013/08/20/9fe80c98-09cb-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html?hpid=z2
One can imagine what would have happened to Snowden.
.
This will save peak oil boy from making a post.
ReplyDelete"Germany is rapidly developing a tradition of shattering its own renewable energy goals and leaving the rest of the world in the dust. This past July was no exception, as the nation produced 5.1 TWh of solar power, beating not only its own solar production record, but also eclipsing the record 5TWh of wind power produced by German turbines in January. Renewables are doing so well, in fact, that one of Germany's biggest utilities is threatening to migrate to Turkey."
.
ReplyDeleteCBS Poll on Obamacare
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57595225/cbs-news-poll-finds-more-americans-than-ever-want-obamacare-repealed/
Folks aren't happy.
.
Mossadegh, speaking at the National Press Club in November 1951, had this prescient critique of American foreign policy at that moment: "All of the means employed to achieve the desired aim will be of no avail, if one important factor is left out of our consideration. We must, first of all, try to find the source of communism, and the second step is to dry up that source. In my opinion, the root causes of communism are to be found in the general poverty and the dissatisfaction which exists among the nations because of the existing social injustices and the want of the most essential needs of an elemental living. The communistic threat in [Asia] is a direct outcome of these dissatisfactions. Hence, it is bewildering to me that, here in the Occident, this viewpoint is not given the due consideration; but, on the contrary, the statesmen here [in the United States] who are fighting this communistic menace, instead of ameliorating the circumstances in the Orient, are aggravating them through their policies."
ReplyDeleteWhat would Iran be like today if they had the benefits of 60 years of democracy?
ReplyDeleteWho took that from them?
The UK and the US governments.
Some interesting information on the Eagle Ford Shale - it's going to save us, you know.
ReplyDeleteThis baby is going to break some hearts
The same group that overthrew Iran's Democracy are the ones that are now blowing the smoke up your ass about the Eagle Ford, Bakken, and "Energy Independence."
Delete.
ReplyDeleteBenghazi Scapegoats Reinstated
Lying Liars Lying with the aid of their MSM minions.
In May, Senator Rand Paul criticized the Obama administration’s lack of discipline over the attack on the American mission in Benghazi. In particular, Paul claimed that “no one was fired.” Was that true? The Washington Post’s “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler was determined to evaluate the truth of Paul’s claim. Kessler found that four officials were removed from their State Department posts but were not actually “fired,” as we understand the term.
They were instead placed in a foggy category at Foggy Bottom which presumably enabled the administration to pretend it had taken action when in fact it hadn’t. But it didn’t seem fair to hope for their firings anyway, since it was then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s responsibility to answer for the fate of the mission, and she was inexcusably negligent in her work. She deserved, of course, to be the one to lose her job. But that would have been politically untenable for her boss, President Obama, who was getting some help in his reelection campaign from Hillary’s husband.
So it was fairly clear they had found scapegoats to take the fall, and wanted to protect those scapegoats from having their careers ruined to protect Clinton’s presidential aspirations. When time came for Kessler to return a verdict on Rand Paul’s obviously true statement, he punted. “Verdict pending,” he decided:
"None of these officials have the jobs they had when the attacks in Benghazi took place. All of them appear to be in some Kafkaesque bureaucratic limbo that allows no closure in the matter. Presumably, their government careers are largely over.
Yet they have not been separated from government service, which some (such as Paul) might define as “fired.” As we have shown, achieving this is not as easy as it might appear if the sin is leadership failure as opposed to malfeasance. But under some definitions, they are as good as fired. In Maxwell’s case, it appears he would actually prefer to be “fired” since that would give him more options to challenge his situation.
Given this limbo, we can’t rule Paul’s statement as correct or not. We will monitor what happens to these officials in the future before making a final ruling."
Kessler will be happy to know both that he can make a ruling on the statement and that he was wrong about their government careers being “largely over.” Josh Rogin reports that Secretary of State John Kerry “has determined that the four State Department officials placed on administrative leave by Hillary Clinton after the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi do not deserve any formal disciplinary action and has asked them to come back to work at the State Department starting Tuesday.”
.
.
DeleteThat the four officials have been restored from their “Kafkaesque bureaucratic limbo”–though they will be “reassigned”–is based on the finding that they cannot be plausibly blamed for what happened, otherwise they would surely “deserve … formal disciplinary action.” And that is believable, in fact. It seemed at the time unjust not that these officials were spared heavyhanded punishment but that they were punished at all, thanks to the likelihood that they were merely pawns in a manic damage-control scheme.
That, really, was the point of Paul’s tirade anyway. When Clinton eventually was called to testify on Benghazi, Paul said he would have fired her for her incompetence. As for the officials back at work after being put through this bit of theater, no harm no foul, right? Not so fast, according to Raymond Maxwell, a scapegoat from the bureau of Near Eastern Affairs:
“No explanation, no briefing, just come back to work. So I will go in tomorrow,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell previously told The Daily Beast that the reasons for his administrative leave designation had never been explained to him. He contended that he had little role in Libya policy and no involvement whatsoever in the events leading up to the Benghazi attack.
“The overall goal is to restore my honor,” Maxwell had said.
While not a formal discplinary (sic) action, Maxwell regarded his treatment as punishment because he was not able to work and was publicly identified as being blamed for the tragedy that cost the lives of four Americans, including his friend Ambassador Chris Stevens.
His reputation had been unfairly sullied with no explanation. He was reactivated with no explanation. But he has spent the better part of a year having been blamed by the administration for the death of an American ambassador and three others, so what will the administration do to make sure his name is cleared? What will Clinton do to make it right?
Furthermore, if these officials aren’t (fully) to blame for what happened, who is? Surely the fact that disciplinary action was taken suggests the State Department believes someone deserves opprobrium for the tragedy–or was it not serious enough, in Kerry’s judgment, to warrant anything more than a shuffling of desks around the office?
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/08/20/benghazi-scapegoats-reinstated/
Of all the various scandals in the Obama administration has anyone been held accountable? Anyone?
Bueller?
.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteYou mean the same Muthfukrs who give us war after war also lie to us?
ReplyDeleteThe National Security Agency's surveillance network has the capacity to spy on 75 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Citing current and former NSA officials for the 75 percent figure, the paper reported that the agency can observe more of Americans' online communications than officials have publicly acknowledged.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/21/nsa-surveillance-reach-broader-than-publicly-acknowledged/#ixzz2cbfOgFvS
There isn’t a wall long enough.
ReplyDeleteSyrian Rebels Accuse Government of Chemical Attack
ReplyDeleteBeirut, Lebanon — Anti-government activists accused the Syrian government of pounding areas east of Damascus, the capital, with rockets carrying poison gas early Wednesday, saying that people had been killed in their sleep and that local hospitals were filled with casualties.
Local Committee of Arbeen, via Associated Press
This photograph provided by a Syrian opposition source shows the bodies of children killed in an alleged chemical weapons attack.
Enlarge This Image
Reuters
A man held a child on Wednesday among bodies of people whom activists say were killed by a poison gas attack east of Damascus.
Amateur videos posted online showed medics trying to revive people laid out on floors and hospital gurneys with hand-pump respirators, along with images of rooms full of the lifeless bodies. The source of the images could not immediately be verified, and the government of President Bashar al-Assad denied the allegations of a chemical weapons attack.
It was unclear how many people had been killed, with estimated tolls from activists ranging from the dozens to the hundreds. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which follows the conflict from Britain through a network of contacts inside Syria, said the attacks took place in the suburbs of Zamalka, Ein Terma and Erbeen, all of which are east of Damascus and have a strong rebel presence.
The attacks will undoubtedly increase the pressure on a team sent to Syria by the United Nations to investigate allegations of chemical weapons that was to begin working on Monday. Numerous allegations of chemical weapons use have surfaced during the civil war between the forces of Mr. Assad and rebels seeking his ouster, but none have been verified by outside institutions.
Unlike the videos often uploaded after government attacks, the images on Wednesday showed very little blood; few of the patients appeared to have conventional injuries. Most of the victims in the videos appeared to have suffocated.
In one video, medical workers were shown moving through what appeared to be a room full of apparently lifeless young men in their underclothing. In another, about 80 bodies, including about a dozen children and many women, were laid out on a tile floor. Other videos showed children, one of them motionless and staring, the other seeming to twitch uncontrollably....
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/world/middleeast/syria.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0
They certainly look dead enough. Either that or they're great at playing dead. No bullet wounds noticeable. You'd think there'd be a little puffiness though, or something, little vomit here and there, some blood from the mouth, something. Looks like they all laid down in a line to take a peaceful nap, the way they have them laid out.
More here -
Deletehttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/21/syrian-rebels-claim-assad-used-chemical-weapons-over-100-dead/
Total bullshit.
DeleteNo one would you sarin gas unless you were carpet bombing masses of troops in a confined area.
WW I technology.
Trenches?
Does anyone remember dug in trenches and tunnels?
No one needs to use it, even if they have it. You want a real terror bomb, try a bunker buster that sucks the air out of your lungs and destroys your respiratory system on the next in breath. Who would use that sort of thing on a civilian population?
The United States was responsible for the decision to target the Amiriyah shelter. By its own admission, the U.S. Department of Defense “knew the Ameriyya facility had been used as a civil-defense shelter during the Iran–Iraq War." Changes in the protected status of such a facility require warning, and Human Rights Watch notes that, "The United States' failure to give such a warning before proceeding with the disastrous attack on the Ameriyya shelter was a serious violation of the laws of war."
The Amiriyah shelter bombing was an aerial attack that killed more than 408 civilians on 13 February 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, when an air-raid shelter ("Public Shelter No. 25"), also referred to as the Al Firdos C3 bunker by the U.S. military, in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, was destroyed by the U.S. Air Force with two laser-guided “smart bombs".
According to the U.S. military, they targeted Amiriyah because it fit the profile of a military command center; it picked up electronic signals coming from the site, and spy satellites could see a lot of people and vehicles moving in and out of the bunker. The shelter was used in the Iran–Iraq War and the Persian Gulf War by hundreds of civilians.
More disinformation, more lies, from the usual suspect.s
408 civilians, want to know the woman and children count?
DeleteOOrah
DeleteWhat a way to die.
DeleteWhy do they hate us?
.
DeleteIt is mighty hard say WHAT is happening in Syria right now.
I suspect either side would willing to sacrifice a few dozens of their own people if it meant they could sway public opinion to their cause. However, it seems pretty strange that the Assad regime would launch a 'chemical weapons attack' at the same time the UN inspectors they invited in are due to arrive to investigate any 'chemical weapons attacks' in the country.
.
No, the casualties were likely killed in bombing ( which by US standards is a good thing). Our allies, al Qaeda, never ones to miss an opportunity, probably staged it for the Western media and used their own sarin collection to plant the “evidence”. Assad is winning and is intelligent enough to know that there is no upside for him to use Sarin gas for his killing.
DeleteWhat was going on during this period of time which might have informed decision makers? Off the top of my head:
ReplyDeleteThe Russians were going thermonuclear.
China had recently fallen to Mao.
American troops were fighting the Korean War. Following a brilliant plan which utterly destroyed the so-called North Korean army, China entered the war.
The Russians continued to threaten Western Europe.
The French were being driven out of SE Asia.
Communists had infiltrated both UK and US agencies.
Greece and Turkey were on the verge of collapse, with the Soviet ready to step in.
Decisions of state do not occur in a vacuum. You play the hand you are dealt and hope for the best. War makes devils of us all.
.
DeleteWhat else was going on that might have informed decision makers?
Well, the UK was still stealing Iran's oil revenues and didn't like the idea that Iran was standing up to them. They lost their case in the international court but still continued their illegal attempts to strangle the country into submissions.
The US? I still haven't figured out why they took part except that they did eventually end up getting a good share of the oil. Of course, it did take deposing a democratically elected government and replacing it with a dictator.
Oh well. Shit happens.
.
Re: Iran, IAEA, the bomb
ReplyDeleteI thought Iran was working toward the peaceful use of nuclear power. Am I now to understand that the IAEA knew all along that this was untrue? What else is untrue?
According to the parrots of RT (Pravda) Iran is a peaceful country, with no ill feelings towards any "legitimate" nation.
DeleteOf course America is the "big satan" and israel is the "little satan" and are, of course, illegal, colonial, occupying entities that need to be erased for world peace.
"BESSMA MOMANI
ReplyDeleteIn Egypt, ‘deep state’ vs. ‘Brotherhoodization’
During the short-lived rule of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood complained bitterly about the “deep state” (the bureaucracy, military, security services) while liberal-secularists accused the Brotherhood of consolidating power throughout Egypt in order to push through its conservative social policies. In rebutting these claims, each side accused the other of sheer paranoia.
And now, the impending decision on former dictator Hosni Mubarak’s release from prison will only give further political ammunition to the polarizing narrative in Egypt – and ultimately tip the balance in favour of one of these opposing arguments.
For almost a year, liberal-secularists had spoken out against what they saw as the “Brotherhoodization” of Egypt, with the Morsi government and its Muslim Brotherhood supporters exerting greater control over Egyptian state institutions. They pointed to the removal of General Mohamed Tantawi and the appointment of General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi as head of the armed forces; the rushed constitutional process; the appointment of Islamist state governors; and the sacking of the Cairo opera house’s director. Most importantly, liberal-secularists have complained against Brotherhood attacks on the judiciary, which started with the overthrow of the prosecutor-general and lowering the retirement age of judges in order to remove old members of the bench. These decisions have been noted as evidence that the Brotherhood wanted to forever change Egypt into a “Brotherhood dominion.”
Meanwhile, the Morsi government and its Brotherhood backers claimed they were forced to fast-track the constitution last December and were unable to implement reforms and policies because of the “deep state” – where powerful Mubarak-era cronies continued to dominate key Egyptian institutions. Throughout Mr. Morsi’s time in office, his supporters claimed that at every turn, the isolated President was unable to change the country because of fervent resistance from the judiciary, bureaucracy and liberal media. After taking office, they realized that the civilian government was a mere fig leaf for democracy; the real power-brokers were Mubarak-era business elites, the military, security and intelligence forces.
Proponents of the “deep state” claimed that Mr. Mubarak’s financial cronies withheld domestic investment and co-ordinated their capital exodus to raise the carrying costs of Egyptian bonds. And that private newspapers and television stations spread (mis)information about the Morsi government.
Bureaucrats allowed the interruption of electricity and fuel supplies to create artificial shortages and line queues throughout the country. On rumours of energy shortages in liberal Egyptian media, fuel prices further skyrocketed causing panic buying and hoarding. The Morsi government, as a precondition to an International Monetary Fund loan, had tried to implement a smart-card system to better target subsidized fuel for the country’s poor. Fearing the government could track fuel supplies, corrupt petroleum ministry officials with ties to Mubarak-era cronies refused to implement it.
DeleteBy the time Mr. Morsi had taken power, security and intelligence forces let law and order lapse, allowing for rival soccer fans to fight each other off the field and religious violence against Coptic Christians to go uninvestigated. Traffic police disappeared from Cairo streets, and notorious thugs called beltagaya were sent out by illusive forces to cause mayhem and incite further hatred toward the Brotherhood. Adding insult to injury, when demonstrations against Mr. Morsi began on June 30, Egyptian police stood by and watched the ransacking of the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo.
The day after Mr. Morsi was removed from power, Egypt’s fuel shortages were no more, its electricity supply went uninterrupted and traffic police suddenly went back to work.
So who wins the debate in Egypt’s exchange of accusations between the “deep state” and “Brotherhoodization“?
The majority of Egyptians who supported the popular coup believe the “Brotherhoodization” needed to be countered with a new revolution. Well, the release of Mr. Mubarak, the deposed dictator imprisoned since the Jan. 25, 2011, revolution, would be a clear vindication of the existence of the “deep state.” To the Brotherhood – as Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22 poignantly once said – “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
Bessma Momani is a professor at the University of Waterloo and Balsillie School of International Affairs, and senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Brookings Institution."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/in-egypt-deep-state-vs-brotherhoodization/article13875492/#dashboard/follows/
University of Waterloo - honest to God Ash you expect anyone to believe this?
DeleteWhere'd you go to school - University of the Little Bighorn?
lord God, Bob, I've got to go back to calling you boobie. Where the person is employed doesn't really matter but, even then, employed in International affairs at a Canadian University makes them more 'qualified' then someone, like, say, a farmer in Idaho. The real irony in your comment is that they actually offered support for something "anon" wrote yesterday.
Deleteb00bie, you doofus!
I was trying to make a little joke at your expense, son. That was all.
DeleteMight be a great school for all I know. Never heard of it before - catchy name.
U of Waterloo, heheh.
Name wise, it sure beats WSU, aka Wazoo.
GALLUP: Unemployment Spikes to 8.9%...
ReplyDelete18 month high...drudge
Wait, wait, wait....this isn't supposed to be happening...
RooooFUS!!
Explain.
Why do they hate us? That old question again?
ReplyDeleteCause they are real pros at hatred. It's what islam does best. The only thing it's really good at: See: Martha Gellhorn: The Arabs of Palestine.
Applies to them all.
They roll in it, they eat it, drink it, swim in it, absorb it,their radios are always full of it, their TV's, their internet, always full of it.
Islam = hate.
They hate us and everyone else too.
Can't ever get enough of it.
"Why do they hate us?"
ReplyDeleteErdogan blames Israel for Morsi’s downfall, Egypt unrest
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Erdogan-Israel-orchestrated-Morsi-overthrow-Egypt-unrest-323679
Collective insanity comes to mind.
When politics gets rough, demogogues have always resorted to the cheap shot of blaming the outsider. Putin's doing it now with LGBTs and Hitler's classic move of blaming the Jews is appealing to Ergodan now.
DeleteSo, now they have this little electric trolley running around Singapore (did I mention that it is Driverless?)
ReplyDeleteDriverless Trolley
The Brits did not lose their case before the International Court Of Justice. The Court found it had no jurisdiction in the matter.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.worldcourts.com/icj/eng/decisions/1952.07.22_oil_co.htm
We have a couple of really nutty decades coming toward us. We can't dodge; we can't run; we can't hide. We're in the early stages of an honest-to-goodness Paradigm Shift.
ReplyDeleteThey say the workfloor of Tesla's factory has, probably, the fewest human beings per sq. ft. of any factory in the history of the world. Computers are landing aircraft on the decks of Aircraft Carriers. We're going into "Peak Oil." In the United States we're sliding into a "Demographic Overturning." And on, and on.
(did I mention "trolleys, and buses that drive themselves?"
This is NOT going to be easy.
.
ReplyDeleteI took a quick read of the court decision that you posted and perhaps I missed something. There was an awful lot of repetition with the court repeating each sides argument as well as some details of the original agreement. Iran pretty much repeated the AIOC's requested action while trying to counter them, so I brushed over the duplications.
However, what I got out of the decision was that initially the AIOC requested the Court to rule that the nationalization action taken by Iran was illegal in international law, that the original agreement should continue in effect, and that the AIOC be recompensed for anything it lost due to Iran's action.
Iran then responded by stating that the nationalization action was legal under certain UN Charter articles it cited and that for various reasons the Court of Justice did not have jurisdiction in this matter.
The Court decision was that it had no jurisdiction in the matter.
To me, that sounds like the UK lost and Persia won.
.
.
DeleteThis was directed at Allen's comment.
.
While just a gut feeling, there is something wrong with the alleged Syrian use of gas.
ReplyDeleteOnce again Assad crosses Obama's red line. He's not prepared to call Assad a war criminal but caca doodoo head or even booger eater is not ruled out.
DeleteAssad may have done nothing. There are no good guys in this affair. If we have learned anything during the past 12 years, these people will resort to anything to carry the day.
DeleteI don't believe the rebels are sophisticated enough to manufacture Sarin. So even if they managed to get the stuff, I blame Assad for making it in the first place, and not keeping a lid on it.
Delete.
DeleteI love the way those in the MSM as well as Congress who are pushing for aid to the rebels write their articles and pump their chests and talk about 'red lines' and dis Obama for not acting and yet somewhere buried near the end of the article or the stump speech is the CYA phrase "if in fact it is true that Assad used the chemical weapons".
.
It doesn't make much sense. Why would Assad do this now, when he is at least holding his own, and perhaps gaining somewhat?
Delete.
DeleteAnd then there are others who assume any 'sarin' or 'samples' that show up in Syria have to have come from Assad's stockpiles rather than someplace else. I mean it's all about shifting public opinion and we have seen were videos were doctored in false flag operations before. And it's not as if Syria is the only interested party in the conflict that has access to chemical weapons. Heck, I even heard Iraq had them at one time.
.
.
DeleteAnd, while it doesn't seem to make much sense that Assad would do it , who knows?. Assad might have done it for whatever reason, trying to be too clever by half. All the players currently involved in Syria are dicks and likely capable of anything.
.
.
DeleteAs noted by Allen.
.
al Qaeda used sarin in Iraq. They took it from old artillery shells used against the Iranians and tried to spike IEDs with it.
Delete2004, two US soldiers treated for exposure to sarin. Some weapon of mass destruction eh?
DeleteOne thing is for sure certain - there are a lot of dicks in Syria and don't trust any of 'em.
DeleteFor young Ash -
ReplyDeleteHere's a University, and here's a Convocation Address!!!
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/21/video-the-greatest-speech-ever/
If only Quirk had gone here, instead of the Carnegie On Line School of Salesmanship.
DeleteAmended: Supersalesmanship
DeleteAre atheists mentally ill?
ReplyDeleteBy Sean Thomas Religion Last updated: August 14th, 2013
Thanks to a couple of surveys, it’s being put about in certain circles that atheists have higher IQs than believers. That may or may not be the case, but one problem with this argument is that, if you accept "average group differences in IQ”, you get into all sorts of sinister debates which bien pensant atheist Lefties might find less to their liking.
So let’s not go down that unhappy road. Let’s dispense with the crude metric of IQ and look at the actual lives led by atheists, and believers, and see how they measure up. In other words: let’s see who is living more intelligently.
And guess what: it’s the believers. A vast body of research, amassed over recent decades, shows that religious belief is physically and psychologically beneficial – to a remarkable degree.
In 2004, scholars at UCLA revealed that college students involved in religious activities are likely to have better mental health. In 2006, population researchers at the University of Texas discovered that the more often you go to church, the longer you live. In the same year researchers at Duke University in America discovered that religious people have stronger immune systems than the irreligious. They also established that churchgoers have lower blood pressure.
Meanwhile in 2009 a team of Harvard psychologists discovered that believers who checked into hospital with broken hips reported less depression, had shorter hospital stays, and could hobble further when they left hospital – as compared to their similarly crippled but heathen fellow-sufferers.
The list goes on. In the last few years scientists have revealed that believers, compared to non-believers, have better outcomes from breast cancer, coronary disease, mental illness, Aids, and rheumatoid arthritis. Believers even get better results from IVF. Likewise, believers also report greater levels of happiness, are less likely to commit suicide, and cope with stressful events much better. Believers also have more kids.
What’s more, these benefits are visible even if you adjust for the fact that believers are less likely to smoke, drink or take drugs. And let’s not forget that religious people are nicer. They certainly give more money to charity than atheists, who are, according to the very latest survey, the meanest of all.
So which is the smart party, here? Is it the atheists, who live short, selfish, stunted little lives – often childless – before they approach hopeless death in despair, and their worthless corpses are chucked in a trench (or, if they are wrong, they go to Hell)? Or is it the believers, who live longer, happier, healthier, more generous lives, and who have more kids, and who go to their quietus with ritual dignity, expecting to be greeted by a smiling and benevolent God?
Obviously, it’s the believers who are smarter. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mentally ill.
And I mean that literally: the evidence today implies that atheism is a form of mental illness. And this is because science is showing that the human mind is hard-wired for faith: we have, as a species, evolved to believe, which is one crucial reason why believers are happier – religious people have all their faculties intact, they are fully functioning humans.
Therefore, being an atheist – lacking the vital faculty of faith – should be seen as an affliction, and a tragic deficiency: something akin to blindness. Which makes Richard Dawkins the intellectual equivalent of an amputee, furiously waving his stumps in the air, boasting that he has no hands.
Look, mommy, no hands!
Delete"Therefore, being an atheist – lacking the vital faculty of faith – should be seen as an affliction, and a tragic deficiency: something akin to blindness. Which makes Richard Dawkins the intellectual equivalent of an amputee, furiously waving his stumps in the air, boasting that he has no hands."
Nice short statement, there's Richard, "intellectual amputee, waving his stumps in the air, boasting he has no hands".
:)
heh
Whether atheist or believer, it is a fact that H. sapiens has practiced one form of religion or another for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. Even Neanderthal burials show concern for an after life.
DeleteNicholas Wade has written a short, closely reasoned book, The Faith Instinct (How Religion Evolved And Why It Endures).
Whether atheist or believer, it is a fact that H. sapiens has practiced one form of religion or another for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. Even Neanderthal burials show concern for an after life.
DeleteNicholas Wade has written a short, closely reasoned book, The Faith Instinct (How Religion Evolved And Why It Endures).
Mircea Eliade -
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade
who was, let us admit, sometimes a little nuts, but who isn't, except Quirk, thought the more primitive traditions contained a spirituality that might be thought of as deeper and more authentic than newer, post farming outlooks.
>>>The general nature of religion[edit source | editbeta]
In his work on the history of religion, Eliade is most highly regarded for his writings on Alchemy,[79] Shamanism, Yoga and what he called the eternal return—the implicit belief, supposedly present in religious thought in general, that religious behavior is not only an imitation of, but also a participation in, sacred events, and thus restores the mythical time of origins. Eliade's thinking was in part influenced by Rudolf Otto, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Nae Ionescu and the writings of the Traditionalist School (René Guénon and Julius Evola).[37] For instance, Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane partially builds on Otto's The Idea of the Holy to show how religion emerges from the experience of the sacred, and myths of time and nature.
Eliade is noted for his attempt to find broad, cross-cultural parallels and unities in religion, particularly in myths. Wendy Doniger, Eliade's colleague from 1978 until his death, notes that "Eliade argued boldly for universals where he might more safely have argued for widely prevalent patterns".[80] His Treatise on the History of Religions was praised by French philologist Georges Dumézil for its coherence and ability to synthesize diverse and distinct mythologies.[81]
Robert Ellwood describes Eliade's approach to religion as follows. Eliade approaches religion by imagining an ideally "religious" person, whom he calls homo religiosus in his writings. Eliade's theories basically describe how this homo religiosus would view the world.[82] This does not mean that all religious practitioners actually think and act like homo religiosus. Instead, it means that religious behavior "says through its own language" that the world is as homo religiosus would see it, whether or not the real-life participants in religious behavior are aware of it.[83] However, Ellwood notes that Eliade "tends to slide over that last qualification", implying that traditional societies actually thought like homo religiosus.[83]
Sacred and profane[edit source | editbeta]
Moses taking off his shoes in front of the burning bush (illustration from a 16th-century edition of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis).
Eliade argues that religious thought in general rests on a sharp distinction between the Sacred and the profane;[84] whether it takes the form of God, gods, or mythical Ancestors, the Sacred contains all "reality", or value, and other things acquire "reality" only to the extent that they participate in the sacred.[85]
Eliade notes that, in traditional societies, myth represents the absolute truth about primordial time.[90] According to the myths, this was the time when the Sacred first appeared, establishing the world's structure—myths claim to describe the primordial events that made society and the natural world be that which they are. Eliade argues that all myths are, in that sense, origin myths: "myth, then, is always an account of a creation".[91]
Many traditional societies believe that the power of a thing lies in its origin.[92] If origin is equivalent to power, then "it is the first manifestation of a thing that is significant and valid"[93] (a thing's reality and value therefore lies only in its first appearance).
DeleteAccording to Eliade's theory, only the Sacred has value, only a thing's first appearance has value and, therefore, only the Sacred's first appearance has value. Myth describes the Sacred's first appearance; therefore, the mythical age is sacred time,[90] the only time of value: "primitive man was interested only in the beginnings [...] to him it mattered little what had happened to himself, or to others like him, in more or less distant times".[94] Eliade postulated this as the reason for the "nostalgia for origins" that appears in many religions, the desire to return to a primordial Paradise.[94]
Eternal return and "Terror of history"[edit source | editbeta]
Main article: Eternal return (Eliade)
Eliade argues that traditional man attributes no value to the linear march of historical events: only the events of the mythical age have value. To give his own life value, traditional man performs myths and rituals. Because the Sacred's essence lies only in the mythical age, only in the Sacred's first appearance, any later appearance is actually the first appearance; by recounting or re-enacting mythical events, myths and rituals "re-actualize" those events.[95] Eliade often uses the term "archetypes" to refer to the mythical models established by the Sacred, although Eliade's use of the term should be distinguished from the use of the term in Jungian psychology.[96]
Thus, argues Eliade, religious behavior does not only commemorate, but also participates in, sacred events:
In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythical hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time.[90]
Eliade called this concept the "eternal return" (distinguished from the philosophical concept of "eternal return"). Wendy Doniger noted that Eliade's theory of the eternal return "has become a truism in the study of religions".[1]
Eliade attributes the well-known "cyclic" vision of time in ancient thought to belief in the eternal return. For instance, the New Year ceremonies among the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, and other Near Eastern peoples re-enacted their cosmogonic myths. Therefore, by the logic of the eternal return, each New Year ceremony was the beginning of the world for these peoples. According to Eliade, these peoples felt a need to return to the Beginning at regular intervals, turning time into a circle.[97]
Eliade argues that yearning to remain in the mythical age causes a "terror of history": traditional man desires to escape the linear succession of events (which, Eliade indicated, he viewed as empty of any inherent value or sacrality). Eliade suggests that the abandonment of mythical thought and the full acceptance of linear, historical time, with its "terror", is one of the reasons for modern man's anxieties.[98] Traditional societies escape this anxiety to an extent, as they refuse to completely acknowledge historical time.
Coincidentia oppositorum[edit source | editbeta]
DeleteEliade claims that many myths, rituals, and mystical experiences involve a "coincidence of opposites", or coincidentia oppositorum. In fact, he calls the coincidentia oppositorum "the mythical pattern".[99] Many myths, Eliade notes, "present us with a twofold revelation":
they express on the one hand the diametrical opposition of two divine figures sprung from one and the same principle and destined, in many versions, to be reconciled at some illud tempus of eschatology, and on the other, the coincidentia oppositorum in the very nature of the divinity, which shows itself, by turns or even simultaneously, benevolent and terrible, creative and destructive, solar and serpentine, and so on (in other words, actual and potential).[100]
Eliade argues that "Yahweh is both kind and wrathful; the God of the Christian mystics and theologians is terrible and gentle at once".[101] He also thought that the Indian and Chinese mystic tried to attain "a state of perfect indifference and neutrality" that resulted in a coincidence of opposites in which "pleasure and pain, desire and repulsion, cold and heat [...] are expunged from his awareness".[101]
According to Eliade, the coincidentia oppositorum’s appeal lies in "man's deep dissatisfaction with his actual situation, with what is called the human condition".[102] In many mythologies, the end of the mythical age involves a "fall", a fundamental "ontological change in the structure of the World".[103] Because the coincidentia oppositorum is a contradiction, it represents a denial of the world's current logical structure, a reversal of the "fall".
Also, traditional man's dissatisfaction with the post-mythical age expresses itself as a feeling of being "torn and separate".[102] In many mythologies, the lost mythical age was a Paradise, "a paradoxical state in which the contraries exist side by side without conflict, and the multiplications form aspects of a mysterious Unity".[103] The coincidentia oppositorum expresses a wish to recover the lost unity of the mythical Paradise, for it presents a reconciliation of opposites and the unification of diversity:
On the level of pre-systematic thought, the mystery of totality embodies man's endeavor to reach a perspective in which the contraries are abolished, the Spirit of Evil reveals itself as a stimulant of Good, and Demons appear as the night aspect of the Gods.[103]
Exceptions to the general nature[edit source | editbeta]
The Last Judgment (detail) in the 12th century Byzantine mosaic at Torcello.
Eliade acknowledges that not all religious behavior has all the attributes described in his theory of sacred time and the eternal return. The Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions embrace linear, historical time as sacred or capable of sanctification, while some Eastern traditions largely reject the notion of sacred time, seeking escape from the cycles of time.
Because they contain rituals, Judaism and Christianity necessarily—Eliade argues—retain a sense of cyclic time:
Deleteby the very fact that it is a religion, Christianity had to keep at least one mythical aspect—liturgical Time, that is, the periodic rediscovery of the illud tempus of the beginnings [and] an imitation of the Christ as exemplary pattern.[104]
However, Judaism and Christianity do not see time as a circle endlessly turning on itself; nor do they see such a cycle as desirable, as a way to participate in the Sacred. Instead, these religions embrace the concept of linear history progressing toward the Messianic Age or the Last Judgment, thus initiating the idea of "progress" (humans are to work for a Paradise in the future).[105] However, Eliade's understanding of Judaeo-Christian eschatology can also be understood as cyclical in that the "end of time" is a return to God: "The final catastrophe will put an end to history, hence will restore man to eternity and beatitude".[106]
The pre-Islamic Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, which made a notable "contribution to the religious formation of the West",[107] also has a linear sense of time. According to Eliade, the Hebrews had a linear sense of time before being influenced by Zoroastrianism.[107] In fact, Eliade identifies the Hebrews, not the Zoroastrians, as the first culture to truly "valorize" historical time, the first to see all major historical events as episodes in a continuous divine revelation.[108] However, Eliade argues, Judaism elaborated its mythology of linear time by adding elements borrowed from Zoroastrianism—including ethical dualism, a savior figure, the future resurrection of the body, and the idea of cosmic progress toward "the final triumph of Good".[107]
The Dharmic religions of the East generally retain a cyclic view of time—for instance, the Hindu doctrine of kalpas. According to Eliade, most religions that accept the cyclic view of time also embrace it: they see it as a way to return to the sacred time. However, in Buddhism, Jainism, and some forms of Hinduism, the Sacred lies outside the flux of the material world (called maya, or "illusion"), and one can only reach it by escaping from the cycles of time.[109] Because the Sacred lies outside cyclic time, which conditions humans, people can only reach the Sacred by escaping the human condition. According to Eliade, Yoga techniques aim at escaping the limitations of the body, allowing the soul (atman) to rise above maya and reach the Sacred (nirvana, moksha). Imagery of "freedom", and of death to one's old body and rebirth with a new body, occur frequently in Yogic texts, representing escape from the bondage of the temporal human condition.[110] Eliade discusses these themes in detail in Yoga: Immortality and Freedom.
.
ReplyDeleteThe FISA court was aware two years ago that actions taken by the NSA under the Patriot Act were unconstitutional and possibly criminal not only under Section 215 but also under Section 702. They ordered corrections and indicated they would be issuing a separate order addressing the criminal issues.
So far we have seen nothing that shows the NSA has corrected their problems or that anyone has suffered any consequences from these unconstitutional breaches by our government.
We are still being lied to by those in charge.
NSA gathered thousands of Americans’ e-mails before court ordered it to revise its tactics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-gathered-thousands-of-americans-e-mails-before-court-struck-down-program/2013/08/21/146ba4b6-0a90-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html
.
The good news is the court seems to have finally acted. In a true totalitarian system that would not have happened. If our courts are corrupted we've got nothing at all.
DeleteExperts: Syria Chemical Weapons Attack “Suspicious”
ReplyDeleteImpartial analysts cast doubt on timing of story
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 21, 2013
Impartial experts are casting doubt of the veracity of today’s alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, with numerous observers labeling the timing of the story “suspicious”.
Up to 1,300 victims are alleged to have been killed in what opposition sources are calling a “gas attack” on the towns of Zamalka and Ein Tarma as UN inspectors visit nearby Damascus for a pre-planned investigation into allegations of chemical weapons used by both rebels and the Syrian Army.
Video clips show dozens of dead bodies with no apparent wounds. The opposition National Coalition has seized on the footage to insist there is no “political solution” to the crisis in Syria, a not so subtle call for NATO military intervention. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague called the alleged attack a “shocking escalation.”
However, several impartial experts have cast doubt on the narrative behind the footage, noting its all too convenient emergence just as UN inspectors enter the country.
“Firstly, the timing is odd, bordering on suspicious,” writes BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner. “Why would the Assad government, which has recently been retaking ground from the rebels, carry out a chemical attack while UN weapons inspectors are in the country?”
His suspicions are shared by Swedish diplomat and former UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus, who told Reuters, “It would be very peculiar if it was the government to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into the country….at the least, it wouldn’t be very clever.”
Swedish chemical weapons expert Ake Sellstrom, who is leading the current UN inspection in Syria, told Swedish broadcaster SVT that the high number of those killed and wounded sounded “suspicious.”
Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, told the Jerusalem Post that the timing of such an attack is confusing. “Logically, it would make little sense for the Syrian government to employ chemical agents at such a time, particularly given the relatively close proximity of the targeted towns (to the UN team),” he said.
It is important to stress that none of the individuals casting doubt on the alleged “gas attack” are Bashar Al-Assad supporters. Indeed, the BBC has been quite rigorous in pushing the narrative that FSA rebels are grass roots freedom fighters, largely downplaying the huge numbers of foreign jihadists that have entered the country under the banner of Al-Qaeda.
As we reported earlier today, evidence strongly suggests that previous chemical weapons attacks in Syria were carried out by FSA rebels and then blamed on Assad, in an attempt to fulfil Barack Obama’s “red line” for US military intervention.