"Twitter's impact inside Iran is Zero"

The website Chartingstocks.net has been doing some investigating of the "Twitter" revolution in Iran, and they have come up with some very telling information.  Their investigation led them right to the most obvious source, Israel and Richard Perle's favorite newspaper, the Jerusalem Post.  If you were wondering why every American news network now has a twitter bureau, this is the reason why.  I may have been reading too much James Petras recently, but it is scary how the direction of the American media is often determined in the Jerusalem offices of Netanyahu and Sharon.

In a follow-up post, ChartingStocks writes:

The #IranElection hype has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with effecting US public opinion. Why are “Iranian’s” microblogging in English and on Twitter (which they do NOT use)?  According to Mehdi Yahyanejad, manager of a Farsi-language news site based in Los Angeles,“Twitter’s impact inside Iran is zero..here, there is lots of buzz, but once you look . . . you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.” The Alexa rankings confirm that Twitter’s penetration in Iran is nearly 0%.

Somebody is still a cynic

Jeremy Scahill writes on his RebelReports Blog about the "Hallmark Hype" of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraqi cities and the official "national day of sovereignty" proposed by the government of al-Maliki.  He reminds his readers of a paragraph by Patrick Cockburn, from his recent piece in Counterpunch:

Iraq is the world’s premier kleptomaniac state. According to Transparency International the only countries deemed more crooked than Iraq are Somalia and Myanmar, while Haiti and Afghanistan rank just behind. In contrast to Iraq, which enjoys significant oil revenues, none of these countries have much money to steal...Iraq was not always uniquely corrupt. In the 1970s its administration was probably more efficient and honest than in most oil producing countries. It was the aftermath of the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 which criminalized Iraqi society. UN sanctions imposed a tight economic siege and were designed to keep oil revenue out of the hands of ruling elite. Extended over 13 years they destroyed society and the economy.

Mainstream journalist speaks out on covering Palestinians and Israelis

Ashraf Khalil, a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a piece on his experience trying to cover Israeli abuses of Palestinians.  In a telling paragraph Khalil spells out the typical procedure that stories critical of Israel go through:

In the end, the truth of what happened to Mohammed Omer was sacrificed on the altar of the false deity known as “balance”. He’s hardly alone, and the basic steps of the process are grindingly familiar to all observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

*Alleged Palestinian Victim X makes such and such claims of abuse, discrimination or torture.
*The Israeli government “investigates” and releases an official report on nice shiny letterhead concluding that the alleged victim’s claims are unfounded. 
*It all just fades away into the murky mists of “conflicting accounts.”

    But here’s the thing: Can it really be “conflicting accounts” if one of the sides is lying and you can prove it?

Jon Stewart, you still make me laugh

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Semantics in the War on Terror

I think it's time that some new vocabulary words get used when describing the torture methods still being used by the U.S. government.  Stress Positions?  Nope, how about Crucification.  In her recent New Yorker article, Jane Mayer writes of Manadel al-Jamedi that "A forensic examiner found that he had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs."  While this is a disturbing image, it is also possibly the image most associated with the War on Terror.  When you hear the words Abu Ghraib, what do you think of?

For more on this exact subject, a recent Antiwar Radio interview with Daphne Eviater is very informative.  Host Scott Horton makes the comparison to the murder of Jesus, and asks, "There are a million ways to beat someone up.  Couldn't you do it without crucifying someone?"  A very good question indeed.

At least some people are enjoying themselves

"Iraqis rejoice as U.S. troops leave Baghdad"

"Festivities to mark “a day of national sovereignty” were to start at 6 pm (1500 GMT) in Zawra Park, the biggest in the capital, with singers and poets kicking off proceedings before music groups take to the stage."  (I hope there are no bombs)

School of the Americas

It has been said that Americas greatest gift to the world has been its university system, but I'm guessing that the recently overthrown president of Honduras might disagree.  Evidently, "key leaders" of last weekend's military coup in Honduras were trained at the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).  Located at Fort Benning, Georgia, the Pentagon-operated school has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in the fine arts of secret policing, death squad killing, and torture.

Selling the Presidency

The Obama campaign continues to rack up awards from the advertising industry for giving Americans the slogans "Change we can believe in" and "Yes we can." 

"Of course the U.S. has intelligence agents in Iran"

On al-Jazeera's Fault Lines, former National Security Advisor (and best buddy of George Sr.) Brent Scowcroft stated that "of course" U.S. intelligence has agents in Iran during the ongoing election crisis.  Asked whether the agents are providing  help to the "green revolution," Scowcroft replied, "They might do.  Who knows?"  Here is a link to the video of the part 1 of the episode, which is primarily on religion in the U.S. military.

This is not to say that foreign agents caused a million people to march through the streets of Tehran, but i wouldn't be surprised if some of those youtube videos and twitter posts had something to do with the Pentagon's brand new (and completely mission-less) Cybercommand.

Nice Summary on the occupation of Palestine

What are we about to do for Russia?

It is being reported that Kyrgzstan is changing its mind and allowing the U.S. military to continue using the Manas air base.  The U.S. is now agreeing to pay $60 million for the base (before it was paying only $17 million), but as Kyrgzstan is caught in a cold war between the U.S. and Russia, it remains to be seen what security concession the U.S. is about to make in Eastern Europe.

Tony Judt talks some sense

I appreciate that the New York Times printed the Op-Ed "Fictions on the Ground" by the historian Tony Judt. For some reason, the Times feels comfortable letting Judt, and Judt alone, critique Israeli policy without putting a Washington spin (read: lies) on the language.  

When Walt and Mearsheimer published "The Israel Lobby," it was Judt who the Times trusted to break the tricky subject to U.S. liberals (and they required him to write in his essay that he was Jewish).  I hope that language more like Judt's will become the norm, but i am skeptical that this will happen. 

Everyone loves a whitewash

It seems that Inter Press Services is doing a five part series on the 1995 bombing of the Khobar Tower Complex in Saudi Arabia.

Part one, written by Gareth Porter, has just been released, and it details the bureaucratic mechanisms of an FBI investigation that deliberately avoided naming Osama bin Ladin and al-Qaeda in their report.  Excited to see parts two through four.  

China and the Iranian Election

Here is an article on the Chinese perception of the recent Iranian election.  This is very important as Iran is part of the new SCO energy consortium, whose meeting in Moscow Ahmadinejad left Iran to attend last weekend.

World Oil Consumption

Here is a nice map of world oil production and consumption

False Flags Everywhere

The Observer reveals a confidential minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush in January of 2003.  Most damning is the revelation that "Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.""

This memo can be seen as a coda to the Downing Street memos, detailing a meeting of Blair's war cabinet in July of 2002, where the head of British Intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove, said that in Washington, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

This was to be expected

Iraqi oil minister accused of mother of all sell-outs

On the Southern Border...

"Mexican cartels armed by U.S"   "Many of the firearms fuelling Mexican drug violence originated in the United States, says a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released Thursday."

"Supreme court refuses to stop U.S-Mexico fence construction."

"The Supreme Court on Monday refused to accept a case seeking to stop the federal government from building a fence along the US border with Mexico, letting stand a lower court ruling authorizing its construction."

The Persians are afoot.

Elections are such fun (Oh Tehran, i wish i was there...)  When the number marching across the city is in the millions and the mosques motorcycle militia is killing students at the university, it is uplifting that some spirit of '68 still exists in the world.  But alas, I am in Ann Arbor and another moment of solidarity is seen on a screen.  

But the journalists who where there just wrote the first draft of history, and for that staggering reason a list must be made.

Robert Fisk, writing for the The Independent:

• 6/12/09 "Iran's old guard are poised to crush any hope of revolution"
  
• 6/13/09 "The world may be one but you need a vise to get around it"
  
• 6/14/09 "Iran erupts as voters back "the Democrator""
  
• 6/15/09 "Ahmadinejad whips crowd to frenzy as opposition muzzled"
  
• 6/16/09 "Iran's day of destiny"
• 6/17/09 "Fear has gone in a land that has tasted Freedom"
  
• 6/18/09 "Secret letter "proves Mousavi won poll""
• 6/19/09 "The dead of Iran are mourned, but the fight goes on"

The Guardian had a team of Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan:

• 6/13/09 "From the polling booths: Iran is tired of Ahmidinajad"
• 6/13/09" "Rivals claim victory in Iran's knife-edge elections as voters queue into the night"
• 6/14/09 "Riots erupt in Tehran over "stolen" elections" (The Observer)
• 6/14/09 "The voice from the streets" (The Observer)
• 6/14/09 "World leaders urged by Iran's opposition party to reject Ahmidinajad's alleged victory"
• 6/14/09 "Iran's president hails new era of hope despite beatings and arrests"
• 6/15/09 "Iran: 12 students reported killed in crackdown after violent clashes"
• 6/15/09 "They came to demand justice--but then the shots rang out"
• 6/15/09 "Iran Protesters Speak Out"
• 6/16/09 "Violence Breaks out after Iranian election" (video report)
• 6/16/09 "Iran's regime cracks down on opposition and media"
• 6/16/09 "Body armour, motorbikes and metal bars--Iran's many security forces"
• 6/17/09 "Voices: Iran in turmoil" (interviews)

The Wall Street Journal relied on reporting from Farnaz Fassihi

• 6/9/09 "In Iran, campaigns heat up"
• 6/10/09 "Iranians voice discontent in massive street rally"
• 6/11/09 "Iranian presidential contenders court women voters"
• 6/12/09 "In Iran vote, a challenger looks to past"
• 6/13/09 "Vote dispute leaves Iran in tumult"
• 6/14/09 "Ahmadinejad confirmed victor; Violent protests erupt in Iran"
• 6/15/09 "Rage smolders in Iran"
• 6/15/09 "Bloody day on Iran's streets" (w/ Roshanak Thaghavi)
• 6/16/09 "Iran council to investigate election-fraud claim"
• 6/16/09 "Crowds, calm and then gunshots" (reporters notebook)
• 6/17/09 "Iran to recount some votes" (w/ Roshanak Thaghavi)
• 6/17/09 "Recount set as Iran seethes"
• 6/18/09 "Iran arrests reformers as huge protests continue"
• 6/18/09 "Iran clerics to meet challengers as protests continue"

McClatchy News Service sent Warren P. Stroebel (who then wrote a blog post about the decline of international bureaus)

• 6/9/09 "Iran's election comes a referendum on Ahmadinejad"
• 6/10/09 "Mudslinging identifies as Iranian election nears"
• 6/11/09 ""Reformer" is relative for Iranian election challenger"
• 6/13/09 "Police in Iran beat protesters after Ahmadinejad win"
• 6/14/09 "Iran limits Facebook, texting as it cracks down on protest"
• 6/16/09 "Iran's senior ayatollah slams election, confirming split"
• 6/16/09 "Iran says 7 dies in Monday's violence; more rallies planned"
• 6/17/09 "Thousands of Iranians march in defiance as death toll reaches 32"
• 6/17/09 "Why the official Iranian elections results are suspect"

For The Nation. magazine, Robert Dreyfuss kept a daily blog from Tehran, and surely will write an article for an upcoming issue

• 6/8/09 "Iran's green wave"
• 6/9/09 "Ahmadinejad's red tide"
• 6/10/09 "Iran's vote, Obama's challenge"
• 6/11/09 "Iran's election tension"
• 6/12/09 "Iranians poised for change"
• 6/13/09 "Iran's ex-foreign minister Yazdi: It's a coup" (interview w/ Ibrahim Yazdi)
• 6/16/09 "Talking to Ahmadinejad"
• 6/17/09 "Battle lines in Iran"

The Los Angeles Times relied on reporting by Borzou Daragahi

• 5/30/09 "In Iran, Ahmadinejad campaign Office Attacked"
• 6/7/09 "In Iran, disparate, powerful forces ally against Ahmadinejad"
• 6/10/09 "Iranian presidential candidate's wife takes the spotlight"
• 6/11/09 "Iran blossoms in this campaign season"
• 6/12/09 "Iranians ready to decide presidency--and maybe much more"
• 6/13/09 "Ahmadinejad poised to win reelection in Iran" (w/ Ramin Mostaghim)
• 6/14/09 "Riots erupt in Iran after Ahmadinejad declares victory"
• 6/15/09 "Iran tries to put a lid on election protests" (w/ Ramin Mostaghim)
• 6/15/09 "Iran election protester details encounter with riot police, militiamen"
• 6/16/09 "Hundreds of thousands in Iran protest vote result" (w/ Ramin Mostaghim)
• 6/17/09 "A duel for legitimacy plays out in Iran rallies" (w/ Ramin Mostaghim)
• 6/18/09 "Another day of protests begin in Tehran" (by Ramin Mostaghim)

The Christian Science Monitor briefly sent staff writer Scott Peterson, who then continued analyzing the situation from Istanbul

• 6/11/09 "In Iran, candidates cap a bitter campaign"
• 6/12/09 "Iran's decision to oust Ahmadinejad--or not"
• 6/13/09 "In Iran, first result gives Ahmadinejad commanding lead"
• 6/15/09 "What are Mousavi's options now" (From Istanbul)
• 6/16/09 "Was Iran's election rigged? Here's what is known so far" (From Istanbul)
• 6/16/09 "Eyewitness: Iranian militiamen shot 300 rounds during Monday's protest" (From Istanbul)
• 6/17/09 "What's behind Iran's power struggle" (From Istanbul)
• 6/18/09 "Can Iran's top clerics defuse the crisis" (From Istanbul)

The Washington Post printed daily reports by Thomas Erdbrink, who is regularly based in Tehran.  This will list only the articles beginning on Friday the 12th, but here is a link to all of his articles.

• 6/12/09 "A polarized Iran prepares to go to polls"
• 6/13/09 "Iran election in dispute as two candidates claim victory"
• 6/14/09 "Ahmadinejad vows new start as clashes flare"
• 6/15/09 "Iranian candidate exhorts protesters"
• 6/16/09 "A massive crowd defies ban in Iran"
• 6/17/09 "Amid impasse, rivals rally in Iran"
• 6/18/09 "More protests, bitter words as Iran churns"
• 6/18/09 "Iran leaders top aide warns U.S. on meddling"
• 6/18/09 "Transcript of interview with Ahmadinejad aide Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi"
  
• 6/19/09 "Opposition march mourns Iranians killed in protest"

More Iranian Analysis

Here's a different take than you will find on CNN.

And here is someone saying that it is all about oil.

Here is another video:

Watching our Billions drift away

Today, the House of representatives passed a $105.9 billion dollar war supplemental bill, which included a down payment on the international IMF slush fund Obama promised at the G "new world order II" meting in London.  

The dollar figure for this bill has shot up over the past four months, especially considering that during his campaign, Obama's promised to end supplemental military spending altogether.  But when the White House released its "topline" budget request in February, it included an extra $75.5 billion of war funding for the rechristend forever war--the "Overseas Contingency Operation."  Since then, $10 billion in foreign military aid has been added, as well as $2 billion for a "swine flue response." 

Funnily enough, Washington is concurrently investigating how little oversight it really has over the spending of money once it has entered the National Security black hole.

Total Hypocrisy

Was anyone else bothered that the New York Times would publish Lawrence Wein's op-ed "A Threat in Every Port?"  A combination of fear mongering and terror inspiration, Wein's piece includes sentences like "As the accompanying chart illustrates, there are a dizzying number of paths that terrorists could use to transport a foreign-built weapon to an American target city — 132 variations, in fact, taking into consideration all four likely modes of transport: commercial airplane, cargo airplane, container ship and cruise ship."

When the Times is repeating the government claims of a threat to "national security" every time it does not want to release documents, what is the point of printing a half page description of the various ways the the U.S. is incredibly weak and vulnerable.  He mentions by name the Ambassador Bridge, one hour from my house, as a possible conduit for weapons.  Just a note that if there is another terrorist attack on  U.S. soil, remember that the Times published a flow chart on how to do it.

Iranian Election Analysis

Peace, Endless Peace

After watching riots all day in Tehran, i fell asleep to a 2 am C-Span rerun of Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign policy speech.  Here is the text and here is a video.  Netanyahu declared that the Palestinian state he imagines must " truly recognize" Israel--with its 20% arab population and 4% immigrant population--as the state of the Jewish people, as well as be demilitarized, entailing no army, no control of airspace, no military treaties, and no weapons, all in order to prevent his proposed Palestinian State from becoming "another Hamastan." 

Haaretz  reports on the outcome of U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell's visit to Israel last week.  It seems that the Israeli settlements on the now-mentioned Palestinian state are the first issue under on the agenda.  Mitchell says that the U.S. is not at the point of sanctioning Israel over construction, and an Israeli source says the expectation is that the U.S. will be stringent on new projects but flexible on construction already underway.  Evidently, "discussion revolves around what the "point of no return" is regarding construction...the American's understood that even if Netanyahu agreed to a full freeze, the governemt did not have the legal ability to force private construction companies to stop building."

Global Capitalism

It appears that the Saudi's have been stingy with their money recently.  Pet project al-Qaeda is apparently out of cash.  I wonder if this will make life easier for Obama's 21,000 surge troops just arriving at the new Camp Leatherneck mega-base in Helmland Province. 

American "ridiculousness"

Senator John Kerry talks some common sense about Iran and it's breaking news (Thats kind of sad).  There is a full interview in the June 11th Financial Times.

I wonder what Mr. Kerry's Russell Trust buddies think of this.

Life in the Age of Waterboarding

It appears that the London Metropolitan police are starting to take the security-camera state mantra to heart.

After attacking protesters and killing one non-protester at the conference of the G "new world order II" 20, the bobbies have recently been caught beating up African weed smugglers.  Here is the link to the Guardian's police beat, including video of the G20 meeting.

The new case is particularly disturbing because the London police seem to be practicing an amateur version of Dick Cheney's 12 step interrogation program.  David Nwanko, a 24 year old Nigerian man, claims that last November the police, "thrust his head down a toilet in the house as they questioned him, and repeatedly flushed water over his head. He also claimed that when officers arrived at the house he was assaulted and kicked several times."  

The Guardian also reports that "the water torture allegations were made by a fellow officer who told superiors that suspects had their heads thrust into water while officers demanded to know where drugs were hidden."  

 

Congressional Spending, War, and the IMF

On the Guardian web site, Mark Wiesbrot presents an interesting analysis, "The War over IMF Spending," detailing the recent Congressional war supplemental bill and the added on IMF funds that President Obama promised to make at the G20 meeting in London.

What it breaks down to is a battle involving antiwar legislators who hope to scale back the occupation of Afghanistan by adding requirements and timetables, legislators who understand the downsides of neoliberal IMF policies and wish to make taxpayer funds hinge on policy reforms, and a White House Administration that just wants Congress to keep quiet on these hot button foreign policy decisions.

 

Congressional Cover Up and War Crimes.

Larisa Alexandrovna, the editor of Raw Story, has an article about Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsay Graham (R- S.C.) threatening to "employ all the legislative means available" in order to block the release of photos depicting abuse of prisoners detained by the American government.  

The two senators claim "national security" as the reason for their stonewalling, but Alexandrovna sees it as the two legislators attempting to block evidence for a legal reckoning that is sure to come over government actions taken since 2001. Alexandrovna writes that, "the pictures would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these methods were in fact torture, and that these methods resulted in the brutal abuse of possibly thousands of people and the deaths of possibly thousands of people."

Recently, the United Nations has claimed that Donald Rumsfeld has an international legal target on him, but obviously members of Congress had knowledge that torture was taking place.  Anyone who doesn't think that this will influence the 2010 Congressional elections needs only look back at the absolutely chilling Abu Ghraib photographs previously released.  Now that everyone knows that for the past six years young Americans have been employed in the torture and death of foreign prisoners, those responsible for ordering and overseeing those actions are surely quivering in their capitol hill offices.

Sountrack for a Russian Riot

I wonder what Ghostface Killa is going to think of Moscow