Iran: Israeli PSYWAR indicates lack of confidence

by B. Raman

(November 08, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The stepped-up PSYWAR by Israel against Iran on the question of the possibility of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities indicates an underlying lack of confidence in Israel’s military and intelligence circles over the chances of success of any military strike against Iran.

There would have been little opposition to a military strike if there was total confidence that it would succeed. The lack of unanimity of support for a strike is an indicator of the lack of such total confidence.

2.One does not see in Israel of today the kind of confidence that it had in 1981 that it would be able to succeed with a clandestine air strike against Iraq’s OSIRAK nuclear reactor then under construction with French assistance and manage the consequences.

3. The Mossad— the Israeli external intelligence agency—of today is not the Mossad of 1981. There has been a decline in its professionalism despite the success of some of its recent sabotage operations against Iran’s nuclear establishment. The public opposition by some of the retired senior intelligence officers such as Meir Dagan, former head of the Mossad, and Yuval Diskin, former head of the Shin Bet, the security agency, to any military action against Iran reflects the lack of confidence about the success of a military strike against Iran amongst officers who retired only recently and hence must be up-to-date in their knowledge of the Israeli capabilities against Iran.

4. There are conflicting reports about the stand of serving officers. While some reports say that the serving officers are confident that Israel can successfully carry out a military strike against Iran, other indicators are that even some serving officers share the misgivings of the retired officers. It is believed that the statements against a military strike issued by these retired officers reflects not only their lack of confidence in the success of a military strike, but also of some of the serving officers who had worked under them when they headed the agencies.

5.Unless there is an assessment backed by a majority of the serving military and intelligence officers that a military strike will be successful in neutralising Iran’s retaliatory capability and nuclear facilities, those in the political leadership in favour of immediate action headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may find it difficult to go ahead with a military strike.

6. The unusual high-octane PSYWAR mounted by Israeli leaders talking and threatening from roof-top regarding the likelihood of a military strike reflects not Israeli confidence in its ability to carry out a successful strike, but the persisting misgivings in the national security decision-making circles as to whether a strike would be successful.

7. Israeli national security and intelligence culture forbids public airing of military plans and debates before an imminent military action. The fact that such a public airing is being done now by the Government as part of its PSYWAR and that retired senior intelligence officers no longer feel bound by their culture of discretion and self-restraint are indicators of a lack of confidence in the political and professional circles regarding the chances of success of a military strike.

8. There would have been little opposition to a military strike if there was total confidence that it would succeed. The lack of unanimity of support for a strike is an indicator of the lack of such total confidence.

9. Israel of today is not the Israel of 1981. It no longer has the confidence that it can prevail in having its national security will and interests enforced. Iran is counting on this in going ahead with its nuclear plans, but it will be committing a serious mistake if it underestimates Israel’s penchant to take risks and act if its leaders and people feel that their national survival is at stake.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

US ‘secret affair’ with Islamists unfolds: ‘Not all Islamists are alike’

Clinton says US is prepared to work with rising Islamist groups, such as Ennahdha which enjoyed recent election victory in Tunisia.

Middle East Online

Political Islam: US poisonous gift:?

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday heralded the movements of Arab Spring and said the United States was prepared to work with rising Islamist groups in the region, such as those who enjoyed a recent election victory in Tunisia.

The United States shares “their desire to see a Tunisian democracy emerge,” she told an audience National Democratic Institute in Washington, in an address that emphasized: “not all Islamists are alike.”

What parties call themselves, she added, “is less important to us than what they actually do.”

Tunisia’s main Islamist party Ennahda swept the polls in a landmark vote last month over their main challenger, the secular center-left PDP party.

To govern, Clinton said, the party must “persuade secular parties to work with them… America will work with them, too,” and noted that the group’s leaders have “have promised to embrace freedom of religion and full rights for women.”

The top US diplomat listed key criteria any party must meet in a democracy, including the rejection of violence, adherence to the rule of law, and respect for the rights of women and minorities, and an acceptance of electoral defeats.

“The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong,” she said.

Washington, embracing transitions of the Arab Spring where long-time strongmen fell across the region this year, rejects “the false choice between progress and stability,” she added.

“Dictators told their people they had to accept the autocrats they knew to avoid the extremists they feared.

“Too often,” Clinton admitted, “we accepted that narrative ourselves,” and said the United States pushed for reform “but often not hard enough, or publicly enough.”

After the turbulent events in recent months, “we recognize that the real choice is between reform and unrest,” she said.

Syria says US behind ‘bloody events,’ urges Arab League help

[Ongoing artillery duels is hard proof of outside intervention by the introduction of heavy weapons to the Syrian opposition forces, whoever they really are.]

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.

CAIRO: Syria has sent the Arab League a letter asking for support against what it called US involvement in “bloody events” in the country, the 22-member pan-Arab group said in a statement on Monday.

The statement said the letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused Washington “of actual involvement in bloody events in Syria” and asked the League to “condemn the involvement and to do what is necessary to end it.”

The statement did not elaborate on the accusations of US involvement in the Syrian bloodshed.

In the letter, Syria, which is under growing pressure to implement an Arab plan to end violence against protesters, sought Arab assistance “to provide the appropriate atmosphere to implement the agreement,” said the statement.

The Arab League on Sunday accused Syria of failing to honour the plan it agreed last week to end violence against protesters, and said Arab foreign ministers would meet on Saturday to discuss their next step.

The meeting, it said, was called because of “the continuation of violence and because the Syrian government did not implement its commitments in the Arab plan to resolve the Syrian crisis.”

The League’s deputy secretary general told AFP on Monday that Syria had sent a letter detailing the steps it took towards carrying out the plan, but he refused to elaborate.

The plan called on President Bashar al-Assad to open talks with his opposition, parts of which on Monday called for international protection of civilians in the central city of Homs, which is besieged by Assad’s troops.

Declaring Homs a “humanitarian disaster area,” the Syrian National Council urged the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League to act “to stop the massacre committed by the regime.”

The SNC, which groups the main currents of the opposition, also called in its statement for the evacuation of civilians away from “areas that are under shelling and destruction.”

The group said the regime had “launched a large-scale attack” overnight Sunday to Monday on the districts of Homs and that “indiscriminate slaughter is being committed by the regime’s militias.”

The latest deaths bring to at least 70 the number of people killed since Assad’s government signed on to the Arab League peace plan on Wednesday last week.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy artillery clashes erupted overnight between soldiers and presumed army defectors in Homs leaving “dozens of dead and wounded in both camps.”

“Shooting could be heard in Homs where neighbourhoods came under heavy machinegun fire at dawn,” said the Observatory in a statement, adding “more than 40 explosions were heard.”

The United Nations estimates more than 3,000 people have been killed in Syria in the brutal security crackdown since anti-regime demonstrations erupted in mid-March.

- AFP/de

Bahrain’s Courageous Doctors

[SEE:  Bahrain medics seek UN probe of prison sentences ;  Photos of Bahraini Protesters Attacked by Saudi Wahhabi and Bahrain Military Forces in Sitrah, + 21 / March 15]

Bahrain’s Courageous Doctors

By Adil E. Shamoo

Bahraini medical personnel protesting in Manama (Photo: Dr. Nabeel al Ansari).

The United States continues to ignore the thwarted Arab Spring in Bahrain. Recently, a quasi-military court in the small Gulf state sentenced 20 doctors and nurses to up to 15 years in jail. The charge against them? Treating injured demonstrators opposing the regime.Doctors and nurses in the Middle East have a long and proud tradition of treating the ill, regardless of the situation. In ninth-century Baghdad, for example, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was the Caliph’s physician. The Caliph asked this physician to prepare a poison to kill his enemies. The physician refused, risking his life, and was eventually jailed for one year. After serving his sentence, the Caliph inquired as to why he refused. The physician replied, “My profession is instituted for the benefit of humanity and limited to their relief and cure.”

So the doctors and other healthcare providers in Bahrain who treated the injured demonstrators were acting not only in the noblest tradition of the Hippocratic Oath but also in keeping with centuries-old Arab tradition. Medical ethics requires all physicians to be medically neutral toward those they treat.

Last February, Bahrain’s citizens joined the Arab Spring by holding massive demonstrations against the country’s corrupt, minority royal government. Bahrain’s security forces, assisted by Saudi-led troops sent by the Gulf Cooperation Council, brutally suppressed the peaceful demonstrations by force, resulting in the deaths of around 30 people, as well as hundreds of others wounded and arrested. At least 1,200 people were dismissed from their jobs. Opposition leaders were arrested, quickly tried, and sent to jail. Many detainees were tortured, and some women were sexually abused.

The government of Bahrain soon turned its attention to doctors and other healthcare providers, arresting, jailing, and torturing those accused of treating protesters. One female doctor told NPR that she was tortured and threatened with rape. In the same story, a man claimed that he was beaten unconscious. The authorities threatened the arrested individuals, saying that the security forces would arrest and torture members of their families if they didn’t sign a confession.

The doctors and nurses in Bahrain have called for support from the international community, especially from the United States. But the U.S. State Department has been muted in its comments about Bahrain’s abuse of hospital staff. This has led some medical professionals and other observers to lament that if such abuses had occurred in Syria or Iran, the United States would have condemned them vocally and emphatically.

U.S. policy toward the Arab Spring has been two-faced and unprincipled since its outbreak. When a hostile regime – in Syria or Iran, for example – has abused human rights, the administration has taken the moral high ground. However, in the case of friendly regimes – like those in Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia – the administration has toned down its criticism or remained silent altogether. In the case of Bahrain, the United States still maintains a naval base there with 15,000 personnel.

The British Medical Association (BMA) issued a statement strongly condemning Bahrain’s behavior, stating, “BMA is shocked that these doctors are being persecuted for acting in accordance with their code of ethics.” The World Medical Association issued a similar statement. However, the American Medical Association merely invited physicians, if they wish, to write directly to Bahrain’s rulers to voice their opinion. The U.S. bioethics associations are silent.

Over the course of history, humanity has carved out zones of ethical conduct, whether in the conduct of war or the treatment of the sick and wounded. Medical ethics has a long and honorable history that U.S. officials and medical professionals must uphold for the doctors and nurses in Bahrain. Otherwise, the Arab Spring won’t bloom for long.

6:28 p.m. EST Asteroid 2005 YU55 Will Be Closer Than the Moon

Huge asteroid headed for close encounter with Earth

1. 

Photo By REUTERS/NASA/Cornell/Arecibo/Handout/REUTERS

Radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) – A huge asteroid will pass closer to Earth than the moon Tuesday, giving scientists a rare chance for study without having to go through the time and expense of launching a probe, officials said.

Earth’s close encounter with Asteroid 2005 YU 55 will occur at 6:28 p.m. EST (2328 GMT) Tuesday, as the space rock sails about 201,000 miles from the planet.

“It is the first time since 1976 that an object of this size has passed this closely to the Earth. It gives us a great — and rare — chance to study a near-Earth object like this,” astronomer Scott Fisher, a program director with the National Science Foundation, said Thursday during a Web chat with reporters.

The orbit and position of the asteroid, which is about 1,312 feet in diameter, is well known, added senior research scientist Don Yeomans, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“There is no chance that this object will collide with the Earth or moon,” Yeomans said.

Thousands of amateur and professional astronomers are expected to track YU 55′s approach, which will be visible from the planet’s northern hemisphere. It will be too dim to be seen with the naked eye, however, and it will be moving too fast for viewing by the Hubble Space Telescope.

“The best time to observe it would be in the early evening on November 8 from the East Coast of the United States,” Yeomans said. “It is going to be very faint, even at its closest approach. You will need a decent-sized telescope to be able to actually see the object as it flies by.”

Scientists suspect YU 55 has been visiting Earth for thousands of years, but because gravitational tugs from the planets occasionally tweak its path, they cannot tell for sure how long the asteroid has been in its present orbit.

“These sorts of events have been happening for most of the lifetime of the Earth, about 4.5 billion years,” Fisher said.

Computer models showing the asteroid’s path for the next 100 years show there is no chance it will hit Earth during that time, added Yeomans.

“We do not think that it will ever impact the Earth or moon (but) we only have its orbit calculated for the next 100 years,” he said.

Previous studies show the asteroid, which is blacker than charcoal, is what is called a C-type asteroid that is likely made of carbon-based materials and some silicate rock.

More information about its composition and structure are expected from radar images and chemical studies of its light as the asteroid passes by the planet.

“I’ve read that we will be able to see details down to a size of about 15 feet across on the surface of the asteroid,” Fisher said.

NASA is working on a mission to return soil samples from an asteroid known as 1999 RQ36 in 2020, followed by a human mission to another asteroid in the mid-2020s.

Japan also plans to launch an asteroid sample return mission in 2018.

(Corrects time element in paragraph 3)

(Editing by Tom Brown and Philip Barbara)

In Upstate NY, Gas Drilling Debate Gets Local

Thursday, November 03, 2011

By Maria Scarvalone

Stream m3u

• 

  Maria Scarvalone

Many people in Sidney, N.Y., were outraged when the town board voted unanimously to provide a 50-year franchise to Leatherstocking Gas Co. for a natural gas pipeline at a meeting last month. Dozens shouted “Postpone the vote!” as they protested the town board’s vote in favor of the franchise. Their fear: that it will open the door to the controversial natural gas drilling technique known as fracking.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a hot topic in upstate New York these days, where the gas drilling debate has moved to the local level.

Across the region, town boards are debating its merits and some are deciding to use zoning to ban fracking locally. And as the debate heats up, it is pitting neighbor against neighbor: landowners who want gas leases against environmentalists and others who fear fracking.

This drilling technique, of shooting water, sand and chemicals into rock to extract natural gas, requires millions of gallons of chemically treated water when it is used on deep horizontal wells.

In response to fears of water supply contamination and other environmental damage, New York has not allowed high-volume hydraulic fracturing in its enormous Marcellus shale formation up until now. But in September, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation released new draft regulations for this drilling, and may start issuing permits for it next year.

Using ‘Home Rule’ provision, residents push to change laws

Having lost confidence that the state will prohibit high-volume hydraulic fracturing, citizen groups are petitioning their town boards for a ban by using their power to make local land-use laws. Under the state constitution’s “home rule” provision, towns control zoning, and — in the same way they would zone out junkyards or hotels — they are changing their laws to zone out heavy industry, including gas.

Already, more than a dozen New York towns have banned this drilling and more are planning to do so.  Two of the first to do so — Middlefield and Otsego, in Otsego County — are home to the village of Cooperstown and its Baseball Hall of Fame.

“It really is local democracy,” said Adrian Kuzminski, a retired college professor and the founder of the environmental group, Sustainable Otsego.

It’s an area rich in tourism, of second homes and, increasingly, of organic and value-added industry such as beer, wine and cheese — interests, Kuzminski said, that are incompatible with drilling: “It’s like playing Russian roulette with your water supply. What the gas industry doesn’t want to talk about are the losses that would occur up here.”

The fear of these losses prompted the Baseball Hall of Fame and other businesses in the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce to issue a statement against fracking in February. One, Ommegang Brewery, has given $40,000 to the anti-fracking cause, concerned that polluted water will ruin its beer.

Landowners in favor of drilling adamantly oppose the town ban movement.

Jennifer Huntington, a third-generation farmer in Middlefield, became the first leaseholder in New York to sue her town because of its ban this September. Having already leased 379 acres of her farm to a gas company, she said she has no intention of damaging the land, but wants to access its gas.

“We bought it; we want to use it. It’s a right we feel we have,” she said. Also in September, a gas company, Anschutz Exploration Corporation, filed suit against another town, Dryden, N.Y.

The plaintiffs point to state conservation law, which both sides agree clearly gives the state — not towns — sole power to regulate the gas industry. But anti-drillers argue that banning industry is not regulating it, and that home rule lets towns decide whether or where they want industry, including gas.

The town bans have also been a thorn in the side of landowner coalitions, who have been waiting for the state to begin issuing gas drilling permits to cut deals with the gas companies.

Dick Downey, the 76-year-old founder of an Otsego County landowner coalition and retired schoolteacher from the Bronx, believes gas drilling would be a boon akin to the Erie Canal for the area, whose economy has been ailing, and predicts more lawsuits to come.

Usually in favor of local control, he said in this case home rule takes away his property rights by preventing him from benefiting from his land’s minerals.

“If I harm them, I owe them redress,” Downey said, “but just because they think I might harm them, doesn’t give them the right to take my property. They want my property? Pay me,” he said.

 

Gas drilling enters local politics

Continuing the battle, anti-drillers in the region are running for seats on their town and county boards, attempting to oust those not opposed to fracking.  Their mantra: acres don’t vote; people do.

In Otsego County, more than 30 anti-fracking candidates are on the ballot, including many who have never run for office before.  One candidate, Lisa Moskowitz, running for a seat on the town board of Unadilla, believes some current board members there have already leased their land to gas companies and are not moving fast enough to ban fracking.

“If in 2011 you don’t know enough, hang your head in shame,” she said.

While anti-drillers fight on the local level for town bans, a so-called “home rule bill”, seeking to clarify that towns do have the authority to zone out the gas industry, is working its way through the New York legislature.  It has passed in the Assembly, but its Senate version is now stalled.

Photos by Maria Scarvalone