Gearing up for war III, this time WW3?
October 25th, 2007 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
Referring to president Bush’ statement that allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons might lead to world war 3, Dennis Kucinich, congressman from Ohio said: ‘the White House rodeo cowboy has gone dangerously too far and precipitously too close to igniting the war he claims to be trying to avoid.’
You might have noticed a small news item two days ago mentioning that 70 air force personnel have been relieved of their duties following an ‘incident’ where six nuclear weapons went ‘missing’ for 36 hours. None of the major news agencies seem to be asking any critical questions or questioning the incoherent information they get from the US armed forces. Other sources, however, claim that the only reason this story is being released to the media in the first place, is to cover up a much larger scandal.
When this incident took place, Wayne Madsen reported that the weapons were intended for the Middle East and a possible attack on Iran, possibly scheduled to coincide with the unexplained Israeli attack in Syria in the beginning of September. However, personnel within the airforce, upon learning why the weapons had been loaded onto a B-52 bomber against regulations, sabotaged the move from within. Dick Chenney has been pushing for a war for some time now and it should come as no surprise that nuclear weapons could be used in a coming war with Iran as they have been included in plans to hit the deep bunkers where the Iranians are allegedly hiding their weapons programmes.
These are only speculations of course, but the details are interesting:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7147
Meanwhile, the whole case about the supposed Syrian nuclear programme is continuing, still without a single proof of evidence. The story is being spun further and further by the media, building on still-unconfirmed evidence from either Israel og the US, both of which were supposed to know about the programme before the strike. It is interesting how speculation becomes ‘fact’ once it has been repeated enough times and enough time has passed.
The latest ‘news’ now identifies a possible North Korea-style nuclear reaction that probably was the target of the strike, showing a ‘big, rectuangular box structure’ with what appears to be a pump house on the Euphrates river.
Anyone remember those pictures of Iraqi trucks transporting WMDs prior to the invasion in 2003?
Of course, drumming up support for a war against Iran is already complete as we all now believe that Iran is months away from launching devastating attacks on the world as they’re all religious nutcases who only look forward to their next lives in paradise. Oh, and they are ’state sponsonsors of terrorism’ because of the mess in Iraq and because they support Hizbollah, a group that has never launched an attack outside of Lebanon (and none after the civil war that have been proven anyway) (if one disregards Israel, its one and only declared enemy.
No wonder they have to be bombed back to the stone age.
—-EDIT—-
Oops, the building is gone. Nuclear or not, it points to suspicious activities…
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/SyriaUpdate25October2007.pdf
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Gearing up for war II
October 9th, 2007 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
From Syriacomment
“Policy Brief” by Alistair Crooke, circulated by the U.S./Middle East Project, of which Henry Siegman is the Director
TICKING CLOCKS AND ‘ACCIDENTAL’ WAR
BY ALASTAIR CROOKE *
9 October 2007
Editor: Robert Malley
In an article in Salon.com on 19 September, Steven Clemons describes a debate at a recent Washington dinner party attended by eighteen persons at which “Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft squared off across the table over whether President Bush will bomb Iran.”
Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Carter, Clemons writes, said he believed Bush’s team had laid a track leading to a single course of action: a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Scowcroft, who was national security advisor to President Ford and the first President Bush, held out hope that the current President Bush would hold fire, and not make an already disastrous situation for the U.S. in the Middle East even worse.
The 18 people at the party, including former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, then voted with a show of hands for either Brzezinski’s or Snowcroft’s position. Snowcroft got only two votes, including his own. Everyone else at the table shared Brzezinski’s fear that a U.S. strike against Iran is around the corner.
Clemons, who moderated the debate, argues that the case presented in terms of a ‘binary decision’ – to bomb or not to bomb – is unlikely to lead to the decision to bomb Iran, for various reasons, resting mainly on the U.S. military’s known opposition to conflict with Iran. In his final paragraph, Clemons suggests that “we should also worry about the kind of scenario David Wurmser has floated, meaning an engineered provocation. An ‘accidental war’ would escalate quickly and ‘end run,’ as Wurmser put it, the president’s diplomatic, intelligence and military decision-making apparatus.”
The view from those most likely to be affected by an “accidental” war, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, all share the conclusion both that war is imminent and that any one of a number of “ticking clocks” may be “engineered” as a provocation that would by-pass the Pentagon chiefs of staff arguments against expanded conflict and trigger war. All of these actors have been preparing flat-out for the coming conflict.
They see the circumstances of the Middle East as one of hair-trigger instability and escalating tensions. Equally significantly, there is a heightened inter-linkage between events that suggests that, as in 1912-14 in Europe, some unexpected and relatively insignificant event – a Sarajevo moment – could ignite currents and dynamics over which major states and movements would have little influence.
Iran (from where I have just returned) as well as leaders such as Hassan Nasrallah and Khaled Mesha’al see the signs of preparations for conflict taking place in Israel. These are the signs they see: Israel conducting low level overflights in Lebanon to create sonic booms; Israel, whose prime minister had been volubly warning of the risks of some misunderstanding leading to war between Israel and Syria, then launching an aerial incursion into Syria. And all of this as the international community remained silent.
The Syrians saw on their radars the four fighters that penetrated into Northern Syria from the Mediterranean; but they also saw the much larger numbers of Israeli aircraft that were flying in a holding position close to Cyprus. The Syrians were not about to disclose their anti-aircraft missile capacities to Israel; and the intruders dropped the munitions and their long-range fuel tanks without pressing any attack, but returned to join the larger group still flying a holding pattern off Cyprus before all returned to Israel as a single formation.
The Israeli objective remains a matter of speculation, but the general conclusion is that Israel was only ready to run such a risk against unknown air defenses either as a proving run or, given the size of the numbers of aircraft off Cyprus, to destroy some target that for whatever reason they were unable to engage. Either way, the mission seems related to future conflict……
This is only one among a series of ticking clocks:
(i) Lebanon: ……
(ii) Syria ….
Ramadan in Yemen
September 30th, 2007 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
Yes, yet again the holy month of Ramadan has arrived, and Yemen, like all Muslim countries, goes bananas as people try to abstain from food, drink, smoking and thoughts of sex from sunrise until sunset. The idea is to have an idea of how poor people who regularly starve live their lives and thus be more humble. The month is also ‘The Holy Month’ and people are expected to follow all religious rules more strictly and be properly religious throughout the month.
Typically, people who drink or have other vices that are not considered Islamic, abstain from these during the month. People also pray more and many spend their idle time, which there is a lot of during Ramadan, to read the Qur’an and the Tradition. As all good deeds are supposed to count for more in the final account on Judgement Day (just as bad actions count double also) and the streets of Sana’a are suddenly packed with beggars taking advantage of people’s generosity.
Yemen is a very religious country and the social pressure to conform to all religious rules is ever-present. When all your friends go to the mosque to pray it is hard to be the only one choosing not to come. The fast is therefore followed rigorously in the public sphere, although people jokingly talk of ‘others’ sneaking off home to chew qat during the day.
Having spent Ramadan in other Arabic countries, there is one thing that stands out in Yemen compared to how Muslims live through the month other places. Everywhere, people change their schedules to make life easier for themselves, at least as long as they are able to. Office hours are pushed so that people get an extra hour or two of sleep in the morning and shops and other businesses tend to open later.
In Yemen, however, the day is turned completely upside down as most Yemenis seem to sleep all day and stay up all night. To foreigners, this is regularly mentioned as hypocrisy as Ramadan is supposed to be a month of trial where each one should suffer a bit in order to remember that which is greater than oneself. However, as is the case with most people in religion or not, we tend to find the way of least resistance. In Yemen, though, this has been completely institutionalised to the extent that shops open only in the late afternoon and stay open until the last meal of the day, just before sunrise.
Since qat cannot be chewed during the day, it is chewed after Iftar, the breaking of the fast just as the sun sets. As qat imposes insomnia in many chewers, they are not able to sleep until after sunrise anyway, and a large segment of the Yemeni population only gets out of bed at some point after midday, meaning they fast only for four to six hours a day, hardly a feat according to those who are forced to work on a regular schedule.
The hours before the Maghrib, the sunset prayer, are the most dangerous in Sana’a during Ramadan. As people’s tempers are frayed due to the lack of food, drink and cigarettes (I don’t know if the lack of sex has much of an impact), fights break out easily, people impatiently shove one another and the traffic goes crazy. Everybody are racing to get home in time for Iftar and the streets are jammed with cars. Thankfully, due to people’s attempts to keep their nerves under control as loosing your temper is not considered appropriate, there is slightly less honking than normal on the streets. Crossing them, though, is a suicidal project. Countless times the drivers have seen no reason to break as I have been trying to cross the street between my house and the market, and I have had to jump out of the way and shout “Ramadan Mubarak / Blessed Ramadan” to make them feel ashamed.
Racing for Iftar is fun for us who do not fast and can observe the whole thing from the ‘outside,’ meaning on a full stomach. A few days ago I was invited for Iftar at my teacher’s house usually a 15 minute bus ride from where I live. Just getting to the bus station was trying, as there are people everywhere both trying to get home and to buy the last few ingredients for the Iftar-dinner. The worst, though, are those who are just hanging around waiting for the Maghrib-prayer so they can sit down in a restaurant and eat. They just walk around at a snail’s pace and clog up the streets for us who are in a hurry to go and eat!
The bus station was of course utter chaos. People were running for the busses and as soon as it is more than half full, they start shouting that it’s soon Maghrib and that we have to get going. I was lucky to get on early and get a window seat, meaning that I was removed from the hustle and didn’t get shifted around so that we wouldn’t end up in a situation where unrelated men and women would sit next to each other, God forbid!
To the shouting of ‘Maghrib! Maghrib!’ we got underway. For most of the way, though, people were clinging to the outside of the bus trying to get home as soon as possible, a sight rarely seen in Sana’a as there are usually enough busses to go around. From my safe spot I just heard what was going on around the door: ‘Aaaaah Maaaghrib…Maghriiii*bam*’ Outside my window, the pedestrians had panic in their eyes and those having been able to hail a motorcycle were clinging on for their lives as the driver weaved in and out of traffic at a breakneck pace, himself trying to get home in time and willingly risking the lives of himself and his passenger in the process. To my surprise, I was at Ghalib’s house in time for sunset.
The fact that social life goes on until the early hours of the morning, means that the noise of day is transplanted to the late nights instead. This gives wonderfully peaceful mornings here, but makes evenings utter hell (with the notable exception of an hour and a half after the Maghrib-prayer). The children are up all night setting light to their home-made fireworks and throwing them at innocent bystanders. Even at one in the morning the honking outside my house is deafening as people are going home from their qat-chews.
Having earlier established (by consensus with people who’ve travelled in the Middle East) that the Yemeni call to prayer is the worst by far in the world, it is unfortunately doubled now during Ramadan. Apart from the five regular calls to prayer, there are numerous new ones taking place at all hours of the day. After midnight there are a minimum of three, and the kids in the Qur’anic school next door shout through the loudspeakers as if Judgement Day is just around the corner.
Surely thinking it the holiest thing one can do during Ramadan, the imam in the nearest mosque has dutifully installed an extra megaphone on the opposite side of the street to increase the volume of his blessings even further. Before, we mostly heard feedback when his screaming starts at 3:45 AM. Now we get both the feedback and the screaming at the same time, and he is on call about ten times a day. It’s really something else…
It’s a trying time of year for us kufar (unbelievers), but I thank Superdrug for their earplugs and Emirates Airlines for the eye covering. I do as the Yemenis: I try to sleep through Ramadan as best I can.
Ramadan mubarak!
Gearing up for war?
September 15th, 2007 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
I don’t know if this case has made much of an appearance in the Norwegian media, but the Israeli bombing of something in eastern Syria last week and the speculation of what actually happened later is not a good sign for the Middle East or peaceful resolutions of any of the numerous conflicts in the region.
Israeli military and official sources have kept quiet about what their target was, which means that either it was not successful as they would have triumphantly told the world if they had taken out anything that could “threaten world peace” or it was successful but too controversial to admit. This is especially interesting since the Israelis throughout the summer have been claiming that they do not want the much-anticipated conflict between the two countries and have said that their strengthening of their forces and military exercises in the occupied Golan heights are for defensive purposes only. Israel has been claiming that the country does not think that Syria is going to attack, but that Israeli actions could be misread and thus accidentally leading to war. And then they send fighters to bomb something in Syria instead.
Here is a good article on this in Israel’s Jerusalem Post.
At the same time as Israel is keeping a tight lid on any information and making sure that censorship laws prevent the newspapers from using military sources, the US is admitting that an attack has taken place while stories and speculations are leaked about possible nuclear weapon technology being transferred from North Korea now that that evil country is negotiating about dismantling its nuclear programme.
Quoted from http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/6251
Joseph Cirincione, senior fellow and director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, and a frequent FP contributor, says:
“This story is nonsense. The Washington Post story should have been headlined “White House Officials Try to Push North Korea-Syria Connection.” This is a political story, not a threat story. The mainstream media seems to have learned nothing from the run-up to war in Iraq. It is a sad commentary on how selective leaks from administration officials who have repeatedly misled the press are still treated as if they were absolute truth.
…
Few reporters appear to have done even basic investigation of the miniscule Syrian nuclear program (though this seems to be filtering into some stories running Friday). There is a reason that Syria is not included in most proliferation studies, including mine: It doesn’t amount to much. Begun almost 40 years ago, the Syrian program is a rudimentary research program built around a tiny 30-kilowatt research reactor that produces isotopes and neutrons. It is nowhere near a program for nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel. Over a dozen countries have aided the program including Belgium, Germany, Russia, China, and the United States (where several Syrian scientists trained) as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). If North Korea gave them anything short of nuclear weapons it is of little consequence. Syria does not have the financial, technical or industrial base to develop a serious nuclear program anytime in the foreseeable future.
…
The real story is how quickly the New York Times and the Washington Post snapped up the bait and ran exactly the story the officials wanted, thereby feeding a mini-media frenzy. It appears that nothing, not even a disastrous and unnecessary war, can break this Pavlovian response to an “intelligence scoop.”For information on the Syrian nuclear program that any reporter should have read, see the Web site of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.”
And exactly this is the problem. Even if there is nothing to the story at all apart from wild speculation from Bolton and his neocon friends in the Bush administration, just putting this out there and letting the gullible media repeat it, a story they obviously does not follow up on as there is nothing to report, creates yet another idea in people’s minds about the evil people in power in ‘The Axis of Evil.’ Next time your average American or European hears Syria mentioned, he will remember that there is supposed to be some kind of connection to nuclear weapons. And then, being an Arab/Muslim country, those folks are a dangerous bunch that has whatever might happen coming.
So what is really going on? It sounds too much like the run-up to the invasion of Iraq four years ago. So-called ‘intelligence’ on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programme, his co-operation with al-Qaida, his burrying of WMDs across the border in Syria etc etc etc was only there to create an image of a country that needed to be bombed to keep us in the West safe from crazy and evil people who want to kill us(!). That it was not true was of no consequence as many Americans still believe the above claims to be true even four years later.
The Americans (in cahoots with the Israelis) are probably getting ready to hit Iran and its nuclear programme (and they will probably take the opportunity to hit other targets as well, including government ones) after a relentless media campaign to portray Iran and its leaders and complete maniacs and turning most of the Arab world against them through their claims that Iran is waging war on Sunni Muslims all over the Middle East and in Iraq in particular. Syria, being an ally (out of circumstance more than anything else) of Iran, ties neatly into this and will willingly or not be dragged into this whole mess. If we are to believe the American administration, Syria controls not only Hizbullah, but also Hamas and the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. To drag them down with Iran will thus be a propaganda victory now that there is only a year left until presidential elections in the US. That’s why Bush and Cheney and the rest of the henchmen have made sure to block any attempts at peace negotiations between Israel and Syria since it became known that secret talks were held last year. One cannot bomb a country trying to make peace with its neighbour…
Guess we’re in for an interesting autumn. Not that the Middle East (or Europe or the US for that matter) will be a better place once the whole thing is over.
Yet, the media’s ability to uncritically copy each other and cite dubious sources and having learned nothing from the 2003 invasion makes me want to cry.
Life among high-lifes
August 31st, 2007 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
Yemen, like all countries except North Korea, has an expat community. In Yemen, though, this community is very small since Yemen is no place to be and nothing much happens here. Apart from the students who are here only short-term, there are a number of people working in the development/NGO-sector in addition to oil and gas.
Although Yemen is not as conservative and strict as Saudi Arabia, social gatherings happen under the horizon. This is especially the case at this time, not long after the attack on the convoy of Spanish tourists and with new threats to attack banks, which might be a diversion. The parties, where everything is available obviously, takes place behind high walls and with guards hired to protect the premises and the Westerners getting drunk inside. Alcohol is widely available here, either from “dealers”, or from a number of “distribution centres” not to be named here as many people have an interest in them staying open. Not that they would be closed anyway, though. My guess is that they pay off the officials or the police, or maybe cut them in, which would explain the prices.
Interestingly enough, only three brands of liquor is available in Yemen, namely London Dry Gin, Teacher’s Whisky, and Smirnoff Vodka. I guess this is all that is brought in in dhows from Djibouti. Yet it is enough to turn a fair number of Westerners into alcholics as there is very little to do in Yemen. They either drink on their own or with friends in someone’s house. If not, there’s always The Russian Club, where there’s always a crowd, usually a mix of students, non-Yemeni Arabs, American marines, UN employees with 17-year-old Ethiopian girlfriends, and unidentifiable rabble.
Most foreigners in Sanaa are somehow all connected to one another through one or two links. Therefore, there are usually the same faces to be seen in all the parties, to the great chagrin of all the single men trying to get laid with the handful or so girls available, most of which are already in relationships. As in so many other countries, the expats of Yemen is mainly of the single male variety.
In these parties one also meets the sons of the most powerful men in the country. Unlike most of their countrymen, they have all lived abroad, they all work out (remember the Officers’ Club post?), and all get drunk and high as often as they can. Why do they not bring their sisters to the parties, I wonder? Judging from the number of expensive cars on the street outside, it can’t be a surprise to anyone what is going on behind the walls.
The party I was in yesterday had only one guard, unlike another party I was in a while back that had three. This guard is permanent, though, as the owner of the house suddenly felt very insecure without one after having to hunker down in his own home for 45 minutes while someone was settling a land dispute in the street outside with kalashnikovs. He later had to pick the bullets out of his walls and he decided to employ a kalashnikov of his own, which only sets him back 150 dollars a month.
Not that the guards are the only armed ones in these parties. Many people working in the embassies carry arms at all times. It is certainly weird being in a party with people with handguns.
At least they are lucky. A number of people employed in certain sectors such as oil, are hardly allowed to move at all. They have curfews, are not allowed to have guests, are not allowed to visit other people privately unless it is very important (and that means having an armed guard in the street outside the whole time), and are definitively not allowed to go to parties where there will be “targets,” more specifically Brits and Americans.
This is worlds apart from the Yemen I know and makes my flatmate curse the strange upper class Yemenis who can’t possibly be Yemeni with that kind of lifestyle.
Hiking in Yemen: Jabal Maswar pictures
August 12th, 2007 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
I have now put up some of the pictures from last Friday’s hiking trip with three friends. They can be found here:
http://torstein.worren.info/images/travel/2007-jabal_maswar_yemen/index.html
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Travel description to Jabal Maswar for later reference / new travellers:
Get transport to Bayt ‘Adhaqa, about 45 minutes west of Thillah on a mostly newly asphalted road.
From the main souq in Bayt ‘Adhaqah, walk upwards and through the black rock pass blasted through the mountain.
Find a way to climb the cliff on the left side of the road after the pass and find the path that winds along the right side of the mountain.
Keep walking for an hour or so and you will eventually find an abandoned stone hut and a gate just after it. If you come to a point where it looks like the path goes down to the road below again, backtrack 20 metres and find the stone steps going up to the hut.
Keep walking again for another half hour or so until the terrain flattens out. At that point there should be a path up towards the left that will eventually lead to the watch tower on the at the top. We went straight instead and ended up at a water reservoir where we walked along the terraced fields and eventually found a hidden path going up the cliff on the left to the village.
It’s also possible to go back through the village and up to the highest peak behind it. There is supposed to be a cave or something on the way up. The villagers are really friendly!
To get back to Bayt Adhaqah, head back along the plateau towards the lone school building to the left of the village and the top behind it.
When you get to a few houses on the right side of the road, take the path on the left going between some fields.
Keep following the path down, winding below the ruins of a fort and the left side of the valley widening out.
When you get to a village, head down the opening in the valley to the left and head down through the ruined wall with a gate and straight on down to Bayt ‘Adhaqa from there.
Total time: 6 hours.