Replies to post #6229 on Foreign Correspondence

[StephanieVanbryce]

Am .. when did you get back ..???

[PegnVA]

IMO, UAE is not going to "invade" anybody.
As for whether the US will "invade" SA, what is GWB going to do to sell that idea...hint, suggest, repeat in every speech that SA has those pesky WMD, or perhaps he'll get his team to appear on pol talk shows to say SA has those pesky WMD - does anyone REALLY expect the country will buy THAT tale again?

GWB became a lame duck president early last year - which is very early for a 2nd term presidency - when he tried in vein to push for SS "reform" with his private investment plan. Not even his own party supported him, so he quietly dropped what he had previously called "necessary reform to save SS".

[Vexari]

great post am..welcome back!

[Amaunet]

Arabs fear Iraq sectarian violence spill over: Rice

Reading the following text gives one a disquieting sense of how far the United States has fallen. Too many countries are listening politely, posing for a few 8 X 10 glossies and continuing on their own way, not Washington’s way, to such an extent that would be unheard of a few years ago.

The more obvious message is the entire Middle East is in danger of erupting from the chaos in Iraq which can then easily spill over into Russia, China and so on.

-Am

Arabs fear Iraq sectarian violence spill over: Rice

Saturday, February 25, 2006


SHANNON: Arab states fear sectarian violence in Iraq could spill over to their countries, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday while flying home from a tour of the Middle East.

Rice blamed Al Qaeda for the bombing which has ignited three days of Iraqi sectarian violence that has left 130 people dead. She acknowledged the strife posed a threat to Iraq’s political process and took small comfort from the limited achievements of her latest diplomatic tour. She suggested that Al Qaeda planted the explosives, which on Wednesday blew up an important Shia mosque in the Iraqi town of Samarra and ignited a spate of vicious attacks against clerics, mosques and ordinary people.

“There is a concern that the sectarian tensions that outsiders are stoking in Iraq ? that those same outsiders might try and stoke sectarian tensions in other parts of the region,” she said before a refuelling stop in Ireland.

“This is an extremely hard and extremely delicate moment obviously for the Iraqis, there has been a strike against Iraqi unity,” Rice said.

“This makes it harder today and perhaps tomorrow, but I am confident the Iraqis are committed to, dedicated to the formation of a national unity government.”

Three years ago, Rice was a leading advocate for the US invasion of Iraq, alongside other Bush administration officials who dismissed critics that said toppling former President Saddam Hussein would eventually invite a civil war.

On Friday, her plane flew over a country whose infrastructure remains in tatters, whose people live in fear of the bullets and bombs which regularly kill at random and where a Sunni-led insurgency makes governance next to impossible.

US troops in Iraq have no date to return home. Casualties and domestic pressure for them to come home are both rising.

Rice’s trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates also underscored the flagging influence of an unpopular Bush administration in the Arab world.

On a tour whose goal was to persuade Arab governments to isolate Hamas and Iran, the United States appeared almost alone in its hard line against both adversaries. Arab powerbrokers, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, rejected Rice’s appeal for them to deny aid to Hamas, the militant group which swept Palestinian elections in January and has been asked to form the next Palestinian government.

Hamas ? whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel ? is expected to take power in a few weeks and has treated threats to pull US aid to the Palestinian government with diffidence. The group has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union

No country has pledged it will follow the US policy to withhold aid as soon as Hamas forms a government, according to US officials lobbying for such action. Rice had to settle for the Arab countries agreeing to press Hamas to seek peace with Israel, even though they avoided warning of any consequences should the group remain unmoved.

And while they expressed some concern over the potential for a nuclear-armed Iran, the countries shunned Rice’s call for them to threaten to isolate the Islamic republic if it fails to dispel Western suspicions it is building an atomic bomb.

With Russia, China and many developing countries also resisting the US drive for international sanctions against Iran, only the European Union has moved close to Washington.

While few countries are threatening to isolate Iran, Rice said the world agreed the country should curb its nuclear programmes. “That international consensus is sincere,” she said. reuters


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\02\25\story_25-2-2006_pg7_51

[Amaunet]

UAE seeking assistance in setting up submarine arm.

There must be a lot of submarines in the Persian Gulf. I venture one could walk the length of that body of water by stepping from hull to hull.

This is probably just as much a move for the benefit of the United States as it is for the UAE. The United States is building up India as a means to contain China and using the UAE to contain Iran and possibly Saudi Arabia.
#msg-7086905





UAE wants to train navy personnel in India

January 03, 2006 23:32 IST


United Arab Emirates has evinced interest in training its naval personnel in India as also seeking assistance in setting up a submarine arm for its navy.

These topics figued prominently in discussions the visiting commander of the UAE naval forces Rear Admiral Sohail Mohammed Khalifa Al-Marar had with the Naval Chief Admiral Arun Prakash in New Delhi.

Heading a five-member delegation, Khalifa Al-Marar is currrently on a three-day visit in New Delhi during which he will embark upon the navy's latest acquisition -- the Talwar class stealth frigates and an SSK class submarine in Mumbai.

India's assistance to UAE for a hydgrographic survey and coastal zone management also came up for discussion, a naval spokesman said.

The two sides, the spokesman said also discussed holding of passage exercises in the near future. Indian Navy already has held joint exercises with UAE neighbour Oman.

http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jan/03uae.htm

[StephanieVanbryce]

You know it is bad when
The people who have sold us a generational "cultural conflict" against the towelheads start prattling about "racism"



The great Indian writer Khushwant Singh once penned a poignant story called Karma, about the plight of Indian elites under British colonialism. The protagonist, Sir Mohan Lal, wants only to be accepted as a gentleman. Impeccably dressed in his Savile Row suit and Balliol tie, brandishing a copy of The Times, he proudly takes his seat in the first-class compartment of a train – only to be accosted by a couple of drunken, loutish British soldiers who fling him out, seeing only a "wog:

Whether they realise it or not, most critics of the sale of P&O, the UK-based port operator that owns five terminals on the US east coast, to Dubai Ports World, owned by the United Arab Emirates government, are just replaying the scene with different accents.



Oh such an ocean of tears we should all have for the poor maligned UAE prince who *sniff* *can't* *sniff* use *sniff* royal money to buy the west. Oh what a trial of indelible shame Democracies in the West should suffer for not wanting autocracies to use autocratically gained wealth to buy out our assets. Oh, the torment of the good, pure, noble, human rights loving government of Dubai, surrounded by all these "racists". It must be truly racist to declare that a nation has to play by the rules to have full privileges under them. Who would have thought that the war hawks were such gushy post-modern multi-culturalists. One notes that "Western values", such as, for example transperancy go out the window when cash transactions for shares are involved.

What we are seeing is another pinch point in the very foolish decision the west made in 1980 to sell its future to oilarchies, hoping it could engage in a red queens race of creating more paper wealth than the depletion wealth of oil. Right now, 500 billion dollars a year must flow from them to the west of investment. Here to fore they have been willing to have influence and indirect control. This has noting to do with racism, and everything to do with a conflict between rent and capital - with the holders of rent needing to cement a final alliance between western holders of rent, and oil rentiers, in order to buy out the rest of the capital system.

It is around now when all those Republican terrorist hating freedom loving gas guzzling gay haters start to realize exactly who they have been selling their daughters to all these years. And their crypto-racist leanings are perfectly acceptable to Gideon Rose when they can be aligned behind wars and tax cuts - two things he likes.

Welcome to the Freeple's Republic.



Stirling Newberry

http://www.bopnews.com/archives/006062.html#6062

[Amaunet]

Dubai and the Straits of Hormuz

March 5, 2006


by Mike Whitney


http://www.opednews.com

“If you want to understand the policy of a country, look at the map.” Napoleon Bonaparte

Geography is fate.

United Arab Emirates is located at the center of an oil-dependent world. This tiny state forms the promontory that juts out into the famed Straits of Hormuz through which 40% of the world’s oil passes every day. Across the narrow straights sits Iran, the next victim on the list of “axis of evil” nations. Any attack on Iran will require that military forces quickly deploy to Dubai to forestall the closing of the straits and the subsequent devastation that would cost to world oil supplies and financial markets.



This is critical point which is being intentionally concealed by America’s diversionary media. This is the reason that President Bush continues to force the Dubai port-plan even though 70% of the American people and Congress resoundingly oppose it.

The importance of UAE as a staging area for future hostilities cannot be overstated. No military strategy can hope to succeed without first establishing a beachhead across the straits in Iran so that the danger of blowing up oil tankers and blocking passage is removed. This tells us that plans for an attack may be on track for late March as originally threatened by Israel.

For its part, Iran has been trying to work out an agreement for enriching uranium with Russia, although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still insists that the NPT provides an “inalienable right” for the peaceful development of nuclear fuel.

Ahmadinejad is right, of course, but it makes little difference. The United States has already brushed aside the Iran-Russia plan and is pushing to have the Security Council censure Iran at its next meeting. So too, talks have broken off between Iran and the EU-3 without producing any positive results. The Euro-leaders are clearly abetting Washington’s gambit; paving the way for another war.

Why?

Ahmadinejad has done nothing to help his cause by blurting out absurd statements that have made him look foolish and irrational. (Israel should be “wiped off the map”) Still, it’s doubtful that anyone could withstand the withering “swift-boating” of the western media once they commence their campaign of character-assassination, the likes of which we have seen many times before.

Ahmadinejad recently said, “We want peace, security, and progress for all the countries of the region, especially our neighbors. History has shown that Iran is a good neighbor. We are just working on nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes.” His comments, of course, were not covered in the western media since they conveyed the message of a responsible leader with benign motives rather than the ridiculous blather of madman.

As far as we know, however, Ahmadinejad has been straightforward in his claims. The IAEA has consistently found that Iran has fully complied with the terms of the NPT and that there “is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program”.

That hasn’t stop Washington, though. The die was cast for war with Iran nearly a decade ago in policy papers drawn up by far-right political ideologues who now control all the levers of foreign policy in the Bush White House.

The situation with Iran is bound to reach crisis-level this week as the IAEA’s board off governors is expected to issue a statement expressing its fears that Iran may be developing nuclear weapons.

Al Jazeera reported that, “Diplomats in Washington and Vienna said the Security Council could adopt a "presidential declaration" calling on Tehran to heed IAEA calls to suspend uranium enrichment and co-operate with inspections.”

A “presidential declaration”?

This is a clear admission that the IAEA has NOT found Iran in violation of its treaty obligations, but is looking for some way to accommodate the United States’ insistence that Iran should be publicly scolded by the international body.

Will this public humiliation be used as a pretext for war?

A Western diplomat told AFP the European countries had “decided against a resolution” at this week’s board meeting, after hearing from Russia and China that there was no support for one. (Al Jazeera)

Again, this suggests that there is no proof of foul-play.

Nevertheless, European leaders and the United States want to issue a “statement” that would call on Iran to voluntarily suspend all enrichment-activities and submit to more extensive investigations”. In other words, Iran is being asked to voluntarily give up all of its rights under the terms of the NPT.

But why would Iran willingly accept being treated like a pariah when there is “no evidence” that it has done anything wrong?

The hypocrisy of this Bush-backed plan is breathtaking. Bush just finished a trip to India and Pakistan where he effectively declared himself the final arbiter of who will get nuclear technology and fuel and who won’t. His actions were a clear affront to the IAEA, the UN, the NPT, and the United States Congress, who is supposed to determine such matters as treaties.

Bush has apparently elected himself the god of all-things nuclear.

He has successfully destroyed the already feeble credibility the NPT by capriciously handing out nuclear technology to friends and withholding it from enemies. He turned the notion of evenhandedness and international law into a private fiefdom where science and technology are distributed according to the whims of Washington mandarins.

The NPT is dead.

Will this final assault on international agreements clear the path for war with Iran?

It is hard to say, but the Financial Times reported that, “Iranian activists involved in a classified research project for the marines told the FT the Pentagon was examining the depth and nature of grievances against the Islamic government (Iran) and appeared to be studying whether Iran would be prone to violent fragmentation along the same kind of fault-lines that are splitting Iraq.”

So, along with the $85 million Congress just voted to provide for “pro-democracy” movements in Iran; Marine Intelligence is looking for ways to exacerbate ethnic tensions to foment revolution to topple the Tehran government. The plan for “regime change” in Iran is still being aggressively pursued, even though neighboring Iraq is in utter chaos.

The UAE port deal is just more indication that an attack on Iran is forthcoming. Its location is crucial to the success of any American invasion.

For Pentagon warlords Dubai has become the strategic-epicenter of the global resource war. As peace-activist and author Uri Avnery said, “Regimes come and go, rulers rise and fall, ideologies flourish and wither, but geography stands forever. It’s geography that decides the basic interest of every state.”

All eyes should be focused on Dubai and the tenuous future of the Straits of Hormuz.



http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_whi_060305_dubai_and_the_strait.htm

[Amaunet]

U.S. Will Use Emirates To Watch Iran

BY MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 9, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/28831

WASHINGTON - The State Department yesterday stressed the importance of plans to station at least 10 diplomats in Dubai to monitor the Tehran regime and support Iran's pro-democracy movement. The move was intended to assure a restive Congress of the Bush administration's commitment to containing the Iranian nuclear threat.

The siting of the monitors in Dubai reemphasized that the president and the State Department believe the United Arab Emirates is a strong American ally in the war on terror at a time when the Dubai government is facing hostility from lawmakers over its planned purchase of facilities in six American ports.

The Dubai monitors, and the setting up of American radio and television stations beaming into Iran, would address "a serious divergence between our capabilities and the profound challenges before us concerning Iran," Foggy Bottom's no. 3 official, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, told the House International Relations Committee.

Mr. Burns made his remarks to a hearing tied to the Iran Freedom Support Act, legislation that has been languishing for more than a year without committee action because of obstruction by the State Department.

Mr. Burns confirmed that by this summer a new Iran-watching office would be in operation at the American Consulate in Dubai with 10 diplomats designated to keep a watchful eye on Tehran as well as to meet and work with Iranian dissidents.

Mr. Burns likened the initiative to fabled American diplomat George Kennan's monitoring of the Soviet Union from a German outpost during the 1920s.

The undersecretary also stressed the importance of the creation in recent weeks of a new Iran desk at Foggy Bottom - a new Office of Iranian Affairs within the Bureau for Near East and North African Affairs.

In written testimony, Mr. Burns said the State Department "will increase the number of officers working on Iran at other diplomatic posts in the region. We will expand our Farsi language training to train a new generation of American diplomats in Iranian history, culture, and language."

The State Department announced the expansion late on Friday, and according to press accounts, will also station diplomats in London; Istanbul, Turkey, Frankfurt, Germany, and Baku, Azerbaijan. The reports estimate the number of new Iran-related positions in the State Department to be between 15 and 17.

Mr. Burns said the initiative was certainly not a reopening of diplomatic relations with Iran, acknowledging the concerns of survivors of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis still awaiting justice for their 444-day imprisonment, including Barry Rosen, who was present at the hearing.

An Iran scholar and a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, Patrick Clawson, praised the Dubai initiative yesterday, saying it was "a big step forward" and was essential to successfully keeping an eye on Tehran, "modeling what they did for relations with the Soviet Union."

Yesterday's hearing was the full committee's first meeting to address the Iran Freedom Support Act, introduced more than a year ago by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Florida. As the Sun reported in January, the chairman of the committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois, had refused to bring the bill before the full committee at the request of the State Department, which was concerned the legislation's provisions for sanctions and support for regime change in Iran would disrupt talks on Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions with members of the European Union, known as the EU-3.

Mr. Hyde announced yesterday that Ms. Ros-Lehtinen's bill, which now has 345 co-sponsors, will finally receive a committee markup next Thursday.

Mr. Burns said yesterday that the State Department, while supportive of the bill, was still hoping to modify some of its sanctions provisions and apologized to Ms. Ros-Lehtinen - who expressed disappointment with the "disengagement from the Bush administration with Congress on the issue of Iran" - for State's year-long delay in addressing the bill.

In addition to being peppered with questions about the State-requested obstruction of the bill, Mr. Burns was also asked about the Department's recent requests for $75 million in funding to help Iran's pro-democracy efforts. He said the Department hopes to allocate at least $20 million to broadcast radio and television signals into Iran, and was looking to work with private broadcasting companies in California, New Jersey, and the Washington area.

Mr. Burns's testimony was preceded by a lively exchange between Mr. Hyde and committee member Gary Ackerman, a Democrat of New York, who accused Mr. Hyde of silencing committee members during the long-overdue hearing, and of "insulting their intelligence." Mr. Ackerman, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island, also expressed concern that the $75 million requested by Ms. Rice might be misspent, likening Iran to Iraq and accusing the administration of having picked the wrong representative for a democratic Iraq in Ahmad Chalabi.