Northman's Fury

Russia is getting nervous:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would demand an explanation from the United States over its military build-up in the Middle East and criticised Washington for "hardline" policies against Iran

From John Robb

Iran: Tick, tick, tick

From Tom Barnett

But here's why I think the Iran-war-sales-job is so real: not just Tel Aviv but also Riyadh pushing the package (both the blood and the treasure).

Think Bush won't do it? Rewatch the Cheney interview with Wolf and remember that he's the adult in the room when that gut decision gets made.

And Sam Gardiner to tell us all what to look for:

The pieces are moving. They’ll be in place by the end of February. The United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran.

The second carrier strike group leaves the U.S. west coast on Tuesday. It will be joined by naval mine clearing assets from both the United States and the UK. Patriot missile defense systems have also been ordered to deploy to the Gulf.

Maybe as a guard against North Korea seeing operations focused on Iran as a chance to be aggressive, a squadron of F-117 stealth fighters has just been deployed to Korea.

. . .

It is possible the White House strategy is just implementing a strategy to put pressure on Iran on a number of fronts, and this will never amount to anything. On the other hand, if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we’ll see a few more steps unfold.

First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff.

The Patriot missiles going to the GCC states are only part of the missile defense assets. I would expect to see the deployment of some of the European-based missile defense assets to Israel, just as they were before Gulf II.

I would expect deployment of additional USAF fighters into the bases in Iraq, maybe some into Afghanistan.

I think we will read about the deployment of some of the newly arriving Army brigades going into Iraq being deployed to the border with Iran. Their mission will be to guard against any Iranian movements into Iraq.

As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.

More here and here.

The end of February will also be the end of the 60-day period that UN Security Council gave Iran to stop enrichment activities. I'm waiting for the US to send somebody to try and do what Colin Powell did prior to Iraq and give a presentation of the "evidence" the US has about Iran's nuclear program, their involvement in Iraq, support for terror organizations, etc.

Of course, Powell had credibility at the time, which he sacrificed for the Bush Administration. Nobody else they put up will have much chance of convincing anyone outside of the US media. Of course, that's all they really need to start another war.

The order to start killing Iranians in Iraq is part of a ploy to get Iran to do something the US can use as an excuse to go bombing their merry way. It didn't work with Iraq, and it probably won't with iran, but as in the former case, that will just mean they have to turn up the rhetoric and start the war anyway.

The beat goes on, and the rhythm is getting faster.

From Greg Djerejian:

This SOTU felt like something of a requiem. It was almost painful to watch. Like, say, Jacques Chirac, the President seemed a dead man walking. The domestic policy part, despite some initiatives of arguable import (energy conservation, health insurance), reeked of half-hearted delivery, a sense that little of it would come to fruition, in short, that is was mere filler/prologue. Put simply, Bush's heart wasn't in the domestic policy section (and Cheney even mischievously winked to the gallery during one of the reduction in energy usage parts). None of it was truly convincing, in the least.

The video of Cheney smirking and winking to the gallery can be found here. As another commenter pointed out, Bush's speech would have sounded great to somebody who just beamed in from Pluto. To those of us who have seen what he's actually done these last six years, it sounded like a bunch of bullshit. Cheney winking while Bush talked about reducing oil consumption just confirms that bullshit is what it really was.

There's the official news version:

The Iqaluit fire department continues to investigate the cause of the fire that gutted the city's popular Snack restaurant this week, Chief Greg Jewers says.

The Snack was also the city's only 24-hour food and cigarette delivery service.

Jewers said the fire, which began late Wednesday night, presented a real challenge to firefighters, who spent at least 14 hours battling the blaze.

At one point they had the fire under control, but then it spread to the ceiling of the restaurant and got away, he said.

"The smoke just billowed up until it got to the point the heat was so extreme that it just bust into flames," Jewers said in an interview Thursday.

Then there's unofficial information. I e-mailed my sister regarding the torching of the Snack, and this is what she sent back.

Sounds aufully familiar. It used to be beside the club. One day it went up in blue smoke...shortly after police had finally gotten a warrent, but hadn't had the time to go in and search.

Now that's the kind of information that makes a story interesting.

The Taleban movement has earmarked $1m to set up schools for children in southern Afghanistan, a senior official of the militant group has said.

You have to admit this is a pretty good idea. It allows them to make the whole "heart and minds" strategy work for them. They build schools to ingratiate themselves with the local population while simultaneously showcasing the inability of the Kabul government or multi-national forces to do the same. The MNF can't destroy the schools without looking like jackasses and turning the population against them, and in the meantime the students can be indoctrinated by the Taleban.

In theory, the Kabul government could possibly co-opt this strategy by agreeing to allow the schools and providing their own textbooks and attempting to build girl's schools alongside them. That way, the government puts the onus on the Taleban to protect the schools they say they want and at least lessens the strategic coup this represents. Of course, that means talking and working with the enemy, so the MNF will veto it, and admittedly there's a good chance it wouldn't work anyway. Still, making the Taleban look less good is better than nothing.

Life would be so much easier if the enemy actually was made up of nutjobs rather than intelligent strategic thinkers.

Listen, this Senator Osama Obama guy, he's actually a closet Muslim. He attended a predominately Muslim school in Indonesia, a Wahhabi school, a Madrassa. His step-dad was a radical Muslim.

All a load of bull of course, but an excellent example of how propaganda works. The name thing is just too convenient for the US right to pass up. We'll hear this again, along with all sorts of other mud. If the right could govern even half as well as they slung mud, they would be worth voting for. Unfortunately, it seems to be the only thing they're still competent at.

The view of the US's role in the world has deteriorated both internationally and domestically, a BBC poll suggests.

As more U.S. presidential wannabes slither into the race, I realize that flip-flopping season has officially opened.

For those of you who do not follow politics, flip-flopping is what happens when an intelligent person revises his opinion because the situation changes or new information becomes available. Flip-flopping goes by many other names including: rational behavior, thinking, and not being a frickin’ idiot. No one wants that sort of loser to have the nuclear codes.

The typical voter says to himself, “If a candidate goes off and starts using information and reason to make decisions, there’s no chance he’s going to agree with me.” No one wants that.

There's been a number of attempts to compare the Iraq War to wars of the past. Vietnam being a favourite of the American crowd due to its familiarity. There's also been France's war in Algeria, the USSR's Afghan campaign, Israel in Lebanon, even Athens's Syracuse expedition. Now we can add the China-UK Opium Wars of the mid-1800's to the list.

This story is rather amusing, in a sort of unsettling way. The Chinese apparently shot down one of their own weather satellites with a ballistic missile, causing the US to go ballistic.

I rather prefer the BBC version of the story, because it adds one significant point the Canadian story leaves out.

While the US may be unhappy about China's actions, the Washington administration has recently opposed international calls to end such tests.

It revised US space policy last October to state that Washington had the right to freedom of action in space, and the US is known to be researching such "satellite-killing" weapons itself.

I guess it’s easier to be a hypocrite when nobody points out that you’re a hypocrite.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki voiced frustration with both President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, saying their recent criticism of the Iraqi government probably helped the "terrorists."

Al-Maliki, whose relationship with the United States is strained, was especially upset about Rice's comment last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when she said that al-Maliki's government is working on "borrowed time."

"Such statements give moral boosts to the terrorists and push them towards making an extra effort and making them believe that they have defeated the American administration,

U.S.and Canadian oil executives and government officials met for a two-day oil summit in Houston in January 2006 and made plans for a "fivefold expansion" in oilsands production in a relatively "short time span,"

. . .

But the current extraction of oil from the tarsands results in the spewing of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: it's already the biggest source of new greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

. . .

Yet, according to the minutes of the Houston meeting, to multiply its output by five and to do it quickly, Canada would have to "streamline" its environmental regulations for new energy projects.

I so love euphemisms. “Streamline” indeed! Beyond the greenhouse gases, which have global implications, the basically open-pit mining of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan is destroying huge swaths of countryside. The refining process uses massive amounts of water. Fort McMurray, with 60,000 people, uses the same amount of water as Calgary’s 1.2 million. A fivefold increase means they’ll be using more water than the rest of the three prairie provinces combined.

The resultant water is toxic, how much do you think we should “streamline” its release?

Despite being situated at the confluence of three rivers, Fort McMurray is still thirsty as a result. There are already plans to divert and dam rivers feeding into the Northwest Territories.

In his state of the union address in 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush set out a goal to drastically reduce oil imports from the Middle East and make American dependence on Middle Eastern oil "a thing of the past."

"America is addicted to oil which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," Bush said then.

Paul Michael Weaby, a Washington insider and an expert on the geo-strategic aspect of the oil industry, said Bush is counting on Canada to help wean the United States off Middle Eastern oil — a goal now defined as a national security objective.

"He wanted to have a reduction of 1.5 million barrels a day by 2015 from the Middle East. Although he did not mention Canada, that is in fact where the replacement supply will come from."

You would think that as a “National Security Objective” they could come up with a better plan. As has been pointed out ad nauseum by those defending record profits for the oil industry, the price is set on the world market, regardless where the oil comes from. Stop buying from the Middle East and change suppliers, somebody else simply steps in to fill in the gap. The only way to really hurt the oil-dependant regimes is to wean yourself off the oil. No surprise the Bush Administration hasn’t pursued that course.

Sure, National Security is important, but gasoline profits are sacrosanct.

Not to worry, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

That was quick.

Legalize Afghanistan's Opium Crop

the most depressing aspect of the Afghan poppy crisis is the fact that it exists at all—because it doesn't have to. To see what I mean, look at the history of Turkey, where once upon a time the drug trade also threatened the country's political and economic stability. Just like Afghanistan, Turkey had a long tradition of poppy cultivation. Just like Afghanistan, Turkey worried that poppy eradication could bring down the government. Just like Afghanistan, Turkey—this was the era of Midnight Express—was identified as the main source of the heroin sold in the West. Just like in Afghanistan, a ban was tried, and it failed.

As a result, in 1974, the Turks, with U.S. and U.N. support, tried a different tactic. They began licensing poppy cultivation for the purpose of producing morphine, codeine, and other legal opiates. Legal factories were built to replace the illegal ones. Farmers registered to grow poppies, and they paid taxes. You wouldn't necessarily know this from the latest White House drug strategy report—which devotes several pages to Afghanistan but doesn't mention Turkey—but the U.S. government still supports the Turkish program, even requiring U.S. drug companies to purchase 80 percent of what the legal documents euphemistically refer to as "narcotic raw materials" from the two traditional producers, Turkey and India.

This is one of those rare ideas that actually is a win-win scenario. The more opium that is produced legally for production of morphine or other legal opiates, the less heroin gets produced, at least in Afghanistan. It frees up combat forces from bombing and destroying farmer's crops to fight the real enemies, plus it doesn't make those same farmers into enemies. And if the Afghan government can tax the opium crops and (legal) drug production, it gives them the money to go about those reconstruction projects they don't have the money for. At the same time, the loss of the heroin revenue hurts the insurgents we/re supposed to be fighting.

Its such a simple and brilliant solution that I'm sure the US will either ignore it completely or find a devilishly clever way to screw it up.

Somalia's main broadcasters have been ordered to close, shortly after the interim president set up a new team to end the "chaos" in the capital.

Three top Somali radio stations and al-Jazeera TV are affected. They have been ordered to appear before the national security agency.

A policeman was killed and a convoy of government and Ethiopian troops attacked in overnight violence.

It’s kind of funny that the Islamists are the ones accused of being freedom-hating extremists with delusions of Taliban-style sharia law, but it’s the “freedom-loving”, US supported, and Ethiopian backed “rightful” government who has declared martial law and shut down independent and international broadcasters.

I guess freedom must mean something different than I thought it did.

Let's see, in addition to sending a bunch more troops into the Iraqi quagmire, the US has raided an Iranian consulate in what is technically an act of war, and launched bombing raids and possibly sent special forces troops into Somalia. (That situation is going about as well as can be expected.)

The whole "surge" idea, along with the other troop movements makes one wonder where the US is finding all these guys given the repeated canard that their military is so stretched. Our Defense Minister just hopes that they're not taking any forces out of Afghanistan, to which I would tell him to start paying more attention.

Taking troops from the one war Bush started that I actually agreed with to speed up the losing of another and to possibly start a couple more is about what I would expect of him. It does make me wonder why we continue to put our troops in the line of fire to help him free up troops for other adventures.

Along with the minor increase in force levels in Iraq, another carrier group and Patriot missile batteries are being sent to the Gulf. Those assets would be totally useless against insurgents in Baghdad, which gives a rather broad hint to their actual purpose. The kool-aid drinkers are still looking to start something with Iran.

The consulate raid wasn't enough, but the provocations and propaganda will continue. I would expect some cross-border "hot-pursuit" raids after the arrests of Iranian officials fail to get the response they want. They hope the Iranians will have to respond and give them the excuse for major operations. Hell, they're not even very good at hiding their intentions.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to assure the Senate Armed Services Committee the U.S. military will not widen the war into Iran.

"We believe that we can interrupt these networks that are providing support through actions inside the territory of Iraq and there is no need to attack targets in Iran itself," he said.

But with the future of oil-rich Iraq at stake, the revolutionary leaders of Iran are not likely to back down.

"Since the president has taken the gloves off, I would expect that they would respond by taking the gloves off, too," Indyk says.

Pentagon sources tell CBS News the U.S. military has planned covert cross-border raids into Iran — but so far none has been approved.

They probably figure they can get away with some heavy bombing raids and walk away without too much trouble. Some history lessons might be in order.

Was just ruminating about a history of the Iran-Iraq war that I perused the other day. Convinced that the student revolution left Iran’s oil fields undefended, Saddam Hussein tried and failed to make a quick grab for the border provinces. After some skirmishing Hussein essentially pulled back and hoped that the Mullahs would let bygones be bygones. They didn’t. Iran sent everything it had after Iraq, with or without equipment and training, over and over again. They used waves of teenagers to clear minefields, losing the good part of a generation in the process. The Iranians would have taken a chunk out of Iraq if Hussein had not brought nerve gas weapons to bear. The apparent superiority of Iraq’s forces, the violence of its attacks and the practically genocidal loss of civilian volunteers didn’t seem to discourage them at all.

Of course, nothing like that would happen if the US were to attack Iran. They'd be greeted as liberators with candy and flowers in the streets. Hell, a few bombing runs and the Iranians will overthrow the mullahs all by themselves and invite American companies to come in, take over the oil and natural gas fields, and show them how to set up a democratic government.

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions. - Robert Lynn