Sderot (pronounced sderr-ROHT) is the only town and the Western Negev is the only region in the entire world in which missiles are fired towards civilian population in the 21st Century.
Yet in spite of the promise by Hamas (allied with Iran) that they will not fire rockets into Israel again, a promise to the world in fact, missiles have been fired and one exploded inside the city of Sderot.
Nearly 270 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel since the end of last winter's counterterrorist operation on January 18. This is in comparison to more than 3,300 rockets and mortars fired in the year before the IDF carried out the operation, the IDF spokesman pointed out.
In the past month, Hamas terrorists have again slowly begun increasing the number of rocket attacks on Israel, with approximately 15 rockets and mortar shells fired to date.
While 15 is not a large number, they do help to create the atmosphere of terror to Sderot. Sderot is the only town in the world in which between 74% and 94% of children aged 4-18 exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress, says Natal, the Israel Center for Victims of Terror and War.
Five technologies Iran is using to censor the Internet.
American Daughter posted a video wherein the Iranian regime executed five Kurdish students for “political activities” in the Kurdish city of Kermanshan in June.
Iran has sent six warships to international waters, including the Gulf of Aden, to show its ability to confront any foreign threats, its naval commander said on Monday.
Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, quoted by the ISNA news agency, made the announcement five days after Iran said it test-fired a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles), putting Israel and U.S. bases in the area within reach.
The Gulf of Aden is an extension of the Indian Ocean. Located between Africa and Asia, it forms the natural separation between the countries of Somalia and Yemen.Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Gulf of Aden waters flow into the Red Sea through the Bab el Mandeb (strait), and because it provides an outlet to the west for Persian Gulf Oil, it's now one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
In that regard, piracy is a major problem in these waters, especially for small sailboats and yachts. Many international sources now warn all small craft to avoid this gulf. Recently, even large tankers have been hijacked and held for ransom.
Terrorism is also a problem. It was here in 2000 that the USS Cole, a U.S. guided missile destroyer, was involved in a suicide bombing attack while harboring in the port of Aden. Seventeen sailors died, with dozens injured.
Ahmadinejad boasted that “those who one day called Iran and Syria part of the axis of evil now want to develop relations with Iran and Syria.”
“Circumstances are changing rapidly in our favor,” Arab media quoted him as saying. “We are on the road to victory.”
Does this mean the Iranians don't want to visit for Nowruz?
Brigitte Gabriel talks about the Obama message to Iran.
Brigette Gabriel dissects Obama's surrender to the Iranian Mullahs.
Obama never mentions the deaths and dismemberment of U.S. military troops at the hands of Iran in a weak-kneed attempt to curry favor. The anti-Iranian regime and pro-democracy movements are surely to be disappointed in the message.
Nowrūz (Persian: نوروز /noʊruz/ ↔ [noʊɾuːz]; with various local pronunciations and spellings, meaning 'New Day') is the traditional Iranian new year holiday celebrated by Iranian peoples, having its roots in Ancient Iran. Since the Achaemenid era the official year has begun with the New Day when the Sun leaves the zodiac of Pisces and enters the zodiacal sign of Aries, signifying the Spring Equinox. Apart from the Iranian cultural continent (Greater Iran), the celebration has spread in many other parts of the world, including parts of Central Asia, South Asia, Northwestern China, the Crimea, and some ethnic groups in Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia.
Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in Iranian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday and having significance amongst the Zoroastrian ancestors of modern Iranians. The moment the Sun crosses the equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year and Persian families gather together to observe the rituals.
Tiversa, a company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks discovered what it said is a potentially serious security breach involving Marine One’s helicopter.
Engineering and communications information about Marine One was discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.
Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, said, ”We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One."
The company was able to trace the file back to its original source.
"What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, MD had a file sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One," Boback said.
Tiversa also found sensitive financial information about the cost of the helicopter on that same computer.
Boback said someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, not realizing the potential problems.
"When downloading one of these file-sharing programs, you are effectively allowing others around the world to access your hard drive," Boback said.
Iran is not the only country that appears to be accessing this type of information through file-sharing programs.
“We've noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar, and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence,” Boback said.
Iran has denied a claim by British diplomat, Sir John Sawers, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, and his claim that Iranian officials secretly offered to end attacks on coalition soldiers in Iraq in exchange for a stop to interfering in Iraqi affairs while Tehran continued its nuclear program.
The claim is startling since Iranian willingness to acknowledge complicity in the attacks has consistently been denied in public. However, it is entirely plausible and appears to be a credible claim. Iran has miffed Obama's efforts at conciliation.
"It was twenty years ago today" and yet the West still fails to effectively respond to censorship. Twenty years ago Iran ordered the death of British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers for blaspheming Islam. The verdict still stands.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa (religious edict), issued on February 14, 1989, sent Rushdie into hiding under 24-hour police protection, and triggered attacks on bookstores and assassination attempts-–at least one successful-–against the publishers of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said this week Khomeini’s death sentence stood. Unlike a political decree, he said, a fatwa remains valid unless nullified by the cleric who issued it.
Khomeini died four months after issuing the decree, but not before declaring in an official statement that “even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to hell.”
Over the years since then, various Iranian leaders have reiterated that the fatwa remains valid, and rewards worth millions of dollars have been offered for Rushdie’s murder.
No other fatwa had played as crucial a role in awakening the Islamic world, said one lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahat-Pisheh.
“I call on all zealous Muslims to execute [Rushdie and his publishers] quickly, where they find them, so that no one will dare to insult the Islamic sanctity, “he said. “Whoever is killed on this path will be regarded as a martyr, Allah-willing.”
The Rushdie affair has generated considerable debate over the years about freedom of expression, intolerance, Islamic law (shari’a) and Islamic-inspired violence.
For some free speech advocates, the United Nations’ low-key response to the Rushdie death sentence paved the way for Islamic states and organizations to become increasingly forceful in their response to what they view as insults to Islam, and strengthened their continuing campaign for a global ban on religious “defamation.”
Historian and veteran U.N. observer David Littman noted later that it took four years for the world body’s then top human rights watchdog, the Commission for Human Rights, to include a reference to the case in a resolution.
“This attitude of indifference emboldened member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) sympathetic to the enhancement of the shari’a and they proceeded to try to introduce Khomeini-style restrictions on freedom of speech about certain political aspects of Islam to the United Nations itself,” he wrote in the Middle East Quarterly in 1999.
“Thus did the ‘Rushdie rules’ begin affecting U.N. bodies, and especially the Commission on Human Rights, eating away at international norms.”
A year after the fatwa was issued, OIC member states adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which says all human rights and freedoms must be subject to shari’a.
Over the ensuing years, the issues raised by the Rushdie fatwa emerged again in more recent controversies involving Islamic sensitivities, such as the furor over the publication in European newspapers of cartoons satirizing Mohammed, and Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders’ provocative documentary linking the Koran and terrorism.
Rushdie and other critics have accused non-Muslim governments, publishers and corporations of practicing self-censorship and appeasement in the face of Muslim threats.
This week alone, an Indian newspaper editor and publisher appeared in a Kolkata court accused of hurting Muslims’ religious feelings after reprinting an opinion piece from a London newspaper that argued for the right to criticize religion; and the British government barred Wilders from entering the country, charging that his beliefs “would threaten community harmony and therefore public security.”
In a recent interview with The Times of London, Rushdie said the West should have realized that the Iranian fatwa was the beginning of a new era.
“There was a tendency from everybody to believe that it was an isolated incident rather than an indicator or something wider, to believe that it was all my fault,” he said.
It just doesn't get any better. After opening his hand, and looking for an unclenched fist, Obama planned to send a sports team to his new found friends, the Iranians. Yet, Iran refused to issue visas for U.S. Women's Badminton Team because of their late application. So much for the openness to the world for Obama.
John Bolton, former U.S. envoy to the UN, stated that the U.S. has been defeated by Iran. Bolton said Washington has suffered a humiliating defeat in its drive against Iran’s nuclear activities.
In an interview with BBC Persian, Bolton stated the obvious, efforts to curb Tehran’s nuclear achievements have come to naught as Tehran has successfully managed to defend its national interests.
Bolton claimed that if Washington had settled on a military option against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure beforehand, “the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons would not have existed in the world today”.
The former US diplomat said that he seriously advises US President Barack Obama to opt for a military attack on Iran’s uranium enrichment, should three months of direct negotiation with Iran prove to be a failure.
Of course, the new administration will not listen and begun the process of submission to the Islamic Republic.
The former diplomat quit his UN job in 2006 after failing to win Senate confirmation and worked as a senior foreign policy adviser to former president George W. Bush.
Obama's policy of direct diplomacy with Iran may buy Tehran enough time to produce nuclear weapons, Shabtai Shavit, former chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, warned.
"My concern is that until Obama finishes his learning curve of the subject, the Iranians are going to have maybe the first or even more nuclear bombs."
Shavit served as director of the Mossad from 1989 through 1996.
Iran accepted Obama's initial offer of an apology for advocating American interests previously. Now President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region and an apology for past "crimes" against Tehran. Ahmadinejad was responding to Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace if Iran "unclenched its fist."
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Iran's top cleric opined: "The world is on a slope of collapse. One is shocked when a president (Obama) sits, smiles and says 'my concern is to find a dog for my daughter.' Shame on you and those who voted for you," he said.
He also added during Friday prayers that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni should be shot.
"Every time the picture of this woman is shown, I really wish that somebody would expend a bullet on her," he said according to a recording of the sermon obtained by the Associated Press, and a copy of the speech was also translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Middle Eastern press monitoring service.
These are the people that Obama wants to meet with and to have no preconditions before for meeting. Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall on that auspicious occasion?
Jannati is the head of the powerful hardline Iranian Council of Guardians which ensures the government remains true to the principles of the Islamic revolution.
He was hand-picked by Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for the position and is seen by the reformist camp as one of the biggest opponents of democratic reforms in Iran. His council disqualified thousands of reformist candidates during parliamentary elections. At least they have something in common with Obama: they lack qualifications.
The BBC ran an interesting story about Iranian reaction to The Elect's victory. One blogger, cartoonist and blogger Nikahang Kosar who now lives in Canada, likened Obama to the reformist Mohammad Khatami in Iran. Obama's promise of 'change' reminds many Iranians of their own optimism when they elected the reformist Mohammad Khatami as president in 1997. This reflects the disillusionment Khatami's supporters felt when his attempts at reform were blocked by Iran's Islamic hardliners.
Likewise, Tehran journalist Ehsan Taqaddosi echoes this feeling, writing on demokracy.blogfa.com states: "Khatami was our Obama."
And, a third Iranian, Ehsan Taqaddosi, fears Obama cannot deliver what he promises.
Like Obama, Khatami was a pleasant talker and he introduced concepts such as the rule of the people and democracy into our political literature. But what happened in practice?
Nothing changed... Everyone says that Obama will be the same as his predecessors and in practice he may only be able to create a short, sharp shock.
Khatami also created a short, sharp shock and at the end of his tenure, we didn't witness any of the enthusiasm and determination which existed during the initial years of his government's rule.
The Iranian comments were originally in Farsi and translated by BBC Monitoring.
Iranians called for a U.S. "unconditional withdrawal" from all Islamic states referring to Washington as the "main war-monger and cause of insecurity worldwide." Election day USA is the anniversary of the take-over of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran by university students and followers of the Imam Khomeini in 1979. The embassy was known in Iran as the "Den of Spies." The U.S. is seen as the main cause of insecurity in the world and the Iranians should "fight against oppressive and colonial policies of the world arrogance and Western powers led by the US." The U.S. efforts are against Islamic states, especially Iran, and "resulted from the influence of Zionist lobbies on international organizations as well as the US and its allies pressures on international bodies."
The only thing worse for the U.S. is if we brought back Zbigniew Brzezinski, the U.S. Secretary of State during the Jimmy Carter fiasco of a Presidency.
Wait, it could get worse: Brzezinski has backed one of the presidential nominees, and is an important advisor to this individual, and that nominee might get elected tomorrow.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Graphic source: Pajamas Media
A Humvee interior view of the passenger side door shows how a copper projectile ripped violently through the door, fragmenting the interior door armor and causing significant damage before exiting though the dashboard. This is a typical Iranian-made EFP causing U.S. casualties.
Regardless of any analysis, it is quite embarrassing to hear two people running to be second-fiddle to the Commander-in-Chief not even mention the blood and sacrifice spilled by American troops. Instead, both vice-presidential nominees hid behind the skirt of defending Israel rather than take Iran to task for supplying weapons to kill American troops. It is just despicable. Let Israel take care of their own issues, and we can remain a solid ally as needed, but for God's sake, defend our troops.
Despite abundant evidence outside the mainstream media, in the debate tonight neither candidate mentioned Iran's role in killing our people. Coalition forces have documented how Iran supplys Sunni and Shia insurgents with deadly munitions in the form of explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs.
Their blood and sacrifice is worth more than silence.
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