Saturday, 3 March 2007
Cause and Effect - American Consultant Paul Joyal Shot in Own Driveway Days After Criticizing Putin
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: Martyred for Freedom
Paul Joyal, nationally-known commentator on national security, was shot in the driveway of his own home last Thursday (March 1st, 2007). Only days earlier, Joyal and his associate Oleg Kalugin (a former director of the KGB who now lives in the United States) both appeared on MSNBC and offered their opinions that Russian president Vladimir Putin authorized the assassination of KGB defector Aleksander Litvinenko earlier this year in London.
Quoting from an article on MSNBC on February 25th:
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17332541/)
"Who killed Alexander Litvinenko?
He made scandalous accusations that struck at the heart of the Kremlin and ended up in a real-life spy story of political intrigue and murder
By Ann Curry
NBC News
Updated: 4:45 p.m. MT Feb 25, 2007
This report aired Dateline Sunday, Feb. 25, 7 p.m. on NBC.
Ann Curry
"Paul Joyal, Russia expert, security consultant: A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you and we will silence you in the most horrible way possible."
The Web article (clearly a transcript of a story presented on NBC's evening television news program) continues:
This haunting image of a figure in his hospital bed (Litvinenko) has become a world famous picture of tortured suffering.
It tells the chilling story of a man who took on the powerful and was silenced. He believed he was fighting for justice and made scandalous accusations that struck right at the heart of the Kremlin.
But he ended up in a real-life spy story of political intrigue, conspiracy and murder.
Joyal: It’s just unprecedented.
Disturbing mysteries involving Russia and politics are nothing new:
- Georgi Markov, the dissident writer was murdered with a poison pellet from an umbrella;
- Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukranian presidential candidate was poisoned;
- Paul Khlebnikov, an American business journalist, was gunned down.
But what happened in London may be even more sinister.
Joyal: He was a citizen of the United Kingdom. That has to mean something - that you shall be safe from this type of political retribution.
Six years before that photo was snapped, the same man, Alexander Litvinenko, left his home in Russia to start a fresh life in England.
Joyal: I was fascinated with the guy.
Security consultant Paul Joyal, who is a Russia expert critical of the Kremlin, struck up a friendship with Alexander in visits to London.
Ann Curry, Dateline anchor: And what was your impression?
Joyal: He was full of life. He was strong-willed, obviously. He was very courageous.
In London, Alexander, his wife, and their son were taken under the wing of a Russian tycoon who set them up with a modest home in the suburbs and supported Alexander’s freelance writing career.
Marina, a ballroom dance teacher, enrolled their son Anatoly in an international school."
-
Four days later, on Thursday, April 1st, Paul Joyal was shot.
Quoting from MSNBC again:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17424538/
"Expert in Russian poisoning case is shot -
FBI joins investigation, but officials think it’s just local crime"
By Pete Williams
Justice correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 11:45 p.m. MT March 2, 2007
"WASHINGTON - FBI agents say they are assisting police in suburban Washington who are investigating the shooting of a Russian expert — a man who spoke out on "Dateline NBC" last weekend and strongly suggested that remnants of the KGB were responsible for the bizarre poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.
The Russian expert, Paul Joyal, was shot Thursday night as he got out of his car in front of his house in Adelphi, Md. Investigators in Prince Georges County say a witness claims to have seen two men running away after the shooting. Joyal remains hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the midsection. Authorities have not said whether they've been able to talk to him.
Joyal is a long-time consultant on security and Russian affairs. From 1980 to 1989, he was director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee.
On last weekend's "Dateline," he said of Litvenenko's death: "A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: 'If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you and we will silence you — in the most horrible way possible.'"
'Dateline NBC' investigation
The shooting has certainly raised eyebrows, because Maryland police are well aware of Joyal's views regarding the Litvinenko death. But at this point, they have no evidence suggesting the shooting was anything other than an example of the rising crime rate in Washington's Maryland suburbs.
Local investigators are highly skeptical that his shooting was anything other than street crime.
NBC News Web Extra
In an odd twist, another person who appeared on the "Dateline" broadcast died of a heart attack last month.
Reporter Daniel McGrory of the Times of London, who has written about the Litvinenko case, died Feb. 20, before the "Dateline" segment was broadcast. He was 54.
His family said he "died suddenly at home." He was a veteran British foreign correspondent who had reported from several war zones. Just before his death, he had been reporting in Pakistan."
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive"
--
Now, this is familiar. I grew up right in the middle of the Cold War - people dropping dead like flies from time to time after fouling up the KGB's plans is, sadly, a familiar theme. Recognizable as all hell. Engineers and scientists in Europe working on Star Wars projects turned up dead from mysterious , violent causes all through the mid-1980s.
Just it was rare in the old Cold War for it to happen to Americans, because both sides were controlled by pragmatic men who recognized that there were limits they could not push.
Now, it seems that the guy in charge on one side doesn't recognize any limits.
The only real question after that development is "How long until the war starts?"
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 2:54 PM MST
Monday, 26 February 2007
Ya Gotta Like George
Topic: minor chuckles....
YES, I'M A BAD AMERICAN
by George Carlin
I Am Your Worst Nightmare. I am a BAD American. I am George Carlin.
I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some mid level governmental functionary be it Democratic or Republican!
I'm in touch with my feelings and I like it that way!
I think owning a gun doesn't make you a killer, it makes you a smart American.
I think being a minority does not make you noble or victimized, and does not entitle you to anything.
I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac, do it in English.
I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God when and where they want to.
My heroes are John Wayne, Babe Ruth, Roy Rogers, and whoever canceled Jerry Springer.
I don't hate the rich. I don't pity the poor.
I know wrestling is fake and I don't waste my time watching or arguing about it.
I've never owned a slave, or was a slave, I haven't burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks and neither have you! So, shut up already.
I believe if you don't like the way things are here, go back to where you came from and change your own country!
This is AMERICA.
I want to know which church is it exactly where the Reverend Jesse Jackson preaches, where he gets his money, and why he is always part of the problem and not the solution.
Can I get an AMEN on that one?
I think the cops have every right to shoot your sorry rear if you're running from them..
I also think they have the right to pull you over if you're breaking the law, regardless of what color you are.
And, no, I don't mind having my face shown on my drivers license. I think it's good..... and I'm proud that "God" is written on my money.
I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don't want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years.
I dislike those people standing in the intersections trying to sell me stuff or trying to guilt me into making "donations" to their cause.
I believe that it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents.
And what is going on with gas prices... again?
I believe "illegal" is illegal no matter what the lawyers think.
I believe the American flag should be the only one allowed in AMERICA!
If this makes me a BAD American, then yes, I'm a BAD American.
If you are a BAD American too, please forward this to everyone you know.
We want our country back!
We NEED GOD BACK IN OUR COUNTRY!
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 4:46 PM MST
Saturday, 3 February 2007
Mood:
don't ask
Topic: No Truce with Terror!
"Time to Run" - it's not just a novel any more.
On FoxNews' Sunday Morning show, Sen Barbara Boxer (D, CA-(ca)) once said "Nations cannot survive with foreign troops defending them."
Great Britain, Germany, Italy, the other countries in the military arm of NATO, Japan and South Korea are probably alarmed that their national existence has been in danger since 1945 owing to the presence of troops from the United States of America.
Germany in particular must be reeling if Senator Boxer is right, because it still has forces from several former occupying nations stationed within its borders.
Apart from economic doldrums which can be satisfactorily explained by the ravages of socialism and deficit spending, however, Germany seems to be fine. One of their largest multinationals, DaimlerChrysler, is not just Europe's biggest automaker (if you exclude European subsidiaries of the American-based multinationals General Motors and Ford, such as Opel, all the various national Ford operating companies, and the former passenger-car divisions of Volvo and Saab) but Europe's largest defense contractor.
West Germany was able, based largely on its economic might, to overcome virulent threats from Mikhail Gorbachev and dire predictions and warning from politicians throughout Europe of all political leanings to reunite with its ruined Communist other half and thus eliminate Soviet Russia's strongest European ally.
NO ONE would have predicted as late as the mid-to-late 1980s that this would happen - that Germany would become the master of her own political destiny again, in open defiance of the Soviet Union.
Imagine, SIXTY WHOLE YEARS have passed in which all of these nations and others have been defended by American troops, and according to Barbara Boxer, their survival is in mortal danger!
The major contribution Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and company make to political discourse in the United States is that just one of their shorter public utterances can sustain many paragraphs of adverse commentary on the part of the knee-jerk left which they help lead.
Seriously, would the current crop of Democrats have insisted that the US withdraw from Germany, Italy and Japan on a fixed, two-year timetable after the end of World War II? Or from the Korean peninsula by 1956?
If not, why do they want to hand Iraq to Al-Qaeda, the Sunni extremists and the Ayatollahs of Iran and their puppets? Is humiliating George W. Bush and Bush's party actually so important that Boxer, Pelosi and friends must encourage the terrorists of Iraq to kill our neighbors, sons and daughters while they are at it?
If the United States is ever balkanized - as Iraq will be if we pull out when Boxer, Reid, Clinton and Metzenbaum want to do it - it will be the crowing of chickens coming home to roost. The political left's cynical lies, if successful, will destroy the unity and resolve that galvanized our country into action after September 11th, 2001.
If these people ever get the power they crave to the exclusion of our country's security, they will destroy our nation's will to survive as nothing has since the aftermath of the Vietnam War (another struggle against tyranny ended at the whim of the inside-the-beltway faction of the Democratic Party, with John Kerry playing a leading subversive role).
During that FoxNews interview years ago, Senator Boxer made heavy weather of the fact that many of her constituents based in places like the Marine Corps air station at Twenty-Nine Palms are serving in Iraq and some of them are dying. I'd be very interested to learn what her constitutents in the US Armed Forces think of her active political support of the terrorists in Iraq (and, by extension, Al-Qaeda - which has chosen to stake their global reputation on the success of the mass murderers to destroy that country's government).
My son also died in Iraq, killed by a bomb which would probably not have been built or buried if Al-Qaeda hadn't thought they could win their war at the American ballot box (as the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese did - with the help of John Kerry and his friends in Congress). Those murdering swine went to the trouble of mining that road because they knew that killing an entire Bradley full of National Guardsmen would set off an extended press cycle in the American homeland - with the press baying away.
Sergeant Armand Luke Frickey, Louisiana Army National Guard and US Army privately had nothing but the bitterest contempt for the Iraqi terrorists' helpers in Congress and Big Media. His death and those of his squad mates is directly traceable to the Democratic Party national leadership's cut-throat political maneuvering and the support of the “mainstream media” to weaken our political stance in Iraq. The national press needed a stack of bodies, and....
If nothing else, the idea that the terrorists can win if they just kill enough Americans can be laid directly at Pelosi, Reid and their political colleagues' feet for demanding withdrawal at any cost. Look at the timing of these attacks - every time the left side of the aisle in Congress needs political traction, an incident occurs, and innocent people die.
The partnership may only be tacit, but it sure appears to exist. The Democratic Party's victory last November was bought with blood.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 2:43 PM MST
Updated: Sunday, 4 February 2007 6:58 PM MST
Friday, 2 February 2007
Another Scandal from Iraq - It's a Scandal That the Press Won't Run the Good News
Mood:
loud
Topic: No Truce with Terror!
Another of the thousands of good news stories from Iraq which Big Media won't tell you. You know, the stuff that the 'insurgency' doesn't want the world to know... (and why is the press doing their work for them?)
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 1:22 PM MST
More Chirac on Iran - "Teheran would be immediately razed... "
Mood:
celebratory
Topic: Good News for Once
You know, I'm beginning to like this new Chirac... you have to wonder if Nicolas Sarkozy had a little tête à tête with him between the press conference he retracted and this new one.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467864411&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFullFeb. 1, 2007 10:19 | Updated Feb. 1, 2007 13:40
Chirac retracts remarks on Iran threat
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS
French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three
newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very
dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Teheran would be
immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
However, Chirac - who made the comments during a Monday interview with
The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel
Observateur, a weekly magazine - called reporters back the next day to
try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times
said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's
official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining
nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood
that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview
on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say
that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a
nuclear bomb. Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well,
that's not very dangerous."
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or
an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran - whose leader has
called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" - as using it would mean an
instant counterattack.
"Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" Chirac asked. "It would
not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Teheran would be razed."
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his
comment about Teheran being razed. "I retract it, of course, when I
said, 'One is going to raze Teheran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran
from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously
would be destroyed immediately," he said. "We have the means - several
countries have the means to destroy a bomb."
Regarding his comments that Israel could be a target of an Iranian
weapon and that Israel would retaliate, Chirac said: "I don't think I
spoke about Israel yesterday. Maybe I did so but I don't think so. I
have no recollection of that."
--
Better and better - we have Chirac on record now saying that Israel would have to stand in line to zap an Iranian missile before it had gotten 200 meters over ground.
Now, those who know nuclear weapons know that destroying a missile with a nuclear weapon not from one of the Big Six older nuclear powers is not as simple as all of that.
If Chirac wasn't speaking out of his, er, hat about that 200 meters figure, this means that plans are underway to do the intercept of the Iranian nuclear missile 200 meters above Iranian territory. It is highly unlikely that an Iranian nuclear device would be what is known as "one point-safe" or designed not to go off with a nuclear yield if accidentally destroyed.
The implication of Mr. Chirac's remarks, then, is that the problem of an Iranian nuclear weapons program would be a self-correcting one if Iran ever launched, because somehow (one suspects the US Airborne Laser Laboratory or similar capabilities would be involved) an Iranian missile would be destroyed with its payload 200 meters above its launch site. Given the probable state of Iranian nuclear weapons technology, this would mean a nuclear detonation would happen 200 meters above the launch site, meaning that unless the launch site was extremely hardened against nuclear blast, it would be destroyed immediately.
Now, did Mr. Chirac mean when he said that "Teheran would be immediately razed" that the launch sites are known to be fairly close to the Iranian capital, or... is there something else in the works?
It isn't pretty, but Jacques Chirac's remarks are how nuclear deterrence will be handled - nuclear nonproliferation is going to be strictly an optional thing from now on, and countries unwilling or unable to acquire their own nuclear weapons will have no other choice than to seek cover under some other nation's "nuclear umbrella" if they feel they are at risk.
We know how the Israelis have opted to handle their nuclear security issues - by being the biggest, meanest (and until now, the only) nuclear power in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, this policy has been at least partly invalidated by Iran's acquisition of the nuclear bomb; additionally, it is probable that other Islamic states, Pakistan certainly, have nuclear weapons and are one coup or assassination from their own indiscreet threats to use them on Israel.
Unfortunately, Israel has not (as far as the public knows) bought the ability to launch their missiles from outside Israel, so the minute a hostile power owns enough nuclear weapons to carpet-bomb Israel, it would be in a position to destroy the Israeli nuclear arsenal by a simple process of elimination - or more likely, touch off the Middle Eastern powder key by putting Israel in a position to either "use 'em or lose 'em" - in which case, all of Israel's enemies would logically be on the receiving end of nuclear annihilation.
We live in scary times. It's nice to know that at least one European leader has grasped the nettle and publicly discussed Iran's fate should their leader live up to his threats. It's the only way to handle the problem.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 7:43 AM MST
Thursday, 1 February 2007
Well, damn... Chirac's testicles finally descended.
Mood:
celebratory
I take it all back. France isn't the wuss of NATO. Belgium and Luxembourg probably succeed to the title, now....
"PARIS (Reuters) - France cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran, President Jacques Chirac's office said on Thursday, back-tracking on earlier remarks by the president that it would not be dangerous for Iran to have an atom bomb.
"France, with the international community, cannot accept the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran and calls on Iran to respect its commitments under the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), while reaffirming the country's right to civilian nuclear energy," his office said in a statement.
In an interview published on Thursday, Chirac said it would not be "very dangerous" for Iran to have one or two nuclear bombs, although he later tried to retract his comments."
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 9:25 AM MST
Vladimir Putin publicly threatens to make US radioactive - again.
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: No Truce with Terror!
More news you won't get from Big Media. Bush's eye-contact buddy President Vladimir Putin of Russia is making increasingly warlike noises toward us. Why aren't we getting this story from CBS Evening News, etcetera?
"MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin criticized Washington's plans for an anti-missile system in Central Europe and said on Thursday Russia would come up with a "highly effective" response.
(BLOGGER NOTE: Why is this man so pissed off? You'd think he was planning on nuking Poland and the Czechs or something... could be something about the unpleasantness in Prague in 1968? The crack-down on democracy in Poland at Soviet orders from 1978 to the end of the evil empire in Moscow?)
The U.S. has proposed stationing a radar station in the Czech Republic and a battery of rockets in Poland to detect and shoot down hostile missiles, which the Pentagon says could be fired from Iran in the future.
Putin dismissed Washington's arguments about defending Europe from Iran and said the anti-missile system would "directly affect" Russia.
"Our specialists don't think that anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe are aimed against terrorists or Iran. Can you really fight terrorists with ballistic missiles?" he told a news conference in Moscow.
(BLOGGER NOTE: It depends. Some terrorists actually own ballistic missiles. You know, guys who have actually put polonium-210 in other people's sushi.... )
Iran, he said, did not possess long-range ballistic missiles, only medium-range devices.
"We are also thinking about how to ensure our external security," Putin added. "All our responses will be asymmetric but they will be highly effective".
Putin said Russia already had systems capable of overcoming missile defenses but promised a future generation of weapon on which missile defense systems "will have absolutely no effect". He did not give details."
If Vladimir Putin feels the need to threaten us and our allies with "asymmetric" weapons on which our missile defense will have "absolutely no effect," perhaps it's time to place arms control on hold and return to maintaining what we used to call "a credible nuclear deterrent."
This translates into plain language as "enough U.S. nuclear weapons on enough U.S. delivery systems aimed directly at Vladimir Putin on enough of an alert to make the Russians very, very sorry they ever thought of threatening us." (You know, a stretched Mercedes limo-homing cruise missile... )
Let's give Putin what he and his people were obviously scared of, because we bargained it away during the last arms control talks - the Peacekeeper missile.
We've pulled them out of the silos, but we probably have enough that we haven't destroyed that we can place in Minuteman silos until we can upgrade the entire Minuteman force to the current state-of-the-art SERV status.
And let's ask our "mainstream media" why on earth we have to go to BRITISH news providers to learn about a clear and present danger to OUR national security. Gee, you have to wonder who they're looking out for here, don't you?
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 8:46 AM MST
Updated: Monday, 26 February 2007 4:51 PM MST
Wednesday, 31 January 2007
Iran Hears that Giant Sucking Sound... As Their Economy Dies
Mood:
celebratory
Topic: Take THAT, you...
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys....
The Iranian government is suffering from a combination of what happens when you crap on your neighbors (they crap back) and you crap on your foreign investors (your money goes away and the machines you use to make more money fall apart before you can fix them or buy new ones - because your money went away).
If you're confused by what you just read, you appear to have company.
The Iranians in charge at the present are killing their own economy. They're blaming the death of their business and financial life on the United States, but the truth of the matter is that we are simply kicking the box they are standing on after they climbed on it, tied a nice hangman's noose, stuck their head inside, and smiled.
Proof? The following article (from the Open Source Intelligence group in Yahoo.com) gives the whole story - excessive government meddling in the economy, economic warfare waged not by the US but by traditional religious foes who also happen to be major competitors in the oil business, and a megalomaniac mad dog of a leader who publicly blames foreign investors for his country's troubles:
Posted by: "Dietmar Muehlboeck" dmuehlboeck@gmx.net
Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:58 am (PST)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36348Shia-Sunni Split - Factor in Annual Budget
Kimia Sanati
TEHRAN, Jan 29 (IPS) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has submitted to Iranian parliament a budget bill for the fiscal year starting Mar. 21 that factors in the possibility of falling oil prices to "neutralise the plots of the enemies" of Iran, already under United Nations sanctions.
Oil prices have plummeted from 78 US dollars per barrel in July to 48
dollars currently and may drop further if the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) does not lower production. Basing the budget on oil revenues of 33.7 dollars per barrel for the next year is considered more realistic than last year's budget which expected Iranian oil to sell at 36 dollars per barrel or more.
"One must bear in mind the new factor contributing to the regional and Iranian economy and oil prices, namely, the Sunni-Shiite conflict. There is now every reason to believe that the Saudis, whose economy won't be seriously damaged by a drastic fall of oil prices, are deliberately avoiding to help stop the plummeting of oil prices by refusing to allow cuts in OPEC surplus production of 700,000 barrels per day," a political analyst in Tehran who chose not to be named told IPS.
"Iran's support of Shiite fundamentalists in Iraq is causing greater
concern among the Sunni Arab countries and the best way that Iran's role and influence there can be diminished without resorting to violence is making it economically impossible for Iran to sustain that support, so Iranians have to tighten their belts now. The deflationary budget for the next year, if strictly followed, can serve to reduce the effects of further more depressing U.N. sanctions and falling oil prices," he added.
Most domestic newspapers, even the reformist opposition's few remaining mouthpieces, have viewed the budget bill, submitted last week, favorably and ‘Keyhan', a hard line newspaper and staunch Ahmadinejad supporter, described it as ''bold''.
"The step taken by the government is a firm response to a new round of Western plots against Iran that mainly aim to reduce investment in Iranian oil and gas sectors and deprive Iran of its most important
source of revenues. Now one can say that the enemy has lost its last
lever to put pressure on Iran," a Keyhan editorial said.
In spite of last year's extravagant budget, the government has had to ask parliament four times during the current fiscal year to supplement the budget, from deposits accumulated in its Oil Reserve Fund from selling oil at much higher prices. Five billion dollars of the reserve have into importing subsidised gasoline alone.
"Even with oil selling above 60 dollars per barrel for several months,
the government has managed to drain all the reserves from ORF, and the balance at the end of the present fiscal year (ending Mar.20) will be nil if the government's insatiable need for money continues in the same way. Government expenditure is expected to swallow even the last drops of its estimated 56 billion dollar oil revenues in the current year whereas 50 percent of the deposits of the ORF was meant to help the private sector to develop and expand at the time of its establishment," an economic observer in Tehran told IPS.
Critics say the government may try to increase expenditure in the
proposed, seemingly austere budget, if oil sells better than the
predicted 33.7 dollars per barrel, by sending budget supplement bills to Parliament and extracting money from the ORF to meet its needs.
"When giving its approval to the budget bill, the parliament must
prevent the government from making supplementary budget bills a
tradition. Now that the government has volunteered to reduce its current expenditures, the parliament must also avoid letting government expenditures rise by approving its budget supplements," Masoud Nili, economist, was quoted by the ‘Sarmayeh' newspaper as saying. If the government is free to ask for more and more money all the time from the parliament, the budget plan will lose its function, he said.
The Iranian budget has to be planned in accordance with the country's ‘20-year Vision' -- a plan outlined by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to make Iran an economically developed country by 2021 -- as well as the country's fourth ‘Five-Year Development Plan' of which the country is now in the second year. Both of them require the government to minimise its role in economy.
Nearly a year after Khamenei directed implementation of provisions in the Iranian constitution to privatise and reduce the role of the
government, the Ahmadinejad administration maintains an overwhelming presence in the economy and continues to weaken the private sector -- a policy that is reflected in the budget bill.
If the government fails to carry out privatisation as envisaged in the
next fiscal year a huge budget deficit will result, but there are yet no
signs of surrendering control over public sector companies.
"It's now golden days for the Iranian steel industry. (But while) the
government is required to sell a part of Mobarakeh Steel Factory, it is
planning to build an 800,000 ton steel mill itself. The government could have prepared the conditions to develop the industry by the private sector instead,'' a former industries minister, Eshagh Jahangiri, was quoted by the Sarmayeh newspaper as saying.
Government interference in economy is felt in other areas, too. Last
year the government increased minimum wages which led to an increase in the prices of products. At the same time, the government banned any increase in prices of dairy products, incurring huge losses on dairy factories.
"When Ahmadinejad administration and the parliament were warned last year of inflicting the already ailing economy with the Dutch Disease, they just snubbed everyone, and parliament approved one of the most extravagant and expansionary budget bills in post revolutionary years for fear of losing popular support,'' the economic observer said.
Ahmadinejad denies inflation has risen, just as he says he is not
worried about the U.N. sanctions. The inflation rate announced by the Central Bank of Iran for the past nine months stands at 11.9 percent.
Critics say the government keeps the figure down by not including prices of certain items such as real estate and rent in the 300 item basket on which calculation of inflation rate is based.
Lower oil prices, U.N. sanctions, U.S. threats, government control and
the ever-rising inflation are not the only woes of the Iranian economy. Constant accusations levelled against private investors by the President himself have resulted in a sharp decrease in investment. This is also denied by the government.
Scaring away investors has caused the criticism of Ayatollah Shahroudi, the conservative Chief Judiciary, who defends improvement in conditions to encourage private investment by creating a safer economic environment. Nobody should be called "economically corrupt" unless the corruption is proved in court, the Ayatollah says.
Further U.N. sanctions, if Iran does not suspend its uranium enrichment programme within a few weeks, can hit banks very hard. Two of the major Iranian government-owned banks, Saderat and Sepah, have recently been boycotted by the U.S. treasury with many European banks following suit. The flow of cash in and out of the country is harder than before and many transfers are done through indirect and more costly channels.
"The boycott can be seen as part of a new U.S. policy to take advantage of Iran's economic troubles - the new policy is a much less costly procedure for the Americans and when coupled with diplomatic pressure from the international community, it can bring Iran down to its knees much more effectively than a military attack," the analyst said."
As far as it goes, that analysis may be accurate, but it neglects an even more crucial truth - a healthy economy is key to projecting military power over a significant period of time.
Israel resisted decades of military and terrorist violence from both its immediate neighbors and more distant enemies because it remains the most powerful economy in the Middle East for its size and population - and has been adept in rapidly changing that economic potency into military power.
If Iran persists in trying to use military might to become the regional power of Southwest Asia, it will soon learn that it is no Israel - and its only option may be to become a client state of Russia. In exchange for nuclear assistance and perhaps some military and civilian economic assistance, the Iranians can offer the Russian Navy a warm water port located on the most strategically valuable waters on Earth.
With their Siberian oil money, the Russians may be in a position to finally win the Great Game. If we have people in position to return the Iranian state to a semblance of sanity from within, it might be worth while to give them every sort of help we can. Otherwise Armageddon might become much closer to a reality than it ever has
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 11:31 AM MST
Congress, Please Don't Throw My Son's Sacrifice Away!!!
Mood:
sad
Topic: Martyred for Freedom
Just over two years ago, my son died with eight other soldiers when their Bradley fighting vehicle drove over a large land mine, which threw their vehicle into the air and onto its back.
I will pass over describing what happened after that except to say that the Bradley burned down and its hatches jammed, trapping everyone inside. Everyone died. Luke had a closed casket funeral.
I want to thank everyone who reached out and are still reaching out to my wife and me and Luke's widow in our time of pain. You know who you are, and we might not have gotten through losing Luke without you.
Senators Landrieu and Vitter of Louisiana, where Luke lived and in whose National Guard he served when he died, and Senators Allard and Salazar of Colorado, my chosen home, have all very solicitously asked if there was anything they could do for my wife and me.
Yes, there is something.
Please don't throw my son's sacrifice and the sacrifices of well over a thousand other Americans who died in Iraq away.
Please don't succumb to the urge to retreat from Iraq before it is a working, stable democracy, and before it is strong enough not to collapse as Afghanistan did, becoming a base of operations for terror.
Don't slink away from our obligation to destroy the cancer of terror and expanding tyranny, the way a previous Congress did in Vietnam.
Don't throw what my son died for away. Please.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 11:13 AM MST
Iran behind deaths of five American soldiers in Iraq
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: ...Those Who Will Not See
From the "Captain's Quarters" blog. More news that the "mainstream media" is soft-pedaling. Why?
"http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/009050.php
January 31, 2007
Did Iran Attack American Troops In Iraq?
CNN reports that American military investigators believe the January 20th attack on a military compound that killed five US soldiers may have either been conducted by Iran or by Iranian-run insurgents. The level of sophistication in the attack, conducted by terrorists in American military uniforms, showed too much sophistication to have originated from one of the native insurgencies:
The Pentagon is investigating whether a recent attack on a military compound in Karbala was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives, two officials from separate U.S. government agencies said.
"People are looking at it seriously," one of the officials said.
That official added the Iranian connection was a leading theory in the investigation into the January 20 attack that killed five soldiers.
The second official said: "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained."
Five U.S. soldiers were killed in the sophisticated attack by men wearing U.S.-style uniforms, according to U.S. military reports.
The investigation just started, and the Pentagon will probably look at a number of possibilities for the attack. However, given the description of the attack and its effectiveness, it seems a little over the pay grade of even the Ba'athist remnants. Since this occurred in Karbala, a predominantly Shi'ite area, Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda also seem unlikely suspects.
Earlier on Tuesday, Time Magazine reported that Iran has a motive to attack Americans in Iraq. The Revolutionary Guard wants some measure of revenge for the capture of five Iranians in Irbil, at least some of whom belong to the IRGC. Time speculates that the IRGC wanted to send a message, and that the number of casualties were specifically selected to make sure that no one misunderstood it.
What happens if the US concludes that Iran did indeed conduct this
mission against American servicemen? It would be an act of war, although the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers in support of insurgents also qualifies. The Bush administration might be tempted to retaliate with some air strikes, perhaps selected especially for the nuclear program Iran seems keen to pursue at all costs. However, one can imagine the outcry that would cause, not just among our European allies but also leading Democrats in Congress. It would not take long for at least a few of them -- Maurice Hinchey springs to mind -- to accuse the Bush administration of manufacturing the evidence pointing to Iran in order to justify an attack on that nation.
If the evidence points in that direction, there will be no big rush to
respond. It might do some good to make the Iranians sweat for a short period. However, Bush will have to confer with the Democrats and make it clear what happened, and impress upon them the need for serious action to deter the Iranians from attacking Americans in the future. We've let too many of these incidents pass without consequence to the mullahs, and every unanswered insult begets more of the same."
As if the Democrat leadership or the people in charge of Big Media give a big....
I doubt that it will be possible either to impress the gravity of this act on Clinton, Reid, Pelosi and Comrades, or to get them to admit that there is now a cause of war between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
There'd have to be something stronger in the china cream pitcher with a ribbon on the handle than the usual Irish Cream for Bush to get the Congressional leadership to start acting in the interests of the American people.
In fact, the President would have to start hitting the sauce again himself before his behavior changed to the point that effectual steps get taken in Iraq. 22,000 new troops are literally a drop in a bucket - not that we have much more to spare in the cupboard without endangering our ability to respond effectively elsewhere in the world.
Hate to say it, but Rangel is right, though certainly for all the wrong reasons. We need to re-institute the military draft and build up a credible conventional deterrent to the trouble-makers of the world.
We need to convince everyone that all the spiffy hardware and "shock and awe" theatrics for which US DoD is known are backed up by men who are going to stick around and kill our nation's enemies until our nation is out of enemies.
With 300,000,000 people in the country, it's absurd that we can't maintain ten or twenty million of them under arms.
It's time to stop taking unfair advantage of our volunteers in the Guard and Reserve because we don't have the guts to raise a regular Army, Navy and Marine Corps large enough to do the jobs that need doing.
If the President and Congress had pulled their thumbs out long enough to re-institute the draft and fund DoD at adequate levels to fight and win this war, my son Sergeant Armand Luke Frickey, Louisiana Army National Guard and his squad mates might still be around instead of having died in an explosion - because our mainstream media has spent so much time destroying the public's resolve to see this thing through. Doing Al-Qaeda's work for them.
Of course, the President should have realized that making the hard choices when they would have helped would at least have trashed his political career for a purpose. Now, his career is garbage even though he flipped and flopped trying to work with people whose only priority was getting into power. Luke's blood and that of his squad mates are on the hands of a President and Congress too irresolute to act as needed to defend the nation. They can't blame the Democrats for that.
In fact, if the Democrats really want to cement their last Congressional victory, they'd show resolve where the Republicans failed to and prosecute this war to its end.
Right. That's really going to happen. We can hang ordnance on the wings of the pigs which will be flying by then and send them on bombing runs on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz and Bushehr.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 10:21 AM MST
Updated: Wednesday, 31 January 2007 11:00 AM MST
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