I'm always pleased when somebody speaks the unspoken truth. A blogger named Driftglass pretty much summed it up here: http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2009/06/recount.html It's interesting to note the contrast between the many Iranians who are willing to risk their lives over having their votes counted versus the many American "sheeple" who passively allowed former Pres. Bush and the unelected "Supremes" to steal at least one election.
*Addendum: I ran across another interesting analysis of the situation. I'll post the links here as I come across them.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav062209.shtml
**2nd Addendum: Here's an example of why we must be extremely cautious of the "mainstream media." The headline to this New York Times story says "Arab States Aligned With U.S. Savor Turmoil in Iran." If they were honest the headline would say "Arab Dictatorships Aligned With U.S. Savor Turmoil in Iran," because that's what these U.S.-aligned states are. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/middleeast/25arabs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
The "news" story is careful to only hint at this fact in the last couple of paragraphs when it says:
"The Arab world is ruled by authoritarian leaders, kings and emirs — and its greatest challenge to legitimacy and control is political Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan.
'Opponents of the Islamist movement go far in anticipating the collapse of the Islamic revolution and the end of the Islamist movements and their political project,' said Mohammad Abu Rumman, research editor at the newspaper Al Ghad in Amman. 'Anticipating the failure of the revolution is an anticipation of the failure of political Islam in general.'"
The story is careful to NOT make the connection between these "authoritarian leaders" and the "Arab states aligned with the U.S." It's careful to not point out that these are the same states.
This points out the nuances that those who support justice must keep in mind.
Weakening the brutal, authoritarian Iranian regime also means weakening the only Middle Eastern government that is strong enough to be completely independent of U.S. hegemony. And weakening the only Middle Eastern government that has actively and openly supported the Palestinians' and Lebanese struggles against Israeli aggression and occupation.
In the short-term context, more justice for the Iranian people = less justice for the Palestinians, Lebanese, and others who are directly suffering under Israeli oppression. I don't know what the best balancing of interests is in this situation. I just know that I haven't heard these nuances discussed. Not even among "progressives."
Showing posts with label international affairs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label international affairs. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Geostrategy Nerd--Republished From STRATFOR: "The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test"
Frankly, I don't know enough about Iranian society to have any substantive opinions about the current election-related unrest in that country. I can't tell if the unrest has widespread support or if it simply reflects the frustrations of a small, Westernized "yuppie" demographic. I'm suspicious when I see people waving protest signs written in English in a non-English-speaking country. Particularly countries where a totally different alphabet is used for the native language. I always wonder, "What sort of person in this country can read and write in English?" Probably someone who does NOT reflect a random cross-section of the country.
I will say this: Americans in general (and African-Americans in particular) need to learn to become more discerning about the "news" emanating from the so-called mainstream media. We also need to read from a wide variety of news sources that have different editorial postures. In that spirit, I'm republishing an article from STRATFOR. Again, I don't know enough to have an opinion about current events in Iran; and I don't necessarily buy into Stratfor's analysis. However, I do feel that the articles from Stratfor are a good antidote to the uncritical, breathless coverage that passes for mainstream "news" about these events.
Strategic Forecasting, Inc., more commonly known as Stratfor, is a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas. Barron's once referred to it as "The Shadow CIA". George Friedman is the founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of the company. The following article is from http://www.stratfor.com/
"The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test
June 22, 2009
By George Friedman
Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders. This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989.
Revolutions fail when no one joins the initial segment, meaning the initial demonstrators are the ones who find themselves socially isolated. When the demonstrations do not spread to other cities, the demonstrations either peter out or the regime brings in the security and military forces — who remain loyal to the regime and frequently personally hostile to the demonstrators — and use force to suppress the rising to the extent necessary. This is what happened in Tiananmen Square in China: The students who rose up were not joined by others. Military forces who were not only loyal to the regime but hostile to the students were brought in, and the students were crushed.
A Question of Support
This is also what happened in Iran this week. The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.
Later, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Friday and called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they failed to understand that the troops — definitely not drawn from what we might call the “Twittering classes,” would remain loyal to the regime for ideological and social reasons. The troops had about as much sympathy for the demonstrators as a small-town boy from Alabama might have for a Harvard postdoc. Failing to understand the social tensions in Iran, the reporters deluded themselves into thinking they were witnessing a general uprising. But this was not St. Petersburg in 1917 or Bucharest in 1989 — it was Tiananmen Square.
In the global discussion last week outside Iran, there was a great deal of confusion about basic facts. For example, it is said that the urban-rural distinction in Iran is not critical any longer because according to the United Nations, 68 percent of Iranians are urbanized. This is an important point because it implies Iran is homogeneous and the demonstrators representative of the country.
The problem is the Iranian definition of urban — and this is quite common around the world — includes very small communities (some with only a few thousand people) as “urban.” But the social difference between someone living in a town with 10,000 people and someone living in Tehran is the difference between someone living in Bastrop, Texas and someone living in New York. We can assure you that that difference is not only vast, but that most of the good people of Bastrop and the fine people of New York would probably not see the world the same way. The failure to understand the dramatic diversity of Iranian society led observers to assume that students at Iran’s elite university somehow spoke for the rest of the country.
Tehran proper has about 8 million inhabitants; its suburbs bring it to about 13 million people out of Iran’s total population of 70.5 million. Tehran accounts for about 20 percent of Iran, but as we know, the cab driver and the construction worker are not socially linked to students at elite universities. There are six cities with populations between 1 million and 2.4 million people and 11 with populations of about 500,000. Including Tehran proper, 15.5 million people live in cities with more than 1 million and 19.7 million in cities greater than 500,000. Iran has 80 cities with more than 100,000. But given that Waco, Texas, has more than 100,000 people, inferences of social similarities between cities with 100,000 and 5 million are tenuous. And with metro Oklahoma City having more than a million people, it becomes plain that urbanization has many faces.
Winning the Election With or Without Fraud
We continue to believe two things: that vote fraud occurred, and that Ahmadinejad likely would have won without it. Very little direct evidence has emerged to establish vote fraud, but several things seem suspect.
For example, the speed of the vote count has been taken as a sign of fraud, as it should have been impossible to count votes that fast. The polls originally were to have closed at 7 p.m. local time, but voting hours were extended until 10 p.m. because of the number of voters in line. By 11:45 p.m. about 20 percent of the vote had been counted. By 5:20 a.m. the next day, with almost all votes counted, the election commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner. The vote count thus took about seven hours. (Remember there were no senators, congressmen, city council members or school board members being counted — just the presidential race.) Intriguingly, this is about the same time in took in 2005, though reformists that claimed fraud back then did not stress the counting time in their allegations.
The counting mechanism is simple: Iran has 47,000 voting stations, plus 14,000 roaming stations that travel from tiny village to tiny village, staying there for a short time before moving on. That creates 61,000 ballot boxes designed to receive roughly the same number of votes. That would mean that each station would have been counting about 500 ballots, or about 70 votes per hour. With counting beginning at 10 p.m., concluding seven hours later does not necessarily indicate fraud or anything else. The Iranian presidential election system is designed for simplicity: one race to count in one time zone, and all counting beginning at the same time in all regions, we would expect the numbers to come in a somewhat linear fashion as rural and urban voting patterns would balance each other out — explaining why voting percentages didn’t change much during the night.
It has been pointed out that some of the candidates didn’t even carry their own provinces or districts. We remember that Al Gore didn’t carry Tennessee in 2000. We also remember Ralph Nader, who also didn’t carry his home precinct in part because people didn’t want to spend their vote on someone unlikely to win — an effect probably felt by the two smaller candidates in the Iranian election.
That Mousavi didn’t carry his own province is more interesting. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett writing in Politico make some interesting points on this. As an ethnic Azeri, it was assumed that Mousavi would carry his Azeri-named and -dominated home province. But they also point out that Ahmadinejad also speaks Azeri, and made multiple campaign appearances in the district. They also point out that Khamenei is Azeri. In sum, winning that district was by no means certain for Mousavi, so losing it does not automatically signal fraud. It raised suspicions, but by no means was a smoking gun.
We do not doubt that fraud occurred during Iranian election. For example, 99.4 percent of potential voters voted in Mazandaran province, a mostly secular area home to the shah’s family. Ahmadinejad carried the province by a 2.2 to 1 ratio. That is one heck of a turnout and level of support for a province that lost everything when the mullahs took over 30 years ago. But even if you take all of the suspect cases and added them together, it would not have changed the outcome.
The fact is that Ahmadinejad’s vote in 2009 was extremely close to his victory percentage in 2005. And while the Western media portrayed Ahmadinejad’s performance in the presidential debates ahead of the election as dismal, embarrassing and indicative of an imminent electoral defeat, many Iranians who viewed those debates — including some of the most hardcore Mousavi supporters — acknowledge that Ahmadinejad outperformed his opponents by a landslide.
Mousavi persuasively detailed his fraud claims Sunday, and they have yet to be rebutted. But if his claims of the extent of fraud were true, the protests should have spread rapidly by social segment and geography to the millions of people who even the central government asserts voted for him. Certainly, Mousavi supporters believed they would win the election based in part on highly flawed polls, and when they didn’t, they assumed they were robbed and took to the streets.
But critically, the protesters were not joined by any of the millions whose votes the protesters alleged were stolen. In a complete hijacking of the election by some 13 million votes by an extremely unpopular candidate, we would have expected to see the core of Mousavi’s supporters joined by others who had been disenfranchised. On last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when the demonstrations were at their height, the millions of Mousavi voters should have made their appearance. They didn’t. We might assume that the security apparatus intimidated some, but surely more than just the Tehran professional and student classes posses civic courage. While appearing large, the demonstrations actually comprised a small fraction of society.
Tensions Among the Political Elite
All of this not to say there are not tremendous tensions within the Iranian political elite. That no revolution broke out does not mean there isn’t a crisis in the political elite, particularly among the clerics. But that crisis does not cut the way Western common sense would have it. Many of Iran’s religious leaders see Ahmadinejad as hostile to their interests, as threatening their financial prerogatives, and as taking international risks they don’t want to take. Ahmadinejad’s political popularity in fact rests on his populist hostility to what he sees as the corruption of the clerics and their families and his strong stand on Iranian national security issues.
The clerics are divided among themselves, but many wanted to see Ahmadinejad lose to protect their own interests. Khamenei, the supreme leader, faced a difficult choice last Friday. He could demand a major recount or even new elections, or he could validate what happened. Khamenei speaks for a sizable chunk of the ruling elite, but also has had to rule by consensus among both clerical and non-clerical forces.
Many powerful clerics like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wanted Khamenei to reverse the election, and we suspect Khamenei wished he could have found a way to do it. But as the defender of the regime, he was afraid to. Mousavi supporters’ demonstrations would have been nothing compared to the firestorm among Ahmadinejad supporters — both voters and the security forces — had their candidate been denied. Khamenei wasn’t going to flirt with disaster, so he endorsed the outcome.
The Western media misunderstood this because they didn’t understand that Ahmadinejad does not speak for the clerics but against them , that many of the clerics were working for his defeat, and that Ahmadinejad has enormous pull in the country’s security apparatus. The reason Western media missed this is because they bought into the concept of the stolen election, therefore failing to see Ahmadinejad’s support and the widespread dissatisfaction with the old clerical elite. The Western media simply didn’t understand that the most traditional and pious segments of Iranian society support Ahmadinejad because he opposes the old ruling elite. Instead, they assumed this was like Prague or Budapest in 1989, with a broad-based uprising in favor of liberalism against an unpopular regime.
Tehran in 2009, however, was a struggle between two main factions, both of which supported the Islamic republic as it was. There were the clerics, who have dominated the regime since 1979 and had grown wealthy in the process. And there was Ahmadinejad, who felt the ruling clerical elite had betrayed the revolution with their personal excesses. And there also was the small faction the BBC and CNN kept focusing on — the demonstrators in the streets who want to dramatically liberalize the Islamic republic. This faction never stood a chance of taking power, whether by election or revolution.
The two main factions used the third smaller faction in various ways, however. Ahmadinejad used it to make his case that the clerics who supported them, like Rafsanjani, would risk the revolution and play into the hands of the Americans and British to protect their own wealth. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani argued behind the scenes that the unrest was the tip of the iceberg, and that Ahmadinejad had to be replaced. Khamenei, an astute politician, examined the data and supported Ahmadinejad.
Now, as we saw after Tiananmen Square, we will see a reshuffling among the elite. Those who backed Mousavi will be on the defensive. By contrast, those who supported Ahmadinejad are in a powerful position. There is a massive crisis in the elite, but this crisis has nothing to do with liberalization: It has to do with power and prerogatives among the elite. Having been forced by the election and Khamenei to live with Ahmadinejad, some will make deals while some will fight — but Ahmadinejad is well-positioned to win this battle.
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to http://www.stratfor.com/"
Another good site for in-depth coverage of the Middle East is Prof. Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment at http://www.juancole.com/
I will say this: Americans in general (and African-Americans in particular) need to learn to become more discerning about the "news" emanating from the so-called mainstream media. We also need to read from a wide variety of news sources that have different editorial postures. In that spirit, I'm republishing an article from STRATFOR. Again, I don't know enough to have an opinion about current events in Iran; and I don't necessarily buy into Stratfor's analysis. However, I do feel that the articles from Stratfor are a good antidote to the uncritical, breathless coverage that passes for mainstream "news" about these events.
Strategic Forecasting, Inc., more commonly known as Stratfor, is a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas. Barron's once referred to it as "The Shadow CIA". George Friedman is the founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of the company. The following article is from http://www.stratfor.com/
"The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test
June 22, 2009
By George Friedman
Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders. This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989.
Revolutions fail when no one joins the initial segment, meaning the initial demonstrators are the ones who find themselves socially isolated. When the demonstrations do not spread to other cities, the demonstrations either peter out or the regime brings in the security and military forces — who remain loyal to the regime and frequently personally hostile to the demonstrators — and use force to suppress the rising to the extent necessary. This is what happened in Tiananmen Square in China: The students who rose up were not joined by others. Military forces who were not only loyal to the regime but hostile to the students were brought in, and the students were crushed.
A Question of Support
This is also what happened in Iran this week. The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.
Later, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Friday and called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they failed to understand that the troops — definitely not drawn from what we might call the “Twittering classes,” would remain loyal to the regime for ideological and social reasons. The troops had about as much sympathy for the demonstrators as a small-town boy from Alabama might have for a Harvard postdoc. Failing to understand the social tensions in Iran, the reporters deluded themselves into thinking they were witnessing a general uprising. But this was not St. Petersburg in 1917 or Bucharest in 1989 — it was Tiananmen Square.
In the global discussion last week outside Iran, there was a great deal of confusion about basic facts. For example, it is said that the urban-rural distinction in Iran is not critical any longer because according to the United Nations, 68 percent of Iranians are urbanized. This is an important point because it implies Iran is homogeneous and the demonstrators representative of the country.
The problem is the Iranian definition of urban — and this is quite common around the world — includes very small communities (some with only a few thousand people) as “urban.” But the social difference between someone living in a town with 10,000 people and someone living in Tehran is the difference between someone living in Bastrop, Texas and someone living in New York. We can assure you that that difference is not only vast, but that most of the good people of Bastrop and the fine people of New York would probably not see the world the same way. The failure to understand the dramatic diversity of Iranian society led observers to assume that students at Iran’s elite university somehow spoke for the rest of the country.
Tehran proper has about 8 million inhabitants; its suburbs bring it to about 13 million people out of Iran’s total population of 70.5 million. Tehran accounts for about 20 percent of Iran, but as we know, the cab driver and the construction worker are not socially linked to students at elite universities. There are six cities with populations between 1 million and 2.4 million people and 11 with populations of about 500,000. Including Tehran proper, 15.5 million people live in cities with more than 1 million and 19.7 million in cities greater than 500,000. Iran has 80 cities with more than 100,000. But given that Waco, Texas, has more than 100,000 people, inferences of social similarities between cities with 100,000 and 5 million are tenuous. And with metro Oklahoma City having more than a million people, it becomes plain that urbanization has many faces.
Winning the Election With or Without Fraud
We continue to believe two things: that vote fraud occurred, and that Ahmadinejad likely would have won without it. Very little direct evidence has emerged to establish vote fraud, but several things seem suspect.
For example, the speed of the vote count has been taken as a sign of fraud, as it should have been impossible to count votes that fast. The polls originally were to have closed at 7 p.m. local time, but voting hours were extended until 10 p.m. because of the number of voters in line. By 11:45 p.m. about 20 percent of the vote had been counted. By 5:20 a.m. the next day, with almost all votes counted, the election commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner. The vote count thus took about seven hours. (Remember there were no senators, congressmen, city council members or school board members being counted — just the presidential race.) Intriguingly, this is about the same time in took in 2005, though reformists that claimed fraud back then did not stress the counting time in their allegations.
The counting mechanism is simple: Iran has 47,000 voting stations, plus 14,000 roaming stations that travel from tiny village to tiny village, staying there for a short time before moving on. That creates 61,000 ballot boxes designed to receive roughly the same number of votes. That would mean that each station would have been counting about 500 ballots, or about 70 votes per hour. With counting beginning at 10 p.m., concluding seven hours later does not necessarily indicate fraud or anything else. The Iranian presidential election system is designed for simplicity: one race to count in one time zone, and all counting beginning at the same time in all regions, we would expect the numbers to come in a somewhat linear fashion as rural and urban voting patterns would balance each other out — explaining why voting percentages didn’t change much during the night.
It has been pointed out that some of the candidates didn’t even carry their own provinces or districts. We remember that Al Gore didn’t carry Tennessee in 2000. We also remember Ralph Nader, who also didn’t carry his home precinct in part because people didn’t want to spend their vote on someone unlikely to win — an effect probably felt by the two smaller candidates in the Iranian election.
That Mousavi didn’t carry his own province is more interesting. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett writing in Politico make some interesting points on this. As an ethnic Azeri, it was assumed that Mousavi would carry his Azeri-named and -dominated home province. But they also point out that Ahmadinejad also speaks Azeri, and made multiple campaign appearances in the district. They also point out that Khamenei is Azeri. In sum, winning that district was by no means certain for Mousavi, so losing it does not automatically signal fraud. It raised suspicions, but by no means was a smoking gun.
We do not doubt that fraud occurred during Iranian election. For example, 99.4 percent of potential voters voted in Mazandaran province, a mostly secular area home to the shah’s family. Ahmadinejad carried the province by a 2.2 to 1 ratio. That is one heck of a turnout and level of support for a province that lost everything when the mullahs took over 30 years ago. But even if you take all of the suspect cases and added them together, it would not have changed the outcome.
The fact is that Ahmadinejad’s vote in 2009 was extremely close to his victory percentage in 2005. And while the Western media portrayed Ahmadinejad’s performance in the presidential debates ahead of the election as dismal, embarrassing and indicative of an imminent electoral defeat, many Iranians who viewed those debates — including some of the most hardcore Mousavi supporters — acknowledge that Ahmadinejad outperformed his opponents by a landslide.
Mousavi persuasively detailed his fraud claims Sunday, and they have yet to be rebutted. But if his claims of the extent of fraud were true, the protests should have spread rapidly by social segment and geography to the millions of people who even the central government asserts voted for him. Certainly, Mousavi supporters believed they would win the election based in part on highly flawed polls, and when they didn’t, they assumed they were robbed and took to the streets.
But critically, the protesters were not joined by any of the millions whose votes the protesters alleged were stolen. In a complete hijacking of the election by some 13 million votes by an extremely unpopular candidate, we would have expected to see the core of Mousavi’s supporters joined by others who had been disenfranchised. On last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when the demonstrations were at their height, the millions of Mousavi voters should have made their appearance. They didn’t. We might assume that the security apparatus intimidated some, but surely more than just the Tehran professional and student classes posses civic courage. While appearing large, the demonstrations actually comprised a small fraction of society.
Tensions Among the Political Elite
All of this not to say there are not tremendous tensions within the Iranian political elite. That no revolution broke out does not mean there isn’t a crisis in the political elite, particularly among the clerics. But that crisis does not cut the way Western common sense would have it. Many of Iran’s religious leaders see Ahmadinejad as hostile to their interests, as threatening their financial prerogatives, and as taking international risks they don’t want to take. Ahmadinejad’s political popularity in fact rests on his populist hostility to what he sees as the corruption of the clerics and their families and his strong stand on Iranian national security issues.
The clerics are divided among themselves, but many wanted to see Ahmadinejad lose to protect their own interests. Khamenei, the supreme leader, faced a difficult choice last Friday. He could demand a major recount or even new elections, or he could validate what happened. Khamenei speaks for a sizable chunk of the ruling elite, but also has had to rule by consensus among both clerical and non-clerical forces.
Many powerful clerics like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wanted Khamenei to reverse the election, and we suspect Khamenei wished he could have found a way to do it. But as the defender of the regime, he was afraid to. Mousavi supporters’ demonstrations would have been nothing compared to the firestorm among Ahmadinejad supporters — both voters and the security forces — had their candidate been denied. Khamenei wasn’t going to flirt with disaster, so he endorsed the outcome.
The Western media misunderstood this because they didn’t understand that Ahmadinejad does not speak for the clerics but against them , that many of the clerics were working for his defeat, and that Ahmadinejad has enormous pull in the country’s security apparatus. The reason Western media missed this is because they bought into the concept of the stolen election, therefore failing to see Ahmadinejad’s support and the widespread dissatisfaction with the old clerical elite. The Western media simply didn’t understand that the most traditional and pious segments of Iranian society support Ahmadinejad because he opposes the old ruling elite. Instead, they assumed this was like Prague or Budapest in 1989, with a broad-based uprising in favor of liberalism against an unpopular regime.
Tehran in 2009, however, was a struggle between two main factions, both of which supported the Islamic republic as it was. There were the clerics, who have dominated the regime since 1979 and had grown wealthy in the process. And there was Ahmadinejad, who felt the ruling clerical elite had betrayed the revolution with their personal excesses. And there also was the small faction the BBC and CNN kept focusing on — the demonstrators in the streets who want to dramatically liberalize the Islamic republic. This faction never stood a chance of taking power, whether by election or revolution.
The two main factions used the third smaller faction in various ways, however. Ahmadinejad used it to make his case that the clerics who supported them, like Rafsanjani, would risk the revolution and play into the hands of the Americans and British to protect their own wealth. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani argued behind the scenes that the unrest was the tip of the iceberg, and that Ahmadinejad had to be replaced. Khamenei, an astute politician, examined the data and supported Ahmadinejad.
Now, as we saw after Tiananmen Square, we will see a reshuffling among the elite. Those who backed Mousavi will be on the defensive. By contrast, those who supported Ahmadinejad are in a powerful position. There is a massive crisis in the elite, but this crisis has nothing to do with liberalization: It has to do with power and prerogatives among the elite. Having been forced by the election and Khamenei to live with Ahmadinejad, some will make deals while some will fight — but Ahmadinejad is well-positioned to win this battle.
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to http://www.stratfor.com/"
Another good site for in-depth coverage of the Middle East is Prof. Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment at http://www.juancole.com/
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Geostrategy Nerd: What Would Mexico's Sudden Collapse Mean for YOUR Prospects in the U.S.?
Most people don't know this, but I'm a military history buff. One of my favorite authors, Gary Brecher, is the self-described "War Nerd" of the blog http://exiledonline.com/. In his fine tradition of war commentary, I'm an aspiring "Geostrategy Nerd." I've been avidly reading about a number of developments that I do NOT hear being discussed in African-American circles. Even though these developments could seriously hinder our prospects as a collective.
I said the following in Charity Should Begin at Home, Part 2: Black Folks' Mass Suicide by Coalition:
"Our lack of political common sense has already cost us. Dearly. In terms of political empowerment, we've already slit our own wrists. Our (mis)leaders encouraged us to support Latino and other non-White immigration, and to cry copious tears over the 'plight' of various categories of illegal immigrants. We were encouraged to assume that non-White immigrants were somehow our natural, and automatic allies in the quest for justice.
Umm . . . No. People generally come to the United States to get paid. Period. There's nothing wrong with that. Like I said in Part 1 of this series, it is normal, natural, and fair for people to look out for their own interests. I would like to see more African-Americans acquire this mental habit.
Somehow, we got it in our heads that other people of color are naturally inclined to help us in our struggle. NO. Helping us is not part of most immigrants' mission profile. People come here to find a better life for themselves. Not to join our struggle. We are now reaping the consequences of foolishly supporting non-White (legal and illegal) immigration to this country.
We are being displaced. We are being physically displaced in many areas of the country. This physical displacement leads to political displacement. Many currently Black congressional districts have large and growing Latino populations. NO Latino districts have growing Black populations. I've read reports estimating that this demographic shift will cause Blacks to lose 6-7 congressional seats after the 2010 census redistricting."
http://muslimbushido.blogspot.com/2008/09/charity-should-begin-at-home-part-2.html
Of course, our (mis)leadership class is NOT talking about any of this. Our (mis)leaders are also not talking about a scenario that has been making the rounds of the military history and geopolitical strategy blogs that I enjoy: the possible sudden collapse of the Mexican government. I was recently amused to see that this discussion has finally made it into the self-proclaimed alternative, "progressive" press: http://www.alternet.org/audits/127850/could_a_sudden_collapse_of_mexico_be_obama%27s_surprise_foreign_policy_challenge/
The violence from the narco wars in Mexico has already spilled over into this country:
"Just as government officials had feared, the drug violence raging in Mexico is spilling over into the United States.
U.S. authorities are reporting a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions connected to Mexico's murderous cartels. And to some policymakers' surprise, much of the violence is happening not in towns along the border, where it was assumed the bloodshed would spread, but a considerable distance away, in places such as Phoenix and Atlanta.
Investigators fear the violence could erupt elsewhere around the country because the Mexican cartels are believed to have set up drug-dealing operations all over the U.S., in such far-flung places as Anchorage, Alaska; Boston; and Sioux Falls, S.D.
'The violence follows the drugs,' said David Cuthbertson, agent in charge of the FBI's office in the border city of El Paso, Texas."http://www.dcexaminer.com/breaking/39362942.html [emphasis added]
Hmmm. . . We know where many of the open air drug markets are. . . in Black residential areas.
So, as you can see, this ongoing situation in Mexico has a LOT of implications for Black folks in this country. Our leaders don't seem to be thinking about any of this. Perhaps you should. And think about how you can position yourself to be among those persons who are least affected by these trends.
Would a sudden, massive influx of Mexicans fleeing government collapse and narco wars affect your employment?
What are the odds of drug violence coming to your current doorstep?
Are you paying attention to international developments that can affect your prospects, and quality of life? And your children's prospects?
*Addendum* My goodness, during the last few days, I've seen increasing numbers of news stories about this scenario. I wonder what's up with that...Here are a few paragraphs from today's (2/26/09) Associated Press story, "Mexico prez hopes to quell drug violence by 2012." My reactions are in blue:
MEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon hopes to quell Mexico's rampant drug violence by the end of his term in 2012, and disputes U.S. fears that Mexico is losing control of its territory. [Oh my...] In interviews with The Associated Press on Thursday, Calderon and his top prosecutor said the violence that killed 6,290 people last year — and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009 — is a sign that the cartels are under pressure from military and police operations nationwide, as well as turf wars among themselves.
"To say that Mexico is a failed state is absolutely false," Calderon said. "I have not lost any part — any single part — of Mexican territory." [Hmmm. . . the fact that he needs to put out this message suggests otherwise.]
Calderon, a Harvard-educated conservative, said smuggling cannot be eliminated as long as Americans continue to use drugs, but hopes he can beat back the cartels by 2012 to a point that the army and federal police can withdraw and leave the problem in the hands of local law enforcement. He declined to give a specific timeline for winning the war against drug gangs. [Could it be that he doesn't have a timetable because his government is losing? Hmmm...]
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Negative National Security Impact of Damaged Beyond Repair Black Men (DBRBM)
Stop Assuming that Black Men Ascending into Prominent Overseas Positions is a Good Thing
As a people, African-Americans just loooove to see a Black man get a prominent job. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy. Our chests poke out, we raise our heads a little higher, and acquire a new bounce in our steps at such news.
We assume that having Black men in prominent positions is a good thing. We assume that more Black men having the ability to travel and live overseas is a good thing.
Sometimes Black men going overseas is not a good thing. In fact, in many cases it's a VERY BAD thing. It's very bad for our international image as Black people. It's also very bad for this country's national security.
DBRBM are busy making enemies overseas for the rest of us as African-Americans. They are busy making enemies for ALL Americans. We don't realize this because, like most Americans, we don't pay attention to international news stories.
But the foreigners that DBRBM harm remember. As well as their families, friends, and entire societies. The same way we remember atrocities committed by foreigners here.
Andrew Warren: Former CIA Station Chief in Algeria, Muslim Convert, Alleged Rapist
Consider the case of a Negro named Andrew Warren. As the Los Angeles Times story notes, until he was removed from his post, this individual served as the CIA's top official in Algeria until late 2008. He had previously held high-level positions in Afghanistan and Egypt. Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2009, "CIA chief in Algeria recalled amid investigation":
"Warren was described as a highly gifted officer, a convert to Islam who demonstrated a rare ability to blend in among Muslim communities across several countries.
'He's exactly the guy we need out in the field,' said a senior U.S. government official who had met with the accused officer in Algiers last summer before the scandal emerged. 'He's African-American. He's Muslim. He speaks the language. He seemed well put together, sharp and experienced.'"
[Yes, exactly the type of Black man that we get very excited about due his surface attributes. He is probably also yet another example of a DBRBM Sunni Muslim.]
The LA Times story notes that "Algeria is considered a top priority in the intelligence community because it has been a haven for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a group that has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. The North African group was blamed for an August bombing outside Algiers that killed more than 40 people."
It seems that this Negro was allegedly putting date rape drugs in women's drinks, and then sexually assaulting them. [Shades of Dr. William H. Cosby, Ph.D.]
This story has also been covered by Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/200912922550433383.html [Raised fist salute to our outstanding researcher, Lorraine, for bringing the Andrew Warren news story to my attention!]
This type of mess is at the high end. Pause for a moment to consider what the droves of low level DBRBM in the U.S. military are doing all over the planet. {shudder}
The Sorrows of Okinawa: U.S. Military Base = DBRBM Rapists' Fraternity House
The list of rapes committed by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa is endless, and continues up to this day. I'll focus on one incident that caused U.S. President Bill Clinton to have an emergency meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister.
From Wikipedia:
"The 1995 Okinawan rape incident refers to a rape that took place on September 4, 1995, when three U.S. servicemen, U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Gill and U.S. Marines Rodrico Harp and Kendrick Ledet, all from Camp Hansen on Okinawa, rented a van and kidnapped a 12-year-old 6th-grade Japanese girl.
They beat her, duct-taped her eyes and mouth shut, and bound her hands. Gill and Harp then proceeded to rape her, while Ledet claims he only pretended to do so out of fear of Gill. The incident led to further debate over the continued presence of U.S. forces in Japan. "
Of course, their relatives whined that there was racism involved in their prosecution.
From the November 6, 1995, New York Times story, "Accused Marines' Kin Incredulous": "'It's very disappointing and frustrating,' said Kim Cannon, Private Ledet's sister, who is a deputy sheriff in Fulton County, Ga. 'It's political and it's racial. We're all black and we all come from small towns. I'm looking at three young black men who may face life in prison, and I just don't think this would be happening if they were white.'"
[Again, our familiar mantra: "young Black men." Doesn't your heart just bleed for them?]
Hmmm . . . Let's see what happened after they all served their time in Japanese prisons (foreign prisons usually don't play with inmates, by the way!):
From Wikipedia:
"The three men served prison terms in Japanese prisons and were released in 2003 and then given dishonorable discharges from the military. After release, Rodrico Harp decried prison conditions in Japan and said that the electronics assembly prison labor he was forced to do amounted to slave labor." [Mournful sounds of violins playing in the background.]
"Ledet, who had claimed he did not rape the girl, died in 2006 in an apparent murder-suicide in the United States. He was found in the third-floor apartment of Lauren Cooper, a junior Kennesaw State University student and acquaintance whom he had apparently sexually assaulted and then murdered (by strangulation). It appears that he then took his own life by slashing his wrists."
[Gee, I wonder what Ledet's sister had to say after this final incident. Was this "political and racial" too? Yep. They all sure sound like innocent men who were convicted on trumped up charges. Right.]
We Must Make Ourselves Distinct From DBRBM and The "Acting Black" Crew
All of the above is yet another example of why we must make every effort to establish ourselves as separate and distinct from DBRBM and the negative "Acting Black" Crew. Often, we have no idea of the overall negative impression of Blacks that has already been established by these Black miscreants while they were overseas. You DON'T want to reap what these creatures have sown for ALL of us in foreign countries!
*Addendum* At minimum, we must STOP doing our traditional, knee-jerk "Let's Rally Around Scum" dance. Including scum like the DBRBM (mentioned in the blog cited below) who raped several women while on duty and in uniform as a Los Angeles police officer. http://problemchylde.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/prison-reform-recidivism-and-reintegration/
*Update* For the curious, our intrepid researcher Lorraine has found a link with a picture of Ledet and his final victim. [Yes, she was White.] Here is the link :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1689815/posts
The comments in the link point to another disturbing aspect of all of this: There might NOT be any mechanism in place to ensure that these creatures are automatically registered as sexual predators once they return to the United States. Lord have mercy.
As a people, African-Americans just loooove to see a Black man get a prominent job. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy. Our chests poke out, we raise our heads a little higher, and acquire a new bounce in our steps at such news.
We assume that having Black men in prominent positions is a good thing. We assume that more Black men having the ability to travel and live overseas is a good thing.
Sometimes Black men going overseas is not a good thing. In fact, in many cases it's a VERY BAD thing. It's very bad for our international image as Black people. It's also very bad for this country's national security.
DBRBM are busy making enemies overseas for the rest of us as African-Americans. They are busy making enemies for ALL Americans. We don't realize this because, like most Americans, we don't pay attention to international news stories.
But the foreigners that DBRBM harm remember. As well as their families, friends, and entire societies. The same way we remember atrocities committed by foreigners here.
Andrew Warren: Former CIA Station Chief in Algeria, Muslim Convert, Alleged Rapist
Consider the case of a Negro named Andrew Warren. As the Los Angeles Times story notes, until he was removed from his post, this individual served as the CIA's top official in Algeria until late 2008. He had previously held high-level positions in Afghanistan and Egypt. Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2009, "CIA chief in Algeria recalled amid investigation":
"Warren was described as a highly gifted officer, a convert to Islam who demonstrated a rare ability to blend in among Muslim communities across several countries.
'He's exactly the guy we need out in the field,' said a senior U.S. government official who had met with the accused officer in Algiers last summer before the scandal emerged. 'He's African-American. He's Muslim. He speaks the language. He seemed well put together, sharp and experienced.'"
[Yes, exactly the type of Black man that we get very excited about due his surface attributes. He is probably also yet another example of a DBRBM Sunni Muslim.]
The LA Times story notes that "Algeria is considered a top priority in the intelligence community because it has been a haven for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a group that has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. The North African group was blamed for an August bombing outside Algiers that killed more than 40 people."
It seems that this Negro was allegedly putting date rape drugs in women's drinks, and then sexually assaulting them. [Shades of Dr. William H. Cosby, Ph.D.]
This story has also been covered by Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/200912922550433383.html [Raised fist salute to our outstanding researcher, Lorraine, for bringing the Andrew Warren news story to my attention!]
This type of mess is at the high end. Pause for a moment to consider what the droves of low level DBRBM in the U.S. military are doing all over the planet. {shudder}
The Sorrows of Okinawa: U.S. Military Base = DBRBM Rapists' Fraternity House
The list of rapes committed by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa is endless, and continues up to this day. I'll focus on one incident that caused U.S. President Bill Clinton to have an emergency meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister.
From Wikipedia:
"The 1995 Okinawan rape incident refers to a rape that took place on September 4, 1995, when three U.S. servicemen, U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Gill and U.S. Marines Rodrico Harp and Kendrick Ledet, all from Camp Hansen on Okinawa, rented a van and kidnapped a 12-year-old 6th-grade Japanese girl.
They beat her, duct-taped her eyes and mouth shut, and bound her hands. Gill and Harp then proceeded to rape her, while Ledet claims he only pretended to do so out of fear of Gill. The incident led to further debate over the continued presence of U.S. forces in Japan. "
Of course, their relatives whined that there was racism involved in their prosecution.
From the November 6, 1995, New York Times story, "Accused Marines' Kin Incredulous": "'It's very disappointing and frustrating,' said Kim Cannon, Private Ledet's sister, who is a deputy sheriff in Fulton County, Ga. 'It's political and it's racial. We're all black and we all come from small towns. I'm looking at three young black men who may face life in prison, and I just don't think this would be happening if they were white.'"
[Again, our familiar mantra: "young Black men." Doesn't your heart just bleed for them?]
Hmmm . . . Let's see what happened after they all served their time in Japanese prisons (foreign prisons usually don't play with inmates, by the way!):
From Wikipedia:
"The three men served prison terms in Japanese prisons and were released in 2003 and then given dishonorable discharges from the military. After release, Rodrico Harp decried prison conditions in Japan and said that the electronics assembly prison labor he was forced to do amounted to slave labor." [Mournful sounds of violins playing in the background.]
"Ledet, who had claimed he did not rape the girl, died in 2006 in an apparent murder-suicide in the United States. He was found in the third-floor apartment of Lauren Cooper, a junior Kennesaw State University student and acquaintance whom he had apparently sexually assaulted and then murdered (by strangulation). It appears that he then took his own life by slashing his wrists."
[Gee, I wonder what Ledet's sister had to say after this final incident. Was this "political and racial" too? Yep. They all sure sound like innocent men who were convicted on trumped up charges. Right.]
We Must Make Ourselves Distinct From DBRBM and The "Acting Black" Crew
All of the above is yet another example of why we must make every effort to establish ourselves as separate and distinct from DBRBM and the negative "Acting Black" Crew. Often, we have no idea of the overall negative impression of Blacks that has already been established by these Black miscreants while they were overseas. You DON'T want to reap what these creatures have sown for ALL of us in foreign countries!
*Addendum* At minimum, we must STOP doing our traditional, knee-jerk "Let's Rally Around Scum" dance. Including scum like the DBRBM (mentioned in the blog cited below) who raped several women while on duty and in uniform as a Los Angeles police officer. http://problemchylde.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/prison-reform-recidivism-and-reintegration/
*Update* For the curious, our intrepid researcher Lorraine has found a link with a picture of Ledet and his final victim. [Yes, she was White.] Here is the link :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1689815/posts
The comments in the link point to another disturbing aspect of all of this: There might NOT be any mechanism in place to ensure that these creatures are automatically registered as sexual predators once they return to the United States. Lord have mercy.
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