Dr. Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, provides a great deal of information, insight and analysis in the interview below about the pros and cons of the Iran nuclear deal reached in Geneva between the P5+1 nations and Iran. He also highlights the plethora of challenges all parties may/may not face as the next round of negotiations get underway – [Read more…]
October 22, 2013
by Wayne Madsen
Wayne Madsen Report dot com
Being disingenuous, like the storied cat who ate the canary, comes natural to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, especially in light of his current propaganda blitz designed to convince the world that Iranian centrist President Hasan Rouhani is not to be believed. [Read more…]
Obama’s rhetorical exercise in ‘peace talk’ at the United Nations General Assembly impressed few delegations and even fewer Americans: Far more eloquent are his five years of wars, military interventions, cyber-spying, drone murders, [Read more…]
Haaretz piece reveals Syrian conflict is direct punitive result of Assad defying West, obstructing US-Israeli attack on Iran.
[Read more…]
by Helen Tansey
The T-Room Blog
March 21, 2013
World War III: The Unthinkable Cost of Preserving the Petro Dollar
Dr. Jeffrey Lewis
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As noted by many of our readers, one of the key topics omitted from our article on the inevitability of economic collapse was the petrodollar system. Due to its significance, we felt that this subject deserves its own article. If you have never heard of the petrodollar, don’t be surprised. There’s a good reason for this. [Read more…]
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“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax –
Of cabbages – and kings –
And why the sea is boiling hot –
And whether pigs have wings.”
The Walrus and The Carpenter – Lewis Carroll (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872) [Read more…]
Experts warn W32.Flamer may have been developed by a nation state as part of cyberwarfare activities
by Nick Hopkins
guardian.co.uk,
Iran's Kharg island terminal processes 90% of the country's crude oil exports Photograph: Kaveh Kazemi/Corbis
A cyber-attack that targeted Iran‘s oil ministry and main export terminal was caused by the most sophisticated computer worm yet developed, experts have warned. [Read more…]
The Heretic presents, Mike Rivero’s “USS Enterprise False Flag” from http://whatreallyhappened.com/
USS Enterprise Prepares To Cross Suez Canal, Days Away From Anchor In Arabian Sea (posted 3/29/2012 at Zerohedge)
Much noise has been emanating out of Israel vis-a-vis its Iranian intentions, with some opinions suggesting an attack is imminent, while others claiming that Israel will ultimately defer to D.C., and postpone an attack, and the eventual gasoline price shock, until after the election. [Read more…]
Dr. Trita Parsi, author of A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran, was interviewed by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show this week detailing how the Bush Preemptive War Doctrine and then the Obama Administrations missed diplomatic opportunities w/Iran resulting in the untenable situation the nation finds itself in. [Read more…]
The Obama administration, in yet another display of the use of Orwellian language, has embarked on a military doctrine called “Mass Atrocity Prevention” (MAP), the Pentagon operational plan to implement the White House’s “R2P” or “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Essentially, the Pentagon will militarily support the intervention of international forces operating under the umbrella of NATO, UN, the African Union, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League, and others to prevent a “massacre” by a dictatorial government perceived to pose a threat to its domestic opposition. [Read more…]
In this RT interview independent journalist, James Corbett, details the fact that on Monday, November 1, 2011 the Arab League brokered a deal with Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s President “easing the country’s long-running political crisis.” As Corbett reports “the agreement urges Damascus to immediately withdraw security forces from the streets, release jailed demonstrators, and start dialogue with the opposition. Syria also agreed to allow rights groups and Arab League watchdogs into the country. But the U.S. still says it wants to see President Assad resign” and suggests Syria’s geographical location as strategic to the US to launch an offensive into Iran. [Read more…]
Antonia Juhasz, author of “The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do to Stop It” provides an update to how Iraq’s oilfields, prior to the Iraq invasion, were once nationalized are now being divvied up to international oil conglomerates…the same ones who seem to be benefiting mightily from the recent NATO lead invasion in Libya.
By Helen Tansey
The nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai’Ichi power plant continues with no end in sight. Everyday we awake to fresh news about one of four reactors exploding, on fire or spewing white, grey or black fumes into the air we breath. Water used to cool the reactors has been freely flowing into the sea and ground water, thereby forever poisoning the very resource necessary to sustain life.
The good people in and around the area were evacuated over a week ago – first 3 then 10 now 20km. When the evacuee’s entered the evacuation centers they were promptly geigered, given face masks and Potassium Iodide to stave off the poisoning of radioactive material.
Outside the center, folks are learning their milk, food, tap and sea water are all reading high levels of radiation. Those who could afford to flee for safety left last week. The US military initially began voluntary evacuations of women and children last week, but has since made said evacuations mandatory.
Homes, businesses and entire towns are destroyed by the awesome force of mother nature. Thousands remain unaccounted for. Mass graves are filling up with the dead with the hope that some day some family member will identify the perished and provide them with a proper burial.
The air these people breath, the water they drink and the soil they till is poisoned forever. There is no clean up process available for radioactive material. None. Zilch. Zip.
It must feel like a living hell in Japan these days. [Read more…]
By Wayne Madsen
The time period that President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro/Sutoro, worked for various Indonesian and Pakistani operations associated with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was during a time frame when USAID was composed almost entirely of CIA official and non-official cover agents who worked throughout Indonesia and Southeast and South Asia.
Ann Dunham Soetoro and Barack Obama as “flexible cover” agents
Before he was sacked as CIA director in 1976 and replaced by George H. W. Bush, William E. Colby commissioned a study of the agency’s priorities in a five-year plan. The Secret NOFORN plan, titled “Director of Central Intelligence: Perspectives for Intelligence 1976-1981,” described the importance of agencies like USAID in the CIA’s operations. The report states: “Contributions of such agencies as State, Defense, Treasury, USAID, USIA, Agriculture, and Commerce can be enhanced substantially by more effective approaches to information gathering and in the reporting aspects of their activities. We need particularly, gains in the interrelationships between overt and clandestine and technical and human sources. We must establish more direct lines between our human collectors and our technical collectors.” [Read more…]
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB_G28tNDX4&feature=player_embedded
by Wayne Madsen -
January 18-19, 2011 -- Stuxnet: a violation of US computer security law
The possible involvement of computer security officials, like Sean McGurk, the DHS's director of the Control System Security Program, in covering up the true origin of Stuxnet, cannot be overlooked. As a founding board member of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2), this editor warned against the infiltration of NSA and other intelligence operatives into the computer security profession. The warnings were backed by colleagues from other nations, including Finland and Australia. Placing intelligence operatives inside computer security management positions can always result in the use of computers for sabotage and intelligence. Stuxnet may be the culmination of such infiltration of the computer security profession. In 2000, this editor resigned from the ISC2 board over the acquiescence of the board and consortium to dictates from NSA and other problematic U.S. government agencies. This editor and a minority of board members also disagreed with offering professional certifications to employees of foreign intelligence agencies in countries with abominable human rights and civil liberties records.
Stuxnet was specifically designed to attack supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) computer systems. These systems control everything from electrical power grids and chemical processing plants to the computers that operate traffic light and rail systems. Stuxnet disabled SCADA systems not only in Iran but also in India (where India's satellite program may have been severely impacted), Pakistan, Indonesia, Germany, Canada, China, Malaysia, South Korea, Russia, Kazakhstan, United Kingdom, Finland, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Brazil, Australia, Brunei, Netherlands, Taiwan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand, Belarus, Denmark, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and the United States. Stuxnet was found on 63 computers in Japan. New Zealand, Japan, and Hong Kong issued alerts about Stuxnet's impact on their SCADA systems. Britain's integrated national rail transport network was reported to be particularly vulnerable to Stuxnet. Turkey reacted to Stuxnet by mandating a ″National Virtual Environment Security Policy.″
By the end of September of last year, over 100,000 computers worldwide had been infected by Stuxnet. So much for The New York Times' specious report that the worm did little damage. Industrial control system security specialists from the chemical, oil, and gas industries expressed concern that the U.S. government was less-than-forthcoming about the effects of Stuxnet on their industries. The computer security firm Symantec appears to have been laundering information to private industry from the government.
China, which feared Stuxnet could infect its SCADA systems, issued a national security report about the worm, especially its impact on oil drilling systems. WMR has learned from its Beijing sources that China is growing tired of Israelis, in general, and international banks like Goldman Sachs having strong ties to Israel, in particular, over what it sees as an attempt by Israel and certain international banks to undermine China's new strong industrial and financial position in the world. Representatives of the People's Bank of China, China's central bank, are wary of their contacts with Israelis and bankers and WMR has learned that Japanese central bankers shared the concerns of their Chinese counterparts when it comes to Israel and firms like Goldman Sachs. Chinese authorities were particularly incensed over initial disinformation reports, distributed by the Pentagon-linked media, that China created Stuxnet.
U.S. government involvement in the creation and first strike deployment of a destructive cyber-weapon like Stuxnet and its "bounce back" to "protected" U.S. systems and networks, including SCADA systems, is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C.§ 1030. The CFAA imposes criminal and civil penalties for anyone who disrupts a "protected computer." A protected computer is defines as one:
"exclusively for the use of a financial institution or the United States Government, or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, used by or for a financial institution or the United States Government and the conduct constituting the offense affects that use by or for the financial institution or the Government;" or
"which is used in interstate or foreign commerce or communication."
Criminal activity under the law applies to anyone who ″knowingly transmits a program, code or instruction, and as a result, intentionally causes damage, without authorization, to a protected computer.″ Thus, anyone in the U.S. government or acting as a government contractor, or a foreign national acting on behalf of a foreign government like Israel, who participated in the creation and deployment of the Stuxnet worm could be fined and sentenced to prison. In 2002, New Jersey programmer David L. Smith, the creator of the Melissa worm in 1999, which brought down computer systems across North America in 1999, was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison and a $5000 fine. The chief federal prosecutor of Smith was Chris Christie, now the governor of New Jersey. Under federal law Smith faced a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine but Christie argued for a lighter sentence because Smith cooperated with prosecutors.
The National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996 further codified the CFAA to address new technologies and criminal activity.
On February 29, 2000, the Deputy Attorney General testified before the House Judiciary Committee subcommittee on crime about the danger posed by malicious computer programs. He said, ″We are seeing more 'pure' computer crimes, that is, crimes where the computer is used as a weapon to attack other computers, as we saw in the distributed denial of service attacks I just spoke about, and in the spread of malicious code, like viruses. Our vulnerability to this type of crime is astonishingly high - it was only this past December that a defendant admitted, when he plead guilty in federal and state court to creating and releasing the Melissa virus, that he caused over 80 million dollars in damage . . . These crimes not only affect our financial well-being and our privacy; they also threaten our nation's critical infrastructure. Our banking system, the stock market, the electricity and water supply, telecommunications networks, and critical government services, such as emergency and national defense services, all rely on computer networks. For a real-world terrorist to blow up a dam, he would need tons of explosives, a delivery system, and a surreptitious means of evading armed security guards. For a cyberterrorist, the same devastating result could be achieved by hacking into the control network and commanding the computer to open the floodgates.″Real Clear World - Stuxnet and Collateral Damage
That Deputy Attorney General was Eric Holder, now President Obama's Attorney General. Holder has, either through ignorance or involvement, permitted the U.S. and Israeli governments to release a destructive malicious computer program, the very type Holder warned against in 2000.
John P. Wheeler III, the former assistant ot the Secretary of the Air Force during the Bush administration, was one of the Pentagon's top experts on cyber-warfare. On December 31, Wheeler's body was found in a Wilmington, Delaware landfill. Wheeler worked for the Mitre Corporation, which has intelligence agency and Pentagon cyber-warfare contracts. Wheeler publicly stated his opposition of locating the new US Cyber Command with NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. With more information being revealed about the offensive information warfare first strike by the United States ad Israel, and the role of NSA in that first strike, the age-old question in Washington, DC still pertains: ″What did Wheeler know and when did he know it?″
If a January 15 report in The New York Times, which has a dubious past in reporting on computer security and hacking issues, is true -- that the United States Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy -- via the Idaho National Laboratory -- Siemens (which has a long-standing intelligence relationship with the National Security Agency), the CIA, Britain's intelligence services, Germany, and Israel's Mossad cooperated to develop the Stuxnet computer worm to disable Iranian nuclear program centrifuges, the U.S. government violated a number of federal computer security laws that prohibit the development of malicious computer programs that damage ″federal interest″ computers. The Stuxnet worm, which, according to the Times, was tested at Israel's Dimona nuclear weapons development facility in the Negev, not only infected Iranian nuclear program computers but spread to computers in other countries, including the United States. Stuxnet code was discovered through computer forensics to contain key words from the Jewish Old Testament Book of Esther, further establishing Israeli fingerprints on the malicious code. The malicious code's file name, Myrtus, is the Hebrew word for Esther. According to myth, Esther saved the Jews from a Persian plot to exterminate them.
The New York Times article by William Broad, John Markoff, and David Sanger, three reporters who have their own questionable ties to Israeli interests, states that when Stuxnet first appeared around the world in June last year, it did little harm and did not slow computer networks. However, this is merely an attempt to let the U.S. and Israeli governments off the hook by falsely claiming that the only damage done by Stuxnet was to the centrifuge systems used by Iran to enrich uranium. Although Stuxnet likely did disable Iran's centrifuges, causing a set-back to its nuclear program, the Stuxnet worm, contrary to The New York Times report, resulted in computer down time and disruption far beyond Iran. The disruption by a digital version of a U.S. and Israeli military first strike makes the United States government and Israel civilly liable for the damage and disruption caused by Stuxnet. [Read more...]