Jan Klimkowski Wrote:More wheels within wheels.

The sources are Jeff Stein, who is a frequent MSM TV talking head and thus a connected insider, and Bob Baer who is a ? Yes. Baer is precisely ?

Plus ret Admiral Lyons, who used to run Navy SEALS "Red Cell counter-terror" operations.

Is this bitching amongst insider factions? Or a flicker in the aether revealing deep geopolitical twitchings far from preterite sight?

Paul Rigby Wrote:

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:More wheels within wheels.

The sources are Jeff Stein, who is a frequent MSM TV talking head and thus a connected insider, and Bob Baer who is a ? Yes. Baer is precisely ?

Plus ret Admiral Lyons, who used to run Navy SEALS "Red Cell counter-terror" operations.

Is this bitching amongst insider factions? Or a flicker in the aether revealing deep geopolitical twitchings far from preterite sight?

I wonder instead, Jan, whether the Stein piece you cited represents neither the negation of the strategy nor the public surfacing of an elite rift, but rather the strategy's logical culmination? By which I mean the burning of an asset who was never intended to prevail, merely - merely! - to change the climateric? What if the strategy's real intention was to bolster the forces of repression and intolerance within the regime? This, after all, was the object of the CIA's first great post-war triumph, Operation Splinter Factor. Such an interpretation would explain a great deal about what didn't happen, and why a figure as compromised as Mousavi was chosen to front the seeming putsch.

Paul

Quote:There is no doubt in my mind that what we are witnessing today is the biggest strategic psyop campaign since the war in Bosnia. Clearly, the conduct of such a campaign is expensive and very labor intensive, and I don't think that the USraelian Empire would be wasting such resources just like that. There is definitely a "phase two" coming next.

The more I look at what is happening in Iran, the more I see striking parallels with another war which I had the opportunity to follow, day by day, minute by minute (I was, at the time, a military analyst).

The Serbs in Bosnia were extremely confident that neither the USA nor Europe had the guts to fight them on their own turf. They also could count, or so they thought, on the help of their fellow Serbs from Serbia (Yugoslav Federal Forces). They new that the Bosnian Muslims had a numerical advantage over them, but the counted on their superiority in artillery to offset that disadvantage. The Serbs, who during WWII had successfully resisted against the combined forces of the German Nazis, Croat Ustashe and Bosnian Muslim SS just did not feel really threatened, least of all by the dispersed forces of UNPROFOR. But they did not count with the sophistication of the Empire who, instead of stupidly sending its jarheads into Bosnia, attacked the Serbs with a multi-dimensional strategy.

First, the Serbs were very successfully demonized. The word "Serb" soon began evoking images of concentration camps, torture, rape, executions, baby shooting snipers, etc. A number of false-flag attacks were staged, including at the Markale market in Sarajevo. Any information which deviated from the official line (such as the report of UNPROFOR intelligence section in Sarajevo which concluded that the Serbian forces could not have fired a mortar into that market) was immediately thrown down the memory hole.

Second, pressure was put to essentially co-opt Milosevic. That was done in a very low key, but the basic idea was that he would be allowed to remain in power in Serbia if he agreed to betray the Bosnian Serbs. Needless to say, being the Communist leader which he was, Milosevic agreed. Suddenly, the Serbs faced an embargo in which the Federal Republic had joined in.

Third, the Empire organized, armed, and trained Croat forces (the Empire never really trusted the Muslims in Bosnia) to first seize the so-called "UNPAs" (UN protected areas) in Croatia and then to attack the remaining Serbian forces in Bosnia. For this purpose, all the heavy weapons of the Serbs (yes, the ones they had counted on the offset their numeral disadvantage) were placed in storage which left the Bosnian Serbs with only small arms.

Lastly, when the joint US-Croatian forces attacked, Milosevic pulled back his brigades leaving the Bosnian Serbs to face the combined onslaught of the NATO airforces, the Croat mechanized troops and the Muslim infantry with little more than rifles. At that point, resistance was futile.

The doubleplusgoodthinking world shed very few tears over the Bosnian Serbs. In particular, Muslims worldwide had so thoroughly bought into the Imperial propaganda that they totally failed to see that the only real crime of the Bosnian Serbs (at least in the eyes of the Empire) had been to refuse to comply with the diktats of the Empire. The sole word "Srebrenica" was good enough to stop any fact-based and logic driven analysis of what had really happened when that city fell to the Serbian forces.

As for Milosevic, having outlived his utility for the Empire, he was dumped and immediately attacked through the war in Kosovo (which, by the way, was conducted *exactly* as the war in Bosnia had been). And again - the world bought into the bullshit spewed by the US Psyops.

Now, it is absolutely clear that Iran is next.

Like in the case of the Bosnian Serbs, the Empire has successfully created a political lever INSIDE Iran. Today, Mousavi has been instantly re-branded as a "liberal" (a laughable claim for anybody actually knowing this gentleman's full biography) and he is used against the Iranian government exactly as Milosevic had been used against Karadzic. Like Milosevic, Mousavi (and his puppeteers Rafsanjani and Montazeri) probably thinks that if he (they) come to power the Empire will let him (them) stay in power.

As for the Ahmadinejad/Khamenei camp, they probably feel that the USraelians will not dare attack Iran. I hope and pray that I am wrong and that they do understand the current psyop campaign for what it is - a first phase for a real war.

The public opinion in the West has learned exactly NOTHING from the previous US Psyop campaign. It is buying into the current propaganda 100%, in particular the Left which just need to be gently nudged into an ideological paradigm to immediately be outraged and condemn some putative "bad guy".

The one big difference between the Bosnian Serb situation and the one in Iran is that in the former case the lever was far more powerful than its object: Milosevic had far more economic, political and military power than Karadzic. In Iran the lever (Mousavi) is far weaker than the government. Unlike the Serbs who could only count of their own small forces, the Iranian government knows that it can use the Pasdaran to control the situation. So as long as the Empire does not find a lever INSIDE the Pasdaran, I predict that the strategy will fail. But if one such high-level traitor is found inside the IRGC all bets are off.

One thing the US psyop campaign has already achieved: with the demonization of the government it has carefully prepared the world's public opinion for an military operation overthrow the "regime". After all, just image that the "Basij thugs" who killed Neda* will do against their "neighbors" (the "I" word will not be used outside the USA) if they are armed with nuclear weapons!!!

I hope that the Iranian government has learned the lessons from the Imperial wars in Bosnia, in Kosovo and in Iraq and that it will fully prepare itself to simultaneously fight on two fronts: external and internal. On the internal front, it needs to make a huge effort to explain to its own population what is happening and externally it must continue to seek deter the Empire by all possible means. Lastly, it must be prepared to face a long war combining internal destabilization, terrorist attacks, economic sabotage, guerrillas and airstrikes.

There is one battle which I think cannot be won: the Western public opinion is clearly too stupidifed by the corporate media to ever get it right. The eagerness with which even presumably intelligent people have bought into the Imperial propaganda clearly proves that whenever the Empire wants to strike it will get a strong majority of its public opinion to believe *any* nonsense needed to demonize the target. As Einstein observed:

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former."

The Saker
-------
*The image of the poor Neda is now serving the same function as the famous (and faked) image of the emaciated man behind barbed wire in a "concentration camp" in Bosnia (a British TV crew staged that shot in Bosnia. Read "The Picture That Fooled The World" for details). This "icon" of the "resistance" will serve to outrage people even if it turns out that the shooter had nothing to do with the government.

Peter Presland Wrote:I wouldn't want to press the Yugoslavian analogy too far and the author of this piece recognises its limitations, but there ARE some striking parallels set out in this piece.

Paul Rigby Wrote:Ah, yes, another of those spontaneous “colour revolutions” – and hard on the heals of Obama’s terribly sincere apology for 1953 and all that:

Quote:The elected Iranian leader attends SCO meeting:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13991

Iran: Election clashes mount as West escalates pressure

by Bill Van Auken

The stakes at the SCO meeting:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13969

De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire
The Yekaterinburg Turning Point

by Prof. Michael Hudson

Excellent piece by Glenn Greenwald on the hypocrisy of many of those now suddenly concerned for the Iranian people:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/16/iran/

The "Bomb Iran" contingent's newfound concern for The Iranian People

Quote:Only weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist and mouthpiece of the neoconservatives, revealed the target list of the Bush administration as it set out on its post-9/11 war footing. The list included six nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and the Palestinian Authority. While the priority allotted to Afghanistan and subsequently Iraq was not in dispute, the remaining order was in flux.

Israel was given a free hand in dealing with the Palestinian Authority (PA). President George W. Bush completely shunned and isolated PA President Yasser Arafat, until he died under siege in November 2004. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was allowed to use brutal military tactics to crush the Al-Aqsa intifada, reoccupying much of the West Bank, and setting up hundreds of military checkpoints devastating Palestinian life and what remained of the PA.

By January 2002, the Afghan campaign was over as far as Bush was concerned, and preparations for the invasion of Iraq had begun in earnest. Dozens of books have been written explaining in elaborate detail the schemes, plots and deceptions by the neocons for regime change in Iraq. In fact, Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward documented the events and the roles of senior administration officials in a series of books.

As Libyan Leader Muammar Qadhafi watched the toppling of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, he initiated contact with London and then Washington, trying to identify the conditions needed, in an attempt to avoid Saddam’s fate. By January 2004, Libya agreed to all their conditions: accepting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, paying over $3 billion in reparations, signing the Chemical Weapons Ban treaty, and perhaps most importantly, giving up its nuclear program, including handing over all equipment purchased over two decades to the U.S.

On the other hand, Syria faced economic pressure and diplomatic isolation, coupled with veiled and direct threats. By April 2005, Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon after a 29-year presence. Although American pressure succeeded in forcing Damascus to withdraw from Lebanon, Syria remained a target for regime change within the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment. Its alleged role in supporting the Iraqi resistance against the American occupation, as well as hosting the headquarters of the major Palestinian resistance groups represented its major “sins.”

But the toughest nut to crack among all these targets has always been Iran. Ironically, Iran’s strategic situation vastly improved following the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the overthrow of those regimes. By 2004, Iran’s Shiite allies in Iraq were in control of the government, even as the country was still under American occupation. Further, Iran exercised tremendous influence with Muqtada Sadr’s militia, the main Shiite opposition to the occupation in the streets.

After Bush’s second inauguration in January 2005, the National Security Council had an intense internal debate regarding Iran. The conflict did not center on whether there should be a regime change in Iran, but rather, whether to employ soft or hard power to achieve it. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld advocated a series of escalating military strikes, while former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for the use of soft power. Eventually, the president’s military advisors ended the debate when they cautioned Bush that with the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, engaging Iran militarily would be highly risky and draining for the U.S. armed forces.

Between 2005-2009, the U.S. Congress appropriated more than $400 million for State Department programs designed to “promote democracy,” among other means of employing soft power in Iran. This was implemented, in part, by funding the activities of Iranian dissident groups. By 2008, Congress included money in the budget that would specifically “go to software programmers to develop programs that thwart internet firewalls erected by the government of Iran, ” and for a program to “provide anti-censorship tools and services for the advancement of information freedom in closed societies.”

On May 24, 2007, Brian Ross, ABC News’s Chief Investigative Correspondent broke a story about the elements of soft power utilized by the CIA and authorized by Bush. “Current and former intelligence officials told ABC News that the CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount what is known as a black or covert operations to destabilize the Iranian regime, and it is underway,” he reported. He then added, “Those officials describe the Iranian plan as non-lethal involving a campaign of coordinated propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative newspaper articles, the manipulation of Iran’s currency and international banking transactions.” The ABC correspondent stated, “Propaganda was one of the most important tools utilized by the CIA.”

Three days later, the British Daily Telegraph, detailed CIA plans for “a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple” the regime. The report said that the presidential finding gave the U.S. spy agency, for the first time, “the right to collect intelligence domestically, an area that is usually the preserve of the FBI, from the many Iranian exiles and émigrés within the US.” In the report, an intelligence official was quoted as saying, "Iranians in America have links with their families at home, and they are a good two-way source of information."

Part of the CIA program, as reported by ABC News and the Daily Telegraph, was “supplying money and weapons, to the militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan.” Since 2007, Iranian officials have announced the capture of dozens of members of violent groups, allegedly tied to the CIA, that carried out bombings around the nation including one that killed 20 people only two weeks prior to the recent elections, on May 30, 2009. The following day, another bombing took place at a campaign office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Further, about two thousand militia members of the Mujahideen Khalq Organization, a violent group seeking to forcibly topple the Iranian regime, have been given sanctuary in Iraq by the American occupation authority, although the group has appeared on the State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations since 1997. The report also quoted Mark Fitzpatrick, a former senior State Department official, now with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, as saying that industrial sabotage was the strategy of choice to combat Iran's nuclear program "without military action, without fingerprints on the operation."

The Telegraph report also stated that the CIA was allowed to supply “communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass Internet censorship” by the regime. The use of this equipment has surfaced prominently in the recent standoff between the government and the opposition in Iran. It should be noted though that this destabilization program by the CIA is totally separate from the State Department’s $400 million program, and is being funded through the CIA budget. Thus, since 2006, the total figure for Iran’s destabilization program could have easily exceeded $1 billion.

During the 1980s, the U.S. Government, and particularly the CIA, was very active in fomenting rebellions, mass unrest and protest movements in Eastern Europe. These efforts have been documented in numerous books and biographies. Former National Security Advisor during the Carter Administration, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, admitted as much in a CNN interview on June 21, 2009.

Commenting on the 1980 founding of the Solidarity movement during the Communist era in Poland, he told his host, “I was up to my ears in dealing with it and trying to steer it and manipulate it.” When asked about regime change in Iran, Brzezinski answered that regime change is desired because it would provide a “greater accommodation” to the U.S., but it requires, among other things, “intelligent manipulation.”

On June 28, CNN program host Fareed Zakaria put a very telling question to Bob Baer, a retired twenty-one year CIA veteran, who served as the top operative in the Middle East for many years. He asked, “Isn’t it true that we do [try to destabilize the regime]? Don’t we fund various groups inside and outside Iran that do try to destabilize the government?” Baer answered, “ Oh absolutely,” then added, “There is a covert action program against Iran where the [U.S.] military is running; a covert action against Iran from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The overt involvement of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other U.S. Government-funded NGOs in supporting many of the groups and dissidents that led the colored and flowering “revolutions,” is also well documented. The Orange (Ukraine), Rose (Georgia), Tulip (Kyrgyzstan), Cedar (Lebanon), Saffron (Burma) and now Green (Iran) “revolutions” have involved mostly pro-Western groups or Western-favored individuals against nationalists.

The Guardian claimed that USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and Freedom House were directly involved in supporting these revolutions. The Washington Post and the New York Times also reported substantial Western involvement in some of these events.

According to Saeed Behbahani, a fierce critic of the current Iranian regime, and founder of Mihan TV outside Washington D.C., the American administration exchanged messages with the campaign of Mir Hossein Mousavi in early June. He claims that, at that time, an unidentified Iranian-American businessman, who is close to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met with Mousavi’s campaign manager, Mehdi Khazali, in Dubai.

The following day, Khazali was prominently interviewed and hailed by the Voice of America’s Persian language broadcast. The VOA claims that its broadcast reaches 15 million Iranians. Other Iranian opposition groups complained that the VOA had adopted a policy of supporting the reformist candidates, and had disregarded those who called for a boycott of the elections to deny the regime legitimacy.

The role of the Western media in the few weeks before and in the aftermath of the elections is illuminating. These same outlets traditionally act as enablers to Washington’s agenda, a role notoriously on display in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

In November 2005, Egypt held elections for its parliament. The elections were held in three stages so they could be easily managed by the regime. When the opposition led by the Kefaya (Enough) Movement and the Muslim Brotherhood scored impressive gains in the first stage, the government initiated a crackdown by beating and arresting the opposition candidates and organizers. Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in protest of the government’s intimidation tactics and manipulation of the elections. Western TV networks provided scant coverage of these events, and never covered the massive protests or crackdown by government authorities.

Furthermore, earlier this year, during Israel’s 22-day onslaught on Gaza, millions of people around the world, including tens of thousands in the U.S., protested daily the brutality of the Israeli military machine against the defenseless civilians. Despite the fact that over 1,400 people were killed and over 5,000 injured - one third of whom were children- there was hardly the wall-to-wall coverage given to the protests in Iran.

The biased performance of the mainstream media in reporting the Iranian elections can be illustrated through the coverage of the over-votes. Soon after the elections, it was reported that a major proof of fraud was that the participation rate exceeded 100 percent in many districts. The clear implication was that the authorities were so sloppy in their election tampering that they simply stuffed the ballot boxes.

Had media outlets consulted any experts on Iranian elections, they would have discovered the simple explanation. In Iran, there is no requirement to vote in a designated district. People do not carry a voter registration card like American citizens. Each voter has a voting book allowing him or her to vote anywhere in the country. After voting, the book is stamped and the index finger is inked to ensure that no one can vote more than once. This fact was not unique to this election. In many previous elections, many districts had a high turnout when compared to the number of registered voters in that district because many Iranians had voted there while traveling or during their summer vacations.

The example of the over-votes, not only demonstrates gross negligence by the media, but also deliberate deception. On June 22, Abbas Kadkhodaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Guidance Council (GC), the official body in charge of investigating all 646 complaints filed by the defeated candidates, held a press conference. He gave details about the complaints under investigation by the Council.

Kadkhodaei explained that the main complaint filed by Mousavi related to the elections was that the number of over-votes existed in as many as 170 cities, potentially affecting more votes than the margin between the top two candidates. Kadkhodaei then presented the GC’s preliminary findings, which showed that such over-votes existed (as they had existed in previous elections), but in no more than 50 cities across Iran, affecting no more than three million votes. In other words, there were no more than three million voters who had voted outside their districts. He emphasized that, with 11 million votes between the top two candidates, even if all three million votes were to be excluded (although there is no valid reason to do that), clearly the outcome of the elections would not be affected.

But within minutes the German News Agency followed by Reuters, reported that the GC “admitted” that there were an excess of three million votes in 50 cities, leaving the listener and reader with the impression that these were fraudulent votes, rather than valid votes for people voting outside their districts like the spokesman explained. This report was instantly placed on the front pages of every major Western news media websites. The deception continued and made the front page of every major Western paper the following day.

Opposition groups have relied on Internet communication technology such as text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and political blogs during their protests. In fact, Secretary Clinton took the unusual step in asking Twitter to change its maintenance schedule to accommodate Iran’s time zone and allow opposition groups the ability to utilize it. What is striking is that most of the postings were in English, not Persian, begging the question: who was the target audience of these tweets? Similarly, why were the protesters holding signs saying, “Where is my vote?” in English, rather than the language spoken by the voters of Iran?

But a study by the website, http://www.chartingstocks.net, concluded that during three days after the election, the overwhelming majority of Tweets (over 30,000), were manipulated through a handful of accounts; all created within one day of the elections on June 13. It is interesting to note that only 0.6 percent of Twitter accounts are used by Iranians (as compared to 44 percent by Americans).

In a recent interview with the BBC on June 19, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the foreign policy icon and ultimate insider, exposed Washington’s deep involvement in the Iranian affair.

Dr. Kissinger said, “If it turns out that it is not possible for a government to emerge in Iran that can deal with itself as a nation rather than as a cause, then we have a different situation.” Translation: if our preferred candidate did not emerge a winner after using all our soft power… He continued, “Then we may conclude that we must work for regime change in Iran from the outside,” Translation: then the U.S. (or perhaps Israel) may have to resort to hard power, meaning military strikes.

He then added, “But if I understand the president correctly, he does not want to do this as a visible intervention in the current crisis.” Translation: Whatever President Barack Obama is doing in Iran, he wants to make sure that Washington’s hand is invisible.

Quote:Mousavi admits Ahmadinejad won the election


What, you didn't read that? Well, that's because the headlines read the opposite: "Iranian Details Alleged Fraud." But if you remember, the last we heard from Mousavi, he was claiming he actually won the election (a claim he made even before the polls had closed), and that millions, perhaps more than ten million, votes had been stolen from him and/or fraudulently cast for his opponent. But the exact nature of the fraud was always a bit nebulous. Mostly we just heard that Mousavi "should have" won, we know it, look at the support he had (and has), etc.
And now, at long last, Mousavi has released his 24 pages of "evidence" that fraud was committed during the election. And what is that evidence? Testimony from people who stuffed ballot boxes? Proof that the announced count was at wild variance with the actual count? No, this:

In a 24-page document posted on his Web site, Mousavi's special committee studying election fraud accused influential Ahmadinejad supporters of handing out cash bonuses and food, increasing wages, printing millions of extra ballots and other acts in the run-up to the vote.

The committee, whose members were appointed by Mousavi, said the state did everything in its power to get Ahmadinejad reelected, including using military forces and government planes to support his campaign.

That's it. Not a word about actual election fraud. Did Ahmadinejad use the power of his office to help get himself reelected, like every other incumbent in the world? I have little doubt. He may even have broken some campaign laws, again like an awful lot of other politicians. But when your best charges against someone include "increasing wages," that's pretty solid evidence that what you've got is no evidence at all. Mousavi has shown his cards and he was bluffing all along, he doesn't even have a pair of deuces. Queen high at best.