1. Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program is alleged by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be a stealth nuclear weapons program. But there is no evidence at all for this allegation, and it was contradicted by Netanyahu’s own Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, who admitted that Iran has not decided to initiate a nuclear weapons program. […]
Netanyahu in 1992: Iran close to having nuclear bomb
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trapped in reflection theory. He was allegedly himself involved in illegally smuggling nuclear triggers out of the US, and he assumes that Iran desperately wants a nuclear weapon as well. But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa against nukes, and there is no solid intelligence pointing to an […]
Top Ten Likely Consequences of Muslim anti-US Embassy Riots
1. Tourism in Egypt and Tunisia, the economies of which heavily depend on it, is likely to take a nosedive this fall. It is a shame, because Tunisia had been hoping for a near return to 2010 levels of 7 million visitors this year. And Egypt’s tourism was up 16% over the previous year, though […]
The War on Terror Comes to Facebook (Harvey)
Stephanie Harvey writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Facebook, the social networking website with over 955 million profiles, has been used as a ‘honey trap’ by terrorists posing as attractive women to unsuspecting Australian military personnel. This is, at least according to the Australian government, the new danger that the war on terror has […]
Obama Plays Hardball and Egypt’s Morsi Folds
The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi happened because the Libyan government is still weak, rebuilding after its revolution against Muammar Qaddafi. But there was no doubt that the new government was a friend of the US ambassador who was killed, Chris Stevens, or that it would mobilize to deal with the cells of […]
Romney Jumps the Shark: Libya, Egypt and the Butterfly Effect
The late science fiction writer Ray Bradbury authored a short story about time travelers. They were careful, when they went back to the Jurassic, not to change anything, but one of them stepped on a butterfly. When they got back to the present, the world was slightly different. When scientists studying complexity put forward the […]
The West Will Have to Compromise on Syria (Schmidt)
Søren Schmidt writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: Syria is neither Egypt nor Libya – and the conflict can therefore not be solved as it was in Egypt and Libya respectively. The conflict in Syria worsens with each day that passes, and by now more than 20,000 people have been killed. At the […]
Omar Khayyam (186) “wine educates the soul”
If you give wine to a mountain, you will set it dancing; those who find fault […]
Romney Poses, as Militants Burn Benghazi Consulate, killing Ambassador, 3 staffers, & Demonstrate in Cairo, over Islamophobic Film
Predictably, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tried to make political hay of the tiny demonstrations in Cairo and Benghazi by Muslim militants. The Benghazi mob turned violent in clashes with police and the consulate ended up being burned and an embassy staffer is said to have been the US ambassador and three staffers were killed. […]