"Gen. Hossein Salami, the air force commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, said the exercise would "demonstrate our resolve and might against enemies who in recent weeks have threatened Iran with harsh language," the TV report said."

All the news outlets are a buzz this morning with the latest on Iran's "war games," a total of nine long range missiles were test fired. One with enough range to reach Israel. Many wonder what does this mean for the world and in particular where does the US stand. The EU is scheduled to meet with Iran in the coming weeks. They are not happy with this and other reported behaviors. Some are beginning to speculate that we are seeing the makings of World War III, the West against the Middle East. This coupled with Iraq's request for a troop withdrawal timetable. Trouble is brewing.

Osama bin Laden's sixteen year old son who can barely climb a rope or hold an AK47 has supposedly written a poem and released a video calling to "Accelerate the destruction of America, Britain, France and Denmark," and, "reward the fighters hitting the infidels and defectors." Video here, no embed yet, full story here.

The Times of India reported on Hamza in 2005 and indicates this is not the first video he is in.

He features on a 19-minute film, which has been posted on Islamic extremist websites, and was shot earlier this year in the south Waziristan tribal region on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Benazir Bhutto, in the video below, reveals she was informed that she was targeted for assassination by Hamza bin Laden. She was assassinated and al qaeda took credit.

Launched in June and printed on expensive paper, the new British monthly, Standpoint, is in the tradition of Encounter, the high-toned Anglo-American magazine of the last century that turned out to have been secretly bankrolled by the CIA. Like Encounter, Standpoint is a journal of conservative opinion, though whereas Encounter waged the war of ideas against Soviet communism, Standpoint is part of the intellectual “war on terror,” the struggle to save Western civilization from Islamism.

It follows that the magazine has not been slow to declare its support for Israel. Among the contributors to the second issue is the hard-line British neoconservative Zionist, Melanie Phillips. Written with the stridency which has long been her trademark, Phillips’ Standpoint article “Faking a Killing” (a synopsis of which has since been published by the Jewish Chronicle) maintains that the much-reproduced image of the September 2000 killing of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad Al-Durra, apparently by an Israeli marksman, at Gaza’s Netzarim Junction, told an outrageous lie.

Phillips describes how the footage of the boy screaming in terror before being killed became uniquely incendiary, portraying the Israelis as having gunned down a child in cold blood, even as he cowered for his life. Yet, she goes on, the murderous hatred and acts of Muslim violence inspired by the killing now transpire to have been based on a fabrication, one that amounted to a blood libel in the tradition of anti-Semitic defamation stretching back to the Middle Ages. The proof is that Charles Enderlin, the Jerusalem correspondent of France 2, the French TV station that first broadcast the film of the killing, has been judged by a Paris court to have perpetrated a fraud.

That Enderlin has been so judged came about because he and France 2 brought a libel action against the French media watchdog, Philippe Karsenty, for alleging that the “killing” was pure fiction and that Al-Durra was not dead at all. The original Paris court ruling in favor of the TV station was overturned this May, with the appeal court ruling that Karsenty had been vindicated in the light of evidence that the footage did not correspond to Enderlin’s commentary and that the testimony of his Palestinian cameraman could not be trusted.

According to Phillips, the Israeli physicist, Nahum Shahaf, who presided over the Israeli Army’s investigation of the incident, has demonstrated conclusively that Al-Durra’s lifeless body was brought to Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital before 1 p.m. — two hours before the incident at Netzarim took place. It is, she insists, no longer in doubt that the “whole thing was staged, an elaborate fabrication designed to blacken Israel’s name and incite the Arab and Muslim mobs to mass murder.”

For Phillips, the implications of this “scandal” are “enormous,” far transcending a disgraced French journalist and his TV station. In her mind it raises the century-old specter of the Dreyfus affair, the notorious episode of the French Army Capt. Alfred Dreyfus who, in a France rife with anti-Semitism, was convicted of espionage on the basis of trumped-up evidence. Phillips suggests that the Al-Durra libel is the new Dreyfus affair — with Israel now occupying the role of the victimized Jewish soldier. It is not just France, though, but much of the Western media which is impelling Phillips to cry j’accuse. She stresses that while Shahaf’s findings made their way into a handful of newspapers and television documentaries and onto the Internet, they were otherwise ignored by Western journalists. And this, she charges, represents merely the most egregious recent example of animosity toward Israel on the part of Western journalists driven by a mixture of anti-Semitism and professional self-preservation and all too ready to rely on Arab sources with Islamist agendas.

Such is Phillips’ Zionist zeal that she even indicts Israel itself for feebly acquiescing in the Al-Durra “fiction” in the belief that to challenge a story that had attained iconic global status would be counter-productive. She believes Israel’s political establishment handed the Palestinians and their sympathizers a major propaganda coup. It is almost as if she is attacking Israel for being a self-hating Jewish state.

If what happened at Nazarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000, is a large knot to untie, it is nevertheless right that anomalies or outright falsehoods in the received version of the story be exposed. But Phillips’ clear implication that many of the reports of the brutalization of Palestinians at the hands of Israel are fictions designed to manipulate Western public opinion and rekindle Western anti-Semitism is itself a flagrant piece of rabble-rousing.

Fulminating about the emergence of “Pallywood,” a “grotesque new genre of terrortainment” that deliberately presents “theatrical fictions” as authentic Israeli atrocities, Phillips presents herself as wholly innocent of propagandist intent. Yet the endless writings on the Palestine-Israel conflict of this professed champion of the truth betray not the least sense that she has ever taken the trouble to acquaint herself with the daily agony of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, she does not hesitate to assert the historic right of the Jews to lay claim to Palestine as the “only people” entitled to regard it as their “national home.”

Quick to accuse others of propagating one-sided, manipulative views, Phillips, in short, is blind to the fact that many are bound to see her in identical terms, as a Jewish commentator so soaked in Zionist righteousness that she has no sympathy to spare for Zionism’s victims, nor any concern to understand the Palestinian point of view. On the most charitable interpretation, her journalism is rooted in denial, a pathological refusal to acknowledge that Israel could conceivably be guilty of committing gross violations of human rights. A Muslim who wrote in the same spirit of sectarian fury would be regarded as a rabid extremist and denied access to the mainstream Western media.

From the embattled stance she is apt to adopt, anybody would think that Melanie Phillips, too, is starved of opportunities to state her case. Yet Standpoint is just one of many media outlets where her extreme views routinely find favor. And what could be more extreme — at a time when the collective punishment being endured by the men, women and children of Gaza is evoking worldwide horror — than to publish an article which not only diverts attention from Israel’s thuggish behavior but insinuates that more often than not stories of barbarous Israeli treatment of Palestinians are cynical Palestinian PR exercises?

Whether Standpoint is going to provide a platform for perspectives on the Middle East conflict other than those of Melanie Phillips remains to be seen, but it seems a fair indication of its basic sympathies that the magazine is endorsing the outlook of a monomaniacal Zionist partisan. Indeed, for all its espousal, in an opening editorial, of the “noblest ideals to which humanity has aspired,” Standpoint appears to be a true heir to Encounter, a journal less committed to truth than ideology.

International business is all business transactions-private and governmental-that involve two or more countries. Why should one be interested in studying international business? The simplest answer is that international business comprises a large and growing portion of the world's total business. Today, almost all companies, large or small, are affected by global events and competition because most sell output to and/or secure suppliers from foreign countries and/or compete against products and services that come from abroad.

More companies that engage in some form of international business are involved in exporting and importing than in any other type of business transaction. Many of the international business experts argue that exporting is a logical process with a natural structure, which can be viewed primarily as a method of understanding the target country's environment, using the appropriate marketing mix, developing a marketing plan based upon the use of the mix, implementing a plan through a strategy and finally, using a control method to ensure the strategy is adhered to. This exporting process is reviewed and evaluated regularly and modifications are made to the use of the mix, to take account of market changes impacting upon competitiveness. This view seems to suggest that much of the international business theory related to enterprises, which are internationally based and have global ambitions, does often change depending on the special requirements of each country.

Another core issue is the company's growth and the importance of networking and interaction. This view looks at the way in which companies and organisations interact and consequently network with each other to gain commercial advantage in world markets. The network can be using similar subcontractors or components, sharing research and development costs or operating within the same governmental framework. Clearly, when businesses formulate a trading block with no internal barriers they are actually creating their own networks. Collaborations in aerospace, vehicle manufactures and engineering have all sponsored the development of a country's or a group of countries' outlook based on their own internal market network. This network and interaction approach to internationalisation shows the substance of being able to influence decisions when knowing how the global network players work or interact.

For example, a crucial market network is that of the Middle East. Middle East countries are rich, diverse markets, with a vibrant and varied cultural heritage. This means that although there has been a harmonisation process during the past few years, differences still exist. Rather than business being simpler as a result, it should be recognised that because of regulations and the need those countries have to restructure as they enter the global market, performing any kind of business can be highly complex. It should be remembered though that the Middle-Eastern countries have a low-income average and like to have their cultural differences recognised. Those firms that will or have recognised these facts have a good chance of developing a successful marketing strategy to meet their needs. Fortunately some firms have realised these important differences and reacted adequately when strategic decisions had to be made regarding their penetration to this kind of markets.

Twenty-two years after Mordechai Vanunu told the truth about Israel's nuclear weapons, ordinary people must rally to free him

In 1986, a young Israeli man called Mordechai Vanunu followed his conscience and told the world that Israel had a nuclear weapons programme. He was convicted of espionage and treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. After serving this (12 years of which were in solitary confinement), Vanunu was released. In April 2004, about 80 people from around the world went to welcome him out of prison. Unbelievably, upon his release Vanunu was made subject to severe restrictions, which forbade him many basic civil liberties (including his right to leave Israel, to speak to foreigners and foreign media) and restricted his travel within Israel.

Each year, around April 21, Vanunu receives a letter from the prime minister renewing these restrictions, and he starts, yet again, the process of appealing against them through the Israeli courts. Most recently, he has been charged with breaking the restrictions by talking to foreign media and sentenced to six months in prison; when he appealed, this was commuted to community service. On July 8, he will appear before an Israeli court regarding this service and his case.

Four years since leaving Ashkelon prison, and 22 years since he told the truth about Israeli nuclear weapons, Mordechai Vanunu lives in modest accommodation in East Jerusalem, unable to earn a living, unaware of what to do to gain his freedom, unable to leave Israel, left wondering if the Israeli security services will ever agree to let him leave the country. They say he is a threat to national security, but everyone knows that it is 22 years since Vanunu worked in the Dimona nuclear plant, and the nuclear industry has moved on. A well-known Israeli nuclear scientist has testified that Vanunu can know nothing about the contemporary industry after such a long period, yet Israeli security insists he is a risk to national security, and the Israeli courts and government refuse to let him go, thereby compounding an injustice, and breaking international laws.

Governments around the world have let Mordechai Vanunu down. They remain silent when they should be demanding that the Israeli government uphold its obligations under the universal declaration of human rights - according to article 13, everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return.

So will Vanunu remain in Israel until he dies, or can anything be done to secure his freedom? I believe his freedom now rests in the hands of the Israeli people themselves. Some years ago I asked a young Israeli friend why she though Israel was holding him. She replied, "because our government does not trust its own people" and she added "if the Israeli people demanded his release, it might be possible he would be free to leave Israel and get on with his life."

I don't know if she is right or wrong: I don't know the Israeli mind or politics well enough to guess. But what I do know is that in the Jewish faith and tradition, there is a great deal of emphasis put on justice and doing what is right. I can now only hope and pray that some Israeli voices will be raised to call for justice for Mordechai Vanunu, who has paid the high price of 22 years of his life for following his conscience. Whether you hate or love Mordechai Vanunu, you have got to admit that he has suffered enough: it's time to let him go.

Mairead Corrigan-Maguire founded the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed the Community of Peace People) and won the 1976 Nobel peace prize.

Anyway, this place is not bad. I was hungry after shopping at Smith and Caughey's in town and found "The Middle East Cafe". It's located very near S+C on Wellesley Street in Auckland. Initially, it seems like a very small place, but in fact, it extends to the back. Also, from the window, we saw some of the dishes and it looks fantastic, so we tried it. Here are some dishes we experimented - the special and falafel.

Special.

Falafel.

The special is a full meal that has a mixture of falafel patties and lamb from the spit. The falafel has various fillings in it. Detailed description of their other meals is in their website. The lamb was well-cooked and the charcoal flavour is fantastic. The variety of flavours in the special meal and falafel is wonderful. Although the serving is small, it's actually "enough". So, good for someone who wants a unique meal at a reasonable price.

The falafel is $7.90, and the special is $18.50. Price-wise, that's good for the unique flavour and reasonable serving size. Only problem, you've gotta be in town, because as you know, parking in Auckland CBD isn't easy.

Overall, I'll rate this place 8/10. It's GOOD!

"Pakistan is in a leaderless drift four months after elections", concluded Carlotta Gall in the New York Times on June 24. Just two days later, comes news that "Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban" has killed 22 members of an intermediary peace committee between the State of Pakistan and Mehsud. I guess there are some leaders in Pakistan, after all. Pakistan's "Talibanisation" in the northwestern rural regions and the stalled lawyer's movement in the major cities appear, at first glance, to reflect a deep chasm within Pakistani society. This division, if one should call it anything, is routinely understood as a manifestation of moderate v extreme Islam. But that raises the question of why it manifests itself along rural/urban, and class lines.

Extremist ideology, as we have learned in the last 8 years, is just as prone to attract highly-educated members of the professional class as unemployed, frustrated youth. We have to delve deeper into Pakistan's recent past if we are to understand the crisis it faces at the present. Sub-continental history is dotted with intermittent mass movement of people – usually triggered by famine, war or worse – replete with attendant tales of distress and misery. In my reckoning, the early 1970s saw the another key migration that has so far received little analysis. It involved vast numbers of men from the rural and semi-urban parts of Pakistan moving to the emerging oil-based oligarchies in the Gulf.

This economic migration created a backflow of liquid capital to these same villages and towns in Punjab, Sindh and the Northwest Frontier Province. But it also provided a unique vehicle for the transferring of the various strains of Muslim experience into the rather stilted one, currently on everyone's lips – Wahhabism. Between 1975 and 1985, the number of Pakistanis in the Gulf states rose from 205,000 to 446,000, with over $2.5bn flowing back annually. At its height in the mid-1980s, nearly 10% of Pakistan's adult male workforce was employed in the Gulf states.

These migrant workers – over 80% were unskilled or semi-skilled – usually lasted about 4-6 years in the Gulf states and were replaced by other family, clan, tribe or village members. What they sent home – goods and cash – were the dominant factor in bolstering the Pakistani economy throughout the 1970s and 1980s and one of the key factors in Pakistan's turn towards western Asia under Bhutto and Zia ul-Haq. The migration cooled down during the 1990s but since 2000 there has been an increase the flow of workers. Currently, Pakistani workers are heavily employed in Dubai, Kuwait and Iraq. This large-scale migration to the Middle East had significant effects on local economies and production cycles but perhaps more importantly, it has had a sociocultural impact on Pakistan.

Just as significant was the religiosity that came back with the workers. Historically speaking, the Wahhabi reading of Islam had found little purchase on the subcontinent. Mainly because Wahhabi ideology is at odds with practices in Pakistani culture, which cherished its sufi saints. However, this migration allowed a vast population to unlearn their "decadent" and "deviant" practices from the "pure practitioners" in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the Emirates.

In the southern valleys and northern mountains dupattas were replaced with burkas and sufi shrines with madrasas. This cultural turn dovetailed with Zia ul-Haq's policies of Sunnification and the selling of jihad as a necessary commodity to the Pakistani people.

Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir became the de-facto topics at every Friday sermon from Doha and Riyadh to Dera Ghazi Khan and Rawalpindi. However, this Wahhabisation, which included a stricter, more literal interpretation of Qur'an, the demonisation of non-believers, antisemitic rhetoric, racism, the desire to "fund" jihads and so on, was never a straightforward process of important. Its progress was gradual and organic in a way that slowly de-legitimised established practices while distorting others: the spiritual guide was transformed into one who cast, or fought, black magic.

It is hard to find a household, a conversation, in current day Pakistan that is free of such concerns. The practitioners combine the zeal of the Wahhabi imam with the bank-teller's command of charges due: $10 for the destruction of a marriage, $20 for an incantation for a ruined libido. All wrapped in literal reading of Qur'anic text.

One cannot go further in examining this process of Wahhabisation without taking into account the impact of this migration of fathers on their families back home. What are the attitudes of this particular generation X towards the state? Can we really begin to look at the success or failure of the lawyer's movement without examining the Gulf Migration? Can we really talk about democracy without taking into account the roles of millions of Pakistanis as second or third rate citizens, with no rights in law as a person, in Gulf states? While many of us attempt to understand modern Pakistan in terms of political theory, or the appeal of fundamentalism in terms of theology neither of these approaches have proven fruitful. It is time that we broadened our scope of inquiry – to examine carefully labour and migration, civil and social structures, law and order, human rights and the effect they have on the many peoples of Pakistan.(Source)

The top 10 bestselling books on AbeBooks.com during June

1. Big Russ and Meby Tim Russert
2. Wisdom of Our Fathers by Tim Russert
3. Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel Amen
4. Dreams of My Fatherby Barack Obama
5. The Pillars of the Earthby Ken Follett
6. The Red Car by Don Stanford
7. A New Earthby Eckhart Tolle
8. Three Cups of Teaby Greg Mortenson
9. The Wordsworth Dictionary of Culinary and Menu Terms by Rodney Dale
10. Night by Elie Wiesel

So I'm looking at this top 10 list.  The first two do not surprise me.  Tim Russert's death was a shock.  Anyone who has watched MSNBC primary returns this year knows how excited and vibrant he was.  He was in his element, and the look in his eyes made us think he'd be around for a long time to come.  I loved watching Tim Russert on both MSNBC and Meet the Press.  He was lively, at times fierce, and never passed up the hard questions.  I, for one, will miss him very much.  Sunday mornings aren't the same without him.

What this list tells me is that I'm not alone in my appreciation for Russert.  Though I do not have them now, and can't get them because of the Ye Olde TBR(e) challenge, I do want to read them someday.   Number 4 on the list doesn't surprise me, either.  As we are going into a fall election with new candidates (not an incumbent), as responsible citizens (USA), we should take the time to learn about our candidates.  Obama's Dreams of My Father is an opportunity for us to get to know the man first hand, not just from the FWD: fwd: fwd emails saying he said this or that.  A chance to read the quotes in context.

The thing that did surprise me is that there are three Oprah books on the list, tying with the US politically related books.  And if you figure Oprah's campaigning for Obama, Dreams of My Father might have to straddle the line.  Three Cups of Tea is also a political book of sorts, but in a humanitarian, geopolitical way, so we'll throw it on the left side of the ledger. 

That leaves self-help, cooking and a children's book in the balance.  I'm going to say the brain book will side with Oprah... something tells me it's in the Oprah-anity vein.  And the cooking book would probably be an O book, too... she likes to eat.  So that leaves The Red Car all alone.  Where is he going to park?

4 books for politics (or 3 1/2 if you think about it) and 3 definitely, 2 1/2 most likely, in the Oprah camp, with a scarlet auto abstaining.  I guess that means Oprah wins.

From The Sunday Times OF LONDON, ENGLAND

Major-General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: "I think we're at the irreversible point."

George emailed me this story.  I read it on the way from Tokyo to Bangkok in the Asian Wallstreet Journal.  As does George, I wonder why this story is not widely printed in the states.  Lord God Obama must have the American MSM firmly in his grasp.  It would be counter to their aims of fooling the electorate into thinking that all is lost and that, therefore, they should all vote for Lord God Obama.

I personally condemn all acts of violence against innocent civilians, however, to not comprehend why this incident took place is MAD. What I am saying is, Israelis should not act so surprised that such an oppressive weapon used so long by the Israelis to terrify Palestinians was used against them.

Please see Israel's history of love affairs with bulldozers.

NOTE: While staying in a refugee camp in 2002, Israelis would purposely start driving a bulldozer on the main street at 3:30am in order to wake the sleeping people. Bulldozers have one of the most torturous noises known to man, to listen to this in the middle of your sleep is TORTURE.

The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Master of the Bbvious (and with 20/100 hindsight) Chris Hitchens has officially weighed in on the waterboarding/torture thing.

This paragraph points out the fundamental problem..you can get anyone to confess to anything with the right pressure.

The other bad points get covered here.  This is from an expert in the technique, or at least training men to resist it.

1. Waterboarding is a deliberate torture technique and has been prosecuted as such by our judicial arm when perpetrated by others.

2. If we allow it and justify it, we cannot complain if it is employed in the future by other regimes on captive U.S. citizens. It is a method of putting American prisoners in harm’s way.

3. It may be a means of extracting information, but it is also a means of extracting junk information. (Mr. Nance told me that he had heard of someone’s being compelled to confess that he was a hermaphrodite. I later had an awful twinge while wondering if I myself could have been “dunked” this far.) To put it briefly, even the C.I.A. sources for the Washington Post story on waterboarding conceded that the information they got out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “not all of it reliable.” Just put a pencil line under that last phrase, or commit it to memory.

4. It opens a door that cannot be closed. Once you have posed the notorious “ticking bomb” question, and once you assume that you are in the right, what will you not do? Waterboarding not getting results fast enough? The terrorist’s clock still ticking? Well, then, bring on the thumbscrews and the pincers and the electrodes and the rack.

And that's it.

Waterboarding is torture.  Torture is wrong. Bush and Cheney should be impeached.  Why is this so difficult to make happen?

• The aggressive business expansion plans by Islamic banks and a flurry of new players in the market do not coincide with the scarcity of the Islamic bankers readily available to feed the talent needs.
• A short term measure to employ conventional bankers with retraining modules being planned for them seemed to have be undertaken.

By Robin Wigglesworth

Published: July 8 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 8 2008 03:00

When Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, attended the opening of the main branch of Al Hilal Bank, the latest in a line of new Islamic banks being set up in the region, he also opened a bank account.

The bank declined to disclose how large the inaugural deposit was, and whether the crown prince's bank account number was the same as his mobile phone - one of the services on offer at Al Hilal. But the government contributed Dh4bn ($1.1bn) in start-up capital, so the crown prince presumably had first choice of the numbers on offer.

Al Hilal Bank follows on the heels of another government-backed start-up, Dubai's Noor Islamic Bank, where various government agencies and Dubai dignitaries contributed Dh3bn in initial capital. Both institutions have stressed that this is but the start and have talked of regional and even global ambitions.

"This could get very exciting," says Sameer Abdi, head of Ernst & Young's Islamic finance division. "Size matters. The smaller Islamic banks are doing well, but in niche markets and with niche products, not as universal banks."

Yet the speed and scale of the start-ups is creating risks. The new entrants and the expansion plans of existing large Islamic banks, such as Dubai Islamic Bank, Kuwait Finance House and Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia, are straining the dwindling stock of bankers familiar with Islamic finance. "The new institutions are struggling, as are the older ones, which are losing talent to the newcomers," says Mr Abdi.

Al Hilal Bank found it "very, very difficult to recruit" the staff it needed, admits Eissa Mohamed Al Suwaidi, the bank's chairman. "There was some 'bartering' involved."

Al Hilal and other banks have thus been forced to recruit staff from conventional banks, both regional and international, and to retrain them in the principles of sharia -compliant finance.

The global potential of the Islamic banking market is "conservatively" estimated at $4,000bn, according to Moody's Investor Service, while the current market is estimated at only $700bn, most of it in the Gulf. With such potential it becomes clearer why governments, eager to please their Muslim populace, are encouraging more banks to start up and expand outside domestic markets.

But the Islamic banking industry brings with it a new set of risks for managers to manage. The institutions are hamstrung by the lack of a viable Islamic interbank market. While deposits may be redeemed immediately, Islamic bank assets are usually backed by real estate, and are therefore illiquid. This forces Islamic banks to hold more cash or liquid assets than conventional peers to pare illiquidity risks.

Al Hilal and Noor Islamic Bank are in a good position to attract staff and ease liquidity requirements thanks to the financial muscle of their backers, the Abu Dhabi and Dubai governments.

Due to this, they are likely to embark on an aggressive acquisition spree to expand in the region and elsewhere, says Mr Abdi. "Where there is a will there is a way, so they [the governments] might have to find their cheque books. A $20bn-$30bn bank in the next two or three years might be possible."

Noor Islamic Bank and Al Hilal are not the only contenders. In Saudi Arabia, Alinma Bank has launched with SAR15bn ($4bn) in capital raised in an initial public offering. And in Bahrain, Saleh Kamel, who controls the Dallah Albaraka Banking Group, plans to found an $11bn bank called Ummar Bank next year.

Banks with such hefty balance sheets may not only gain more retail customers through extensive branch networks, which are often capped in the Gulf for international banks such as Standard Chartered and HSBC, but also capture a larger slice of the vast infrastructure finance projects planned in the region.

"There's an indirect but powerful link between the Islamic financial industry and the performance of the oil market," says Anouar Hassoune, a banking analyst at Moody's. "As long as oil remains expensive, which is our base-case scenario, Islamic banking will keep on growing successfully."

Source: The Financial Times

J Street's position is clear: We oppose pre-emptive military action by either the United States or Israel, and we support stronger US diplomacy - using carrots as well as sticks - to address Iran's nuclear ambitions.

To us, it's common sense that saber-rattling and constant threats are counter-productive. What better way to unite Iran behind its most hawkish leaders than threatening to attack? What better way to empower the Iranian hardliners' case for nuclear weapons development than to talk of a military attack?

We've got to speak up now. We've drafted an Open Letter to Members of Congress and Congressional candidates urging them to say 'no' to war with Iran and 'yes' to tough, smart diplomacy.

Click here to sign this important Open Letter now.

JStreetPAC will present this letter to every Member of Congress and Congressional candidate with whom we meet during this election cycle.

Too many political candidates seem to think that tough talk and belligerent resolutions will shore up their image on national security. Concerned about appearing "weak", they hesitate to stress negotiation and engagement as fundamental tools of foreign policy in addressing threats and resolving conflicts.

Was it weakness on the Bush administration's part to negotiate an end to Libya's weapons programs and support for terrorism? Didn't "tough" diplomacy lead North Korea to start backing slowly away from its nuclear program and support for terrorism?

Sign our Open Letter on Iran by clicking here.

Let's be clear: We do not want Iran to get nuclear weapons. We want to protect Israel from threats. We condemn the unacceptable and unjustifiable rhetoric against Israel and the Jewish people. We want to defend American interests in the Middle East and around the world.

But the current course of American foreign policy has not only failed to achieve these goals; it has undermined them.

A military strike will not eliminate the actual threat. Even proponents acknowledge that, at best, it might set Iran's suspected nuclear program back by a few years. But military action would likely strengthen Iranian determination to succeed in developing a nuclear weapon.

It was precisely this kind of backward thinking that brought us the debacle in Iraq. A war sold at least in part as a strategy for fighting terror instead brought increased terror and instability at a terrible cost in human lives, America's international standing and hundreds of billions of our tax dollars.

War with Iran would likely trigger wider warfare, further regional instability, and potentially a worldwide economic upheaval. In the end, the attack itself would strengthen the argument of those in Iran who say they need such weapons because they live under the threat of attack.

But American politicians will only feel comfortable offering a different approach if they know that large numbers of Americans support a new direction.

Let's give them the courage to lead in the right direction by showing the courage to speak out ourselves.

Sign our Open Letter today.

Thank you. Your signature really could make a tremendous difference.

- Isaac

Isaac Luria
Online Director
J Street

July 8, 2008

[1] John Bolton on FoxNews, June 23, 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ditVZ-q47Fw

[2] "The October Surprise," by Gary Hart. The Huffington Post, September 23, 2006.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-october-surprise_b_30086.html

[3] "Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran," by Seymour M. Hersh. The New Yorker, July 7, 2008.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

----------

ABOUT J STREET
J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement. J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region. Learn more at JStreet.org.

When can we say, 'The game is up'? The cabal is finished.


The Neocons resemble our worst icons in history (thats a way of not naming names), that they can only bring disaster to each and everyone of us is certain.


Maybe the old folk who witnessed the 2nd WW (or its aftermath) know the importance of patriotism. There is nothing patriotic about hating natives of another land, nor is anything patriotic about torture. Or indeed in waging war on perceived enemies.


And while those actively involved might receive good rewards, it is increasingly at the expense of their brethren.


The sordid secrets ooze out one by one. What the hell are we waiting for? A Tsunami? There are also sordid secrets known by millions through word of mouth that have never been in the media.


The lieutenants and sergeants will remain loyal. We need the Colonels and Generals to do something, and do it fast!


The only way the Neocon direction can work is to assume the Russians, Chinese, Iranians etc, are stupid. Judge them by the direction of their economies.


There can be no apologies, there can only be resignations, and now.
These people are unfit for anything outside of humiliation and torture, and I'll say it now, there's a whole history of it in these individuals. And if you don't like that tell it to the missiles that the Neocons are asking to rain down on you. There is no compromise, there is no staying in Afghanistan or Iraq.


They think False Flags will get us out of this, they think escalation is a way out. The time to act is now, and all this verbosity applies equally to the Israelis and what they are doing in Israel/Palestine. Punishing the Gazans and kidnappping from the West Bank will get you Nowhere.


This post is for the upper cadres, coz your lieutenants and sergeants don't know and will do whatever they are told, and in the cold comfort of their wages and comradery they know they are on the side of 'right'.
As they waste their lifes and others by harassing, hurting and harming.


If the west cannot put its own house in order, then you also lose your belief system, your religions and your way of life, waiting till January is not an option.

"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq."

Hmmm.

Best case: three years until Iraq assumes control over all 18 provinces (they currently control 9), and another three years to make sure the peace holds. That means, 2014, at the earliest. And, the best case, as anyone who has paid the least attention to Iraq knows, is unlikely to come to pass.

So what is the story here? That the Iraqi government wants America out eventually? That someone on the Iraqi side used the previously verboten word "timetable?" How about that al-Rubaie spoke to reporters

"after briefing Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf on the progress of the government's security efforts and the talks."

The big question is who is pulling the strings on this deal with the U.S. and why, after all the blood and billions, are we having such a hard time getting our way? Aren't we supposed to be winning in Iraq?

For three days in the capital in early June, suspense built over the question of how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference would greet Barack Obama. There was a lot of grousing about Obama in the hallways of the Washington Convention Center, and AIPAC officials repeatedly warned the faithful to be respectful. “We are not a debate society or a protest movement. … our goal is to have a friend in the White House,” executive director Howard Kohr said in a strict tone. It wasn’t hard to imagine things going poorly: Obama gets booed on national television. He feels insulted. Conservative Jewish donors and voters turn off to Obama. He becomes president without their support. AIPAC has no friend in the Oval Office.

But of course, Obama complied. His speech became the annual example the conference provides of a powerful man truckling. Two years ago, it was Vice President Cheney’s red-meat speech attacking the Palestinians. Last year, it was Pastor John Hagee’s scary speech saying that giving the Arabs any part of Jerusalem was the same as giving it to the Taliban. Obama took a similar line. He suggested that he would use force to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, made no mention of Palestinian human rights, and said that Jerusalem “must remain undivided,” a statement so disastrous to the peace process that his staff rescinded it the next day. Big deal. The actual meeting had gone swimmingly.

This was my first AIPAC conference, and the first surprise was how blatant the business of wielding influence is. The conference makes no bones about this function, the most savage expression of which is the Tuesday dinner at which AIPAC performs its “roll call,” where the names of all the politicians who have come to the conference are read off from the stage by three barkers in near auctioneer fashion. The pols try to outdo one another in I-love-Israel encomia. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surely won the day when she teared up while dangling the dogtags of three Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah and Hamas two years ago.

The second big surprise was that apart from coverage of the headline speakers, the AIPAC conference is a media no man’s land. It would be hard to imagine a more naked exhibition of political power: a convention of 7,000 mostly rich people, with more than half the Congress in attendance, as well as all the major presidential candidates, the prime minister of Israel, the minority leader, the majority leader, and the speaker of the House. Yet there is precious little journalism about the spectacle in full. The reason seems obvious: the press would have to write openly about a forbidden subject, Jewish influence. They would have to take on an unpleasant informative task that they have instead left to two international relations scholars in their 50s—Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of last year’s book The Israel Lobby.

The press is missing a phantasmagorical event. Imagine a basement meeting in the Warsaw Ghetto transplanted to the biggest hall in Vegas, and you have something of the feeling of the thing. The staging is faultless. Little documentaries called “Zionist Stories” play on the Jumbotron, complete with footage of Auschwitz, and then the subject of the documentary comes out on stage to thundering applause. There is breakout session after breakout session on Middle East policy and Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, with star turns by Natan Sharansky, Bill Kristol, and Leon Wieseltier. The press was excluded from “Advanced Lobbying Techniques,” but still this is a feast of the political condition. And posh. The roll call is described by AIPAC as the largest seated dinner in Washington. The wine flows. I went about in a daze of awe and admiration.

My awe was for men like Haim Saban, a toymaker and giant donor to the Democratic Party. After his Zionist story, Saban came out on stage wearing a platinum tie and white shirt and silver gray suit. He has wonderful presence and something of an Arab look—black-haired, wide forehead. He was surrounded by 200 college students, veterans of the Saban Leadership Seminars he sponsors at AIPAC.

On Middle East policy, Saban is barely distinguishable from his Republican counterparts, who are there in equal force. The main hall of the conference was filled with lavishly-produced banners featuring AIPAC donors, not a few with trophy wives, alongside statements of their mission. There was Donald Diamond, an Arizona real estate developer whom the New York Times recently profiled on the front page after he raised $250,000 for John McCain. The Times said nothing in its piece about Diamond’s Israel work. But that was all the banner was about. “The U.S.-Israel relationship is the single most important determinant of democracy in the world, and we must commit to securing it,” Diamond wrote. “It is so obvious to us that the Jewish community is a family and that we have to take care of each other.”

I was writing that down when an AIPAC spokesman stopped to check my credentials. The audience for this stuff isn’t the public, it’s people in the hall—other rich Jews who might put AIPAC in their wills.

At most conventions, people gather out of self-interest. Therein lies my admiration: the AIPAC’ers didn’t come for selfish reasons. They are devoutly concerned with the lives of people they don’t know, very far away. Yes, people with whom they feel tribal kinship. When Israelis came out on the dais to speak, they were almost invariably overwhelmed by the generosity, if not the Vegas schmaltz. “There is a tremendous amount of love in this place,” Meir Nissensohn, an Israeli executive of IBM, said in wonder. “If it was a beaker, it would explode.” Even a sharp critic like myself of what AIPAC is doing to American policy in the Middle East was frequently moved by the pure loving feeling that surrounds you at every moment.

Among the devout there is only one real issue: What is the latest AIPAC line? This is the organization’s function. After consulting closely with the Israeli political leadership (leaning toward the right wing), AIPAC regurgitates a simple version of Israeli policy to its followers, who in turn regurgitate that line to American politicians. AIPAC’ers do this with the conviction that Israel’s life is on the line. “It is we that are the guardians of that relationship,” AIPAC president David Victor said. James Tisch, the Lowes executive and leader in the Jewish community, warned the audience that it might be 1939 all over again were it not for them.

AIPAC makes sure the Israeli line is America’s line by cultivating politicians before they reach the national scene. Victor described this process when he warned the audience that 10 percent of Congress will be new next year because so many seats are open: “Do we know them? Do they know us? Have they been to Israel? Do they understand the issues we care so deeply about?” Finding Israel activists in the suburbs of Detroit is easy, Victor said. “But how about finding the one right person to reach out to candidates for communities like Muscle Shoals, Alabama, or Tacoma, Washington, or Council Bluffs, Iowa? Ladies and gentlemen, the success or failure of the pro-Israel community rests on three words, our personal relationships.” And people accused Walt and Mearsheimer of fostering a conspiracy theory.

AIPAC flashes its relationships the way kids trade baseball cards. Bill Kristol said that Hart Hasten, a Holocaust survivor and successful Indianapolis businessman, had been crucial to shaping Dan Quayle’s view of Israel, having “spent a lot of time” with Quayle when he was still a congressman. (Quayle’s office later told me, “The statement Bill Kristol made was not exactly accurate. Mr. Quayle said his broad knowledge of Israel came from many people and sources, not specifically from Mr. Hasten.”) Dan Senor, an analyst on CNN and former AIPAC intern, boasted that AIPAC won over Spencer Abraham when he was the head of the state Republican Party, years before he became a Michigan senator. The party was $500,000 in debt, and an AIPAC leader helped him pay that off. And of course, the famous story was told of George W. Bush going up in Ariel Sharon’s helicopter in 1998, two years before he ran for president, and saying of Israel’s ten-mile waist, “We have driveways in Texas longer than that.”

The anxiety about Obama is that he is so new to the scene that few people have had a chance to get to him. The relationship guy is Lee Rosenberg of Chicago, who introduced Obama. “I can personally attest that Senator Obama is a genuine friend of Israel,” he said. In 2006, Obama “fulfilled a pledge he made to the Chicago Jewish community” and visited Israel. And the topper: Obama “has gotten to know” Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister who is against ever dividing Jerusalem. Rosenberg looked pale, drained—as queasily forceful as a mob boss vouching for an unknown family’s bona fides.

The good news I can report is the new AIPAC line. In some ways the organization is belligerent: speakers emphasized the need to attack Iran before it gets nukes and to invade Gaza to take on Hamas. But peace is in the air, too, now that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government is working overtime to cut a deal with the Palestinians on the West Bank and with the Syrians for the return of the Golan Heights. AIPAC reflected this policy. I heard a few conference-goers saying at microphones that the Bible gives Israel a right to the West Bank. But they received only a smattering of applause, and in one instance the moderator said the questioner was using inappropriate language.

The soul of the conference for me was Tal Becker, the highly personable Israeli negotiator. “I see [Palestinian negotiator] Saeb Erekat a lot more than I see my wife and kids,” he said, promising that if he and Palestinian moderates fail to reach an agreement, their goal is “to keep talking and keep talking and keep talking.”

Yet before you get out your handkerchief, reflect that AIPAC has for more than 30 years promoted the colonization process. In 1975, when President Ford wanted to reassess Mideast policy over Israeli intransigence, he was cut off at the knees by an AIPAC letter signed by 76 senators. Then in 1989, when James Baker went before AIPAC and told them to give up their idea of a Greater Israel including the West Bank, George H.W. Bush received a letter of anger signed by 94 senators. In both instances, AIPAC was hewing to the Israeli government line and nullifying American policymaking.

No, AIPAC’s change of heart cannot be ascribed to the good thinking of American Jews. They’re not thinking at all. They have passed on their full powers of judgment to the Israeli government. In that sense, the Zionists in that hall might best be compared to Communists of the ’30s and ’40s, who also abandoned their judgment to a far off authority even as they argued this and that subclause codicil in intense councils. On my train ride back to New York, a little rich kid of about 14, traveling with his uncle in the seat behind me, called his parents to complain that Obama’s views on Israel seemed “tailored” and “he’s never really stood up for Israel.” Indoctrination, pure and simple.

The great sadness here is that American Jewry is the most educated, most affluent segment of the public. Yet on this issue there is little independent thinking. The obvious question is whether they don’t have dual loyalty. As a Jew, I feel uncomfortable using the phrase, given its long history, but the facts are inarguable. Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic speaks of everything “we” should do to make peace with the Palestinians, then corrects himself to say what Israel should do. Speaker after speaker says that Israel is in our hearts. People who emigrate to Israel are applauded, and when the national anthems are played, one cantor sings the “Star Spangled Banner,” but the “Hatikvah” has two cantors belting it out, with the audience roaring along. Maybe most revealing, I heard a right-wing Israeli politician sharply criticizing Olmert’s policy in the West Bank. Think of the scandal it would cause if American politicians went abroad and criticized the president’s foreign policy. It’s no scandal here because AIPAC is a virtual extension of Israel.

Of course, AIPAC and its roll call of politicians would say that American and Israeli interests are identical. I wonder how those politicians really feel. Their I-love-the-miracle-of-Israel rhetoric is so endless that it creates an undercurrent of doth protest too much—an impression that if there weren’t so much money at stake, they would run from Israel with winged heels.

AIPAC takes care to remind the pols of deeper reasons to help the Jews. The Holocaust imagery never stops. And there is a related theme: that Jews are the golden goose of Western society. The very last of the “Zionist Stories” AIPAC showed before Obama and Clinton spoke was of a scientist, IBM’s Nissensohn. The piece emphasized Israel’s contribution to high-tech industry from software to desalination, hinting at a traditional Jewish idea: for a society to flourish, it must treat Jews well. Haim Saban’s story made the same point. Look what Egypt lost when it forced the Saban family to flee.

The theme of the conference was “The U.S.-Israel Relationship: Built to Last.” But that seems another case of protesting too much. AIPAC is beset on many sides.

It surely noticed how much attention Palestinians got this spring for commemorations of the Nakba, their dispossession in 1948 and onwards. AIPAC fought back with its own dispossession narrative. About 700,000 Jews, including Haim Saban, were forced out of Arab societies following the formation of Israel. One of them was novelist Eli Amir, who grew up in privileged Baghdad and was forced into a refugee camp in 1950. Amir appeared live by satellite and berated AIPAC for not highlighting his story before this year.

Another problem for AIPAC is the growing alienation of younger Jews from Israel’s hardline policies, especially as those Jews do well here and assimilate. “I worry a lot more about the American Jewish community than I do about Israel—about which I have grave doubts,” Wieseltier said.

AIPAC is happy to work with non-Jewish Americans. At one dinner, I sat at the same table with Mark and Carrie Burns, Christian evangelical radio hosts from Illinois. Carrie said that many Christians she knows will vote on Jerusalem being in the hands of the Jews as a litmus issue. Thus AIPAC may hope to replace dwindling elite influence with populist numbers. I wouldn’t hold my breath. Carrie said that at a synagogue she addressed, the first question came from a high-school girl who said, “But isn’t Israel an apartheid state?”

The Jews are quietly leaving the room. Saban described his horror at visiting his son’s college, Wesleyan, and seeing a table on peace in the Middle East at which Israel was demonized. Some of the kids at that table were surely Jews.

Especially now that an alternative lobby, J Street, has formed on its left, AIPAC seems to be making gestures in a more peaceable direction. One was the testimony from Sderot, the Israeli city bordering Gaza that American politicians must learn to pronounce or face political doom. (I think it’s Stay-ROTE.) It was inevitable that someone from the region would take the stage, and it’s impossible to imagine a more appealing spokesperson than Chen Abrahams, a pretty, soft-spoken kibbutz-dweller of about 40. The audience was utterly quiet as she described the terrible price her community has paid for the siege of Gaza. Nothing like the price the Palestinians have paid, I’d note. Still, if this was schmaltz, it was real schmaltz. At the end of her taped appearance, Abrahams said, “My biggest hope is for peace. I believe in talking to them, I don’t believe in wiping them out.” I was stunned.

Then Abrahams came out on stage to a standing ovation, and it struck me that it might be possible to take all the loving energy in this place now directed at helping other Jews and redirect it to great effect. If the AIPAC legions were somehow convinced that Jews will only be safe in the Middle East if the Arabs among them were also safe—without checkpoints, without a siege, with the dignity and freedom that Jews have had in the West—all these arrayed powers might then be directed to a larger idea of family and produce a miracle at last.
__________________________________________

Philip Weiss is at work on a book about Jewish issues. He blogs at www.philipweiss.org.

Per "Kahlil" whose CIA code name is "Wally." This is a real, actual undercover CIA operative we're talking about, not some bitch like Valerie Plame, who flew a fucking desk.

"The men who ordered the destruction of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie and the bombings of the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia are pursuing the nuclear program in Iran and with one goal in mind: to obtain The Bomb.

Iran remains the main sponsor of terrorism around the world. Iranian consulates, embassies, airlines, and shipping line offices are the main hub for terrorist activities. Money, arms, and explosives are transferred through these centers to fund terrorist groups and jihadists. Quds Force units of the Revolutionary Guards use the Iranian consulates as their command and control centers to plan and carry out assassinations, kidnappings, and terrorist activities. The mullahs even transferred money and arms in state visits using their high-ranking officials, knowing full well that because of diplomatic immunity they would not be subject to search during such visits. As I reported to the CIA, these activities were closely coordinated through Iran’s foreign ministry, the ministry of intelligence, and the Revolutionary Guards."

I fucking double-dog dare any terrorist-loving leftard to read the whole enchelada. It's three pages of detailed history, which I'm sure is too much for any 25 IQ leftard moron to process.

We should have bombed Iran years ago, or assassinated all of its "leaders."

Wars spread, that is a fact.
Perhaps that borders are man made is one reason.

That the Afghan war is increasingly engulfing Pakistan is more of a reality every day.
Der Spiegel has an interview with a long time 'Pakistan' expert RASHID is saying we are witnessing a spreading regional war which will engulf Iran, as if by way of Pakistan. One can guess this can be seen as preferable to facing Iran head on. Another article depicts a Proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan. Doesn't it all have a 'ring of truth'? The signature tune of the imperialists? And so easy to stoke!

Pakistan's former Army Chief [said] Iran and Pakistan are under the siege of western conspiracies.

The intelligence agencies of the coalitional forces are very active in Afghanistan and work against the interests of Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia in the region, he said

Regardless of the Neocons ability to militarily overwhelm, say in Pakistan. Is it not only a matter of time till they bite off more than they can chew? Till they just create a massive combined enemy? Most would probably concur.

And 'so what' if the rogues and villains want to destabilize other countries?

Well I for one would rather not be in the have nots group.
This is one very good reason to protest the seemingly ritual slaughter perpetrated by our countries. The only profiteers now are the ones who sell their souls. Not you and me.

In reality all that is happening is China goes around the world and picks up the pieces. See Yemen, Somalia and also Pakistan.

Our elites intellectuals are clever and they could equally profit in a Peaceful environment, yet those at the very top, at least those in the public eye, are seen as increasingly rotten. ... documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union have Rumsfeld, in his own words, checking in on the sexualized humiliation of prisoners.

Instead of terrifying the weak and or independent, why don't they throw off their own warlords?! (Averting Catastrophe: When the Leaders are the Problem, Daniel Ellsberg) Well granted it is dangerous, and unilateral action is not an option for the hard core involved otherwise one ends up like Vanunu or Pollard. I think Pollard refused to spy.
Now that is food for the dual loyalists arguments.
In these times we also need guardian angels.

Russia issued an ultimatum to the United States today.

In political terms it was an ultimatum but in blunt terms it was a threat.

If we deploy a missile defensive system in either Poland or the Czech Republic, Russia stated unequivocally that they will respond with a "military-technological" response. They followed that by expressing regret that they would have to do this but they made it clear they would have no choice and that the consequences would not be of their doing.

Ominous words indeed.

Exactly what this "military-technological" response is anyone's guess but let us speculate for a minute...

• We say we are looking to defend against a potential missile strike from Iran.
• Russia sees us placing missiles on their doorstep, the former lands of the Soviet Empire (or Eastern Bloc) as we once referred to it. They say, this appears as a threat.
• They say this is unnecessary by us and a potential deterrent to their own missiles, be they defensive or offensive their meaning is not clear.
• Perhaps they view these missiles as a deterrent to their offensive capability and therefore upsetting the strategic balance of the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine (MAD) long clung to by past generations of Cold War Russian-American leaders since the 1950's.

If this is how the Russian's are thinking, then they will probably react according to that belief.

If they see us threatening their strike capability in what was once their former satellite, they in turn will do the same to us.

What course of action could the Russians take to mirror our own?

They could potentially consider placing a similar series of missiles bordering our own country.

Where might that be? It would have to be friends of Russia, so Cuba or Venezuela come to mind as potential spots for these missiles.

Their governments are not in the least bit friendly with us and might not have any concerns about allowing the Russians to place such missiles within their borders.

If we continue our current course of action, we will find out soon enough.

Related articles by Zemanta

• U.S., Czech Republic Sign Defense Pact
• Russia warns over US-Czech shield
• Russia issues missile shield warning
• Moscow on edge as U.S., Czechs sign missile deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

So we've pretty much already passed over the GW tipping point.   The hope now is to try and moderate some of the effects.  This has been a major push at the G8 summit in Hokaido.

Unfortunately that's not going to happen with the present leadership.   And not just the U.S. leadership, the whole G8 has problems.

The leaders of the world’s richest countries have squandered yet another opportunity to lead the global community when it comes to climate change. The G8 Summit in Japan has issued a classically vague and nonbinding statement endorsing the idea of halving carbon emissions by 2050, a goal well below the emissions cuts proposed by leaders of many of the G8 nations.

The declaration on the environment and climate change gives a lot of lip service to various “low-carbon technologies” but offers little in terms of new policy to help facilitate development and deployment.

More baffling is the way in which the statement names certain technologies and omits others. Nuclear and biofuels receive strong commendations, while wind and solar fail to get a single mention. Meanwhile clean coal technologies, including carbon capture and sequestration, are given a whole paragraph, in which there resides one of the most clearly worded assertions: “We strongly support the launching of 20 large-scale CCS demonstration projects globally by 2010, taking into account various national circumstances, with a view to beginning broad deployment of CCS by 2020.”

[full post]

The other part of the backsliding is highlighted in this NYT article.

RUSUTSU, Japan — Pledging to “move toward a low-carbon society,” leaders of the world’s richest nations vowed Tuesday to work with emerging powers to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, but did not specify whether the starting point would be current levels or 1990 levels, and refused to set a short-term target for reducing the gases that scientists agree are warming the planet.

So they can't even decide what the baseline is, much less make any realistic, trackable goal.

The G8 is also hampered here, as China and India, the two main U.S. competitors for "Polluter of the Planet" are not represented and the U.S. won't sign a deal without them.  And they won't sign one without the the U.S.

So we have a nice stalemate, and the water slowly gets hotter.