Washington’s Black Ops against Iran

Extensive range of covert operations envisaged by US Congress

by Ismail Salami
Global Research
October 31, 2011

The US secret agenda for tightening its vice-like grip on the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken on an apparently new form after the anti-Iran alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, raised many eyebrows among experts and analysts around the world.

With a strong penchant for pushing for tougher action on Iran, the Obama administration has already imposed a series of sanctions against the Islamic Republic. However, a Republican-controlled congressional committee has recently heard testimony demanding an extensive range of covert operations against the country.

The operations, which range from cyber attacks to political assassinations, are speculated to be conducted under the feeble excuse that Iran was the alleged architect of an assassination plot against the Saudi envoy to the United States. By political assassination, the US congressmen unconsciously mean the liquidation of the Iranian nuclear scientists, an act they actually started long ago.

Retired Army Gen. John Keane told a hearing of two key subcommittees of the House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday, “We’ve got to put our hand around their throat now. Why don’t we kill them? We kill other people who kill others.”

Also, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) poured some pearls of wisdom over others and called for “sober, reasoned discussion.”

“Iran’s leaders must be held accountable for their action,” she said, “but we cannot take any reckless actions which may lead to opening another front in the ‘War on Terror,’ which the American people do not want and cannot afford.”

Naturally, the US government, in essence, cannot afford to wage another war at least in view of the economic woes it has wrought upon the American citizens, regardless of other influencing factors.

The stone that started rolling fell into the hands of New York Congressman Peter King who made an extremely bizarre comment. He suggested that the US should kick out Iranian officials at the UN in New York and in Washington and accused them of being spies, ignorant of the fact that the UN is considered an independent international body and that the US has no authority to ‘kick out’ diplomats accredited there en masse.

Overwhelmed with a sense of false eagerness, he renewed the anti-Iran alleged assassination ploy and said excitedly, “So you have the assassination of a foreign ambassador, you have the willingness to kill hundreds of Americans — this is an act of war,” King said, “I don’t think we can just do business as usual or even carry out sanctions as usual.”

The volley of vitriolic words against Iran which issued from Mr. King reeks of blind enmity long egged on by other hawks in Washington.

In point of fact, the anti-Iran moves practically started in 2007 when US Congress agreed to George W. Bush, the then US president, to fund a major increase in covert operations against Iran. According to the intelligence officials who spoke to the Blotter on ABCNews.com, the CIA was then given a presidential approval to commence its covert ‘black’ operations inside Iran. To that effect, over four hundred million dollars were allocated in a Presidential Finding signed by George W. Bush. The ultimate goal of the finding was to cripple Iran’s religious government and the operations involved throwing support behind minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchis and other opposition groups as well as amassing intelligence about Iran’s nuclear sites.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, the intelligence officials confirmed that Bush had signed a “nonlethal presidential finding”, giving the CIA carte blanche to engage in any sabotaging activities including a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions in order to destabilize and eventually achieve regime change in Iran.

“I can’t confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime,” said Bruce Riedel, a retired CIA senior official, an expert on Iran and the Middle East (ABCNEWS.com May 22, 2007).

In June 2007, The New Yorker magazine also ran a similar story by Seymour Hersh, confirming that the finding had been signed by Bush and intended to destabilize the Islamic government.

“The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.”

From an intelligence point of view, the fact that the US government is resorting to covert black operations against Iran rules out the possibility of a military strike against the country.

According to reports, US ambassadors in Islamabad have repeatedly asked for opening a consulate in the province of Baluchistan, a suspicious demand from the US. In 2011, the call was renewed by US ambassador Cameron Munter to Islamabad. Persistence in this demand is to be taken seriously. Baluchistan is strategically important as it is a harbor for the anti-Iran terrorist group, Jundullah, in the first place and a separatist Pakistani province in the second place.

In fact, Washington greatly favors the establishment of a ‘Greater Baluchistan’ which would integrate the Baluch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran. Military expert Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters suggests that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of a separate country: ‘Greater Baluchistan’ or ‘Free Baluchistan’ (June 2006, The Armed Forces Journal). As a result, this would incorporate the Baluch provinces of Pakistan and Iran into a single political entity which can be tailored to suit the interests of Washington.

So it seems that the US harbors two main ulterior motives if this demand is answered. First, it can fulfill its dream of establishing the Greater Baluchistan, consolidate firm presence in this separatist part of Pakistan and secondly, it will be in a position to avail itself of this influence to carry out its sabotaging activities within Iran.

Earlier in 2007, the Blotter on ABCNews.com revealed the role of the US government in backing the terrorist Iranian group , which is responsible for a number of gruesome assassinations of the Iranian civilians on the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The terrorist group spares no efforts in sowing the seed of terror in the southern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan and their lust for murder and cruelty knows no remission. The victims the group has so far claimed include many women and children who have become the direct target of their killing. In July 2010, the group mounted a pair of suicide attacks on a major Shi’ite mosque in the city of Zahedan, the capital of Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan Province, killing dozens of worshippers and wounding over 100 people.

Although US officials deny any ‘direct funding’ of the terrorist group, they acknowledge that they are in contact with the leader of the group on a regular basis. A similar terroristic attack was launched by the same group on a mosque in Zahedan in May 2009, which led to the martyrdom of many worshippers.

Sadly enough, Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) implicitly supports the group and reportedly shelters some of its high-profile members in coordination with the CIA.

Isn’t it paradoxical that Jundullah, a terrorist group and an offshoot of al-Qaeda, is directly funded by the US government which keeps bandying about its so-called ‘war on terror’ in the world?

This is enough to cause the US to hang its head low in shame and humility.

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian author and political analyst. A prolific writer, he has written numerous books and articles on the Middle East. His articles have been translated into a number of languages.

Obama Administration: Don’t Need no Stinking Congressional Approval

While the current US president seems to have forgotten what law he must obey, and as US and NATO bomb Tripoli, Obama says such military action does not qualify as hostilities.

The administration also lies about the “no troops on the ground” claim. Intelligence shows US special operations troops are already in Libyan territory.

Washington Post
June 28, 2011

A State Department lawyer arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday with two difficult tasks: Convince a Senate committee that the Obama administration didn’t need Congress’s approval for its military operations in Libya.

Then: Convince the Senate to give Obama that approval anyway.

He didn’t seem to make a lot of headway on either front.

Facing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, legal adviser Harold Hongju Koh laid out a flurry of legal arguments to justify the campaign. He did not, at least initially, seem to win over several skeptical senators on the panel.

“I think you’ve undermined the credibility of this administration. I think you’ve undermined the integrity of the War Powers act,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “You’ve done a great disservice to our country.”

Koh told the committee that while the law says presidents must obtain congressional authorization before sending troops into hostilities overseas, what’s happening in Libya doesn’t constitute hostilities.

And what if legislators don’t agree? In that case, Koh said, they should still support the campaign, because to do otherwise would help Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

“We can all agree it would only serve Gaddafi’s interests” if Congress forced U.S. forces to withdraw, he said.

The hearing followed a long-running pattern in the White House’s handling of the Libyan conflict. Whenever it has tried to pacify unhappy members of Congress, the Obama administration has usually had the opposite effect.

On Tuesday, senators said that the White House had declined to send lawyers from the Pentagon and the Department of Justice, agencies that that had reportedly disagreed with Obama’s decision on Libya.

Instead, it sent Koh, who had reportedly agreed with the president.

“Are you glad that you basically created an issue where no issue had to exist?” Corker asked Koh when his testimony was finished. “Basically sticking a stick in the eye of Congress?”

“If you felt that a stick was stuck, that was not the goal,” Koh said. He conceded, however, that “this controversy has probably not played out as some would have expected.”

Tuesday marked the first time that an administration official has appeared in a formal hearing to defend Obama’s finding that the Libyan operation does not constitute “hostilities.” That finding — designed to exempt the Libyan operation from the 1973 War Powers Resolution — has only inflamed anger on Capitol Hill.

Last week, the GOP-led House voted down a measure that would have authorized the campaign, in a gesture of pique at Obama.

Later Tuesday, the Foreign Relations Committee will hear from independent legal experts and then consider a resolution from Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass. ) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) to authorize limited conflict in Libya.

In his testimony, Koh told the panel that the White House would like this authorization but doesn’t need it. His argument focused on the word “hostilities.”

The Libyan conflict does not meet that definition, he said. That’s because U.S. forces play only a limited role in the NATO-led operation, and because there is little danger to them from the battered Libyan forces. While U.S. troops are mainly in supporting roles such as intelligence-gathering and aerial refueling, there have been strikes on ground targets by American planes and unmanned drones.

“Hostilities is an ambiguous term of art,” Koh said. In the absence of a formal legal definition, he said, Obama had decided it did not apply in Libya.

That argument seemed acceptable to Kerry, the committee’s chairman. “In Libya today, no American is being shot at. No American troops are on the ground, and we’re not going to put them there,” he said. Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) said that Koh’s argument was “largely compelling.”

But other senators on the committee were dubious.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) called the argument an “incredible assertion.” Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) said it was a “contorted legal definition.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) echoed others in his concern about the precedent of letting presidents begin military operations without congressional approval by asserting that the other side wouldn’t shoot back effectively

“It seems to be hard to say that doesn’t involve hostilities,” Lee said.

Mexican President: Disarm Everyone. Obama Nods Yes

Infowars.com

Mexican President Felipe Calderón called upon the United States Congress to re-enact the assault weapons ban in a bid to disarm the American people as they are integrated into theNorth American Union system. Further, he placed blame for fueling drug cartels and gang violence squarely on the United States and their supply of firearms.

Calderón made these outrageous and anti-American remarks from the floor of the U.S. Congress during an official visit, and also renewed attacks on the immigration legislation passed by Arizona.

President Obama joined in his cause, making the startling declaration that “We are not defined by our borders” during a press conference welcoming Calderón on the White House lawn. Such a statement with immigration AND “weapons” problems on the border? Whatever happened to the Robert Frost adage ‘Good fences make good neighbors‘?

Calderón told the United States that it must “regulate the sale of these weapons in the right way.” He continued:

“Many of these guns are not going to honest American hands. Instead, thousands are ending up in the hands of criminals.”

Calderón’s Call to Disarmament is particularly inappropriate before Congress, who are Constitutionally barred from making any law which would violate any part of the Bill of Rights– secured to the people and several states in balance against the power given to the Federal Government. Further, Calderón’s plan holds the same fallacy as other attempts at gun control. If carried out, banning “assault” weapons would empower– rather than restrict– narcotrafficking gangs and leave “good” people helpless. It would not, as he naively intends, curb cartel violence or dry out the tools of their intimidation.

Yet his proposals have long been advanced and supported by the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others. President Obama voiced general support for a renewed ban last year, but acknowledged that it would be difficult to achieve politically. Moreover, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder has also expressed support for re-enacting a gun ban, but has shied away from it while the White House has kept it quiet purposely to avoid political damage to other parts of President Obama’s already wildly-radical agenda. Last year, Newsweek scolded Eric Holder for “backing away” from the ban issue and failing to support an issue ‘important to Mexican officials.’

A MESSAGE FOR ARIZONA

President Calderón also used the opportunity to amplify his criticism of Arizona’s immigration laws, a position which is hypocritical on several points. First, why would he have a voice among Mexican people who fled at all costs from the failing and violent narco-state which he heads? Furthermore, how can the Mexican President decry the efforts of Arizona to control its borders and maintain stability, when Mexico has considerably more severe laws against illegal immigration than that recently introduced by the under-pressure border state.

Though Calderón issued a tongue-in-cheek travel advisory to ‘visiting’ Mexican citizens warning them to be wary of the strict new attitude in Arizona, it is his own country which has grown wild with corruption, violence, drug cartels, authoritarian police and the unsustainable blow of mass exodus which has turned Mexico into a vacuum and failed state. While the United States has attempted to progress on issues of discrimination, Mexico continues to openly oppress its minority groups and stifle attempts at resistance. Despite this distinction, many sanctuary cities across the United States have joined with Calderón and proposed bans on Arizona of their own.

‘SOUTHBOUND FLOW OF ILLEGAL WEAPONS’ ISSUE RAISED TO PROMOTE NORTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION

Most of all, the two heads of state, Calderón and Obama, have demonstrated a reckless and uncaring attitude towards curbing illegal immigration– which threatens to wreck both countries. Yet they have pushed hard for amnesty and other provisions to legalize workers and prevented any attempts to impede the open flow of goods and people across the border.

They have both worked furiously to fast-track North American regional integration. They met in Guadalajara in August 2009alongside Canadian PM Stephen Harper to continue– largely in secret — the agenda announced under the Bush-era Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America agreement (talks included the hot-button issue of “illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence”).

President Obama– for someone who claimed ignorance about the North American Union during his 2008 campaign [video]– certainly has gone a long way in supporting the total destruction of United States sovereignty, all while embracing cheap globalist clichés, obliterating the economy and opening-up the floodgates to labor replacement from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Politicians– through NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA and SPP agreements, among others– are ushering in a corporatist-controlled North American Union, alongside a longer-term global merger. Robert Pastor and other key architects from the Council on Foreign Relations clearly designed the North American Union to circumvent the confines of the U.S. Constitution, and such a system is unlikely (once in power) to allow or accept the resistance of an armed population.

More…

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