HOW FAST WE LOSE OUR FOCUS:
It is interesting how easy the world can become distracted when the press is focusing on one issue day after day. The following reports show that Iran is not wasting the worlds attention else where as they continue as the masters of the shell game and setting up innocent people to be used as pawns in future negotiations.
While the world’s attention is focused squarely on Libya and Syria, and with good reason — both countries are in rapidly-changing states of crisis — this focus is allowing other rogue Middle Eastern nations to get away with things that would normally face harsher scrutiny. Case in point: Iran.
Iran recently started moving its uranium enriching centrifuges from its main atomic complex in Natanz to an underground bunker in Fordow. The bunker is reportedly impervious to air-strikes and can accommodate up to 3,000 centrifuges. The Iranian excuse of wanting to enrich uranium for “peaceful purposes” is getting more laughable all the time.
Combine the recent revelation that Iran now has cruise missiles with a 200 km range with all the upheaval in its neighbouring countries, and you have a very different Middle East starting to take shape, in which the balance of power (in the near future, at least) potentially becomes a major security threat to Israel and the West.
And then there’s the case of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, two victims of horrendous luck. The two Americans were on a recreational hike in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan on July 31, 2009 and accidentally crossed the unmarked eastern border of the mountains, apparently ending up in Iran. (I say apparently because there is still confusion about whether the hikers wondered too far into Iran, or if Iranian soldiers entered Iraq to arrest them.) They were arrested by military forces on the spot.
The vagueness of the circumstances of their capture and arrest is contrasted by the precision of their cruel punishment: both men have been in jail since the incident and were sentenced on August 20 to eight years of prison; three for “illegally” entering Iran and five for “espionage”.
That they have been in jail at all is a travesty. But it gets worse: as the concept of “time served” is apparently nonexistent in Iran, serving the eight-year sentence has not, according ti the Iranians, even begun. The past 753 days endured by these men were deemed an “extended pre-trial detention” by the Iranian authorities. Over the past two years, Bauer and Fattal have been able to phone their families three times, and have not been allowed to send letters home.
Bauer’s girlfriend, Sarah Shourd, was also caught in 2009 when they allegedly crossed the unmarked border. Luckily, she was released last September on health-related grounds – but only after spending 410 days in solitary confinement and paying $500,000 in bail.
The accusations of espionage are absurd, as even a cursory examination of the background and profiles of these men shows. Bauer is a freelance journalist and Fattal a global health advocate and teaching assistant. Their resumes would lead you to nominate them for a humanitarian award. Yet for allegedly spending (at most) a few minutes on the Iranian side of the border at the civilization-free Zagros Mountains, they are now convicted criminals.
The sentence handed down from Tehran’s chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi has rightly caused outrage. Even Amnesty International called it a “mockery of justice” designed to be used as “a bargaining chip to allow Iran to obtain unspecified concessions from the US government.” Of course, none of this is a surprise considering the endless list of horrors inflicted upon so many others, including their own citizens, by the Iranian theocrats over the years.
Now add to that the actions of their buddies the North Koreans and you have a marriage made some where, defiantly not in Heaven. I suspect if we were able to see the Iranians “action Plan” they would be right on track in fulling their goals.
North Korea sent Iran software that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, a German news report said Wednesday, citing unidentified Western intelligence sources.
North Korea also sent a team of scientists to Iran in February to train about 20 employees of its Defense Ministry in the operation of the neutron flow simulation program, the Sueddeutche Zeitung reported.
Calculating neutron flow in radioactive material allows scientists to determine when a chain reaction, or explosion, would occur. This information is essential for designing nuclear power reactors that do not explode and for building nuclear bombs that do.
Western countries suspect Iran is aiming to produce nuclear warheads. Tehran insists it is only enriching uranium for power generation and medical purposes.
North Korea is suspected of helping Iran with its nuclear program in return for 100 million dollars, which experts said would far exceed the cost of the training and software provided this year, the news report said.
On Saturday, Tehran said it would unveil a new cruise missile within the week with a longer range than the current Shahab 3, which has already raised concerns with its 2,000-kilometer range, covering all of arch-foe Israel.
On Monday, Iranian news reports said authorities had started transferring the first of 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium to a new plant in Fordo, north of TehranThe facility would be the country’s second enrichment plant after Natanz in central Iran.
North Korea tested nuclear bombs in 2006 and 2009. The isolated communist country is thought to have helped Syria build a nuclear facility that Israel bombed in 2007.
As the world is rocked from day to day with new problems is there hope for the future? if you want to know my view on that email me at plittle@westcoastdetectives.us.
Until next time Be Safe: Phil
