Iran Marches On

Iran has been busy while their Hezbollah proxies have been wreaking havoc within Lebanon. CTV News reports,

Iran opened a plant today that produces heavy water which can be used to develop a nuclear bomb -- just days after a UN deadline for the nation to halt uranium enrichment.

The ribbon was cut at the new plant just days after a Thursday United Nations deadline requiring Iran to halt uranium enrichment or face economic or political sanctions. Iran has ignored the UN Security Council's resolution, calling it illegal.

The plant is capable of producing up to 16 tons of heavy water per year, according to reports. On its own, the heavy water facility is benign. But Iran is also building a heavy water reactor, which is scheduled for completion in 2009.

The heavy water reactor, once completed, could run on natural uranium mined by Iran, as opposed to a light water reactor which would be fueled by enriched uranium. Another concern is that the spent fuel left over from a heavy water reactor can be used as a source for plutonium, which can be used in a bomb.

Another crucial step in the nuclear cycle has been completed by Iran without any repercussions from the international community. The theocrats continually push the envelope when it comes to acceptable behaviour. Iran is destroying a formerly prosperous nation in Lebanon and are destabilizing the entire region as a result. How is it that they receive a free pass? Where can I get one?

Syria Shunned

Israel withdraws, and once again Hezbollah claims "victory." The Houston Chronicle reports,

Israel began to pull many of its reserve troops out of southern Lebanon on Tuesday and hopes to be out of the country altogether in the next week or 10 days, the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said.

The Lebanese army, which is supposed to join with an U.N. force to establish order as the Israelis withdraw, is expected to begin moving into the area south of the Litani River in a couple of days, supported by an early deployment of foreign troops, said the French head of U.N. peacekeeping forces, Jean-Marie Guehenno, speaking to French radio.

In Damascus, President Bashar Assad of Syria said Israel "is in front of a historic crossroads." "Either it moves toward peace and gives back rights or faces constant instability," Assad said, "until a generation comes and puts an end to the issue," an apparent reference to the possible future elimination of Israel.

After the speech, the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, canceled a planned trip to Syria.

President Assad has all of the diplomatic skill and finesse of a dump truck.

The Real Mideast Threat ...

Iranian and Syrian leaders appear to fully believe their massive propaganda machines. MSNBC and AP reports,

The leaders of Iran and Syria said Tuesday that Hezbollah defeated Israel, with the Iranian president telling a cheering crowd that “God’s promises have come true” and the Syrian chief saying U.S. plans for reshaping the Middle East have been ruined.

Tehran and Damascus may be the biggest winners from the 34 days of fighting in Lebanon — buoyed by the ability of ally Hezbollah to stand up to Israel’s punishing assaults and by the new, widespread popularity of the guerrillas across the Middle East.

“Both Syria and Iran have achieved a political victory,” said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi Arabian who hosts a talk show on Dubai television. “Lebanon once again has paid a heavy price, and Syria and Iran have once again taken credit.”

In his speech, Assad lashed out at Arab regimes that criticized Hezbollah for capturing two Israeli soldiers July 12 and setting off the war. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — all U.S. allies — opposed Hezbollah’s actions at the start of the conflict.

“We do not ask anyone to fight with us or for us ... But he should at least not adopt the enemy’s views,” Assad said.

Syria and Iran have claimed victory simply because they need one. Unsurprisingly, wishful thinking is also a major component of international relations. Both of these regimes have no need for truth or reality and as such, do not pay heed to either. Notice that president Assad does "not ask anyone to fight with us or for us." Syria voluntarily groups itself with the terrorists of Hezbollah and the theocrats of Iran. At least now there is no confusion as to which entities comprise the "Axis of Evil."

Fox's Hit New Reality Show

The Gaza strip and Western journalists do not mix. CTV News reports,

There are reports that two journalists from the U.S. Fox News television channel have been kidnapped by armed men in Gaza.

An American correspondent and an Irish cameraman were reportedly seized after gunmen intercepted their car in Gaza City, witnesses told news agencies. The Fox TV team's Palestinian driver and two other journalists were set free. No group has yet claimed responsibility for kidnapping the pair.

A Palestinian witness reportedly told news agencies that two vehicles blocked the journalist's transmission truck in the centre of Gaza City and a masked man put a gun to the bodyguard's head, forcing him to the ground. The kidnappers then sped away with the two journalists.

Peter of Pakistan reports that the kidnappers have demanded the return of all of "Palestine" to the Palestinians, the release of 1,100 fundamentalist terrorists from Israeli prisons, along with $750 USD. Kidnapping is a lucrative business in the Gaza strip. It is simply a sign of the times that one must release a fundamentalist rant along with one's monetary demands in order to be taken seriously. FOX has decided to spin off this calamity into a hit new tv series - Survivor XXIII: The Holy Land. We have heard good things.

Suspects Watched Since Last Year

Yet another deluded fundamentalist plot to revenge themselves upon the "Great Satan." The Times Online reports,

Two British Muslims arrested eight to ten days ago in Lahore and Karachi gave vital information about the alleged plot to detonate chemical suicide bombs on US-bound passenger jets, officials in Pakistan claimed today.

The details that the duo revealed may have helped to trigger yesterday's dramatic arrests of 24 young Britons in London, Buckinghamshire and Birmingham, and the massive security clampdown at airports which caused hundreds of flight cancellations and travel chaos for 400,000 people.

Meetings of the Government’s Cobra emergency unit were told that the first wave of bombings was to have targeted five aircraft leaving British airports in the next few days. The destinations, US officials said, were New York, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles. The plotters are said to have studied the timetables of three US airlines: American, Continental and United.

The ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, is said to have warned MI6 of the involvement of officials of Lashkar-i-Taiba - a militant group with close links to al-Qaeda, blamed for innumerable terrorist acts in Kashmir and, more recently, for the Bombay train bombings which killed 180 commuters last month.

The majority of those arrested in the UK are understood to be young British Asian men of Pakistani descent, many holding dual nationality.

"The alleged plot which has been intercepted was intended to 'commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale', Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson of the Metropolitan Police said yesterday."

We have nothing humourous or witty to say.

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! U.S. OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST!

This gem below comes from the International Action Center.

The obstacles to peace in the Middle East are not Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria or Iran. The obstacle is the U.S. government and its client, the Israeli settler state. Republicans and Democrats alike have united to back the expansionist Israeli war against Palestine and Lebanon. This war is really an extension of the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq.

The expansion of U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in the Middle East is 'justified' through a widespread campaign of demonization against Hezbollah and Hamas. These are the movements of national resistance in Lebanon and Palestine. It is an urgent task, for those of us opposed to war and injustice, to clarify for the people of the U.S. he reality--that the problems of the Middle East are not rooted in a struggle between religions. The wars are driven by greedy imperialist policymakers in the U.S., like Bush and his super rich friends, to dominate, colonize, exploit and rob the natural resources (especially oil) of the people of the Middle East.

The Bush administration has given the Zionist rulers in Tel Aviv the green light to wage all-out war in Lebanon and Palestine, with full diplomatic, political and military support of Washington. Israeli soldiers and bomber pilots may be doing the killing in Lebanon, but this is fundamentally a U.S. war, and the Israeli army is a criminal surrogate for the Pentagon.

Here is their answer to the Great Satan's war on Lebanon:

Support the Right of the People of Palestine and Lebanon to Resist!
End the Occupation of IRAQ, PALESTINE and LEBANON ..
Support the Palestinian People's Right to Return
U.S./Israeli Troops Out Now
No More Fighting and Dying for Oil Profits

Join us in Washington DC on Saturday August 12, 2006, for a national Emergency Demonstration called by the National Council of Arab Americans, the Answer Coalition, and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.

On Saturday, thousands will rally in Lafayette Park in Washington and march past the White House to protest the U.S./Israeli war against the people of Lebanon and Palestine. The International Action Center bus will leave from 55 W. 17th St. on Saturday at 6:00 am--but you must purchase your tickets in advance. Bus Tickets are $35.00 round trip ($25 for fixed income/students).

There are so many things wrong with this iniitiative that our collective heads hurt.

Raffi Sings for Peace

Raffi is doing his part to promote peace in the Middle East. Sympatico reports,

The Canadian troubadour has released his song Salaam Shalom, Side by Side as a free download on his website. In a Middle Eastern style, the song pairs the words salaam and shalom, which mean peace in Arabic and Hebrew.

Raffi, who now uses his full name Raffi Cavoukian, calls for a chance for Arab and Israeli children to shine, a time for the pain to heal "a circle where we all belong."

Thanks Raffi. If only more radical Islamic clerics listened to your music, the world would be a better place.

Iran Uses Time Wisely

Iran continues to use their Hezbollah proxies to deflect international attention from their persistent pursuit of nuclear weapons. Reuters reports,

Iran vowed on Sunday to expand its atomic fuel work and warned that any U.N. sanctions aimed at halting its uranium enrichment would incur a painful riposte, possibly including a cut in oil exports.

Chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Iran would expand the number of atomic centrifuges it was running. Centrifuges enrich uranium by spinning it at supersonic speeds.

Although Iran has intermittently threatened to use its massive oil exports as a weapon in international diplomacy, Tehran receives 80 percent of its export earnings from energy and would find such a cut hard to maintain.

The Iranian nuclear machine is running at full tilt, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to halt. The Hezbollah "card" has given Iran an immense amount of room to maneuver because the international community is now focused upon a different facet of radical Islam, terrorism. It is exactly because the attention of the world has been diverted that it is much more important to deal forcefully and effectively with Iran, who is without doubt, the greatest threat to international stability today.

OIC Condemns Israeli Criminals

Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh Thursday called on fellow members of the Organization of Islamic Conference, or O.I.C., to issue a collective condemnation of Israel's actions. The Voice of America reports,

Muslim leaders meeting in Malaysia have demanded an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon, as the United Nations debates a formula for ending the crisis.

"We're calling for comprehensive ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops and also to establish an international judiciary commission to investigate the criminal actions committed by Israel, and also the return of the displaced Lebanese to their homes and villages," said [Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh].

The United States, Britain and Israel say a ceasefire cannot be called until a peacekeeping force is in place, the Lebanese government reclaims full authority of the southern part of the country, and Hezbollah is disarmed.

France and the O.I.C. members want the reverse - a ceasefire first to stop mounting death and destruction, followed by the deployment of U.N. forces, and political progress toward a durable peace in the region.

Ahh France. Why are you so naive? How is it that you, a nation with a demonstrably restive muslim population, never fail to call for the exact opposite of that which is demanded by your closest political and geographic allies. Radical islam can have no place in society. Especially within such a fragile society like Lebanon. It is for this reason that Israel's assault on Hezbollah cannot end before an international peacekeeping force has been deployed. Perhaps, France, you are simply afraid that you will be asked to use your military? Or perhaps you figure that by opposing the Great Satan, you will appease the troublemakers within your muslim population. Appeasement is a slippery slope.

Cartoon of the Day

Globalization hits the Jihad market.

UN Dashes Iran's Nuclear Hallucinations

Iran has been condemned once again for its nuclear activities. This time, the United Nations got in on the act. The Middle East Times reports,

Iran reacted angrily Tuesday to a UN Security Council resolution ordering it to freeze sensitive nuclear work by the end of the month. UN Resolution 1696, which dangles the threat of sanctions unless Iran halts uranium enrichment and other work that could help build a nuclear bomb, was welcomed by the United States and its allies but decried as "destructive and totally unwarranted" by Iran's UN ambassador.

The Security Council gave Tehran an August 31 deadline to comply, and said that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei should then report back on what Iran has done to fall into line. But the text of the resolution held off from an immediate threat of sanctions, which have been opposed by Russia and China, and said that any punitive action would have to be the subject of further discussions.

An editorial in the ultra-hardline Siasat Rouz newspaper called on the government to quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - something that officials have already threatened to do if the pressure mounts.

"In preparing the final battle, we should at first attack US bases in neighboring countries and then clear the region of this infected microbe," the paper said, while also calling on Iran to rally "friendly governments and Muslim people ready to carry out suicide attacks."

It is good to know that there are ultra-hardline newspapers in Iran doing their part to incite the population. This begs the question, are there any ultra-softline newspapers in Iran? How about liberal magazines? Most probably not. The theocrats of Iran rely on these newspapers, and the media in general, to distort the news coming into the country in order to rally public support for their harebrained initiatives. One such initiative would certainly be the funding/training/directing of Hezbollah and their declaration of war against Israel. Such a move can only end badly for the Iranians.

The UN is not the enemy ...

The UN always gets the short end of the stick. All they ever try to do is condemn Israel and look how much respect it has gotten them. Canada.com reports,

Palestinians stormed a UN compound on Sunday during a protest against Israeli airstrikes that killed dozens of civilians in Qana, Lebanon, and security officials fired into the air to disperse them.

The protesters smashed windows of the UNSCO building with rocks after marching through Gaza City in the demonstration. At least seven people were wounded, including four policemen, officials at the Al-Quds and Shifa hospitals said. Five of the injured were hit by rocks and the other two by ricochets from the gunfire, the officials said.

The protesters - who were waving Lebanese and Hezbollah flags, and burning UN flags - quickly dispersed when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered Presidential Guards and Palestinian police to close the compound. Besides the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator, the compound also includes UN headquarters, the World Bank and the presidential Guest Palace, where important guests visiting the Gaza Strip stay.

Hezbollah flags were prominently displayed throughout the protest. This suggests that these Palestinians support terrorism. Can that be true? There is nothing wrong with demonstrating in favour of Lebanon, which has been hit hard by Israeli strikes, yet there is something oddly disconcerting about attacking the United Nations, as if they had the power to be responsible for the current state of the world. There is one certainty however, and that is that by demonstrating support for a vicious terror organization, these Gazan demonstrators have set their cause back by at least 37 years.

A Golden Ticket to Paradise

One does not have to live in the Middle East to fall victim to fanatics. CNN reports,

Seattle police were protecting temples and mosques Saturday after a suspected hate killing prompted fears of the Middle East crisis spreading to the United States.

Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said a Muslim gunman killed a woman and wounded five others at a Jewish center in Seattle, Washington, Friday afternoon, and police were protecting mosques as well as synagogues out of fears of retaliation.

A U.S. citizen, Naveed Afzal Haq, has been arrested and booked on a charge of murder and five charges of attempted murder. The 31-year-old Muslim of Pakistani descent was angry at Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, officials said.

Peter of Pakistan reports that Haq's mentor and spiritual advisor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has given the deranged man a "golden ticket" to paradise (not to be confused with a similar golden ticket to a certain chocolate factory). The ticket provides a one-way, non-refundable, first-class seat on a flight to the garden of paradise. There is reportedly no security however, as most of the occupants have already detonated their packages.

Al-Zawahiri Pursues Movie Career

Ayman al-Zawahiri has indulged his pride once again and decided to further pursue a career in the movie industry. ABC News reports,

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader issued a worldwide call in a new videotape released Thursday for Muslims to rise up in a holy war against Israel and join the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza until Islam reigns from "Spain to Iraq."

In the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said that al-Qaida now views "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."

"It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails … from Spain to Iraq," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere." Spain was controlled by Arab Muslims until they were driven from power at the turn of the 16th century.

Al-Zawahri said Muslims everywhere must rise up to attack "crusaders and Zionists" and support jihad (holy war) "until American troops are chased from Afghanistan and Iraq, paralyzed and impotent … having paid the price for aggression against Muslims and support for Israel."

Yet another "victim" feels he must avenge perceived "wrongs". There is one other thing, and none of us at A of A are experts, but we feel that this point, while possibly minor, is certainly important: Allah does not wish for jihad. He no doubt has greater problems. Such as explaining to "martyrs" why they are barred from entering into the garden of paradise. Yes, it must be explained.

No "Peace! ... in the Middle East"

Hezbollah has been using their time during Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon to its advantage. Thousands of rockets, bunkers, and munitions depots have been strategically located throughout the region. The Times Online reports,

THE full extent of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli ground troops in Lebanon emerged yesterday as returning soldiers and senior commanders admitted they were taken by surprise by the Shia group’s ferocity.

At the same time, a Hezbollah leader has made the startling admission that the group had underestimated Israel’s response to the kidnapping of its two soldiers. “The truth is we didn’t expect this response . . . that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us,” said Mahmoud Komati, the deputy chief of the Hezbollah politburo.

Despite two weeks of relentless Israeli bombardment, Hezbollah managed to fire 111 rockets at northern Israel on Monday, and more than 80 yesterday, killing a 15-year-old Arab Israeli girl and wounding several others. To date, 24 Israeli soldiers have been killed and 75 wounded.

“It was really scary. Most of our armoured personnel carriers have holes,” a paramedic told The Times after recovering three wounded tank soldiers. “It’s a very hard situation. We were in Lebanon before but it wasn’t like this for a long time.” A tank commander said: “It’s a real war.”

These revelations about the ferocity of Hezbollah does not bode well for advocates of a short decisive war. The conflict will not end without Hezbollah being defanged; this may prove to be more difficult than was previously assumed.

Peter of Pakistan has begun a petition to bring back The New Kids On The Block's (TNKOTB) patented "Peace! ... in the Middle East" expression. Used to end every show that they ever performed, the saying contributed to greater worldwide feelings of peace and harmony than has ever been felt since Marky Mark left the funky bunch. We encourage you all to sign the petition/use the expression.