Monthly Archives: February 2008

Mughniyah’s Assassination

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Mughniyah’s Assassination
By Brett McCrea

When the news reported that Imad Mughniyah was assassinated I was stunned.

This is equivalent to killing Bin Laden. Except that locating and successfully executing an attack on “Mughsy” was a much more difficult task.

To say he had a heightened security posture would be the understatement of the year.

He is/was the mythological equivalent of the unicorn, something that has always been talked about but never actually seen. To illustrate this point, most of the pictures of Mughniyah were taken very early in his life (his late teens/early 20s… he is now roughly 45).

He was vital to Iranian interests in Lebanon because he was someone the Iranians could depend on to execute Tehran’s will. He demonstrated that back in 1983 when he orchestrated the Marine Corps Barracks bombing.

He was vital to Hezb’allah because of his trusted status with Tehran and the weapons, finance, and training they provided.

In essence, he was an important bridge between Iran and Hezb’allah.

He is someone the Iranians depended on for over 20 years and the kind of trust and stability he provided to the regime in Tehran and to Hezb’allah in Lebanon will be difficult to replace.

Given his senior position within Hezb’allah and the organization’s acting as Damascus’ proxy in fighting Israel, this would also be a significant set back for Syria as well (not to mention a huge embarrassment to the government, because it happened in their capital).

Read the rest here:

New Bird

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Rise of the Reaper
By John A. Tirpak, Executive Editor, Air Force Magazine

In less than a year, the Air Force has brought into combat service its newest and most lethal unmanned aerial vehicle, the MQ-9 Reaper.

A special squadron is simultaneously developing tactics, training flight crews, and operating the UAV in battle.

This is taking place even though operational testing has barely begun and a full production decision is still a year off.

The Reaper drew first blood on Oct. 27, 2007, when it fired a Hellfire at insurgents attacking US troops in Afghanistan.

Eleven days later, a Reaper dropped its first pair of laser guided bombs, silencing Afghan insurgents firing at US forces.

The Reaper’s success is important if, as many believe, it is the first of a new breed of large unmanned combat aircraft.

It was in late February 2006 that Gen. Ronald E. Keys, then commander of Air Combat Command, ordered acceleration of Reaper to operational service.

Much has happened since then, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Greene, commander of the first MQ-9 unit, the 42nd Attack Squadron.

The 42nd is based at Creech AFB, Nev., about 45 miles northwest of Nellis AFB, Nev.

Keys’ order responded to demands of commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan for more “persistent” intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft as well as additional strike and close air support assets.

The rest of the story, and more pictures, in the Air Force Magazine: here.

Dead or Alive

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US welcomes death of Hizbullah terror chief Mughniyeh

The US welcomed on Wednesday the death of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that “the world is a better place without this man in it,” adding that “one way or the other he was brought to justice.”

He said that the United States had no independent information on the reports that Mughniyeh was killed in a car bombing in Syria Tuesday.

The United States blames Mughniyeh for numerous terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Americans including attacks on the US Embassy and US Marine barracks in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Stopping Iran

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Why the case for military action still stands.
By NORMAN PODHORETZ

Up until a fairly short time ago, scarcely anyone dissented from the assessment offered with “high confidence” by the National Intelligence Estimate of 2005 that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.” Correlatively, no one believed the protestations of the mullahs ruling Iran that their nuclear program was designed strictly for peaceful uses.

The reason for this near-universal consensus was that Iran, with its vast reserves of oil and natural gas, had no need for nuclear energy, and that in any case, the very nature of its program contradicted the protestations.

Here is how Time magazine put it as early as March 2003–long before, be it noted, the radical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had replaced the putatively moderate Mohamed Khatami as president:

On a visit last month to Tehran, International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei announced he had discovered that Iran was constructing a facility to enrich uranium–a key component of advanced nuclear weapons–near Natanz. But diplomatic sources tell Time the plant is much further along than previously revealed. The sources say work on the plant is “extremely advanced” and involves “hundreds” of gas centrifuges ready to produce enriched uranium and “the parts for a thousand others ready to be assembled.”

So, too, the Federation of American Scientists about a year later:

It is generally believed that Iran’s efforts are focused on uranium enrichment, though there are some indications of work on a parallel plutonium effort. Iran claims it is trying to establish a complete nuclear-fuel cycle to support a civilian energy program, but this same fuel cycle would be applicable to a nuclear-weapons development program. Iran appears to have spread their nuclear activities around a number of sites to reduce the risk of detection or attack.

And just as everyone agreed with the American intelligence community that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons,” everyone also agreed with President Bush that it must not be permitted to succeed. Here, the reasons were many and various.

To begin with, Iran was (as certified even by the doves of the State Department) the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it was therefore reasonable to fear that it would transfer nuclear technology to terrorists who would be only too happy to use it against us. Moreover, since Iran evidently aspired to become the hegemon of the Middle East, its drive for a nuclear capability could result (as, according to the New York Times, no fewer than 21 governments in and around the region were warning) in “a grave and destructive nuclear-arms race.” This meant a nightmarish increase in the chances of a nuclear war. An even greater increase in those chances would result from the power that nuclear weapons–and the missiles capable of delivering them, which Iran was also developing and/or buying–would give the mullahs to realize their evil dream of (in the words of Mr. Ahmadinejad) “wiping Israel off the map.”

Nor, as almost everyone also agreed, were the dangers of a nuclear Iran confined to the Middle East. Dedicated as the mullahs clearly were to furthering the transformation of Europe into a continent where Muslim law and practice would more and more prevail, they were bound to use nuclear intimidation and blackmail in pursuit of this goal as well. Beyond that, nuclear weapons would even serve the purposes of a far more ambitious aim: the creation of what Mr. Ahmadinejad called “a world without America.” Although, to be sure, no one imagined that Iran would acquire the capability to destroy the United States, it was easy to imagine that the United States would be deterred from standing in Iran’s way by the fear of triggering a nuclear war.

Read the rest here.

Cyber War

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The Greatest Story Never Told
Good news and bad news on the Cyber War front.
h/t: Strategy Page

The number of exploitable defects in software declined five percent last year. But the number of serious exploits went up 28 percent.

There is a growing market for exploitable defects, with some security firms offering cash rewards.

In the past, hackers had their own underground market for these exploits. But so much commerce is moving to the web, and Internet security is becoming such a large business, that finding those exploits first (and disabling or exploiting them) is attracting more money.

The gangsters still want to have their hackers get to these exploits first, but now they have to compete.

But the biggest news on the Cyber War front is that it rarely makes the headlines.

It’s not that Cyber War isn’t important; it’s just that all this geek stuff is hard to explain and just does not sound that scary.

In the competitive news business, Cyber War is not good news. But to the intel and security people, the U.S. has been under heavy assault for several years now.

The losses of information have been huge, and it’s not certain just how much has been stolen.

All this will be big news in a decade or so when more details emerge about the extent of the losses. But for now, it’s just one of those stories no one could wrap their heads around.

In addition to the usual software flaws (that serve as exploits), there is also a growing number “malware” type software. This stuff is best known as “adware” programs that users, often unknowingly, download onto their PCs.

That results in more ads, or ads based on a careful examination of what the user does, say, when using their browser. There are hundreds of thousands of these little nasties out there, and Cyber War operators have found this stuff to have military and espionage use.

In the middle of all this you have military users of exploits. These are the shadowy organizations, particularly in China and the United States, where exploits are stockpiled (and soon replaced as the exploit is rendered ineffective via a software patch) for use in wartime.

China, and probably the United States, are already using their exploits arsenals for espionage, and counter-espionage.

Many criminal gangs also do contract work, usually for espionage operations. Some corporations have been caught doing this as well. Only small players have been caught so far. Any large corporation going this way would put a premium on not getting caught.

Chinese firms are particularly energetic in stealing technology, and producing their own versions. They are often quite blatant about it, especially if it’s military technology (which means government protection from retribution.)

The Russians are trying to force the Chinese government to crack down on this, without much success so far.

The United States, and many other Western nations, are also going after China for the use of Internet based espionage. Again, so far, the Chinese are refusing to admit to it, much less slack off.

Western Cyber War experts are urging some retaliation in kind.

That could get interesting.

Big Tent: Consequences

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Britain clears way for polygamy benefits
By Al Webb – LONDON

The British government has cleared the way for husbands with multiple wives to claim welfare benefits for all their partners, fueling growing controversy over the role of Islamic Shariah law in the nation’s cultural and legal framework.

Bigamy is outlawed in Britain, but authorities have never prosecuted Muslim men who had legally married more than one woman abroad and continued to live with them after immigrating. Shariah permits men to have up to four wives at one time.

Now, after a review that began in November 2006, a panel of four government departments has decided that all the wives of a Muslim man may collect state benefits, provided that the marriages took place in a country where multiple spouses are legal.

Neither the review nor the decision was announced publicly, and their discovery by newspapers late last month triggered an uproar in the largely Christian nation — a fury exacerbated by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ remark last week that some aspects of Islamic law could be embraced within Britain’s legal system.

Archbishop Williams, the spiritual head of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, refused to back down from the idea yesterday, but admitted at a meeting of the church’s General Synod, or parliament, that the remark had been “clumsy.”

The furor contributed to a sense of unease about Islam after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States and the suicide bombings by Muslims on London’s bus and rail system that killed 52 commuters three years ago.

The proposed use of taxpayer money to support multiple wives of Muslim men — a figure that one estimate puts at up to $20 million a year — has provoked widespread anger, particularly since bigamy is a crime in Britain, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Read the rest here.

Could this become a precedent for law here in the US?

US: For these Muslims, polygamy is an option.

Should the U.S. Supreme Court Cite Foreign Precedents?

Chinese Parts for Iranian F-14s

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Chinese Parts for Iranian F-14s

China has been supplying Iran with parts for its U.S. F-14 aircraft.

These include parts from retired F-14s, that were sold to authorized dealers (who agreed not to export the parts to Iran.)

But China has also supplied Iran with custom made F-14 components, for parts that were not obtainable from the United States.

Finally, China was discrete about all this, until recent investigations of Iran’s F-14 support program began to bring out more details.

More Iranians are fleeing their homeland, and bringing more details of secret programs, with them.

The Chinese support for the Iranian F-14s has been going on for years.

Toledo Mayor to Marines: Leave downtown

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Mayor to Marines: Leave downtown.
He says urban exercises scare people

By JC REINDL
BLADE STAFF WRITER

A company of Marine Corps Reservists received a cold send-off from downtown Toledo yesterday by order of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner.

The 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., planned to spend their weekend engaged in urban patrol exercises on the streets of downtown as well as inside the mostly vacant Madison Building, 607 Madison Ave.

Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to Mayor Finkbeiner, who ordered the Marines out yesterday afternoon just minutes before their buses were to arrive.

“The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people,” said Brian Schwartz, the mayor’s spokesman.

“He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area.”

So after a brief stop at a friendly base in Perrysburg Township, the Marines by early evening were back on their way home to Grand Rapids.

“I wish they would have told us this four hours ago,” Staff Sgt. Andre Davis said. Read more here.

Shariah Law: German Bishop Protests Against UK Comments

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German Bishop Protests Against UK Shariah Comments

As the Archbishop of Canterbury comes under fire for suggesting parts of Shariah law be applied in the UK, the head of Germany’s Protestant Church told Deutsche Welle a country needs a single legal system for everyone.

Speaking to journalists at the Deutsche Welle in Bonn, Wolfgang Huber, head of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, slammed the proposal by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams to introduce parts of Islamic Shariah law for Muslims in Britain.

Williams also said introduction of some aspects of Islamic or Shariah law was “unavoidable” in Britain to promote social cohesion.

“Hoping to achieve integration through a dual legal system is a mistaken idea,” Huber told Deutsche Welle in an exclusive interview. “You have to ask the question as to what extent cultural characteristics have a legitimate place in a legal system. But you have to push for one country to have one system.”

Read more here.

Big Tent

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Sharia Law in Britain Unavoidable

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans, said on Thursday the introduction of some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in Britain was unavoidable.

Other religions enjoyed tolerance of their laws in Britain, he said, and he called for a “constructive accommodation” with Muslim practice in areas such as marital disputes.

Asked in a BBC interview if the adoption of Sharia law was necessary for community cohesion, Williams said: “It seems unavoidable.

“Certain conditions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.”

The issue of integrating Britain’s 1.8 million Muslims has been widely debated since July 2005 when four British Islamists carried out suicide bombings on London’s transport network, killing 52 people.

Sharia is the body of Islamic religious law based on the Koran, the words and actions of the Prophet Mohammad and his companions, and rulings of Islamic scholars. It covers issues including worship, commercial dealings, marriage and penal laws.

It is implemented in varying degrees in Muslim countries. Williams said he was not endorsing the harsh punishments issued in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where murderers and drug traffickers are beheaded.

“Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that has sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states, the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women.”

Any use of Sharia in Britain should not take precedence over “the rights that are guaranteed to… citizens in general”.

Muslims should have a choice in legal disputes over marriage and financial matters, Williams said.

Read the rest of this item and What did the Archbishop of Canterbury actually say?

Iraq: Duty

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MUQDADIYAH PATROL

U.S. Army soldiers assigned to 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division patrol Muqdadiyah, Iraq, Jan. 29, 2008.

U.S. Army photo by Spc. Shawn M. Cassatt

Korea: The Bottom Line

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Christopher R. Hill

Panel told nuke talks at impasse

The chief U.S. envoy at North Korean nuclear talks urged Kim Jong-il’s government to hand over a promised list of its nuclear efforts, saying yesterday that nuclear negotiators are working to make sure “Pyongyang lives up to its word.”

Christopher R. Hill told lawmakers that six-nation disarmament talks are at a “critical, challenging” point. “There is some sense of urgency,” he said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

The United States says the North has balked at providing a “complete and correct” disclosure of nuclear programs to eventually be dismantled. Washington has refused to take the North off a U.S. terrorism blacklist, a coveted goal of Pyongyang, until negotiators have the list.

“Let me be clear,” Mr. Hill said. ” ‘Complete and correct’ means complete and correct. This declaration must include all nuclear weapons, programs, materials and facilities, including clarification of any proliferation activities.”

He made his remarks a day after the director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, questioned North Korea’s commitment to the stalled talks. Mr. McConnell also said the U.S. intelligence community thinks North Korea continues to work on a secret uranium-enrichment program and to sell its weapons around the world.

North Korea has begun disabling its main nuclear facilities under an agreement with the other countries at the international arms talks — China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, as well as the U.S.

Most of the tasks of disabling those facilities have been completed, Mr. Hill said, with American experts working to ensure the plutonium-making facility would require at least a year to become operational again.

But the talks have faced an impasse since the North missed a Dec. 31 deadline on the declaration.

North Korea claims it gave the U.S. a nuclear list in November. Washington says Pyongyang never produced a complete list.

Kim Jong-il
The Bottom Line: It isn’t about what someone said or did regarding North Korean nukes. It’s about the broad, wonderful “open window” the US created when someone decided to stretch our election season over two years, beginning the day after the last election, and ending, hopefully, in November this year, assuming the results won’t end up in the courts again.

If any country is of a mind to stand its ground in a dispute with us, surely this is the time to do it. We are so paralyzed we cannot enact simple legislation, let alone negotiate complex and sensitive issues with a budding nuclear power.

The outlook is stark. Assuming no extensions for courtroom struggles, the current “open window” will close on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, almost a year away.

Anyone who bets that North Korea’s leader will make the slightest move toward accommodation before then should stick to cribbage.

Bird Flu

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Bird Flu Death Toll Increases as Indonesian Woman Dies, Saturday
From VOA News, 04 February 2008

Indonesia’s health ministry says a 29-year-old woman has died of bird flu, raising the death toll in the southeast Asian nation to 102.

Officials say the woman died on Saturday in a Jakarta hospital.

She is at least the eighth person to die this year from the disease.

The woman visited her parents recently and officials say their neighbors kept chicks.

It was unclear, however, whether the chickens were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

Most bird flu cases in Indonesia involve contact with infected poultry.

Indonesian officials also announced Monday, that another woman in her late twenties was infected with the disease. She is currently being treated at a hospital in Jakarta.

Officials say the infected woman’s neighbors keep poultry.

Indonesia has had the largest number of deaths and infections in the world since the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003.

The World Health Organization says 225 people around the world have died from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu since 2003.

Related:
Indian Officials Wrap up Efforts to Bring Bird Flu Under Control

Pakistan Confirms Bird Flu Virus at Karachi Farm

Saudi Arabia Destroys Thousands of Birds to Control Bird Flu Outbreak

Groundhog Day

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Groundhog Day, February 2nd, is a popular tradition in the United States.

It is the day that the Groundhog comes out of his hole after a long winter sleep to look for his shadow.

If he sees it, he regards it as an omen of six more weeks of bad weather and returns to his hole.

If the day is cloudy and, hence, shadowless, he takes it as a sign of spring and stays above ground.

Of course, the phrase “Groundhog Day” might make you think of the movie, Ground Hog Day, in which a weatherman finds himself living the same day over and over again.

Couch Potato
That might be a sign that you’ve been spending too much time watching the longest running TV reality-survivor show called Election 2008 (or Election 2007-2008 in some circles).