Are We Fixing For...

...war, or what?

US Tanks Are Rolling Across Latvia

Russia launches large-scale military manoeuvres in the Arctic

Drill spree: NATO tanks arrive for military exercise in Estonia

Or a coup?

Who're you gonna believe?

Ain't That The Truth

Being in a State of Forced Withdrawal

Yesterday, as I was at the counter preparing to pay for some stuff I was buying at a local hardware store, the Internet died. Neither my bank card nor credit card worked. Thankfully, I had my chequebook with me. So I paid for my stuff by cheque, something I rarely do anymore. I'd almost forgotten how to fill out a cheque. The clerk had to print the sales receipt and write on it with her own hand that it had been paid for by cheque # such and such.

When I got home, my access to the Internet was down, too. As it turned out, there had been some major Sasktel cable severed at a construction site in Regina and a large swath of territory in Southeast Saskatchewan was without Internet or cell phone access. People couldn't even call 911 if there was an emergency. However, strangely enough, texting was possible.

Being an Internet freak, I kept trying to go online, but to no avail. On the radio, in the evening, a Sasktel spokeswoman said the problem may not be fixed until well into the night. So I packed 'er in early last night.

One good thing about it is I got lots of other stuff done, like long overdue housework. But communities all along the TransCanada highway from Regina to very nearly the Manitoba border were without access, so it sure shows how a major disaster might affect us all, if the Internet and cell phone service is knocked out. Good thing we still had electricity.

We're Getting Smart

First there was Stuxnet and now this.

Tunisian Update: 9:30 PM CST

Tunisians see new Web freedoms as acting president takes over

Well that's gotta be good.

So is this, from the link above:

"Tunisia has close cultural and economic links to France, which invaded Tunisia in 1881. That move led to the creation of a protectorate until Tunisia became independent in 1956.

An official statement from French President Nicolas Sarkozy noted France's "many ties of friendship" to Tunisia and called for free elections as soon as possible.

After Sarkozy met with some senior members of his Cabinet Saturday to discuss Tunisia, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde sent instructions to financial institutions and banks to freeze the assets in France of the Ben Ali family.

French government spokesman Francois Baroin said Saturday that France asked some of Ben Ali's relatives to leave the country, adding that Ben Ali wouldn't be allowed in France."

And in Tunisia's neighbour, Libya, Moammar Gadhafi is shitting bricks:

"Moammar Gadhafi, leader of neighboring Libya, denounced the developments in a televised speech Saturday night. Ben Ali remains the nation's rightful president, per its constitution, and blamed unrest on criminal gangs, he said.

'Sadly, Tunisia is headed to more chaos and we do not know how it will end,' he said.

Gadhafi closed his speech by saying he was 'sad and hurt' by the recent developments, which he said threatened to derail significant progress in Tunisia.

'I hope your sanity returns and your wounds heal, because you had a big loss that will never return,' he said, addressing the Tunisian people."

The shit must be up to his knees by now, if not higher. If the Tunisians manage to keep the revolution going, look for some significant developments in Libya, and some pretty horrific repression.

Views on Tunisia the Morning After

UPDATE:  Live updates at the BBC website.

Revolution arrives in Arab world

"The 23-year dictatorship of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fell to the first people power revolution of the Arab world on Friday night. Many of Tunisia's neighbours will be casting a nervous eye over their own disaffected, youthful populations.

The Middle East was a place where, in the 20th century, political change happened through war and coup.

In the 21st century things will be different. The Internet has brought people closer to their leaders. It is they who will determine their futures, not the ambitions and ideologies of their generals."

Yup. I've been thinking about what led to this historic event. It's not that there haven't been popular uprisings in Arab countries before, but none of them have led to the leader voluntarily heading into exile. I'm thinking that new technologies, utilizing the Internet, certainly contributed to this and will have dictators throughout the region shaking in their boots. I suspect the young people in Iran waving green banners will be watching closely, too, and enviously.

And Wikileaks!!

"Mr. Ben Ali may also have been the first victim of WikiLeaks. Cables by a U.S. ambassador giving colourful descriptions of the lives of luxury enjoyed by his family and the business empire it controlled were eagerly emailed around the country, despite a repressive system of censorship."

I'm not sure this is what Julian had in mind. It was more like blame the great Satan for everything on the planet.

"The Iranian revolution 30 years ago was followed by the sound of crashing dictatorships for a decade, ending in the final implosion of the Soviet Union.

I'm not sure I would describe the post Iranian revolution that way. Rather than "crashing dictatorships", it was more like changing of the management. The implosion of the Soviet Union was one of the events that allowed freedom and democracy movements to arise in those dictatorships.

Is a revolution in Tunisia similarly contagious?

"It may not be the last days of [Egypt's President Hosni] Mubarak or any other Middle Eastern strongman. But there is clearly something going on in the region," wrote Stephen Cook of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.

Conditions in neighbours such as Egypt are rather different. They have the same economic stagnation, but also much lower educational attainment and a less developed sense of political accountability. Their state apparatuses are more oppressive. They now have to consider whether, should their turn come, they will give up so easily."

Security stepped up after leader Ben Ali flees

"Hundreds of troops are patrolling Tunis and a state of emergency is in force. Interim leader Mohammed Ghannouchi has said his priority is restoring order.

There were scenes of looting overnight in several areas, witnesses said.

Mr Ghannouchi said he would hold talks with opposition groups to try to form a unity government. (Emphasis mine)

The main thoroughfare in Tunis, Avenue Bourguiba, was blocked off by troops after the lifting of an overnight curfew.

The streets are largely deserted, AFP news agency reported."

[---]

"There have been reports of overnight looting in the city's suburbs, with French-owned supermarkets among the properties targeted.

Tunis' main train station was burnt down, AP news agency reported.

Resident Zouhair Ben Jemaa told the BBC: "We couldn't sleep all night. We hear everything - the helicopters, the gunfire. It's quiet now. There are a few people out and about, but the troubles will probably start later."

[---]

"Mr Ben Ali was only Tunisia's second president since independence from France in 1956. He was last re-elected in 2009 with 89.62% of the vote."

I think it's about time to quit blaming colonialism.

Shops sacked, train station burned in Tunisia

"Rioters burned the Tunisian capital's main train station to the ground and sacked and looted shops..."

[---]

"An Associated Press photographer saw soldiers intervening early Saturday to try to stop looters from sacking a huge supermarket in the Ariana area, 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the capital.

A helicopter circled low over the capital, apparently acting as a spotter for fires or pillaging. Gunfire was heard crackling anew in the mid-morning.

Overnight, public television station TV7 broadcast phone calls from residents of working-class neighborhoods on the capital's outskirts, recounting attacks against their homes by knife-wielding assailants."

[---]

"The ouster followed the country's largest protests in generations and weeks of escalating unrest, sparked by one man's suicide and fueled by social media, cell phones and young people who have seen relatively little benefit from Tunisia's recent economic growth. Thousands of demonstrators from all walks of life rejected Ben Ali's promises of change and mobbed Tunis, the capital, to demand that he leave.

The government said at least 23 people have been killed in the riots, but opposition members put the death toll at more than three times that."

It's too bad revolutions are initially normally so destructive of civil society. Let's hope calm prevails soon.

People power topples strongman after weeks of violent protests over jobs and freedoms

"One opposition leader, Najib Chebbi, said change had to be made permanent.

'This is a crucial moment. There is a change of regime underway. Now it's the succession,' he told French television. 'It must lead to profound reforms, to reform the law and let the people choose.'

All told, I'm optimistic about this, although I'm not sure how widespread it's influence may be. It certainly could serve to rekindle the Green Movement in Iran, and maybe even the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, which coincidentally, is also teetering on the brink. I'm hoping, at the very least, the era of Arab Nationalism is over. I just don't want to see Islamification sweep over the Arab and Muslim world instead. I'll be waiting to see how Iamamadjerk and the Mad Mullahs react to this, and especially, how the young tech-savvy people in Tehran and other cities respond.

WikiLeaks Commentary Worth Reading: The Best One Yet

WikiLeaks, Stuxnet, Cyberwar, and Obama

"The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is something that ought to be more widely known than it is. Starting in the 1980s, advances in cybernetics and communications began having a dramatic impact had on military operations. Such innovations as Precision-Guided Munitions (PGMs) and high channel capacity communications systems not only increased the effectiveness of individual weapons systems, but, acting as force multipliers, they also boosted the capabilities of entire units to a point where they could take on and defeat enemy forces that in the past would have been considered far superior.The impact of the RMA became apparent in the First Gulf War of 1990-1991. Most of the two-thirds of a million Coalition troops deployed in Saudi Arabia never engaged with enemy forces. The Iraqis were defeated by a handful of spearhead units so technologically superior to the Warsaw Pact-type Iraqi units that there was no contest. In 2003, a much smaller Coalition force routed the Iraqis, utilizing all the technological advantages that had appeared in the ensuing twelve years."

[---]

"But despite all the speculation surrounding the RMA, few foresaw the arrival of a second phase in which the breadth, execution, and very definition of warfare would be transformed. The new technology empowered not only military forces, but also intelligence agencies and even non-state actors. Utilizing communications and cybernetics innovations, the new combatants can, under the right circumstances, have an impact rivaling that of entire nation-states, causing serious turmoil and damage with a minimal outlay of effort. In 2010, we have been introduced to this mutated form of warfare by two distinct events: Stuxnet and WikiLeaks."

This article goes on to say some veerrrrry interesting things about Stuxnet, including a contrary theory to the one posed by Michael Ledeen on who killed the Iranian scientists last week.

And about the WikiLeaks revelations themselves:

"There have been loud gasps in some circles at the "news" that Hillary instructed her diplomats to seek out intelligence. This is asinine. Diplomats have been low-key intelligence agents as long as they've existed. For centuries they were often the only intelligence force many states possessed. The practice was not invented by Hillary, or Condi, or even Talleyrand, for that matter. It's part of the job description."

That's kind of what I think, too. And with this, too:

"The damage is minimal. There has been a lot of concern expressed over damage to the U.S. as a whole, to American diplomacy, and to the international community. I don't see it.""

And there's lots more, especially about Assange groupies, or the "lumpen-individuals" and their ilk, so go read it.

More WikiLeaks Stuff (will be updated as needed)

UPDATED AND BUMPED:

December 7, 2010:

ASSange behind bars in London

"US Republican congressman Pete King, the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has called for Assange to be extradited to the US to face court there, too.

"Sweden is obviously a democracy and they have the right to pursue whatever legal acts they have against Assange," he said.

"But ultimately, and really sooner rather than later, I think it's important that he be extradited from whatever country he's in to the United States because his conduct to me clearly violates the US Espionage Act.

"It's putting American lives at risk throughout the world. Clearly what he's done is wrong and he has to be punished.""

 WikiLeaks founder Julian ASSange arrested

"Those leaked files have turned Assange into an international figure, vilified by the U.S. and governments around the world for spilling official secrets but lionized by activists demanding a free flow of information. In Washington, the Obama administration blames Assange for recklessly damaging U.S. relations with other countries and even aiding terrorists."

US could face hurdles in extradicting ASSange from Sweden

"U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday that he has authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks. The site has been under intense pressure from the United States and its allies since it began posting the first of more than 250,000 U.S. State Department documents November 28."

The case against Julian ASSange

"His lawyers are likely to argue that in Sweden he will be vulnerable to extradition requests from other countries including the U.S., which has had an extradition treaty with Sweden since the 1960s."

London Court Denies WikiLeaks Founder Bail

"Assange is an Australian citizen and while the country's attorney general said Assange has a right to consular support, Australia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, says the country is investigating whether a crime was committed in Australia.

"The foundation stone of it is an illegal act. Information was taken and that was illegal. So, let's not try and put any glosses on this. It would not happen, information would not be on WikiLeaks, if there had not been an illegal act undertaken.""

Good! This will give the Yanks enough time to build their case.

December 6, 2010:

Turkish PM Threatens to Sue Over Wikileaks Claims

""Those who have slandered us will be crushed under these claims, will be finished and will disappear," he said."

A grand game of Russian Roulette has been unleashed. Who will be the first to get him? And how will we know?


============================

Ongoing:

Reactions to the United States diplomatic cables leak

December 6th:

Something good coming out of the WikiLeaks docu-dump?

Leaked cable details Canadian sites 'vital' to U.S.

...and Fort Mac ain't on it!!

Swiss bank freezes Julian Assange's account

Scotland Yard has the papers. Send in the lawyers.

Wikileaks reveals ugly truth about Iran appeasers

"OURS is the great age of the autobiographical alibi.

So it seems fitting that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's mother should really be to blame. According to an indulgent profile in The New Yorker, Assange suffered a chaotic childhood in the artistic-bohemian community of NSW's Byron Bay, where young Julian was home-schooled following his mother's doctrine that formal education inculcates "an unhealthy respect for authority" and dampens a child's "will to learn".

No doubt all this explains how Assange, having been taught to resist each and every exercise of authority, could resolve to defy all the authorities of the world simultaneously, thus condemning a poor confused 23-year-old US security analyst to a life in prison, and all without the slightest hint of responsibility.

By the same logic, it would be interesting to guess at the excuses of those many foreign policy analysts whose pretexts, alibis and downright falsehoods about "constructive engagement" with Iran have come rather awfully unstuck in the past week, in the light of Assange's latest Dadaist escapade. Who knows: perhaps they too suffered the privations of an artistic-bohemian childhood in some seaside shack on Cape Cod or Martha's Vineyard?

These past two years it has become received wisdom in influential sections of the foreign policy community that, in the wake of the Bush administration's foreign policy excesses and errors, the chief imperative of US foreign policy is to avoid any further foreign entanglements. In the pursuit of this shimmering transcendent goal, however, it soon enough becomes necessary to use any and every argument that comes to hand, no matter how implausible."

[---]

"Yet these are the same Leveretts who insisted, 18 months ago in The Washington Post, that Iran's elections were not only free and fair, but actually freer and fairer than those of their own country. Even though, as the WikiLeaks cables have now clarified, US diplomats knew all along that the result was fixed; and further knew that the actual election figures were very similar to those revealed by a brave young official in the Iranian Information Ministry, Mohammad Asghari, who paid for this act of heroism with his life, only to have his information greeted with pure white silence in Washington."

RTWT It gets down to the blunt and ugly truth about the Obama administration, progressives and Iran's brutal Mullahocracy.


December 5th:

Charge against Wikileaks founder 'not political': Sweden Buried deep in that article is this interesting factoid:

"Among the latest revelations was one document that said Saudi Arabia was the key source of funding for radical Islamist groups including Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hamas.

Gulf states Qatar and Kuwait were also lax in pursuing locals who donated to the groups, said the cable, an assessment from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dated December 30, 2009."

Yawn. As if we didn't know that.

And this:

"And as fresh leaks of US diplomatic cables heaped more embarrassment on Washington, one report suggested that the revelations would force a major reshuffle of their diplomatic, military and intelligence staff.

The US news website The Daily Beast reported Sunday that the leaks might have made it "dangerous" if not impossible for those found to have been strongly critical of corrupt or incompetent governments to do their job.

"We're going to have to pull out some of our best people... because they dared to report back the truth about the nations in which they serve," a senior US national-security official told the website."

Assange hunt 'political stunt': lawyer

Wikileaks archives - China's battle with Google

Wikileaks bank account in Switzerland under scrutiny

"GENEVA: Bank officials are looking at shutting down an account opened by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Switzerland, media reports said Sunday.

Postfinance spokesman Marc Andrey told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper that in order to keep a regular bank account open, Assange would have to prove he obtained Swiss residence, owns property in the country or has business dealings in Switzerland."

Not looking good, is it dear Julian.

This next one is really good.

Diplomats gossip; don't be shocked

"We're all familiar with gossip, which has been described as the dishing of the dirt, to "wag one's tongue; speak about others and reveal secrets or intimacies.

Lawyers do it, farmers do it, truckers do it, journalists do it and housewives do it. So why is everyone so surprised, dare I say even aghast, that diplomats do it?"

[---]

"Most of the comments contained in all those gazillions of pages of U.S. diplomatic cables dumped on the world this week by the brain surgeons at the website WikiLeaks amount to little more than gossip.

Because of this, world leaders seem much less disturbed by the leaks than are members of the media and the everyday gossips of the world-which would include all the rest of us."

[---]

"Gossip or not, much of what was spoken and/or written, of course, contains a lot of truth-sometimes too much for our comfort.

For example, our own former CSIS Director Jim Judd told a Washington contact that Canadians have an "Alice in Wonderland" attitude towards terrorism. True in spades.

In reference to a video of Omar Khadr he also lamented our "knee jerk anti-Americanism and paroxysms of moral outrage," which he called "a Canadian specialty." There's another truism about Canadians that we all should consider carefully.

At least one of our "beloved" institutions comes in for some heavy criticism in the dispatches."

Guess which "beloved" institution that is? You probably already know, but, just in case, the answer is in the tags at the bottom of this post."


December 4th:

Wikileaks struggles to keep its site active online

"WikiLeaks, according to former members, has servers in different countries precisely to avoid the sort of trouble it is facing now. But its release of the cables has so angered some governments that they are seeking ways to silence WikiLeaks by prevailing upon the largely invisible providers whose services make the Internet work."

'Pretty harsh stuff'

WikiLeaks site's Swiss host dismisses pressure to take it off line

Afghan finance minister warns leaked cables will damage relations with US

Spanish PM helped GE Rolls Royce to helicopter deal

Wikileaks founder sends out 100000 copies of secret files

WikiLeaks website stopped again; shifting to Sweden

Meet WikiLeaks likely first victim

December 3rd:

A good one translated from Russian @ Simply Jews - Julian the Almighty.

Cyber attack forces Wikileaks to change web address

Wikileaks Fights to Stay Online Amid Attacks

"WikiLeaks became an Internet vagabond Friday, moving from one website to another as governments and hackers hounded the organization, trying to deprive it of a direct line to the public"

WikiLeaks diverts to European websites amid U.S. fury

WikiLeaks faces donations blow as it fights for survival

November 30th:

WikiLeaks' boss living on borrowed time

Another Week of Middle Eastern...

...hell, with only a little bit of intrigue:

Lebanese PM voices support for Hariri tribunal

...despite the fact that Nasrallah has called for him to "repudiate the trail."

"Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri expressed support Wednesday for a U.N.-backed tribunal's investigation of the assassination of his politician father, a process many fear could ignite factional violence.

Western diplomats and Lebanese political sources say expected indictments against members of Shi'ite guerrilla group Hezbollah in the 2005 killing of Sunni statesman Rafik al-Hariri could be issued by the end of this year or in early 2011.

The group, part of a fragile national unity government, denies involvement in the Hariri bombing and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said he will not allow the arrest of any members. He has called on Saad to repudiate the tribunal."

Hezbollah official hints at group's involvement in Hariri murder

"The (UN commission's) findings and the imminent release of the UN report have sparked fears of a renewed civil war in Lebanon.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Beirut on Wednesday for a two-day visit that would include talks on the tense political situation in Lebanon, in an effort to keep the row from spiraling out of control.

Erdogan is to meet Lebanese government officials and lawmakers from Hezbollah, according to a government source.

The Turkish premier, in remarks published Wednesday in the Lebanese daily As Safir, said his country would not allow Lebanon to deteriorate into a civil war.

Erdogan said that Turkey would "do the necessary to fight signs of a civil war in Lebanon."

"Now is the time for unity in Lebanon," he said."

We know history doesn't repeat itself, but does it ever go backwards? I was in Lebanon waaaay back in 1973, before the Civil War. It was a beautiful place then.

Meanwhile, back in Hezbollah HQ, another curious movement is afoot:

Dozens of Iranian lawmakers demand Ahmadinejad be summoned for questioning 

"Dozens of Iranian lawmakers have signed a petition seeking to make Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the first president to be summoned for questioning since the Islamic Revolution 32 years ago.

However the challenge looks unlikely to succeed because the numbers fall short of the constitutional requirement that at least one-fourth of the 290 parliament members must sign the petition before the president can be questioned."

Turkey vows to prevent war with Lebanon

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consulted with top ministers behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss concerns that Hezbollah could attempt a coup against the government.

Similar concerns were raised last week by Israeli chief of staff Lt General Gabi Ashkenazi during a visit to Canada. "There is a real possibility that Hezbollah will take over Lebanon," an army statement quoted him as saying."

It's like waiting for the earthquake to come so we can see what's changed. It can get a lot worse, or a lot better.

Something is afoot, if that powerhouse, Gambia, cuts ties with Iran, making for some embarrassing and revealing speculation.

And was it Stuxnet or was it not Stuxnet?

A summary worth reading: Iran: Things That Are Not Talked About
==========================
PS: One more article with a Canadian, but not CBC, element.

Nasrallah could seize power in Lebanon, Ashkenazi tells, MacKay, Canadian counterpart

"IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi warned last week that Hezbollah could sieze power in Lebanon.

Ashkenazi met in Canada with his Canadian counterpart, General Walter Natynczyk, the chief of the defence staff of the Canadian Forces. The meeting was held as part of a series of work-related meetings that Ashkenazi is holding during an official visit to Canada and the United States.

Ashkenazi told his Canadian hosts that he is concerned over the possible ramifications of the UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and said that the publication of the probe’s findings may result in Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah seizing power in Lebanon."

[---]

"During his meeting in Canada, Ashkenazi said that a small group within the Lebanese Army is assisting Hezbollah and mentioned recent visits by current Lebanese PM Saad Hariri (son of Rafik Hariri) and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to Syria for talks with President Bashar Assad as aimed at ensuring their “survival.”

Ashkenazi also mentioned what he called the “radical axis” in the Middle East, which he said is gaining strength, and praised Canada for its participation in training a future Palestinian Authority security force in Judea and Samaria."

My question is why is Turkey so concerned about the consequences of the allegation that Hezbollah was involved in Hariri's assassination? Is it the prospect of Hezbollah being in charge of the whole country of Lebanon, or does it have something to do with the new role and focus of NATO, or both? Or neither?

I'll have more on NATO in a day or two. The long war continues. Iraq was but the first battle.

"So Not Twentieth Century"

UPDATE: Interesting discussion about the worm at Hot Air with lots of good links. Suspects range from the USA, Israel to Russia, but I'm going to suggest it might be Julian Assange doing the "community work" he promised in exchange for his release.

---------------------------
But oh so cool.

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Speaking of worms. Is it just me or is he looking more wormier with each passing day?

HEHEHEHEHE!! Love it!!

"Israel 'blinded' Syrian radar"

"This is greatly worrying Iran. Why? Because Iran might be having the same radar systems guarding their nuclear sites. And it’s even very probable that they were the ones who got it to the Syrians; after getting it from Russia of course!"

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. What's that sound you are hearing, Mullahs?

H/T Big Pharaoh