DEBCAfile: US foresees May as Tentative Date for Clash with Iran!

A hurried decision not to de-commission the USS Ponce helicopter marine carrier after duty in Libya, but to refit it for deployment by May in the Persian Gulf as a floating base for commando teams, was confirmed by the Pentagon and Navy Sunday, Dec.29. This transportable floating base will expand the commandos' range in coastal areas and support counter-measure against mines which Iran has threatened to plant in reprisal for the US-EU oil embargo. The SEALs will also take on Iran's menacing fleet of military speedboats. Debkafile reports Tehran operates four different kinds of these craft in the Persian Gulf: 1. Small, fast vessels, each armed with a small missile for striking tankers and coastal oil targets around the Gulf region, such as export terminals. Earlier this month, Tehran claimed to have developed stealth cruise missiles capable of disabling aircraft carriers with a single shot. 2. Small, extra-fast boats armed with torpedoes. Iranian publications claim several such boats are capable of stealing up on US aircraft carriers and large warships from several directions without being detected and cause serious damage. 3. Floating bombs for kamikaze missions. These fast boats cannot be deflected after locking in on target, whether on sea or shore, and explode on contact. Iran used these floating missiles piloted by suicide squads to attack oil tankers in the Gulf in November 1987. Since then, their naval tacticians have upgraded this fleet with the technology gained from the British Bladerunner 51, a model of which Iran purchased some years ago. Since early January, the Pentagon has reported four cases of harassment by Iranian military boats sailing close to American warships in the Persian Gulf.    

Michael Zennie: Lawsuit Alleges Gingrich Hushed Possible ties to Chinese Organized Crime!!

The billionaire casino mogul who has breathed new life into Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign with millions of dollars in donations is facing a federal investigation over whether his company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribing foreign officials. The investigation stems from a lawsuit filed by a former executive at the Sands Macau in China, the company has said. Steven C. Jacobs claims he was told to keep quiet about investigations of local officials and the possible presence of the triads, Chinese organized crime, in the casino. Sheldon Adelson, who founded and runs Las Vegas Sands Corp, one of the largest casino and resort companies in the world, has denied the allegations in the lawsuit, and said the company is cooperating with federal investigators. Adelson has "donated" an estimated $10 million to Gingrich's super PAC 'Winning our Future' and promised to give up to $20 million. Worth an estimated $21 billion, Adelson is the eighth richest man in America and has almost single-handedly financed Gingrich's second campaign surge. The large donation has allowed Gingrich supporters to buy TV ads in key states, helping the former House Speaker to defeat Mitt Romney in the South Carolina Republican primary, but the attention has brought Adelson's business practices into the spotlight. The lawsuit was filed in October 2010 and the company announced the federal inquiry in Match of last year. Adelson addressed the concerns at a public forum last year, saying the investigation is 'not a serious matter.' 

USS Liberty Veteran's Association Files Crime Report Against Israel!

On Friday, June 10 at 1:00 PM, Moe Shafer, board member of the USS Liberty Veterans Association and Rear Admiral Merlin Merlin Staring, USN, Ret. Former Judge Advocate of the Navy who was involved with the initial Court of Inquiry investigating the attack in 1967 will present details of the "Report of War Crimes" brief filed on behalf of the USS Liberty Veteran's Association concerning the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. The "Report" was filed with by James R. Gotcher, General Legal Counsel, USS - LVA, with the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon on June 8, the 38th anniversary of the attack on the USS Liberty. For a complete copy of the brief, go to http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/Report/Report.pdf for a PDF version of the Report. By establishing prima facie evidence that Israel committed war crimes the Secretary of Defense under existing Dept. Of Defense directives is obligated to initiate an inquiry into the commission of war crimes, an investigation that should have been carried out 38 years ago. Gotcher was an Air Force intelligence officer in Vietnam in 1967, and is one of three intelligence officers who were in different parts of the world at the time. Independent of each other they signed sworn affidavits that they saw intelligence messages saying the USS Liberty was under attack by Israeli aircraft in the Mediterranean. Moe was a 3rd class communications technician on the USS Liberty and survivor of a torpedo attack that killed 25 of his ship mates in the part of the ship where he was stationed. Captain Ward Boston, a JAG Officer involved with the initial inquiry and retired FBI agent examined the original copy of the Court of Inquiry record released under the Freedom of Information Act and declared it a fraud: "It is not the record I certified and submitted in 1967," says Captain Boston. Lloyd Painter, Officer of the Deck on the USS Liberty and retired secret service agent of 24 years testified that his statement mentioned in the report, "that the Israeli torpedo boat crews machine gunned the USS Liberty inflatable life boats" was removed from the final report that was submitted in 1967!       

David Blair: Iran EU Sanctions: Q & A!

What sanctions has the European Union imposed on Iran? With immediate effect, no EU member state can sign a contract to import crude oil or refined petroleum from Iran. Existing agreements will be honored until 1 July, after which all imports must cease. In addition, the EU has introduced a range of financial restrictions, including freezing assets held in Europe by the Iranian Central Bank. The EU has imposed sanctions before. Why are these different? Because the oil industry forms the central pillar of Iran's economy, providing most of the country's export earnings and about 55 per cent of the national budget. Oil revenues poured some $90 billion into Iranian government coffers in 2010-11, compared with total expenditure of $165 billion. Iran now faces the loss of sales of almost 600,000 barrels of oil per day to the EU, 24 per cent of total exports. Won't Iran find other customers? Probably yes. But EU sanctions will have the effect of creating an instant buyer's market for Iranian crude. Because Iran will need to find customers for all the oil that once went to the EU, buyers will be able to insist on hefty discounts. China and India, Iran's two biggest customers who imported 860,000 barrels per day last year, are likely to ask for lower prices. Iran may be in no position to refuse. The result will be that it loses billions of dollars of revenues. Can Iran's government take this hit? Not without great difficulties.

Robert Greenwald: Take on the Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War Machine

Not many journalists can say they had a hand in getting a commanding general relieved of duty in the middle of a war. But Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings did just that when his 2010 story on Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, sent shock-waves through Washington and resulted in McChrystal being recalled to DC and unceremoniously fired by Barack Obama. Hasting's report, "The Runaway General," detailed how McChrystal and his top officers spoke of their civilian superiors with sneering condescension, and revealed that they didn't genuinely embrace the counterinsurgency strategy being sold to the public at home. The piece was a result of fortuitous circumstances. Hastings had at first been allowed only controlled access to McCrystal, but when European air-traffic was grounded following the eruption of the Eyjafjoell volcano in Iceland, Hastings ended up catching a bus to Berlin with McChrystal and his staff, who let down their guard during the extended ride. The young journo is a veteran war correspondent who covered Iraq as well as Afghanistan. The McChrystal story wasn't Hastings' first significant report, and it wouldn't be his last. In 2011, he broke a story about how David Petraeus, McChrystal's replacement in Afghanistanwas using military psy-ops units to influence visiting United States senators' views of the conflict. Hastings' new book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan, draws on his extensive grounds-eye-view reporting from the decade-long conflict.     

John Kozy: The Crisis of Education in America!

How to become a Serf: Man is a pathetic creature, a brute trying to be a god, but traveling in the wrong direction. Educational systems now train workers to fulfill the needs of companies. A society in which people exist for the sake of companies in a society enslaved. But there is a deep problem with the notion that education should equal vocational training. To paraphrase a very famous and renowned person, man does not live by work alone. Indeed, the knowledge and skills needed to earn a living in a capitalist industrial economy are of little use in human relationships are the core of everyone's life. Schools devoted to vocational training provide no venue for teaching cultural differences, for trying to understand the person who lives next door or in another country. Value systems are never evaluated, alternatives are never considered. As a result, although we all live on the same planet, we do not live together. At best, we only live side by side. At worst, we live to kill each other. Education as vocational training reduces everything to ideaology, our devotion to which causes us to reject the stark reality that stares us in the face, because our ideologies color the realities we see and people never get wiser than those of previous generations. People have become nothing but the monkeys of hurdy gurdy grinders, tethered to grinders' organs with tin cups in hands to be filled for the benefit of the grinders, and this is the species we refer to as sapient. What a delusion! For many years, I have been troubled by what I saw as the results of what passes for education in America and perhaps elsewhere too. Why is it, do you suppose, that one generation does not seem to get any smarter than a previous one?  

Scott Thill: 3 Ways to Expose Our Rotten Corporate State!

He may no longer be running for president of the United States of South Carolina, but the Colbert Report's hyperreal satirist Stephen Colbert is still educating viewers on America's arcane political machinery, while schooling mainstream journalists on how to properly inform the citizenry. He's participated in the democratic process by recently launching the super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and campaigning for office in both 2008 and 2012, and he's amassed a well-funded war chest of still unknown size, with which he plans on creating more attack ads to monkey-wrench the electoral status-quo, and perhaps more. Some in Colbert Nation, including this writer, spend much time dreaming that Colbert announces a surprise third-party run for the White House. If only to further illuminate the two-party system at its worst, and at best, to strike a blow for satirists and other culture jammers who would seriously think about local or national politics as a worthy side project. "The Yes Men come the closest to Colbert for using existing rules and structures to expose and satirize their intent," media theorist Douglas Rushkoff told AlterNet. "Of course, Timothy Leary ran for governor of California, and Abbie Hoffman levitated the Pentagon, but Colbert is clearly on a scale that would have been hard to imagine early on."