Archive for November 12th, 2007
Israel on alert for Syria airstrike
Israel on alert for Syria airstrike
From The Sunday Times
November 11, 2007
Israel on alert for Syria airstrike
Uzi Mahnaimi,
The defensive missile shield around Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor was placed on red alert 30 times last week amid fears of an airstrike by Syria.
A battery of American-made Patriot antiaircraft missiles has been moved to Dimona in the Negev desert following intelligence that a strike may be launched in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of a suspected nuclear site in Syria two months ago.
In a highly unusual move, the officers in charge of the missiles were permitted to talk to Israeli state television about their preparations. “We’re ready to launch the missiles in seconds, once we’re on full alert,” said First Lieutenant Adi, a young female officer who is the deputy commander of the battery.
Tension with Damascus has heightened since September 6 when Israeli fighters destroyed the suspected nuclear installation in northern Syria.
“The fact that the Syrians didn’t launch an immediate strike against Israel doesn’t mean that they won’t retaliate in due course,” said an Israeli defence source. “Dimona is on the top of their list.”
Tension is mounting in Israel. “Every civilian aircraft en route from Cairo to Amman, or from Jeddah to Cairo and vice versa, which deviates even slightly from its route, sets off an alarm and risks a missile being fired,” said the female commander of the Patriot battery.
The unit is authorised to shoot down any aircraft which approaches, civilian or combat.
An Israeli Mirage jet that approached Dimona by mistake was shot down during the Six-Day War in 1967, while a Libyan Boeing 727 which lost its way in a storm in 1973 and approached Dimona was also downed. All 113 on board were killed.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
Israel Air Force Train Intensively for Iran Strike with Mini-Nukes
Israel Air Force Train Intensively for Iran Strike with Mini-Nukes
12/11/2007
The Israel Air Force is training for a tactical nuclear strike on Iranian nuclear production facilities.
The IAF is practicing for a mission to destroy key Iranian facilities, at least one with low-yield nuclear munitions, the Times of London reported. Citing “several Israeli sources,” the Times said that two IAF squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using a combination of precision laser bombs and low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”. The Times report was supplemented by one from Fox News.
The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb, the Times said. Under the plans, the report said, conventional laser-guided bombs would open shafts into the targets.
Then the “mini-nukes” would then be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.
“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.
Israeli intelligence recently announced that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons by 2009.
Meir Dagan, head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, also believes that the Iranians will have a complete nuclear device by 2009.
Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran believed to be central to Iran’s nuclear program, the Times reported: Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment; A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan, and a heavy water reactor at Arak.
Ephraim Sneh, the former deputy Israeli defense minister, said last month: “The time is approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide whether to take military action against Iran.
” But he lamented that “At the end of the day it is always down to the Jews to deal with the problem.” The United States has described a strike against Iranian targets as a “last resort”, leading Israelis to believe that it will be left to the IAF to strike.
The Times, citing Israeli sources, said Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. The report said that the air force squadrons are based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, under the personal supervision of Major General Eliezer Shkedy, commander of the Israeli Air Force, training to use Israel’s arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons on the mission.
The Israelis believe that Iran’s expected retaliation “would be constrained by fear of an Israeli second strike.” The leak of a possible nuclear option by Israel may be intentional, US analysts have said.
“In the cold war, we made it clear to the Russians that it was a virtual certainty that nukes would fly and fly early,” said an American defense source. “Israel may be adopting the same tactics: ‘You produce a weapon; you die’.”
Type 039 Song Class Specifications
Type 039 Song Class Specifications
The Type 039 (NATO codename: Song class) diesel-electric submarine was designed by Wuhan Ship Development and Design Institute (701 Institute) for the PLA Navy PLAN).
Construction was carried out by Wuhan Shipbuilding Industry Company in Wuhan, Hubei Province and Jiangnan Shipyard Group Corporation in Shanghai. At least seven hulls have been delivered to the PLA Navy since 1994, with more expected to come in the future.
The first hull of the Type 039 submarine (pennant No.320) was launched on 25 May 1994 at Wuhan Shipyard, and started sea trials in August 1995. However, the submarine was not fully operational until 1999, reportedly due to serious design flaws, including unsatisfactory underwater performance and noise level. After some major redesign work, a modified Type 039G variant (No.321) entered the service in April 2001, followed by the second (No.322) in December 2001 and the third (No. 323) in November 2003.
On 3 June 2004, Wuhan Shipbuilding Industry Company revealed a further improved variant Type 039G1. Since then at least six hulls (324, 314, 315, 316, 318, and 327) of this design have been launched in Wuhan and two more in Shanghai-based Jiangnan Shipyard, indicating that the submarine design had been finalised and the series production was underway.
The Type 039 was designed for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and anti-surface warfare (ASuW) using torpedoes and submarine-launched anti-ship missiles. The submarine is also capable of reconnaissance, water mine laying and patrol roles. The submarine itself is a blend of Chinese and Western technologies, and represents a major step forward in China’s conventional submarine design.
Compared with the previous Chinese-built submarines, the Type 039 has a more hydro-dynamically sleek profile. To reduce the submarine’s acoustic signature, the main engine is fitted with a shock absorbance, and the hull is covered by rubber anti-sonar protection tiles similar to those used on the Russian Kilo class. The submarine has a pair of fin-mounted hydroplanes, four rudders, and a single large skewed propeller.
The first and only basic variant Type 039 submarine has a stepped conning fin, with the bridge a step lower than the part of the fin that contains masts.
This design was reported to have affected the submarine’s underwater performance and noise level, and was replaced by a different shape with no cutaway on the subsequent Type 039s.
Armaments
The Type 039 is equipped with six bow 533mm torpedo tubes, which are said to be capable of firing the YJ-8 series anti-ship cruise missiles as well as the indigenous Yu-4 (SAET-60) and Yu-1 torpedoes.
The submarine carries 18 torpedoes, with 6 in the launch tubes and 12 on the weapon racks. Alternatively the submarine can carry 24~36 mines.
In the past few years, China has developed a range of new torpedoes for its submarine forces, including both wire-guided and wave-homing designs.
Detailed information of these torpedoes is not available, but it can be certain that these torpedoes can all be launched from the Type 039 submarine.
The submarine can also carry 4~6 YJ-82 submarine-launched anti-ship missiles, which are carried inside cylinder-shape containers and launched from the submarine’s torpedo tubes.
The missile flies at a speed of Mach 0.9 over a distance of 40~80km to deliver a 165kg high explosive warhead.
Electronic Equipment
The submarine has a new digital bow-mounted, medium-frequency sonar for passive and active search and attack, as well as for underwater communication. The submarine is also fitted with an H/SQG-04 low-frequency passive ranging and interception. There is an I-band radar for surface search purpose. Countermeasures include electronic support measures (ESM), radar warning receiver and direction-finder. In addition, the submarine is fitted with an indigenous combat data system capable of multiple targets tracking as well as other functions such as surveillance and navigation.
Iraqi Fighters ‘Grilled for Evidence on Iran’
‘The message is, “Got to find a link with Iran, got to find a link with Iran.” It’s sickening.’
Iraqi Fighters ‘Grilled for Evidence on Iran’
Interrogator says US military seeks evidence incriminating Tehran
by David Smith
US military officials are putting huge pressure on interrogators who question Iraqi insurgents to find incriminating evidence pointing to Iran, it was claimed last night.
Micah Brose, a privately contracted interrogator working for American forces in Iraq, near the Iranian border, told The Observer that information on Iran is ‘gold’. The claim comes after Washington imposed sanctions on Iran last month, citing both its nuclear ambitions and its Revolutionary Guards’ alleged support of Shia insurgents in Iraq. Last week the US military freed nine Iranians held in Iraq, including two it had accused of links to the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force.
Brose, 30, who extracts information from detainees in Iraq, said: ‘They push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran. They have pre-categories for us to go through, and by the sheer volume of categories there’s clearly a lot more for Iran than there is for other stuff. Of all the recent requests I’ve had, I’d say 60 to 70 per cent are about Iran.
‘It feels a lot like, if you get something and Iran’s not involved, it’s a let down.’ He added: ‘I’ve had people say to me, “They’re really pushing the Iran thing. It’s like, shit, you know.” ‘
Brose said that reports about Washington’s increasingly hawkish stance towards Tehran, including possible military action, chimed with his experience. ‘My impression is they’re just trying to get every little bit of ammunition possible. If we get something here it fits the overall picture. The engine needs impetus and they’re looking for us to find the fuel – a particular type of fuel.
‘It now really depends on who gets elected President in the US. If nothing changes in the current course, I’d say military action is inevitable. But we have to hope there will be a change of course.’
He denied ever being asked to fabricate evidence, adding: ‘We’re not asked to manufacture information, we’re asked to find it. But if a detainee wants to tell me what I want to hear so he can get out of jail… you know what I’m saying.’
Other military intelligence officials in Iraq refused to comment, but one said: ‘The message is, “Got to find a link with Iran, got to find a link with Iran.” It’s sickening.’
Last week in Baghdad the US military showed journalists a recently discovered cache of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and bomb-making materials it claims are of Iranian origin. Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, spokesman for Multi-National Force Iraq, said it was possible they crossed the border before a recent promise by Iran to stop the flow of munitions into Iraq.
He said: ‘Iran has had a historic malign influence here in Iraq. They have financed many of the activities of Shia extremist groups. In many cases they have done training, they have actually deployed some of their personnel here in theatre. The Qods Force (Iranian Revolutionary Guards) have come here – we know that, we’ve got some in detention. They have said in many cases they were not here and intend to support a more peaceful outcome in Iraq and we look for their excellence in achieving that.’
Among the weapons Washington has accused Iran of supplying to Iraqi insurgents are EFPs, or explosively formed projectiles, which fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating even the most heavily armoured military vehicle. The number two US commander in Iraq, Lt Gen Ray Odierno, said there has been a sharp decline in the number of EFPs found in Iraq in the last three months.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/11/5160/
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Comment :
Few months of water boarding and they are ready to shake the test tube at the UN. Calling Colin Powell time to out your uniform on.
DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that the US president’s plan is to put before the public new findings on Iran’s nuclear secrets, drawn from data gathered by the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Israel, and use the publicity as a fulcrum to push hard for tough international sanctions.
The White House hopes thereby to compel Tehran to level on its military nuclear program, whose existence it has so far denied, and demonstrate the failure of the international nuclear watchdog’s director, Mohammed ElBaradei and his vast inspection organization, to uncover the underhand nuclear activities in progress in Iran and Syria. Washington hopes that once the real facts are in the open, Russia and China, which back ElBaradei, will endorse a third round of UN Security Council sanctions, tough enough to progressively place Iran under economic siege.
Monday, Nov. 12, Merkel hosted Sarkozy in Berlin to line up their positions in the light of their talks with the US president and a week before the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany convene ahead of a full council meeting on sanctions. Sarkozy is more fired up for harsh measures than Merkel. But even she admitted after meeting Bush at his Crawford ranch Saturday, Nov. 10, that failing diplomatic progress with Iran, “We need to think about further possible sanctions.”
Putin is the key to the imposition of multilateral sanctions and their effectiveness.
Un sous-marin chinois surgi au milieu des manœuvres de l’US Navy
Danger sur la démocratie Mickey Mouse à la Charles Dickens
Un sous-marin chinois non invité a surgi au milieu des manœuvres de l’US Navy, laissant cramoisis les chefs militaires
Dayly Mail, par Matthew Hickley, le 10 novembre 2007
Quand l’US Navy déploie une flotte de combat en manœuvre, elle prend très au sérieux la sécurité de ses porte-avions.
Au moins une douzaine de navires de guerre fournissent la protection physique, tandis que la technologie géniale de l’unique superpuissance militaire mondiale offre un bouclier invisible pour détecter et dissuader tout intrus.
Telle est la théorie. Ou plutôt, était la théorie. [*]
Un sous-marin chinois de classe Song, comme celui qui a fait surface près de l’USS Kitty Hawk
Les chefs militaires US sont restés sidérés quand un sous-marin chinois non détecté a surgi au cœur d’une manœuvre récente dans le Pacifique, à proximité de l’immense USS Kitty Hawk, un super porte-avions de 300 mètres de long avec 4.500 personnes à bord.
Au moment où il a fait surface le sous-marin d’attaque diesel-électrique de classe Song de 50 mètres de long était sous-entendu naviguer à portée de lancement des torpilles ou des missiles sur le porte-avions.
Selon les hauts fonctionnaires de l’OTAN l’incident a engendré la consternation dans l‘US Navy.
Les Étasuniens n’avaient aucune idée d’un un tel niveau de sophistication atteint par la croissance rapide de la flotte de sous-marins chinoise, ni qu’elle faisait peser une pareille menace.
Un personnage de l’OTAN a dit que l’effet avait été « un choc aussi grand que le lancement du Spoutnik russes, » une référence au premier satellite mis en orbite en 1957 par l’Union Soviétique, marquant le début de l’ère spatiale.
L’incident, qui a eu lieu dans le sud de l’océan entre le Japon et Taiwan, a grandement embarrassé le Pentagone.
Postes de combat : Le Kitty Hawk transporte 4.500 personnes
Le navire chinois solitaire s’est glissé en passant au moins une douzaine d’autres navires de guerre US censés protéger le porte-avions des ennemis ou des sous-marins.
Et le reste des coûteuses protections des défenses, qui comprennent au moins deux sous-marins, n’étaient apparemment pas eux non plus en mesure de le détecter.
Selon la source de l’OTAN, la rencontre a contraint à une grave réexamen de la stratégie navale des USA et de l’OTAN pendant que les commandants reconsidèrent le niveau de la menace potentiellement hostile des sous-marins chinois.
Cela a aussi entraîné des tensions diplomatiques, avec les diplomates US chevrotants qui exigeaient de savoir pourquoi le sous-marin « prenait en filature » la flotte US, pendant que Beijing (Pékin) plaidant l’ignorance rejetait l’affaire comme une coïncidence.
Les analystes pensent que Beijing a envoyé un message aux USA et à l’Occident pour démontrer son essor et la montée rapides de ses capacités militaires aux puissances étrangères qui tentent de s’immiscer dans son « arrière-cour. »
La flotte de sous-marins de la marine de l’Armée de Libération du Peuple comprend au moins deux vaisseaux nucléaires lanceurs de missiles.
Ses 13 sous-marins de classe Song sont extrêmement silencieux et difficiles à détecter quand il marchent avec les moteurs électriques.
Le contre-amiral Stephen Saunders, rédacteur en chef de Jane’s Fighting Ships, et ancien spécialiste de la lutte anti-sous-marine de la Royal Navy, a déclaré que les États-Unis ont accordé relativement peu d’attention à cette forme de guerre depuis la fin de la Guerre Froide. Il a déclaré :
C’était certainement le clairon du réveil pour les Étasuniens.
Ça concorderait à ce que nous voyons les Chinois tenter de faire, qui semble être de dissuader les Étasuniens d’interférer ou d’opérer dans leur jardin de derrière, en particulier dans les relations avec Taiwan.
En janvier la Chine conduisait avec succès un test de missiles, abattant un satellite en orbite pour la première fois [de l'histoire du monde].
Original : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=492804&in_page_id=1811
Traduction approximative de Pétrus Lombard pour Alter Info
* NDT : Encore un mirage qui part en fumée ! Leuren Moret a aussi signalé que la Guerre des Étoiles est une fraude scientifique (ça marche pas mais ça servait à entraîner l’URSS dans une course aux armements insoutenable) et que le système antimissiles balistiques (celui que Bush veut installer en Europe) ne fonctionne que si le missile agresseur est équipé d’un répondeur pour guider les missiles défenseurs.
En fin de compte, la machine de guerre occidentale, créée par des savants de Marseille, animée par des marines lobotomisés nourris aux anabolisants, commandée par des robots carriéristes, gouvernée par des échappés d’asiles d’aliénés arborant une rolex au poignet, n’est qu’un Schwarzenegger de papier.
11 11 2007
SCHUMANN RESONANCE / LA RESONANCE DE SCHUMANN
Between the nearly perfectly conducting terrestrial surface and ionosphere, a resonating cavity is formed. Broadband electromagnetic impulses, like those from lightning flashes, fill this cavity, and create globally the so-called Schumann resonances at frequencies 5 – 50 Hz (Schumann, 1952; Bliokh et al., 1980; Sentman, 1987).
The nominal average frequencies observed are 7.8, 14, 20, 26, 33, 39, and 45 Hz with slight diurnal variation (the three first lines can be seen in the figure displaying data from northern Finland, the Kilpisj䲶i station). It has been suggested that the intensity of these lines could be used to monitor the global lightning activity, especially after the local time modulation by changes in D region height has been removed (e.g., Sentman and Fraser, 1991).Note that the ionospheric Alfv鮠resonator -related spectral resonance structures (SRS) are formed due to the lightnings, and cover partly the same frequency range. In the figure here only the two first SRS lines are clearly visible. Finally, the strong spike in the figure just below 17 Hz is due to the Swedish railroads!Standard magnetometers are not able to measure the Schumann resonances, and even the search coil (i.e., pulsation) magnetometers are most often sampled at about 0.1 Hz that does not allow such studies. Special equipment are thus needed. That also holds true if one wants to study lightning activity with Schumann resonances in other planetary systems: this might work at least for Venus and Jupiter!
The Schumann Resonance: a set of peaks in the ELF portion of the Earth’s electromagnetic field spectrum. ELF – Extremely Low Frequencies (or ELF) refers to a band of radio frequencies from 3?Hz to 300?Hz.
ELF is used by the US Navy to communicate with submerged submarines. The extremely high electrical conductivity of seawater shields submarines from most electromagnetic communications.
Signals in the ELF frequency range, however, can penetrate much more deeply.
The low transmission rate of most ELF communications limits their use as communications channels; generally an ELF signal serves to request that a submarine surface and initiate some other form of contact.
One of the difficulties posed when broadcasting in the ELF frequency range is antenna size. In order to transmit internationally using ELF frequencies, an extremely large antenna is required.
The US maintains two sites, in Wisconsin and Michigan. Both sites use long power lines as antennae, in multiple strands ranging from 14 to 28 miles long. Considerable amounts of power are generated and emitted by ELF, and there have been some concerns over the possible ecological impact of such signals
The electromagnetic field (EMF) is composed of two related vectorial fields, the electric field and the magnetic field. This means that the vectors (E and B) that characterize the field each have a value defined at each point of space and time. If only E, the electric field, is nonzero and is constant in time, the field is said to be an electrostatic field.
The electromagnetic field generates a force F on a charged particle, given by the Lorentz equation where q is the charge of the particle, and v is its current velocity (expressed as a vector.) The behavior of electromagnetic fields can be described with Maxwell’s equations, and their quantum basis by quantum electrodynamics.
Scientists believe that the Schumann resonance is due to the space between the surface of the Earth and the ionosphere acting as a resonant cavity that is then excited by energy from lightning strikes.
A resonant cavity is a cavity in which standing waves can be built up. It is used in lasers. The lowest-frequency (and highest-intensity) mode of the Schumann resonance is at a frequency of approximately 7.8 Hz.
The phenomenon is named after W. O. Schumann, who predicted this phenomenon in the 1950s, and helped detect its existence.
The ionosphere is the part of the atmosphere that is ionized by solar radiation, and too tenuous to be cooled by contact with other air.
It forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere and has practical importance because it reflects radio waves to distant places on Earth.
The ionosphere is generally recognized to have three, sometimes four layers.
The D layer is the innermost layer, and mostly absorbs radio waves.
The E layer is the middle layer.
The F layer combines into one layer at night, but in sunlight divides into two layers, the F1 and F2.
The F layers are responsible for most skywave propagation of radio, and are thickest and most reflective of radio on the side of the Earth facing the sun.
Scientists explore the structure of the ionosphere by bouncing radio waves of different frequencies from it, and using special receivers to detect how the reflected waves have changed from the transmitted waves.
Schumann Resonance & Zero Point
Changes are occurring on the physical, emotions, mental, and spiritual levels.
Ancient prophecies predicted it. Indigenous traditions honor it. Changes within the Earth are affecting your sleep patterns, relationships, the ability to regulate your immune system and your perception of time.
You are living a process of initiation that was demonstrated over 2,000 years ago, preparing you to accept tremendous change within your body. That change is happening now.
Migraine headaches, tiredness electrical sensations in the limbs and spinal column Cramps in the muscular networks Flu like symptoms Intense dreams.
These could all be caused by the changes taking place on Earth now!
The human body will become more sensitive as a result of the new vibrations. The resonance of Earth (Schumann Resonance) has been 7.8Hz for thousands of years.
Since 1980 it has risen to over 12Hz.
This means that 16 hours now equate to a 24 hour day.
Time appears to be speeding up!
Gregg Braden tells of the scientific proof of the Earth passing through the Photon Belt and the slowing of the Earth’s rotation.
At the same time there is an increase in the resonant frequency of the Earth (Schumann Resonance).
When the Earth stops its rotation and the resonance frequency reaches 13 cycles we will be at a zero point magnetic field.
The Earth will be stopped, and in 2 or 3 days it will start turning again in the opposite direction.
This will produce a reversal in the magnetic fields around the earth and so forth.
Geophysical Condition #1:
Earth’s Rising Base Frequency:
Earth’s background base frequency, or “heartbeat,” –
called Schumann Resonance, or SR – is rising dramatically.
Though it varies among geographical regions, for decades the overall measurement was 7.8 cycles per second.
This was once thought to be a constant; global military communications developed on this frequency.
Recent reports set the rate at over 11 cycles,and climbing. Science doesn’t know why, or what to make of it.
Gregg Braden found data collected by Norwegian and Russian researchers on this; it’s not widely reported in the U.S. (The only reference to SR to be found in the Seattle Library reference section, is tied to the weather.
Science acknowledges SR as a sensitive indicator of temperature variations and worldwide weather conditions. Braden believes the fluctuating SR may be a factor in the severe storms, floods, and weather of recent years.)
Geophysical Condition #2: Earth’s Diminishing Magnetic Field
While earth’s “pulse” rate is rising, her magnetic field strength, on the other hand, is declining.
According to Professor Bannerjee of the University of New Mexico, the field has lost up to half its intensity in the last 4,000 years.
Because a forerunner of magnetic polar reversals is this field strength, Prof. Bannerjee believes that another reversal is due. Braden believes that because these cyclical Shifts are associated with reversals, Earth’s geological record indicating magnetic reversals also marks previous Shifts in history.
Within the enormous time scale represented, there were quite a few of them.
What is a Schumann Resonance?
The Earth behaves like an enormous electric circuit. The atmosphere is actually a weak conductor and if there were no sources of charge, its existing electric charge would diffuse away in about 10 minutes.
There is a ‘cavity ‘defined by the surface of the Earth and the inner edge of the ionosphere 55 kilometers up.
At any moment, the total charge residing in this cavity is 500,000 Coulombs. There is a vertical current flow between the ground and the ionosphere of 1 – 3 x 10^-12 Amperes per square meter.
The resistance of the atmosphere is 200 Ohms. The voltage potential is 200,000 Volts. There are about 1000 lightning storms at any given moment worldwide.
Each produces .5 to 1 Ampere and these collectively account for the measured current flow in the Earth’s ‘electromagnetic’ cavity.
The Schumann Resonances are quasi standing wave electromagnetic waves that exist in this cavity. Like waves on a spring, they are not present all the time, but have to be ‘excited’ to be observed. They are not caused by anything internal to the Earth, its crust or its core.
They seem to be related to electrical activity in the atmosphere, particularly during times of intense lightning activity. They occur at several frequencies between 6 and 50 cycles per second; specifically 7.8, 14, 20, 26, 33, 39 and 45 Hertz, with a daily variation of about +/- 0 .5 Hertz. So long as the properties of Earth’s electromagnetic cavity remains about the same, these frequencies remain the same.
Presumably there is somechange due to the solar sunspot cycle as the Earth’s ionosphere changes in response to the 11-year cycle of solar activity.
Schumann resonances are most easily seen between 2000 and 2200 UT.
Given that the earth’s atmosphere carries a charge, a current and a voltage, it is not surprising to find such electromagnetic waves.
The resonant properties of this terrestrial cavity were first predicted by the German physicist W. O. Schumann between 1952 and 1957, and first detected by Schumann and Konig in 1954.
The first spectral representation of this phenomenon was prepared by Balser and Wagner in 1960.
Much of the research in the last 20 years has been conducted by the Department of the Navy who investigate Extremely Low Frequency communication with submarines.
Time will appear to speed up as we approach Zero Point. A 24 hour day will seem to about 16 hours or less.
Remember the Schumann Resonance (or “heart beat” of Mother Earth) has been 7.8 cycles for thousands of years, but has been rising since 1980.
It is at about 12 cycles at present. It stops at 13 cycles.
Zero Point or the Shift of the Ages has been predicted by ancient peoples for thousands of years. There have been many shifts including the one that always occurs every 13,000 years at each half ofthe 26,000 year, Procession of the Equinox.
Zero Point or a flip of the magnetic poles will probably happen soon, within the next few years.
It is said that after Zero Point the Sun will rise in the west (see also signs of The end of Time in Islam ): and set in the east, approx. Past occurances of this change have been found in ancient records.
Further information made be found at: www.electricterra.com
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teslas-tower
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LA RESONANCE DE SCHUMANN
Où le point Zéro
La Terre se conduit comme un énorme circuit électrique. L’atmosphère est actuellement un fragile conducteur
et si elle n’existait pas entre les sources de charges, il existerai une charge électrique qui pourrait diffuser des éclairs énormes toutes les dix minutes.
Il y a une « cavité » définie entre la surface de la Terre et le dernier rempart de la Ionosphère à 55 kilomètres de distance.
A un moment, la charge totale se trouvant dans la cavité est de 500 000 Coulombs. Il y a un courant vertical entre le sol et la Ionosphère de 1-3×10 puissance 1-12 ampères par mètre carré.
La résonance de l’atmosphère est de 200 Ohms .
Le voltage potentiel est 200 000 Volts. Il y a environ 1000 tempêtes avec éclairs qui auraient lieu tout autour de la Terre.
Chacune d’entre elles produit 5 à 1 ampère et cela est collectivement compté (mesuré) par le courant modérateur électromagnétique terrestre.
La résonance Schumann est quasiment comme une vague électrique, électromagnétique immobile parmi les autres vagues électromagnétiques de la Cavité.
Comme les vagues d’équinoxes du printemps qui ne sont pas présentes tout le temps mais qui ont été suffisamment élevées pour être observées.
Ces vagues ne sont pas causées par rien d’intérieur à la Terre, sa croûte ou son cœur.
Il semble y avoir un rapport avec l’activité électrique de l’atmosphère.
Particulièrement au moment d’intenses activités de foudre.
Les vagues se produisent sur plusieurs fréquences entre 6 et 50 cycles par seconde.
Explicitement 7,8 ; 14, 20, 26, 33, 39 et 45 Hertz avec une variation par jour de 0,5 Hertz.
Aussi longtemps que les propriétés de la cavité électromagnétique de la Terre resteront les mêmes, les fréquences resteront les mêmes. Vraisemblablement il y a des charges dues aux flux Solaires qui font changer la Ionosphère terrestre tous les 11 ans de cycle d’activité solaire.
La résonance Schumann fluctue alors entre 2000 et 2200 Unités de mesures.
Disons que l’Atmosphère de la Terre transporte une charge, un courant, un voltage, il n’est donc pas surprenant d’y trouver quelques charges électromagnétiques !
Les propriétés résonantes de cette cavité magnétique Terrestre furent pour la première fois découvertes par le physicien allemand W.O Schumann entre 1952 et 1957 et détectée réellement par Schumann et Koenig en 1954.
La première représentation spectrale de ce phénomène fut réalisée par Basler et Wagner en 1960. Davantage de recherches furent conduites dans les 20 dernières années par le département de recherche de la Navy qui a enquêté sur des fréquences extrêmement basses, pour les communications avec les sous-marins.
Pour plus d’information, voir « le manuel de l’électrodynamique atmosphérique.
Volume 1. » de Hans Volland.1995 publiée par le CRC Press.
Le chapitre 11 est presque entièrement consacré à la résonance Schumann et a été rédigé en collaboration avec David Campbell de l’institut géophysique de l’Université d’Alaska a Fairbanks.
A K 99775.
Il y a aussi une histoire de cette recherche et une bibliographie étendue.
POSSIBLE RESULTATS DE CES CHANGEMENTS
Le temps va paraître de plus en plus rapide au fur et à mesure que nous approcherons du point zéro.
24 heures d’un jour sont actuellement de 16 heures effectives, mais cela va encore augmenter.
Souvenez-vous que la Résonance Schumann ( battement de cœur de la Terre ) était de 7,8 cycles depuis des milliers d’années.
Mais que cela a changé depuis 1980, d’abord lentement, puis beaucoup plus vite depuis 1997.
Actuellement la Terre atteint 12 cycles ( 12 Hz) et s’arrêtera à 13 cycles.
Les Shifts qui arrivent toujours chaques 13 000 ans, soit la moitié de 26 000 qui équivaut à une procession d’équinoxes.
Pour le soleil qui se leve à l’ouest, voir aussi les signes de la fin des temps selon l’Islam : http://eldib.wordpress.com/2007/09/10/1044/
Three new international polls show emphatic opposition to US plans for military action against Tehran
Three new international polls show emphatic opposition to US plans for military action against Tehran
The findings of two opinion polls published this week give an emphatic message that the public in the US, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany are opposed to any military action against Iran. A third survey, due to be published this month, demonstrates that this view is also held by large majority of members of the British parliament.
The first poll, a Harris Interactive Survey, was released on 9th November. It was conducted in five European countries and the U.S. found that the use of military force against Iran is backed by just 8 percent in France, 7 percent in Germany, 8 percent in Italy, 8 percent in Spain, 11 percent in the U.K. and 21 percent in the U.S. The poll was conducted for France 24 television and the International Herald Tribune newspaper between 3-15 October and surveyed 6,645 people aged 16 to 64.
The second poll, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, was released on 8th November. It involved a telephone poll of 1,024 American adults between 3- 8 November and found that 70 percent of Americans oppose any military strike on Iran.
The third poll, carried out by the Westminster Committee on Iran, is due to be published at the end of November. It surveyed 472 British MP’s and finds that 82 percent would not be in favour of any form of British involvement in military intervention against Iran without the explicit authority of the United Nations.
The Chair of the Westminster Committee on Iran, said today:
“The recent strategic, military and political maneuvers can leave little doubt that attacking Iran is top of George Bush’s list of things to do before he retires. President Sarkozy has made it clear this week that he will support American military intervention against Iran whilst Gordon Brown has repeatedly refused to rule out such an option. These three polls demonstrate that not only is international public emphatically opposed to such an action but that it has no support in the British parliament.
With Russian and China unlikely to support a UN resolution authorising military action, it is likely that President Bush will order a strike on Iran ‘in support of the authority of the UN’. This was the pretext used for the invasion of Iran in 2003. In such circumstances, Gordon Brown might support President Bush either through the use of British bases, airspace and equipment or by sanctioning the involvement of British military forces. The French already have an aircraft carrier group in the Gulf and will offer military support to the US led attack.
We appeal to these leaders:
to listen to the will of the people who put them into office;
to desist from any illegitimate and unjustified military action against Iran;
to resume negotiations with Iran on the nuclear enrichment issue without preconditions;
to support the agreement reached between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency aimed at resolving the current stand-off; and
to recognise the IAEA as the only international authority qualified to study Iran’s nuclear dossier and to respect their findings.”
Westminster Committee on Iran
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385424.html?c=on#c184098
Livre :LA BATAILLE DE FALLOUJA OU LA DEFAITE AMERICAINE EN IRAK
Livre
“La bataille de Fallouja,
ou la défaite américaine en Irak !”
Ahmed Mansour
Il est de plus en plus fréquent que des journalistes et des grands reporters arabes qui suivent des mouvements de résistance sur le terrain ou couvrent des guerres et des batailles pour leurs journaux ou leurs chaînes télévisées, couronnent leur travail de terrain par un livre. C’est le cas récemment de Ahmed Mansour, une vedette de la chaîne Al Jazeera, qui s’est révélé à cette occasion, davantage un écrivain et un conteur de talent, au style fluide et attachant, qu’un simple journaliste en mission de reportage (1). Ahmed Mansour avait couvert les deux batailles meurtrières de Fallouja, en avril et novembre 2004, et vient d’en tirer un pavé de 448 pages (en arabe), avec un titre prémonitoire sur le sort de l’aventure étasunienne en Irak :
La bataille de Fallouja, ou la défaite américaine en Irak (2) !
Les millions de téléspectateurs arabes et arabophones qui ont suivi les reportages quotidiens de Ahmed Mansour à la télévision Al Jazeera, au cours des deux batailles de Fallouja, se souviendront longtemps de cet homme et se demanderont toujours, qui, du courage physique, du verbe et de la verve ou du professionnalisme l’emportait chez cet homme.
Il faut croire qu’il y a chez lui tout cela à la fois, avec, pour ceux qui connaissent sa grande émission hebdomadaire Bila-Houdoud (Sans Frontières), une culture encyclopédique, une aisance et une maîtrise des sujets débattus et même un brin de perfectionnisme dans la manière dont il dirige les débats.
On ne compte pas ses prestigieux invités, notamment le Général Mark Kimmit, porte parole des forces d’occupation en Irak, qui en ont fait les frais.
Ce même Général, qui ne s’est pas gêné de s’étaler sur « les allégations mensongères et le parti pris » du reporter d’Al Jazeera, et exigé même sa sortie et celle de son équipe de Fallouja, pour ordonner un cesse-le- feu, sera en effet l’invité de Ahmed Mansour dans son émission Bila Houdoud du 26 avril 2006, soit deux ans après la première bataille de Fallouja.
Le face à face, souhaité par le Général et ses services de propagande et destiné à rehausser le prestige des forces d’occupation et celui de leur porte-parole, tourna au net avantage du journaliste.
Avant de passer au studio le général Kimmit tint à rendre hommage à son adversaire dans ces termes « Je voudrais vous dire quelque chose avant de commencer l’entretien.
Je suis toujours en désaccord avec vous et je l’étais toujours avec tous les reportages que vous faisiez lors de la bataille de Fallouja, mais je vous prie de me permettre de vous exprimer mon profond respect et ma considération pour votre personne et pour votre courage, surtout lors de votre présence à Fallouja ».
« La bataille de Fallouja » est avant tout le récit empoignant de la tragédie, vécue à chaque instant des semaines qu’ont duré les deux batailles de Fallouja, par une population civile, soumise aux horreurs qui lui furent infligées par la plus puissante armée du monde mais si dédaigneuse et méprisante des simples lois de la guerre.
C’est aussi le récit, non moins saisissant, du courage, du mépris de la mort et de la bravoure de quelques centaines de résistants, légèrement armés, qui ont arrêté net l’avancée des divisions blindées américaines lors de la première bataille et leur ont interdit l’accès et l’occupation de leur ville.
La deuxième bataille de Fallouja, au mois de novembre 2004, ne fut en fait qu’une revanche des vaincus de la première et où tout leur semblait permis.
Les chapitres du livre relatant les faits d’armes de ces deux batailles et la volonté de l’occupant d’écraser la ville, mériteraient de s’intituler « Delenda Fallouja », pour reprendre le leitmotiv de Caton le censeur (234 av.J.C.) à propos de Carthage, ou aussi, « il faut brûler Fallouja », tant les militaires américains en « brûlaient » de désir.
N’avaient-ils pas d’ailleurs bombardé la ville au phosphore blanc, prétendant que cela leur servait surtout à éclairer le champ de bataille, alors que dans un magazine militaire interne, ils parlent de “shake and bake missions”: « secouer et rôtir »!
Le livre, « La bataille de Fallouja » est aussi l’histoire de la destruction systématique d’un pays, de sa société, de son Etat national, de son histoire, de son patrimoine culturel qui se trouve être aussi celui de l’humanité, mais aussi de son industrie et des moyens matériels de sa reconstruction.
On a beaucoup parlé et écrit sur le pillage du pétrole et du patrimoine culturel de l’Irak, tant cela avait commencé dès les premières heures de l’occupation et sous l’œil des caméras de télévision.
Mais que savons-nous de la destruction méthodique et planifiée du tissu industriel de l’Irak, du démantèlement de ses usines et du pillage de ses équipements modernes, achetés à grands frais au cours des années qui ont précédé la guerre, stockés dans des magasins s’étalant sur des dizaines de milliers d’hectares et destinés à moderniser l’industrie et l’armée irakiennes ?
Dès les premières heures de l’occupation, des équipes spécialisées, munies de moyens sophistiqués, s’en sont occupées.
A l’aide de tronçonneuses géantes, elles ont réduit en amas de ferraille ce qui allait équiper l’Irak de demain. Tout passait : des avions, aux équipements informatiques, aux pièces de rechange de l’industrie pétrolière, aux laboratoires dans tous les domaines de la recherche scientifique, vendu à 1, dollar $ la tonne, par des sergents de l’armée américaine à des clients inconnus et transportés hors du pays par une noria incessante de camions géants !
Ce livre est aussi le récit de la descente aux enfers de l’administration de la superpuissance américaine, imbue de son droit naturel à imposer sa loi au monde et à défier cette loi simple de la nature qui veut qu’un peuple agressé, si faible soit-il, trouvera toujours dans les profondeurs de son être, de son histoire et de sa volonté de survivre, les moyens de résister à un occupant, quelque soit la puissance de feu de son armée et la capacité de corruption de sa monnaie.
Merci à Ahmed Mansour d’avoir écrit ce livre pour rappeler aux hommes, si souvent distraits ou oublieux, qu’en ce début de siècle, une armée américaine est venue mettre « A mort l’Irak (3) » au prétexte fallacieux de libérer son peuple !
1) L’auteur, prolifique, a écrit dix huit livres, en arabe, dont :
Sous le feu en Afghanistan
Une femme d’Afghanistan
L’infiltration israélienne dans le monde arabe
Sous le feu à Sarajevo
Le récit de la chute de Bagdad
2) La bataille de Fallouja, ou la défaite américaine en Irak (Arabe) 448 pages
Editions: Dar Al Kitab Al Arabi, Beyrouth: Liban, 2007.
3)” A mort l’Irak” : titre du livre de Denis Gorteau, Evelinédition, Montigny, août 2006 et dont une interview de l’auteur paraîtra bientôt sur le site.
Par Ahmed Manai
Dimanche 11 Novembre 2007
NATO Expands into Arab South
NATO Expands into Arab South
By: Nicola Nasser
on: 11.11.2007
NATO Expands into Arab South
US obsession with the Iranian threat and with finding an exit strategy from the Iraqi quagmire made Washington less attentive to Turkey’s legitimate vital national interests, says Nicola Nasser.
Discreetly but progressively and confidently the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is expanding south and southeast almost uncontested — after the collapse of the former USSR-led Warsaw Pact — outside the mandate designated by its statute into the Arab Middle East as well as into the Caspian Sea regions.
However, the US obsession with the Iranian threat and with finding an exit strategy from the Iraqi quagmire made Washington less attentive to Turkey’s legitimate vital national interests, thus insensitively antagonizing the alliance’s southern strong arm and alerting it into the defensive, not against enemies, but against its own allies. Turkey now stands in the eye of a storm created by this same ally, a storm threatening a geopolitical fall out between the two NATO allies since 1952.
NATO has already secured its presence on the middle tier between the two regions, in Turkey (a member), Afghanistan (where it has a 25.000-strong force) and to a lesser extent in Iraq where the western alliance is training the “new Iraqi army.”
The contesting French influence had eased when former President Jacque Chirac near the end of his term shifted to coordinating with the United States in Lebanon; the French contest, particularly on the African theatre and especially on NATO’s northern Arab tier seems to have been completely neutralized with the electoral victory of the new President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chose to engage Washington as a “friend” and decided to rejoin NATO’s military structure.
The absence of any credible indigenous system rules out any worthwhile obstacles to NATO expansion from within the Arab Middle East region. The League of Arab States is practically no more than a fractured, division-burdened high level forum of a regional gathering structure with no teeth at all, threatened by the US-Israeli strategic alliance and the NATO with disintegration into an alternative wider “Greater Middle East” security structure that would embrace Israel as an integral leading partner.
The expansion southward was highlighted on October 9 with the signing of a treaty with Egypt at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, “in a move that opens the door for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to be involved in security matters along Egypt’s border with Gaza (Strip),” according to the Jerusalem Post the next day, to possibly secure in particular the Salahuddin Passage (Philadelphi Route) according to Ynet. Egypt has become the second Middle Eastern country to sign a treaty with NATO after a similar treaty with Israel in 2006.
Both treaties with Egypt and Israel were initiated under the Individual Cooperation Programmes (ICP), which aim at “promoting political and military ties with the Euro-Atlantic and the Mediterranean regions along with security cooperation with NATO and MD partners, in order to enhance Mediterranean regional security and stability,” NATO said in the statement.
The ICP was upgraded from the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), which was adopted by the NATO summit in Istanbul on 28-29 June 2004 with an eye on the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to have priority in joining the alliance in partnership arrangements. Both the ICP and ICI were conceived as mechanisms to bypass the NATO statute, which confines its expansion to Europe and the North Atlantic regions.
The Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) was the vehicle the NATO used to approach partnership arrangements in the region. This dialogue was originally initiated by European founders of NATO to promote economic and political cooperation with the southern Arab neighbors; in 2002 the MD was upgraded to security matters of concern and in 2004 NATO elevated its dialogue status to conceived genuine partnerships and an expanded framework of cooperation. The MD branched off the much older European – Arab dialogue, which began in the last quarter of the 20th century as an economic, political and cultural forum that has nothing to do with NATO or military prospects.
The ICP produced the Egyptian and Israeli treaties; the ICI had earlier produced cooperation arrangements with seven MD countries, namely Israel, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan; similar cooperation was arranged with non-MD members of the GCC, namely Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (which became an ICI partner in January). Since July 2005, the NATO has also provided air transport for peacekeeping forces in Sudan’s volatile Darfur region.
Areas of both ICP and ICI cooperation arrangements include joint military war games, military training, defense reform, war on terror, countering Islamist militancy, military and security intelligence sharing, control of borders, demilitarization of the surplus of old and obsolete ammunition stockpiles and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO), serving NATO ships at partners’ seaports, hosting NATO-supported regional Security Cooperation Centre/s, providing logistical support to NATO’s peacekeeping operations, helping NATO in patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and regional waters, countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction, “to get these states closer to NATO’s way of thinking” according to a NATO official, opening NATO defense colleges to partners’ military officers, and other mechanisms to enhance practical cooperation on regional stability and security.
Initially adopting a low-key approach, NATO now feels more confident to send its Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and his deputy on unprecedented public visits to Algeria and other ICP and ICI “partners.”
Scheffer may be officially warmly or cordially welcomed, but on the popular level NATO is conceived as a US tool to prolong both American grip on Arab oil and Israeli grab of Arab land. Accordingly its presence in the region is abhorred and is fomenting further deep-seated anti-Americanism because of the US invasion and military occupation of Iraq and the US limitless support to the Israeli occupation in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.
Specifically, NATO’s treaties with Egypt and Israel, its cooperation with Jordan, with Lebanon falling within its mandate and the around the clock NATO patrols in the Mediterranean is in practice creating an external NATO wall that reinforces the internal military occupation walls Israel is erecting to tighten the siege it imposes on the Palestinian people.
Interrupting, Disrupting Kurdish – Turkish Crisis
However, “Just as the White House claims it has finally turned the corner in what it defines as the ‘central front’ in the ‘war on terror’ – Iraq – it has found itself desperately trying to contain new crises on the war’s periphery stretching east to Pakistan, west to Turkey and south to the Horn of Africa,” Jim Lobe wrote in Asia Times on November 10.
To prove his point, Lobe cited Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf’s latest “coup,” the continuing threat of a Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, the looming probability of war between US-backed Ethiopia and Eritrea, “amid a lack of concrete progress on the Israel-Palestinian peace process, the ongoing political impasse in Lebanon, and still-mounting tensions between Iran and the US” and amid an anti-Americanism that now pervades the entire region.
This is for sure an unwelcoming environment for NATO, but at the same time an environment that the US leading NATO player will use as the raison d’etre for dragging the North Atlantic Alliance into even more expanded role in the region.
“The situation along the border between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan most directly threatens the administration’s efforts to stabilize Iraq,” said Lobe, but this is exactly where the NATO’s gradual, confident and successful expansion south could be curtailed, hindered and face problems because the US double-standard policies vis-à-vis what Washington herself list as “terrorist organizations” as well as her regional hegemonic plans pit the alliance against its Turkish founding member or at least create an environment conducive to a collision course between the two allies.
In October, Turkey’s parliament overwhelmingly voted 507 to 19 in favor of ordering the army to launch an offensive across Turkey’s south-eastern border in search of P.K.K. Turkish-Kurd rebels hiding in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turks made no less than 24 attacks into Iraqi Kurdistan since 1984, but without effect. The P.K.K. guerrillas could easily disappear in the rugged mountain terrain of the Qandil Mountains.
Now the Turks are after their “terrorist-harboring” Iraqi-Kurdish hosts as well, who were securing a safe haven for Kurdish rebels, demanding their extradition, a demand that the US-allied Kurdish Iraqi President, Jalal Talibani, and the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masoud Barzani, had categorically rejected and, motivated by seemingly Pan-Kurdish loyalties, announced their readiness to fight back any Turkish military incursion into their territories.
The prospect of a Turkish – Kurdish war that could embroil the Iraqi Kurds, the only trusted Iraqi ally supporting the US occupation, and destabilize the only stable Iraqi region of Kurdistan to open a new front with a potential new flood of Iraqi refugees, this time Kurds, is a nightmare for the US Washington can ill-afford to lose the support of either the Iraqi Kurds or that of the Turkish government across the border; both play a vital role in supporting the US war effort in Iraq.
“With American troops already stretched thin and US military leaders not trusting most Arab-dominated units of the Iraqi armed forces, the United States has relied extensively on Kurdish forces for counter-insurgency operations throughout Iraq,” Stephen Zunes wrote in the “Foreign Policy in Focus” on October 25.
US Double-standards
Meanwhile Washington has turned her eyes away from the fact that Iraqi Kurdistan has become a safe haven for organizations outlawed by the US as “terrorist” groups. The US-backed Iraqi Kurds were honest to their rhetoric of Pan-Kurdish nationalism and turned their US-protected region into a base for Kurdish rebels from and against neighboring countries. The US-outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) took on Turkey; but a US-sponsored Iranian Kurdish group known as PEJAK took on Iran.
Washington also turned a blind eye to the fact that P.K.K. since two years has become the mother organization of four splinter groups each of them working separately but in coordination in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq.
On Oct. 28, the turkishweekly.net quoted the author of the forthcoming book “The Iran Agenda: the Real Story of US Policy and the Middle East Crisis,” Reese Erlich, as saying that, “Kurdish and American sources say the United States has been supporting guerilla raids against Iran, channeling the money through organizations in Iraqi Kurdistan.” Writing in the latest issue of Mother Jones, Erlich reported that the P.K.K., which is listed on the United States State Department List of Terrorist Organizations, “about two years ago split into four parties in each of the countries where the Kurds live” in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. “So the P.J.A.K. is the Iranian affiliate. Basically they’re still part of the same organization.” He added that the United States accommodates the presence of the P.K.K. in Iraq, but opposes its actions in Turkey, while on the other hand it supports attacks by P.K.K.’s splinter group on Iran.
Osman Ocalan, brother of the imprisoned P.K.K. leader Abdullah Ocalan, told AP last week that some fighters had moved toward Iran, and that there were now more P.K.K. fighters there than in northern Iraq. “P.K.K. forces are split into three parts situated in Turkey, Iraq and Iran,” Ocalan said. “If there is Turkish pressure on our forces in Iraq, the fighters will head toward Iran.” How could this free movement on Iraqi soil be possible without accommodation by the US occupying power and their Iraqi Kurdish arms?
Iraqi Kurds’ Pan-Kurdish “solidarity” with their Turkish, Iranian and Syrian compatriots is undercutting US efforts to contain further deterioration in its ties with Turkey. Two weeks ago, Iraq’s Kurdish President, Jalal Talabani, said that Iraq could not solve Turkey’s problems. “The handing over of P.K.K. leaders to Turkey is a dream that will never be realized,” he said.
Washington seems caught between Iraq and a hard Turkish place, with whom relations are already thinly stretched by the recent US Congress resolution declaring the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 90 years ago a Turkish “genocide.” A recent German Marshall Fund poll found that only 11 percent of Turks have positive views of the United States. One of the main factors in the extraordinary growth of anti-US sentiment among the Turks was the US unwillingness to pressure its ally Barzani to stop the P.K.K. from crossing into Turkey.
President George W. Bush spelled out US opposition to a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan was infuriated to declare that the future of bilateral ties with the US will be determined by Washington’s active involvement against the P.K.K., without “double-standards,” in accordance with US law that labels it as a terrorist organization. Erdogan returned disappointed from his November 5 summit with Bush in Washington; the crisis lingers on as Bush could not assure the Turkish leader enough for Ankara to rule out the military option.
“This crisis was predictable and predicted. US officials have long known that a Turkish incursion was just one terrorist event away. As tensions mounted, the administration had numerous opportunities to engage in preventive diplomacy. A combination of lack of imagination, incompetence and sheer lack of knowledge at the State Department has caused this impasse,” Henri J. Barkey wrote in the Washington Post on October 27.
The New York Times on Oct. 22 reported that “American officials acknowledged that neither the United States nor Iraq had done much recently to constrain” the P.K.K. Current and former Bush administration officials said a special envoy appointed by the Bush administration in 2006, Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, “had recently stepped down in frustration over Iraqi and American inaction.”
Ahead of their summit Bush sent his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Ankara and to the meeting of Iraq neighbors in Istanbul with a “diplomatic” proposal to diffuse the crisis based on hitting at the heart of the Pan-Kurdish declared loyalties of the Iraqi Kurds’ leaders, Talbani and Barzani, by splitting the Kurds into a terrorist camp, which Rice declared in Ankara as the “common enemy” of her country, Turkey and Iraq and a non-terrorist camp which both men represent.
During their summit on Nov. 5, Bush promised Erdogan that Turkey would be furnished with US intelligence on the camps and movements of the P.K.K. The Turkish press reported this as a “green light for military strikes.” For the US, the main issue now is that “Turkish military action is limited and strictly controlled,” commented Spiegel on-line. “Where possible,” the publication added, “military action should be coordinated with the (Iraqi) Kurdish regional government so as to avoid clashes between the Turkish army and the northern Iraqi Kurdish militias.”
NATO had earlier expressed its solidarity with Turkey. On October 24, NATO defense ministers meeting in The Netherlands said the 26 allies expressed solidarity with Turkey in the face of the attacks. P.K.K. rebels have killed more than 40 Turks in hit-and-run attacks over the past month. “I think the Turkish government is showing restraint, remarkable restraint under current conditions,” NATO chief Hoop Scheffer told a news conference.
But for how long could Turkey practice restrain before her NATO allies translate their so far verbal solidarity into deeds?
Scot Sullivan, writing in The Conservative Voice on Nov. 9, had a different interpretation of the results of the Bush-Erdogan summit: “The US is appeasing Iran and Iran’s P.K.K. allies while preparing to confront Turkey. Such is the inescapable conclusion following Erdogan-Bush Summit. A careful assessment of the Erdogan-Bush summit indicates that Bush remains hostile to Turkey and sympathetic to the P.K.K.-Iran Axis that seeks to partition Iraq. Bush made only two modest assistance offers to Turkey. Each offer raised more questions than answers.”
First, Bush’s offer to share intelligence with Turkey implies that the US has been withholding such intelligence from Turkey until now despite US obligations within NATO and despite bilateral counterterrorism agreements. Second, the establishment of coordinating mechanism between the US and Turkey for conducting joint operations against the P.K.K. is in reality “no more than a hotline, or more accurately a US phone number.”
To add insult to injury, the “US brush-off of Turkey became evident, according to Sullivan, when “General Petraeus was named as the US point of contact. For the Turkish military, GEN Petraeus is pro-Kurdish. He approved without question the P.K.K. military buildup in northern Iraq. He also approved granting the Kurdish peshmerga the status of an independent military force that is answerable only to Kurdish president Barzani.”
Wider Strategic Envelopment of Turkey
Turkey is a close NATO ally; she contributes troops to NATO’s operation in Afghanistan and provides access to Incirlik air base for heavy US military logistical support and supply to its forces in Iraq, where NATO is training the new Iraqi army. However, more importantly Turkey sits astride the cross roads of the huge oil reserves in the Caspian and Gulf regions.
The Caspian Sea region is gradually emerging as one of the most explosive parts of the world and the US and NATO involvement is linking it inextricably to the already war-torn Middle East region. This NATO-US involvement is alerting the five Caspian states – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan – to be on guard; in the past decade, the number of warships on the Caspian has almost doubled, while coastal infrastructure is also being rapidly reinforced, Vasilina Vasilyeva reported in Moscow News on Nov. 8.
On a wider scale the NATO-US heavy and aggressive involvement in both regions is strategically invoking defensive responses by Chine and Russia, which geopolitically consider both regions, but the Caspian in particular, their backyards; hence their evolving bilateral strategic coordination as well as their growing closer ties with Iran, the regional major player targeted by the NATO-US involvement.
“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is considering the possibility of providing security for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline,” Vasilyeva quoted Robert Simmons, the NATO secretary general’s special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, as saying. “The Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline runs to Turkey, a NATO country, and passes through the territory of Azerbaijan, a NATO partner. The protection of energy infrastructure includes the security of this oil pipeline in addition to other energy infrastructure facilities.” NATO has also finalized a long term program to provide military support for all pipelines along the Caspian-Turkey-Balkans route. Vasilyeva added that terrorism is the biggest threat to the pipeline.
On October 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Iranian media in Tehran that “international terrorism cannot be dealt with by expanding a military-political organization that was originally set up to counteract the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. There is no Soviet Union and no Warsaw Pact today, while NATO not only exists but is expanding.”
Counterproductive US policies is antagonizing Turkey, which is indigenously deeply involved in both regions with vast strategic, economic and political interests, and consequently threatening to disrupt a successful NATO expansion south, invoking cracks within the NATO membership, and creating a pragmatic possibility for potential Turkish strategic shifts.
Under the headline, “Turkey Rediscovers the Middle East,” the July/August edition of the magazine Foreign Affairs wrote, “a significant shift in the country’s foreign policy has gone largely unnoticed: after of decades of passivity, Turkey is now emerging as an important diplomatic actor in the Middle East.” Within this context Turkey’s pragmatic evolving ties with Iran and Syria, both condemned by Bush as two pillars of a world’s “axis of evil,” is an indication.
Similar pragmatic evolution of ties and coordination with the two major obstacles to NATO’s expansion south and southeast, namely Russia and China, could not be ruled out should the United States, the backbone of the alliance, persist with its political and military insensitivity to the strategic interests of her allies.
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist in Kuwait, UAE, Jordan and Palestine; he is based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied territories.
Danger drugs designed for schizophrenics used to calm children
Danger drugs designed for schizophrenics used to calm children
on 11th November 2007
Mischief making: But some GPs prescribe powerful tranquilisers
Thousands of children with behavioural problems are being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs with dangerous side effects, doctors warn.
The powerful tranquillisers, designed to treat psychosis and schizophrenia in adults, are being used to calm children who are simply hyperactive.
Around 8,000 youngsters are taking anti- psychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa despite the fact that these have been linked to a host of health problems from diabetes to brain damage, BBC1’s Panorama reports.
Although some are prescribed for schizophrenia and related conditions, many are given to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other behavioural problems.
Dr Tim Kendall, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said he knew of children as young as ten being given the schizophrenia drugs for unruly behaviour, sometimes for as long as five years.
He said that the drugs should be considered as a last resort in the treatment of hyperactivity.
And he added: “A generous understanding would be to say that doctors have reached a point where they don’t know what else to offer and they haven’t got the right supports to help parents in difficult circumstances.
“I think perhaps there is no real excuse for prescribing drugs which are associated with such severe side-effects.”
The consultant psychiatrist, who is heading a team drawing up Government guidelines on the treatment of ADHD, said: “Everyone agrees that if there are alternatives we should be exploring these alternatives and looking at what psychological treatments can work and what helps the parents and the teachers.”
The warnings come amid growing concern that ADHD is being diagnosed in children suffering from nothing more than natural boisterousness.
In March this year Dr Robert Spitzer, the U.S. psychiatrist who first identified the ADHD, admitted that up to a third of cases could have been misdiagnosed.
Tonight’s Panorama also reveals disturbing evidence that other drugs, much more commonly used to treat ADHD, do not work in the long term.
A study in the U.S. suggests that while medication such as Ritalin and Concerta is effective initially, the effects wear off after three years of treatment.
The drugs, taken by around 55,000 British children at the cost to the NHS of £28million a year, stunt growth, the researchers discovered.
Many children take the controversial drugs for years at a time though they have also been linked to heart problems, dizziness and insomnia, and blamed for a string of deaths in the UK and abroad.
Researcher Professor William Pelham, of the University at Buffalo in New York state tracked the health and treatment of 600 children with ADHD for six years.
He warned: “They had a substantial decrease in their rate of growth, so they weren’t growing as much as other kids in terms of their height and weight.
“In the short-run [medication] will help the child behave better, in the long-run, it won’t. And that information should be made very clear to parents.”
The makers of Concerta and Risperdal, Buckinghamshirebased Janssen-Cilag, said the drugs were “very valuable treatments”.
Eli Lilly, the U.S.-based maker of Zyprexa, said it had never promoted the anti-psychotic for the treatment of ADHD and did not intend to do so.
The makers of Ritalin, Swissbased Novartis, were unable to comment last night. The Panorama programme will be shown on BBC1 at 8.30pm tonight.
