Coal

An inspiring look (spoof) at what makes our country run.

ONE-ON-ONE WITH IRAN'S OPPOSITION

(I thought this is a good recent article on the Iranian Resistance's leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. Since some of you have expressed interest to know more about the Iranian Resistance, I'll write more on the topic in the near future. This piece was published in the Christian Science Monitor on November 7th.)

A noted dissident says Iran is closer to a nuclear bomb than we think.

By John Hughes November 7, 2007 PROVO, UTAH - The head of the Iranian opposition group in exile that supplied early intelligence on Iran's clandestine nuclear program says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has engineered a clever disinformation campaign to convince foreign experts that Iran is eight to 10 years away from developing a nuclear bomb. But in fact, she says, the regime is less than two years away from producing such a weapon, as part of its plan to "create an Iranian empire" in the Middle East.

In a wide-ranging weekend telephone conversation from her base of exile in Paris, Maryam Rajavi told me that Mr. Ahmadinejad has purged between 40 and 50 senior military officers who are in disagreement with his plans. She also explained that the resignation of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, followed dispute between Mr. Larijani and Ahmadinejad over "incentives" Larijani had been prepared to offer his interlocutors in the West. Ms. Rajavi heads the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), whose military arm is the People's Mujahideen of Iran. The Mujahideen are listed as a terrorist organization by the US for its violent tactics. (The group allegedly supported the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.) But in a bizarre twist, some 3,800 Mujahideen fighters who later conducted operations against the Iranian regime from Iraqi territory during the reign of Saddam Hussein are currently being held in benign custody in Iraq by US forces as "protected" persons. The current Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to prosecute or deport them.

Rajavi says this is at the behest of Iran. Both the NCRI and the People's Mujahideen claim to have substantial underground support in Iran. Though the information of exiled groups about events in their tyrannized homelands has come under acute scrutiny since Iraqi exiles produced questionable data about events in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the NCRI is credited by US sources with accurately identifying clandestine Iranian nuclear facilities early on. By interesting coincidence, The Times (London) recently cited Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa as the first Arab leader to directly accuse Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons.

"While they don't have the bomb yet, they are developing it, or the capability for it," The Times quotes the crown prince as saying, adding that this is the first time one of Iran's Gulf neighbors has "effectively accused [Iran] of lying about its nuclear programme." In her weekend conversation, Rajavi was adamant that "military intervention" in Iran by the US or others is not desirable. However, she praised the Bush administration for its recent branding of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. The IRGC, she said, holds key positions in government, dominates much of the economy, controls the nuclear program, and has a major role in drug trafficking.

The US government's action against it, she says, is a "clear testament and an indispensable prelude to democratic change in Iran." Her own program for change in Iran is a combination of accelerated sanctions and political pressure from without and upheaval arising from discontent within.

Getting rid of her own organization's "terrorist" label, she argues, would help energize internal critics of the regime. She says support for this is growing among both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. She is heartened by recent efforts of British parliamentarians to persuade the European Union to lift restrictions on Iranian opposition groups and blacklist Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The Guards, she says, are responsible for the torture and execution of many Iranians and are the "center of all the disasters" of the Iranian people. They are also key to Iran's military role in Iraq. According to Rajavi, they use the "Ramezan" garrison and four tactical bases near the Iran-Iraq border to send arms and explosives to Iraq. NCRI has exposed three factories in a very secure area in Tehran that are making roadside bombs to send to Iraq, she adds.

In a previous conversation with Rajavi a little more than two years ago, she spoke in Persian, translated into English through an interpreter. On this occasion she spoke in heavily accented English. "I studied English in high school," she said, "but I have been practicing it more." She also speaks French. As we began our conversation, she reminded me that "everything I warned you about two years ago about Ahmadinejad has come true. He has declared war [on his perceived enemies]."

John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is a professor of communications at Brigham Young University.

Soft Power

There was an interesting discussion in class today around the topic of knowledge being the new gold, figuratively speaking. We went on to discuss Joseph Nye and his theories on soft power and knowledge. Here is an excerpt of the full text.

"Soft power" is the ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion. It works by convincing others to follow, or getting them to agree to, norms and institutions that produce the desired behavior. Soft power can rest on the appeal of one's ideas or the ability to set the agenda in ways that shape the preferences of others. If a state can make its power legitimate in the perception of others and establish international institutions that encourage them to channel or limit their activities, it may not need to expend as many of its costly traditional economic or military resources.

The Power Resource of the Future
Knowledge, more than ever before, is power. The one country that can best lead the information revolution will be more powerful than any other. For the foreseeable future, that country is the United States. America has apparent strength in military power and economic production. Yet its more subtle comparative advantage is its ability to collect, process, act upon, and disseminate information, an edge that will almost certainly grow over the next decade. This advantage stems from Cold War investments and America's open society, thanks to which it dominates important communications and information processing technologies--space-based surveillance, direct broadcasting, high-speed computers--and has an unparalleled ability to integrate complex information systems.

This information advantage can help deter or defeat traditional military threats at relatively low cost. In a world in which the meaning of containment, the nuclear umbrella, and conventional deterrence have changed, the information advantage can strengthen the intellectual link between U.S. foreign policy and military power and offer new ways of maintaining leadership in alliances and ad hoc coalitions.

The information edge is equally important as a force multiplier of American diplomacy, including "soft power"--the attraction of American democracy and free markets. The United States can use its information resources to engage China, Russia, and other powerful states in security dialogues to prevent them from becoming hostile. At the same time, its information edge can help prevent states like Iran and Iraq, already hostile, from becoming powerful. Moreover, it can bolster new democracies and communicate directly with those living under undemocratic regimes. This advantage is also important in efforts to prevent and resolve regional conflicts and deal with prominent post--Cold War dangers, including international crime, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and damage to the global environment.

Yet two conceptual problems prevent the United States from realizing its potential. The first is that outmoded thinking clouds the appreciation of information as power. Traditional measures of military force, gross national product, population, energy, land, and minerals have continued to dominate discussions of the balance of power. These power resources still matter, and American leadership continues to depend on them as well as on the information edge. But these measures failed to anticipate the demise of the Soviet Union, and they are an equally poor means of forecasting for the exercise of American leadership into the next century.

In assessing power in the information age, the importance of technology, education, and institutional flexibility has risen, whereas that of geography, population, and raw materials has fallen. Japan adapted to these changes through growth in the 1980s far better than by pursuing territorial conquest in the 1930s. In neglecting information, traditional measures of the balance of power have failed to anticipate the key developments of the last decade: the Soviet Union's fall, Japan's rise, and the continuing prominence of the United States.

The second conceptual problem has been a failure to grasp the nature of information. It is easy to trace and forecast the growth of capabilities to process and exchange information. The information revolution, for example, clearly is in its formative stages, but one can foresee that the next step will involve the convergence of key technologies, such as digitization, computers, telephones, televisions, and precise global positioning. But to capture the implications of growing information capabilities, particularly the interactions among them, is far more difficult. Information power is also hard to categorize because it cuts across all other military, economic, social, and political power resources, in some cases diminishing their strength, in others multiplying it.

The United States must adjust its defense and foreign policy strategy to reflect its growing comparative advantage in information resources. Part of this adjustment will entail purging conceptual vestiges. Some of the lingering Cold War inhibitions on sharing intelligence, for example, keep the United States from seizing new opportunities. Some of the adjustment will require innovation in existing institutions. Information agencies need not remain Cold War relics, as some in Congress describe them, but should be used as instruments that can be more powerful, cost effective, and flexible than ever before. Likewise, the artificially sharp distinction between military and political assets has kept the United States from suppressing hate propaganda that has incited ethnic conflicts.

Interesting thoughts, what do you think?

Say one thing ... say another

This was just to priceless not to post. When will the double-speak (aka lying) end?

Habeas Corpus

HT Spork in the Drawer for the photo.
Habeas Corpus is defined as:

In common law countries, habeas corpus (/ˈheɪbiəs ˈkɔɹpəs/) (Latin: [We command that] you have the body) is the name of a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of themselves or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

Also known as "The Great Writ," a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a prisoner be brought before the court so that the court can determine whether that person is serving a lawful sentence or should be released from custody. The prisoner, or some other person on his behalf (for example, where the prisoner is being held incommunicado), may petition the court or an individual judge for a writ of habeas corpus.

So why is this so instrumental? Why is this to fundamental? And why should we be
familiarized and concerned with this cornerstone of our democracy and society?

This law is instrumental in maintaining a legal barrier between the government and civil society. This barrier protects people from arbitrary arrest and detention by a government agency. This is fundamental because it serves to maintain an area of accountability whereby the government cannot do as it pleases with civilians, it must, in essence, answer to the judicial authorities, why they have arrested or detained this person or people. We should know about this law and the importance of it being a bed stone of our democracy because its importance in protecting your legal rights and freedom, but also because it is being taken away. While we speak there are hundreds of detainees in Guantanamo Bay as well as unknown numbers more who have been "renditioned" to overseas prisons to be held and interrogated without due process. Keep in mind, I am not advocating the release of all of these people, I am strongly advocating that they be accorded habeas corpus and legal rights.

What about terrorism?
This is the first and strongest objection to legal rights. This is a convenient argument since it places the person who answers in a lose/lose situation. ie if you want habeas corpus, then the terrorists plans cannot be found out quick enough and we will die. Or if you agree to the removal of habeas corpus then the government just has to use the word 'terrorist' and your legal rights are gone. Of course this doesn't scare you, you are a law abiding citizen, what do you have to be afraid of?
Don't forget to learn the lessons of history. Don't forget to learn from those who had to learn the hard way. This is a poem written by a Christian pastor in Nazi Germany.

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

~Pastor Martin Niemöller~


Why should this be important to Christians?
This is absolutely essential for Christians. The bible warned us to take care in where we stand, lest we fall. And that they hated Jesus, they will hate us. Many think that this could never happen in America. True it is hard to imagine, isn't it. Once again, let's look to history to glean valuable lessons. Picture if you will a nation that claimed 90+ percent Christian population. This nation was large and strong. This nation was Czarist Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution. It effectively took a small group of Bolsheviks 7 days to close down all of the churches and remove all of the Christian leaders. 7 days.

With the removal of habeas corpus, our right to legal council, due process and unwarranted government assault is gone. If a leader were in place who so chose to persecute believers, the way would be paved for this to be accomplished at an expedited pace.


The higher standard? (Love costs something)
It is true that having habeas corpus may slow down the war on terrorism, but habeas corpus is the law that we have set as a standard of righteousness and justice in our democracy. It costs something to have laws, it means we agree as a society to not break them. We agree to not steal, even if that is easier. We agree to not kill, even if we may become really angry. And we agree to afford every person the right to be innocent until legally proven guilty. We have agreed to not let the government wage war on its population through coercive measures, they must be accountable to an independent judiciary. Even, yes even if the bad guy gets off sometimes. So why should we pay such a high price? We should pay it because that is the cost of equal rights, that is the cost of freedom for all, and that is the price that Jesus paid on the cross. He died for all of us and it cost Him something. Even if we have slandered Him, betrayed Him or rebelled against Him, He still loves us all and died for us all and affords us all the same rights and opportunities taking all things into account.

For more information on the current suspension of habeas corpus click on the title of this post, and/or google: REAL id 2008, be prepared to "show your papers." Where else have I heard that before???