“28. The results of analysis of environmental samples taken at FFEP (Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant on 15 February 2012 showed presence of particles with enrichment levels of up to 27% U-235, which are higher than the level stated in the DIQ (Design Information Questionnaire). In a letter dated 4 May 2012, the Agency (IAEA) requested that Iran provide an explanation for the presence of these particles. In its reply, dated 9 May 2012, Iran indicated that the production of such particles “above the target value” may happen for technical reasons beyond the operator’s control. The Agency is assessing Iran’s explanation and has requested further details. On 5 May 2012, the Agency took further environmental samples from the same location where the particles in question had been found. These samples are currently being analysed.”

David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), has an explanation and both dampens and fuels the immediate brouhaha in mainstream media.

“The IAEA has found traces of uranium enriched up to 27 percent at Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant. This elevation is likely due to improved cascade design. An effect is to overshoot 20 percent when 3.5 percent LEU (low enriched uranium) is fed into the tandem cascades at the old feed rate for 15 stage cascades. To avoid this problem, Iran likely increased the feed rate of 3.5 percent LEU, which lowered the enrichment level of the product back to 19.75 percent. It also increased slightly the amount of 19.75 percent produced.

This development is an embarrassment for Iran but it is not a sign of Iran moving to higher enrichment levels. Nonetheless, its deployment of a 17-stage cascade reflects a reconfiguration of the cascades that can make breakout faster and more efficient.” (Emphasis added.)

Well, 19.75% is a construct anyway. It is conventionally LEU while 20+ percent would be highly enriched uranium (which automatically would lead to brouhaha).  That the Iranians are embarrassed is rather not likely. That IAEA inspectors were able to detect these “particles” indicates just two things: That Iran can quickly enrich to higher levels if a respective decision was made and that the IAEA can easily monitor this (provided Iran has made them aware of each of its enrichment facilities; Amano again complains that Iran has specified, in 2010, the locations of ten further sites without providing the IAEA with respective information yet).

Last modified May 26, 2012.

That the two-day meeting of E3+3 with an Iranian delegation in Baghdad over the latter’s nuclear program has de facto been adjourned to be continued in Moscow on June 18 is probably the only outcome which may prevent the whole endeavor of being a complete failure. Sanctions were not to be removed off the table (or even softened), but why should Iran then give in stopping further enriching uranium?

In an uncommon move the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano was sent had arrived just hours before the Baghdad meeting in Tehran to negotiate a deal which would IAEA inspectors grant an easier access to suspicious facilities, most probably including that at Parchin which had been identified of having been the place of experiments with high-explosives a decade ago. Iran had signaled cooperation and willingness to sign a respective agreement (just an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Iran is a signatory of since 1968). What else could be expected? Iran had done so already in 2003 (but never ratified it by its parliament) and only abandoned it in 2006 when facing several rounds of UNSC sanctions.

The upcoming report by Amano might shed light on what has actually been agreed upon and when Parchin and the respective building allegedly containing the high-explosive test chamber, which might have been cleansed in the meantime, can be visited. What IAEA inspectors are so keen to see there is, after all, unclear. ArmsControlWonk’s Jeffrey Lewis had yesterday debunked the hype in the West about the building which might have been the site of, illicit or not, experiments in the early 2000s. High-explosive test chambers just look different than the ominous computer-generated drawing which has been circulating for some time now and which only reminds us of similar disingenuous attempts by W. G. Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell when he tried to convince the public about the immediate threat of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction nine years ago.

The likelihood that a highly desired agreement between the IAEA and Iran is actually signed within the next coming days is, after next-to-nothing results of the Baghdad meeting, pretty small.

Last modified May 25, 2012.

When I first saw the latest satellite image of April 9 of a suspect building at the Parching military complex where 10 years ago Iran might have conducted illicit experiments using a high-explosive  test chamber as reported in the November 2011 safeguards report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), I instantly had to think of spring cleaning. So did Spencer Ackerman at Wired. Lots of water is apparently running and it appears that several small items have been moved outside the building. David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Washington based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) show, in comparison, images taken on 4 March 2012 and 28 July 2011, apparently lacking any activity. IAEA delegated had been denied access to the complex twice this year, in January and February. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano had already expressed concern that the IAEA has “information that some activity is ongoing there [at Parchin].”

It would have been helpful if Albright and Brannan had provided, in comparison, images of other buildings of the huge complex showing lack of similar cleansing rather than images of March (before the Iranian New Year festival of Nowruz) or July (summer).

Publication of the new satellite image at Parchin was in coincidence with the suspicious death of an IAEA inspector two days ago in a car accident near Arak when on a mission to visit Iran’s nuclear complex at Khondab in the Markazi province. There have already been unsubstantiated speculations about “some form of retribution” in sort of response to recent killings of nuclear scientists in Iran by Jeffrey Lewis at ArmsControlWonk.

Last modified May 11, 2012.

Regions in the Middle East. I am pretty sure that most who are interested in this part of the world do not know much about them. What about the peoples? Columbia University’s Gulf 2000 project  and its cartographer Dr. Michael Izadi have generated highly informative maps on ethnities, languages, tribes, faiths, etc. Thanks to Gary Sick who has featured them today on his blog,  I enjoyed browsing through a trove of new and fascinating information of an extremely important part of the world still largely unknown, though.

Last modified May 2, 2012.

Talks in Istanbul today between delegates of the the UN Security Council member states plus Germany, and Iran over the latter’s disputed nuclear program are said to have been constructive. After weeks of mixed and highly confusing messages sent out by President Obama and his administration about either acceptance of Iran’s enrichment program in the event Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would once again confirm that the country doesn’t seek nuclear weapons and unrealistic demands of closing down and dismantle the enrichment facility in Fordow and surrender any enriched uranium, be it at 3.5 or 20%, eventually the parties are now sitting at the same table.

Is this, as Obama claims, Iran’s last chance to solve the problem by diplomacy? Certainly not. We should recall the rather dexterous Iranian conduct of negotiations on 1 October 2009 in Geneva when chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili got quasi a green light from President Ahmadinejad for a swap deal which would mean that Iran would have sent out most of its lowly enriched uranium and receive in return fuel plates for its research reactor in Tehran (TRR). We all know that the deal did not receive formal approval by the Supreme Leader due to resistance of Ahmadinejad’s strong adversaries speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani and, well, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the leader of the Green Movement. And in 2010, another attempt, outlined in the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal called Tehran Declaration, failed (“too little, too late”) when Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were more in favor of pushing for another round of sanctions.

Both sides urgently need success. Obama cannot afford an Israeli attack in his reelection year and neither can Iran. Thus, one might realistically expect that both sides seek a win-win outcome with reasonable compromises. To provide Iran with fuel plates for the TRR, to accept its enrichment to 3.5% on one side; to stop enriching to 20% and allow inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency better access to all nuclear facilities (i.e., eventually ratifying the Additional Protocol of the Non-proliferation Treaty and the modified code 3.1) on the other. Then sanction have to be lifted.

Last modified April 14, 2012.

]]> http://aliqapoo.com/2012/04/14/maybe-a-breakthrough/feed/ 0 Fahad Istanbul_April 14 http://aliqapoo.com/2012/04/05/it-takes-more-to-prevent-a-war/ http://aliqapoo.com/2012/04/05/it-takes-more-to-prevent-a-war/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 08:40:53 +0000 Fahad http://aliqapoo.com/?p=4244 ]]> What must be said? Well, many of us have been busy for years to prevent another war in the Middle East, after a decade of failure in Afghanistan and two decades of the Iraqi war debacle.

Literature Nobel laureate of 1999 Günter Grass has done a terrible disservice to our consistent work. Did he raise his voice before? As an eminent German writer, had he ever something to say on the Kunduz airstrike when a German Colonel ordered a massacre among civilians? Now, Israel allegedly threatens Iran with annihilation. Wasn’t it Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential election campaign who threatened Iran first (actually, she used “totally obliterate”)? What did he say then? Has Grass ever visited Iran? Its nuclear sites? Did he follow IAEA reports by ElBaradei, Amano?

Sickening hypocritical Günter Grass, a former member of Waffen-SS (we only got to know about that since he confessed in 2006 in one of his latest publications, Vom Häuten der Zwiebel, or Pealing the Onion; he explained this later in an article in The New Yorker) has now proved that he is nothing else than a petty anti-Semite. Warmongers in Israel and its government may in fact jubilee. They read, Was gesagt werden muss: The Jews are our calamity.

In particular disgusting is Grass’ publication of his poem just before the Jewish Passover festival, a common occasion for anti-Semitic denouncing Jewish life and rites.

To be just a bit instructive, what Netanjahu, Barak and Lieberman do and always did is a game. Virtuoso, they play the influence of the American Israel lobby in preparation of the November elections, no more. There will be no preemptive airstrike since its effectiveness and efficiency are highly questionable. There will be no nuclear attack on already heavily fortified enrichment facilities since these politicians are shrewd but not nuts.

Was gesagt werden muss

Warum schweige ich, verschweige zu lange,
was offensichtlich ist und in Planspielen
geübt wurde, an deren Ende als Überlebende
wir allenfalls Fußnoten sind.

Es ist das behauptete Recht auf den Erstschlag,
der das von einem Maulhelden unterjochte
und zum organisierten Jubel gelenkte
iranische Volk auslöschen könnte,
weil in dessen Machtbereich der Bau
einer Atombombe vermutet wird.

Doch warum untersage ich mir,
jenes andere Land beim Namen zu nennen,
in dem seit Jahren – wenn auch geheimgehalten –
ein wachsend nukleares Potential verfügbar
aber außer Kontrolle, weil keiner Prüfung
zugänglich ist?

Das allgemeine Verschweigen dieses Tatbestandes,
dem sich mein Schweigen untergeordnet hat,
empfinde ich als belastende Lüge
und Zwang, der Strafe in Aussicht stellt,
sobald er mißachtet wird;
das Verdikt „Antisemitismus“ ist geläufig.

Jetzt aber, weil aus meinem Land,
das von ureigenen Verbrechen,
die ohne Vergleich sind,
Mal um Mal eingeholt und zur Rede gestellt wird,
wiederum und rein geschäftsmäßig, wenn auch
mit flinker Lippe als Wiedergutmachung deklariert,
ein weiteres U-Boot nach Israel
geliefert werden soll, dessen Spezialität
darin besteht, allesvernichtende Sprengköpfe
dorthin lenken zu können, wo die Existenz
einer einzigen Atombombe unbewiesen ist,
doch als Befürchtung von Beweiskraft sein will,
sage ich, was gesagt werden muss.

Warum aber schwieg ich bislang?
Weil ich meinte, meine Herkunft,
die von nie zu tilgendem Makel behaftet ist,
verbiete, diese Tatsache als ausgesprochene Wahrheit
dem Land Israel, dem ich verbunden bin
und bleiben will, zuzumuten.

Warum sage ich jetzt erst,
gealtert und mit letzter Tinte:
Die Atommacht Israel gefährdet
den ohnehin brüchigen Weltfrieden?
Weil gesagt werden muss,
was schon morgen zu spät sein könnte;
auch weil wir – als Deutsche belastet genug –
Zulieferer eines Verbrechens werden könnten,
das voraussehbar ist, weshalb unsere Mitschuld
durch keine der üblichen Ausreden
zu tilgen wäre.

Und zugegeben: ich schweige nicht mehr,
weil ich der Heuchelei des Westens
überdrüssig bin; zudem ist zu hoffen,
es mögen sich viele vom Schweigen befreien,
den Verursacher der erkennbaren Gefahr
zum Verzicht auf Gewalt auffordern und
gleichfalls darauf bestehen,
daß eine unbehinderte und permanente Kontrolle
des israelischen atomaren Potentials
und der iranischen Atomanlagen
durch eine internationale Instanz
von den Regierungen beider Länder zugelassen wird.

Nur so ist allen, den Israelis und Palästinensern,
mehr noch, allen Menschen, die in dieser
vom Wahn okkupierten Region
dicht bei dicht verfeindet leben
und letztlich auch uns zu helfen.

(All orthographic, linguistic and stylistic errors as such.)

See a not scrutinized translation here.

Last update April 5, 2012

U.S. investigators of the March 11 Kandahar massacre officially believe that Staff Sgt Robert Bales went out alone for the massacres in two villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, one north (Najeeban) of the Camp Belambai and one south (Alkozai).

The numbers of dead civilians now differ. While Bales is charged in the US of killing 17, Afghan sources still mention 16. An additional six were wounded. Corpses were partially burnt. According to the official U.S American version, Bales split the killing spree, first murdering eleven members of one family then returning to the camp then hurrying to the other village where he eventually quenched his blood thirst.

Blood money has already been paid, $46,000 for each dead, $10,000 for each wounded according to the BBC.  In sharp contrast, the German Armed Forces had paid $ 5000 to the families of 102 killed or injured civilians one year after the 4 September 2009 Kunduz airstrike on two fuel tankers but then having had emphasized that it was not meant as compensation.

Last modified March 25, 2012.

I was long wondering why the behavior of so many Scandinavians especially toward foreigners was so special. In many cases I have perceived a deep inferiority complex which was sometimes just unnecessary, sometimes unfortunately justified.

A friend and colleague recently informed me about what seems to be known as Janteloven, “a pattern of group behavior toward individuals within Scandinavian communities, which negatively portrays and criticizes individual success and achievements as unworthy and inappropriate,” as Wikipedia tells.

Based on Aksel Sandemose’s novel En flyktining krysser sitt spor of 1933, the ten (or eleven rules) are

1. Don’t think you’re anything special.

2. Don’t think you’re as good as us.

3. Don’t think you’re smarter than us.

4. Don’t convince yourself that you’re better than us.

5. Don’t think you know more than us.

6. Don’t think you are more important than us.

7. Don’t think you are good at anything.

8. Don’t laugh at us.

9. Don’t think anyone cares about you.

10. Don’t think you can teach us anything,

and 11. Don’t think that there aren’t a few things we know about you.

I had immediately 12. in mind: Don’t think we cannot make problems for you if you dare to criticize us.

Small and larger communities which are in need of protecting their achievements by belittling those especially of foreigners will ultimately segregate. In general, Janteloven must be considered even sort of racism, a problem which has always been endemic in all Scandinavian countries.

Last modified March 25, 2012.

The name of the American soldier who massacred and partially burnt last Sunday 16 Afghan civilians including nine children in the Panjwai shooting spree in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, and who had been rescued to Kuwait before Afghan authorities and judiciary could get hold of him, has been revealed yesterday. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales has meanwhile been transferred to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. As regards what is now known about Bales he seems to have a troubled career but rather typical history in the American armed forces.

The 38 years old husband and father of two who has served in multiple deployments in two US American wars during the last decade had suffered a traumatic head injury in a crash in Iraq and had lost part of a foot in an unrelated combat injury there. According to his attorney John Henry Brown he also might suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder since he has seen “the day before this incidence” when one of his fellow soldiers lost a leg.

While surviving eye-witnesses had reported that several soldiers had been involved in the attack, Afghan President Hamid Karzai also does not believe that the act was carried out by one man.

Democracy Now! has had a discussion yesterday with Neil Shea, frequently “embedded” journalist in Afghanistan and Iraq who has just published a piece (The Gathering Menace) in the Spring issue of The American Scholar shedding some “light on culture of mania and aggression in U.S. troops in Afghanistan”. What he describes is harmless in comparison with the massacre.

“Most soldierly stupidity does not amount to crime; most soldiers never commit atrocities. U.S. soldiers shooting at goats, for example, or pilots getting drunk on base, or guards threatening the lives of prisoners, all things I have seen, defy military rules and erode efforts to win hearts and minds. But how bad is it, really? Do we care? What is my responsibility when I see it? I have never found good ways to write about the subhuman wash of aggression and the small episodes of violence military men and women cycle through daily, or the choices they make in the midst of this.”

Shea describes the troubled personality of Staff Sergeant James Givens (not his real name) introducing him as one who has shot a pet dogs in the face.

“Of course, we require our fighters to be ready hurricanes, on-call combat machines. We want them held easily in check, and we expect light-switch control over their aggression. Yet the Afghan war no longer relies so much on combat. The mission is nuanced, and future success, even sane withdrawal, demands Afghan cooperation. Soldiers like Givens, so barely restrained, their switches unreliable after years of war, undermine this. But we have no good method for dealing with men who grow too dangerous. We vaguely hope their anger does not spill over, or come home. It is not simple. My own reaction to the men of Destroyer (the name of the Platoon) is difficult. I liked them. I still want to believe they were merely full of bravado.”

Right now there is another inmate in Fort Leavenworth, Bradley Manning: the young US American soldier who was about to bungle his life in the illegal war in Iraq. Before he was transferred to Kansas he had been detained for ten months, since summer 2010, at the Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Virginia in maximum-custody solitary confinement under inhumane, harsh and punitive conditions, as Amnesty International wrote in a letter addressing then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. An American hero for many, if allegations turn out to be true: providing WikiLeaks with the “Collateral Murder” video of the 12 July 2007 Baghdad helicopter airstrike, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs, 250’000 partially secret or classified U.S. diplomatic cables which have led to diplomatic complications all over the world and which might have sparked uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the Arab world; and the Gitmo Files.

Obviously these two US American soldiers, Bales and Manning, cannot be more different.

Update. Bales’ home base near Tacoma, WA, Joint Base Lewis Mc-Chord (JBLMC),  which has sent tens of thousands of young Americans into war during the last decade, seems to have “unusually serious problems ranging from violent episodes involving soldiers at home and in war zones to failings in the base’s command structure” as the Christian Science Monitor knows. A timeline of events at JBLMC has been published by the Seattle Times.

I was a bit in doubt which Art Bears’ song I should post when I read that Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked/ordered American withdrawal from his country today. Maybe this one? One of my all-time favorites.

A lost war. A disaster. Bridges, schools? Democracy? What will be remembered is the Kunduz massacre, the Granai air strike, WikiLeak’s Afghanistan War Logs, the Qur’an burnings, the recent mass murder.

Last modified March 15, 2012.