"Information Operations"

"Iran is important, Iran is dangerous, Iran is urgent, and we have no choice but to deal with Iran, despite the negatives," Frank G. Wisner II, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, told the committee. "In short, if we're to make any progress with the questions that we face in Iraq, Afghanistan, with the nuclear questions, energy issues, Israel-Palestine, we have to be able to take Iran into account and deal with it."

"To the extent that we are lessening Iran's commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for a missile defense system,"

"Regime change is a wish, not a strategy," Haass said. "We need to have a strategy."

One woman activist posed with a description that she represented the "Military Wing of Photo Shop." Egyptian authorities, as usual, were not amused. "Dead" has been arrested. Facebook was also apparently unamused. Several of the groups satirical photos have been deleted.

But spoofing Islamic terrorists while residing in Egypt is ballsy to me and represents the free speech which is supposed to be a sacred right in democratic societies.

Arguably, coordinating with the regimes in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt is probably the only way to have such a caravan pass through the North African countries, and to ensure its entry into Gaza from Egypt. But if Galloway hadn't designed this campaign in order to ensure the maximum possible media attention for himself, he could have considered other ways to support Palestine - without becoming a propaganda tool for authoritarian regimes.

activists in Europe should work harder to find ways to support Palestine without alienating the oppresed opposition in Arab countries, as the struggle for a just solution in Palestine must be linked to the struggle for democratic reform and justice in the Middle East.

In this time of economic crisis, it would appear appropriate for Saudi Arabia's oil fields to be publicly audited. The full disclosure of total remaining reserves, by field, would enable more effective future oil production and consumption planning in this post peak oil age.

Many readers will question the validity of my URR estimates, shown in Figure 1, thinking that the true KSA URR must be higher. A perceived high URR is in the national interest of KSA because it needs its customers to continue their demand for oil leading to sustainable high oil prices for KSA. If customers thought that KSA had less than 100 Gb of oil left then conservation and switching to alternatives would increase. KSA has been creating this perception of overabundant oil reserves for at least sixteen years because it believes that this will maximize the price of its remaining oil.

SS intimidation..

live-blogging today’s discussion, led by trade unionist Fatma Ramdan

police corruption

Iran has arrested an Iranian-American reporter who worked for National Public Radio and other news organizations out of Iran, her father told N.P.R. on Sunday.

“She said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her,” he said, adding that the wine purchase was just an excuse to arrest her.

The authorities also destroyed the place of worship of members of a Sufi group called the Gonabadi Dervishes on Feb. 19 in the central city of Isfahan.

Both movies are despised here by vastly more people than have actually seen them.

Iranian religious rulers banned Western movies after the 1979 revolution, fearing that their cultural influence could undermine Iran’s revolutionary zeal.

But pirated copies are widely and secretly distributed for private use. And satellite television, which is illegal but has been common since the mid-1990s, has allowed Iranians to see pretty much anything they want.

Since last week, Blue Host, the hosting service which is used for this very blog [and Kamangir as well], and the number one recommendation for Wordpress hosting by Wordpress itself, has adopted a policy of suspending its Iranian users. In some cases the bloggers have been given a short notice in order to back up their data and leave. This is despite Bluehost’s good reputation in the blogosphere. The matter of fact is that many of these bloggers, including Arash Kamangir who blogs at kamangir.net, have no connection to the Iranian administration and have had to take use of a foreign hosting service in order to freely express their opinions. The important factor is that Bluehost is not committing any illegal action. What is being done is exactly what article 13 in Bluehost Terms of Service mandates. The article does explicitly mention Iran among the sanctioned countries, Sanctioned Countries presently include, among others, Balkans, Belarus, Burma, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, former Liberian Regime of Charles Taylor, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe…Each Sanctioned Country, all governmental, commercial, or other entities located therein, and all individuals located in any Sanctioned Country are hereby prohibited from registering or signing up with, subscribing to, or using any service of BlueHost.Com.

The Persian Bloggers who use Bluehost are dispersed all over the world and produce content for people from Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and other countries. The action taken by Bluehost, while entirely legal, will harm the Persian blogosphere.

Boyd argues that Saudi broadcasting developed largely in order to balance such attacks

The Voice of the Arabs had been very carefully designed to become a regional phenomenon

There is absolutely no supporting evidence for the contention that Nasser intended to allow The Voice of the Arabs to criticise his own regime. However, it is true that Cairo’s deliberate escalation of pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist rhetoric in order to mobilise the Arab masses eventually turned into a trap from which Egypt could not escape.