War in Afghanistan News – 25 Nov 2012

 

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Nov. 25, 2012) – Afghan and coalition forces killed two insurgents and cleared 13 improvised explosive devices during operations in eastern Afghanistan throughout the past 24 hours, Nov. 24.
Ghazni Province
Afghan National Army soldiers found and safely cleared seven IEDs in Giro District.
A coalition airstrike killed two insurgents in Ghazni District in response to an imminent threat towards Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces.
Laghman Province
Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces found and safely cleared three IEDs, two in Nurgaram District and one in Alingar District.
Logar Province
Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces found and safely cleared an IED in Baraki Barak District.

In Syria, the powers play hardball

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Michael Bell

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jul. 23 2012, 2:00 AM EDT

Last updated Monday, Jul. 23 2012, 12:00 AM EDT

Realpolitik is liberating Syria from the Assad autocracy, while the institution-based international system – most notably the United Nations – has largely failed, because it depends on agreement among the permanent members of the Security Council.

Moscow seems implacably committed to supporting the Damascus regime. Such is the Russians’ commitment to their traditional activist role that they are underwriting their Syrian ally at great cost to their own reputation as a constructive institution-based player, rendering impotent the mechanisms so ably used in Libya.

Even if the Russians were acting otherwise, it remains dubious how effective UN and North Atlantic Treaty Organization intervention could be. A no-fly zone would have limited impact, since Syria possesses an impressive array of military hardware. A severe sanctions regime, even banks running out of money, might have less impact than thought. Sanctions would be ignored by Russia, China, Iran and others. NATO boots on the ground would be a disaster, embedding outside players in a complex world where denominational identity trumps international standards of right and wrong. Indeed, the regime continues to draw on significant public support, despite falling morale over the setbacks of recent days.

Iranian gov’t pays paramilitary hackers, bloggers to bring you Islamic Revolution 2.0

Iran battles “westoxification” using, well, westoxification.

by Cyrus Farivar – June 6 2012, 9:36pm E Cyberwar

Hundreds of Iranians gathered recently for a Hizbollah Cyber conference in Tehran

Hizbullah Cyber

TALLINN, ESTONIA—Iran has significantly stepped up its use of corporate acquisitions, online propaganda, and hacking capabilities in recent years, according to an open source intelligence expert.

Jeff Bardin, the chief intelligence officer at Treadstone 71—an American company that researches publicly available materials—told a packed session at the International Conference on Cyber Conflict on Wednesday that Iran has become much more sophisticated and pervasive in its use of online tools.

He outlined the major paramilitary organizations that operate within Iran, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij, and Ashiyane. The latter is a notorious hacker group that works in conjunction with the Iranian government. All of these groups, he said, share an overarching focus on an Iranian concept used to promote the movement that became the philosophic foundation of the Islamic Revolution: westoxification. It’s the loss of Persian language, culture, and influence to Western countries.

“[Iranians'] patience is, in my view, legendary,” he told Ars. “The United States is famous for underestimating the adversary.”

The IRGC, known in Persian as the “Pasdaran,” is a massive organization that touches nearly every part of the Iranian economy, including owning or controlling major corporations. Most notably, just months after the disputed presidential election of June 2009, the Iranian government sold a majority $7.8 billion stake in the Iran Telecommunications Company, a former monopoly.

“It smacks of a communist model,” Bardin said of the uncompetitive nature of awarding contracts to the IRGC. He added that by controlling the infrastructure itself, the Iranian government’s agencies could capture even tighter control over what was being said and done online.

The Great Identity Crisis

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

A moral crisis tends to go hand in hand with an identity crisis. It’s when you don’t know who you are that you’re most likely to take refuge in a political or ethical identity that provides you with the comfort of a false sense of superiority. When all other identities fall apart, you can always rely on being the better man, the better nation and the empty space with the moral high ground.

Societies that go multicultural tend to experience identity drift and take refuge in a self-definition based on values. Who are Americans? As generations of presidents on the left and right have told us, they are people who believe in American values. What are American values? They’re the values that Americans are told they need to believe in, in order to be Americans. Like tolerance, immigration, free trade, and respecting the right of anyone to be a member of the Communist Party or the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a time of crisis, nations and peoples have to choose to survive. But what is survival? Proponents of a values-based identity have argued that survival means the survival of our values. If we take Measure X against an enemy, whether it’s outlawing the Communist Party or waterboarding Islamic terrorists, then we have “killed our values” and we are no longer Americans. It doesn’t matter then whether an act saves millions of American lives, if it means we destroy our values, then we have killed the only worthwhile thing about us.