Thursday, February 28, 2008

War between Iran and america, ours to lose

In December 2004 I predicted in “2007, Time for War?” that if America is unable to invade Iran by the end of 2007 it never will. The incident in the Strait of Hormuz this January where Iranian PTÂ’s got within weapons range of 3 american warships, dropped boxes in the water nearby, and sped off before the American ships could get a weapons lock on them proves not only what I said those years ago is correct but that my work has influenced others.
At present Iran has been able to prevent invasion of it’s territory by building up it’s military/industrial complex to churn out the necessary military material needed to defend it’s territory. Iran begun mass production of Fighter Aircraft which have entered service in 2007 and has commissioned it’s first major surface warship, the Guided Missile Frigate Jamaran in 2007 and progress is commencing rapidly on a second unit of the class. As the Strait of Hormuz incident, like the incident where the Iranian navy captured a british PT boat off Iranian waters in 2007, demonstrates, is that Iran has first rate soldiers, using relatively second rate equipment, produced by a first rate industrial complex. In addition, the nations that have allied themselves with Iran like Russia have made genuine defensive alliances which are not words on scraps of paper and which will be backed by physical action. Is there any enemy that is a threat to Iran at present?
As a matter of fact there is. It is an enemy that reared itself during the 1970Â’s that sparked the revolution and can show up again. It is the Iranian people. All too often in our history we have had a tendency to become complacent with success, to become dependent on others to do things for us, to falsely assume we are invincible, to think we are never wrong. These are attitudes that are prevalent today. Most prominently they are prevalent among Iranians living outside Iran, particularly Iranians of all walks of life in America, and by this prevalence giving credibility to every negative myth and stereotype that has been said about Iranians.
A good example is how the Iranian community in America has behaved since bush’s bullshit “war on terror.” There has never been any mass outcry or mass action by the Iranian community in america against the violations of rights of people in america, including our own, as the majority of Iranians in america of every background who speak out are only a handful and they are often ignored or marginalized by the Iranian community in america. At major demonstrations Iranians are a marginalized few and often discouraged at showing up at such events where the leaders pay lip service to being in solidarity with Iranians. Most disturbing, is that there are Iranians and Iranian groups who claim to act on behalf of Iranians often act in their own self interest.
A good example is the british based group called casmii. This group claims to be working to prevent war and sanctions against Iran. Having dealt with them before I know them only to be paying lip service while raking in profits for themselves. I have listened to casmii members speak and they have tended to be off on the facts, the same goes for some of their articles. They have even been disrespectful to members of the Iranian community at events, more focused on making money than on making connections with people who can be of use to them. Not to mention their information on military matters is very inaccurate. Overall, casmii is a useless action group that typifies what is wrong with the Iranian community.
Even worse are groups like the national council of resistance for Iran and the mko. The first group claims to be a government in exile but spends it’s time milking the American government for cash, spreading propaganda without getting into the facts about Iran, and encouraging acts of aggression against Iran by people who have had no real contact with Iran for years. The mko is just another terror group that was pissed because they were displaced during the revolution they helped to spark, and now is desperate to do anything to regain power, so desperate to regain power that it will collaborate with the American government. Then again, seeing how they have collaborated with countries like Iraq against Iran it is more than obvious they are not to be trusted and do not have our best interests at heart.
Let us not forget long time troublemakers, both groups and individuals who make things difficult for Iranians. A good example are many leftists, be they communist, socialist, liberal, anarchist, etc. who claim to act in solidarity with Iranians but actually cause more problems. Good examples are international answer and ufpj, who make Iranians from all walks of life, excluding those who spew the same brainwash as they do and keep silent and seen, unwelcome at their demos. As of late some of these groups are starting to change their attitudes, but this is largely occurring among the average rank and file members but the leadership at the top, sometimes government funded, still discriminates.
Most disturbing is that while the Iranian community in America often complains next to no action is taken usually because those Iranians who would rather do nothing for fear of any reprisals often win out with their arguments of taking no action fearing to risk everything. In addition groups like niac who would rather focus on legal dealings and lobbying rather than on taking physical action when necessary. Overall, your average Iranian in America and most western countries would rather spend their time watching soccer, listening to Andy and nazanian and other artists, and wasting their time and cash every third thrsday evening at their shabeh jendeh gatherings than on putting their time and effort into protecting themselves.
Every civilization that has suffered greatly does so because it is doing no constructive action in the face of a ruthless enemy. We have seen this during the 20th century this happen with the Nazi Holocaust, the Armenian massacres, the Rwanda/Burundi genocide, and groups like the South African Boers and Japanese in America have suffered displacement because of their origins. History repeats itself only because we allow it to. Let us do something to preserve our culture and civilization and be ready to act whenever we are threatened.

Monday, February 18, 2008

"Fallout" Reprecussions

"Fallout" Reprecussions
Since I published "Fallout from Dumb vs. Dumber" quite a bit has happened in terms of online satellite imaging services. Much of it has been good, much of it has been bad, but all the same Fallout has made an impact.
Within 3 days of publishing "Fallout" several locations mentioned there were updated on google/wiki maps. Most prominent were Wilhelmshaven and Eckernforde. Instead of showing recent images google/wiki had used the same imaged Microsoft used for those locations, the only difference being these images had a better high image resolution than on Microsoft. More on this image borrowing by servers later. One place that did show a recent image was Casablanca. Unlike the two German ports Casablanca's images were updated to show all 3 FFG's and most of Morocco's Navy in port. Within several weeks other locations were soon uncensored. The british navy base at Faslane was uncensored and there one will see 2 Vanguard class SSBN's and 2 Swiftsure class SSN's in port there. While Ningbo in China is still censored Zhoushan Island has stopped censoring. There one will see a Hangzhou class DDG, several Jinan class DDG's, Anqing and Changde class FFG's, and a large assortment of LS and PT Craft. In the case of Faslane the censoring was to conceal a strength that could be taken as weakness, for Zhoushan the reason was to conceal overwhelming strength.
One major update is that recently the Netherlands has ceased censoring it's Naval bases on MSN but not on google/wiki and on other servers, partly because of the outrageous behavior of people on wikimapia, discussed below, they do not want their places defamed. In viewing the main Naval base at Den Helder one will see the De Zeven Provincen and Tromp DDG's, a Walrus class SSK, 3 Karel Doorman class FFG's, and a small assortement of PT craft. Nearby at the Naval Museum one will see the 3 Museum ships Tonijin, Abraham Crijinssen, and Schorpien preserved. Ireland and Tunisia have also recently uncensored their bases at Cork and Bizerte respectively, Cork showing 5 of Ireland's 8 warships, Bizerte showing a few FF, PT, and LS. Overall, not strong forces, but still showing that the navies of the world pay attention to satellite imaging.
In viewing the Naval bases of the world I have noticed that the 3 major users of satellite imaging have a lot of manipulation and tend to be extremely selective in choosing which locations to update. This becomes clear when viewing Bremerton and Sydney on google/wiki maps. At Bremerton one will see an updated image where several Ohio class SSBN's are in port and the Ex CGN's South Carolina and Mississippi are being cut up for scrap, the latter 2 being somewhat blurry. Most noticeable is how the Ex SSN Triton is shown twice in Bremerton. At sydney one will see distorted images of australian navy ships in the harbor. Whether this is deliberate or accidental remains to be seen.
The images on MSN are another matter entirely. In viewing them one notices they are often copies of Yahoo images. Most striking is the image of Rio de Janeiro, where one will see the CV Minas Gerias at dock, when that ship is currently at Alang and has not been in service with the Brazilian navy since 2002. Also of interest are the images of the naval installations at Philadelphia, Bremerton, and San Diego. Philadelphia still has images of ships which have either been scrapped or sunk, as does Bremerton and San Diego. Other ports which show on MSN the same old Yahoo images are St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Qingdao, Goteborg, Karachi, Simons Town, Lima, Casablanca, Dubai. Busan shows the new Dodko LHD in port, but other than that MSN has not made serious updates to it's satellite images. This makes one wonder if there is some censorship going on. Of interest is how the Naval facilities shown on Yahoo at Bandar Abbas, Mumbai, Kolkata, Cherbourg, Brest, Surabaya, Oran, Algiers, Tripoli, Constanta, Ferrol, and Lisbon, to name a few, are not shown on MSN. Plus Yahoo now for whatever reason does not allow satellite images to be printed up, one possible reason for MSN's actions. Though MSN, by removing custom print options so people can't write down the content of their images on a print up of the image. If anything MSN and Yahoo each could stand to update their maps.
When viewing images on google/wiki maps one sees more locations in detail but only selective updates are done. For example the only naval bases in North America that have been regularly updated are Norfolk and Esquimalt. Of the South American bases only Montevideo and Cartagena have been updated. None of the African bases except Casablanca have been updated, and Oran is still censored there. In the Gulf Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, al-Jubayl are not regularly updated with only Bahrain and Oman regularly updating their images. Much of Europe still does not update. This is evident as Brest, Lorient, Cherbourg, Ferrol, Cartagena, Bergen, Karlskrona, Goteborg, Kotor, Tallinn, Liepaja, Klaipeda, Trabzon, Samsun, Souda, Gdynia still use old images. Russia has been updating most of it's bases, though Petropavlovsk-Kamchatisky and Sevastopol still use old images. China regularly updates it's Naval bases, however other Asian and pacific nations do not. Japan has not updated it's bases in well over a year, South Korea still censors Donghae and Ulsan and will not update it's other bases except for Busan. North Korea and Taiwan sporadically update their bases. Vitenam, Singapore, and The Philippines regularly update, while Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia do not. India regularly updates Mumbai, Kochi, and Kolkata yet Visakhapatnam, Goa, and Alang remain unupdated. Bangladesh regularly updates yey Pakistan and Sri Lanka do not regularly update their Naval bases. And finally australia updates but New zealand doesn't.
There are many reasons for this unwillingness to update satellite images of Naval bases and to allow censorship. As I discussed in the two previous articles security is one reason. However, with the misbehaviors by the idiots at wikimapia another concern has arisen. As wikimapia is run by a racket of 310 idiots who decide what the facts are about a certain place whether right or wrong, often labeling places wrong, slandering others, and preventing people from putting up correct info and removing slanderous/defamatory comments. Many governments realize this, as well as many individual persons, and that is one reason for the Netherlands uncensorship on MSN but not on google/wiki. The same is somewhat true on google, though google's variants are more concealed. Such dependance on false information is self-destructive and it won't be long before wikimapia and wikimedia have to cave in to others to clean up their act. Considering the potential they have they abuse what they have they squander it by bashing others and wasting talent.
The uses of online satellite imaging for Naval/military intelligence is being discovered and used, though lately there is much abuse by those who manage satellite imaging. The future again is uncertain.
Peter Khan Zendran