Congresswoman Sue Myrick discusses the national security risk posed by Venezuela’s support of allies from Special Interest Countries, such as Iran,
H/t Vlad Tepes.
Via Instapundit, the Daily Night Owl has been liveblogging the Ashura protests in Iran for at least the past eight hours.
So, back in June 28, it took the Obama administration less time than that to declare Zelaya’s constitutional ousting a military coup. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had, by early afternoon, said that “the action taken against Honduras’ president should be condemned by everyone.”
Where is Hillary now? Where’s Obama?
Jawa and Gateway Pundit have video of the protests, including this extraordinary rescue of two men who were being hanged:
The Washington Times has an editorial on Iran’s perfect storm.
In the meantime, the Obama administration dozes off.
UPDATE
Darn. I lost my bet.
… in Iraq and Afghanistan, using Russian software Skygrabber,
Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones
$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected
Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
Iraq, Afghanistan, but possibly also Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia
Some of the most detailed evidence of intercepted feeds has been discovered in Iraq, but adversaries have also intercepted drone video feeds in Afghanistan, according to people briefed on the matter. These intercept techniques could be employed in other locations where the U.S. is using pilotless planes, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, they said.
Drones are inherently vulnerable:
Gen. Deptula, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said there were inherent risks to using drones since they are remotely controlled and need to send and receive video and other data over great distances. “Those kinds of things are subject to listening and exploitation,” he said, adding the military was trying to solve the problems by better encrypting the drones’ feeds.The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn’t know how to exploit it, the officials said.
Why weren’t drone communications encripted in the first place?
In today’s WSJ,
The Tehran-Caracas Nuclear Axis
But perhaps the most interesting Iranian venture is a supposed gold mine not far from Angel Falls, in a remote area known as the Roraima Basin. The basin straddles Venezuela’s border with neighboring Guyana, where a Canadian company, U308, thinks it has found the “geological look-alike” to Canada’s Athabasca Basin. The Athabasca, the company’s Web site adds, “is the world’s largest resource of uranium.”In 2006, Chávez publicly mocked suspicions of nuclear cooperation with Iran, saying it “shows they have no limit in their capacity to invent lies.” In September, however, Rodolfo Sanz, Venezuela’s minister of basic industries, acknowledged that “Iran is helping us with geophysical aerial probes and geochemical analyses” in its search for uranium.
The official basis for this cooperation seems to be a Nov. 14, 2008 memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries’ ministers of science and technology and given to me by a credible foreign intelligence source. “The two parties agreed to cooperate in the field of nuclear technology,” reads the Spanish version of the document, which also makes mention of the “peaceful use of alternative energies.” Days later, the Venezuelan government submitted a paper to the International Atomic Energy Agency on the “Introduction of a Nuclear Power Programme.” (Online readers can see the memorandum for themselves in their Farsi and Spanish versions. One mystery: The Farsi version makes no mention of nuclear cooperation.)
Iran would certainly require large and reliable supplies of uranium if it is going to enrich the nuclear fuel in 10 separate plants—an ambition Ahmadinejad spelled out last month. It would also require an extensive financial and logistical infrastructure network in Venezuela, not to mention unusually good political connections. All this it has in spades.
Consider financing. In January 2008, the Bank of International Development opened its doors for business in Caracas. At the top of its list of its directors, all of whom are Iranian, is one Tahmasb Mazaheri, former governor of the central bank of Iran. As it turns out, the bank is a subsidiary of the Export Development Bank of Iran, which in October 2008 was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for providing “financial services to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.”
Or consider logistics. For nearly three years, Venezuelan airline ConViasa has been flying an Airbus 340 to Damascus and Tehran. Neither city is a typical Venezuelan tourist destination, to say the least. What goes into the cargo hold of that big plane is an interesting question. Also interesting is that in October 2008 the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, also sanctioned by Treasury, announced it had established a direct shipping route to Venezuela.
Finally, there are the political connections. What do Fadi Kabboul, Aref Richany Jimenez, Radwan Sabbagh and Tarek Zaidan El Aissami Maddah have in common? The answer is that they are, respectively, executive director for planning of Venezuelan oil company PdVSA; the president of Venezuela’s military-industrial complex; the president of a major state-owned mining concern; and, finally, the minister of interior. Latin Americans of Middle Eastern descent have long played prominent roles in national politics and business. But these are all fingertip positions in what gives the Iranian-Venezuelan relationship its worrying grip.
By the way, I have been posting on the Venezuelan-Iranian ties since at least 2007. None of this should take regular readers of this blog by surprise.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk:
Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe plan to address negotiators at international climate talks in Copenhagen next week.The three leaders are listed in a line-up of more than 180 government officials published in a United Nations schedule of speakers. Each head of state will have up to three minutes to address roughly 700 delegates, reporter, observers and civil society groups.
They will all be demanding US financial assistance, no doubt.
My latest post, Brazil and That Coveted Security Council Seat, is up at Real Clear World.
Semanario Verdad Latinoamericana reports that nurses in a Bolivian hospital are forced to wear a hijab veil at their jobs.
The article, Bolivia: enfermeras son obligadas a llevar velo, says that state newspaper Cambio (link to their website here, but no link to their report on the hospital) reported that following a donation of $1.2 million USdollars by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit Wednesday last week, the nurses at a hospital in El Alto have to wear a veil due to conditions set by Iran.
The Economist has a brief case study of automotive ineptitude
SELDOM, since the day Adolf Hitler gave the order to produce the Volkswagen, has a car been given such an explicitly ideological mission. But the vehicles that roll, occasionally, off the production line at Venirauto’s factory, west of Caracas, will free Venezuelans from the “yoke of capitalism,” declares President Hugo Chávez. The factory was opened with great fanfare by the president three years ago. It is a joint venture between Iran and Venezuela, which Mr Chávez predicts will turn his country into a car exporter. It is also intended to be an example of socialist production principles, although its workers see things a little differently.In December they downed tools over the company’s refusal to negotiate a collective contract. Their wages, even at the grossly overvalued official exchange rate, are worth around $25 a day. They complained of poor safety conditions and exploitative work practices. Their supposedly socialist employer refuses to recognise trade unions and has ignored the labour ministry’s order to reinstate sacked union activists.
Venirauto’s cars are rehashes of clapped-out 1980s models from the imperialist West. The Turpial, a five-door hatchback, is based on the Ford Festiva, while the Centauro saloon is a clone of the Peugeot 405, though both are fitted with a conversion kit allowing them to run on natural gas. Their capitalist-busting claims are based on price: they undercut rival models by around 50%. If you can get one, that is.
This is what a Turpial looks like:
And a Centauro:
The Economist continues,
Perhaps it is just as well that the 30,000 customers the government says are waiting for an anti-capitalist car should learn to do without one.
Of course Chávez is ready to preach by example:
When not praising the Turpial and the Centauro, Mr Chávez has been known to rail against the whole concept of car ownership. “The urge to get a car,” he told students on one occasion, “is poison to the human soul”. With that, he got into his limousine and rode off.
In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern, Ahmadinejad and his entourage of 200 businessmen visit Bolivia and Venezuela.
Related reading:
Iran’s leader gets backing in friendly Bolivia
Iran, Bolivia agree to cooperate on study of Lithium
Iran’s Ahmadinejad arrives in Venezuela
Venezuela opposition and Jews protest Iran visit
Makes me wonder how much money is actually changing hands between those two:
Lula urges Iran dialogue, backs nuclear plan
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged his Iranian counterpart on Monday to engage in dialogue on nuclear non-proliferation but backed Iran’s right to develop a peaceful nuclear program.Ignoring critics who fear closer ties with Iran could dent Brazil’s ambitions on the global diplomatic stage, Lula met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Brasilia on the first leg of the Iranian leader’s South American tour, which also includes stops in Bolivia and Venezuela.
But in Brazil, the Iranian leader will get a reprieve from Western threats of sanctions. With Lula, Ahmadinejad – and his entourage of businessmen – will discuss opportunities to increase and diversify commerce as well as boost cooperation in nanotechnology, biotechnology, agriculture, and energy, according Brazil’s Foreign Ministry. An Iranian deputy foreign minister said that Tehran hopes to increase trade with Brazil from $2 billion to $15 billion in the field of petrochemicals, agriculture, and medicine, according to the Los Angeles Times.
But Ahmadinejad’s looking for more than trade:
Here’s Ahmadinejad’s Brazilian TV interview (in Portuguese), where he said,
“The world needs a new economic order. Iran and Brazil have independent positions in relation to the international situation. … The two can work together to help create a new international order.”
Simon Peres says Brazil can help curb Iran. That remains to be seen.
