From Mere Rhetoric

In a DebkaFile report on the unlikely yet apparently thriving Saudi-Israeli co-operation in the face of the Iranian threat, a clue may be found as to just who is directing operations againt Iran’s nuclear program, and most probably sent it the Stuxnet worm:

Riyadh has signaled its intention for the secret Saudi-Israeli meetings on Iran taking place for more than a year to continue after the changing of the guard at the Mossad… This was one of the first messages Tamir Pardo found on his desk as head of Israel’s external spy agency when he took over from Meir Dagan this week. The Saudis were clearly not put off by any possible awkwardness from the WikiLeaks disclosure that they had been pressing the US to attack Iran’s nuclear sites before it developed a weapon.

The meetings between Saudi General Intelligence Director Prince Muqrin bin Abdaziz and Meir Dagan, most of which were held in the Jordanian capital Amman, dealt extensively with clandestine cooperation between the two agencies and plans for attacking Iran. Arab and Western sources reported that they reached agreement in the course of the year for Israeli fighter-bombers to transit Saudi air space on their way to bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Saudis were even willing to build a new landing strip in the desert with refueling facilities for the use of the warplanes en route to their mission.

Western intelligence experts on Saudi Arabia found special significance in the publication by the Saudi Arab News site of Monday, Nov. 29 of a long report on Meir Dagan and his retirement after eight years as head of Israel’s external espionage agency. The Saudi official media never, ever report on Israeli military or intelligence affairs. …

Still more out of character was the tone of the Arab News report [which admiringly describes] the outgoing Mossad chief … as … “widely seen as responsible for a wave of covert actions including the sabotage of Iranian nuclear projects.”

Western sources found a connection between this comment and the attack 24 hours earlier in the heart of Tehran on two senior Iranian nuclear scientists, killing Prof. Majid Shahriari on the spot and leaving Prof. Feredoun Abbassi-Davani critically injured. …

Pardo’s job is termed “at the heart of Israel’s secret war against Iran.”…

The WikiLeaks disclosure, which also showed the Obama administration rejecting the Gulf Arab rulers’ demand for military action against Iran, may even have spurred the Saudis to insist on carrying on with their backdoor meetings with Israel so as to underline their abiding conviction that Iran’s nuclear program must be wiped out.

And we understand that Meir Dagan did not bow to King Abdullah. In a manner of speaking, the obeisance is being paid the other way about.

Abraham H. Miller, professor emeritus of political science, has an article at PajamasMedia that we applaud, because he succinctly endorses our own opinion of Obama’s treacherous and catastrophic pro-Islam policy – which we suspect springs from deep emotional ties to that cruel, totalitarian, and deathly religion.

Sharing Professor Miller’s indignation, we cannot resist quoting a fair chunk of his commentary, and hope you will go here to read all of it:

You’re about to be groped, X-rayed, and generally humiliated in the airport. The Islamic Fiqh Council, however, has issued a fatwa prohibiting Muslims from going through an X-ray machine. Separately, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is advising Muslim women to avoid pat-downs beyond the head and neck. Our culturally sensitive administration will undoubtedly acquiesce. You, however, will be groped and X-rayed, unless of course you show up at the airport dressed in a tent. …

After stooping and genuflecting to the Islamic world and cutting Israel off at the knees, President Barack Obama has had such a positive impact on the Muslim street that its attitudes toward America were slightly better during Bush’s last year.

Cultural sensitivity has fared no better in Afghanistan, where the rules of engagement put the lives of our soldiers at greater risk in an effort to reduce civilian casualties. The administration has decided to trade American deaths for Afghan lives. The Afghan people, however, seem to have engaged in the rational calculus that it is better to side with those who will be there, the Taliban, than those who have announced their intention to leave. …

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is still unable to utter the words “Islamist terrorist,” preferring to engage in Newspeak about “man-made disasters.” The real man-made disasters are the multi-ethnic states of Iraq and Afghanistan, lines on the map encompassing diverse people who have found familiarity breeds contempt and contempt breeds irrational violence. But more irrational is our hubris, thinking that we can suddenly transform seventh century societies into modern democracies amid the most virulent and transformative ideology on the planet, radical Islam.

The wars persist. Victory is as elusive as it is undefined. The spilling of blood and treasure goes on. We cannot kill our way to victory, and we cannot reshape the foundation of these cultures.

Our status in the world diminishes. …

And the Obama administration, having disengaged from Israel, has decided, in an act of consummate recklessness, to create a Saudi hegemony, to balance Iran, with the largest arms deal in the history of our nation, sixty billion dollars. Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. This was the policy of prior administrations with regard to the shah of Iran, who was supposed to be the hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf, offsetting then Soviet interests in that region. And we all saw how well that turned out.

So now we are banking on an aging royal family with the legitimacy of Weimar standing in the headwinds of rising fundamentalism, a family that has walked the tightrope of dealing with the West while exporting its own brand of Islamic fundamentalism to undermine Western traditions and institutions. We are afraid to confront them, for in our multicultural mindset one culture is as good as another. …

Our influence in the world declines along with the value of our currency. We elected a president whom the world’s leaders do not take seriously. We are saddled with large unemployment in an economy that exports jobs faster than it creates them. We are becoming Britain of the post-World War II era, but now there is no America in the West to step into the power vacuum.

Iran now admits that its nuclear program is in trouble, but insists that the Stuxnet worm has nothing to do with it.

Thousands of centrifuges (5,084 according to “a former top IAEA official”) have been shut down, but nobody can say why. The Iranians and the IAEA are totally flummoxed.

Only thing they’re certain of is it’s definitely, definitely, not Stuxnet that’s doing it, and so keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The Washington Post reports:

Iran’s nuclear program has experienced serious problems, including unexplained fluctuations in the performance of the thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, leading to a rare but temporary shutdown, international inspectors are expected to reveal Tuesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. unit that monitors nuclear programs, will provide no explanation of the problems. But speculation immediately centered on the Stuxnet worm, a computer virus that some researchers say appears to have been designed specifically to target Iran’s centrifuge machines so that they spin out of control.

Iran denies the worm caused any problems.

No country has claimed responsibility for developing the virus, although suspicion has focused primarily on Israel and the United States.

But what does it matter who’s responsible for it, since it’s causing no problems? No problems at all. Not to Iran, anyway. Absolutely not.

The proposition for the debate at Cambridge University was: Israel is a Rogue State.

The mood now in Britain and the British universities – Cambridge no exception – is anti-Israel.

Gabriel Latner, a strong supporter of Israel, was on the side whose remit it was to argue for the proposition.

He did it so convincingly that – the other side won. By a decisive majority.

Here’s part of what he said (but enjoy reading it all):

This is a war of ideals, and the other speakers here tonight are rightfully idealists. I’m not. I’m a realist. I’m here to win. I have a single goal this evening – to have at least a plurality of you walk out of the “Aye” door. I face a singular challenge – most, if not all, of you have already made up your minds.

This issue is too polarizing for the vast majority of you not to already have a set opinion. I’d be willing to bet that half of you strongly support the motion, and half of you strongly oppose it. I want to win, and we’re destined for a tie. I’m tempted to do what my fellow speakers are going to do – simply rehash every bad thing the Israeli government has ever done in an attempt to satisfy those of you who agree with them. And perhaps they’ll even guilt one of you rare undecided into voting for the proposition, or more accurately, against Israel.

It would be so easy to twist the meaning and significance of international “laws” to make Israel look like a criminal state. But that’s been done to death. It would be easier still to play to your sympathy, with personalized stories of Palestinian suffering. And they can give very eloquent speeches on those issues. But the truth is that treating people badly, whether they’re your citizens or an occupied nation, does not make a state “rogue.” If it did, Canada, the US, and Australia would all be rogue states based on how they treat their indigenous populations. Britain’s treatment of the Irish would easily qualify them to wear this sobriquet. These arguments, while emotionally satisfying, lack intellectual rigor.

More importantly, I just don’t think we can win with those arguments. It won’t change the numbers. Half of you will agree with them, half of you won’t. So I’m going to try something different, something a little unorthodox … to try and convince the die-hard Zionists and Israel supporters here tonight to vote for the proposition. …

A rogue state is one that acts in an unexpected, uncommon or aberrant manner. A state that behaves exactly like Israel. …

The fact that Israel is a Jewish state alone makes it anomalous enough to be dubbed a rogue state: There are 195 countries in the world. Some are Christian, some Muslim, some are secular. Israel is the only country in the world that is Jewish. …

The second argument concerns Israel’s humanitarianism – in particular, Israel’s response to a refugee crisis. Not the Palestinian refugee crisis – for I am sure that the other speakers will cover that – but the issue of Darfurian refugees. Everyone knows that what happened, and is still happening in Darfur, is genocide, whether or not the UN and the Arab League will call it such. There has been a mass exodus from Darfur as the oppressed seek safety. They have not had much luck. Many have gone north to Egypt – where they are treated despicably. The brave make a run through the desert in a bid to make it to Israel. Not only do they face the natural threats of the Sinai, they are also used for target practice by the Egyptian soldiers patrolling the border.

Why would they take the risk? Because in Israel they are treated with compassion – they are treated as the refugees that they are – and perhaps Israel’s cultural memory of genocide is to blame. The Israeli government has even gone so far as to grant several hundred Darfurian refugees citizenship. This alone sets Israel apart from the rest of the world.

But the real point of distinction is this: The IDF sends out soldiers and medics to patrol the Egyptian border. They are sent looking for refugees attempting to cross into Israel. Not to send them back into Egypt, but to save them from dehydration, heat exhaustion, and Egyptian bullets. …  To call that sort of behavior anomalous is an understatement. …

When you compare Israel to its regional neighbors, it becomes clear just how roguish Israel is.

Israel has a better human rights record than any of its neighbors. At no point in history has there ever been a liberal democratic state in the Middle East – except for Israel. …

In Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Syria, homosexual conduct is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, or both. But homosexuals there get off pretty lightly compared to their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who are put to death. Israeli homosexuals can adopt, openly serve in the army, enter civil unions and are protected by exceptionally strongly worded anti-discrimination legislation. …

Freedom House is an NGO that releases an annual report on democracy and civil liberties in each of the 195 countries in the world. It ranks each country as “free,” “partly free” or “not free.” In the Middle East, Israel is the only country that has earned designation as a “free” country. …

Iran is …  given the rating of “not free,” putting it alongside China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Myanmar. … Iran is the world leader in terms of jailed journalists, with 39 reporters (that we know of) in prison as of 2009. They also kicked out almost every Western journalist during the 2009 election. I guess we can’t really expect more from a theocracy.

Which is what most countries in the Middle East are – theocracies and autocracies. But Israel is the sole, the only, the rogue, democracy. Out of all the countries in the Middle East, only in Israel do anti-government protests and reporting go unquashed and uncensored. …

Israel willfully and forcefully disregards international law. In 1981 Israel destroyed Osirak – Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb lab. Every government in the world knew that Hussein was building a bomb. And they did nothing. Except for Israel.

Yes, in doing so they broke international law and custom. But they also saved us all from a nuclear Iraq. That rogue action should earn Israel a place of respect in the eyes of all freedom-loving peoples. But it hasn’t.

Tonight, while you listen to us prattle on, I want you to remember something: While you’re here, Khomeini’s Iran is working towards the Bomb. And if you’re honest with yourself, you know that Israel is the only country that can, and will, do something about it. Israel will, out of necessity, act in a way that is not the norm, and you’d better hope that they do it in a destructive manner. Any sane person would rather a rogue Israel than a nuclear Iran.

During his  grand progress through East Asia, Obama made a speech in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, praising that Muslim country – in which he had spent some years of his childhood – for its “toleration”.

When it comes to religious freedom, Indonesia – he would have it known – is the equal of the United States.

Did he speak the truth?

The people of East Timor, most of them Catholics, would not say that he did. In August 1999 they voted in a referendum for independence from Indonesia. No sooner was the result in, than Muslim militias, aided and abetted by the Indonesian authorities, attacked the civilian population, killing well over a thousand and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee into West Timor. The Muslims proceeded to execute a scorched-earth campaign, razing buildings and destroying infrastructure. (East Timor finally achieved independence in 2002.)

Go here to find lists of atrocities, with pictures, inflicted on the Christians of East Timor in 1999 by Muslim militias and Indonesian troops.

The Christians of West Java would also not agree with Obama that Indonesia is remarkable for its toleration.

From the Gates of Vienna:

The sharia authorities in West Java have developed a two-prong strategy to discourage the practice of Christianity. First they knock down a church, which drives the Christian congregation into open-air worship. Then they harass them for praying in the open, because public worship by non-Muslims is against the law. …

Last Monday, police raided a house used for worship by Narogong Pentecostal Church in the village of Limusnunggal, Cileungsi sub-district. … The building was eventually torn down and ten people arrested.

The police “were not neutral in the dispute”, though their presence could have a calming effect.

A group of 500 Islamic extremists blocked Christians from the Huria Protestant Church in a field where the Sunday service was taking place. The incident occurred last July 18 in the city of Pondok Timur in Mustika Jaya subdistrict, district of Bekasi (West Java).

Muslims blocked all routes to prevent Christians leaving the field and began to insult them, terrorizing them. The group of Protestant believers pray outdoors because their hall for religious functions was closed on the grounds that it was illegal.

The situation improved when a representative of the Bekasi Office for Religious Affairs, along with 200 policemen … [The pastor] asked the representative to help [his] congregation to leave the site without harm. …

For years the Christians of Bekasi have been targeted by Islamic fundamentalists. Early in 2010, radical groups blocked religious services, prevented Christians from access to existing churches and stopped the construction of new churches. Since 2009, more than 17 churches have been affected by Islamic extremists. …

The religious authorities have recently intensified their enforcement of strict sharia practices.

And what might the Christians of Sulawesi province say?

There, in October 2005, three Christian girls were walking to school when Muslims seized them and hacked off their heads.

BBC News reported:

Three girls have been beheaded and another badly injured as they walked to a Christian school in Indonesia.

They were walking through a cocoa plantation near the city of Poso in central Sulawesi province when they were attacked. …

Police say the heads were found some distance from the bodies.

Typically stuck on stupid when it comes to reporting  Muslim violence, the BBC commented:

It is unclear what was behind the attack, but the girls attended a private Christian school and one of the heads was left outside a church leading to speculation that it might have had a religious motive. …

Sure it might have. Especially considering that –

This is an area that has a long history of religious violence between Muslims and Christians. …

Between them? Not violent attacks by Muslims on Christians who defended themselves? How eager are Christians to initiate violent clashes with Muslims in Indonesia?

But  the BBC doesn’t care to find fault with Muslims any more than Obama does.

More than 1,000 people were killed before a government-brokered truce.

Although the violence has been subdued, it has never gone away completely.

A bomb in May in the nearby town of Tentena, which is predominantly Christian, killed 22 people and injured over 30.

That naughty violence with a will of its own!

And what might the opinion be of Christians in Sukohajo and Klaten?

This report and commentary comes from NewAmerican:

Astoundingly, Obama compared Indonesia (a nation that has only recently begun to emerge from being an unabashed dictatorship) to the United States, declaring that the two nations share a spirit of toleration. …

“We are two nations which have traveled different paths. Yet our nations show that hundreds of millions who hold different beliefs can be united in freedom under one flag,” Obama said.

For those Christians whose experience of Indonesian “toleration” is not limited to childhood memories, Obama’s words are likely to elicit sorrow and pain. According to the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum (FKKJ), religious violence has been on the increase since Indonesian independence [from the Dutch, in 1945], and Christians have been the target of much of that violence. …

The latest violent incident occurred in Sukoharjo, Central Java, on Oct. 13 [2010], when 12 people on motorcycles set fire to a Protestant church …  A day before, an attempt to set fire to St. Joseph Catholic church in Klaten, Central Java, was foiled … On Oct. 17, radical Muslims threatened to attack a Catholic church in Karanganyar, Central Java. …

After the start of the reform era in 1998, the number of cases [of attacks on churches] skyrocketed …

Contrary to Obama’s “spin,” the history of the two nations regarding the relationship between Christians and Muslims and the experience of “religious tolerance” is vastly different.

So we ask: What, in addition to his obvious penchant for flattering Muslim potentates, moved Obama to make an assertion, in a speech that will endure in the records of his presidency, so far from the truth?

An intention to deceive? Pig ignorance? Wishful thinking? Dumb acceptance of misinformation? Mental derangement?

Note: In the same speech, delivered in an Islamic country, Obama chose to castigate Israel for building in its own capital city because Palestinians don’t like it. It’s worth noting that the “tolerant” Indonesians do not allow Israelis to set foot in their country.

The US is now fighting al-Qaeda in Gaza.

Yesterday an al-Qaeda leader, Muhammad Jamal A-Namnam, was killed in Gaza City by a missile fired from a US ship on the Mediterranean.

How did the US know where Namnam was at that moment?

He was driving or being driven in one of a consignment of new cars just allowed into the strip from Israel – and of course the Israelis, knowing that the chiefs of armed organizations, such as Namnam, would commandeer the new cars for themselves, had put tracking devices in them.

The targeted assassination was not carried out in order to help Israel defend itself against a terrorist operation, but because US forces were under threat.

Namnam was an operational commander of the Army of Islam, Al-Qaeda’s Palestinian cell in the Gaza Strip. He was on a mission on behalf of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – AQAP – to plan, organize and execute the next wave of terrorist attacks on US targets after last week’s air package bomb plot. …

The Palestinian cell members were planning to infiltrate northern Sinai from the Gaza strip over the coming weekend and strike American personnel serving with the Multinational Force and Observers Organization – MFO – which is under American command and is stationed at North Camp, El Gorah, 37 kilometers southeast of El-Arish.

In a coordinated operation, Al Qaeda fighters hiding up in the mountains of central Sinai were to have attacked US Marines and Air Force troops stationed at the South Camp in Naama Bay, Sharm el Sheikh.

The twin attacks were scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 7, or the following day. …

You can read more here.

Obama has opened the gates of the West to the Islamic army of conquest.

By deliberately weakening the United States as the protector of the West, and encouraging Islamic dreams of world conquest with his insistent denial that there is no such thing as the ongoing jihad, he has provided an opportunity that Islam is now openly seizing.     

Until now, the jihad has been conducted against the West in two ways: violently by al-Qaida and its affiliates and imitators, and stealthily by the Muslim Brotherhood centered in Egypt and financed by Saudi Arabia.

Stealth jihad has been carried on through the establishment of mosques, schools, university departments, Muslim “cultural” and professional associations, and organizations that ingratiate themselves with Western governments by claiming representative status. All this will go on, but the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen), which has deeply penetrated the West, has recently – this last September –  declared its intention of changing its tactics and turning to violence. (The timing of the change may have something to do with the approaching death of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the homeland of the Brotherhood, where it was founded in 1928. Mubarak has consistently opposed and suppressed the organization. His successor might not be as strong, or necessarily be as antagonistic towards it.)

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood made his dramatic declaration in Arabic. This means it was not made as a piece of empty rhetoric to scare the West. It was made in all seriousness to rouse Muslims to go to war.

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has endorsed [in Arabic] anti-American Jihad and pretty much every element in the al-Qaida ideology book. Since the Brotherhood is the main opposition force in Egypt and Jordan as well as the most powerful group, both politically and religiously, in the Muslim communities of Europe and North America this is pretty serious stuff.

Those are the words of Barry Rubin, who first broke the news of this important development, using the MEMRI translation of the speech – from which we quote:

The change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.

Rubin writes:

Notice that jihad here is not interpreted as so often happens by liars, apologists, and the merely ignorant in the West as spiritual striving. The clear meaning is one of armed struggle.

He considers the speech to be a ”game-changer”:

This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don’t fit their policies; and by experts, because they don’t mesh with their preconceptions.

This explicit formulation of a revolutionary program makes it a game-changer. It should be read by every Western decisionmaker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people’s lives in every Western country.  …

Rubin asks, does its endorsement of al-Qaida style anti-American jihad “mean the Egyptian, Jordanian, and all the camouflaged Muslim Brotherhood fronts in Europe and North America are going to launch terrorism as one of their affiliates, Hamas, has long done?” His answer is no.

But it does mean that something awaited for decades has happened: the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action. At least, its hundreds of thousands of followers are being given that signal. Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West.

In other words, we may expect a proliferation of Talibans in Islamic countries.

And we believe that within America and Europe, it will mean more terrorism. It is not necessary for every Muslim or “all the camouflaged fronts” to obey the Brotherhood’s call in order for there to be decades of terrorist attacks, which is to say decades of continual killing and maiming, random targeting, and paralyzing intimidation, because more than enough enthusiasts will answer the call. As Rubin says:

Badi’s claims do not mean all Muslims must agree, much less actively take up arms. They can have a different interpretation, simply disregard the arguments, and be too intimidated or materialistic or opportunistic to agree or to act. Yet hundreds of thousands will do so and millions will cheer them on. …

[They] sense weakness on the part of the West, especially the U.S. leaders …

In an article at Ynetnews, Moshe Dann explains how the Muslim Brotherhood has successfully infiltrated the West and how powerful its influence has become:

Through a network of educational, social, professional and cultural organizations – which, in the West, do not reveal their Muslim Brotherhood connection – they exert political influence and promote a mix of religious and political ideologies associated with the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam. Supported by Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, and wealthy Muslims, they espouse a global strategy for Islamic hegemony.

He mentions some of the most powerful Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in America, including –

The Muslim Student Association (MSA,) the largest Muslim campus organization, with more than 250 chapters, was initiated by the Muslim Brotherhood. …

Brotherhood organizations, like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which grew out of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), a front group fundraising for Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorist organizations, are not outgrowths of popular, or communal expressions … but are self-appointed representatives …

With over 30 branches in North America, CAIR presents itself as the “largest Muslim civil rights organization …”  A few years ago, CAIR was included in a list of unindicted co-conspirators alleged by prosecutors to have participated in a conspiracy to illegally funnel money to Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation. [Why have they not been indicted? – JB] …

At least five of its employees and board members have been arrested, convicted, deported, or otherwise linked to terrorism-related charges and activities … CAIR has a key role in the “Wahhabi lobby” …

The Muslim American Society (MAS) … actively recruits voters, which gives it political clout. Lacking any other leadership available, MAS presents itself as the representative of the Muslim community, although many Muslims disagree and are most are not affiliated. …

With all of this information, one would think that US government officials would be concerned about the activities of Brotherhood-supported organizations. Instead, they are feted by the White House, and supported by the State Department, CIA, and even the FBI …

Will the White House, the State department, the CIA, the FBI, and the American “progressive” left as a whole ignore the Brotherhood’s calling up of its hordes to join the terrorist war against the non-Muslim world?

Almost certainly. But they’ll not be able to ignore what ensues. Unless Muhammad Badi’s order is disobeyed, which is unlikely to happen, Americans must brace themselves for an intensified terrorist war about to be waged against them in their own land.

And they must replace Obama with a president who will defend America.

An underground site deep in the Zagrod mountains of western Iran, the Imam Ali Base where Shehab-3 medium-range missile launchers are stored, was struck last Tuesday, October 12, by three explosions.

According to the official report, 18 members of the Revolutionary Guards were killed and 14 were injured.

In its official statement on the incident, Tehran denied it was the result of “a terrorist attack” and claimed the explosion “was caused by a nearby fire that spread to the munitions storage area of the base.” In the same way, the regime went to great lengths to cover up the ravages wrought to their nuclear and military control systems by the Stuxnet virus – which is still at work.

Read more about it here at DebkaFile, whose own “military sources” report:

Iran’s missile arsenal and the Revolutionary Guards have … suffered a devastating blow. Worst of all, all their experts are at a loss to account for the assailants’ ability to penetrate one of Iran’s most closely guarded bases and reach deep underground to blow up the missile launchers.

The number of casualties is believed to be greater than the figure given out by Tehran.

The soldiers’ funerals took place Thursday, Oct. 14, at the same time as Ahmadinejad declared in South Lebanon that Israel was destined to “disappear”.

So far, what with Stuxnet and the explosions, it’s Iran that’s looking sick.

Which high-tech country might Iran turn to for help in ridding itself of the Stuxnet computer worm that is incapacitating its industrial-military complex? (See our posts A virus that might save us all, September 25, 2010, and Sound the trumpet, September 29, 2010.)

Germany? Siemens provided the systems that are under attack, but apparently will not or cannot come to the rescue.

Russia? Russians were employed to install the Siemens systems. But not only have they been unable to destroy the worm, they are now being accused of planting it, and are fleeing Iran as fast as they can.

Some of them say they hope to return when the trouble has blown over – which rather strongly indicates they were not responsible for causing it.

Here’s the latest Stuxnet-chaos news:

Dozens of Russian nuclear engineers, technicians and contractors are hurriedly departing Iran for home since local intelligence authorities began rounding up their compatriots as suspects of planting the Stuxnet malworm into their nuclear program.

Among them are the Russian personnel who built Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr which Tehran admits has been damaged by the virus.

One of the Russian nuclear staffers, questioned in Moscow Sunday, Oct. 3 by Western sources, confirmed that many of his Russian colleagues had decided to leave with their families after team members were detained for questioning at the beginning of last week. He refused to give his name because he and his colleagues intend to return to Iran if the trouble blows over and the detainees are quickly released after questioning.

Last Saturday, October 2, the Iranian Intelligence Minister, Heidar Moslehi, “announced that nuclear spies had been captured”, accused of sending “electronic worms through the internet”.  [Which is not how the attack was initiated according to more credible sources – JB.]

This was the first high-level Iranian admission that the Stuxnet virus had been planted by foreign elements to sabotage their entire nuclear program – and not just the Bushehr reactor. The comprehensive scale of the damage is attested to by the detention of Russian nuclear experts also at Natanz, Isfahan and Tehran. …

“Hundreds of Russian scientists, engineers and technicians were responsible for installing the Siemens control systems in Iran’s nuclear complex and other facilities which proved most vulnerable to the cyber attack”, and as they were “the only foreigners with access to these heavily guarded plants”, they are prime suspects.

If it was not the Russians who worked this most inventive and effective form of sabotage ever contrived (and we don’t believe it was), those who did can now enjoy, as an extra cause for celebration, the discomfiture of the Russians. The real saboteurs, we guess, are laughing out of sheer Schadenfreude. And while we’re well aware that Stuxnet could ultimately be a threat to ourselves – to friend as well as foe just as nuclear weapons are – for the present we’re reasonably happy that this humiliating blow has been struck at the insufferable Iranian regime.

In fact, we confess, we are laughing too, and hope our readers feel like joining in.