See you at the new AWOP

So, I was saying to my girl a few months ago... I sure wish I could hook up with someone who could help me create the vision I have for AWOP...someone who has the technical ability to build a blog that can do all the things I envision but also wants to be a part of whatever the blog is becoming in the long term.

I got my wish when our International Contributing Editor in Mumbai India, Wil Robinson, introduced me to The News Writer. He said I might want to check out her work and invite her to contribute. He was right. Not only did she write some pretty awesome fare on the politics page, she also built my vision of that blog to my every specification. The new AWOP is much more conducive to showcasing all our fine section contributors prominently along with our usual featured post of the day . I think you will agree she has done a phenomenal job and these days, I am proud to say, we are great friends too. I actually have the pleasure of her company in my lovely, quirky, progressive city of Asheville, nestled in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina this weekend as we launch the newly re-designed A World of Progress TeamZine. My best bud, Lori Hahn has been working from across the country in California to get the word "out" about our fantastic new line up of contributors at our GLBTQ section and I think you will agree they are as talented a group as you will find in one place anywhere on the net. Thanks, Lori for all of your efforts in making AWOP a blog that is definitely worth reading not just for the GLBTQ community but for all our visitors.

We regret that we were unable to bring our Blogger based Google Connect friends with us as we transitioned to the Word Press platform but the widget is in place at the new AWOP and we sure hope you will take a moment to add your name to our list of followers there. We appreciate each and every one of our readers and we hope you will make the short trip over and check out our new digs. We think you are going to like it. Please update your bookmarks but thanks to The News Writer we don't expect any disruptions in our subscribers RSS feeds or posts by e-mail as we make the move.

See you at the new AWOP.

Kim G.
Publisher
A World of Progress TeamZine

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Iranian paranoia or lessons of recent history?

After the May 29th bombing that killed 25 at a Shiite mosque in Zahedan, Iran, Press TV (an Iranian-funded news outlet) ran the headline:

Iran mosque blast bears ‘US, Israel thumbprints’

Of course, the two Iranian officials quoted in the brief story didn’t offer any evidence – merely that the attack was “at the behest of the United States and its allies.”

So I guess one could assume it’s just the Iranians being paranoid and blaming that “Zionist entity” that they claim is responsible for so many of the world’s ills.

Others might write this off as just the latest finger-pointing from the same country whose president denies the Holocaust (as well as the existence of homosexuals within his country).

Surely there are plenty of neoconservatives who will just dismiss this claim as ranting from the second act of the Axis of Evil.

Stories from other respectable media outlets were notably less conspiratorial. Jundallah, a Balochi militant group of Sunni separatists from the southeast of the country, claimed responsibility for the bombing. Within two days, three men (apparently suspects?) were executed for the terrorist act.

Balochistan is a region with a reputation; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (he of the 183 waterboardings fame and alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks) hails from the region, as did Ramzi Yousef, the extremist charged with bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.

Jundallah has caused problems for the Shiite regime in the past: in 2006, more than 20 people were killed by suspected Jundallah militants in an attack.

In February 2007, Jundallah admitted bombing a bus and killing at least 11 members of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Yet in September 2007, then-Senators Obama and Clinton voted to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. I would have thought the perpetrators – not the victims – of a terrorist act would have been designated “terrorists.”

Maybe the future President and Secretary of State were only “creating their own reality,” to use a term coined by the previous administration. After an April, 2007 ABC News story reported on possible CIA-Jundallah links (along with adamant government denials), someone evidently decided a clear definition was needed for the American public as to who was the good guy and who was the bad guy.

A year later, in June 2008, Seymour Hersh wrote extensively about U.S. covert operations to fund, support, and perhaps even arm ethnic-minority insurgent groups inside Iran to weaken the clerical regime. Among Hersh’s sources was former CIA agent Robert Baer, who specifically named Jundallah among three groups allegedly receiving U.S. support.

Strangely enough, Jundallah is not included on the U.S. State Department’s list of “foreign designated terrorist groups.” Probably makes it easier for the CIA to get approval for operations in the behind-the-door meetings with congressional members.

But that’s assuming any support for Jundallah goes through official channels. It’s just as likely that support could be indirect and funneled through Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or other Sunni sympathizers (that, conveniently, are our “allies”).

Is there any truth to Iran’s claims of U.S involvement in the mosque bombing?

One could dismiss Hersh’s story (after all, he was so wrong about that whole My Lai thing…).

Skeptics could question Baer’s credibility, given that he now writes books about the subject that have been turned into Hollywood blockbusters (i.e., Syriana). But the U.S. government never denied supporting the two other insurgent groups Baer also named.

Patriotic Neocons will likely point out that after the initial ABC News story broke, Pakistan publicly denied supporting Jundallah at the behest of the U.S. (of course, at the time Pakistan was run by an unelected, U.S.-supported dictator).

Realists might simply require evidence from the Iranian regime about their claims of U.S. involvement.

Or one could look to the past.

During the 1980s, the U.S. funded Sunni fundamentalists in the region using Pakistan as a surrogate ATM machine. Many of the same elements that form the Taliban and Al Qaeda today were once “allies.” Saudi Arabia was actively encouraged to funnel money to extremist militant groups that the U.S. couldn’t be seen with in public.

Is it really that far-fetched to think that we might be doing the same again?

Wil Robinson
AWOP International Contributing Editor
www.internationalpoliticalwill.com

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