Iran Blames Everyone, Karzai is Pissed, More Muslims in the House

Paul Krugman

"Administration officials are furious at the way the financial industry, just months after receiving a gigantic taxpayer bailout, is lobbying fiercely against serious reform."  - Paul Krugman

drug running for the border...
The paranoid and fake Iranian government have adopted a two-pronged strategy in spreading the blame for the deaths of 6 Revolutionary Guards and 36 civilians who were the victims of a suicide bomber in the south. First: "Iran's president has accused Pakistani agents of involvement in a suicide bombing in south-east of the country targeting a group of the elite Revolutionary Guards force. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Pakistan to arrest the attackers, who he said had entered Iran from Pakistan." The second blame goes to the ever-faithful meddler, the US: "In his first comments on the bombing, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini also blamed the United States."This terrorists crime revealed the evil face of enemies of security and unity who are supported by intelligence organisations of some arrogant governments," The Aytollah reminds me of Rush Limbaugh whenever he talks about others, yet really is talking about himself. The phrase about arrogant governments is supposed to refer to the US, but is more revealing when the psychology of transference is used as a metaphor for his own government. I wonder if the Ayatollah has a source for Oxycontin?

This act of violence may not be related to political gains, so much as it had threatened the drug smuggling trade. Drugs are smuggled from Afghanistan, through Iran in convoys, and on towards western europe. The meeting being setup by the Revolutionary Guards had as its ultimate goal of stopping and breaking up the smuggling routes. Iran has also seen a rise in drug use, one that they don't like to publicize. The ethnic Baluchs who live in southern Iran also have a large presence in Pakistan, mostly in the province of Baluchistan. Iran is claiming that agents connected to the Pakistani intelligence service sneaked across the border and sent the suicide bomber to upset the delicate balance that was being achieved in the area by the Guards. The answer is probably all of the above.

Iran is planning on sending a delegation to Islamabad to prove their allegations. Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, and the US will have to be content with "clues" of their involvement given by professors at the University of Tehran...

watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat...

Another angry head of state is poor old Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. The UN has said that there was enough fraud in the election that his total is under 50%. The options open to him are: having a re-run with him against his top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, or forming a government where they both share. Mr Karzai would like the UN to butt out, so he can and his friends can continue to make money by graft and squirrel it away in Swiss bank accounts, preferred by corrupt leaders everywhere.

The US is adding further pressure by saying that they don't want to send an extra 40,000 troops and 50,000 contractors for support until the Afghan government is stabile. It also would help if it weren't antagonistic, and somewhat more honest. so as to provide less of a glaring contrast to the Talibans. It all comes down to if the Afghan election committee accepts the UN tally results or not. If it does, another election must be held in two weeks. If it doesn't, well, we continue on into the Twilight Zone...

four flew over the cuckoo's nest...
This is such a non-story, but it is amusing, in a sick, right wing, ignorant kind of way. Several days ago, four Republican members of the House accused the Muslims who worked as interns there of being spies and subversives. They base their accusations on the book Muslim Mafia, which none of them had read. The books describes: "... an undercover exposé even more daring -- a six-month penetration of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations that resulted in the collection of thousands of pages of smoking-gun documents from this terror-supporting front group for the dangerous, mob-like Muslim Brotherhood." Unfortunately, the author loses some credibility when he has publicly stated that Obama is a Muslim. Under that criteria, we're all Muslims now... We've had a history of russian spies in the State Dept, Jewish spies on Capitol Hill, why not Muslim spies now? Some of the allegations made in the book sound plausible, but it becomes tainted again by the foaming rabidity of the right wing views of the Hoover Institute.

Reps. Paul Broun (R-GA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Sue Myrick (R-NC), and Trent Franks (R-AZ), were going to ask federal authorities for an investigation and the Sergeant at Arms for the House to launch an inquiry. So far, none of the four has done diddly and refused to answer questions posed by reporters: "The offices of three of the four Republicans did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the national security risk of waiting to launch an investigation.


Sara Mueller, deputy press secretary for Shadegg, told us: "Unfortunately, the congressman can't comment on that at this time. " Ahh, the words of wisdom coming from Arizona's elected reresentative... another GOP slogan?