Look Out Below
I have every intention of putting up something Hanukah-related over the next few days (hi, Peter!) but just wanted to call something to your attention -- yet another item that seems, from this vantage point, to be worth at least a second look, but that has caused nary a ripple (as far as I know) in the American national consciousness.
You might recall that back in May, I posted on a report in Die Welt that broke the story that Iran is constructing launching pads for intermediate-range missiles in Venezuela. This is believed to be the initial stage in a larger project that will place not only Iranian missiles, but also officers and soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, about 1,200 miles off Florida.
If a recent Univision report is to be believed, that project is just one element of a tangible and growing direct threat to the United States from Iran, via Latin America.
As reported on the Hudson Institute's website, Univision recently aired a documentary containing video collected over a seven-month undercover investigation that appears to show a whole network of Iranian interests in Latin America. Iran is apparently involved in money laundering and drug trafficking by its client terrorist organizations.
The documentary also shows Iranian diplomats expressing interest in the ways and means of conducting a cyber attack on critical US targets, including the command centers of the White House, the Pentagon, the FBI, and the CIA. From what I can gather, the officials were taped accepting offers of assistance on this front by undercover agents.
The Hudson Institute notes that Chavez-era Venezuela is not the only Latin American country warm to the Iranians:
Iran also enjoys excellent relations with countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, not to mention the South American giants, Argentina and Brazil. The improvement of these relations has gone hand in hand with the expansion of Islamist groups in South America, in particular Hezbollah, which once were relegated to the Tri-Border Area (Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina). Since then, they have been expanding their zone of interest farther and farther north to reach Venezuela and Mexico, at the doorstep of the US.
I cannot vouch for the veracity of any of these new allegations, but Univision -- a major Spanish-language TV network in the US -- is hardly a fly-by-night operation. The claims made by the documentary certainly seem worthy of closer assessment. I'd love to know if any Spanish speakers on Ricochet could check out the documentary, or give us a sense of the reliability of Univision's reporting.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Look Out Below
Yikes.
Re: Look Out Below
This should reassure you.
Dec '11
Re: Look Out Below
I am unsurprised by the US Government's "indifference." This administration seems obsessed with actively promoting an ideal of moral equivalence. Therefore, it actively and passively undermines our ability to influence events in our own region or any other region.
Edited on Dec 18, 2011 at 7:58amSep '11
Re: Look Out Below
Is this not the Cuban missile crisis all over again?
Mar '11
Re: Look Out Below
I do believe that John Quincy Adams and James Monroe might have something to say about this.
Jun '10
Re: Look Out Below
President Obama has examined the South American security situation and determined that the problem is, US millionaires don't pay enough taxes.
Re: Look Out Below
Not to worry. The administration's answer is to cut defense under the terminally misguided belief that weakness begets security. The President and his party suffer from an aggravated case of premature capitulation.
Mar '11
Re: Look Out Below
"Premature capitulation": Ha! Nominated for quip of the week.
Mar '11
Re: Look Out Below
Not yet, but someday soon perhaps...
Mar '11
Re: Look Out Below
I have yet to see the documentary but in a general sense Univision reporting is no better or worse than any other network media outlet. It has a overriding obsession with immigration issues, there is always at minimum one story for every evening newscast. Other than that differences between them and NBC, CBS or ABC are marginal: the broadcasts are in spanish, network anchors tend to be much more attractive.
Re: Look Out Below
Roberto
Not yet, but someday soon perhaps... · Dec 18 at 9:40am
This is much more frightening that the CMC. The weapons are stronger and stealthier and the enemy more horrifyingly devout. The USSR never had the perverse moxie to slaughter 3,000 people on our own soil.
Mar '11
Re: Look Out Below
Denise Moss
Roberto
Not yet, but someday soon perhaps... · Dec 18 at 9:40am
This is much more frightening that the CMC. The weapons are stronger and stealthier and the enemy more horrifyingly devout. The USSR never had the perverse moxie to slaughter 3,000 people on our own soil. · Dec 18 at 11:06am
No real need to actually have a nuke cause any direct casualties. A pattern of high altitude explosions could cover the Lower 48 with an electromagnetic pulse that would knock out almost all electronic devices, annihilate the electric grid, and drop us all back into the 19th Century. That would kill tens, maybe hundreds, of millions, though it would take a little while.
Jul '10
Re: Look Out Below
Percival
Denise Moss
Roberto
Not yet, but someday soon perhaps... · Dec 18 at 9:40am
This is much more frightening that the CMC. The weapons are stronger and stealthier and the enemy more horrifyingly devout. The USSR never had the perverse moxie to slaughter 3,000 people on our own soil. · Dec 18 at 11:06am
No real need to actually have a nuke cause any direct casualties. A pattern of high altitude explosions could cover the Lower 48 with an electromagnetic pulse that would knock out almost all electronic devices, annihilate the electric grid, and drop us all back into the 19th Century. That would kill tens, maybe hundreds, of millions, though it would take a little while. · Dec 18 at 11:16am
At the risk of triggering a counterstrike that would be far less gentle. At least under an American President. And we would not all drop back to a 19th C level. The risk is understood, at least by some, and measures taken. A President delusional enough to think oil is the enemy should never have been elected.
May '10
Re: Look Out Below
Well, you know, having weapons leads to wars. We must show our good will and "re-set" by disarming. Where is Otto Reich when you need him?
Mar '11
Re: Look Out Below
Sisyphus
At the risk of triggering a counterstrike that would be far less gentle. At least under an American President. And we would not all drop back to a 19th C level. The risk is understood, at least by some, and measures taken. A President delusional enough to think oil is the enemy should never have been elected. · Dec 18 at 11:40am
Oh, I didn't say we wouldn't hit back. At least I'm assuming we would, and it would be utterly devastating. That wouldn't fix the problem however. Has the electric grid been hardened in any meaningful way? I really don't know the answer to that.
The biggest problem with Mutually Assured Destruction is that it assumes everyone is a rational actor.
Jul '10
Re: Look Out Below
Percival
Sisyphus
At the risk of triggering a counterstrike that would be far less gentle. At least under an American President. And we would not all drop back to a 19th C level. The risk is understood, at least by some, and measures taken. A President delusional enough to think oil is the enemy should never have been elected.
Oh, I didn't say we wouldn't hit back. At least I'm assuming we would, and it would be utterly devastating. That wouldn't fix the problem however. Has the electric grid been hardened in any meaningful way? I really don't know the answer to that.
The biggest problem with Mutually Assured Destruction is that it assumes everyone is a rational actor.
On this last, you will get no argument from me.
An EMP strike will be devastating and take years for the nation to recover from. The Sun smacked us with one in the 1850s that melted telegraph lines across the West. I wouldn't put a lot of faith in any hardening of the current infrastructure. And if the Chinese do enjoy a monopoly on natural copper mining as someone suggested to me the other day,....
Dec '10
Re: Look Out Below
Judith,
You will pardon me but only Obama could be so limp that the Iranians could create a Cuban Missle Crisis again. This is a new low. Now we replace the Monroe Doctrine with the Obama Doctine.
"If anything bad happens in the Western Hemisphere I'm going to hide in the White House until its over."
Sep '11
Re: Look Out Below
Percival
Sisyphus
The biggest problem with Mutually Assured Destruction is that it assumes everyone is a rational actor. · Dec 18 at 12:27pm
Indeed. It has worked so far, thank goodness, but it's become very, very scary. When I was young, I campaigned for unilateral nuclear disarmament by the UK - not because I was soft on Communism but because I and my friends were appalled by the thought of nuclear weapons being used, and believed, wrongly, that a move by the UK would persuade the world to give them up. I was 18, in my first term at university, at the time of the CMC. I have never been so scared - and now I know how right I was to be.
MAD has in fact worked so far, and the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. But something has to be done very quickly, and no, I don't have huge confidence in your President but he's what you and the world have got. I guess we all have to pray (and let me tell you, atheists pray too!).
Jul '10
Re: Look Out Below
Gaby: Watch that "your President" stuff. I never called Tony Blair your Prime Minister. I went to an ostensibly conservative institution that included a 12 semester hour theology requirement, and 6 of my 12 hours I was stuck with "bare the neck to the alpha wolf" buffoons pitching unilateral disarmament. When the moral philosophers want to come tch tch over the reckless amorality or immorality, I think of these pale, clueless "theologians" with their minimal if any knowledge of the Bible and their worship of John Hershey's opus.
(And if you really want to make the case and lose your faith in humanity, look up the case studies done by the Pentagon of American troops operating in the Pacific under detonation and fallout conditions. Live fire exercises scheduled with actual nuclear detonations to see how troops could be expected to perform on the day. They are mostly declassified and online. We got the information we wanted. Maybe, if it avoided armageddon, it was worth it. Maybe. I always appreciated that much of the other side were convinced they were avoid armageddon. My school yard experience as well as study of history indicated that way was surrender or annihilation.)
Sep '11
Re: Look Out Below
Excuse me? In a democracy, the elected president is your president (and C-in-C) whether you voted for him or not. Remember Al Gore's reply when asked by GWB after 9/11? "He's my C-in-C". Spot on. Of course some of us feel we ought to have a say in the matter too, as we have to live with the consequences (only joking). And BTW I'm very glad Tony Blair was my PM. If Americans had any say in the matter, maybe he would still be. He was the most pro-American PM of my lifetime.