The John Batchelor Show

Thursday 1 November 2012

Air Date: 
November 01, 2012

 

.Photo above: crater in Khartoum after containers next to an Iranian-owned munitions factory were bombed, perhaps by Israel.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-hosts: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal; Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents

Thursday 905P Eastern Time: Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re:  magic numbers.  25 – Mrs Pelosi needs this many seats in order to stay in her job.  4 – the number of seats the Republicans need to regain control of the Senate   270 – Electoral votes needed.

Missouri Senate race is self-inflicted wound for the Republicans.  Virginia: George Allen's shelf life expired. Michigan: Prop 2 is the anti-Wisconsin measure, puts collective bargaining into the state constitution. Focus on the nine states Obama picked up in 2008.  Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia: 290 Obama, 248 Romney. Swing states: Romney needs 22 more electoral votes – in Ohio get 18 EVs. OR: have to won Iowa, Colorado, and 6 or 7 more EVs.

Thursday 920P Eastern Time: Mark McDonald, IHT Asia correspondent, Hong Kong, in re: Burma.  As violence continues, the Royhingya -3 Muslims -  find few defenders in Myanmar. Not only in Burma, but Thai authorities actually put a boat of Rohingya refugees out to sea to die. Burmese Buddhists don’t care for he Rohingya; in Bangladesh, they’re very badly treated.  Aung San Suu Kyi has been mute. Burmese elections in 2015, she may be silent for domestic political reasons. McGowan on the "Burmese racial psyche": Buddhism represents the perfected Burmese philosophy. Toxic mix of racism and nationalism. Rohingya are among the most oppressed people in Earth; are widely abused. They travel across the Burmese-Bangladeshi border via corrupt officials. Abt 800,000 Rohingya in Burma, so there's an economic aspect, and they involve themselves in violence. It’s not only a one-way street. You’d think it'd be in the human-rights agendas of many countries, esp in Europe, Last night the IMF pledged a great deal of money to Burma and the darling Aung San Suu Kyi.

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HONG KONG — Violence has continued this week in western Myanmar, as an apparent campaign of ethnic cleansing is being carried out against the Muslim minority group known as the Rohingya — with little response or outcry from Aung San Suu Kyi or other human rights and pro-democracy activists in the country. A group of several thousand Burmese marched on a Rohingya village on Tuesday to force the residents there to relocate, according to a new report from Radio Free Asia. At least one person was killed when security forces fired on the mob. Over the past 10 days, violence by extremists and vigilantes in Rakhine State has left at least 89 people dead. Nearly 30,000 people have been rendered homeless, most of them Muslims, pushed into squalid refugee camps. Countless other Rohingya have taken to the sea in a frantic exodus of houseboats, barges and fishing vessels.

Satellite photos published by Human Rights Watch showed a Muslim sector in the town of Kyaukpyu leveled by what appeared to be methodical and premeditated arson — more than 600 homes and nearly 200 houseboats were destroyed. Before-and-after images of the sector can be seen here.  “The opposition, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and other prominent figures, has hopelessly failed to intervene or calm the situation,” said the analyst and editor Aung Zaw in a commentary published Monday in his magazine, Irrawaddy.

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Thursday 935P Eastern Time:  Lara Brown, Villanova, and David Drucker, Roll Call, in re: Why is Romney in Pennsylvania?  Perhaps because he said he would if it got close. Tome Casey has poured money nonstop into the race.  In the west of the state, everyone's fired up and raring to vote,. In the east of the state, modest enthusiasm, but the collar (Delaware, Bucks, Chester,  - suburban Philadelphia)  counties are flaccid.  Didn’t have natl advertising in PA till the last few days, so voters haven’t been whipsawed by propaganda.

Thursday 950P Eastern Time: Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal director, and FDD, in re: today, got confirmation of al Qaeda-linked jihadists' running the Cairo demonstration (Mohammed Jamal, released from Egyptian prison in 2005), in conjunction with one of their members who was in the center of the Benghazi assassinations.  Rifai Taha Moussa signed – was one of the five original signators of – the Feb 1998 al Qaeda fatwah (by bin Laden and Zawahiri) authorizing terrorism on American civilians.  Petraeus is trying to CYA. Was there a gunship available? Petraeus's doc dump with Ignatius today ignores that.  This is one big neo-Caliphate, moving Gaddafi's arms to Sudan and so forth. Was there a Presidential Finding authorizing the very odd arrangements made by CIA cutouts in Benghazi?  [John Brennan did an end run around Congress in order to send CIA-trained jihadists in to Syria?]  Just like the mess in Iran-Contra?

Sep 11 in Cairo: five very senior longstanding al Q allies who orchestrates the Cairo protests, replaced US flag with al Q flag, etc. These have definitive ties to one of the chief suspects wanted for the attacks in Benghazi.  Members of Jamal's cell have been arrested in Cairo for precipitating the Benghazi attack.   CIA was sending urgent cables to Washington expressing doubt abt ability of Americans to defend themselves. Al Q training camps in Eastern Libya – the very actors they were worried about – pulled off the terror attack. Jennifer Griffith on TV tonight: in Washington, an interdepartmental terrorism team was not convened on Sept 11 or 12.  Brennan has been spouting off that al Q is finished, so prefers not to acknowledge the real situation. Jamal was in Sinai for a while, then Egypt, then all around.  Was conspiring w many Libyan groups to do the Benghazi attacks; in the 1990s was a chief lieutenant to Ayman al-Zawahiri; later, was close with al-Z's brother In Cairo.  Sep 14 Tunis attack was with the same crew.

Thursday 1005P (705P Pacific Time): Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: Argentina: [White House put pressure on Argentina to exonerate Velayati of his bombing the Buenos Aires center and killing 300 people.  Chavez has brokered the talks between Iran and Argentina. The reason for the exoneration is to allow Velayati to become president of Iran in 2013 – the Supreme Leader prefers Velayati or Rafsanjani.]  Supreme Leader said: I'll consider it treason if you guys –  Ahmadinejad and associates – publicly speak ill f the regime again.  We're racing against the nuclear clock. Elections in US, Israel and Iran in the nearest future.  Drones provided to Hamas and Syria.   Today Hollande said that this is a threat to France; LNG sales collapsing; Japan decreased purchases of oil from Iran, but everybody's still buying $50 bil yearly. EU parliament delegation was supposed to visit Iran this week, and Iran refused to let the delegation meets with two jailed activists, so EU cancelled.

Thursday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: Syria, fighting on Turkish-Kurdish border.

Moscow and Paris are quarelling ver Syria. Again, the Western powers are carving up the corpse of the Ottoman Empire.  Russia adamantly doesn't want to see Assad fall, are disappointed wit events, concern with the trend of the battle in Syria; Russians ad Turks again showdown over material Turkey took weeks ago from Russian plane: 12 crates of radar. Larger tension between them,. Syrian situation deterioratin , even Hezbollah is having and internal debate on the matter. Military guys stress maintaining ties to Assad, the less-military terrorist  wing argu to drop support. Today we see Jordanians fighting  in Syria, and more Palestinians going in . US dropped support for Palestinain Natl Council. l Nusra had 50 fighters in Jan, now have a thousand, fighting in Aleppo; also Xinjiang Uyghurs coming by the hundreds into Syria. The collecti pit for every misfit terrorist organization. Libyan Brigade in Syria, Iraq Brigade there.  Also, from Mahgreb ad Sahel: a Star Wars bar of gangsterism, drug-runners, smugglers, liberating Syria for [chaos]. Meanwhile, US has but its authority behind Erdogan, whose intel group has put its authority behind the "Free Syrian Army.' – al Q forces, MDB force, huge amalgam, lost control.  Two grad rockets into Beersheba from Gaza, getting help from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey. Shura Council of Jihad Fighters.  Distributed film today: shooting from inside civilian territories, which is a war crime.

 

Was there a Presidential Finding authorizing the very odd arrangements made by CIA cutouts in Benghazi? Just like the mess in Iran-Contra?

Thursday 1035P (735P Pacific Time): Matthew Levitt is an American expert on Islamist terrorism. Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute, in r; Hezbollah resembles a gang that traffics in drugs, cigarettes, arms, credit-card fraud, whatever.  Islamist terrorist org most involved in criminal activity now, fear that Iran may stop funding them so then think they need to jack up income.   It needs weak states and weak areas in states where it can rub shoulders with gangs moving drugs, weapons, etc. Hezb snuck across a border in a car truck, . . . .  Cigarette smuggling brings in $500 mill per year for Hezbollah!  North Carolina to Michigan, also to New York and elsewhere.  Usu find cases also doing credit-card fraud Buy houses, get small business loans, send part of the proceeds back home.  Training caps and R&R reservations in Venezuela.  Hezbollah: cocaine from South America  (Colombia, Venezuela) across the Tenth Parallel ("Highway 10") to West Africa and thence to the Middle East.  Repots of Hezb in Yucatan; cooperating with Mexican cartels?  Former head of operations for DEA says: People rub elbows, stay in same hotels, go to same brothels, make friends and criminality together, UN says: $320 billion per year in criminal activity such as this. Guy in jail in N Carolina asked a cellmate to get a msg to his associate to blow up a local courthouse where, he believed, the evidence against him reposed.   Hezb to Paraguay. which doesn’t always accept gangsters.

Thursday 1050P (750P Pacific Time): Benjamin Weinthal, journalist & FDD, in re: shadows of  the EU sanctions toward Iran coterminous with P5 and Security Council sanctions.  Germany is Iran's No 1 trade partner - $4bill PA – not just pistachios and carpets; rather, high-tech and dual use, esp tunnelling eqpt.   Three member s o German parliament went to Iran to help legitimize the regime.  Iran touted the visit as a great victory.   Sanctions are hollow. European sanctions pkg, incl banning importation of nat gas, is filled with loopholes – very large loopholes; is Swiss cheese.  Hezbollah is established in Germany: in Berlin are 950 members. They raise funds, did Bulgarian attack, are now in Cyprus – on trial for planning an attack vs Israelis, similar to Bulgaria.  SUV murder raid in Nigeria during Mass, killing ten, wounding hundreds.  Rad Isl group, Boko Haram, in a killing spree since 2009, killed 2,800 people incl Muslims. What will Nigerian govt do?  It’s not just in Nigeria – persecution of Christians, and vanishing in Muslim-majority areas (Gaza, forced conversions to Islam; Egypt; IRGC in Iran; Pakistan is SE Asia)  - an epidemic of perescution of Christians.

 

Thursday 1105P (805P Pacific Time): Malcolm Hoenlein, in re:  When you hear a two-stroke motorcycle and someone attaching a magnetic bomb to your car, and you're an Iranian nuclar scientist – time to get out and run.    In Jordan: Jews lived in a certain island in Tunis since the time of the Second Temple; plot to hold them all for ransom.   Jordan: tribes suddenly rally behind the king as Palestinians and jihadists make noises about taking over Jordan and  forcibly Islamicising the nation.  Saeeb Erekat wars that Israel will get vengeance for he UDI (unilateral declaratin of independence).  Fayyad the PM opposes the UDI. Farah Kadumi, basd inTunis, calls for the West Bank to go to Jordan  all ways to dismiss Abbas, who in turn says he'll seek UDI recognition. This'll cost US aid and probably Euro aid, and kills any sort of peace talk.  Also will endanger US funding to the UN.

 

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The U.S. Administration has sought to downplay the significance of this week's visit to the Gaza Strip by the Emir of Qatar, Hamad al-Thani.  "We have seen the reports that Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa visits Gaza today on a humanitarian mission," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. "We share Qatar's deep concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people, including those residing in Gaza."

Many Palestinians, especially the Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank, do not share the U.S. Administration's position regarding the emir's visit.  Palestinian Authority leaders do not see the visit as a "humanitarian mission," but as an attempt to strengthen Hamas.  In fact, the high-profile visit of the emir and his wife to the Gaza Strip was anything but a "humanitarian mission."  This was a visit that has political and economic implications, not only for the Palestinians, but for the entire region as well.

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Thursday 1120P (820P Pacific Time): Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, formerly head of the Research and Analysis and Production Division of the IDF Directorate of Israeli Military Intelligence, in re: arms sent by Iran to Sudan, then to be smuggled to Gaza (which has been going on for a long time). Distance from Israel to Khartoum is exactly the same distance from Israel to Teheran.  Planes no doubt accompanied by tankers.

Thursday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein and John Batchelor: re Tunis, Jordan, UDI, Kurds.

Thursday 1150P (850P Pacific Time): Donald H Rumsfeld, author, Known Unknowns, in re: Benghazi and the responsibilities of State, White House and president.

Thursday/Fri 1205A (905 Pacific Time): Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re:  magic numbers.  25 – Mrs Pelosi needs this many seats in order to stay in her job.  4 – the number of seats the Republicans need to regain control of the Senate   270 – Electoral votes needed.

Missouri Senate race is self-inflicted wound for the Republicans.  Virginia: George Allen's shelf life expired. Michigan: Prop 2 is the anti-Wisconsin measure, puts collective bargaining into the state constitution. Focus on the nine states Obama picked up in 2008.  Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia: 290 Obama, 248 Romney. Swing states: Romney needs 22 more electoral votes – in Ohio get 18 EVs. OR: have to won Iowa, Colorado, and 6 or 7 more EVs.

Thursday/Fri  1220A (920 Pacific Time): Mark McDonald, IHT Asia correspondent, Hong Kong, in re: Burma.  As violence continues, the  - Muslims -  find few defenders in Myanmar. Not only in Burma, but Thai authorities actually put a boat of Rohingya refugees out to sea to die. Burmese Buddhists don’t care for he Rohingya; in Bangladesh, they’re very badly treated.  Aung San Suu Kyi has been mute. Burmese elections in 2015, she may be silent for domestic political reasons. McGowan on the "Burmese racial psyche": Buddhism represents the perfected Burmese philosophy. Toxic mix of racism and nationalism. Rohingya are among the most oppressed people in Earth; are widely abused. They travel across the Burmese-Bangladeshi border via corrupt officials. Abt 800,000 Rohingya in Burma, so there's an economic aspect, and they involve themselves in violence. It’s not only a one-way street. You’d think it'd be in the human-rights agendas of many countries, esp in Europe, Last night the IMF pledged a great deal of money to Burma and the darling Aung San Suu Kyi.

..  ..  ..

 

A United Nations human rights expert called Saturday for an urgent independent investigation into recent bloody sectarian violence in Burma's Rakhine state, which he said was one of many human rights challenges facing the country.Tomas Ojea Quintana ended a weeklong visit to Burma saying that the country's much-touted democratic reforms will not take hold unless the government places human rights at the center of its agenda for change.

HONG KONG — Violence has continued this week in western Myanmar, as an apparent campaign of ethnic cleansing is being carried out against the Muslim minority group known as the Rohingya — with little response or outcry from Aung San Suu Kyi or other human rights and pro-democracy activists in the country. A group of several thousand Burmese marched on a Rohingya village on Tuesday to force the residents there to relocate, according to a new report from Radio Free Asia. At least one person was killed when security forces fired on the mob. Over the past 10 days, violence by extremists and vigilantes in Rakhine State has left at least 89 people dead. Nearly 30,000 people have been rendered homeless, most of them Muslims, pushed into squalid refugee camps. Countless other Rohingya have taken to the sea in a frantic exodus of houseboats, barges and fishing vessels.

Satellite photos published by Human Rights Watch showed a Muslim sector in the town of Kyaukpyu leveled by what appeared to be methodical and premeditated arson — more than 600 homes and nearly 200 houseboats were destroyed. Before-and-after images of the sector can be seen here.  “The opposition, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and other prominent figures, has hopelessly failed to intervene or calm the situation,” said the analyst and editor Aung Zaw in a commentary published Monday in his magazine, Irrawaddy.

..  ..  ..

Thursday/Fri  1235A (935P Pacific Time): Lara Brown, Villanova, and David Drucker, Roll Call, in re: Why is Romney in Pennsylvania?  Perhaps because he said he would if it got close. Tome Casey has poured money nonstop into the race.  In the west of the state, everyone's fired up and raring to vote,. In the east of the state, modest enthusiasm, but the collar (Delaware, Bucks, Chester,  - suburban Philadelphia)  counties are flaccid.  Didn’t have natl advertising in PA till the last few days, so voters haven’t been whipsawed by propaganda.

Thursday/Fri  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt. Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal director, and FDD, in re: today, got confirmation of al Qaeda-linked jihadists' running the Cairo demonstration (Mohammed Jamal, released from Egyptian prison in 2005), in conjunction with one of their members who was in the center of the Benghazi assassinations.  Rifai Taha Moussa signed – was one of the five original signators of – the Feb 1998 al Qaeda fatwah (by bin Laden and Zawahiri) authorizing terrorism on American civilians.  Petraeus is trying to CYA. Was there a gunship available? Petraeus's doc dump with Ignatius today ignores that.  This is one big neo-Caliphate, moving Gaddafi's arms to Sudan and so forth. Was there a Presidential Finding authorizing the very odd arrangements made by CIA cutouts in Benghazi?  [John Brennan did an end run around Congress in order to send CIA-trained jihadists in to Syria?]  Just like the mess in Iran-Contra?

Sep 11 in Cairo: five very senior longstanding al Q allies who orchestrates the Cairo protests, replaced US flag with al Q flag, etc. These have definitive ties to one of the chief suspects wanted for the attacks in Benghazi.  Members of Jamal's cell have been arrested in Cairo for precipitating the Benghazi attack.   CIA was sending urgent cables to Washington expressing doubt abt ability of Americans to defend themselves. Al Q training camps in Eastern Libya – the very actors they were worried about – pulled off the terror attack. Jennifer Griffith on TV tonight: in Washington, the US Special ___ terrorism team was not convened on Sept 11 or 12.  Brennan has been spouting off that al Q is finished, so prefers not to acknowledge the real situation. Jamal was in Sinai for a while, then Egypt, then all around.  Was conspiring w many Libyan groups to do the Benghazi attacks; in the 1990s was a chief lieutenant to Ayman al-Zawahiri; later, was close with al-Z's brother in Cairo.  Sep 14 Tunis attack was with the same crew.

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Music (using New York City broadcast times)  

9:00 hour:    The Sentinel

10:00 hour:     Empire: Total War

11:00 hour:      Infamous; Burn After Reading

midnight hour:    The Sentinel