Show Summary 06/14/09

Send a reporter to Afghanistan or Iran?

Iran is the #4 blogger in the world.

Iranian Youtube user – Penguins will fly

I don’t think this is the actual video Bryan put on the radio, but it’s close. Check out the User’s page above for a growing list of videos showing the protests in Iran and around the world.

More Iran election news.

From DEBKAfile:
President Obama favored losing candidate in Iran’s election
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis June 13, 2009

Friday night, June 12, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was already on his way to victory in Iran’s turbulent presidential election although only the first votes had been counted. By Saturday morning, it was clear he had won a landslide for a second term, widening the gap with his closest rival opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Yet strangely enough, even then, Washington and the US media were still doggedly insisting that that the reformist Mousavi could still make it in a run-off, although that door had been finally slammed shut by the president’s broad majority.

So how come the Obama administration, with so much at stake, continued to back the loser well after his defeat could no longer be denied?

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources have two explanations:
1. The White House was given erroneous intelligence evaluations about the way Iran’s presidential election was managed. The administration’s Iranian experts missed the point that in Middle East politics (except for Israel) it is not the people who determine an election, the shape of government and its policies but the unelected head of the tribe – in this case supreme ruler Khamenei.

You’ve got to read the entire article!

Taliban, Afghanistan, Pakistan

From the Army Times:
Equipment, skill of Afghan insurgents improves
By Sean D. Naylor – Staff writer Posted : Thursday Jun 4, 2009 9:32:52 EDT

FORWARD OPERATING BASE LAGMAN, QALAT, Afghanistan — U.S. troops reported a fierce firefight May 28 against Farsi-speaking insurgents who wore body armor and “Kevlar helmets” and used smoke grenades. The U.S. soldiers killed an estimated 35 insurgents and suffered no casualties, but say the battle demonstrated the increasing sophistication of some guerrilla groups here.

FM 7-8 INFANTRY RIFLE PLATOON AND SQUAD

The Iranian Police Beating Video

Bryan’s Booklist
The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu

Iran election update

North Korea Hostage Update

New Photos of North Korea’s next leader

North Korean Economy Watch

Google Earth very detailed maps of North Korea

The Dark Secret Place Twitter Feed. (editors note: FINALLY!)

Israel calling for de-militarized Palestine State rejected.

From CNN
Israel PM calls for demilitarized Palestinian state

(CNN) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel could accept a peace agreement with a “demilitarized Palestinian state” as its neighbor.

Colbert in Iraq on the cover of Newsweek

From Newsweek
Love Is a Battlefield For some soldiers, there’s no place like combat.

Staff Sgt. Shaun McBride would rather be in a war zone than at home. He likes the adrenaline, he says, even the “fear someone can shoot you.” He hates the petty responsibilities of home life, the bills and family issues.

He’s clocked 43 months in Afghanistan and Iraq. His first wife of three years sent him divorce papers while he was fighting Taliban militants—she wanted to marry a friend of his. (She couldn’t be reached for comment.) “Whatever,” says McBride, 32, with a shrug. Now he’s remarried—to Evangeline (Star) McBride, a 27-year-old divorced mother of one—and getting ready for his fifth deployment with the Third Brigade combat team of the 101st Airborne Division.

More about the North Korean Google Map

from Wall Street Journal:
What If Israel Strikes Iran?
By JOHN R. BOLTON

Whatever the outcome of Iran’s presidential election tomorrow, negotiations will not soon — if ever — put an end to its nuclear threat. And given Iran’s determination to achieve deliverable nuclear weapons, speculation about a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear program will not only persist but grow.

So what would such an attack look like? Obviously, Israel would need to consider many factors — such as its timing and scope, Iran’s increasing air defenses, the dispersion and hardening of its nuclear facilities, the potential international political costs, and Iran’s “unpredictability.” While not as menacingly irrational as North Korea, Iran’s politico-military logic hardly compares to our NATO allies. Central to any Israeli decision is Iran’s possible response.

From DEBKAfile
Terrorism not ruled out in Air France crash mystery

A week after Air France A330’s unexplained fatal dive into the Atlantic June 1, DEBKAfile reports from Paris that US, French and Brazilian investigators have begun going through the list of more than 200 passengers on the flight from Rio to Paris with a tooth comb. They are looking at the victims’ countries of origin, family, social and denominational associations for possible clues to the mysterious disaster.