Links – Tehran Connection – Argentinian Prosecutor’s Death May Be Linked to Washington Policy

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LONDON — The United States pressed Argentina to end its investigation of Iranian complicity in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in which nearly 100 people were killed. 

Western diplomatic sources said the administration of President Barack Obama urged Argentina on several occasions to either stop or limit the investigation into the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires. The sources said the U.S. appeals marked one of the demands by Iran for a reconciliation with Washington, Middle East Newsline reported.

“Argentina had hard evidence against at least one Iranian leader, which prevented him from traveling abroad,” a source said.

http://www.worldtribune.com/2015/01/23/obama-administration-intervened-argentine-probe-iranian-leader-jewish-center-bombing/ – 1/23/2015.


Earlier this month Nisman filed a criminal complaint in an Argentine court, alleging that President Cristina Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman had crafted a secret agreement with Iran to let the terrorists off the hook in exchange for Iranian oil largess and Iranian purchases of Argentine grain.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/mary-anastasia-ogrady-who-killed-alberto-nisman-1422232647 – 1/25/2015.


In an exclusive column, Jewish journalist Damian Pachter – who first reported on the death of the special prosecutor – recounts the intimidation, the sleepless nights, the agent who stalked him and his ultimate decision to head for Israel.

Pachter, Damian.  “Why I fled Argentina after breaking the story of Alberto Nisman’s death.”  Haaretz, January 25, 2015.


I knew Alberto Nisman from years researching Hezbollah activities in South America for my book Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God. The idea that he would commit suicide just as the investigation into the 1994 attack is finally making headway simply does not comport with the man and his years-long, dogged commitment to bringing the perpetrators of this horrific act of terrorism to justice. After Nisman filed his complaint last week, Kirchner’s administration insisted that the charges “have no foundation,” but neither those charges nor the sudden, suspicious death of the prosecutor who brought them would be the first time the case was marred by political corruption and illegal activities at the highest levels.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/22/can-argentina-find-justice-without-alberto-nisman/ – Matthew Levitt – 1/22/2015.


In which world would you wish to live?  The one of state mafia loaded strong with every criminal method of manipulation imaginable (to list a few: constituent infantilization, pandering, patronage; bribery, intimidation, jailing, murder; libel, slander, and theft; pervasive lying, nepotism, and secrecy) — or some other dragged out into the sun for a good look?

The Alberto Nisman murder story — it appears as I type that the state is changing its story — may accompany the sea monster surfacing of a new global fascism, the same that this blog has been suggesting with “Putin-Assad-Khamenei”, “Putin-Orban”, “Putin-Erdogan” — submitted to search engines, each pair will produce some cogent and interesting coverage — as well as the blog’s psych-lite approach to “malignant narcissism” and it’s weaving with what has been observed in relation to bipolar and narcissistic personality disorders and their extension into leadership and political psychology.

Additional Links

Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian mullah and a former cultural attaché in Argentina, is a leading figure in spreading Islam in Latin America, particularly in Brazil. Rabbani, while in the service at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, was involved in the planning and implementation of the deadly terrorist attack on the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish cultural center of 1994 that resulted in 85 dead and more than 150 injured. Rabbani’s involvement in the bombing was persistently denied by Iranian authorities. In 2007, however, Interpol finally decided to issue a Red Notice for Rabbani, which is an arrest warrant with a view to extradite.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2222/iranian-terrorist-attacks-argentina – 6/24/2011.


http://interamericansecuritywatch.com/tag/mohsen-rabbani/ – Current.


The man directly responsible for this cell-building operation in Argentina was the cultural attache of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Rabbani. His job was supposedly to provide cultural and religious information. His real job, however — like that of the Iranian ambassador to Syria in 1983, Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi — was building the local terror network.
A Shiite cleric, Rabbani gave a 1991 speech in a Buenos Aires convention hall before an audience of about 100 Argentinean right-wing advocates and Shiite Muslims. The front row was reserved for officials of the Iranian embassy, who beamed as Rabbani declared in schoolboy Spanish, “Israel must disappear from the face of the earth.
http://books.google.com/books?id=KXa6qOt86OwC&pg=PA123

http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/190074 – 10/16/2011.


The “second row seat to history” gets a little bit incestuous digging out quotations quoting other quotations, so here BackChannels may rest on the Alberto Nisman murder mystery.

One more thing . . .

Argentina president Cristina Kirchner reversed her government’s position on the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, saying now that his death was not a suicide.

The reversal comes as evidence gathered by Nisman proving that the government covered up Iranian involvement in the 1994 suicide bombing of a Jewish community center was released on Thursday. Kirchner is saying that Nisman was killed to discredit her government and that the prosecutor was “misled” by people posing as intelligence agents who fed him wrong information.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/01/_kirchner_reverses_herself_says_nisman_death_not_a_suicide.html#ixzz3PxbpNugx – 1/23/2015.

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Link – On Pakistan’s Troubled Dream

The country’s founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech is mentioned and quoted so liberally among the moderate circles that it has become something of a cliché.

However, what is not often related is how a federal secretary arbitrarily decided to censor it before its release. It proves that even as early as 1947 there were souls who desperately wanted to give the country a religious character.

Pitafi, Farrukh Khan.  “How Do We Reinvent Pakistan’s National Dream?”  Dawn, January 26, 2015.

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Link – Yarmouk – Word of Torture and Execution – Regime and Opposition Blamed

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A man from the Yarmouk camp tortured to death in regime prisons. Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic battalions executed a man in the Yarmouk camp in the charge of insulting “Allah”

http://syriahr.com/en/2015/01/shells-and-casualties-in-damascus-and-air-strikes-on-its-countryside/ – 1/25/2015.


What began in 2011 as an effort to hold a government accountable and to expand administrative power to the people, i.e., a true people’s revolution, has become by design, and one may think Putin-Assad-Khamenei for this, a civil war defined on both sides by despotic and sadistic personalities.  Neither side appears to have an off button, or a noble humanitarian switch, for that matter, and between them, Yarmouk Camp has been played like a poker chip.

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Link – Diane Weber Bederman (DWB) – on ME and MENA Feudal and Parochial Conflicts

Should there be peace between Israel and the Palestinians it would not end the warfare in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). How would peace between Israel and the Palestinians stop the massacre of the Yazidis and the Christians? Tribal warfare amongst the Muslims would continue. The Alawites and the Sufis, the Salafists, the Shiites and the Sunnis, the Hashemites. ISIS and al Qaeda, al Nusra, Boko Haram, Hezbollah and Hamas. Wahhabis and the Taliban. Even with a programme I can’t follow the tribes-who hates whom; who’s with whom.

Read more: The Answer to Peace in the Middle East | Diane Weber Bederman | The Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-answer-to-peace-in-the-middle-east/#ixzz3Pqg1EnLa
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook


Conflict in the Lands of Isms — communisms, Islamism, feudalisms, tribalisms, fascisms — would seem to beg a look into “small group social psychology”, i.e., how we humans, such a gregarious species in general, organize ourselves to have always enmity between us.  There are academics with journal publications (e.g. Small Group Research) in this area; whether there is a lay channel between the researcher’s view and popular perception, I don’t know, but in Diane Weber Bederman’s piece there is the matter of too many parochial interests rubbing against one another in all the dismally wrong ways.

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Link – Related to Malignant Narcissism and Islam

The extremists can always point directly to the texts and reiterate that they are the infallible, revealed word of God. Furthermore, the texts indicate that the entire world is ultimately destined to become a Caliphate under ­Islamic law and the actions of terrorists, while abhorrent to us, will inspire a portion of the world’s Muslims — who would otherwise have not been tempted — to become extremists.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/terrorists-not-the-cowards-its-the-fools-who-wont-confront-them/story-e6frg6zo-1227193812719 – 1/23/2015.


Would this description resemble any leader you might happen to be thinking about?

  • Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
  • Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
  • Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
  • Requires excessive admiration
  • Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
  • Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
  • Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
  • Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
  • Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Context in which the above list appeared:

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder-symptoms/ (as viewed 1/25/2015).

On BackChannels:

Malignant Narcissism

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Link – Pervez Hoodbhoy on Prognosis for Pakistan’s Separation of Mosque and State

THE mosque in Pakistan is now no longer just a religious institution. Instead it has morphed into a deeply political one that seeks to radically transform culture and society. Actively assisted by the state in this mission in earlier decades, the mosque is a powerful actor over which the state now exercises little authority. Some have been captured by those who fight the government and military. An eviscerated, embattled state finds it easier to drop bombs on the TTP in tribal Waziristan than to rein in its urban supporters, or to dismiss from state payroll those mosque leaders belonging to militant groups.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1156025 – 1/10/2015.

Link – Erdogan and Putin – WaPo

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Yet these underlying differences have rarely turned into public disputes. As a report by the Moscow Carnegie Center put it, Russia and Turkey “have largely managed to compartmentalize their relations.” That’s down to pragmatism and realpolitik. But the similarities between the two countries’ leaders are hard to miss. Here are some reasons why Putin and Erdogan could look to each other, and find a kindred spirit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/02/how-russias-putin-and-turkeys-erdogan-were-made-for-each-other/ – 12/2/2014.


Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

Putin-Orban.

Putin-Erdogan.

It’s a club.

Affinity between dictators constitutes a revanch feudalist theme in contemporary foreign affairs.  Central to each: the rejection of classical liberal values and the embrace of unsavory methods in their political life plus the pursuit of grandiose ambitions perhaps associated with a giantism suited to immortality.

Russia, Syria, Iran, Hungary, and Turkey may not be doing gangbusters as states — from from it — but as gangsters set up in palaces or commanding immense portfolios on top of much unsung suffering, they’re at the top of their game.

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Link – SOTU – “It’s why we speak out against the deplorable anti-Semitism that has resurfaced in certain parts of the world.”

As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we’re threatened, which is why I’ve prohibited torture, and worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained. It’s why we speak out against the deplorable anti-Semitism that has resurfaced in certain parts of the world. It’s why we continue to reject offensive stereotypes of Muslims — the vast majority of whom share our commitment to peace. That’s why we defend free speech, and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. We do these things not only because they’re right, but because they make us safer.

https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/president-obamas-state-of-the-union-address-remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-55f9825449b2 – 1/20/2015.