Monday, December 12, 2011

Foreign Policy and I


Iran claims its experts almost done recovering data from captured US drone

By Associated Press, Monday, December 12, 1:42 PM

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian experts are in the final stages of recovering data from the U.S. surveillance drone captured by the country’s armed forces, state TV reported Monday.Tehran has flaunted the capture of the RQ-170 Sentinel, a top-secret aircraft with stealth technology, as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States in a complicated intelligence and technological battle.
President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. was pressing Iran to return the aircraft, which U.S. officials say malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran. But a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday that the country would not send it back, adding that “no one returns the symbol of aggression.”Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sorouri, a member of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said Monday the extracted information will be used to file a lawsuit against the United States for what he called the “invasion” by the unmanned aircraft.
Sorouri also claimed that Iran has the capability to reproduce the drone through reverse engineering, but he did not elaborate.
State TV broadcast images Thursday of Iranian military officials inspecting what it identified as the drone. Iranian state media have said the unmanned spy aircraft was detected and brought down over the country’s east, near the border with Afghanistan.
Officers in the Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s most powerful military force, have claimed the country’s armed forces brought down the surveillance aircraft with an electronic ambush, causing minimum damage to the drone.
American officials have said that U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Iran neither shot the drone down, nor used electronic or cybertechnology to force it from the sky. They contend the drone malfunctioned. The officials spoke anonymously in order to discuss the classified program.
U.S. officials are concerned others may be able to reverse engineer the chemical composition of the drone’s radar-deflecting paint or the aircraft’s sophisticated optics technology that allows operators to positively identify terror suspects from tens of thousands of feet in the air.
They are also worried adversaries may be able to hack into the drone’s database, although it is not clear whether any data could be recovered. Some surveillance technologies allow video to stream through to operators on the ground but do not store much collected data. If they do, it is encrypted.
Separately, in comments to the semi-official ISNA news agency, Sorouri said Iran would soon hold a navy drill to practice the closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which is the passageway for about 40 percent of the world’s oil tanker traffic.
Despite Sorouri’s comments and past threats that Iran could seal off the waterway if the U.S. or Israel moved against Iranian nuclear facilities, no such exercise has been officially announced.
“Iran will make the world unsafe” if the world attacks Iran, Sorouri said.
Both the U.S. and Israel have not rule out military option against Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at making atomic weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear activities are geared toward peaceful purposes like power generation.
In another sign of the increasing tensions between Iran and the U.S., Tehran said Monday it has asked Interpol to help seek the arrest of two former U.S. officials it accuses of supporting the assassinations of Iranian officials.
Iran’s state prosecutor, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehei, told reporters that Iran has filed charges against retired U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane and former CIA agent Reuel Marc Gerecht.
Ejehei said Iran sent a request to Interpol in Paris to help pursue the two Americans through its office in Washington.
Iran says the two men urged the Obama administration to use covert action against Iran and kill some of its top officials, including Brig. Gen. Ghassem Soleimani commander of the Quds Force, the special foreign operations unit of the Revolutionary Guard.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Here is one for you. Newt Grinrich, the front end, Oops, rear end, Oops, most (invisible) under the Iranian radars Drone, flying high and mighty like over Teheran's two assumed Nuclear Research and Uranium enriching facilities that a real live invisible Drone couldn't, wouldn't shouldn't have crossed the Iranian air space in the first place.Here is the plan A:
Put a Commander-in-Chief hat with usual and customary, do-das embroidered, pinned or embossed if not attached by Crazy Glue. Please don't put any pressure while using the Crazy Glue on the hat, thus described. No finger prints, please. Especially, the middle finger prints. Iranians do not like obscenity.
Get over, under, thru, behind, ahead over such buildings, factories, domes tomes wide open beach umbrellas to detect any nuclear (reactionary) activities. Once located, pump, Oops, dump all them deadly miniature golf balls, Oops, atomic bombs collected as souvenirs at your nearest Seven-Eleven grocery cum crockery stores.
Do not forget to find a suitable exit to Baghdad.
Plan B:
Get a life.
...and I am Sid Harth@arabuhuru.org
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For the 99 percent of businesses who don't export…

Only 1 percent of America's businesses export. That was the stunning figure out of the Exporting for Growth forum at the Washington Post Oct. 17. We invited small businesses leaders interested in starting or enlarging an export business to attend and convened experts to give them advice on how to begin. Where do you go for financing? Where can you get help creating websites in foreign languages? Who can give advice for which countries would be smartest to market a particular U.S. product or service to?
The U.S. Export Assistance Centers (part of the Commerce Department's U.S. Commercial Services), the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and the Small Business Administration all have significant operations to help.
U.S. Commercial Service, alone, has a network of export and industry specialists in more than 100 U.S. cities and over 80 countries worldwide to counsel and assist small business in exporting.
President Obama has challenged industry to double exports in five years. It's all about creating jobs. If businesses expand whom they sell to, they make more money, grow their business, earn more profits and can hire more people.
In challenging economic times, a growing number of businesses realize it's no longer enough to rely on the American consumer — which 99 percent of businesses based here have done. It's a global, connected world and there are billions of buyers out there — from the growing middle classes in Brazil and China — to the many, many people around the world who like the “Made in the USA” label.
Marie Johns, the deputy administration of the Small Business Administration and one of the speakers Oct. 14th, said that while only 1 in 100 American businesses export their products or services, 1 in 8 European businesses do. And, that doesn't mean that a French company is simply selling next door to Spain — 1 in 8 European businesses are selling outside of Europe.
Drew Greenblatt, president and owner of Marlin Steel in Baltimore, has found huge success in exporting and sends his wire baskets and sheet metal fabrications to 35 countries. He said that Obama's goal of doubling exports is “very attainable.” If 41 percent of Germany's GDP comes from exports and 28 percent of Canada's GDP is derived from exports, he thought America could do better than earning 11 percent of GDP from selling American products and services abroad. If U.S businesses make a concerted effort to increase the exports, Greenblatt said, “that can kill the recession.” And, he said, it will ensure that more Americans earn a paycheck.
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