Israeli Spyware Sold To Iran 164
Hugh Pickens writes "Bloomberg reports that Israeli trade, customs and defense officials say they didn't know that systems for performing 'deep- packet inspection' into Internet traffic, sold under the brand name NetEnforcer, had gone to a country whose leaders have called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Allot Communications Ltd., an Israel-based firm which reported $57 million in sales last year, sold its systems to a Randers, a Denmark-based technology distributor where workers at that company, RanTek A/S, repackaged the gear and shipped it to Iran. The sales skirted a strict Israeli ban that prohibits 'trading with the enemy,' including any shipments that reach Iran, Syria and Lebanon. Although Allot officials say they had no knowledge of their equipment going to Iran and are looking into RanTek's sales, three former sales employees for Allot say it was well known inside the Israeli company that the equipment was headed for Iran. 'Israel considers Iran quite possibly its greatest threat, and so the Israeli government would come down very strong against any company that exported to Iran,' says Ira Hoffman. 'Iran is also considered by the U.S. as one of its most strategic threats.' Israeli lawmaker Nachman Shai has called for a parliamentary investigation, and the country's Defense Ministry has begun to examine the report."
thought I'd get it in first (Score:1, Insightful)
Everyone who posts a comment is antisemitic!
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Everyone who posts a comment is antisemitic!
Hopefully those muzzie camel Jockeys won't be able to work out how to use it. (balance restored)
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Most people in that region are semites, not just the Israelis. I'm not entirely sure, but Iranians would be probably be semites as well.
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Iranians are mostly Persian who are Aryan rather than Semitic.
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Everyone who posts a comment is antisemitic!
I never realized until now that AC actually stands for Antisemitic Coward.
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AC is and always will be Atlantic City :)
Actually, it is the first part of AC/DC. Do you've been... Thunderstruck!
Kike? (Score:1)
;)
Stuxnet (Score:5, Funny)
Stuxnet 2.0 bundled free.
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Stuxnet 2.0 bundled free.
In fact, it's a violation of the DMCA to remove the DRM protecting it.
The military has decided to unleash upon Iran the most horrible weapons mankind has ever known: MPAA, RIAA
God forgive us.
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Not a bad idea, actually. Once the device realizes it's operating in enemy territory, have it spawn all kinds of mayhem.
make the CEO / VP do some hard time may even the (Score:1)
death penalty if some get's killed or at least life / a long time in a federal pound me in ass the prison.
Re:make the CEO / VP do some hard time may even th (Score:5, Funny)
Alright.... I see your patriotic tendencies prevented you from typing a normal sentence.
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death penalty if some get's killed or at least life / a long time in a federal pound me in ass the prison.
Why would an Israeli CEO be in a US Federal Prison for violating Israeli law ?
If you won't read the linked article or the summary, at least read the TITLE.
I was not saying US prsion (Score:2)
but they should not go to some kind of camp prison for stuff like this.
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I've taken the liberty to check wikipedia for countries that have a federal government and institute a death penalty, the US seems to be the only one in that particular intersection.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Israel [wikipedia.org]
The death penalty is currently legal in Israel for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, terrorism, and crimes against the Jewish People
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Israel is not a federation.
I can't help wondering (Score:2)
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To me it looks more like "we sent spyware to Iran, and used a proxy to repackage and sell it to them". I'm probably considered antisemetic for saying it this way, despite the fact ive said nothing of religion and pointed only at the fact that is far more significant than small profits coming from inadvertent sales to iran.
Not all Israelis support adversarial activities. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are only some of the reasons many Israelis disagree with the typical policies of the Israeli government:
Some Israelis think that further violence toward Iran will cause trouble for Israel. Partly that is because there is the idea that encouraging violence against 1.6 billion Muslims [wikipedia.org] is self-defeating. There are only an estimated 14 million (not billion) practicing Jews in the entire world. [wikipedia.org]
Some of those who control the U.S. government want to build an oil pipeline through Iran to get oil from the "Stan" countries to the ocean where it can be shipped easily. That idea would be financially profitable only if U.S. taxpayers paid for security. The U.S. government is, in some ways, VERY corrupt.
Remember that the U.S. government supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's war with Iran so that U.S. companies could sell weapons to Iraq, and with the idea of the enormous profits that would come from building the pipeline through Iran.
Also, remember that the U.S. government has interfered with the politics in Iran since before before 1953, when the U.S. agency known as the CIA arranged the removal of a democratically elected president, President Mossadegh. The U.S. government arranged that the Shah have complete power. See for example, Politics, Power, and US Policy in Iran, 1950-1953 (PDF file, Harvard University). [harvard.edu] Quote:
Opposition in Iran to the violent regime of the Shah caused support for Muslim clerics who took over management of the government. Iranians say that clerics have usually not been good business and government managers. The unthinking violence of the U.S. government toward Iran has caused Iranians to be very afraid of what the U.S. government might do in the future.
One reason for the Iranian government to develop nuclear materials is to try to protect Iran against U.S. government violence. Another reason is that all governments need to give attention to sources of energy that do not cause global warming.
Some with influence in the U.S. government wanted to build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. That is one of the reasons the U.S. government spends taxpayer money there, but it seems that getting control of Afghanistan will not happen soon, so there is renewed interest in violence toward Iran.
The U.S. government's support for violence toward Arab and Muslim nations, partly as a way for a few to make money, is seen by some as caused by Jewish manipulation of the U.S. government. There is support by some Jews in the U.S. to get U.S. taxpayers to pay for the security of Israel.
There are only 5,874,300 Jews in Israel [jewishvirtuallibrary.org]. There are approximately 5,275,000 Jews in the United States. [wikipedia.org] In some ways, the U.S. is as much o
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Clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
> The gear shipped to Iran, called NetEnforcer, can inspect pieces of data moving over a network. It can be used to eliminate spam or help network
> operators prioritize or block certain types of traffic.
It's not even funny -- it's not "spyware", it's just a traffic sniffer.
Admittedly, they break the israeli law that prohibits trading with Iran, but it's hardly a threat to national security.
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Thats not a murder weapon, its a duck hunting shotgun! lol. sure.
Not even a sniffer. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using Allot's equipment for nearly 10 years now, from a lowly NetEnforcer 800 (with a throughput of only 200Mbps and I'm not even sure about that) to an array of SG-Sigma's (each capable of handling 120Gbps) and none of those had any sniffing capability. I really with it had, it would've saved me quite a lot of work.
Oh, it can tell you that A amount of traffic is going from IP B to IP C using protocol D (and here's where the DPI lies, in its ability to identify L7 protocols) and allows you to rate-limit, based on various criteria, said traffic, but it just can't sniff it. There's no way a NetEnforcer be able to allert the authorities about the anti-islamic message you've just posted on a blog, believing you were anonymous.
Some NetEnforcers could steer traffic based on definable criteria, say all HTTP traffic between private users and GMail, to a third-party equipment capable of sniffing that traffic, but that's as close as the NE comes to being a sniffer.
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Gmail uses https which is hard to sniff...
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Some people will sell anything to anybody even if it is directly against their national interest.
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From TFA: > The gear shipped to Iran, called NetEnforcer, can inspect pieces of data moving over a network. It can be used to eliminate spam or help network > operators prioritize or block certain types of traffic.
It's not even funny -- it's not "spyware", it's just a traffic sniffer. Admittedly, they break the israeli law that prohibits trading with Iran, but it's hardly a threat to national security.
The issue isn't that this is a direct threat to Israeli security, the issue is that this technology is used by the Iranian government to monitor the internet use of Iranian citizens. It's part of the infrastructure of repression that keeps the Iranian regime in power and allows them to crack down on dissent.
One thing that is rather surprising is that Iran would buy Israeli technology. The Israelis are pretty formidable when it comes to cyberwarfare- they are thought to have helped develop Stuxnet and were
not true. (Score:3, Informative)
>> had gone to a country whose leaders have called for the destruction of the Jewish state.
That statement is because of a bad translation. Stop lying, FoxNews's presenter
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Are you bloody insane?
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Guess he's got company.
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You would think they'd fix the translation. But no, years later we still have:
http://www.president.ir/en/10114 [president.ir]
Or are you claiming Fox news runs the Iranian President's web site?
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Ignore it. It's a knee jerk reaction to anything that smacks of something possibly, slightly, remotely, or even unintentionally right wing. Instant Fox News stab.
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None of that has anything to do with the claim that the leaders of Iran never said such a thing and it was all a bad translation jumped on by Fox News. But I guess moving the goal posts is the only option.
Also since Israel doesn't admit to having tactical nuclear bombs in the first place, claiming they are continuously debating and contemplating using them is just ludicrous.
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Yes "wiped off the map" and "destruction" I consider synonyms.
And do you have any citations for claims of destruction the other way?
Sure Iran has said they'll bomb Iranian nuclear facilities if push comes to shove, but that's not a statement about removing Iran from the map. IIsrael didn't remove Iraq from the map when they did exactly that to Iraqi nuclear facilities after all.
And the US has talked about using military force against Iran - but again the US did that with Iraq too and maybe you haven't notic
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Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying she would 'oblierate Iran if they ever attacked Israel.
John McCain sang a song about 'bomb, bomb, bomb Iran'
The US and Israel are what they claim to fight against.
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You are leaving out a key part of the Hillory Clinton quote - she was responding to the question what would she do if she was President and Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel. Leaving out that the response was regarding a nuclear attack is a little deceptive.
So Clinton's one is a threat to wipe Iran from the map essentially - but it's conditional on Iran making a preemptive nuclear strike on Israel. That's what the nuclear umbrella is - the US is committed to that with respect to a nuclear attack on a
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The question was absurd...if Iran which doesnt have a nuke and has not started a war in centuries launched a nuclear attack, something no country has ever done besides the US onto Israel...a country it has never militarily fought before what would the US do?
It was absurd, but it painted the picture Clinton wanted and let her come off as a tough guy against those 'muslims' during the election.
The US has overthrown an Iranian government, bombed oil rigs, boats, a civilian airliner, supported terrorists attack
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Yes I also read "Zionist Regime of Israel" as a synonym for "state of Israel". And "wipe of the map" doesn't apply to regime change anyway - since the map stays the same. Hoping the destruction of a democratic government and it's replacement with something else is not the same as hoping for a nation to be wiped off the map.
And no I didn't say that dropping bombs on another sovereign state is not such a big deal. You made that up completely out of thin air.
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Iran doesn't recognize Israel as a nation so obviously there isn't going to be a single word about "nation" or "state". Iran uses the terms "Zionist regime" and "occupied Palestine" to reference the nation of Israel. They know that, Israel knows that, everyone except apparently you knows that.
And no I didn't use bombing and invading as positive examples of how to deal with unfriendly states - again you are making that up.
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I didn't say they avoid the word Israel - again you are making that up in order to try and have a point. I said they avoid the words "nation" and "state" in reference to Israel - you know the two words you claimed the lack of meant they couldn't be referring to Israel as a state.
The point was that Iraq still exists on the map and hence invading/bombing a country does not wipe them off the map. Hence talking about a country being invaded or bombed is not the same as talking a country being wiped off the map.
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I read your statement "if Iran doesn't recognize Israel to the point they are incapable of using word Israel as reference to the state or nation" to be saying that I claimed Iran wouldn't use the word Israel.
You said ""the "wipe off the map" remarks clearly applies to "zionist regime", no matter hard you and fox try to twist the passage there is no single word ab
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s/France/UK/ and s/England/Ireland/.
I believe that the two substitutions make it a bit more realistic.
This is really dangerous! (Score:2)
NetEnforcer is actually a traffic shaper, rather than spyware, the one ISPs use to lower priority of bittorent downloads.
This sale is really bad for the free world: instead of downloading their pr0n all day long, more Iranians will join the Revolutionary Guard and enrich uranium! Now we are really doomed!
Iran never called for Israel's destruction (Score:5, Informative)
The leaders of Iran never called for the destruction of Israel. I guess you're referring to Ahmadinejad's alleged "wiped of the map" statement. See here [wikipedia.org] for what he really said. Although he really is a nutcase if he denies the holocaust.
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It's pretty easy to say "death to..." and when called out on it to say "well we really meant..." which is what Ahmadinejad the leaders before him, and the Ayatollah's have done too. I'm sure you already know what this is called, and I don't have to spell it out for you.
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It's pretty easy to make up lies to feed to ignorant people who don't bother to check facts and just work on the basis of racist prejudices and a massive generalisation of an entire people. I'm sure you already know what this is called, and I don't have to spell it out for you.
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Really? I guess that it's all just a careful misrepresentation of a careful misunderstanding, that the words aren't said, but the words are said, but not in the way they're said, in the way they're said. Don't be naive, if you've been to Iran you already know exactly what the government would like to do.
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It's pretty easy to say "death to..." and when called out on it to say "well we really meant..." which is what Ahmadinejad the leaders before him, and the Ayatollah's have done too. I'm sure you already know what this is called, and I don't have to spell it out for you.
What is worse than idiot puppets like Ahmadinejad is the religious hypocrisy that empowers them. Just look at the war-mongering drivel such religions are based on: Qur’an 47:4? [quran.com], Deuteronomy 20:10-17 [biblegateway.com], Qur’an 9:5 [quran.com], Numbers 31:17-18 [biblegateway.com].
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Yes. As much mistranslated as the people who were out shouting death to the Jews, and death to Israel in Cairo today I'll bet too. Actually, no, lets just skip this and go right to the go to Iran well if you can, and when you get back. Let me know what the state media thinks and what the government tells you what the people should be doing.
I'll wait. Though if you're american, you'll probably spend a stint there and might end up with broken hands, or feet or something.
Re:Iran never called for Israel's destruction (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that the 'wiped off the map' quote is a dishonest distortion. /videoplay?docid=-7506561148101946170 .
I am certain though that Ahmadinejad has made very crude statements about Israel. Only, these statements are for public consumption only and often the the louder the statements, the less they represent what is actually going on. Take the 'wiped off the map' statement. This is a reference to an older quote by Khomeini, but in Khomeini's days Iran was an ally of Israel. The alliance was broken off after the 1990 gulf war, because with Iraq gone and the USSR gone Israel had to change its strategy and Iran became a regional competitor. It's then that Israel started to float the story about Iran working on a bomb, and Netanyahu was on the first row then, so he's fully aware of the background. A good introduction can be had by viewing a Trita Parsi speech on the treacherous triangle such as this one http://video.google.com/ [google.com]
As for their nuclear weapons program, well, in one word I'd describe it as nonexistant. A good source for that would be Flynt Everett - Hillary Mann at raceforiran.com as well as the american experts that matter - for example the NIE.
If you check iranian officials, they want passive nuclear capability: having a general level of technological development such that there is a credible threat that if they one day the situation becomes that pressing that they have to start working on a bomb, then they would be successful in a reasonable time. Every developed country has this capability, and many countries go further. Japan has an official policy of threshold capability. That means everything is in place so they can make a bomb in the shortest possible time, in this case 2 months.
There are good reasons to believe Iran is telling the truth about this, because , while there can always be some research, such as before 2002, they have a lot of reasons not to go further. There is the religuous , of fundamentalist reason if you want, that nuclear bombs are haram. This is the reason Iran refused to use chemical weapons in the war with Iraq. There is the reason that Iran would become totally isolated. There is the reason that they have a regional advantage they would lose if they triggered proliferation and everyone would get a bomb.
It is interesting that when you press that issue it turns out that for western and Israeli officials the nuance doesn't matter. Whether they're trying to make a bomb or are just technologically advanced enough so they could if they wanted, it doesn't matter. In both cases Iran is a player. Even Hillary Clinton has said such a thing (but I lost the reference.)
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It's sad to see people go to such lengths trying to explain away Iran's covert nuclear weapon program.
Every single intelligence service in the world is in agreement that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. All, that is, except Russia and China. Of course Russia is selling billions of dollar's worth of weapons to Iran (and Iraq before that) and China is heavily dependent on Iranian oil.
Even ignoring this fact, why in the world would Iran need nuclear energy? They have enough oil to meet domestic demand for o
Re:Iran never called for Israel's destruction (Score:4, Informative)
Every single intelligence service in the world is in agreement that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
No, they are not. Not even all the U.S. intelligence services are in agreement about this. The"official" stance is that they are working on them, but there have been several public dissenting views come out from your CIA and FBI.
Of course Russia is selling billions of dollar's worth of weapons to Iran (and Iraq before that)
[citation needed]
#1 Iraq did not have weapons, ergo Russia did not sell weapons to them
#2 If Russia already sold weapons to Iran, they already have them, therefore their "proliferation" is a done deal.
Please stop making shit up.
The real issue is that there is significant international pressure for Iran to stop its nuclear program for civilian (power) purposes. First off, Iran is quite correct in that this is unfair as they are have signed the NPT, and have cooperated with the IAEA. Secondly, now that such crippling sanctions are in place against them, why should they stop? They are rightly convinced that the world will view them as a nuclear threat whether or not they stop their civilian program, and they now need that civilian program more than ever due to the sanctions.
Economic sanctions are a precursor to war. The American propaganda machine wants war with Iran. When have you ever known the American's to let the truth stand between them and one of their holy wars.
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Your third citation is a claim that has been proven to be completely bases several times.
You are twisting the facts to support you own perverted world-view.
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Your first two citations re:Russia selling Iran nukes have nothing in them saying that they do. In fact, your second citation explicitly says that Russia is NOT selling Iran nukes.
I never said Russia is selling Iran nukes. I said Russia is making billions of dollars a year selling weapon systems to Iran. Russia is against economic sanctions because it would prohibit them from continuing to make more such sales in the future.
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Why are so many bleeding-heart liberals exerting more energy defending dictators than working to remove them? Who do you think is helping Syria slaughter its people?
#1 Why do you suppose I am a "bleeding-heart liberal"? It seems that just because I disagree with you, you need to find some label to place on me.
#2 I have no problem with removing dictators. I do have problems with the American establishment doing it under the pretext of "they have weapons of mass-destruction!!!", when they decidedly do not.
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This is a reference to an older quote by Khomeini, but in Khomeini's days Iran was an ally of Israel. The alliance was broken off after the 1990 gulf war, because with Iraq gone and the USSR gone Israel had to change its strategy and Iran became a regional competitor.
I stopped reading after this sentence since it is so wrong, I assume the rest of it is also drivel. Israel and Iran were allies up until the Islamic revolution of 1979 in which Khomeini took power. You may have heard about the Iran hostage crisis, which happened at the same time when Iran's friendly relationship with the US was similarly dissolved. The Islamic council of Iran, which still rules today, has always been hostile to the US and Israel
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They were allies, not publicly but in practice. You may have heard that Israel helped to arm Iran during the war.
In fact in the early nineties the Iranians got the impression that what got Israel to suddenly change their position was when in one of the secret meetings they asked the Israelis to help them restore relations with the US. So far for the hostility towards the US.
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The Shah did business with Israel as he was really a Western leader...but Iran did not reconize Israel officially. Israel was/is disliked for what it is...an European colony.
The Jewish population in Iran was massive and goes back centuries. Although tens of thousands have left there are still 30-50K Iranian Jews.
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I'm amazed every time the Ahmadinejad apologentsia brings up this ridiculous "he didn't literally say it" defense. It's so moronic it beggars belief.
Ahmadinejad spoke in Farsi. Why is it a surprise that when translating from one language to another and, more importantly, from one culture to another that the literal translation will not be the same?
The people most qualified to understand the culturally relevant meaning of his words, the official Iranian translation service, had no problem understanding his i
I RTFA, but... (Score:2)
Sorry, I RTFA, but I'll post instead about the company's name: "Allot". Boy, if only they had named it "Allotof", the potential lulz would have been huge.
Allotof Declines...
XD
That's all. Proceed as usual.
"Iran's 'leaders' call for [blah blah]" (Score:3)
It is as ignorant and inaccurate to call Ahmadinejad one of Iran's "leaders" as it is to call the US President one of the USA's "leaders". Both are spokespeople and figureheads whose authority extends little further than public relations.
But whatever: Anything that paints Iran as the bad guy (against poor embattled little Israel, the lonely regional good guy...) helps build the case for the next unnecessary and awful American military action. Nice work, editors. Haz real journalism?
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Democracy is dead. Long live democracy.
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Wealth is power. The true power in your country is possessed by the wealthy, not the president. You live in a dream world.
Cool story bro. But this is what happens when you take figures of speech literally.
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There is a difference between formal power and real power.
The President of the United States has a great deal of formal power, but very little "real" power. His decisions are constrained in many complex ways by his party, his backers, his financial contributors and the various civil and military services in the US, which are the real creators of policy. They are the ones that present the viable options the figurehead chooses from.
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"Both are spokespeople and figureheads whose authority extends little further than public relations. "
The President of the US has the authority to launch a nuclear attack.
BFD (Score:2)
Impossible to stop (Score:2)
This probably happens all the time with any equipment where sale isn't restricted to government intelligence agencies, whether the vendor is complicit or not. You just ship stuff to a middleman in an approved country and then smuggle it to the final destination. It isn't rocket science. Plus, they could probably just build a similar system themselves with all FOSS tools anyways.
Money is the only Flag (Score:1)
They knew, the only thing Israel does better than tech and weapons is espionage and money is king before any nation or flag, the only other thing that comes to mind is what little "surprises" are hidden in the gear waiting to be used against Iran so that in effect, this oops moment is plausible deniability.
US Just hates Iran (Score:1)
Since the fall of the Shah, US foreign policy is biased against Iran. At least that is the opinion I have formed after following the Israeli blog http://samsonblinded.org/blog/ [samsonblinded.org] . For instance, Saudi Arabia can get Nukes, but practically nobody reports it. OTOH from comments already posted on slashdot, this sale to Iran appears technically trivial
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Saudi, Isreal, Pakistan, India, North Korea. All allowed to have nukes, but with 0 evidence the world puts huge propaganda and sanctions against Iran, and the U.S. starts a habit of routinely invading their airspace.
To all the people warmongering against Iran:
If anyone can show conclusive proof that Iran is working on a nuke, I will buy into the war machine.
Otherwise, please tell these other countries to disarm or you idiots can STFU about Iran.
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I thought people had learned after Iraq but sadly, they haven't.
The worst thing about the Iran Propaganda is that they won't even have to admit they were wrong.
Instead of "Ok, There were no WMDs but... Democracy! Dictator!" it will be "We stopped them before they could build the Nukes! Also... Democracy! Dictator!".
How I Learned to Start Thinking and Hate the Jews (Score:1)
There are two types of people in the world: people who think there are two types of people in the world and people who don’t. I’m among the first type and I think the world is divided into people who recognize the Jewish problem and people who don’t.
In other words, the world is divided into smart people and dumb people. If you’ve got an IQ of 80, have difficulty operating a can-opener, and recognize the Jewish problem, you’re smart. If you’ve got an IQ of 180, have alread
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The question is , who has the sickest mind. You or the guy who wrote this?
Hari Seldon Will Be Pleased (Score:2)
Am I the only one who thought of Isaac Asimov's Foundation when I read that headline?
Get over it ... it is just business. (Score:2)
US, EU, RU, CN, Israel, Iran, Vatican ... it is just business as usual. WTF do people expect? Better! WTF do politicians expect? Privilege! WTF do clerics expect? Power!
It is a global plutocracy that works better than war. It ain't democracy, capitalism, communism, religion, values, faith, happiness, joy ... WTF not plutocrats/aristocracy the delusional-elitist that have always ruled human culture and destiny that assures upheavals and changes by violence, destruction, genocide, extinction ....
That whic
Propaganda on Slashdot (Score:2)
The Iranian leader called for the 'end of the Zionist regime' which was turned into the destruction of the Jewish state...cause that plays into the "Israel is hated cause of the Arabs are antiSemities bs that is pushed in the US.
The reality is Zionism is rightfully despised by 95% of the world because its is a racist idealogy..."lets setup a state for our ethno/religious group by pushing out the indigenous people of the area because in an imaginary man says it belongs to us" Das racist.
Re:Oops! (Score:5, Insightful)
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"There's a good chance I may have committed some light treason."
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The irony is delicious. It would be as if we had sold Stinger missiles to Mujahedin or something like that.
Re:Oops! (Score:4, Interesting)
The irony is delicious. It would be as if we had sold Stinger missiles to Mujahedin or something like that.
You didn't sell them, you gave them to the Mujahedin. I will never understand why everybody is so worked up over those damn Stingers. The black arms market is awash with various types of Russian MANPADs ranging from Chinese/Paki/Egyptian made knockoffs of the SA-7/16/18 to cutting edge SA-24s looted from Libyan arsenals and that last missile in particular poses a much more serious danger in the hands of terrorists than a bunch of dusty 1980s vintage Stingers that probably won't even work any more. Any Reagan era Stingers are now time expired (IIRC the shelf life is about 10 years) and if they still exist they have been stored for 20 plus years under suboptimal conditions in mud brick huts in the Pakistani/Afghan hinterland which is not exactly the best way to extend their shelf life.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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US district court is NOW saying Iran did 9/11 [bloomberg.com]
I'm seriously surprised they are leaving Pakistan for the dessert... Could that be because India is friends with Iran as of late? [farsnews.com]
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Actually, not any longer ("We've always been at war with Eastasia").
Also:
Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. [wikipedia.org]
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I feel like some midnight snacks. Anyone know if Bhutan & Tibet taste good ?
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Apparently Israel also organized the export of 69 Patriot missiles to China [newsnet14.com] as well.
Sounds like someone is just trying to stack everything up for another war.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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I know this post is not going to change your mind and beliefs but maybe someday you will open your mind and heart to the reality of this world and then you will realize.
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Your making the fallacy that ALL muslims think like that. Right-wing muslims, christians and jews are all the same, and they all spread fear and hatred toward the other religions because it helps them make money and keep power. Right now, a Muslim and a Jew are both writing the same thing you just wrote but with some religion names switched around, because they have the same money and power controlled media as we do and the same asses that believe every dumb simplification that gets repeated on that media.
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Kinda funny considering IBM received no major backlash in the US for selling computing/tabulating equipment to the Nazis while making M-1 Carbines for our boys going over there.
I guess in the US, large companies are exempt from having to have a sense of ethics and morality. Everything is OK as long as it increases shareholder value and a few bucks get put in the right hands. Even if it's treasonous. Glad Israel doesn't work the same way.
mandatory (Score:2)
Milton Friedman describing how a #2 pencil is made through efforts of people who "might hate one another if they ever met" still cooperate because of trade:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8 [youtube.com]
This isn't an oops moment. This is a moment to realize, once again, that greed is the best tool for cooperation known to man kind.
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The oops was that the news got out. The Israelis planned it to get to those regimes all along, the stuff is full of backdoo*&^ .. '@ ...
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no carrier
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... of course, then there will be no way to get rope any more.
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Written as I sit here smoking a cuban. Isn't being non-american great?
Re:China, more importantly .... (Score:2)
The American companies have never had a problem selling "TopSecret" technology to China.
There is no doubt, a national/international company does not care, if their company is selling to the US, EU, RU, CN, Israel, Iran, our potential foes.
"Profit is profit" is a mantra expressing values.