Transatlantic Politics

Just released: "Cold Waves", a great documentary by the Romanian filmmaker Alexandru Solomon  (41 years old) about what Radio Free Europe meant for the listeners in the Communist block, especially Romanians. It was the only trustworthy medium in a sea of Communist propaganda. It was also highly risky to listen to it. The Secret Police (Securitate) and the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu himself considered this radio station as the main enemy in the decreasing popularity of his regime. The Securitate had about 800 people hired to follow the RFE journalists abroad and their listeners in Romania. They constantly tried to silence the RFE voices. Starting with hostile propaganda on the lines of "Radio Free Europe is a CIA propaganda machine" (despite the fact that since the late 60s the CIA was not funding it anymore) and culminating with terrorist attack carried out by Carlos the Jackal against the Munich-based radio station. Three of the directors of the Romanian RFE section died of cancer and one of them suspected that he might have also been exposed to radiation. Although there were no traces of radiation in the building, the memoirs of the former Securitate-agent Ion Mihai Pacepa (Red Horizons) speaks of a portable device that could irradiate targets. Ceausescu even found a nickname for it, "Radu". Since the Litvinenko case, this theory might be more credible than before, but there is hardly any evidence to support it…

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Charles Krauthammer (affectionately called the "Hammer") examines the real reasons behind Isreal's recent airstrike in northern Syria.

UPDATE:  This UK Times Online piece sheds even more light on Israel's apparent tactical nuclear air strike against Syria (including details about the use of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit to plan the strike).

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If you were in New York City over the weekend and saw what was billed as a Muslim Day Parade, you would have possibly stumbled upon a scene better suited to the Middle East: 

For a complete recount, visit NYC's own Urban Infidel

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A pretty incredible piece in The Washington Times about how China is secretly sending arms to Iraq & The Taliban militia in Afghanistan through Iran:

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran…

Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.

The Washington Times reported June 5 that Chinese-made HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles were being used by the Taliban.

According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin. China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted.

The weapons were described as "late-model" arms that have not been seen in the field before and were not left over from Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq.

U.S. Army specialists suspect the weapons were transferred within the past three months…

Is anyone surprised?  After all, the Chinese are still Communists. 

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Iran opposition group PMOI that supported the kidnappings of US diplomats in 1979 is suing the EU for €1 million in damages and to clear its name of being stuck on Brussels' terrorist register.

Lawyers for the PMOI on Wednesday filed the law suit at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, saying the EU is breaking its own laws by not following a verdict by the Court of First Instance last December, which annulled the EU's earlier decision to list the group. Any officially-designated "terrorist" organisations have their financial assets frozen and are forbidden from fundraising in Europe, writes EUObserver.

The PMOI started out in 1965 as a Marxist-Islamist anti-corruption movement in Iran but fled after suffering purges that saw over 150,000 members slaughtered by the post-cultural revolution Islamic regime. The Mujahidin organised cross-border raids against Iran from bases in Iraq in the 1990s but says it renounced the use of arms in 2001, with a 2003 US army report saying the Iraq PMOI wing no longer has any guns. In the past few years PMOI and its sister group, the NRCI, has positioned itself as the democratic opposition in Iran and attracted backers including retired US generals, members of the UK House of Lords, former EU judges and MEPs. The movement accuses the UK and France of putting it on the EU terrorist register in order to have cards to play in the Iran nuclear diplomacy game. 

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