Thursday, July 28, 2016

IRAN

IRAN

Iran (/aɪˈræn/ or Listeni/ɪˈrɑːn/ , also known as Persia (/ˈpɜːrʒə/ or /ˈpɜːrʃə/), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia, and it is the second-largest country in the Middle East and the 18th-largest in the world. With 78.4 million inhabitants, Iran is the world's 17th-most-populous country.  It is the only country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The country's central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, make it of great geostrategic importance. Tehran is the country's capital and largest city as well as its leading economic center
.
Iran is  one of the world's oldest civilizations The area was first unified by the Iranian Medes 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. Iran reached its greatest geographic extent during the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC, which at one time stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west, to the Indus Valleyin the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great.
Beginning in 633 AD, Rashidun Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism andZoroastrianism by Sunni Islam. Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. The rise of the Safavid Dynasty in 1501 led to the establishment of Twelver Shia Islam as the official religion of Iran, marking one of the most important turning points in Iranian and Muslim history.
 During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, and under Nader Shah briefly possessed what was arguably the most powerful empire at the time. Through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a constitutional monarchy and the country's first legislative body, the Majles. Following a coup d'état instigated by the U.K. and the U.S. in 1953, Iran gradually became closely aligned with the United States and the rest of the West but grew increasingly autocratic. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution and the establishment of an Islamic republic.
Iran is a major regional and middle power, and its large reserves of fossil fuels — which include the largest natural gas supply in the world and the fourth-largest proven oil reserves — exert considerable influence in international energy security and the world economy. Iran's rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world.
Iran is a founding member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC, and OPEC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a parliamentary democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslim  and Persian is the official language.
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Current Iran profile - timeline

EU boycotts Iranian oil

2012 July - European Union boycott of Iranian oil exports comes into effect.
2012 September - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quarterly report says Iran doubles production capacity at Fordo nuclear site and "significantly hampered" IAEA ability to inspect Parchin military site.
Canada breaks off diplomatic relations over Iran's nuclear programme and support for the Assad government in Syria.
2012 October - Iran's rial currency falls to a new record low against the US dollar, having lost about losing 80% of its value since 2011 because of international sanctions. Riot police attack about 100 currency traders outside the Central Bank.
EU countries announce further sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, focusing on banks, trade and crucial gas imports.
2012 November - Leaked IAEA report says Iran is ready to double output at the Fordo underground uranium enrichment facility.
2013 January - Iran tells IAEA it plans to upgrade uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz plant, allowing it to refine uranium at a faster rate.
Iran arrests 11 journalists accused of co-operating with foreign Persian-language media organisations as part of a clampdown against the BBC and Voice of America in particular.
2013 April - Iran says it has begun operations at two uranium mines and a uranium ore-processing plant, furthering its capacity to produce nuclear material.

Rouhani becomes president

2013 June - Reformist-backed cleric Hassan Rouhani wins presidential election, gaining just over 50% of the vote.
2013 September - President Rouhani tells US broadcaster NBC that Iran will never build nuclear weapons, and repeats offer of "time-bound and results-oriented" talks on the nuclear question in his address to the UN General Assembly.
2013 November - Iran agrees to curb uranium enrichment above 5% and give UN inspectors better access in return for about $7bn in sanctions relief at talks with the P5+1 group - US, Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany - in Geneva.
2014 January - World powers and Iran begin implementing a deal on Iran's nuclear programme following intense talks in Geneva.
2014 April - The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has neutralised half of its higher-enriched uranium stockpile, as per a deal agreed earlier in the year.
The US refuses to issue a visa to Hamid Aboutalebi, Iran's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, over his involvement in the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Iraq crisis

2014 June - President Rouhani says Iran is ready to assist the Iraqi government in its battle against extremist Sunni insurgents, amid reports that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are in Iraq providing military training and advice.
The UK says it plans to re-open the British embassy in Tehran. Full diplomatic relations with Iran were suspended after attacks on the embassy in 2011.
2014 July - The sixth and final round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group begin in Vienna.
2014 August - Iran says it has shot down an Israeli drone near the Natanz uranium enrichment site.
Parliament dismisses pro-reform Science Minister Reza Faraji-Dana for allegedly supporting students and lecturers involved in the 2009-2010 election protests.
2014 November - Russia agrees to build up to eight nuclear reactors in Iran, in move that might ease Iranian demands to have own uranium enrichment.
Vienna negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme fail to finalise preliminary deal signed in Geneva in November 2013. The two sides express confidence that remaining sticking points can be resolved, and agree a seven-month extension to the talks.

Nuclear deal

2015 July - After years of negotiations, world powers reach deal with Iran on limiting Iranian nuclear activity in return for lifting of international economic sanctions. The deal reportedly gives UN nuclear inspectors extensive but not automatic access to Iranian sites.

2016 January - Serious rift in relations after Saudi Arabia executes leading Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Crowd sets Saudi embassy alight, Saudis and some allies break off diplomatic relations with Iran. International economic sanctions on Iran lifted after UN says satisfied with progress on fulfilling nuclear agreement, and President Rouhani embarks on the first European state visit of an Iranian president for 16 years.
2016 February - Reformists perform well in elections to parliament and Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that chooses the Supreme Leader.
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IRAQ

http://mrrmideast.blogspot.com/2016/07/iraq-invades-kuwait-1990-atabout-2-a.html

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AFGANISTAN



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Where is the leadership, character, integrity and intelligence today?

Mass murders will explode, drug and subsatance abuse will increase out of control. sexual immorality will destroy lives and thief of the innocent will sky rocket to support
total insanity.

Watch and learn since no one today learns from the past.

Regards
Mark R. Rienzie

Co D 75 Infantry LRRP
The Most Elite Fighting Force In The United States Army
5th Special Forces Recondo** - CERTIFIED

Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP)
VIETNAM 1969-1970   
Airborne / Ranger Team Leader
Staff Sargent (E6 11B4P)
38 Combat Missions and Never Lost a Man!!
Air Medal, National Defense, Vietnam Campaign, 
Combat Infantry Badge, etc.....
Discharge: Honorable

Cancer, Neuropathy from Agent Orange plus liver compromised, kidney questionable, spleen enlarged, low platelets etc....
PTSD confirmed!
Vietnam Veteran 1969-1970  Facebook
Cell: (516)313-3112 
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Saturday, July 16, 2016

IRAQ


Iraq invades Kuwait 1990
At about 2 a.m. local time, Iraqi forces invade Kuwait, Iraq’s tiny, oil-rich neighbor. Kuwait’s defense forces were rapidly overwhelmed, and those that were not destroyed retreated to Saudi Arabia. The emir of Kuwait, his family, and other government leaders fled to Saudi Arabia, and within hours Kuwait City had been captured and the Iraqis had established a provincial government. By annexing Kuwait, Iraq gained control of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves and, for the first time, a substantial coastline on the Persian Gulf. The same day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously denounced the invasion and demanded Iraq’s immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. On August 6, the Security Council imposed a worldwide ban on trade with Iraq.

On August 9, Operation Desert Shield, the American defense of Saudi Arabia, began as U.S. forces raced to the Persian Gulf. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, built up his occupying army in Kuwait to about 300,000 troops. On November 29, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw by January 15, 1991. Hussein refused to withdraw his forces from Kuwait, which he had established as a province of Iraq, and some 700,000 allied troops, primarily American, gathered in the Middle East to enforce the deadline.
At 4:30 p.m. EST on January 16, 1991, Operation Desert Storm, the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, began as the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire on television footage transmitted live via satellite from Iraq. Operation Desert Storm was conducted by an international coalition under the supreme command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from 32 nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
During the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in an intensive air war against Iraq’s military and civil infrastructure and encountered little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force or air defenses. Iraqi ground forces were helpless during this stage of the war, and Hussein’s only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel to enter the conflict, thus dissolving Arab support of the war. At the request of the United States, however, Israel remained out of the war.
On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive began, and Iraq’s outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. By the end of the day, the Iraqi army had effectively folded, 10,000 of its troops were held as prisoners, and a U.S. air base had been established deep inside Iraq. After less than four days, Kuwait was liberated, and the majority of Iraq’s armed forces had either surrendered, retreated to Iraq, or been destroyed.
On February 28, U.S. President George Bush declared a cease-fire, and on April 3 the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 687, specifying conditions for a formal end to the conflict. According to the resolution, Bush’s cease-fire would become official, some sanctions would be lifted, but the ban on Iraqi oil sales would continue until Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction under U.N. supervision. On April 6, Iraq accepted the resolution, and on April 11 the Security Council declared it in effect. During the next decade, Saddam Hussein frequently violated the terms of the peace agreement, prompting further allied air strikes and continuing U.N. sanctions.
In the Persian Gulf War, 148 American soldiers were killed and 457 wounded. The other allied nations suffered about 100 deaths combined during Operation Desert Storm. There are no official figures for the number of Iraqi casualties, but it is believed that at least 25,000 soldiers were killed and more than 75,000 were wounded, making it one of the most one-sided military conflicts in history. It is estimated that 100,000 Iraqi civilians died from wounds or from lack of adequate water, food, and medical supplies directly attributable to the Persian Gulf War. In the ensuing years, more than one million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the subsequent U.N. sanctions.

War in Iraq begins 2003
In 2003, the United States, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiates war on Iraq. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in a televised address, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” President Bush and his advisors built much of their case for war on the idea that Iraq, under dictator Saddam Hussein, possessed or was in the process of building weapons of mass destruction.
Hostilities began about 90 minutes after the U.S.-imposed deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war passed. The first targets, which Bush said were “of military importance,” were hit with Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. fighter-bombers and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf. In response to the attacks, Republic of Iraq radio in Baghdad announced, “the evil ones, the enemies of God, the homeland and humanity, have committed the stupidity of aggression against our homeland and people.”
Though Saddam Hussein had declared in early March 2003 that, “it is without doubt that the faithful will be victorious against aggression,” he went into hiding soon after the American invasion, speaking to his people only through an occasional audiotape. Coalition forces were able to topple his regime and capture Iraq’s major cities in just three weeks, sustaining few casualties. President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1, 2003. Despite the defeat of conventional military forces in Iraq, an insurgency has continued an intense guerrilla war in the nation in the years since military victory was announced, resulting in thousands of coalition military, insurgent and civilian deaths.
After an intense manhunt, U.S. soldiers found Saddam Hussein hiding in a six-to-eight-foot deep hole, nine miles outside his hometown of Tikrit. He did not resist and was uninjured during the arrest. A soldier at the scene described him as “a man resigned to his fate.” Hussein was arrested and began trial for crimes against his people, including mass killings, in October 2005.
In June 2004, the provisional government in place since soon after Saddam’s ouster transferred power to the Iraqi Interim Government. In January 2005, the Iraqi people elected a 275-member Iraqi National Assembly. A new constitution for the country was ratified that October. On November 6, 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. After an unsuccessful appeal, he was executed on December 30, 2006.
No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
History of the Iraq War

http://thinkprogress.org/report/iraq-timeline/    
A LOT TO READ! NOT WORTH READING.

JUST REMEMBER THIS -.

It has been called the most unpopular war in America since Vietnam.


Iraq Coalition Military Fatalities By Year

Year
US
UK
Other
Total
2003
486
53
41
580
2004
849
22
35
906
2005
846
23
28
897
2006
823
29
21
873
2007
904
47
10
961
2008
314
4
4
322
2009
149
1
0
150
2010
60
0
0
60
2011
54
0
0
54
2012
1
0
0
1
2014
3
0
0
3
2015
6
0
2
8
2016
7
0
0
7
Total
4502
179
141
4822

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 IRAN

 http://mrrmideast.blogspot.com/2016/07/iran.html
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AFGANISTAN



Country in South Asia


Afghanistan /æfˈɡænᵻstæn/, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. Wikipedia
Capital: Kabul
President: Ashraf Ghani
Population: 30.55 million (2013) World Bank
Currency: Afghan afghani
Official languages: Pashto, Dari
Government: Presidential system, Islamic republic


History of Afghanistan
The written history of Afghanistan (Pashto: د افغانستان تاريخ‎ , Da Afġānistān Tārīkh), can be traced back to around 500 BCE when the area was under the Achaemenid Empire,  Since then, many empires have established capitals inside Afghanistan, including the Greco-Bactrians, Mauryas, Kushans, Hindu Shahi, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Timurids, Mughals, Hotakis and Durranis.
Afghanistan (meaning "land of the Afghans") has been a strategically important location throughout history. The land served as "a gateway to India, impinging on the ancient Silk Road, which carried trade from the Mediterranean to China". Sitting on many trade and migration routes, Afghanistan may be called the 'Central Asian roundabout' since routes converge from the Middle East, from the Indus Valley through the passes over the Hindu Kush, from the Far East via the Tarim Basin, and from the adjacent Eurasian Steppe.
Mirwais Hotak followed by Ahmad Shah Durrani unified Afghan tribes and founded the last Afghan Empire in the early 18th century CE. Afghanistan's sovereignty has been held during the Anglo-Afghan Wars, the 1980s Soviet war, and the 2001-present war by the country's many and diverse people: the Pashtuns,Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Aimak, Baloch 
and others. but scholars believe that they are a confederation of various peoples from the past who united under Pashtunwali.
I-Qaeda, Arabic al-Qāʿidah (“the Base”), broad-based militant Islamist
organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s.

The Mujahideen
Al-Qaeda has its origins in the uprising against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Thousands of volunteers from around the Middle East came to Afghanistan as mujahideen, warriors fighting to defend fellow Muslims. In the mid-1980s, Osama bin Laden became the prime financier for an organization that recruited Muslims from mosques around the world. These "Afghan Arab"mujahideen, which numbered in the thousands, were crucial in defeating Soviet forces.
After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to his native Saudi Arabia.
 When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the organization dispersed but continued to oppose what its leaders considered corrupt Islamic regimes and foreign (i.e., U.S.) presence in Islamic lands. Based in Sudan for a period in the early 1990s, the group eventually reestablished its headquarters in Afghanistan (c. 1996) under the patronage of the Taliban militia.
Al-Qaeda merged with a number of other militant Islamist
organizations, including Egypt’s Islamic Jihad occasions its leaders declared holy war against the United States. The organization established camps for Muslim militants from throughout the world, training tens of thousands in paramilitary skills, and its agents engaged in numerous terrorist attacks, including the destruction of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1998), and a suicide bomb attack against the U.S. warship Cole in Aden, Yemen (2000; see USS Cole attack). In 2001, 19 militants associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks
against the United States. Within weeks the U.S. government responded by attacking Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Thousands of militants were killed or captured, among them several key members (including the militant who allegedly planned and organized the September 11 attacks), and the remainder and their leaders were driven into hiding.
The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 challenged that country’s viability as an al-Qaeda sanctuary and training ground and compromised communication, operational, and financial linkages between al-Qaeda leadership and its militants. Rather than significantly weakening al-Qaeda, however, these realities prompted a structural evolution and the growth of “franchising.” Increasingly, attacks were orchestrated not only from above by the centralized leadership (after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, based in the Afghan-Pakistani border regions) but also by the localized, relatively autonomous cells it encouraged. Such grassroots independent groups—coalesced locally around a common agenda but subscribing to the al-Qaeda name and its broader ideology—thus meant a diffuse form of militancy, and one far more difficult to confront.
With this organizational shift, al-Qaeda was linked—whether directly or indirectly—to more attacks in the six years following September 11 than it had been in the six years prior, including attacks in Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Israel, Algeria, and elsewhere. At the same time, al-Qaeda increasingly utilized the internet as an expansive venue for communication and recruitment and as a mouthpiece for video messages, broadcasts, and propaganda. Meanwhile, some observers expressed concern that U.S. strategy—centered primarily on attempts to overwhelm al-Qaeda militarily—was ineffectual, and at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, al-Qaeda was thought to have reached its greatest strength since the attacks of September 2001.
On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed by U.S. military forces after U.S. intelligence located him residing in a secure compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, 31 miles (50 km) from Islamabad. The operation was carried out by a small team that reached the compound in Abbottabad by helicopter. After bin Laden’s death was confirmed, it was announced by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, who hailed the operation as a major success in the fight against al-Qaeda. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda released a statement announcing that Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s long-serving deputy, had been appointed to replace bin Laden as the organization’s leader.

Ideology and Goals
The principal stated aims of al-Qaeda are to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel, topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East, and  unite all Muslims and establish, by force if necessary, an Islamic nation adhering to the rule of the first Caliphs.

Al-Qaeda


THE UNITED STATES NEEDS A PLAN WITH A MISSION STATEMENT.    DECLARE WAR!

Coalition Military Fatalities By Year

YearUSUKOtherTotal
2001120012
20024931870
20034801058
2004521760
200599131131
2006983954191
20071174273232
20081555189295
200931710896521
2010499103109711
201141846102566
20123104448402
2013127925161
20145561475
2015222327
20164026
Total23824556813518


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