by Richard Sauder
4 February 2008
from
CyberSpaceOrbit Website
The last week has seen a spate of
unexplained, cut, undersea communications cables that has severely
disrupted communications in many countries in the Middle East, North
Africa and South Asia. As I shall show, the total numbers of cut
cables remain in question, but likely number as many as eight, and
maybe nine or more.
The trouble began on 30 January 2008 with CNN reports that two
cables were cut off the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, initially
severely disrupting Internet and telephone traffic from Egypt to
India and many points in between.
According to CNN the two cut cables
“account for as much as three-quarters of the international
communications between Europe and the Middle East.“
CNN reported that the two cut cables off
the Egyptian coast were “FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and
SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen
telecommunications companies”.(10)
Other reports placed one of the cut
cables, SeaMeWe-4, off the coast of France, near Marseille.(9)(12)
However, many news organizations reported two cables cut off the
Egyptian coast, including the SeaMeWe-4 cable connecting Europe with
the Middle East.
The possibilities are thus three, based
on the reporting in the news media:
-
the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut off
the coast of France, and mistakenly reported as being cut
off the coast of Egypt, because it runs from France to Egypt
-
the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut off
the Egyptian coast and mistakenly reported as being cut off
the coast of France, because it runs from France to Egypt
-
the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut both
off the Egyptian and the French coasts, nearly
simultaneously, leading to confusion in the reporting
I am not sure what to think, because
most reports, such as this one from the International Herald
Tribune, refer to two cut cables off the Egyptian coast, one of the
two being the SeaMeWe4 cable,(11) while other reports
also refer to a cut cable off the coast of France.(9)(12)
It thus appears that the same cable may
have suffered two cuts, both off the French and the Egyptian coasts.
So there were likely actually three undersea cables cut in the
Mediterranean on 30 January 2008.
In the case of the cables cut off the Egyptian coast, the news media
initially advanced the explanation that the cables had been cut by
ships' anchors.(10)(13) But on 3 February the Egyptian
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said that a
review of video footage of the coastal waters where the two cables
passed revealed that the area had been devoid of ship traffic for
the 12 hours preceding and the 12 hours following the time of the
cable cuts.(5)(11)
So the cable cuts cannot have been
caused by ship anchors, in view of the fact that there were no ships
there.
The cable cutting was just getting started. Two days later an
undersea cable was reported cut in the Persian Gulf, 55 kilometers
off of Dubai.(11) The cable off of Dubai was reported by
CNN to be a FLAG Falcon cable.(10) And then on 3 February
came reports of yet another damaged undersea cable, this time
between Qatar and the UAE (United Arab Emirates).(6)(7)(11)
The confusion was compounded by another report on 1 February 2008 of
a cut undersea cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka.(19)
If the report is accurate this would
represent a sixth cut cable. The same article mentions the cut cable
off of Dubai in the Persian Gulf, but seeing as the Suez is on the
other side of the Arabian peninsula from the Persian Gulf, the
article logically appears to be describing two separate cable
cutting incidents.
These reports were followed on 4 February 2008 with a report of even
more cut undersea cables. The Khaleej Times reported a total
of five damaged undersea cables: two off of Egypt and the cable near
Dubai, all of which have already been mentioned in this report.
But then the Khaleej Times
mentions two that have not been mentioned elsewhere, to my
knowledge:
-
a cable in the Persian Gulf near
Bandar Abbas, Iran
-
the SeaMeWe4 undersea cable near
Penang, Malaysia (3)
The one near Penang, Malaysia appears to
represent a new incident.
The one near Bandar Abbas is reported
separately from the one off Dubai and is evidently not the same
incident, since the report says , “FLAG near the Dubai coast” and
“FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran” were both cut. Bandar Abbas is on
the other side of the Persian Gulf from Qatar and the UAE, and so
presumably the cut cable near Bandar Abbas is not the one in that
incident either.
Interestingly, the report also states
that,
“The first cut in the undersea
Internet cable occurred on January 23, in the Flag Telcoms
FALCON submarine cable which was not reported." (3)
This news article deals primarily with
the outage in the UAE, so it raises the question as to whether this
is a reference to yet a ninth cut cable that has not hit the
mainstream news cycle in the United States.
By my count, we are probably dealing with as many as eight, maybe
even nine, unexplained cut or damaged undersea cables within the
last week, and not the mere three or four that most mainstream news
media outlets in the United States are presently reporting. Given
all this cable-cutting mayhem in the last several days, who knows
but what there may possibly be other cut and/or damaged cables that
have not made it into the news cycle, because they are lost in the
general cable-cutting noise by this point.
Nevertheless, let me enumerate what I
can, and keep in mind, I am not pulling these out of a hat; all of
the sources are referenced at the conclusion of the article; you can
click through and look at all the evidence that I have.
It's there if you care to read through
it all.
-
one off of Marseille, France
-
two off of Alexandria, Egypt
-
one off of Dubai, in the Persian
Gulf
-
one off of Bandar Abbas, Iran in
the Persian Gulf
-
one between Qatar and the UAE,
in the Persian Gulf
-
one in the Suez, Egypt
-
one near Penang, Malaysia
-
initially unreported cable cut
on 23 January 2008 (Persian Gulf?)
Three things stand out about these
incidents:
-
all of them, save one, have
occurred in waters near predominantly Muslim nations,
causing disruption in those countries
-
all but two of the cut/damaged
cables are in Middle Eastern waters
-
so many like incidents in such a
short period of time suggests that they are not accidents,
but are in fact deliberate acts, i.e., sabotage
The evidence therefore suggests that we
are looking at a coordinated program of undersea cable sabotage
by an actor, or actors, on the international stage with an
anti-Muslim bias, as well as a proclivity for destructive violence
in the Middle Eastern region.
The question then becomes: are there any actors on the international
stage who exhibit a strong, anti-Muslim bias in their foreign
relations, who have the technical capability to carry out
clandestine sabotage operations on the sea floor, and who have
exhibited a pattern of violently destructive policies towards Muslim
peoples and nations, especially in the Middle East region?
The answer is yes, there are two: Israel and the
United States of America.
In recent years, Israel has:
During the same time frame the United
States of America has:
-
militarily invaded and occupied
Iraq and Afghanistan
-
american forces remain in both
countries at present, continuing to carry out aggressive
military operations
Simultaneous with these Israeli and
American war crimes against countries in the region, both Israel
and the United States have made many thinly veiled threats of
war against Iran, and the United States openly seeks to
increase its military presence in Pakistan's so-called “tribal
areas”.(15) Israel and the United States both have a
technically sophisticated military operations capability. Moreover,
the United States Navy has a documented history of carrying out
espionage activities on the sea floor.
The U.S. Navy has long had special
operations teams that can go out on submarines and deploy undersea,
on the seabed itself, specifically for this sort of operation.
This has all been thoroughly documented
in the excellent book,
Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of
American Submarine Espionage, by Sherry Sontag and
Christopher Drew (1998). The classic example is Operation
Ivy Bells, which took place during the Cold War, in the waters
off the Soviet Union.
In a joint, U.S. Navy-NSA operation,
U.S. Navy divers repeatedly tapped an underwater cable in the Kuril
Islands, by swimming out undersea, to and from U.S. Navy submarines.(14)
This sort of activity is like something straight out of a spy novel
thriller, but the U.S. Navy really does have special submarines and
deep diving, special operations personnel who specialize in
precisely this sort of operation. So cutting undersea cables is well
within the operational capabilities of the United States Navy.
Couple this little known, but very important fact, with the reality
that for years now we have seen more and more ham-handed
interference with the global communications grid by the American
alphabet soup agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI, HoSec) and major
telecommunication companies.
Would the telecommunication companies
and the American military and alphabet soup agencies collude on an
operation that had as its aim to sabotage the communications network
across a wide region of the planet? Would they perhaps collude with
Israeli military and intelligence agencies to do this?
The honest answer has to be: sure, maybe
so.
The hard reality is that we are now
living in a world of irrational and violent policies enacted against
the civilian population by multinational corporations, and military
and espionage agencies the world over. We see the evidence for this
on every hand. Only the most myopic among us remain oblivious to
that reality.
In light of the American Navy's demonstrated sea-floor capabilities
and espionage activities, the heavy American Navy presence in the
region, the many, thinly veiled threats against Iran by both the
Americans and the Israelis, and their repeated, illegal, military
aggression against other nations in the region, suspicion quite
naturally falls on both Israel and the United States of America. It
may be that this is what the beginning of a war against Iran
looks like, or perhaps it is part of a more general, larger assault
against Muslim and/or Arab interests across a very wide region.
Whatever the case, this is no small
operation, seeing as the cables that have been cut are among the
largest communication pipes in the region, and clearly represent
major strategic targets.
Very clearly, we are not looking at business as usual. On the
contrary, it is obvious that we are looking at distinctly unusual
business.
The explanations being put forth in the mainstream news media for
these many cut, undersea communications cables absolutely do not
pass the smell test. And by the way, the same operators who cut
undersea cables in the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea, Malaysia and
possibly the Suez as well, presumably can also cut underwater cables
in the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay and Puget
Sound.
This could be a multipurpose
operation, in part a test run for isolating a country or
region from the international communications grid.
The Middle East today, the USA tomorrow?
What's that you say? I don't understand how the world works? That
kind of thing can't happen here?
In any event, if the cables have been intentionally cut, then that
is an aggressive act of war. I'm sure everyone in the region has
gotten that message. I'm looking at the same telegram as they are,
and I know that it's clear as a “bell” to me.(14)
It is little known by the American people, but nevertheless true,
that Iran intends to open its own Oil Bourse this month (February
2008) that will trade in “non-dollar currencies”.(16)
This has massive geo-political-economic implications for the United
States and the American economy, since the American dollar is at
present still (if not for much longer) the dominant reserve currency
internationally, particularly for petroleum transactions.
However, due to the mind-boggling scale
of the structural weaknesses in the American economy, which have
been well discussed in the financial press in recent weeks and
months, the American dollar is increasingly shunned by corporate,
banking and governmental actors the world over. No one wants to be
stuck with vaults full of rapidly depreciating dollars as the
American economy hurtles towards the basement.
And so an operational Iranian Oil
Bourse, actively trading supertankers full of petroleum in
non-dollar currencies, poses a great threat to the American dollar's
continued dominance as the international reserve currency.
The American fear and unease of this development can only be
increased by the knowledge that,
“Oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
member states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE
have set 2010 as the target date for adopting a monetary union
and single currency.” (2)
The American government's fear must have
ratcheted up another notch when Kuwait “dropped its dollar peg” in
May “and adopted a basket of currencies”, arousing “speculation that
the UAE and Qatar would follow suit or revalue their currencies.”
(2)
Although all the GCC members, with the
exception of Kuwait, agreed at their annual meeting in December 2007
to continue to peg their currencies to the American dollar,(2)
the hand writing is surely on the wall. As the dollar plummets,
their American currency holdings will be worth less and less. At
some point, they will likely decide to cut their losses and decouple
the value of their currencies from that of the dollar.
That point may be in 2010, when they
establish the new GCC currency, maybe even sooner than that. If Iran
succeeds in opening its own Oil Bourse it is hard to imagine that
the GCC would not trade on the Iranian Oil Bourse, given the
extremely close geographic proximity.
And it is hard to believe that they
would not trade their own oil in their own currency.
Otherwise, why have a currency of their
own? Clearly they intend to use it.
And just as clearly, the three cut or
damaged undersea communications cables in the Persian Gulf over the
last week deliver a clear message. The United States may be a
senescent dinosaur, and it is, but it is also a violent, heavily
armed, very angry senescent dinosaur. In the end, it will do what
all aged dinosaurs do: perish.
But not before it first does a great
deal of wild roaring and violent lashing and thrashing about.
There can be no doubt that Iran, and the other Gulf States, were
intended recipients of this rather pointed cable cutting telegram,
for all of the reasons mentioned here; and additionally, in the case
of Iran, probably also as a waning for its perceived insults of
Israel and dogged pursuit of its nuclear program in contravention of
NeoCon-Zionist dogma that Iran may not have a nuclear program,
though other nations in the region, Pakistan and Israel, do.
I must mention that one of my e-mail correspondents has pointed out
that another possibility is that once the cables are cut, special
operations divers could hypothetically come in and attach
surveillance devices to the cables without being detected, because
the cables are inoperable until they are repaired and start
functioning again. In this way, other interests who wanted to spy on
Middle Eastern communications, let's say on banking and trading data
going to and from the Iranian Oil Bourse, or other nations in the
Middle East, could tap into the communications network under cover
of an unexplained cable “break”.
Who knows? - this idea may have merit.
It is noteworthy that two of the cables that were cut lie off the
Egyptian Mediterranean coast, and another passes through the Suez.
During the height of the disruption, some 70 percent of the Egyptian
Internet was down. (13)
This is a heavy blow in a day when
everything from airlines, to banks, to universities, to newspapers,
to hospitals, to telephone and shipping companies, and much more,
uses the Internet.
So Egypt was hit very hard. An astute
observer who carefully reads the international press could not fail
to notice that in recent days there has been a report in the
Egyptian press that “Egypt rejected an Israeli-American proposal to
resettle 800,000 Palestinians in Sinai.”
This has evidently greatly upset the
Zionist-NeoCon power block holding sway in Tel Aviv and
Washington, DC with the result that Israel has reportedly threatened
to have American aid to Egypt reduced if Egypt does not consent to
the resettlement of the Palestinians in Egyptian territory.(17)
This NeoCon-Zionist tantrum comes hard on the heels of the
Israeli desire to cut ties with Gaza, as a consequence of the
massive breach of the Gaza-Egypt border by hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians in January 2008. (18)
What are NeoCon-Zionist tyrants to do when their diplomatic hissy
fits and anti-Arab tirades no longer carry the day in Cairo? Or in
Qatar and the UAE?
Maybe they get out the underwater cable
cutters and deploy some special operations submarines and divers in
the waters off of Alexandria and in the Suez and in the Persian
Gulf.
This would be completely in line with articulated American military
doctrine, which frankly views the Internet as something to be
fought. American Freedom Of Information researchers at George
Washington University obtained a Department of Defense (Pentagon)
document in 2006, entitled “Information
Operation Roadmap”, which says forthrightly and
explicitly that “the Department must be prepared to 'fight the
net'”.(20)
This is a direct quote. It goes on to
say that,
“We Must Improve Network and
Electro-Magnetic Attack Capability. To prevail in an
information-centric fight, it is increasingly important that our
forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack
capabilities.“ (20)
It also makes reference to the
importance of employing a “robust offensive suite of capabilities to
include full-range electronic and computer network attack.”
(8)(20)
So now we can add to our list of data points the professed intent of
the American military to “fight the net”, using a “robust offensive
suite of capabilities” in a “ full-range electronic and computer
network attack.”
Maybe this sudden spate of cut communications cables is what it
looks like when the American military uses a “robust offensive suite
of capabilities” and mounts an “electronic and computer network
attack” in order to “fight the net” in one region of the world. They
have the means, and the opportunity, I've amply demonstrated that in
this article.
And now we also have the motive, in
their own words, from their own policy statement.
The plain translation is that the
American military now regards the Internet, that means the
hardware such as computers, cables, modems, servers and routers, and
presumably also the content it contains, and the people who
communicate that content, as an adversary, as something to be
fought.
Oh yes, just a couple of more dots to connect before you fall asleep
tonight:
-
The USS San Jacinto, an
anti-missile AEGIS cruiser, was scheduled to dock in Haifa,
Israel on 1 February 2008. The Jerusalem Post reported that
this ship's anti-missile system “could be deployed in the
region in the event of an Iranian missile attack against
Israel.” (1)
Are we to expect another “false
flag” attack, like the inside job on 9-11 perhaps? - an
attack that will be made to appear that it comes from Iran,
and that is then used as a pretext to strike Iran, maybe
with nuclear weapons? And when Iran retaliates with its own
missiles, then the Americans and Israelis will unleash
further hell on Iran? Is that
the Zionist-NeoCon plan, or
something generally along those lines?
-
I have to wonder because just
this past Saturday, there was a report in the news that,
“Retired senior officers told Israelis ... to prepare
'rocket rooms' as protection against a rain of missiles
expected to be fired at the Jewish State in any future
conflict.”
Retired General Udi Shani
reportedly said, “The next war will see a massive use of
ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory."(4)
Now that we know the Israeli military
establishment's thinking, and now that we have a view into the
American military mindset, we ought to be looking at international
events across the board with a very critical, analytical eye,
especially as they relate to possible events that either are playing
out right now, or may potentially play out in the relatively near
future, say in the time frame of the next one month to five years.
These people are violent and devious;
they have forewarned us, and we should take them at their word,
given their murderous record on the international stage.
References
1) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1202064573279&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
2) http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/business/?id=24186
3) http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2008/February/theuae_February121.xml§ion=theuae
4) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080202132053.iohfg5ob&show_article=1
5) http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/04/2153455.htm
6) http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i03tUdyj8wf2Xa9P4trWEjqAJdyQ
7) http://www.arabianbusiness.com/510132-internet-problems-continue-with-fourth-cable-break?ln=en
8) http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=7980
9) https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Effects+of+Fibre+Outage+through+Mediterranean
10) http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/01/internet.outage/?iref=hpmostpop
11) http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/04/technology/cables.php
12) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/business/worldbusiness/31cable.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
13) http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/31/Cut-cable-disrupts-Internet-in-Middle-East_1.html
14) http://www.specialoperations.com/Operations/ivybells.html
15) http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2213925,00.html
16) http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=37468§ionid=351020103
17) http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2008/02/02/egypt-rejected-an-american-israeli-proposal-to-re-settle-800000-palestinians-in-sinai/
18) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/24/wgaza124.xml
19) http://www.smartmoney.com/news/on/index.cfm?story=ON-20080201-000320-0524
20)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB177/info_ops_roadmap.pdf
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