Obama unveils strategy for slimmed-down military By ROBERT BURNS | AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama put his personal stamp Thursday on a rejiggered Pentagon strategy for absorbing hundreds of billions of dollars in defense budget cuts, marking a turning point in U.S. security policy after a decade of war.

In a rare appearance in the Pentagon press briefing room, the president announced that the military will be reshaped over time with an emphasis on countering terrorism, maintaining a nuclear deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland, and "deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary."

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Those are not new military missions, and Obama announced no new capabilities or defense initiatives. He described a U.S. force that will retain much of its recent focus, with the exception of fighting a large-scale, prolonged conflict like the newly ended Iraq mission or the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

"As we end today's wars and reshape our armed forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies," he wrote in a preamble to the new strategy, which is titled, "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense."

The strategy hints at a reduced U.S. military presence in Europe and says Asia will be a bigger priority. It also emphasizes improving U.S. capabilities in the areas of cyberwarfare and missile defense.

Obama's decision to announce the strategy himself underscores the political dimension of Washington's debate over defense savings. The administration says smaller Pentagon budgets are a must but will not come at the cost of sapping the strength of a military in transition, even as it gets smaller [more efficient and up to date].

In a presidential election year, the strategy gives Obama a rhetorical tool to defend his Pentagon budget-cutting choices. Republican contenders for the White House already have criticized Obama on a wide range of national security issues, including missile defense, Iran and planned reductions in ground forces.

Obama also wants the new strategy to represent a pivot point in his stewardship of defense policy, which has been burdened throughout his presidency by the wars he inherited and their drag on resources.

The new strategy moves the U.S. further from its longstanding goal of being able to successfully fight two major regional wars — like the 1991 Gulf War to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait or a prospective ground war in Korea — at the same time.

The strategy document announced by Obama contained no specifics on the size of expected troop reductions; the Army and Marine Corps already are set to shrink beginning in 2015. The document said the Pentagon will have to find savings in pay and health care benefits for members of the military, but it offered no specifics.

It made clear that while some current missions of the military will be curtailed, none will be scrapped entirely.

"Wholesale divestment of the capability to conduct any mission would be unwise, based on historical and projected uses of U.S. military forces and our inability to predict the future," the document said.

The administration and Congress already are trimming defense spending to reflect the closeout of the Iraq war and the drawdown in [withdrawal from] Afghanistan. The massive $662 billion defense budget planned for next year is $27 billion less than Obama wanted and $43 billion less than Congress gave the Pentagon this year.

Appearing with Obama to answer reporters' questions about the strategy document were Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey. Panetta in recent months had previewed the main themes of the strategy by emphasizing a need to continue pressuring al-Qaida and paying more attention to Asian security challenges, including China and North Korea.

Factors guiding the Obama administration's approach to reducing the defense budget are not limited to war-fighting strategy. They also include judgments about how to contain the growing cost of military health care, pay and retirement benefits. The administration is expected to form a commission to study the issue of retirement benefits, possibly led by a prominent retired military officer.

The administration is in the final stages of deciding specific cuts in the 2013 budget, which Obama will submit to Congress next month. The strategy to be announced by Panetta and Dempsey is meant to accommodate about $489 billion in defense cuts over the coming 10 years, as called for in a budget deal with Congress last summer. An additional $500 billion in cuts may be required starting in January 2013.

A prominent theme of the Pentagon's new strategy is what Panetta has called a renewed commitment to security in the Asia-Pacific region.

The administration is not anticipating military conflict in Asia, but Panetta believes the U.S. got so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 that it missed chances to improve its position in other regions.

China is a particular worry because of its economic dynamism and rapid defense buildup. A more immediate concern is Iran, not only for its threats to disrupt the flow of international oil but also for its nuclear ambitions.

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Robert Burns can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Son of Iran woman to be stoned wants new sentence By Nasser Karimi

Son of Iran woman to be stoned wants new sentence

AP – Iranian Sajjad Qaderzadeh, whose mother, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, has been sentenced to death by stoning …

• Play Video Iran Video:Clemency plea in Iran adultery case Reuters

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Nasser Karimi, Associated Press – Sat Jan 1, 2:31 pm ET

TABRIZ, Iran – The son of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery [NS note: not murder or manslaughter?] demanded Saturday that his mother's verdict be commuted.

In his first public meeting with journalists, Sajjad Qaderzadeh told reporters in the northwest city of Tabriz that he had been freed on Dec. 12 after posting a $40,000 bail and now wants to devote his life to saving his mother.

"We lost our father and we don't want to lose our mother. We demand that her verdict be commuted," Qaderzadeh told reporters.

He was originally arrested in October after speaking with two German journalists about his mother's case. The Germans were also arrested and remain in custody.

Several unidentified people, apparently local officials and possibly plainclothes security officers, were present during the interview, which was Qaderzadeh's first with the international press.

He said he was arrested because the German journalists broke the law by entering the country on tourist visas and then reporting, but it was not clear if he was ever charged.

Later Saturday, journalists were allowed to briefly meet Ashtiani who again confessed to being an accomplice in the murder of her husband, while maintaining that it was her lover, Isa Taheri, who did the actual killing.

"Taheri came to our house and scuffled with my husband. He told me to give the injection he had already prepared," she told reporters after she had dinner with her son.

Ashtiani denied that she was ever tortured during her imprisonment, as had been alleged by her former lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei.

"I want the world to hear me, saying I was tortured is a lie. I was never tortured in prison," she said, criticizing Mostafaei, for internationalizing her case for his own ends.

Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in 2006 after the murder of her husband and sentenced to death by stoning. In the face of international outrage the sentence has been suspended and is under review by the Supreme Court.

She was later convicted of being an accessory to her husband's murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison, said her son.

In the wake of the international outcry over the verdict, the Iranian government has been at pains to show that Ashtiani is guilty, airing several interviews with her repeatedly confessing her crimes.

Qaderzadeh told journalists that he didn't doubt his mother was guilty, but he asked that her stoning sentence be commuted.

"I do not think that my mother is innocent. She is certainly guilty," he said. "However, the decision has to be made by our country's officials. They may change the stoning sentence to some other verdict."

Qaderzadeh said it was not fair that his mother was in jail but that the man who murdered his father, Isa Taheri, was free.

"The question is why Taheri is free? [NS note: yes, why is this? whose friend is he, whose dick did he suck to get off and away scot free? while the woman, the deceased, the son, and the Germans all are being punished?]... I'll get Taheri to face justice even if I need to become a lawyer or memorize the book of law," he said.

Stoning was widely imposed in the years following the 1979 Islamic revolution, and even though Iran's judiciary still regularly hands down such sentences, they are often converted to other punishments.

The last known stoning was carried out in 2007, although the government rarely confirms that such punishments have been meted out.

Under Islamic rulings, a man is usually buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her chest with her hands also buried. Those carrying out the verdict then throw stones until the condemned dies.

Ex-Persia Iran outraged by 'derogatory depictions of ancient Persia' in '300' movie

No one's considered that in the time of the ancient's this graphic view is how they of the wonderful Greek, independent, reason driven city states of that far day imagined and saw the east, whether Persia, Far East, or Egypt; decadent, other, wrong.

Remember when soldiers from the north and African American slaves of the Civil war had tails?

Odd that, perhaps, this hasn't changed in 2500 years.

Or it has, and we can have fun with it.

And then again, the Iranians who no longer wish to be called Persians, except when it's historically cool, mayhaps, should not have changed their name [changed to distance themselves from their former leader the decadent westernized Shah and his new Persia, right? Or wrong?]. And maybe they shouldn't be watching decadent western films.

Neale Sourna
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Iran outraged by 'derogatory depictions of ancient Persia' in '300' movie
Thu Mar 22, 9:48 PM
By Edith M. Lederer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iran's UN Mission expressed outrage Thursday at "deliberate distortions" of ancient Persia in the blockbuster movie "300" and suggested it is propaganda for western efforts to "demonize the Iranian nation."

In a statement, the mission denounced the "crude demonization of Persians as the embodiment of evil, moral corruption."

The movie, which raked in US$70 million in its opening weekend, is based on a comic-book fantasy version of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days.

Even some U.S. reviewers noted the political overtones of the West-against-Iran storyline - and the way Persians in the movie are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks.

The mission's statement came amid a standoff between Iran and the UN Security Council over the Islamic country's nuclear program.

Paul Cartledge, professor of Greek history at Cambridge University in England who consulted on both the movie and an exhibit, said earlier this month the film is good entertainment, though not as "a documentary of what actually happened at Thermopylae" or of the situation in Greece and Persia at that time.

"The movie both suggests what is false - that the Persian king was an outlandish giant with multiple piercings, etc. - and suppresses what is true - the Spartans were in fact fighting as the lead members of a Greek alliance," he said.

Cartledge also said the Persian Empire "was not a one-dimensional barbaric despotism but actually quite civilized and tolerant in many ways - even if by no means well disposed to Greek-style democracy."

The statement from Iran's UN Mission asked: "Why the film fails to convey a bare minimum truth about Iranian history and indulges in invention perverse, demonic images of Persians."
"Indeed, the movie's distorted fabrications about the Persians cannot be isolated from the current concerted efforts by certain western interest circles to systematically demonize the Iranian nation," the mission added.

"The movie's slavish imitation of the anti-Iran discourses by those circles is inextricably tied up with its voice-over metaphoric thrust, reflecting a subtle propaganda that feels no obligation to respecting the sensibilities of the Iranian people."

The film touched a sensitive nerve in Iran, even though it will probably never open there because of the government's restrictions on western films. The cultural advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced it, Iranian television ran several commentaries calling the film insulting and Iranian film directors have pointed to its historical inaccuracies.

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