Romney's new foe: Batman's 'Bane'

This summer's much-anticiapted Hollywood blockbuster, "The Dark Knight Rises," is getting an unusual boost from Democrats and other foes of Mitt Romney who are eager to tie the Gotham crushing villain to the GOP presidential candidate. Their angle: the mask-wearing, "Venom" gas breathing bad guy has a name that sounds just like Romney's former investment firm that President Obama has been blasting as a jobs killer.

"Bane" is the terrorist in the new movie who drives the caped crusader out of semi-retirement in the final Batman movie. Democrats, who believe they have Romney on the ropes over the president's assault on his leadership at Bain Capital, said the comparisons are too rich to ignore.

"It has been observed that movies can reflect the national mood," said Democratic advisor and former Clinton aide Christopher Lehane. "Whether it is spelled Bain and being put out by the Obama campaign or Bane and being out by Hollywood, the narratives are similar: a highly intelligent villain with offshore interests and a past both are seeking to cover up who had a powerful father and is set on pillaging society," he added.

As the Friday release date has neared, liberal blogs were the first to connect Batman's toughest foe with Romney's firm. But now even some conservatives, concerned Romney isn't fighting the Bain attacks hard enough, see a similarity in the epic DC Comics fight and the political campaign.

Conservative commentator Jed Babbin told Secrets, "Now we have the new Batman movie with super-villain Bane, the comic book bad guy who broke the Bat's back. How long will it take for the Obama campaign to link the two, making Romney the man who will break the back of the economy? Romney can't win if he's constantly on the defensive," he said.

Even GOP advisor Frank Luntz jumped into the fray. "Hollywood does it again," he told Secrets. "[Romney] had to know all this was coming and he should have done a lot more to prepare for it."

But conservative analyst Greg Muller doesn't buy the connection or the Bain attacks. "Democrats are truly living in fantasy land if they think the Bain story is anything more than a little summertime blues for Romney," he said. "The election will be a referendum on Obama socialism and the Obama economy. Wonder if the Batmobile was made in China."

Democratic strategist Karl Frisch suggests a Romney comparison instead to Mr. Burns, the devilish nuclear power plant owner on the Simpsons. "The similarities are endless."

And even while playing up the Bane-Bain tie, Lehane suggested that Romney is a weak version. "The 'Bain Romney' should at least endeavor to match the comic book Bane in at least one way: prove to be a worthy adversary. Bane never asked Batman to apologize--neither superheroes nor super villains nor candidates for president should ever ask for apologies from their opponents if they are to be taken serious," he said in a reference to Romney's demand of an apology from Obama for his Bain attacks.

‘Enemies trying to create social crisis in Iran’

TEHRAN - Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said on Sunday that the Western intelligence agencies that participated in the sedition of 2009 have carefully reviewed the factors behind their failure and are planning to create another type of instability, like a social crisis, in Iran. 
 
He said that the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran are conducting a propaganda campaign against the country in order to give the impression that Iran’s system is ineffective and inefficient.
 
He went on to say that the enemies who have a problem with the system of velayat-e faqih (rule by the supreme jurisprudent) in Iran want to convince Iranian citizens that the country’s system is inefficient because it is the velayat-e faqih system. 

One of the enemies’ objectives is to foment discontent among the Iranian people, he said, adding that the enemies are now training some youths to spark street clashes in the country.

“The enemies intend to sow discord between the Iranian nation and government… however, we should comprehensively counter their plots,” he stated.  

Commenting on the Islamic Awakening wave rolling across the region, Moslehi said that the enemies do not want Iran to be a role model for regional countries, and hence they have invented “the phenomenon of Iranophobia.”

Next American woman heads for space -- on this Russian rocket

By ANDREW MALCOLM

Now, here's some real Obama outsourcing.

This morning, Kazakhstan time, the next mission to the International Space Station successfully blasted off carrying the usual trio -- a Russian commander, an astronaut from the international community and an American in a seat rented by NASA since the retirement of the last U.S. space shuttle a year ago this month.

The Soyuz spacecraft, Expedition 32, shown above being moved by rail to the launchpad on Thursday, had Yuri Malenchenko as the commander, Flight Engineer Sunita Williams of NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Flight Engineer Akihiko Hoshide. When they dock with the space station Tuesday, they will bring the ISS crew back up to its usual complement of six.

The trio there is scheduled to end its tour and return to Earth on Sept. 17, while the newest three will orbit the earth until just before American Thanksgiving.

NASA-TV will carry live coverage of the Tuesday docking starting about 12:15 a.m. ET and the hatch opening approximately three hours later.

Assad receives last warning to stop moving his WMD: Top generals defect

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
   
Several high-placed generals bolted Bashar Assad’s inner circle Sunday, July 17, including such key figures as two security services chiefs who were operations commanders of the Alawite Shabiha militia plus the former head of Syria’s chemical and biological administration who took six other generals with him. They all fled to Turkey and defected. A fourth senior general from another security service was assassinated in Aleppo. This is reported exclusively by debkafile’s military sources.

The loss of the generals orchestrating the pro-Assad paramilitary Shabiha’s savage crackdown on the opposition has seriously weakened Assad’s protective circle of trusties and reduced his military and security options.

Also today, the Syrian ruler was given a “last warning” through intelligence channels in the West to leave the warheads and shells loaded with mustard gas, sarin and cyanide where they are. If he dared move them out of the northern and central locations where he deployed them last week, they would be destroyed from the air.

debkafile names the defecting Shabiha commanders as:  Gen. Mohamed Tatouh, Deputy chief of Syrian political intelligence, and Gen. Mohamed Kodissia, deputy chief of the “Palestinian” Intelligence agency (a misnomer: it has nothing to do with Palestinians).

The murdered general, Ali Khallouf, was ambushed by rebels in Aleppo.

Maj. Gen. Adnan Nawras Salou, a Sunnite, who headed the chemical warfare authority until 2008, will no doubt have important intelligence to offer the West about the Assad regime’s current activities and plans for his WMD.

debkafile points to three singular features of the latest wave of defections:

1.  They all managed to spirit their families out of Syria well before they absconded themselves, an operation that must have required weeks of careful and secret preparation. The failure of Assad’s many-tentacled, clandestine agencies to discover what was up and foil the walkouts, attests to serious lapses in their notorious efficiency.

2.  All the defectors served in Damascus at the regime’s nerve center for suppressing the revolt.

3.  They all made tracks for Beirut before making their way to Turkey. Neverthetheless, the extensive spy networks run by Iran and Hizballah in the Lebanese capital failed to pick up on the city’s use as a way station for Syrian defectors in flight to Turkey.

4.  Despite their active roles in crushing the civil uprising in Syria, those generals clearly hoped to escape the consequences of their actions and becoming liable for prosecution.  The Red Cross Committee in Geneva, the first international organization to call the violence in Syria a full-blown civil war, made it clear Sunday, July 15, that international humanitarian law applied henceforth throughout the country and provided a basis for war crimes prosecution, especially if civilians were attacked.

Egyptians pelt Clinton motorcade with tomatoes

By Arshad Mohammed and Marwa Awad

CAIRO (Reuters) - Protesters threw tomatoes and shoes at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's motorcade on Sunday during her first visit to Egypt since the election of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

A tomato struck an Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle landed near the armoured cars carrying Clinton's delegation in the port city of Alexandria.

A senior state department official said that neither Clinton nor her vehicle, which were around the corner from the incident, were struck by any of the projectiles.

Protesters chanted: "Monica, Monica", a reference to Former President Bill Clinton's extra-marital affair. Some chanted: "leave, Clinton", Egyptian security officials said.

It was not clear who the protesters were or what political affiliations they had. Protesters outside Clinton's hotel on Saturday night chanted anti-Islamist slogans, accusing the United States of backing the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power.

The assault on her motorcade came on a day Clinton spoke at the newly re-opened U.S. consulate in Alexandria, addressing accusations the United States, which had long supported former President Hosni Mubarak, of backing one faction or another in Egypt following his ouster last year.

"I want to be clear that the United States is not in the business, in Egypt, of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which of course we cannot," Clinton said.

Clinton also met the country's top general, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, on Sunday to discuss Egypt's turbulent democratic transition as the military wrestles for influence with the new president.

RIGHTS OF ALL

The meeting came a day after she met Mursi, whose powers were clipped by the military days before he took office.

Mursi fired back by reinstating the Islamist-dominated parliament that the army leadership had disbanded after a court declared it void, deepening the stand-off before the new leader even had time to form a government.

The result has been acute political uncertainty as the various power centres try to find a way to get along in a country that still has no permanent constitution, parliament or government more than a year after Mubarak's downfall.

In their hour-long meeting, Clinton and Tantawi discussed Egypt's political transition and the military's "ongoing dialogue with President Mursi," a U.S. official travelling with Clinton said in an email brief.

"Tantawi stressed that this is what Egyptians need most now - help getting the economy back on track," the official said.

Clinton "stressed the importance of protecting the rights of all Egyptians, including women and minorities".

The talks also touched on the increasingly lawless Sinai region and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Speaking after the meeting, Tantawi said the army respected the presidency but would not be deterred from its role of "protecting" Egypt.

"The armed forces and the army council respects legislative and executive authorities," he said in a speech to troops in the city of Ismailia. "The armed forces would not allow anyone to discourage it from its role in protecting Egypt and its people."

TIES STRAINED

Ties with the United States, which provides Egypt with an annual $1.3 billion in military aid, were strained this year when Egyptian judicial police raided the offices of several U.S.-backed non-governmental organisations on suspicion of illegal foreign funding and put several Americans on trial.

The spat ended when Egyptian authorities allowed the U.S. citizens and other foreign workers to leave the country.

During her speech, Clinton said: "When we talk about supporting democracy, we mean real democracy."

"To us real democracy means that every citizen has the right to live, work and worship as they choose, whether they are man or woman, Christian or Muslim."

"Real democracy means that no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else."

That was a message she is likely to have repeated in meetings on Sunday with women and Christians, both groups that fear their rights may be curtailed under a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government.

"She wanted, in very, very clear terms, particularly with the Christian group this morning, to dispel that notion and to make clear that only Egyptians can choose their leaders, that we have not supported any candidate, any party, and we will not," a senior U.S. official told reporters.