US charges Singaporeans for selling Iran bomb parts

Veggie Bao SG

Anyways it is over.

Lee Kuan Yew is Lee Kuan Yew.

Lee Kuan Yew maybe will be......uhm.....in a few years.....never mind.....

It doesnt matter......what has happened has happened.....the clock cannot be turned back.....

But what is important is not to engage in factionalism or bashing some group of people, especially if it is related to their upbringing or history.

Anyways if you notice, there is a convergence.

Even the area of dissimilarities is not so fatal or fundamental.

You know Venn Diagram ?

It is like Venn Diagram.

So just be positive and optimistic and enjoy it.

Anyways as time pass and as generations pass, there will be more convergence.

So lets not mention this topic.

4sg SG

Friend......

You must be so naive.......

They are just some ordinary electronics distributor.......

Just think and use your head......

Singapore is a global city and lots of imports-exports companies are trade firms are here......

These 4 people are just your average next-door neighbour electronics trader.....

The one who use their network is probably some Iranian agent or another proxy........

Why would they want to export banned arms materials to Iran purposely ? I dont even think they know or realize what exactly they are doing.

Those are electronics equipment.....maybe dual use.....means can be used for civilian usage as well as military usage.......and I think they are just wholesaler and distributor.......they wont know about some US arms ban......

The whole thing is making me angry.

The coverage in the media is so biased and one-sided.

In the first place, is this ban even legal ?

The ban is from USA. The USA government made it.

Because USA has a political problem with Iran, so they made all these bans and sanctions and blockades.

But not all of these measures have international support. Some are endorsed by UN, so it means all UN members are supposed to follow it, but also there are many measures put in place by USA ownself unilaterally as an extra.

If Im not wrong, this one is from USA unilaterally.

Friends,

Dont you remember last time there was an Australian jihadist (Caucasian boy) who got caught by US soldiers in Afganistan, and then he was put in trial and was about to be punished by jail or whatever by US government, and there was an uproar and a reaction from the Australian public and government. They defended the boy and asked him to be returned.

And that was in war theater, mind you, caught red handed, and those 2 countries are close relatives.

And now.....??

Compare to Singapore..??

For some unilateral blockade measure with dubious legality and morality, these 4 Singaporeans who are electronics distributors, are delivered as sacrificial lambs to satisfy a superpower country.

What makes me angry is that in Straits Times everytime this case is mentioned, they purposely insert the statement from American Ambassador to Singapore, patting and complimenting the Singapore action of delivering sacrificial lambs to satisfy American foreign policy agenda.

WTF ?!

Where is the nationalism ?

Dont you remember,

When the Romanian second-in-charge drove his car and killed some people, there was uproar, from the public and even the government, including Foreign Minister George Yeo who managed to push the case and even cleverly setup some meetings with his counterparts.

(I give him points for that)

But now...?

No voice....?

No defence ?

This one is even worse, because why should Singapore support US foreign policy of imperialism in the Middle East.

But fine.........I can still understand it...for political reasons....I understand Singapore is a small country who need the protection and patronage of a big country like USA....it's ok.....I follow LKY hard nosed no-nonsense approach.......But when the life, safety, wellbeing, and welfare of 4 people are in jeopardy......why is it that Singapore does not try to do something on their behalf ?

At least do something symbolically and make them stop the exports, maybe give them a fine.....or give the punishments here by Singapore local courts and then report it to the US counterpart.......

No action whatsoever to try to help them......

This whole thing is quite pathetic, my friends....

Friend

1) the ban to Iran has been going on for sometime and is a well known.

2)They were fraudulently exporting radio equipment to Iran that subsequently ended up in roadside bombs in Iraq. They may well be electronic trader but all electronic traders should know the difference between electronic gadgets and sensitive radio equipment (and esp to a country Iran).

3) you think our court so short sighted as not to see the concrete evidence presented before him before sending them to the US?

Veggie Bao SG

The ban is well known ?

I dont think it is well known by them.....they are just some small fry electronics Ex-Im trader.......anyways maybe you are right, but I just doubt it.......

Even if it is true, and they know it, is it an international ban, or just an American ban ? I think it is an American ban and not a UN ban, so the American government should have punished their own companies and their own suppliers, how come they want to punish Singaporean distributors as well ?

Even if they want to punish Singaporean parties, how come there is no defence to them, so easily just obey and accept American perspective.

By the way, what is the punishment to the American suppliers ?

Because I have the feeling that the American suppliers and the Singaporean distributors are about the same........meaning they are just being naively used by the Iranian agent......what do they know.

The one who is the brain is the Iranian agent.....meaning the Iranian agent is the one who think and plan and figure out who to circumvent the ban.....then he just use the pathways and the networks....in this case the 4 Singaporean traders........

Then of course the American prosecutor want to catch all.......

4sg SG

1) Every Singapore exporters have the deal with our custom and our custom will specify to them the ban items (very specifically in detail) to import/export. http://www.customs.gov.sg/stgc/leftNav/ove/Legislation.htm

Even ppl like me not dealing with export can read about the ban on Iran in the papers and in the TV.

2) The ban is a UN ban but US is carrying out the judiary in accordance with the UN law.

3) How the US system works is that there are scaler systems of what are permitted to export and how much technology is allowed to export with regards to each of its friendly allies.

For example, Japan - high, Singapore - mid, China - low.

The US can't prosecute the US exporter because Singapore is on its friendly list with the US exporter was most probably permitted to do so under the existing US-Singapore bilateral agreement law. (That is why our Ministers regularly visit the US to update on the bilateral agreements with them - what we can sell to them, what they can sell to us).

This explains why the sensitive radio equipment can be export to Singapore but not to some other countries. This explain why the US govt didn't touch the US co. The US co. did not break the US law with regards to US export agreement with Singapore.

Veggie Bao SG

I see.....

I dont understand how come they could export the electronic antennas if they are listed and specified as banned by Singaporean customs ?

Is that really the case ?

Means it is partly Singaporean customs fault ?

Also are you sure it is a UN ban...? Because it is not mentioned in any articles. I would think they would write it down if it is based on UN and international law. It is confusing to me because I have read there are different types of blockade measures by UN, EU, and US separately.

Also I dont understand why would the American company not punished in any ways, because they could be accused of lacking checks too, and in this same vein, it is the same with the 4 Singaporean traders, they are just middlemen who are being used by the Iranian agent.

Did the Iranian agent openly admit and declare himself, and say why he wanted to buy the antennas, where, how, and for whom ?

I would think he disguised himself, maybe he made an electronics company front and then he just said he wanted the antenna to make a TV relay equipment or whatever.

Still.......for this type of political power play (not a real crime but a political crime) I dont know why Singapore does not try to defend them while still satisfying the political objectives of stopping the exports. Or maybe strike a deal with American prosecutors and ask them not to impose a heavy punishment.

Just gladly hand them over....and in the closing paragraphs....always, the American Ambassador would say a few words.

How nice......

4sg SG

To answer the first part of your questions. The Singapore co. most probably sneaked the items out of Singapore hidden together with or inside of other goods.

Why? I don't know - maybe because of $, maybe because of relation with the Iranian buyer, maybe plain ignorance on the part of the Singapore co.

With due respect, please allow me to say these:-

The US alone can't carry out world wide policy of banning a country.

What the US did was something sneaky. It went to the UN and got the UN to passed resolutions on the Iranian ban - as an effective law, enforces the law itself and instead of using the world court at the Haque (this another story of the US and the European powers.)

Take the recent Syria bombing. The Syria govt bombed its ppl, rite? The UN security council was called into session. But Russia and China refused to join in the US in condemning of Syria. US can't move forward on this case.

The five permanent security council members of US, Russia, China, UK, France plus ten non permanent members have to agree before resolution is passed into law and all countries around the world have to abide by this passed resolution which has become effective law itself.

http://www.un.org/sc/members.asp

As for Iran case, UN security council condemning Iran have been passed again and again so many times that I lost count. Go BBC news or UN website to see more, all rite?

The next move the world is watching what Isreal will do next that UN and US have failed.

Enough said, no hard feeling please. Laughing

Dalforce 1941 SG

Paul Pillar has a great piece up at The National Interest that illuminates just how nutty the present debate about war with Iran really is. And it got me thinking.

If a sensible Martian came down to Earth and looked at the sabre-rattling about Iran, I suspect he/she/it would be completely flummoxed. For our Martian visitor would observe two very capable states -- the United States and Israel -- threatening to attack a country that hardly seems worth the effort. The U.S. and Israel together spend more than $700 billion each year on their national security establishments; Iran spends about $10 billion. The U.S. and Israel have the most advanced military hardware in the world; Iran's weapons are mostly outdated and lack spare parts. The U.S. and Israeli militaries are well-educated and very well-trained; not true of Iran. The United States has thousands of nuclear weapons and Israel has several hundred, while Iran has a vast arsenal of … zero. Iran does have a nuclear enrichment program (which is the reason for all the war talk), but the most recentNational Intelligence Estimates have concluded that Iran does not presently have an active nuclearweapons program. The United States has several dozen military bases in Iran's immediate vicinity; Iran has exactly none in the Western hemisphere. The United States has powerful allies in every corner of the world; Iran's friends include a handful of minor nonstate actors like Hezbollah or minor-league potentates like Bashar al Assad (who's not looking like an asset these days) or Hugo Chávez.

Moreover, the United States has fought four wars since 1990. It has bombed, invaded or occupied a half dozen countries in that period, leading to the deaths of thousands of people. Israel has been colonizing the West Bank since 1967, it invaded and occupied much of Lebanon from 1982 to 1999, and its armed forces pummeled Lebanon again in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-09. Prominent U.S. politicians have repeatedly called for "regime change" in Iran, and U.S. government officials now report that Israel has been murdering civilian scientists in Iran, in cahoots with the MEK, a terrorist organization that is still on the State Department's terrorist "watchlist." Iran's past conduct is far from pure, but it has done nothing remotely similar in recent years.

In fact, given the various threats now facing Tehran, our Martian friend might have trouble explaining why Iran's leaders hadn't gone all-out to get themselves some sort of WMD, merely as a deterrent. And yet it is the United States and Israel that profess themselves to be terribly, terribly worried about the supposed "threat" from Iran, and who are contemplating a preventive war that most observers realize would strengthen Iran's nuclear ambitions and could only delay its program for a couple of years.

Let's be clear: There's nothing to like about the current Iranian regime -- to include its clerical rulers, its buffoonish president, and the various thugs that keep the regime in power -- and I for one am very glad I live here and not there. Nonetheless, our Martian observer might have a lot of trouble figuring out why politicians in Washington and Jerusalem were so scared. In fact, he might very reasonably conclude that both states were losing all sense of perspective, and allowing the worst sort of worst-case analysis to cloud their thinking and cut off useful avenues of diplomatic engagement. And given that the United States likes to think of itself as the "leader of the free world" and is normally expected to exercise sound judgment on a host of complex issues, that possibility is not reassuring.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/10/a_martian_view_of_the_iran_debate

That the foreign policy of George W. Bush has been a catastrophic failure is disputed by none today except for a dwindling number of diehards on the neoconservative right. But there is no consensus on the scope of the failure. Has a sound global grand strategy been poorly implemented, at the operational and tactical level, in Iraq and elsewhere? Or is the failure much deeper than that? Is the grand strategy the Bush Administration has pursued inherently flawed?

This matters because what has become known as the "Bush Doctrine" did not originate with George W. Bush. Rather, it is rooted in a bipartisan consensus that America’s temporary Cold War hegemony in Western Europe and east Asia should be converted into permanent U.S. global hegemony. True, the elder Bush and Bill Clinton viewed the United States as a status quo power whereas the younger Bush has been more inclined to use U.S. power to revise and change the international order, especially in the Middle East. Nevertheless, all three administrations shared the same essential strategic goal of consolidating U.S. global hegemony by averting the "renationalization" of German and Japanese military policy and preventing Russia and China from competing with the United States as "peer competitors." The perpetual "dual containment" of Germany and Japan, coupled with the not-so-secret containment of Russia and China, means that U.S. post-Cold War strategy represents less a break with U.S. Cold War strategy than a continuation of it, in a subtler form.

During the Cold War, the United States was the stronger of two superpowers in a bipolar world. The anti-Soviet alliance was not a traditional alliance of equals, but a hegemonic alliance centered on the United States. West Germany, Japan and South Korea were semi-sovereign U.S. protectorates. Britain and France were more independent, but even they received the benefits of "extended deterrence," according to which the United States agreed to treat an attack on them as the equivalent of an attack on the American homeland. America’s Cold War strategy was often described as dual containment -- the containment not only of America’s enemies like the Soviet Union and (until the 1970s) communist China, but also of America’s allies, in particular West Germany and Japan.

Dual containment permitted the United States to mobilize German and Japanese industrial might as part of the anti-Soviet coalition, while forestalling the re-emergence of Germany and Japan as independent military powers...

http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2007/beyond_american_hegemony_5381

By means of bases in Germany, the U.S. prevents Germany from reemerging as a hostile power, even as it contains Russia. By means of bases in Japan, the U.S. prevents Japan from reemerging as a hostile power, even as it contains China...

Dual containment meant that the U.S. contained both the Soviet Union and communist China and its conquered, demilitarized allies West Germany and Japan, which could not be allowed to reemerge as independent military powers rather than U.S. satellites.

To keep West Germany and Japan as satisfied client-states, the U.S. promised not only to protect their vital security interests but also to practice unilateral free trade, opening its markets to their exports. Throughout the Cold War and beyond, the U.S. turned a blind eye to the aggressive trade policies of its allies, particularly Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian client-states...

http://newamerica.net/node/13515

Veggie Bao SG

Actually, I think it is Ok for Singapore to follow American foreign policy, because Singapore is a small city-state and it needs the patronage and protection of a big country.

It is Ok.

Like this, it is logical.

But at least, when sacrificial lamb is asked.......at least try to do something to protect the lambs........maybe ask for a discount......or say you'll handle it yourself at home......

Even for real criminals, such as rapists, murderers, robbers, etc, those criminals who commit their crime overseas and asked for extradition, even for them it is still also necessary to show care and concern and to represent them to the foreign government and ask that they are treated well and that their rights be respected.

And here the 4 people are not real criminals, they commit some political crime as dictated by USA.

Why is there no care and concern shown to them.

Most outragous is that in the state media, everytime this story is covered, in the last paragraph there is always comments by American Ambassador in Singapore praising it.

So it is 100% political sacrifical lambs.

mancha SG

How to test you have the knowledge or not?

Kena caught, then say "I didn't know." "Nobody told me." Real or just pretending ignorance.

You are in the business of importing/exporting. You just want to make money, don't want to know the laws or list of probibited items, or country.

Dalforce 1941 SG

I reject U.S foreign policy.

lce SG

an antenna is an antenna can be commercial or military use

if those antennas were supplied by ppl in other country. do u think US will do anything?

singapore kenna pawn?

mancha SG

I think if you have shipped some outdated VCR to the Taliban in Afganistan you would also be in trouble.

Summer hill SG

I see.....

I dont understand how come they could export the electronic antennas if they are listed and specified as banned by Singaporean customs ?

Is that really the case ?

Means it is partly Singaporean customs fault ?

Did the Iranian agent openly admit and declare himself, and say why he wanted to buy the antennas, where, how, and for whom ?

I would think he disguised himself, maybe he made an electronics company front and then he just said he wanted the antenna to make a TV relay equipment or whatever.

Just gladly hand them over....and in the closing paragraphs....always, the American Ambassador would say a few words.

How nice......

maybe american want to punish them for show, LOL!!

QX179R SG

Bail extended for S'porean wanted by the US

SINGAPORE : Bail has been extended for one of the four Singaporeans wanted by the United States government for allegedly conspiring to evade an American trade embargo against Iran.

A High Court judge ordered that Lim Yong Nam be given another week on bail.

Lim and three others - Wong Yuh Lan, Lim Kow Seng and Benson Hia Soo Gan - had been ordered to be extradited to the US by a District Judge on February 10.

Lim is out on bail of S$100,000 while the rest are in custody.

His passport has been impounded.

The District Judge ruled that Lim has severe psychiatric conditions and is not suitable to be in detention.

On Friday, the prosecution's Mark Jayaratnam asked High Court Judge Choo Han Teck to revoke the bail ordered by the District Judge.

But Lim's defence lawyer, Hamidul Haq, submitted in his court documents that the District Judge understood that detaining Lim would be "detrimental to his life and health".

The defence urged Justice Choo to take this into consideration when making his decision.

He said Lim "would only suffer a severe relapse of his psychiatric condition" if he is detained.

Mr Haq also suggested in court documents that Lim could be committed to Mount Elizabeth Hospital as an alternative to a prison environment.

He urged Justice Choo not to hold Lim in custody at the Institute of Mental Health as it is against the advice of the accused's psychiatrist.

The case has been postponed to next Thursday.

The four are accused of exporting electronic components from a US company to Iran, which ended up in explosives in Iraq.

At least 16 radio frequency modules were discovered by US forces in Iraq in bombs that were remotely detonated.

The US believes the bombs were the possible cause of about 60 per cent of American combat casualties in Iraq between 2001 and 2007.

- CNA/ms

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