JAISAL NOOR, PRODUCER, TRNN: We're at the George W. Bush presidential conference at Hofstra University, where former administration
officials and scholars are debating his legacy.
One hot topic of debate is the notion of preemptive war, which led to the invasion of Iraq, which was not taken lightly by many
Bush critics, including former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who in 2004 called it an "illegal war." If illegal under the UN charter,
it would be a war of aggression, what the Nurermburg tribunal called the supreme international crime. I asked Elliott Abrams, special
assistant to George W. Bush, about Kofi Annan's characterization of the Iraq war as an illegal war.
ELLIOTT ABRAMS, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO GEORGE W. BUSH: You know, the UN Security Council did vote to permit the use of force in Iraq.
Tony Blair was quite insistent that he would not join in this effort unless there were actually two votes by the Security Council.
So we went back and got the second vote, which means there was no Russian veto, by the way, to allow the use of force. Therefore,
the invasion of Iraq cannot be illegal under international law.
NOOR: UN resolution 1441, which was unanimously passed on November
8th, 2002, gave Iraq a final chance to disarm, or else �face serious consequences for not compliance�. But the resolution never specified
what those consequences would be, and thus did not constitute an authority of use of force. That's what Col. Larry Wilkerson, who
served as Chief of Staff to then-State Secretary Colin Powell told me at the conference.
LARRY WILKERSON, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: There was not authority for the use of force under chapter 7 in the UN first
resolution 1441 in November, 2002.
PHYLLIS BENNIS, FELLOW, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES: 1441 said there would be consequences.
It didn't say what they were, and it was deliberately drafted that way because no country was prepared to endorse a war at that time.
NOOR: Even UN ambassador at the time, John Negroponte, publicly stated 1441 �contains no hidden triggers with respect to the use
of force.�
JOHN NEGROPONTE, AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: I think the important point about the resolution is that it makes
clear that any violation, or any material breach, is a matter that is going to be considered and discussed within the council. We
have all agreed to that.
WILKERSON: That's why we went back. Not just because the British were [abriding], but because we thought we needed a second resolution.
NOOR: Despite repeated attempts, the Bush Administration never got authorization in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.
And so does it follow, then, under international law, the war in Iraq was illegal?
WILKERSON: Under international law, I think it is a sound argument to say that the war was illegal. You could say that about other
exploits of the United States in the past, even without the UN. And I, I think this is the most egregious example, though, because
it is, really, a preventive war.
PETER KUZNICK, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: And people should be held accountable.
NOOR: Some at the conference argued, including Peter Kuznick, a professor of history and the Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute
at American University.
KUZNICK: It's perhaps the most serious war crime ? perhaps the second-most serious war crime. The most serious war crime would
be the use of nuclear weapons and threatening the annihilation of everybody on the planet. But beneath that, the most serious war
crime is, is going to war unprovoked, against a country that is not threatening you, without any kind of international authorization.
So yes, this is a war crime, and people can be held accountable as war criminals, and should be.
NOOR: Isn't it the responsibility of the Obama Administration to hold Bush and Cheney and the CIA and the other leadership accountable
right here in the U.S.?
KUZNICK: Only if you believe in the rule of law, which Obama does, on occasion. In fact, Obama is legally required to bring these
people to justice for what they did.
NOOR: Neither President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld have been charged with conducting an illegal war of aggression.
With Kayla Rivara, reporting from Hofstra University on Long Island, this is Jaisal Noor.
Few people, apart from specialists, may have heard of the JCPOA Joint Commission.
That’s the group in charge of a Sisyphean task: the attempt to revive the
2015 Iran nuclear deal through a series of negotiations in Vienna.
The Iranian negotiating team was back in Vienna yesterday, led by Deputy Foreign Minister
Seyed Abbas Araghchi. Shadowplay starts with the fact the Iranians negotiate with the other
members of the P+1 â€" Russia, China, France, UK and Germany â€" but not
directly with the US.
That’s quite something: after all, it was the Trump administration that
blew up the JCPOA. There is an American delegation in Vienna, but they only talk with the
Europeans.
Shadowplay goes turbo when every Viennese coffee table knows about
Tehran’s red lines: either it’s back to the original
JCPOA as it was agreed in Vienna in 2015 and then ratified by the UN Security Council, or
nothing.
Araghchi, mild-mannered and polite, has had to go on the record once again to stress that
Tehran will leave if the talks veer towards “bullyingâ€, time
wasting or even a
step-by-step ballroom dance, which is time wasting under different terminology.
Neither flat out optimistic nor pessimistic, he remains, let’s say,
cautiously upbeat, at least in public: “We are not disappointed and we will
do our job. Our positions are very clear and firm. The sanctions must be lifted, verified and
then Iran must return to its commitments.â€
So, at least in the thesis, the debate is still on. Araghchi: “There are
two types of U.S. sanctions against Iran. First, categorized or so-called divisional sanctions,
such as oil, banking and insurance, shipping, petrochemical, building and automobile sanctions,
and second, sanctions against real and legal individuals.â€
“Second†is the key issue. There’s
absolutely no guarantee the US Congress will lift most or at least a significant part of these
sanctions.
Everyone in Washington knows it â€" and the American delegation knows it.
When the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, for instance, says that 60% or 70% has been agreed
upon, that’s code for lifting of divisional sanctions. When it comes to
“secondâ€, Araghchi has to be evasive: “There
are complex issues in this area that we are examiningâ€.
Now compare it with the assessment of informed Iranian insiders in Washington such as
nuclear policy expert
Seyed Hossein Mousavian : they’re more like pessimistic realists.
That takes into consideration the non-negotiable red lines established by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei himself. Plus non-stop pressure by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are
all JCPOA-adverse.
But then there’s extra shadowplay. Israeli intel has already notified the
security cabinet that a deal most certainly will be reached in Vienna. After all, the narrative
of a successful deal is already being constructed as a foreign policy victory by the
Biden-Harris administration â€" or, as cynics prefer, Obama-Biden 3.0.
Meanwhile, Iranian diplomacy remains on overdrive. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is visiting
Qatar and Iraq, and has
already met with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim al Thani.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, virtually at the end of his term before the June
presidential elections, always goes back to the same point: no more US sanctions;
Iran’s verification; then Iran will return to its
“nuclear obligationsâ€.
The Foreign Ministry has even released a quite detailed fact sheet once again
stressing the need to remove “all sanctions imposed, re-imposed and
re-labeled since January 20, 2017â€.
The window of opportunity for a deal won’t last long. Hardliners in
Tehran couldn’t care less. At least 80% of Tehran members of Parliament are
now hardliners. The next President most certainly will be a hardliner. Team
Rouhani’s efforts have been branded a failure since the onset of
Trump’s “maximum pressure†campaign.
Hardliners are already in post-JCPOA mode.
That fateful Fateh
What none of the actors in the shadowplay can admit is that the revival of the JCPOA pales
compared to the real issue: the power of Iranian missiles.
In the original 2015 negotiations in Vienna â€" follow them in my Persian
Miniatures e-book â€" Obama-Biden 2.0 did everything in their power to include
missiles in the deal.
Every grain of sand in the Negev desert knows that Israel will go no holds barred to retain
its nuclear weapon primacy in the Middle East. Via a spectacular kabuki, the fact that Israel
is a nuclear power happens to remain “invisible†to most of
world public opinion.
While Khamenei has issued a fatwa clearly stating that producing, stockpiling and using
weapons of mass destruction â€" nuclear included â€" is haram (banned by
Islam), Israel’s leadership feels free to order stunts such as the sabotage
via Mossad of the (civilian) Iranian nuclear complex at Natanz.
The head of Iran’s Parliament Energy Committee, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani,
even accused Washington and London of being accomplices to the sabotage of Natanz, as they
arguably supplied intel to Tel Aviv.
Yet now a lone missile is literally exploding a great deal of the shadowplay.
On April 22, in the dead of night before dawn, a Syrian missile exploded only 30 km away
from the ultra-sensitive Israeli nuclear reactor of Dimona. The official â€" and
insistent â€" Israeli spin: this was an “errantâ€.
Well, not really.
Here â€" third video from the top
â€" is footage of the quite significant explosion. Also significantly, Tel Aviv
remained absolutely mum when it comes to offering a missile proof of ID. Was it an old Soviet
1967 SA-5? Or, rather more likely, a 2012 Iranian Fateh-110 short range surface-to-surface,
manufactured in Syria as the M-600 , and also possessed by Hezbollah?
A Fateh family tree can be seen in the attached chart. The inestimable Elijah Magnier has
posed some very
good questions about the Dimona near-hit. I complemented it with a quite enlightening
discussion with physicists, with input by a military intel expert.
The Fateh-110 operates as a classic ballistic missile, until the moment the warhead starts
maneuvering to evade ABM defenses. Precision is up to 10 meters, nominally 6 meters. So it hit
exactly where it was supposed to hit. Israel officially confirmed that the missile was not
intercepted â€" after a trajectory of roughly 266 km.
This opens a brand new can of worms. It implies that the performance of the much hyped and
recently
upgraded Iron Dome is far from stellar â€" and talk about an euphemism. The
Fateh flew so low that Iron Dome could not identify it.
The inevitable conclusion is this was a message/warning combo. From Damascus. With a
personal stamp from Bashar al-Assad, who had to clear such a sensitive missile launch. A
message/warning delivered via Iranian missile technology fully available to the Axis of
Resistance â€" proving that regional actors have serious stealth capability.
It’s crucial to remember that when Tehran dispatched a volley of
deliberately older Fateh-313 versions at the US base Ayn al-Assad in Iraq, as a response to the
assassination of Gen Soleimani in January 2020, the American radars went blank.
Iranian missile technology as top strategic deterrence. Now that’s the
shadowplay that turns Vienna into a sideshow.
Western hypocrisy revealed 10 years after the event in today's Independent:
"Tony Blair and Iraq: The damning evidence" . And they go on and on about those wicked,
evil Russians and their tyrannical leader causing death and destruction Syria by their
"support" of the Assad government whilst the West arms the "freedom fighters" there.
Jacques Chirac President of France told Jr Bush if the United States finds WMDs in Iraq
you put them there. The CIA and MI6 knew Iraq had no WMDs because Tariq Aziz Saddam's long
time number 2 was a CIA asset. Back in the 1980s Aziz was a regular on the Washington
cocktail party circuit and a frequent guest on CNNs Crossfire with Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak
vs Tom Braden and Michael Kinsley. Finally Dick Armey Republican and House Majority leader
was going to vote against authorizing the war in the fall of 2002. Cheney goes up to Capitol
Hill pulls Armey into the Vice Presidents office in the Capitol and tells him that Iraq is
close to having suitcase nukes and has very close ties to Osama bin Laden. Both lies of
course.
On one occasion when Jr Bush was talking to Chirac he told him that the war on terror is
Biblical prophecy. Needless to say Chirac was stunned. Yes the Republican establishment lied
the country into one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in our history. Almost as bad as
Woodrow Wilson taking us into World war 1 which led to the rise Bolshevik revolution and Nazi
Germany
Vietnam was bad for sure and had a much larger death count, but the region or the domino
theory never materialized. The Middle East has been in chaos ever since our invasion and
occupation of Iraq
Islamist-Marxist MEK's history, including spying on Iran on behalf of Saddam Hussein when
he invaded Iran, destroying its western cities. After murdering Americans - but the Lobby
always gets what it wants, so MEK is now off the terrorist list and instead being funded by
the U.S., and housed in a training camp in Albania.
The MEK was founded in 1965 by three Islamic leftists with the goal of toppling the
U.S.-supported regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In the 1970s it undertook a campaign of assassinating U.S. advisers and bombing U.S.
corporations in Iran. It supported the 1979 Revolution in Iran, but in 1981 it turned its
guns against the Tehran government and began a campaign of assassinations and terrorist
operations that resulted in the death of thousands of Iranians, including the executions of
its own supporters by government officials, soldiers, police officers, and ordinary
people.
It then moved its headquarters to Iraq, made a pact with the regime of Saddam Hussein,
which was fighting a ferocious war with Iran. The MEK spied on Iranian troops for Iraq,
attacked Iran at the end of Iran-Iraq war with Hussein's support, and helped Hussein put down
the uprisings by the Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south after the Persian
Gulf War of 1990-91.
The MEK is despised by the vast majority of Iranians for what they consider to be
treason committed against their homeland.
So funny. I remember reading Gore Vidal's novel "Creation", which deals with the Persian
Empire, Zoroastrism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Socratic philosophy and morals.
The historical details in the book are relatively well researched, albeit one does get
some literary licence for building up characters and story lines, etc. Now the Persian
Imperial court is presented in the novel as being choke full of Greek Dissidents clamoring to
the King of Kings to attack and subdue Greece/Athens, or what not. Marathon, Salamina,
Thermopylae, Plateia follow... The Iranian "dissidents" should learn from their past...
The Athenian "wooden wall" (their ships) is Iran's missile force...
IF TRUE... a big if... this would be somewhat disturbing. One would hope that news outlets
in their never-ending search for "content" would vet the authors just a tad.
But still... the rationale for going to war (with Iran or anyone else) rises or falls on
its own merits. The arguments raised by these authors are of far more importance than whether
the authors are real or fake. Think of how often we have seen academic credentials or
military service exaggerated by AMERICAN academics and authors to goose their relevance. They
may fall to the wayside as proponents of one thing or another when exposed but their
arguments may still be true or false. Same goes for people who do NOT exaggerate their
credentials.
I would think it would be far more dangerous if Twitter and other outlets were allowing
our ADVERSARIES to create fake personalities promoting PEACE when in fact we need to take
action against them.
It time to make him accountable at the election box. Not that it matter much as Biden is yet another neocon and Zionist, but
stil...
American people are tied of sliding standard of living, permanent wars and jingoism. Trump might share Hillary fate in 2020,
because any illusion that he is for common fold, who voted for him in 2016 now disappeared. So he is not better then neocon Biden and Biden is new bastard. So why vote for the old bastard if we have new, who might be
slightly better in the long run
This is a very expensive foreign policy, that doesn't benefit the USA. It has potential to
raise the price of oil significantly.
Notable quotes:
"... Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. ..."
"... I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets. ..."
"... It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel. ..."
"... Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be. ..."
"... I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?' ..."
"... "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. " ..."
"... Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States. ..."
"... "Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before." ..."
The U.S. has imposed
new sanctions on Iran which will make ANY trade with the country very difficult:
[T]he Trump administration has decided to impose yet further sanctions on the country ,
this time targeting the entirety of the Iranian financial sector. These new measures carry
biting secondary sanctions effects that cut off third parties' access to the U.S. financial
sector if they engage with Iran's financial sector.
Since the idea was first floated publicly , many have argued that sanctioning Iran's
financial sector would eviscerate what humanitarian trade has survived the heavy hand of
existing U.S. sanctions.
Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of
campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any
attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran:
This idea appears to have first been introduced into public discourse in an
Aug. 25, 2020, Wall Street Journal article by Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg urging
the Trump administration to "[b]uild an Iranian [s]anctions [w]all" to prevent any future
Biden administration from returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the
nuclear accord between Iran and the world's major powers on which President Donald Trump
reneged in May 2018.
The new sanctions will stop all trade between the 'western' countries and Iran.
The Foreign Minister of Iran responded with defiance:
Amid Covid19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food
& medicine.
Iranians WILL survive this latest of cruelties.
But conspiring to starve a population is a crime against humanity. Culprits & enablers
-- who block our money -- WILL face justice.
In response Iran will continue its turn to the east. Russia, China and probably India will
keep payment channels with Iran open or will make barter deals.
The Europeans, who so far have not dared to counter U.S. sanctions on Iran, are likely to be
again shown as the feckless U.S. ass kissers they have always been. They will thereby lose out
in a market with 85 million people that has the resources to pay for their high value products.
If they stop trade of humanitarian goods with Iran they will also show that their much vaunted
'values' mean nothing.
The European Union claims that it wants to be an independent actor on the world stage. If
that is to be taken seriously this would be the moment to demonstrate it.
Posted by b on October 9, 2020 at 16:37 UTC | Permalink
Unconscionable but what is new with pompass and his ghouls; treasury dept responsible for
cranking up the sanctions program was formerly headed by a dual citizen woman who resigned
suddenly after being exposed as an Israeli citizen-not hard to understand that sentiment in
that dept has not changed.
The other aspect here is the FDD as key supporter of these severe sanctions; very virulent
anti-Iranian vipers nest of ziocons with money bags from zionist oligarch funders.
Ho-hum. As I wrote earlier, just the daily breaking of laws meaning business as usual. As
noted, Russia has really upped the diplomatic heat on EU and France/Germany in particular,
and that heat will be further merited if the response is as b predicts from their past,
deplorable, behavior.
Much talk/writing recently about our current crisis being similar in
many ways to those that led to WW1, but with the Outlaw US Empire taking Britain's role. I
expect Iran's Iraqi proxies to escalate their attacks aimed at driving out the occupiers.
IMO, we ought to contemplate the message within this Strategic Culture editorial when it comes to the hegemonic relationship between
the Outlaw US Empire and the EU/NATO and the aims of both. The EU decided not to continue
fighting against the completion of Nord Stream, but that IMO will be its last friendly act
until it severs its relations with the Outlaw US Empire. With the Wall moved to Russia's
Western borders, the Cold War will resume. That will also affect Iran.
thanks b... it is interesting what a pivotal role israel plays in all of this... and why
would there be concern that biden would be any different then trump in revoking the jcpoa? to
my way of thinking, it is just pouring more cement and sealing the fate of the usa either
way, as an empire in real decline and resorting to more of the same financial sanctions as a
possible precursor to war.. frankly i can't see a war with iran, as the usa would have to
contend with russia and china at this point... russia and china must surely know the game
plan is exactly the same for them here as well.. as for europe, canada, australia and the
other poodles - they are all hopeless on this front as i see it... lets all bow down to the
great zionist plan, lol...
Yeah but at least Trump didn't start any new wars. /s
The Eurotools in Brussels are absolutely disgusting. A weaker bunch of feckless,
milquetoast satraps is difficult to imagine. The EU perfectly embodies the 21st century
liberal ethic: spout virtue signaling nonsense about peace, freedom, human rights and the
"rules based international order" while licking the boots of Uncle Scam and the Ziofascists
and going along with their war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Russia and China need to step up their game and boldly circumvent the collective
punishment sanctions that are choking the life out of Iran, Syria and Venezuela. They still
let the rogue states of the west get away with far too much.
The Teheran men will not surrender to the yankee herds and hordes. And less so the
telavivian.
It s easy to see that in the medium run this cruelly extended crime plays in chinese, russian
and shia hands.
And they must start immediately a backlash handing hundreds of special forces and weapons
opver to the Houthi hands.
Of course there is a war on, and it has been gathering force for some time.
Iran is but one more skirmish or battle. However, Xi and Putin are using what I call the
"Papou yes". You must always say "yes" as this way you avoid direct conflict, but then you
go and do exactly what you were going to do in the first place . The person who does the
demanding - having had his/her demands "met" has nothing further to add and will go away. (I
have seen this effective technique in action).
At the moment it appears that the aim of the subversive (military/CIA/NGO) wings of the
Empire are to start as many conflicts as possible. To isolate and overextend Russia, leading
to it's collapse. (As they claim to have done before.)
The "Alternative axis" is just carrying on with it's own plan to overextend and eventually
let the US dissolve into its own morasss. The opposition are trying to follow their own plan
without giving an opening for the US/NATO to use its numerical military advantage, by not
taking the bait.
The ultimate battle is for financial control of the worlds currency, or in the case of the
US, to halt the loss of it's financial power. To avoid that The next step could be the
introduction of a Fed. owned controlled and issued "digi-dollar", When all outstanding
"dollar assets" are re-denominated into virtual misty-money which is created exclusively by
the Fed. Banks become unnecessary as the Fed becomes the only "lender" available, Congress
redundant, debts no longer matter and so on. Who cares about the reserves held by China and
overseas "investors" if their use or even existence can be dictated by the Fed?
They have already published a "trial balloon" about introducing a digi-dollar.
Iran? the US is throwing ALL its cards into what looks like it's final battle to preserve
the dollars supremacy. Why cut ALL the Iranian financial system out of their sphere of
influence? Because it (thinks) it can and by doing so cower the wavering into obeying.
Thanks 'b', very well timed. I was actually heading to the open thread with this article
until I saw your piece. This Asia Times
article focuses on three key points:
- Iran has replaced the dollar with the Yuan as its main foreign currency
"This may become the east wind for the renminbi (yuan) and provide a new oil currency option
for traders in oil-producing countries, including Iran," an editorial on qq.com said. "
- Several large banks in Iran are developing a gold encrypted digital currency called
PayMon and had issued more than 1,000 crypto-currency mining licenses, which could promote
the development of crude oil. Domestic traders use cryptocurrency to import goods and bypass
American banks.
- The Iranian-Swiss Joint Chamber of Commerce
"Switzerland had received a special exemption from US supervisory authorities to allow the
SHTA operations."
It remains to be seen how effective the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement actually is.
Some say it is nothing but a US propaganda stunt. Hopefully, that is not the case.
What does Iran need that they cannot get from China and Russia? The USA has cheap corn, and
the EU has... what, cheese? Other than that I don't see why Iran needs to trade with the
empire and its more servile vassals anyway.
Strange, that ther is a jewish or Israeki ´ animosity agains Iran (or agains tthe
Medtans -- as thy are all named in all Greek records(H, that theer is a jewish animosity
against, that ther is a jewish anikisit agains Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in
all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reported to have liberatet the
Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON
CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE
THE YEAR OF 1´2917! Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek
Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews
of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO"
-- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF
1´2917! ellenistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he
Jews of Babylon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON
CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE
THE YEAR OF 2017
Quite impressed with all the theories about Europe and its behavior. The answer is very
simple, Europe is occupied by a foreign power, it is a colony. And all the qualifiers are
quaint.
I disagree. What did the EU did on Iran, compared to Russia and China? It stopped most trade with Iran, including the purchase of iranian oil, and it stopped all
investment projects. INSTEX is a joke. Meanwhile Germany recently banned Hezbollah.
Yes, they did vote for the JCPOA in the UN. I look at actions rather than words though,
and EU has imposed de facto sanctions on Iran.
Moreover, German FM Maas told Israel recently that efforts are underway to keep the Iran
arms embargo. (He is also a big "Russia fan" - sarc off)
In other words, we "support" the JCPOA, but in practice with arms and trade embargoes on
Iran continuing.
Yeah right.
Posted by: powerandpeople | Oct 9 2020 20:15 utc | 24
No, its not so simple, unless you claim that european russophobia started with the US and
did not exist before it. Guy Mettan has a good book on it. It is a thousand years old issue,
involving Catholicism, France, Germany, Sweden, Britain, and others.
Yes, the US wants to divide the EU and Russia. But the EU itself is rotten from
within.
Politics are more important than the economy, German Chancellor Merkel said in relation to
Russia.
"Drang nach Osten" - "Drive to the East".
Germany dreams of capturing Eastern Europe and using is as some sort of colonised labor
pool similar to what Latin America is for the US.
And this is why the EU, without any prodding, eagerly took the lead in the attempt of
colour revolution in Belarus, where it played far bigger role than the US.
Signing and adhearing to the JCPOA turned Europe and Iran from opponents into partners.
This is a great diplomatic achievement. However, no part of the JCPOA made the two allies or
obliged the European side to wage an economic war with the USA on behalf of Iran. On the
contrary, the Iranians would be the first to say they are no friends of Europa. They have
been complaining about "Western meddling" in their region for years. (Note that they don`t
differentiate but always speak collectively of "the West").
So that`s their chance to show the world how much of a sovereign nation they are and that
they can handle their problems without the "meddling" of the "despicable" Europeans. There is
no obligation - neither legal nor moral - for Europe to take the side of Iran in the US-Iran
conflict.
And actually it is both sides - both Iran and the USA - who are unhappy with the current
European neutrality.
Thanks to MoA for being one of the only honest brokers of news on Iran in the English
language. As an American citizen living abroad (in EU) I have a more jaded and at the same
time worried feeling about this.
Along with all the other stuff, including the current threat to close the U.S. embassy in
the Iraqi "Green Zone" and the accompanying military maneuvers, which would spark war in the
region, I see this hardening and expansion of sanctions as yet the next clue that the U.S.
and Donald Trump's regime are looking toward re-election and a hot war with/on Iran. Rattling
the cage ever more and backing Iran into the corner with brutal, all-encompassing sanctions
is already an act of war, usually the first prior to bombs falling. I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons
development sites and other military and petro-state assets.
I hope I'm wrong but we've all seen this before and it never ends well. If the EU shows a
spine, or more likely Russia and/or China step in directly, perhaps the long desired
neocon/neolib/Zionist hot war against Iran can be avoided.
I think it is very important for the US to kill another 500,000 children via sanctions, in
order to demonstrate the importance of freedom and democracy and observing international law.
While reading this post I was thinking what MoA wrote in the last two paragraphs. And also
that Iran will just continue to turn to China, Russia, and others in the East.
It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are
fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel.
"Europeans can not be helped. Ironically, it is their own rejection of their WW2 past that
causes them to reject the multipolar world and sovereignty as "primitive things from the
past"
plus, as you point out elsewhere, there are longer histories at play: the Crusades against
the Slavs, the Moors and the Turks (and the Arabs, in fact), the invention of "western
civilization" in the 19th century (Arians vs Semites, Europe vs Asia, ecc) ...
plus, there is the persisting aspiration for world domination, partly frustrated by WW1
and the upheavals of the XXth century, which transformed the UK and the whole of Europe (with
Japan, Australia, etc) in a junior partner of the new US Empire
(that's the other lesson learned from WW2: no single european power could dominate the
continent and the world, but they could dominate as junior partners under the new young
leader of the wolf pack, the US)
plus, there are is a class war that can be better fought, by national oligarchies, within
globalist rethoric and rules
plus, there are the US deep state instruments of domination over european national
states
but Europeans (and Usaians) do understand the language of force, and they have - at the
moment - encountered a wall in their attempts at expansion, in Iran, China, Russia,
Venezuela, ecc; an alternative multipolar alliance is taking shape
so they might attempt to win a nuclear war by 20 million deaths to 2 (or 200 to 20, who
cares), but they might also decide to tune down their ambitions and return to reality;
maybe
@m (#35)
EU promised to uphold JCPOA. They can't because of the US and they are doing next to nothing
to change that. EU isn't neutral. They are stooges. Iran is right to complain about it, the
US isn't.
Trump is a man of peace, he hasn't started any new wars - whatever that means, lol.
As far as
I know economic blocade is tantamount to war. If he wins reelection expect renewed kinetic
attacks on venezuela and Iran. He's already lined up his zionist coalition with arabic
satraps to launch his Iran quagmire. Trump is a deal maker, he understands the economy and
will bring back manufacturing jobs to Murikkka, lol. I'm sure Boeing execs in deep trouble
would love to sell plane to the Iranians but Mr. MIGA just made that impossible. Nothing to
worry about, there's always the next socialist bailout for Boeing funded by taxpayers -
suckers as Trump would call them. So much for winning, can't fix deplorable and stupid...
Btw b, Trump's opposition to the Iran deal has nothing to do with money or the zionist
lobby. Stable genius opposed JCPOA in 2015 even before announcing his run for the presidency.
It's not about the mula but all about the mollah's, lol: The Donald in his own words at a tea
party event in 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDNonMDSo8
Ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 multiple US regimes in DC have been totally
successful in making majority Iranian people everywhere in the world, understand that the US
is their chronic strategic enemy for decades to come. At same time, these US regimes have
equally been as successful in making American people believe Iran is their enemy.
The difference between this two side's belief is, that, Iranian people by experiencing US
regime' conducts have come to their belief, but the American people' belief was made by their
own regime' propaganda machinery. For this reason, just like the people to people relation
between the US and Russian people, Before and after the fall of USSR the relation between US
and Iran in next few generations will not come to or even develop to anything substantial or
meaningful. One can see this same trajectory in US Chinese relations, or US Cuban. Noticeably
all these countries relation with US become terminally irreparable after their revolutions,
regardless of the maturity or termination of the revolution. As much as US loves color
revolutions, US hates real revolutions. The animosity no longer is just strategic it has
become people to people, and the reason and blame goes to Americans since they never were
ready to accept the revolutions that made nations self-servient to their interests. The
bottom line truth is the US / and her poodles in europe know, ever since the revolution Iran
no longer will be subservient to US interests.
This is leverage to bargain away the oil pipeline to germany. That is what is behind it. You
scratch my back, the US is saying to the EU, in particular, Germany....
It's an
Economy based on Plunder! , so that's why sanctions here, there and everywhere!! But the
real problem is we aren't participating in the Plunder!! Sometimes you gotta use extreme
sarcasm to explain the truth of a situation, and that's what Max and Stacey do in their show
at the link. 13 minutes of honest reporting about the fraudulent world in which we live. As
for Jerome Powell, current Fed Chair, he's complicit in the ongoing criminal activity just as
much as the high ranking politicos. Bastiat laid it out 180 years ago, but we're living what
he described now. And that's all part of what I wrote @40 above. The moral breakdown occurred
long ago but took time to perfect.
I think it is crazy that EU allows US to manage SWIFT to the point they invent new entities
to sidestep SWIFT and US sanctions (which are weak and ineffective, but that is the
trajectory of their weak attempts at independence). Force SWIFT to equally service all legal
transactions according to EU law, and let US cut itself off from all international financial
transfers if it doesn't like using EU's SWIFT. US corps won't allow that to happen, it's just
that EU refuses to call US bluff. Of course they are now praying for Biden presidency, but if
they can't assert themselves it is all ultimately the same thing.
These 'foreign policy experts' think the trade war with China has been a mistake. But they
think Trump is too soft on Russia and he hasn't been tough enough on NK, Iran and Venezuela.
It has become a standard trick for outgoing US administrations to saddle the incoming
administration with set in stone policies and judicial appointments.
"Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of
campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any
attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran."
Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump
administration.
The danger for the world is the Trump administration may go even further than additional
sanctions. So I refer to the previous post, US policy remains the same whatever bunch are the
frontmen.
When that attempt failed they worked on convincing the Sultan of Turkey to give them
someone else's homeland. The Zionist Zealot Mr Kalvariski became the administrator of the
Palestine Jewish Colonization Association with the aim of establishing a jewish suprematist
ghetto. Following that flop the Zionists turned to the hapless British and were rewarded by
Balfour with his notorious British government double cross of the Arabs. Now it's the turn of
the US and assorted captive nations to uphold and support tyranny and Talmudic
violence.
I am SLOWLY coming to the conclusion that DaTrumpster understands DaDeepState better than any
of us armchair pundits. His patient - and yes, perhaps faulty strategy - he's still standing
after ALL DaCrap that's been thrown at him.
All the 'EXPURTS' - including MoA - can only see part of DaPicture at best.
I've been as hard on DaTrumpster as anyone on DaConservative side - but I am SLOWLY coming to
understand WTF just might be going on.
Point - don't be too sure of your immediate inclinations - we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!
SWIFT is only a messaging system – SWIFT does not hold any funds or securities, nor
does it manage client accounts. Behind most international money and security transfers is the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. SWIFT is a vast
messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and
securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions.
Paul wrote:
"Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump
administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be.
And hasn't it always been that way from one president to the the next? Was there ever one
that was less zionist than the predecessor? (Maybe they're all so close this is an impossible
question to answer, that too could be the case).
The sitting executive branch gives the favors right now and anyone incoming gives the
favors after they win and thus each election becomes a double windfall for the lobby
group?
A zionist double dip . Maybe most US voters could grasp it like that.
I can't back this up (much like my previous comment in this thread) but it's my
impression. It would probably take a lot of work to make sure it's right; one would have to
scrutinize so much over so many decades.
I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the
Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions
condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign
territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its
withdrawal?'
This could be a useful quote for todays world.
Later, in 1964, Eisenhower approved his hand picked emissary's US $150 million so called
Johnston Plan to steal the waters of the Jordan River and further marginalize the Palestine
Arabs and surrounding Arab states.
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US
can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon. Without the JCPOA and
inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities it will be impossible to prove or deny the
allegations. Thus giving either the US or Israel justification it wants to conduct military
strikes against Iran. The only things stopping this from happening is if the EU stays in the
JCPOA...
Exactly the aim. I said so in an earlier post. This is all part of the program to create a
false justification to conduct military strikes inside Iran. At this point, I'm really
surprised that the U.S. even tries to construct these narratives after Obama's Syria and
Libya operations didn't even really bother, save for a few probably fake "chemical weapons"
attack they alleged Assad committed. Libya I don't remember hearing anything. The embassy
maybe? After the Soleimani strike and the shootdown of the U.S. drone, not to mention the
alleged Iranian attacks on ARAMCO's oil facilities, I'm really quite surprised something more
serious (not to minimize the awful acts of war which the sanctions definitely are) hasn't
already happened. It will soon, especially if Trump gets re-elected. Wonder what all of his
"no new wars" supporters will say then?
Everybody reading knows what SWIFT is. That's a nice attempt to circumscribe the overall
sanctions regime and paint it as "no big deal."
Crush Limpbro - Checked out your site. You've got a long way to go before you can
criticize MoA. Hope that comment draws a few clicks to keep you going, but I would caution
other barflies to use a proxy; could be a honey trap to collect IP addresses.
This United States imposed and Zionist inspired siege on Iran and its people will only
further strengthen the political and economic bonds with Russia and China. Meanwhile, the US
collapses from its internal social limitations and its abandonment of public healthcare
responses to the Corvid 19 pandemic. Europe it close behind the US in this respect.
What exactly is this 'Justification'.. . 'to conduct military strikes against Iran' that
you refer to hasbara boy? Failure to obey foreign imposed zionist diktats?
Would this 'justification' apply to the bandit state if it refused to abide by the NNPT
for example?
No double standards pass the test here.
Yet another proof that "Western values" and their "rules based international order" mean
exactly nothing.
In the past, the West at least kept up some pretense that it was wrong to target unarmed
civilians (still, they flattened Driesden; Hiroshima; North Korea, Vietnam, Laos). Today,
they do not care to be seen openly, cruelly, brutally, sadistically killing civvies. These
American bastards say, "... it is not killing if the victims drop dead later, like, not right
now. " Or, "... it became necessary to destroy Iran in order to save Iran."
Iran is perfectly correct to call this a crime against humanity for the West to starve a
population of food and medicine. This will boomerang just as the opium-pushing in China will
boomerang on the West.
Meanwhile, just as those drug-pushing English bastards earned themselves lordships and
knighthoods; just as presidential bastards retire to their Martha Vineyard mansions; so the
current crop of bastards in American leadership will retire to yet more mansions, leaving the
next couple generations to meet Persian wrath. The American way is to "win" until they are
tired of winning, no?
But in truth, in objective reality, only those who have lost their human-ness are capable
of crimes against humanity.
The US is cruising for a bruising in the middle east fucking with Iran like this. Not that the US hasn't deserved a good knockout punch the past 19 years since invading and
destroying Afghanistan and Iraq, etc, etc. Regardless of their rhetoric, how the European rogues and rascals (France, Germany and the
UK) can sleep at night is beyond me.
Yes Psychochistorian @ 1, At the nation state level, EU support for blockade terror and
sanction torture (BT&ST), against reluctant nation states and non compliant individuals
within those nation states, logically suggests EU nation states are not independent sovereign
countries <=EU nation states exist in name only? Maybe its just like in the USA, these
private monopoly powered Oligarcks (PMPO), own everything (privately owned copyrights,
patents, and property) made possible by rules nation states turn into law. The citizens of
those privately owned EU nation states are victims <=in condition=exploitable. Maybe PMPOs
use nation states <=as profit support weapons, to be directed against <=any and all
<=competition, whereever and however <=competition appears.
The hidden suspects <=capital market linked crowds through out the world..
Media is 92% owned by six private individuals, of the seven typical nation state layers of
authority and power: 5 are private and two are public. Additionally, few in the international
organizations have allegiance to historic cultures of the nation state governed masses. It is
as if, the named nation states are <=threatened by knee breaking thugs, but maybe its not
threat, its actual PMPO ownership.
If one accepts PMPO <=to be in control of all of USA and all of allied nation state,
one can explain <=current BT&ST events. But private Oligarch scenarios <=raise
obvious questions, why have not the PMPO challenged East eliminated <=Israel, MSM
propaganda repeatedly blames or points to Israel <=to excuse the USA leaders for their
BT&ST policies. Seems the PMPO are <=using the nation states, they own <=to
eliminate non complying competition.
What is holding the East back? Russia and China each have sufficient oil, gas and
technology to keep things functional, so why has not the competition in the East taken Israel
out, if Israel is directing the USA to apply BT&ST against its competitors? Why is the
white House so sure, its BT&ST policies will not end up destroying Israel? Maybe because
Israel has no real interest <=in the BT&ST policy <=Israel is deceptions:fall guy?
The world needs to pin the tail on the party driving USA application of BT&ST because no
visible net gain to Governed Americans seems possible from BT&ST policies?
I think Passer @ 17 has hit the nail on its head. "The EU is trying to prop up the US
Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. "
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the
US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon.
So you put that forward as a justification for attacking Iran militarily, but that means
according to your logic you also have justification for attacking Israel or the US
militarily. The rules are the same for all, right?
Economic warfare is certainly effective. However, time is running out for these weapons as
America's lock on the world economy grows weaker. With a rapidly approaching expiry date, the
word out may be to use em or lose em.
In a zero-sum great game, it makes sense to deploy such weapons now insofar as an
opponent's loss is always a gain for oneself.
Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling
conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the
United States.
"Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do
something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done
before."
What a shit show we are seeing. What is the next phase of this civilization war that is not
a war because there are not enough dead bodies for some I guess?...but it sure looks like
war to me.
Well for the first time in history Iran's symbolic "Red Flag" is still flying above the
popular Jamkaran Mosque Holy dome. Perhaps the USA and its running dogs body count has risen
in Iraq and Afghanistan? How would we know. These things are disguised from the fearless
press in those countries ;)
Perhaps the dead and mangled are many but we do know that the US chief killer in
Afghanistan was reduced to ashes immediately following General Shahid Qassem Suleimanis
murder by the USA whilst on a diplomatic mission in Iraq.
In respect of b's observation above, the illegal occupier of Palestine is more likely
tipping millions into the Harris Presidency as well as the possible Trump Presidency. I doubt
either Harris or the biden bait and switch stooge would restore the JCPOA. Besides they would
not be invited to sit at the table any time soon IMO. They would likely refuse to any
conditions of reversing the sanctions and then carry on about all that 'unreasonable demands
by a terrorist state' stuff etc etc.
No, Iran will be getting on with its future in a multilateral world where the United
Nations has been reduced to pile of chicken dung by the USA while most other nations go along
with global lunacy.
You know what's telling about the bootlickers who hem and haw about U.S. policy with the T
Administration, but never mention Trump as the real source of it even when profuse Zionist
shit spills from his mouth on Limbaugh's show proving he's a Ziofascist pig?
What's telling is that these usual suspects jumped all over ARI @64 for zeroing in on
Trump's precise intentions with Iran but they gave a pass to the real HASBARIST in the room,
Crush Limbraw @60, exposing himself, putting his HARD-ON FOR TRUMP on full display.
@60 we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!
Speak for yourself- you Zionist MORON!
Ahhhhhh, you can always count on the DUPLICITY of MOA'S weathervane james and friends. Me,
I ain't here to win a popularity contest like weathervane; I'm here to kick ass when I
witness duplicity in action. My friend here is the truth that I'll defend to the grave.
********
Noooo, dum-dums Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his
Zionist Oligarchs and Russian squatters whom he pays homage to from time to time when he
visits Ziolandia thanking them for choosing the stolen West Bank over Russia.
Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice. That's Trump blowhard
driving the drumbeat.
Just rescue me from my self-destructive self for 4 more years, oh kings of Zion and
Wall Street, and I'll give you WAR!!! all in CAPS with three exclamation points. The GREATEST
war you've ever seen.
When I read the Great Reset article on the World Economic Forum website it seems to me that
the western Globalists, in concert align the US and EU. That accounts for the basic vassal
arrangements that predominate but allow for some nonalignments on certain issues.
That is precisely what the Belarusian authorities announced when Tikhanovskaya left Minsk,
that she was helped in her way out, but we know how the MSM acts, they stick to their own
script, just like a Hollywood movie.
The Belarusians must be watching with great attention what is happening in Kirguizia,
riots and complete chaos, and thinking how lucky they were to avoid the color rev that was in
the menu for them, which the same methods, discredit the oncoming election, claim fraud after
it, use similar symbols like the clenched fist and the heart, new flag, start transliterating
family and geographical names to a mythical and spoken by a very small minority language and
then nobody knows if to spell Tikhanovskaya, Tsikhanouskaya or like the politically incorrect
but street wise Luka called her, Guaidikha. And that is Kirguizia, how about a shooting war
in Armenia and Azerbaijan, all those conflicts were unimaginable when the USSR existed, but
the empire even on his way down is insatiable.
There is over a million jews of Russian origin living in Israel, 20% of the population,
with deep roots in Russia, language, culture and relatives. Do not let partisanship for the
Dems blind you, a true successful leader is someone that defends his country's interests
while at the same time tries to have good relations with everybody else, obviously that
balance is not easy to achieve in a world full of conflicting interests, but so far Putin
seems to be balancing his act while not loosing sight of the main thing, Russia.
Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist
Oligarchs
If Putin is so close to Zionists, then why does Russia block the Zionist regime-change in
Syria? Why has Russia denied Israel and USA entreaties to allow them to bomb Iran?
Not as strange as a mythological demigoddess that turned sailors into swain and that now
enjoys to plunge into the mud with her creatures. A bot, what an easy label, it has lost any
meaning.
special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.
Alaska yellow fin sole, not bad, from Bristol Bay, but the Melva -a tunafish species with
more oil in its meat- I cooked for lunch, just caught, has a lot more fish oil with its rich
contents of vitamin D, add sunny Mediterranean weather and that is my pill for today, trying
to keep the bug at bay.
Circe, why don't you do what your namesake would have done and whip yourself up some meds to
calm down? You're starting to lapse into excessive use of upper case, italics, exclamation
points, bolding, profanity, and of course, insults.
This may help. It looks like the orange man is in fact going down, so you will soon have
Joe and Kamal empowered to dismantle the evil Putin-Netanyahu-Trump axis, and put the US back
on the path to truth and justice.
The unilateral and illegal-under-JCPOA sanctions mean it's time for EU to either confront the
extraterritorial US policy it has clearly rejected in principle, or (more likely) acknowlege
that it remains in practice just a collection of 'client states'. A sad moment for me, but
useful for clarity.
Hard to understand but you guys are incapable of spelling the name of a once great US
city, San Francisco. I heard it has changed a lot, got to see long time ago, before the
digital craze.
This is a brief but subtle post by b, with quiet but telling headline. Perhaps, just
guessing, a new take on the post he was having difficulty with earlier? The question of the
EU is an interesting one - not to be considered as virulent as the former Soviet Union, but
somehow as tugged at by the components thereof...
Sanctions on Iran? We do know what Iran is capable of; surely we have not forgotten?
Indeed, by pressing these sanctions at this late date, the Trump administration surely has
not forgotten either the effect sanctions had on Russia. They were postive to that country's
independent survival, though the immediate effect was demonstrably harsh. So now, sanctions
on Iran? One doesn't have to be a world leader to suppose similar cause, similar effect.
Ah, Paco has a wonderful meal of a beneficial fish called the Melva! Bravo, Paco; all is
not lost! But you have hooked the sea-serpent as well -- take care! That one - carefully
remove the hook and set it free ;)
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Yes, it is time for EU countries to show their true colors which will be ass kissers for
empire, most likely.
Folks are saying Nord Stream II is being finished but will it ever go into use?
And of course this is not war because Trump hasn't started any wars, right?
What a shit show we are seeing. What is the next phase of this civilization war that is
not a war because there are not enough dead bodies for some I guess?...but it sure looks like
war to me.
The next phase would appear to be Kyrgyzstan: from Belarus east to Sinkiang and Hong Kong the
subversion and the attempts at regime change are constant.
While Eurasia seeks to unite for peace and prosperity, the United States and its sleazy
satrapy is constantly trying to divide and weaken, to undermine and to intimidate. In doing
so it relies heavily on abusing the tattered lineaments of democracy- electioneering and
propagandising, the relics of a western culture which has become nothing more than a hollow
shell containing an increasingly totalitarian plutocracy.
All this simply moves Iran into closer confederation with Russia and China and strengthens
its resolve to send US middle eastern troops packing. Soon there will be a strong
Russia-China-Iran axis that is immune to all Western sanctions. Those countries who are part
of the BRI will get privileged economic treatment. The advantages will become increasingly
apparent and the economic disadvantages of staying allied with the US will become
increasingly apparent as well, particularly in light of the approaching collapse of the
dollar. As long as we manage to avoid a hot war the civilizational die is cast; the US has
chosen its destiny, in the dustbin of history, at least as a neoliberal oligarchy. When and
how it will reinvent itself is an open question, but it is not unreasonable to think it will
take decades. While Europe will eventually align with Eurasia, it will take another
generation of politicians before that happens.
If Iran isn't self-sufficient now, it will be by the time the US is finished with it. That
isn't a comfortable place to be but with key sector support from the Eastern bloc it's at
least as manageable as Cuba. The question is whether and how fast the Eastern bloc can
consolidate its resources by e.g. petrodollar replacement and better shared infrastructure.
The Eastern bloc isn't ideal, but when the West is apparently encouraging something like a
holocaust of suffering humanity, it's the only other game in town.
High time for both Russia and China and Iran/Cuba/Venezuela to really get together and start
speaking with one voice and show the despicable USA/West/NATO that they will stand together
and defend each other. Otherwise it's all over.
Specific steps to implement:
1. create and begin using an alternative to the SWIFT and invite anyone who is being
sanctioned by USA/West to join them
2. openly and officially declare that their currencies are backed by gold
3. openly and officially begin to speak against USA's actions around the world at the UN and
invite anyone who is being sanctioned by USA/West to join them
4. get together and openly declare to the world they stand as one and to invite
anyone else who is being harassed by USA/West/NATO to join them
5. immediately begin clean up of all the terrorists/CIA Operatives in in Central Asia
otherwise they will be in deep trouble
what are Putin and Xi doing?? Come on guys, wake up!
In March, Germany announced that the first transaction had been completed using Europe's
INSTEX system to skirt sanctions -- more than a year after the scheme had supposedly been put
in place.
I haven't seen anything further about it. Has it enabled any significant level of
trade?
Why would anyone need anything not Made in China? Plus China is the EU's second highest trade
partner (after US) so Iran could have access to some of that if for some reason they needed
an EU product. . . .Meanwhile Iran will be even more self-sufficient, as Russia has become
with EU sanctions. . . .The US has been trying self-imposed "sanctions" (China uncoupling) to
become more self-sufficient but it's not working.
EU continues its self-imposed slide into irrelevance. I suppose a servant's life is an easier
life: you don't have to think for yourself and just need to please master. But it can hardly
be a satisfactory experience, can it? Especially when the collar is held by such as Trump and
Pompass.
The winds of change are coming and they will be interesting. China's economy is already
greater than the US and that will expand many fold over the next few decades. The $ economy
will not survive this, especially not as the US has shown it will use its power corruptly.
The EU batter consider this; do they want to be part of the past or the future?
There is something much more significant happening with Europe, that is more than the Iran
issue.
The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to
free itself.
The EU has chosen the side of the US against the multipolar world. It will be trying to
prop up the Empire.
It is becoming increasingly hostile to any country that isn't a puppet to the US, like
itself, and is lashing out at those countries. Like a zombie, it wants to infect others with
its infection, and turn every other country into US puppets too. It thinks that this is
normal and it wants to spread that "normality" to the rest of the world too.
Many analysts are already mentioning that the EU is becoming increasingly hostile to
Russia.
Recently, serious statements came from Russian officials:
"Russia will not follow EU and US rules".
"There will be no more business as usual between Russia and France and Germany".
"France and Germany are now leading the anti-russian block within Europe".
"Russia will no longer be dependent on the EU".
"Europeans have delusions of grandeur".
These are all statements by Lavrov and Zacharova.
Recently, we have seen Germany and France banning Huawei, Europe together with US blocking
the OPCW investigation at the UN, and Germany leading the charge at the UN stage against
China. EU also took the lead in the colour revolution in Belarus.
There are two recent statesments by the french foreign minister and by the EU commision
chief:
"Europe needs to unite against Russia and Turkey".
Surveys also show rising levels of anti-chinese hatred in Europe, and not only in the
US.
What has happened is far more serious than the europeans being "feckless U.S. ass
kissers". It is worse than that.
The EU chose the side of the US against the multipolar world. It does not want to free
itself from the US. Actually it thinks that it is normal to be a puppet, that others should
be US puppets too, and that a joint EU-US Empire should be supported, so that some kind of
world wide liberal utopia can be build by it.
Europeans are psychologically damaged by WW2 and this is affecting their geopolitical
behavior, turning them into forever puppets of the US.
They can not free themselves because when they were free once, they "did very bad things".
Therefore they should always follow their "better" and "Big Daddy" US, who "freed them from
themselves" and "put them in the right way".
Europeans can not be helped. Ironically, it is their own rejection of their WW2 past that
causes them to reject the multipolar world and sovereignty as "primitive things from the
past", and thus support a transnational globalist western empire that is here "to bring
Utopia on Earth". For them Russia, China, Iran, India, Turkey etc. are just a bunch of
primitives that are tryng to turn back the clock.
And thus it will increasingly start to lash out at any country that isn't a US puppet as
those countries prevent the coming of Utopia.
Washington is considering closing its embassy in Iraq, nine months after the US killing
of an Iranian general on Iraqi soil led to protests over what Baghdad called a "violation" of
its sovereignty, according to reports.
Multiple media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Sky
News, reported on Sunday that US officials told their Iraqi counterparts that Washington will
shut down its operations unless there is an end to rocket attacks on the embassy, which is
located in the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
Sounds more like a possible victory for Iraq and its people. I suspect that there is much
more to the story and the US is pre-emptively seeking a face-saving exit excuse if it were to
come to that.
However, it would be extremely unlikely for the US to abandon the embassy given that it
serves as the headquarters for numerous nefarious operations in Iraq and Iran
The claim that I have read is that this is in response to the USA's assassination of
General Solemani in Lebanon. More precisely the i-Ranian strategy is not per se to cause
American casualties but carry out sustained attacks via proxies on American interest in
i-Rack, i.e. psychological pressure, cost etc. the ultimate goal being the USA leaving i-Rack
as a suitable price for the assassination.I
I've also read (Vinyard the Saker?)that the USA has so far closed some of its smaller and
less defensible outposts but concentrated what remains in fewer better defended bases. The
USA does not want to leave i-Rack militarily and will hang on until it is out of options. The
US embassy leaving i-Rack will not be good enough for i-Ran, but maybe this is the beginning
of some kind of behind the scenes bargaining, though this is hard to believe considering the
US is still pushing for a gulf coalition (WAR!) against i-Ran as well as polically
neutralizing any potential spoiler countries. Also the embassay was built at quite a
significant cost $750 billion.* So, you are right PO, this is bluff by the big puff
Plumpeo.
i-Rack has also being trying to get rid of American military presence even though they
have bought F-16IQs from Washington but the latter is using the same figleaf excuse as in
Syria that they are 'fighting terrorists.'
The USA will never abandon its crown jewel in Iraq, and it would make little practical
difference anyway, as it lies entirely within the American 'Green Zone', and they will surely
not abandon that.
"But the location of the compound is well known in Baghdad anyway, where for several
years it has been marked by large construction cranes and all-night work lights easily
visible from the embattled neighborhoods across the river. It is reasonable to assume that
insurgents will soon sit in the privacy of rooms overlooking the site, and use cell phones or
radios to adjust the rocket and mortar fire of their companions. Meanwhile, however, they
seem to have held off, lobbing most of their ordnance elsewhere into the Green Zone, as if
reluctant to slow the completion of such an enticing target."
The Baghdad Embassy is the USA's most-expensive embassy in the world, and it costs far
more to run it each year than the cost of building it, in excess of a Billion dollars a year.
What America might do, and what Iraq does fear, is send its diplomats home for awhile, and
use it as an excuse to open a military operation in Iraq against what it terms Iran-aligned
militias.
US diplomacy is turning into the not-so-subtle art of making demands and ultimatums, Sergey
Lavrov has lamented, as the Americans go it alone in restoring anti-Iran sanctions under a 2015
deal that no longer legally applies.
Washington's reasoning behind bringing back the UN sanctions against Iran looks
"funny," as the majority of UN Security Council members – 13 out of 15 – do
not support activating the 'snapback' mechanism, the Russian Foreign Minister said, in an
exclusive interview with the Al Arabiya news channel.
The council "clearly stated that there is no legal position or moral reasons for anything
close to the snapback and all the statements to the contrary are null and void," he
reminded his audience. The 'snapback' issue leaves Washington at loggerheads with even its
closest allies.
Earlier on Sunday, the three European signatories to the Iran deal – Germany, France
and the UK – stated the return of the sanctions will have no legal effect whatsoever.
However, the Trump administration continues to insist Washington now has the authority to
target any country breaching the "re-imposed" sanctions. For Lavrov, this is telling, in
terms of understanding the quality of US diplomacy.
The Americans lost any talent in diplomacy, unfortunately; they used to have excellent
experts, [but] now what they're doing in foreign policy is to put a demand on the table,
whether they're discussing Iran or anything else.
If their counterpart disagrees and refuses to toe the line, "they put an ultimatum, they
give a deadline and then they impose sanctions, then they make the sanctions
extra-territorial." Regrettably, the European Union also "is engaging in the same tricks
more and more," Lavrov noted.
On Saturday, Washington moved to bring back sweeping UN sanctions against Tehran, insisting
it was acting within its own right to do so as an original party to the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 pact Iran sealed with major world powers. The US left the deal
in 2018 following a decision by President Donald Trump.
"I can only remind them that they should respect the hierarchy of the American
administration, because their boss, President Trump, has personally signed an official decree
withdrawing the United States from the JCPOA," Lavrov added sarcastically.
Sanctions aside, Washington is also busy trying to prevent the lifting of the UN arms
embargo on Iran, set to expire on October 18. This endeavor doesn't make much sense either, the
Russian minister commented. "There is no such thing as an arms embargo against Iran," he
clarified. The UN Security Council reiterated the embargo will end on that date, and "there
would be no limitations whatsoever after the expiration of this timeframe."
"If at any time the United States believes Iran has failed to meet its commitments, no
other state can block our ability to snap back those multilateral sanctions," Pompeo
declared in a statement posted on his official Twitter account on Sunday evening.
The top US diplomat was referring to the avalanche of sanctions Washington has been hellbent
on slapping on Tehran after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) overwhelmingly rejected
the US resolution to extend a 13-year arms embargo against the Islamic Republic past October
earlier this week.
The humiliating defeat , which saw only one member
of the 15-nation body (the Dominican Republic) siding with the US, while China and Russia
opposed the resolution, and all other nations, including France and the UK, abstained, did not
discourage Washington, which doubled down on its threat to hit Iran with biting sanctions.
... ... ...
"Of course other states can block America's ability to impose multilateral sanctions. The
US can impose sanctions by itself, but can't force others to do it," Nicholas Grossman,
teaching assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Illinois,
tweeted.
"That's what 'multilateral' means. Is our SecState really this dumb?" Grossman asked.
Daniel Larison, senior editor at the American Conservative, suggested that Pompeo might
be having a hard time grasping the meaning of the word 'multilateral'.
Some argued that Pompeo could not be unaware of the contradictory nature of his statement.
Dan Murphy, former Middle East and South Asia correspondent for the Christian Science
Monitor, called it "one of the most diplomatically illiterate sentences of all time."
"I guess the end game here is [to] alienate the rest of the world even further to feed his
persecution complex?" Murphy wrote.
John Twomey, 16 August, 2020
Explanation. What Pompeo understands and what many others can't grasp is that the US
decides if their sanctions are "multilateral" because the USA speaks for all other countries
whether they like it or not.
My Opinion, 17 August, 2020
Reminiscing of his shady past as a new CIA recruit he said. "We lied, we cheated and we stole". Apparently, Mikey didn't
do all too well in his literature classes, either and that's why the most suitable candidate from zionists perspective.
A couple of relevant section from the NPR which I think Putin was replying to.
https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF
From page 21...
"The United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme
circumstances
to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners. Extreme
circumstances
could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic
attacks
include, but are not limited to, attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population
or
infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or
warning
and attack assessment capabilities.
The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
weapons
states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation
obligations.
Given the potential of significant non-nuclear strategic attacks, the United States reserves
the right
to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and
proliferation
of non-nuclear strategic attack technologies and U.S. capabilities to counter that
threat."
And page 34...
"Our deterrence strategy is designed to ensure that the Iranian leadership understands
that
any non-nuclear strategic attack against the United States, allies, and partners would be
defeated, and that the cost would outweigh any benefits. There is no plausible scenario
in
which Iran may anticipate benefit from launching a strategic attack. Consequently, U.S
deterrence strategy includes the capabilities necessary to defeat Iranian non-nuclear,
strategic capabilities, including the U.S. defensive and offensive systems capable of
precluding or degrading Tehran's missile threats. The United States will continue to
strengthen these capabilities as necessary to stay ahead of Iranian threats as they grow.
Doing so will enhance U.S. security and that of our regional allies and partners."
The page 34 section states plainly that US is willing to use nuclear weapons against
Iran's non nuclear capabilities.
I should have highlighted this in my previous post.
The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
weapons
states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation
obligations.
After the drone shoot-down last week, Israel and USA sought to convince Russia to allow a
strike against Iran. The Russians rebuffed this request as well as the depiction of Iran as a
terrorist state
"In the context of the statements made by our partners with regard to a major regional
power, namely Iran, I would like to say the following: Iran has always been and remains
our ally and partner , with which we are consistently developing relations both on
bilateral basis and within multilateral formats,"
...Iran launching very clever non-silo dug down ballistic missiles. Anyone can copy the
idea in earth or sand, it looks relatively simple and perhaps genius. It should only require
minimal additions similar to when missiles are "containerized"/vertical on ships.
· "W93/MK7 Navy Warhead -- Developing Modern Capabilities to Address Current and
Future Threats" - Pentagon, Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), unclassified 5-page white paper, May 2020 is still not "leaked". Seems a dud: reading
between the lines not written no one was convinced and instead complained about anyone saying
there's any problems (how "exceptional").
"Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an
asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated
electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to
front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio
communications.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a
response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to
determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive
strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces'
electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. The losses were as follows: one aircraft
carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real
conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the
cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada
of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized
on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected."
Iranians are not part of the rules based order it seems - not that the bad guys in the war
game was played by Iranians.
In the 2002 war game, the US was defeated in 2 days - lost a massive part of its fleet or
some such. So they stopped the game and changed the rules. I think that's when Van Riper quit
the game in disgust, and of course ultimately went public. But even with the rules changed,
the US still lost.
The point about these exercises is that they are real endeavors to create a playbook that
will result in victory. Millennium cost about $200 million to stage, and even for the
Pentagon that was war-fighting money spent to try to get somewhere. The next point even more
crucial is that in EVERY exercise the Pentagon has undertaken since this game, the US is
ALWAYS beaten by Iran.
This is the point I frequently try to hammer home here - the Pentagon has no map
whatsoever that leads to victory in warfare against Iran. Any warfare will always result in
defeat for the US - and we know how unpalatable a public defeat would be for the whole MIC
stream of income. The fundamentals are stacked against the US. It's very similar to Israel's
position right now against Hezbollah. For both the US and Israel, neither one can move
forward along the path it wants to go because its foe simply cannot be beaten by any
stratagem it can devise.
Sharmine Narwani talked about this extensively in her interview with Ross Ashcroft last
year on Renegade, Inc. It's an excellent interview. She's expert on the geopolitics of the ME
and laid out many of the fundamentals that create and support Iran's unwavering position in
this theater and in the great game:
I keep this episode bookmarked largely to share it here from time to time. You will both
enjoy the interview. The takeaway is that the US can bluster all it wants, but it dare not
cross a red line with Iran - such as it already has, for example, with Soleimani's murder,
and for which it has not yet suffered its full punishment, which is complete banishment from
the ME (and which I am convinced Iran will ultimately achieve).
~~
When your generals tell you constantly, daily, that you can't go into battle in a certain
theater, you are free to bluster all you want. In fact, it's all you have left, and you pour
all your feeble energy into it. Thus, the US.
Peter AU1 50 & 55 Bemildred & Grieved 70
RE: Millenium Challenge 2002
And yet, I keep pointing out that, that was 18 long years ago, when Iran did NOT have the
following:
Terminal guidance for it's ballistics
Armed drone technology
Satellite to map out the battlefield
Proximity to Israel (two countries sat between Iran and Israel)
Electronic surveillance and response, like spoofing a drone to land in Iran.
S300 and home built variations
Cyber
Experience watching coalition forces fighting in ME
Etc, etc,
US could not attack Iran conventionally but with Trump's earlier fixation on nuclear
weapons I think he was going to give that a try. Putin must have thought so to as he very
publicly laid Russia's nuclear umbrella over Iran and maintained the status quo.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 1 2020 9:03 utc | 88 US could not attack Iran
conventionally
The US is perfectly capable of *attacking* Iran conventionally. The only thing to question
is whether the US can *defeat* Iran in the sense that Iran "surrenders" officially to the US.
*That* is in my view impossible short of the US actually killing thirty million Iranians by
nuking Iran.
Which in turn I believe even Trump would not do. He really would get Pentagon pushback on
that, as well as from every US ally and the UNSC, because no one wants to get the
geopolitical hear from being the first country to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear
country (this isn't WWII any more, before anyone brings up Hiroshima.)
As for Putin declaring Iran an ally, that does *not* mean that Putin would risk a nuclear
confrontation with the US over Iran. Not going to happen - even if the US nuked Tehran.
Putin's charge is to take care of Russian interests - and having Iran as an "ally and
partner" does qualify as an "interest". But it is *not* an *overriding* interest. Putin would
not be authorized by the Russian people to risk their country being nuked over a bunch of
Persians and if he did, they'd kick his butt out at the next election - and rightly so.
Current Russian military doctrine (discussed
here specifies the following:
The section on use begins by repeating the formulation in the last two Russian military
doctrines (translation from the Russian Embassy in the U.K.): "The Russian Federation shall
reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types
of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of
aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the
very existence of the state is in jeopardy." Like the doctrines, Foundations underlines
that the president of the Russian Federation makes any decision to use nuclear weapons.
However, unlike the doctrines, it then, in paragraph 19, outlines four conditions that
could allow for (not require) nuclear use:
credible information that Russia is under ballistic missile attack (the missiles don't
have to be nuclear -- this isn't specified -- but in many cases, it's hard to tell before
they land);
the use of nuclear or other WMD by an adversary against Russian territory or that of its
allies;
adversary actions against Russian critical government or military infrastructure that could
undermine Russia's capacity for nuclear retaliation (so, for example, a cyber attack on
Russia's command and control -- or perhaps one that targets Russian leadership could also
qualify); and, finally,
conventional aggression against Russia that threatens the very existence of the state.
The primary requirement is the use of nukes or "WMDs" against Russia, or conventional
weapons where their use is an "existential threat", i.e., Russia is about to be defeated on a
conventional battlefield.
the phrase "and/or its allies" almost certainly does *not* include Iran. There are two
"alliances" to which Russia is a party, according to Wikipedia:
1) Collective Security Treaty Organization: Military alliance with 6 former Soviet republics:
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
2) Union State: an alliance between Russia and Belarus (also already covered by 1).
Russia and Iran do not have any formal military or mutual-defense alliance agreements.
Russia and Iran are "allied" only with regard to Syria and Islamic terrorism in general.
Russia is willing to sell Iran arms, obviously. Equally obviously, that does not indicate a
willingness to risk nuclear war.
Putin made the following statement in June of 2019:
After talks Friday with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the sidelines of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization summit in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, Putin said that
"relations between Russia and Iran are multifaceted, multilateral" and that "this concerns
the economy, this concerns the issues of stability in the region, our joint efforts to
combat terrorism, including in Syria."
Nothing in that statement indicates a willingness to use Russia's nuclear arsenal to
threaten the US to prevent a US attack on Iran.
It is of course *possible* that some in the Pentagon, the Deep State, and/or Congress, may
interpret that to be the case. But I think the primary restraint on any President would be
the heat for a first use of nukes on a non-nuclear country - even if the alleged "reason" was
that Iran was developing nukes.
Even severe damage to US Navy assets in the region would not be sufficient to justify the use
of nukes against Iran, in particular because the only viable target for nukes would Tehran or
some other major Iranian city.
It is just possible that a tactical nuke would be used against a heavily buried facility
involved in nuclear weapons development (or more precisely, alleged to be so - because Iran
won't be developing nukes regardless of any US attack.) But even that would likely produce
more heat than the US would want - and if it was done, it would be done as covertly as
possible and then denied by the US. And even in that case, Russia would not threaten a
nuclear response over that.
Of course, if the US leadership were to become even more unhinged than Trump, or say, the
Russian leadership after Putin were to become more hawkish, then all bets are off. But under
current conditions, it's not going to happen.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957
"In this connection, I would like to note the following. We are greatly concerned by certain
provisions of the revised nuclear posture review, which expand the opportunities for reducing
and reduce the threshold for the use of nuclear arms. Behind closed doors, one may say
anything to calm down anyone, but we read what is written. And what is written is that this
strategy can be put into action in response to conventional arms attacks and even to a
cyber-threat.
I should note that our military doctrine says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear
weapons solely in response to a nuclear attack, or an attack with other weapons of mass
destruction against the country or its allies, or an act of aggression against us with the
use of conventional weapons that threaten the very existence of the state. This all is very
clear and specific.
As such, I see it is my duty to announce the following. Any use of nuclear weapons against
Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a
nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant
consequences."
Patrushev from my link above.
"In the context of the statements made by our partners with regard to a major regional power,
namely Iran, I would like to say the following: Iran has always been and remains our ally and
partner, with which we are consistently developing relations both on bilateral basis and
within multilateral formats"
Patrushev went to the meeting as a presidential envoy. After Putin's 2018 speech, I wondered
who Russia considered an ally as I had not seen Russia name any. I tend to think Patrushev
had reason to publicly name Iran as an ally at that presser. My guess is Israel and US were
trying to get Russia to stand aside while they attacked Iran.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 1 2020 10:52 utc | 95 I tend to think Patrushev had reason to
publicly name Iran as an ally at that presser. My guess is Israel and US were trying to get
Russia to stand aside while they attacked Iran.
Nonetheless, the two statements do not constitute an official declaration that Iran is an
ally in the sense of being under the Russian nuclear umbrella, as the countries in the list I
quoted from Wikipedia are. The Collective Security Treaty Organization "charter reaffirmed
the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force.
Signatories would not be able to join other military alliances or other groups of states,[3]
while aggression against one signatory would be perceived as an aggression against all."
That's a military alliance which specifically declares those countries as "allies" in the
military sense and specifically states that an attack on any of them is an attack on all of
them.
Putin nor anyone else in Russia has specifically stated that Iran is an ally in those same
terms. Putin's reference to Iran as an ally applied to economic matters and the security of
Syria.
There is an article at Stratfor which I cannot access, but the tagline says: "Nikolai
Bordyuzha, secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), said Feb.
25 [2020] that Moscow's nuclear umbrella has been extended to other CSTO member countries..."
In other words, the nuclear umbrella didn't even cover the former Soviet Union countries
until this year, apparently. From another article I found, Russia extended the umbrella to
Belarus in 2000. Another article I found says this:
Finally, Russia has created its own military alliance through the Collective Security
Treaty (1992) or "Tashkent treaty". In 2002, the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) was created, with a view to parallel NATO. As of June 2009, the organization
included Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which are
implicitly covered by a Russian nuclear guarantee. Even though Russian officials refer
sometimes to all Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) countries being protected by Moscow's nuclear forces, it is
reasonable to assume that only CSTO countries are effectively under the Russian nuclear
umbrella.
So I simply don't see any reference anywhere to Russia explicitly extending its nuclear
umbrella outside of the former Soviet Bloc countries. Again, all of the references made by
Russians - Putin or otherwise - to Iran as an "ally" do not reference a military dimension.
Of course, it's always *possible* that Putin or some future Russian leader *would* extend
that umbrella to Iran, depending on future circumstances. But it seems highly unlikely.
I repeat: There is no chance that Russia will go to nuclear war over Iran. Or even
conventional war against US military assets engaged in an attack on Iran because that would
risk escalation to a nuclear level. The most Russia will do is supply arms and intelligence
to Iran.
For months the US has been in a full court diplomatic press on fellow UN Security Council
members in an attempt to ensure that a UN arms embargo against Iran does not expire.
The embargo on selling conventional weapons to Iran is set to end October 18, and is
ironically enough part of the 2015 nuclear deal brokered under Obama, which the Trump
administration in May 2018 pulled out of.
But now Pompeo vows
the US will "take necessary action" -- no doubt meaning more sanctions at the very least,
and likely military action at worst. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week
that "in the near future... we hope will be met with approval from other members of the
P5."
"In the event it's not, we're going to take the action necessary to ensure that this arms
embargo does not expire," he said.
"We have the capacity to execute snapback and we're going to use it in a way that protects
and defends America," Pompeo told the committee further.
Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued
to call on the world to accept extending the UN arms embargo against Iran. The embargo is
scheduled to expire on October 18.
But it's clear at this point that the UN is not intent on extending the embargo . Russia for
one has promised as much. Both Russia and China also have recent weapons deals in the works
with the Islamic Republic.
LibertarianMenace , 55 minutes ago
"protects and defends America"
Nothing is farther from the truth, fat man. We know (((who))) it is we're
"protecting".
bumboo , 37 minutes ago
Is this fat guy being blackmailed to saying stupid things all the time
monty42 , 35 minutes ago
He works for the Council on Foreign Relations who have been bankrupting the States with
perpetual war since they fomented WW2.
LibertarianMenace , 30 minutes ago
Yes, him and the rest of the USG. When you can assassinate a U.S. President in broad
daylight and get away with it, you can get away with more extravagant illusions, like 09/11,
or if people are finally catching on, throw in just a smidgen of reality like CV-19. Sky is
the limit.
This is Trump's redeeming value: he's showing all, including the densest among us
(((who))) it is that runs the country. Whether he does it intentionally or not, as in
kowtowing to (((them))), is ultimately irrelevant. (((They))) have to be a bit uncomfortable
from the unaccustomed exposure. The censoring just proves it.
Tag 'em And Bag 'em , 36 minutes ago
This pneumatic bull frog is a deep state sock puppet with a Zionist hand way up his
***.
When his lips move, Satanyahoo's voice comes out
This has zero to do with the interests of real Americans.
**building 7 didn't kill itself**
Tag 'em And Bag 'em , 23 minutes ago
TRUMP: "Larry Silverstein is a great guy, he's a good guy, he's a friend of mine."
The reason that the US government are trying to get Iran is because Epstein/Mossad has
blackmailed them all into doing their bidding.
Why don't you cover that in the news, huh?
El Chapo Read , 31 minutes ago
"Necessary Action" = Call Israel and ask what they want him to do.
jaser , 43 minutes ago
Protect America? Protect corrupt Netanyahu more like it. Your nation is about to implode
and you just cut off the $600 welfare payment to your citizens hey but let's ban TikTok and
protect America from Iran.
malMono , 39 minutes ago
This why Biden might win...idiots like pompeo are a turnoff.
Grouchy-Bear , 34 minutes ago
Sometimes it looks like Pompeo is actually in charge. Okay, most of the time he is in
charge. Why go through the election process at all? Pompeo is running the country and was
never elected...
malMono , 39 minutes ago
This why Biden might win...idiots like pompeo are a turnoff.
Grouchy-Bear , 34 minutes ago
Sometimes it looks like Pompeo is actually in charge. Okay, most of the time he is in
charge. Why go through the election process at all? Pompeo is running the country and was
never elected...
rwe2late , 43 minutes ago
Embargo Iran to make them as desperate as possible.
Then accuse them of being "aggressive" while one attacks and bombs Iran's near neighbors
(Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen).
Sounds like a plan of aggressive war if done by any but an "exceptional" nation.
If Russia and China want to trade with Iran, how in the world is it the US Government's
right to tell them not to? If we want to put sanctions on Iran, go for it. But at this point,
the dollar is collapsing as world reserve currency. Iran should well be able to buy anything
they need, from China/Russia and the rest of the world which doesn't respect US sanctions, or
so I would think.
My point - there's really getting nothing that the US even can do about Iran. So
maybe...we should just stop and give it a rest.
Einstein101 , 13 minutes ago
Iran should well be able to buy anything they need, from China/Russia
Fact is Russia and China sell almost nothing to Iran, fearing US sanctions.
Cassandra.Hermes , 2 minutes ago
Don't forget Turkey, Azerbaijan and Europe! Turkish stream is not only bypassing Ukrain
but it is connected to Azeri pipeline that is 10km from Iranians border.
monty42 , 15 minutes ago
"Obviously the Iranian army has a bunch of non thinkers..."
Hypocrisy much? The US regime employs paid mercenaries who swore to uphold and defend the
Constitution, yet lie and unthinkingly "just follow orders" and believe that absolves them of
their oathbreaking and actions.
"Dude, I am FREE. I have firearms that are deadly." Heh, only a very limited arsenal
permitted by the Central Committee in D.C., to maintain firepower supremacy in the empire's
favor. Your firearms may be deadly, but the empire mercenary can take you out without you
ever seeing their face.
Clearly having firearms and ammo alone do not prevent tyranny, the States under the D.C.
regime prove that.
vipervenom , 17 minutes ago
pompass the fat boy coward sending our troops to die while he hides behind his own extra
large rear end.
"... International law is simply a weapon for the empire when it is invoked by it, and it is a useless farce for those the empire opposes. ..."
"... Interesting, but how is it possible to prosecute the US when it already dominates the world? If Hitler and the Germans had won the war there wouldn't have been a Nuremberg Trial. ..."
Editor's Note: As the United States approaches the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion,
much of the commentary is focusing on the Bush administration's "incompetence" in prosecuting
the war -- the failure to coimnit enough troops, the decision to disband the old Iraqi army
without adequate plans for training a new one, the highhandedness of the U.S. occupation.
But what about the legal and moral questions aiising from the unprovoked invasion of Iraq?
Should George W. Bush and his top aides be held accountable for violating the laws against
aggressive war that the United States and other Western nations promulgated in punishing senior
Nazis after World War II? Do the Nuremberg precedents that prohibit one nation from invading
another apply to Bush and American officials -- or are they somehow immune? Put bluntly, should
Bush and his inner circle face a war-crimes tiibunal for the tens of thousands of deaths in
Iraq?
Despite the present-day conventional wisdom in Washington that these are frivolous
questions, they actually go to the heart of the American commitment to the rule of law and the
concept that the law applies to everyone. In this guest essay, Peter Dyer looks at this larger
issue:
Just over six decades ago, the first Nuremberg Trial began. On Nov. 21, 1945, U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson opened the prosecution of 21 Germans for initiating a war of
aggression and for the crimes which flowed from this act. Now is a good time to reconsider some
of the history and issues involved in this momentous trial in the light of the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
The trial lasted for over a year, culminating in verdicts of guilty of one, some, or all of
these crimes for 18 of the defendants. Eleven were sentenced to death.
While the Nuremberg trial is, these days, seldom invoked or discussed, it was, and still is,
in the words of Tribunal President Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, "unique in the history of the
jurisprudence of the world." Among the most groundbreaking aspects were the drive to formally
criminalize the three categories of crimes, and to establish responsibility by individuals for
these crimes.
These days, the Nuremberg Trial is chiefly remembered for the prosecution and punishment of
individuals for genocide. Equally important at the time, however, was the focus on wars of
aggression. Thus, the first sentence of Justice Jackson's opening statement: "The privilege of
opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave
responsibility."
Crimes against peace and the responsibility tor them were detined in Article 6, the heart of
the Charter of the IMT: "The tribunal.. .shall have the power to try and punish persons who..
.whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following
crimes...(a) Crimes Against Peace, namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war
of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances..
The desire was not only to punish individuals for crimes but to set an international moral
and legal precedent for the future. Indeed, before the end of 1946, the United Nations General
Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution 95 (1), affirming '4he principles of International Law
recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal." And, of
course, the United Nations Charter forbids armed aggression and violations of the sovereignty
of any state by any other state, except in immediate self defense (Article 2, Sec. 4 and
Articles 39 and 51).
Invoking the precedent set by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg trial in
1946, there can be no doubt that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of aggression.
There was no imminent threat to U.S. security nor to the security of the world. The invasion
violated the U.N. Charter as well as U.N. Security Council Resolution #1441.
The Nuremberg precedent calls for no less than the arrest and prosecution of those
individuals responsible for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with President George W. Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz.
Those who still justify the invasion of Iraq would do well to remember the words of Justice
Jackson: "Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it
finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling these grievances or
for altering these conditions."
And, for those who have difficulty visualizing American leaders as defendants in such a
trial, Justice Jackson's words again: "...(L)et me make clear that while this law is first
applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it
must condemn, aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in
judgment...This trial represents mankind's desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law
to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world's peace
and to commit aggression against the rights of their neighbors."
Peter Dyer is a machinist who moved with his wife from California to New Zealand in
2004.
Aaron , July 26, 2020 at 20:17
Well, it would have been up to one person to call for an investigation and prosecute any
illegal actions pertaining to the invasion – Barack Obama. Nobody in the Bush
administration would have done it, and it was something that Obama talked about alot in his
speeches in his campaign to be president.
Ana Márcia Vainsencher , July 25, 2020 at 17:47
Law is only applied to the USA "enemies", are they real, or no. Historically, the USA
loves to create enemies. It's the king of wars.
Sadly, we still entertain notions of war crimes, meaning that mass murders can be
conducted in legal ways that's the disease right there: all we have to do is make rules for
how to slaughter human beings according to a scholarly and civilized rule book written by our
most gifted and trained in the humanities experts and then wipe out as many humans as we need
to in a completely legal way hello?
How about a Geneva convention to write up rules of child
rape, wife beating, or maybe the only thing to get "civilized" people upset: pet
murdering?
Germany was only doing the politcal economic business of capital, as were its enemies, except
for Russia which played the greater role in the defeat of "evil" nazi
capitalism..anti-democratic capitalism is in the business of war and it will take democratic
communism to bring about peace and global sanity before it destroys humanity.
Andrew Thomas , July 25, 2020 at 13:25
It has been clear for several decades that Nuremberg was not a precedent. It was -- and this
is very difficult to actually write out -- victor's justice, which is exactly what the Nazis
and their sympathizers said it was then. The US has been "projecting power" around the world
ever since in violation of the spirit of the legal terms of the international order it was
instrumental in creating post World War II; and its clear provisions at least since Reagan
told the World Court to drop dead re: Nicaragua vs. US.
Other more informed readers may have
much earlier examples. International law is simply a weapon for the empire when it is invoked
by it, and it is a useless farce for those the empire opposes.
Robert Sinuhe , July 25, 2020 at 10:34
Interesting, but how is it possible to prosecute the US when it already dominates the world? If Hitler and the Germans
had won the war there wouldn't have been a Nuremberg Trial. Principles are morals and just but power trumps all.
News
/
Politics
Iran's top security official: Harsher revenge awaits perpetrators of Gen. Soleimani's assassination
Wednesday, 22 July 2020 4:29 PM
[ Last
Update: Wednesday, 22 July 2020 4:29 PM ]
Members of the Iraqi honor guard walk past a huge portrait of Iran's late top general Qassem Soleimani (L) and Iraqi
commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, both killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport last month, during a memorial
service held in Baghdad's high-security Green Zone on February 11, 2020. (Photo by AFP)
Iran's top security
official
says
harsher
revenge
awaits the perpetrators of the attack that killed senior Iranian anti-terrorism commander
Lieutenant
General Qassem Soleimani and his companions.
In a
post
on his Twitter
page on Wednesday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said that US
President Donald Trump had admitted that the American, upon his direct order, committed the crime of assassinating General
Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and
Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force, who were two
prominent figures of the anti-terrorism campaign.
"The two Iranian and Iraqi nations are avengers of blood of these martyrs
and
will not rest until they punish the perpetrators," read part of the tweet.
"Harsher revenge is one the way," it concluded.
The two commanders and a number of their companions were assassinated in a US airstrike near Baghdad airport on January 3,
as General Soleimani was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital.
Both commanders were extremely popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist
group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
In retaliation for the attack, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles a US base in Iraq on January 8. According to
the US Defense Department, more than 100 American forces suffered "traumatic brain injuries" during the counterstrike. The
IRGC, however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans, who perished during the retaliation.
Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining Trump, who ordered the assassination, and
several other US military and political leaders behind the strike.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Iran will never forget Washington's
assassination of General Soleimani and will definitely deliver a "counterblow" to the United States.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget this issue and will definitely deal the counterblow to the Americans,"
Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran.
"They killed your guest at your own home and unequivocally admitted the atrocity. This is no small matter," Ayatollah
Khamenei told the Iraqi premier.
A UN special rapporteur says
has
condemned the US assassination and said Washington has put the world at unprecedented peril with its murder of Iran's top
anti-terror commander.
Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has also warned that it is high
time the international community broke its silence on Washington's drone-powered unlawful killings.
Press TV's website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
"... Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41. ..."
"... Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from power. ..."
"... Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy. ..."
"... The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of ..."
SCOTT RITTER: Powell & Iraq -- Regime Change, Not Disarmament: The Fundamental
Lie July 18, 2020 Save
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
T he New York Times Magazine has published a puff piece soft-peddling former
Secretary of State Colin Powell's role in selling a war on Iraq to the UN Security Council
using what turned out to be bad intelligence. "Colin Powell Still Wants Answers" is the title
of the article, written by Robert Draper. "The analysts who provided the intelligence," a
sub-header to the article declares, "now say it was doubted inside the CIA at the time."
Draper's article is an extract from a book, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration
Took America into Iraq , scheduled for publication later this month. In the interest of
full disclosure, I was approached by Draper in 2018 about his interest in writing this book,
and I agreed to be interviewed as part of his research. I have not yet read the book, but can
note that, based upon the tone and content of his New York Times Magazine article, my
words apparently carried little weight.
Regime Change, Not WMD
I spent some time articulating to Draper my contention that the issue with Saddam Hussein's
Iraq was never about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but rather regime change, and that
everything had to be viewed in the light of this reality -- including Powell's Feb. 5, 2003
presentation before the UN Security Council. Based upon the content of his article, I might as
well have been talking to a brick wall.
Powell's 2003 presentation before the council did not take place in a policy vacuum. In many
ways, the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was a continuation of
the 1991 Gulf War, which Powell helped orchestrate. Its fumbled aftermath was again, something
that transpired on Powell's watch as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the
administration of George H. W. Bush.
Powell at UN Security Council. (UN Photo)
Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that
Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled
the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution
in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's
post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41.
Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to
continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security
Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD
prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these
sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from
power.
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
I bore witness to the reality of this policy as a weapons inspector working for the United
Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), created under the mandate of resolution 687 to oversee the
disarming of Iraq's WMD. Brought in to create an intelligence capability for the inspection
team, my remit soon expanded to operations and, more specifically, how Iraq was hiding retained
weapons and capability from the inspectors.
SCUDS
UN weapons inspectors in central Iraq, June 1, 1991. (UN Photo)
One of my first tasks was addressing discrepancies in Iraq's accounting of its modified SCUD
missile arsenal; in December 1991 I wrote an assessment that Iraq was likely retaining
approximately 100 missiles. By March 1992 Iraq, under pressure, admitted it had retained a
force of 89 missiles (that number later grew to 97).
After extensive investigations, I was able to corroborate the Iraqi declarations, and in
November 1992 issued an assessment that UNSCOM could account for the totality of Iraq's SCUD
missile force. This, of course, was an unacceptable conclusion, given that a compliant Iraq
meant sanctions would need to be lifted and Saddam would survive.
The U.S. intelligence community rejected my findings without providing any fact-based
evidence to refute it, and the CIA later briefed the Senate that it assessed Iraq to be
retaining a force of some 200 covert SCUD missiles. This all took place under Powell's watch as
chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
I challenged the CIA's assessment, and organized the largest, most complex inspection in
UNSCOM's history to investigate the intelligence behind the 200-missile assessment. In the end,
the intelligence was shown to be wrong, and in November 1993 I briefed the CIA Director's
senior staff on UNSCOM's conclusion that all SCUD missiles were accounted for.
Moving the Goalposts
The CIA's response was to assert that Iraq had a force of 12-20 covert SCUD missiles, and
that this number would never change, regardless of what UNSCOM did. This same assessment was in
play at the time of Powell's Security Council presentation, a blatant lie born of the willful
manufacture of lies by an entity -- the CIA -- whose task was regime change, not
disarmament.
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still delivered his speech to the UN Security
Council.
In October 2002, in a
briefing designed to undermine the credibility of UN inspectors preparing to return to
Iraq, the Defense Intelligence Agency trotted out Dr. John Yurechko, the defense intelligence
officer for information operations and denial and deception, to provide a briefing detailing
U.S. claims that Iraq was engaged in a systematic process of concealment regarding its WMD
programs.
John Yurechko, of the Defense Intelligence Agency, briefs reporters at the Pentagon on Oct.
8, 2002 (U.S. Defense Dept.)
According to Yurechko, the briefing was compiled from several sources, including "inspector
memoirs" and Iraqi defectors. The briefing was farcical, a deliberate effort to propagate
misinformation by the administration of Bush 43. I know -- starting in 1994, I led a concerted
UNSCOM effort involving the intelligence services of eight nations to get to the bottom of
Iraq's so-called "concealment mechanism."
Using innovative imagery intelligence techniques, defector debriefs, agent networks and
communications intercepts, combined with extremely aggressive on-site inspections, I was able,
by March 1998, to conclude that Iraqi concealment efforts were largely centered on protecting
Saddam Hussein from assassination, and had nothing to do with hiding WMD. This, too, was an
inconvenient finding, and led to the U.S. dismantling the apparatus of investigation I had so
carefully assembled over the course of four years.
It was never about the WMD -- Powell knew this. It was always about regime change.
Using UN as Cover for Coup Attempt
In 1991, Powell signed off on the incorporation of elite U.S. military commandos into the
CIA's Special Activities Staff for the purpose of using UNSCOM as a front to collect
intelligence that could facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein. I worked with this special
cell from 1991 until 1996, on the mistaken opinion that the unique intelligence, logistics and
communications capability they provided were useful to planning and executing the complex
inspections I was helping lead in Iraq.
This program resulted in the failed coup attempt in June 1996 that used UNSCOM as its
operational cover -- the coup failed, the Special Activities Staff ceased all cooperation with
UNSCOM, and we inspectors were left holding the bag. The Iraqis had every right to be concerned
that UNSCOM inspections were being used to target their president because, the truth be told,
they were.
Nowhere in Powell's presentation to the Security Council, or in any of his efforts to recast
that presentation as a good intention led astray by bad intelligence, does the reality of
regime change factor in. Regime change was the only policy objective of three successive U.S.
presidential administrations -- Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43.
Powell was a key player in two of these. He knew. He knew about the existence of the CIA's
Iraq Operations Group. He knew of the successive string of covert "findings" issued by U.S.
presidents authorizing the CIA to remove Saddam Hussein from power using lethal force. He knew
that the die had been cast for war long before Bush 43 decided to engage the United Nations in
the fall of 2002.
Powell Knew
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still allowed himself to be used as a front to sell this
conflict to the international community, and by extension the American people, using
intelligence that was demonstrably false. If, simply by drawing on my experience as an UNSCOM
inspector, I knew every word he uttered before the Security Council was a lie the moment he
spoke, Powell should have as well, because every aspect of my work as an UNSCOM inspector was
known to, and documented by, the CIA.
It is not that I was unknown to Powell in the context of the WMD narrative. Indeed, my name
came up during an
interview Powell gave to Fox News on Sept. 8, 2002, when he was asked to comment on a quote
from my speech to the Iraqi Parliament earlier that month in which I stated:
"The rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government and others has not to date been
backed up by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of
weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for attacking the United
States. Void of such facts, all we have is speculation."
"We have facts, not speculation. Scott is certainly entitled to his opinion but I'm afraid
that I would not place the security of my nation and the security of our friends in the
region on that kind of an assertion by somebody who's not in the intelligence chain any
longer If Scott is right, then why are they keeping the inspectors out? If Scott is right,
why don't they say, 'Anytime, any place, anywhere, bring 'em in, everybody come in -- we are
clean?' The reason is they are not clean. And we have to find out what they have and what
we're going to do about it. And that's why it's been the policy of this government to insist
that Iraq be disarmed in accordance with the terms of the relevant UN resolutions."
UN inspectors in Iraq. (UN Photo)
Of course, in November 2002, Iraq did just what Powell said they would never do -- they let
the UN inspectors return without preconditions. The inspectors quickly exposed the fact that
the "high quality" U.S. intelligence they had been tasked with investigating was pure bunk.
Left to their own devices, the new round of UN weapons inspections would soon be able to give
Iraq a clean bill of health, paving the way for the lifting of sanctions and the continued
survival of Saddam Hussein.
Powell knew this was not an option. And thus he allowed himself to be used as a vehicle for
disseminating more lies -- lies that would take the U.S. to war, cost thousands of U.S. service
members their lives, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, all in the name of regime
change.
Back to Robert Draper. I spent a considerable amount of time impressing upon him the reality
of regime change as a policy, and the fact that the WMD disarmament issue existed for the sole
purpose of facilitating regime change. Apparently, my words had little impact, as all Draper
has done in his article is continue the false narrative that America went to war on the weight
of false and misleading intelligence.
Draper is wrong -- America went to war because it was our policy as a nation, sustained over
three successive presidential administrations, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. By 2002 the
WMD narrative that had been used to support and sustain this regime change policy was
weakening.
Powell's speech was a last-gasp effort to use the story of Iraqi WMD for the purpose it was
always intended -- to facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In this light, Colin
Powell's speech was one of the greatest successes in CIA history. That is not the story,
however, Draper chose to tell, and the world is worse off for that failed opportunity.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet
Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm,
and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
ofConsortium News.
PleaseContributeto Consortium
News on its 25th Anniversary
The spate of gas explosions are unlikely to be accidents. One maybe but not a spate of
them. Unlikely to be cyber as both a physical leak and ignition source are required.
I agree that most of these explosions are probably not "cyberattacks". Despite all the
scare stories about hacking destroying infrastructure, it's not that easy, especially in the
US where every industry and every company within that industry has their own "standards",
which means there are no real standards a hacker can rely on. It's much easier to steal data
than it is to influence hardware, although that certainly can be done in many cases.
On the other hand, there are plenty of internal Iranian dissidents and foreign visitors
who can be employed by both the CIA and Israel to further a spate of physical attacks.
Obviously these sorts of attacks are going to do next to nothing to actually damage
Iranian infrastructure, as Iran is a big country. These sorts of sabotage are merely a
psychological warfare ploy. This is amplified by Western media coverage of the incidents
which is intended to portray Iran as weak and unable to defend itself.
I've often speculated about what a few hundred saboteurs could do if inserted into the US,
armed with nothing but small arms and a decent amount of explosives. Depending on how well
they are kept covert and how smart they are in choosing targets, you could bring the US to
its knees in perhaps six months of operations. Car bombs, for instance - the US is *made* for
car bombs, given our reliance on vehicles and the congestion in the inner cities. Detonate a
car bomb in each of the 50 Major Metropolitan Areas simultaneously and do so consistently
every week for a month and most of the inner cities would be shut down and under martial
law.
That's the kind of actual physical campaign that could produce significant results in a
country. These pin-prick attacks in Iran are just a combination of psychological warfare plus
perhaps some effects as causing their protective services to be overstretched somewhat.
Mostly what they are is an attempt to provoke Iran into doing something *overtly* against
Israel or the US. The neocons want Iran to be the instigator of the war, not the US or
Israel. They want Iran to provide a casus belli for the war, so that Trump and Netanyahu can
present themselves as blameless for the resulting disaster, much like Bush presented Iraq as
responsible for 9/11.
In essence, the US and Israel are acting as Internet trolls, pin-pricking Iran in an
attempt to get Iran to engage and thus manipulate Iran for their own purposes.
Hopefully Iran will not take the bait, or if it does so, that it makes sure its
retaliations are as covert and deniable as the CIA's while being at least equally as damaging
or more so. If I were Iran, I would specifically target the CIA and its assets in the region.
It would not be hard to identify the CIA officers stationed in most countries and conduct
harassment operations against them, even perhaps engineering "accidental deaths". It would be
an analog of the US-Russian Cold War days. Competent spies aren't that plentiful and killing
them off tends to put a real crimp in operations while mostly being deniable since all such
events would be "classified".
As for the timing of the likely pending Iran war,another consideration is the impact on
financial markets.
The market went into a mini panic last September when the Yemeni missiles hit the Saudi
refineries because the Saudis withdrew ~$60n - $80b from repo markets. Some blame JP Morgan
for that, but someone I know who works at the repo trading desk of the US branch of a large
foreign bank was adamant it was the Saudi pullback and JP Morgan had nothing to do with it. I
thought that the US withdrew Patriot batteries from the Gulf infrastructure in Saudi Arabia,
that is an odd move given Iran could destroy those facilities.
..
"Three weeks into the war, Marine Sgt. Ed Chin got the order: Help the Iraqis celebrating in
Baghdad's Firdos Square topple the statue of Saddam Hussein.
"My captain comes over and he's got like this package. He hands it to me and he's like, he
tells me there's an American flag in there and when I get up there, you know, he's like, show
the boys the colors," said Chin.
Are you seriously incapable of making a connection regarding the hypocrisy of the US
Govt/US military wrapping an American Flag on the Saddam Statue and destroying it for a media
photo op while cheering about it? And the condemnation of the US Govt declaring statues
should not be destroyed?
Do you see no insanity regarding the US Regime illegally invading and destroying another
Nation and its statues (war crime w/millions dead)? The very same Nation celebrating a "bad"
Iraqi statue being destroyed is suddenly disgusted when its own statues are being destroyed
by its own people?
My point is obvious if you can step back from your myopic view. The US is a mentally ill
Nation ridden with hypocrisy. I personally do not put much merit into statues, cultural
idolatry comes to mind, just as foolish as religious idolatry.
So what are your thoughts on the destruction of the Saddam statue sanctioned by the US
govt and military?
@114 I expect V will be along at some point but here are my thoughts on the Saddam
statue.....
The US is ridden with hypocrisy as you say ....no surprise there. The statue was actually
pulled down by a rentamob of Iraqi Saddam haters while American troops high-fived each
other.
They wouldn't see anything wrong with pulling the statue down because Saddam was a 'bad
guy' and an American enemy.
Those same troops would probably not feel the same way about Confederate generals.....who
just happened to be Americans who kept slaves and picked the losing side. They would be seen
as major figures in American history.
That is how a lot of Americans would justify it. Of course it is rank hypocrisy..
Wanted to ask the same question, i am sure B will have something as soon as some facts are
there to be dissected, seems for now that all we have to go by is the assumption it is either
US or Israel dirty work, one that is hard to disagree with.
Iran will have to respond, 4 attacks in less than 2 weeks is really taking the piss and
makes them look weak. Quite a reversal from the Iran that was seizing tankers, acting on its
threats and dictating the tempo of escalation. Israel and US are only deterred by credible
threats and the longer Iran waits, the more emboldened they will feel.
Perhaps Iran is more focused on investigations and searching through its own ranks for
collaborators or traitors first, meaning it is still not sure who to hit back at. Is it the
US or Israel, who is directly responsible for these attacks? What would be an appropriate
response? Anything too overt could be counterproductive as there is no proof tying the
explosions to anyone, much less anything concrete that Western media would publish that could
justify Iran's actions.
Hezbollah has plenty of problems of its own as explained in B's Lebanon article... so not
likely we'll see rocket showers on Israel any time soon on Iran's behalf. Seems those new
tankers on the way to Venezuela could be targeted soon too... perhaps they are waiting for
that as their pretext for escalation or retaliation?
I expect Iran to measure its response tit-for-tat. If these explosions are the result of
computer intrusion, Iran will respond in cyberspace. If they are not - and I find it hard to
believe they are, disrupting a centrifuge is one thing (and too clever by half), causing an
explosion is another - then Iran or a proxy will have to respond in kind. As the article
cited below states:
He said Israel was "bracing" for an Iranian response, likely via a cyberattack. In an April
cyberattack attributed by western intelligence officials to Iran, an attempt was made to
increase chlorine levels in water flowing to residential Israeli areas.
Probably BS by Israel and the US, but this sort of thing goes on all the time. Note that
there was no explosions involved.
The problem is that covert operations require some planning, especially if hacking is
involved. So Iran's response might be days, weeks or months delayed. Of course, it can
respond more directly by using Iraqi Shia militias against US forces in Iraq, or allies like
Hezbollah elsewhere. But that is a trap the US neocons have laid - anything Iran does can be
used to justify further attacks. Even if Iran proves that these explosions were not
accidents, they will not be believed. So anything Iran does which is not equally covert will
be used to justify further aggression.
There really is no winning this game by Iran. Only if the US and Israel stops covert
attacks - and that isn't going to happen.
Meanwhile, allegedly the EU has claimed Iran has now triggered the JCPOA dispute
mechanism.
I don't know if this is true, but if so, it represents the final collapse of the JCPOA.
The dispute mechanism has a specific time mechanism to which all parties must adhere. So
within a short period of time, Iran will either be granted its sanctions relief as promised
or the deal will end. The deal's snapback mechanism won't be applied, because Russia and
China will veto that no matter the US does. The US has no standing, but will try anyway just
for the propaganda value.
Once the JCPOA is finally declared dead, the US and Israel will escalate their aggression
against Iran, because no one in the ignorant electorate in those countries will be told that
the deal was ruined by Trump and the EU's spinelessness.
Without the JCPOA, the US can revert to the sort of warmongering it engaged in before the
Iraq war - constantly escalating accusations that can never be proven false and an unending
stream of propaganda justifying a war.
The *only* thing preventing an Iran war is Hezbollah's ability to derail the Israeli
economy. The US and Israel have no choice but to find a solution to that problem. Whether
they will succeed in that, and at what cost to Lebanon, is the question.
Historically, I don't think there has ever been this level of enmity between countries
without a war resulting (other than between nuclear armed nations due to MAD.) It may take
some years more to get the Iran war started, but it is inevitable.
And that recognition, contrary to Bagoom's claims, is *not* advocacy. An Iran war is going
to be very bad for *everyone* except Israel, the neocons and the military-industrial
complex.
"... To review, starting over a week ago a massive explosion was observed lighting up the midnight sky outside Tehran, caught on film by local residents, which Iran's military dismissed as a gas leak explosion incident. But it was later revealed to have occurred at a ballistic missile development facility. ..."
"... And this past week, another reported "accident" occurred at Natanz nuclear complex. But that particular 'mystery' blast caused Iranian officials to lash out in anger Thursday, saying "hostile countries" like the US and Israel are near the point of crossing "red lines". Crucially, Iran also said there were no radioactive leaks as a result of the incident. ..."
On Saturday an explosion
ripped through a power plant in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, marking the third 'mystery'
blast to hit the country in only under a week, and the fourth recently .
State media showed emergency crews on the scene of the daytime incident while a fire raged
at the power plant. This followed days ago
a huge blast which destroyed Sina hospital in northern Tehran, which killed 19 people and
injured 14.
To review, starting over a week ago a massive explosion was observed lighting up the
midnight sky outside Tehran, caught on film by local residents, which Iran's military dismissed
as a gas leak explosion incident. But it was
later revealed to have occurred at a ballistic missile development facility.
And this past week, another reported "accident" occurred at Natanz nuclear complex. But that
particular 'mystery' blast caused Iranian officials to lash out in anger Thursday, saying
"hostile countries" like the US and Israel are near the point of crossing "red lines".
Crucially, Iran also said there were no radioactive leaks as a result of the incident.
Both US and Israeli media, including The New York Times and Times of Israel, have begun
speculating that it
could be part of a Mossad or CIA op to set back Iran's nuclear development .
The Jerusalem Post on Sunday asked in
a headline and op-ed : Have four explosions pushed Iran farther away from a nuke?
Of the myriad fascinating questions surrounding the four recent, mysterious explosions in
Iran, there is still one key issue that rises above the rest: Has any of this significantly
distanced Iran further from a nuclear weapon?
The jury is still out, as there is so much that is unconfirmed. But to date, the early
answer would need to be: probably not .
Since the IAEA's March report that the Islamic Republic crossed the threshold for having
enough low-level enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, the estimated time for Tehran to enrich
enough of that uranium up to a weaponized level dropped from 12 months to as little as four
months.
Most interestingly, an unnamed intelligence source said to be based in the Middle East told
The
New York Times this past week said of the mysterious incident at Natanz: "The blast was
caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility."
The official added that the bombing "destroyed much of the aboveground parts of the facility
where new centrifuges are balanced before they are put into operation."
Reports out of Iran's state media also suggest a possible cyber-attack, to which Tehran
military officials say "they'll respond" if the attack did indeed originate from Iran's
enemies like the US or Israel.
Powell on Sunday aimed a broad critique at Trump's approach to the military, a foreign policy
he said was causing "disdain" abroad, and a president he portrayed as trying to amass
excessive power.
"We have a Constitution and we have to follow the Constitution, and the president has
drifted away from it," Powell said. Trump also, he said, "lies about things."
Trump responded swiftly on Twitter, mocking Powell and calling the retired four-star
general "a real stiff" who got the U.S. into wars after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
on the U.S.
Colin Powell, a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous
Middle East Wars, just announced he will be voting for another stiff, Sleepy Joe Biden.
Didn't Powell say that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction?" They didn't, but off we went
to WAR!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020
Credit when credit is due, Trump is completely right when he says Powell is an complete
hack and fraud who helped scam the US people into the Iraq war. Years after his UN appearance
Powell's own chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, admitted that he and Powell knew that the fix
was in to attack Iraq and the information they were presenting to the UN was falsified, i.e.
they knowingly lied to the UN to start a war, a war crime (was of aggression)! Rather than do
the honourable thing and resign in protest and go public with the truth they stayed quite and
obey their illegal orders, presumably reasoning that a competently managed crime would be
less damaging then an incompetently managed crime. As it turns out though, Powell was an
utterly incompetent Secretary of State who was outmaneuvered at every stage of the conflict
by the mad dog crazies in the administration that he thought he was controlling. in the end,
all Powell's shameful behaviour accomplished was to destroy his honour and leave him forever
known as a war criminal (even if the UN is too cowardly to charge him as such). So, seeing
Powell and the lamestream media try to croon about him as some sort of moral authority is
laughable and Trump is right to rub all of Powell's crimes right in his face.
Not to forget (as a Vietnam Vet, I can't) that Maj. Colin Powell - after a cursory
investigation into the massacre at My Lai - drafted a response on Dec. 13, 1968 stating -
among other lies - that "[it] is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the
Vietnamese people are excellent" while denying any pattern of wrong-doing.
Powell was simply protecting other murderous gang members (especially his bosses) from
justice, thus becoming another un-indicted accessory to murder. The gods are not interested
in justice, though, and he roams free.
Wow I wish I had know that little tidbit back then when I watched the full uninterrupted UN
broadcasts from the Security Council before the war. He pretty much managed to get the US a
free pass with his testimony of lies. I believed him and so did a lot of other people. Now
his whitewash of My Lai is even on his Wikipedia page. Thank you Trisha.
Several years earlier I got to know about My Lai during relatively brief military
education (non-US but NATO) on the rules of the Geneva Convention, it was used as the prime
example of when to resist and disobey unlawful orders (I have to wonder if it still is).
If there had been a free press they should have shouted this little fact at the top of
their lungs while mocking the US, maybe someone somewhere did but I never heard any mention
of it, not even from any of all the people I knew that were opposing the war and who never
seemed to have anything substantive to say (a bit like BLM: who isn't against murder and
particularly murder committed by "cops"? There's a serious communication problem going
on).
I find this so strange that I'm starting to wonder if I have an extremely selective
memory. Did anyone here learn about this at the time? Not counting anyone who already
knew it well before that time.
The reason why the U.S. Government must be prosecuted for its war-crimes
against Iraq is that they are so horrific and there are so many of them, and international law
crumbles until they become prosecuted and severely punished for what they did. We therefore now
have internationally a lawless world (or "World Order") in which "Might makes right," and in
which there is really no effective international law, at all. This is merely gangster "law,"
ruling on an international level. It is what Hitler and his Axis of fascist imperialists had
imposed upon the world until the Allies -- U.S. under FDR, UK under Churchill, and U.S.S.R.
under Stalin -- defeated it, and established the United Nations. Furthermore, America's leaders deceived the American public into
perpetrating this invasion and occupation, of a foreign country (Iraq) that had never
threatened the United States; and, so, this invasion and subsequent military occupation
constitutes the very epitome of "aggressive war" -- unwarranted and illegal international
aggression. (Hitler, similarly to George W. Bush, would never have been able to obtain the
support of his people to invade if he had not lied, or "deceived," them, into invading and
militarily occupying foreign countries that had never threatened Germany, such as Belgium,
Poland and Czechoslovakia. This -- Hitler's lie-based aggressions -- was the core
of what the Nazis were hung for, and yet America now does it.)
Invoking the precedent set by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg trial
in 1946, there can be no doubt that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of
aggression. There was no imminent threat to U.S. security nor to the security of the world.
The invasion violated the U.N. Charter as well as U.N. Security Council Resolution
#1441.
The Nuremberg precedent calls for no less than the arrest and prosecution of those
individuals responsible for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with President George W. Bush,
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State
Condoleez[z]a Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Take, for example, Condoleezza Rice, who famously warned
"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." (That warning was one of the most
effective lies in order to deceive the
American public into invading Iraq, because President Bush had had no real evidence, at all,
that there still remained any WMD in Iraq after the U.N. had destroyed them all, and left Iraq
in 1998 -- and he knew this; he was informed of this; he knew that he had no real evidence,
at all: he offered none; it was all mere
lies .)
So, the Nuremberg precedent definitely does apply against George W, Bush and his
partners-in-crime, just as it did against Hitler and his henchmen and allies.
The seriousness of this international war crime is not as severe as those of the Nazis were,
but nonetheless is comparable to it .
On 15 March 2018, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies headlined at Alternet "The Staggering Death Toll in Iraq" and wrote that
"our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4
million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion," and linked to solid evidence, backing up their
estimate.
On 29 September 2015, I headlined "GALLUP: 'Iraqis Are the Saddest & One of the Angriest
Populations in the World'," and linked to Gallup's survey of 1,000 individuals in each of
148 countries around the world, which found that Iraq had the highest "Negative Experience
Score." That score includes "sadness," "physical pain," "anger," and other types of misery --
and Iraq, after America's invasion, has scored the highest in the entire world, on it, and in
the following years has likewise scored at or near the highest on "Negative Experience Score."
For example: in the latest, the 2019, Gallup "Global
Emotions Report" , Iraq scores fourth from the top on "Negative Experience Score," after
(in order from the worst) Chad, Niger, and Sierra Leone. (Gallup has been doing these surveys
ever since 2005, but the first one that was published under that title was the 2015 report,
which summarized the 2014 surveys' findings.) Of course, prior to America's invasion, there had
been America's 1990 war against Iraq and the U.S. regime's leadership and imposition of U.N.
sanctions (which likewise were based largely on U.S.-regime-backed lies , though not totally on lies like
the 2003 invasion was), which caused massive misery in that country; and, therefore, not all of
the misery in Iraq which showed up in the 2015 Global Emotions Report was due to only
the 2003 invasion and subsequent military occupation of that country. But almost all of
it was, and is. And all of it was based on America's rulers lying to the public in order to win
the public's acceptance of their evil plans and invasions against a country that had never
posed any threat whatsoever to Americans -- people residing in America . Furthermore, it is
also perhaps relevant that the 2012
"World Happiness Report" shows Iraq at the very bottom of the list of countries (on page 55
of that report) regarding "Average Net Affect by Country," meaning that Iraqis were the most
zombified of all 156 nationalities surveyed. Other traumatized countries were immediately above
Iraq on that list. On "Average Negative Affect," only "Palestinian Territories" scored higher
than Iraq (page 52). After America's invasion based entirely on lies, Iraq is a wrecked
country, which still remains under the U.S. regime's boot, as the following will document:
Bush's successors, Obama and Trump, failed to press for Bush's trial on these vast crimes,
even though the American people had ourselves become enormously victimized by them, though far
less so than Iraqis were. Instead, Bush's successors have become accessories after the fact, by
this failure to press for prosecution of him and his henchmen regarding this grave matter. In
fact, the "Defense One" site bannered on 26 September 2018, "US Official: We May Cut Support for Iraq If New Government Seats
Pro-Iran Politicians" , and opened with "The Trump administration may decrease U.S.
military support or other assistance to Iraq if its new government puts Iranian-aligned
politicians in any 'significant positions of responsibility,' a senior administration official
told reporters late last week." The way that the U.S. regime has brought 'democracy' to Iraq is
by threatening to withdraw its protection of the stooge-rulers that it had helped to place into
power there, unless those stooges do the U.S. dictators' bidding, against Iraq's neighbor Iran.
This specific American dictator, Trump, is demanding that majority-Shiite Iraq be run by
stooges who favor, instead, America's fundamentalist-Sunni allies, such as the Saud family who
own Saudi Arabia and who hate and loathe Shiites and Iran. The U.S. dictatorship insists
that Iraq, which the U.S. conquered, serve America's anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian
policy-objectives. "The U.S. threat, to withhold aid if Iran-aligned politicians occupy any
ministerial position, is an escalation of Washington's demands on Baghdad." The article went on
to quote a "senior administration official" as asserting that, "if Iran exerts a tremendous
amount of influence, or a significant amount of influence over the Iraqi government, it's going
to be difficult for us to continue to invest." Get the euphemisms there! This article said that
"the Trump administration has made constraining Iran's influence in the region a cornerstone of
their foreign policy." So, this hostility toward Iran must be reflected in Iraq's policies,
too. It's not enough that Trump wants to destroy Iran like Bush has destroyed Iraq; Trump
demands that Iraq participate in that crime, against Iraq's own neighbor. This article said
that, "There have also been protests against 'U.S. meddling' in the formation of a new Iraqi
government, singling out Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk for working to prevent parties
close to Iran from obtaining power." McGurk is the rabidly neconservative
former high G.W. Bush Administration official, and higher Obama Administration official, who
remained as Trump's top official on his policy to force Iraq to cooperate with America's
efforts to conquer Iran. Trump's evil is Obama's evil, and is Bush's evil. It is bipartisan
evil, no matter which Party is in power. Though Trump doesn't like either the Bushes or Obamas,
all of them are in the same evil policy-boat. America's Deep State
remains the same, no matter whom it places into the position of nominal power. The regime
remains the same, regardless.
On April 29th, the whistleblowing former UK Ambassador Craig Murray wrote :
Nobody knows how many people died as a result of the UK/US Coalition of Death led
destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, by proxy, Syria and Yemen. Nobody even knows how
many people western forces themselves killed directly. That is a huge number, but still under
10% of the total. To add to that you have to add those who died in subsequent conflict
engendered by the forced dismantling of the state the West disapproved of. Some were killed
by western proxies, some by anti-western forces, and some just by those reverting to ancient
tribal hostility and battle for resources into which the country had been regressed by
bombing.
You then have to add all those who died directly as a result of the destruction of
national infrastructure. Iraq lost in the destruction 60% of its potable drinking water, 75%
of its medical facilities and 80% of its electricity. This caused millions of deaths, as did
displacement. We are only of course talking about deaths, not maiming.
UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this?
How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international
war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves?
Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges
against Tony Blair's UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the
actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the
national security of the invader, was ignored, and the
conclusion was that "the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the
Statute" (which was only
"Willful killing or inhuman treatment of civilians" and which ignored the real
crime, which was "aggressive war" or "the crime of
aggression" -- the crime for which Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg). Furthermore, no charges
whatsoever against the U.S. Government (the world's most frequent and most heinous violator of
international law) were considered. In other words: the International Criminal Court is
subordinate to, instead of applicable to, the U.S. regime. Just like Adolf Hitler had
repeatedly made clear that, to him, all nations except Germany were dispensable and only
Germany wasn't, Barack Obama repeatedly said that "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation" ,
which likewise means that every other nation is "dispensable." The criminal
International Criminal Court accepts this, and yet expects to be respected.
The U.S. regime did "regime change" to Iraq in 2003, and to
Ukraine in 2014 , and tried to do it to Syria since 2009 , and to Yemen since 2015, and to Venezuela since
2012, and to Iran since 2017 -- just to
mention some of the examples. And, though the Nuremberg precedent certainly applies,
it's not enforced. In principle, then, Hitler has posthumously won WW II.
Hitler must be smiling, now. FDR must be rolling in his grave.
The only way to address this problem, if there won't be prosecutions against the 'duly
elected' (Deep-State-approved and enabled) national leaders and appointees, would be
governmental seizure and nationalization of the assets that are outright owned or else
controlled by America's Deep State. Ultimately, the Government-officials who are s'elected' and
appointed to run the American Government have been and are representing not the American people
but instead represent the billionaires who
fund those officials' and former officials' careers . In a democracy, those individuals --
the financial enablers of those politicians' s'electoral' success -- would be dispossessed of
all their assets, and then prosecuted for the crimes that were perpetrated by the public
officials whom they had participated in (significantly funded and propagandized for) placing
into power. (For example, both
Parties' Presidential nominees are unqualified to serve in any public office in a
democracy.)
Democracy cannot function with a
systematically lied-to public . Nor can it function if the responsible governmental
officials are effectively immune from prosecution for their 'legal' crimes, or if the financial
string-pullers behind the scenes can safely pull those strings. In America right now,
both of those conditions
pertain, and, as a result, democracy is impossible . There are only two ways to address
this problem, and one of them would start by prosecuting George W. Bush.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even
Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S
VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .
If ever there was a time, it's now. Oil has bottomed out. They can top off the national
reserves on the cheap and profit when their war sends prices up again. Maybe it's why The
Orange Goober has ordered the Navy to "shoot down" any Iranian boats that
harass/approach/rudely gesture at US ships.
Ritter's article worries me. There is now a sales argument for war: "don't worry about oil
prices going sky high, Iran can't use that weapon against us now!".
You over excitable little Iran war-monkeys really should take time out of your busy
war-monkey daily-schedules to learn something about the topography of Iran and it's defensive
and offensive military capabilities.
It would certainly save everyone else from having to listen to you being wrong yet
again.
You're on the right track. There's a huge supply glut as all forms of storage are mostly
filled as proven by the negative WTI pricing. Global demand is still being destroyed. War in
the Persian Gulf region will further destroy demand; and since very little oil's being
shipped from there, the supply glut won't be used up anytime soon--certainly not quickly
enough to see a sharp rebound in oil price. The crucial point is domestic US refineries have
cut back their runs as their margins are even thinner than before, plus demand destruction is
still occurring, thus the domestic storage glut. The wife and I jested last night if we only
had a rail spur we could order up a couple of tank cars full of unleaded at the current very
distressed price and be set for a longtime.
As The
Saker notes in his latest , Trump must make the voting public look everywhere except at
him and Congress, the bellowing at Iran being part of that entire theatre. Yes, a mistake
could have very negative consequences for the USN and all US assets in the region as well as
Occupied Palestine--the overall underlying dynamic hasn't changed since Trump broke the Iran
Nuclear Treaty. Too add further insult to Trump and Pompeo, Iran's doing a
much better job at containing COVID-19 than the Outlaw US Empire :
"The US pandemic death toll is this week heading above 50,000 compared with Iran's figure
of 5,300. Considering the respective population numbers of 330 and 80 million that suggests
Iran is doing a much better job at containing the virus. On a per-capita basis, according to
publicly available data, Iran's mortality rate is less than half that of the US.
"This is while the US has sanctioned Iran to the hilt. American sanctions – arguably
illegal under international law – have hit Iran's ability to import medical supplies to
cope with COVID-19 and other fatal diseases, yet Iran through its own resources is evidently
managing the crisis much better than the US."
As with the Tar Baby, the more wrestling the Outlaw US Empire does the weaker it gets.
They can't invade. That's your own moronic straw-man. And yes, it would further cut supply
and prices would go up. The current bottom is due to overproduction but so long as
civilization cranks along the oil gets used eventually.
The neocons trying to control Trump are going to have a hard time this year because of the
election. Trump knows his people voted for him because of his promises to get the troops back
home. Of course the neocons want to build up more and more troops in Iraq or even split Iraq
into 3 different countries. The Iraqi and Iranian leaders with the Syrians to a lesser degree
will try to take advantage of Trump's dilemma. The Kurds are involved also. This is all
explored by Pam Ho
How Much Do You Suck (To lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein)
- The US knows it "influence" is waning and tries to "carve out" a sunni "rump state" in
North-West Iraq. First the US fights ISIS in that same area/region from the year 2014 onwards
and now they are supposed to fight in FAVOUR of the sunnis/ISIS ?
"US seeking to carve out Sunni state as its influence in Iraq wanes"
"If Iraqis were there and if Iraqi military forces were there, I would say it's probably
not a good idea to position yourself with Kataib Hezbollah in the wake of a strike that
killed Americans and coalition members," he told a Pentagon news briefing."
Despite Trump the Iraq policy transcends his administration and will continue in some form in
the future. There will be a continued presence in some form and in some part of the country.
Our beloved ally in the region demands our presence.
They smartly keep the presence small with no draft remembering that is what took them out
of Nam. An angry draft worthy populace, a counter culture disillusioned with the murder of
their liberal anti war leadership by the state, and ample media coverage of the war
carnage.
All of that is long gone, and even with the age of internet reporting the populace has
been bought off with entertainment, amazon, porn, and bullshit.
Parallel is IMO very interesting, Wehrmacht occupying Ukraine and US occupying Iraq. In
both cases there was minority that welcomed occupier with open arms, wanting to oppress
majority of own country folks due to earlier grievances. In both cases, invader didn't want
to bother with using that minority to own goals, as they saw them all as inferior race. And
invader was in both cases more interested in conquering more powerful neighbor to the
east.
Irony is that, if Nazi Germany/US didn't look at Ukraine/Iraq people as inferior race they
could use them for own goal to fight Russia/Iran. But, dumb as they are, they stuck all those
Ukrainians into camps(lot of them sympathizers to Germany/rabidly against Russia)/ disbanding
ex. Saddam's army and made kernel of future anti US force into region, not to mention Kurdish
question.
"Later on January 9, former Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called on the United
States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the
move.
According to a statement released by his office at the time, Abdul-Mahdi "requested that
delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement the parliament's decision for
the secure withdrawal of (foreign) forces from Iraq" in a phone call with US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo."
US in response moved to a few bases they intended to occupy and give the two finger salute
to Iraq. Trump threatened sanctions and theft of Iraq's oil money which is in the US.
Pentagon now moving patriots in.
Question to b @53: ... it was a non-binding resolution.
It's "non-binding" on USA only because the Prime Minister conducts foreign policy and
there's no current written basing agreement between Iraq and USA that can be terminated. The
resolution demands that the Prime Minister arrange for the departure of US troops.
The resolution is binding on the Prime Minister because it was a valid vote in
accordance with Iraqi Parliamentary procedure.
USA refused to discuss leaving Iraq and claimed that the Parliamentary vote was
"non-binding" because it was unrepresentative (USA got their Sunni and Kurd sympathizers to
boycott the vote). But Parliament still had a quorum, so the vote is legal and binding.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Is it enforceable?
USA/NATO are very unlikely to leaving willingly. We are seeing the start of a civil war in
Iraq because most Sunnis and Kurds support USA/NATO remaining while Shia want USA/NATO to
leave.
just start with the first lie and go from their... usa / uk lied the world into going to war
on iraq... and from their the lies just keep on getting stacked.. if you can't acknowledge
the first lie, you probably are incapable of recognizing all the other lies that have been
thrown on the same bullshit pile... one big pile of lies and bullshite - a specialty of the
exceptional country..
@ 63 question.. you like this usa style bullshit that buys politicians in iraq and when that
doesn't work, they go on to the next attempt at installing a politician willing to agree to
their bullshite? interesting bullshit concept of democracy if you ask me... everything has a
price tag and honour is something you can pick up at the grocery store... right..
This is like a new gangster who takes control of a neighborhood and reduces the required
weekly protection payment. Hurray For Less Extortion!
Hey Bernie, how about throw away the JCPOA, restore normal diplomatic and commercial
relations, and apologize for 40 years of economic warfare?
But that will never happen, because the Dummycrat policy is to destroy Iran for the crime
of existence. How is it the Bernie people don't notice that Bernie always caucuses with the
Dummycrats in Congress and is running on the Dummycrat ticket? We are supposed to believe
that someone elected on the Dummycrat ticket won't follow Dummycrat party polices?
We are supposed to believe that someone elected on the Dummycrat ticket won't follow
Dummycrat party polices?
The way American electoral politics works, Sanders doesn't really have a choice except to
try and steal the Democratic party's ballot line. An independent bid would split the left
vote and make it impossible to win the general election, which is winner take all.
At least that's what his supporters say. I think there's a grain of truth there. If Bernie
wants to win, and not merely be a protest candidate, he has to take the ballot line of the
party with the most left-wing voters, and that's not the Republican party.
Pompeo has just four terms in the House of Representives befor getting postions of Director of CIA (whichsuggests previous involvement
with CIA) and then paradoxically the head of the State Department, He retired from the alry in the rank of comptain and never participated
in any battles. He serves only in Germany, and this can be classified as a chickenhawk. He never performed any dyplomatic duries in
hs life and a large part of his adult life (1998-2006) was a greddy military contractor.
1. It mentions
that it aimed at "deterring future Iranian attack plans". This however is very vague. Future is not the same as imminent which is
the time based test required under international law. (1)
2. Overall, the statement places far greater emphasis on past activities and violations allegedly commuted by Suleimani. As such
the killing appears far more retaliatory for past acts than anticipatory for imminent self defense.
3. The notion that Suleimani was "actively developing plans" is curious both from a semantic and military standpoint. Is it sufficient
to meet the test of mecessity and proportionality?
Orchestration of military escalation in 2015 In 2015, Soleimani started to gather
support from various sources in order to combat the newly resurgent ISIL and rebel groups which
were both successful in taking large swathes of territory away from Assad's forces. He was
reportedly the main architect of the joint intervention involving Russia as a new partner with
Assad and Hezbollah. In 2015, Soleimani started to gather support from various sources in order
to combat the newly resurgent ISIL and rebel groups which were both successful in taking large
swathes of territory away from Assad's forces. He was reportedly the main architect of the
joint intervention involving Russia as a new partner with Assad and Hezbollah. [47][48][49][50]
According to
Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of Syria to explain to his
Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be turned into
victory – with Russia's help. Qasem Soleimani's visit to Moscow was the first step in
planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new
According to Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of Syria to
explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be
turned into victory – with Russia's help. Qasem Soleimani's visit to Moscow was the first
step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and
forged a new According to Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of
Syria to explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad
could be turned into victory – with Russia's help.
Qasem Soleimani's visit to Moscow was
the first step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war
and forged a new Iran–Russia
alliance in support of the Syrian (and Iraqi) governments. Iran's supreme leader, Ali
Khamenei also sent a senior envoy to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin. "Putin reportedly
told [a senior Iranian envoy] 'Okay we will intervene. Send Qassem Soleimani.'" General
Soleimani went to explain the map of the theatre and coordinate the strategic escalation of
military forces in Syria. [49]
Soleimani had a decisive impact on the theater of operations, which led to a strong
advance in southern Aleppo with the government and allied forces re-capturing two military
bases and dozens of towns and villages in a matter of weeks. There was also a series of major
advances
towards Kuweiris air-base to the north-east. [57] By mid-November,
the Syrian army and its allies had gained ground in southern areas of Aleppo Governorate,
capturing numerous rebel strongholds. Soleimani was reported to have personally led the drive
deep into the southern Aleppo countryside where many towns and villages fell into government
hands. He reportedly commanded the Syrian Arab Army's 4th Mechanized Division, Hezbollah,
Harakat Al-Nujaba (Iraqi), Kata'ib Hezbollah (Iraqi), Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-Abbas (Iraqi), and
Firqa Fatayyemoun (Afghan/Iranian volunteers). [58]
In early February 2016, backed by Russian and Syrian air force airstrikes, the 4th
Mechanized Division – in close coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces
(NDF), Kata'eb Hezbollah, and Harakat Al-Nujaba – launched an offensive in Aleppo
Governorate's northern countryside, [59] which eventually
broke the three-year siege of Nubl and Al-Zahraa
and cut off the rebels' main supply route from Turkey. According to a senior, non-Syrian
security source close to Damascus, Iranian fighters played a crucial role in the conflict.
"Qassem Soleimani is there in the same area", he said. [60] In December 2016,
new photos emerged of Soleimani at the Citadel of Aleppo , though the exact
date of the photos is unknown. [61][62]
... ... ...
In 2014, Qasem Soleimani was in the Iraqi city of Amirli , to work with the Iraqi forces to push
back militants from ISIL. [68][69] According to the
Los Angeles
Times , which reported that Amirli was the first town to successfully withstand an
ISIS invasion, it was secured thanks to "an unusual partnership of Iraqi and Kurdish
soldiers, Iranian-backed Shiite militias and U.S. warplanes". The U.S. acted as a force
multiplier for a number of Iranian-backed armed groups – at the same time that was
present on the battlefield. [70][71]
Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani prays in the Syrian desert during
a local pro-government offensive in 2017
A senior Iraqi official told the BBC that when the city of Mosul fell, the rapid reaction
of Iran, rather than American bombing, was what prevented a more widespread collapse.
[11] Qasem
Soleimani also seems to have been instrumental in planning the operation to relieve
Amirli in Saladin
Governorate, where ISIL had laid siege to an important city. [66]
In fact the Quds force operatives under Soleimani's command seem to have been deeply involved
with not only the Iraqi army and Shi'ite militias but also the Kurdish in the Battle of Amirli ,
[72] not only
providing liaisons for intelligence-sharing but also the supply of arms and munitions in
addition to "providing expertise". [73]
In the operation
to liberate Jurf Al Sakhar , he was reportedly "present on the battlefield". Some Shia
militia commanders described Soleimani as "fearless" – one pointing out that the
Iranian general never wears a flak jacket , even on the front lines.
[74]
In November 2014, Shi'ite and Kurdish forces under Soleimani's command pushed ISIS out of
Iraqi villages of Jalawla
and Saadia, in the Diyala Governorate . [67]
Soleimani played an integral role in the organisation and planning of the crucial
operation to retake the city of Tikrit in Iraq
from ISIS. The city of Tikrit rests on the left bank of the Tigris river and is the largest
and most important city between Baghdad and Mosul, giving it a high strategic value. The city
fell to ISIS during 2014 when ISIS made immense gains in northern and central Iraq. After its
capture, ISIL's massacre at Camp Speicher led to
1,600 to 1,700 deaths of Iraqi Army cadets and soldiers. After months of careful preparation
and intelligence gathering an offensive to encircle and capture Tikrit was launched in early
March 2015. [76]
In view of event of Jan 7 it looks like Geraldo Rivera had the point. He beautifully cut the
neocon jerk by reminding him the role of the US intelligence agencies in unleashing Iraq war
FOX News correspondent Geraldo Rivera debated "Fox & Friends" hosts Brian Kilmeade and
Steve Doocy Friday about the assassination of Iranian special forces General Qassim al
Soleimani in Iraq, warning of dire consequences if Iran chooses to retaliate and telling
Kilmeade: "You, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like."
"Your arrogance is exactly what's wrong with the region," Geraldo said. "You're not a
front-line fighter that has to go back into Iraq again."
GERALDO RIVERA: We thought that when the de-escalation at the embassy happened a couple of
days ago that was the end of this chapter. The U.S., with it's firmness, had won the victory.
It wasn't going to be Benghazi, it wasn't going to be Tehran from 1980. We won that technical
victory.
Now we have taken this huge military escalation. Now I fear the worst. You're going to see
the U.S. markets go crazy today. You're going to see the price of oil spiking today. This is
a very, very big deal.
BRIAN KILMEADE: I don't know if you heard, this isn't about his resume of blood and death,
it was about what was next. That's what you're missing.
STEVE DOOCY: According to the Secretary of Defense.
GERALDO RIVERA: By what credible source can you predict what the next Iranian move will
be?
BRIAN KILMEADE: Secretary fo State and American intelligence provided that material.
GERALDO RIVERA: They've been excellent. They've been excellent, the U.S. intelligence has
been excellent since 2003 when we invaded Iraq, disrupted the entire region for no real
reason. Don't for a minute start cheering this on, what we have done, what we have unleashed
--
BRIAN KILMEADE: I will cheer it on. I am elated.
GERALDO RIVERA: Then you, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like.
BRIAN KILMEADE: That is not true, and don't even say that.
GERALDO RIVERA: If President Trump wanted a de-escalation --
BRIAN KILMEADE: Let them kill us for another 15 years?
GERALDO RIVERA: If President Trump wanted a de-escalation and to bring our troops
home--
BRIAN KILMEADE: What about the 700 Americans who are dead, should they not be happy?
GERALDO RIVERA: What about the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died since 2003? You
have to start seeing. What the hell are we doing in Baghdad in the first place? Why are we
there?
BRIAN KILMEADE: So you're blaming President Bush for the maniacal killing of Saddam
Hussein?
GERALDO RIVERA: I am blaming President Bush in 2003 for the fake weapons of mass
destruction that never existed and the con-job that drove us into that war.
Bolton is a typical "Full Spectrum Dominance" hawk, a breed of chickenhawks that recently
proliferated in Washinton corridors of power and which are fed by MIC.
Notable quotes:
"... the way the IRGC came to be designated as an FTO is itself predicated on a lie. ..."
"... The person responsible for this lie is President Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton, who while in that position oversaw National Security Council (NSC) interagency policy coordination meetings at the White House for the purpose of formulating a unified government position on Iran. Bolton had stacked the NSC staff with hardliners who were pushing for a strong stance. But representatives from the Department of Defense often pushed back . During such meetings, the Pentagon officials argued that the IRGC was "a state entity" (albeit a "bad" one), and that if the U.S. were to designate it as a terrorist group, there was nothing to stop Iran from responding by designating U.S. military personnel or CIA officers as terrorists. ..."
"... The memoranda on these meetings, consisting of summaries of the various positions put forward, were doctored by the NSC to make it appear as if the Pentagon agreed with its proposed policy. The Defense Department complained to the NSC that the memoranda produced from these meetings were "largely incorrect and inaccurate" -- "essentially fiction," a former Pentagon official claimed. ..."
"... This was a direct result of the bureaucratic dishonesty of John Bolton. Such dishonesty led to a series of policy decisions that gave a green light to use military force against IRGC targets throughout the Middle East. ..."
President Trump's decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani back in January took the United
States to the brink of war with Iran.
Trump and his advisors contend that Soleimani's death was necessary to protect American
lives, pointing to a continuum of events that began on December 27, when a rocket attack on an
American base in Iraq killed a civilian translator. That in turn prompted U.S. airstrikes
against a pro-Iranian militia, Khati'ab Hezbollah, which America blamed for the attack.
Khati'ab Hezbollah then stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad in protest. This reportedly
triggered the assassination of Soleimani and a subsequent Iranian retaliatory missile strike on
an American base in Iraq. The logic of this continuum appears consistent except for one
important fact -- it is all predicated on a lie.
On the night of December 27, a pickup truck modified
to carry a launchpad capable of firing 36 107mm Russian-made rockets was used in an attack
on a U.S. military compound located at the K-1 Airbase in Iraq's Kirkuk Province. A total of 20
rockets were loaded onto the vehicle, but only 14 were fired. Some of the rockets struck an
ammunition dump on the base, setting off a series of secondary explosions. When the smoke and
dust cleared, a civilian interpreter was dead and
several other personnel , including four American servicemen and two Iraqi military, were
wounded. The attack appeared timed to
disrupt a major Iraqi military operation targeting insurgents affiliated with ISIS.
The area around K-1 is populated by Sunni Arabs, and has long been considered a bastion of
ISIS ideology, even if the organization itself
was declared defeated inside Iraq back in 2017 by then-prime minister Haider al Abadi. The
Iraqi counterterrorism forces based at K-1 consider the area around the base an ISIS sanctuary
so dangerous that they only enter in large numbers.
For their part, the Iraqis had been warning their U.S. counterparts for more than a month
that ISIS was planning attacks on K-1. One such report, delivered on November 6, using
intelligence dating back to October, was quite specific: "ISIS terrorists have endeavored to
target K-1 base in Kirkuk district by indirect fire (Katyusha rockets)."
Another report, dated December 25, warned that ISIS was attempting to seize territory to the
northeast of K-1. The Iraqis were so concerned that on December 27, the day of the attack, they
requested that the U.S. keep functional its
tethered aerostat-based Persistent Threat Detection System (PTSD) -- a high-tech
reconnaissance balloon equipped with multi-mission sensors to provide long endurance
intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and communications in support of U.S. and
Iraqi forces.
Instead, the U.S. took the PTSD down for maintenance, allowing the attackers to approach
unobserved.
The Iraqi military officials at K-1 immediately suspected ISIS as the culprit behind the
attack. Their logic was twofold. First, ISIS had been engaged in nearly daily attacks in the
area for over a year, launching rockets, firing small arms, and planting roadside bombs.
Second, according
to the Iraqis , "The villages near here are Turkmen and Arab. There is sympathy with Daesh
[i.e., ISIS] there."
As transparent as the Iraqis had been with the U.S. about their belief that ISIS was behind
the attack, the U.S. was equally opaque with the Iraqis regarding whom it believed was the
culprit. The U.S. took custody of the rocket launcher, all surviving ordnance, and all warhead
fragments from the scene.
U.S. intelligence analysts viewed the attack on K-1 as part of a continuum of attacks
against U.S. bases in Iraq since early November 2019. The first attack took place on November
9,
against the joint U.S.-Iraqi base at Qayarrah , and was very similar to the one that
occurred against K-1 -- some 31 107mm rockets were fired from a pickup truck modified to carry
a rocket launchpad. As with K-1, the forces located in Qayarrah were engaged in ongoing
operations targeting ISIS, and the territory around the base was considered sympathetic to
ISIS. The Iraqi government attributed the attack to unspecified "terrorist" groups.
The U.S., however, attributed the attacks to Khati'ab Hezbollah, a Shia militia incorporated
with the Popular Mobilization Organization (PMO), a pro-Iranian umbrella organization that had
been incorporated into the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. The PMO
blamed the U.S. for a series of drone strikes against its facilities throughout the summer
of 2019.
The feeling among the American analysts was that the PMO attacked the bases as a form of
retaliation.
The U.S.
launched a series of airstrikes against Khati'ab Hezbollah bases and command posts in Iraq
and Syria on December 29, near the Iraqi city of al-Qaim. These attacks were carried out
unilaterally, without any effort to coordinate with America's Iraqi counterparts or seek
approval from the Iraqi government.
Khati'ab Hezbollah units had seized al-Qaim from ISIS in November 2017, and then crossed
into Syria, where they defeated ISIS fighters dug in around the Syrian town of al-Bukamal. They
were continuing to secure this strategic border crossing when they were bombed on December
29.
Left unsaid by the U.S. was the fact that the al-Bukamal-al Qaim border crossing was seen as
a crucial "land bridge," connecting Iran with Syria via Iraq. Throughout the summer of
2019, the U.S. had been watching as Iranian engineers, working with Khati'ab Hezbollah,
constructed a sprawling base that straddled both Iraq and Syria. It was this base, and not
Khati'ab Hezbollah per se, that was the reason for the American airstrike. The objective in
this attack was to degrade Iranian capability in the region; the K-1 attack was just an excuse,
one based on the lie that Khati'ab Hezbollah, and not ISIS, had carried it out.
The U.S. had long condemned what it called Iran's "malign intentions" when it came to its
activities in Iraq and Syria. But there is a world of difference between employing tools of
diplomacy to counter Iranian regional actions and going kinetic. One of the reasons the U.S.
has been able to justify attacking Iranian-affiliated targets, such as the al-Bukamal-al-Qaim
complex and Qassem Soleimani, is that the Iranian entity associated with both -- the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC -- has been designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO), and as such military attacks against it are seen as an extension of the
ongoing war on terror. Yet the way the IRGC came to be designated as an FTO is itself
predicated on a lie.
The person responsible for this lie is President Trump's former national security
adviser John Bolton, who while in that position oversaw National Security Council (NSC)
interagency policy coordination meetings at the White House for the purpose of formulating a
unified government position on Iran. Bolton had stacked the NSC staff with hardliners who were
pushing for a strong stance. But
representatives from the Department of Defense often pushed back . During such meetings,
the Pentagon officials argued that the IRGC was "a state entity" (albeit a "bad" one), and that
if the U.S. were to designate it as a terrorist group, there was nothing to stop Iran from
responding by designating U.S. military personnel or CIA officers as terrorists.
The memoranda on these meetings, consisting of summaries of the various positions put
forward, were doctored by the NSC to make it appear as if the Pentagon agreed with its proposed
policy. The Defense Department complained to the NSC that the memoranda produced from these
meetings were "largely
incorrect and inaccurate" -- "essentially fiction," a former Pentagon official
claimed.
After the Pentagon "informally" requested that the NSC change the memoranda to accurately
reflect its position, and were denied, the issue was bumped up to Undersecretary of Defense
John Rood. He then formally requested that the memoranda be corrected. Such a request was
unprecedented in recent memory, a former official noted. Regardless, the NSC did not budge, and
the original memoranda remained as the official records of the meetings in question.
This was a direct result of the bureaucratic dishonesty of John Bolton. Such dishonesty
led to a series of policy decisions that gave a green light to use military force against IRGC
targets throughout the Middle East. The rocket attack against K-1 was attributed to an
Iranian proxy -- Khati'ab Hezbollah -- even though there was reason to believe the attack was
carried out by ISIS. This was a cover so IRGC-affiliated facilities in al-Bakumal and al-Qaim,
which had nothing to do with the attack, could be bombed. Everything to do with Iran's alleged
"malign intent." The U.S. embassy was then attacked. Soleimani killed. The American base at
al-Assad was bombarded by Iranian missiles. America and Iran were on the brink of war.
All because of a lie.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books, most
recently, Deal of the Century: How Iran
Blocked the West's Road to War (2018).
Iran hawks never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it.
Notable quotes:
"... And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that "new deal" and demanding more? ..."
Daniel
Larison Two Iran hawks from the Senate, Bob Menendez and Lindse Graham, are
proposing a "new deal" that is guaranteed to be a non-starter with Iran:
Essentially, their idea is that the United States would offer a new nuclear deal to both
Iran and the gulf states at the same time. The first part would be an agreement to ensure
that Iran and the gulf states have access to nuclear fuel for civilian energy purposes,
guaranteed by the international community in perpetuity. In exchange, both Iran and the gulf
states would swear off nuclear fuel enrichment inside their own countries forever.
Iran is never going to accept any agreement that requires them to give up domestic
enrichment. As far as they are concerned, they are entitled to this under the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and they regard it as a matter of their national rights that they keep it. Insisting on
"zero enrichment" is what made it impossible to reach an agreement with Iran for the better
part of a decade, and it was only when the Obama administration understood this and compromised
to allow Iran to enrich under tight restrictions that the negotiations could move forward.
Demanding "zero enrichment" today in 2020 amounts to rejecting that compromise and returning to
a bankrupt approach that drove Iran to build tens of thousands of centrifuges. As a proposal
for negotiations, it is dead on arrival, and Menendez and Graham must know that. Iran hawks
never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it. They want to make a bogus offer in
the hopes that it will be rejected so that they can use the rejection to justify more
aggressive measures.
The identity of the authors of the plan is a giveaway that the offer is not a serious
diplomatic proposal. Graham is one of the most incorrigible hard-liners on Iran, and Menendez
is probably the most hawkish Democratic senator in office today. Among other things, Menendez
has been a
booster of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), the deranged cult of Iranian exiles
that has been buying the support of American politicians and officials for years. Graham has
never seen a diplomatic agreement that he didn't want to destroy. When hard-liners talk about
making a "deal," they always mean that they want to demand the other side's surrender.
Another giveaway that this is not a serious proposal is the fact that they want this
imaginary agreement submitted as a treaty:
That final deal would be designated as a treaty, ratified by the U.S. Senate, to give Iran
confidence that a new president won't just pull out (like President Trump did on President
Barack Obama's nuclear deal).
This is silly for many reasons. The Senate doesn't ratify treaties nowadays, so any "new
deal" submitted as a treaty would never be ratified. As the current president has shown, it
doesn't matter if a treaty has been ratified by the Senate. Presidents can and do withdraw from
ratified treaties if they want to, and the fact that it is a ratified treaty doesn't prevent
them from doing this. Bush pulled out of the ABM Treaty, which was ratified
88-2 in 1972. Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty just last year. The INF Treaty had been
ratified with a
93-5 vote. The hawkish complaint that the JCPOA wasn't submitted as a treaty was, as usual,
made in bad faith. There was no chance that the JCPOA would have been ratified, and even if it
had been that ratification would not have protected it from being tossed aside by Trump.
Insisting on making any new agreement a treaty is just another way of announcing that they have
no interest in a diplomatic solution.
Menendez and Graham want to make the obstacles to diplomacy so great that negotiations
between the U.S. and Iran can't resume. It isn't a serious proposal, and it shouldn't be taken
seriously.
And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied
scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that
"new deal" and demanding more?
Although Trump decided to call this as "Iran standing down," analysts on both sides can work
the calculus of this test run. I have been suggesting that Iran's cheaper technology is quite
effective and an advantage near their "home court."
The Iranians used a third- or fourth-generation Fateh 110, which was generally given a range
of 300 km. But the Al Assad base is 370 km from the border, so it seems the Iranians squeezed
out some extra range. The fourth generation Fateh 100 carries a 650 kg warhead. Iran certainly
has missiles with more punch. The Quim 1 is essentially a similar missile.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/63ehLAg7mSU
Iran showed that it can put most of Iraq in range of these low-cost missiles should it
become a battleground. The Al Assad base is large and target-rich.
Leaked pictures taken by a Puerto Rican soldier of the damage to the Al-Asad US airbase in
Iraq, after being hit by Iranian missiles.
Meanwhile,
Russia offered Iraq its state-of-the-art S-400 air defense to defend its air space.
Besides the added range, the accuracy looks impressive.
"Some of the locations struck look like the missiles hit dead center," said David Schmerler,
an analyst with the Middlebury Institute.
Numbers and production information relating to the Fateh 110 are currently uncertain, yet
Iranian media sources claim that facilities have been created to mass produce the weapon.
Michael Elleman, director of the Nonproliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme at the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, estimates that Iran has numbers "in the high
hundreds" of the Fateh-110.
Our takeaway is that this night demonstration is hardly a dud and will give Americans some
pause. It shows this key base at Al Assad will be vulnerable. If one night Iran threw a hundred
of these missiles up and aimed them at personnel, things could get ugly fast.
Observers are asking "where was the Patriot defense missile?" The problem is economic. The
cost of each missile is $2.75 million.
A Rand study estimated that a Patriot will need three rounds to take down basic short-range
ballistic missiles like the Fateh-110. That's 30 times more than the cost of Fateh. Iran would
hope the Patriot is wasted on Fatehs and Quims, and they would gladly run that kind of
cost-benefit math all over the region.
"For the time being, the Americans have been given a slap, revenge is a different issue,"
Iran's Fars News Agency quotes Iran's supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying Wednesday. "Military moves like this are not enough. The
Americans' corruption-stirring presence will come to an end."
Winter Watch Takeaway
U.S. vulnerability at Al Assad has now been well demonstrated. If anything -- especially as
more sanctions are being slapped on -- the War Party in Iran will be emboldened to run with
their advantages and do so well before more American troops and aircraft build up in the
theater.
This is mostly fear mongering as an affective bioengineered virus will create a pandemic, but
the truth is that Anthrax false flag attack after 9/11 was not an accident...
Trump administration beahaves like a completely lawless gang (stealing Syrian oil is one
example. Killing Soleimani is another ) , as for its behaviour on international arena, but I do
not believe they go that far. Even for for such "ruptured" gangster as Pompeo
Notable quotes:
"... Consider that a deadly virus created by the U.S. and used against another country was found out and verified, and in retaliation, that country or others decided to strike back with other toxic agents against America. Where would this end, and over time, how many billions could be affected in such a scenario? ..."
"... "In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies." ..."
"... Additional notes: here , here , here , here , here and here . ..."
Interestingly, in the past, U.S. universities and NGOs went to China
specifically to do illegal biological experimentation, and this was so egregious to Chinese
officials, that forcible removal of these people was the result. Harvard University, one of the
major players in this scandal, stole the DNA samples of hundreds of thousands of Chinese
citizens, left China with those samples, and continued illegal bio-research in the U.S. It is
thought that the U.S. military, which puts a completely different spin on the conversation, had
commissioned the research in China at the time. This is more than suspicious.
The U.S. has, according to this
article at Global Research ,
had a massive biological warfare program since at least the early 1940s, but has used toxic
agents against this country and others since the 1860s . This is no secret, regardless of the
propaganda spread by the government and its partners in criminal bio-weapon research and
production.
As of 1999, the U.S. government had deployed its Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW)
arsenal against the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia,
Cuba, Haitian boat people, and our neighbor Canada according to this article at
Counter Punch . Of course, U.S.
citizens have been used as guinea pigs many times as well, and exposed to toxic germ agents and
deadly chemicals by government.
Keep in mind that this is a short list, as the U.S. is well known for also using proxies to
spread its toxic chemicals and germ agents, such as happened in Iraq and Syria. Since 1999
there have been continued incidences of several different viruses, most of which are presumed
to be
manmade , including the current Coronavirus that is affecting China today.
There is also much evidence of the research and development of race-specific bio-warfare
agents. This is very troubling. One would think, given the idiotic race arguments by
post-modern Marxists, that this would consume the mainstream news, and any participants in
these atrocious race-specific poisons would be outed at every level. That is not happening, but
I believe it is due to obvious reasons, including government cover-up, hypocrisy at all levels,
and leftist agenda driven objectives that would not gain ground with the exposure of this
government-funded anti-race science.
I will say that it is not just the U.S. that is developing and producing bio-warfare agents
and viruses, but many developed countries around the globe do so as well. But the United
States, as is the case in every area of war and killing, is by far the world leader in its
inhuman desire to be able to kill entire populations through biological and chemical warfare
means. Because these agents are extremely dangerous and uncontrollable, and can spread wildly,
the risk to not only isolated populations, but also the entire world is evident. Consider
that a deadly virus created by the U.S. and used against another country was found out and
verified, and in retaliation, that country or others decided to strike back with other toxic
agents against America. Where would this end, and over time, how many billions could be
affected in such a scenario?
All indications point to the fact that the most toxic, poisonous, and deadly viruses ever
known are being created in labs around the world. In the U.S. think of Fort Detrick, Maryland,
Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas, Horn Island, Mississippi, Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, Vigo
Ordinance Plant, Indiana, and many others. Think of the fascist partnerships between this
government and the pharmaceutical industry. Think of the U.S. military installations positioned
all around the globe. Nothing good can come from this, as it is not about finding cures for
disease, or about discovering vaccines, but is done for one reason only, and that is for the
purpose of bio-warfare for mass killing.
The drive to find biological weapons that will sicken and kill millions at a time is not
only a travesty, but is beyond evil. This power is held by the few, but the potential victims
of this madness include everyone on earth. How can such insanity at this level be allowed to
continue? If any issue could ever unite the masses, governments participating in biological and
germ warfare, race-specific killing, and creating viruses with the potential to affect disease
and death worldwide, should cause many to stand together against it. The first step is to
expose that governments, the most likely culprit being the U.S. government, are planting these
viruses purposely to cause great harm. Once that is proven, the unbelievable risk to all will
be known, and then people everywhere should put their divisiveness aside, stand together, and
stop this assault on mankind.
"In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of
experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble
poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole
continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies." ~
George Orwell – 1984
From comments (Is the USA government now a "regime"): In 2018, Republicans (AND Democrats) voted to cut $23 billion dollars from
the budget for food stamps (42 million Americans currently receive them). Regimes disobey international law. Like America's habit of
blowing up wedding parties with drones or the illegal presence of its troops in Syria, Iraq and God knows where else. Regimes carry
out illegal assassination programs – I need say no more here than Qasem Soleimani. Regimes use their economic power to bully and
impose their will – sanctioning countries even when they know those sanctions will, for example, be responsible for the death of
500,000 Iraqi children (the 'price worth paying', remember?). Regimes renege on international treaties – like Iran nuclear treaty,
for example. Regimes imprison and hound whistle-blowers – like Chelsea manning and Julian Assange. Regimes imprison people. America
is the world leader in incarceration. It has 2.2 million people in its prisons (more than China which has 5 times the US's
population), that's 25% of the world's prison population for 5% of the world's population, Why does America need so many prisoners?
Because it has a massive, prison-based, slave labour business that is hugely profitable for the oligarchy.
Regimes censor free speech. Just recently, we've seen numerous non-narrative following journalists and organisations kicked off
numerous social media platforms. I didn't see lots of US senators standing up and saying 'I disagree completely with what you say
but I will fight to the death to preserve your right to say it'. Did you?
Regimes are ruled by cliques. I don't need to tell you that America is kakistocratic Oligarchy ruled by a tiny group of evil,
rich, Old Men, do I?
Regimes keep bad company. Their allies are other 'regimes', and they're often lumped together by using another favourite presstitute
term – 'axis of evil'. America has its own little axis of evil. It's two main allies are Saudi Arabia – a homophobic, women hating,
head chopping, terrorist financing state currently engaged in a war of genocide (assisted by the US) in Yemen – and the racist,
genocidal undeclared nuclear power state of Israel.
Regimes commit human rights abuses. Here we could talk about…ooh…let's think. Last year's treatment of child refugees from Latin
America, the execution of African Americans for 'walking whilst black' by America's militarized, criminal police force or the
millions of dollars in cash and property seized from entirely innocent Americans by that same police force under 'civil forfeiture'
laws or maybe we could mention huge American corporations getting tax refunds whilst ordinary Americans can't afford decent,
effective healthcare.
Regimes finance terrorism. Mmmm….just like America financed terrorists to help destroy Syria and Libya and invested $5 billion
dollars to install another regime – the one of anti-Semites and Nazis in Ukraine…
Highly recommended!
Some comments edited for clarity...
Notable quotes:
"... But after retirement, Smedley Butler changed his tune. ..."
"... "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service... And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers." ..."
"... Smedley Butler's Marine Corps and the military of his day was, in certain ways, a different sort of organization than today's highly professionalized armed forces. History rarely repeats itself, not in a literal sense anyway. Still, there are some disturbing similarities between the careers of Butler and today's generation of forever-war fighters. All of them served repeated tours of duty in (mostly) unsanctioned wars around the world. Butler's conflicts may have stretched west from Haiti across the oceans to China, whereas today's generals mostly lead missions from West Africa east to Central Asia, but both sets of conflicts seemed perpetual in their day and were motivated by barely concealed economic and imperial interests. ..."
"... When Smedley Butler retired in 1931, he was one of three Marine Corps major generals holding a rank just below that of only the Marine commandant and the Army chief of staff. Today, with about 900 generals and admirals currently serving on active duty, including 24 major generals in the Marine Corps alone, and with scores of flag officers retiring annually, not a single one has offered genuine public opposition to almost 19 years worth of ill-advised, remarkably unsuccessful American wars . As for the most senior officers, the 40 four-star generals and admirals whose vocal antimilitarism might make the biggest splash, there are more of them today than there were even at the height of the Vietnam War, although the active military is now about half the size it was then. Adulated as many of them may be, however, not one qualifies as a public critic of today's failing wars. ..."
"... The big three are Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson ; Vietnam veteran and onetime West Point history instructor, retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich ; and Iraq veteran and Afghan War whistleblower , retired Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis . All three have proven to be genuine public servants, poignant voices, and -- on some level -- cherished personal mentors. For better or worse, however, none carry the potential clout of a retired senior theater commander or prominent four-star general offering the same critiques. ..."
"... Consider it an irony of sorts that this system first received criticism in our era of forever wars when General David Petraeus, then commanding the highly publicized " surge " in Iraq, had to leave that theater of war in 2007 to serve as the chair of that selection committee. The reason: he wanted to ensure that a twice passed-over colonel, a protégé of his -- future Trump National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster -- earned his star. ..."
"... At the roots of this system lay the obsession of the American officer corps with " professionalization " after the Vietnam War debacle. This first manifested itself in a decision to ditch the citizen-soldier tradition, end the draft, and create an "all-volunteer force." The elimination of conscription, as predicted by critics at the time, created an ever-growing civil-military divide, even as it increased public apathy regarding America's wars by erasing whatever " skin in the game " most citizens had. ..."
"... One group of generals, however, reportedly now does have it out for President Trump -- but not because they're opposed to endless war. Rather, they reportedly think that The Donald doesn't "listen enough to military advice" on, you know, how to wage war forever and a day. ..."
"... That beast, first identified by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is now on steroids as American commanders in retirement regularly move directly from the military onto the boards of the giant defense contractors, a reality which only contributes to the dearth of Butlers in the military retiree community. For all the corruption of his time, the Pentagon didn't yet exist and the path from the military to, say, United Fruit Company, Standard Oil, or other typical corporate giants of that moment had yet to be normalized for retiring generals and admirals. Imagine what Butler would have had to say about the modern phenomenon of the " revolving door " in Washington. ..."
"... Today, generals don't seem to have a thought of their own even in retirement. And more's the pity... ..."
"... Am I the only one to notice that Hollywood and it's film distributors have gone full bore on "war" productions, glorifying these historical events while using poetic license to rewrite history. Prepping the numbheads. ..."
"... Forget rank. As Mr Sjursen implies, dissidents are no longer allowed in the higher ranks. "They" made sure to fix this as Mr Butler had too much of a mind of his own (US education system also programmed against creative, charismatic thinkers, btw). ..."
"... Today, the "Masters of the Permawars" refer to the international extortion, MIC, racket as "Defending American Interests"! .....With never any explanation to the public/American taxpayer just what "American Interests" the incredible expenditures of American lives, blood, and treasure are being defended! ..."
"... "The Americans follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous." - Jospeh Goebbels ..."
"... The greatest anti-imperialist of our times is Michael Parenti: ..."
"... The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. ..."
"... If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. ..."
There once lived an odd little man - five feet nine inches tall and barely 140 pounds
sopping wet - who rocked the lecture circuit and the nation itself. For all but a few activist
insiders and scholars, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler is now lost to
history. Yet more than a century ago, this strange contradiction
of a man would become a national war hero, celebrated in pulp adventure novels, and then, 30
years later, as one of this country's most prominent antiwar and anti-imperialist
dissidents.
Raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and educated in Quaker (pacifist) schools, the son of
an influential congressman, he would end up serving in nearly all of America's " Banana Wars " from 1898 to
1931. Wounded in combat and a rare recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor, he would
retire as the youngest, most decorated major general in the Marines.
A teenage officer and a certified hero during an international intervention in the Chinese
Boxer Rebellion
of 1900, he would later become a constabulary leader of the Haitian gendarme, the police chief
of Philadelphia (while on an approved absence from the military), and a proponent of Marine
Corps football. In more standard fashion, he would serve in battle as well as in what might
today be labeled peacekeeping , counterinsurgency , and
advise-and-assist missions in Cuba, China, the Philippines, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico,
Haiti, France, and China (again). While he showed early signs of skepticism about some of those
imperial campaigns or, as they were sardonically called by critics at the time, " Dollar Diplomacy "
operations -- that is, military campaigns waged on behalf of U.S. corporate business interests
-- until he retired he remained the prototypical loyal Marine.
But after retirement, Smedley Butler changed his tune. He began to blast the
imperialist foreign policy and interventionist bullying in which he'd only recently played such
a prominent part. Eventually, in 1935 during the Great Depression, in what became a classic
passage in his memoir, which he
titled "War Is a Racket," he wrote:
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service... And during
that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall
Street, and for the Bankers."
Seemingly overnight, the famous war hero transformed himself into an equally acclaimed
antiwar speaker and activist in a politically turbulent era. Those were, admittedly, uncommonly
anti-interventionist years, in which veterans and politicians alike promoted what (for America,
at least) had been fringe ideas. This was, after all, the height of what later pro-war
interventionists would pejoratively label American " isolationism ."
Nonetheless, Butler was unique (for that moment and certainly for our own) in his
unapologetic amenability to left-wing domestic politics and materialist critiques of American
militarism. In the last years of his life, he would face increasing criticism from his former
admirer, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the military establishment, and the interventionist
press. This was particularly true after Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland and later
France. Given the severity of the Nazi threat to mankind, hindsight undoubtedly proved Butler's
virulent opposition to U.S. intervention in World War II wrong.
Nevertheless, the long-term erasure of his decade of antiwar and anti-imperialist activism
and the assumption that all his assertions were irrelevant has proven historically deeply
misguided. In the wake of America's brief but bloody entry into the First World War, the
skepticism of Butler (and a significant part of an entire generation of veterans) about
intervention in a new European bloodbath should have been understandable. Above all, however,
his critique of American militarism of an earlier imperial era in the Pacific and in Latin
America remains prescient and all too timely today, especially coming as it did from one of the
most decorated and high-ranking general officers of his time. (In the era of the never-ending
war on terror, such a phenomenon is quite literally inconceivable.)
Smedley Butler's Marine Corps and the military of his day was, in certain ways, a different
sort of organization than today's highly professionalized armed forces. History rarely repeats
itself, not in a literal sense anyway. Still, there are some disturbing similarities between
the careers of Butler and today's generation of
forever-war fighters. All of them served repeated tours of duty in (mostly) unsanctioned
wars around the world. Butler's conflicts may have stretched west from Haiti across the oceans
to China, whereas today's generals mostly lead missions from West Africa east to Central Asia,
but both sets of conflicts seemed perpetual in their day and were motivated by barely concealed
economic and imperial interests.
Nonetheless, whereas this country's imperial campaigns of the first third of the twentieth
century generated a Smedley Butler, the hyper-interventionism of the first decades of this
century hasn't produced a single even faintly comparable figure. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Why that
is matters and illustrates much about the U.S. military establishment and contemporary national
culture, none of it particularly encouraging.
Why No Antiwar Generals
When Smedley Butler retired in 1931, he was one of three Marine Corps major generals holding
a rank just below that of only the Marine commandant and the Army chief of staff. Today, with
about 900 generals and admirals currently serving on active duty, including 24 major
generals in the Marine Corps alone, and with scores of flag officers retiring annually, not a
single one has offered genuine public opposition to almost 19 years worth of ill-advised,
remarkably unsuccessful American wars . As for the most senior officers, the 40 four-star
generals and admirals whose vocal antimilitarism might make the biggest splash, there are
more of them today than
there were even at the height of the Vietnam War, although the active military is now about
half the size it was then. Adulated as many of them may be, however, not one qualifies as a
public critic of today's failing wars.
Instead, the principal patriotic dissent against those terror wars has come from retired
colonels, lieutenant colonels, and occasionally more junior officers (like me), as well as
enlisted service members. Not that there are many of us to speak of either. I consider it
disturbing (and so should you) that I personally know just about every one of the retired
military figures who has spoken out against America's forever wars.
The big three are Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of staff, retired Colonel
Lawrence Wilkerson ;
Vietnam veteran and onetime West Point history instructor, retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich ; and Iraq veteran and
Afghan War
whistleblower , retired Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis . All three have
proven to be genuine public servants, poignant voices, and -- on some level -- cherished
personal mentors. For better or worse, however, none carry the potential clout of a retired
senior theater commander or prominent four-star general offering the same critiques.
Something must account for veteran dissenters topping out at the level of colonel.
Obviously, there are personal reasons why individual officers chose early retirement or didn't
make general or admiral. Still, the system for selecting flag officers should raise at least a
few questions when it comes to the lack of antiwar voices among retired commanders. In fact, a
selection committee of top generals and admirals is appointed each year to choose the next
colonels to earn their first star. And perhaps you won't be surprised to learn that, according
to numerous reports , "the
members of this board are inclined, if not explicitly motivated, to seek candidates in their
own image -- officers whose careers look like theirs." At a minimal level, such a system is
hardly built to foster free thinkers, no less breed potential dissidents.
Consider it an irony of sorts that this system first received
criticism in our era of forever wars when General David Petraeus, then commanding the
highly publicized " surge " in Iraq, had to leave that
theater of war in 2007 to serve as the chair of that selection committee. The reason: he wanted
to ensure that a twice passed-over colonel, a protégé of his -- future Trump
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster -- earned his star.
Mainstream national security analysts reported on this affair at the time as if it were a
major scandal, since most of them were convinced that Petraeus and his vaunted
counterinsurgency or " COINdinista "
protégés and their " new " war-fighting doctrine had the
magic touch that would turn around the failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Petraeus
tried to apply those very tactics twice -- once in each country -- as did acolytes of his
later, and you know the results
of that.
But here's the point: it took an eleventh-hour intervention by America's most acclaimed
general of that moment to get new stars handed out to prominent colonels who had, until then,
been stonewalled by Cold War-bred flag officers because they were promoting different (but also
strangely familiar) tactics in this country's wars. Imagine, then, how likely it would be for
such a leadership system to produce genuine dissenters with stars of any serious sort, no less
a crew of future Smedley Butlers.
At the roots of this system lay the obsession of the American officer corps with "
professionalization
" after the Vietnam War debacle. This first manifested itself in a decision to ditch the
citizen-soldier tradition, end the draft,
and create an "all-volunteer force." The elimination of conscription, as predicted
by critics at the time,
created an ever-growing civil-military divide, even as it increased public apathy regarding
America's wars by erasing whatever " skin in the game " most
citizens had.
More than just helping to squelch civilian antiwar activism, though, the professionalization
of the military, and of the officer corps in particular, ensured that any future Smedley
Butlers would be left in the dust (or in retirement at the level of lieutenant colonel or
colonel) by a system geared to producing faux warrior-monks. Typical of such figures is current
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley. He may speak
gruffly and look like a man with a head of his own, but typically he's turned out to be
just another yes-man
for another
war-power -hungry president.
One group of generals, however,
reportedly now does have it out for President Trump -- but not because they're opposed to
endless war. Rather, they reportedly think that The Donald doesn't "listen enough to military
advice" on, you know, how to wage war forever and a day.
What Would Smedley Butler Think
Today?
In his years of retirement, Smedley Butler regularly focused on the economic component of
America's imperial war policies. He saw clearly that the conflicts he had fought in, the
elections he had helped rig, the coups he had supported, and the constabularies he had formed
and empowered in faraway lands had all served the interests of U.S. corporate investors. Though
less overtly the case today, this still remains a reality in America's post-9/11 conflicts,
even on occasion embarrassingly so (as when the Iraqi ministry of oil was essentially the
only public building protected by American troops as looters tore apart the Iraqi capital,
Baghdad, in the post-invasion chaos of April 2003). Mostly, however, such influence plays out
far more
subtly than that, both
abroad and here at home where those wars help maintain the record profits of the top
weapons makers of the military-industrial complex.
That beast, first identified by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is now on
steroids as American commanders in retirement regularly
move directly from the military onto the boards of the giant defense contractors, a reality
which only contributes to the dearth of Butlers in the military retiree community. For all the
corruption of his time, the Pentagon didn't yet exist and the path from the military to, say,
United Fruit Company, Standard Oil, or other typical corporate giants of that moment had yet to
be normalized for retiring generals and admirals. Imagine what Butler would have had to say
about the modern phenomenon of the "
revolving door " in Washington.
Of course, he served in a very different moment, one in which military funding and troop
levels were still contested in Congress. As a longtime critic of capitalist excesses who wrote
for leftist publications and supported
the Socialist Party candidate in the 1936 presidential elections, Butler would have found
today's
nearly trillion-dollar annual defense budgets beyond belief. What the grizzled former
Marine long ago identified as a treacherous
nexus between warfare and capital "in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses
in lives" seems to have reached its natural end point in the twenty-first century. Case in
point: the record (and still
rising ) "defense" spending of the present moment, including -- to please a president --
the creation of a whole new military service aimed at the full-scale militarization of
space .
Sadly enough, in the age of Trump, as numerous
polls demonstrate, the U.S. military is the only public institution Americans still truly
trust. Under the circumstances, how useful it would be to have a high-ranking, highly
decorated, charismatic retired general in the Butler mold galvanize an apathetic public around
those forever wars of ours. Unfortunately, the likelihood of that is practically nil, given the
military system of our moment.
Of course, Butler didn't exactly end his life triumphantly. In late May 1940, having lost 25
pounds due to illness and exhaustion -- and demonized as a leftist, isolationist crank but
still maintaining a whirlwind speaking schedule -- he checked himself into the Philadelphia
Navy Yard Hospital for a "rest." He died there, probably of some sort of cancer, four weeks
later. Working himself to death in his 10-year retirement and second career as a born-again
antiwar activist, however, might just have constituted the very best service that the two-time
Medal of Honor winner could have given the nation he loved to the very end.
Someone of his credibility, character, and candor is needed more than ever today.
Unfortunately, this military generation is unlikely to produce such a figure. In retirement,
Butler himself boldly
confessed that, "like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of
my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I
obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical..."
Today, generals don't seem to have a thought of their own even in retirement. And more's
the pity...
2 minutes ago
Am I the only one to notice that Hollywood and it's film
distributors have gone full bore on "war" productions, glorifying these historical events while
using poetic license to rewrite history. Prepping the numbheads.
14 minutes ago
TULSI GABBARD.
Forget rank. As Mr Sjursen implies, dissidents are no longer allowed in the higher ranks.
"They" made sure to fix this as Mr Butler had too much of a mind of his own (US education
system also programmed against creative, charismatic thinkers, btw).
The US Space Force has been created as part of a plan to disclose the deep state's Secret
Space Program (SSP), which has been active for decades, and which has utilized, and repressed,
advanced technologies that would provide free, unlimited renewable energy, and thus eliminate
hunger and poverty on a planetary scale.
14 minutes ago
What imperialism?
We are spreading freedumb and dumbocracy.
We are saving the world from socialism and communism.
We are energy independent, with innate exceptionalism and #MAGA# will usher in a new era
of American prosperity.
Any and all accusations of USSA imperialism, are made by the "woke" and those jealous of
the greatest Capitalist system in the world.
The swamp is being drained as I speak, and therefore will continue with unwavering
support for my 5x draft dodging, Zionist supporting, multiple times bankrupt, keeper of
broken promises POTUS.
Smedley Butler's book is not worthy of reading once you have the seminal work known as
"The Art Of The Deal"
Sadly enough, in the age of Trump, as numerous
polls demonstrate, the U.S. military is the only public institution
Americans still truly trust. Under the circumstances, how useful it would be
to have a high-ranking, highly decorated, charismatic retired general in the
Butler mold galvanize an apathetic public around those forever wars of ours.
Unfortunately, the likelihood of that is practically nil, given the military
system of our moment.
This is why I feel an oath keeping constitutionally oriented American
general is what we need in power, clear out all 545 criminals in office now,
review their finances (and most of them will roll over on the others) and
punish accordingly, then the lobbyist, how many of them worked against the
country? You know what we do with those.
And then, finally, Hollywood, oh yes I long to see that **** hole burn with
everyone in it.
30 minutes ago
Republicrat: the two faces of the moar war whore.
32 minutes ago
Given the severity of the Nazi threat to mankind
Do tell, from what I've read the Nazis were really only a threat to a few
groups, the rest of us didn't need to worry.
35 minutes ago
Today, the "Masters
of the Permawars" refer to the international extortion, MIC, racket as
"Defending American Interests"! .....With never any explanation to the
public/American taxpayer just what "American Interests" the incredible
expenditures of American lives, blood, and treasure are being defended!
Why are we sending our children out into the hellholes of the world to be
maimed and killed in the fauxjew banksters' quest for world domination.
How stupid can we be!
41 minutes ago
(Edited) "Smedley Butler"... The last
time the UCMJ was actually used before being permanently turned into a "door
stop"!
49 minutes ago
He was correct about our staying out of WWII. Which, BTW,
would have never happened if we had stayed out of WWI.
22 minutes ago
(Edited)
Both wars were about the international fauxjew imposition of debt-money central
bankstering.
Both wars were promulgated by the Financial oligarchyof New York. The communist Red Army
of Russia was funded and supplied by the Financial oligarchyof New York. It was American Financial oligarchythat built the Russian Red Army that vexed the world and created the Cold War.
How many hundreds of millions of goyim were sacrificed to create both the
Russian and the Chinese Satanic behemoths.......and the communist horror that
is now embedded in American academia, publishing, American politics, so-called
news, entertainment, The worldwide Catholic religion, the Pentagon, and the
American deep state.......and more!
How stupid can we be. Every generation has the be dragged, kicking and
screaming, out of the eternal maw of historical ignorance to avoid falling back
into the myriad dark hellholes of history. As we all should know, people who
forget their own history are doomed to repeat it.
53 minutes ago
Today's
General is a robot with with a DNA.
54 minutes ago
All the General Staff is a
bunch of #asskissinglittlechickenshits
57 minutes ago
want to stop senseless
Empire wars>>well do this
War = jobs and profit..we get work "THEY" get the profit.. If we taxed all
war related profit at 99% how many wars would our rulers start? 1 hour ago
Here
is a simple straightforward trading maxim that might apply here: if it works or
is working keep doing it, but if it doesn't work or stops working, then STOP
doing it. There are plenty of people, now poorer, for not adhering to that
simple principle. Where is the Taxpayer's return on investment from the Combat
taking place on their behalf around the globe? 'Nuff said - it isn't working.
It is making a microscopic few richer & all others poorer so STOP doing it.
36 seconds ago We don't have to look far to figure out who they are that are
getting rich off the fauxjew permawars.
How can we be so stupid???
1 hour ago
See also:
TULSI GABBARD
1 hour ago
The main reason you don't see the generals
criticizing is that the current crop have not been in actual long term direct
combat with the enemy and have mostly been bureaucratic paper pushers.
Take the
Marine Major General who is the current commander of CENTCOM. By the time he
got into the Iraq/Afghanistan war he was already a Lieutenant Colonel and far
removed from direct action.
He was only there on and off for a few years. Here
are some of his other career highlights aft as they appear on his official
bio:
2006-07: he served as the Military Secretary to the 33rd and 34th
Commandants of the Marine Corps
2008: he was selected by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be the
Director of the Chairman's New Administration Transition Team (CNATT)
2009: he reported to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in
Kabul, Afghanistan to serve as the Deputy to the Deputy Chief of Staff (DCOS)
for Stability. ..... Deputy to the Deputy for Stability ???? WTF is that?
2010: he was assigned as the Director, Strategy, Plans, and Policy (J-5) for
the U.S. Central Command
2012: he reported to Headquarters Marine Corps to serve as the Marine Corps
Representative to the Quadrennial Defense Review
In short, these top guys aren't warriors they're bureaucrats so why would we
expect them to be honest brokers of the truth?
51 minutes ago
are U saying
Chesty Puller he's NOT? 1 hour ago
(Edited) The purpose of war is to ensure
that the
Federal Reserve Note remains the world reserve paper currency of choice by
keeping it relevant and in demand across the globe by forcing pesky energy
producing nations to trade with it exclusively.
It is a 49 year old policy created by the private owners of quasi public
institutions called
central banks to ensure they remain the Wizards of Oz
doing gods work conjuring magic paper into existence with a secret
spell known as issuing credit.
How else is a technologically advanced society of billions of people
supposed to function w/out this
divinely inspired paper?
1 hour ago
Goebbels in "Churchill's Lie Factory"
where he said: "The Americans follow the principle that when one lies, one
should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of
looking ridiculous." - Jospeh Goebbels, "Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik,"
12. january 1941, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel
1 hour ago
The greatest
anti-imperialist of our times is Michael Parenti:
Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over the last
four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while oppressing indigenous
peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is seldom accorded any
serious attention by our academics, media commentators, and political leaders.
When not ignored outright, the subject of imperialism has been sanitized, so
that empires become "commonwealths," and colonies become "territories" or
"dominions" (or, as in the case of Puerto Rico, "commonwealths" too).
Imperialist military interventions become matters of "national defense,"
"national security," and maintaining "stability" in one or another region. In
this book I want to look at imperialism for what it really is.
"Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world
history over the last four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while
oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is
seldom accorded any serious attention by our academics, media commentators, and
political leaders."
Why would it when they who control academia, media and most of our
politicians are our enemies.
1 hour ago
"The big three are Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of
staff, retired Colonel
Lawrence
Wilkerson ; ..."
Yep, Wilkerson, who leaked Valerie Plame's name, not that it was a leak, to
Novak, and then stood by to watch the grand jury fry Scooter Libby. Wilkerson,
that paragon of moral rectitude. Wilkerson the silent, that *******.
sheesh,
1 hour ago
(Edited)
" A standing military force, with an overgrown
Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence
against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.
Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was
apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of
defending, have enslaved the people."
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a
standing army, the bane of liberty.... Whenever Governments mean to invade the
rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia,
in order to raise an army upon their ruins." (Rep. Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment [I Annals
of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789])
A particularly pernicious example of intra-European
imperialism was the Nazi aggression during World War II, which gave the German
business cartels and the Nazi state an opportunity to plunder the resources and
exploit the labor of occupied Europe, including the slave labor of
concentration camps. - M. PARENTI, Against empire
See Alexander Parvus
1 hour ago
Collapse is the cure. It's
too far gone.
1 hour ago
Russia Wants to 'Jam' F-22 and F-35s in the Middle
East: Report
ZH retards think that the American mic is bad and all other mics are
good or don't exist. That's the power of brainwashing. Humans understand that
war in general is bad, but humans are becoming increasingly rare in this world.
1 hour ago
The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and
in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as
these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people
who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not
those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its
finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in
the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian
way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to
poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never
how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to
deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more
power.
If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and
power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million
fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if
we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money
and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are
enthusiastically supporting the war effort.
The swamp is bigger than the military alone. Substitute Bureaucrat,
Statesman, or Beltway Bandit for General and Colonel in your writing above and
you've got a whole new article to post that is just as true.
2 hours ago
(Edited) War = jobs and profit..we get work "THEY" get the profit..If we taxed
all war related profit at 99% how many wars would our rulers start?
2 hours ago [edited for clarity]
War is a racket. And nobody loves a
racket more than Financial oligarchy. Americans come close though, that's why Financial oligarchy use them to
project their own rackets and provide protection reprisals.
This article is war porn that assumes controlling oil fields is power. Instead
Russia is playing the White Knight saving nations from marauding hordes. NBC News is twisting
itself into tighter knots over Syria retaking Idlib Province back from the rebels. Turkey is
threatening to send in its Army.
Strategically a full-blown war between a NATO member Turkey and Russian ally Syria
would surpass the adverse effects of the quarantine of China or the rising temperatures that
are sliding huge glaciers off of Western Antarctica into the sea (if the war engulfs Europe).
The USA remains today in Syria and Iraq to control their oil fields since to Donald Trump it
means more money for the USA. Actually, America's position there is militarily untenable.
Both countries want the US gone. Iran's precision conventional ballistic missiles have
mutually assured destruction with Israel and Saudi Arabia and can destroy US bases there at
will.
When the Wuhan coronavirus engulfs the West, killing the elderly and the ill,
for-profit healthcare will be overwhelmed. With nothing to sell, the global economy stops
dead. There will be a glut of oil and natural gas. If they still have money, the trip to the
grocery store will be Russian Roulette for senior citizens hoping there will be food to live
for another month and not get viral pneumonia. The Doomsday Clock will be at midnight.
American troops will have to find their way home. The forever wars and neoliberalism died
with globalism.
This article sounds like the Russians have just started to go into Iraq but they
were there before the invasion nearly twenty years ago. In fact, in 2007 the US tried to get
the Iraqis to void a contract the Iraqis had with Russia for the massive West Qurna oil field
but that failed as the Iraqis would have been on the hook for all $13 billion in debt they
owed Russia and the US would not help. But there is a military aspect to being rich in
resources – there always is – and for Iraq it is particularly acute.
The Middle East is a rough neighbourhood and any country there has to be strong
enough to defend itself or else be vulnerable. After the invasion the Coalition tried to
organize Iraq so that they had no military but the Iraqi resistance put aid to that idea. But
what would make the Iraqis think hard was when ISIS was marching on Baghdad. The US refused
to use its air power to stop them and refused the Iraqis the use of pilots & paid-for
aircraft training in Texas until the government would fulfill a laundry list of demands. It
was the Russians – and the Iranians -that sent military equipment and specialists that
helped stop ISIS before they got to Baghdad.
More recently the Iraqis had to buy Russian tanks to fight ISIS as the American
tanks they had purchased were being deliberately not being serviced until the Iraqis
fulfilled an American demand. There is a shift now to buy Russian equipment because of
American fickleness with military gear. If that was not enough, the US has never gotten Iraqi
electricity production back to pre-war levles in spite of billions spent. To add insult to
injury, Trump demanded recently that Iraq hand over half of Iraqi oil production to repair
the electrical grid with of course no guarantees that they would ever do the work.
So the long and the short is that there is no trust with the US and Russia is seen
as a more reliable partner – as is China – and that there is no net benefit with
going to the US. And you never know if a second-term Trump might not seize the Iraqi oil
fields if he felt he could get away with it. It is a matter of being reliable-capable and it
seems that the Russians are proving themselves that, hence their success here. Reliability is
vital and cannot be replaced.
Russia has been using soft power in Middle East ever since Peter the Great started
fighting the Ottomans. Ever since the western powers (read: great Britain) always came to the
rescue of turks if Russia had military success, so they seriously used the other alternative:
economical, diplomatic and cultural influence in arab countries.
During the cold war they supported any regime in Middle East opposed to US-Israeli influence
(or downright aggression).
After the cold war the Russian foreign minister, later prime minister Primakov, was an
Arabist by training and personally knew almost every principal actor in Middle East. He is
presumed to be the architect of the current Russian policy (which is a continuation of the
old Soviet policy, which was based on the old Russian Empire policy).
It's a long, long history of using culture, diplomacy, economical help and weapon sales to
have influence in an area important to the Russian security in their southern
sphere.
The US pats itself on the back and always talks about being the worlds "policeman".
The American elite also want it both ways too- to bemoan having to do the police work in the
first place, while also endlessly stressing that the world would go to pieces if her armed
forces were not in foreign lands. Make up your mind please.
It would be very ironic if Russia proves to truly be an effective world "policeman"-
as seems more evidently to be the case.
Propaganda aside, who brings more stability and peace.
In one respect, the war profiteers are the least of the problem. If Space Force and
Nuclear rearmament are just more money boondoggles, while tragic, still survivable. If there
is a faction that actually believes in this stuff as a viable national policy for defense-
and offense- then when reality hits the road as the saying goes, the American psyche might
not survive the impact, let alone the rest of the world.
Americans are shielded from the horrors of war to the nations detriment.
You guys are NOT thinking venally nor strategically enough. The US powers that be,
love to put on this news story of foreign powers eating US cake. It's simply not credible
imho. Post Iraq war in 2003, "W" bush played the same "eating our cake" story out about China
taking Iraq oil for example. There are definitely other arrangements in place beneath the
surface we are never told. Iraq is now US piggbank. It can trade that asset as it desires,
sadly. Stories like this are just smoke.
I am struck by the size of the Russian investment ($20 billion) while the USA has
"invested" nearly 6 trillion (300x) as much in war expenditure in the region.
And this has the Russians bettering the USA in Iraq with their relatively small
strategic investment.
Maybe it is long overdue for the USA political class to reassess how it spends its
citizens' resources in the Middle East.
I posted this on an earlier thread, but it is relevant here.
I have been a working full time in Emergency Medicine for over 20 years. I was a "Flight Surgeon" in the Army. Soldiers are
notorious for playing up any combat related injury in order to qualify for disability and the financial benefits that flow from
being categorized as being disabled. As far as we know, the most serious claimed injuries were "concussions." As a practicing
specialist in Emergency Medicine, I can explain that the diagnosis of "concussion" means, by definition, that no abnormality is
seen on CT scanning of the brain. The diagnosis is made based on the injured person's purely subjective complaints, i.e. whatever
the allegedly injured person says. If the allegedly injured person says the right things, then a physician may call the symptoms
that of a concussion.
So, ultimately, a soldier would be diagnosed with a concussion because the soldier (who has financial benefits to gain) says
so, and a physician does not dispute it.
I have seen hundreds if not thousands of diagnoses of "concussion". That diagnosis does not have to be supported by any specific
findings or even a proper understanding of the diagnosis. It simply has to be entered in the record by a licensed physician. Once
that diagnosis is on the medical record, it is up to subsequent providers to refute that diagnosis if they desire to do so.
This is something subsequent providers are very unlikely to want to dedicate the time and effort required to accomplish. There
is usually no financial or professional incentive to do so – often the opposite. There is no specific test to definitively say
one way or the other if a person had a "concussion". Like PTSD it is a "functional" diagnosis based mainly on subjective symptoms
and not objective test results. This is not to say such things do not exist. They do exist. It is only to say that they can be
faked or misinterpreted and that will happen if there is a financial incentive to do so.
@The Scalpel I'm sure your assessment is accurate, and is symptomatic of a much more general problem affecting the axis of
medicine, insurance, pharma, and state pension systems (military or civilian), not to mention all corporations and agencies to
various degrees.
When doctors' medical opinions are considered sacrosanct and sufficient to secure payouts, excuse time off from work, and add
one's name to the list of medically "made men," they are certain to be pursued like bounty on the high seas. No small number of
doctors are content to play along with this system, as it secures a steady stream of income for them as well. Foreign doctors,
who are often perfectly comfortable with graft and fraud, are especially bad in this regard.
Employers are left with no recourse except to eat the cost of malingering employees and ever swelling pension rolls, which
no employeer can long afford at the micro level and which society itself cannot afford at the macro level.
Another complicating factor is added by the cultural obsession with business efficiency. When the VA scandal broke in 2014,
a lot of people were upset by the thought that veterans were receiving shoddy care and insisted that "more must be done," not
realizing that this very insistance was at the root of the problem. I said at the time that the real lesson here was that the
VA had been "Six-Sigma'ed" by incompetent management who demanded faster claims processing and unrealistic expenditure reductions.
These schizophrenic cultural trends -- viz. , on the one hand, greater and greater demands for doles by an aging and
sickening population; and, on the other hand, the feckless attempts to mitigate the very real unaffordability of this by an oligarchic
business philosophy that knows only how to downsize, offshore, and automate based on a naive reliance on the dubious benefits
of technology -- are going to culminate in an epic breakdown of social functioning over the next decade.
@The Scalpel Perhaps you need to return to medical school for a refresher. A "concussion" may, or may not, be seen as an abnormality,
usually subdural haematoma, on a CT scan. The reason for requesting the CT scan would be from the patient reported complaints,
but also from the objective medical examination for things like pupils and reaction. Radiation is not good for you. If you are
ordering CT scans before examination, you've got it backwards.
There are no causalities you guys over estimate the steadfastness of the US military.
Purple heart = disability cheque.
No one can disprove a concussion.
And that's the real embarrassment that the Pentagon is trying to hide.
These guys (US forces) teach other how to fake PTSD to get on disability. I've seen it countless times in Western armed forces.
Its how I know Iran will never be invaded or even bombed back to the stone age. You have to have balls for that and clearly the
West and Israel have none. (Bush invaded Iraq on the premise of an empty vial; the Iranian counterattack was a legit no-shit missile
attack on US forces and . NOTHING HAPPENED).
As for reality I have colleagues who are so disconnected from international politics that reality (past their 9-5 job) means
nothing. Reality won't kick in until it comes home to bite them in the ass. It's that simple. A programmer who does nothing for
10 years but play games and write software, what does he care about causalities in Iraq? Seriously. For him that was a 20 second
twitter feed which entertained him on his way to work and that's it.
@Curmudgeon Perhaps you have heard the old proverb, "It is best to keep your mouth shut and have people suspect you are ignorant,
than to open it and prove to people that you are ignorant"
A subdural hematoma is (let me say this slowly for you) a sudural hematoma. A concussion is (again slowly) a concussion. They
are two separate diagnoses.
Pretty good chance you don't know what these codes mean. If not, there is this thing called Google. Look it up.
"things like pupils and reaction"
WTF? I think you might be trying to describe testing for pupils being reactive to light (the normal state of affairs.) Abnormally
reactive pupils are not required for the diagnosis of concussion and, in fact, are not usually present.
Radiation is not good for you. If you are ordering CT scans before examination, you've got it backwards.
That, in fact, is all true. What is not true is that I made any sort of suggestion at all to order tests before an exam. You
need to lay off the hash pipe.
FYI:
Concussion: A concussion is a type of brain injury. It is a short loss of normal brain function in response to a head injury.
Concussions are a common type of sports injury. You can also suffer from one if you suffer a blow to the head or hit your head
after a fall. After a concussion, you may have a
headache or neck pain. You may also experience nausea, ringing in your ears, dizziness, or tiredness. You may feel dazed
or not your normal self
All these symptoms are subjective, i.e. they are basically what the patient reports – truthfully or not.
FWIW, I have found the most reliable symptom in diagnosing concussion is short term memory loss. The patient asks the same
question over and over as if he never got an answer.
@The Scalpel I'm well aware of what a CT is, I was doing them more than 40 years ago, likely before you were in med school.
I know what a concussion is, I've had one, and went through the examination. If you actually read my response, I did not say that
every concussion resulted in a subdural haematoma.
Patient reaction includes memory loss. Dizziness is what a patient reports. Of course what patients report is subjective, just
as pain tolerance is, but it doesn't invalidate them.
I never said or implied that you did not know what a CT scan is. I think I get it now. You really are a curmudgeon (as in elderly)
and your cognitive abilities are flagging. I am sorry for being rude earlier. As you may recall, the point being made was that
a simple concussion is not visible on CT scan. A subdural hematoma is visible – as well as many other traumatic brain injuries,
. A concussion is not visible. Subjective complaints are not invalid. They are as honest as the person making the complaint.
@The Scalpel Are you suggesting that The Greatest Fighting Force in the Galaxy in All of History, the military of the world's
Exceptional Nation, is riddled with grifters?
It seems that history is about to repeat. The highwater mark in SEAsia was the helicopters
evacuating the last invaders from Saigon. The highwater mark in the ME is going to be similar
scenes in Iraq.
A final warning has been issued to US troops there – 40 days after Soleimanis
assassination – the Resistance is ready to move, an irresistible force about to meet a
not so immovable object.
Along with Idlib and Allepo its been amazing start to 2020. And its not even spring!
"... Imperialism – the highest stage of capitalism ..."
"... Without the natives' consent and without the neighbouring countries approval, Moroccans, Somalis, and later Afghans and Syrians, found home in the EU thanks to madame Merkel. ..."
At the moment, the United States has great difficulty in retaining its hegemony in the
Middle East. Its troops have been declared unwanted in Iraq; and in Syria, the US and their
foreign legion of terrorists lose terrain and positions every month. The US has responded to
this with a significant escalation, by deploying more troops and by constant threats against
Iran. At the same time, we have seen strong protest movements in Lebanon, Iraq and
Iran.
When millions of Iraqi took to the streets recently, their main slogan was "THE UNITED
STATES OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST!"
How should one analyze this?
Obviously, there are a lot of social tensions in the Middle East – class based,
ethnic, religious and cultural. The region is a patchwork of conflicts and tensions that not
only goes back hundreds of years, but even a few thousand.
There are always many reasons to rebel against a corrupt upper class, anywhere in the world.
But no rebellion can succeed if it is not based on a realistic and thorough analysis of the
specific conditions in the individual country and region.
Just as in Africa, the borders in the Middle East are arbitrarily drawn. They are the
product of the manipulations of imperialist powers, and only to a lesser extent products of
what the peoples themselves have wanted.
During the era of decolonization, there was a strong, secular pan-Arab movement that wanted to create
a unified Arab world. This movement was influenced by the nationalist and socialist ideas that
had strong popular support at the time.
King Abdallah I
of Jordan envisaged a kingdom that would consist of Jordan, Palestine and Syria. Egypt and
Syria briefly established a union called the United Arab Republic . Gaddafi wanted
to unite Libya, Syria and Egypt in a federation of Arab republics
.
In 1958, a quickly dissolved confederation was established between Jordan and Iraq, called
the Arab Federation
. All these efforts were transient. What remains is the Arab League, which is, after all, not a
state federation and not an alliance. And then of course we have the demand for a Kurdish
state, or something similar consisting of one or more Kurdish mini-states.
Still, the most divisive product of the First World War was the establishment of the state
of Israel on Palestinian soil. During the First World War, Britain's Foreign Minister Arthur
Balfour issued what became known as the Balfour Declaration
, which " view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people."
But what is the basis for all these attempts at creating states? What are the prerequisites
for success or failure?
The imperialist powers divide the world according to the power
relations between them
Lenin gave the best and most durable explanation for this, in his essay Imperialism
– the highest stage of capitalism . There, he explained five basic features of
the era of imperialism:
The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a
high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; The
merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this
"finance capital", of a financial oligarchy; The export of capital as distinguished from the
export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; The formation of international
monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves; The territorial
division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.
But Lenin also pointed out that capitalist countries are developing unevenly, not least
because of the uneven development of productive forces in the various capitalist countries.
After a while, there arises a discrepancy between how the world is divided and the relative
strength of the imperialist powers. This disparity will eventually force through a
redistribution, a new division of the world based on the new relationship of strength. And, as
Lenin states :
The question is: what means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the
disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the
one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on the
other?"
The two world wars were wars that arose because of unevenness in the power relationships
between the imperialist powers. The British Empire was past its heyday and British capitalism
lagged behind in the competition. The United States and Germany were the great powers that had
the largest industrial and technological growth, and eventually this misalignment exploded. Not
once, but twice.
Versailles and Yalta
The victors of the First World War divided the world between themselves at the expense of
the losers. The main losers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia (the Soviet Union) and the
Ottoman Empire. This division was drawn up in the Versailles treaty and the following minor
treaties.
Europe after the Versailles Treaties (Wikipedia)
This map shows how the Ottoman Empire was partitioned:
At the end of World War II, the victorious superpowers met in the city of Yalta on the
Crimean peninsula in the Soviet Union. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin made an agreement on how
Europe should be divided following Germany's imminent defeat. This map shows how it was
envisaged and the two blocs that emerged and became the foundation for the Cold War.
Note that Yugoslavia, created after Versailles in 1919, was maintained and consolidated as
"a country between the blocs". So it is a country that carries in itself the heritage of both
the Versailles- and Yalta agreements.
The fateful change of era when the Soviet Union
fell
In the era of imperialism, there has always been a struggle between various great powers.
The battle has been about markets, access to cheap labor, raw materials, energy, transport
routes and military control. And the imperialist countries divide the world between themselves
according to their strength. But the imperialist powers are developing unevenly.
If a power collapses or loses control over some areas, rivals will compete to fill the void.
Imperialism follows the principle that Aristotle in his Physics called horror vacui – the
fear of empty space.
And that was what happened when the Soviet Union lost the Cold War. In 1991, the Soviet
Union ceased to exist, and soon the Eastern bloc was also history. And thus the balance was
broken, the one that had maintained the old order. And now a huge area was available for
re-division. The weakened Russia barely managed to preserve its own territory, and not at all
the area that just before was controlled by the Soviet Union.
Never has a so large area been open for redivision. It was the result of two horrible
world wars that anew was up for grabs. It could not but lead to war." Pål
Steigan, 1999
"Never has a so large area been open for re-division. It was the result of two horrible
world wars that anew was up for grabs. It could not but lead to war." Map: Countries either
part of the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc or non-aligned (Yugoslavia)
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, both the Yalta and Versailles agreements in reality
collapsed, and opened up the way for a fierce race to control this geopolitical empty
space.
This laid the foundation for the American
Geostrategy for Eurasia , which concentrated on securing control over the vast Eurasian
continent. It is this struggle for redistribution in favor of the United States that has been
the basis for most wars since 1990: Somalia, the Iraq wars, the Balkan wars, Libya, Ukraine,
and Syria.
The United States has been aggressively spearheading this, and the process to expand NATO
eastward and create regime changes in the form of so-called "color revolutions" has been part
of this struggle. The coup in Kiev, the transformation of Ukraine into an American colony with
Nazi elements, and the war in Donbass are also part of this picture. This war will not stop
until Russia is conquered and dismembered, or Russia has put an end to the US offensive.
So, to recapitulate: Because the world is already divided between imperialist powers and
there are no new colonies to conquer, the great powers can only fight for redistribution. What
creates the basis and possibilities for a new division is the uneven development of capitalism.
The forces that are developing faster economically and technologically will demand bigger
markets, more raw materials, more strategic control.
The results of two terrible wars are
again up for grabs
World War I caused perhaps 20 million deaths , as well as at least as many
wounded. World War II caused around 72 million deaths . These are
approximate numbers, and there is still controversy around the exact figures, but we are
talking about this order of magnitude.
The two world wars that ended with the Versailles and Yalta treaties thus caused just below
100 million dead, as well as an incredible number of other suffering and losses.
Since 1991, a low-intensity "world war" has been fought, especially by the US, to conquer
"the void". Donald Trump
recently stated that the United States have waged wars based on lies, which have cost $ 8
trillion ($ 8,000 billion) and millions of people's lives. So the United States' new
distribution of the spoils has not happened peacefully.
"The Rebellion against
Sykes-Picot"
In the debate around the situation in the Middle East, certain people that would like to
appear leftist, radical and anti-imperialist say that it is time to rebel against the
artificial boundaries drawn by the Sykes-Picot and Versailles treaties. And certainly these
borders are artificial and imperialist. But how leftist and anti-imperialist is it to fight for
these boundaries to be revised now?
In reality, it is the United States and Israel that are fighting for a redistribution of the
Middle East. This is the basis underlying Donald Trump's "Deal of the Century", which aims to
bury Palestine forever, and it is stated outright in the new US strategy for partitioning
Iraq.
Again, this is just an updated version of the Zionist Yinon plan that aimed to cantonize the
entire Middle East, with the aim that Israel should have no real opponents and would be able to
dominate the entire region and possibly create a Greater Israel.
It is not the anti-imperialists that are leading the way to overhaul the imperialist borders
from 1919. It is the imperialists. To achieve this, they can often exploit movements that are
initially popular or national, but which then only become tools and proxies in a greater
game.
This has happened so many times in history that it can hardly be counted.
Hitler's Germany exploited Croatian nationalism by using the
Ustaša gangs as proxies. From 1929 to 1945, they killed hundreds of thousands of
Serbs, Jews and Roma people. And their ideological and political descendants carried out an
extremely brutal ethnic cleansing of the Krajina area and forced out more than 200,000 Serbs in
their so-called Operation Storm in 1995.
Hitler also used the extreme Ukrainian nationalists of Stepan Bandera's OUN, and after
Bandera's death, the CIA continued to use them as a fifth column against the Soviet Union.
The US low-intensity war against Iraq, from the Gulf War in 1991 to the Iraq War in 2003,
helped divide the country into enclaves. Iraqi Kurdistan achieved autonomy in the oil-rich
north with the help of a US "no-fly zone". The United States thus created a quasi-state that
was their tool in Iraq.
Undoubtedly, the Kurds in Iraq had been oppressed under Saddam Hussein. But also
undoubtedly, their Iraqi "Kurdistan" became a client state under the thumb of United States.
And there is also no doubt that the no-fly zones were illegal, as UN Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali
admitted in a conversation with John Pilger .
And now the United States is still using the Kurds in Northern Iraq in its plan to divide
Iraq into three parts. To that end, they are building the world's largest consulate in Erbil.
What they are planning to do, is simply "creating a country".
As is well known, the United States also uses the Kurds in Syria as a pretext to keep 27
percent of the country occupied. It does not help how much the Kurdish militias SDF and PYD
invoke democracy, feminism and communalism; they have ended up pleading for the United States
to maintain the occupation of Northeast Syria.
Preparations for a New World War
Israel and the US are preparing for war against Iran. In this fight, they will develop as
much "progressive" rhetoric as is required to fool people. Real dissatisfaction in the area,
which there is every reason to have, will be magnified and blown out of all proportion. "Social
movements" will be equipped with the latest news in the Israeli and US "riot kits" and receive
training and logistics support, in addition to plenty of cold hard cash.
There may be good reasons to revise the 1919 borders, but in today's situation, such a move
will quickly trigger a major war. Some say that the Kurds are entitled to their own state, and
maybe so. The question is ultimately decided by everyone else, except the Kurds themselves.
The problem is that in today's geopolitical situation, creating a unified Kurdistan will
require that "one" defeats Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It's hard to see how that can happen
without their allies, not least Russia and China, being drawn into the conflict.
And then we have a new world war on our hands. And in that case, we are not talking about
100 million killed, but maybe ten times as much, or the collapse of civilization as we know it.
The Kurdish question is not worth that much.
This does not mean that one should not fight against oppression and injustice, be it social
and national. One certainly should. But you have to realize that revising the map of the Middle
East is a very dangerous plan and that you run the risk of ending up in very dangerous company.
The alternative to this is to support a political struggle that undermines the hegemony of the
United States and Israel and thereby creates better conditions for future struggles.
It is nothing new that small nations rely on geopolitical situations to achieve some form of
national independence. This was the case, for example, for my home country Norway. It was
France's defeat in the Napoleonic War that caused Denmark to lose the province of Norway to
Sweden in 1814, but at the same time it created space for a separate Norwegian constitution and
internal self rule.
All honor to the Norwegian founding fathers of 1814, but this was decided on the
battlefields in Europe. And again, it was Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War that laid
the geopolitical foundation for the dissolution of the forced union with Sweden almost a
hundred years later, in 1905. (This is very schematically presented and there are many more
details, but there is no doubt that Russia's loss of most of its fleet in the Far East had
created a power vacuum in the west, which was exploitable.)
Therefore, the best thing to do now is not to support the fragmentation of states, but to
support a united front to drive the United States out of the Middle East. The Million Man March
in Baghdad got the ball rolling. There is every reason to build up even more strength behind
it. Only when the United States is out, will the peoples and countries in the region be able to
arrive at peaceful agreements between themselves, which will enable a better future to be
developed.
And in this context, it is an advantage that China develops the "Silk Road" (aka Belt and
Road Initiative), not because China is any nobler than other major powers, but because this
project, at least in the current situation, is non-sectarian, non-exclusive and genuinely
multilateral. The alternative to a monopolistic rule by the United States, with a world police
under Washington's control, is a multipolar world. It grows as we speak.
The days of the Empire are numbered. What this will look like in 20 or 50 years, remains to
be seen.
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George Mc ,
Off topic – but there's nowhere else to put this at the moment:
The BBC was taken aback by leftwing attacks on its general election coverage
No idea what they are talking about. They patiently explained that Corbyn was Hitler. What
more could they do?
Dungroanin ,
Ok roll up the sleeves, time to concentrate. I've had enough of being baited as a judae-
phobe.
The 'Balfour Declaration' – he didn't write it and it was a contract published in
the newspapers within hours of it being inveigled.
Ready?
'Balfour and Lloyd George would have been happy with an unvarnished endorsement of
Zionism. The text that the foreign secretary agreed in August was largely written by Weizmann
and his colleagues:
"His Majesty's Government accept the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as
the national home of the Jewish people and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object and will be ready to consider any suggestions on the subject which
the Zionist Organisation may desire to lay before them."
Got that – AUGUST?
Dungroanin ,
The leading figure in that drama was a charismatic chemistry professor from Manchester, Chaim
Weizmann – with his domed head, goatee beard and fierce intellect. Weizmann had gained
an entrée into political circles thanks to CP Scott, the illustrious editor of the
Manchester Guardian, and had then sold his Zionist project to government leaders, including
David Lloyd George when he was chancellor of the exchequer.
Dungroanin ,
Author(s)
Walter Rothschild, Arthur Balfour, Leo Amery, Lord Milner
Signatories
Arthur James Balfour
Recipient
Walter Rothschild
Dungroanin ,
'In due course the blunt phrase about Palestine being "reconstituted as the national home of
the Jewish people" was toned down into "the establishment of a home for the Jewish people in
Palestine" – a more ambiguous formulation which sidestepped for the moment the idea of
a Jewish state. '
Dungroanin ,
'Edwin Montagu, newly appointed as secretary of state for India, was only the third
practising Jew to hold cabinet office. Whereas his cousin, Herbert Samuel (who in 1920 would
become the first high commissioner of Palestine) was a keen supporter of Zionism, Montagu was
an "assimilationist" – one who believed that being Jewish was a matter of religion not
ethnicity. His position was summed up in the cabinet minutes:
Mr Montagu urged strong objections to any declaration in which it was stated that
Palestine was the "national home" of the Jewish people. He regarded the Jews as a religious
community and himself as a Jewish Englishman '
Dungroanin ,
'Montagu considered the proposed Declaration a blatantly anti-Semitic document and claimed
that "most English-born Jews were opposed to Zionism", which he said was being pushed mainly
by "foreign-born Jews" such as Weizmann, who was born in what is now Belarus.'
Dungroanin ,
The other critic of the proposed Declaration was Lord Curzon, a former viceroy of India, who
therefore viewed Palestine within the geopolitics of Asia. A grandee who traced his lineage
back to the Norman Conquest, Curzon loftily informed colleagues that the Promised Land was
not exactly flowing with milk and honey, but nor was it an empty, uninhabited space.
According to the cabinet minutes, "Lord Curzon urged strong objections upon practical
grounds. He stated, from his recollection of Palestine, that the country was, for the most
part, barren and desolate a less propitious seat for the future Jewish race could not be
imagined."
And, he asked, "how was it proposed to get rid of the existing majority of Mussulman
[Muslim] inhabitants and to introduce the Jews in their place?"
Dungroanin ,
Sorry for the length of this bit – but it only makes sense in the whole:
'Between them, Curzon and Montagu had temporarily slowed the Zionist bandwagon. Lord
Milner, another member of the war cabinet, hastily added two conditions to the proposed
draft, in order to address the two men's respective concerns. The vague phrase about the
rights of the "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" hints at how little the
government knew or cared about those who constituted roughly 90 per cent of the population of
what they, too, regarded as their homeland.
After trying out the new version on a few eminent Jews, both of Zionist and
accommodationist persuasions, and also securing a firm endorsement from America's President
Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Balfour took the issue back to the war cabinet on 31
October. By now the strident Montagu had left for India, and on this occasion Balfour, who
could often be moody and detached, led from the front, brushing aside the objections that had
been raised and reasserting the propaganda imperative. According to the cabinet minutes, he
stated firmly: "The vast majority of Jews in Russia and America, as, indeed, all over the
world, now appeared to be favourable to Zionism. If we could make a declaration favourable to
such an ideal, we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and
America."
This was standard cabinet tactics: a strong lead from a minister supported by the PM,
daring his colleagues to argue back. And this time Curzon did not, though he did make another
telling comment. He "attached great importance to the necessity of retaining the Christian
and Moslem Holy Places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem". If this were done, Curzon added, he "did
not see how the Jewish people could have a political capital in Palestine".'
Dungroanin ,
Dates again crucial and the smoking gun:
'securing a firm endorsement from America's President Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and
Balfour took the issue back to the war cabinet on 31 October.'
Dungroanin ,
The two conditions had bought off the two main critics. That was all that seemed to matter,
even though the reference to the "rights of the existing non-Jewish communities" stood in
potential conflict with the first two clauses about the British supporting and using their
"best endeavours" for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people".
Dungroanin ,
There is MORE but I'll pause and see how many are really interested in FACTS, as opposed to
invented History, Economics and Capital instead of the only real human motivations of the
ages – Money and Power.
George Mc ,
the only real human motivations of the ages – Money and Power.
If this is true then we are all doomed.
Dungroanin ,
Not if we are aware of it George.
Dungroanin ,
Ok a summary fom Brittanica:
'Balfour Declaration Quick Facts
The Balfour Declaration, issued through the continued efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum
Sokolow, Zionist leaders in London, fell short of the expectations of the Zionists, who had
asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as "the" Jewish national home. The declaration
specifically stipulated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The document, however,
said nothing of the political or national rights of these communities and did not refer to
them by name. Nevertheless, the declaration aroused enthusiastic hopes among Zionists and
seemed the fulfillment of the aims of the World Zionist Organization (see Zionism).
The British government hoped that the declaration would rally Jewish opinion, especially
in the United States, to the side of the Allied powers against the Central Powers during
World War I (1914–18). They hoped also that the settlement in Palestine of a
pro-British Jewish population might help to protect the approaches to the Suez Canal in
neighbouring Egypt and thus ensure a vital communication route to British colonial
possessions in India.
The Balfour Declaration was endorsed by the principal Allied powers and was included in
the British mandate over Palestine, formally approved by the newly created League of Nations
on July 24, 1922.
In May 1939 the British government altered its policy in a White Paper recommending a
limit of 75,000 further immigrants and an end to immigration by 1944, unless the resident
Palestinian Arabs of the region consented to further immigration.
Zionists condemned the new policy, accusing Britain of favouring the Arabs. This point was
made moot by the outbreak of World War II (1939–45) and the founding of the State of
Israel in 1948.'
Dungroanin ,
But what about the timing?
Well there are twin tracks, here is the first.
'But talking about the return of the Jews to the land of Israel was only meaningful
because that land seemed up for grabs after the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany in 1914.
For Britain, France and Russia – though primarily focused on Europe – war against
a declining power long dubbed the "Sick Man of Europe" opened up the prospect of vast gains
in the Levant and the Middle East.
The Ottoman army, however, proved no walkover. In 1915 it threatened the Suez Canal,
Britain's imperial artery to India, and then repulsed landings by British empire and French
forces on the Dardanelles at Gallipoli. Although Baghdad fell in March 1917, two British
assaults on Gaza that spring were humiliatingly driven back, with heavy losses. Deadlock in
the desert added to Whitehall's list of woes.
In this prescribed narrative of remembrance for 1914-18, what happened outside the Western
Front has been almost entirely obscured. The British army's "Historical Lessons, Warfare
Branch" has published in-house a fascinating volume of essays about what it tellingly
entitles "The Forgotten Fronts of the First World War" – with superb maps and
illustrations. The collection covers not only Palestine and Mesopotamia (roughly modern-day
Iraq and Kuwait), but also Italy, Africa, Russia, Turkey and the Pacific – indeed much
of the world – but sadly it is not currently available to the public. '
Dungroanin ,
The second track is the 'money' track and what everything is about and why we live in such a
miasma of blatant lies.
IT can only make sense by asking questions such as :
Can we follow the money?
When was the Fed set up? Why? By whom?
How much money did it lend &
to whom?
When was the first world war started?
When did US declare war?
When did US troops arrive in numbers to enter that war?
What happened in Russia at the same time?
And in Mesopotamia?
How did it end?
How did it fail to end?
What happened to the contract?
Etc.
I have attempted to research and answer some of these already above.
Next I will attempt to walk the other track but be warned that opens more ancient
tracks.
Dungroanin ,
'On 2 November, Balfour sent his letter to Lord Rothschild.
7 November, Lenin and the Bolsheviks had seized power in Petrograd. ransacked the Tsarist
archives, they published juicy extracts from the "secret treaties" that the Allied powers had
made among themselves in 1915-16 to divide the spoils of victory.
The same day the Ottoman Seventh and Eighth Armies evacuated the town of Gaza
9 November Letter published in Times.
Mid November – The Bolsheviks did not discover that the British were also playing
footsie with the Turks. In the middle of November 1917, secret meetings took place with
Ottoman dissidents in Greece and Switzerland about trying to arrange an armistice in the Near
East. The war cabinet recognised that, as bait, it might have to let the Ottomans keep parts
of their empire in the region, or at least retain some appearance of control. When Curzon got
wind of this, he was incensed: "Almost in the same week that we have pledged ourselves, if
successful, to secure Palestine as a national home for the Jewish people, are we to
contemplate leaving the Turkish flag flying over Jerusalem?"
End November. The Manchester Guardian's correspondent in Petrograd, Morgan Philips Price,
was able to examine the key documents overnight, and his scoop was published by the paper at
the end of November. It revealed to the world, among other things, that the British also had
an understanding with the French – the Sykes-Picot agreement of January 1916 – to
carve up the Near East between them once the Ottoman empire had been defeated. In this,
Palestine was slated for some kind of international condominium – not the British
protectorate envisaged in the Balfour Declaration.
11 December Allenby formally entered Jerusalem. '
So just a few loose ends left to tie up anyone actually want to go there?
The paramount goal of the Fed's founders was to eliminate banking panics, but it was not
the only goal. The founders also sought to increase the amount of international trade
financed by US banks and to expand the use of the dollar internationally. By 1913 the United
States had the world's largest economy, but only a small fraction of US exports and imports
were financed by American banks. Instead, most exports and imports were financed by bankers'
acceptances drawn on European banks in foreign currencies. (Bankers' acceptances are a type
of financial contract used for making payments in the future, for example, upon delivery of
goods or services. Bankers' acceptances are drawn on and guaranteed, i.e., "accepted," by a
bank.) The Federal Reserve Act allowed national banks to issue bankers' acceptances and open
foreign branches, which greatly expanded their ability to finance international transactions
Further the Act authorized the Reserve Banks to purchase acceptances in the open market to
ensure a liquid market for them, thereby spurring growth of that market.
President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913.
The task of determining the specific number of districts, district boundaries, and which
cities would have Reserve Banks was assigned to a Reserve Bank Organization Committee.
On April 2, 1914, the Committee announced that twelve Federal Reserve districts would be
formed, identified the boundaries of those districts, and named the cities that would have
Reserve Banks.1 The Banks were quickly organized, officers and staff were hired, and boards
of directors appointed. The Banks opened for business on November 16, 1914.
..
The Federal Reserve Act addressed perceived shortcomings by creating a new national
currency -- Federal Reserve notes -- and requiring members of the Federal Reserve System to
hold reserve balances with their local Federal Reserve Banks.
World War I began in Europe in August 1914, before the Federal Reserve Banks had opened
for business. The war had a profound impact on the US banking system and economy, as well as
on the Federal Reserve.
War disrupted European financial markets and reduced the supply of trade credit offered by
European banks, providing US banks with an opening. Low US interest rates, abundant reserves,
and new authority to issue trade acceptances enabled American banks to finance a growing
share of world trade.
Dungroanin ,
So the denouement :
It appears that the 'first world war' was designed to diminish European banks and boost
the US banks.
However the fuller history of the US bankers is worth knowing- the Jekyll Islanders story
is widely publicised.
Into this time track enters the Balfour Declaration addressed to Lord Rothschild, steered
by Milner (heir to Rhodes empire building and the old EIC), approved by the potus Wilson
(another hireling) that finally sent US troops to overwhelm the Germans, while the great
gamers took out the Romanovs and the Ottoman Empire.
-- --
When we try to understand such facts and timelines and are attacked as Judaeo-phobes,
because we identify Bankers and Robber Barons, it becomes even clearer how deep and wide they
have controlled history and it has NOTHING to do with RELIGION (except perhaps Ludism).
Nothing to do with Judaism (except perhaps Old Jewry in the City, but Lombard Street was most
powerful!) and EVERYTHING to do with POWER and it's representation MONEY. The obscuring of
that through various Economic theories including Marxism is the work of the same old bastards
who are responsible for all our current malaises.
Thankyou and good evening, if anyone made it this far!
😉
George Mc ,
Well OK Dunnie, let's say I go along with you and assume that all the shit we are facing has
nothing to do with religion or all that "Marxian porridge" (as Guido Giacomo Preparata called
it). The question is: What do we do about it?
Speaking of GGP , it seems to me that you and him have much in common. He also goes on
about "Power" but seems to be on the verge of referring this "Power" to mystical entities in
a disconcertingly Ickean manoeuvre. Not that I'm attibuting such a thing to yourself. (No
irony intended.)
Dungroanin ,
George – i don't want you or anyone to just go along with me.
I want everyone to make their minds up on FACTS. That is the only way humanity has
actually progressed by inventing the only self correcting philosophical system and method of
the ages that goes beyond 'personal responsibility teligions' – SCIENTIFIC METHOD
– that takes away arbitrary power to rule, from these that inhabit the top of the human
pyramid by virtue of being born there and having control over the money and so the power to
remain in these positions, which does not benefit the totality of humanity or all life on
Earth.
I am not a messiah, I am angry as fuck and I am not going to sit around enjoying whatever
soma has been handed to us to keep compliant and leave this Planet worse than I found it.
That is the scientific conclusion I have reached.
I suppose some proto buddhist / zoroastrianism / animalist / Shinto / Jain & Quakers
seek religious truth in inner experience, and place great reliance on conscience as the basis
of morality.
I suppose Ghandi's non-violence rebellion against Imperialists is a model as are various
peasants revolts – the Russian / Chinese / Korean / Vietnamese couldn't have survived
without the literal grassroots!
..
As for Guido Giacomo Preparata that you have introduced to me – i had nevet heard of
him before this morning – my first take on him is that he seems to have arrived at
similar conclusions by similar methodology. He seems to have a lot of formal education and a
enviable career so far – i'll have to look into him further but the interview that i
just read seems to indicate concurrence with what i said above. I see no Ickean references
– please give a link.
-- -
As a observation do you not find it funny that there is not a single objection to the
verity of the facts which I have presented above?
Good luck George if you are a real seeker of truth. If not insta-karma awaits.
George Mc ,
The Preparata statement I was referring to is in this interview:
Power is a purely human suggestion. Suggested by whom? That is the question. The NSDAP
thus appeared to have been a front for some kind of nebula of Austro-German magi, dark
initiates, and troubling literati (Dietrich Eckhart comes to mind), with very plausible
extra-Teutonic ramifications of which we know next to nothing. Hitler came to be inducted
in a lodge of this network, endowed as he seemed with a supernatural gift of inflaming
oratory.
This is a theme that I am still studying, but from what I gathered, the adepts of the
Thule Gesellschaft communed around the belief of being the blood heirs of a breed that
seeks redemption / salvation / metempsychosis in some kind of eighth realm away from this
earth, which is the shoddy creation of a lesser God -- the archangel of the Hebrews,
Jehovah. It all sounds positively insane to post-modern ears, but it should be taken very
seriously, I think.
Admittedly it isn't quite interdimensional reptiles but there is a distinct metaphysical
flavour there.
I wouldn't go along with everything Preparata says but he is a wonderful writer and I have
bought almost everything I can find by him. His "biggie" is "Conjuring Hitler". It was Nafeez
Mosaddeq Ahmed that brought GGP to my attention via that book.
milosevic ,
images on this website look terrible, with very little colour. the problem seems to be caused
by this rule, from the file "OffGstyle.css":
.content-wrap-spp img {
filter: sepia(20%) saturate(30%);
}
Open ,
This sepia effect usually works well with Off-Guardian articles, but with these maps in
today's article it is definitely terrible. Why have maps if they don't want to show them
clearly?
(any extra steps for the user to see the pictures clearly is not the answer)
Another area neglected on this website is crediting photos. The majority of images carry
no atribution/credit, despite it [crediting photos] is the best ethical practice even for
public domain pictures. I wish Admin gets expert advice on this.
Open ,
Look at the language used by the americans:
On feb. 12 [2020], Coalition forces, conducting a patrol near Qamishli, Syria ,
encountered a checkpoint occupied by pro-Syrian .. forces .
So, the supremacist unites states' army has found that Syrian forces are occupying Syrian
land .. wow wow wow .. according to this logic, Russian forces are occupying Russian land.
Iranian forces are occupying Iranian land (how dare they?!). But american forces are not
occupying any land, and Israel is not occupying Palestinian and Syrian lands.
This language needs to be known more widely.
Open ,
The americans always use the term 'Coalition forces' when they talk about their illegal
presence in Syria. I tried to search online for what countries are in this coalition. I
recall I was able to find that in the past, but now, it seems this information is being
pushed under wrap.
What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?
Joe ,
Just bring about the end of "Israel" and there'll be peace in the Middle East, and probably
in the wider world, too.
Open ,
Ending the Israeli project is certainly a step in the right direction to improve global
stability. However, alone, it will not bring about peace because the
British/Five-Eyes/Washington's doctrine of spreading disorder and chaos permeates (saturates)
the planet.
In fact, current disorders are the results of convergence of Israeli interests with those
of Western White Supremacy's* resolve to dominate, erh, eveything.
* Western White Supremacy can also be called Western White Idiocy and Bigotry.
Israel manipulates the West's political and military might. The West also uses Israel to
spread Chaos and Disorder.
Antonym ,
Right, back to the good old peace of the graveyard inspired by Mohamed's male sex riot
ideology and plunder legitimization before the Westerners showed up with their superior
(arms) tech legitimization for their plunder.
Before Israel's 1947 creation the world was a bed of roses .
Open ,
"srael's 1947 creation"
Without the natives' consent and without the neighbouring countries approval, Ukranians
and Germans, and later South Americans, found home in the Middle East.
How ligitimate is that?
Antonym ,
Without the natives' consent and without the neighbouring countries approval, Moroccans,
Somalis, and later Afghans and Syrians, found home in the EU thanks to madame Merkel.
How ligitimate is that?
Open ,
"Moroccans, Somalis, and later Afghans and Syrians .. etc.."
Do these comments reflect the Zionists' perspective? This is important because they prove
that the whole existence of Israel is based on total fabrication and lies.
Maggie ,
Did you have to practice at being THAT stupid! Or did they lobotomise you in Langley?
Somalis, Afghans, Syrians would not have had any cause to leave their homeland had it not
been for your employers the CIA/MOSSAD facilitating the raping and pillaging of their homes
by the Oil Magnates, leaving them starving and desolate. https://www.hiiraan.com/op2/2007/may/somalia_the_other_hidden_war_for_oil.aspx
and where does our Aid money go?
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5OInaYenHkU?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
But of course Antonym, if you were in their situation, you would just stick it out?
Shame on you .
To those who care, read "The confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins" to
understand how this corrupt system is conducted.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Its 'creation' in blood, murder, rape and terror, in a great ethnic cleansing-the sign of
things to come, ceaselessly, for seventy years and ongoing.
paul ,
Ask the people in Gaza about the Zionist "peace of the graveyard."
Antonym ,
Gaza before 2005 was relatively peaceful + prosperous. After the Israeli withdrawal the
inhabitants messed up their own economy but kept on making lots of babies just like
before.
Quite the opposite of a graveyard or a Warsaw ghetto or a Dachau.
Despite the disengagement, the United Nations, international human rights organisations
and most legal scholars regard the Gaza Strip to still be under military occupation by
Israel, though this is disputed by Israel and other legal scholars. Following the
withdrawal, Israel has continued to maintain direct external control over Gaza and indirect
control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, and six of Gaza's
seven land crossings, it maintains a no-go buffer zone within the territory, and controls
the Palestinian population registry, and Gaza remains dependent on Israel for its water,
electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.
Interesting definition of "withdrawal". It's amazing those Gazans even managed to have
babies!
Richard Le Sarc ,
You would have made a grand Nazi, Antsie-cripes, you have!
paul ,
Gaza was, and is, a huge Zionist concentration camp hermetically sealed off from the outside
world and blockaded just like the Warsaw Ghetto. With Zionist thugs and kiddie killers
shooting hundreds of kids in the head for the fun of it with British sniper rifles and dum
dum bullets, and periodically dropping 20,000 tons of bombs at a time on it, a higher
explosive yield than Hiroshima. With parties of Jews going along to hold barbecues and
picnics to watch all the fun. Nice people, those chosen folk.
Richard Le Sarc ,
I rather think that Epstein, Weinstein, Moonves and all those orthodox and ultra-orthodox who
are such prolific patrons of the sex industry in Israel, know a bit about 'male sex riot
ideology', Antsie.
Dungroanin ,
Pathetic.
'Nandy won a major boost when members of the Labour affiliate Jewish Labour Movement gave her
their backing after a hustings, saying she understood the need to change the party's
culture.'
From the Groaniad
How many members? How many by denomination?
As for the Balfour Contract there were actual English Jewish establishment figures against
its premise. Actual imperial servants. The declaration was a stitch up by the new banking
powers in the US which then sent in the yanks to stop the Germans in 1917.
History is rewritten daily to memory hole such facts.
Capricornia Man ,
The 'Jewish Labour Movement' is so Jewish that most of its members are not Jewish. And it is
so Labour-affiliated that it did not support Labour in the December general election. But it
has no shortage of money. It exists solely to prosecute the interests of a foreign power.
Much the same could be said for any politician who accepts its endorsement.
Rhys Jaggar ,
Given that Jews are vastly outnumbered by non Jews, the simplest way to stop Jewish
manipulation of politics is to form a party from which Jews are specifically banned.
You will not propose any policies harming Jews in any way, you will just make it clear
that this is a party free from any Jewish influence in its constitution.
If Jews cannot accept that, then they are utterly racist and must be dealt with without
sensibility.
Maggie ,
A better solution Rhys would be to form a party that denies all and any dual citizens
That way all the Zionists would be barred.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Full public financing of political parties would end Zionist control.
paul ,
Thornberry has just thrown in the towel.
She will now have more time to "get down on her hands and knees" and "beg forgiveness" from
the Board of Deputies.
Those good little Shabbos are so easily trained.
Dungroanin ,
BoD's??? Another random organisation!
Who are they? Who do they represent? How many people? Which people? How did they get
elected? How can they be fired?
Richard Le Sarc ,
The next world war has already started, with the bio-warfare atttack on China aka Covid19.
lundiel ,
Why no comment on the government reshuffle? I don't agree with the Indian middle-class
uplifting but totally agree with neutering the ultra-conservative treasury.
Maggie ,
I think it's a case of who gives a fck. We now know that our elections are rigged, and so
there is no point in us being involved. My family and I all realised and voted for the last
time.
They are all bloody crap actors reading their scripts and playing their parts, whilst the
never changing suits in the background pull the strings.
I had to explain to my 10 year old Grandson how politics work, and he said "Why doesn't
anyone know the names of, or see the suits?"
What I want to know is why no-one ever asks this question or demands an answer?
tonyopmoc ,
Completely Brilliant Article, but it is Valentines Day, so as I am 66 years old, and in love
with my wife (nearly 40 years together = LOVE), I wrote this in response to Craig Murray, who
has banned me again.
It may be off topic for him, but it ain't off topic for me. I am still in Love.
"Churchill's mental deterioration from syphilis – which the Eton and Oxford ."
Never had it, and she didn't either. We were young and in love, but we didn't know, if
either of us had sex before, but I had a spotty dick, and went to the VD clinic. I had a
blood test, and they gave me some zinc cream.
She also had the same thing, and showed her Mum.
We were both completely innocent, and had a sexually transmitted disease called Thrush. It
is relatively harmless, but can also give you a sore throat.
We both laughed at each other, and nearly got married.
Natural Yoghurt, is completely brilliant at preventing it.
Far better than Canestan.
Happy Valentines Day, for Everyone still In Love.
Let us all look forwad to a Brighter Day for our Grandchildren.
Tony
Loverat ,
Hey Tony
Dont worry. Craig Murray might not like you but I do. Your stories, here and elsewhere
have entertained me for many years.
Mind you, if I were your other half I would have chucked you years ago.
paul ,
Tell him how much you like haggis and tossing your caber.
Dungroanin ,
Without Stalins say so Poland would not have had its borders at the end of ww2.
Also,
On these maps just off the right hand edges is missing Afghanistan.. which the imperialists
invaded in 2002 as the Taliban wiped out the opium crops. Back to full production immediately
after invasion and 18 years later secret negotiations to hand over to Taliban while leaving
8,000 CUA troops delivering the huge cash crop.
Seeking possession and control – in competition with those you see as seeking to
dispossess and control or deny you – is the identity or belief in 'kill or be
killed'.
This belief overrides and subordinates others – such as to subsume all else to such
private agenda that will seek alliance against common threat but only as a shifting strategy
of possession and control.
One of the things about this 'game' of power struggle, is that it loses any sense of WHY
– and so it is a driven mind or dictate of power or possession for it own sake that
cannot really ENJOY or HAVE and share what it Has. The image of the hungry ghost comes to
mind here. It will never have enough until you are dead – and even then will offer you
torment beyond the grave.
Until this mindset is recognised and released as an 'insanity' it operates as accepted
currency of exchange, and maps our a world of its own conflicting and conflicted
meanings.
The willingness to destroy or kill, deny or undermine and invalidate others in order to
GET for a private agenda set over the whole instead of finding balance within the whole
– is destructive to life, no matter how ingenious the thinking that frames it to seem
to be progressive, protective, or in fact powerful.
But in our collective alignment and allegiance with such a way of thinking and identifying
– we all give power to the destructive – as if to protect the life that it gives
us.
The hungry ghost is also in the mass population when separated from their land and lives
to seek connection or meaning in proffered 'products and services' instead of creating out of
our own lives. Products and services that operate a hidden agenda of possession and control
or market and mind capture under threat of fear of pain of loss in losing even the little
that we have.
Having – on a spiritual level is our being – and not a matter of stuffing a
hole.
Madness that can no longer mask as anything else is all about – and brings a choice to
conscious awareness as to whether to persist in it or decide to find another way of seeing
and being.
This is not to say there is no place to call upon or seek to limit people in positions of
trust from serving an unjust outcome by calling for transparency and accountability –
but not to wait on that or make that the be all and end all.
If there is another way and a better way than war masking in and misusing and thus
corrupting anything and everything, then it has to be lived one to another.
Everyone seeks a better experience – but many seek it in a negative framing.
Negative in the sense of self-lack seeking power in the terms of its current identity. Evils
work their own destruction, but find sustainability in selling destructive agenda or toxic
debt as ingeniously complex instruments of deceit – by which the targeted buyer
believes they have or shall save their 'self' or add to their 'self' rather than growing
hollow to a driven mindset of reactive fear-addiction.
I don't need to 'tell this to those who refuse to listen' – but I share it with any
moment of a willingness to listen. In the final analysis, we are the ones who live the result
of choices in our lives, whatever the times and conditions.
The 'repackaging' of reality to self-deceit, is not new but part of the human mind and
experience throughout history. The evil changes forms – as if the good has and shall
triumph. But truth undoes illusion by being accepted. It doesn't war on illusion and thus
make it real – and remain truth.
Judgement divides to rule.
Discernment arises from the unwillingness to division.
One is set apart from and over life as the invocation of an alien will, dealing death, and
the other as the will of true desire revealed.
The idea of independent autonomy is relative to a limited sphere of responsibilities in
the world.
The idea of living our own life is an alignment within the same for others and the freedom to
do so cannot take from others without becoming possessed by our denials, debts and
transgressions – no less so in the driven mind of ingeniously repackaged and wilfully
defended narrative identity.
In our own experience, this is not a matter of applied analysis, so much as awareness or
space in which to seek and find truth in some willingness of recognition and acceptance or
choice, while the triggering or baiting to madness is loud or compelling as the dictate of
fear seeking protection and grievance seeking retribution – as if these give freedom
and power rather than locking into a fear-framed limitation as substitution for life set in
defiance and refusal to look on or share in truth – and so to such a one, war is truth,
and love is weakness to exploit, use and weaponise for getting.
paul ,
If you look at the proposed new map of the Middle East, it mirrors Kushner's Deal Of The
Century for Palestine – because it has the same Zionist authorship.
The same old dirty Zionist games of divide and rule – break up countries in the region
into tiny defenceless little statelets setting different ethnic and religious groups at each
others' throats, so that they can rule the roost and steal whatever they wish.
You see this in the past and the recent past. The way Lebanon was torn away from Syria. Or
Kuwait from Iraq. Or the Ruritanian petty Gulf dictatorships like Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai.
Trump was being honest for the first time in his miserable life when he said none of these
satellites and satraps would last a fortnight if they were not propped up by the US.
paul ,
George Galloway described the whole region as a flock of sheep surrounded by ravenous wolves.
At the same time, there is more than a grain of truth in the Zionists' contention that the
people of the region are to some extent the authors of their own misfortune.
They always fall for the divide-and-rule games of outside powers, Britain, America,
Israel, who invade, bomb, slaughter, humiliate and exploit them. If they had been united,
Israel would not have been created. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, would not have been destroyed
and bombed back to the Stone Age. These countries would be genuinely independent and at
peace.
When I speak to ordinary moslems, it is surprising and depressing to see how much visceral
hatred they express for Shia moslems. They seem blind to the way they are being manipulated
to serve outside interests.
So we see moslem Saudi Arabia trying to incite America and Israel to destroy Iran, and
offering to pay for the whole cost of the war. Or S. Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, UAE et al, in bed
with Israel, paying billions to bankroll the terrorist head choppers in Syria. Or Egypt,
which does not even protest, let alone lift a finger, when Israeli aircraft use its air space
to carpet bomb Gaza. Or going further back in history, when countries like Egypt and Syria
sent troops to join the 1991 US invasion of Iraq. Even though Iraq had sent its forces to the
Golan Heights in 1973 to fight and die to prevent Syria being overrun by Israel. How
contemptible is all that? Yet those are just a few of many examples of all the backstabbing
that has occurred over the years. If these people don't respect themselves, why should
anybody else?
paul ,
And this has been going on for hundreds of years.
1096 marked the beginning of The Crusades, a disaster for the region on a par with the
creation of Israel.
At that time, London was a little village of 25,000. Baghdad and Alexandria and Cordoba were
sophisticated modern cities with populations of hundreds of thousands. They dismissed the
Crusaders as mere bandits who would do some looting, steal some cattle, and go home. But 3
years later Jerusalem had been conquered and its inhabitants slaughtered, the start of a 200
year disaster for the region. How? Why?
Because the Arabs were so busy fighting a civil war at the time they barely noticed the
foreign invaders. The old, old story. Civil war between Sunnis and Shias.
One day, they will wake up and realise that they have to hang together, or hang
separately.
But I wouldn't hold your breath.
There seems to be an endless supply of quisling stooge dictators ready to do the bidding of
hostile outside powers. The Mubaraks, the Sisis, the King Abdullahs, the Sinioras, the MBS's,
to name but a few.
Conforming to all the worst stereotypes about Arabs and moslems.
You could argue that they deserve all they get, when they are ever ready to bend over and
drop their trousers.
Is it really any surprise that they have been invaded, slaughtered, bombed back to the Stone
Age, robbed, exploited and humiliated from time immemorial.
Maybe one day they will discover an ounce of dignity and self respect. Who knows?
Maggie ,
"1096 marked the beginning of The Crusades, a disaster for the region on a par with the
creation of Israel.
At that time, London was a little village of 25,000. Baghdad and Alexandria and Cordoba were
sophisticated modern cities with populations of hundreds of thousands. They dismissed the
Crusaders as mere bandits who would do some looting, steal some cattle, and go home. But 3
years later Jerusalem had been conquered and its inhabitants slaughtered, the start of a 200
year disaster for the region. How? Why?"
Because despite the mendacious lies that are told about Muslims, they are tolerant and
forgiving. They believe in one God, and live exemplary modest, generous lives in the belief
that they will enter in to the kingdom of heaven.
And these are the people we are being encouraged to hate and fear? To enable the neo cons
to invade and destroy everything in their path to get their oil.
Hundreds of millions of Muslims the world over 'live in democracies' of some shape or
form, from Indonesia to Malaysia to Pakistan to Lebanon to Tunisia to Turkey. Tens of
millions of Muslims' live in -- and participate in' -- Western democratic societies. The
country that is on course to have the biggest Muslim population in the world in the next
couple of decades is India, which also happens to be the world's biggest democracy. Yet a
persistent pernicious narrative exists, particularly in the West, that Islam and democracy
are incompatible. Islam is often associated with dictatorship, totalitarianism, and a lack of
freedom, and many "well paid" analysts and pundits claim that Muslims are philosophically
opposed to the idea of democracy .
Richard Le Sarc ,
'Democracy' as practised in the neo-liberal capitalist West, is a nullity, a fiction, a
smoke-screen behind which the one and only power, that of the rich owners of the economy,
acts alone.
I know. These Zionist morons droning on about how violent Islam is as religion yet ignoring
the fact that the Bible is based on the God of Abraham granting them Canaan (like Trump
giving the Israelis the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) and urging them to
commit complete and utter genocidal annihilation of the inhabitants by not leaving a single
living thing breathing.
No violence there folks. Nope. The book of love my ass!
paul ,
Their God was a demented estate agent, rather like Trump or Kushner.
Personally I believe that the chapters of the bible were written after their genocidal blood
lust simply to justify their despicable acts. Claiming that God made 'em do it.
Loverat ,
My experience of muslims in the UK is many express support for the Palestinians but don't
identify or understand those states which still speak up for their rights, Syria, Iran and a
few others.
Sadly like the general UK population they have been exposed to propaganda which excuses
evil and mass murder carried out by Saudi Arabia and their lackeys and Israel. This is
changing however. People are gradually waking up. Muslims and the general UK public if they
really knew the extent of this would be out demonstrating on the streets.
The realisation these policies have exposed all of us to nuclear wipe out in seconds
should be enough motivation for any normal person.
The wipe out or (preferably) demonstrations will happen. Just a question of when. You can see
why the establishment and people like Higgins, Lucas and York are so active recently. These
idiots, blinded by their pay checks can't see the harm they are causing through their
irresponsible lies even to their own families. Perhaps they all have nuclear shelters in
their back garden.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Saudi Arabia is NOT 'Moslem'. It is Wahhabist, a genocide cult created by doenmeh, ie
crypto-Jewish followers of the failed 17th century Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, which is
homicidally opposed to all Moslems but fellow Wahhabists.
milosevic ,
I thought it was created by the British Empire, in order to provide reliable stooges and
puppet regimes.
Richard Le Sarc ,
What people must realise is that,for the Zionassty secular and Talmudic religious
leaderships, by far the dominant forces in Israel and among many of the Diaspora sayanim, the
drive to create 'Eretz Yisrael', '..from the Nile to the Euphrates' (and some include the
Arabian Peninsula as well), is a real, religious, ambition-indeed an obligation. With the
alliance with the 'Christian Zionist' lunatics in the USA, the fate of humanity is in the
hands of the Evil Brain Dead.
BigB ,
I despair. This is why there is 'No Deal For Nature' because the hegemonic cultural movement
is to extend cultural hegemony over nature. We cannot seem to help it or stop ourselves. Do
we suppose a glossy website will change that? Or empty sloganneering subvertisements? Or
waiving placards outside banks? Or some other futile conscience salving symbolic gesture?
No, we have to subvert the cultural hegemony over nature at every point at every chance.
Which is thankless because cultural normativity is ubiquitous. And it's killing us. And BRI
is the very antithesis of alternative an eternal return into the cultural consumerism and
commodification that is the global hegemony at least at an elite level. And we are among that
elite – in terms of consumption and pollution. We are the problem. If we seek to extend
or preserve our own Eurocentric priviliges and consumptions we can only do so by extracting
evermore global resources and maldeveloping the Rest. Which is also what Samir Amin said:
following Wallerstein's World Systems Theory.
The progressive packaging of all our sins and transferring them to something called
'American Imperialism' is nothing less than mass psychological transference to a Fetish. By
which we maintain autonomy from any blame in the ecological disaster we are co-creating.
Which is why it is a powerful cultural narrative constructivism. 'We' do not have to reform:
the scapegoated Otherised 'they' do. Whilst we all sit smugly in our inauthentic imaginary
autonomy: the ecological destruction caused entirely by our collectivist consumption carries
on. 'They' have to clean up 'their' act – not us. 'We' align with the
'counter-hegemonic alliance': the alternative BRI. 'We' are so bourgeois and progressive in
our invented independence and totally aligned with the destructive forces of capitalist
endocolonised culture because of our own internalised screening discourse. Which is why there
is #NoDealForNature. 'We' don't actually give a flying fuck not beyond some hollow totemic
gestures in transference of our own responsibility.
'We' are pushing for the financialisation of nature: as the teleology of our particular
complicit cultural narratives. It's not just 'them'. Supply and demand are dialectically
exponential. Who is demanding less, more fairly distributed North to South? Exponential
expansionism via BRI is no more alternative than colonising the Moon or Mars. For nature to
have a deal: we have to stop demanding growth. And in doing that: become self-responsible
right through to the narratives we produce. For which every person in the global consumer
bourgeoisie – that's us – will have to change their imperatives from culture to
nature. Which means a new naturalised culture: not just complicitly advocating the 'same old,
same old' exponential expansionism of the extractivist commodification of every last standing
resource. Under the guise of new narrative constructions like this. That's not progress: it's
capitalist propaganda and personal self-propaganda. We are among the consumer elite. Which is
driving the financialisation and commodification of everything. For us.
#NoDealForNature until we take full and honest self-responsibility to create one with our
every enaction including speech-enactivism.
"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive
commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our
utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed,
and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save
the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has
preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox.
Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to
the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of
man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the
degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is
so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of
the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but
subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely
diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration
in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an
operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were
intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit,
with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly
bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at
least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not
marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this
is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from
marriage."
― Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
BigB ,
Every appraisal from a cultural POV extends the cultural hegemony over nature – with no
exceptions. If we do not address the false dichotomy of culture and nature – and invert
the privileged status of cultural domination over nature – this never changes. If
nothing changes its going to be a very short century the last in the history of culture.
I'm expressing my own private POV with the intention of at least highlighting the issue of
only ever expressing the distorted cultural-centric POV. It would be nice if we could all
agree to do something other than waste our privileged status and access to resources for
other than meaningless sarcasm. It's not like we'd all benefit from a change in POV and the
entailed potential in a change of course that can only happen if we think of nature first, is
it? 😉
The only thing I don't like about the environmentally "woke" is that many are easily
manipulated by the neoliberal elite. Greta is a perfect example.
That is they go after the little guy while the Military and big industry continue to
pollute unhampered.
George Mc ,
I despair.
Well that's what you do.
Dungroanin ,
The M5 highway is secured. Allepo access points too and Idlib is surrounded- where are the US
backed /Saudi paid / Tukish passport holding Uighars and various Turkmen proxy jihadist anti
Chinese / anti Russian, Central asian caliphate establishing mercenaries supposed to go now??
Pompeo is buzzing around Africa now like a blue bottomed cadaverous fly, non-stop buzzing
from piles of shot, trying to find them homes – no Libya doesn't want anymore of them,
nor the UAE and Saudis, or Turks maybe dump them in Canada with all these ex Ukrainian still
nazis? Its a big country nobody will know!
Or bring them to the US and give them a ticker tape parade?
Or let them surrender and have them testify as to how the fuck they let themselves be
bought for $$$$ maybe just fry them with the low yield nuke and blame Assad for it!
Dumbass yanks, fukus, 5+1 eyed gollum and Nutty- 'it's the Belgian airforce bombing
Russian weapons in Syria' -yahoo!
Up-Pompeos farce and buzzing is about to sizzle in the blue light of death for dumbfuck
poison spreading flies.
normal wisdom ,
so much disrespect here hare here.
these takfiri these giants these beards are hero
of the oded yinon plan
they raped murdered and stole
dustified atomised the syriana so
is rael can become real
the red heffers have been cloned the temple will grow
the semites must leave for norway,sweden wales scotland and detroit
already
the khazar ashkanazim need the land returned to it's true owners from the turkic russio
steppe
tonight back to back i watch reality
fiddler on the roof and exodus and schindlers lists.
i watch bbc simon scharmas new rabbi revised history of mighty israel.
every day it grows massive every day hezbollah become weak husk
shirley you can sea more that
my life already
Francis Lee ,
Very interesting and informative article. Lenin's 5 conditions of the imperialism of his time
have been matched by similar conditions in our own time, as listed by the Egyptian Marxist,
Samir Amin. These conditions being as follows.
1. Control of technology.
2. Access to natural resources.
3. Finance.
4. Global media.
5. The means of mass destruction.
Only by overturning these monopolies can real progress be made. Easily said. But a life
and death struggle for humanity.
The collapse of the Soviet Union opened up the space for increased penetration of Europe
to the East by the US and its West European allies in NATO. At that time the subaltern US
powers in Europe were the UK and West Germany, as it then was. There was a semblance of
sovereignty in France under De Gaulle, but this has since disappeared. Europe as a whole is
now occupied and controlled by the US which has used EU/NATO bloc to push right up to the
Russian border. Most, if not all, the non-sovereign quasi states, in Europe, particularly
Eastern Europe, are Quisling-Petainist puppet regimes regardless of whether they are inside
our outside of the EU. (I say 'states' but of course if a country is not sovereign it cannot
be a 'state' in the full meaning of the word).
A political, social and economic crisis in Europe seems to be taking taking shape. Perhaps
the key problem, particularly Eastern Europe, has been depopulation. There is not one
European state in which fertility (replacement) rates has reached 2.1 children. Western
European imperial states have to large degree been able to counter-act this tendency by
immigration from their former colonies, particularly the UK and France. But this has not been
possible in states such as Sweden and Germany where the migration of non-christian guest
workers from Turkey to Germany and Islamic refugees
from the middle-east hot-spots have had a free passage to Sweden. This has become a serious
social and economic problem; a problem resulting from a neoliberal open borders policy. The
fact of the matter is that radically different cultures will tend to clash. Thank you Mr
Soros.
British immigration policy was successful in so far as immigrants from the Caribbean were
English speakers, they were also protestant Christians, and the culture was not very
different from the UK. Later immigration from the Indian sub-continent and Indian settled
East Africa were generally professional and middle-class business people. Again English
speakers. Assimilation of these newcomers was not unduly difficult.
However it wouldn't be exaggerating to say that Eastern Europe is facing a demographic
disaster. This particular zone is literally bleeding people. Ukraine for example has lost 10
million people since 1990. Every month it is estimated that 100,000 Ukrainians leave the
country, usually for good. In terms of migration – no-one wants to go to Eastern
Europe, but everyone wants to leave, asap. This process is complemented by low birth rates,
and high death rates. These are un-developing states in an un-developing world. But now we
have new kids on the bloc. A counter-hegemonic alliance. No guesses who.
BigB ,
Rubbish. There is no 'counter-hegemonic alliance' to humanities rapacious demand for fossil
fuels and ecological resources. Where are the material consumption resources for BRI coming
from – the Moon, Mars? Passing asteroids? Or from the Earth?
When its gone: its gone. Russia and China provide absolutely no alternative to this.
China's consumption alone is driving us over the brink. To which the real alternative is a
complicit silence. As we all align with culture-centric capitalist views: there is no
naturalistic 'counter-hegemonic alliance'. Just some hunters in the Amazon we are having shot
right now so we can have the privilige of extending cultural hegemony over nature.
When it's gone: it's gone. And so will we be too. Probably as we are still praising the
wonders of the 'counter-hegemonic alliance' that killed us.
Actually there is a naturalistic alliance forming but it seems you haven't been paying
attention because you seem stuck in some Malthusian mind set. In order to defeat capitalism
you have to defeat Globalism so you first have to eliminate the Anglo-American Hegemony and
get back to a multipolar world.
Ranting on about like Gretchen doesn't do any good.
BigB ,
Resources are finite and thermodynamics exist. These are the ineliminable, indisputable, and
rock solid epistemology of the Earth System. Everything else is metaphysics – literally
'beyond nature; beyond physics'. Or, as it is more commonly known – economics. The
imaginary epistemology of political economics and political theory. 'Theory' is the
non-scientific sense of unfounded opinion and non-sense. A philosophical truth-theory that is
not and cannot ever be true. Hypothetical non-sense.
I get my information from a wide range of sources that realise these foundational
predicates. That is: a foundational set of beliefs that require no underpinning. I can only
paraphrase Eddington on thermodynamics: "if your theory is found to be against the second law
I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
Which is to say all modern political theory and economics – and by extension all
opinions based on its internalisation – is the product of vivid and unfounded
imagination. To which a naturalised epistemology is the only remedy.
There are lots of people working on the problem: but not in the political sphere. Which is
why we are stuck in a hallucinated metaphysical political-economic theatre of the absurd and
absolutised cultural non-sense. Which is not beyond anyone to rectify: if and when we accept
the limitations of the physical-material Earth System. And apply them to our thinking.
#NoDealForNature until we accept that the thermodynamics of depletion naturally limit
growth. Anything anyone says to the contrary should be treated with scepticism and cause a
collapse into deepest humiliation of any rational thinker.
Richard Le Sarc ,
'Depopulation' is only a problem if you believe in the capitalist cancer cult of infinite
growth on a finite planet, ie black magic. If you value Life on Earth, and its continuance,
human depopulation is necessary. Best done slowly and humanely, by redistributing the wealth
stolen by the capitalist parasites. The process seen in the Baltics and Ukraine is the
capitalist way, cruel and inhumane. Even worse is planned for the Africans, south Asians and
Chinese etc.
They don't for a minute believe in "infinite growth". They believe in the "bottom
line","instant gratification" and "primitive accumulation". "Infinite growth" is a sales
pitch that they use to sell the unwary on their rapaciousness. That is all. If they actually
believed in "infinite growth" they've be investing in renewable resources not fracking, strip
mining and other environmentally unfriendly practices.
The problem for Imperialists is that they only know how to plunder, rape and destroy thus all
their weaponry and tactics is used for aggression they know nothing about actual defense
which is their weak point. General George C Custer found this out some time back and so did
Trump just recently when the American were assaulted by a barrage of missiles they couldn't
stop.
Iran, Russia and China have one of the most advanced arsenal of defensive weapons ever
developed such as the S- series of air defense system that can turn a Tomahawk attack into a
turkey shoot. What was it? I think it was 100 Tomahawks fired on Syria after that false flag
chemical attack and only 15 or so got through and this was the earlier version of the S
missile defense S-300. They've already developed 500 which practically makes them impervious
and is a true iron dome compared the iron sieve that the Israelis got for free during GW1 and
then repackaged and sold back to the US Military for 15B with very few improvements except
maybe for a pretty blue bow.
Not only that but they can return fire with hypersonic weapons that are unstoppable and
can turn a base or Aircraft Carrier into a floating pinnate.
Actually the US proudly waving the banner of the East India Company is following in the
footsteps of the deceased British Empire into the boneyard of empires which is Afghanistan.
Iraq, Syria and Ukraine are just side shows. America can not escape history no matter what it
does now since its days of empire are now numbered. Just as they were for the late unlamented
Soviet Union.
The "New American Century" is ending preemptively early like Hitler's "Thousand Year
Reich" and we can all breath a sigh of relief when it does.
Frank ,
The only thing that will get the bastard yanks out of the middle east is dead Americans.
Lots and lots of dead Americans.
Enough dead Americans to make the braindead jingoistic American masses notice.
Enough dead Americans to touch every family that produces grunts that serve their criminal
state by raping and pillaging foreign countries.
Enough dead Americans to make dumbfuck Americans who say, 'Thank you for your service"
squirm in literal pain at the words.
Dungroanin ,
They got brain damage in their bunkers in the best US base in the ME from just a handful of
Kinetic energy missiles.
Their low yield nuke is their response.
The Israelis keep prodding the Bear – they even targeted a Russian Pantir system in
Syria!
I suppose only a downing or infact destroying on the ground of a squadron of useless F35's
with a threat to escalate into a full blown mobilisation is ever going to stop these
imperialist chancers. Or a fully coordinated assassination campaign of the leads and their
heirs as they frolic on their superyachts and space stations and secret Tracey islands.
And they can pay their taxes in full.
The Third world war is already fought – this really is a world war rather than some
Anglo Imperialist bankers playing king of the castle – and they have LOST – the
Empire is dead.
Long live the new Empire – the first not beholden to the bankers.
wardropper ,
Even with a new empire, our godless world would soon enough breed another generation of
bankers to which we would be beholden.
That's what the fundamentally dishonest people in any society do.
Something wrong? Oh, well, we'll form a committee to discuss it, and in future we will look
into creating a banking system which will enable us pay ourselves high wages for our
invaluable contribution to human evolution.
It's MORALITY which is lacking today, not more legislation or a new constitution.
All one has to do is move off the centralized banking system developed and controlled by the
Rothschilds that is totally based on creating finance out of thin air and return to a
commodity based currency (not gold!!) that represents actual value like scrip or wampum or
barter and the bankers will eventually starve.
Actually this system is starting to take hold in the US to a small extend to avoid the
depredations of the IRS since Tax is based mostly on currency.
Stop using fiat currency and the problem's solved.
After WW II the French didn't have a press to press Francs so their standard of exchange
became cigarettes and chocolate. It worked quite well until the presses started churning out
paper again.
wardropper ,
My fear is that without the Rothschilds, some other over-ambitious family would simply step
in and fill their shoes. It's the motivation to be greedy and wicked which needs addressing.
How that would be done, of course, I have no idea.
This is only if you embrace the concept of centralized banking and the "magic" of compound
interest. Current "banking" is all smoke and mirrors that favors the parasite who lives on
the production of others through what is called "unearned income".
Actually the Israelis are going a little slower now that isolated reports indicate that those
flying turkeys AKA F-35s are getting popped out of the skies of Syria by antiquated Soviet
SAMs. Of course there is no mention of this in the Mainstream Press. Just like there wasn't a
word of a IDF General and his staff taken out by a shoulder launched RPG fired by Hezbollah
in retaliation for attacking their media center in Beirut.
Antonym ,
Anybody who believes that the Israeli tail wags the US mil-ind. complex dog is contributing
to the Jewish superiority myth.
Ken ,
They're not superior, but they do wag the US MIC dog in and ebb-and-flow kind of way. That
9/11 thing was quite the wag. Read Christopher Bollyn and study other aspects of the event if
you're not sure of this.
Antonym ,
Langley and Riyadh love you; you fell for their ploy. See: Tel Aviv is much worse them.
The CIA/FBI failure explained.
The Mossad loves you too: for keeping mum on this Entebbe Mach 2.0 on their familiar New
York crap they got huge US support in the ME.
Makes them look invincible too as a bonus .
5 dancing guys was all the proof needed – cheapest op in history.
Ken ,
"5 dancing guys was all the proof needed – cheapest op in history"
Oh please, that was such a minor bit of evidence of any Zionist/Israeli involvement, which
spanned nearly every facet of the event and its aftermath.
The list of false flagging Zionist Jews in love with you is too long to list.
Oh please. What about the close to 200 Israelis who were arrested that day? Not to mention
the helpful warning by Odigo which was only given to citizens of Israel?
Also one has to act who benefitted? Definitely not the Saudis or the Americans leaving
Sharon who was trying to suppress a Palestinian uprising that he arrogantly started.
Speaking of your friendly five doing a fiddler on the roof on top of an Urban Moving Van
that just happened to owned by another Israeli who fled the country. Didn't they say
something stupid when arrested like "we are not your problem. It's the Palestinians who are
your problem!"?
A pathetic frame up attempt but a frame none the less. Speaking of frame ups wasn't Fat
Katz at SiteIntel (propaganda) who posted some stock footage of Palestinians celebrating
which has been proven to be false since the only people who seem to celebrating that day was
your friends the Dancing Israelis which doesn't prove their mental superiority at all but
their arrogant stupidity,
Richard Le Sarc ,
The three, the USA, Saudi Arabia and the USA, are allies in destruction-the Real Axis of
Evil. The dominant force, these days, given the control of the USA by Israel First Fifth
Columnists, in the MSM, political 'contributions', the financial Moloch etc, is most
certainly the Zionassties. Why don't you, like so many other Zionassties, glory in your
power, Antsie. Nobody believes your ritual denials.
They don't really wag the dog by themselves. They have a lot of help from the Stand with
Israel brain dead Christian Zionists who like Israelis consider themselves the chosen ones as
well.
Ken ,
@Gall Yep! I had a long time friend who went Pentecostal and we drifted apart but still kept
in touch. I lost him completely just after telling him that Israelis played a big part in
9/11.
Chuck Baldwin and a few other it seems have seen the light and are now questioning their
colleagues undying support of Israel. Maybe you could show this article to your friend who
seems enthralled by the terrorist snake er I mean state: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/02/13/emperor-trump/
Yes that pretty much sums up how 9/11 was carried on. Both Heinz Pommer and VT have done some
excellent research based on facts not fantasy.
As far as your friend and many Christian Zionists in general. They seem to live in some
alternative universe and dislike being confused by such irrelevant things as facts.
It is a story that can be told in some detail – but when you say myth do you actually
mean fallacy – ie – are you saying that Jewish power doesn't exercise
considerable influence – if not control over US social and political and corporate
development across of broad spectrum of leverages?
Richard Le Sarc ,
Yes-all those addresses of Congress, by Bibi, where the Congress critters compete to display
the most extreme groveling and adulation, are just the natural expression of reverence and
awe at his semi-Divine moral excellence. Denying the undeniable is SOP for Zionassties.
normal wisdom ,
what jews?
i do not see any jews
just a sea of khazar ashkanazim pirates
a kaballa talmudick race trick
a crime syndicate pretending to be semite
jew is just the cover
init
"... Although the memo says one purpose of the action was to "deter Iran from conducting or supporting further attacks against United States forces," it does not cite any specific threats. Both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the killing was done to prevent imminent attacks and led on like they had the intelligence to prove it. ..."
"... The New York Times recently reported that Iraqi military and intelligence officials believe the December 27 th rocket attack that killed a US contractor was likely carried out by ISIS, not the Shi'ite militia the US blamed and retaliated against. This attack led to a series of provocations that resulted in the assassination of Soleimani. Iraqi officials do not have proof that ISIS carried out the attack, but this possibility makes the US justification for killing Soleimani even more flimsy. ..."
"... Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) responded to the White House's memo in a statement on Friday, "The administration's explanation in this report makes no mention of any imminent threat and shows that the justification the president offered to the American people was false, plain and simple." ..."
The White House
released a memo on Friday to Congress justifying the assassination of top Iranian general
Qassem Soleimani. Despite earlier claims from the administration of Soleimani and his Quds
Force planning imminent attacks on US personnel in the region, the memo uses past actions as
the justification for the killing.
The memo says President Trump ordered the assassination on January 2nd "in response to an
escalating series of attacks in preceding months by Iran and Iran-backed militias on United
States forces and interests in the Middle East region."
Although the memo says one purpose of the action was to "deter Iran from conducting or
supporting further attacks against United States forces," it does not cite any specific
threats. Both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the killing was done to
prevent imminent attacks and led on like they had the intelligence to prove it.
The New York Times recently
reported that Iraqi military and intelligence officials believe the December 27
th rocket attack that killed a US contractor was likely carried out by ISIS, not the
Shi'ite militia the US blamed and retaliated against. This attack led to a series of
provocations that resulted in the assassination of Soleimani. Iraqi officials do not have proof
that ISIS carried out the attack, but this possibility makes the US justification for killing
Soleimani even more flimsy.
Lawmakers from both parties criticized Trump for killing Iran's top general without
congressional approval. The memo argues that Trump had authority to order the attack under
Article II of the US Constitution, and under the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force
Against Iraq (2002 AUMF).
Congress is taking measures to limit Trump's ability to wage war with Iran. The Senate
passed the Iran War Powers Resolution on Thursday, and the House voted to repeal the 2002 AUMF
in January.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) responded to the White House's memo in a statement on Friday, "The
administration's explanation in this report makes no mention of any imminent threat and shows
that the justification the president offered to the American people was false, plain and
simple."
The Trump administration ordered the January 3 assassination of Major General Qassem Suleimani, one of Iran's most senior officials,
not because he posed some "imminent threat," but rather in a calculated bid to disrupt Tehran's attempts to reach an accommodation
with Washington's allies in the region.
This is the inescapable conclusion flowing from a report published Thursday in the New York Times , citing unnamed senior
officials from the US, Iran and other countries in the Middle East.
It recounts the arrival last September in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, of a plane carrying senior Iranian
officials for talks aimed at achieving a bilateral peace agreement between the two countries.
The trip came in the context of a steady sharpening of US-Iranian tensions as a result of Trump's abrogation of the Iranian nuclear
agreement in 2018 along with the imposition of a punishing sanctions regime tantamount to a state of war. This was followed by a
major escalation of the US military presence in the region a year later.
While the US dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group and a B-52-led bomber task force to the region in May of last year, the
same month saw the use of limpet mines to damage four oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic "chokepoint" through which
20 percent of the world's oil is shipped.
In June of last year, the Iranians downed a US Navy spy drone over the same area, with the Trump White House first ordering and
then calling off retaliatory air strikes against Iran. And in September, Saudi oil installations came under a devastating attack
from drones and cruise missiles.
Washington blamed both the attacks on the oil tankers and the strike against the Saudi oil installations -- for which the Houthi
rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility -- on Iran, charges that Tehran denied.
As early as last August, there were reports indicating concerns within Washington that the UAE was veering away from the anti-Iran
front that the US has attempted to cobble together, based upon Israel and the Gulf oil sheikdoms. The Emirates' coast guard had signed
a maritime security agreement with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the UAE had clashed openly with Saudi Arabia over
the control of southern Yemen's port city of Aden. At the time, the Washington Post warned that the UAE "is breaking ranks
with Washington, calling into question how reliable an ally it would be in the event of a war between the United States and Iran."
According to the Times report, the meeting with the Iranian delegation in Abu Dhabi, which had been kept secret from Washington,
"set off alarms inside the White House ... A united front against Iran -- carefully built by the Trump administration over more than
two years -- seemed to be crumbling."
Both the Emirati monarchy and its counterpart in Saudi Arabia had become increasingly distrustful of Washington's Iran policy
and concerned that they would find themselves on the frontline of any confrontation without any guarantee of the US defending them.
Saudi Arabia also began a secret diplomatic approach to Tehran, using the Iraqi and Pakistani governments as intermediaries. Suleimani
played the central role in organizing the talks with both Gulf kingdoms, the Times reports.
In October, according to the report, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Yossi Cohen, the chief
of Mossad, who warned him that "Iran was achieving its primary goal: to break up the anti-Iran alliance."
Last month's assassination of General Suleimani was initially defended by Trump and administration officials as a preemptive strike
aimed at foiling supposedly "imminent" attacks on US personnel or interests in the Middle East. This pretext soon fell apart, however,
and the US president and his aides fell back to justifying the extra-judicial murder of a senior state official as revenge for his
support for Shia militias that resisted the US occupation of Iraq 15 years earlier and retaliation for a missile strike that killed
an American military contractor last December.
That strike was launched against a military base housing American troops in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk. Iraqi security
officials have since contradicted the US claim that an Iranian-backed Shia militia was responsible for the attack. They have pointed
out that the missiles were launched from a predominantly Sunni area where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is active, and
that Iraqi intelligence had warned US forces in November and December that ISIS was preparing to target the base.
The US responded to the missile strike on the base in Iraq by targeting Iraqi Shia militia positions on the Syria-Iraq border,
killing 25 members of the Kataib Hezbollah militia. The attack provoked an angry demonstration that laid siege to the US embassy
in Baghdad on December 31.
Two days later, a US Reaper drone fired missiles into a convoy at Baghdad International Airport, killing Suleimani along with
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a central leader of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, the coalition of militias that constitutes an arm
of Iraq's security forces, as well as eight others.
In the wake of the drone assassinations, US Secretary of State Pompeo sarcastically told the media: "Is there any history that
would indicate that it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman, this diplomat of great order -- Qassem Suleimani -- had traveled
to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace mission? We know that wasn't true."
As the Times report indicates, that was precisely what Suleimani was doing in Baghdad, the US knew it and that is why it
assassinated him. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said at the time that General Suleimani had flown into the country, on a
commercial flight and using his diplomatic passport, for the express purpose of delivering an Iranian response to a message from
Saudi Arabia as part of talks aimed at de-escalating tensions.
The more that emerges about the assassination of Suleimani, the more the abject criminality of his murder becomes clear. It was
carried out neither as a reckless act of revenge nor to ward off unspecified attacks. Rather, it was a calculated act of imperialist
terror designed to disrupt talks aimed at defusing tensions in the Persian Gulf and to convince the wavering Gulf monarchies that
Washington is prepared to go to war against Iran.
This is the policy not merely of the Trump administration. Among the most significant moments in Trump's State of the Union address
earlier this month was the standing ovation by Democratic lawmakers as he gloated over the murder of Suleimani, a war crime.
The resort to such criminal actions is a measure of the extreme crisis of a capitalist system that threatens to drag humanity
into a new world war.
"... It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the US government might have encouraged Soleimani to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of "imminent threat" being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn't really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die. ..."
"... It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata'ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata'ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi'a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS. ..."
Admittedly the news cycle in the United States seldom runs longer than twenty-four hours, but that should not serve as an excuse
when a major story that contradicts what the Trump Administration has been claiming appears and suddenly dies. The public that actually
follows the news might recall a little more than one month ago the United States assassinated a senior Iranian official named Qassem
Soleimani. Openly killing someone in the government of a country with which one is not at war is, to say the least, unusual, particularly
when the crime is carried out in yet another country with which both the perpetrator and the victim have friendly relations. The
justification provided by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking for the administration, was that Soleimani was in Iraq planning
an "imminent" mass killing of Americans, for which no additional evidence was provided at that time or since.
It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that
might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently
knew about may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the US government might have encouraged Soleimani
to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of "imminent
threat" being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn't really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die.
The incident that started the killing cycle
that eventually included Soleimani consisted of a December 27th attack on a US base in Iraq in which four American soldiers and two
Iraqis were wounded while one US contractor, an Iraqi-born translator, was killed. The United States immediately blamed Iran, claiming
that it had been carried out by an Iranian supported Shi'ite militia called Kata'ib Hezbollah. It provided no evidence for that claim
and retaliated by striking a Kata'ib base, killing 25 Iraqis who were in the field fighting the remnants of Islamic State (IS). The
militiamen had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army and this disproportionate response led to riots outside the US Embassy in Baghdad,
which were also blamed on Iran by the US There then followed the assassinations of Soleimani and nine senior Iraqi militia officers.
Iran retaliated when it fired missiles
at American forces , injuring more than one hundred soldiers, and then mistakenly
shot down a passenger
jet , killing an additional 176 people. As a consequence due to the killing by the US of 34 Iraqis in the two incidents, the
Iraqi Parliament also
voted to expel
all American troops.
It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out
by Kata'ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic
State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata'ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack
took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi'a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni
IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS.
This new development was reported in the New York Times in
an article that was
headlined "Was US Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran? Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised
doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events." In spite of the sensational nature of the report it
generally was ignored in television news and in other mainstream media outlets, letting the Trump administration get away with yet
another big lie, one that could easily have led to a war with Iran.
Iraqi investigators found and identified the abandoned white Kia pickup with an improvised Katyusha rocket launcher in the vehicle's
bed that was used to stage the attack. It was discovered down a desert road within range of the K-1 joint Iraqi-American base that
was hit by at least ten missiles in December, most of which struck the American area.
There is no direct evidence tying the attack to any particular party and the improvised KIA truck is used by all sides in the
regional fighting, but the Iraqi officials point to the undisputed fact that it was the Islamic State that had carried out three
separate attacks near the base over the 10 days preceding December 27th. And there are reports that IS has been increasingly active
in Kirkuk Province during the past year, carrying out near daily attacks with improvised roadside bombs and ambushes using small
arms. There had, in fact, been reports from Iraqi intelligence that were shared with the American command warning that there might
be an IS attack on K-1 itself, which is an Iraqi air base in that is shared with US forces.
The intelligence on the attack has been shared with American investigators, who have also examined the pick-up truck. The Times
reports that the US command in Iraq continue to insist that the attack was carried out by Kata'ib based on information, including
claimed communications intercepts, that it refuses to make public. The US forces may not have shared the intelligence they have with
the Iraqis due to concerns that it would be leaked to Iran, but senior Iraqi military officers are nevertheless perplexed by the
reticence to confide in an ally.
If the Iraqi investigation of the facts around the December attack on K-1 is reliable, the Donald Trump administration's reckless
actions in Iraq in late December and early January cannot be justified. Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking
for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted
in a war that would benefit no one. To be sure, the Trump administration has lied about developments in the Middle East so many times
that it can no longer be trusted. Unfortunately, demanding any accountability from the Trump team would require a Congress that is
willing to shoulder its responsibility for truth in government backed up by
a media that is willing to take on an administration that regularly punishes anyone or any entity that dares to challenge it
Well, the 9/11 Commission lied about Israeli involvement, Israeli neocons lied America into Iraq, and Netanyahu lied about Iranian
nukes, so this latest news is just par for the course.
Pompeo had evidence of immediate catastrophic attack. That turned out to be a lie and plain BS.
Why should we believe Pompeo or White House or intelligence about the situation developing around 27-29 Dec ? Is it because it's
USA who is saying so?
[it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind
of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one.]
The Jewish mafia stooge and fifth column, Trump, is a war criminal and an ASSASSIN.
Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official
to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one.
Soleimani was a soldier involved in covert operations, Iran's most celebrated hero, and had been featured in the Iraq media
as the target of multiple Western assassination attempts. He did not have diplomatic status.
As it happens Iran did not declare war on America and America did not declare war on Iran. If Americans soldiers killed in
Iraq should not have been there in the first place, then the same goes for an Iranian soldier killed there too.
@04398436986 There is western assertion and western assertion only that Iran influences Iraqi administration and intelligence
. It can be a projection from a failing America . It can be also a valid possibility .
But lying is America's alter ego . It comes easily and as default explanation even when admitting truth would do a better job
.
Now let's focus on ISIS 's claims . Why is Ametica not taking it ( claim of ISIS) as truth and fact when USA has for last 19
years has jailed , bombed, attacked mentally retarded , caves and countries because somebody has pledged allegiance to Al Quida
or to ISIS!!!
It seems neither truth nor lies , but what suits a particular psychopath at a particular time – that becomes USA's report (
kind of unassigned sex – neither truth nor lies – take your pick and find the toilet to flush it down memory hole) – so Pompeo
lies to nation hoping no one in administration will ask . When administrative staff gets interested to know the truth , Pompeo
tells them to suck it up , move on and get ready to explain the next batch of reality manufactured by a regime and well trained
by philosopher Karl Rove
To what "conspiracy" are you referring? It's a well established fact that your ilk was, at the very least, aware that the 9/11
attacks would occur and celebrated them in broad daylight. No conspiracy theory needed. Mossad ordnance experts were living practically
next door to the hijackers. Well established fact.
It's also undeniable that the 9/11 Commission airbrushed Israeli involvement from their report. No conspiracy theory there,
either.
Same goes for Israeli neocons and their media mandarins using "faulty intel" to get their war in Iraq. "Clean Break"? "Rebuilding
America's Defenses"? Openly written and published. Judith Miller's lies? Also no conspiracy.
And Israel's own intelligence directors were undermining Netanyahu's lies on Iran. Not a conspiracy in sight.
contemplating the outcome of normal everyday competition, influenced by good & bad luck, is just too much truth for some
psychological makeups
That's one of the lamest attempts at deflection I've seen thus far, and I've seen quite a few here.
Those who deny the official version of 9/11 are in the majority now:
We've reached critical mass. Clearly, that's just too much truth for your psychological makeup. Were we really that worthy
of ignoring, your people wouldn't be working 24/7/365 to peddle your malarkey in fora of this variety.
I have thought that Trump's true impeachable crime was the illegal assassination of a foreign general who was not in combat. Pence
should also be impeached for the botched coup in Venezuela. That was true embarrassment bringing that "El Presidente" that no
one recognizes to the SOTU.
USA is basically JU-S-A now, Jews own and run this country from top to bottom, side to side, and because of it, pretty much
run the world. China-Russia-Iran form their new "Axis of Evil" to be brought in line. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the Covid-19
is a bioweapon, except not one created by China. Israel has been working on an ethnic based bioweapon for years. US sent 172 military
"athletes" to the Military World Games in Wuhan in October, 2019, two weeks before the first case of coronavirus appeared. Almost
too coincidental.
@Sean He wasn't there as a soldier -- he was there in a diplomatic role. (regardless of his official "status"). It
also appears he was lured there with intent to assaninate.
Your last para is not only terrible logic but ignores the point of the article. Iran likely was not responsible for the US deaths.
Even had it been responsible it would still not legitimate such a baldly criminal action.
[I]illegal assassination of a foreign general who was not in combat
Lawful combat according to the Geneva Convention in which war is openly declared and fought between two countries each of which
have regular uniformed forces that do all the actual fighting is an extremely rare thing. It is all proxy forces, deniability
and asymmetric warfare in which one side (the stronger) is attacked by phantom combatants.
The Israeli PM publically alluded to the fact that Soleimani had almost been killed in the Mossad operation to kill
Imad Mughniyeh a decade ago. The
Iranian public knew that Soleimani had narrowly escaped death from Israeli drones, because Soleimani appeared on Iranian TV in
October and told the story. A plot kill him by at a memorial service in Iran was supposedly foiled. He came from Lebanon by way
of Syria into Iraq as if none of this had happened. Trump had sacked Bolton and failed to react to the drone attack on Saudi oil.
Iran seems to have thought that refusal to actually fight in the type of war that the international conventions were designed
to regulate is a licence to exert pressure by launch attacks without being targeted oneself. Now do they understand.
@Sean American troops invaded Iraq under false pretenses, killed thousands, and caused great destruction. Chaos and vengeful
Sunnis spilled over into Syria where the US proceeded to grovel before the terrorists we fret about. Soleimani was effective in
organizing resistance in Iraq and Syria and was in both countries with the blessing of their governments.
How you get Soleimani shouldn't be there out of that I have no idea.
@04398436986 Yet you ignore that the Neocons have lied about virtually every cause if war ever. Lied about Iraq, North Korea
and Iran nuclear info actions, about chem weapons in Syria, lied about Kosovo, lied about Libya, lied about Benghazi, lied about
Venezuela. So Whom I gonna believe, no government, but a Neocon led one least of all
It is common knowledge that ISIS is a US/Israeli creation. ISIS is the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. Thus, the US/Israel
staged the attack on the US base on 12.27.2019.
ISIS is a US-Israeli Creation: Indication #2: ISIS Never Attacks Israel
It is more than highly strange and suspicious that ISIS never attacks Israel – it is another indication that ISIS is controlled
by Israel. If ISIS were a genuine and independent uprising that was not covertly orchestrated by the US and Israel, why would
they not try to attack the Zionist regime, which has attacked almost of all of its Muslim neighbors ever since its inception
in 1948? Israel has attacked Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, and of course has decimated Palestine. It has systemically tried to
divide and conquer its Arab neighbors. It continually complains of Islamic terrorism. Yet, when ISIS comes on the scene as
the bloody and barbaric king of Islamic terrorism, it finds no fault with Israel and sees no reason to target a regime which
has perpetrated massive injustice against Muslims? This stretches credibility to a snapping point.
ISIS and Israel don't attack each other – they help each other. Israel was treating ISIS soldiers and other anti-Assad rebels
in its hospitals! Mortal enemies or best of friends?
The MQ-9 pilot and sensor operator will be looking over their shoulders for a long time. They're as famous as Soleimani. Their
command chain is well known too, hide though they might far away.
And who briefed the president that terror Tuesday? The murder program isn't Air Force.
@anonymous The kind of crap Trump pulled in the assassination of Soleimani is what he should be impeached about–not the piss-ant
stuff about Hunter Biden's job in the Ukaranian gas company and his pappy's role in it.
Iraq an ally of the United States! Is it some kind of a joke? How can a master and slave be equal? We, the big dog want their
oil and the tail that wags us, Israel, want all Muslims pacified and the Congress, which is us wether we like or not, compliant
out of financial fears. Unless we curb our own greedy appetite for fossil fuels and at the same time tell an ally, which Israel
is by being equal in a sense that it can get away with murder and not a pip is raised, to limit its ambition, nothing is going
to be done to improve the situation. Until then it's an exercise in futility, at best!
Iran has NO choice but to defend itself from the savages. It has not been Iran that invaded US, but US with a plan that design
years before 9/11 invaded many countries. Remember: seven countries in five years. Soleimani was a wise man working towards peace
by creating options for Iran to defend itself. Iran is not the aggressor, but US -Israel-UK are the aggressor for centuries now.
Is this so difficult to understand. 9/11 was staged by US/Israel killing 3000 Christians to implement their criminal plan.
Soleimani, was on a peace mission, where was assassinated by Trump, an Israeli firster and a fifth column and the baby killer
Netanyahu. Is this difficult to understand by the Trump worshiper, a traitor.
Now, Khamenie is saying the same thing: "Iran should be strong in military warfare and sciences to prevent war and maintain
PEACE.
Only ignorant, arrogant, and racists don't understand this fact and refuse to understand how the victims have been pushed to
defend themselves.
The Assassin at the black house should receive the same fate in order to bring the peace.
When does Amerikastan *not* lie about anything? If an Amerikastani tells you the sun rises in the east, you're probably on Venus,
where it rises in the west.
I think this article is getting close to the truth, that this whole operation was and is an ISIS (meaning Israeli Secret Intelligence
Service) affair designed to pit America against the zionists' most formidable enemy thus far, Iran.
I'm of the opinion that Trump did not order the hit on Soleimani, but was forced to take credit for it, if he didn't want to
forfeit any chance of being reelected this year. The same ISIS (Israeli) forces that did the hit also orchestrated the "retaliation"
that Mr. Giraldi so heroically documents in this piece.
As usual, this is looking more and more like a zionist /jewish false flag attack on the Muslim world, with the real dirty-work
to be done by the American military.
It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan
that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House
apparently knew about may even have approved.
It's now obvious that the slumlord son-in-law Jared Kushner is really running the USA's ME policy.
Kushner is not only a dear friend of at-large war criminal Bibi Nuttyahoo, he also belongs to the Judaic religious cult of Chabad
Lubavitcher, whom make the war-loving Christian Evangelicals almost look sane. Chabad also prays for some kind of Armageddon to
bring forth their Messiah, just like the Evangelicals.
One can tell by Kushner's nasty comments he makes about Arabs/Persians and Palestinians in particular, that he loathes and
despises those people and has an idiotic ear to cry into in the malignant form of Zion Don, AKA President Trump.
It's been said that Kushner is also a Mossad agent or asset, which is a good guess, since that agency has been placing their
agents into the WH since at least the days of Clinton, who had Rahm Emmanuel to whisper hate into his ear.
That the Iranian General Soleimani was lured into Iraq so the WH could murder the man probably most responsible for halting
the terrorist activities of the heart-eating, head-chopping US/Israel/KSA creation ISIS brings to mind the motto of the Israeli
version of the CIA, the Mossad.
"By way of deception thou shalt make war."
Between Trump's incompetence, his vanity–and yes, his stupidity– and his appointing Swamp creatures into his cabinet and
allowing Jared to run the ME show, Trump is showing himself to be a worse choice than Hillary.
If that maniac gets another 4 years, humanity is doomed. Or at least the USA for sure will perish.
"... Until recently, President Donald Trump's pro-Israel policy was centered on taking steps related to fulfilling campaign promises and strengthening his standing domestically with his evangelical base. Chief among these steps was his decision to pull out of the nuclear accord with Iran, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (and at the same time announcing moving the American embassy to Jerusalem). Trump also signed a presidential proclamation recognizing "Israeli sovereignty" over the Golan Heights. ..."
"... By deciding to carry out this assassination operation, Trump has brought his pro-Israel policy to an entirely new, and dangerous level. ..."
"... Israel may have found in the Trump administration the perfect ally when it comes to the demonization of Iran and the groups it supports. ..."
Until recently, President Donald Trump's pro-Israel policy was centered on taking steps
related to fulfilling campaign promises and strengthening his standing domestically with his
evangelical base. Chief among these steps was his decision to pull out of the nuclear accord
with Iran, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (and at the same time
announcing moving the American embassy to Jerusalem). Trump also signed a presidential
proclamation recognizing "Israeli sovereignty" over the Golan Heights.
All of this has changed, however, with the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force
in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani and the deputy head
of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mehdi Al-Muhandis.
By deciding to carry out this assassination operation, Trump has brought his pro-Israel
policy to an entirely new, and dangerous level.
Targeting the IRGC and PMF: An Israeli policy
It is worth remembering that Israel set the precedent for carrying out lethal operations in
Iraq by targeting elements of the IRGC and the PMF.
Israel began these operations last year, with the first taking place on July 19 near the
Iraqi town of Amerli. Iranian media later reported that senior IRGC commander Abu Alfazl
Sarabian had died in the attack.
Another Israeli attack on August 25 led to the death of a senior PMF commander in the Iraqi
town of Al-Qaim near the border with Syria, while 21 PMF members were killed in an Israeli
operation near the city of Hit in Iraq's Anbar province on September 20.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even admitted that Israel was behind
these attacks.
"We are working against Iranian consolidation in Iraq as well [as in Syria]" remarked
Netanyahu on August 22.
Trump administration officials adopt the Israel line of demonizing Iran
The Israeli fingerprints on U.S. policy could also be seen in the apparent stances taken by
U.S. officials following the assassination of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis.
According to the New York
Times , Trump administration officials have compared the assassination of Soleimani to the
killing of former ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Such a comparison is no doubt to Israel's
liking.
Not only has Israel long sought to equate the IRGC and its allies, including the Lebanese
Hezbollah and the Iraqi PMF, with terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS, it has even
described the latter groups as being the lesser of the two evils.
According to sources in Washington, one of the most common complaints made by visiting
Israeli officials over the past years was that the U.S. was focusing too much on fighting Sunni
Jihadist groups (al-Qaida, ISIS, etc.) and not enough on fighting Iran and its network of
allies.
Israel's former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren referred to this dynamic in an
interview with the Jerusalem Post back in September 2013, where he summed up the Israeli
policy regarding Syria. "The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted
(President) Bashar Assad to go" he stated, further adding; "we always preferred the bad guys
who weren't back by Iran (al-Qaida affiliates) to the bad guys who were backed by Iran".
For his part, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon referred to an "
axis of evil ' comprising Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.
Yaalon made those remarks during a meeting with former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of
Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey in August 2013, underscoring that this "axis of evil" must not
emerge victorious in Syria.
Israel may have found in the Trump administration the perfect ally when it comes to the
demonization of Iran and the groups it supports.
Hard-core evangelicals like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence
have a strong ideological affinity for Israel and its anti-Iranian agenda.
During a Senate hearing last April, Pompeo
repeated the long-debunked claim that Iran and al-Qaida have cooperated for years. "There
is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaida. Period,
full stop," Pompeo asserted.
Pence, meanwhile, has even gone so far as to claim that
Soleimani was involved with 9/11 . Following the assassination, Pence tweeted that
Soleimani had "assisted in the clandestine travel of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out
the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."
American troops in danger as a result of the Israeli evangelical agenda
With the assassination of Soleimani and Al-Muhandes, Israel and its Christian evangelical
allies in Washington appear to have succeeded more than any time before in steering Trump's
foreign policy. Their success, however, may have placed U.S. troops in the region in grave
danger.
In a speech
commemorating the death of Soleimani and Al-Muhandes, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah
Hassan Nasrallah warned that retaliation would be aimed at U.S. military assets.
In remarks which brought back the memories of the 1983 attacks on the Marine Barracks in
Beirut, Nasrallah suggested that the U.S. military presence in the region would become a target
for suicide bombers.
"The suicide attackers who forced the Americans to leave our region in the past are still
here today and in far greater numbers," Nasrallah asserted.
In a key piece of actual extensive, on-the-ground reporting
, the New York Times's Alissa Rubin has raised serious questions about the official US
account of who it was that attacked the K-1 base near Kirkuk, in eastern Iraq, on December 27.
The United States almost immediately accused the Iran-backed Ketaib Hizbullah (KH) militia of
responsibility. But Rubin quotes by name Brig. General Ahmed Adnan, the chief of intelligence
for the Iraqi federal police at the same base, as saying, "All the indications are that it was
Daesh" -- that is, ISIS.
She also presents considerable further detailed reporting on the matter. And she notes that
though U.S. investigators claim to have evidence about KH's responsibility for the attack, they
have presented none of it publicly. Nor have they shared it with the Iraqi government.
KH is a paramilitary organization that operates under the command of the Iraqi military and
has been deeply involved in the anti-ISIS campaigns throughout the country.
The December 27 attack killed one Iraqi-American contractor and was cited by the Trump
administration as reason to launch a large-scale attack on five KH bases some 400 miles to the
west which killed around 50 KH fighters. Outraged KH fighters then mobbed the US embassy in
Baghdad, breaking through an outside perimeter on its large campus, but causing no casualties.
On January 2, Pres. Trump decided to escalate again, ordering the assassination of Iran's Gen.
Qasem Soleimani and bringing the region and the world close to a massive shooting war.
The new evidence presented by Rubin makes it look as if Trump and his advisors had
previously decided on a broad-scale plan to attack Iran's very influential allies in Iraq and
were waiting for a triggering event– any triggering event!– to use as a pretext to
launch it. The attack against the K-1 base presented them with that trigger, even though they
have not been able to present any evidence that it was KH that undertook it.
This playbook looks very similar to the one that Ariel Sharon, who was Israel's Defense
Minister in summer 1982, used to launch his wide attack against the PLO's presence in Lebanon
in June that year. The "trigger" Sharon used to launch his long-prepared attack was the serious
(but not fatal) wounding
of Israel's ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, which the Israeli government immediately
blamed on the PLO.
Regarding London in 1982, as regarding K-1 last December, the actual identity of the
assailant(s) was misreported by the government that used it as a trigger for escalation. In
London, the police fairly speedily established that it was not the PLO but operatives of an
anti-PLO group headed by a man called Abu Nidal who had attacked Argov. But by the
time they had discovered and publicized that fact, Israeli tanks were already deep inside
Lebanon.
The parallels and connections between the two cases go further. If, as now seems likely, the
authors of the K-1 attack were indeed Da'esh, then they succeeded brilliantly in triggering a
bitter fight between two substantial forces in the coalition that had been fighting against
them in Iraq. Regarding the 1982 London attack, its authors also succeeded brilliantly in
triggering a lethal conflict between two forces (one substantial, one far less so) that were
both engaged in bitter combat against Abu Nidal's networks.
Worth noting: Abu Nidal's main backer, throughout his whole campaign against the PLO, was
Saddam Hussein's brutal government in Iraq. (The London assailants deposited their weapons in
the Iraqi embassy after completing the attack.) Many senior strategists and planners for ISIS
in Iraq were diehard remnants of Saddam's formerly intimidating security forces.
Also worth noting: Three months in to Sharon's massive 1982 invasion of Lebanon, it seemed
to have successfully reached its goals of expelling the PLO's fighting forces from Lebanon and
installing a strongly pro-Israeli government there. But over the longer haul, the invasion
looked much less successful. The lengthy Israeli occupation of south Lebanon that followed 1982
served to incubate the birth and growth of the (pro-Iranian) Hizbullah there. Today, Hizbullah is a strong
political movement inside Lebanon that commands a very capable fighting force that expelled
Israel's last presence from Lebanon in 2000, rebuffed a subsequent Israeli invasion of the
country six years later, and still exerts considerable deterrent power against
Israel today
Very few people in Israel today judge the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to have been a wise move.
How will the historians of the future view Trump's decision to launch his big escalation
against Iran's allies in Iraq, presumably as part of his "maximum pressure" campaign against
Tehran?
This article has been republished with permission from
Just World News .
"... In our late-imperial phase, we seem to have reached that moment when, whatever high officials say in matters of the empire's foreign policy, we must consider whether the opposite is in fact the case. So we have it now. ..."
"... Lawlessness begets lawlessness is the operative (and obvious) principle. In a remarkable speech at the Hoover Institution last week, Pompeo termed the Soleimani assassination "the restoration of deterrence" and appeared to promise other such operations against other nations Washington considers adversaries. Ominously enough, Pompeo singled out China and Russia. ..."
"... Against the background of the events noted above, it is clear from this speech alone that our secretary of state is a dangerously incompetent figure when it comes to judging global events, the proper responses to them, and the probable consequences of a given response. If we are going to think about costs, the heaviest will fall on Americans in months to come. ..."
"... Immediately after the U.S. drone that killed Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport, Mohammad Javad Zarif sent out a message whose importance should not be missed. "End of US's malign presence in West Asia has begun," Iran's foreign minister wrote. These few words, rendered in Twitterese, bear careful consideration given they come from an official whose nation had just sustained a critical blow. ..."
"... Gradually but rather certainly now, the community of nations is losing its patience with late-phase imperial America. With exceptions such as Japan and Israel, the Baltics and Saudi Arabia, this is so across both oceans and more or less across the non–Western world. In the Middle East, the American presence will remain for the time being, but we are now in the beginning-of-the-end phase. This was Zarif's meaning. And we now know the end will come neither peaceably nor lawfully. ..."
"... Amazing how the US government is bringing back the old days: "Slave markets" See: reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-markets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY "Pillage", as pointed out in this article. ..."
"... To have such a person as the top diplomat in the USA shows how low the USA has sunk. For him to pretend to be some sort of Christian is sinister and extremely dangerous for everyone. There is NO reason for the US animosity towards Iran except subservience to Israel, which, again without real justification, claims to be terrified of Iran, which unlike Israel is NOT attacking others and has not for centuries. ..."
"... SecStae's remarks about deterrence befit a military commander, NOT a diplomat. Paranoia, grandiosity and violence begin with potus and cascade downward and about. Congress does its part in investing in machinery of war. ..."
"... Pompeo reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm. He is a grotesque figure, steely-eyed, cold-blooded, fanatical, and hateful. "We lied, cheated, and stole" Pompous Maximus will get his comeuppance one of these days ..."
"... Pillage as policy. The Empire has fully embraced gangster capitalism for its modus operandi. ..."
"... Here is an interesting article that explains how governments have changed the rules so that they can justify killing anyone who they believe may at some point in time have the potential to be involved in a terrorist plot: viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-bethlehem-doctrine-and-new.html ..."
"... This rather Orwellian move gives governments the justification that they to kill any of us just because they feel that we might pose a threat and that is a very, very scary prospect. It is very reminiscent of the movie Minority Report where crimes of the future are punished in the present. ..."
Of all the preposterous assertions made since the drone assassination of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3, the prize for
bottomless ignorance must go to the bottomlessly ignorant Mike Pompeo.
Speaking after the influential Iranian general's death, our frightening secretary of state declaimed on
CBS's Face the Nation
, "There was sound and just and legal reason for the actions the President took, and the world is safer as a result." In
appearances on
five
news programs on the same Sunday morning, the evangelical paranoid who now runs American foreign policy was a singer with a one-note
tune. "It's very clear the world's a safer place today," Pompeo said on ABC's Jan. 5 edition of This
Week.
In our late-imperial phase, we seem to have reached that moment when, whatever high officials say in matters of the empire's
foreign policy, we must consider whether the opposite is in fact the case. So we have it now.
We are not safer now that Soleimani, a revered figure across much of the Middle East, has been murdered. The planet has just become
significantly more dangerous, especially but not only for Americans, and this is so for one simple reason: The Trump administration,
Pompeo bearing the standard, has just tipped American conduct abroad into a zone of probably unprecedented lawlessness, Pompeo's
nonsensical claim to legality notwithstanding .
This is a very consequential line to cross.
Hardly does it hold that Washington's foreign policy cliques customarily keep international law uppermost in their minds and that
recent events are aberrations. Nothing suggests policy planners even consider legalities except when it makes useful propaganda to
charge others with violating international statutes and conventions.
Neither can the Soleimani assassination be understood in isolation: This was only the most reckless of numerous policy decisions
recently taken in the Middle East. Since late last year, to consider merely the immediate past, the Trump administration has acted
ever more flagrantly in violation of all international legal authorities and documents -- the UN Charter, the International Criminal
Court, and the International Court of Justice in the Hague chief among them.
Washington is into full-frontal lawlessness now.
'Keeping the Oil'
Shortly after Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria last October, the president reversed course --
probably under Pentagon and State Department pressure -- and said some troops would remain to protect Syria's oilfields. "We want
to keep the oil," Trump declared in
the course of a Twitter storm. It soon emerged that the administration's true intent was to prevent the Assad government in Damascus
from reasserting sovereign control over Syrian oilfields.
The Russians had the honesty to call this for what it was. "Washington's attempt to put oilfields there under [its] control is
illegal,"
Sergei Lavrov said at the time. "In fact, it's tantamount to robbery," the Russian foreign minister added. (John Kiriakou, writing
for Consortium News, pointed out
that it is a violation of the 1907 Hague Convention. It is call pillage.)
Few outside the Trump administration, and possibly no one, has argued that Soleimani's murder was legitimate under international
law. Not only was the Iranian general from a country with which the U.S. is not at war, which means the crime is murder; the drone
attack was also a clear violation of Iraqi sovereignty, as has been widely reported.
In response to Baghdad's subsequent demand that all foreign troops withdraw from Iraqi soil,
Pompeo flatly refused even to discuss
the matter with Iraqi officials -- yet another openly contemptuous violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
It gets worse. In his own response to Baghdad's decision to evict foreign troops,
Trump threatened sanctions -- "sanctions like they've never seen before" -- and said Iraq would have to pay the U.S. the cost
of the bases the Pentagon has built there despite binding agreements that all fixed installations the U.S. has built in Iraq are
Iraqi government-owned.
At Baghdad's Throat
Trump, who seems to have oil eternally on his mind, has been at Baghdad's throat for some time. Twice since taking office three
years ago, he has
tried
to intimidate the Iraqis into "repaying" the U.S. for its 2003 invasion with access to Iraqi oil. "We did a lot, we did a lot
over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking about the oil," he said on the second of these occasions.
Baghdad rebuffed Trump both times, but he has been at it since, according to Adil Abdul–Mahdi, Iraq's interim prime minister.
Last year the U.S. administration
asked Baghdad for 50 percent of the nation's oil output -- in total roughly 4.5 million barrels daily -- in exchange for various
promised reconstruction projects.
Rejecting the offer, Abdul–Mahdi
signed an "oil
for reconstruction" agreement with China last autumn -- whereupon Trump threatened to instigate widespread demonstrations in
Baghdad if Abdul–Mahdi did not cancel the China deal. (He did not do so and, coincidentally or otherwise, civil unrest ensued.)
U.S. Army forces operating in southern Iraq, April. 2, 2003. (U.S. Navy)
Blueprints for Reprisal
If American lawlessness is nothing new, the brazenly imperious character of all the events noted in this brief résumé has nonetheless
pushed U.S. foreign policy beyond a tipping point.
No American -- and certainly no American official or military personnel -- can any longer travel in the Middle East with an assurance
of safety. All American diplomats, all military officers, and all embassies and bases in the region are now vulnerable to reprisals.
The Associated Press reported after the Jan. 3 drone strike that
Iran has developed 13 blueprints for reprisals
against the U.S.
Lawlessness begets lawlessness is the operative (and obvious) principle. In a remarkable speech
at the Hoover Institution last week, Pompeo termed the Soleimani assassination "the restoration of deterrence" and appeared to promise
other such operations against other nations Washington considers adversaries. Ominously enough, Pompeo singled out China and Russia.
Here is a snippet from Pompeo's remarks:
"In strategic terms, deterrence simply means persuading the other party that the costs of a specific behavior exceed its benefits.
It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. Your adversary must understand not only do you have the capacity to impose
costs but that you are, in fact, willing to do so . In all cases we have to do this."
Against the background of the events noted above, it is clear from this speech alone that our secretary of state is a dangerously
incompetent figure when it comes to judging global events, the proper responses to them, and the probable consequences of a given
response. If we are going to think about costs, the heaviest will fall on Americans in months to come.
Immediately after the U.S. drone that killed Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport, Mohammad Javad Zarif
sent out a message
whose importance should not be missed. "End of US's malign presence in West Asia has begun," Iran's foreign minister wrote. These
few words, rendered in Twitterese, bear careful consideration given they come from an official whose nation had just sustained a
critical blow.
24 hrs ago, an arrogant clown -- masquerading as a diplomat -- claimed people were dancing in the cities of Iraq.
Today, hundreds of thousands of our proud Iraqi brothers and sisters offered him their response across their soil.
Gradually but rather certainly now, the community of nations is losing its patience with late-phase imperial America. With exceptions
such as Japan and Israel, the Baltics and Saudi Arabia, this is so across both oceans and more or less across the non–Western world.
In the Middle East, the American presence will remain for the time being, but we are now in the beginning-of-the-end phase. This
was Zarif's meaning. And we now know the end will come neither peaceably nor lawfully.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune , is a columnist,
essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him
on Twitter @thefloutist . His web site is
Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via
his Patreon site .
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Well, there's two relevant bits here. Bullshit walks and money talks. Our money stopped talking $23T ago.
What goes around, comes around. Whenever, however it comes down, it's gonna hurt.
Antiwar7 , January 21, 2020 at 13:46
Amazing how the US government is bringing back the old days: "Slave markets"
See: reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-markets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY "Pillage", as pointed out in this article.
rosemerry , January 21, 2020 at 13:28
To have such a person as the top diplomat in the USA shows how low the USA has sunk. For him to pretend to be some sort of
Christian is sinister and extremely dangerous for everyone. There is NO reason for the US animosity towards Iran except subservience
to Israel, which, again without real justification, claims to be terrified of Iran, which unlike Israel is NOT attacking others
and has not for centuries.
Even if the USA hates Iran, it has already done inestimable damage to the Islamic Republic before this disgraceful action. Cruelty
to 80 million people who have never harmed, even really threatened, the mighty USA, by tossing out a working JCPOA and installing
economic "sanctions", should not be accepted by the rest of the world-giving in to blackmail encourages worse behavior, as we
have already seen.
"It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. " This is exactly what should be rejected by us all. These "leaders" will
not change their behavior without solidarity among "allies" like the European Union, which has already caved in and blamed Iran
for the changes -Iran has explained clearly why it made- to the JCPOA which the USA has left.
Abby , January 21, 2020 at 20:15
The only difference between Trump and Obama is that Trump doesn't hide the US naked aggression as well as Obama did. So far
Trump hasn't started any new wars. By this time in Obama's tenure we had started bombing more countries and accepted one coup.
dfnslblty , January 21, 2020 at 12:43
SecStae's remarks about deterrence befit a military commander, NOT a diplomat.
Paranoia, grandiosity and violence begin with potus and cascade downward and about.
Congress does its part in investing in machinery of war.
Cheyenne , January 21, 2020 at 11:49
The above comment shows exactly why bellicose adventurism for oil etc. is so stupid and dangerous. If we continually prance
around robbing people, they're gonna unite to slap us down.
Hardly seems like anyone should need that pointed out but if anybody mentioned it to Trump or any other gung ho warhawk, he
must not have been listening.
Trump and Pompeo seem to have entered the Wild West stage of recent American history. I think they watch too many western movies,
without understanding the underrlying plot of 100% of them. It is the bad guys take over a town, where they impose their will
on the population, terrorizing everyone into obediance. They steal everything in sight and any who oppose them are summarily killed
off. In the end a good guy ( In American parlance, " a good guy with a gun" shows up . The town`s people approach him and beg
him to oppose the bad guys. He then proceeds to kill off the bad guys after the general population joins him in his crusade. it
looks as though we are at the stage in the movie where the general population is ready to take up arms against the bad guys.
The moral of the story the bad guys, the bullies, Pompeo and Trump, are either killed or chased out of town. But perhaps the
problem is that this plot is too difficult for Trump and Pompeo to understand. So they don`t quite get the peril that there gunmen
and killers are now in. They don`t see the writing on the wall.
Caveman , January 21, 2020 at 11:30
It seems the only US considerations in the assassination were – will it weaken Iran, will it strengthen the American position?
On that perspective, the answer is probably yes on both counts. Legal considerations do not seem to have carried any weight. In
the UK we recently saw a chilling interview with Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Senior Policy Advisor to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It was clear that he saw the assassination as another nail in the coffin of the Iranian regime,
simply furthering a policy objective.
Vera Gottlieb , January 21, 2020 at 11:19
What is even sadder is the world's lack of gonads to stand up to this bully nation – that has caused so much grief and still
does.
Michael McNulty , January 21, 2020 at 11:01
The US government became a crime syndicate. Today its bootleg liquor is oil, the boys they send round to steal it are armies
and their drive-by shootings are Warthog strafings using DU ammunition. Their drug rackets in the back streets are high-grade
reefer, heroin and amphetamines, with pharmaceutical-grade chemicals on Main Street. They still print banknotes just as before;
but this time it's legal but still doesn't make them enough, so to make up the shortfalls they've taken armed robbery abroad.
paul easton , January 21, 2020 at 12:55
The US Government is running a protection racket, literally. In return for US protection of their sources of oil, the NATO
countries provide international support for US war crimes. But now that the (figurative) Don is visibly out of his mind, they
are likely to turn to other protectors.
One need not step back very far in order to look at the bigger longer range picture. What immediately comes into focus is that
this is simply the current moment in what is now 500 plus years of Western colonialism/neocolonialism. When has the law EVER had
anything to do with any of this?
ML , January 21, 2020 at 10:31
Pompeo reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm. He is a grotesque figure, steely-eyed, cold-blooded, fanatical, and hateful.
"We lied, cheated, and stole" Pompous Maximus will get his comeuppance one of these days. I hope he plans more overseas trips
for himself. He is a vile person, a psychopath proud of his psychopathy. He alone would make anyone considering conversion to
Christianity, his brand of it, run screaming into the night. Repulsive man.
Michael Crockett , January 21, 2020 at 09:40
Pillage as policy. The Empire has fully embraced gangster capitalism for its modus operandi. That said, IMO, the axis of resistance
has the military capability and the resolve to fight back and win. Combining China and Russia into a greater axis of resistance
could further shrink the Outlaw US Empire presence in West Asia. Thank you Patrick for your keen insight and observations. The
Empires days are numbered.
Sally Snyder , January 21, 2020 at 07:28
Here is an interesting article that explains how governments have changed the rules so that they can justify killing anyone
who they believe may at some point in time have the potential to be involved in a terrorist plot: viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-bethlehem-doctrine-and-new.html
This rather Orwellian move gives governments the justification that they to kill any of us just because they feel that we might
pose a threat and that is a very, very scary prospect. It is very reminiscent of the movie Minority Report where crimes of the
future are punished in the present.
Bush older was the first president from CIA. He was already a senior CIA official at the time
of JFK assassination and might participate in the plot to kill JFK. At least he was in Dallas at
the day of assassination. .
That Iraq is to say the least unstable is attributable to the ill-advised U.S. invasion
of 2003.
Nothing to do with 9 years of sanctions on Iraq that killed a million Iraqis, "half of
them children," and US control of Iraqi air space, after having killed Iraqi military in a
turkey-shoot, for no really good reason other than George H W Bush seized the "unipolar
moment" to become king of the world?
Maybe it's just stubbornness: I think Papa Bush is responsible for the "imperial pivot,"
in the Persian Gulf war aka Operation Desert Storm, 29 years and 4 days ago -- January 17,
1991.
According to Jeffrey Engel, Bush's biographer and director of the Bush library at Southern
Methodist University, Gorbachev harassed Bush with phone calls, pleading with him not to go
to war over Kuwait
(It's worth noting that Dennis Ross was relatively new in his role on Jim Baker's staff
when Baker, Brent Skowcroft, Larry Eagleburger & like minded urged Bush to take the
Imperial Pivot.)
According to Vernon Loeb, who completed the writing of King's Counsel after Jack
O'Connell died, Jordan's King Hussein, in consultation with retired CIA station chief
O'Connell, parlayed with Arab leaders to resolve the conflict on their own, i.e. Arab-to-Arab
terms, and also pleaded with Bush to stay out, and to let the Arabs solve their own problems.
Bush refused. https://www.c-span.org/video/?301361-6/kings-counsel
See above: Bush was determined to "seize the unipolar moment."
Once again insist on entering into the record: George H Bush was present at the creation
of the Global War on Terror, July 4, 1979, the Jerusalem Conference hosted by Benzion and
Benjamin Netanyahu and heavily populated with Trotskyites – neocons.
I think Papa Bush is responsible for the "imperial pivot," in the Persian Gulf war aka
Operation Desert Storm, 29 years and 4 days ago -- January 17, 1991.
Yes I remember it well. I came back from a long trip & memorable vacation, alas I was
a young man, to the television drama that was unfolding with Arthur Kent 'The Scud
Stud' and others reporting from the safety of their hotel balconies filming aircaft and
cruise missiles. It was surreal.
You are correct of course.
"... Trump's threats of auto tariffs to gain trade concessions with the Europeans is certainly nothing new, but using the same to dictate foreign policy is, notes WaPo's diplomatic correspondent John Hudson. ..."
"... Interestingly, in Wednesday's joint statement the European signatories attempted to distance their drastic action away from Washington's so-called "maximum pressure" campaign. "Our three countries are not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran," they said . ..."
"... The statement also underscored Europe hopes to use the mechanism "to bring Iran back into full compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA" and in the words of one official quoted in The Guardian to prevent nuclear advancement to the point that the Iranians "learn something that it is not possible for them to unlearn" . ..."
A bombshell revelation from The Washington Post a day after France, Britain and Germany took unprecedented action against Iran
by
formally triggering the dispute resolution mechanism regulating conformity to the deal, seen as the harshest measure taken by
the European signatories thus far. The European powers officially see Iran as in breach of the deal which means UN and EU punitive
sanctions are now on the table.
But according to The Post , how things quickly escalated
to this point is real story : " Days before Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose
25% tariff on European autos if they didn't," says the report.
This came as a "shock" to all three countries, with one top European official
calling it essentially "extortion" and a new level of hardball tactics from the Trump administration.
After the US leveraged the new tariffs threat according to the report, European capitals moved quick to trigger the mechanism,
which involved the individual European states formally notifying the agreement's guarantor, the European Union, that Iran is in breach
of the nuclear deal.
This followed the Jan.6 declaration of Tehran's leadership to no longer be beholden to uranium enrichment limits. And that's where
things got interesting as Washington's pressure campaign dramatically turned up the heat on Europe.
"Within days, the three countries would formally accuse Iran of violating the deal, triggering a recourse provision that could
reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran and unravel the last remaining vestiges of the Obama-era agreement," the report
continues .
However, the report notes France, the UK, and Germany were already in deep discussion on moving forward with triggering the mechanism.
"We didn't want to look weak, so we agreed to keep the existence of the threat a secret," a European official cited by WaPo claims.
Trump's threats of auto tariffs to gain trade concessions with the Europeans is certainly nothing new, but using the same to dictate
foreign policy is, notes WaPo's diplomatic correspondent John Hudson.
Interestingly, in Wednesday's joint statement the European signatories attempted to distance their drastic action away from Washington's
so-called "maximum pressure" campaign. "Our three countries are not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran,"
they said .
The statement also underscored Europe hopes to use the mechanism "to bring Iran back into full compliance with its commitments
under the JCPOA" and in the words of one official quoted in
The Guardian to prevent nuclear advancement to the point that the Iranians "learn something that it is not possible for them
to unlearn" .
Now that the mechanism has been enacted, the clock starts on 65 days of intensive negotiations before UN sanctions would be reimposed
if no resolution is reached. Specifically a blanket arms embargo would be imposed among other measures, and certainly it would mark
the deal's final demise, given the Europeans are Iran's last hope for being equal partners in the deal.
Also interesting is that in the hours before The Washington Post report was published, Iranian FM Zarif charged that the EU investigation
into Iran's alleged non-compliance meant Europe is allowing itself to be bulled by the United States .
Indeed the new revelation of the secret threats attempting to dictate Europe's course appear to confirm precisely Zarif's words
to reporters
earlier on Wednesday : "They say 'We are not responsible for what the United States did.' OK, but you are independent" he began.
And then added a stinging rebuke: "Europe, EU, is the largest global economy. So why do you allow the United States to bully you
around?"
Looks like the end of Full Spectrum Dominance the the USA enjoyed since 1991. Alliance of Iran, Russia and China (with Turkey
and Pakistan as two possible members) is serious military competitor and while the USA has its set of trump cards, the military
victory against such an alliance no longer guaranteed.
Days after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, new and important information is
coming to light from a speech given by the Iraqi prime minister. The story behind Soleimani's
assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported, involving Saudi
Arabia and China as well the US dollar's role as the global reserve currency .
The Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has revealed details of his interactions with
Trump in the weeks leading up to Soleimani's assassination in a speech to the Iraqi parliament.
He tried to explain several times on live television how Washington had been browbeating him
and other Iraqi members of parliament to toe the American line, even threatening to engage in
false-flag sniper shootings of both protesters and security personnel in order to inflame the
situation, recalling similar modi operandi seen in Cairo in 2009, Libya in 2011, and Maidan in
2014. The purpose of such cynicism was to throw Iraq into chaos.
Here is the reconstruction of the story:
[Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq] Halbousi attended the parliamentary
session while almost none of the Sunni members did. This was because the Americans had
learned that Abdul-Mehdi was planning to reveal sensitive secrets in the session and sent
Halbousi to prevent this. Halbousi cut Abdul-Mehdi off at the commencement of his speech and
then asked for the live airing of the session to be stopped. After this, Halbousi together
with other members, sat next to Abdul-Mehdi, speaking openly with him but without it being
recorded. This is what was discussed in that session that was not broadcast:
Abdul-Mehdi spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused
to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil
revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.
The complete (translated)
words of Abdul-Mahdi's speech to parliament:
This is why I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the
construction instead. Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement.
When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my
premiership.
Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that
if I did not comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings
target protesters and security personnel alike in order to pressure me.
I refused again and handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us
rescinding our deal with the Chinese.
After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting
both protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened he would do), I
received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we
kept on talking about this "third party".
Nobody imagined that the threat was to be applied to General Soleimani, but it was difficult
for Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to reveal the weekslong backstory behind the terrorist
attack.
I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came to
deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians from
the Saudis.
We can surmise, judging by Saudi Arabia's reaction , that some kind of
negotiation was going on between Tehran and Riyadh:
The Kingdom's statement regarding the events in Iraq stresses the Kingdom's view of the
importance of de-escalation to save the countries of the region and their people from the
risks of any escalation.
Above all, the Saudi
Royal family wanted to let people know immediately that they had not been informed of the
US operation:
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not consulted regarding the US strike. In light of the
rapid developments, the Kingdom stresses the importance of exercising restraint to guard
against all acts that may lead to escalation, with severe consequences.
And to emphasize his reluctance for war, Mohammad bin Salman
sent a delegation to the United States.
Liz Sly , the Washington Post Beirut bureau chief, tweated:
Saudi Arabia is sending a delegation to Washington to urge restraint with Iran on behalf
of [Persian] Gulf states. The message will be: 'Please spare us the pain of going through
another war'.
What clearly emerges is that the success of the operation against Soleimani had nothing to
do with the intelligence gathering of the US or Israel. It was known to all and sundry that
Soleimani was heading to Baghdad in a diplomatic capacity that acknowledged Iraq's efforts to
mediate a solution to the regional crisis with Saudi Arabia.
It would seem that the Saudis, Iranians and Iraqis were well on the way towards averting a
regional conflict involving Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Riyadh's reaction to the American strike
evinced no public joy or celebration. Qatar, while not seeing eye to eye with Riyadh on many
issues, also immediately expressed solidarity with Tehran, hosting a meeting at a senior
government level with Mohammad Zarif Jarif, the Iranian foreign minister. Even Turkey
and
Egypt , when commenting on the asassination, employed moderating language.
This could reflect a fear of being on the receiving end of Iran's retaliation. Qatar, the
country from which the drone that killed Soleimani took off, is only a stone's throw away from
Iran, situated on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. Riyadh and Tel Aviv, Tehran's
regional enemies, both know that a military conflict with Iran would mean the end of the Saudi
royal family.
When the words of the Iraqi prime minister are linked back to the geopolitical and energy
agreements in the region, then the worrying picture starts to emerge of a desperate US lashing
out at a world turning its back on a unipolar world order in favor of the emerging multipolar
about which
I have long written .
The US, now considering itself a net energy exporter as a result of the shale-oil revolution
(on which the jury is still out), no longer needs to import oil from the Middle East. However,
this does not mean that oil can now be traded in any other currency other than the US
dollar.
The petrodollar is what ensures that the US dollar retains its status as the global reserve
currency, granting the US a monopolistic position from which it derives enormous benefits from
playing the role of regional hegemon.
This privileged position of holding the global reserve currency also ensures that the US can
easily fund its war machine by virtue of the fact that much of the world is obliged to buy its
treasury bonds that it is simply able to conjure out of thin air. To threaten this comfortable
arrangement is to threaten Washington's global power.
Even so, the geopolitical and economic trend is inexorably towards a multipolar world order,
with China increasingly playing a leading role, especially in the Middle East and South
America.
Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and Saudi Arabia together make up the overwhelming
majority of oil and gas reserves in the world. The first three have an elevated relationship
with Beijing and are very much in the multipolar camp, something that China and Russia are keen
to further consolidate in order to ensure the future growth for the Eurasian supercontinent
without war and conflict.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is pro-US but could gravitate towards the Sino-Russian camp
both militarily and in terms of energy. The same process is going on with Iraq and Qatar thanks
to Washington's numerous strategic errors in the region starting from Iraq in 2003, Libya in
2011 and Syria and Yemen in recent years.
The agreement between Iraq and China is a prime example of how Beijing intends to use the
Iraq-Iran-Syria troika to revive the Middle East and and link it to the Chinese Belt and Road
Initiative.
While Doha and Riyadh would be the first to suffer economically from such an agreement,
Beijing's economic power is such that, with its win-win approach, there is room for
everyone.
Saudi Arabia provides China with most of its oil and Qatar, together with the Russian
Federation, supply China with most of its LNG needs, which lines up with Xi Jinping's 2030
vision that aims to greatly reduce polluting emissions.
The US is absent in this picture, with little ability to influence events or offer any
appealing economic alternatives.
Washington would like to prevent any Eurasian integration by unleashing chaos and
destruction in the region, and killing Soleimani served this purpose. The US cannot contemplate
the idea of the dollar losing its status as the global reserve currency. Trump is engaging in a
desperate gamble that could have disastrous consequences.
The region, in a worst-case scenario, could be engulfed in a devastating war involving
multiple countries. Oil refineries could be destroyed all across the region, a quarter of the
world's oil transit could be blocked, oil prices would skyrocket ($200-$300 a barrel) and
dozens of countries would be plunged into a global financial crisis. The blame would be laid
squarely at Trump's feet, ending his chances for re-election.
To try and keep everyone in line, Washington is left to resort to terrorism, lies and
unspecified threats of visiting destruction on friends and enemies alike.
Trump has evidently been convinced by someone that the US can do without the Middle East,
that it can do without allies in the region, and that nobody would ever dare to sell oil in any
other currency than the US dollar.
Soleimani's death is the result of a convergence of US and Israeli interests. With no other
way of halting Eurasian integration, Washington can only throw the region into chaos by
targeting countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria that are central to the Eurasian project. While
Israel has never had the ability or audacity to carry out such an assassination itself, the
importance of the Israel Lobby to Trump's electoral success would have influenced his decision,
all the more so in an election year .
Trump believed his drone attack could solve all his problems by frightening his opponents,
winning the support of his voters (by equating Soleimani's assassination to Osama bin Laden's),
and sending a warning to Arab countries of the dangers of deepening their ties with China.
The assassination of Soleimani is the US lashing out at its steady loss of influence in the
region. The Iraqi attempt to mediate a lasting peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been
scuppered by the US and Israel's determination to prevent peace in the region and instead
increase chaos and instability.
Washington has not achieved its hegemonic status through a preference for diplomacy and calm
dialogue, and Trump has no intention of departing from this approach.
Washington's friends and enemies alike must acknowledge this reality and implement the
countermeasures necessary to contain the madness.
Very good article, straight to the point. In fact its much worse. I know is hard to
swallow for my US american brother and sisters.
But as sooner you wake up and see the reality as it is, as better chances the US has to
survive with honor. Stop the wars around the globe and do not look for excuses. Isnt it
already obvious what is going on with the US war machine? How many more examples some people
need to wake up?
Not all said in video above is accurate but the recent events in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan,
Africa are all related to prevent China from overtaking the zionist hegemonic world and to
recolonize China (at least the parasite is trying to hop to China as new host).
Trade war, Huawei, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet ..... the concerted efforts from all zionist
controlled media (ZeroHedge included) to slander, smearing, fake news against China should
tell you what the Zionists agenda are :)
The American President's threatened the Iraqi Prime Minister to liquidate him directly
with the Minister of Defense. The Marines are the third party that sniped the demonstrators
and the security men:
Abdul Mahdi continued:
"After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I
also refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me. Indeed,
the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of
non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, so that the third party (Marines snipers) would
target the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from the highest structures and
the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China
agreement, so I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist
to this day on canceling the China agreement and when the defense minister said that who
kills the demonstrators is a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically
threatened me and defense minister in the event of talk about the third party."
.........
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found George W. Bush guilty of war crimes in absentia
for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Bush, **** Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers
Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in
absentia in Malaysia.
Unfortunately, this article makes a lot of sense. The US is losing influence and lashing
out carelessly. I hope the rest of the world realizes how detached majority of the citizens
within the states are from the federal government. The Federal government brings no good to
our nation. None. From the mis management of our once tax revenues to the corrupt Congress
who accepts bribes from the highest bidder, it's a rats best that is not only harmful to its
own people, but the world at large. USD won't go down without a fight it seems... All empires
end with a bang. Be ready
"... Like most lefty journalists, I assumed that George Bush and Tony Blair invaded Iraq to buy up its oil fields, cheap and at gun-point, and cart off the oil. We thought we knew the neo-cons true casus belli ..."
"... But the truth in the Options for Iraqi Oil Industry was worse than "Blood for Oil". Much, much worse. The key was in the flow chart on page 15, Iraq Oil Regime Timeline & Scenario Analysis: "...A single state-owned company ...enhances a government's relationship with OPEC." ..."
Because it was marked "confidential" on each page, the oil industry stooge couldn't believe
the US State Department had given me a complete copy of their secret plans for the oil fields
of Iraq.
Actually, the State Department had done no such thing. But my line of bullshit had been so
well-practiced and the set-up on my mark had so thoroughly established my fake identity, that I
almost began to believe my own lies.
I closed in. I said I wanted to make sure she and I were working from the same State
Department draft. Could she tell me the official name, date and number of pages? She did.
Bingo! I'd just beaten the Military-Petroleum Complex in a lying contest, so I had a right
to be chuffed.
After phoning numbers from California to Kazakhstan to trick my mark, my next calls were to
the State Department and Pentagon. Now that I had the specs on the scheme for Iraq's oil --
that State and Defense Department swore, in writing, did not exist -- I told them I'd
appreciate their handing over a copy (no expurgations, please) or there would be a very
embarrassing story on BBC Newsnight .
Within days, our chief of investigations, Ms Badpenny, delivered to my shack in the woods
outside New York a 323-page, three-volume programme for Iraq's oil crafted by George Bush's
State Department and petroleum insiders meeting secretly in Houston, Texas.
I cracked open the pile of paper -- and I was blown away.
Like most lefty journalists, I assumed that George Bush and Tony Blair invaded Iraq to
buy up its oil fields, cheap and at gun-point, and cart off the oil. We thought we knew the
neo-cons true casus belli : Blood for oil.
But the truth in the Options for Iraqi Oil Industry was worse than "Blood for Oil".
Much, much worse. The key was in the flow chart on page 15, Iraq Oil Regime Timeline &
Scenario Analysis: "...A single state-owned company ...enhances a government's relationship
with OPEC."
"... Americans were the victims of an elaborate con job, pelted with a daily barrage of threat inflation, distortions, deceptions and lies, not about tactics or strategy or war plans, but about justifications for war. The lies were aimed not at confusing Saddam's regime, but the American people. By the start of the war, 66 per cent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and 79 per cent thought he was close to having a nuclear weapon. ..."
"... This charade wouldn't have worked without a gullible or a complicit press corps. Victoria Clarke, who developed the Pentagon plan for embedded reports, put it succinctly a few weeks before the war began: "Media coverage of any future operation will to a large extent shape public perception." ..."
"... During the Vietnam War, TV images of maimed GIs and napalmed villages suburbanized opposition to the war and helped hasten the U.S. withdrawal. The Bush gang meant to turn the Vietnam phenomenon on its head by using TV as a force to propel the U.S.A. into a war that no one really wanted. ..."
"... When the Pentagon needed a heroic story, the press obliged. Jessica Lynch became the war's first instant celebrity. Here was a neo-gothic tale of a steely young woman wounded in a fierce battle, captured and tortured by ruthless enemies, and dramatically saved from certain death by a team of selfless rescuers, knights in camo and night-vision goggles. ..."
"... Back in 1988, the Post felt much differently about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction. When reports trickled out about the gassing of Iranian troops, the Washington Post's editorial page shrugged off the massacres, calling the mass poisonings "a quirk of war." ..."
"... The Bush team displayed a similar amnesia. When Iraq used chemical weapons in grisly attacks on Iran, the U.S. government not only didn't object, it encouraged Saddam. ..."
"... Nothing sums up this unctuous approach more brazenly than MSNBC's firing of liberal talk show host Phil Donahue on the eve of the war. The network replaced the Donahue Show with a running segment called Countdown: Iraq, featuring the usual nightly coterie of retired generals, security flacks, and other cheerleaders for invasion. ..."
The war on Iraq won't be remembered for how it was waged so much as for how it was sold. It
was a propaganda war, a war of perception management, where loaded phrases, such as "weapons of
mass destruction" and "rogue state" were hurled like precision weapons at the target audience:
us.
To understand the Iraq war you don't need to consult generals, but the spin doctors and PR
flacks who stage-managed the countdown to war from the murky corridors of Washington where
politics, corporate spin and psy-ops spooks cohabit.
Consider the picaresque journey of Tony Blair's plagiarized dossier on Iraq, from a grad
student's website to a cut-and-paste job in the prime minister's bombastic speech to the House
of Commons. Blair, stubborn and verbose, paid a price for his grandiose puffery. Bush, who
looted whole passages from Blair's speech for his own clumsy presentations, has skated freely
through the tempest. Why?
Unlike Blair, the Bush team never wanted to present a legal case for war. They had no
interest in making any of their allegations about Iraq hold up to a standard of proof. The real
effort was aimed at amping up the mood for war by using the psychology of fear.
Facts were never important to the Bush team. They were disposable nuggets that could be
discarded at will and replaced by whatever new rationale that played favorably with their polls
and focus groups. The war was about weapons of mass destruction one week, al-Qaeda the next.
When neither allegation could be substantiated on the ground, the fall back position became the
mass graves (many from the Iran/Iraq war where the U.S.A. backed Iraq) proving that Saddam was
an evil thug who deserved to be toppled. The motto of the Bush PR machine was: Move on. Don't
explain. Say anything to conceal the perfidy behind the real motives for war. Never look back.
Accuse the questioners of harboring unpatriotic sensibilities. Eventually, even the cagey
Wolfowitz admitted that the official case for war was made mainly to make the invasion
palatable, not to justify it.
The Bush claque of neocon hawks viewed the Iraq war as a product and, just like a new pair
of Nikes, it required a roll-out campaign to soften up the consumers. The same techniques (and
often the same PR gurus) that have been used to hawk cigarettes, SUVs and nuclear waste dumps
were deployed to retail the Iraq war. To peddle the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell
and company recruited public relations gurus into top-level jobs at the Pentagon and the State
Department. These spinmeisters soon had more say over how the rationale for war on Iraq should
be presented than intelligence agencies and career diplomats. If the intelligence didn't fit
the script, it was shaded, retooled or junked.
Take Charlotte Beers whom Powell picked as undersecretary of state in the post-9/11 world.
Beers wasn't a diplomat. She wasn't even a politician. She was a grand diva of spin, known on
the business and gossip pages as "the queen of Madison Avenue." On the strength of two
advertising campaigns, one for Uncle Ben's Rice and another for Head and Shoulder's dandruff
shampoo, Beers rocketed to the top of the heap in the PR world, heading two giant PR houses:
Ogilvy and Mathers as well as J. Walter Thompson.
At the State Department Beers, who had met Powell in 1995 when they both served on the board
of Gulf Airstream, worked at, in Powell's words, "the branding of U.S. foreign policy." She
extracted more than $500 million from Congress for her Brand America campaign, which largely
focused on beaming U.S. propaganda into the Muslim world, much of it directed at teens.
"Public diplomacy is a vital new arm in what will combat terrorism over time," said Beers.
"All of a sudden we are in this position of redefining who America is, not only for ourselves,
but for the outside world." Note the rapt attention Beers pays to the manipulation of
perception, as opposed, say, to alterations of U.S. policy.
Old-fashioned diplomacy involves direct communication between representatives of nations, a
conversational give and take, often fraught with deception (see April Glaspie), but an exchange
nonetheless. Public diplomacy, as defined by Beers, is something else entirely. It's a one-way
street, a unilateral broadcast of American propaganda directly to the public, domestic and
international, a kind of informational carpet-bombing.
The themes of her campaigns were as simplistic and flimsy as a Bush press conference. The
American incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq were all about bringing the balm of "freedom" to
oppressed peoples. Hence, the title of the U.S. war: Operation Iraqi Freedom, where cruise
missiles were depicted as instruments of liberation. Bush himself distilled the Beers equation
to its bizarre essence: "This war is about peace."
Beers quietly resigned her post a few weeks before the first volley of tomahawk missiles
battered Baghdad. From her point of view, the war itself was already won, the fireworks of
shock and awe were all after play.
Over at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld drafted Victoria "Torie" Clarke as his director of
public affairs. Clarke knew the ropes inside the Beltway. Before becoming Rumsfeld's
mouthpiece, she had commanded one of the world's great parlors for powerbrokers: Hill and
Knowlton's D.C. office.
Almost immediately upon taking up her new gig, Clarke convened regular meetings with a
select group of Washington's top private PR specialists and lobbyists to develop a marketing
plan for the Pentagon's forthcoming terror wars. The group was filled with heavy-hitters and
was strikingly bipartisan in composition. She called it the Rumsfeld Group and it included PR
executive Sheila Tate, columnist Rich Lowry, and Republican political consultant Rich
Galen.
The brain trust also boasted top Democratic fixer Tommy Boggs, brother of NPR's Cokie
Roberts and son of the late Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana. At the very time Boggs was
conferring with top Pentagon brass on how to frame the war on terror, he was also working
feverishly for the royal family of Saudi Arabia. In 2002 alone, the Saudis paid his Qorvis PR
firm $20.2 million to protect its interests in Washington. In the wake of hostile press
coverage following the exposure of Saudi links to the 9/11 hijackers, the royal family needed
all the well-placed help it could buy. They seem to have gotten their money's worth. Boggs'
felicitous influence-peddling may help to explain why the references to Saudi funding of
al-Qaeda were dropped from the recent congressional report on the investigation into
intelligence failures and 9/11.
According to the trade publication PR Week, the Rumsfeld Group sent "messaging advice" to
the Pentagon. The group told Clarke and Rumsfeld that in order to get the American public to
buy into the war on terrorism, they needed to suggest a link to nation states, not just
nebulous groups such as al-Qaeda. In other words, there needed to be a fixed target for the
military campaigns, some distant place to drop cruise missiles and cluster bombs. They
suggested the notion (already embedded in Rumsfeld's mind) of playing up the notion of
so-called rogue states as the real masters of terrorism. Thus was born the Axis of Evil, which,
of course, wasn't an "axis" at all, since two of the states, Iran and Iraq, hated each other,
and neither had anything at all to do with the third, North Korea.
Tens of millions in federal money were poured into private public relations and media firms
working to craft and broadcast the Bush dictat that Saddam had to be taken out before the Iraqi
dictator blew up the world by dropping chemical and nuclear bombs from long-range drones. Many
of these PR executives and image consultants were old friends of the high priests in the Bush
inner sanctum. Indeed, they were veterans, like Cheney and Powell, of the previous war against
Iraq, another engagement that was more spin than combat .
At the top of the list was John Rendon, head of the D.C. firm, the Rendon Group. Rendon is
one of Washington's heaviest hitters, a Beltway fixer who never let political affiliation stand
in the way of an assignment. Rendon served as a media consultant for Michael Dukakis and Jimmy
Carter, as well as Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Whenever the Pentagon wanted to go to war, he
offered his services at a price. During Desert Storm, Rendon pulled in $100,000 a month from
the Kuwaiti royal family. He followed this up with a $23 million contract from the CIA to
produce anti-Saddam propaganda in the region.
As part of this CIA project, Rendon created and named the Iraqi National Congress and tapped
his friend Ahmed Chalabi, the shady financier, to head the organization.
Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon handed the Rendon Group another big assignment: public
relations for the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. Rendon was also deeply involved in the planning
and public relations for the pre-emptive war on Iraq, though both Rendon and the Pentagon
refuse to disclose the details of the group's work there.
But it's not hard to detect the manipulative hand of Rendon behind many of the Iraq war's
signature events, including the toppling of the Saddam statue (by U.S. troops and Chalabi
associates) and videotape of jubilant Iraqis waving American flags as the Third Infantry rolled
by them. Rendon had pulled off the same stunt in the first Gulf War, handing out American flags
to Kuwaitis and herding the media to the orchestrated demonstration. "Where do you think they
got those American flags?" clucked Rendon in 1991. "That was my assignment."
The Rendon Group may also have had played a role in pushing the phony intelligence that has
now come back to haunt the Bush administration. In December of 2002, Robert Dreyfuss reported
that the inner circle of the Bush White House preferred the intelligence coming from Chalabi
and his associates to that being proffered by analysts at the CIA.
So Rendon and his circle represented a new kind of off-the-shelf PSYOPs , the privatization
of official propaganda. "I am not a national security strategist or a military tactician," said
Rendon. "I am a politician, and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or
corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception
manager."
What exactly, is perception management? The Pentagon defines it this way: "actions to convey
and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their
emotions, motives and objective reasoning." In other words, lying about the intentions of the
U.S. government. In a rare display of public frankness, the Pentagon actually let slip its plan
(developed by Rendon) to establish a high-level den inside the Department Defense for
perception management. They called it the Office of Strategic Influence and among its many
missions was to plant false stories in the press.
Nothing stirs the corporate media into outbursts of pious outrage like an official
government memo bragging about how the media are manipulated for political objectives. So the
New York Times and Washington Post threw indignant fits about the Office of Strategic
Influence; the Pentagon shut down the operation, and the press gloated with satisfaction on its
victory. Yet, Rumsfeld told the Pentagon press corps that while he was killing the office, the
same devious work would continue. "You can have the corpse," said Rumsfeld. "You can have the
name. But I'm going to keep doing every single thing that needs to be done. And I have."
At a diplomatic level, despite the hired guns and the planted stories, this image war was
lost. It failed to convince even America's most fervent allies and dependent client states that
Iraq posed much of a threat. It failed to win the blessing of the U.N. and even NATO, a wholly
owned subsidiary of Washington. At the end of the day, the vaunted coalition of the willing
consisted of Britain, Spain, Italy, Australia, and a cohort of former Soviet bloc nations. Even
so, the citizens of the nations that cast their lot with the U.S.A. overwhelmingly opposed the
war.
Domestically, it was a different story. A population traumatized by terror threats and
shattered economy became easy prey for the saturation bombing of the Bush message that Iraq was
a terrorist state linked to al-Qaeda that was only minutes away from launching attacks on
America with weapons of mass destruction.
Americans were the victims of an elaborate con job, pelted with a daily barrage of
threat inflation, distortions, deceptions and lies, not about tactics or strategy or war plans,
but about justifications for war. The lies were aimed not at confusing Saddam's regime, but the
American people. By the start of the war, 66 per cent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was
behind 9/11 and 79 per cent thought he was close to having a nuclear weapon.
Of course, the closest Saddam came to possessing a nuke was a rusting gas centrifuge buried
for 13 years in the garden of Mahdi Obeidi, a retired Iraqi scientist. Iraq didn't have any
functional chemical or biological weapons. In fact, it didn't even possess any SCUD missiles,
despite erroneous reports fed by Pentagon PR flacks alleging that it had fired SCUDs into
Kuwait.
This charade wouldn't have worked without a gullible or a complicit press corps.
Victoria Clarke, who developed the Pentagon plan for embedded reports, put it succinctly a few
weeks before the war began: "Media coverage of any future operation will to a large extent
shape public perception."
During the Vietnam War, TV images of maimed GIs and napalmed villages suburbanized
opposition to the war and helped hasten the U.S. withdrawal. The Bush gang meant to turn the
Vietnam phenomenon on its head by using TV as a force to propel the U.S.A. into a war that no
one really wanted.
What the Pentagon sought was a new kind of living room war, where instead of photos of
mangled soldiers and dead Iraqi kids, they could control the images Americans viewed and to a
large extent the content of the stories. By embedding reporters inside selected divisions,
Clarke believed the Pentagon could count on the reporters to build relationships with the
troops and to feel dependent on them for their own safety. It worked, naturally. One reporter
for a national network trembled on camera that the U.S. Army functioned as "our protectors."
The late David Bloom of NBC confessed on the air that he was willing to do "anything and
everything they can ask of us."
When the Pentagon needed a heroic story, the press obliged. Jessica Lynch became the
war's first instant celebrity. Here was a neo-gothic tale of a steely young woman wounded in a
fierce battle, captured and tortured by ruthless enemies, and dramatically saved from certain
death by a team of selfless rescuers, knights in camo and night-vision goggles. Of course,
nearly every detail of her heroic adventure proved to be as fictive and maudlin as any
made-for-TV-movie. But the ordeal of Private Lynch, which dominated the news for more than a
week, served its purpose: to distract attention from a stalled campaign that was beginning to
look at lot riskier than the American public had been hoodwinked into believing.
The Lynch story was fed to the eager press by a Pentagon operation called Combat Camera, the
Army network of photographers, videographers and editors that sends 800 photos and 25 video
clips a day to the media. The editors at Combat Camera carefully culled the footage to present
the Pentagon's montage of the war, eliding such unsettling images as collateral damage, cluster
bombs, dead children and U.S. soldiers, napalm strikes and disgruntled troops.
"A lot of our imagery will have a big impact on world opinion," predicted Lt. Jane Larogue,
director of Combat Camera in Iraq. She was right. But as the hot war turned into an even hotter
occupation, the Pentagon, despite airy rhetoric from occupation supremo Paul Bremer about
installing democratic institutions such as a free press, moved to tighten its monopoly on the
flow images out of Iraq. First, it tried to shut down Al Jazeera, the Arab news channel. Then
the Pentagon intimated that it would like to see all foreign TV news crews banished from
Baghdad.
Few newspapers fanned the hysteria about the threat posed by Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction as sedulously as did the Washington Post. In the months leading up to the war, the
Post's pro-war op-eds outnumbered the anti-war columns by a 3-to-1 margin.
Back in 1988, the Post felt much differently about Saddam and his weapons of mass
destruction. When reports trickled out about the gassing of Iranian troops, the Washington
Post's editorial page shrugged off the massacres, calling the mass poisonings "a quirk of
war."
The Bush team displayed a similar amnesia. When Iraq used chemical weapons in grisly
attacks on Iran, the U.S. government not only didn't object, it encouraged Saddam.
Anything to punish Iran was the message coming from the White House. Donald Rumsfeld himself
was sent as President Ronald Reagan's personal envoy to Baghdad. Rumsfeld conveyed the bold
message than an Iraq defeat would be viewed as a "strategic setback for the United States."
This sleazy alliance was sealed with a handshake caught on videotape. When CNN reporter Jamie
McIntyre replayed the footage for Rumsfeld in the spring of 2003, the secretary of defense
snapped, "Where'd you get that? Iraqi television?"
The current crop of Iraq hawks also saw Saddam much differently then. Take the writer Laura
Mylroie, sometime colleague of the New York Times' Judy Miller, who persists in peddling the
ludicrous conspiracy that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
How times have changed! In 1987, Mylroie felt downright cuddly toward Saddam. She wrote an
article for the New Republic titled "Back Iraq: Time for a U.S. Tilt in the Mideast," arguing
that the U.S. should publicly embrace Saddam's secular regime as a bulwark against the Islamic
fundamentalists in Iran. The co-author of this mesmerizing weave of wonkery was none other than
Daniel Pipes, perhaps the nation's most bellicose Islamophobe. "The American weapons that Iraq
could make good use of include remotely scatterable and anti-personnel mines and
counterartillery radar," wrote Mylroie and Pipes. "The United States might also consider
upgrading intelligence it is supplying Baghdad."
In the rollout for the war, Mylroie seemed to be everywhere hawking the invasion of Iraq.
She would often appear on two or three different networks in the same day. How did the reporter
manage this feat? She had help in the form of Eleana Benador, the media placement guru who runs
Benador Associates. Born in Peru, Benador parlayed her skills as a linguist into a lucrative
career as media relations whiz for the Washington foreign policy elite. She also oversees the
Middle East Forum, a fanatically pro-Zionist white paper mill. Her clients include some of the
nation's most fervid hawks, including Michael Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, Al Haig, Max Boot,
Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, and Judy Miller. During the Iraq war, Benador's assignment was to
embed this squadron of pro-war zealots into the national media, on talk shows, and op-ed
pages.
Benador not only got them the gigs, she also crafted the theme and made sure they all stayed
on message. "There are some things, you just have to state them in a different way, in a
slightly different way," said Benador. "If not, people get scared." Scared of intentions of
their own government.
It could have been different. All of the holes in the Bush administration's gossamer case
for war were right there for the mainstream press to expose. Instead, the U.S. press, just like
the oil companies, sought to commercialize the Iraq war and profit from the invasions. They
didn't want to deal with uncomfortable facts or present voices of dissent.
Nothing sums up this unctuous approach more brazenly than MSNBC's firing of liberal talk
show host Phil Donahue on the eve of the war. The network replaced the Donahue Show with a
running segment called Countdown: Iraq, featuring the usual nightly coterie of retired
generals, security flacks, and other cheerleaders for invasion. The network's executives
blamed the cancellation on sagging ratings. In fact, during its run Donahue's show attracted
more viewers than any other program on the network. The real reason for the pre-emptive strike
on Donahue was spelled out in an internal memo from anxious executives at NBC. Donahue, the
memo said, offered "a difficult face for NBC in a time of war. He seems to delight in
presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's
motives."
The memo warned that Donahue's show risked tarring MSNBC as an unpatriotic network, "a home
for liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every
opportunity." So, with scarcely a second thought, the honchos at MSNBC gave Donahue the boot
and hoisted the battle flag.
It's war that sells.
There's a helluva caveat, of course. Once you buy it, the merchants of war accept no
returns.
When emotion rules the day facts do not matter. Sadly, that is the reality we confront when
it comes to talking about Iran and terrorism. The U.S. Government and almost all of the media
continue to declare that Iran is the biggest sponsor of terrorism. That is not true. That is a
lie. I realize that calling this assertion a lie opens me to accusations of being an apologist
for Iran. But simply look at the facts.
Iran remains the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism. The regime has spent nearly one
billion dollars per year to support terrorist groups that serve as its proxies and expand its
malign influence across the globe. Tehran has funded international terrorist groups such as
Hizballah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It also has engaged in its own terrorist
plotting around the world, particularly in Europe. In January, German authorities investigated
10 suspected Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force operatives. In the summer,
authorities in Belgium, France, and Germany thwarted an Iranian plot to bomb a political rally
near Paris, France. In October, an Iranian operative was arrested for planning an assassination
in Denmark, and in December, Albania expelled two Iranian officials for plotting terrorist
attacks. Furthermore, Tehran continued to allow an AQ facilitation network to operate in Iran,
which sends fighters and money to conflict zones in Afghanistan and Syria, and it has extended
sanctuary to AQ members residing in the country.
You notice what is absent? A list of specific attacks that caused actual casualties. Plans
and plots are not the same as actions. If Iran's malevolent influence was so powerful, we
should be able to point to specific attacks and specific casualties. But you will not find
those facts in the U.S. State Department report because they do not exist. The statistical
annex that details the attacks and the groups responsible reports the following:
The Taliban was responsible for 8,509 deaths and 4,943 injuries, about 25 percent of the
total casualties attributed to terrorism globally in 2018. With 647 terrorist attacks, ISIS was
the next-most-active terrorist organization, responsible for 3,585 fatalities and 1,761
injuries. Having conducted 535 attacks, al-Shabaab was responsible for 2,062 deaths and 1,278
injuries. Boko Haram was among the top-five terrorist perpetrators, with 220 incidents, 1,311
deaths, and 927 injuries. It should be noted that local sources do not always differentiate
between Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.
Not a single group linked to Iran or supported by Iran is identified. Look at the this table
from the statistical annex:
No Hezbollah and no Hamas. If a country is going to "sponsor" terrorism then we should
expect to see terrorist attacks. The attacks that are taking place are predominantly from Sunni
affiliated groups that have ties to Saudi Arabia, not Iran.
The State Department's explanation about Iranian support for terrorism exposes what the real
issue is (I am quoting the 2016 report but, if you
read the 2017 or 2018
versions there is no significant difference):
Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran continued its terrorist-related
activity in 2016, including support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and
various groups in Syria, Iraq, and throughout the Middle East. Iran used the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps‑Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to implement foreign policy goals, provide
cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. Iran has
acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria and the IRGC-QF
is Iran's primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.
In 2016, Iran supported various Iraqi Shia terrorist groups, including Kata'ib Hizballah, as
part of an effort to fight ISIS in Iraq and bolster the Assad regime in Syria. Iran views the
Assad regime in Syria as a crucial ally and Syria and Iraq as crucial routes to supply weapons
to Hizballah, Iran's primary terrorist partner. Iran has facilitated and coerced, through
financial or residency enticements, primarily Shia fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to
participate in the Assad regime's brutal crackdown in Syria. Iranian-supported Shia militias in
Iraq have committed serious human rights abuses against primarily Sunni civilians and Iranian
forces have directly backed militia operations in Syria with armored vehicles, artillery, and
drones.
The United States is upset with Iran because it has thwarted the U.S. covert action in
Syria. It was the United States, along with the U.K., Saudi Arabia and Turkey, that helped
ignite and escalate the civil war in Syria. Why? The Saudis and the Israelis were growing
increasingly concerned in 2011 about Iran's spreading influence in the region. And what enabled
Iran to do that? We did. When the United States removed Saddam Hussein and destroyed the
Baathist movement in Iraq, the Bush Administration thought it was a dandy idea to install Iraqi
Shia in positions of leadership. Not one of the key policymakers on the U.S. side of the
equation expressed any qualms about the fact that these Iraqi politicians and military
personnel had longstanding relationships with Iran, which included financial support.
Iran also had a longstanding relationship with Syria. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
decided that if we could eliminate Bashir Assad, the Syrian leader, then we would weaken Iran.
This was a policy that many Republicans, most notably John McCain and Lindsey Graham,
supported. But the scheme to weaken Iran backfired. Iran, along with Russia, came to the aid of
the Government of Syria in full blown counter-insurgency campaign. Iran, the Russians and the
Syrian Government were fighting radical Sunni islamists, many of whom were funded by the
Western alliance.
Iran's military support for the Government of Syria clearly rankles U.S. policymakers, but
it is not "terrorism." It is pure counter insurgency.
Wikipedia offers additional evidence about the true nature of international terrorism. I
have reviewed the lists of incidents, which includes the description of the attacks, the
perpetrators and the number of casualties for 2016-2018. I have only been able to put the 2016
incidents into a spreadsheet. Here are the actual facts.
In 2016 there were seven terrorist attacks that caused at least 100 casualties. All were
attributed to ISIL aka the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Not one was linked to Iran
or any group receiving financial support from Iran. There were a total of 1753 terrorist
attacks and at least 15,993 deaths during 2016.
Here is the monthly breakdown for 2016:
January -- 105
terrorist attacks that caused the deaths of at least 1,351 people. There were no attacks linked
to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah. The seven attacks in Israel that left 7 dead were
ascribed to a "Palestinian" lone-wolf.
February -- 72
attacks that left 1075 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah. There were seven attacks and 3 dead attributed to "lone-wolf" Palestinians.
March -- 112
attacks leaving at least 778 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah. There were 13 attacks in Israel identified as "lone-wolf" Palestinian. No
significant Israeli casualties.
April -- 152
attacks that caused at least 1012 fatalities. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib
Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
May -- 202 attacks
leaving at least 1600 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah.
June -- 187
attacks and at least 1693 fatalities. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas
or Hezbollah.
July -- 187
attacks with at least 1684 deaths. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah.
August -- 139
terrorist attacks resulting in 1224 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah,
Hamas or Hezbollah.
September --
128 terrorist attacks, which caused at least 849 fatalities. There were no attacks linked to
Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
October -- 166
terrorist attacks and at least 2139 deaths. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah,
Hamas or Hezbollah.
November --
153 terrorist attacks that killed at least 1446. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib
Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
December --
147 terrorist attacks, which resulted in at least 930 deaths. There were no attacks linked to
Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
The U.S. State Department continues to insist that Iran is providing indirect support to Al
Qaeda. That is pure nonsense. Iran is fighting and killing Al Qaeda forces inside Syria. They
have no ideological affinity with Al Qaeda.
I wish the American people would take the time to be educated about the actual nature and
extent of "international terrorism." There was a time in the 1980s when Iran was very active in
using terrorism as weapon to attack U.S. military and diplomatic targets. But even those
attacks were focused in areas where Iran's perceived national interests were at stake. I am not
excusing nor endorsing their actions. But I do think we need to understand that terrorism
usually has a context. It is not the actions of a mentally ill person who is angry and lashing
out at the nearest available target. Those attacks were planned and very calculated.
The real issue that we should be focused on is whether or not we can halt the expansion of
Iran's influence in the Middle East. This remains a major concern for Israel and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. policymakers are betting that isolating Iran diplomatically, ratcheting up economic
pressure and using some military power will somehow energize the regime opposition and lead to
the overthrow of the Mullahs. We tried that same policy with Cuba. It did not work there and
will not likely work now in Iran.
Iran has options and is pursuing them aggressively. China and Russia, who are facing their
own bullying from the United States, already are helping Iran tweak the the nose of the Trump
Administration. In late December 2019, Iran, Russia and China carried out a joint military
exercise . The Iranians were very clear about their view of this cooperation:
"The most important achievement of these drills . . . is this
message that the Islamic republic of Iran cannot be isolated," vice-admiral Gholamreza Tahani,
a deputy naval commander, said. "These exercises show that relations between Iran, Russia and
China have reached a new high level while this trend will continue in the coming years."
The Trump Administration needs to stop with its infantile ranting and railing about Iran and
terrorism. The actual issues surrounding Iran's growing influence in the region have little to
do with terrorism. Our policies and actions towards Iran are accelerating their cooperation
with China and Russia, not diminishing it. I do not think that serves the longterm interests of
the United States or our allies in the Middle East.
Iraq & Russia Look To Boost Military Ties While US Threatens Sanctions by
Tyler Durden Fri,
02/07/2020 - 19:45 0 SHARES In more continuing fallout over the Jan.3 assassination by drone of
the IRGC's Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iraq and Russia are preparing for deepening military
coordination , reports the AP .
Iraq's Defense Ministry announced Thursday that increased "cooperation and coordination" is
being discussed with Moscow amid worsened relations with Washington, which even last month
included President Trump issuing brazen
threats of "very big" sanctions on Baghdad if American troops are kicked out of the
country.
This week Iraqi army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Othman Al-Ghanimi and Russian Ambassador Maksim
Maksimov met to discuss future military cooperation. Crucially, Gen. Ghanimi highlighted
Russia's successful anti-ISIS operations over the past years , especially in Syria where the
Russian military has supported Assad since being invited there in 2015.
On Russia's role in Iraq, Ghanimi said Moscow had provided "our armed forces with
advanced and effective equipment and weapons that had a major role in resolving many battles,"
according to the ministry statement.
It's been long rumored that since late summer Baghdad and Moscow have been in talks to
deliver either Russia's advanced S-400 or S-300 anti-air missile defense systems - a prospect
which US officials have condemned.
Like other areas of the Middle East, as US adventurism heightens pressure for a US
withdrawal, Russia appears to be seizing the opportunity to move in. This much was affirmed in
AP's reporting, via at least one anonymous senior official :
A senior Iraqi military intelligence official told The Associated Press that Russia, among
other countries, has come forward to offer military support in the wake of fraught US.-Iraq
relations following Soleimani's killing .
"Iraq still needs aerial reconnaissance planes. There are countries that have given
signals to Iraq to support us or equip us with reconnaissance planes such as Russia and
Iran," said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the
information.
Many military analysts have of late noted that the "blowback" from the incredibly risky
operation which killed Soleimani will be a hastening of American forces' exit from the
region.
It could also actually serve to increase Baghdad's dependency on Iran - something which
appears to be already in the works. And now we have confirmation that Moscow will seek to
benefit as well from the worsened US-Iraq relations, certainly now at the lowest point since
the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a new government. Tags Politics War Conflict
At last! After a full week of playing coy... about delivering any further bad newz from
the muddled east which might further demolish the spirits of our local lovers of spirit
cookin, 'death to amerika' shoutin jihadi huggin regimes
our fearless ferret newz aggregator have delivered us something to chew on.. and spit out!
What febrile gems of crude agitprop await the wondering gaze of the gallery? How bout...
Russia, among other countries, has come forward to offer military support in the wake of
fraught US.-Iraq relations following Soleimani's killing .
as a clear example of the genre of laughable attacks upon common sense and truth in
media... faculties which - when employed - direct our attention to some simple facts curious
scrubbed from this whitewash with which "white hat" superhero Russkies... trundle around the
globe delivering toyz that made loud noise... to downtrodden 'strongman' regimes
as mere tokens of friendly 'solidarity fo'ever or whatever. Simple facts... such as...
due to an unfortunate episode in fellow neo-Bolshevik statecapitalist paradise Sinostan...
the neo-Bolshie paradise on the Muscovy is facing a collapse of its bread earner gas n oil
sales... such that the only thing tween it and yet abother state bankruptcy... is the
burgeoning Russian armaments industry! Selling guns and munitions to downtrodden strongman
regimes is the last best hope it seems... for a Russia foiled at every turn by Urusalems
steady burnnnn
and with a neo-mercantilist flourish which it has clearly learned... from watching the
chinks perform their 'resource extractive' shakedown ... of shaky regimes around the
world.... Moscow now seeks to extract from cash poor states which need guns with which to
threaten either their own citizens, or those of neighboring states..
UUUGE concessions in the form of .... diamonds, metals, petroleum resources... or
strategic real estate... in return for its deadly 'product line!' All of which is 'totally
fine'... if you read tween lines...
so that ...WHEN EVIL CHABADDY talmudic GANGSTERS living in the wester world... peddle
their wares of weaponry to weirdo regimes.... THAT IS .... A BAD THANG!
BUT butt... when evil chabbaddy talmudic oilygarch GANGTAS WITH RUSSKY PASSPORTS do the
peddlin.... with the approval of the Kremlin puppet regime...
its all GOOD!
HE HE HEH... WHO really buys into this ******** anyhoo? Only an echo chamber o tiresome
russo-talmudic trolls workin the board nite n day!
America is far from a Christian nation. No nation that murders babies for body parts is a
Christian nation (yes abortion funded by the government and the part being sold). America
will feel the rather of God for that.
Those helicopters just look like junk--total pieces of ****. I know two guys who saw them
up close and personal--not even as advanced inside as US gear in the late '60s.
Too bad your state of da art militrary couldn't take down goat herders in Afghanistan
after 20 years. The Russians at least pulled out after 10 years. Does that mean America is
doubly stoopid?
Don't kid yourself. Putin is smart, probably the smartest leader out there. But what
motivates him are the best interests of Russia. He doesn't care much about Friendships, not
with Iran, not with Syria or Israel...
...certainly now at the lowest point since the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a
new government.
U.S meddling and regime change- nothing new.
Besides- anyone buying Russian military equipment will get much more 'bang for their buck'
compared to over-priced, failure ridden U.S (((M.I.C))) crap.
Baghdad and Moscow have been in talks to deliver either Russia's advanced S-400 or S-300
anti-air missile defense systems
I don't think those systems are that advanced. Both are quite old. I'm sure US (and
Israel) have the means to jam and neutralize both those system, about the same as the
Israelis evade the whole Syrian air defense system.
"Lowest point since the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a new government."
There's the problem right there, the JUSA thinks "their type of Government" has to be
accepted by Iraqi's. This is why amongst countless other thing Iraqi's have had it with the
JUSA.
Russia can't sail past or through Turkey while also being at war with them, which is what
they are going to have to do if they want to stop Turkey from taking Syrian (then Iraqi, then
Kuwaiti, then Saudi) oil fields, in the absence of a US presence in the region.
Putin suks as much Netanyahu dik as Trump. And the dum arz Christians in Russia, much like
US Christians dont give a faq!! Christians have been ignorant sheep to dictators for 2000
years!
...except the Russians are not complete morons to let themselves get screwed like the US.
Just ask the people of Venezuela how Russia has 'saved' their country.
no single military in the world can beat the usa military but a coalition of many of them
will kick zionazi ***. putin is building a real coalition of the willing to counter the dying
zionazi empire.
A great many awakening people continue to be in thrall to the cult of personality that's
been built around Vladimir Putin. They have passively and uncritically accepted the endless
barrage of Putin-worshiping propaganda put out by sellouts in the alternative media, and they
have not bothered to look into things for themselves. If you are one of these people, take a
moment to set down emotionally-held beliefs and open your mind.
1. Russia, unlike the U.S, is building a lot of civilian industries and Putin recently
asked his military factories to adjust to other civilian industries and requirements- The U.S
is going in the opposite direction.
2. This is already happening- other countries have seen how loyal Russia has been to their
promises to the Assad government. The U.S turns on a dime as is convenient in any given
week.
3. To the frustration of the axis of evil (US-Saudi-Occupied Palestine) this has been
Russians biggest success to date.
I have always wondered why the world that is being sanctioned does not hack and attack the
US financial system more. Maybe just a matter of time. You cant tell me that Malta, The
Caymans, Panama and others are not vulnerable!
That's coming. First they had to build their own system. Destroying the Anglo-American
financial system without an alternative is like cutting off your air supply while 200 feet
underwater.
Yes, indeed. Why WOULDN'T the Iraqis seek relations with ANY country outside the sphere of
their destroyers to bond with? The Iraqi people, though "primitive" by our standards, are
still human beings with as much right to grow, develop and live as we zombies of Zionism in
the once noble West. We, of course, will be propagandized to the contrary. They will be shown
as "terrorists" or "Russiaphiles" if they dare to resist the mantle of tyranny imposed on
them by the Israeli/U.S. forces.
If USA imposes sanctions on too many countries, then USA will end up sanctioning
itself.
Iraq is now producing close to 5 million barrels of oil a day, most of which is for
export. If USA sanctions this oil production and sale, then some countries will need to
choose between paying sky high prices for oil, or pay for Iraqi oil in alternative currencies
and ignore US sanctions.
5 million barrels of oil a day even Saudi Arabia doesn't have the capacity to replace.
And if alternative currencies become popular for buying and selling oil, then US ability
to run trade deficits and budget deficits will be curtailed by declining US dollar and higher
interest rates for borrowing in US dollars in international markets.
There is a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those
they serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are
based on faulty inputs. Needless to say it's even worse when they believe they can
create their own reality and invent outcomes out of whole cloth.
Things seldom go as planned in these circumstances.
President Trump was sold a bill of goods on the assassination of Iran's
revered military leader, Qassim Soleimani, likely by a cabal around Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and the
long-discredited neocon David Wurmser. A former Netanyahu advisor and Iraq war
propagandist, Wurmser reportedly sent memos to his mentor, John Bolton, while Bolton was
Trump's National Security Advisor (now, of course, he's the hero of the #resistance for having
turned on his former boss) promising that killing Soleimani would be a cost-free operation that
would catalyze the Iranian people against their government and bring about the long-awaited
regime change in that country. The murder of Soleimani – the architect of the defeat of
ISIS – would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them
upon which the [Iranian] regime depends for stability and survival," wrote Wurmser.
As is most often the case with neocons, he was dead wrong.
The operation was not cost-free. On the contrary. Assassinating Soleimani on Iraqi soil
resulted in the Iraqi parliament – itself the product of our "bringing democracy" to the
country – voting to expel US forces even as the vote by the people's representatives was
roundly rejected by the people who brought the people the people's representatives. In a manner
of speaking.
Trump's move had an effect opposite to the one promised by neocons. It did not bring
Iranians out to the street to overthrow their government – it catalyzed opposition across
Iraq's various political and religious factions to the continued US military presence and
further tightened Iraq's relationship with Iran. And short of what would be a catastrophic war
initiated by the US (with little or no support from allies), there is not a thing Trump can do
about it.
Iran's retaliatory attack on two US bases in Iraq was initially sold by President Trump as
merely a pin-prick. No harm, no foul, no injuries. This despite the fact that he must have
known about US personnel injured in the attack. The reason for the lie was that Trump likely
understands how devastating it would be to his presidency to escalate with Iran. So the truth
began to trickle out slowly – 11 US military members were injured, but it was just "like
a headache." Now we know that 50 US troops were treated for traumatic brain injury after the
attack. This may not be the last of it – but don't count on the mainstream media to do
any reporting.
The Iranian FARS news agency reported at the time of the attack that US personnel had been
injured and the response by the US government was to completely take that media outlet off the
Internet
by order of the US Treasury !
Last week the US House
voted to cancel the 2002 authorization for war on Iraq and to prohibit the use of funds for
war on Iran without Congressional authorization. It is a significant, if largely symbolic, move
to rein in the oft-used excuse of the Iraq war authorization for blatantly unrelated actions
like the assassination of Soleimani and Obama's
thousands of airstrikes on Syria and Iraq .
President Trump has argued that prohibiting funds for military action against Iran actually
makes war more likely, as he would be restricted from the kinds of
military-strikes-short-of-war like his attack on Syria after the alleged chemical attack in
Douma in 2018 (claims which have recently
fallen apart ). The logic is faulty and reflects again the danger of believing one's own
propaganda. As we have seen from the Iranian military response to the Soleimani assassination,
Trump's military-strikes-short-of-war are having a ratchet-like effect rather than a
pressure-release or deterrent effect.
As the financial and current events analysis site ZeroHedge
put it recently:
[S]ince last summer's "tanker wars", Trump has painted himself into a corner on Iran,
jumping from escalation to escalation (to this latest "point of no return big one" in the
form of the ordered Soleimani assassination) -- yet all the while hoping to avoid a major
direct war. The situation reached a climax where there were "no outs" (Trump was left with
two 'bad options' of either back down or go to war).
The Iranians have little to lose at this point and America's European allies are, even if
impotent, fed up with the US obsession with Saudi Arabia and Israel as a basis for its Middle
East policy.
So why open this essay with a photo of Trump celebrating his dead-on-arrival "Deal of The
Century" for Israel and Palestine? Because this is once again a gullible and weak President
Trump being led by the nose into the coming Middle East conflagration. Left without even a
semblance of US sympathy for their plight, the Palestinians after the roll-out of this "peace"
plan will again see that they have no friends outside Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. As Israel
continues to flirt with the idea of simply annexing large parts of the West Bank, it is
clear that the brakes are off of any Israeli reticence to push for maximum control over
Palestinian territory. So what is there to lose?
Trump believes he's advancing peace in the Middle East, while the excellent Mondoweiss
website rightly
observes that a main architect of the "peace plan," Trump's own son-in-law Jared Kushner,
"taunts Palestinians because he wants them to reject his 'peace plan.'" Rejection of the plan
is a green light to a war of annihilation on the Palestinians.
It appears that the center may not hold, that the self-referential echo chamber that passes
for Beltway "expert" analysis will again be caught off guard in the consequence-free profession
that is neocon foreign policy analysis. "Gosh we didn't see that coming!" But the next day they
are back on the teevee stations as great experts.
It is hard to believe that Trump has any confidence in Jared Kushner. Yet, he does enough
to go public with a one-sided plan developed without Palestinian input.
a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those they
serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are
based on faulty inputs.
The same is true of the economists and financial analysts who live in the bubble of the
NSYE and the echo chamber of Manhattan. All of their conclusions are based on faulty
inputs.
If Trump continues to be 'dumb' enough to consistently hire these people and
consistently listen to them, and if his supporters continue to be dumb enough to
consistently believe all the lies and excuses, then Trump and his supporters are 100%
involved in the neoCON.
"nice" Americans: .. Here is a sample of nice Americans who want to control our breath:
Pompeo , Fri 24 Jan 2020: "You Think Americans Really Give A F**k About Ukraine?"
Michael Richard Pompeo (57 y.o.) is the United States secretary of state. He is a former
United States Army officer and was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from January
2017 until April 2018
Nuland , earlier than Feb 2014: "Fuck the EU."
Victoria Jane Nuland (59 y.o) is the former Assistant Secretary of State for European
and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State. She held the rank of Career
Ambassador, the highest diplomatic rank in the United States Foreign Service. She is the
former CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and is also a Member of the
Board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
"... I think they were trying to start a war when they killed Soleimani, and the Iranians decided to use it against them instead. Which is smart. Neocons talk a lot but they are not smart. They are bullies and cowards. ..."
Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 30 2020 23:02 utc | 124
I think they were trying to start a war when they killed Soleimani, and the Iranians
decided to use it against them instead. Which is smart. Neocons talk a lot but they are not
smart. They are bullies and cowards.
At present what I notice is what you do, there is a lot going on, but you won't find it in
the MSM. They are busy reducing their audience share with propaganda.
They kicked the jams out when they droned Soleiman. No more "deals".
But I expect Iran to do these things while this is going on:
1.) Annoy Trump and his minions and USG political class as much as possible, stay in their
face.
2.) Watch, and help their "proxies" work on making life unbearable in the Middle East for
us.
The Houthis seem to have just kicked the shit out of the Saudi coalition again. Quite a
few damaged ships and down aircraft reports too, not just Afghanistan.
The House voted 236 to 166 to kill the 2002 Authorization for Military Force (AUMF) on
Iraq. The law was drafted during the presidency of George W. Bush to authorize the 2003
invasion of Iraq, and has been used by subsequent administrations to continue military
activity in the country – most recently to justify the US drone assassination of
Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad earlier this month.[.]
The bill was one of two pieces of legislation passed by the House on Thursday aimed at
curbing Trump's warmaking powers. Prior to its passage, a bill prohibiting Trump from using
federal funds for "unauthorized military force against Iran" cleared the House floor, again
along party lines, with a vote of 228-175.[.]
"... Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and "Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without corroborating sources." ..."
"... According to what we know, a Hezbollah agent conducted years of surveillance on potential targets , and alleged sleeper agents within U.S. cities have so far not been activated, even in the wake of Iranian Quds force General Soleimani's death and the series of crippling sanctions the Trump administration has put on Iran. ..."
Why is Pompeo suddenly directing increasingly heated rhetoric towards Iran and its proxies
in South America?
"Anti-Iran hawks like Pompeo like to emphasize that Iran is not a defensively-minded
international actor, but rather that it is offensively-minded and poses a direct threat to the
United States," said Max Abrahms, associate professor of political science at Northeastern and
fellow of the Quincy Institute said in an interview with The American Conservative. "And
so for obvious reasons, underscoring Hezbollah's international tentacles helps to sell their
argument that Iran needs to be dealt with in a military way, and that the key to dealing with
Iran is through confrontation and pressure."
Stories highlighting the role of Hezbollah in America's backyard "are almost always peddled
by anti-Iran hawks," he said.
Like Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security
Policy, who aligns with the argument that Hezbollah has been populating South America since the
days of the Islamic revolution.
"From at least the 1980s, many Lebanese fled to South America, and among that flow Hezbollah
embedded themselves," she told The American Conservative in a recent interview. Their
activity "really expanded throughout the continent" during the presidencies of Iran's Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
During that time, Lopez added, "there was a really strong relationship that developed
Iranians established diplomatic facilities, enormous embassies and consulates, embedded IRGC
cover positions and MOIS (intelligence services) within commercial companies and mosques and
Islamic centers. This took place in Brazil in particular but Venezuela also."
Iran and Hezbollah intensified their involvement throughout the region in technical services
like tunneling, money laundering, and drug trafficking. Venezuela offered Iran an international
banking work-around during the period of sanctions, said Lopez.
Obviously security analysts like Lopez and even Pompeo, have been following this for years.
But the timing here, as the Senate impeachment inquiry heats up, looks suspicious.
Last week, just as it looks increasingly likely that former national security advisor John
Bolton and Pompeo himself will be hauled before the Senate as witnesses about the foreign aid
hold-up to Ukraine, Pompeo praised Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala for designating
"Iran-backed Hezbollah a terrorist organization," and slammed Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro for embracing the terrorist group.
Hezbollah "has found a home in Venezuela under Maduro. This is unacceptable," Pompeo said
when he met with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido last week.
Asked by Bloomberg News how significant a role Hezbollah plays in the region, Pompeo
responded, "too much."
From the interview:
Pompeo : " I mentioned it in Venezuela, but in the Tri-Border Area as well. This
is again an area where Iranian influence – we talk about them as the world's largest
state sponsor of terror. We do that intentionally. It's the world's largest; it's not just a
Middle East phenomenon. So while – when folks think of Hezbollah, they typically think
of Syria and Lebanon, but Hezbollah has now put down roots throughout the globe and in South
America, and it's great to see now multiple countries now having designated Hezbollah as a
terrorist organization. It means we can work together to stamp out the security threat in the
region."
Question: "I'm struck by this, because even hearing you – what you're
saying, right, now – I mean, to take a step back, an Iranian-backed terrorist
organization has found a home in America's backyard."
Pompeo: "It's – it's something that we've been talking about for some
time. When you see the scope and reach of what the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime has
done, you can't forget they tried to kill someone in the United States of America. They've
conducted assassination campaigns in Europe. This is a global phenomenon. When we say that
Iran is the leading destabilizing force in the Middle East and throughout the world, it's
because of this terror activity that they have now spread as a cancer all across the globe.
"
Pompeo has also been publicly floating increasing sanctions on Venezuela. He called the
behavior of Maduro's government "cartel-like" and "terror-like," intensifying the sense that
there is a real security "threat" in our hemisphere.
Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and
"Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about
Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is
the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without
corroborating sources."
There's no question that Hezbollah has a presence in South America, said Abrahms, "but the
nature of its presence has been politicized."
"What this underscores is that Iran could pull the trigger, it could bloody
the U.S., including the U.S. homeland, but tends to avoid such violence. I think the question
that needs to be asked isn't just, 'where in the world could Iran commit an attack?' but
whether Iran is a rational actor that can be deterred," said Abrahms. "Interestingly, this
administration as well as its hawkish supporters tend to emphasize their belief that Iran can
in fact be deterred," since that is the logic behind "maximum pressure" against Iran, after
all. "The main causal mechanism according to advocates of maximum pressure, is that it will
force Iran as a rational actor to reconsider whether it wants to irritate the U.S By applying
economic pressure through sanctions, [they hope to] succeed in coaxing Iran to restructure the
nuclear deal and making additional concessions to the west and reigning in its activities in
the Persian Gulf and the Levant. At least on a rhetorical level, the hawks say they believe
Iran can be deterred," he said.
It would not be the first time that a president reacted to an intensifying impeachment
inquiry by redirecting national focus to threats abroad. In December 1998, as the impeachment
inquiry into then-President Bill Clinton heated up, Clinton launched airstrikes against Iraq.
We should therefore apply some caution when we see decades-old threats amplified by
administration officials.
Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security
reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She
is the author of Patton Uncovered, a book about General George Patton in World War II, and her
work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill, UK Spectator, and elsewhere. Boland is a graduate from
Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter
No problem, Putin will happily sell them superior fighter/bombers that can actually fly in
the rain and not succumb to small arms fire from the ground. He'll also equip them with the
S-400 anti-aircraft missile system that can easily knock that flying barrel of pig ****,
better known as the F-35, out of the sky with one shot..
Correction. Sadam was 'supported by the U.$. (so U.$ didn't really have to invade, except
U.$. stabbed him in the back, and Iraqi's had MUCH higher standard of living under Sadam...
until U.$. put sanctions on them and KILLED a half million Iraqi children because the 'PRICE
WAS WORTH IT' (according to *** Princess Madeleine Albright)
the trump card is not playing 6million d chess. he is playing the jewlander card of
killing the top dog over and over again as just a bloody murderous act that achieves nothing.
hamas is stronger than ever. trump is a stable genius among horses not humans.
the murder of soulmani is just another jewlander directed clusterfuck move of many
clusterfuck moves since shrub avenged the death threat to his father and the wmds that were
found to be degraded chemical weapons sold to saddam during the war with iran.
2010-2020 Was the Stalingrad for the world. The decade the empire and their americunt
fodder capitulated on all fronts. The decade that'd serve to fully turn the tie of history in
favor of those God has deemed worthy of him. The following decade is the mass decline of the
empire and its parasites till they reach the end of the precipice to feel in full the misery
they've seethed onto their victims.
They deserve to be bombed because they asked the US to leave, after destroying their
country based on a lie and then occupying it for 20 years? You are a complete *******
idiot.
Been sayin that for years bro. With the world pretty much filled up except for the tundra,
I think a good old fashioned dose of self-determination is in order. No more immigration. No
more refugees. Let every country fix their own goddamned problems and let the bodies fall
where they may. Period.
Oh yeah..? Scorched Earth??? What the **** for? Iraq never harmed the U.$. Russia never
harmed the U.$. North Korea never harmed the U.$. Iran never harmed the U.$. Venezuela never
harmed the U.$. Bolivia never harmed the U.$.!! Libya, Somalia, Vietnam etc etc etc... What
did they ever do to the U.$. And look what the **** you are doing to them. You're a *******
hypocrite. U.$. needs a good SCORCHED EARTH Policy imposed on it. And hardly a country on the
planet will shed a tear... Not even IsraHell...
This is how American Foreign Policy alienated Venezuela, Venezuela was one of the first
export customers for the F16 but sbsequently GHW Bush refused to sell Venezuela spare parts
unless they acquiesced to American pressure on oil royalties.
Venezuela shifted to Russia and has spent more than $40 Billion modernizing their
military, none of the weapons were purchased from the USA.
Funny that the locals are not happy with our gift-bearing. human pyramid-building saviors.
How so utterly ungrateful. We brought them democracy, human rights and genocide, and they now
want us out. Shame!
We should immediately send them Madeleine Albright to explain to them that the deaths of
600,000 Iraqi babies was actually a good thing and "God's work". That'll do!
Good, now the Iraqi's can get missile defense systems from Russia instead, that aren't
designed to turn off when Israel ends up attacking them. But then again, they will need no
missile defenses systems, since they have become closer allies to their former enemies, Iran
and the Saudi's, thanks to us. Winning!
We should bomb the **** out of Iraq again, destroy their military equipment, raid their
banks, blow up their refineries and then leave, because they want us to.
We should bomb the **** out of Iraq again, destroy their military equipment, raid their
banks, blow up their refineries and then leave, because they want us to.
Another Iranian journalist who writes for Mashregh newspaper, described as having
close links to IRGC, tweeted not long after the
news broke out: "We will attack them on the same level as they are attacking us."
The world weeps a hero against you parasitic scum.
Now you just need to follow it up with a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq. You can
abandon that 100 acre military compound, disguised as an embassy.
The Iraqi government want US troops out. The Iraqi people want US troops out of their
country. Shucks, even the American people want US troops out of Iraq, so they can come home
and defend our southern border.
Let the Iraqis and Iranians sort out their own differences.
If you think the isrhll held companies that own those wells give a **** about china
showing, your crazy, they own china, they funded the communist party out of jewyork.... Who
do you think got all those oil wells in syria, iraq, libya.... Genie oil and some other
inclusive board member oils companies.... They run china so they care not a bit either way,
probably thank them for the good cheap labor that knows how to read and write..
Us soldiers did not die for victory..they died for the rich! As a well known line that
often gets tossed around says...War is not meant to be won....it's meant to be continued
We will stay there so long as AIPAC, Israel, and the MIC demand that we stay there. The
dumbed down US populace won't do **** all about it as we bleed our treasure, resources, and
lives for American Corporate Imperialism and Greater Israel. Don't you Trumptards love your
Messiah delivering the greatest Middle East Piece plan of all time?
Terrorism to Turkey means the PKK/YPG Kurds in Syria which also fight Turkish forces
within Turkey and Iraq. In east Syria the Kurds are cooperating with U.S. troops who occupy
the Syrian oil resources. Turkey wants Syria to at least disarm the Kurds. The Kurds though
use their U.S. relations to demand autonomy and to prevent any agreement with the Syrian
government.
Neither Ankara nor Damascus seem yet ready to make peace. But both countries have economic
problems and will have to come to some solution. There are still ten thousand of Jihadis in
Idleb governorate that need to be cleaned out. Neither country wants to keep these people.
The export of these Jihadis to Libya which Turkey initiated points to a rather unconventional
solution to that problem.
The U.S. has still
not given up its efforts to overthrow the Syrian government through further economic
sanctions. It also
pressures Iraq to keep its troops in the country.
After the U.S. murder of the Iranian general Soleimani and the Iraqi PMU leader
al-Muhandis its position in Iraq is
under severe threat . If the U.S. were forced to leave Iraq it would also have to remove
its hold on Syria's oil. To prevent that the U.S. has reactivated its old plan to
split Iraq into three statelets :
At the height of the war in Iraq Joe Biden publicly
supported it. The original plan failed when in 2006 Hizbullah defeated Israel's attack on
Lebanon and when the Iraqi resistance overwhelmed the U.S. occupation forces.
It is doubtful that the plan can be achieved as long as the government in Baghdad is
supported by a majorities of Shia. Baghdad as well as Tehran will throw everything they have
against the plan.
After the U.S. murder of Soleimani Iran fired well aimed ballistic missiles against U.S.
forces at the Ain al Assad airbase west of Ramadi in Anbar province and against the airport
of Erbil in the Kurdish region. This because those are exactly the bases the U.S. wants to
keep control of. The missiles demonstrated that the U.S. would have to fight a whole new war
to implement and protect its plan.
From the perspective of the
resistance the new plan is just another U.S. attempt to rule the region after its many
previous attempts have failed.
Posted by b on January 28, 2020 at 16:28 UTC |
Permalink
Nine months ago, a group of Iraqi politicians and businessmen from Anbar, Salah al-Din and
Nineveh provinces were invited to the private residence of the Saudi ambassador to Jordan
in Amman.
Their host was the Saudi minister for Gulf affairs, Thamer bin Sabhan al-Sabhan, Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman's point man for the region.
It is not known whether Mohammed al-Halbousi, the speaker of parliament with ties to
both Iran and Saudi Arabia, attended the secret Amman conference, but it is said that he
was informed of the details.
On the agenda was a plan to push for a Sunni autonomous region, akin to Iraqi
Kurdistan.
The plan is not new. But now an idea which has long been toyed with by the US, as it
battles to keep Iraq within its sphere of influence, has found a new lease of life as Saudi
Arabia and Iran compete for influence and dominance.
Anbar comprises 31 percent of the Iraqi state's landmass. It has significant untapped
oil, gas and mineral reserves. It borders Syria.
If US troops were indeed to be forced by the next Iraqi government to quit the country,
they would have to leave the oil fields of northern Syria as well because it is from Anbar
that this operation is supplied. Anbar has four US military bases.
The western province is largely desert, with a population of just over two million. As
an autonomous region, it would need a workforce. This, the meeting was told, could come
from Palestinian refugees and thus neatly fit into Donald Trump's so-called "Deal of the
Century" plans to rid Israel of its Palestinian refugee problem.
Anbar is almost wholly Sunni, but Salah al-Din and Nineveh aren't. If the idea worked in
Anbar, other Sunni-dominated provinces would be next.
At least three large meetings have
already been held over the plan, the last one in the United Arab Emirates. The timing
indicates that the plan was initiated when John Bolton as Trump's national security
advisor.
Canada also has troops in the Kurdish/Erbil region. One wonders if/when Iraq will demand
they go as well, since they are part of the US-led coalition and reflect US/Israeli
geostrategic objectives there
It seems to me that in the Idlib pocket we are seeing an emerging Russian form of
offensive/deterrence military strategy when up against proxies backed by the overwhelming
force of empire.
By using proxies the empire forfeits much of its military mass advantage.
The repeated strike and ceasefire combined with continual negotiation approach negates the
hybrid/media warfare of the empire which requires a period of time to mobilize public
opinion. The empire cannot maintain more than three foci for that dis-information campaign
due to the social engineered response it has manufactured
By constantly maneuvering, especially in coordinating with friends like Xi, opportunities
of attack open up
Choosing moments of maximum empire distraction is also part of the process
This is a far cry from the classic mass formation attack strategy that most present
warfare strategists endlessly debate.
Let the empire wear out it's own heart through an abuse of the hybrid/media warfare til
it's own people vomit up the diet of fear
Unless the operatives on the US spy plane were carrying ID the Taliban can find, we'll never
know who they really were. As if we could trust that either. (remember Colonel Flagg from
MASH? New fake/cover ID every time he showed up) And funny how those "soldiers" with brain
damage from the Iranian missile strikes have disappeared of the MSM news cycle... And the
"American" interpreter's death that triggered the Soleimani assassination was a dual US/Iraqi
citizen... doesn't the US often offer citizenship to useful locals in return for betraying
their home country? Sometimes treason doesn't pay.
One of the main Taliban Twitter accounts, @Zabehulah_M33 , has posted the following tweets
(machine translated):
US invasion plane crashes in Ghazni, killing scores of officers
Following a raid today in Sadukhel district of Dehik district of Ghazni province, a US
special aircraft carrier was flying over an intelligence mission in the area.
The aircraft was destroyed with all its crew and crew, including the major US
intelligence officers (CIA).
It is noteworthy that recently, in the provinces of Helmand, Balkh and some other parts
of the country, large numbers of enemy aircraft and helicopters have fallen and fallen.
# Important News:
A Ghazni helicopter crashed in the area near Sharana, the capital of Paktika province, this
evening after the Ghazni incident.
The helicopter crew and the soldiers were all destroyed.
So Taliban has not taken responsibility for the E-11A crash (although many news
outlets are reporting it, including Russian ones). Meanwhile, yet another helicopter crashed
after the E-11A crash, so it's two crashes in one day.
If the $1.6 trillion cost of the US military being in Afghanistan is correct, then the loss
of 4 helicopters and even the E11 won't significantly increase US overall spend there. $1.6
trillion over 18 years is a tad under $250 million per day
When a colonial war goes wrong, one salient question was: who sold guns to the savages?
Among more recent examples, who explained technologically inept Iraqis how to make
IEDs?
In the case of smaller weapons, the usual suspect is responsible. NYT By C. J. Chivers
Aug. 24, 2016
... In all, Overton found, the Pentagon provided more than 1.45 million firearms to
various security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, including more than 978,000 assault rifles,
266,000 pistols and almost 112,000 machine guns. These transfers formed a collage of firearms
of mixed vintage and type: Kalashnikov assault rifles left over from the Cold War; recently
manufactured NATO-standard M16s and M4s from American factories; machine guns of Russian and
Western lineage; and sniper rifles, shotguns and pistols of varied provenance and caliber,
including a large order of Glock semiautomatic pistols, a type of weapon also regularly
offered for sale online in Iraq.
----
That said, one needs something more sophisticated against helicopters and planes. I
suspect that even if Iran were inclined to provide them to Taliban, it would not give them
their own products, and, for sure, they cannot purchase Western missiles on regular markets.
However, as valiant freedom fighters in Syria are provided with such weapons while being
woefully underpaid...
The January 2nd American assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani of Iran was an event of
enormous moment.
Gen. Soleimani had been the highest-ranking military figure in his nation of 80 million, and
with a storied career of 30 years, one of the most universally popular and highly regarded.
Most analysts ranked him second in influence only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's elderly
Supreme Leader, and there were widespread reports that he was being urged to run for the
presidency in the 2021 elections.
The circumstances of his peacetime death were also quite remarkable. His vehicle was
incinerated by the missile of an American Reaper drone near Iraq's Baghdad international
airport just after he had arrived there on a regular commercial flight for peace negotiations
originally suggested by the American government.
Our major media hardly ignored the gravity of this sudden, unexpected killing of so
high-ranking a political and military figure, and gave it enormous attention. A day or so
later, the front page of my morning New York Times was almost entirely filled with
coverage of the event and its implications, along with several inside pages devoted to the same
topic. Later that same week, America's national newspaper of record allocated more than
one-third of all the pages of its front section to the same shocking story.
But even such copious coverage by teams of veteran journalists failed to provide the
incident with its proper context and implications. Last year, the Trump Administration
had declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard "a terrorist organization," drawing widespread
criticism and even ridicule from national security experts appalled at the notion of
classifying a major branch of Iran's armed forces as "terrorists." Gen. Soleimani was a top
commander in that body, and this apparently provided the legal figleaf for his assassination in
broad daylight while on a diplomatic peace mission.
But consider that Congress has been considering
legislation declaring Russia an official state sponsor of terrorism , and Stephen Cohen,
the eminent Russia scholar, has argued that no foreign leader since the end of World War II has
been so massively demonized by the American media as Russian President Vladimir Putin. For
years, numerous agitated pundits have denounced
Putin as "the new Hitler," and some prominent figures have even called for his
overthrow or death. So we are now only a step or two removed from undertaking a public
campaign to assassinate the leader of a country whose nuclear arsenal could quickly annihilate
the bulk of the American population. Cohen has repeatedly warned that the current danger of
global nuclear war may exceed that which we faced during the days of the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis, and can we entirely dismiss such concerns?
Even if we focus solely upon Gen. Solemaini's killing and entirely disregard its dangerous
implications, there seem few modern precedents for the official public assassination of a
top-ranking political figure by the forces of another major country. In groping for past
examples, the only ones that come to mind occurred almost three generations ago during World
War II, when Czech agents assisted by the Allies assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in
1941 and the US military later shot down the plane of Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in
1943. But these events occurred in the heat of a brutal global war, and the Allied leadership
hardly portrayed them as official government assassinations. Historian David Irving reveals
that when one of Adolf Hitler's aides suggested that an attempt be made to assassinate Soviet
leaders in that same conflict, the German Fuhrer immediately forbade such practices as obvious
violations of the laws of war.
The 1914 terrorist assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of
Austria-Hungary, was certainly organized by fanatical elements of Serbian Intelligence, but the
Serbian government fiercely denied its own complicity, and no major European power was ever
directly implicated in the plot. The aftermath of the killing soon led to the outbreak of World
War I, and although many millions died in the trenches over the next few years, it would have
been completely unthinkable for one of the major belligerents to consider assassinating the
leadership of another.
A century earlier, the Napoleonic Wars had raged across the entire continent of Europe for
most of a generation, but I don't recall reading of any governmental assassination plots during
that era, let alone in the quite gentlemanly wars of the preceding 18th century when Frederick
the Great and Maria Theresa disputed ownership of the wealthy province of Silesia by military
means. I am hardly a specialist in modern European history, but after the 1648 Peace of
Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War and regularized the rules of warfare, no assassination as
high-profile as that of Gen. Soleimani comes to mind.
The bloody Wars of Religion of previous centuries did see their share of assassination
schemes. For example, I think that Philip II of Spain supposedly encouraged various plots to
assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England on grounds that she was a murderous heretic, and their
repeated failure helped persuade him to launch the ill-fated Spanish Armada; but being a pious
Catholic, he probably would have balked at using the ruse of peace-negotiations to lure
Elizabeth to her doom. In any event, that was more than four centuries ago, so America has now
placed itself in rather uncharted waters.
Different peoples possess different political traditions, and this may play a major role in
influencing the behavior of the countries they establish. Bolivia and Paraguay were created in
the early 18th century as shards from the decaying Spanish Empire, and according to Wikipedia
they have experienced nearly three dozen successful coups in their history, the bulk of these
prior to 1950, while Mexico has had a half-dozen. By contrast, the U.S. and Canada were founded
as Anglo-Saxon settler colonies, and neither history records even a failed attempt.
During our Revolutionary War, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and our other Founding
Fathers fully recognized that if their effort failed, they would all be hanged by the British
as rebels. However, I have never heard that they feared falling to an assassin's blade, nor
that King George III ever considered such an underhanded means of attack. During the first
century and more of our nation's history, nearly all our presidents and other top political
leaders traced their ancestry back to the British Isles, and political assassinations were
exceptionally rare, with Abraham Lincoln's death being one of the very few that come to
mind.
At the height of the Cold War, our CIA did involve itself in various secret assassination
plots against Cuba's Communist dictator Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders considered
hostile to US interests. But when these facts later came out in the 1970s, they evoked such
enormous outrage from the public and the media, that three consecutive American presidents --
Gerald R.
Ford , Jimmy
Carter , and Ronald Reagan -- issued successive
Executive Orders absolutely prohibiting assassinations by the CIA or any other agent of the US
government.
Although some cynics might claim that these public declarations represented mere
window-dressing, a
March 2018 book review in the New York Times strongly suggests otherwise. Kenneth M.
Pollack spent years as a CIA analyst and National Security Council staffer, then went on to
publish a number of influential books on foreign policy and military strategy over the last two
decades. He had originally joined the CIA in 1988, and opens his review by declaring:
One of the very first things I was taught when I joined the CIA was that we do not conduct
assassinations. It was drilled into new recruits over and over again.
Yet Pollack notes with dismay that over the last quarter-century, these once solid
prohibitions have been steadily eaten away, with the process rapidly accelerating after the
9/11 attacks of 2001. The laws on our books may not have changed, but
Today, it seems that all that is left of this policy is a euphemism.
We don't call them assassinations anymore. Now, they are "targeted killings," most often
performed by drone strike, and they have become America's go-to weapon in the war on
terror.
The Bush Administration had conducted 47 of these assassinations-by-another-name, while his
successor Barack Obama, a constitutional scholar and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, had raised his
own total to 542. Not without justification, Pollack wonders whether assassination has become
"a very effective drug, but [one that] treats only the symptom and so offers no cure."
Thus over the last couple of decades American policy has followed a very disturbing
trajectory in its use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy, first restricting its use
to only the most extreme circumstances, next targeting small numbers of high-profile
"terrorists" hiding in rough terrain, then escalating those same such killings to the many
hundreds. And now under President Trump, the fateful step has been taken of America claiming
the right to assassinate any world leader not to our liking whom we unilaterally declare worthy
of death.
Pollack had made his career as a Clinton Democrat, and is best known for his 2002 book
The Threatening Storm that strongly endorsed President Bush's proposed invasion of Iraq
and was enormously
influential in producing bipartisan support for that ill-fated policy. I have no doubt that
he is a committed supporter of Israel, and he probably falls into a category that I would
loosely describe as "Left Neocon."
But while reviewing a history of Israel's own long use of assassination as a mainstay of its
national security policy, he seems deeply disturbed that America might be following along that
same terrible path. Less than two years later, our sudden assassination of a top Iranian leader
demonstrates that his fears may have been greatly understated.
The book being reviewed was Rise and Kill First by New York Times reporter
Ronen Bergman, a weighty study of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, together
with its sister agencies. The author devoted six years of research to the project, which was
based upon a thousand personal interviews and access to some official documents previously
unavailable. As suggested by the title, his primary focus was Israel's long history of
assassinations, and across his 750 pages and thousand-odd source references he recounts the
details of an enormous number of such incidents.
That sort of topic is obviously fraught with controversy, but Bergman's volume carries
glowing cover-blurbs from Pulitzer Prize-winning authors on espionage matters, and the official
cooperation he received is indicated by similar endorsements from both a former Mossad chief
and Ehud Barak, a past Prime Minister of Israel who himself had once led assassination squads.
Over the last couple of decades, former CIA officer Robert Baer has become one of our most
prominent authors in this same field, and he praises the book as "hands down" the best he has
ever read on intelligence, Israel, or the Middle East. The reviews across our elite media were
equally laudatory.
Although I had seen some discussions of the book when it appeared, I only got around to
reading it a few months ago. And while I was deeply impressed by the thorough and meticulous
journalism, I found the pages rather grim and depressing reading, with their endless accounts
of Israeli agents killing their real or perceived enemies, with the operations sometimes
involving kidnappings and brutal torture, or resulting in considerable loss of life to innocent
bystanders. Although the overwhelming majority of the attacks described took place in the
various countries of the Middle East or the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank
and Gaza, others ranged across the world, including Europe. The narrative history began in the
1920s, decades before the actual creation of the Jewish Israel or its Mossad organization, and
ranged up to the present day.
The sheer quantity of such foreign assassinations was really quite remarkable, with the
knowledgeable reviewer in the New York Times suggesting that the Israeli total over the
last half-century or so seemed far greater than that of any other country. I might even go
farther: if we excluded domestic killings, I wouldn't be surprised if the body-count exceeded
the combined total for that of all other major countries in the world. I think all the lurid
revelations of lethal CIA or KGB Cold War assassination plots that I have seen discussed in
newspaper stories might fit comfortably into just a chapter or two of Bergman's extremely long
book.
Trump outlived his shelf life. Money quote: "This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a
point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring
the world in 4 more years."
Notable quotes:
"... Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making ..."
"... This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years. ..."
"... besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course. ..."
"... So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions. ..."
"... Trump stands no chance if things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote. ..."
"... Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way out. ..."
"... Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I can't vote for either. Both spread chaos. ..."
"... President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC ..."
"... His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 - 15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year. ..."
"... Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and successful. ..."
President Trump will easily be acquitted in the senate trial. This may occur this week and
there will probably be no witnesses called. That will be an additional victory for him and will
add to the effect of his trade deal victories and the general state of the US economy. These
factors should point to a solid victory in November for him and the GOP in Congress.
Ah! Not so fast the cognoscenti may cry out. Not so fast. The Middle East is a graveyard of
dreams:
1. Iraq. Street demonstrations in Iraq against a US alliance are growing more
intense. There may well have been a million people in Muqtada al-Sadr's extravaganza. Shia
fury over the death of Soleimani is quite real. Trump's belief that in a contest of the will he
will prevail over the Iraqi Shia is a delusion, a delusion born of his narcissistic personality
and his unwillingness to listen to people who do not share his delusions. A hostile Iraqi
government and street mobs would make life unbearable for US forces there.
2. Syria. The handful of American troops east and north of the Euphrates "guarding"
Syrian oil from the Syrian government are in a precarious position with the Shia Iraqis at
their backs across the border and a hostile array of SAA, Turks, jihadis and potentially
Russians to their front and on their flanks.
3. Palestine. The "Deal of the Century" is approaching announcement. From what is
known of its contours, the deal will kill any remaining prospects for Palestinian statehood and
will relegate all Palestinians (both Israeli citizens and the merely occupied) to the status of
helots forever . Look it up. In return the deal will offer the helotry substantial bribes in
economic aid money. Trump evidently continues to believe that Palestinians are
untermenschen . He believe they will sell their freedom. The Palestinian Authority has
already rejected this deal. IMO their reaction to the imposition of this regime is likely to be
another intifada.
Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn
Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making . pl
Could it be true? If that is the case, it´s more scary than Elora thought when that of Soleimani
happened....This starts to look as a frenopatic...isn´t it?
With Iran and her allies holding the figurative Trump Card on escalation, will they ramp up
the pressure to topple him? They could end up with a Dem who couldn't afford to "lose" Syria
or Iraq.
I submit to you, Colonel, that the biggest threat to Trump is a Bernie/Tulsi ticket. Bernie
is leading in the Iowa and NH polls, and the recent spat with Warren (in my opinion) leaves
Bernie with no viable choice for VP other than Tulsi.
Thank you Colonel; I have been waiting for your take on this.
And thank you for opening the comments again. If there is a problem with my post, please
point them out to me.
And i agree. This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a
point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring
the world in 4 more years.
Still, immigration is another important issue, but besides much talk and showmastery, he
has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously
change the course.
So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and
ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his
intentions.
And China? He may have changed some small to medium problems for the better, but nothing
is changed in the overall trend of the US continuing to loose while China emerges as the next
global superpower.
It may have been slowed for some years; It may even have been accelerated, now that China
has been waken up to the extend of the threat posed by the US.
North Korea? They surely will never denuclearize. Even less after how Trump showed the
world how he treats international law and even allies.
With Trump its all photo ops and showmanship. And while he senses what issues are
important, it is worth a damn if he butchers the execution, or values photo ops more than
substantial progress.
Not that i would see a democratic alternative. No. But at least now everyone who wants to
know can see, that he is neither one.
4 years ago, democracy was corrupted, but at least there was someone who presented himself
as an alternative to that rotten establishment.
Now, even that small ray of light is as dark as it gets.
And that is the saddest thing. What worth is democracy, when one does not even have a true
alternative, besides Tulsi on endless wars, and Bernie for the socialist ;) ?
I just have watched again the Ken Burns documentary of the civil war. I know it is not
perfect (Though i love Shelby Foote's parts), but the sense of the divided 2 Americas there,
is still the same today. Today, America seems to break apart culturally, socially and
economically on the fault lines that have sucked it into the civil war over 150 years
ago.
And just like with seeing no real way out politically, i sadly can see no way to heal and
unite this country, as it never was truly united after the civil war, if not ever before. As
you Colonel said some weeks ago, the US were never a nation.
And looking at other countries, only a major national crisis may change this.
A most sad realization. But this hold true also for other western countries, including my
own.
The economy is actually quite good and he is NOT "a dictator." Dictators are not put on
trial by the legislature. He is extremely ignorant and suffers from a life in which only
money mattered.
Once Bernie wins the nomination, it's going to be escalation time. Trump stands no chance if
things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote.
I'm starting to think that Trumps weakness is believing that everyone and everything has a
monetary price. I think perhaps his dealings with China may reinforce his perception, as,
also, his alleged success in bullying the Europeans over Iran -- with the threat of tariffs on
European car imports. His almost weekly references to Iraqi and Syrian oil, allies "not
paying their way", financial threats to the Iraq Government, all suggest a fixation on
finance that has served him well in business.
The trouble is that one day President Trump is going to discover there is something money
can't buy, to the detriment of America.
Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy
both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are
sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be
contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way
out.
Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with
Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality
clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I
can't vote for either. Both spread chaos.
My subconscious is again acting out. The mini-WWIII with Iran could shut off Middle
Eastern oil at any time. The Fed is back to injecting digital money into the market. China
has quarantined 44 million people. Global trade is fragile. Today there are four cases of
Wuhan Coronavirus in the USA.
If confirmed that the virus is contagious without symptoms and
an infected person transmits the virus to 2 to 3 people and with a 3% mortality rate and a
higher 15% rate for the infirmed, the resupply trip to Safeway this summer could be both
futile and dangerous.
It's an old story. Mr X is elected POTUS; going to do this and that; something happens in the
MENA. That's all anyone remembers.
Maybe time to kiss Israel goodbye, tell SA to sell in whatever currency it wants, and realise that oil producers have to sell
the stuff -- it's no good to them in the ground...
President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC -- and much of the
Department of Commerce & Treasury. His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 -
15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to
Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the
President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year.
Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to
fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his
economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and
successful.
Carthage must be destroyed! I don't know if Trump is going to war with Iran willingly or with
a Neocon gun to his head, but if he's impeached I expect Pence to go on a holy crusade.
In case you have missed this. Here is an excellent interview of Elijah Magnier on a broad
range of issues related to Iran, Iraq and US policy. This link was previously posted by
another commenter but I am reposting it because it is so informative. I apologize for not I
remembering the name of the original poster was.
U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths sounded relieved in a briefing to the Security
Council this week,
noting that even after the American airstrike that killed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, "the immediate crisis seems to be over Yemen
has been kept safe."
Griffiths may have spoken too soon.
Yemen has been an increasingly important and tragic theater in the confrontation between
Iran, the United States, and their respective clients in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates at the head of an intervening coalition on one side and the Houthis
backed by Iran on the other. What will happen in Yemen following the killing of Soleimani and
the escalation in tensions between the United States and Iran? And how can Yemen's civil war be
insulated from the regional fallout?
News
emerged late last week that the United States also targeted Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior
Quds commander, in Yemen. Had the strike succeeded, the Houthis or other Iranian-aligned forces
in Yemen would almost certainly have had to respond, threatening an unruly escalation spiral.
Instead, the operation was unsuccessful, and Iran's measured reaction was limited to Iraq.
Nevertheless, the airstrike is unlikely to have put Houthi leadership in a conciliatory
mood.
Ismaeil Ghaani, who served as Soleimani's deputy for decades, was quickly named Soleimani's
replacement as head of the Quds Force. Following decades of leadership of the Quds Force,
Ghaani is unlikely to deviate from Iran's approach of using proxies to push
against opponents in the retaliation for Soleimani's killing.
At the same time, there is reason to hope that Yemen can avoid Iranian-backed escalation.
But avoiding another round of escalation in Yemen's civil war will
require the active participation of the United States and regional actors.
Yemen's Fragile Status Quo
One year after representatives of the Houthis and of Yemen's internationally-recognized
government agreed to a limited ceasefire as part of the Stockholm Agreement, little concrete progress to implement the
agreement has been made: Hodeidah, the port area at the center of the agreement, is still the
most dangerous place in the country for civilians. Likewise, the Riyadh Agreement, which
sought to
patch a split between the official government and southern separatists supported by the
United Arab Emirates, is
faltering and
in danger of total collapse.
Nevertheless, just a few weeks ago there were
reasons to be cautiously optimistic that, after years of failed negotiations, the Saudi-led
coalition's intervention in Yemen may have been winding down. Soleimani's assassination
threatens to undo this fragile and halting progress. While Iraq remains the most likely arena
for Iranian retaliation against the United States and its partners, Iranian officials also see
their relationship with the Houthis as a mechanism for dialing pressure on its opponents up or
down while maintaining plausible deniability for any particular attack. Yemen may therefore be
a site of Iranian escalation in the coming weeks and months. Indeed, the Houthis expressed
support for Iran and
promised to respond "promptly and swiftly" to the airstrike. Whatever its form, public
retaliation risks upsetting the nascent negotiations over Yemen's forgotten war.
What Will Happen Now in Yemen?
Iran is well aware that it would be badly overmatched in a conventional conflict, and is
therefore
likely to avoid all-out war with the United States. Rather, Iran's leadership is likely to
retaliate via the asymmetric resources that Tehran -- in an effort led by Soleimani and the
Quds Force -- has successfully cultivated in the region.
The Houthis have assumed greater importance in Tehran's regional strategy in recent years.
Their geographic proximity to Saudi Arabia (and decades-long history of antagonistic
relations) provides Iran with a convenient way to antagonize a long-time rival on its
southern
border and to retaliate horizontally for attacks on its partners in Syria. The relationship
confers what Austin Carson calls escalation control
: By maintaining plausible deniability, Tehran can signal its displeasure at American policies
while giving opponents a face-saving way to avoid further reprisals, thereby dampening the risk
of further escalation. Indeed, the recent strike on Saudi Aramco facilities claimed by the
Houthis (but
likely perpetrated by Iran) is indicative of this dynamic. The attack allowed Tehran to
push back against the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign while affording both
sides an off-ramp.
There are a few reasons to expect that Tehran could turn to Yemen as it formulates its
response to Soleimani's assassination. While Iran's leadership signaled that its retaliation
would end after the missile strikes on bases in Iraq, analysts note that
Iran is likely to return to its "
forward defense " strategy of working through proxies to push back against what its
leadership sees as American aggression in the region.
Ramping up Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would allow Iran to
signal its displeasure with Washington while attempting to avoid escalation that could lead to
a conventional war. This would be consistent with the forward defense strategy and Tehran's
past behavior in the region. Additionally, by coalescing domestic support, the American strike
may empower
hardliners in the Iranian regime who favor regional escalation.
And although the Houthis certainly receive significant support from Iran in the form of
material support, as well as advice and training from Hizballah operatives on the ground, they
are not as strategically close to Iran as other proxies like Hizballah are thought to be. As a
recent
New America report notes, "there is little evidence of firm Iranian command and control.
Iran's reported provision of missiles and drones shapes the conflict, but its roots are local
and would not disappear were Iran to fully abandon the Houthis." Even
U.S. officials have sought to draw a distinction between Iranian and Houthi leadership in
recent months.
Yet there are cautious signs that Houthi leadership could be willing to play along by
following Iran's lead in this instance: Just a few days before the assassination of Soleimani,
Houthi officials cautioned that targets within Saudi and Emirati territory remain on their
list of potential military targets, suggesting a willingness to escalate. And, after the
strike, Houthi leadership called for reprisals
against the United States.
But the region's reaction to the Aramco attack -- which saw the Emiratis pursuing quiet
talks with Iran and Saudi Arabia negotiating with the Houthis -- also provides reason to hope
that regional actors may work together to head off Iranian escalation in Yemen.
First, the Houthis' relative autonomy from Iranian command-and-control gives them some
leeway to resist pressure to escalate, although the failed U.S. strike in Yemen may affect this
calculus. Confronted with the choice of either retaliating on Tehran's behalf, at the risk of
inciting Saudi re-entry into the war, or resisting the external pressure, thereby preserving
the odds of a favorable settlement, the Houthi leadership may decide to bet on the latter.
Second, while Saudi commentators delighted in the blow to their regional opponent, the
Kingdom has publicly cautioned against
escalation and
reportedly urged the Trump administration to exercise restraint. This signals that the Arab
Gulf states may continue in the more cautiously de-escalatory approach that they have taken on
Yemen over the past several months, as the United Arab
Emirates and
Sudan began to withdraw troops from Yemen, Saudi Arabia
negotiated with the Houthis, and the tempo of Saudi airstrikes declined precipitously.
As much as they vehemently oppose Iranian influence in the region, both Saudi and Emirati
leadership want to avoid a direct confrontation with Iran, especially after the Trump
administration's erratic policies have made it clear that they may not get American backing in
such a confrontation. In other words, the factors that contributed to the intervening
coalition's de-escalatory tendencies a few months ago are still relevant, even after the
escalation in tensions between the United States and Iran.
The United States is well-positioned to reinforce de-escalatory dynamics in Yemen and
support the nascent peace process there. The recent de-escalation in Yemen has shown that
pressure works: Although both the Obama and Trump administrations initially supported the
Saudi-led intervention, Congressional threats to leverage
arms sales and invoke the War Powers Act to
end American material support for the intervention in 2019 subdued Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and
opened a new juncture in the conflict. The U.S. military
ended its provision of aerial refueling to the Saudi-led coalition following the murder of
journalist Jamal Khashoggi in late 2018, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly
pressured Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to negotiate a political settlement to the
war in the lead-up to the Stockholm Agreement. While some of this de-escalatory behavior is
attributable to a gradual acknowledgement that this war cannot be won, much can be attributed
to U.S. pressure as well. Washington therefore can -- and should -- continue to pressure its
regional partners to reach a negotiated agreement. The recent House vote
invoking the War Powers Act with regards to Iran -- and supportive
statements from a cross-party range of senators -- indicates that Congress is willing to
maintain pressure on the administration to avoid escalation in the region, even in the midst of
ongoing presidential impeachment proceedings.
Players in the region will also continue to play a critical role in Yemen in the weeks and
months ahead. Saudi and Emirati leaders are tired of the resource and reputational drain of a
war that appears increasingly unwinnable, leading to their willingness to draw down the
coalition's intervention. With international support, regional actors like Oman and even the
Gulf Cooperation Council can
act as mediators and guarantors to deter potential spoilers and help implement any
agreement.
Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said's untimely death this past weekend is another potentially
complicating factor here. Under Qaboos, Oman has played an important behind-the-scenes role in
the negotiations that led to the nuclear agreement, and brokered negotiations between the Saudi
Arabia and the Houthis beginning this past fall. Qaboos cut a unique figure in the
region, acting as a mediator who had both the stature and credibility to broker agreements
between warring parties in the region. His death and the drama around succession
created some doubt about whether anyone would be able to take his place. Yet the new sultan
Haitham bin Tariq, who was quickly sworn in, has pledged to continue Qaboos' diplomatic path.
Leaders from across the region traveled to Muscat to
pay their condolences to the new sultan, cementing the peaceful transition. This continuity is
a hopeful sign that Oman can continue to play a productive role as regional mediator.
Finally, policymakers shouldn't forget about Yemeni actors themselves. While most western
analysis of the conflict in Yemen focuses on the third-party intervention, this perspective
neglects the indigenous dynamics that led to the outbreak of the civil war in the first place.
The focus on external intervention is not without good reason, since regional actors
dramatically exacerbated the conflict and prevented an earlier resolution. Yet the civil war in
Yemen began over
local issues around governance and resource-sharing, and it will not end without solving
these underlying issues, thus undercutting potential
spoilers .
Additionally, years of fighting has created a patchwork of
splintered militia groups and local governance institutions that will prove very difficult to
knit back together into a coherent, functioning polity. A resumption of local fighting could
act as an invitation for external actors to intervene again, leading to a resumption of
conflict. It is therefore essential for mediation efforts to take these local issues into
account.
Over the past century, Yemen has often been a site for actors in the region to play out
their own conflicts. A relapse in fighting in Yemen could provide future grounds for
intervention and will act as a driver of regional instability. By contrast, ending the war in
Yemen will eliminate a critical source of Iranian leverage in the Gulf.
Dr. Alexandra Stark is asenior researcherat New
America. She was previously a research fellow at the Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and a USIP-Minerva Peace and Security
Scholar.
"... But U.S. adversaries were watching closely. As advanced technologies inexorably became cheaper and more widely available, the U.S. monopoly on these capabilities started to erode. By 2016, for example, eight countries other than the United States had conducted armed drone attacks , including Iran, Pakistan, and Nigeria. By 2019, Russia and two other countries joined this exclusive club. And at least one non-state actor has already used an armed drone for a targeted killing. According to one estimate, 27 other countries currently possess armed drones while dozens of states and non-state actors have unarmed drones . These capabilities can now be used against specific individuals even in the absence of large intelligence networks, thanks to the constant streams of personal information flowing from personal phones , fitness trackers , and other devices. ..."
The fiery explosions from the recent U.S. drone attack that killed
Iranian general Qassem Soleimani have sent shock waves reverberating across the Middle East.
Those same shocks should now be rippling through the American national security establishment
too. The strike against the man widely considered the second-most powerful leader of a
long-standing U.S. adversary was unprecedented, and its ultimate effects remain unknown. But
regardless of what happens next, one thing is certain: The United States has now made it even
more likely that American military and civilian leaders will be targeted by future U.S. foes.
As a result, the United States will have to dramatically improve the ways in which it protects
those leaders and rethink how it commands its forces on the battlefield.
Over the last 20 years, the United States has been able to target and kill specific
individuals almost anywhere around the world, by matching an increasingly advanced array of
precision weapons with a strikingly effective intelligence system. It has employed this
capability
frequently , especially across the greater Middle East ,
as it has sought to eliminate senior leaders of the Taliban insurgency or highly placed
terrorists directing jihadist cells. And it has been able to pursue this decapitation strategy
with impunity, because it has held a monopoly on this bespoke use of force. Not even the most
powerful states could attempt the types of complex targeted strikes that the U.S. military and
CIA conducted so routinely.
But U.S. adversaries were watching closely. As advanced technologies inexorably became
cheaper and more widely available, the U.S. monopoly on these capabilities started to erode. By
2016, for example, eight countries other than the United States had
conducted armed drone attacks , including Iran, Pakistan, and Nigeria. By 2019, Russia and
two other countries joined this exclusive club. And at least one
non-state actor has already used an armed drone for a targeted killing. According to one
estimate, 27 other countries currently possess
armed drones while dozens of states and non-state actors have unarmed
drones . These capabilities can now be used against specific individuals even in the
absence of large intelligence networks, thanks to the constant streams of personal information
flowing from personal
phones , fitness
trackers , and other devices.
The Soleimani strike has given potential U.S. adversaries every reason to accelerate their
efforts to develop similar capabilities. Moreover, these same adversaries can now justify their
own future targeted killings by invoking this U.S. precedent. Sooner or later -- and probably
sooner -- senior U.S. civilian and military leaders will become vulnerable to the same types of
decapitation strikes that the United States has inflicted on others. Enemies will almost
certainly attempt to target and kill U.S. officials during any future major war, and such
attacks will likely become a part of future irregular conflicts as well. Though such strikes
would dangerously escalate any conflict, committed adversaries of the United States may still
find that the advantages outweigh the costs, especially if they can plausibly deny
responsibility or if the strength of their resolve makes them willing to accept any resulting
consequences.
In the face of this growing threat, what does the United States need to do in order to
protect its key military and civilian leaders from a potential decapitation strike? Here are
some potential first steps.
Improve personal protection for senior leaders. The president and the vice president are
well protected against a myriad of threats by the Secret Service, but levels of protection
quickly diminish for those who work beneath them. A number of senior officials, including
cabinet officials and the chiefs of the military services, have their own security details,
but those focus primarily on providing traditional physical security. They typically offer
little if any protection against newly emerging threats such as a targeted missile attack or
swarming suicide drones. Most senior military and civilian leaders have no security at all,
and they and their family members (like most other Americans) are constantly emitting
electronic signals that give away their location. Improving their protection will require
rethinking nearly every aspect of their daily lives, especially their extensive
vulnerabilities when traveling. For example, the obtrusive motorcades and conspicuous convoys
of black SUVs currently favored by many senior U.S. officials may need to be replaced with
lower visibility alternatives, to include employing decoys that travel along multiple routes
in high risk situations.
Harden key meeting locations, headquarters, and transition points. U.S. adversaries will
be particularly interested in targeting locations where numbers of senior military and
civilian leaders gather. Many such locations today in the United States and overseas are not
sufficiently hardened against attack. The locations of most offices and meeting spaces are
either publicly available or easily found, and few are protected from any sort of aerial
attack. (At a minimum, senior officials should stop having their photos taken in front of
their offices where the room number is
clearly visible .) And even hardened command centers usually have key vulnerabilities at
entrances and exits, and at exposed transition points between different modes of
transportation (such as airfield aprons). Ironically, current U.S. military security measures
can unintentionally make leaders more vulnerable in other ways. Shortly after the
Soleimani strike, for example, many U.S. military bases imposed
stricter security measures at their entry points, including extensive identification
checks and reducing the number of open gates. These reflexive measures caused
long traffic backups that spilled
onto local roads and highways -- which made everyone entering the bases far more
vulnerable as they sat in these traffic jams. Any senior leader stuck in those lines would
have become a remarkably easy target with no clear avenues of escape.
Exercise wartime succession in the U.S. military chain of command. Combatant commanders
and other senior military officers often use high-level wargames to validate key war plans
and operational concepts. Yet most exercises and simulations deliberately avoid removing
senior commanders from the battlefield, which reinforces the flawed notion that they will
always be in charge. This problem also extends to the tactical level, where commanders of
brigades, divisions, and corps are rarely assessed as casualties. Exercises at all levels
need to regularly include scenarios where one or more senior commanders are killed or
incapacitated, to test succession plans and to ensure that subordinates gain valuable
leadership experience.
Further decentralize battlefield command and control. The military chain of command
necessarily relies upon centralized control, with commanders directing the actions of their
subordinates. The U.S. military does decentralize some authority through concepts like
mission command , which
empower subordinates to make independent decisions about the best ways to achieve the
commander's overall intent. Yet as we've
written
extensively elsewhere , the military's growing culture of compliance and risk aversion
already undermines this critical principle, and modern command and control systems make it
far
too easy for senior commanders to intervene in routine tactical operations. In an
environment where senior commanders can be individually targeted and killed, truly
decentralized authority becomes absolutely vital -- and even efforts to
reinvigorate mission command may no longer be sufficient. One recent article, for
example, called for an entirely new,
bottom-up approach to command and control that would build resilience and speed by
reducing the reliance on a small number of increasingly vulnerable senior leaders.
The U.S. government needs to acknowledge that its senior leaders are becoming more
vulnerable to targeted attacks, and that the Soleimani attack will only accelerate the
determination of U.S. adversaries to be able to conduct similar attacks themselves. Yet threats
like this are too easily discounted or ignored until it is too late. The
U.S. government must recognize the grave dangers of this threat before it occurs. It needs to
protect its senior officials more effectively, and ensure that the military chain of command
will continue to function effectively after one or more commanders are killed by a targeted
strike.
Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, U.S. Army (ret.) and Dr. Nora Bensahel are visiting professors
of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and senior
fellows at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. They are also contributing editors
at War on the Rocks , where their column appears monthly.Sign up for Barno and Bensahel's Strategic Outpost
newsletterto track their articles as well as their public events.
Editor's Note: Due to an internal error, we published the near-final version of this
article rather than the final version. While the differences between the two drafts are minor,
we apologize for the error and have fixed our mistake. The final version of this article is now
published below.
"... But even I was flabbergasted by what Trump did. Absolutely gobsmacked. Killing Qassem Soleimani, Iranian general, leader of the Quds forces, and the most respected military leader in the Middle East? And ..."
"... The first thing, the thing that is so sad and so infuriating and so centrally symptomatic of everything wrong with American political culture, is that, with painfully few exceptions, Americans have no idea of what their government has done. They have no idea who Qassem Soleimani was, what he has accomplished, the web of relationships, action, and respect he has built, what his assassination means and will bring. The last person who has any clue about this, of course, is Donald Trump, who called Soleimani " a total monster ." His act of killing Soleimani is the apotheosis of the abysmal, arrogant ignorance of U.S. political culture. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Whatever their elected governments say, we'll will keep our army in Syria to "take the oil," and in Iraq to well, to do whatever the hell we want. ..."
"... Sure, we make the rules and you follow our orders. ..."
I've been writing and speaking for months about the looming danger of war with Iran, often to
considerable skepticism.
In June, in an essay entitled "
Eve of
Destruction: Iran Strikes Back ," after the U.S. initiated its "maximum pressure" blockade of
Iranian oil exports, I pointed out that "Iran considers that it is already at war," and that the
downing of the U.S. drone was a sign that "Iran is calling the U.S. bluff on escalation
dominance."
In an October
essay , I pointed out that Trump's last-minute calling off of the U.S. attack on Iran in
June, his demurral again after the Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities, and his announced
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria were seen as "catastrophic" and "a big win for Iran" by the
Iran hawks in Israel and America whose efforts New York Times (NYT) detailed in an
important article, " The Secret History
of the Push to Strike Iran ." I said, with emphasis, " It always goes to Iran ," and
underlined that Trump's restraint was particularly galling to hard-line zionist Republican
Senators, and might have opened a path to impeachment. I cited the reported
statement
of a "veteran political consultant" that "The price of [Lindsey] Graham's support would be an
eventual military strike on Iran."
And in the middle of December, I went way out on a limb, in
an essay suggesting
a possible relation between preparations for war in Iran and the impeachment process. I pointed
out that the strategic balance of forces between Israel and Iran had reached the point where
Israel thinks it's "necessary to take Iran down now ," in "the next six months," before
the Iranian-supported Axis of Resistance accrues even more power. I speculated that the need to
have a more reliable and internationally-respected U.S. President fronting a conflict with Iran
might be the unseen reason -- behind the flimsy Articles of Impeachment -- that explains why
Pelosi and Schumer "find it so urgent to replace Trump before the election and why they
think they can succeed in doing that."
So, I was the guy chicken-littling about impending war with Iran.
But even I was flabbergasted by what Trump did. Absolutely gobsmacked. Killing Qassem
Soleimani, Iranian general, leader of the Quds forces, and the most respected military leader in
the Middle East? And Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, Iraqi commander of the Popular Mobilization
Forces (PMF) unit, Kataib Hezbollah? Did not see that coming. Rage. Fear. Sadness.
Anxiety. A few days just to register that it really happened. To see the millions of people
bearing witness to it. Yes, that happened.
Then there was the anxious anticipation about the Iranian response, which came surprisingly
quickly, and with admirable military and political precision, avoiding a large-scale war in the
region, for the moment.
That was the week that was.
But, as the man said: "It ain't over 'til it's over." And it ain't over. Recognizing the
radical uncertainty of the world we now live in, and recognizing that its future will be
determined by actors and actions far away from the American leftist commentariat, here's what I
need to say about the war we are now in.
The first thing, the thing that is so sad and so infuriating and so centrally symptomatic
of everything wrong with American political culture, is that, with painfully few exceptions,
Americans have no idea of what their government has done. They have no idea who Qassem Soleimani
was, what he has accomplished, the web of relationships, action, and respect he has built, what
his assassination means and will bring. The last person who has any clue about this, of course,
is Donald Trump, who called Soleimani "
a total monster ." His act of killing Soleimani is the apotheosis of the abysmal, arrogant
ignorance of U.S. political culture.
It's virtually impossible to explain to Americans because there is no one of comparable
stature in the U.S. or in the West today. As Iran cleric Shahab Mohadi
said , when talking about what a "proportional response" might be: "[W]ho should we consider
to take out in the context of America? 'Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spider-Man
and SpongeBob? 'All of their heroes are cartoon characters -- they're all fictional." Trump?
Lebanese Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah said what many throughout the world familiar with both of
them would agree with: "the shoe of Qassem Soleimani is worth the head of Trump and all American
leaders."
To understand the respect Soleimani has earned, not only in Iran (where his popularity was
around
80% ) but throughout the region and across political and sectarian lines, you have to know
how he led and organized the forces that helped save
Christians ,
Kurds , Yazidis and others from being
slaughtered by ISIS, while Barack Obama and John Kerry were still "
watching " ISIS advance and using it as a tool
to "manage" their war against Assad.
In an informative
interview
with Aaron Maté, Former Marine Intelligence Officer and weapons inspector, Scott Ritter,
explains how Soleimani is honored in Iraq for organizing the resistance that saved Baghdad from
being overrun by ISIS -- and the same could be said of Syria, Damascus, or Ebril:
He's a legend in Iran, in Iraq, and in Syria. And anywhere where, frankly speaking, he's
operated, the people he's worked with view him as one of the greatest leaders, thinkers, most
humane men of all time. I know in America we demonize him as a terrorist but the fact is he
wasn't, and neither is Mr. Mohandes.
When ISIS [was] driving down on the city of Baghdad, the U.S. armed and trained Iraqi Army had
literally thrown down their weapons and ran away, and there was nothing standing between ISIS and
Baghdad
[Soleimani] came in from Iran and led the creation of the PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces] as
a viable fighting force and then motivated them to confront Isis in ferocious hand-to-hand combat
in villages and towns outside of Baghdad, driving Isis back and stabilizing the situation that
allowed the United States to come in and get involved in the Isis fight. But if it weren't for
Qassem Soleimani and Mohandes and Kataib Hezbollah, Baghdad might have had the black flag of ISIS
flying over it. So the Iraqi people haven't forgotten who stood up and defended Baghdad from the
scourge of ISIS.
So, to understand Soleimani in Western terms, you'd have to evoke someone like World War II
Eisenhower (or Marshall Zhukov, but that gets another blank stare from Americans.) Think I'm
exaggerating? Take it from the family of the Shah
:
Beyond his leadership of the fight against ISIS, you also have to understand Soleimani's
strategic acumen in building the Axis of Resistance -- the network of armed local groups like
Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the PMF in Iraq, that Soleimani helped organize and provide with
growing military capability. Soleimani meant standing up; he helped people throughout the region
stand up to the shit the Americans, Israelis, and Saudis were constantly dumping on them
More apt than Eisenhower and De Gaulle, in world-historical terms, try something like Saladin
meets Che. What a tragedy, and travesty, it is that legend-in-his-own-mind Donald Trump killed
this man.
Dressed to Kill
But it is not just Trump, and not just the assassination of Soleimani, that we should focus
on. These are actors and events within an ongoing conflict with Iran, which was ratcheted up when
the U.S. renounced the nuclear deal (JCPOA – Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and
instituted a "maximum pressure" campaign of economic and financial sanctions on Iran and
third countries, designed to drive Iran's oil exports to zero.
The purpose of this blockade is to create enough social misery to force Iran into compliance,
or provoke Iran into military action that would elicit a "justifiable" full-scale,
regime-change -- actually state-destroying -- military attack on the country.
From its inception, Iran has correctly understood this blockade as an act of war, and has
rightfully expressed its determination to fight back. Though it does not want a wider war, and
has so far carefully calibrated its actions to avoid making it necessary, Iran will
fight back however it deems necessary.
The powers-that-be in Iran and the U.S. know they are at war, and that the Soleimani
assassination ratcheted that state of war up another significant notch; only Panglossian American
pundits think the "w" state is yet to be avoided. Sorry, but the United States drone-bombed an
Iranian state official accompanied by an Iraqi state official, in Iraq at the invitation of the
Iraqi Prime Minister, on a conflict-resolution mission requested by Donald Trump himself. In
anybody's book, that is an act of war -- and extraordinary treachery, even in wartime, the
equivalent of shooting someone who came to parley under a white flag.
Indeed, we now know that the assassination of Soleimani was only one of two known
assassination attempts against senior Iranian officers that day. There was also an unsuccessful
strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, another key commander in Iran's Quds Force who has been
active in Yemen. According to the
Washington Post , this marked a "departure for the Pentagon's mission in Yemen,
which has sought to avoid direct involvement" or make "any publicly acknowledged attacks on
Houthi or Iranian leaders in Yemen."
Of course, because it's known as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," the Pentagon wants
to avoid "publicly" bloodying its hands in the Saudi war in Yemen. Through two presidential
administrations, it has been trying to minimize attention to its indispensable support of, and
presence in, Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen with
drone strikes ,
special
forces operations , refueling of aircraft, and intelligence and targeting. It's such a nasty
business that even the U.S. Congress
passed a bipartisan
resolution to end U.S. military involvement in that war, which was vetoed by Trump.
According to the ethic and logic of American exceptionalism, Iran is forbidden from helping
the Houthis, but the U.S. is allowed to assassinate their advisors and help the Saudis bomb the
crap out of them.
So, the Trump administration is clearly engaged in an organized campaign to take out senior
Iranian leaders, part of what it considers a war against Iran. In this war, the Trump
administration no longer pretends to give a damn about any fig leaf of law or ethics. Nobody
takes seriously the phony "imminence" excuse for killing Soleimani, which even
Trump say s "doesn't matter," or the "bloody hands" justification, which could apply to any
military commander. And let's not forget: Soleimani was "
talking about bad stuff ."
The U.S. is demonstrating outright contempt for any framework of respectful international
relations, let alone international law. National sovereignty? Democracy? Whatever their
elected governments say, we'll will keep our army in Syria to "take the oil," and in Iraq to
well, to do whatever the hell we want. "Rules-based international order"? Sure, we make
the rules and you follow our orders.
The U.S.'s determination to stay in Iraq, in defiance of the
explicit, unequivocal
demand of the friendly democratic government that the U.S. itself supposedly invaded the
country to install, is particularly significant. It draws the circle nicely. It demonstrates that
the Iraq war isn't over. Because it, and the wars in Libya and Syria, and the war that's
ratcheting up against Iran are all the same war that the U.S. has been waging in the
Middle East since 2003. In the end is the beginning, and all that.
We're now in the endgame of the serial offensive that
Wesley Clark described in
2007, starting with Iraq and "finishing off" with Iran. Since the U.S. has attacked, weakened,
divided, or destroyed every other un-coopted polity in the region (Iraq, Syria, Libya) that could
pose any serious resistance to the predations of U.S. imperialism and Israel colonialism, it has
fallen to Iran to be the last and best source of material and military support which allows that
resistance to persist.
And Iran has taken up the task, through the work of the Quds Force under leaders like
Soleimani and Shahlai, the work of building a new Axis of Resistance with the capacity to resist
the dictates of Israel and the U.S. throughout the region. It's work that is part of a
war and will result in casualties among U.S. and U.S.-allied forces and damage to their
"interests."
What the U.S. (and its wards, Israel and Saudi Arabia) fears most is precisely the kind of
material, technical, and combat support and training that allows the Houthis to beat back the
Saudis and Americans in Yemen, and retaliate with stunningly accurate blows on crucial oil
facilities in Saudi Arabia itself. The same kind of help that Soleimani gave to the armed forces
of Syria and the PMF in Iraq to prevent those countries from being overrun and torn apart by the
U.S. army and its sponsored jihadis, and to Hezbollah in Lebanon to deter Israel from demolishing
and dividing that country at will.
It's that one big "endless" war that's been waged by every president since 2003, which
American politicians and pundits have been scratching their heads and squeezing their brains to
figure out how to explain, justify (if it's their party's President in charge), denounce (if it's
the other party's POTUS), or just bemoan as "senseless." But to the neocons who are driving it
and their victims -- it makes perfect sense and is understood to have been largely a
success. Only the befuddled U.S. media and the deliberately-deceived U.S. public think it's
"senseless," and remain enmired in the
cock-up theory
of U.S. foreign policy, which is a blindfold we had better shed before being led to the next very
big slaughter.
The one big war makes perfect sense when one understands that the United States has thoroughly
internalized Israel's interests as its own. That this conflation has been successfully driven by
a particular neocon faction, and that it is excessive, unnecessary and perhaps disruptive to
other effective U.S. imperial possibilities, is demonstrated precisely by the constant plaint
from non-neocon, including imperialist, quarters that it's all so "senseless."
The result is that the primary object of U.S. policy (its internalized zionist
imperative) in this war is to enforce that Israel must be able, without any threat of serious
retaliation, to carry out any military attack on any country in the region at any time, to seize
any territory and resources (especially water) it needs, and, of course, to impose any level of
colonial violence against Palestinians -- from home demolitions, to siege and sniper killings
(Gaza), to de jure as well as de facto apartheid and eventual further mass
expulsions, if deems necessary.
That has required, above all, removing -- by co-option, regime change, or chaotogenic
sectarian warfare and state destruction -- any strong central governments that have provided
political, diplomatic, financial, material, and military support for the Palestinian resistance
to Israeli colonialism. Iran is the last of those, has been growing in strength and influence,
and is therefore the next mandatory target.
For all the talk of "Iranian proxies," I'd say, if anything, that the U.S., with its
internalized zionist imperative, is effectively acting as Israel's proxy.
It's also important, I think, to clarify the role of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in this policy. KSA is
absolutely a very important player in this project, which has been consistent with its interests.
But its (and its oil's) influence on the U.S. is subsidiary to Israel's, and depends entirely on
KSA's complicity with the Israeli agenda. The U.S. political establishment is not overwhelmingly
committed to Saudi/Wahhabi policy imperatives -- as a matter, they think, of virtue -- as they
are to Israeli/Zionist ones. It is inconceivable that a U.S. Vice-President would
declare "I am a
Wahhabi," or a U.S. President
say
"I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die" for Saudi Arabia -- with
nobody even noticing . The U.S. will turn on a dime against KSA if Israel wants it; the
reverse would never happen. We have to confront the primary driver of this policy if we are to
defeat it, and too many otherwise superb analysts, like Craig Murray, are mistaken and
diversionary, I think, in saying things like the assassination of Soleimani and the drive for war
on Iran represent the U.S. "
doubling
down on its Saudi allegiance ." So, sure, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Batman
and Robin.
Iran has quite clearly seen and understood what's unfolding, and has prepared itself for the
finale that is coming its way.
The final offensive against Iran was supposed to follow the definitive destruction of the
Syrian Baathist state, but that project was interrupted (though not yet abandoned) by the
intervention of Syria's allies, Russia and Iran -- the latter precisely via the work of Soleimani
and the Quds Force.
Current radical actions like the two assassination strikes against Iranian Quds Force
commanders signal the Trump administration jumping right to the endgame, as that neocon hawks
have been " agitating for
." The idea -- borrowed, perhaps from Israel's campaign of
assassinating Iranian scientists -- is that killing off the key leaders who have supplied and
trained the Iranian-allied networks of resistance throughout the region will hobble any strike
from those networks if/when the direct attack on Iran comes.
Per Patrick
Lawrence , the Soleimani assassination "was neither defensive nor retaliatory: It reflected
the planning of the administration's Iran hawks, who were merely awaiting the right occasion to
take their next, most daring step toward dragging the U.S. into war with Iran." It means that war
is on and it will get worse fast.
It is crucial to understand that Iran is not going to passively submit to any such bullying.
It will not be scared off by some "bloody nose" strike, followed by chest-thumping from Trump,
Netanyahu, or Hillary about how they will "
obliterate " Iran. Iran knows all that. It also knows, as I've said
before , how little damage -- especially in terms of casualties -- Israel and the U.S. can
take. It will strike back. In ways that will be calibrated as much as possible to avoid a larger
war, but it will strike back.
Iran's strike on Ain al-Asad base in Iraq was a case in point. It was preceded by a warning
through Iraq that did not specify the target but allowed U.S. personnel in the country to hunker
down. It also demonstrated deadly precision and determination, hitting specific buildings where
U.S. troops work, and, we now know, causing at least eleven acknowledged casualties.
Those casualties were minor, but you can bet they would have been the excuse for a large-scale
attack, if the U.S. had been entirely unafraid of the response. In fact, Trump did
launch that attack over the downing of a single unmanned drone -- and Pompeo and the neocon crew,
including Republican Senators, were "
stunned " that he
called it off in literally the last
ten minutes . It's
to the eternal shame of what's called the "left" in this country that we may have
Tucker
Carlson to thank for Trump's bouts of restraint.
There Will Be Blood
But this is going to get worse, Pompeo is now
threatening Iran's leaders that "any attacks by them, or their proxies of any identity, that
harm Americans, our allies, or our interests will be answered with a decisive U.S. response."
Since Iran has ties of some kind with most armed groups in the region and the U.S. decides what
"proxy" and "interests" means, that means that any act of resistance to the U.S., Israel, or
other "ally" by anybody -- including, for example, the Iraqi PMF forces who are likely to
retaliate against the U.S. for killing their leader -- will be an excuse for attacking Iran.
Any anything. Call it an omnibus threat.
The groundwork for a final aggressive push against Iran began back in June, 2017, when, under
then-Director Pompeo, the CIA set up a stand-alone
Iran
Mission Center . That Center
replaced
a group of "Iran specialists who had no special focus on regime change in Iran," because "Trump's
people wanted a much more focused and belligerent group." The purpose of this -- as of any --
Mission Center was to "elevate" the country as a target and "bring to bear the range of the
agency's capabilities, including covert action" against Iran. This one is especially concerned
with Iran's "increased capacity to deliver missile systems" to Hezbollah or the Houthis that
could be used against Israel or Saudi Arabia, and Iran's increased strength among the Shia
militia forces in Iraq. The Mission Center is headed by Michael D'Andrea, who is perceived as
having an "aggressive stance toward Iran." D'Andrea, known as "the undertaker" and "
Ayatollah Mike ," is himself a
convert to Islam, and
notorious for his "central role in the agency's torture and targeted killing programs."
This was followed in December, 2017, by the signing of a
pact with Israel "to
take on Iran," which took place, according to Israeli television, at a "secret" meeting at the
White House. This pact was designed to coordinate "steps on the ground" against "Tehran and its
proxies." The biggest threats: "Iran's ballistic missile program and its efforts to build
accurate missile systems in Syria and Lebanon," and its activity in Syria and support for
Hezbollah. The Israelis considered that these secret "dramatic understandings" would have "far
greater impact" on Israel than Trump's more public and notorious recognition of Jerusalem as
Israeli's capital.
The Iran Mission Center is a war room. The pact with Israel is a war pact.
The U.S. and Israeli governments are out to "take on" Iran. Their major concerns, repeated
everywhere, are Iran's growing military power, which underlies its growing political influence --
specifically its precision ballistic missile and drone capabilities, which it is sharing with its
allies throughout the region, and its organization of those armed resistance allies, which is
labelled "Iranian aggression."
These developments must be stopped because they provide Iran and other actors the ability to
inflict serious damage on Israel. They create the unacceptable situation where Israel cannot
attack anything it wants without fear of retaliation. For some time, Israel has been reluctant to
take on Hezbollah in Lebanon, having already been driven back by them once because the Israelis
couldn't take the casualties in the field. Now Israel has to worry about an even more
battle-hardened Hezbollah, other well-trained and supplied armed groups, and those damn
precision missiles . One cannot overstress how important those are, and how adamant the U.S.
and Israel are that Iran get rid of them. As another Revolutionary Guard commander
says :
"Iran has encircled Israel from all four sides if only one missile hits the occupied lands,
Israeli airports will be filled with people trying to run away from the country."
This campaign is overseen in the U.S. by the likes of "
praying
for war with Iran " Christian Zionists Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence, who together "
urged " Trump to approve the killing of Soleimani. Pence, whom the Democrats are trying to
make President, is associated with Christians United For Israel (CUFI), which paid for his and
his wife's pilgrimage to Israel in 2014, and is run by lunatic televangelist John Hagee, whom
even John
McCain couldn't stomach. Pompeo,
characterized
as the "brainchild" of the assassination, thinks Trump was sent by God to save
Israel from Iran. (Patrick Lawrence
argues
the not-implausible case that Pompeo and Defense Secretary Esper ordered the assassination and
stuck Trump with it.) No Zionists are more fanatical than Christian Zionists. These guys are not
going to stop.
And Iran is not going to surrender. Iran is no longer afraid of the escalation dominance game.
Do not be fooled by peace-loving illusions -- propagated mainly now by mealy-mouthed European and
Democratic politicians -- that Iran will return to what's described as "unconditional"
negotiations, which really means negotiating under the absolutely unacceptable condition of
economic blockade, until the U.S. gets what it wants. Not gonna happen. Iran's absolutely correct
condition for any negotiation with the U.S. is that the U.S. return to the JCPOA and lift all
sanctions.
Also not gonna happen, though any real peace-loving Democratic candidate would specifically
and unequivocally commit to doing just that if elected. The phony peace-loving poodles of
Britain, France, and Germany (the EU3) have already
cast their lot with the aggressive American policy, triggering a dispute mechanism that will
almost certainly result in a " snapback " of full UN
sanctions on Iran within 65 days, and destroy the JCPOA once and for all. Because, they, too,
know Iran's nuclear weapons program is a fake issue and have "always searched for ways to put
more
restrictions on Iran, especially on its ballistic missile program." Israel can have all the
nuclear weapons it wants, but Iran must give up those conventional ballistic missiles. Cannot
overstate their importance.
Iran is not going to submit to any of this. The only way Iran is going to part with its
ballistic missiles is by using them. The EU3 maneuver will not only end the JCPOA, it may
drive
Iran out of the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As Moon of Alabama says, the
EU3 gambit is "not designed to reach an agreement but to lead to a deeper conflict" and ratchet
the war up yet another notch. The Trump administration and its European allies are -- as FDR did
to Japan -- imposing a complete economic blockade that Iran will have to find a way to break out
of. It's deliberately provocative, and makes the outbreak of a regional/world war more likely.
Which is its purpose.
This certainly marks the Trump administration as having crossed a war threshold the Obama
administration avoided. Credit due to Obama for forging ahead with the JCPOA in the face of
fierce resistance from Netanyahu and his Republican and Democratic acolytes, like Chuck Schumer.
But that deal itself was built upon false premises and extraordinary conditions and procedures
that -- as the current actions of the EU3 demonstrate -- made it a trap for Iran.
With his Iran policy, as with Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, what Trump is doing -- and can
easily demonstrate -- is taking to its logical and deadly conclusion the entire
imperialist-zionist conception of the Middle East, which all major U.S. politicians and media
have embraced and promulgated over decades, and cannot abandon.
With the Soleimani assassination, Trump both allayed some of the fears of Iran war hawks in
Israel and the
U.S. about his "reluctance to flex U.S. military muscle" and re-stoked all their fears
about his impulsiveness, unreliability, ignorance, and crassness. As the the
Christian Science Monitor reports, Israel leaders are both "quick to praise" his
action and "having a crisis of confidence" over Trump's ability to "manage" a conflict
with Iran -- an ambivalence echoed in every U.S. politician's "Soleimani was a terrorist, but "
statement.
Trump does exactly what the narrative they all promote demands, but he makes it look and sound
all thuggish and scary. They want someone whose rhetorical finesse will talk us into war on Iran
as a humanitarian and liberating project. But we should be scared and repelled by it.
The problem isn't the discrepancy in Trump between actions and attitudes, but the duplicity in
the fundamental imperialist-zionist narrative. There is no "good" -- non-thuggish, non-repellent
way -- way to do the catastrophic violence it demands. Too many people discover that only after
it's done.
Trump, in other words, has just started a war that the U.S. political elite constantly brought
us to the brink of, and some now seem desperate to avoid, under Trump's leadership . But
not a one will abandon the zionist and American-exceptionalist premises that make it inevitable
-- about, you know, dictating what weapons which countries can "never" have. Hoisted on their own
petard. As are we all.
To be clear: Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. This is the war
that, as the NYTreports ,
"Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for." It will start, upon
some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks
on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on
Iran -- which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it's becoming
almost impossible to avoid.
The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense
treaty right now. But that's not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for
Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United
States.
There are massive street demonstrations in Baghdad today calling for the exit of U.S.
troops from the country. The demonstrations are in response to call for protests from Muqtada
al-Sadr. Estimates of the crowd size vary, but it is a huge turnout of Iraqis that wants us
gone:
100's of thousands protest in Baghdad, calling for all US troops to leave Iraq, close all
bases & embassies, if they don't they will be considered an occupying force. pic.twitter.com/C3CqBqpxyD
Some more photos of the march by Sadrists today in Baghdad, the turnout is huge by any
measure, perhaps the largest in #Baghdad so far,
and perhaps the most noticeable aspect is the lack of violence and troubles despite the scale
of it #IraqProtests
#Iraq #US pic.twitter.com/2xXGk2dSVY
The Trump administration has violated Iraqi sovereignty earlier this month by taking
military action inside Iraq against both Iraqis militias and the Iranian government without
Baghdad's consent, and their government wants our forces out of the country. Sadr has
considerable influence in Iraqi politics, and he has wanted U.S. forces out for a long time.
When opponents of our military presence can organize such huge popular demonstrations, it is
time for us to go. The U.S. should have withdrawn from Iraq years ago, and it would have been
better to leave on our own terms. Now the U.S. cannot stay without provoking armed opposition
from Iraqis to our continued presence.
So far the administration position has been to threaten Iraq with punishment for upholding
its own sovereignty. That's a disgraceful and imperialist position to take, and it is also an
untenable one. There have been enough American wars in Iraq. Trump should yield to the Iraqi
government's wishes and bring these troops home before any more Americans are injured or killed
as a result of his destructive Iran policy.
Daniel Larison is a
senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New
York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review ,
Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and
Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the
University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter . email
AP tried to downplay the protests, reporting only 'hundreds. There must be close to a
million people out there (as reported by the Baghdad Chief of Police) and the fact that
Sadr and the other Iraqi Shia militias can organize this massive demonstrations proves that
the assassination of Soleimani, the protector of Syria and Iraq's Christians, did
absolutely nothing to drive a wedge between the various Iraqi Shia militia groups, the vast
majority of which are not Iranian sponsored but true Iraqi national patriots.
There is never a bad time to leave a country that we never should have invaded and
occupied. Not that I expect wisdom, common sense,or basic morality from a foreign policy
establishment that formulated a strategy for the Middle East, saw that it would entail the
genocide of Christians, Yezidis, and other minorities, and decided, "That's a price worth
paying."
It's amazing all the money in the State Department and other intelligence agencies should be
attracting the best minds. Yet a bunch of us sitting here watching this from our boring
office jobs realize how genuinely stupid US foreign policy has been.
A separate Sunni state in West Iraq would be doomed. We need to leave these people alone,
we've made enough foolish mistakes and this will get a lot of people killed. That's along
with US troops being put in harms way for ridiculous reasons like stealing Syrian oil and now
occupying Iraq against their parliaments wishes.
Back in the day you told someone you were American and they wanted to shake your hand and
ask you about this place or that. Now they want to spit in our faces
"... The US President Donald Trump assassinated the commander of the "Axis of the Resistance", the (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) IRGC – Quds Brigade Major General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport with little consideration of the consequences of this targeted killing. It is not to be excluded that the US administration considered the assassination would reflect positively on its Middle Eastern policy. Or perhaps the US officials believed the killing of Sardar Soleimani would weaken the "Axis of the Resistance": once deprived of their leader, Iran's partners' capabilities in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen would be reduced. Is this assessment accurate? ..."
The US President Donald Trump assassinated the commander of the "Axis of the
Resistance", the (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) IRGC – Quds Brigade Major General
Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport with little consideration of the consequences of this
targeted killing. It is not to be excluded that the US administration considered the
assassination would reflect positively on its Middle Eastern policy. Or perhaps the US
officials believed the killing of Sardar Soleimani would weaken the "Axis of the Resistance":
once deprived of their leader, Iran's partners' capabilities in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
and Yemen would be reduced. Is this assessment accurate?
A high-ranking source within this "Axis of the Resistance" said " Sardar Soleimani was the direct and fast track link
between the partners of Iran and the Leader of the Revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei. However, the
command on the ground belonged to the national leaders in every single separate country. These
leaders have their leadership and practices, but common strategic objectives to fight against
the US hegemony, stand up to the oppressors and to resist illegitimate foreign intervention in
their affairs. These objectives have been in place for many years and will remain, with or
without Sardar Soleimani".
"In Lebanon, Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah leads Lebanon and is
the one with a direct link to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He supports Gaza, Syria,
Iraq and Yemen and has a heavy involvement in these fronts. However, he leads a large number
of advisors and officers in charge of running all military, social and relationship affairs
domestically and regionally. Many Iranian IRGC officers are also present on many of these
fronts to support the needs of the "Axis of the Resistance" members in logistics, training
and finance," said the source.
In Syria, IRGC officers coordinate with Russia, the Syrian Army, the Syrian political
leadership and all Iran's allies fighting for the liberation of the country and for the defeat
of the jihadists who flocked to Syria from all continents via Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. These
officers have worked side by side with Iraqi, Lebanese, Syrian and other nationals who are part
of the "Axis of the Resistance". They have offered the Syrian government the needed support to
defeat the "Islamic State" (ISIS/IS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda and other jihadists or those of similar
ideologies in most of the country – with the exception of north-east Syria, which is
under US occupation forces. These IRGC officers have their objectives and the means to achieve
a target already agreed and in place for years. The absence of Sardar Soleimani will hardly
affect these forces and their plans.
In Iraq, over 100 Iranian IRGC officers have been operating in the country at the official
request of the Iraqi government, to defeat ISIS. They served jointly with the Iraqi forces and
were involved in supplying the country with weapons, intelligence and training after the fall
of a third of Iraq into the hands of ISIS in mid-2014. It was striking and shocking to see the
Iraqi Army, armed and trained by US forces for over ten years, abandoning its positions and
fleeing the northern Iraqi cities. Iranian support with its robust ideology (with one of its
allies, motivating them to fight ISIS) was efficient in Syria; thus, it was necessary to
transmit this to the Iraqis so they could stand, fight, and defeat ISIS.
The Lebanese Hezbollah is present in Syria and Yemen, and also in Iraq. The Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked Sayyed Nasrallah to provide his country with officers to stand
against ISIS. Dozens of Hezbollah officers operate in Iraq and will be ready to support the
Iraqis if the US forces refuse to leave the country. They will abide by and enforce the
decision of the Parliament that the US must leave by end January 2021. Hezbollah's long warfare
experience has resulted in painful experiences with the US forces in Lebanon and Iraq
throughout several decades and has not been forgotten.
Sayyed Nasrallah, in his latest speech, revealed the presence in mid-2014 of Hezbollah
officials in Kurdistan to support the Iraqi Kurds against ISIS. This was when the same Kurdish
Leader Masoud Barzani announced that it was due to Iran that the Kurds received weapons to
defend themselves when the US refused to help Iraq for many months after ISIS expanded its
control in northern Iraq.
The Hezbollah leaders did not disclose the continuous visits of Kurdish representatives to
Lebanon to meet Hezbollah officials. In fact, Iraqi Sunni and Shia officials, ministers and
political leaders regularly visit Lebanon to meet Hezbollah officials and its leader.
Hezbollah, like Iran, plays an essential role in easing the dialogue between Iraqis when these
find it difficult to overcome their differences together.
The reason why Sayyed Nasrallah revealed the presence of his officers in Kurdistan when
meeting Masoud Barzani is a clear message to the world that the "Axis of the Resistance"
doesn't depend on one single person. Indeed, Sayyed Nasrallah is showing the unity which reigns
among this front, with or without Sardar Soleimani. Barzani is part of Iraq, and Kurdistan
expressed its readiness to abide by the decision of the Iraqi Parliament to seek the US forces'
departure from the country because the Kurds are not detached from the central government but
part of it.
Prior to his assassination, Sardar Soleimani prepared the ground to be followed (if killed
on the battlefield, for example) and asked Iranian officials to nominate General Ismail Qaani
as his replacement. The Leader of the revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei ordered Soleimani's wish
to be fulfilled and to keep the plans and objectives already in place as they were. Sayyed
Khamenei, according to the source, ordered an "increase in support for the Palestinians and, in
particular, to all allies where US forces are present."
Sardar Soleimani was looking for his death by his enemies and got what he wished for. He was
aware that the "Axis of the Resistance" is highly aware of its objectives. Those among the
"Axis of the Resistance" who have a robust internal front are well-established and on track.
The problem was mainly in Iraq. But it seems the actions of the US have managed to bring Iraqi
factions together- by assassinating the two commanders. Sardar Soleimani could have never
expected a rapid achievement of this kind. Anti-US Iraqis are preparing this coming Friday to
express their rejection of the US forces present in their country.
Sayyed Ali Khamenei , in his Friday prayers last week, the first for eight years, set up a
road map for the "Axis of the Resistance": push the US forces out of the Middle East and
support Palestine.
All Palestinian groups, including Hamas, were present at Sardar Soleimani's funeral in Iran
and met with General Qaani who promised, "not only to continue support but to increase it
according to Sayyed Khamenei's request," said the source. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas Leader, said
from Tehran: "Soleimani is the martyr of Jerusalem".
Many Iraqi commanders were present at the meeting with General Qaani. Most of these have a
long record of hostility towards US forces in Iraq during the occupation period (2003-2011).
Their commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, was assassinated with Sardar Soleimani and they are
seeking revenge. Those leaders have enough motivation to attack the US forces, who have
violated the Iraq-US training, cultural and armament agreement. At no time was the US
administration given a license to kill in Iraq by the government of Baghdad.
The Iraqi Parliament has spoken: and the assassination of Sardar Soleimani has indeed fallen
within the ultimate objectives of the "Axis of the Resistance". The Iraqi caretaker Prime
Minister has officially informed all members of the Coalition Forces in Iraq that "their
presence, including that of NATO, is now no longer required in Iraq". They have one year to
leave. But that absolutely does not exclude the Iraqi need to avenge their commanders.
Palestine constitutes the second objective, as quoted by Sayyed Khamenei. We cannot exclude
a considerable boost of support for the Palestinians, much more than the actually existing one.
Iran is determined to support the Sunni Palestinians in their objective to have a state of
their own in Palestine. The man – Soleimani – is gone and is replaceable like any
other man: but the level of commitment to goals has increased. It is hard to imagine the "Axis
of the Resistance" remaining idle without engaging themselves somehow in the US Presidential
campaign. So, the remainder of 2020 is expected to be hot.
*
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Just when you thought that Washington could not sink any lower in the international
diplomacy game, the Trump White House compounds its previous misdeed by issuing a public death
threat against the successor of assassinated Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.
Presidential US Special Envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, gave a statement to the Arabic language
newspaper,
Asharq al-Awsat , where he warned new General of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), Esmail Ghaani, that he will end up like Soleimani should he be accused of killing any
Americans, remarking that, "follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the
same fate."
Hook continued saying,"We will hold the regime and its agents responsible for any attack on
Americans or American interests in the region."
Hook also went on to boast that Washington's state-sponsored assassination of Soleimani has
made the Middle East a safer place because it has "create a vacuum that the Regime will not be
able to fill," inferring that Ghaani will not be able to marshal "Iran's agents in the
region".
Hook also repeated the common talking point that Soleimani was the 'world's most dangerous
terrorist' – a label which hardly corresponds with facts which clearly demonstrate that
the Iranian military leader was leading the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq and
Syria.
In the interview, Hook also used the opportunity to reinforce another State Department
narrative which still claims that Iran somehow launched the September attack on Saudi Arabia's
Aramco oil facilities – even though the likely culprit, Yemen's Houthi rebel forces,
had already taken credit for the attack.
Backed into a corner and influence waning, the United States has in recent weeks been
promoting a plan to create an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, officials from both
countries told Middle East Eye.
The US efforts, the officials say, come in response to Shia Iraqi parties' attempts to
expel American troops from their country.
Iraq represents a strategic land bridge between Iran and its allies in Syria, Lebanon and
Palestine.
Establishing a US-controlled Sunni buffer zone in western Iraq would deprive Iran of using
land routes into Syria and prevent it from reaching the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean.
For Washington, the idea of carving out a Sunni region dates back to a 2007 proposition by
Joe Biden, who is now vying to be the Democratic Party's presidential candidate.
Biden's plan was actually an attempt to ethnically cleanse Iraq into three distinct
enclaves (because an integrated, multicultural Iraq is anathema to the US colonial divide and
conquer strategy).
Across racial and religious boundaries, Iraqi politicians on Saturday bemoaned Democratic
presidential contender Barack Obama's choice of running mate, known in Iraq as the author of
a 2006 plan to divide the country into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.
"This choice of Biden is disappointing, because he is the creator of the idea of dividing
Iraq," Salih al-Mutlaq, head of National Dialogue, one of the main Sunni Arab blocs in
parliament, told Reuters.
"We rejected his proposal when he announced it, and we still reject it. Dividing the
communities and land in such a way would only lead to new fighting between people over
resources and borders. Iraq cannot survive unless it is unified, and dividing it would keep
the problems alive for a long time."
For all his brazen denials about his Iraq involvement, one wonders whether, if Joe Biden
hadn't been selected Obama's Vice President, he might have eventually been named Iraq
Viceroy.
Now Trump is adopting Biden's plan.
Same as it ever was.... up 12 users have voted. --
Tom Steyer is my favorite billionaire. Let's eat him last.
Backed into a corner and influence waning, the United States has in recent weeks
been promoting a plan to create an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, officials
from both countries told Middle East Eye.
The US efforts, the officials say, come in response to Shia Iraqi parties' attempts
to expel American troops from their country.
Iraq represents a strategic land bridge between Iran and its allies in Syria,
Lebanon and Palestine.
Establishing a US-controlled Sunni buffer zone in western Iraq would deprive Iran of
using land routes into Syria and prevent it from reaching the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean.
For Washington, the idea of carving out a Sunni region dates back to a 2007
proposition by Joe Biden, who is now vying to be the Democratic Party's presidential
candidate.
Biden's plan was actually an attempt to ethnically cleanse Iraq into three distinct
enclaves (because an integrated, multicultural Iraq is anathema to the US colonial divide
and conquer strategy).
Across racial and religious boundaries, Iraqi politicians on Saturday bemoaned
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's choice of running mate, known in Iraq
as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into ethnic and sectarian
enclaves.
"This choice of Biden is disappointing, because he is the creator of the idea of
dividing Iraq," Salih al-Mutlaq, head of National Dialogue, one of the main Sunni Arab
blocs in parliament, told Reuters.
"We rejected his proposal when he announced it, and we still reject it. Dividing the
communities and land in such a way would only lead to new fighting between people over
resources and borders. Iraq cannot survive unless it is unified, and dividing it would
keep the problems alive for a long time."
For all his brazen denials about his Iraq involvement, one wonders whether, if Joe
Biden hadn't been selected Obama's Vice President, he might have eventually been named
Iraq Viceroy.
Trump needs to claim victory over ISIS and get the hell out. Those one million peaceful
protesters will turn into something really ugly, probably joined by parts or all of the Iraqi
military. That will be far worse for him, with scenes of US diplomats being airlifted out of
the embassy by helicopter. up 10 users have voted. --
Capitalism has always been the rule by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate
them or restrict their power.
B - AP isn't the only outlet falsely reporting the protest. Please get screen shots from the
other "reports" (like Bloomberg) and add them to this post to document the media
manipulation.
Around Baghdad's Hurriyah Square, the streets were a sea of black, white and red, as
protesters clutched Iraqi flags and wore shrouds around their shoulders to evoke the
country's dead.
White shrouds around their shoulders do not "evoke the country's dead" but a a sign of
willingness for martyrdom. Those guys ( vid ) are ready to
fight and die for their aim.
Yes, I was thinking about something along those lines, and was about to write a comment.
There are conservative tribal leaders, who were at one point relatively favourable to the US,
and who might be susceptible to this manoeuvre, and to Saudi persuasion. I was thinking in
particular of Abu Risheh. However, unfortunately, their peoples along the Euphrates got
flattened by the fighting during the Surge (after the period you're citing), so I don't know
how enthusiastic they're going to be. It's a conventional problem, if the US makes a deal
with a chief, indeed MbS is an example, they presume that they've got the whole people. They
haven't.
div> please, do not try to search for US policy sense in the whole ME. all
the moves there are done by the Israel firsters: destroy first then invent "senses". even the
first Gulf War was lacking any policy consideration. I hope one day before she dies, to listen
to what US Ambassador at that time, April Gillepsie, has to say about "her" entrapment of
Saddam Hussein, a sort of McNamara hour of acknowledging.
Posted by: nietzsche1510 , Jan 24 2020 18:59 utc |
54
please, do not try to search for US policy sense in the whole ME. all the moves there are
done by the Israel firsters: destroy first then invent "senses". even the first Gulf War was
lacking any policy consideration. I hope one day before she dies, to listen to what US
Ambassador at that time, April Gillepsie, has to say about "her" entrapment of Saddam
Hussein, a sort of McNamara hour of acknowledging.
Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Jan 24 2020 18:59 utc |
54
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Thirty-four US service members have been diagnosed with concussions
and traumatic brain injuries after Iran conducted ballistic missile strikes on two bases in
Iraq with half of them still undergoing medical treatment, Department of Defence spokesman
Jonathan Hoffman said in a press briefing on 24 January.
"With regard to the number of recent injuries here is the latest update 34 total members have
diagnosed with concussions and TBI [traumatic brain injury]", Hoffman told reporters.
Concussions or Headaches.? When it's serious we have to lie -
Paging Dr. Donald J. Trump
Paging any available Dr. or resident at Mayo Clinic
I wouldn't deny the US is capable of creating an Iraqi al-Tanf. The US is always capable of
air-supporting isolated bases, as long as there is the determination to do so. It's been
shown many times, from Vietnam to Afghanistan. More, I don't see. The Sunnis have seen the
way the Syrian Kurds were abandoned, so nobody's going to be enthused. And the surge has not
been forgotten.
"The Shi'a can certainly get their people out - which by the way is why they have such
effective militias. The Sunnis don't have similarly effective militias (though such would
probably also be politically difficult)."
Wondering why ? Because the don't want to live as minorities any more, specially where
they are the majority. There is need for a collective security across the Shia community
throughout the Western Asia and has nothing to do with US. Because US and UK, historically
and continually have supported and inspired Sunni clients against Shia uprisings
For equal rights, US and UK and their clients have become a common threat to Shia resistance.
This resistance and sense of common security within Shia communities is so strong and
imbedded that killing one leader here one commander there will not change the outcome. As an
example Abbas Mussavie was assassinated by IDF in 1992 who replaced him that became more
dangerous and kicked Israel out of Lebanon, one Hassan Nassrollah
US will end up leaving like in VM No matter what she does
I was thinking along the lines of Saudi intermediaries doing deals with tribes as Mcgurk
pulled off in the Raqqa meeting when he brought in a Saudi intermediary or envoy to do a deal
with the tribes of Deir Ezzor. I see the tribe break down into clans, so suppose it would or
may be the heads of clans that deals would have to be done with.
What strikes me about this though is that US are looking at retreating into the area ISIS
have retreated to and where they arose - the Iraq Syria border regions.
- Muqtada Al Sadr is an iraqi nationalist. As long as he can get help from Iran he will
take it. But when that help is no longer needed then he will try to reduce the "influence" of
the iranians as much as possible. Prehaps the words "boot them out" is a bit "over the
top".
- But the relationship will Always remain friendly. But he is "his own man".
- In this regard this a re-run of what happened in the year 2003 & 2004. Back then the US
wanted to pick their own sock puppet but the shiites out-witted the US.
Interesting that the number of US troops suffering concussive injuries from the Iran
retaliatory strikes has been quietly reassessed to 44 persons. That seems significant in
light of the extensive threats beforehand that any injury to a US person would ignite
thunderous reprisal. It seems, then, the Americans have no plan, the Soleimaini hit was not
thought through, and they are not in any way prepared for a necessary readjustment of their
position in the region. Trump at Davos dismissed the protests and again threatened sanctions
on Iraq - the fulcrum of US power has now visibly shifted from the military to the dominance
of the reserve currency in the form of economic reprisals (sanctions). Reduced to imposing or
threatening economic blockades on adversary populations is not a winning long-term
strategy.
It is not only the MSM coordinated blackout on the important events developing in Iraq,
notice also the scarce half hundred comments here in this thread on the same events by the
usual and otherwise prolific regulars, who preferred to comment on so used Boeing or whatever
old topic instead...
Meanwhile, those of us who wished to comment got banned, as they seemed to be some other
who wanted to comment by other media, like Pepe Escobar in Facebook...
Elijah Magnier says,
Someone should write an article on how Main Stream Media and most reputable agencies either
ignored what happened in #Baghdad #Iraq today or deliberately downplayed it because it
calls for the #US to leave.
News is strikingly manipulated s since the war in #Syria 2011.
Incredible, isn't it? A policy of parcellisation which has already failed twice, in Iraq
and then again in Syria. And now Trump is going to do it again, according to reports which
could well be right. They're sufficiently stupid. They're actually expecting the poor
suffering Fallujans, who suffered through more than a month of being tortured by US troops,
are going to stand up and fight for the US.
It's a complete misappreciation of the situation, not unusual in the US. It is of course
true that the Sunnis suffer from the unthinking policies of the Shi'a, and are treated like
an occupied country. But that doesn't mean that the Sunnis think they can stand up an
independent state. They don't, particularly if the US only stations a handful of troops
there.
The US could of course militarily occupy the area, but that's not Trump's plan, as it
would be too politically intrusive back home.
By the way I hear we're about to receive Trump's overall peace plan for the Middle East.
Given that the first rollouts fell totally flat, I wouldn't be too optimistic about its new
reception in the Middle East.
- Carving out a state in North-Western Iraq is part of "The Biden plan" of 2006 (/2007 ?).
The Biden plan was to divide Iraq into 3 parts: Kurdistan, "Sumnnistan" and "Shia-stan".
- Was this the reason why the US "created" ISIS (in 2014) ??
The Shi'a can certainly get their people out - which by the way is why they have such
effective militias. The Sunnis don't have similarly effective militias (though such would
probably also be politically difficult).
The US certainly doesn't have much idea how to tackle such a movement. The renewal of the
plan for parcellisation just shows up the bankruptcy of US policy, nothing spoke to me so
strongly of the failure of US thinking. For all the number of Washington think-tanks
concentrating on the ME, they can't come up with workable ideas.
Posted by: Ernesto Che | Jan 24 2020 12:32 utc | 6
Al-Sadr is indeed an Iraqi nationalist, and not particularly pro-Iranian, others are more.
He more profited from Iran's safe haven, than became pro-Iranian.
On the other hand, he's unlikely to become Prime Minister, as too extreme. The US, if it
gets a say in the choice of the next PM, will veto. And he's a sort who is in permanent
opposition to everything, rather than in government, much like Corbyn in Britain.
On January 18, Houthi rebels targeted the al Estiqbal military training camp, used by the
Saudi-led coalition and forces loyal to Yemen's UN-recognised government. The strikes
resulted in at least 116 deaths and dozens (if not hundreds) of injuries. Those struck had
reportedly just finished praying at the base's mosque. According to Saudi media, the
Houthis used a combination of ballistic missiles and drones.
The fake media are trying to trasvesticize these protests as antigovernment protests in the
eyes of the Waestern and American population, fortunately, the images are worth thousands
words:
During the first of the various criminal attacks on Fallujah, Sadr famously promised to
deploy the Mahdi Army there to defend the largely sunni community.
The US fears nothing more than nationalism in the middle east- all its policies are aimed at
atomising communities and fostering sectarian division. It is a tactic that has worked well
in the United States for centuries- preserving the absolute power of the capitalist oligarchy
by setting black against white, catholic against protestant, settler against indigenous,
migrant against native.
It is difficult to conceive of a more evil policy than that of encouraging shi'ites to bully
sunnis and vice versa, while dissecting society into shreds of ethnic and sectarian entities
, which are then armed and trained to fight and kill one another.
This was the basis of the surge under Petraus. Of course the British had established the
practice themselves. Among other things they employed christian Assyrians as police.
Al Mayadeen is reporting testimonies from all confesional sides on that this is an united
clamor coming from the whole Iraqi society, who sees a clear link between occupation and
corruption, in spite of their internal political differences, seeing no future while the US
remains in the country corrupting and compromising Iraqi reconstruction and progress.
They are saying that the numbers seen demonstrating today in Iraq, in the anniversary of
the other historical 1920 anticolonial demonstration, equates a popular referendum on the US
illegal and forced presence in the country.
The representatives of the protesters are stating that there are being stablished
diplomatic means for the US to go out, but, in case it refuses doing it by these means, the
resistance will come into action. Thus a way of no return for the US is being delineated
here...
Since the assassination drones cannot fly all the way from US territory to their intended
targets,
any country that harbors the drones is actually complicit to the crimes of the US of A.
They must be made to understand that these assassinations will cost them eventually as
accessories
to these crimes.
Possibly the most potent leverage Iraq can have on the US is for the Iraqi parliament to
decree that all legal previously agreed immunity for US military guilty of crimes in Iraq is
null and void. All US war criminals immediately liable to be tried in Iraq under Iraq law,
unless the US commit to a prompt and orderly withdrawal. Right to prosecute still reserved in
case of US non-compliance with any such commitment.
Whether or to what extent this could be made retrospective to the beginning of the current
agreement (on the grounds that the agreement has been violated) I don't know. Maybe it might
be possible to apply retrospectively at least to the first verifiable breech of the agreement
by the US, I have no idea. Or maybe the agreement can only be deemed void with effect from a
statement by the parliament, I have no idea. In any case, the US is now there illegally:
any US soldier can legally be arrested and imprisoned at any time; and any US
soldier from now on killing or injuring any person in Iraq is automatically a war
criminal.
If it can so some extent legally be made retrospective, the US would automatically face a
terrifying situation.
(Any prisons containing US prisoners in Iraq need full military protection though - I
recall previously the US destroyed a prison with a tank where some soldiers were
arrested).
The link from Al Mayadeen includes live stream with commentary in Arabic of the crowds
gathering who seem in the sizes of Arbaeen pilgrimage...or more.....since
multiconfessional...
A new poll shows a plurality of Americans approve of President Trump's decision to order
the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Forty-one percent of Americans agreed with the decision, according to the Associated Press
and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Friday. Thirty percent disapproved
and the remaining 30 percent were indifferent.
On Jan. 3 the U.S. killed Soleimani at the Baghdad airport. The move raised tensions in
the Middle East and fears of a new war. Iran launched rocket attacks on two bases with U.S.
personnel in Iraq days later.
Vanessa Beeley provides a short, incomplete, list.
I look at the pictures of today's refugees and see the faces of yesterday's. I see the
conditions they inhabit, the squalor and filth, and I see the same in pictures from the past.
I read the words of hatred directed at those innocents and recall the same words being said
of their predecessors.
And the source of the words and plight of the innocents both present
and past come from the same portals or power--The Imperialist West and its Zionist progeny.
How many millions have died to enrich their purse, to increase the size of the estates, to
serve as their slaves? How many more in the future will share their fate?
Will humans ever
evolve to become peaceful animals and save themselves?
Elections now serve mainly the legitimizing of the deep state rule function; election of a
partuclar induvudual can change little, althouth there is some space of change due to the power
of executive branch.
For example, Trump managed to speed up the process od destruction of the USA-centered
neoliberal empire considerably. Especially by lauching the trade war with China. He also
managed to discredit the USA foreign policy as no other president before him. Even Bush
II.
>This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime
> Posted by: Circe | Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 36
Hmmm, I've been hearing the same siren song every four years for the past fifty. How is it
that people still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of
murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?
Bureaucracies are reactionary and conservative by nature, so any new and more repressive
policy Trumpy wants is readily adapted, as shown by the continuing barbarity of ICE and the
growth of prisons and refugee concentration camps. Policies that go against the grain are
easily shrugged off and ignored using time-tested passive-aggressive tactics.
One of Trump's insurmountable problems is that he has no loyal organization behind him
whose members he can appoint throughout the massive Federal bureaucracy. Any Dummycrat whose
name is not "Biden" has the same problem. Without a real mass-movement political party to
pressure reluctant bureaucrats, no politician of any name or stripe will ever substantially
change the direction of US policy.
But the last thing Dummycrats want is a real mass movement, because they might not be able
to control it. Instead Uncle Sam will keep heading towards the cliff, which may be coming
into view...
In a day like yesterday....US merits to remain in Iraq getting 50% oil revenues while
contributing zero to rebuilt the country they previosuly destroyed and funding and spreading
chaos, unrest and terrorism...
On this day in 1991, the US bombed an infant formula production plant in Iraq as part of
Operation Desert Storm. The US lied, calling it a biological weapons facility, but in
actuality, "it was the only source of infant formula food for children one year and younger
in Iraq."
If the U.S. can do it or rather, have been assassinating other countries Officials, so can
others and eventually, they will retaliate. No U.S. official will be safe, even in the
mainland U.S. An old saying applies here. You sew the wind and reap the whirlwind.
The world is rapidly tiring of the classless thuggery of the U.S.A.
Excellent point... and furthermore, if Russia & others are capable of clandestine hits
(as per the accusations against them, i.e. Skripal, MH17, Litvinenko) then why on earth would
US invite such operations against themselves?
I'm sure if they (Russia/Iran/others) really wanted to, unfortunate mishaps, like
traceless, self-inflected, nail-gun accidents are easily possible
Just when you think ZATO couldn't get any stupider...
"The Iraqi Shia, 66% of the 40 million Iraqi population, are expressing their hatred towards
US forces in particular and all foreign forces in general. Iraq would like to see these
forces depart for good, putting an end to US influence in Mesopotamia and West Asia. A
massive protest has been organised for this Friday 24th January, led by Sayyed Moqtada
al-Sadr, who is warning the US of the consequences of ignoring this Parliamentary decision.
It is expected to be the most massive protest in the history of Iraq. But this protest is
only the beginning."
https://ejmagnier.com/2020/01/22/immediate-us-withdrawal-due-to-its-violation-of-the-agreement-and-iraq-sovereignty/
The murder of Soleimani was not a one-off: it will be the policy to take out leaders and US
vassals dare not speak up: Murder and Sanctions (aka "Financial Warfare" ) is what they do.
The US will assassinate Quds Force Commander Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani if he targets
Americans, US special representative for Iran Brian Hook has warned.
"If Ghaani follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the same fate,"
Hook said, speaking to Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, in an interview
published Thursday.
According to the US diplomat, President Trump has made it very "clear that any attack on
Americans or American interests will be met with a decisive response, which the president
demonstrated on January 2".
Hook also said he believed that "the Iranian regime" now "understands that they cannot
attack America and get away with it".
Yes and soon.
Europe needs new instruments to be able to defend itself from licentious
extraterritorial sanctions.
USA has just but a bulls-eye on every American in Iraq and Syria.
Every anti-Iranian ideologue (starting with Netanyahu) will now start planning false-flag
attacks.
Just another dog whistle like Obama's "red-line" farce.
PS Did any media confirm the death of the US translator that caused USA to bomb the
Iraqi PMU? His name wasn't even released for a couple of week AFTER he was killed and AFAIK
no one really knows who killed him.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Probably little happens until UN sanctions "snap-back". That will light the fuse and the
fireworks start a number of weeks later but certainly before July (somebody wrote about
Russia's being able to sell arms to Iran on the 5th-year anniversary of the JCPOA on July
14th).
Sadly, the false-flag needed to energize the masses with "war fever" (like after 9-11) is
likely to require that many Americans are killed. And possibly not just military but
civilians.
Aside:
The cover of the 2015 Economist comes to mind. Two arrows on the lower right contain the
numbers "11.5" and "11.3". The sand behind the arrows might represent the middle east. Do the
two arrows represent a date range (European-like dates) of March 11th to May 11th? FYI:
Persian New Year is March 21st, UN sanctions are likely to "snap-back" by mid-March.
The eleventh of the month has gained significance due to 9-11 and 7-11 (in England). Thus,
3-11, 4-11, and 5-11 would have symbolic value as for a "terrorist" incident.
How could the Economist have predicted such a date range? I've said many times that I
thought that the JCPOA was a delaying tactic that was needed simply because Syrian regime
change was taking longer than expected. From such a point of view, it's reasonable to assume
that steps are taken to end the agreement and/or prompt strikes (symbolized by the arrows on
the Economist's cover) prior to the end of the agreement or important anniversary milestones
(like Ruissia's being able to sell arms after 5 years).
While some might say that such musings are irrational "conspiracy theory", I bring it up
because neocons and other bad actors engage in long-term planning to achieve their goals. We
are not suppose to notice such planning and then when things happen (like 9-11 and the
2008 Global Financial Crisis) it is quickly claimed that "no one could've foreseen"
such things - which becomes an excuse for the bad actors to go unpunished.
!!
Jackrabbit , Jan 23 2020 18:36 utc | 46
3.11.2004 Madrid Atocha train station attacks happened...allegedly AQ autorship...
1.7.2015 Charlie Hebdo attack...IS/AQ autorship...allegedly...
The murder of Soleimani was not a one-off: it will be the policy to take out leaders and US
vassals dare not speak up: Murder and Sanctions (aka "Financial Warfare" ) is what they do.
The US will assassinate Quds Force Commander Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani if he targets
Americans, US special representative for Iran Brian Hook has warned.
"If Ghaani follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the same fate,"
Hook said, speaking to Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, in an interview
published Thursday.
According to the US diplomat, President Trump has made it very "clear that any attack on
Americans or American interests will be met with a decisive response, which the president
demonstrated on January 2".
Hook also said he believed that "the Iranian regime" now "understands that they cannot
attack America and get away with it".
Yes and soon.
Europe needs new instruments to be able to defend itself from licentious
extraterritorial sanctions.
by William Walter Kay Posted on
January
23, 2020 January 22, 2020 Katyushas are short-range, unguided artillery rockets typically
fired in salvos from truck-mounted launch-tubes. Iraq's insurgents deploy three types.
The smallest is 107 millimeters in diameter and 1 meter long. Its 19 kilogram weight
includes an 8 kg high-explosive, shrapnel-bearing warhead. The 107mm is often fired from a
12-tube launcher, however, infantry-portable single-tube tripods are common. An experienced
crew with a standardized weapon can hit a 400 X 400 meter target from 8 kilometers away.
During the Vietnam War the US Army considered the 107mm to be their adversaries' most
formidable weapon.
The 122mm 'Grad' Katyusha is 3 meters long and weighs 75 kg. Its warhead spans a third of
its length and weighs 18 kg. It has a 20-kilometer range and a 30-meter lethal radius.
220mm Katyushas hurl 100 kg warheads 30 kilometers.
Katyushas have advantages over mortars. They deliver the same payload twice the distance
and they fire multiple ordnance more rapidly. The globally ubiquitous BM-21 Grad fires forty
122mm rockets in three minutes. Reloading takes 10 minutes. Thus, Katyushas excel at
"shoot-and-scoot" operations. As well, Katyushas' flat trajectories permit line-of-sight
attacks and their 700 meter-per-second velocities provide unique anti-building potential.
After helping suppress the ISIS-led insurgency (2014-17) US forces defaulted to their
previous occupation plan. Central to this program are segregated compounds situated inside
Iraqi Armed Forces bases. These installations, always near airstrips, contain mere hundreds
(not thousands) of US and Coalition troops who ride herd over the Iraqi Army whilst grooming
and directing Iraq's 15,000-strong Special Forces.
Embassies and consulates are integral to the occupation. The sprawling US Embassy compound
dominates Baghdad's fortified "Green Zone" which also houses Coalition partners' embassies,
and the headquarters of the many NGOs insinuated throughout Iraqi society.
The occupation facilitates local activities of American and European businesses. These
require office blocks, oil-field infrastructure; and, gated communities for imported
talent.
Pre-2011 Americans relied on bases containing thousands of troops. These were remotely
located and allocated substantial resources to thwart indirect (mortar and rocket) attacks
through: counter-artillery, drone surveillance, and fighting patrols. Despite this, indirect
fire inflicted 3,000 casualties (including 211 fatalities) on American forces; many occurring
inside 'secure' bases.
The US-led Coalition's current archipelago of military, diplomatic, intelligence, business
and NGO installations are ill-equipped to defend themselves against indirect fire. Proximity
to cities makes them sitting ducks.
In September 2018 persons unknown began targeting US installations with Katyushas. This
list chronicles these attacks. *
(A dozen mortar attacks are not listed; Katyushas being the weapon of choice.)
September 8, 2018 – four rockets (three 107mms and one 122mm) fall near the Green
Zone.
September 8, 2018 – two salvos of 107mms land near the US Consulate beside Basra
Airport.
September 28, 2018 – three 107mms are fired at the Basra Consulate; two land on
site.
December 27, 2018 – two 107mms are fired at Al-Asad Airbase (160 kilometers west
of Baghdad) during Trump's visit.
February 2, 2019 – an attack on Al-Asad Airbase is aborted. Three ready-to-launch
122mms are captured.
February 12, 2019 – three 107mms hit Q-West Airfield (an off-the-books base south
of Mosul).
May 1, 2019 – two 107mms hit Camp Al-Taji: a 'training' institute, 40 kilometers
north of Baghdad.
May 19, 2019 – two rockets land near the US Embassy.
June 10, 2019 – rocket attack on Camp Al-Taji.
June 12, 2019 – rocket attack on a "northern air base" starts a fire.
June 13, 2019 – rocket attack on Nineveh Command Headquarters (Mosul Presidential
Palace).
June 14, 2019 – a rocket lands near the US Embassy.
June 17, 2019 – three rockets hit Camp Al-Taji.
June 18, 2019 – Nineveh HQ is attacked by two 122mms; one hits, one misses.
June 19, 2019 – rockets strike a gated community outside Basra (home to Exxon
staff).
September 23, 2019 – two rockets hit the Green Zone; one lands near the US
Embassy.
October 30, 2019 – two rockets hit the Green Zone, killing an Iraqi soldier.
November 8, 2019 – seventeen rockets target Q-West Airfield.
November 17, 2019 – rockets hit the Green Zone.
November 29, 2019 – a rocket hits the Green Zone.
December 3, 2019 – Al-Asad Airbase is "rocked" by five 122mms.
December 5, 2019 – five 107mms hit Balad Airbase (80 kilometers north of
Baghdad).
December 6, 2019 – a 240mm rocket lands near Baghdad Airport (then housing a US
base).
December 9, 2019 – four 240mms strike Baghdad Airport killing 2, and wounding 5,
Iraqi soldiers.
December 11, 2019 – two 240mms land outside Baghdad Airport.
December 27, 2019 – thirty-six 107mms hammer K1 Base (15 kilometers northwest of
Kirkuk); killing an American translator and wounding several US troops.
December 29, 2019 – four rockets hit Camp Al-Taji.
December 29, 2019 – five rockets hit Al-Asad Airbase.
January 4, 2020 – two rockets hit Balad Airbase.
January 4, 2020 – several rockets hit the Green Zone. One lands near the US
Embassy; another closes a major street.
January 5, 2020 – six rockets are fired at the Green Zone; three hit the
target.
January 8, 2020 – two rockets hit the Green Zone.
January 12, 2020 – eight rockets hit Balad Airbase, wounding several Iraqi
soldiers.
January 14, 2020 – a five-rocket attack on Camp Al-Taji.
January 20, 2020 – three rockets hit Green Zone. They were fired from Al
Zafraniya (15 kilometers away).
Attacks are becoming more frequent and are trending toward bigger rockets and higher
volume salvos.
The insurgents' strategy is working. Katyusha attacks shuttered the US Basra Consulate in
September 2018. Attacks in May and June 2019 forced Exxon to evacuate much of its foreign
staff. Throughout 2019 the US State Department extracted personnel and the Defense Department
consolidated bases into more secure facilities. By late 2019 US authorities were begging
Iraqis for help whilst threatening retaliation.
The last straw came December 27 when the barrage onto K1 Base killed an American
translator. The US responded with airstrikes on five Kata'ib Hezbollah bases (90 casualties)
and with the January 3 assassination of Iranian General Soleimani. (The decision to
assassinate Soleimani – in the event of an American fatality – was made June 24,
2019 following a week of near daily Katyusha attacks.)
While Iran and Iran's Iraqi allies are blamed for these attacks; this is dubious.
Reportage following attacks invariably drops the phrase " no one claimed
responsibility " – which is notable because perpetrators often boast of such
achievements. Ten years ago, when Kata'ib Hezbollah targeted US facilities with "lob bombs"
(improvised rockets), they posted videos of their handiwork. They deny involvement in these
recent attacks as do other Iranian-linked militias.
The reportage often describes the attacks as " mysterious " or as a "
whodunit. " Authors relay US intelligence theories of Iranian involvement without
evidence.
On several occasions insurgents abandoned launchers and/or launch vehicles after the
attack, often with fail-to-launch rockets inside. Investigators also possess fragments of
successfully fired rockets. Tellingly, US officials, renowned for straining at gnats for
evidence of Iranian complicity, do not utilize this material to incriminate Tehran.
The launchers themselves are obviously manufactured by local artisans. Moreover, an
article from Kurdistan – 24 describes the rockets as " locally
made ." Even globalist-militarist instrumentalities like the Washington Institute, Long
War Journal, and Center for Strategic and International Studies concede some Katyushas are
manufactured in Iraq.
Iraq has a burgeoning steel industry and, due to the calamities of the past 20 years, an
enormous scrap metal industry. Katyushas' cardinal virtue is their simplicity.
Circa 2014 twelve countries hosted non-state armed groups that deployed Katyushas.
(Post-2014 Yemen's Houthis joined this list, then outdid the pack in innovation and
output.)
During the 2003-11 era Iraqi insurgents looted Katyushas from local arsenals. Other
Katyushas came from Iran (officially or via the black market) and possibly from any of 32
other countries manufacturing them. Experts bemoan the difficulty of determining a rocket's
origin.
Circa 2008 Iraqi artisans manufactured a variety of launchers. A 2009 raid in Maysan
Governorate discovered 107mm, 122mm and 220mm rail launchers; and 1,700 carjacks. (Jacks were
affixed to the bottoms of stationary tripods to permit changes in launch angle.) Insurgents
developed creative mobile launch platforms i.e. inside ice cream trucks or towed behind
motorcycles etc. They debuted remote control triggers and GPS reconnaissance.
Circa 2011 poor quality of locally acquired rockets compelled insurgents to continue to
rely on imports. The insurgents were, however, manufacturing "lob bomb" rockets and
anti-armor mines; although Iran stood accused of being their sole supplier.
Post-2011 insurgents honed their craft. Remember: Hamas, operating inside Gaza with a tiny
fraction of the resources of Iraq's insurgents, manufactures crude Katyushas.
Prime suspects in the Katyusha campaign are not pro-Iranian militias; but rather the
milieu around Mahdi Army successor, the Promise Day Brigades (PDB). This political tendency,
nominally led by Moqtada al-Sadr, is concentrated in Iraq's densely populated central and
southern regions, but boasts a militant contingent in Mosul. This milieu overlaps the Saairun
Alliance which includes Iraq's far left; who carry their own legacy of armed struggle.
The insurgency's Von Braun might be Jawad al-Tulaybani. An Iran-Iraq War veteran,
al-Tulaybani possesses 40 years of combat rocketry experience. A war wound left him partially
disabled. He appeared on US radar in 2008 after masterminding a barrage that wounded 15 US
soldiers.
The org-chart of the Saairun/PDB/al-Sadr movement remains obscured. Notably, on January 8,
2020 al-Sadr counseled refrain from military actions. Four Katyusha attacks happened
since.
What is clear is that this general political tendency is not particularly beholden to
Iran. They appear nonsectarian, if not secularist, and they advance a left-nationalist
agenda. Prior to the 2018 election (wherein Saairun emerged as the most popular bloc) Iran's
Foreign Minister warned Iran would never tolerate an Iraq run by " liberals and
communists " – meaning Saairun.
Then again, Trump's thrill kill of Soleimani (and Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units'
Deputy Commander) completely reshuffled the deck, creating unprecedented unity amongst
hitherto rivals.
As Katyushas veto pacification efforts, US forces return to square one. They must retreat
to sprawling, remotely situated camps equipped to suppress indirect fire. This, however,
means surrendering Iraq's political theater to adversaries who will marshal Iraqi Government
resources against them.
Katyushas are driving the Trump Administration's Iraq policy. Prisoners of groupthink they
react by doubling-down on the Big Lie that Iraq's national liberation movement consists only
of "Iranian terrorists." In reality, their most effective opponents are as indigenous and
legitimate as the French Resistance.
*Note on Sources
Data came from scanning 1,000 articles then parsing several dozen of them. Preference went
to state media: i.e. Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Xinhua et al; although Military Times and
Kurdistan-24 proved germane. Rogue Rocketeers: Artillery
Rockets and Armed Groups (Small Arms Survey, Geneva Switzerland, 2014) is a
must-read. Data on the first 7 Katyusha attacks was lifted without corroboration from Michael
Knights'
Responding to Iranian Harassment of U.S. Facilities in Iraq (Washington Institute,
May 21, 2019). As Knights is the only analyst to grasp the seriousness of the Katyusha
attacks. His reports are a trove. Being intimately connected to US and Israeli intelligence,
he slavishly relays the anti-Iran party line.
Major attacks generate scores of reports. Lesser attacks are mentioned only in passing.
Some articles tally the attacks but the numbers do not jibe. Certain attacks go unreported.
Probably, 50+ mortar and Katyusha attacks hit US facilities between September 8, 2018 and
January 14, 2020.
William Walter Kay is a researcher and writer from Canada. His most recent book is
From Malthus to Mifepristone: A Primer on the Population Control Movement.
BAGHDAD, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's paramilitary force Hashd Shaabi said on Thursday that
it opened fire at an unidentified drone flying over its bases near the border with Syria in
the western province of Anbar.
On Dec. 29, the Hashd Shaabi's 45th and 46th brigades belonging to Kata'ib Hezbollah in
Iraq were attacked by U.S. airstrikes, leaving more than 25 Hashd Shaabi members killed and
51 others injured.
Joe Biden's statement that "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a
tinderbox" by assassinating Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was not inaccurate. But
it skirts an all-important question: who created the tinderbox in the first place?
The answer, of course, is the United States.
In the long history of imperial folly and recklessness, nothing compares to U.S. policy in
the Persian Gulf. Yes, the British shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan in 1838, and, yes, JFK
shouldn't have backed the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in November
1963. If they had thought things through more carefully, one wouldn't have lost an entire army
in the retreat from Kabul while the other wouldn't have stumbled into a dozen-year-long
quagmire that would leave the U.S. military depleted and demoralized – not to mention
killing more than a million or more Vietnamese.
But those were momentary miscalculations compared to the slow-motion disaster in the gulf.
For nearly half a century, every U.S. president – liberal, conservative, or whatever
– has pumped up a regional arms race that has set the stage for ever more destructive
wars. The death and destruction have been incalculable. Yet not once throughout the long sorry
saga have Americans paused for even a moment to consider where it was all going.
The process began in 1973 when Arab oil exporters quadrupled prices after Richard Nixon
provided Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency aid in the midst of the nineteen-day Yom Kippur
War. America
considered seizing Saudi oil fields in retaliation. But once passions cooled, it opted for
a pragmatic policy of mutual accommodation in which Arab oil producers and western consumers
would accept Israeli victory and higher energy prices alike as faits accomplis and forge
a workable settlement out of the rubble.
The result from a U.S. point of view was a win-win situation if ever there was one. At a
stroke, it acquired a powerful military ally in the Jewish state, a valuable export market in
the gulf, and a much-needed conservative Muslim ally at a time when secular Arab radicalism was
shooting through the roof. The big payoff came in 1989 when a US-backed Saudi-organized jihad
drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, causing the entire Soviet bloc to unravel just two years
later.
Washington was dizzy with success. "What is more important in world history," exulted Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the architect of the Afghanistan plan, in 1998. "The Taliban or the collapse of the
Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
Cold War?" A top CIA strategist named Graham Fuller added
a year later:
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries
worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be
used to destabilize what remains of Russian power and especially to counter the Chinese
influence in Central Asia."
What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out: the emergence of jihad as a global
phenomenon, the birth of hyper-sectarian Sunni terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and a cycle
of violence that has since proved unstoppable. Since Carter declared unilateral U.S. military
jurisdiction over the Persian Gulf in January 1980, the region has seen no fewer than seven
major wars:
The Afghan jihad (1979-89).
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).
The gulf war (1990-91).
The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-03).
The US-Saudi assault on Syria (starting in late 2011).
And the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen (beginning in March 2015 and still ongoing).
Toss in such "minor" incidents as the Saudi-UAE invasion of Bahrain in order to crush
democratic protests in March 2011 or the Saudi economic blockade of Qatar in June 2017, and the
list grows to nine, surely a record for American "peacekeepers."
Yet the United States, the world's leading military exporter, has piled up the tinder ever
higher by accelerating military exports to absolutist states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that,
as even Hillary Clinton has admitted , "are providing
clandestine financial and logical support to ISIL [i.e. Islamic State] and other radical Sunni
groups in the region."
Never has imperialism been more nihilistic. Yet Donald Trump has dialed up the craziness
even more by abrogating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and imposing a trade embargo that has
brought the Iranian economy to its knees. Not content with economic warfare, he's now advancing
to physical warfare by "droning" Soleimani and threatening massive retaliation against both
military and cultural targets if Iran dares raise a hand in response.
The effect is to propel himself into the front ranks of international war criminals. But
Trump could never have done it on his own if a long line of American militarists hadn't paved
the way.
Daniel Lazare January 8, 2020 | Security Who Created the Persian Gulf Tinderbox? Joe Biden's
statement that "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox" by
assassinating Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was not inaccurate. But it skirts an
all-important question: who created the tinderbox in the first place?
The answer, of course, is the United States.
In the long history of imperial folly and recklessness, nothing compares to U.S. policy in
the Persian Gulf. Yes, the British shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan in 1838, and, yes, JFK
shouldn't have backed the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in November
1963. If they had thought things through more carefully, one wouldn't have lost an entire army
in the retreat from Kabul while the other wouldn't have stumbled into a dozen-year-long
quagmire that would leave the U.S. military depleted and demoralized – not to mention
killing more than a million or more Vietnamese.
But those were momentary miscalculations compared to the slow-motion disaster in the gulf.
For nearly half a century, every U.S. president – liberal, conservative, or whatever
– has pumped up a regional arms race that has set the stage for ever more destructive
wars. The death and destruction have been incalculable. Yet not once throughout the long sorry
saga have Americans paused for even a moment to consider where it was all going.
The process began in 1973 when Arab oil exporters quadrupled prices after Richard Nixon
provided Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency aid in the midst of the nineteen-day Yom Kippur
War. America
considered seizing Saudi oil fields in retaliation. But once passions cooled, it opted for
a pragmatic policy of mutual accommodation in which Arab oil producers and western consumers
would accept Israeli victory and higher energy prices alike as faits accomplis and forge
a workable settlement out of the rubble.
The result from a U.S. point of view was a win-win situation if ever there was one. At a
stroke, it acquired a powerful military ally in the Jewish state, a valuable export market in
the gulf, and a much-needed conservative Muslim ally at a time when secular Arab radicalism was
shooting through the roof. The big payoff came in 1989 when a US-backed Saudi-organized jihad
drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, causing the entire Soviet bloc to unravel just two years
later.
Washington was dizzy with success. "What is more important in world history," exulted Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the architect of the Afghanistan plan, in 1998. "The Taliban or the collapse of the
Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
Cold War?" A top CIA strategist named Graham Fuller added
a year later:
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries
worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be
used to destabilize what remains of Russian power and especially to counter the Chinese
influence in Central Asia."
What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out: the emergence of jihad as a global
phenomenon, the birth of hyper-sectarian Sunni terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and a cycle
of violence that has since proved unstoppable. Since Carter declared unilateral U.S. military
jurisdiction over the Persian Gulf in January 1980, the region has seen no fewer than seven
major wars:
The Afghan jihad (1979-89).
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).
The gulf war (1990-91).
The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-03).
The US-Saudi assault on Syria (starting in late 2011).
And the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen (beginning in March 2015 and still ongoing).
Toss in such "minor" incidents as the Saudi-UAE invasion of Bahrain in order to crush
democratic protests in March 2011 or the Saudi economic blockade of Qatar in June 2017, and the
list grows to nine, surely a record for American "peacekeepers."
Yet the United States, the world's leading military exporter, has piled up the tinder ever
higher by accelerating military exports to absolutist states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that,
as even Hillary Clinton has admitted , "are providing
clandestine financial and logical support to ISIL [i.e. Islamic State] and other radical Sunni
groups in the region."
Never has imperialism been more nihilistic. Yet Donald Trump has dialed up the craziness
even more by abrogating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and imposing a trade embargo that has
brought the Iranian economy to its knees. Not content with economic warfare, he's now advancing
to physical warfare by "droning" Soleimani and threatening massive retaliation against both
military and cultural targets if Iran dares raise a hand in response.
The effect is to propel himself into the front ranks of international war criminals. But
Trump could never have done it on his own if a long line of American militarists hadn't paved
the way.
In the long history of imperial folly and recklessness, nothing compares to U.S. policy in
the Persian Gulf. Yes, the British shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan in 1838, and, yes, JFK
shouldn't have backed the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in November
1963. If they had thought things through more carefully, one wouldn't have lost an entire army
in the retreat from Kabul while the other wouldn't have stumbled into a dozen-year-long
quagmire that would leave the U.S. military depleted and demoralized – not to mention
killing more than a million or more Vietnamese.
But those were momentary miscalculations compared to the slow-motion disaster in the gulf.
For nearly half a century, every U.S. president – liberal, conservative, or whatever
– has pumped up a regional arms race that has set the stage for ever more destructive
wars. The death and destruction have been incalculable. Yet not once throughout the long sorry
saga have Americans paused for even a moment to consider where it was all going.
The process began in 1973 when Arab oil exporters quadrupled prices after Richard Nixon
provided Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency aid in the midst of the nineteen-day Yom Kippur
War. America
considered seizing Saudi oil fields in retaliation. But once passions cooled, it opted for
a pragmatic policy of mutual accommodation in which Arab oil producers and western consumers
would accept Israeli victory and higher energy prices alike as faits accomplis and forge
a workable settlement out of the rubble.
The result from a U.S. point of view was a win-win situation if ever there was one. At a
stroke, it acquired a powerful military ally in the Jewish state, a valuable export market in
the gulf, and a much-needed conservative Muslim ally at a time when secular Arab radicalism was
shooting through the roof. The big payoff came in 1989 when a US-backed Saudi-organized jihad
drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, causing the entire Soviet bloc to unravel just two years
later.
Washington was dizzy with success. "What is more important in world history," exulted Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the architect of the Afghanistan plan, in 1998. "The Taliban or the collapse of the
Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
Cold War?" A top CIA strategist named Graham Fuller added
a year later:
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries
worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be
used to destabilize what remains of Russian power and especially to counter the Chinese
influence in Central Asia."
What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out: the emergence of jihad as a global
phenomenon, the birth of hyper-sectarian Sunni terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and a cycle
of violence that has since proved unstoppable. Since Carter declared unilateral U.S. military
jurisdiction over the Persian Gulf in January 1980, the region has seen no fewer than seven
major wars:
The Afghan jihad (1979-89).
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).
The gulf war (1990-91).
The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-03).
The US-Saudi assault on Syria (starting in late 2011).
And the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen (beginning in March 2015 and still ongoing).
Toss in such "minor" incidents as the Saudi-UAE invasion of Bahrain in order to crush
democratic protests in March 2011 or the Saudi economic blockade of Qatar in June 2017, and the
list grows to nine, surely a record for American "peacekeepers."
Yet the United States, the world's leading military exporter, has piled up the tinder ever
higher by accelerating military exports to absolutist states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that,
as even Hillary Clinton has admitted , "are providing
clandestine financial and logical support to ISIL [i.e. Islamic State] and other radical Sunni
groups in the region."
Never has imperialism been more nihilistic. Yet Donald Trump has dialed up the craziness
even more by abrogating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and imposing a trade embargo that has
brought the Iranian economy to its knees. Not content with economic warfare, he's now advancing
to physical warfare by "droning" Soleimani and threatening massive retaliation against both
military and cultural targets if Iran dares raise a hand in response.
"... The Americans are the ones who destroyed the country and wreaked havoc on it. They have refused to finish building the electrical system and infrastructure projects. They have bargained for the reconstruction of Iraq in exchange for Iraq giving up 50% of oil imports. So, I refused and decided to go to China and concluded an important and strategic agreement with it. Today, Trump is trying to cancel this important agreement. ..."
"... After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement." ..."
"... It could also explain why President Trump is so concerned about China's growing foothold in Iraq, since it risks causing not only the end of the U.S. military hegemony in the country but could also lead to major trouble for the petrodollar system and the U.S.' position as a global financial power. Trump's policy aimed at stopping China and Iraq's growing ties is clearly having the opposite effect, showing that this administration's "gangster diplomacy" only serves to make the alternatives offered by countries like China and Russia all the more attractive. ..."
After the feed was cut, MPs who were present wrote down Abdul-Mahdi's remarks, which were
then given to the Arabic news outlet Ida'at .
Per that transcript , Abdul-Mahdi stated that:
The Americans are the ones who destroyed the country and wreaked havoc on it. They
have refused to finish building the electrical system and infrastructure projects. They have
bargained for the reconstruction of Iraq in exchange for Iraq giving up 50% of oil imports.
So, I refused and decided to go to China and concluded an important and strategic agreement
with it. Today, Trump is trying to cancel this important agreement. "
Abdul-Mahdi continued his remarks, noting that pressure from the Trump administration over
his negotiations and subsequent dealings with China grew substantially over time, even
resulting in death threats to himself and his defense minister:
After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I
also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me.
Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the
event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be
mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and
kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and
submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement."
"I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist to this day
on canceling the China agreement. When the defense minister said that those killing the
demonstrators was a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically threatened myself
and the defense minister in the event that there was more talk about this third party."
Very few English language outlets
reported on Abdul-Mahdi's comments. Tom Luongo, a Florida-based Independent Analyst and publisher of The Gold
Goats 'n Guns Newsletter, told MintPress that the likely reasons for the "surprising"
media silence over Abdul-Mahdi's claims were because "It never really made it out into official
channels " due to the cutting of the video feed during Iraq's Parliamentary session and due to
the fact that "it's very inconvenient and the media -- since Trump is doing what they want him
to do, be belligerent with Iran, protected Israel's interests there."
"They aren't going to contradict him on that if he's playing ball," Luongo added, before
continuing that the media would nonetheless "hold onto it for future reference .If this comes
out for real, they'll use it against him later if he tries to leave Iraq." "Everything in
Washington is used as leverage," he added.
Given the lack of media coverage and the cutting of the video feed of Abdul-Mahdi's full
remarks, it is worth pointing out that the narrative he laid out in his censored speech not
only fits with the timeline of recent events he discusses but also the tactics known to have
been employed behind closed doors by the Trump administration, particularly after Mike Pompeo
left the CIA to become Secretary of State.
For instance, Abdul-Mahdi's delegation to China ended on September 24, with the protests
against his government that Trump reportedly threatened to start on October 1. Reports of a
"third side" firing on Iraqi protesters were picked up by major media outlets at the time, such
as in this
BBC report which stated:
Reports say the security forces opened fire, but another account says unknown gunmen
were responsible .a source in Karbala told the BBC that one of the dead was a guard at a
nearby Shia shrine who happened to be passing by. The source also said the origin of the
gunfire was unknown and it had targeted both the protesters and security forces .
(emphasis added)"
U.S.-backed protests in other countries, such as in Ukraine in 2014, also saw evidence of a
"
third side " shooting both protesters and security forces alike.
After six weeks of intense protests , Abdul-Mahdi
submitted
his resignation on November 29, just a few days after Iraq's
Foreign Minister praised the new deals, including the "oil for reconstruction" deal, that had
been signed with China. Abdul-Mahdi has since stayed on as Prime Minister in a caretaker role
until Parliament decides on his replacement.
Abdul-Mahdi's claims of the covert pressure by the Trump administration are buttressed by
the use of similar tactics against Ecuador, where, in July 2018, a U.S. delegation at the
United Nations
threatened the nation with punitive trade measures and the withdrawal of military aid if
Ecuador moved forward with the introduction of a UN resolution to "protect, promote and support
breastfeeding."
The New York Times reported at the time that the U.S. delegation was seeking to
promote the interests of infant formula manufacturers. If the U.S. delegation is willing to use
such pressure on nations for promoting breastfeeding over infant formula, it goes without
saying that such behind-closed-doors pressure would be significantly more intense if a much
more lucrative resource, e.g. oil, were involved.
Regarding Abdul-Mahdi's claims, Luongo told MintPress that it is also worth
considering that it could have been anyone in the Trump administration making threats to
Abdul-Mahdi, not necessarily Trump himself. "What I won't say directly is that I don't know it
was Trump at the other end of the phone calls. Mahdi, it is to his best advantage politically
to blame everything on Trump. It could have been Mike Pompeo or Gina Haspel talking to
Abdul-Mahdi It could have been anyone, it most likely would be someone with plausible
deniability .This [Mahdi's claims] sounds credible I firmly believe Trump is capable of making
these threats but I don't think Trump would make those threats directly like that, but it would
absolutely be consistent with U.S. policy."
Luongo also argued that the current tensions between U.S. and Iraqi leadership preceded the
oil deal between Iraq and China by several weeks, "All of this starts with Prime Minister Mahdi
starting the process of opening up the Iraq-Syria border crossing and that was announced in
August. Then, the Israeli air attacks happened in September to try and stop that from
happening, attacks on PMU forces on the border crossing along with the ammo dump attacks near
Baghdad This drew the Iraqis' ire Mahdi then tried to close the air space over Iraq, but how
much of that he can enforce is a big question."
As to why it would be to Mahdi's advantage to blame Trump, Luongo stated that Mahdi "can
make edicts all day long, but, in reality, how much can he actually restrain the U.S. or the
Israelis from doing anything? Except for shame, diplomatic shame To me, it [Mahdi's claims]
seems perfectly credible because, during all of this, Trump is probably or someone else is
shaking him [Mahdi] down for the reconstruction of the oil fields [in Iraq] Trump has
explicitly stated "we want the oil."'
As Luongo noted, Trump's interest in the U.S. obtaining a significant share of Iraqi oil
revenue is hardly a secret. Just last March, Trump
asked Abdul-Mahdi "How about the oil?" at the end of a meeting at the White House,
prompting Abdul-Mahdi to ask "What do you mean?" To which Trump responded "Well, we did a lot,
we did a lot over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking
about the oil," which was widely interpreted as Trump asking for part of Iraq's oil revenue in
exchange for the steep costs of the U.S.' continuing its now unwelcome military presence in
Iraq.
With Abdul-Mahdi having rejected Trump's "oil for reconstruction" proposal in favor of
China's, it seems likely that the Trump administration would default to so-called "gangster
diplomacy" tactics to pressure Iraq's government into accepting Trump's deal, especially given
the fact that China's deal was a much better offer. While Trump demanded half of Iraq's oil
revenue in exchange for completing reconstruction projects (according to Abdul-Mahdi), the deal
that was signed between Iraq and China would see around
20 percen t of Iraq's oil revenue go to China in exchange for reconstruction. Aside from
the potential loss in Iraq's oil revenue, there are many reasons for the Trump administration
to feel threatened by China's recent dealings in Iraq.
The Iraq-China oil deal – a prelude to something more?
When Abdul-Mahdi's delegation traveled to Beijing last September, the "oil for
reconstruction" deal was only
one of eight total agreements that were established. These agreements cover a range of
areas, including financial, commercial, security, reconstruction, communication, culture,
education and foreign affairs in addition to oil. Yet, the oil deal is by far the most
significant.
Per the agreement, Chinese firms will work on various reconstruction projects in exchange
for roughly 20 percent of Iraq's oil exports, approximately 100,00 barrels per day, for a
period of 20 years. According to Al-Monitor
, Abdul-Mahdi had the following to say about the deal: "We agreed [with Beijing] to set up a
joint investment fund, which the oil money will finance," adding that the agreement prohibits
China from monopolizing projects inside Iraq, forcing Bejing to work in cooperation with
international firms.
The agreement is similar to one negotiated
between Iraq and China in 2015 when Abdul-Mahdi was serving as Iraq's oil minister. That
year, Iraq joined China's Belt and Road Initiative in a deal that also involved exchanging oil
for investment, development and construction projects and saw China awarded several projects as
a result. In a notable similarity to recent events, that deal was put on hold due to "political
and security tensions" caused by unrest and the surge of ISIS in Iraq, that is until
Abdul-Mahdi saw Iraq rejoin the
initiative again late last year through the agreements his government signed with China
last September.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, center left, meet with Iraqi Prime Minister
Adil Abdul-Mahdi, center right, in Beijing, Sept. 23, 2019. Lintao Zhang | AP
Notably, after recent tensions between the U.S. and Iraq over the assassination of Soleimani
and the U.S.' subsequent refusal to remove its troops from Iraq despite parliament's demands,
Iraq quietly announced that it would dramatically increase its oil exports to China to
triple the
amount established in the deal signed in September. Given Abdul-Mahdi's recent claims about
the true forces behind Iraq's recent protests and Trump's threats against him being directly
related to his dealings with China, the move appears to be a not-so-veiled signal from
Abdul-Mahdi to Washington that he plans to deepen Iraq's partnership with China, at least for
as long as he remains in his caretaker role.
Iraq's decision to dramatically increase its oil exports to China came just one day after
the U.S. government
threatened to cut off Iraq's access to its central bank account, currently held at the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, an account that
currently holds $35 billion in Iraqi oil revenue. The account was
set up after the U.S. invaded and began occupying Iraq in 2003 and Iraq currently removes
between $1-2 billion per month to cover essential government expenses. Losing access to its oil
revenue stored in that account would lead to the "
collapse " of Iraq's government, according to Iraqi government officials who spoke to
AFP .
Though Trump publicly promised to rebuke Iraq for the expulsion of U.S. troops via
sanctions, the threat to cut off Iraq's access to its account at the NY Federal Reserve Bank
was delivered privately and directly to the Prime Minister, adding further credibility to
Abdul-Mahdi's claims that Trump's most aggressive attempts at pressuring Iraq's government are
made in private and directed towards the country's Prime Minister.
Though Trump's push this time was about preventing the expulsion of U.S. troops from Iraq,
his reasons for doing so may also be related to concerns about China's growing foothold in the
region. Indeed, while Trump has now lost his desired share of Iraqi oil revenue (50 percent) to
China's counteroffer of 20 percent, the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq may see American
troops replaced with their Chinese counterparts as well, according to Tom Luongo.
"All of this is about the U.S. maintaining the fiction that it needs to stay in Iraq So,
China moving in there is the moment where they get their toe hold for the Belt and Road
[Initiative]," Luongo argued. "That helps to strengthen the economic relationship between Iraq,
Iran and China and obviating the need for the Americans to stay there. At some point, China
will have assets on the ground that they are going to want to defend militarily in the event of
any major crisis. This brings us to the next thing we know, that Mahdi and the Chinese
ambassador discussed that very thing in the wake of the Soleimani killing."
Indeed, according to news reports, Zhang Yao -- China's ambassador to Iraq -- " conveyed
Beijing's readiness to provide military assistance" should Iraq's government request it
soon after Soleimani's assassination. Yao made the offer a day after Iraq's parliament voted to
expel American troops from the country. Though it is currently unknown how Abdul-Mahdi
responded to the offer, the timing likely caused no shortage of concern among the Trump
administration about its rapidly waning influence in Iraq. "You can see what's coming here,"
Luongo told MintPress of the recent Chinese offer to Iraq, "China, Russia and Iran are
trying to cleave Iraq away from the United States and the U.S. is feeling very threatened by
this."
Russia is also playing a role in the current scenario as Iraq initiated talks with Moscow
regarding the
possible purchase of one of its air defense systems last September, the same month that
Iraq signed eight deals, including the oil deal with China. Then, in the wake of Soleimani's
death, Russia
again offered the air defense systems to Iraq to allow them to better defend their air
space. In the past, the U.S.
has threatened allied countries with sanctions and other measures if they purchase Russian
air defense systems as opposed to those manufactured by U.S. companies.
The U.S.' efforts to curb China's growing influence and presence in Iraq amid these new
strategic partnerships and agreements are limited, however, as the U.S. is increasingly relying on China
as part of its Iran policy, specifically in its goal of reducing Iranian oil export to zero.
China remains Iran's main crude oil and condensate importer, even after it reduced its imports
of Iranian oil significantly following U.S. pressure last year. Yet, the U.S. is now attempting to
pressure China to stop buying Iranian oil completely or face sanctions while also
attempting to privately sabotage the China-Iraq oil deal. It is highly unlikely China will
concede to the U.S. on both, if any, of those fronts, meaning the U.S. may be forced to choose
which policy front (Iran "containment" vs. Iraq's oil dealings with China) it values more in
the coming weeks and months.
Furthermore, the recent signing of the "phase one" trade deal with China revealed another
potential facet of the U.S.' increasingly complicated relationship with Iraq's oil sector given
that the trade deal
involves selling U.S. oil and gas to China at very low cost , suggesting that the Trump
administration may also see the Iraq-China oil deal result in Iraq emerging as a potential
competitor for the U.S. in selling cheap oil to China, the world's top oil importer.
The Petrodollar and the Phantom of the Petroyuan
In his televised statements last week following Iran's military response to the U.S.
assassination of General Soleimani, Trump insisted that the U.S.' Middle East policy is no
longer being directed by America's vast oil requirements. He
stated specifically that:
Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before
and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accomplishments changed our
strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And
options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and
natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East
oil . (emphasis added)"
Yet, given the centrality of the recent Iraq-China oil deal in guiding some of the Trump
administration's recent Middle East policy moves, this appears not to be the case. The
distinction may lie in the fact that, while the U.S. may now be less dependent on oil imports
from the Middle East, it still very much needs to continue to dominate how oil is traded and
sold on international markets in order to maintain its status as both a global military
and financial superpower.
Indeed, even if the U.S. is importing less Middle Eastern oil, the petrodollar system --
first forged in the 1970s -- requires that the U.S. maintains enough control over the global
oil trade so that the world's largest oil exporters, Iraq among them, continue to sell their
oil in dollars. Were Iraq to sell oil in another currency, or trade oil for services, as it
plans to do with China per the recently inked deal, a significant portion of Iraqi oil would
cease to generate a demand for dollars, violating the key tenet of the petrodollar
system.
Chinese representatives speak to defense personnel during a weapons expo organized
by the Iraqi defense ministry in Baghdad, March, 2017. Karim Kadim | AP
The takeaway from the petrodollar phenomenon is that as long as countries need oil, they
will need the dollar. As long as countries demand dollars, the U.S. can continue to go into
massive amounts of debt to fund its network of global military bases, Wall Street bailouts,
nuclear missiles, and tax cuts for the rich."
Thus, the use of the petrodollar has created a system whereby U.S. control of oil sales of
the largest oil exporters is necessary, not just to buttress the dollar, but also to support
its global military presence. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the issue of the U.S. troop
presence in Iraq and the issue of Iraq's push for oil independence against U.S. wishes have
become intertwined. Notably, one of the architects of the petrodollar system and the man who
infamously described U.S. soldiers as "dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign
policy", former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, has been advising
Trump and informing his China policy since 2016.
This take was also expressed by economist Michael Hudson,
who recently noted that U.S. access to oil, dollarization and U.S. military strategy are
intricately interwoven and that Trump's recent Iraq policy is intended "to escalate America's
presence in Iraq to keep control of the region's oil reserves," and, as Hudson says, "to back
Saudi Arabia's Wahabi troops (ISIS, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Nusra and other divisions of what are
actually America's foreign legion) to support U.S. control of Near Eastern oil as a buttress of
the U.S. dollar."
Hudson further asserts that it was Qassem Soleimani's efforts to promote Iraq's oil
independence at the expense of U.S. imperial ambitions that served one of the key motives
behind his assassination.
America opposed General Suleimani above all because he was fighting against ISIS and other
U.S.-backed terrorists in their attempt to break up Syria and replace Assad's regime with a
set of U.S.-compliant local leaders – the old British "divide and conquer" ploy. On
occasion, Suleimani had cooperated with U.S. troops in fighting ISIS groups that got "out of
line" meaning the U.S. party line. But every indication is that he was in Iraq to work
with that government seeking to regain control of the oil fields that President Trump has
bragged so loudly about grabbing. (emphasis added)"
Hudson adds that " U.S. neocons feared Suleimani's plan to help Iraq assert control of its
oil and withstand the terrorist attacks supported by U.S. and Saudi's on Iraq. That is what
made his assassination an immediate drive."
While other factors -- such as pressure
from U.S. allies such as Israel -- also played a factor in the decision to kill Soleimani,
the decision to assassinate him on Iraqi soil just hours before he was set to meet with
Abdul-Mahdi in a diplomatic role suggests that the underlying tensions caused by Iraq's push
for oil independence and its oil deal with China did play a factor in the timing of his
assassination. It also served as a threat to Abdul-Mahdi, who has claimed that the U.S.
threatened to kill both him and his defense minister just weeks prior over tensions directly
related to the push for independence of Iraq's oil sector from the U.S.
It appears that the ever-present role of the petrodollar in guiding U.S. policy in the
Middle East remains unchanged. The petrodollar has long been a driving factor behind the U.S.'
policy towards Iraq specifically, as one of the key triggers for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was
Saddam Hussein's decision to sell Iraqi oil in Euros opposed to dollars beginning in the year
2000. Just weeks before the invasion began, Hussein boasted that Iraq's Euro-based oil revenue
account was earning a higher interest rate than
it would have been if it had continued to sell its oil in dollars, an apparent signal to other
oil exporters that the petrodollar system was only really benefiting the United States at their
own expense.
Beyond current efforts to stave off Iraq's oil independence and keep its oil trade aligned
with the U.S., the fact that the U.S. is now seeking to limit China's ever-growing role in
Iraq's oil sector is also directly related to China's publicly known efforts to create its own
direct competitor to the petrodollar, the petroyuan.
Since 2017, China has made its plans for the petroyuan -- a direct competitor to the
petrodollar -- no secret, particularly after China eclipsed the U.S. as the world's largest
importer of oil.
The new strategy is to enlist the energy markets' help: Beijing may introduce a new way to
price oil in coming months -- but unlike the contracts based on the U.S. dollar that currently dominate global
markets, this benchmark would use China's own currency. If there's widespread adoption, as the
Chinese hope, then that will mark a step toward challenging the greenback's status as the
world's most powerful currency .The plan is to price oil in yuan using a gold-backed futures contract in
Shanghai, but the road will be long and arduous."
If the U.S. continues on its current path and pushes Iraq further into the arms of China and
other U.S. rival states, it goes without saying that Iraq -- now a part of China's Belt and Road
Initiative -- may soon favor a petroyuan system over a petrodollar system, particularly as the
current U.S. administration threatens to hold Iraq's central bank account hostage for pursuing
policies Washington finds unfavorable.
It could also explain why President Trump is so concerned about China's growing foothold
in Iraq, since it risks causing not only the end of the U.S. military hegemony in the country but
could also lead to major trouble for the petrodollar system and the U.S.' position as a global
financial power. Trump's policy aimed at stopping China and Iraq's growing ties is clearly having
the opposite effect, showing that this administration's "gangster diplomacy" only serves to make
the alternatives offered by countries like China and Russia all the more attractive.
One can see how all these recent wars and military actions have a financial motive at their
core. Yet the mass of gullible Americans actually believe the reasons given, to "spread
democracy" and other wonderful things. Only a small number can see things for what they really
are. It's very frustrating to deal with the stupidity of the average person on a daily basis.
This is not Trump's policy, it is American policy and the variation is in how he implements
it. Any other person would have fallen in line with it as well. US policy has it's own inner
momentum that can't change course. The US depends upon continuation of the dollar as the
world's reserve currency. Were that to be lost the US likely would descend into chaos without
end. When the USSR came apart it was eventually able to downsize into the Russian state. We
don't have that here; there is no core ethnicity with it's own territory left anymore, it's
just a jumble. For the US it's a matter of survival.
"... In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for all the good it did. ..."
"... The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing" -- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property, and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake news "alternative fact." ..."
In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its
ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for
all the good it did.
A few days later, Trump killed a high level Iranian military leader and I have decided a
post is in order, never mind that a round of tiddlywinks will have about the same influence as
a post here. The wars just keep on coming, no matter what we do.
Let's turn to social media where dimwits, neocon partisans, and clueless Democrats are
running wild after corporate Mafia boss and numero uno Israeli cheerleader Donald Trump ordered
a hit on Gen. Qasem Soleimani and others near Baghdad's international airport on Thursday.
Let's begin with this teleprompter reader and "presenter" from Al Jazeera:
"This is what happens when you put a narcissistic, megalomaniacal, former reality TV star
with a thin skin and a very large temper in charge of the world's most powerful military You
know who else attacks cultural sites? ISIS. The Taliban." – me on Trump/Iran on MSNBC
today: pic.twitter.com/YCRARB2anv
It is interesting how the memory of such people only goes back to the election of Donald
Trump.
The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing"
-- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property,
and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the
nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international
terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake
news "alternative fact."
Here's another idiot. He was the boss of the DNC for a while and unsuccessfully ran for
president.
Nice job trump and Pompeo you dimwits. You've completed the neocon move to have Iraq
become a satellite of Iran. You have to be the dumbest people ever to run the US government.
You can add that to being the most corrupt. Get these guys out of here. https://t.co/gQHhHSeiJQ
Once again, history is lost in a tangle of lies and omission. Centuries before John Dean
thought it might be a good idea to run for president, Persians and Shias in what is now Iraq
and Iran were crossing the border -- later drawn up by invading Brits and French -- in
pilgrimages to the shrines of Imam Husayn and Abbas in Karbala. We can't expect an arrogant
sociopath like Mr. Dean to know about Ashura, Shia pilgrimages, the Remembrance of Muharram,
and events dating back to 680 AD.
Shias from Iran pilgrimage to other Iraqi cities as well, including An-Najaf, Samarra,
Mashhad, and Baghdad (although the latter is more important to Sunnis).
Corporate fake news teleprompter reader Stephanopoulos said the Geneva Conventions
(including United Nations Security Council Resolution 2347) outlaw the targeting of cultural
sites, which Trump said he will bomb.
Trump said there are 52 different sites; the number is not arbitrary, it is based on the 52
hostages, many of them CIA officers, taken hostage during Iran's revolution against the
US-installed Shah and his brutal secret police sadists.
Pompeo said Trump won't destroy Iran's cultural and heritage sites. Pompeo, as a dedicated
Zionist operative, knows damn well the US will destroy EVERYTHING of value in Iran, same as it
did in Iraq and later Libya and Syria. This includes not only cultural sites, but civilian
infrastructure -- hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and mosques.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Geneva Conventions outlaws attacks on cultural objects & places of
worship. Why is Trump threatening Iran w/ war crimes?
POMPEO: We'll behave lawfully
S: So to be clear, Trump's threat wasn't accurate?
Although I believe Jill Stein is living in a Marxian fantasy world, I agree with her tweet
in regard to the Zionist hit on Soleimani:
Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment
– treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump
asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then
assassinated Soleimani – on a mediation mission. https://t.co/f0F9FEMALD
Trump should be impeached -- tried and imprisoned -- not in response to some dreamed-up and
ludicrous Russian plot or even concern about the opportunist Hunter Biden using his father's
position to make millions in uber-corrupt Ukraine, but because he is a war criminal responsible
for killing women and children.
As for the planned forever military occupation of Iraq,
USA Today reports:
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told lawmakers that a timetable for the withdrawal
of all foreign troops, including U.S. ones, was required "for the sake of our national
sovereignty." About 5,000 American troops are in various parts of Iraq.
The latest:
-- Iraqi lawmakers voted to oust U.S. troops
-- U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS has paused operations
-- Hundreds of thousands mourned General Suleimani in Iran
-- President Trump said the U.S. has 52 possible targets in Iran in case of retaliation
https://t.co/pmUuAQdKlc
No way in hell will Sec. State Pompeo and his Zionist neocon handlers allow this to happen
without a fight. However, it shouldn't be too difficult for the Iraqis to expel 5,000
brainwashed American soldiers from the country, bombed to smithereens almost twenty years ago
by Bush the Neocon Idiot Savant.
Never mind Schumer's pretend concern about another war. This friend of Israel from New York
didn't go on national television and excoriate Obama and his cutthroat Sec. of State Hillary
Clinton for killing 30,000 Libyans.
I'm concerned President Trump's impulsive foreign policy is dragging America into another
endless war in the Middle East that will make us less safe.
Meanwhile, it looks like social media is burning the midnight oil in order to prevent their
platforms being used to argue against Trump's latest Zionist-directed insanity.
It is absolutely crazy that Twitter is auto-locking the accounts of anyone who posts this
"No war on Iran" image, and forcing them to delete the anti-war tweet in order to unlock
their account.
This is complete and utter bullshit, but I'm sure the American people will gobble it down
without question. Trump's advisers are neocons and they are seriously experienced in the art of
promoting and engineering assassination, cyber-attacks, invasions, and mass murder.
Newsmax scribbler John Cardillo thinks he has it all figure out.
"In mid-October Soleimani instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and
other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using
sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran "
Imagine this, however improbable and ludicrous: Iran invades America and assassinates
General Hyten or General McConville, both top members of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now
imagine the response by the "exceptional nation."
We can't leave out the Christian Zionist from Indiana, Mike Pence. Mike wants you to believe
Iran was responsible for 9/11, thus stirring up the appropriate animosity and consensus for
mass murder.
Neither Iran nor Soleimani were linked to the terror attack in the "9/11 Commission
Report." Pence didn't even get the number of hijackers right. https://t.co/QtQZm2Yyh9
Finally, here is the crown jewel of propaganda -- in part responsible for the death of well
over a million Iraqis -- The New York Times showing off its rampant hypocrisy.
In Opinion
The editorial board writes, "It is crucial that influential Republican senators like
Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell remind President Trump of his promise to keep
America out of foreign quagmires" https://t.co/2swusvBWbg
Never mind Judith Miller, the Queen of NYT pro-war propaganda back in the day, spreading
neocon fabricated lies about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. America -- or
rather the United States (the government) -- is addicted to quagmires and never-ending war.
This is simply more anti-Trump bullshit by the NYT editorial board. The newspaper loves war
waged in the name of Israel, but only if jumpstarted by Democrats.
Trump the fool, the fact-free reality TV president will eventually unleash the dogs of war
against Iran, much to the satisfaction of Israel, its racist Zionists, Israel-first neocons in
America, and the chattering pro-war class of "journalists," and "foreign policy experts" (most
former Pentagon employees).
Expect more nonsense like that dispensed by the robot Mike Pence, the former tank commander
now serving as Sec. of State, and any number of neocon fellow travelers, many with coveted blue
checkmarks on Twitter while the truth-tellers are expelled from the conversation and exiled to
the political wilderness.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this
article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global
Research.
As'ad AbuKhalil analyzes the Trump administration's decision
to escalate hostilities with Iran and its regional allies.
By As`ad AbuKhalil
January 21, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - S omething big
and unprecedented has happened in the Middle East after the assassination of one of Iran's
top commanders, Qasim Suleimani.
The U.S. has long assumed that assassinations of major figures in the Iranian
"resistance-axis" in the Middle East would bring risk to the U.S. military-intelligence
presence in the Middle East. Western and Arab media reported that the U.S. had prevented
Israel in the past from killing Suleimani. But with the top commander's death, the Trump
administration seems to think a key barrier to U.S. military operations in the Middle East
has been removed.
The U.S. and Israel had noticed that Hizbullah and Iran did not retaliate against previous
assassinations by Israel (or the U.S.) that took place in Syria (of Imad Mughniyyah, Jihad
Mughniyyah, Samir Quntar); or for other attacks on Palestinian and Lebanese commanders in
Syria.
The U.S. thus assumed that this assassination would not bring repercussions or harm to
U.S. interests. Iranian reluctance to retaliate has only increased the willingness of Israel
and the U.S. to violate the unspoken rules of engagement with Iran in the Arab East.
For many years Israel did perpetrate various assassinations against Iranian scientists and
officers in Syria during the on-going war. But Israel and the U.S. avoided targeting leaders
or commanders of Iran. During the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the U.S. and Iran collided
directly and indirectly, but avoided engaging in assassinations for fear that this would
unleash a series of tit-for-tat.
But the Trump administration has become known for not playing by the book, and for
operating often according to the whims and impulses of President Donald Trump.
Different Level of Escalation
The decision to strike at Baghdad airport, however, was a different level of escalation.
In addition to killing Suleimani it also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a key leader of Hashd
forces in Iraq. Like Suleimani, al-Muhandis was known for waging the long fight against ISIS.
(Despite this, the U.S. media only give credit to the U.S. and its clients who barely lifted
a finger in the fight against ISIS.)
On the surface of it, the strike was uncharacteristic of Trump. Here is a man who pledged
to pull the U.S. out of the Middle East turmoil -- turmoil for which the U.S and Israel bear
the primary responsibility. And yet he seems willing to order a strike that will guarantee
intensification of the conflict in the region, and even the deployment of more U.S.
forces.
Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
The first term of the Trump administration has revealed the extent to which the U.S. war
empire is run by the military-intelligence apparatus. There is not much a president -- even a
popular president like Barack Obama in his second term -- can do to change the course of
empire. It is not that Obama wanted to end U.S. wars in the region, but Trump has tried to
retreat from Middle East conflicts and yet he has been unable due to pressures not only from
the military-intelligence apparatus but also from their war advocates in the U.S. Congress
and Western media, D.C. think tanks and the human-rights industry. The pressures to preserve
the war agenda is too powerful on a U.S. president for it to cease in the foreseeable future.
But Trump has managed to start fewer new wars than his predecessors -- until this strike.
Trump's Obama Obsession
Trump in his foreign policy is obsessed with the legacy and image of Obama. He decided to
violate the Iran nuclear agreement (which carried the weight of international law after its
adoption by the UN Security Council) largely because he wanted to prove that he is tougher
than Obama, and also because he wanted an international agreement that carries his imprint.
Just as Trump relishes putting his name on buildings, hotels, and casinos he wants to put his
name on international agreements. His decision, to strike at a convoy carrying perhaps the
second most important person in Iran was presumably attached to an intelligence assessment
that calculated that Iran is too weakened and too fatigued to strike back directly at the
U.S.
Iran faced difficult choices in response to the assassination of Suleimani. On the one
hand, Iran would appear weak and vulnerable if it did not retaliate and that would only
invite more direct U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iranian targets.
On the other hand, the decision to respond in a large-scale attack on U.S. military or
diplomatic targets in the Middle East would invite an immediate massive U.S. strike inside
Iran. Such an attack has been on the books; the U.S military (and Israel, of course) have
been waiting for the right moment for the U.S. to destroy key strategic sites inside
Iran.
Furthermore, there is no question that the cruel U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran have made
life difficult for the Iranian people and have limited the choices of the government, and
weakened its political legitimacy, especially in the face of vast Gulf-Western attempts to
exploit internal dissent and divisions inside Iran. (Not that dissent inside Iran is not
real, and not that repression by the regime is not real).
Nonetheless, if the Iranian regime were to open an all-out war against the U.S., this
would certainly cause great harm and damage to U.S. and Israeli interests.
Iran Sending Messages
In the last year, however, Iran successfully sent messages to Gulf regimes (through
attacks on oil shipping in the Gulf, for which Iran did not claim responsibility, nor did it
take responsibility for the pin-point attack on ARAMCO oil installations) that any future
conflict would not spare their territories.
That quickly reversed the policy orientations of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which
suddenly became weary of confrontation with Iran, and both are now negotiating (openly and
secretively) with the Iranian government. Ironically, both the UAE and Saudi regimes -- which
constituted a lobby for war against Iran in Western capitals -- are also eager to distance
themselves from U.S. military action against
Iran . And Kuwait quickly
denied that the U.S. used its territory in the U.S. attack on Baghdad airport, while
Qatar dispatched its foreign minister to Iran (officially to offer condolences over the death
of Suleimani, but presumably also to distance itself and its territory from the U.S.
attack).
The Iranian response was very measured and very specific. It was purposefully intended to
avoid causing U.S. casualties; it was intended more as a message of Iranian missile
capabilities and their pin point accuracy. And that message was not lost on Israel.
Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, sent a more strident message. He basically
implied that it would be left to Iran's allies to engineer military responses. He also
declared a war on the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, although he was at pains to
stress that U.S. civilians are to be spared in any attack or retaliation.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6yyC897UliI
Supporters of the Iran resistance axis have been quite angry in the wake of the
assassination. The status of Suleimani in his camp is similar to the status of Nasrallah
although Nasrallah -- due to his charisma and to his performance and the performance of his
party in the July 2006 war -- may have attained a higher status.
It would be easy for the Trump administration to ignite a Middle East war by provoking
Iran once again, and wrongly assuming that there are no limits to Iranian caution and
self-restraint. But if the U.S. (and Israel with it or behind it) were to start a Middle East
war, it will spread far wider and last far longer than the last war in Iraq, which the U.S.
is yet to complete.
As'ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California
State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the "Historical Dictionary of Lebanon"
(1998), "Bin Laden, Islam and America's New War on Terrorism (2002), and "The Battle for
Saudi Arabia" (2004). He tweets as @asadabukhal
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with his Iranian
counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif over the phone on Friday to discuss the killing of Iran's
military chief Qassem Soleimani, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Lavrov expressed his condolences over the killing," the statement said. "The ministers
stressed that such actions by the United States grossly violate the norms of international
law."
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said that Tehran
continues to adhere to the 2015 nuclear deal, adding that the European powers' claims about
Iran violating the deal were unfounded.
Moscow warns Tehran against making 'reckless steps' to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said. He added that Russia urges
Iran to comply with its obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, giving those who oppose the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) further reasons for escalation is
"counterproductive".
Is there a friend anywhere? Kim or Khan of Pakistan to ship one in.
Alternative, Moscow could declare its nuclear capabilities are extended to Iran. Just can't
leave Iran hanging on a twig.
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 20 2020 21:41 utc | 36
Maybe it's because trump has a history with Russian mobsters and money laundering?
Or maybe it's just smart to say that? What's to be gained by setting off man child trump and
spurring yet another temper tantrum via twitter?
trump did lotsa bidnezz with the International cabal that plundered Russia after the
disillusion of the USSR. They stole from the Russian people, and laundered their ill begotten
gains with chumps, like trump.
"... "We work with technological companies to help free flow of information and provide circumvention tools that helped in [last week's] protest ," ..."
"... they were actively assisting in organizing recent protests ..."
US Officials Admit Covert Tech Program Is Fueling Iran Protests by Tyler Durden Mon, 01/20/2020 - 21:55 0
SHARES
After major protests hit multiple cities across Iran in November following a drastic
government slash in gasoline subsidies which quickly turned anti-regime, broad internet outages
were reported -- some lasting as long as a week or more nationwide --
following Tehran authorities ordering the blockage of external access.
And during smaller January protests over downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752,
more widespread internet outages were reported recently, likely as Iranian security
services fear protest "crackdown" videos would fuel outrage in western media , and after months
ago Mike Pompeo
expressly urged Iranians in the streets to send the State Department damning videos that
would implicate Tehran's leaders and police.
But now Washington appears to have initiated the
"Syria option" inside Iran: covertly fueling and driving "popular protests " to eventually
create conditions for large-scale confrontation on the ground geared toward regime
change.
Financial Times reports Washington's 'covert' efforts are now increasing, and are
more out in the open :
US government-funded technology companies have recorded an increase in the use of
circumvention software in Iran in recent weeks after boosting efforts to help Iranian
anti-regime protesters thwart internet censorship and use secure mobile messaging .
The outreach is part of a US government program dedicated to internet freedom that
supports dissident pressure inside Iran and complements America's policy of "maximum
pressure" over the regime. A US state department official told the Financial Times that since
protests in Iran in 2018 -- at the time the largest in almost a decade -- Washington had
accelerated efforts to provide Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other
and the outside world .
Similar efforts had long been in place with anti-Assad groups prior to the outbreak of
conflict in Syria in 2011,
WikiLeaks cables previously revealed.
The US State Department is now openly boasting it's enacted this program for Iran , which
includes "providing apps, servers and other technology to help people communicate, visit banned
websites, install anti-tracking software and navigate data shutdowns," according to FT .
Confirmed: Drop in internet connectivity registered at #Sharif University,
Tehran from 11:50 UTC where students are protesting for colleagues and alumni killed on
flight #PS752 ; national
connectivity remains stable despite sporadic disruptions on third day of #Iran
protests📉 pic.twitter.com/LjaNNd4Ut2
And dangerously, many Iranians may not even realize they could be in some instances relying
on such US-funded countermeasures to circumvent domestic internet blockages:
"Many Iranians rely on virtual private networks (VPNs) that receive US funding or are
beamed in with US support , not knowing they are relying on Washington-backed tools."
Iran is on occasion
known to round of citizen-journalists and accuse them of being CIA assets -- thus
the State Department's open boasting about its program, which is further connected to a broader
$65.5 million "Internet Freedom program" in troubled spots throughout the world --
could only serve to increase this trend.
"We work with technological companies to help free flow of information and provide
circumvention tools that helped in [last week's] protest ," one US state department
official told the FT. "We are able to sponsor VPNs -- and that allows Iranians to use the
internet."
So there it is: US officials explicitly admitting they were actively assisting in
organizing recent protests which followed Soleimani's killing and the Ukrainian airliner
shoot down.
I have asked the Iranian protestors to send us their videos, photos, and information
documenting the regime's crackdown on protestors. The U.S. will expose and sanction the
abuses. https://t.co/korr5p0woA
At least one circumvention software is actually identified in the report as being produced
by Canada-based Psiphon, which receives American government funds. Of course the company sees
its role more as facilitating "free flow of information" and less as essentially a willing
asset in pursuing covert regime change in Tehran.
Interestingly, the revelation comes just as other US-funded propaganda campaigns related to
Iran are coming to light:
One of the most viral videos about Iran last week -- and a reason #IraniansDetestSoleimani
was trending -- was made by a lobbyist who had worked for a militia group in Libya https://t.co/fN7v6Vztyo
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public
believes is false" - Wm. Casey, former Director of the CIA under President (and Iranian arms
dealer) Ronald Reagan(R).
So, when does Trump send ISIS to Iran? Oh, MEK is already there.
I remember when Trump supporters pointed out how Hillary supported a coup in Honduras.
Well, Trump has Bolivia.
Then Obama created ISIS. Well, ISIS has been around since about 2000. And Trump signed
NDAA's that sent money to "freedom fighters" in Syria.. .guess who...
Obama is a loser in Afghanistan and so are the Generals. Well, there was Bush. And now?
Trump... going on 4 years of losing in Afghanistan with his own Generals.
Hillary and Libya. Trump and Libya.
Obama and NK? Trump and NK.
Obama and Venezuela? Trump and Venezuela. And what threat does Venezuela pose to The US?
No one can answer that question.
Trump says "no more wars", is engaged in wars and trying to start one with Iran.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME.
"The outreach is part of a US government program dedicated to internet freedom that
supports dissident pressure inside Iran and complements America's policy of "maximum
pressure" over the regime. A US state department official told the Financial Times that since
protests in Iran in 2018 -- at the time the largest in almost a decade -- Washington had
accelerated efforts to provide Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other
and the outside world ."...
VOA LIVE$...
Sure wish somebody in our government could have alerted Bobby McIIlvaine ( https://www.ae911truth.org/get-involved/bobby-mcilvaine-act
) with "emergency" internet services to his phone nearly 18 1/2 years ago to what his own
government was about to do to him before he went into the office that day along with the
other 2,976 victims?!!!
One thing I'll say for the American government since the banker bailouts, they "don't hide
what they are doing" when it comes to subverting governments for looting purposes (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL_GShyGv3o
)!... At least the Iranian leadership knows what is coming before it happens these
days!...
The Iranian people are not stupid to commit suicide , they have seen the us handy work in
1953 when Iran had the first democracy in the middle east to be bamboozled by the cia who
removed their elected prime minister and installed the shah.
of course some university students want a sexual revolution like in the us are revolting
but they are a handful and they are being subdued .
The Iranian people lived through CIA/MOSSAD style "Democracy" from 1953-1980 and will
fight "Tooth and nail" not to return to those Horrific days of the Shah!
How naive do you have to be to think the US is just giving out free internet for the sake
of the Iranian people? even after they've done the same thing all throughout the middle east
to cause mass riots and civil unrest.
The last thing you will ever get from the US government is the truth.
"... In the larger global picture, if the U.S. is to find its own balance in the contemporary world, Friedman argues that the seemingly-endless instability in the Middle East is the first and foremost problem that must be solved. Iran is a major problem here, but so is Israel, and Friedman argues that the US must find the path toward "quietly distanc[ing] itself from Israel" (p.6). ..."
"... This course of action regarding Iran and Israel (and other actors in the Muslim world, including Pakistan and Turkey) is, in Friedman's geopolitical perspective, not so much a matter of supporting U.S. global hegemony as it is recognizing the larger course that the U.S. will be compelled to take. ..."
"... So, it's back to Plan A for the Democrats and the "Left" that would be laughably absurd if it wasn't so reactionary, to get the neoliberal/ neoconservative endless-war agenda back on track, so that the march toward Iran can continue sooner rather than later. For now, the more spectacular the failure of this impeachment nonsense, the better! ..."
Let's be clear, there is a difference between substituting geopolitical power calculations
for a universal perspective on the good of humanity, and, on the other hand, recognizing that
the existing layout of the world has to be taken into account in attempts to open up a true
politics. (My larger perspective on the problem of "opening" is presented in the long essay,
"The Fourth Hypothesis," at counterpunch.org.)
Personally, I find the geopolitical analyses of George Friedman very much worthwhile to
consider, especially when he is looking at things long-range, as in his books The Next 100
Years and The Next Decade. The latter was published at the beginning of 2012, and so we are
coming to the close of the ten-year period that Friedman discusses.
One of the major arguments that Friedman makes in The Next Decade is that the
United States will have to reach some sort of accommodation with Iran and its regional
ambitions. The key to this, Friedman argues, is to bring about some kind of balance of power
again, such as existed before Iraq was torn apart.
This is the key in general to continued U.S. hegemony in the world, in Friedman's view --
regional balances that keep regional powers tied up and unable to rise on the world stage. (An
especially interesting example here is that Friedman says that Poland will be built up as a
bulwark between Russia and Germany.)
In the larger global picture, if the U.S. is to find its own balance in the contemporary
world, Friedman argues that the seemingly-endless instability in the Middle East is the first
and foremost problem that must be solved. Iran is a major problem here, but so is Israel, and
Friedman argues that the US must find the path toward "quietly distanc[ing] itself from
Israel" (p.6).
This course of action regarding Iran and Israel (and other actors in the Muslim world,
including Pakistan and Turkey) is, in Friedman's geopolitical perspective, not so much a matter
of supporting U.S. global hegemony as it is recognizing the larger course that the U.S. will be
compelled to take.
(As the founder, CEO, and "Chief Intelligence Officer" of Stratfor, Friedman aimed to
provide "non-ideological" strategic intelligence. My understanding of "non-ideological" is that
the analysis was not formulated to suit the agendas of the two mainstream political parties in
the U.S. However, my sense is that Friedman does believe that U.S. global hegemony is on the
whole good for the world.)
In his book that came out before The Next Decade (2011), The Next 100
Years (2009), Friedman makes the case that the U.S. will not be seriously challenged
globally for decades to come -- in fact, all the way until about 2080!
Just to give a different spin to something I said earlier, and that I've tried to emphasize
in my articles since March 2016: questions of mere power are not questions of politics.
Geopolitics is not politics, either -- in my terminology, it is "anti-politics."
For my part, I am not interested in supporting U.S. hegemony, not in the present and not in
the future, and for the most part not in the past, either.
For the moment, let us simply say that the historical periods of the U.S. that are more
supportable -- because they make some contribution, however flawed, to the greater, universal,
human project -- are either from before the U.S. entered the road of seeking to compete with
other "great powers" on the world stage, or quite apart from this road.
In my view, the end of U.S. global hegemony and, for that matter, the end of any "great
nation-state" global hegemony, is a condition sine qua non of a human future that is just and
sustainable. So, again, the brilliance that George Friedman often brings to geopolitical
analysis is to be understood in terms of a coldly-realistic perspective, not a warmly-normative
one.)
Of course, this continued U.S. hegemony depends on certain "wise" courses of action being
taken by U.S. leaders (Friedman doesn't really get into the question of what might be behind
these leaders), including a "subtle" approach to the aforementioned questions of Israel and
Iran.
Obviously, anything associated with Donald Trump is not going to be overly subtle! On the
other hand, here we are almost at the end of Friedman's decade, so perhaps the time for
subtlety has passed, and the U.S. is compelled to be a bit heavy-handed if there is to be any
chance of extricating itself from the endless quagmire.
However, there's a certain fly, a rather large one, in the ointment that seems to have
eluded Friedman's calculations: "the rise of China."
It isn't that Friedman avoids the China question, not at all; Friedman argues, however, that
by 2020 China will not only not be contending with the United States to have the largest
economy in the world, but instead that China will fragment, perhaps even devolve into civil
war, because of deep inequalities between the relatively prosperous coastal urban areas, and
the rural interior.
Certainly I know from study, and many conversations with people in China, this was a real
concern going into the 2010s and in the first half of the decade.
The chapter dealing with all this in The Next 100 Years (Ch. 5) is titled, "China
2020: Paper Tiger," the latter term being one that Chairman Mao used regarding U.S.
imperialism. Friedman writes of another "figure like Mao emerg[ing] to close the country
off from the outside, [to] equalize the wealth -- or poverty " (p.7).
Being an anti-necessitarian in philosophy, I certainly believe anything can happen in social
matters, but it seems as though President Xi Jinping and the current leadership of the
Communist Party of China have, at least for the time being, managed to head off fragmentation
at the pass, so to speak.
Friedman argued that the "pass" that China especially had to deal with is unsustainable
growth rates; but it appears that China has accomplished this, by purposely slowing its economy
down.
One of the things that Friedman is especially helpful with, in his larger geopolitical
analysis, is understanding the role that naval power plays in sustaining U.S. hegemony. (In
global terms, such power is what keeps the neoliberal "free market" running, and this power is
far from free.)
*
... ... ...
Two of the best supporters of Trump's stated agenda are Tucker Carlson and Steve Hilton.
Neither of them pull any punches on this issue when it comes to Republicans, and both of them
go some distance beyond Trump in stating an explicitly anti-war agenda.
They perhaps do not entirely fit the mold of leftist anti-imperialism as it existed from the
1890s through the Sixties (as in the political decade, perhaps 1964-1974 or so) and 1970s, but
they do in fact fit this mold vastly better than almost any major figure of the Democratic
Party, with the possible exceptions of Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Andrew Yang. (But
none of them has gone as far as Trump on this question!)
Certainly Elizabeth Warren is no exception, and at the moment of this writing she has made
the crucial turn toward sticking the knife back into Bernie's back. That is her job, in my
view, and part of it is to seem close to Bernie's positions (whatever their defects, which I'll
discuss elsewhere), at least the ones that are more directly "economic," while winking at the
ruling class.
There are a few things Carlson and Hilton say on the Iran situation and the Middle East in
general that I don't agree with. But in the main I think both are right on where these issues
are concerned.
As I've quoted Carlson a number of times previously, and as I also want to put forward
Hilton as an important voice for a politics subservient to neither the liberal nor the
conservative establishments, here let me quote what Hilton said in the midst of the Iran
crisis, on January 5, 2020:
The best thing America can do to put the Middle East on a path
that leads to more democracy, less terrorism, human rights and economic growth is to get the
hell out of there while showing an absolute crystal clear determination to defend American
interests with force whenever they are threatened.
That doesn't mean not doing anything, it means intervening only in ways that help
America.
It means responding only to attacks on Americans disproportionately as a deterrent, just as
we saw this week and it means finally accepting that it's not our job to fix the Middle East
from afar.
The only part of this I take exception to is the "intervening only in ways that help
America"-bit -- that opens the door to exactly the kinds of problems that Hilton wants the U.S.
to avoid, besides the (to me, more important) fact that it is just morally wrong to think it is
acceptable to intervene if it is in one's "interests."
My guess is that Hilton thinks that there is some built-in utilitarian or pragmatic calculus
that means the morally-problematic interventions will not occur. I do not see where this has
ever worked, but more importantly, this is where philosophy is important, theoretical work and
abstract thinking are important.
It used to be that the Left was pretty good at this sort of thing, and there were some
thoughtful conservatives who weren't bad, either. (A decent number of the latter,
significantly, come from the Catholic intellectual tradition.) Now there are still a few of the
latter, and there are ordinary people who are "thoughtful conservatives" in their "unschooled
way" -- which is often better! -- but the Left has sold its intellectual soul along with its
political soul.
That's a story for elsewhere (I have told parts of it in previous articles in this series);
the point here is that the utilitarianism and "pragmatism" of merely calculating interests is
not nearly going to cut it. (I have partly gone into this here because Hilton also advocates
"pragmatism" in his very worthwhile book, Positive Populism -- it is the "affirmative" other
side to Tucker Carlson's critical, "negative" expose, Ship of Fools.)
The wonderful philosophical pragmatism of William James is another matter; this is important
because James, along with his friend Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), were leading figures of the
Anti-Imperialist League back in the 1890s, when the U.S. establishment was beating the drums
loudly to get into the race with Europeans for colonies.
They were for never getting "in" -- and of course they were not successful, which is why
"get the hell out" is as important as anything people can say today.
What an insane world when the U.S. president says this and the political establishment
opposes him, and "progressives" and "the Left" join in with the denunciations!
It has often been argued that the major utilitarian philosophers, from Bentham and Mill to
Peter Singer, have implicit principles that go beyond the utilitarian calculus; I agree with
this, and I think this is true of Steve Hilton as well.
In this light, allow me to quote a little more from the important statement he made on his
Fox News Channel program, "The Next Revolution," on January 5; all of this is stuff I entirely
agree with, and that expresses some very good principles:
The West's involvement in the
Middle East has been a disaster from the start and finally, with President Trump, America is in
a position to bring it to an end. We don't need their oil and we don't need their problems.
Finally, we have a U.S. president who gets that and wants to get out. There are no prospects
for Middle East peace as long as we are there.
We're never going to defeat the ideology of Islamist terror as long as these countries are
basket cases and one of the reasons they are basket cases is that our preposterous foreign
policy establishment with monumental arrogance have treated the middle east like some chess
game played out in the board rooms in Washington and London.
– [foxnews.com, transcribed by Yael Halon]
So then there is the usual tittering about this and that regarding Carlson and Hilton from
liberal and progressive Democrats and leftists who support the Democrats, and it seems to me
that there is one major reason why there is this foolish tittering: It is because these
liberals and leftists really don't care about, for example, the destruction of Libya, or the
murder of Berta Caceres.
Or, maybe they do care, but they have convinced themselves that these things have to swept
under the rug in the name of defeating the pure evil of Trump. What this amounts to, in the
"nationalist" discourse, is that Trump is some kind of nationalist (as he has said numerous
times), perhaps of an "isolationist" sort, while the Democrats are in fact what can be called
"nationalists of the neoliberal/neoconservative compact."
My liberal and leftist friends (some of them Maoists and post-Maoists and Trotskyists or
some other kinds of Marxists or purported radicals -- feminists or antifa or whatever) just
cannot see, it simply appears to be completely beyond the realm of their imaginations, that the
latter kind of nationalism is much worse and qualitatively worse than what Trump represents,
and it completely lacks the substantial good elements of Trump's agenda.
But hey, don't worry my liberal and leftist friends, it is hard to imagine that Joe Biden's
"return to normalcy" won't happen at some point -- it will take not only an immense movement to
even have a chance of things working out otherwise, but a movement that likes of which is
beyond everyone's imagination at this point -- a movement of a revolutionary politics that
remains to be invented, as all real politics are, by the masses.
Liberals and leftists have little to worry about here, they're okay with a Deep State
society with a bullshit-democratic veneer and a neoliberal world order; this set-up doesn't
really affect them all that much, not negatively at any rate, and the deplorables can just go
to hell.
*
The Left I grew up with was the Sixties Left, and they used to be a great source of
historical memory, and of anti-imperialism, civil rights, and ordinary working-people
empowerment.
The current Left, and whatever array of Democratic-Party supporters, have received their
marching orders, finally, from commander Pelosi (in reality, something more like a lieutenant),
so the two weeks or so of "immense concern" about Iran has given way again to the
extraordinarily-important and solemn work of impeachment.
But then, impeachment is about derailing the three main aspects of Trump's agenda, so you
see how that works. Indeed, perhaps the way this is working is that Trump did in fact head off,
whatever one thinks of the methods, a war with Iran (at this time! – and I do think this
is but a temporary respite), or more accurately, a war between Iran and Israel that the U.S.
would almost certainly be sucked into immediately.
So, it's back to Plan A for the Democrats and the "Left" that would be laughably absurd if
it wasn't so reactionary, to get the neoliberal/ neoconservative endless-war agenda back on
track, so that the march toward Iran can continue sooner rather than later. For now, the more
spectacular the failure of this impeachment nonsense, the better!
Bill Martin is a
philosopher and musician, retired from DePaul University. He is completing a book with the
title, "The Trump Clarification: Disruption at the Edge of the System (toward a theory)." His
most recent albums are "Raga Chaturanga" (Bill Martin + Zugzwang; Avant-Bass 3) and "Emptiness,
Garden: String Quartets nos. 1 and 2 (Ryokucha Bass Guitar Quartet; Avant-Bass 4). He lives in
Salina, Kansas, and plays bass guitar with The Radicles.
Dungroanin ,
I have read through finally. And comments too.
My opinion is Bill Martin is on the ball except for one personage- Hilton. If he is
Camerons Hilton and architect of the Brexit referendum – for which he is rewarded with
a 'seat at the table' of the crumbling Empire. The Strafor man too is just as complicit in
the Empires wickedness.
But I'll let Bill off with that because he mentioned the Anti-Imperialist Mark Twain
– always a joy to be reminded of Americas Dickens.
On Trump – he didn't use the Nuclear codes 10 minutes after getting them as warned
by EVERYONE. Nor start a war with RocketMan, or Russia in Syria, or in Ukraine or with the
Chinese using the proxy Uighars, or push through with attempted Bay of Pigs in Venezuela or
just now Hong Kong. The Wall is not built and the ineffectual ripoff Obamacare version of a
NHS is still there.
Judge by deeds not words.
Soleimani aside – He may have stopped the drive for war. Trumps direct contact with
fellow world leaders HAS largely bypassed the war mongering State Department and also the
Trillion dollar tax free Foundations set up last century to deliver the world Empire, that
has so abused the American peoples and environment. He probably wasn't able to stop
Bolivia.
The appointments of various players were not necessarily in his hands as Assad identified-
the modern potus is merely a CEO/Chair of a board of directors who are put into place by the
special interests who pour billions, 10's of billions into getting their politicians elected.
They determine 'National Interests'. All he can do is accept their appointment and give them
enough rope to hang themselves – which most have done!
These are that fight clubs rules.
On the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – after 20 full years of working towards
cohesion- they have succeeded. Iran is due to become a full member – once it is free of
UN sanctions, which is why Trump was forced into pulling the treaty with them, so that
technicality could stop that membership. China is not having it nor is Russia – Putins
clear statement re the 'international rules' not being mandatory for them dovetails with the
US position of Exceptionality. Checkmate.
As for the Old Robber Baron Banker Pirates idea that they should be allowed a Maritime
Empire as consolation- ha ha ha, pull the other one.
The ancient sea trading routes from Africa to China were active for thousands of years
before the Europeans turned up and used unequal power to disrupt and pillage at their hearts
content.
What made that possible was of course explained in the brilliant Guns, Germs and
Steel.
These ancients have ALL these and are equal or advanced in all else including Space, Comms
and AI. A navy is not so vital when even nuclear subs are visible from low orbit satellites
except in the deepest trenches – not a safe place to hide for months and also pretty
crowded with all the other subs trying to hide there. As for Aircraft carrier groups –
just build an island! Diego Garcia has a rival.
Double Checkmate.
The Empire is Dead. Long live the Empire.
Dungroanin ,
And this is hilarious about potus turning the tables on the brass who tried to drag him into
the 'tank'.
'Grab the damn fainting couch. Trump told the assembled military leaders who had presided
over a military stalemate in Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS as "losers." Not a one of them
had the balls to stand up, tell him to his face he was wrong and offer their resignation.
Nope. They preferred to endure such abuse in order to keep their jobs. Pathetic.
This excerpt in the Washington Post tells the reader more about the corruption of the Deep
State and their mindset than it does about Trump's so-called mental state. Trump acted no
differently in front of these senior officers and diplomats than he did on the campaign
trail. He was honest. That is something the liars in Washington cannot stomach. '
Rhys Jaggar ,
I am not an expert on US Constitutional Law, but is there any legal mechanism for a US
President to hold a Referendum in the way that the UK held a 'Brexit Referendum' and Scotland
held an 'Independence Referendum'?
How would a US Referendum in 'Getting the hell out of the Middle East, bringing our boys
and girls home before the year is out' play out, I wonder?
That takes the argument away from arch hawks like Bolton et al and puts it firmly in the
ambit of Joe Schmo of Main Street, Oshkosh
wardropper ,
Great idea.
Main problem is that most Americans are brought up to think their government is separate from
themselves, and should not be seriously criticized.
By "criticized", I mean, taken to task in a way which actually puts them on a playing field
where they are confronted by real people.
Shouting insults at the government from the rooftops is simply greeted with indulgent smiles
from the guilty elite.
Richard Le Sarc ,
George Friedman is a bog standard Zionist, therefore, out of fear, a virulent Sinophobe,
because the Zionists will never control China as they do the Western slave regimes. China
surpassed the USA as the world' s largest economy in 2014, on the PPP calculus that the
CIA,IMF and just about everyone uses. It' s growing three times as fast as the USA, too. The
chance of China fragmenting by 2020 is minuscule, certainly far less than that of the USA.
The Chinese have almost totally eliminated poverty, and will raise the living standard of all
to a ' middle income' by 2049. It is, however, the genocidal policy of the USA, on which it
expend billions EVERY year, to do its diabolical worst to attempt to foment and foster such a
hideous fate inside China, by supporting vermin like the Hong Kong fascist thugs, the Uighur
salafist terrorist butchers, the medieval theocrats of the Dalai clique and separatist
movements in Inner Mongolia, ' Manchuria', Taiwan, even Guandong and Guangxi. It takes a real
Western thug to look forward to the ghastly suffering that these villainous ambitions would
unleash.
Antonym ,
In RlS's nut shell: China can annex area but Israel: no way!
Dungroanin ,
Which area is China looking to annex?
Richard Le Sarc ,
Ant is a pathological Zionist liar, but you can see his loyalty to ' Eretz Yisrael' , '
..from the Nile to the Euphrates', and ' cleansed' of non-Jews, can' t you.
alsdkjf ,
I'm surprised that this author can even remember the counter culture of the 60s given his
Trump love.
Yet more Trumpism from Off Guardian. One doesn't have to buy into the politics of post DLC
corporate owned DNC to know Trump for what he is. A fascist.
It's just amazing this Trump "left". Pathetic.
Antonym ,
Trump .. better than HRC but the guy is totally hypnotized by the level of the New York stock
exchanges: even his foreign policy is improvised around that. He simply thinks higher is
a proof of better forgetting that 90% of Americans don't own serious quantity of stock
and that levels are manipulated by big players and the FED. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks-economy.html
Look at his dealing with China: tough as much as the US stock market stays benign in the
short term. Same for Iran etc.
Sure, he is crippled by Pelosi & the FBI / CIA, but he is also by his own stock
dependent mind. Might be the reason he is still alive ???
alsdkjf ,
Trump crippled by the CIA? Trump?
I mean the fascist jerk appointed ex CIA torture loving Pompeo to replace swamp creature
oil tycoon as Secretary of State, no?
He appointed torture queen within the CIA to become CIA Director, no?
He went to the CIA headquarters on day one of his Administration to lavish praise, no?
He took on ex CIA Director Woolsey as advisor on foreign policy during his campaign,
no?
I tell ya that Trump is a real adversary of the CIA!
Roger that. Trump appoints a dominatrix as DCI. Only a masochist or a sadist would Dream of
Gina..you know the head of the torture squad under Bush. Otherwise nice girl. PompAss is a
total clown but a dangerous one who even makes John Bolton look sane. Now that's scary!
This guy is Hilary Clinton in drag. The only thing missing is the evil triumphalist cackle
after whacking Soleimani. Maybe it wasn't recorded.
So much for "draining the swamp". The Whitehouse has become an even bigger swamp.
my take from this article:
There are, among the murderers and assassins in Washington, a couple of characters who appear
to have 2% of human DNA.
They author may confirm.
two ,
"israel is right in the cen "
sorry, the muderous regime israel has repeatedly proven, it's never never right . please
avoid this usage.
three ,
There are 53 or 54 'I's in the article, including his partner's Is. The author may confirm.
Dungroanin ,
Phew!
That is a lot of words mate. Fingers must be sore. I won't comment more until trying to
re-read again except quote this:
"Being an anti-necessitarian in philosophy,.."
I must say i had a wtf moment at that point see ya later.
paul ,
The idea that Trump's recent actions in the Middle East were part of some incredibly cunning
plan to avoid war with Iran, strikes me as somewhat implausible, to put it (very) charitably.
Even Hitler didn't want war. He wanted to achieve his objectives without fighting. When
that didn't work, war was Plan B. Trump probably has very little actual control over foreign
policy. He is surrounded by people who have been plotting and scheming against him from long
before he was elected. He heads a chaotic and dysfunctional administration of billionaires,
chancers, grifters, conmen, superannuated generals, religious nut jobs, swamp creatures,
halfwits and outright criminals, lurching from one crisis and one fiasco to the next. Some of
these people like Bolton were foisted upon him by Adelson and various other backers and wire
pullers, but that is not to absolve Trump of personal responsibility.
Competing agencies which are a law unto themselves have been free to pursue their own turf
wars at the expense of anything remotely resembling a rational and coherent strategy. So have
quite low level bureaucrats, formulating and implementing their own policies with little
regard for the White House. In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department went
their own way, each supporting competing and mutually antagonistic factions and terrorist
groups. Agreements that were reached with Russia over Syria, for example, were deliberately
sabotaged by Ashton Carter in 24 hours. Likewise, Bolton did everything he could to wreck
Trump's delicate negotiations with N. Korea.
paul ,
Seen in this light, US policy (or the absence of any coherent policy) is more understandable.
What passes for US leadership is the worst in its history, even given a very low bar.
Arrogant, venal, corrupt, delusional, irredeemably ignorant, and ideologically driven. The
only positive thing that can be said is that the alternative (Clinton) would probably have
been even worse, if that is possible.
That may also be the key to understanding the current situation. For all his pandering to
Israel, Trump is more of a self serving unprincipled opportunist than a true Neocon/ Zionist
believer in the mould of Pence, Bolton and Pompeo. For that reason he is not trusted by the
Zionist Power Elite. He is too much of a loose cannon. They will take all his Gives, like
Jerusalem and the JCPOA, but without any gratitude.
It has taken them a century of plotting, scheming and manoeuvring to achieve their
political, financial, and media stranglehold over the US. but America is a wasting asset and
they are under time pressure. It is visibly declining and losing its influence. And the
parasite will find it difficult to find a similar host. Who else is going to give Israel
billions a year in tribute, unlimited free weaponry and diplomatic cover? Russia? Are Chinese
troops "happy to die for Israel" asUS ones are (according to their general)?
paul ,
And they are way behind schedule. Assad was supposed to be dead by now, and Syria another
defenceless failed state, broken up into feuding little cantons, with Israel expanding into
the south of the country. The main event, the war with Iran, should have started lond ago.
That is the reason for the impeachment circus. This is not intended to be resolved one way
or the other. It is intended to drag on indefinitely, for months and years, to distract and
weaken Trump and make it possible to extract what they want. One of the reasons Trump agreed
to the murder of Soleimani and his Iraqi opposite number was to appease some Republican
senators like Graham whose support is essential to survive impeachment. They were the ones
who wanted it, along with Bolton and Netanyahu.
paul ,
It is instructive that all the main players in the impeachment circus are Jews, under
Sanhedrin Chief Priests Schiff and Nadler, apart from a few token goys thrown in to make up
the numbers. That even goes for those defending Trump.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Don' t forget that Lebanon up to the Litani is the patrimony of the Jewish tribes of Asher
and Naphtali, and, as Smotrich, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, said on Israeli TV a few years
ago, ' Damascus belongs to the Jews'.
bevin ,
" China will fragment, perhaps even devolve into civil war, because of deep inequalities
between the relatively prosperous coastal urban areas, and the rural interior."
This is not Bill, but Bill's mate the Stratcor geopolitical theorist for hire.
What is happening in the world is that the only empire the globe, as a whole, has ever
seen- the pirate kingdom that the Dutch, then the British and finally the US, leveraged out
of the plunder and conquest of America -the maritime empire, of sea routes and navies is
under challenge by a revival of the Eurasian proto-empires that preceded it and drove its
merchants and princes on the Atlantic coast, to sea.
We know who the neo-liberals are the current iteration of the gloomy philosophies of the
Scots Enlightenment, (Cobbett's 'Scotch Feelosophy') utilitarianism in its crudest form and
the principles of necessary inequalities, from the Austrian School back to the various crude
racisms which became characteristic of the C19th.
The neo-cons are the latest expression of the maritime powers' fear of Eurasia and its
interior lines of communication. Besides which the importance of navies and of maritime
agility crumble.
Bill mentions that China has not got much of a navy. I'm not so sure about that, but isn't it
becoming clear that navies-except to shipyards, prostitutes and arms contractors- are no
longer of sovereign importance? There must be missile commanders in China drooling over the
prospect of catching a US Fleet in all its glory within 500 miles of the mainland. Not to
mention on the east coast of the Persian Gulf.
The neo-cons are the last in a long line of strategists, ideologists and, for the most part,
mercenary publicists defying the logic of Halford Mackinder's geo-strategy for a lot more
than a penny a line. And what they urge, is all that they can without crossing the line from
deceitfulness to complete dishonesty: chaos and destabilisation within Eurasia, surrounding
Russia, subverting Sinkiang and Tibet, employing sectarian guerrillas, fabricating
nationalists and nationalisms.. recreate the land piracy, the raiding and the ethnic
explosions that drove trade from the land to the sea and crippled the Qing empire.
The clash is between war, necessary to the Maritime Empire and Peace, vital to the
consolidation and flowering of Eurasia.
As to Israel, and perhaps we can go into this later: it looms much larger in the US
imagination (and the imaginations the 'west' borrows from the US) than anywhere else. It is a
tiny sliver of a country. Far from being an elephant in any room, it is simply a highly
perfumed lapdog which also serves as its master's ventriloquist's dummy. Its danger lies in
the fact that after decades of neglect by its idiotic self indulgent masters, it has become
an openly fascist regime, which was definitely not meant to happen, and, misled by its own
exotic theories of race, has come to believe that it can do what it wants. It can't-and this
is one reason why Bill misjudges the reasoning behind the Soleimani killing- but it likes to
act, or rather threaten to act, as if it could.
(By the way-note to morons across the web-Bill's partner quotes Adorno and writes about
him too: cue rants about Cultural Marxism.)
Hugh O'Neill ,
Thanks, Bevin. The article was so long, I had quite forgotten that he laid too much emphasis
on the Stratcor Unspeakable. Clever he may be, but not much use without a moral compass.
Talking of geo-strategists, you will doubtless be aware of the work of A.T. Mahan whose
blueprint for acquisition of inspired Teddy Roosevelt and leaders throughout Europe, Russia,
Japan.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Friedman is a snake oil peddler. He tells the ruling psychopaths what they want to hear, like
' China crumbling', their favourite wet-dream.
bevin ,
I agree about Mahan's importance. He understood what lay behind the Empire on which the sun
never set but he had enough brains to have been able to realise that current conditions make
those fleets obsolete. In fact the Germans in the last War realised that too- their strategy
was Eurasian, it broke down over the small matter of devouring the USSR. The expiry date on
the tin of Empire has been obvious for a long time- there is simply too much money to be made
by ignoring it.
Russia has always been the problem, either real (very occasionally) or latent for the
Dutch/British/US Empire because it is just so clear that the quickest and most efficient
communications between Shanghai and Lisbon do not go through the Straits of Malacca, the Suez
Canal, or round the cape . Russia never had to do a thing to earn the enmity of the Empire,
simply existing was a challenge. And that remains the case- for centuries the Empire
denounced the Russians because of the Autocracy, then it was the anarchism of the Bolsheviks,
then it was the autocracy again, this time featuring Stalin, then it was the chaos of the
oligarchs and now we are back with the Tsar/Stalin Putin.
Hugh O'Neill ,
Phenomenal diagnosis, Bevin. However, one suspects that there is still too much profit to be
made by the MIC in pursuing useless strategies. I imagine Mahan turning in his grave in his
final geo-strategic twist.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Yes-Zionist hubris will get Israel into a whole world of sorrow.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
More USA Deep State conspiracy theorizing which makes the author American paternalism posing
as authorship that is revenue neutral when it ain't.
Any article with mention of mother-'Tucker' Carlson is one that is pure propagandistic
tripe in the extreme. Off-G is a UK blog yet this Americanism & worn out aged propaganda
still prevails in the minds of US centric myopics writ large across all states in the
disunity equally divided from cities to rural towns all.
MOU
johny conspiranoid ,
"More USA Deep State conspiracy theorizing which makes the author American paternalism posing
as authorship that is revenue neutral when it ain'"
Is this even a sentence?
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
It was a sentence when I was smoking marijuana yesterday, Johnny C. Today it is still a
sentence IMHO, but you transcribed it incorrectly, and forgot the end of the sentence.
NOTE: When I smoke marijuana I am allowed to write uncoordinated sentences. These are the
rules in CANADA. If you don't like it write to your local politician and complain
bitterly.
MOU
Charlotte Russe ,
Bush, Obama, and Clinton are despicable. In fact, they're particularly disgusting, inasmuch,
as they were much more "cognizant" than Trump of how their actions would lead to very
specific insidious consequences. In addition, they were more able to cleverly conceal their
malevolent deeds from the public. And that's why Trump is now sitting in the Oval
Office–he won because of public disgust for lying politicians.
However, Trump is "dangerous" because he's a "misinformed idiot," and as such is extremely
malleable. Of course, ignorance is no excuse when the future of humanity is on the line
In any event, Trump is often not aware of the outcome of his actions. And when you're
surrounded and misinformed by warmongering neoconservative nutcases, especially ones who
donated to your campaign chances are you'll do stupid things. And that's what they're
counting on.
alsdkfj ,
Trump is some virtuous example of a truth teller? Trump?
The biggest liar to every occupy the White House and that is saying a lot.
Swamp Monster fascist Trump. So much to love, right?
He could murder one of your friends and you'd still apologize for him, is my guess.
Hugh O'Neill ,
It was a long read, but I got there. In essence, I agreed with 99%, but I hesitate to share
too much praise for Trump's qualities as a Human Being – though he may be marginally
more Human than the entire US body politic. I was walking our new puppy yesterday when he did
his usual attempt to leap all over other walkers. I pleaded their forgiveness and explained
that his big heart was in inverse proportion to his small brain. It occurred to me later that
the opposite would be pure evil i.e. a small heart but big brain. Capitalism as is now
infects the Human Experiment, has reduced both brains and hearts: propagandists believe their
own lies, and too few trust their own instincts and innate compassion, ground down by the
relentless distractions of lies and 'entertainment' (at least the Romas gave you free
bread!).
I get the impression that Trump's world view hasn't altered much since he was about 11 years
old. I do not intend to insult all eleven-year-olds, but his naivety is not a redeeming
feature of his spoilt brat bully personality. He has swallowed hook, line and sinker every
John Wayne cowboy movie and thinks the world can be divided into good guys and bad guys
depending on what colour hat they wear. In the days of Black & White TV, it was either
black or white. The world seemed so much simpler aged 11 .(1966).
Dungroanin ,
Yet I have yet to see one photo of Trump with a gun or in uniform.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
The Duck learned to dress appropriately for business, I'll give him that. As a New York Real
Estate scion you will never see him dress otherwise. Protocol in business is a contemporary
business suit. No other manner of dress is allowed for the executive class in North America
or UK.
The U.S. was having some success with turning protest messaging against Iran – until,
that is – its killing and wounding of so many Iraqi security force members last week
(Ketaib Hizbullah is a part of Iraq's armed forces).
Escalation of maximum-pressure was one thing (Iran was confident of weathering that); but
assassinating such a senior official on his state duties, was quite something else. We have not
observed a state assassinating a most senior official of another state before.
And the manner of its doing, was unprecedented too. Soleimani was officially visiting Iraq.
He arrived openly as a VIP guest from Syria, and was met on the tarmac by an equally senior
Iraqi official, Al-Muhandis, who was assassinated also, (together with seven others). It was
all open. General Soleimani regularly used his mobile phone as he argued that as a senior state
official, if he were to be assassinated by another state, it would only be as an act of
war.
This act, performed at the international airport of Baghdad, constitutes not just the
sundering of red lines, but a humiliation inflicted on Iraq – its government and people.
It will upend Iraq's strategic positioning. The erstwhile Iraqi attempt at balancing between
Washington and Iran will be swept away by Trump's hubristic trampling on the country's
sovereignty. It may well mark the beginning of the end of the U.S. presence in Iraq (and
therefore Syria, too), and ultimately, of America's footprint in the Middle East.
Trump may earn easy plaudits now for his "We're America, Bitch!", as one senior White House
official defined the Trump foreign policy doctrine; but the doubts – and unforeseen
consequences soon may come home to roost.
Why did he do it? If no one really wanted 'war', why did Trump escalate and smash up all the
crockery? He has had an easy run (so far) towards re-election, so why play the always
unpredictable 'wild card' of a yet another Mid-East conflict?
Was it that he wanted to show 'no Benghazi'; no U.S. embassy siege 'on my watch' –
unlike Obama's handling of that situation? Was he persuaded that these assassinations would
play well to his constituency (Israeli and Evangelical)? Or was he offered this option baldly
by the Netanyahu faction in Washington? Maybe.
Some in Israel are worried about a three or four front war reaching Israel. Senior Israeli
officials recently have been speculating about the likelihood of regional conflict occurring
within the coming months. Israel's PM however, is fighting for his political life, and has
requested immunity from prosecution on three indictments – pleading that this was his
legal right, and that it was needed for him to "continue to lead Israel" for the sake of its
future. Effectively, Netanyahu has nothing to lose from escalating tensions with Iran -- but
much to gain.
Opposition Israeli political and military leaders have warned that the PM needs 'war' with
Iran -- effectively to underscore the country's 'need' for his continued leadership. And for
technical reasons in the Israeli parliament, his plea is unlikely to be settled before the
March general elections. Netanyahu thus may still have some time to wind up the case for his
continued tenure of the premiership.
One prime factor in the Israeli caution towards Iran rests not so much on the waywardness of
Netanyahu, but on the inconstancy of President Trump: Can it be guaranteed that the U.S. will
back Israel unreservedly -- were it to again to become enmeshed in a Mid-East war? The Israeli
and Gulf answer seemingly is 'no'. The import of this assessment is significant. Trump now is
seen by some in Israel – and by some insiders in Washington – as a threat to
Israel's future security vis à vis Iran. Was Trump aware of this? Was this act a gamble
to guarantee no slippage in that vital constituency in the lead up to the U.S. elections? We do
not know.
So we arrive at three final questions: How far will Iran absorb this new escalation? Will
Iran confine its retaliation to within Iraq? Or will the U.S. cross another 'red line' by
striking inside Iran itself, in any subsequent tit for tat?
Is it deliberate (or is it political autism) that makes Secretary Pompeo term all the Iraqi
Hash'd a-Sha'abi forces – whether or not part of official Iraqi forces – as
"Iran-led"? The term seems to be used as a laissez-passer to attack all the many Hash'd
a-Sha'abi units on the grounds that, being "Iran-linked", they therefore count as 'terrorist
forces'. This formulation gives rise to the false sequitur that all other Iraqis would somehow
approve of the killings. This would be laughable, if it were not so serious. The Hash'd forces
led the war against ISIS and are esteemed by the vast majority of Iraqis. And Soleimani was on
the ground at the front line, with those Iraqi forces.
These forces are not Iranian 'proxies'. They are Iraqi nationalists who share a common Shi'a
identity with their co-religionists in Iran, and across the region. They share a common
zeitgeist, they see politics similarly, but they are no puppets (we write from direct
experience).
But what this formulation does do is to invite a widening conflict: Many Iraqis will be
outraged by the U.S. attacks on fellow Iraqis and will revenge them. Pompeo (falsely) will then
blame Iran. Is that Pompeo's purpose: casus belli?
But where is the off-ramp? Iran will respond Is this affair simply set to escalate from
limited military exchanges and from thence, to escalate until what? We understand that this was
not addressed in Washington before the President's decision was made. There are no real U.S.
channels of communication (other than low level) with Iran; nor is there a plan for the next
days. Nor an obvious exit. Is Trump relying on gut instinct again?
"... "Since President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed [Soleimani – justified in terms of deterrence, and allegedly halting an attack] a handful of Trump's advisers, however, [espied another] strategic benefit to killing Soleimani: Call it regime disruption ..."
"... "The case for disruption is outlined in a series of unclassified memos sent to [John Bolton]in May and June 2019 their author, David Wurmser, is a longtime adviser to Bolton who then served as a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser argues that Iran is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Its leadership, he writes, is divided between camps that seek an apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam, and those that favour of the preservation of the Islamic Republic. All the while, many Iranians have grown disgusted with the regime's incompetence and corruption. ..."
"... "Wurmser's crucial insight [is that] – were unexpected, rule-changing actions taken against Iran, it would confuse the regime. It would need to scramble," he writes. Such a U.S. attack would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them upon which the regime depends for stability and survival." Such a moment of confusion, Wurmser writes, will create momentary paralysis -- and the perception among the Iranian public that its leaders are weak. ..."
"... "Wurmser's memos show that the Trump administration has been debating the blow against Soleimani since the current crisis began, some seven months ago After Iran downed a U.S. drone [in June], Wurmser advised Bolton that the U.S. response should be overt and designed to send a message that the U.S. holds the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people, responsible. "This could even involve something as a targeted strike on someone like Soleimani or his top deputies," Wurmser wrote in a June 22 memo. ..."
"... In these memos, Wurmser is careful to counsel against a ground invasion of Iran. He says the U.S. response "does not need to be boots on the ground (in fact, it should not be)." Rather, he stresses that the U.S. response should be calibrated to exacerbate the regime's domestic legitimacy crisis. ..."
That was how the English protestant leader saw Catholic Spain in 1656. And it is very close
to how key orientations in the U.S. sees Iran today : The evil of religion – of
Shi'ism – subjecting (they believe) Iranians to repression, and to serfdom. In Europe,
this ideological struggle against the 'evil' of an imposed religious community (the Holy
'Roman' Axis, then) brought Europe to 'near-Armageddon', with the worst affected parts of
Europe seeing their population decimated by up to 60% during the conflict.
Is this faction in the U.S. now intent on invoking a new, near-Armageddon – on this
occasion, in the Middle East – in order, like Cromwell, to destroy the religious
'community known' as the Shi'a Resistance Axis, seen to stretch across the region, in order to
preserve the Jewish "peoples' desire for simple liberties"?
Of course, today's leaders of this ideological faction are no longer Puritan Protestants
(though the Christian Evangelicals are at one with Cromwell's 'Old Testament' literalism and
prophesy). No, its lead ideologues are the neo-conservatives, who have leveraged Karl Popper's
hugely influential The Open Society and its Enemies – a seminal treatise, which
to a large extent, has shaped how many Americans imagine their 'world'. Popper's was history
understood as a series of attempts, by the forces of reaction, to smother an open society with
the weapons of traditional religion and traditional culture:
Marx and Russia were cast as the archetypal reactionary threat to open societies. This
construct was taken up by Reagan, and re-connected to the Christian apocalyptic tradition
(hence the neo-conservative coalition with Evangelists yearning for
Redemption , and with liberal interventionists, yearning for a secular millenarianism). All
concur that Iran is reactionary, and furthermore, the posit, poses a grave threat to Israel's
self-proclaimed 'open society'.
The point here is that there is little point in arguing with these people that Iran poses no
threat to the U.S. (which is obvious) – for the 'project' is ideological through and
through. It has to be understood by these lights. Popper's purpose was to propose that only
liberal globalism would bring about a "growing measure of humane and enlightened life" and a
free and open society – period.
All this is but the outer Matryoshka – a suitable public rhetoric, a painted image
– that can be used to encase the secret, inner dolls. Eli Lake,
writing in Bloomberg , however, gives away the next doll:
"Since President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed [Soleimani –
justified in terms of deterrence, and allegedly halting an attack] a handful of Trump's
advisers, however, [espied another] strategic benefit to killing Soleimani: Call it regime
disruption
"The case for disruption is outlined in a series of unclassified memos sent to [John
Bolton]in May and June 2019 their author, David Wurmser, is a longtime adviser to Bolton who
then served as a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser argues that Iran is in
the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Its leadership, he writes, is divided between camps that seek
an apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam, and those that favour of the preservation of the
Islamic Republic. All the while, many Iranians have grown disgusted with the regime's
incompetence and corruption.
"Wurmser's crucial insight [is that] – were unexpected, rule-changing actions
taken against Iran, it would confuse the regime. It would need to scramble," he writes. Such a
U.S. attack would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them
upon which the regime depends for stability and survival." Such a moment of confusion, Wurmser
writes, will create momentary paralysis -- and the perception among the Iranian public that its
leaders are weak.
"Wurmser's memos show that the Trump administration has been debating the blow against
Soleimani since the current crisis began, some seven months ago After Iran downed a U.S. drone
[in June], Wurmser advised Bolton that the U.S. response should be overt and designed to send a
message that the U.S. holds the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people, responsible. "This
could even involve something as a targeted strike on someone like Soleimani or his top
deputies," Wurmser wrote in a June 22 memo.
In these memos, Wurmser is careful to counsel against a ground invasion of Iran. He says
the U.S. response "does not need to be boots on the ground (in fact, it should not be)."
Rather, he stresses that the U.S. response should be calibrated to exacerbate the regime's
domestic legitimacy crisis.
So there it is – David Wurmser is the 'doll' within: no military invasion, but just a
strategy to blow apart the Iranian Republic. Wurmser, Eli Lake reveals, has quietly been
advising Bolton and the Trump Administration all along. This was the neo-con, who in 1996,
compiled Coping with Crumbling States (which flowed on from the infamous Clean
Break policy strategy paper, written for Netanyahu, as a blueprint for destructing
Israel's enemies). Both these papers advocated the overthrow of the Secular-Arab nationalist
states – excoriated both as "crumbling relics of the 'evil' USSR" (using Popperian
language, of course) – and inherently hostile to Israel (the real message).
Well (
big surprise ), Wurmser has now been at work as the author of how to 'implode' and destroy
Iran. And his insight? "A targeted strike on someone like Soleimani"; split the Iranian
leadership into warring factions; cut an open wound into the flesh of Iran's domestic
legitimacy; put a finger into that open wound, and twist it; disrupt – and pretend that
the U.S. sides with the Iranian people, against its government.
Eli Lake seems, in his Bloomberg piece, to think that the Wurmser strategy has
worked. Really? The problem here is that narratives in Washington are so far apart from the
reality that exists on the ground – they simply do not touch at any point. Millions
attended Soleimani's cortege. His killing gave a renewed cohesion to Iran. Little more
than a dribble have protested.
Now let us unpack the next 'doll': Trump bought into Wurmser's 'play', albeit, with Trump
subsequently admitting that he did the assassination under
intense pressure from Republican Senators. Maybe he believed the patently absurd narrative
that Iranians would 'be dancing in the street' at Soleimani's killing. In any event, Trump is
not known, exactly, for admitting his mistakes. Rather, when something is portrayed as his
error, the President adopts the full 'salesman' persona: trying to convince his base that the
murder was no error, but a great strategic success – "They like us", Trump claimed of
protestors in Iran.
Tom Luongo has
observed : "Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate begins next week, and it's clear that
this will not be a walk in the park for the President. Anyone dismissing this because the
Republicans hold the Senate, simply do not understand why this impeachment exists in the first
place. It is [occurring because it offers] the ultimate form of leverage over a President whose
desire to end the wars in the Middle East is anathema to the entrenched powers in the D.C.
Swamp." Ah, so here we arrive at another inner Matryoshka.
This is Luongo's point: Impeachment was the leverage to drive open a wedge between
Republican neo-conservatives in the Senate – and Trump. And now the Pelosi pressure on
Republican Senators is
escalating . The Establishment threw cold water over Trump's assertion of imminent
attack, as justification for murdering Soleimani, and Trump responds by painting himself
further into a corner on Iran – by going the full salesman 'monte'.
On the campaign trail, the President goes way over-the-top, calling Soleimani
a "son of a b -- -", who killed 'thousands' and furthermore was responsible for every U.S.
veteran who lost a limb in Iraq. And he then conjures up a fantasy picture of protesters
pouring onto the streets of Tehran, tearing down images of Soleimani, and screaming abuse at
the Iranian leadership.
It is nonsense. There are
no mass protests (there have been a few hundred students protesting at one main Tehran
University). But Trump has dived in pretty deep, now
threatening the Euro-Three signatories to the JCPOA, that unless they brand Iran as having
defaulted on JCPOA at the UNSC disputes mechanism, he will slap an eye-watering 25% tariff on
their automobiles.
So, how will Trump avoid plunging in even deeper to conflict if – and when –
Americans die in Iraq or Syria at the hands of militia – and when Pompeo or Lindsay
Graham will claim, baldly, 'Iran's proxies did it'? Sending emollient faxes to the Swiss to
pass to Tehran will not do. Tehran will not read them, or believe them, even if they did.
It all reeks of stage-management; a set up: a very clever stage-management, designed to end
with the U.S. crossing Iran's 'red line', by striking at a target within Iranian
territory. Here, finally, we arrive at the innermost doll.
Cui bono ? Some Senators who never liked Trump, and would prefer Pence as
President; the Democrats, who would prefer to run their candidate against Pence in November,
rather than Trump. But also, as someone who once worked with Wurmser observed tartly: when you
hear that name (Wurmser), immediately you think Netanyahu, his intimate associate.
"... For starters, don't be surprised if his "fortification" of ISIS means Donald Trump can't pull out of Syria after all. Or maybe if ISIS attacks on Iraqi civilians/militias result in the Iraqi parliament revoking their request for the US to remove their troops from Iraqi soil. ..."
"... There's the possibility that ISIS will start a resurgence in Libya, meaning that NATO has to get in there and sort things out. Maybe some furious ISIS fighters will be the ones who assassinate Iranian generals in future. It's much less messy that way. ..."
For starters, don't be surprised if his "fortification" of ISIS means Donald Trump can't
pull out of Syria after all. Or maybe if ISIS attacks on Iraqi civilians/militias result in the Iraqi parliament revoking
their request for the US to remove their troops from Iraqi soil.
There's the possibility that ISIS will start a resurgence in Libya, meaning that NATO has to
get in there and sort things out. Maybe some furious ISIS fighters will be the ones who assassinate Iranian generals in
future. It's much less messy that way.
Or, hell, maybe we'll return to the hits of the 90s and early 2000s, and Islamic jihadists
will get back to work in Chechnya.
Whatever happens, ISIS are back baby. And that means that some way, somehow, Mr al-Salbi is
about to make the foreign policy goals of the United States much easier.
That's what Goldsteins are for.
harry law ,
.... The US have used Islamic state against both Syria and Iraq, [the enemy of my enemy is my
friend].
There can be no doubt that the US are going to use Islamic state to disrupt Iraq, just as
they had no qualms about watching [from satellites and spotter aircraft] Islamic state travel
100's of kilometres from Syria to Northern Iraq [Mosul] across the desert, whipping up tons
of dust in their Toyota jeeps to put pressure on the Iraqi government. Also as they watched
on with equanimity when the Islamic state transported thousands of tanker loads of oil from
Syria to Turkey, that is until the Russians bombed those convoys, the US must think everyone
is as stupid as they are. If the Iraqis don't drive the US out using all means including
violence, they deserve to be slaves.
"Sergey Lavrov earlier called the US-led coalition's refusal to combat al-Nusra
"absolutely unacceptable."
American interests are to protect oil companies, and fight the inevtible douche (british
definition) American's will feel once the dollar is deflated. In a lesser way, wars and
interventions are indeed to protect americans – from a massive, sudden, econimic
depression of the likes the world has never seen. China and the rest of the world no American
empire is going to retract. I only hope we have a sensible leader who can parlay Ameria's
role in the world to become a partner in the BRI – ion some way.
The Asia Pivot was never destined to be anything but bluster. Asia is lost, the Asian
nations will satellite around China. Southeast Asia is even more lost, Cambodia mioght as
well fly the Chinese flag, Thailand will pretend, as it always has, to never have been
colonized. Well, Thailand was/is a dog of a nation that's laid down on its back for every
nation advancing on it's border.
Myanmar just signed on to the BRI and has given China its derired dams. It's already full
of Chinese. The only thing holding China back in Myanmar is the amount of money it has to
give spoon to the military, generals, cronies,etc. China already owns almost all of Manadaly
and thousands of square milies surrounding Mandalay. It has gas and oil fields in a warm
water where those pesky Bengali Jihadis once tried to dominate.
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-china-sign-dozens-deals-bri-projects-cooperation-xis-visit.html
So, it's no wonder Iraq is the last stop of the retreat from the Middle East. The Chinese
are moving forward with only the Saudis standing in the way. And who the hell really likes
the House of Saud? They're doomed soon, and good riddence. The Iraqis want American out, and
one day American will leave.
"During the Iran-Iraq war Iraq's Saddam Hussein ordered the use of chemical weapons
against Iranian front lines and cities. Ten thousand Iranians died of those and many more
were wounded by them"
Nope, in fact the estimate body count is much higher:
"According to a 2002 article in the Star-Ledger, 20,000 Iranian combatants and combat
medics were killed on the spot by nerve gas." (this was only a part, there were also many
civilians killed)
"In a declassified 1991 report, the CIA estimated that Iran had suffered more than 50,000
casualties from Iraq's use of several chemical weapons,[10] though current estimates are more
than 100,000"
"Reporter Michael Dobbs of the Washington Post stated that Reagan's administration was
well aware that the materials sold to Iraq would be used to manufacture chemical weapons for
use in the war against Iran"
"According to Reagan's foreign policy, every attempt to save Iraq was necessary and
legal.[4]"
All of this is in the wikipedia, hardly a "hardcore iranian trolls" web:
Some people, in the US, still do not understand why Iranian people do not "love"
America...If you had around 100.000 casualties by nerve gas that was sold by the US and his
poodles (forget other western countries, you know who is "the boss" in the game) full aligned
with Iraq, and then you attack Iran with sanctions and threats again and again, and at the
peak of hypocrisy in 2003 USA invaded Iraq "to counter the threat of WMD" (sold by the
US)...What do you think of the US if you are an Iranian were living all your live under the
"Damocles sword" of the threats and sactions of the Empire?
@ Posted by: Laguerre | Jan 20 2020 21:48 utc | 38
Let me see if I understand your point:
First US give permissions in September 1980 (if not encouraged) to Saddam to invade Iran,
to finish the new Islamic regime that was seen as an enemy by Washington; and then when
Iranians, at a huge costs, retaliates and turn the tide, then the US thought it was justified
to supply Iraq with the chemicals (the "dual-use" technology) to make huge amounts of nerve
gases and support the use against Iranian soldiers (with some unavoidable thousands of
"collateral damages"), and also helping them with intelligence, satellite imagery and
etc...Is that your point?
Do you think US would have permitted Iraq attacks Iran if the Shah was governing Iran? Do
you think all the US did is justified? Do you think the people of Iran has no reasons for not
"loving" America?
"... They have promoted dishonest claims about the JCPOA and made unfounded claims about Iran's so-called "nuclear ambitions" in order to make it seem as if the Iranian government is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. They have done this to justify their hard-line policies and to lay the groundwork for pursuing regime change and war. Every time that someone repeats false claims about a non-existent "nuclear weapons program" in Iran, it creates unnecessary fear and plays into the administration's hands. ..."
"... The administration is already working overtime to propagandize the public and scare Americans into supporting aggressive and destructive policies against Iran, and no one should be giving them extra help. ..."
"... "Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue." ..."
"... Friedman isn't usually thought of as a devotee of Truth, and the chance of him correcting even the most egregious falsehoods you point out is approximately zero. At heart he's a propaganda guy, not a fact-based analyst. ..."
"... Friedman does it for Israel. It is their line, their constant foreign policy push. The NYT lets him, seems to encourage it, due to its own complex ties to Israel. ..."
"... The Israel Lobby is behind vast wars, killing, and waste. It has become an endless evil. ..."
"... Friedman seems to forget that Iran is a signatory of the NPT and inspectors come and monitor activities, all outside JPCOA. But hey, Iraq had WMD at the time the international inspectors were saying that it didn't and their message and activities were obstructed and blocked by the US. Same as with the alleged gas attacks in Syria and the OPCW "mishandling" the reporting... US has learned since Iraq and wanted compliance from these types of organizations. ..."
Friedman's
latest column obviously wasn't
fact-checked before it was published:
And then, a few weeks later, Trump ordered the killing of Suleimani, an action that required him to shift more troops into the
region and tell Iraqis that we're not leaving their territory, even though their Parliament voted to evict us. It also prompted
Iran to restart its nuclear weapons program [bold mine-DL], which could well necessitate U.S. military action. And then, a few
weeks later, Trump ordered the killing of Suleimani, an action that required him to shift more troops into the region and tell
Iraqis that we're not leaving their territory, even though their Parliament voted to evict us. It also prompted Iran to restart
its nuclear weapons program [bold mine-DL], which could well necessitate U.S. military action.
Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did,
and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue. Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and it hasn't had anything like
that for more than sixteen years. The Iranian government took another step in reducing its compliance with the JCPOA in the days
following the assassination, but contrary to other misleading headlines their government did not abandon the nuclear deal. Iran has
not repudiated its commitment to keep its nuclear program peaceful, and it doesn't help in reducing tensions to suggest that they
have. Trump's recent actions are reckless and dangerous, but it is wrong to say that those actions have caused Iran to start up a
nuclear weapons program. That isn't the case, and engaging in more threat inflation when tensions are already so high is foolish.
Friedman is not the only one to make this blunder, but it is the sort of sloppy mistake we expect from him. If this were just
another error from Friedman, it would be annoying but it wouldn't matter very much. This has to do with the nature of our debate
over Iran policy and the nuclear issue in particular. This matters because there is a great deal of confusion in this country about
Iran's nuclear program that the Trump administration has deliberately encouraged. They have promoted dishonest claims about the JCPOA
and made unfounded claims about Iran's so-called "nuclear ambitions" in order to make it seem as if the Iranian government is trying
to acquire nuclear weapons. They have done this to justify their hard-line policies and to lay the groundwork for pursuing regime
change and war. Every time that someone repeats false claims about a non-existent "nuclear weapons program" in Iran, it creates unnecessary
fear and plays into the administration's hands.
The administration is already working overtime to propagandize the public and scare
Americans into supporting aggressive and destructive policies against Iran, and no one should be giving them extra help. The second
part of Friedman's sentence is also quite dangerous, because it encourages his readers to think that the U.S. would somehow be justified
in attacking Iran in the unlikely event that they started developing a nuclear weapon. He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons
program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances would be illegal and a war of choice
just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman seems to be skeptical of something
that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to the idea of preventive war.
Friedman's
claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is
irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue. Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and it hasn't had anything like that for
more than sixteen years. The Iranian government took another step in reducing its compliance with the JCPOA in the days following
the assassination, but contrary to other misleading headlines their government did not abandon the nuclear deal. Iran has not repudiated
its commitment to keep its nuclear program peaceful, and it doesn't help in reducing tensions to suggest that they have. Trump's
recent actions are reckless and dangerous, but it is wrong to say that those actions have caused Iran to start up a nuclear weapons
program. That isn't the case, and engaging in more threat inflation when tensions are already so high is foolish.
... ... ...
He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances
would be illegal and a war of choice just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman
seems to be skeptical of something that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to
the idea of preventive war. The second part of Friedman's sentence is also quite dangerous, because it encourages his readers to
think that the U.S. would somehow be justified in attacking Iran in the unlikely event that they started developing a nuclear weapon.
He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances
would be illegal and a war of choice just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman
seems to be skeptical of something that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to
the idea of preventive war.
"Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is
completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is
irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue."
Friedman isn't usually thought of as a devotee of Truth, and the chance of him correcting even the most egregious falsehoods
you point out is approximately zero. At heart he's a propaganda guy, not a fact-based analyst.
Friedman does it for Israel. It is their line, their constant foreign policy push. The NYT lets him, seems to encourage it, due
to its own complex ties to Israel.
The Israel Lobby is behind vast wars, killing, and waste. It has become an endless evil.
Friedman's readers are the choir, and he's just singing to them. People who have seen through his fabrications stopped reading
him years ago. Friedman will always have his little clique of deluded pseudo-intellectuals, but truly intelligent people don't
waste their time with him.
I think the picture of Friedman that accompanies this article tells a big part of the story. His furrowed brow, the intensity
of his studied gaze, his penetrating and knowing look into the the complexities that only someone of his intelligence can unravel.
It is really the picture of a stuffed shirt.
Friedman represents something really wrong with our society and culture: The incompetent, the ignorant, and the arrogant ones
are given positions of power and influence, and the wise and knowledgeable are marginalized.
It is difficult to name a more odious shill for Israel war mongering than friedman but than he does have competition in the NYT
staff. NYT is a bugle for Israel.
Mr. Friedman recently called Gen. Soleimani "the dumbest man in Iran" for sponsoring terrorist forces in Lebanon, Syria, and
Yemen backing paramilitary forces fighting terrorism in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
Mr. Friedman is one of the dumbest pundits
in the media class and almost certainly the dumbest ever to work for The New York Times. He just can't help himself...
Friedman seems to forget that Iran is a signatory of the NPT and inspectors come and monitor activities, all outside JPCOA. But
hey, Iraq had WMD at the time the international inspectors were saying that it didn't and their message and activities were obstructed
and blocked by the US. Same as with the alleged gas attacks in Syria and the OPCW "mishandling" the reporting... US has learned
since Iraq and wanted compliance from these types of organizations.
Ellie Geranmayeh is a senior policy fellow and deputy head of the Middle East and North
Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She specializes in European
foreign policy in relation to Iran, particularly on the nuclear and regional dossiers and
sanctions policy.
... ... ...
The response from Tehran could be immediate or more long term, ranging from military action
in the region to cyber attacks inside the U.S. and heavy political pushback. Iranian Supreme
Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly warned that there would not be war with the U.S. and
Iran has so far acted in a calculated and rational fashion to Trump's "maximum pressure"
campaign. If this position holds, Tehran will attempt to manage the risk of direct conflict,
continuing to deploy asymmetric tactics to undermine U.S. interests, albeit with the red lines
now redrawn.
The gravity and scale of Iranian compliance will be influenced by the recent escalation
with the U.S.
The extensive U.S. military presence in the Middle East and Afghanistan means the U.S. is
likely to bear the brunt of retaliation. Iran has deep ties to both state and non-state actors
across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Yemen that can be utilized to inflict pain on
America. Soleimani's death has already triggered a new decline in the Trump administration's
relations with Baghdad that may extend to Kabul, and is also likely to heat up the long debate
inside Tehran over how far to push U.S. military forces out of neighboring Iraq and
Afghanistan.
... ... ...
If Tehran takes drastic steps on the nuclear file, it could mark the total collapse of the
agreement.
... ... ...
In the space of six months, the U.S. and Iran have gone from targeting drones, oil
installations and bases, to killing personnel. It is still unclear how and when Iran will
choose to respond to Soleimani's assassination. But the new commander of the Quds Force --
appointed within 12 hours of Soleimani's death -- will no doubt be eager to demonstrate his
willingness to exact revenge against America.
When that happens, neither the Middle East nor Europe will be isolated from the
blowback.
The murder of Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis will resonate hugely throughout Iraq.
Trump in so many ways represents the bad ruler Gilgamesh who is poorly advised in his
conquest by Enkidu (Pompeo) and they brutally slay the guardian of the forest to steal the
precious timber. Then they murder the sacred bull of heaven (Soleimani and al-Muhandis) for
prowess and nothing more. This slaughter of the sacred bull enrages the gods and they slay
Enkidu which breaks Gilgamesh heart. etc etc. (drastically simplified and likely contested).
This tale is deeply known throughout the lands of the Middle East in all manner of old and
modern iterations.
Trump is so unwise and devoid of subtlety that he has ended any chance of salvation in
that land and has started every chance of retribution on a scale he could not conceive. His
assault on all culture and sacred leaders is bonded to the deepest sense of existential being
that any further aggression will simply escalate the payback. The USA urgently needs some
cooler heads to intervene but they are not yet impacting on him. Indeed Trump is so eager to
pat himself on the back with his adrenalin rush of murdering other leaders that it is
disgusting.
Almost all of the "terrorism" affecting the West has been Wahabbi Salafist Sunni driven.
Iran, despite their religious head, is a more modern sectarian nation than Saudi Arabia. ISIS
had become a proxy army of the CIA; that's likely why Soleimani had to be killed. It is time
to align with Iran and the Shia for a change. They also have oil! Would send a nice message
to our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia as well.
After only a week or so after this heinous crime, we are assisting already to a new
campaign on whitewashing Trump at each of the US military blogs...SST at the head...as
always...but following the rest...be it a editorial level, be it at commentariat level...
What part of Trump admitting he personally ordered the murder you have not understood?
What part of Soleimani and Al Muhandis being the main strategic heads of real anti-IS
front have you not understood?
What manner of nation does these things? What manner of man? Why are these criminals not
facing arrest and trial at this very moment? Is it because they all had their magical 'I'm a
special guy' hats on? Justice will come to us all.
I don't think what Pompeo was saying is vague, it is really just a way to con the US media
into believing that what they did was anything other than what it really was. They are trying
to couch their violent threatening behavior aimed at Iraqi leaders to keep them out of the
China-Iran orbit, as part of "The Patriotic Duty of Team America World Police". It is like a
mafioso saying to the police about their protection racket: "I'm doing you'se a favor by
keeping everyone in the neighborhood safe from criminals."
"It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a
mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless
they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name."
It's odd to see Reuters get the name of the Hoover Institution wrong, and also be wrong about
the Institution's association with Stanford University. The Institution is on the Stanford
campus but has a separate board of directors.
Okay, Reuters is making typically sloppy errors about the name and the amount of control
Stanford has over the rightwing "Institute" on its campus. Stanford, the university, has
plenty of US military intelligence (and actual black world) ties, but almost no one working
at Stanford would think killing Soleimani a good idea. Though plenty of the "thinkers" at The
Hoover Institution would.
Right, Pompeo is delusional. Murdering Soleimani will deter no one. Nor of course do the
Iranian missile strikes on US bases in Iraq mean the end of Iran's response to the act of
war.
I am surprised at how many establishment media have actually labelled this murder as
"assassination" instead of the usual euphemisms. I think nearly everyone in the world
understands that bragging about international murder completely changes international
relations. Except for Pompous and Trumpet, of course.
Everyone will be filing their hair-triggers. There seems to be a general world-wide
mobilization but no one is calling it that. It is all "war games" and such. At some point
before the 2003 Iraq invasion it was clear to me that the decision for open war had been
made. It is now clear to me that there will be an invasion of Iran, starting with Iraq. I
think the B-52s sent to the area are for killing Iraqis, since they have no air defense.
At the same time, the US asset bubbles are nearly "priced to perfection". That means they
have no where to go except down. Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. All it takes is a
break in the chain of payments and the next financial panic is ON! Can Uncle Sam greatly
expand his War on the World in the middle of financial chaos? I think he will probably
try.
I speculate that Uncle Sam believes Iran and Iraq will simply cower and wait for the next
blow. I predict they will not. Soleimani's assassination and the subsequent Iranian attack
have not substantially changed the strategic situation, except to tie down the boiler relief
valve and turn up the heat. God, if there is one, help us all. We're sure gonna need it.
Does this idiot Pompeo not realize the door swing both ways? Unless he plans to live his
remaining days bunkered in NORAD, he's just as vulnerable as the rest.
Pompeo is the spokesman for the rules based Western empire mafia don, Trump.
The event is now being turned into a US media event (real time movie making here) by Trump
letting out text versions of the backroom chatter around the murder. This will not sit well
with the ME, IMO.
What late empire keeps pushing for is some event that can be blown into global support for
war escalation....but it hasn't happened, yet
And all this over public/private global control of value sharing in the social human
contract....what a way to run a railroad/species......
Not only will it not deter anyone, it is loudly signaling that third rate neocons are the
only decision makers left in the room.
You're likely to see more provocations, since it's now such an easy button to push. i.e.
for any regional or global powers who need US forces to be diverted for a while. Any bullshit
they manage to sell to the young Bolton's in the bureaucracy will do.
While not exactly unprecedented, the change is how much the mask is off now.
The part of Pompeo's speech quoted by b above is American to the core: every sentence or
short paragraph contains at minimum one outright lie; the entire quote selected is also both
palpably delusional and stupid.
But having said that, there is something uniquely refreshing about the Trump/Pompeo tag
team's capacity for blurting out lies and inanities, and furthermore, they do it with gusto.
Guile is not Pompeo's strong suit.
One might say that the criminality of the 'new deterrence' is as American as apple pie,
except that apple pie in my experience is innocent of all that, unless I suppose it contains
a deadly poison, and is fed to a political or ideological foe.
What is new about the 'new deterrence' that will surely make life far more dangerous for
Americans, is that it publicly declares itself as a policy with no bounds, no ethical, or
logical, or legal constraints. So what the Americans have been doing for generations, often
but not by any means always with 'plausible denial', and sometimes quite brazenly, is now
explicitly underlined policy.
Previously, the fight was 'against communism', or 'for democracy', or for 'national
security'.
So for example, when Nicaragua during the "Reagan Revolution' was sanctioned, attacked,
vilified, subjected to uncounted atrocities, because those dastardly Nicaraguans had replaced
their loathsome monster dictator with a government trying to do the right thing for the
people, the war against that country was under the rubric of protecting American 'national
security', with bits of domino theory and communist hordes concerns thrown in.
So what is the difference between deploying tens of thousands of maniacal murderous
'contras' as 'deterrence' against a small country's attempts at making a decent life for its
people, and a drone attack on Soleimani and his companions?
I think one main difference is that the 'world has changed' around the perpetrators, but
they are still living the delusions of brainwashed childhood, the wild west, white hat
un-self conscious monstrosities riding into town, gonna clean the place up. Pathetic and
extremely dangerous.
There's another logical flaw in Pompeo's argument.
The USA is a nuclear power. If you claim to assassinate other countries' generals as a
deterrent, then that signals America's true enemies - Russia and China - that it will
vacilate in using its own nuclear deterrent if an American target is to be neutralized. That
would bring more, not less, instability to the world order.
But maybe that's the American aim with this: to shake the already existing international
order with the objective to try to destroy Eurasia with its massive war machine and,
therefore, initiate another cycle of accumulation of American capitalism.
Another potential unintended blowback of Soleimani's assassination lies in the fact that
the USA is not officially at war with Iran. Iran was being sanctioned by the UN. That poses a
threat in the corners of the American Empire, since it sends a message that the USA doesn't
need to be at war with a nation in order to gratuitously attack it; it also sends the message
that it is not enough to play by the rules and accept the UN's sanctions - you could still do
all of that and submit yourself and still be attacked by the Americans.
The endgame of this is that there's a clear message to the American "allies" (i.e.
vassals, provinces): stay in line and obey without questioning, even if that goes directly
against your national interests. This will leave the Empire even more unstable at its
frontier because, inevitably, there'll come a time where the USA will directly command its
vassals/provinces to literally hurt their own economies just to keep the American one afloat
(or not sinking too fast). Gramsci's "Law of Hegemony" states that, the more coercion and the
less consensus, the more unstable is one's hegemony.
>Tottering as it appears to be, the U.S. looks to be
> ready to burn the world; its "adversaries" aren't yet
> strong enough to avoid the flamethrower.
> Posted by: Zee | Jan 18 2020 21:30 utc | 27
Indeed. But the longer Iran can delay the inevitable, the stronger and better prepared it
becomes, while Uncle Sam is busy burning the furniture and getting financially more
precarious. US planners seem to think that one can build an economy around poor people giving
each other haircuts while rich people keep trading the exact same assets back and forth while
steady driving asset prices higher.
Somewhere in the economic cycle someone has to actually make stuff and grow food. But
planners have allowed the manufacturing (and associated engineering, etc.) to leave while
driving farmers into bankruptcy. They are mortgaged to the hilt. When land prices quit
rising, there is no additional collateral and no new credit. With no additional credit, no
one will sell them seeds and equipment. So they are out of business. It's scary to think how
few people actually grow all the food to feed millions and millions.
Asset bubbles have real consequences, such as millions can not afford rent anymore while
millions of housing units remain empty because their value still goes up even without rental
income. Scenes from Soylent Green come to mind, thinking about how more and more people are
crammed into fewer living quarters.
Our brain-dead leaders have created a situation where they must continue to inflate
bubbles to keep increasing collateral to back more debt. But the bubbles impoverish the rest
of us. And bubbles always pop. Always.
I'm not sure how much the next financial crisis will affect the US killing machine, but I
doubt it would make the war machine stronger.
>The GOP criticized Obama for Libya but only because they
> wanted to be able to say they were the tough guys. The
> media was oh-so-happy to harp on the Iraq after Bush's
> destruction of Iraq but very quiet on the aftermath of Libya.
> Posted by: Curtis | Jan 18 2020 21:37 utc | 29
Yes to this. There is no disagreement in DC on the goals, just fussing over the tactics
and who takes credit. Two right wings on the war bird. Maybe that is why it is on a downward
spiral.
Describing that the drone strike took out "two for the price of one" -- in reference to
slain Iraqi Shia paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who had been at the airport to
greet Soleimani, Trump gave a more detailed accounting than ever before of proceedings in the
'situation room' (which had been set up at Mar-a-Lago) that night.
He went on to recount listening to military officials as they watched the strike from
"cameras that are miles in the sky."
"They're together sir," Trump recalled the military officials saying. "Sir, they have two
minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. '2 minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They're in the
car, they're in an armored vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. 30
seconds. 10, 9, 8 ...' "
"Then all of a sudden, boom," he went on. "'They're gone, sir. Cutting off.' "
"I said, where is this guy?" Trump continued. "That was the last I heard from him."
"We put together a campaign of diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and military
deterrence."
"diplomatic isolation" - when I read this I thought of the Ukrainian plane and the demand
for an "investigation according to international guidelines" (well, Syria got that
investigation according to international guidelines with the OPCW and we know how that went)
- it may lead to diplomatic isolation. Watch it. As such, Pompeo might have laid out a motive
for a potential US involvement.
"economic pressure" - while the E3 did not sanction Iran, with their lack of action in
regards to find working mechanisms and their depending on the US, that goal has been
achieved.
"military deterrence" - Pompeo thinks in CIA terms which can be seen as a covert weapons
trafficking organization (Timber Sycamore) and something like a secret military organization.
The murder of Suleimani is a war crime and as such a criminal act; it can hardly be
considered a military deterrence - although the murder was carried out by the US military
(maybe by CIA embedded in base?).
I don't know. It's a lot of speculation. Iran may have a reason to not state their systems
got hacked. But in the current context it may be advisable to do so, turn a potential
cyberattack back to its place of origin.
Pompeo and Trump have no concept of personal honour as they come from a sub-culture that has
none.
In the rest of the world, honour-integrity is very important. Throughout MENA to Pakistan,
the US was viewed as treacherous for using Sadaam to fight Iran then turning on him in
service of Israel's goals. Bush 2 contributed, through his blatant financial criminality
(much of this remains unknown to average Americans), to the perception that the US is
incapable of honouring ANY agreement (re:oil and other sub-rosa deals the US made).
The decimation of Syria, Iraq and Libya was not enough; criminal elites in the US have now
completely exposed themselves to the Muslim world. I am firmly convinced that the Arab
'street' has concluded the US and Israel are inseparable in their policy of murder and
mayhem. I am betting the elites view reconciliation within the Arab and Islamic world as the
way forward with input from Russia, China when and if needed. Turning away from US-Israeli
meddling and treachery will be a primary concern for the 20's.
I don't believe Pompeo or Trump have the foresight to understand killing Soleimani has sealed
how the US is perceived: Indonesia, Malaysia, Muslim India (all 250+million), Afghanistan and
Pakistan will accelarate the turning away.
This 'decision' to murder Soleimani will be cited by future non_court historians as seminal.
The US murdered the 2nd most important person in Iranian politics. This has to be one of THE
STUPIDEST DECISIONS I have seen come out of the Washington, D.C--Tel Aviv--London axis. I
really cannot think of any other official action by the US that compares in stupidity.
Unofficially, 911 was the stupidest act of the last 2 decades but as for official I believe
this takes the cakes.
In essence, screaming to the world that you are a gangster is not a very graceful way to wind
down an Empire. Pompeo-Trump-BoBo should have looked at a map. I see a hemisphere that is
geographically isolated that has to make a case for why anyone should interact with it.
Currently, all they have is the petrodollar system that supports 1, 000 military bases.
Problem: they have just given many of the (often unwilling) participants in that system a big
reason to leave it. I believe this is referred to as 'suicide'?
Correct me if I'm wrong. I would be happy to be.
Anyone who has studied the history of the Third Reich would note a curious similarity between
Germany's behaviour under Hitler and the current behaviour of the US both internally and
externally. Is it just me, or have other's noted the similarity of Pompeo to Herman Goering
in looks and behaviour?
The leadership in the US need to stop thinking that they are impervious to revenge. Very
small drones can fly autonomously and each can carry 2 Kg of cargo which can be explosives,
chemical or bioweapons or a combination. They are cheap, easy to build and can operate
autonomously. With only using relatively simple algorithms they can be made to fly in groups
and track using already extant facial recognition software. I can envision a scenario where
drones are flown to the top of a semi-trailer somewhere south to hitch a ride north on I-95
until they get into DC near Fort Belvoir or Andrews AFB. They could then lift off and loiter
perched on transmission lines where they can easily recharge using rf energy and wait. Once a
target arrives, say a President on the golf course or perhaps Air Force 1 taxiing on the
runway or even perhaps perch outside a window, they can then lift off and conduct an attack
either directly or as limpet mines. With swarming you can send a mass of drones all flying
autonomously with varied patterns. It would be impossible to stop them. Because they are
autonomous jamming won't work. They would be impossible to trace back to their origin and
most could be 3D printed and use off the shelf parts. If I can think this way, I am certain
others are as well. Snake drones would be particularly difficult to stop.
Old hippe @128.yes, but these were being guided remotely from a US Navy aircraft and somewhat
controllable from remote which is what happened. I think inside the US they don't think that
far ahead and jamming would interfere with wifi etc. so not palatable. I Ave in mind they
would be sitting in the grass or on a nearby telephone pole waiting for the target and travel
less than 100 meters to hit. Autonomous means flying without any external controls and would
be committed once set out. One perched on a window with 2kg of C4 waiting for whatever
executive to sit down next to it would be another scenario. A snake drone could navigate in
the sewers up to an executive toilet. The possibilities are endless. It is just a matter of
time.
The Trump administration sees the U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani as a form of
deterrence not only with regards to Iran but also towards Russia, China and others. That view
is wrong.
The claim that the murder of Soleimani was necessary because of an 'imminent threat' has
been
debunked by Trump himself when he tweeted that 'it
doesn't really matter' if there was such a threat or not.
In a speech at the Hoover Institute Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the
assassination was part of a new deterrence strategy. As Reuters
reported:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday said Qassem Soleimani was killed as part of a
broader strategy of deterring challenges by U.S. foes that also applies to China and Russia,
further diluting the assertion that the top Iranian general was struck because he was
plotting imminent attacks on U.S. targets.
In his speech at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, Pompeo made no mention of the
threat of imminent attacks planned by Soleimani.
On the 3rd of this month, we took one of the world's deadliest terrorists off the battlefield
for good.
...
But I want to lay this out in context of what we've been trying to do. There is a bigger
strategy to this.
President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing
deterrence – real deterrence ‒ against the Islamic Republic. In strategic terms,
deterrence simply means persuading the other party that the costs of a specific behavior
exceed its benefits. It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. Your adversary must
understand not only do you have the capacity to impose costs but that you are, in fact,
willing to do so.
...
And let's be honest. For decades, U.S. administrations of both political parties never did
enough against Iran to get the deterrence that is necessary to keep us all safe.
...
So what did we do? We put together a campaign of diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and
military deterrence.
...
Qasem Soleimani discovered our resolve to defend American lives.
...
We have re-established deterrence, but we know it's not everlasting, that risk remains. We
are determined not to lose that deterrence. In all cases, we have to do this.
...
We saw, not just in Iran, but in other places, too, where American deterrence was weak. We
watched Russia's 2014 occupation of the Crimea and support for aggression against Ukraine
because deterrence had been undermined. We have resumed lethal support to the Ukrainian
military.
China's island building, too, in the South China Sea, and its brazen attempts to coerce
American allies undermined deterrence. The Trump administration has ramped up naval exercises
in the South China Sea, alongside our allies and friends and partners throughout the
region.
You saw, too, Russia ignored a treaty. We withdrew from the INF with the unanimous support
of our NATO allies because there was only one party complying with a two-party agreement. We
think this, again, restores credibility and deterrence to protect America.
This understanding of 'deterrence' seems to be vague and incomplete. A longer piece I am
working on will further delve deeper into that issue. But an important point is that deterrence
works in both directions.
Iran responded with a missile strike on U.S. bases in Iraq. The missiles hit the targets they were
aimed at . This was a warning that any further U.S. action would cause serious U.S.
casualties. That strike, which was only the first part of Iran's response to the murdering of
Soleimani, deterred the U.S. from further action. Iran also declared that it will expel the
U.S. from the Middle East. How is Iran deterred when it openly declares that it will take on
such a project?
Reuters makes it seem that the U.S. would not even shy away from killing a Russian or
Chinese high officer on a visit in a third country. That is, for now, still out of bounds as
China and Russia deter the U.S. from such acts with their own might.
Russia and China already had no doubts that the U.S. is immoral and willing to commit war
crimes. And while 'western' media avoid that characterization for the assassination of
Soleimani there is no doubt that it was one.
In a letter to the New York Times the now 100 years old chief prosecutor of the
Nuremberg trials, Benjamin B. Ferencz, warned of the larger effects of such deeds when he
writes :
The administration recently announced that, on orders of the president, the United States had
"taken out" (which really means "murdered") an important military leader of a country with
which we were not at war. As a Harvard Law School graduate who has written extensively on the
subject, I view such immoral action as a clear violation of national and international law.
The public is entitled to know the truth. The United Nations Charter, the International
Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are all being bypassed. In
this cyberspace world, young people everywhere are in mortal danger unless we change the
hearts and minds of those who seem to prefer war to law.
The killing of a Soleimani will also only have a short term effect when it comes to general
deterrence. It was a onetime shot to which others will react. Groups and people who work
against 'U.S. interests' will now do so less publicly. Countries will seek asymmetric
advantages to prevent such U.S. action against themselves. By committing the crime the U.S. and
Trump made the global situation for themselves more complicated.
Posted by b on January 18, 2020 at 19:28 UTC | Permalink
next page " "And let's be honest." anyone who starts off with those words - run the
other way when they say that.. pomparse is a real embarrassment to the usa on the world stage
at this point... there is no international law that the usa will not completely bypass / lie
/ or obfuscate to push its uni-polar exceptional agenda at this point.. anyone paying any
attention can see this clearly.
If push comes to shove, the Iranians are well aware that the US would, by its bombing and
missiles that the Iranians cannot completely withstand, cause many deaths and massive
destruction to its cities and infrastructure ... BUT the Americans are very much aware that
the Iranian response would be devastating -- all US ME military assets would come under
massive fire resulting in many deaths; all Gulf State oil infrastructure would be destroyed;
Tel Aviv and Riyadh would be attacked; the Strait of Hormuz would be blocked, and on and on.
It seems highly unlikely that the US would take such a risk -- let us call it Mutual
Assured Destructiveness
It is interesting that the commentary closes with a letter by Benjamin Ferencz, perhaps the
last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor. As he indicates, the assassination is a war crime, and,
in my view, even the threat of such an assassination is a serious breach of international
law. Regimes following such a policy have gone rogue, and cabinet ministers making such a
pronouncement that the assassination was carried out as a deterrent are, in effect,
confessing to war crimes. In future the reach of the offending regime may be much less than
it is now, and, if that occurs, the rogue minister better be careful if he travels outside of
his home country.
Thanks B, for your continued articles that are never mentioned elsewhere. I completely agree
with your assessment. War used to have rules. Any american army brass or higher ups in USA,
Britain, Israel and allies will have to keep looking over their shoulder when they leave
their own country. Israel already cancelled trips to Saudi Arabia over security concerns. The
gloves are off and targeted assignation will hit allies of USA. The president family are fair
game, People who sponsor the the orange prophet of misery, Pompous Pompeoo, Esper or any
general will have a very paranoid time knowing that the rules of war that once protected them
from targeted assignation no longer apply. After all if america can do this, what's stopping
their adversaries from doing the same.
Benjamin B. Ferencz, his touted Harvard Law School pedigree Nuremberg Trial experience have
precisely ZERO persuasive value.
Ferencz was one of the most vicious and manipulative of the Nuremberg prosecutors. In a
BBC interview he stated boldly that he threatened to kill detainees or their families unless
they confessed:
Interviewer: "In previous interviews you've described how in gathering testimonies you did
resort to duress, for instance, lining up villagers and threatening to shoot them if they
lied. Such methods now would amount to witness harassment of the most extreme order.
Ferencz: Perhaps it would. but it's only because the people who make allegations don't
understand what war is about -- bring a room of 20 people together -- this is an actual
case -- and say I want you all to write out what happened, what your role was, what others
did. Anybody who lies will be shot.
"Oh, how can you do a thing like that!" You're threatening them, it's torture! What am I
going to tell 'em? That you won't get your patty-cake tonight? ' Please be honest, please
confess that you're a murderer. Please do that, I don't want to have to ____ you of
anything.'
What are you talking about? There's a war going on! They will kill you if they could. They
were killing some of their buddies before. So what am I going to do? I didn't shoot them.
But I threatened to , and that's the only weapon I had. And if that be torture, then call
me a torturer."
Moreover, Rabbi Stephen Wise, one of the key instigators of World War II and US
involvement in it, recorded a Personal Letter he sent to his wife / daughter (probably)
shortly after Germany's surrender. The Rabbi wrote that he and Nahum Goldmann had lunch with
Justice Robert Jackson, and that
"Justice [Robert] Jackson. . . .has grand and spacious ideas on the Nuremberg trials in
mid-October, with Weizmann, Goldmann or S.S.W. [Stephen S. Wise] as Jewish witnesses to
present the Jewish Case –not permitted as Amicus Curiae!
In itself it becomes the greatest trial in history, with what Jackson calls its broad
departure from Anglo-Saxon legal tradition.
Retroactively "aggressive war-making" becomes criminally punishable–with membership
in the Gestapo prima facie proof of criminal participation."
If Ferencz has an ounce of integrity, he will condemn as "aggressive war-making" every
person who voted for an illegal war against Iraq, and every person involved in imposing
sanctions on Iran -- themselves acts of "aggressive war."
"By committing the crime the U.S. and Trump made the global situation for themselves more
complicate."
USA is not exactly the sole economic superpower, but as long as the allies, EU, NATO,
major allies in Asia and Latin America, behave like poodles, USA pretty much controls what is
"normal". After Obama campaigns of murder by drone, now Trump raises it to a higher level,
and Europe, the most critical link in the web of alliances, applauds (UK) or accepts and
cooperates. That can be a useful clarification for US establishment.
So the bottom line is that while it is hard to show constructive goals achieved by raising
murder policies to a more brazen level, nothing changes for the worse. Allies tolerate
irrationality, cruelty etc. and to some extend, join the fun.
IMO, from what I understand of Shia mentality, after immoral assassination of general
Soleimani the only thing can prevent a violent revenge against US military or political staff
would be a Fatwa by a grand ayatollah to nullify a fatwa by any junior Ayatollah authorizing
(sanctioning) specific action. It was an incalculably caster F* mistake that can last for a
generation at least.
"t̶h̶e̶ U̶.̶S̶.̶ Israel and Trump made the global
situation for themselves more complicate"
Not if the purpose was more pressure by complication. The goal then to create a pretext: a
pressure cooker which will cause military exchange or, especially after some limited violent
exchange, increasing internal strife inside Iran which can't afford more war.
The conditions for this tactic would be clear: containing all the likely fall-out of the
above unraveling, namely:
- contain China with the trade war no one can win but will make it near impossible for
China to deal with Iran, Iraq and Syria.
- increased containment Palestine and Lebanon by Israel. Make very move there seem way too
expensive for especially Hezbollah.
- prevent any kind of weapon transport or technology transfer to Lebanon which could break
above containment.
- vastly improved border security and travel limitations
- increasing War on T̶e̶r̶r̶o̶r̶ Blow Back related powers for
Homeland Security, NSA etc.
Russia is seen as less of a problem as any potential military support would be simply too
costly and too little gain for Putin.
And make no mistake, Trump is fully ready to display nuclear might the moment Iran would
demonstrate their own remarkable advances. And he would make it very clear that the US is
willing. The new policy of deterrence is very simple and yet horrible: examples have to be
made to demonstrate that "all options are still on the table". If he wants to keep declining
America great but not have expensive wars and yet force others to still follow American lead:
there's only one cold logical solution to that.
The glaring fact of the matter is that the us president and his accomplices useld false
allegations as an excuse to murder these men. They also did so in a cowardly manner, under a
false invitation to negotiate (and, Yes I do believe that).
In my country, when a person orders someone to murder someone else in exchange for
compensation (in this case salaries), the police call it murder for hire.
Idle speculation on my part, but I am not alone in wondering if the Soleimani
assassination accelerated Putin's restructuring agenda. (I'm not suggesting it was generated
or even influenced in substance by the strike, just that the timing may have been.) Given the
power of the President in Russia, as the CIA itself very well understands, there is perhaps
no more tempting target for an overt military assassination strike than President Putin.
Of course, deterrence of rational actors is precisely what would prevent this, but I
imagine Russian strategic thinkers have wondered whether or for how long the US remains a
rational actor. Moreover, this would be the sort of thing that a fanatical faction could pull
off. In some Strangelovean bunker somewhere, there may be those who would actually welcome a
last gasp of large-scale warfare before the Eurasian Heartland is lost and the
Petrodollar-fueled global finance empire, nominally sheltered in the US, dies away.
Creative destruction ... a last chance to shuffle the cards, and perhaps reset a losing
game to zero.
What manner of nation does these things? What manner of man? Why are these criminals not
facing arrest and trial at this very moment? Is it because they all had their magical 'I'm a
special guy' hats on? Justice will come to us all.
I don't think what Pompeo was saying is vague, it is really just a way to con the US media
into believing that what they did was anything other than what it really was. They are trying
to couch their violent threatening behavior aimed at Iraqi leaders to keep them out of the
China-Iran orbit, as part of "The Patriotic Duty of Team America World Police". It is like a
mafioso saying to the police about their protection racket: "I'm doing you'se a favor by
keeping everyone in the neighborhood safe from criminals."
"It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a
mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless
they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name."
"This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from
Heaven. It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make
an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived. It was able to animate the image
of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would
be killed. It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a
mark on the right hand or forehead. Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number
of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything."
yeah - mafia tactics as offered by trump /pompeo and etc is exactly what it is... and when
Benjamin B. Ferencz calls it what it is, apologists show up to can ferencz @ 7.. so what will
persuade you chasmark?? do i need to send a hit man over to your place?
It's odd to see Reuters get the name of the Hoover Institution wrong, and also be wrong about
the Institution's association with Stanford University. The Institution is on the Stanford
campus but has a separate board of directors.
Okay, Reuters is making typically sloppy errors about the name and the amount of control
Stanford has over the rightwing "Institute" on its campus. Stanford, the university, has
plenty of US military intelligence (and actual black world) ties, but almost no one working
at Stanford would think killing Soleimani a good idea. Though plenty of the "thinkers" at The
Hoover Institution would.
Right, Pompeo is delusional. Murdering Soleimani will deter no one. Nor of course do the
Iranian missile strikes on US bases in Iraq mean the end of Iran's response to the act of
war.
all this rhetoric says the obvious: the USA wants to destroy physically the Near East (Iran,
Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, etc). either he destroys the whole region or he cannot be
reelected or better he gets impeached in the Senate.
I am surprised at how many establishment media have actually labelled this murder as
"assassination" instead of the usual euphemisms. I think nearly everyone in the world
understands that bragging about international murder completely changes international
relations. Except for Pompous and Trumpet, of course.
Everyone will be filing their hair-triggers. There seems to be a general world-wide
mobilization but no one is calling it that. It is all "war games" and such. At some point
before the 2003 Iraq invasion it was clear to me that the decision for open war had been
made. It is now clear to me that there will be an invasion of Iran, starting with Iraq. I
think the B-52s sent to the area are for killing Iraqis, since they have no air defense.
At the same time, the US asset bubbles are nearly "priced to perfection". That means they
have no where to go except down. Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. All it takes is a
break in the chain of payments and the next financial panic is ON! Can Uncle Sam greatly
expand his War on the World in the middle of financial chaos? I think he will probably
try.
I speculate that Uncle Sam believes Iran and Iraq will simply cower and wait for the next
blow. I predict they will not. Soleimani's assassination and the subsequent Iranian attack
have not substantially changed the strategic situation, except to tie down the boiler relief
valve and turn up the heat. God, if there is one, help us all. We're sure gonna need it.
Does this idiot Pompeo not realize the door swing both ways? Unless he plans to live his
remaining days bunkered in NORAD, he's just as vulnerable as the rest.
Should have add to my earlier comment (10) , the missile attack on American bases on Iraq was
Iran's military/ government response for killing General Soleimani, by no means was the Shia'
response since that would need a Fatwa and not necessary by an Iranian cleric or even by
Iranian Shia. Is now a religious matter for all believers.
Sooner or later, Saudi Arabia will make peace with Iran. It will improve relations with
Russia and China, and will reduce ties with Israel. Soon, Turkey will be completely out of
Syria, and Idlib will be entirely liberated. The US, in Iraq, will slowly be drained of
vitality with a death of a thousand cuts. Medium range missile production in conjunction with
Russian S-300 air defense will will spread throughout the Middle East, and Israel's air force
will be neutralized. Then the pipeline from Iran to Syria will be completed.
- I think that EVERYONE who is involved in the Middle East will think twice before one makes
a (provocative) move. Tensions will remain high. But some people may (and will) do
(deliberately) something (provocative) that will ratchet up tensions even more. With the
intent of ratcheting tensions higher.
- There was someone who said that in 2020 World War III would start. For a long time I
thought this person was nuts. But now I am not so sure anymore that this person was nuts.
- There were also people who said that we were "sleepwalking" into WW III, something along
the lines of what happened before WW I. These persons were talking about a war between the US
(+ NATO) and Russia. But now I think that if a war would break out that then not only Russia
but also China and Iran are going to be part of that war. No, I am not sure anymore that this
going to end well.
- I also think that everyone haas become (more) cautious. And that an act of A-symmetric
warfare has become (more) unlikely.
Pompeo is the spokesman for the rules based Western empire mafia don, Trump.
The event is now being turned into a US media event (real time movie making here) by Trump
letting out text versions of the backroom chatter around the murder. This will not sit well
with the ME, IMO.
What late empire keeps pushing for is some event that can be blown into global support for
war escalation....but it hasn't happened, yet
And all this over public/private global control of value sharing in the social human
contract....what a way to run a railroad/species......
The most depressing thing about the assassination's aftermath is that Western Europe's
leaders are as bad as America's - "It's the economy, stupid!" So, a threat to their auto
manufacturers is a threat to jobs, and one has to consider the next election. They were
already controlled thanks to the NSA's eavesdropping on their cell phones, a threat to
individual politicians - no need for them to worry about physical elimination, then; Trump
threatened via economics their parties' chances of reelection, meaning they have support for
knuckling under. China, Russia and Iran are on their own - China was still working on its
economic might, Russia was still working on building a strong political foundation, and Iran
already has its hands full with internal and external threats. The fence-sitters (India,
smaller Asian and African countries) will sit on the sidelines, working to improve their own
economies and waiting to see who looks more powerful before joining one side or the other to
break down or uphold the international norms and laws it took centuries to build. Tottering
as it appears to be, the U.S. looks to be ready to burn the world; its "adversaries" aren't
yet strong enough to avoid the flamethrower.
Trailer Trash 20
The only reason I wouldn't be surprised at big media calling Soleimani's murder an
"assassination" is how the media politics is played by party. Since the media tends to lean
left, they want to be thorns in Trump's side. Neither party is against war; they want to be
the instigators to get the glory (while shifting/limiting blame). Amid the media's stories on
this were the talking points of Trump going too far by DEMs in congress.
Recall Libya. The GOP criticized Obama for Libya but only because they wanted to be able to
say they were the tough guys. The media was oh-so-happy to harp on the Iraq after Bush's
destruction of Iraq but very quiet on the aftermath of Libya.
Trump is simply a third-rate Godfather type gangster, with a touch of the charm and a lot
of the baggage. I think his murder of General Qassem Soleimani was not something he would
have done if he had any choice. It was a very stupid move, and Trump is just not that stupid.
I really think this was demanded by the 'churnitalists'. These churnitalists are probably the
psychos of the predatory arm of the CIA, and their billionaire allies.
See, it all works like this:
These churnitalists (who supposedly provide us with 'protection', or 'security') are the
real rulers (because everybody who defies them ends up dead). Now just ask your self: How
does rulership actually really work? It's really kind of simple. The only actual way to
establish rulership over other people is to prove, again and again, that you can force them
to do stupid things, for absolutely no reason. This is called 'people-churning', and all you
have to do is just keep churning out low-class 'history' by constantly forcing the weaker
ones to do stupid things. Again and again. This happens constantly in a churnitalist gangster
society. Even in schools and legislatures, and so on. Haven't you noticed it yet?
@ 24 willy2... i have been talking about war in 2020 for some time based off the astrology..i
have mentioned it in passing here at moa a few times in the past couple of years.. see my
comments in this skyscript link from june
2015..
Not only will it not deter anyone, it is loudly signaling that third rate neocons are the
only decision makers left in the room.
You're likely to see more provocations, since it's now such an easy button to push. i.e.
for any regional or global powers who need US forces to be diverted for a while. Any bullshit
they manage to sell to the young Bolton's in the bureaucracy will do.
While not exactly unprecedented, the change is how much the mask is off now.
The part of Pompeo's speech quoted by b above is American to the core: every sentence or
short paragraph contains at minimum one outright lie; the entire quote selected is also both
palpably delusional and stupid.
But having said that, there is something uniquely refreshing about the Trump/Pompeo tag
team's capacity for blurting out lies and inanities, and furthermore, they do it with gusto.
Guile is not Pompeo's strong suit.
One might say that the criminality of the 'new deterrence' is as American as apple pie,
except that apple pie in my experience is innocent of all that, unless I suppose it contains
a deadly poison, and is fed to a political or ideological foe.
What is new about the 'new deterrence' that will surely make life far more dangerous for
Americans, is that it publicly declares itself as a policy with no bounds, no ethical, or
logical, or legal constraints. So what the Americans have been doing for generations, often
but not by any means always with 'plausible denial', and sometimes quite brazenly, is now
explicitly underlined policy.
Previously, the fight was 'against communism', or 'for democracy', or for 'national
security'.
So for example, when Nicaragua during the "Reagan Revolution' was sanctioned, attacked,
vilified, subjected to uncounted atrocities, because those dastardly Nicaraguans had replaced
their loathsome monster dictator with a government trying to do the right thing for the
people, the war against that country was under the rubric of protecting American 'national
security', with bits of domino theory and communist hordes concerns thrown in.
So what is the difference between deploying tens of thousands of maniacal murderous
'contras' as 'deterrence' against a small country's attempts at making a decent life for its
people, and a drone attack on Soleimani and his companions?
I think one main difference is that the 'world has changed' around the perpetrators, but
they are still living the delusions of brainwashed childhood, the wild west, white hat
un-self conscious monstrosities riding into town, gonna clean the place up. Pathetic and
extremely dangerous.
There are 2 beasts, the first is either America or NATO, or basically "The Empire" or The
Neocon Oligarchy--all work well but America is a bit too broad since there are many good
people in America. The second beast whose number is 666, is Trump. Search: Trump 666 and be
amazed.
There's another logical flaw in Pompeo's argument.
The USA is a nuclear power. If you claim to assassinate other countries' generals as a
deterrent, then that signals America's true enemies - Russia and China - that it will
vacilate in using its own nuclear deterrent if an American target is to be neutralized. That
would bring more, not less, instability to the world order.
But maybe that's the American aim with this: to shake the already existing international
order with the objective to try to destroy Eurasia with its massive war machine and,
therefore, initiate another cycle of accumulation of American capitalism.
Another potential unintended blowback of Soleimani's assassination lies in the fact that
the USA is not officially at war with Iran. Iran was being sanctioned by the UN. That poses a
threat in the corners of the American Empire, since it sends a message that the USA doesn't
need to be at war with a nation in order to gratuitously attack it; it also sends the message
that it is not enough to play by the rules and accept the UN's sanctions - you could still do
all of that and submit yourself and still be attacked by the Americans.
The endgame of this is that there's a clear message to the American "allies" (i.e.
vassals, provinces): stay in line and obey without questioning, even if that goes directly
against your national interests. This will leave the Empire even more unstable at its
frontier because, inevitably, there'll come a time where the USA will directly command its
vassals/provinces to literally hurt their own economies just to keep the American one afloat
(or not sinking too fast). Gramsci's "Law of Hegemony" states that, the more coercion and the
less consensus, the more unstable is one's hegemony.
>Tottering as it appears to be, the U.S. looks to be
> ready to burn the world; its "adversaries" aren't yet
> strong enough to avoid the flamethrower.
> Posted by: Zee | Jan 18 2020 21:30 utc | 27
Indeed. But the longer Iran can delay the inevitable, the stronger and better prepared it
becomes, while Uncle Sam is busy burning the furniture and getting financially more
precarious. US planners seem to think that one can build an economy around poor people giving
each other haircuts while rich people keep trading the exact same assets back and forth while
steady driving asset prices higher.
Somewhere in the economic cycle someone has to actually make stuff and grow food. But
planners have allowed the manufacturing (and associated engineering, etc.) to leave while
driving farmers into bankruptcy. They are mortgaged to the hilt. When land prices quit
rising, there is no additional collateral and no new credit. With no additional credit, no
one will sell them seeds and equipment. So they are out of business. It's scary to think how
few people actually grow all the food to feed millions and millions.
Asset bubbles have real consequences, such as millions can not afford rent anymore while
millions of housing units remain empty because their value still goes up even without rental
income. Scenes from Soylent Green come to mind, thinking about how more and more people are
crammed into fewer living quarters.
Our brain-dead leaders have created a situation where they must continue to inflate
bubbles to keep increasing collateral to back more debt. But the bubbles impoverish the rest
of us. And bubbles always pop. Always.
I'm not sure how much the next financial crisis will affect the US killing machine, but I
doubt it would make the war machine stronger.
>The GOP criticized Obama for Libya but only because they
> wanted to be able to say they were the tough guys. The
> media was oh-so-happy to harp on the Iraq after Bush's
> destruction of Iraq but very quiet on the aftermath of Libya.
> Posted by: Curtis | Jan 18 2020 21:37 utc | 29
Yes to this. There is no disagreement in DC on the goals, just fussing over the tactics
and who takes credit. Two right wings on the war bird. Maybe that is why it is on a downward
spiral.
Describing that the drone strike took out "two for the price of one" -- in reference to
slain Iraqi Shia paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who had been at the airport to
greet Soleimani, Trump gave a more detailed accounting than ever before of proceedings in the
'situation room' (which had been set up at Mar-a-Lago) that night.
He went on to recount listening to military officials as they watched the strike from
"cameras that are miles in the sky."
"They're together sir," Trump recalled the military officials saying. "Sir, they have two
minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. '2 minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They're in the
car, they're in an armored vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. 30
seconds. 10, 9, 8 ...' "
"Then all of a sudden, boom," he went on. "'They're gone, sir. Cutting off.' "
"I said, where is this guy?" Trump continued. "That was the last I heard from him."
b: Usage or typo alert - about 2/3 of the way through your piece.
Reuters makes it seem that the U.S. would not even shy away from killing a Russian or
Chinese high officer on a visit in a third country. That is, for now, still out of
bounce as China and Russia deter the U.S. from such acts with their own might...
The English language expression is "out of bounds" as in, of course, outside the bounding
lines defining a field of play.
"We put together a campaign of diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and military
deterrence."
"diplomatic isolation" - when I read this I thought of the Ukrainian plane and the demand
for an "investigation according to international guidelines" (well, Syria got that
investigation according to international guidelines with the OPCW and we know how that went)
- it may lead to diplomatic isolation. Watch it. As such, Pompeo might have laid out a motive
for a potential US involvement.
"economic pressure" - while the E3 did not sanction Iran, with their lack of action in
regards to find working mechanisms and their depending on the US, that goal has been
achieved.
"military deterrence" - Pompeo thinks in CIA terms which can be seen as a covert weapons
trafficking organization (Timber Sycamore) and something like a secret military organization.
The murder of Suleimani is a war crime and as such a criminal act; it can hardly be
considered a military deterrence - although the murder was carried out by the US military
(maybe by CIA embedded in base?).
I don't know. It's a lot of speculation. Iran may have a reason to not state their systems
got hacked. But in the current context it may be advisable to do so, turn a potential
cyberattack back to its place of origin.
Pompeo and Trump have no concept of personal honour as they come from a sub-culture that has
none.
In the rest of the world, honour-integrity is very important. Throughout MENA to Pakistan,
the US was viewed as treacherous for using Sadaam to fight Iran then turning on him in
service of Israel's goals. Bush 2 contributed, through his blatant financial criminality
(much of this remains unknown to average Americans), to the perception that the US is
incapable of honouring ANY agreement (re:oil and other sub-rosa deals the US made).
The decimation of Syria, Iraq and Libya was not enough; criminal elites in the US have now
completely exposed themselves to the Muslim world. I am firmly convinced that the Arab
'street' has concluded the US and Israel are inseparable in their policy of murder and
mayhem. I am betting the elites view reconciliation within the Arab and Islamic world as the
way forward with input from Russia, China when and if needed. Turning away from US-Israeli
meddling and treachery will be a primary concern for the 20's.
I don't believe Pompeo or Trump have the foresight to understand killing Soleimani has sealed
how the US is perceived: Indonesia, Malaysia, Muslim India (all 250+million), Afghanistan and
Pakistan will accelarate the turning away.
This 'decision' to murder Soleimani will be cited by future non_court historians as seminal.
The US murdered the 2nd most important person in Iranian politics. This has to be one of THE
STUPIDEST DECISIONS I have seen come out of the Washington, D.C--Tel Aviv--London axis. I
really cannot think of any other official action by the US that compares in stupidity.
Unofficially, 911 was the stupidest act of the last 2 decades but as for official I believe
this takes the cakes.
In essence, screaming to the world that you are a gangster is not a very graceful way to wind
down an Empire. Pompeo-Trump-BoBo should have looked at a map. I see a hemisphere that is
geographically isolated that has to make a case for why anyone should interact with it.
Currently, all they have is the petrodollar system that supports 1, 000 military bases.
Problem: they have just given many of the (often unwilling) participants in that system a big
reason to leave it. I believe this is referred to as 'suicide'?
Correct me if I'm wrong. I would be happy to be.
Anyone who has studied the history of the Third Reich would note a curious similarity between
Germany's behaviour under Hitler and the current behaviour of the US both internally and
externally. Is it just me, or have other's noted the similarity of Pompeo to Herman Goering
in looks and behaviour?
That's one of the good aspect of Trump administration, in the long run. With these psychos
openly plagiarizing Grand Moff Tarkin ("Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of
this battle station."), it will be pretty had for any sane and sensible observer not to come
to the conclusion that, deep down, the USA *is* an Evil Empire that has to be fought and
brought down - and thankfully, this time, one saner Obama-like presidency, if it ever happens
after Trump, won't be enough to change that perception.
I can only guess what Toynbee would think of the US now, it certainly looks like suicide to
me and if the US actually had any friends left they would be busy trying to talk the US out
of it. From this point of view the relative silence speaks loudly and says something quite
different than at least some people think.
US NATO "allies" haven't exactly been enthusiastic. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking the UK
came closest with Johnson's "not crying" remark, everything else seems to be tortured
statements walking on eggshells. 2nd biggest NATO member Turkey cooperates with Iran and
plenty of others in NATO have wanted and worked towards normal relations despite differences,
some more publicly than others. It might not have amounted to anything but that's my
impression at least.
Any support for war against Iran is microscopic. Against Russia? Except for the rarest of
the worst of fools not a chance. Against China? People would have trouble comprehending the
question itself due to how absurd the notion is.
"Is it just me" who makes the argument reductio ad Hitlerum?
No, it's you and every other moron who gets his history from teevee and Hollywood.
If the compulsion to resort to WWII analogies is too compelling to overcome, flip the
script:
US and Britain 'won' the war in Germany by deliberately firebombing civilian targets, over
and over and over and over again.
United States Dept. of Interior records in detail how Standard Oil engineers, USAF, Jewish
architects, and Jewish Hollywood studio set designers constructed and practiced creating
firestorms with the stated goal of killing working class German civilians, including "infants
in cribs."
In a discussion of his book, The Fire, Jörg Friedrich emphasized that Allied bombers
dropped leaflets telling the Germans they were about to kill that their only recourse was to
overthrow their government -- to topple or kill Hitler: the "greatest generation" killed
civilians as "deterrents" to Wehrmacht's defensive actions against Allied invasion.
Since at least 1995 US tactics against Iran have been similar: Ed Royce spelled them out:
US will sanction Iranian citizens in an effort to make life so miserable for them that they
will riot and overthrow their government.
So yes, it IS "just like the Nazis" -- US-zionists are running a similar playbook as that
used to prostrate Germany.
And Iraq.
And Libya.
And Syria.
Notice that wrt Syria, having reduced that ancient place to rubble, much like Allies
reduced Germany's cultural heritage to rubble, US 'diplomats' are steadfastly refusing to
allow Syria access to resources with which to finance its reconstruction, and are also
blocking any other country's attempt to aid Syria in reconstruction: Destroying Syria was
'hi-tech eminent domain,' and now USA intends to be the only entity to finance and rebuild
Syria -- or else US will continue the destruction of Syria.
Most Americans think Marshall plan was an act more generous than Jesus Christ on the
cross, but in fact it was a cynical strategy to completely dominate Germany in saecula
saeculorum. (US LOANED the money, and far more-- about 2.5 X more-- was committed to
England -- relatively undamaged -- than to Germany, where 70% of infrastructure was
rubble.)
You won't learn that from the Hollywood version of WWII.
"This is not a Warning, it is a Threat," Trump declared in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon,
adding that Iran will "pay a very BIG PRICE" for the embassy siege earlier in the day."
They sure did. So who is next?
Yesterday Trump warned the supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khameni:
US President Donald Trump has warned the supreme leader of Iran to watch his language,
following a heated sermon in which Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed American leaders as
"clowns."
Leading a prayer in Tehran on Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei boasted that Iran had the
"spirit to slap an arrogant, aggressive global power" in its retaliation to the
assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, which he said struck a "serious
blow" to Washington's "dignity" – triggering a response from the US president.
"The so-called 'Supreme Leader' of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some
nasty things to say about the United States and Europe," Trump tweeted. "Their economy is
crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!"
In his sermon, Khamenei blasted "American clowns," who he said "lie in utter viciousness
that they stand with the Iranian people," referring to recent comments by Trump and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Lets face it, assassinations are not a new thing. It became more organized with Lord
Palmerstons gangs of thugs in the mid 19th century (one of which took out Lincoln) . Since
the end of WWII the global mafia jumped across the pond and assassinations have been covert
actions arranged by the CIA , with operations having a high degree of plausible deniability.
But most higher ups had a pretty good idea who was behind it . Trumps just continued this but
like Bush and Obama have made clear its their right to do so against terrorists . Of course
the definition of terrorist has become rather broad. Trump recently said he authorized the
hit because he said bad things about America. Maybe saying bad things about Trump can get you
labelled the same. Watch out for those drones barflies.
So basically the main change is they no longer care about plausible deniability . They are
proud to admit it. And nobody seems to care enough to express any outrage. Name any countries
leader who has except in muted terms. Europe, Russia, China, etc everyone quiet as a mouse.
China so outraged they signed a trade deal giving them nothing. UN? Might as well move it to
Cuba , Iran or Venezuela for all the clout it has.
So you know, maybe the deterrence is working. Terrorism works both ways. The world seems
terrorized and hardly anyone in the US dares criticize Trumps action without saying the
general was evil and deserved it. Its not just drones they fear as financial terrorism
(sanctions, denied access to USD) works quite well also (except in Irans case).
The argument is correct.
(Although the mafia label bespeaks a limited frame of reference and it's inappropriate in any
event -- crime families do not have the reach or power of state assassination squads.)
Ferencz does not have the moral standing to make the argument.
It's like granting Ted Bundy credibility for criticizing police brutality.
The beast rises from the bottomless pit, it is written in the book you quoted!
How do you suggest a mere mortal and retard like trump does that?
The murcanized xtianity eschatology you have been reading is stupid and in NO WAY SHAPE OR
FORM Orthodox(Orthodox=Christian)
"ORTHODOXESCHATOLOGYdotBLOGSPOTdotCOM"
"orthodoxinfoDOTcom"
"preteristarchiveDOTcom"
You will find info that is not xtian but Christian @ those blogs..
The last one is a library with ancient and old texts about Christianity!
If you search "THEOSIS THE TRUE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE" on orthodoxinfo you will also find a
book WELL worth reading if you are/want to be Christian.
Per
Russian Orthodox
Norway
"And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the
bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them."
Kali @35
i messed up and hit post b4 i pasted this..
"'The beast that thou didst see: it was, and it is not; and it is about to come up out of the
abyss, and to go away to destruction, and wonder shall those dwelling upon the earth, whose
names have not been written upon the scroll of the life from the foundation of the world,
beholding the beast that was, and is not, although it is."
Per
Russian Orthodox
Norway
first speculation. however it happened, "deep state" power or factions now have a
jacket
on Trump. he can't disown what happened. Brennan and Stephen Schwarzman are safe.
the Money and the MIC get what they want. Trump's agenda of converting the common good
to corporate profit is acceptable. they can use Trump to defeat Sanders.
and lastly this outlier from ibm.com. a new, more powerful battery made from sea
water.
charges in 5 min. in California this means electricity off your roof for everything
including
your car plus a surplus for export. how soon? doesn't say. oil dependent economies
want to know. and we won't need the "petro" for the petrodollar. https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/12/heavy-metal-free-battery/
The truth of it is Trump murdered General Soleimani because the general was very effective in
defeating ISIS - the U.S. created and funded - terrorists in Syria and Iraq. The neocons were
none too pleased.
Release Jan.18 2020 21st centurywire audio Interview with Dr. Mohammad Marandi, Tehran
University
@ ChasMark 7 - not an ounce of integrity! Trump or Ferencz?
How is it I posted days ago that link to Ferencz's letter to New York Times and not a
pips. Are you defending Trump's war crimes as against bringing the Nazis to justice?
How about the U.S. waterboarding and torturing Muslims at Gitmo? 19 years on with NO
TRIALS!!! That's OK, right?
As far as b's premise goes, he's proven it IMO. Looks like the CIA made the next move in
Lebanon. IMO, Asia plus Russia & Belarus hold the geoeconomic and geopolitical deterrence
cards. The Financial Parasite continues hollowing out what remains of US industry and retail
helped along by Trump's Trade War. I presented the fundamental economic info and arguments on
the prior threads, so I don't have anything to add.
the price of fake freedom is remaining ever vigilant to prevent peace breaking out. trump's
as much a warmonger as any of them (which is to say impeachment won't make a bit of
difference).
[Before] the US assassination of Soleimani, there were numerous back-channel efforts for
détente in the costly wars that have raged across the region since the US-instigated
Arab Spring between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran and Iraq. Russia and China have both in
different ways been playing a key role in changing the geopolitical tensions. At this
juncture the credibility of Washington as any honest partner is effectively zero if not
minus.
[.] The US president just tweeted his support for renewed anti-government Iran protests,
in Farsi. We are clearly in for some very nasty trouble in the Middle East as Washington
tries to deal with the unintended consequences of its recent Middle East actions.[.]
Run home as fast as you can. In this election year, an observation; 10% of companies are
losing money but thanks to the Feds, the Markets are making ATH ...all time highs. On main
street Joe and Jane are in a well of hurt "it's the economy, stupid."
There is nothing ambiguous about Pompeo's statement. It is evidence of a profound psychotic
break. It is a megalomaniac delusion of godlike power, a deterance not attainable on a human
scale. "In all cases, we have to do this."
The masters of the universe will kill those who do not comply. The projection of their
psychic power to intimidate the world goes well beyond Iraq and Iran, brushing aside all the
little insubstantial nations that are constantly underfoot. Russia and China are to take heed
now, it is they too who must sleep with one eye open. The deterrence necessary to keep us all
safe means to go ahead and challenge those islands China built in the South China Sea.
The smiling villains do not accept that Crimea is part of Russia. Pompeo compares
Soleimani to bin Laden. There are so many departures from reality in the speech amidst all
the levity that it seems like someone has opened the doors of the Asylum.
Your retorts don't make sense relative to anything I've posted.
"not an ounce of integrity! Trump or Ferencz?"
Neither.
"How is it I posted days ago that link to Ferencz's letter to New York Times and not a
pips."
U can't fool all of the people all of the time. I wasn't fooled by Ferencz's claim to
righteousness based on Harvard when his Nuremberg activities were outrageous and the
Nuremberg set-up itself was that of a kangaroo court.
"Are you defending Trump's war crimes as against bringing the Nazis to
justice?"
Trump's war crimes are indefensible; the Nuremberg trials were not about "bringing Nazis
to justice," they involved, as Rabbi Wise said, a largely Jewish exercise in revenge. If
Nuremberg were about "justice," Wise himself would have been in the dock along with FDR (post
mortem), Churchill, Stalin, and Truman + + +
If Congress were just, it would be impeaching Trump, Pompeo, Pence etc. for war crimes.
But that does not make the Nuremberg trials the model of justice: they were not: as Rabbi
Stephen Wise wrote to his family, months before the trials began, they were set up by FDR's
man Robert Jackson as a
" broad departure from Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. [in which]
Retroactively "aggressive war-making" becomes criminally punishable–with membership
in the Gestapo prima facie proof of criminal participation."
Ferencz's co-ethnics participated in the creation of the kangaroo court that Ferencz
himself utilized more to vent his spleen than to establish international models of
justice.
That is why the so-called Nuremberg principles have not and cannot be properly applied to
the war crimes committed by Bush (I and II), by Clinton (Bill & Hill), Obama, Trump --
not to mention FDR, Truman & Churchill.
Further, as Ferencz surely realizes, "The United Nations Charter, the International
Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague" are toothless: if
they were effective bodies for meting justice, even the sanctions on Iran would be subject to
judgment under United Nations Charter, along with Victoria Kagan Nuland's subversion of
Ukraine and every other 'color revolution' US has engaged in: the UN Charter proscribes
interference in the internal affairs of member states.
In the Orwellian value system of America, Mike Pompeo's idea of "deterrence" is really
NewSpeak for America's brazen war crimes, wars of aggression, and shredding of international
law.
America is a mafia nation masquerading as a democracy.
And Donald Trump is a two-bit New York mafioso don in charge of this America Mafia
state.
Trump recounts minute by minute details of Soleimani assassination at a fundraiser held at
his Florida resort. Cause that's what normal people do; brag about murdering someone. I'll
bet his fat cat Zionist friends emptied their coffers. SICK.
ak74 @62: Mike Pompeo's idea of "deterrence" is really NewSpeak ...
Exactly. And we might add:
"America First" means America is the Empire's Fist;
"Stand with the people of " is 'New World Order' psyop;
"Economic sanctions" is the economic part of hybrid warfare;
"War on terror" is the war on ALL enemies of the empire via terrorist
destabilization;
"Russiagate" is McCarthyist war on dissent;
"Trump" is the latest dear leader whose flaws are blessings and whose 'gut
instinct' is God's will. We know this because his fake enemies (like the Democrats, "fake
news", and ISIS) always fail when they confront him.
!!
V , Jan 19 2020 3:12 utc |
69 Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 19 2020 2:46 utc | 65
You are a CIA/NSA TROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You condone pre-meditated MURDER!!!
Are you sure you actually read Chasmark @ 61?
Nowhere does he; You condone pre-meditated MURDER!!!
What Chasmark did, was to post the truth of the Nuremberg Trials.
They were an out and out sham...
You definitely need to up your reading comprehension and or, your knowledge of history...
And the other countries of the world whine, but do nothing. I'm afraid they've become as
shallow and self-absorbed as most Americans, afraid to confront the world's bully.
Torches and pitchforks are needed, and we get marches. I'm afraid the depravity has to get
worse before direct action is taken.
I only hope to live long enough to see the debacle that is inevitable, even if takes me
with it.
Justice and truth demand a reckoning..
Sounds dark, I know, but these are very dark days.
Among some of very good points you made, I take issue:
"Your retorts don't make sense relative to anything I've posted."
Perhaps you should re-read my comment vs what you posited. Look to Gitmo; is it any
different to your critique of Nuremberg where there was a trial, albeit with deficiencies, vs
holding and torturing prisoners over 18 years without a trial? that was my point.
You continue to offer up Rabbi Wise who proffered the Nuremberg trials were [.] "a
largely Jewish exercise in revenge"
I may add, they are also continuing to take out their revenge on Palestinians who had
nothing to do with events in Germany. The once oppressed have become oppressors.
If Congress were just, it would be impeaching Trump, Pompeo, Pence etc. for war
crimes.
Don't expect justice from Congress they are all too busy at the money trough to recognize
war crimes.
War crimes are prosecuted by the ICC which the US and Israel do not recognize. US is not a
state party; have threatened,
denied visas and barred entry to ICC investigators of war crimes
Further, as Ferencz surely realizes, "The United Nations Charter, the International
Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague" are toothless:
Toothless! Perhaps but Don't tell that to
Africans or Slobodan Milosevic while ELITES residing on that sliver of the "occupied
lands of Palestine" continue to roam free. Oh wait, they are the chosen ones who rule the
world!
Pompeo's speech may just be an attempt to reduce the cost of a future false flag
assassination that could be blamed on one of the enemies. If the enemy does what we do, no
need for an all out war. There will be a range of response options including just firing a
few missiles. Cost of war with the chosen enemy may be too high or the timing just not right.
William Gruff @ 9 Expressions of <=reality-disconnected human behavior=> describes
victim response to rules, enforcement behaviors and media products that bathe the
differentiation space that allows to produce human automatons. An examination of the forces
at work inside of the nation state container (differentiation space) will likely reveal
private and external forces that produce in these public containers, reality-disconnected
human responders (human behavior is a function of its environment; all learning is a result
of personal experience). No one can learn from another, but everyone can learn from the
behaviors of that other.
The physical environment is nature's doing, but the non physical environment is man's
doing. We can organize content as a product of the physical environment ( we build a home) or
as a product of the virtual environment (we produce a movie).
Conscious physical man is a highly differentiated product of both environments. A person
growing up in the jungles of Belize, will not learn to operate a sled designed to operate in
snow, and a person in the cold north will not learn to survive in the topical jungles of the
Amazon. Experience is the only teacher, human expression is the experience modified product
of sets of expressed genes. Experience in both the physical environment and the virtual
environment contribute to the human response to the challenges of life. The virtual
environment is about knowledge, habit, privilege, opportunity and a host of other non
physical components. see Law, Moral attitudes, and behavioral change, p. 243 ref and to be
clear behavior has three components. ref 7
What is this virtual space (environment) that allows differentiated humans to be
manufactured from genetic material in to adult automatons. How are these automatons
programmed? Since is it rarely possible to modify the physical space; most human
differentiation occurs in virtual space. How many such digital spaces are there? virtual
content means<= the verbal and non verbal (ref.12) discourse that engages interactively
with the mind (conscious and unconsciousness). Environments can be natural or manufactured.
Environment then is the container space. The contents of the manufactured environment are
psycho-econo-socio-metically designed, media engineered, sets of media products. Each nation
state supports a different set of contents within its container space. The order, arrangement
and time of environments presented controls the mental behaviors of the media connected
humans who reside within the container space environment.
The content of each nation state in the system is a set of environment variables operative
in each human container. Two hundred and six different container spaces (the global nation
state system=NSS) divides and separates the 8 billion humans in the world. Human
differentiation is a product of the 206 different container environments. Your observation
that "Pompeo is a psycho"; expresses the real problem for humanity; its leaders are the
products of the physical and virtual content of the host nation state within the system of
nation states. Each nation state is led by a few. I say to solve this always war condition it
is necessary to control the humans that occupy the positions in the nation states or to
eliminate the nation state system, and find some better way to address human need for
governance.
That strike, which was only the first part of Iran's response to the murdering of
Soleimani, deterred the U.S. from further action.
Is USA really 'deterred' or just didn't want war at this time? USA is 'deterred' if the
Iranian response actually stopped them in some way.
But they took Iran's 'slap' and RESPONDED (though not militarily) with more sanctions and
even tried to turn the attack to their advantage by saying (initially) that Iran missed on
purpose (
as I explained here ) and conducting Electronic Warfare/Info War that may have
contributed to Iran's mistaken downing of a commercial airliner.
And, as bar patrons know only too well, Pompeo has refused to negotiate a USA exit from
Iraq, saying that "USA is a force for good in the Middle East".
IMO USA wants to put on UN sanctions (now in progress) and, when war comes, USA will
portray it as entirely Iran's fault. The claim will be that Iran is "lashing out" due
to "sanctions imposed by the world community" .
Why does anyone gives either the president or US officials credence regarding what they say,
especially Secretary Pompeo, not to mention POTUS? Taking Pompeo at this word and responding
to it strikes me as a waste of time. These people are never going to say publicly what they
are up to, which is world domination. Nor is it their own ideal. This has been the policy of
the US elite at least since WWII, which was simply a transfer of the seat of power from
London to Washington as the British Empire morphed into the Anglo-American Empire. Global
domination through sea power was British policy for centuries and the US just recently
joining the game, especially when the game expanded to air power as well. Arguably, this goes
back to the end of WWI, if not the Spanish-American war that embarked the US on empire.
Deterrence, I guess is the politically correct term for what Trump is doing.
He sees that the Dollar hegemonic empire was crumbling same as most who don't rely on MSM for
their news.
Trump believes US can hold its position in the world through pure military power, or the
threat of military power.
He wants to regain what he calls importance from early 90s when US was sole undisputed
superpower.
Iran though, he believes is a blot on USA's past that needs erasing.
Throughout the election campaign, Trump's big thing was rebuilding US military. He believes
this will restore US power in the world. Ruling through the world fear rather than soft power
and blackmail.
Today is Theophany in the Orthodox Christian Church, the baptism of Christ in the River
Jordan:
Today Thou hast appeared to the universe
and Thy light, O Lord, hast shone on us,
who with understanding praise Thee:
Thou hast come and revealed Thyself
O Light Unapproachable!
The 2000 page report about Afganistan sums up USA's criminal insanity. Further, Trump says
the response attack from Iran did not harm troops nor do anything of significant damage.
Indeed Iran's missiles are far superior than the USA's and the counter attack for the
General's assassination. I have mused, that, perhaps the USA was/is set up in this scenario
via Iran, Et Al.
The basis of the American Empire and its parasitic economy and Way of Life(TM) itself are
premised on what should be called America's Dollar Dictatorship.
Because of the US Dollar, America is able to wage economic siege warfare (aka economic
sanctions) on multiple nations around the planet--all in order to impose the Land of the
Free's imperial dictates on them.
This is American global gangsterism in everything but name--and disguised behind the
founding American deceptions of "Freedom and Democracy."
The vast majority Americans--including some fake "alternative media" shills--will attempt
to spindoctor this issue by avoiding such blunt description of this system.
Instead, they prefer to employ Orwellian euphemisms about the "US PetroDollar" or the "US
Dollar Reserve Currency" or how America's superpower status is dependent on this dollar
syistem.
But former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accurately calls out this system for what
it is: America's global dictatorship of the Dollar.
This is another reason why America has such hatred for Iran:
Best explanation I've seen yet of the 752 jet takedown. It was a false flag attack by the US
or its allies intended to frame Iran. The Iranian missile hit second after the plane had
already been hit by the Stinger and was several seconds from crashing anyway. The rich kids
of Tehran were in the housing complex at 6 AM to film the Stinger shootdown by their
terrorist buddies. They have properly been arrested. There have been other arrests too. I
wonder what they will come up with.
This makes more sense than any other theory I have seen.
Tom Luongo, who frequently cites b, has coined a new word for Trump's and his minions
tactics. Tom asks:
Does Gangsternomics Meet its End in the Iraqi Desert?
In the aftermath of the killing of Iranian IRGC General Qassem Soleimani a lot of questions
hung in the air. The big one was, in my mind, "Why now?"
There are a lot of angles to answer that question. Many of them were supplied by
caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi who tried to let the world know through
official (and unofficial) channels of the extent of the pressure he was under by the
U.S.
In short, President Trump was engaged in months of what can best be described as
gangsternomics in directing the course of Iraq's future economic and political
development.[/]
Iraq's importance goes much farther than just protecting the petrodollar to the U.S. It
is the fulcrum now on which the entire U.S. defense against Eurasian integration rests. The
entire region is slipping out of the grasp of the U.S.
And this started with Russia moving into Syria in 2015 successfully. We are downstream of
this as it has blown open the playbook and revealed it for how ugly it is.
Trump's crude gangster tactics in Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia and to a lesser extent in
Syria cannot be hidden behind the false veil of moral preening and virtue signaling about
bringing democracy to these benighted places.[/]
What began in Syria with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and China standing up together and
saying, "No," continues today in Iraq. To this point Iran has been the major actor.
Tomorrow it will be Russia, China and India.
And that is what is ultimately at stake here, the ability of the U.S. to employ
gangsternomics in the Middle East and make it stick.[.]
By the time Trump is done threatening people over S-400's and pipelines the entire world
will be happy to trade in yuan and/or rubles rather than dollars.[.]
Pompeo omitted a crucial part of this sentence: "deterrence to protect [the financial and
energy hegemony of] America".
While this might be obvious to us, the narrative that US foreign policy is about
protecting citizens, values and apple pie from 'bad guys' -- and indeed that the militaries
of all Western countries are benign police forces preventing ISIS from burning your old
Eagles albums and other violations of 'freedom' -- is such a regular part of the MSM/cinema
diet masticated by the general public that we have completely forgotten that the basic
function of the armed forces is the pursuit of vested interests through superior violence. It
always seemed strange to me that the post-ww2 cinematic template for war-movies, and by
extension the basic plot of all reporting of western military activity in the media, always
represented the enemy as evil precisely because they use militaries in an instrumental
way (i.e for the purpose they were designed). The Germans, or for that matter the
Persians in 300 , or any baddies in war films, seek to extend and protect their
interests (real or imagined) by deploying armed forces. The good guys are always identifiable
through this idea of 'deterrence': "hey man, all we want is just to live and let live, but
you pushed us so we pushed back." Then one stirs in a little 'preemptive deterrence': you
looked like you were going to push so we acted. If we 'accidentally' go too far, it's because
there is a deranged C-in-C: Hitler, or Xerxes, or some other naughty boy who can be the
fall-guy, scapegoat, etc. To get serious we need to go back a very long way, to, say, the
Iliad , which, like all Greek (and Roman) literature, assumes as a premise (and it's
tragedy) that the warrior's basic function is to kill, pillage, rape and occasionally protect
others from the same. But mostly take by force . No qualms or BS 'deterrence', armies
are for taking other people's stuff by force (land-grabs, etc). I would respect Pompeo a
whole lot more (but not much more...) if he just once came out and said: "Iran is run by
people who don't want us to take their stuff; we want to undermine them and replace them with
paid yes-men who will let us take Iran's stuff. We will use violence and armed force to make
this happen. But we have no intention of distributing this loot evenly among our citizens.
Instead it will be paid as dividends to select shareholders and spent retooling the military
for next poor bastards who stand up to us."
Patroklos 84
Xerxes wanted water from Spartans, Hitler wanted land from "subhumans", but I don't see what
kind of stuff Americans want from Iranians. When they had Iran under control during Pahlavi
rule, what stuff did they take from Iran? They were giving Iran lots of money - didn't give
them USD printing press machine too?
Mike Javaras @82: The Iranian missile hit second after the plane had already been hit by
the Stinger ...
MANPADs like Stingers are heat-seeking. They go after ENGINES. On a big plane like PS732,
a MANPADs is unlikely to have stopped the transponder and communications.
Philip Giraldi points a finger at US/Israeli Electronic Warfare:
Giraldi thinks the transponder was hacked. But the article he cites also talks about a device
on board that would've allowed for EW. And he notes that Israel probably ALSO has the
capability to have been responsible for the EW and/or device on board.
Thanks. Gangsternomics seems a good term for Trump's vision of US world power. Trump is
pragmatic or realist in that he knows there is no court or authority to hold the US to
account.
As to US holding power purely through military power, that can only happen long term if he
gets hold of a good chunk of the worlds energy reserves (as in Persian gulf and Venezuela
oil). If he doesn't achieve that, then the US goes down. Iran needs to ensure it stays under
Russia's nuclear umbrella as there are no rules.
MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated there is unverified information
that at least six American F-35 jets were in the Iranian border area at the time when Tehran
accidentally downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 last week.
Sickening series of Trump interviews and speeches demanding that Iraq pay America and its
allies over a trillion dollars for liberating Iraq (time stamp 8:20 to 12:00). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWZfDJerI0o
This demonstrates that US attacks in Iraq over the last 30-40 years was mostly about the
control (including transportation routes) and than profiting from its oil and gas
reserves.
A secondary reason is to put troop on the border with Iran to further destabilize it via
state terrorism to overthrow the government and then take its oil and gas too.
It will get interesting when a pro Iranian new Prime minister takes office and China
offers Iraq a line of credit equivalent to the funds that would be frozen in Western bank
accounts if Iraq actually demands the troops to leave.
"The Iran-linked Binaa parliamentary voting bloc has nominated Asaad al-Edani, a former
minister and governor of oil-rich Basra province. Binaa's bloc is mostly made up of the Fatah
party led by militia leader turned politician Hadi al-Ameri, who is close to Tehran."
The Kurdish President of Iraq has stated that "Out of an eagerness to spare blood and
preserve civil peace, I apologize for not naming Edani prime minister," the letter continued.
"I am ready to submit my resignation to parliament." https://time.com/5755588/iraq-president-resignation/
I close with a visionary French rock opera Starmania "story of an alternate reality where
a fascist millionaire (read Trump) famous for building skyscrapers is running for president
on an anti-immigration policy, and where the poor are getting more and more desperate for
their voices to be heard." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LytR-6Xmk
Xerxes wanted water from Spartans, Hitler wanted land from "subhumans", but I don't see
what kind of stuff Americans want from Iranians. When they had Iran under control during
Pahlavi rule, what stuff did they take from Iran? They were giving Iran lots of money -
didn't give them USD printing press machine too?
Assuming that your post was serious...
1. Water from the Spartans? That makes absolutely no sense as a glance at any historical
map of the Achaemenid Empire will show;
2. Lebensraum was indeed a specific war aim of Hitler;
3. Under the Shah Anglo-American (not mention Dutch, French and other) interests skimmed all
Iranian energy resources, kept the USSR under pressure on the southern coast of the Caspian
Sea and provided a key friendly power in the most important region of central Asia.
Petro-dollar supremacy could not have been established without control of the Persian
Gulf. The Persian elite were given wonderful opportunities while the rest... well we know
what the rest get.
@ krollchem #90 with the Starmania link that is not working
I get the following error from Oregon, USA
"
Video unavailable
This video contains content from WMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright
grounds.
"
Thanks for the rest of the comment and agree with the sickness of demanding Iraq pay for
being invaded.
1. Water from the Spartans? That makes absolutely no sense as a glance at any
historical map of the Achaemenid Empire will show;
That was in the movie 300. I guess you did not watch it. :-)
The Persian elite were given wonderful opportunities while the rest... well we know
what the rest get.
Not just the elite. Persian middle class was pretty well off too. Spending vacation in
Europe was easy, quite affordable. Not any more. I know I know, those dang sanctions... well
that is what you get when you piss off the big dawg.
Anybody know what's up with Andrew Peek getting sacked from the NSC Russia desk tonight?
Odd that, and he seemed like such a trustworthy chap as indicated in his twitter feed.
Perhaps he has some Ciaramella connections that would make Trump uncomfortable. Or Trump is
taking absolutely no more chances with any insider he has no control over when attending high
level meetings.
Are you talking about 'earth and water' ? The symbolic gesture
of submission to the Great King? That's a very different thing altogether. You make it sound
like 'water rights'... I did indeed watch the film I'm sad to say, but Xerxes was not after
water.
I'd like to know what proportion of the pre-1979 population of Iran qualified as
'middle-class' and what that meant in real terms. Outside of Tehran, Shiraz, etc there
probably weren't a lot of Iranians skiing in St Moritz.
There are certain signs that nations exhibit when they slide into becoming
'regimes'...targeted, illegal assassinations of opponents is one of these; America's recent
political trajectory has been from oligarchy to kakistocracy and now, it seems, to regime -
banana republic next, perhaps?...
Soleimani had delivered an speech on 2 August 2018 in Hamadan, in his speech he read 5 verses
poems from Rumi the famous Persian poet lived on 13 century. You can watch and listen minute
35:45 of the film ,
if you know Farsi. He said let enemy pay attention to these poems.
He has selected 5 verses from two locations from Book3 of Masnavi.
V-96 : Men dance and whirl on the battle-field // They dance in their own blood.
V-97 : They clap a hand when they are freed from the hand of ego // They make a dance when
they jump out from their own imperfection,
V-98: The inner musicians strike the tambourine // The Oceans burst into foam from their
ecstasy
I think Soleimani selected last 3 verses from this story of baby elephant killer, and
revenge of the mother elephant, without intending the content of story. But the coincidence
is striking.
No fault in your reasoning, particularly when expressing this from Trump's point of view.
I'd go a bit further and suggest he understands Iran, North Korea and Cuba are the only
remaining nations without a Rothschild central bank. Thinking he's successfully rebuilt the
U.S. military could be the single most critical failure of his presidency. Upgrading hardware
with a tactical nuclear weapon preference, isn't synonymous with rebuilding. What's neglected
are the people operating any apparatus. As an example, there is no timely military action to
counter mining of the Strait of Hormuz as illustrated by
Death and Neglect in the 7th Fleet . A firsthand account from a U.S. Naval officer is eye
opening (emphasis mine).
He'd seen his ship, one of the Navy's fleet of 11 minesweepers, sidelined by repairs and
maintenance for more than 20 months. Once the ship, based in Japan, returned to action, its
crew was only able to conduct its most essential training -- how to identify and defuse
underwater mines -- for fewer than 10 days the entire next year . During those
training missions, the officer said, the crew found it hard to trust the ship's faulty
navigation system: It ran on Windows 2000.
Sonar which identifies dishwashers, crab traps and cars as possible mines, can hardly be
considered a rebuilt military. The Navy's eleven minesweepers built more than 25 years ago,
have had their decommissioning continually delayed because no replacement plan was
implemented. I'll await the deeper understanding of 'deterrence' from b, even as I consider
willingness to commit and brag about war crimes as beyond the point of no return.
psychedelicatessen "Thinking he's successfully rebuilt the U.S. military could be the single
most critical failure of his presidency."
I would be in agreement on the overall gist of your reply, but on Trump thinking he's
successfully rebuilt the US military, I'm not so sure. He is a pragmatic gangster when it
comes to world affairs which is why his Nuclear Posture Review lowered the threshold of first
use of nukes. b's previous post on 'How Trump rebelled against the generals' also fits in
with this line of thought.
I believe Trump needs to be thought of as a CEO brought in to pull a company back from the
edge of bankruptcy. I think that is the way he sees himself, and as I have put in previous
comments, there are no rules. I had thought Trump may be adverse to pure terrorism but
depending on what comes of the Ukie airliner shootdown in Iran, there may be absolutely no
rules as far as Trump is concerned.
The article linked by Mike Jarvis @86 makes observational comments about the behavior of
the first missile strike in PS752 and that it must have been a stinger/manpad (and not a
Tor). The same article also concludes that EW must also have been involved. Everything I have
read indicates that the first missile strike behaved like a stinger/manpad - until this can
be disproved it must remain a valid theory.
Tom Luongo, who frequently cites b, has coined a new word for Trump's and his minions
tactics. Tom asks:
Does Gangsternomics Meet its End in the Iraqi Desert?
In the aftermath of the killing of Iranian IRGC General Qassem Soleimani a lot of questions
hung in the air. The big one was, in my mind, "Why now?"
There are a lot of angles to answer that question. Many of them were supplied by
caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi who tried to let the world know through
official (and unofficial) channels of the extent of the pressure he was under by the
U.S.
In short, President Trump was engaged in months of what can best be described as
gangsternomics in directing the course of Iraq's future economic and political
development.[/]
Iraq's importance goes much farther than just protecting the petrodollar to the U.S.
It is the fulcrum now on which the entire U.S. defense against Eurasian integration rests.
The entire region is slipping out of the grasp of the U.S.
And this started with Russia moving into Syria in 2015 successfully. We are downstream
of this as it has blown open the playbook and revealed it for how ugly it is.
Trump's crude gangster tactics in Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia and to a lesser extent in
Syria cannot be hidden behind the false veil of moral preening and virtue signaling about
bringing democracy to these benighted places.[/]
What began in Syria with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and China standing up together and
saying, "No," continues today in Iraq. To this point Iran has been the major actor.
Tomorrow it will be Russia, China and India.
And that is what is ultimately at stake here, the ability of the U.S. to employ
gangsternomics in the Middle East and make it stick.[.]
By the time Trump is done threatening people over S-400's and pipelines the entire world
will be happy to trade in yuan and/or rubles rather than dollars.[.]
The general gist of this article is on target, but I feel some of the details are off.
First off, Iran does want to be a region hegemon, they have wanted that for 5,000 years.
But they only succeeded, and then only temporarily, when the opposition was weak. Today they
are opposed by Israel, which is far stronger them Iran militarily, and by the Saudis, who are
far richer. Those two can contain Iran by themselves with little US support.
Secondly, Iran getting nuclear weapons is a problem. If they do, next will be the Turks
and Saudis, then the Egyptians and then who know who else. Having several nuclear powers in
an unstable part of the world is a bad thing in general, and when (not if, but when) one of
those state collapses like Iran did in 1979 or the USSR did in 1989, the risk of loose nukes
floating around is far too real. Better nobody has them (I am not a particular friend or foe
of Israel, but I trust them more than the Arab states on this score).
But our aggressive policy and troop deployments give the Iranians every incentive to build
nukes. Their previous incentive was to counter Saddam Hussien's Iraq, but we graciously
eliminated threat. But then we provided them with our own incentive to nuclearize. Very
dumb.
I don't fully agree that Iran having nuclear weapons would be a problem for us. To the extent
that any country's having them is a problem, sure. But Iran lacks the means to deliver such a
weapon to US territory, and their regime, which has, for better or for worse, been rather
stable over 40 years, has, notwithstanding aggressive rhetoric, been pragmatic: they know the
awful consequences that would come from unleashing a nuclear attack on us. They wouldn't even
think of it. Even attacking Israel, something within their capabilities, would certainly
unleash nuclear retaliation and mutually assured destruction. The mullahs are not into that.
I think that nuclear non-proliferation became a dead letter when Pakistan and India
acquired nuclear weapons and the world shrugged. Pakistan has one of the least stable
governments around, having frequent coups, an intelligence service brimming with religious
and ideological fanatics, and a history of repeated wars with neighboring India. If ever a
red line should have been drawn, that was it. But nothing was done, barely anything was even
said. From that point on, nobody really has any basis to complain if Iran (or any of the
other countries you mention) goes nuclear.
Worse, US foreign policy is almost perfectly designed to maximize nuclear proliferation
around the world. We have clearly and repeatedly sent the message to all nations that nuclear
weapons are the only deterrent to US aggression, and that giving up your nuclear weapons (or
agreeing not to make them, as Iran did) is suicidal. The world already knows that the US is a
lawless, rogue nation, and that its treaty promises are not worth the paper they are written
on. You really have to question the sanity of any government that has the resources to
develop nukes and isn't doing that.
to the extent that any country's having them is a problem, sure.
This is a pretty big "but", though? Nuclear proliferation is a huge danger and it's
why a country like Germany without a huge middle east presence or danger of getting attacked
with Iranian nuclear weapons would so forcefully back the JCPOA.
The existence and success of the JCPOA should be indictivative of the correct method to
fight proliferation and the importance of doing so. To the degree that the US should be
involved with the affairs of the Middle East, it should be done through the State Department
(or what's left of it when the Republicans are finished with it).
As for Pakistan's nukes means "nobody really has any basis to complain if Iran (or any of
the other countries you mention) goes nuclear." IR doesn't run on moral consitency. We should
complain about countries that start up nuclear programs, but we should also complain about
how the US's action have made nuclear proliferation more likely and not less. I'd rather not
the US give up on non-proliferation just because Pakistan has the bomb. We just need to
pretending our military can find solutions to political problems.
It's not relevant that they can't strike America. They have the means to deliver a nuclear
warhead to Israel, which is all that matters to the people in charge of this country.
And Iran does not even need nuclear weapons to completely destroy the Israeli state. They
have more than enough conventional missiles to do the job. And such anti-missile defense
systems such as the Patriot and Iron Dome implementations have both been shown to be
completely
inadequate against the type of missile onslaught Iran could deliver against Israel...
Yes, Iran could strike Israel with a nuke. Or, as Steve Naidamast has pointed out in his
response to you, they could obliterate Israel with conventional ballistics as well. In 40
years, they haven't done that. And they know that Israel would respond in kind, or with
nuclear weapons, and they would be destroyed. So they will not do that.
In any case, while it is true that the people running the country view the defense of
Israel as our responsibility, even as a top priority. In my opinion, and I think many readers
here agree, that is precisely the problem. There is no reason we should commit to the
defense of Israel: its existence and well being is not relevant to the defense of the United
States. In fact, our unconditional support of everything Israel does, no matter how blatantly
wrong it may be, is one of the things that fuels anti-American hatred around the world and
motivates terrorists. Pulling away from our connection to Israel would be one of the best
things we could do to enhance our national security.
The US is in the Mid East for Israel's interests and Israel's interests only. This article
completely ignores this reality and tries to obfuscate it with a lot of air over how another
analyst views the situation there.
Had the US not recognized partition in 1947/1948 and then the subsequent state of Israel,
much of the violence in the Mid East would have never occurred in the first place. This
combined with assassination of the Iranian head of state in 1953 (over the move to
nationalize Iranian oil and thus pushing out the British and Dutch oil industry) by
Eisenhower only served to seriously complicate the matters in this region.
Iran would have most likely never had felt the need to develop nuclear weapons if the
United States had simply just left well enough alone.
Unfortunately, the United States with few exception has never had anything but dim light
bulbs in the presidency. Even Truman's senior military leaders, Mid East Foreign Service
policy experts, and Secretary of State Marshall all warned him of the consequences of
recognizing an Israel state and they were all correct...
You know it, I know it, and pretty much everyone lurking around knows it: The US is in the
ME for very basic things that insure its primacy:
- the control of the oil flow;
- the control of the way that oil is being transaction-ed, must be US dollars. The flow of
dollars, especially the excess dollars needs to be controlled and be returned back to fund US
deficit - which of course US has no intention of repaying (external creditors only), and the
Feds, which are private bodies of financiers which benefit tremendously from controlling the
world's reserve currency, understand this;
- Oiled ME countries must be run by autocracies in fear of revolutions so they need US
support;
- Nationalist movements and republicanism are to be killed and persecuted;
- While a nuclear Iran might pose a threat to Israel, like India/Pakistan, US/Russia, it
would be all MAD, so not much to worry about.
US will stay in the ME as long as it will take to insure its primacy. And they will kill
any external or internal threats to this primacy.
Furthermore, there is a stirred appetite in the US and what its elites stand for. Look at
TPP, at the proposed treaty on services, etc. The intention is to privatize everything in the
world and have it in the hands of some, few. Thus State Owned Enterprises are to be shunned
and ultimately appropriated. This is all what TPP was about, this is all what the trade war
with China is about, and this is all the upset with Russia and Putin is about.
It is a very simple equation, that had the US population (military/intelligence) harnessed
to be the slave drivers of the rest of the world, while they themselves think they are free,
and liberators. This is the content of the red pill.
Not much different than the story told in the "Against the Grain A Deep History of Earlier
States" by James C. Scott
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lse...
And how can it be the other way if there are only two parties making decisions, and both of
them are committed as hell to staying bogged down in the Middle East whatever the cost
even to American troops and America's own economy , not to even mention the poor
peoples of that region? Just the latest example: Democrats received a totally free and
unprovoked electoral gift from Trump in the form of his administration committing an
unmitigated idiocy regarding Iran (which, probably, resulted in dead American
soldiers, not only wounded ones, given that even those wounded were concealed in the
beginning). A real, not clownish cause for an impeachment investigation, against which
Republican senators would have a very hard time looking honest and non-partisan in defending
the president. A dream for any half-literate opposition political strategist in an election
year. Their actions? They didn't think even for a minute that maybe - just maybe - they
should not squander that gift. Instead they threw it - a real (and their last)
opportunity to look solid in trying to impeach Trump - down the drain, industriously flushed
the closet and kept on digging some clownish personalities from Ukraine, who are not even
Ukrainian residents due to living in the US for years. You know how it looks like? The
Democratic Party's neolib bosses (also known as the Republican Party's neocon bosses) called
the DNC and said: keep on playing in your political sandbox, babies, but don't even dare to
pester the POTUS on those issues that further our policies.
To say that I'm eager to read a reply from that miserable partisan hack which shall have a
cheek to claim that either of the American institutional parties is not controlled by
neocons/neolibs after all this is to say nothing.
There are too many Jews and Christian Zionists involved with America's foreign policy, who
are happy to sacrifice America's well being for the sake of israel.
Until that changes, which I can't see how it will while America exists in its current form,
we are doomed to continue wasting blood and treasure in the region. It's tragic really, that
this nations elite doesn't care much for America, but only what America can do to further
their interests abroad.
ZOG is considered to be a conspiracy theory. These days, I'm not so sure it is.
At least part of the blame should go to the religious conservatives on the US Supreme Court
which, with its Citizens United decision in 2010, opened the floodgates for large scale
campaign contributions in Federal elections. The five Catholic conservatives voted in favor
of Citizens United. The three Jewish members of the court along with the sole liberal
Catholic (a woman) voted against it.
If you happened to watch candidate Trump's address to the 2016 AIPAC convention on TV
(which I did), you might recall that he promised to be the best president that Israel ever
had. It reminds me of that old Chinese proverb "Be careful what you wish for." Trump appears
to be more popular in Israel than in the US.
Being on the Supreme Court means that you never have to say that you are sorry.
I couldn't read the article because I don't subscribe to the WSJ, but I was wondering what he
meant by solving the Israel- Palestine conflict. I don't think we should " solve" it by
supplying the Israelis with weapons and almost unlimited support. We have been pretending to
be an honest broker for decades and we aren't. I doubt we could be. A President Sanders might
try, but I doubt he would succeed. He would have enough battles to fight on both domestic
policy and ( hopefully) pulling back from our endless interventions to put too much effort
into the I- P conflict. Most of the other possible Presidents would probably just be Israel's
lapdog, as usual.
I think the US government should pull back from Israel. Have relations, but don't treat
them like they are the 51st state. In theory I wish we could be an honest broker, but it
hasn't happened so far.
I have to say that the style of comments being posted as they regard Israel demonstrate that
a tide may be changing. I have noticed a slow but increasing negative response by serious
commenters on several sites not only toward the US commitment to Israel also to Israeli
policies and military capabilities as not being what everyone has promoted them to being.
This could be indicative of a sea change in US opinion, isolating most US
politicians...
@ Posted by: psychedelicatessen | Jan 19 2020 9:14 utc | 98
You are right one of the pillars of the Iranian asymmetric strategy to counter the USN is
using thousands of mines in the Strait of Hormuz and beyond, and probably also around the US
bases inside the Persian Gulf.
Back in the day when Iran was a pariah state in 1988 (under full embargo from USA and the
USSR), they almost sunk the frigate Samuel B Roberts with a very old WWI mine:
But forget it, they have now thousands of modern mines of Russian, Chinese, north Koreans
origin and inverse engineered Iranian mines, even better than those.
To try to clear the mines with wooden minesweepers in the Strait of Hormuz is a joke; to
clear the mines they have to move sloooowly and they will be sitting ducks to the Iranian
coastal defenses in this narrow pass; good luck using slow moving helicopters also, and using
hi-tech subs drones taking one by one will take months or years to clear them, if not
detected and destroyed before.
As in the case of the missiles threat, USN has no good solutions to the massive minelaying
in the Strait of Hormuz, and without massive resupply of the troops inside the Persian Gulf
by sea (of weapons, men, spare parts, evacuate wounded, etc...) they do not have a good
prospect to continue the war after few weeks; remember that the Iranians missiles have the
capacity to destroy all the airstrips of the US air bases in ME and cut dry the use of them
for bombing Iran and re-supply (trying to re-suppy a complete army only with helicopters is
not an option)
The iranians even do not need high-tech supersonic anti-ship missiles to close the Strait
of Hormuz, but they need them to maintain the US air carriers far enough from the iranians
eastern shores that their air wings will sit iddle inside the carriers (the operational range
of the F15, F16, F18 is around 700-800 Km), so they cannot support the troops in the opposite
side of the Persian Gulf, and even the SCG cannot use their cruise missiles (range 1700 Km)
against the western part of Iran where their missile force is allocated pounding the US bases
all around the Gulf
For US the only remained option would be to use long range bombers and cruise missiles
from subs, but they do not have enough of them to stop the rain of missiles and really
destroy the command and control centers, especially if they have not destroyed the huge
multilayered aerial defense Iran has (that seems to be much better than the american one)
The US then could think to use nukes, and then call a draft, but I do not recommend it, it
is better to ask for a truce
Once they delved into "Conquest and Exploitation", the Military were OverScoped and Few
People thought of rebuilding/modernizing Civil Infrastructure and Economy of the
Conquered.
Also, IMHO, every Govt-Job that affect the Military and Veterans' Lives should be held by
Veterans. Need them to be where the Rubber Meets the Road before sending others into harm's
way. I'd go as far to require WH, Congress, Supremes to be Previously Assigned to Combat
Units/Hot Zones (FatBoy Pompeo Fails here) - and have Combat Eligible Family be in Active
Duty or Drilling Reserves - ready to be sent to the Front Lines should they call for War
while running the Republic-turned-Hegemon.
That would include BoneShards' Adult Children and Spouses.
WH have been on a PetroUSD/MIC/PNAC7/AIPAC Bandwagon - which drive down Non-Yielding
Nation-States with Sanctions.
Now BoneShards Opened the Pandora's Box of Open State Level Assassinations using
Diplomatic Peace Missions as Venues. Worse? Against a Nation-State which can Respond in Kind
- AND Develop+Deploy Nuclear WMDs. Not Ethical - Inhumane and Imbecilic, really. That's why I
am voting for Gabbard this Time. A 2nd Gen Navy Vet. Been to War Zones in the Gulf.
The U.S. has occasionally exerted pressure on democratic allies, but never treated them like
servile pawns. Until now. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (C) and his wife Susan (R) wait to
board a helicopter to the US embassy at the terminal at Baghdad International Airport on
January 9, 2019.(ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
January 17, 2020
|
12:01 am
Ted
Galen Carpenter A policy statement that the State Department issued on January 10 asserts that "America is a
force for good in the Middle East." It adds, "We want to be a friend and partner to a
sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq." Yet the Trump administration's recent conduct toward
Iraq indicates a very different (and much uglier) policy. Washington is behaving like an
impatient, imperial power that has concluded that an obstreperous colony requires a dose of
corrective discipline.
Washington's
late December airstrikes on Iraqi militia targets, in retaliation for the killing of an
American civilian contractor working at a base in northern Iraq, greatly provoked the Iraqi
government and population. Massive anti-American demonstrations erupted in several cities, and
an assault on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad forced diplomats to take refuge in a special "
safe room ."
The drone strike on Iranian General Qassem Soleimani outside Baghdad a few days later was an
even more brazen violation of Iraq's sovereignty. Carrying out the assassination on Iraqi
territory when Soleimani was there at the invitation of Prime Minister Adel Abdull Mahdi to
discuss
a new peace feeler from Saudi Arabia was especially clumsy and arrogant. It created
suspicions that the United States was deliberately seeking to maintain turmoil in the Middle
East to justify its continued military presence there. The killing of Soleimani (as well as two
influential Iraqi militia leaders) led Iraq's government to pass a resolution calling on Mahdi
to expel U.S. forces stationed in the country, and he promptly began to prepare legislation
to implement that goal.
Trump's initial reaction to the prospect that Baghdad might order U.S. troops to leave was
akin to a foreign policy temper tantrum. He threatened America's democratic ally with harsh economic
sanctions if it dared to take that step. As Trump put it, "we will charge them sanctions
like they've never seen before, ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."
Over the following days, it became apparent that the sanctions threat was not just a
spontaneous, intemperate outburst on the part of President Trump. Compelling Iraq to continue
hosting U.S. forces was official administration policy. Senior officials from the Treasury
Department and other agencies began
drafting specific sanctions that could be imposed. Washington explicitly warned the Iraqi
government that it
could lose access to its account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Such a
freeze would amount to financial strangulation of the country's already fragile economy.
U.S. arrogance towards Baghdad seems almost boundless. When Mahdi asked the administration
to "
prepare a mechanism " for the exit of American forces and commence negotiations towards
that transition, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flatly
refused . Indeed, the State Department's January 10 statement made it clear that there
would be no such discussions: "At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to
discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop
withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East."
Throughout the Cold War, U.S. leaders proudly proclaimed that NATO and other American-led
alliances were voluntary associations of free nations. Conversely, the Warsaw Pact alliance of
Eastern European countries formed in response to NATO was a blatantly imperial enterprise of
puppet regimes under the Kremlin's total domination. Moscow's brutal suppression of even modest
political deviations within its satellite empire helped confirm the difference. Soviet tanks
rolled into East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush reform
factions and solidify a Soviet military occupation. Even when the USSR did not resort to such
heavy-handed measures, it was clear that the "allies" were on a very short leash.
Although the United States has occasionally exerted pressure on its allies when they've
opposed its objectives, it has not attempted to treat democratic partners as servile pawns.
That is why the Trump administration's current behavior towards Iraq is so troubling and
exhibits such unprecedented levels of crudeness. America is in danger of becoming the
geopolitical equivalent of a middle school bully.
If Washington refuses to withdraw its forces from Iraq, defying the Baghdad government's
calls to leave, those troops will no longer be guests or allies. They would constitute a
hostile army of occupation, however elaborate the rhetorical facade.
At that point, America would no longer be a moral "force for good" in the Middle East or
anywhere else. The United States would be behaving as an amoral imperial power imposing its
authority on weaker democratic countries that dare adopt measures contrary to Washington's
policy preferences. America might not yet have replaced the Soviet Union as (in Ronald Reagan's
words) the "evil empire," but it will be disturbingly far along the path to that status.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute and a contributing editor at The American Conservative , is the author of 12
books and more than 850 articles on international affairs.
"America is in danger of becoming the geopolitical equivalent of a middle school bully"?
Its not a mere prospect, its history. The US has been a bully for many years, at least
for the last 20 years, if not more.
It is 100% irrelevant what American think of their "moral standing" in the world. In
terms of foreign policy, it only matter what OTHER countries think, right or wrong. The
rest of the world already think the US govt is a bully. The fact that Trump, became
president is simply the icing on the big reveal cake. Yes, foreign powers helped Trump win
the election, but that was simply an effect on the margin. The majority of Trump supporters
do not need Russian interference to be swayed by him. Trump action embodies that which his
supports wanted for many many years.
What Trump has done is give foreign allies something tangible, indisputable proof to
point to, every time the US come knocking on their door ask for help on "this", "that" and
the "other thing". From now on, they will make sure the get favorable terms in writing,
rather than verbal agreements.
Upvoted, even though you repeat the BS allegations of Russian "interference". Social media
traffic mining by a privately-owned clickbait operation and an email leak to Wikileaks from
the DNC by a disgruntled insider is not "Russian interference". A handful of FB ads taken
out both before and after the elections, and slamming BOTH trump and Shrillary is likewise
evidence of nothing.
"Russiagate" is a hoax, a monumental LIE foisted onto the US public by a vengeful
Democrat party, their political-appointees within government agencies, the corporate media
and the Deep State reptiles who need eternal hostility to Russia to justify the $1T per
annum gravy train that so enriches them.
Russiagate and other forms of Anti-Russian yapping are but an effort for a risingly
dysfunctional society to blame outsiders for failure and dysfunction.
Iran has long been viewed as central for securing US hegemony over Eurasia and the US/UK have
not recovered from the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran has: 1) large reserves of oil and
natural gas, 2) key Geo-strategic position- near the convergence of three continents,
straddling the Middle East and Central Asia, and abutting the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of
Oman, a strategic "choke point" through which circa 25% of the world's energy transits. As
summarized by Dan Glazebrook- "The reason for this obsession with destroying Iran –
shared by all factions of the Western ruling class, despite their differences over means
– is obvious: Iran's very existence as an independent state threatens imperial control
of the region – which in turn underpins both US military power and the global role of
the dollar."
During the 2016 campaign, then candidate Trump constantly railed against the JCPOA ('Iran
nuclear deal'), as the 'worst' treaty the US ever signed. After becoming President, Trump
withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and immediately imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran,
vowing to reduce energy exports to zero, effectively declaring economic war on Iran. I
suspect Trump represents a faction in the US ruling establishment committed to regime change
in Iran. Trump may have believed that Iran would buckle under the weight of US economic
sanctions and capitulate to US demands. These include instillation of a US- friendly
government that will: 1) stop supporting Hezbollah, Bashar Assad in Syria and the
Houthi-Ansarullah movement in Yemen, and 2) allow US energy firms to loot Iran's energy
reserves. As this approach has not worked, Trump is now aggressively pursuing the military
arm of this policy.
The New Year started with a proverbial 'bang' with Trump giving the go ahead for the targeted
assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi General Abu Madhi al-Muhandis,
which had been long in planning. As pointed out by Pepe Escobar- 'It does not matter where
the green light for the assassination.... came from....This is an act of war. Unilateral,
unprovoked and illegal.' Not surprisingly, Trump's actions have been generally well received
by Congress and corporate media. We are now seeing US vassals- UK, France and Germany line up
behind Trump to enact the dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) and sanctions snapback
provision, resulting in the re-imposition of UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Apparently, this action was prodded by Trump's threats to apply 25% tariffs to EU auto
exports to the US.
It appears Pentagon war plans for Iran are being put in place. As per a recent piece by
William Arkin in Newsweek- prior to Trump's inauguration, the US military carried out an
exercise "Global Thunder 17", simulating a nuclear response against Iran in retaliation for
the sinking of an American aircraft carrier and use of chemical weapons against US troops.
This war scenario was chosen because it "allowed the greatest integration of nuclear weapons,
conventional military, missile defense, cyber, and space into what nuclear strategists call
'21st Century deterrence.'" The Pentagon now has a 'low yield' nuclear warhead- W76–2,
apparently developed for an Iran-type of scenario. These weapons are deliverable by
submarine-launched Trident II missiles.
So where do we stand?
It is doubtful that Trump will be convicted by the Republican- controlled Senate. This will
only embolden him more. US vassals- UK, France and Germany are lining up behind Trump to
enact the dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) and sanctions snapback provision, resulting in
the re-imposition of UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Apparently, this action was
prodded by Trump's threats to apply 25% tariffs to EU auto exports to the US. Canada,
Australia and New Zealand have also expressed support for Trump's position. France is
deploying her only aircraft carrier to the ME to 'fight ISIS'.
Corporate media is largely on board with Trump's plan.
Over the last two decades, the US has expended (squandered) astronomical sums of taxpayer
money (>$6 Trillion) and lives of thousands of troops on ME wars. After committing such
large amounts of financial and human capital, the Pentagon has no intention of admitting
their mistakes or changing their behavior. Doing so is an acknowledgement of failure and by
extension military weakness. Further, the strength and stability of the dollar and more
broadly US global power, is contingent on maintaining control of ME energy reserves. The
financial elite/directors of US foreign policy are well aware of continuing US economic
decline and looming strategic debacles confronting the Pentagon in Afghanistan (longest war
in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Logic dictates that the US cannot 'win' a war
with Iran, but this assumes one is dealing with rational thinking. By exiting the JCPOA,
Trump put the US on a collision course with Iran. Alea iacta est (l. 'The die is cast').
Links of potential interest follow.
Notes
1. With a New Weapon in Donald Trump's Hands, the Iran Crisis Risks Going NuclearBy William
Arkin Jan 13, 2020; Link:
www.newsweek.com/trump-iran-new-nuclear-weapon-increases-risk-crisis-nuclear-1481752
2. Washington continues war buildup against Iran By Bill Van Auken Jan 17, 2020; Link:
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/17/iran-j17.html
Jim Webb: The Iran crisis isn't a failure of the executive branch alone - When did it become acceptable to kill a top leader of a country we aren't even at war with?
Visitors walk around the stairs inside of the Rotunda to the top of the
Capitol dome last month in Washington. (Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Jim Webb
January 9
Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, served in the U.S. Senate from 2007 to 2013
and was secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1988.
Strongly held views are unlikely to change regarding the morality and tactical wisdom
of President Trump's decision to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani as he traveled on a road outside
the Baghdad airport after having arrived on a
commercial flight
. But the debate regarding the long-term impact of this act on America's place in
the world, and the potential vulnerability of U.S. government officials to similar reprisals, has just
begun.
How did it become acceptable to assassinate one of the top military officers of a
country with whom we are not formally at war during a public visit to a third country that had no
opposition to his presence? And what precedent has this assassination established on the acceptable
conduct of nation-states toward military leaders of countries with which we might have strong
disagreement short of actual war -- or for their future actions toward our own people?
With respect to Iran, unfortunately, this is hardly a new issue.
In 2007, the Senate
passed a
non-binding resolution
calling on the George W. Bush administration to categorize Iran's
Revolutionary Guard Corps as an international terrorist organization. I opposed this proposal based on
the irrefutable fact that the organization was an inseparable arm of the Iranian government. The
Revolutionary Guards are not independent actors like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. They are part of the
Iranian government's formal military structure, with an estimated strength of
more than 150,000 members
. It is legally and logically impossible to define one part of a national
government as an international terrorist organization without applying the term to that entire
government.
Definitions define conduct. If terrorist organizations are actively involved against
us, we attack them. But a terrorist organization is by definition a nongovernmental entity that operates
along the creases of national sovereignties and international law. The Revolutionary Guards are a part of
the Iranian government. If they are attacking us, they are not a terrorist organization. They're an
attacking army.
The 2007 proposal did not succeed. But last April
the State
Department unilaterally designated
the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist entity.
Although more than 60 organizations are listed in this category, this is the only time our government has
ever identified an element of a nation-state as a terrorist organization. And the designation was by many
accounts made despite the opposition of the CIA and the Defense Department.
Which leads us to Soleimani.
The assassination of the most well-known military commander of a country with which
we are not formally at war during his visit to a third country that had not opposed his presence invites
a lax moral justification for a plethora of retaliatory measures -- and not only from Iran. It also holds
the possibility of more deeply entrenching the U.S. military in a region that most Americans would very
much prefer to deal with from a more maneuverable distance.
No thinking American would support Soleimani's conduct. But it is also indisputable
that his activities were carried out as part of his military duties. His harm to American military units
was through his role as an enabler and adviser to third-country forces. This, frankly, is a reality of
war.
I fought as a Marine in Vietnam. We had similar problems throughout the Vietnam War
because of Vietnam's propinquity to China, which along with the Soviet Union provided continuous support
to the North Vietnamese, including most of the weapons used against us on the battlefield. China was then
a rogue state with nuclear weapons. Its leaders continually spouted anti-U.S. rhetoric. Yet we did not
assassinate its military leaders for rendering tactical advice or logistical assistance. We fought the
war that was in front of us, and we created the conditions in which we engaged China aggressively through
diplomatic, economic and other means.
Now, despite Trump's previous assertions that he wants to dramatically reduce the
United States' footprint in the Middle East, it seems clear that he has been seduced into making unwise
announcements similar to the rhetoric used by his immediate predecessors of both parties. Their blunders
-- in Iraq, Libya and Syria -- destabilized the region and distracted the United States from its greatest
long-term challenge: China's military and economic expansion throughout the world.
At a time when our political debates have come to resemble Kardashian-like ego
squabbles, the United States desperately needs common-sense leadership in its foreign policy. This is not
a failure of the executive branch alone; it is the result of a breakdown in our entire foreign policy
establishment, from the executive branch to the legislative branch and even to many of our once-revered
think tanks. If partisanship in foreign policy should end at the water's edge, then such policies should
be forged through respectful, bipartisan debate.
The first such debate should focus on the administration's unilateral decision to
label an entire element of a foreign government an international terrorist organization. If Congress
wishes to hold Iran to such a standard, it should then formally authorize the use of force against Iran's
government. The failure of congressional leadership to make these kinds of decisions is an example of why
our foreign policy has become so militarized, and of how weak and even irrelevant Congress has allowed
itself to become in the eyes of our citizens.
"... In diplomatic terms, the US drive to force Iran into neo-colonial subjugation is expressed in Trump and Pompeo's demand that Tehran negotiate a replacement to the "flawed" Iran nuclear deal -- a "Trump deal" that would severely limit Iran's military, "roll back" its influence across the Middle East, and permanently bar it from a civil nuclear program. ..."
"... it is animated by the calculation that a "grand bargain" more favorable to US imperialism can be extorted from the crisis-ridden and deeply divided Iranian bourgeoisie, under conditions where it is facing not only ever-escalating external pressure, but also massive social opposition, above all from the working class. ..."
"... The Iranian regime was shaken by an explosion of popular anger against austerity and social inequality at the beginning of 2018. Last November, when massive gas price hikes sparked demonstrations in more than 100 cities, some of them violent, the Iranian government again responded with brutal repression, reportedly killing scores of protesters ..."
"... The assassination of Suleimani was itself clearly targeted at more than "just" threatening and destabilizing the Islamic Republic. It was aimed at shifting the internal dynamics of the Iranian regime. ..."
As with any sudden turn in world geopolitics, the true purpose and full implications of
Washington's criminal assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Suleimani
are emerging only with the passage of time.
The Trump administration's claims that the assassination was in response to an imminent
threat to American lives have been exposed as blatant lies. Suleimani's murder was months in
the planning and long advocated by key figures in the US military-foreign policy
establishment, including CIA head Gina Haspel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former
Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton.
The killing of the military leader, who was widely viewed as second only to Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran's power structure, constitutes a dramatic escalation of the Trump
administration's campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran. This campaign combines unrelenting
diplomatic and military pressure with devastating economic sanctions -- that are themselves
tantamount to an act of war -- cyber-warfare and other "special ops."
It is aimed at "turning" Iran and bringing to power -- whether through the reconfiguration or
outright overthrow of Iran's Shia clergy-led bourgeois nationalist regime -- a government in
Tehran, akin to the Shah's bloody quarter-century-long dictatorship, that will be at American
imperialism's beck and call.
Iran has long been viewed by US imperialist strategists as central to its drive to secure
hegemony over all Eurasia. This is because of its vast oil wealth and its geo-strategic
position, near the convergence of three continents and straddling the Middle East and Central
Asia, the world's two most important oil exporting regions.
In diplomatic terms, the US drive to force Iran into neo-colonial subjugation is
expressed in Trump and Pompeo's demand that Tehran negotiate a replacement to the "flawed"
Iran nuclear deal -- a "Trump deal" that would severely limit Iran's military, "roll back"
its influence across the Middle East, and permanently bar it from a civil nuclear
program.
Washington's maximum pressure campaign against Iran is predicated on the "credible" threat
of all-out war, and is intimately bound up with its preparations for "strategic conflict"
with Russia and China. It could rapidly cascade into a catastrophic war with Iran that would
engulf the entire Mideast and draw in the other great powers.
But it is animated by the calculation that a "grand bargain" more favorable to US
imperialism can be extorted from the crisis-ridden and deeply divided Iranian bourgeoisie,
under conditions where it is facing not only ever-escalating external pressure, but also
massive social opposition, above all from the working class.
The Iranian regime was shaken by an explosion of popular anger against austerity and
social inequality at the beginning of 2018. Last November, when massive gas price hikes
sparked demonstrations in more than 100 cities, some of them violent, the Iranian government
again responded with brutal repression, reportedly killing scores of protesters .
The assassination of Suleimani was itself clearly targeted at more than "just"
threatening and destabilizing the Islamic Republic. It was aimed at shifting the internal
dynamics of the Iranian regime. It removed the military leader responsible for
overseeing Iran's attempts to counteract US pressure through a network of foreign militia
groups, most of them based on Shia populism. Suleimani, moreover, was a leader, as the
subsequent mass demonstrations protesting his murder and the US war threats attested, who had
a broad base of popular support.
Given the manner in which Suleimani died, including his evident lack of security, it is
legitimate to ask whether factional opponents within the Iranian state facilitated his
murder.
What is incontrovertible is that in the wake of his assassination and the tumultuous
events it precipitated, the factional warfare has intensified, culminating in last week's
inadvertent downing of a Ukrainian International Airlines plane by an Iranian Revolutionary
Guard missile, its cover-up, and the outbreak of student demonstrations denouncing government
negligence and repression.
Yesterday, President Hassan Rouhani, who spearheaded the push for the rapprochement with
the European imperialist powers and Washington that resulted in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, denounced the military for failing to "apologize" for
the downing of the passenger jet. He also criticized the recent decision of the Guardian
Council to exclude many sitting parliamentarians from standing in the coming elections. He
called for "national reconciliation" -- a slogan long raised by supporters of the Greens, a
movement based in dissident sections of the bourgeoisie and upper-middle class, which, with
imperialist backing, disputed the outcome of the 2009 presidential election.
Meanwhile, on a visit to New Delhi in which he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, Iranian Foreign Minister Javed Zarif declared that the Indian government, a key US
ally, could play an important "role in de-escalating tensions in the Gulf."
A major element in the Trump administration's drive to leverage the crisis of the Iranian
regime and the longstanding cleavages within it has been the effort to cajole the European
imperialist powers -- Germany, France and Britain -- into joining Washington in repudiating
the Iran nuclear accord.
On Tuesday, the so-called E-3 took a giant step in this direction by initiating the
accord's disputes resolution mechanism, thereby placing themselves on a fast track to join
Washington in imposing and policing the sanctions that are strangling Iran's economy.
It is Washington that trashed the nuclear accord and is pursuing "maximum aggression"
against Iran. Through its dominance of the world financial system, it has successfully shut
down the world's trade with Iran, thereby making the quid pro quo underlying the nuclear
accord -- the removal of sanctions in exchange for the dismantling of much of Iran's civil
nuclear program -- null and void.
Yet, in what could only be music to Trump and Pompeo's ears, France, Germany and Britain
are blaming Iran for violating the agreement, cynically citing Tehran's attempts to gain
leverage by exceeding various JCPOA stipulations and accusing it of seeking nuclear
weapons.
The European imperialist powers have been rattled by provocative and unilateral US actions
that cut across their interests. Suleimani's assassination was just the latest rude
shock.
Britain and the EU powers fear Washington's ever-escalating aggression against Iran will
spark an all-out war that will redound against their own imperialist interests, even if it
doesn't immediately draw in Russia and China. A war would send oil prices soaring, roil the
European economy, spark another massive refugee crisis and further radicalize a growing
working class counter-offensive.
No doubt Pompeo and others have told the Europeans that if they want to restrain Trump,
avert a major conflagration and retain influence in the Middle East, they must rally behind
Washington and its maximum pressure campaign.
To these dubious incentives, the Trump administration added a trade war threat, according
to a report published yesterday by the Washington Post under the title, "Days before
Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose 25
percent tariff on European autos if they didn't."
That said, as in the case of Washington, a key factor in the Europeans' calculations is
the character of Iran's bourgeois regime and its manifest crisis.
The European imperialist powers have clearly been emboldened by the Iranian regime's
response to Suleimani's assassination, which was limited to missile strikes of which the
Pentagon was given advance warning and which resulted in no casualties, and by its ham-fisted
attempt to cover up its responsibility for the downing of Ukraine Air Flight 752.
For all its anti-American bluster, the Iranian regime is a bourgeois national regime. In
so far as it has come into conflict with Washington, it has always been from the standpoint
of increasing its own possibilities for exploiting the working class and boosting its
regional influence.
The growing opposition from the working class impels Iran to intensify what has been a
decades-long attempt to effect a rapprochement with every US administration, dating back at
least to that of George H.W. Bush.
If it can, the Islamic Republic's elite, or sections of it, will strike a deal with
imperialism at the expense of the masses. Even before Rouhani came to power in 2014 on a
program that coupled overtures toward Washington and Europe with further privatizations,
subsidy cuts and other anti-working class measures, the Iranian regime was involved in
behind-the-scenes talks with the Obama administration on removing the sanctions.
Similar talks could happen in the future or even be underway though back channels now.
Trump has shown in his dealings with North Korea that he is capable of pursuing such a
two-track policy.
As for the so-called Iranian "hardliners," they are no less hostile to the working class
than their factional opponents, as evidenced by the implementation of neo-liberal "reform"
measures by every Iranian government since the late 1980s, and their readiness to unite with
their factional opponents to suppress any challenge from below.
Ultimately, the "hardliners" supported the nuclear deal and the pursuit of closer
relations with the US and the EU. Even more importantly, their strategy for opposing
Washington--based on seeking close military-strategic ties with Russia and China and the use
of Shia populism and religious sectarianism to rally support across the Middle East--is a
blind alley that risks plunging the region and the world into a conflagration.
Britain and the EU powers fear Washington's ever-escalating aggression against Iran will
spark an all-out war that will redound against their own imperialist interests, even if it
doesn't immediately draw in Russia and China. A war would send oil prices soaring, roil the
European economy, spark another massive refugee crisis and further radicalize a growing working
class counter-offensive.
No doubt Pompeo and others have told the Europeans that if they want to restrain Trump,
avert a major conflagration and retain influence in the Middle East, they must rally behind
Washington and its maximum pressure campaign.
To these dubious incentives, the Trump administration added a trade war threat, according to
a report published yesterday by the Washington Post under the title, "Days before
Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose 25
percent tariff on European autos if they didn't."
Yankistan most potent weapon isn't military, it's economic, and through it the US government
controls the world. That weapon is the US Dollar and ever since Nixon took it off the gold
standard it has been used to further the Empire's imperial hold on the global economy.
"While the US assassination of Qassem Soleimani was an act of international barbarity,
emblematic of the thuggish nature of US foreign policy, it was neither the only de facto act
of war the United States has undertaken against Iran, nor the most harmful. Indeed, against
the total embargo Washington has imposed on Iran with the intention of starving Iranians into
submission or inducing them to overthrow their government, the killing of Soleimani is a act
of little consequence, even if its significance in provoking widespread outrage and
galvanizing opposition to US aggression is undoubted."
Significantly, events appear to have escalated from the 25 December killing of five
PMF guys on the Syria-Iraq border by an unattributed drone or missile strike. Our media
is doing its best to obscure this event as the probable starting point. Two days later on
27 December, the rocket fire near Kirkuk killed the US contractor. Then came the strike
on KH troops back out in the West and now the assassination of Soleimani et al.
[ ]
So the trigger was the 25 December attack, and all the timing flows from that, not
from any great real estate developer savvy. Frankly, in my view, you give Trump way to
much credit for systematic thought. I don't think he really does that at all.
This is also the view of the Middle-East veterans over at Patrick Lang's blog:
Last weekend, in response to a rocket attack on a base outside Kirkuk that left one US
contractor dead and four US servicemen wounded, we launched drone strikes on five Iraqi
PMU outposts in Iraq and Syria near Abukamal killing 25 members and wounding scores more
of the Kata'ib Hezbollah brigades of the PMU.
We blamed Iran and the Kata'ib Hezbollah for the rocket attack near Kirkuk. That may
be true, but the Kata'ib Hezbollah is not some rogue militia controlled out of Teheran.
It is an integral part of the PMU, its 46th and 47th brigades and has been for years. The
PMU is an integral part of the Iraqi military and has been for years. The PMU played a
major role in defeating IS in both Iraq and Syria. Our attack on the Kata'ib Hezbollah
outposts was an attack on the Iraqi military and government. We informed PM
Abdul-Mahdi of our intended attacks. Abdul-Mahadi warned us not to do it, but, of course,
we conducted the attacks despite his warning. We were proud of the attacks. The Pentagon
even released footage of the attacks. It was supposed to be a clear message to
Teheran.
Unfortunately for us, the message was also heard by Iraqis. After the funerals of
many of the victims of our attacks on the PMU outposts, a large crowd of protestors
headed for the US Embassy in the Green Zone. For weeks prior to this, Iraqi security
forces kept protestors from entering the Green Zone and approaching the US Embassy. Not
this time. The crowds, including mourners fresh from the funerals of their family
members and many PMU soldiers, unarmed but in uniform, poured into the Green Zone right
to the gates of the Embassy itself. A reception area was entered and burned. Iraqi
security forces of the PrimeMinister's Counter Terrorism Command were among the
protestors. I surmise that PM Abdul-Mahdi was sending his own message back to the US.
The protests at the American embassy, then, were over Iraqi servicemen murdered in
American drone strikes
Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian soldier. He lived by the sword and died by the sword.
He met a soldier's destiny. It is being said that he was a BAD MAN. Absurd! To say that
he was a BAD MAN because he fought us as well as the Sunni jihadis is simply infantile.
Were all those who fought the US BAD MEN? How about Gentleman Johhny Burgoyne? Was he a
BAD MAN? How about Sitting Bull? Was he a BAD MAN? How about Aguinaldo? Another BAD MAN?
Let us not be juvenile.
The Iraqi PMU commander who died with Soleimani was Abu Mahdi al Muhandis. He was a
member of a Shia militia that had been integrated into the Iraqi armed forces. IOW, we
killed an Iraqi general. We killed him without the authorization of the supposedly
sovereign state of Iraq.
We created the present government of Iraq through the farcical "purple thumb"
elections. That government holds a seat in the UN General Assembly and is a sovereign
entity in international law in spite of Trump's tweet today that said among other things
that we have "paid" Iraq billions of US dollars. To the Arabs, this statement that brands
them as hirelings of the US is close to the ultimate in insult.
Trump doesn't give a crap about wars killing people. He's about the bottom line. The
business of the US is business. Further consider the Belt And Road Initiative (karlof1
briefly mentioned this). There's an underlying strategy of the empire. Only thing is a
difference in how to make sure that it achieves it's goal: domination of world currency and
business. The strategy is how to break the Russia-China coalition. Some believe that making
friends with Russia could have caused them to detach from China (with the target being to
tamp down China [again, think Belt and Road Initiative]). I cannot say for sure, but I do
kind of think that this was the position that Trump had/has. This suspicion has legs if you
consider the Russia-gate crap. And, the wars in the ME that Trump has vocalized against don't
necessarily line up with being on the strategy path of using Russia to smack down China.
Others believe it's better to go directly against China (and allow Russia to just kind of be
isolated). The ME wars are, essentially, taking out the Road in Belt and Road. Having the
area in a perpetual war makes business really difficult. This go-after-China-directly
approach is seen in the Uyghur and Hong Kong battle fronts. Iran is made common to both
strategy paths because, well, because of Israel (its overarching influence over US
policies).
It's a left wing or a right wing of the same bird. The mechanism (bird) isn't the issue,
it's the strategy (which wing). Chomsky really spells this out:
Perhaps the US doesn't want China to perfect the same authoritarian system the US is
looking to achieve? The attempt to block Huawei from international markets is about who
controls information (information flow).
"I want to win," he said. "We don't win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7
trillion, everybody else got the oil and we're not winning anymore."
These wars where never intended to be won. If you win a war you have to go home. It's
pretty difficult to exploit natural resources and threaten other countries geopolitically
without military and covert agency bases all over the region.
I'm not sure Trump even understands this strategy. As disgusting as it may be, the thought
of someone actually believing we entered these wars for any other reason than to cripple and
control them for the interest of our (not so)leader elite class is astonishing.
But, at the same time we are left with few alternatives due to the coup de 'etat
perpetrated by the elite who stack the slate we vote from and use the legacy media to
propagandize as many as possible into supporting this sociopathic/psychopathic foreign policy
agenda.
All we are ever offered is slight changes in tactics while maintaining the original goal
of world domination and total control of everyone in order to keep those on top, on top.
Nothing will change until the enforcers begin to fight back against the people showering
them with unlimited budgets and propagandize adoration to the point of military/police
worship.
"the US is already and has been for the longest time at war with Iran. "
Add to that the fact that in 1946 (or maybe '47?) Truman specifically threatened the Red
Army in Northern Iran with the atom bomb. They withdrew. But the point is that Iran was the
first defined target after Japan nuked in a display of "Overwhelming Power" (Stimson)
deliberately to bring USSR to obey the US, or at least to intimidate Stalin.
Threatening Russians is just plain stupid. Threats are almost always stupid, unless you're
trying to force an opponent into an attack-trap. Which "attack-trap" is what the Imperial
Wizards are doing. The assumption, a chauvinist and incorrect assumption, is that the
opponent is stupider than the attacker. Don't bet on that...it's a sucker bet.
In this sense Soleimani assassination opened such a huge can of worms that the results can
be judged only in several years.
It exposes Trump and his cronies as one trick ponies who does not think strategically or are
manipulated (for all practical purposes the hypothesis that Trump is a puppet is stronger that
then the hypothesis that he is an independent player)
In some way It might well be that Trump put the final nail into the global, led by the
USA,neoliberal empire and legitimized the existence of two competing economic blocks. That's a
huge change, if true (the fact that China folded contracts that)
He also implicitly acknowledged that the USA no longer can attack on Iran military without
the danger of suffering large losses and profound negative consequences itself. Including
Russia and China support for Iran in such a war, which would make it the second Vietnam. That's
another huge change -- the end of "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine as we know it. .
Now we known that Trump bullied EU threating auto-tariff to support him. That a clear return
to the Wild West in international relations and it another nail into the empire coffin. Esper
recently blabbed that the US has the right under Article II of its Constitution to attack
Iranian territory in response to offensive action by Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. So UN does
not matter, right ? The UN Charter was created to stop WWIII. Under Trump, it again became a
real possibility with the USA taking the central the role in creating the conditions for
unleashing it.
Here is an interesting quote from yesterday (Jan 15, 2020) article by Pepe Escobar in Asia
Times (
Retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2001 to
2005, cuts to the chase: "America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19
straight years of war and no end in sight? It's part of who we are. It's part of what the
American Empire is. We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as Pompeo is doing right now, as
Trump is doing right now, as Esper is doing right now and a host of other members of my
political party, the Republicans, are doing right now. We are going to lie, cheat and steal
to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That's the truth of it. And
that's the agony of it."
Moscow, Beijing and Tehran are fully aware of the stakes. Diplomats and analysts are
working on the trend, for the trio, to evolve a concerted effort to protect one another from
all forms of hybrid war – sanctions included – launched against each of them.
For the US, this is indeed an existential battle – against the whole Eurasia
integration process, the New Silk Roads, the Russia-China strategic partnership, those
Russian hypersonic weapons mixed with supple diplomacy, the profound disgust and revolt
against US policies all across the Global South, the nearly inevitable collapse of the US
dollar. What's certain is that the Empire won't go quietly into the night. We should all be
ready for the battle of the ages.
.P.S. To me it looks that Trump lost all antiwar republicans and independents , as well as a
part of military who voted for him in 2016 (and who now are Tulsi supporters)
The Senate trial, if it materializes, now can become the leverage point to drive a wedge
between moderate Republicans and Trump via his Iran policies.
Pakistan should slip one across the border in a rail car of elephants.
We now shift the focus unto the Impeachment Trial. Shifty Schiff leads the prosecution.
Should be interesting spectator sport. Never be too certain of the outcome. Some are positing
Trump could be removed. Many Republicans are uneasy. The guy is unfit to have the nuclear
codes, displays impaired emotion - schizophrenia. Others, Independent and Republican
turncoats consider Trump embarrassing. Over the last days Trump's Sec. of Defense, Esper
threw him under the bus.
The events of the past twelve days since Trump murdered IRGC General Qassem Soleimani
prove this beyond any doubt. Impeachment was the leverage point to drive open a wedge
between Republicans and Trump through Iran.
Pelosi slow-walking the articles of impeachment to the Senate was all part of the
pantomime, folks. She gets what she wants: Congress asserting more power and the Democrats
shoring up their base by taking out an eyesore in Trump.
She waits just long enough for Trump to do something questionable and for it to be made
known publicly.[.]
The Swamp Strikes Back and puts Trump in a no-win situation.
The Wall St. Journal article from this weekend which intimated that Trump made the
decision to kill Soleimani was motivated by shoring up his support in the Israeli Occupied
Senate is further proof.
"Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen.
Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment
trial in the Senate, associates said," the newspaper reported.[.]
"That is why Trump's presidency is a blessing for Iran. "
It's real blessing to the entire world, otherwise how else the world would have come to see
the real ugly face of Americans
@Rd | Jan 15 2020 1:01 utc | 98
This is now beyond government and oligarchy , and laws, this is now about a
national/religious demand for revenge, on killing a true national shia muslim hero away from
any political or difference in opinion.
IMO, the demand for revenge can not be even controlled by military and it's leaders, the
order for revenge can even be sanctioned by a relative unknown cleric in a shia village.
@moon | Jan 15 2020 7:52 utc | 136
Thanks, PL banned me over a year ago , for calling US military (yeman) a mercenary force, Now
Trump is proud he sold 3000 US trops to Bone saw for 1 billion.
I also believe that Iranian military has understood for some time now, that US (Military) is
not willing to enter a war with Iran at this time, which makes me believe that a low
intensity, long, covert attritional war across the western Asia will finally make US to
leave. IMO pre announced without casualty attack on AalA US base by Iran Military was to
allow any future covert low intensity attack by Iranian regional allies on US forces as
non-sanctioned or related by Iranian government or military.
Which makes it hard to fight directly.
Journalism PoliticsFurther Followup
On The Soleimani Assassination I wish to point out some matters not getting a lot of
attention in the US media.
An important one of those was reported two days ago by Juan Cole . It is that
apparently it has not been determined for certain that the initial attack that set off this
current round of deaths when a militia in Iraq attacked an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk in
which an American contractor was killed, almost certainly a matter of collateral damage
although not recognized as such, was actually done by Kata'b Hezbollah, the group reported to
have done it. That group was commanded by al-Mushani, who was also assassinated with Soleimani,
with whom he was allied. But it is not certain that they did it. As it is, the Kirkuk base is
dominated by Kurdish Pesh Merga, with whom it is not at all obvious the pro-Iranian militias
like the Kat'b Hezbollah have hostile differences. This may have been cooked up to create an
excuse for assassinating Soleimani.
Indeed, it has now been reported that seven months ago Trump had approved killing Soleimani
essentially at the first instance there would be a good excuse for doing so. In fact it is now
reported that although Trump had not heard of Soleimani during th 2016 election, within five
minutes of his inauguration he suggested killing Soleimani. SecState Pompeo been encouraging
and pushing this action, but it has been something Trump has been hot to do for some time.
Going up for an impeachment trial looks like a really good time.
We have now seen quite a dance around reasons to justify this. We must keep clear that it is
a matter of both US and international law that this sort of killing of a foreign national
official such as General Soleimani is that there be an "imminent threat." I shall not drag
through the various versions of what was supposedly the imminent threat was here, but it has
finally become clear that there was none. And as of today both Pompeo and AG Barr have now
pivoted to saying that it was done for "deterrence," but that leaves this assassination as
illegal, with US troops in Iraq now declared to be"terrorists."
Now indeed the further followup has become quite a mess, although hopefully the escalation
has stopped and war will not happen, despite getting very close to the brink. So Iran made its
strike on two bases with US troops in Iraq. While it initially looked like the Iranians were
going out of their way to avoid killing any Americans, local US commanders now say that it
appears that the strikes were in fact aimed at killing some Americans, and some were in fact
injured. I do not know if this is true or not, but it is disturbing and shows how close we have
gotten to heightened war.
Then we had this disaster of the Iranians themselves shooting down a commercial Ukrainian
airplane (oh, the irony), killing 176 civilians, mostly Iranians, Canadians, and Ukrainians,
plus some others. With the admission by the regime, anti-government demonstrations have broken
out at universities especially in Tehran where many of the Iranians on the plane were from, and
many of the university students heading to Canada. Those demos have gone on for three days
bringing forth a harsh put down from the government, but with news people quitting their jobs
out of disgust. The government has now arrested some supposedly responsible for the erroneous
shootdown under heightened alert status, which would not have come to pass without the illegal
assassination. It is unclear if these arrests will bring an end to the demonstrations, but it
should be kept in mind that these involve much smaller numbers of people than turned out in the
aftermath of Soleimani's assassination.
Underlying this most recent uprising is the fact that Iran is suffering serious econoimic
problems. Much of this is due to the Trump sanctions, but they also reflect entrenched
corruption and spending on foreign adventures, such as support for foreign militias. These are
difficult times, and let us hope that all sides step back and reduce the heightened
tensions.
Barkley
run75441 , January 15, 2020 12:23 pm
Barkley:
Good post and thanks for the follow-up.
Normally when something happens in the Middle East, I head over to Informed Comment to
see what Juan is saying about the situation. You have added information I was not aware
of as I had not been over to Juan Cole's Informed Comment in several days. Also from a
January 11th column of his:
"Lest the Trumpies imply that only Obama de facto allied with Soleimani and his
Iraqi Shiite militias, it should be pointed out that they played an important role in
the defeat of ISIL at Mosul during Trump's presidency. Although they did not fight
their way into the city, they fanned out to the west and north to prevent ISIL
terrorists from escaping to Raqqa in Syria. That was why Kata'ib Hizbullah had a base
at Qa'im, a checkpoint between Iraq and Syria, where they were preventing ISIL agents
from going back and forth. Trump kicked off the current crisis by bombing his allies at
Qa'im, killing some 26 militiamen. And then he droned his sometime ally Soleimani to
death at Baghdad airport as Soleimani was about to begin covert peace talks with Saudi
Arabia."
I must walk back one speculation I made in this post. It is not the case that the base
attacked near Kirkuk held Kurdish Pesh Merga. It indeed houses US and Iraqi national troops
dedicated to fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. Four US service people were injured along with two
national Iraqi troops. The US citizwn killed was naturalized and born in Iraq.
It remains possible that it was IAIA/ISIL/Daesh carried out the attack as they are active in
that area. However, most think it was Kata'b Hezbollah, enocuraged and suppliled by
Soleimani.
run75441 , January 15, 2020 8:21 pm
Barkley:
Ok, so you missed some detail. The drone attack on Soleimani and others did not have to
occur. Furthermore, it appears this was planned months earlier and just never carried through.
To me, it is just another Trump distraction away from his impeachment.
Thanks for the shrewd analysis. The problem is that Trump appears to be morphing from
the mad negotiator into someone who really is mad. I think he knows he screwed up with
Soleimani and there's no taking it back, only doubling down . You can't talk your way out
of some mistakes. Trump is shrewd, but not very smart and like most bullies he's also weak.
He gets by being such an obvious bluffer and blowhard but when you start assassinating people
and expect to be praised for it it's no longer a game.
I'd say the solution is to give Trump the heave ho this November and not play his game of me
me me. Indeed the Iranians seem to be biding their time to see what happens.
Trump was always only tolerable as long as he spent his time shooting off his mouth rather
than playing the imperial chess master. This reality show has gone on long enough.
Not sure he "screwed up" with Suleimani. He now has something to point to when Adelson
and the Israel Firsters ring up. He has red meat for his base ("look what a tough guy I
am"). He can tell the Saudis they now owe him one.
He added slightly to the fund of hatred for America in the hearts of Sunnis but that fund is
already pretty full. If they respond with a terror attack Trump wins because people will rally
around the national leader and partisan differences will be put aside. Notice how fast
de-escalation happened, certainly feels alot like pre-orchestrated kayfabe.
The US is trying to stop Eurasia's economic and political integration in order to delay its
own demise, say international observers, explaining what message the US sent to the
Russia-China-Iran "triumvirate" by killing Quds Commander Qasem Soleimani. The assassination of
Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and
commander of the Quds Force, in a targeted US air strike on 3 January came on the heels of
joint naval exercise launched by Russia, Iran and China in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of
Oman.
The "growing Russia-China-Iran trilateral convergence", as The Diplomat
dubbed it in late December, is seemingly
hitting a raw nerve in Washington :
speaking to Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on 2 January, Rear Admiral
Khanzadi, the Iranian navy commander, said that Washington and its allies had held an emergency
meeting aimed at disrupting the drills.
US Opposes Rapprochement of Russia, China and
Iran Amid Policy of 'Maximum Pressure'
"Recent violent US attacks against Iranian allies in Iraq and Syria, culminating in the
killing of Iran's Major General Qasem Soleimani, are, in the wider geopolitical sense, meant
to send signals to the building Eurasian triumvirate to cease their collaborative activities,
let alone longer-term strategic and Belt and Road Initiative-linked designs," says Pye Ian,
an American economic analyst and private equity executive.
According to Ian, the US decision to step up pressure on Tehran might be stemming from
Washington's apparent belief that Iran is "the 'weakest link' in the strengthening Eurasian
alliance".
However, "Russia, China and Iran cannot be attacked overtly, let alone invaded, occupied or
'regime changed'," the economic analyst highlights.
Christopher C. Black, a Toronto-based international criminal lawyer with 20 years of
experience in war crimes and international relations, echoes the American economist.
"It is in response to the close relationship between Russia, Iran and China and it is no
coincidence that this murder took place just as the joint naval exercises in the Persian Gulf
came to an end," he said. "Further, it is a threat to Russian strategic interests in Syria
and to Syria itself."
Apart from this, the move indicates that "one of the reasons for US pressure on Iran is to
control the oil supply to China in order to cripple China's development," Black suggests.
Russia and its military successes in the region have become yet another irritant for
Washington, according to Max Parry, an independent American journalist and geopolitical
analyst.
"The US likely feels the need to re-assert itself as a hegemonic power in the region,
considering it is Moscow that emerged as the new honest peace broker in the Middle East with
the Syrian conflict," Parry notes. "Russia completely outmanoeuvred Washington and by the end
of the war, Turkey was practically in Moscow's camp. Trump has reset US foreign policy with
the withdrawal from Syria and the targeting of Iran."
By killing Soleimani, the US "has completely overplayed its hand and this could be the
beginning of the end for Washington because a war with Iran would be no cakewalk", he
emphasises.
According to Ian, in addition to being a thorn in Washington's flesh, Moscow, Beijing and
Tehran have something else in common: the three nations have increasingly been drifting away
from the US dollar.
The trend followed the Trump administration's:
· unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA) in
May 2018;
· trade war waged against the People's Republic of China by Washington since March
2018;
· series of anti-Russian sanctions imposed against Moscow under the pretext of the
latter's interference in the US 2016 presidential elections, something that Russia resolutely
denies.
The economic analyst explains that "the dollar's universal confidence trick requires uniform
adherence, by natural adoption or by force". While the US allies remain obedient to the dollar-
dominated system, those who resisted it such as Iraq under Saddam, Libya under Gaddafi and
Venezuela under Chavez "triggered some Atlanticist force, either overtly or clandestinely, in
order to try and put those nations back on a compliant page."
However, "the current state of dollar printing by the US Fed ad infinitum cannot last
forever," Ian stresses.
"The global East and South are already ahead of Transatlantic banking, in a sense, by
shifting further out of the dollar and Treasury securities into their own, or bilateral,
currency exchanges, gold, and/or domestic or collaborative cryptocurrency endeavours," he
says.
Russia, China, Iran, as well as India and some other Eurasian nations are switching to
trading in local currencies and
continuing to amass gold at a steady pace . Thus, for instance, Russia produced over 185.1
tonnes of gold in the first six months of 2019; the country's bullion reserves reached 72.7
million troy ounces (2,261 tonnes) as of 1 December 2019. For its part, the People's Bank of
China (PBoC) has accumulated 1,948.3 tonnes of the precious metal as of December 2019,
according to World Gold Council.
Ian foresees that if the world's nations continue to shift
out of US Treasury obligations and choose alternative currencies for energy pricing,
trading and reserves recycling, it may "cause US interest rates to fly higher, cratering
consumer, institutional and public debt obligations and re-importing an obscene level of
inflation back into the US".
The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of
Sputnik.
"... On Sunday, the Washington Post, citing a senior U.S official, reported that "Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Suleimani months ago but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation." On Thursday, CNN's Nicole Gaouette and Jamie Gangel reported that "Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill" the Iranian general. The CNN story said that Pompeo, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Trump before he moved to the State Department, viewed Suleimani as the mastermind of myriad operations targeting Americans and U.S interests. It also quoted an unnamed source close to Pompeo, who recalled the Secretary of State telling friends, "I will not retire from public service until Suleimani is off the battlefield." ..."
One of the new bogus explanations that the administration has been offering up is that there was a threat to one or more U.S. embassies
that led to the assassination. Rep. Justin Amash notes this morning that they have presented no evidence to Congress to back up any
of this or their original claim of an "imminent" attack:
The administration didn't present evidence to Congress regarding even one embassy. The four embassies claim seems to be totally
made up. And they have never presented evidence of imminence -- a necessary condition to act without congressional approval --
with respect to any of this. The administration didn't present evidence to Congress regarding even one embassy. The four embassies
claim seems to be totally made up. And they have never presented evidence of imminence -- a necessary condition to act without
congressional approval -- with respect to any of this. https://t.co/Eg0vaCnqFd
-- Justin Amash (@justinamash) -- Justin Amash (@justinamash) -- Justin Amash (@justinamash)
January 12, 2020
The administration's story keeps changing, because they are just making up unconvincing justifications for what they did. The president
invents new excuses for the illegal assassination, and his subordinates feel obliged to follow his lead because they are implicated
in his decision. The strange thing is that this administration still expects to be believed on something as important as this despite
their constant lying to Congress and the public about everything else. The president and Secretary of State have trashed their credibility
long ago, so there is no chance that we would give them the benefit of the doubt now. As a result, there is much more healthy and
appropriate skepticism about the administration's claims since January 2nd than there usually is. We are still piecing together what
happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by
determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing
this. John Cassidy The administration's story keeps changing, because they are just making up unconvincing justifications for what
they did. The president invents new excuses for the illegal assassination, and his subordinates feel obliged to follow his lead because
they are implicated in his decision. The strange thing is that this administration still expects to be believed on something as important
as this despite their constant lying to Congress and the public about everything else. The president and Secretary of State have
trashed their credibility long ago, so there is no chance that we would give them the benefit of the doubt now. As a result, there
is much more healthy and appropriate skepticism about the administration's claims since January 2nd than there usually is. We are
still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are
getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the
leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy We are still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading
up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action
against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy We are still piecing together what happened
at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined
hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John
Cassidy
reports :
On Sunday, the Washington Post, citing a senior U.S official, reported that "Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Suleimani
months ago but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation." On Thursday, CNN's
Nicole Gaouette and Jamie Gangel reported that "Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill" the
Iranian general. The CNN story said that Pompeo, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Trump before he
moved to the State Department, viewed Suleimani as the mastermind of myriad operations targeting Americans and U.S interests.
It also quoted an unnamed source close to Pompeo, who recalled the Secretary of State telling friends, "I will not retire from
public service until Suleimani is off the battlefield."
Pompeo has Pompeo has
lied constantly
about Iran and the nuclear deal before and after he became Secretary of State, so it is not surprising that he has been the administration's
public face as they lie to Congress and the public about this illegal assassination. No wonder
he doesn't want to appear before Congress to testify.
Add to this the concomitant attempt made in Yemen, where there is no American presence other than the bombs dropping from the
sky, against an Iranian operative, and it shows the push of the administration to go for the kill as the main factor. The US is
becoming more and more like Israel: kill first, no excuses, we are the chosen ones - The "revenge" of Dinah's brothers, Genesis
34:25. This is The US of A's diplomacy nowadays. The world has really been put on notice. And the world will be reacting, see
the visit of Chancellor Merkel to Moscow immediately after that.
The question is what the American citizens are going to do? What are they going to vote for?
Why shouldn't Trump and his Administration's creatures "expect to be believed"? He and his toadies have misstated, misled, BS-ed
and outright lied to the public for three years now; and - despite a "credibility gap" of Vallis Marineris proportions - have
gotten no appreciable pushback from the media.
The right-wing media simply cheerlead him, as usual: and everybody else just sort of nods, grunts, and moves on.
It was not a "request" from Iraq; it was a command from them; and the U.S. and Iraq relate as conqueror and
conquered, not as "partners." Consequently: the U.S. Government, now that it has been so unequivocally ordered to leave,
is back again, unequivocally, to its invader-occupier role in Iraq.
The AP report went on to say that,
"The request from Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi pointed to his determination
to push ahead with demands for U.S. troops to leave Iraq."
Again there was that false word "request."
The AP report said that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted, in reply:
"Our mission set there is very clear. We've been there to perform a training mission to help the Iraqi security
forces be successful and to continue the campaign against ISIS, to continue the counter-Daesh campaign."
Though that's the invader-occupier's excuse, the reality is that the US needs Iraq in order to invade Iran, which is
the US Government's objective, though not overtly stated.
Already, America's assassination in Iraq of Iran's top general Qasem Soleimani on January 3rd is an enormous act of
war against Iran.
It is intended to obliterate Iran's main strategist, and this successful attack against Iran inside Iraq is a
devastating first strike, by the U.S. Government against Iran.
So: now, the U.S. is at war against both Iraq and Iran.
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Harry Stotle
,
I see Tony is inconsolable after the death of a dictator who failed to hold an election for 50 years?
Britains foremost war criminal said, "I heard the news about His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman
with great sadness. He was a leader of vision and purpose who took over the leadership of his country at
a difficult time and raised it to an entirely new level of development and prosperity. He was a man of
culture, humanity and deep conviction who strove to make his nation and the world better and more
peaceful. He was kind, thoughtful and with a big heart. He had great wisdom and insight from which I
benefited often as did so many others. My deepest sympathy, prayers and condolences are with the people
of Oman. He will be sorely missed. – Tony Blair.
https://twitter.com/InstituteGC/status/1215920898966020096
Yes, I'm sure you did 'benefit', Tony – blood money I think they call it, you amoral scumbag.
Frank Speaker
,
I'm really disappointed to read yet another article on OffG about Iran. It's getting really boring and
those backward desert dwellers deserve all they get anyway. Let's get it over and done with and takeover
their oilfields and make lots of money. What I really want to see here instead are lots of articles about
Meghan and Harry.
(note to non-British readers, it's called irony)
MASTER OF UNIVE
,
The ever cowardly United States of America is officially at war with everyone in the world except the
uneducated dolts & imbeciles that support the Imbecile-in-Chief narcissist whackjob nutbar effin' retard
run amok.
Fuck America & the Republican Party that lives on forever war with everyone in the world
including American taxpayers.
Screw the imbecile-in-Chief to a wall of his making.
Death to America!
MOU
Harry Stotle
,
Oh, you are a wag, Eric – is the US killing machine that just incinerated the Quds foremost military
strategist 'now at War Against Iraq AND Iran' – well its hardly an act of peace, is it?
By the way, has
anyone been listening to Raab pontificate about 'international law' – apparently the minister for Tory
lies appears to be oblivious to the fact that Soleimani's execution was almost certainly illegal, and was
only possible because Britain and American actions are always placed above the law.
Lets just remind Raab, and murder apologists like him that, "Outside of an on-going armed conflict,
the first use of military force is regulated under the jus ad bellum. The first principle of the jus ad
bellum is the prohibition on the use of force, a peremptory norm codified in United Nations Charter
Article 2(4). The only possible exception to the prohibition applicable in this case is self-defense. The
exception is narrow. Some restrictions are provided in UN Charter Article 51; others in the general
principles of international law. Article 51 permits the use of military force in such as the Hellfire
missiles carried by Reaper drones, if "an armed attack occurs". The International Court of Justice has
emphasized that the attack must be "grave".
https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-killing-of-soleimani-and-international-law/
Neocons want to start killing Iranians (which they already are doing via economic sanctions) – time
for the west to grasp this inescapable reality.
nottheonly1
,
What do these countries have in common?
U.S. IR UK FR AUS DE CAN NZ PL UK ES BR COL SA UAR NL SW NOR ET
AL?
They are all
M O ☐ H ☐ R ☐ A R ☐ H ☐ ☐ C K ☐ R ☐
Yes, you may buy an 'F'.
That includes its populations, that do it by default. They are programmed and conditioned from early
on to be in harmony with the Pompeos, the Busches, Obamas, Trumps and whatever their names are that have
this planet in stranglehold.
U.S. MUST PAY for all damages it inflicted over the last ~213 years. The ticket is endless – and with
the indiscrininate use of weapons of mass destruction, very expensive.
In a world of justice, the rich people would be given the shittiest places in these countries and the
rest be divided among the victim Nations of these pathetically religiously fascist psychopaths.
Is the use of the term 'religiously fascist psychopath' now reason for a drone strike?
Well, what are you waiting for? You are okay with the above fascist nations to do pre-emptive murders,
but hesitate to do the same?
What an epic Upfuckery.
Because – in other words – nobody capable to do the one act that is excempt from Karmic retribution?
Rather than doing that, saner beings are actually leaning back in the most fatalistic way. What is it
good for, if the sane let the insane do whatever they please – or their mental illness dictates them to
do?
Hitler was a good example. He was not mandated to undergo a psychological evaluation. And I don't care
where you set the red line. Being part of genocide is plenty enough at any given day. And there can be no
more limitations of terms.
Maybe the prevailing opinion about all this is for it to be a joke. But that only appears to be so,
because the populations of the above listed nations et al, are murdering innocent women and children
(future population reduction) in the Nations on the receiving fascist shit end of the stick.
On a side note and only marginally related:
Listening to the early Beatles and their 'depressing' songs, the mind drifted to 'The Man in Black'
(that I adore) and his song about why he is wearing black and likely to do so into his grave, which he
did. The song I have on mind changes the lyrics a bit, but stays true, or emphasizes the new expression.
Well, you wonder why I'm always using 'fuck'.
Why you'll never hear me leaving out the muck.
And why my words have such a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things I'm bringing on.
Oh, and yes, for what its worth: invest yourself in aeroponics. Learn everything about it and start
your own food production – using very little, very clean water and clean air, delivering healthy greens.
It will work in an apartment as well as in a large greenhouse. The REAL Foodevolution.
Dungroanin
,
Yes the US has been at war in the ME for a very very long time Eric.
Their advance was halted and is now in retreat, bar a few 'battles of Bulges' false hopes – they are
heading back to their bunkers and throwing the kiddy corps into the front lines to take on hardened
campaigners. They have even resorted to assassination of the Generals and leaders – opening the way and
hoping for equal retaliation, to sway the public perception.
The Iraqis want the US out – and are threatened with economic sanctions and freezing of their US$
accounts!
Just like Venezuela and Iran and Libya and Yemen ..,
The Iraqis are proceeding with their closer ties with the winners – the Eurasian conglomerate, the
Belt & Road investments; the superior Russian weapons systems and no doubt the disengagement from the
petrodollar, ball and chain of a slave.
Like an abused woman who wants to remove the 'ex boyfriend' who moved in a decade ago – has never paid
any bills, doesn't do housework or maintenance and brings round his mates to wreck the place
Iraq has served a legal order to remove the abusive bastard !
Get the fuck out – or the bailiffs will be called to do it – and that will mean MORE cost you bully!
If that is MORE war then retreating Empire will see a REAL war on all fronts including for the first
time ever in their own country – the bodybags will be required domestically – just like the poor
civilians have been dying in theit tens of thousands at the proxy US forces hands for decades.
The people of the US need to get past their daily diet of super sugared Hollywood superiority and
understand THEY are the EVIL EMPIRE and THEY are LOSING as the downtrodden ewoks of the many countried
are fighting back!
GEOFF
,
After the USS Vincennes in 1988 had shot down Iran Air Flight 655 and killed 290 people, including many
children, the U.S. government denied any culpability. George H. W. Bush, the vice president of the United
States at the time, commented: "I will never apologize for the United States – I don't care what the
facts are I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." Despite its "error" the crew was given medals
and the captain was even awarded a Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the
performance of outstanding service as commanding officer
GEOFF
,
The above is from moon of Alabama I forgot to mention
Granted that it's not the whole of the USA – but it's not just the CIA and it's certainly not
merely "today". Incidentally, Brando said his attraction towards playing the Godfather is that he
thought it was a prefect demonstration of how the American political system really works.
Protect
,
From Zero Hedge / The Strategic Culture Foundation:
"Abdul-Mehdi [The Iraqi prime minister] spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and
now refused to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil
revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.
The complete (translated) words of Abdul-Mahdi's speech to parliament:
"This is why I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the construction
instead. Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement. When I refused, he
threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my premiership.
"Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that if I did not
comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings target protesters and
security personnel alike in order to pressure me.
"I refused again and handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us rescinding our deal
with the Chinese.
"After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting both
protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened he would do), I received a new call
from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we kept on talking about this
"third party"."
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/deeper-story-behind-assassination-soleimani
and there is this:
"I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came to deliver a
message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians from the Saudis."
lundiel
,
Here's your answer
from the state department, it appears to be both yes and no (depending on
financial incentives).
America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the
fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis,
and our coalition partners. We have been unambiguous regarding how crucial our D-ISIS mission is in
Iraq. At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit
to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture
in the Middle East. Today, a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO's
role in Iraq, in line with the President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense
efforts. There
does, however, need to be a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just regarding
security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to be a friend and
partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.
Typical imperialistic boiler plate. America being a "force for good in the Middle East" or anywhere
else is a lie. Remember Vietnam? As for "continu(ing) the fight against ISIS" the SOS really means to
continue to finance and supply ISIS while pretending to "fight against" them. There whole statement is
a Stygian Stable full of total BS.
The Iraqis should tell them again to get the f-k outta Dodge or they'll go Wyatt Earp on their
sorry lying asses.
Pardonnez-moi, but why do Canada and Australia also UK (Boris) take their 'cue' on foreign policy from
the USA? Sending defence forces to fight Washington's wars and banker's wars for resources?
That assertion by Mike("We lied we cheated we stole" ..)Pompeo is a total lie. The USA invaded Iraq under
a complete pack of lies, about Saddam Hussein's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" back in 2003 and are still
there after having murdered Hussein and now occupy Iraq.
The Elected Leader of Syria has also told the USA to "Get out of Syria", but the USA has not done so.
The USA(and it's 'owners" Israel, are the problem in the Middle East, NOT IRAN or Iraq.
Israel's anaesthetised donkey, The USA, is completely controlled by Israel .It's pathetic. but it's
true.
In the sixties we all knew that "NO" meant "YES" and these guys are from that era.
Brian Harry
,
I think that the World has grown sick and tired of the LIES, spewing out of the Military Industrial
Complex ..In the highest levels of the USA Government, "if their lips are moving, they're LYING .
Yep, with you 100% and the bulk of the 99% are getting the message too.
Yarkob
,
"the bulk of the 99% are getting the message too."
Don't kid yourself, Peter. I'd love to
agree with you, but there is little evidence of that on those sites that allow comment on
this. the masses have drunk the kool aid long and deep. Yes, there's some pearl-clutching
going on but he was "still a trrst" so it's all ok. Back to sleep.
Take your point Yarkob, thank you. I was trying to be optimistic – in my world my network
is gradually becoming more aware – I hope that my book, due to publish this quarter, will
ride the wave; fingers crossed!
:-))))
Where are you seeing this BTL? Bear in mind that comments in most corporate media sites
are heavily censored these days, and replete with sock puppets manipulating debate &
seeding talking points.
George Mc
,
As I have often said, the MSM not only lies but gives a false image of public opinion.
Granted that it is not easy – or even possible – to really know what the population is
tending towards in their opinion, I think we can safely say that the MSM always bullshits
about it. I love it especially when they not only bullshit about what "everyone thinks"
abut also about what everyone "WILL" think e.g. the blathering about what party is
"electable".
I am not, by any stretch, a subscriber to David Icke but he did come up with one
wonderful expression when he described what the MSM pump out as "the movie". That is
exactly what it is. And I'd like to believe that less and less people believe it. Of
course the big problem is that even if you reject it, you have to put up with the fact
that, obviously as far as the "mainstream" goes, it's the only show in town. And a lot of
people still regurgitate what they hear. So e.g. a lot of people go along with the
manufactured outrage over Corbyn "refusing to apologise" while these same people have no
idea what he is apologising for – other than a vague notion that he must be some kind of
Hitler guy. It all comes down to vibrations set up in the MSM. If you shit enough and
often enough then eventually many will swallow it.
Since when has pax-americana not been at war. The only administration since ww2 that has not been at war
was the Peanut farmer from Georgia The Carter administration and it was his secretary of state Brezinski
that created the Takfiri army to disrupt Afghanistan in 1979.
Post Scriptum: The Iranian missile strike in western Iraq and Erbil was a historical event.
It is the second time in Us military history that pax-americana had not responded to a direct attack on a
military barracks , the first time was in 1982 in Beirut where a suicide bomber killed over 200 people.
Docius in Fondem:Wesley Clarke statement from when he was alluded to the Likudniks plan & countries in 5
years Iran was last on the list.
US have declared war on both Iraq and Iran with the assassination of the IRGC General and the PMU
General. Simple facts tend to allude we the exceptional civilized west
love the Latin:
Caesar ad sum iam forte
Pompei ad erat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Pompei sic in hat
Brian Harry
,
"Don't talk to me about the bloody Romans, what have they ever done for us"?
Try as I may, I cant get Google to translate that .what does it mean, please?
Brian Harry
,
.although, when I read it 'phonetically', it sounds like a "big night out, and lots of vomit
sprayed around but, I'm Australian, and we don't do things like that .much
Monty Python the Greatest .There weren't many Romans in Australia 2000 years ago. Too busy
invading and really irritating Europeans and British people, but, somehow, it all worked out
ok Always look on the bright side of life, huh ?
Yep, and you Brian are in the right place to see the sunny side. We here in old Blighty
are suffering the gloom, doom and damp. I lived in Cape Town for ten years (same latitude
as Sydney and similar climate) and miss it dreadfully – the climate that is – the rest is
isht; power cuts (load shedding they call it), water shortage (drought they call it),
pollution and infrastructure failure all round, Nuff said! Go well cobber.
Actually Jimbo the Peanut Farmer was involved in a covert war in Angola and also covertly arming the
Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Not to mention operation Eagle Claw that failed against the Iranians.
GEOFF
,
In 240 years since its inception warmongering yanky land has been at war in the last 224 years with
someone, 50 in the last 10 years, not a bad record.
"... Deal finishes October 2020 if I remember correctly. All sanctions will be lifted so long as Iran is in compliance at that time. This is a move to prevent this. ..."
"... Obviously, Merkel doesn't have the political strength to nix Nordstream 2. Until she's replaced by someone with greater vision, EU and German policy won't change toward Iran. IMO, the trio don't amount to the level of poodles as they're known to have courage. The Trio proudly display the fact that they're 100% Cowards. ..."
"... The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and exceptional' supremacist US. ..."
Deal finishes October 2020 if I remember correctly. All sanctions will be lifted so long
as Iran is in compliance at that time. This is a move to prevent this.
I always learn some thing here. For example imagine my surprise to learn the EU had a
reputation worth protecting. All you need to know about the EU is bitches will do what
bitches are told. This is just one more step on the road to war with China, is that really
what the citizens of the EU want? Are the people of the EU ready to die for the Trump and the
Republican party?
Think tanks, think tanks, think tanks. In 2009, the Brookings Institute's paper Which Path to
Persia, proposed offering Iran a very good deal and then sabotaging it. Good cop, Obama, bad
cop, Trump. Mission accomplished.
Only a matter of when and how. The warmongers have Trumps balls in a vice, he can't even
resign without making it worse by letting Pence take over. The art of the squeal, very high
pitched is whats happening in DC.
1st of all The UK was always going to side with DC over Iran. 2ndly for France and Germany
they probably aren't ready to put themselves plus their EU partners in the US doghouse for
Iran. When they break it will be a time of their own choosing.
Thanks b, for this detailed coverage of the 3 wimps' efforts to kill JCPOA. You did not
disappoint. Love the image showing mother residing in "occupied Palestine" .. (term coined by
MoA barfly)
I commented in the previous post, Russia warned of unintended consequences
LINK
Moscow is calling on the European parties to the Iran nuclear deal not to escalate tensions
and to abandon their decision to trigger the treaty's Dispute Resolution Mechanism, the
Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
"We strongly urge the Eurotroika [of parties to the JCPOA] not to inflame tensions and
to abandon any steps which call the prospects of the nuclear deal's future into question.
Despite all the challenges it has faced, the JCPOA has not lost its relevance," the
ministry said in a statement.
Ex-US vice-president, Joseph Biden is also suspected of corruption, according to a
member of the Ukrainian parliament
KIEV, January 14. /TASS/. Ukraine's Supreme Anti-Corruption Court has obliged the
National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) to launch a probe into seizure of government power
and corruption suspicions. The cases mention the names of the United States' 44th
president, Barack Obama, former Ukrainian president, Pyotr Poroshenko and ex-US
vice-president, Joseph Biden, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Opposition
Platform - For Life party, Renat Kuzmin, said[.]
"investigate the suspicions over the seizure of government power in Ukraine and of the
embezzlement of state budget money and international financial assistance by members of the
Obama administration"
If it ever was possible to sign a treaty with the US and expect them to abide by it, it
hasn't been possible for a long time. Here as everywhere else, Trump merely openly proclaims
the systemic lawlessness he shares with the rest of the US political class. (His contemptuous
withdrawal from the JCPOA never has been one of the things the establishment and media
criticize him for.)
For as long as US imperial power lasts, anyone who doesn't want to be a poodle (or to get
regime-changed because they foolishly attempt to sit the fence) has to accept that there can
be no legitimate agreements with the US or its poodles. If you sign a treaty with them, you
have to view it exactly the same way you know they do, as nothing but propaganda, otherwise
not worth the paper it's written on. No doubt North Korea, if they were in any doubt before,
registered how Trump and the US media immediately proceeded to systematically lie about the
agreement they'd supposedly just concluded, before the ink was even dry.
Here's hoping that if Iran was in any doubt before, they too are getting the message: As
far as the US and Europe are concerned, the only purpose of the JCPOA is to serve as a weapon
against them.
Face it B, there will be blood. It's a matter of time. It's unavoidable. The empire will
force its own destruction - and perhaps the rest of humanity's. The demons of nihilism will
prevail.
(Sounds like I have been hearing death metal. I swear I did not. And I not under the
influence either.)
The Oct 2020 deadline is important for more than one reason- Irans application to the SCO is
being held up because of it. The SCO membership would obligate support from countries like
India in response to politically motivated sanctions.
Surprised at Germany since Merkel just met with Putin. When I read of this earlier this
morning, that it's based on lies was 100% clear, that the trio are feckless and deserve all
the social instability that will soon come their way. Why did I mention social instability:
"The Fed is considering a plan to allow them to lend cash DIRECTLY TO HEDGE FUNDS in order
to ease the REPO Crisis. [Emphasis original]
"Where is 'bailing out private investment funds' in their alleged 'dual mandate'?"
Which gets us back to the reason Iran's targeted: Because it lies outside the dollar
economy, refuses to engage in petrodollar recycling, and has a quasi-socialist economy with
no private banking. Plus, we now see that Iraq will pursue evicting NATO and Outlaw US Empire
forces and likely join the Arc of Resistance's/Iran's policies which are what the Outlaw US
Empire went to war over to begin with.
Obviously, Merkel doesn't have the political strength to nix Nordstream 2. Until she's
replaced by someone with greater vision, EU and German policy won't change toward Iran. IMO,
the trio don't amount to the level of poodles as they're known to have courage. The Trio
proudly display the fact that they're 100% Cowards.
The EU is a hopeless craven vassal of the US. The US dropping out of the JCPOA was the acid
test which the EU has spectacularly failed. We are in a historical pivot with the rise of the
coalescing multifarious East which is forcing the EU to make a decision: stay under the US
wing, go it alone, or ally with the East. The EU seems to know it at least should get more
distance between itself and the US but every time there is a major geopolitical event it
starts to talk like it is going independent but then always drops back into the US hand. How
many times does this have to happen for us to admit what the EU is about?
The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big
zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and
exceptional' supremacist US.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jan 14 2020 19:58 utc |
15
If we accept that EU nations lack sovereignty and go further to suggest that such nations are
more simulations than real, what would an analysis of such events as the fallout from the
demise of the JCPOA look like? How should one talk about international events when corporate
sovereignty and oligarchical decision making are the real? How would we describe this exact
context based not on the simulation but on the real workings of power?
Yes indeed! At least blighty knows the score! The leash is no place for the British bulldog.
When brexit is complete they will be free to crawl straight up muricas bum! Lol!
Haha, great drawing. This pile on the left is incomparable. But the picture is incomplete -
there is not enough proudly walking in front of the masters of a small Polish poodle with a
bone in his teeth.
Agree with Nemo, #1. This is a matter of sovereignty. At the moment, European countries
are not sovereign, and, btw, this is a kind of double non-sovereignty: the submission of a
separate European country to the Americans, plus the submission of the same country to a
Brussels bureaucracy called the EU leadership. What independent, bold decisions can we talk
about? None.
The Trump administration has given various justification for its assassination of Major
General Qassem Soleimani and commander Abu Mahdi al Muhandis. It claimed that there was an
'imminent threat' of an incident, even while not knowing what, where or when it would happen,
that made the assassination necessary. Trump later said the thread was a planned bombing of
four U.S. embassies. His defense secretary denied that.
Soleimani and Muhandis during a battle against ISIS
That has raised the suspicion that the decision to kill Soleimani had little to do with
current events but was a long planned operation. NBC News now
reports that this is exactly the case:
President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven
months ago if Iran's increased aggression resulted in the death of an American, according to
five current and former senior administration officials.
The presidential directive in June came with the condition that Trump would have final
signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said.
The idea to kill Soleimani, a regular General in an army with which the U.S. is not war,
came like many other bad ideas from John Bolton.
After Iran shot down a U.S. drone in June, John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser at
the time, urged Trump to retaliate by signing off on an operation to kill Soleimani,
officials said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also wanted Trump to authorize the
assassination, officials said.
But Trump rejected the idea, saying he'd take that step only if Iran crossed his red line:
killing an American. The president's message was "that's only on the table if they hit
Americans," according to a person briefed on the discussion.
Then unknown forces fired 30 short range missiles into a U.S. base near Kirkuk. The salvo
was not intended to kill or
wound anyone:
The rockets landed in a place and at a time when American and Iraqi personnel normally were
not there and it was only by unlucky chance that Mr. Hamid was killed, American officials
said.
Without presenting any evidence the U.S. accused Katib Hizbullah, an Iraqi Popular Militia
Unit, of having launched the missiles. It launched airstrikes against a number of Katib
Hizbullah positions near the Syrian border, hundreds of miles away from Kirkuk, and killed over
30 Iraqi security forces.
This led to demonstrations in Baghdad during which a crowd breached the outer wall of the
U.S. embassy but soon retreated. Trump, who had attacked Hillary Clinton over the raid on the
consulate/CIA station in Benghazi, did not want to get embarrassed with a full embassy
breach.
The media claim that it was the embassy breach that the led to the activation of an
operation that had already been planned for a year before Trump signed off on it seven month
ago. As the New York Timesdescribes it :
For the past 18 months, officials said, there had been discussions about whether to target
General Suleimani. Figuring that it would be too difficult to hit him in Iran, officials
contemplated going after him during one of his frequent visits to Syria or Iraq and focused
on developing agents in seven different entities to report on his movements -- the Syrian
Army, the Quds Force in Damascus, Hezbollah in Damascus, the Damascus and Baghdad airports
and the Kataib Hezbollah and Popular Mobilization forces in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper presented a series of response options to the president two
weeks ago, including killing Soleimani. Esper presented the pros and cons of such an
operation but made it clear that he was in favor of taking out Soleimani, officials said.
Trump signed off and it further developed from there.
There was no intelligence of any 'imminent threat' or anything like that.
This was an operation that had been worked on for 18 month. Trump signed off on it more than
half a year ago. Those who had planned it just waited for a chance to execute it.
We can not even be sure that the embassy bombing had caused Trump to give the final go. It
might have been that the CIA and Pentagon were just waiting for a chance to kill Soleimani and
Muhandis, the leader of Katib Hizbullah, at the same time. Their meeting at Baghdad airport was
not secret and provided the convenient opportunity they had been waiting for.
Together Soleimani and Muhandis were the glue that kept the many Shia factions in Iraq
together. The armed ones as well as the political ones. Soleimani's replacement as Quds brigade
leader, Brigadier General Ismail Qaani, is certainly a capable man. But his previous field of
work was mainly east of Iran in Afghanistan and Pakistan and it will be difficult for him to
fill
Soleimani's role in Iraq :
After Soleimani's death, Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Soleimani's deputy Ismail Qaani to
succeed him. Qaani does not speak Arabic, does not have an in-depth knowledge of Iraq, nor
the insight of Soleimani and his ability to balance the different positions of Iraq's
factions with the opinions of Ayatollah Khamenei and the religious authorities in Najaf.
The question is how the successor of Soleimani will manage his new responsibility
including the thorny issues in Iraq. The escalation of the Iranian-American conflict is,
according to many, an escalation towards war and the destabilization of the region in which
the rules of engagement have changed. The question remains how, and not whether all of this
will impact the situation in Iraq.
Today the Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has his on militia, and Iraqi PMU leaders
met in
Qom , Iran, to discuss how the foreign troops can be expelled from Iraq. Gen. Qaani will
likely be there to give them advice.
Yesterday Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hizbullah, gave another speech . In it
he called on the Kurds in Iraq to pay back their debt to Soleimani and Hizbullah, which is
owned for their fight against ISIS, and to help to evict the foreign soldiers from Iraq:
85-Nasrallah: Now, the rest of the path. 1) Iraq: Iraq is the first country concerned
w/responding to this crime, because it happened in Iraq, and because it targeted Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis, a great Iraqi commander, and because Soleimani defended Iraq.
86-Nasrallah: I ask Masoud Barazani to thank Soleimani for his efforts in defending Erbil
and Kurdistan Region, because Soleimani was the only one to respond to your call. Soleimani
and with him men from Hezbollah went to Erbil.
87-Nasrallah: Barazani was shaking from fear, but Soleimani and the brothers from
Hezbollah helped you repulse this unprecedented threat; and now you must repay this good by
being part of the effort to expel the Americans from Iraq and the region.
The Barzani family, which governs the Kurdish part of Iraq, has
since long sold out to the Zionists and the United States. It will certainly not support
the resistance effort. But Nasrallah's request is highly embarrassing to the clan and to Masoud
Barzani personally.
So far I only found this rather confusing response from him:
The Kurdistan Regional Government's response to the immoral speech uttered by Hassan
Nasrallah through the anti-terror apparatus is a clear message from the regional government
to those terrorists that the response to the terrorists must be through the anti-terror
apparatus.
As military leader both Soleimani and Muhandis are certainly replaceable. The militia groups
they created and led will continue to function.
But both men also played important political roles in Iraq and it will take some time to
find adequate people to replace them in that. That makes it likely that the already simmering
political situation in Iraq will soon boil over as the Shia factions will start to fight each
other over the selection of a new Prime Minister and government.
The U.S. will welcome that as it will try do install a candidate that will reject the Iraqi
parliament decision to remove the foreign forces from Iraqi grounds.
Posted by b on January 13, 2020 at 17:32 UTC |
Permalink
The United States has truly become a rogue state. John Helmer pointed out that when Putin
visited Damascus recently to meet with Assad, he did so at a Russian military facility as a
safety precaution because you can no longer put it by the USA that it won't target people of
such hierarchy.
Was there not anyone in all of those previous discussions and planning sessions
objecting and explaining the importance of Qassem Suleiman in the Iran hierachy of
government????
Was there not anyone in all of those previous discussions and planning sessions
objecting and explaining the illegality of assassinating such a leader when he was traveling
openly to discuss matters of defense on a mission of diplomacy???????????
Was there not anyone in all of those previous discussions and planning sessions
objecting and resigning or going public to attempt to stop this infamy????????????
So were the Saudis genuine in their "peace attempt" or were they simply working with
CIA/Mossad to lure Soleimani and Muhandis into a situation where they could be droned?
If the Saudis were genuine, they would be much more vocal in their opposition to these
murders, which completely derail any potential Iraq-brokered peace process.
To the best of my recollection, Elijah Magnier, on a recent appearance with Joanne Leon on
the Around the Empire Podcast, says it is erroneous to identify Muhandis as the leader of
Katib Hizbullah. Actually, he was the highest military official of the PMU (excepting only
its nominal head, a civilian), the umbrella organization of the (mainly) Shia militia which
are part of the Iraqi military.
US biz persons in NY RE, in Florida, (etc.) as well as tv 'moguls' - do transactional
power-play interactions, not Int'l diplomacy. (Whatever that is, pretty worthless actually,
but = other topic.)
Obviously, Trump's order to murder Soleimani was partly due to impeachment pressure, as he
has said himself.
Plus, Soleimani insulted him gravely. From tabloids and women's mags, which I read on
occasion.
NK (Kim + spokespersons) called Trump a heedless and erratic old man. Also a dotard iirc,
but all this was in an exchange of insults which could be taken as mimicking that between
equals, Trump calling Kim Rocket Man, etc. (Everyone knew nothing would happen.) There was
also that kerfuffle when Trudeau (sleazy hypocrite) and others were caught open-mick
gossiping about Trump taking too long for his pressers or whatever. No doubt others and Dem
public insults are politically calibrated in a known landscape and Trump of course initiates
and has no problem with riposte.
2018. Soleimani speech. The Sun: vid. eng subs.
Very demeaning: gambler - bartender - casino manager that hits hard.
When much is hung on 'identity politics' and 'personalia' - ppls identity, character,
beliefs, personal interaction with others, etc. take up too much air (like in Hollywood
movies), institutional or other long-worked out arrangements (like Int'l law based on
upholding the existence of Wilsonian Nation-States..) are simply scuttered.
Thanks for the reporting b and I am not surprised about the background behind the
assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis
I would also not be surprised to read that my country was complicit to some degree in the
Ukraine plane shoot down by Iran.
The West is a very sick world run by the dictators that own global private finance. Those
dictators have managed to even brainwash the public into not understanding their illness and
believing it is a good force in our world.
I am glad to read less of the belief that Trump is being played by the system and not an
active actor within it. I continue to hope that other groups of our species continue to stand
up to the anti-humanistic social contract of the West and end its centuries old reign of
terror.
Before Putin left for Damascus he already mentioned something about he wont be so easily
removed without any consequence.. most likely meaning Russia would probably neutralize all US
bases in close proximity and get on the stick to fire strategic nukes for any US response..
But we know the US has hit a lot of Russian assets without seeing any Russian response. So
who knows..
War without limits: using all domains (pol, fin, econ, media, com, legal inst) to subvert
and destroy an enemy, where the objective is to obliterate the state itself as a
political entity
Aside from genocide, what greater crime can there be than the complete annihilation of
the state itself, as we saw happening in the NATO-attack on Libya and the state's total
destruction and re-invention in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the NATO-attack against
Yugoslavia and now Ukraine and Syria.
.. a complete negation of the concept of state sovereignty and self-determination of
peoples enshrined in the UN-Charta. It is a form of aggression of the worst kind and the
type of total war that the Nazis waged against the SU. (obliterate state, people, social
& econ system and culture).
...So the term HW first appears in American military literature and as practised by
NATO means the commission of multiple war-crimes against the people of the targeted
state. In Libya we saw conventional military style ops by NATO (massive bombing over many
months) simultaneous with unconventional operations (local and imported proxy forces,
subversion, assassinations, terrorism against civilians, use of social and mass-media to
distribute false information about the regime, criminal actions, cyberattacks to shut
down communication and the use of quasi legal bodies (ICC) to criminalize the leadersip,
to accuse Gadhafi of being a war-criminal; use of mercenaries, destruction of
infrastructure to break the will of the people to resist.
The subject is one of immediate concern because the Americans have begun using the
term hybrid warfare in their propaganda accusing Russia of engaging in it in Ukraine and
now raising the alarm that (they believe) Russia will engage in HW in the Baltic.
Therefore the Americans argue, they have to react to prepare for this eventuality which
they claim to be inevitable. And that indicates to me where we can expect the next
operations against Russia to take place (and it may explain the exercises NATO has been
running all summer, landing of airborne troops, combined sea-operations, etc.)
But the American claim of Russia using HW is in fact a mirror of their own
image as we see these methods being used by them as a matter of routine.
(... used in the Indian wars, in 19th century, starvation, prop and other techniques
to destroy their cultures, in Mexico, Philipines, Korea and Vietnam, in Central America
(i.e. Nicaragua) and in Ruanda....
All the accusations against Iran ("greatest sponsor of terrorism", aligning Iran with
AQ, etc.) are a projection of their own crimes ..
It was explained by Craig Murray in his blog (replicated in a few websites) that the usage of
"imminent" adjective is created by a certain lawyer who first worked for Netanyahu, then for
Blair etc. The usage does not convey ANY information about the nature of a "danger", but the
attitude, judgement if you will, of the institution that commissioned the opinion.
And "immanent" or "eminent" (Trumpian tweet) would fit equally well, but legalistically,
the confusion raised by "imminent" is more useful.
Noirette @ 6, it is my belief that an irrational US president, under the constant pressure of
attack from the Russiagate and Ukraingate instigators (you know who you are) from the instant
he became president and took on those responsibilities, volatile and insecure as he was from
the getgo, has finally cracked and is now very much in need of retirement from the
highpressure stage of politics in a time of potential war. It would be in the interests of
everyone in the world for his family to ask him, for his doctors to require of him,
that he resign. Certainly the alternatives to his remaining in office are grim, but not as
grim as having a president who is mentally incapacitated.
It would seem that an entire warmaking apparatus of government is similarly dysfunctional.
I don't know how that can be remedied, but it must.
whose militia is "on", active, rather than "off"? In any case, separating this guy from
microphones would require an Amored Personal Carrier or something heavier.
juliania@3
The answer to your questions lies in the reality that for years a sure means of not being
promoted or even being fired from a government job in the US is to know anything about the
Arab or Islamic world. Or to act as if knowing anything about such inferior beings is
necessary for making judgements.
This idea, that ignorance is bliss, has spread from Israel, not because the Israelis practise
it-they don't- but because they want DC to be entirely reliant on them for intelligence and
direction in the Middle East.
Although only one battle in what will be a longer war, Trump has won that round. More
confusion and disarray in Iraq, bad PR for Iran after the Uki plane shootdown. Bad PR allows
western vassals to move closer to the US side of the fence, and also provides fuel for US
regime change operations within Iran.
The two generals that were assassinated - there will be others that can plan military
strategy, but a big part, perhaps more important than strategy, is the personality to be able
to hold disparate groups together so they act as one and all tactics by separate groups fit
into a larger strategy.
Thank you, bevin. That is a sad explanation, though to me it doesn't obviate what should be
inherent in any normal human person, as I myself know very little about the Middle East,
relying indeed upon b's excellent and nearly objective (as objective as any human can be)
reporting on the facts and his interpretation of them. That which ought to be inherent is the
human desire not to inflict pain on another human if that can be avoided. Those who are in
government service ought to have that moral incentive front and center. We see it in the
great leaders, and surely in this country there are some among the elite who haven't lost
this natural instinct? It is very problematic if that has been thoroughly weeded out in those
now occupying powerful positions.
This country has been fortunate in the past to select persons of high moral compass as our
heroes. We the people still want to do that, I am convinced. Perhaps there is still time, and
we can re-order our own hierarchy now that what has been done is this terrible, an enormous
reductio ad absurdum, front and center.
"TEL AVIV: Five days ago, an undisclosed intelligence agency intercepted a telephone call
made by the head of Iran's Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in which he was heard
ordering his proxies in Iraq to attack the US embassy in Baghdad, as well as other Israeli
and American targets, with the aim of taking hostages, Israeli sources say.
It's unclear whether this was a lapse in tradecraft on the part of the usually savvy
Soleimani or whether the notorious Iranian military leader's phone calls were being routinely
intercepted. Nor is it clear whether it was the US or another foe of Iran that made the
intercept. Regardless, the intelligence seems to have led directly to Soleimani's killing
yesterday, which has thrown the Mideast into uproar."
In the chain of cause & effect, the Outlaw US Empire is definitely responsible for the
airliner shootdown; that must be seen as 100% irrefutable. The Outlaw US Empire has executed
numerous high ranking political and military people beginning with Yamamoto in 1943, although
I'll admit he was a legitimate target; yet, the seed was planted then. I recall Diem being
killed with the approval of JFK just weeks prior to his own execution. As I wrote at
Escobar's Facebook over the weekend, the Great Evil in the world resides within the Outlaw US
Empire and must be expunged even if Nukes must be used. Yes, that conclusion was painful to
arrive at and write, but the horrors have lasted for 3,000+ years now. The crop of Current
Oligarchs are the most aggressive ever and won't stop their rampage until they Own
Everything . In the overall scheme of things, getting Imperial forces ousted from
Southwest Asia will be a good thing but only a small portion of what must occur.
What does a single word of Nihad N. Arafat's response even mean? How is Nasrallah's speech
immoral by any stretch of the imagination? Do the Kurd's have no gratitude for Hezbollah and
Qud's laying down their lives to save them from mass rape and genocide? What is the
"anti-terror apparatus", does he mean fighting terrorism in Iraq and Syria must be done only
by US supported forces like the SDF? The Kurds siding with the US occupiers and Israel is one
of the most disgusting developments in recent history, its no wonder these people have been
so distrusted and abused for so long, their power hungry leadership betrays their allies like
snakes.
Russia takes its vengeance cold, often with no flair or notoriety. They often take in
multiples for their losses.
In Syria, a Russian missile into a mountain cave where US, Israeli, Saudi and AQ Intel
leaders were meeting cost over 50 high value lives. It was Russian payback for when some
Colonels and a General were hit by Coalition air strikes. Auslander, on the Saker blog, has
written about this. 2016, as I recall.
In Donbass, there have been many paybacks by Russia for Ukie and NATO acts. Some even
taken inside Russia.
A number of the culprits who killed over a hundred people and set fire to the Trade Union
building in Odessa have met Russian justice. Same with some of the criminal SBU who tortured
Berkut who came from Crimea. And others have been liquidated for murders done by Ukies in
Mariupol.
People who know and need to know are aware that Russia always more than evens the
score.
They just recently eliminated the head Turkmen who was responsible for shooting the pilot
of the jet the Turks shot down as he parachuted. It wasn't enough that when they rescued the
co-pilot navigator of the jet (rescue led by General Soleimani), the Aerospace forces bombed
the hell out of the area the Turkmen populated. They got the names and tracked for years the
commander.
Never assume because you don't know, it hasn't happened. And if it hasn't yet, it
will.
I don't like to say it but b's article doesn't support his headline. And I don't like to
repeat myself, but I've already commented this subject earlier today
@ open thread 55 , but he doesn't seem to have taken it into account. We should not
expect a powerful Iraqi reaction to the events.
Firstly remember that Abd ul-Mahdi is a weak leader, only there because the US agreed to
him. The US has made sure that the Iraqi leadership is not strong. Secondly, there was
always going to be a time necessary for a new militia leader to emerge. Instant reaction
was just about impossible.
However in the long term, the prospects are good. The Shi'a are in power in Iraq without
question. The Sunnis are out of it, the Kurds no longer intervene outside KRG. All the cr*p
about civil war is nonsense. The Shi'a factions all have basically the same interest, and
conflict is only between different leaders of the same grouping. Things could turn around
in an instant.
The anti-US movement is popular sentiment, not govt led. The more the US offends that
sentiment, as will inevitably happen, the stronger the movement will be. We already have
seen the way things will go. US bases are being sprayed with rockets. That will make life
difficult for the US. The more they punish the culprits, the more resentment there will be.
There's no way things can work out well for the US.
b has been reading the instant reaction, breast-beating, woe-is-me, articles
like Salhy in Middle East Eye, without looking further.
US aggression is at the stage of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan around the start of
WWII.
Rather than seeing that their unipolar world is ending, the US is prepared to use military
power to hold its position in the world.
The exceptionalist mindset is not just one small faction in the US hierarchy, it is the
mindset of the hierarchy plus a good proportion of the population.
Throughout history, countries or nations like that always end up destroyed as they fight for
their position until the very end rather than step down.
What does a single word of Nihad N. Arafat's response even mean?
Posted by: Jase | Jan 13 2020 18:53 utc | 19
Upon quick inspection, N.N. Arafat is not a real person. For few months he (it?) only
retweeted, mostly a pro-Kurdish US senator, and now produced a test of his (its?) own. The
text is weird, which may corroborate the purported education -- radiologist who graduated in
Dohuk (the capital of one of the three provinces of Kurdistan autonomous area in Iraq).
Actual on-line Kurdish publication have a rather sketchy English, although not as bad.
>>Although only one battle in what will be a longer war, Trump has won that round.
More confusion and disarray in Iraq, bad PR for Iran after the Uki plane shootdown. Bad PR
allows western vassals to move closer to the US side of the fence, and also provides fuel for
US regime change operations within Iran.
The two generals that were assassinated - there will be others that can plan military
strategy, but a big part, perhaps more important than strategy, is the personality to be able
to hold disparate groups together so they act as one and all tactics by separate groups fit
into a larger strategy.
Yup. Some people like to underestimate the US Empire, because it is easier to wear rose
coloured glasses, rather than face unpleasant reality.
Even b changed from US will leave Iraq to there will be chaos in Iraq and the US will try
to stay.
Although personally i think that the US will be kicked out because most of the Shia
leaders would like to be killed by a US drone for whatever. Especially Sadr, who has the
biggest political block, and whose Mahdi Army killed plenty of americans back then. He knows
that he is a potential target too, so he will work to make this expulsion happen.
There was also an assasination attempt against iranian official in Yemen. This is all part
of a Cold War, a hybrid war against Iran. To break it. There is no isolationism. No one will
leave Iran or Syria unless they are actually kicked out.
And yes, Trump is a willing imperialist. He likes it. He can't do much on the domestic
front but he is allowed to show his violent tendencies on the foreign front. As a zionist and
a military puppet.
Trump loves the sanction weapons and financial-banking weapons the US possesses. He's all
in on using every coercion to strangle, starve and screw everyone, friend, foe, ally,
adversary. A power-hungry guy who has all the power to dominate the globe, yet not his own
country, break sovereignties, ignore laws and trample opponents to get his way.
And he likes it.
Trump has taken on the personification of the Hegemon. It is a form of Wizard of Oz
syndrome. If the Deep State and MIC allows him, he is "powerful". This suits his
dysfunctionality as a man. He has big inadequacies. They manifest in his need to be big,
wealthy, #1, first, triumphant in all deals.
In the Oval Office, he is powerless to get the wall built, infrastructure legislation
passed, health reform, or even announce he will consider pardons for all those entrapped by
Comey and the Russiagate hoax. He's being impeached.
But as the Hegemon, when the handlers around him allow it (advise him), he gets to kill
people. This is heady stuff that captivates him.
I would predict that Assad is on the top of Trump's hit list too.
sponsor of terrorism", aligning Iran with AQ, etc.) are a projection of their own crimes
..by: Pandora @9..<=many Domestic Americans may be at risk for elimination ..If I were an
aspiring Democrat I would wear my anti-drone outfit ?
Americans used to pride themselves that their government promised those accused of
wrongdoing to be treated as "innocent" until guilt was established by a due process procedure
known as a fair open trial. These trials were a source of information that allowed the
governed to keep somewhat honest those who were running the government. many Americans chose
to become American Citizens in order to gain access to the due process procedures. Humanity
in the world has a problem it needs to define and solve because death by drone is not an
acceptable line item in the statistics.
I was quite interested by the remarks of Ayatullah Sistani last Friday, I think it was,
criticising Iran and the US equally for illegal attacks on Iraqi soil.
The context is of course that Sistani is Iranian, but has never taken a pro-Iranian
position. He is aged now, and his view is expressed by his aides, so it can be taken that
this is the view of the Sistani organisation, not so necessarily of the man himself. It is
quite nationalistic, and not subservient to Iran, as everybody is currently claiming. Iraqi
Shi'a independence from Iran has always been the policy, and its being reaffirmed. Iran
remains an ally, naturally.
That doesn't mean that the Iraqi state is strong and can dictate to the US. The
US ensures that doesn't happen. But the positions of Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr and the others
are all pretty similar, and concentrate on Iraqi nationalism, which equals opposition to the
US, and non-dependence on Iran.
Of course Shi'a Iraqi nationalism is a little bit particular, as no concessions are made
to the Sunnis. It's as though they don't exist. For the moment that doesn't matter, as the
Sunnis are thoroughly defeated, and if they have rebels, they join Da'ish, who are
discredited. The Kurds have had their fingers burned, and won't venture outside KRG again. If
the US wants to stir them up, it won't work.
I agree with all of that, though on Trump as trying to make up for inadequacies I would
differ.
More a very aggressive, competitive mindset and very self confidant in his abilities.
He had held no political positions in the past, runs for president of the US and wins.
It looks as though much rides on whether the Shia groups can put aside domestic
differences for the duration and agree on and stick to a common strategy to oust the US.
This tweet by Mike Pompeo has triggered a large response condemning USA hypocrisy.
But the murder of the Iranian General does highlight the difficulty of the militias
throughout the Middle East.
Middle East is tribal, militias, as far as I understand, can be paid by Sheiks, by local
religous leaders, by some arm of the relevant government, by foreign governments. And by
foreign governments, I mean Turkey, USA, Iran, UK and so on.
Or a mix of all the above.
So Pompeo has a point - the sooner Middle East governments bring militias fully into the
armed forces, the clearer the applicable law will be.
What caused this mess?
Lack of a robust governmental process.
Whose problem is it? At base, the national government in question.
If clear lines of control and command and full integration can't happen due to political
divisions and corruption, poor popular control of politicians, then the country (and others
around the region) are doomed to endless trouble, from home, from abroad.
Sad fact, IMO.
Sovereignty starts with responsive, effective, reliable, accountable, transparent, and
widely accepted, clear, principles-based governance.
@ Posted by: Passer by | Jan 13 2020 19:30 utc | 27
with the comment about Trump with which I agree...thanks
Trump is a very hurt human being that is not recognized as such because of a skewed view
of what mental health is.....aggression, bullying, and murder have all been normalized to be
acceptable mental health in top/down world that is never discussed as being the source of the
Trump type of mentality.
I agree with your call out:
"
I would predict that Assad is on the top of Trump's hit list too.
"
and want to add that I expect there are active hit list plans for all world leaders that
conflict with the dictatorship of global private finance.
"...The U.S. will welcome that [the Shia factions will start to fight each other over the
selection of a new Prime Minister and government] as it will try do install a candidate that
will reject the Iraqi parliament decision to remove the foreign forces from Iraqi
grounds."
If the US hopes this will happen to deflect Iraqis from their shock at US assassination on
their soil of their military leader as well as Iran's, surely they are as mistaken as they
were in perpetrating the atrocity. That's not what happens - we saw it first in Russia. There
will be unity against a common enemy, would be my take. As has been happening all along with
less important 'sanctions' than this. They always backfire.
My view is that the iraqi shia will work towards expulsion of the US and will make it happen.
They will also buy capable anti-air defense from Russia, no matter the threats. Because
having US drones over your head is simply unacceptable, and many leaders, including Sadr,
know that they are a potential target for "misbehaving" or past grievances. This lurking
theat is simply too much. That's not to mention the israeli strikes in Iraq. They also do not
want Iraq to turn into US-Iran battlefield. Which will inevitably lead to killings of Shia
leaders and groups.
But there will be lots of bullying coming from Trump and some US companies could get large
deals as a price for the withdrawal, maybe some expensive military equipment will be sold
too.
The middle east, particularly the Arab world have always been susceptible to divide and
conquer.
Clans, Tribes, Religions, Ethic groups and nations - all fault lines that the imperial
countries have and still do, easily drive wedges into and turn one against another.
Putin jokes Assad should invite Trump to visit Damascus. The leaders were referring to the
Straight Street, which leads to Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus, & to Apostle Paul whose
life was transformed after a vision he had as he walked on that road.
Since the attack on Suleimani, Al Muhandis and that officer in Yemen, Reza Shahlai, were the
result of long planning the question is what else is part of the plan, and its possible
opportunistic addons. Trump was very fast in following up with new sanctions. The current
demonstrations in Iran were probably(my guess) planned. I don't understand how they can get
traction so close to the funeral.
Also I wonder to what extent the US/Israel are strenghtening IS near the Syrian border.
Passer by "They also do not want Iraq to turn into US-Iran battlefield."
This is the part that annoys me about the Iraqi's. Trump stated bluntly that US is in Iraq
and will be staying in Iraq to watch Iran. That was at the time of the Syrian pullback and
oilfield grab.
US is using Iraq to attack Iran. It killed and Iran military officer and diplomat on Iraqi
soil. It is constantly striking Iraqi militia groups on Iraqi soil.
By stating Iran violated Iraqi sovereignty with its strike on the US base, Iraq is giving
sanctuary to the US.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Jan 13 2020 20:15 utc | 39
>>the question is what else is part of the plan
The plan seems to be israeli one, and it will be about what will benefit Netanyahoo.
This means a continuous near war situation between the US and Iran, but without the actual
large scale war. A covert war involving killings, sabotage, everything other than a large
scale war. The US will be the meat-shield for Israel. Untill the elections. Then we will
see.
I think no one believed that the US will start killing senior iraqis and iranians.
Soleimani was even seen together with US troops in Iraq, and was visiting often. Iran
certainly did not believe that either. But now things changed.
May need to invoke the 25th Amendment. 11 months is a very long time and we may not all be
here. In the previous post I linked to a Tass report Iran has declared their revenge is not
over. More to come.
"Several troops CNN spoke to said the event (al-Assad base) had shifted their view of
warcraft: the US military is rarely on the receiving end of sophisticated weaponry, despite
launching the most advanced attacks in the world.
"You looked around at each other and you think: Where are we going to run? How are you going
to get away from that?" said Ferguson.
"I don't wish anyone to have that level of fear," he said. "No one in the world should ever
have to feel something like that.""
Yeah, the way I see things going, I wouldn't call it a strategy, is that the Iraqi
parliament continues to vote against any proposal the US makes, while at the same time random
militias continue to fire off Katyushas against US bases, making life difficult.
US pressure on Abd ul-Mahdi can't disarm the militias, as he doesn't have the power to do
so. There's no scenario where the US could agree to the appointment of a strong PM, who might
master the militias, and be accepted by the parliament, and yet guarantee to stop militia
attacks. The different elements are contradictory.
Yeah, Peter AU1 is right. Iran lost that round.
With the plane shot down, they fucked it totally up. Trump can (somewhat with a basis in
reality) point to Iran, the "evil Regime" that prefers to shoot down 100+ civilians instead
of closing airspace for "a strategic gain" (Bernards words defending this).
A PR nightmare for Iran. And sadly a deserved one in this case of not closing the airspace.
Had this catastrophe not happend, it would have been a brilliant operation, which would
have turned the US standing upside down militarily.
But with shooting themselves in the foot, they managed to paint themselves as the paraiah
regime that cares not about human life, as Trump and the NeoCons have painted them all
along.
Now i understand why Trump did not respond that night and happily went to bed tweeting
that all is well. The US knew Iran shot it down in that night, and they knew that Iran would
have hurt itself more then they hurt the US from a PR and propaganda standpoint.
And with Soleimani gone, and a replacement that does not even speak Arabic (WTF?!), how
can they even dream of rallying all the tribes in Syria and Iraq behind their game plan??
Personality is key in politics. And when such a person can not even speak the language of the
people he should unite, then this looks futile IMHO.
All in all, a very telling development. Telling about both the US and Iran, but also about
Alt Media and us readers+commenters.
IMO, the sad truth is, that the new 4th Reich owns the globe, because of their grasp of the
reserve currency system, and NO nation, at this point in time, can reverse that fact.
I've been reading people talking about the demise of the empire for years now. Until the
reserve currency issue is changed,
NO NATION on earth can challenge the monstrosity of the new 4th Reich.
The empire will continue to control the world with economic and military terrorism.
To coin an old saying, "It's just business, get over it"....
Suppose that the US wants to stay in Iraq, as they've said. What strategy could they follow
to make it possible? I'm at a bit of a loss there. Full military occupation, with 100,000 US
troops? Unacceptable in the US. Change the Iraqi PM? Would someone else be better? Another PM
would still be subject to parliament votes. Impose a dictator? Dictators aren't in fact
absolute rulers, but still depend on public acquiescence.
"Now i understand why Trump did not respond that night and happily went to bed tweeting that
all is well. The US knew Iran shot it down in that night, and they knew that Iran would have
hurt itself more then they hurt the US from a PR and propaganda standpoint."
Except Trump's stupid tweet came 4 hours BEFORE the plane was downed. Seriously delusional
stuff you are spouting.
We have been talking for about 7 days venting our anger and frustration with US empire and
its puppets. Also, talking about the why's and The Who's and How's.
I think it is time to concentrate on the " now what" question. What can be done to get the
US out of West Asia and keep them away?
The key to all of this and the future of West Asia's peace, IMHO, is Saudi Arabia. Iran
and its allies have to concentrate and preempt in changing the Saudi regime. Time is ripe for
this and they are on the defensive as well. Taking out the Saudis will:
1. Finish the Wahabi- Saud axis and weaken it tremendously (weaken ISIS, AlQueda, etc if
not end them)
2. It will cut off the financial source of much of evil going on in West Asia and beyond
3. No oil, no Americans in the region and a gradual end of petrodollar and hopefully the
empire(of course, easier said than done but it has to start somewhere)
4. That will also have a chain reaction in the gulf monarchies with the majority non-Sunni
population. So it goes for the other West Asian fiefdoms.
5. The end of ERETZ ISRAEL
6. Realignment of North African alliances and shift away from US and the west, especially
Egypt.
7. Bring OPEC under a more democratic control
8. Facilitating Belt and Road and possibly more prosperity for the region as a whole although
China and Russia should be watched and dealt with very carefully. They are not the angels
that they have been made to be in these forums. They are just the lesser evils,
comparatively. Much less.
9. A gradual growth away fanaticism and more toward secularism. Maybe even Iran can restart
the first true democracy in the region, if such a thing exists outside of books and
novels.
I'm sure others can add to this list. It sounds like fantasy but like i said before it has
to start somewhere and Iran is in a position to make this happen and it should be sooner than
later. Once Saudis have been dealt with, comes next, Israel. 1967 lines or get the hell out
of West Asia. No ifs or buts. No negotiations.
It is a nice dream anyway. I truly believe it is the only hope for the region, otherwise
we are looking at 50 more years of this shit if a global war hasn't happened in between.
"...the Great Evil in the world resides within the Outlaw US Empire and must be expunged
even if Nukes must be used. Yes, that conclusion was painful to arrive at and write, but the
horrors have lasted for 3,000+ years now."
Is this the real karlof1? Or his alter ego Major karlof1 Kong riding the bomb.
When you say "...Nukes must be used." Would it be correct to assume you mean on
yourselves? or some innocent third party in the Middle East?
I thought I despised you Americans, but there is a lot of self loathing here.
Guy THORNTON @45 - should be mandatory viewing. The American needs to feel abject fear,
helplessness and loss before anything can even begin to change.
Sorry to confound you with my 18! Cause & Effect in this case began in 1953. If 1953
hadn't occurred and nothing similar in-between, then the dead would be alive. Peter AU 1's 24
explained the middle portion well enough. The 3,000+ years refers to the amount of time an
oligarchy consisting of landed rich, rentiers and such have subjugated humanity in the West
as seen by the numerous proofs offered in the numerous publications by the team Hudson
assembled at the Peabody Museum at the same time the Berlin Wall was falling, which Hudson's
trying to make more accessible via a series beginning with and forgive them their
debts... which I very much encourage you--and everyone reading this comment--to read as
it really is that important. The bits and pieces provided in the related essays at Hudson's
website are not a sufficient substitute for the series of books, although they ought to be
enough to motivate.
Juliania 16
"This country has been fortunate in the past to select persons of high moral compass as our
heroes."
Really?
Who?
Can you be more specific?
I am sure there are a few genuine heroes, but I am curious as to whom you mean
specifically?
Anyone in the Oval Office?
Finally a top Canadian businessman who points the finger for this tragedy to Trump:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51095769.
Of course there's not a single politician who has the guts to speak this truth out loud.
Trump, the narcissist cum laude, demonstrates how the whole world has to count on others
having more common sense than the crazy Americans who bully whoever they don't like, damn the
consequences. Let's not forget that it is this ongoing verbal adolescent barrage and
unnecessary hyping that almost got us into a nuclear holocaust twice (1963 and 1983) - and
both times we were saved by the sound and sober Russians. What if the Russian then would have
been the Iranian now?
I've been reading people talking about the demise of the empire for years now. Until
the reserve currency issue is changed,
NO NATION on earth can challenge the monstrosity of the new 4th Reich.
The USD$ will follow all the others that went before.
just a little more faith ben. The collapse is not one event like an explosion, "boom" it's
a process over time. U.S'. 'perceived prosperity' is built on debt or by another name,
printing fiat which is unsustainable.
Watch the new QE repo fail, also derivatives and prepare.
U.S. Fed is working hard to save the financial system that is leaking like a sieve. One Fed
governor said it [the Repo] was a plumbing exercise. How apt. In 2006 global debt was $125
trillion now stands at $260 trillion.
I mentioned watch derivatives. These banks with the biggest derivative positions - DB,
JPM, Citigroup and GS - list their official position a tad below $200 trillion. When it
blows? could be another 6 years but collapse it will.
Actually, imo we are in the collapse. Why are interest rates in negative territory? It is
a theft of pensioners' savings to keep the casino standing. I suspect the warmongering is a
distraction.
DontBelieveEitherPr. 47 "A PR nightmare for Iran. And sadly a deserved one in this case of
not closing the airspace."
It is not deserved. Decisions are easy to ridicule in hindsight, very difficult to make
make at the time. War is all about deception. Did Iran know US had the ability to spoof what
they were seeing on their radar screens. There is a good chance the US have made some
deliberately failed attempts in the past to set them up for something like this. Iran is in a
fight with an exceptionally dirty fighter that knows all the tricks. They will take more hits
before this is over.
not understanding that and disparaging Iran when it does take hits is part of US
calculations. That is human character. Everyone likes a winner type mindset. Part of human
character.
Thanks b, Elijah's newest article touches on this very subject, the situation will get hot in
Iraq should the Us occupiers do not leave the country. The situation will aggravate, maybe
slowly, then speed up, the US will most likely retaliate with sanctions and other usual
crimes.
I do see China and Russia stepping up in Iraq and Iran, there is a clear alignment forming,
backstage talks must be very busy at the moment, many countries aligning such as Qatar and
Turkey, while the traditional allies of Israel and US continue to drag on their knees, such
as UAE and KSA.
I do expect the war of aggression in Yemen to get hotter, since KSA is kicking the can down
the road instead of true commitment to a peace deal, while in eastern Syria we may see US
mercenaries being most likely killed by Syrian insurgency, lots of mercenaries there vs US
soldiers.
Trump US has had problems getting vassals on board for war against Iran. With the recent
incident, more have moved to Trumps side. Winning the PR war means puppet leaders are free to
do as US tells them as even puppet leaders are keeping an eye on re-election and public
opinion and so forth.
Trumps war on Iran will not be well publicised build up to Iraq shock and awe. It will be
Trident missiles with no warning.
"Something very odd is happening in the past 24 hours and today:
"The Qatari Emir was in Tehran yesterday, long talks with Iranian leadership.
"Also yesterday, basically all top Syrian Gov leaders (except President Assad apparently),
went to Iran as well, a very rare and could say rather risky move of a large group from the
Syrian leadership."
Do you have anything to add or further speculation about those events? And thanks for all
your efforts!!
Almasdarnews had a piece on the Syrian delegation vist.
""Today, a high-level government delegation headed by Prime Minister Imad Khamis, began a
trip to the Iranian capital, Tehran, during which they will discuss with senior officials
there the current bilateral relations between the two countries and work to strengthen them
at all levels, as well as accelerating developments in the regional and international
arenas," Al-Watan reported, quoting a diplomatic source.
The Al-Watan source said that consultation and coordination between the two countries at
this stage is necessary because after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the two allies
need to strengthen their alliance.
I think this is the first time the American military has tasted a pushback like this. A
clear feeling of defeat and demoralization among those interviewed. It is good for them to be
at the receiving end and feel helpless and to know what they have been wreaking on the region
for the past 16 years. Maybe they will start questioning their role in these atrocities and
pass on the word to new recruits: " Don't join in".
Meanwhile, the US Pivot to Asia grand plan seems to be in a state of hiatus. Skirmishes and a
potential uprising in the Provinces have disrupted the once all important thrust to confront
China and curb it's expansion on all fronts.
OBOR strategy continues undeterred, drawing more and more interest and solidifying
influence as the months pass. China quietly gives support to the Empire's targets on 2
continents and expands largely unopposed in a 3rd. The Empire's debts to finance it's
interests and militarism grows at a never b4 seen rate. It's own military industrial complex
robbing it's treasury almost at will, while it's foes grow in size and number.
Looking at it all in Grand Chess Board sort of way, it brings to mind Muhammed Ali's 'Rope
a dope' strategy. Let the big dope punch himself out before taking him down was the essence
of it.
Another of his most memorable quotes, "No Vietcong ever called me n****r".
No Chinese ever called people in the Provinces hadji either. But hey why go to all that
bother of wining hearts and minds and investing in local economies when bribery, corruption
and killing dissenters has worked so well in achieving your goals?
'We have the right to stay as a force of good.' Buffalo Wings Mike Pompeo
In my very most humble opinion, I think this whole 'episode' (starting with the USSA droning
of the very high profile military officers in Iraq) must be all just theater. A very large
crowd of the most knowledgeable experts in (real) economics are quite certain that the USSA
is on the brink of total collapse. So the population is in dire need of distractions. I also
am pretty sure that if the USSA were to attack Iran the result would be 'instant' collapse,
so that won't happen unless 'they' are slightly stupider that I suspect them to be. I think
the 'world' is simply death-watching the USSA. All they have to really do is to avoid being
crushed when the Big Dummy goes full Humpty Dumpty.
@ 63 dh.. thanks.. i guess that is similar to the link @ 45 guy thornton shared? bbc verses
cnn... they are all tied at the hip..
quote from one of the men at the site - ""I don't wish anyone to have that level of fear,"
he said. "No one in the world should ever have to feel something like that." well holy
fuck... welcome to the reality you have been putting on all of the people in middle east in
what seems like forever!! maybe you want to think that thru??
@64 peter au... you're right... this war porn for the kiddies back home is all used for
the same purpose.. keeping all the folks back home as braindead as possible.. and yes - when
the shit hits the fan, it will be without warning.. great place to be in.. thanks trump, usa,
neo con warmongering group.. great place to be here in 2020..
Tehran Plans to Take Trump to International Court for Soleimani's Assassination –
Iran's Top Judge
Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's Quds Force, died in
Baghdad on January 3 when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by a missile launched by
a US drone. Soleimani's death brought relations between Iran and the US to a new low.
The Iranian government will seek to prosecute US President Donald Trump for the
assassination of Maj. Gen. Soleimani, Iranian Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi has said
etc
@72 To be fair james the average US servicemen/women are probably pretty decent guys. They
genuinely don't know why anyone would try to kill them. It never occurs to them that they are
being manipulated.
Assad Awarded Qassem Soleimani, the Highest Medal in Syria (Photo + Video)
5 hours ago News 809 visits
Assad awarded Qassem Soleimani, the highest honor in Syria (photo + video)
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad granted the highest honor in the Republic to the
commander of the "Quds Force" Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in an air strike carried
out by the American forces, on January 3, 2020, in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
On Monday, Syrian Prime Minister, Imad Khamis, said that President al-Assad granted the
commander of the "Quds Force" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, the
highest honor in Syria.
"I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region,
those Canadians would be right now home with their families," Trudeau said in the
interview.
Trudeau said Canada did not receive a heads up before the United States killed
Soleimani, and that he "obviously" would have preferred one.
"The U.S. makes its determinations. We attempt to work as an international community on
big issues. But sometimes countries take actions without informing their allies," he
said
@76 dh.. i agree with you and i think the same applies to the average westerner, whether
american, canuck or etc. etc.. people are manipulated without much awareness of it.. however,
thinking something thru would be a good exercise for many, especially those cheering for the
west in it's war on iran.. that is the part i have a hard time comprehending, absent the
constant pr sell... thus the pr becomes a pivotal piece in the war movement.. they have to
sell it to the public.. from reading the cbc comments on the maple leaf foods ceo, it is not
apparent to me that the pr act is working fully here.. in fact, some people seem to be waking
up to where this is all headed and don't like what it looks like..
@ 78 likklemore.. thanks for that.. the maple leaf ceo is getting a lot of airplay, but that
bit from trudeau is a departure from his usual acceptance of the official agenda here.
thanks..
"A very large crowd of the most knowledgeable experts in (real) economics are quite
certain that the USSA is on the brink of total collapse. So the population is in dire need of
distractions. ..."
This crowd of 'economists' and their like have been sprouting this scenario for decades.
Why believe any of these characters? The whole basic premise of std economics is now dated
and largely BS. Obviously, they have not updated on "modern monetary theory"?
There is no market economy in 'equilibrium' run on rational basis. That ideology's shell
cracked with Nixon and completely broke with blow-job Willy Clinton when he had time not
playing with the kids on Epstein's Express (and Island).
It is a political economy now. Hegemony first, second and third. Vassal states
(plantations) and Colony-economic all the way with LBJ (& the Fed) etc. The only place
'normal' economics applies is at the margins for the working class -- like your credit card
and the local hardware store.
However, your general sentiment is on the mark if you change the key phrase from "brink of
total collapse" to " brink of major reset."
He is probably in the hope that someone would retaliate by killing him so as to he becomes
an American hero....but to no avail...in his insignificance...
The current state of affairs in the US and for extension in the resto fo the world is a
byprosuct of at least three men in the WH who feel so littel that they think they need to
produce so much noise to be noticed...
Do you have anything to add or further speculation about those events? And thanks for all
your efforts!!
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 13 2020 22:13 utc | 66
RT is now reporting on the reason for the assassination. Iran and KSA were about to settle
differences. the empire was not too happy about that. these meeting may well be related to
regional settlements among the regional countries.
JFK did not order the Diem assassinaton. The "cables" that purport to show that were long
ago revealed to have been forged by the infamous EH Hunt. Kennedy's Ambassador Lodge (a
Republican) conspired with CIA station chief Lucien Conein and a small group of administation
officials in Washington to remove Diem when JFK was away on a weekend. I believe Lodge was on
his way back to US where JFK was going to fire him to his face over this when he was himself
assassinated.
Apparently one of the issues for Iraq is that its oil revenue gets directed to an account at
the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, and access to that account would be the first order of
any prospective retaliatory sanctions by the U.S., and it was likely that account that Trump
referred to when warning of crippling sanctions if Iraq should attempt to remove US / NATO
forces.
@85, remarkable video. Damage is more extensive than I expected. Grateful none of our troops
was killed or physically injured (if that report is correct). However, those soldiers
certainly experienced trauma and will likely endure long-lasting mental and emotional
effects.
It all makes me angry that our President so cavalierly put our young men and women in
harms way. They should be home with family.
Quite the turn. On Saturday Trudeau wanted "clarity" asked Iran " if it [the downing of
the plane] was a mistake?"
I suspect Trudeau received a lot of emails from Quebec..Trudeau's party lost out to BQ;
understand a majority of Quebecois are not enamoured or impressed by the brain dead D.C.
leadership.
I hope that Iran can get the protests under control peacefully. ISTM that the Iranian
protesters and the Venezuelan protesters both appear to be upper class. I don't see peasants
protesting; I see a privileged class that probably stand to gain in the event there is a
regime change.
Soraya Sepahpour and Finian Cunningham has a very interesting take on this. Their hypothesis
fits remarkably well, in regard to motive, means, and opportunity.
Thanks but props go to Canthama, vid purloined from his twitter feed. Recommend bookmarking
his twitter, Link to Canthama's
twitter feed he is one of those extraordinary persons. No twitter account necessary.
@90 likklemore... i think its true what you say about quebec.. ask lozion, lol! either way i
commend him for putting some space in our position from the usas!
Jen
Not all are cartoon characters. Would be well worth Iran taking a look at who receives medals
and awards in the US. Captain of a certain ship comes to mind. But forget the heroes. Pompeo
would make a good 'eye for an eye'. Secretary of state and a nasty one at that. His job is
somewhat similar to Soleimani's.
If Trump is not reelected, I don't give much of his head. Thousands are ready to make him pay
for his crimes. He and his advisors will remain the targets of revenge for years to come
Writer Kim Sengupta from The Independent explains this incredible twist in the story:
Iraq's prime minister revealed that he was due to be meeting the Iranian commander to discuss
moves being made to ease the confrontation between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia –
the crux of so much of strife in the Middle East and beyond.
Adil Abdul-Mahdi was quite clear: "I was supposed to meet him in the morning the day he
was killed, he came to deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had
delivered from the Saudis to Iran."
The prime minister also disclosed that Donald Trump had called him to ask him to
mediate following the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad. According to Iraqi officials
contact was made with a number of militias as well as figures in Tehran. The siege of the
embassy was lifted and the US president personally thanked Abdul-Mahdi for his help.
There was nothing to suggest to the Iraqis that it was unsafe for Soleimani to travel
to Baghdad – quite the contrary. This suggests that Trump helped lure the Iranian
commander to a place where he could be killed.
I posted what I believe might be a translated version of the document you linked to above,
but I as well do not speak the language.
This may be a related Twitter stream on the Iranians ruling out human error and pointing
the finger at U.S. electronic warfare malfeasance being used to trick the Iranians or their
systems into making the shoot down.
On the matter of the Ukrainian plane accident in Iran, the role of human error has been
ruled out [as it has been discovered that] deception operations were carried out on the air
control & command system.
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Donald Trump occasionally utters unspeakable truths. In March 2018 he called Bush Jr.'s
decision to invade Iraq "the worst single mistake in US history." Earlier, Trump had said that
Bush should have been impeached for launching that disastrous war.
Yet on January 2 2020 Trump made a much bigger mistake: He launched all-out war with Iran --
a war that will be joined by millions of anti-US non-Iranians, including Iraqis -- by murdering
Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the legendary hero who defeated ISIS, alongside the popular Iraqi
commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Gen. Soleimani was by far the most popular figure in Iran,
where he polled over 80% popularity, and throughout much of the Middle East. He was also adored
by millions even outside that region, non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Many Christians
throughout the world loved Gen. Soleimani, whose campaign against ISIS saved the lives of
thousands of their co-religionists. Even Sunni Muslims (the people, not the billionaire playboy
sheikhs) generally loved and admired the Shia Muslim Gen. Soleimani, a saintly warrior-monk who
was uncommonly spiritual, morally impeccable, and the most accomplished military genius of this
young century.
The strategic stupidity of Trump's order to murder Soleimani cannot be exaggerated. This
shocking, dastardly murder, committed while Soleimani was on an American-encouraged peace
mission, has unleashed a "Pearl Harbor effect" that will galvanize not just the nation of Iran,
but other forces in the region and around the world. Just as the shock effect of Pearl Harbor
helped the American war party overcome domestic political divisions and unite the nation in its
resolve for vengeance, so has the Soleimani murder galvanized regional groups, led by Islamic
Iran and Iraq, in their dedication to obliterate every last trace of any US-Israeli presence in
the region, no matter how long it takes, by any means necessary.
Most Americans still don't understand the towering stature of Soleimani. Perhaps some
comparisons will be helpful.
To understand the effect on Iran and the region, imagine that Stalin had succeeded in
murdering George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur, all on the same day, in
1946. These US generals, like Soleimani, were very popular, in part because they had just won a
huge war against an enemy viewed as an embodiment of pure evil. How would Americans have
reacted to such a crime? They would have united to destroy Stalin and the Soviet Union, no
matter how long it took, no matter what sacrifices were necessary. That is how hundreds of
millions of people will react to the martyrdom of Gen. Soleimani.
But even that comparison does not do justice to the situation. Patton, Eisenhower, and
MacArthur were secular figures in an increasingly secular culture. Had Stalin murdered them,
their deaths would not have risen to the level of religious martyrdom. Americans' motivation to
avenge their deaths would not have been as deep and long-lasting, nor as charged with the avid
desire to sacrifice everything in pursuit of the goal, in comparison with the millions of
future avengers of the death of Gen. Soleimani.
The tragedy, from the US point of view, is that this didn't need to happen. Iran, a
medium-sized player in a tough neighborhood, is a natural ally of the United States. As
Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in The Grand Chessboard , "Iran provides stabilizing support
for the new political diversity of Central Asia. Its independence acts as a barrier to any
long-term Russian threat to American interests in the Persian Gulf region." (p. 47) Obama,
guided by Brzezinski and his acolytes, set the US on a sensible path toward cordial relations
with Iran -- only to see his foreign policy triumph sabotaged by the pro-Zionist Deep State and
finally shredded by Netanyahu's puppets Trump and Pompeo. Iran, dominated by principled
anti-Zionists, is a thorn in the side of Israel, so the unstable Iranophobe Trump was inserted
into the presidency to undo Obama's handiwork and reassert total Israeli control over US policy
-- the same total control initially cemented by the 9/11 false flag.
If the murder of Soleimani bears comparison to Pearl Harbor, it also echoes the October 1914
killing of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the first domino in a series that ended in a world
war. The dominos are lined up the same way today, though it may take longer for all of them to
fall. Due to the enormity of its psychological effect, the Soleimani assassination irreversibly
sets the US at permanent war with Iran and the rest of the Axis of Resistance. That war can end
in only two ways: The destruction of Islamic Iran, or the complete elimination of the US
military presence in the region. The first alternative is unacceptable not only to Iran, its
regional friends, and the conscience of the world, but also to Russia and China, who would be
next in line for destruction if Iran is annihilated. The second alternative is probably
unacceptable to the permanent National Security State that governs the US no matter who is in
office, and to Israel and its global network (and its agents in the "US" National Security
State). So the irresistible force will soon be meeting the immovable object. It is difficult to
see how this could possibly end well.
Ironically, given Trump's well-justified scorn for Bush's invasion of Iraq, the first front
of the world war unleashed by Soleimani's killing will be in that long-suffering nation, whose
government has just ordered US troops to depart posthaste. If Trump wants to keep US forces in
Iraq he is going to have to re-invade that nation, attack and destroy its government and
military, fight a long-term counterinsurgency (this time against the vast majority of the
population) and take far more casualties than Bush Jr. did.
Trump's decision to martyr the great Iranian general and the celebrated Iraqi commander was
perfectly timed to unite Iraq against the American occupation. Prior to the murder, Iraq was in
the midst of color-revolution chaos, as demonstrators protested against not just the US and
Israel, the real culprits in the destruction of their country, but also Iran, Iraqi
politicians, and other targets. Those demonstrations, and the murders that marred them, were
orchestrated by Gladio style covert US forces. As Iraqi Prime Minster Abdul Mahdi
explained :
" I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the
construction instead (of an American company). Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to
reject this agreement. When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against
me that would end my premiership.
"Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that
if I did not comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings
target protesters and security personnel alike in order to pressure me. I refused again and
handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us rescinding our deal with the
Chinese.
"After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting
both protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened, he would do), I
received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we
kept on talking about this 'third party'.
"I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came
to deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians
from the Saudis (as part of a peace initiative)."
So Trump lured Soleimani to Tehran with a peace initiative, then ambushed him. That's why
Soleimani was traveling openly on a commercial flight to Baghdad International Airport. He
thought he was under US protection.
Abdul Mahdi's explanation rings true. It reflects the views of most Iraqis, who will be
galvanized by Trump's atrocious actions to resume their insurgency against US occupation.
As Iraqis continue to attack the hated US presence in their country, Trump will undoubtedly
blame Iran, whatever its actual role. So this time the Iranians will have no motivation to
avoid helping the Iraqi liberation struggle -- they would be blamed even if they didn't. Though
Soleimani was a relatively America-friendly stabilizing force after the US invasions of Iraq
and Afghanistan -- the claim that he was behind IEDs that killed US troops is a ridiculous lie
-- in the wake of his death Iran will respond positively to Iraqi requests for help in its
national liberation struggle against the hated US occupier.
A rekindled anti-US insurgency in Iraq, and various forms of ambiguous/deniable retaliation
for the murder of Gen. Soleimani throughout the region and the world, will force Trump up the
escalation ladder. Iran, and the larger eject-the-US-from-the-Mideast project, will not back
down, though they may occasionally stage tactical retreats for appearance's sake. The only way
Trump could "win" would be by completely destroying Iran. Even if Russia and China allowed
that, an unlikely prospect, Trump or any US president who "won" that kind of war would be
remembered as the worst war criminal in world history, and the US would lose all its soft power
and with it its empire.
Russia now faces the same kind of decision it had to make when the Zionist-dominated US
tried to destroy Syria: stand by and let Tehran be annihilated, with Moscow next in line; or
use its considerable military power to save its ally. Putin will have no choice but to support
Iran, just as he supported Syria. China, too, will need to ensure that the USA loses its
Zionist-driven war on Iran. Otherwise Beijing would risk facing the same fate as Tehran.
Even if the only help it gets from Russia and China is covert, Iran is in a strong position
to wage asymmetric war against the US presence in the Middle East. Almost two decades ago, the
$250 million war game Millennium Challenge 2002 blew up in the neocons' faces, as Lt. Gen. Paul
Van Riper commanded Iranian forces against the US and steered them to victory. Though some
technological developments since then may favor the US, as Dr. Alan Sabrosky recently
pointed out on my radio show , others favor Iran, which now has missiles of sufficient
quality and quantity to rain down hell on US bases, annihilate much of if not all of Israel,
and send every US ship anywhere near the Persian Gulf to the bottom of the ocean. (Anti-ship
missiles have far outstripped naval defenses, and Iran has concealed immense reserves of them
deep in the Zagros Mountains overlooking the Persian Gulf.)
So Trump or whoever follows him will eventually face a choice: Accept defeat and withdraw
all American bases and forces in the region; or continue up an escalation ladder that
inexorably leads to World War III. The higher up the ladder he goes, the harder it will be to
jump off.
The apocalyptic scenario may not be accidental. Mike Pompeo, who is widely believed to have
duped Trump into ordering the killing of Gen. Soleimani, may have done so not only on behalf of
the extremist Netanyahu faction in Israel, but also in service to an apocalyptic
Christian Zionist program that yearns for planetary nuclear destruction . Pompeo is
ardently awaiting "the rapture," the culmination of Christian Zionist history, when a global
nuclear war begins at Megiddo Hill in Occupied Palestine and consumes the planet, sending
everyone to hell except the Christian Zionists themselves, who are "beamed up" Star Trek
fashion by none other than Jesus himself.
Whether it goes down in radioactive flames or in a kinder and gentler way, the US empire, as
unstable as its leaders, is nearing the final stages of collapse. "Very stable genius" Trump
and Armageddonite Pompeo may have hastened the inevitable when they ordered the fateful killing
of Gen. Soleimani.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777
Trump
First OK'd Killing Soleimani 7 Months Ago "If Americans Killed"
by
Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/13/2020 - 13:05
0
SHARES
There's been a number of theories to emerge surrounding President Trump's incredibly risky
decision to assassinate IRGC Guds Force chief Qasem Soleimani, including that it was
all the
brainchild
of hawkish Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
But an emerging reporting consensus does indicate that the public justification for the strike
--
that
Soleimani posed an "imminent" threat as he was orchestrating an attack against American troops and
sites in the region
--
was manufactured based on flimsy intelligence. The
evolving and contradictory statements
within the administration itself demonstrates at least
this much.
And now according to the latest NBC bombshell it's becoming clear that the top IRGC general's
killing was
actually months in the works
:
President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Gen.
Qassem
Soleimani seven months ago
if Iran's increased aggression resulted in the death of an
American, according to five current and former senior administration officials.
Apparently the "option" to take him out was already on the "menu" of Pentagon contingencies long
before Soleimani's fateful Jan.3 early morning passage through Baghdad International Airport.
Reports NBC based on
multiple officials
,
"The presidential directive in June came with the condition that
Trump would have final signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said."
The Dec.27 Kataeb Hezbollah rocket attack on a US base in Kirkuk then became a core element of
the official rationale, given it killed an American contractor
later identified
as 33-year old Sacramento resident
Nawres Waleed Hamid, who
had been assisting the Army as a linguist.
The new report confirms further that it was both National Security Advisor at the time
John Bolton as well as Mike Pompeo that had Trump's ear on the subject
.
"There have been a number of options presented to the president over the course of time" related
to bold steps to curtail Iranian aggression, a senior administration official told NBC, which
reports further:
The president's message was "that's only on the table if they hit Americans,"
according to a person briefed on the discussion.
The origins of the plan to assassinate the top IRGC elite force general and popular "national
hero" inside Iran actually evolved initially out of 2017 discussions involving Trump's national
security adviser at the time, retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.
The idea of killing Soleimani came up in discussions in 2017 that Trump's national security
adviser at the time, retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, was having with other administration
officials about the president's broader national security strategy, officials said. But it was
just one of a host of possible elements of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran and
"was not something that was thought of as a first move,"
said a former senior
administration official involved in the discussions.
The idea did become more serious after McMaster was replaced in April 2018 by Bolton
,
a longtime Iran hawk and advocate for regime change in Tehran. Bolton left the White House in
September -- he said he resigned, while
Trump
said he fired him
-- following policy disagreements on Iran and other issues.
So there it is: Bolton's ultra-hawkish influence is still in effect at the White House.
Congratulations to all involved in eliminating
Qassem Soleimani. Long in the making, this was a decisive blow against Iran's malign Quds Force
activities worldwide. Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.
And the torch is being carried further by Mike Pompeo.
But again while none of this should come as a surprise, it's yet further proof on top of a
growing body of evidence that Washington is yet again telling bald-faced lies to the public about a
major event that could lead America straight back into another disastrous Middle East quagmire.
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January 4, 2020 2,300 Words
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In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of
Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning
"Imminent attacks" on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically
referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence .
Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu's government and then
Blair's, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of "pre-emptive self-defence"
against "imminent" attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts
and judges, would accept. Including me.
What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the
Bethlehem Doctrine – that here "Imminent" – the word used so carefully by Pompeo
– does not need to have its normal meanings of either "soon" or "about to happen". An
attack may be deemed "imminent", according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no
details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike
– and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of
"intelligence" you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is
nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged
in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.
I am not inventing the Bethlehem Doctrine. It has been the formal legal justification for
drone strikes and targeted assassinations by the Israeli, US and UK governments for a decade.
Here it is in academic paper form, published by Bethlehem after he left government service
(the form in which it is adopted by the US, UK and Israeli Governments is
classified information ).
So when Pompeo says attacks by Soleimani were "imminent" he is not using the word in the
normal sense in the English language. It is no use asking him what, where or when these
"imminent" attacks were planned to be. He is referencing the Bethlehem Doctrine under which you
can kill people on the basis of a feeling that they may have been about to do something.
The idea that killing an individual who you have received information is going to attack
you, but you do not know when, where or how, can be justified as self-defence, has not gained
widespread acceptance – or indeed virtually any acceptance – in legal circles
outside the ranks of the most extreme devoted neo-conservatives and zionists. Daniel Bethlehem
became the FCO's Chief Legal Adviser, brought in by Jack Straw, precisely because every single
one of the FCO's existing Legal Advisers believed the Iraq War to be illegal. In 2004, when the
House of Commons was considering the legality of the war on Iraq, Bethlehem produced a
remarkable paper for consideration which said that it was legal
because the courts and existing law were wrong , a defence which has seldom succeeded in
court.
(b) following this line, I am also of the view that the wider principles of the law on
self-defence also require closer scrutiny. I am not persuaded that the approach of doctrinal
purity reflected in the Judgments of the International Court of Justice in this area provide
a helpful edifice on which a coherent legal regime, able to address the exigencies of
contemporary international life and discourage resort to unilateral action, is easily
crafted;
The key was that the concept of "imminent" was to change:
The concept of what constitutes an "imminent" armed attack will develop to meet new
circumstances and new threats
In the absence of a respectable international lawyer willing to argue this kind of tosh,
Blair brought in Bethlehem as Chief Legal Adviser, the man who advised Netanyahu on Israel's
security wall and who was willing to say that attacking Iraq was legal on the basis of Saddam's
"imminent threat" to the UK, which proved to be non-existent. It says everything about
Bethlehem's eagerness for killing that the formulation of the Bethlehem Doctrine on
extrajudicial execution by drone came after the Iraq War, and he still gave not one second's
thought to the fact that the intelligence on the "imminent threat" can be wrong. Assassinating
people on the basis of faulty intelligence is not addressed by Bethlehem in setting out his
doctrine. The bloodlust is strong in this one.
There are literally scores of academic articles, in every respected journal of international
law, taking down the Bethlehem Doctrine for its obvious absurdities and revolting special
pleading. My favourite is this one by
Bethlehem's predecessor as the FCO Chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood and his ex-Deputy
Elizabeth Wilmshurst.
I addressed the Bethlehem Doctrine as part of my contribution to
a book reflecting on Chomsky 's essay "On the Responsibility of Intellectuals"
In the UK recently, the Attorney General gave a
speech in defence of the UK's drone policy, the assassination of people – including
British nationals – abroad. This execution without a hearing is based on several
criteria, he reassured us. His speech was repeated slavishly in the British media. In fact,
the Guardian newspaper simply republished the government press release absolutely verbatim,
and stuck a reporter's byline at the top.
The media have no interest in a critical appraisal of the process by which the British
government regularly executes without trial. Yet in fact it is extremely interesting. The
genesis of the policy lay in the appointment of Daniel Bethlehem as the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office's Chief Legal Adviser. Jack Straw made the appointment, and for the first
time ever it was external, and not from the Foreign Office's own large team of world-renowned
international lawyers. The reason for that is not in dispute. Every single one of the FCO's
legal advisers had advised that the invasion of Iraq was illegal, and Straw wished to find a
new head of the department more in tune with the neo-conservative world view. Straw went to
extremes. He appointed Daniel Bethlehem, the legal 'expert' who provided the legal advice to
Benjamin Netanyahu on the 'legality' of building the great wall hemming in the Palestinians
away from their land and water resources. Bethlehem was an enthusiastic proponent of the
invasion of Iraq. He was also the most enthusiastic proponent in the world of drone
strikes.
Bethlehem provided an opinion on the legality of drone strikes which is, to say the least,
controversial. To give one example, Bethlehem accepts that established principles of
international law dictate that lethal force may be used only to prevent an attack which is
'imminent'. Bethlehem argues that for an attack to be 'imminent' does not require it to be
'soon'. Indeed you can kill to avert an 'imminent attack' even if you have no information on
when and where it will be. You can instead rely on your target's 'pattern of behaviour'; that
is, if he has attacked before, it is reasonable to assume he will attack again and that such
an attack is 'imminent'.
There is a much deeper problem: that the evidence against the target is often extremely
dubious. Yet even allowing the evidence to be perfect, it is beyond me that the state can
kill in such circumstances without it being considered a death penalty imposed without trial
for past crimes, rather than to frustrate another 'imminent' one. You would think that
background would make an interesting story. Yet the entire 'serious' British media published
the government line, without a single journalist, not one, writing about the fact that
Bethlehem's proposed definition of 'imminent' has been widely rejected by the international
law community. The public knows none of this. They just 'know' that drone strikes are keeping
us safe from deadly attack by terrorists, because the government says so, and nobody has
attempted to give them other information
Remember, this is not just academic argument, the Bethlehem Doctrine is the formal policy
position on assassination of Israel, the US and UK governments. So that is lie one. When Pompeo
says Soleimani was planning "imminent" attacks, he is using the Bethlehem definition under
which "imminent" is a "concept" which means neither "soon" nor "definitely going to happen". To
twist a word that far from its normal English usage is to lie. To do so to justify killing
people is obscene. That is why, if I finish up in the bottom-most pit of hell, the worst thing
about the experience will be the company of Daniel Bethlehem.
Let us now move on to the next lie, which is being widely repeated, this time originated by
Donald Trump, that Soleimani was responsible for the "deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of
Americans". This lie has been parroted by everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike.
Really? Who were they? When and where? While the Bethlehem Doctrine allows you to kill
somebody because they might be going to attack someone, sometime, but you don't know who or
when, there is a reasonable expectation that if you are claiming people have already been
killed you should be able to say who and when.
The truth of the matter is that if you take every American killed including and since 9/11,
in the resultant Middle East related wars, conflicts and terrorist acts, well over 90% of them
have been killed by Sunni Muslims financed and supported out of Saudi Arabia and its gulf
satellites, and less than 10% of those Americans have been killed by Shia Muslims tied to
Iran.
This is a horribly inconvenient fact for US administrations which, regardless of party, are
beholden to Saudi Arabia and its money. It is, the USA affirms, the Sunnis who are the allies
and the Shias who are the enemy. Yet every journalist or aid worker hostage who has been
horribly beheaded or otherwise executed has been murdered by a Sunni, every jihadist terrorist
attack in the USA itself, including 9/11, has been exclusively Sunni, the Benghazi attack was
by Sunnis, Isil are Sunni, Al Nusra are Sunni, the Taliban are Sunni and the vast majority of
US troops killed in the region are killed by Sunnis.
Precisely which are these hundreds of deaths for which the Shia forces of Soleimani were
responsible? Is there a list? It is of course a simple lie. Its tenuous connection with truth
relates to the Pentagon's estimate –
suspiciously upped repeatedly since Iran became the designated enemy – that back
during the invasion of Iraq itself , 83% of US troop deaths were at the hands of Sunni
resistance and 17% of of US troop deaths were at the hands of Shia resistance, that is 603
troops. All the latter are now lain at the door of Soleimani, remarkably.
Those were US troops killed in combat during an invasion. The Iraqi Shia militias –
whether Iran backed or not – had every legal right to fight the US invasion. The idea
that the killing of invading American troops was somehow illegal or illegitimate is risible.
Plainly the US propaganda that Soleimani was "responsible for hundreds of American deaths" is
intended, as part of the justification for his murder, to give the impression he was involved
in terrorism, not legitimate combat against invading forces. The idea that the US has the right
to execute those who fight it when it invades is an absolutely stinking abnegation of the laws
of war.
As I understand it, there is very little evidence that Soleimani had active operational
command of Shia militias during the invasion, and in any case to credit him personally with
every American soldier killed is plainly a nonsense. But even if Soleimani had personally
supervised every combat success, these were legitimate acts of war. You cannot simply
assassinate opposing generals who fought you, years after you invade.
The final, and perhaps silliest lie, is Vice President Mike Pence's attempt to link
Soleimani to 9/11. There is absolutely no link between Soleimani and 9/11, and the most
strenuous efforts by the Bush regime to find evidence that would link either Iran or Iraq to
9/11 (and thus take the heat off their pals the al-Saud who were actually responsible) failed.
Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to Afghanistan. But
there is zero evidence, as the 9/11 report specifically stated, that the Iranians knew what
they were planning, or that Soleimani personally was involved. This is total bullshit. 9/11 was
Sunni and Saudi led, nothing to do with Iran.
Soleimani actually was involved in intelligence and logistical cooperation with the United
States in Afghanistan post 9/11 (the Taliban were his enemies too, the shia Tajiks being a key
part of the US aligned Northern Alliance). He was in Iraq to fight ISIL.
The final aggravating factor in the Soleimani murder is that he was an accredited combatant
general of a foreign state which the world – including the USA – recognises. The
Bethlehem Doctrine specifically applies to "non-state actors". Unlike all of the foregoing,
this next is speculation, but I suspect that the legal argument in the Pentagon ran that
Soleimani is a non-state actor when in Iraq, where the Shia militias have a semi-official
status.
But that does not wash. Soleimani is a high official in Iran who was present in Iraq as a
guest of the Iraqi government, to which the US government is allied. This greatly exacerbates
the illegality of his assassination still further.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British
Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of
Dundee from 2007 to 2010. (Republished from
CraigMurray.org by permission of author or representative)
We know Israel does this all the time but to non state actors. I dont think in recent history
anyone has openly target a state actor in such a criminal fashion because it is an act of war
and not only that but considered barbaric. To ask for mediation and then to assassinate the
messengers is an act that not even the mongols took part in and they considered it enough to
wipe out any such parties..
Good expose about the creative criminal minds twisting language and decency to justify murder
and war crimes...
A new legal doctrine to justify crimes in an industrial scale for the good of
UK-USrael.
However they might be right in claiming that Gen. Soleimani had killed or was about to
kill many "Americans" – not strictly US citizens – but the honorary American
terrorist foot soldiers fighting American wars in the Middle East.
Do terrorists act legally? The U.S. is a terrorist organisation. It is misleading to call the
US a nation or a country. Soleimani is widely-acknowledged as the architect of the successful
campaign to defeat the U.S.-Israel sponsored terrorists (ISIS and al-Qaeda) in Syria and
Iraq. The sad irony is that Iran was a major U.S. "ally" during the U.S. aggression against
Afghanistan and more importantly against Iraq. Without Iran (the Eastern front) the U.S.
would not have invaded Iraq. Iran played a major military role helping the U.S. against the
Iraqi Resistance.
How hideous that this is named Bethlehem, "The place of healing; place of birth of the Prince
of Peace.'
More appropriate to call it the ESTHER doctrine, or PURIM doctrine.
The Hebrew text provides no solid evidence that Haman sought to kill Jews: the notion is
based on Mordecha the Spy and self-serving Snitch.
Netanyahu has made public statements linking today's Iran to the Purim doctrine that Jews
celebrate to this day.
In other words, Jews demonstrate a clear patter of "imminent threat" to kill those who
resist Zionist – Anglo dominence.
Under this Purim (Bethlehem) doctrine, therefore, it is not only legitimate, it is
necessary -- a Constitutional obligation -- that the American government Kill Jews who pose
an Imminent Threat to the American -- and Iranian -- people.
As a retired international lawyer I am of the opinion Mr. Murray sets out fact and law
impressively . He says everything that is needed to be said
Good for the FCO legal team in resisting the invasion of Iraq. I do know at least one
British regiment sought independent legal advice before accepting orders.
Great article Mr. Murray, very needed in these times of almost universal deceit.
Mr. Bethlehem displays the famous Jewish quality of chutzpah – the quality of a bit
who has killed his parents in cold blood but begs the judge for mercy because he is an orphan
– when he decided to simply change the law.
I wish I had some of that Jewish privilege, that way I too could go around robbing and
killing and then simply change the law to get away Scot free.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani attended Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland,
graduating in 1995 with an M.Phil. degree in Law. Rouhani is close to Jack Straw and Straw is
very close to Lord Levy. And Lord Levy is very close to Lord Rothschild. Jack Straw says "in
Hassan Rouhani's Iran, you can feel the winds change." "Winds changing" is an understatement.
They are gust winds blowing at high velocity directly from the City of London and from
Israel's direction. All very high level British intrigue going on here in Iran. It was Jack
Straw who appointed Daniel Bethlehem who developed the "Bethlehem Doctrine" used in
justifying the assassination of General Soleinami under false pretenses Pompeo probably knew
about when he informed President Trump. From 1979 to 2013, Rouhani held a number of important
positions in the Velayat-e Faqih's key institutions, as "the man in power but in the
shadows." Hassan Rouhani's job it appears considering his education and position is through
Shia law is to continue to perpetuate the spread of the "revolution." The "revolution" is
designed to keep confrontation in place. Why not gradually move from "revolutionary Shia" to
a more conciliatory peaceful religious position? Iran's Mohammad Javad Zarif who is now an
Iranian career diplomat, spent 20 years from the age of 17 studying in the United States.
Kind of makes us look harder at John Kerry and whether or not his connections to Mohammad
Javad Zarif have anything to do with all that is unfolding here?
They all have fake names. Netanyahu is really Mileikowski. Ben Gurion was really Gruen. But
for a British Jew to grab the name Bethlehem is a real attack on Christianity.
The sad irony is that Iran was a major U.S. "ally" during the U.S. aggression against
Afghanistan and more importantly against Iraq. Without Iran (the Eastern front) the U.S.
would not have invaded Iraq. Iran played a major military role helping the U.S. against the
Iraqi Resistance.
Well, what can one say? First, there is the official narrative; then there are the
alternative narratives in their many fashions and narrations; and then there is the oddball
narrative that defies logic and reason. Iran allied with Usrael?
It may look (and is) an exorbitant stretch of imagination to come to such a view. But it
is not unique; it is not much different from the often-heard impossible claim here at UR that
Nazi Germany was allied with the Soviet Union in 1939!
Can I be the only person to think that from the moment Hitler transported his
first shipment of Haavara Agreement Jews to Palestine there has not been a moments piece in
that corner of the globe.
Can you be the only person . . .?
Possibly.
"There has not been a moment's piece [sic] in that corner of the globe" since Herzl began
attempting to co-opt the Ottoman Empire in ~1895.
Balfour ramped it up a notch in 1917; at the urging of Louis Brandeis, Woodrow Wilson
endorsed Balfour's plan.
@Wally Note here that Wally fails to condemn Trump's illegal act of war on a national of
a nation which Congress has not declared war upon.
Yes Wally, Obama was a war criminal who deserves to hang for his crimes, but if you are to
retain any credibility with which to continue your mission to expose the Holohoax, you should
also acknowledge that Trump is a war criminal too who, based on precedent, also deserves to
hang. Your loyalty is clearly misplaced.
@Dube I believe that what he actually said was that, "Israel would disappear from the
pages of history". The usual liars reported this as "Iran would wipe Israel off the map".
If the West is to fight back and survive then the first battle should surely be against
the lying media organs that bear so much responsibility for the shit-storm that is on the
way.
@Parfois1 Hillary Mann Leverett negotiated with Iranian counterparts at United Nations
and gained Iranian assistance in finding partners to defeat Taliban
March 31, 2015
"Unlike Mr. Dubowitz and many in Washington, I have actually negotiated with current
Iranian officials, and it was an effective negotiation. [it resulted] in a state enormously
not only overthrow the Taliban, but set up a proper government in Afghanistan. There is
just no evidence whatsoever that continuing to bludgeon them and pressure them is going to
do anything to give us concessions."
Leverett participated in a 'round-table discussion' with Mark Dubowitz of Foundation for
Defense of Democracy (FDD).
Dubowitz's spiel was boilerplate: "Saddam killed 200,000 of his own people, he is pursuing
nuclear weapons," blah blah blah.
On Jan 12 2020 on C Span, https://www.c-span.org/event/?467915/washington-journal-01122020
first Ilan Goldenberg of Center for New American Security (George Soros, major funder), then
Michael Rubin of American Enterprise Institute * recited the same talking points: only the
names were changed, a tacit acknowledgement that the original, Iraqi-based set of names were
dead.
*AEI Board of Trustees:
AEI is governed by a Board of Trustees, composed of leading business and financial
executives.
Daniel A. D'Aniello, Chairman
Cofounder and Chairman The Carlyle Group
Clifford S. Asness
Managing and Founding Principal
AQR Capital Management, LLC
The Honorable Richard B. Cheney
Peter H. Coors
Vice Chairman of the Board
Molson Coors Brewing Company
Harlan Crow
Chairman
Crow Holdings
Ravenel B. Curry III
Chief Investment Officer
Eagle Capital Management, LLC
-- also interesting comments from the audience @ 11 min
Leverett has also repeated, on numerous occasions, that sanctions –" a weapon of
war" -- are counterproductive and, in the case of Iraq, "killed a million Iraqis, half of
them children."
@Dube Indeed, the Jews cunningly arranged for the Arab states to look like they might
attack them in 1967. Then they swooped like a prescient eagle and blew up all the Egyptian
planes on the ground before this attack, which might not have happened otherwise, actually
happened. Its definitely a winning philosophy, but only if you are sure you are going to win
in the first place.
Leave it to a Jew and his Bethlehem Doctrine, to crush the four centuries old Treaty of
Westphalia where the principle of national sovereignty was instituted. Killing the leaders of
a sovereign nation breaks the treaty.
Assassination is a Jew tool. Killing is the Jew way.
@RouterAl"Jew Jack Straw was everything you would expect from Jew"
I seem to recall a piece in an Israeli paper saying he wasn't Jewish. It was quite witty,
saying IIRC that although he looked like a shul trustee and his career trajectory (student
politics then law then media) was classically Jewish, he has (as wiki says) only one Jewish
great-grandparent.
From wiki
"In 2013, at a round table event of the Global Diplomatic Forum at the UK's House of
Commons, Straw (who has Jewish heritage) was quoted by Israeli politician Einat Wilf, one of
the panelists at the forum, as having said that among the main obstacles to peace was the
amount of money available to Jewish organizations in the US, which controlled US foreign
policy, and also Germany's "obsession" with defending Israel."
@dimples"Its definitely a winning philosophy, but only if you are sure you are going
to win in the first place."
Yes, it didn't do the losers much good at Nuremberg, although Germany had explained the
attack of June 22 as a pre-emptive strike – " Therefore Russia has broken its
treaties and is about to attack Germany. I have ordered the German armed forces to oppose
this threat with all their strength ".
"The Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of "pre-emptive self-defence"
against "imminent" attack. That is something most people, and most international law
experts and judges, would accept."
Additionally, 400,000 of the Waffen SS were non-Germanic, yet wiki prefaces its
description of Barbarossa as "The operation put into action Nazi Germany's ideological
goal of conquering the western Soviet Union so as to repopulate it with Germans." .
The more things change, the more the lies stay the same. Like Hitler, Soleimani was a
"bad, hateful terrorist" who they smear by claiming "he deserved to die". In the end this is
really about the mother of all modern jewish lies, the "holocaust".
#1 – "When Pompeo says Soleimani was planning "imminent" attacks, he is using the
Bethlehem definition under which "imminent" is a "concept" which means neither "soon" nor
"definitely going to happen". To twist a word that far from its normal English usage is to
lie. To do so to justify killing people is obscene. That is why, if I finish up in the
bottom-most pit of hell, the worst thing about the experience will be the company of Daniel
Bethlehem."
#2 – [1] Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which
the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should
not eat of every tree of paradise? [2] And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of
the trees that are in paradise we do eat: [3] But of the fruit of the tree which is in the
midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch
it, lest perhaps we die. [4] And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the
death. [5] For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall
be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.
What do we get when we add #1 and #2?
#3 – The CIA, the Mossad, and the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency are all
offshoots from, are all in origin product of, Brit WASP secret service.
When we add the answer to the above question to #3, what then is the sum?
@Biff Agree that 9/11 had " nothing to do with Iran" but to say that "9/11 was Sunni and
Saudi led " is disinformation . Is Craig Murray , a former British Diplomat , a 9/11
gatekeeper? Murray has written
"I do not believe that the US government or any of its agencies were responsible for 9/11."
Like Noam Chomsky , Murray fails the 9/11 "litmus test ".
Trump is continuing the state terrorism by drone as carried out by Bush and Obama : "Why is
Obama still killing children [by drome] ?" cato.org :
.".. thousands of civilians , including hundreds of children , have fallen victim to his
preemptive drone strikes over the last seven years 'America's actions are legal ', Obama said
,'we were attacked on 9/11′"
So Obama had the chutzpah to blame his murder of civilians on 9/11. The Democratic and
Republican parties are truly wings which belong to the same bird of prey .
Historically, nations act in what serves their interests. Western involvement in the Middle
East has been primarily about energy security and commerce. They seek to justify it through
different means, including legalistic sophistry. The real danger of the US-Iran confrontation
is consequences that lead to no alternative but escalation. One scenario, a Tehran 79 type
hostage stand-off in Baghdad where President Trump (in an election year) could find himself
with no choice but up the ante. The spector of humiliation and defeat convincing him the only
hope is to persevere. But that could be an illusion, moving deeper into a sequence of events
leading unstoppably to the real danger in the Middle East – confrontation with Russia.
Many say it couldn't happen. History suggests otherwise. Living by the law might be the
future: learning from history the way to create that future. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Sunni this, Sunni that !@# You, Craig Murray, you whitrash piece of shit!!
If this scum was a career diplomat of that pissant island, which has never been up to any
good, then he must fundamentally be an evil scumbag, working for the pleasure of that old
thieving witch.
Just various masks of controlled opposition. Mofers all!!
Yet another mixed bag. Invoking an official government lie, thus poisoning the well.
" Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to
Afghanistan. "
" The hijackers "?
I suppose this is an inserted reference to the alleged "hijackers" that were not even on the
airline flight manifests yet became central to the phony 9/11 story that no serious person
believes.
Israel and its colony the ZUS are the most dangerous countries in the world because of their
total disregard of international law as evidenced by their joint attack on the WTC on 911 and
their using this as the excuse to destroy the middle east for Israel, which has killed
millions and kept America at war for Israel for decades!
The ZUS and Israel are in the same league as Stalin and Hitler and are a blight on
humanity!
The ZUS and Israel are in the same league as Stalin and Hitler and are a blight on
humanity!
What is your criterion for comparison, Desert Fox?
I don't know much about Stalin, so can't deal with that.
Hitler was defending Germany: he told Herbert Hoover that his three " idees fixes "
were:
"to unify Germany from its fragmentation by the Treaty of Versailles;
to expand its physical resources by moving into Russia or the Balkan States . . .[to
prevent a recurrence of] the famine;
to destroy the Russian Communist government . . .[consequent to] the brutalities of the
Communist uprisings in German cities during the Armistice period." ( Freedom
Betrayed, by Herbert Hoover).
ZUS and Israel are aggressing, invading, occupying, displacing and ethnically cleansing
forces; they are not acting defensively, as NSDAP was, by any application of logic.
This is total bullshit. 9/11 was Sunni and Saudi led, nothing to do with Iran.
The Saudis may have enabled the creation of the legends of the hijackers, but had little
or nothing to do with the execution of the operation. 9/11 certainly was carried out
preponderantly by Israeli operatives for the economic benefit of Zionist Jews and their
criminal co-conspirators in the world of finance and the councils of government.
The sentence ought to be reordered thus:
'9/11 was Sunni and Saudi led. ' That is total bullshit. In any case, it had nothing to
do with Iran.
Sean promptly serves up the CIA line, more slogans for people who are not too bright. Today
it's a little pun to muddle up the law and give CIA a desperately-sought loophole for the
crime of aggression, for which there is no justification. Sean is thinking fast as he can to
try and distract you from the necessity and proportionality tests which accompany any use of
force and govern the status of the act as countermeasure, internationally wrongful act, or
crime. Sean's indoctrination has protected his stationary hamster-wheel mind from the black
letter law of Chapter VII, including Articles 47 and 51, which place self-defense forces at
the disposal of the UNSC under direction of the Military Staff Committee. Sean also seizes up
with Orwellian CIA CRIMESTOP when he hears anything about the case law governing use of
force, such as the minimal indicative examples below.
CIA has been running from the law for 85 years now, but despite their wholesale corruption
of the Secretariat, they're losing control of the UN charter bodies and treaty bodies. Some
SIS scapegoats are going to be faking palsy in the dock to get a break. Brennan first.
@SolontoCroesus Recommend you do the research, Hitler was put into power by the zionist
banking kabal, the same kabal that rules the ZUS, read the book Wall Street and the Rise of
Hitler, and they wanted Hitler and Stalin to destroy each other, that was the zionist plan
and they used the ZUS and Britain to do it, just as they have destroyed the mideast for
Israels greater Israel agenda.
The ZUS is just like Hitler invading and destroying the mideast for Israel using the
attack on WTC as an excuse, which was a joint attack on the WTC on 911 by traitors in the ZUS
and Israel, the whole deal is a zionist driven holocaust on the people of the middle
east.
By the way Israel is perpetrating a holocaust of the people of Palestine and this
holocaust is backed by the ZUS, which is Israels military arm ie a subsidiary of the IDF.
Recommend the archives section on henrymakow.com on Hitler and Stalin.
@Jake There were no hijackers , there were no planes , they were likely CGI's in videos
produced in a "Holywood production" prior to 9/11 , see septemberclues. info "The central
role of the news media on 9/11" .
@Wally I am sure, if asked, he would condemn Obama's war crimes as well (and Bush I, Bush
II, Clinton, etc. probably going back to Lincoln at least). But the subject was about
Soleimani's assassination, which, as much as I am sure you would like to do, cannot be pinned
on Obama.
@Igor Bundy Right. The Mongols rolled the murderers of their emissaries or ambassadors in
carpets and had them trampled to death by horses. This was followed by razing the city/state.
I'm told Nuttyyahoo of Israel provided the info and encouraged it.
1) Elizabeth Warren has lied about her ethnicity and has benefited from it thus lying can
be natural for her she would most likely give a lap dance to Bibi if demanded to get
elected,
2) Arabs are being absolved of 9/11 by their Ashkenazi cousins who mistakenly believe that
they are semites despite having overwhelmingly slavic blood there must be trace amounts of
meshuggah genes mixed up with the Indo-European and thus the hatred of Iranians,
3) Jesus came once before, therefore it must reason that he is coming back the second time
and now the arrival is imminent so Daniel Bethlehem must become Christian now or go to
hell
@Jake 20 Hijackers. One, a black Moroccan Muslim, chickened out and is in jail somewhere
in the USA. The leader, Atta, was from Egypt. The lead guy to the flight that only had four
hijackers because of the Moroccan, which crashed in PA, was from Lebanon and could pass for
an American/Jew. Two were from the United Arab Emirates and the rest, 15 , were
Saudis.
Mafia-style assassination of Soleimani was undoubtedly an act of state terrorism. What's
more, it was an act of war against Iran. It was a crime committed by the US military on
orders of Trump, who publicly confessed that he gave that criminal order.
Limited Iranian response just shows that Iran government is sane, in sharp contrast to the
US government.
"to unify Germany from its fragmentation by the Treaty of Versailles;
to expand its physical resources by moving into Russia or the Balkan States . . .[to
prevent a recurrence of] the famine;
to destroy the Russian Communist government . . .[consequent to] the brutalities of the
Communist uprisings in German cities during the Armistice period." (Freedom Betrayed, by
Herbert Hoover).
Your #2 and #3 are naked aggression. Exactly as Soleimani murder.
May 8, 2019 Afghanistan, the Forgotten Proxy War. The Role of Osama bin Laden and Zbigniew
Brzezinski
The original "moderate rebel"
One of the key players in the anti-Soviet, U.S.-led regime change project against
Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi-born millionaire who came from a wealthy, powerful
family that owns a Saudi construction company and has had close ties to the Saudi royal
family.
@Been_there_done_that While I am sure that the official story of the September 11th 2001
'attack' is false, I frequently wonder why the 'truthers' seem never to be able to get all
their ducks in a row. Many claim that the film footage of the aircraft strikes were
pre-manufactured CGIs, issued to the media in order to mask the real culprits which they
allege were cruise missiles. But a cruise missile doesn't have a flight manifest. Either
those four flights that the official story says were hijacked took off that day, or they did
not. The CGI theory rests, of course, on there being no such flights. Yet you claim that 'the
hijackers' were not on flight manifests for those flights. This is surely the craziest
interpretion: either the flights were fictional (as in the CGI theory) and thus there were no
manifests, or they really did take place, and therefore had manifests, and were hijacked. If,
as you claim, the flights actually took place, but no hijackers boarded them, how on earth
did they fly into the twin towers? It makes no sense at all I fear.
Americans are now as gods. asserting their inherent right to kill anyone, anytime, anywhere,
for any reason.
"Did we just kill a kid?" In 2012 a USAF drone operator named Bryant reported he was "flying"
drones out of New Mexico and painted a 6000 mile away Afghan shack with his laser, and with
permission released a Hellfire missile. During the time the missile took to arrive, he saw on
his screen a child toddle from behind the shack. Mesmerized, in slow motion, he saw the shack
explode and the child disappear. Having killed hundreds remotely, he still wasn't ready for
this and asked his copilot: "Did we just kill a kid?". The operator answered: "I guess so".
Suddenly on the screen appeared the words of some unknown anonymous supervisor: "No, it was a
dog". Bryant responded: "A dog on two legs?"
Even the resident boomer Nam hero, Rich, might have trouble justifying this kind of activity
.but then again in a jewed out society ..maybe not.
@Desert Fox 'The ZUS and Israel are in the same league as Stalin and Hitler and are a
blight on humanity!'
Ah. I see that you are still drinking the Kool Aid regarding Herr Hitler. I used to
believe it all too. You'll learn in time, as will enough people. Only then will the gigantic
criminal enterprise fomented by 'the International Race' that we call World War II be seen
for the monstrous crime against humanity that it was. Perhaps – just perhaps –
that same sick and depraved race will then finally be so deservedly called to account for its
foul deeds.
Make no mistake: understanding just who and what Adolf Hitler really was, and especially
his role in saving at least part of the West from Communism, is absolutely central to an
appreciation of this awful world in which we now live.
@GeeBee I am under no illusions about Hitler or Stalin as both were funded by the
international zionist banking kabal, read the book Hitlers Secret Bankers by Sidney Warburg
and Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler and Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution,by
Anthony Sutton, zionists were behind the whole deal.
Recommend henrymakow.com and his
archive section on Hitler and Stalin.
@AnonFromTNLimited Iranian response just shows that Iran government is sane, in sharp
contrast to the US government.
There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy
and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions.
What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?"
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
What's ironic is that Pompeo and his fellow Americans would cry like the little girls they
are if the rest of the world starting assassinating Americans based on the same grounds. Lol
There is no such thing as international law or legality. Might makes right as shown by the US
doing as it pleases and thumbing it's nose at everyone. Some person with legal credentials
gets trotted out to declare whatever has been done is legal, just rubber-stamping it. It's
too bad but that's the reality.
@Z-man With all due respect which is 0. How pray tell did the those "hijackers" manage to
plant the explosives in the 3 World Trade towers buildings with which to imploded them? Of
course they didn't. Israel and Jews have their fingerprints all over the 911 attack.
911 was an Israeli/ Jew false flag attack that resulted in the murder of 3000 innocent
goyim before noon that day. It's purpose was to create hatred towards Arabs, Muslims and
Persians so that stupid Americans would send their children to die for the squatter colony of
Israel.
Folks the Jew controlled US government is saying that those 3 sky-scrapers collapsed into
their own footprint at free fall speed due to one cause: office furniture fires. Not the
impact of the "plane" and not the fuel carried by the "planes". This has never happened
before or since in the history of the world. It is complete bullshit. The JewSA's story is
totally impossible and defies the laws of physics. Namely the Law of the conservation of
energy.
As anyone who observers the fall of all 3 towers can see those building fall at free fall
speed. For this to happen it means that the underlying structure is offering NO resistance to
the above falling structure. How can this be? The many floors below the impact zone were in
no way effected by the fire. Yet we see them vaporized into dust as the buildings collapse
into their own footprint.
No folks this is impossible. Therefore the entire government's story is suspect and I
would suggest total bullshit.
I'll admit that in the heat of the moment I fell for this lie. But what really got my
attention was when I found out about the collapse of Building 7. A 57 story that was not hit
by any "plane". And yet it followed the same script as the Twin Towers. Use critical thinking
Americans.
I realize for many the truth about 911 is going to blow up their entire world view
regarding the exceptionalness of the US and our good buddy Israel. But it is vital for the
survival of our nation that the real criminals behind 911 be held accountable.
@AnonFromTN If so, AnonFromTn, while begging pardon for a Whataboutery argument, How does
#2 differ from the activities of Israelis, that are supported by American taxpayers; and how
does #3 differ from the activities of Americans toward Iran, whose government US / Israel has
been seeking to topple and re-form to "western" preferences, since at least 1979? *
Moreover, Desert Fox is partly (but only minimally-partly) correct in that zionist Jews
and Allies set-up or duped or manipulated or otherwise used Germany to attempt to destroy
Bolshevism in Russia, similar to the way that US used Saddam against Iran, then killed
Saddam; used Soleimani against ISIS in Iraq, then killed Soleimani.
So are the actions of USA / ZUSA excusable, unaccountable, but those of Germany were
demonstrably not?
Or should the American people remain warily alert for the next shoe to drop, when that
"arc of justice" bends inexorably their way?
* I still, perhaps stubbornly, maintain that Germany had far more justification for its
actions in seeking to vanquish a political regime that was observably committing mass murder
with the "imminent" danger of carrying out the same against the German people -- as, in fact,
was done; and that seeking to protect its people from starvation, of which 800,000 people had
died within the present memory of surviving Germans, is an obligation of the state, a far
more compelling obligation than that of "protecting American interests" 7000 miles from the
homeland, when the homeland has more than adequate capacity to provide for its people, and
when the interests being protected are those of a very few very rich individuals or
corporations.
Competing and trading fairly is far less costly than waging war, and not nearly so
ignoble.
@SolontoCroesus I am not trying to whitewash the Empire. Many of its actions are clearly
criminal, including bombing of Serbia, the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
assisting murderous Saudis in Yemen, etc. Assassination of Soleimani is yet another similarly
criminal action, not the first and likely not the last.
However, the criminality of the Empire does not justify Hitler in any way. His troops
behaved in a totally barbaric manner in the former Soviet Union. I know that not from
propaganda, but from the accounts of real people who lived through German occupation in
1941-44.
The Empire being a criminal enterprise does not make the Third Reich any less criminal.
FYI, bandits often clash with each other, and both sides in those clashes remain bandits.
Jan 13, 2020 Assassination-gate! Trump Officials Say No 'Imminent Threat.' With Guest Phil
Giraldi
Trump officials – including Trump himself today – have been steadily pulling
back from initial claims after the January 3rd assassination of Iranian top general Soleimani
that he was killed because of "imminent threats" of attack led by the Iranian.
@Paul "Noam Chomsky and the gatekeepers of the left " is a chapter in Barrie Zwicker's
book "Towers of Deception ", this chapter is available in pdf format at 9/11conspiracy.tv
.
Zwicker argues that Chomsky " In supporting the official story is at one with the right-wing
gatekeepers such as Judith Miller of the New York Times Chomsky's function is identical to
Miller's: support the official story Chomsky systematically engages in deceptive discourse on
certain key topics such as 9/11 , the Kennedy assassination and with regard to the CIA . ..A
study of Chomsky's stands show him to be a de facto defender of the status quo's most
egregious outrages and their covert agency engines To the New World Order he is worth 50
armored divisions ."
As filmmaker Roy Harvey has stated " the single greatest obstacle to the spread of 9/11 truth
is the Left media ."
"If, as you claim, the flights actually took place, but no hijackers boarded them,
how on earth did they fly into the twin towers?"
Remote control – a proven and trusted technology.
It could have been possible that some of the airline planes were electronically "switched"
in mid-air, remotely flown with their beacons turned off, to simply disappear into the South
Atlantic Ocean once their fuel ran out, while replaced by a fuel tanker in one case, to
create a bigger fireball upon impact in Manhattan, or a much smaller plane to penetrate into
the Pentagon.
The public ought to demand a thorough investigation resulting in concrete answers and
prosecutions.
Some of the alleged hijackers were actually alive after the event and outraged to have had
their identities stolen and misused.
@Biff Great article, but Craig is taking the easy way out on 9/11. Of course, the Arabs
were Sunnis, but were bit players only, and no way was 9/11 Saudi led.
NYT posted editorial by Sen. Tom Cotton (nincompoop, Arkansas) lauding the murder of
Suleimani. This is one of the readers' comments:
Bill
Nova ScotiaJan. 10
Times Pick I don't understand how the USA can kill a military leader of a country we are not at war
with in a third country no less and claim it was legal. The resulting high-pressure in the
aftermath has left 63 Canadian citizens dead. Yes, at the hands of an Iranian missile - but
many of those dead were dual Iranian Canadians. The blood is not just on Iran's hands, it is
on the USA and on trump.
The United States has murdered one of Iran's top personalities who was officially visiting
a friendly country on a diplomatic mission.
The message of the assassination of Gasem Soleimani is the persistence of Washington in
the effort to keep the world's first energy region revolt and prevent any distension
between Iran and Saudi Arabia...
(...)Soleimani was a great strategist who achieved three notable victories in the last
seventeen years: He was one of the organizers of the armed resistance to the American
occupier in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, played a great role in the expulsion of the
Islamic State from Iraq and defeated then the jihadist conglomerate in Syria (Islamic
State, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, etc.) financed and supported by the CIA and the Gulf oil
monarchies. It was Soleimani who in 2015 convinced Vladimir Putin of the advisability of
helping the Syrian government militarily, which has ended up restoring its control of the
country by thwarting a new regime change operation that has resulted in another huge
slaughter.
(...)Since Friday, January 3, all commentators announced an Iranian response to this
"declaration of war" by Trump, or his generals, does not matter. It is forgotten that this
war has been a fact for many years. Historically it began with the coup d'etat against
Mossadeq, the Iranian prime minister who nationalized oil, and continued with the reaction
to the Khomeinist Revolution of 1979, which induced the West to provoke the bloody war
between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s with hundreds of thousands of dead.
(...)The unilateral withdrawal of the United States, in May 2018, from the nuclear
agreement reached with Iran, as well as the sanctions suffered by that country, the murders
of Iranian scientists and the attacks, sanctions and the financial and oil blockade that
suffocates the Iranian economy, form Part of that war. For 19 months, Iranian oil exports,
which in 2017 were 2.5 million barrels per day, have fallen to a few hundred thousand as a
result of Trump's sanctions.
(...)And in the meantime in Europe ...
On Sunday, January 5, 48 hours after the murder in Baghdad, the leaders of the three
main European powers, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johson, released their joint
statement. In it the murder of Soleimani is not even mentioned. "We have denounced the
recent attacks on coalition troops in Iraq and are deeply concerned about the negative role
played by Iran in the region, especially through the guards of the revolution and of the
al-Quds unit under the command of General Soleimani", says the statement. "We especially
call on Iran to refrain from more violence", it continues. In other personal statements
Johnson told Trump that Soleimani "posed a threat to all our interests" and that "we do not
regret his death". Macron expressed concern about the destabilizing role of the forces led
by the assassinated general and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stated that the General
"had left a trail of devastation and blood in the Middle East" and that "the European Union
had good reasons to have him on its list of terrorists". This statement prompted Tehran to
summon the German ambassador and censor him for his support of the "terrorist attack by the
United States". For its part, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der
Leyen, has held Iran alone responsible for escalating tensions in the Middle East and has
justified the murder as a reaction to the provocations suffered by the Americans in Iraq.
Once again the "European foreign policy" is portrayed.
It is in Germany, at the base of Ramstein, where the command and control point of
drone attacks by US forces is located. An anonymous German citizen has filed a complaint in
the town of Zweibrücken to be elucidated if the murder was piloted from Ramstein. Such
action being a violation of international law and German law, it has filed a complaint
"against all suspects of such crime in Germany and the United States." Those who still
believe in the European "rule of law" for international purposes, can hold on to this
symbolic gesture without the slightest future.
... He was viewed as crucial to the victory over ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in
Iraq, much feared by Iranians. Shia take martyrdom seriously, and he is viewed as a martyr. It
appears that even Trump took notice of the massive outpouring of mourning and praise for
Soleimani there up to the point of people dying in a stampede in a mourning crowd in his
hometown. But, hey, obviously these people simply do not understand that he was The World's
Number One Terrorist! Heck, I saw one commenter on Marginal Revolution claiming Soleimani was
responsible killing "hundreds of thousands." Yes, this sort of claim is floating around out
there.
A basic problem here is that while indeed Soleimani commanded the IGRC al Quds force that
supported and supplied various Shia militias in several Middle Eastern nations, these all were
(and are) ultimately independent. Soleimani may have advised them, but he was never in a
position to order any of them to do anything. Al Quds itself has never carried out any of the
various attacks outside of Iran that Soleimani is supposedly personally responsible for.
Let us consider the specific case that gets pushed most emphatically, the 603 Americans dead
in Iraq, without doubt a hot button item here in the US. First of all, even if Soleimani really
was personally responsible for their deaths, there is the technical matter that their deaths
cannot be labeled "terrorism." That is about killing non-combatant civilians, not military
personnel involved in combat. I do not support the killing of those American soldiers, most of
whom were done in by IEDs, which also horribly injured many more. But indeed this awful stuff
happened. But in fact this was all done by Iraqi -based Shia militias. Yes, they were supported
by Soleimani, but while some have charged al Quds suppplied the IEDs, this turns out not to be
the case. These were apparently made in Iraq by these local militias. Soleimani's al Quds are
not totally innocent in all this, reportedly providing some training and some inputs. But the
IEDs were made by the militias themselves and planted by them.
It is also the case that when the militias and Americans were working together against
ISIS/IISIL/Daesh, none of this happened, and indeed that was still the case up until this most
recent set of events, with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor
caught on a base where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi
group. Of course with Trump having Soleimani assassinated, this cooperation has ceased, with
the US military no longer either fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor training the Iraqi military.
Indeed, the Iraqi parliament has demanded that US troops leave entirely, although Trump
threatened Iraq with economic sanctions if that is followed through on.
As it is, the US dating back to the Obama administration has been supplying Saudi Arabia
with both arms and intelligence that has been used to kill thousands of Yemeni civilians.
Frankly, US leaders look more like terrorists than Soleimani.
I shall close by noting the major changes in opinion in both Iran and Iraq regarding the US
as a result of this assassination. In Iran as many have noted there were major demonstrations
against the regime going on, protesting bad economic conditions, even as those substantially
were the result of the illegal US economic sanctions imposed after the US withdrew from the
JCPOA nuclear deal, to which Iran was adhering. Now those demonstrations have stopped and been
replaced by the mass demonstrations against the US over Soleimani's assassination. And we also
have Iran further withdrawing from that deal and moving to more highly enrich uranium.
In Iraq, there had been major anti-Iran demonstrations going on, with these supported to
some degree by the highest religious authority in the nation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. However,
when Soleimani's body was being transferred to Iran, Sistani's son accompanied his body. It
really is hard to see anything that justifies this assassination.
Barkley Rosser
JDM , January 10, 2020 12:32 pm
I think this quote is apropos in this situation: "It was worse than wrong. It was a
mistake."
Bert Schlitz , January 10, 2020 3:46 pm
They had a handshake agreement, which was why Solemiani wasn't under protection. The
Solemiani killed Americans stuff cracks me up. He was a military advisor for the Shia militia's
who were attacked by US forces during a unsanctioned war in 2003 .uh derp derp. There have been
many other generals that have committed "death of american" crimes that the Trump Admin seems
to love.
As my father used to say "homosexuals make great commie fighters"(homosexuals like Joe
McCarthy of Wisconsin agree lol). The zionists so badly want this war in the Trump
administration, but Trump doesn't have the guts to just invade like Iraq.
it appears i had a comment on this same post removed from Naked Capitalism
i asked "was his assassination due to the impeachment proceedings, and should the Democrats
in Congress be held responsible for the deaths on Ukrainian flight 752?"
sure, that's off the wall, but i still think it addresses a legitimate question i don't
think one can separate the personal situation a megalomaniac president like Trump finds himself
in from his behavior .i was a news junky back during the Iraq war era, & what i remember
most about the runup was that the big story in all the news mags the week before the war
started was that Neil Bush, George's son, had lost millions of depositor's money playing poker
in the back offices of Silverado Savings and Loan in Denver, and that you then could't find a
word about that story anywhere the next week cause George & Saddam had all the coverage .so
i have always felt that Bush might have pushed that war forward to take the media heat off his
kid
run75441 , January 10, 2020 5:38 pm
No surprise, when I preempt their article on healthcare with commentary; my comments
disappear. Get used to it when you can say more than they can.
well, here you go, Trump actually admitting to what i've been banned for suggesting via
Jonathan Chait:
Report: Trump Cited Impeachment Pressure to Kill Soleimani – Deep inside a long,
detailed Wall Street Journal
report about President Trump's foreign policy advisers is an explosive nugget: "Mr. Trump,
after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP
senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate,
associates said." This is a slightly stronger iteration of a fact the New York Timesreported
three days ago, to wit, "pointed out to one person who spoke to him on the phone last week that
he had been pressured to take a harder line on Iran by some Republican senators whose support
he needs now more than ever amid an impeachment battle."This would not mean Trump ordered the
strike entirely, or even primarily, in order to placate Senate Republicans. But it does
constitute an admission that domestic political considerations influenced his decision.
That would, of course, constitute a grave dereliction of duty. Trump is so cynical he wouldn't
even recognize that making foreign policy decisions influenced by impeachment is
the kind of thing he shouldn't say out loud. Of course, using his foreign policy authority for
domestic political gain is the offense Trump is being impeached for. It would be
characteristically Trumpian to compound the offense as part of his efforts to avoid
accountability for it. What kind of pressure could Trump have in mind? It seems highly doubtful
that he is worried 20 Republican senators would vote to remove him from office. He could be
concerned that one or two of them would defect, denying him the chance to present impeachment
as totally partisan (as he did following the House vote.) More plausibly, Trump might be
worried a handful of Republicans would join Democrats to allow testimony from witnesses, like
John Bolton, Trump has managed to block.
likbez , January 11, 2020 10:24 pm
@JDM, January 10, 2020 12:32 pm
I think this quote is apropos in this situation: "It was worse than wrong. It was a
mistake."
This is a very deep observation. Thank you. BTW the original quote is attributed to
Talleyrand and is more biting:
C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute.
It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.
Reaction to the 1804 drumhead trial and execution of Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of
Enghien, on orders of Napoleon. Actually said by either Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe,
legislative deputy from Meurthe (according to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) or
Joseph Fouché, Napoleon's chief of police (according to John Bartlett, Familiar
Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), http://www.bartleby.com/100/758.1.html ).
Rephrasing Kissinger: " Assassination is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of
one".
Everyone keeps dancing around it: Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani
was on the way to see him with a reply to a Saudi peace proposal. Who profits from
Peace? Who does not?
The killing of Soleimani, while a tragic even with far reaching consequences, is just
an illustration of the general rule: MIC does not profit from peace. And MIC dominates
any national security state, into which the USA was transformed by the technological
revolution on computers and communications, as well as the events of 9/11.
The USA government can be viewed as just a public relations center for MIC. That's why
Trump/Pompeo/Esper/Pence gang position themselves as rabid neocons, which means MIC
lobbyists in order to hold their respective positions. There is no way out of this
situation. This is a classic Catch 22 trap.
The fact that a couple of them are also "Rapture" obsessed religious bigots means that
the principle of separation of church and state does no matter when MIC interests are
involved.
The health of MIC requires maintaining an inflated defense budget at all costs. Which,
in turn, drives foreign wars and the drive to capture other nations' resources to
compensate for MIC appetite. The drive which is of course closely allied with Wall Street
interests (disaster capitalism.)
In such conditions fake "imminent threat" assassinations necessarily start happening.
Although the personality of Pompeo and the fact that he is a big friend of the current
head of Mossad probably played some role.
It's really funny that Trump (probably with the help of his "reference group," which
includes Adelson and Kushner), managed to appoint as the top US diplomat a person who was
trained as a mechanic engineer and specialized as a tank repair mechanic. And who was a
long-time military contractor. So it is quite natural that he represents interests of
MIC.
IMHO under Trump/Pompeo/Esper trio some kind of additional skirmishes with Iran are a
real possibility: they are necessary to maintain the current inflated level of defense
spending.
State of the US infrastructure, the actual level of unemployment (U6 is ~7% which some
neolibs call full employment ;-), and the level of poverty of the bottom 33% of the USA
population be damned. Essentially the bottom 33% is the third world country within the
USA.
"If you make more than $15,000 (roughly the annual salary of a minimum-wage employee
working 40 hours per week), you earn more than 32.2% of Americans
The 894 people that earn more than $20 million make more than 99.99989% of
Americans, and are compensated a cumulative $37,009,979,568 per year. "
"... What no one is mentioning is: the US airstrikes on Iraqi military bases, and Soleimani's murder contributed greatly to the hair trigger response of Iran's air defense forces. If Washington did not turn the heat up on both Iraq and Iran there would have been no need for Iran's retaliation, and thus the level of Iran's domestic defense forces would not have been so nervous as to pull the trigger downing the airliner. ..."
"... Former CIA high-ranking official accidentally reveals the type of the false flag operation that the US imperialists will orchestrate to start a war with Iran https://failedevolution.blogspot.com/2020/01/former-cia-high-ranking-official.html ..."
"... It reminds me too much of MH-17, which was not hit with a BUK but with bullets. Iran should have closed its airspace because such tricks are to be expected, irrespective of the cause of the current accident. ..."
When the Pentagon confirmed the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, U.S.
President Donald Trump took to social media to post a single image of the American flag to the
adulation of his followers. Unfortunately, most Americans are ignorant of the other flag
synonymous with U.S. foreign policy, that of the 'false flag' utilized to deceive the public
and stir up support for endless war abroad. While the chicken hawk defenders of Trump's
reckless decision to murder one of the biggest contributors in the defeat of ISIS salivated
over possible war with Iran, their appetite was spoiled by Tehran's retaliatory precision
strikes of two U.S. bases in Iraq that deliberately avoided casualties while in accordance with
the Islamic Republic's right to self defense under Article 51 of the United Nations charter.
The reprisal successfully deescalated the crisis but sent a clear message Iran was willing to
stand up to the U.S. with the backing of Russia and China, while Washington underestimated
Tehran which forewarned the Iraqi government of its impending counterattack so U.S. personnel
could evacuate.
In the hours following the ballistic missile strikes, reports came in that a Boeing 737
international passenger flight scheduled from Tehran to Kiev, Ukraine had crashed shortly after
takeoff from Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 passengers and flight crew on
board. Initial video of the crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 (PS752) showed
that the aircraft was already in flames while descending to the ground, leading to speculation
it was shot down amid the heightened political crisis between Iran and Washington. In the days
following, a second obscure video surfaced which only increased this suspicion. Meanwhile,
Western governments quickly concluded that an anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile brought
PS752 down and were eager to point the finger at Iran before any formal investigation. Many
people, including this author, were admittedly skeptical as to how a plane taking off from
Tehran could have been mistaken five hours after the strikes in Iraq.
Nevertheless, those with reservations turned out to be wrong when days later the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) came clean that its aerospace forces made a "human error" and
accidentally shot the passenger plane down after mistaking it for a incoming cruise missile
when it flew close to a military base during a heightened state of alert in anticipation of
U.S. attack. Many have noted that Iran's honorable decision to take responsibility for the
catastrophe is in sharp contrast with Washington's response in 1988 when the U.S. Navy shot
down Iran Air Flight 655 scheduled from Tehran to Dubai over the Strait of Hormuz in the
Persian Gulf, killing all 290 occupants, after failing to cover it up. Just a month later, Vice
President George H.W. Bush would notoriously state he would " never apologize for the United
States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are ." Although he was not directly
referring to the incident, one can only imagine what the reaction would be if Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani were to say the same weeks after shooting down the Ukrainian plane, let alone an
American one. Predictably, Tehran's transparency has gone mostly unappreciated while the Trump
administration is already trying to use the disaster to further demonize Iran.
Oddly enough, Ukrainian International Airlines is partly owned by the infamous
Ukrainian-Israeli oligarch, politician and energy tycoon Igor Kolomoisky, who was notably one
of the biggest financiers of the anti-Russian, pro-EU coup d'etat which overthrew the
democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Kolomoisky is also a principal
backer of current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky whose dubious phone call with Trump
resulted in the 45th U.S. president's impeachment last month. In another astounding
coincidence, Kolomoisky's Privat Group is believed to control Burisma Holdings, the
Cypress-based company whose executive board 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter
was appointed to following the Maidan junta. The former Vice President admitted that he bribed
Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor who was looking into his son's corruption by threatening
to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees.
Kolomoisky, AKA "the Chameleon", is one of the wealthiest people in the ex-Soviet country
and was formerly appointed as governor of an administrative region bordering Donbass in eastern
Ukraine following the 2014 putsch. He has also funded a battalion of volunteer neo-Nazi
mercenaries fighting alongside the Ukrainian army in the War in Donbass against
Russian-speaking separatists which the military aid temporarily withheld by the Trump
administration that was disputably contingent upon an investigation of Biden and his son goes
to. In 2014, another infamous plane shootdown made international headlines when Malaysian
Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) scheduled from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over the
breakaway Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and
crew.
From the get-go, the Obama administration was adamant that the missile which shot down the
Boeing 777 came from separatist rebel territory. However, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin
Mohamad denounced the charges brought against the Russian and Ukrainian nationals indicted in
the NATO-led investigation, dismissing the entire probe as a politically motivated effort
predetermined to scapegoat Moscow and exclude Malaysian participation in the inquiry from the
very beginning. Mohamad is featured in the excellent documentaryMH17: Call for Justice
made by a team of independent journalists which contests the NATO-scripted narrative and
reveals that the Buk missile was more likely launched from Ukrainian Army-controlled territory
than the DPR. One of Kolomoisky's hired guns could also have been responsible.
Shamefully, Iran's admission of guilt in the PS752 downing is already being used by
establishment propagandists to discredit skeptics and conflated with similar contested past
events like MH17 in order to intimidate dissenting voices from speaking up in the future. The
Bellingcat 'investigative journalism' collective which made its name incriminating Moscow for
the MH17 tragedy are the principle offenders. Bellingcat bills itself as an 'independent'
citizen journalism group even though its founder Eliot Higgins is employed by the Atlantic
Council think tank which receives funding from NATO, the U.S. State Department, the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), George Soros' Open Society Foundation NGO, and numerous other
regime change factories. Despite its enormous conflict of interest, Bellingcat remains highly
cited by corporate media as a supposedly reputable source. At the outset, nearly everything
about the PS752 tragedy gave one déjà vu of the MH17 disaster, including the rush
to judgement by Western governments, so it was only natural for many to distrust the official
narrative until more facts came out.
None of this changes that the use of commercial passenger jets as false flag targets for
U.S. national security subterfuge is a verifiable historical fact, not a 'conspiracy theory.'
In 1997, the U.S. National Archives declassified a 1962 memo proposed by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and Department of Defense for then-Secretary of State Robert McNamara entitled
" Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba ." The document outlined a series
of 'false flag' terrorist attacks, codenamed Operation Northwoods, to be carried out on a range
of targets and blamed on the Cuban government to give grounds for an invasion of Havana in
order to depose Fidel Castro. These scenarios included targets within the U.S., in particular
Miami, Florida, which had become a haven of right-wing émigrés and defectors
following the Cuban Revolution. In addition to the sinking of a Cuban refugee boat, one
Northwoods plan included the staging of attacks on a civilian jet airliner and a U.S. Air Force
plane to be pinned on Castro's government:
"8. It is possible to create and incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban
aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States
to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the
flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a
holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a
non-scheduled flight.
9. It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban
MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack."
Although Operation Northwoods was rejected by then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy which many
believe was a factor in his subsequent assassination, Cuban exiles with the support of U.S.
intelligence would later be implicated in such an attack the following decade with the bombing
of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 in 1976 which killed all 73 passengers and crew on board. In
2005, documents released by the
National Security Archive showed that the CIA under then-director George H.W. Bush had advanced
knowledge of the plans of a Dominican Republic-based Cuban exile terrorist organization, the
Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), at the direction of former CIA
operative Luis Posada Carriles to blow up the airliner. The U.S. later refused to extradite
Carriles to Cuba to face charges and although he never admitted to masterminding the bombing of
the jet, he publicly confessed to other attacks on tourist hotels in Cuba during the 1990s and
was later arrested in 2000 for attempting to blow up an auditorium in Panama trying to
assassinate Castro.
In 1962, the planners of Operation Northwoods concluded that such deceptive operations would
shift U.S. public opinion unanimously against Cuba.
"World opinion and the United Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing the
international image of Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and
unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere."
The same talking points are used by the U.S. government to demonize Iran today. Initially,
some Western intelligence sources also
concluded that it was a malfunction or overheated engine that brought PS752 down in
corroboration with the Iranian government's original explanation until the narrative abruptly
shifted the following day. That they were so quick to hold Iran accountable without any
investigation gave the apparent likelihood that PS752 could have fallen prey to a
Northwoods-style false flag operation designed to further isolate Iran and defame its leaders
after they took precautions to avoid U.S. casualties in their retaliatory strikes for the
killing of Soleimani. Maintaining the image of Iran as a nefarious regime is crucial in
justifying hawkish U.S. policies toward the country and Iran's noted restraint in its
retaliation put a dent in that impression, so many were suspicious and rightly so.
It was also entirely plausible that U.S. special operations planners could have consulted
the Northwoods playbook replacing Cuba with Iran and the right-wing gusanos who were to assist
the staged attacks in Miami with the Iranian opposition group known as Mujahedin e-Khalq
(MEK/People's Mujahedin of Iran) to do the same in Tehran. In July of last year, Trump's
personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave a paid speech at the
cult-like group's compound in Albania where he not only referred to the group as Iran's
"government-in-exile" but stated
the U.S's explicit intentions to use them for regime change in Iran. The MEK enjoys high level
contacts in the Trump administration and the group was elated at his decision to murder
Soleimani in Baghdad.
From 1997 until 2012, the MEK was on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations
until it was removed by the Obama administration after its expulsion from Iraq in order to
relocate the group to fortified bases in Albania and the NATO protectorate of Kosovo. The
latter disputed territory is a perfect fit for the rebranded group having been founded by
another deregistered foreign terrorist organization, the al-Qaeda linked Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA), whose leader, Hashim Thaçi, presides over the partially-recognized state. The MEK
are no longer designated as such despite the State Department's own account of its
bloody history:
"During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran to destabilize and
embarrass the Shah's regime; the group killed several US military personnel and civilians
working on defense projects in Tehran. The group also supported the takeover in 1979 of the
US Embassy in Tehran. In April 1992 the MEK carried out attacks on Iranian embassies in 13
different countries, demonstrating the group's ability to mount large-scale operations
overseas."
Declassified documents revealing the sinister plans in Operation Northwoods which shockingly
made it all the way to the desk of the president of the United States and the foreknowledge of
Cubana Airlines Flight 455 are just two examples of solid proof that false flag attacks against
civilian passenger planes are a part of the Pentagon's modus operandi as disclosed in its own
archives and there is no reason to believe that such practices have been discontinued. That the
U.S. is still cozy with "former" terror groups like MEK seeking to repatriate is good reason to
believe its use of militant exiles for covert operations like those from Havana has not been
retired. If there were jumps to conclusions that proven serial liars could be looking for an
excuse to stage an attack to lay the blame on Iran, it is only because the distinct probability
was overwhelming. Even so, a stopped clock strikes the right time twice per day and that is
all Iran's acknowledgment of its liability proves -- that even the world's most
unreliable and criminal sources in Washington and Langley can be accurate sometimes
What no one is mentioning is: the US airstrikes on Iraqi military bases, and Soleimani's
murder contributed greatly to the hair trigger response of Iran's air defense forces. If
Washington did not turn the heat up on both Iraq and Iran there would have been no need for
Iran's retaliation, and thus the level of Iran's domestic defense forces would not have been
so nervous as to pull the trigger downing the airliner.
But, if's a huge word.
Israel has had control of Iran's Russian middle systems for years. Russia gave them the
codes.
I think Israel blew up the aircraft. I can't find a link but I heard a huge number of
Soleimani loyalists were arrested in Iran. Someone should have a link to that from Twitter or
somewhere.
I think that there was some kind of collaboration between Khamenei, Israel and the US to
remove Soleimani who had designs on a coup.
I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.
I also don't know who was on that plane. So it's unclear if it was good or bad it was
destroyed. Who knows who those 176 dual Iranian Nationals were.
I just know that if Israel had control of those missile units and it would embarrass Iran
for that to be revealed it makes sense for Iran to claim the lesser of two deep shames.
Particularly if there has been some kind of tacit acceptance of a status as a vassal state
to either the US or Israel behind the scenes to preserve the regime.
Perhaps the MEK or a different vassal ruler who is really crypto Jewish will be appointed
in Solemeinis place, and Iran will hence offer a symbolic enemy to justify the continuation
of the military industrial complex in both Israel and the US.
Even a blind squirrel, even a broken clock twice a day.. The Empire's statements and blind
accusations could have been for any tragedy in a country they were psyopsing, only a matter
of chance for them to be right at some time. In any case, it wasn't intentional on Iran's
part.
Only if accidental means a joint Russian/Iranian hit on a Ukrainian plane carrying fleeing
cia/mossad agents.
This whole situation has once again displayed how easy it is for the zio-media to control
what we see and hear and believe. Disturbingly, that means that things like metoo and
"believe all women" are operations too.
@the grand wazoo I wouldn't be surprised it the FDR shows that the plane strayed off its
registered Flightpath and was involved in a covert recon mission that went bad.
It reminds me too much of MH-17, which was not hit with a BUK but with bullets. Iran should have closed its airspace
because such tricks are to be expected, irrespective of the cause of the current accident. There is no immediate reason
for Iranians to fly to Ukraine, or anywhere else. It may sound silly but flying is still a special and dangerous thing and
should not be taken for granted.
For someone who doesn't watch television or read Iranian newspapers it was only reported
on Twitter and then repeated by PressTV and others on internet. Which parts of the story are
real?
Of course, it was a huge and most regrettable mistake. Doubtless, the Iranians will
compensate the victims for what that is worth. Most of the passengers were Iranians. I
suspect that many of the "Canadians" Trudeau is on about are of Iranian descent. They would
certainly be considered to be Iranians in Iran.
The series of coincidences highlighted in this article are remarkable. It has
synchronicity splashed all over it.
I worked at Tehran airport for some years prior to the Revolution. After the Revolution, I
volunteered to return on behalf of Raytheon (of all companies) to get some money owing. No
one else was prepared to go there. Iran Air personnel were delighted to meet me again and
they promptly paid the bill. I took a holiday to the Caspian with my ex-girlfriend.
A further piece of synchronicity is that I am currently visiting Kiev. The world is a
truly incestuous place.
Set aside the beatup of two operations that neither the CIA or any American agency carried
out the author has apparently failed to see the obvious. That is that the Iranians had no
possibility of covering up the missile strike. Or did he imagine that everyone who might tell
the truth could be kept permanently separated from plane parts and bodies which would have
shown unmistakeable and undeniable evidences of the strike.
"... The 16-month study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) called Iran's Networks of Influence claims that the networks, including Shia militias fighting in what it says is a "grey zone", for instance, are something Iran heavily relies on, even to a greater extent than conventional military forces. ..."
"... Although the report concedes that overall military balance is still in favor of the US and allies, the balance of effective forces has shifted towards Iran and is currently in the Islamic Republic's favour. The study goes on to claim that "Iran is fighting and winning wars 'fought amongst the people', not wars between states". ..."
"... The study has also come up with a number of calculations: the extraterritorial al-Quds force and various militias reportedly amount to 200,000 fighters. Meanwhile, the total cost of Iran's activities in Iraq and Yemen was $16 billion, and Lebanon's Hezbollah reportedly receives $700 million in grants from the Islamic Republic. ..."
A fresh in-depth study of Iran's military capabilities and balance of power in the embattled
Middle East has assumed that regional wars are being waged on two layers - between states and
in a so-called "grey zone", where no conventional force can counterbalance Iran's sovereign
dominance. As one of the most detailed assessments of Iran's military strategy suggests, the
Islamic Republic's "third party capability" has becomes Tehran's most prominent weapon of
choice.
The 16-month study by the International
Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) called Iran's Networks of Influence claims that the
networks, including Shia militias fighting in what it says is a "grey zone", for instance, are
something Iran heavily relies on, even to a greater extent than conventional military
forces.
The network is said to be operating differently in most countries, having been designed by
Tehran as a key means of countering regional instability and international pressure alike, with
the policy "having consistently delivered Iran advantage without the cost or risk of direct
confrontation with adversaries".
Although the report concedes that overall military balance is still in favor of the US and
allies, the balance of effective forces has shifted towards Iran and is currently in the
Islamic Republic's favour. The study goes on to claim that "Iran is fighting and winning wars
'fought amongst the people', not wars between states".
The report details at length the balance of power in the region painting it as "complex and
congested battle spaces involving no rule of law or accountability, low visibility and
multiple players who represent a mosaic of local and regional interests".
The study has also come up with a number of calculations: the extraterritorial al-Quds force
and various militias reportedly amount to 200,000 fighters. Meanwhile, the total cost of Iran's
activities in Iraq and Yemen was $16 billion, and Lebanon's Hezbollah reportedly receives $700
million in grants from the Islamic Republic.
The report comes as Iran continues to battle US-imposed economic sanctions, which closely
followed Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in
May 2018.
On 8 May, the first anniversary of the move, Tehran announced that it would start
scrapping its nuclear obligations stipulated by the JCPOA every 60 days unless European
signatories did their best to save the agreement, safeguarding Iran's interests amid
Washington's re-imposed sanctions.
"... What i find truly amazing is that American Zionists still believe crushing Iran is easy enough. Israel, with 8 million jews stuffed in a small country, is nothing more than a carrier battle group marooned on land ..."
The tramp & nutNyahoo machismo show continues to be fun to watch. Both
show off their penis worms as they arrogantly claim they can crush iran. Both the usa and
israel keep banging on the doors and walls of their pissed-off neighbors' houses. That
eventually gets you murdered whether in baltimore or baghdad.
A crushable iran is true if and only if they can mount a full-on nuclear war on Iran.
But such horrendous cheating means all bets are off, and iran's allies will provide the
nukes required to melt down the American homeland too. Nobody, not even Russia and china,
can afford to stay in the sidelines in a nuclear war in the 2020s.
What i find truly amazing is that American Zionists still believe crushing Iran is easy
enough. Israel, with 8 million jews stuffed in a small country, is nothing more than a
carrier battle group marooned on land. Sitting ducks, with nice armor, nukes and all, are
... still sitting ducks. nutNyahoo should ask his technical crew just how few megatons are
needed, or just a few thousand modern missiles are required to transform sitting ducks into
nicely roasted peking ducks.
So a conventional war it is. The usa and israel has exactly zero, zilch and nada chances
of winning a war with iran. The usa keeps forgetting that it is a dying empire with dying
funding value and mental resources. Just like israel which oddly thinks dozens of f-35s
will give it immunity through air superiority. Proof of this fact that iran will win comes
from simply asking american and israeli war experts to go on cnn or the washington post on
how they intend to win a war with iran.
Im sure these expert bloviators will say that it is as easy as winning a naval war
against china, which is capable of launching only 3 new warships in a week. Or an even
easier time against russia, which can launch only a few thousand hypersonic nuke missiles
because its GDP is no bigger than that of texas.
The Pentagon is super slow to adapt and learn. If you understand that
bureaucracy is an ancient organizational structure and that the organizational culture of
the Pentagon is pathologically dysfunctional you could have predicted the moral and
financial bankruptcy of America 15-20 years ago. The "Why?", finally made sense when I
discovered what a sociopath was.
It's about time the US practices what it preachs and start behaving like a normal
country instead of a spoiled narcissistic brat. see more
US military & strategic thought became lazy during the
late days of the Cold War. It mirrored the decline & fall of the foundations of its
opponent, USSR. Post-Cold War, US military & strategic thinking flushed into the sewer.
It was all about maintaining the military as some sort of a social policy jobs program,
operating legacy tech as the mission. And then came the "world-improvers" -- beginning w
the Clinton Admin -- who worked to turn the world into a global "urban renewal" project;
meaning to mirror the success US Big Govt showed in the slums of American cities from sea
to sea. The past 30 yrs of US strategic thinking and related governance truly disgusts me.
see more
Soviet union fall had very different reasons and Soviet military thought was
doing quite well then along with military. Current russian military wonders is completion
of what was started then and not finished earlier because of the disintegration of the
Soviet state. The soviet fall however is extremely regrettable because there was a new way how things can
be done that Soviet union was showing to the world. USA fall long term is a very good thing
because USA is a paragon of how things should be done the old way and basically a huge
parasite. Many negative trends that are afflicting the world were started by USA. Unlimited
individualism and consumerism would be a couple of those. see more
Why does almost every person on Earth feel the need to force others to
bend the knee to their beliefs?
Religious beliefs are what one thinks should be done to promote survival in an
afterlife, political beliefs are what one thinks should be done to promote survival in this
world.
The world would be a far better, more civilized, of world if such beliefs were only
shared on a voluntary basis.
As for individualism, I would rather be free than live in a modern day egalitarian
hunter-gatherer tribe run by modern day psychopathic alpha-males.
That is certainly not a recipe for success. see more
It also mirrors the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It was Emperor
Augustus that decided the costs to further expand the Empire were too great after losing
one (or two?) legions against the Germanic tribes.
The US has reached its greatest extent. We are living through it. The US didn't go forward
into war with Iran twice. The odds of humanity surviving this immense turn of history is
looking better. see more
Frankly, nothing in common. I read this comparison all the
time.
Yes, Augustus decided not to continue along with expansion into Germany after losing 3
Varus legions due to ambush.
But he famously noted that it does not worth to go fishing with golden hook. Basically
speaking, Germany was not worth fighting for. Poor and remote it had nothing to offer. Just
a drain on resources. As long as conquest was moving smoothly it was ok, but after losses
were inflicted Augustus decided it was not worth it.
Roman expansion under augustus was carried mostly to consolidate previous conquests and
create strategical debth along core and strategical provinces also creating linkage.
When enemy far stronger than germans posed resources which made the whole conquest worthy
no amount of resistance saved Dacians and Parthia also almost died under Trajan attack.
Roman policies were adequate and wise. Treaties were respected, allies supported and
benefited. Empire was build around Mediterranean creating good communication and routes
considering obviously limits of that day technology.
Rome did not behave like crazy and did not deliver threats that she could not follow
through. When war was decided upon thorough preparations were taken. Political goals were
achieved. Wars were won. When Adrian considered that empire was overextended in Parthis, he
simply abandoned all conquered territories. Just like that.
Logical calm thinking USA,is not capable of. Rome truly based upon superior military and
diplomacy dominance lasted many centuries. USA few decades. One hit wonder, lucky fool I
would call it. see more
Yes, this is somewhat puzzling. As I said, let's wait and see where it all
develops to, but as Twisted Genius succinctly observed -- Iran now controls tempo because she
has conventional superiority. Anyone who has precision-guided, stand off weaponry in good
numbers will be on top. see more
The old submarine saying is, "There are two kinds of ships; submarines, and
targets." . The new version for land ops is, "There are two kinds of land-based military assets;
precision-guided missiles, and targets." (And per the photos, those Iranian missiles were
quite precise; bulls-eyes.) . Iran and its missiles demonstrated that the entire strategic foundation for US mil presence
in the Middle East is now obsolete. Everything the US would ever want to do there is now
subject to Iran's version of "steel rain." Every runway, hangar, aircraft parking area;
every supply depot or warehouse; every loading pier, fuel site, naval pier. Everything...
is a target. And really... there's no amount of US "airpower" and "tech" than can mitigate
the Iran missile threat. . Meanwhile, related thinking... Iran's true strategic interest is NOT fighting a near-term
war w/ USA. Iran wants US to exit Middle East; and Iran wants to be able to pursue its
nuclear program. Soleimani or no, Iran appears to have its eyeballs fixed on the long-term
goals. see more
The new version for land ops is, "There are two kinds of land-based military assets;
precision-guided missiles, and targets."
Exactly, and Iran has long-range TLAMs in who knows what numbers, That, in its turn,
brings about the next issue of range for Iranian indigenous anti-ship missiles. Not, of
course, to mention the fact of only select people knowing if Russia transferred P-800 Onyx
to Iran She certainly did it for Syria. If that weapon is there--the Persian Gulf and
Hormuz Strait will be shut completely closed and will push out CBGs far into the Indian
Ocean. see more
It is simply pathetic after decades of talking non stop about developments of
anti missiles and huge amounts wasted and nobody is responsible. This is the way capitalism
works.profits is everything and outcomes secondary. Thankfully russia has got soviet
foundation and things so far are working well. I come to think that in our times no serious
industrial processes should be allowed to stay in private hands. Only services and so.e
other simpler stuff under heavy state control to ensure quality. Otherwise profit
orientation will eventually destroy everything like with Boeing.
I know, i already wrote a full scale war scenario in one of
the comments. Iran can destroy all US bases in 2000 km range. But this does not mean that
it can not be bombed back to the stone age, if the US really wishes so. The problem for the
US is the high cost as well as the high debt levels, but it does have the technical
capability to do that after 2 - 3 years of bombing.
Also low yield tactical nukes are designed to lower the treshold of the use of nukes in
otherwise conventional war, producing less international outrage than the megaton city
buster bombs. Why do you think the US is developing them again? Because they would want to
use them in conventional conflicts.
Here btw is Yurasumy, he also says that the US can technically bomb Iran back to the
stone age, but the cost will be too high.
Again--what's the plan and what's the price? Iran HAS Russia's ISR on her side in case
of such SEAD.
Does the United States want to risk lives of thousands of its personnel (not
to speak of expensive equipment) in Qatar, KSA, Iraq. Does Israel want to "get it"?
There
are numbers which describe such an operation (it was. most likely, already planned as
contingency). Immediate question: when was the last time USAF operated in REAL dense ECM
and ECCM environment? I do not count some brushes with minimal EW in Syria.
Russia there
uses only minimally required option, for now. Iran has a truck load EW systems, including
some funny Russian toys which allowed Iran to take control of US UAVs, as an example. As I
say, this is not Iraq and by a gigantic margin. see more
I already said that debt levels do not allow it and the price
would be too high, but yes, the US does have the military capability to destroy Iran. By
conventional means. It is another question that it is not in good fiscal shape. Anyway, US
ballistic missiles (non nuclear armed) will be hard to stop by EW. Even if Iran gets rid of
50 % of incoming TLAMs, the US will keep sending more and more until most infrastructure,
bridges, oil refineries, power plants, factories, ports etc. are destroyed. This is why i
said it would take 2 - 3 years. see more
but yes, the US does have the military capability to destroy Iran. By conventional
means
That is the whole point: NO, it doesn't. Unless US goes into full mobilization mode and
addresses ALL (plus a million more not listed) requirements for such a war which I listed
in the post. Well, that or nukes. see
more
Yurasumy is a pretty good analist and he thinks that they can. I do not
see it for the US being too hard to produce more TLAMS, ICBMs and IRBMs (conventional) to
sustain the effort for 2 years, by that time most iranian infrastructure will be destroyed.
If the fiscal situation allowes it. see more
I don't know who Yarasumy is and what is his background, but unlike him I
actually write books, including on modern warfare. This is not to show off, but I am sure I
can make basic calculations. This is not to mention the fact that even Sivkov agrees with
my points and Sivkov, unlike Yarsumy, graduated Popov's VVMURE, served at subs, then
graduated Kuznetsov Academy, then Academy of the General Staff and served in Main
Operational Directorate (GOU) until retiring in the rank of Captain 1st Rank from the
billet of Combat Planning group. So, I would rather stick to my opinion.
see more
Why do you think that the US can not destroy Iran with IRBMs? Actually this
is their strategy vs China. If they think its viable vs China, then it should be viable vs
Iran too. see more
Because unlike the US, Russia's Air Defenses have a rather
very impressive history of shifting the balance in wars in favor of those who have them,
when used properly. But then I can quote for you a high ranking intelligence officer:
A friend of mine who has expertise in these matters wrote me:
Any air defense engineer with a securityclearance that isn't lying through his teeth
will admit that Russia'sair defense technology surpassed us in the 1950's and we've never
been able to catch up. The systems thy have in place surrounding Moscow make our Patriot
3's look like fucking nerf guns.
Mathematics is NOT there for the United States for a real combined operations war of
scale with Iran. Unless US political class really wants to see people with pitch-forks.
see more
"Mathematics is not there..." . Neither is the industrial base, including supply lines. Not the mines, mills, factories to
produce any significant levels of warfighting materiel such as we're talking about here.
Not the workforce, either. Meanwhile, where are the basic designs for these weps? The years
of lab work, bench tests, pilot specimens & prototypes, the development pipeline? The
contractors to build them? the Tier 2, 3, 4 suppliers? Where are the universities that
train such people as are needed? Where is the political will? Where is the government
coordination? Where is the money? Indeed, every Democrat and probably half the Republicans
who run for office campaign on controlling military spending; not that USA gets all that
much benefit from the current $800 billion per year. see more
You see, here is the difference--I can calculate approximate required force
for that but I don't want to. It is Friday. You can get some basic intro into operational
theory (and even into Salvo Equations) in my latest book. Granted, my publisher fought me
tooth and nail to remove as much match as possible. But I'll give you a hint--appearance of
S-500 on any theater of operations effectively closes it off effectively for any missile or
aircraft operations when deployed in echeloned (multi-layer) AD. see more
"... Economic growth is more about financialising goods and services that were previously free or are/were social goods. There is no real growth; just taxing the living. ..."
"... So, in my view, the only restraint on destroying Iran is capability, is the cost and the risk of retaliation (not just from Iran) - not the destruction of Iran's capital - better for Iran's capital to be destroyed than for Iran to be independent or a competitor. ..."
My comment @342 should have read: "The petrodollar is the way in which the US gets the
rest of the world to fund its wars,"
---------
Your comment about capitalist accumulation doesn't hold (as a motivator for the US) when
we have a capitalist monopolist situation. Rate of profit is not about growth (of real
goods); it is about reducing competition and scarcity. When you are the monopolist you can
charge what you like but profit becomes meaningless - the monopolist power comes from the
control of resources - the monopolistic capitalist becomes a ruler/monarch. You no longer
need ever-increasing customers so you can dispense with them if you so chose (by reducing the
population). One bottle of water is far more valuable and a lot less trouble to produce that
100 millions bottles of water. There is no point in AI to provide for the needs of "the
many"; AI becomes a means to dispense with "the many" altogether.
Economic growth is more about financialising goods and services that were previously free
or are/were social goods. There is no real growth; just taxing the living.
So, in my view, the only restraint on destroying Iran is capability, is the cost and the risk of
retaliation (not just from Iran) - not the destruction of Iran's capital - better for Iran's
capital to be destroyed than for Iran to be independent or a competitor.
"... We know from various Congressional folks that briefers of Congress have failed to produce any evidence of "imminent" plans to kill Americans Soleimani was involved with that would have made this a legal killing rather than an illegal assassination. ..."
"... As Sergey Lavrov and President Putin have stated for a long time (and long before President Trump came along), the USA is 'agreement incapable'. However, now you have to wonder if any country really trusts any agreement they will make with the USA. Without trust on any level, cooperation/trade treaties and so on on are impossible or eminently disposable, i.e., not worth the paper upon which they are written. ..."
"... 603 Americans killed in Iraq, he says Trump supporters claim, but we had millions of Iraqi's, Syrians, Libyans and others killed or their lives uprooted by Bush and Obama and company – yet they were not assassinated. ..."
"... NO. Shockingly bad decision; you can just manage to glimpse around the edges of the war propaganda the embarrassment and backpedaling for having willingly stepped into such a gigantic steaming pile of excrement. The parade of smooth-faced liars on the MSM asserting that the US is now safer (the "war is peace" crowd) is sickening. Some even have the gall to assert that the enormous crowds in Iran are forced to attend by the repressive regime. Of course, there's no evidence of a provocation and they'll never produce any. ..."
"... I find it interesting that Pompeo was "disappointed" – what did he think would happen? For a Secretary of State, he's obviously extremely out of touch with the rest of the world if he didn't have some realistic idea of how this would go down. ..."
"... One other glaring omission from the article – the only reason there was a US military contractor in Iraq available to be killed in the first place is due to the illegal war based on false premises launched almost two decades ago by the US, which continues to occupy the country to this day. ..."
"... Pretty clear who the terrorists are on this case. ..."
"... Fascinating developments on this issue today. Pompeo admits that nothing was "imminent." Given the very specific definitions of Imminence that draw red lines between what is or is not legal in international law, this could get big very quickly. ..."
"... War hawks dressed in red or blue can become mercenaries and create Go Fund Me drives to protect their investments and any particular country which they have a personal affinity or citizenship. ..."
"... Lest we forget: "War is a racket." ..."
"... How does this meet the internationally recognized legal requirement of "imminent" danger to human life required to kill a political or military leader outside of a declared war? All public statements by the U.S. political and military leadership point to a retaliatory killing, at best, with a vague overlay of preemptive action. ..."
"... If you agree that the "Bethlehem Doctrine" has never been recognized by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, or the legislatures of the three rogue states who have adopted it, the assassination of Suleimani appears to have been a murder. ..."
"... "I cross-checked a Pentagon casualty database with obituaries and not 1 of the 9 American servicemen killed fighting in Iraq since 2011 died at the hands of militias backed by Suleimani. His assassination was about revenge and provocation, not self-defense." ..."
"... The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration's killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally stated. ..."
"... For some "exceptional" reason we don't recognize international law! We are the terrorists not them. ..."
Can The US Assassination Of Qassem Soleimani Be Justified? Posted on
January 10, 2020 by Yves Smith Yves here. Even though the
angst over "what next" with the US/Iran confrontation has fallen a bit, there is still a
depressingly significant amount of mis- and dis-information about the Soleimani assassination.
This post is a nice high level treatment that might be a good candidate for circulating among
friends and colleagues who've gotten a hefty dose of MSM oversimplifications and social media
sloganeering.
Update 6:50 AM: Due to the hour, I neglected to add a quibble, and readers jumped on the
issue in comments. First, it has not been established who launched the attack that killed a the
US contractor. The US quickly asserted it was Kat'ib Hezbollah, but there were plenty of groups
in the area that had arguably better motives, plus Kat'ib Hezbollah has denied it made the
strike. Second, Kat'ib Hezbollah is an Iraqi military unit.
By Barkley Rosser, Professor of Economics at James Madison University in Harrisonburg,
Virginia. Originally published at EconoSpeak
We know from various Congressional folks that briefers of Congress have failed to produce
any evidence of "imminent" plans to kill Americans Soleimani was involved with that would have
made this a legal killing rather than an illegal assassination. The public statements by
administration figures have cited such things as the 1979 hostage crisis, the already dead
contractor, and, oh, the need to "reestablish deterrence" after Trump did not follow through on
previous threats he made. None of this looks remotely like "imminent plans," not to mention
that the Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani was on the way to see him with a
reply to a Saudi peace proposal. What a threatening imminent plan!
As it is, despite the apparent lack of "imminent plans" to kill Americans, much of the
supporting rhetoric for this assassination coming out of Trump supporters (with bragging about
it having reportedly been put up on Trump's reelection funding website) involves charges that
Soleimani was "the world's Number One terrorist" and was personally responsible for killing 603
Americans in Iraq. Even as many commentators have noted the lack of any "imminent plans,"
pretty much all American ones have prefaced these questions with assertions that Soleimani was
unquestionable "evil" and "bad" and a generally no good guy who deserved to be offed, if not
right at this time and in this way. He was the central mastermind and boss of a massive
international terror network that obeyed his orders and key to Iran's reputed position as "the
Number One state supporter of terrorism," with Soleimani the key to all of that.
Of course, in Iran it turns out that Soleimani was highly respected, even as many oppose the
hawkish policies he was part of. He was viewed as crucial to the victory over ISIS/ISIL/Daesh
in Iraq, much feared by Iranians. Shia take martyrdom seriously, and he is viewed as a martyr.
It appears that even Trump took notice of the massive outpouring of mourning and praise for
Soleimani there up to the point of people dying in a stampede in a mourning crowd in his
hometown. But, hey, obviously these people simply do not understand that he was The World's
Number One Terrorist! Heck, I saw one commenter on Marginal Revolution claiming Soleimani was
responsible killing "hundreds of thousands." Yes, this sort of claim is floating around out
there.
A basic problem here is that while indeed Soleimani commanded the IGRC al Quds force that
supported and supplied various Shia militias in several Middle Eastern nations, these all were
(and are) ultimately independent. Soleimani may have advised them, but he was never in a
position to order any of them to do anything. Al Quds itself has never carried out any of the
various attacks outside of Iran that Soleimani is supposedly personally responsible for.
Let us consider the specific case that gets pushed most emphatically, the 603 Americans dead
in Iraq, without doubt a hot button item here in the US. First of all, even if Soleimani really
was personally responsible for their deaths, there is the technical matter that their deaths
cannot be labeled "terrorism." That is about killing non-combatant civilians, not military
personnel involved in combat. I do not support the killing of those American soldiers, most of
whom were done in by IEDs, which also horribly injured many more. But indeed this awful stuff
happened. But in fact this was all done by Iraqi -based Shia militias. Yes, they were supported
by Soleimani, but while some have charged al Quds suppplied the IEDs, this turns out not to be
the case. These were apparently made in Iraq by these local militias. Soleimani's al Quds are
not totally innocent in all this, reportedly providing some training and some inputs. But the
IEDs were made by the militias themselves and planted by them.
It is also the case that when the militias and Americans were working together against
ISIS/IISIL/Daesh, none of this happened, and indeed that was still the case up until this most
recent set of events, with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor
caught on a base where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi
group. Of course with Trump having Soleimani assassinated, this cooperation has ceased, with
the US military no longer either fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor training the Iraqi military.
Indeed, the Iraqi parliament has demanded that US troops leave entirely, although Trump
threatened Iraq with economic sanctions if that is followed through on.
As it is, the US datinrg back to the Obama administration has been supplying Saudi Arabia
with both arms and intelligence that has been used to kill thousands of Yemeni civilians.
Frankly, US leaders look more like terrorists than Soleimani.
I shall close by noting the major changes in opinion in both Iran and Iraq regarding the US
as a result of this assassination. In Iran as many have noted there were major demonstrations
against the regime going on, protesting bad economic conditions, even as those substantially
were the result of the illegal US economic sanctions imposed after the US withdrew from the
JCPOA nuclear deal, to which Iran was adhering. Now those demonstrations have stopped and been
replaced by the mass demonstrations against the US over Soleimani's assassination. And we also
have Iran further withdrawing from that deal and moving to more highly enrich uranium.
In Iraq, there had been major anti-Iran demonstrations going on, with these supported to
some degree by the highest religious authority in the nation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. However,
when Soleimani's body was being transferred to Iran, Sistani's son accompanied his body. It
really is hard to see anything that justifies this assassination.
I guess I should note for the record that I am not a fan of the Iranian regime, much less
the IGRC and its former and new commander. It is theocratic and repressive, with many political
prisoners and a record of killing protestors. However, frankly, it is not clearly all that much
worse than quite a few of its neighboring regimes. While Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei was not
popularly elected, its president, Rouhani, was, who obeyed popular opinion in negotiating the
JCPOA that led to the relaxation of economic sanctions, with his power reduced when Trump
withdrew from the agreement. Its rival Saudi Arabia has no democracy at all, and is also a
religiously reactionary and repressive regime that uses bone saws on opponents and is
slaughtering civilians in a neighboring nation.
with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor caught on a base
where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi group.
Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this, but it appears to be presented here as a fact.
Kat'b Hezbollah have denied responsibility for that rocket attack. To the best of my
knowledge, no proof whatsoever has been presented that it was not an attack by jihadis in the
area, whom Khat'b Hezbollah were fighting, or by others with an interest in stirring the
pot.
They are having a hard time coming up with public evidence to support any justification,
aren't they?
The latest was Pence's "keeping it secret to protect sources and methods" meme. Purely
speculating here, but I immediately thought, "Oh, Israeli intelligence." Gotta protect allies
in the region.
Debka, run by supposedly-former Israeli military intelligence, was enthusing about
upcoming joint operations against Iran and its allies a month or two ago. In contrast,
they've been uncharacteristically quiet, though supportive of the US, regarding recent
developments.
Secretary of State Pompeo claimed that Soleimani was responsible for hundreds of thousands
of deaths in Syria. Basically blaming Iran for all deaths in the Syrian war.
People more commonly do this with Assad. A complicated war with multiple factions fighting
each other, armed by outside sources including the US, most with horrific human rights
records, but almost every pundit and politician in the US talks as though Assad killed
everyone personally.
Once in a while you get a little bit of honesty seeping in, but it never changes the
narrative. Caitlin Johnstone said something about that, not specifically about Syria. The
idea was that you can sometimes find facts reported in the mainstream press that contradict
the narrative put out by pundits and politicians and for that matter most news stories, but
these contradictory facts never seem to change the prevailing narrative.
That sounds suspiciously like sour grapes and another possible motive for the killing
– revenge.
Soleimani led a number of militias that were successful in defeating the Saudi (and CIA)
sponsored Sunni jihadis who failed to implement the empire's "regime change" playbook in
Syria.
No doubt a lot of guys like Pompeo wanted him dead for that reason alone.
The simple answer NO, killing a sitting army general of a sovereign state on a diplomatic
mission resides in the realm of the truly absurd. Twisting the meaning of the word "imminent"
far beyond its ordinary use to justify the murder is even more absurd. And the floating
subtext to all this talk about lost American lives is that the US can invade and occupy
foreign lands, engage in the sanctimonious slaughter of locals and whoever else gets in the
way of feeding the bloodlust of Pompeo and his ilk (to say nothing of feeding the outsized
ego of a lunatic like Trump), and yet expect to suffer no combat casualties from those
defending their lands. It's the most warped form of "exceptional" thinking.
As an aside, I wonder if the msm faithfully pushing the talk about Iran downing that
Ukrainian commercial jet is designed to take the heat off a beleaguered Boeing. The
investigation hasn't even begun but already we have the smoking gun, Iran did it.
Even the question is wrong. The killing was cowardly, outside all international norms
(this from a country that dares to invoke "international order" whenever it is suitable), a
colossal mistake, a strategic blunder, and plain destructive.
The more one learns about QS' activities, the more it seems that he was "disposed of"
precisely because of his unique talent and abilities to bring together the various local
factions (particularly, in Iraq), so that then – unified – they could fight
against the common enemy (guess who?). He was not guilty of killing amrikans – nor was
he planning to – his "sin" was to try and unite locals to push the us out of ME. It was
always going to be an uphill battle, but in death he may – in time – achieve his
wish.
I'm in this camp too. But with a twist. Pure speculation here – and I'm sure it
would never be exposed, but is there even any proof we did it? Was it an apache helicopter or
a drone; whom have we supplied with these things? Who is this bold? Since our military has
been dead-set-against assassinating Soleimani or any other leader it seems highly unlikely
they proposed this to Trump. Mattis flatly refused to even consider such a thing. So I keep
wondering if the usual suspect might be the right one – the Israelis. They have the
proper expertise. And the confusion that followed? If we had done it we'd have had our PSAs
ready to print. Instead we proffered an unsigned letter and other "rough drafts" of the
incident and then retracted them like idiots. As if we were frantic to step in and prevent
the Rapture. We could have taken the blame just to prevent a greater war. Really, that's what
it looks like to me.
Surely the whole point of the strike is that it was illegal: that is to say that it was a
message to the Iraqis that they are NOT allowed to help Iran evade sanctions, NOT allowed to
do oil-for-infrastructure deals with China and NOT allowed to invite senior Iranians around
for talks: i.e. Iraq is not yet sovereign and it is the US that makes the rules around there;
any disobedience will summarily be punished by the de facto rulers even if that violates
agreements and laws applicable in Iraq.
If you disagree, then what should the US do if Iraq does not toe the Western line?
" The killing was cowardly, outside all international norms (this from a country that
dares to invoke "international order" whenever it is suitable), a colossal mistake, a
strategic blunder, and plain destructive "
I think the immediate impact which has long terms implications for how other countries
view USA foreign policy is simply that any high ranking individual from any other country on
earth has got to be aware that essentially no international norms now exist. It's one thing
to 'whack' a bin Laden or dispose of a Gaddafi but another whole kettle of fish to
assassinate a high ranking official going about their business who's no immediate security
threat to the USA and when no state of war exists.
For example, might a EU general now acquiesce to demands about NATO? Not saying this is
going to happen by a long shot, but still a niggling thought might linger. Surely the
individual will be resentful at the very least. I'm also reminded of a story about John
Bolton allegedly telling a negotiator (UN or European?) that Bolton knew where the
negotiator's family resided. These things add up.
As Sergey Lavrov and President Putin have stated for a long time (and long before
President Trump came along), the USA is 'agreement incapable'. However, now you have to
wonder if any country really trusts any agreement they will make with the USA. Without trust
on any level, cooperation/trade treaties and so on on are impossible or eminently disposable,
i.e., not worth the paper upon which they are written.
This is where the middle term ramifications start to kick-in. We know that Russia and
China are making some tentative steps towards superficial integration in limited areas beyond
just cooperation. Will they find more common ground? Will European countries (and by
extension the EU) really start to deliver on an alternative financial clearing system? How
will India and Japan react? Does nationalism of the imperial variety re-emerge as a world
force – for good or bad?
Will regional powers such as Russia, China, India, France or Iran quietly find more common
ground also? But alliances are problematic and sometimes impose limitations that are
exploitable. So, might a different form of cooperation emerge?
Long term its all about advantage and trust. Trust is a busted flush now. (My 2 cents, and
properly priced.)
As Thuto above says, the simple answer is "No". IF S was guilty of all those things
ascribed to him, he'd have been judged and sentenced (yes, I do realise Iran would never
extradite him etc. etc. – but there would have been a process and after the process,
well, some things would be more justifiable). But we have the process because it's important
to have a process – otherwise, anyone can find themselves on a hit list for any reason
whatsoever.
If the US doesn't want to follow and process, then it can't be suprised if others won't.
Ignoring the process works for the strongest, while they are the strongest. And then it
doesn't.
603 Americans killed in Iraq, he says Trump supporters claim, but we had millions of
Iraqi's, Syrians, Libyans and others killed or their lives uprooted by Bush and Obama and
company – yet they were not assassinated.
I think – just a guess – the reason Soleimani was killed can be summed up in
one word:
Netanyahu.
That, and on a broader, bird's eye view level in broad strokes – Michael Hudson's
recent article outlining U.S. policy of preserving USD hegemony at all costs, that has
existed since at least the 1950's, which depicts Soleimani's assassination as not a Trump
qwerk but a logical application of that policy.
You might say the swamp drainers came to drain the swamp and ended filling it up
instead.
The mostest terriblest guy in the history of this or any other universe, but the average
Joe never heard of until they announced they killed him. His epochal terribleness really flew
under the radar.
The swamp drainers are so busy guzzling as much as they can quaff, without drowning;
writhing each others' dead-eyed, bloated feeding frenzy; that obscene media distractions need
to escalate in sadistic, off-hand terror. But, it's so ingrained into our governance, we just
call it democracy?
Hudson's take on USD hegemony is reasonable, but I don't think we'd assassinate Soleimani
in anticipation of losing it. We have dealt with all the sects in the middle east for a long
time and we have come to terms with them, until now. In a time that requires the shutting
down of oil and gas production. I think (Carney, Keen, Murphy, etc.) oil is the basis for our
economy, for productivity, for the world, that's a no brainer. But my second thoughts go more
along the lines that oil and natural gas will be government monopolies directly – no
need to use those resources to make the dollar or other currencies monopolies. Sovereign
currency will still be a sovereign monopoly regardless of the oil industry. That also
explains why we want hands-on control of this resource. And with that in mind, it would seem
Soleimani might have been more of an asset for us.
I hate to tell you but as much as we are fans of Hudson, he's all wet on this one. The
dollar is the reserve currency because the US is willing to run sustained trade deficits,
which is tantamount to exporting jobs. Perhaps more important, my connected economists say
they know of no one who has the ear of the military-intel state who believes this either.
This may indeed have been a line of thought 50 years ago but it isn't now.
much of the supporting rhetoric for this assassination coming out of Trump supporters
(with bragging about it having reportedly been put up on Trump's reelection funding
website)
I thought I had a pretty strong stomach for this stuff, but it's been really nauseating
for me to see the displays of joy and flag waving over the assassination of someone the
overwhelming majority of people were wholly unaware of prior to his death. My guess is that
it's mostly just a sort of schadenfreude at the squirming of Democrats as they (with few
exceptions) fail to articulate any coherent response.
The response should be clear without any caveats, "Trump is a coward who would never
gamble with his life, but will happily gamble with the lives of your kids in uniform." This
should resonate with most people, I don't believe that neocons really have any grassroots
support.
NO. Shockingly bad decision; you can just manage to glimpse around the edges of the war
propaganda the embarrassment and backpedaling for having willingly stepped into such a
gigantic steaming pile of excrement. The parade of smooth-faced liars on the MSM asserting
that the US is now safer (the "war is peace" crowd) is sickening. Some even have the gall to
assert that the enormous crowds in Iran are forced to attend by the repressive regime. Of
course, there's no evidence of a provocation and they'll never produce any.
Politico Europe is
reporting that behind Europes seemingly supine response, officials and politicians are
'seething' over the attack. Its clearly seen around the world as not just illegal, but an
appalling precedent.
So far, American efforts to convince Europeans of the bright side of Soleimani's
killing have been met with dropped jaws .
The silence from other countries on this event has been deafening. And that should tell
Trump and Pompeo something, but I doubt if they are smart enough to figure it out.
I find it interesting that Pompeo was "disappointed" – what did he think would
happen? For a Secretary of State, he's obviously extremely out of touch with the rest of the
world if he didn't have some realistic idea of how this would go down.
On one hand, the life of each and every victim of head-separation and droning is as
precious as that of one Soleimani.
On the other, the general's is more precious and thus, the behind the scene seething by
Europe's politicians and officials. (They and many others are all potential targets now,
versus previously droning wedding guests – time to seethe).
The more I think about it, the more it seemed like the Administration and its allies were
probing to see how far they could go. They bombed PMUs and appeared to get away with it. So
then they upped the ante when the Iraqis complained and finally got some moderate push-back.
Not taking American lives in the missile strike seems to prove they Iranians didn't want to
escalate. Still, I dont know about the Pentagon, but I was impressed with the accuracy.
Yes. From the picture at Vineyard of the Saker, they hit specific buildings. There were
comments after the drone attack on Abqaiq and Khurais oil fields in KSA that they showed
surprising accuracy, but perhaps this time surprised the intelligence agencies. Perhaps that
was why Trump declared victory instead of further escalating. This is speculation, of
course.
There is also a good article giving more detail of these attacks and underlining the fact
that not a single solitary missile was intercepted. What percentage did the Syrians/Russians
manage to intercept of the US/UK/French missiles attack back in 2018? Wasn't it about seventy
percent?
The Iranians are not done retaliating. They have a history of disproportionate
retaliation, but when the right opportunity presents itself, and that routinely takes years.
The limited strike was out of character and appears to have been the result of the amount of
upset internally over the killing.
I have more a lot more respect for the strategic acumen of the Iranian regime than I do
for that of the American regime. Now it's led by a collection of fragile male egos and
superstitious rapture ready religious fanatics. Before them the regime was led by cowardly
corporate suck ups. They all take their cues from the same military intelligence complex.
One other glaring omission from the article – the only reason there was a US
military contractor in Iraq available to be killed in the first place is due to the illegal
war based on false premises launched almost two decades ago by the US, which continues to
occupy the country to this day.
Aye! This!
assume a ladder on a windy day, with a hammer irresponsibly left perched on the edge of the
top rung.
if i blithely walk under that ladder just as the wind gusts and get bonked in the head by the
falling hammer whose fault is it?
we shouldn't be there in the first damned place.
and as soon as the enabling lies were exposed, we should have left, post haste .leaving all
kinds of money and apologies in our wake.
to still be hanging around, unwanted by the locals, all these years later is arrogant and
stupid.
during the Bush Darkness, i was accused to my face(even strangled, once!) of being an
american-hating traitor for being against the war, the Bush Cabal, and the very idea of
American Empire.
almost 20 years later, I'm still absolutely opposed to those things not least out of a care
for the Troops(tm) .and a fervent wish that for once in my 50 years i could be proud to be an
American.
what a gigantic misallocation of resources, in service of rapine and hegemony, while my
fellow americans suffer and wither and scratch around for crumbs.
Another of many questions that remain involve the warped interpretation of "imminent" of
the Bethlehem Doctrine. What institution will put a full stop to that doctrine of terror?
It is a global hazard to continue to let that be adopted as any kind of standard.
Under the Bethlehem Doctrine the entire political class in the USA, and possibly a few
other countries, could be assassinated. What is legal or justified for one is justified for
all.
Rosser is an economist rather than a philosopher or. jurist, and so he doesn't appear to
realize that "justification" in the abstract is meaningless. An act can only be justified or
not according to some ethical or legal principle, and you need to say what that principle is
at the beginning before you start your argument. He doesn't do that, so his argument has no
more validity than that of someone you get into a discussion with in a bar or over coffee at
work.
Legally, of course, there is no justification, because there was no state of armed conflict
between the US and Iran, so the act was an act of state murder. It doesn't matter who the
person was or what we was alleged to have done or be going to do. There's been a dangerous
tendency developing in recent years to claim some kind of right to pre-emptive attacks. There
is no such legal doctrine, and the ultimate source of the misrepresentation – Art 51 of
the UN Charter – simply recognizes that nothing in the Charter stops a state resisting
aggression until help arrives. That's it.
Oh, and of course if this act were "justified" then any similar act in a similar situation
would be justified as well, which might not work out necessarily to America's advantage.
General Jonathan Shaw, former commander of UK forces in Iraq, put it well: Iran's
objectives are political, not military. Their aim is not to destroy any American air base,
but to drive a wedge between the US and its Arab allies -- and the Soleimani assassination
has achieved more to this end than anything that could have been cooked up in Tehran. The
Sunnis are standing down and the US and Israel now once again face being without real
friends in the region. When push came to shove, all Kushner's efforts amounted to nothing.
How elated the Iranians must be, even in the midst of such a setback.
Which if true means that instead of divide and conquer Trump and Pompeo may instead be
practicing unite and be conquered when it comes to US meddling in the Middle East.
I think that I see a danger for Israel here with a very tight pucker factor. I had assumed
that if there was a war between Israel and Hezbollah, that Hezbollah would let loose their
older rockets first to use up the Israeli anti-missile ordinance that they have. After that
would come their modern accurate missiles.
But part of that Iranian attack on those US bases was the use of older missiles that had been
retro-fitted with gear for accurate targeting which obviously worked out spectacularly.
Israel could assume that Iran would have given Hezbollah the same technology and the
implication here is that any first wave of older Hezbollah missiles would just be as accurate
as the following barrages of newer missiles.
I wonder if it is remotely possible that all countries, say at the UN, could design
acceptable language to make oil and natural gas a universal resource with a mandated
conservation – agreed to by all. Those countries which have had oil economies and have
become rich might agree to it because the use of oil and gas will be so restricted in future
that they will not have those profits. But it would at least provide them with some steady
income. It would prevent the oil wars we will otherwise have in our rush to monopolize the
industry for profit; it would conserve the use of oil/gas and extend it farther out into the
future so we can build a sustainable worldwide civilization and mitigate much of the damage
we have done to the planet, etc. How can we all come together and make energy, oil and natgas
access a universal human right (for the correct use)?
Actually Soleimani was guilty of the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Tens of
thousands of ISIS fighters that is. Do they count? The Saudis, Gulf States and the CIA may
shed a tear for them but nobody else will. When Soleimani arrived in Baghdad, he was
traveling in a diplomatic capacity to help try to ease off tensions between the Saudis and
the Iranians. And this was the imminent danger that Trump was talking about. Not an imminent
danger to US troops but a danger that the Saudis and Iranians might negotiate an
accommodation. Michael Hudson has said similar in a recent article.
I think that what became apparent from that attack last year on the Saudi oil
installations was that they were now a hostage. In other words, if the US attacks Iran, then
Iran will take out the entirety of Saudi oil production and perhaps the Saudi Royal family
themselves. There is no scenario in an Iran-US war where the Kingdom come out intact. So it
seems that they have been putting out feelers with the Iranians about coming to an
accommodation. This would explain why when Soleimani was murdered, there was radio silence on
behalf of the Saudis.
Maybe Trump has worked out that all of the Saudi oil facilities becoming toast would be
bad for America too but, more importantly, to himself personally. After all, what is the
point of having the Saudis only sell their oil in US dollars if there is no oil to sell? What
would such a development do to the standing of the US dollar internationally? The financial
crisis would sink his chances for a win this November and that is something that he will
never allow. And I bet that he did not Tucker Carlson to tell him that.
Fascinating developments on this issue today. Pompeo admits that nothing was "imminent."
Given the very specific definitions of Imminence that draw red lines between what is or is
not legal in international law, this could get big very quickly.
What percent of the presumed Trump base, and imperial Big Business and Banksters, not to
mention the sloshing mass of other parts of the electorate subject to "spinning" in the
Bernays Tilt-a-Whirl, would give a rat's aff about "war crimes" charges? Drone murders to
date, the whole stupid of profitable (to a few, externalities ignored) GWOT, all the sh!t the
CIA and CENTCOM and Very Special Ops have done with impunity against brown people and even
people here at home, not anything more than squeaks from a small fraction of us.
And Trump is the Decider, yes, who signed off (as far as we know) on killing Soleimani
that was lined up by the Borg, but really, how personalized to him would any repentance and
disgust or even scapegoat targeting by the Blob really be, in the kayfabe that passes for
"democracy in America?"
I always though de Tocqueville titled his oeuvre on the political economy he limned way
back when as a neat bit of Gallic irony
I don't know. Might Trump benefit from charges of war crimes, spinning them as further
proof that the United Nations, International Criminal Court, etc. are controlled by commies
and muslims out to get the USA?
As for the imminence of the hypothetical attacks, "There is no doubt that there were a
series of imminent attacks being plotted by Qassem Soleimani," Pompeo told the Fox News host.
"We don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where, but it was real."
Remember that imminent=possible at some time in the near or distant future, and Vice President Dick Cheney articulated shortly after 9/11: in Mr. Suskind's words, "if
there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction -- and
there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time -- the United States
must now act as if it were a certainty." That doctrine didn't prevent Bush's
re-election. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books/20kaku.html
Declare victory and bring them all home. Leave behind W's Mission Accomplished banner and
pallets of newly printed $100s with Obama's picture.
Along the lines of Bismarck, not worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Not my
20 year old, not anybody else's in my name, either, especially since this began before they
were born.
And to whom will they sell their oil and natural gas? Who cares – its a fungible
commodity of perhaps only of concern to our "allies" in Western Europe. Not my problem and
great plan to mitigate carbon emissions!
War hawks dressed in red or blue can become mercenaries and create Go Fund Me drives to
protect their investments and any particular country which they have a personal affinity or
citizenship.
The whole episode reminds me of a Martin Scorsese plot line. A disagreement among "Made
Men". The unfortunate symbolism and 'disrespect' of the embassy protest demanded a response,
especially after all the fuss Trump made about Benghazi. Some things cannot be allowed. The
Iranians, Russians and Americans probably decided between themselves what would be sufficient
symbolism to prevent a war, and so Soleimani was sacrificed to die as a hero/martyr. A small
price to prevent things spiraling out of control. The Iranian response seems to add weight to
this hypothesis.
Forgive me for taking this a little more in the direction of theory, but can the rest of
the world justify the assassination of CIA/Pentagon/CENTCOM officials in a similar manner
given the opportunity? Are these organizations not an analog to Quds? That seems to be more
in line with the type of questions we need to be asking ourselves as US citizens in a
multi-polar world. This article, despite its best intentions, still hints at an American
exceptionalism that no longer exists in the international mind. The US could barely get away
with its BS in the 90s, it definitely can't in 2020.
The US no longer has the monopoly on the narrative ("Big Lie") rationalizing its actions,
not to say the other countries have the correct narrative, just that, there are a whole bunch
of narratives ("Lies") out there being told to the world by various powers that are not the
US, and the US is having a difficult time holding on to the mic. The sensible route would be
to figure out how to assert cultural and political values/power in this world without the
mafiosi methods. Maybe some old fashioned (if not icky, cynical) diplomacy. It is better than
spilled blood, or nuclear war.
The US military/intelligence wonks overplayed their hand with Soleimani. I think the
Neo-Cons gave Trump a death warrant for Soleimani, and Trump was too self-involved (stupid)
to know or care who he was offing. His reaction to the blow back betrays that.
Now he is f*****, along with the chicken-hawks, and they all know it. They just have to
sit back and watch Iran bomb US bases because the alternative is a potential big war,
possibly involving China and Russia, that can't be fought by our Islamist foreign legions.
It'll demand the involvement of US troops on the ground and the US electorate won't tolerate
it.
Anyone who has worked in the counter-terrorism field knows that when a credible and
imminent threat is received the first act is to devise a response to counter the threat. It
may involve raising security measures at an airline security checkpoint, it may involve
arrests, if possible, of the would-be terrorist(s). It may involve evacuating a building and
conducting a search for a bomb. It may involve changing a scheduled appearance or route of
travel of a VIP.
The point is to stop the operators behind the threat from completing their terrorist act.
What it certainly does NOT involve is assassinating someone who may have given the order but
is definitely not involved in carrying out the act. Such an assassination would not only be
ineffective in countering the threat but would likely be seen as increasing the motivation
behind the attack. Such was the assassination of Soleimani, even if one believes in the
alleged imminent threat. This was simply a revenge killing due to Soleimani's success at
organizing the opposition to US occupation.
We don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where, but it was real.
How does this meet the internationally recognized legal requirement of "imminent" danger
to human life required to kill a political or military leader outside of a declared war? All
public statements by the U.S. political and military leadership point to a retaliatory
killing, at best, with a vague overlay of preemptive action.
If you agree that the "Bethlehem Doctrine" has never been recognized by the United
Nations, the International Criminal Court, or the legislatures of the three rogue states who
have adopted it, the assassination of Suleimani appears to have been a murder.
This is absolutely chilling. These "End Times/Armageddon" lunatics want to destroy the
world. Who would Jesus have murdered? They stand the lessons of his state-sanctioned murder
on their heads
My two-pennyworth? The US press and the circles surrounding Trump are already crowing that
he 'won' the exchange. If, as speculated, he went against military advice in ordering this
assassination, his 'victory' will only confirm his illusions that he is a military genius,
which makes him even more dangerous. There are some rather nasty parallels with the rise of
Hitler appearing here.
The claim that Soleimani had killed hundreds of Americans was repeated, word for word, in
many articles in the papers of record (e.g., New York Times, 1/7/20; Washington Post, 1/3/20,
1/3/20) as well as across the media (e.g., Boston Globe, 1/3/20; Fox News, 1/6/20; The Hill,
1/7/20).
These "hundreds of Americans" were US forces killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
during the Iraq War, supposedly made in Iran and planted by Iranian-backed Shia militias. As
professor Stephen Zunes pointed out in the Progressive (1/7/20), the Pentagon provided no
evidence that Iran made the IEDs, other than the far-fetched claim that they were too
sophisticated to be made in Iraq -- even though the US invasion had been justified by claims
that Iraq had an incredibly threatening WMD program. The made-in-Iran claim, in turn, was the
main basis for pinning responsibility for IED attacks on Shia militias -- which were, in any
case, sanctioned by the Iraqi government, making Baghdad more answerable for their actions
than anyone in Tehran. Last year, Gareth Porter reported in Truthout, (7/9/19) that the claim
that Iran was behind the deaths of US troops was part of Vice President Dick Cheney's plan to
build a case for yet another war.
IIRC the "sophistication claim" was made years ago. Apparently the basic technology is
applied in oilfields to pierce oil well lining tubes at the oil layer. So the Iraqis knew all
about the basic technique, only needed some more information.
About those "603 American deaths" that Soleimani is posthumously being charged with .
"I cross-checked a Pentagon casualty database with obituaries and not 1 of the 9 American
servicemen killed fighting in Iraq since 2011 died at the hands of militias backed by
Suleimani. His assassination was about revenge and provocation, not self-defense."
"The U.S. Government and almost all of the media continue to declare that Iran is the
biggest sponsor of terrorism. That is not true. That is a lie. I realize that calling this
assertion a lie opens me to accusations of being an apologist for Iran. But simply look at
the facts."
"The Trump Administration needs to stop with its infantile ranting and railing about Iran and
terrorism. The actual issues surrounding Iran's growing influence in the region have little
to do with terrorism. Our policies and actions towards Iran are accelerating their
cooperation with China and Russia, not diminishing it. I do not think that serves the
longterm interests of the United States or our allies in the Middle East"
The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander of Iran's elite
Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four U.S.
officials familiar with the matter.
The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration's killing of Maj. Gen.
Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising
questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally
stated.
"Justification"?????
You're kidding right?
"They", those who we firstly "embrace" for our own interests are "for us" until we decide we
are "against them"!
What a farce our foreign policies are!
For some "exceptional" reason we don't recognize international law!
We are the terrorists not them.
Prediction for this stupidest of all worlds: Iraq really does boot us out, T-bone siezes
on this for its obvious popularity among his base, and uses "He Kept Us Out Of War" for
re-election.
Where is my peace dividend after fall of Berlin Wall and Soviet Union?
Poppy and MIC wouldn't have it, hence April Galaspie's "no instructions" response to
Saddam's initial inquiry over the Iraq / Kuwait surveying and mineral rights dispute on
Kuwait's drilling at the border 30 years ago.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defence Secretary Mark Esper, and General Mark Milley,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had gone to Palm Beach, Florida, to brief Trump on
airstrikes the Pentagon had just carried out in Iraq and Syria against Iranian-sponsored Shiite
militia groups.
"... Pompeo has forged "very close relationships" with Haspel and Esper, alliances that bolstered his ability to make the case to Trump. "They all work together very, very closely," said the former Republican national security official. ..."
As planning got underway, Pompeo worked with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark
Milley and the commander of CENTCOM Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie to assess the profile of
troops in the field. Multiple sources also say that hawkish Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of
Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were kept in the loop and also pushed Trump to
respond.
Trump was not at all reluctant to target Soleimani, multiple sources said, adding that the
President's other senior advisers -- Esper, Milley, CIA Director Gina Haspel and national
security adviser Robert O'Brien -- "were all on board."
Pompeo has forged "very close relationships" with Haspel and Esper, alliances that
bolstered his ability to make the case to Trump. "They all work together very, very closely,"
said the former Republican national security official.
That said, the former official expressed concern about the lack of deep expertise in Trump's
national security team. Several analysts pointed to this as one factor in Pompeo's outsized
influence within the administration.
The government is so compromised by Trump and by all the vacancies and lack of experience,
this former official said, that "everything is being done by a handful of principles -- Pompeo,
Esper, Milley. There are a lot of things being left on the floor."
'Such a low bar'
Pompeo is arguably the most experienced of the national security Cabinet, the former
national security official said, "but it's such a low bar."
"It's such a small group and there's so much that needs to be done," the former official
said. "Everyone in this administration is a level and a half higher than they would be in a
normal administration. They have no bench," they said.
The Trump administration has been handicapped by the President's refusal to hire Republicans
who criticize him. Other Republicans won't work for the administration, for fear of being
"tainted" or summarily fired, the former official said.
As layers of experience have been peeled away at the White House, some analysts say
safeguards have been removed as well. CNN's Peter Bergen has written in his new book, "Trump
and his Generals," that former Defense Secretary James Mattis told his aides not to present the
President with options for confronting Iran militarily.
Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, argues that since the departure of
Mattis, former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and former White House chief of
staff and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, there are very few voices at the White House to offer
"deeply considered advice."
"We don't have those people who have that experience and could look Trump in the eye and who
have his respect and who could say, 'Hey, hey, hey -- wait!'," Slim said.
For years, "Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him
popular among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative
Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals,"
the Post explains . "Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship
with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad," and "at the State
Department, he is a voracious consumer of diplomatic notes and reporting on Iran, and he places
the country far above other geopolitical and economic hot spots in the world."
Read more at The Washington Post . Peter Weber
Trump is betraying his voters and threatening millions of lives.
In a full-blown U.S. war
with Iran, up to a million people could die initially.
Hundreds of thousands more could die in the vacuum to follow. Millions would be made
refugees. That's the conclusion of experts surveyed
by Vox reporter Alex Ward . "The worst-case scenarios here are quite serious,"
Middle East scholar Michael Hanna warned.
With the brazen assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq,
President Trump has brought us leaps and bounds closer to that conflagration -- a decision
Trump appears to have made while
golfing at Mar-a-Lago .
Lawmakers need to move before it's too late.
The Iranians may
respond cautiously , perhaps forestalling a full-blown conflict. But there can be no doubt
the White House has been driving in that direction from day one.
In a few short years, Trump has blown up the Iran nuclear deal, put a horrific economic
stranglehold on the country, and sent a stunning
14,000 new troops to the Middle East since just last spring. Some
3,500 more are now on their way.
"Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran," John Bolton
tweeted about the assassination . Bolton may have left the White House, but clearly his
spirit lives on.
What next? Get ready to hear a lot about what a "
bad guy " Soleimani was, and how Iran is a "state sponsor" of terrorism.
No doubt, Soleimani had blood on his hands -- he was a general. Yet after two decades of
U.S. wars in the Middle East, that's the pot calling the kettle black. It was the U.S. who
invaded Iraq, started a civil war, and paved the way for a literal terrorist state, ISIS, to
occupy the country afterward (a force Soleimani himself was instrumental in dismantling).
That senseless war caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, exploded the terrorist threat,
and is destabilizing the region to this day. Yet somehow, war hawks like Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo can go on TV and -- with a straight face -- predict ordinary Iranians will
essentially thank the U.S. for murdering their general.
"People not only in Iraq but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them
freedom,"
Pompeo said the morning after the assassination. You couldn't caricature a better callback
to Dick Cheney's infamous prediction that Iraqis would "greet us as liberators" if you
tried.
This war-mongering should be as toxic politically as
it is morally . Trump rode into office promising to end America's wars, winning him crucial
votes in swing states with large military and veteran populations. Huge bipartisan majorities,
including 58 percent of Republicans, say they want U.S. troops out of the Middle East.
Trump is betraying them spectacularly.
Yet too many Democrats are
merely objecting to Trump's failure to consult them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained the
strike "was taken without the consultation of the Congress." South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg
offered colorlessly that "there are serious questions about how this decision was made." Others
complained about the apparent lack of a "strategy."
It's illegal for a president to unilaterally launch a war -- that's important. But these
complaints make it sound like if you want to kill a million people for no reason, you just have
to go to the DMV first. As if Trump's base doesn't love it when he cuts the line in
Washington.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who warned that "Trump's dangerous escalation brings us closer to
another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more
dollars," came closer to communicating the real threat.
Millions of lives are at stake. Trump's aggression demands -- and voters will more likely
reward -- real opposition. Call him on it
before it's too late.
Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of
Foreign Policy In Focus.
In Iraq The U.S. Is Again An Occupation Force As It Rejects To Leave As Demanded
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi is following
Iraq's Parliament decision to remove all foreign forces from Iraq. But his request for
talks with the U.S. about the U.S. withdrawal process was answered with a big "F*** You":
Iraq's caretaker prime minister asked Washington to start working out a road map for an
American troop withdrawal, but the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the
request, saying the two sides should instead talk about how to "recommit" to their
partnership.
Thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in the capital and southern Iraq, many
calling on both Iran and America to leave Iraq, reflecting anger and frustration over the two
rivals -- both Baghdad's allies -- trading blows on Iraqi soil.
The request from Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi pointed to his determination to push
ahead with demands for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, stoked by the American drone strike on Jan.
3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. In a phone call Thursday night, he told U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that recent U.S. strikes in Iraq were an unacceptable breach
of Iraqi sovereignty and a violation of their security agreements, his office said.
He asked Pompeo to "send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism" to carry out the Iraqi
Parliament's resolution on withdrawing foreign troops, according to the statement.
"The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its
airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities, and this was a violation of the bilateral
agreements," the statement added.
The Associated Press errs when it says that the move was "stoked by the American drone
strike on Jan. 3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani". The move was stoked five days
earlier when the U.S.
killed 31 Iraqi security forces near the Syrian border despite the demands by the Iraqi
prime minister and president not to do so. It was further stoked when the U.S.
assassinated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes , the deputy commander of the Popular Militia Forces and
a national hero in Iraq.
The State Department issued a rather aggressive response to
Abdul-Mahdi's request:
By killing Soleimani the USA formally declared war of Iran. So sactions is jus secondary
effect of this decition.
Notable quotes:
"... Since its unilateral exit from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Washington has been mounting pressure on Tehran through a series of sanctions. Iran has maintained a tough stance and scaled back its nuclear commitments in response. ..."
The latest move included sanctions on metal manufacturing and other sectors of the Iranian
economy, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin told reporters at a White House press
briefing, noting that the sanctions are both primary and secondary.
Mnuchin also said the Treasury had designated eight senior Iranian officials, including Ali
Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani,
deputy chief of staff of Iranian armed force, and others.
"The United States is targeting senior Iranian officials for their involvement and
complicity in Tuesday's ballistic missile strikes," Mnuchin claimed in a statement issued by
the Treasury.
Also on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a White House statement that the
punishing measures aimed at denying Iran's revenue that "may be used to fund and support its
nuclear program, missile development, terrorism and terrorist proxy networks, and malign
regional influence."
The Pentagon confirmed that Iran had launched 16 ballistic missiles against two military
bases housing U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq earlier this week.
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had claimed responsibility for the missile
attacks, saying that they were meant to retaliate the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani, former
commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC.
Trump said Wednesday in an address to the nation that "the United States will immediately
impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions
will remain until Iran changes its behavior."
Since its unilateral exit from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Washington has been
mounting pressure on Tehran through a series of sanctions. Iran has maintained a tough stance
and scaled back its nuclear commitments in response.
When
the United States, the United Kingdom, and the "coalition of the willing" attacked Iraq in
March 2003, millions protested around the world. But the war of "shock and awe" was just the
beginning. The subsequent occupation of Iraq by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority
bankrupted the country and left its infrastructure in shambles.
It's not just a question of security. Although the breathtaking violence that attended
Iraq's descent into sectarian nightmare has been well documented in many retrospectives on the
10-year-old war, what's often overlooked is that by far more mundane standards, the United
States did a spectacularly poor job of governing Iraq.
It's not that Iraq was flourishing before the occupation. From 1990 to 2003, the UN Security
Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq that were the harshest in the history of global
governance. But along with the sanctions, at least, came an elaborate system of oversight and
accountability that drew in the Security Council, nine UN agencies, and General Secretary
himself.
The system was certainly imperfect, and the effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people
were devastating. But when the United States arrived, all semblance of international oversight
vanished.
Under enormous pressure from Washington, in May 2003 the Security Council formally
recognized the occupation of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Resolution
1483. Among other things, this resolution gave the CPA complete control over all of Iraq's
assets.
At the same time, the Council removed all the forms of monitoring and accountability that
had been in place: there would be no reports on the humanitarian situation by UN agencies, and
there would be no committee of the Security Council charged with monitoring the occupation.
There would be a limited audit of funds, after they were spent, but no one from the UN would
directly oversee oil sales. And no humanitarian agencies would ensure that Iraqi funds were
being spent in ways that benefitted the country.
Humanitarian concerns
In January 2003, the UN prepared a working plan anticipating the impact of
a possible war. Even with only "medium impact" from the invasion, the UN expected that
humanitarian conditions would be severely compromised.
Because the Iraqi population was so heavily reliant on the government's food distribution
system (a consequence of international sanctions), the UN anticipated that overthrowing the
Iraqi regime would also undermine food security. And because the population already suffered
from extensive malnutrition, this disruption would be quite lethal, putting 30 percent of Iraqi
children under five at risk of death. The UN noted that if water and sewage treatment plants
were damaged in the war, or if the electrical system could not operate, Iraqis would lose
access to potable water, which would likely precipitate epidemics of water-borne diseases. And
if electricity, transportation, and medical equipment were compromised, then the medical system
would be unable to respond effectively to these epidemics.
During the occupation, much of this came to pass. A
June 2003 UN report noted that the postwar water and sewage systems for Baghdad and other
central and southern governorates were "in crisis." In Baghdad alone, the report estimated that
40 percent of the city's water distribution network was damaged, leading to a loss of up to
half of the city's potable water through leaks and breaks in the system. And direr still, the
UN reported that neither of Baghdad's two sewage treatment plants was functional, leading to a
massive discharge of raw sewage into the Tigris River.
The food situation was similar. The UN found that farming had collapsed due to "widespread
insecurity and looting, the complete collapse of ministries and state agencies -- the sole
providers of essential farming inputs and services -- together with significant damages to
power supplies."
Likewise, the health system deteriorated dramatically. Less than 50 percent of the Iraqi
population had access to medical care, due in part to the dangers associated with travel.
Additionally, the report estimated that 75 percent of all health-care institutions were
affected by the looting and chaos that occurred in the aftermath of the war. As of June 2003,
the health system as a whole was functioning at 30-50 percent of its pre-war capacity. The
impact was immediate. By early summer, acute malnutrition rates had doubled, dysentery was
widespread, and little medical care was available. In August, when a power outage blacked out
New York, the joke going around Baghdad was "I hope they're not waiting for the Americans to
fix it."
The CPA gave responsibility for humanitarian relief to the U.S. military -- not to agencies
with experience in humanitarian crises -- and marginalized the UN's humanitarian relief
agencies. Over the 14-month course of the CPA's administration, the humanitarian crisis
worsened. Preventable diseases like dysentery and typhoid ran rampant. Malnutrition worsened,
claiming the lives of ever more infants, mothers, and young children. All told, there was an
estimated 100,000
"excess deaths" during the invasion and occupation -- well above and beyond the mortality rate
under Saddam Hussein, even under international sanctions.
The CPA's priorities were clear. After the invasion, during the widespread looting and
robbery, occupation authorities did little to protect water and sewage treatment plants, or
even pediatric hospitals. By contrast, they provided immediate protection for the oil ministry
offices, hired a U.S. company to put out oil field fires, and immediately provided protection
for the oil fields as well.
Corruption
In addition, the U.S.-led CPA was deeply corrupt. Much of Iraq's revenues, from oil sales or
other sources, went to contracts with U.S. companies. Of contracts for more than $5 million, 74
percent went to U.S. companies, with most of the remainder going to U.S. allies. Only 2 percent
went to Iraqi companies.
Over the course of the occupation, huge amounts of money simply disappeared. Kellogg, Brown,
and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, received over 60 percent of all contracts paid for
with Iraqi funds, although it was repeatedly criticized by auditors for issues of honesty and
competence. In the last six weeks of the occupation, the United States shipped $5 billion of
Iraqi funds, in cash, into the country, to be spent before the Iraqi-led government took over.
Auditor reports indicated that Iraqi funds were systematically looted by the CPA officials:
"One contractor received a $2 million payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped
bundles of currency," read one
report . "One official was given $6.75 million in cash, and was ordered to spend it one
week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds."
U.S. officials were apparently unconcerned about the gross abuses of the funds with which
they were entrusted. In one instance, the CPA transferred some $8.8 billion of Iraqi money
without any documentation as to how the funds were spent. When questioned about how the money
was spent, Admiral David Oliver, the principal deputy for financial matters in the CPA,
replied
that he had "no idea" and didn't think it was particularly important. "Billions of dollars of
their money?" he asked his interlocutor. "What difference does it make?"
In the end, none of this should be terribly surprising -- the corruption, the indifference
to human needs, the singular concern with controlling Iraq's oil wealth. It was obvious from
the moment that the Security Council, under enormous pressure from the United State, passed
Resolution 1483.
By systematically removing nearly every form of oversight from their self-imposed
administration of Iraq, the United States and its allies laid the foundation for the looting of
an entire nation's wealth, abetted by their own wanton indifference to the needs and rights of
Iraqis. Ten years after the start of the war, the CPA's disastrous governance of Iraq stands
alongside the country's horrifying descent into violence as a dark legacy in its own right.
"... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump's motion to liquidate a top Iranian commander, CNN reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating Pompeo's influential status in the Trump administration. ..."
"... The sources suggested that the Iranian general was Pompeo's fixation, so that he even sought to get a visa to Iran in 2016 when he represented Kansas in Congress, before assuming the role of CIA director and then his current one. ..."
"... Despite winning the moniker of "Trump whisperer" over the ties he has developed with POTUS, Pompeo's ability to sell an aggressive Iran strategy to Trump, who has commonly opposed any military confrontation, has caused a certain sway, the sources implied. ..."
"... "He's the one leading the way", according to the source in Pompeo's inner circle, discussing the showdown with Iran. "It's the president's policy, but Pompeo has been the leading voice in helping the president craft this policy. There is no doubt Mike is the one leading it in the Cabinet". ..."
"... While bragging about Washington's "big and accurate" missiles as well as US achievements during his tenure, he separately praised the "new powerful economic sanctions" aimed at Iran, promising that they would be in place until Tehran "changes its behaviour". Also, he invited NATO to get more deeply involved in what is going on in the Middle East, with the Transatlantic bloc reacting favorably to the suggestion. ..."
Mike Pompeo has reportedly long cherished plans to take the Iranian general off the Middle
East battlefield, as he is said to have for quite a while seen late Commander Soleimani as the
one behind the spiralling tensions with Tehran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been
revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump's motion to liquidate a top Iranian
commander, CNN
reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating
Pompeo's influential status in the Trump administration.
According to several sources, taking Iranian General Qasem Soleimani – the leader of
the elite Quds Force, a powerful military group with vast leverage in the region - "off the
battlefield" has been Pompeo's goal for a decade.
Pompeo "was the one who made the case to take out Soleimani, it was him absolutely", a source
said, adding he apparently floated the idea when debating the US Embassy raid over New Year
with Trump.
According to a number of sources close to Pompeo, the secretary of state has at all times
believed that Iran is the root cause of the woes in the Middle East, and Soleimani in
particular - the mastermind of terrorism raging across the region. This point of view is
notably in tune with how Pompeo commented on the commander's assassination:
"We took a bad guy off the battlefield", Pompeo told CNN on 5 January. "We made the right
decision". The same day, Pompeo told ABC that killing Soleimani was important "because this
was a fella who was the glue, who was conducting active plotting against the United States of
America, putting American lives at risk".
The sources suggested that the Iranian general was Pompeo's fixation, so that he even sought
to get a visa to Iran in 2016 when he represented Kansas in Congress, before assuming the role
of CIA director and then his current one.
Despite winning the moniker of "Trump whisperer" over the ties he has developed with POTUS,
Pompeo's ability to sell an aggressive Iran strategy to Trump, who has commonly opposed any
military confrontation, has caused a certain sway, the sources implied.
"He's the one leading the way", according to the source in Pompeo's inner circle, discussing
the showdown with Iran. "It's the president's policy, but Pompeo has been the leading voice in
helping the president craft this policy. There is no doubt Mike is the one leading it in the
Cabinet".
Regardless of who inspired the drone attack that killed Soleimani, the two countries are
indeed going through a stint of severe tensions, but no direct military confrontation. After
Tehran's retaliatory attack, Trump announced a slew of more stringent economic limitations to
be slapped on Iran.
While bragging
about Washington's "big and accurate" missiles as well as US achievements during his
tenure, he separately praised the "new powerful economic sanctions" aimed at Iran, promising
that they would be in place until Tehran "changes its behaviour". Also, he invited NATO to get
more deeply involved in what is going on in the Middle East, with the Transatlantic bloc
reacting favorably to the suggestion.
"... Shorter Pompeo: "Our troops will stay and you better do what we say." A foreign force that is asked to leave a country and does not do so is an occupation force. It must and will be opposed. ..."
"... The murder of the 31 security forces and the assassination of al-Mahandes have still not been avenged. The PMU will do their moral duty and fight the foreign occupation forces until they leave. ..."
"... After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I still refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event I did not cooperate and do as he asked ..."
"... Iraq is again negotiating with Russia to acquire S-300 air defense systems. It will need them as the U.S. will have to leave and leave it will. The only choice for its soldiers is between leaving horizontally or vertically, dead or alive. ..."
"... In 2006 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously celebrated Israel's assault on Lebanon as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." The child she dreamed of was never born. Israel lost that war against Hizbullah and the Resistance Axis has been winning ever since while the U.S. has lost again and again. It is time for the U.S. to end that useless engagement and to withdraw from the Middle East. ..."
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi is following
Iraq's Parliament decision to remove all foreign forces from Iraq. But his request for
talks with the U.S. about the U.S. withdrawal process was answered with a big "F*** You":
Iraq's caretaker prime minister asked Washington to start working out a road map for an
American troop withdrawal, but the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the
request, saying the two sides should instead talk about how to "recommit" to their
partnership.
Thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in the capital and southern Iraq, many
calling on both Iran and America to leave Iraq, reflecting anger and frustration over the two
rivals -- both Baghdad's allies -- trading blows on Iraqi soil.
The request from Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi pointed to his determination to push
ahead with demands for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, stoked by the American drone strike on Jan.
3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. In a phone call Thursday night, he told U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that recent U.S. strikes in Iraq were an unacceptable breach
of Iraqi sovereignty and a violation of their security agreements, his office said.
He asked Pompeo to "send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism" to carry out the Iraqi
Parliament's resolution on withdrawing foreign troops, according to the statement.
"The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its
airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities, and this was a violation of the bilateral
agreements," the statement added.
The Associated Press errs when it says that the move was "stoked by the American
drone strike on Jan. 3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani". The move was stoked five
days earlier when the U.S.
killed 31 Iraqi security forces near the Syrian border despite the demands by the Iraqi
prime minister and president not to do so. It was further stoked when the U.S.
assassinated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes , the deputy commander of the Popular Militia Forces and
a national hero in Iraq.
The State Department issued a rather aggressive response to
Abdul-Mahdi's request:
America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue
the fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting
Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners. We have been unambiguous regarding how crucial
our D-ISIS mission is in Iraq. At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated
to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop
withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East. Today, a NATO
delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO's role in Iraq, in line with
the President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense efforts. There
does, however, need to be a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just
regarding security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to
be a friend and partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.
Shorter Pompeo: "Our troops will stay and you better do what we say." A foreign force that is asked to leave a country and does not do so is an occupation force.
It must and will be opposed.
The murder of the 31 security forces and the assassination of al-Mahandes have still not
been avenged. The PMU will do their moral duty and fight the foreign occupation forces until
they leave.
The demonstrators in Baghdad will not be able to prevent that from happening. It is
interesting, by the way, that the Washington Post bureau chief in Baghdad thought she
knew what they would demand even before they came together:
Louisa Loveluck @leloveluck - 9:48 UTC · Jan 10,
2020
Activists have called for fresh rallies in Baghdad's Tahrir Square today, and crowds expected
to build after midday prayers. The demonstrators are rejecting parliament's decision to
oppose a US troop presence, fearing repercussions that might follow.
A few hours later Loveluck had to admit that she was, as usual, wrong:
Louisa Loveluck @leloveluck - 11:13 UTC · Jan 10,
2020
"No to Iran, no to America" say signs and chants in Baghdad's Tahrir Square as crowds start
to swell. Protesters say they are fed up of their country being someone else's battlefield.
"We deserve to live in peace," says 21 year old Zahraa.
... Rejecting a narrow
parliamentary vote backed by Shiite political elites is not the same as openly supporting the
US. Chants in Tahrir today reject both the US and Iran.
The U.S. will need to pay better Iraqi 'activists' if it wants them to demand what Donald
Trump wishes.
After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I still
refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me. Indeed, the
demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event I did not
cooperate and do as he asked
Iraq is again negotiating with
Russia to acquire S-300 air defense systems. It will need them as the U.S. will have to leave
and leave it will. The only choice for its soldiers is between leaving horizontally or
vertically, dead or alive.
The US President – who promised to end the "
endless wars " – killed the Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes and the Iranian
Major General Qassem Soleimani believing he could win control of Iraq and achieve regime
change in Iran. On the brink of triggering a major war, Trump has spectacularly lost Iran and
is about to lose Iraq.
"
Beautiful military equipment doesn't rule the world, people rule the world, and the
people want the US out of the region",
said Iran Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif. President Trump doesn't have many people in the
Middle East on his side, not even among his allies, whose leaders have been repeatedly
insulted . Iran
could not have dreamt of a better President to rejuvenate its position domestically and
regionally. All Iran's allies are jubilant, standing behind the "Islamic Republic" that
fulfilled its promise to bomb the US. A "New Middle East" is about to be born; it will not be
"Made in the USA" but "Made in Iran". Let us hope warmongers' era is over. The time has come
to recognise and rely on intelligent diplomacy in world affairs.
In 2006 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously celebrated Israel's assault on
Lebanon as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." The child she dreamed of was never born.
Israel lost that war against Hizbullah and the Resistance Axis has been winning ever since
while the U.S. has lost again and again. It is time for the U.S. to end that useless engagement
and to withdraw from the Middle East.
Posted by b on January 10, 2020 at 19:09 UTC |
Permalink
The sheer arrogance and wilful blindness expressed in the US State
Department press statement and WaPo staffer Louisa Loveluck's tweets are astounding beyond
belief. It's as if the entire capital city of the US has become a mental asylum / Hotel
California, where one can enter but never leave spiritually and morally, though one can take
many physical trips in and out of the madhouse.
Iraq definitely does need the S-300 missile defence systems. The most pressing issue
though is whether the Iraqis will suffer the delays Syria suffered in acquiring those systems
even after paying for them. Time now is of the essence. Iraqi operators need to be trained in
those systems. Syria may be able to supply some training but at the risk of letting down its
guard in sending some of its operators to Baghdad and exposing them to US drone attacks.
Thanks b, for your continuing coverage and insights.
the u.s'. leadership believes it can do the same thing over, and over, and over with
different results. They will need a very long ladder with the upcoming repeat of Saigon
1975.
They have always underestimated the will and cultures of people they would make
subservient.
How is this working for the Iran Puppet Master:
Pompous one?
Here is the big mighty with world's powerful military; on their bended knees -
[.]The press release further noted that Washington seeks to be "a friend and partner to a
sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq", while stating that the US military presence in the
country will persist in order to fight Daesh* and protect Americans, Iraqis, and US-led
coalition partners.[.]
Yes, some friend and partner eh? Insults and thuggery. Exiting will be horizontal.
Go pound sand.
From the US State Dept's 'aggressive response' link,
"not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle
East. Today, a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO's role
in Iraq, in line with the President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective
defense efforts. "
"BUT OUR RIGHT" ??
...
"President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense efforts."
And with such liars who needs a stick. Narrative changes depending the hour.
Last night: Pompeo told Foxnews-
Pompeo Says US Had No Information on Date, Place of Possible Attack Allegedly Planned
by Soleimani
LINK
US President Donald Trump earlier claimed that Washington had eliminated the top Iranian
military commander to halt Tehran's plans to blow up the US Embassy in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on a national broadcast that the United States
possessed no information about the date and place of an alleged attack planned by
assassinated General Qasem Soleimani.[.]
"We don't know precisely when - and we don't know precisely where. But it was real
...
US President Donald Trump in an interview with Fox News said that top Iranian commander
Qasem Soleimani was plotting attacks on four American embassies in the Middle East region
before being assassinated by US forces.
"I can reveal that I believe it probably would've been four embassies," Trump said when
asked whether large-scale attacks were planned against other embassies.
The House of Fools. Something is out of focus if they have to keep making justifications
for the killing.
Thanks for focus on the Iran front of the civilization war humanity is in. I find the Ukraine
plane crash to be distracting from the bigger picture.
The piece from the US State Department is quite the lie. Bottom line is that Iran is
currently sovereign but would cease to be so is they became the "normal" country that private
finance empire wants. Iran would then live under the dictatorship of global private finance
like the rest of us that mythically believe we are sovereign nations and individuals.
I am pleased to see that humanity is at this juncture in spite of the threat of
extinction. Our species is crippled by the cult that owns global private finance in the West
and even if this process seems quite indirect to me, at least the socialism/barbarism war is
being fought.
Good. Iran will star escalating (via proxy force, or maybe even directly if they are feeling
bold and determined) and US will start to have casualties. Being nice to bully never works.
Iraq, every parliament party, could start themselves showing they want the americans to
leave. They have not done this,
and this is the reason US give not to leave:
US is not willing to withdraw troops from Iraq, says Pompeo
The US argues that the Iraqi parliamentary vote was non-binding, and that its legitimacy
was undermined by neither Iraqi Kurds or Sunnis participating.
New Rome suffers the same maladies as the first. Uprisings in the Provinces.
Lest we forget, Rome's demands;
" "First, Iran must declare to the IAEA a full account of the prior military dimensions of
its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity."
"Second, Iran must stop uranium enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This
includes closing its heavy water reactor."
"Third, Iran must also provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout
the entire country."
"Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or
development of nuclear-capable missile systems."
"Iran must release all U.S. citizens, as well as citizens of our partners and allies, each
of them detained on spurious charges."
"Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hizballah
[Hezbollah], Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
"Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government and permit the disarming,
demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias."
"Iran must also end its military support for the Houthi militia and work towards a
peaceful political settlement in Yemen."
"Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout the entirety of
Syria."
"Iran, too, must end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the
region, and cease harboring senior Al Qaida leaders."
"Iran, too, must end the IRG [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] Qods Force's [Quds
Force's] support for terrorists and militant partners around the world."
"And too, Iran must end its threatening behavior against its neighbors – many of
whom are U.S. allies. This certainly includes its threats to destroy Israel, and its firing
of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes threats to
international shipping and destructive – and destructive cyberattacks."
thanks b... i share jens view on how outrageous usa official words on this are...
"At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best
recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right,
appropriate force posture in the Middle East." they just don't give a fuck... everyone here
knew that already... as a few of us have been saying - there is no way the usa is going to
leave.. they are intent up the same agenda they have been intent on for what seems like
forever...
@ 4 Likklemore quote - "Something is out of focus if they have to keep making
justifications for the killing." the liar in command saying he was going to cause trouble at
4 embassies.. jesus what a liar and retard trump is if he thinks anyone who has a brain would
believe that b.s.
@ 10 sammy... the sooner washington d.c. is glass the sooner americans can wake the fuck
up..
Who dares to stop them?
Surely no sane country wants to stand against JUSA.
Israel is shaking in its boots so its American poodle must stay to protect them. The
sooner the world gets rid of the Jewish infestation from their governments the safer the
world will be.
We will likely see a rebranding of USA troops to NATO
Some of their NATO vassals still care about the rule of law and international law. Mikey
and Donny might discover that these backward states are "not very helpful" to their cause of
rules based order.
USA runs a serious risk of overplaying its hand and alienating some of their european
allies. Likely not all, but almost certainly some. That would create a rift in NATO and
possibly the EU and compromise USA control over these organizations and their members.
Fernando Martinez@16 - You're misunderstanding the situation. The Iraqi parliament did get
the majority they needed to pass the resolution as specified in their constitution. They will
turn it over to the existing or new PM for implementation. Nothing wishy-washy about it. It's
a done deal despite the terrified Kurds and Sunnis not voting to save their own butts from
reprisal - either by Iraqi Shia or by the US. I would have done the same thing.
It is the US that is claiming the resolution is nonbinding (in their 'legal' opinion)
because the vote wasn't sufficiently representative (in the mind of the US dual-citizen
chickenhawk neocons) - despite the fact that two-thirds of Iraqis are Shia and there was more
than enough votes to pass the resolution despite the Sunni and Kurd representatives' absence.
The US is pouting and will hold its breath until the Iraqis defy their constitution and obey
the will of their American masters. In the meantime, the US has refused to recognize the vote
and will oppose any efforts for implementation by the Iraqi PM. Trump or Pompeo or one of
those idiots stated that clearly and unambiguously - the US has no plans to leave no matter
what.
I guess we'll see. Plan B for the US is probably to agitate for the original plan of
uprisings to partition Iraq into Kurd, Sunni and Shia statelets. The obedient Kurd and Shia
leaders will allow eternal US presence and as many bases as the US wants. It will be enough
territory to block the feared 'Shia Crescent' - the US will insist the Kurd and Sunni
statelets extend from Turkey down the Syrian border to Jordan, blocking any attempts to
connect the Shia statelet to Syria. That's the US plan B for this problem if they can't use
'other means' to stay in present-day Iraq for 'anti-ISIS' operations.
US was hitting Iraqi militias even back when ISIS still held territory and the militias where
driving ISIS back.
Then the recent strike on the militia's formally incorporated into Iraqi military and the
strike that killed the Iraqi and Iranian.... but then the Iraqi's declare Iran's strike on
the US base a breach of sovereignty. Iraqi's that should be allied with Iran for the purpose
of driving the US out. US will be in Iraq and the Syrian oilfields for quite some time.
There was the same talk about militia's and whatever hitting US in Syria but that hasn't
eventuated and I doubt any thing serious against US will happen in Iraq either. US will have
proxies out and about - using its bases as fire support bases with air and artillery to back
up its proxies.
The vote count I saw was unanimous. Clearly, the Evil Outlaw US Empire is throwing as much
bullshit at everything in the hopes that some sticks and clogs peoples's minds. The 737 crash
is similar in pointing over there instead of looking at what's just occurred at your feet.
Now Trump says four embassies were going to be attacked as he further demonstrates he's
losing his mind. Lies and Bluster are the hallmarks of a Paper Tiger.
Meanwhile, what stands for genuine Progressives and the Left are clearly gaining ground as
numerous Anti-war rallies took place yesterday and an article appeared in my local rag saying
the D-Party Establishment is afraid of a Sanders nomination--2016 in play all over again
except no HRC and we know more about the DNC's evilness in not at all being responsive to the
public or voting results. IMO, the Political Fight required for genuine change has finally
begun and will escalate.
Globally, the current battles are a new phase of a 3 millennial-long war between the
Current Oligarchy and the 99% as to who will be the Sovereign--the people collectively or
those who've stolen their wealth. Class War--You Bet! We now have definitive proof of how it
works and how long it's been ongoing. What we've yet to see is if the 99% have enough brains
and solidarity to undo 3,000+ years of Tyranny.
Within
this article is a photo of Iranian general Ali Amir Hajizadeh standing at a podium in
front of a phalanx of 9 flags belonging to the Axis of Resistance. We need to add our own
flags to that Alliance for the enemies of Iran are the enemies of all Earth's people and
employ the likes of sammy and other Terrorists to do their bidding.
The Iranians attacked by the US in this episode was always about Iraq being seen as moving
out of the American-Euro orbit and into the China-Iran-Russia orbit. So of course they will
not voluntarily leave, instead they will either be forced out by attacks or more likely they
will force either a change in leadership of Iraq or threaten the leadership or bribe the
leadership into accepting permanent occupation for "their safety" ala a Mob Protection
Racket. This is exposed here Pax
Americana: Between Iraq and A Hard Place
Couple of small points;
1) 32-35 soldiers (4-5 commanders and their command posts - US dixit) were killed in the
earlier US attacks, which were heavier in Syria and against the Herzbollah, than those
against Iraqian forces on the Syria-Iraqi border. The command posts were eliminated
very accurately. This is possibly because they had previously collectively stated that they
wanted to eliminate the terrorists in the Anbar desert. (Thought; those "terrorists" may have
included embedded "special forces" or mercenaries which the US wanted to protect.)
2) I believe that Iraq was trying to get the S400, (The one that can "see" F35's) rather than
the S300.
3) OT? Just who gets the profits from the Oil stolen from Syria, and would have a kickback
from the oil that was demanded from Iraq (Al-Mahdi statement)? Conventionally we attribute
the money going to the "Pentagon" or "CIA". But I seem to remember that the complete Erdogan
family was benefitting before they were kicked out. Is it possible that the Syrian oil is now
going straight into a slush fund for some Generals or members of the administration? Is that
really why the US doesn't want leave? Profits not geo-politics?
Well, we shall soon see what the Iraqis are made of and where their will lies. I expect
we'll begin getting that answer this weekend. It does appear Iraqi Patriots will need to drag
their fellows along with them, but IMO none will get a better future unless the Outlaw US
Empire is driven from Southwest Asia.
I expect some spineless eastern European countries (Romania, Poland, etc.) will lend
themselves for this. The other members will tacitly accept the NATO branding ...
the sooner Israhell, stripped to its 1948 boundaries, is glass we will have peace on
planet earth. Fighting Israhell's wars have daily cost in blood and treasure. In $ 7
trillions and counting.
Hmm. Why? running scared.
Reuters: but Russia denies. Russian navy ship 'aggressively approached' U.S. destroyer in Arabian Sea: U.S.
Navy
"DUBAI (Reuters) - A Russian navy ship "aggressively approached" a U.S. Navy destroyer in the
North Arabian Sea on Thursday, the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said in a statement
on Friday.
[.]
"The Russian ship initially refused but ultimately altered course and the two ships opened
distance from one another," the statement said."
No one should cheer this. The people of the Middle East have been bleeding way too
long.
The million dollar question is: how tostop a serial killer on the loose, operating in plain
sight, when everyone else is either afraid, in a deal or trying to avoid blowing up the whole
place (world).
It's tough because the serial killer, (together with his partners in crime EU/NATO), have
dismantled the existing world order, however fragile it was. The law is no more.
You would expect that in a situation like this the nations of the world, through the UN,
would say - now you must leave Iraq because the Iraqi parliament has spoken. That's the only
way the weaker can enforce their decisions agains the stronger peacefully, with the support
of the global community. But that doesn't happen because the worst offenders, the serial
killers, are members of the UN Security Council. And, the UN General Assembly almost never
meets to discuss events crucial for world peace, justice, fairness and equality, such as
these.
When all hinges on force, chaos and blood are in store. It is absolutely immoral, unjust
and heinous that the people of Iraq, Iran Syria, Lebanon and others should again fight to
their death to set themselves free from the deadly claws of parasitic states that are
veto-holding members of the UN body entrusted with maintaining world peace, law and order!!!
This entire theatre of the absurd is unbearable and should be a call to action for every
single decent human being on this beautiful planet.
Magnier has a few comments on the Iraqi divides at his twitter thread and is exactly what
I have thought for the last month or so. Those Iraqi groups that are solidly allied with Iran
in the fight against ISIS and US are a small minority and US and Israel have been hitting
them with impunity for several years now. Most Iraqi's including Shia seem tied up in small
time domestic disputes. No Nasrallah's or Kharmenei's in Iraq. Only Muqtada al-Sadr types.
Perhaps Sistani may do something but he also seems very much small time domestic - not
interested or not capable in the big picture.
Yes, you're quite correct, there will be blood, just as there's been blood flowing for the
last 3,000 years. That's why I wrote our flags must join those of the Axis of
Resistance--this War isn't theirs alone; it's every Earthling's War whether they realize it
or not.
What if the government of Iraq asks Russia to assist it in safeguarding its airspace from
unauthorized entry? The Russians will bring the equipment and the operators & they are
already just across in Syria.
Thanks for your reply! The rhetorical counter to the non-Patriot Iraqis will be that the
Evil Outlaw US Empire intends to treat them just like the Zionists treat their Palestinian
slaves and have demonstrated so already. There are essentially three choices: Fight, help
others to fight, pack up and move to another nation as you're no longer an Iraqi.
"Just who gets the profits from the Oil stolen from Syria, "
Best estimates I've seen say the oil fields trump is so bent on denying the Assad
government from accessing are so damaged they produce 31,000 bpd at best. Whatever discount
price comes from that after it's trucked to some market in Turkey or maybe Iraq, it would be
less profitable than trump's Taj mahal casino venture.
But hey, he's the greatest business man ever. Just ask him?
It's not about profit, it's about making a dollar here and there to give to the Kurds and
keep their America is our friend dreams alive and denying Assad that oil.
It would cost a great deal of money to return the fields east of the Euphrates to their
previous production levels.
The Netanyahu plan is to deny the Syrian gov't and it's people the revenue from those
wells they used to access to pay for their needs. Only the needs of trump and his people
matter.
The current regime in the United States seems to believe that people are only able to believe
what the regime tells them to believe. This is not the case. Even the American people want
the US military to withdraw from Iraq, from Syria, from the Middle East.
This has been illustrated repeatedly. But, after every 'election', and after every 'poll',
the regime chews on the results and rolls it over until they come up with a 'storyline' that
says they can do whatever the hell they feel like anyway. More and more people are catching
on to this.
Elijah Magnier in a Tweet today seemed to imply that Al Mahdi didn't stand up to the US
forcefully enough and that there is a split between shia and Sunni as to US presence. Some
want the US to stay. He also said Iraq needs a stronger PM that will implement US kicking out
of Iraq. He also mentioned that Al Mahdi did not give the ok for PMU forces to go up against
US in Iraq.
We will have to see. But if the Iraqi people are demanding US is kicked out then Al Mahdi may
be forced to act.
As in virtual every representative democracy, the Iraqi government carries out the will of
the people as expressed through their representatives. So the vote by the Iraqi Parliament is
binding on the Iraqi government, not a foreign government .. duh!
AFAIK USA is in Iraq at invitation of the Iraqi government but there's no formal agreement
(aka SOFA). So the Iraqi government can ask USA to leave at any time.
Iraq was being nice and diplomatic to invite USA to provide input that helps the Iraqi
government determine the timetable for USA to leave. Since USA has refused, we should expect
the Iraqi government to demand that USA leave immediately.
Of course, USA has already stated their reasons for remaining despite any lawful demand
that they do so.
Thanks james. Give the u.s. uniformed boys and girls some slack. They are running scared,
having to look over their shoulders knowing they are targets and that now things have changed
- U.S. stands alone without friends. It's vassal states waiver. after Soleimani
killing suddenly, except for IL, the U.S. is alone . article from earlier comment posting
is a good read.
"'Power-driven vessel A approaches the port side of power-driven vessel B. Vessel A is
considered the give-way vessel. As the give-way vessel, A must take EARLY and SUBSTANTIAL
action to keep clear and avoid crossing the stand-on vessel B.'
Farragut (A) should have passed behind B."
As b notes, this is almost an exact repeat of what happened last year. The idiots
commenting on the USN's twitter thread are pathetic and clearly don't know squat.
And speaking of the Russian Navy, Putin's business today began with "a
meeting with the Defence Ministry leadership and the Russian Navy commanders to discuss the
key areas of short- and long-term development of the Navy. The meeting was held while the
Supreme Commander-in-Chief was visiting the Nakhimov Black Sea Naval Academy" after
observing/participating in the previous day's naval exercises on the Black Sea. Currently,
the USN is
rated as "weak and marginal" by the Heritage Institute, a patriotic think tank, which is
outwardly displayed by the lack of navigation skills.
And another thing...
Did anybody notice how the 'goodguy badguy show' (impeachment dog & pony show) got shoved
to the back burner all of a sudden? Now I guess they are going to wait and see how this
'breakout' aggression move is going to pan out for them.
ISIS was the means - the Trojan horse - to justify the permanent garrisoning of NATO in Iraq
and Syria. Before Russia's intervention, NATO and politicians from NATO countries were
uniform in proclaiming the "fight" against ISIS would be a "generational struggle" which
would take at least 20-30 years to achieve victory. Even after major fighting has reduced the
organization to almost nothing, this rationale lives on in the guise of a "continuing threat"
represented by ISIS' ideology or aspirations. Permanent NATO garrisons in Iraq and Syria
remains the extant policy (ISIS always just the pretext). If the European NATO members balk
at the Iraq civil war which the US will quietly propose in the interest of supporting this
policy, then it is likely the Kurd regions will suffice as a breakaway NATO protectorate.
January 8, 2020 at 1:37 pm GMT •
Iris responded to:
Now Trump will be able to deescalate and Iran will save its face by claiming 80 or so
American soldiers dead
with:
"It is good to gather facts, information and try to cross-check it before making educated
assumptions on subjects ordinary citizens are not privy to.
Countless insightful American commenters propose very well-supported cases, but come to
opposite conclusions with regard to President Trump's real intentions. How could we then
know Iran's strategic roadmap?
The Iranian reaction was long coming. The writing was on the wall when Hassan Nasrallah,
following one too many Israeli strike on Syria, detailed in his Sept 2019 address that the
"Resistance Axis" had the capability to hit strategic Israeli targets that he
named.
It is not normal that US sources have not communicated any detail of the consequences of
the strikes, so many hours after they took place. The Danes have stated there were "no
casualties amongst them", which hints there were casualties amongst other Western
nationalities.
Your cynicism is justified by how real-politik is actually conducted. However, it is also
very possible that we are living a cornerstone moment in ME's History, a reverse moment of
the 2003 invasion of Iraq."
• Replies: @Erebus
Erebus says:
January 9, 2020 at 10:20 am GMT •
@Iris
"Some of what's come out suggests the US has gone full Mafia in response to the last few
years' developments in the M.E. There's no geo-political strategy. There's only (bad)
gangsterism.
Countless insightful American commenters propose very well-supported cases, but come to
opposite conclusions with regard to President Trump's real intentions.
Russia's textbook demonstration of how to combine diplomatic acumen and military
efficiency in sorting problems has given impetus to a Russian authored, Chinese backed
regional security and development proposal that's been making the rounds through the
region's capitals since late summer (at least). Promoted by Iran (mostly via Oman) as a new
paradigm in M.E. affairs, it's been well received everywhere except Saudi Arabia who've
apparently cited their inability to throw off the American yoke as the primary impediment
to their overt support. Notwithstanding, the Saudis have been talking quietly with all
parties and have reportedly even sent emissaries to Tehran for "informal" talks on the
hush-hush. Soleimani was a significant player in these talks, which were being mediated by
Iraq.
In his speech to the Iraqi parliament subsequent to Soleimani's murder, Iraqi Prime
Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi revealed an astonishing tale of the sort of strongarming tactics
America has employed in response. His speech was to be carried live on Iraqi TV, but the
feed was cut immediately after he started by the Speaker.
Nevertheless, his words have leaked to the public. In it he told that Trump had demanded
50% of Iraq's oil revenues, or the US wouldn't go ahead with promised infrastructure
rebuilding of the country they destroyed. Mahdi refused that proposal and headed to China
where he promptly made a deal to rebuild the country. When the US learned of it, Trump
called him to demand that the deal be rescinded and when Mahdi refused Trump threatened to
unleash violent protests against Mahdi's rule.
Sure enough, violent protests began shortly thereafter. Again Trump called and when
Mahdi again refused to rescind the China deal, Trump threatened him with Maidan-style
snipers. Again Mahdi refused, and Iraq's Minister of Defence spoke publicly of "third
party" provocateurs killing both protestors and police, threatening to drive the country
back into civil war.
Again Trump called, and Mahdi reports that this time he threatened Mahdi and the Defence
Minister with assassination if they didn't shut up about "third party" provocateurs.
Meanwhile, Mahdi continued to mediate Iranian-Saudi talks and Soleimani was carrying Iran's
response to the latest Saudi message. He was to meet Mahdi later the morning of his
assassination.
The upshot of all that is that the intent behind Soleimani's gangland slaying was to
send the US' message to Mahdi specifically, but also to Iran, the Saudis, and anyone else
contemplating M.E. rapprochement that murder awaited them if they continued to work towards
peace in the region.
It is not normal that US sources have not communicated any detail of the consequences of
the strikes, so many hours after they took place.
Details are emerging re the Al Assad Air Base attack, and if you're an American
strategist they ain't pretty. The lack of casualties notwithstanding, satellite photos show
that the Iranian salvo hit targets with a very high level of combat efficiency. Any damage
assessment will reveal that technically, Iran can hit whatever it wants to hit.
Qiam missiles were used. They're a cheap 'n cheerful derivative of the Soviet SCUD, and
Iran has 1,000s of them. Hezbollah likely has 1,000s as well, so the picture is even less
pretty if you're an Israeli strategist. Furthermore
Iran informed the Swiss Embassy in Tehran (who represent American interests in Iran) an
hour or more before the attack. More than enough time to get personnel out of harm's way.
FARS' reports of 80 killed and ~200 injured, frankly look to be a narrative for domestic
consumption. It's hard to believe that with the hour+ warning that that many people were
hanging around in the line of fire.
My guess about the delay is that the US is simply stunned.
However, it is also very possible that we are living a cornerstone moment in ME's
History, a reverse moment of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I believe that's true regardless of what got hit and the number of casualties. This was
a message sending exercise. As unimaginative as it may appear, the salvo sent an
unmistakeable signal that went through the region's capitals and beyond. Here's why they're
all paying attention
1. Iran struck American assets directly, in a brazenly overt manner. No plausible
deniability, proxies or non-state actors involved. It was a State attack on another State's
assets. If there is any doubt that the hit on Suleimani was an act of war, there can be no
doubt about Iran's response. The bully got punched in the nose in front of his entourage
and they're now waiting to see what he'll do. However
2. The IRGC's very high level of confidence in its missiles & missile corps is
obviously warranted. If the US and its satraps expected amateur hour, they got the
diametric opposite – the equivalent of getting your knife shot out of your hand
– and that puts the US in a bad spot.
3. The Qiam salvo was no Kalibrs-from-the-Caspian demonstration of technical prowess,
but so far as I can currently tell, more than half of the missiles targetting Al Assad hit
bull's eyes and American AD failed to intercept any of them. This stands in stark contrast
to Syria's success at knocking down Tomahawks. The Americans claim that the Al Assad
airbase had no missile defence systems installed, which seems incredible, but with the
silence of the Patriot batteries of Abqaiq looming in the background, all of the USM's
regional assets have been exposed as ducks in a barrel. The US simply can't defend
them.
It is clear that with its S300 systems and indigenous air defence in place, Iran can
destroy American assets while minimizing its own losses. What's more, Iran's S300s have
reportedly been networked into Russia's regional air defence systems, and that installing
S400s is being actively considered. With either development, Iran's air space is
effectively closed. Iran's status as the pre-eminent regional power has been cemented into
place, and with the Kremlin's backing there is no way to dislodge it. Every capital must
now run its calculus and begin re-thinking its role in the region, or its relationship with
it.
Without high efficiency air defence, CENTCOM can't defend even itself, never mind the
region's oil infrastructure and perverse allied monarchies. That is now plain as day.
Remaining perceptions of its ability to provide security guarantees to its satraps are now
gone, and so the US' options have been reduced to a choice between escalation, or going
home. There's no there there, and everybody now knows it. The message couldn't be
clearer.
Iran has opened the exit door and we're all waiting to see what heads prevail in
Washington as the facts settle into them. To keep the Americans focussed, one can expect to
see the Iraqi militias begin ratcheting up attacks on American assets in Iraq, and in
collaboration with domestic militia's in Syria as well.
The question now revolves around whether the US needs a thousand cuts to absorb the
message that its dominance of the M.E. is over.
If the US withdraws from the Middle East the Petrodollar will come to an end and the whole US
and the Western financial system collapses. The US and West are trapped by their stupidity in
abusing the financial system to fund their wars and build up a level of debt that can never
and will never be paid. How can the US leave even if they wanted to?
Well, the sun rose in the East again today, so why would anyone be surprised the US wont
leave Iraq and all that black gold. Heck, we never left Germany, Japan and South Korea and
they got nothing but location going for them (as does Iraq)
As for losing. Wars are not fought with an ending as the principle goal, at least not
since WWII. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. Welcome to Orwells 1984, sans the boot in
Oceania (thus far). Cold War followed by GWOT. When the GWOT began to fizzle a mini Cold War
with Russia was started by Obama and AQ was replaced with ISIS. Those are fizzling so Trumps
pulled Iran from Obamas dust bin.
Empires need enemies to hold them together so they can keep feed the MIC beast and keep it
from devouring the hand that feeds them. If an enemy does not exist one is created.
It helps that the majority can be made to believe anything. Ignorance and effective
propaganda, the elimination of a free press, and control of education and entertainment make
that possible. Nothing can reverse this. Sure, a few might break out of the matrix but they
are of no consequence unless they become too visible.
27
The S300 can see F35s just fine.Its not at a fixed model,the appellation is a generic, and
denotes a class of missile with a range of 300km.Radars and c&c systems are updated
constantly.
They are not your daddys S300s that Greece never updated, you're in for a rude surprise if
you think so.
Jen @ 1
"The sheer arrogance and wilful blindness expressed in the US State Department press
statement and WaPo staffer Louisa Loveluck's tweets are astounding beyond belief. "
+++++++
One is left gobsmacked and speechless.
An interloper is told to get the hell out of your house and he retorts: "No, we are here to
stay and renew our marriage vows with you!"
This is insane.
Surely the world can see that Pompeo and others at State are deranged, out of touch with
reality.
Honestly, one is at a loss for words.
As ever, more thanks to b for keeping up with all of this.
Referring your observations here concerning DNC may be problematic, instead it might have
better standing to fact if DLC (Democratic Leadership Committee) is used as it is a construct
of the Clintons in their takeover of the D-party for the 1992 election. It is highly unlikely
Hillary replaced that organisation for her attempts at high office. It is also highly
unlikely Obama had the interest or motive to replace the Clinton organisation in his
Presidency, he hardly replaced Bush 43's administration at the end of eight years. All too
much of this information has gone down memory holes and no longer carries sufficient
significance to matter for the public but should definitely matter to those interested in
modern historical developments. Verification may likely be found by analysing the membership
of the D-party's financial committee (membership should be matter of public record) and
determine their political allegiances
YMMV
On completely unrelated note, b, you are aware that your website, as set as it is, gives us
government technical ability to identify each and every one of posters here? Regardless where
you host your website.
You website imports contents from ajax.googleapis.com. It is spyware used for tracking
users across whole internet, every site that uses google api is voluntarily enabling google
to track people so they can build surfing history/profile for everyone.
google shares that info with us government.
government compares timestamps of posts here, and can identify people.
HTTPS website doesn't protects anyone here in this regard.
Just for posters to know there is technical possibility.
Iraq has Trump by the short hairs.
In a few months the election circus will really get underway. If they're smart and
patriottic, the PMF will slowly start hitting US targets, forcing Trump's hand. An increased
campaign of pressure.
Like Tet '68. The Bagdad Olympics.
karlof1 @50
""'Power-driven vessel A approaches the port side of power-driven vessel B. Vessel A is
considered the give-way vessel. As the give-way vessel, A must take EARLY and SUBSTANTIAL
action to keep clear and avoid crossing the stand-on vessel B.'
Farragut (A) should have passed behind B."
Video was taken on the US ship, right (voice? Looks to me like the Russian ship (top left)
was crossing the US ship's bow from port to starboard of US (closer) ship. I.e., from the
port side. Not "approaching the port side." So, as far as I can see, the US vessel had the
right of way; the Russian ship should have given way/changed course.
Cf. "1. If another vessel is approaching you from the port -- or left -- side of your
boat, you have the right of way and should maintain your speed and direction."
I am going to go out on a limb and say the reason for all the western obfuscation is that
Boeing is already in trouble due to the 737MAX issues. Boeing being a major component in USA
economy needs to be protected from the fact they just lost another plane to mechanical/design
error.
There's lots of info to verify in those comments. For the most part, they're all correct.
The exception comes to Iranian air defences, their indigenous designed S-400 equivalent,
overall radar net, EW capabilities, and independent internet communications. The overall
conclusion is Iran is far better prepared and equipped than Outlaw US Empire/NATO knew. It
should also be reiterated that Iran's under Russia's nuclear aegis, which was publicly stated
by Putin and an adjutant and clearly repeated to Pompeo and Trump by both Lavrov and Putin.
Furthermore as publicly stated, China has Iran's back fiscally. In other words, Iran and its
allies have more oomph collectively than the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals, many of the
latter actually desire better relations with the CRI troika.
Perhaps the key point made is the supposed inability of Saudi to free itself from the
Empire's shackles, which actually does make sense when one thinks long term. The logic of
Iran's HOPE Proposal is impeccable and is the only genuine route out of the current dilemma.
Clearly, it's been determined the Outlaw US Empire is the sole impediment to implementing
HOPE and thus must be ousted from its ability to impede. I wrote back in September when HOPE
was introduced at the UNGA that Trump would be a fool not to embrace it instead of oppose it
as he could then call the Empire a partner in the project. Clearly, he was advised not to do
so.
@ likklemore and karlof1.. i liked the comment on moa twitter feed - "This was an american
driving school marked with a very big "L" means "learner". Please drive carefully with max.
consideration."
@ 66 really? the other video is better then the one shown in b's twitter feed clip.. check
it out in the first video of
2 shown on the rt link.. cheers..
That's the impression you'd get when the USN is crossing the oncoming RuN path. I run into
those sorts of helmsmen all the time on the ocean outside of Newport, Oregon. Additionally,
with all the incidents of terrible navigation abilities seen over the past 3+ years and the
lies made to cover them, the USN has zero credibility just like its parent organization the
Outlaw US Empire.
It occurs to me that a host country that is no in conflict with an over-staying force can
make their life very challenging without having to actually fight them.
Outlaw any commerce between occupying forces and local businesses. Cut the roads to and
from the bases. Fly unarmed drones in the path of their aircraft. Delay, deny, defy any
requests for cooperation. Divert streams to flood their bases. Get really creative and make
their life hell.
Thanks for your reply! From what I observe, there's a lot of political angst within the
Empire that Trump's actions and subsequent BigLies have enhanced and brought to the surface.
The Act of War was the biggest domestic political error he could have committed, which shows
he has zero sense. Sanders is now the #1 D-Party candidate, and he and Gabbard with a
genuinely Progressive & Anti-war platform ought to win handily if allowed to.
You may have seen these one two links I've previously
posted dealing with the beginnings of the 2020 election season. The first is the initial
episode of a series in which I've seen the second, which is here .
The second of the three is very entertaining, and all are just shy of 30 min.
Sadly and unfortunately, the US will only withdrawal after it has suffered another
catastrophic loss, similar to what befell the soldiers in Lebanon. This is a criminal
enterprise sitting atop the US Military. You would figure people putting their ass on the
line would try and understand what they're really fighting for, but alas, most do not find
out until after they come home.
The US has started the chess game in a very poor position, with the pawns and horses deployed
too forward in the chessboard (only 5.200 soldiers in Iraq and 10.000 in Kuwait), and the USA
military leadership are in a very bad situation, if they try to send massive troops and
equipment reinforcement Iran will not be iddle waiting how US is preparing to destroy them as
the stupid Saddam did in 1991 and again in 2003, no, Iran will start the war with any pretext
before new troops & equipment is deployed in significant amounts.
On the other hand, if Iran escalate, the CENTCOM cannot support the "lost" garrison in
Iraq and Kuwait, they do not have enough forces deployed in the theater, and an airlift
operation of this magnitude under fire is very dangerous and a ride through hundreds of miles
through hostile terrain under harassment from Iranians and PMU troops "Hezbollah style" (as
IDF suffer in 2006), and without heavy armor scort and close air support will be almost
suicidal.
Iranian have been preparing for a war with USA from 1979, but now the situation is better
than ever, I do not give a cent on USA now if they do not retreat quickly from Syria and Iraq
(if Trump is enough intelligent it will order soon, but I am afraid he wants to play poker
once more), and stop to make threats and provocations.
But they "cannot" retreat, you know, is an electoral year and Trump want to be re-elected
above all.
Checkmate!
div> Those oil deals Iraq made with China in exchange for Iraqi electrical
infrastructure projects are something Trump will not allow and has threatened Iraq with the
terrors of the earth. As Karloff1 suggests the Iraqis have few choices, Trumps State department
have been blunt... you are vassals and you will do as you are told or you will be punished.
That's plain and we can all be thankful for Trumps honesty. The ball is now in the Iraqi court,
either refuse to be vassals and fight for your sovereignty or bow your heads and vacate the
field.
Those oil deals Iraq made with China in exchange for Iraqi electrical infrastructure projects
are something Trump will not allow and has threatened Iraq with the terrors of the earth. As
Karloff1 suggests the Iraqis have few choices, Trumps State department have been blunt... you
are vassals and you will do as you are told or you will be punished. That's plain and we can
all be thankful for Trumps honesty. The ball is now in the Iraqi court, either refuse to be
vassals and fight for your sovereignty or bow your heads and vacate the field.
I am seeing the position of Iraq against Iran as being very similar to the position of
Ukraine vis a vis Russia -- as 'younger' to 'elder brother'. Not as lesser to greater, but as
family, the ones nearby. Crimea grabbed onto that lifeline - as well they might!
Now a new element of the multipolar world is at early stages of being born. And this was
put in effect, if we go back and look, immediately up the invasion of Iraq by Bush Jr. But,
clearly, Iraq went through more horror, more destabilization than did Ukraine. The latter had
a governmental coup resulting in internal strife; Iraq had a military invasion. So, hopefully
the Resistance will be patient with it - like Syria, it is in great need of aid, comfort, and
reassurance that no further hegemony will be visited upon it. Sovereignty is the issue and
rightfully so.
There are lessons to be learned, after we finish mourning the murders of men who were
apparently engaged in the diplomatic efforts to establish this new multipolarity, or at least
lay some groundwork for future talks along that line. You don't murder diplomats. Case
closed; invaders out! And that is more difficult, more delicate, if up till now you have only
yourself survived as a nation by clinging to the skirts of the American empire. Difficult but
inevitable.
Iraq now can look toward Ukraine. Has that country done well taking the unipolar path?
Hardly. Did South Vietnam? Hardly. But as spring approaches, how are each changing course?
The dust is settling; you can see better. Travel with Pepe over the great mountains following
real trading routes, of the centuries past. Bring your own unique assets to the fore and let
friends visit and see what it is that makes you you. Another name for the Axis of Resistance
is Peace and Prosperity. Mutual benefit. It's coming.
In this country, the US, long ago there was a mighty empire, the empire of the Anasazis,
in the center of the Southwest. They caused to be built mighty edifices and they suborned the
surrounding farming peoples because they had power to predict the seasonal changes and
supposedly command rain to fall. Everyone believed it and everyone obeyed. For a time. There
was no alternative. Until it didn't rain, and it didn't rain. So, the people left, they went
where there were rivers, they abandoned the great Anasazi centre. It is in ruins today. But
the people have survived.
We are suddenly in another pivotal moment. And it will be difficult for those of us who
willingly or not have benefited from empire. But many of us say with you - invaders out!
Peace and blessings to all!
US destroyer blatantly violated international rules for preventing collisions at sea by
making a manoeuvre to cross the Russian ship's course in the North Arabian Sea -
@MoD_Russia🇷🇺
Bearing in mind that Pravda ain't what it used to be this policy, described bluntly in
article title : "If NATO strikes Kaliningrad, Russia will seize Baltic in 48 hours" if real,
would probably extend to the prevention of similar build-up in the matter of the Iraqi and
Iranian "MAGA" programs now developing.
Quote from Pravda> "As soon as we can see the concentration of American aircraft on
airfields in Europe - they cannot reach us in any other way - we will simply destroy those
airfields by launching our medium-range ballistic missiles at those targets. Afterwards, our
troops will go on offensive in the Baltic direction and take control of the entire Baltic
territory within 48 hours. NATO won't even have time to come to its senses - they will see a
very powerful military buildup on the borders with Poland. Then they will have to think
whether they should continue the war. As a result, all this will end with NATO losing the
Baltic States," Mikhail Alexandrov told Pravda.Ru describing one of the scenarios for a
possible development of events in case of Russia's response to NATO aggression.
Another variant for the breakthrough of the missile defense system in Kaliningrad provides
for a massive cruise missile attack on the Russian territory. According to the expert, Russia
has cruise and ballistic missiles that it can launch on the territory of the United
States.
"If the Americans launch a missile attack on Kaliningrad, then we will strike, say, Seattle,
where largest US aircraft factories are located. Having destroyed those factories we will
deprive the Americans of the possibility to build their aircraft. They will no longer be able
to build up their fleet of military aircraft," said Mikhail Alexandrov.
Russia has efficient air defense systems to intercept cruise missiles. If it goes about a
ballistic missile strike, the expert reminded that Russia has a missile defense area in
Moscow that can intercept at least 100 missiles and maybe even more, since there are no
restrictions associated with the ABM Treaty.
One might assume the same policy would apply for all Ru, and Iran too, as Iran is critical to
the survival of Ru.
On the topic of Iran not waiting for a military build up as a precursor to a US assault on
Iran...
I wonder if an intermediate step for Iran might be, in cooperation with the PMU, to
threaten to attack any new forces coming into Iraq, taking this to be escalation prior to an
invasion, and therefore a threat that must countered before it worsens.
but there is this query: what are the consequences of taunting? A review of the past year
saw the u.s. losing stature and, since 2014, its dollar as world reserve currency being
shunned.
FF
2019: Abqaig - After the Houthis take down of KSA oil facilities, and failure of US defenses
does KSA still feel secure?
Working closely with Russia, Soleimani was instrumental in the battles for Syria, Lebanon
and Yemen.
Trump, the braggart, stunned the world. Even their special relationship Brits!
It is reported when Boris was told of Soleimani's murder he said, O, F**K.
January 3, 2020 everything changed and they know not what they have done on behalf of
Israel.
An exit from Iraq would make the occupation and theft of oil from Syria untenable,and the
land route from Iran to Syria and Lebanon less hazardous. This would be fatal for Israel and
will insist the US stay in Iraq. Unfortunately for the US 5,000 will not cut the mustard, how
many US troops could Trump put into Iraq to quell an uprising in election year? US bases in
the Gulf are extremely vulnerable especially the largest base Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar who
many regard as being located in enemy territory. Trump is gambling and many shrinks think
he's nuts, I agree..... Psychiatrists: Urgent action must be taken against Trump for creating
Iran crisis
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/01/10/615852/Trump-is-%E2%80%98dangerous-and-incapacitated%E2%80%99-Psychiatrists
The two videos don't look like the same situation.
The first appears to have been shot from the Farragut's port side; the second, from her
starboard side.
And in the first the Russian ship appears to be bearing down on the Farragut off the
Farragut's port bow. In the second the Russian ship appears to be overtaking the Farragut,
coming up from the starboard side. I don't see how the videos can have been taken at the same
time. The rule that seems to apply to the situ in video 1 is:
"Crossing Situation.
When two power-driven vessels are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the vessel
which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way and shall, if the
circumstances of the case admit, avoid crossing ahead of the other vessel."
Since the Russian vessel appears to have the Farragut on her starboard side, the Russian
vessel should change course and presumably deflect to starboard. (Once the two vessels were
as close as they were, both should have deflected to starboard.) But instead it looks as
though the Russian vessel at the last minute deflected to port.
However, video 2 looks like a totally different situ. So to me it remains unclear what the
actual disposition of the vessels was. The videos must have been taken at two different
points in the encounter.
Thank you b for these great articles and allowing comments.
I want to nod out to ChasMark | Jan 10 2020 22:21 utc | 55 for a great comment.
For decades the US has controlled the world through petro dollars and counterinsurgency
warfare. They lost every time at this but its more about the money spent and keeping fluidity
within economic circles.
With Iran's missile attack being an eye opener I hope the US is smart enough to know they
have lost. MIC spokes person when asked why the base did not protect itself. He said they did
not have the hardware to do it. No Patriots because they owned the sky up to that point. What
is a Patriot to counterinsurgency. They had a M-901 (TEL) which they got rid of years ago
supposedly. It is loaded with six TOW missiles and would generally be used to disable bomb
laden vehicles approaching the gate. Counterinsurgency again.
Those days are over. It is the day of the missile and belt and road economic plans. No
longer can air craft carriers hang off the coast to control the skies. How will the stunned
US MIC bring in additional troops and equipment. Planes or ships are small targets but highly
valuable ones. It is not always easy to know how things happen. Like the ships struck this
past year in the gulf or KSA oil infrastructure hit, who did it and how is hard to
determine.
I imagine the MIC is burning the mid-night oil with the realization that they are now in a
war they are totally unprepared to fight. They have 15,000 soldiers strung out in Iraq
unprotected from missile attack and no way to protect them. They will talk all BS but it is
empty and they know it. They do have two things. One is fear and the other nukes.
There is much talk of weak knees among the Iraqi people and government. That is with good
reason. The destruction of city after city. Some they find through the birth of deformed
children that some of their cities are radioactive. Of course they are afraid the USA killed
a million of them and turned 24 million into refugees. As time goes on they will realize that
the bully is not what it was and every new strike by Iran will build the confidence to push
the Americans out.
I wonder if the day of the nuke is coming to an end as well. Temper tantrum Trump decides
to nuke either Iran or Iraq the world will speak up. Perhaps strike back as the Russians have
said. If the point is the oil and gas in the area and the control of it then nukes will
destroy that value.
If there was a time that America wet itself it is now. If the 9 flags stand together then
move as one their cries will drive the heathen from their home. I also believe that if it
happens then the USA is done. Played out.
"Iran could not have dreamt of a better President to rejuvenate its position domestically and
regionally."
The problem is that Israel could not have dreamt of a better President to get a war with
Launched. In fact, Ayelet Shaked, the Israeli Minister of Justice (some irony there), once
said as much explicitly, albeit over the issue of the West Bank, not Iran.
In a tweet following a Jerusalem Post conference in New York on Sunday, Ayelet Shaked said
it was time for Israel to "establish facts on the ground".
"There is no better time than now," Shaked, who earlier this month was sacked by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as justice minister, wrote on Twitter.
"Do not miss Trump's reign - that's what I just said at the Jerusalem Post in New York."
End Wuote
This is because Trump is devoted to Israel and devoted to an antipathy to Iran. The more
Iran gains ground in the Middle East, the more Israel will push Trump (and any successor to
Trump) to attack Iran. And he will do it - either deliberately or out of incompetence - and
the difference doesn't matter.
It occurs to me that a host country that is no in conflict with an over-staying force can
make their life very challenging without having to actually fight them.
. . .
Posted by: Figleaf23 | Jan 10 2020 23:53 utc | 72
++++++++++++++
Change all the road and street signs! OK, there are fewer signs in Iraq than there were in
Czechoslovakia, but it would still be worth a shot.
That's the impression you'd get when the USN is crossing the oncoming RuN path. . . .
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 10 2020 23:48 utc | 71
++++++++++
Well, when two ships are approaching each other at an angle, they are both crossing each
other's path. What counts is, who is going faster and thus will cross the other's bow sooner.
It sure looks to me like when they got close the Ru vessel had the Farragut on her (Ru's)
starboard side. If the two vessels were going opposite directions but on parallel tracks,
they would pass same side to same side (i.e., port to port; starboard to starboard). If they
are approaching at an angle, the relative relationship of the two sides will change with the
speed of the vessels. You must visualize the situ from each vessel, not one, and gauge speed
and relationship when the two courses cross. However, both vessels in proximity have the
obligation to take action to avoid a collision. In that situ I believe the default is for
both to deflect to starboard.
Wait to see who says uncle first at sea is a stupid game of chicken. Basically IMO both
captains broke the rule of avoiding collisions and endangered their crews and their
vessels.
In the video where the Russian ship is in the top left-hand corner, the USS Farragut is
moving away from the Russian ship. In that video, the Russian ship is travelling behind the
US ship and crosses from the
Here is a wonderful and witty must read article by Gary Brecher [the War Nerd] which puts the
US predicament in the Gulf into perspective
"Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack."
That's right: no defense at all. The truth is that they have very feeble defenses against any
attack with anything more modern than cannon. I've argued before no carrier group would
survive a saturation attack by huge numbers of low-value attackers, whether they're Persians
in Cessnas and cigar boats or mass-produced Chinese cruise missiles. But at least you could
look at the missile tubes and Phalanx gatlings and pretend that you were safe. But there is
no defense, none at all, against something as obvious as a ballistic missile. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
Sorry, accidentally posted too early @ 94 after being interrupted. I meant to say that the
Russian ship, travelling behind the Farragut, crossed from that ship's starboard side to its
portside. This suggests that the Farragut did not give way in the first video when the
Russian ship first approached but steamed on ahead and went in front of the Russian ship.
Medusa-Perseus @ 83: Thanks for the link. Despite the authors speaking, in the first
paragraph, about Iran's "provocations", it's an informative and well written piece.
An excerpt;
"Again, it is high time that Washington get off its high horse and begin to negotiate a
new world order with globe's major powers. The prospects for this, however, appear less
likely than ever. Unfortunately, when there was still an opportunity to use American power to
reshape rather than destabilize the world, the Obama administration chose the latter. With
the opportunity to shift course in a mode more imposed by, rather than imposed on the U.S.
virtually dissipated, the Trump administration is continuing in the Obama mode of
destabilization while falling back on the one-sidedness of the military option–with all
the predictable consequences."
An American (a professor at that, but not of culture) once asked back around 2011 the
following: "Why do people in the Middle East talk so frequently about humiliation and
dignity? Other countries were colonized or lost wars, yet they do not speak about humiliation
and dignity. I assume that an answer to this question will help me understand Middle Eastern
culture."
The differences between shame and guilt based cultures are interesting.
The terminology was popularized by Ruth Benedict in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword ,
who described American culture as a "guilt culture" and Japanese culture as a "shame
culture." The Islamic Middle East is generally a shame based culture.
In east-west interactions these two distinct worldviews and values systems operate -- i.e.
guilt vs shame. For example:
"Loyalty: All Arabs belong to a group or tribe. Loyalty to the family tribe is considered
paramount to maintaining honor. One does not question the correctness of the elders or tribes
in front of outsiders. It is paramount that the tribe sticks together in order to survive.
Once again, Arab history and folklore are full of stories of heroes who were loyal to the
end."
In the Eastern view (well Islamic anyway), there is a stronger sense that one has 'it'
(honor) by birth and then risks losing it through various shameful actions etc. As distinct
from a work ethic stance where working towards something is the goal.
The main issue at play in the recent Iran-US-Iraqi dynamic from this point of view is not
the surface level simpleton MSM narrative of who was the good & bad guys etc. Leave that
for the childish unsophisticated 'super hero' mentalities raised on comics.
Rather, in this case, it is the fact/perception that the Arab Iraqi 'host' failed to
uphold the accepted ancient honor codes of protecting an invited guest (well at least for
three days). Only barbarians do not understand and play by this value system.
So, the USA, as the said culturally ignorant actors, is actually not really the core issue
in this case. That is just an inconvenient fact of history.
What is more real and politically charged is the fact that the Iraqi Arab nation
(leadership) invited an Iranian (Persian) guest -- allegedly to talk peace deals with the
Wahhabi gang -- and failed to uphold/honor the ancient host-guest codes. Even if there was no
duplicity involved, the fact remains scratched into the historical record that they failed --
ergo, shame must now be dealt with.
Therefore, the future events will more than likely unfold one way or another according to
the honor-shame etiquette process.
Now, of course some in the US hierarchy may well know and understand this dynamic and
apply it -- and Gregory Bateson used the term "Schismogenesis" in the 1930s and played his
part in WW2 within the (then) Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an institutional precursor
to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), against Japanese held territories in the Pacific. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schismogenesis
)
AP reports: US tried to take out another Iranian leader, but failed
LINK
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military tried, but failed, to take out another senior
Iranian commander on the same day that an American airstrike killed the Revolutionary
Guard's top general, U.S. officials said Friday.
The officials said a military airstrike by special operations forces targeted Abdul Reza
Shahlai, a high-ranking commander in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps but the
mission was not successful. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to
discuss a classified mission.[.]
Officials said both Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Shahlai were on approved military
targeting lists, which indicates a deliberate effort by the U.S. to cripple the leadership
of Iran's Quds force, which has been designated a terror organization by the U.S. Officials
would not say how the mission failed.[.]
There has been a similar incident between US and Russian navies a few months ago.
Same claims from the USN against the Russians.
Guess what? The video clearly showed the Russians on the starboard side of the USN ship.
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< A HREF="http://www.aclu.org/">Headline (not the URL)</A> → Headline (not the URL)
"... This is not just about how to de-escalate – it's about recognizing that America fundamentally needs to change its disastrous course. Even if de-escalation of the acute tensions is possible, the risks will remain as long as the United States pursues a reckless policy. ..."
This crisis was sparked by Donald Trump. Trump withdrew from the
deal that had stopped Iran's nuclear weapons program, leading Iran to restart its nuclear
program. Trump ramped up economic pressure and sent more US troops to the region, and tensions
grew. Then the US killed
Gen Qassem Suleimani , signaling a significant escalation, to which Iran responded with an
attack on Iraqi bases where US and Iraqi troops are stationed.
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
America is far worse off today towards Iran and in the Middle East than it was when Trump
took office
It is up to Congress and the American people to force Trump to adopt a more pragmatic path.
For too long Congress has ceded to the executive branch its authority to determine when America
goes to war, and the current crisis with Iran is exactly the kind of moment that requires
intense coordination between the legislative and executive branches. The president cannot start
a war without congressional authorization, and with the erratic Trump in office, Congress must
make that clear by cutting off the use of funds for war with Iran.
This is not just about how to de-escalate – it's about recognizing that America
fundamentally needs to change its disastrous course. Even if de-escalation of the acute
tensions is possible, the risks will remain as long as the United States pursues a reckless
policy. America is far worse off today towards Iran and in the Middle East than it was
when Trump took office – even worse off than we were on 1 January 2020. Today, Iran is
advancing its nuclear program, America has suspended its anti-Isis campaign, Iraq's parliament
has voted to evict US troops from the country, and we are in a dangerous military standoff with
Iran.
Digging out of this hole will be difficult and this administration is not capable of it.
Over the long run, future administrations will need to reorient America's goals and policies.
America needs to re-enter the nuclear deal and begin negotiations to strengthen it; work with
partners like Iraq – without a large US troop presence – in countering potential
threats like a resurgence of Isis; and adopt a broader regional policy that focuses on
protecting US interests and standing up for human rights and democracy rather than picking
sides in a regional civil war between dictatorships like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Achieving US goals in the region will not be possible with a mere de-escalation of tensions
– we need to find a new path towards Iran and the Middle East.
The Russian General Staff has reinforced the air defences for Russians at the Iranian
nuclear reactor complex at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, according to sources in Moscow. At the
same time, Iran has allowed filming of the movement of several of its mobile S-300 air-defence
missile batteries to the south, covering the Iranian coastline of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf
of Oman. More secretly, elements of Russian military intelligence, electronic warfare, and
command and control advisers for Iran's air defence systems have been mobilized to support Iran
against US and allied attacks.
The range of the new surveillance extends well beyond the S-300 strike distance of 200
kilometres, and covers US drone and aircraft bases on the Arabian peninsula, as well as US
warships in (and under) the Persian Gulf and off the Gulf of Oman. Early warning of US air and
naval-launched attacks has now been cut below the old 4 to 6-minute Iranian threshold.
Counter-firing by the Iranian armed forces has been automated from attack warning and target
location.
This means that if the US is detected launching a swarm of missiles aimed at Iran's
air-defence sites, uranium mines, reactors, and military operations bunkers, Iran will launch
its own swarm of missiles at the US firing platforms, as well as at Saudi and other oil
production sites, refineries, and pipelines, as well tankers in ports and under way in the
Gulf.
"The armed forces of Iran," said a Russian military source requesting anonymity, "have air
defence systems capable of hitting air targets at those heights at which drones of the
Global Hawk series can
fly; this is about 19,000 to 20,000 metres. Iran's means of air defence are both
foreign-purchased systems and systems of Iran's own design; among them, in particular, the old
Soviet system S-75 and the new Russian S-300. Recently, Iran transported some S-300's to the
south, but that happened after the drone was shot down [June 20]. Russian specialists are
working at Bushehr now and this means that the S-300's are also for protection of Bushehr."
Flight distance between Bushehr and Bandar Abbas is about 570 kms. From Bandar Abbas
southeast to Kuhmobarak, the site of the Iranian missile firing against the US drone, is
another 200 kms.
Last Thursday, June 20, just after midnight, a US Global Hawk drone was tracked by Iran from
its launch at an airbase in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), south of Dubai. The take-off and
initial flight route appear to have been more than 300 kms from Iranian tracking radars. Four
hours later, the aircraft was destroyed by an Iranian missile at a point at sea off Kuhmobarak.
Follow the route tracking data published by the Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif
here .
KEY: blue line=drone flight path; yellow line=Iranian Flight Information Region (FIR);
red line=Iranian territorial waters; green line=Iranian internal waters; yellow dots=Iran radio
warnings sent; red square=point of impact. Source: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif:
https://twitter.com/ The US claims
the point of impact was outside the red line.
Additional tracking data on the US drone operation have been published in a simulation by
the Iranian state news agency, Fars. The news agency claims the successful strike was by the
Iran-made Khordad missile, an S-300 copy; the altitude has not been reported
(design ceiling for the aircraft is 18,000 metres). The Russian military source says there is
now active coordination between Russian and Iranian military staffs. "About coordination, of
course there is participation of Russia in intelligence-sharing because of Bushehr and ISIS. We
have a long and successful partnership with Iran, especially in terms of fighting against
international terrorism." Two days after the drone incident, Russian specialist media
published Iranian video footage of the movement of S-300's on trailer trucks. This report
claims that although the S-300's are wheeled and motorized for rapid position changes, the use
of highway transporters was intended to minimize road fatigue on the weapons.
Iranian military sources have told western
reporters they have established "a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case
of all-out war in the Middle East."
Maps published to date in open Russian military sources show the four main anti-air missile
defence groups (PVO) on Iranian territory, and the strike range of their missiles. The 3
rd and 4 th PVOs are now being reinforced to oppose US reinforcements at
sea and on Saudi and Emirati territory.
Key: yellow=units of the main air-defence (PVO) groups; split blue circles=military
bases; blue diamond=nuclear industry sites; red rings=kill range for missiles; solid
red=command-and-control operations centres. Source: Anatoly Gavrilov, "Before the storm",
National
Defence, April 2019
The weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Iranian defences against US air attack are, naturally,
state secrets. The open-source discussion by Russian air-defence expert Anatoly Gavrilov can be
followed here
. According to Gavrilov writing in March, the expected plan of US attack will be the use of
precision missiles and bombs at "primary targets plants for the production and processing of
nuclear fuel, uranium mines, production for its enrichment, refineries, other industrial
centers. But initially [the objective] will be to suppress (completely destroy) the air defense
system. The mass use of cruise missiles for various purposes and guided aircraft bombs will
disable the control system of Iran's troops and suppress the system of reconnaissance and
anti-aircraft missile fire. In this case, the task of the attacking side will be the
destruction in the first two or three days of 70% to 80% of the radar, and after that, up to
90% manned aircraft will begin to bomb only after the complete suppression of the air defense
system. The West protects its professional pilots, and it does not matter that the civilian
population of Iran will also suffer."
The main Iranian vulnerability facing American attack, reports Gavrilov, is less the range,
volume and density of firepower with which the Iranians can respond than the relatively slow
time they have shown to date for processing incoming attack data, fixing targets, and directing
counter-fire. "In today's conditions of organization and conduct of rapid air combat, a high
degree of automation of the processes of collection, processing, transmission and exchange of
radar information, development of solutions for repelling strikes, and conducting anti-aircraft
missile fire is extremely necessary."
RANGE AND ALTITUDE OF MAIN IRANIAN AIR DEFENCE WEAPONS
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Horizontal axis, range in kilometres for each identified weapon; vertical axis, altitude of
interception. Source: Anatoly Gavrilov, National
Defence , April 2019
Gavrilov does not estimate how far the Iranians have been able to solve by themselves, and
with Russian help, the problems of automation and coordination of fire. To offset whatever
weakness may remain, he recommends specific technical contributions the Russians can make.
These include the technology of electronic countermeasures (ECM) to jam or deflect US targeting
signals and ordnance guidance systems.
While Gavrilov believes the Iranian military have already achieved high enough density of
fire against incoming weapons, he isn't sure the range and altitude of Iranian radars will be
good enough to match the attack risks. To neutralize those, he recommends "Russian-made
electronic warfare systems. The complex of EW systems is able to significantly reduce the
ability of attack aircraft to search for, detect and defeat ground targets; disrupt the onboard
equipment of cruise missiles in the GPS satellite navigation system; distort the readings of
radio altimeters of attack aircraft, cruise missiles and UAV's [unmanned aerial vehicle, drone]
"
In briefings for sympathetic western reporters, Iranian commanders are emphasizing the
Armageddon option; that is, however weak or strong their defences may prove to be under
prolonged US attack, the Iranian strategy is not to wait. Their plan, they say, is to
counter-attack against Arab as well as American targets as soon as a US missile attack
commences; that's to say, at launch, not inflight nor at impact.
Left: Kremlin photograph of the Security Council meeting at the Kremlin on the afternoon
of June 21. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/ Right: Major
General Mohammad Baqeri, Iran's armed forces chief of staff.
The day following the US attack and Iranian success, President Vladimir Putin chaired a
meeting of his regular Security Council members in Moscow. The military were represented by the
Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu. The US attack on Iran was the main issue on the table. "The
participants," reported the Kremlin communiqué, "discussed, in particular, the
developments in the Persian Gulf. They expressed serious concern over the rising tension and
urged the countries involved to show restraint, because unwise actions could have unpredictable
consequences in terms of regional and global stability."
Unpredictable consequences in Russian is being translated in Farsi to mean the cessation of
the oil trade in the Persian Gulf. "As oil and commodities of other countries are passing
through the Strait of Hormuz, ours are also moving through it," Major General Mohammad Baqeri,
the Iranian chief of staff,
said on April 28. "If our crude is not to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, others'
[crude] will not pass either."
With Iraq's airspace being frequently violated by American and even Israeli bombing raids
against the country's paramilitary units backed by Iran of late, Iraq has for the last several
months considered purchasing Russian air defense and missile systems, including both the S-300
and more advanced S-400, however, it has been met with fierce pressure from the US.
And now Russian media is reporting authorities in Baghdad have formally resumed talks to
possibly acquire the S-300 systems. Head of the Iraqi Parliament's Security and Defense
Committee, Mohammad Reza, has indicated negotiations were renewed following the latest attacks
initiated nearly two weeks ago on Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces .
"The issue was supposed to be solved several months ago after attacks on Shiite militia
al-Ḥashd ash-Sha'bi [Popular Mobilization Forces, PMF] bases in Baghdad and other
provinces created the need for such air defenses", the lawmaker was
quoted in Russia's Sputnik as saying.
It was first revealed in September that Baghdad was mulling the purchase of the S-300. This
after a summer in which Israel brazenly launched multiple drone and aerial attacks on PMF bases
which at first had 'mysterious' origins , but
was later confirmed to have the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) behind them.
According to Iraqi official sources, those initial purchase talks were quashed when
Washington vehemently objected , also at a moment parliament officials and the public were
increasingly angered over unilateral US bombing raids against PMF sites conducted without the
knowledge or approval of Iraq's government and military.
At the point when talks were initiated with Russia in September, international reports
counted nine strikes in total on Iraq's paramilitary forces -- in some cases while they were
allegedly operating just across the country's western border with Syria.
This had also fueled speculation that the Trump administration had greenlighted stepped up
Israeli attacks on Iranian proxies in the region as an alternative to direct war with Iran.
However, this simultaneously bolstered the ongoing political movement in Iraqi parliament to
have US troops expelled once in for all, especially over charges they had invited in and
cooperated with a foreign power to attack sovereign Iraqi soil.
"... The 1933 Marx brothers film Duck Soup was meant to be a satirical look at Benito Mussolini, ruler of Italy. In the film the mythical country of Freedonia , ruled by the effervescent Rufus T. Firefly ( played by Groucho), due to an insult by the ambassador of rival nation Sylvania, declares war. Laughs abound. Well, in our own nation of ' Free markets', ' Free enterprise' and ' Free use of war' whenever it pleases us, we are led by another Firefly, who is as comedic as he is dangerous to peace. ..."
"... Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ' It's the Empire Stupid ' radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected] ..."
The 1933 Marx brothers film Duck Soup was meant to be a satirical look at Benito
Mussolini, ruler of Italy. In the film the mythical country of Freedonia , ruled by the
effervescent Rufus T. Firefly ( played by Groucho), due to an insult by the ambassador of rival
nation Sylvania, declares war. Laughs abound. Well, in our own nation of ' Free markets', '
Free enterprise' and ' Free use of war' whenever it pleases us, we are led by another Firefly,
who is as comedic as he is dangerous to peace.
Of course, the major difference with movie's Freedonia and our own is like night and day. In
the film the leader, Firefly, had full control of every decision needed to be made. In our
Freemerika , Mr. Trump, regardless of the image he portrays as an absolute ruler, has to
dance to the tune of the Military Industrial Empire, just like ALL our previous
presidents. Folks, sorry to say, but presidents are not so much harnessed by our Constitution
or Congress ( or even the Supreme Court) but by the wizards who the empire picks to
advise him. They decide the ' when and if' of such dramatic actions like the other day's
drone missile murder in Iraq of the Iranian general. Unlike when Groucho decides he was
insulted by Trentino, the Sylvanian ambassador, and declares ' This means war!', Mr. Trump gave
the order for the assassination but ONLY after those behind the curtain advised
him.
To believe that our presidents have carte blanche to do the heinous deeds is foolish at best
. LBJ's use of the Gulf of Tonkin phony incident to gung ho in Vietnam was not just one man
making that call.
Or Nixon's Christmas carpet bombing of Hanoi, Bush Sr.'s attack on Iraq in 1991 , his son's
ditto against Iraq in 2003, Obama's use of NATO to destroy Libya in 2011, or this latest
arrogance by Trump, were all machinations by this empire's wizards who advised them.
When the late Senator Robert Byrd stood before a near empty Senate chamber in 2003 to warn of
this craziness, that told it all! We are not led by Rufus T. Firefly, rather a
Cabal that most in this government do not even realize who in the hell these people
are!
Of course, the embedded mainstream media does the usual job of demonizing who the
empire chooses to be our enemies. As with this recent illegal act by our government of
crossing into another nation's sovereignty to do the deed, now they all tell us how deadly this
Iranian general was. Yet, how many of the news outlets ever mentioned this guy for what they
now tell us he was, for all these years? Well, here is the kicker. I do not know what this man
was responsible for , regarding acts of insurgency against US forces in Iraq. Maybe he did aid
in the attacks on US personnel. Maybe he also was there to neutralize the fanatical ISIS
terrorists who were killing US and Iraqi personnel in Iraq and Syria. What I do know is that,
in the first place, we had no business ever invading and occupying Iraq period! Thus,
the rest of this Duck Soup becomes postscript.
Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also
frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian
sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn
College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on
the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also
host of the ' It's the Empire Stupid ' radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be
reached at [email protected]
The USA Has Been Bombing Iraq For 29 Years by Tyler Durden Wed, 01/08/2020 - 21:05 0
SHARES
Over the past days while little real debate over the Iran crisis has happened in Washington
or Congress (instead it's merely the default drones and "bombs away" as usual), the American
public has been busy online and in living rooms debating the merits or lack thereof of
escalation and potential war with Iran.
However, like with many other instances of US foreign policy adventurism, this is typically
a "debate" lacking in necessary recent historical context or appreciation for how the domino
effect of disasters now facing American security were often brought on by prior US action in
the first place. As a case in point, it's not recognized often enough in public discourse that
it was the United States under the neocon Bush administration which handed Iraq over to
"Iranian influence" and the Shia clerics in the first place .
It must be remembered that Saddam Hussein was a secular Sunni dictator presiding over a Shia
majority population, and he was enemy #1 of Iran. Team USA's short-sighted and criminal 2003
invasion and overthrow of Saddam based on WMD lies had the immediate benefit to Tehran of
handing the Ayatollah the greatest gift that Iran waged a nearly decade-long war to accomplish,
but couldn't (the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War).
And the neocons within the bowels of the national security state have ever since been
attempting to salvage their failed legacy in Iraq by the futile effort of trying to contain
Iran and roll back Shia dominance in Baghdad, as Seymour Hersh detailed in his famous 2006 New
Yorker piece The Redirection , which
accurately predicted the 'long war' against the Hezbollah-Damascus-Baghdad-Tehran axis which
would unfold, and did indeed unfold, especially in Syria of the past eight years.
To "situate" the past week's dramatic events, it's also crucial to understand, as The
Libertarian Institute's Scott Horton has pointed out , that "The U.S.A.
has been bombing Iraq for 29 years. And it looks like it's not over yet."
Below is an essential timeline compiled by Horton of that nearly three decade long history
where Iraq has been consistently subject to American bombs and intervention -- yet ironically
(and some might say predictably) the situation is still getting worse, more unstable, and more
dangerous.
Iraq War I : January -- February 1991 (aka The Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, liberation
of Kuwait)
Iraq War I 1/2 : February 1991 -- March 2003 (The rest of Bush I, Bill Clinton years,
economic blockade and no-fly zone bombings)
Iraq War II : March 2003 -- December 2011 (aka Operation Iraqi Freedom, W. Bush's invasion
and war for the Shi'ite side)
Iraq War III : August 2014 -- December 2017 (aka Operation Inherent Resolve, the war against
the Islamic State, which America had helped to build up in Syria but then launched this war to
destroy, on behalf of the Shi'ite government in Baghdad, after ISIS had seized the
predominately Sunni west of the country in the early summer of 2014 and declared the Islamic
State "Caliphate")
Iraq War III 1/2 : December 2017 -- January 2020 (The "mopping-up" war against the remnants
of ISIS which has had the U.S. still allied with the very same Shi'ite militias they fought
Iraq War II and III for, but are now attacking)
Iraq War IV : Now -- ?
NEW from me: We asked folks to identify Iran on an unlabeled map.
As Scott Horton suggests, the roots of the current crisis lie all the way back in the mid-20th century
:
In 1953, the American CIA overthrew the elected prime minister of Iran in favor of the
Shah Reza Pahlavi who ruled a dictatorship there for 26 years until in 1979 a popular
revolution overthrew his government and installed the Shi'ite Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
in power.
So in 1980, President Jimmy Carter's government gave Iraq's Saddam Hussein the green light to
invade Iran, a war which the U.S. continued to support throughout
the Ronald Reagan years, though they also sold weapons
to the Iranian side at times.
But then in 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait in a dispute over debts from the recent war with
Iran, with some
encouragement by the U.S. government, leading to America's Iraq War I, aka the first Gulf
War or Operation
Desert Storm at the beginning of 1991.
And that was merely the very beginning.
Read the rest of the story and the excellent brief history of how we got here over at
The
Libertarian Institute .
Yep. And the initial excuse (WMDs) was proven absolutely to have been a contrived hoax.
Yet, all of the people of that decimated country and surrounding nations who have a vendetta
against us are labeled "terrorists". I guess the English language has evolved beyond my
comprehension since the usurpation by the tribe of our media and government.
By the definition of "terrorist" - terrorist | ˈterərəst | noun a person
who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of
political aims: - I see only the United States of Israel as befitting this word.
"... War will allow Trump to claim the mantle of "national" wartime leader, while diverting attention away from his impeachment trial. And in light of the intensification of belligerent rhetoric from this administration, war appears to be increasingly likely. ..."
"... The American people have a moral responsibility to question not only Trump's motives, but to consider the humanitarian disaster that inevitably accompanies war. ..."
"... is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University. He holds a PhD in political communication, and is the author of the newly released: The Politics of Persuasion: Economic Policy and Media Bias in the Modern Era (Paperback, 2018), and Selling War, Selling Hope: Presidential Rhetoric, the News Media , and U.S. Foreign Policy After 9/11 (Paperback: 2016). He can be reached at: [email protected] ..."
The U.S. stands at the precipice of war. President Trump's rhetorical efforts to
sell himself as the "anti-war" president have been exposed as a fraud via his assault on Iran.
Most Orwellian of all is Trump's claim that the assassination of Iranian General Qassam
Soleimani was necessary to avert war, following the New Year's Eve attack on the U.S. embassy
in Baghdad. In reality the U.S. hit on Soleimani represents a criminal escalation of the
conflict between these two countries. The general's assassination was rightly seen as an
act of war , so the claim that the strike is a step toward peace is absurd on its face. We
should be perfectly clear about the fundamental threat to peace posed by the Trump
administration. Iran has already
promised "harsh retaliation" following the assassination, and
announced it is pulling out of the 2015 multi-national agreement prohibiting the nation
from developing nuclear weapons. Trump's escalation has dramatically increased the threat of
all-out war. Recognizing this threat, I sketch out an argument here based on my initial
thoughts of this conflict, providing three reasons for why Americans need to oppose war.
#1: No Agreement about an Iranian Threat
Soleimani was the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – the Quds Force
– a clandestine military intelligence organization that specializes in paramilitary-style
operations throughout the Middle East, and which is
described as seeking to further Iranian political influence throughout the region. Trump
celebrated the assassination as necessary to bringing Soleimani's "reign of terror" to an
end. The strike, he claimed, was vital after the U.S. caught Iran "in the act" of planning
"imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel."
But Trump's justification for war comes from a country with a long history of distorting and
fabricating evidence of an Iranian threat. American leaders have disingenuously and
propagandistically portrayed Iran as on the brink of developing nuclear weapons for decades.
Presidents Bush and Obama were both rebuked, however, by domestic intelligence
and
international weapons inspectors , which failed to uncover evidence that Iran was
developing these weapons, or that it was a threat to the U.S.
Outside of previous exaggerations, evidence is emerging that the Trump administration and
the intelligence community are not of one mind regarding Iran's alleged threat. Shortly after
Soleimani's assassination, the Department of Homeland Security declared
there was "no specific, credible threat" from Iran within U.S. borders. And U.S. military
officials disagree regarding Trump's military escalation. As the New York Times
reports :
"In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's most
powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him -- which they
viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq -- on the menu they
presented to President Trump. They didn't think he would take it. In the wars waged since the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents
to make other possibilities appear more palatable."
"Top pentagon officials," the Times
reports , "were stunned" by the President's order. Furthermore, the paper reported that
"the intelligence" supposedly confirming Iranian plans to attack U.S. diplomats was "thin," in
the words of at least one U.S. military official who was privy to the administration's
deliberations. According to that
source , there is no evidence of an "imminent" attack in the foreseeable future against
American targets outside U.S. borders.
U.S. leaders have always obscured facts, distorted intelligence, and fabricated information
to stoke public fears and build support for war. So it should come as no surprise that this
president is politicizing intelligence. He certainly has reason to – in order to draw
attention away from his Senate impeachment trial, and considering Trump's increasingly
desperate efforts to demonstrate that he is a serious President, not a tin-pot authoritarian
who ignores the rule of law, while shamelessly coercing and extorting foreign leaders in
pursuit of domestic electoral advantage.
Independent of the corruption charges against Trump, it is unwise for Americans to take the
President at his word, considering the blatant lies employed in the post-9/11 era to justify
war in the Middle East. Not so long ago the American public was sold a bill of goods regarding
Iraq's alleged WMDs and ties to terrorism. Neither of those claims was remotely true, and
Americans were left footing the bill for a war that cost trillions ,
based on the lies of an opportunistic president who was dead-set on exploiting public fears of
terrorism in a time of crisis. The Bush administration sold war based on intelligence they
knew was fraudulent, manipulating the nation into on a decade-long war that led to the
murder of more than
1 million Iraqis and more than 5,000 American servicemen, resulting in a failed Iraqi
state, and paving the way for the rise of ISIS. All of this is to say that the risks of
beginning another war in the Middle East are incredibly high, and Americans would do well to
seriously consider the consequences of entering a war based (yet again) on questionable
intelligence.
#2: The "War on Terrorism" as a Red Herring
U.S. leaders have long used the rhetoric of terrorism to justify war. But this strategy
represents a serious distortion of reality, via the conflation of terrorism – understood
as premeditated acts of violence to intimidate civilians – with acts of war. Trump fed
into this misrepresentation when he
described Soleimani's "reign of terror" as encompassing not only the alleged targeting of
U.S. diplomats, but attacks on "U.S. military personnel." The effort to link the deaths of U.S.
soldiers in wartime to terrorism echoes the State Department's 2019
statement , which designated Iran's Quds Force a "terrorist" organization, citing its
responsibility "for the deaths of at least 603 American service members in Iraq" from "2003 to
2011" via its support for Iraqi militias that were engaging in attacks on U.S. forces.
As propaganda goes, the attempt to link these acts of war to "terrorism" is quite perverse.
U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq were participating in a criminal, illegal occupation,
which was widely condemned by the international community. The U.S. war in Iraq was a crime of
aggression under the Nuremberg Charter, and it violated the United Nations Charter's
prohibition on the use of force, which is only allowed via Security Council authorization
(which the U.S. did not have), or in the case of military acts undertaken in self-defense
against an ongoing attack (Iraq was not at war with the U.S. prior to the 2003 invasion).
Contrary to Trump's and the State Department's propaganda, there are no grounds to classify the
deaths of military personnel in an illegal war as terrorism. Instead, one could argue that
domestic Iraqi political actors (of which Iraqi militias are included, regardless of their ties
to Iran) were within their legal rights under international law to engage in acts of
self-defense against American troops acting on behalf of a belligerent foreign power, which was
conducting an illegal occupation.
#3: More War = Further Destabilization of the Middle East
The largest takeaway from recent events should be to recognize the tremendous danger that
escalation of war poses to the U.S. and the region. The legacy of U.S. militarism in the Middle
East, North Africa, and Central Asia, is one of death, destruction, and instability. Every
major war involving the U.S. has produced humanitarian devastation and mass destruction, while
fueling instability and terrorism. With the 1979 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. support
for Mujahedeen radicals led to the breakdown of social order, and the rise of the radical
Taliban regime, which housed al Qaeda fundamentalists in the years prior to the September 11,
2001 terror attacks. The 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan contributed to the further
deterioration of Afghan society, and was accompanied by the return of the Taliban, ensuing in a
civil war that has persisted over the last two decades.
With Iraq, the U.S. invasion produced a massive security vacuum following the collapse of
the Iraqi government, which made possible the rise of al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. fueled
numerous civil wars, in Iraq during the 2000s and Syria in the 2010s, creating mass
instability, and giving rise to ISIS, which became a mini-state of its own operating across
both countries. And then there was the 2011 U.S.-NATO supported rebellion against Muammar
Gaddafi, which not only resulted in the dictator's overthrow, but in the rise of another ISIS
affiliate within Libya's border. Even Obama, the biggest cheerleader for the war, subsequently
admitted
the intervention was his "worst mistake," due to the civil war that emerged after Gaddafi's
overthrow, which opened the door for the rise of ISIS.
All of these conflicts have one thing in common. They brought tremendous devastation to the
countries under assault, via scorched-earth military campaigns, which left death, misery, and
destruction in their wake. The U.S. is adept at destroying countries, but shows little interest
in, or ability to reconstruct them. These wars provided fertile ground for Islamist radicals,
who took advantage of the resulting chaos and instability.
The primary lesson of the "War on Terror" should be clear to rationally minded observers:
U.S. wars breed not only instability, but desperation, as the people victimized by war become
increasingly tolerant of domestic extremist movements. Repressive states are widely reviled by
the people they subjugate. But the only thing worse than a dictatorship is no order at all,
when societies collapse into civil war, anarchy, and genocide. The story of ISIS's rise is one
of citizens suffering under war and instability, and becoming increasingly tolerant of
extremist political actors, so long as they are able to provide order in times of crisis. This
point is consistently neglected in U.S. political and media discourse – a sign of how
propagandistic "debates" over war have become, nearly 20 years into the U.S. "War on
Terrorism."
Where Do We Go From Here?
Trump followed up the Soleimani assassination with a Twitter announcement
that the U.S. has "targeted" 52 additional "Iranian sites," which will be attacked "if Iran
strikes any Americans or American assets." There's no reason in light of recent events to chalk
this announcement up to typical Trump-Twitter bluster. This President is desperate to begin a
war with Iran, as Trump has courted confrontation with the Islamic republic since the early
days of his presidency.
War will allow Trump to claim the mantle of "national" wartime leader,
while diverting attention away from his impeachment trial. And in light of the intensification
of belligerent rhetoric from this administration, war appears to be increasingly likely.
The American people have a moral responsibility to question not only Trump's motives, but to
consider the humanitarian disaster that inevitably accompanies war. War with Iran will only
make the Middle East more unstable, further fueling anti-American radicalism, and increasing
the terror threat to the U.S. This conclusion isn't based on speculation, but on two decades of
experience with a "War on Terror" that's done little but destroy nations and increase terror
threats. The American people can reduce the dangers of war by protesting Trump's latest
provocation, and by pressuring Congress to pass legislation condemning any future attack on
Iran as a violation of national and international law.
To contact your Representative or Senator, use the following links:
I can't quite understand how gratuitous US piracy and adventurism in places on the globe
beyond the knowledge and reach of most Americans could possibly be compared to Iranian
actions securing their immediate regional borders and interests. You can at least understand
(even if you critique) a US preoccupation with Cuba over the years, or drug cartels in
central America, or economic refugees in Mexico because they are close by and have a more
less direct effect on the stability of the US. But they have no authority beyond that other
than the ability to project violence and force. That's just simple imperialism. But now the
US have whacked a made guy without any real reason (i.e. looking at you the wrong way is not
a reason). Any mafia hood knows that, especially a New Yorker like Trump. So the climax of
The Godfather comes to mind. It is staggeringly naive and frankly moronic to think
that this is about good and evil. I bet Soleimani was no angel, but he wasn't whacked because
he was a bad guy, but because he was extraordinarily effective military organizer. Star Wars
has a lot to answer for in stunting the historical sensibilities of entire generations, but
its underlying narrative is the only MSM playbook now. Even more staggering is the stupendous
arrogance of the US belief in its 'rights' (based on thuggery and avarice), as though it were
the only power in the world capable of establishing a moral order. The lesson in humility to
come will be both long-awaited and go unheeded. Even the mob understand there has to be
rules.
After reading Crooke and Federicci's articles, there is only one way to stop this madness
blowing into a global conflict. Russia and China need to get involved whether they like it or
not. Diplomacy and sideline analysis has run its course. This is their time to stamp their
influence in the region and finish off the empire once and for all. Maybe that way, The
Europeans will grow some minerals and become sovereign again.
Otherwise, China can kiss its Belt and Road goodbye and go into a recession with the loss
of their investments up to this point and become slaves to the Americans again.
And Russia, the enemy du jour of Europe and US will be next and be crushed under economic
sanctions and isolation.
This is the moment that stars are aligned . Russia and China should park their battle
carriers off the Gulf and gives direct warning to Israel and US that any nuclear threat ,
tactical or otherwise, against anyone in the region is a non-starter.
I read so much about these two countries and that they will get involved. I have recited
those lines myself. But after these events and how things are escalating, I cannot see how
they cannot be involved. US is its most vulnerable and weakest with respect to economic,
diplomatic and military conditions.
The time of condemnations, letters of objection to the UN and veto votes in UNSC is over.
There is only one way to deal with a rogue nation and that is by force.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, instead of using the opportunity to widen the circle
of U.S. allies or at least non-enemies in the Middle East, the Bush administration declared war
on "all terrorism of global reach," not just on the Sunni terrorists responsible. That meant
not seeking some sort of détente with Shiite Iran -- despite its assistance in
overturning the Taliban in Afghanistan and forming a replacement government -- but putting
Tehran in an "Axis of Evil" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Some members of the Bush administration went further. John Bolton, then an undersecretary of
state nominally tasked with arms control (he mostly did the reverse), said that Iran should
"take a number," implying it would be the next to experience regime change after Iraq.
Neoconservatives worried about Iran and its expanding stockpile of low-enriched uranium, as
well as its long opposition to Israel, said that "real men go
to Tehran," not Baghdad.
The Bush administration also went back on a promise to trade leaders of the Mujaheddin-e
Khalq -- a militant Iranian group nurtured by Saddam that fought on Iraq's side during the
Iran-Iraq war -- for members of al-Qaeda detained in Iran. Instead the U.S. gave the group
protection and Bolton among others argued that the MEK could be deployed against Iran.
As a result, the U.S. helped turn the Quds Force -- the elite overseas branch of Iran's
Revolutionary Guards -- into a full-fledged enemy even as its removal of Saddam's Baathist
regime opened Iraq fully to Iran-backed militants, many of whom were trained in Iran during the
Iran-Iraq war. Starting with the Badr Brigade, Iran has since helped shape other Iraqi
militias, among them Kataib Hezbollah, whose targeting of Americans in Iraq touched off the
latest escalatory spiral.
Of course, the Trump administration's decision in 2018 to quit the Iran nuclear deal and a
year later to impose an oil embargo on Iran has been the major cause of the mayhem in the
region over the past nine months.
Now, by assassinating Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, the Trump administration has
likely foreclosed any possibility of U.S.-Iran diplomacy and sharply increased the likelihood
of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Iran announced on Sunday that it would no longer
observe the limits set in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and would resume its
nuclear program. That will incentivize Saudi Arabia to get nukes of its own.
It is said that George W. Bush, when he decided to invade Iraq, did not understand the
difference between Sunnis and Shias. Donald Trump seems to dislike all Muslims, except those
who buy American arms or host Trump properties.
In killing Soleimani, Trump has shown his ignorance of the power of martyrdom in Shia
theology. To Iranians and many Arab Shia -- including those who would like to get Iran out of
their countries' affairs -- Soleimani was a bulwark against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State,
defending the interests of a religious minority in the Middle East. Pictures of Soleimani being
embraced by the Imam Hussein -- the revered Shia figure martyred in the year 680 in Karbala,
Iraq, by the forces of the Sunni tyrant Yazid -- are circulating widely on social media. The
U.S., by implication, has become Yazid.
It is not 'Shia' vs. 'Sunni' when referencing the perspective of the U.S. : Middle East
relationship. It is the petro dollar. And every so often we have someone writing from a
'thinktank', i.e., The Atlantic Council, that never touches upon the scenario of the 'petro'
dollar and how it governs U.S. foreign policy in that region. Instead they frame their gripes
with partisan politics. Bush, Obama, and Trump have to kiss the Saudi ass in order to pay for
the enormous 'warfare' and 'welfare' state of Washington D.C. The Petro Dollar ensures that
the printing presses in Washington continue to print those dollars that will support a larger
budget for the Pentagon, and Medicare, and in the very near future if Trump loses the White
House: Medicare for All {including undocumented immigrants}, Reparations, free college for
all, etc. You can add the United State's incredible generosity with tax payer money that
pretty much pays for an 'ungrateful' Western Europe security.
And Trump did not do this to America. But he has to continue it in order to keep those
printing presses rolling at the Treasury: in other words keep the American Dollar the 'top
dog' currency of the world which allows for this $20 trillion + deficit and at the same time
'fantasy island' welfare state promises from the politicians. And politicians have no problem
with this policy - they can just exploit it for partisan politics and at the same time
promise an pseudo 'sustainable' increase in the welfare state to win elections.
That said, the Saudis are Sunnis. They want to increase their power. And in order to keep
them happy {so they will not change currency exchanges for their oil to the 'gold-backed'
yuan}, then the United States must fight messy and horrible wars in Yemen; start wars in
Syria [General Mattis was and is a big time supporter of this] - supporting terrorist groups
who love killing Christians with U.S. weapons, and ultimately regime change in Iran. Why do
you think George W. Bush, etal have to look the other way on 9/11 - shield the Saudis {oh,
and Obama is included on this list also}. All U.S. presidents face this problem. But
especially the Democrats since their big welfare state costs way more to sustain than the
Pentagon.
In conclusion - Obama, a Democrat, oversaw the CIA that supported and aided MBS onto the
throne in Saudi Arabia because, unlike his myriad of family members, he will continue to
exchange oil {along with the Gulf 'Sunni' dominated states' using the Dollar. It is all the
presidents of all political parties beginning with the Nixon administration.
Russia and China are ALREADY seen as more sane and rational powers than USA. That's why we
couldn't let Soleimani negotiate peace between Persia and Saudi. Killing him won't stop the
negotiations; more likely it will speed up Saudi's divorce from US/Israel craziness.
Putin and Xi are more honest and useful brokers than the United States.
That is not a major accomplishment. The United States has demonstrated time and again that
it acts not even in its own interests, but in the interests of its Saudi owners and Israeli
masters.
In theory, the US could be a powerful stabilizing force in the Middle East. We have the
resources and the military might to provide very effective carrots and sticks.
However, over the past decades we have proven that we are so ignorant of the local
cultures and politics, so blinded by our own preconceptions and ideologies, and so unwilling
to learn, that we keep punishing people with carrots and rewarding them with sticks. Time to
admit we can't get it right and go home.
Even worse, we have chosen two particular countries in the region, the Israelis and the
Saudis, as Our Special Friends and we use the carrots and sticks almost entirely in their
interests.
The biggest impediment to that is the frequent change of administrations and their policies.
But since we weren't designed to be doing that sort of thing in the first place it's only
natural that we aren't very good at it. We should get out of foreign entanglements but
Congress (and its lobbyists) fights it tooth and nail, across administrations. They've even
developed a nasty word for it... isolationism .
gjohnsit on Mon,
01/06/2020 - 6:14pm Just a few days ago SoS Mike Pompeo said that we assassinated General Soleimani
to stop an 'imminent attack' on Americans.
No evidence was presented to back up this claim. We are just supposed to believe it.
It turns out that
Pompeo and VP Pence had pushed Trump hard to do this assassination.
"Seven aircraft and three military vehicles were destroyed in the attack," said the
statement, which included photos of aircraft ablaze and an al Shabaab militant standing
nearby. In a tweet, the US Africa Command confirmed an attack on the Manda Bay Airfield had
occurred.
One US military service member and two contractors were killed in an Islamist attack on a
military base in Kenya.
Islamist militant group al-Shabab attacked the base, used by Kenyan and US forces, in the
popular coastal region of Lamu on Sunday.
The US military said in a statement that two others from the Department of Defense were
wounded.
"The wounded Americans are currently in stable condition and being evacuated," the US
military's Africa Command said.
But the response of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu , was particularly striking, as he has been one of Trump's staunchest
supporters on the world stage.
He told a meeting of his security cabinet on Monday: "The assassination of Suleimani
isn't an Israeli event but an American event. We were not involved and should not be
dragged into it."
It was not the US decision to fire missiles against the IRGC commander Brigadier General
Qassem Soleimani that killed the Iranian officer and his companions in Baghdad. Yes, of course,
the order that was given to launch missiles from the two drones (which destroyed the two cars
carrying Sardar Soleimani and his companion the Iraqi commander in al-Hashd al-Shaabi Jamal
Jaafar Al-Tamimi aka Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes and burned their bodies in the vehicle) came from US
command and control.
However, the reason President Donald Trump made this decision derives from the weakness of
the "axis of resistance", which has completely retreated from the level of performance that
Iran believed it was capable of after decades of work to strengthen this "axis".
A close companion of Major General Qassim Soleimani, to whom he spoke hours before boarding
the plane that took him from Damascus to Baghdad, told me:
"The nobleman died. Palestine above all has lost Hajj Qassem (Soleimani). He was the
"King" of the Axis of the Resistance and its leader. He was assassinated and this is exactly
what he was hoping to reach in this life (Martyrdom). However, this axis will live and will
not die. No doubt, the Axis of the Resistance needs to review its policy and regenerate
itself to correct its path. This was what Hajj Qassim was complaining about and planning to
work on and strategizing about in his last hours."
The US struck Iran at the heart of its pride by killing Major General Soleimani. But the
"axis of the Resistance" killed him before that. This is how:
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assassinated the deputy head of the Military
Council (the highest authority in the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is headed by its
Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah), Hajj Imad Mughniyah in Damascus, Syria, Hezbollah could
not avenge him until today.
When Trump gave Netanyahu Jerusalem as the "capital of Israel", the "Axis of the Resistance"
did not move except by holding television symposia and conferences verbally rejecting the
decision.
When President Trump offered the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel and the "Axis of
Resistance" did not react, the US President Donald Trump and his team understood that they were
opposed by no effective deterrent. The inaction of the Resistance axis emboldened Trump to do
what he wants.
And when Israel bombed hundreds of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria , the "Axis of the
Resistance" justified its lack of retaliation by the typical sentence: "We do not want to be
dragged along by the timing of the engagement imposed by the enemy," as a senior official in
this axis told me.
In Iraq shortly before his death, Major General Soleimani was complaining about the
weakening of the Iraqi ranks within this "Axis of the Resistance", represented by the Al-Bina'
(Construction) Alliance and other groups close to this alliance like Al-Hikma of Ammar al-Hakim
and Haidar al-Abadi, formerly close to Iran, that have gone over to the US side.
In Iraq, Major General Soleimani was very patient and never lost his temper. He was trying
to reconcile the Iraqis, both his allies and those who had chosen the US camp and disagreed
with him. He used to hug those who shouted at him to lower tensions and continue dialogue to
avoid spoiling the meeting. Anyone who raised his voice during discussions soon found that it
was Soleimani who calmed everyone down.
Hajj Qassem Soleimani was unable to reach a consensus on the new Prime Minister's name among
those he deemed to be allies in the same coalition. He asked Iraqi leaders to select the names
and went through all of these asking questions about the acceptability of these names to the
political groups, to the Marjaiya, to protestors in the street and whether the suggested names
were not provocative or challenging to the US. Notwithstanding the animosity between Iran and
the US, Soleimani encouraged the selection of a personality that would not be boycotted by the
US. Soleimani believed the US capable of damaging Iraq and understood the importance of
maintaining a good relationship with the US for the stability of the country.
Soleimani was shocked by the dissension among Iraqi Shia and believed that the "axis of
resistance" needed a new vision as it was faltering. In the final hours before his death, Major
General Soleimani was ruminating on the profound antagonisms between Iraqis of the same
camp.
When the Iraqi street began to move against the government, the line rejecting American
hegemony was fragmented because it was part of the authority that ruled and governed Iraq. To
make matters worse, Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr directed his arrows against his partners in
government, as though the street demonstrations did not target him, the politician controlling
the largest number of Iraqi deputies, ministers and state officials, who had participated in
the government for more than ten years.
Major General Soleimani admonished Moqtada Al-Sadr for his stances, which contributed to
undermining the Iraqi ranks because the Sadrist leader did not offer an alternative solution or
practical project other than the chaos. Moqtada has his own men, the feared Saraya al-Salam,
present in the street.
When US Defense Secretary Mark Esper called Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi on
December 28 and informed him of America's intentions of hitting Iraqi security targets inside
Iraq, including the PMU, Soleimani was very disappointed by Abdul-Mahdi's failure to
effectively oppose Esper. Abdul-Mahdi merely told Esper that the proposed US action was
dangerous. Soleimani knew that the US would not have hit Iraqi targets had Abdul-Mahdi dared to
oppose the US decision. The targeted areas were a common Iranian-Iraqi operational stage to
monitor and control ISIS movements on the borders with Syria and Iraq. The US would have
reversed its decision had the Iraqi Prime Minister threatened the US with retaliation in the
event that Iraqi forces were bombed and killed. After all, the US had no legal right to attack
any objective in Iraq without the agreement of the Iraqi government. This decision was the
moment when Iraq has lost its sovereignty and the US took control of the country.
This effective US control is another reason why President Trump gave the green light to kill
Major General Soleimani. The Iraqi front had demonstrated its weakness and also, it was
necessary to select a strong Iraqi leader with the guts to stand to the US arrogance and
unlawful actions.
Iran has never controlled Iraq, as most analysts mistakenly believe and speculate. For
years, the US has worked hard in the corridors of the Iraqi political leadership lobby for its
own interests. The most energetic of its agents was US Presidential envoy Brett McGurk, who
clearly realised the difficulties of navigating inside Iraqi leaders' corridors during the
search for a prime minister of Iraq before the appointment of Adel Abdel Mahdi, the selection
of President Barham Saleh and other governments in the past. Major General Soleimani and McGurk
shared an understanding of these difficulties. Both understood the nature of the Iraqi
political quagmire.
Soleimani did not give orders to fire missiles at US bases or attack the US Embassy. If it
was in his hands to destroy them with accurate missiles and to remove the entire embassy from
its place without repercussions, he would not have hesitated. But the Iraqis have their own
opinions, methods, modus operandi and selection of targets and missile calibres; they never
relied on Soleimani for such decisions.
Iranian involvement in Iraqi affairs was never welcomed by the Marjaiya in Najaf, even if it
agreed to receive Soleimani on a few occasions. They clashed over the reelection of Nuri
al-Maliki, Soleimani's preferred candidate, to the point that the Marjaiya wrote a letter
making its refusal of al-Maliki explicit. This led to the selection of Abadi as prime
minister.
Soleimani's views contradicted the perception of the Marjaiya, that had to write a clear
message, firstly, to reject the re-election of Nori al-Maliki to a third session, despite
Soleimani's insistence.
All of the above is related to the stage that followed the 2011 departure of US forces from
Iraq under President Obama. Prior to that, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis was the link between the
Iraqis and Iran: he had the decision-making power, the vision, the support of various groups,
and effectively served as the representative of Soleimani, who did not interfere in the
details. These Iraqi groups met with Soleimani often in Iran; Soleimani rarely travelled to
Iraq during the period of heavy US military presence.
Soleimani, although he was the leader of the "Axis of the Resistance", was sometimes called
"the king" in some circles because his name evokes Solomon. According to sources within the
"Axis of the Resistance", he "never dictated his own policy but left a margin of movement and
decision to all leaders of the axis without exception. Therefore, he was considered the link
between this axis and the supreme leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei. Soleimani was able to contact
Sayyed Khamenei at any time and directly without mediation. The Leader of the revolution
considered Soleimani as his son.
According to sources, in Syria, Soleimani "never hesitated to jump inside a truck, ride an
ordinary car, take the first helicopter, or travel on a transport or cargo plane as needed. He
did not take any security precautions but used his phone (which he called a companion spy)
freely because he believed that when the decision came to assassinate him, he would follow his
destiny. He looked forward to becoming a martyr because he had already lived long."
Was the leader of the "resistance axis" managing and running it?
Sayyed Ali Khamenei told Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: "You are an Arab and the Arabs accept you
more than they accept Iran". Sayyed Nasrallah directed and managed the axis of Lebanon, Syria
and Yemen and had an important role in Iraq. Hajj Soleimani was the liaison between the axis of
the resistance and Iran and he was the financial and logistical officer. According to my
source, "He was a friend of all leaders and officials of all ranks. He was humble and looked
after everyone he had to deal with".
The "Axis of Resistance" indirectly allowed the killing of Qassem Soleimani. If Israel and
the US could know Sayyed Nasrallah's whereabouts, they would not hesitate a moment to
assassinate him. They may be aware: the reaction may be limited to burning flags and holding
conferences and manifesting in front of an embassy. Of course, this kind of reaction does not
deter President Trump who wants to be re-elected with the support of Israel and US public
opinion. He wants to present himself as a warrior and determined leader who loves battle and
killing.
Iran invested 40 years building the "Axis of the Resistance". It cannot remain idle, faced
with the assassination of the Leader of this axis. Would a suitable price be the US exit from
Iraq and condemnation in the Security Council? Would that, together with withdrawal from the
nuclear deal, be enough for Iran to avenge its General? Will the ensuing battle be confined to
the Iraqi stage? Will it be used for the victory of certain Iraqi political players?
The assassination of its leader represents the supreme test for the Axis of Resistance. All
sides, friend and foe, are awaiting its response.
And when Israel bombed hundreds of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria , the "Axis of
the Resistance" justified its lack of retaliation by the typical sentence: "We do not want
to be dragged along by the timing of the engagement imposed by the enemy," as a senior
official in this axis told me.
If the 'source' in this article was so close to Soleimani, then he would also have
mentioned that Russia was dictating terms in Syria.
Soleimani knew this and could not afford to lose Russia as an ally, this would definitely
have happened if another 'player' was brought into the war just because Soleimani decided to
retaliate to Zionist bombing.
Putin, Assad and Soleimani had a long term view of winning in Syria, not making things
worse because of a quick retaliatory strike.
Non-binding resolution asking the prime minister to rescind Iraq's invitation...
The current government is unlikely to push this through. After a new PM is chosen, it
would still take a year or more to move the US troops out by the agreements under which they
set up their base. All of this has to be viewed under the context that the US was
asked to send troops by the Iraqi president.
Yesterday,
Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel foreign troops from the country during an emergency
parliamentary session. Interim Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, stressed during the
session, that while the US government notified the Iraqi military of the planned strike on
Soleimani, his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.
In a meeting Monday, Mahdi, a caretaker prime minister who said in November he would resign,
told US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller that the US and Iraq needed to cooperate "to implement
the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with the decision of the Iraqi parliament,"
according to a statement from the PM's office that was cited by
the Washington Post .
Though the Iraq war 'officially' ended in 2011, thousands of coalition troops stuck around.
Their numbers increased following the rise of ISIS in the region.
Ending the US troop presence in Iraq has been a longtime goal of non-interventionists like
Ron Paul and his son, Rand.
That said, even without troops in Iraq, the US will still have plenty of capacity to bully
Iran, and other other regional powers.
AP WASHINGTON (AP) -- Having the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force direct Iraqi forces
battling the Islamic State group is complicating the U.S. mission against terrorism and
contributing to destabilization in Iraq, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency
said Sunday.
During more than a half-century of Washington watching we have seen stupidity rise from one
height to yet another. But nothing -- just plain nothing -- compares to the the blithering
stupidity of the Donald's Iran "policy", culminating in the mindless assassination of its top
military leader and hero of the so-called Islamic Revolution, Major General Qassem
Soleimani.
To be sure, we don't give a flying f*ck about the dead man himself. Like most generals of
whatever army (including the US army), he was a cold-blooded, professional killer.
And in this day and age of urban and irregular warfare and drone-based annihilation
delivered by remote joy-stick, generals tend to kill more civilians than combatants. The dead
civilian victims in their millions of U.S. generals reaching back to the 1960s surely attest to
that.
Then again, even the outright belligerents Soleimani did battle with over the decades were
not exactly alms-bearing devotees of Mother Theresa, either. In sequential order, they were the
lethally armed combatants mustered by Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, the Sunni jihadists of
ISIS and the Israeli and Saudi air forces, which at this very moment are raining high tech
bombs and missiles on Iranian allies and proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
The only reason these years of combat are described in the mainstream media as evidence of
Iranian terrorism propagated by its Quds forces is that the neocons have declared it so.
That is, by Washington's lights Iran is not allowed to have a foreign policy and its alliances
with mainly Shiite co-religionists in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen are alleged per se to be
schemes of aggression and terror, warranting any and all retaliations including assassination
of its highest officials.
But that's just colossal nonsense and imperialistic arrogance. The Assad government in
Syria, the largest political party in Lebanon (Hezbollah), the dominant population of northern
Yemen (Houthis) and a significant portion of the Iraqi armed forces represented by the Shiite
militias (the PMF or Popular Mobilization Forces) are no less civilized and no more prone to
sectarian violence than anybody else in this woebegone region. And the real head-choppers of
ISIS and its imitators and rivals have all been Sunni jihadist insurrectionists, not
Shiite-based governments and political parties.
The truth is, America has no dog in the Shiite versus Sunni hunt, which has been going on
for 1300 years in the region. And when it comes to spillover of those benighted forces into
Europe or America, recent history is absolutely clear: 100% of all Islamic terrorist incidents
in the US since they began in the 1990s were perpetrated or inspired by Sunni jihadists, not
Iran or its Shiite allies and proxies in the region.
So we needs be direct. The aggression in the Persian Gulf region during the last three
decades has originated in the Washington DC nest of neocon vipers and among Bibi Netanyahu's
proxies, collaborators and assigns who rule the roost in the Imperial City and among both
political parties. And the motivating force has all along been the malicious quest for regime
change -- first in Iraq and then in Syria and Iran.
Needless to say, Washington instigated "regime change" tends to provoke a determined
self-defense and a usually violent counter-reaction among the changees. So the truth is, the
so-called Shiite crescent is not an alliance of terrorists inflicting wanton violence on the
region; it's a league of regime-change resisters and armed combatants who have elected to say
"no" to Washington's imperial schemes for remaking the middle eastern maps.
So in taking out Soleimani, the usually befuddled and increasingly belligerent occupant of
the Oval Office was not striking a blow against "terrorism". He was just dramatically
escalating Washington's long-standing regime-change aggression in the region, thereby risking
an outbreak of even greater violence and possibly a catastrophic conflagration in the Persian
Gulf where one-fifth of the world's oil traverses daily.
And most certainly, the Donald has now crushed his own oft-repeated intent to withdraw
American forces from the middle east and get out of the regime change business -- the very
platform upon which he campaigned in 2016. There are now upwards of 50,000 US military
personnel in the immediate Persian Gulf region and tens of thousands of more contractors,
proxies and mercenaries. After Friday's reckless maneuver, that number can now only go up --
and possibly dramatically.
In joy-sticking Soleimani while lounging in his plush digs at Mar-a-Lago, the Donald was
also not avenging the innocent casualties of Iranian aggression -- Americans or otherwise. He
was just jamming another regime-change stick in the hornets nest of anti-Americanism in the
region that Washington's bloody interventions have spawned over the decades, and which will now
intensify by orders of magnitude.
Sometimes a picture does tell a thousand words, and this one from the funeral procession in
Tehran yesterday surely makes a mockery of Secretary Pompeo's idiotic claim that the middle
east is now safer than before. If there was ever a case that this neocon knucklehead should be
immediately dispatched to his hog and corn farm back in Kansas, this is surely it.
Iranians
carried the coffins of top general Qassem Soleimani and his allies in Kerman, Iran
The larger point here is that Imperial Washington and its mainstream media megaphones have
so egregiously and relentlessly vilified Iran and falsified the middle east narrative that the
Iranian side of the story has been completely lost -- literally airbrushed right off the pages
of contemporary history in Stalineseque fashion.
Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which
resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the
long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and incompetence
of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics.
But that's exactly the crime of Washington's neocon-inspired hostility and threats to the
Iranian regime. It merely rekindles Iranian nationalism and causes the public to rally to the
support of the regime, as is so evident at the current moment.
Worse still, the underlying patriotic foundation of this pro-regime sentiment is completely
lost on Imperial Washington owing to its false narrative about post-1979 history. Yet the fact
is, in the eyes of the Iranian people the Quds forces and Soleimani have plausible claims to
having been valiant defenders of the nation.
In the original instance, of course, Soleimani earned his chops on the battlefield
contending with the chemical weapons-dropping air force of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. And
Saddam was the invader whose chemical bombs achieved especially deadly accuracy against often
barely armed teenage Iranian soldiers owing to spotting and targeting assistance rendered by
the U.S. air force -- a Washington assisted depredation that a whole generation of Iranians
know all about, even if present day Washington feints ignorance.
Then after Bush the Younger visited uninvited and unrequested Shock & Awe upon Baghdad
and much of the Iraqi countryside, it transpired that the nation's majority Shiite population
didn't cotton much to being "liberated" by Washington. Indeed, the more radical elements of the
Iraqi Shiite community in Sadr City and other towns of central and south Iraq took up arms
during 2003-2011 against what they perceived to be the American "occupiers" because, well, it
was their country.
Needless to say, their Shiite kinsman in Iran were more than ready to give aid and comfort
to the Iraqi Shiite in their struggle against what by then was perceived as Iran's own mortal
enemy. After all, a full year before Bush the Younger launched the utterly folly of the second
gulf war in March 2003, his demented neocon advisors and speechwriters, led by the insufferable
David Frum, had concocted a bogeyman called the Axis of Evil, which included Iran and marked it
as next in line for Shock & Awe.
But the idea that the Iraqi people and especially its majority Shiite population would have
been dancing in the streets to welcome the US military save for the insidious interference of
Iran is just baseless War Party propaganda.
Stated differently, Washington sent 158,000 lethally armed fighters into a country that had
never threatened America's homeland security or harbored its enemies, and had no capacity to do
so in any event. But contrary to the glib assurances of Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of the
neocon jackals around Bush, these U.S. fighters soon came to be widely viewed as "invaders",
not liberators, and met resistance from a wide variety of Iraqi elements including remnants of
Saddam's government and military, radicalized Sunni jihadists and a motley array of Shiite
politicians, clerics and militias.
Foremost among these was the Sadr clan which emerged as the tribune of the the dispossessed
Shiite communities in the south and Baghdad. They rose to prominence after Bush the Elder urged
the Shiite to rise up against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War, and then left them dangling in
the wind.
No U.S. support materialized as the regime's indiscriminate crackdown on the population
systematically arrested and killed tens of thousands of Shiites and destroyed Shiite shrines,
centers of learning, towns and villages. According to eyewitness accounts, Baathist tanks
were painted with messages like "No Shiites after today," people were hanged from electric
poles, and tanks ran over women and children and towed bodies through the streets.
From this horror and brutality emerged Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, the founder of
the Sadrist movement that today, under the leadership of his son Muqtada, constitutes Iraq's
most powerful political movement. After the collapse of the Baathist regime in 2003, the
Sadrist movement formally established its own militia, known as the Jaysh al-Mahdi, or the
Mahdi Army .
The vast Shiite underclass needed protection, social services and leadership, and the
Sadrist movement stepped into these gaps by reactivating Sadeq al-Sadr's network. In the
course of U.S. occupation, the Mahdi Army's ranks of supporters, members and fighters
swelled, particularly as sectarian conflict intensified and discontent towards the occupation
grew out of frustration with the lack of security and basis services.At one point the Mahdi
Army numbered more than 60,000 fighters, and especially as Iraq degenerated into total
sectarian chaos after 2005, it became a deadly thorn in the side of U.S. forces occupying a
country where they were distinctly unwelcome.
But the Mahdi Army was homegrown; it was Arab, not Persian, and it was fighting for its own
homes and communities, not the Iranians, the Quds or Soleimani. In fact, the Sadrists strongly
opposed the Iranian influence among other Shiite dissident groups including the brutal Badr
Brigade and the Iran-aligned Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI). As the above
study further noted,
I raqis today refer to the Sadrist Movement's Peace Brigades as the "rebellious"
militias, because of their refusal to submit not only to Iran , but also to the federal
government and religious establishment. Muqtada al-Sadr has oriented his organization around
Iraqi nationalistic sentiments and derided the Iran-aligned militias . In line with the true
political outlook of his father and his followers, Muqtada's supporters chanted anti-Iranian
slogans and stormed the offices of the Dawa Party, ISCI and the Badr Brigade when they
protested against the government in May 2016.
As it happened, the overwhelming share of the 603 US servicemen the Pentagon claims to have
been killed by Iranian proxies were actually victims of the Mahdi Army uprisings during
2003-2007. These attacks were led by the above mentioned Iraqi nationalist firebrand and son of
the movements founder, Muqtada al-Sadr.
In fact, however, the surge in U.S. deaths at that time was the direct result of
subsequently disgraced General David Petraeus' infamous "surge" campaign. Among others, it
targeted al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in the hope of weakening it. Beginning in late April 2007, the
U.S. launched dozens of military operations aimed solely at capturing or killing Mahdi Army
officers, causing the Mahdi Army to strongly resist those raids and impose mounting casualties
on U.S. troops.
So amidst the fog of two decades of DOD and neocon propaganda, how did Iran and Soleimani
get tagged over and over with the "killing Americans" charge, as if they were attacking
innocent bystanders in lower Manhattan on 9/11?
It's just the hoary old canard that Iran was the source of the powerful roadside bombs
called Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) that were being used by many of the Shiite
militias, as well as the Sunni jihadists in Anbar province and the west. Yet that claim was
debunked more than a decade ago by evidence that the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias were
getting their weapons not just from the Iranians but from wherever they could, as well as
manufacturing their own.
As the estimable Iran export, Gareth Porter, recently noted:
The command's effort to push its line about Iran and EFPs encountered one embarrassing
revelation after another. In February 2007 a US command briefing
asserted that the EFPs had "characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran."
However, after NBC correspondent Jane Arraf confronted the deputy commander of coalition
troops, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, with the fact that a senior military official had acknowledged
to her that US troops had been discovering many sites manufacturing EFPs in Iraq, Odierno was
forced to admit that it was true.
Then in late February 2007, US troops found another cache of parts and explosives for
EFPs near Baghdad, which included shipments of PVC tubes for the canisters that contradicted its
claims . They had come not from factories in Iran, but from factories in the UAE and
other Arab countries, including Iraq itself. That evidence clearly suggested that the Shiites
were procuring EFP parts on the commercial market rather than getting them from Iran.
Although the military briefing by the command in February 2007 pointed to cross-border
weapons smuggling, it actually confirmed
in one of its slides that it was being handled by "Iraqi extremist group members" rather
than by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). And as Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the US
commander for southern Iraq, admitted in a July 6
press briefing , his troops had not "captured anybody that we can directly tie back to
Iran."
On the other hand, what the Iranian Quds forces have actually accomplished in Iraq and Syria
has been virtually expunged from the mainstream narrative. To wit, they have been the veritable
tip of the spear in the eradication of the Islamic State.
Indeed, in Iraq it was the wobbly Iraqi national army that Washington stood up at a cost of
billions, which turned tail and ran when ISIS emerged in Anbar province in 2014. So doing, they
left behind thousands of US armored vehicles, mobile artillery and even tanks, as well as
massive troves of guns and ammo, which enabled the Islamic State to briefly thrive and
subjugate several million people across the Euphrates Valley.
It was also Washington that trained, equipped, armed and funded the so-called anti-Assad
rebels in Syria, which so weakened and distracted Damascus that that the Islamic State was
briefly able to fill the power vacuum and impose its barbaric rule on the citizens of Raqqa and
its environs. And again, it did so in large part with weaponry captured from or sold to ISIS by
the so-called moderate rebels.
To the contrary, the panic and unraveling in Iraq during 2014-2015 was stopped and reversed
when the Iranians at the invitation of Baghdad's Shiite government helped organize and mobilize
the Iraqi Shiite militias, which eventually chased ISIS out of Mosul and Anbar.
Likewise, outside of the northern border areas liberated by the Syrian Kurds, it was the
Shiite alliance of Assad, Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces that rid Syria of the ISIS
plague.
Yes, the U.S. air force literally incinerated two great cities temporarily occupied by the
Islamic State -- Mosul and Raqqa. But it was the Shiite fighters who were literally fighting
for their lives, homes and hearth who cleared that land of a barbaric infestation that had been
spawned and enabled by the very Washington neocons who are now dripping red in tooth and
claw.
So we revert to the Donald's act of utter stupidity. On the one hand, it is now evident that
the reason Soleimani was in Baghdad was to deliver an official response from Tehran to a recent
Saudi de-escalation offer. And that's by the word of the very prime minister that Washington
has stood up in the rump state of Iraq and who has now joined a majority of the Iraqi
parliament in demanding that Iraq's putative liberators -- after expending trillions in
treasure and blood -- leave the country forthwith:
Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he
was scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to
Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated
Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him. Abdul-Mahdi also said that Trump had
asked him to mediate between the U.S. and Iran. Did he do that to trap Soleimani? It is no
wonder then that Abdul-Mahdi is fuming.
At the same time, the positive trends that were in motion in the region just days ago --
-ISIS gone, Syria closing in on the remaining jihadists, Saudi Arabia and Iran tentatively
exploring a more peaceful modus vivendi, the Yemen genocide winding to a close -- may now
literally go up in smoke. As the always sagacious Pat Buchanan observed today,
What a difference a presidential decision can make.
Two months ago, crowds were in the streets of Iraq protesting Iran's dominance of their
politics. Crowds were in the streets of Iran cursing that regime for squandering the nation's
resources on imperial adventures in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. Things were going America's
way.
Now it is the Americans who are the targets of protests.
Over three days, crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands and even millions have
packed Iraqi and Iranian streets and squares to pay tribute to Soleimani and to curse the
Americans who killed him.
We have long believed that there is nothing stupider in Washington than the neocon policy
mafia that has wrecked such unspeakable havoc on the middle east as well as upon American
"Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which
resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the
long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and
incompetence of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics."
I get it that maybe Iranians don't have a Walmart in every town, and may not have the
privilege of mortgaging their lives on a Visa or MC – but that's not what I call
backwardness, rather progress. If times are tough, is it the backwardness of their system, or
might crippling sanctions play a small role in that? What "cultural and religious shackles"
might these be? Please be more specific, or I might think you mean that they don't have
instant access to Hollywood blockbusters or something. The horror! Finally – if you
want to use the term "regime", please apply it with a broad brush, maybe even broad enough to
touch on the oh-so-democratic West. Let's just call them "governments", OK?
Nice to see the great David Stockman appear at Unz. Watch him teach Fox Business News
blabbers economics and political realities. Then he stuns them by saying the Pentagon's
budget must be cut:
@Sasha Well and truly spoken. American pop and consumerist culture along with pop drinks
and endless fads, crude music and fast foods are being peddled as markers of serious culture.
They are shoved down the throats of unsuspecting minds in asymmetric commerce as part of an
aggressive campaign to turn the planet into a consumerist backyard for American junk and to
consolidate American hegemony.
The larger point here is that Imperial Washington and its mainstream media megaphones
have so egregiously and relentlessly vilified Iran and falsified the middle east narrative
that the Iranian side of the story has been completely lost --
Iran's foreign minister Zarif has been denied entry into the United States to attend a UN
meeting. Speaking of idiocy in denying Iranians their side of the story. That has been the
imperial modus operandi in appropriating narratives with the complicity of our poor excuse
for journalism, the servile MSM.
@Sasha I agree. If Iranians are really that disgusted by the "cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or the economic backwardness and incompetence of
what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics", those clerics wouldn't still be in power.
All they have to do is look at the degeneration of the West from drugs, alcohol, money,
power, coarsening pop culture, pornography, all manners of sexual perversion and they know
they are wise to take a different path.
Culturally, economically, politically, even technologically, the US is on a downward
spiral, courtesy of the Jews. This warmongering perpetuated by the same tribe will eventually
finish us off. China, Russia and Iran have existed for thousands of years. They will have the
last laugh.
Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was
scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to
Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated
Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him.
So, Iranian de-escalation was based on a sneak attack against the U.S. Embassy? No. Simple
logic shows that Mahdi is lying. Iran *escalated* by attacking the embassy.
-- What does Stockman suggest as a response to the Iranian sneak attack on the U.S.
Embassy?
-- Why are the voices that are always screaming about 'International Law' not outraged by
Iran's violations?
Given the history of such actions from the Carter era, a strong response was necessary and
inevitable. Iran offered war. And, Trump responded prudently and proportionally.
________
Based on tonight's news, Khameni made a 'show' reprisal that had little impact on U.S.
Forces. (1)
Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops,
but preliminary reports suggest there are no U.S. casualties yet, two sources with
direct knowledge of actions on the ground told Military Times Tuesday night.
Khameni's attack on the embassy was a failure that backfired badly. He is now desperately
trying to back down, because he knows that Iran has no effective defense against U.S.
Military options.
Stockman knew Reagan's first budget was a joke. He wrote it: telling the late Bill Greider
–in real time– that it was a 'Trojan Horse.'
Now he's telling Pompeo to go back to the pig farm but word is the Sec.State is now not
running for a Senate seat. But I tend to believe Pompeo is not directing things
it's coming from Trump's inner circle. Kushner strikes me as more of a neocon and he's
obviously down with what they want in Tel Aviv. Which I think is an attack on Iran Nuclear
capabilities before the end of the summer.
I heard Andrea Mitchell praising Stephen Hadley (Bush Neocon) as a "wise man" who called
this an opportunity for negotiation. That's g one Andrea: it went out when Trump got
rid of the deal Iran was adhering to, which the neocons and Israel didn't want.
I was reading earlier today that American Military Contractor company's stock began soaring
right after the assassination; Ratheon, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing, etc etc
Now Asian market defense contracting company stocks are soaring because Iran has fired
missiles at a couple US bases in Iraq.
Insanity. Hitting your head over and over on a brick wall, while thinking you'll start
feeling better.
I'm sorry to say I voted for this moron; and all because I hated the alternative and he
was flapping his jaws about ending the warring in M.E. I had my doubts from the beginning but
I was willing to give him a chance. Won't be voting in this fall's election. There is not one
candidate worth voting for; none.
Geez, by November we might be in full blown WW3 & elections suspended. who the hell
knows at this point.
As stupid as it gets
-- -- -- -- -- -- –
Well, the Iranians really loused up now. Now Trump and his Israeli loving friends can finally
kick their butts really good. Very bad idea attacking us.
After the latest round of shit-slinging, Washington stinks, Tehran stinks, but Israel is
still smelling like a rose even though they are the instigator of the whole affair.
How do they keep getting away with it each and every time?
This is absurd. Don't lump all generals in together as the same. You might as well say Nazi
generals and Russian generals and British generals and American generals and Japanese
generals are all the same – all equally culpable of equal war crimes in WWII.
Unless you truly believe there is no good and bad sides in all these Middle Eastern wars
this can't be true.
The Americans are aggressors and invaders in the Middle East. For the Iraqis to turn on
the Americans it must mean something.
We get closer to the truth when we see Soleimani as a freedom fighter and Americans as
terrorists.
To lump Soleimani with the American lot is devoid of morals and common sense
All they have to do is look at the degeneration of the West from drugs, alcohol, money,
power, coarsening pop culture, pornography, all manners of sexual perversion and they know
they are wise to take a different path.
Yes, although it is interesting to note that the Iran has been one of the top nations for
sex-change surgeries because the regime would rather change tomboys and sissies into "boys"
and "girls" rather than allow homosexuality or even atypical gender affect. They do avoid
having a pernicious and culturally radicalizing gay lobby though.
Anyway, it's none of our business and if we really had to choose sides in the Saudi vs
Iran conflict then Iran would be the rational choice. Maybe neocon stupidity will help bring
that conflict to a truce as they unite against the USA.
Moqtada al-Sadr, the most influential person in Iraq, is now calling the US an enemy and
threatening Trump personally. If Mahdi Army joins the other Shia groups around the world, big
damage will be done to the US via many means and no american will be able to stay in Iraq.
Embassy could be gone too. US companies working on oil and gas will be kicked out. The
country will move strongly towards Russia and China. All US investment in the Iraq adventure
will be totally lost.
Angering iraqi shia is very stupid US move. They are an ascending force, with young combat
ready population and young and expanding demographics. Last time the US angered the iraqi
shia (2004), it lost the war in Iraq even before it knew it.
This is the result of a declining power not recognizing its decline and making enemies
everywhere.
The 2020s will be a turbulent period of power transition where the US and Europe decline
and the rest of the world rises, the end of the superpower moment and the beginning of a
multipolar world.
Excellent article by a man so principled that as a representative from Michigan he voted
against the Chrysler bail-out.
So please forgive me for pointing out this error:
From the interweb:
A feint (noun) is primarily a deceptive move, such as in fencing or military maneuvering.
It can also mean presenting a feigned appearance. Feint can also be a verb, but in that case
it simply means to execute a feint.
To feign (verb) is to deceive; either by acting as if you're something or someone you're not,
or lying.
There is some overlap between particular meanings of the two words (For example, his
ignorance was a feint, he was feigning ignorance), but mostly they are separate.
Both words come from the French feindre, which means to "pretend, represent, imitate,
shirk".
Thanks for this well-written, passionate but nevertheless lucid analysis.
Yet I feel mention should always be made of US corporate and imperial greed as a main
motive for intervention anywhere in the world. It is about the oil and the profits and it is
highly illuminating to turn to works by non-US authors. A good starting point would be Pino
Solanas classic masterpiece La hora de los hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces) from
1968.
Also read Alfons Goldschmidt's eloquent and committed Die dritte Eroberung Amerikas
(1929). And the recent magnificent overview by Matthieu Auzanneau, Or noir. La grande
histoire du pétrole (2015).
Here is the best short analysis of the crime that was the invasion and conquest of
Iraq:
The Trump presidency has been nothing but neoliberalism and Zionism on steroids and
shouldn't be renewed for a second season. Feel free to convince me otherwise
"In the original instance, of course, Soleimani earned his chops on the battlefield
contending with the chemical weapons-dropping air force of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.
And Saddam was the invader whose chemical bombs achieved especially deadly accuracy against
often barely armed teenage Iranian soldiers owing to spotting and targeting assistance
rendered by the U.S. air force -- a Washington assisted depredation that a whole generation
of Iranians know all about, even if present day Washington feints (sic) ignorance" and a
whole generation (and more) know that this Washington-assisted depredation was carried out by
the U.S. Administration in which Mr.Stockman served, whether or not he prefers now to "feint"
ignorance of that, too. An Administration which also gave us the Nicaraguan Contra
terrorists, the infamous Iran-Contra deal, Central American death squads, Israel's invasion
of Lebanon & much more. Funny how Mr. Stockman was mum on such matters at the time.
Maybe, like Jimmy Carter, he's found his moral compass since leaving government but wish he
had found it a whole lot sooner. Hate to see a good Harvard Divinity School education go to
waste. No matter, the article makes perfect sense even if it comes a little late.
Whenever I see the kind of absurd foul language employed here by Stockman, I simply stop
reading. What on earth is a "flying f ** ck' anyway, other than a supposed macho signal of
just how big and angry a 'BSD' (to use another swaggering obscenity prevalent on his home
turf) he thinks he is. Perhaps he'd care to explain.
The recent and nearly simultaneous crash of the newish Ukranian 737 in Tehran (with the 15
missiles launched from Iran) may be quite significant – indirect way to hurt the US
(Boeing) again and Israel too – owned by Ukraine's most notorious billionaire
Kolomoisky – and the guy who selected the new comedian President – and amazingly
no US or Israeli passengers on board. Was it an accident or an exquisite punishment?
And when it comes to spillover of those benighted forces into Europe or America, recent
history is absolutely clear: 100% of all Islamic terrorist incidents in the US since they
began in the 1990s were perpetrated or inspired by Sunni jihadists, not Iran or its Shiite
allies and proxies in the region.
It is especially hard to overlook that the terrorists and self-radicalized (mass-)murders
who killed hundreds of Europeans, including my own countrymen, were adherents to the
wahhabist ideology, created, funded and often staffed by the very countries which are the
closest allies of the USA and Israel. And whom they sell hundreds of billions of weapons to
as they wage their so called "war on terror" which is mostly the war to take out Israel's and
Saudi-Arabias enemies.
David Stockman may be at the center of the intelligentsia which built the empire that many
in the world looked up to and admired, and which crude figures like Pompeo, Bolton, Shapiro,
Perle and Nuland are tearing down. But the problems and outright evilness of the empire now
are inherent to its system and not merely a question of sophistication versus
brutishness.
@Sabretache Stockman is just guilty and fake thats all..why he uses such language.
there is not a sincere word in all that he wrote above there, save that there is somethng
important in there that Stockman is losing or wants..and is trying to set up to get
Mass murderer and Assassin in Chief is SIMPLY continuing to execute blood lusty and genocidal
policies established by alliance of TERROR which calls itself 5 eyes but Sovereign, FREEDOM
loving people call 5 headed BEAST.
God Bless Axis of Resistance!
Resist Slavery, TERROR and neoNazis!
This is absurd. Don't lump all generals in together as the same. You might as well say
Nazi generals and Russian generals and British generals and American generals and Japanese
generals are all the same – all equally culpable of equal war crimes in WWII.
Yes indeed, all generals are fundamentally the same. War crimes are not the exclusive
realm of any one nationality or political or religious category.
Hollywood says otherwise, but what Hollywood says is little to do with historical fact and
accuracy.
David Stockman blames "neocon stupidity", but Trump's foreign policy has nothing to do with
stupidity it's planned and it's all about Israel ,"endless wars" , arms manufacturing and
sales , and ensuring that the "war on terror" continues . We live in a Pathocracy and are
governed by psychopaths and narcissists who have no compunction about the killing of
civilians (collateral damage ) ,murder by drone , the destruction of cultural sites, the
killing of 500,000 Iraqui children by sanctions (it was worth it – Madeleine Albright)
and the murder of populist leaders such as Allende .
@Sasha How does the mind develop? A boy grows up loving baseball ,because he grew up
watching it since age 3 or 10 . If he watched soccer or Tennis, that would have been his
favorite game . A blank page is ready for description of murder or love in English or Iranian
language .
It is same about religion ,participation in civic rituals ,enjoying certain shows or music or
theaters, food,consumption,and giving into outside demands rather than to self restraint self
reflection and self observation and self evaluation of the imposed needs .
Mind learns to praise hollow words and illegal amoral immoral activities . Because we don't
appreciate the converse and don't reward the opposite. Gradually society eliminates those
thinkers Very soon we have one sort of thinking everywhere . Very soon adult bullying is
copied by kids from TV and from watching the praise heaped on psychopaths.
This also means IQ gets distorted . Capacity to analyze gets impaired .
,American mind is manufactured mind by outside . BUt the process never stops. It doesn't get
that chance to take internal control at any stage . In childhood and adolescence, when the
time is right to inculcate this habit and enforce this angle or build this trait ,it is not
done at all. Other nations try and other cultures do. Here is the difference between self
assured content mind and nervous expectant mind always on a shopping outing . Most of our
problems in society come from this situation,
I enjoyed reading someone with a Washington resume' tearing into the current crew, too.
And it was a relief to see addressed the accusation about the Iranian official being not only
killed for, but set up by feigned US interest in, peace. Those with a public voice --
especially "journalists" -- who won't even mention this are either inept or corrupt.
But note the condescension towards the people of the Middle East and their "regimes" noted
above, starting with comment #1. Read the column carefully, and you'll see that the criticism
from Mr. Stockman is tactical, not principled. That's because he puts himself above all of
those people over there, including the group shown relative sympathy, who "are no less
civilized and no more prone to sectarian violence than anybody else in this woebegone
region." Ask yourself the writer's purpose of those last four words, and in his use of
"sectarian." Would a more concise "are no less civilized and no more prone to violence than
anybody else" be a little too truthful?
I wonder whether this columnist is being brought in to buttress and/or replace the
discredited one who he describes as "the always sagacious Pat Buchanan." (Those who haven't
should read Mr. Paleoconservative's latest "If Baghdad Wants Us Out, Let's Go!" and the
overwhelmingly negative comments it has drawn.) Heretical to their extents, but both remain
devout Exceptionalians.
After more than a decades worth of failed economic prognostications ( that cost anyone who
listened to him dearly) Stockman is now going to give us foreign policy advice? Remember this
guys only official role was as an OMB appointee in the first term of Ronald Reagan.
@Ronnie Interestingly the plane just happened to be Ukrainian. Could this be the casus
belli the West needs to go ham on Iran? More strikes on Iran justified by this plane
crash and perhaps even sanctions on Russa as no doubt they will try an pin it on them as
well?
@Sasha Stockman is notorious for defending cultures and countries (Russia, China,
Iran, Islam) by belittling them. Paraphrasing: It is wrong for the US to confront Russia,
because they have a third rate economy. or it is wrong for the US to confront China
because China can't project power across the world. . He always takes the elitist
position the US should not attack lessers like Russia, China, etc'. It seems he is
trying to cover his ass against the dreaded charge that he is taking 'the enemy's side'.
"What you want to do is just beam in Melrose Place and 90250 into Tehran because that
is subversive stuff. The young kids watch this, they want to have nice clothes, nice
things . . and these internal forces of dissension beamed into Iran which is,
paradoxically, the most open society, a lot more open than Iraq . . . therefore you have
more ability to foment this dynamic against Iran. The question now is, Choose: beam Melrose
Place -- it will take a long time (ha ha).
On the other hand if you take out Saddam I guarantee you it will have ENORMOUS positive
reverberations that people sitting right next door, young people, in Iran, and many others
will say, The time of such despots is gone, it's a new age."
@Haxo Angmark What a trap DJT fell into! The president has proved himself more of a
neocon patsy, as he was as much set up as the Iranian general, whose name will be forgotten
by week's end in America. The neocons feeding the President a straight diet of cooked intel
and their "never Trump" flunkies in the Senate have killed two birds with one stone inasmuch
as the President's boasting he'd take out Iran's main cultural landmarks will be cast as a
threat of genocide, which the Dems will now use to tar DJT as an intemperate megalomaniac in
the minds of independents, probably ending his chances of winning reelection later this year.
The truth is, America has no dog in the Shiite versus Sunni hunt, which has been going
on for 1300 years in the region. [ ] Needless to say, their Shiite kinsman in Iran were
more than ready to give aid and comfort to the Iraqi Shiite in their struggle against what
by then was perceived as Iran's own mortal enemy
The Sunni regime in Riyadh ceaselessly complain about the treatment of the Arab minority
in Iran even though these are Shia Arabs, The Shia in Iraq are likewise Arabs. Iran is
almost as big as Egypt or Turkey. Being a country of 80 million Shia Persians Iran
could not possibly be conquered by the US without a massive effort, even if the deep state
and joint chiefs wanted to, which they do not. The only time Iran runs into trouble is when
it tries to act abroad as a power independent of both the US and Russia.
After the Iranian revolution the US was regarded as an all powerful enemy that would stage
a coup, and so the Embassy staff, thought to be spies, were taken hostage. America was
totally paralyzed and humiliated. Its raid to rescue the hostages was pathetic and exposed a
total lack of special forces capability. the Islamic republic repudiated the Shah's role as
America's cop on the beat, but it wanted to remain the most dominant power in the region
nonetheless. Already worried by the arms given to Iran under the Shah who also supplied the
Kurds fighting in Iraq, the 1974-75 Shatt al-Arab clashes between the Shah and Saddam's
forces that led to led to 1000 KIAs, Saddam was faced with a radical Shia Iran appealing to
his own oppressed Shia majority. After a series of border clashes with the aggressive
Revolutionary Guards, Saddam predictably decided on an all out attack on Iran. The US backed
Saddam and there was massive support for Iraq from the Soviet Union in the final phase of the
war.
The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran made use of suicide squads of schoolboys
to clear minefields and in human wave attacks and by the end the front lines were well within
Iraqi territory and Saddam had to settle for merely surviving. Iran had linked up with
Assad's minority Alawite regime ruling a Sunni majority, and his Shia allies in Lebanon.
Israeli defence minister and former general Ariel Sharon moved Israeli forces into West
beirut then allowed Phalange gunmen let into palestinian refugee camps (PLO fighters had
already left the city) where they slaughtered thousands of non combatants.
Under the influence of Iranian clerics' interpretations from the war with Saddam
justifying suicide if the enemy was killed in the act, Assad's cat's paw Lebanese Shia
suicide bombed the US marines out of Beirut. Then Palestinians learnt how suicide bombing was
a powerful weapon and in the aftermath of the failure of Camp David 2000 embarked a vicious
series of suicide massacres that destroyed Ehud barak and brought Sharon to power. Iran has
gained influence in the region but ti is difficult to see what the Palestinians have got ot
out of the patronage of Iran, which is first and mainly concerned with itself.
Due entirely to side effects of actions the US took against Saddam's Iraq taken to protect
the current regime in Saudi Arabia Iran has went from strength to strength and they seem to
think that run of luck will continue. Unfortunately for Iran, they are now a very real threat
to Saudi Arabia, and the US knows it cannot put an army in Saudi Arabia to guard it with
outraging Islamic nationalist opinion in that country
Instead of poking its nose into Arab affairs why does Iran, which managed to impoverish
its own middle class in the last three decades and recently had to cut fuel subsidies, not
concentrate on its own business? It seems to be calculating that Trump cannot afford to the
bad publicity of starting a war too close to an election, and so they can make hay while the
sun shines. Or perhaps they are pressing their luck like any good gambler on a roll. The
assassination of Soleimani was intended to be taken a sign that Dame Fortune in the shape of
America has grown tired of their insouciance. I think Iran should cut their losses although
such is not human nature. The dictates of realism according to Mearsheimer mandate endless
offence to gain even the slightest advantage, but he also says a good state must know its
limitations.
@Justsaying America's problems don't have anything to do with soda pop or fast food. Nor
is "consumerism" a serious problem that the world needs to worry about. I like having new
smartphones, fast internet, and the convenience of getting things quickly.
Trump is insane as is the ZUS government and its dual citizens who are calling the shots.
Trump is the reincarnation of the Roman emperor Caligula.
All of this was brought on by the joint attack by Israel and traitors in the ZUS
government on the WTC on 911, blamed on the muslims to give the ZUS the excuse to destroy the
middle east for zionist Israel and their greater Israel agenda.
Isn't Stockman the guy pumping a large investment newsletter scam? Is Unz getting a % of the
scam to promote him? And how about these dumbo boomers who support him. Lmao
Nice to see the great David Stockman appear at Unz. Watch him teach Fox Business News
blabbers economics and political realities. Then he stuns them by saying the Pentagon's
budget must be cut:
Yes, I was slightly surprised and gratified by his views.
'Maria' Bartiromo is/was married to a Joo . 'Nuff said.
That other one, the shrill Daegen McDowell, is also married to a Jew but is even more Zionist
than your average 'Likudnik'. She was a regular on 'Imus in the Morning' but then had a
falling out with Imus and was never back. I hope he haunts her until her demise.
(Purple grinning Satan here)
This is absurd. Don't lump all generals in together as the same. You might as well say
Nazi generals and Russian generals and British generals and American generals and Japanese
generals are all the same – all equally culpable of equal war crimes in WWII.
American censorship ensures that Americans only hear of the greatness of American
Generals. American Generals killed far more civilians with weaponry than opposing Generals in
World War II, in Korea, and in Vietnam. Few know about mass slaughters they were responsible
for, like:
@Z-man Taking him out would be boring, if we are talking about hypotheticals, then better
to start isolating Israel and sanctioning them. It will be funny watching them kvetch
I remember 2016. I remember many saying they were voting (or had voted) for Trump to get
out of the endless/pointless Forever Wars, and as often as not they would mention Iran (the
need to not go to war with).
Steve Sailer's six-word summary of US guiding policy from ca. the 1990s to 2010s (and
2020s, so far), " Invade the World, Invite the World (to resettle in the US)," was the
core of DJT's campaign (opposition to them, of course); his core supporter base was motivated
by both, some more one than the other, others strongly by both together.
I'd propose the core Trump base in 2016 was:
– 20%: primarily against "Invade the World" (soft, or neutral, or otherwise on
"Invite")
– 40%: primary against "Invite the World" (soft, neutral, or even supportive of
"Invade")
– 40%: against both Invade and Invite, seeing them as a package deal
I count myself in the third category.
(The proprietor of the Unz Review himself has written that he was for Trump primarily
because of foreign policy, putting him in the first category.)
@freedom-cat "he was flapping his jaws about ending the warring in M.E. I had my doubts
from the beginning but I was willing to give him a chance."
To be fair, he was explicit about getting tough with Iran. That's basically the only
foreign pledge he has kept. All the dialing down of hostilities was a lie.
He has at least killed fewer people in drone strikes than Obama and Bush.
@Sean Sean, your propaganda is old and tired and boring.
You're still shopping at F W Woolworth.
After the Iranian revolution the US was regarded as an all powerful enemy that would
stage a coup, and so the Embassy staff, thought to be spies, were taken hostage.
One major precipitant was the information revealed about how US embassy had been spying on
Iran, when Iranian weavers re-assembled massed of documents that embassy staff had
shredded.
the rest of your screed = hasbara boilerplate. skewing information
Larry Johnson posted this more balanced overview of The Whole Offense:
Since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the United States has done a lot of killing of
terrorists, real and imagined. Yet, the threat of terrorism has not been erased.
I submit that " the threat of terrorism has not been erased " because the wrong
terrorists were being killed.
The real terrorists hive in TelAviv and Washington, DC.
@Mr. Allen BS. The Nazi generals were trying to save the western world and civilization
from the jews; the other generals, whether they knew it or not, were working for the jews to
destroy both. The jews won and have largely obtained their desired end. Just look at Europe
today
@Vaterland Do it. Complete Nordstream2. Withdraw from NATO. It was 1907 that Britain
turned Russia from focusing on Asia to Europe and kicked off the new 30-years war. German
organization and Russian spirit and resources would be a fearsome combination.
If you live in a GOLDen cage, eventually you may develop Stockman syndrome.
This Trump Iran policy seems like pure genius to me. He may be able to obliterate Israel,
Hezbollah and Iran, by goading them with one check-mark on the Obama er um Trump Disposition
Matrix.
When I was a young teen I used to like that song, "Storm the Embassy", by the Stray Cats,
before they had any fame in the states. Decades later the Offspring scored a hit called "The
Kid's Aren't Alright", written in a similar key and chord progression. Groovy
This is the all-encompassing delusion, the stickiest residual brainwashing of old big shots.
The Biggest Big Lie. And you old timers play along with it. Every time.
Stupidity. Stupid my ass.
Wartorn countries are ideal arms-trade entrepots. All the unauditable trillions of stuff
that falls off DoD trucks, it's flooding into Syria and Iraq. CIA sells it. And most of it
sits in safe caches until the next war. Then CIA sells it again. This is CIA's second biggest
profit center, after drugs. And you know this is CIA's war, Right? Right? This is dumb
jarheads dumped in there to hold the bag for TIMBER SYCAMORE. Trump has less workplace
discretion than a McDonald's fry cook. He's CIA's puppet ruler. Puppets are not stupid,
they're inert.
If you're CIA and you've got impunity in municipal law, this is not stupid, this is smart.
This is brilliant. Steal arms from the troops, start a war, sell em to wogs, steal em from
the wogs, sell to other wogs. Repeat. This is the policy and vital interest of the CIA
criminal enterprise that runs your country.
You know it. Say what you actually think ffs. What are they gonna do, send you to
Vietnam?
@Anon If I'm not mistaken, Stockman has been forecasting a market collapse since 2010 or
so. I just checked and in 2013 he recommended selling stocks with end-of-the-world fear
mongering. At some point he and the libertarians' advice will coincide with a major
adjustment or collapse and the scam perpetuates itself. I'm no expert in market timing
myself, but my conclusion is that these guys are basically shills for gold and silver trading
interests, using political scare tactics to drive sales, and in the process shamelessly
costing naive investors to miss the market time and again since it's low in late 2008.
@Carlton Meyer God, if there is one, please save us from such shrill, hysterical female
defenders of the military-industrial-complex as Maria Bartiromo and Degan McDowell. I wonder
how screechy-voiced Maria could say with a straight face that we were, prior to Trump,
"starving the military." Such women, and let's include the women of The View, make good
advertisements for why the 19th Amendment should never have been passed.
David Stockman, though I oppose his libertarianism, is worthy of much credit for going
into the den with such venomous vipers.
Yes indeed, all generals are fundamentally the same. War crimes are not the exclusive
realm of any one nationality or political or religious category.
Still, America leads the world when it comes to killing civilians, POWs, and other war
crimes.
I am with Mr. Allen – we shouldn't lump them all together. American generals, and
the prostitute "statesmen" that give their orders, deserve a special place in hell –
with a guest room, of course, for the likes of Winston Churchill and Bomber Harris.
@Hail The earliest sign we were betrayed was when post-election, pre-Inauguration Trump
said he wouldn't go after Cankles. Most people didn't even notice, or still believed he was
playing 32-dimensional underwater quantum chess.
@Vaterland Germany still under American (see Jewish) occupation huh? I still here
Americans tell me that those European countries are begging for American defence. This is an
American trait of arrogance, they think Europeans actually want Americans occupying us and
that they are doing us a favour.
I bet they would hit our countries with sanctions and other punishment if we threatened to
kick them out just like is the case with Trump demanding billions from Iraq to pay for an air
force base that Yankeed built to launch terror raids against Iraqis.
I bet most Germans do not even know about the terrorist occupation of Deutschland by
America where they staved and raped with impunity. Americans are truly sickening and nobody
would care if they got nuked save for a few Anglos
Regardless of our opinion about General Qassem Soleimani, Trump targeted killing him was for
his own personal grudge against Soleimani -- that was independent of the official US policy
toward Iran.
Over the last couple of years, in the heat of twitter exchanges between Trump and
President Rouhani, Trump was using his usual colorful language – street mob style
– he was insulting Rouhani on twitter while president Rouhani kept his cool –
restraining himself to engage at the street level exchange with Trump -- meanwhile, Gen.
Soleimani seized on the occasion and replied to Trump's insults; he taunted Trump, called him
"Bartender, Casino manager, Mobster" etc. and threatened to go after his properties worldwide
-- you can check Online history of Soleimani's tweets about Donald Trump. Here is a sample
that New York Post had published;
As we all know Donald Trump does not appreciate threats, and if he gets the chance he
punch back harder, and that's what has really happened; Donald Trump's personal grudge
against Soleimani had led to his assassination; just the way Street Mobs eliminate their
opponents; surely, that seems trivial, but these days, the world is governed by fake leaders
who won't hesitate to use the power of their office to boost their own ego -- even at their
own nation's expense.
Regardless of our opinion; General Soleimani was a brave soldier, a principled man who has
dedicated his life to his nation, and that deserves respect -- just as Ernesto "Che" Guevara
and Neilson Manddala did.
@Miro23 To perhaps soon be replaced by an even older, and definitely more confused
successor come next January. The only saving grace would be if Biden doesn't know how to
tweet. But he's every much the Zionist as is Trump, and has said so in the past. With a
non-working brain, which is where Trump's lost brain is heading, Biden will believe whatever
bullshit his neoliberal advisors feed him. Who is there to save us?
You bet, I'm happy to see a Washington name on these pages, because I've been convinced
for years a lot of the stuff we talk about here is pretty much mainstream or mainstreamable
thought that's been shoved aside by high-motivation rent-seekers of all sorts.
" . . . [N]ote the condescension towards the people of the Middle East . . .". Yes, I did.
I don't know squat about foreign policy, but people who sense they're being looked down on or
feel they're being used will sometimes want to get back at those who've patronized them when
the opportunity arises. I wish our leaders would take that platitude to heart.
Foolish elitists like Stockman advocate for the failed policies of the past.
From 1979 to 2020, 41 years most of our politically astute appeased Iran. In the early
80's Reagan sunk half of Iran's navy and they quieted down fora few years.
Since 1988 foolish political elites who thought they new better began appeasing again.
Seems only Reagan learned from History how appeasement helped Hitler.
Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama all used appeasement. Iran grew stronger and more
influential.
Obama foolishly tried to buy peace by releasing $150 billion of frozen Iranian assets,
Iran spent it on Missle, Nuclear technologies and funded terrorism.
President Trump is reverting back to the lessons of Historyand trying to clean up Obama's
mess.
I pray we reelect him in 2020 and give him 4 more years to save America from the deluded
academics.
From 1979 to 2020, 41 years most of our politically astute appeased Iran. In the early
80's Reagan sunk half of Iran's navy and they quieted down fora few years.
Since 1988 foolish political elites who thought they new better began appeasing
again.
Why not just save time and write Iran Delenda Est , maybe in all-caps, a few
times?
@TomSchmidt Yes he does. He was married to a German teacher and was stationed in Dresden.
He touched on many of the issues of trust and fear in this speech to the Bundestag. Years
before Merkel took office. Different times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NZQZQLV7tE
The other mandatory ritual incantation of US public Juche is to vilify the official enemy.
Even pseudo-gonzo mavericks like Taibbi find they must do this. Stockman's new tweak of the
government-issue boilerplate is admirable for its subtlety, by comparison with Taibbi's
abject obeisance to the war line.
"Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which
resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the
long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and
incompetence of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics."
As a founding member of the G-77 Iran brought together 80 per cent of the world's
population. When the US took to manifest aggression after the WTC fell down, who did the G-77
choose to lead it? Iran. Iran brokered the Tehran Consensus, which unites more countries and
people than NATO and doesn't blow shit up. The Non-Aligned Movement made Iran their
nuclear/chemical disarmament envoy for peaceful coexistence. Half the world's people and
two-thirds of its countries have made Iran a leader of the world. Why? Because they defend
the UN Charter. They actually know what's in Article 2(4) and Article 39 and Article 41. Do
you?
In objective human rights terms, Iran sucks about as much as the US in terms of three of
the highest-level human rights indicators, outperforms the US in terms of openness to
external human rights scrutiny, and falls short of US in terms of reporting compliance
(although the US got graded very leniently on its delinquent CAT reporting while it ran its
worldwide torture gulag.) So you don't have to do new vocal stylings on BAD BAD DOUBLEPLUSBAD
ENEMY BAD. You can actually consult the facts. Imagine that.
@Just passing through I have very ambivalent feelings towards the USA, in the past and
present. Complex topic. Simple analogy: George C. Marshall looks like the twin-brother of my
grandfather who served in the Wehrmacht. Sons of Europe, at war with Europe; now increasingly
no longer European and a threat to Europe as their empire degrades. I see no reason to hate
the American people as a whole, there's millions of good hearted, compassionate and
reasonable people living in America today. Just look at Tulsi Gabbard's events. But they,
too, are held hostage of this evil Empire. Separate peoples and governments; Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn too lived under the Soviet regime.
I do hate Mike Pompeo though. And I'm not ashamed of it.
President Trump is reverting back to the lessons of Historyand trying to clean up
Obama's mess.
You are correct. Trump inherited problems from the prior Obama and Bush administrations.
Fortunately, Trump is winning.
Khameni's "retaliation" caused no damage. The high visibility launch covered live by FARS
was a PR stunt to placate his domestic audience. (1)
"Optically Quite Dramatic" But Officials Confirm No US Casualties From Iranian
Missile Strike
[Iran launched] missiles and purposely miss their intended targets.
Iran has superior missile technology that can hit whatever they want – this could
be in an attempt to save face as a public relations event for its citizens while attempting
to de-escalate the situation and avoid war.
At time of writing, it is unclear if we're headed to open war with Iran, though it is seeming
more and more likely by the hour.
So, I feel the need to remind everyone that they need to be careful not to commit
sedition.
In wartime, sedition can be a very serious crime.
Largely, we have not had people in the United States going to jail for anti-war protests
since the World Wars, but a war with Iran will be the biggest war the US has been involved in
since World War Two, and there is going to be a lot of opposition to it, so it is probable
that there will be actions done to chill speech by making examples of people who protest the
war too hard.
Stockman is a curious gloom and doomer. He reliably rants about the permanent war economy and
the biggest defense budget in the world but that's as far as he goes. Like Paul Craig
Roberts, his propaganda delivering contemporary, he offers a childish oversimplification of
how things work.
When things fall apart the cops and the troops will shoot the citizens and protect the
rich. Meanwhile, before things fall completely apart, propaganda specialists like Stockman
shoot the unsuspecting citizens with propaganda to protect the rich.
The rich learned long ago to divide the lower classes into the obedient subservient voters
who love them and the rest of the poor who don't matter because their brothers and sisters
protect the rich. What better time to divide, conquer and stage more international tensions
than right now?
@A123 Another fine example of American exceptionalism.
There is zero evidence that the American contractor killed, was killed by Kata'ib Hezbollah.
It fits the classic Israeli false flag.
The US "retaliates" by killing Iraqis who are the Kata'ib Hezbollah.
It is inconceivable to you that Iraqis may be upset that the country who invaded Iraq in
2003, completely destroyed the infrastructure, built a massive fortified Embassy, and sold
off its assets to Jewish interests, primarily, just might be upset that that same country has
just massacred the Iraqis who saved the country from ISIS. It had to be Iran behind it,
because all Iraqis are grateful for the 2003 US invasion and all of the benefits of
occupation that flowed from that. The million Iraqis that died are irrelevant.
Even Stockman doesn't get the Baathists. They don't care about your religious beliefs.
They care that your religious beliefs become politicized. Sure Saddam and Assad were
minorities, but one was a Sunni, the other a Shi'ite, but both Ba'athists. Both kept the lid
on extremists irrespective of religious beliefs. Stockman's reference to Bush 41 incitement
and the subsequent backlash is held up as some sort of proof of bad Sunnis. If the Pope
successfully goaded German Roman Catholics to take up arms against Protestants, do you think
that it just may be, that a Protestant backlash might be severe in places where Protestants
were the majority? Nope, it's got to be Hitler's fault, or maybe even Iran's.
@SolontoCroesus The assassination of was Soleimani was a deliberately stupid and
counterproductive act by America because that is the way to send a message that you are a
force to be reckoned with and mean what you say. Costly signalling is honest signalling. In
this case the US is signalling they are beyond the rhetoric of the last thirty years and
willing to get kinetic .
Iran and their theology of suicide martyrs is the greatest thing that ever happened to the
Israeli right, influenced by Shia suicide bombing driving the US marines out of Lebanon the
Palestinian massacres of Israeli civilians non combatants got a wall built pening them up,
took Sharon to the premiership, and made Israelis turn their back on Ehud Barak. No Israeli
leader would now dream of offering what Barak did while he was PM.
Iran is to big to be occupied and that is a fact. What can they be so worried about except
ceasing to play independent great power in the Arab mainly Sunni Middle East. Well they are
not that powerful. I think the leadership of Iran is taking the free ride they have been
getting getting for granted. They did not overthrow Saddam, America did and Iran gained got a
windfall.
Saddam was overthrown because the threat he represented to Saudi Arabia had to be
neutralised so the US army could be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, where its infidel presence
was causing outrage and resentment. John Bolton got sacked, and a few days later, Iran gets
the bright idea to not just threaten Saudi Arabia, but launch–or at least not forbid
their Houthie protégés to launch–blatant drone attacks on vital Saudi oil
facilities (Sept 2019) thus forcing Trump to send more and more troops there. Iran was
sending a message: we can and we will.
My reading of the American government is that their killing of Soleimani was a sign that
for them Iran has entered the danger zone where something more that rhetoric and sanctions
will be used. Iran can still turn back and be forgiven, but if they choose to go on and take
the consequences of ignoring the costly (and therefore sincere) signal that the US has sent,
so be it.
This was as stupid as it gets so far. Confidently expect even stupider actions of the Empire
in its impotent rage, now that it is losing its grip. Ever since Iraq invasion, the Empire
was undermining itself more efficiently than its worst enemies could have hoped for.
Since it's apparent that Israel is making our MENA foreign policy and that the foaming at the
mouth Zionists want to start a hot shooting war with Iran, using their American mercs, which
US city should be sacrificed to Moloch, the G-d of Israel, to start this war?
New York is the safest bet, since there are tens of thousands loyal Jew sayanim living
there who would gladly give all to start a war against Iran. Using the time-tested technique
of staging a false flag.
Hamid was only recently (2017) handed a (cheap) US-citizenship for services rendered to
the empire, along with a free pass to settle his family in the US (Sacramento).
War-nut, dump-refugees-on-Middle-America-advocate, and empire-pusher John McCain is, I am
sure, saluting the flag of Empire in his grave, a tear in his eye at the perfect alignment of
every aspect of this saga of Nawres Hamid.
@Mr. Allen What about the RAF generals and 8th airforce generals who killed millions of
German women and children in WW2? Were they more civilized than Soleimani?
@Alistair One thing you got right is that the dead Iranian general belongs with murderers
and terrorists like Mandela and Che. He was as much a piece of garbage as them.
Jun 18, 2019 4 Times the US Threatened to Stage an Attack and Blame it on Iran
The US has threatened to stage an attack and blame it on Iran over and over in the last
few years. Don't let a war based on false pretenses happen again.
Mar 27, 2019 The MIC and Wall Street Rule The World: Period!
To dismiss Suleimani as yet another thug, then praise the Shiite militia for driving ISIS
from Iraq without acknowledging that it was Soleimani that organized and led that battle
(from the front) is a little unfair.
@A123 Says the warmonger. The US needs to get the hell out of the Mideast, period. We are
fighting (((someone else's))) war.
@Mark James
Kushner strikes me as more of a neocon and he's obviously down with what they want in
Tel Aviv. Which I think is an attack on Iran Nuclear capabilities before the end of the
summer.
Ya think? The Kushner family from father to son have publicly declared themselves Israel's
most loyal sons. They couldn't have found a better man to be president, a stupid puppet goy
as part of the family so they can continue to pull the puppet strings in the background. It's
the way (((these people))) operate, for thousands of years. Never the front man, always
directing things from the shadow.
@Mike P This stance is very understandable but I believe common sense should tell us
otherwise. There can be little doubt that since its colonial war in the Philippines, the US
has led the pack in terms of numbers of people killed in what used to be called the Third
World.
However, I am quite certain the way many people look at the US today (based on all those
millions of poor devils killed in the colonies), wishing their leaders a special place in
hell, is no different from how one could look at the English a little over a century ago
(Sepoy Mutiny, Sudan, Opium War, etc.). Or, for that matter, how the inhabitants of the
Italian states might look at the French during the late 1400s and early 1500s. And what about
the German Order in the Baltic, the Byzantines, the Romans etc. etc.?
In other words the US can point to a venerable but sad number of precedents to their own
criminal operations abroad. It is impossible to define the worst offender among all those
included in the long list of evildoers.
Anyone who enters another country, carrying arms and without the permission of the local
inhabitants, deserves to be killed. It is that simple. Unfortunately, because since times
immemorial most who do that somehow escape their just fate, one sees the same thing happening
again and again.
As usual, this has been turned into an Israel and Jew demonizing circle jerk, save a few sane
commenters.
Let's examine the imbecility of this site:
A Jewish, gay, open borders advocate multimillionaire selects "chosen ones", the gold star
commenters who are posting wily nilly to dominate the discourse –
who all happen to be Muslim, Latino, foreign born or rabidly Anti- American?
As commenters rage about the take over of the world by Jews, who flood America with --
–
Muslims, Latinos, and foreign borns, and shove the Alphabet Mafia down our throats.
You couldn't sell this as a straight to DVD screenplay. It's that absurd.
Instead of poking its nose into Arab affairs why does Iran, which managed to impoverish
its own middle class in the last three decades and recently had to cut fuel subsidies, not
concentrate on its own business?
Have you been living under a rock?
The US froze (stole) billions in Iranian assets post revolution. The complaints about Obama
"paying" Iran for the JCPOA, were nothing but a partial return of Iranian assets. So, the
Iranians were short billions for 30 years, which could have been used to rebuild. It's kind
of like building a house and finding out a big chunk of the cash in your bank account has
been frozen, illegally, by the bank. It's there, but you have no access to, or benefit of,
it.
Of course all of the sanctions have nothing to do with Iran's problems. In particular, any
country that bought oil from Iran would also be sanctioned, causing a massive drop in
revenue, plays no part in the economic difficulties. Additionally, Iran exercising its rights
under an international treaty – the NPT, which the US repudiates in Iran's case,
thereby removing another large source of revenue, is not a factor either. At least, not to
you.
The best way to prevent more American soldiers being killed is to keep alive the man who
has been killing so many of them for 20 years? [irony]
That's exactly what is being done -- men most responsible for American soldiers being
killed are being kept alive:
David Petraeus -- still alive
Robert Kagan -- -still alive
Benjamin Netanyahu -- still alive
George Bush -- – still alive
A year or so ago Mike Morrell commented that "US needs to send maps and crayons to Iran,
to demonstrate to them where their borders are: 'Iran HERE, Iran, NOT there.' "
I couldn't get over the irony: USA circles Iran, 7000 miles from continental USA, and
somehow Iran is trespassing outside its borders?
Morrell:
"Have the Iranians and the Russians pay a little price. . . . They were supplying
weapons that killed Americans . . . kill them covertly . . . I want to scare Assad . . . I
want to bomb his offices in the middle of the night, I want to destroy his presidential
aircraft . . . I want to destroy his helicopter. . . . I am not advocating assassinating
him – I'm not advocating that: I'm advocating going after what he thinks is his power
base . . ."
@SteveK9 AL CIADA aka ISIS is a creation of the CIA and the Mossad and MI6 and NATO aka
the ZUS and Israel and Britain.
This war in the mideast was brought on by the JOINT Israeli and ZUS attack on the WTC on
911, which was blamed on the muslims to give the ZUS the excuse to destroy the mideast for
Israel.
just as Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Neilson Manddala did.
Would that be the same "Che" Guevara that thought Negroes were inferior, and Nelson
Mandela who was convicted of attempting to blow up a power station that would have killed
dozens of innocent people?
Soleimani rarely targeted civilians. For those who would point to the suicide bombings in
Israel, I would remind you that all Israelis over the age of 18 will be, or have been, in the
armed forces, and are subject to call up even after discharge.
It's all about Israel. Netanyahu has been plotting scheming and demanding that we, that the
U.S. bomb Iran back to the stone ages for nigh onto twenty years. He has even issued coded
and veiled threats to nuke Iran himself.
Trump is a Zionist collaborator and he is Netanyahu's shabbos goy. He has willingly
co-operated in turning over the U.S. military to be Israel's running dog.
America is a Christian majority country, and Bret Stephens is absolutely correct. The Jews
are an intellectually superior people. Us mere Goyim, are by comparison, utterly stupid.
America does not genuinely and honestly support Israel. America has been hornswoggled by
the superior intelligence and guile of the Jewish people to support the Jew state.
When the Jews decided to set up their own country at the turn of the twentieth century,
they knew that they would need the support of Christendom. To that end they initiated a
psy-op, a psychological operation tasked with rewriting Christian theology.
Up until the turn of the twentieth century Christian theology had held that the coming of
Jesus Christ had negated all of God's covenants with the Jews. This was known as, replacement
theology. That, in essence, Christians had become God's chosen people.
As a consequence, down through the ages, Christians and Jews had been at odds. Christ
killer was a common epithet and there were many pogroms.
Jews would have been aware that there was an obscure Christian theology that held, that
God had not revoked his covenants with the Jews. That God's covenants with the Jews remained
intact and were still in force.
This obscure theology was being preached by a ne'er do well preacher named Cyrus Scofield.
What the Jews did, and surely this was, what is known as, "Jew genius", they financed Cyrus
on two trips to Europe.
What the Jews did, was to take this obscure dispensationalist christian theology and write
it into the King James version of the bible as study notes. When Scofield returned from
Europe, he had the manuscript of the Scofield study bible. It is presumed that Rabbi's and
yeshiva students produced it.
It was published, produced and distributed by the very Jewish Oxford University Press,
which still holds the patent on it, and periodically updates it to keep up with changing
times in the Middle East.
There is an ample historical trail that validates this thesis.
There is also an historical trail that reveals that today's Jews, Ashkenazim Jews, are not
descendants of the biblical era Jews, that they are Jewish converts from the land of
Khazar.
More, that the circumstances of their conversion to Judaism was a process that selected
for intelligence and drive and that is why today's Jews are an intellectually superior,
driven and successful, albeit, artificial people.
Artificial, as they are not a people that occurred naturally, over time and in a land of
their own.
" . . . [N]ote the condescension towards the people of the Middle East . . .". Yes, I
did. I don't know squat about foreign policy, but people who sense they're being looked
down on or feel they're being used will sometimes want to get back at those who've
patronized them when the opportunity arises. I wish our leaders would take that platitude
to heart.
This is a product of American exceptionalism, and it is not confined to the Middle East.
The overwhelming majority of Americans refuse to accept that others may be just fine with
their own form of government, economic system, and culture.
@SolontoCroesus Note that it has been the white man, not the jew, not the nigger, and not
the tranny, who has been the principle architect of such death and destruction.
Aug 8, 2016 "I want to scare Assad" Mike Morell on Charlie Rose
Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, discusses the need to put pressure on
Syria and Russia. The full conversation airs on PBS on August 8th, 2016.
@Rich In the super-liberal town where I live, garbage gets separated: plastics here,
paper there, banana peels there.
If Solemeini is "as much a piece of garbage as Mandela, Che," then what category of
garbage were Churchill and Stallin?
FDR -- same piece of garbage as Churchill – Stalin, or more like Solemeini?
How about Arthur "Bomber" Harris -- same garbage, or different?
When Solemeini is coordinating military engagements with US military leaders, is he "as
much a piece of garbage as Mandela, Che" or is he more like Kagan and Lady Lindsey?
@9/11 Inside job You are right, stupidity has nothing to do with it, its well thought out
and dictated by Israel. The 'tail actually wags the dog.' Americans (most) will never get it
as they are trapped in a bubble while the rest of the world has realized it. In Europe the
common folks have while the politicians still have to pretend.
When the hour of awakening arrives, I will have no sympathy for the common Jews as they
remain silent today. And Jeffery Epstein didn't kill himself.
What "cultural and religious shackles" might these be? Please be more specific, or I
might think you mean that they don't have instant access to Hollywood blockbusters or
something. The horror!
The Shah was notorious for encouraging young women to emulate the West and wear miniskirts
and such.
At first glance, it seemed like a positive change for the better. (who approves of burkas,
for instance). But as we all know by now, the ((cultural elites)) of the West, are feverishly
using liberalism to transform the societies they dominate into moral and spiritual
sewers.
[insert here photo of Madonna or Miley or some other gutter skank as role model for little
girls)
In a well-known case, the 'brutal' rapist of a ten year old Austrian boy, at a public
swimming pool, had his conviction set aside by the high court, because not enough sympathy
was shown to the rapist's cultural proclivities. This is a society that is spiritually dead.
Contrast that with Iran's equally well-known treatment of men who rape boys, by hanging them
by their necks from cranes, for all to witness.
Iran, clearly has a lot to teach the dying ((murdered)) West.
If headscarves are the price of female dignity and honor, then I suppose it really isn't
all that big of a deal, especially when you consider the alternative in the West.
[I'm not posting a photo of Kardashian or some other skank, because you all know what I
mean]
@Sean bbs.chinadaily.com .cn :"Beirut marine [barracks]bombing was Mossad false flag
operation "
'I reported that Marines had been sent there to become the focus of a major incident . The
Mossad is to arrange for a number of our Marines to be killed in an accident to be blamed on
the Arabs! This will be used to inflame American public opinion to help lead us into war '
Dr. Beter, a Pentagon analyst .
Not possibly as stupid as declaring openly that you want to deliberately commit war crimes on
public record.
Of course, when you have guys cheer leading you that couldn't find Iran on a map if their
life depended on it, you might not notice:
Fox host defends America committing war crimes: "I don't care about Iranian cultural
sites and I'll tell you why. If they could they would destroy every single one of our
cultural sites and build a mosque on top of it" pic.twitter.com/AJolDVtzJR
For everyone who wants a refresher on how this is defined as a war crime, the Red Cross
has a great section on the evolution of these particular protocols in history. I would highly
recommend the section titled:
"Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property"
Which starts:
"Article 1 of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property defines
cultural property, for the purposes of the Convention, irrespective of origin or ownership,
as:
(a) movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every
people, such as monuments of architecture, art or history, whether religious or secular;
archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic
interest; works of art; manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical or
archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books
or archives or of reproductions of the property defined above " https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule38
Note also that the US did not sign until 2009. The reasons given are outlined here –
main one being*:
"The objections raised by DoD at the time were based on the perceived inability to meet the
Convention's obligations in the event of nuclear warfare. With the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War, DoD removed its objection to ratification." http://usicomos.org/hague-convention-and-usicomos/
Peace.
*Note: This is actually a great starting point for those of us who want to prevent
preemptive use of nuclear weapons by our government. The DoD is fully aware that nuclear
strikes against population centers will be in violation of the very treaties that they have
signed onto in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
What about the RAF generals and 8th airforce generals who killed millions of German
women and children in WW2? Were they more civilized than Soleimani?
I guess I opened a can of worms I didn't mean to I am an American and understand that
Americans are not as innocent or as magnanimous as our history books may make it.
But I had also assumed most people would agree that in general, American generals (and
Russian generals) would be seen as on the "right side of history" and hence morally
infinitely better as compared to Japanese or Nazi generals.
To the extent that is true, we shouldn't be lumping them morally together as the author
here is trying to lump American and Iranian generals together.
In my world view, Americans are aggressors in the Middle East today, Iranians are not. So
lumping them together is to refuse to see right and wrong .
Back to WWII: most people in the world today are probably happy they are not under
Japanese or German rule. So I assume my statements about Nazis and ally generals were
correct.
As for whether most people in the world today would be happy from American / Western
imperial rule, I would say yes to that. BUT does that REALLY make WWII just another evil war
where evil won and where Nazi generals and American and RAF and Russian generals are the same
as Japanese and Nazi generals???
@Sean bbs.chinadaily.com .cn:" Beirut Marine[barracks]bombing was a Mossad false flag
operation"
" I reported that Marines had been sent there to become the focus of a major incident . The
Mossad is to arrange for a number of our Marines to be killed in an incident to be blamed on
Arabs! This will be used to inflame American public opinion to help us lead into war " Dr.
Beter , a Pentagon analyst
Looks like the Empire decided not to escalate further the war it started with Iran. Optimists
would say that Trump at least shows some wisdom after utter stupidity of engaging in
terrorism. Pessimists would say that the Empire is simply afraid. I am on the fence.
@A123 Thanks for doing your part to introduce some sanity here.
Rather obviously, Iran needs to get it together. I get that it's unhappy that Trump was
elected, and wasn't removed from office as the Democrats promised them, so they could get
back to the Obama giveaway.
But, hands down, Iran wins the competition for the worst handling of relations with the
United States since Trump took the oath.
Now, the ayatollah's train wreck has resulted in the death of his beloved Soleimani.
It's very interesting to learn that Soleimani worked alongside US generals. So far none of
them have resigned their commissions; that tells me they have no balls and are fine with
following orders to go over the cliff with Trump, Pompous, and the rest of the DC Dunces.
The Axis of Resistance will be shouting "MAGA!" as they drive out US killers:
Make
America
Go
Away
I think Trump read the first few chapters of "Dune" and decided he wanted to play Emperor.
Too bad he didn't read to the end where the Emperor's landing party is captured and the
Empire gets kicked hard.
A military delegation from a group of Russian troops in Syria visited the Iranian embassy to
pay tribute and express condolences to the Iranians in connection with the death of General
Suleymani, commander of the Kods IRGC Iran, as a result of the American strike. Wreaths were
laid from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and directly from our group of
forces in Syria.
In the photo from the Iranian embassy as part of the delegation, the commander of the group
of forces (forces) of the Armed forces of the Russian Federation in the Syrian Arab Republic,
General Alexander Chayko.
Foreign Policy (FP): What will Iran do to retaliate?
DP: Right now they are probably doing what anyone does in this situation: considering
the menu of options. There could be actions in the gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz by proxies
in the regional countries, and in other continents where the Quds Force have activities.
There's a very considerable number of potential responses by Iran, and then there's any
number of potential U.S. responses to those actions
Given the state of their economy, I think they have to be very leery, very concerned
that that could actually result in the first real challenge to the regime certainly since the
Iran-Iraq War.
FP: Will the Iraqi government kick the U.S. military out of Iraq?
DP: The prime minister has said that he would put forward legislation to do that,
although I don't think that the majority of Iraqi leaders want to see that given that ISIS is
still a significant threat. They are keenly aware that it was not the Iranian supported
militias that defeated the Islamic State, it was U.S.-enabled Iraqi armed forces and special
forces that really fought the decisive battles.
How credible is this line that Iran has a tottering economy and that the 'regime' is
clinging to power by a thread and so therefore cannot risk the further instability of a
war?
Well, David Petraeus does not seem the most reliable person in this world.
If you take into account that he supported all the lies of his admnistration to unlseashed
Iraqi invasion and alleged WOT when what it was the remodelation of rge ME and looting of its
resources. And I fear he made his fortune vand caree in Iraq...by looting and lying...
Twitter vid of Orthodox
service for Soleimani correlates his Mission with that Of Jesus's Mission. An amazing and
truthful one minute thank you from the Christians of Syria for his efforts:
"'All what Qassem Soleimani did was stand up for Christians against ISIS and Al Qaeda'
"A mass was held in the evangelical church of Aleppo, Syria to honor the martyrdom of
General Soleimani who had an essential role in the liberation battle of Aleppo against
US-backed Jihadists."
Compared to Soleimani, Trump is the town drunk lying in the gutter awaiting the police van
to take him to the drunk tank.
Several barflies have said it's beyond time for China and Russia to arise and collectively
put a stop to this madness. As reported today, China will likely delay the implementation of
the first phase of the Trade Deal and a high level delegation met with Iraq's president and
council today to discuss arms and economic assistance. Russia's already involved with Iraq
through the regional anti-terrorist command post in Baghdad. Putin's been very quiet; not
even the usual notice of condolences sent to Iran was noted or published by the Kremlin.
Tomorrow's Orthodox Christmas, so perhaps in Putin's message to Russia he'll say something
further. But you can be sure that behind the scenes much is happening.
...no coherent plan was behind the Trump administration's cold-blooded murder of Qassem
Soleimani.
It was an act of pure stupid. A dumb 'miscalculation'. Another example of the ignorant
hubris in the US State Department that almost brought them into direct conflict with Russia in
February 2014, when they failed to comprehend the strategic and cultural significance of Crimea
and tried to migrate the Kiev 'Maidan' coup to Sevastopol.
I can pretty much guarantee none of those who advised Trump to assassinate Qassem
Suleimani saw this coming. Suleimani has been elevated in status to a martyr on the level of
Hussein. https://t.co/xUl7Q5x4BG
-- Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) January 4, 2020
This one, while posing a less imminent risk of superpower confrontation, is potentially
disastrous for US interests in the region, and risks monumental loss of life in any resultant
conflict between Iranian and US military forces.
It seems many people are not yet grasping the seismic shifts going on, and are still
thinking in terms of this being the prelude to another imperial regime-change operation like
those in Iraq, Libya and the failed attempt in Syria.
It isn't. Not even slightly. It is a whole new and unknown situation, and where it ends is
currently anyone's guess.
Threats from the ever bombastic fool Trump, like these towards Iran's culture
.targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years
ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those
targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more
threats!
and towards Iraq , might
bolster the impression that the empire has the initiative and many cards to play, but does
it?
What actually can it do against a military far more well-funded and well-supported than
anything it has confronted in recent years? Especially now in a situation where almost the
entire Shia Middle East has become united in wanting US forces out of the region.
Folks, this is the beginning of the end for the Empire. Yes, I know, this sounds
incredible, yet this is exactly what we are seeing happening before our eyes. The very best
which the US can hope for now is a quick and complete withdrawal from the Middle-East.
This is pretty extreme, and I'm not entirely convinced he's correct here, but he shows his
reasoning, and it's fairly compelling, and I urge you to read this linked article and others in
his recent output for a point of view that goes beyond the less than adequate "bloody Americans
doing it again" narrative we are getting from some sources.
Iran must retaliate for this outrage perpetrated against them. The US is compelled by its
own rhetoric and self-perception as invincible to respond to this retaliation with
disproportionate force.
Conflict of some kind seems inevitable, and, as the Saker sees it, this will be a conflict
the US can't ultimately win:
So what next? A major war against Iran and against the entire "Shia crescent"? Not a good
option either. Not only will the US lose, but it would lose both politically and militarily.
Limited strikes? Not good either, since we know that Iran will retaliate massively. A
behind-the-scenes major concession to appease Iran? Nope, ain't gonna happen either since if
the Iranians let the murder of Soleimani go unpunished, then Hassan Nasrallah, Bashar
al-Assad and even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be the next ones to be murdered. A massive air
campaign? Most likely, and initially this will feel good (lots of flagwaving in the USA), but
soon this will turn into a massive disaster.
Trump's threat, however, rings hollow. First, his tweet constitutes de facto evidence of a
war crime (Section 5.16.2 of the US Department of Defense Law of War Manual prohibits threats
to destroy cultural objects for the express purpose of deterring enemy operations), and as
such would likely not be implemented by US military commanders for whom niceties such as the
law of war, which forbids the execution of an unlawful order, are serious business.
Of more relevance, however, is the fact that Trump has been down this road before, when he
threatened massive military retaliation against Iran for shooting down an unarmed drone over
the Strait of Hormuz last May. At that time, he was informed by his military commanders that
the US lacked the military wherewithal to counter what was expected to be a full-spectrum
response by Iran if the US were to attack targets inside Iran.
In short, Iran was able to inflict massive harm on US and allied targets in the Middle
East region, and there was nothing the US could do to prevent this outcome.
Ritter thinks the recent announcement by Iran that it is committed to ending all
restrictions on uranium enrichment might give the US a pretext to attack using the one clear
advantage it has – nuclear weapons.
Trump has hinted that any future war with Iran would not be a drawn-out affair. And while
the law of war might curtail his commanders from executing any retaliation that includes
cultural sites, it does not prohibit the US from using a nuclear weapon against a known
nuclear facility deemed to pose a threat to national security.
This is the worst-case scenario of any tit-for-tat retaliation between Iran and the US, and
it is not as far-fetched as one might believe.
The Saker also considers it quite possible the US or Israel would resort to nuclear weapons,
but thinks this also would be ultimately self-defeating:
US/Israeli nukes: yes, unlike Iran, they have nukes. But what they lack are good targets.
Oh sure, then can (and will) strike at some symbolic, high-visibility, targets and they can
nuke cities. But "can" does not mean that this is a smart thing to do. The truth is that Iran
does not offer any good targets to hit with nukes so using nukes against Iran will only make
the determination of Iranians (and they allies) go from "formidable" to "infinite". Not
smart.
Whether or not we agree this is the beginning of the end of empire, a messy open-ended
conflict seems highly probable as things currently stand. Corporate war profiteers might rub
their hands at this, but if the chaos spreads will even they be able to reap real benefits?
Will this be the cue for them to up sticks from the foundering Exceptional Nation and re-locate
elsewhere in the unending quest for exploitation?
After all it can be argued the British Empire, like the Nazis, didn't die, but just had to
move – somewhere a little further west. Maybe, if we're cynical, the same thing is about
to happen again. Maybe China is about to inherit the earth with the help of some ex-pat
neocons.
But that's speculation for another day.
Another perspective worth reading is that of the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity, whose open
'Memorandum for the President' is published over at Consortium News.
Signed by numerous distinguished intelligence professionals, including Philip Giraldi and
Daniel Ellsberg, it urges the Trump admin to "avoid doubling down on catastrophe".
The drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani
evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in June 1914, which led to
World War I. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to warn of "severe
revenge." That Iran will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing is a near certainty.
And escalation into World War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given
the multitude of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and
in nearby waters.
What your advisers may have avoided telling you is that Iran has not been isolated. Quite
the contrary. One short week ago, for example, Iran launched its first joint naval exercises
with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, in an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. in the
region.
Interestingly the corporate media seem currently far from united, or even coherent, in their
response to this latest crisis. Threaded through the usual knee jerk demonising of the monster
du jour , are unusual elements of skepticism toward the pro-war narrative.
With its drone missile assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani and seven others at
Baghdad's international airport in the early morning hours of Friday, the Trump administration
has carried out a criminal act of state terrorism that has stunned the world.
Washington's cold-blooded murder of a general in the Iranian army and a man widely described
as the second most powerful figure in Tehran is unquestionably both a war crime and a direct
act of war against Iran.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks on Iran, at his Mar-a-Lago
property, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
It may take some time before Iran responds to the killing. There is no question that Tehran
will, in fact, react, especially in the face of public outrage over the murder of a figure who
had a mass following.
But Iran will no doubt devote far more consideration to its response than Washington gave to
its criminal action. The country's National Security Council met on Friday, and in all
probability Iranian officials will discuss the murder of Suleimani with Moscow, Beijing and,
more likely than not, Europe. US officials and the corporate media seem almost to desire
immediate retaliation for their own purposes, but the Iranians have many options.
It is a political fact that the killing of Soleimani has effectively initiated a war by the
US against Iran, a country four times the size and with more than double the population of
Iraq. Such a war would threaten to spread armed conflict across the region and, indeed, the
entire world, with incalculable consequences.
This crime, driven by increasing US desperation over its position in the Middle East and the
mounting internal crisis within the Trump administration, is staggering in its degree of
recklessness and lawlessness. The resort by the United States to such a heinous act testifies
to the fact that it has failed to achieve any of the strategic objectives that led to the
invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003.
The murder of Soleimani is the culmination of a protracted process of the criminalization of
American foreign policy. "Targeted killings," a term introduced into the lexicon of world
imperialist politics by Israel, have been employed by US imperialism against alleged terrorists
in countries stretching from South Asia to the Middle East and Africa over the course of nearly
two decades. It is unprecedented, however, for the president of the United States to order and
then publicly claim responsibility for the killing of a senior government official who was
legally and openly visiting a third country.
Soleimani, the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Quds Force, was not an
Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. On the contrary, he played a pivotal role in defeating
the forces of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which those two figures,
both assassinated by US special operations death squads, had led.
Hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Tehran and cities across Iran on
Friday in mourning and protest over the slaying of Soleimani, who was seen as an icon of
Iranian nationalism and resistance to US imperialism's decades-long attacks on the country.
In Iraq, the US drone strike has been roundly condemned as a violation of the country's
sovereignty and international law. Its victims included not only Soleimani, but also Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the
100,000-strong coalition of Shia militias that is considered part of the country's armed
forces.
This response makes a mockery of the ignorant and thuggish statements of Trump and his
advisors. The US president, speaking from his vacation resort of Mar-a-Lago in Florida, boasted
of having "killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world." He went on to claim that
"Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military
personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him."
Trump charged that the Iranian general "has been perpetrating acts of terror to destabilize
the Middle East for the last 20 years." He declared, "What the United States did yesterday
should have been done long ago. A lot of lives would have been saved."
Who does the US president think he is fooling with his Mafia rhetoric? The last 20 years
have seen the Middle East devastated by a series of US imperialist interventions. The illegal
2003 US invasion of Iraq, based on lies about "weapons of mass destruction," claimed the lives
of over a million people, while decimating what had been among the most advanced societies in
the Arab world. Together with Washington's eighteen-year-long war in Afghanistan and the
regime-change wars launched in Libya and Syria, US imperialism has unleashed a regionwide
crisis that has killed millions and forced tens of millions to flee their homes.
Soleimani, whom Trump accused of having "made the death of innocent people his sick passion"
-- an apt self-description -- rose to the leadership of the Iranian military during the
eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war, which claimed the lives of some one million Iranians.
He became known to the US military, intelligence and diplomatic apparatus in 2001, when
Tehran provided intelligence to Washington to assist its invasion of Afghanistan. Over the
course of the US war in Iraq, American officials conducted back-channel negotiations with
Soleimani even as his Quds Force was providing aid to Shia militias resisting the American
occupation. He played a central role in picking the Iraqi Shia politicians who led the regimes
installed under the US occupation.
Soleimani went on to play a leading role in organizing the defeat of the Al Qaeda-linked
militias that were unleashed against the government of Bashar al-Assad in the CIA-orchestrated
war for regime change in Syria, and subsequently in rallying Shia militias to defeat Al Qaeda's
offspring, ISIS, after it had overrun roughly one-third of Iraq, routing US-trained security
forces.
To describe such a figure as a "terrorist" only means that any state official or military
commander anywhere in the world who cuts across the interests of Washington and US banks and
corporations can be labeled as such and targeted for murder. The attack at the Baghdad airport
signals that the rules of engagement have changed. All "red lines" have been crossed. In the
future, the target could be a general or even president in Russia, China or, indeed, any of the
capitals of Washington's erstwhile allies.
After this publicly celebrated assassination -- openly claimed by a US president without
even a pretense of deniability -- is there any head of state or prominent military figure in
the world who can meet with US officials without having in the back of his mind that if things
do not go well, he too might be murdered?
The killing of General Soleimani in Baghdad was compared by Die Zeit , one of
Germany's newspapers of record, to the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria. As in the prior case, it stated, "the whole world is holding its breath and anxiously
waiting for what may come."
This criminal act carries with it the threat of both world war and dictatorial repression
within the borders of the United States. There is no reason to believe that a government that
has adopted murder as an instrument of foreign policy will refrain from using the same methods
against its domestic enemies.
The assassination of Soleimani is an expression of the extreme crisis and desperation of a
capitalist system that threatens to hurl humanity into the abyss.
The answer to this danger lies in the international growth of the class struggle. The
beginning of the third decade of the 21st century is witnessing not only the drive to war, but
also the upsurge of millions of workers across the Middle East, Europe, the United States,
Latin America, Asia and every corner of the globe in struggle against social inequality and the
attacks on basic social and democratic rights.
This is the only social force upon which a genuine opposition to the war drive of the
capitalist ruling elites can be based. The necessary response to the imperialist war danger is
to unify these growing struggles of the working class through the construction of a united,
international and socialist antiwar movement.
To the silly trolls on this thread, no Iran is not the number one terrorist supporter in the
world. That would be Saudi Arabia, closely followed by Qatar. You know them don't you?
Murica's main regional allies. The same countries that have armed and funded terrorists to
over throw the Syrian state. The same terrorist groups given support by the murican
intelligence community and propaganda outlets like the White helmets. The US is not a knight
in shining armor. It is a vulgar, grasping, dying empire that will use any means at it's
disposal to harm perceived rivals. The US establishment has a long history of using
terrorists to further its goals, like in Afghanistan during the 80's, or in Chechnya...and of
course in Syria. The list is not exhaustive... You know, in fact, Iran should look to execute
the cult leader of the Mek. There is another bizzaro terrorist outfit beloved by fat ass
Pompeo. That would be an outstanding shatter point that the US couldn't even respond to. Let
him "suicide" himself like Le Mesurier...lol!
On the surface, it made not one iota of sense. The murder of a foreign military leader on his way
from Baghdad airport, his diplomatic status assured by the local authorities, evidently deemed a target of
irresistible richness.
"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and
throughout the region."
The
words from the Pentagon
seemed to resemble the resentment shown by the Romans to barbarian chiefs who dared
resist them.
"This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all
necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world."
The killing of Major General Qassem Soleimani of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force in a drone
strike on January 3, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces, or
Hash a-Shaabi
and PMF Kata'ib Hezbollah, was packaged and ribboned as a matter of military necessity.
Soleimani had been, according to the Pentagon,
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and
coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more."
He was behind a series of attacks on coalition
forces in Iraq over the last several months including attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad on December 31, 2019.
US President Donald J. Trump had thrown caution to the wind,
suggesting in a briefing
at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that an option on the table would be the killing of
Soleimani. The Iran hawks seemed to have his ear; others were caught off guard, preferring to keep matters more
general.
A common thread running through the narrative was the certainty – unshakable, it would seem – that Soleimani was
on the warpath against US interests.
The increased danger posed by the Quds Force commander were merely presumed, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
was happy to do so
despite not
being able
to
"talk too much about the nature of the threats. But the American people should know that the
President's decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives."
(Pompeo goes on to insist that there was "active plotting" to "take big action" that would have endangered
"hundreds of lives".) How broadly one defines the battlefield becomes relevant; the US imperium has decided that
diplomatic niceties and sovereign protections for officials do not count. The battlefield is everywhere.
Trump was far from convincing in
reiterating the arguments
, insisting that the general had been responsible for killing or badly wounding
"thousands of Americans over an extended period of time, and was plotting to kill may more but got caught!"
From
his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, he claimed that the attack was executed
"to stop a war. We did not take action
to start a war."
Whatever the views of US officialdom, seismic shifts in the Middle East were being promised.
Iraq's prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi
demanded
an emergency parliamentary session with the aim of taking
"legislative steps and necessary
provisions to safeguard Iraq's dignity, security and sovereignty."
On Sunday, the parliament did something which, ironically enough, has been a cornerstone of Iran's policy in Iraq:
the removal of US troops from Iraq. While being a non-binding resolution, the parliament
urged
the prime minister to rescind the invitation extended to US forces when it was attacked by Islamic State forces in
2014.
Iranian Armed Forces' spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi
promised
setting
"up a plan, patiently, to respond to this terrorist act in a crushing and powerful manner"
.
He also reiterated that it was the US, not Iran, who had "occupied Iraq in violation of all international rules
and regulations without any coordination with the Iraqi government and without the Iraqi people's demands."
While the appeals to international law can seem feeble,
the observation
from the UN Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnès Callamard was hard to impeach.
"The targeted killings of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Humandis are most [likely] unlawful and violate
international human rights law: Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for
targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal."
To
be deemed lawful
, such targeting
with lethal effect
"can only be used where strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life."
The balance sheet for this action, then, is not a good one.
As US presidential candidate Marianne Williamson
observed
with crisp accuracy, the attack
on Soleimani and his companions had little to do with
"whether [he] was a 'good man' any more than it was about
whether Saddam was a good man. It's about smart versus stupid use of military power."
An intelligent use of military power is not in the offing, with Trump
promising
the targeting of 52 Iranian
sites, each one representing an American hostage held in Iran at the US embassy in Tehran during November 1979.
But Twitter sprays and promises of this sort tend to lack substance and Trump is again proving to be the master of
disruptive distraction rather than tangible action.
Even Israeli outlets such as
Haaretz
, while doffing the cap off to the idea of Soleimani as a shadowy, dangerous figure behind the
slayings of Israelis
"in terrorist attacks, and untold thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese and others
dispatched by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds Force,"
showed concern.
Daniel B. Shapiro even went so far as to express admiration for the operation, an "impressive" feat of logistics
but found nothing of an evident strategy. Trump's own security advisers were caught off guard. A certain bloodlust
had taken hold.
Within Congress, the scent of a strategy did not seem to come through, despite some ghoulish cheers from the GOP.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and chairman of the House Intelligence panel,
failed to
notice
"some broad strategy at work".
Michigan Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin, previously acting assistant secretary of defence and CIA analyst,
explained
why neither Democratic or Republic
presidents had ventured onto the treacherous terrain of targeting Soleimani.
"Was the strike worth the likely
retaliation, and the potential to pull us into protracted conflict?"
The answer was always a resounding no.
By killing such a high ranking official of a sovereign power, the US has signalled a redrawing of accepted, and
acceptable lines of engagement.
The justification was spurious, suggesting that assassination and killing in combat are not distinctions with any
difference. But perhaps most significantly of all, the killing of Soleimani will usher in the very same attacks that
this decision was meant to avert even as it assists Iranian policy in expelling any vestige of US influence in Iraq
and the broader Middle East.
It also signalled to Iran that abiding by agreements of any sort, including the international nuclear deal of 2015
which the US has repudiated, will be paper tigers worth shredding without sorrow.
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wardropper
,
Today's Washington doesn't even have a grasp of common English usage:
"This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans"
You don't deter plans. You deter
people from
making plans.
A deterrent is something which persuades
people
not to do something.
I know that "corporations are people today", but only in the sense that they are run by a bunch of
people, so you can't deter a corporation either, although you can deter its CEO from doing something.
It's always a question of
deterring people from
, and not deterring
things.
Washington should know better, but I don't know why I'm even addressing this issue concerning a rabid
US government of ignorant basket cases. It must be because I'm a teacher, and some sort of alternative
to chaos seems necessary
"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service
members in Iraq and throughout the region."
Allegedly. But with no substance provided. Less than with Iraqi WMDs.
But this article takes Pompeo's bait and runs with it.
I have read that Soleimani was invited to a meeting seeking resolution of hostilities in Yemen –
and perhaps other things. If that is true it could be that the war is being protected under cover
story of averting war. That would make sense in the backwards mind of today's narrative identity.
(Doublethink).
If that invitation was set up with the Trump administration – then that casts a darker light on the
USa's willingness to openly deceive and openly assassinate – with apparent impunity. But there are
always consequences.
However, Once such an act is executed, it would be very rare to not receive open support from the
US establishment – whatever any private misgivings. And so it leaves me wondering what and who is
involved in oversight and accountability. I don't have a sense of a real government – so much as a
captured and corrupted or neutered shell of a government. Perhaps the act was a fait accompli by a
coterie who wanted to provoke open war – and are willing to risk everything on getting one.
The 'globalist' idea uses the US as it uses everything. Does it 'use' Israel – and the
International Jewish lobby? Or vice verse? Israeli policy is typical in pre-emptive de-personing and
execution – and this pattern is spreading through the body politic
I don't know – but a lot of apparently 'national' interest is anything but – excepting for
corporate cartels of mutual interest that effectively call the shots in a progressive (sic)
deconstruction of the World order to an idea of global possession and control.
Insider dealing applies also to politics. We are not privy to decisions made that are then
'delivered' by all kinds of manipulative appearance.
When Trump threatened disproportionate retaliation – linking to the Iran hostage situation – the
Iranians could counter with disclosure as the the weapons deal struck by Reagan camp to delay release
until after Carter left office – and lost it in no small part to the failure to get the hostages home.
But it just isn't done. Governing politicians as a rule do not bring out such dirty washing.
People might lose faith in them
Charlotte Russe
,
Washington denied Zarif a visa to attend a scheduled meeting of the United Nations Security
Council and Mike Pompeo mocked Zarif's statement that Suleimani had gone to Baghdad on a diplomatic
mission: "Is there any history that would indicate it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman,
this diplomat of great order, Qassem Suleimani, traveled to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace
mission?" he said."
Pompeo, the United States Secretary of State, conducts foreign policy by
humiliating, censoring, and promoting lies about sovereign leaders. What's the purpose of the United
Nations if leaders of nation-states are prohibited from speaking and stating their case. If the public
is only permitted to hear "one" side of an issue, isn't that the definition of propaganda. Of course,
Pompeo would deny that Suleimani was on a diplomatic mission, inasmuch, to admit otherwise would
reveal the assassination of Suleimani as an especially despicable war crime.
It's unfortunate, that if a nation-state challenges US imperialism they're characterized as not a
sovereign state but as a terrorist regime. And if military leaders from these nation-states ensure the
stability of their country by destroying ISIS and Al-Qaeda these generals are deemed terrorists. We
live in a world where reality has been turned on its end, and is upside down.
So far, the US is extremely lucky that Iran's retaliation for the murder of Sulaimani has been
limited. Javad Zarif, Iran's Foreign Minister stated:
"Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter
targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched
Tuesday. We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression."
Now the ball is the Buffoon's court of neoconservative screwballs–let's see if these warmongers can
refrain from escalating this crisis, or will they continue to lead the US down the road to another
military debacle. One that makes the Iraq War look like child's play.
Below is a link citing the anti-war demonstrations organized and held by Codepink On Thursday,
January 9, at 5 p.m.
https://www.codepink.org/01
Tallis Marsh
,
Some people have touched on this subject in other articles/website forums, but can I ask a
'controversial' question? How many dual-passport military bigwigs occupy
intelligence/foreign-policy/military positions in the USA/UK/France etc as well as Iran, Iraq etc? Is
it anti-semitic now to ask these questions? It is okay to ask about 'Russians' so-called infiltration
and subversion but not Israelis?
People here may have heard of Victor Ostrovsky and his books, By Way of Deception and The Other
side of Deception – where he details on many aspects of subversion, co-option etc e.g.how the sayanim
network that aids mossad infiltrates top powerful positions in Embassies, intelligence agencies,
military policy-maker dept and even medicine/charity orgs etc?
David Macilwain
,
I think we may just be playing the Americans' game by discussing the legality of the assassination of
the hero of the Resistance; it's like discussing whether water-boarding is a legitimate interrogation
technique on a six-year old girl.
The point of the killing was nothing to do with what Soleimani had done or was about to do, but
evidently the one thing that Israel and the US knew Iran must respond to, so as to provide a pretext
for an attack on Iranian territory – and of course it now has launched such an attack, before another
state does it for them.
We might imagine that the US and other forces illegally occupying bases in Iraq, and everywhere else
in the region, will now feel unable to operate without threat of attack from multiple unidentified
sources. The mere fact that the missiles actually hit the Ain al Asaad base could be a wake-up call,
particularly if there is evidence US forces were hit.
But of course the killing of Soleimani was
neither justifiable nor legitimate, so Iran's designation of the US army as a terrorist organisation
is, and it is now open season.
Leaving religious, organized delusions aside – to which I count all major religions, especially
Hypochristianity – Iran has excelled in reason and resolve.
Do not fuck around with Iran any longer.
Donald Trump and his sub-cogniscent advisers on the other hand need to go and fuck themselves.
Using the same methods on each other they have used to destroy a free and independent Iran since the
great People of Iran kicked the fascist western regimes out of Iran.
Like Lybia, Syria, Bolivia and Venezuela, the government is FOR the People, not against them.
Anybody, or anyone with better ideas than those Iran has utilized since 1979? Anybody? I thought so.
Because there are assholes – among them corrupt, rich Iranian maggots that prefer the Trump model –
who complain about how the revolution took away the freedom to exploit and to corrupt, while it is
them that have Julain Assange locked away like a Chimpanzee in a Nazi laboratory.
No, what happened – oddly though in conjunction with a prophecy by Edgar Casey – is, that the whole
sane world can see that America has become a drug addicted cheap whore who will do anything to get her
fix.
America needs mandatory psychoanalysis and not the reciting of the pledge of allegiance. In
Teheran, millions – not one, or two, like in a 'Love Parade' – no, five million real Iranian People
filling the streets. What a shame in the face of the fucking Trump regime assholes. Fuck them all.
Impeach the entire heap of shit and bring them before a court of justice. In Teheran.
Iran – as the descendant of one of the greatest Empires ever to rule the region – proved itself
worthy of its great history. It shlashed the Gordian knot today. The terroristic murder of Lt. General
Soleimani has indeed changed everything. Everything. It is now out in the open that ISIS/Daesh was
created and funded by wetsern fascist regimes under the lead of the U.S., Israel, SA et al. The people
that killed innocent civilians, cut heads off before cameras, putting women and children in cages,
destroying important cultural sites in the region were and still are paid for by the U.S. tax payer
and that makes every U.S. et al citizen an accomplice in the 'WAR OF TERROR'. You paid for the murder
of the one person that defeated the US TERROR GROUPS. He helped Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to fend
off the terroristic assault of the fascist western regimes.
ISIS'R'US.
So, leaving the general religious thing aside, Iran has torn down the wall of hypocrisy the west is
surrounding itself with. Alliances will now be made and others will crumble and vanish. Saudi Arabia
is looking at its last days. The Palestiniancaust and genocide in Yemen will not continue.
Iran has shown that it is capable of defending the truth against the fascist western regimes.
To those who do not want to stop killing innocent women, mothers and children, the elderly and
defenseless:
Cease and desist your murderous activities in order not to get killed.
Long live Iran.
Bless its People who have shown the pathetic public in the west what UNITY really means. (Not to
discredit the work of countless groups to change things to the better.) But the equivalent would be
300 million Americans weeping in the streets over the loss of their most beloved General.
Go Humanity! Now or never!
Frank Speaker
,
You touch on some valid points, but you ignore there's a huge difference between most Iranians and
the fundamentalist nutjobs who rule over them. Similar to the USA in many respects.
andyoldlabour
,
The thing is Frank, I know only too well (from my relatives in Iran) how a lot of ordinary
Iranians still feel about the Shah, about UK/US/French imperialism. They and Iraq have been
attacked quite a few times over the past hundred years by US/UK (along with Russia). There is
still raw evixdence of chemical weapons victims from the Iran Iraq war.
They area very proud people, 98% Shia, and will come together as one if attacked, just as they
did back in 1980, when Saddam Hussein backed by the USA attacked them.
nottheonly1
,
While I am certainly not a friend of any organized religion, to call them 'fundamental nutjobs'
gives away the brainwashing program that has achieved this result.
Pence, Pompeo et
evangelical al are the real 'fundamental nutjobs'. They kill Muslims by the thousands. And have
no regard at all for anybody that does not match their christojudeo-fascist world view.
TFS
,
SpartUSA and its friends in low places, Saudi Arabia, Israel and its Western Allies love giving names
to things when they 'Export Democracy ' around the World, like Operation Enduring Freedom.
Cannot
the alternative Blogosphere come up with a similar banner as a push back to the Rogue State of
SpartUSA?
How About:
1. Operation Jog On!
Harry Stotle
,
One of the avenues Iran could pursue is the legality of the assassination.
It is high time the question of whether or not the US is above international law was finally
confronted.
The extra-judicial murder of General Soleimani brings this issue to the heart of international
affairs: if there is no legal redress for Iran then it more or less makes a mockery of the idea that
justice is possible in a world dominated by terror states.
andyoldlabour
,
Whilst I agree with the core message of your post Harry, I would have to draw the conclusion that
the US has put themselves above and out of the reach of international law.
Drone attacks and civilian deaths all over the World, 80 years of coups, assassinations and wars,
shooting down civilian airliners (USS Vincennes and IranAir flight 655), torture.
Then you only have to Google "Hague Invasion Act"
Andy you're right, but it now needs to be legally formally addressed at the UN and other courts
every time the US violates international law. Time and again. Over years it might make an
impact, at least to isolate the them.
andyoldlabour
,
Frank, unfortunately I believe that the UN is merely a New York based vassal of the US. How
many sanctions have ever been placed on the US or it's little friend Israel for their obvious
war crimes?
I have been saying for many years that the HQ of the UN should not be in the US.
BigB
,
It's a war crime, Harry! I notice Binoy, the UN Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, and you refrain from
calling it out. Pre-crime violates every judicial principle known. There has to be a crime for a
verdict – let alone an execution. This is the enactment of "Minority Report" Phildickian criminal
injustice thinking.
Pre-emptive Justice has been American foreign policy since at least Bush the Lesser Evil. Along
with R2P – which defecated on Westphalia Peace Treaty principles – this violated the London
Agreement (Nuremberg Principles) which are supposedly the foundation of modern IHL.
So, let's take our pick for pre-emptive murder war crime, crime against the peace, or crime
against humanity?
So Trump gets a rap from the Rapporteur: where do we try this most obvious of crimes? The ICC,
ICJ, or a kangaroo UN Tribunal where precisely no American will ever show up because they are
legally exempt and immune. Agnes' rap is not worth waiting for, I'm sorry to say. The UN is
complicit and as toothless as the old imperialist League of Nations that carved up the Middle East
to cause these problems.
On the rare occasion the UN has produced a truthful report – ie calling Israel an apartheid
state – that report has been recalled and shredded before you can say "Try Netanyahu!". You know
the score.
Iran has exacted the only Justice it can in this lawless Wild West Justice of the Gun
international anti-diplomacy "free"market-power world. I'd love to share your sentiment, but that
world was eclipsed when America turned its back on the ICC circa Nicaragua. If Agnes can pull it
back, I'm with her all the way. Also, I'm not holding my breath!
Everything the Nazis did is now neoliberal foreign policy.
Guy
,
I hear you and I agree with the gist of what you are saying but let me suggest that even though
the UN is toothless and the rogue US establishment continue with their cowboy rampage over any
nation that does not kneel to it's demands ,it is especially important that the criminal actions
of this out of control regime be documented for historical purposes . Lets face it it ,right now
the United Nations is the best and only body of an international politic that we have to do so.
This is what they are so scared about .The truth .
TFS
,
I see two options:
1. Make the relevant International Organisations do their job, although the
UN, OPCW, ICC and the like are soemwhat neutered. And if not, stop paying for them, they are a PR
exercise.
2. Act like a Democracy, where the people hold those in account to power. Boycott SpartUSA would
be my choice.
As a Brexiteer, I partially understand why people jumped ship from Jeremy Corbyn, but Brexit was
never about Brexit, it was about killing Jeremy. The EU feared Jeremy more than anything, and when
we lost him, the country lost a counter to the Imperial machinations of SpartUSA, the EU and NATO
and their friends in low places in the MiddleEast.
I would suggest a third option, Operation Patriot Resolve.
In it, the alternative blogosphere works with ex members of the UK Armed Forces, and forces the
UK government to release all the supporting evidence of Article V (I think), which supported the
invasion of Afghanistan. We can ask Lord Robertson for his substantial input into the evidence he
held. It must be voluminous, given the Offical Report into 9/11; Offical Conspiracy Theory is so
highly regarded.
TFS
,
There is a term for different legal treatment based on status, called Affluenza.
Maybe a new term
needs to be used for the West selective interpreations of various laws. Maybe Rogue State/Regime
will suffice.
noseBag
,
Harry, whilst wholeheartedly agreeing with your sentiment, I fear the definition of being under
threat of 'imminent' attack is so broad and vague that the Yanks will be able to claim legality.
However, The Saker makes for some very interesting reading regarding likely/possible fallout from
this action, none of which looks good for the Yanks, or for that matter, anyone allied to them.
Harry Stotle
,
In answer to my own question, I think Iran has about as much chance of receiving justice for the
murder of Qasem Soleimani as Julian Assange does for revealing war crimes.
In answer to BB –
apologies for not being clear – yes, I think this is a war crime.
I was just alluding to the fact terror inflicted by Britain and the USA is never defined as such
(in a court of law) – quite the opposite, many of the architects, such as Tony Blair grew rich on
the back of the misery they authored.
This profound legal failing is one of the reasons the neocons keep getting away with it.
In theory Iran has a strong case, one that has been already backed up by the UN rapporteur on
extra-judicial killings, but it will be hard for them to escape a sense of futility that pervades
any attempt to investigate the machinations of the US deep state.
For example, and as most of us on Off-G already know, the American authorities have steadfastly
refused to properly investigate what happened on 9/11, presumably because a meaningful
investigation would reveal a long list of uncomfortable truths?
While in Britain we had the long-winded and expensive charade of Chilcot – many knew from the
outset that it was a waste of time and money, and that no actor would have be held to account for
the bloodbath that ensued in Iraq, even though the whole thing was built on a pack of lies and led
to the mysterious death of Britains foremost weapons inspector.
GEOFF
,
And these dumbfucks in this country can't wait to be part of the evil empire, I would never knowingly
buy anything from warmongering evil America, or Israel, I see hairy arse Johnson is making it illegal
for councils to boycott the other evil country, Israel , I only wish I was younger , I would get out
of this shithole tomorrow.
Francis Lee
,
The real dumbfucks are the Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Romanians, Estonians who are pro-US and EU
fanatics. Oh and I forgot about another neoliberal EU basket case, Sweden. The US calls the shots
in the EU, primarily through corralling in the Petainist riff-raff into NATO.
Dungroanin
,
And by the way ss we move into a hot war where exactly is our LauraKoftheCIA?
Not a peep since her splurge on 19th December topped of with:
'Right then twitter, that's it from me
til next year – Happy Christmas one and all see you on the other side (follow
@BBCPolitics
and
@BBCNews
if you want to keep up, or sit on your sofa and eat Quality Street and come back in 2020)
Laura Kuenssberg
·
19 Dec 2019
Hard time of year for a lot of folks. Suicide Hotline 116 123 (Samaritans) A simple copy and paste
might save someone's life.
Would 3 Twitter friends please copy this text and post under their own name? Pass it on
Laura Kuenssberg
·19 Dec 2019
-- -- -- -
My guess is at the same site as bozo as they were briefed on the next phase.
Their role for the Pathocracy and getting their stories rehearsed – I expect her to move into Downing
Street as the official press officer!
Presumably they will have been getting their inoculation flu jab which has just been unleashed as
zillions of chinese take to the air for their new year intermingling with the zillions of westerners
sun seeking crisscrossing the planet.
This world war will not be fought with the outdated nuclear weapons – they have better plans to get
rid of us pesky revolters, and shiny multicoloured tellytubby suits as demo'd in Salisbury to clear
away the dead and take all our possessions.
How long before the internet shutdown?
Dungroanin
,
For these dumb yankee doodle yahoos and Brit donkeys who still don't understand the significance –
imagine if General Washington had been assassinated by King George for having won in the revolution,
how would the proto yanks have taken that then and still now 200 years later.
US can't claim they couldn't have got to him without using drones.
.
A Ukrainian Boeing Jet appears to have dropped out of the sky on fire after leaving Tehran
.
A new flu type seems to have kicked off in China just as zillions are traveling for newyear.
-- --
As a large percentage of middleclass westerners travel to sunny paradises of SE Asia and Caribbean
at this time of year they may not be traveling back!
TFS
,
People need to be hit the general public with the OPCW chemical evidence whilst this is playing out as
another example of the West lying to bomb another soveriegn country, and make sure people know that
the impartiality of the OPCW and the UN has been neutered.
Of course, the next stage, a step on from
awareness is to hit SpartUSA where it hurts them the most. They are kinda of attached to The
Benjamins, and are fond of Sanctions, ask Madeliene Albright.
The people of Amerika need to remember that when they vote in the up-and-coming Presidential election
they are voting for democracy! Not the kind of democracy that other countries have, such as Iraq who
just voted for Amerika to leave their country. But the kind of democracy that has to be created by
force. The type of none representative democracy which furthers economic exploitation. It comes as no
surprise that Amerika has allies in waiting otherwise known as vassals. Just ask the Eaton Mess and
his Galfriend – as Old Blighty soon to be renamed Cor-Blimey is about to be forced to nationalise the
railways (shurely a socialist concept ed?). Also ask Macron as a national strike grips France. "No",
you will hear the media shills shrill, "It's the international rules based democratic order".
MichaelK
,
I heard a journalist stating with some 'authority' that the US attack couldn't be defined as
'terrorism', because it was carried out by a democratic state. Apparently, the actions and leaders of
'democratic states' cannot be guilty of carrying out 'terrorism.'
Normally, after 'real terrorist'
attacks occur, that is, violence directed against us and our interests and allies, if members of the
public raise their fists and express joy and enthusiastic support for the 'evil terrorists', such
feelings and utterances land them in extremly hot water with the authorities as vocal support for
terrorist outrages is illegal and can easily lead to them being prosecuted under anti-terrorism
legislation.
But things are different when 'we' are the ones using 'terrorism' against our enemies, then,
suddenly, the laws are applied, or not applied, in a radicaly different way.
Dungroanin
,
Iran is a democratic state as much as any.
We have seen how our democracy is a sham with the postal vote rigging of the election and the
referendum.
It stopped Corbyn by direct self admitted foreign government gauntlet and is delivering the hard
brexit that ONLY benefits the ancient City and it's masters.
They are on the retreat and like the confederacy they are burning Atlanta
David Macilwain
,
While this is certainly true, it's difficult to think of a case where forces allied to the
Resistance have actually been responsible for a terrorist attack. One might need to return to the
time of the Palestinian Intifada, where suicide bombers certainly terrorised Israelis – even for a
just cause. Any suggestions? Not only does the "war on terror" appear to be contrived and
concocted, but its evident acts seem always to be false flags, and always serving the interests of
those that the attacks are supposed to be against.
Guy
,
War on terror is an oxymoron. War is terror David as I am sure you already know . Leave it to
the CIA and or neocons to come up with such a stupid slogan .
Cheers.
Guy
,
The Western media pundits are using mental contortions to rationalize the impossible and looking
extremely foolish for doing so.It's kind of like digging your own grave .
richard le sarc
,
An awful lot of Judeofascists and other Zionist and Talmudic psychopaths seem very happy about this
cowardly murder. But they are, after all, the world champions of cowardly murders of any who dare 'get
in our way'. It is a religious observance, a mitzvah, after all.
George Mc
,
"Judeofascists"? Surely "Zionazis" is more appropriate?
MASTER OF UNIVE
,
Macroeconomic decoupling is occurring and Trump's gambit for irrational war management via threats &
intimidation on an international/geopolitical level is not only an outright act of war but it is
testament to the desperation that Trump finds himself in pre-election. Trump has already indicated
that he will do anything to keep the DOW inflated irrationally at ever increasing nosebleed levels he
can push it to even if it means meddling in Federal Reserve independence and undermining confidence in
the central bank authority.
Trump is a one man central banking Military Industrial Complex war
machine set on autopilot without vision outside of controlling everything from the interest rate
benchmark set by central banks to the G7 trade deals and Russian Federation gas deals, and everything
in between.
Trump has to be the center of attention every single day of the week & twice on Sundays. He
twitterbombed Greta the climate teen to appropriate her limelight as the Davos elite rolled her out
onstage.
Trump bombed strategically for the presidential plaudits that never materialized because he leapt
to an erroneous conclusion & misperceived that everyone else in the world is not viewing it from an
oval office desk like he is. Immediately following the outrage the rationalizations came forth from
the White House that their target was for the good of the nation when in fact everyone knows it was
for Trump's impression management.
Trump likely made the decision unilaterally and the world is just not being made aware of that.
Fortunately, the Democrats see his departure from protocol as a war crime also. Trump is not
experienced enough to stay the course any longer given that he must have acted unilaterally to cause
the bombing assassination without due diligence from his advisers taking place. When the Democrats
press the issue with Congress it will become an issue that Trump used the state to murder for purposes
of leveraged deal making.
MOU
Francis Lee
,
"Trump is a one man central banking Military Industrial Complex war machine set on autopilot."
Pretty good! I like it.
Martin Usher
,
Its interesting to speculate about why these people were murdered. Pompero's explanations have a
distinct yellowcake feel to them -- "We know what we're doing, trust us" sort of thing. The
Administration has zero credibility except among the faithful here in the US. I suspect the real
reason could be a combination of two factors. One is that whenever there's any danger of peace
breaking out in the Middle East it gets spoiled and invariably there something or someone Israeli at
the bottom of it. The leaders killed were particularly dangerous precisely because they're not hot
heads, they develop policies in a rational manner and are instrumental in keeping wayward elements
under control. This is the kind of ME leader that is feared by Israel -- they need a disorganized
rabble without the gates (one that's preferably fighting among itself) so that they can keep their
internal politics under control. The other factor is Trump is susceptible to anything that appeals to
his vanity, especially if its one-up against Obama. There's already been the claim that this was a
proper response, unlike Benghazi. (..and apparently ISIS is an Obama creation .) So I could see a
situation where a back channel suggestion is whispered into an ear, orders are given, people are
killed and we have to deal with the consequences.
I just hope that the Isranians and Iraqis are
sophisticated enough to provide a measured response. I thought the Iraqi lawmakers' response was
perfect -- the US has breached the terms of the agreement by which its supposed to be in that country
so it should leave. (Trump's response is more typical of his responses -- bluster about sanctions and
threaten the Iraqis with a bill for an airbase.)
lundiel
,
Strictly speaking, ISIS is a CIA creation under the Obama administration. I draw your attention to
the shiploads of Libyan weapons delivered to international jihadists in Syria by way of Turkey.
Along with John McCain's close association with Prince Bandar of KSA (Before he was chopped-up
because Saudi finance became common knowledge and the beast got out of control). It's interesting
to note that Obama, a democrat, used McCain, a neocon hawk as his middle east special envoy. Not
that Trump has changed much, he can't, he's not in control.
Antonym
,
Correction:
Strictly speaking, ISIS was a CIA creation under their
Obama fig leaf
Guy
,
You gotta hand it to Trump for coming up with such stupid shit as ,we will not leave until you pay
us for the costs of building a base in your country. LOL I almost busted a gut laughing at the
stupidity of the guy saying this .
Consider that I break into your house and make a mess of things , help myself to the food in the
fridge , not to mention your wife and daughters if I took a liking to them , leave all the dirty
laundry lying around after a week or so and will not leave .In order to accept leaving the premises
, you must pay me .Pay me whatever I ask .
This is how stupid and absurd this charade no minds is descending into .
Somebody stop the world ,I want to get off.
Antonym
,
Even JFK's assassination didn't upset the Anglo military – industrial complex's apple cart, and he was
a good guy. QS wasn't and his death won't change much. Donald Trump's might turn out to be more
disrupting
Perp all the same: T-Rex CIA, NOT the mossad mosquito however much Zionphobes wish it
to.
richard le sarc
,
'QS' was a saint compared to the psychopathic butchers who run Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Israeli
colony known as the USA.
andyoldlabour
,
How many deaths were Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Bush x 2, Clinton, Obama and Trump responsible for
compared to QS?
Multiple United States targets hit by missiles in Iraq, including Ayn Asad Airbase and Al Taji
coalition base north of Baghdad.
No news on casualties yet. This response was expected, but the $64 million dollar question is how hard
will the nutters in Washington respond? And what of the 6 B-52 bombers that have just been sent to
Diego Garcia?
And news just in of a second wave of missiles directed at US targets.
Trump, Pompeo, Esper . You are reaping what You sowed. Total wackjobs.
This is deeply disturbing .
richard le sarc
,
Nothing would work better than closing Hormuz, and destroying Saudi oil installations. That would
be a seismic shock to US economic hegemony.
Very unconfirmed reports there may have been up to 80 United States personnel killed in the
missile attacks on Ayn Assad Airbase today.
This could be fake news tho?
That's appeared on Vanessa Beeley's Facebook page as well as a guy called Laith Marouf, and
Press TV has just been reported as 'breaking news' that "there were casualties".
Tellingly, no other independent sites have been reporting this (so far)
And Trumpf is tweeting 'all is well'.
Don't expect the truth from Team USA, or the retarded presstitutes.
Duh What a dumb thing to say. Of course not.
I still believe United States will respond to the Iranian missile strikes. Can you imagine
Pompeo or Esper going 'okay, all good, we're all even now' after today.
I can't.
If things do take off, closing the Straits Of Hormuz would be one of the very first options for
Iran. And then watch the panic in the 'civilised, democratic, freedom loving' West when the
economy starts imploding.
This was the first question of the day, mind you. When asked about specific threats,
they won't say, other to claim the threats were against "American diplomats, American military
personnel, and American – facilities that house Americans" in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria. When
asked if allies had been notified of these attacks, or what is meant by "imminent threats,"
officials said they couldn't elaborate because that would be revealing "sources and methods."
When asked why there had been no information about the dead American contractor in the Dec.27
militia strike on the Iraqi base
that touched this all off, one of the three state department officials said, "I haven't
asked, and I don't know."
Their real imperiousness comes when a reporter presses officials to explain their repeated
suggestions that the Jan. 3 strike against Soleimani was at once well-deserved after Iran's
"violent and expansionist foreign policy," a response to the breach of the U.S. embassy last
week, and a preemptive action to stop Soleimani's planned attacks, for which we still
have no detailed information.
QUESTION: The decision to take him out wasn't necessarily a way of removing this
– [Senior State Department Official One], the threat that you were talking about in
these different countries and these different facilities – but it's a way to mitigate
it in the future? I'm just --
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: It slows it down. It makes it less --
QUESTION: Since we don't know what the threat is – okay, that's what I was
--
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: It slows it down. It makes it less likely.
It's shooting down Yamamoto in 1942. Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: Ouch.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: Go look that up.
QUESTION: Yes, you do.
Most tellingly, the officials pushed back hard not only against the suggestion that this was
an "assassination" of a government official, but that Iran is a legitimate country at all,
protected by any international norms or laws:
We are, again, denying them the fiction that this is some Westphalian country that has,
like, a conventional defense ministry and a standard president and a foreign minister. It's a
regime with clerical and revolutionary oversight that seeks to dominate the Middle East and
beyond. You've heard me say this is a kleptocratic theocracy. And you look at the people of
Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, are all rejecting the Iranian model at the same time.
So if the U.S. does not recognize your form of government -- does this include the Communist
Party of China? -- you are fair game?
In its reporting this weekend, The Daily Beast found that the President was talking about a
"big" response to events on the ground in Iraq with his inner circle at Mar-a-Lago five days
before Soleimani's killing.
Those Mar-a-Lago guests received more warning about Thursday's attack than Senate staff
did, and about as much clarity. A classified briefing on Friday, the first the administration
gave to the Hill, featured broad claims about what the Iranians were planning and little
evidence of planning to bring about the "de-escalation" the administration says it wants.
According to three sources either in the room or told about the discussion, briefers from
the State Department, Pentagon, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
claimed that killing Soleimani was designed to block Iranian plans to kill "hundreds" or even
thousands of Americans in the Mideast. That would be a massive escalation from the recent
attack patterns of Iran and its regional proxies, who tend to kill Americans in small numbers
at a time.
After this display, it is clear that the "trust us" argument is going to prevail until
lawmakers start demanding more, including legal justification for the strikes. There was no
hint of an answer, of course, in the state department briefing:
QUESTION: The Secretary talked about this as being wholly legal. I wonder if you
can just explain the legal justification of the killing.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: You're going to have to talk to the
lawyers.
No one expects satisfaction from these briefings but getting slapped around as the rest
of the country is wondering if we are on the brink of war is the height of audacity, even for a
government that has proven over the last 18 years that it cares nothing about whether the
American people believe them or not.
So, Iran government is illegitimate, same as the Chinese government which is ruled by CCP.
They would all be legitimate targets. Russian government is rather just nationalist and
probably that is bad too.
It is likely that no direct attacks are carried against Chinese or Russian leaders
because of retaliation. It is good that the new hyper-sonic Russian missiles can strike US
in less than 30 minutes with great accuracy, being able to hit particular individuals. Let
us hope that those missiles and Russian defense systems will start flooding the market...
Will then US start using nukes?
Maybe as soon as deployed in Ukraine where they can strike Moscow with only six minutes'
warning, leaving no alternative but a retaliating revenge strike of "launch on warning."
That's the only reason the North Korean government is still in place, because they can
punch back. The Kim family learned that lesson from Iraq and Libya, and Syria has just
reinforced it.
I wonder how many Europeans now realize the folly, the sheer stupidity, of supporting or
just passively accepting US and NATO military intervention in the Middle East and North
Africa, and that whatever refugee crisis has hit Europe originates from those wars of
aggression? Probably the same proportion of Americans who realize that American policies in
Latin America help "push" millions of Latin Americans to migrate to the U.S. illegally: too
damn few.
Brad DeLong had the greatest and shortest comment about the Catholic scandals (and the same
for all other churches): "Don't these people believe in God?".
If the media wish to question the transparency and accountability of government, then they
need to be consistent in their efforts regardless of which party is in power. While
certainly, media political bias has always underlain its motivations and guided its
efforts, never has it so openly dominated their entire focus in the relentless pursuit of
one overarching objective. This, in turn, has led it to be viewed as simply an organ of
political propaganda for one particular political party and it is thereby no longer able to
muster the public support required to demand that government, particularly the federal
bureaucracy, be responsive to inquiries into policy development and implementation. It
should then come as no surprise that the mainstream media has become a tool of manipulation
and obfuscation for the government's continued campaign to dominate and figuratively
disenfranchise the will of the People. The only outlier here is the Trump Administration
and its failure to play the game. Once we have gotten past that, one way or another, it
will be back to business as usual.
I strongly suspect that you need to diversify your assortment of media sources.
If you don't recognize that If Trump had his way, all media everywhere would kiss his butt
and lie for him and sing his praises. That is what he demands of his associates and the
GOP, and they do. Just look objectively at Lindsay Graham's conduct in the perspective of
the past 20 years.
As a commenter on National Review posted yesterday. Be good to Trump, and he will be good
too you. Please remind Michael Cohen, Manafort and the other convects who were good to
Trump, and Trump was not so good to them in return.
The mainstream media has been pro-intervention under Democratic and Republican presidents,
and parrots the lies of the State Departments, no matter the party in the White House (see
Venezuela under Bush, Obama and Trump, Honduras under Obama, and Bolivia under Trump).
In economic policy, the mainstream media is relentlessly pro-establishment, liberal
pundits often as much or more so than conservative ones, from teachers unions (until
rank-and-file teachers fought back, and forced a change in the narrative) to privatization
and deregulation.
Social policy is the only area where the mainstream media is truly liberal, because that
hits many journalists where they live, so to speak. And even there, at least until
recently, they usually preach moderation and going slow, as veterans of the civil rights,
feminist and LGBT movements could recount from the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's (and probably
later, too, but I am less in tune with the modern movements).
The Trump ADMINISTRATION plays the game. The fact that its leader is so...Trumpian is
the only reason his administration is an outlier.
The Yamamoto thing is funny, since he was actually against war with the US (he thought,
correctly, that they couldn't win) and only plotted the Pearl Harbor attack when forced to
by his superiors.
The Yamamoto thing is funny, since the US was actually in a declared state of war at the
time of his "targeted killing". What is not funny is a US "press corpse" constitutionally -
sic - unable to ask that simple question right away:
QUESTION: Are you saying the US is officially at war with Iran at this time?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: No.
QUESTION: You said: 'It's shooting down Yamamoto in 1942'. Is that just bullshit?
What's overriding is the huge profits to be made through expanding wars, along with the
policies being crafted for the United States in a highly influential Mideast country with
collusion by Americans whose loyalties are not primarily American.
What rubbish. It wasn't "our leaders" who launched this assassination -- it was *your* hero
in the endless War Against The Deep State. Before that he trashed the JCPOA, which very
much *was* the creation of some of "our leaders", and was a serious, adult attempt to steer
away from the disaster that we're looking at now.
But it's no fun to look at actual history, actual events. It's much more satisfying to
dabble in sweeping, vacuous claims, eh?
The reality, outside your TDS bubble, is that war with Iran is very much a bipartisan
project. You have to realize that the Deep State's neocons largely defected to the
Democrats last election when Trump was the only one who dared criticize the endless
unwinnable wars. There isn't a President since 1988 who didn't start or expand never ending
wars and who didn't lie knowingly about it. There is a small Mideast nation with outsized
influence over policy in this country, with political leaders here who have dual loyalties
or even primary loyalties to it, along with major billionaire donors to both parties. Both
parties removed any restraint on action against Iran in the recent monster military bill
they passed. All are beholden to the war industries which make unimaginable enormous
profits from never ending warfare. So it appears that whatever war is chosen this year to
be the "good war," as with Obama and Hillary about Libya, Syria and Afghanistan, and which
the "bad", that the trajectory of war profits must increase. It was our leader Obama who
extended the use of drones to execution from afar, "extrajudicial killing," creating the
assassination by drone policy no longer considered controversial or immoral, with his "Kill
Tuesday" sessions. Nor did he actually end torture or close Guantanamo.
Nothing conservative about war. Conservatives have lost every war. Big time. Not just
politically but culturally. There were all sorts of stories about women becoming tramps
during WWII. And look how it was used to advance feminism. We would not be in this
degenerate state if not for US involvement in WWII.
War mongers seem to universally believe that they know how the war that they instigate will
unfold. They are in fact delusional. Starting a war is rolling the dice in profoundly
dangerous and wicked ways. The Iraq invasion and occupation is a great example.
George Bush made the 1st roll of the dice at the neo-cons instigation (Only Buchanan
demurred) and then Barack Obama took his turn at the Middle East table. Now President Trump
has the dice.
The legitimate government argument is one that the Trump administration should maybe not
make. After all, it could be argued that he has not been elected in a democratic way, that
he, his family and associates as well as parts of his cabinet have financially profited
from being in power. Moreover, one could very well claim that the US are seeking to
dominate the Middle East.
"The legitimate government argument is one that the Trump administration should maybe not
make. After all, it could be argued that he has not been elected in a democratic way..."
Is the line of argumentation here to be that the election of a president into office by
the electoral college, without having won the popular vote, should be deemed "not
democratic?" Or, is it to be some allegation that the electoral college itself is "not
democratic," and that only direct consultation of the electorate can be considered "truly"
democratic?
The poor vulnerable US forces are not in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya or anywhere else to
help the populations, and are now targets for any Iranian or Iraqi retaliation.
Seventeen intelligence agencies and these guys can't come up with even one shred of
credible evidence in support of these "threats." Gawd help America.
We are, again, denying them the fiction that this is some Westphalian country that has,
like, a conventional defense ministry and a standard president and a foreign minister. It's
a regime with clerical and revolutionary oversight that seeks to dominate the Middle East
and beyond. You've heard me say this is a kleptocratic theocracy.
Ah, of course, you mean like Saudis and Israel, right?
Re PCR's latest linked article (post 133.
What PCR is insisting Putin do ("The easiest and cleanest way for Putin to do this is to
announce that Iran is under Russia's protection.")Putin has already done so in a landmark
speech last year when he unveiled five or six game-changing weapons, or was it 2018.
He declared back then to the evil empire that a nuclear attack on an ally would be considered
an attack upon Russia. He made this crystal clear. Of course it wouldn't hurt for him to
'gently' remind them of this.
I do have to say, the silence from the Russians is odd. Even when you read the Russian
Foreign Ministry's news releases.
For instance, there's this on January 4th:
" On January 4, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with Foreign
Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the latter's
initiative. " (italics mine).
So Lavrov talked to an Iranian official only on January 4th, and the call came from Iran
(Zarif), not the other way around. This is odd, and even the explicit
mentioning of Zarif initiating the call --to me-- seems odd.
Hmm...
On Monday, as the meeting ended, several ministers transmitted Netanyahu's declaration
distancing Israel from the Soleimani hit.
"The assassination of Soleimani isn't an Israeli event but an American event. We were
not involved and should not be dragged into it," he said, according to Israeli news
outlets.
Netanyahu backs away from Soleimani assassination, warns ministers to ' stay out' of
purely 'American event
.'
Does the word 'backpedaling' ring a bell, Bibi?
You'll reap what you sow, oh grand Master of Conception. I sincerely hope it'll be an
abundant and infinite harvest. And, of course, mazel tov, ol' boy. You're gonna need it by
the bushel
On the previous thread, jared | Jan 6 2020 12:32 utc | 230, posted:
"Iran is already proclaiming it will proceed with unconstrained uranium enrichment - a act
which is both pointless and counter productive."
A huge amount of Iran's nuclear waste from the years of enriching uranium has been used to
create depleted uranium warheads such as the U.S. uses on its Hellfire and other missiles.
These are typically one-ton warheads, about 99% uranium, and ignite on contact (uranium is
pyrophoric -- it burns) and burn at up to 6,000°C. They can penetrate a good thirty
meters of prestressed concrete in less than a second and incinerate everything in the
vicinity.
The (depleted) uranium anti-tank rounds used in the 1991 war against Iraq were five
kilograms (11 pounds) and could zip through two or three tanks. When the Americans went
inside the tanks later on, they found the Iraqis' bodies turned to black dust. Occasionally,
the bodies were intact, in position, but they crumbled to dust when touched. The American
troops called them "crispy critters".
ALL the American military who entered those tanks or worked on them afterward became sick
with all sorts of horrible illnesses triggered by radiation poisoning.
The one ton of uranium in a bunker buster results in one ton of powder, much of it
microscopic. Inhaled, a single microscopic particle of 2.5 microns deposited in an alveol
cavity of the lung contains come 210 billion uranium atoms. Uranium spits out alpha
particles, which don't travel far (an inch at most, usually), but they are the most powerful
force in our universe. That single particle irradiates, permanently, a sphere of up to 350
lung cells.
The military in Iraq were inhaling millions (billions!) of those particles. Those who
haven't died yet are deathly ill.
Israel's anti-missile defenses are not what they are claimed to be. Just a few of those
bunker busters delivered into Tel Aviv or West Jerusalem would contaminate it
permanently.
Israel cannot afford the loss of such territory. (In the United States, the Jefferson
Proving Ground where most of the testing was done, was offered to the National Park Service
as a wild-life refuge to be off limits in order to protect its biodiversity. The offer was
turned down. The site is now off limits, designated a national sacrifice zone...) And Iran
has the missiles with the accuracy necessary to make such hits.
Thus, every suspected Iranian missile storage location must be hit simultaneously. Israel
does not have the means to do that, hence the need to involve in United States in an all-out
colossal attack. This was openly discussed under the George Walker Bush administration until
the National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007 pulled the rung out from under the
warmongers by openly declaring that Iran had no nuclear program.
Israel used such missiles on south Lebanon in August 2006, so, they know all about this.
The bombing of south Lebanon stopped the day that the south-north wind reversed direction.
The United Nations Environment Program that investigated the missile craters in south Lebanon
found low enriched uranium, the result of mixing the depleted uranium with the enriched
uranium from decommissioned Soviet missiles removed from Ukraine, in a failed attempt to
restore the original isotopic ratio and make it pass for "natural" uranium that, if
discovered, could then be claimed to have been in the ground and turned up by the
bombing.
The entire assault on mountains and caves of Tora Bora in southeast Afghanistan in
2001-2002 was a bunker buster testing program. Canadian researchers found uranium-induced
radioactivity all over, but they were silenced by death threats and some roughing up.
So, Iran does not need a nuclear arsenal, for it has developed an equally good deterrent
on the cheap. Israel knows this, the various intelligence services know this, some people in
the corporate media know this, but if one mentions it, one is immediately told that there is
"no proof".
"... Now, he told "Democracy Now!", it will be hard for the Iraqi public to see the bases as anything but "a force that is driving them into a war between Iran and the United States." ..."
"... "Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. He took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He stayed in the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the Americans and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the Iranians would have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, the rules of the game have totally changed," he said. ..."
"The Guardian" journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad says that before the attack on Qassem
Soleimani in Baghdad last week "there was an understanding between the Americans and the
Iranians" that allowed officials from Iran and the U.S. to move freely within Iraq and
maintained relative goodwill toward American bases.
"The killing of Qassem Soleimani ended an era in which both Iran and the United States
coexisted in Iraq," he said.
Now, he told "Democracy Now!", it will be hard for the Iraqi public to see the bases as
anything but "a force that is driving them into a war between Iran and the United States."
"Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in
Baghdad airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in
Iraq. He took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani
was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He
stayed in the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the
Americans and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the
Iranians would have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, the rules of the
game have totally changed," he said.
AMY GOODMAN: Ghaith, can you comment on this new information that's come to light about the
timing of Soleimani's assassination Friday morning? Iraq's caretaker Prime Minister Adel
Abdul-Mahdi has revealed he had plans to meet with Soleimani on the day he was killed to
discuss a Saudi proposal to defuse tension in the region. Mahdi said, quote, "He came to
deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi Arabia to
Iran" -- Saudi Arabia, obviously, a well-known enemy of Iran. Was he set up? Talk about the
significance of this.
GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD: Well, it is very significant if it's actually General Qassem Soleimani
came to Iraq to deliver this message, if it was actually there was a process of negotiations in
the region. We know that Abdul-Mahdi and the Iraqi government, in general, over the last year
had been trying to position Iraq as this middle power, as this power where both -- you know, as
a country that has a relationship with both Iran and the United States. In that awkward place
Iraq found itself in, Iraq has tried to maximize on this. So they started back in summer and
fall, when there was an escalation between Iran and the United States, when Iran shot down an
American drone. We've seen Adel Abdul-Mahdi fly to Iran, try to mediate. We've seen Adel
Abdul-Mahdi open channels of communications with the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia.
So, if it actually, the killing of General Soleimani, ended that peace initiative, it will
be kind of disastrous in the region, because, as Narges was saying earlier, it is -- you know,
Pompeo is speaking about Iran being this ultimate evil in the region, as this crescent of
Shias, as if they just arrived in the past 10 years in the region. The fact if we see Iran's
reactions, it's always a reaction to an American provocation. You've seen the occupation of
Iraq in 2003. You've seen Iran declared as an "axis of evil." So, if you see it from an Iranian
perspective, it's always this existential threat coming from the United States. And I don't
think there is a more existential threat than in past year. So, yes, I know -- I mean, I think
Adel Abdul-Mahdi and the Iraqi government were trying to find this middle ground, which I think
is totally lost, because even Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the person who was trying to find this middle
ground, was the person who proposed this law yesterday in the Parliament to expel all American
troops from the country.
And I would like to add like another thing. The killing of Qassem Soleimani ended an era in
which both Iran and the United States coexisted in Iraq. So, from 2013, '14, we, as
journalists, we've seen on the frontlines how the proxies of each power have been helping each
other. So we've seen Iranian advisers helping the American-trained Iraqi Army unit or
counterterrorism unit in the fight against ISIS. In the same sense, we've seen American
airstrikes on threats to these -- kind of to ISIS when it was threatening these militias. That
coexistence, it didn't only come from both having a -- sharing an enemy, which is ISIS, or
Daesh, but also these were the rules of the game. These were the rules in which Qassem
Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad
airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. He
took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani was not
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He stayed in
the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the Americans
and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the Iranians would
have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, I think the rules of the game have
totally changed.
So now I think the first victim of the assassination will be the American bases in Iraq. I
don't see any way where the Americans can keep their presence as they did before the
assassination of Soleimani. And even the people in the streets, even the people who opposes
Iran, who opposes the presence of Iranian militias in power and politics, the corruption of
these pro-Iranian parties, even those people would look at these American bases now as not as a
force that came to help them in the fight against ISIS, but a force that's dragging them into a
war between Iran and the United States.
"Iran is warning that if there is retaliation for the two waves of attacks they launched
their 3rd wave will destroy Dubai and Haifa," tweeted NBC News Tehran Bureau chief.
https://t.co/ydzIAfEpzk
thanks b.. it is really unfortunate about the loss of those on the plane.. it is a strange
coincidence of timing and a tie in with ukraine is also rather odd...
here is how i look at this.. usa-israel hasn't faked its squeeze on iran which has been
going on for what feels like forever.. usa-israel didn't fake taking out qassem s... the
sanctions on iran continue.. this war on iran will continue.. how could it stop after all
this time? what has changed? nothing has changed in the minds of these sick neo cons..
i share @ James j's comment which i quote here - "The missiles last night is not the
promised retribution ...rather, Iran is keeping focused on the primary goal ...to get the usa
out..." i don't see that it is going to work though...
It seems to me Iran works quite differently then US-Israel... they have provided a warning
so that action last night looked fake and trumps response 'all is well' was fake as he knew
they had been issued an advance warming... but the message is clear.. 'get the fuck
out'..
i also share @ cynica's position in her earlier posts.. the shit here is real.. the world
needs to find a way out of this mess and it won't come from western countries cowtowing to
usa-israels warmonger agenda either...
i don't know what the doofus in command has said today.. it doesn't matter what he says...
usa-israel will not back down.. they want war.. iran responded very diplomatically... i just
don't believe usa-israel are interested in diplomacy, as opposed to war and prep for war.. as
someone said last night - all that money to be made off prep for war, the MIC and etc. etc..
i wish this would end, but i can't see it..
The blowback from Trump's assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani and PMU leader
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis is increasing. A scandal is developing as one consequence of Trump's
evil deed after Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi revealed the gangster methods U.S.
President Trump used in his attempts to steal Iraq's oil. ...and a very good essay by Michael
Hudson as appeared on the Saker blog, a fine compliment to this work being done here by
B.
"The initial Iranian response to the assassination of the martyred commander Soleimani has
happened. Now it is time for the initial response to the assassination of the martyred
commander Muhandis. And because Iraqis are brave and zealous, their response will not be
any less than that of Iran's. That is a promise", al-Khazali was quoted as saying.
I endorse this view from Shedlock: Trump is caught bluffing again-Fortunately. Iran's measured response puts Trump in a no
win Scenario
It is difficult to do perception management in a globalized world. Neither the US nor Iran
want full out war, but politically they have to convince their people that they "win", to
justify the cost (and unite, though Trump seems to be incapable of this). Actually, Iran has
an advantage here, because martyrdom or victory, psychologically they can win either way.
They have demonstrated this by the huge - unifying - funerals. They also don't have this
stupid Hollywood good guy bad guy thing or if you want to go into protestant religious
psychology that god will make the good guys win in this world. It is a huge problem as the
reverse perception is that if someone is successful he must be good.
Fact is that Iran has been the first country since WWII to challenge the US directly and not
via proxy. They were rational to do it in a way that leaves the US an off ramp. By warning
beforehand and not killing anybody (officially, I have my doubts about this Ukrainian plane),
they also have the moral high ground.
They managed to make the US stop the escalation. It is quite impressive.
La base de los Estados Unidos en Ayn al-Assad en Irak, bombardeada anoche por Irán,
es la base donde despegaron los drones que asesinaron a Qassem Soleimani y Abu Mahdi al
Muhandis. Así lo informó el corresponsal de guerra
MT> The US base at Ayn al-Assad in Iraq, bombed last night by Iran, is the base where
the drones that killed Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al Muhandis took off. This was reported
by the war correspondent
I caution Netiyahoo not to crow. His prison time is on the horizon.
China's Global Times has a piece noting Israel gave assistance.
And this editorial: Has the US lost direction in Middle East?
"US national power is on the wane [;/]now considers China as its primary rival and wants
to use its resources from Europe and the Middle East to contain China. If it is so, its
presence in the Middle East will be surely diminished."[./]
After a US drone strike killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, it
was expected that Iran would retaliate. But the way it fought back - launching missiles
against US bases in Iraq - was unexpected. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps carried
out the mission.
Since Iran did not target US soil, the move cannot be viewed as a declaration of war.
Iran did aim at US troops, but the troops are stationed in Iraq. This showed Tehran is well
aware how far it should go and has left some ground. Iran doesn't want a fierce clash or a
war with the US. As Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif claimed on Wednesday morning after
the attack, the country was taking measures in self-defense. "We do not seek escalation or
war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression," he said. [.]
How should the US react, the White House must be deliberating, because what it does next
may directly determine whether Washington and Tehran would reduce tensions or storm into a
war. Currently, it is the lull before the storm.
US military killed Iran's most powerful military commander on Iraq's soil, which is an act
of state terrorism although the US itself does not think so. [.] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1176167.shtml
The U.S. collapse is not one event. It is a slow, slow process and then the $250 trillion
debt pile goes out with a bang.
/div> The reason the Qiam rocket, a derivation of the nazi A4, is built is
that it is cheap and has the capability to be modified such that the "pay-load" comes in very
fast and within 10 meters of zero-zero-zero. It's not an old rocket. But I assume the Persians
used the oldest first. Inventory managements is vital to logistics and ammunition reliability.
The cheap version is 500 meter accurate at range, but the range was not exteem, so probably
< 500
The reason the Qiam rocket, a derivation of the nazi A4, is built is that it is cheap and has
the capability to be modified such that the "pay-load" comes in very fast and within 10
meters of zero-zero-zero. It's not an old rocket. But I assume the Persians used the oldest
first. Inventory managements is vital to logistics and ammunition reliability. The cheap
version is 500 meter accurate at range, but the range was not exteem, so probably < 500
B, great article. You and Elijah Marnier and a few others are my first go to's for
information as to what is going on on the middle east.
One of my favorite reporters out of Syria said the US abandoned Deir Ezzor oil fields
yesterday leaving the SDF there alone and totally open for Russian and Syrian forces to go in
and to secure. If so this attack would have been well worth it. Obviously, I can't verify it
but do trust the source.
Hezbollah is also well within reach of Israhell and can launch ballistic missiles upon it
should the US attack Iran. People tend to forget that this was not just about Soleimani, but
an entire resistance. His death has just made that resistance much stronger and unified.
The US will have to leave. And soon.
walter@45,ghost_ship@47 believe Iran is using "old stocks".
I respectfully disagree. This is Iran's debut in showing off their technical prowess -
they are trying to scare off the US from escalating the conflict.
IMHO they would make sure the US got the message that they pulled their punches and could
have caused *much* more damage if they wanted to. Using older stock would make sense, but
only after you establish your cred - otherwise, you are sending exactly the wrong message,
the US could read the hit as "gosh, 500m is the best you can do?"
Following up on the end of #78, the point is that it seems very unlikely that the air
defenses would be shut down even if the bases were evacuated. In that case, the success of
the attack (however limited its objectives) shows Iran's ability to penetrate US air defenses
and disable or destroy US air-supremacy infrastructure.
@PavewayIV #75
The US will ALWAYS try to spin this against Iran no matter what. Even if we hear the
captain screaming that he can see the engine is tearing itself apart.
Indeed! If there's one thing the US does all the time, it's spin. But especially with last
night's attack, they're starting to resemble the Talosians of Star Trek, whose seemingly
incredible powers were all, well, illusory.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says Iran's early Wednesday
missile attack on US bases in Iraq following the American assassination of a top general
was just "a slap".
"The talk of revenge and such debates are a different issue. For now, a slap was
delivered on their face last night," Ayatollah Khamenei said in remarks broadcast live on
national television Wednesday.
"What is important about confrontation is that the military action as such is not
sufficient. What is important is that the seditious American presence in the region must
end," he said to chants of "Death to America" by an audience in Tehran.
The threats on how to answer on new US attacks have been issued without a date of
expiry.
It all depends now on Trump's reelection strategy: Will he run on bringing the troups home
or will he run on another Middle East war.
„The Qiam missiles Iran launched are a derivative of the Soviet Scud type. They are
liquid fueled with a warhead of about 700 kilogram. They have a range of some 800 kilometer.
Iran has more capable and precise solid fueled missiles it could have used."
According to Fars news agency 2 of the missiles were of type Fateh313 (solid fueled
– 500km range) the rest were a modified version of Ghiyam (multiple warheads - 800km
range).
„No U.S. air or missile defense against the incoming projectiles was observed."
In spite of public and unofficial announcement by Iran about the attack even short time
ahead, Yankee was not able to repel and defend their modern and costy military base.
According to Fars news agency radar jamming technology were used in this attack.
The attack is over, Trump's reaction is published, but still no one is allowed to enter the
military base.
You are missing the point. An airbase is a huge target with mostly empty space. The fact
that the Iranians were able to target and hit specific buildings in it, is a truly
nightmarish scenario. They actually told US that they have the capability to hit whatever
they want. USA can send a drone and kill a general but US has generals too. It is easy to
find where a general's house in Qatar base is for example and hit it with the same accuracy.
How does that general sleeps at night from now on? How can you plan the typical US bombing
campaign, when your enemy has the ability to strike back at you where it hurts?
Magnier..
"#Iran informed #Iraq Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi of its intention to bomb #US military
bases in #Anbar and #Kurdistan before the attack.
Abdel Mahdi warned the Americans who took their precautions before the attack."
If this is true then there really is no hope for the Iraqi's. This is the clown that
writes letters to the US saying US has been naughty and resigned when Trump puts some
pressure on him, leaving Iraq gov parylized..
Iran was proving the reach and accuracy of their armaments, and the inadequacy of the US
Patriot etc. anti-air-attack systems. Trumps Tomahawks fired at Syria either went wrong
guidance-wise, were hacked or were shot down by Russian-made defenses. No comparison, Iran
wins the "rockets that don't kill anyone" competition. Iran also has Russian-made air defense
systems. Cheaper too... LOL!
I expect that the Iraqi gov't administration will quietly try to back-pedal from the
Parliamentary vote to evict the US. Then the various militias will band together (maybe even
Shia/Sunni alliances, the enemy of my enemy style) and keep US/ZATO troops mostly bottled up
in their bases until the US actually withdraws. The Iraq administration will be forced to
bend to the Parliament's and Iraqi peoples' will that the US/ZATO leaves. Pompeo and Trumpty
Dumbdy won't be able to tap dance around this scenario, even in front of the US/ZATO public.
Iran may not have to lift a finger in Iraq, but will find other ways to hurt the US AND ZATO
that don't meet the threshold for US military retaliation.
The US/ZATO deserves to suffer millions of cuts, hopefully one cut for each person
murdered by the US since 9/11.
MAGA Make America Go Away
omid , Jan 8 2020 18:01 utc |
154Piotr Berman , Jan 8 2020 18:01 utc |
155
"Iran misjudged Trump's response/speech, Trump talked about peace and not escalation (he is
lying of course), if Iran keep attacking US from now on, Iran will be framed as the threat
and that Trump have the right to retaliate.
Aslong as no one was killed on the american side apparently Trump see no reason to use
military means, meanwhile Iran is left with no kills which could make them more
desperate."
Posted by: Zanon | Jan 8 2020 17:12 utc | 125
I typical post that misses the point. The goal is to remove all the NATO trash from Syria
and Iraq. That has to be done by Iraqis, of which the bold ones are clobbered with air
strikes and the timid are intimidated. It is utterly pointless how Americans perceive the
situation, and even less germane what is the opinion of the vassals. The audience that
matters is in Iraq.
So what USA did? Dissed Iraqis quite serially, including the murder at the main airport
with no warning to the legal authorities of the place. Iran tries to be as un-American as
possible, so duly notifies Iraqi PM about the strike, an hour in advance, and perhaps follows
the suggestion to warn Americans directly. Giving the proper recognition of the rights of the
allies takes precedence over expedience, even in the moment of extreme pain and grief. Mind
you that Saudi, American or whoever has stooges in Iraq that villify it as a dominator taking
advantage etc., and that was a major theme in recent riots. It seems that one block of
rouble-risers is reconverted to anti-American solidarity, but those people have to be
humored, not taken for granted.
Taking opinions of others seriously even if there is no perfect agreement, especially if
the other party is not Israel, is the profound lack of Americans, and the rest of the West to
to a lesser degree.
The other aspect is how Shia view religious leaders and how those leaders view themselves.
There are rather high standards. This is not an operation under a local commander. Supreme
Leader is personally engaged. Taking proper account of host country prerogatives is also good
regard for Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other Iraqi marjah etc. Contrast with untrustworthy,
arrogant and cowardly infidels has to be maintained.
US have not been asked to leave by the iraqis so how are they supposed to leave?
Especially since they are not going to leave by themselves?
Esper: Iraqi government has not asked US troops to leave
Iraq's government has made no formal request that American forces leave its country,
despite a nonbinding vote Sunday to expel U.S. and other troops after the Pentagon killed a
top Iranian commander in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday.
Regarding warning the Swiss embassy of the attack. Also very strategic move. If there were
loss of American life due to no warning, it would have been near impossible for Trump to not
counter attack.
Furthermore, the US now thinks their enemy is weak or afraid. I feel kind of disappointed
by you guys who also think that, honestly? Did you see the reaction of the millions who came
to honor Souleimani? Do you really think the Iranian/Iraqi military and population are
wimps?
c'mon! take heart guys!
Iran was definitely involved in organizing, supplying, and even to some extent arming(with
small arms) various Iraqi militias. But the best way we know that it wasn't directly involved
in attacking US patrols, was that so few soldiers died. Iran has no need to improvise
explosive devices, it manufactures landmines on a mass scale which are much more reliable and
orders of magnitude more deadly, and operationally easier to use.
Most of the resistance to the US occupation in the Shia regions of Iraq were in the form
of non violent demonstrations spearheaded by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani(who btw is also
Iranian).
The nonviolent demonstrators were routinely massacred for their trouble, by both the
takfiri resistance and the occupation troops, but eventually succeeded in their demands for a
democratic vote wherein they elected a government that demanded the US leave.
And as Michael Flynn relates in his interview with Mehdi Hassan, once kicked out, the
Obama Administration took steps that they knew would lead to the creation of ISIS in the
region, and fired him as the head of the DIA after he had written them a memo warning them
about this.
Michael Flynn, who btw is rabidly anti Iranian, then became the first victim of the
Russiagaters when Trump was elected into office.
A war with Iran would see it use its Chinese-supplied anti-ship missiles, mines and coastal artillery to
shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20% of the world's oil supply. Oil prices would
double, perhaps triple, devastating the global economy. The retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well
as on American military installations in Iraq, would leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead. The Shiites
in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, would see an attack on Iran as a religious war against Shiism.
The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern province, the Shiite majority
in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey would turn in fury on us and our
dwindling allies.
There would be an increase in terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and widespread sabotage of
oil production in the Persian Gulf. Hezbollah in southern Lebanon would renew attacks on northern Israel.
War with Iran would trigger a long and widening regional conflict that, by the time it was done, would
terminate the American Empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins. Let us hope for
a miracle to pull us back from this Dr. Strangelove self-immolation.
Iran, which has vowed "harsh retaliation," is already reeling under the crippling economic sanctions
imposed by the Trump administration when it unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the Iranian nuclear arms
deal. Tensions in Iraq between the U.S. and the Shiite majority, at the same time, have been escalating. On
Dec. 27 Katyusha rockets were fired at a military base in Kirkuk where U.S. forces are stationed. An
American civilian contractor was killed and several U.S. military personnel were wounded.
The U.S. responded on Dec. 29 by bombing sites belonging to the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia.
Two days later Iranian-backed militias attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, vandalizing and destroying
parts of the building and causing its closure. But this attack will soon look like child's play.
Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation has been destroyed as a unified country. Its once-modern
infrastructure is in ruins. Electrical and water services are, at best, erratic. There is high unemployment
and discontent over widespread government corruption that has led to bloody street protests. Warring
militias and ethnic factions have carved out competing and antagonistic enclaves. At the same time, the war
in Afghanistan is lost, as the Afghanistan Papers published by The Washington Post detail. Libya is a failed
state. Yemen after five years of unrelenting Saudi airstrikes and a blockade is enduring one of the world's
worst humanitarian disasters. The "moderate" rebels we funded and armed in Syria at a cost of $500 million,
after instigating a lawless reign of terror, have been beaten and driven out of the country. The monetary
cost for this military folly, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, is between $5 trillion and
$7 trillion.
So why go to war with Iran? Why walk away from a nuclear agreement that Iran did not violate? Why
demonize a government that is the mortal enemy of the Taliban, along with other jihadist groups, including
al-Qaida and Islamic State? Why shatter the de facto alliance we have with Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why
further destabilize a region already dangerously volatile?
The generals and politicians who launched and prosecuted these wars are not about to take the blame for
the quagmires they created. They need a scapegoat. It is Iran. The hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed,
including at least 200,000 civilians, and the millions driven from their homes into displacement and refugee
camps cannot, they insist, be the result of our failed and misguided policies. The proliferation of radical
jihadist groups and militias, many of which we initially trained and armed, along with the continued
worldwide terrorist attacks, have to be someone else's fault. The generals, the CIA, the private contractors
and weapons manufacturers who have grown rich off these conflicts, the politicians such as George W. Bush,
Barack Obama and Donald Trump, along with all the "experts" and celebrity pundits who serve as cheerleaders
for endless war, have convinced themselves, and want to convince us, that Iran is responsible for our
catastrophe.
The chaos and instability we unleashed in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, left Iran
as the dominant country in the region. Washington empowered its nemesis. It has no idea how to reverse its
mistake other than to attack Iran.
A total of 22
missiles have hit two bases housing US
troops in
Iraq
but there were no Iraqi
casualties, according to Iraq's
military.
The online
statement came hours after Iranian
state television said
Iran
had launched missiles at US
targets in the early hours of Wednesday
in retaliation for the
United States
's killing last week
of top military commander
Qassem Soleimani
.
"Between 1:45am
and 2:15am [22:45 GMT and 23:15 GM]
Iraq was hit by 22 missiles, 17 on the
Ain al-Asad airbase and ... five on the
city of Erbil," the Iraqi military
said.
"There were no victims among the
Iraqi forces," it added, without
mentioning whether or not there were
casualties among foreign troops.
Following the strikes, US President
Donald Trump
said on Twitter that
an "assessment of casualties & damages
taking place now".
More than 5,000 US troops remain in
Iraq along with other foreign forces as
part of a coalition that has trained
and backed up Iraqi security forces in
the fight against the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS)
armed group.
Some 115 German soldiers are
stationed in Erbil and all were fine, a
spokesman for Bundeswehr operations
said.
Denmark, which has about 130
soldiers in Iraq, said no Danish
soldiers were wounded or killed in the
attack on Ain al-Asad, the largest
airbase where US-led coalition troops
are based.
It was the first time Iran directly
hit a US installation with ballistic
missiles.
Soleimani, who headed Iran's Quds
Force, the overseas arm of the elite
Revolutionary Guards Corps, was buried
after the missile attacks, Iranian
state television said.
"His revenge was taken and now he
can rest in peace," it said.
The missiles were launched at the
same time of the day that Soleimani was
killed on Friday near the international
airport in Iraq's capital, Baghdad. He
was buried in the "martyrs section" of
a cemetery in his hometown of Kerman.
Brave but useless, and probably damaging action from Iran. Mullahs became way too exited about this insident.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi labeled the missile strike that killed Soleimani as a "brazen violation of Iraq's sovereignty
and a blatant attack on the nation's dignity".
At least two airbases housing US troops in Iraq have been hit
by more than a dozen ballistic missiles, according to the US Department of Defence.
Iranian state TV says the attack is a retaliation after the country's top commander Qasem
Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.
The Pentagon says at least two sites were attacked, in Irbil and Al Asad.
It is unclear if there have been any casualties.
"We are aware of the reports of attacks on US facilities in Iraq. The president has been briefed
and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team," White
House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the attack was in retaliation for the death of Soleimani on
Friday.
"We are warning all American allies, who gave their bases to its terrorist army, that any
territory that is the starting point of aggressive acts against Iran will be targeted," it said via
a statement carried by Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif later issued a statement on Twitter, claiming the attack
was self-defence and denied seeking to escalate the situation into war.
Image
Copyright @JZarif
@JZarif
Report
<figure> <span> <img alt="Twitter post by @JZarif: Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched.We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression." src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/socialembed/https://twitter.com/JZarif/status/1214736614217469953~/news/world-middle-east-51028954" width="465" height="323"> <span>Image Copyright @JZarif</span> <span aria-hidden="true">@JZarif</span> </span> <div><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/contact-us/editorial" aria-label="Report Twitter post by @JZarif">Report</a></div> </figure>
President Trump tweeted shortly afterwards, insisting "all is well", while adding that they had
not yet assessed possible casualties.
Image
Copyright @realDonaldTrump
@realDonaldTrump
Report
<figure> <span> <img alt="Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump: All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning." src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/socialembed/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1214739853025394693~/news/world-middle-east-51028954" width="465" height="279"> <span>Image Copyright @realDonaldTrump</span> <span aria-hidden="true">@realDonaldTrump</span> </span> <div><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/contact-us/editorial" aria-label="Report Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump">Report</a></div> </figure>
The attacks took place hours after the burial of Soleimani. The second attack occurred in Irbil
shortly after the first rockets hit Al Asad, Al Mayadeen TV said.
Earlier in the day, President Trump said a US withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be the worst
thing for the country.
The UK foreign office told the BBC: "We are urgently working to establish the facts on the
ground. Our first priority is the security of British personnel."
The assassination of Soleimani on January 3 was a major escalation in already deteriorating
relations between Iran and the US.
The general - who controlled Iran's proxy forces across the Middle East - was regarded as a
terrorist by the US government, which says he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of
American troops and was plotting "imminent" attacks.
The "severe revenge" Iran promised for the death of Qassem Suleimani was heralded on
Wednesday morning by at least two waves of
short-range missile attacks on bases in Iraq hosting US and coalition personnel.
The attacks will provide an opportunity for hawks inside the Donald Trump administration to
ratchet up the conflict with Iran – but also potentially a pathway out of
the crisis.
The Iranian strikes were heavy on symbolism. The missiles were launched around 1.30am in
Iraq , roughly the same
time as the drone strike that killed Suleimani on Friday morning. Top Iranian advisers and
semi-official media outlets tweeted pictures of the country's flag during the attack, mirroring
Donald Trump's tweet as the first reports of Suleimani's death were emerging. The Revolutionary
Guards dubbed the operation "Martyr Suleimani". Videos of the missiles being launched were
released to Iranian media outlets.
ss="rich-link"> Iran attacks two US airbases in Iraq in wake of Suleimani killing
Read more
But in their immediate aftermath, the attacks appear to have been carefully calibrated to
avoid US casualties – fired at bases that were already on high alert.
Iran's foreign minister has said the strikes have concluded and characterised them as
self-defence within the boundaries of international law – not the first shots in a
war.
Trump, in his first comments after the strikes, also sought to play them down.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment
of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and
well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow
morning.
If Trump's assessment of the damage holds, Wednesday's strikes might be an opportunity for
both sides to de-escalate without losing face. Iran will be able to say it took violent revenge
for Suleimani's death and pivot to a campaign of proxy warfare – with which it feels more
comfortable, against a vastly more powerful adversary – and diplomatic pressure to eject
American forces from Iraq.
The US can also step back, shrugging off the retaliation as being of no significant
consequence. That is the best-case scenario, but it rests on two risky premises: that more than
a dozen missiles struck bases hosting US military personnel without substantial
damage or casualties; and that the White House will resist any urge to respond.
Not sure whats true at this point. If Iran is indeed behind the missile attacks they will pay
the price. Hoped they could restrain themselves and make it harder on the US to escalate. But
then again, maybe they felt it was inevitable or militant factions from within demanded a
response. Anyways, lesson being if you commit an act of war don't be surprised there is
retaliation. Pretty sure Trump and Bibi are not unhappy about this since that's probably what
they hoped for.
They're Persians. They are the people that invented war. But you're right, the suits are
delusional. Reality can be a real bitxh when one awakens from a delusion. That's a dangerous
moment, when the suspension of disbelief goes "poof!"
Arab armies aren't very good at conducting warfare.
Iranians aren't Arabs, they are a branch of Indo-European/Aryan, who historically have
been very good at conducting warfare.
----------
This ignores history. For example, in recent decades Italians were much less militarily
minded than their Roman ancestors. Similarly, Danes today are not similar to folks who
conquered half of England 1100 years ago and the whole of England decades later, only to
loose it to Frenchified Danes afterwards.
To provide examples from the Syrian war, 100% Arab Lebanese Hezbollah were reputed to be
most effective, and getting less casualties that other units. By the way of contrast, units
of Afghan volunteers assembled by Iran were so-so. And ISIS was most effective if you count
their numbers, although with a lot of casualties. Syrian themselves had good elite units and
many more mediocre units.
a tweet (so not reliable)
#BREAKING: First video showing a Fateh-110 precision guided ballistic missile of #IRGC
hitting the Ain al-Asad Air Base in #Iraq during Operation #Soleimani of #IRGCASF.#IRGC
sources claim they have destroyed several #USArmy helicopters & drones & have killed
80 #US troops there!
Is expecting Iran to de-escalate realistic?
Iran has a number of possible retaliation options following the US killing of an Iranian
commander.
1h ago
Oh, well, whad'ya think.... In just an hour after this BBC masterpiece shit hit the fan.
--------------
NBC Ali Arouzi claims Iran demands USA not to retaliate, quoting Haifa and Dubai for "3rd
wave".
Delicious if true. "Sand niggas" returning the "sole hyperpower" the favour. Didn't Pompeo or
someone demanded "not to retaliate" just a day or two ago.
But i am not sure we can trust NBC or any other western propaganda office about what Iran did
and dis not say.
Intel would not like loosing Haifa, they already loosing market to AMD last year....
---------
Trump got himself his Pearl Harbor 2.0 and "wartime president" status. Maybe will make him
re-elected.
But also IRGC "pulled the hook". Due to American hubris they now just can not evacuate
USArmy Iraqi garrisons to, say, Kuwait. And would have to infringe upon Iraq sovereignty and
to be sitting ducks there. Wagging the dog.
--------
I still wonder about nukes.
I hope Russia and China would prohibit long-range and medium-range vehicles, citing M.A.D.
concerns and protocols, so USA would be limited to short-range nuclear-wielding weapons.
Which they shouls have much less.
I also hope Trump would get his re-election and stop short of using tactical nukes, but
see no rational reasons for such a restrain for today USA.
--------
There was no news yet, however, about US Navy fleeing away from Iran ASMs range. So
hopefully Pentagon does not see real threat of real war, not yet. And maybe it will still be
contained as one more run of the mill American warlette. Hopefully...
Launching a ballistic missile attack against a US base in al-Anbar is smart from a 'limited
escalation' perspective. It prevents the fight from expanding across the region unless
the United States loses its mind completely and unleashes a full out attack on Iran.
Additionally, targeting American occupation troops in Iraq plays well with ordinary Iraqis
sick of American aggression on their soil and such a strike, as opposed to a targeted
assassination or an attack outside of Iraq, gives Iran's enemies very little propaganda
material to work with. It serves the ball back into the US court and makes Washington 100%
responsible if it escalates this conflict into a regional war. Also, not waiting for weeks or
months before retaliating makes it much more difficult for Israel or a US proxy to launch a
false flag and try to blame it on Iran. Well played.
Well, if it was a limited strike that was designed to look big and make some serious material
damage, and not to kill a lot of US troops, then it's quite possible that Trump - assuming he
doesn't go the heavy retaliation way - can soon, and definitely before elections, be able to
order US to leave Iraq not because they don't want the US there but actually in a magnanimous
act, "to make sure that poor country won't be bombed again by evil Iranians" - arguably with
a mutual understanding with Iran that both will stick to a limited direct influence over
Iraq. But that would be the best-case scenario, where Iran boots the US, the US still got
hit, but no more deaths, cycle of reprisals ends, and Iraq is basically free at last.
I'll see how bad it actually is when I wake up...
I am sure the morning awaits us and our chants and meditations. But the morning also
brings a new sun upon the Saudis and if this process is planned as an extensive revenge (and
I believe it is) then the Saudis can awake expecting it to rain stones for some time.
If this struggle to evict the USA is serious then Iran and its Persian army will
emasculate the key arab pawn over the coming weeks and the Houthis will be given reprieve to
bring them to victory in Yemen. My guess is that this way will give stability and a framework
for peace in the region sufficient to counter the belligerence of the occupier of Palestine
lands.
The region is subject to endless provocations and the 'gift of Golan' to Israel is just
one the more recent grievous affronts that are unlikely to end unless there is a profound
military rebuff to the lunacy of western private finance capital scheming.
The illegal occupation of Syrian oilfields could collapse immediately as well if it has
not already commenced.
Each new day will tell but I will always wish for peace. Thank you your insights and may
you and your wife greet the sun in peace each day.
Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of
UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens &
senior officials were launched.
And so, karlof1 , we shall if the red flag comes down. Perhaps this was enough of a
slap? But they must leave, that remains as an imperative that will smolder unceasingly
now.
If Russia has disallowed the use of nukes, then there's not much the US military can do,
no matter how bloodthirsty the Zionists are. As soon as the US hits Iran, Tel Aviv goes up in
smoke. That's all there is to it. It's been this way for months and months now. The Israeli
and US casualties required for a direct attack on Iran are just too high for Zionists to
stomach. The use of nukes was the only viable play from the beginning (and I realize this is
not really "viable" to any sane person, but Pompeo and Netanyahu are not sane.) If nukes are
out, then the US cannot establish dominance over the skies quickly enough to prevent
thousands upon thousands of Israeli and US casualties. It seems to me that everybody must
know this is true, deep down.
Iran has incentives to increase the chance of a Democrat administration, bearing in mind the
great deal they got from the last one and the lack of anything they can expect from Trump Term
Two.
Notable quotes:
"... Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump. He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4 pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in your face in an hour, Sir ". ..."
"... Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on the military (which likely will obey). ..."
"... These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper. ..."
"... As a thank you to Trump calling the Israel occupied Golan a part of Israel Netanyahu called an (iirc also illegal) new Golan settlement "Ramat Trump" ..."
"... I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have? ..."
"... The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking. ..."
"... Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ..."
"... Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. ..."
"... We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies. If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL ..."
You have just several thousand soldiers in Iraq and Syria. These countries have large proxy
forces of Iran's allies in the form of Shia militias in Iraq and actual Iranian Quds Force
troops in Syria. These forces will be used to attack and kill our soldiers.
The Iranians have significant numbers of ballistic missiles which they have already said
will be used against our forces
The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the IRGC
Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed. In that
process the US Navy will loose men and ships.
In direct air attacks on Iran we are bound to lose aircraft and air crew.
The IRGC and its Quds Force will carry out terrorist attacks across the world.
Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge? Don't let the neocons like Pompeo sell you on war.
Make the intelligence people show you the evidence in detail. Make your own judgments.
pl
re " Trump knows that he can't sell a war to the American people "
Are you sure? I am not.
Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump.
He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4
pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in
your face in an hour, Sir ".
A good number of the so called grownups who gave such advice were (gameshow style) fired,
sometimes by twitter.
Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on
the military (which likely will obey).
These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even
after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper.
Israel could, if politically just a tad more insane, bomb Iran and thus invite the
inevitable retaliation. When that happens they'll cry for US aid, weapons and money because
they alone ~~~
(a) cannot defeat Iran (short of going nuclear) and ...
(b) Holocaust! We want weapons and money from Germany, too! ...
(c) they know that ...
(d) which does not lead in any way to Netanyahu showing signgs of self restraint or
reason.
Netanyahu just - it is (tight) election time - announced, in his sldedge hammer style
subtlety, that (he) Israel will annect the palestinian west jordan territory, making the
Plaestines an object in his election campaign.
IMO that idea is simply insane and invites more "troubles". But then, I didn't hear
anything like, say, Trump gvt protests against that (and why expect that from the dudes who
moved the US embassy to Jerusalem).
as for Trump and Netanyahu ... policy debate ... I had that here in mind, which pretty speaks
for itself. And I thought Trumo is just running for office in the US. Alas, it is a Netanyaho
campaign poster from the current election:
I generously assume that things like that only happen because of the hard and hard
ly work of Kushner on his somewhat elusive but of course GIGANTIC and
INCREDIBLE Middle East peace plan.
Kushner is probably getting hard and hard ly supported by Ivanka who just said that
she inherited her moral compass from her father. Well ... congatulations ... I assume.
I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has
cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate
nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have?
The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our
military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force
us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking.
Need I trot out Goering's statement regarding selling a war once more?
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a
farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back
to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor
in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after
all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple
matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a
Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the
matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can
declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are
intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy
does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we
could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies.
If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL
The 'ivestigations are a formality. The Saudis (with U.S. backing) are already saying that
the missiles were Iranian made and according to them, this proves that Iran fired them. The
Saudis are using the more judicious phrase 'behind the attack' but Pompeo is running with the
fired from Iran narrative.
How can we tell the difference between an actual Iranian manufactured missile vs one that
was manufactured in Yemen based on Iranian designs? We only have a few pictures Iranian
missiles unlike us, the Iranians don't toss them all over the place so we don't have any
physical pieces to compare them to.
Perhaps honest investigators could make a determination but even if they do exist they
will keep quiet while the bible thumping Pompeo brays and shamelessly lies as he is prone to
do.
These kinds of munition will leave hundreds of bits scattered all over their targets. I'm
waiting for the press conference with the best bits laid out on the tables.
I doubt that there will be any stencils saying 'Product of Iran', unless the paint smells
fresh.
1. I am still waiting to read some informed discussion concerning the *accuracy* of the
projectiles hitting their targets with uncanny precision from hundreds of miles away. What
does this say about the achievement of those pesky Eye-rainians? https://www.moonofalabama.org/images9/saudihit2.jpg
2. "The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the
IRGC Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed.:
Ahem, Which forces are utterly destroyed? With respect colonel, you are not thinking
straight. An army with supersonic land to sea missiles that are highly accurate will make
minced meat of any fool's ship that dare attack it. The lesson of the last few months is that
Iran is deadly serious about its position that if they cannot sell their oil, no one else
will be able to either. And if the likes of the relatively broadminded colonel have not yet
learned that lesson, then this can only mean that the escalation ladder will continue to be
climbed, rung by rung. Next rung: deep sea port of Yanbu, or, less likely, Ra's Tanura.
That's when the price of oil will really go through the roof and the Chinese (and possibly
one or two of the Europoodles) will start crying Uncle Scam. Nuff Sed.
It sounds like you are getting a little "help" with this. You statement about the result
of a naval confrontation in the Gulf reflects the 19th Century conception that "ships can't
fight forts." that has been many times exploded. You have never seen the amount of firepower
that would be unleashed on Iran from the air and sea. Would the US take casualties? Yes, but
you will be destroyed.
We will have to agree to disagree. But unless I am quite mistaken, the majority view if not
the consensus of informed up to date opinion holds that the surest sign that the US is
getting ready to attack Iran is that it is withdrawing all of its naval power out of the
Persian Gulf, where they would be sitting ducks.
Besides, I don't think it will ever come to that. Not to repeat myself, but taking out
either deep sea ports of Ra's Tanura and/ or Yanbu (on the Red Sea side) will render Saudi
oil exports null and void for the next six months. The havoc that will play with the price of
oil and consequently on oil futures and derivatives will be enough for any president and army
to have to worry about. But if the US would still be foolhardy enough to continue to want to
wage war (i.e. continue its strangulation of Iran, which it has been doing more or less for
the past 40 years), then the Yemeni siege would be broken and there would be a two-pronged
attack from the south and the north, whereby al-Qatif, the Shi'a region of Saudi Arabia where
all the oil and gas is located, will be liberated from their barbaric treatment at the hands
of the takfiri Saudi scum, which of course is completely enabled and only made possible by
the War Criminal Uncle Sam.
AFAIK the only "US naval power" currently is the Abraham Lincoln CSG and I haven't seen any
public info that it was in the Persian Gulf. Aside from the actual straits, I'm not sure of
your "sitting ducks" assertion. First they wouldn't be sitting, and second you have the
problem of a large volume of grey shipping that would complicate the targeting problem. Of
course with a reduced time-of-flight, that also reduces target position uncertainty.
Forts are stationary.
Nothing I have read implies that Iran has a lot of investment in stationary forts.
Millennium Challenge 2002, only the game cannot be restarted once the enemy does not behave
as one hopes. Unlike in scripted war simulations, Opfor can win.
I remember the amount of devastation that was unleashed on another "backwards nation"
Linebackers 1 - 20, battleship salvos chemical defoliants, the Phoenix program, napalm for
dessert.
And not to put to fine a point on it, but that benighted nation was oriental; Iran is a
Caucasian nation full of Caucasian type peoples.
Nothing about this situation is of any benefit to the USA.
We do not need Saudi oil, we do not need Israel to come to the defense of the USA here in
North America, we do not need to stick our dick into the hornet's nest and then wonder why
they sting and it hurts. How many times does Dumb have to win?
3. Also, I can't imagine this event as being a very welcome one for Israeli military
observers, the significance of which is not lost on them, unlike their US counterparts. If
Yemen/ Iran can put the Abqaiq processing plant out of commission for a few weeks, then
obviusly Hezbollah can do the same for the giant petrochemical complex at Haifa, as well as
Dimona, and the control tower at Ben Gurion Airport. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239251
It was late at night when I wrote this. Yeah, Right. the Iranians could send their massive
ground force into Syria where it would be chewed up by US and Israeli air. Alternatively they
could invade Saudi arabia.
Thank you for the reply but actually I was thinking that an invasion of Afghanistan would be
the more sensible ploy.
To my mind if the Iranian Army sits on its backside then the USAF and IAF will ignore it
to roam the length and breadth of Iran destroying whatever ground targets are on their
long-planned target-list.
Or that Iranian Army can launch itself into Afghanistan, at which point all of the USA
plans for a methodical aerial pummelling of Iran's infrastructure goes out the window as the
USAF scrambles to save the American forces in Afghanistan from being overrun.
Isn't that correct?
So what incentive is there for that Iranian Army to sit around doing nothing?
Iran will do what the USAF isn't expecting it to do, if for no other reason that it upsets
the USA's own game-plan.
There seems to be a bit of a hiatus in proceedings - not in these columns but on the ground
in the ME.
Everyone seems to be waiting for something.
Could this "something" be the decisive word fron our commander in chief Binyamin
Netanyahu?
The thing is he has just pretty much lost an election. Likud might form part of the next
government of Israel but most likely not with him at its head.
Does anyone have any ideas on what the future policy of Israel is likely to be under Gantz
or whoever? Will it be the same, worse or better?
The correct US move would be to ignore an Iranian invasion of Afghanistan and continue
leaving the place. The Iranian Shia can then fight the Sunni jihadi tribesmen.
Oh, I completely agree that if the Iranians launch an invasion of Afghanistan then the only
sensible strategy would be for the US troops to pack up and get out as fast as possible.
But that is "cut and run", which many in Washington would view as a humiliation.
Do you really see the beltway warriors agreeing to that?
A flaw in your otherwise sound argument is that the US military has not been seriously
engaged for several years and has been reconstituting itself with the money Trump has given
them.
Re-positioning of forces does not indicate that a presidential decision for war has been
made. The navy will not want to fight you in the narrow, shallow waters of the Gulf.
I would think that Mr. Trump would have a hard time sell a war with Iran over an attack on
Saudi Arabia. The good question about how would that war end will soon be raised and I doubt
there are many good answers.
The US should have gotten out of that part of the world a long time ago, just as they
should have paid more attention to the warnings in President Eisenhower's farewell
address.
The Perfumed Fops in the DOD restarted Millennium Challenge 2002,because Gen Van Riper had
used 19th and early 20th century tactics and shore based firepower to sink the Blue Teams
carrier forces. There was a script, Van Riper did some adlibbing. Does the US DOD think that
Iran will follow the US script? In a unipolar world maybe the USA could enforce a script,
that world was severely wounded in 1975, took a sucking chest wound during operation Cakewalk
in 2003 and died in Syria in 2015. Too many poles too many powers not enough diplomacy. It
will not end well.
We would crush Iran at some cost to ourselves but the political cost to the anti-globalist
coalition would catastrophic. BTW Trump's "base" isn't big enough to elect him so he cannot
afford to alienate independents.
Even if Rouhani and the Iranian Parliament personally designed, assembled, targeted and
launched the missiles (scarier sounding version of "drones"), then they should be
congratulated, for the Saudi tyrant deserves every bad thing that he gets.
prawnik (Sid) in this particular situation goering's glittering generalization does not
apply. Trump needs a lot of doubting suburbanites to win and a war will not incline them to
vote for him.
Looks like President Trump is walking it back, tweet: I have just instructed the Secretary of
the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!
I doubt there will be armed conflict of any kind.
Everything Trump does from now (including sacking the Bolton millstone) will be directed at
winning 2020, and that will not be aided by entering into some inconclusive low intensity
attrition war.
Iran, on the other hand, will be doing everything it can to increase the chance of a Democrat
administration, bearing in mind the great deal they got from the last one and the lack of
anything they can expect from Trump Term Two.
This may be a useful tool for determining their next move, but the limit of their actions
would be when some Democrats begin making the electorally damaging mistake of critising Trump
for not retaliating against Iranian provocations.
Washington (CNN) The increasingly chaotic
aftermath of the US strike against Iran has left President Donald Trump's team scrambling
to keep up with his unpredictable decisions and inflammatory pronouncements, and suggests
dysfunction at the heart of the nation's critical national security process.
"... It is clear to me after watching that extraordinary video of Trump's ignorance and stupidity that he is the idiot piper leading the West into the abyss. There could be no better epitome of the neoliberal sociopathy that drives our collapsing phase of late-capitalism. Putin's wet dream: a narcissist half-wit driving the western bus. ..."
"... As for trying to put the blame on Pentagon staffers, even if they chose such weird options for Trump to choose, at the end of the day, it's the President himself who chose - as another one said decades ago, "the buck stops here" and the guy in the Oval Office has to bear the full responsibility. ..."
The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump picked the 'wrong' item from a list of
possible courses of action that the military had presented him. That sounded like bullshit
invented to take blame away from Trump and to put it onto the military.
To me it looks more like the opposite: the Times's Pentagon sources pinning it
on loose cannon Trump's going with the extreme option that the military hadn't intended him
to. But whatever. The U.S. is facing the same harsh new reality regardless.
The Times in London ran with a front page "We Will Kill UK Troops, warns Iran" (
here's the Guardian summary ). Despite initial reports that the UK and EU were distancing
themselves from the assassination, the MSM have clearly been given their orders to begin
banging the drum for war. The scramble for a casus belli reminds me of WMD, so I think a war
of some scope is strongly desired and Boris Johnson has been brought on board. France will
stay out and Germany will look first at Russia's position.
It is clear to me after watching that extraordinary video of
Trump's ignorance and stupidity that he is the idiot piper leading the West into the abyss.
There could be no better epitome of the neoliberal sociopathy that drives our collapsing
phase of late-capitalism. Putin's wet dream: a narcissist half-wit driving the western
bus.
Trump is probably not stupid enough to launch such a war and certainly not during an
election year.
During his campaign Trump said he wanted the U.S. military out of the Middle East. Iran
and its allies will help him to keep that promise.
Hasnt Trump proved he is stupid enough by now? How much more evidence is needed to drop
him? Trump start wars to get another election win, I think that is obvious? And allies
keeping him back? Which allieshave even remotely criticized his threats and murder? People
need to realize that there is nothing stopping Trump, he and Israel will keep bombing and
unfortunately its not much Iran could do.
Dan: The guy fought the Talibans and ISIS, and has always been opposed to them; that's good
enough for me, and that's definitely more than any of the coward and treacherous Western
leaders that pussy-foot instead of calling out the US for what tantamounts to a declaration
of war on both Iraq and Iran.
As for trying to put the blame on Pentagon staffers, even if they chose such weird
options for Trump to choose, at the end of the day, it's the President himself who chose - as
another one said decades ago, "the buck stops here" and the guy in the Oval Office has to
bear the full responsibility.
Col. Lang is once again warning that Trump trying to keep the troops in Iraq would be a
terrible mistake with bad consequences, and that it's just not realistic. He probably prefers
not to say it that way when stating it's a long road from Kuwait to Baghdad, but if shit hits
the fan and Iraqis decide to go after the US troops, then those who can't evacuate fast
enough will end up in a position similar to that of the British in Kabul, in the very first
days of 1842.
Aghast at your words, dan. I am an aging homemaker from usa midwest and I have yet to stop
weeping for Qassem Soleimani, his poor widow, and the rest of his family. I feel I owe him a
personal debt for fighting zionists/terrorists/imperialists, for if they are not defeated
once and for all, my captive government will continue in perpetuity to serve their
horridmurderousthieving agenda, enslaving my every descendent and robbing humanity of any
chance for peace on this pretty garden harbor planet. May justice be done to give peace a
chance.
What I wonder is who is the genius in the chain of command who brought this "opportunity" to
Trump's attention and who vetted the decision? Trump made a large error when he surrounded
himself with neocons (Abrahams, Bolton, Pompeo, Haspel, Esper). Anyway it's a tangle and it's
pretty clear he (Trump) is in over his head. When he paniks he talks tough and he's making
threats. It's also no wonder he has not received any support on his decision to murder
Soleimani. From anywhere. Not even Israel is publicly supporting the decision. I think that
surprised him. For 350 years there has been an unwritten rule that you don't go after
generals or ambassadors or visiting politicians unless they are actively engaged in a combat
zone. Remember the outrage when the barbarian Libyans killed a mere station chief? How
outraged we were? Well, Trump overtly and with malice of forethought broke the rule. If I
were the Iranian's and I could get to any U.S. generals or high ranking officials (working or
visiting overseas) that's what I would do. Create animus within his own military and cabinet
departments. Get them at the supermarket, speaking engagements, on vacation, at home,
wherever. Doesn't matter. Wherever you can get them. Shitty thing to do no doubt but he
started it and something the American and other populations would instinctively understand.
Blood for blood retribution. No need to explain it to people.
......." Trump is probably not stupid enough to launch such a war and certainly not during an
election year."
b,
you are assuming that you are dealing with someone with a full deck of cards. If He was
stupid enough to kill a sovereign nation's top general, he will be stupid enough to start a
war. In fact that is his biggest wish. Elections be damned. Maybe the military would put on
the breaks but not this stupid sick man.
Few points: (1) Thanks to Trump, Pompeo and Esper every American soldier everywhere now wears
a bulls eye;
(2) Any soldier -including Americans - might find a great deal to admire in Soliemani, a guy
with a humble background who accomplished an extraordinary track record, a legendary
strategist';
(3) Has the US military's 'faith' in the sanity and competence of the civilian authority
been stretched near to some breaking point?
Pence claimed on twitter that Suleimani assisted the 12 9/11 hijackers, for which
he was instantly ridiculed.
Trump wants billions payback for airbases in Iraq that were already fully transferred upon
American withdrawal in december 2011.
BTW, the trolls are obvious trolls. Could be from Tel Aviv, but perhaps from London, too
(Integrity Initiative) Brits must be banging their heads against the wall over orange utan
dropping a monkey wrench into the gears of the imperial machine that they too depend on. You
bet that they need to spin this hard.
"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of
dollars to build. Long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it,"
Trump said
Paying us back?
Just ask the Iraqis - here is a reminder of what the bitter reality of economic violence
looks like:
The Crimes of Neoliberal Rule in Occupied Iraq
The clearest statement of intent for the future of the Iraqi economy is contained in Order
39, which permitted full foreign ownership of Iraqi state-owned assets and decreed that
over 200 state-owned enterprises, including electricity, telecommunications and the
pharmaceuticals industry, could be dismantled. Order 39 also permitted 100 per cent foreign
ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these firms to move their
profits out of Iraq. It has been argued already in the British courts that Order 39
constitutes an act of ILLEGAL OCCUPATION under the terms of the Hague and Geneva treaties :
The effect of Article 55 is to outlaw privatization of a country's assets whilst it is
under occupation by a hostile military power."
The mandate of the CPA was clear: to meet the 'humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people', to
meet the costs of 'reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure', to meet the costs
of disarmament and the civil administration of the country and other purposes 'benefiting
the people of Iraq'. The terms of UNSCR 1483 are unequivocal in this regard. It was this
resolution that established the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI)
• DFI revenue, was available to the CPA immediately, in the form of $100,000 bundles
of $100 bills, shrink-wrapped in $1.6 million 'cashpaks'. Pallets of cashpaks were flown
into Baghdad direct from the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Some of this cash was
held by the CPA in the basement of its premises in Baghdad Republican Palace. It has been
reported that Paul Bremer controlled a personal slush fund of $600 million (Harriman 2005).
One advantage of the use of cash payments and transfers was that the CPA transactions left
no paper trail and therefore they remained relatively invisible
• The disbursal of Iraqi oil revenue by the CPA also has had profound implications for
the future structure of the Iraqi economy. ..Spending (in excess of $20 billion, partly
based upon projected income) had to be underwritten by US government loans .. (which) has
effectively deepened the debt that was originally accumulated during the period of
UN-enforced sanctions following the 1991 Gulf War (Alexander 2005).
• The right to self-determination and sovereign decision making over economic, social
and cultural development is in international law a principle of jus cogens In this regard,
the CPA clearly acted beyond its remit in terms of both the spirit and the letter of the
international laws of conflict. It is the anti-democratic and pre-emptive nature of
Anglo-American economic restructuring that most clearly demonstrates that the CPA regime
was in violation of international law.
• Similar violations arise from the CPA's governance of Iraqi oil wealth. Article 49
of the Hague rules notes that 'money contributions' levied in the occupied territory 'shall
only be for the needs of the army or of the administration of the territory in question'.
The political strategy was characteristically neo-liberal (evasion of 'red tape' and any
obstacles that might hinder or limit the reallocation of wealth to the growing armies of
private enterprises). This strategy was given momentum by the granting of formal LEGAL
IMMUNITY to US personnel for activities related to the reconstruction economy. On the same
day that the CPA was created by UNSCR 1483, George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13303, 2
The terms of the exemption provide immunity from prosecution for the theft or embezzlement
of oil revenue, or incidentally, from any safety or environmental violations that might be
committed in the course of producing Iraqi oil. Executive Order 13303 is therefore a
guarantee of IMMUNITY from PROSECUTION for white-collar and corporate crimes that involve
Iraqi oil. Two months later, in June 2003, Paul Bremer issued CPA Order 17. Bremer's decree
guaranteed that members of the coalition military forces, the CPA, foreign missions and
contractors -- and their personnel -- would remain immune from the Iraqi legal process.
This carte blanche provision of immunity was extended again in June 2004.
What we are beginning to trace out here is a US government policy of suspending the
normal rule of law in the US and Iraq (so much for respecting Iraqi sovereigntx...)
The three most important things for doing battle are logistics, logistics and logistics, and
as Pat lang explains, the US forces in Syria are essentially fucked:
We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged in
logistics, intelligence and training missions. They are extremely vulnerable. There are
something like 150 marines in the embassy. There are also a small number of US combat
forces in Syria east and north of the Euphrates river. These include a battalion of US Army
National Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever
devilment the Iranians might be able to arrange.
4. This is an untenable logistical situation. Supply and other functions require a major
airfield close to Baghdad. We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from
there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous. Iraq is a big country.
It is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through
there. The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.
Unless it reinvades and reoccupies, the United States will be gone from Syria,
probably just after the election in November so Trump can say he stood up to the Iraqis.
"Unlike with North Korea, it's difficult to imagine any photo op or exchange of love letters
defusing the crisis the president has created. " The only thing that might defuse this crisis
would be the Senate convicting Trump and removing him from office. It would be a good idea if
the House passes another article of impeachment accusing the president of committing an act
of war without Congressional authorization.
Threatening to destroy cultural sites of a country is the sign of a deranged madman. I can't
believe a US president would dare say something like that. It goes against all the principles
America stands for. Nothing will motivate the people of Iran to fight the US more than the
threat of destruction to their cultural sites. If we go to war with Iran, this is a
Republican war. They own it. When are decent Republicans going to stand up and do the right
thing? If they don't, this could be very, very, bad.
The Defense department is already walking back Trump's tweet about bombing Iran culture
sites. Unfortunately, it's too late because the damage to our reputation as the "shining
light on the hill" has already been destroyed. I'm afraid more than now than I have ever been
in my life. Who knows when or where the revenge will occur but I'm fairly certain it will
happen and we'll be more isolated than ever before. It's taken centuries to build goodwill
and our reputation as a beacon of democracy for the world. We gave the keys to the kingdom to
a false prophet and we'll pay for his indiscretions for the rest of my lifetime. God help us
all.
You've sure got it right with "rapture-mad", and the most frightening thing is that the
religious zealotry of Pompeo, Pence, Mulvaney and Barr, inoculates them against any
criticism, because they believe they are serving a "higher"power and any criticism is a
testimony to their faith. In fact, by turning themselves into martyrs, they get to advance in
line for the Rapture. It seems particularly ironic that Evangelicals who support Israel do so
because they see God's plan unfolding there. The Jews, just happen to be sacrificial lambs in
the grand scheme. so they must must be preserved until the time is ripe for their rightful
annihilation, heralding the Second Coming. So, the problem of Pompeo, et al, is not Iran
destroying Israel, it's just that they've determined the timing is off.
As for the "wag the dog" theory, sure, Trump sees no difference between his personal fortunes
and national interests. But worse, the impeachment rests upon evidence that points to a
personal criminality on an international scale, which is the landscape where we find
ourselves. The president pardons convicts like Gallagher and Arpaio because they are cruel or
bloodthirsty. He admires dictators and ignores the law whenever he can, both as a private
individual and a president, and has obstructed a legal investigation into his corruption.
Now, on the international stage, by bypassing Congress, he is ignoring the sovereignty of the
American people, while incoherently threatening war crimes. Trump is fully blossoming into a
man like those he admires, an unrestrained, unprincipled, heavy hitting international tyrant.
I'm so disgusted with those whose job it is to check this man, and have abdicated their
responsibility, because they want to be like him. Reply 230 Recommend Share
I was at a friend's house on election night ready to celebrate Clinton's victory. When the
networks suddenly announced that Trump had won Florida, a professor of international
relations who was with us ominously predicted, "we are going to war with Iran." And here we
are.
America has become a living nightmare. A global power perceived mostly as benevolent by the
world is now a danger to all, including itself. Already having killed the Paris Agreement,
and Iran Nuclear Treaty, not to mention walking away from a nuclear arms treaty with the
Russians, Trump is now ready to wreak real havoc on the world - start a war. Boy will they
forget about impeachment now!
We haven't authorized the assassination of a military leader since the daring mission to kill
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in 1943. Although he'd been the architect of the Pearl Harbor
attack, and we were at war with Japan, this was a departure so significant that it only
proceeded after lengthy deliberation. And now, this. Your article fills in precisely how this
was so very much not that. But one party is in so cult-deep into this president now that the
lies won't stop. Thousands of Iranian have lost their lives in the past month trying to rid
themselves of this regime. Not only were those deaths rendered in vain by the assassination
of Suleimani, but the Iranian people are also even more yoked to a government they hate. And
wasn't the idea of grassroots-driven change in regime a core strategy behind pulling out of
the nuclear deal? And it's not okay because Suleimani is "evil." That's both subjective and
never a justification for an assassination of a foreign military leader of a nation we're not
at war with. As I noted, it was questionable when it was a military leader of nation we were
at war with. But, most important, what did we gain from this? Following yet another
disasterous military and foreign policy snap decision it only makes the importance of
removing Trump from office more urgent. Come for the Constitutional crime but convict because
the defendant is also manifestly unfit for the office. People are dying because of it and
more will die if he stays. Reply 186 Recommend Share
What, then, for an effective response? Outrage is mere fuel: what is the engine? A full year
seems too long. The Senate seems hopeless. What does that leave? Must we take to the streets
to stop this disaster of a president? All this time spent wondering how this will end makes
me feel like a victim of domestic abuse. What a waste. 1 Reply 180 Recommend Share
After three harrowing years, we've reached the point many of us feared from the moment
Donald Trump was elected. His decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's second most
important official, made at Mar-a-Lago with little discernible
deliberation , has brought the United States to the brink of a devastating new conflict in
the Middle East.
We don't yet know how Iran will retaliate, or whether all-out war will be averted. But
already, NATO has suspended its mission training Iraqi forces to
fight ISIS . Iraq's Parliament has voted to expel American troops -- a longtime Iranian
objective. (On Monday, U.S. forces sent a letter saying they were withdrawing from Iraq in
response, only to then claim that it was a
draft released in error .) On Sunday, Iran said it will no longer be bound by the remaining
restrictions on its nuclear program in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal that
Trump abandoned in 2018. Trump has been threatening to commit war crimes by destroying Iran's
cultural sites and tried to use Twitter to notify
Congress of his intention to respond to any Iranian reprisals with military escalation.
The administration has said that the killing of Suleimani was justified by an imminent
threat to American lives, but there is no reason to believe this. One skeptical American
official told The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated nothing but
"a normal Monday in the Middle East," and Democrats briefed on it were
unconvinced by the administration's case. The Washington Post reported that Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo -- who last year agreed with a Christian Broadcasting
Network interviewer that God might have sent Trump to save Israel from the "Iranian menace"
-- has been pushing for a hit on Suleimani for months.
Rather than self-defense, the Suleimani killing seems like the dreadful result of several
intersecting dynamics. There's the influence of rapture-mad Iran hawks like Pompeo and Vice
President Mike Pence. Defense officials who might have stood up to Trump have all left the
administration. According to Peter Bergen's book "Trump and His Generals," James Mattis,
Trump's former secretary of defense, instructed his subordinates not to provide the president
with options for a military showdown with Iran. But with Mattis gone, military officials, The
Times reported, presented Trump with the possibility of killing Suleimani as the "most extreme"
option on a menu of choices, and were "flabbergasted" when he picked it.
Trump likely had mixed motives. He was reportedly upset over TV images of militia supporters
storming the American Embassy in Iraq. According to The Post, he also was frustrated by
"negative coverage" of his decision last year to order and then call off strikes on Iran.
Beyond that, Trump, now impeached and facing trial in the Senate, has laid out his rationale
over years of tweets. The president is a master of projection, and his accusations against
others are a decent guide to howhe
himself will behave . He told us,
over and over again , that he believed Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to "save
face" and because his "poll numbers are in a tailspin" and he needed to "get re-elected." To
Trump, a wag-the-dog war with Iran evidently seemed like a natural move for a president in
trouble.
... ... ...
Even if Iran were to somehow decide not to strike back at the United States, it's still
ramping up its nuclear program, and Trump has obliterated the possibility of a return to
negotiations. "His maximum pressure policy has failed," Nasr said of Trump. "He has only
produced a more dangerous Iran."
... ... ... Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the
author of several books about politics, religion and women's rights, and was part of a team
that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual
harassment issues. @michelleinbklyn
Netanyahu: The killing of Soleimani is a U.S. event, not an Israeli event, and we
should stay out of it.
-- -- -- --
If Netanyahu got cold feet, that would be very naive of him, completely out of character.
No.
My pov re. Israel is that the US-uk and Isr. are in a symbiotic dependency relationship,
with the US as the controlling party.
Pov. bashed by USA stalwarts who love to blame Israel, Zionazis, Jews, the Mossad, etc..
for "bad stuff" that the US does.
The most powerful country in the world is controlled by some evil hateful figures in a
minuscule, depressing postage-stamp outpost (not..) plus and/or by infiltrating US Gvmt./
Media (more realistic..but was allowed, etc.)
Isr. only exists because of the support, international protection, huge stipends, offered
by the Hegemon.
-- -- -- --
No war with Iran. I have said this for years (and hope I continue to be right) see also
Petri at 21, others.
For the USDoS minion who has asked if the world would be a more secure place were Iran to
have nuclear weapons...
Absolutely yes, if Iran would have nuclear weapons right now, all this mamoneo would
end asap. Definitely it will act as the best deterrent, but that will not happen because that
is anti-Islamic and is forbidden by Ayatollah Khamenei.
I for one do not feel safe at all with the US and Israel having nuclear weapons, all
the more when both countries have currently at the helms both mafia bosses of the caliber of
Trump and Netanyahu.
On the contrary, that DPRK have nuclear weapons, as soon as I know very well that is for
deterrence against US bullying, allows me to sleep a pierna suelta...the same for Russia and
China..
"U.S.
Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses" provides numerous methods besides simply
the cessation of dollar use for international commercial transactions. Along with watching
the "Debt Wish 2020" vid linked above, I also suggest reading/watching this program . And lastly, I
suggest reading this analysis
here , although it only tangentially deals with your question.
Trump has from the beginning of his presidential campaign appealed to the worst and most
fascistic elements in American political life. At a time when the US has no credible peer
military rival, he added hundreds of billions of dollars to the Pentagon budget, and the pudgy
old chicken hawk lionized war criminals. Up until now, however, Trump shrewdly calculated that
his base was tired of wasting blood and treasure on fruitless Middle Eastern wars, and he
avoided taking more than symbolic steps. He dropped a big missile on Afghanistan once, and
fired some Tomahawk Cruise missiles at Syria. But he drew back from the brink of more extensive
military engagements.
Now, by murdering Qasem Soleimani , the
head of the Jerusalem (Qods) Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Trump has
brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. Mind you, Iran's leadership is too
shrewd to rush to the battlements at this moment, and will be prepared to play the long game.
My guess is that they will encourage their allies among Iraqi Shiites to get up a massive
protest at the US embassy and at bases housing US troops.
They will be aided in this task of mobilizing Iraqis by the simultaneous US assassination of
Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis , the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces. Al-Muhandis is a senior
military figure in the Iraqi armed forces, not just a civilian militia figure. Moreover, the
Kata'ib Hizbullah that he headed is part of a strong political bloc, al-Fath, which has
48 members in parliament and forms a key coalition partner for the current, caretaker prime
minister, Adil Abdulmahdi. Parliament won't easily be able to let this outrage pass.
The US officer corps is confident that the American troops at the embassy and elsewhere in
Baghdad are sufficient to fight off any militia invasion. I'm not sure they have taken into
account the possibility of tens of thousands of civilian protesters invading the
embassy, who can't simply be taken out and shot.
Trump may be counting on the unpopularity among the youth protesters in downtown Baghdad,
Basra, Nasiriya and other cities of Soleimani and of al-Muhandis to blunt the Iraqi reaction to
the murders. The thousands of youth protesters cheered on hearing the news of their deaths,
since they were accused of plotting a violent repression of the rallies demanding an end to
corruption.
Iraq, however, is a big, complex society, and there are enormous numbers of Iraqi Shiites
who support the Popular Mobilization Forces and who view them as the forces that saved Iraq
from the peril of the ISIL (ISIS) terrorist organization. The Shiite hard liners would not need
all Iraqis to back them in confronting the American presence, only a few hundred thousand for
direct crowd action.
You also have to wonder whether Trump and his coterie aren't planning a coup in Iraq. In the
absence of a coup, the Iraqi parliament will almost certainly be forced, after this violation
of Iraqi national sovereignty, to vote to expel American troops. This is foreseeable. So either
the assassination was a drive-by on the way out, or Trump's war cabinet doesn't plan on having
to leave Iraq.
Although Trump justified the murder of Soleimani by calling him a terrorist, that is
nonsense in the terms of international law. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is the
equivalent of the US National Guard. What Trump did is the equivalent of some foreign country
declaring the US military a terrorist organization (some have) and then assassinating General
Joseph L. Lengyel, the 28th Chief of the National Guard Bureau (God forbid and may he have a
long healthy life).
This is truly shocking: Trump assassinates diplomatic envoy he
himself arranged for. . If the U.S. lured Soleimani to Iraq with a promise of negotiations
with the Iraqis as mediators and then proceeded to kill him, surely that would be an impeachable
offense. Particularly in view of the failure to brief Congress. If it was Saudi tricked Soleimani
by getting Iraq to "mediate" (Iraq's prime minister was expecting a message by him on the
mediation when he was assassinated), Saudi will get targeted.
The US changed the rules of engagement. They had decided to assassinate Soleimani when he was
in Syria, having just returned from a short journey to Lebanon, before boarding a commercial
flight from Damascus airport to Baghdad. The US killing machine was waiting for him to land in
Baghdad and monitored his movements when he was picked up at the foot of the plane. The US hit
the two cars, carrying Soleimani and the al-Muhandes protection team, when they were still inside
the airport perimeter and were slowing down at the first check-point.
US forces will no longer be safe in Iraq outside protected areas inside the military bases
where they are deployed. A potential danger or hit-man could be lurking at every corner; this
will limit the free movement of US soldiers. Iran would be delighted were the Iraqi groups to
decide to hit the American forces and hunt them wherever they are. This would rekindle memories
of the first clashes between Jaish al-Mahdi and US forces in Najaf in 2004-2005.
Impeachment with GOP support could be just around the corner. And who lost Iraq??? He would
be a dead man walking in that case. I can't see the evangelical crowd saving him. President
Pence. Might have to get use to that.
Here is a link to a twitter account with a good video of massive crowds on the streets of
Mashhad awaiting the arrival of Qassem Suleimani. Very powerful.
There will be no draining of any swamps. Trump-Kushner just another Bibi lackey.
Posted by: Jerry | Jan 5 2020 15:48 utc | 13
1. Draining swamps was a marker of progress in the past. >>Wiki:But in the late
1960s and early 1970s, researchers found that marshes and swamps "were worth billions
annually in wildlife production, groundwater recharge, and for flood, pollution, and erosion
control." This motivated the passage of the 1972 federal Water Pollution Control
Act.<<
2. To recognize this vital role, parties should adopt more acquatic symbols. Caymans are a
bit too similar to alligators, but, say, Alligators vs Snapping Turtles?
Yes, it might just be that this debacle provides the extra impulse to get him removed.
Can't say I can even imagine what that would look like, but there would seem to be a good
argument now that he must be restrained somehow. Somebody needs to tell Pompeous to stop
digging the hole deeper (shutup) too.
Yesterday,
Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel foreign troops from the country during an emergency
parliamentary session. Interim Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, stressed during the
session, that while the US government notified the Iraqi military of the planned strike on
Soleimani, his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.
In a meeting Monday, Mahdi, a caretaker prime minister who said in November he would resign,
told US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller that the US and Iraq needed to cooperate "to implement
the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with the decision of the Iraqi parliament,"
according to a statement from the PM's office that was cited by
the Washington Post .
Though the Iraq war 'officially' ended in 2011, thousands of coalition troops stuck around.
Their numbers increased following the rise of ISIS in the region.
Ending the US troop presence in Iraq has been a longtime goal of non-interventionists like
Ron Paul and his son, Rand.
That said, even without troops in Iraq, the US will still have plenty of capacity to bully
Iran, and other other regional powers.
Finally, in a scenario such as this, chaos is the starring player across the entire region.
The strike on Soleimani makes even more fraught the position of U.S. troops in Iraq, where the
parliament has now voted in favor of a non-binding resolution for the eviction of U.S. forces.
The loss of U.S. presence in Iraq would strengthen Iran's hand there and compound the damage to
our fight against the Islamic State from our abandonment of Kurdish partners last fall. While
the Islamic State has been pushed out of much of the territory it once held, it has melted back
into the population and seeks to capitalize on ungoverned space with insurgent attacks.
Ungoverned space was oxygen for the Islamic State's rise in 2014. Whatever else Soleimani's
death means, it is sure to add to chaos within Iraq and Syria, and that benefits the Islamic
State.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777
Fragmentation In 'The Axis Of Resistance' Led To Soleimani's Death
by
Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/06/2020 - 20:45
0
SHARES
It was not the US decision to fire missiles against the IRGC commander Brigadier General
Qassem Soleimani that killed the Iranian officer and his companions in Baghdad.
Yes, of
course, the order that was given to launch missiles from the two drones (which destroyed the two cars
carrying Sardar Soleimani and his companion the Iraqi commander in al-Hashd al-Shaabi Jamal Jaafar
Al-Tamimi aka Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes and burned their bodies in the vehicle) came from US command and
control.
However, the reason President Donald Trump made this decision derives from the weakness of
the "axis of resistance", which has completely retreated from the level of performance that Iran
believed it was capable of
after decades of work to strengthen this "axis".
A close companion of Major General Qassim Soleimani, to whom he spoke hours before boarding the
plane that took him from Damascus to Baghdad, told me:
"The nobleman died. Palestine above all has lost Hajj Qassem (Soleimani).
He was the
"King" of the Axis of the Resistance and its leader.
He was assassinated and this is
exactly what he was hoping to reach in this life (Martyrdom). However, this axis will live and will
not die.
No doubt, the Axis of the Resistance needs to review its policy and regenerate
itself to correct its path.
This was what Hajj Qassim was complaining about and planning
to work on and strategizing about in his last hours."
The US struck Iran at the heart of its pride by killing Major General Soleimani. But
the
"axis of the Resistance" killed him before that. This is how:
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assassinated the deputy head of the Military Council
(the highest authority in the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is headed by its Secretary-General, Hassan
Nasrallah), Hajj
Imad Mughniyah
in Damascus, Syria, Hezbollah could not avenge him
until today.
When Trump gave Netanyahu
Jerusalem
as the "capital of Israel", the "Axis of the
Resistance" did not move except by holding television symposia and conferences verbally rejecting the
decision.
When President Trump offered the occupied Syrian
Golan Heights
to Israel and the
"Axis of Resistance" did not react, the US President Donald Trump and his team understood that they
were opposed by no effective deterrent. The inaction of the Resistance axis emboldened Trump to do
what he wants.
And when Israel bombed
hundreds of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria
, the "Axis
of the Resistance" justified its lack of retaliation by the typical sentence: "We do not want to be
dragged along by the timing of the engagement imposed by the enemy," as a senior official in this axis
told me.
In Iraq shortly before his death, Major General Soleimani was complaining about
the
weakening of the Iraqi ranks
within this "Axis of the Resistance", represented by the
Al-Bina' (Construction) Alliance and other groups close to this alliance like Al-Hikma of Ammar
al-Hakim and Haidar al-Abadi, formerly close to Iran, that have gone over to the US side.
In Iraq, Major General Soleimani was very patient and never lost his temper. He was trying to
reconcile the Iraqis, both his allies and those who had chosen the US camp and disagreed with him. He
used to hug those who shouted at him to lower tensions and continue dialogue to avoid spoiling the
meeting. Anyone who raised his voice during discussions soon found that it was Soleimani who calmed
everyone down.
Hajj Qassem Soleimani was unable to reach a consensus on the new Prime Minister's name among those
he deemed to be allies in the same coalition. He asked Iraqi leaders to select the names and went
through all of these asking questions about the acceptability of these names to the political groups,
to the Marjaiya, to protestors in the street and whether the suggested names were not provocative or
challenging to the US.
Notwithstanding the animosity between Iran and the US, Soleimani
encouraged the selection of a personality that would not be boycotted by the US. Soleimani believed
the US capable of damaging Iraq and understood the importance of maintaining a good relationship with
the US for the stability of the country.
Soleimani was shocked by the dissension among Iraqi Shia and believed that the "axis of resistance"
needed a new vision as it was faltering. In the final hours before his death, Major General Soleimani
was ruminating on the profound antagonisms between Iraqis of the same camp.
When the Iraqi street began to move against the government, the line rejecting American hegemony
was fragmented because it was part of the authority that ruled and governed Iraq. To make matters
worse, Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr directed his arrows against his partners in government, as though the
street demonstrations did not target him, the politician controlling the largest number of Iraqi
deputies, ministers and state officials, who had participated in the government for more than ten
years.
Major General Soleimani admonished Moqtada Al-Sadr for his stances, which contributed to
undermining the Iraqi ranks because the Sadrist leader did not offer an alternative solution or
practical project other than the chaos. Moqtada has his own men, the feared Saraya al-Salam, present
in the street.
When US Defense Secretary Mark Esper called Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi on December 28
and informed him of America's intentions of hitting Iraqi security targets inside Iraq, including the
PMU, Soleimani was very disappointed by Abdul-Mahdi's failure to effectively oppose Esper. Abdul-Mahdi
merely told Esper that the proposed US action was dangerous. Soleimani knew that the US would not have
hit Iraqi targets had Abdul-Mahdi dared to oppose the US decision.
The targeted areas were a
common Iranian-Iraqi operational stage to monitor and control ISIS movements on the borders with Syria
and Iraq.
The US would have reversed its decision had the Iraqi Prime Minister threatened the
US with retaliation in the event that Iraqi forces were bombed and killed. After all, the US had no
legal right to attack any objective in Iraq without the agreement of the Iraqi government.
This
decision was the moment when Iraq has lost its sovereignty and the US took control of the country.
This effective US control is another reason why President Trump gave the green light to kill Major
General Soleimani. The Iraqi front had demonstrated its weakness and also, it was necessary to select
a strong Iraqi leader with the guts to stand to the US arrogance and unlawful actions.
Iran has never controlled Iraq, as most analysts mistakenly believe and speculate. For years, the
US has worked hard in the corridors of the Iraqi political leadership lobby for its own interests. The
most energetic of its agents was US Presidential envoy Brett McGurk, who clearly realised the
difficulties of navigating inside Iraqi leaders' corridors during the search for a prime minister of
Iraq before the appointment of Adel Abdel Mahdi, the selection of President Barham Saleh and other
governments in the past. Major General Soleimani and McGurk shared an understanding of these
difficulties. Both understood the nature of the Iraqi political quagmire.
Soleimani did not give orders to fire missiles at US bases or attack the US Embassy. If it was in
his hands to destroy them with accurate missiles and to remove the entire embassy from its place
without repercussions, he would not have hesitated. But the Iraqis have their own opinions, methods,
modus operandi and selection of targets and missile calibres; they never relied on Soleimani for such
decisions.
Iranian involvement in Iraqi affairs was never welcomed by the Marjaiya in Najaf, even if it agreed
to receive Soleimani on a few occasions. They clashed over the reelection of Nuri al-Maliki,
Soleimani's preferred candidate, to the point that the Marjaiya wrote a letter making its refusal of
al-Maliki explicit. This led to the selection of Abadi as prime minister.
Soleimani's views contradicted the perception of the Marjaiya, that had to write a clear message,
firstly, to reject the re-election of Nori al-Maliki to a third session, despite Soleimani's
insistence.
All of the above is related to the stage that followed the 2011 departure of US forces from Iraq
under President Obama. Prior to that, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis was the link between the Iraqis and Iran:
he had the decision-making power, the vision, the support of various groups, and effectively served as
the representative of Soleimani, who did not interfere in the details. These Iraqi groups met with
Soleimani often in Iran; Soleimani rarely travelled to Iraq during the period of heavy US military
presence.
Soleimani, although he was the leader of the "Axis of the Resistance", was sometimes called "the
king" in some circles because his name evokes Solomon. According to sources within the "Axis of the
Resistance", he "never dictated his own policy but left a margin of movement and decision to all
leaders of the axis without exception. Therefore, he was considered the link between this axis and the
supreme leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei. Soleimani was able to contact Sayyed Khamenei at any time and
directly without mediation. The Leader of the revolution considered Soleimani as his son.
According to sources, in Syria, Soleimani "never hesitated to jump inside a truck, ride an ordinary
car, take the first helicopter, or travel on a transport or cargo plane as needed. He did not take any
security precautions but used his phone (which he called a companion spy) freely because he believed
that when the decision came to assassinate him, he would follow his destiny. He looked forward to
becoming a martyr because he had already lived long."
Was the leader of the "resistance axis" managing and running it?
Sayyed Ali Khamenei told Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: "You are an Arab and the Arabs accept you more
than they accept Iran". Sayyed Nasrallah directed and managed the axis of Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and
had an important role in Iraq. Hajj Soleimani was the liaison between the axis of the resistance and
Iran and he was the financial and logistical officer. According to my source, "He was a friend of all
leaders and officials of all ranks. He was humble and looked after everyone he had to deal with".
The "Axis of Resistance" indirectly allowed the killing of Qassem Soleimani. If Israel and the US
could know Sayyed Nasrallah's whereabouts, they would not hesitate a moment to assassinate him. They
may be aware: the reaction may be limited to burning flags and holding conferences and manifesting in
front of an embassy. Of course, this kind of reaction does not deter President Trump who wants to be
re-elected with the support of Israel and US public opinion. He wants to present himself as a warrior
and determined leader who loves battle and killing.
Iran invested 40 years building the "Axis of the Resistance". It cannot remain idle, faced
with the assassination of the Leader of this axis.
Would a suitable price be the US exit from
Iraq and condemnation in the Security Council? Would that, together with withdrawal from the nuclear
deal, be enough for Iran to avenge its General? Will the ensuing battle be confined to the Iraqi
stage? Will it be used for the victory of certain Iraqi political players?
The assassination of its leader represents the supreme test for the Axis of Resistance. All
sides, friend and foe, are awaiting its response.
Tags
Politics
gjohnsit on Mon,
01/06/2020 - 6:14pm Just a few days ago SoS Mike Pompeo said that we assassinated General Soleimani
to stop an 'imminent attack' on Americans.
No evidence was presented to back up this claim. We are just supposed to believe it.
It turns out that
Pompeo and VP Pence had pushed Trump hard to do this assassination.
Is Trump yet ruing the day he lent his ear to the siren songs of the Iran-obsessed neocons?
One can almost imagine the president, sitting in the makeshift situation room at Mar-a-Lago
just a few days ago surrounded with the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence,
Defense Secretary Esper, and his Pentagon advisors who breathlessly present him an
"opportunity" to kick the Iranian leadership in the face and also dismantle an operation in the
works to attack US military and civilian personnel in the region.
All he had to do was sign off on the assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, a man he likely
had never heard of a couple of years ago but who, he was told, was "responsible for killing
hundreds of Americans" in Iraq.
"Soleimani did 9/11!" - Pence helpfully yet insanely chimed in.
"You're not a wimp like Obama, who refused to assassinate this terrorist," he was probably
told. "You're decisive, a real leader. This one blow will change the entire calculus of the
Middle East," they likely told him. "If you take out Soleimani, I guarantee you that it will
have enormous positive reverberations on the region."
(Actually, that last one was from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to
Congress in 2002 where he promised the US that "If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I
guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." Brilliant
forecasting, Bibi.)
As could be expected, the cover story cooked up by the neocons and signed off on by Trump
started taking water the moment it was put to sea.
Soleimani was not traveling like a man plotting a complicated, multi-country assault on US
troops in the region. No false mustaches or James Bond maneuvers - he was flying commercial and
openly disembarked at the terminal of Baghdad International Airport. He was publicly met and
greeted by an Iraqi delegation and traveled relatively unguarded from the airport.
Until a US drone vaporized him and his entire entourage - which included a senior Iraqi
military officer.
The furious Iraqi acting-Prime Minister Mahdi immediately condemned the attack in the
strongest terms, openly calling for the expulsion of the US forces - who remain in Iraq
ostensibly to fight an ISIS that has long been defeated but, de facto , to keep the
beachhead clear for a US attack on Iran.
Arguing for the expulsion of the US in a special parliamentary session held on January 5th,
Mahdi spilled the truth about Soleimani's mission in Iraq: It was not to plot the killing of US
troops: it was to deliver a response from Iran to a peace overture from the Saudis, the result
of talks that were being facilitated by Iraq.
And the US side knew about the mission and had, according to press reports, encouraged Iraq
to facilitate the Iran/Saudi talks.
Did the US neocons and Pentagon warhawks like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.
Mike Milley knowingly exploit what they anticipated would be relatively lax security for a
peace mission between Iran and Saudi Arabia to assassinate Gen. Soleimani (with collateral
damage being Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization
Units)?
And, to drill a little deeper, which US "allies" would want to blow up any chance of peace
between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Factions within Saudi Arabia, where a fierce power struggle
rages below the surface? No doubt. In Israel, where Netanyahu continues fighting for his
political life (and freedom) with his entire political career built around mayhem and
destruction? Sure. It's not like Trump has ever been able to say "no" to the endless demands of
either Bibi or his Saudi counterpart in crime MBS.
Who knows, maybe Trump knew all along and was in on it. Make war on a peace mission.
Whatever the case, as always happens the neocons have steered things completely off the
rails. The cover story is in tatters, and the Iraqi democracy - for which we've been ostensibly
fighting for 16 years with a loss of US life in the thousands and of Iraqi life in the millions
- voted on Sunday that US forces must leave Iraq.
We destroyed Iraq to "give them democracy," but they had the nerve to exercise that
democracy to ask us to leave!
Iran could not believe its luck in the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, when it
soon became clear that Iraq would fall into their hands. Likewise, it appears that the
longstanding fervent wish of the Iranian leadership - the end of the US occupation of Iraq (and
Syria) - will soon be fulfilled thanks to Trump's listening to the always toxic advice of the
neocon warmongers.
Can Trump recover from this near-fatal mistake? It is possible. But with Trump's Twitter
finger threatening Iraq with "big big" sanctions and an even bigger bill to cover the cost of
our invasion and destruction of their country, it appears that his ability to learn from his
mistakes is limited. A bit less time on Twitter and a lot less time with the people who hate
his guts - Pompeo, Pence, Graham, etc. - might help.
Meanwhile...will Iran avenge Soleimani's murder directly, or using asymmetrical means?
Trump said of his decision to assassinate a top official from a country with which we are
not technically at war, "We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to
start a war." But it doesn't work that way. When you kill another country's top military
leadership you have definitely started a war.
What remains to be seen is how it will play out.
Sincerely yours,
Daniel McAdams
Executive Director
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
I agree with the first part. Disproportionate and barbarous threat of instant retaliation is
prt of terrorising and unsettling and even freezing the capacity to 'think'.
All thinking proceeds from presumptions, and one of the ways 'power' works deceit is in the
ability to set it up so that the 'controlled' or 'leveraged' believe that their thinking is
free while setting the fame of their perceived self-interest.
I just watched Corbett and Ryan Cristián of The Last American Vagabond on this issue,
that touches on a little of the military political context – a key part of which is the
'Israeli' agenda – and its style of 'politics' by pre-emptive strike under aggressively
defended narrative assertion.
As for what the US(a) CAN execute as all-out war is linked to the will to do so –
along with the costs or consequences of doing so. Meanwhile broad spectrum dominance operates
transnationally by stealth and deceit. The US(a) is wagged by its Corporate tails.
A significant part of masking tyranny under terror is the aggressively defended protection
racket. For some this means believing the narrative they are given and for others it means they
have to be seen to comply and conform to signal 'virtue' of allegiance under an enforced
narrative dictate or lose their jobs, and reputation and incur penalties of social exclusion
for the rest of their lives.
The act of state-endorsed murder without trial or evidences – that also kills others
in the vicinity – aimed anywhere in the world – based in classified 'intelligence'
that is without any oversight, accountability or challenge – is seeking to be as 'gods
over men' – indeed a 'god' jealous of any and all rival as monopoly over life on earth
– such as will survive under such a parasitic and destructive deceit. 7 0 Reply
Soleimani was not feared by U.S. (and Israeli and Saudi) policymakers because primarily he
was a terrorist (though he sometimes used terror tactics) but mostly because he successful.
According to journalist Yossi Mellman, Israeli intelligence assessed him as "a
daring and talented commander , despite the considerable number of mistakes in his
assessments and failed operations in the course of his career."
First, Soleimani played a key role in driving U.S. occupation forces out of Iraq. As Al-Quds
commander he presided over the creation of anti-American militias in 2003 that mounted deadly
attacks on the U.S. forces seeking to establish a pro-American government. One Iraqi militia
leader, Qais
al-Khazali , who debriefed U.S. intelligence officers in 2008, said he had "a few meetings"
with Soleimani and other Iranian officials of similar rank.
According to Khazali, Soleimani did not take part in the operational
activities–providing weapons, training or cash. He left those tasks to deputies or
intermediaries. Under Iranian tutelage, these militias specialized in using improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) to kill upwards of
600 soldiers in the U.S. occupation forces, according to general David Petraeus.
Soleimani's attacks–along with the manifest failure of U.S. goals to reduce terrorism
and spread democracy–contributed to President Obama's politically popular decision to
withdraw of most U.S. troops in 2011. Forcing the U.S. out of Iraq was a priority for the
government in Tehran, and Soleimani helped achieve it.
Nemesis of ISIS
Second, Soleimani played a key role in driving ISIS out of Iraq–a victory in which the
United States ironically helped boost his reputation.
In this battle, Soleimani took advantage of U.S. vulnerability, not hubris. When ISIS leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed an Islamic State in western Iraq six years ago, Tehran was just
as alarmed as Washington. The Sunni fundamentalists of ISIS regard the Shia Muslims of Iran and
Iraq as infidels, almost as contemptible as Americans and Israelis.
After the regular Iraqi armed forces collapsed, Iraqi Ayotollah Ali Sistani blessed the
creation of Shia militias to save the country.
Sistani's fatwa empowered Iran to mobilize and expanded Soleimani's militia network. The
Iranian-sponsored fighters, along with the Kurdish pesh merga, proceeded to do most of the
bloody street fighting that drove ISIS out of Mosul, Kirkuk and other Iraqi cities.
As Soleimani moved about openly in Iraq, U.S. commanders did not attack him because he did
not attack them. Sometimes, pro-American and pro-Iranian soldiers even fought side by
side. Thanks to this tacit U.S.-Iranian cooperation that neither country cared to publicly
acknowledge, ISIS was expelled from Iraq into Syria by 2017.
In Iran, Soleimani emerged as a hero in the fight against the deadliest religious fanatics
on the planet, especially after ISIS had carried out a terror attack in Tehran on June 2017
that killed
12 people.
In Iraq, the rout of ISIS enhanced the prestige of Soleimani and the Iranian-backed
militias. Some of their leaders entered politics and business, drawing complaints
about–and
demonstrations against -- heavy-handed Iranian influence. Many Iraqis grew unhappy about
Iran's new influence, but success made Soleimani an indispensable security partner for the
embattled government in Baghdad. That's why he visited Iraq last week.
Besting the CIA
Third, Soleimani helped defeat ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Syria's civil war. In 2015, President
Bashar al-Assad's armed forces were losing ground to Sunni fundamentalist forces funded by the
CIA and the Persian Gulf oil monarchies. The CIA wanted to overthrow Assad. Iran feared losing
its ally in Damascus to a hostile anti-Shia regime controlled by al-Qaeda. Obama feared another
Iraq and refused to commit U.S. forces.
Soleimani brought in Iranian advisers and fighters from Hezbollah, the Shia militia of
Lebanon which Iran has supported since the 1980s. With help from merciless Russian bombing and
Syrian chemical attacks , the Iranian-trained ground forces helped Syria turn the tide on
the jihadists. The CIA, under directors Leon Panetta, John Brennan and Mike Pompeo, spent
$1
billion dollars to overthrow Assad. They had less influence on the outcome than
Soleimani.
The net effect of Soleimani's three victories -- abetted by U.S. crimes and blunders -- was,
for better or worse, to bolster Iranian influence across the region. From Afghanistan in the
east to the Mediterranean in the West, Iran gained political ground, thanks to Soleimani. He
perfected the art of asymmetric warfare, using local proxies, political alliances, deniable
attacks, and selective terrorism to achieve the government's political goals.
(Soleimani, it is worth noting, had no record of attacking non-uniformed Americans. While
Pompeo said that Soleimani "had inflicted so much suffering on Americans," it is a fact that
not a single
American civilian was killed in an Iranian-backed terror attack between 2001 to 2019.)
Iran's cumulative successes provoked dismay Washington (and Tel Aviv and Riyadh). In the
course of the 21st century, Iran overcome international isolation and to actually gain, not
lose, advantage to its regional rivals. He also became a media personality in the regime using
selfies from the battlefield to promote an image of an accessible general who liked to rub
shoulders with his men.
Along the way, Iran maintained a terrible record on human rights at home, persecuting
journalists, bloggers, and women who spurn the hijab. Iran's
Ministry of Intelligence and Security didn't kill Americans but it did take a number of
hostages, including
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian . Across the region, Iran's ambitions stirred up
widespread opposition from secular, feminist, and nationalist movements that reject the theory
and practice of Iranian theocracy.
These non-violent movements, however, never advocated that the United States attack their
country. They are not welcoming Soleimani's death, and they are unlikely to support the U.S.
(or Israeli) attacks in the coming conflict. Quite the contrary. The anti-Iranian
demonstrations in Iran and Iraq are over for the foreseeable future. Iranians and Iraqis who
publicly supported the United States and opposed the mullahs, have been silenced. In death as
in life, Soleimani had diminished the U.S. influence in the Middle East.
This article first appeared on Jefferson Morley's TheDeepStateBlog .
"... Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. ..."
"... As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example: ..."
"... Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and actions of Muqtada al-Sadr. ..."
"... Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was. ..."
Before discussing what happens next and the big picture implications, it's worth pointing
out the incredible number of blatant lies and overall clownishness that emerged from U.S.
officials in the assassination's aftermath. It started with
claims from Trump that Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on Americans and was caught
in the act. Mass media did its job and uncritically parroted this line, which was quickly
exposed as a complete falsehood.
CNN anchor uncritically repeating government lies.
This is what mass media does to get wars going. https://t.co/QK1JET7TIj
It's incredibly telling that CNN would swallow this fact-free claim with total credulity
within weeks of discovering the extent of the lies told about
Syrian chemical attacks and
the Afghanistan war . Meanwhile, when a reporter asked a state department official for some
clarification on what sorts of attacks were imminent, this is what transpired.
When asked by a reporter for details about what kinds of imminent attacks Soleimani was
planning, the State Dept. responds with:
"Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?"
Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as
part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to
Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth
get in the way of a good story.
Iraqi Prime Minister AbdulMahdi accuses Trump of deceiving him in order to assassinate
Suleimani. Trump, according to P.M. lied about wanting a diplomatic solution in order to get
Suleimani on a plane to Baghdad in the open, where he was summarily executed. https://t.co/HKjyQqXNqP
As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who
genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example:
Pompeo on CNN says US has "every expectation" that people "in Iran will view the American
action last night as giving them freedom."
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani's daughter Zeinab were
among the hundreds of thousands mourning Soleimani in Tehran today. Iranian state TV put the
crowd size at 'millions,' though that number could not be verified. https://t.co/R6EbKh6Gow
Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future
role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important
things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a
resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and
actions of Muqtada al-Sadr.
WOW,
Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr orders the return of "Mahdi Army" in response the
American strike that killed Suleimani.
Mahdi Army fought against the US troops during the invasion in 2003. Sadr disbanded the
group in 2008.
Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been
a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either
country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him
to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more
dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was.
Going forward, Iran's response will be influenced to a great degree by what's already
transpired. There are three things worth noting. First, although many Trump supporters are
cheering the assassination, Americans are certainly
nowhere near united on this , with many including myself viewing it as a gigantic strategic
blunder. Second, it ratcheted up anti-American sentiment in Iraq to a huge degree without Iran
having to do anything, as highlighted above. Third, hardliners within Iran have been given an
enormous gift. With one drone strike, the situation went from grumblings and protests on the
ground to a scene where any sort of dissent in the air has been extinguished for the time
being.
Exactly right, which is why Iran will go more hardline if anything and more united.
If China admitted to taking out Trump even Maddow wouldn't cheer. https://t.co/zqaEDIoWH1
Iranian leadership will see these developments as important victories in their own right and
will likely craft a response taking stock of this much improved position. This means a total
focus on making the experience of American troops in the region untenable, which will be far
easier to achieve now.
If that's right, you can expect less shock and awe in the near-term, and more consolidation
of the various parties that were on the fence but have since shifted to a more anti-American
stance following Soleimani's death. Iran will start with the easy pickings, which consists of
consolidating its stronger position in Iraq and making dissidents feel shameful at home. That
said, Iran will have to publicly respond with some sort of a counterattack, but that event will
be carefully considered with Iran's primary objective in mind -- getting U.S. troops out of the
region.
This means no attacks on U.S. or European soil, and no attacks targeting civilians either.
Such a move would be as strategically counterproductive as Assad gassing Syrian cities after he
was winning the war (which is why many of us doubted the narrative) since it would merely
inflame American public opinion and give an excuse to attack Iran in Iran. There is no way
Iranian leadership is that stupid, so any such attack must be treated with the utmost
skepticism.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has offered Iraq Tuesday the option to
purchase the world's most advanced missile defense system to protect its airspace, reported
RIA Novosti .
According to the report, the Iraqi Armed Forces could purchase the Russian S-400 Triumf air
defense system, which RIA points out, can "ensure the country's sovereignty and reliable
airspace protection."
"Iraq is a partner of Russia in the field of military-technical cooperation, and the Russian
Federation can supply the necessary funds to ensure the sovereignty of the country and reliable
protection of airspace, including the supply of S-400 missiles and other components of the air
defense system, such as Buk-M3, Tor -M2 "and so on," said Igor Korotchenko, Russian Defense
Ministry's Public Council member.
For the last several months, Iraq has considered purchasing Russian air defense and missile
systems, including the S-400, however, it has been met with fierce pressure from the US.
But with a political crisis between the US and Iraq underway, thanks partly to the US
assassination of Iran's Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Russia could profit as Iraq attempts to
decouple from the US.
Wow! I just suggested it yesterday! 😀 After Iraq kicks the US out, it would need
protection from American/Israeli warplanes. And Russian S-400 can do the job https://t.co/KCz3v705l1
Russia signaling Iraq to continue pushing out foreign troops from their territory with
less fear they gonna be targeted just like exemplified Sulemani when they took out like that
since Iraq can have S-400 and Russian protection if they wanted etc
well well this pesky Russian understands protections will boast their push of the great
satan?
First things first. There are NO legal/formal obligations between
Russia and Iran and last time I checked, no Iranians have volunteered to die for Russia. Next, yes, Iran is an
important ally for Russia. But what most folks are missing is that Iran does not need (or want) a direct Russian
intervention. There are lots of reasons (including historical ones) to this. But what most folks are completely
misunderstanding is that
the Iranians are confident that they can win without any Russian (or other) help
.
I am in touch with a lot of folks from the Middle-East (including Iran) and I can tell you that their mood is one
of not only total determination, but one of quiet confidence. Nobody in the region doubts that it's now over for
Uncle Shmuel. I know, this sounds incredible for folks living in the West, but that is the reality in the
Middle-East.
From 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'
Besides, you can be sure that Russia will help Iran, but behind the scenes. First and foremost with
intelligence: while the Iranian have an extremely sophisticated intelligence community, it is dwarfed by the much
larger Russian one which, on top of being much bigger, also has technical means which Iran can only dream about.
Russia can also help with early warning and targeting. We can't know what is really going behind the scenes, but I
am getting reports that the Russians are on full alert (as they were during the first Gulf war, alas – Saddam
Hussein did not listen to the Russian warnings).
6)
Should Russia declare that Iran is now under Russian protection
? Absolutely not! Why? Think
of what is taking place as if you were sitting in the Kremlin: the Empire is about to embark on its last war (yes,
I mean that, see further below) and the Russian specialists all KNOW that the US will lose, and badly. Why in the
world would you intervene when your "main foe" (KGB/SVR/FSB expression for "USA") is about to do something
terminally stupid?
Besides, this is a cultural issue too. In the West, threats are constantly used. Not only to scare the enemy,
but also to feel less terrified yourself. In Asia (and Russia is far more culturally Asian than European) threats
are seen as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve. In this entire career, Putin used a threat only ONCE: to
convince the Urkonazis that attacking during the World Cup would have "severe consequences for the Ukrainian
statehood".
But you have to understand that from a Russian point of view, the Ukraine is militarily so weak as to be
laughable as an enemy and nobody in his right mind will ever doubt the outcome of a Ukie war with Russia. This is
an extreme and exceptional case. But look at the case of the Russian intervention in Syria: unlike their western
counterparts, the Russians did not first spend weeks threatening ISIS or anybody else in Syria. When Putin took
the decision, they simply moved in, so quietly that THE BEST military in the galaxy never detected the Russian
move.
So, IF, and I don't think that this will happen, Russia ever decided to move in to protect Iran, the US will
find out about it when US servicemen will die in large numbers. Until then, Russia will not be issuing threats.
Again, in the West threats are a daily occurrence. In the East, they are a sign of weakness.
Now you know why US threats are totally ineffective.
7)
US force levels in the Middle-East.
The US maintains a large network of bases all around
Iran and throughout the entire planet, really. The real numbers are secret, of course, but let us assume, for
argument sake, that the US has about 100'000 soldiers more or less near Iran. The actual figure does not matter
(and the Iranians know it anyway). What is crucial is this: this does NOT mean that the US has 100'000 soldiers
ready to attack Iran. A lot of that personnel is not really combat capable (the ratio of combat ready vs support
ranges from country to country and from war to war, but let's just say that most of these 100'000 are NOT combat
soldiers). Not only that, but there is a big difference between, say, many companies and battalions in a region
and a real armored division. For example, the 82nd AB is an INFANTRY force, not really mechanized, not capable of
engaging say, an armored brigade.
Here is a historical sidebar: during the first Gulf war, the US also sent in the 82nd AB as the central force
of the operation "Desert Shield". And here is where Saddam Hussein committed his WORST blunder of all. If he had
sent in his armored divisions across the Saudi border he would have made minced meat of the 82nd. The US knew
that. In fact, Cheney was once asked what the US would have done if the Iraqis has destroyed the 82nd. He replied
that the first line of defense was airpower on USN aircraft carriers and cruise missiles. And if that failed, the
US would have had to use tactical nukes to stop the Iraqi divisions. That would be one of those instances were
using nukes WOULD make sense from a purely military point of view (nukes are great to deal with armor!), but from
a political point of view it would have been a PR disaster (
vide supra
). The same is true today.
For the US to engage in any serious ground operation it would need many months to get the force levels high
enough and you can be darn sure that Iran would NEVER allow that. Should Uncle Shmuel try to send in a real, big,
force into the KSA you can be sure that the Iranians will strike with everything they have!
The bottom line is this:
the US has more than enough assets in the region to strike/bomb Iran. The US
has nowhere near the kind of force levels to envision a major ground operation even in Iraq, nevermind Iran!
8)
What about the Strait of Hormuz?
There is no doubt in my mind that Iran can close the
Strait of Hormuz. In fact, all the Iranians need to do to close it is say that they reserve the right to destroy
(by whatever means) any ship attempting passage. That will be enough to stop all traffic. Of course, if that
happens the US will have no other option than to attack the southern cost of Iran and try to deal with that
threat. And yes, I am sorry of I disappoint my Iranian friends, I do believe that the US could probably re-open
the Strait of Hormuz, but that will require "boots on the ground" in southern Iran and that is something which
might yield an initial success, but that will turn into a massive military disaster in the medium to long run
because the Iranians will have not only have time on their side, but they will have a dream come true: finally the
US GIs will be within reach, literally. So, typically, the US will prevail coming in, only to find itself in a
trap.
9)
Do the Iranians seek death?
This is an important one (thanks to Larchmonter 445 for
suggesting this!). The short answer is no. Not at all. Iranians want to live and they do not seek death. HOWEVER,
they also know that death in defense of Islam or in defense of the oppressed is an act of "witness to God", which
is what the Arabic word "
shahid
" is (and why the Greek work μάρτυς "martis" means). What does that mean?
That means that while Muslim soldiers should not seek their death, and while they ought to do everything in their
power to remain alive, they are NOT afraid of death in the least. To fully understand this mindset, you need only
become aware of the most famous and crucial Shia slogan "
Every Day Is Ashura and Every Land Is Karbala
"
(see explanation
here
).
If I had to translate this into a Christian frame of reference I would suggest this "every day is Good/Passion
Friday and every land is the Golgotha". That is to say, "
no matter were you are and no matter what time it is,
you have to be willing to sacrifice your life for God and for the defense of the oppressed
". So no, Iranians
are a joyful people (as are Arabs), and they don't seek death. But neither do they fear it and they accept, with
gratitude, the possibility of having to sacrifice their lives in defense of justice and truth. This is one more
reason why threats by terminal imbeciles like Pompeo or Trump have no effect whatsoever on Muslims.
10)
So what is really happening now?
Folks,
this is the beginning of the end for the
Empire
. Yes, I know, this sounds incredible, yet this is exactly what we are seeing happening before our
eyes. The very best which the US can hope for now is a quick and complete withdrawal from the Middle-East. For a
long list of political reason, that does not seem a realistic scenario right now. So what next? A major war
against Iran and against the entire "Shia crescent" ? Not a good option either. Not only will the US lose, but it
would lose both politically and militarily. Limited strikes? Not good either, since we know that Iran will
retaliate massively. A behind the scenes major concession to appease Iran? Nope, ain't gonna happen either since
if the Iranians let the murder of Soleimani go unpunished, then Hassan Nasrallah, Bashar al-Assad and even
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be the next ones to be murdered. A massive air campaign? Most likely, and initially
this will feel good (lots of flagwaving in the USA), but soon this will turn into a massive disaster. Use nukes?
Sure, and destroy your political image forever and not only in the Middle-East but worldwide.
As a perfect illustration, just check
the
latest stupid threat made by Trump
: "
If they do ask us to leave, if we don't do it in a very friendly
basis, we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look
somewhat tame"
. Folk, this is exactly the kind of stupid language which will deeply offend any Iraqi patriot.
This is the kind of language which comes out of an empire in the late stages of agony.
Trump will go down in history as the man who thought he could scare the Iranian and Iraqi people with "tweets".
Pathetic indeed.
CONCLUSION
I hope that these pointers will be useful, especially when you are going to be hit with a massive Tsunami of US
flagwaving propaganda (Trump "we are THE BEST"). Simply put: this is bullshit. Modern wars are first and foremost
propaganda wars, and what you see as the output of US ruling elites are just that – "information operations". Let
them wave their (Chinese made) flags, let them declare "United we stand" (for what exactly they stand is never
specified) and let them repeat that the US military is the MOST FORMIDABLE FORCE IN THE GALAXY. These are nothing
but desperate attempts to control the narrative, nothing else.
Oh, and one more irony: while the GOP controlled Senate is most unlikely to ever impeach Trump, is it not
pathetically hilarious that Trump has now, indeed, committed acts ought to have him removed from office? Of
course, in the real world, the US Neocon deep-state controls BOTH parties and BOTH parties fully support a war
against Iran. Still, this is one of those ironies of history which should be mentioned.
I will resume my work tomorrow morning.
Until then, I wish you call a good nite/morning/day.
President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate
Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani last week because he was planning "Imminent attacks" on US citizens.
I don't believe them.
Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about
Iran for the past three years in an effort to whip up enough support for a US attack. From the
phony justification to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, to blaming Yemen on Iran, to blaming
Iran for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US Administration has fed us a steady stream of
lies for three years because they are obsessed with Iran.
And before Trump's obsession with attacking Iran, the past four US Administrations lied
ceaselessly to bring about wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Somalia, and the
list goes on.
At some point, when we've been lied to constantly and consistently for decades about a
"threat" that we must "take out" with a military attack, there comes a time where we must
assume they are lying until they provide rock solid, irrefutable proof. Thus far they have
provided nothing. So I don't believe them.
President Trump has warned that his administration has already targeted 52 sites important
to Iran and Iranian culture and the US will attack them if Iran retaliates for the
assassination of Gen. Soleimani. Because Iran has no capacity to attack the United States,
Iran's retaliation if it comes will likely come against US troops or US government officials
stationed or visiting the Middle East. I have a very easy solution for President Trump that
will save the lives of American servicemembers and other US officials: just come home. There is
absolutely no reason for US troops to be stationed throughout the Middle East to face increased
risk of death for nothing.
In our Ron Paul Liberty Report program last week we observed that the US attack on a senior
Iranian military officer on Iraqi soil – over the objection of the Iraq government
– would serve to finally unite the Iraqi factions against the United States. And so it
has: on Sunday the Iraqi parliament voted to expel US troops from Iraqi soil. It may have been
a non-binding resolution, but there is no mistaking the sentiment. US troops are not wanted and
they are increasingly in danger. So why not listen to the Iraqi parliament?
Bring our troops home, close the US Embassy in Baghdad – a symbol of our aggression
– and let the people of the Middle East solve their own problems. Maintain a strong
defense to protect the United States, but end this neocon pipe-dream of ruling the world from
the barrel of a gun. It does not work. It makes us poorer and more vulnerable to attack. It
makes the elites of Washington rich while leaving working and middle class America with the
bill. It engenders hatred and a desire for revenge among those who have fallen victim to US
interventionist foreign policy. And it results in millions of innocents being killed
overseas.
There is no benefit to the United States to trying to run the world. Such a foreign policy
brings only bankruptcy – moral and financial. Tell Congress and the Administration that
for America's sake we demand the return of US troops from the Middle East! (Republished from
The Ron Paul Institute by permission of author or representative)
"Unlike with North Korea, it's difficult to imagine any photo op or exchange of love letters
defusing the crisis the president has created. " The only thing that might defuse this crisis
would be the Senate convicting Trump and removing him from office. It would be a good idea if
the House passes another article of impeachment accusing the president of committing an act
of war without Congressional authorization.
Threatening to destroy cultural sites of a country is the sign of a deranged madman. I can't
believe a US president would dare say something like that. It goes against all the principles
America stands for. Nothing will motivate the people of Iran to fight the US more than the
threat of destruction to their cultural sites. If we go to war with Iran, this is a
Republican war. They own it. When are decent Republicans going to stand up and do the right
thing? If they don't, this could be very, very, bad.
The Defense department is already walking back Trump's tweet about bombing Iran culture
sites. Unfortunately, it's too late because the damage to our reputation as the "shining
light on the hill" has already been destroyed. I'm afraid more than now than I have ever been
in my life. Who knows when or where the revenge will occur but I'm fairly certain it will
happen and we'll be more isolated than ever before. It's taken centuries to build goodwill
and our reputation as a beacon of democracy for the world. We gave the keys to the kingdom to
a false prophet and we'll pay for his indiscretions for the rest of my lifetime. God help us
all.
After three harrowing years, we've reached the point many of us feared from the moment
Donald Trump was elected. His decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's second most
important official, made at Mar-a-Lago with little discernible
deliberation , has brought the United States to the brink of a devastating new conflict in
the Middle East.
We don't yet know how Iran will retaliate, or whether all-out war will be averted. But
already, NATO has suspended its mission training Iraqi forces to
fight ISIS . Iraq's Parliament has voted to expel American troops -- a longtime Iranian
objective. (On Monday, U.S. forces sent a letter saying they were withdrawing from Iraq in
response, only to then claim that it was a
draft released in error .) On Sunday, Iran said it will no longer be bound by the remaining
restrictions on its nuclear program in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal that
Trump abandoned in 2018. Trump has been threatening to commit war crimes by destroying Iran's
cultural sites and tried to use Twitter to notify
Congress of his intention to respond to any Iranian reprisals with military escalation.
The administration has said that the killing of Suleimani was justified by an imminent
threat to American lives, but there is no reason to believe this. One skeptical American
official told The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated nothing but
"a normal Monday in the Middle East," and Democrats briefed on it were
unconvinced by the administration's case. The Washington Post reported that Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo -- who last year agreed with a Christian Broadcasting
Network interviewer that God might have sent Trump to save Israel from the "Iranian menace"
-- has been pushing for a hit on Suleimani for months.
MASTER OF UNIVE American corporations will start falling into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Q1 if
the USA MIC cannot find new contracts to profit from via kinetic war. The USA's last war was
Iraq post-911 and the USA MIC made good money & profit from that war. Without forever wars
the USA Ponzi Corporatocracy will deflate. If the USA Ponzi Corporatocracy deflates due to
recession it means the end of USA Imperialism.
If the hawks can generate forever wars the MIC suppliers may have a chance to stay in business,
but if they don't get new contracts for new forever wars they all know implicitly that that is
a Zero Sum game for the entire USA population.
BIG Chief Trump little penis has only one chance to stay in power at this juncture. He has
ordered troupes to Iraq and approximately 2000 marines are on the way right now. In brief, 2000
marines were not ordered to Iraq to escort the base troupes out of Iraq safely. They were sent
on a mission.
Impeachment, DOW Share Price, and no Trade Deal with China will put Trump on the defensive
and he will start threatening everyone in the world if he does not get his way.
Trump is the kind of child leader that will throw temper tantrums in front of the world.
Temper tantrums worked with his parents, and the Real Estate community in New York shitty.
Trump is a child of roughly 6 or 7 mentally & socially. Id impulses are running the
world here and when id impulses run the world from the White House we are certain that whatever
manifests will be destructive beyond imagination for most adults in the world.
Children with anger management issues & rage issues will understand Trump best.
It's all about the level of geopolitical control of oil-rich regions. In other words Carter
doctrine.
Notable quotes:
"... Don't expect any American journalists to remind viewers that one of Soleimani's achievements was not only to command the entire Iraqi army's campaign against ISIS, but also to do that in cooperation with U.S. forces. ..."
"... Trump doesn't really read. Or even take solace from history. If he did, he would know that many U.S. presidents actually lost the vote at the crucial moment, because of their bungling in the Middle East and, in particular, in Iran. President Reagan for example won the White House in November 1980 after the failed rescue mission of U.S. hostages in April of that year in Iran went spectacularly wrong which gave a "landslide" victory to the former B-movie actor from Hollywood ..."
"... Trump's strike does ring of a president, struggling with an impeachment campaign gaining momentum, who may feel has nothing to lose other than to repeat history, which has doomed him, like Carter or Reagan (who never survived Iran-Contra). ..."
"... But his reckless folly in the Middle East is also a test of how far relations with the U.S. and the rest of the world can go, before something breaks. The assassination of the Iranian general could drive a huge divide between the U.S. and the EU in the next term, if Trump can secure re-election as it will be Europe which pays the real price when the region boils over. ..."
I personally do not think that the strike was a typically
capricious move by Trump. I am more inclined to believe that it has been in the works for a
long time and his advisers might well have offered it to him as a preferable retaliation option
against the Iranian downing of a U.S. drone in June of last year – where Trump floundered
and finally held back from launching a conventional military attack on Iranian forces, through
fear of civilians being killed, or so he claims.
What we are witnessing is unprecedented in the region. It has caught everyone off guard,
even the democrats in the U.S., who can barely believe the stupidity of the move, which
arguably, is a measured one. Trump believes that he can come out the winner of a pseudo war
– or a proxy one – in the region, even though the Iranians have demonstrated that
they easily have the capability of shutting down Saudi Arabia's oil exports with a relatively
minor salvo of ordinance.
In fact, Saudi Arabia might well, in my view, be part of this latest move. Much has been
made of the petulant twitter goading of Tehran's Supreme leader to Trump directly, which may
well have pushed him over a line. But in reality, there is something much deeper and nefarious
at play which may well be the true basis of why the decision was taken for the assassination:
to destroy any possibilities of Iran and Saudi Arabia patching up their differences and
continuing in dialogue, to avoid further tensions.
There is ample evidence to show that since the oilfield attacks carried out by Iran, Saudi
crown prince Mohamed bin Salman has softened his stance on Iran and was looking at ways,
through intermediaries, to build a working relation. It was early days and progress was
slow.
But the Soleimani hit will blow that idea right out of the water. In one fell swoop, the
strike galvanises and polarises an anti-Iran front from Saudi Arabia and Israel, which, whilst
doing wonders for U.S. arms procurement will cause more tension in the region as it places
countries like Qatar, UAE, Turkey and Oman in a really awkward spot with regards to how it
should continue to work with Tehran. It may well put back the Qatar blockade to its earlier
position as 'rogue state' in the region, prompting it to possibly even go rogue and get more
involved in the battle to take Tripoli (supporting Turkish forces, obviously, who are with the
UN-recognised government).
In fact, there is an entire gamut of consequences to the move, beyond merely Iran seeking to
take revenge against America's allies in the region. It is less about a declaration of war
against Iran but more a declaration of anti-peace towards the entire Arab world, which was
starting to unfold in the last six months since Trump stepped back from the region and stood
down from a retaliation strike against Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. Trump is gambling that he
can sustain Saudi Arabia's oil being disrupted and even body bags of U.S. soldiers in Syria and
Iraq in return for a fresh wave of popularity from people too ignorant to understand or wish to
comprehend the nuances of the Middle East and how so many U.S. presidents use the pretext of a
war, or heightened tensions, as part of their chest-beating, shallow popularity campaign.
Don't expect any American journalists to remind viewers that one of Soleimani's
achievements was not only to command the entire Iraqi army's campaign against ISIS, but also to
do that in cooperation with U.S. forces.
Trump doesn't really read. Or even take solace from history. If he did, he would know
that many U.S. presidents actually lost the vote at the crucial moment, because of their
bungling in the Middle East and, in particular, in Iran. President Reagan for example won the
White House in November 1980 after the failed rescue mission of U.S. hostages in April of that
year in Iran went spectacularly wrong which gave a "landslide" victory to the former B-movie
actor from Hollywood .
Reagan, in turn, carried on the great tradition of Middle East histrionics by his notably
'mad dog' Libya campaign, which ran concurrent to two devastating attacks on U.S. soldiers and
embassy staff in Lebanon, while two different CIA teams worked against each other in trying to
secure the release of U.S. hostages in Beirut – while all along he was selling illegal
arms to the Iranians and using the cash to fund Contras in Nicaragua.
Trump's strike does ring of a president, struggling with an impeachment campaign gaining
momentum, who may feel has nothing to lose other than to repeat history, which has doomed him,
like Carter or Reagan (who never survived Iran-Contra).
But his reckless folly in the Middle East is also a test of how far relations with the
U.S. and the rest of the world can go, before something breaks. The assassination of the
Iranian general could drive a huge divide between the U.S. and the EU in the next term, if
Trump can secure re-election as it will be Europe which pays the real price when the region
boils over.
Martin Jay is an award -winning freelance journalist and political
commentator
Trump has from the beginning of his presidential campaign appealed to the worst and most
fascistic elements in American political life. At a time when the US has no credible peer
military rival, he added hundreds of billions of dollars to the Pentagon budget, and the pudgy
old chicken hawk lionized war criminals. Up until now, however, Trump shrewdly calculated that
his base was tired of wasting blood and treasure on fruitless Middle Eastern wars, and he
avoided taking more than symbolic steps. He dropped a big missile on Afghanistan once, and
fired some Tomahawk Cruise missiles at Syria. But he drew back from the brink of more extensive
military engagements.
Now, by murdering Qasem Soleimani , the
head of the Jerusalem (Qods) Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Trump has
brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. Mind you, Iran's leadership is too
shrewd to rush to the battlements at this moment, and will be prepared to play the long game.
My guess is that they will encourage their allies among Iraqi Shiites to get up a massive
protest at the US embassy and at bases housing US troops.
They will be aided in this task of mobilizing Iraqis by the simultaneous US assassination of
Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis , the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces. Al-Muhandis is a senior
military figure in the Iraqi armed forces, not just a civilian militia figure. Moreover, the
Kata'ib Hizbullah that he headed is part of a strong political bloc, al-Fath, which has
48 members in parliament and forms a key coalition partner for the current, caretaker prime
minister, Adil Abdulmahdi. Parliament won't easily be able to let this outrage pass.
The US officer corps is confident that the American troops at the embassy and elsewhere in
Baghdad are sufficient to fight off any militia invasion. I'm not sure they have taken into
account the possibility of tens of thousands of civilian protesters invading the
embassy, who can't simply be taken out and shot.
Trump may be counting on the unpopularity among the youth protesters in downtown Baghdad,
Basra, Nasiriya and other cities of Soleimani and of al-Muhandis to blunt the Iraqi reaction to
the murders. The thousands of youth protesters cheered on hearing the news of their deaths,
since they were accused of plotting a violent repression of the rallies demanding an end to
corruption.
Iraq, however, is a big, complex society, and there are enormous numbers of Iraqi Shiites
who support the Popular Mobilization Forces and who view them as the forces that saved Iraq
from the peril of the ISIL (ISIS) terrorist organization. The Shiite hard liners would not need
all Iraqis to back them in confronting the American presence, only a few hundred thousand for
direct crowd action.
You also have to wonder whether Trump and his coterie aren't planning a coup in Iraq. In the
absence of a coup, the Iraqi parliament will almost certainly be forced, after this violation
of Iraqi national sovereignty, to vote to expel American troops. This is foreseeable. So either
the assassination was a drive-by on the way out, or Trump's war cabinet doesn't plan on having
to leave Iraq.
Not only Mossad but probably many others would like to see a suicide bomber blow himself
up somewhere in the US killing alot of people. That makes it difficult to figure out who
did it and maybe impossible to figure it out. It would be a mess.
But they could always find an un-scorched Iranian passport in mint condition among the
debris of the explosion.
"We have learned today from #Iraq Prime Minister AdilAbdl Mahdi how @realDonaldTrump uses
diplomacy:
#US asked #Iraq to mediate with #Iran. Iraq PM asks #QassemSoleimani to come and talk to him
and give him the answer of his mediation, Trump &co assassinate an envoy at the airport."
Whether he is eating ice cream or not, Trump appears to be on a rampage to recreate the
end of The Godfather.
Less than 24 hours after a US drone shockingly killed the top Iranian military leader,
Qasem Soleimani, resulting in equity markets groaning around the globe in fear over Iranian
reprisals (and potentially, World War III), the US has gone for round two with Reuters and
various other social media sources reporting that US air strikes targeting Iraq's Popular
Mobilization Units umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias near camp Taji north
of Baghdad, have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said
late on Friday.
Now would be the perfect time for the Mossad to do its false flag shtick. They wouldn't even
have to try very hard to pin it on Iran. I'll bet that when the news came out that the
Iranian guy had been killed, every neocon on the planet popped a boner that will last for
days. Michael Ledeen is probably mazel tov-ing his ass off.
I don't care about the dead Muslim who got killed, since that's the only kind of "good
Muslim" you're ever going to find, but I would still prefer for the U.S. to get out of the
Middle East altogether. Let those two warring anti-Christ peoples kill each other to their
hearts' content.
"I think there should be open hearings on this subject," Schiff told the
Washington Post in an interview published Monday. "The president has put us on a path where we may be at war with Iran. That
requires the Congress to fully engage."
Asked for his thoughts on President Trump warning Iran that the U.S. will hit 52 sites, including cultural sites, if Tehran retaliates
the California Democrat said: "None of that could come out of the Pentagon. Absolutely no way."
... ... ...
Schiff 's comments to the Post come after he suggested Secretary of State Mike Pompeo misrepresented intelligence indicating
that killing Soleimani saved American lives.
"It was a reckless decision that increased the risk to America all around the world, not decreased it. When Secretary Pompeo says
that this decision to take out Qasem Soleimani saved American lives, saved European lives, he is expressing a personal opinion, not
an intelligence conclusion," he
told CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper. "I think it will increase the risk to Americans around the world. I have
not seen the intelligence that taking out Soleimani was going to either stop the plotting that is going on or decrease other risks
to the United States."
Now we know the composition of the neocon gang that fooled malleable, jingoistic and incompetent Trump: "Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Pompeo, National Security
Adviser Robert O'Brien and Milley".
Notable quotes:
"... The administration has failed to connect the dots in a way that provides a clear picture of an imminent threat and that argument has been obscured by inconsistent messaging from US officials. ..."
"... Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland also told CNN that one of his representatives was at the Friday briefing and said "nothing that came out of the briefing changed my view that this was an unnecessary escalation of the situation in Iraq and Iran." ..."
"... Van Hollen went on to say: "While I can't tell you what was said, I can tell you, I have no additional information to support the administration's claim that this was an imminent attack on Americans." ..."
Washington (CNN) Top US national security officials continue to defend the Trump administration's claim that it
killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in response to an impending threat to American lives, but the lack of evidence
provided to lawmakers and the public has fueled lingering skepticism about whether the strike was justified.
President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and top military officials have offered similar explanations for targeting
Soleimani, citing an "imminent" threat from his plans to carry out what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley called a "significant
campaign of violence" against the US in the coming days, weeks or months.
"If you're an American in the region, days and weeks, this is not something that's relevant," Pompeo told CNN's Jake Tapper on
"State of the Union" Sunday, dodging a question on the imminence of such Iranian attacks. "We have to prepare, we have to be ready,
and we took a bad guy off the battlefield."
But questions have continued to swirl in recent days over the timing, whether the administration fully considered the fallout from
such a strike against Soleimani, and if an
appropriate
legal basis was established for the presidential authorization of lethal force.
... ... ...
When Trump finally gets ready to act, they added, "you can't out escalate him." CNN has previously reported that there was
internal
debate over the decision and work behind the scenes to develop a legal argument before the operation was carried out.
After a meeting Sunday in Mar-a-Lago where President Donald Trump was briefed by senior members of his national security team
on options regarding Iran, some officials emerged surprised the President chose to target Soleimani, according to a source familiar
with the briefing.
The officials who briefed Trump included Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Pompeo, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien and Milley.
The source said that some aides expected Trump to pick a less risky option, but once presented with the choice of targeting Soleimani
he remained intent on going forward.
...The administration has failed to connect the dots in a way that provides a clear picture of an imminent threat and that
argument has been obscured by inconsistent messaging from US officials.
Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland also told CNN that one of his representatives was at the Friday briefing and
said "nothing that came out of the briefing changed my view that this was an unnecessary escalation of the situation in Iraq and
Iran."
Van Hollen went on to say: "While I can't tell you what was said, I can tell you, I have no additional information to
support the administration's claim that this was an imminent attack on Americans."
Re PCR's latest linked article (post 133.
What PCR is insisting Putin do ("The easiest and cleanest way for Putin to do this is to
announce that Iran is under Russia's protection.")Putin has already done so in a landmark
speech last year when he unveiled five or six game-changing weapons, or was it 2018.
He declared back then to the evil empire that a nuclear attack on an ally would be considered
an attack upon Russia. He made this crystal clear. Of course it wouldn't hurt for him to
'gently' remind them of this.
I do have to say, the silence from the Russians is odd. Even when you read the Russian
Foreign Ministry's news releases.
For instance, there's this on January 4th:
" On January 4, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with Foreign
Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the latter's
initiative. " (italics mine).
So Lavrov talked to an Iranian official only on January 4th, and the call came from Iran
(Zarif), not the other way around. This is odd, and even the explicit
mentioning of Zarif initiating the call --to me-- seems odd.
Hmm...
On Sunday's broadcast of CNN's "State of the Union," 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned
if President Donald Trump's reasons for the Qasem Soleimani assassination was to distract from impeachment.
Warren said, "I think that the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago, and why not a month from now?
And the answer from the administration seems to be that they can't keep their story straight on this. They pointed in all different
directions. And you know, the last time that we watched them do this was the summer over Ukraine. As soon as people started asking
about the conversations between Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine and why aid had been held up to Ukraine, the administration
did the same thing. They pointed in all directions of what was going on. And of course, what emerged then is that this is Donald
Trump just trying to advance Donald Trump's own political agenda. Not the agenda of the United States of America. So what happens
right now? Next week, the president of the United States could be facing an impeachment trial in the Senate. We know that he is deeply
upset about that. I think that people are reasonably asking why this moment? Why does he pick now to take this highly inflammatory,
highly dangerous action that moves us closer to war? We have been at war for 20 years in the Middle East, and we need to stop the
war this the Middle East and not expand it."
Tapper asked, "Are you suggesting that President Trump pulled the trigger and had Qasem Soleimani killed as a distraction from
impeachment?"
Warren said, "Look, I think that people are reasonably asking about the timing and why it is that the administration seems to
have all kinds of different answers. In the first 48 hours after this attack, what did we hear? Well, we heard it was for an imminent
attack, and then we heard, no, no, it is to prevent any future attack, and then we heard that it is from the vice president himself
and no, it is related to 9/11, and then we heard from president reports of people in the intelligence community saying that the whole,
that the threat was overblown. You know, when the administration doesn't seem to have a coherent answer for taking a step like this.
They have taken a step that moves us closer to war, a step that puts everyone at risk, and step that puts the military at risk and
puts the diplomats in the region at risk. And we have already paid a huge price for this war. Thousands of American lives lost, and
a cost that we have paid domestically and around the world. At the same time, look at what it has done in the Middle East, millions
of people who have been killed, who have been injured, who have been displaced. So this is not a moment when the president should
be escalating tensions and moving us to war. The job of the president is to keep us safe, and that means move back from the edge."
Tapper pressed, "Do you believe that President Trump pulled the trigger on this operation as a way to distract from impeachment?
Is that what you think?"
Warren said, "I think it is a reasonable question to ask, particularly when the administration immediately after having taken
this decision offers a bunch of contradictory explanations for what is going on."
She continued, "I think it is the right question to ask. We will get more information as we go forward but look at the timing
on this. Look at what Donald Trump has said afterward and his administration. They have pointed in multiple directions. There is
a reason that he chose this moment, not a month ago and not a month from now, not a less aggressive and less dangerous response.
He had a whole range of responses that were presented to him. He didn't pick one of the other ones. He picked the most aggressive
and the one that moves us closer to war. So what does everybody talk about today? Are we going to war? Are we going to have another
five years, tens, ten years of war in the Middle East, and dragged in once again. Are we bringing another generation of young people
into war? That is every bit of the conversation right now. Donald Trump has taken an extraordinarily reckless step, and we have seen
it before, he is using foreign policy and uses whatever he can to advance the interests of Donald Trump."
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First, a quick recap of the
situation
We need to begin by quickly summarizing
what just happened:
General Soleimani was in Baghdad on an official visit to attend the funeral of the Iraqis murdered by
the US on the 29th
The US has now officially claimed responsibility for this murder
The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
has officially declared
that "
However, a severe retaliation awaits the criminals who painted
their corrupt hands with his and his martyred companions' blood last night
"
The US paints itself – and Iran –
into a corner
The Iranians simply had no other choice
than to declare that there will be a retaliation. There are a few core problems with what happens next.
Let's look at them one by one:
First, it is quite obvious from the flagwaving claptrap in the US that Uncle Shmuel is "locked and
loaded" for even more macho actions and reaction. In fact,
Secretary Esper has basically painted
the US into what I would call an "over-reaction corner" by
declaring that
"
the game has changed
" and that the US will take "
preemptive action
"
whenever it feels threatened
. Thus, the Iranians have to assume that the US will over-react to
anything even remotely looking like an Iranian retaliation.
No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely
perfect conditions for a false flag à la
"
USS
Liberty
"
. Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and
facilities in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves. How? Simple! Fire a
missile/torpedo/mine at any USN ship and blame Iran. We all know that if that happens the US political
elites will do what they did the last time around: let US servicemen die and protect Israel at all costs
(read up on the USS Liberty if you don't know about it)
There is also a very real risk of "spontaneous retaliations" by
other
parties (not
Iran or Iranian allies)
. In fact, in his message, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has specifically
declared that "
Martyr Suleimani is an international face to the Resistance and all lovers of the
Resistance share a demand in retaliation for his blood. All friends – as well as all enemies – must know
the path of Fighting and Resistance will continue with double the will and the final victory is decidedly
waiting for those who fight in this path.
" He is right, Soleimani was loved and revered by many
people all over the globe, some of whom might decided to avenge his death. This means that we might well
see some kind of retaliation which, of course, will be blamed on Iran but which might not be the result
of any Iranian actions at all.
Finally,
should the Iranians decide not to retaliate, then we can be absolutely sure that
Uncle Shmuel will see that as a proof of his putative "invincibility" and take that as a license to
engage in even more provocative actions.
A spiritual father kisses his beloved son
If we look at these four factors together
we would have to come to the conclusion that
Iran HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly
.
Why?
Because whether the Iranian do
retaliate or not, they are almost guaranteed another US attack in retaliation for anything looking like a
retaliation, whether Iran is involved or not
.
The dynamics of internal US
politics
Next, let's look at the internal
political dynamics in the US:
I have always claimed that
Donald Trump is a "disposable President" for the Neocons
. What do I mean by that? I mean that the
Neocons have used Trump to do all sorts of truly fantastically dumb things (pretty much ALL his policy
decisions towards Israel and/or Syria) for a very simple reason. If Trump does something extremely dumb and
dangerous, he will either get away with it, in which case the Neocons will be happy, or he will either fail
or the consequences of his decisions will be catastrophic, at which point the Neocons will jettison him and
replace him by an even more subservient individual (say Pence or Pelosi). In other words,
for the
Neocons to have Trump do something both fantastically dangerous and fantastically stupid is a win-win
situation
!
Right now, the Dems (still the party
favored by the Neocons) seem to be dead-set into committing political suicide with that ridiculous (and
treacherous!) impeachment nonsense. Now think about this from the Neocon point of view. They might be able
to get the US goyim to strike Iran AND get rid of Trump. I suppose that their thinking will go something
like this:
Trump looks set to win 2020. We
don't want that. However, we have been doing everything in our power to trigger a US attack on Iran since
pretty much 1979. Let's have Trump do that. If he "wins" (by whatever definition – more about that
further below), we win. If he loses, the Iranians will still be in a world of pain and we can always
jettison him like a used condom (used to supposedly safely screw somebody with no risks to yourself).
Furthermore, if the region explodes, this will help our beloved Bibi and unite US Jewry behind Israel.
Finally, if Israel gets attacked, we will immediately demand (and, of course, obtain) a massive US attack
on Iran, supported by the entire US political establishment and media. And, lastly, should Israel be hit
hard, then we can always use our nukes and tell the
goyim
that "Iran wants to gas 6 million Jews
and wipe the only democracy in the Middle-East off the face of the earth" or something equally insipid.
Ever since Trump made it into the White
House, we saw him brown-nose the Israel Lobby with a delectation which is extreme even by US standards. I
suppose that this calculation goes something along the lines of "with the Israel Lobby behind me, I am safe
in the White House". He is obviously too stupidly narcissistic to realize that he has been used all along.
To his (or one of his key advisor's) credit, he did NOT allow the Neocons to start a major war against
Russia, China, the DPRK, Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, etc. However, Iran is a totally different case as it is
the "number one" target the Neocons and Israel wanted strike and destroy. The Neocons even had
this motto
"
boys go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran
". Now that Uncle Shmuel has lost all this
wars of choice, now that the US armed forces have no credibility left, now is the time to restore the
"macho" self-image of Uncle Shmuel and, indeed, "go to Tehran" so to speak.
The
Dems (Biden) are already saying
that Trump just "
tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox
",
as if they cared about anything except their own, petty, political goals and power. Still, I have to admit
that Biden's metaphor is correct – that is exactly what Trump (and his real bosses) have done.
If we assume that I am correct in my
evaluation that Trump is the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable President", then we also have to accept the fact
that the US armed forces the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable armed forces" and that the US as a nation is
also the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable nation". This is very bad news indeed, as this means that
from the Neocon/Israeli point of view, there are no real risks into throwing the US into a war with Iran
.
In truth, the position of the Dems is a
masterpiece of hypocrisy which can be summed up as follows:
the assassination of Soleimani is a
wonderful event, but Trump is a monster for making it happen
.
A winner, no?
What would the likely outcome of
a US war on Iran be?
I have written so often about this topic
that I won't go into all the possible scenarios here. All I will say is the following:
For the US, "winning" means achieving regime change or, failing that, destroying the Iranian economy.
For Iran, "winning" simply means to survive the US onslaught.
This is a HUGE asymmetry which basically
means that the US cannot win and Iran can only win.
And, not, the Iranians don't have to
defeat CENTCOM/NATO! They don't need to engage in large scale military operations. All they need to do is:
remain "standing" once the dust settles down.
ORDER IT NOW
Ho Chi Minh once told the French "
You
can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win
".
This is exactly why Iran will eventually prevail, maybe at a huge cost (Amalek must be destroyed, right?),
but that will still be a victory.
Now let's look at the two most
basic types of war scenarios: outside Iran and inside Iran.
The Iranians, including General
Soleimani himself, have publicly declared many times that by trying to surround Iran and the Middle-East
with numerous forces and facilities the US have given Iran a long list of lucrative targets. The most
obvious battlefield for a proxy war is clearly Iraq where there are plenty of pro and anti Iranian forces to
provide the conditions for a long, bloody and protracted conflict (Moqtada al-Sadr has just declared that
the Mahdi Army will be remobilized). But Iraq is far from being the only place where an explosion of
violence can take place: the ENTIRE MIDDLE-EAST is well within Iranian "reach", be it by direct attack or by
attack by sympathetic/allied forces. Next to Iraq, there is also Afghanistan and, potentially, Pakistan. In
terms of a choice of instruments, the Iranian options range from missile attacks, to special forces direct
action strikes, to sabotage and many, many more options. The only limitation here is the imagination of the
Iranians and, believe me, they have plenty of that!
If such a retaliation happens, the US
will have two basic options: strike at Iranian friends and allies outside Iran or, as Esper has now
suggested, strike inside Iran. In the latter case, we can safely assume that any such attack will result in
a massive Iranian retaliation on US forces and facilities all over the region and a closure of the Strait of
Hormuz.
Keep in mind that the Neocon motto "
boys
go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran
" implicitly recognizes the fact that a war against Iran would be
qualitatively (and even quantitatively) different war than a war against Iraq. And, this is true, if the US
seriously plans to strike inside Iran they would be faced with an explosion which would make all the wars
since WWII look minor in comparison. But the temptation to prove to the world that Trump and his minions are
"real men" as opposed to "boys" might be too strong, especially for a president who does not understand that
he is a disposable tool in the hands of the Neocons.
Now, let's quickly look at what
will NOT happen
Russia and/or China will not get
militarily involved in this one. Neither will the US use this crisis as a pretext to attack Russia and/or
China. The Pentagon clearly has no stomach for a war (conventional or nuclear) against Russia and neither
does Russia have any desire for a war against the US. The same goes for China. However, it is important to
remember that Russia and China have other options, political and covert ones, to really hurt the US and help
Iran. There is the UNSC where Russia and China will block any US resolution condemning Iran. Yes, I know,
Uncle Shmuel does not give a damn about the UN or international law, but most of the rest of the world very
much does. This asymmetry is further exacerbated by Uncle Shmuel's attention span (weeks at most) with the
one of Russia and China (decades). Does that matter?
Absolutely!
If the Iraqis officially declare that
the US is an occupation force (which it is), an occupation force which engages in acts of war against Iraq
(which it does) and that the Iraqi people want Uncle Shmuel and his hypocritical talking points about
"democracy" to pack and leave, what can our Uncle Shmuel do? He will try to resist it, of course, but once
the tiny figleaf of "nation building" is gone, replaced by yet another ugly and brutal US occupation, the
political pressure on the US to get the hell out will become extremely hard to manage, both outside and even
inside the US.
In fact,
Iranian state television
called Trump's order to kill Soleimani "
the biggest miscalculation by the
U.S." since World War II. "The people of the region will no longer allow Americans to stay,"
it said.
Next, both Russia and China can help
Iran militarily with intelligence, weapons systems, advisors and economically, in overt and covert ways.
Finally, both Russia and China have the
means to, shall we say, "strongly suggest" to other targets on the US "country hit list" that now is the
perfect time to strike at US interests (say, in Far East Asia).
So Russia and China can and will help,
but they will do so with what the CIA likes to call "plausible deniability".
Back The Big Question: what
can/will Iran do next?
The Iranians are far most sophisticated
players than the mostly clueless Americans. So the first thing I would suggest is that the Iranians are
unlikely to do something the US is expecting them to do. Either they will do something totally different, or
they will act much later, once the US lowers its guard (as it always does after declaring "victory").
I asked a well-informed Iranian friend
whether it was still possible to avoid war. Here is what he replied:
Yes I do believe fullscale war can be
avoided. I believe that Iran can try to use its political influence to unite Iraqi political forces to
officially ask for the removal of US troops in Iraq. Kicking the US out of Iraq will mean that they can
no longer occupy eastern Syria either as their troops will be in danger between two hostile states. If
the Americans leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a
single shot.
I have to say that I concur with this
idea: one of the most painful things Iran could do next would be to use this truly fantastically reckless
event to kick the US out of Iraq first, and Syria next. That option, if it can be exercised, might also
protect Iranian lives and the Iranian society from a direct US attack. Finally, such an outcome would give
the murder of General Soleimani a very different and beautiful meaning: this martyr's blood liberated the
Middle-East!
Finally, if that is indeed the strategy
chosen by Iran, this does not at all mean that on a tactical level the Iranians will not extract a price
from US forces in the region or even elsewhere on the planet. For example, there are some rather credible
rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct
retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am
not
saying that I know for a fact that this is what really happened, only that
Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East.
Conclusion: we wait for Iran's
next move
The Iraqi Parliament is scheduled to
debate a resolution demanding the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. I will just say that while I do not
believe that the US will gentlemanly agree to any such demands, it will place the conflict in the political
realm. That is – by definition – much more desirable than any form of violence, however justified it might
seem. So I strongly suggest to those who want peace that they pray that the Iraqi MPs show some honor and
spine and tell Uncle Shmuel what every country out there always wanted from the US: Yankees, go home!
If that happens this will be a total
victory for Iran and yet another abject defeat (self-defeat, really) by Uncle Shmuel. This is the best of
all possible scenarios.
But if that does not happen, then all
bets are off and the momentum triggered by this latest act of US terrorism will result in many more deaths.
As of right now (19:24 UTC) I still
think that there is a roughly 80% chance of full scale war in the Middle-East and, again, will leave 20% of
"unexpected events" (hopefully good ones).
PS: this is a text I wrote under great
time pressure and it has not be edited for typos or other mistakes. I ask the self-appointed Grammar Gestapo
to take a break and not protest again. Thank you
Scenarios 3 and 4 look the most likely in this no-win scenario for Iran at the moment. It would probably be
advantageous to Iran to let proxies retaliate, although that would further provoke the blatant US aggression
of scenario 4.
The best we can hope for, aside from Russia and China covertly assisting Iran with intelligence and
materiel, is for the latter to possibly trigger a Suez Crisis-style scenario by threatening to dump its
holdings of US sovereign debt. (The former country used to hold something like $160 billion in US bonds, but
has since 2013 sold off all but approximately $15 billion.) However, I doubt the Chinese have the appetite
for that -- they still depend vitally on the US market for their goods. And Japan, which holds about as much of
that debt as China, will never follow suit. They willingly tanked their own economy to prop up the US with
the Plaza Accord; and will likely continue to be a bootlick to American power to the bitter end.
The Iranians could not defeat the ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein, but they can defeat the United States?
Preposterous. The Iranians will do nothing. Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate
target. If they are foolish enough to attack the US, or its interests, they will suffer enormous losses. I
understand that reality can sometimes conflict with a person's wishes, but the reality here is that as long
as the US doesn't try to occupy Iran, they can cripple their military and destroy their infrastructure. Iran
will do nothing,.
I have written so often about this topic that I won't go into all the possible scenarios here. All I
will say is the following:
-- For the US, "winning" means achieving regime change or, failing that, destroying the Iranian
economy.
-- For Iran, "winning" simply means to survive the US onslaught.
This is a HUGE asymmetry which basically means that the US cannot win and Iran can only win.
Apparently the author has forgotten what happened a couple months ago. The economic situation is so bad
in Iran, people are rioting against the corrupt Ayatollah. (1). Thousands arrested and over a hundred dead.
All the U.S. has to do to win is hold the line. The situation is indeed assymetrical:
-- By refusing to put boots on the ground in Iran, there are few options open to Iran that will hurt the
U.S.
-- The U.S. can freely strike against government elites like Soleimani if the Ayatollah tries to escalate.
Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home. Not
only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much weaker.
How long will the IRGC remain willing to die for a sociopathic Ayatollah?
One has to believe at some point, elements of the IRGC will dispatch Khameni to save their own lives.
Iran under military rule is unlikely to become friendly with the U.S. However, for their own personal goals
they will bring troops home and suspend funding to groups like al'Hezbollah and al'Hamas. These steps would
do much to improve regional stability.
@Rich
The Iranians were not trying to
defeat
the Iraqis, nor will they the US. They aim to survive the
violent onslaught of aggressors, and damage them enough so they won't think to try again.
Soleimani was a
legitimate target if Iran and the US were in a state of declared war. They are not.
Here, I know this is UK law, but it strikes the right tone: this action was pure terrorism.
@Rich
ragtag forces in Afghanistan ( even more rag tag than Iraq) have defeated the US.
The US must bomb and
kill – apart from actually encountering another irregular war that they keep losing.
I can think of some Iranian responses. Hostage taking by allied but deniable groups of US personnel.
Build out intercontinental missiles in quantity and shield them. Buy Russian weapons like S-400 in a few
months.
There's a lot of meaningful content in this article. The only problem is that it is one-sided with more of a
dislike of Israel and USA individually than Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen, UAE, Qatar combined.
Where
Saker would lead us is to the same inaction of Ben Rhodes.
The problem is that Ben Rhodes would want to collaborate with Suleimani more than Republicans and
conservatives or allies such as Israel, UK, Poland.
This leaves the Obama galaxy of superstar stateswomen and statesmen with an unrealistic vision of the
world.
This turns into Gaddafi being killed because he is easy to kill, triggering a vacuum and pulling in ISIS
and Iran, as well as turning loose 1M people to run try to sneak into Europe.
This same myopic worldview leads to pushing Russia to the breaking point by working with similar minded
EU leaders to "flip" Ukraine. That turned out badly and now Obama's statesmen want to hide it.
Don't forget that Kerry is married into Iranian diplomats at the top level.
@Rich
Wishful thinking
Thre are many other scenarios and players to consider. America will not be allowed to arbitrarily mass
forces and engage their enemy at free will.
My take is that the timing of death of General Soleimani and the fact that President Trump is pending
impeachment in the US Senate is not a mere coincidence. Part of me thinks that TPTB set Trump up to be
impeached and gave him an ultimatum to facilitate a military conflict with Iran or lose his presidency by
way of impeachment.
What seems more bogus, the pretense for impeachment or the pretense for war with Iran?
There will be a war with Iran if Trump wants a war with Iran.
But its not clear that Trump wants a full-on
war. He could have had one by now if he wanted it. He is more of a business man than a warlord at heart, and
lacks the insecurity of a W. He doesn't need to pose in uniform on an aircraft carrier to feel virile, he
can just bang Melania.
On the other hand, he won't allow himself to look weak, and he will retaliate. In addition, there is lots
of evidence in the public record that Trump has a long-standing antipathy to Iran and its government. And
Trump has many "friends" that would be thrilled by an Iran expedition.
Iran would be crazy to provoke Trump in a way that would likely lead to war. Iraq showed the U.S. can
take down a government and leave the country wrecked. Sure, the U.S. won't "win" in Iraq, but that doesn't
mean Saddam won or the Iraqi people. Iran would be messier, but I lack the Saker's "optimism". The Iranian
government will want to survive, not gamble. [Ho Chi Mihn didn't actively seek an American invasion.] The
question is whether Iran can de-escalate while saving face (and while other forces, who would love to see
the U.S. invade Iran, do everything to escalate affairs).
Leaving aside "winning the war", it would look great on T.V. heading into the 2020 election even if it
ends in disaster, and permit cheap attacks on the Democrats in the climate of jingoism sure to follow the
first bombs. If Trump is any politician worth his salt, he is more interested in winning the next election
than in America winning some long-term ME war.
Let's say the Saudis attack the USA again like they did on 9-11, Iran gets blamed (of course), and Trump
responds by nuking Iran, killing half of the population within a few hours, and 95% within a year.
@Harbinger
Zionism, not Judaism. Two entirely separate things. Compare Romans 2:28-29 versus Revelation 2:9 and 3:9.
Research the reader survey "Defense of True Israel" to identify today's true Israel.
It doesn't matter whether Iran decides to retaliate – Israel will retaliate for them. Netanyahu will have
his president-for-life, get-out-of-jail war. This could have been an Israeli strike that Trump was forced,
or manipulated, into taking credit for. Nothing would be surprising, so long as that shabby little grifter
controls U.S. foreign policy.
If Russia and China had any itch to go in, they would have done so in Afghanistan at next to no cost to
themselves (of course this only emboldened the Empire of Evil).
And with the exception of Mohammed Reza Shah (installed by coup in 1941 because his daddy, an old-school
Kurdish brigand, was way too reasonable – something that is conveniently forgotten) Iran has always taken
pains to hold both the Anglos and the Russians at arm´s length.
Not only was the joint Israeli and ZUS attack on the USS Liberty a false flag, but even worse than that was
the false flag joint Israeli and ZUS attack on the WTC on 911 , and since they have gotten away with these
false flags, no doubt, they will do another to get the excuse to finish off Iran.
The only nation standing
in the way of the attack on Iran is Russia, and Russia is not going to let Iran be destroyed as Russia threw
down the gauntlet in Syria and Russia's top generals ie Gerasimov and Shoygu know that Russia is next and
will not stand by and let Iran go down, even if Putin is reluctant to save Iran, which I believe Putin will
also know Russia is next on the list.
Israel and the ZUS want a nuclear war with Russia and I believe they will cause a false flag to have it
and they believe they can ride out a nuclear exchange in their DUMBS ie deep underground military bases
which they have throughout the ZUS and ZEurope and Israel.
Israel and the ZUS are not content with destroying the middle east, they now want to destroy the world.
@Rich
"Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target."
-- Let's name all Israeli
generals, one by one, and call them legitimate targets.
Your puny theocratic state of Israel has been the cause of the ongoing mass slaughter in the Middle East.
Each of Israeli citizens took a bath full of blood of innocent civilians of all ages, figuratively speaking.
Iran has not attacked any country. Israel has. It was the perfidious AIPAC of Israel-firsters that has
been working non-stop on promoting the wars of aggression in the name of Eretz Israel. Iraq, Syria, Libya
have been destroyed in accordance with Oded Yinon subhuman plan. Iran is the next.
The hapless Europeans and Americans are finally learning about the viciousness of Jewish sadists. Instead
of "almost truthful" holobiz stories forged by Eli Wiesel and Anne Frank' dad, the schools should have been
teaching the biographies of Jewish mega-criminals such as Lazar Kaganovich (Stalin's right hand and
organizer of Holodomor in Ukraine), Naftali Frenkel (an inventor of "industrialized" death in the GULAG),
and the despicable mass-murderess Rozalia Zalkind.
The economic situation is so bad in Iran, people are rioting against the corrupt Ayatollah.
The rapists strangle their victim and blame them for their lack of oxygen.
Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home.
Not only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much
weaker.
Judaism is a cult, not a religion. It's the self worship of Jews, hatred of non Jews (racism) and
supremacist beliefs over all other peoples on this earth. In effect, Judaism is the Jewish KKK/Black
Panthers. It's perfectly ok to go around saying
"we're god's chosen"
(blatant supremacism and racism)
and yet they go crazy when some white person puts up a poster saying
"it's ok to be white"
? The
former is ignored and worse, accepted by many idiots while the latter is vehemently attacked. Think about
that for a moment?
Don't let the red herrings of "It's not Judaism, it's Zionism" or "it's not the real Jews, but the fake
Ashkenazis" crap lead you astray from the situation. The problem IS what it always has been and always will
be until people wake up and do something about it. That problem is Judaism. It's never changed.
If the Americans leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a
single shot
Correct.
And that is precisely the real objective of Trump. Trump is greatly underestimated. He gives the Zionists
everything they want – which results in outcomes that are very much against their interests.
As imperial forces are defeated in the region but economic war continues, economic integration between
Iran, Iraq and Syria becomes even more necessary, for a decent future.
Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with
Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?"
He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You
remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro
You missed the boat .! This is about Israel and its control of Trump. Israel wants eternal war..they care
not how many are killed because it will be Americans not Jews. The scenarios presented here are limited and
simplistic. The real scenarios present much greater challenges for the US Intelligence Agencies. These
include false flags by Israel and the Jewish controlled Congress for excuses to bomb Iran. But even a
greater risk would be splinter Muslim groups around the world and especially in the US that will retaliate
against Americans. The estimate of at least 20% of Muslims in the US are terrorists waiting to happen may
come to fruition. Trump the idiot has just thrown a cigar into the punch bowl. Michael Scheuer former CIA
put it this way:
"The crux of my argument is simply that America is in a war with militant Islamists that
it cannot avoid; one that it cannot talk or appease its way out of; one in which our irreconcilable Islamist
foes will have to be killed, an act which unavoidably will lead to innocent deaths; and one that is
motivated in large measure by the impact of U.S. foreign policies in the Islamic world, one of which is
unqualified U.S. support for Israel."
In his second book, Imperial Hubris, a New York Times bestseller, Scheuer writes that the Islamist threat
to the United States is rooted in "how easy it is for Muslims to see, hear, experience, and hate the six
U.S. policies bin Laden repeatedly refers to as anti-Muslim:
U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments.
U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall.
U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low.
U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants
The US will experience the wrath of these people over and over again because we keep doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting a different result.
Trump is nothing more than figure head president under complete control of Israel. Civilization is doomed
if Israel continues complete control of most the US government and most of the world. The American citizenry
are nothing more than blind little animals waiting to be slaughter by Israel.
The gerbils of feeble minds are out in force to show their arrogance and illiteracy t seems. Throughout
time, Iran has emboldened the oppressed to fight the imperialists. Just like the support they show the
people of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and to an extent Yemen.. They wont destroy all that they have built unless
the US uses some excuse to attack inside iran at which point all bets are off and so are all places in the
ME with US military.. This blatant act of terrorism is the worst a civilised nation can do and the ultimate
hypocrisy of calling itself run by the rule of law.. Almost all rules and laws were violated and so is the
rules of war itself which is mostly non existent but even in war there are some things you do not do like
taking out the leadership because the men will then have no choice but to keep fighting without anyone to
order them to stand down.. Only imbeciles will do unthinkable things like this and such blatant violations
of international laws in front of the entire world and then take credit for it..
Its pretty clear that the dem's impeachment scam was a collaboration with the neocons to corner Trump into
having to obey McConnell, Graham and the rest of the criminals.
A few months back the great Orange King was going to pull out of Syria, right?
It is almost patently obvious Trump was handed the option of starting war with Iran or having the senate
slowly turn against him (through a well orchestrated media campaign, of course), ending up with him in
prison or worse.
Can't have that. Donny boy serves only Donny boy, and the country's arse isn't worth choosing over his own.
@Harbinger
NPR now : Israel has been pushing America to confront Iran . But Israel doesn't want to be seen as the power
behind the American aggression against Iran .
there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan
action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655
Airbus over the Persian Gulf
This was obviously the case. All the accusations against Libya were
patently false. The Scottish court case was a scam from A to Z. All the "evidence" against Libya could have
been concocted by a 12 year old. "Finding" a bit of clockwork in a field and claiming that someone bought a
certain "suitcase" in Malta is a piece of cake.
Despite the destruction of Libya and access to all their files and bureaucrats, no effort was ever made
to search their records and to substantiate the accusations against Libya. Lockerbie and Pan Am 103 simply
disappeared from the media.
If Libya had been behind the explosion of Pan Am 103, they would have relished producing the evidence and
a lot of Libyans would have been accused and put on trial. It would have helped their accusations that
"Libya was a rogue state"
The only facts that everyone agrees on is that the Americans shot down an Iranian airliner on 3 July 1988
with 290 people on board. And that a US airliner with 259 people was blown up on 21 December 1988. Some
coincidence!
Since PA103, no Iranian civilian aircraft of any sort has been attacked or threatened by the USA or any
other country. I guess that is a strong hint as to what intelligence services believe the true story to be.
Sounds like one of the Christ-killer handles you see over at Hasbara Central (aka,
Free Republic).
FReepers with handles like "ProudMarineMomEagleUSALibertyLoverArmyVetMAGAGalAirborneTexasFreedom" posting
articles on inside baseball of Knesset politics.
It's time for Iran to get insurance in the form of multiple nuclear warheads. I doubt Russia or China will
sell them but Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country, or N. Korea might. All they need is a few nukes that would
be include in a barrage of hundreds of missiles aimed at Tel Aviv. No Iron Dome (which is useless anyway)
would stop the attack. Israel would never allow (since we know they control Congress and the President) an
attack on Iran if there was even the slightest possibility of a nuke on Israel. Let's face it, the Israelis
are only "brave" when they slaughter defenseless Palestinian women and children. They were driven out of
Lebanon by a rag tag civilian militia.
You are naive and poorly educated murican from declining Amerikanistan who lives in the past. The Unipolar
era is over. The Iranians have the capacity to destroy all US bases in 2000km radius (in the Middle East)
with ballistic missile salvos, it and its shia allied groups in the region have plenty of attack drones and
long range cruise missiles too (and US land anti-air capability is poor), all US soldiers in Iraq will be
killed by shia millitias, drones and long range missiles (unless the US would try to invade Iraq again and
restart the occupation with 300 000 soldiers in Iraq, for which it no longer has the money, too much debt
and shaky economy), Russia can supply the country with high tech anti-air systems, Iran can supply manpads
and long range missiles to the Taliban which will lead to siege of US bases in Afghanistan and
bombardment/capture of americans there, (taliban are already winning there without any help). Iran can also
destroy most oil and gas infrastructure in the Middle East.
Estimation:
all US bases in the Middle East will be leveled.
US bases will be besieged in Afghanistan and Taliban will fully take over that country.
The biggest US embassy in the world – in Iraq, will be captured, together with the US diplomats in it.
Shia Millitia Proxies will attack and capture/destroy many US embassies in the region.
Oil price will reach 150 – 200 $ leading to global economic crisis.
Israel will be attacked by Hizbulla and many israeli cities will be damaged, keeping it busy.
No european country will support such attack and this will lead to the EU marginalising NATO and replacing
it with its own independent european military pact, moving away from the US.
Whole world will condemn the US and will start moving away from dependency on that country, as no one wants
such a war in the Gulf.
30 000 americans (almost all in the middle east) killed and all of their objects in the Middle East
destroyed.
US companies infrastructure in the Middle East and in Iraq destroyed.
Big uprising against the US in Iraq.
US economy enters recession.
US is crippled by war debt.
For that large price to pay, the only US option will be US long range attacks via bombers, carriers and
subs, who will not be very effective vs russian anti-air systems. It will take a long time for Iran to be
destroyed if they have modern russian anti-air. Meanwhile the global economy will enter recession until the
war is over. There will be massive anti-US protests all over the world blaming it for the resulting global
economic crisis and recession.
In the long run, the US will be able to destroy most of Iran by conventional means, but the US itself
will be crippled by debt and will lose its superpower status. In other words, it will be the Suez Moment for
the US.
Ultimately though, there will be no large scale war because the US does not have the money for it. It is
crippled by debt. Picture underestimates US debt by 10 % and already estimates hyperinflation by 2050 (10 %
and growing annual budget deficits, which is a disaster).
Then there is the possibility for the US to use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran but then the US will be
declared a rogue state by the world and every other state will get nukes too and NPT regime will be dead,
leading to the end of US influence and capacity to wage war in the world.
@Paul holland
That's a good suggestion but I still think they should go after Pompeo. If you really want to keep it 'tit
for tat' with even less retaliation then poor Gen. Milley should be splashed. (Evil grin)
@bruce county
Will not be allowed? then look what they did in this very moment. They already mass their forces in iraq and
surounding bases. Their are considerable more Galaxy C17 traffic in Ramstein/Germany and the whole C17 (as
far as you can identify them)look like a swarm of bees on the way to the middle east.
I have one wish for 2020, and it is this: That everyone stop referring to this group of bastards claiming to
great American patriots and thinkers (both a flagrant lie) as 'neocons', and call them what they are; 99%
are dual citizen Israeli firsters. Fostering the acronym neocon allows them to remain hidden behind a mask
of their own design, and is a great disservice and a threat to every American. These traitors with their
Israel first attitude, have but one job, and it is to dream up fake threats to America's security, (i.e.
Iraq's WMD's), in order to insure America's defense budget remains huge, and US soldiers all over the ME
making Israel feel safe and secure; not so much America. truth is they care nothing of America and have
perfected the art of subterfuge, as evidenced by this quote by self described paleo-neoconservative Norman
Podhertz in his work Breaking Ranks:
"An Israeli within the Jewish community, and an American on the public goy stage".
Netanyahu, aka Benzion Mileikowsky is holed up in that land of his idle, "Hitler's Argentinian Patagonia"?
or,
Brave Sir Robin ran away.
("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!
@Rich
I think the Iranians have already won on this round ..Iran stepped back and gave notice that when you are up
against a guy bigger than you are, you wait until something happens to even the odds.
The domestic deplorable don't understand bullet in the brain diplomacy.. What is in Iraq or Iran that
Americans want <=nothing. absolutely nothing that I can tell. so for whom is all of this?
Hard to know what Trump's thinking here is. War before an election does not seem a good idea, especially if
you are a candidate who has failed so far to achieve anything of substance around past promises to reduce
America's involvement in Mideast wars.
Remember that a crucial slice of the votes that put the man into office were not from his prime political
base, the "pick-up truck and Jesus" set, but from those concerned with peace and better relations with
Russia.
But prodding Iran to attack could allow Trump to play commander-in-chief defending the country. And
Americans just instinctively support even the worst possible presidents at war. You might call it the George
Bush Effect. The frightened puppy grabbing the nearest pantleg after a loud noise.
Of course, now when it comes to campaign contributions from American Oligarchs whose chief political
concern is what Israel wants, Trump's coffers will be overflowing.
I suspect Iran will take its time and carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and
unambiguous, and it might be multi-faceted and done over time.
The men running Iran are careful men, none of them impetuous. Chess players. The United States has more
than forty years of bellowing, open hostility towards the country, and we have not seen Iran's leaders act
foolishly in all that time despite many provocations.
I do not believe Iran will be driven to war – that would be playing the Israeli-American game with
Israeli-American rules.
Clandestine and hybrid efforts, that is what Iran is best at. They have serious capabilities these days,
and the United States, with all its bases abroad, has great vulnerabilities.
Of course, there's also the option of Iran's just leaving the nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, or JCPOA) that Trump idiotically tore-up and proceeding quietly with weapons development.
Iran, despite Israel's dishonest claims, never has pursued weapons development, only efficient use of
nuclear power and legitimate scientific research. Perhaps it is time to reconsider that policy
Iran has substantial deposits of uranium, and the enriched-uranium bomb is simpler to build than the
plutonium bomb. Maybe there is some possibility for covert assistance from North Korea, another country
treated like crap by Trump's Washington Braintrust?
4.Finally, should the Iranians decide not to retaliate, then we can be absolutely sure that Uncle
Shmuel will see that as a proof of his putative "invincibility" and take that as a license to engage in
even more provocative actions.
For what it's worth, I vote for 4.
Gandhi and MLK are household names because they used non-violent protest to bring attention to widespread
injustice.
As long as Iran responds in a non-violent way, they retain the moral high ground. The world is watching,
if Iran puts out a statement to the fact that the US is using assassinations to provoke Iran into an open
(obviously one-sided) war, who on the planet won't sympathize with Iran?
We all know the ZUS is a murderous, war criminal rogue regime under occupation by Zionists. Duh.
We all know the ((neocons)) and Zionists have demanded the destruction of Iran for what, decades now. We
all know of Bibi's unhinged frothing. It's more than obvious to the entire world.
What we don't need is bravado or chest thumping on the part of Iran. That is exactly what the fiend is
hoping for. Praying for. It's hands rubbing together and hissing 'they can't ignore this one, we slaughtered
their beloved general'.
If this were all being contained by the world's media and diplomatic channels, then it might be
different.
But EVERYBODY knows the score. Everybody knows who is the aggressor and who is the victim.
Iran should assume the posture of a victim, and allow all the world's people to watch in disgust as it's
menaced by the world's super-power coward, who NEVER picks on anyone it's own size, but always attacks
nations far weaker than it is.
What an embarrassment to be an American today, in slavish obeisance to the world's most revolting den of
snakes.
God bless and save the people of Iran.
It is with profound shame that I lament my nations depraved servility to a criminal regime.
Please, don't escalate the conflict. That is EXACTLY what ((they)) want you to do.
Funny how even you seems to forget that Trump KNOWN that he is a "tool" and that he have to play like one.
But every play he did on behalf of the Neocons did he in such a worst way that he everytime reaches the
excat opposite of what the neocons wanted to reach. North Stream 2 anyone? It's done, up runnig by now.
2% spending? how have done this yet?
buy exclusiv or also by US MIC company's? Hmm the turks buy now Russian AA.
India is also in shambles about the militray topic.
NOTHING, what the neocons want from him and he allegedly did seems to work really and not because he is a
moron this is ON PURPOSE.
I strongly believe that he known what he does and that he does this exactly like he or the ones behind him
wanted. Trmup isn't a neocon. He is a nationalist and plays a very dangerous doubbleplay with the Deep State
and their neocons/Zionists.
I still think that there is a roughly 80% chance of full scale war in the Middle-East and, again, will leave
20% of "unexpected events"
I believe this estimate is rather correct. Personally, I believe the odds are
100% in favor of WAR. It has taken the Israelis 35 years, since the Iraq Iran war, to get America this
close. They will not allow something as trivial as peace to interfer.
Donald Trump is hardly a "disposable President" for Israel. The sky's the limit for Israel while Trump is in
power and they will never get anyone quite like him again. The Neocons won't go against Israel.
The death
of Soleimani was not long in coming after his masterminding of the successful attack on Saudi Arabian oil
facilities, and him making the fatal error of ordering demonstrators in Baghdad to be shot. I think the
combination of threatening Saudi Arabia at its weakest point and alienating the Shiite community in Iraq is
why the US decided now was the perfect time to target Soleimani.
@Not Raul
Hmmm, nuke Iran . I wonder how US would feel if Russia justifiably nuked the Mexican drug cartels in
Tijuana. Probably take it just as a friendly and helpful gesture in the war on drugs, right? Or Russia nukes
those pesky Quebec secessionists not far from DC?
Obviously, there is no place on the planet with more
cretins per head of population than US, lead by the Cretin in Chief. All itching to use those nukes just
sitting there, collecting dust since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why did cretins spend all that money on them
when they cannot use them?
One totally unrelated question. ISIS has chopped off a large number of non-Sunni Muslim heads and a few
heads of Westerners. Does anyone know even one example where an Israeli's head or head of a Western Jew has
been chopped off?
USrael is like a tradesman who declares war on a screwdriver or hammer in his toolbox.
The purpose of the drone strike false flag was to coronate a new, massive trauma based mind control effort
by the US Government aimed at her own domestic slaves. The CIA opinion makers are out in full force:
Sjursen, Engelhardt, Bacevich, Hedges, Cole, NYT, WaPo, AI – you name it, all delivering the message of
peace because they were trained for war. Quickly form all the public opinions to make sure the people are
divided.
The voting class has given us 100% of the war, 100% of the inequality, 100% of the misery that the poor
suffer daily. Accordingly, the CIA has to assassinate wrong thinking in the voting class before it threatens
the status quo of war, inequality and suffering.
The only thing missing is a Pat Tillman character – a patriotic zombie athlete, tatted and geared up to
kick ass for the right reasons as a hero until the sham that everyone knew all along – except for poor Pat –
reveals itself.
@Ignatius
I read this same theme at the VT site. Either Robert David Steel's piece or in a comment. Rather far fetched
idea, but not so far out that the dual citizen cretins in DC wouldn't use.
Thanks Saker!
The officials in Tehran have been and will continue to be calm, calculating, rational and making decisions
collectively! The Two Fat Guys and skinny dip" have been defeated by Iran in their Cold War with Iran for 4
decades! Iranians' mail goal is to force the US to run away from the ME region w/o confronting it! They
would like to achieve their goal as the Vietnamese did in 1973 if anyone remembers that! So far they have
been successful and their actions in the future will show their intentions more clearly!
With all due respect the Chinese and Russians would love to see the US humiliated so she's forced to leave
and they don't mind using Iran as a front to achieve their goal without confronting the US!
I'm just waiting for the usual suspects to come on here denying it had anything to do with Israel and
Judaism.
It's hard to make that claim when every chosenite from Benjamin Shapiro to Israeli citizen and fake
"national conservative" Yoram Hazony is celebrating on Twitter.
Example:
To all the jerks saying Trump did this "for Israel":
1. No American should die for Israel.
2. If you can't feel shame when your country is shamed and want to act when your own people are
killed, your problem isn't Israel. Your problem is you.
-- Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) January 3, 2020
Do these scum ever not lie? No American was killed by Iranians or Iranian-backed proxies before this
incident, not for at least a decade. And Trump totally did this for Israel. His biggest donors have been
demanding he do this for years and suddenly he does it. It's not hard to see the connection, especially amid
all the Jews celebrating on Twitter today.
Further, he goes on to beat his chest as a fake patriotic American (while being an Israeli citizen); it's
clear he's just celebrating an attack on his country's enemy, but wants you to think it has something to do
with America.
You can be darned sure no in the world thinks seizing an American embassy is a genius tactical move
right now. Not in Iran -- and not anywhere else.
-- Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) January 3, 2020
You can be damned sure no on in the world thinks this empire is anything but lawless and dangerous right
now -- headed by an irrational imbecile beholden to the interests of a racist apartheid state. Not in Europe
-- and not anywhere else.
At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect
U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds
Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in
Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had
orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on
December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General
Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.
This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to
take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.
@Rurik
Gandhi drank his own urine and slept with prepubescent girls, MLK was a whoremonger and sodomite, you can
have them both. Iran won't escalate because they tried, and lost a general. If they try anything else,
they'll pay too steep a price.
"Its pretty clear that the dem's impeachment scam was a collaboration with the neocons to corner Trump
into having to obey McConnell, Graham and the rest of the criminals."
No it's not. It's pretty clear that orange clown is enthusiastic about mass-murdering people and trying
to start wars for his jewish-supremacist handlers.
"A few months back the great Orange King was going to pull out of Syria, right?"
No he wasn't; he was just posturing, as usual.
"It is almost patently obvious Trump was handed the option of starting war with Iran or having the
senate slowly turn against him (through a well orchestrated media campaign, of course), ending up with
him in prison or worse."
Or so you barely assert. But if that's the case why didn't "they" force Obama to start a war with Iran?
For that matter why did "they" allow Obama to enter into the JCPOA agreement with Iran in the first place?
The more likely explanation is that the impeachment scam was an effort to determine whether or not orange
clown had enough support to be re-elected. Perhaps our rulers wanted to see if the peasants would rally
around their embattled MAGA "hero" if they could present him as the hapless victim of the even-more-evil
"democrats." (And if so, his re-election "campaign strategy" could then be crafted around his apparent
"victimhood" – since he has nothing else to campaign on).
If this is the case, then the experiment may now have come to an end, with the result that the favorite
son-of-perdition would likely not be re-elected; thus he has one year to start the war on Iran, and he is
wasting no time getting on with it.
Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country, or N. Korea might
Very unlikely that this could occur. Pakistan itself is wary of incurring further unwanted attention from
the US, which regularly violates its sovereignty anyway. If they indeed decided to pursue this route, the
Ziofascists in Washington would simply and very happily open up a new front against Islamabad. (Although
doing so would stand a better -- worse? -- chance of provoking some kind of Chinese reaction than the current US
antagonizing of Tehran.)
The DPRK's stance against Washington is purely defensive and they clearly have no wish to engage in any
action that could trigger the end of the Kim regime. China would also likely not back it up in such a
scenario.
Iran is clearly the victim here, but has been cornered into an unenviable position from which it has no
favorable options. Those hoping that Russia and China will somehow step in to prevent war will find
themselves disappointed. The most likely best scenario is that this new war will seal the eventual financial
bankruptcy of the US. However, the results of that would take years to unfold. But this new war will
undoubtedly be a costly one and, in the not so long run, fiscally untenable.
The Iranians won't do jack. If they try anything, Trump will exterminate the Iranians.
Lol. "Valley Forge Warrior". What an obvious Hasbara troll. He probably has only a vague knowledge of
American history, so he picked something he stereotypically thinks an American patriot would call himself.
Along with A123, these hacks have been clogging up the comments of every article on the subject trying to
gin up the goyim for war on Iran. What "ally" does that kind of thing?
@NTG
When? When the rest of the world was destroyed and US was the only one standing, representing half the
world's economy and industrial capacity? In current conditions this leads to hyperinflation and the rest of
the world, which is growing faster than the US (now down to 15 % of the world economy in PPP) and is already
quite self-sufficient from US industry abandoning the dollar. No one would take something that is printed in
heavy amounts to liquidate 30 + trillions in debt. The end of dollar main reserve currency status, which
leads to feedback loop and even greater hyperinflation in the US.
Forcing the US out of the area seems to be a likely response. Perhaps they'll be able to gin up some popular
riots and demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Undermining the Saudi regime might be a real blow to
the US; who really knows how stable it actually is? As opportunities present themselves the Iranians will
avail themselves of them, avoiding direct confrontations and clashes. Remember, they live there so can drag
this out over time.
No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag à la "USS
Liberty". Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities
in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves.
@Harbinger
The wankers Trump and Netanyahu have been planning this invasion for some time. Actually, given the level
and history of U.S. hubris, the Neocons have not quite gotten over the fact that 50 years ago, the Iranian
people kicked the murderous Shah (U.S. puppet) out of the country. The U.S. will continue to invade and wage
wars against sovereigns who refuse to tow the U.S. line. Please dump Trump in 2020!
The US constantly threatens to overthrow Iran's government, invades and occupies
its neighboring countries, decimates it with sanctions, launches cyber-attacks on its infrastructure, and
now assassinates its national leaders. But the propagandists tell you Iran is the "aggressor"
How can the government on a moment's notice locate and drop a bomb on the head of a veteran military
officer and yet not be able to find a measly whore (jizzlane) hiding out in Israel.
Are you familiar with the name of a Mossad agent "Madam" Ghislaine Maxwell? What about her father R.
Maxwell, a mega-embezzler, thief and Mossad agent?
The fallen Iranian was an honest and honorable man, unlike the Jewish procuress of underage girls for
wealthy pedophiles and the Jewish plunderer of pensions.
While Mirror Group shareholders were wiped out, arguably the biggest losers were the pensioners most
pensioners had to accept a 50% cut in the value of their pensions.
No wonder Maxwell (known as "a great fraud") was feted by other prominent Jewish frauds.
It is very doubtful that Iran retaliates in any way that might lead to all out war with the U.S. unless they
have assurances of total backing from either Russia or China, which I don't see happening at this time.
Neither one of those countries is ready for WW III against the U.S. at the present.
If I were Iran, though, I would use the fact that they sit on some of the largest energy reserves in the
world to help me acquire as many nukes as possible. That might truly be the only deterrent to their
destruction, as Israel and her surrogate the U.S. are never going to give up in there intention of
destroying that country.
@lysias
Yes, but it would piss off the sheople, and Iran doesn't need anymore of the American Bovinus demanding more
belligerence. (for which they personally won't risk a fingernail).
Since then their consolidation over the media and federal government has been consummate. The only cracks
in the iron bubble being the formerly free Internet, and they're very fast sealing off those few remaining
cracks.
Now you'd have to be near brain-dead not to know that they control our foreign policy in absolute terms,
and that Americans have been dying for the greater glory of their enemies in Israel for generations now.
What we need to do is allow the American people to decide if they want to send more of their children to
kill and die for their enemies in Israel.
We all know Iran is nothing more than one more country Israel demands we destroy.
Iran simply needs to allow the rest of the world, to rise up in condemnation with all the nations of the
planet, including the millions of patriotic Americans that are sick to death of our federal government's
slavish fealty to Jewish supremacist shekels.
Don't react to the provocation. Allow all the nations and people of the world to become sympathetic to
your cause. Perhaps, though some miracle even the Sunni nations of the world will side with Iran on this
one.
We all know who the bully is, and who the victim is. Just look at what the ZUS did to Iraq and Libya and
Syria and so many others
It's a global problem for so many, that we can't even count the victims of zio-criminality, from Donbas
to Caracas, to Bolivia..
We need a global outrage, and a global demand to reign in the Zionist fiend.
By doing nothing, but speaking out, Iran's message of victimization is it's more powerful, moral weapon.
Israel Assassinations from 1950's to 2018
[MORE]
1950s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
July 13, 1956 Gaza Strip Egypt Mustafa Hafez Egyptian Army Lieutenant-Colonel, responsible for
recruiting refugees to carry out attacks in Israel. Parcel bomb[12] Israel Defense Forces operation
directed by Yehoshafat Harkabi.
July 14, 1956 Amman Jordan Salah Mustafa Egyptian Military attache
1960s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
September 11, 1962 Munich Germany Heinz Krug West German rocket scientist working for Egypt's missile
program Abducted from his company offices on Munich's Schillerstrasse, his body was never found. Swiss
police later arrested two Mossad agents for threatening the daughter of another scientist and found
that they were responsible for the killing. Part of Operation Damocles. Mossad
November 28, 1962 Heluan Egypt 5 Egyptian factory workers Workers employed at Factory 333, an Egyptian
rocket factory. Letter bomb sent bearing Hamburg post mark. Another such bomb disfigured and blinded a
secretary. Part of Operation Damocles.
February 23, 1965 Montevideo Uruguay Herberts Cukurs Aviator who had been involved in the murders of
Latvian Jews during the Holocaust[18] Lured to and killed in Montevideo by agents under the false
pretense of starting an aviation business.
1970s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
July 8, 1972 Beirut Lebanon Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian writer and a leading member of the PFLP, who
had claimed responsibility for the Lod Airport massacre on behalf of the PFLP.[19] Killed by car bomb.
Mossad[20][21][22][19][23][24][25]
July 25, 1972 Attempted killing of Bassam Abu Sharif Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Information Office. He held a press conference with Ghassan Kanafani during the Dawson's Field
hijackings justifying the PFLP's actions. He lost four fingers, and was left deaf in one ear and blind
in one eye, after a book sent to him that was implanted with a bomb exploded in his hands.
October 16, 1972 Rome Italy Abdel Wael Zwaiter Libyan embassy employee, cousin of Yassir Arafat,[21]
PLO representative, poet and multilingual translator, considered by Israel to be a terrorist for his
alleged role in the Black September group and the Munich massacre,[27] though Aaron Klein states that
'uncorroborated and improperly cross-referenced intelligence information tied him to a support group'
for Black September.[24] Shot 12 times by two Mossad gunmen as he waited for an elevator to his
apartment near Piazza Avellino.[19][21]
December 8, 1972 Paris France Mahmoud Hamshari PLO representative in France and coordinator of the
Munich Olympic Games massacre.[28] Killed by bomb concealed in his telephone.
January 24, 1973 Nicosia Cyprus Hussein Al Bashir a.k.a. Hussein Abu-Khair/Hussein Abad. Fatah
representative in Nicosia, Cyprus and PLO liaison officer with the KGB.[24] Killed by bomb in his
hotel room bed.
April 6, 1973 Paris France Basil Al-Kubaissi PFLP member and American University of Beirut Professor
of International Law Killed on a street in Paris by two Mossad agents.[21]
April 9, 1973 Beirut Lebanon Kamal Adwan Black September commander and member of the Fatah central
committee[29] Killed in his apartment in front of his children during Operation Spring of Youth,
either shot 55 times or killed with a grenadeSayeret Matk al led by Ehud Barak
Muhammad Youssef Al-Najjar Black September Operations officer and PLO official Shot dead in his
apartment together with his wife during Operation Spring of Youth.[31] Sayeret Matkal together with
Mossad
Kamal Nasser Palestinian Christian poet, advocate of non-violence and PLO spokesman Shot dead in his
apartment during Operation Spring of Youth. According to Palestinian sources his body was left as if
hanging from a cross. A woman neighbour was shot dead when she opened her door during the operation.
Sayeret Matkal
April 11, 1973 Athens Greece Zaiad Muchasi Fatah representative to Cyprus Killed in hotel room.[21]
Mossad[32][33][34]
June 28, 1973 Paris France Mohammad Boudia Black September operations officer Killed by
pressure-activated mine under his car seat.[21]
July 21, 1973 Lillehammer Norway Attempted killing of Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO
and Black September who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre Shmed Bouchiki, an innocent
waiter believed to be Ali Hassan Salameh, killed by gunmen. Known as the Lillehammer affair.
March 27, 1978 East Berlin East Germany Wadie Haddad PFLP commander, who masterminded several plane
hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s.[36] He apparently died of cancer in an East Berlin hospital,
reportedly untraced by Mossad.[37] Mossad never claimed responsibility. Aaron Klein states that Mossad
passed on through a Palestinian contact a gift of chocolates laced with a slow poison, which
effectively caused his death several months later.[36]
January 22, 1979 Beirut Lebanon Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO and Black September
who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre[35] Killed by remote-controlled car bomb,[21]
along with four bodyguards and four innocent bystanders.
1980s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Executor
June 13, 1980 Paris France Yehia El-Mashad Egyptian nuclear scientist, lecturer at Alexandria
University Killed in his room at the Méridien Hotel in Operation Sphinx.[38][39]:23 Marie-Claude
Magal, prostitute, client of El-Meshad, pushed under a car and killed in the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Mossad
September 1981 Săo Paulo Brazil José Alberto Albano do Amarante An Air Force lieutenant colonel,
assassinated by the Israeli intelligence service to prevent Brazil from becoming a nuclear nation.He
was contaminated by radioactive material. Samuel Giliad or Guesten Zang, a Mossad agent, an Israeli
born in Poland.
August 21, 1983 Athens Greece Mamoun Meraish Senior PLO official Shot in his car from motorcycle.
Mossad
June 9, 1986 Khalid Nazzal Secretary of the DFLP (Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine) Killed
in Athens by Mossad agents who entered Greece with fake passports, shot Nazzal while leaving his
hotel, and fled the country. Mossad
October 21, 1986 Munther Abu Ghazaleh High-ranked leader in the PLO. Senior member of the National
Palestinian Council, the Revolutionary Council of Al Fatah and the Supreme Military Council of the
Revolutionary Palestinian Forces. Killed by car bomb Mossad
April 16, 1988 Tunis Tunisia Abu Jihad Second-in-command to Yassir Arafat Shot dead in front of his
family in the Tunis Raid by Israeli commandos under the direction of Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya'alon, and
condemned as a political assassination by the United States State Department.[9][44] Israel Defense
Forces
July 14, 1989 Alexandria Egypt Said S. Bedair Egyptian scientist in electrical, electronic and
microwave engineering and a colonel in the Egyptian army Fell to his death from the balcony of his
brother's apartment in Camp Chezar, Alexandria, Egypt. His veins were found cut and a gas leak was
detected in the apartment. Arabic and Egyptian sources claim that the Mossad assassinated him in a way
that appears as a suicide.
1990s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Executor
March 20, 1990
Brussels Belgium Gerald Bull Canadian engineer and designer of the Project
Babylon "supergun" for Saddam Husseins government Shot at door to his apartment Attributed to Mossad
by several sources,[45] and widely believed to be a Mossad operation by intelligence experts,[46]
Gordon Thomas states it was the work of Mossad's director Nahum Admoni.[47] Israel denied involvement
at the time.[46] and several other countries had interests in seeing him dead.
February 16, 1992
Nabatieh Governorate Lebanon Abbas al-Musawi Secretary-General of Hezbollah
After 3 IDF soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants of the PIJ during a training exercise at
Gal'ed in Israel, Israel retaliated by killing Musawi in his car, together with his wife Sihan and
5-year-old child Hussein, with seven missiles launched from two Apache Israeli helicopters.[21]
Hezbollah retaliated by the attacking Israel's embassy in Argentina.[48] Israel Defense Forces[49]
June 8, 1992 Paris
France Atef Bseiso Palestinian official involved in Munich Massacre Shot
several times in the head at point-blank range by 2 gunmen, in his hotel (Aaron Klein's "Striking
Back") Mossad, with French complicity, according to the PLO, but French security sources suggested the
hand of Abu Nidal.[50][51]
October 26, 1995
Sliema Malta Fathi Shaqaqi Head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad Shot and killed
in front of Diplomat Hotel.[21] Mossad.[47]
January 6, 1996
Beit Lahia Gaza Strip Yahya Ayyash "The Engineer", Hamas bomb maker Head blown
off by cell phone bomb in Osama Hamad's apartment, responding to a call from his father. Osama's
father, Kamal Hamad, was a known collaborator with Israel, and it was bruited in Israel that he had
betrayed his son's friend for $1 million, a fake passport and a U.S. visa. Covert Israeli
operation[53]
September 25, 1997
Amman Jordan Khaled Mashaal (failed attempt) Hamas political leader
Attempted poisoning. Israel provided antidote, after pressure by Clinton. Canada withdrew Ambassador.
Two Mossad agents with Canadian passports arrested
2000s
2000, September 29-2001,
April 25. According to Palestinian sources, the IDF assassinated 13
political activists in Area A under full Palestinian Authority, with 9 civilian casualties.[54]
2003 (August)
The Israeli government authorized the killing of Hamas's entire political
leadership in Gaza, 'without further notice,' in a method called 'the hunting season' in order to
strengthen the position of moderates and Mahmoud Abbas.
2005 In February Israel announced a suspension of targeted killings, while reserving the right to kill
allegedly 'ticking bombs'.[55]
Date Place Location Target Description Action Executor
November 9, 2000
Beit Sahur West Bank Hussein Mohammed Abayat (37); Abayat was a senior
official of the Fatah faction Tanzim. Killed while driving his Mitsubishi by a Hellfire anti-tank
missile fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter. Rahma She'ibat, (50); 'Aziza Dannoun Jobran (52), two
local women, were killed by a second missile, and Nazhmi She'ibat and his wife were also injured.
Accused of shooting at the Gilo settlement.[5][54][56] Israel Defense Forces[57]
November 22, 2000
Morag Gaza Strip Jamal Abdel Raziq (39), and Awni Dhuheir (38).[58] Senior
official of the Fatah faction Tanzim Killed on the Rafah-Khan Yunis western road near the junction
leading to Morag settlement while in a Honda Civic with the driver, Awni Dhuheir when their car was
machine-gunned from two tanks at close range. The first version, they were about to attack Morag; the
second version, Raziq was targeted after firing at IDF soldiers. His uncle was later sentenced to
death for collaborating in his nephew's death by furnishing Israel with details.[54] Two bystanders in
a taxi behind them also killed (Sami Abu Laban, 29, baker, and Na'el Shehdeh El-Leddawi, 25,
student).[58][59]
November 23, 2000
Nablus West Bank Ibrahim 'Abd al-Karim Bani 'Odeh (34) Unknown. Had been
jailed for 3 years by the PNA until two weeks before his death. Killed while driving a Subaru near
Al-Salam mosque. Israeli version, he died from his own rudimentary bomb. Palestinian version: his
cousin 'Allan Bani 'Oudeh confessed to collaborating with Israel in an assassination, and was
convicted and shot in Jan 2001.[54] ?[57]
December 11, 2000
Nablus West Bank Anwar Mahmoud Hamran (28) A PIJ bombing suspect. Jailed for
2 years by PNA and released 6 weeks before his death. Targeted on a campus of Al-Quds Open University
while waiting for a taxi-cab. Shot 19 times by a sniper at 500 yards. IDF version shot by soldiers in
self-defence. Palestinian version, he died with books in his hand.Israel Defense Forces
December 12, 2000
al-Khader West Bank Yusef Ahmad Mahmoud Abu Sawi (28) Unknown Targeted and
shot by a sniper at 200 metres, 17 bullets.[57]
December 13, 2000
Hebron West Bank 'Abbas 'Othman El-'Oweiwi(25) Hamas activist Targeted and
shot 3 times in head and chest by a sniper while standing in front of his store in Wadi Al-Tuffah
Street.[54][57]
December 14, 2000
Burin West Bank Saed Ibrahim Taha al-Kharuf (35) Targeted and shot dead.
rowspan=2|Israel Defense Forces.[57]
December 14, 2000
Junction of Salah el-Din near Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Hani Hussein Abu Bakra
Israeli version. Hamas activist shot as he tried to fire from a pistol. Driver of a Hyundai taxi van.
Palestinian version: shot while reaching for his identity card which he was asked to produce when
stopped. 4 of seven passengers wounded, one of whom, 'Abdullah 'Eissa Gannan, 40, died 10 days
later.[54]
December 17, 2000
Qalandiyya West Bank Samih Malabi Tanzim officer.[60] Mobile phone bomb.
December 31, 2000
Tulkarem West Bank Thabat Ahmad Thabat Classed by Israel as head of Tanzim
cell.[54] Dentist, lecturer on public health at Al Quds University, and Fatah Secretary-General on the
West Bank.[60] Israeli Special Forces sniper shot him as he drove his car from his home in Ramin,
classified as an apparent political assassination.[56] Israel Defense Forces
February 13, 2001
Gaza City[54] Gaza Strip Mas'oud Hussein 'Ayyad (50) Lieutenant-colonel in
Force 17, an aide of Yasser Arafat held responsible for a failed mortar attack on a Jewish settlement
in Gaza. The IDF also alleged, without providing evidence, that he intended to form a Hezbollah cell
in the Gaza Strip.[5][56][61] Killed while driving a Hyundai in Jabalia Camp by a Cobra gunship
launching 3rockets.[62] Israeli Air Force
February 19, 2001
Nablus West Bank Mahmoud Suleiman El-Madani (25) Hamas activist Shot by two
men in plainclothes as he left a mosque. As they fled, according to the Palestinian version, covering
fire was provided by an Israeli unit on Mount Gerizim.[54]
April 2, 2001
Al-Barazil neighborhood of Rafah Gaza Strip Mohammed 'Attwa 'Abdel-'Aal (26) PIJ
Combat helicopters fired three rockets at his Peugeot Thunder, also hitting the taxi behind, whose
occupants survived. Israeli Air Force[54]
April 5, 2001
Jenin West Bank Iyad Mohammed Hardan (26) Head of the PIJ in Jenin. IDF version.
He was involved in the 1997 Mahane Yehuda Market Bombings Blown up in a public phone booth, when,
reportedly, an Israeli helicopter was flying overhead.Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent
political execution to provoke Palestinians.[60]
April 25, 2001 Rafah West Bank Ramadan Ismail 'Azzam (33); Samir Sabri Zo'rob (34); Sa'di Mohammed
El-Dabbas (32); Yasser Hamdan El-Dabbas (18) Popular Resistance Committees members Blown up while
examining a triangular object with flashing lights that had been reported as lying near the border
earlier that day. Palestinians say the object exploded as an Israeli helicopter passed overhead.[54]
May 5, 2001 Bethlehem West Bank Ahmad Khalil 'Eissa Assad (38) PIJ activist Hit while leaving his
house for work, reportedly from shots (15) fired from the Israeli military outpost at Tel Abu Zaid,
250 metres away. His niece, Ala, was also injured. Israel said the victim intended carrying out armed
operations in the future inside Israel. Israel Defense Forces[63]
May 12, 2001 Jenin West Bank Mutassam Mohammed al-Sabagh (28) Fatah activist In a car with two
Palestinian intelligence officers, who managed to escape on sighting an Apache helicopter, which
struck it with three missiles. The two officers were also wounded. A fourth missile struck a
Palestinian police car killing Sergeant Aalam al-Raziq al-Jaloudi and injuring Lieutenant Tariq
Mohammed Amin al-Haj. Two bystanders also wounded. Israeli Army accused the three of plotting attacks
on nearby settlers.[63] Israeli Air Force[63]
June 24, 2001 Nablus West Bank Osama Fatih al-Jawabra (Jawabiri) (29) al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade
militant. His name was on an Israeli wanted list submitted to PNA. Bomb exploded as he picked up a
phone in a public telephone booth. Two brothers, Malik Shabaro (2), and Amar Shabaro (4) injured.
Alleged by PNA to be IDF,.[64] but denied by the Israeli government.[63]
July 17, 2001 Bethlehem West Bank Omar Ahmed Sa'adeh (45) Hamas leader Killed by two wire-guided
missiles fired by two Israeli helicopter gunships at his garden hut, also killing Taha Aal-Arrouj
(37). His brother Izhaq Ahmed Sa'adeh (51), a peace activist, and his cousin Hamad Saleh Sa'adeh (29),
were killed by a further missile as they rushed towards the rubble. A dozen people nearby were
wounded. Israel maintained that it was a preventive attack on a planner of a terrorist attack at the
Maccabiah Games.[63][65] Israeli Air Force
July 23, 2001 'Anin, west of Jenin West Bank Mustafa Yusuf Hussein Yassin (26) ? Released from an
Israeli prison earlier that day. According to his wife, he opened the door on hearing noises outside
their home and was shot at point-blank range in front of his family. Israeli sources say he was
planning to bomb Israeli targets. Israel Defense Forces[63]
July 25, 2001 Nablus West Bank Salah Nour al-Din Khalil Darwouza (38) Hamas Car hit while driving in
Nablus. He evaded two missiles from an Apache helicopter, but the car was hit by a further 4. Israel
claimed he planned bombing attacks on French Hill, and Netanya. Israeli Air Force[63]
July 31, 2001 Nablus West Bank Jamal Mansour (41); Jamal Salim Damouni (42) High-ranking official of
Hamas' West Bank political wing Killed when office struck by helicopter-launched missiles[66] as
Mansour was giving an interview to journalists in the Palestinian Centre for Studies and Media. 4
others killed in the room: Mohammed al-Bishawi (28); Othman Qathnani (25); Omar Mansour (28); Fahim
Dawabsha, (32). Two children, aged 5 and 8, outside were also killed, and three more adults injured by
shrapnel.[63] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks. Israel Defense Forces[5]
August 5, 2001 Tulkarm West Bank Amer Mansour Habiri/Aamer Mansour al-Hudairy (22) Hamas Missiles
fired at the car.
August 20, 2001 Hebron West Bank Imad Abu Sneneh Leader of Tanzim Shot and killed.[67] Israeli
undercover team
August 27, 2001 Ramallah West Bank Abu Ali Mustafa (63) Head of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine and senior executive leader of the PLO. Killed by laser-guided missiles fired from Apache
helicopters while talking on the phone in his office.Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent
political execution to provoke Palestinians.[60] Other sources say Shin Bet convinced the Israeli
Cabinet he was connected to terrorism.[68] Israeli Air Force
September 6, 2001 Tulkarm West Bank 'Omar Mahmoud Dib Subuh (22); Mustafa 'Ahed Hassan 'Anbas (19).
Unknown Targeted and killed by a helicopter missile in an attempt to assassinate 4 Palestinians, of
whom 2 died. Israel Defense Forces[57]
October 14, 2001 Qalqiliya West Bank 'Abd a-Rahman Sa'id Hamed (33) Unknown Targeted by a sniper and
shot at the entrance to his house.
October 15, 2001 Nablus West Bank Ahmad Hassan Marshud (29) Unknown Targeted killing by explosion.
?[57]
October 18, 2001 Beit Sahur West Bank Jamal 'Abdallah 'Abayiat (35); 'Issa 'Atef Khatib 'Abayiat (28);
'Atef Ahmad 'Abayiat (25). Unknown The three, all relatives were killed while driving a Jeep. Israel
Defense Forces[57]
October 22, 2001 Nablus West Bank Ayman Halawah (26). Unknown Killed while riding in a car. ?[57]
31 October 2001 Hebron West Bank Jamil Jadallah al-Qawasmeh (25). Unknown Killed by a helicopter
missile which struck his house. Israeli Air Force[57]
2 November 2001 Tulkarm West Bank Fahmi Abu 'Easheh (28); Yasser 'Asira (25) Unknown Killed by gunfire
whole driving in a car. Israel Defense Forces[57]
23 November 2001 Far'a West Bank Mahmoud a-Shuli (Abu Hanud) (33); Maamun 'Awaisa (22); Ayman 'Awaisa
(33). Unknown all three killed while riding in a taxi by a helicopter missile.
December 10, 2001 Hebron West Bank Burhan al-Haymuni (3); Shadi Ahmad 'Arfah (13) None Two brothers
killed in a vehicle hit by a helicopter missile during a targeted killing of a person in a nearby car.
January 14, 2002 Tulkarem West Bank Raed (Muhammad Ra'if ) Karmi (28) Head of the Tanzim in Tulkarem
He had planned the murders of two Israelis in Tulkarem and was behind a failed assassination attempt
on the life of an Israeli Air Force colonel. After surviving an attempt to kill him by helicopter on
September 6, 2001, he was persuaded by Arafat to desist from violence but killed twenty three days
after a ceasefire[69] was in place because the Shin Bet was convinced they would never have the same
operational opportunity to take him out. Killed from a bomb planted in a cemetery wall, set off by a
UAV circling above when he passed by it on a visit to his mistress, to create the impression he had
blown himself up accidentally.[70][71] Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent political
execution to provoke Palestinians.[60] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks.
January 22, 2002 Nablus West Bank Yusif Suragji West Bank head of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Three
other Hamas members also killed. Palestinian Authority claims it was an assassination.[72] Killed in a
raid on an alleged explosives factory.[72] Israeli Defence Forces
January 24, 2002 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Adli Hamadan (Bakr Hamdan) Senior Hamas member missile attack
on car.[72] Israeli Air Force
February 4, 2002 Rafah Gaza Strip Ayman Bihdari DFLP member wanted for 25 August 2001 raid in which
three Israeli soldiers were killed. missile attack on car. Four other DFLP members killed.[72]
February 16, 2002 Jenin West Bank Nazih Mahmoud Abu a-Saba' Second ranking Hamas officer in Jenin.[73]
Killed by a bomb planted in his car, in a targeted killing.[74] Israel Defense Forces
March 5, 2002 al-Birah West Bank Mohammad(Diriyah Munir) Abu Halawa (23); Fawzi Murar (32); 'Omar
Hussein Nimer Qadan (27). Wanted AMB member. Missile fired at car from helicopter, Murar and Qadan
according to B'tselem were not combatants at the time.[57][75] Israeli Air Force
March 6, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdel Rahman Ghadal Hamas member Missile attack on his home.[21]
March 9, 2002 Ramallah West Bank Samer Wajih Yunes 'Awis (29) Not a participant in hostilities at the
time, according to B'tselem.[57] Killed by missile fired from a helicopter, which struck a car he was
travelling in. Israel Defense Forces
March 14, 2002 Anabta West Bank Mutasen Hamad (Mu'atasem Mahmoud 'Abdallah Hammad) (28); 'Atef Subhi
Balbisi (Balbiti) (25). Hamad was an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member and bomb maker. 3 missiles fired
from an Israeli attack helicopter at Hamad's car, near a chicken farm. A Palestinian source say a
bystander, a chicken farmer (Maher Balbiti) was also killed. An Israeli sources identify him as a
terrorist.[21][76][77] Israeli Air Force
April 5, 2002 Tubas West Bank Qeis 'Adwan (25); Saed 'Awwad (25); Majdi Balasmeh (26); Ashraf
Daraghmeh (29); Muhammad Kmeil (28); Munqez Sawafta (29) Qeis 'adwan was a Hamas activist and bomb
maker to whom several suicide bomb attacks were attributed. Targeted in a combined drone, tank and
special forces siege during Operation Defensive Shield. Given hospitality in his house by Munqez
Sawafta. After hours of gunfire, and a refusal to surrender, a D-9 armored bulldozer crushed part of
the house and the remaining 3 were shot.[57][78] Israel Defense Forces
April 22, 2002 Hebron West Bank Marwan Zaloum (59) and Samir Abu Rajoub. Tanzim Hebron leader and
Force 17 member Killed by a helicopter missile while driving a car. Zaloum was on an Israeli wanted
list, and thought responsible for shootings, including that Shalhevet Pass. Israeli helicopter
strike.[21][57][79] Israeli Air Force
May 22, 2002 Balata refugee camp, Nablus West Bank Iyad Hamdan (22); 'Imad Khatib (25); Mahmoud
'Abdallah Sa'id Titi (30); Bashir Yaish (30) Unknown, the first three were targeted. All four killed
by a shell shot from an Israeli tank. Yaish was not involved in hostilities at the time. Israel
Defense Forces[57]
June 24, 2002 Rafah Gaza Strip Yasir Raziq, 'Amr Kufa. Izzeddln al-Qassam Brigades leaders. Missiles
fired at two taxis, killing two other passengers (reportedly also Hamas activists),[80] the two
drivers and injuring 13 bystanders.[21][81] Israeli Air Force
June 30, 2002 Nablus West Bank Muhaned Taher, Imad Draoza. Muhaned Taher, nom de guerre "Engineer 4",
was a master Hamas bomber claimed by Israel to be responsible for both the Patt Junction Bus Bombing
and the Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing. Died with a deputy in a shoot-out with Israeli
raiding commandos.[21][80] Israel Defense Forces
June 17, 2002 al-Khader West Bank Walid Sbieh| ? Shot by an Israeli sniper in a targeted killing while
in his car.[57]
July 4, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Jihad Amerin/(Aqid) Jihad Amrain Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Colonel.
Killed in a car bomb.[21][82] Israel Security Forces.[83]
July 23, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Salah Shahade (Shehadeh) Leader of Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades Killed by 2,205-pound explosive dropped by an F-16. The attack also killed fourteen other
Palestinians including his wife and nine children. Yesh Gvul and Gush Shalom tried to have Dan Halutz
indicted, but the case was dropped.[21][84][85][86] Killed on the eve of an announced unilateral
cease-fire by Tanzim and Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks. Israeli Air Force.
27 reserve pilots undersigned a pilots' letter refusing to serve in IAF sorties over the West Bank and
Gaza in protest.
August 6, 2002 Jaba, Jenin West Bank Ali Ajuri, Murad Marshud Classified as people not known to be
involved in the fighting (B'tselem). Ajuri (21) was killed by an air-to-surface missile, during an
attempt to arrest him. Murad Marshud (19) killed as bystander.[74]
August 14, 2002 Tubas West Bank Nassa Jarrar Senior member of Hamas's militant wing. Died crushed by
rubble when an IDF bulldozer demolished his house. The IDF admitted it compelled at gunpoint Nidal Abu
M'khisan (19) to act as a human shield and get the victim out of his house. Jarrar shot the youth,
believing he was an IDF soldier. The victim was wheelchair bound. Israel suspected him of preparing a
bomb an Israeli high-rise building.[87][88] Israel Defense Forces
August 31 Tubas West Bank Bahira Daraghmeh (6); Ousamah Daraghmeh (12); Raafat Daraghmeh (29); Yazid
'Abd al-Razaq Daraghmeh (17); Sari Mahmoud Subuh (17). Five victims who did not participate in
hostilities when killed during a targeted killing, from a helicopter fired missile.[57] An eyewitness
account was later provided by 'Aref Daraghmeh. "The helicopter fired a third missile towards a
silver Mitsubishi, which had four people in it. The missile hit the trunk, and the car spun around its
axle. I saw a man escaping the car and running away. He ran about 25 meters and then fell to the
ground and died. The three other passengers remained inside. I saw an arm and an upper part of a skull
flying out of the car. The car went up in flames, and I could see three bodies burning inside it.
Three minutes later, after the Israeli helicopters left, I went out to the street and began to shout.
I saw people lying on the ground. Among them was six-year-old Bahira . . She was dead . . I also saw
Bahira's cousin, Osama . . I saw Osama's mother running towards Bahira, picking her up and heading
towards the a-Shifa clinic, which is about 500 meters away."
October 13, 2002 Beit Jala West Bank Muhammad Ishteiwi 'Abayat (28) ? Killed in an explosion in a
telephone booth, in a targeted killing.[57]
October 29, 2002 Tubas West Bank Assim Sawafta Age 19 Hamas Izzedine al Qassam military leader. Killed
by an undercover army unit, after failing to surrender.[21][89] Israel Defense Forces
November 4, 2002 Nablus West Bank Hamed 'Omar a-Sader (36); Firas Abu Ghazala (27). Unknown Killed by
a car-bomb. According to B'tselem, Firas Abu Ghazala was not engaged in hostilities at the time.[57]
November 26, 2002 Jenin West Bank Alah Sabbagh (26); Imad Nasrti/'Imad Nasharteh (22); Sabbagh
reportedly an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member, Nasrti Hamas local leader. Killed in an Israeli
airstrike on a house in the Jenin refugee camp by two missiles fired into a room.[21][90] Israeli Air
Force
December 23, 2002 wadi Burqin near Jenin West Bank Shumann Hassan Subuh (29) and Mustafa Kash (26/30)
Subah was a Hamas commander and bomb maker. Ambushed by IDF unit as Kash drove a tractor between
Burqin and Al-Yamun.[21][57][91] Israel Defense Forces
January 30, 2003 Burqin West Bank Faiz al-Jabber (32) ? Targeted when Israeli forces opened fire at a
Fatah group. He fled, was wounded, then shot dead at close range.[57] Israeli Border Police
March 8, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ibrahim al-Makadmeh Gaza Dentist. Second-in-Command of Hamas's
Military Wing.[21] Hamas political leader. He and three of his aides killed by helicopter-fired
missiles.[92] Israeli Air Force
March 18, 2003 Baqat al-Hatab West Bank Nasser Asida Hamas commander Shot while hiding in a cave, On
Israel's most wanted list as alleged mastermind of attacks on Israeli settlements in the West
Bank.[93] Israel Defense Forces's Kfir Brigade[94]
March 25, 2003 Bethlehem West Bank Mwafaq 'Abd a-Razaq Shhadeh Badawneh (40); 'Alaa Iyad (24); Nader
Salameh Jawarish (25); Christine George S'adeh (11) ? Israeli Defence Forces version, agents were
ambushed and shot dead 2 Palestinian gunmen, and a girl in a car that blundered into the battle, and
was believed to be part of the ambush. The girl's parents and sister were wounded.[95] B'tselem
reports that three of the 4 did not participate in hostilities at the time, but were killed during the
targeted assassination by an undercover team of Nader Gawarish and Nader Salameh Jawarish[57]
April 8, 2003 Zeitoun, Gaza City Gaza Strip Said al-Arabid Hamas Israeli Air Force strike on his car
followed by helicopter missiles. Seven Palestinians, ranging from 6 to 75, were killed, 47 wounded, 8
critically.[21] Israeli Air Force[96]
April 9, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mahmoud Zatma Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine Senior Commander,
Bomb Maker[21] Apache helicopter hit the car he was driving in Gaza City, 10 bystanders injured.[97]
April 12, 2003 Tulkarm West Bank Jasser Hussein Ahmad 'Alumi (23) ? Killed by gunfire. Object of a
targeted killing.[57] Israel Defense Forces
April 10, 2003 Tulkarm West Bank Yasser Alemi Fatah, Tanzim Shot and killed as a fugitive in Tulkarm.
Israel Border Police[21]
April 29, 2003 Gaza Strip Nidal Salameh PFLP Killed when 4 helicopter missiles struck his car[21]
Israeli Air Force
May 8, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Iyad el-Bek (30) Aide of Salah Shehade, Hamas activist.[21][98]
Killed by three helicopter missiles fired at a car.
June 11, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Tito Massoud (35) and Soffil Abu Nahez (29) Massoud was a senior
member of Hamas's military wing.[21] Retaliatory strike one hour after the Davidka Square bus bombing.
4 bystanders also killed[99]
June 12, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Jihad Srour and Yasser Taha Hamas members[21] Killed by between 4
and 6 helicopter missiles while their car was caught in a traffic jam, near a cemetery where victims
of the June 11 strike the day before were being buried. Collateral damage consisted of 6 other victims
including Taha's wife and child. 25 others were injured by the blasts.[100]
June 12, 2003 Jenin West Bank Fadi Taisir Jaradat (21); Saleh Suliman Jaradat (31) Saleh Suliman
Jaradat was an Islamic Jihad activist Both killed at the entrance of their home, the latter being the
target. Fadi Jaradat did not participate in hostilities at the time, according to B'tselem.[57] Israel
Defense Forces[57]
June 21, 2003 Hebron West Bank 'Abdallah 'Abd al-Qader Husseini al-Qawasmeh (41) Wanted by IDF Shot
dead after getting out of a taxi before a mosque. Three vans approached, with a dozen Israelis
disguised as Palestinian labourers, and he was shot in the leg, perhaps while fleeing to a nearby
field, and then finished off.[101][102]
August 21, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ismail Abu Shanab (48) Engineer and high-ranking Hamas military
commander.[103] High-ranking Hamas official[104] Missile strike, ending a cease-fire.[105][106]
Israeli Air Force[21]
August 24, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Walid el Hams, Ahmed Rashdi Eshtwi (24), Ahmed Abu Halala,
Muhammad Abu Lubda Hamas members. Eshtwi was said by the IDF to be a Hamas liaison officer with West
Bank cells.[107] Twin helicopter missile strike as the five were sitting in a vacant lot near a Force
17 base. Several bystanders were injured, and a further Hamas member critically wounded.[108]
August 26, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khaled Massoud brother of Tito Massoud, killed 3 months earlier.
Hamas Qassam rocket designer, alleged to be involved in mortar strikes. Attempted assassination of
Massoud, who was with two other Hamas activists, Wa'al Akilan and Massoud Abu Sahila, in a car.
Alerted to the threat, the three men managed to escape from their car as 3 missiles struck it and
killed a passing 65-year-old Jabaliya donkey driver Hassan Hemlawi, who was driving his cart. Two
bystanders were also wounded, including four children.[107][109]
August 28, 2003 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Hamdi Khalaq Izzedine al Qassam 3 missiles struck hit a donkey
cart Khalaq was driving. Three Gazans nearby were wounded. The IDF said he was on his way to a mortar
attack on an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip.[110] Israel Defense Forces[21]
August 30, 2003 On a road linking the Nusseirat and Bureij refugee camps Gaza Strip Abdullah Akel (37)
and Farid Mayet (40) Hamas senior operatives, said to have fired mortar shells and Qassam rocks.
Killed when 4 helicopter missiles struck their pickup truck. Seven others Palestinians were wounded by
the fire.. IDF soldiers machine-gunned an 8-year-old girl Aya Fayad the same day in the Khan Yunis
refugee camp, while, according to IDF reports, shooting at road-bomb militants detonating bombs on a
patrol route.[111] 'Israeli strike kills two militants,'[112] Israeli Air Force[21]
September 1, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khader Houssre (36) Hamas member Killed when 4 helicopter
missiles struck a car with 3 Hamas members, in a crowded side street. The second was critically
wounded, while the other managed to flee. 25 bystanders were injured in the strike.[113]
October 28, 2003 Tulharm Refugee Camp West Bank Ibrahim 'Aref Ibrahim a-N'anish Wanted by IDF Shot
dead, unarmed, as he drove his car to the entrance of the refugee camp.[57] Israel Defense Forces
December 25, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mustafa Sabah Senior Hamas bomb maker, thought behind
explosions that blew up 3 Merkava tanks inside the Gaza Strip.[114] Killed when 3 helicopter missiles
destroyed a Palestinian Authority compound where Sabah worked as a part-time guard.[114] Israeli Air
Force[21]
December 25, 2003 Gaza Strip Gaza Strip Mekled Hameid PIJ military commander. Helicopter gunship
attack on car, killing its occupants, including two PIJ members. Two bystanders were also reported
killed and some 25 bystanders injured.[115]
February 2, 2004 Nablus West Bank Hashem Da'ud Ishteiwi Abu Hamdan (2); Muhammad Hasanein Mustafa Abu
Hamdan (24); Nader Mahmoud 'Abd al-Hafiz Abu Leil (24); Na'el Ziad Husseini Hasanein (22). All four
wanted by the IDF Killed in a car struck by a missile fired from a helicopter. Israel Defense
Forces[57]
February 7, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Aziz Mahmoud Shami Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine local
field commander, claimed to be behind a 1995 double suicide bombing in Netanya. Missile strike
incinerated his car while he drove down a crowded street, and a passing 12-year-old boy was killed,
and 10 others wounded.[116] [21]
February 28, 2004 Jabaliya refugee camp Gaza Strip Amin Dahduh, Mahmoud Juda, Aiyman Dahduh. PIJ
military commander Missiles hit his car as it travelled from Gaza city to the refugee camp. Two
passengers are also killed and eleven bystanders wounded.[117][118] Israeli helicopters.
March 3, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Tarad Jamal, Ibrahim Dayri and Ammar Hassan.[5] Senior Hamas
members Missiles from helicopter fired at their car as it drove down a coastal road.[119] Helicopter
strike.[21]
March 16, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Nidal Salfiti and Shadi Muhana Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine
Israeli missile strike.[21]
March 22, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmed Yassin Co-founder and leader of Hamas The purpose of the
operation was to strengthen the position of Mahmoud Abbas. As Yassin left a mosque at dawn, he, 2
bodyguards, and 7 bystanders killed by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache-fired Hellfire missiles. 17
bystanders were wounded.[120][121] Israeli Air Force[21]
April 17, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi Co-founder and leader of Hamas, and
successor of Ahmed Yassin as leader of Hamas after his death The purpose of the operation was to
strengthen the position of Mahmoud Abbas. al-Rantissi was killed by helicopter-fired missiles, along
with his son and bodyguard. Several bystanders were injured.[122]
April 22, 2004 Talluza West Bank Yasser Ahmed Abu Laimun (32) Lecturer in hospital management at the
Arab-American University in Jenin, mistaken for Imad Mohammed Janajra. IDF initially reported he was a
Hamas member.[123] Initially reported shot after shooting, and then running away from an Israeli
attack dog, trained to seize wanted individuals. His widow testified that he was shot, while in his
garden, from a distance of 200 yards by gunfire from Israeli soldiers behind an oak tree. The IDF
apologized.[124][125][126] Israel Defense Forces
May 5, 2004 Talluza West Bank Imad Mohammed Janajra (31)[21] Hamas leader Ambushed in an olive grove,
after an earlier attempt, mistaking Abu Laimun for him. Said by IDF to be armed and approaching
them.[126] Golani Brigade's elite Egoz unit.
May 30, 2004 Zeitoun Gaza Strip Wael Nassar[21] Hamas mastermind behind the mine that blew up an
Israeli troop carrier raiding Gaza City, on May 11, killing 6 soldier. He was killed on his
motorcycle, together with his aide, by a missile strike which also wounded 7 civilians, including a
woman and two children. A second following missile killed another Hamas member nearby.[127] Helicopter
strike
June 14, 2004 Nablus West Bank Khalil Mahmoud Zuhdi Marshud (24)[21][128]'Awad Hassan Ahmad Abu Zeid
(24). Head of Al-Aqsa Brigades in Nablus Earlier targeted in a Nablus missile attack on a car on May
3, killing 3 Al Aqsa Brigade members. He was in a different vehicle. Killed when a missile hit a car
outside the Balata refugee camp, also killing PIJ members Awad Abu Zeid e Mohammed Al Assi (Israeli
version). Abu Zeid did not engage in hostilities when killed (B'tselem report).[57] Israeli Army radio
said the decision to kill him followed on several failures to arrest him. The same day, an attempt to
kill Zakaria Zubeidi, head of the Jenin al Aqsa Brigades, failed.[128][129] Israel Defense Forces
June 26, 2004 Nablus West Bank Nayef Abu Sharkh (40) Jafer el-Massari Fadi Bagit Sheikh Ibrahim and
the others. Respectively Tanzim Hamas Nablus officer; Islamic Jihad officer.[21] Killed by IDF
paratroopers together with six other men found huddled in a secret tunnel beneath a house in the old
city of Nablus, after trailing a fugitive into the house.[130] Israeli paratroopers.
July 22, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hazem Rahim[21] Islamic Jihad in Palestine member Helicopter
gunship missile strike on a car, killing Rahim and his deputy, Rauf Abu Asi. According to Israeli
sources, Rahim had been seen on video two months earlier brandishing body parts of ambushed Israeli
soldiers.[131][132] Israel Defense Forces
July 29, 2004 Near Rafah refugee camp Gaza Strip Amr Abu Suta, Zaki Abu Rakha[21] Abu al-Rish Brigades
leader. In a car, together with bodyguard, incinerated by Israeli helicopter fire. Accused of
involvement in the shooting of an IDF officer, and a 1992 killing in a Jewish settlement in the Gaza
Strip.[133]
August 17, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Five dead. Four Unidentified?[21] The target was a Hamas Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades leader, Ahmed al-Jabari. The five, included al-Jabari's 14-year-old son, his
brother, his nephew and son-in-law, were killed in a drone missile strike on al-Jabari's home. About a
dozen other Palestinians wounded. al-Jabari survived the attempt.[134][135] Israeli Air Force
September 13, 2004 Jenin West Bank Mahmoud Ass'ad Rajab Abu Khalifah (25),[21] Amjad Husseini 'Aref
Abu Hassan, Yamen Feisal 'Abd al-Wahab Ayub Al-Aqsa Brigades leader, deputy to Zakariya Zubeidi.
Killed together with two aides (Israeli version) when a helicopter missile struck his car in the city
centre.[136] Amjad Hassan and Yamen Feisal 'Abd al-Wahab Ayub were not, according to B'tselem,
involved in the fighting.[57]
September 20, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khaled Abu Shamiyeh (30) Hamas rocketry mechanic.[21][137] Car
hit by missile Israel Defense Forces
September 21, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Nabil al-Saedi (34), Rabah Zaqout[21] Hamas mid-ranking
operatives. Killed when their Jeep was struck by a missile. 8 bystanders including 2 children were
wounded.[138]
September 27, 2004 Damascus Syria Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil (42)[21] Hamas senior official. A
Gazan deported by Israel in 1992. Blown up by a bomb hidden in his SUV when he answered a call on his
mobile phone, triggering the explosion. Israel did not claim responsibility but Ariel Sharon's
spokesman Raanin Gissin said:'Our longstanding policy has been that no terrorist will have any
sanctuary and any immunity,' and Moshe Ya'alon commented that action should be adopted against "terror
headquarters in Damascus" in the wake of the recent Beersheba bus bombings.[139]
September 27, 2004 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Ali al-Shaeir (26)[21] Popular Resistance Committee member
Killed while an Israeli helicopter gunship fired several missiles at a car in Abbassam, believed to
hold their target, Muhammad Abu Nasira. The latter, with two others of the group sustained injuries,
and al-Shair died.[140] Israeli helicopter strike
October 6, 2004 al-Shati refugee camp Gaza Strip Bashir Khalil al-Dabash, (38/42) and Zarif Yousef
al-'Are'ir (30)[21] Head of Islamic Jihad's military wing, al-Quds Brigades. Both killed by helicopter
missile fired at their Subaru in 'Izziddin al-Qassam Street in downtown Gaza. Three passers-by were
wounded. One of three operations in Operation Days of Penitence that killed 5 other Palestinian
militants.[141][142] Israeli Air Force[21]
October 21, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Adnan al-Ghoul Imad al-Baas 2nd in command of Hamas, and Qassem
rocket expert. Killed together with his aide Imad Abbas when their car was destroyed by a missile from
an Apache helicopter. Four bystanders were wounded. .[5]
July 15, 2005 East of Salfit West Bank Samer Abdulhadi Dawhqa, Mohammad Ahmed Salameh Mar'i (20),
Mohammad Yusef 'Abd al-Fatah A'yash (22) Alleged to be 'ticking bombs'.[55] Killed in an olive grove,
or, according to B'tselem, in a cave where two were hiding. The first two died immediately in a
missile and gunfire strike by Apache helicopters. The third was taken to Ramallah in critical
condition, but then seized by Israeli forces and taken off in a military ambulance. He died later, and
neither he nor Mar'i, according to B'tselem, were involved in the fighting.[57][143] Israel Defense
Forces
July 16, 2005 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Saeed Seam (Sayid Isa Jabar Tziam) (31). Hamas commander of
Izzedine al Qassam. Allegedly involved in killing two settlers in 2002 and shooting at an Israeli army
outpost in 2004.[21] Shot dead by Israeli sniper in a targeted killing as he stood outside his Gaza
home, as he was going to water his garden, in Khan Yunis.[144][145]
July 16, 2005 Gaza City .[146] Gaza Strip 'Four Unidentified' (JVL)=Adel Mohammad Haniyya (29); A'asem
Marwan Abu Ras (23); Saber Abu Aasi ( 24); Amjad Anwar Arafat,[147] one reportedly a nephew of Ismail
Haniya.[21][148] Hamas operatives. Apache helicopter struck a van carrying the men and numerous Qassam
rockets in Gaza city. Five civilians, including a child, were wounded in the attack.[144][149][150]
Israeli Air Force[21][21][151][21][152][21][153][154][21][155][156][21][157]
September 25, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Sheikh Mohammed Khalil (32) PIJ Alleged to have been involved
in Hatuel family's murder near the Gush Qatif settlement bloc. Killed when his Mercedes was struck by
5 missiles launched from an Israeli aircraft.[158]
October 27, 2005 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Shadi Mehana/Shadi Muhana (25) PIJ Airstrike hitting car with
four Palestinian militants north of Gaza City. Three civilians were also killed, including a
15-year-old boy (Rami Asef) and a 60-year-old man. One source stated 14 other Palestinians were
wounded.[159][160]
November 1, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hassan Madhoun (33); Fawzi Abu Kara[161] Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades Allegedly planning an operation to strike the Eretz Crossing. Killed when his car was hit by
an Israeli Apache helicopter missile. According to documents in the Palestine Papers Israel's Shaul
Mofaz had proposed to the PA that Fatah execute him.[162]
December 7, 2005 Rafah Gaza Strip Mahmoud Arkan (29). Popular Resistance Committees field operative
Airborne missile strike on a moving car in a residential area. 10 bystanders, including three
children, were injured.[163][164]
December 8, 2005 Gaza Strip Iyad Nagar Ziyad Qaddas Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Missile striking a house.
A third militant, and several Palestinians nearby, including a young girl, suffered injuries.[165]
December 14, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Four Unidentified Popular Resistance Committees Missile strike
on a white sedan near the Karni crossing. Israeli sources say the car was packed with explosives.
Three PRC members killed, a fourth is thought to have been an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member. One
occupant survived, and two bystanders were injured.[166][167]
January 2, 2006 East of Jabaliya Gaza Strip Sayid Abu-Gadian (45); Akram Gadasas (43), third unknown.
PIJ All three hit by IAF rocket while in a car close to a no-go zone declared by Israel in the
northern Gaza Strip. Collateral damage, two bystanders were wounded.
February 5, 2006 Zeitoun Gaza Strip Adnan Bustan; Jihad al-Sawafiri Islamic Jihad in Palestine.
Believed to have director of their engineering and manufacturing unit. Killed when 2 cars fired on by
an IAF missile, the second en route to a retaliatory attack for an earlier Israeli helicopter strike
that killed three people.
February 6, 2006 North of Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip[168] Hassan 'Asfour (25); Rami Hanouna (27)[169]
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade| Hit and killed when their car was struck by three missiles from an Israeli
drone. Three bystanders also wounded.[168]
February 7, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Abu Shariya; Suheil Al Baqir Al Aqsa Brigades Their car
was demolished by a missile.
March 6, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Munir Mahmed Sukhar (30); Iyad Abu Shalouf Islamic Jihad field
operative. Collateral damage, 3-8 passers-by wounded, including 17-year-old Ahmed Sousi, and an
8-year-old boy (Ra'ed al-Batch), both of whom later died.[170]
May 20, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Dahdoh PIJ Killed in car, held responsible for firing crude
rockets into southern Israel. Palestinian version stated Muhanned Annen, 5; his mother, Amnah, 25; and
Hannan Annen, 45, Muhanned's aunt, were collateral victims. Dahdoh was alone in the car (IDF version).
May 25, 2006 Sidon Lebanon Mahmoud al-Majzoub (Abu Hamze), Nidal al-Majzoub Commander of the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad; the brother was a member also. Critically wounded in car bombing, when he
turned on the ignition of his car, parked near the Abu Bakr mosque in Sidon,. He died the next day.
Islamic Jihad blamed Israel, though Israel denied it.[171] An Israeli government spokesman denied
knowledge of any Israeli involvement. (alleged)
June 5, 2006 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip[172] Majdi Hamad (25); Imad Assaliya (27) Popular Resistance
Committees Missile struck their car, targeting Hamad. Three bystanders were injured. Israeli Air
Force[21][173][21][21][174][175]
June 8, 2006 Rafah Gaza Strip Jamal Abu Samhadana and three others Founder of the Popular Resistance
Committees militant group, a former Fatah and Tanzim member, and number two on Israel's list of wanted
terrorists. Had survived 4 assassination attempts.[176] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail
peace talks, as it coincided with a referendum vote on a political initiative by Mahmoud Abbas. Killed
by Israeli airstrike on a training camp, along with at least three other PRC members.[177]
June 13, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hamoud Wadiya; Shawki Sayklia Wadiya was a PIJ rocket expert. Three
militants in a van with a Grad rocket were driving down a main street when a missile struck nearby.
They fled but were killed by a second missile, as people gathered. The second blast killed 11
Palestinian bystanders, including Ashraf Mughrabi (25) his son, Maher (8), and a relative Hisham (14),
4 ambulance drivers and hospital staff rushing to the incident, and three boys. Thirty-nine people
were wounded.[178]
July 4, 2006 Beit Hanoun Gaza Strip Isamail Rateb Al-Masri (30)[179][180] Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades Killed by an IAF rocket.[181]
August 9, 2006 Jenin Gaza Strip Osama Attili (24); Mohammed Atik (26) Described by Israel as leaders
of PIJ Killed when (2) helicopter(s) fired missiles into their house. PIJ leader Hussam Jaradat,
another target escaped the strike, while his deputy Walid Ubeidi abu al-Kassam, was lightly
wounded.[182]
October 12, 2006 'Abasan al-Kabirah neighbourhood Gaza Strip Three unidentified='Abd a-Rahman
'Abdallah Muhammad Qdeih (19); Na'el Fawzi Suliman Qdeih (22); Salah Rashad Shehdeh Qdeih (22); Hamas
All three, armed, killed by a helicopter missile after one of the three fired at an IDF tank
October 12, 2006 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Three militants of Kadiah family. Hamas Five members of Kadiah
family killed, two, Adel Kadiah, 40, and his son, Sohaib, 13, being civilians
October 12, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ashraf Ferwana Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Ashraf targeted in
his home but he survived the drone missile strike which demolished his house. His brother Ayman
Ferwana and a girl died, and 10 others injured.[174][183][184]
October 14, 2006 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Ahmad Hassan 'Abd al-Fatah Abu al-'Anin (19); Sakher Faiz
Muhammad Abu Jabal (19); Rami 'Odeh Salem Abu Rashed (22); Faiz 'Ali Fadel al-'Ur (33); Suliman Hassan
Fadel al-'Ur (30); Muhammad Faiz Mustafa Shaqurah (30); Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Five killed
while walking armed in the refugee camp, by a helicopter-launched missile.Awad Attatwa (18), not
associated with group, also died.[175][185]
October 14, 2006 One Unidentified Al Aqsa Brigades Died when the car he was in was hit by a missile
fired in an airstrike. A local commander also critically injured, and two bystanders wounded.[185]
November 7, 2006 Al-Yamun West Bank Salim Yousef Mahmoud Abu Al-Haija (24); Ala'a Jamil Khamaisa (24);
Taher Abed Abahra (25); Mahmoud Rajah Abu Hassan (25). Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades The four militants
were shot while sitting near the Al-Yamun bakery (Palestinian version), fled wounded and were killed
in a local house. Aiman Suleiman Mahmoud Mustafa (31), a bakery worker came out to see what was
happening and was shot dead. Salim Ahmed Awad (27), Ibrahim Mahmoud Nawahda (30), Salim Ahmed Awad
(27) and Mohammed Yousef Abu Al-Haija (27) were also shot and taken prisoner.[186] Israel Defense
Forces undercover squad.
November 20, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Bassel Sha'aban Ubeid (22); Abdel Qader Habib (26) Izz ad-Din
al-Qassam Brigades Missile fired at a Mercedes containing both, parked outside the Ubeid family home.
Collateral damage, 5 civilians, members of the Amen family, including Hanan Mohammed Amen, aged 3
months and Mo'men Hamdi Amen (2), injured by shrapnel.[186] Israeli Air Force[21]
May 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Imad Muhammad Ahmad Shabaneh (33) Hamas Killed while travelling in a
car hit by an Israeli helicopter missile. Israeli helicopters[21][175]
June 1, 2007 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Fawzi (Fadi) Abu Mustafa PIJ/Al Quds Brigades senior member Killed
by an IAF airforce missile while riding a motor bike. Israeli Air
Force[21][187][21][187][188][188][21][189][21][190][21][191][21][192][21][193][194][21][195][188][21][187][188][21][187][196]
June 24, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hussein Khalil al-Hur=Hossam Khaled Harb (32) Hussein Harb Peugeot
al-Quds Brigades local leader. Struck by a missile while driving a Peugeot through Gaza City
October 23, 2007 Gaza City (near) Gaza Strip Mubarak al-Hassanat (35) Popular Resistance Committees
head and Director of military affairs in the Hamas Interior Ministry. Israeli airstrike (IAF) on his
car.
December 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Majed Harazin (Abu Muamen) PIJ. Senior Commander, West Bank,
overseer of rocket operations. Killed together with two others in his car, reportedly packed with
explosives.
December 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdelkarim Dahdouh; Iman Al-Illa; Ahmad Dahdooh, Ammar al-Said;
Jihad Zahar; Mohamman Karamsi PIJ. Missile strike from an aircraft on a car, combined with IDF
undercover unit, on a PIJ cell preparing to launch rockets.
December 18, 2007 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Hani Barhoum; Mohammed A-Sharif Hamas Strike on a Hamas
security position.
January 13, 2008 Al-Shati Refugee Camp Gaza Strip Nidal Amudi; Mahir Mabhuh; third man unidentified
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Senior operative The three were killed in a car driving through the refugee
camp, struck by an IAF missile.
January 17, 2008 Beit Lahiya Gaza Strip One unidentified[21] =Raad Abu al-Ful (43) and his wife. PIJ
rocket manufacturer They were killed by an IAF airstrike which fired missiles at their car.
January 20, 2008 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmad Abu Sharia Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Commander Hit by an
IAF missile as he walked in the streets. Two other Palestinians wounded.
February 4, 2008 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abu Said Qarmout Popular Resistance Committees member Killed by
an IAF missile that struck his car. Three others were wounded, two seriously.
April 14, 2008 Gaza Strip Ibrahim Abu Olba DFLP Israeli Air Force.[21]
April 30, 2008 Near Shabura refugee camp, Rafah Gaza Strip Nafez Mansour (40) Hamas Killed in an IAF
missile strike. Reportedly involved in Gilad Shalit abduction. Collateral damage. Three bystanders,
one dying of his wounds. A further bystander and young girl also hurt.[21] Israeli Air Force/Shin Bet
joint operation.[197]
June 17, 2008 al-Qararah, Rafah district Gaza Strip Mu'taz Muhammad Jum'ah Dughmosh (27); Musa Fawzi
Salman al-'Adini (35); Mahmoud Muhammad Hassan a-Shanadi (25); Nidal Khaled Sa'id a-Sadudi
(21)Muhammad 'Amer Muhammad 'Asaliyah (20).[175] Army of Islam Killed when their car was struck by an
IAf missile. A further two people were wounded.[198] Israeli Air Force.[21]
August 1, 2008 Tartus Syria Muhammad Suleiman Syrian General. National Security Advisor. Presidential
Advisor for Arms Procurement and Strategic Weapons. Killed by sniper fire to the head and neck. Israel
denied responsibility for the killing, but was widely suspected of involvement. According to an NSA
intercept published by wikileaks, the NSA defined it as the 'first known instance of Israel targeting
a legitimate government official." [199][200][201] The U.S. Embassy in Damascus reported that Israelis
were the 'most obvious suspect (alleged).'[202]
January 1, 2009 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Nizar Rayan (49) Top level Senior Hamas leader. Professor of
Sharia law, Islamic University of Gaza. Among first 5 top Hamas decision makers, and field operative.
Advocated suicide bombings inside Israel.[203][204] His house destroyed by an IAF bomb. along with his
4 wives and 6 of his 14 children. 30 others in the vicinity were wounded. According to Israel,
secondary explosions from weapons in the building caused collateral damage. Rayan was not the target,
rather, the strike aimed to destroy Hamas' central compound which included several buildings that
served as storage sites for weapons. Israel further stated that phone warnings were delivered to the
residents.[204][205] Israeli Air Force
January 3, 2009 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abu Zakaria al-Jamal Senior Hamas military wing commander of Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and leader of Gaza City's rocket-launching squads[206] Killed in Israeli
airstrike.[207]
January 15, 2009 Jabalia Gaza Strip Said Seyam Hamas Interior Minister Killed in Israeli airstrike
with his brother, his son, and Hamas general security services officer. Salah Abu Shrakh.[208] Israeli
Air Force
January 26, 2009 Bureij Refugee Camp Gaza Strip Issa Batran (failed. See 30 July 2010) Senior military
commander of the Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Targeted at his home. The attempt
to assassinate him failed, but the shell hit the balcony of their home and killed his wife Manal
Sha'rawi, and five of their children: Bilal, Izz Ad-Din, Ihsan, Islam and Eyman. Batran and his child
Abdul-Hadi survived.[209][210] Israel Defense Forces
March 4, 2009 Gaza Strip Khaled Shalan Senior Operative PIJ Killed in Israeli airstrike, together with
2/3 other militants, targeted after alleged involvement in rocket attacks on the Israeli city of
Ashkelon. They jumped from their car but were critically wounded. 5 bystanders were also
wounded.[211][212][213] Israeli Air Force
2010s
Date Place Location Target Description Action Executor
January 11, 2010 Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Awad Abu Nasir Islamic Jihad Senior Field Commander Had
escaped several assassination attempts. Reportedly involved in attempts to harm Israeli soldiers.
Killed by a missile.[214][215] Israeli Air Force[21]
January 12, 2010 Tehran Iran Masoud Alimohammadi Iranian Physicist Killed in a car bomb. Majid Jamali
Fashi reportedly confessed to an Iranian court he had been recruited by Mossad to carry out the
execution, while the US State Department called the allegation "absurd". Mossad (alleged)[216]
January 19, 2010 Dubai United Arab Emirates Mahmoud al-Mabhouh Hamas senior military commander of Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, believed to have been involved in smuggling weapons and explosives into
Gaza.[217] Widely reported to have been killed by Israeli intelligence members. Israel stated that
there is no proof of its involvement, and neither confirmed nor denied the allegations of a Mossad
role.[218][219] Dubai police report that Israeli agents used Australian, French, British, Irish, and
Dutch passports.
July 30, 2010 Deserted area in the Nuseirat refugee camp Gaza Strip Issa Abdul-Hadi al-Batran (40)
Hamas Senior military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in central Gaza, who had survived 4
previous attempts on his life (26 Jan.2009). Thought to have been involved in manufacturing rockets.
Killed by a missile in retaliation for earlier rocket attack on city of Ashkelon. A further 13
Palestinians were injured in the strike.[209][210] Israeli Air Force
November 3, 2010 Gaza Strip Mohammed Nimnim Allegedly al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam
commander[220] Car explosion, due to either a bomb planted by Israel or an Israeli airstrike.[221]
Israeli Air Force, with Egyptian intelligence.
November 17, 2010 Gaza Strip Islam Yassin al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam commander[222] Israeli
airstrike on his car, killing him, his brother, and injuring four others.[223] Israeli Air Force
January 11, 2011 Gaza Strip Mohammed A-Najar Islamic Jihad operative. Suspected of planning attacks
against civilians and launching rockets at Israel[224]
Attacked by the Israel Airforce while driving his motorcycle in the Gaza Strip.[224]
Israeli Air Force
April 2, 2011 Ismail Lubbad, Abdullah Lubbad, Muhammad al Dayah Hamas Allegedly aiming to kidnap
Israeli tourists in Sinai over Passover. .[21]
April 9, 2011 Gaza Strip Tayseer Abu Snima Senior Hamas military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades Killed along with 2 of his bodyguards by the Israeli air force during a period of escalated
rocket fire from Gaza. He was the most senior Hamas commander killed since 2009.[225] Israeli Air
Force
July 23, 2011 Tehran Iran Darioush Rezaeinejad Iranian electrical engineer Killed by unknown gunmen on
motorcycle. Rezaeinejad was involved in development of high-voltage switches, which are used in a key
component of nuclear warheads. Such switches may also have civilian scientific applications.[226] The
German Newspaper Der Spiegel claimed Mossad was behind the operation. He is the third Iranian nuclear
scientist killed since 2010.[227] Mossad (alleged)
August 18, 2011 Gaza Strip Abu Oud al-Nirab; Khaled Shaath; Imad Hamed Popular Resistance Committees
Commanders Killed hours after a terrorist attack killed 6 civilians and one soldier in southern
Israel. 4 additional members of the group were killed in the strike.[228] Israeli Air Force, Shin Bet
August 24, 2011 Ismael al-Asmar PIJ Allegedly weapons smuggler and militant in Egypt's Sinai, killed
just before shooting a Qassam rocket. [21]
September 6, 2011 Khaled Sahmoud Popular Resistance Committees Killed after allegedly firing 5 Qassam
into Southern Israel [21]
October 29, 2011 Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil PIJ Munitions expert Killed in retaliation for allegedly
launching rockets into Israel earlier that day. [21]
November 12, 2011 Tehran Iran General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam The main architect of the Iranian
missile system and the founder/father of Iran's deterrent power ballistic missile forces.
He was also the chief of the "self-sufficiency" unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Killed
along with 17 other members of the Revolutionary Guards known as Bid Kaneh explosion.
Those who died are known as the "Shahidan Ghadir".
Iranian officials said that the blast at the missile base was an accident, and ruled out any sabotage
organized by Israel.
AGIR said that the explosion "had taken place in an arms depot when a new kind of munitions was being
tested and moved".
However, TIME magazine cited a "unnamed western intelligence source" as saying that Mossad was behind
the blast.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
[229] [230] [231]
Mossad (alleged)
December 9, 2011 Isam Subahi Isamil Batash Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades [21]
January 11, 2012 Tehran Iran Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan Iranian nuclear scientist The bomb that killed
Ahmadi-Roshan at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and another unidentified person was a
magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and the
" work of the Zionists [Israelis]," deputy Tehran governor Safarali Baratloo said.[232]
[233][234]
Mossad (alleged)
March 9, 2012 Tel al-Hawa Gaza Strip Zuhir al-Qaisi; Mahmud Ahmed Hananni Qaisi was Secretary-General
of the Popular Resistance Committees According to Israeli intelligence, he was planning an imminent
attack in the Sinai.[235] Israeli Air Force
August 5, 2012 Tel al-Sultan Refugee Camp.[236] Gaza Strip Nadi Okhal (19); Ahmad Said Ismail (22)
Popular Resistance Committee, Two senior operatives. IDF sources say they were associated with global
jihadist movement. Killed while riding a motor bike. The other passenger was badly wounded. [21]
September 20, 2012 Gaza Strip Gaza Strip Anis Abu Mahmoud el-Anin (22); Ashraf Mahmoud Salah (38).
Hamas security officers. Salah belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees Their car was shelled by
aircraft overhead.[237] Israeli Air Force[21]
October 13, 2012 Jabaliya Gaza Strip Hisham Al-Saidni (Abu al-Walid al- Maqdisi) (43/47/53);[238]
Ashraf al-Sabah.[239][240] Respectively Salafi-jihadist militant leader of al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad and
the Mujahedeen Shura Council, and head of Ansar Al-Sunna. Israeli and one Salafi source say they had
links with Al-Qaeda.[241][242] Killed by a drone-launched rocket while riding a motor bike in company
with Jazar. Several civilians, including a 12-year-old boy, were wounded.[243]
October 13, 2012 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Yasser Mohammad al-Atal (23) Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine Rocket strike while he was riding his motor bike. A second man was critically
injured.[240][244]
October 14, 2012 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ezzedine Abu Nasira (23); Ahmad Fatayer (22)[240] Popular
Resistance Committees Struck by a missile while riding in a tuk-tuk after firing rockets into Israel
to avenge deaths resulting from two airstrikes the day before. Two others seriously wounded.[245]
Israeli Air Force[21]
November 14, 2012 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmed Jaabari Top level Commander of Hamas' military wing Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Number 2 to Mohammed Deif. Killed in an airstrike at the start of Operation
Pillar of Cloud. Led Hamas' 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip and, according to Israel, was responsible
for most attacks on Israel originating in Gaza from about 2006 to 2012, including the capture of Gilad
Shalit.[246]
November 15–19, 2012 Gaza Strip Hab's Hassan Us Msamch
Ahmed Abu Jalal
Khaled Shaer
Osama Kadi
Muhammad Kalb
Ramz Harb
Yahiyah Abbayah Hab's Hassan Us Msamch, was a senior operative and Hamas Bombmaker.
Ahmed Abu Jalal, was a Senior Hamas commander of the Hamas central military wing in Al-Muazi.
Khaled Shaer, was a senior operative in the anti-tank operations.
Osama Kadi, was a senior operative in anti-tank operations.
Muhammad Kalb, was a senior operative in the aerial defense operations.
Ramz Harb, was an Islamic Jihad senior operative in propaganda in Gaza city.
Yahiyah Abbayah was a senior Hamas expert bomb maker and a military commander in central Gaza. All of
them were killed by IAF airstrike inside their command bunker and weapon storage during Operation
Pillar of Defense.
February 12, 2013 Damascus Syria Hassan Shateri Top IRGC General. Under the pseudonym Hussam
Khoshnevis, He was a Head of Iranian IRGC special reconstruction project for Hezbollah infrastructure
in southern Lebanon.
Israel air strike killed him during his traveling from Damascus to Beirut.
[247]
April 30, 2013 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal (24/25) and three others, one on
the bike. Al Quds Brigades (Israel). Hamas security guard at Al-Shifa Hospital (Hamas version).[248]
Defined by Israel as a Freelance Terror Consultant" and active in different Jihad Salafi terror
organisations responsible for two rockets fired towards Eilat on 17 April, he was killed when a rocket
hit him on his motorbike. The strike broke a fragile cease-fire agreement.[249]
December 4, 2013 Beirut Lebanon Hassan al-Laqqis Senior Hezbollah Military Commander. Chief of
technology officer and in charge of the Arms Procurement and Strategic Weapons for the group. Shot and
Killed by gunmen in the head with a silenced gun outside his home and car.
Israel never took responsibility, but it is widely suspected Mossad committed it.
[231]
Mossad
January 22, 2014 Beit Hanoun Gaza Strip Ahmad Zaanin; Mahmoud Yousef Zaanin PFLP;PIJ The relatives
were held responsible for rocket attacks into southern Israel. Only Ahmed was admitted by PIJ to be a
member. His cousin and he were killed sitting in a pickup truck parked outside their home.[250]
Israeli Air Force[21]
February 9, 2014 Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Abdullah Kharti Popular Resistance Committees member.
Regarded by IDF as involved with rocket fire episodes. Hit and critically wounded, with a friend,
while riding on a motorcycle.[251]
March 3, 2014 farmland near Beit Hanoun[252] Gaza Strip Mus'ab Musa Za'aneen (21); Sharif Nasser (31)
PIJ (Israeli version):Had just fired homemade rocket landing in a field south of Ashkelon (Palestinian
version): It was not known if either were militants. A child and a fourth person were wounded.[253]
June 11, 2014 Gaza Strip Mohammed Ahmed Alarur/Awar (30/33) of Beit Lahiya; Hamada Hassan, a Beit
Lahia resident (25) was critically wounded.[254] Hamas policeman. Salafist cell leader (Israeli
description) Described by IDF sources as a global jihad-affiliated terrorist planning attacks against
Israel responsible for a rocket salvo on Sderot that interrupted the silence of a Passover holiday.
Alarur was hit by a missile while riding a motorbike. A car nearby was also struck.[255] One report
identifies a further victim, his 7 year old nephew, who was riding in the family care and who died of
wounds on June 14, ascribing to the latter a role of 'human shield.'[256] Israel Air Force, Shin Bet.
June 27, 2014 al-Shati refugee camp Gaza Strip Muhammad al-Fasih and; Usama al-Hassumi Two Senior
operatives. Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades Struck by two helicopter-launched missiles while driving a
black Kia vehicle. Two other people were wounded.[257] Israeli Air Force
July 5, 2014 Damascus Syria Mwafaq Badiyeh Samir Kuntar's right-hand man and the personal liaison
officer between Samir Kuntar and Hezbollah. He was killed by an explosive device planted on his car by
"Mossad agents." While driving on the main road between Quneitra and Damascus. The security source
claim the assassination was a response to rockets fired from Syria to Israel in March, that the Syrian
army and Hezbollah were responsible for. Mossad (alleged)
July 8, 2014 Gaza Strip Muhammad Shaaban Muhammad Shaaban is a head of Hamas Special Forces Naval
Commando Unit in Gaza He was killed along with 2 passengers when his car was hit by IAF air strike
followed by attempted infiltration by 5 Hamas Naval Frogmen inside Israel Beach in Gaza border.
[258]
Israeli Air Force
July 27, 2014 Gaza Strip Salah Abu Hassanein
Hafez Mohammad Hamad
Hussein Abd al-Qader Muheisin
Akram Sha'ar
Mahmoud Ziada
Osama al-Haya
Ahmad Sahmoud
Abdallah Allah'ras
Shaaban Dakhdoukh
Mahmoud Sinwar Salah Abu Hassanein leader and spokesperson of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Hafez Mohammad Hamad was Top level Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in the Beit Hanoun (northern
Gaza) area who is directly responsible for the rocket fire on Sderot during escalation leading up to
Operation Protective Edge.
Hussein Abd al-Qader Muheisin was a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Sheijaya.
Akram Sha'ar is a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Khan Younis, who is directly responsible for
both rocket fire and terror attacks in Israel.
Mahmoud Ziada was a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Jabaliya, responsible for upgrading Hamas
rocket arsenal and directing fighting against Israel during Operation Protective Edge.
Osama al-Hayya A Senior Hamas leader in Sheijaya, whose son is in Hamas's 'political wing' Khalil
al-Hayya.
Ahmad Sahmoud was a Top level Hamas commander in Khan Younis.
Abdallah Allah'ras is a Senior commander in the Hamas's "military wing,""the Al-Qassam Brigades.
Shaaban Dakhdoukh was a commander of the forces in Zeitoun, who worked on burying long-range rockets
and helped to smuggle weapons for his forces.
Mahmoud Sinwar a Hamas Military commander, who was involved in the creation of attack tunnels and the
launching of rocket fire into Israeli territory and the raid in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was
captured. All of them were killed by IAF airstrike inside of their house along with their comrades and
entire family and also inside their buried Gaza tunnels.
[258][259]
August 3, 2014 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Ahmad al-Mabhouh Nephew of slain Hamas commander Mahmoud
al-Mabhouh in charge of engineering and destruction officer in Hamas.
Among other things, he was responsible for hiding rockets before they were launched at Israel,
preparing complex explosive devices and planning armed attacks against Israeli targets. The IDF and
Shin Bet attacked a building in Jabaliya on Saturday night, killing Hamas operative Ahmad al-Mabhouh,
the nephew of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was inside.
[260]
Israeli Armed Forces, Shin Bet
August 19, 2014 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Deif (failed attempt) Chief of staff and Supreme
Military Commander of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The main architect of Hamas's tunnel system.
Several IAF missiles struck Deif's 6 storey home. His wife Widad (27), 7 month old son Ali and
daughter Sarah (3) were killed in the strike. Three other residents in the building were also killed.
According to Fox News, anonymous Israeli intelligence sources claimed that Deif had been killed in the
strike. Hamas denied the reports that Deif, who has survived five previous Israeli attempts to
assassinate him, had died in the F-16 bombing of his home. In April 2015, Israel confirmed that Deif
survived the assassination attempt.[261][262][263][264][265] Israeli Air Force
August 21, 2014 Rafah Gaza Strip Raed al Atar Rafah Division Senior commander.
Mohammed Abu Shmallah Rafah Division Senior commander.
Mohammed Barhoum Rafah Division Senior commander. 3 Hamas Senior Military commanders Struck by a pair
of F-16 one-ton bombs guided through a window of the building where they had been located.[266][267]
January 18, 2015 al-Amal Farms, Quneitra District Syria Jihad Mughniyah
Mohammed Ahmed Issa
Abu Ali Reza Al Tabatabai
Mohammed Ali Allah Dadi
Ismail Al Ashhab
Abu Abbas Al Hijazi
Mohammed Ali Hassan Abu Al Hassan
Ghazi Ali Dhawi
Ali Hussein Ibrahim
Along with 6 other Iranian and Hezbollah high-ranking officers Jihad Mughniyah was a son of a slain
Hezbollah supreme military commander Imad Mughniyah.
Mohammed Ahmed Issa was Head of Security and Operations. He was also a Senior Hezbollah Military
Commander in Syria.
Ismail Al Ashhab was a Senior Hezbollah military commander and a top liaison officer with Iran in
charge of training Hezbollah forces along the Golan heights frontier.
Abu Ali Reza Al Tabatabai was a Top Iranian IRGC General.
Mohammed Ali Allah Dadi was a Top Iranian IRGC General.
Abu Abbas Al Hijazi was a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Mohammed Ali Hassan Abu Al Hassan was also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Ghazi Ali Dhawi was also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Ali Hussein Ibrahim also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria. Struck and hit by Israel
Air Force Nimrod/Hellfire missile Apache Helicopter during their reconnaissance and inspection mission
along with Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line at the Golan Heights.
According to Israel Intelligence Security, they were planning for massive mega attack, including
infiltration, shooting, assassinations, suicide bombing, anti-tank attack, and missile attack with the
intention of kill and kidnap Israel soldiers and civilians community along with Quneitra and Galilee
border.
And also help to establish the missile base inside Quneitra region.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied an air strike.
December 21, 2015 Damascus Syria Samir Kuntar
Farhan Issam Shaalan
Mohammed Riza Fahemi
Mir Ahmad Ahmadi
along with several high ranking IRGC commanders and Hezbollah members Samir Kuntar was a senior
Hezbollah commander and also a convicted murderer of an Israeli family in 1979, held in Israeli prison
for the next 30 years before released in a prisoner swap in 2008.
Mohammed Riza Fahemi and Mir Ahmad Ahmadi were two Iranian senior military officers of the IRGC
Intelligence division. According to the Israeli defence establishment, they were meeting in order to
plan the next round of Iran-sponsored terrorist operation against Israel from the Golan Heights areas
recently secured by the Syrian military. Two Israeli planes allegedly destroyed a six-story
residential building in Jaramana on the outskirts of Damascus. Kuntar's death was confirmed by his
brother and Hezbollah. The explosion also killed eight Syrian nationals, among them Hezbollah
commanders, and injured a number of other people.[268][269]
December 17, 2016 Sfax Tunisia Mohammed Al Zawari Mohammed Al Zawari was a Chief of Hamas drone
program and an Aviation Engineer expert. He also worked on the development and production of Hezbollah
drones. He was shot dead in the head 6 times by using guns equipped with silencer just in front of his
house, who located in Sfax 270 km Southeast of Tunis. Hamas accused Mossad[270]
March 24, 2017 Gaza Strip Palestine Mazen Fuqaha Mazen Fuqaha was a Senior Hamas Operative. He was
also a Senior commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas Military wing. According to Hamas, he
was shot dead 4 times in the head and chest by Israeli Special Forces by using silenced weapons guided
by Shin Bet Agents and Gaza operatives. Israeli Special Forces/ Shin Bet[citation needed]
April 21, 2018 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Fadi al-Batsh Batash was a Hamas-affiliated Palestinian engineer
from the Gaza Strip. Shot dead by two people on a motorcycle when he was leaving a mosque after his
morning prayers. Mossad is suspected.[271]
@Rich
Your "most moral" nation of Epstein cannot survive without blackmailing and deceiving, and yet you are
coming on the UNZ forum to lecture the readers about morals? This is ridiculous.
Time to realize that holobiz is over.
@Rich
Spoken like a true Hasbera Clown. The Iranians actually defeated the "ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein" that
were supplied with US biological and Chemical weapons since their objective was purely defensive. Just as
those "ragtag forces" in Vietnam defeated the US by continuing to exist despite the genocidal bombing
campaigns.
You should really improve your literacy level by actually reading a book instead of some
Zionist Agitprop.
@RowBuddy
Are you so naive as to think that dumping Trump in 2020 will change anything? Israel owns both parties
equally, and it is a fact that up to this point in his administration Donald Trump has the least amount of
blood on his hands when compared to each of the last three Presidents.
If you think differently, then ask yourself how the Nobel Peace Prize winning Messiah and the Hilldebeast
destroyed the #1 economic country in Africa and turned it into a total shit hole nightmare. That would be
the country of Libya for those not paying attention or who worship at the feet of the equally corrupt
Democrat party.
@Not Raul
Well lets take this to its conclusion,Trump nukes Iran it drifts over into Russia killing a few hundred or
thousands,now just what do you think Russia would do,do you think that Russia would take that as an act of
war against them, and let those missile's programed to impact the White House and pentagon be on there
way;!!!
Iraqi security official tells @nbcnews there has been anther US airstrike, this one north of Baghdad
targeting Shiite militia leaders. Reports of 6 killed.
This right BEFORE a big Shiite protest tomorrow in Baghdad. It seems certain to provoke an escalation.
The attack has been confirmed by other sources.
It looks like the provocations will continue until Iran responds creating the pretext for a broader war.
@Alfred
US is unique to indict people from opposite spectrums of the same crimes usually after one of the criminals
are dealt with . 911 has been blamed on Iran. It has been approved by American court . Settlements have been
reached without any participation of Iran . After Bin Laden was dealt with for crimes of 911, Saddam was
pointed fi anger at with similar success story . Pakistan has been also accused directly and indirectly of
the same crimes .
Pan Am had checkered history The intercepts of messages that seemingly originated from Libya was
manufactured and relayed by Israeli agents of worst filthy zionist mindset to draw visceral wrath of America
on Libya .
Now then Zio will be the first to blame it on Iran and who knows after that Pakistan.
The fallen Iranian was an honest and honorable man, unlike the Jewish procuress of underage girls for
wealthy pedophiles and the Jewish plunderer of pensions.
I'd like to send this to every US military barracks in the world.
I'd like to see it on every soldier's locker and pasted on every Army recruitment center in America.
Young Americans have been slaughtering honorable Muslim men, women and children, thousands of miles away,
so that repulsive pigs like Epstein or Weinstein
can rape their daughters while they're off fighting and dying.
It's an untenable situation, and one we should all try to stop.
Let's say the Saudis attack the USA again like they did on 9-11
The Unz Review already has some good comedy writers. I would suggest that you start with open mic nights
in bars and coffee shops until you develop some basic skills.
@Rurik
Not to worry the maneuver is too transparent.
1. Strategically, they accomplished zilch.
2. They made a first-rate martyr.
That they had no better idea can only mean:
1. They are losing.
2. They did it in hopes of provoking an overreaction (much like Heydrich had to die because he did more for
the Czech worker than anyone before or after him).
And over the last four decades the Iranians have grown calloused to provocation
By doing nothing, but speaking out, Iran's message of victimization is it's more powerful, moral
weapon.
A noble sentiment, Rurik. Sadly, in the last few decades, morality has taken a back seat, and evil seems
to consistently triumph. Consider the plight of the unarmed Palestinians protesting near the Israeli wall on
their land. They have held the moral upper ground, while the Israelis have consistently mowed them down,
women and children alike, with nary a protest from the rest of the world, least of all from their
bought-and-paid-for Arab neighbors, like Egypt and Jordan (don't get me started on the KSA). Meanwhile,
countries that have protested, like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, are considered terrorists.
I think that "turning the other cheek" was a shrewd jewish trick on christians. The only way to stop a
bully is punch him in the nose.
@annamaria
In my world Epstein and his friends get the death penalty. My people have no semitic or Ashkenazi blood at
all. But just because some deranged general dislikes Israel, doesn't make him a good guy. He was a leader of
an army that engages in terrorism, as well as pursuing an agenda that is antithetical to freedom and basic
human rights. I'm not here lecturing anyone, but if you consider the millionaire mullahs and their lackeys
"heroes", I'd say you're confused, at the least.
@Rurik
I believe a not insignificant amount -- perhaps even the majority -- of pro-war Americans know this to be true:
That they and their progeny are mere cannon fodder for Zionist imperialism. But they simply don't care or
are even proud of dying for so "worthy" a cause. Never underestimate the persistent and deeply-rooted
hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the utter foolishness of your average American.
@JamesinNM
I fully expect Israel to set off a nuke in the US and destroy some Southern or Midwestern city where the
"deplorables" live. Then indisputable evidence will be found pinning it on Iran. Kills two birds with one
stone.
They get the war they want, kill a bunch of those they hate in America. And those they hate in America
clamor for the destruction of others they hate in Iran. The mother of all false flags. The one on 9/11
didn't completely get the 7 nations job done.
@Rich
Soleimani was fighting AL CIADA aka ISIS a creation of the ZUS and Israel and ZBritain and NATO, and so they
killed him as they could not let him continue to kill the terrorists created by the CIA and MOSSAD and MI6.
@Passer by
i said a "Profitable", not a good one. And i didn't mean the US economy as a nation economy.
The whole "western" system right now is driven by some very few (an NO they are NOT Jews, they are only
rich, very rich). And only those will profit from it. Until someone stop them directly.
Those people don't care about live or nation. They only care about money, their own money.
And over the last four decades the Iranians have grown calloused to provocation
I hope so. It's so bloody obvious by now.
Like the way they've been trying to 'rope a dope' Putin into a wider war with Ukraine, but Putin's far
too savvy to take the bait.
Just let the ZUS keep frothing like a rabid dog, (h/t Ron Unz) and the world will eventually tire of its
antics, and put it down, by repudiating the dollar.
If Iran is threatened with an all out war they could easily close the Straight of Homes and destroy the
Saudi oil fields with Chemical weapons that'll render extracting Saudi oil mute. Result would be loss of
Western World economy crashing big time and the USA falling into civil war cause they cannot maintain their
freebies to the population. Not to mention attacking every US base in the ME. After all if Iran was facing
annihilation they would have nothing to lose but to bring everyone down with them.
Iran won't escalate because they tried, and lost a general. If they try anything else, they'll pay too
steep a price.
They might have just killed a foremost general, but the ones who have just proved to the world that they
are losing are the US/Israeli Zionists.
When engaged in a strategic survival fight against a historic, cohesive nation of 80 millions people,
killing one of their generals won't make any difference. It just reveals that you have run out of more
effective, long-term means and have reached a strategic dead-end.
It is like losing a dispute over land with a powerful neighbour, and throwing a stone at one of his
windows to satisfy a tantrum. It won't change anything significant.
This is the end of the road for Zionist long-term strategy in the ME.
Iran will not retaliate militarily, but you will soon understand the law of unintended consequences:
– Soleimani was so popular in Iran that Iranians will rally around their government; so much for the social
and economic undermining of the Islamic Republic that was Israel's best card.
– Iraqis will also rally around their institutions; the end of the US occupation has now been put on top of
their priorities.
– Israel will have to face an even stronger and more cohesive Shia Crescent, as Iraq will join in.
I'm not necessarily a cheerleader for Iran but, were I a leader in Iran, every time the US attacked one of
mine, some Israeli bigshot would bite the dust. Every time. Dual citizens would be my preferred target. It
would be a favor to the world.
@Johnny Walker Read
The murdered peacemaker John Lennon famously asked, "What if there was a war and nobody showed up?" Since
Vietnam, any American who has joined the military is a fool. These fools have not only aided in the
destruction of many non-threatening nations and the deaths of millions of innocents but they have also aided
in the destruction of the USA itself, for the working American people that is.
the Israelis have consistently mowed them down, women and children alike, with nary a protest from the
rest of the world, least of all from their bought-and-paid-for Arab neighbors, like Egypt and Jordan
(don't get me started on the KSA).
yea, or the SJW in the US House or NYT. Where are 'the squad' when it comes to Palestine, or Iran, for
that matter?
Counting shekels, that's where.
I think that "turning the other cheek" was a shrewd jewish trick on christians. The only way to stop a
bully is punch him in the nose.
I wholeheartedly agree, in a fair contest.
But Iran is in no position to fight a war with the ZUS. It would be crushed, and the zios would be just
as giddy over dead American goyim as they would dead Iranians, if not more so.
One thing I just can't understand, is how fellow Muslims can accommodate Zionism, as it's practiced these
days. Like the KSA, as you mention.
So, yea, it's an awful situation, but I'd still counsel a non-violent protest posture, even as the fiend
menaces and slaughters them. But if an Iranian or Iraqi, or God knows how many other people who've been so
terribly wronged, were to strike out, and kill one or two goons in the service of zion, I know I couldn't
begrudge them. Like the Afghans who occasionally kill their ZUS trainers/occupiers. It's perfectly
understandable.
@Rich
I challenge you to show just a single act of terrorism committed by General Soleimani and Iran, and I mean
an act of terror not a retaliation. Iran has done nothing to the West to warrant the aggression against it.
Her only problem is the vast resources it has that the West so desperately wants to control.
@plantman
BAGHDAD --
A United States air strike targeted an Iraqi militia late on Friday on Taji road north of
Baghdad,
state TV said. It did not name the militia or provide further details.
Question #1: Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate
international rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?
Question #2: Thirty -- fifty -- seventy years from now, will an Iraqi court charge with war crimes and
crimes against humanity the 82nd Airborne soldiers pictured above?
@Passer by
All correct in the medium term just a bit wishful in the here and now
All excellent points why the US MUST hold onto the Gulf, Persian or not, with teeth and fingernails;
losing control over oil the US don´t need means they can force no one to trade actual value for green paper,
which not only means cold turkey from all those dandy little wars but also groid uprising back home.
Sure, folding up and going home would be the best for all concerned –
but it will never happen :/
@Gizmo880
This is what the Clinton apologist with his head up his Duff "editor" over at Veterans Today thinks as well.
As if O-bomb-em wasn't as bad or even worse than Cheney er I mean Bushwhacker Bush. I mean get real! These
people are so deluded. If we just all close our eyes and vote Democrat and sing kumbaya we'll enter a world
of hope and change.
Never underestimate the persistent and deeply-rooted hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the
utter foolishness of your average American.
I'm somewhat more charitable of the Americanus Bovinus.
I suspect that he either knows of the 'special relationship, in which case he'd be reluctant to kill and
die for his enemies in Israel, or he's just another duped fool.
Pat Tillman started off being a duped fool, but then he figured it out. They solved that 'problem' with
three 5.56mm holes in a 'tight pattern' to Pat's forehead.
@Agent76
Were the neocons also inspired by Deuteronomy 7 which talks about the necessary destruction of 7 (seven!)
nations?
Deuteronomy 7 New International Version (NIV)
Driving Out the Nations
7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before
you many nations -- the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites,
seven nations larger and stronger than you -- 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you
and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.[a] Make no treaty with them, and show
them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their
daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods,
and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to
them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles[b] and burn their
idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out
of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
Trump is acting out the American Paradox. Jews have such total power that the only way to ease the Jewish
attack on you is to serve them even harder. Jews have done everything to disparage and defame Trump, and
what does the 'tough guy' do? To ease the agony, he sucks up to Zion even more so that 'my Jews' will push
back against the 'Jews who hate me'.
Jews are the gods of America. In the Bible, if the God clobbers you, your only hope of salvation is to
serve Him with greater servitude. In America, if Jews kick your butt, your only option is to hope that they
will kick you less hard by kissing their ass.
@Rurik
Dear Rurik, the tribe is in a self-destruction mode -- they cannot help it. Zionists are consumed by ethnic
hatred and the hatred is blinding and destroying them.
It is tragic that the psychopaths have murdered the great numbers of decent and innocent human beings.
What is truly appalling is the cowardice of American brass. While politicians are the natural persons of
easy morals, the dishonorable and pussy-catting American commanders are a stunning phenomenon. From Rumsfeld
to Brennan to the current "boss" (what's his name which he is busy dishonoring?), the US brass has learned
how to stay comfortable (and profitably) on their knees serving the zionist masters.
@Ilya G Poimandres
Absolutely, couldn't have said it better myself. None of this is legal or acceptable and for a country
that's so obsessed with giving foreigners "constitutional rights", it makes us look like a bunch of
hypocrites. But of course we are. And they don't do it in my name and I want no part of any of it.
@Poco
This is a very real worry of mine. Very plausible and actually, probable. I worry that it will be a
biological weapon. That scares the crap out of me! And I wouldn't put it past them one bit. They love it
when we suffer and die. The Bible was right about them.
Actions like this make us question past US military actions. US paints itself as the good guy fighting the
bad guys, but US has provoked so many nations and forced them to react, whereupon US employed its superior
firepower to kill countless people.
Maybe the US was always evil.
Will the progs and Democrats hit Trump hard on this? Or will their response be muted because their Jewish
masters actually like this side of treacherous Trump doing the bidding of Israel and Zion?
Jewish Power is utterly vile. Sacrifice any number of people for Zion. It's really a new form of human
sacrifice. Jews make a big deal of how their religion forbade human sacrifice, but they sacrifice human
lives by way of US foreign policy.
@TaintedCanker
The reason decent people dislike America and Israel more than Iran et al. is because America and Israel are
the aggressors here. Why is that so hard to understand?
But Iran is in no position to fight a war with the ZUS. It would be crushed, and the zios would be
just as giddy over dead American goyim as they would dead Iranians, if not more so.
Yes, Iran would be crushed in a direct military confrontation, however, an asymmetric war is a different
beast altogether. I referred in an earlier post to "death by a thousand cuts", and that is what Iran should
do – directed assassinations by their allies, who are everywhere. What is good for the goose
Start by taking down a few zios like Pompeo, Bolton, Adelson, etc., and suddenly bullying isn't so cheap.
One thing I just can't understand, is how fellow Muslims can accommodate Zionism, as it's practiced
these days. Like the KSA, as you mention.
I don't know that they do tolerate zionists – but they have been effectively muzzled by the tyrants we
prop up to control them (e.g. MBS, Sisi, et al.). Look at our cousins in Europe, who are just as muzzled and
jailed for raising a single dissenting voice against jews or Israel. Forget Europe, we, ourselves are on the
threshold of something similar here. Unconstitutional laws go unchallenged. Note the recent laws forbidding
protests against Israel on campus. A flood is imminent.
Where are 'the squad' when it comes to Palestine, or Iran, for that matter?
Like damning with faint praise, the fact that the Palestinian/Iranian cause is represented by the 'squad'
does more damage to their plight than if they had kept their moths shut. The squad is easy to take down and
their position on this issue is easily dismissed, and they fail to gain the support of people like me
because their other issues are so ludicrous. Their flawed character (e.g incest, lies, etc.) hardly makes
them good lawyers for anyone, leave alone Palestinians and Iranians.
@A123
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You take tidbits from the MSM and what the
establishment says and regurgitate. You are a stooge of Natenyahu, the real sociapath. Trump is becoming one
very fast as well.
The regional stability only requires that uncle Sam come home and stop shedding
American blood as well as Middle Eastern blood.
Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home.
Not only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much
weaker.
Here is a very good example of your ignorance. You have typical American problem. They think they know
how the Iranian mind works. They don't know a thing about how Iranians think. Iran has ten more Sulemanis
waiting in line to take his place and there are ten more Al-Mohandus in Iraq.
Does anyone remember what an American General said about ISIS? He said it will take 30 to 40 years to
defeat of ISIS in Iraq. It took less three years for the Iraq militias, all volunteer group mobilzed as a
result of a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, to defeat ISIS and ISIS was being supplied arms by the
US. Al-Mohandus was one of that group.
@renfro
Thank you for posting that list. Any just soul in this world should keep a copy of that list as a permanent
reminder of the nature of the Jewish state and its sponsor/protector – insane criminals deserving the
harshest of their own gods' revenge: total obliteration from the face of the earth for ever. They are the
scourge of humanity; is anyone with a conscience safe in thie world?
Question #1: Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate
international rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?
These guys just follow orders. They are not taught to think about the morality of their actions, but to
trust the wisdom of their leaders and the justice of the cause.
No thinking person could honestly serve in the American Military today. Their cause is not defense of any
ideals or their own homeland, but to serve an unjust and evil government in thrall to Jewish supremacists.
The only hope for us sane people is to hunker down and crack open another delightful $1.39 plus tax 8.1%
Hurricane 25 ouncer. Americans like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, when in reality they
are pathetically superstitious and naturally subservient. Half the country every Sunday actually worships a
mythical jew zombie and even routinely mutilates the genitals of their male offspring to demonstrate total
fealty to their cock cutter cult overlords. The other half every Sunday worships giant muscular Africans in
plastic hats and tight spandex groping each other in a simulated homoerotic orgy on their flat screen living
room joo boxes. Oh, and it has been proven that guzzling fully synth swill like Ice House, Steel Reserve,
and Hurricane is actually healthier than counter and designers beers as brews made from actual fermented
real grains all contain the magic ingredient, RoundUp ..providing your liver and brain can withstand a
steady diet of 8%to 10% high octane fuel.
@Harbinger
I keep saying it.
Bomb to dust these maaaa-humpers in that shithole south of Lebanon.
The World major problems will go away with the next 10 years
@Adrian
I am a born again Christian and reader of the Bible but I cannot qoute chapter and versues like yourself and
many more who are able. Thanks for your reply and be blessed!
@Haxo Angmark
I don't think all, or even most, of them are hasbarists. They are mostly brain-addled American boomer
"conservatives" who blindly believe everything the Jews spoon-feed them. And really, 80% of (((ZeroHedge)))
is also Jewish propaganda these days, so why shouldn't their commenters reflect that?
It's not so
different from the moronic commentary found in the Steve Sailer section here at Unz, which seems to
increasingly bleed out to the rest of the site.
January 03, 2020 There can be no justification for this act of murder
"America's lawless arrogance has
gone too far with the assassination of Iran's top military commander. The deadly airstrike against General
Qasem Soleimani was carried out on the order of President Donald Trump.
@Rich
He was a leader of an army that engages in terrorism"
Israel is nation that survives on terrorism It was birthed by terrorism . It gets money everytime some guy
makes threats to a desolate synagogue or storms on the headstones of some graveyard . The money helps the
nation to survive get food water electricity and it uses the change for making bullets to hit at the eyes of
the Palestinian boys.
@Rich
I don't see where anyone is putting forth the idea that Iran can defeat the United States -- and they don't
have to to, essentially, 'win'.
After all, look at the end results for We The People Of The United States
as a result of the (false flag known as) 9/11 -- let's see, we've got the Patriot Act to destroy our
individual rights; we've got the TSA folks to do likewise; we've got the NSA to spy on anyone and everyone;
we've spent Trillion$ chasing phony WMDs (thanks to the 'intelligence' shoved at US by the israelis); we've
spent heaven-only-knows how much modifying the cabins of our commercial aircraft to prevent 'terrorist'
attacks; we've allowed folks to capitalize on the whole Twin Towers insurance scam.
All in all, we've been under the gun since 9/11 -- afraid of our own shadows -- bowing to the israeli
bastards who know no limits to their evil -- and, thanks to President Trump, American blood will be spilled
for them once again – and American freedoms will be lost for the once again.
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro
America needs interfaith dialogue with Islam but without including the Jewish faith . It is for the
forgiveness that we hope will be showed to and bestowed on our future generations . We need to include
Buddhist as well.
@Alfred
A good summation. However, it gets even darker than this.
Journalist working at the outer limits of the
mainstream (e.g. Robert Fisk) had long suspected an Iranian hand in Pan Am 103. And lawyers for the two
Libyans prosecuted for the bombing identified 11 alleged members of the rather obscure Palestinian Popular
Struggle Front (PPSF) as the men responsible. The Iranians did back this group, BUT numerous sources claim
that the operation took place with the consent of US authorities.
Why would the US allow such an attack upon its citizens? According to former Congressional staffer and
(former) CIA asset Susan Lindauer, the attack was directed at shutting down an investigation into a CIA-run
drug-trafficking ring (codenamed "Operation Khourah") operating from Beirut. In her words:
"The Defence Intelligence Agency had gone into Lebanon and were gathering forensic evidence to prove the
CIA's role in heroin trafficking.
"They boarded Pan Am flight 103 that morning and they were flying back to Washington to deliver their
report, with heroin, cash and banking records."
The UK Guardian summarised the scenario thusly:
//Among the Lockerbie victims was a party of US intelligence specialists, led by Major Charles McKee of
the DIA, returning from an aborted hostage-rescue mission in Lebanon. A variety of sources have claimed that
McKee, who was fiercely anti-drugs, got wind of the CIA's deals and was returning to Washington to blow the
whistle. A few months after Lockerbie, reports emerged from Lebanon that McKee's travel plans had been
leaked to the bombers. The implication was that Flight 103 was targeted, in part, because he was on board.
//
So extensive is the evidence of all this murk that even CNN has acknowledged it:
Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate international
rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?
Yes, it's not only a right, it's an obligation. Following orders is not a defence for anyone knowingly
involved in crimes of war and against humanity.
However, the plea of obedience to superior orders can be a mitigating circumstance and reduce the
severity of punishment. A private soldier responsibility for a war crime would be the same as that of the
general or commander-in-chief who made the order, but his punishment would be reduced or symbolic.
In this case, a properly constituted court would convict Trump and all others in the chain of command,
down to the operators of the drone, for the assassination of Suleimani.
@JamesinNM
Tell that to Perle,Kristol,Kagan Kaplan Lutti Abrams Feith Wolfowitz and Haim Saban , Sheldon Adeslhon ,
Singer and Marcus . Use loudspeaker to make it reach the settlers occupiers and Likudniks .
Unfortunately it is partial, as it doesn't include Iraqis individually targeted and assassinated from
2003 on. Do you have access to that list as well?
@anon
Okay, I get it, you don't like Israel, but does your dislike of Israel mean the Iranians are hale and hearty
fellows? Most of their leadership are corrupt millionaires who use a medieval religion to justify torturing
and enslaving their populace. The Iranian leadership is full of evil people who are openly hostile to the
United States and its interests. Sorry.
The fact that you, and many others on this site, are strongly hostile to Israel and feel affection for
the defeated Palestinians, doesn't change the fact that Israel acts as an ally to the US in its dealings
with various enemies. The argument over how much, if any, foreign aid should be given to foreign nations has
nothing to do with the fact that Iran has chosen to be an enemy of the US. Had they not killed an American
contractor and coordinated the attack on the US embassy in Iraq (as well as other terrorist attacks),
General Soleimani, might still be alive to torture his enemies and plan terrorist attacks.
'U.S. Airstrike Targets Iraqi Militia North of Baghdad, State TV Reports
Iraqi army sources say at least five killed in attack on Iran-backed militia convoy, which group says was
carrying medical teams '
-- Haaretz
Obviously, we want to make certain Iran feels it necessary to respond.
@Rich
Then I guess he would fit right into Washington with their deranged people that kill wedding parties and
children,would put on illegal no fly zones killing 500,000 children,now just where do you think their
freedoms were .Its people like you that are sick in the head all puffed up with the empire bullshit that
everything on the planet belongs to us and was just put there for our taking,your a perfect example of a
neocon hiding behind patriotism.the sick kind that will destroy the world if we let it.!!
Their perspective on the assassination took several different angles than were presented even here on
Unz. I disagree with their conclusion that Iran has only two options: all out war NOW -- Iran will be
destroyed but so will Israel, and US bases will be eradicated; or sit on their hands and take the repeated
hits that USPisrael intends to send. (the latter seems to be the case: another attack has already taken
place).
But Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart reported two more bits of information:
1. US press spokesman hinted that the PMU that was attacked by USA & lost 32 men, helped plan the attack on
Suleimani; claim was Suleimani was 'going rogue' -- US is offering an "out" to Iran in that Iran Central was
not directing the anti-American operation that Suleimani was planning.
The briefer said: "Iran has only two options: Come to the table and negotiate, or endure more attacks."
Because IRGC – Quds force had been declared a terrorist organization, killing Suleimani was hunkey-dorie.
Realize, tho, that Adam Schiff has proposed legislation that hate crimes be prosecuted as domestic
terrorism, and the Monsey incident upped the ante on that, so that domestic terrorism would be prosecuted
the same way as international terrorism. Knocking over a grave marker in a Jewish cemetery could possibly be
turned into an act of international terrorism. Rick Wiles or any of us anonymous keyboard warriors that Fran
Taubman is so eager to doxx could be named as Terrorist, and, presumably, be droned by our own government,
in our own American home, at the behest of Israeli partisans.
2. Israeli newspapers quoted Netanyahu that he knew in advance about the assassination, likely was in on
the planning (with Pompeo).
Also, a New York Times article wrote on Jan. 2 -- before the attack:
"What if the
former commander
of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani, visits Baghdad
for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to
use hypersonic missiles
will be many."
What's a hypersonic missile? Who has them? How did NYTimes know this stuff?
Did US use hypersonic missiles? Was the NYTimes article, and the assassination of the Quds general, warnings
to other world leaders?
Every time you speak out against western imperialism in a given nation or question western propaganda
narratives about that nation's government, you will inevitably be accused of loving that nation's
government by anyone who argues with you.
When I say "inevitably", I am not exaggerating.
If you speak in any public forum for any length
of time expressing skepticism of what we're told to believe about a nation whose government has been
targeted by the US-centralized empire, you will with absolute certainty eventually run into someone who
accuses you of thinking that that government is awesome and pure and good.
@Rich
"Israel acts as an ally to the US in its dealings with various enemies."
-- This is a really poor joke.
Israel is the worst enemy of the US. Israel is guilty of killing and maiming the servicemen on the USS
Liberty.
Your filthy Pollard has created the worst spying episode in the history of the US (the goodies were sold by
Israel to China).
Mossad and Mossad's deputies Epstein et al have contributed a huge amount of evilness to the US and beyond.
The ongoing mass slaughter for Eretz Israel on the US dime & limb has been the greatest achievement of
sadistic Israel-firsters.
And only God knows the details of the zonists' involvement in 9/11.
If you want to talk about "corrupt millionaires and evil people" who "torture and enslave" and who are
"openly hostile" to the United States -- and all other countries that are not totally zionized (like Russia
and Iran) -- then your talk should be about zionists and the Jewish State.
By the way, were not you among the dancing Israelis celebrating the miraculous (controlled) demolition of
the towers?
"NATO got it right," he said. "In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn't lose a single life. This
is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward "
@Maiasta
Victor Ostrovsky, a Canadian former intelligence colonel with Israel's Mossad secret service and author of
the bestseller By Way Of Deception (the title comes from the Mossad motto), will testify that it was Mossad
commandos who set up the transmitter in Tripoli that generated a false signal about the "success" of the
Berlin bomb – he has already given a detailed description of this daring operation in his second book, The
Other Side Of Deception. Ostrovsky, who will testify by closed-circuit television from somewhere in North
America – he fears that, if he comes to Holland, he may be "Vanunu-ed" (ie kidnapped and smuggled back to
Israel) for breaking his secrets oath – will state that the Lockerbie intercept so resembles the La Belle
intercept as to have probably the same provenance. This is what US lawyers call the "duck" argument: "If it
looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles, the preponderance of evidence is that it is a duck."
Ostrovsky's evidence would then put the onus on the Lord Advocate to prove that the Lockerbie intercept is
genuine, not disinformation. Ostrovsky believes that, in both bombings, Israel implicated Libya to shield
Iran, thereby encouraging Iran not to persecute its small Jewish community.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/17/lockerbie
I wouldn't be surprised if the idiots "in charge" of this country decide to do a false flag "terrorist"
attack here in America, killing civilians, if this goes further. They're already putting out articles
indicating this. I don't believe the Iranians would target civilians here, but we all know who would.
Operation Gladio
The best thing that the Iranians could do is blurt out the truth for all the world to hear. Especially if
your side is militarily weaker, truth must be the main weapon. The Iranian leader should mock and shame
Donald Trump as a cuck-stooge of not only Zionism but Jewish Supremacism that rules the US. He should point
out how Jewish Zionist Power has been out to destroy Trump from day one, but the orange-man coward remains
most servile to the very group that has done most to undermine his presidency.
[MORE]
The current state of the world is so embarrassing. It's like goyim of all stripes are stuck in some
gladiatorial ring under Jewish orchestration. Jews hate whites and Trump. Jews hate Iranians. Given
that both groups have in common the rabid & virulent hostility of Jewish supremacists, the most
natural thing would be for both sides to unite against the Jews. Whites and Iranians are natural
allies. But what do they do? Trump the so-called 'white nationalist' sucks up to Jews and attacks
Iran. And Iran feels compelled to denounce all of America when the real culprits are the freaking
Jews. Goyim are the gladiators in SPARTACUS -- though slaves of Rome, they slaughter each other for the
amusement of Roman elites. Though Jews are hostile to whites and Iranians, whites are willing to kill
Iranians to win approval from their Jewish masters, and Iranians waste so much time denouncing all of
the US. What the world needs is a Spartacus-like figure. Spartacus united the slaves and made them
fight Rome than each other. Goyim need to unite to fight Jewish Supremacist Power. This is where
China, Russia, and Iran are doing the right thing, but they are still loathe to Name the Jew. Current
US belligerence is the direct outcome of Jewish domination.
Iranians should throw Trump's words right back in his face. In 2016, Trump said the Iraq War was a
total disaster, and that the US should get out of the Middle East. He also said the US should work for
world peace by working with Russia. But since then, Jewish supremacists and its cuck-minions in the
Deep State have done everything to undermine Trump, and the weary beast has succumbed to Jewish
machinations. Trump is more Sparky the running dog than Spartacus. But then, much of the blame must go
to white American Conservatives. Their brand of idiotic Christianity, atomizing libertarianism, and
anti-intellectualism led to all the elite institutions being taken over by Jews, progs, and
cucky-wucks. It could be Putin is mute about Jewish power because the Russian economy is still
substantially in Jewish hands. One might hope China will be bold in stating the truth, but the Chinese
way is strategic than principled. Also, China has been pulled into US market imperialism. It's the US
gambit as the sole superpower with a vast market. If old European Empires suppressed economic growth
in their colonies, US encourages economic growth as dependence on US markets. Thus, all the economies
that grew by selling to the US are deathly afraid of losing market access. As the religion of the US
is now globo-homo-shlomo-afro, they dare not speak the truth that Jewish Power is behind the current
rot of globalist cultural imperialism.
It is about time for Russia, Iran, and all nations to mock the US as a Jewish Supremacist empire,
one where craven white cowards do little but crawl on their knees and pledge undying support for
Jewish supremacists and Zion. Why? Because soulless US is only about one thing: Money and Idolatry.
Jews got the money and idolized themselves as the supreme identity group that ALL other groups must
serve. While Jewish elites rub their hands at the prospect of another Middle East War, it will be
goyim , white American soldiers and countless Persians/Arabs/Muslims, who will do all the killing and
dying. Jewish globalists went from Semites to Supremites, and now, so-called Anti-Semitism is
Anti-Supremitism, which is more necessary than ever. And it's about time Russia addressed the
J-Question. Vladimir Putin has been silent on this for too long, but it is time for truth. It is time
to put down the gauntlet. No, no one one should make crazy neo-nazi talking points. They just need to
speak the truth that Jews control the US, the lone superpower, and that the Jewish modus operandi is
Jewish hegemony at any cost. Also, Zionism has turned into Yinon-ism based on the Yinon Plan.
We've all been duped by Jewish Power. There was a time when Jews assured goyim, "Stick with us, and
you shall have true free speech", "Struggle with us against unfettered capitalist greed", and "Support
our cause to expose the Deep State and to create a more open and transparent society." But Jews
weren't really against Excessive Power & Privilege. They just wanted to bring down the old Wasp elites
so that they, as the new elites, would have the power to curtail free speech, rake in all the profits,
and use deep state apparatus to destroy rivals and critics. Jewish Power is the main source of many
woes around the world, but because of the stigma of 'antisemitism', so many people will blame anyone
but the Jews. When Alex Jones got deplatformed, whom did he blame? The Chinese. Trump is pushed
against the rope, so whom does he shake his fist at? Iranians. John McCain and Mitt Romney were
smeared and slimed by the Jew-run mass media(despite their total cuckery to Zion) in 2008 and 2012,
but whom did they rag on? Trump and his supporters. What a sorry bunch. (Granted, morons like Richard
Spencer and Neo-Nazi crew deserve their share of blame by sinking the promising dissident Alt Right
label with what truly amounts to white supremacism and even neo-Nazism, thereby making it more
difficult for Trump to address legitimate white interests.)
Anyway, imagine a scenario where Nazi Germany attacks Poland, France, Russia, and Great Britain but
all those nations praise Hitler & Nazi Germany while taking their rage and frustration on each other.
Such is the state of the world today. Jews torment and destroy so many nations and peoples, but entire
nations are willing to war with one other while speaking and doing nothing about the Jewish Glob.
Unless people understand the urgency of Naming the Jew, nothing will change. It's like a doctor won't
cure cancer if he does EVERYTHING but name the cancer. If there's a dead rat decaying and stinking up
the apartment, no amount of 'solutions' will fix the problem unless someone names the dead rat and
remove it from the premises. After WWII, Jews got a grace period, well-deserved due to Shoah. But it's
time to face facts about Jews of the Now. Pretending Jews are still Shoah victims is like pretending
current China is still the 'Sick Man of Asia' of the 19th century. Times change, and Jews are the
supreme rulers of the world, and this must be called out. But that worthless pile of shi* Trump only
sucks up to Jews more even as they bugger his ass. And white Americans are truly retarded. Jewish
Power is carrying out White Nakba in US, EU, Canada, and Australia -- as cuck-white elites in media,
academia, and institutions are nothing but mental minions of Jewish Power, as in Jews lead, goyim
follow -- , and whites are being turned into New Palestinians, but all these worthless white
'conservatives' are cheering Trump's anti-BDS law that violates the US constitution. How utterly
pathetic.
@Anonymous
"White American Christians are generally afraid of the Jewish lobby."
-- Agree. The US brass are cowards.
The US government of cowards is for sale. The US media is owned by Israel-firsters who have been propagating
lies upon lies. "Is this good for Jews?" has become the zionists' battle cry that scares Americans into
submission.
The scared Americans need to process the fact of holobiz being over. The Jews are not victims -- the Jews
are shameless aggressors and traitors busy with frightening and corrupting the western governments to the
bones because allegedly "this is good for Jews:"
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/
Let's be clear about what we just did–we assassinated two key military and political leaders on the
sovereign territory of Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi Government. There is no evidence or
valid intelligence that shows Soleimani directing Iraqi Shia militias to attack and kill US troops. None.
But those facts do not matter.
Judging from the media reaction on cable news, there is a lot of whooping and celebrating the death of
Soleimani as a decisive blow against terrorism. Boy we showed those Iranians who is boss. But that is not
how the Iranians see it and that is not how a significant portion of the Iraqi Shia population see it.
From their perspective this is the equivalent of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.
The zionized cowards in the US government made American servicemen into targets for retaliation in
response to American crimes in Iraq -- crimes that were committed because "this is good for Jews" who want
their Eretz Israel by any means, including a mass slaughter of the innocent in the Middle East.
Boy Jewish intelligence is terribly overrated. The zionists do believe that selecting and promoting cowards
and profiteers on the positions of power in the US is "good for Jews." Idiots.
Iran will explain to Iraq that the US will fight to every last drop of Iraqi blood while Iran will do its
best to support their fellow Shia. The Iraqi parliament, not wanting another war inside Iraq and hating the
US for starting it, will vote to expel the US or maybe to simply refuse the US any air rights.
The US then either retreats out of Iraq or it become an occupying force. If the US retreats, it'll go
down in history as a strategic defeat. If the US decides to occupy, it'll need to disband the Iraqi
parliament (ie a democracy) and replace it with the inevitable transitional government who'll be fed with a
steady stream of suitcases full of $100 bills. At the same time, the US will need to fight a bloody guerilla
war which will ultimately end in a strategic defeat when the US population gets bored by the smart-bomb
video footage.
Their are considerable more Galaxy C17 traffic in Ramstein/Germany and the whole C17 (as far as you
can identify them)look like a swarm of bees on the way to the middle east.
Galaxy was the C-5; C-17 is the Globemaster. In addition to its role in Tactical and Strategic airlift,
it also serves as MedEvac, often to Ramstein/Landstuhl.
That's a good suggestion but I still think they should go after Pompeo. If you really want to keep it
'tit for tat' with even less retaliation then poor Gen. Milley should be splashed. (Evil grin)
Milley's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: his 'same-store sales' equivalent would have been Hossein Salami.
Soleimani wasn't even head of the IRGC – that's also Hossein Salami.
If the US had "red-carded" Salami, today they would be cleaning up missile debris and human remains at US
bases all over the Middle East, and "Iron Dome" would get definitive evidence that it's a joke.
Although Soleimani had genuine clout and a high profile, he was only the head of Quds Force, which is
kinda MI (plus a bit of special operations/coordination of irregulars).
So I would guess that the appropriate tit-for-tat splash would be LtGen Scott Berrier (G2 – Intel).
Everyone's heard of that guy, right?
Plus, if they splashed Pompous, the resulting fatberg would burn for longer than the Springfield tyre
fire. Nobody wants that.
@Passer by
During the lead-up to the Gulf War, I recall "experts" like you talking about how Hussein's
"battle-hardened" "elite" Republican Guard was going to send those wet-behind-the-ears American soldiers
running home with their tails tucked between their legs. They were all then as prescient as you are now.
Spare me these countless internet military "experts" who always seem to know who can do what, and yet end up
being wrong in every instance.
@Colin Wright
The Quran promotes a supremacist ideology for world domination. It is the Muslim equivalent of the Talmud.
Neither the Muslims nor the zionists will get a moment's restful sleep until they know their place, but
psychopathic anti-Christ peoples are full of the devil, making them a curse on humanity.
Unfortunately it is partial, as it doesn't include Iraqis individually targeted and assassinated from
2003 on. Do you have access to that list as well?
@Colin Wright
I admit I stopped paying attention to beheadings after the first few.
It seemed pretty obvious that it was the worst possible advertisement for a cause. The only people who
would think "
Kewl
!" were people already on their side. Plus it was guaranteed to horrify moderates.
It also guaranteed a full-court hostile press in Western media (SWIDT? two uses of 'press' in the same word
– genius!).
It struck me as the sort of thing that (ahem) plays into the hands of those who wanted to give pan-Arab
nationalism a bad name. Almost as if that was the intention.
They should have hired
Hill and Knowlton
and done their PR properly.
.
Also, the aesthetics were
awful
.
The guys doing the beheadings had
very
white forearms – whiter than most Anglo military guys.
I'm sensitive like that: I found the beheaders' pasty skin off-putting.
The lack of struggle from the victims was also weird – evidence perhaps that they were sedated, which is
good for them I guess.
For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was
not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN
of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf.
– The crash of the Pan Am 103 was, according to Ari Ben-Menashe, related to a fabricated claim on 5 CIA
agents running drugs via their contacts in Frankfurt under CIA's Bill Casey.
– One less known point on the Pan Am 103 is the probable assassination by South Africa's apartheid
government of United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson (according to Patrick Hasseldine).
– "Pik Botha and a South African delegation from Johannesburg, who was initially booked to travel to the
Namibian independence ratification ceremony in New York on Pan Am Flight 103 from London. Instead, the
booking was cancelled as he and six delegates took an earlier flight, thereby avoiding the fatal PAN AM 103
bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland" (wiki, Pik Botha).
Robert Mueller's 30-year search for justice on Pan AM 103 led to nothing except the USual platitudes
(unfounded accusations) on Iran and the PLO.
@The Alarmist
Well, yes, every member of every military is a legitimate target. Especially a general. If it sounds logical
to you, that's because not only is it logical, it's common sense. As far as who drew first blood, that's a
little more complicated. Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of
radical medievalists overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other
attacks by Iranians and their proxies. I really don't understand the outpouring of sympathy for a general in
a foreign nation that is an outspoken enemy of the US. I get it, you guys hate Israel, but that doesn't
absolve the Iranian mullahs or their henchmen. They are not your friends, they don't like you and their end
game is the same end game they've had since the founding of their "religion", the violent spread of Islam
throughout the world. Read the Koran first, before you throw your support behind these jihadists. If their
own holy book doesn't open your eyes and you still believe the West is the "imperialist", find me
Constantinople on the map.
@barr
Thanks for the reminder. I'm familiar with Ostrovsky, of course, and i found the book you mentioned to be
quite an eye-opener, albeit still written from a basically pro-Israel point-of-view.
re: "Israel
implicated Libya to shield Iran." Yes, this is more than plausible, especially when we consider that Israel
was largely responsible for arming Iran during the long war with Iraq in the 1980s. The latter may seem
counter-intuitive to many, but it actually fell perfectly in line with the Oded Yinon plan for regional
balkanisation. I think that as soon as the Iraqi Resistance movement was crushed back in 2008, Iran was
considered no longer so useful to the Zionists, and they began the next phase of destabilisation. Obviously,
all regional powers are to be taken out one-by-one, and that presents a problem when it comes to a regional
alliance such as the so-called "Shia Crescent" of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon (or Hezbollah).
I think it likely that the Qassem assassination though, is a significant miscalculation that will cost
Trump and the US dearly.
@Rich
I agree with the notion that Persian capabilities are consistently overstated on
unz.com
They look more capable than Arabs. That's not much. They haven't shown the ability to develop
their own weapons. The rest of their industry sucks (e.g. cars).
Rolling out of Kuwait across a plain is way easier than
rolling up the Zagroz – especially when the other guy knows you're coming and has had 50 years to prepare,
and the natives at your back want the other guy to win.
The Zagroz aren't as daunting as trying to go up the sides on AH76 in Parwan, which is some of the most
inhospitable terrain on Earth. Invading Iran via Iraq (which is the US' only option) isn't even as hard
(topographially) as trying to take Zürich by invading Switzerland starting from Milan.
Topography matters.
Safwan to Baghdad is flat freeway (and was, even in 1991); Baghdad to Hamedan, not so much. (Hamedan's
the town on the other side of the Zagroz, on the only non-impossible route to Teheran).
For the average grunt, it would be like "
Restrepo
" from day 1, constantly, for the entire trip –
but with no HESCO.
It would guarantee tens of thousands of cases of PTSD.
Armour and artillery really really
really
needs roads (or rail), and aerial reconnaissance is way
easier on a sandy table top, than in mountains.
@renfro
1
The killing of Iraqi Academics: A War to Erase the Future and Culture of Iraqis
List of Iraqi academics assassinated in Iraq during the US-led occupation
Academics assassinated: 324
Updated: November 7, 2013
(Last case registered: No. 125)
Spanish Campaign against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq
IraqSolidaridad 2005-2013
[MORE]
The following list of University academics assassinated in Iraq is updated with the information
delivered by the Iraqi CEOSI sources inside Iraq. It presents all the data compiled in the previous
IraqSolidaridad editions. This relation has been collated and completed with that elaborate by the
Belgian organization 'BRussells Tribunal' [1]. This list only refers to the academic, institutional
and research fields from Iraqi Universities, so that it does not include the staff that belongs to
other fields and institutions, who has been targeting since the beginning of the occupation, such as
directors of primary and secondary schools, high schools or health workers [2].
BAGHDAD
Baghdad University
1. Abbas al-Attar: PhD in humanities, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Date
unknown.
2. Abdel Hussein Jabuk: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
3. Abdel Salam Saba: PhD in sociology, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
4. Abdel Razak al-Naas: Lecturer in information and international mass media at Baghdad University's
College of Information Sciences. He was a regular analyst for Arabic satellite TV channels. He was
killed in his car at Baghdad University 28 January 2005. His assassination led to confrontations
between students and police, and journalists went on strike.
5. Ahmed Nassir al-Nassiri: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University, assassinated in February
2005.
6. Ali Abdul-Hussein Kamil: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer in the Department of Physics, Baghdad
University. Date unknown.
7. Amir al-Jazragi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Medicine, and
consultant at the Iraqi Ministry of Health, assassinated on November 17, 2005.
2
8. Basil al-Karji: PhD in chemistry, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
9. Essam Sharif Mohammed: PhD in history, professor in Department of History and head of the College
of Humanities, Baghdad University. Dead October 25, 2003.
10. Faidhi al-Faidhi: PhD in education sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University and al- Munstansiriya
University. He was also member of the Muslim Scientists Committee. Assassinated in 2005.
11. Fouad Abrahim Mohammed al-Bayaty: PhD in German philology, professor and head of College of
Philology, Baghdad University. Killed Abril 19, 2005.
12. Haifa Alwan al-Hil: PhD in physics, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Science for Women.
Assassinated September 7, 2003.
13. Heikel Mohammed al-Musawi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at al-Kindi College of Medicine, Baghdad
University. Assassinated November 17, 2005.
14. Hassan Abd Ali Dawood al-Rubai: PhD in stomatology, dean of the College of Stomatology, Baghdad
University. Assassinated December 20, 2005.
15. Hazim Abdul Hadi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University.
16. Husain Ali al-Jumaily: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Political Sciences. He was
assassinated in Bagdad on 16 July. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi sources, January 17,
2009].
17. Khalid Hassan Mahdi Nasrullah: Lecturer and Secretary of the Faculty of Political Sciences,
Baghdad University. After four days of been kidnapped in Baghdad, his body was found with signs of
torture on Mars 27, 2007. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi sources, January 17, 2009].
18. Khalel Ismail Abd al-Dahri: PhD in physical education, lecturer at the College of Physical
Education, Baghdad University. Date unknown.
19. Khalil Ismail al-Hadithi: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Political Sciences. He was
assassinated in Amman [Jordan] on April 23, 2006. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi
sources, January 17, 2009].
20. Kilan Mahmoud Ramez: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
21. Maha Abdel Kadira: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
22. Majed Nasser Hussein al-Maamoori: Professor of veterinary medicine at Baghdad University's College
of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated February 17, 2007.
23. Marwan al-Raawi: PhD in engineering and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
24. Marwan Galeb Mudhir al-Hetti: PhD in chemical engineering and lecturer at the School of
Engineering, Baghdad University. Killed March 16, 2004.
25. Majeed Hussein Ali: PhD in physical sciences and lecturer at the College of Sciences, Baghdad
University. Date unknown.
3
26. Mehned al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
27. Mohammed Falah al-Dulaimi: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
28. Mohammed Tuki Hussein al-Talakani: PhD in physical sciences, nuclear scientist since 1984, and
lecturer at Baghdad University. Assassinated September 4, 2004.
29. Mohammed al-Kissi: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
30. Mohammed Abdallah al-Rawi: PhD in surgery, former president of Baghdad University, member of the
Arab Council of Medicine and of the Iraqi Council of Medicine, president of the Iraqi Union of
Doctors. Killed July 27, 2003.
31. Mohammed al-Jazairi: PhD in medicine and plastic surgeon, College of Medicine, Baghdad University.
Assassinated 15 November 2005.
32. Mustafa al-Hity: PhD in medicine, pediatrician, College of Medicine, Baghdad University.
Assassinated 14 November 2005.
33. Mustafa al-Mashadani: PhD in religious studies, lecturer in Baghdad University's College of
Humanities. Date unknown.
34. Nafea Mahmmoud Jalaf: PhD in Arabic language, professor in Baghdad University's College of
Humanities. Killed December 13, 2003.
35. Nawfal Ahmad: PhD, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts. She was assassinated at
the front door of her house on 25 December 2005.
36. Nazar Abdul Amir al-Ubaidy: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
37. Raad Shlash: PhD in biological sciences, head of Department of Biology at Baghdad University's
College of Sciences. He was killed at the front door of his house on November 17, 2005.
38. Rafi Sarcisan Vancan: Bachelor of English language, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of
Women's Studies. Assassinated June 9, 2003.
39. Saadi Dagher Morab: PhD in fine arts, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts.
Killed July 23, 2004.
40. Sabri Mustafa al-Bayaty: PhD in geography, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities.
Killed June 13, 2004.
41. Saad Yassin al-Ansari: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. He was killed in al-Saydiya
neighborhood, Baghdad, 17 November 2005.
42. Wannas Abdulah al-Naddawi: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University. Assassinated 18 February
2005.
43. Yassim al-Isawi: PhD in religious studies, Baghdad University's College of Arts. Assassinated 21
June 2005.
44. Zaki Jabar Laftah al-Saedi: Bachelor of veterinary medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University's
College of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated October 16, 2004.
45. Basem al-Modarres: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Philosophy. [Source:
al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
46. Jasim Mohamed Achamri: Dean of College of Philosophy, Baghdad University. [Source: al-Hayat, 28
February 2006].
47. Hisham Charif: Head of Department of History and lecturer at Baghdad University. [Source:
al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
4
48. Qais Hussam al-Den Jumaa: Professor and Dean of College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed
27 March 2006 by US soldiers in downtown Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source].
49. Mohammed Yaakoub al-Abidi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
50. Abdelatif Attai: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
51. Ali al-Maliki: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
52. Nafia Aboud: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi. Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
53. Abbas Kadem Alhachimi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
54. Mouloud Hasan Albardar Aturki: Lecturer in Hanafi Teology at al-Imam al-Aadam College of Theology,
Baghdad University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
55. Riadh Abbas Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University's Centre for International Studies. Killed 11
May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 17 May 2006].
56. Abbas al-Amery: Professor and head of Department of Administration and Business, College of
Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed together with his son and one of his relatives
at the main entrance to the College 16 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, May 17, 2006].
57. Muthana Harith Jasim: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Engineering. Killed near his
home in al-Mansur, 13 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 13 June 2006].
58. Hani Aref al-Dulaimy: Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Baghdad University's
College of Engineering. He was killed, together with three of his students, 13 June 2006 on campus.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 13 June 2006].
59. Hussain al-Sharifi: Professor of urinary surgery at Baghdad University's College of Medicine.
Killed in May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 June 2006].
60. Hadi Muhammad Abub al-Obaidi: Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Baghdad University's College
of Medicine. Killed 19 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 20 June 2006].
61. Hamza Shenian: Professor of veterinary surgery at Baghdad University's College of Veterinary
Medicine. Killed by armed men in his garden in a Baghdad neighborhood 21 June 2006. This was the first
known case of a professor executed in the victim's home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 21
June 2006].
62. Jassim Mohama al-Eesaui: Professor at College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University, and
editor of al-Syada newspaper. He was 61 years old when killed in al-Shuala, 22 June 2006. [Source:
UNAMI report, 1 May-30 June 2006].
5
63. Shukir Mahmoud As-Salam: dental surgeon at al-Yamuk Hospital, Baghdad. Killed near his home by
armed men 6 September 2006. [Source: TV news, As-Sharquia channel, 7 September 2006, and CEOSI Iraqi
sources].
64. Mahdi Nuseif Jasim: Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Baghdad University.
Killed 13 September 2006 near the university. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source].
65. Adil al-Mansuri: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad
University. Kidnapped by uniformed men near Iban al-Nafis Hospital in Baghdad. He was found dead with
torture signs and mutilation in Sadr City. He was killed during a wave of assassinations in which
seven medical specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006 [Source: Iraqi health
service sources, 24 September 2006].
66. Shukur Arsalan: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad
University. Killed by armed men when leaving his clinic in Harziya neighborhood during a wave of
assassinations in which seven specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006.
[Source: Iraqi Health System sources, 24 September 2006].
67. Issam al-Rawi: Professor of geology at Baghdad University, president of the Association of
University Professors of Iraq. Killed 30 October 2006 during an attack carried out by a group of armed
men in which two more professors were seriously injured. [Sources: CEOSI sources, and Associated
Press].
68. Yaqdan Sadun al-Dhalmi: Professor and lecturer in the College of Education, Baghdad University.
Killed 16 October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources].
69. Jlid Ibrahim Mousa: Professor and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Medicine. Killed by
a group of armed men in September 2006. During August and September 2006, 6 professors of medicine
were assassinated in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources].
70. Mohammed Jassim al-Assadi: Professor and dean of the College of Administration and Economy,
Baghdad University. Killed 2 November 2006 by a group of armed men when he was driving to Baghdad
University. Their son was also killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Time Magazine, 2
October 2006].
71. Jassim al-Assadi's wife (name unknown): Lecturer at College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad
University [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Time Magazine, 2 October 2006].
72. Mohammed Mehdi Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University (unknown position) and member of the
Association of Muslim Scholars. Imam of Ahl al-Sufa Mosque in al-Shurta al-Jamisa neighborhood. Killed
14 November 2006 while driving in the neighborhood of al-Amal in central Baghdad. [Source: UMA, 14
November 2006].
73. Hedaib Majhol: Lecturer at College of Physical Education, Baghdad University, president of the
Football University Club and member of the Iraqi Football Association. Kidnapped in Baghdad. His body
was found three later in Baghdad morgue 3 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2
December 2006].
74. Al-Hareth Abdul Hamid: Professor of psychiatric medicine and head of the Department of Psychology
at Baghdad University. Former
6
president of the Society of Parapsychological Investigations of Iraq. A renowned scientist, Abdul
Hamid was shot dead in the neighborhood of al-Mansur, Baghdad, 6 December 2006 by unknown men.
[Sources: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 6 December 2006, and Reuters, 30 January 2007].
75. Anwar Abdul Hussain: Lecturer at the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. Killed in Haifa
Street in Baghdad in the third week of January 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23
January 2007].
76. Majed Nasser Hussain: PhD and lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Baghdad University.
He was killed in front of his wife and daughter while leaving home in the third week of January 2007.
Nasser Hussain had been kidnapped two years before and freed after paying a ransom. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
77. Khaled al-Hassan: Professor and deputy dean of the College of Political Sciences, Baghdad
University. Killed in March 2007. [Source: Association of University Lecturers of Iraq, 7 April 2007].
78. Ali Mohammed Hamza: Professor of Islamic Studies at Baghdad University. Department and college
unknown. Killed 17 April 2007. [Sources: TV channels As-Sharquia and al-Jazeera].
79. Abdulwahab Majed: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Education. Department and college
unknown. Killed 2 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2007].
80. Sabah al-Taei: Deputy Dean of the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 7 May 2007.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources. 8 May 2007].
81. Nihad Mohammed al-Rawi: Professor of Civil Engineering and deputy president of Baghdad University.
Shot dead 26 June 2007 in al-Jadria Bridge, a few meters away from the university campus, when exiting
with his daughter Rana, whom he protected from the shots with his body. [Sources: BRussells Tribunal
and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26-27 June 2007].
82. Muhammad Kasem al-Jaboori: Lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed,
together with his son and his brother-in-law, by paramilitary forces 22 June 2007. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, 27 June 2007].
83. Samir [surname unknown]: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Administration and Economy.
His body was found shot one day after being kidnapped in Kut where he was visiting family. Professor
Samir lived in the Baghdad district of al-Sidiya. [Source: Voices of Iraq,
http://www.iraqslogger.com
, 29 June 2007].
84. Amin Abdul Aziz Sarhan: Lecturer at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. He was
kidnapped from his home in Basra by unidentified armed men 13 October 2007 and found dead on the
morning of 15 October. [Source: Voices of Iraq, 15 October 2007].
85. Mohammed Kadhem al-Atabi: Head of Baghdad University's Department of Planning and Evaluation. He
was kidnapped 18 October 2007 from his home in Baghdad by a group of armed men and found dead a few
hours later in the area of Ur, near to Sadr City, which is under the control of Moqtada al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26 October 2007].
7
86. Munther Murhej Radhi: Dean of the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. He was found dead in
his car 23 January 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 January 2008].
87. Mundir Marhach: Dean of Faculty of Stomatology, Baghdad University. According to information
provided by the Centre for Human Rights of Baghdad, he was killed in March [exact day unknown].
[Source: al-Basrah reported 12 March 2008].
88. Abdul Sattar Jeid al-Dulaimy, a Microbiologist and lecturer in the College of Veterinary Medicine
and in other institutions in the University. He was killed in November 2003 by three gunmen in front
of his wife and his four children. His three assassins were waiting the family return to Baghdad after
have been visiting his parents in al-Ramadi city, west Baghdad. His wife was also sot in her head, but
she survived. His 14 year old eldest child died of a heart problem a year later. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university source, 11 June 2008.]
*. Abdulkareem Shenein Mohammad: professor of Arabic Language in the College of Islamic Sciences,
University of Baghdad, killed on 27 May 2010 by an assassin (an student, Baghdad police source
informed) with a silencer gun in his personal office in the University. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university source upon media reports, 27 May 2010.] [Subsequent reports confirm that Professor
Abdulkareem Shenein Mohammad survived the attack.]
89. Mudhafar Mahmoud: associated professor in the Geology Department in the College of Science,
University of Baghdad. Dr Mahmoud was assassinated on 28 November 2010 near his house in Baghdad.
[Source: Iraqi source to BRussells Tribunal on 1st December, 2010.]
90. Ali Shalash: professor of Poultry Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of
Baghdad, killed by assassins who broke into his house in Al-Khadraa area in Baghdad on 17 February,
2011. [Source: Iraqi source to CEOSI on 18 February, 2011.] 91. Ahmed Shakir was a specialist in
cardio-vascular diseases and professor at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Baghdad.
According to security reports, Dr. Shakir was killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in
Zaafaraniyya, south of Baghdad, last Monday 1 July 2013. The report released by UNESCO can be read
here [Source: UNESCO, July 3, 2013].
Al-Maamoon Faculty [private college, Baghdad]
92. Mohammed al-Miyahi: Dean of al-Maamoun Faculty in Baghdad. He was shot with a silencer-equipped
gun in front of his house in al-Qadisiah district, southern Baghdad, as he stepped out of his car 14
December 2007. [Source CEOSI Iraqi source and Kuwait News Agency, reported 19 December 2007, IPS
reported 19 December 2007, and al-Basrah, reported 12 March 2008].
Al-Mustansiriya University (Baghdad)
8
93. Aalim Abdul Hameed: PhD in preventive medicine, specialist in depleted uranium effects in Basra,
dean of the College of Medicine, al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
94. Abdul Latif al-Mayah: PhD in economics, lecturer and head of Department of Research,
al-Mustansiriya University. Killed January 9, 2004.
95. Aki Thakir Alaany: PhD and lecturer at the College of Literature, al-Mustansiriya University. Date
unknown.
96. Falah al-Dulaimi: PhD, professor and deputy dean of al-Mustansiriya University's College of
Sciences. Date unknown.
97. Falah Ali Hussein: PhD in physics, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Sciences,
al-Mustansiriya University, killed May 2005.
98. Musa Saloum Addas: PhD, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Educational Sciences,
al-Mustansiriya University, killed 27 May 2005.
99. Hussam al-Din Ahmad Mahmmoud: PhD in education
sciences, lecturer and dean at College of Education Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University. Date
unknown.
100. Jasim Abdul Kareem: PhD and lecturer at the College of the Education, al-Mustansiriya University.
Date unknown.
101. Abdul As Satar Sabar al-Khazraji: PhD in history, al-Mustansiriya University, killed 19 June
2005. [A same name and surname lecturer in Engineering at the College of Computer Science Technology,
al-Nahrein University was assassinated in March 2006.]
102. Samir Yield Gerges: PhD and lecturer at the College of Administration and Economy at
al-Mustansiriya University, killed 28 August 2005.
103. Jasim al-Fahaidawi: PhD and lecturer in Arabic literature at the College of Humanities,
al-Mustansiriya University. Assassinated at the university entrance. [Source: BBC News, 15 November
2005].
104. Kadhim Talal Hussein: Deputy Dean of the College of Education, al-Mustansiriya University. Killed
November 23, 2005.
105. Mohammed Nayeb al-Qissi: PhD in geography, lecturer at Department of Research, al-Mustansiriya
University. Assassinated June 20, 2003.
106. Sabah Mahmoud al-Rubaie: PhD in geography, lecturer and dean at College of Educational Sciences,
al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
107. Ali Hasan Muhawish: Dean and lecturer at the College of Engineering, al-Mustansiriya University.
Killed March 12, 2006. [Source: Middle East Online, 13 March 2006].
108. Imad Naser Alfuadi: Lecturer at the College of Political Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
109. Mohammed Ali Jawad Achami: President of the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
110. Husam Karyakus Tomas: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Mustansiriya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
9
111. Basem Habib Salman: Lecturer at the College of Medicine at al-Mustansiriya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
112. Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Ani: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya
University. Kidnapped, together with his friend Akrem Mehdi, 26 April 2006, at his home in Palestine
Street, Baghdad. Their bodies were found two days later. [CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2006].
113. Jasim Fiadh al-Shammari: Lecturer in psychology at the College of Arts, al-Mustansiriya Baghdad
University. Killed near campus 23 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 30 May 2006].
114. Saad Mehdi Shalash: PhD in history and lecturer in history at the College of Arts,
al-Mustansiriya University, and editor of the newspaper Raya al-Arab. Shot dead at his home with his
wife 26 October 2006. [Source: al-Quds al-Arabi, 27 October 2006].
115. Kamal Nassir: Professor of history and lecturer at al-Mustansiriya and Bufa Universities. Killed
at his home in Baghdad in October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 November 2006].
116. Hasseb Aref al-Obaidi: Professor in the College of Political Sciences at al-Mustansiriya
University. Since he was kidnapped 22 October 2006, his whereabouts is unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources].
117. Najeeb [or Nadjat] al-Salihi: Lecturer in the College of Psychology at al-Mustansiriya University
and head of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Higher Education of Iraq. Al-Salihi, 39 years
old, was kidnapped close to campus and his body, shot dead, was found 20 days after his disappearance
in Baghdad morgue. His family was able recover his body only after paying a significant amount of
money, October 1, 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources].
118. Dhia al-Deen Mahdi Hussein: Professor of international criminal law at the College of Law,
al-Mustansiriya University. Missing since kidnapped from his home in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dhia
in 4 November 2006 by a group of armed men driving police cars. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, 5 November 2006].
119. Muntather al-Hamdani: Deputy Dean of the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. He was
assassinated, together with Ali Hassam, lecturer at the same college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean
assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both
[Muntather al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not].
120. Ali Hassam: Lecturer at the College of Law at al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed together
with Muntather al-Hamdani, deputy dean of the college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean
assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both
[Muntather al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not.
121. Dhia al-Mguter: Professor of economy at the College of Administration and Economy of
al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed
10
23 January 2007 in Baghdad while driving. He was a prominent economist and president of the Consumer's
Defense Association and the Iraqi Association of Economists. A commentator at for As-Sharquia
television, he participated in the Maram Committee, being responsible for investigating irregularities
occurring during the elections held in January 2006. Al-Mguter was part of a family with a long
anti-colonialist tradition since the British occupation. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and
Az-Zaman newspaper, 24 January 2007].
122. Ridha Abdul al-Kuraishi: Deputy dean of the University of al-Mustansiriya's College of
administration and economy. He was kidnapped 28 March 2007 and found dead the next day. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See the letter sent to CEOSI (Arabic)].
123. Zaid Abdulmonem Ali: professor at the Baghdad Cancer Research Center, institution associated to
the Al-Mustansirya University in Baghdad. Dr. Abdulmomem Ali was killed in March 26, 2011 when an IED
attached to his vehicle went off in al-Nusoor square, west of Baghdad. The explosion also left Ali's
wife and two civilians others wounded. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq news agency, on March 26, 2011.]
124. Mohmamed Al-Alwan: Dean of the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansirya University in Baghdad. Dr
Al-Alwan was assassinated in his clinic in Harithiyah, Baghdad, on April 29, 2011. He had been the
Dean of Medical College for over 4 years. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, March 30, 2011 from
Iraqi media and International Iraqi Medical Society.] 125. Naser Husein al Shahmani, professor at
al-Mustansyria University was shot by some gunmen few days ago. They killed him on the spot. [Source:
Ahmad al Farji's article (in Arabic), October 28, 2013.]
University of Technology [Baghdad]
126. Muhannad [or Mehned] al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at the Baghdad
University of Technology. Date unknown.
127. Muhey Hussein: PhD in aerodynamics, lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the
Baghdad University of Technology. Date unknown.
128. Qahtan Kadhim Hatim: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer in the College of Engineering of the Baghdad
University of Technology. Assassinated May 30, 2004.
129. Sahira Mohammed Machhadani: Baghdad University of Technology. Department and college unknown.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, March 2006].
130. Ahmed Ali Husein: Lecturer at the Baghdad University of Technology, specialist in applied
mechanics. He was killed by a group of armed men in downtown Baghdad 22 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, 24 May 2006].
131. Name unknown: Lecturer at Baghdad University of Technology. Killed 27 June 2006 by a group of
armed men. They were driving a vehicle in the Baghdad neighborhood of al-Mansur and shot him without
11
stopping. Next day, students and professors staged demonstrations in all universities across the
country opposing the assassination and kidnapping of professors and lecturers. [Source: al-Jazeera and
Jordan Times, 27 June 2006].
132. Ali Kadhim Ali: Professor at Baghdad University of Technology. Shot dead in November 2006 in the
district of al-Yarmuk by a group of armed men. His wife, Dr Baida Obeid -- gynecologist -- was also
killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 16 November 2006].
133. Mayed Jasim al-Janabi: Lecturer in physics at Baghdad University of Technology. Killed 23 May
2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, December 2006].
134. Khalel Enjad al-Jumaily: Lecturer at University of Technology. Department and college unknown. He
was killed 22 December 2006 with his son, a physician, after being kidnapped. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, 24 December 2006].
135. Abdul Sami al-Janabi: Deputy President of the Baghdad University of Technology. Missing after
being kidnapped during the third week of January 2007. In 2004, Abdul Sami al-Janabi was dean of
al-Mustansiriya University's College of Sciences in Baghdad. He resigned from this position after Shia
paramilitary forces threatened to kill him. Such forces began then to occupy university centers in the
capital. Transferred by the Ministry of Higher Education to a new position to preserve his security,
Sami al-Janabi has almost certainly been assassinated. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23
January 2007].
136. Ameer Mekki al-Zihairi: Lecturer at Baghdad University of Technology. He was killed in March
2007. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See pdf].
137. Saad Abd Alwahab Al-Shaaban: Former Dean of the College of Computer Engineering and Information
Technology in the University of Technology. Killed on Thursday 14 October 2010 by plastic explosive
implanted to his car in Adhamia district of Baghdad. Saad Abd Alwahab Al-Shaaban left Iraq in 2006 and
returned back to Baghdad. He was lately working in the National Center for Computer Science, Ministry
of Higher Education. (Source: [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources on Alane News Agency, , October
15, 2010.]
138. Saad Abdul Jabar: professor at the Technological University in Bagdad. Assassinated in Al-Siyada
district, Southwest Baghdad, while driving his car by murderers using silenced guns on 26 February,
2011.[Source: Asuat Al-Iraq agency, 26 February, and Yaqen agency, February 27, 2010.]
Al-Nahrein University [Baghdad]
139. Akel Abdel Jabar al-Bahadili: Professor and deputy dean of al-Nahrein University's College of
Medicine. Head of Adhamiya Hospital in Baghdad. He was a specialist in internal medicine, killed 2
December 2005.
140. Mohammed al-Khazairy: Lecturer at University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital, al- Nahrein
University. He was a specialist in plastic surgery.
12
141. Laith Abdel Aziz: PhD and lecturer at the College of Sciences, al-Nahrein University. Date
unknown. [Source: al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
142. Abdul as-Satar Sabar al-Khazraji: Lecturer in engineering at the College of Computer Science
Technology, al-Nahrein University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March
2006]. [A same name and surname PhD in history, lecturer at Al-Munstansiriya University was killed on
19 June 2005.]
143. Uday al-Beiruti: Professor at al-Nahrein University. Kidnapped in University College al-Kadhemiya
Hospital's parking lot by armed men dressed in Interior Ministry uniforms. His body was found with
sigs of torture in Sadr City. Date unknown: July/August 2006. His murder took place during a wave of
assassinations in which seven of his colleagues were killed. [Source: Iraqi health service sources, 24
September 2006].
144. Khalel al-Khumaili: Professor at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. He was found
shot dead in December 2006 [exact date unknown] after being kidnapped at University College
al-Kadhemiya Hospital, together with his son, Dr Anas al-Jomaili, lecturer at the same college.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006].
145. Anas al-Jumaili: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. He was found shot
dead in December [exact date unknown] with his father, Dr Jalil al-Jumaili, professor of medicine,
after being kidnapped at University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, 24 December 2006].
146. Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He was
found dead 31 January 2007 after having been kidnapped from his home 28 January 2007 together with
lecturers Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi and Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy, and a student. All were found
dead in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February
2007].
147. Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He
was found dead 31 January 2007 after having been kidnapped 28 January 2007 on his way home, together
with lecturers Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid and Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy, and a student. All were found
dead in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February
2007].
148. Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He was found dead 31
January 2007 after having been kidnapped on his way home 28 January 2007, together with a student and
lecturers Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi and Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid. All were found dead
in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February 2007].
149. Khaled al-Naieb: Lecturer in microbiology and deputy dean of al-Nahrein University's College of
Higher Studies in Medicine. Killed 30 March 2007 at the main entrance to the college. Having been
threatened by the Mahdi Army, Moqtada as-Sadr's militia, Dr al- Naieb had moved to work in Irbil.
During a brief visit to his family in Baghdad, and after recently becoming a father, he was killed at
the main entrance
13
to the college on his way to collect some documents. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 4 April
2007. Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report dated April 7, 2007. See pdf].
150. Sami Sitrak: Professor of English and dean of al-Nahrein University's College of Law. Professor
Sitrak was killed 29 March 2007. He had been appointed dean of the College after the former dean's
resignation following an attempt to kill him along with three other College lecturers. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers, April 7, 2007. See pdf].
151. Thair Ahmed Jebr: Lecturer in the Department of Physics, College of Sciences, al- Nahrein
University. Jebr was killed in the attack against satellite TV channel al-Baghdadiya April 5, 2007.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, April 7, 2007. See pdf].
152. Iyad Hamza: PhD in chemistry, Baghdad University. He was the academic assistant of the President
of al-Nahrein University. On May 4, 2008 he was killed near his home in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
source, May 6, 2008].
153. Khamal Abu Muhie: Professor at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. Killed on 22
November 2009 at his home in the neighborhood of Adamiya, Baghdad. [Source: Al-Sharquia TV, November
22, 2009].
Islamic University [Baghdad]
154. Haizem al-Azawi: Lecturer at Baghdad Islamic University. Department and college unknown. He was
35 years old and married and was killed 13 February 2006 by armed men when he arriving home in the
neighborhood of Habibiya. [Source: Asia Times, March 3, 2006].
155. Saadi Ahmad Zidaan al-Fahdawi: PhD in Islamic science, lecturer at the College of Islamic
Science, Baghdad University. Killed March 26, 2006.
156. Abdel Aziz al-Jazem: Lecturer in Islamic theology at the College of Islamic Science, Baghdad
University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
157. Saad Jasim Mohammed: Lecturer at the Baghdad Islamic University. Department and college unknown.
Killed, together with his brother Mohammed Jassim Mohammed, 11 May 2007 in the neighborhood of
al-Mansur. The armed men who committed the crime where identified by the Association of Muslims
Scholars as members of a death squad. [Sources: press release of the Association of Muslims Scholars,
May 12, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi University sources, May 13, 2007].
158. Qais Sabah al-Jabouri: Professor at the Baghdad Islamic University. Killed 7 June 2007 by a group
of armed men who shot him from a car when he was leaving the university with the lecturers Alaa Jalel
Essa and Saad Jalifa al-Ani, who were killed and seriously injured respectively. [Sources Association
of Muslims Scholars press release, June 7, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, June 9, 2007].
159. Alaa Jalel Essa: Professor at the Baghdad Islamic University. Killed 7 June 2007 by a group of
armed men who shot him from a car when he was leaving the university with the lecturers Qais Sabah
al-Jabouri and Saad Jalifa al-Ani, who were killed and seriously injured
14
respectively. [Sources: Association of Muslims Scholars press release, June 7, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, June 9, 2007].
Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education [Baghdad]
Academics killed after a massive kidnapping occurred November 13, 2006:
160. Abdul Salam Suaidan al-Mashhadani: Lecturer in political sciences and head of the Scholarship
section of the Ministry of Higher Education. He was kidnapped November13, 2006, in an assault on the
Ministry. His body was found with signs of torture and mutilation 24 November 2006. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, November 26, 2006.]
161. Abdul Hamed al-Hadizi: Professor [specialty unknown]. He was kidnapped on November 13, 2006 in an
assault on the Ministry. His body was found with signs of torture and mutilation, 24 November 2006.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 26, 2006].
162. Thamer Kamel Mohamed: Head of the Department of Human Right at the Ministry of Higher Education.
Shot on 22 February 2010 on his way to work in one of main Baghdad streets [al-Qanat Street]. The
assassins used silencers fitted in their guns. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, February 23,
2006 and Alernet].
Al-Mansour University [Baghdad]
163. Amal Maamlaji: IT professor at the al-Mansour University in Baghdad. She was born in Kerbala and
got involved in human rights – particularly women's rights. She was shot dead in an ambush while
driving her car [160 bullets were found in her car] according to her husband, Athir Haddad, to whom
France24 interviewed by telephone. [Source: France24, July 4, 2008,].
Baghdad Institutes
164. Izi al-Deen al-Rawi: President of the Arabic University's Institute of Petroleum, Industry and
Minerals. Al-Rawi was kidnapped and found dead November 20, 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, November 20, 2006].
BABYLON Hilla University
165. Khaled M al-Khanabi: PhD in Islamic history, lecturer in Hilla University's School of Humanities.
Date unknown.
166. Mohsin Suleiman al-Ajeely: PhD in agronomy, lecturer in the College of Agronomy, Hilla
University. Killed on December 24, 2005.
167. Fleih al-Gharbawi: Lecturer in the College of Medicine. Killed in Hilla [capital of the province
of Babylon, 100 kilometers south of Baghdad] 20 November 2006 by armed men. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
sources, 20 November 2006].
168. Ali al-Grari [or Garar]. Professor at Hilla University. He was shot dead November 20, 2006 by
armed men in a vehicle on the freeway
15
between Hilla and Baghdad. [Source: Iraqi police sources cited by Reuters, November 20, 2006].
AT-TAMIM Kirkuk University
169. Ahmed Ithaldin Yahya: Lecturer in the College of Engineering, Kirkuk University. Killed by a car
bomb in the vicinity of his home in Kirkuk, February 16, 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, February 17, 2007].
170. Hussein Qader Omar: professor and Dean of Kirkuk University's College of Education Sciences.
Killed in November 20, 2006 by shots made from a vehicle in the city center. An accompanying colleague
was injured. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 21, 2006, and Iraqi Police Sources
cited by Reuters, November 20, 2006].
171. Sabri Abdul Jabar Mohammed: Lecturer at the College of Education Sciences at Kirkuk University.
Found dead November 1, 2007 in a street in Kirkuk one day after being kidnapped by a group of
unidentified armed men [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI, November
2, 2007].
172. Abdel Sattar Tahir Sharif: Lecturer at Kirkuk University. Department and college unknown.
75-years-old, he was assassinated March 5, 2008 by armed men in the district of Shoraw, 10 kilometers
northeast of Kirkuk. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq/Voices of Iraq, 5 March 2008].
173. Ibrahim Shaeer Jabbar Al-Jumaili: Pediatrician and professor of Medicine at Kirkuk University.
Dr. Ibrahim S.J. Al-Jumaili, 55 years old, was murdered July 22, 2011, after he resisted attempts by
four people to kidnap him, police said. [Source: AFP, July 22, 2011]. 174. Amer al-Doury: Dr. Amer
al-Douri was the Dean of the Administration and Economic College in Kirkuk. He was first handcuffed
and then executed in Hawija at protesters site, when Maliki's SWAT Security Forces raided the peaceful
protesting site and killed 86, injured hundreds, and arrested more on Tuesday April 23, 2013. [Source
Al Sharquiya TV News 20].
NINEVEH
Mosul University
175. Abdel Jabar al-Naimi: Dean of Mosul University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
176. Abdul Jabar Mustafa: PhD in political sciences, dean of Mosul University's College of Political
Sciences. Date unknown.
177. Abdul Aziz El-Atrachi: PhD in Plant Protection in the College of Agronomy and Forestry, Mosul
University. He was killed by a loose bullet shot by and American soldier. Date unknown.
178. Eman Abd-Almonaom Yunis: PhD in translation, lecturer in the College of Humanities, Mosul
University. Killed August 30, 2004.
179. Khaled Faisal Hamed al-Sheekho: PhD and lecturer in the College of Physical Education, Mosul
University. Killed April 11, 2003.
180. Leila [or Lyla] Abdu Allah al-Saad: PhD in law, dean of Mosul University's College of Law.
Assassinated in June 22, 2004.
16
181. Mahfud al-Kazzaz: PhD and lecturer at University Mosul. Department and college unknown. Killed
November 20, 2004.
182. Mohammed Yunis Thanoon: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer in the College of Physical Education,
Mosul University. Killed January 27. 2004.
183. Muneer al-Khiero: PhD in law and lecturer in the College of Law, Mosul University. Married to Dr
Leila Abdu Allah al-Saad, also assassinated. Date unknown.
184. Muwafek Yahya Hamdun: Deputy Dean and professor at the College of Agronomy, Mosul University.
[Source: al-Hayat, February 28, 2006].
185. Omar Miran: Baghdad University bachelor of law [1946]. PhD in history from Paris University
[1952], professor of history at Mosul University, specialist in history of the Middle East. Killed,
along with his wife and three of his sons, by armed men in February 2006 [exact date unknown].
186. Naif Sultan Saleh: Lecturer at the Technical Institute, Mosul University. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
187. Natek Sabri Hasan: Lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Mechanization and head of the
College of Agronomy, Mosul University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report,
March 2006].
188. Noel Petros Shammas Matti: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Mosul University. Married and
father of two daughters, was kidnapped and found dead August 4, 2006.
189. Noel Butrus S. Mathew: PhD, professor at the Health Institute of Mosul University. Date unknown.
190. Ahmad Hamid al-Tai: Professor and head of Department of Medicine, Mosul University. Killed 20
November 2006 when armed men intercepted his vehicle as he was heading home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, November 20, 2006].
191. Kamel Abdul Hussain: Lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Law, Mosul University. Killed in
January 11, 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
192. Talal Younis: Professor and dean of the College of Political Sciences. Killed on the morning of
April 16, 2007 at the main entrance to the college. Within less than half an hour Professor Jaafer
Hassan Sadeq of the Department of History at Mosul University was assassinated at his home. [Sources:
CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Mosul].
193. Jaafer Hassan Sadeq: Professor in the Department of History of Mosul University's College of
Arts. Killed April 16, 2007 at home in the district of al-Kafaaat, northwest of Mosul. Within less
than half an hour, Professor Talal Younis, dean of Mosul University's College of Political Sciences,
was killed at the main entrance to the college. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and
al-Mosul].
194. Ismail Taleb Ahmed: Lecturer in the College of Education, Mosul University. Killed 2 May 2007
while on his way to college. [Source: al-Mosul, May 2, 2007].
195. Nidal al-Asadi: Professor in the Computer Sciences Department of Mosul University's College of
Sciences. Shot dead by armed men in the district of al-Muhandiseen, according to police sources in
Mosul.
17
[Sources: INA, May 2, 2007, and Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal, May 3, 2007].
196. Abdul Kader Ali Abdullah: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic, College of Education Sciences,
Mosul University. Found dead 25/26 August 2007 after being kidnapped five days before by a group of
armed men. [Source: Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI August 26-27, 2007].
197. Unknown: Lecturer at Mosul University killed in the explosion of two car bombs near campus,
October 1, 2007. In this attack, six other people were injured, among them four students. [Source:
KUNA, October 1, 2007].
198. Aziz Suleiman: Lecturer at Mosul University. Department and College are unknown. Killed in Mosul
January 22, 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, January 24, 2008].
199. Jalil Ibrahim Ahmed al-Naimi: Director of the Sharia Department [Islamic Law] at Mosul
University. He was shot dead by armed men when he came back home [in Mosul] from University, 30
January 2008. [Sources: CEOSI and BRussells Tribunal University Iraqi sources, Heytnet and al-Quds
al-Arabi, January 31, 2008].
200. Faris Younis: Lecturer at Agriculture College, Mosul University. Dr. Younis was killed June 2,
2008 as a result of a car bomb put in his car. Different sources reported that dozens of academics and
students from Mosul University were arrested by Badr militias and Kurd pershmergas. These facts
occurred at the end of May, 2008, when the city was taken over by US occupation and Iraqi forces
[Source: CEOSI University Iraqui sources, June 3, 2008].
201. Walid Saad Allah al-Mouli, a university professor [Department unknown] was shot down on Sunday 15
June 2008 by unknown gunmen while he was on his way to work in Mosul's northern neighborhood of
al-Hadbaa, 405 Km northern Baghdad, killing him on the spot. In the attack, two of his sons were
seriously wounded and are in a critical condition. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq-[VOI], June
16, 2008].
202. Ahmed Murad Shehab: professor of Mosul University's Faculty of Administration and Economics.
Ahmed Murad Shehab was fatally shot in the neighborhood of al-Nur, on Mosul's left bank. [Source:
Press TV, 21 de abril de 2009].
203. Unidentified female university professor: The professor of law was assassinated in front of her
home in the al-Intissar district of western Mosul by unknown gunmen on Tuesday, the local police said.
They declined to give her name. [Source: PressTV, April 21, 2009].
204. Unknown: lecturer at Mosul University. On May 24, 2009, gunmen ambushed killed a university
teacher near his home in Al Andalus neighborhood, Mosul. [Source: The New York Times May 24, 2009].
205. Ibrahem Al-Kasab: professor in the College of Education, Mosul University. Dr. Al-Kasab was shot
dead on 4th October, 2010. Unknown gang assassinated him in his home at the eastren part of Mosul.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and Al-Sabah al-Yadid October 4, 2010].
206. Amer Selbi: professor at College of Islamic Science, Mosul University. Assassinated on his way to
College by murderers using
18
silenced guns on 6th March 2011. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 10 March, 2011].
207. Yasser Ahmed Sheet: assistant Dean of the Fine Arts Faculty of the Mosul University. Gunmen
opened fire on Yasser Ahmed Sheet in front of his house in al-Muthanna neighborhood, eastern Mosul, on
April 9, 2011, a local security source told to Aswat al-Iraq news agency. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq news
agency, on April 9, 2011.]
208. Mohammed Jasem al Jabouri: professor in the Faculty of Imam al-Adham, Mosul, province of Niniveh,
was killed during the night last 2 July, 2012 by gunmen who shot him to death near his house.
[Sources: Association of Muslim Scholars and Safaq News, 3 July, 2012]
QADISIYA
Diwaniya University
209. Hakim Malik al-Zayadi: PhD in Arabic philology, lecturer in Arabic literature at al-Qadisyia
University. Dr al-Zayadi was born in Diwaniya, and was killed in Latifiya when he was traveling from
Baghdad 24 July 2005].
210. Mayid Husein: Physician and lecturer at the College of Medicine, Diwaniya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
211. Saleh Abed Hassoun: al-Qadisiyah University's Dean of the School of Law. Salih Abed Hassoun was
shot dead by a group of armed men when driving his car in downtown Baghdad on 7 July 2008.
[Source:McClatchy, 8 July 2008.]
BASRA
Basra University
212. Abdel al-Munim Abdel Mayad: Bachelor and lecturer at Basra University. Date unknown.
213. Abdel Gani Assaadun: Bachelor and lecturer at Basra University. Date unknown.
214. Abdul Alah [or Abdullah] al-Fadhel: PhD, professor and deputy dean of Basra University's College
of Medicine. Killed January 1, 2006.
215. Abdul-Hussein Nasir Jalaf: PhD in agronomy, lecturer at the College of Agronomy's Center of
Research on Date Palm Trees, Basra University. Killed May 1, 2005.
216. Alaa Daoud: PhD in sciences, professor and chairman of Basra University [also reported as a
lecturer in history]. Killed 20 July 2005.
217. Ali Ghalib Abd Ali: Bachelor of sciences, assistant professor at the School of Engineering, Basra
University. Killed April 12, 2004.
218. Asaad Salem Shrieda: PhD in engineering, professor and dean of Basra University's School of
Engineering. Killed Octobre 15, 2003.
219. Faysal al-Assadi: PhD in agronomy, professor at the College of Agronomy, Basra University. Date
unknown.
220. Ghassab Jabber Attar: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer at the School of Engineering, Basra
University. Assassinated June 8, 2003.
19
221. Haidar al-Baaj: PhD in surgery, head of the University College Basra Hospital. Date unknown.
222. Haidar Taher: PhD and professor at the College of Medicine, Basra University. Date unknown.
223. Hussein Yasin: PhD in physics, lecturer in sciences at Basra University Killed 18 February 2004
at his home and in front of his family.
224. Khaled Shrieda: PhD in engineering, dean of the School of Engineering, Basra University. Date
unknown.
225. Khamhour al-Zargani: PhD in history, head of the Department of History at the College of
Education, Basra University Killed 19 August 2005.
226. Kadim Mashut Awad: visiting professor at the Department of Soils, College of Agriculture, Basra
University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
227. Karem Hassani: PhD and lecturer at the College of Medicine, Basra University. Date unknown.
228. Kefaia Hussein Saleh: PhD in English philology, lecturer in the College of Education Sciences,
Basra University. Assassinated May 28, 2004.
229. Mohammed al-Hakim: PhD in pharmacy, professor and dean of Basra University's College of Pharmacy.
Date unknown.
230. Mohammed Yassem Badr: PhD, professor and chairman of Basra University. Date unknown.
231. Omar Fakhri: PhD and lecturer in biology at the College of Sciences, Basra University. Date
unknown.
232. Saad Alrubaiee: PhD and lecturer in biology at the College of Sciences, Basra University. Date
unknown.
233. Yaddab al-Hajjam: PhD in education sciences and lecturer at the College of Education Sciences,
Basra University. Date unknown.
234. Zanubia Abdel Husein: PhD in veterinary medicine, lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine,
Basra University. Date unknown.
235. Jalil Ibrahim Almachari: Lecturer at Basra University. Department and college unknown. Killed 20
March 2006 after criticizing in a public lecture the situation in Iraq. [Arabic Source: al-Kader].
236. Abdullah Hamed al-Fadel: PhD in medicine, lecturer in surgery and deputy dean of the College of
Medicine at Basra University. Killed in January 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources].
237. Fuad al-Dajan: PhD in medicine, lecturer in gynecology at the College of Medicine, Basra
University. Killed at the beginning of March 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources].
238. Saad al-Shahin: PhD in medicine, lecturer in internal medicine at Basra University's College of
Medicine. Killed at the beginning of March 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources].
239. Jamhoor Karem Khammas: Lecturer at the College of Arts, Basra University. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
240. Karem Mohsen: PhD and lecturer at Department of Agriculture, College of Agronomy, Basra
University. Killed 10 April 2006. He worked in the field of honeybee production. Lecturers and
students called for a
20
demonstration to protest for his assassination. [Source: al-Basrah, April 11, 2006].
241. Waled Kamel: Lecturer at the College of Arts at Basra University. Killed 8 May 2006. Other two
lecturers were injured during the attack, one of them seriously. [Source: al-Quds al-Arabi, May 9,
2006].
242. Ahmad Abdul Kader Abdullah: Lecturer in the College of Sciences, Basra University. His body was
found June 9, 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, June 10, 2006].
243. Kasem Yusuf Yakub: Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Basra University. Killed 13 June
2006 at the university gate. [Sources: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 14 June 2006 and al-Quds
al-Arabi, June 16, 2006].
244. Ahmad Abdul Wadir Abdullah: Professor of the College of Chemistry, Basra University. Killed 10
June 2006. [Source: UNAMI report, May1 – June 30, 2006].
245. Kathum Mashhout: Lecturer in edaphology at the College of Agriculture, Basra University. Killed
in Basra in December 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 December
2006].
246. Mohammed Aziz Alwan: Lecturer in artistic design at the College of Fine Arts, Basra University.
Killed by armed men 26 May 2007 while walking in the city. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources,
June 1, 2007].
247. Firas Abdul Zahra: Lecturer at the College of Physical Education, Basra University. Killed at
home by armed men July18, 2007. His wife was injured in the attack. [Source: Iraqi university sources
to the BRussells Tribunal, August 26, 2007].
248. Muayad Ahmad Jalaf: Lecturer at the College of Arts, Basra University. Kidnapped 10 September
2007 by a group of armed men that was driving three cars, one of them with a government license plate.
He was found dead in a city suburb the next day. [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells
Tribunal, September 12, 2007].
249. Khaled Naser al-Miyahi: PhD in medicine, Professor of neurosurgery at Basra University. He was
assassinated in March 2008 [exact date unknown]. His body was found after his being kidnapped by a
group of armed men in the streets of Basra. There were no ransom demands, according to information
provided by Baghdad's Center for Human Rights.[Source: al-Basrah, March 12, 2008].
250. Youssef Salman: PhD engineering professor at Basra University. He was shot dead in 2006 when
driving home from the University with three other colleagues, who were spared, according to the
information provided by her widow to France24, in an phone interview [Source: France24, July 4, 2008].
Technical Institute of Basra
251. Mohammed Kasem: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the Technical Institute of Basra. Killed on
January 1, 2004.
252. Sabah Hachim Yaber: Lecturer at the Technical Institute of Basra. Date unknown.
21
253. Salah Abdelaziz Hashim: PhD and lecturer in fine arts at the Technical Institute of Basra.
Kidnapped in 4 April 2006. He was found shot dead the next day. According to other sources, Dr Hashim
was machine-gunned from a vehicle, injuring also a number of students. [Sources: CEOSI university
Iraqi sources, April 6, 2006, Az-Zaman, April 6, 2006, and al-Quds al-Arabi, April 7, 2006].
TIKRIT
Tikrit University
254. Basem al-Mudares: PhD in chemical sciences and lecturer in the College of Sciences, Tikrit
University. His body was found mutilated in the city of Samarra 21 July 2004.
255. Fathal Mosa Hussein Al Akili: PhD and professor at the College of Physical Education, Tikrit
University. Assassinated June 27, 2004.
256. Mahmoud Ibrahim Hussein: PhD in biological sciences and lecturer at the College of Education
Sciences, Tikrit University. Killed September 3, 2004.
257. Madloul Albazi Tikrit University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
258. Mojbil Achaij Issa al-Jabouri: Lecturer in international law at the College of Law, Tikrit
University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
259. Damin Husein al-Abidi: Lecturer in international law at College of Law, Tikrit University.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
260. Harit Abdel Yabar As Samrai: PhD student at the College of Engineering, Tikrit University.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
261. Farhan Mahmud: Lecturer at the College of Theology, Tikrit University. Disappeared after being
kidnapped 24 November 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, November 26, 2006].
262. Mustafa Khudhr Qasim: Professor at Tikrit University. Department and college unknown. His body
was found beheaded in al-Mulawatha, eastern Mosul, 21 November 2007. [Sources: al-Mosul, November 22,
2007, and Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI, November 22-25, 2007].
263. Taha AbdulRazak al-Ani: PhD in Islamic Studies, he was professor at Tikrit University. His body
was found shot dead in a car on a highway near al-Adel, a Baghdad suburb. Also, the body of Sheikh
Mahmoud Talb Latif al-Jumaily, member of the Commission of Muslim Scientists, was found dead in the
same car last Thursday afternoon, May 15, 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources May 21, 2008].
264. Aiad Ibrahem Mohamed Al-Jebory: Neurosurgeon specialist at the College of Medicine in Tikrit
University. Picked up with his brother by military raid on his village in Al Haweja on the night of
6th March 2011. His body was delivered the following day to Tikrit Hospital. His brother fate is
unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, March 10, 2011].
DIYALAH
22
Baquba University
265. Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher: PhD in physical sciences, professor and dean at the College of Sciences,
Baquba University. Killed December 21, 2004.
266. Lez Mecchan: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed 19 April 2006
with his wife and another colleague. [Sources: DPC and EFE, 19 April 2006].
267. Mis Mecchan: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Wife of Professor Lez
Mecchan, also assassinated. Both were killed with another colleague 19 April 2006. [Sources: DPC and
EFE, 19 April 2006].
268. Salam Ali Husein: Taught at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed 19 April
2006 with two other colleagues. [Sources: DPC and EFE, 19 April 2006].
269. Meshhin Hardan Madhlom al-Dulaimi: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college
unknown. Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source:
CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
270. Abdul Salam Ali al-Mehdawi: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college unknown.
Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI
university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
271. Mais Ganem Mahmoud: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the
end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi
sources, 10 May 2006].
272. Satar Jabar Akool: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the
end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi
sources, 10 May 2006].
273. Mohammed Abdual Redah al-Tamemmi: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and head of the
College of Education, Baquba University. Killed 19 August 2006 together with Professor Kreem Slman
al-Hamed al-Sadey, 70 years old, of the same Department. A third lecturer from the same department
escaped the attack carried out by a group of four armed men Students and lecturers demonstrated
against his and other lecturers' deaths. [Source: World Socialist, 12 September 2006, citing the Iraqi
newspaper Az-Zaman, CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 25 December 2006].
274. Karim al-Saadi: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed August
2006. Students and lecturers demonstrated against his and other lecturers' deaths. [Source: World
Socialist, 12 September 2006, citing the Iraqi newspaper Az-Zaman].
275. Kreem Slman al-Hamed al-Sadey: Professor in the Department of Arabic Language at the College of
Education, Baquba University. He was 70 years old when killed 19 August 2006. In the attack Mohammed
Abdual Redah al-Tamemmi, head of Education Department was also killed. A third lecturer from the same
department escaped the attack of a group of four armed men. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources,
25 December 2006].
23
276. Hasan Ahmad: Lecturer in the College of Education, Baquba University. Killed December 8, 2006.
[Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, December 2006].
277. Ahmed Mehawish Hasan: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic at the College of Education, Baquba
University. Killed in December [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 25
December 2006].
278. Walhan Hamid Fares al-Rubai: Dean of the College of Physical Education, Baquba University.
Al-Rubai was shot by a group of armed men in his office 1 February 2007. According to some sources his
son was also killed. [Source: Reuters and Islammemo, 1-3 February 2007 respectively, and CEOSI
university Iraqi sources, 2 February 2007].
279. Abdul Ghabur al-Qasi: Lecturer in history at Baquba University. His body was found by the police
10 April 2007 in Diyalah River, which crosses the city, with 31 other bodies of kidnapped people.
[Source: Az-Zaman, 11 April 2007].
280. Jamal Mustafa: Professor and head of the History Department, College of Education Sciences,
Baquba University. Kidnapped at home in the city of Baquba 29 October 2007 by a group of armed men
driving in three vehicles. [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal, 30 October
2007].
281. Ismail Khalil Al-Mahdawi: professor at Al-Assmai Faculty of Education, Diyalah University. Died
after serious injuries sustained due to exposure to fire arms equipped with silencers on 4 June, 2011,
while he was on his way back home in Katoun area, western Baquba (Diyalah Governorate) according to a
security sources. Dr. Al-Mahdawi was released two months ago after five-year detention at the US
forces in Iraq. He was rushed to Baquba General Hospital. [Sources: Baghdad TV; Aswat Al-Iraq, College
of Education Al-Assmai, Al-Forat TV, on June 4 & 5, 2011.]
282. Abbas Fadhil al-Dulaimi: Pressident of Diyalah University has been injured when targeted by a
landmine near an intersection of roads and bridges in Bakoabah, Diyalah, on Tursday, January 13, 2013.
The explosion killed two and wounded three of his security and body guards [Source: CEOSI's Iraqi
sources]
AL-ANBAR
Ramadi University
283. Abdel Karim Mejlef Saleh: PhD in philology, lecturer at the College of Education Sciences,
al-Anbar University.
284. Abdel Majed Hamed al-Karboli: Lecturer at Ramadi University. Killed December 2005 [exact date
unknown].
285. Ahmad Abdl Hadi al-Rawi: PhD in biology, professor in the School of Agronomy, al- Anbar
University. Date unknown.
286. Ahmad Abdul Alrahman Hameid al-Khbissy: PhD in Medicine, Professor of College of Medicine,
al-Anbar University. Date unknown.
287. Ahmed Abbas al-Weis: professor at Ramadi University, al-Anbar. The attackers were dressed in
military outfit when they shot the professor near his home in al- Zeidan district on August 25, 2009.
[Source: Khaleej Times Online, 25 August 2009].
24
288. Ahmed Saadi Zaidan: PhD in education sciences, Ramadi University. Killed February 2005 [exact
date unknown].
289. Hamed Faisal Antar: Lecturer in the College of Law, Ramadi University. Killed December 2005
[exact date unknown].
290. Naser Abdel Karem Mejlef al-Dulaimi: Department of Physics, College of Education, Ramadi
University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
291. Raad Okhssin al-Binow: PhD in surgery, lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Anbar University.
Date unknown.
292. Shakir Mahmmoud Jasim: PhD in agronomy, lecturer in the School of Agronomy, al- Anbar University.
Date unknown.
293. Nabil Hujazi: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Ramadi University. Killed in June 2006 [exact
date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 20 June 2006, confirmed by Iraqi Ministry of
Higher Education].
294. Nasar al-Fahdawi: Lecturer at Ramadi University. Department and college unknown. Killed 16
January 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, December 2006].
295. Khaled Jubair al-Dulaimi: Lecturer at the College of Engineering, Ramadi University. Killed 27
April 2007. [Source: Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal, 3 May 2007].
Fallujah University
296. Saad al-Mashhadani: University professor in Fallujah [Unknown Department]. Saad al-Mashhadani was
critically wounded on 26 December, 2009 in an attack that killed his brother and wounded two of his
security guards. [Source: The Washington Post, December 27, 2009].
297. Khalil Khalaf Jassim: Dean of Business and Economics College in Anbar University was assassinated
in an armed attack last May 4, in al-Nazizah area, central Fallujah, according to a police source in
Anbar province. Unidentified gunmen attacked his car, killing him on the spot Security forces cordoned
off the crime scene and began an inspection in searching of militants, while the body was transferred
to the Forensic Medicine Department. [Source, Shafaq News, May 4, 2013]
NAJAF
Kufa University
298. Khawla Mohammed Taqi Zwain: PhD in medicine, lecturer at College of Medicine, Kufa University.
Killed May 12, 2006.
299. Shahlaa al-Nasrawi: Lecturer in the College of Law, Kufa University. Assassinated 22 August 2007
by members of a sectarian militia. [Source: CEOSI University Iraqi sources, 27 August 2007].
300. Adel Abdul Hadi: Professor of philosophy, Kufa University's College of Arts. Killed by a group of
armed men 28 October 2007 when returning home from university. [Source: Iraqi University sources to
the BRussells Tribunal, October 30, 2007].
SALAH AL-DEEN
University of Salah al-Deen
25
301. Sabah Bahaa Al-Deen: Dr. Sabah is a faculty member at Salah Aldeen University's College of
Agriculture. He was killed by a car bomb stuck on his car last Wednesday Dec 12 when he was leaving
the College. (Source: Aswat Al- Iraq).
KARBALA
University of Karbala
302. Kasem Mohammed Ad Dayni: Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, College of Pedagogy, Karbala
University. Killed April 17, 2006. [Source:
http://www.albadeeliraq.com]
.
OPEN UNIVERSITY
303. Kareem Ahmed al-Timmi: Head of the Department of Arabic Language in the College of Education at
the Open University. Killed in Baghdad, February 22, 2007.
COMMISSION OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION
[CTE is an academic body that belongs to the Higher Education Ministry. Its headquarters are located
in al-Mansur, Baghdad neighborhood. Almost twenty Technical Superior Institutes, booth from the
capital and Central and Southern provinces, are dependent on this body].
304. Aamir Ibrahim Hamza: Bachelor in electronic engineering, lecturer at the Technical Institute.
Killed August 17, 2004.
305. Mohammed Abd al-Hussein Wahed: PhD in tourism, lecturer at the Institute of Administration.
Assassinated January 9, 2004.
306. Mohammed Saleh Mahdi: Bachelor in sciences, lecturer at the Cancer Research Centre. Killed
November 2005.
INSTITUTIONAL POSITIONS
307. Emad Sarsam: PhD in surgery and member of the Arab Council of Medicine. Date unknown.
308. Faiz Ghani Aziz: PhD in agronomy, director general of the Iraqi Company of Vegetable Oil. Killed
September 2003.
309. Isam Said Abd al-Halim: Geologic consultant at the Ministry of Construction. Date unknown.
310. Kamal al-Jarrah: Degree in English philology, researcher and writer and director general at the
Ministry of Education. Date unknown.
311. Raad Abdul-Latif al-Saadi: PhD in Arabic language, consultant in higher education and scientific
research at the Ministry of Education. Killed April 28, 2005.
312. Shakier al-Khafayi: PhD in administration, head of the Department of Normalization and Quality at
the Iraq Council. Date unknown.
313. Wajeeh Mahjoub: PhD in physical education, director general of physical education at the Ministry
of Education. Killed Abril 9, 2003.
314. Wissam al-Hashimi: PhD in petrogeology, president of the Arab Union of Geologists, expert in
Iraqi reservoirs, he worked for the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum. Assassinated August 24, 2005.
26
UNIVERSITY AFFILIATION UNKNOWN
315. Amir Mizhir al-Dayni: Professor of telecommunication engineering. Date unknown.
316. Khaled Ibrahim Said: PhD in physics. Date unknown.
317. Mohammed al-Adramli: PhD in chemical sciences. Date unknown.
318. Mohammed Munim al-Izmerly: PhD in chemical sciences. He was tortured and killed by US troops. His
body was sent to the Baghdad morgue. The cause of death was initially registered as ―brainstem
compression‖. Date unknown.
319. Nafi [or Nafia] Aboud: Professor of Arabic literature. Date unknown.
320. Ali Zedan Al-Saigh: PhD in Medicine and lecturer on Oncological Surgery (unknown university). Ali
Zedan Al-Saigh was assassinated at Al-Harthia district (Bagdad) on June 29, 2010 after returning
recently to Iraq. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, June 30, 2010]
321. Adnan Meki: Specialty and University unknown. According to police sources, his corpse was found
on July 13, 2010 with signals of stabbing at his home in Al-Qaddisiya neighborhood, western Baghdad.
[Source: Al-Rafadan website, July14, 2010].
322. Unknown Identity: Specialty and University unknown. On July 14, 2010, unidentified gunmen riding
in a car shot a university professor dead as he was leaving his home in the University District, West
Baghdad, according to the report of an official security source. [Source: AKnews, July 14, 2010].
323. Mohamed Ali El-Din (Al-Diin) Al-Heeti: Professor in Pharmacy, unknown University. Mohamed Ali
El-Din Al-Heeti was killed the afternoon of the 14th August, 2010 in the area of Al-Numaniya (north of
Al-Wasat governorate) in an attack by unknown armed men. The professor came back to Iraq a few months
ago to Iraq after a period of studies in George Washington University in the USA. [Source: Association
of Muslim Scholars, 15 August, 2010.]
OTHER CASES
324. Khalel al-Zahawi [or Khalil al-Zahawi]: Born in 1946, al-Zahawi was considered the most important
calligraphist in Iraq and among the most important in the Arab-Muslim world. He worked as a lecturer
in calligraphy in several Arab countries during the 1990s. He was killed 19 May 2007 in Baghdad by a
group of armed men. He was buried in Diyalah, where he was born. [Source: BBC News, 22 May 2007. His
biography is available on Wikipedia].
Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of radical medievalists
overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other attacks by Iranians
and their proxies.
Some
might argue that the overthrow of the Shah was simply the unseating of a brutal US-imposed
tyrant whose regime was about as merciless as that of Pinochet, the Sauds, or any of the other despots that
the US has installed and supported over the years.
The difference between my 'some' and your 'some' is that mine would be closer to the truth.
If the Chinese imposed a brutal and oppressive puppet regime on Australia, I would go so far as to
support the whackballs from the Westboro Baptists if they were the group capable of overthrowing the puppet
regime.
If you wouldn't do the same for your own neck of the woods, I am sure that there is as perfectly good
explanation.
The US does have a puppet regime (albeit one that doesn't register on the brutality scale yet) it's not
Chinese, of course.
@Rich
'Well, yes, every member of every military is a legitimate target. Especially a general. If it sounds
logical to you, that's because not only is it logical, it's common sense '
That's why we were cool
with Pearl Harbor. Just military personnel. No harm, no foul.
So America, how does it feel to be the world's assassin? Gives the "War on Terror" a whole new meaning,
doesn't it? At least you have one last true friend, a great "Haver," who will watch your back.
@Alfred
This assessment of Trump's has been around for a while but how, specifically, would the US ever be made to
leave Iraq and Syria? The only theoretical possibility would consist of a combined effort of the Iraqi
government and people directed against the occupation force in that country. That would probably have to
play out as a popular uprising against the Americans. But what if American troops, cheered on by Zionist
circles back in the US, started to kill large numbers of Iraqis indiscriminately? Would the Iraqis have the
stomach for that? And how could Trump declare victory and leave Iraq under such circumstances?
At the time
of this writing, we have already seen the second round of killings of high-ranking Iranian and Iraqi
commanders in Iraq, all of them Shiah. If the Shiah are said to be calculating, then these Shiah commanders
have not been calculating this time, serving themselves on a platter to the Americans. The remaining
commanders will have to wise up to the new reality quickly and switch over to full Hezbollah mode if they do
not want to be wiped out altogether.
Aspects of the attack against the Aramco facility point to it having been an Israeli false flag at least
in part. Pictures showed several dome-shaped oil tanks, all of them having a big, circular hole punched into
them at zero deflection and precisely the same steep angle from precisely the same direction. This kind of
damage cannot be achieved using GPS guided drones. Either the Iranians possess an unknown stealth
capability, in which case the military equation in the Middle East changes drastically, or a false flag is
left as the only remaining possibility. Israel would be the most likely culprit for that; the objective
consists of duping Trump into war against Iran.
So, Trump may have been led to believe that Iran carried out the attack against the Aramco facility. Then
somebody suggested to him to kill the Iranian general and several other Iranians partly as an act of
revenge. Several Iraqi commanders also get slaughtered. Iraqi popular unrest boils over at the same time as
more American troops are poured into the country, a massacre of Iraqi Shiah ensues and Iran is forced to
react. That may be the calculation behind it all. The threat of impeachment and subsequent imprisonment does
the rest to gird Trump along.
Right now, there are severe strains on the financial system with the Fed bailing out the repo market and
also monetizing US debt at nearly 100%. The US is down to pure money printing; this mode of operation cannot
go on for long before the whole house of card comes crashing down. The powers that be may be reckoning that
the time for war against Iran is now or never.
So, the best course of action that heartland (Iran, Russia, China) may take may be to wait it out by
doing as little as possible.
@Maiasta
It remains to be seen if America will actually suffer a level of retaliation for the assassination that will
surprise them. So far I think evidence suggests the miscalculation was Soleimani's. His Sept 2019 drone
attacks on the main Saudi oil facilities were deliberately not very destructive, being intended as
indication of what Iran can do, but America will not permit anyone to be a threat hanging over Saudi Arabia.
The Wikileaks cables show that US diplomats thought Soleimani was behind or at least supplying lethal
assistance to attacks on US forces, and were willing to quietly negotiate with him. None of those putative
hundreds of American deaths mattered all that much in the grand scheme of things. Masterminding the drone
attack on Saudi oil was completely different, that was what made him a marked man.
@Alfred
Did you say there are credible rumors that Iran brought down PanAm 103 and Israel made it look like Libya in
order to throw off suspicions from Iran? And, you say, the proof is that "Since PA103, no Iranian civilian
aircraft of any sort has been attacked or threatened by the USA or any other country?" Are you some kind of
Intelligence Analyst? This is deep. Or are you really saying there are credible rumors that Israel brought
down PanAm 103 and made it look like Libya? Which, of course, is not so deep. And the proof is that
Andrei, if as you say the Persians have imagination, why not imagine making peace with Israel? you also
quoted before that politics is art of possible. well and good, peace is possible if there is realization and
imagination that Israel is really not going anywhere. an eye for eye will make everyone blind. gandi?
btw, with all the mahdi stuff going on, how much rational are the Persian leaders?
what say the cyber warriors and armchair generals on drone warfare? is it ethical? moral? right? just?
necessary? sane?
We all know perfectly well you haven't read it yourself.
Maybe we can start a go-fund-me page for Rich, and it can pay for his Koranic education, and then he can
be shipped over to Tehran to tell them just how wrong they are – in his own kind of way. I'm sure they'll
listen, and drop everything to worship at the holy altar of
((Rich))
. And then he can reply back with
a big fat
"I told you so!"
.
@Kratoklastes
As if Afghanistan isn't inhospitable mountainous terrain? So somehow Iran's topography is worse is it? They
invaded Afghanistan without even controlling any neighbouring countries. Now that they have already invaded
Afghanistan and Iraq in preparation for the war on Iran, they could well roll in after a thorough aerial
pounding. So if they suffer great losses so what? Did they ever care about their own soldiers or citizens
that much anyway? If there's loot to be had they'll go for it.
This incident had one goal in mind and it was successful: Raising the price of crude by stirring up the Mid
East. Raising the oil price will raise the US stock market and re-elect Trump. Expect more of the same prior
to this year's elections. Same old, same old; people die, people win elections. Obama showed the way.
"Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo belong to a doomsday cult and may be trying to bring on the Apocalypse "
richardawkins.net
"Brought to Jesus the evangelical grip on the Trump administration"
theguardian.com
It's scary that a lobbyist for a major arms manufacturer and a true believer in the Apocalypse are both
advising a psychopath on US military action in the Middle East .
@Adrian
Yes, Wesley Clark spilled the beans. Seven nations to destroy is how the first Israel was formed.
Wesley said the nations that would be destroyed:
Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Iran.
Wesley says this is for nine eleven (false flag).
He said it would take 5 years to do so. 5 years was a guess since within 5 years is all it took to do WWI
and WWII.
Iran is the only nation of the seven mentioned that has not been messed up by ZUS, its friends and its
best friend Israel.
Nine eleven combo is a Kabbala theme. Nine is one less and eleven is one more than the Tree of Life
number ten of Yahweh. Thus, this combo represents chaos and destruction.
The 911 number was created in 1968. WTC was being built around that time.
Nine Eleven date in the Jewish calendar is 12.23. 5761. Notice the 12th Jewish month of Elul and the 23th
day of that month. The first Zion century began with the FED on 12. 23. 1913 of the Christian Calendar. This
second Zion Century began on 12.23 on the Jewish Calendar.
12.23 in the Jewish Calendar is the date of the second dove coming back to Noah with an olive branch.
12.25 two days later is the date of the when God (Yahweh) created the world. Six days later man was
created by Yahweh. That is the day of the Jewish New Year which celebrates Yahweh's creation of man. Thus,
the 6 million game comes from that. 6 represents man.
On 12.25. 5761 ( 9.13.2001) all the planes were "allowed" to fly again in the US. It was a creation of
"new" world after the end of the "flood of fear" like Yahweh did on that day in the Tanakh.
@BeenThereDunnit
Beware the false flag attack , if American servicemen or citizens get killed by "Iranians",it won't take
much to get the public behind a "decisive " attack on Iran , the objective would not be to defeat them but
to create another failed state for the benefit of Israel , we are good at that, just look at Syria , Yemen,
Libya , Afghanistan and Iraq .
"Israel made attack on Saudi oil fields"
streetwisereports.com
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Even if you are correct that Iranians do not have the capacity to defend themselves from the zionized US
military (armed on the Fed Reserve banksters' money), the ongoing war in the Middle East will be more
devastating for the US (and the EU) than for the natives who try to defend their families and their culture.
The moral death of the US is within reach.
The Jewish State has been running the famous Milgram experiment (dubbed "Nazi experiment") on
Palestinians for 70 years.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html
Whereas the Milgram experiment was terminated (due to its ugliness) in the US, the Milgram experiment has
been at the heart of Israel for 70 years. They, Israelis, have managed to create a new kind of people -- the
amoral hypocrites. Or perhaps, the ongoing Milgram study in Israel has exposed the true nature of Talmudism
("is this good for Jews?" -- then everything goes).
The impeachment proceedings of Trump pushed him to satisfy the deep state by making this idiotic move.
Netanyahu is also under investigation and should have been in jail. A war with IRAN is a nice way out of the
impasse.
@Rich
" the violent spread of Islam throughout the world"
-- Actually, there has been the violent spread of
zioconism throughout the world, including the Wars for Israel in the Middle East (and the flooding of Europe
with the dispossessed refugees and radicalized jihadies), the Jewish assault on the First Amendment in the
US, the physical assault and imprisonment of honest researchers in WWII on behalf of zionists (zionists
cannot tolerate factual information that does not agree with Elie Wiesel's inventions), the zionization of
US military, the blackmailing of persons in a position of power by Mossad (see Epstein-Maxwell saga of
underage prostitution), and a cherry on the top -- the casual attitude of zionist to all non-jews as
subhumans (see Gaza Ghetto, the suicided American veterans of the Wars for Israel, and the murdered
civilians in eastern Ukraine, courtesy the US-supported Banderites).
Who needs reading the Quaran when the Jewish State has been arming Ukrainian neo-Nazi and arming and
saving fanatical jihadi terrorists (including the murderous "white helmets") in Syria? Your quetching tribe
is nothing but a rapacious amoral predator working in cahoots with the worst scum among the mega-banksters
and mega-war-profiteers. At least you have already erected the numerous monuments (the Holobiz Museums) to
remind the non-Jews about Jewish depravity.
Join the Zionist Crusade!
Join the U.S military and fight for Israel.
Seven Islamic countries need to be destroyed for Greater Israel Project.
1.Afghanistan- check
2.Iraq-check
3.Sudan-check
4.Libya-check
5.Somalia-check
6.Syria-In Progress
7.Iran-TBA
@Kratoklastes
Those beheadings are fake, nothing more than cheap Hollywood stunts. All of the ISIS videos come from a
single source, Rita Katz/SITE, who is known to have Mossad connections.
Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of radical medievalists
overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other attacks by Iranians
and their proxies.
Of course those would be dumb bastards with no knowledge of history the CIA installed the Shah in a 1953
coup.
@Tulip
Kim Jong Un just called Trump a dotard a few weeks ago is testing more nuclear missiles and is back to
taunting the Trump Administration. That makes Trump look weak but because the N. Koreans have the ability to
massively retaliate against U.S. forces and because they are a nuclear power Trump does nothing but tweet.
If Iran had short range nuclear missiles that could reach Israel and Saudi Arabia they would be getting
far more respect and Trump would be treading lighter like he is with N. Korea.
@Maiasta
The interesting thing about Ostrovsky's book (and probably the real reason it generated controversy) is that
he admits that the Mossad relies on diaspora Jews for intelligence gathering, cover, etc. for running its
operations abroad.
@Colin Wright
Anyone with even a limited knowledge of the laws of war knows that a military base is a legitimate target.
That doesn't mean any nation that is attacked is going to be happy about it. For better or worse Pearl
Harbor was a legitimate target and the US was negligent in its defenses there. Of course, I believe the Nips
were sorry for that move in the end. Should've stuck to fighting poorly armed, divided Asian countries.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
On the other hand, Saddam simply sat on his fat *ss and watched how US built up fighting force of 150 000
men, planes and whatnot.
If Iran has any strategic sense it simply does not allow this to happen. Sometimes pre-emptive strikes are
the correct strategy. And then US is left only with carriers far from iranian shores and airbases in Jordan
or even further away. Of course, it can still destroy most of Iran's infrastructure eventually – while
simultaneously watching how his client states in Gulf will be levelled to ground. But bringing land forces
to Iran without relying on friendly ports and airbases will be D-day scale operation – much, much larger
than Desert Storm of Iraq Freedom.
"Iran HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly."
That is exactly what zionazia wants Iran to do. Why does saker want the Iranians to do exactly what
israel wants them to do?
"Right now, the Dems (still the party favored by the Neocons)"
Total nonsense. The neocons are overwhelmingly republicans, both leaders and followers. They got their
real start in the republican reagan regime and have increased their influence in each republican regime
since.
"Now think about this from the Neocon point of view. They might be able to get the US goyim to strike
Iran AND get rid of Trump."
LOL, why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? The neocon trump is 100% israel's boy. In fact, he
should be considered an extension of the israeli likud political block, which is who backs and promotes
neoconnery in the usa. The neocon american media such fox and the various conservative talk radio networks
are neocon. They promote trump, demonize the democrats and are fanatical likud israeli loyalists.
"For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was
not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of
IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a fact that this is what really
happened, only that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East."
Not credible, propaganda instead. The zionazis blamed Libya, Iran and Syria, depending on which served
their psywar needs of the moment. One saw the same zionazi strategy used after the 9/11 wtc attack. As the
zionazis attacked other countries, they justified it in their psywar as a response to that country's
"involvement" in 9/11. The air liner was likely destroyed through an israeli/western security service
falseflag act, like the later 9/11 falseflag.
This article posits some useful ideas, it also reinforces some zionazi policy goals and propaganda.
@Realist
Somewhat sad that your poor education has misinformed you about the origins of the Shah and the Pahlavi
dynasty. The Pahlavis came to power in 1925 when Reza Khan overthrew the Qajar dynasty who had ruled the
region since the late 18th century. The 1953 incident you refer to is the attempted communist takeover by
Mossadegh which was almost successful but prevented by the US and UK who helped keep the Pahlavis in power.
Is it a coup if there's an attempt to seize control of the government by communists but the king is able to
hold onto power? I don't think so. Shame the Tsar wasn't able to stop the Bolsheviks and their reign of
terror.
@Rich
"Somewhat sad your poor education blah blah blah"
Rich is a joo goblin pretending to be an aging boomerwaffen still fighting the big one from high atop his
barstool lookout down at the VFW lounge. Have another $2 double, Rich, and tell us again how you kicked ass
over there in 'Nam followed by your latest prostate troubles .
@Beefcake the Mighty
"the Mossad relies on diaspora Jews for intelligence gathering, cover, etc. for running its operations
abroad."
-- The ongoing mass slaughter in the Middle East and the triumph of Banderites (neo-Nazis) in
Ukraine are some of the glorious achievements of the Israel-firsters.
This is not the first time when the obnoxious tribe puts a lot of effort to cut a branch on which the
tribe perches. The disloyal treacherous scum of the Mega Group-Epstein-Maxwell kind has been at the ZUSA
wheel for some time already. The ziocons will not stop their bloody treachery until the US citizenry at
large begins taking actions against the dreamers of Eretz Israel.
Russia and Germany are examples of what can happen to a sovereign state when the "most moral and
victimized" are left to their ugly devices. The shameless AIPAC and 52 main Jewish American organizations
bear the principle responsibility for the ongoing wars that are becoming more dangerous with each day.
Is that what you thought when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet?
Look, I'll keep it short because this gaggle is locked into some seriously delusion thinking.
Solemani was commanding an operation to put Trump in the position Carter was in with the hostage crisis.
Do you knuckleheads really think that Trump was going to fall for it?
Especially since it was so obvious. With the Ayatollah shouting that Trump "couldn't do a damn thing."
And Senator Murphy teeing up what was soon to come by declaring the POTUS "impotent."
That is just the latest, most desperate provocation, by Iran in coordination with the Democrats.
So killing Soleimani, along with those in the second airstrike, was anything but an escalation. This is
what Milley was signaling when he said "The ball is in Iran's court." Khamenei stupidly revealed beforehand
that he had sanctioned this plot. That constitutes enormous risk not only to the Iranian regime but the
Democrats colluding with them.
@Rich
Poor "Rich," we guess that you need to make a living, but do your superiors understand that your posts make
more harm to "Jewish cause" than any jihadis' activities?
Though the Jewish State is, of course, one of the main sponsors of fanatical jihad (because this is good
for Jews and bad for Syrians) and of the neo-nazi in Ukraine (because this is good for Jews and bad for
Russians).
Keep posting. The exposure of the sick logic of Israelis is educational.
That is exactly what zionazia wants Iran to do. Why does saker want the Iranians to do exactly what
israel wants them to do?
Iranians are very shrewd and they will never start a war with USA. At appropriate time Iran will
annihilate Israel and USA will be scratching their heads. What will USA do, after the annihilation of
Israel? Commit suicide for the sake of annihilated Israel?
Saker's Quote: "For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103
over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate
shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a
fact that this is what really happened, only that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the
Middle-East."
Saker is showing his true colors, that he only cares for mother Russia. How can he post this stuff, while
he very well knows that when Iraq used chemicals, Iran refused to do so in return. Russia like USA will
intentionally kill civilians to achieve their goal, but Iran will NEVER intentionally kill innocent
civilians. Saker has been smoking too much lately, and forgetting that it is NOT spiritual to kill innocent
civilians. No, no and no, everything is not fair in war and love ..
Iran is ethical and has morals where as USSR and Russia seems to lack them .
The 1953 incident you refer to is the attempted communist takeover by Mossadegh which was almost
successful but prevented by the US and UK who helped keep the Pahlavis in power.
The US and UK were after Iranian oil. The Shah was their puppet plain and simple.
@Rich
But Rich, almost all the Communists are Jews and Mossadegh was not Jewish. How could he be a Communist? All
he did was nationalize the oil industry for Iranians instead of for the British. And you call Shiism
Medievalist, but isn't Judaism a stone age religion? Do you put those little boxes with magic amulets on
your head?
@Rich
You're certainly right, Rich, that any true Muslim is obligated to spread Islam by any means necessary,
including violence and intimidation -- our Quality Commenter Talha's eloquent and shrewd apologia to the
contrary notwithstanding. I wouldn't trust the people running Iran or any other Muslim country, and I'd not
let any Muslims settle in our lands.
BUT the us gov does seem to be consistently lying and trying to pick
a fight far from our shores. That dishonesty and belligerence is not obviated by the nature of the contrived
opponent. And they do seem to be doing it at the behest of Israel and its powerful domestic lobby and media,
often with no benefit to the American people, or affirmative harm to us.
Can't we both be realistic and not naive about Islam, AND not aggress or provoke a war?
@Colin Wright
That's a fair point, but there are similar conclusions drawn by long, detailed analyses of the koran by
ex-Muslims who are fluent in Arabic.
These are people who know both the Koran and the subsequent interpretive writings well. Doesn't mean
they're necessarily all correct, just that the very fearful and critical view of Islam that many of us find
persuasive, is NOT based only on selective or ill-informed readings of those texts.
@Robert Magill
I don't doubt that the elites behind the us gov would cause tension, violence, even war to profit from it,
through higher oil prices or otherwise.
As for the us stock market, though, how many of the 100 biggest,
500 biggest, or 5000 biggest publicly traded companies (by capitalization) would benefit from a spike in oil
and nat gas prices?
Wouldn't modt publicly traded US companies be harmed by the higher fuel prices causing higher prices for
groceries, clothes, and other goods that are shipped, flown, or trucked by vehicles burning fossil fuels?
Consumers wouldn't be able to afford to buy as much of those companies' goods and services after shelling
out exorbitant prices to fuel their cars and heat / cool their homes, paying more for non-locally sourced
groceries, etc. When the average American has to pay seven bucks for a gallon of gas, he will cut back on
other spending and/or borrow (charge) more to survive. That means many fewer people spending on luxuries
such as vacations and dining out and entertainment. More people postponing home renovation or repair,
forgoing medical or dental care, and so on.
As for the states and localities of the USA, some might benefit on balance from higher oil and gas
prices, but most definitely suffer from it. Much of Texas would benefit, including any state and local
governments getting extraction taxes, but none of the nine million people in New Jersey, the 20 million
people in Florida, and so on. I would wager that most US states are not net energy exporters but net energy
consumers, but I'll check for stats on that.
@Rich
US troops are only legitimate targets to the extent they are uninvited combatants in another country. Your
reasoning on this is bizarre.
My comment had nothing to do with dissing Israel or defending Iran, but
since you mention both, the US is entirely too subservient to the former since its inception and has been
screwing in the internal affairs of the latter for the better part of a century. When I said the US drew
first blood, I wasn't talking about last week.
@Not Raul
russia monitors all usa nukes, if they see any large scale nuclear attack they can not wait to make sure its
heading just south of their border or just north of it.
any large scale nuclear launch by the usa would trigger mad.
and im sure the nuclear armed muslim power right next door will not particularly enjoy having to deal with
the country smothered in fall out and the dead bodies of 80 million muslims.
Solemani was commanding an operation to put Trump in the position Carter was in with the hostage
crisis.
Trump's actions were proportionate and well considered. Instead of 'recapturing past glory', Khameni has
another massive failure to his name. The weak leader is growing weaker as time goes by.
The strike also impacts the thinking of Iranian military leaders. They now understand that if the
Ayatollah orders an irrational & unwinnable escalation, they may suffer personal consequences.
One thing could end this quickly and bloodlessly for all sides -- The IRGC removing the highly unpopular
Khameni, thus protecting the people of Iran. This will not happen tomorrow, but
Trump just took advantage
of Khameni's errors
to bring that day closer.
______
Of course, the paid Iranian shills posting here will decry this simple and obvious truth. Fortunately, no
one believes them.
@Beefcake the Mighty
The September 2019 attacks occurred in the very special context of Aramco's Initial Public Offering (IPO).
For the first time ever, Aramco, considered the largest company in the world in terms of valuation, was
about to sell 1.5% of its shares on the stock market.
The attacks on the Aramco facilities at the time
caused the total valuation to drop from an initial $2 trillion estimate to only 1,7 $trillion. So the
attacks were extremely convenient for some international financial institutions who wanted to
buy Aramco
shares on the cheap
.
The close relationship between such financial institutions and the Israeli government, who could have
carried the attacks and blame it on Iran, is of course a complete coincidence. Or so we are told.
@Beefcake the Mighty
The only explanation would be that the Israelis got wind of the impending attack. Then they used it as a
cover for their own attack. They may also have put themselves on alert, waiting for an attack having taking
place. Then they struck the same target in near real-time, using ready-made plans. Both possibilities would
certainly be far fetched. But they would not be completely illogical because oil installations being
targeted could be expected after all the prior drone attacks carried out by the Yemenis. OTOH, a quick
search on the Internet shows that GPS guidance has become considerably more precise in recent years. If the
Iranians are able to make use of such technology after all, then a war in the Middle East would become an
interesting proposition to say the least. The Americans can switch off GPS and they can jam GLONASS and the
other GPSes that exist. But that's not possible over the entire Middle East. That would be too costly both
in terms of the jamming itself and the losses incurred in the wider economy. GPS is terribly important in
these days. Everything depends on it from oil tankers navigating to excavators being guided along.
@A123
Thank Yahweh that your average, drooling, red-white-and-duh American is always ready to believe any simple
and obvious lie conjured by paid Israeli shills such as yourself.
Iran is in a no-win situation. If they do nothing and bide their time then I believe the Trump admin will
manufacture a casus belli for additional military action this time possibly striking targets inside Iran.
Trump's window is between now and the November 2020 election and his re-election is far from a lock given
the demographic changes in the electorate since 2016 which is why Iran may decide just wait things out.
The real question is if Russia will get involved to assist Iran or just sit on the sidelines and whine
and wimper about American aggression and violations of international law?
Others saw Donald Trump as a Dr. Strangelove when he was running for president but I thought that was
ridiculous since I saw Trump as more of a showman and entertainer but I now see that they were right and I
was wrong.
@ivegotrythm
I'm a Chrisrened and Confirmed Catholic and if those $99 DNA tests are accurate, I have no ashkenazi or
semitic ancestors. Just Europeans and Neanderthals in my family line. Not sure what I've written that seems
to trigger everyone into thinking I'm Jewish.
I will admit that growing up I did date a couple of secular Jewish gals and I did have a few Jews among
my childhood friends. That being said, I also have secular Muslim associates who are decent enough people. I
try to see things as clearly as I can and also from a patriotic American point of view. Guess that offends
many here who only want to live in an echo chamber where everyone has the same opinions.
@Anthony Aaron
What if Russia started to declassify documents and info they must have in their possession on 9/11?
That would
*really*
cause "dissension" in the US of A.
Also, what if Russia put some kind of screws on Israel?
With the two "countries'" (scare quos meant for the Jewish National State) long and somewhat troubled
association, there must be something the Russkies can do to scare the Zionists.
Actually, any 9/11 info would probably do both tricks at once.
@Biff
By the same token if you criticize those who are currently attacking Trump via the impeachment charade you
will be accused of being a "Trump supporter/lover/apologist/kissing Trump's sphincter (yes, this is at Moon
of Alabama, no less!).
This is the "Trump gotcha" equivalent of the MSM labeling anyone who advances a hypothesis besides the
"official" narrative of events such as Dallas or 9/11 a conspiracy theory.
@Paul holland
Yes, Iran's best move would be to take out Bibi himself or one of Trump's bosses in the US, like Adelson. If
Bibi himself is hit, Israel can't hide behind Trump's skirt any longer but will have to take the war to Iran
itself.
Trump's actions were proportionate and well considered. Instead of 'recapturing past glory', Khameni
has another massive failure to his name. The weak leader is growing weaker as time goes by.
Well, making himself part of the plot against Trump by shooting his mouth off ("You can't do a damn thing
about it.") must be deeply unsettling within the Iranian regime about his leadership.
I've long given the Iranians their resistance due but it's becoming clear they're overrated. The W Bush
and Obama administrations were gifts to Iran. It's impossible to overstate how thoroughly they overplayed
their hand with Obama on JCPOA.
The strike also impacts the thinking of Iranian military leaders. They now understand that if the
Ayatollah orders an irrational & unwinnable escalation, they may suffer personal consequences.
We have two fairly recent related analogues -- when Turkey shot down the Russian fighter and that lame
US-backed coup against Erdogan. In the first case, unsurprisingly because Putin knows what he's doing,
Russia extracted geopolitical gains for itself in return for letting Erdogan climb out of the tree. In the
latter, Obama acted pretty much like the 11 year old girl that he was throughout his figurehead terms. Trump
is still having to deal with the problem, all because Obama wouldn't give up the CIA Islamist living in PA,
an entirely reasonable demand to put a period on things.
No doubt, the Iranians have already been told we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Trump LOVES
making deals, particularly when he has the counter-party by the shorthairs.
The Saker forgets to mention the way this event went down. Trump walked into a room at the Mar-a-Lago where
he was met by a bunch of Neocons including Kuchner. They told him of Soleimani presenting a target of
opportunity and Trump ok'ed the attack. This paints a picture of Trump having lost every bit of control that
might still have been in his hands. He was visibly agitated when he went on TV. Probably he had begun to
realize what he has gotten himself into. The US then doubled down by striking a second time. You have to
pause your breath to take in what has happened. The US have officially killed government officials of a
country where they have stationed troops and that officially is an ally of the US. The US have also
officially killed officials of another country that were on an official, diplomatic visit to their ally.
Lots of uses of the word "official" here. But what it basically means is that all damns have broken. Total
chaos is now the order of the day. The US have resorted to naked violence in their dealings with the rest of
the world. Nobody is safe who cannot hold the US at gunpoint. It's the Wild West with nuclear weapons. It
was true before but now the US have begun acting on it completely overtly. And the US congress is in the
process of passing a bill that declares Russia a supporter of terrorism. You have to wonder what will happen
once this bill has passed and some high-ranking Russian official makes his next visit to Kaliningrad via
plane across the Baltic Sea.
@Kratoklastes
I put as much stock in your "expertise" as I do in that of all the other military geniuses on the internet,
which is to say, none at all.
@RadicalCenter
It is, of course, reasonable to wish to avoid another foreign adventure in a distant land. I'm of two minds
on the prospect. On the one hand, I agree that the US should turn its back on the Middle East, let them
settle their own differences. On the other hand, there is a legitimate argument that the day the US backs
down from these foreign entanglements, we lose the dollar as the world's reserve currency and this results
in extreme economic hardship in the US (as well as much of the rest of the world).
In the meantime, both major parties support our foreign entanglements, both firmly support Israel and no
one who is anti-Israel or anti-MIC is anywhere close to being elected to any high office in the country. So,
observing from that angle, the argument for withdrawal has no chance of winning, and the argument for
preventing the expansion of a loudly anti-US country from increasing its influence is not without merit. If
we're going to be there anyway, we might as well keep winning.
As far as the opinion that the US is acting at the behest of Israel, I think it's more a case of sharing
mutual interests at this time. Jews are a very rich and powerful ethnic group in this country, and will
continue to be for quite some time. Their support for Israel is not unlike the old Anglos who twice dragged
America into unnecessary wars against Germany for the benefit of merry old England. I'd rather all Americans
were more concerned with the future and security of the US, but that's not the way it is.
@Beefcake the Mighty
Because I dated a Jewish girl ? I don't think you know what a cuck is. Ask that fellow who picks up your
wife in the evening, then brings her home in the morning to explain the meaning of the word.
@Passer by
Two hundred and fifty million dollar exercise??? Wow and they got smoked in ten miunutes. Very telling.
Suicide bombers in zodiacs crazy to think of that..
Thanks for that.
I want to see the one where the Toronto Maple Leafs win a Stanley Cup .My team and maybe our year.
@Z-man
Yup.
Here's the insanity of it all. Here in Scotland and I presume the rest of the UK, there are certain branches
of Christianity who go out at the weekend, going around bars, giving leaflets on Jesus and engaging in
conversation with homosexuals. I've had a few debates with them, but they just make me laugh. I know their
bible better than them. Last time I asked them
"ever heard of the Talmud?"
They looked at me goggle
eyed. I told them, specifically what it stated about their Jesus and Mary and they said I was lying. They
stated that Jews would never do such things.
This is what we're dealing with. We're dealing with an
utterly ignorant Christian following who truly do believe the crap about Jews, because they're utterly
indoctrinated. The biggest problem isn't so much Judaism, it's the morons who wilfully follow the Jews, as
God's chosen, believing they do no wrong. Utterly and completely indoctrinated fools.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Qassem Soleimani was indeed a celebrated Iranian general. He was known as an honorable man and talented
military commander.
As for 'Gleimhart Mantooso' -- never heard of her.
@BeenThereDunnit
Important point. Trump now threatens to hit 52 major Iranian sites if there is any retaliation for the
Soleimani assassination. The Russians will observe this precipitous escalation and factor it into the next
standoff between Russian and American forces. Russia will have to assume that 'Murka will escalate
massively, and will therefore be on a hair-trigger for the use of nuclear weapons. Massive escalation is now
the order of the day, and presages nuclear war.
If Trump is the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable President", and their goals require him out of
the way, "at which point the Neocons will jettison him and replace him by an even more subservient
individual (say Pence or Pelosi)"
Scary thought: The neocons/Israel/DeepState/MIC/media have been going all out to either control and/or
get rid of Trump through Russiagate and now impeachment. Having succeeded in getting Trump to commit this
huge mistake, could they now decide it's worth going further than just impeachment to get rid of him, in
order to create a horrible false flag to pin on Iran, get Pence/Pelosi into power, and have the US destroy
Iran for Israel with media-orchestrated US public support?
Really wish Trump had had the sense to say no to this when they presented their murderous plan to him.
@Rich
Rich: You imply that "Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target." How on earth
could any s-a-n-e person arrive at your conclusion? Are you nucking futs??
This twisted thinking would imply that any member of a sovereign country's military, while visiting another
country on a peace mission, from your perspective, is a 'legitimate target'? With people like you, it is
little wonder that the world ends up with imbeciles like Trump.
Well help me doG
@Rurik
First comes the vote to expel the US forces, then when they don't leave, the constant pinprick attacks and ,
if available, taking out a high value US target and it all gets blamed on Iraq irregular forces
I try to see things as clearly as I can and also from a patriotic American point of view.
Perhaps you should consider having your eyes and hearing checked by a specialist. Also, some additional
education regarding the history of the United States of America starting with the Declaration of
Independence would appear to be long overdue. (Hint: The clue is in the word independence and the efforts
that patriots made to achieve it)
No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag à la "USS
Liberty". Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities
in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves. How? Simple! Fire a missile/torpedo/mine at any
USN ship and blame Iran. We all know that if that happens the US political elites will do what they did
the last time around: let US servicemen die and protect Israel at all costs (read up on the USS Liberty
if you don't know about it)
I made a remark about the likelihood of a False Flag in another thread and was lumped in as "weak-minded"
and "know-it-all Unz-ite". LOL. (
https://www.unz.com/estriker/the-line-in-the-sand/
).
My comment on how Trump is stupid and a great scapegoat was also targeted because the person said Trump is
"playing a charade" and is all deep state. Well, I don't think so at all. Trump is a walking Ego stick and
an excellent scapegoat if anything goes wrong.
But seriously, how can anyone not see the immense gravity of the situation? My god, they murdered a
General, which is next to killing a President. This is a clear provocation and I agree 100% with the
possibilities that Saker brings up.
I'll take it further as well. There could be a nuke used against Iran in the event a False Flag of
massive proportions directed at civilians gets people onboard for a fight. They don't want to get bogged
down in a long war with Iran. My guess is Israel wants them out of the picture for a long time or for good.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Well, annamaria is a much respected commenter here who often adds better information to those comments
lacking much of anything substantial, such as your own. Consider it a favour to you and bear in mind also
that a great many people read the comments without commenting themselves so they too are the beneficiaries
of her well researched contributions. Have a nice day.
All the options presented by Saker are viable and desirable. They don't even have to be limited to
either/or. The political option of hitting exclusively IsraHell with salvos of missiles would be another
option. Israel is, after all, the culprit behind the scenes.
Last time I asked them "ever heard of the Talmud?" They looked at me goggle eyed.
I too was ignorant of it until my later years.
An anecdotal story: Years ago at my 'office' Christmas party the one Jew in our group shared,
with his
goy coworkers
, that he was struggling with
The Talmud
. You see he was a very secular ok kind of
guy who liked to hang out with the 'un-chosen'. But he was now married to a very 'orthodox' woman and he had
to learn about the Talmud. He confessed that the 'manual' was not too kind to gentiles. He was at a
crossroad. I noticed the struggle he was going thru. I believe he stayed with his wife, I haven't seen him
in years.
Thanks to him I became even more 'woke' to the
truths
of Judaism.
As if Afghanistan isn't inhospitable mountainous terrain? So somehow Iran's topography is worse is it?
They invaded Afghanistan without even controlling any neighbouring countries.
Have you looked at where KOP is? By 2007 that was still a 'forward base'. It's only 100 miles from Kabul.
Also, while the US didn't explicitly 'control' Uzbekistan (which is where the initial force staged),
Karimov was a US ally and there is no love lost between the Uzbeks and the Pashto.
Today, the US controls only those parts of Afghanistan that the Taliban haven't decided to take back yet.
It's not clear why you would consider US strategy in Afghanistan as a good example – it's now widely-known
to have been so bad that it required 17 years of official bullshit to cover its failure.
.
You've also missed about fifty key points of difference between Afghanistan and Iran.
The ones that most people don't need reminding about include –
① Afghanistan had no organised military to speak of;
② it had absolutely no air defence capabilities and limited airspace monitoring;
③ its disorganised military was having a hard time with Dostum, Massoud and Hekmatyar;
④ the initial US insertion was about 6 SAD guys whose main role was to meet up with the Northern
Alliance; they, and the rest of TF Dagger arrived by helo from K-K in Uzbekistan (the US had always
supported Karimov) – the TF Dagger insertion
is now the record for the longest helo insertion in military
history
;
⑤ Kandahar and Kabul had already fallen before FOB Rhino was established – in other words, the Northern
Alliance plus US air power had done the job before ISAF even got its shit unpacked;
⑥ Notwithstanding the unseating of the Taliban,
The US lost
. They knew in 2001 that they were
losing, and lied about it for 17 years.
On ⑥: when you're a superpower,
if you fail to impose your Imperial Will on the place that is a LOSS
.
.
Ordinarily, in these sort of situations it's left as an exercise to work out which of those points are
critical in the new game (where the US tries to do the same thing in Iran).
But since most people are imbeciles, I'll put a thumb on the scales.
More below the fold. Read it or don't, but if you think of some counter-argument it's best to assume I've
already thought of it, coz I'm good at this. (The folks at JWAC probably don't know my name any more,
because the Yanks our crew helped train in the 90s have moved on since then).
[MORE]
In the case of Iran:
Re ①: Iran has a well-equipped professional military with an excellent senior staff. (That said:
Afghanistan didn't have much by way of
formal
military, but it did have
millions
of
people with battlefield experience against a technologically superior enemy about half of whom were
on the Taliban side).
Re ⑤: Ain't gonna happen because ④ can't happen.
④ is made orders of magnitude harder by !{②,③} (! is the 'NOT' operator, indicating that {} is
untrue in the Iranian case).
Dealing with !③ first: there is no domestic insurgency worth talking to in Iran – certainly not one
that is remotely analogous to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in 2001, which was basically a
full-fledged opponent in a civil war (which the NA won, with the aid of US air power). Whoever crosses
the threshold cannot rely on divided attention of the Iranian military.
OK, now !②. More convoluted – requires more space.
Insertion of the whole force by rotor is really hard if the adversary has any significant air
defences. (At the time that the US invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban couldn't even rely on
regularly-updated satellite imagery to detect movements in US naval assets: now you can do that from
your phone, and if you're a government you have drones).
With a sophisticated enemy it's so hard to insert large numbers of boots by rotor, that it can be
ruled out.
So if you want to get boots on the ground
without
everyone having to traverse a mountain
range (exposing flanks and supply lines), you a need to get reliable control over a big lump of land
that has an airport on it capable of landing troop transports (or being converted to same).
(The passel of land has to be on the 'enemy' side of the mountains – I put that in because some
readers went to US schools and geography is not a strong point.)
Controlling an air base would require a battalion on the ground on the bad-guy side of the hills.
You sure as fuck don't want to fight your way over the hills and then try to control an airbase.
Trying to get a battalion-sized presence in by rotorcraft would mean using MH-47s, which are slow
and (
ahem
) not very stealthy (actually, they're
very
not
stealthy) and the US
would require more than a battalion on the ground.
Airdrop? Same problem: if the incoming aircraft is detected, you know everything about manpower
disposition (troop size and position) before the men hit the ground.
Iran has the capability to see airborne things coming; it also has a range of solutions to make
airborne things lose their airborne-ness.
For mobile overwatch, Iran has AWACS – 3 old Orions and some retroftted An-140s for maritime, and a
bunch of unarmed drones (they've been cranking out UAVs as fast as possible). They also have JY-14
medium-long range radar, which is handy because their range means that they can be lit up earlier than
short-range AA radar.
And if you don't think that they have an intel-sharing arrangement with Russia, you're not thinking
hard enough.
As far as making flying things stop flying, they have a fuckton of SAMs. A genuine fuckton –
especially relative to what the US has faced in any engagement since Korea.
They have a similar fuckton of MANPADs: even primitive RPGs are bad news for helos, and MANPADs are
much more
worser
think of how badly "
Hind
vs
Stinger
" played out in the 80s, and
you are on roughly the right page
They also have a little over 1500 AA batteries (most of those will be dead on first contact, but
they're still a nuisance).
The Iranian Air Force itself – forget it, it's irrelevant.
The first sign things are kicking off will be a bunch of TLAMs fucking up every airbase in Iran.
(Plus the obligatory US/NATO SOP war crime of targeting civilian infrastructure for electricity
generation, water treatment, sewage treatment, and telecommunications)
This is why Iran has fuck-all air-superiority assets: and a little over a hundred 1980s-level
offensive aircraft (about 150 of them: F14; Fulcrum; Su22, 24 and 25).
They learned from the experience of Iraq's Air Force in 1991: it was much much larger than Iran's
is now, but a shitload of it was destroyed on the ground due to the regime's appalling lack of
preparedness.
So from all that
⑥ is a foregone conclusion.
Some things that play no part in the conclusion:
ⓐ that I despise US* hypocritical bromides about freedom and 'democracy';
ⓑ that the US military is a bloated set of boondoggles run by grifters,with the mindset of a
20-something NPC who just watched '300';
ⓒ that the US has had its arse kicked by several sets of raggedy-ass peasants from 1968 onwards and
has underperformed in every peer engagement since 1789. (inb4 WWI and WWII they were on the winning
side
, but others – e.g., the Soviets – did the actual
winning
)
.
"
Topography matters
" doesn't mean that topography is
all
that matters. The gap
between combatants has to be
extremely
wide in order for technology and manpower to overcome
terrain.
In fact it's hard to know how wide the gap needs to be fortech/power to win, because all of the
'invade without properly considering terrain disadvantages
" has resulted in strategic losses for
the superior force at all times since WWII.
We can say that the gap has to be
wider
than "
Viet Cong vs US
" or "
Mujahedin vs
USSR
" or
USC/SNA vs US/UNOSOM
" or "
Taliban vs US/ISAF
".
.
People who are interested in how shit works in modern warfare need to read William Lind, or John
Robb or Arreguín-Toft.
Start with the short-ish paper (which is now a book):
@Anonymous
I wonder whether, as you suggest, Trump hasn't just walked into a trap.
And has just figured out that this time, he's the patsy.
If such is the case, his best option might be to address the American people directly as to what has gone
down with this murder and sack Pompeo and Kushner. (Turn the former over to Iran???? Just kidding . . . but
depriving him of security would accomplish the same thing.)
The problem is that the vipers are within his own family: Ivanka and Jared Kushner. Stupidest thing he
could have done, having those two on his "diplomatic" and "advisory" staff.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Are they treated as Julian Assange is in the UK or as Maria Butina was for a year-and-a-half in a US jail
forced to plead guilty for something she was not guilty of in the first place? Or as Manning is being held
in solitary confinement because he will not lie for a get-out-of-jail card? Are the Koreans subjected to
execution by black murderers while in their cells? Let us know when you have some evidence.
@the grand wazoo
Also, there is a large faction within the Democratic party who will never go to war for Israel, because they
simply don't like Jews. They may be fooled into hating Russia because they are white, but they'll side with
an underdog Iran over a belligerent Israel every time.
If the Democrats get control, they will effectively control the USA indefinitely, because they seem
perfectly happy to import all the Democratic voters they'll require to remain in power
The window for Jews to utilize the American state as their wrecking ball are limited. Trump might be the
best chance they will ever get. America is on such shaky footing on so many levels, they may implode
domestically before they can the job done.
So I would guess that the appropriate tit-for-tat splash would be LtGen Scott Berrier (G2 – Intel).
Everyone's heard of that guy, right?
No I didn't know him but now we all do. Ok that would be tit for tat, but I would still go for a 4 Star.
(Grin)
Plus, if they splashed Pompous, the resulting fatberg would burn for longer than the Springfield tyre
fire. Nobody wants that.
LOL!!!
He is the most dispicable NEOCON stooge out there, even worse than 'Linda' Graham. Christian Zionists, the
personification of OXY
MORON
.
Ok, not Plump'eo but we gotta give the Iranians one real Neo-cohen, to scare the be-Jesus out of them (the
Jooz that is). (Grin)
@Desert Fox
"Israel and the ZUS want a nuclear war with Russia "
A few years ago I would have LOL 'd at such a proposition. Today, I scratch my head.
Is the US so completely
insane
as to attack a peer or (indeed) stronger nuclear power such as Russia?
I don't think so but .
@UninformedButCurious
Is Trump "disposable" ? Maybe. But unlikely.
Given that Tel Aviv is in charge (a synonym for "neocon") , & Trump has virtually tripped over his own
tongue in his haste to lick their boots (& other bodily parts) it wouldn't appear that Trump has yet lost
his value.
And in a more domestic sense --
Pence
! OMG, is there a political leader with less charisma? Pence
makes Corbyn look like Ronald Reagan.(People greatly under rate charisma & other subjective leadership
qualities)
So dumping Trump would have severe political repercussions.
@John Chuckman
Iran will "carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and unambiguous, and it might be
multi-faceted and done over time."
Agreed.
Hopefully Iran will respond largely through proxies. And also concentrate on non-military responses.
IE, putting maximum pressure on Iraq's parliament to force all US forces out of Iraq -- difficult, but that
would be a
huge
win. Of course, they'll still get the blame -- but should a cat in Patagonia die in
suspicious circumstances Iran would get the blame for that
too
.
As for
any
nuclear response by Iran, that truly would be "acting foolishly". Anything along nuclear
lines would be a perfect provocative to Israel /the US.
@Kratoklastes
I think the Iranian leadership and populace would be more convinced of the effectiveness of the Iranian
military if Soleimani had managed to keep himself alive.
@SeekerofthePresence
Not only that, he has even stated that among them are sites of great cultural importance. Do they want to
attack mosques? Some of those Iranian mosques are not only holy sites as such, they are marvels of
architecture. Attacking them would be a crime against the heritage of all mankind. That would be truly mad
but we will see, sadly. It would enrage Muslims to a degree not seen in living memory. They might "just"
attack sites commemorating the fallen of the war against Iraq. That would be nearly as bad.
Anyways,
refraining from any more threats, as Trump has demanded, is a near impossibility. What is a threat and what
not? Are red flags of revenge on display in Iran already a threat? The probability of war has to reckoned at
near 100% now.
The Iranians should disperse their assets urgently. Nuclear assets that can be dispersed have to be at
the top of the list. They should actually try to avoid making any more threats for now. Trump has
conveniently laid out his strategy to them, allowing them to have the war started by the Americans at a
point of time of their choosing. After a period of restraint, they should gradually start making slight
threats again, placing the ball in the American court. The dust will have settled somewhat by then, world
opinion will have realized how criminally the US have behaved by killing Iraqi and Iranian officials. The
later the war starts, the better for the Iranians. That explains why the US are escalating so heavily right
now.
If Iran really got hold of some Ukrainian nuclear warheads back when the Soviet Union dissolved, then the
time for testing one of them would be now.
The big question has to be how China and Russia position themselves. The Americans and Israelis seem to
think that Putin and Xi are weak enough internally to allow them to go through with it all. The true
battlefield will be Russian and and Chinese public opinion. If Putin and Xi can convince their peoples that
Iran has to be supported, then the equation would shift. They should at least start making weapon
deliveries. Russia could even claim that it has to protect the nuclear site in Busher where Russians work,
deploying S-400s manned by its own personnel. China could claim that war in the Persian Gulf would be too
much of a threat to its economy. Both claims would be true.
Perhaps they'll be able to gin up some popular riots and demonstrations throughout the Muslim world.
That should be the best strategy for Iran to invoke the common heritage of the true monotheist faith we
share, of which there is much.
On a personal level, even if I have reservations about Shi'sm, and what I see as clear deviancy, I, and I
am sure many other true monotheist brothers, are still on the side of Iran, because my suspicion of Shi'sm
is far less than my visceral hatred for Whitey/Joonist Imperialism. May the Almighty One's wrath befall the
satanically evil pagan/godless Whitey/Joonist Imperialists, those avowed enemies of True Monotheism.
Iran should find ways to communicate with the Arab street directly using Whitey/Zionist Imperialist
tools like Twitter and Facebook, as long as it will be allowed. The irony is not lost on me.
Also, there is a large faction within the Democratic party who will never go to war for Israel,
because they simply don't like Jews.
They don't get to decide. The uppermost elites do. Lower-level Democrats are just rubber-stampers. They
may not like Israel but must still serve it. Jewish Money and Media compel them to.
I believe a not insignificant amount -- perhaps even the majority -- of pro-war Americans know this to be
true: That they and their progeny are mere cannon fodder for Zionist imperialism. But they simply don't
care or are even proud of dying for so "worthy" a cause. Never underestimate the persistent and
deeply-rooted hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the utter foolishness of your average
American.
This is so true. American Protestant Christianity – Evangelicalism in particular – has been warped and
modified by Zionism. Whereas for 1800 years Christians believed and preached that God took on human form and
that Jesus died for the sins of all humanity, the belief now seems to be that God is a real estate agent. I
think that even if Evangelicals were to find out that the Talmud teaches that in the Millennium every Jew is
to have 2,800 goyim as slaves, they would accept it.
@A123
Of course, the paid Iranian shills posting here will decry this simple and obvious truth. Fortunately, no
one believes them.
I was out of work for forty seven years (due to my issues with women, and my
extreme myopia, not to mention my body odour). So I was really happy to be offered a job as a cyber warrior
by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command under their blessed leader General Qasem Soleimani at what I
thought was a really good rate of pay.
Imagine my disillusion when I discovered how few pounds I could get for my Rials, thanks to the
continuing US economic sanctions. So, with a heavy heart I realised that I had no alternative other than to
go to work for Mossad to finance my sex offending.
People need to realize that the dynamic has changed completely. For Iran, patience is no longer an option.
Israel/USA will continue to attack. Seriously, look at Trump's 52 target tweet. It sounds like the ranting
of Hitler during his last days in the bunker. Not fighting back is the worst thing Iran can now do.
Regarding the court of public opinion: Iran had the sympathy of the majority of people in the world long
before the new year. It counts for nothing when it comes to avoiding war. All that matters is the western
media and the brainwashed western public. Iran can never win that PR fight. In fact, if you polled Americans
and gave them the option of ending the Iran problem by nuking them that the majority would support this
action. A large number of Canadians would also support this. More importantly, after such a nuclear attack
and 80 million dead Iranians the main thing westerners will care about is getting back to business as usual.
America will resort to a nuclear attack because it believes it can get away with it. What does Iran have to
lose?
I hope the following happens Monday:
1) the Houthis strike and shut down all Saudi oil production.
2) a cyber attack in the USA. Maybe take down the power grid. We know how much Americans love war when
they can sit in front of their tv and cheer on the US military. How much will they love it, or the people
who brought them this war, when they're stuck in their unheated homes in the middle of January?
I also hope they are seriously considering the following:
3) hitting every US military target in the region that could be used to bomb Iran.
4) Hizbollah and Syria launching attacks against Israel. The Israeli's are the real provocateurs. If they
pay no price they will continue to push for further aggression.
No matter what is done by Iran or its allies the retaliation by the US will be greater than what we've
seen so far. Even if nothing is done Israel/USA will create another incident for an excuse to attack again.
The war has started. One sure way for Iran to lose it is to not participate.
@Rich
World War I – fought on behalf of ZIONISTS who influenced Jews in Woodrow Wilson's cabinet (the "brain
trust", and a certain Jewish man, STEPHEN WISE, known as the 'Red Rabbi' for his affinity for Communism!).
This deal was in exchange for Britain giving Palestine to the Zionist Jews (even though it wasn't even
Britain's to give at the time)! Surely you have heard of the BALFOUR DECLARATION, right? Quit spinning this
disingenuous pseudo-history!
World War II – Franklin Delano Roosevelt's cabinet was ALSO chock-full of
Zionists, and a certain Jewish man, now in his older years but still very influential, STEPHEN WISE yet
again, was also one of his closest advisors. And Churchill, who ALSO was bought and paid for by Zionist
interests, was in on this as well read Pat Buchanan's "Hitler, Churchill, and the Unnecessary War" for a
pretty mainstream take on this subject. But basically World War II was ALSO fought for Zionists, and what
was the result?
Britain: LOST THEIR EMPIRE
Zionists: CREATED THE COLONIALIST SETTLER STATE OF ISRAEL BY EVICTING PALESTINIANS THROUGH TERRORIST GROUPS
LIKE THE IRGUN
So WHO was that really done on behalf of???
You lot really need to quit spinning this nonsense here; it's just not going to work with anyone who's
educated and intelligent enough to research for themselves and it makes you and your cause look very
foolish.
@Rich
Why don't you go to Iran and tell the millions mourning in the streets there for this man who symbolised the
resistance to the evil Zionist World Order how 'wrong' they are
Or are all of them just horribly misguided and confused? Or maybe they're just 'evil' people who ought to be
destroyed? And we need to 'bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran'? How convenient!
For the record, some of those mourning
Soleimani's death the most are the ethnic Christian communities whom he so bravely defended from ISIS (who
we now know were supported by Israel and the 'rebel' forces that Zionists in the West helped fund). But I am
guessing your kind doesn't support the continued existence of some of the oldest Christian communities in
existence that are in the Middle East, because you probably cheered when their homes got bulldozed by the
Zionists in the Naqba–many of them still have the keys to their houses, by the way.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
I'm not a Muslim, nor am I inbred.
I honour Soleimani's sacrifice because he was one of the foremost defenders of Christians from ISIS, and the
ancient Christian communities in the Middle East are some of those grieving his murder the most. Do you not
care about them, or are you just that ignorant?
@animalogic
Part of Trump's plan is to rid Iraq of it's Iranian influence. It will be the Iranians ejected not the US.
He has eliminated Soleimani, the leader of Iran's Iraqi proxy forces and killed, arrested or forced into
hiding many other pro Iranian urgers.
The riots in the south of the country are largely about removing Iranian influence and the artificial
Sunni/Shia sectarian differences. Expect this social movement to be energised in a pro US way.
There will be no all out war in the middle east. No one in the ME is
any position to deal in such a fashion with the US and it would be suicidal to try. Dear leader in Iran has
only bad choices and even using proxies, he places his entire regime on a chopping block. Those 52 targets
were selected in a way that Iran's economy will be crushed quickly.
So let the Imams go ahead and try to get their blood revenge. They are only digging their own graves.
By the by, Soleimani was not murdered. He was a terrorist leader and got what he had coming to him.
@Quartermaster
No, it's not up to Iran if there will be a war, it is up to USA, and it wants the war, and there is nothing
Iran can do to prevent it except make the yanks and their stooges in the region pay the biggest price
possible given their own resources and resourcefulness. Did you people forget Iraq? After sanctions and
years of the USAF bombing targets to enforce those "no fly" zones, one set up in the south specifically to
protect the Shiites they're now turning on, they still went all out and invaded Iraq without Saddam having
done anything to provoke them, and in fact being most cooperative and even allowing inspectors into the
country to confirm that he had no WMDs. Unless of course you think Saddam brought down WTC on 911.
@BeenThereDunnit
Persia, Russia, and China all have a gift for long-term survival (though Russia and China are capable of
immediate and devastating action). As PCR has suggested, Russia will likely counsel Iran to bide it's time;
why attack a dinosaur already frothing at the mouth and collapsing under its own weight?
And as you
mention, there is much preparation Iran can do now. The battlespace has changed: Neocon Crazies (Pence,
Pompeo) are now making command decisions (the Soleimani hit, decision on 52 major follow-up strikes) at the
Pentagon.
Therefore Iran must be doubly cautious before moving. As Sun Tzu would say: If a stronger enemy goads you
to fight, then hold back and wait for the proper moment. Never do what the enemy wants or expects.
@Z-man
I found out about the talmud around 12 years ago now. I have to say I was shocked with what it stated
within, but that was also because I was Jew ignorant. This opened up the door to Judaism and what it was all
about.
I'm not religious. I do believe there was a man named Christ, a revolutionary and I struggle with the 'son
of God' concept. The jury is out on that. However what annoyed me was the fact that this was the major
teaching within Judaism and no one had ever heard about it. Were there anything remotely similar to this,
about Jews or blacks, there'd be a public outcry and heads would roll, yet millions of Christians openly
know about this and still support Judaism and see them as God's chosen. It just beggars belief.
"He confessed that the 'manual' was not too kind to gentiles."
There you go. From the very own horse's mouth. What more needs to be said? As stated, tell people to
forget about the online talmuds. They've been conveniently changed to remove the 'bad parts' within. Jews
doing what Jews do – deceive.
@Kratoklastes
I take it as axiomatic that the U.S. Military could not successfully occupy Iran, and is very well aware of
that reality. Nor is there, as far as I can see, any overriding political reason to do so.
IMO, the primary objective of any U.S. attack on Iran would be:
To destroy Iran as a modern country,
and foreclose, if possible, any chance Iran could become a modern country in the foreseeable future.
To that end, look for the destruction of civilian infrastructure and cultural monuments, as others here
have postulated, and as was done in Iraq. The (unstated) aim would be to break the national will and destroy
the cultural identity of the Iranian people, using the specious claim of "fighting terrorism."
Look for the Great Mosque of Isfahan:
to be high on the target list, along with the Iranian parliament building and countless other non-military
objectives.
Is such an attack (by air power alone) likely to succeed?
A1. In the short term, yes.
A2. In the longer term, success is not guaranteed.
If experience in Europe, i.e. Germany, is any guide, I expect Iran could manage to rebuild itself in twenty
years or so.
In the meantime, the U.S. will have completed its transformation to a full-on outlaw nation, having
flagrantly violated the Nuremberg prohibition, which itself established, against "waging aggressive war,"
and become the groveling, depraved toady of a small, and otherwise insignificant, middle eastern "state"
founded upon the theft of land and resources from the indigenous population by a thugocracy of European
interlopers who claim some kind of "divine right of possession," or "land title from God," based on the
assertion that some members of their tribe lived in that area thousands of years ago.
In short, the U.S is now the titular head of an Evil Empire.
Long live the Resistance.
@Harbinger
I too was uninformed of
my
Catholic religion and that's funny because I went to Catholic administered
schools from grammar school to college. (Grin)
Were there anything remotely similar to this (The Talmud), about Jews or blacks, there'd be a public
outcry and heads would roll, yet millions of Christians openly know about this and still support Judaism
and see them as God's chosen.
It just beggars belief.
Vatican II had a lot to do with this 'accepting' of Jews. Christian Zionists are the biggest culprits
today.
forget about the online Talmuds. They've been conveniently changed to remove the 'bad parts' within.
Jews doing what Jews do – deceive.
I'm sure.
I do believe there was a man named Christ, a revolutionary and I struggle with the 'son of God'
concept.
You gotta have
faith
.
See Brother Nathaniel, a converted Jew. A bit over the top when you
first see him, on the net, but a man of faith and truth.
@Harbinger
Alternative theory: Trump, like Nixon, is a genius.
Trump tweeted he wanted out of Syria. The military industrial complex said no. So Trump then said OK, I
going to give the military industrial complex what it wants 'good and hard' to quote HL Mencken. This is
kind of like how Nixon ended the US involvement in Vietnam, he forced to US military to confront North
Vietnamese regular army and everybody, including the military industrial complex, involved objected to it,
so the US had to leave.
@Quartermaster
Soleimani was fighting the terrorists who were created by the ZUS and Israel and Z-Britain and Z-NATO, these
being AL CIADA aka ISIS aka ISIL aka Daesh etc..
The middle east wars were brought on by the joint attack
on the WTC by Israel and the ZUS , to be blamed on the muslims , thus giving Israel and ZUS the excuse to
destroy the middle east for the zionists greater Israel project.
@Assad al-islam
Iranians are hardly shrewd. They ripped themselves a permanent asshole with us Americans in 1979 (and no, I
don't need a lecture on the Shah, since that doesn't magically make their actions shrewd). And they have
continued ever since by calling us "the great Satan" and chanting "death to America." They did themselves no
favors by shooting down our drone a few months ago, and they were tempting fate last week when they
arrogantly boasted "You (we Americans) can't do anything." It's like Michael Ledeen is their chief adviser.
None of that is shrewd. It is damned foolish.
And yes, I know that American foreign policy is damned
foolish, too (yet another thing I don't need anyone here to lecture me about). And I know that Israel is the
major cause of Middle East problems. But acknowledging all that doesn't mean that Iran is a noble, virtuous,
innocent party in the entire affair. So many people have the absurd mindset that "the enemy of my enemy is
my friend." Muslims are ever bit as supremacist as Jews are. And as long as that remains the case, people
are not going to be persuaded to pressure the American government to stop reading from the Neocon script.
Venerating Iran and lionizing the dead general is going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people, and a big
part of that dynamic is Iran's fault.
@Not Raul
Lol now I didn't know that Russia was hundreds,thousands of mile away from Iran,thank for the heads up those
damnable Iranians have upped and moved their border again,tsk,tsk,tsk.!!!
@Rich
For Gods sake quit posting it only makes you out the fool.Now Iran elected a leader by means that we use
ourselves the ballot box,now what's wrong we that? then the democratic elected president states that Iran's
oil belongs to Iran and its people,you boys are out.
Now Churchill gets his undies in a twist whining but
wait England's industry runs on CHEAP Iranian oil (25 cent a barrel oil),so he calls up the M15 tells them
to join their partners in the C.I.A. and over throw that asshole who thinks that their oil belong to
them,and as they say the rest is history,I trust its the real history not the revised history you spout,!!
@Beefcake the Mighty
They oppose the shooting of Soleimani, and so do you. If I'm a cuck because my support of killing terrorist
Muslims also happens to be the same position as Bibi Netanyahu's , I guess following your logic, your
support of the same position as the commie trio I named, makes you a cuck. In fact I guess you also kneel in
front of AOC and that hijab wearing Ilhan Omar. Following your logic even further, you must be Al Sharpton's
shoe shine boy and Maxine Waters wig washer, since they also opposed the shooting.
Or, could it be that we
just have different viewpoints on an issue, and it's only a coincidence that some others share that opinion
in this case? I don't check with the Israeli embassy before I make my mind up and I'm open to changing my
mind if a convincing argument is made. Do you, since your opinion is exactly the same as theirs, check with
the DNC before forming an opinion?
Epsteinistan murders the general,
Threatens we will pummel you with more strikes.
Pimps himself to glories ephemeral,
World domination the jackboot he licks.
@Quartermaster
You are naive person. The US will have to fight the whole Shia world if it attacks Iran, including Iraq. You
live in the past and never realised the decline of the US in the world. You were just kicked by Iraq.
Legislation was accepted forcing the US to withdraw from Iraq and cease all kind of collaboration.
You can
forget about US companies operating there too, China and Russia will move there instead. Its resources and
arms market are lost to you. Americans are hated in the country and can't even leave the Embassy in safety.
We also learned today officialy from Iraq's Prime Minister Adil Abdul al Mahdi how Donald Trump uses
diplomacy:
US asked Iraq to mediate with Iran. Iraq PM asks Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him
the answer of his mediation, Trump &co assassinate an envoy at the airport.
No options for Iran? Let's hope "someone" doesn't provide manpads to the Taliban. You lost aganist them
too, and soon will be kicked out from Afghanistan in humiliation.
Do you know who Muqtada Al Sadr is? The most influential person in Iraq, a country with huge oil and gas
reserves and young combat ready population rising fast. The man who kicked the arse of the US occupation of
Iraq. Muqtada Al Sadr demands the total removal of not only US troops, but the of US embassy and all US
diplomats in Iraq as well. And an Axis Of Resistance against the US by all Shia groups all around the world.
This will cut off supply lines to your remnants in Syria and put the few US soldiers there under siege,
hated by almost all sides. They won't make it in Syria for long.
Meanwhile, you managed to make the Turks hate you too. Just keep doing that.
Iran's FM said something interesting yeasterday: The end of Malign US Influence in West Asia has begun.
The US will be gradually kicked out from the region.
The 2020s will be a time of great power transition where the rest of the world rises and the US declines,
being kicked out from many places. You made a big mistake, making more and more enemies everywhere in the
world.
Iran, Russia and China should attacked the Achilles Hell of the US which is Gold. China should sell its
US$1.2 Trillion of US Treasury bonds and keep buying Gold. That will send the Gold price soaring to
US$10,000 an oz. Interest rates will spike and Wall St and the US$1.5 quadrillion Derivatives market will
collapse, bankrupting all major US banks.
-- The visceral ethnic hatred of the real bosses and the fabled
American incompetence of the profiteers-in–charge do not have a place for any rationality.
"Anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Cheka," wrote Jewish historian Leonard
Schapiro, "stood a very good chance of finding himself confronted with, and possibly shot by, a Jewish
investigator."
In Ukraine, "Jews made up nearly 80 percent of the rank-and-file Cheka agents," reports W. Bruce
Lincoln, an American professor of Russian history. Beginning as the Cheka, or Vecheka, the Soviet secret
police was later known as the GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD and KGB. [Remember Holodomor in Ukraine? Add to the
Kaganovich fame of mass murderer the fame of Nuland-Kagan, the collaborator with Ukrainian neo-nazi and
promotor of the ongoing civil war in eastern Ukraine].
In light of all this, it should not be surprising that Yakov M. Yurovksy, the leader of the Bolshevik
squad that carried out the murder of the Tsar and his family, was Jewish, as was Sverdlov, the Soviet
chief who co-signed Lenin's execution order.
@Rich
Sadly, Ron Unz has been extremely negligent in omitting the inclusion of a MORON button. I really couldn't
label you a TROLL as that would in fact be complimentary towards you.
@Momus
Tel Aviv is home to zionist cowards who hide behind the US skirt while parasitizing on the body of the US.
Your attempt at presenting yourself as a brave warrior is ridiculous. After shooting the civilians
(including children of all ages) on the occupied territories, Israelis have got a delusional idea of being
the brave soldiers and military geniuses. Relax. Yours is an Epstein nation of Israel.
@BeenThereDunnit
"That explains why the US are escalating so heavily right now. "
The neocons probably want a spring war.
For themselves, and to do Bibi the most good.
Spring is the most convenient time for warmaking.
Nice weather.
If they are planning for this war, they are already well along in putting the logistics in place.
We are probably screwed.
I read somewhere fairly recently an analysis of why a spring war would "work" well for both the Dems and the
Repugs. But I cannot recall the rationales.
So it seems like all sides are angling and wangling to move Trump in the direction of a spring attack on
Iran.
As for ":Some of those Iranian mosques are not only holy sites as such, they are marvels of architecture.
Attacking them would be a crime against the heritage of all mankind. That would be truly mad but we will
see, sadly. It would enrage Muslims to a degree not seen in living memory."
It would make a LOT of people worldwide furious. Not just Muslims.
Bomb Isfahan? Shiraz? Tabriz? Our "leaders" are mad.
@Quartermaster
The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with Nuland-Kagan and Banderites. Oops.
The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with "white helmets." Oops.
The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with Bibi. Ooops.
The gullible "Quartermaster" has been trusting wholeheartedly the presstitutes of MSM and even became the
MSM's deputy on the Unz Forum to deliver the MSM lies. What's wrong with you?
Soleimani was extraordinarily effective when fighting the ISIS; hence the rabid hatred of Israelis and US
war profiteers towards the honorable man.
Too many Oops on your part, gullible "Quartermaster"
If I thought that America was responsible for every dastardly dirty crime in the world, I would applaud the
article. This article was written from the basis that America's involvement began with the death of a
terrorist, where is the history propelling Trump to act?
I smell a coward writing this article. What action would the author have recommended following the death of
a American contractor, send the killers more cash?
When Iran invaded the American embassy, did they not invade America? Are not embassies located of the soil
of the occupying nation? Did any of the embassy employees attack Iran or it's citizens? Does an invasion
constitute an act of war?
@Smith
Too say the "Jews" told him to do something without naming them is suspect. Support your argument with
facts, like names, how communicated, when, and how you came by this info.
@animalogic
The zionists hate Christians more than they hate any other religious group. If by launching a nuclear war,
it is guaranteed that Christians will cease to exist, you can be sure they will start a nuclear war. It's
not just me talking about, it's in their scriptures.
Zionists hate for Russia is purely because it's
predominantly white and Christian nation.
@Skeptikal
A spring war would give Iran plenty of time to prepare. It would also give Putin and Xi time to shore up
public opinion and deploy assistance. The Russians could even send some of their super-quiet Diesel subs to
the Gulf.
If this war goes through, Putin and Xi will come out very weak. Syria on a much grander scale
but without Russia and China doing anything about it.
It's all going to be a cakewalk, the Iranians will welcome the destruction of their country with open arms.
The Iranians won't dare to confront the US or we'll just turn their country into glass. lol
@whattheduck
Good but the Jews won't want complete destruction of the European races because then, no one will protect
them. Ideally they'll destroy Christianity while having a polyglot atheist white race serving them.
As I've said many times before the Jew power structure hates Russia, and specifically Putin, because he
re-established Orthodox Christianity to the
Motherland
which they tried to destroy in the communist
revolution.
PS. When I started reading on these sites, years ago, I found it almost amusing when people attacked
Vatican II. After all, I was indoctrinated as a youth that V-II was the best thing since sliced bread, 'the
Church had to become
modern
.' Needles to say I've become a fan of the SSPX and beyond, like the good
Bishop Williamson who said before he was excommunicated,
"[T]he people who hold world-wide power today
over politics and the media are people who want the godless New World Order, and" "they have fabricated a
hugely false version of World War Two history to go with a complete fabricated religion to replace
Christianity."
@Rich
" The Iranians could not defeat the ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein, but they can defeat the United States?
Preposterous."
Actually, it is the other way around !
And .. Saddam, had the almighty USA behind him; so, I must assume that your initial paragraph and the
entire comment, is pretty much a childish one.
By the way you articulated your comment, I wonder; what the heck are you reading these articles for, if you
do not have neither the knowledge or the understanding of these geopolitical themes.
As a friendly advise, I would suggest, getting a hot water bottle, seat in your armchair and watch
television.
he Iraqi parliament approved a measure that called for an end to the U.S. military presence
in Iraq. The prime minister spoke in favor of a departure of U.S. forces, and it seems very
likely that U.S. forces will be required to leave the country in the near future. The
president's response to this was in keeping with his cartoon imperialist attitudes about other
countries:
Trump threatens Iraq with sanctions if they expel US troops: "If they do ask us to leave,
if we don't do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they've never
seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."
Trump doesn't see other countries as genuinely sovereign, and he doesn't respect their
decisions when they run counter to what he wants, so his first instinct when they choose
something he dislikes is to punish them. Economic war has been his preferred method of
punishment, and he has applied this in the form of tariffs or sanctions depending on the
target. Iraq's government is sick of repeated U.S. violations of Iraqi sovereignty, and the
U.S. strikes over the last week have strengthened the existing movement to remove U.S. forces
from the country. One might think that Trump would jump at the chance to pull U.S. troops out
of Iraq and Syria that the Iraqi parliament's action gives him. It would have been better to
leave of our own accord before destroying the relationship with Baghdad, but it might be the
only good thing to come out of this disaster. It is telling that Trump's reaction to this news
is not to seize the opportunity but to threaten Iraq instead. Needless to say, there is
absolutely no legitimate basis for imposing sanctions on Iraq, and if Trump did this it would
be one more example of how the U.S. is flagrantly abusing its power to bully and attack smaller
states.
In another instance of the president's crude cartoon imperialism, he
repeated his threat to target Iran's cultural heritage sites:
President Trump on Sunday evening doubled down on his claim that he would target Iranian
cultural sites if Iran retaliated for the targeted killing of one of its top generals,
breaking with his secretary of state over the issue.
Aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump
reiterated to reporters traveling with him the spirit of a Twitter post on Saturday, when he
said that the United States government had identified 52 sites for retaliation against Iran
if there were a response to Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani's death. Some, he tweeted, were of
"cultural" significance.
Such a move could be considered a war crime under international laws, but Mr. Trump
said Sunday that he was undeterred.
When o when will this man leave the stage? Who oh who will stand up against him and save
the world from this man? God have mercy on us all and deliver us from this anti-christ.
Trump really really enjoyed telling his "Black Jack Pershing's bullets dipped in pig's
blood" fairy tales during the campaign, and so did the rallygoers. He loves reveling in the
amoral gutter, and his base loves him unconditionally. Ailes, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity,
and now Trump: their aggresive, barbaric, venal leaders and spokesmen. Whaddayagonnado?
They can't help it. They follow the guy who calls the opposition within his own party
"human scum." Takes one to know one, right? That's right. Trump is a visceral hedonist, so
yes, he likes aggression.
As reactions are emerging around the world, it seems pretty clear that the US will be
almost completely isolated in this situation. Europe may finally be growing a spine.
Most interesting is the reaction from the UK. Dominic Raab initially made some
"balanced" remarks pointing out that Soleimani was a bad actor but counseling restraint.
The next day, presumably under directions from Boris Johnson, he retracted that and said
that the UK is on the same page as the US. This is a portent of things to come. I think
that most people who voted for Brexit did so because they wanted to take back their
sovereignty from Brussels. But this weekend is probably the first step in the UK's march
towards becoming, in practical terms, a US colony. The UK's economy and other influence are
simply not large enough to stand alone against those of the US, the EU, and China. They
will be in something of a beggars can't be choosers position when negotiating trade deals
with these larger entities. They can expect the EU to do them no favors given their chaotic
dealings with them. China will probably take a pragmatic approach to them. Their best hope
for favorable treatment is with the United States, and Johnson has fawned over Trump enough
to have reason to believe it might happen. But it also entails that the UK will not be free
to dissent from US foreign policy in the slightest way. In fact, if we end up in a
conventional war with Iran, I suspect that the UK will be the only nation in the world that
sends troops there with us. (The UAE, Israel and the Saudis will, of course, cheer us on,
even goad us, but will not risk any of their own blood.) I wonder how Brexit supporters
will feel about that. At least Brussels never dragged them into any stupid wars.
Remember this date. It marks the date the UK began its journey from the frying pan into
the fire.
At this point the question is, can Trump have even a vaguely normal conversation about
anything? Certainly not foreign policy. Just how much of this manure can he spew before the
Republican Party responds? My guess is they've gone so far past the point of normal that
there's no coming back This is both sad and frightening.
One common response to Trump's threat to attack Iranian cultural sites is that the
military would not carry out such obviously illegal orders
I wouldn't put any hope in the US military disobeying such orders. It's not what they
are really trained for. They may pay lip service to having respect for laws of war but they
won't actually pay any attention to them. Respect for culture? Remember Dresden? The crude
barbarism of Sherman and Sheridan is the spirit of the US military.
As a conservative (not a Republican, but certainly not a Democrat) who cannot abide
thinking of any of the democratic candidates as President, I would love to see impeachment.
Mike Pence would be infinitely preferable as President to this little psychopathic bully.
Seriously, the last few days should principled non-interventionists know that Trump is
empjatically not one of us. He'd gladly sabotage the future of the United States on the
alter of his own ego.
"He sees war only in the crudest terms of plunder and atrocity."
It's a blunt but true observation. We spend most of our time justifying wars as noble
and moral, using euphemism to disguise the reality to ourselves and others. Two cheers for
being truthful.
I also note that destroying cultural monuments is claimed to be a war crime, while
inevitable civilian deaths are just acceptable collateral damage.
Let's not pretend that the long history of the imperial coveting of either Iraq's or
Iran's resources has ever been much more than plunder, often making use of atrocity. What
doesn't qualify as that, is great game imperialist jockeying for geostrategic advantage
against commercial rivals.
Of course "things" would be sacrosanct, while human lives are not, in the wholly
materialist calculus of warmongering.o
Attacking cultural-heritage sites, Pres. Trump? Like what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of
Bamyan? Or what ISIS did to ancient art, architecture, and artifacts in Mosul, Palmyra,
Raqqa, and more? What a barbarian!
Will Congress dare to eliminate funds for the occupation of Iraq and for attacking Iran?
Will all those that would vote for continuation of funding will be removed from office
through elections, in the very gerrymandered locales, in a FPTP system, with no ability to
leave work early to go to vote, with so many disenfranchised? The system is fully rigged to
be a dictatorship all but in name...
Another thing: Trump's decrying of the Iraqi war was merely a way he could rail at the
other Republican candidates. If the establishment was for it, he was against it. That's how
he works.
Maybe he fools himself into thinking he's got principles. Maybe he even thinks he has a
coherent foreign policy (or policy of any kind). But no, he's just narcissism and id all
the way down.
There's still no border wall. Still troops in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Planned
Parenthood is still funded.
Oh, but he waves the flag, doesn't he? That makes up for everything...right?
"... How do you think Soleimani organized, sustained and coordinated his Resistance Militias in different countries turning them into a formidable military offensive resistance strategy? With strategic military and diplomatic savvy. Soleimani was sent as an envoy to Russia by Iran's Supreme Leader at a critical time in the Syrian war and also at Putin's request. If Soleimani was lured by the U.S. and Saudis on a pretext of peace to be assassinated by a U.S. drone this proves just how depraved Trump is. This strategy is right out of the Zionist dirty tricks playbook and Trump has proven in every way he is all in with Zionists and is one of them. ..."
"... I take the Iraqi Prime Minister at his word, and reassert the need for Trump and his administration to be impeached on treasonous grounds. ..."
How do you think Soleimani organized, sustained and coordinated his Resistance Militias in different countries turning them
into a formidable military offensive resistance strategy? With strategic military and diplomatic savvy. Soleimani was sent as an envoy to Russia by Iran's Supreme Leader at a critical time in the Syrian war and also at Putin's
request. If Soleimani was lured by the U.S. and Saudis on a pretext of peace to be assassinated by a U.S. drone this proves just how
depraved Trump is. This strategy is right out of the Zionist dirty tricks playbook and Trump has proven in every way he is all
in with Zionists and is one of them.
As reported by krollchem @ 67 and by b in this and the following post, the involvement of Trump directly in premeditated murder
cannot be absolved, and the circumstances are abhorrent to any patriotic American citizen. May God have mercy on the souls of
the peace makers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
I take the Iraqi Prime Minister at his word, and reassert the need for Trump and his administration to be impeached on treasonous
grounds.
Where that will lead in terms of the rest of the US government I cannot say but VP Pence is also impeachable here, so
it is difficult to see who is least culpable in this. It may mean that there is need for a provisional government to be put in
place - not party organized. If impeachment proceeds apace as it should, behind the scenes such a people's approved peaceful
citizens coalition needs to be considered. This cannot stand as official US government policy. It is heinous.
I too, as forward @ 24 has done, sent prayers for the souls of the departed Iran general as well as his friend from Iraq and
their companions this morning in my home chapel. It is the Sunday before Christmas, old calendar. May the Lord bring them and
so many others before them to a place where the just repose.
"... "I think the more people who are prepared to stand up and say it [the assassination] is completely, not only inappropriate, not only illegal, not only unjust, but an act of war to do something like this, the better," said Nicole Rousseau with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which has been planning anti-war protests in D.C. since 2002. ..."
"... This is the moment, as Donald Trump embraces the neoconservative dream of war with Iran, that the Republican base must stand on their hind legs, lock arms with their progressive allies, and say no . ..."
Now is the time for Republicans of conviction to stand together.
t speaks to the state of American politics when for three years the continued defense of
Donald Trump's record has been: "well, he hasn't started any new wars." Last week,
however, that may have finally changed.
In the most flagrant tit-for-tat since the United States initiated its economic war against
Iran in the spring of 2018, the Trump administration assassinated Major General Qasem
Soleimani, who for more than 20 years has led the Iranian Quds Force. The strategic mind behind
Iran's operations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the rest of the Middle East, Soleimani's death
via drone strike outside of Baghdad's airport is nothing short of a declaration of open warfare
between American and Iranian-allied forces in Iraq.
While the world waits for the Islamic Republic's inevitable response, the reaction on the
home front was organized in less than 36 hours. Saturday afternoon, almost 400 people gathered
on the muddy grass outside the White House in Washington, D.C., joined in solidarity by
simultaneous rallies in over 70 other U.S. cities.
The D.C. attendees and their co-demonstrators were expectedly progressive, but the
organizers made clear they were happy to work across political barriers for the cause of
peace.
"I think the more people who are prepared to stand up and say it [the assassination] is
completely, not only inappropriate, not only illegal, not only unjust, but an act of war to do
something like this, the better," said Nicole Rousseau with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which
has been planning anti-war protests in D.C. since 2002.
Code Pink's Leonardo Flores, when asked what politicians he believed were on the side of the
peace movement, named Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders and Republican Senator Rand Paul. "I
don't think peace should be a left and right issue," he said. "I think it's an issue we can all
rally around. It's very clear too much of our money is going to foreign wars that don't benefit
the American people and we could be using that money in many different ways, giving it back to
the American people, whether it's investing in social spending or giving direct tax cuts."
This is the moment, as Donald Trump embraces the neoconservative dream of war with Iran,
that the Republican base must stand on their hind legs, lock arms with their progressive
allies, and say no .
It's happened before. In 2013, when the Obama administration was ready for regime change in
Syria, Americans, both left and right, made clear they didn't want to see their sons and
daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters die so the American government could
install the likes of Abu Mohammed al-Julani in Damascus.
Of course, it was much easier for Republicans to stand up to a Democratic president going to
war. "It's been really unfortunate that so much of politics now is driven on a partisan basis,"
opined Eric Garris, director and co-founder of Antiwar.com, in an interview with TAC .
"Whether you're for or against war and how strongly you might be against war is driven by
partisan points of view."
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the movement that saw millions march against George
W. Bush's war in Iraq disappeared overnight (excluding a handful of stalwart organizations like
Code Pink). Non-interventionist Republicans can't repeat that mistake. They have to show that
if an American president wants to start an unconstitutional, immoral war, it's the principle
that matters, not the R or D next to their names.
Garris said the reason Antiwar.com was founded in 1995 was to bridge this partisan divide by
putting people like Daniel Ellsberg and Pat Buchanan side by side for the same cause. "These
coalitions are only effective if you try to bring in a broad coalition of people," he said. "I
want to see rallies of thousands of people in Omaha, Nebraska, and things like that, where
they're reaching out to middle America and to the people that are actually going to reach the
unconverted."
The right is in the best position it's been in decades to accomplish this. "I don't know if
you saw Tucker Carlson Tonight , but it was quite amazing to watch that kind of
antiwar sentiment on Fox News," Garris said. "You would not have seen [that] in recent history.
And certainly the emergence of The American Conservative magazine has been a really
strong signal and leader in terms of bringing about the values of the Old Right like
non-interventionism to a conservative audience."
It's the anti-war right, in the Republican tradition of La Follette, Taft, Paul, and
Buchanan, that has the power to stop middle America from following Trump into a conflict with
Iran. But it's both sides, working together as Americans, that can finally end the endless
wars.
Hunter DeRensis is a reporter with The National Interest and a regular contributor to
The American Conservative. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis .
I also recommend reading the SOFA with Iraq which is a masterpiece of semantic and
legalistic deception- (and they have one year to actually get out after termination of the
"agreement")
Talking about deception, James Corbett did a brilliant exposé of the "difficulties of
crisis initiation" vs. Iran
After watching this enlightening video, reading the transcript of the "special briefing on
Iraq" by the State Dept. is like "stepping thru the looking glass" into a surreal world of
self-delusion, ("believing six impossible things before breakfast"), here is an example: (SSD
stands for senior state department official "One, Two or Three" (whose names apparently have to
be kept secret )
QUESTION: Thank you. Could you take us through the – so you – could you take us
through the diplomatic strategy for DE-ESCALATION? I mean, after the strike, what are the
main elements of our diplomatic plan to --
SSD OFFICIAL ONE: [SSD official Three] can both talk about this.
SSD OFFICIAL THREE: Yeah, first of all, we're stressing that we want to stay on in Iraq.
We have an important mission there, the coalition. We just spoke with most of the key
coalition members this morning, making that message to them. They also took the – well,
you need to de-escalate. We raised the point – and [SSD official One] can talk about
this is more detail – that we are ready to talk with the Iranians. We've tried to do
this in the past. That's on the table.
And again, the point I took with them, and I'll take it again here today: We cannot promise
that we have BROKEN the circle of violence. What I can say from my experience with Qasem
Soleimani is it is less likely that we will see this now than it was before, and if we do see
an increase in violence, it probably will not be as devilishly ingenious. Other than Usama
bin Ladin, he's the only guy – with Cafe Milano – a senior terrorist leader
around the Middle East who has tried to seriously plot in detail a mass casualty event on
American soil. Let him rest in peace.
"We did not wish to re-examine, condemn, and confront the violence in the
extra-constitutional power structure that finally ascended to hegemony over our citizenry and
over much of the world "
„I have never declared the covert actions of the U.S. intelligence agencies to be
incompetent. They are almost invariably and unerringly competent in murdering, individually and
massively, in defense of U.S. military dominance and empire."
(Vincent J. Salandria, author of The JFK Assassination: A False Mystery Concealing State
Crimes )
These days the murdering takes place in "overt" action a barbaric act sold to the world as
"self-defense"
A Final thought:
Is there a more cowardly , dastardly act (by the "best military in the world") than
to tear apart a renowned military commander who fought the real war "on terror" (against
ruthless imperialism), with a drone??
Teevee coverage of the recent events in the ME has been predictable. Those who hated Trump
continue to hate him, etc.
A few observations:
1. I had hoped that Trump's decision to kill an Iranian general engaged in a diplomatic
mission (among other things) while the man was on the soil of a supposed ally of the US was
something Trump pulled out of his fundament either inspired by war movies or on the
recommendation of "our greatest ally" but I am informed that in fact some idiot in the DoD
included this option in the list of possibilities that was briefed to the CinC in Florida. The
decision process in such matters requires that when options are demanded by the CinC the JCS
prepares a list supported for each option by fully formulated documentation that enables the
president to approve one (or none) and then sign the required operational order. Trump himself
chose the death option. I would hold General Milley (CJCS) personally responsible for not
striking this option from the list before it reached the CinC.
2. The Iranians are a subtle people. IMO they will bide their time whilst working out the
"bestest" way to inflict some injury on the US and/or Israel. When the retaliation comes it
will be imaginative and painful.
3. Trump is now threatening the Iraqis with severe sanctions if they try to enforce their
parliamentary decree against the future presence of foreign (US mostly) troops on their soil.
IMO a refusal to leave risks a substantial Shia (at least) uprising against the US forces in
Iraq. We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged
in logistics, intelligence and training missions. They are extremely vulnerable. There are
something like 150 marines in the embassy. There are also a small number of US combat forces in
Syria east and north of the Euphrates river. These include a battalion of US Army National
Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever devilment the
Iranians might be able to arrange.
4. This is an untenable logistical situation. Supply and other functions require a major
airfield close to Baghdad. We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from
there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous. Iraq is a big country. It
is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through there.
The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.
5. Trump's strategery appears to be based on the concept that the Iraqis will submit to our
imperial demands. "We will see." pl
Apart from those you mention, what about Kushner, Netanyahu´s agent in Oval Office?
Or what about the siamesian creature Esper-Pompeo? It seems Pompeo was bomabrding he Donald
since months ago on Soleimani...One sees the face of Pompeo when graduating and WP and you
immediately feel a chill in your spine...There it is a guy who will not stop at anything so
as to go up...
Of course, I do not discard a master puppet behind him...but I would look for more in
Herzliya of whatever the name is...I doubt the Rothschilds are beihn Pompeo, otherwise he
would not look so ambitious, he already would show so calm and confident like Macron...
Yes, it's Ben Norton and the Gray Zone providing more in-depth info about
the peace mission Soleimani was conducting. Don't miss the NY Times extract provided at the
linked tweet:
"Iraq's efforts at brokering peace talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran were going very
smoothly... until the US empire blew it all to pieces by murdering a top Iranian general and
Iraqi commander."
Very clearly to me at least, Iran's Hope proposal was beginning to be acted upon, and as I
wrote two days ago, that couldn't be allowed to stand. Thus, how Iran responds is further
complicated by the initial success of their initiative--provided the Saudi position was
genuine and not a feint. Recall the HOPE proposal allowed for outside participation which
back in September I wrote it would be wise for Trump to applaud and promote--IF--he genuinely
desired Peace. Now the equation's been changed. The goal is now to completely oust the Evil
Outlaw US Empire from the region, but that can still be accomplished through the HOPE
proposal.
Now Zarif's been barred by the usual shitheads from attending the UNSC. IMO, the UNGA must
reconsider Russia's request to relocate numerous UN activities as the Evil Outlaw US Empire
has effectively ceded its position within the UN and clearly doesn't belong there.
US officials
said the majority stood with Washington "in stark contrast to the United Nations Security
Council's silence due to two permanent members – Russia and China – not allowing a
statement to proceed."
This after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a day after Soleimani's death that the US had launched
an "illegal power" move which should instead be based on dialogue with Tehran.
Forbes characterized Russian objections within the context of the UN
further :
He [Lavrov] said that the actions of a UN member state to eliminate officials of another
UN member state on the territory of a third sovereign state "flagrantly violate the
principles of international law and deserve condemnation."
Similarly China has stood against Washington's unilateral military action, with Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi
saying the US must not "abuse force" and instead pursue mutual dialogue.
"The dangerous US military operation violates the basic norms of international relations and
will aggravate regional tensions and turbulence," Wang told Javad Zarif in a phone call days
ago.
Diplomatically speaking, the US faces an uphill battle on the UN National Security Council,
considering its already provoked the ire of two of its formidable members, who increasingly
find themselves in close cooperation blocking US initiatives.
Interesting. Look what Iranian General fought alongside the Americans when fighting the
Taliban. More and more convinced Israel owns the US and our foreign policy.
Hey jerkoff, look who a certain Iranian General fought alongside the US when fighting the
Taliban. Your projection and deception have all the hallmarks of a dirty ***.
Maybe, just maybe, China and Russia blocked the United Nations Security council statement
because it accused Iran of having provoked the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad.
Of some reason or another ZH does not tell us what the declaration said.
What part of "We don't have the money to fight endless wars" doesn't the MIC
understand?
Homeless people everywhere, bums outside every big box store parking lot, opiod epidemic
in our towns, low wage "jobs" everywhere, schools where are children are sitting in trailers
to study, tens of millions with no access to proper medication or health care, and the
assholes traitors want to waste BILLIONS on useless chest thumping all over the word.
The situation is like an drunk, impotent man walking around threatening to rape ladies up
and down the street.
Sad what has become of this one truly great nation.
The Neocons are not rational actors in any normal sense of the word. They would destroy
and/or enslave every person on this planet if they thought they could pull it off and it
would be to their benefit.
"... According to the Western media, General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' élite Al-Quods force, was preparing an operation intended to win back Iraqi public opinion ..."
"... The strategy attributed to General Soleimani is in no way consistent with his well-known modus operandi , nor with that of the Iranian secret services. Quite the contrary, it is strangely reminiscent of US Ambassador John Negroponte's rationale: foment an Iraqi civil war as a means of stifling the Iraqi Resistance. ..."
"... Other interpretations of the events are of course possible, starting with a US desire to seize on the mutual paralysis of the Iranian government forces and the Revolutionary Guards. ..."
According to the Western media, General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards' élite Al-Quods force, was preparing an operation intended to win
back Iraqi public opinion. [ 1 ]
In the midst of the Shiite community's escalating protests against Iranian influence over
the Iraqi political class, attacks have been allegedly carried out against US interests,
triggering a US response against Iraqi protesters, which in turn ignited Iraqi nationalism to
the detriment of the ongoing revolt.
It was, purportedly, in order to frustrate this plot that, on 2 January 2020, the United
States assassinated Qasem Soleimani and his loyal supporter Abu Mehdi al-Mouhandis. [
2 ] According
to the US, Iran had been forewarned through a statement delivered by US Defense Secretary Mark
Esper. [ 3
]
This narrative, even if logical, is hardly credible. The strategy attributed to General
Soleimani is in no way consistent with his well-known modus operandi , nor with that of
the Iranian secret services. Quite the contrary, it is strangely reminiscent of US Ambassador John Negroponte's
rationale: foment an Iraqi civil war as a means of stifling the Iraqi Resistance.
Other interpretations of the events are of course possible, starting with a US desire to
seize on the mutual paralysis of the Iranian government forces and the Revolutionary
Guards.
In their descriptions of Qassem Soleimani U.S. media fail to mention that Soleimani and the
U.S. fought on the same side. In 2001 Iran supported the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It
used its good relations with the Hazara Militia and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which
both the CIA and Iran had supplied for years, to support the U.S. operation. The
Wikipedia entry for the 2001 uprising in Herat lists U.S.
General Tommy Franks and General Qassem Soleimani as allied commanders.
The collaboration ended in 2002 after George W. Bush named Iran as a member of his "
Axis of Evil ".
In 2015 the U.S. and Iran again collaborated. This time to defeat ISIS in Iraq. During the
battle to liberate Tikrit the U.S. air force flew in support of General Soleimani's ground
forces. Newsweek
reported at that time:
While western nations, including the U.S., were slow to react to ISIS's march across
northern Iraq, Soleimani was quick to play a more public role in Tehran's efforts to tackle
the terror group. For example, the commander was seen in pictures with militiamen in the
northern Iraqi town of Amerli when it was recaptured from ISIS last September.
...
Top U.S. general Martin Dempsey has said that the involvement of Iran in the fight against
ISIS in Iraq could be a positive step, as long as the situation does not descend into
sectarianism, because of fears surrounding how Shia militias may treat the remaining Sunni
population of Tikrit if it is recaptured. The military chief also claimed that almost two
thirds of the 30,000 offensive were Iranian-backed militiamen, meaning that without Iranian
assistance and Soleimani's guidance, the offensive on Tikrit may not have been possible.
Iran is not responsible for the
U.S. casualties in Iraq. George W. Bush is. What made Soleimani "bad" in the eyes of the U.S.
was his support for the resistance against the Zionist occupation of Palestine. It was Israel
that wanted him 'removed'. The media explanations for Trump's decision fail to explain that
point.
Elias Magnier also reported in his latest tweet that Soleimani encouraged Muqtada
El Sadr to cooperate with the Americans in order to achieve stability in Iraq. And the
Americans (on the orders of the Israelis) kill him in the most violent fashion possible.
On Friday's broadcast of Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends," network contributor Geraldo Rivera clashed with show
co-host Brian Kilmeade over Quds Force Supreme Commander Qasem Soleimani being killed in an airstrike directed by
President Donald Trump.
"I fear the worst," Rivera said. "You're going to see the U.S. markets go crazy today. You're going to see the
price of oil spiking today. This is a very, very big deal."
Kilmeade said, "I don't know if you heard. This isn't about his resumé of blood and death. It is about what was
next. We stopped the next attack. That's what I think you're missing."
Rivera replied, "By what credible source can you predict what the next Iranian move would be?"
Kilmeade said, "The Secretary of State and American intelligence provided that material."
Rivera added, "Don't for a minute start cheering this on. What you have done, what we have done, we have unleashed
-- "
Kilmeade insisted, "I will cheer it on. I will cheer it on. I am elated."
Rivera said, "Then you, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like!"
Kilmeade said, "That is not true. And don't even say that!"
Iraq will have to ask another country to provide air support. Iran can't do it. But Russia has those capabilities. I wonder if
relations b/w Iran + Russia will warm in 2020.
Iran has declared it will no longer abide by any of the
restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal.
In a statement it said it would no longer observe limitations on its capacity for enrichment,
the level of enrichment, the stock of enriched material, or research and development.
The statement came after a meeting of the Iranian cabinet in Tehran.
Tensions have been high over the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by the US in
Baghdad.
Reports from Baghdad say the US embassy compound there was targeted in an attack on Sunday
evening. A source told the BBC that four rounds of "indirect fire " had been launched in the
direction of the embassy. There are no reports of casualties.
Under the 2015 accord, Iran agreed to limit its sensitive nuclear activities and allow in
international inspectors in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.
US President Donald Trump abandoned it in 2018, saying he wanted to force Iran to negotiate a
new deal that would place indefinite curbs on its nuclear programme and also halt its development
of ballistic missiles.
Iran refused and had since been gradually rolling back its commitments under the agreement.
About 5,000 US soldiers are in Iraq as part of the international coalition against the Islamic
State (IS) group. The coalition paused operations against IS in Iraq just before Sunday's vote.
Mr Trump has again threatened Iran that the US will strike back in the event of retaliation for
Soleimani's death, this time saying it could do so "perhaps in a disproportionate manner".
Image
Copyright @realDonaldTrump
@realDonaldTrump
Report
<figure> <span> <img alt="Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump: These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/socialembed/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160~/news/world-middle-east-51001167" width="465" height="279"> <span>Image Copyright @realDonaldTrump</span> <span aria-hidden="true">@realDonaldTrump</span> </span> <div><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/contact-us/editorial" aria-label="Report Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump">Report</a></div> </figure>
The 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, on life support ever since the Trump administration abandoned
it in May 2018, may now be in its final death throes.
Donald Trump, throughout his presidential campaign and then as president, has never failed to
rail against what he calls his predecessor President Barack Obama's "bad deal". But all of its
other signatories - the UK, France, Russia, China, Germany and the EU - believe that it still has
merit.
The agreement, known as the JCPOA, constrained Iran's nuclear programme for a set period in a
largely verifiable way but its greatest significance - even more so given the current crisis - is
that it helped to avert an imminent war. Before its signature there was mounting concern about
Tehran's nuclear activities and every chance that Israel (or possibly Israel and the US in tandem)
might attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
Since the US withdrawal, Iran has successively been breaching some of the key constraints of the
JCPOA. Now it appears to be throwing these constraints over altogether. What matters now is
precisely what it decides to do. Will it up its level of uranium enrichment, for example, to 20%?
This would reduce significantly the time it would take Tehran to obtain suitable material for a
bomb. Will it continue to abide by enhanced international inspection measures?
We are now at the destination the Trump administration clearly hoped for in May 2018 but the
major powers, while deeply unhappy about Iran's breaches of the deal, are also shocked at the
controversial decision by Mr Trump to kill the head of Iran's Quds Force, a decision that has again
brought the US and Iran to the brink of war.
What did Iran say?
Iran had been expected to announce its latest stance on the nuclear agreement this weekend,
before news of Soleimani's death.
A statement broadcast on state TV said the country would no longer respect any limits laid down
in the 2015 deal.
"Iran will continue its nuclear enrichment with no limitations and based on its technical
needs," the statement said.
Enriched uranium can be used in nuclear weapons.
The statement did not, however, say that Iran was withdrawing from the agreement and it added
that Iran would continue to co-operate with the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
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The statement added that Iran was
ready to return to its commitments once it enjoyed the benefits of the agreement.
Correspondents say this is a reference to its inability to sell oil and have access to its
income under US sanctions.
Iran has always insisted that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.
Sanctions have caused Iran's oil exports to collapse and the value of its currency to plummet,
and sent its inflation rate soaring.
How has the international community reacted?
The other parties to the 2015 deal - the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia - tried to keep
the agreement alive after the US withdrew in 2018.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has invited Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif,
to visit Brussels to discuss both the nuclear deal and how to defuse the crisis over the Soleimani
assassination.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime
Minister Boris Johnson to work towards de-escalation in the Middle East, a German government
spokesman was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
To some extent it is not relevant if Trump was lying during his campaign, or has been
corrupted/coopted/fooled/pressured/played for a chump by the establishment. He said one thing
and is doing another: that's the bottom line.
However: I note that after Barack Obama got elected, he immediately fired all of his
populist advisors and hired Wall Streeters even before being sworn in. Obama was clearly
lying up front.
Trump, however, initially did start moving in the direction he said he would, he kept his
populist/nationalist advisors, and really did make actual moves to carry out his campaign
promises. And the establishment went total nut job, he was a Russian agent, his populist
advisers were targeted for legal actions, they were replaced with establishment advisors who
hate him Trump was strong on stage berating a political opponent, but against establishment
pressure he has turned out to be weak, caving in to "the Blob" at every turn.
Had she been elected, Hillary would already have started the neocon wet dream of a war
with Iran.
While that may be true, I am tired of giving Trump a free pass, just because Hillary would
have been worse. Being relatively less evil, or a different incarnation of evil, is still
evil.
Frankly, impeachment was just a distraction to divert attention from the real play. The
dagger at his throat is from far more malevolent foes who can wield both blackmail or death
as the circumstances demand to get their way. The jewish mafia is far more dangerous than the
Sicilian boys could ever hope to be. The latter learned from the former.
The Trump administration has assassinated Iran's top military leader, Qassim Suleimani, and with the possibility of a serious escalation
in violent conflict, it's a good time to think about how propaganda works and train ourselves to avoid accidentally swallowing it.
The Iraq War, the bloodiest and costliest U.S. foreign policy calamity of the 21 st century, happened in part because
the population of the United States was insufficiently cynical about its government and got caught up in a wave of nationalistic
fervor. The same thing happened with World War I and the Vietnam War. Since a U.S./Iran war would be a disaster, it is vital that
everyone make sure they do not accidentally end up repeating the kinds of talking points that make war more likely.
Let us bear in mind, then, some of the basic lessons about war propaganda.
Things are not true because a government official says them.
I do not mean to treat you as stupid by making such a basic point, but plenty of journalists and opposition party politicians
do not understand this point's implications, so it needs to be said over and over. What happens in the leadup to war is that government
officials make claims about the enemy, and then those claims appear in newspapers ("U.S. officials say Saddam poses an imminent threat")
and then in the public consciousness, the "U.S. officials say" part disappears, so that the claim is taken for reality without ever
really being scrutinized. This happens because newspapers are incredibly irresponsible and believe that so long as you attach "Experts
say" or "President says" to a claim, you are off the hook when people end up believing it, because all you did was relay the fact
that a person said a thing, you didn't say it was true. This is the approach the New York Times took to Bush administration allegations
in the leadup to the Iraq War, and it meant that false claims could become headline news just because a high-ranking U.S. official
said them. [UPDATE: here's an example
from Vox, today, of a questionable government claim being magically transformed into a certain fact.]
In the context of Iran, let us consider some things Mike Pence tweeted about Qassim Suleimani:
"[Suleimani] assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September
11 terrorist attacks in the United States Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.
The world is a safer place today because Soleimani is gone."
It is possible, given these tweets, to publish the headline: "Suleimani plotting imminent attacks on American diplomats, says
Pence." That headline is technically true. But you should not publish that headline unless Pence provides some supporting evidence,
because what will happen in the discourse is that people will link to your news story to prove that Suleimani was plotting imminent
attacks.
To see how unsubstantiated claims get spread, let's think about the Afghanistan hijackers bit. David Harsanyi of the National
Review defends
Pence's claim about Suleimani helping the hijackers. Harsanyi cites the 9/11 Commission report, saying that the 9/11 commission
report concluded Iran aided the hijackers. The report
does indeed say that Iran allowed free
travel to some of the men who went on to carry out the 9/11 attacks. (The sentence cut off at the bottom of Harsanyi's screenshot,
however, rather crucially
says : "We have no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.") Harsanyi
admits that the report says absolutely nothing about Suleimani. But he argues that Pence was "mostly right," pointing out that Pence
did not say Iran knew these men would be the hijackers, merely that it allowed them passage.
Let's think about what is going on here. Pence is trying to convince us that Suleimani deserved to die, that it was necessary
for the U.S. to kill him, which will also mean that if Iran retaliates violently, that violence will be because Iran is an aggressive
power rather than because the U.S. just committed an unprovoked atrocity against one of its leaders, dropping a bomb on a popular
Iranian leader. So Pence wants to link Suleimani in your mind with 9/11, in order to get you blood boiling the same way you might
have felt in 2001 as you watched the Twin Towers fall.
There is no evidence that either Iran or Suleimani tried to help these men do 9/11. Harsanyi says that Pence does not technically
allege this. But he doesn't have to! What impression are people going to get from helped the hijackers? Pence hopes you'll
conflate Suleimani and Iran as one entity, then assume that if Iran ever aided these men in any way, it basically did 9/11 even if
it didn't have any clue that was what they were going to do.
This brings us to #2:
Do not be bullied into accepting simple-minded sloganeering
Let's say that, long before Ted Kaczynski began sending bombs through the mail, you once rented him an apartment. This was pure
coincidence. Back then he was just a Berkeley professor, you did not know he would turn out to be the Unabomber. It is, however,
possible, for me to say, and claim I am not technically lying, that you "housed and materially aided the Unabomber." (A friend of
mine once sold his house to the guy who turned out to be the Green River Killer, so this kind of situation does happen.)
Of course, it is incredibly dishonest of me to characterize what you did that way. You rented an apartment to a stranger, yet
I'm implying that you intentionally helped the Unabomber knowing he was the Unabomber. In sane times, people would see me as the
duplicitous one. But the leadup to war is often not a sane time, and these distinctions can get lost. In the Pence claim about Afghanistan,
for it to have any relevance to Suleimani, it would be critical to know (assuming the 9/11 commission report is accurate) whether
Iran actually could have known what the men it allowed to pass would ultimately do, and whether Suleimani was involved. But that
would involve thinking, and War Fever thrives on emotion rather than thought.
There are all kinds of ways in which you can bully people into accepting idiocy. Consider, for example, the statement "Nathan
Robinson thinks it's good to help terrorists who murder civilians." There is a way in which this is actually sort of true: I think
lawyers who aid those accused of terrible crimes do important work. If we are simple-minded and manipulative, we can call that "thinking
it's good to help terrorists," and during periods of War Fever, that's exactly what it will be called. There is a kind of cheap sophistry
that becomes ubiquitous:
I don't think Osama bin Laden should have been killed without an attempt to apprehend him. -- > So you think it's good
that Osama bin Laden was alive?
I think Iraqis were justified in resisting the U.S. invasion with force. -- > So you're saying it's good when U.S. soldiers
die?
I do not believe killing other countries' generals during peacetime is acceptable. -- > So you believe terrorists should
be allowed to operate with impunity.
I remember all this bullshit from my high school years. Opposing the invasion of Iraq meant loving Saddam Hussein and hating America.
Thinking 9/11 was the predictable consequence of U.S. actions meant believing 9/11 was justified. Of course, rational discussion
can expose these as completely unfair mischaracterizations, but every time war fever whips up, rational discussion becomes almost
impossible. In World War I, if you opposed the draft you were undermining your country in a time of war. During Vietnam, if you believed
the North Vietnamese had the more just case, you were a Communist traitor who endorsed every atrocity committed in the name of Ho
Chi Minh, and if you thought John McCain shouldn't have been bombing civilians in the first place then clearly you believed he should
have been tortured and you hated America.
"If you oppose assassinating Suleimani you must love terrorists" will be repeated on Fox News (and probably even on MSNBC).
Nationalism advocate Yoram Hazony
says there is something wrong with those who
do not "feel shame when our country is shamed" -- presumably those who do not feel wounded pride when America is emasculated by our
enemies are weak and pitiful. We should refuse to put up with these kind of cheap slurs, or even to let those who deploy them place
the burden of proof on us to refute them. (In 2004, Democrats worried that they did appear unpatriotic, and so they ran a
decorated war veteran, John Kerry, for president. That didn't work.)
Scrutinize the arguments
Here's Mike Pence again:
"[Suleimani] provided advanced deadly explosively formed projectiles, advanced weaponry, training, and guidance to Iraqi
insurgents used to conduct attacks on U.S. and coalition forces; directly responsible for the death of 603 U.S. service members,
along with thousands of wounded."
I am going to say something that is going to sound controversial if you buy into the kind of simple-minded logic we just
discussed: Saying that someone was "responsible for the deaths of U.S. service members" does not, in and of itself, tell us anything
about whether what they did was right or wrong. In order to believe it did, we would have to believe that the United States is
automatically right, and that countries opposing the United States are automatically wrong. That is indeed the logic that many
nationalists in this country follow; remember that when the U.S. shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, causing hundreds of deaths,
George H.W. Bush said
that he would never apologize for America, no matter what the facts were. What if America did something wrong? That was
irrelevant, or rather impossible, because to Bush, a thing was right because America did it, even if that thing was the mass murder
of Iranian civilians.
One of the major justifications for murdering Suleimani is that he "caused the deaths of U.S. soldiers." He was thus an aggressor,
and could/should have been killed. That is where people like Pence want you to end your inquiry. But let us remember where those
soldiers were. Were they in Miami? No. They were in Iraq. Why were they in Iraq? Because we illegally invaded and seized a country.
Now, we can debate whether (1) there is actually sufficient evidence of Suleimani's direct involvement and (2) whether these
acts of violence can be justified, but to say that Suleimani has "American blood on his hands" is to say nothing at all without
an examination of whether the United States was in the right.
We have to think clearly in examining the arguments that are being made.
Here 's the Atlantic 's
George Packer on the execution:
"There was a case for killing Major General Qassem Soleimani. For two decades, as the commander of the Revolutionary Guards'
Quds Force, he executed Iran's long game of strategic depth in the Middle East -- arming and guiding proxy militias in Lebanon
and Iraq that became stronger than either state, giving Bashar al-Assad essential support to win the Syrian civil war at the cost
of half a million lives, waging a proxy war in Yemen against the hated Saudis, and repeatedly testing America and its allies with
military actions around the region for which Iran never seemed to pay a military price."
The article goes on to discuss whether this case is outweighed by the pragmatic case against killing him. But wait. Let's dwell
on this. Does this constitute a case for killing him? He assisted Bashar al-Assad. Okay, but presumably then killing Assad
would have been justified too? Is the rule here that our government is allowed unilaterally to execute the officials of other governments
who are responsible for many deaths? Are we the only ones who can do this? Can any government claim the right?
He assisted Yemen in its fight against "the hated Saudis." But is Saudi Arabia being hated for good reason? It is not enough to
say that someone committed violence without analyzing the underlying justice of the parties' relative claims.
Moreover, assumptions are made that if you can prove somebody committed a heinous act, what Trump did is justified. But that doesn't
follow: Unless we throw all law out the window, and extrajudicial punishment is suddenly acceptable, showing that Suleimani was a
war criminal doesn't prove that you can unilaterally kill him with a drone. Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. So is George W. Bush.
But they should be captured and tried in a court, not bombed from the sky. The argument that Suleimani was planning imminent
attacks is relevant to whether you can stop him with violence (and requires persuasive proof), but mere allegations of murderous
past acts do not show that extrajudicial killings are legitimate.
It's very easy to come up with superficially persuasive arguments that can justify just about anything. The job of an intelligent
populace is to see whether those arguments can actually withstand scrutiny.
Keep the focus on what matters
"The main question about the strike isn't moral or even legal -- it's strategic." --
The Atlantic
"The real question to ask about the American drone attack that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was not whether it was justified,
but whether it was wise" -- The New York Times
"I think that the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago and why not a month from now?" --
Elizabeth Warren
They're going to try to define the debate for you. Leaving aside the moral questions, is this good strategy? And then you
find yourself arguing on those terms: No, it was bad strategy, it will put "our personnel" in harms way, without noticing that you
are implicitly accepting the sociopathic logic that says "America's interests" are the only ones in the world that matters. This
is how debates about Vietnam went: They were rarely about whether our actions were good for Vietnamese people, but about whether
they were good or bad for us , whether we were squandering U.S. resources and troops in a "fruitless" "mistake." The people
of this country still do not understand the kind of carnage we inflicted on Vietnam because our debates tend to be about whether
things we do are "strategically prudent" rather than whether they are just. The Atlantic calls the strike a "blunder," shifting
the discussion to be about the wisdom of the killing rather than whether it is a choice our country is even permitted to make. "Blunder"
essentially assumes that we are allowed to do these things and the only question is whether it's good for us.
There will be plenty of attempts to distract you with irrelevant issues. We will spent more time talking about whether Trump followed
the right process for war, whether he handled the rollout correctly, and less about whether the underlying action itself is
correct. People like Ben Shapiro will say things
like :
"Barack Obama routinely droned terrorists abroad -- including American citizens -- who presented far less of a threat to
Americans and American interests than Soleimani. So spare me the hysterics about 'assassination."
In order for this to have any bearing on anything, you have to be someone who defends what Obama did. If you are, on the other
hand, someone who belives that Obama, too, assassinated people without due process (which he did), then Shapiro has proved exactly
nothing about whether Trump's actions were legitimate. (Note, too, the presumption that threatening "America's interests" can get
you killed, a standard we would not want any other country using but are happy to use ourselves.)
Emphasis matters
Consider three statements:
"The top priority of a Commander-in-Chief must be to protect Americans and our national security interests. There is no
question that Qassim Suleimani was a threat to that safety and security, and that he masterminded threats and attacks on Americans
and our allies, leading to hundreds of deaths. But there are serious questions about how this decision was made and whether we
are prepared for the consequences."
"Suleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans. But this reckless
move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict. Our priority
must be to avoid another costly war."
"When I voted against the war in Iraq in 2002, I feared it would lead to greater destabilization of the country and the
region. Today, 17 years later, that fear has unfortunately turned out to be true. The United States has lost approximately 4,500
brave troops, tens of thousands have been wounded, and we've spent trillions on this war. Trump's dangerous escalation brings
us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars. Trump promised
to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one."
These are statements made by Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, respectively. Note that each of them is
consistent with believing Trump's decision was the wrong one, but their emphasis is different. Buttigieg says Suleimani was a
"threat" but that there are "questions," Warren says Suleimani was a "murderer" but that this was "reckless," and Sanders says this
was a "dangerous escalation." It could be that none of these three would have done the same thing themselves, but the emphasis is
vastly different. Buttigieg and Warren lead with condemnation of the dead man, in ways that imply that there was nothing that
unjust about what happened. Sanders does not dwell on Suleimani but instead talks about the dangers of new wars.
We have to be clear and emphatic in our messaging, because so much effort is made to make what should be clear issues appear murky.
If, for example, you gave a speech in 2002 opposing the Iraq War, but the first half was simply a discussion of what a bad and threatening
person Saddam Hussein was, people might actually get the opposite of the impression you want them to get. Buttigieg and Warren,
while they appear to question the president, have the effect of making his action seem reasonable. After all, they admit that he
got rid of a threatening murderer! Sanders admits nothing of the kind: The only thing he says is that Trump has made the world worse.
He puts the emphasis where it matters.
I do not fully like Sanders' statement, because it still talks a bit more about what war means for our people ,
but it does mention destabilization and the total number of lives that can be lost. It is a far more morally clear and powerful antiwar
statement. Buttigieg's is exactly what you'd expect of a Consultant President and it should give us absolutely no confidence that
he would be a powerful voice against a war, should one happen. Warren confirms that she is not an effective advocate for peace. In
a time when there will be pressure for a violent conflict, we need to make sure that our statements are not watery and do not make
needless concessions to the hawks' propaganda.
Imagine how everything would sound if the other side said it.
If you're going to understand the world clearly, you have to kill your nationalistic emotions. An excellent way to do this is
to try to imagine if all the facts were reversed. If Iraq had invaded the United States, and U.S. militias violently resisted, would
it constitute "aggression" for those militias to kill Iraqi soldiers? If Britain funded those U.S. militias, and Iraq killed the
head of the British military with a drone strike, would this constitute "stopping a terrorist"? Of course, in that situation, the
Iraqi government would certainly spin it that way, because governments call everyone who opposes them terrorists. But rationality
requires us not just to examine whether violence has been committed (e.g., whether Suleimani ordered attacks) but what the
full historical context of that violence is, and who truly deserves the "terrorist" label.
Is there anything Suleimani did that hasn't also been done by the CIA? Remember that we actually engineered the overthrow of the
Iranian government, within living people's lifetimes . Would an Iranian have been justified in assassinating the head of the
CIA? I doubt there are many Americans who think they would. I think most Americans would consider this terrorism. But this is because
terrorism is a word that, by definition, cannot apply to things we do, and only applies to the things others do. When you start to
actually reverse the situations in your mind, and see how things look from the other side, you start to fully grasp just how crude
and irrational so much propaganda is.
"It was not an assassination." -- Noah Rothman, conservative commentator
"That's an outrageous thing to say. Nobody that I know of would think that we did something wrong in getting the general."
-- Michael Bloomberg, on Bernie Sanders' claim that this was an "assassination"
Our access to much of the world is through language alone. We only see our tiny sliver of the world with our own eyes, much of
the rest of it has to be described in words or shown to us through images. That means it's very easy to manipulate our perceptions.
If you control the flow of information, you can completely alter someone's understanding of the things that they can't see firsthand.
Euphemistic language is always used to cover atrocities. Even the Nazis did not say they were "mass murdering innocent civilians."
They said they were defending themselves from subversive elements, guaranteeing sufficient living space for their people, purifying
their culture, etc. When the United States commits murder, it does not say it is committing murder. It says it is engaging in a stabilization
program and restoring democratic rule. We saw during the recent
Bolivian coup how easy it is
to portray the seizure of power as "democracy" and democracy as tyranny. Euphemistic language has been one of the key tools of murderous
regimes. In fact, many of them probably believe their own language; their specialized vocabulary allows them to inhabit a world of
their own invention where they are good people punishing evil.
Assassination sounds bad. It sounds like something illegitimate, something that would call into question the goodness of the United
States, even if the person being assassinated can be argued to have "deserved it." Thus Rothman and Bloomberg will not even admit
that what the U.S. did here was an assassination, even though we literally targeted a high official from a sovereign country and
dropped a bomb on him. Instead, this is " neutralization
." (Read this fascinatingly feeble attempt
by the Associated Press to explain why it isn't calling an obvious assassination an assassination, just as the media declined to
call torture torture when Bush did it.)
Those of us who want to resist marches to war need to insist on calling things exactly what they are and refuse to allow the country
to slide into the use of language that conceals the reality of our actions.
Remember what people were saying five minutes ago
Five minutes ago, hardly anybody was talking about Suleimani. Now they all speak as if he was Public Enemy #1. Remember how much
you hated that guy? Remember how much damage he did? No, I do not remember, because people like Ben Shapiro only just discovered
their hatred for Suleimani once they had to justify his murder.
During the buildup to a war there is a constant effort to make you forget what things were like a few minutes ago. Before World
War I, Americans lived relatively harmoniously with Germans in their midst. The same thing with Japanese people before World War
II. Then, immediately, they began to hate and fear people who had recently been their neighbors.
Let us say Iran responds to this extrajudicial murder with a colossal act of violent reprisal, after the killing
unifies the country around a demand for vengeance. They kill a high-ranking American official, or wage an attack that kills our
civilians. Perhaps it will attack some of the soldiers that are now being moved into the Middle East. The Trump administration will
then want you to forget that it promised this assassination was to "
stop a war ." It will then
want you to focus solely on Iran's most recent act, to see that as the initial aggression. If the attack is particularly bad,
with family members of victims crying on TV and begging for vengeance, you will be told to look into the face of Iranian evil, and
those of us who are anti-war will be branded as not caring about the victims. Nobody wants you to remember the history of U.S./Iran
relations, the civilians we killed of theirs or the time we destabilized their whole country and got rid of its democracy. They want
you to have a two-second memory, to become a blind and unthinking patriot whose sole thought is the avenging of American blood. Resisting
propaganda requires having a memory, looking back on how things were before and not accepting war as the "new normal."
Listen to the Chomsky on your shoulder.
"It is perfectly insane to suggest the U.S. was the aggressor here." -- Ben Shapiro
They are going to try to convince you that you are insane for asking questions, or for not accepting what the government tells
you. They will put you in topsy-turvy land, where thinking that assassinating foreign officials is "aggression" is not just wrong,
but sheer madness. You will have to try your best to remember what things are, because it is not easy, when everyone says
the emperor has clothes, or that Line A is longer than Line B, or that shocking people to death is fine, to have confidence in your
independent judgment.
This is why I keep a little imaginary Noam
Chomsky sitting on my shoulder at all times. Chomsky helps keep me sane, by cutting through lies and euphemisms and showing things
as they really are. I recommend reading his books, especially during times of war. He never swallowed Johnson's nonsense about Vietnam
or Bush's nonsense about Iraq. And of course they called him insane, anti-American, terrorist-loving, anti-Semitic, blah blah blah.
What I really mean here though is: Listen to the dissidents. They will not appear on television. They will be smeared and treated
as lunatics. But you need them if you are going to be able to resist the absolute barrage of misinformation, or to hear yourself
think over the pounding war drums. Times of War Fever can be wearying, because there is just so much aggression against dissent that
your resistance wears down. This is why a community is so necessary. You may watch people who previously seemed reasonable develop
a pathological bloodlust (mild-mannered moderate types like Thomas Friedman and Brian Williams going suck on our missiles
). Find the people who see clearly and stick close to them.
Putin's Hour Is At Hand was published in the Russian press Monday morning, January 6,
2020.
Putin's Hour Is At Hand
Paul Craig Roberts
Vladimir Putin is the most impressive leader on the world stage. He survived and arose from
a Russia corrupted by Washington and Israel during the Yeltsin years and reestablished Russia
as a world power. He dealt successfully with American/Israeli aggression against South Ossetia
and against Ukraine, incorporating at Crimea's request the Russian province back into Mother
Russia. He has tolerated endless insults and provocations from Washington and its empire
without responding in kind. He is conciliatory and a peacemaker from a position of
strength.
He knows that the American empire based as it is on arrogance and lies is failing
economically, socially, politically, and militarily. He understands that war serves no Russian
interest.
Washington's murder of Qasem Soleimani, a great Iranian leader, indeed, one of the rare
leaders in world history, has dimmed Trump's leadership and placed the limelight on Putin. The
stage is set for Putin and Russia to assume the leadership of the world.
Washington's murder of Soleimani is a criminal act that could start World War 3 just as the
Serbian murder of the Austrian Archduke set World War 1 in motion. Only Putin and Russia with
China's help can stop this war that Washington has set in motion.
Putin understood that the Washington/Israeli intended destabilization of Syria was aimed at
Russia. Without warning Russia intervened, defeated the Washington financed and armed proxy
forces, and restored stability to Syria.
Defeated, Washington and Israel have decided to bypass Syria and take the attack on Russia
directly to Iran. The destabilization of Iran serves both Washington and Israel. For Israel
Iran's demise stops support for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that has twice defeated
Israel's army and prevented Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. For Washington Iran's
demise allows CIA-supported jihadists to bring instability into the Russian Federation.
Unless Putin submits to American and Israeli will, he has no choice but to block any
Washington/Israeli attack on Iran.
The easiest and cleanest way for Putin to do this is to announce that Iran is under Russia's
protection. This protection should be formalized in a mutual defense treaty between Russia,
China, and Iran, with perhaps India and Turkey as members. This is hard for Putin to do,
because incompetent historians have convinced Putin that alliances are the cause of war. But an
alliance such as this would prevent war. Not even the insane criminal Netanyahu and the crazed
American neoconservatives would, even when completely drunk or deluded, declare war on Iran,
Russia, China, and if included in the alliance India and Turkey. It would mean the death of
America, Israel and any European country sufficiently stupid to participate.
If Putin is unable to free himself from the influence of incompetent historians, who in
effect are serving Washington, not Russian, interests, he has other options. He can calm down
Iran by giving Iran the best Russian air defense systems with Russian crews to train the
Iranians and whose presence serve as a warning to Washington and Israel that an attack on
Russian forces is an attack on Russia.
This done, Putin can then, not offer, but insist on mediating. This is Putin's role as there
is no other with the power, influence and objectivity to mediate.
Putin's job is not so much to rescue Iran as to get Trump out of a losing war that would
destroy Trump. Putin could set his own price. For example, Putin's price can be the revival of
the INF/START treaty, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the removal of NATO from Russian
borders. In effect, Putin is positioned to demand whatever he wants.
Iranian missiles can sink any American vessels anywhere near Iran. Chinese missiles can sink
any American fleets anywhere near China. Russian missiles can sink American fleets anywhere in
the world. The ability of Washington to project power in the Middle East now that everyone,
Shia and Sunni and Washington's former proxies such as ISIS, hates Americans with a passion is
zero. The State Department has had to order Americans out of the Middle East. How does
Washingon count as a force in the Middle East when no American is safe there?
Of course Washington is stupid in its arrogance, and Putin, China, and Iran must take this
into consideration. A stupid government is capable of bringing ruin not only on itself but on
others.
So there are risks for Putin. But there are also risks for Putin failing to take charge. If
Washington and Israel attack Iran, which Israel will try to provoke by some false flag event as
sinking an American warship and blaming Iran, Russia will be at war anyway. Better for the
initiative to be in Putin's hands. And better for the world and life on Earth for Russia to be
in charge.
More people at Mara Lago knew that General Suliemeni was going to be hit than congressmen and congresswomen? That tells me
trump was bragging about how much power he has. He's so insecure and feeble that he has no business holding the most power office
in the land!
The main beneficiaries of Solimanies death are his arch enemies, Isis. Trump turned on both his field allies against Isis,
the Kurds and Solimani's militia. Who are America's allies in the field, now?
Let me tally this up for the wonderful viewers, an American backed coupe of a democratically elected prime minister who wanted
to nationalize the oil fields of Iran which at time was owned by Britain. The shooting down of a plane with 290 people in it by
an American Naval vessel. The backing of Saddam with chemical weapons and millions of dollars, to go to war with Iran leaving
half a million dead. The installation of a dictator whose secret police force imprisoned, tortured and killed political dissidence.
Learn your history.
All jokes aside but everyone this isnt a joke anymore becuase of our wreckless president making dumb distractions ive ever
heard of trump is a sociopath he makes the rich richer, the poor poorer. Just remember this guy and his family are banned from
having fun raisers in the state of new york becuase trump held a big fundraiser to help fight kids cancer he stole money from
kids to search to find a cure for cancer. He nearly shut down the gouverment becuase Congress refused to give him the money for
him to build the wall but not most of all 5 general from the us resigned becuase they didnt agree with his intensions. He doesnt
care about anyone but himself and anyone with common sense can sse that and im done with the US government and this isnt the American
that i grew up loving. All the hatred for eachother is disgusting and disturbing
The Iranian fiasco started in 1953 when America overthrew Iran's democratically elected government, so we could get their oil.
The autocrat we installed had a nasty habit of torturing and murdering any who opposed him, but he did sell us oil. In 1979 the
Iranians, united by their clergy, threw him out. We keep stirring the hornets nest we created and are surprised when we get stung?
Now you too can have a front row seat at this foreign policy debacle! War? We don't need no stinking war. Trump is desperate to
distract the American people from seeing how incompetent and stupid he really is.
So Trump instead of draining the swamp brought swamp creatures like Pompeo into his Administration; now he can pay the price.
Notable quotes:
"... The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo ..."
"... "We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision," Pompeo told CNN. "I'm proud of the effort that President Trump undertook." ..."
"... On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president's private club in Florida, where the two defense officials presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said. ..."
"... One significant factor was the "lockstep" coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida. ..."
"... Some defense officials said Pompeo's claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations. ..."
"... On Sunday, Iran announced that it was suspending all limits of the nuclear deal, including on uranium enrichment, research and development, and enlarging its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, were original signatories of that deal with the United States and Iran, and all opposed Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact. ..."
"... "No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it's hard to get behind this," said the European diplomat. ..."
"... Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, said a person familiar with their meetings. The men have spoken about the threat posed by Iran to both Israel and the United States. In a prescient interview in October, Cohen said Soleimani "knows perfectly well that his elimination is not impossible." ..."
"... At every step of his government career, Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him popular among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals. ..."
"... After Trump tapped Pompeo to lead the CIA, Pompeo quickly set up an Iran Mission Center at the agency to focus intelligence-gathering efforts and operations, elevating Iran's importance as an intelligence target. ..."
The secretary also spoke to President Trump multiple times every day last week, culminating in Trump's decision to approve the
killing of Iran's top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, at the urging of Pompeo and Vice President Pence, the officials
said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Pompeo had lost a similar high-stakes deliberation last summer when Trump declined to retaliate militarily against Iran after
it downed a U.S. surveillance drone, an outcome that left Pompeo "morose," according to one U.S. official. But recent changes to
Trump's national security team and the whims of a president anxious about being viewed as hesitant in the face of Iranian aggression
created an opening for Pompeo to press for the kind of action he had been advocating.
The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo, but it also carries
multiple serious risks: another protracted regional war in the Middle East; retaliatory assassinations of U.S. personnel stationed
around the world; an
interruption in the battle against the Islamic State; the
closure of diplomatic pathways to containing
Iran's nuclear program; and a major backlash in Iraq, whose parliament
voted on Sunday to expel all U.S. troops from the country.
For Pompeo, whose political ambitions are a source of
constant speculation , the death of U.S. diplomats would be particularly damaging given his unyielding criticisms of former secretary
of state Hillary Clinton following the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and other American personnel in Benghazi in 2012.
But none of those considerations stopped Pompeo from pushing for the targeted strike, U.S. officials said, underscoring a fixation
on Iran that spans 10 years of government service from Congress to the CIA to the State Department.
"We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision," Pompeo told CNN. "I'm proud of the effort that President
Trump undertook."
Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Soleimani months ago, said a senior U.S. official, but neither the president nor Pentagon
officials were willing to countenance such an operation.
For more than a year, defense officials warned that the administration's campaign of economic sanctions against Iran had increased
tensions with Tehran, requiring a bigger and bigger share of military resources in the Middle East when many at the Pentagon wanted
to redeploy their firepower to East Asia.
How the siege of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad unfolded On
Jan. 1, the siege on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad appeared to come to an end after supporters of the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah
militia retreated. (Liz Sly, Joyce Lee, Mustafa Salim/The Washington Post)
Trump, too, sought to draw down from the Middle East as he promised from the opening days of his presidential campaign. But that
mind-set shifted on Dec. 27 when 30 rockets hit a joint U.S.-Iraqi base outside Kirkuk, killing an American civilian contractor and
injuring service members.
On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president's private club in Florida, where the two defense officials
presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said.
Trump's decision to target Soleimani came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon's
long-standing concerns about escalation and the president's aversion to using military force against Iran.
One significant factor was the "lockstep" coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same
class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed
the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida.
"Taking out Soleimani would not have happened under [former secretary of defense Jim] Mattis," said a senior administration official
who argued that the Mattis Pentagon was risk-averse. "Mattis was opposed to all of this. It's not a hit on Mattis, it's just his
predisposition. Milley and Esper are different. Now you've got a cohesive national security team and you've got a secretary of state
and defense secretary who've known each other their whole adult lives."
Mattis declined to comment.
In the days since the strike, Pompeo has become the voice of the administration on the matter, speaking to allies and making the
public case for the operation. Trump chose Pompeo to appear on all of the Sunday news shows because he "sticks to the line" and "never
gives an inch," an administration official said.
But critics inside and outside the administration have questioned Pompeo's justification for the strike based on his claims that
"dozens if not hundreds" of American lives were at risk.
Lawmakers left classified briefings with U.S. intelligence officials on Friday saying they heard nothing to suggest that the threat
posed by the proxy forces guided by Soleimani had changed substantially in recent months.
When repeatedly pressed on Sunday about the imminent nature of the threats, whether it was days or weeks away, or whether they
had been foiled by the U.S. airstrike, Pompeo dismissed the questions.
"If you're an American in the region, days and weeks -- this is not something that's relevant," Pompeo told CNN.
Some defense officials said Pompeo's claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he
make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations.
Critics have also questioned how an imminent attack would be foiled by killing Soleimani, who would not have carried out the strike
himself.
"If the attack was going to take place when Soleimani was alive, it is difficult to comprehend why it wouldn't take place now
that he is dead," said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group and a former Obama administration official.
Following the strike, Pompeo has held back-to-back phone calls with his counterparts around the globe but has received a chilly
reception from European allies, many of whom fear that the attack puts their embassies in Iran and Iraq in jeopardy and has now eliminated
the chance to keep a lid on Iran's nuclear program.
"We have woken up to a more dangerous world," said France's Europe minister, Amelie de Montchalin.
Two European diplomats familiar with the calls said Pompeo expected European leaders to champion the U.S. strike publicly even
though they were never consulted on the decision.
"The U.S. has not helped the Iran situation, and now they want everyone to cheerlead this," one diplomat said.
"Our position over the past few years has been about defending the JCPOA," said the diplomat, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear
deal.
On Sunday, Iran announced that it was suspending all limits of the nuclear deal, including on uranium enrichment, research
and development, and enlarging its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, were original
signatories of that deal with the United States and Iran, and all opposed Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact.
"No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it's hard to get behind this," said the European diplomat.
Pompeo has slapped back at U.S. allies, saying "the Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did --
what the Americans did -- saved lives in Europe as well," he told Fox News.
Israel has stood out in emphatically cheering the Soleimani operation, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praising
Trump for "acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively."
"Israel stands with the United States in its just struggle for peace, security and self-defense," he said.
Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence
service Mossad, said a person familiar with their meetings. The men have spoken about the threat posed by Iran to both Israel and
the United States. In a prescient interview in October, Cohen said Soleimani "knows perfectly well that his elimination is not impossible."
Though Democrats have greeted the strike with skepticism, Republican leaders, who have long viewed Pompeo as a reassuring voice
in the administration, uniformly praised the decision as the eradication of a terrorist who directed the killing of U.S. soldiers
in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
"Soleimani made it his life's work to take the Iranian revolutionary call for death to America and death to Israel and turn them
into action," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.
A critical moment for Pompeo is nearing as he faces growing questions about a potential Senate run, though some GOP insiders say
that decision seems to have stalled. Pompeo has kept in touch with Ward Baker, a political consultant who would probably lead the
operation, and others in McConnell's orbit, about a bid. But Pompeo hasn't committed one way or the other, people familiar with the
conversations said.
Some people close to the secretary say he has mixed feelings about becoming a relatively junior senator from Kansas after leading
the State Department and CIA, but there is little doubt in Pompeo's home state that he could win.
At every step of his government career, Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him popular
among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals.
After Trump tapped Pompeo to lead the CIA, Pompeo quickly set up an Iran Mission Center at the agency to focus intelligence-gathering
efforts and operations, elevating Iran's importance as an intelligence target.
At the State Department, he is a voracious consumer of diplomatic notes and reporting on Iran, and he places the country far above
other geopolitical and economic hot spots in the world. "If it's about Iran, he will read it," said one diplomat, referring to the massive flow of paper that crosses Pompeo's desk. "If
it's not, good luck."
"... If the plan is/was to leave Syria and Iraq, it was not. In this case it was a screwed, albeit mafia-style, tactical move killing two birds with one stone. ..."
Most
of the attention in this recent attack by a US drone at the Baghdad Airport has been on it
killing Iranian Quds Force commander, Qasim (Qassem) Solmaini (Suleimani), supposedly plotting
an “imminent” attack on Americans as he flew a commercial airliner to Iraq at the
invitation of its government and passed through passport control. But much less attention has
been paid to the killing in that attack of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, commander of the Popular
Mobilization Forces in Iraq and reportedly an officer in the Iraqi military, as well as being,
according to Juan Cole, a Yazidi Kurd, although the PMF is identified as being a Shia militia
allied with Iran.
The problem here is that supposedly US leaders approved this strike because there were no
Iraqi officials in this group; it was supposedly “clean.” But there was
al-Muhandis, with his PMF also allied to a political faction, the Fath, who hold 48 seats in
the Iraqi parliament. The often anti-Iranian Shia leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has now joined with
Fath and other groups to demand a vote in the parliament to order a withdrawal of American
troops from Iraq.
... ... ...
There is much more that can be said about this, but among less noticed responses I note that
although Israeli PM Netanyahu made a strong statement supporting the attack, apparently he has
ordered his aides not to talk about it further, and the Israelis are worried about possible
escalation of this In KSA, “Bone-Saw” MbS has said nothing, although supposedly the
Saudi had sought to kill Solemaini themselves.
Oh, and of course Mike Pompeo announced that this move has made Americans “safe”
in the region, even as Americans have been urged to leave Iraq immediately. So, yeah, they will
be more safe by getting the heck out.
likbez , January 6, 2020 3:22 am
@Terry, January 5, 2020 10:37 pm
it is not clear to me that killing Solemaini was a mistake.
If the plan is/was to leave Syria and Iraq, it was not. In this case it was a screwed,
albeit mafia-style, tactical move killing two birds with one stone.
But a more plausible hypothesis is that it was spontaneous Trump-style overreaction on
siege of the US embassy which now start backfiring in a spectacular and very dangerous way,
because Iran views this as the declaration of war (and not without reasons, see below)
"Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was
scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to
Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated
Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him. Abdul-Mahdi also said that Trump had
asked him to mediate between the U.S. and Iran. Did he do that to trap Soleimani? It is no
wonder then that Abdul-Mahdi is fuming."
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop
presence in the country did not go far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups
to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized .
He called for closure of the US embassy and forming united Shia paramilitary groups to
fight occupation which he named "Resistance legions"
More specifically, Sadr issues a statement with demands:
• close the US embassy
• end security deal immediately
• close US bases in a humiliating way
• protection of Iraq should be handed to the Resistance militias
• boycott of US products
Tucker Carlson is livid with anger and frustration at Trump's actions .
Death to America is a rallying point for Iran to emphasize the same aspect of American
status .
They talk in future . Carlson is reminding that we are already there .
If people woke up with anger at Iran., they would find that the dead horse isn't able to
do much but only can attract a lot of attention from far .
The reason Taliban didn't inform Mulla Omar's death was to let the rank and file continues
to remain engaged without getting into internal feuding fight .
A trues state of US won't be televised until the horse starts rotting but then that would be
quite late .
I don't recall any dissent until this assassination . Now 70 cities are witnessing
protests and a few in Media are not happy at all .
There is a big unknown if and when Iran would strike back and at who. Persian is not like
khasaogi murderer or Harri kidnapper .
"... In other blowbacks from the murder of Soleimani the Qatar leaders are fuming over the use of a Qatar based reaper drone to launch the missiles and were controlled remotely by operators at the US Air Force base in Creech, Nevada. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1608386/middle-east ..."
"... The picture of the meeting between the Qatar FM and the Iranian FM showed the Qatar flag with the red replaced by black in respect. https://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/04/01/2020/Qatar-Foreign-Minister-meets-Iranian-counterpart-in-Tehran ..."
"... It should be noted that Qatar owes a debt of honor to Iran for supplying need food goods to survive a blockade by KSA and the UAE. Likewise, Qatar has close ties with Turkey due to the presence of a couple thousand Turkish troops that prevented a KSA invasion and has been supplying a lot of LGN fuel to Turkey. ..."
Wow the iraq PM office just stated that The US government had asked Iraq to invite Soleimani
to iraq for face to face deescalation talks with the US then murdered in the airport. Even by
outlaw empire standards this was insane they murdered a diplomat on talks they invited him
to. US diplomacy has been on decline for decades but this is reckless terrorist diplomacy,
with a single action the US has lost the middle east and killed the value of US assurances
and diplomacy
The Soliemani assassination now looks even more abhorent. Now it looks like one of the oldest
and most abhorent types of war acts: a fake parley turned into a murder zone. What the people
who seem to have arranged this - presumably the US and Israel and maybe Saudi Arabia -
apparently did not expect was that Soleimani was to become a martyr in the eyes of his
people.
Mercouris suggests that Soleimani expected and planned on exactly this: that he would become
a martyr and a unifying symbol in the end. Presumably he did not know when it would happen
exactly, or perhaps he did have a sense. Several people here suggested as much and it doesn't
seem so farfetched now. I'm reminded of Martin Luther King's death, though of course
Soleimani was far from being a man of peace as MLK was. MLK seemed to know that he was soon
to become a martyr and he seemed to accept this as a necessary thing, even as perhaps the
best way for him to continue his work. Obi Wan Kenobi lol! ,
But there is a correlating thought I don't see anyone picking up on yet. If this was indeed
an ambush, possibly, then it was preplanned. Trump's reported veiled references to people at
his resort ('something huge is coming') also seem to point to this. In that case it seems
even more likely that the initial rocket attack was itself a false flag operation.
They invited all the Tibetan leaders to attend the peace conference.. As a gesture of
respect, everyone removed a single shot from their rifle which left the Tibetan security
guards single shot muskets defenceless when the British opened fire and ended the tibetan
political power and started drawing the new borders.. After a while the communists took over
when the british left and a leaderless tibetan homeland as their own.. China is one third the
Tibetan empire.. It was taken without any resistance at all.. China in 5000 years was never
able to conquer Tibet.. But like the US helping exterminate christians world wide.. The
british helps other cultures get destroyed..
3. If Saudi tricked Suleimani by getting Iraq to "mediate" (Iraq's prime minister was
expecting a message by him on the mediation when he was assassinated), Saudi will get
targeted.
Posted by: somebody | Jan 5 2020 16:52 utc | 44
More likely, Saudi will be pissed off at Israel enough to have a serious impact on their
relations! All the more reason to patch up with Iran and go for the HOPE plan.
All the attention is focussed on how Trump has messed up so badly, which he has - but
Israel has messed itself up even more badly.
Posted by Naijaa_Man at the Saker site on January 05, 2020 · at 9:58 am EST/EDT
"From Iraq Prime Minister's speech in Parliament, I gathered that:
(1) Trump told the Prime Minister that he will attack Iraqi PMU Militias, The Prime Minister
objected and Trump ignored him
(2) After the US Embassy protests ended, Trump called the Prime Minister and thanked him for
successfully persuading Iraqi PMU Militias to withdraw from Embassy grounds and Green Zone.
Trump refused to apologize for defying the Prime Minister's request to respect Iraq
Sovereignty and strike the PMU militias
(3) Trump asked Iraq to be a mediator between USA/Saudi axis and the Iranians. The Prime
Minister agreed and communicated the message to Iran. The Prime Minister asked Americans to
stop conducting helicopter overflights above PMU military bases, Trump ignored him
(4) With respect to the mediation issue, Qassem Solemani was in Iraq to deliver a personal
message from Ayatollah Khamenei to the Prime Minister when the Americans assassinated
him."
So technically, The Iraqi parliament voted to "ask" the Iraqi government to end the
security agreement with the US, end the presence of foreign troops & the international
coalition's mandate against ISIS, even in Iraqi air space "for whatever reason."
The surge in US forces only occurred following the 2014 defeat of ISIS in the battle for
Latakia, Syria where the Obama Administration backed islamists (many imported from Libya)
were relocated into Iraq and joined former Saddam military forces to roll back Iraqi Shia
forces. http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/ISIS_Governance.pdf
As discussed in the latest Grayzone 2 hour discussion it was Qassem Soleimani who was key
to the defeat of the US/Israeli/KSA/UAE backed ISIS forces.
As reported in RT, "Iraqi parliament has voted to have foreign troops removed from the
country, heeding to a call from its caretaker prime minister. The move comes after US
assassination of a top Iranian general and a commander of Iraqi militia The resolution, which
was passed anonymously, instructs the government to cancel a request for military assistance
to the US-led coalition, which was issued in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS,
formerly ISIS). With IS supposedly defeated, Iraq will not need foreign troops to fight the
jihadists and can close its airspace to coalition aircraft."
According to Press TV, some
Western military presence may remain for training purposes. The resolution says Iraqi
military leadership has to report the number of foreign instructors that are necessary for
Iraqi national security At the same time, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had
turned to the UN Security Council with complaints about US violations of its sovereignty The
interim prime minister said after the incident that it was clear it was in the interest of
both the US and Iraq to end the presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil
More specifically, Sadr issues a statement saying the partial end proposal was weak
anyway, with demands:
• close the US embassy
• end security deal immediately
• close US bases in a humiliating way
• protection of Iraq should be handed to the Resistance militias
• boycott of US products
Meanwhile, "Iraq's (Kurdish) President Barham Salih has threatened to step down rather
than approve a candidate for prime minister put forward by Iran-linked political parties,
pushing Baghdad deeper into political turmoil after nearly three months of anti-government
protests."
"Protesters have demanded that the next prime minister be someone unconnected to political
parties they accuse of corruption. Yet the Iran-linked Binaa parliamentary voting bloc has
nominated Asaad al-Edani, a former minister and governor of oil-rich Basra province. Binaa's
bloc is mostly made up of the Fatah party led by militia leader turned politician Hadi
al-Ameri, who is close to Tehran. The rival Sairoon bloc, headed by populist Shia cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, said it would not participate in the process of nominating a new
premier." https://www.ft.com/content/50f09fe4-27f4-11ea-9a4f-963f0ec7e134
However, "Out of an eagerness to spare blood and preserve civil peace, I apologize for not
naming Edani prime minister," the letter continued. "I am ready to submit my resignation to
parliament." https://time.com/5755588/iraq-president-resignation/
My take is that the best way to minimize further violence would for the US to accept
Muqtada al-Sadr demands.
In other blowbacks from the murder of Soleimani the Qatar leaders are fuming over the use
of a Qatar based reaper drone to launch the missiles and were controlled remotely by
operators at the US Air Force base in Creech, Nevada. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1608386/middle-east
It should be noted that Qatar owes a debt of honor to Iran for supplying need food goods
to survive a blockade by KSA and the UAE. Likewise, Qatar has close ties with Turkey due to
the presence of a couple thousand Turkish troops that prevented a KSA invasion and has been
supplying a lot of LGN fuel to Turkey.
Today, the first blowback came as Al Shabab (backed by Qatar and the UAE) attacked for the
first time a US base in Kenya which came a few hours after the Qatari FM visited Teheran.
Link:
On a related note, Putin is scheduled to visit Turkey on January 8, 2020 to "officially"
open the Turkstream pipeline. Putin had better have extra security given the many murders
conducted for geopolitical gain by Western powers and their agents!
I close with a visionary French rock opera Starmania "story of an alternate reality where
a fascist millionaire famous for building skyscrapers is running for president on an
anti-immigration policy, and where the poor are getting more and more desperate for their
voices to be heard." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LytR-6Xmk
Well that didnt take too long Marco Rubio (little Marco) is already calling on the US to
ignore the parliament's resolution and support a break away kurdistan in northern iraq
Trump is real clear. He has a target list of 52 sites. They will be hit if Iran does anything
at all. Or if Iran does nothing they will be hit. Paranoids invent slights and offenses. So
the bombs will fly, soon.
The only questions are what delivery systems, what armaments, how good are Iran's air
defences? I suspect Iran's air defences are quite good and plenty gets through anyway. So is
it nukes or "only" mini-nukes on the first round? Any way you look at it there will be a
second round. And then the next question. Can anyone or anything put the brakes on this
sequence of events?
Trump is just a second string gangster. The gangsters who are firmly in his camp are also
second string. The big boys have largely been absent, they don't much care who is US
President or how the little squabbles go. Wondering here if Rockefellers and Rothschilds and
the older families have good means for quickly getting a Hollywood rewrite on all these
antics or if the avalanche is now unstoppable.
As for the new information that Soleimani was lured and ambushed --- why would anyone do
diplomacy with US again? Even Lavrov has to wonder if he is safe anywhere. Ordinary diplomats
and functionaries at UN have to wonder if they are safe. Who would want to be so much as a
consular assistant?
Well that didnt take too long Marco Rubio (little Marco) is already calling on the US to
ignore the parliament's resolution and support a break away kurdistan in northern iraq
Forward @24. I believe yours is the correct interpretation. Israeli fingerprints are all over
this. Its the only thing that makes sense. Trump may have averted all hell by claiming
credit, but the truth will soon be out. And you can bet the farm that Iran already knows the
truth. This has already backfired spectacularly in uniting Sunni and Shia against the
US/Israel/Saudi. And we are still in the period of mourning. It hasn't begun yet.
@ oldhippie # 71 who wrote
"
Trump is just a second string gangster. The gangsters who are firmly in his camp are also
second string. The big boys have largely been absent, they don't much care who is US
President or how the little squabbles go. Wondering here if Rockefellers and Rothschilds and
the older families have good means for quickly getting a Hollywood rewrite on all these
antics or if the avalanche is now unstoppable.
"
I am of the opinion that what is going on is part of the elite script for our world and
only would be proven wrong if they go nuclear. This circus we have been seeing is the throw
America under the bus ploy while global private finance get to cull the heard and stay in
charge of human finance.....I hope they fail but having read The Shock Doctrine, I have had
this scenarion in my head for quite some time. Look at this forum and how many are of
faith....If the faith leaders back the God of Mammon core then think about how hard it would
be to eliminate......in spite of China's growing example.
It doesn't slow down from here, IMO, so we should have a pretty good read of what is
playing out in 6 months or so
Especially in times like these, people should remember what drives US foreign policy more
than anything else: maintaining the reserve-currency status of the US dollar. It's no
coincidence at all that the countries that the US establishment considers its biggest
adversaries are those countries which are resisting the dollar hegemony the most. The US
establishment may stop at nothing to maintain the dollar hegemony. Certainly it won't shy
away from such underhanded tactics as those employed in the assassination of Soleimani.
It's entirely predictable that the Iraqi parliament would order the withdrawal of US
forces from Iraq. And it's entirely predictable that the US will ignore that order. Likewise,
it's predictable that Iran will respond in some way against US military targets in the Middle
East, which will trigger US airstrikes against targets in Iran (as Trump has already
promised). At that point, it's war, plain and simple. Iran will most likely declare war on
the US after the airstrikes and then launch an all-out missile attack against as many US and
allied targets in the Middle East as possible. What happens beyond that is more difficult to
see. It may well become a case of "Apres nous, le deluge."
"Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was scheduled to
meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to Iraq in response
to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated Soleimani before the
letter could be delivered by him. "
So if this report is correct, is there any word on whether the Saudi regime still stands
by this offer, and has Mahdi received it yet by another channel?
As for the vote, I've predicted in the last several threads that the US clearly is
throwing down the mask completely, will never abide by legal demands to leave, and will
resort to straight brute violence in an attempt to hold onto the country as a staging ground
for war. They'll try to force regime change if they can (though now that such a coup would be
directly engineered by the abominable occupier, it's hard to see what significant number of
Irakis would support it and serve in a puppet government. It would be like the fake,
zero-supported Mussolini retread regime the Germans installed after invading Italy in
1943.
Failing that, the US will try to wreck the place completely, turn it into total chaos.
Of course USA has threatened many times to nuke many contries, North Korea and China were
threatened many many times from the Mc Arthur times (1950) to just recently; of course North
Vietnam was repeatedly threatened with devastating nuclear attacks, and many others have been
subject to the same bully tactics that never ever worked and could have medium term
consequences, in the american citicens, difficult to predict.
Any nuclear unprovoked first strike attack of the USA to another country, to put it on their
kness, will be follow for a complete nuclear proliferation of nuclear weapons and delivery
systems all around the world by nations and terrorist groups, and I think in few years it is
nos unthinkable some nuclear devices could explode in some american cities (by unknown
people).
China and Russia will prepare themselves all their allies for that eventuality bigly
Why do they think nuclear threats will work now with people with a martyrdom mentality
like Iran if it did not work in the past? why do the american military thinks the iranians
are so easy to scare? what do they think Iran and every Shia group in the world will do next
in the case of a nuke attack on Iran soil?
The world will be x1000 more dangerous for the american people.
Even nuking failed made Japan surrender, in fact was Zhukov crushing defeat of the
japanese Manchuria army and the fear that would be the Soviet Union who invades Japan and put
a red flag in the emperor's palace (you know uncle Joe was less fearful of soldiers' losses
than the americans counterpart).
The statement by the Iranian government regarding the measure reads:
"The Islamic Republic of Iran, in the fifth step in reducing its commitments, discards the
last key component of its limitations in the JCPOA, which is the "limit on the number of
centrifuges."
As such, the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear program no longer faces any operational
restrictions, including enrichment capacity, percentage of enrichment, amount of enriched
material, and research and development.
From here on, Iran's nuclear program will be developed solely based on its technical
needs.
If the sanctions are lifted and Iran benefits from its interests enshrined in the JCPOA,
the Islamic Republic is ready to return to its commitments.
Iran's cooperation with the IAEA will continue as before.
With reference to Iran's defense capability, it has been noted elsewhere that Iran purchased
the Russian S500 system which is currently being rolled out. Inquiring minds would predict
that delivery is accelerated. Also, Iraq was considering the S 400 system and, again this
could be predicted to be an unpublished immediate decision. Looks like Erdogan was right to
stand his ground regarding the S400s.
Discussions appear to assume that Iran is relatively isolated politically. Perhaps
forgetting that they are allied in a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China, are an
applicant for the Shanghai Cooperative Association and a dialogue partner with the BRICS.
This covers considerable ground geostratically with players who are reflective, disciplined
and play a long game in attaining their goals. More probably than not engaged in dialogues
which are never revealed in media voices. Retaliation and revenge will be international,
ranging far beyond the middle east.
Posted by: Jose Garcia | Jan 5 2020 18:56 utc | 84
An election campaign with US soldiers getting killed by Iranian proxies with a
decentralized command structure? With a big explosion in October? Considering a "surge"
AGAIN?
As reported by krollchem @ 67 and by b in this and the following post, the involvement of
Trump directly in premeditated murder cannot be absolved, and the circumstances are abhorrent
to any patriotic American citizen. May God have mercy on the souls of the peace makers, for
they shall be called the sons of God.
I take the Iraqi Prime Minister at his word, and reassert the need for Trump and his
administration to be impeached on treasonous grounds. Where that will lead in terms of the
rest of the US government I cannot say but VP Pence is also impeachable here, so it is
difficult to see who is least culpable in this. It may mean that there is need for a
provisional government to be put in place - not party organized. If impeachment proceeds
apace as it should, behind the scenes such a people's approved peaceful citizens
coalition needs to be considered. This cannot stand as official US government policy. It is
heinous.
I too, as forward @ 24 has done, sent prayers for the souls of the departed Iran general
as well as his friend from Iraq and their companions this morning in my home chapel. It is
the Sunday before Christmas, old calendar. May the Lord bring them and so many others before
them to a place where the just repose.
The empire feeling it necessary to burn its assets like our resident bunny's credibility by
forcing the spin control beyond its limit is an indication of desperation (thank you bevin
@89 for bringing attention to that)
We can take pleasure from circumstances spinning out of the evil empire's control, but
keep in mind that means the empire's behavior will become more desperate and irrational the
further control slips from its grasp. More irrational and psychotic behavior from the empire
puts all of humanity in danger. It also makes analysis of that behavior more of a
challenge.
I fear oldhippie @71 might be correct. Even if Iran does nothing, the empire's psychotic
delusions are now so intense that America may lash out spastically anyway.
This is an interesting post which outlines the complexity of such situation and unpredictable
development of events after the initial crime
Notable quotes:
"... America's naive belief in the miracle of the assassination fantasy, especially when applied in the Middle East, reminds me of an Alzheimer's patient who believes in magic beans but fails to remember that the beans never sprout. We keep on planting the same seed and look anxiously for a beanstalk that never sprouts. ..."
"... We were no longer "peacekeepers." We chose sides and were fighting against Palestinians and Shia and, indirectly, Iran. A hotbed of military activity was the Hezbollah bases in the Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. The recently deceased Soleimani, along with the members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), trained and equipped Hezbollah to battle the Christian controlled government in Beirut. ..."
"... We justify/excuse our act because Suleimani was really, really bad. Of course, we have trouble precisely defining the line that someone must cross in order to be "really, really bad." There are many instances in our history where we embraced really, really bad people (Joseph Stalin comes to mind) in order to pursue a goal important to us. Kim Jong Un, who also is responsible for the death of at least one innocent American, is another suspected bad guy who has gotten the pass to sit with President Trump rather than take a Hell Fire up the caboose. ..."
"... This latest strike is likely to come back to haunt us. We should not be surprised in the future if other countries, such as Russia and China, embrace our new doctrine of assassinating people we say are "imminent" threats. I used to believe that our moral authority counted for something. I no longer believe that to be true. I remain eager to be proven wrong, but if history is any guide, we have not learned the lessons we need to in order to create a better future. ..."
America's naive belief in the
miracle of the assassination fantasy, especially when applied in the Middle East, reminds me of
an Alzheimer's patient who believes in magic beans but fails to remember that the beans never
sprout. We keep on planting the same seed and look anxiously for a beanstalk that never
sprouts.
Killing Qassem Soleimani is the latest meaningless chapter in this blood soaked narrative of
revenge and retribution against a "bad" guy. Killing a "bad" guy makes us feel proud and
provides the emotional equivalent of a sugar rush. But there is no compelling evidence that
these killings actually advance the cause of peace or coerce the other bad guys into hiding in
a cave and praying that we go away.
Let me take you for a walk down memory lane. Let's start in Beirut in 1982--that's 38 years
ago. In other words, if you are younger than 45 this is likely to be new to you. The United
States during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan decided to send troops to Lebanon in late 1982 in
order to help "calm" a civil war. In June 1982, the Israel Defense Forces invaded Lebanon with
the intention of rooting out the PLO. The next two months witnessed furious battles in West
Beirut. Despite the raging civil war, the Lebanese held a Presidential election in August 1982
and Bachir Gemayel emerged the victor. Gemayel was famous in Lebanon for leading the most
powerful militia in Lebanon, which ferociously and successfully battled the Palestine
Liberation Organization and the Syrian Army. But his victory was short-lived. On 14 September a
bomb exploded in his Beirut
Phalange headquarters, killing Gemayel along with 26 others.
Two days later, Gemayel's party took revenge in the in the Sabra neighborhood and the
adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, where several thousand Palestinians and
Lebanese Shiites lived. That massacre left between 500 and 3500 dead. The killing took place as
Israeli forces stood by and observed. The Israelis did nothing to stop the murder of women and
children.
That event created a deep thirst among both Palestinian and Shia leaders for revenge and the
war in Lebanon intensified. About a week after the massacre in Sabra and Shatila, the U.S. 32nd
Marine Amphibious Unit arrived in Beirut as part of a multinational "peacekeeping" force. But
instead of keeping the peace, U.S. troops fought on the side of Gemayel's Phalange party.
One of the targets for U.S. naval gunfire were Syrian backed forces fighting on behalf of
Palestinians and Shias .
Two United States Navy ships off Beirut fired dozens of shells today in support of Lebanese
Army units defending the town of Suk al Gharb on a ridge overlooking Beirut. It was the first
direct military support of the Lebanese Army by United States forces.
The cruiser Virginia and the destroyer John Rodgers, both guided missile warships, moved to
within nearly a mile of shore to fire five-inch shells at Syrian-backed Druse militiamen and
Palestinian guerrillas who were attacking army positions.
We were no longer "peacekeepers." We chose sides and were fighting against Palestinians and
Shia and, indirectly, Iran. A hotbed of military activity was the Hezbollah bases in the
Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. The recently deceased Soleimani, along with the
members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), trained and equipped Hezbollah to
battle the Christian controlled government in Beirut.
Reagan's decision to fight against the Iranian supported forces had tragic consequences.
In April of 1983, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was virtually destroyed by a truck bomb.
On April 18, 1983, a suicide bomber detonated a one-half-ton pickup truck laden with
2,000 pounds of TNT near the front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people,
including 17 Americans. It was the deadliest attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission to date, and
changed the way the U.S. Department of State secured its resources and executed its missions
overseas.
At 6:22 on Sunday morning Oct. 23, 1983, a 19-ton yellow Mercedes stake-bed truck entered
a public parking lot at the heart of Beirut International Airport. The lot was adjacent to the
headquarters of the U.S. 8th Marine Regiment's 1st Battalion, where some 350 American service
members lay asleep in a four-story concrete aviation administration building that had been
successively occupied by various combatants in the ongoing Lebanese Civil War. . . .
Sergeant of the guard Stephen Russell was alone at his sandbag-and-plywood post at the
front of the building but facing inside. Hearing a revving engine, he turned to see the
Mercedes truck barreling straight toward him. He instinctively bolted through the lobby toward
the building's rear entrance, repeatedly yelling, "Hit the deck! Hit the deck!" It was futile
gesture, given that nearly everyone was still asleep. As Russell dashed out the rear entrance,
he looked over his shoulder and saw the truck slam through his post, smash through the entrance
and come to a halt in the midst of the lobby. After an ominous pause of a second or two, the
truck erupted in a massive explosion -- so powerful that it lifted the building in the air,
shearing off its steel-reinforced concrete support columns (each 15 feet in circumference) and
collapsing the structure. Crushed to death within the resulting mountain of rubble were 241
U.S. military personnel -- 220 Marines, 18 Navy sailors and three Army soldiers. More than 100
others were injured. It was worst single-day death toll for the Marines since the World War II
Battle of Iwo Jima.
Looking back at these events with the benefit of 37 years of experience, we can see that
assassinations by both sides (U.S. and Iran) did little to create an unambiguous victory or
achieve peace.
Hezbollah also employed another tactic that limited the military response of the United
States--hostage taking. Between 1982 and 1992, elements of Hezbollah in direct contact with
Iran's Revolutionary Guard kidnapped 104 foreign hostages . The most
notable of these were the CIA Chief of Station in Beirut, William Buckley, and Marine Lt
Colonel Rich Higgins (Higgins was later promoted to Colonel while in captivity). Buckley was
nabbed on 16 March 1984 and Higgins on February 17, 1988, while serving as the Chief, Observer
Group Lebanon and Senior Military Observer, United Nations Military Observer Group, United
Nations Truce Supervision Organization. Both men were executed by their Hezbollah captors.
None of this stopped the cycle of violence. In February 1992, Israeli forces launched a raid
into southern Lebanon and "assassinated" Sayyed Abbas Mussawi, Hezbollah's secretary general,
had led a commemoration marking the eighth anniversary of the assassination of Sheikh Ragheb
Harb. (Nicholas Blanford. "Warriors of God."
https://books.apple.com/us/book/warriors-of-god/id422547646)
Then we have Imad Mughniyeh, the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and
number two in Hezbollah's leadership. He was believed to be responsible for bombing the Marine
barracks in Beirut, two US embassy bombings, and the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in
Lebanon in the 1982-1992 period. He also was indicted in Argentina for his alleged role in the
1992 Israeli embassy attack in Buenos Aires.
In February 2008, Mughniyeh was killed on the night of the 12th by a car bomb in Damascus,
Syria, which was planned in a joint operation by the CIA and Mossad.
It is worth nothing that Hezbollah and Iran dramatically shifted after 1995 from the
retaliatory terrorist strikes that were their calling card during the 1980s. As the Shias
carried out fewer terrorist attacks, Sunnis, principally Osama Bin Laden, ratcheted up
attacks--the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the coordinated bombings of U.S Embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000. There is
controversy surrounding who to blame for the bombing of the US military based in Dharan, Saudi
Arabia in 1995. The FBI concluded it was Hezbollah and blamed Mugniyeh. But other intelligence
pointed to Al Qaeda.
Since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the United States has done a lot of killing of
terrorists, real and imagined. Yet, the threat of terrorism has not been erased.
Before we get too excited about the effectiveness of assassination, it would be useful to
recall the dismal record of this method during the last 38 years. It has not made the world
safer or more stable.
The killing of Suleimani is likely to put Iran back in the business of attacking our
embassies and military installations. I also believe kidnapping of Americans will be back in
vogue. And these actions, as in the past, will be met with further U.S. retaliation and the
cycle of violence will continue to spin furiously.
There is another effect now that the United States has openly embraced the "Jamal Khashoggi
solution." The Saudis decreed Khashoggi a "bad" man and a terrorist threat. To their way of
thinking that gave them the excuse to chop him up on the sovereign soil of another country. In
this case, Turkey. We have now basically done the very thing that we condemned the Saudis for.
Yes, I know, Khashoggi was a journalist and Soleimani was a "terrorist." But the Saudis saw a
terrorist. Consider this as a corollary to the saying, "beauty is in the eye of the
beholder."
We justify/excuse our act because Suleimani was really, really bad. Of course, we have
trouble precisely defining the line that someone must cross in order to be "really, really
bad." There are many instances in our history where we embraced really, really bad people
(Joseph Stalin comes to mind) in order to pursue a goal important to us. Kim Jong Un, who also
is responsible for the death of at least one innocent American, is another suspected bad guy
who has gotten the pass to sit with President Trump rather than take a Hell Fire up the
caboose.
This latest strike is likely to come back to haunt us. We should not be surprised in the
future if other countries, such as Russia and China, embrace our new doctrine of assassinating
people we say are "imminent" threats. I used to believe that our moral authority counted for
something. I no longer believe that to be true. I remain eager to be proven wrong, but if
history is any guide, we have not learned the lessons we need to in order to create a better
future.
The number 52 refers to the hostages in Iran at the beginning of the revolution. Trump has
always used that to rally his idiotic base and sell any lemon he can think of in that
context. How dare they take "Americans" as hostages, is the attitude of this moron? And in
his childish brain he wants revenge for what happened 40 hears ago.
When the Iranian students took them hostage, it was a tense and chaotic time and nobody
knew who was in charge, including "the people in charge". But they kept them, they housed
them and fed them in a house arrest setting. Pretty much treated them as a guests, albeit
unwanted guests. Youtube is full of videos of ordinary Iranians bringing them food and books
and pleading with the guards to treat them well.
Unlike us, who we have a different take on hostages and "guests". We send them to the
Caribbean, give them orange jump suits, water board them, play loud heavy metal music 16
hours a day and keep them without food., without charge and without trial.
And in the end, these so called 52 hostages were used as a political pun by Jim Baker and
his team for the election of Reagan and he made sure they were not released until Carter had
been defeated and released on the day of inauguration. How convenient and coincidental.
Unfortunately, the sheep who comprise the bulk of the 30% Trump base, and perhaps many
more on the democratic side, will always buy this lemon with their warped sense of
patriotism.
This
summary by sputniknews (RIA novosti) of the US in Iraq since about 2011 is very concise
but decent and could be perfect for anyone in the US and elsewhere who doesn't know or
understand the situation.
So the Sunni's are going to be ticked off Trump took on Iran?
The Sunni man-in-the-street is much more likely to set aside his differences with the
Shi'a, than to takes sides with the kufar .
Think of it this way: if China invaded the US, which side would most Canadians
support?
Also, think about close-to-theatre demographics.
Iraq will be the US military 'boots on the ground' staging area in any conventional war
against Iran. Shi'a opinion will make all the difference.
Land warfare is significantly harder if your primary staging area is knee-deep in people
who are very sympathetic to the other side.
So consider
2/3rds of the Iraqi Muslim population are Shi'ite . They are concentrated in the
South-East of Iraq. Shi'a are a majority of the population of Baghdad, where the decent-sized
airports are (ignore USAB Ayn Al Asad: landing US forces in the middle of Iraq and driving
all the way to the Iranian border would be retarded).
So Baghdad would become a very (ahem) problematic staging area – especially
if Sistani and Sadr start to rile up the Shia (and Sadr has been doing that since Soleimani's
assassination).
The Sunni are split roughly 50/50 between Arabs and Kurds; the Kurds have no strong
affection for the Arabs, Sunni or otherwise.
So the only place the US has a relatively high proportion of friendlies (even assuming no
fraternity-of-convenience between Iraqiyyun and Jazirani ) is in Iraqi
Kurdistan.
Iraqi Kurdistan borders Iran sounds like a plan!
Well
You might look at a Google Map and think – " Well, all the Kurds are in the
North-East, so the US could just stage from Erbil or Kirkuk and have a straight shot to
TeheranU!S!A!!U!S!A! ".
Meanwhile there are people who have DEMs of the region (so can say things about
topography), and who understand how hard it is to transport men, WATER, artillery and armour
over mountains – even if you own the airspace outright (which the US won't, in any
engagement with Iran).
Think " Korengal ", but with an opponent with 21st century weapons and near-peer
air defences.
The effect of the latter on air-cav alone, should make people think really hard:
helicopters are critical in infil/exfil, medevac, resupply and operational overwatch –
and they are as slow as fuck and have pissweak countermeasures. 1Cav hasn't gone up against a
peer opponent since Korea.
.
Topologically The US has one logistically (almost-)non-suicidal option for 'boots on the
ground' invasion of Iran: everybody knows that.
That is why the US will resort to Hermann Göring fag-tardery, i.e., trying to rely on
air superiority to win a ground war.
For these reasons, the US will either lose or will use nuclear weapons – which will
hand Russia and China a moral victory, because it will permanently destroy US
self-hagiography about freedom and so forth.
.
And if the US attacks Iran, how long do you think it would take for a supertanker to be
sunk in the Straits?
Trick question – the correct response is " Which Straits? Hormuz or
Malacca ?"
The US has shown it can't protect Malacca without crashing into shipping: in a recent
display of historic comedic irony, the USS John McCain (named after Hanoi
Songbird 's Dad), showed itself to be as incompetent as the Songbird hisself, who
killed more US seamen than the Viet Cong.
And it might well, on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, be the long-awaited
beginning of the end of America's imperial ambitions.
One must ask; Is the US presence in the ME really because of imperial ambition? At least
if it is I can understand. I mean, it's bad but that's what nations have done for centuries.
Or is America in the ME at Israel's insistence? Hers's the roll: Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq
2003, Libya in 2011, Syria shortly after that; not one of these countries threatened America,
not one. Yet we invaded these nations, and brutally murdered Qadhaffi and Hussain, and we did
it all based on lies dreamed up by Jewish dual citizens who call themselves American patriots
but who are really agents of Israel.
I'm not using the term neocons any longer, as the term is a lie, a mask. They are just a
large group of powerful dual citizen Jews many descended from Trotskyites that immigrated
from Russia in the 1930s. They hide their real intentions. And what are those intentions? To
protect Israel by scaring the American public through their propaganda organ known as the
MSM, scaring us into allowing a Trillion dollar military budget, and these forever wars. And
anyone who questions them is an anti-Semite. And, that's right from the mouth of Nathan
Perlmutter in his essay; "The Real Anti-Semite In America"
These parasitic dual citizen Jews and their Washington Think Tanks have to go. They are
liars and cowards who will fight for Israel to the last drop of blood spills from the last
American soldier. Trump knowingly, or not, is being used by these bastards. Today he's a
traitor and a liar too. Iran poses no threat to America. None Zilch
Rome was imperialist, Spain, England yes, but the US doesn't fit the definition. What does
fit is 'hired gun'. Right? So, who hired the USA? And, are they paying, or are they somehow
threatening us or blackmailing us?
"... After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the US used the Northern Alliance to establish a foothold in Afghanistan and eventually drive the Taliban from power. Soleimani played a major role behind the scenes helping make the US-Northern Alliance partnership viable, including providing operational and intelligence support. ..."
"... "an Axis of Evil" ..."
"... The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 created another opportunity for Iranian-American cooperation, which the US promptly fumbled. While Iran had no desire for increased American military presence in the region, it found common cause with the US in removing its archenemy, Saddam Hussein, from power. ..."
"... Likewise, when the Islamic State erupted on the scene in 2014, it was Soleimani, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, who helped organize and equip various Shi'a militias under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Force. Soleimani went on to direct the PMF in a series of bloody battles that helped turn the tide against the Islamic State well before the US became decisively engaged in the fighting. Soleimani played a defining role in shaping the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11, positioning Iran to become a major power in the region, if not the major power. ..."
"... Soleimani's actions in accomplishing this outcome, however, were not part of a master Iranian plan for regional domination, but rather part and parcel of Iran's ability to react effectively to the mistakes made by the United States ..."
"... "maximum pressure" ..."
"... Murdered, Soleimani is transformed into a martyr-hero whose exploits will motivate those who seek to replicate them against an American foe void of the kind of self-constraint and wisdom born of experience. ..."
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union
as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf
War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. The US is unprepared for the consequences of
its assassination of Qassem Soleimani, if only because it knows nothing about the reality of
the man it murdered, and can't gauge the impact of his death on Iran or the Middle East. Qassem
Soleimani, an Iranian military commander whose paramilitary organization, known as the Quds
Force, helped position Iran as a modern regional power, was assassinated on January 3, 2020, on
order of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. American political leaders of both
major parties have been united in their description of Soleimani as an evil man whose death
should be celebrated, even while the consequences of his demise remain unknown.
The celebration of Soleimani's death, however, is born of an ignorance regarding the events
and actions that shaped the work he directed, and which defined the world in which he operated.
While the US has cast Soleimani as a byproduct of Iran's malign intent in the Middle East, the
reality is much starker: Soleimani is the direct result of America's irresponsibly aggressive
policies. In a world defined by cause-effect relationships, the link between Soleimani and the
United States is undeniable.
... ... ...
While senior Iranian military leadership advocated a massive punitive
expedition into western Afghanistan, Soleimani advised a more constrained response, with his
Quds Force providing training and material support to the Northern Alliance, an umbrella group
of forces opposed to the Taliban. Soleimani personally directed this effort, transforming the
Northern Alliance into an effective fighting force.
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the US used the Northern Alliance to establish a
foothold in Afghanistan and eventually drive the Taliban from power. Soleimani played a major
role behind the scenes helping make the US-Northern Alliance partnership viable, including
providing operational and intelligence support.
The US-Iranian cooperation was short-lived; President Bush's designation of Iran as being
part of "an Axis of Evil" caused Iran to terminate its cooperation with the
Americans.
Training the anti-US Iraq rebels
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 created another opportunity for Iranian-American
cooperation, which the US promptly fumbled. While Iran had no desire for increased American
military presence in the region, it found common cause with the US in removing its archenemy,
Saddam Hussein, from power.
... ... ...
Likewise, when the Islamic State erupted on the scene in 2014, it was
Soleimani, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, who helped organize and equip various
Shi'a militias under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Force. Soleimani went on to
direct the PMF in a series of bloody battles that helped turn the tide against the Islamic
State well before the US became decisively engaged in the fighting. Soleimani played a defining
role in shaping the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11, positioning Iran to become a major
power in the region, if not the major power.
Soleimani's actions in accomplishing this outcome, however, were not part of a master
Iranian plan for regional domination, but rather part and parcel of Iran's ability to react
effectively to the mistakes made by the United States and its allies in implementing
policies of aggression in the region.
In the aftermath of the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Agreement in 2018, and the
subsequent implementation of the so-called "maximum pressure" campaign of economic
sanctions and geo-political containment undertaken by the United States, Soleimani cautioned
President Trump against embarking down a path toward confrontation.
... ... ...
Murdered, Soleimani is transformed into a martyr-hero whose exploits will motivate those
who seek to replicate them against an American foe void of the kind of self-constraint and
wisdom born of experience.
Far from making the Middle East and the world a safer place to live and work, President
Trump's precipitous assassination of Qassem Soleimani has condemned yet another generation to
suffer the tragic consequences of American overreach in the post-9/11 era.
"... Iraq's parliament passed a resolution, urged by its caretaker prime minister, calling for the removal of foreign troops from the country, after the US' assassination of a top Iranian general and a commander of an Iraqi militia. The non-binding resolution instructs the government to cancel a request for military assistance from the US-led coalition, which was issued in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). With IS supposedly defeated, Iraq will not need foreign troops to fight the jihadists and can close its airspace to coalition aircraft. ..."
"... Speaking at an emergency parliament session on Sunday, Iraq's caretaker PM Adil Abdul Mahdi said the American side notified the Iraqi military about the planned airstrike minutes before it was carried out. He stressed that his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation. ..."
"... Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stated in a letter that Iraq should go further and shut down the US embassy. ..."
Iraq's parliament passed a resolution, urged by its caretaker prime minister, calling for
the removal of foreign troops from the country, after the US' assassination of a top Iranian
general and a commander of an Iraqi militia. The non-binding resolution instructs the
government to cancel a request for military assistance from the US-led coalition, which was
issued in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). With IS supposedly
defeated, Iraq will not need foreign troops to fight the jihadists and can close its airspace
to coalition aircraft.
The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil
and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason.
According to Press TV, some Western military presence may remain for training purposes. The
resolution says Iraqi military leadership has to report the number of foreign instructors that
are necessary for Iraqi national security.
At the same time, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had turned to the UN Security
Council with complaints about US violations of its sovereignty.
Speaking at an emergency parliament session on Sunday, Iraq's caretaker PM Adil Abdul
Mahdi said the American side notified the Iraqi military about the planned airstrike minutes
before it was carried out. He stressed that his government denied Washington permission to
continue with the operation.
... ... ...
Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stated in a letter that Iraq should
go further and shut down the US embassy.
Some wondeer whether Isreal will exist in 25-50 year and it might be better emigrants from
Ukraine to move back.
Notable quotes:
"... John Kashis on CNN speaking from Ohio today reminded the host Wolf Blitzer that US under Trump scuttled and undermined a potential thaw in relations between US and Iran with Japan 's Abe mediating the contacts and subsequent meeting despite initially agreeing . Not unbelievable given what was done to NK. by Bolton gang . ..."
"... As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven by Israeli agenda, ..."
@BLJohn
Kashis on CNN speaking from Ohio today reminded the host Wolf Blitzer that US under Trump
scuttled and undermined a potential thaw in relations between US and Iran with Japan 's Abe
mediating the contacts and subsequent meeting despite initially agreeing . Not unbelievable
given what was done to NK. by Bolton gang .
No Trump was not serious He thought he could billow smoke and scare Iranian like he
thought he could Venezuela and NK . Around this time last year this mean man bought and
raised by Zionists was exactly doing same thing to NK hoping they would fold.
Guess what Iran may not have nukes But it wont fold. Trump is psychopath a bully otherwise
he would have raised hell against Israel and against the overt bribing of him by Adelshon.
That is his character . He puffs and huffs . He knows sometimes those puffs might sway a reed
but he doesn't know it won't break or uproot them .
Trump is not honest even by his own standard .Patriotism or White nationalism is the cloak
he wears to hide this defect.
As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven
by Israeli agenda,
In fact, this crime and prompt approval of it by Bibi hurt Israeli interests a lot. This
was Bibi's agenda. Bibi hopes that a war with Iran would save him from a well-deserved prison
sentence. I hope not. He deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life.
"... So far we have aggression by sending of armed bands and irregulars; armed attack on the civilian population; a sneak attack in breach of the Convention relative to the Opening of Hostilities; illegal war propaganda, to wit, fabricated chemical weapons attacks; and murder, a war crime in universal jurisdiction. ..."
"... Now we have one more compounding war crime: perfidy. Using the pretext of parley for ambush. ..."
Add one more war crime to the pile for when the SCO pulls Gina out of the fake rock and puts
her in the glass cage at Nuremberg II.
So far we have aggression by sending of armed bands and irregulars; armed attack on the
civilian population; a sneak attack in breach of the Convention relative to the Opening of
Hostilities; illegal war propaganda, to wit, fabricated chemical weapons attacks; and murder,
a war crime in universal jurisdiction.
Now we have one more compounding war crime: perfidy. Using the pretext of parley for
ambush.
When it's time to decapitate the CIA regime, the victors can really clean house. The US
used the purported Pearl Harbor sneak attack as legal justification for nuking Japan. That's
a handy precedent to have. No doubt there are some decent human beings inside the beltway,
but if Russia or China turn it into a sinkhole of molten basalt, no one will complain. The
USG's a cancer on the world. They've got to be put down like rabid dogs.
Most of the attention in this recent attack by a US drone at the Baghdad Airport has been on
it killing Iranian Quds Force commander, Qasim (Qassem) Solmaini (Suleimani), supposedly
plotting an "imminent" attack on Americans as he flew a commercial airliner to Iraq at the
invitation of its government and passed through passport control.
But much less attention has been paid to the killing in that attack of Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis, commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and reportedly an officer in
the Iraqi military, as well as being, according to Juan Cole, a Yazidi Kurd, although the PMF
is identified as being a Shia militia allied with Iran.
The problem here is that supposedly US leaders approved this strike because there were no
Iraqi officials in this group; it was supposedly "clean." But there was al-Muhandis, with his
PMF also allied to a political faction, the Fath, who hold 48 seats in the Iraqi parliament.
The often anti-Iranian Shia leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has now joined with Fath and other groups
to demand a vote in the parliament to order a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
It might be good for them to go, although Trump has just sent in 3,500 more Marines to
protect the US embassy that came under attack and protests after an earlier US attack on
pro-Iranian militias.
As an American who lives abroad, this is just a repainting of the target I've had on my back
for decades, compliments of people who live behind big defence perimeters and are surrounded
by teams of bodyguards.
Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle
East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar. Instead of seeking detente,
one of his first actions was to end the JCPOA nuclear agreement and re-introduce sanctions
against Iran. In a sense, Iran has from the beginning been the exception to Trump's no-new-war
pledge, a position that might reasonably be directly attributed to his incestuous relationship
with the American Jewish community and in particular derived from his pandering to the
expressed needs of Israel's belligerent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump bears full responsibility for what comes next. The neoconservatives and Israelis are
predictably cheering the result, with Mark Dubowitz of the pro-Israel Foundation for Defense of
Democracies
enthusing that it is "bigger than bin Laden a massive blow to the [Iranian] regime."
Dubowitz, whose credentials as an "Iran expert" are dubious at best, is at least somewhat right
in this case. Qassem Suleimani is, to be sure, charismatic and also very popular in Iran. He is
Iran's most powerful military figure in the entire region, being the principal contact for
proxies and allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. But what Dubowitz does not understand is that no
one in a military hierarchy is irreplaceable. Suleimani's aides and high officials in the
intelligence ministry are certainly more than capable of picking up his mantle and continuing
his policies.
In reality, the series of foolish attacks initiated by the United States over the past week
will only hasten the departure of much of the U.S. military from the region. The Pentagon and
White House have been insisting that Iran was behind an alleged Kata'ib Hezbollah attack on a
U.S. installation that then triggered a strike by Washington on claimed militia targets in
Syria and also inside Iraq. Even though the U.S. military presence is as a guest of the Iraqi
government, Washington went ahead with its attack even after the Iraqi Prime Minister Adil
Abdul-Mahdi said "no."
To justify its actions, Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, went so far as to insist that
"Iran is at war with the whole world," a clear demonstration of just how ignorant the White
House team actually is. The U.S. government characteristically has not provided any evidence
demonstrating either Iranian or Kata'ib involvement in recent developments, but after the
counter-strike killed 26 Iraqi soldiers, the mass demonstrations against the Embassy in Baghdad
became inevitable. The demonstrations were also attributed to Iran by Washington even though
the people in the street were undoubtedly Iraqis.
Now that the U.S. has also killed Suleimani and Muhandis in a drone strike at Baghdad
Airport, clearly accomplished without the approval of the Iraqi government, it is inevitable
that the prime minister will ask American forces to leave. That will in turn make the situation
for the remaining U.S. troops in neighboring Syria untenable. And it will also force other Arab
states in the region to rethink their hosting of U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen due
to the law of unanticipated consequences as it is now clear that Washington has foolishly begun
a war that serves no one's interests.
The blood of the Americans, Iranians and Iraqis who will die in the next few weeks is
clearly on Donald Trump's hands as this war was never inevitable and served no U.S. national
interest. It will surely turn out to be a debacle, as well as devastating for all parties
involved. And it might well, on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, be the long-awaited
beginning of the end of America's imperial ambitions. Let us hope so!
Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence
officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA
Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter
Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests
The question – who benefits? – has not been raised.
There was no benefit to Kata'ib Hezbollah or the Iranians to attack an American
installation.
There was no benefit to the Iranians to attack the US Embassy in Iraq.
There was no benefit to anyone in Iraq or Iran in the shooting of "peaceful demonstrators" in
Iraq.
There is only one beneficiary to all of the above – Israel.
Mr. Giraldi is quite correct in laying this at Trump's feet and referring to his
incestuous relationship regarding Israel. After all, it it Trump that pulled out of the
JCPOA, and ultimately gave the order to strike. A previous strike was called off, what has
changed? I understand Mr. Giraldi is a never Trumper, and that is his right. Often it is not
what he says, but what he doesn't say, that is problematic. In this article, two things not
expanded stand out to me. The author proclaims his support for the JCPOA.
What is never explained is that the JCPOA was a voluntary restriction, by Iran, on its rights
as a signatory under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Former Reagan nuclear advisor Dr.
Gordon Prather was writing about the illegality of forcing restrictions on Iran back in the
days when "Bonkers" Bolton was foaming at the mouth for Bush 43 at the UN. Trump cancelling
the deal was not the problem. The problem was maintaining the US's illegal position on Iran's
rights under the NPT. Mr. Giraldi's opposition to the cancelling, without context, means he
finds the US's illegal position on Iran's rights under an international treaty as
acceptable.
The second issue is the intelligence surrounding the "alleged Kata'ib Hezbollah attack on a
U.S. installation". This is an operation straight out of the I sraeli S ecret
I ntelligence S ervice manual. It was acknowledged, by the military, 20 years
ago Israel had the capability to stage an attack and blame it on "Arabs". Who were those
involved in providing the "intelligence to Trump? How many of those people know/knew the
intelligence to be questionable or outright false, but allowed it to pass on anyway without
caveat? It is unknown whether Trump "asked the right questions" about the intelligence, and
if it came from military sources, I suspect none at all, of substance, were asked. Again, yes
Trump will, and should, be blamed, but how much of it involves the traitors within who will
continue with the internal rot?
@Bragadocious
You are one of the supreme a-holes on this site and I wish you would go somewhere else to
spread your pollution. But I will answer your question: Soleimani was not near the embassy.
He had flown into to town to attend the funerals of the 26 Iraqi militiamen that we Americans
had killed earlier in the week!
This is a watershed moment in our enslaved country, and the net is rife with speculations as
to where this will lead to.
Personally, I don't believe that this will erupt in WW3, but the days of casual travel by
high-ranking US officials is probably over in the near term. What follows will be millions of
paper cuts and constant stress for our sons and daughters relegated to foreign lands in the
war for Israel. Did you sign up your children to die for Israel? I didn't.
So what can we expect? A lot of our children are going to come back in body bags in the
weeks ahead. The murder of the Iranian general with no proof of his hand in the recent death
of an American mercenary in Iraq, is a war crime – but who's looking? We have become
imitators of our BFF, Israel. Not only have we militarized our police force under their
auspices, we flout International law and civil rights without even blinking once. Sure, many
Iranians (and Iraqi) innocents will die in the process, but the silver lining is that this
will start the dominoes falling and lead to our Vietnam-like exit from the ME with our tail
between our legs, as we repeat the helicopter exits from the roofs of our embassies.
From all indications, the Iranian general was a revered man inside and outside Iran. He
appears to have arrived in Baghdad to attend the funeral of the people killed in the
airstrike by US/Israel. Killing people headed to funerals and weddings seems to have become
our MO in recent years. No US president in the last few decades has had his hands clean. Out
damned spot!
Meanwhile, who was that "killed" contractor? Is there a name attached to that
speculatively fictitious soul whose alleged death was the rationale for the murder? It is a
sign of the times that our first reaction to anything we hear from the PTB is one of
skepticism and disbelief. This does not bode well for our rulers when the slaves reject
whatever claims they make.
Sadly, the revolution will not begin in Pretoria, but in distant lands, far from the
prying eyes of the sleeping citizenry of this land. As Allison Weir would say, if Americans
knew what is being perpetrated in our name, they would realize that we are all
Palestinians.
Trump has been compromised. Whether you believe that he is or isn't behind this, is
irrelevant. Frankly, it doesn't really matter who the president is – he is a powerless
puppet. I suspect that the deep state initiated this and then informed Trump post-facto. The
absence of an immediate tweets (tweet with a US flag suggests speechlessness), followed by an
announcement from the Pentagon that Trump had personally ordered the attack, instead of Trump
boasting about it, does not fit his usual pattern. My guess is that he knows that going
against the will of the deep state would result in his being JFK'ed.
I expect the following in the days ahead:
– There will be outrage in Iraq and demands for us to go home – which we
won't
– Our children/cannon fodder will be targeted across the ME
– One or more US high officials or Military leaders will be assassinated, perhaps
Graham or Pompeo or Adelson
– Israel will use the distraction to annex more Palestinian territory.
– Every US politician will blame the victims
– Israel and KSA will be walking around in adult diapers for the next shoe to drop
Take heart, the end is nigh. It is the witching hour. It is a replay of history as the
empire shoots itself in the foot. Remember which country invented the game of Chess –
it wasn't us or our European cousins.
I read somewhere that the order for this assassination came from Trump himself. I read this
as meaning that the order came from Israel and Trump's staff advised against it. I hope Iran
takes this into account as they plan their retaliation.
The other interesting dynamic is that common folk are waking up to the ZOG on the one hand,
and the government/media is doing their level best to slow this awakening. I wonder how this
assassination and its aftermath fit into all of it.
The one big fear I have in the near-term is that, with the expected retaliation from Iran, it
is the perfect opportunity for Israel to launch a false flag somewhere and blame it on Iran,
further turning up the heat.
Many lies (of course) and disinformation, but also clear policy.
Example: "Frankly, this war kicked off – people talk about the war. This war kicked
off when the JCPOA was entered into. It told the Iranians that they had free rein to develop
a Shia crescent that extended from Yemen to Iraq to Syria and into Lebanon, surrounding our
ally, Israel, and threatening American lives as well."
Pompeo refers to being at war with Iran. There has been no declaration of war by either
side.
The so-called Shia crescent is a major regional country developing regional allies,
regardless of the religous makeup of the various countries referred to. The implication is
that USA government will dictate the foreign policy of Middle East countries from Romes
headquarters 7,000 miles away.
It underscore that the policy is based on fear that Israel will be under military pressure
once regional countries have advanced missile systems, presuming that the foreign policy of
Iran is to militarily attack Israel.
USA knows this won't happen, but the occupied territories may well be sent arms by Iran.
Taking, in other words, a page from the USA government playbook, as it does exactly the same
thing. Evidence exhibit #1 = arms to so-called 'opposition' and to religous criminals in
Syria.
Israel is reaching a demographic (and water) crisis. It has no choice but to obey
International law and settle with the Arab population. It has been intransigent,
confrontational and obstructive for years. Now, it will be forcede to negotiate by the
realities of passing time.
Israel would do well to play fair and enter a genuine negotiation on fair terms (not a
one-sided diktat).
Iran would do well to abandon its 'maximum pressure' policy on Israel, recognize its right
to exist behind the Security Council agreed borders, and actively work diplomatically to
arrive at a fair solution.
Another example:
"In October of this year, George, the JCPOA, that nuclear deal, will permit arms trade with
Iran. That's crazy. That's crazy – have missiles and systems – high-end systems,
from China and Russia in Iran lawfully in October."
Pompeo is playing the definition game: 'our missiles = good. Your missiles = bad'.
Every country has a right to defend itself, no exceptions.
Which country has illegally invaded a sovereign country in the Middle East?
Which country illegally bombed the most developed country of the Middle East to a state of
infrastructural destitution?
So the USA foreign policy, it seems, is to prohibit sovereign Iran from developing any
means of defending itself with modern weaponry. Perhaps they will be 'allowed' to have
slingshots to defend themselves against USA government aggression.
The USA will have to change its foreign policy to accomodate new realities in the Middle
East. It's so-called allies, its Middle East NATO is a big fail. No suprise.
If it doesn't want to embrace the Iranian plan for all Gulf members to unites to police
the Gulf, maybe it should join the long-standing Russian effort for a multi-sided
consensus-driven Gulf peace plan.
"... Iran had every right not to renegotiate with US . Deal was deal. Trump could have left and followed the agreements . Instead his masters donors and his Jewish advisers made it sure that they could do through him what they all along wanted -- - ,strangling Iran through more sanctions. . ..."
@BLIran had
every right not to renegotiate with US . Deal was deal. Trump could have left and followed
the agreements . Instead his masters donors and his Jewish advisers made it sure that they
could do through him what they all along wanted -- - ,strangling Iran through more sanctions.
.
Iran didn't provoke unless killing the rebels and ISIS supported by Israel US Saud are
considered as acts of provocations . Unless Iran demanding implementation of JOPA was act of
defiance .
The lies about Iran killing 600 have been laid bare by Scott Horton in http://www.antiwar.com
CNN William Cohen is saying false flag and blamed enough Iran
Most probably Pompeo was cheating and deceived Trump to get the approval of this asssasination. now with his head on the block he
is trying to avoid the responsibility.
Notable quotes:
"... Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said public assurances from the Trump administration that such a threat was "imminent" were simply not enough. ..."
"... Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said on CNN's "State of the Union" that until the administration provides answers on "how this decision was reached ... then this move is questionable , to say the least." ..."
"... "I still worry about whether this president really understands that this is not a show, this is not a game," he said. "Lives are at stake right now." ..."
"... the administration has yet to make public its evidence that Soleimani was acting out of step in comparison with his years of similar planning as a leader in Iran's proxy wars and other covert operations, which have led to U.S. deaths . ..."
Democrats on Sunday demanded answers about the
killing of top Iranian
Gen.
Qassem Soleimani as tensions mounted with Iran and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that the United States had faced an
imminent threat.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on ABC's "This Week" that he worried that President Donald Trump's decision
"will get us into what he calls
another
endless war in the Middle East ." He called for Congress to "assert" its authority and prevent Trump from "either bumbling or
impulsively getting us into a major war."
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said public assurances from the Trump administration that such
a threat was "imminent" were simply not enough.
"I think we learned the hard way ... in the Iraq War that administrations sometimes
manipulate
and cherry-pick intelligence to further their political goals," he said.
"That's what got us into the Iraq War. There was no WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he said. "I'm saying that they have
an obligation to present the evidence."
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said on CNN's "State of the Union" that until the administration provides
answers on "how this decision was reached ... then
this move is questionable
, to say the least."
"I still worry about whether this president really understands that this is not a show, this is not a game," he said. "Lives
are at stake right now."
The fraught relationship with Iran has significantly deteriorated in the days since Soleimani's death, which came days after rioters
sought to storm the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and a U.S. contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base
in Kirkuk.
The Defense Department said Soleimani, the high-profile commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force, who was accused of controlling
Iranian-linked proxy militias across the Middle East, orchestrated the attacks on bases in Iraq of the U.S.-led coalition fighting
the Islamic State militant group, including the strike that killed the U.S. contractor. In addition, the Defense Department said
Soleimani approved attacks on the embassy compound in Baghdad.
"
We
took action last night to stop a war ," Trump said Friday in a televised address, referring to the airstrike that killed Soleimani.
"We did not take action to start a war."
But the administration has yet to make public its evidence that Soleimani was acting out of step in comparison with his years
of similar planning as a leader in Iran's proxy wars and other covert operations,
which have led to U.S. deaths .
Iran and its allies vowed to retaliate for the general's death, and Trump has since escalated his language in response.
Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics
Rival Shi'ite political leaders on Friday called for American troops to be expelled from Iraq
after a U.S. air strike in Baghdad killed a senior Iranian general, in an unusual show of
unity among factions that have squabbled for months.
How can the neocons and chickenhawks justify results like this No, Russia nd China are not
next Because they have nukes ad the means to deliver them. Trump can't even stop
groveling to North Korea.
Below are some idea from Below are some idea from
OffGuardian that
clrify TT post...
The Saker took a look yesterday at The Soleimani murder – what
could happen next . He thinks, as he has said before, that Trump is regarded as a disposable
asset by his Deep State handlers and is being used as a front man for risky policy actions that
he can be scapegoated for if/when they go wrong.
war with Iran has been the auto-erotic fixation for the hardcore war nuts in Washington for
years, and imminent confrontation has been predicted regularly since at least 2005
Trump administration from the very beginning has been ramping up the tensions (Adelson money
at work): Trump teared up the nuclear deal, re-imposed sanctions, making provocations, making
threats. But this has all been within the familiar framework that always just stops short of
actual conflict. The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond anything they have ever
risked before. the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much false flag 'terrorism'
as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we can almost certainly
look forward to some of that. The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond anything they
have ever risked before. the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much false flag
'terrorism' as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we can almost
certainly look forward to some of that. The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond
anything they have ever risked before. the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much
false flag 'terrorism' as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we
can almost certainly look forward to some of that.
The major question really though is – will this backtracking and odd claims of wanting
de-escalation actually do anything to de-escalate? Will it persuade Iran not to seek retaliation,
supposing this is now what Pompeo et al want?
It's become a commonplace to describe Trump foreign policy as 'insane', and it's an apposite
description. But the murder of Soleimani takes the evident insanity to new and self-defeating
levels.
Notable quotes:
"... Eric, the embassy attack hurt little more than our pride. Yes, an entrance lobby and it's contents were burned and destroyed but no American was injured or even roughed up. It was the Iraqi government that let the demonstrators approach the embassy walls, not Soleimani. The unarmed PMU soldiers dispersed as soon as the Iraqi government said their point was made. If we are so thin skinned that rude graffiti and gestures induce us to committing assassinations, we deserve to be labeled as international pariahs. ..."
"... Yes, I see Soleimani as a threat, but he was a threat to the jihadis and the continued US dreams of regional hegemony. ..."
"... According to published pictures of the rockets recovered after the K-1 attack, they were the same powerful new weapons that Turkish troops recovered from a YPG ammo depot in Afrin last year: 'Iranian' 107mm rockets Manufactured 2016 Lot 570. I know matching lots isn't proof of anything, but what are the chances? ..."
"... This "imminent" threat of Gen. Soleimani attacking US forces seems eerily reminiscent of the "mushroom cloud" imminent threat that Bush, Cheney and Blair peddled. Now we even have Pence claiming that Soleimani provided support to the Saudi 9/11 terrorists. Laughable if it wasn't so tragic. But of course at one time the talking point was Saddam orchestrated 9/11 and was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. ..."
"... After the Iraq WMD, Gadhaffi threat and Assad the butcher and the incorrigible terrorist loving Taliban posing such imminent threats that we must use our awesome military to bomb, invade, occupy, while spending trillions of dollars borrowed from future generations, and our soldiers on the ground serving multiple tours, and our fellow citizens buy into the latest rationale for killing an Iranian & Iraqi general, without an ounce of skepticism, says a lot! ..."
"... IMO, Craig Murray is pointing in the right direction around the word 'immanent,' by pointing out that it is referring to the legally dubious Bethlehem Doctrine of Self Defense, the Israeli, UK and US standard for assassination, in which immanent is defined as widely as, 'we think they were thinking about it.' The USG managed to run afoul of even these overly permissive guidelines, which are meant only against non-state actors. ..."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States had "clear, unambiguous" intelligence that a top
Iranian general was planning a significant campaign of violence against the United States when
it decided to strike him, the top U.S. general said on Friday, warning Soleimani's plots "might
still happen."
Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a small group
of reporters "we fully comprehend the strategic consequences" associated with the strike
against Qassem Soleimani, Tehran's most prominent military commander.
But he said the risk of inaction exceeded the risk that killing him might dramatically
escalate tensions with Tehran. "Is there risk? Damn right, there's risk. But we're working to
mitigate it," Milley said from his Pentagon office. (Reuters)
-- -- -- -- --
This is pretty much in line with Trump's pronouncement that our assassination of Soleimani
along with Iraqi General Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was carried out to prevent a war not start one.
Whatever information was presented to Trump painted a picture of imminent danger in his mind.
What did the Pentagon see that was so imminent?
Well first let's look at the mindset of the Pentagon concerning our presence in Iraq and
Syria. These two recent quotes from Brett McGurk sums up that mindset.
"If we leave Iraq, that will just increase further the running room for Iran and Shia
militia groups and also the vacuum that will see groups like ISIS fill and we'll be right
back to where we were. So that would be a disaster."
"It's always been Soleimani's strategic game... to get us out of the Middle East. He wants
to see us leave Syria, he wants to see us leave Iraq... I think if we leave Iraq after this,
that would just be a real disastrous outcome..."
McGurk played a visible role in US policy in Iraq and Syria under Bush, Obama and Trump. Now
he's an NBC talking head and a lecturer at Stanford. He could be the poster boy for what many
see as a neocon deep state. He's definitely not alone in thinking this way.
So back to the question of what was the imminent threat. Reuters offers an elaborate story
of a secret meeting of PMU commanders with Soleimani on a rooftop terrace on the Tigris with a
grand view of the US Embassy on the far side of the river.
-- -- -- -- --
"In mid-October, Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani met with his Iraqi Shi'ite
militia allies at a villa on the banks of the Tigris River, looking across at the U.S. embassy
complex in Baghdad, and instructed them to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the
country"
"Two militia commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters
that Soleimani instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful
militia leaders to step up attacks on US targets using sophisticated new weapons provided by
Iran."
"Soleimani's plans to attack US forces aimed to provoke a military response that would
redirect Iraqis' anger towards Iran to the US, according to the sources briefed on the
gathering, Iraqi Shi'ite politicians and government officials close to Iraq PM Adel Abdul
Mahdi."
"At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia
group of low-profile paramilitaries - unknown to the United States - who could carry out rocket
attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases." (Reuters)
-- -- -- -- --
And what were those sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran? They were 1960s Chinese
designed 107mm multiple rocket launcher technology. These simple but effective rocket launchers
were mass produced by the Soviet Union, Iran, Turkey and Sudan in addition to China. They've
been used in every conflict since then. The one captured outside of the K1 military base seems
to be locally fabricated, but used Iranian manufactured rockets.
Since when does the PMU have to form another low profile militia unit? The PMU is already
composed of so many militia units it's difficult to keep track of them. There's also nothing
low profile about the Kata'ib Hizbollah, the rumored perpetrators of the K1 rocket attack.
They're as high profile as they come.
Perhaps there's something to this Reuters story, but to me it sounds like another shithouse
rumor. It would make a great scene in a James Bond movie, but it still sounds like a rumor.
There's another story put out by The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Although it also
sounds like a scene form a James Bond movie, I think it sounds more convincing than the Reuters
story.
-- -- -- -- --
Delegation of Arab tribes met with "Soleimani" at the invitation of "Tehran" to carry out
attacks against U.S. Forces east Euphrates
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that a delegation of the Arab tribes met
on the 26th of December 2019, with the goal of directing and uniting forces against U.S.
Forces, and according to the Syrian Observatory's sources, that meeting took place with the
commander of the al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassim Soleimani, who was
assassinated this morning in a U.S. raid on his convoy in Iraq. the sources reported that: "the
invitation came at the official invitation of Tehran, where Iran invited Faisal al-al-Aazil,
one of the elders of al-Ma'amra clan, in addition to the representative of al-Bo Asi clan the
commander of NDF headquarters in Qamishli Khatib al-Tieb, and the Sheikh of al-Sharayin, Nawaf
al-Bashar, the Sheikh of Harb clan, Mahmoud Mansour al-Akoub, " adding that: "the meeting
discussed carrying out attacks against the American forces and the Syria Democratic
Forces."
Earlier, the head of the Syrian National Security Bureau, Ali Mamlouk, met with the
security committee and about 20 Arab tribal elders and Sheikhs in al-Hasakah, at Qamishli
Airport Hall on the 5th of December 2019, where he demanded the Arab tribes to withdraw their
sons from the ranks of the Syria Democratic Forces. (SOHR)
-- -- -- -- --
I certainly don't automatically give credence to anything Rami sends out of his house in
Coventry. I give this story more credibility only because that is exactly what I would do if
Syria east of the the Euphrates was my UWOA (unconventional warfare operational area). This is
exactly how I would go about ridding the area of the "Great Satan" invaders and making Syria
whole again. The story also includes a lot of named individuals. This can be checked. This
morning Colonel Lang told me some tribes in that region have a Shia history. Perhaps he can
elaborate on that. I've read in several places that Qassim Soleimani knew the tribes in Syria
and Iraq like the back of his hand. This SOHR story makes sense. If Soleimani was working with
the tribes of eastern Syria like he worked with the tribes and militias of Iraq to create the
al-Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbi, it no doubt scared the bejeezus out of the Pentagon and
endangered their designs for Iraq and Syria.
So, Qassim Soleimani, the Iranian soldier, the competent and patient Iranian soldier, was a
threat to the Pentagon's designs a serious threat. But he was a long term threat, not an
imminent threat. And he was just one soldier.The threat is systemic and remains. The question
of why, in the minds of Trump and his generals, Soleimani had to die this week is something I
will leave for my next post.
A side note on Milley: Whenever I see a photo of him, I am reminded of my old Brigade
Commander in the 25th Infantry Division, Colonel Nathan Vail. They both have the countenance of
a snapping turtle. One of the rehab transfers in my rifle platoon once referred to him as "that
J. Edgar Hoover looking mutha fuka." I had to bite my tongue to keep from breaking out in
laughter. It would have been unseemly for a second lieutenant to openly enjoy such disrespect
by a PV2 and a troublemaking PV2 at that. God bless PV2 Webster, where ever you are.
Eric, the embassy attack hurt little more than our pride. Yes, an entrance lobby and it's
contents were burned and destroyed but no American was injured or even roughed up. It was the
Iraqi government that let the demonstrators approach the embassy walls, not Soleimani. The
unarmed PMU soldiers dispersed as soon as the Iraqi government said their point was made. If we
are so thin skinned that rude graffiti and gestures induce us to committing assassinations, we
deserve to be labeled as international pariahs.
Yes, I see Soleimani as a threat, but he was a threat to the jihadis and the continued US
dreams of regional hegemony. I was glad we went back into Iraq to take on the threat of IS and
cheered our initial move into Syria to do the same. That was the Sunni-Shia war you worry
about. More accurately, it was a Salafist jihadist-all others war. Unfortunately, we overstayed
the need and our welcome. It's a character flaw that we cannot loosen our grasp on empire no
matter how much it costs us.
Thanks for your post. What it says I buy. We are in the Middle East and have been for a
while to impose regional hegemony. What that has bought us is nebulous at best. Clearly we have
spent trillions and destabilized the region. Millions have been displaced and hundreds of
thousands have been killed and maimed, including thousands of our soldiers. Are we better off
from our invasion of Iraq, toppling Ghaddafi, and attempting to topple Assad using jihadists?
Guys like McGurk, Bolton, Pompeo will say yes. Others like me will say no.
The oil is a canard. We produce more oil than we ever have and it is a fungible commodity.
Will it impact Israel if we pull out our forces? Sure. But it may have a salutary effect that
it may force them to sue for peace. Will the Al Sauds continue to fund jihadi mayhem? Likely
yes, but they'll have to come to some accommodation with the Iranian Shia and recognize their
regional strength.
Our choice is straightforward. Continue down the path of more conflict sinking ever more
trillions that we don't have expecting a different outcome or cut our losses and get out and
let the natural forces of the region assert themselves. I know which path I'll take.
With all due respect, I think you are wrong. I think the protesters swarming the embassy was
exactly the same kind of tactic that US backed protesters used in Ukraine (and are currently
using in Hong Kong) to great effect. The Persians are unique in that they are capable of
studying our methodologies and tactics and appropriating them.
When the US backed protesters took over Maidan square and started taking over various
government building in Kiev, Viktor Yanukovych had two choices - either start shooting
protesters or watch while his authority collapsed. It was and is a difficult choice.
In my
humble opinion, there are few things the stewards of US hegemony fear more than the IRGC
becoming the worlds number one disciple of Gene Sharp.
TTG - "And what were those sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran?"
According to published pictures of the rockets recovered after the K-1 attack, they were the
same powerful new weapons that Turkish troops recovered from a YPG ammo depot in Afrin last
year: 'Iranian' 107mm rockets Manufactured 2016 Lot 570. I know matching lots isn't proof of
anything, but what are the chances?
If the U.S. only had a Dilyana Gaytandzhieva to bird-dog out the rat line. Wait... the MSM
would have fired her by now for weaponizing journalism against the neocons [sigh].
If a goal is to get the heck out of the Middle East since it is an intractable cess pit and
stat protecting our own borders and internal security, will we be better off with Soleimani out
of the picture or left in place.
Knowing of course, more just like him will sprout quickly, like dragon's teeth, in the sands
of the desert.ME is a tar baby. Fracking our own tar sands is the preferable alternative.
Real war war would be a direct attack on Israel. Then they get our full frontal assault. But
this pissy stuff around the edges is an exercise in futility. 2020 was Trump's to
lose.Incapacity to handle asymmetirc warfare is ours to lose.
There is no necessary link between the Iranian support for the Assad regime, to include its
operations in tribal areas of Syria. The Iranian-backed militias and Iranian government
officials have been operating in that area for a long time, supporting the efforts of
Security/Intel Ali Mamlouk. That Suleimani knew the tribes so well is a mark of his
professional competence. Everyone is courting the Syrian tribes, some sides more adeptly than
others. It is also worth noting that in putting together manpower for their various locally
formed Syrian militias, the Iranians took on unemployed Sunnis.
That said, there are small Ismaili communities in Syria and there are apparently a couple of
villages in Deir ez Zor that did convert to Shiism, but no mass religious change. The Iranians
are sensitive to the fact that they could cause a backlash if they tried hard to promote "an
alien culture."
Well, The Donald has turned to Twitter menacing iran with wiping out all of its World Heritage
Sites....which is declared intention to commit a war crime...
For what it seems Iran must sawllow the assasination of its beloved and highjly regarded
general...or else...
Do you really think there is any explanation for this, whatever Soleimani´s history (
he was doing his duty in his country and neighboring zone...you are...well...everywhere...) or
that we can follow this way with you escalating your threats and crimes ever and that everybody
must leave it at that without response or you menace coming with more ?
That somebody or some news agency has any explanation for this is precisely the sign of our
times and our disgrace. That there is a bunch of greedy people who is willing to do whatever is
needed to prevail and keep being obscenely rich...
BTW, would be interesting to know who are the main holders of shares at Reuters...
The same monopolizing almost each and every MSM and news agency at every palce in the world,
big bank, big pharma, big business, big capital ( insurances companies nad hedge funds ) big
real state, and US think tanks...
In Elora´s opinion, Bret MacGurk is making revanche from Soleimani for the predictable
fact that a humble and pious man bred in the region, who worked as bricklayer to help pay his
father´s debt during his youth, and moreover has an innate irresistible charisma, managed
to connect better with the savage tribes of the ME than such exceptionalist posh theoric bred
at such an exceptionalist as well as far away country like the US.
But...what did you expect, that MacGurk would become Lawrence of Arabia versus Soleimani in
his simpleness?
May be because of that that he deserved being dismembered by a misile...
As Pence blamed shamefully and stonefacelly Soleimani for 9/11, MacGurk blames him too for
having fallen from the heights he was...
It seems that Pence was in the team of four who assesed Trump on this hit...along with
Pompeo...
A good response would be that someone would leak the real truth on 9/11 so as to debunk
Pence´s mega-lie...
Two years ago, the public protest theme for Basel's winter carnival Fashnach was the imminent
threat nuclear war as NK and US were sabre rattling, and NK was lobbing missles across Japan
with sights on West Coast US cities.
Then almost the following week, NK and US planned to meet F2F in Singapore. And we could all
breathe again. In the very early spring of 2018.
This "imminent" threat of Gen. Soleimani attacking US forces seems eerily reminiscent of the
"mushroom cloud" imminent threat that Bush, Cheney and Blair peddled. Now we even have Pence
claiming that Soleimani provided support to the Saudi 9/11 terrorists. Laughable if it wasn't
so tragic. But of course at one time the talking point was Saddam orchestrated 9/11 and was in
cahoots with Osama bin Laden.
I find it fascinating watching the media spin and how easily so many Americans buy into the
spin du jour.
After the Iraq WMD, Gadhaffi threat and Assad the butcher and the incorrigible terrorist
loving Taliban posing such imminent threats that we must use our awesome military to bomb,
invade, occupy, while spending trillions of dollars borrowed from future generations, and our
soldiers on the ground serving multiple tours, and our fellow citizens buy into the latest
rationale for killing an Iranian & Iraqi general, without an ounce of skepticism, says a
lot!
Yeah, it will be interesting to see how Trump's re-election will go when we are engaged in a
full scale military conflagration in the Middle East? It sure will give Tulsi & Bernie an
excellent environment to promote their anti-neocon message. You can see it in Trump's
ambivalent tweets. On the one hand, I ordered the assassination of Soleimani to prevent a war
(like we needed to burn the village to save it), while on the other hand, we have 52 sites
locked & loaded if you retaliate. Hmmm!! IMO, he has seriously jeapordized his re-election
by falling into the neocon Deep State trap. They never liked him. The coup by law enforcement
& CIA & DNI failed. The impeachment is on its last legs. Voila! Incite him into another
Middle Eastern quagmire against what he campaigned on and won an election.
I would think that Khamanei has no choice but to retaliate. How is anyone's guess? I doubt
he'll order the sinking of a naval vessel patrolling the Gulf or fire missiles into the US base
in Qatar. But assassination....especially in some far off location in Europe or South America?
A targeted bombing here or there? A cyber attack at a critical point. I mean not indiscriminate
acts like the jihadists but highly calculated targets. All seem extremely feasible in our
highly vulnerable and relatively open societies. And they have both the experience and skills
to accomplish them.
If ever you have the inclination, a speculative post on how the escalation ladder could
potentially be climbed would be a fascinating read.
"I find it fascinating watching the media spin and how easily so many Americans buy into the
spin du jour."
BP,
Yes, indeed. It is a testament to our susceptibility that there is such limited scepticism
by so many people on the pronouncements of our government. Especially considering the decades
long continuous streams of lies and propaganda. The extent and brazenness of the lies have just
gotten worse through my lifetime.
I feel for my grand-children and great-grand children as they now live in society that has
no value for honor. It's all expedience in the search for immediate personal gain.
I am and have been in the minority for decades now. I've always opposed our military
adventurism overseas from Korea to today. I never bought into the domino theory even at the
heights of the Cold War. And I don't buy into the current global hegemony destiny to bring
light to the savages. I've also opposed the build up of the national security surveillance
state as the antithesis of our founding. I am also opposed to the increasing concentration of
market power across every major market segment. It will be the destruction of our
entrepreneurial economy. The partisan duopoly is well past it's sell date. But right now the
majority are still caught up in rancorous battles on the side of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle
Dum.
A question to the committee: what is the source for the claim that Soleimani bears direct
responsibility for the death of over 600 US military personnel?
If that is the case (and it appears to be) then the US govt's claim is nonsense, as it
clearly says " 'During Operation Iraqi Freedom, DoD assessed that at least 603 U.S. personnel
deaths in Iraq were the result of Iran-backed militants,' Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson, a Pentagon
spokesman, said in an email."
So those figures represent casualties suffered during the US-led military invasion of Iraq
i.e. casualties suffered during a shooting-war.
If Soleimani is a legitimate target for assassination because of the success of his forces
on the battlefield then wouldn't that make Tommy Franks an equally-legitimate target?
Pulitzer Prize winning author of Caliphate, Romanian-American, Rukmini Callimachi, on the
intelligence on Soleimani "imminent threat" being razor-thin.
You just beat me to her thread, Jack. For the Twitter shy, this is the first of a series of 17
tweets as a teaser:
1. I've had a chance to check in with sources, including two US officials who had
intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani. Here is what I've learned. According to
them, the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is
"razor thin".
IMO, Craig Murray is pointing in the right direction around the word 'immanent,' by pointing
out that it is referring to the legally dubious Bethlehem Doctrine of Self Defense, the
Israeli, UK and US standard for assassination, in which immanent is defined as widely as, 'we
think they were thinking about it.' The USG managed to run afoul of even these overly
permissive guidelines, which are meant only against non-state actors.
"... As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven by Israeli agenda, it is creating popular unity in Iran despite all the recent socio-economic turmoil, political unity in Iraq despite the faction fractures, provides the framework for expelling US forces from Iraq, strengthens the Shia Crescent, brings together Shia and Sunni in all of the Muslim world, will provide the opportunity for some traditional US allies (Germany, France) to devise a more independent foreign policy, and the list of unintended consequences goes on. ..."
"... Iran is not like the US, who let Israel murder its citizens in total impunity during 9/11; they will use this adverse event to re-shape the region at their advantage. ..."
@Colin Wright
The way President Trump's ME policy is seen by the people of the region (as summarised by
Hassan Nasrallah) is that his strategies led to utter and complete failure.
– He repudiated the JCPOA and applied sanctions, requiring Iran to beg for
negotiations; they completely ignored him.
– Lebanon's Hezbollah has tremendously improved their military capabilities against the
demented racist state North of Gaza.
– Iraq is breaking free.
– The US-led coalition has lost the war on Syria.
– President Trump has recently made a political somersault and was obliged to initiate
talks with the Talibans, talks he initially repudiated.
– He just further lost credibility by abandoning the US Kurd allies to be slaughtered
by Erdogan.
– The wretched, impoverished, powerless Palestinians have superbly ignored his "Deal of
the Century"; they did not even attend the meetings.
If this is success, I wonder how failure looks like.
As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven by
Israeli agenda, it is creating popular unity in Iran despite all the recent socio-economic
turmoil, political unity in Iraq despite the faction fractures, provides the framework for
expelling US forces from Iraq, strengthens the Shia Crescent, brings together Shia and Sunni
in all of the Muslim world, will provide the opportunity for some traditional US allies
(Germany, France) to devise a more independent foreign policy, and the list of unintended
consequences goes on.
Only short-sighted Hasbara trolsl can think that the Solaimani murder is a success.
Iran is not like the US, who let Israel murder its citizens in total impunity during 9/11;
they will use this adverse event to re-shape the region at their advantage.
Israel is a short-sighted, greedy poker player; Iran is a profound, sophisticated chess
player who will win the long game.
@ChuckOrloski
At the time I thought that it might be justified, if Al Qaida actually did 9/11. Now I know
that Al Qaida was and is a CIA operation and have my doubts regarding its involvement in
9/11.
Even if it was, that was on direct orders of its American handlers.
What's more, now I
know for sure that the US government spreads shameless lies, so you can't believe anything it
says. In fact, you can safely assume that everything it says is a lie and be right 99.9% of
the time.
So, I did not see it as a war crime back then, but I do now.
"... This switch in US foreign policy was known in the White House of 2007 as "the redirection". It meant that Sunni jihadists like Al-Qaida and later al-Nusra were able to switch back to being valued allies of the United States. It redoubled the slavish tying of US foreign policy to Saudi interests. The axis was completed once Mohammad Bin Salman took control of Saudi Arabia. His predecessors had been coy about their de facto alliance with Israel. MBS felt no shyness about openly promoting Israeli interests, under the cloak of mutual alliance against Iran, calculating quite correctly that Arab street hatred of the Shia outweighed any solidarity with the Palestinians. Common enemies were easy for the USA/Saudi/Israeli alliance to identify; Iran, the Houthi, Assad and of course the Shia Hezbollah, the only military force to have given the Israelis a bloody nose. The Palestinians themselves are predominantly Sunni and their own Hamas was left friendless and isolated. ..."
"... Such precarious balance as there ever was in Iraq was upset this last two months when the US and Israelis transported more of their ISIL Sunni jihadists into Iraq, to escape the pincer of the Turkish, Russian and Syrian government forces. The Iranians were naturally not going to stand for this and Iranian militias were successfully destroying the ISIL remnants, which is why General Qassem Suleimani was in Iraq, why a US mercenary assisting ISIL was killed in an Iranian militia rocket attack, and why Syrian military representatives were being welcomed at Baghdad airport. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Tel Aviv and Riyadh will also be celebrating today at the idea that their dream of the USA destroying their regional rival Iran, as Iraq and Libya were destroyed, is coming closer. The USA could do this. The impact of technology on modern warfare should not be underestimated. There is a great deal of wishful thinking that fantasizes about US military defeat, but it is simply unrealistic if the USA actually opted for full scale invasion. ..."
"... Technology is a far greater factor in warfare than it was in the 1960s. The USA could destroy Iran, but the cost and the ramifications would be enormous, and not only the entire Middle East but much of South Asia would be destabilized, including of course Pakistan. My reading of Trump remains that he is not a crazed Clinton-type war hawk and it will not happen. We all have to pray it does not. ..."
For the United States to abandon proxy warfare
and directly kill one of Iran's most senior political figures has changed international
politics in a fundamental way. It is a massive error. Its ramifications are profound and
complex.
There is also a lesson to be learned here in that this morning there will be excitement and
satisfaction in the palaces of Washington, Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Tehran. All of the political
elites will see prospects for gain from the new fluidity. While for ordinary people in all
those countries there is only the certainty of more conflict, death and economic loss, for the
political elite, the arms manufacturers, the military and security services and allied
interests, the hedge funds, speculators and oil companies, there are the sweet smells of cash
and power.
Tehran will be pleased because the USA has just definitively lost Iraq. Iraq has a Shia
majority and so naturally tends to ally with Iran. The only thing preventing that was the Arab
nationalism of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Socialist Party. Bush and Blair were certainly fully
informed that by destroying the BA'ath system they were creating an Iranian/Iraqi nexus, but
they decided that was containable. The "containment" consisted of a deliberate and profound
push across the Middle East to oppose Shia influence in proxy wars everywhere.
This is the root cause of the disastrous war in Yemen, where the Zaidi-Shia would have been
victorious long ago but for the sustained brutal aerial warfare on civilians carried out by the
Western powers through Saudi Arabia. This anti-Shia western policy included the unwavering
support for the Sunni Bahraini autocracy in the brutal suppression of its overwhelmingly Shia
population. And of course it included the sustained and disastrous attempt to overthrow the
Assad regime in Syria and replace it with pro-Saudi Sunni jihadists.
This switch in US foreign policy
was known in the White House of 2007 as "the redirection". It meant that Sunni jihadists like
Al-Qaida and later al-Nusra were able to switch back to being valued allies of the United
States. It redoubled the slavish tying of US foreign policy to Saudi interests. The axis was
completed once Mohammad Bin Salman took control of Saudi Arabia. His predecessors had been coy
about their de facto alliance with Israel. MBS felt no shyness about openly promoting Israeli
interests, under the cloak of mutual alliance against Iran, calculating quite correctly that
Arab street hatred of the Shia outweighed any solidarity with the Palestinians. Common enemies
were easy for the USA/Saudi/Israeli alliance to identify; Iran, the Houthi, Assad and of course
the Shia Hezbollah, the only military force to have given the Israelis a bloody nose. The
Palestinians themselves are predominantly Sunni and their own Hamas was left friendless and
isolated.
The principal difficulty of this policy for the USA of course is Iraq. Having imposed a
rough democracy on Iraq, the governments were always likely to be Shia dominated and highly
susceptible to Iranian influence. The USA had a continuing handle through dwindling occupying
forces and through control of the process which produced the government. They also provided
financial resources to partially restore the physical infrastructure the US and its allies had
themselves destroyed, and of course to fund a near infinite pool of corruption.
That US influence was balanced by strong Iranian aligned militia forces who were an
alternative source of strength to the government of Baghdad, and of course by the fact that the
center of Sunni tribal strength, the city of Falluja, had itself been obliterated by the United
States, three times, in an act of genocide of Iraqi Sunni population.
Through all this the Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi had until now tiptoed with great
care. Pro-Iranian yet a long term American client, his government maintained a form of
impartiality based on an open hand to accept massive bribes from anybody. That is now over. He
is pro-Iranian now.
Such precarious balance as there ever was in Iraq was upset this last two months when the US
and Israelis transported more of their ISIL Sunni jihadists into Iraq, to escape the pincer of
the Turkish, Russian and Syrian government forces. The Iranians were naturally not going to
stand for this and Iranian militias were successfully destroying the ISIL remnants, which is
why General Qassem Suleimani was in Iraq, why a US mercenary assisting ISIL was killed in an
Iranian militia rocket attack, and why Syrian military representatives were being welcomed at
Baghdad airport.
It is five years since I was last in the Green Zone in Baghdad, but it is extraordinarily
heavily fortified with military barriers and checks every hundred yards, and there is no way
the crowd could have been allowed to attack the US Embassy without active Iraqi government
collusion. That profound political movement will have been set in stone by the US assassination
of Suleimani. Tehran will now have a grip on Iraq that could prove to be unshakable.
Nevertheless, Tel Aviv and Riyadh will also be celebrating today at the idea that their
dream of the USA destroying their regional rival Iran, as Iraq and Libya were destroyed, is
coming closer. The USA could do this. The impact of technology on modern warfare should not be
underestimated. There is a great deal of wishful thinking that fantasizes about US military
defeat, but it is simply unrealistic if the USA actually opted for full scale invasion.
Technology is a far greater factor in warfare than it was in the 1960s. The USA could destroy
Iran, but the cost and the ramifications would be enormous, and not only the entire Middle East
but much of South Asia would be destabilized, including of course Pakistan. My reading of Trump
remains that he is not a crazed Clinton-type war hawk and it will not happen. We all have to
pray it does not.
There will also today be rejoicing in Washington. There is nothing like an apparently
successful military attack in a US re-election campaign. The Benghazi Embassy disaster left a
deep scar upon the psyche of Trump's support base in particular, and the message that Trump
knows how to show the foreigners not to attack America is going down extremely well where it
counts, whatever wise people on CNN may say.
So what happens now? Consolidating power in Iraq and finishing the destruction of ISIL in
Iraq will be the wise advance that Iranian statesman can practically gain from these events.
But that is, of course, not enough to redeem national honor. Something quick and spectacular is
required for that. It is hard not to believe there must be a very real chance of action being
taken against shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, which Iran can do with little prior
preparation. Missile attacks on Saudi Arabia or Israel are also well within Iran's capability,
but it seems more probable that Iran will wish to strike a US target rather than a proxy. An
Ambassador may be assassinated. Further missile strikes against US outposts in Iraq are also
possible. All of these scenarios could very quickly lead to disastrous escalation.
In the short term, Trump in this situation needs either to pull out troops from Iraq or
massively to reinforce them. The UK does not have the latter option, having neither men nor
money, and should remove its 1400 troops now. Whether the "triumph" of killing Suleimani gives
Trump enough political cover for an early pullout – the wise move – I am unsure.
2020 is going to be a very dangerous year indeed.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster, human rights activist, and former diplomat. He
was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the
University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. The article is reprinted with permission from
his website .
"... As is evident from the yellow, green, red and black circles on the map below, which circles outline each missile's striking range, the overwhelming bulk of Iran's missile force has a range of 500 miles or less. These missiles are capable of hitting targets in the immediate vicinity of the Persian Gulf, or roughly the same area which encompasses the 35 military bases designated by American flags in the graphic above. ..."
"... Stated differently, Iran's extremely modest military capacities are not remotely about an offensive threat to the American homeland. They are overwhelmingly about defending itself in its own neighborhood, where Washington has been intervening and occupying with massive firepower and hostile intent for decades. ..."
"... So left to its own devices, Tehran would produce 5 million barrels per day from its abundant reserves. That's barely one-tenth of its present meager output, which is owing to Washington's vicious sanctions against any and all customers for its oil and potential investors in modernizing and expanding it production capacity. ..."
"... So if it's not ISIS or oil, exactly why does Washington maintain the circle of 35 bases displayed in the graphic above and keep thousands of US troops and other personnel in harms' way in the region? ..."
"... The answer, of course, is that the foreign policy apparatus of the US government is controlled by anti-Iran neocons and regime changers. We are still in Syria not to fight ISIS, which is gone, but to block Iran's land route to its allies in Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah); and we remain in Iraq solely to use it as a base for clandestine US and Israeli attacks on these allies and proxy forces. ..."
"... Likewise, the US military-industrial complex's greed and appetite for power and pelf is so voracious that it will embrace any and all missions anywhere on the planet – no matter how stupid or futile or immoral, as per the case of 19-years in Afghanistan – that keep the budgetary loot flowing. ..."
"... For crying out loud, Washington has been demonizing, ostracizing and economically attacking Iran for decades, and is now literally attempting to destroy its economy and society through is oil sanctions and its "maximum pressure" campaign that aims to bring the fate of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi to its top leaders in Tehran. ..."
"... That's why Secretary of State Pompeo's statement justifying the Donald's act of naked aggression is so hideous. ..."
"... Washington is putting the entire nation of Iran at risk in the very place where God or evolution, as the case may be, formed the peninsula on which it resides; and it is doing so without any Iranian provocation against the security of the American homeland whatsoever. ..."
"... "I can't talk too much about the nature of the threats. But the American people should know that the President's decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives," Pompeo told CNN. ..."
By the twisted logic of Imperial Washington you could
say the Iranians were asking for it. After all, they had the nerve to locate their country
right in the middle of 35 U.S. military bases!
Then again, your saner angels may ask: What in the hell is Washington doing with a massive
military footprint in a region and in a string of backwater countries that have virtually no
bearing on homeland security, safety and liberty?
In fact, Washington destroyed the former for no good reason and based on egregious Big Lies
about Saddam's nonexistent WMDs and sheltering of al-Qaeda. That turned Iraq into a failed
state hellhole pulsating with sectarian frictions and anti-American grievances – even as
the rump state of Iraq centered in Baghdad fell under the control of Iran-friendly Shiite
politicians and militias.
At the same time, Iran itself is zero threat to the American homeland. It's tiny $350
billion GDP amounts to 6 days of US annual output and its $20 billion defense budget is
equivalent to what the Pentagon wastes every 8 days.
Militarily, it has no blue water navy, an air force that could double as a cold war museum
and a short and medium range missile force that is self-evidently dedicated to defense and
deterrence in the region, not an attack on the USA way over on the yonder side of the deep blue
seas.
Its 300 or so active aircraft, for example, include 175 US F-4, F-5, F-14 and sundry
transports, helicopters and trainers purchased by the Shah during the 1970s and
kept together since the revolution with bailing wire and bubble gum. It also fields 60 or so
Soviet vintage MiG-29s and Sukhoi Su attack aircraft – plus a few dozen European and
Chinese planes of mostly ancient design.
Likewise, even its most advanced medium range cruise missile (Soumar) can barely get to
Rome, Italy, to say nothing of Rome, Georgia.
As is evident from the yellow, green, red and black circles on the map below, which circles
outline each missile's striking range, the overwhelming bulk of Iran's missile force has a
range of 500 miles or less. These missiles are capable of hitting targets in the immediate
vicinity of the Persian Gulf, or roughly the same area which encompasses the 35 military bases
designated by American flags in the graphic above.
Stated differently, Iran's extremely modest military capacities are not remotely about an
offensive threat to the American homeland. They are overwhelmingly about defending itself in
its own neighborhood, where Washington has been intervening and occupying with massive
firepower and hostile intent for decades.
Therein, of course, lies a hint. More than 13 years after Saddam's last hurrah on a Baghdad
gallows, the US still has upwards of 30,000 troops and contractors in the immediate vicinity of
the Persian Gulf. But why?
It can't be owing to ISIS. The Islamic State was never much more than a no count salient of
dusty, woebegone towns and villages on the Upper Euphrates straddling Western Iraq and
northeastern Syria that was destined to collapse on its own barbaric madness anyway; and which
was essentially dispatched by the Russian air force, Assad's military and the Shiite militia
forces organized by the dead man himself, Major General Soleimani.
Likewise, it should be obvious by now that it's not the oil, either. At the moment the US is
producing nearly 13 million barrels per day and is the world's leading oil producer –
well ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia; and is now actually a net exporter of crude for the
first time in three-quarters of a century.
Besides, the Fifth Fleet has never been the solution to oil security. The cure for high
prices is high prices – as the great US shale oil and Canadian heavy oil booms so
cogently demonstrate, among others.
And the route to global oil industry stability is peaceful commerce because virtually every
regime – regardless of politics and ideology – needs all the oil revenue it can
muster to fund its own rule and keep its population reasonably pacified.
Surely, there is no better case for the latter than that of Iran itself – with an
economy burdened by decades of war, sanctions and mis-rule and an 80-million population that
aspires to a western standard of living.
So left to its own devices, Tehran would produce 5 million barrels per day from its abundant
reserves. That's barely one-tenth of its present meager output, which is owing to Washington's
vicious sanctions against any and all customers for its oil and potential investors in
modernizing and expanding it production capacity.
So if it's not ISIS or oil, exactly why does Washington maintain the circle of 35 bases
displayed in the graphic above and keep thousands of US troops and other personnel in harms'
way in the region?
Or more to the moment, why has the Donald been unable to bring the forces home as he has so
often proclaimed to be his policy?
The answer, of course, is that the foreign policy apparatus of the US government is
controlled by anti-Iran neocons and regime changers. We are still in Syria not to fight ISIS,
which is gone, but to block Iran's land route to its allies in Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah);
and we remain in Iraq solely to use it as a base for clandestine US and Israeli attacks on
these allies and proxy forces.
These Washington instigated or conducted attacks on Iranian allies, in fact, are why there
was growing pressure in the Iraqi government to demand that the US finally leave. These
pressures will now become overwhelming in light of this week's US bombing of five PMF camps
(Popular Mobilization Forces) which are Shiite militias that have been integrated into the
Iraqi army and which are under the command of its prime minister, and last night's
assassination of their Deputy Commander along with Soleimani.
To be sure, Iran's choice of allies has nothing to do with America's homeland security: None
of the sovereign governments of Lebanon (where Hezbollah is the leading political party) or
Syria or even Iraq (which is an ostensible US ally) have protested these confession (i.e.
Shiite) based arrangements and the aid and benefits which flow from them.
That's because the so-called Shiite crescent is a bogeyman invented by Bibi Netanyahu and is
the excuse for his hysterical anti-Iranian foreign policy. The latter is not even designed to
enhance Israel's own security, but to vilify a "far enemy" that can keep his rightwing
coalition glued together and himself in power.
Likewise, the US military-industrial complex's greed and appetite for power and pelf is so
voracious that it will embrace any and all missions anywhere on the planet – no matter
how stupid or futile or immoral, as per the case of 19-years in Afghanistan – that keep
the budgetary loot flowing.
Accordingly, the Washington apparatus conspires to keep the 35 Mideast bases in place and to
trigger actions like last night's insane assassination of Iran's foremost military leader in
order to reify the threat and to periodically stoke tensions and counterattacks that keep
missions alive and the forces deployed.
Indeed, we are hard-pressed to imagine a more poignant case of the pot calling the kettle
black than Washington's claim that it had to retaliate owing to actual and expected Iranian
"aggression".
For crying out loud, Washington has been demonizing, ostracizing and economically attacking
Iran for decades, and is now literally attempting to destroy its economy and society through is
oil sanctions and its "maximum pressure" campaign that aims to bring the fate of Saddam Hussein
and Muammar Gaddafi to its top leaders in Tehran.
So do ya think a regime under a veritable existential threat might gravitate toward
retaliation as an alternative to extinction?
And we needs be clear about the matter of striking back in self defense. Washington's
current sanctions campaign against Iran is so aggressive and brutal that it constitutes war by
any other name.
When you surround a sovereign nation with an armada of land, sea and air-based high-tech
lethality and than declare outright economic war on it with a barely-disguised aim of regime
change, it must and will fight back however it can.
That's why Secretary of State Pompeo's statement justifying the Donald's act of naked
aggression is so hideous.
Washington is putting the entire nation of Iran at risk in the very place where God or
evolution, as the case may be, formed the peninsula on which it resides; and it is doing so
without any Iranian provocation against the security of the American homeland whatsoever.
But this neocon knucklehead has the gall to insist that when it comes to the actual
anti-Iranian belligerents (i.e. U.S. forces) Washington has bivouacked where they have no
business being at all, that not a hair on their head should come to harm.
That's Imperial arrogance of a kind rarely seen in a world history which is littered with
exactly that.
"I can't talk too much about the nature of the threats. But the American people should
know that the President's decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield saved American
lives," Pompeo told CNN.
The IRGC general had been "actively plotting" in the region to "take big action,
as he described it, that would have put hundreds of lives at risk," according to
Pompeo.
Undoubtedly, things will now spiral out of control because the Iranian regime must and will
retaliate for Soleimani's death. Indeed, by vaporizing the latter, the Donald has now also
vaporized any chance of actually implementing the "America First" policy upon which he ran, and
which was the principal basis for his freakish elevation to the Oval Office.
The fact is, the only decent thing Obama did on the foreign policy front was the Iran Nuke
Deal. Under the latter, Iran gave up a nuclear weapons capability it never had or wanted for
the return of billions of escrowed dollars (which belong to Tehran in the first place), while
putting itself in a straight-jacket of international inspections and controls that even Houdini
could not have broken free from.
But the Donald wantonly shit-canned this arrangement, not because Iran violated either the
letter or spirit of the deal, but because the neocons – led by his bubble-headed
son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu errand boy, Jared Kushner – blatantly lied to him about its
alleged defects.
Indeed, the resulting Washington pivot to the current "maximum pressure" aggression against
Iran is fast becoming the Empire most demented and shameful hour – even as it crystalizes
like rarely before the difference between homeland defense and imperial aggression.
Under the former, not one American serviceman, contractor or civilian official would be in
harms' way because the ring of hostile bases surrounding Iran would not exist nor would
Washington be waging economic warfare on what would otherwise be a prosperous 5 million barrel
per day oil trade with the world.
Only empires put their citizens needlessly in harms' way and thereby trap their leader's
into a cycle of violence which feeds upon itself.
The Donald is now yet another American president ensnared in the kind of tit-for-tat trap
that is the modus operandi of Empire First.
"... work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason ..."
"... Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop presence in the country did not go far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized . ..."
"... The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and without hesitation! ..."
First, let’s begin by a quick summary of what has taken place (note: this info is still coming in, so there might be corrections
once the official sources make their official statements).
Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdl Mahdi has now officially revealed that the US had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran
and that General Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him the answer to his mediation efforts. Thus, Soleimani was
on an OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC MISSION as part of a diplomatic initiative INITIATED BY THE USA .
The Iraqi Parliament has now voted on a resolution requiring the government to press Washington and its allies to withdraw
their troops from Iraq.
Iraq’s caretaker PM Adil Abdul Mahdi said the American side notified the Iraqi military about the planned airstrike minutes
before it was carried out. He stressed that his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.
The Iraqi Parliament has also demanded that the Iraqi government must “ work to end the presence of any foreign troops
on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason “
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had turned to the UN Security Council with complaints about US violations of
its sovereignty .
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop presence in the country did not go
far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized
.
The Pentagon brass is now laying the responsibility for this monumental disaster on Trump (see
here ). The are now slowly waking up to this immense clusterbleep and don’t want to be held responsible for what is coming
next.
For the first time in the history of Iran, a Red Flag was hoisted over the Holy Dome Of Jamkaran Mosque , Iran. This indicates
that the blood of martyrs has been spilled and that a major battle will now happen . The text in the flag say s “ Oh Hussein we
ask for your help ” (u nofficial translation 1) or “ Rise up and avenge al-Husayn ” (unofficial translation 2)
The US has announced the deployment of 3’000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne to Kuwait .
Finally, the Idiot-in-Chief tweeted the following message , probably to try to reassure his freaked out supporters: “
The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World!
If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and
without hesitation! “. Apparently, he still thinks that criminally overspending for 2nd rate military hardware is going to
yield victory…
Analysis
Well, my first though when reading these bullet points is that General Qasem Soleimani has already struck out at Uncle Shmuel
from beyond his grave . What we see here is an immense political disaster unfolding like a slow motion train wreck. Make no mistake,
this is not just a tactical "oopsie", but a major STRATEGIC disaster . Why?
For one thing, the US will now become an official and totally illegal military presence in Iraq. This means that whatever SOFA
(Status Of Forces Agreement) the US and Iraq had until now is void.
Second, the US now has two options:
Fight and sink deep into a catastrophic quagmire or Withdraw from Iraq and lose any possibility to keep forces in Syria
Both of these are very bad because whatever option Uncle Shmuel chooses, he will lost whatever tiny level of credibility he has
left, even amongst his putative "allies" (like the KSA which will now be left nose to nose with a much more powerful Iran than ever
before).
The main problem with the current (and very provisional) outcome is that both the Israel Lobby and the Oil Lobby will now be absolutely
outraged and will demand that the US try to use military power to regime change both Iraq and Iran.
Needless to say, that ain't happening (only ignorant and incurable flag-wavers believe the silly claptrap about the US armed forces
being "THE BEST").
Furthermore, it is clear that by it's latest terrorist action the USA has now declared war on BOTH Iraq and Iran.
This is so important that I need to repeat it again:
The USA is now at war, de-facto and de-jure , with BOTH Iraq and Iran.
I hasten to add that the US is also at war with most of the Muslim world (and most definitely all Shias, including Hezbollah and
the Yemeni Houthis).
Next, I want to mention the increase in US troop numbers in the Middle-East. An additional 3'000 soldiers from the 82nd AB is
what would be needed to support evacuations and to provide a reserve force for the Marines already sent in. This is NOWHERE NEAR
the kind of troop numbers the US would need to fight a war with either Iraq or Iran.
Finally, there are some who think that the US will try to invade Iran. Well, with a commander in chief as narcissistically delusional
as Trump, I would never say "never" but, frankly, I don't think that anybody at the Pentagon would be willing to obey such an order.
So no, a ground invasion is not in the cards and, if it ever becomes an realistic option we would first see a massive increase in
the US troop levels, we are talking several tens of thousands, if not more (depending on the actual plan).
No, what the US will do if/when they attack Iran is what Israel did to Lebanon in 2006, but at a much larger scale. They will
begin by a huge number of airstrikes (missiles and aircraft) to hit:
Iranian air defenses Iranian command posts and Iranian civilian and military leaders Symbolic targets (like nuclear installations
and high visibility units like the IRGC) Iranian navy and coastal defenses Crucial civilian infrastructure (power plants, bridges,
hospitals, radio/TV stations, food storage, pharmaceutical installations, schools, historical monuments and, let's not forget that
one, foreign embassies of countries who support Iran). The way this will be justified will be the same as what was done to Serbia:
a "destruction of critical regime infrastructure" (what else is new?!)
Then, within about 24-48 hours the US President will go on air an announce to the world that it is "mission accomplished" and
that "THE BEST" military forces in the galaxy have taught a lesson to the "Mollahs". There will be dances in the streets of Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem (right until the moment the Iranian missiles will start dropping from the sky. At which point the dances will be replaced
by screams about a "2nd Hitler" and the "Holocaust").
Then all hell will break loose (I have discussed that so often in the past that I won't go into details here).
In conclusion, I want to mention something more personal about the people of the US.
Roughly speaking, there are two main groups which I observed during my many years of life in the USA.
Group one : is the TV-watching imbeciles who think that the talking heads on the idiot box actually share real knowledge and expertise.
As a result, their thinking goes along the following lines: " yeah, yeah, say what you want, but if the mollahs make a wrong move,
we will simply nuke them; a few neutron bombs will take care of these sand niggers ". And if asked about the ethics of this stance,
the usual answer is a " f**k them! they messed with the wrong guys, now they will get their asses kicked ".
Group two : is a much quieter group. It includes both people who see themselves as liberals and conservatives. They are totally
horrified and they feel a silent rage against the US political elites. Friends, there are A LOT of US Americans out there who are
truly horrified by what is done in their name and who feel absolutely powerless to do anything about it. I don't know about the young
soldiers who are now being sent to the Middle-East, but I know a lot of former servicemen who know the truth about war and about
THE BEST military in the history of the galaxy and they are also absolutely horrified.
I can't say which group is bigger, but my gut feeling is that Group Two is much bigger than Group One. I might be wrong.
I am now signing off but I will try to update you here as soon as any important info comes in.
The Saker
UPDATE1 : according to the Russian website Colonel
Cassad , Moqtada al-Sadr has officially made the following demands to the Iraqi government:
Immediately break the cooperation agreement with the United States. Close the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Close all U.S. military bases
in Iraq. Criminalize any cooperation with the United States. To ensure the protection of Iraqi embassies. Officially boycott American
products.
Cassad (aka Boris Rozhin) also posted this excellent caricature:
UPDATE3 : al-Manar reports that two rockets have landed near the US embassy in Baghdad.
UPDATE4 :
Zerohedge
is reporting that Iranian state TV broadcasted an appeal made during the funeral procession in which a speaker said that each
Iranian ought to send one dollar per person (total 80'000'000 dollars) as a bounty for the killing of Donald Trump. I am trying to
get a confirmation from Iran about this.
UPDATE5 : Russian sources claim that all Iranian rocket forces have been put on combat alert.
UPDATE6 : the Russian heavy rocket cruiser "Marshal Ustinov" has cross the Bosphorus and has entered the Mediterranean.
The Essential Saker III: Chronicling The Tragedy, Farce And Collapse of the Empire in the Era of Mr MAGA
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Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire
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Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdl Mahdi has now officially revealed that the US had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran
and that General Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him the answer to his mediation efforts. Thus, Soleimani was
on an OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC MISSION as part of a diplomatic initiative INITIATED BY THE USA.
If this is true, it makes America's murder of General Soleimani even more outrageous. This would be like the USA sending an
American regime official to some other country for a negotiation only to have him/her drone striked in the process!
America reveals its malign character as even more sick that even its opponents have thought possible.
Perhaps, Iran should request that Mike Pompeo come to Baghdad for a negotiation about General Soleimani 's murder and then
"bug splat" Pompeo's fat ass from a drone!
"For one thing, the US will now become an official and totally illegal military presence in Iraq. This means that whatever SOFA
(Status Of Forces Agreement) the US and Iraq had until now is void."
-I actually read somewhere that the Iraqi government is just a caretaker government and even thought it voted to remove foreign
forces, it is not actually legally binding.
I'm no lawyer. I don't see why that would matter. If a caretaker government is presented with a crisis, why would it not have
the authority to act?
That said, It could be the line the US government chooses to use to insist its presence is still legal. If course the MSM will
repeat and repeat and make it seem real.
Couldn't agree more. When I read that my jaw dropped and I'm sure my eyes went huge. I just couldn't believe they could be that
stupid, or that immoral, that sunk in utter utter depravity. They truly are those who have not one shred of decency, and thus
have no way of recognising or understanding what decency is. Pure psychopath – an inability to grasp the emotions, values, and
world view of those who are normal. This truly is beyond the pale, and this above everything else will ensure the revenge the
heartbroken people of Iran are seeking. May God bless them.
The US Armed Forces do not need to be 'THE BEST". All they need is mountains of second rate ordinance to re-bury Iraq bury Iran
under rubble. They can then keep their forces in tightly fortified compounds and bomb the c**p out of any one who wants to 'steal
their oil', or any one who wants to 'steal the land promised by God to the Chosen People'. The U.S. has always previously been
limited in their avarice for destruction by their desire to be viewed as the 'good guy'. This limitation has now been stripped
away. There is now nothing to stop the AngloZionist entity except naked force in return.
"realistic option we would first see a massive increase in the US troop levels, we are talking several tens of thousands, if not
more (depending on the actual plan)."
Yes, but these are not part of a single force, many of these are more a target than a threat. Besides, they need to be concentrated
into a a few single forces to actually participate in an invasion.
The Saker
To understand troop size and relevance think along these lines. For every US front line soldier there will be 5 others in support
roles, logistics etc. So for every front line fighting Marine there will be 5 others who got him there and who support him in
his work. 10,000 front line fighting troops means 50,000 troops shipping out to the borders of Iran. I think perhaps you would
need 100,000 US front line troops for an invasion AND occupation (because we all know if they go in they aren't going to leave
quickly) We're talking about half a million US troops, this simply isn't going to happen for multiple reasons, not least they
need to amass at some form of base (probably Iraq – yeah right) maybe Kuwait? They'd just be a constant sitting target. Saker
is correct in that if this goes down it's going to be an air campaign (will the Iranians use the S300s they have?) and possibly
Navy supported. the Israelis will help out but in turn make themselves targets at home for rocket attacks. Again I can't see it
happening, it would take too long to arrange plus from the moment it kicks off every US base, individual is just a target to the
majority of anti US forces spread across the whole middle east. I expect back door diplomacy, probably to little effect, and a
ham fisted token blitz of cruise missiles and drone bombs at Iranian infrastructure, sadly this will not work for the Americans,
we will have a long running campaign on ME ground but also mass terrorist activity across the US and some of its allies. Its a
best guess scenario but if that plays out whatever happens to Iran this war will be another long running death by a 1000 cuts
for the US and will guarantee Trump does not get re-elected.
Whoever sold this to Trump (Bolton via Pompeo? Bibi?) has really lit the touch paper of ruin. Yes it stinks of Netanyahoo but
it also reaks of full strength neocon, Bolton style. Trump is dumb enough to fall for it and obviously did.
1. To read the Colonel Cassad website in English or any other language, just go to
https://translate.yandex.com/ and then paste in the Cassad URL, which
is given above but again, it's https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/
The really nice thing is that when you click on links, Yandex Translate automatically translates those links. Two problems, though.
1. For some unknown reason, Yandex always first translates Cassad as English-to-Russian, and then you have to click on a little
window near the top left, to again request Russian-to-English and then it translates everything fine. I do not experience this
problem when using Yandex on any other website. 2. Unlike what Benders-Lee intended when he invented the web browser, the "back
button" almost doesn't work on Yandex Translate. So always right-click to open links in a new tab.
2. The US could probably carry out a large number of air attacks, but the Iranian response would be to destroy all the Gulf
oil facilities AND everything worth bombing in Israel. This potential for offense is Iran's best defense, and, I think, the main
reason why there hasn't been a war. Iran's air defense missiles are probably more effective than the lying MSM will admit, and
might shoot down a large percentage of the humans and aluminum the US would throw at Iran, but it's a matter of attrition, and
Iran would suffer grave damage. We can't rule out that that might be the plan since the Empire is run by psychopaths. A US Army
elite training manual, from 2012 in Kansas, implied that by 2020, Europe would not be a major power. Perhaps they were thinking
that Europe would go out of business from a lack of Persian Gulf oil.
3. As for a ground war against Iran, I don't think the US or even the US with the former NATO coalition, would have any hope
and they know it. A real invasion force would require at least 250,000 troops, probably 500,000, maybe more. 80 million very determined
and united Iranians, many of whom who don't fear martyrdom, would make the Vietnam War look like a bad picnic with fire ants
. Yes, Vietnam had jungle for guerillas to hide behind, but South Vietnamese society was divided and many supported the Americans.
Iran has no such division. Even the Arab province of Khuzestan would stand united, knowing how the Shiite Arabs are mistreated
in the Eastern Province and in Kuwait.
Count me in as part of group two. As a former U.S. Army service member I can assure anyone reading this that this action is an
historic strategic mistake. What the Saker has outlined above is very likely. There is most probably no way to walk back now.
Who in the ME would negotiate with the U.S. Government? Their perfidy is well known. Many citizen in this country feel like they
are held hostage by a government that doesn't represent their interests or feelings. I hope the people in the ME know this.
Since the folks in the ME know that the US is a "pretend democracy" they also realize that the people of the USA are just as oppressed
by the AngloZionist regime as the people abroad. Frankly, I have traveled on a lot of countries and I have never come across anything
like real hostility towards the US American people. The very same people who hate Uncle Shmuel very much enjoy US music, literature,
movies, novel ideas, etc. I believe that the Empire is truly hated across the globe, but not the people of the USA.
Kind regards
The Saker
As long as people of the USA tolerate their government criminal activities around the world, and this is happening for last 70
years, I don't agree with your comment. These crimes are commited in the name of people of the USA, who are doing nothing to prevent
them. As for movies coming from US, most of them are propaganda about 'exceptional nation'. No thanks.
The United States of America is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic. That being said, the fall elections are going
to be of significant interest.
Couldn't agree with you less Saker. They share the spoils of war, generation after generation. From the killing of indigenous
population to neocolonial resource extraction today, they get their cut. You cannot have it both ways, enjoying the spoils of
war and hiding behind invalid rationalizations, pretending you have no-thingz to do with that.
Russian TV says that there were anti-war demonstrations in 80 (!) US cities.
I don't have the time to check whether this is true, but it sure sounds credible to me.
The Saker
This information is true. I personally took part in the march in Denver, Colorado. I would estimate we had about 500 people,
which is a lot more than most anti-war protests have ever gotten in recent memory.
Do not count out the possibility of a sudden large and massive anti-war movement suddenly springing out of nowhere.
Unfortunately, I do not see how "peaceful" protests will accomplish anything on their own. Rioting may be necessary. The system
needs to be shut down and commerce slow to a crawl so that nobody may ignore this.
I agree that there will first be a period of violent confusion, followed by -- well, what sane person even wants to think about
what possible horrors lie ahead?
The threat of one or more spectacular false flag attacks to further fan the flames would also appear to be a possibility.
Real evil has been unleashed, that is clear. The empire has decided to fight, and to fight very dirty.
Wasn't the Saker working in the employ of the US or NATO when they attacked Srbija without cause? Because that was my understanding.
Actually, no. I was working at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.
But thanks for showing everybody how ugly, petty and clueless ad hominem using trolls can be!
The Saker
"I can't say which group is bigger, but my gut feeling is that Group Two is much bigger than Group One. I might be wrong."
My personal observation is unfortunately the opposite. I think the population that is over 40 is probably leans 80% toward
the TV-watching imbecile category with zero critical thinking abilities and exposure to four plus decades of propaganda. The population
under 40 is largely too apathetic to have an opinion and unwilling to engage in research.
History will most likely play out in disaster resulting from a corrupt ruling class, systemic institutional rot, and brain-washed
public not realizing what's happened.
I will hazard a guess and say there are far more men than women in Group 1, and many more draft-age young adults of both sexes
in Group 2.
But by and large a disturbing number of people in America regard world events as being akin to a football game, with Team A
and Team B and a score to be kept. If things don't appear to be going well for their "team," they speak and behave irrationally,
with crass statements like "nuke the whole place and turn it into a glass parking lot." Impressive, isn't it? Grown adults, comporting
themselves like overindulged little children, always accustomed to getting their way – and displaying a terrifying willingness
to set the whole house on fire when they don't.
It is a spiritual illness which pollutes the USA. Terrible things will have to happen before the society can become well, again
Even if only 20% of the population join us, that will be enough. Because guess what? The TV-watching imbeciles are fat, lazy,
and they won't do anything to support the government either, and they definitely aren't brave enough to get in the way of an angry
mob
It's interesting to me, this comment of Sakers'. I have been thinking, with these revelations of the utter depravity and total
lack of what was once called "honour " and treating the enemy with respect, of a few instances which seemed to show me that not
all of America was like this.
There is a scene in the much loved but short lived** TV series "Firefly" in which the rebel "outsider" spaceship Captain offers
a doctor on the run a berth with them. The Doctor says "but you dont like me. You could kill me in my sleep" to which the Captain
replies "Son, you dont know me yet, So let me tell you know, If i ever try to kill you, you will be awake, you will be facing
me, and you will be armed"
Exactly I thought. There is a Code of Honour by which battles used to be fought. This latest by US has shown how low it's Ruling
Regime is, that is doesn't not see that. But from examples like the above, I gathered that there are people in America who still
hold to it closely – and that's good to know.
** Short lived because it showed as it's heroes a group of people who lived outside the Ruling Tyrannical Regime, who had fought
for Independence and lost, and now lived "by their wits" and not always according to law. Not surprising that the rulers of US
weren't going to allow that to go to air!!
Unfortunately I believe the largest group in the USA is the "nuke 'em group". All of my friends watch Fox and none have an understanding
of the empire.
Sake thank you as always for your excellent work. What do you think Iran will attack first?
Thanks Saker for this discussion/information space you provide when nothing is very trustworthy and on what is a holiday week
end for you.
Two points:
Never underestimate the perfidy of the Kurds. They held back on the censure/withdrawal vote in the Iraqi\
parliament and are probably offering withdrawal airport space for US military.
And Agreed, about most Americans being absolutely horrified and ashamed.Even Alex Jones had to put Syrian Girl on and to post
her on video.banned. One of his callers demanded that Alex apologize to his listening audience on "bended knee" for his support
of Trump's attack on Iran. When Alex tried to schmooze
the irate caller -- The man started yelling -- "Who cares, Alex, who cares about Iran my neighbors have no jobs
and are dying from drug overdoses. who cares about Israel? Let them take care of themselves."
Trump has sealed his own fate on many levels and ours her in looneylandia. It is said that a nation gets the leadership it
deserves. We are about to become a nation of the yard-sale.
Whew, this is something to chew on and try to digest. That first point jumped right off the page. General Soleimani was on an
official diplomatic mission, requested by the U.S.! They set him up and were waiting for him to get in his car at the airport
and go onto the road.
The entire world will know there is no way to justify this. It is just as ugly as the public murder of JFK. They have zero credibility
in all they say and do. It will be interesting to see who supports what is coming and who have gotten the message from this murder
and have decided they cannot support this beast.
How many missiles does the us have in the middle east?
How many air defense missiles does have iran?
Does iran have the ability to destroy us airbases to prevent aircraft from attacking iranian territory? That would be my first
move: destroying the ennemy s fighter jets while they are still on the ground.
How many missiles does iran can launch ? How far can they hit?
I think these are important questions if we want to make a good assessment of the situation
Thank you for the continuing courageous, fact-based reporting.
All as-yet-unenslaved-minds of the oppressed people living under the auspices of the empire share the horror of what has happened,
made worse so, for I personally, learning the evil duplicity of the 'fake' diplomacy of the masters of the U.S.A. administration.
If there had been any credibility whatsoever, left for the U.S.A. diplomatic integrity, it is now completely murdered.
I should like to point out, yet again, the perverse obviousness of the utter subordination of the utterly testiclesless
america n ' leadership ' by the affiliates, dually loyal extra-nationals, aligned to the quasi-nation of
pychopathic hatred against humanity.
In spite of, and now increasingly because of, the absurd perception management/propaganda agencies, completely controlled by
this aforementioned affiliation, and their ongoing absurd efforts, people are becoming aware of the ultimate source of the hatred
and agenda we re witnessing in the ME, and indeed, in ever country under the auspices of the empire.
It is becoming impossible to cover, even for the most timid followers of the citizens of empire-controlled nation states.
The war continues against the non-subliminated citizens, and will certainly escalate as the traction of the perception-management
techniques have been pushed way over their best-before date.
Even not wanting to know this, people are becoming aware of it.
I urge all those self-identifying with this affiliation of secretive hatred against humanity to disavow either publicly, or
privately, this collective of hatred.
The recusement of the fifth-column will undermine these machinations.
It is now the time to realize that no promise of superior upward mobility, in exchange for activities supporting the affiliation,
is worth the stark prospect of complete destruction of the biosphere.
Saker: what makes you think it will just be a couple of days of bombing? I would have thought they would set up a no fly zone
then fly over that country permanently blowing the shit out of any military thing on the ground until the gov collapses.
Iran doesn't have the ability to prevent this & running a country under these conditions is impossible.
Set up a no-fly zone over Iran? Iran is well aware of American air-power. They have a multi-layer air defense. And I wouldn't
be surprised that the Iranian's are capable of taking out U.S. satellites.
Iran knows their enemy. They have been preparing for conflict with the U.S. for 40 years. This is a sophisticated, and highly
advanced nation, with brilliant leadership. They understand what their weaknesses are, and what their strengths are.
The wild cards are threefold: Russia. China. North Korea. If one wants to think about the possible asymmetrical capabilities
of those three, let alone the pure power their militaries, it boggles the mind.
Prediction: The U.S. stands down on orders of their own military. People like John Bolton quietly pass away in their sleep.
The only no fly zone to be implemented will be on all american warplanes over Iran and Iraq. Do you remember the multimillion
drone that went down? Multipliy it by hundreds of manned planes. God, how delusional can you be?!!!
You have a fighting force that is a disgrace composed by little girls that start screeming once they get bullets flying over their
heads. You have aircraft battle groups that are sitting ducks waitng to go to the bottom of the sea. Wake up and get your pills,
man!
Paul23, from where will the aircraft take off to implement your "no-fly zone"? Any air base within 2,000 km would be destroyed
by a shower of cruise missiles and possibly drones.
It is Group 1 -- loud, reactionary, extremely vulgar, militant parasites -- which defines the US national character. Exceptional
and indispensable simply mean "entitled to other peoples' natural resources and labour output". Trying to reason with these lowlives
is a waste of time. Putin understands this; hence the new Russian weapons. The latter will be needed very soon.
Americans are a good people but America is one of the most heavily propagandized nations in the world. The media is corrupt.
The educational systems teach a sanitized version of history. But that is only a part of it.
Pro-Military propaganda is everywhere. Even before the Superbowl, jet bombers fly over the stadium – as if Militarism constituted
a basic American value. At Airports, "Military Personnel" are given preferential boarding. At retail stores customers are asked
to make donations to "military families." College football games are dedicated to "Military Appreciation Day." High Schools work
in unison with Military Recruiters to steer students into the Military. Even playground facilities for children that have video
displays display pro military messages. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Most of this propaganda is paid for out of the obscene military budget. The average citizen doesn't have a chance.
Americans are a good people, if they really knew what was being done in their name, they would put a stop to it.
Militant parasites do live in a world of total lies, deception, and delusion but never at the expense of their survival
instincts. US imperial coercion, mayhem, and murder globally are absolutely crucial to the American way of life, and the 99% know
it. Their living standards would drop enormously without the imperial loot. Thus, they dearly yearn for all the repression, war,
and chauvinism they vote for and more.
One thing is telling, at least for me. Who the f in the right state of mind kills other state's official and then admits of doing
it?!? The common sense sense tells me that you do something and to avoid bigger consequences you stay quet and deny everything.
Just like CIA is doing. Trump just put US military personnel in grave danger. We know how they accused Manning for showing the
to the world US war crimes. They put him in the jail for what Trump just did. But, I cannot believe that they are that much stupid.
If US does not want war, as Trump is saying, they could have done this and then blame someone else because now it has been shown
that they wanted to "talk" to Iran, as Iraqis PM said. At least, US brought new meaning to the word "talk"
The most damaging, no most devestating, assymetrical attack on the US would be a 'non violent' attack.
Let me quickly explain.
It has been well known since the exposure of the man behind the curtain during the great financial crisis of 2007-08 that all
Human operations – all Human life in fact – is financialised in some way.
Some ways being so sophisticated or 'subtle' that barely 1 person in 1000 is even aware, much less capable of understanding
them, much less the financial control grid (and state / deepstate power base) which empoverishs them and enslaves them to an endless
cycle of aquiring and spending 'money'.
Look deeply and the wise will see how 'Human resources' (as opposed to Human Beings) are herded like cattle to be worked on
the farm, 'fleeced', or slaughtered as appropriate to the money masters.
We have been programmed, trained, and conditioned to call 'currency units' (dollar/euro/pound/yuan, etc) 'money', when they
are actually nothing of the sort, they are state or bank issued money substitutes.
In the middle east and north africa some leaders recognised this determined how to escape slavery and subjegation. They attempted
to field this knowledge like an economic-nuke, but without the massive protection required, and they were destroyed by the empire
– Sadam Hussain with his oil for Gold (and oil for Euros) program, and Col. Gadaffi of Libya with his North African 'Gold Dinar'
and 'Silver Durham' Islamic money program.
To cut a very long story short – the evil empire depends upon all nations and peoples excepting thier pieces of paper currency
units as 'real' money – which the empire print / create in unlimited quantities to fund thier war machine and global progrram
of domination.
All financial markets are either denominated or settled in US Dollars (or are at least convertable).
All Nations Central Banks (except Irans I believe) are linked via various US Dollar exchange / liquidity mechanisms, and all
'settle' in US Dollars.
Currently all nations use US controlled electronic banking communications / exchange / tranfer systems (swift being the most
well known).
Would it therefore not make sence to go for the very beating heart of the Beast – the US financial system?
The most powerful attack against the empire would therefore be against this power base – the global reserve currency – the
US dollar – and the US ability to print any quantity of it (or create digits on a screen and call them 'Dollar Units').
It would be pointless trying to fight an emnemy capable of printing for free enough currency to buy every resource (including
peoples lives) – unless that super ability was destroyed or disrupted.
Example of a massive nuclear equivilent attack on the beast would be an internal and major disrruption of interbank electronic
communications (at all levels from cash machine operation and card payment readers up to interbank transfers and federal banking
operations).
Shut down the US banking system and you shut down the US war machine.
Not only that you shut down the US ability to buy resources and bribe powerful leaders – which means they wont be able to recover
from such a blow quickly.
Shutting down banking and electronic payments of all kinds would cause the US people – particularly those currently enjoying
bread and circus distraction and pacification – to tear appart thier own communities, and each other, as the spoiled and gready
fight for the remaining resources, including food and fuel.
The 'grid' has been studied in great depth by both Russia and China (and Israel as part of thier neo-sampson option) and we
can therefore deduce that Iran has some knowledge of how it works and where the weak links are (and not just the undersea optical
cables and wireless nodes).
I, and a thousand other people have always said, the best, perhaps only way to defeat the US and end its reign of terror on
this Earth is to take away its ability to create out of thin air the Worlds global reserve currency – the US Dollar.
Reducing the US to an empoverished 3rd world state by taking its check book away would be a worthy and lasting revenge and
humiliation.
" I, and a thousand other people have always said, the best, perhaps only way to defeat the US and end its reign of terror on
this Earth is to take away its ability to create out of thin air the Worlds global reserve currency – the US Dollar. "
No, the best way would be for each nation to ditch the intertwined, privately ( Rothschild ) controlled central banks, and
to return to printing their own money. Anything, short of that will just perpetuate the same system from a different home base
( nation ), most likely China next. This virus can jump hosts and it will given a chance.
Who knows what will happen, but an actual boots on the ground invasion of Iran will not happen. Iran is not Irak and things have
changed since that war.
US does not have 6 to 12 months to gather it's forces and logistics for an invasion (remember, the election is coming), plus
US no longer has the heavy lift assets to do this. Toss in the fact that Iran is now on a war footing and has allies in the general
AO, hired RoRo's and other logistics and supply assets will be targets before they get anywhere near the ports or beaches to off
load. Plus, you can kiss oil goodbye, Iran will close the straights a nanosecond after the first bomb is in the air.
An air assault such as Serbia will be very expensive, Iran will fight back from the first bomb if not before, and Iran has
a pretty viable air defense system and the missiles to make life miserable for any cluster of troops and logistics within roughly
300 kilometers of the borders if not longer. Look at a map. There is a long border between Iran and Irak, but as such and considering
the terrain, any viable ground attack has to come from Irak territory. With millions of Iraki's seething at what Uncle Sugar just
did and millions of Iranians seething at what Uncle Sugar just did, any invading troops will not be greeted with showers spring
blossoms. To paraphrase a quote, 'You will be safe nowhere, our land will be your grave.'
Toss in the fact that an invasion of Irak, if even half successful, will put American troops on a war footing perilously close
to Russian territory and possibly directly on the Russian Lake, aka Caspian Sea, and sovereign territory of Russia. Won't happen,
VVP will not allow it.
Ergo, in spite of all the bluster and chest beating, at best all Foggy Bottom can do is bomb, bomb some more and bomb again.
The cost in airframes and captured pilots will be a disaster and if RoRo's and other logistic heavy lift assets or bases are hit,
the body bags coming back to Dover will be of numbers that can not be hidden as they are today with explanations that the dead
are victims of training accidents or air accidents.
Foggy Bottom, and Five Points with Langley, have painted themselves in to a corner and unfortunately for them, (and it's within
the realm of possibility that Five Points egged Trump on for this deal regardless of their protestations of innocence and surprise)
they are now in a case of put up or shut up. As a point of honor they will continue down the spiral path of open warfare and war
is like a cow voiding it's watery bowels, it splatters far beyond the intended target.
As my friend said a few years ago, damn you, damn your eyes, damn your souls, damn you back to Satan whose spawn you are. Go
back to your fetid master and leave us in peace.
Never The Last One, paper back edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521849056
A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation.
"UPDATE2: RT is reporting that "One US service member, two contractors killed in Al-Shabaab attack in Kenya, two DoD personnel
injured". Which just goes to prove my point that spontaneous attacks are what we will be seeing first and that the retaliation
promised by Iran will only come later."
Saker, Some of us might be curious to know what your experience with the UN Institute for Disarmament Research informs you about
the imminent Virginia gun bans and confiscations planned for this year and next. Can Empire afford to fight an actual shooting
war on two fronts, one externally against Iraq/Iran and the second internally against its own people, some of whom will paradoxically
be called away to fight on the first front? Perhaps the two conflicts could become conjoined as Uncle Shmuel mislabels every peaceful
gun owner who just wants to be left alone as a foreign enemy-sympathizer and combatant by default, thereby turning brother against
brother in a bloody prolonged hell in the regions immediately around Washington DC? Could the Empire *truly* be that suicidal?
'Mr. Trump, the Gambler! Know that we are near you, in places that don't come to your mind. We are near you in places that you
can't even imagine. We are a nation of martyrdom. We are the nation of Imam Hussein You are well aware of our power and capabilities
in the region. You know how powerful we are in asymmetrical warfare You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities.
You may start the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end '
Gen. Soleimani (2018)
Hello Saker,
I would like to ask you a question.
According to the Russian nuclear doctrine "The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the
use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against itself or its allies and also in response to large-scale aggression
involving conventional weapons in situations that are critical for the national security of the Russian Federation and its allies."
In your opinion does Russia consider Iran such an ally? Will Russia shield Iran against USAn / Israeli nuclear strikes? In case
of an imminent nuclear strike on Iran is Russia (and possibly others) going to issue a nuclear ultimatum to the would-be aggressor?
And in case an actual nuclear attack on Iran happens is Russia going to retaliate / deter further attacks with its own nukes?
What is your opinion?
One thing: please do not start explaining why the above scenario is completely unthinkable, unrealistic and why it would never
ever happen. I need your opinion on the possible events if such an attack does take place or it is about to happen. I do not need
reasons why it would not happen; I need your opinion what might take place if it does happen. If you cannot answer my question,
have no opinion or simply do not want to answer it please let me know it.
In case there is a formal commitment by Russia – one I know not of – when, where was it made?
Thanks in advance.
I think USA still has nuclear option.
They will not hesitate to use it on Iran if Israel is in danger.
So, I think Iran shall be defeated anyway, as USA is much stronger.
Wrong. If the US uses nukes, then this will secure the total victory of Iran.
The Saker
How does this secure a total victory, dear Saker? Please help my to understand this: Nukes on every major city, industrial site,
infrastructure with pos. millions dead – how is this a victory?
I think that if Iran were to launch some devastating missiles into Israel, either a US ship/submarine or Israel will launch a
nuclear bomb into Iran. The US knows there is nothing to be gained by a ground invasion. If we [the US] were to start launching
missiles into Iran, Iran would rightfully be launching sophisticated arms back toward US ships and Israel and the US can't stand
for that. We are good at dishing it out, but lousy at receiving it.
I can only believe we assassinated Solieman [apologies] because it is the writhing of a dying petrodollar. The US is desperate.
But I don't understand how going to war is supposed to help?
"Beijing's ties with Tehran are crucial to its energy and geopolitical strategies, and with Moscow also in the mix, a broader
conflagration is a real possibility"
Last but not least, Happy Nativity to all Orthodox Christians (thanks for the beautifully illustrated Orthodox calendar, The
Saker.)
Let us all pray for peace.
Trump is the King of the South. Killing under a flag of parley is a rare thing these days and is the reason why Trump will end
up going to war with no allies by his side just like the path mapped oit for him in Daniel.
It's not a blunder.
Trump's goals pre-assassination:
1) withdraw US troops from the ME ("Fortress America") and
2) placate Israel
This is how it is done. Not a direct "hey guys, we have to bring the boys home." Trump tried that and got smashed by the Deep
State and Israel. Instead, he is going to force the Islamic world to do the talking for him by refusing to host our pariah army
(that's all they have to do, not destroy a major US base or two). Then even the Deep State will admit it's a lost cause. He can
say he did all he could while achieving his goals.
As The Saker pointed out, the troops being sent now are to evacuate, not to conquer Tehran. Next time this year the US will have
its troops home and Trump will be reelected
"... Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar. ..."
"... The shmuck was elected to stop the unnecessary, and criminal, external wars for the Jews and protect the US from the internal Jewish war – through unchecked immigration – on the US citizens. ..."
"... Iran's response will certainly include legal redress, and the honor component of the US wrongful act can be quite adequately handled in state responsibility of satisfaction for internationally wrongful acts. The last couple times CIA faced Iran in the Hague (Oil Platforms and Aerial Incident,) Iran wiped the floor with the third-rate DoS shysters. ..."
"... Since this is so self-evidently disastrous for the US, why would the US civil/military command structure present this as an option? CIA doesn't like Trump – he tweaked them with a feint at ARCA compliance, and mocked their contempt for the national interest in a speech at Langley. ..."
"... Trump's been more insubordinate than any presidential figurehead since Nixon. So why not let him hold the bag for a crime big as the one Nixon got stuck with? CIA made Nixon their helpless patsy for their bombing of neutral Cambodia at great risk of general nuclear war. ..."
"... They purged him with a bill of impeachment that briefly included that crime. CIA never tries anything new, so now they'll make Trump their helpless patsy for murder at great risk of general nuclear war. The absurd existing bill of impeachment can easily incorporate murder as an inchoate crime, Trump's common plan and conspiracy for war, Nuremberg count 1. What does CIA get out of that? By personalizing aggression, CIA gets off the hook. ..."
WHAT COMES NEXT AFTER THE US ASSASSINATION OF QASSEM SOLEIMANI? THE OPTIONS.
The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani on Thursday
at 11:00 PM local time at Baghdad airport. Usually, when Soleimani was arriving in Baghdad,
security commander Abu Zeinab al-Lami, a deputy officer to al Muhandes, would have welcomed
him. This time, al-Lami was outside Iraq and al-Muhandes replaced him. The US plan was to
assassinate an Iranian General on Iraqi soil, not to kill a high-ranking Iraqi officer. By
killing al-Muhandes, the US violated its treaty obligation to respect the sovereignty of Iraq
and to limit its activity to training and offering intelligence to fight the "Islamic State",
ISIS. It has also violated its commitment to refrain from overflying Iraq without permission
of the Iraqi authorities.
Wow! Own goal! Are "evil" and "incompetent" synonymous?
Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle
East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar.
True, and this mistake puts him firmly in the wastebasket where all other liar-politicians
reside.
The shmuck was elected to stop the unnecessary, and criminal, external wars for the Jews
and protect the US from the internal Jewish war – through unchecked immigration –
on the US citizens.
It's possible to overdo the focus on the personal here. سپاه has a
very deep bench and it's not subject to decapitation. Soleimani's murder will have no more
effect on the command structure than Pompeo's murder would: removing the primus inter pares
of a corps of brilliant strategists smarts a bit; and if the US lost Pompeo, one of many
delusional religious fanatics with community-college level training from a laughingstock
military academy, So what?
This murder is first and foremost an insult, of course. The CIA regime is much more of an
honor culture than Iran because these days the DO is stuffed with lumpen redneck jarheads.
But organizational aspects worldwide will determine the outcome.
Iran's response will certainly include legal redress, and the honor component of the US
wrongful act can be quite adequately handled in state responsibility of satisfaction for
internationally wrongful acts. The last couple times CIA faced Iran in the Hague (Oil
Platforms and Aerial Incident,) Iran wiped the floor with the third-rate DoS shysters.
And
for the first time the US faces Iran without their British dancing boys on the bench –
Britain got kicked off the ICJ bench for arbitrary actions of its own. So that's gonna cost
ya, $$$! The ICC can weigh in propria motu, and should do. Absent efficacious criminal
sanctions, Iran ally China has shown that you can take international criminal law into your
hands quite effectively (ask William Bennett and his wifey!) Iran's status in the SCO is an
additional degree of freedom. If Russia chooses to get involved, it can use its superior
missile technology to control escalation at every level. This is the perfect opportunity for
its doctrine of coercion to peace.
Since this is so self-evidently disastrous for the US, why would the US civil/military
command structure present this as an option? CIA doesn't like Trump – he tweaked them
with a feint at ARCA compliance, and mocked their contempt for the national interest in a
speech at Langley.
Trump's been more insubordinate than any presidential figurehead since
Nixon. So why not let him hold the bag for a crime big as the one Nixon got stuck with? CIA
made Nixon their helpless patsy for their bombing of neutral Cambodia at great risk of
general nuclear war.
They purged him with a bill of impeachment that briefly included that
crime. CIA never tries anything new, so now they'll make Trump their helpless patsy for
murder at great risk of general nuclear war. The absurd existing bill of impeachment can
easily incorporate murder as an inchoate crime, Trump's common plan and conspiracy for war,
Nuremberg count 1. What does CIA get out of that? By personalizing aggression, CIA gets off
the hook.
With the family jewels and inside knowledge of the JFK coup, Nixon graymailed CIA for a
pardon. They won't let Trump get away like that. The current status of international criminal
law requires that heads must roll. Just like Charles Taylor got put away for Israeli state
crimes against peace, the equally disposable Donald Trump will hold the bag for grave CIA
crimes.
To those who assured us there would be no war with Iran:
For the First time in it's History #Iran has Raised
The Red flag, IRAN has issued a terrifying warning to the US as it raised a red flag over
the Holy Dome Jamkarān Mosque as a symbol of a severe battle to come. pic.twitter.com/mnWgmu2eS4
Thanks, C&D. I'm very familiar with the two Alexes of the Duran Report. While I
think they provide very objective reporting on world events, they are also very reluctant
to touch the third rail, the 800 lb gorilla in the room.
Yes, it is far too easy and fashionable to pin it all on the "deep state" without ever
naming the Jew.
Wow! The idiot-in-chief just threatened Iran with bombing their cultural targets.
"Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we
have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many
years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,
and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no
more threats!"
To those who assured us there would be no war with Iran:
I am one of those that did – and I stand by that assertion. Technically, we just
declared war on Iran, however, I expect there to be thousands of skirmishes, but nothing the
equivalent of the Iraq invasion.
If you listen to what Donald Trump said when he was campaigning, you will hear what the
majority of the American people want. Improved relations with Russia, exit from pointless
Middle East conflicts, greatly reduced immigration and a wall on the Southwest border, money
spent on the crumbling US infrastructure etc etc
Unfortunately, what the majority of the American people want matters very little if at
all. It's pretty much the same everywhere "democracy" and "democratic principles" reign.
It's a joke. A sick fucking game.
I don't believe Trump is a bad man. I believe he truly loves this country and it's people.
But he has surrounded himself with and trusted the wrong people from the beginning.
It pains me to say it, but NOTHING will change in this once great nation until there is
either collapse and/or revolution. The Deep State and it's (((Ruling Elite))) will then move
on to another host.
I find it hard to believe that with the history of so many recent false flag operations that
everyone is just assuming what is being presented is actually what happened. I personally
think it all is a little too convenient at this point in time. Israel has wanted a war with
Iran almost forever. While Netanyahu is having a bromance with Donald Trump and getting every
single thing he wants to the point of changing a make America great again to make Israel
great again, I find the whole thing extremely suspicious. It just seems like another War
being started for the benefit of Israel, business as usual.
Iranian Kataib Hezbollah is present in Iraq over the objections of many Arab citizens
(mostly Shia) who resent Persian interference.
So many lies in just one sentence. As always, you spread misinformation with lot of mumbo
jumbo. There is no such thing as Iranian Kataib Hezbollah. Kataib Hezbullah consist of Iraqi
volunteers. They may have been trained by Iran but they are still Iraqis.
You keep calling Khamenei a sociopath. The real sociopath is your hero Netanyahu.
You are one of the group of Zionist agents who are just waiting with canned comments for
the articles to appear. You are so predictable.
And please take that symbol off. By posting it does not make you a peace lover. You are
nothing but a war monger.
Developing- Operation Iran: The Pentagon is Deploying Troops to Saudi Arabia
(Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Rockwell Collins, L3
Engilitycorp mercenaries)
By C. Sorensen:
f'ing bastards .. who's commanding all these strikes?
Well, at least indirectly, according to Pepe Escobar, it is the usual suspects,
Israel/deep state, with a compliant US.
President Donald Trump may have issued the order. The U.S. Deep State may have ordered
him to issue the order. Or the usual suspects may have ordered them all.
According to my best Southwest Asia intel sources, " Israel gave the U.S. the
coordinates for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani as they wanted to avoid the
repercussions of taking the assassination upon themselves."
@A123
Obviously a (((Fellow American))). Remember the Liberty, Hymie. Still trying to destabilize
the ME with your golem. Maybe this time Bibi bit off more than he can chew. The cost of human
life and suffering is no doubt immaterial for a politician desperate to stay in power.. and
out of prison. Once again the Jewish lobby is causing an uproar. Only three things are
certain; death, taxes and Israel getting the US into Middle Eastern wars
How does the US justify carrying out assassinations within the territory of a friendly power
without even obtaining the consent of that power? Don't we at least pretend to respect Iraq's
sovereignty?
@ra And
backing Trump has what purpose? Would he pay your rent if you were laid off? Then he is just
a picture on your wall. Just like jock sniffers idolize apeletes, and masturbaters luvs their
porn performers, political groupies actually imagine that their favorite political crush
gives a shit about them. If one isn't a multimillionaire, then they matter not at all to the
political class. Have to bring something to the party other than bootlicking. There are
plenty of those in higher places than a broke ass
fan. Meanwhile grow the f ** k up. Trump isn't your friend. Unless you're name is Adelson or
Netanyahu anyway
Another striking aspect of all this is that while I suspect doubts about this are very
widespread among the actual people, the mainstream media seem to be all but unanimous in
their approval.
Trump is threatening to attack 52 Iranian cultural sites. He doesn't seem to care that many
of these are world heritage sites and it is a war crime to destroy them.
If @realDonaldTrump hits holy
sites in #Iran , no place
for any American in the world will be safe. It will be an all-ou-war.
In one day, thousands were killed in #Iraq after the
destruction of Zarqawi (like Trump today) destroyed Shia Holy Shrine in Samarra.
@Cloak And
Dagger Perhaps if Russia gave one of these missile to Iran peace would breakout ..lol.
Hypersonic Missiles Are a Game Changer
No existing defenses can stop such weapons -- which is why everyone wants them.
Last week, President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced the deployment of the Avangard,
among the first in a new class of missiles capable of reaching hypersonic velocity --
something no missile can currently achieve, aside from an ICBM during reentry
Such weapons have long been an object of desire by Russian, Chinese and American military
leaders, for obvious reasons: Launched from any of these countries, they could reach any
other within minutes. No existing defenses, in the United States or elsewhere, can intercept
a missile that can move so fast while maneuvering unpredictably.
Whether or not the Avangard can do what Mr. Putin says, the United States is rushing to match
it. We could soon find ourselves in a new arms race as deadly as the Cold War -- and at a
time when the world's arms control efforts look like relics of an inscrutable past and the
effort to renew the most important of them, a new START agreement, is foundering
Giraldi seldom comes up with any new facts to shed light on a situation. He just runs through
the same anti-neocon boilerplate. I agree with his boilerplate, but it's not enough to
justify reading his articles.
I'm not using the term neocons any longer, as the term is a lie, a mask. They are just a
large group of powerful dual citizen Jews many descended from Trotskyites that immigrated
from Russia in the 1930s.
@Bragadocious
Hey, Israeli hasbara, why didn't you read the above article carefully?
The blood of the Americans, Iranians and Iraqis who will die in the next few weeks is
clearly on Donald Trump's hands as this war was never inevitable and served no U.S.
national interest.
One more time for you: this war [with Iran] serves no U.S. national interests. The
only "benefiting" party is the Jewish State, the bloody theocracy of obnoxious supremacists
known for their cowardice and deception. The Epstein nation of Israel.
American veterans kill themselves every day, every hour. None of the dead veterans is
Jewish.
Here is how the usual schema works: First, the zionist scum finds kindred spirits among
the locals; see Cheney the Traitor, greedy Clintons, and the cowardly US brass thirsty for
money and comforts (exhibit one, Donny Rumsfeld). Second, the zionist scum arranges mass
media by putting the eager presstitutes on key positions in the previously honorable papers
and journals (exhibit one, The New Yorker). And voila, the war profiteers unite with Israel
firsters and get free hands to plunder whatever country they want to plunder. On the American
citizenry dime & limb.
It does not take much effort to recognize the extraordinary difference between the piggish
and thoroughly corrupt Bibi and the noble and valiant Soleimani.
@A123 Really?
How stupid can one get? Sir, it would behove all of us to read and understand history. Noone
likes the Ayatollahs but the only reason they are ruling Iran is because of the USA. And
everyone has the right to defend themselves – including the Iranians. Just look at our
behaviour and compare it to a bully. No difference at all!!
Unfortunately, it is very well established in the world that USA has degenerated from being a
good guy to a bully, assassin and a terrorist. We shall reap the whirlwind and the hurricane
. unfortunately it will be the common person who suffers always.
Rumour has it that 52 sites were chosen so that it corresponded to the number of major
Jewish-American organizations in America, lol!
I 'second' that LOL!!!
52 is for the fifty two embassy hostages from 1979. And he said he's going to hit cultural
sites in that 52 number. So you museum curators in Tehran 'watch out!'
On a serious note, I consider myself a patriotic American but I just can't root for my
country in this regard. Honestly it makes me feel bad but following the truth does not always
make you feel good. But it's the right thing to do.
Iran has been 'set up' since Donald got out of the nuclear deal. Tucker Carlson says Iran has
been the target for decades. I can just hope that the kinetic action is brief, loss of
American and Iranian life small and that, as Giraldi predicts, America will finally get out
of there, to the frustration of the Zionists.
But then we have the aforementioned Zionists and their Samson option it never ends.
Until Israel ends
Anti Iran war protest going on in cities , at WH, at Trump Hotels etc..
"The American people have had enough with U.S. wars and are rising up to demand peace with
Iran!" tweeted CodePink, an anti-war group that helped organize the nationwide
demonstrations.
I have found the guy to star in my assassination movie . an Iraq war vet you need to
hear:
From all indications, the Iranian general was a revered man inside and outside Iran.
The arrogant ignorance on this site tweeters between alarming and comedic.
The rank and file MUST gnash their teeth and wail over this terrorist's death. There are
more Secret Police in Iran than the Stasi had. If they don't show grief, their family members
or they will pay the price.
Do you know any Persians? They detest living under a brutal theocracy. They don't care
about Soleimani. They care about their children, jobs and being happy.
They act the fool in the street to mourn his death because it is expected, it's a way to
let off steam and it's social.
Now would be the perfect time for the Mossad to do its false flag shtick. They wouldn't
even have to try very hard to pin it on Iran. I'll bet that when the news came out that the
Iranian guy had been killed, every neocon on the planet popped a boner that will last for
days. Michael Ledeen is probably mazel tov-ing his ass off.
Michael "FASTER PLEASE!" Ledeen? Yes, I don't doubt. And as regards a Mossad false flag:
Giraldi writes that the Iraqi PM will inevitably "ask American forces to leave." THAT should
be the greenest of green lights for Trump to withdraw them from that bottomless hellhole
except who wants them there forevermore?
I don't care about the dead Muslim who got killed, since that's the only kind of "good
Muslim" you're ever going to find, but I would still prefer for the U.S. to get out of the
Middle East altogether. Let those two warring anti-Christ peoples kill each other to their
hearts' content.
Verily. Alas, look for Congress now to reauthorize those thoroughly corrupt FISA courts,
so that honorable American heroes and patriots such as Gums Page and Peter Strzok can thwart
evil Iran terrorists before they perpetrate their dastardly acts against innocent Americans.
Now, remind me of the nationalities of those who committed the 9/11/2001 atrocities
again?
All glory, praise, and honor to Our Lord Jesus Christ -- may He and St Michael ever watch
over those of us redeemed by Him.
@vespasian
Qaani is a Muslim name. Not likely Jewish.
Times of Israel says Qaani was Soleimani's deputy.
Khamenei appointed / anointed Qaani to step into Soleimani's place. Why would Khamenei do
this if he wanted to eradicate Soleimani's style?
Khamenei echoes Achmadinejad's call that "zionism will disappear from the pages of
history." Not a Jewish sentiment.
Pahlavi broke down the ghettoes and hired a lot of Jews, but there is no indication that
Pahlavi was Jewish. His physiognomy is so typically Persian he's practically a caricature of
the breed.
in other words, you're full of crap.
Leave propagandistic mimetics to the cretins who know how to do it.
There's a rumor that part of Israel's Samson option includes nuclear bombs hidden in 25
American cities. Veterans Today has mentioned it several times. Is it true? Maybe. Maybe
someone should find out.
It would end Democrat prattle about presidential elections by popular vote in lieu of
electoral college.
Giraldi is maybe little bit somber here, so I do have to say no.
Irani thinkers know that the affair is just a thick worm on the hook.
They will do what they did before consolidate She_ite power in the Levant to end any
cooperation of states with the great Satan there.
The quote is from a 24 Oct 2004 article "Jews, Israel and America" in the New York
Times by Thomas L. Friedman. Friedman proceeds to criticize the Bush admin for inept
communications in Iraq. One wonders which will be found first: the weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, or the real killers of Ron and Nicole by OJ Simpson.
Once the US began seriously enforcing sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the US effectively
declared war on Iran. Iran has done what it could, but its response has been limited.
After you have already attempted and partially succeeded in wrecking a country's economy,
what does a drone strike add to the situation?
The incident makes very little sense for the US, which is vulnerable in Iraq. Iran is
still under severe economic siege, so not much has really changed there either.
Everyone seems to want this to be a major inflection point, but why would Iran suddenly
become stupid? Maybe Trump has changed, but he has resisted number of attempts to get him to
sign on to military adventures.
News flash: Pence says Suleimani aided the 9/11 highjackers.
Let us see what else can we accuse him of masterminding.
1. Gulf of Tonkin incident
2. Bombing of Laos
3. Sabotaging the space shuttle
4. JFK Assassination
5. And yes, of course, starting the American Civil War.
This guy is nuts and this is what we will get as a result of Trump's impeachment.
2) The issue of #Jerusalem
seems to have been a critical point of Shamrani's anger. His second-most recent of his
tweets (just before his will) was an RT of Trump's December 2017 Jerusalem speech, made
sometime in the last 48 hours. pic.twitter.com/wjP7FMzZXW
A few days after John Bolton was sacked as Trump's national security adviser, Soleimani
humiliated the US by a blatantly Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities, which Pompeo
called an act of war.
Shill better. You people say this over and over, but don't give a logical reason we should
believe it, and why even give us Pompeo's opinion?
The murder of General Qasem Soleimani shows that, nothing on this scale of U.S. violence,
criminality and violation of international law has been seen before, not even in Nazi
Germany. The assassination of two well-known leaders is an act of Terrorism. It was a
cowardice act, because the two leaders were travelling in public. What the US regime gained
from this premeditated murder?
As I stated in several articles, we live under a brutal form of Fascism that has no
equivalent in human history. There are no longer the rules of law and civilised norms. It is
a barbaric, lawless, rogue, terrorising and distinctly global AngloZionist Fascism.
"
COME on, we are waiting for you. We are the real men on the scene, as far as you are
concerned. You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities. You may start
the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end," Qassem Soleimani said in a fiery
July 2018 speech directed at Trump
Not exactly taking the heat out of the situation in which Iran is confronting the world's
most powerful country. A good state has to know its limitations, as Mearsheimer says.
He had flown into to town to attend the funerals of the 26 Iraqi militiamen that we
Americans had killed earlier in the week!
Most interesting. I wonder if those militiamen were maybe killed in the expectation that
he would fly in to attend the funeral.
Really? How stupid can one get? Sir, it would behove all of us to read and understand
history. Noone likes the Ayatollahs but the only reason they are ruling Iran is because of
the USA. And everyone has the right to defend themselves – including the Iranians.
Just look at our behaviour and compare it to a bully. No difference at all!!
Unfortunately, it is very well established in the world that USA has degenerated from being
a good guy to a bully, assassin and a terrorist. We shall reap the whirlwind and the
hurricane . unfortunately it will be the common person who suffers always.
True that the only reason the Ayatollahs are ruling Iran is because of the USA's hatred of
democracy. Though the bull in the china shop grunts about democracy all the time it really
hates democracy. Better to install a single dictator who will take orders, rather than having
to bribe every elected member of a parliament and gamble that that will work.
Degenerated okay. A frightful country of gangster rule, a murderous thug as President,
giant levels or homelessness, giant prices of medicines, giant levels of police killings etc.
etc. and the economic hit-men who caused it to fall apart, crumbled infrastructure because
privatized, want to obey Israhell and pocket the worthless dollar, nothing else.
As an American who lives abroad, this is just a repainting of the target I've had on my
back for decades, compliments of people who live behind big defence perimeters and are
surrounded by teams of bodyguards.
There used to be a simple escape-clause: pretend to be Canadian.
As they've happily jumped on the War Bandwagon as well, that clause is now void.
@Johnny F.
Ive Rita Katz !! The lady who used to upload the vile movies of beheading even before the
Jihadists had uploaded . How come !!!
Israel usually knows when war would start against Libya Syria Iraq and against Iran . How
come!! Israel would claim that war will be soon. What gives!
Rita 's circle was playing same roles the cabal plays in agitating for wars .
Contra Madame Condolezza's (aka. "Condi") affirmation in 2006 that we were witnessing
"the
birth pangs of a New Middle East" when Israel went all Warshaw Ghetto on various pieces
of Palestine, these could be the REAL birth pangs of a New Middle East.
The flag used in the ceremony is called the 'Ya la-Tharat al-Husayn', which dates back
to the late 7th century. It was first raised after the Battle of Karbala in a call to
avenge the death of Imam Husayn ibn Ali, which became one of the key events that led to the
split between Shia and Sunni Islam. It has been reported that the red flag has never been
unfurled atop the Jamkaran (a major holy site since the early Middle Ages) until now.
You know shit is going down when it's getting Game of Thrones out there.
@Meimou It's
also unimportant whether some bureaucrat of the US says that this and that happening far away
is an "act of war" while engaging in acts of war like sanctions, targeted assassination of
lower-rung people, support of "regime change" operations laying waste to whole regions,
bombing of civvies in Yemen, bombing of selected targets all over the Middle East and on and
on.
@Meimou The
Embassy thing might not have been ordered by Soleimani, but the coup of of hitting Saudi oil
facilities would surely have to be authorised by him in his capacity as commander of all
Iranian paramilitary actions abroad. Yet this humiliation of the US forces in and around
Saudi Arabia came days after Trump had sacked Iran's greatest foe in the Administration, John
Bolton.
I think that if the interests of Iran was the objective paramount in Soleimani's mind, the
timing of the attack on Saudi oil facilities was a truly catastrophic failure of
comprehension. Michael Ledeen (Iran's biggest enemy in the US) must have been weeping tears
of gratitude. And that was only one of Soleimanis great mistakes, if fame was not his real
goal.
PATRICK Cockburn noted pro Iranian militia leaders were pointing to 'the failure of Trump
to retaliate after the drone attack on Saudi oil facilities earlier in September that
Washington had blamed on Iran' and a sign that Trunp would avoid a war. Moreover:
[T]here was a small demonstration in central Baghdad demanding jobs, public services and
an end to corruption. The security forces and the pro-Iranian paramilitaries opened fire,
killing and wounding many peaceful demonstrators. Though Qais al-Khazali later claimed that
he and other Hashd leaders were trying to thwart a US-Israeli conspiracy, he had said
nothing to me about it. It seemed likely that General Soleimani, wrongly suspected that the
paltry demonstrations were a real threat and had ordered the pro-Iranian paramilitaries to
open fire and put a plan for suppressing the demonstrations into operation disastrous for
Iranian influence in Iraq. [ ]
General Soleimani died in the wake of his greatest failure and misjudgement
Not only did he strengthen the hand of anti Iran opinion in the White House by making
Trump look stupid, Soleimani's Baghdad massacre of protesting Shiite Arabs was a wedge
in the Iraqi– Iranian Shia alliance. Soleimani acted as if he was controlled by Ledeen,
and yet also worked on the higher plane of US divide and rule grand strategy for the Middle
East a la Kissinger.
I sense desperation from Washington.
What has been accomplished in the middle-east since the 'war on terror' began?
Pick any goal, real or not and evaluate the success from the beginning of the century:
Terrorism down?
Israel safer?
Better access to oil and gas for U.S. companies?
Democracy on the rise?
Stronger strategic position in the region?
Russia and China kept at bay?
Trade opportunities?
Status of the dollar?
Relations to allies in Europe and elsewhere?
All I see is negatives, perhaps someone can enlighten me?
Is it getting better or worse, is time on the U.S. side in this struggle? I can't see it.
If I was running this show I would be desperate too. And perhaps for the people actually
running the show, the biggest problem is how to exit the stage and guard Israel at the same
time.
@geokat62 If
Israel has over 500 nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them (this according to
former President Jimmy Carter), AND Israel has refused ALL inspections by the IAEA , then
this is a legitimate threat to Iran.
The world should see that Iran has a right to defend itself with nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon and White House have been insisting that Iran was behind an alleged Kata'ib
Hezbollah attack on a U.S. installation that then triggered a strike by Washington on
claimed militia targets in Syria and also inside Iraq.
But clearly this attack was much longer in the planning because of the prisoner exchange
between the US and Iran on December 12th ( https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-hopes-prisoner-exchange-will-lead-broader-discussion-iran
). Obviously, that exchange took place in order not to leave any potential hostages in Iran
when the escalation was triggered. All the excuses for the assassination were later tailored
to fit the story as it developed.
Also, there is the State Department and Pompeo's own quote which purports that the attacks
were not in retaliation for something but in order to forestall future attacks (as if this
could ever be justifiable).
What this indicates to me, is that, contrary to the peddled story, a major escalation was
planned, which started with a prisoner exchange, the next step was adopting the Israeli
strategy of using completely disproportionate responses in order to trigger some ever
increasing responses from the Iranians. Stage 1: One rocket attack (probably staged by
US-Israeli secret services); response: 23 soldiers killed by US. Stage 2: embassy protests,
no casualties; response: Soleimani and Iraqui official killed.
Pompeo's excuse that the assassination of Soleimani was not for previous action on the
general's part but in order to prevent some great escalation which he was planning, was more
likely one of the stories they sold each other, Trump, and the public, in order to create
some 'plausible' deniability for the plan. What friggin' criminals!
Not sure why so many commenters engage hasbara clowns like A123. Why engage people who
aren't debating in good faith?
True thoughts and wise words, my friend.
All those hasbara clowns are on my 'Commneters to Ignore' list. They can say
whateva they want [freedom of speech], but I don't have to waste my time reading or
commenting on it.
@TKK Why then
are there large protests from the Persian community in Los Angeles? They don't have to worry
about secret police. Personally I think he was a good man because he helped destroy ISIS.
@jack daniels
I would imagine that, given Giraldi's background and experience, he is more than qualified to
offer his analysis of the circumstances, situation and possible consequences on the topic
under discussion and many people value that.
You don't have to agree at all but making empty comments like that are just a waste of
your time.
Remember the Maine and 9/11 ! The yellow press and Alex Jones are already talking about
Iranian sleeper cells in the US , there will likely be a false flag attack on the "Homeland"
,with civilian casualties ,which will be blamed on Iran , as a result the public will be
propaganized into supporting "decisive" action against Iran .
@Bragadocious
As you well know, Supercilious, Hezbollah was the military force which handed the Israelis
their asses when they tried to invade Lebanon in 2006; Soleimani, being one of the organizers
of that resistance.
Subsequently, Israel used its complete control of its vassal, the US government, in order
to declare them a terrorist organization in 2009. The reason they did it then is the same
reason they want to destroy Iran, is in order to, among other things, have a free hand and
take southern Lebanon and be able to finally keep it.
Wow what an impressive bit of confusion. Giraldi says a big bunch of mistakes have been made
and the end result might be the US withdrawing its troops from over seas bases. In other
words a massive victory for the taxpayers and the rest of the world.
@TKK Crazy
TKK lay in hay & he done obey the Israeli way & thus ge doth say: "They (Persians)
act the fool in the street to mourn his death because it is expected, it's a way to let off
steam and it's social."
@John
Chuckman @123 is spot on. Soeimani and the aye are toller have had this coming for about
2 decades. Did they really think that a full scale attack on a US embassy would go unanswered
after the 2013 Benghazi atrocity?
The 2 main protagonists have been eliminated and so have various minor Iranian minions.
Many others have been arrested by US special forces and are being held.
The Iranians are paralysed because their strategic brain has gone and they have no good
retaliatory options.
If they missile a US warship Donald will destroy their nuclear program. That is his end game.
If they missile Tel Aviv the Israelis will strategically nuke them. The Iranians are shitting
bricks.
@Daniel Rich
Might we assume that the US has the coordinates of every Iranian facility cancerned with
their generational nuclear and missile program and the means to destroy them.
The US has all the good options. The very fact that Iran has done nothing a week after the
base attack and days after Soleimani's removal indicates they are paralysed with fear.
@Daniel Rich
Might we assume that the US has the coordinates of every Iranian facility cancerned with
their generational nuclear and missile program and the means to destroy them.
The US has all the good options. The very fact that Iran has done nothing a week after the
base attack and days after Soleimani's removal indicates they are paralysed with fear.
So who exactly are the blessed? The Christian/Hindoo/ whiteys/blackeys/brownies ? Those
who regularly contort their minds into pretzels trying to comprehend their pagan polytheist
mangods-worshipping faith?
You whitey idiots are such a confused lot that, at a spiritual level, you seem to be
splitting like the amoeba, all the time. It is hilarious, and it is pathetic.
Is that called a blessing in your pagan/godless kind's spiritual dictionary?
Lol!
The Almighty One has blessed us true monotheists with these 4 verses, and much much more.
If we get nothing else, these are enough;
Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is
born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent." : 112
@TKK Dummy
TKK doth obey the Israeli way, and naturally, he lay down in all wet hay, & he done say:
"They (Persians) act the fool in the street to mourn his (Soleimani's) death because it is
expected, it's a way to let off steam and it's social."
Hey TKK! (Zigh)
Re, above; As you're aware, you are a low rent U.R. hasbarist.
Haha. You stupidly figure guys like me have forgotten the mind-numbing & week long
mourning pageant, extensively covered by ZUS TalmudVision,* for the ultra-Shabbos goy
anti-hero, Senator John McCain, who famously cackled "Bomb, bomb Iran."
* Credit creative geokat for spoton "TalmudVision."
Your use of the word Jew as a pejorative is childish and simple minded. Max Blumenthal is
a Jew .he very much appears to agree with the crux of Giraldi's article. Unz is a Jew, who
allows Giraldi to post articles like the one you are responding to do you hold him in
disdain?
@anon The
most vicious attack against me and my country I've witnessed came at the hands of young
American Jews from NYC. I'd been back for a few years from a combat role in Vietnam and, at a
party in our building where my wife and I were the only non-Jews, a bunch of Jews who'd just
returned from fighting for Israel in some capacity during its '73 war went after me with a
hatred that I can still feel to this day. They were saying that American soldiers suck and
how much better Israelis were in the field. It ended when a woman no less yelled at me, "All
we want is your money." This from supposed Americans. As they like to say, "We
Jews shit on you Christians." If you haven't worked on Wall Street with them, this may seem
academic. The hate is palpable.
I cannot understand how our higher ups bow and scrape before them, except to note the
baked in contradiction of American military leadership -- that those officers who're early on
identified for transfer to some HQ company are so selected because they're generally
order-taking martinets and the antithesis of warrior leaders, becoming in time the perfumed
princes we see paraded like trained poodles before the kosher cameras on TV to sell out their
country for Israel. I offer as proof their willingness to send Americans to do the dying and
suffering so good Israeli boys need not. Can you imagine anything more disgusting than a
putative man complying with crimes against humanity because he's afraid of neocons like Max
Boot or Fiona Hill and then has the gall to call it his sworn, patriotic duty? I can't.
All it need is getting a researchers on Fox and get him or her publish about the trauma
experienced from a distance from the killing of an adversary despite the killing wanted by
the Jews . Wordsmithing can follow New jargon will appear . People with those ideas will be
showcased and promoted to Harvard or Yale or to the Anti semitism society of the US Cabinet (
It is not there but it exists ) . Money will be earmarked to get few extra senate vote or
something like that .
@Daniel Rich
I have to hold my tongue or fear putting myself at risk, but to give you an idea of what I'm
thinking, I wish Iran all the luck in the world.
When those transfer tubes come home, filled with our dead soldiers, killed fighting endless
wars for Wall Street and Israel, will the flag draping the tube be one Made in the USA?
And how much money did Jared K make by shorting certain stocks? He would of known of the
coming murder of the Iranian general, I seriously doubt he would of let a money-making
opportunity like that pass.
The report says Israel was "on the verge" of assassinating Soleimani three years ago, near
Damascus, but the United States warned the Iranian leadership of the plan, revealing that
Israel was closely tracking the Iranian general.
It was Obama that warned Iran because the US Iran nuclear agreement was in effect and
Israel was trying everything possible to wreck it and just as they are doing now, to goad
Iran into war.
The way to stop Israel is to spill more Jewish blood than they can stand, and there may be
enough Muslims and Arabs willing to die themselves to do that.
Very upset at this news. It is an obvious escalation by the Israeli led USA and puppet Trump.
They have some excellent forms of blackmail going on Trump. He walked into this mess with his
big ego; and they saw him coming and are making the best use of this stupid man.
Our nation has already brought so much shame on itself for attacking the Middle East under
Bush and Obomber. I still have a photo of a little Iraqi boy who was laying in a hospital bed
with no legs or arms, just a head and torso left. He was a victim of USA Bombing (Shock &
Awe) in 2003 Baghdad. He looks at the camera with a look I have never seen before.
I wish all this will go away, but we all know it is about to get worse and all the
Israelis need to get the American population onboard for a new fight is a major False Flag.
So, be vigilant and careful. We have no idea where they will strike and then blame Iran.
To this day I remember Mr. Linh Dinh's saying on Unz Review, to paraphrase; Trump is a shill,
owned by the Jews/Israelis, on top of which they would never allow anyone who wouldn't grovel
before them to be president. He was obviously correct.
Be that as it may. I want war. Only a war in which the paper tiger that is the US gets
itself real bloody nose is there a possibility of ending Jew supremacist's control of my
county.
It is indeed a foolhardy move. I've taken a lot of grief for supporting Trump while always
pointing out his ways of frustrating and stringing the neo-cons along. My one desperate and
perhaps foolish hope is that being foiled in trying to extricate us from Syria, Afghanistan
and Iraq, he has agreed to this act(whether post or pre, and I suspect post) to allow
them(the neo-cons and MIC) enough rope to hang themselves. The Iraqi parliament will
certainly vote to have us leave. If my desperate hope is true, we will do so. If not, at
least it hastens the end of our imperial age, which I would greatly welcome, at best without
nuclear war.
Comments on ZH are mostly negative, so looks like Trump lost an additional part of
independents vote. He might also lost the election, because now impeachment is the most logical
way out of this situation, with Trump servings as a sacrificial lamp for the MIC and neocon (he
was neocon prostitute all his term (MIGA instead of MAGA), so nothing essentially changed)
At the same time, Iran itself is zero threat to the American homeland. It's tiny $350 billion
GDP amounts to 6 days of US annual output and its $20 billion defense budget is equivalent to
what the Pentagon wastes every 8 days.
The most dangerous reaction of Iran now is is that it it can hit any US target. That would be
profoundly stupid. The most dangerious reaction sis that it can quietly develop nuclear
weapons.
The principal difficulty of this policy for the USA of course is Iraq. Having imposed a
rough democracy on Iraq, the governments were always likely to be Shia dominated and highly
susceptible to Iranian influence. The USA had a continuing handle through dwindling occupying
forces and through control of the process which produced the government.
They also provided financial resources to partially restore the physical infrastructure the
US and its allies had themselves destroyed, and of course to fund a near infinite pool of
corruption.
* * *
Unlike his adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat,
the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, Craig's blog has
no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on
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every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate. Subscriptions
to keep Craig's blog going are gratefully received .
Trump claims to have evidence of an Iran attack threat, but he won't let Congress or the
American people see it. A president who has lied tens of thousands of times about things
both big and small while in office is now expecting the American people to take his word
for it on Iran.
Defense Officials Say Trump Is Lying About Iran Threat
Although Trump has said he has 52 more targets, its really doubtful he knows what to do
beyond that, if the Iranians retaliate. Then, there is the big problem of the Russian and the
Chinese navies in the region of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The U.S. is not in any winnable
situation, anyway you look at it. They will be forced to deploy more troops and materials to
the Middle East, and the money for all of that will come out of your Social Security checks,
and by reducing other entitlements, like Medicare, they will have to print more
money----meaning, the money you have in hand will be worth less. We had this very same
situation back in 1968-1969 with Vietnam, when the U.S. ran out of money to support the war
there, and we entered into an inflationary period in the early 1970's. We eventually lost
that war, if any one of you recall, and America was far better off then than what it is now.
Simply put, America is in no position to be going to war.
The orange genius is a clueless ignorant moron and like wax in the hand of his hawkish
advisors. With this imbecilic terrorist attack and loudmouth rhetoric afterwards he is now
basically forced to attack Iran whenever something looks like Iranian retaliation. Which is
basically an invitation to Tel Aviv to trigger the war at their discretion. Make Israel great
again!
Saddam Husein was a friend of the United States, fought against Iran, was part of the Bush
family. But when he decided to sell oil not only in dollars but also in euros, his country
was destroyed, and he himself was hanged for dubious reasons. It is dangerous to be an enemy
of the United States, but even more dangerous to be a friend of the United States. The USA is
a colony, since lobbying is not prohibited in the USA, and the fittest mass of lobbyists has
Israeli citizenship. They determine US foreign policy. So you are absolutely right, this is
not a country, it is a cancerous tumor. And she looks disgusting even in comparison with the
Saudis, they at least do not hypocritical in their atrocities.
Will a new bout of slaughter by the not so Great Satan and its vile little Satan be enough
to stop the inevitable civil war reloaded in Slumville when the Wall St Ponzi shitter finally
erupts and blows Trumptard's beautiful Washing town sewer with it?
Iran knows well, like China and Russia, that time is on their side. USSA is the most
bankrupt deadbeat in human history and its Saudi albatross and their collective fiat filth
IOU petroscrip toilet paper dollah can no longer be saved despite the wanton murder, genocide
and ravings of the Pentacon mobsters and their Agent Orange juice.
The so called Green Zone will be burned like Benghazi before it and it will happen when
USSA is least expecting it. Looking at Agent Orange's Soleimani gambit last week simply shows
how frightened the anglozionazi regime has in fact become in light of what these terrorists
call "the facts on the ground" i.e. the ongoing anglozionist war against the ruling Shia
majority inside Iraq. All the "boots on the ground" that USSA can now muster in the region
will only guarantee all the more bodybags that will be needed to ferry their remians back to
Slumville in the coming collap$e of all things USSAN.
In case any resident of Slumville still imagines that hired killer Agent Orange was not
ensnared in his best buddy Jeffrey Pedovore's Maralago Mossad kiddy **** show then why are
Pentacon hired killers from Slumville protecting Soleimani in this photo?
Russia, Russia, Russia, you know Putin's not a stupid. He's sounding very logical and
sane. Perhaps Iran could be the same. Sober sanity is a good thing for people and the
world.
We the people have no control over this. Cheering team A over team B is the preoccupation
of the peanut gallery. The deed has been done. What follows are the consequences. There are
muslim cultural centers all over the United States. We don't know if they are Shia or Sunni.
What we do know is that they have a mutual hatred of Christians. Expect the attacks on
Christians to escalate. Look to your people, their provisions and their security.
This is 40 years plus in the making. When the USA abandoned the Shah (not a nice guy)
during the Carter administration, two significant events occurred.
One, Iran went from a quasi-secular, pro-western nation, to one that in spite of, or
despite the wishes of its population, a vehemently anti-Western, and anti-USA nation, with
heavy religious leanings.
(And make no mistake, Iran has been interfering with, killing, and attacking the USA in
various ways for quite some time)
Two, because we (USA) needed a "player" in the middle east, we turned to the Saudis. Well
Saudi's (Arabs) are not Iranians (Persians), and we learned that, or should have, when a much
younger OBL issued his first "manifesto". (Which had nothing to do with Jews, but everything
to do with the stationing of US troops in the same country as Mecca and Medina)
Iran has a long history of being interfered by western powers (Most notably Britain. Ohhh
Britain). This leads to a duality: one, they can claim (at least until 1953 or so) that they
were being kept down financially by: {INSERT COUNTRY HERE}. There is some truth to that
(again - Britain). However, while claiming they are being kept weak, they can't get out of
their own way when it comes to running their own country. (Ostensibly, pre-1978 the
mercantile class, versus the people, versus the ruling class)
The United States has, in the past 40 years, handled Iran with kid gloves. You may not
like that statement, but when we are warning people to exit Oil platforms to minimize
casualties, I'm not lying. What happens next, militarily? I can't say. But unfortunately, it
will be the Iranian people who will suffer the most.
Looks like Trump administration buried the Treaty of non-proliferation once and for all. From now on only a country with
nuclear weapons can be viewed as a sovereign country.
Notable quotes:
"... To remind the reader once more, however, none of this would be happening had Iran not abandoned its "nuclear ambiguity" by agreeing to the 2015 Rouhani-Obama deal, with that event in hindsight being the tripwire that provoked the American military into wantonly escalating tensions with Iran ..."
"... Because they realized that the maximum costs that the Islamic Republic could inflict on it in response to their actions could be "manageable". ..."
"... The lesson to be learned from all of this is that the possession of nuclear weapons safeguards a country's sovereignty by enabling it to inflict "unmanageable"/"unacceptable" costs on its foes and thus deter their aggression, failing which leaders on both sides can be manipulated into a serious crisis. ..."
Trump is wholly responsible for his own actions, but he -- just like the Ayatollah -- is
being pushed in a direction where it's impossible to back down and still "save face". Neither
men can afford to do so, which makes it likely that a lot more people than just Maj. Gen.
Soleimani might be about to die.
To remind the reader once more, however, none of this would be happening had Iran not
abandoned its "nuclear ambiguity" by agreeing to the 2015 Rouhani-Obama deal, with that event
in hindsight being the tripwire that provoked the American military into wantonly escalating
tensions with Iran (despite believing that they're doing so in "self-defense)
Because they realized that the maximum costs that the Islamic Republic could inflict
on it in response to their actions could be "manageable".
The lesson to be learned from all of this is that the possession of nuclear weapons
safeguards a country's sovereignty by enabling it to inflict "unmanageable"/"unacceptable"
costs on its foes and thus deter their aggression, failing which leaders on both sides can be
manipulated into a serious crisis.
No matter who we get in the White House, they are always won over by the so-called
"Intelligence" services and the Pentagon. A little bit of kow-towing to them by staff and
others and they forget who they are and why they ran in the first place. In the case of
Trump, Netanyahu is an old friend. So did we ever expect any thing else? The Israelis think
they own us, and Netanyahu has aid so, so did Sharon. As for the end-of-timers, they think
they will be gathered in a cloud and watch while we all suffer nuclear war. With people like
this, who needs enemies?
Kiwikris , January 4, 2020 at 23:38
Pepe, while I respect your work hugely I must disagree with your assertion that Trump is
trapped by Impeachment. The "impeachment", until it's delivered to the Senate is a big fat
nothing. Even if it ever does make it to the Senate, I doubt VERY much if it will come to
anything & I believe Trump is not worried in the slightest. Donations to his re-election
campaign have skyrocketed, Zogbys latest poll (for what they are worth) shows his support up
across the board. And the Republicans control the Senate, not withstanding the potential
turncoat RINOs
Ron Johnson , January 4, 2020 at 18:26
Casey, swing voters will decide everything in 2020. Trump very well might keep his base,
but he could also lose the swing voters who believed him when he said he wanted peace. They
knew Hillary was a war monger, and they hoped for better with Trump. Now Trump has proven
himself to be just as blood thirsty, so that opens the door to anyone who can convincingly
argue that they are for peace, or at least for more restraint.
Robert Emmett , January 4, 2020 at 11:35
A little doggerel for some of those sharp toothed cats out there.
"Yeah, that was that cat alright."
ass faced men (pomp-a-don)
ass ass i' the-nation
passpass yer quid-
pro-quo-tay-shun
murderer had it comin'
screw turns harder
ain't no time
to bicker or to barter
just out of sight
in the dead of night
another screw turns loose
more money gets thrown
off the back of the caboose
run around town with open pockets
while men in hoods pull eyes out they sockets
best keep peepers & peeps at home
seal their names in a golden tome
help those in need act on yer own
ass-faced men are on the loose
Michael , January 4, 2020 at 20:58
"This the way the Roaring, Raging Twenties begin: not with a bang, but with the release of
whimpering dogs of war."
This is very poetic and deeply moving. I hope it will be remembered for the ages.
John Drake , January 4, 2020 at 11:05
Probably not a good time to be an American in the Mideast. I remember during Vietnam when
quite a few American tourists wore Canadian lapel pins abroad.
Trump is so stupid. With over 700 military bases abroad and dependency on Mideast oil he
doesn't understand how incredibly vulnerable US assets are.
This will probably further alienate US' so called allies (vassal states); as their leaders
will realize this is creating a lose-lose scenario. Except Britain which has almost equally,
mentally challenged leadership.
Looking on the bright side, another nail in the coffin of US hegemony is being forged.
And when is Israel going to haul Bibi away in cuffs?
paul , January 4, 2020 at 10:40
Let's see how fond of these murderous antics the Exceptional and Indispensable Folk feel
when the body bags start coming home and the $6 trillion already thrown down the rabbit hole
starts looking like chump change.
Moi , January 4, 2020 at 02:26
What makes the US the enemy of mankind is that, in their foreign policy, they are never
the architects of their own misfortune. Blowback on Americans is always someone else's fault
no matter how ham-fisted their machinations in the lead-up to an event.
Until the exceptionalists can say "mea culpa" of themselves the innocents of this world
will end up paying the price.
Ben Novick , January 4, 2020 at 00:29
Don't underestimate the US. We can annihilate half the world's population in the next
hour, if required.
Zhu , January 4, 2020 at 07:12
What good would that do?
Cornelius Pipe , January 4, 2020 at 07:32
Nope. All you can annihilate is yourselves. Should the US choose to use a nuclear bomb in
a world where nuclear weapons proliferate the US will find out why people in glass houses
should not throw stones. i.e. the US should think long and hard before it swaps Washington
for Tehran.
caseyf5 , January 4, 2020 at 07:36
Hello Ben Novick,
And will in the future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anthony Shaker , January 4, 2020 at 09:51
I don't know what this inane comment is meant to convey, but perhaps you should ponder
what you just wrote. What is your religion, exactly? There is an intolerable element of evil
in your words. What you are saying also is that, in the end, the US, which is no longer an
island in today's world, is being led by a death wish. Is that the apocalypse that the
howling lunatics of the pseudo-religious Church of Wealth presently unfurling itself on the
Evangelical crowd in America (and now Latin America) are waiting for? Everything the US does
another can do and do with growing efficiency.
Truth first , January 4, 2020 at 11:55
Sheeee!!
Apparently Ben does not realize that the US CANNOT annihilate "half the world's
population" without annihilating half of the US population.
Like a US patriot he is perfectly prepared to kill billions "if required". Only a
psychopath would ever consider killing billions of innocents "if required"
E depois fariam o que ! virariam zumbis 'sobre os escombros .como filmes de mad max.
kgw , January 4, 2020 at 13:51
We? Define "We,", Mr. Novick. I am a native of the U.S., and the only "We" that would act
in such a way are not aware of being human.
Mrs. Debra L. Carr de Legorreta , January 4, 2020 at 14:07
Ben Novick we cannot eliminate half the world's population without eliminating all of
it.
That's the problem. We have no sense of proportionality.
They kill one "contractor" we kill 25 militia members.
They trash one embassy, hurting no one; we murder their top general, murder several other top
officials, and we drone the heck out of a new group of protesters getting on their way to the
same embassy. Totally disproportionate.
Like you, these neocons are overly impressed with their toys and their self-righteousness.
They couldn't stomach brown people desecrating their pretty billion-dollar embassy in
Baghdad.
YOUR way of thinking IS the problem.
Your comments remind me of Hillary Clinton cackling on getting the news that Gaddafi had been
sodomized and murdered.
You proud? Is that what being a "patriot" means to you, that you can murder anyone you
want?
LJ , January 4, 2020 at 17:33
Hey Ben, Learn something. Look up Bomb Carbon. It is going to disappear in a few years so
government funded Scientists are doing a lot of testing and engaging in various kinds of
research trying to make good use of it while the fun lasts. . Bomb Carbon is short for a
radioactive by product of the nuclear explosions that were ended by the early 60's after the
ban on Testing of Nuclear weapons above ground like at Bikini Atoll, Area 51, etc. Now I
guess you think there's a good reason to create a whole lot more bomb carbon. It will be
great . Good for research? We got to keep those guys gainfully employed? We've got to keep
ahead of them damn Ruskies and the Chinese too , the ones that aren't already employed at
MIT, Lawrence Livermore Lab and elsewhere here in the Brigand Nation that assassinates with
impunity without regard to International Law or Borders then lies about it on TV. Well, since
we can't do it to American Indians anymore we got to find new victims?
This was a historic mistake. 650 million Shiites will not ever forget This. This man was a
hero and definitely expected assasination and martyrdom. Read about Twelvers. The Shia Branch
of Islam. Their religion is based on and centers around revering the 11 already martyred
Imans that were assassinated/murdered by unjust powers. I don't make this stuff up. This
plays right into what they believe. No Shiite could side with the USA on this. Not possible .
There are hundreds of millions of them.
This was a stupid decision by stupid men and unless the Democrats are just as stupid they are
going to resist this, come out against a Trump War and Trump is going to lose the election in
a landslide. Americans want No More War despite what the News Media and the Pentagon and yes
the Deep State say.
Trump- LOSER.
geeyp , January 3, 2020 at 23:27
At least where Pepe reports from, he has access to great food for our Last Supper, as some
portray this stupid action from President Trump and the all too eager Pentagon, who is the
only group to generously gain from this. Netanyahu may now think he does and we wouldn't want
him or expect him to think any other way.
Mark Stanley , January 3, 2020 at 19:35
Excellent Pepe, but disturbing
The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. Happy New Year? Will Americans really swallow
this treble hook whole again?
I keep wondering how much insider or opportunistic trading goes on. Any one who knew about
this 10 minutes beforehand could simply go long oil, or gold. Quite predictable. The markets
are so volatile nowadays, over reacting to news events. Much of this is due to AI trading
systems that are programmed to react to news, and they get the feeds before anyone else and
react instantly–buy/sell. Deep state creeps certainly made a killing in the markets
today. No brainer there. It would be interesting to check out the volume on various options
and commodities contracts prior to the assassination. The term "elephant tracks" has been
used to identify massive buy/sell orders by unidentified players.
As an old hippy guy, I really thought our world would be a better place by now. Au contrere.
No matter what political system, the sociopaths continue to rise to the top like toxic
scum.
Jeff Harrison , January 3, 2020 at 18:12
I imagine that the Iranians will be able to demonstrate that the the US isn't the only
nation that can assassinate at a distance and I also suspect that Israel will discover a few
dead bodies of their own. I expect that the Iraqis will kick the US out of their country.
They certainly don't want to be the battle field for an Iran/US war either. The real question
will be – what will Russia's and China's response to this be?
Clark M Shanahan , January 3, 2020 at 22:13
I wish that calm heads shall prevail.
BTW: the Saudi's can expect payback, too.
rosemerry , January 4, 2020 at 13:17
There is an agreement between the USA and Iraq about US troops inside Iraq,and this act
has clearly broken it, and if the Iraqis do not kick all the US troops out they will get no
support from anyone. There is NO excuse to treat the government of an "allied, sovereign"
country in such a way, involving Iraqi government forces and militias as well, of course, as
Gen. Suleimani.
karlof1 , January 3, 2020 at 17:54
Wonder what the odds are on Pompeo, Trump, or Esper dying non-violently at some point in
the near future? IMO, Trump also killed his reelection. My other initial and subsequent
comments were made at Moon of Alabama and don't need repeating here. I will post this there
along with a few quotes from Pepe, whose Facebook is also jammed.
caseyf5 , January 4, 2020 at 07:41
Hello karlof1,
I vehemently disagree in your belief that the tRump will lose the 2020 election. His cult
followers think that war with Iran is a great thing!
Tom Kath , January 3, 2020 at 17:53
There can be no clearer DECLARATION OF WAR. Choose your sides and prepare to die
regardless which side you choose.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini and Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, right
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons).
Last October Yossi Cohen, head of Israel's Mossad, spoke openly about assassinating Iranian
general Qassem Soleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps.
"He knows very well that his assassination is not impossible," Cohen said in an
interview. Soleimani had boasted that the Israel's tried to assassinate him in 2006 and
failed.
"With all due respect to his bluster," Cohen said, "he hasn't necessarily committed the
mistake yet that would place him on the prestigious list of Mossad's assassination
targets."
Soleimani's convoy was struck by U.S. missiles as he left a meeting at Baghdad's airport
amid anti-Iranian and anti-American demonstrations in Iraq. Supporters of an Iranian-backed
militia had agreed to withdraw
from the U.S. diplomatic compound in return for a promise that the government would allow a
parliamentary vote on expelling 5,000 U.S. troops from the country.
The Pentagon confirmed the military operation, which came "at the direction of the
president" and was "aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans." The Pentagon claimed in a
statement that Gen. Soleimani was "actively developing plans to attack American diplomats
and service members in Iraq and throughout the region."
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, under indictment for criminal charges, was the first
and only national leader to support Trump's action, while claiming that that Trump acted
entirely on his own.
"Just as Israel has the right to self-defense, the United States has exactly the same
right," Netanyahu
told reporters in Greece. "Qassem Soleimani is responsible for the deaths of American
citizens and other innocents, and he was planning more attacks."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed retaliation for the general's death, tweeting that
"Iran will take revenge for this heinous crime."
Capable Foe
Soleimani was the most capable foe of the United States and Israel in the region. As chief
of the
Al-Quds force, Soleimani was a master of Iran's asymmetric warfare strategy, using proxy
forces to bleed Iran's enemies, while preserving the government's ability to plausibly deny
involvement.
After the U.S. invasions of Iraq, he funded and trained anti-American militias that launched
low-level attacks on U.S. occupation forces, killing upward of 600 U.S. servicemen and
generating pressure for U.S. withdrawal.
In recent years, Soleimani led two successful Iranian military operations: the campaign to
drive ISIS out of western Iraq in 2015 and the campaign to crush the jihadist forces opposed to
Syria's Bashar al-Assad. The United States and Israel denounced Iran's role in both operations
but could not prevent Iran from claiming victory.
Soleimani had assumed a leading role in Iraqi politics in the past year. The anti-ISIS
campaign relied on Iraqi militias, which the Iranians supported with money, weapons, and
training. After ISIS was defeated, these militia maintained a prominent role in Iraq that many
resented, leading to demonstrations and rioting. Soleimani was seeking to stabilize the
government and channel the protests against the United States when he was killed.
In the same period, Israel pursued its program of targeted assassination. In the past decade
Mossad
assassinated at least five Iranian nuclear scientists, according to Israeli journalist
Ronen Bergman, in an effort to thwart Iran's nuclear program. Yossi Melman, another Israeli
journalist, says that Mossad has assassinated
60-70 enemies outside of its borders since its founding in 1947, though none as prominent
as Soleimani.
Israel also began striking at the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq last year. The United
States did the same on December 29, killing
19 fighters and prompting anti-American demonstrations as big as the anti-Iranian
demonstrations of a month ago.
Now the killing of Soleimani promises more unrest, if not open war. The idea that it will
deter Iranian attacks is foolish.
"This doesn't mean war," wrote former Defense Department official Andrew Exum, "It
will not lead to war, and it doesn't risk war. None of that.
It
is
war. "
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported a year ago that Washington had given Israel the
green light to assassinate Soleimani . Al-Jarida, which in recent years has broken
exclusive stories from Israel, quoted a source in Jerusalem as saying that "there is an
American-Israeli agreement" that Soleimani is a "threat to the two countries' interests in the
region." It is generally assumed in the Arab world that the paper is used as an Israeli
platform for conveying messages to other countries in the Middle East.
Trump has now fulfilled the wishes of Mossad. After proclaiming his intention to end
America's " stupid endless wars," the
president has effectively declared war on the largest country in the region in solidarity with
Israel, the most unpopular country in the Middle East.
This article first appeared on Jefferson Morley's TheDeepStateBlog .
ast Friday, the Iranian-backed militia Kata'ib Hizbollah or KH launched yet another attack
against American forces in Iraq, resulting in the death of one American civilian, and injuries
to four American service members, as well as two of our partners in the Iraqi Security Forces.
This continues a string of attacks against bases with U.S. forces and Iraqi Security Forces. KH
has a strong linkage to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and has received lethal
aid, support, and direction from Iran.
Over the last couple of months Iranian-backed Shia militias have repeatedly attacked bases
hosting American forces in Iraq. These attacks have injured our partners in the Iraqi Security
Forces, but fortunately Americans were not casualties of these attacks until last week. On
November 9th, Iranian-backed Shia militias fired rockets at Q-West Air Base located in
North-West Iraq. On December 3rd, they conducted a rocket attack against Al Asad Air Base, and
on December 5th, they launched rockets against Balad Air Base. Finally, on December 9th, these
same militia groups fired rockets at the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center located on the
Baghdad International Airport. It is clear that these attacks are being directed by the Iranian
regime, specifically IRGC leadership.
In response, U.S. leaders have repeatedly warned the Iranians and their Shia militia proxies
against further provocative actions. At the same time, we have urged the Iraqi government to
take all necessary steps to protect American forces in their country. I personally have spoken
to Iraqi leadership multiple times over recent months, urging them to do more.
After the attack last Friday, at the direction of the President, U.S. forces launched
defensive strikes against KH forces in Iraq and Syria. These attacks were aimed at reducing
KH's ability to launch additional attacks against U.S. personnel and to make it clear to Iran
and Iranian-backed militias that the United States will not hesitate to defend our forces in
the region.
On Tuesday, December 31st, at the instigation of Shia militias, violent rallies of members
of these militias outside the American embassy in Baghdad resulted in damage to exterior entry
facilities and buildings at the embassy compound. We know it was Iranian-backed Shia militias
because key leaders were spotted in the crowd and some militia members showed up wearing their
uniforms and carried the flags of their militia, including KH. We continue to urge the Iraqi
government to prevent further escalation. Leaders of the Iraqi government have condemned the
attack on the U.S. embassy, including the Iraqi president, prime minister, foreign minister,
and speaker of the parliament. Additionally, regional and international partners have condemned
the attacks on U.S. facilities, including Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain in the region, and the
E.U., Germany, France, and others around the globe.
On Tuesday, to ensure the security of the Americans at the embassy in Baghdad, we
immediately deployed Marines from Kuwait who arrived at the embassy in a matter of hours. We
also deployed a battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division to ensure that we can provide
additional defensive support to the embassy in Baghdad or elsewhere in the region as
needed.
Let me speak directly to Iran and to our partners and allies. To Iran and its proxy
militias: we will not accept continued attacks against our personnel and forces in the region.
Attacks against us will be met with responses in the time, manner, and place of our choosing.
We urge the Iranian regime to end their malign activities.
To our partners and allies: we must stand together against the malign and destabilizing
actions of Iran. The 81 nations and member organizations of the Defeat ISIS Coalition are in
Iraq and Syria, and cooperating around the globe to defeat ISIS. We have worked closely with
our partners in the Iraqi Security Forces and Syrian Democratic Forces to roll-back the
so-called ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria and liberated millions of Iraqis and Syrians. NATO
nations are also in Iraq to assist with building the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces.
Unlike the Iranians who continue to meddle in Iraq's internal affairs and seek to use
corruption to further Tehran's malign influence, the United States and our allies are committed
to an independent, stable, secure, and sovereign democratic Iraq that addresses the aspirations
and needs of the Iraqi people, who we see protesting for these very things and objecting to
Iran's malign influence. We call on our friends and allies to continue to work together to
reduce Iran's destabilizing influence so Iraq is governed by Iraqis without this interference
in its internal affairs. Mark T. Esper
After the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and the
death of the Soviet Union was confirmed two years later when Boris Yeltsin courageously stood
down the Red Army tanks in front of Moscow's White House, a dark era in human history came to
an end.
The world had descended into a 77-Year War, incepting with the mobilization of the armies of
old Europe in August 1914. If you want to count bodies, 150 million were killed by all the
depredations that germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and the
march of history into World War II and the Cold War that followed inexorably thereupon.
Upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped out during that span. The toll encompassed the
madness of trench warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi
totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and Versailles; and then the carnage
of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and
Vietnam.
At the end of the Cold War, therefore, the last embers of the fiery madness that had
incepted with the guns of August 1914 had finally burned out. Peace was at hand. Yet 28 years
later there is still no peace because Imperial Washington confounds it.
In fact, the War Party entrenched in the nation's capital is dedicated to economic interests
and ideological perversions that guarantee perpetual war. These forces ensure endless waste on
armaments; they cause the inestimable death and human suffering that stems from 21st-century
high-tech warfare; and they inherently generate terrorist blowback from those upon whom the War
Party inflicts its violent hegemony.
Worse still, Washington's great war machine and teeming national security industry is its
own agent of self-perpetuation. When it is not invading, occupying and regime changing, its
vast apparatus of internal policy bureaus and outside contractors, lobbies, think tanks and
NGOs is busy generating reasons for new imperial ventures.
So there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77-Year War
ended. The great general and President, Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the
"military-industrial complex" in his farewell address. But that memorable phrase had been
abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word "congressional" in a gesture of comity
to the legislative branch.
So restore Ike's deleted reference to the pork barrels and Sunday-afternoon warriors of
Capitol Hill and toss in the legions of Beltway busybodies who constituted the civilian
branches of the Cold War armada (CIA, State, AID, NED and the rest) and the circle would have
been complete. It constituted the most awesome machine of warfare and imperial hegemony since
the Roman legions bestrode most of the civilized world.
In a word, the real threat to peace circa 1991 was that the American Imperium would not go
away quietly into the good night.
In fact, during the past 28 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was
ever possible at the end of the Cold War. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty
as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914.
A few months after that horrendous slaughter had been unleashed 105 years ago, however,
soldiers along the western front broke into spontaneous truces of Christmas celebration,
song and even exchange of gifts . For a brief moment they wondered why they were
juxtaposed in lethal combat along the jaws of hell.
A sudden cold snap had left the battlefield frozen, which was actually a relief for
troops wallowing in sodden mire. Along the Front, troops extracted themselves from their
trenches and dugouts, approaching each other warily, and then eagerly, across No Man's Land.
Greetings and handshakes were exchanged, as were gifts scavenged from care packages sent from
home. German souvenirs that ordinarily would have been obtained only through bloodshed –
such as spiked pickelhaube helmets, or Gott mit uns belt buckles – were bartered for
similar British trinkets. Carols were sung in German, English, and French. A few photographs
were taken of British and German officers standing alongside each other, unarmed, in No Man's
Land.
Near the Ypres salient, Germans and Scotsmen chased after wild hares that, once caught,
served as an unexpected Christmas feast. Perhaps the sudden exertion of chasing wild hares
prompted some of the soldiers to think of having a football match. Then again, little prompting
would have been necessary to inspire young, competitive men – many of whom were English
youth recruited off soccer fields – to stage a match. In any case, numerous accounts in
letters and journals attest to the fact that on Christmas 1914, German and English soldiers
played soccer on the frozen turf of No Man's Land.
British Field Artillery Lieutenant John Wedderburn-Maxwell described the event as
"probably the most extraordinary event of the whole war – a soldier's truce without any
higher sanction by officers and generals ."
The truth is, there was no good reason for the Great War. The world had stumbled into war
based on false narratives and the institutional imperatives of military mobilization plans,
alliances and treaties arrayed into a doomsday machine and petty short-term diplomatic
maneuvers and political calculus. Yet it took more than three-quarters of a century for all the
consequential impacts and evils to be purged from the life of the planet.
The peace that was lost last time has not been regained this time, however, and for the same
reasons. Historians can readily name the culprits from 105 years ago.
These include the German general staff's plan for a lightning mobilization and strike on the
western front called the Schlieffen Plan; the incompetence and intrigue in the court at St.
Petersburg; French President Poincare's anti-German irredentism owing to the 1871 loss of his
home province, Alsace-Lorraine; and the bloodthirsty cabal around Winston Churchill who forced
England into an unnecessary war, among countless others.
Since these casus belli of 1914 were criminally trivial in light of all that metastasized
thereafter, it might do well to name the institutions and false narratives that block the
return of peace today. The fact is, these impediments are even more contemptible than the
forces that crushed the Christmas truces one century ago.
IMPERIAL WASHINGTON – THE NEW GLOBAL MENACE
There is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington –
not Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or the rubble of Raqqa. Imperial Washington has
become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991.
At that crucial inflection point, Bush the Elder should have declared "mission accomplished"
and parachuted into the great Ramstein air base in Germany to begin the demobilization of the
America's war machine.
So doing, he could have slashed the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion (2015
$); demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons
development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network
of U.S. military bases; reduced the United States' standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a
few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world-disarmament and peace campaign, as did his
Republican predecessors during the 1920s.
Unfortunately, George H. W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even middling
intelligence.
He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace
when, in the very year the 77-Year War ended with the demise of the Soviet Union, he plunged
America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the gluttonous emir of
Kuwait. But that argument was none of George Bush's or America's business.
By contrast, even though liberal historians have reviled Warren G. Harding as some kind of
dummkopf politician, he well understood that the Great War had been for naught, and that to
ensure it never happened again the nations of the world needed to rid themselves of their huge
navies and standing armies.
To that end, he achieved the largest global-disarmament agreement ever during the Washington
Naval Conference of 1921, which halted the construction of new battleships for more than a
decade. And even then, the moratorium ended only because the vengeful victors at Versailles
never ceased exacting their revenge on Germany.
And while he was at it, President Harding also pardoned Eugene Debs. In so doing, he gave
witness to the truth that the intrepid socialist candidate for president and vehement antiwar
protester, who Wilson had thrown in prison for exercising his First Amendment right to speak
against US entry into a pointless European war, had been right all along.
In short, Warren G. Harding knew the war was over and the folly of Wilson's 1917 plunge into
Europe's bloodbath should not be repeated, at all hazards.
But not George H. W. Bush. The man should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick
Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power –
even if he eventually denounced them in his doddering old age.
Alas, upon his death, Bush the Elder was deified, not vilified, by the mainstream press and
the bipartisan duopoly. And that tells you all you need to know about why Washington is
ensnared in its Forever Wars and is the very reason why there is still no peace on earth.
Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in
1991 Washington opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam and nurtured the
rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today save for forces unleashed by
George H. W. Bush's petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.
We will momentarily get to the 45-year-old error that holds the Persian Gulf is an American
lake and that the answer to high oil prices and energy security is the Fifth Fleet.
Suffice it to say here that the answer to high oil prices everywhere and always is
high oil prices – a truth driven home in spades by the oil busts of 2009 and 2015 and the
fact the real price of oil today (2019 $) is lower than it was on the eve of the great oil
embargo of 1973.
But first it is well to remember that in 1991 there was no plausible threat anywhere on the
planet to the safety and security of the citizens of Springfield, MA, Lincoln, NE or Spokane,
WA when the Cold War ended.
The Warsaw Pact had dissolved into more than a dozen woebegone sovereign statelets; the
Soviet Union was now unscrambled into 15 independent and far-flung republics from Belarus to
Tajikistan; and the Russian motherland would soon plunge into an economic depression that would
leave it with a GDP about the size of the Philadelphia MSA.
Likewise, China's GDP was even smaller and more primitive than Russia's. Even as Mr. Deng
was discovering the People's Bank of China's printing press, which would enable it to become a
great mercantilist exporter, an incipient Chinese threat to national security was never in the
cards.
After all, it was the 4,000 Wal-Marts in America upon which the prosperity of the new Red
Capitalism inextricably depended and upon which the rule of the Communist oligarchs in Beijing
was ultimately anchored. Even the hardliners among them could see that in swapping militarism
for mercantilism and invading America with tennis shoes, neckties and home textiles –
that the door had been closed to any other kind of invasion thereafter.
NO ISLAMIC TERRORISTS OR JIHADI THREAT CIRCA 1991
Likewise, in 1991 there was no global Islamic threat or jihadi terrorist menace at all. What
existed under those headings were sundry fragments and deposits of Middle Eastern religious,
ethnic and tribal histories that were of moment in their immediate region, but no threat to
America's homeland security whatsoever.
The Shiite/Sunni divide had coexisted since A.D. 671, but its episodic eruptions into
battles and wars over the centuries had rarely extended beyond the region, and certainly had no
reason to fester into open conflict in 1991.
Inside the artificial state of Iraq, which had been drawn on a map by historically ignorant
European diplomats in 1916, for instance, the Shiite and Sunni got along tolerably. That's
because the nation was ruled by Saddam Hussein's Baathist brand of secular Arab nationalism,
flavored by a muscular propensity for violent repression of internal dissent.
Hussein championed law and order, state-driven economic development and politically
apportioned distributions from the spoils of the extensive government-controlled oil sector. To
be sure, Baathist socialism didn't bring much prosperity to the well-endowed lands of
Mesopotamia, but Hussein did have a Christian foreign minister and no sympathy for religious
extremism or violent pursuit of sectarian causes.
As it happened, the bloody Shiite/Sunni strife that plagues Iraq, Syria and the greater
middle east today and which functioned as a hatchery for angry young jihadi terrorists in their
thousands was initially unleashed only after Hussein had been driven from Kuwait in 1991 and
the CIA had instigated an armed uprising in the Shiite heartland around Basra..
That revolt was brutally suppressed by Hussein's republican guards, but it left an undertow
of resentment and revenge boiling below the surface. That was one of many of George H. W.
Bush's fetid legacies in the region.
Needless to say, when it came their turn, Bush the Younger and his cabal of neocon
warmongers could not leave well enough alone.
When they foolishly destroyed Saddam Hussein and his entire regime in the pursuit of
nonexistent WMDs and alleged ties with al-Qaeda, they literally opened the gates of hell,
leaving Iraq as a lawless failed state where both recent and ancient religious and tribal
animosities were given unlimited violent vent.
WHY THE WAR PARTY NEEDED TO DEMONIZE IRAN
Also circa 1990, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was no threat to America's safety
and security – even if it was an unfortunate albatross on the Persian people.
The very idea that Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the
rest of the world is a giant fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party
and its Bibi Netanyahu branch in order to win political support for their confrontationist
policies.
Indeed, the three-decade-long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose.
Namely, it has enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby
justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military
mobilization.
Indeed, Iran has not been demonized by happenstance. When the Cold War officially ended in
1991, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US
military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic
environment.
In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way
of keeping defense spending at high Cold War levels. If the fearsome Soviet Union was gone, a
vastly inflated threat emanating from Iran's minuscule GDP of $350 billion and tiny defense
budget of $15 billion would needs be invented and hyperbolized.
And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to
come out of the Beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then
threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!
To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa
against the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that
enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime
of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much
different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.
That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA
overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and
megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi on the Peacock Throne to rule as a puppet on behalf
of US security and oil interests.
During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of
the Persian nation; with the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret
police force known as SAVAK. The latter made the East German Stasi look civilized by
comparison.
All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic
organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the
SAVAK agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:
Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest,
detain, brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own
prisons in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places
throughout the country as well. Many of those activities were carried out without any
institutional checks.
Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah had embarked on a massive civilian
nuclear-power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape
with dozens of nuclear power plants.
He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from
Western companies – and also fuel-cycle support services such as uranium enrichment
– in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.
At the time of the revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but
the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset
of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion
deposit languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the
Shah to fund a ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of
reactors.
Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was
not hell-bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst
of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
against biological and chemical weapons.
Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces
– some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking
satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture
was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for
nukes.
However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy that ruled Iran did not
consist of demented warmongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own
forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.
HOW WASHINGTON INSPIRED THE MYTH OF IRAN'S SECRET NUCLEAR-WEAPONS PROGRAM
Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some
additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French
enrichment-services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German
suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when they tried to get their $2 billion
deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.
To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off-again, on-again efforts by
the Iranians to purchase dual-use equipment and components on the international
market, often from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's
relentless efforts to block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty to complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.
Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics that
inhabited Washington's national-security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin
every attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret
campaign to get "the bomb".
The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear mongering that came out of this neocon
campaign are truly deplorable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George H. W.
Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury the
hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held in
Lebanon in 1989.
Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States
and the West; and after the devastation of the eight-year war with Iraq, he was wholly focused
on economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.
It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even Bush
the Elder's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.
So the prisoner-release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the
CIA was assumed in 1991 by the despicable Robert Gates.
He was one of the very worst of the unreconstructed Cold War apparatchiks who looked peace
in the eye, and elected, instead, to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim. That is, Gates
spent the rest of his career searching the globe for monsters to fabricate.
In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right-hand
man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan Administration. Among the many
untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his
career when it blew up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.
From his post as deputy national-security director in 1989 (and then as CIA head shortly
thereafter), Gates pulled out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed off
the White House goodwill from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was
both sponsoring terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.
Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple
of War Party propaganda after 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that Iran
is an aggressive would-be hegemon and a fount of terrorism dedicated to the destruction of the
state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.
The latter giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi
Netanyahu's coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that
Iran posed an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli
politics that kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades – a plague on mankind
that hopefully is finally ending.
But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability.
And compared to the latter's 200-odd nukes, Iran never even had a nuclear weaponization program
after a small-scale research program was abandoned in 2003.
And that is not our opinion. It was the sober assessment of the nation's top 17 intelligence
agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates for 2007 , and has been
confirmed ever since.
It's the reason that the neocon plan to bomb Iran at the end of George W. Bush's term didn't
happen. As Dubya confessed in his autobiography, even he couldn't figure out how he could
explain to the American public why he was bombing facilities that all his intelligence agencies
had said did not exist. That is, he would have been impaled on WMD 2.0 on his way out of the
White House.
Moreover, now via a further study arising from the 2015 international nuclear accord –
which would have straitjacketed even Iran's civilian program and eliminated most of its
enriched-uranium stockpiles and spinning capacity had not the Donald foolishly shit-canned it
– the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also confirmed that Iran had no
secret nuclear-weapons program after 2003.
The whole scary bedtime story was false War Party propaganda manufactured from whole
cloth.
MORE WAR PARTY LIES – DEMONIZATION OF THE SHIITE CRESCENT
In this context, the War Party's bloviating about Iran's leadership of the so-called Shiite
Crescent is another component of Imperial Washington's 28-year-long roadblock to peace. Iran
wasn't a threat to American security in 1991, and since then it has never organized a hostile
coalition of terrorists that requires Washington's intervention.
Start with Iran's long-standing support of Bashir Assad's government in Syria. That alliance
goes back to his father's era and is rooted in the historic confessional politics of the
Islamic world.
The Assad regime is Alawite, a branch of the Shiites, and despite the regime's brutality, it
has been a bulwark of protection for all of Syria's minority sects, including Christians,
against a majority-Sunni ethnic cleansing. The latter would surely occur if US and
Saudi-supported rebels, led by the Nusra Front and ISIS, had been permitted to take full
power.
Likewise, the fact that the Baghdad government of the broken state of Iraq – that is,
the artificial 1916 concoction of two striped-pants European diplomats (Messrs. Sykes and Picot
of the British and French foreign offices, respectively) – is now aligned with Iran is
also a result of confessional politics and geo-economic propinquity.
For all practical purposes, Iraq has been partitioned. The Kurds of the Northeast have
declared their independence and have been collecting their own oil revenue for the past few
years and operating their own security forces.
And the western Sunni lands of the upper Euphrates, of course, were first conquered by ISIS
with American weapons dropped in place by the hapless $25 billion Iraqi army minted by
Washington's departing proconsuls; and then obliterated during Obama's vicious bombing and
droning campaign designed to uproot the terrorist evil that Washington itself had spawned.
Accordingly, what is left of the rump state of Iraq is a population that is overwhelmingly
Shiite and nurses bitter resentments after two decades of violent conflict with the Sunni
forces. Why in the world, therefore, wouldn't they ally with their Shiite neighbor?
Likewise, the claim that Iran is now trying to annex Yemen, thereby justifying the sheer
genocide wreaked upon it by the Saudi air war, is pure claptrap. The ancient territory of Yemen
had been racked by civil war off and on since the early 1970s. And a major driving force of
that conflict has been confessional differences between the Sunni South and the Shiite
North.
In more recent times, Washington's blatant drone war inside Yemen against alleged terrorists
and its domination and financing of Yemen's government eventually produced the same old outcome
– that is, another failed state and an illegitimate government that fled at the 11th
hour, leaving another vast cache of American arms and equipment behind.
Accordingly, the Houthis forces now in control of substantial parts of the country are not
some kind of advanced guard sent in by Tehran. They are indigenous partisans who share a
confessional tie with Iran, but who have actually been armed, if inadvertently, by
Washington.
Finally, there is the fourth element of the purported Iranian axis – the
Hezbollah-controlled Shiite communities of southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley in the
northeast. Like everything else in the Middle East, Hezbollah is a product of historical
European imperialism, Islamic confessional politics and the frequently misguided and
counterproductive security policies of Israel.
In the first place, Lebanon was not any more a real country than Iraq was when Sykes and
Picot laid their straight-edged rulers on a map. The result was a stew of religious and ethnic
divisions – Maronite Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Copts, Druse, Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites,
Kurds, Armenians, Jews and countless more – that made the fashioning of a viable state
virtually impossible.
At length, an alliance of Christians and Sunnis gained control of the country, leaving the
40% Shiite population disenfranchised and economically disadvantaged, as well. But it was the
inflow of Palestinian refugees in the 1960s and 1970s that eventually upset the balance of
sectarian forces and triggered a civil war that essentially lasted from 1975 until the turn of
the century.
It also triggered a catastrophically wrong-headed Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in
1982, and a subsequent repressive occupation of mostly Shiite territories for the next 18
years. The alleged purpose of this invasion was to chase the PLO and Yasser Arafat out of the
enclave in southern Lebanon that they had established after being driven out of Jordan in
1970.
Eventually Israel succeeded in sending Arafat packing to North Africa, but in the process
created a militant, Shiite-based resistance movement that did not even exist in 1982 and that
in due course became the strongest single force in Lebanon's fractured domestic political
arrangements.
After Israel withdrew in 2000, the then-Christian president of the country made abundantly
clear that Hezbollah had become a legitimate and respected force within the Lebanese polity,
not merely some subversive agent of Tehran:
"For us Lebanese, and I can tell you the majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national
resistance movement. If it wasn't for them, we couldn't have liberated our land. And because of
that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement."
So, yes, Hezbollah is an integral component of the so-called Shiite Crescent, and its
confessional and political alignment with Tehran is entirely plausible. But that arrangement
– however uncomfortable for Israel – does not represent unprovoked Iranian
aggression on Israel's northern border.
Instead, it's actually the blowback from the stubborn refusal of Israeli governments –
especially the right-wing Likud governments of modern times – to deal constructively with
the Palestinian question.
In lieu of a two-state solution in the territory of Palestine, therefore, Israeli policy has
produced a chronic state of confrontation and war with the huge share of the Lebanese
population represented by Hezbollah.
The latter is surely no agency of peaceful governance and has committed its share of
atrocities. But the point at hand is that given the last 35 years of history and Israeli
policy, Hezbollah would exist as a menacing force on its northern border even if the Iranian
theocracy didn't exist and the shah or his heir was still on the Peacock Throne.
In short, there is no alliance of terrorism in the Shiite Crescent that threatens American
security. That proposition is simply one of the big lies that was promulgated by the War Party
after 1991 and that has been happily embraced by Imperial Washington since then in order to
keep the military-industrial-security complex alive, and justify its self-appointed role as
policeman of the world.
WASHINGTON'S ERRONEOUS VIEW THAT THE PERSIAN GULF IS AN AMERICAN LAKE – THE ROOT OF
SUNNI JIHADISM
The actual terrorist threat has arisen from the Sunni, not the Shiite, side of the
Islamic divide. But that, in turn, is largely of Washington's own making; and it is
being nurtured by endless US meddling in the region's politics and by the bombing and droning
campaigns against Washington's self-created enemies.
At the root of Sunni-based terrorism is the long-standing Washington error that America's
security and economic well-being depend upon keeping an armada in the Persian Gulf in order to
protect the surrounding oil fields and the flow of tankers through the straits of Hormuz.
That doctrine has been wrong from the day it was officially enunciated by one of America's
great economic ignoramuses, Henry Kissinger, at the time of the original oil crisis in 1973.
The 46 years since then have proven in spades that it doesn't matter who controls the oil
fields, and that the only effective cure for high oil prices is the free market.
Every tin pot dictatorship from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to
Saddam Hussein, to the bloody-minded chieftains of Nigeria, to the purportedly medieval mullahs
and fanatical revolutionary guards of Iran has produced oil – and all they could because
they desperately needed the revenue.
For crying out loud, even while the barbaric thugs of ISIS were briefly in power in eastern
Syria, they milked every possible drop of petroleum from the tiny, wheezing oil fields
scattered around their backwater domain. So there is no economic case whatsoever for Imperial
Washington's massive military presence in the Middle East.
The truth is, there is no such thing as an OPEC cartel – virtually every member
produces all they can and cheats whenever possible. The only thing that resembles production
control in the global oil market is the fact that the Saudi princes treat their oil reserves
not much differently than Exxon.
That is, they attempt to maximize the present value of their 270 billion barrels of
reserves, but ultimately are no more clairvoyant at calibrating the best oil price to
accomplish that than are the economists at Exxon or the International Energy Agency.
During the last decade, for example, the Saudis have repeatedly underestimated how rapidly
and extensively the $100-per-barrel marker reached in early 2008 and again in 2014 would
trigger a flow of investment, technology and cheap debt into the US shale patch, the Canadian
tar sands, the tired petroleum provinces of Russia, the deep waters offshore Brazil and the
like. And that's to say nothing of solar, wind and all the other government-subsidized
alternative sources of BTUs.
Way back when Jimmy Carter was telling us to turn down the thermostats and put on our
cardigan sweaters, those of us in Congress on the free market side of the so-called
energy-shortage debate said that high oil prices would bring about their own cure. Now we
know.
So the Fifth Fleet and its overt and covert auxiliaries should never have been there –
going all the way back to the CIA's coup against Iranian democracy in 1953.
But having turned Iran into an enemy, Imperial Washington was just getting started when 1990
rolled around. Once again in the name of "oil security" it plunged the American war machine
into the politics and religious fissures of the Persian Gulf, and did so on account of the
above referenced small-potatoes conflict that had no bearing whatsoever on the safety and
security of American citizens.
As US Ambassador Glaspie rightly told Saddam Hussein on the eve of Hussein's Kuwait
invasion, America had no dog in that hunt.
Kuwait wasn't even a country; it was a bank account sitting on a swath of oil fields
surrounding an ancient trading city that had been abandoned by Ibn Saud in the early 20th
century. That's because Saud didn't know what oil was or that it was there; and in any event,
it had been made a separate protectorate by the British in 1913 for reasons that are lost in
the fog of diplomatic history.
Likewise, Iraq's contentious dispute with Kuwait had been over its claim that the emir of
Kuwait was "slant drilling" across his border into Iraq's Rumaila field. Yet it was a wholly
elastic boundary of no significance whatsoever.
In fact, the dispute over the Rumaila field started in 1960 when an Arab League declaration
arbitrarily marked the Iraq – Kuwait border two miles north of the southernmost tip of
the Rumaila field.
And that newly defined boundary, in turn, had come only 44 years after a pair of English and
French diplomats had carved up their winnings from the Ottoman Empire's demise by laying a
straight-edged ruler on the map. In so doing, they thereby confected the artificial country of
"Iraq" from the historically independent and hostile Mesopotamian provinces of the Shiites in
the South, the Sunnis in the West and the Kurds in the North.
In short, it did not matter who controlled the southern tip of the Rumaila field – the
brutal dictator of Baghdad or the opulent emir of Kuwait. Neither the price of oil, nor the
peace of America, nor the security of Europe nor the future of Asia depended upon it.
THE FIRST GULF WAR – A CATASTROPHIC ERROR
But once again Bush the Elder got persuaded to take the path of war. This time it was by
Henry Kissinger's economically illiterate protégés at the National Security
Council and Bush's Texas oilman secretary of state. They falsely claimed that the
will-o'-the-wisp of "oil security" was at stake, and that 500,000 American troops needed to be
planted in the sands of Arabia.
That was a catastrophic error, and not only because the presence of "crusader" boots on the
purportedly sacred soil of Arabia offended the CIA-trained mujahedeen of Afghanistan, who had
become unemployed when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The 1991 CNN-glorified war games in the Gulf also further empowered another group of
unemployed crusaders. Namely, the neocon national-security fanatics who had misled Ronald
Reagan into a massive military buildup to thwart what they claimed to be an ascendant Soviet
Union bent on nuclear-war-winning capabilities and global conquest.
All things being equal, the sight of Boris Yeltsin, vodka flask in hand, facing down the Red
Army a few months later should have sent the neocons into the permanent disrepute and obscurity
they so richly deserved. But Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz managed to extract from
Washington's Pyrrhic victory in Kuwait a whole new lease on life for Imperial Washington.
Right then and there came the second erroneous predicate – to wit, that "regime
change" among the assorted tyrannies of the Middle East was in America's national interest.
More fatally, the neocons now insisted that the first Gulf War proved it could be achieved
through a sweeping interventionist menu of coalition diplomacy, security assistance, arms
shipments, covert action and open military attack and occupation.
What the neocon doctrine of regime change actually did, of course, was to foster the
Frankenstein that ultimately became ISIS. In fact, the only real terrorists in the world
who threaten normal civilian life in the West are the rogue offspring of Imperial Washington's
post-1990 machinations in the Middle East.
The CIA-trained and CIA-armed mujahedeen mutated into al-Qaeda not because bin Laden
suddenly had a religious epiphany that his Washington benefactors were actually the Great Satan
owing to America's freedom and liberty.
His murderous crusade was inspired by the Wahhabi fundamentalism loose in Saudi Arabia. This
benighted religious fanaticism became agitated to a fever pitch by Imperial Washington's
violent plunge into Persian Gulf political and religious quarrels, the stationing of troops in
Saudi Arabia, and the decade-long barrage of sanctions, embargoes, no-fly zones, covert actions
and open hostility against the Sunni regime in Baghdad after 1991.
Yes, bin Laden would have amputated Saddam's secularist head if Washington hadn't done it
first, but that's just the point. The attempt at regime change in March 2003 was one of the
most foolish acts of state in American history.
Bush the Younger's neocon advisers had no clue about the sectarian animosities and
historical grievances that Hussein had bottled up by parsing the oil loot and wielding the
sword under the banner of Baathist nationalism. But shock and awe blew the lid and the
de-Baathification campaign unleashed the furies.
Indeed, no sooner had George Bush pranced around on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln
declaring "mission accomplished" than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a CIA recruit to the Afghan war a
decade earlier and smalltime specialist in hostage taking and poisons, fled his no-count
redoubt in Kurdistan to emerge as a flamboyant agitator in the now-dispossessed Sunni
heartland.
The founder of ISIS succeeded in Fallujah and Anbar province just like the long list of
other terrorist leaders Washington claims to have exterminated. That is, Zarqawi gained his
following and notoriety among the region's population of deprived, brutalized and humiliated
young men by dint of being more brutal than their occupiers.
Indeed, even as Washington was crowing about the demise of Zarqawi, the remnants of the
Baathist regime and the hundreds of thousands of demobilized republican guards were coalescing
into al-Qaeda in Iraq, and their future leaders were being incubated in a monstrous nearby
detention center called Camp Bucca that contained more than 26,000 prisoners.
As one former U.S. Army officer, Mitchell Gray, later described it,
"You never see hatred like you saw on the faces of these detainees," Gray remembers of
his 2008 tour. "When I say they hated us, I mean they looked like they would have killed us in
a heartbeat if given the chance. I turned to the warrant officer I was with and I said, 'If
they could, they would rip our heads off and drink our blood.
What Gray didn't know – but might have expected – was that he was not
merely looking at the United States' former enemies, but its future ones as well. According to
intelligence experts and Department of Defense records, the vast majority of the leadership of
what is today known as ISIS, including its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, did time at Camp
Bucca.
And not only did the US feed, clothe and house these jihadists, it also played a
vital, if unwitting, role in facilitating their transformation into the most formidable
terrorist force in modern history.
Early in Bucca's existence, the most extreme inmates were congregated in Compound 6.
There were not enough Americans guards to safely enter the compound – and, in any event,
the guards didn't speak Arabic. So the detainees were left alone to preach to one another and
share deadly vocational advice . . .
Bucca also housed Haji Bakr, a former colonel in Saddam Hussein's air-defense force.
Bakr was no religious zealot. He was just a guy who lost his job when the Coalition Provisional
Authority disbanded the Iraqi military and instituted de-Baathification, a policy of banning
Saddam's past supporters from government work.
According to documents recently obtained by German newspaper Der Spiegel, Bakr was the
real mastermind behind ISIS's organizational structure and also mapped out the strategies that
fueled its early successes. Bakr, who died in fighting in 2014, was incarcerated at Bucca from
2006-' 08, along with a dozen or more of ISIS's top lieutenants."
The point is, regime change and nation building can never be accomplished by the lethal
violence of 21st-century armed forces; and they were an especially preposterous assignment in
the context of a land rent with 13-century-old religious fissures and animosities.
In fact, the wobbly, synthetic state of Iraq was doomed the minute Cheney and his bloody
gang decided to liberate it from the brutal but serviceable and secular tyranny of Saddam's
Baathist regime. That's because the process of elections and majority rule necessarily imposed
by Washington was guaranteed to elect a government beholden to the Shiite
majority .
After decades of mistreatment and Saddam's brutal suppression of their 1991 uprising, did
the latter have revenge on their minds and in their communal DNA? Did the Kurds have dreams of
an independent Kurdistan spilling into Turkey and Syria that had been denied their
30-million-strong tribe way back at Versailles and ever since?
Yes, they did. So the $25 billion spent on training and equipping the putative
armed forces of post-liberation Iraq was bound to end up in the hands of sectarian militias,
not a national army.
In fact, when the Shiite commanders fled Sunni-dominated Mosul in June 2014 they transformed
the ISIS uprising against the government in Baghdad into a vicious fledgling state in one fell
swoop. But it wasn't by beheadings and fiery jihadist sermons that it quickly enslaved dozens
of towns and several million people in western Iraq and the Euphrates Valley of Syria.
THE ISLAMIC STATE WAS WASHINGTON'S VERY OWN FRANKENSTEIN
To the contrary, its instruments of terror and occupation were the best weapons that the
American taxpayers could buy. That included 2,300 Humvees and tens of thousands of automatic
weapons, as well as vast stores of ammunition, trucks, rockets, artillery pieces and even tanks
and helicopters.
And that wasn't the half of it. The Islamic State also filled the power vacuum in Syria
created by its so-called civil war. But in truth that was another exercise in
Washington-inspired and Washington-financed regime change undertaken in connivance with Qatar
and Saudi Arabia.
The princes of the petro-states were surely not interested in expelling the tyranny next
door. Instead, the rebellion was about removing Iran's Alawite/Shiite ally from power in
Damascus and laying the gas pipelines to Europe – which Assad had vetoed – across
the upper Euphrates Valley.
In any event, due to Washington's regime change policy in Syria, ISIS soon had even more
troves of American weapons. Some of them were supplied to Sunni radicals by way of Qatar and
Saudi Arabia.
More came up the so-called ratline from Gaddafi's former arsenals in Benghazi through
Turkey. And still more came through Jordan from the "moderate" opposition trained there by the
CIA, which more often than not sold them or defected to the other side.
So, that the Islamic State was Washington's Frankenstein monster became evident from the
moment it rushed upon the scene in mid 2014. But even then the Washington War Party could not
resist adding fuel to the fire, whooping up another round of Islamophobia among the American
public and forcing the Obama White House into a futile bombing campaign for the third time in a
quarter century.
But the short-lived Islamic State was never a real threat to America's homeland
security.
The dusty, broken, impoverished towns and villages along the margins of the Euphrates River
and in the bombed-out precincts of Anbar province did not attract thousands of wannabe
jihadists from the failed states of the Middle East and the alienated Muslim townships of
Europe because the caliphate offered prosperity, salvation or any future at all.
What recruited them was outrage at the bombs and drones dropped on Sunni communities by the
US Air Force and by the cruise missiles launched from the bowels of the Mediterranean that
ripped apart homes, shops, offices and mosques which mostly contained as many innocent
civilians as ISIS terrorists.
The truth is, the Islamic State was destined for a short half-life anyway. It had been
contained by the Kurds in the North and East and by Turkey with NATO's second-largest army and
air force in the Northwest. And it was further surrounded by the Shiite Crescent in the
populated, economically viable regions of lower Syria and Iraq.
Absent Washington's misbegotten campaign to unseat Assad in Damascus and demonize his
confession-based Iranian ally, there would have been nowhere for the murderous fanatics who had
pitched a makeshift capital in Raqqa to go. They would have run out of money, recruits,
momentum and public acquiescence in their horrific rule in any event.
But with the US Air Force functioning as their recruiting arm and France's anti-Assad
foreign policy helping to foment a final spasm of anarchy in Syria, the gates of hell had been
opened wide, unnecessarily.
What has been puked out was not an organized war on Western civilization as former French
president Hollande so hysterically proclaimed in response to one of the predictable terrorist
episodes of mayhem in Paris.
It was just blowback carried out by that infinitesimally small contingent of mentally
deformed young men who can be persuaded to strap on a suicide belt.
In any event, bombing did not defeat ISIS; it just temporarily made more of them.
Ironically, what did extinguish the Islamic State was the Assad government, the Russian air
force invited into Syria by its official government and the ground forces of its Hezbollah and
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard allies. It was they who settled an ancient quarrel that had
never been any of America's business anyway.
But Imperial Washington was so caught up in its myths, lies and hegemonic stupidity that it
could not see the obvious. Accordingly, 28 years after the Cold War ended and several years
after Syria and friends extinguished the Islamic State, Washington has learned no lessons. The
American Imperium still stalks the planet for new monsters to destroy.
And that's why there is still no peace on earth 28 years after it should have broken out, as
did the Christmas Truce of 1914.
BTL the usual misdirection pointing just to Israel; never are the Sunni Arab oil sheiks in
the picture:
blinded by anti Zionism. The Gulf rulers love this aspect best.
Israel has little to offer to the US military-industrial complex except being an
unsinkable aircraft carrier.
The Sunni Arab oil sheiks on the other hand have massive amount of cash and oil reserves,
just what the US dollar needs to keep on floating against financial gravity.
With the Shia Iranian power exports as bogey these few individuals are also great clients
for the Anglo protection racket. Iran is more about mass movements, hard to be a wise guy
for.
Brianeg ,
I am as perplexed as anybody over the assassination of Soleimani, seeing no tactical
advantage and in fact serious disadvantages and dangers.
I can add little to the excellent article and excellent comments except to say that last
year, I saw a documentary about Soleimani and I felt at the time, he was perhaps the only
person that might bring peace to the whole of the Middle East and it may be for that reason
somebody thought he was dangerous and had to go.
At the very least, the Iraqi Government have now been given the chance to kick America and
NATO out of Iraq and maybe Syria as well. With that in mind, I am sure that MSM will then say
that this is all a Russian plot. I am sure that Pompeo's flight to Kazakstan is perhaps to
prepare an air base if a rapid Vietnam style evacuation needs to occur.
The options left open for America, NATO and Israel are fairly limited to remote offshore
missile attacks as any form of close engagement against battle hardened troops when your own
forces have only experience against unarmed civilians and forces only armed with small arms
would be fraught with danger. I am sure that Trump's advisers and their experience of playing
war games on their computers might think differently.
As for a major missile strike like that after Douma when only a handful of rockets hit
their targets especially as Syria did not have the latest anti missile systems, there is a
likelihood that not one might reach its target.
2020 is shaping up to become a very interesting year and by its end destined to become a
very changed world.
Trump's actions appear to be that of a very poor gambler trying to take desperate measures
to improve his luck. I believe Hitler had great faith in his astrologer, does Trump use
one?
richard le sarc ,
I rather see Israel, ie Bibi behind this. It is a diversion from his corruption crisis, it is
pure Talmudism, with its murder of Israel's 'enemies', and it brings forward the prospect of
'obliterating' 'Persia' in a New Purim that would cement Bibi's place as a 'King of Israel'
for all time ie a few more years. I really think that assuming that the architects of this
action are rational and sane, when they are mad, bad, dangerous to know and infinitely
blood-thirsty, is mistaken.
adlskfj ,
Ah, didn't take long to see Off Guardian's never ending commitment to the most vile President
in US history, and that's saying a lot. The Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!
So did the Deep State direct this fascist, racist, misogynist, jerk of epic proportions
Trump to pimp for war against Iran during his campaign? Can't see from this jerk's body
language that he sees himself as a "tough guy". Did the Deep State force him to take on super
neocon ex CIA director Woolsey as a foreign policy advisor during his campaign, or force him
to suck up to the State of Israel in an AIPAC speech outdoing Clinton's, or suck up to the
House of Saud bragging about arms sales with an effing poster, or force him to move the US
Embassy to Jerusalem, or force him to increase military operations in the ME including new
rules of engagement making it easier for US troops to slaughter civilians, or force him to
attack the Syrian regime, or force him to commit to "take the oil", or force him to name
torture queen Haspel to direct the CIA, or force him to nominate an oil tycoon as Secretary
of State then replace him with torture advocate ex CIA director Pompeo, or force him to
re-initiate and increase military hardware from war zones going to police departments, and
the sorry list goes on that OG and other compromised "leftists" regard poor Trump being
forced to do by the Deep State.
But the Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OG just loves their Trump, but likely not as much as the Deep State.
paul ,
I think like many people you are partly blinded by an understandable hatred of Trump.
I hold no brief for him, except to say Clinton would have been even worse.
But people trying to make sense of the latest ill starred US foreign policy adventure only
need to understand two things.
1. The complete Zionist stranglehold over US politics and media.
2. The character of the political leadership in the US (and its satellites.)
1. From a Zionist point of view, Iraq, Libya and Syria (to a lesser extent) are all a rip
roaring success. The first two are failed states that have been bombed back to the Stone Age.
Syria is only slightly better off. Iran is unfinished business, the last major target on the
Zionist hit list. All of this achieved by the US and its satellites providing all the money
and the muscle.
2. US and western leadership in general is abysmal, the worst in its history. Arrogant,
venal, corrupt, irredeemably ignorant, delusional, and ideologically driven, buying in to its
own exceptionalist propaganda.
You cannot expect policies or programmes adopted to be in any way rational or coherent.
What passes for an administration in the Trump Circus consists largely of competing, mutually
antagonistic factions and fiefdoms, each pursuing their own objectives and generally fighting
like rats in a sack. Trump is far from a dictator. He is more like a bewildered bystander
presiding over what is at best a chaotic turf war.
This is not to absolve Trump of responsibility -- if he is incapable of asserting his
authority, he simply shouldn't be there. But people like Bolton and others were foisted upon
him at the behest of Adelson and Zionist interests. Bolton was openly trying to undermine him
in North Korea and elsewhere. There are many other similar examples. Seditious and mutinous
spooks and dirty cops were conspiring to unseat him even before he was elected.
In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department were all following their own
competing agendas, sponsoring different terrorist groups, following different objectives. Mid
level bureaucrats like Vindman and Ioanovitch in all three organisations felt perfectly
entitled to formulate and implement their own preferred policies, without any reference to
the White House.
I don't see much to admire in Trump. But apart from some coarse and bumptious behaviour,
how does he differ from Obomber or Dubya? It's a mistake to go down the MSM rabbit hole of
seeing everything in terms of personalities.
Martin Usher ,
Trump hasn't shown much interest in geography unless its somewhere he can put a casino so I
doubt if he really understood the implications of what he's been encouraged to do. This
action isn't Trump's, it most likely Pompero (who I find amusing in his 'who me' type
innocence when he complains that the world isn't lining up behind the US, its just the usual
roll of toadies).
The "Deep State" isn't really a thing, its all of us, its the way that we've been trained
from birth to think in terms of American exceptionalism and Cold War rivalry. Its thousands
of people doing their jobs to the best of their ability and as Hannah Arendt pointed out in
her essay on the Banality of Evil these people are able to be the very best or very worst
depending on how they're led and used. To that end the article in the Guardian proper is very
telling and points to something that needs significant investigation .
I would say that it's something much lower down the evolutionary chain than that: these
people are all criminal psychopaths -- or if you want a more polite term: batshit
crazies.
"... 1. Increasing tensions serves the interests of the military-industrial complex – US military spending has increased enormously, and without enough tensions, there may be a "danger" that military spending will be cut in the future. Of course, this increased military spending is only in the interest of a small minority – but it is a very influential minority that spends a lot of money on politicians. ..."
"... It sounds as if his enemies in the Pentagon and the Intelligence Agencies have tricked Trump perhaps by not telling him who the target was going to be? ..."
"... You are being sidetracked by personalities. "If only we had Obama/ Reagan/ Whoever back, everything would be fine." It wouldn't. Whoever is occupying the Oval Office, whether it's Trump/ Creepy Joe Biden/ Buttplug/ Pocahontas or some other cretin, it's just another monkey dancing to the tune of the same organ grinder. ..."
"... No capitalist regime, particularly the neo-liberal type, can ever even remotely resemble a 'democracy' of any type. ..."
Mourners surround a car carrying the coffins of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani
and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed in a US air strike. (Photo by SABAH
ARAR / AFP)
The dust is settling somewhat over the latest and strangest act of imperial hubris in the
Middle East, and a few things are becoming clearer – though no less strange.
Trump held a slightly bizarre
presser at his vacation resort in Florida, wherein he tried to assure the media he had no
wish to provoke either war with or regime change in Iran, saying
We took action last night to stop a war. We do not take action to start a war."
Even the slavering warhound, Pompeo was taking a more conciliatory tone, and the word
'de-escalation' began featuring prominently in his Twitter feed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and I discussed the decisive defensive action
@realDonaldTrump employed in
Baghdad to protect American lives. I emphasized that de-escalation is the United States'
principal goal.
In my conversation today with @masrour_barzani , we discussed
yesterday's defensive action and our commitment to de-escalation. I thanked him for his
steadfast partnership. We agreed on the need for continued, close cooperation.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab , is also
urging "all parties de-escalate" – for what that's worth.
At the same time early claims by the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) that the US had
launched another air strike against them north of Baghdad were later retracted. According to
RT:
The Iraqi Army, however, later denied that an airstrike took place there. In a statement
quoted by local media, the military urged everyone to be "careful" about spreading unverified
information and "rumors" in the future.
Some of this implies an attempt on both sides (Iraq and the US at least) to pull back. But
while this may be welcome it does nothing to explain why the US administration escalated in the
first place, in what still looks like a suicidally self-defeating move.
What is the empire up to at this point? Does it have a plan? is it coherent? is it even
sane?
The Saker took a look yesterday at The Soleimani murder –
what could happen next . He thinks, as he has said before, that Trump is regarded as a
disposable asset by his Deep State handlers and is being used as a front man for risky policy
actions that he can be scapegoated for if/when they go wrong:
I have always claimed that Donald Trump is a "disposable President" for the Neocons. What
do I mean by that? I mean that the Neocons have used Trump to do all sorts of truly
fantastically dumb things (pretty much ALL his policy decisions towards Israel and/or Syria)
for a very simple reason. If Trump does something extremely dumb and dangerous, he will
either get away with it, in which case the Neocons will be happy, or he will either fail or
the consequences of his decisions will be catastrophic, at which point the Neocons will
jettison him and replace him by an even more subservient individual (say Pence or Pelosi). In
other words, for the Neocons to have Trump do something both fantastically dangerous and
fantastically stupid is a win-win situation!
I tend to agree with this. When Clinton was dumped last minute as POTUS (too crazy, too
weird), and the Deep State pivoted to Trump, it was clear from very early on he – the
unwanted outsider – was going to be used just as Saker says, as a handy scapegoat; and
it's interesting to note in this regard that he is indeed being blamed in many places today
(Spiked ,
the Guardian etc), as the sole architect of the Soleimani murder.
That he is in any way solely, or even directly, responsible is of course vanishingly
improbable. US presidents don't, in real terms, have that kind of power now, if they ever did.
It's far more likely Trump just rubber stamped an action urged by Pompeo and his war-crazed
backers, or even that he only knew about it after it was done.
But that's just detail. The fact Trump is being scapegoated implies that – at least
for now – those really responsible are backtracking and thinking better of the
venture.
But what was the venture? What the desired outcome? No one seems to have a very
satisfactory answer to that right now.
As we said yesterday, war with Iran has been the auto-erotic fixation for the hardcore war
nuts in Washington for years, and imminent confrontation has been predicted regularly since at
least 2005.
But it's never become a reality because the non-crazies in Washington know the risks
outweigh the benefits for US interests.
Sure, we know in recent times the Trump administration has been ramping up the tensions
again. Tearing up the nuclear deal, re-imposing sanctions, sabre-rattling, making threats. But
this has all been within the familiar framework that always just stops short of actual
conflict.
The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond anything they have ever risked before.
Good analysts like the Saker and Moon of Alabama have pointed out that the US has basically
defeated its own aims, all but destroyed itself in the region. In
MoA's words:
The U.S. has won nothing with its attack but will feel the consequences for decades to
come. From now on its position in the Middle East will be severely constrained. Others will
move in to take its place.
Even if this turns out too dire and sweeping a prediction, the truth still is clear that the
US have apparently gained nothing from this venture and lost a great deal.
Of course both the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much false flag
'terrorism' as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we can
almost certainly look forward to some of that.
And, there is the bonus of being able to drive the US homeland even further toward fascism
in the guise of 'preparing' for new waves of terror attacks. The Mayor of New York is already
doing his own narrative preparation for this, claiming, per the
Jerusalem Post that
We have to assume this action puts us in a de facto state of war
But all this seems small gains for massive losses. The question 'what were you thinking?'
hangs there, currently unanswered. If this was clever geopolitical chess it's currently so deep
as to defeat all analysis.
Claims that the US is just doing Israel's bidding don't even cut it. If the US loses its
hold on the ME as a result of an ill-judged war with Iran, how will this benefit Israel? Does
it believe it can inherit the imperial mantle? If so, it's deluded. Without US protection
Israel would not last long in its current form.
Some have suggested it's a 'clever' plot to hike up oil prices. But really? There are much
lower risk ways of doing that than launching a war and forcing Iran to close the Straits of
Hormuz.
The QAnon crowd have even suggested it's an ultra smart way of getting the US out of Iraq.
Well, we have to admit that could be the result. But does anyone really believe that was the
plan?
No one has yet, to my knowledge, put out the US simply goofed and are now desperately trying
to cover themselves – but that is at least as likely as some of the above.
The major question really though is – will this backtracking and odd claims of wanting
de-escalation actually do anything to de-escalate? Will it persuade Iran not to seek
retaliation, supposing this is now what Pompeo et al want?
Currently the answer to that looks like a 'no.' In fact Iran has just now issued a list of
potential
retaliation targets related to the US. Even if this is mostly posturing, it's hard to see
how Iran can avoid some form of response to this heinous act of frank terrorism. Even if the US
administration's 'de-escalation' stance is genuine, it may well be pointless.
And how long will the US remain in a 'de-escalation' mindset anyhow? It's become a
commonplace to describe US foreign policy as 'insane', and it's an apposite description. But
the murder of Soleimani takes the evident insanity to new and self-defeating levels.
Who can say what the empire's next moves will be in the coming days or weeks? More utterly
lunatic 'defensive' missile strikes are entirely possible.
It appears that 2020 has got off to a shit hot start with Golf Cart Goofy been slipped the
Turd Doctrine engineered by Bolt-on brain, the deranged psychopath of Washington. From sleepy
hollow the message went out to shoot first and let the policy slide along afterwards. How are
the people of the land of the free going to swallow this piece of fascist wrangling?
Meanwhile in old Blighty Johnson has not even had chance to sober up from the New Year
bash with his Russian friend and patron, Евгений
Лебедев – bringing a whole new meaning to the
phrase going down the swanee. Who said Russians don't interfere in elections? Well those with
British golden passports at any rate
Antonym ,
BTL the usual misdirection pointing just to Israel; never are the Sunni Arab oil sheiks in
the picture:
blinded by anti Zionism. The Gulf rulers love this aspect best.
Israel has little to offer to the US military-industrial complex except being an unsinkable
aircraft carrier. The Sunni Arab oil sheiks on the other hand have massive amount of cash and
oil reserves, just what the US dollar needs to keep on floating against financial gravity.
With the Shia Iranian power exports as bogey these few individuals are also great clients for
the Anglo protection racket. Iran is more about mass movements, hard to be a wise guy for.
Jo ,
Thanks for this. I've dodged all news since I first heard about the assassination but my
initial thoughts concerned the unspeakable Pompeo and Israel. Like the author I found it
absurd that Trump had personally engineered this.
On the idea that Pompeo now wants to row back, I'm not convinced. Sorry to provide a
Guardian link but I saw this earlier and it seems he's scolding mainland Europe and the UK
for not being more "supportive" of his insanity.
I am as perplexed as anybody over the assassination of Soleimani, seeing no tactical
advantage and in fact serious disadvantages and dangers.
I can add little to the excellent article and excellent comments except to say that last
year, I saw a documentary about Soleimani and I felt at the time, he was perhaps the only
person that might bring peace to the whole of the Middle East and it may be for that reason
somebody thought he was dangerous and had to go.
At the very least, the Iraqi Government have now been given the chance to kick America and
NATO out of Iraq and maybe Syria as well. With that in mind, I am sure that MSM will then say
that this is all a Russian plot. I am sure that Pompeo's flight to Kazakstan is perhaps to
prepare an air base if a rapid Vietnam style evacuation needs to occur.
The options left open for America, NATO and Israel are fairly limited to remote offshore
missile attacks as any form of close engagement against battle hardened troops when your own
forces have only experience against unarmed civilians and forces only armed with small arms
would be fraught with danger. I am sure that Trump's advisers and their experience of playing
war games on their computers might think differently.
As for a major missile strike like that after Douma when only a handful of rockets hit
their targets especially as Syria did not have the latest anti missile systems, there is a
likelihood that not one might reach its target.
2020 is shaping up to become a very interesting year and by its end destined to become a
very changed world.
Trump's actions appear to be that of a very poor gambler trying to take desperate measures
to improve his luck. I believe Hitler had great faith in his astrologer, does Trump use
one?
David Macilwain ,
I'm less optimistic Catte – the claims to want deescalation come from those who just
escalated, in a calculated and well planned act of war, in which I believe the UK and
Australia were already well briefed. I would also venture, as suggested in "Official Secrets
and Lies" – that Pompeo's demand that Corbyn would not be PM was making sure that there
would be no anti-war PM in the UK in the new year, when the launching of the next decade of
the war of terror would take place – so timely on 01.02.2020. Do we not remember that
the attack on Iraq was planned months in advance, and launched – allegedly – at
20.30 on 20.03.2003?
And surely also, the faked killing of Baghdadi was part of this planning, as he had to be out
of the way, specially nowhere near AL Qaim/Baghouz, for the killing of Soleimani to be
possible. Truly it is the evil empire, with all that this includes, and Trump like a pimple
waiting to burst sitting on top of the rotten pile.
According to our Emily WMDs and the blood bath that followed in Iraq was all just a
'mistake'.
Sickening pontificating from her in the Guardian about how it is bad to murder people
(without just cause) apparently oblivious to the fact her own party committed Britan to an
illegal war without a shred of evidence that Saddam Hussein was a threat to our national
security.
I held my nose and read her article – not a single word about Tony Blair, or the
fact that the quagmire in the Middle East (as she describes it) was largely a result of
NuLabour's love in with US neonazis.
People like Thornberry seem to be utterly devoid of even the most primitive form of
decency.
O/T Ha ha – Integrity Initiative codswallop has landed with added rusty iron on
Cambridge Analytica election meddling ! Guess what it only seems to be about Trump 2016 and
Trump 2020!
Ah needed that laugh back to Armeggedon Now watch.
richard le sarc ,
I rather see Israel, ie Bibi behind this. It is a diversion from his corruption crisis, it is
pure Talmudism, with its murder of Israel's 'enemies', and it brings forward the prospect of
'obliterating' 'Persia' in a New Purim that would cement Bibi's place as a 'King of Israel'
for all time ie a few more years. I really think that assuming that the architects of this
action are rational and sane, when they are mad, bad, dangerous to know and infinitely
blood-thirsty, is mistaken.
If true, these reports are to be expected, because it wasn't just Qassem Suleimani who was
assassinated by the American psychopaths, but also the Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis.
If the reports are true, it's quite expected, yet it has nothing to do with Iranian
retaliation.
Iranian retaliation will be coming sometime in the future; and you might need to hold your
hats when that happens.
I haven't looked at the bookmakers with regard to all this. It will be interesting to see
what odds they are now giving on Trump being re-elected.
I've no idea of the veracity of this report. There was a similar report on Friday that
turned out to be untrue.
adlskfj ,
Ah, didn't take long to see Off Guardian's never ending commitment to the most vile President
in US history, and that's saying a lot. The Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!
So did the Deep State direct this fascist, racist, misogynist, jerk of epic proportions
Trump to pimp for war against Iran during his campaign? Can't see from this jerk's body
language that he sees himself as a "tough guy". Did the Deep State force him to take on super
neocon ex CIA director Woolsey as a foreign policy advisor during his campaign, or force him
to suck up to the State of Israel in an AIPAC speech outdoing Clinton's, or suck up to the
House of Saud bragging about arms sales with an effing poster, or force him to move the US
Embassy to Jerusalem, or force him to increase military operations in the ME including new
rules of engagement making it easier for US troops to slaughter civilians, or force him to
attack the Syrian regime, or force him to commit to "take the oil", or force him to name
torture queen Haspel to direct the CIA, or force him to nominate an oil tycoon as Secretary
of State then replace him with torture advocate ex CIA director Pompeo, or force him to
re-initiate and increase military hardware from war zones going to police departments, and
the sorry list goes on that OG and other compromised "leftists" regard poor Trump being
forced to do by the Deep State.
But the Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OG just loves their Trump, but likely not as much as the Deep State.
paul ,
I think like many people you are partly blinded by an understandable hatred of Trump.
I hold no brief for him, except to say Clinton would have been even worse.
But people trying to make sense of the latest ill starred US foreign policy adventure only
need to understand two things.
1. The complete Zionist stranglehold over US politics and media.
2. The character of the political leadership in the US (and its satellites.)
1. From a Zionist point of view, Iraq, Libya and Syria (to a lesser extent) are all a rip
roaring success. The first two are failed states that have been bombed back to the Stone Age.
Syria is only slightly better off. Iran is unfinished business, the last major target on the
Zionist hit list. All of this achieved by the US and its satellites providing all the money
and the muscle.
2. US and western leadership in general is abysmal, the worst in its history. Arrogant,
venal, corrupt, irredeemably ignorant, delusional, and ideologically driven, buying in to its
own exceptionalist propaganda.
You cannot expect policies or programmes adopted to be in any way rational or coherent.
What passes for an administration in the Trump Circus consists largely of competing, mutually
antagonistic factions and fiefdoms, each pursuing their own objectives and generally fighting
like rats in a sack. Trump is far from a dictator. He is more like a bewildered bystander
presiding over what is at best a chaotic turf war.
This is not to absolve Trump of responsibility – if he is incapable of asserting his
authority, he simply shouldn't be there. But people like Bolton and others were foisted upon
him at the behest of Adelson and Zionist interests. Bolton was openly trying to undermine him
in North Korea and elsewhere. There are many other similar examples. Seditious and mutinous
spooks and dirty cops were conspiring to unseat him even before he was elected.
In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department were all following their own
competing agendas, sponsoring different terrorist groups, following different objectives. Mid
level bureaucrats like Vindman and Ioanovitch in all three organisations felt perfectly
entitled to formulate and implement their own preferred policies, without any reference to
the White House.
I don't see much to admire in Trump. But apart from some coarse and bumptious behaviour,
how does he differ from Obomber or Dubya? It's a mistake to go down the MSM rabbit hole of
seeing everything in terms of personalities.
Martin Usher ,
Trump hasn't shown much interest in geography unless its somewhere he can put a casino so I
doubt if he really understood the implications of what he's been encouraged to do. This
action isn't Trump's, it most likely Pompero (who I find amusing in his 'who me' type
innocence when he complains that the world isn't lining up behind the US, its just the usual
roll of toadies).
The "Deep State" isn't really a thing, its all of us, its the way that we've been trained
from birth to think in terms of American exceptionalism and Cold War rivalry. Its thousands
of people doing their jobs to the best of their ability and as Hannah Arendt pointed out in
her essay on the Banality of Evil these people are able to be the very best or very worst
depending on how they're led and used. To that end the article in the Guardian proper is very
telling and points to something that needs significant investigation .
I would say that it's something much lower down the evolutionary chain than that: these
people are all criminal psychopaths – or if you want a more polite term: batshit
crazies.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
The Social Psychology determinant of Deindividuation allows people to immerse themselves
psychologically into the in-group in order to oppose out-groups whether
it be along lines of ethnicity against minority ethnic groups or otherwise some other
negatively viewed determinant like gender, or age.
Fascists typically join likeminded individuals to fulfill the process of deindividuation
into in-groups they perceive to be socially beneficial for reasons of political
opposition.
Deindividuation allows the elite to internalize their own social-psychological
perspectives to in-group bias of entitlement et cetera. Out-group members are viewed as
inferior, and dispossessed of perspective of what it is like to be rich & wealthy in
in-group perspective.
Bikers deindividuate into biker gangs of likeminded in-group collective thinking.
Out-group is anyone that is not aligned with the in-group binary of identity with the
group.
I suspect that human beings somehow imprint on group membership much like Conrad Lorenz found
with ducklings & geese whilst studying learning processes.
MOU
jay ,
'merica has been 'attacking' Iran for the last 10 years.
It is all smoke and mirrors.
Once upon a time there was a CIA fommented coup to overthrow a popular and decent government, placing the Shah
in power. Then we had the Islamic Revolution led by the Ayatolah The Ayatolah had been
sojourning in Paris presumably enjoying the folies bergere and some tasty charcuterie. Then
right on time, He was flown business class by Air France back to Iran.
The NWO and Radical Islam go together like ram-a-lam-ding-dong
The car Soleimani was killed in appears to have been 'exploded' into a block with very little
damage to the surrounding area or scorching. A car set on fire by neds in Glasgow makes more
mess.
However in a change from the ubiquitous 'mysteriously' appearing passport, we have a deluxe
ring that 'identified' Him.
The ring appears to change from one image to another
tonyopmoc ,
jay,
There is other evidence to support this view, admittedly from around 10+ years ago. The
Iranians in a Big Blow-Up boat (don't mock our Lifeboat service uses them too to save lives
in some of the most hazardous seas – and most of them are unpaid volunteers), stopped a
British metal warship, who they claimed had infiltrated Iranian Waters. The Iranians arrested
several members of The Royal Navy. The Iranians also arrested the BBC Cameraman, and his
Soundman, and took them into the blow-up boat too, and they carried on filming, whilst they
took them to jail in Iran.
I p1ssed myself laughing almost immediately, and I don't normally watch TV.
After a few days, The Iranians, let them all go. The Royal Navy said sorry, we won't do it
again.
That just had to be a pre-planned set-up between the British and the Iranians.
I suspect neither told the Americans, cos they would f'ck it all up and try to start a
war.
The premise of this article is somewhat dubious. The Deep State never "pivoted to Trump."
It wanted Clinton, regardless of how crazy and corrupt she was.
They have never accepted Trump's presidency.
The spooks and the dirty cops worked tirelessly to undermine his campaign to prevent him
being elected.
Having failed in this, it did everything possible to sabotage his administration
subsequently.
It has perpetrated various subversive and treasonous hoaxes, fantasies and conspiracy
theories, culminating in the current impeachment circus.
They never tried to make the best of a bad job, from their point of view, to "manage
Trump."
This has remained constant, no matter how much pandering he does to Zionist interests, or how
many trillions he gifts to the military industrial complex.
They don't accept him, and never will. They hate him, and they want him dead, or at least in
jail, stripped of his businesses and money, and his relatives as well.
Why is this? After all, he's gifted Nuttyyahoo Jerusalem, occupied Syria and the West
Bank. The current military budget (true figure) is $1,134 billion. You might think that would
cut him a bit of slack.
It's because he upset the apple cart for the Zionist interests who rule the roost in
Washington.
Clinton was supposed to take over and implement their programme.
Syria was supposed to have been destroyed now, and Assad dead.
The war with Iran was supposed to have been begun long ago.
But Trump failed to deliver.
The tentative peace feelers being put out to Russia (because he was more concerned about
China) enraged that same dual national constituency with their visceral hatred of Russia.
And this is so much more the case because those same interests realise they are working
under time pressure. This may be their last chance. America is declining rapidly. The Zionist
stranglehold that has taken a century to achieve is a declining asset. And the parasite may
find it difficult to find another host.
Is Russia going to give Israel billions of dollars and unlimited free weaponry every year?
Will Chinese troops be "happy to die for Israel" as US ones are (at least according to their
general?
Trump may have been dragged along on the coat tails of the dual nationals and their goy
stooges, rabid religious nut jobs like Pence and Pompeo. But if Trump is hoping to row things
back, he is likely to be disappointed. Iran has to respond decisively, or else give a green
light to endless similar (and worse) provocations by the Boltons and the Netanyahus, like
Israel in Syria. It cannot afford to show any weakness. And when the retaliation comes, Trump
will not get away with bombing some empty airfield.
The problem is not just the AIPAC and JINSA which long since should have been labeled Foreign
Agents under FARA but the Christian Zionist nutballs who are banking on Armageddon so that
they can be raptured off to heaven while all of us are turned into radioactive toast.
paul ,
Yes, that includes Pence, Pompeo, Hagee, and (according to some claims) 40 million of the
Exceptional and Indispensable Folk.
richard le sarc ,
The USA these days is like one of those zombie ants, infected with a toxic fungus, Ziophilia
prostatens, that takes over its brain, and makes it climb up a branch, so that, when the
fungus explodes from its dead body, its spores can drift further away. Or, even better, the
toxic protozoon, Toxoplasma gondii, that, when it infects rats, makes them suicidally
unafraid of cats, they get eaten, and the protozoon goes forth, distributed through the cat's
faeces. I suppose we could call the infection controlling the minds of the Washington
detritus and making them genocidal as well as suicidal a 'protozion', for easy
identification.
You nail it. Israel provided co ordinates for Soleimani's whereabouts, Trump, in his sheer
stupidity, did the deed.
And now payback is coming. And it's likely to escalate into a massive war.
Ridiculous ABC doing their little bit for Empire and the 'fight for freedom' .
More airstrikes on a PMU base on the Iraq-Syria border earlier today, another 5 killed.
One guess who was responsible. Fecken insanity.
Adrian E. ,
I think the following two explanations are most plausible:
1. Increasing tensions serves the interests of the military-industrial complex – US
military spending has increased enormously, and without enough tensions, there may be a
"danger" that military spending will be cut in the future. Of course, this increased military
spending is only in the interest of a small minority – but it is a very influential
minority that spends a lot of money on politicians.
2. The goal may be sowing chaos and violence because this increases the role of the
military in international relations, and in military matters, the US in its current state is
(or thinks it is – they probably want to avoid a war against a strong army that would
let them find out better) more competitive than in economic matters. As far as economic
matters are concerned, we can more or less predict that the "Western world" (US and EU/NATO)
will almost certainly be dwarfed by China (and to some degree other East Asian countries and
emerging economies). Of course, some time in the future, when urbanization will be completed
to a large degree, Chinese growth will slow, but it is unlikely that this won't still mean
that the US and EU economies will be tiny compared to it. If the US manages to decrease the
role of economics and increase the role of the military, it may be able to slow down the
decline in its significance somehow, and what it needs for that is violence, chaos, and
instability.
Of course, one may say that all these instances of sowing chaos are counterproductive for the
US empire. In many concrete instances, one can show that this is the case, e.g. Iran was
strengthened by the US aggression against Iraq. But on the whole, is the US empire really
weaker than it would have been without all these aggressions? The US economy probably is, but
if we specifically talk about US empire – the US has military bases around the world in
a way no empire has ever had, and without enough violence, chaos, and tensions in order to
justify them, it might be difficult to keep them long-term. It is also important to attempt
to analyze counterfactual scenarios. If the US has just been relieved after the end of the
Cold War, reaped a huge peace dividend and if it had not committed an aggression every few
years, it would probably be more prosperous, but it would hardly be an empire. Probably, NATO
would not exist any more (the aggression against Yugoslavia and later stoking up historical
hatred in Eastern EU member countries played an important role). The US would probably be
more respected than it is now, but its international significance would probably have
decreased more than it has in our current reality where the US has increased the role of the
military by sowing chaos.
The idea of Empire may not fit the modern world of broad spectrum globalism.
Expecting such a world to make sense may buy into being manipulated further by an ever
consolidating pattern of possession and control – that works a kind of narrative or
mind capture alongside globally set regulatory structures to protect the lie at any cost and
by any and all means.
Yarkob ,
that was supposed to be a link, admins i even used the code button
It sounds as if his enemies in the Pentagon and the Intelligence Agencies have tricked Trump
perhaps by not telling him who the target was going to be? Now he owns the policy and the
chances of getting rid of him rise especially if the retaliation is serious and he fails to
start throwing nukes around.
As with JFK over the Bay of Pigs it puts him in a very hard
place. Working with Pence would probably suit the Military Complex. Ideas of withdrawing from
conflict in the ME and Afghanistan are as crazy to them as Kennedy's plans to disarm.
alskdjf ,
Paul you just love your Trump. The epic corrupt capitalist globalist fascist epic jerk I'm
sure would regard you with much love if he knew you existed or cared.
paul ,
You are being sidetracked by personalities.
"If only we had Obama/ Reagan/ Whoever back, everything would be fine."
It wouldn't.
Whoever is occupying the Oval Office, whether it's Trump/ Creepy Joe Biden/ Buttplug/
Pocahontas or some other cretin, it's just another monkey dancing to the tune of the same
organ grinder.
TFS ,
Is it me, or does the definition of what constitutes a Democracy, seem out of date?
Surely, where country such as Blighty likes to refer to iself as a Democracy, then it
should hold true that its people are past masters of holding its rulers to account?
If we are a Democracy and we don't, as has been the case for the past 50yrs of my life,
aren't we guilty of some sort of crime?
Are we (adults) all non persons, a person called 'Collateral Damage' for when Karma comes
a calling?
Will we cry foul and bemoan the injustice of it not being our fault as our leaders rape
the planet?
I dunno, calling Blighty a Democracy seems to be quite Arrogant and Offensive.
richard le sarc ,
No capitalist regime, particularly the neo-liberal type, can ever even remotely resemble a
'democracy' of any type.
Robyn ,
An fundamental of democracy is a free press so that citizens can cast an informed vote. There
is no longer a free press (to the extent that there ever was) and, with increasing censorship
of ethical journalism, the ideal of democracy becomes more remote each day.
This will end great, a fucked up circus called congress who hasn't had the balls to do their
job and legally declare war for nearly three decades, and a president who can't even defend
himself from a gang of thugs staging a direct coup against him in his own government. What
could possibly go wrong?
The second are the immortal words of Thucydides: "the strong do what they will, the weak
suffer what they must."
Yeah, I heard Thucydides had some issues with resolution of uncertainties for targeting,
especially for stand-off precision guided weapons. Plus there were some issues with long
range air-defense systems in Greece in times of Plato and Socrates. You know, GLONASS wasn't
fully operational, plus EW was a little bit scratchy.
So, surely, it all fully applies today, especially in choke points. Plus those Athenians
they were not exactly good with RPGs and anti-Armour operations. Other than that, Thucydides
nailed it.
Interesting to note that it was the party professing those words - Athens - who started
the Peloponnesian War, driven in large part by that haughty attitude. It was Athens that also ended that war, of course. They did so when they surrendered to the Spartans.
"... Add in the war-profiteers, wide open borders, collapsing infrastructure and history-making wealth inequality, and an entire generation of healthy young white men destroyed by drugs and suicides, a despair engineered by Jews, who unlike Iranians, mock us as they do it. Let's see tranquility on the home front survive skyrocketing food and gas prices. ..."
"... We must prepare our own populist anti-war protest movement to bring the war home. We must remain steadfast in the face of a coming era of political repression nobody has seen in generations. ..."
"... "The U.S. did not only murder Qassem Soleimani. On December 29 it also killed 31 Iraqi government forces. Five days later it killed Soleimani and the Deputy Commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU/Hashed al-Shabi) and leader of Kata'ib Hizbollah Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. There were also four IRGC and four Kata'ib Hizbollah men who were killed while accompanying their leaders. The PMU are under direct command of the Iraqi Prime Minister. They are official Iraqi defense forces who defeated ISIS after a bloody war. Their murder demands that their government acts against the perpetrators." ..."
"... "Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had it coming and Iran should be nuked. Glass parking lot is the desired end." ..."
"... That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly brainwashed, believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the "White hatted, good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade". ..."
"... US murder of another nation's leader has no frigging importance in moral or consequential terms. Such is the general IQ status of the west today. Really, it takes someone intelligent and inquisitive enough for years and years to really get aghast and appreciative enough to ponder what the murder of Soleimani in Trump's hand in the manner it was executed would mean to world peace. MSM counts on this stupidity and thrives in lies and false-flag propaganda. ..."
"... The idiots at the helm of the Evil Outlaw US Empire really have absolutely no clue as their short term thinking has destroyed what mental capacities they once had and has reduced them to imbeciles. ..."
The US shows every symptom of an empire on the brink of collapse: an irreconcilably divided
and decaying citizenry, racial and cultural incoherence, a totally detached oligarchy, no
overarching mission or narrative, and an over reliance on international mercenaries to fight
its wars. By 2009, soldiers of fortune outnumbered US military personnel 3-1 in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Add in the war-profiteers, wide open borders, collapsing infrastructure and history-making
wealth inequality, and an entire generation of healthy young white men destroyed by drugs and
suicides, a despair engineered by Jews, who unlike Iranians, mock us as they do it. Let's see
tranquility on the home front survive skyrocketing food and gas prices.
A war with Iran is our line in the sand as well. All white men must boycott the military,
which is run by people who despise us more than any supposed international enemy ever will.
The last 3 years of having our rights and civil liberties whittled away show that it is white
Americans who will always be the US plutocracy's first and last enemy. If you are currently
serving, you can get honorably discharged by declaring yourself a worshipper of Asatru and
anonymously emailing your superior officers pretending to be a deeply concerned member of
Antifa. Even if open war doesn't break out, the recent massive troop buildups in the Middle
East guarantee you will be a target. Let Zion send its anarchist neo-liberal foot soldiers in
your place!
We must prepare our own populist anti-war protest movement to bring the war home. We must
remain steadfast in the face of a coming era of political repression nobody has seen in
generations.
The people of Iran are not our enemy. They share the same abominable foe and deserve our
solidarity. They must know that the citizens of America are ignorant of who rules them, and
that decisions made using our flag are not made by us.
In the name of the existence of our people and the future of our children, and even
broader in the name of humanity, we must ensure that this will be Judah's last war.
thank you b... i see you articulated a paragraph that is out of grasp of the american msm
crowd, so i am going to repeat it.. it is worth repeating...see bottom of post... my main
thought is that no matter what happens everything will be blamed on iran - false flag, and
etc. etc. you name it... all bad is on iran and all good is on usa-israel.. that is the
constant meme that the msm provides 24-7 and that us politicians and the state dept run with
24-7 as well. it is so transparent it is beyond despicable..
@ 13 old hippie.. that about sums up my impression.. thanks
@ 22 BM.. thanks.. i share your perspective, but am not as articulate..
here is the quote from b..
"The U.S. did not only murder Qassem Soleimani. On December 29 it also killed 31 Iraqi
government forces. Five days later it killed Soleimani and the Deputy Commander of the
Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU/Hashed al-Shabi) and leader of Kata'ib Hizbollah Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis. There were also four IRGC and four Kata'ib Hizbollah men who were killed
while accompanying their leaders. The PMU are under direct command of the Iraqi Prime
Minister. They are official Iraqi defense forces who defeated ISIS after a bloody war. Their
murder demands that their government acts against the perpetrators."
Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end.
This sentiment is bottom to top in America. Measured response? No way can Iran 'measure' a
response.
More generally the sentiment is that a little war in Iran, a few nukes, is not even a big
thing. Football scores more important.
"Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked. Glass parking lot is the desired end."
That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from
English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly brainwashed,
believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the "White hatted,
good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade".
it seems they will be supportive of an attack on Iran, and if their maniac "leaders", the
basement crazies who got out of the basement, realise this, it increases substantially the
chances of a "hot" war. In that case, should it escalate out of control, your Chicago coffee
deadheads will get the Glass parking lot they want. It just wont be in the ME. Or Russia.
They can have their very own, in their own back yard.
You guys are right on money! I'm a retiree in my seventy's. My social circles are old
school college graduates in late fifties to late seventies, supposedly the segment of
population wise enough to decipher world affairs.
But no, they care more about who's gonna
win today between Titans and patriots or whether Tiger Wood will win another major in 2020.
US murder of another nation's leader has no frigging importance in moral or consequential
terms. Such is the general IQ status of the west today. Really, it takes someone intelligent
and inquisitive enough for years and years to really get aghast and appreciative enough to
ponder what the murder of Soleimani in Trump's hand in the manner it was executed would mean
to world peace. MSM counts on this stupidity and thrives in lies and false-flag
propaganda.
"24 hrs ago, an arrogant clown -- masquerading as a diplomat -- claimed people were dancing in the cities of Iraq. Today, hundreds of thousands of our proud Iraqi brothers and sisters offered him their
response across their soil. End of US malign presence in West Asia has begun."
The idiots at the helm of the Evil Outlaw US Empire really have absolutely no clue as
their short term thinking has destroyed what mental capacities they once had and has reduced
them to imbeciles.
Good point Afghanistan. The newly appointed General Ghaani was active in Afghanistan. As he
is famimiar with the place, that may well be where he decides to retaliate.
The introduction of manpads would be no less significant an impact on the occupying force as
it was when the Soviet's were there when the SEE EYE AYE showered the Afghani's with
Stingers. It completely changed the modus of the Soviet army once they were introduced.
Helicopters became dangerous to be in and could no longer fly near the ground. Good
observations though, the assassination of Assad could prove to be magnitudes greater a spark
than any of us could imagine. I hope for the sake of, among the many, the Christians he's
been protecting from the foreign merc's. that he stays safe. He must keep a low profile and
let's hope the S400's will take care of any Predator drones that try to fly the Damascus
airspace.
It seems US (or perhaps Israel) didn't give you time enough to think about what could be the
next move (breaking news from Sputinik, 23:30 GMT): vehicle convoy carrying Iraqi PMF leaders
hit by airstrike, 6 dead at least.
Thanks for posting this. I wonder if Soleimani consciously ( on many human and beyond human
levels) wanted to offer the Yanks a "target" (a type of sacrifice, namely himself) that was
just too big to ignore, knowing that the stupid enemy would take the bait, and having a
secure knowledge that his death would set in motion a chain of events that will (underline
will) result in the final terrible fall of the US, and Israel. Stupid American "leaders",
right now, they are dancing in idiotic joy, saying foolish words for which we will pay, also
knowing what the future holds: the death of countless people, throughout not only the Middle
East, but here in the US as well. Yes, I do hate them for what they have unleashed.
Rest In Peace, Soleimani. You very well may achieve far more in death that you attained in
your eventful life.
Oh, it was certainly a grave miscalculation by the US. The NeoCons must have been pushing for
it for years, and it wasn't the first assassination attempt. But I don't think the reprisal
will be immediate. Retaliation needs to be carefully thought out, in order to avoid an
exchange mounting in tension leading to outright war (certainly part of the US plan).
Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end.
This sentiment is bottom to top in America. Measured response? No way can Iran 'measure' a
response.
More generally the sentiment is that a little war in Iran, a few nukes, is not even a big
thing. Football scores more important.
"Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end."
That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from
English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly brainwashed,
believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the "White hatted,
good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade".
it seems they will be supportive of an attack on Iran, and if their maniac "leaders", the
basement crazies who got out of the basement, realise this, it increases substantially the
chances of a "hot" war. In that case, should it escalate out of control, your Chicago coffee
deadheads will get the Glass parking lot they want. It just wont be in the ME. Or Russia.
They can have their very own, in their own back yard.
Yes I also noticed this, what I believe is most depressing is how dumb people are.
Trump/White house tell alot of lies which then become the truth for alot of his supporters
and he also manage to get MSM where he wants, because MSM do not seems to care either, they
are on-board when it comes to war.
And yes additional to that, a clear psychological operation going on to get the propaganda
out.
I try to counter it on social media, I hope everyone here also do the same.
Its about conditioning people that its the new normal. Anything goes, "do as thou wilt".
So long as it serves the interests of our masters. With no fear that MSM or alt media can or
will provide sustained or effective criticism, and the corruption of religious or secular
morals among the population thanks to hollywoods cultural marxism/propaganda and corruption
of christianity , they can get support among the people for just about anything. People can
be made to believe anything. The past 100 years has proven that beyond all doubt. With all
doubt now removed they can show their true colors and this will be accepted as the new
normal.
The problem with the US is most everyone in the US military, US citizenry, and US government
believe their own Exceptionalism propaganda and act accordingly. Attacking the PMU units of
the Iraqi army was certainly an unwise decision, but killing Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi
Al-Muhandis is an act of complete moronic insanity!
The United States launched a war of aggression, the supreme crime, upon Iraq in 2003, based
on blatant lies, and are still there. Prior to that, they helped foment the war between Iraq
and Iran, then attacked Iraq in 1991, and on top of the overt warfare there was the economic
sanctions warfare. The death and maiming and poisoning of millions of Iraqis has been the
American contribution to Iraq, over the last several decades. What for? How has this helped
the United States? Or Europe? The main advocates for this supreme criminality has been the
Israel lobby, Israel, and the supporters of Israel.
The American Apache helicopters are still buzzing around over Baghdad, dealing out terror
and intimidation and death. The murder by the United States of yet more Iraqi soldiers and
officials recently has been largely absent from the propaganda narratives. But could those be
'the final straw'?
As far as Trump's 52 target threat, this comes after the apparent please don't escalate
and we'll make a deal - good cop-bad cop routine.
The 52 number was used to remind mind-controlled Americans that the evil Iranians
outrageously took 52 Americans hostage. American's don't just take people hostage; they give
them orange suits and torture them, unless they kill them. Apart from murdering and maiming
by the millions, they even stage fictional killings, like Osama bin laden, to entertain the
zombies, and stick out their chests, hand out medals and the like.
"... What Clapper chokes on -- and avoids saying -- is that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of WMD either. Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had put him in charge of the agency responsible for analyzing imagery of all kinds -- photographic, radar, infrared, and multispectral -- precisely so that the absence of evidence from our multi-billion-dollar intelligence collection satellites could be hidden, in order not to impede the planned attack on Iraq. That's why, as Clapper now admits, he had to find "what wasn't really there." ..."
Former DNI James Clapper had his own words read back to him by Ray McGovern, exposing his
role in justifying the Iraq invasion based on fraudulent intelligence.
... ... ...
Clapper was appointed Director of National Intelligence by President Barack Obama in June
2010, almost certainly at the prompting of Obama's intelligence confidant and Clapper friend
John Brennan, later director of the CIA. Despite Clapper's performance on Iraq, he was
confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Obama even allowed Clapper to keep his job for three and a
half more years after he admitted that he had lied under oath to that same Senate about the
extent of eavesdropping on Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA). He is now a
security analyst for CNN.
In his book, Clapper finally places the blame for the consequential fraud (he calls it "the
failure") to find the (non-existent) WMD "where it belongs -- squarely on the shoulders of the
administration members who were pushing a narrative of a rogue WMD program in Iraq and on
the intelligence officers, including me, who were so eager to help that we found what wasn't
really there." (emphasis added ) .
So at the event on Tuesday I stood up and asked him about that. It was easy, given the
background Clapper himself provides in his book, such as:
"The White House aimed to justify why an invasion of and regime change in Iraq were
necessary, with a public narrative that condemned its continued development of weapons of
mass destruction [and] its support to al-Qaida (for which the Intelligence Community had no
evidence)."
What Clapper chokes on -- and avoids saying -- is that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of
WMD either. Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had put him in charge of the agency
responsible for analyzing imagery of all kinds -- photographic, radar, infrared, and
multispectral -- precisely so that the absence of evidence from our multi-billion-dollar
intelligence collection satellites could be hidden, in order not to impede the planned attack
on Iraq. That's why, as Clapper now admits, he had to find "what wasn't really there."
Members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) who have employed Clapper
under contract, or otherwise known his work, caution that he is not the sharpest knife in the
drawer. So, to be fair, there is an outside chance that Rumsfeld persuaded him to be guided by
the (in)famous Rumsfeld dictum: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
But the consequences are the same: a war of aggression with millions dead and wounded;
continuing bedlam in the area; and no one -- high or low -- held accountable. Hold your breath
and add Joe Biden awarding the "Liberty Medal" to George W. Bush on Veteran's Day.
' Shocked'
Protection Racquet , November 17, 2018 at 02:46
When did this perjurer before Congress have any credibility? The guys a professional
liar.
Mild -ly Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 17:27
The guy is a professional liar,and
a member of The Establishment
"The Anglo-American Establishment"
Copyright 1981/ Books in Focus, Inc,
Vallejo D , November 19, 2018 at 21:15
No shit. I saw the video of Clapper perjuring himself to the US Congress on national
television, bald-face lying about the NSA clocking our emails.
I wouldn't believe Clapper if he the sky is blue and grass is green. EPIC liar.
PS: Erstwhile national security state "friend" actually had the nerve to claim that
"Clapper lied to protect you." As if. My bet is that ONLY people on the planet who didn't
know about the NSA's grotesque criminal were the American taxpayers.
Mild -ly Facetious , November 20, 2018 at 12:38
RECALL THIS EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENT -- from the GW Bush administration
There was, however, one valuable insight. In a soon-to-be-infamous passage, the writer,
Ron Suskind, recounted a conversation between himself and an unnamed senior adviser to the
president:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which
he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of
discernable reality."
I nodded and murmured something about Enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me
off.
"That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create reality. And while you are studying that reality –
judiciously, as you will – we'll act again creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do."
Anonymot , November 16, 2018 at 20:56
Mild -ly - Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 19:33
Anonymot , Yes!
Here Is A Sequence of books for those who reside in chosen darkness:
"The Lessons of History" by Will & Edith Durant – c. 1968
"The Anglo-American Establishment" by Carroll Quigley – c. 1981
"Understanding Special Operations" by David T. Ratcliffe – c. 1989 / 99
" The Secret War Against The Jews" by John Loftus and Mark Aarons c. 1994
Douglas Baker , November 16, 2018 at 19:42
Thanks Ray. The clap merry-go-round in Washington, D.C., with V.D. assaulting brain
integrity has been long playing there with James Clapper another hand in, in favor of the
continuation of those that direct the United States' war on world from Afghanistan to Syria,
staying the course of firing up the world as though Northern California's Camp fire sooting up
much of the state with air borne particulate matter and leaving death and destruction in its
wake.
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:29
All this is fine, except it dares not touch the still taboo subject among these
"professionals" of how all of this started getting justified in the first place when America
attacked itself on September 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington in the most sophisticated
and flawed false flag attack in history, murdering thousands of its own citizens Operation
Northwoods style, blaming it on 19 Saudi hijackers with box cutters, the most grandiose of all
conspiracy theory, the official 911 story.
The incriminating evidence of what happened that day in 2001 is now absolutely overwhelming,
but still too incredible and controversial for even these esteemed folks to come to grips with.
If we're going to take a shower and clean all this excrement off ourselves, let's do it
thoroughly.
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:46
In fact, wait! Let's ask the really important question of Clapper.
What was he doing and where was he on 9/11, the "New Pearl Harbor," and what was his role in
the coverup and transformation of the CIA in the ensuing years?
Why doesn't Ray ask him about that?
GKJames , November 16, 2018 at 06:46
(1) One needn't be a Clapper fan to say that he was merely a cog in a body politic that (a)
lives and breathes using military force to "solve" geopolitical problems; and (b) has always
been driven by the national myth of American exceptionalism and the American love of war. The
only issue ever is the story Americans tell themselves as to why a particular assault on some
benighted country that can't meaningfully shoot back is justified. But for that, there are
countless clever people in the corridors of power and the Infotainment Complex always eager to
spread mendacity for fun and profit. Sure, hang Clapper, but if justice is what you're after,
you'd quickly run out of rope and wood.
(2) What doesn't compute: Clapper is quoted as saying that he and cohort "were so eager to
help that [they] found what wasn't really there". That's followed by: "Rumsfeld put him in
charge so that the absence of evidence could be hidden . Clapper now admits [that] he had to
find 'what wasn't really there'". While Rumsfeld's intent was exactly that, i.e., to prevent a
narrative that he and Cheney had contrived, that's not the same as Rumsfeld's explicitly
instructing Clapper et al to do that. Further, it mischaracterizes Clapper's admission. He
doesn't admit that "he had to find" what wasn't there (which would suggest prior intent). What
he does admit is that the eagerness to please the chain of command resulted in "finding" what
didn't exist. One is fraud, the other group-think; two very different propositions. The latter,
of course, has been the hallmark of US foreign policy for decades, though the polite (but
accurate) word for it is "consensus". Everybody's in on it: the public, Congress, the press,
and even the judiciary. By and large, it's who Americans are.
(3) Does this really equate the WMD fiasco with the alleged "desperate [attempt] to blame
Trump's victory on Russian interference"? Yes, Clapper was present in 2003 and 2016. But that's
a thin reed. First, no reasonable person says that Russian interference was the only reason
that Clinton lost. Second, to focus on what was said in January 2017 ignores the US
government's notifying various state officials DURING THE CAMPAIGN in 2016, of Russian hacking
attempts. If, as is commonly said, the Administration was convinced that Clinton would win, how
could hacking alerts to the states have been part of an effort to explain away an election
defeat that hadn't happened yet, and which wasn't ever expected to happen? And, third, as with
WMDs, Clapper wasn't out there on his own. While there were, unsurprisingly, different views
among intelligence officials as to the extent of the Russian role, there was broad agreement
that there had been one. Once again, fraud vs. group-think.
Skip Scott , November 16, 2018 at 13:46
I think there is a big difference between "group think" and inventing and cherry picking
intelligence to fit policy objectives. I believe there is ample evidence of fraud. The "dodgy
dossier" and the yellow cake uranium that led to Plame being exposed as a CIA operative are two
examples that come immediately to mind. "Sexed up" intelligence is beyond groupthink. It is the
promoting of lies and the deliberate elimination of any counter narrative in order to justify
an unjust war.
The same could be said of the "all 17 intelligence agencies" statement about RussiaGate that
was completely debunked but remained the propaganda line. It was way more than "groupthink". It
was a lie. It is part of "full spectrum dominance".
I do agree that "Clapper wasn't out there on his own". He is part of a team with an agenda,
and in a just world they'd all be in prison.
It wasn't "mistaken" intelligence, or "groupthink". You are trying to put lipstick on a
pig.
GKJames , November 17, 2018 at 07:21
Fraud is easy to allege, hard to prove. In the case of Iraq, it's important to accept that
virtually everyone -- the Administration, the press, the public, security agencies in multiple
countries, and even UN inspectors (before the inspections, obviously) -- ASSUMED that Saddam
had WMDs. That assumption wasn't irrational; it was based on Saddam's prior behavior. No
question, the Administration wanted to invade Iraq and the presumed-to-exist WMDs were the
rationale. It was only when evidence appeared that the case for it wasn't rock-solid that
Cheney et al went to work. (The open question is whether they began to have their own doubts or
whether it never occurred to them, given their obsession.) But there is zero evidence that
anyone was asked to conclude that Saddam had WMDs even though the Americans KNEW that there
weren't any. That's where the group-think and weak-kneed obeisance to political brawlers like
Cheney come in. All he had to do was bark, and everyone fell in line, not because they knew
there were no WMDs, but because they weren't sure but the boss certainly was.
In that environment, what we saw from Clapper and his analysts wasn't fraud but weakness of
character, not to mention poor-quality analysis. And maybe that gets to the bigger question to
which there appears to be an allergy: Shouting Fraud! effectively shuts down the conversation.
After all, once you've done that, there's not much else to say; these guys all lied and death
and destruction followed. But what if the answer is just as likely that the national security
state created by Truman has grown into something uncontrollable, beyond legitimate oversight by
the people it's supposed to serve? What if the people in that business aren't all that clever,
let alone principled? After all, the CIA is headed by a torture aficionada and we haven't heard
peep from the employee base, let alone the Congress that confirmed her. That entire ecosystem
has been permitted to flourish without adult supervision for decades. Whenever someone asks,
"that's classified". What do you do when Americans as a whole are perfectly fine with that?
Sam F , November 18, 2018 at 08:17
But fraud from the top was shown very well by Bamford in his book Pretext For War. Where
discredited evidence was retained by intel agencies, as in the Iraq War II case, traitors like
the zionist Wolfowitz simply installed known zionist warmongers Perl, Feith, and Wurmser into
"stovepipe" offices at CIA, DIA, NSA to send the known-bad "evidence" to Rumsfeld &
Cheney.
Skip Scott , November 18, 2018 at 09:27
They seem to conveniently classify anything that could prove illegality such as fraud, or in
the case of the JFK assassination, something much worse. They use tools such as redaction and
classification not only to protect "national security", but to cover up their crimes.
"But what if the answer is just as likely that the national security state created by Truman
has grown into something uncontrollable, beyond legitimate oversight by the people it's
supposed to serve?"
I believe this is very much the case, but that doesn't preclude fraud as part of their
toolkit. The people at the top of the illegalities are clever enough to use those less sharp
(like Clapper) for their evil purposes, and if necessary, to play the fall guy. And although
the Intelligence Agencies are supposed to serve "We the People", they are actually serving
unfettered Global Capitalism and the .1% that are trying to rule the world. This has been the
case from its onset.
Furthermore, I am an American, and I am definitely NOT FINE with the misuse of
classification and redaction to cover up crimes. The way to fix the "entire ecosystem" is to
start to demand it by prosecuting known liars like James Clapper, and to break up the MSM
monopoly so people get REAL news again, and wake people up until they refuse to support the two
party system.
GKJames , November 19, 2018 at 10:20
(1) Assuming you could find a DOJ willing to prosecute and a specific statute on which to
bring charges, the chance of conviction is zero because the required fraudulent intent can't be
proved beyond reasonable doubt. All the defendant would have to say is, We thought WMDs were
there but it turned out we were wrong. Besides, the lawyers said it's all legal. And if you
went after Clapper only, he'd argue (successfully) that it was a highly selective prosecution.
(2) If you're going to create a whole new category of criminal liability for incompetence
and/or toadyism and careerism, Langley corridors would quickly empty. It's certainly one way to
reduce the federal workforce. (3) The intelligence agencies ARE serving "We the People". There
isn't anything they do that doesn't have the blessing of duly elected representatives in
Congress. (4) That you, yourself, are "NOT FINE" overlooks the reality that your perspective
gets routinely outvoted, though not because of "evil" or "fraud". A Clapper behind bars would
do zero to change that. Why? Because most Americans ARE fine with the status quo. That's not a
function of news (fake or real); Americans are drowning in information. Like all good service
providers, the media are giving their customers exactly what they want to hear.
Skip Scott , November 19, 2018 at 11:25
GK-
(1) It is you who is "assuming" that fraud could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
What if evidence was presented that showed that they didn't really think there were WMD's, but
were consciously lying to justify an invasion. I agree that it would be nearly impossible to
find a DOJ willing to prosecute within our corrupted government, but if we could get a 3rd
party president to sign on to the ICC, we could ship a bunch of evil warmongers off to the
Hague. (2) As already discussed, I don't buy the representation of their actions as mere
"toadyism". (3) As shown by many studies, our duly elected representatives serve lobbyists and
the .1%, not "We the People". Here's one from Princeton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig
(4) From your earlier post: "What do you do when Americans as a whole are perfectly fine with
that?" Since I am part of the "whole", your statement is obviously false. And Americans are
drowning in MISinformation from our MSM, and that is a big part of the problem. And please
provide evidence that most Americans are fine with the status quo. Stating that I get routinely
outvoted when many Americans see their choice as between a lesser of two evils, and our MSM
keeps exposure of third party viewpoints to a minimum, is an obvious obfuscation.
Sam F , November 16, 2018 at 21:01
I will second Skip on that.
The groupthink of careerists is not "who Americans are."
"Broad agreement" on an obvious fraud is a group lie.
What Clapper did was fraud. What went on in his head was group-think. The two are by no
means incompatible. The man admits to outright fabrication-
"my team also produced computer-generated images of trucks fitted out as 'mobile production
facilities used to make biological agents.' Those images, possibly more than any other
substantiation he presented, carried the day with the international community and Americans
alike."
He knew exactly what he was doing.
wootendw , November 15, 2018 at 22:41
"Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
said vehicle traffic photographed by U.S. spy satellites indicated that material and documents
related to the arms programs were shipped to Syria "
Syria and Iraq became bitter enemies in 1982 when Syria backed Iran during the Iran-Iraq
War. Syria even sent troops to fight AGAINST Saddam during the first Iraq War. Syria and Iraq
did not restore diplomatic relations until after Saddam was captured. The idea that Saddam
would send WMDs (if he had them) to Syria is ludicrous.
Zhu , November 15, 2018 at 20:54
Cheney wanted to steal the oil. Bush wanted to fulfill prophecy & make Jesus Rapture him
away from his problems. Neither plan worked.
Zhu , November 15, 2018 at 20:50
Our big shots never suffer for their crimes against humanity. Occasionally a Lt. Calley will
get a year in jail for a massacre, but that's it.
bostonblackie , November 16, 2018 at 13:54
Calley was placed under house arrest at Fort Benning, where he served three and a half
years.
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:16
That's like less than 2.5 days served per each defenseless My Lai villager slaughtered,
massacred, in cold blood.
What kind of justice is that? Who gets away with murder that way?
Helen Marshall , November 15, 2018 at 17:41
While serving in an embassy in 2003, the junior officer in my office was chatting with the
long-time local employee, after viewing the Powell Shuck and Jive. One said to the other, "the
US calls North Korea part of the 'Axis of Evil' but doesn't attack it because there is clear
evidence that it has WMD including nukes." And the other said "yes, and that's why the US is
going to invade Iraq because we know they don't." QED
John Flanagan , November 16, 2018 at 22:25
Love this comment!
Taras 77 , November 15, 2018 at 16:36
Thanks, Ray, for an excellent article!
You are one of few who are calling out these treasonous bastards. I am still .waiting for at
least some of them to do the perp walk, maybe in the presence of war widows, their children,
and maimed war veterans.
Clapper played the central role in deceiving America into abandoning the republic and
becoming the genocidal empire now terrorizing Planet Earth. If it is too late; if the criminals
have permanent control of our government, there won't be a cleansing Nuremberg Tribunal, and
our once-great USA will continue along its course of death and destruction until it destroys
itself.
Where are our patriots? If any exist, now is the time for a new Nuremberg.
Zhu , November 15, 2018 at 20:56
The genocidal empire goes back to 1950 the Korean War.
bostonblackie , November 16, 2018 at 13:58
How about 1945 and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:08
Keep going. Further back than that.
How about the Spanish American War, justified by the false flag blowing up of the Maine in
Havana Harbor, which led to the four-year genocidal war against Filipino rebels and the war
against the Cubans?
How about the 19th Century genocide of Native Americans? What was that justified by, except for
lust for conquest of territory and racism?
How about America's role with other western colonial powers in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in
China.
The list of American violations of international law is too long to restate here, in the
hundreds.
The only way out of this moral dilemma is to turn a new page in history in a new
administration, hold our war criminals in the dock, and make amends under international law,
and keep them, somehow without sacrificing national jurisdiction or security. America has to be
reformed as an honest broker of peace instead of the world's leading pariah terrorist
state.
bostonblackie , November 17, 2018 at 16:29
How about slavery? America was founded on genocide and slavery!
Skip Scott , November 15, 2018 at 09:44
I think Ray is being a little overly optimistic about Clapper being travel restricted.
Universal Jurisdiction is for the small fry. Even with Bush and Rumsfeld, their changing travel
plans was probably more about possible "bad press" than actual prosecution. Maybe down the
road, when the USA collapse is more obvious to our "vassals" and they start to go their own
way, such a thing could happen. Even then, we've got tons of armaments, and a notoriously itchy
trigger finger.
My hope is that the two party system collapses and a Green Party candidate gets elected
president. He or she could then sign us on to the ICC, and let the prosecutions begin. I know
it's delusional, but a guy's gotta dream.
Robert Emmett , November 15, 2018 at 08:52
It occurs to me that even given Cheney's infamous 1% doctrine, these no-goodniks couldn't
even scratch together enough of a true story to pass that low bar. So they invented, to put it
mildly, plausible scenarios, cranked-up the catapults of propaganda and flung them in our faces
via the self-absorbed, self-induced, money grubbing fake patriots of mass media.
But, geez, Ray, it's not as if we didn't already know about fixing facts around the policy,
resignations of career operatives because of politicizing intelligence, reports of Scott
Ritter, plus the smarmy lying faces & voices of all the main actors in the Cheney-Rumsfeld
generated mass hysteria. I doubt these types of reveals, though appreciatively confirming what
we already know, will change very many minds now. After all, the most effective war this cabal
has managed to wage has been against their own people.
Perhaps when these highfalutin traitors, treasonous to their oaths to protect the founding
principles they swore to preserve, at last shuffle off their mortal coils, future generations
will gain the necessary perspective to dismiss these infamous liars with the contempt they
deserve. But that's just wishful thinking because by then the incidents that cranked-up this
never-ending war likely will be the least of their worries.
In the meantime, the fact that this boiled egghead continues to spew his Claptrap on a major
media channel tells you all you need to know about how deeply the poison of the Bush-Cheney era
has seeped into the body politic and continues to eat away at what remains of the foundations
while the military-media-government-corporate complex metastasizes.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 21:03
Ray knows that the well-informed know much of the story, and likely writes to bring us the
Clapper memoir confession and summarize for the less informed.
I am always glad to see confirmation in such matters, however, for people who work to inform
themselves and think critically, there are no real surprises to be discovered about the
invasion of Iraq.
It could be clearly seen as a fraud at the time because there were a number of experts,
experts not working for the American government, who in effect told us then that it was a
fraud.
What the whole experience with Iraq reveals is a couple of profound truths about imperial
America, truths that are quite unpleasant and yet seem to remain lost to the general
public.
One, lying and manipulation are virtually work-a-day activities in Washington. They go on at
all levels of the government, from the President through all of the various experts and agency
heads who in theory hold their jobs to inform the President and others of the truth in making
decisions.
Indeed, these experts and agency heads actually work more like party members from George
Orwell's Oceania in 1984, party members whose job it is to constantly rewrite history, making
adjustments in the words and pictures of old periodicals and books to conform with the Big
Brother's latest pronouncements and turns in policy.
America has an entire industry devoted to manufacturing truth, something the rather feeble
term "fake news" weakly tries to capture.
The public's reaction to officials and agencies in Washington ought to be quite different
than it generally is. It should be a presumption that they are not telling the truth, that they
are tailoring a story to fit a policy. It sounds extreme to say so, but it truly is not in view
of recent history.
We are all watching actors in a costly play used to support already-determined destructive
policies.
Two, the press lies, and it lies almost constantly in support of government's decided
policies. You simply cannot trust the American press on such matters, and the biggest names in
the press – the New York Times or Washington Post or CBS or NBC – are the biggest
liars because they put the weight of their general prestige into the balance to tip it.
Their fortunes and interests are too closely bound to government to be in the least trusted
for objective journalism. Journalism just does not exist in America on the big stuff.
This support is not just done on special occasions like the run-up to the illegal invasion
of Iraq but consistently in the affairs of state. We see it today in everything from
"Russia-gate" to the Western-induced horrors of Syria. Russia-gate is almost laughable,
although few Americans laugh, but a matter like Syria, with more than half a million dead and
terrible privations, isn't laughable, yet no effort is made to explain the truth and bring this
monstrous project – the work equally of Republicans and Democrats – to an end.
Three, while virtually all informed people know that Israel's influence in Washington is
inordinate and inappropriate, many still do not realize that the entire horror of Iraq, just
like the horror today of Syria, reflects the interests and demands of Israel.
George Bush made a rarely-noticed, when Ariel Sharon was lobbying him to attack other Middle
Eastern countries following the Iraq invasion, along the lines of, "Geez, what does the guy
want? I invaded Iraq for him, didn't I?"
Well, today, pretty much all of the countries that Sharon thought should be attacked have
indeed been attacked by the United States and its associates in one fashion or another –
covertly, as in Syria, or overtly, as in Libya. And we are all witnessing the ground being
prepared for Iran.
It has been a genuinely terrifying period, the last decade and a half or so. War after war
with huge numbers of innocents killed, vast damages inflicted, and armies of unfortunate
refugees created. All of it completely unnecessary. All of it devoid of ethics or principles
beyond the principle of "might makes right."
It simply cannot be distinguished, except by order of magnitude, from the grisly work of
Europe's fascist governments of the 1930s and '40s.
All the discussions we read or see from America about truth in journalism, about truth in
government, and about founding principles are pretty much distraction and noise, meaningless
noise. The realities of what America is doing in the world make it so.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 20:56
Very true.
tpmco , November 16, 2018 at 02:48
Great comment.
john Wilson , November 15, 2018 at 04:47
It seems to me that showing up the blatant lies of the Iraq affair, while laudable, doesn't
really get us anywhere. The guilty are never and will never be brought to account for their
heinous crimes and some of the past villains are still lying, scheming, and brining about war,
terror and horror today.
If the white helmets in Syria, the lies about Libya, the West engineered coupé in The
Ukraine, Yemen, etc, aren't all tactics from the same play book used by the criminal cabals of
the Iraq time, then we are blind. These days, the liars in the deep state, an expression which
encapsulates everything from Intel to think tanks, don't even try to tell plausible lies, they
just say anything and MSM cheers them on. Anyone challenging the MSM/government/deep state etc
are just ridiculed and called conspiracy theorists, no matter how obvious and ludicrous the
lies are.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 06:26
In fact "showing up the blatant lies of the Iraq affair" informs others, to whom the MSM can
no longer cheer on liars, nor ridicule truth. Truth telling, like contemplation, is essential
before the point of action.
Randal , November 15, 2018 at 02:38
I remember a woman reporter saying the reason we invaded Iraq was because Sadam Husien had
put a bounty on the Bush family for running him out of qwait. This was a personal revenge to
take out Husien before he had a chance at the Bush's. Any way the reporter was silenced very
quickly. I personally believe the allegation.
You have my complete and total respect Mr. McGovern. That was beautiful! Thank you.
F. G. Sanford , November 15, 2018 at 01:33
"We drew on all of NIMA's skill sets and it was all wrong."
Every time I hear the term, "skill sets", I recall a military colleague who observed, "We
say skill sets so we don't have to say morons." They used to say, "The military doesn't pay you
to think." Now they say, "We have skill sets." It's a euphemism for robotized automatons who
perform specific standardized tasks based on idealized training requirements which evolve from
whatever the latest abstract military doctrine happens to be. And, they come up with new ones
all the time.
"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." This is a phrase Rumsfeld borrowed
directly – and I'm not making this up – from the UFO community. It was apparently
first uttered by Carl Sagan, and then co-opted by people like Stanton Friedman. He's the guy
who claims we recovered alien bodies from flying saucers at Roswell, New Mexico. The scientific
antidote to the "absence of evidence" argument is, of course, "Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary proof." Simply put, absence of evidence really just means "no evidence". A
hypothesis based on "no evidence" constitutes magical thinking.
It's probably worth going to Youtube and looking up a clip called "Stephen Gets a Straight
Answer Out of Donald Rumsfeld". He admits to Colbert that, "If it was true, we wouldn't call it
intelligence." Frankly, Clapper's gravest sin is heading up a science-based agency like NIMA,
but failing to come to the same conclusion as General Albert Stubblebine. People who analyze
reconnaissance imagery are supposed to be able to distinguish explosive ordnance damage from
other factors. But, I guess Newtonian Physics is "old school" to this new generation of magical
thinkers and avant-garde intelligence analysts.
Sam F , November 16, 2018 at 10:44
Part of the problem of "intelligence" is its reliance upon images that show a lot of detail
but without any definite meaning, and upon guesses to keep managers and politicians happy. So
"expert assessments" that milk trucks in aerial photos might be WMD labs became agency
"confidence" and then politician certainties, never verified.
When suspect evidence was retained by intel agencies, as in the Iraq War II case, traitors
like the zionist Wolfowitz simply installed known zionist warmongers Perl, Feith, and Wurmser
into "stovepipe" offices at CIA, DIA, NSA to send the non-evidence to Rumsfeld. See Bamford's
Pretext For War.
Gen Dau , November 14, 2018 at 22:20
Thank you, Ray, for a very good article that treats Clapper objectively and not as a
demi-god, as most of the MSM and the Democratic establishment does. It is totally unacceptable
for a government official, current or former, to answer "I don't know." That is the hideout of
irresponsible scoundrels. Questioners should be allowed to ask follow-up questions such as, "If
you didn't know, did you try to think about why the President's opinion on this very important
question was different from yours? Is simply not knowing acceptable for an intel officer,
especially one in a leadership position?" I look forward to your further reports and
analyses.
Thanks also to the editors for returning at least the main text to a readable font. But why
not go whole hog and make reading everything a pleasure again? Putting the headlines in a
hard-to-read and distracting font is especially unfortunate, since some casual visitors to
Consortium News may be turned off by the headlines and skip reading the very important articles
attached to the headlines.
According to my calculations (admittedly simplistic), the world has past the point of peak
oil and in aggregate cannot produce enogh oil to meet present and future demand and that may
very well be why the US is doing its best to destroy or damage as many economies in the world
as it can even if it has to go to war to do it. Once it becomes well established that we are
past peak oil no telling what our financial markets will look like. Would appreciate hearing
from someone who has more expertise than I have. https://www.gpln.com
anon4d2s , November 14, 2018 at 22:23
Why are you trying to change the subject? Please desist.
I'm offering you the, or a, motive of why the deep state is pursuing the agendas we see
unfolding, which is to say, the crimes, the lies, the treason that the likes of Clapper, Bush,
Obama, Clinton and others are pursuing to cover up their reaction to their own fears. Of course
9/11, the false flag coup and smoking gun that proves my point is still the big elephant in the
room and will eventually bring us down if the truth is never released from its chains.
I didn't change the subject. I'm offering you an answer as to the motive of why so many
officials are willing to trash the Constitution in order to accomplish their insane agendas.
It's all about money and power and the terrified Deep State fear of facing the blowback from
the lies that have been propagated by the government and media regarding just about everything.
Here's another place you might want to look in addition to my website: https://youtu.be/CDpE-30ilBY It's not just about oil. But
this is where the rubber's going to meet the road. This is about what's going to hit the fan at
any moment and in the absence of the Truth, we are all going to face this unprepared. 9/11 is
still the smoking gun. It not just a few liars and cheats we're talking about.
I didn't change the subject. The purpose of the search for WMD was to misdirect the public's
attention away from the real purpose of the invasion which was to gain control of Iraq's oil
reserves primarily. Misdirection is primary skill used by those in power and very
effectively.
Thanks, as always, go out to Ray for his continued bravery in speaking truth to power. I
remember years ago when David McMichaels, Ex-CIA, gave a talk at Ft Lewis College in Durango,
CO, about Ronnie Reagan's corruption in what the US was doing to the elected government in
Nicaragua. Thanks to both of these men for trying to inform us all about the corruption so
rampant in our government. This is further proof that Trump is only a small pimple on top of
the infectous boil that is our government.
Sam F , November 14, 2018 at 21:52
Hurray for Ray McGovern! A beautiful and superbly-planned confrontation. We are lucky that
Clapper admitted these things in his memoir, but we needed you to bring that out in public with
full and well-selected information. You are truly a gem, whom I hope someday to meet.
Sam F , November 14, 2018 at 22:19
An astounding revelation of systematic delusion in secret agencies.
But until now my best source on the Iraq fake WMD has been Bamford's Pretext For War, in
which he establishes that zionist DefSec Wolfowitz appointed three known zionist operatives
Perl, Wurmser, and Feith to "stovepipe" known-bad info to Rumsfeld et al. Does the memoir shed
any light there, and does your information agree?
mike k , November 14, 2018 at 19:58
Spies lie constantly, they have no respect for the truth. To trust a spy is a sign of
dangerous gullibility. Spies are simply criminals for hire.
Gen Dau , November 14, 2018 at 22:30
Yes, I also hope our replies will be in a more civil and less reader-hostile font. The same
font as the article text would be fine.
dfnslblty , November 15, 2018 at 09:59
I would offer that spies do not lie ~ they gather information.
Spy masters do lie ~ they prevaricate to fit the needs of their masters.
Tomonthebeach , November 15, 2018 at 23:48
To paraphrase in a way that emphasizes the deja vu. Trump lies constantly, he has no respect
for the truth. To trust Trump is a sign of dangerous gullibility. Trump is simply a crook for
hire, and it would seem that Putin writes the checks.
anon4d2s , November 16, 2018 at 10:48
Gosh, you fooled everyone so easily with standard Dem zionist drivel!
Why not admit that every US politician is bought, including Dems?
Don't forget to supply your unique evidence of Russian tampering.
Mild-ly - Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 16:44
"Clapper's Credibility Collapses"
as does Colin Powell's U.N.BULL Spit Yellow Cake propaganda/
all that's required is a Sales Pitch to everyday striving citizens into
how a brutal strain of aristocrat have come to rule america
and how you must delve into the Back-Stories of, for example,
GHW Bush CIA connection and his presents in Dallas, 1963
credibility collapses abound under weight of 'what really happened'
after Chaney convened summit of oil executives just PRIOR to 9/11?
fersur 26 minutes ago remove Share link Copy Article is at best close, Clapper was in the triad as a go-a-long,
Not as smart but just as Treasonus, their ( all Three ) play was the same play as my post
below, just maybe differenty colluded !
BOOM !
Militia Leader Who Led Raid on U.S. Embassy was at White House 2011.
Iranian militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, one of several identified as leading an attack on the
U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, reportedly visited the White House in 2011 during the
presidency of Barack Obama.
On Tuesday, a mob in Baghdad
attacked the U.S. embassy in retaliation against last weekend's
U.S. airstrikes against the Iran-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH), responsible
for killing an American civilian contractor. KH is one of a number of pro-Iran militias that
make up the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU), which legally became a wing of the Iraqi
military after fighting the Sunni Islamic State terrorist group.
President Donald Trump has since accused Iran of having "orchestrated" the embassy attack
and stated that the government would be "held fully responsible."
Breitbart News reporter John Hayward described the attack on the embassy, writing:
The mob grew into thousands of people, led by openly identified KH supporters, some of
them wearing uniforms and waving militia flags. The attack
began after a funeral service for the 25 KH fighters killed by the U.S. airstrikes.
Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad carrying photos of the slain KH members
and Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who condemned the American
airstrikes.
KH vowed to
seek revenge for the airstrikes on Monday. Both KH and the Iranian military unit that
supports it, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have been designated as terrorist
organizations by the U.S. government. The government of Saudi Arabia also described KH as one
of several "terrorist militias supported by the Iranian establishment" in
remarks on Tuesday condemning the assault on the U.S. embassy.
The attackers were able to smash open a gate and push into the embassy compound, lighting
fires, smashing cameras, and painting messages such as "Closed in the name of resistance" on
the walls. Gunshots were reportedly heard near the embassy, while tear gas and stun grenades
were deployed by its defenders.
A uniformed militia fighter on the scene in Baghdad told Kurdish news service Rudaw
that attacks were also planned against the U.S. consulates in Erbil and Basra, with the goal
of destroying the consulates and killing everyone inside.
The Washington Post
reported Tuesday that among those agitating protesters in Baghdad on Tuesday was Hadi
al-Amiri, a former transportation minister with close ties to Iran who leads the Badr Corps,
another PMF militia.
In 2011, both
Fox News and the Washington Times noted that then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki brought his
transportation minister, al-Amiri, to a meeting at the White House. The Times noted that
the White House did not confirm his attendance, but the official was on Iraq's listed members
of its delegation.
The al-Amiri accompanying al-Maliki, besides also being transportation minister, was
identified at the time as a commander of the Badr organization, further indicating it was the
same person. At the time, the outlets expressed concern that al-Amiri had ties to the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the FBI has stated played a role in a 1996 terrorist
attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen. President Donald Trump designated the IRGC a foreign
terrorist organization, the first time an official arm of a foreign state received the
designation.
Fox News' Ed Henry questioned White House Press Secretary Jay Carney following the visit
about the attendance of al-Amiri at the White House. Carney refused to answer and stating that
he would need to investigate the issue. The
full transcript from RealClearPolitics reads:
Ed Henry, FOX News: When Prime Minister Maliki was here this week there have been reports
that a former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which U.S. officials say played a
role in a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen.
He was here at the White House with Prime Minister Maliki because he's a transportation
minister, yeah, transportation minister --
Jay Carney, WH: Who's [sic] report is that?
Henry: I believe the Washington Times has reported it. I think others have as well, but I
think this is a Washington Times --
Carney: I have to take that question then, I'm not aware of it.
Henry: Can you just answer it later though, whether he was here and whether a background
check had been done?
Carney: I'll check on it for you.
Henry: Okay, thanks.
In 2016, Obama secured a deal with Iran which included a payment of $1.7 billion in cash.
Breitbart News reporter John Hayward
reported in September of 2016:
On Tuesday, the Obama administration finally admitted something its critics had long
suspected: The entire $1.7 billion tribute paid to Iran was tendered in cash -- not just the
initial $400 million infamously shipped to the Iranians in a cargo plane -- at the same
moment four American hostages were released.
"Treasury Department spokeswoman Dawn Selak said in a statement the cash payments were
necessary because of the 'effectiveness of U.S. and international sanctions,' which isolated
Iran from the international finance system,"
said ABC News, relating what might be one of history's strangest humblebrags. The
sanctions Obama threw away were working so well that he had to satisfy Iran's demands with
cold, hard cash!
By the way, those sanctions were not entirely related to Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons. As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy
pointed out at National Review last month, they date back to Iran's seizure of
hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, its support for "Hezbollah's killing sprees," and,
most pertinently, Bill Clinton's 1995 invocation of "federal laws that deal with national
emergencies caused by foreign aggression," by which he meant Iran's support for international
terrorism.
Former white house staffer during the Obama administration, Ben Rhodes, blamed President
Trump's policies for the Tuesday attack on the U.S. embassy.
Many have hit back at Rhodes for the accusations, including former CIA ops officer Bryan
Dean Wright.
No further information has been given about al-Amiri's presence at the U.S. embassy raid on
Tuesday. Read more about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad at Breitbart News
here .
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online
censorship.
Instead of finding the real culprits - ISIS remnants, disgruntled locals, Kurds who want
to regain control over Kirkuk - the U.S. decided that Kata'ib Hizbullah was the group guilty
of the attack....
Yesterday's attacks guarantee that all U.S. troops will have to leave Iraq and will
thereby also lose their supply lines to Syria.
One wonders if that was the real intend of those strikes.
Just like with 9/11 and Iraq where the US government immediately pushed its pre-existing
agenda, so the US doesn't care who really launches attacks on US and US-client positions in
Iraq and Syria but automatically assigns them to Hezbollah and thus to Iran, in accord with
the pre-existing neocon wet dream of provoking a full-scale war with Iran.
If that's the US intent, to escalate against Iran, and if conversely the Iraq government
is serious about kicking out the US military, we'll have the confrontation discussed in the
open thread.
As for the idea that Trump was briar-patching here, wanting a good legalistic pretext to
withdraw troops from Iraq (which would then trigger the practical supply-based pretext to
withdraw them from Syria and not "take the oil" after all), well even if he had such confused
thoughts, we've already seen how spineless he is about trying to assert his will over that of
the neocon bureaucracies, civilian and military. Do we really expect them to agree to vacate
Iraq merely because the legally constituted supposedly sovereign government told them to? It
seems more likely they'll tell the government they're not going anywhere and demand that the
government help them suppress non-governmental resistance to their ongoing presence, or else.
(I don't know if there's yet been a formal order to leave from the Iraqi government, or just
rhetoric in an attempt to save face.)
March 12, 2019 at 5:25
pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN
Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law
prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."
Hi AnonfromTN.
Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli
"dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly
given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.
They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.
What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President
t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.
Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type
of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US
military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an
Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!
Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland"
law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman
raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on
the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.
@ChuckOrloski I
can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery.
As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and
donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these
should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally,
desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and
severely punish those who expose these crimes.
I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of
any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves
are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash.
Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel
influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.
"... Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies. ..."
"... No informed American can afford to not know the names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. > ..."
"... Hersh hoped that future historians would document the fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved the takeover. ..."
"... The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket. ..."
"... In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent. ..."
"... That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book. Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters. ..."
"... Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state. However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and often place American interests second to that of the lobby. ..."
Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war
in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy,
but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East. Showing that the neocon movement
has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the
discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United
States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote
the flow of oil. Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives,
including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the
American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as
ready after 9/11 for retaliation
Every American should read this superb book about the intimate connection between the
state of Israel and the Americans who planned and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003
(and who still influence U.S. policy in the Middle East). This very well-researched and
well-argued book will enlighten Americans who want to understand how the Jewish State of
Israel powerfully shapes U.S. Middle East policy.
Stephen Sniegowski provides a detailed look at the network of die-hard pro-Israel
Neoconservatives who have worked in the U.S. government, in think tanks, and in the news
media to shape American foreign policy to serve the needs of Israel at the expense of the
U.S. From media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose 175 newspapers around the world ALL editorialized
in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, to
Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and later Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, to
Vice President Dick Cheney, to the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, the
neoconservatives successfully persuaded President George W. Bush to invade Iraq to promote
Israel's foreign policy interests.
Sniegowski describes how the Neocons promoted lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed Weapons
of Mass Destruction and his supposed ties to al-Qaeda terrorists from a network of think
tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Middle East Media Research Institute,
Hudson Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Center for Security Policy, and the
Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
He also traces the influence of Israeli Zionist Oded Yinon on the American
Neoconservatives. Yinon wrote an article in 1982 entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the
1980s" that called for Israel to bring about the dissolution of many of the Arab states and
their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. This is basically what
is happening to Iraq and Syria today. He also called for Israelis to accelerate the
emigration of Palestinians from Israel, whose border he believed should extend to the Jordan
River and beyond it.
Yinon's article influenced a paper written for the Israeli Likud government of Benjamin
Netanyahu in 1996 by American neoconservatives Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David
Wurmser entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This paper stated
that Netanyahu should "make a clean break" with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel's
claim to the West Bank and Gaza. Like Yinon's article, it also called for the removal of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the weakening of Syria to promote Israel's interests. It was
written five years BEFORE the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These same three
men - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser - who advised Netanyahu's Israeli
government on issues of national security would later advise President George W. Bush to
pursue virtually the same policies regarding the Middle East.
If you want to understand how and why powerful pro-Israel neoconservatives in the U.S.
misled Americans and convinced President George W. Bush to order the U.S. invasion of Iraq in
2003, and how they persuaded the U.S. Congress to give Bush the authority to order the
invasion, read this outstanding book.
Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper
entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think
tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to
foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies.
The policy was adopted by the Israeli pro-settler right wing and Jewish activists in and
around the Clinton and Bush administrations such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David
Wurmser (who all helped produce the original document). They identified as targets Iraq,
Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and were handed a golden opportunity after the 9/11 attack on
the World Trade Centre. Iraq was falsely presented as an Al Qaeda base and the media planted
with stories about an imminent attack on the United States using WMD. Despite the CIA knowing
all along that the WMD didn't exist, the US still invaded Iraq and the story was quietly and
unbelievably changed to "building democracy".
As Sniegoski points out, the war has exceeded the cost of Vietnam and the same activists,
now working through Hillary Clinton are looking for "incidents" in Iraq to trigger the next
phase of the plan which is a US attack on Iran.
UPDATE October 2014:
And it gets worse: The 911 story itself keeps morphing. Google "Building 7", YouTube "911
Missing Links" or check the article at http://911speakout.org/7TOCPJ.pdf. >
Important book for those trying understand the chaos that
is currently reigning in the Middle East. From the lies based NEOCON attack on Iraq trumpeted
by the mainstream USA media as a fight to save Western Civilization, to the rise of ISIL.
This books will make those connections clear. No informed American can afford to not know the
names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. >
On January 27, 2005, [...] posted the remarks of Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker
contributor) at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York that a neoconservative cult had
taken over the American government.
Hersh hoped that future historians would document the
fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to
overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The
Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved
the takeover.
Other books have stressed how the neoconservative ideology is contrary to traditional
American values: Reclaiming the American Right (Justin Raimondo), America the Virtuous (Claes
Ryn), Where the Right Went Wrong (Patrick Buchanan).
"Memoirs of a Trotskyist" in Neo-conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (Irving Kristol)
provided a neoconservative account of the origins of neo-conservatism. Sniegoski noted
correctly that the term neoconservative originated with leftists critical of their former
comrades for attempting to infiltrate the Democratic and Republican parties. Thanks to
leftists who call neoconservatives the ultra-right and to conservative dupes who think that
anyone using a conservative label is a conservative, the neoconservative cancer has spread
through the fragile American political body.
The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group
attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a
detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to
overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket.
Unlike earlier secret plots to take over the American government, Sniegoski explained how it
was possible for the neoconservatives to operate as a relatively transparent cabal. However,
he observed that the neoconservatives used a Trojan horse technique to take over the American
conservative movement. The goal of the neoconservatives is to promote endless wars regardless
of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power.
The neoconservatives do not represent a popular mass movement in America. Instead, the
neoconservatives rely upon the co-operation of other groups. Sniegoski provided extensive
documentation of which groups enabled the neoconservatives. For example, the Christian
Zionists duped their followers into sacrificing money and soldiers. Zionism originated with
the writings of Moses Hess (who helped Karl Marx write The Communist Manifesto, was nicknamed
the Communist Rabbi, and who is buried in Israel). In 1862, Moses Hess published Rome and
Jerusalem. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (Shlomo Avineri) provided a detailed
explanation of the relationship between Communism and Zionism.
The reason for the fragility of American democracy is the failure of many Americans to
understand the most basic aspects of the American political system and of their
religions.
The Transparent Cabal is an important starting point for understanding how a neoconservative
cult opposed to traditional American political and religious values is able to destroy
America with endless wars.
_The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, And the
National Interest of Israel_, published in 2008 by Enigma Editions of IHS Press, by scholar
Stephen J. Sniegoski is a thorough examination of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing
for war in the Middle East (beginning with the war in Iraq and pushing onwards towards Iran)
in order to protect the national interests of Israel. Sniegoski makes the claim that the
neoconservatives have been the fundamental force behind the war efforts of the United States
and have played a particularly prominent role in the Bush administration. While these claims
have now become common knowledge, Sniegoski makes an important contribution by tracing the
history of the neoconservative movement and its links to prominent pro-Jewish and pro-Israel
groups. In particular, Sniegoski claims that neoconservativism is a tool of Zionism and the
Likudniks of Israel. Sniegoski traces out how following the attacks of September 11, the
neoconservative war hawks had a profound influence on the thinking of President Bush and
offered him a ready made solution to his foreign policy agenda. In this book, Sniegoski also
considers and refutes other theories as to the root causes behind America's intervention in
Iraq (such as the role of oil and war profiteering) but explains how these theories lack the
validity of that which lays the blame on the neoconservatives and their goals for Israeli
dominance in the Middle East.
In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at
the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked
charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the
United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book
echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the
small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains
that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a
tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent.
This book begins with a Foreword by Congressman Paul Findley (famous author of _They Dare
to Speak Out_ and longtime opponent of the Israeli Lobby) in which he explains the importance
of Sniegoski's book and deflects the spurious charge of anti-Semitism. Following this,
appears an Introduction by noted paleoconservative Paul Gottfried who explains his admiration
for Sniegoski's book, offers some comparisons between Sniegoski's claims and those of other
individuals, and contrasts the old non-interventionist limited government form of
conservativism with that of the neoconservatives.
The first chapter of Sniegoski's book is entitled "The Transparent Cabal" and notes the
disastrous consequences that have followed upon the Iraq war spurred on by the
neoconservatives. The author explains what he means in calling the neoconservatives a
"transparent cabal" and notes the importance of their Middle East, pro-Israeli agenda. The
author explains how following the events of September 11, they came to take on a prominent
role in influencing the thinking of the president (who had previously shown little interest
in the Middle East).
The second chapter is entitled "The "Neocon-Israel" Claim: Bits and
Pieces" and exposes the role of Israel's Likudnik party behind the neoconservatives. The
author deflects claims of "anti-Semitism" which are frequently hurled at those who make these
charges by showing that even many prominent Jews agree with this. Following this appears a
chapter entitled "Who are the Neocons?" which shows how the neocons emigrated from their
original home in the Democratic party of the McGovernite left into the Republican party as
the New Left began to voice criticisms of Israel. The author shows that many of the neocons
are actually socialists and Trotskyites parading under the label of "conservative". Further,
the author shows the role of various intellectuals centering around New York City in creating
the neoconservative movement.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "The Israeli Origins of the
Middle East War Agenda" which shows how the goal of Middle East war to further the interests
of Israel has been supported extensively by hawkish groups in Israel. The author explains how
these groups came to have such a prominent role in influencing the policy of the United
States and in suppressing the native population of Palestinians in Israel. Following, appears
a chapter entitled "Stability and the Gulf War of 1991: Prefigurement and Prelude to the 2003
Iraq War" in which the author explains the importance of the first Gulf War of Bush I in
prefiguring the Iraq War of Bush II. After this, appears a chapter entitled "During the
Clinton Years" in which the author shows the continuing role of the neocons during the
Clinton years.
Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Serbian Interlude and the 2000
Elections" in which the author explains how the war in Yugoslavia paved the way for the
coming Iraq War of President Bush. This also explains the split that occurred among
conservatives between those traditional conservatives who opposed the war and the neocons who
firmly supported it. Following this appears a chapter entitled "George W. Bush
Administration: The Beginning" in which the author explains the role that the neocons came to
take in the Bush administration mentioning in particular the role of such figures as
Wolfowitz and Cheney and the role of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Following
this appears a chapter entitled "September 11", showing how the events of Sept. 11 allowed
the neocon agenda to gain prominence in the mind of President Bush.
Next, appears a chapter
entitled "Move to War" explaining how the neocons pushed for war against Sadaam Hussein
presenting their case to the American people by claiming that Hussein was in possession of
WMDs which could be used against America. Following this appears a chapter entitled "World
War IV" explaining how the conflict in the Middle East came to be dubbed World War IV by
certain intellectuals among the neocons.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "Democracy for the
Middle East" showing the role of the neocons in foisting "democracy" onto various nations and
their goal of global democratic revolution. The author also explains the role of the thinking
of political philosopher Leo Strauss behind many of the neocons and his profoundly
anti-democratic philosophy. Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Neocons'
Post-Invasion Difficulties" showing how the invasion of Iraq turned out to be more serious
and difficult than originally anticipated by the neocons. Next, appears a chapter entitled
"Beginning of the Second Administration" showing the continuing role of the neocons under the
second Bush administration.
Then, appears a chapter entitled "Israel, Lebanon, and the 2006
Election" showing the role of Lebanon and Syria in relationship to Israel and that of the
2006 election.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "2007: On to Iran" showing how the neocons
continued to press for further wars in particular against Iran by alleging among other things
that Ahmedinejad was a mad man with possible access to nuclear weapons. Following, appears a
chapter entitled "The Supporting Cast for War" noting the role of Christian Zionists (which
includes the beliefs of President Bush, although not his father), former Cold Warriors, and
even prominent establishment liberals in supporting the Iraq war. The author notes however
that the traditional foreign policy establishment elites and many in the intelligence
agencies did not support the war, but were disregarded to further the neocon agenda. The
author also contrasts the difference between the liberal elites who frequently were pro-war
and the popular anti-war movement which had very little power.
Following this, the author
turns to a chapter entitled "Oil and Other Arguments" in which the author considers the
claims that the war was fought to obtain access to oil or for the interests of war profiteers
and shows that while both groups certainly benefited they are not the real reason for the
war. The book ends with a "Conclusion" in which the author expounds upon the continuing role
of the neocons in influencing American foreign policy and a "Postscript" in which the author
notes that no matter who wins the 2008 election that the neocon agenda will likely continue
and is not likely to go away anytime soon.
This book offers a fascinating history and account of the role of the neoconservatives in
pushing the United States into war. The author makes clear the influence of the Israeli
Likudnik party behind the neocons and their goal of strengthening the position of Israel in
the Middle East. It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the foreign policy
elites who have been pushing us into war against Iraq and now with eyes towards Iran.
That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book.
Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed
by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters.
Let's put aside these negative and nasty characterizations and look at the facts.
Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state.
However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and
often place American interests second to that of the lobby.
To suggest that there is such a
lobby and that it is powerful is hardly anti-semitic. Nor is the author. He is simply stating
verifible facts which any student of politics is free to do. He may be mistaken in his
conclusions but that hardly makes him anti-semitic. And he may not be mistaken at all. He is
not the first to suggest that our leaders are fearful of the Israeli lobby and do its bidding
and often to the detriment of American interests .
Stephen Sniegoski, a diplomatic historian, is uniquely qualified to write about the
neoconservatives' involvement in the prolonged Iraq War originating in 2003. He accurately
predicted their activities and allegiance in this entanglement in 1998, three years before
the acts of 9-11 and two additional years before a traumatized nation yielded to a nescient,
misdirected President, his Vice President/administration, and an ostensibly compliant
bi-partisan House and Senate.
The author presents a tight outline which he cogently expands in intelligible detail,
maintaining that the origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the adoption of a war
agenda whose basic structure was conceived in Israel to advance Israel's interests. The
pro-Israel neoconservatives and a powerful Israel lobby in the United States fervently pushed
its agenda. Ironically, he extracts his most persuasive evidence from an extensive
neoconservative paper trail that's been clearly recognized by a discreet cadre of vigilant
Americans for years. Thus the title, "The Transparent Cabal."
Dr. Sniegoski asks the appropriate question: "Who are the neoconservatives?" He provides
insightful answers on their pertinent activities since 1972, those who shaped and mentored
them, their immediate family/interconnected family networks, their prominent periodical
publications, their past and present leadership, non-Jewish minority members, their
persistent rise to positions of political influence and authority, their embrace of Christian
Zionists, and their close ties to the extremely conservative Likud Party in Israel. He
reveals their tactical affiliations with key, heavily endowed influential think tanks, and a
vast number of powerful Israel-centric lobbying organizations that reactively finance and
nurture their continued success.
Many readers will recognize his references to writers of previous books, articles and
columns -- many of Jewish heritage -- who bravely fight against well financed, mainstream
media-dominant opponents and their psychological surrogates active on the Internet. These
opponents perniciously engage in personal attacks and retribution, indiscriminately applying
irrelevant anti-semitic labels. They persist at attempting to sway public discourse by
spreading misinformation, disinformation, and mostly NO RELEVANT INFORMATION to the
public.
In various places throughout the book, the author notes curious relationships with current
and former elected and appointed officials. He writes about the ongoing 2008 presidential
campaign in a postscript, citing past and existing direct influences on specific candidates
by the neoconservatives, the Israel Lobby and its supporters.
The book concludes with a summary of the paucity of benefits compared to the predictable
losses of the American people over recent years. These are the real consequences of the
Israel-inspired plan to "drain the swamp" (a euphemism for destabilizing perceived enemies
then establishing precarious nominal democracies) that began with our misadventure in Iraq
and was to proceed with subsequent U.S. military interventions in Iran and Syria. The few
meager benefits and the enormous losses to the United States are compared to the strategic
advantages that the State of Israel derives directly from our five-year induced military
involvement in Iraq and our concomitant departure from past, longstanding policies of
diplomacy and stability in the Middle East.
Sniegoski counsels, "it is hardly controversial to propose that elites, rather than the
people as a whole, determine government policies, even in democracies."
Yet this war has a supporting cast of middle Americans. Many of them were traumatized by
the events of 9-11 and reactively saw an act of patriotism in supporting retaliation against
a falsely perceived enemy in Iraq. It's time to reconsider false arguments preceding the Iraq
War that have only been cosmetically modified until the present day. It's time to dismiss
incongruous ideas formed in the cauldron of confusion after 9-11.
Given today's realities, it DOES take patriotism and courage to insist on formally
normalizing an entangled, unreciprocated military alliance with an Israeli government that
burdens the taxpayers of the United States, promotes angst among its people, and imperils its
military forces worldwide.
Know and embrace Thomas Jefferson's ideal of 'eternal vigilance' as citizens of the United
States.
.
.
Facts in this book are reinforced in adjacent paragraphs and referenced in nearly 50 pages of
notes. Readers are encouraged to read:
World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global
Instability by Amy Chua -- "Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects
in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a
Public Inquiry" **a 166 PAGE LEAKED REPORT** documenting foreign espionage activities
surrounding 9-11, available on the Internet (although rarely in COMPLETE UNEDITED FORM **WITH
5 EXHIBITS AND 4 MAPS**). .
Stephen J. Sniegoski has a doctorate from the University of Maryland and studied American
diplomatic history. My review here will refer to him as "S," for short.
This book is about the American neoconservative movement. S goes from its founding through
its influential role in getting the U.S. into the Iraq War, then he discusses the War's
aftermath. S's argument is that the neoconservative agenda regarding the Middle East is
designed to serve the interests of the state of Israel, as those interests are articulated by
the right-wing Likud party there. This agenda supports weakening Arab nations surrounding
Israel so that they cannot pose a threat to her. According to S, the neoconservatives
supported such an agenda since their beginning as a movement, but 9/11 created an opportunity
for this agenda to become the foreign policy of the United States during much of the
Presidency of George W. Bush.
Here are some thoughts:
A. Looking broadly at the book itself, it is a standard narration of the events
surrounding and including the Iraq War. Like a lot of people, I lived through that, so the
sweeping narrative of the book was not particularly new to me. The story is essentially that
the U.S. went into Iraq expecting to find weapons of mass destruction after 9/11, bombed the
country and found that were no WMDs, and traveled the difficult road of trying to rebuild the
country, amidst ethnic division, turmoil, and opposition from Iraqis.
B. That said, there were some things that I learned from this book. First, while
neoconservatism is said to believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, it is not
necessarily committed to democracy, per se. Initially, it supported a new government of Iraq
that would be led by the traditional, pre-Saddam tribal authorities, who were not democratic.
Second, S seems to imply that even the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was
unnecessary, since the Taliban initially appeared cooperative in offering to help the U.S. to
bring al-Qaeda to justice. Third, there are neoconservatives who have supported undermining
even America's allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The different groups in Saudi
Arabia was also interesting, for, as S notes, Shiites hold a significant amount of control
over Saudi oil, even though the political establishment is Sunni. Fourth, S argues rigorously
against the idea that the U.S. launched the Iraq War to get more oil. Saddam was offering
U.S. oil companies opportunities to drill in Iraq, plus oil companies did not want the oil
infrastructure of the country to be disrupted or shattered by war.
C. There were also things in the book that I was interested to learn more about, even
though I had a rudimentary understanding of them before. For one, S chronicles George W.
Bush's changing views on foreign policy, as he went from rejecting nation-building, while
retaining a tough stance, to embracing nation building. In the early days of the Bush II
Administration, long before the Iraq War, Condi Rice even explained on news shows why regime
change in Iraq would be a mistake at that point. Second, S discusses the coalition that
emerged to support the war in Iraq. The neocons wanted to protect Israel, but Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the Iraq War as a way to showcase the effectiveness of a
lean military. Meanwhile, many Americans, frightened after 9/11, supported the Iraq War as a
way to keep the U.S. safe. And Christian conservatives embraced the good vs. evil, pro-Israel
stance of neoconservative policy. Third, S strategically evaluates moves that the U.S. made;
for S, for example, the surge did not actually work, but more stability emerged in Iraq as
different ethnic factions became separated from each other.
D. According to S, the Iraq War was a disaster. It stretched America's military, taking
away resources that could have been used to find Osama bin-Laden. Yet, Israel got something
that it wanted as a result: disarray among her Arab neighbors. An argument that S did not
really engage, as far as I can recall, is that the Iraq War placed Israel even more in peril,
since it increased the power of Iran by allowing Iraq to serve as a proxy for Iranian
interests.
E. For S, neoconservatism is concerned about the security of Israel. Even its staunch Cold
War policy is rooted in that concern, since the U.S.S.R. tended to support Arabs over the
Israelis. S acknowledges, though, that there is more to neoconservatism that that.
Neoconservatives supported a strong U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia
during the Clinton Administration, and neoconservatism also maintains stances on domestic
issues, such as welfare.
F. S is sensitive to any charges of anti-Semitism that may be launched against his book.
He emphatically denies that he is saying there was a Jewish conspiracy to get the U.S. into
Iraq, for he observes that many Jews opposed the Iraq War. Moreover, S does not exactly
present the U.S. government as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), for the neoconservatives
were long on the margins prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Even under Bush II, the
traditional national security and intelligence apparatus was critical of the Iraq War,
preferring more multilateralism and a focus on stability in the Middle East. The Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR), long a bogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists, also had
reservations about the Iraq War.
G. S largely depicts the Likud party in Israel, and neoconservatives, as supporting
Israel's security as a nation, her protection, if you will. At the same time, S argues that
Israel in 2006 was acting aggressively rather than defensively in its invasion of Lebanon,
for Lebanon had coveted water-supplies.
H. Near the end of the Iraq War, S demonstrates, neoconservatives were calling on the U.S.
to take an aggressive stance against Iran, going so far as to bomb the country. That, of
course, is an issue that remains relevant today. S probably regards such a move as a mistake.
At the same time, he can understand why Israel would be apprehensive about a nuclear-armed
Iran. He thinks that Ahmadinejad has been incorrectly understood to say that Israel should be
wiped off the map, but S still acknowledges that a powerful Iran could provide more support
to the Palestinians, which would trouble Israel. Although S understands this, he seems to
scorn the idea that Israel should get everything she wants and have hegemony.
I. S is open to the possibility that neoconservatives believe that their support for
Israel is perfectly consistent with America's well-being. As S observes, the U.S. government
since its founding has had people who believe that partisanship towards a certain nation --
-Britain or France -- -is not only good for its own sake but serves the interests of the
United States. S disputes, however, that neoconservative policy is the only way to help the
U.S. Could not one argue, after all, that the U.S. would want to be on the Arabs' good side,
with all the oil the Arabs have? This analysis may be a little dated, since the U.S. now has
some alternative sources of energy (fracking), but S makes this point in evaluating the
historical stance of neoconservatism.
I was interested to see the reviews of this book. Usually if any book suggests that Israel
is less than perfect a group of Zionist fanatics surface with several reviews telling us that
there nothing wrong Israel or American support of it.
Remarkably there is only one negative review of this book which has to be seen to be
believed. This reviewer "yoda" from Israel charges in all seriousness that Sniegoski does not
provide evidence that the neoconservatives are "predominantly Jewish " and are " strongly
aligned with Israel". Asking the author to provide evidence for such
assertions is like asking him to give evidence that the sun will
rise in the east tomorrow .
This is I believe the real reason that that there are relatively few attacks on this book.The
author does not engage in shrill denunciations of Israel or of the neoconservatives . What he
does do is quote at length what neocoservstives say and provide careful documentation for any
factual claims. For the most part the reader is allowed to
draw his own conclusions. Should the US continue to finance
Israeli repression of Palestinians and perhaps go to war against Iran or anyone else who
might object to Israeli policie?
Instead of denouncing Sniegoski "Yoda" should consider
the sane Israelis in his own country . For example former
Mossad chief Meir Dagan who said that a war with Iran was
the "stupidest idea he had ever heard of." Also moviemaker
Emmanuel Dror who interviewed virtually all the former directors of the Shin Bett ( Israel's
internal security service )
who all called for disengaging from the occupied territories .
perhaps we all would be better off listening to these Isaelis rather than follow the
neoconservatives into another disastrous war on the other side of the world.
This is going to be a very strange review coming from me. You see, I wrote a novel called
"Other Nations" and well, people that liked it a lot, liked it, but then those that really
disliked it disliked it because my "aliens among humans" were nice people, likeable people,
even charismatic people, everyday suburban types even, living that kind of life. Among us.
Next door, in the next city over. They wanted instead to see the aliens among us portrayed as
well, pick your favorite genocidal maniac or mind-controlling dictator or creature so
dementedly alien that no sense can be made of it. Well!
There are many types of true horror. The kind that passes itself off as my aliens among us
are portrayed, well, I guess some people GET IT - and they liked it.
But I'm not here to push my book. I'm here to push THIS BOOK - because my god, this is
REAL, not fantasy, it's REAL, not science fiction. And yes, they are among us with well -
BUY THIS BOOK. If you are too broke to buy it, get it from the library - and by all means
- READ IT.
Just hope to whatever god you choose that neocons are removed from governmental influence
and that their Amen corner is ignored. Hope to god, because if they suceed in doing the
INSANITY they want to do - America will be FINISHED - if it's not finished already due to
what these Fifth Columnists have done during the 8 years of Twilight Zone (GWB Rule).
And for those Jewish critics on here that might want to compare these neocon FACTS and the
other FACTS openly available to all (which is WHY the book is called the TRANSPARENT cabal) -
compare it to the Protocols - they better think twice about that. Becauase, you see, what's
in here is real, real facts, provably real facts - and if Jews themselves compare this to the
Procols? Some folks might get the idea that maybe that is real too. Perhaps George Soros (who
is Jewish) needs to speak LOUDER against the neocons. They are, indeed, crazies, as Colin
Powell called them. Crazies.
If you want to have an eye opener then read and see who were those Jewish players working
and influencing everything in the Bush Admin.promoting war with Iraq, then this is your book
of truth. The cabal of Jewish players come out of the woodwork in Stephen Sniegoski's great
work. When step by step the plan was a clear war map laid out for the U.S. in detail and
after you realize just who was working for whom in this criminal cabal of the American
government.
When you have Jewish control of the main stream media and Jewish control in Washington, D.C.,
don't wonder why the facts were omitted to make all the right connections for the public to
see in this lead up to a war from lies.
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily
uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits
as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person
of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane
Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials
responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over
the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more
to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.
George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether
he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only
moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:
And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has
many deaths on his conscience:
Here's the money quote from her apologia:
"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio
audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be
kind to everyone."
This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it
should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still
have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end
of his days.
Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:
There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong,
and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion,
I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues
the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief
extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency
to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes
from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that
his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency
has to die.
DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.
From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems
very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."
...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.
Tulsi Gabbard
Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago
.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear
us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha,
& work together for the people.
There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.
I did not vote for Trump, or for Hillary, but I firmly agree with analysis of Bacevich here:
> Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental hubris. When it comes to tallying
up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include thousands
of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands
of non-Americans killed or injured; millions displaced; trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and
in its case even formed inside a US prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it has yet to
recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
> The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the administration of President Bill Clinton
and continued by his successor. Deregulating the banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet,
as a direct result of the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment shot up to
10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock market cratered and millions saw their life
savings evaporate. Again, the question must be asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
"... If you enjoyed this original article please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Before commenting please read Robert Parry's ..."
"... . Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed. ..."
Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg August 29, 2019 •
37 Comments
A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion,
is largely accurate, but the story is not over, says Sam Husseini.
T wo-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as "Pride
and Prejudice," so her playing the lead in the new film "Official Secrets," scheduled to be
released in the U.S. on Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the
time span being depicted -- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq -- is one of the most
dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.
It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun,
played by Knightley, is so little known. Having followed this story from the start, I find this
film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to
date–"to date" because the wider story still isn't over.
Katharine Gun
worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent
of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of
Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims
about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act -- a
juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by
the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
Gun was charged for exposing -- around the time of
Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs – a top secret
U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying "surge" against other U.N.
Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion
resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully
forced through a trumped
up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or
blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [See
recent interview with Gun .]
Katherine Gun The leaked memo, published by the British Observer , was big news in
parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and helped
prevent Bush and Blair from getting the second UN Security Council resolution they said they
wanted. Veto powers Russia, China and France were opposed as well as U.S. ally Germany.
'Most Courageous Leak' It was the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy,
where I work ( accuracy.org ), Norman
Solomon, as well as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who in the U.S. most
immediately saw the importance of what Gun had done. Ellsberg would later comment: "No one else
-- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: Tell secret truths at personal
risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it. Hers was the most important --
and courageous -- leak I've ever seen, more timely and potentially more effective than the
Pentagon Papers."
Daniel Ellsberg on the cover of Time after leaking the Pentagon Papers
Gun said: "I went to the local bookshop, and I went into the political section. I found two
books, which had apparently been rushed into publication, one was by Norman Solomon and Reese
Erlich, and it was called Target Iraq . And the
other one was by Milan Rai. It was called War
Plan Iraq . And I bought both of them. And I read them cover to cover that weekend, and
it basically convinced me that there was no real evidence for this war. So I think from that
point onward, I was very critical and scrutinizing everything that was being said in the
media." Thus, we see Gun in "Official Secrets" shouting at the TV to Tony Blair that he's not
entitled to make up facts. The film may be jarring to some consumers of major media who might
think that Donald Trump invented lying in 2017. Gun's immediate action after reading critiques
of U.S. policy and media coverage makes a strong case for trying to reach government workers by
handing out fliers and books and putting up
billboards outside government offices to encourage them to be more critically minded.
Solomon and Ellsberg had debunked Bush administration propaganda in real time. But Gun's
revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to invade Iraq,
they were violating international law to blackmail whole nations to get in line.
Mainstream reviews of "Official Secrets" still seem to not fully grasp the importance of
what they just saw. The trendy AV
Club review leads : "Virtually everyone now agrees that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a
colossal mistake based on faulty (at best) or fabricated (at worst) intelligence." "Mistake" is
a serious understatement even with "colossal" attached to it when the movie details the
diabolical, illegal lengths to which the U.S. and British governments went to get other
governments to go along with it.
Gun's revelations showed before the invasion that people on the inside, whose livelihood
depends on following the party line, were willing to risk jail time to out the lies and
threats.
Portrayal of The Observer
Other than Gun herself, the film focuses on a dramatization of what happened at her work; as
well as her relationship with her husband, a Kurd from Turkey who the British government
attempted to have deported to get at Gun. The film also portrays the work of her lawyers who
helped get the Official Secrets charge against her dropped, as well as the drama at The
Observer , which published the NSA document after much internal debate.
Observer reporter Martin Bright, whose strong work on the original Gun story was
strangely followed by an ill-fated stint at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has recently noted
that very little
additional work has been done on Gun's case. We know virtually nothing about the apparent
author of the NSA document that she leaked -- one "Frank Koza." Other questions persist, such
is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign governments to get UN votes or for other
purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst
Russ
Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?
Observer reporter Ed Vulliamy is energetically depicted getting tips from former CIA
man Mel Goodman. There do seem to be subtle but potentially serious deviations from reality in
the film. Vulliamy is depicted as actually speaking with "Frank Koza," but that's not what he
originally
reported :
"The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency
which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The
Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the
United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the
assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an
erroneous extension, and hung up."
There must doubtlessly be many aspects of the film that have been simplified or altered
regarding Gun's personal experience. A compelling part of the film -- apparently fictitious or
exaggerated -- is a GCHQ apparatchik questioning Gun to see if she was the source.
Little is known about the reaction inside the governments of Security Council members that
the U.S. spied on. After the invasion, Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser spoke in blunt
terms about U.S. bullying -- saying it viewed Mexico as its patio trasero , or back yard
-- and was Zinser was compelled to resign by President Vicente Fox. He then,
in 2004 , gave details about some aspects of U.S. surveillance sabotaging the efforts of
the other members of the Security Council to hammer out a compromise to avert the invasion of
Iraq, saying the U.S. was "violating the U.N. headquarters covenant." In 2005, he tragically
died in a car crash
.
Documents
leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept in 2016 boasted of how the NSA
"during the wind-up to the Iraq War 'played a critical role' in the adoption of U.N. Security
Council resolutions. The work with that customer was a resounding success." The relevant
document specifically cites resolutions 1441 and 1472 and quotes John Negroponte ,
then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: "I can't imagine better intelligence support
for a diplomatic mission." (Notably, The Intercept has never published a word on "
Katharine Gun ." )
Nor were the UN Security Council members the only ones on the U.S. hit list to pave the way
for the Iraq invasion. Brazilian Jose Bustani, the director-general of the international
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. was ousted in an effective coup by John
Bolton in April of 2002 . Bolton is now national security adviser.
"Official Secrets" director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says
that his depiction of the Gun case is like the "tip of an iceberg," pointing to other deceits
surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven until now. Peace
activist David Swanson, for instance, derided his film on drones, " Eye in the Sky ." At a D.C. showing of "Official Secrets,"
Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as being discredited. But that's simply untrue.
Keira Knightley appears as Katherine Gun in Official Secrets (Courtesy of Sundance
Institute.)
Leading presidential candidate Joe Biden -- who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but
presided over rigged
hearings on in 2002 – has recently falsified
his record repeatedly on Iraq
at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone. Those refusing to be held
accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and
Nancy
Pelosi .
Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the
Iraq invasion. But as the Gun case helps show, there was no legitimate case for invasion and
the Bush administration had done virtually everything, both legal and illegal, to get UN
authorization.
Many who supported the invasion try to distance themselves from it. But the repercussions of
that illegal act are enormous: It led directly or indirectly to the rise of ISIS, the civil war
in Iraq and the war in Syria. Journalists who pushed for the Iraq invasion are prosperous and
atop major news organizations, such as Washington Post editorial page editor
Fred Hiatt. The
editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer , Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News.
After Gun's identity became known, the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen,
the founder of FAIR, to work with program director Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent
individuals to support
Gun . The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the
simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would
effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be have been a nightmare.
Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public
Accuracy and founder of VotePact.org .
Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
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David G , August 31, 2019 at 19:49
Saw the film today. Solid work; recommended.
Did her ultimate court appearance really go down in such a dramatic fashion? I suppose I
shouldn't be surprised if it did: English courtroom proceedings may not deliver better
justice than U.S. ones, but they're definitely more entertaining.
William , August 31, 2019 at 19:06
U.S. Government officials should be indicted for war crimes. It is quite clear that U.S.
officials conspired to ensure that an invasion
of Iraq would take place. The U.S. and Britain -- George Bush and Tony Blair -- initiated a
war of aggression against Iraq, and under
international law should be tried for war crimes, just as numerous German officials were
tried and convicted of war crimes.
No U.S. politician has called for investigation, and the main stream media has not touched
this topic. It is unquestionably clear that
the U.S. congress is a collection of spineless, cowardly, corrupt, greedy men and women. They
have allowed the U.S. to become a rogue,
criminal nation.
Katherine Gun is awesome! I heard her speak as part of a panel of whistleblowers –
wish there were many more like her
michael , August 31, 2019 at 08:15
Inequality.org reports that the majority of our top 1% are corporate executives. Finance,
which reportedly accounted for 3% of our economy in 1980, now accounts for 30%. Many of the
US's 585 billionaires have monopolies in their business domain, no different from the Robber
Barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. "Stability is more important than democracy",
the market hates uncertainty, and our foreign policies, determined by think tanks staffed and
funded by our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, will continue to push for the greed of our
Richest. "Democracy" is a just a hypocritical bon mot for stealing and destroying.
The Republicans have always supported these people. What is worrisome is that the Democrats
have come to the same place as the GOP, since donations– pay-to-play- lead to
re-elections. The Democrats have deserted the Poor and working class, since they have no
money for pay-to-play. Our 17 technologically advanced Stasis work in concert with Congress,
our entitled government bureaucrats, and their lapdog main stream media to "make things
happen" for our Richest. How long before people like Assange, Katherine Gunn, Chelsea
Manning, Edward Snowden, Binney, Kiriakou etc learn that it pays to keep their mouths shut?
Transparency and whistleblowing is punished. Maybe other approaches are needed?
Tony , August 31, 2019 at 07:26
Very interesting to see what inspired her to act the way that she did.
Of course, the supporters of the war had various motives.
But one motive behind President Bush's plan was revealed by Russ Baker in his book 'Family of
Secrets' page 423.
He recalls a conversation with Bush family friend and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. He
says that he told him:
"He (George W. Bush) was thinking about invading in 1999."
Bush apparently said:
"If I have a chance to invade if I had that much (political) capital, I'm not going to
waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed, and I'm going to have
a successful presidency."
So there we have it, he thought that a war would boost his presidency.
David G , August 31, 2019 at 05:16
"The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer, Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News."
That's a repulsive little nugget I would never have known otherwise.
Thanks to Sam Husseini for this account. The film is playing in my town, at least for this
coming week; I plan to get to it.
RomeoCharlie29 , August 30, 2019 at 19:24
This is a really interesting story and one I knew nothing about, although I was one who
opposed the Iraq war because to me it was obvious the whole WMD issue was bullshit. Now I
understand the perception that that war was an American/ Brit thing but you might recall that
America's deputy Sheriff in the Pacific, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, was Gung
ho for the war and committed Australian troops to the ill-fated endeavour with the result
that our country has subsequently become a target for ISIS inspired terrorism. Australia's
Opposition Leader at the time, Simon Crean led a vocal opposition to the war but "Little
Johnny" as we called him was not to be denied. Incidentally I don't think he has ever
admitted being wrong on this.
Xander Arena , August 30, 2019 at 18:15
Tip of an iceberg is right. Iraq was the second big lie of the 21st century. I wonder how
the world will react to the University of Alaska Fairbanks report which proves fraud at NIST,
and arguably reveals aiding and abetting of treason by the contractors who wrote NIST's
analysis of the WTC7 destruction. The UAF report drops Tuesday 9/3/19, and chisels away at
the big lie that preceded all the related Iraq deceit. BTW great article :)
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:49
I enjoyed the article and learned some things, but it does seem a bit of Hollywood
promotion at the same time.
If only Gun's sacrifice had stopped the invasion it would have been a sensation. As is,
the UN did not sanction the invasion, making that effort a bit moot, and since the reveal of
NSA bugging the world under Obama that dulls the sensibilities of those who might today have
otherwise been shocked, shocked like the Gary Powers U-2 spy plane downing over the USSR and
Ike being caught in a lie on TV.
But overall, knowing the downhill Gun's livelihood has taken over the 15 years makes the
story more of a warning for whistle blowers than inspiration. Maybe Gun will be well
compensated by the movie makers!
Neil E Mac , August 30, 2019 at 15:54
En fin!
bevin , August 30, 2019 at 14:13
One thing is certain: The Observer of 2019 would not publish a story like this. That is
one of the major changes since 2003: the capitalist media has tightened up. There are no
longer papers competing to attract readers at risk of cozy relations with the State. The
Observer/Guardian today – since the Snowden revelations- does what it is told.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:16
"In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash."
Unfortunately -- or fortunately? -- this no longer seems to be credible when it comes to
those who have gone ouit on a limb to challenge the Deep State, or the US version of the Deep
State.
Can Bush and Blair be charged with crimes? In connection with the Third Reich there is
AFAIK no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Well, Iraq was also full of
'humanity." These guys belong in The Hague. Or in Iraq, doing community service.
In connection with Ellsberg's reviewing the evidence and concluding there was no
evidentiary justification for invading Iraq -- I wanna say, you didn't need to be Ellsberg or
any kind of expert to see clearly that there was no evidence that justified invading Iraq.
Millions of common folk could see this clearly. That is why over 14 million people worldwide
demonstrated against the planned illegal invasion. That is why people like me when to NYC, to
Washington, and also the front our local US Post Office in small towns all over the country
to protest the country's being lied into war. And were greeted mostly with thumbs-up from the
passers- and drivers-by.
The people knew it was all a pack of lies. It was the gullible PRESS that ginned up this
show. Remember Judith what's her name at the NYT? These people also should be indicted as war
criminals.
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:19
Judith Miller, the NYTimes reporter who did maybe the most to make the invasion of Iraq,
is the last name you were seeking.
SteveF , August 30, 2019 at 12:22
The timescales are interesting, we have the alleged US blackmail to get this illegal war
'approved' by the UN and in the same timescale we have the Jeffery Epstein story unfolding
and the corresponding allegations that he was a CIA/Mossad agent operating honey traps to
entangle the rich and famous.
The evil machinations of our governments are indeed breathtaking.
As we can see from so very many modern instances, it matters not at all that truth is on
your side, if what you are doing is attacking those with money and power.
And there's an entire American establishment dedicated to keeping it just that way.
America's history of the last half century, at least so far as foreign relations and
control of an empire, is almost entirely an artificial construct.
Absolutely no truth in everything from John Kennedy's assassination, which was intimately
concerned with America's relationship with Cuba, and the despicable Vietnam War to 9/11 and
the despicable Neocon Wars in the Middle East.
From hundreds of millions of printed newspapers and television broadcasts to speeches from
prominent American politicians, you have tissue of lies not unlike that that was constantly
being created by Oceania's Inner Party in 1984.
That's not even the slightest exaggeration, but, truly, are Americans in general the least
concerned or bothered?
We have no evidence of significant concern. None.
The Democratic Party just weeded out the only candidate it had, brave and informed enough
to speak to truth in some of these matters.
The ten left just represent varying degrees of hopelessness. On and on with weaving dreams
about this or that creative social program while the resources and close attention dedicated
to destruction in a dozen lands make them all impossible.
At the sae time, there is an almost complete lack of information and courage about
anything that is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Israel, and in such massively
important countries as China, Russia, and Iran.
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are brave contemporary examples of the American
establishment's methods for shutting down truth and punishing severely those who reveal it.
While they have followers and supporters, I am always amazed at how relatively small their
numbers are.
And we have remarkably few individuals like Manning or Assange, especially when you
consider the scale and scope of America's many dark works. Mostly, we see only "willing
helpers" carrying on with their sensitive, secretive careers in government.
In the Democratic nomination contest, the "star" liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren, are virtually no different in these absolutely critical matters than a confirmed old
puke of a war criminal like Joe Biden, someone who probably deserves recognition as father of
Obama's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing project with drones and Hellfire missiles
making legally-innocent people in a dozen countries just disappear. Biden has a long record
of smarmy deeds and lack of courage and principles. He is, of course, most likely to get the
nomination too.
Act, from America's CIA, no different in principle and in law to those of the old
Argentine military junta's massive efforts at dragging people off the streets, drugging them,
and throwing them out of planes over the ocean, something they did to thousands. Oh, and
during that wonderful project there were no objections from America, only silence.
Aimee , August 30, 2019 at 22:31
Excellent post. Agree completely. Tulsi was our only hope and she never had a chance. We
are doomed.
Coleen Rowley , August 30, 2019 at 23:29
Here are some of the reasons for the ever lessening concern over US-NATO-Israel-Saudi's
(aka our current Empire's) wars: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/04/recipe-concocted-for-perpetual-war-is-a-bitter-one/
By the way my co-author and I tried unsuccessfully to get this published in about 15
different US papers before Robert Parry posted it on Consortiumnews.
Robert Edwards , August 30, 2019 at 11:17
It's time these liers and war criminals are brought to Justice – I know that's
wishful , but sometimes wishes come true America must get back to a country run on integrity
and honesty, otherwise all will be lost in the spiral of evil
Sorry, but, oh please, America is lost. Has been so for a very long time.
Only tremendous outside influences like depression or war and the growth of competing
states and the loss of the dollar's privileged status, are going to change the reality.
America's feeble democratic system is capable of changing almost nothing. After all, it
was constructed with just that in mind.
john wilson , August 31, 2019 at 05:07
I think think the real worry is that these days they don't even bother to lie anymore and
they just do what they want. Think Venezuela.
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:42
"Other questions persist, such is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign
governments to get UN votes or for other purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with
allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on
political people?"
This also stands out , as given what we now know is standard modus opendi of CIA / Mossad
operations ,due to the Epstein arrest and ensuing information , who knows what is used to
leverage other nations to follow along with US and in this case UK demands.Birds of a feather
fly together.
Very good report by Sam Husseini.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:32
Absolutely. It is an obvious avenue now to investigate: How did the Epstein operation
impact on the decision to invade Iraq? How were teh votes wrung out for the war authorization
in October 2002?
Regarding Kerry, as a resident of Mass. I couldn't believe that Vietnam vet Kerry would
vote Yes on the war authorization act. I called his office a number of time to beg him to
vote no. Rumors emanated from within his office in Boston or wherever that phone calls from
constituents were running 180 to 1 urging him to vote NO. But he voted YES anyhow.
I simply believe that Yalie Kerry didn't see what was up with the obvious lying that drove
the runup to an illegal invasion. This is the kind of scenario where one now has to wonder --
and ask openly -- whether Kerry had been compromised in some way that made him vulnerable to
blackmail. Why the hell else would he vote so stupidly?
Recall that Scott Ritter ran afoul of some kind of sex trap and so he, one of the most
knowledgeable and outspoken critics of the fake WMD narrative, was effectively muzzled.
Did Kerry have a little skeleton in the closet somewhere?
The same could be asked of all the esp. Democratic legislators who voted YES. Because we
now understand which state in the EAstern Med wanted the war most and profited the most from
it. We now know how deep and how wide the tentacles of that state's intelligence service
intrude into our own national sphere, our Congress, our own intelligence services, our media,
and, most likely, our military. Epstein seems to been part f this web of pressure and
blackmail.
Epstein is gone, but Ghislaine Maxwell apparently still runs free.
Let's bring her in for questioning specifically about pressure applied on the Oct. 2002 vote.
(Although some speculate that she, too, is already dead.)
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:23
At a time when despair in political affairs is very depressing ,it is very refreshing to
see that the voices of reason are being vindicated.
I really want to see this film as this is the first time that I hear of the voice of
Katherine Gun .Bless her heart for standing up and her efforts to warn of deception . Does
the film make any mention of Dr.David Kelly's so-called suicide / murder ? Will have to wait
ans see.
Thank you CN for once again coming through for your excellent report.
Pablo , August 30, 2019 at 10:15
Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell's Chief of Staff?) told me that Collin knew Bush was
fabricating, but went to the U.N. as a "loyal foot soldier".
AnneR , August 30, 2019 at 08:25
Thank you, Sam Husseini, for this overview of the background – real story – to
the film Official Secrets.
To be frank, I'd not heard of Katherine Gun's revelations at the time – not
surprising because I don't think that the US MSM gave the leak any oxygen. They were all too
gung-ho for the war.
While the film undoubtedly soft-pedals some of the story and likely doesn't reveal or make
explicit as much as we'd all hope, I really do hope that it receives at least as much
publicity (good) and viewing as that execrable film Zero dark Thirty which basically
supported the CIA and its torturers. But somehow I doubt that.
TomR , August 31, 2019 at 06:19
Zero Dark Thirty is just about the worst bullshit fake narrative put out by the CIA that
I've ever seen. I watched it but cringed with the dramatized fake narrative that the CIA is
famous for – think the bullshit 9/11 US govt. narrative – if you or anyone else
believes that totally bunkum govt. narrative – well, I feel sorry for you.
Druid , August 31, 2019 at 17:28
Im a good- movie buff. I avoided Zero Dark Thirty. Not a farthing for those lies
Sylvia Bennet , August 30, 2019 at 07:51
I applaud Keira Knightley and all who were involved in bringing this story to the public.
It is vital that more people who have the eyes and ears of the public speak out on these
issues. Sadly, most of them keep their heads below the parapet. With the Main Stream Media
colluding with corrupt corporations and governments to lie or distort the truth, we need
decent people with influence to step up before it is too late.
Toxik , August 30, 2019 at 02:42
Looked at my local theaters and Official Secrets will not be shown.
jmg , August 29, 2019 at 18:39
Katharine Gun's case can also be very relevant for Julian Assange's defense:
"Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer
evidence. . . . The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any
records of advice about the legality of the war that it had received during the run-up to the
war. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny as the defence
were expected to argue that trying to stop an illegal act (that of an illegal war of
aggression) trumped Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act 1989. . . . In 2019 The
Guardian stated the case was dropped 'when the prosecution realised that evidence would
emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful.'"
So Katharine Gun, like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, etc., by revealing corruption and
crimes, maybe didn't obey the code of silence of organized crime, government sector, but
that's not a law.
For example, the US Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information,
explicitly outlaws any classification that covers up crimes or embarrassing information.
This means that whistleblowers like Katharine Gun or Chelsea Manning, and investigative
journalists like Julian Assange are the ones defending the law here, while the US and UK
governments are the criminals.
lindaj , August 29, 2019 at 22:10
Hear, Hear!
Me Myself , August 30, 2019 at 12:11
The espionage act has and would protect those who were responsible for the war I
believe.
If we could Abrogate the espionage act it would make are representatives more
accountable.
I was unaware of Katherine Gun she is clearly a standout person and will join the ranks of
are most respected truthers.
WTF Burkie , August 31, 2019 at 14:05
Our not are.b.c. burkhart
evelync , August 30, 2019 at 13:34
And the secrecy, apparently, is required in the name of "national security" .that's what I
was told by a Harvard JFK School of Government associate when I emailed 200+ of 'em to
express my outrage over their withdrawal of Chelsea Manning's honorary degree when Pompeo and
Morrell bullied them. I responded with – that's INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE at Harvard
– as a "respected" educational institution you should be front and center critiquing
foreign policy instead of helping to bury the wrongdoing ..no wonder voters didn't trust the
establishment candidates in 2016 but the DNC was too much a part of it all to see or care
what was going on. Except for Tulsi Gabbard who resigned at DNC VP in protest for what was
being done to the Sanders campaign and to endorse Sanders instead of Clinton. The DNC knee
capped the campaign of the one person who had won peoples' trust for his honesty.
We have incompetent people with no moral fiber making terrible decisions and burying the
mistakes under secrecy, a fear based "code of silence", as you say.
Biden touts his being chosen by Obama for VP; therefore "he's qualified".
Since Clinton and Biden were the most dangerously ambitious critics of Obama, I think he may
have chosen to add them to his administration as VP and Sec of State to practice "keep your
friends close and your enemies closer" .but his decision was very costly to the lives of
people around the world including the Caribbean and South American countries whose wealth our
oligarchs coveted.
And as far as Honduras is concerned those political choices by Obama sadly explains refugees
fleeing from that violent country even now ..thanks to our failing to declare the 2009 Coup a
"military coup". One of Clinton's "hard choices". Obama and Biden went along with that of
course.
Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire" tells the sordid tale of how waterboarding was
used long before Bush II – used on the freedom fighters for their independence in the
Philippines after the Spanish American War and we took over as imperialists ..
Most people, I think, don't know all the gruesome details of our aggression but they now know
enough to be troubled by it. Few political candidates have the backbone to criticize
wrongheaded foreign policy.
I'm disappointed that Tulsi Gabbard won't be permitted to join Bernie Sanders at the
September 12 2019 "debate" as the only ones who speak out on how wrong for this country and
the world our foreign policies have been. This courageous woman should be heard.
When Bernie was challenged in the 2016 Miami debate on his enlightened views on Cuba and
other Caribbean and South American countries, Clinton used Cold War rhetoric to attack him.
She was shocked, I tell you, shocked that he would not grind his heel on the Cuban people. I
wondered at the time whether she really believed the crap she was selling or just put on a
good political show for the national security state.
We so need transparency if we want to be a real democracy.
Sam F , August 30, 2019 at 21:06
Very true that transparency is essential to democracy. That also requires lifelong
monitoring of officials and their relatives for paybacks and other influence. But (for
example) Florida has an Sunshine Act that merely moves the bribes into other channels, and
may be the most corrupt state. I am investigating extensive racketeering there involving
state officials stealing conservation funds. They can be quire careless because their party
runs the entire state including state and federal judiciary, and instantly approves whatever
their rich "donors" want to steal. But the FBI and DOJ refuse to take action when given the
evidence on a silver platter – no doubt because they are appointed by the same party.
Theft is their sacred right and duty, to protect their country from its people.
michael , August 31, 2019 at 07:30
Florida's Sunshine laws were on display at Epstein's only trial, much of it still sealed
from public view.
"... Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them. ..."
"... The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best." That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history. ..."
"... As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion. ..."
"... Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before." ..."
"... The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans. ..."
"... As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq. ..."
"... Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security." He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous, to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question. ..."
"... The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes? ..."
"... Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic war. ..."
Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them.
Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American
military personnel perished in the war. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, toxicologist at the University of Michigan, has organized several
research expeditions to Iraq to measure the contamination and pollution still poisoning the air and water supply from the tons of
munitions dropped during the war. It does not require any expertise to assume what the studies confirm: disease is still widespread
and birth defects are gruesomely common. Back home, it is difficult to measure just how many struggle with critical injuries and
post-traumatic stress disorder.
The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction,
Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best."
That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually
did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history.
As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match
its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion.
Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state
of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before."
The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement
in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans
dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When
they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the
equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans.
As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical
assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played
a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq.
Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security."
He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving
aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous,
to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question.
Far worse than the worship of Mueller is the refusal to scrutinize the abysmal foreign policy record of Joe Biden, currently the
frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Of the Democrats in the Senate at that time, Biden was the most
enthusiastic of the cheerleaders for war, waving his pompoms and cartwheeling in rhythm to Dick Cheney's music. Biden said repeatedly
that America had "no choice but to eliminate the threat" posed by Saddam Hussein. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
his blustering was uniquely influential.
The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked
into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone
who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador
to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should
ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes?
Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism
of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The
moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic
war.
Polling well below Biden in the race is the congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. She alone on the Democratic stage has made
criticism of American militarism central to her candidacy. A veteran of the Iraq war and a highly decorated major in the Hawaii Army
National Guard, Gabbard offers an intelligent and humane perspective on foreign affairs. She's called the regime change philosophy
"disastrous," advocated for negotiation with hostile foreign powers, and backed a reduction in drone strikes. She pledges if she
becomes president to end American involvement in Afghanistan.
When Chris Matthews asked Gabbard about Biden's support for the Iraq war, she said, "It was the wrong vote. People like myself,
who enlisted after 9/11 because of the terrorist attacks, were lied to. We were betrayed."
Her moral clarity is rare in the political fog of the presidential circus. She cautions against accepting the "guise of humanitarian
justification for war," and notes that rarely does the American government bomb and invade a country to actually advance freedom
or protect human rights.
Gabbard's positions are vastly superior to that of the other young veteran in the race, Pete Buttigieg. The mayor of South Bend
recently told New York that one of his favorite novels is The Quiet American , saying that its author, Graham Greene,
"points out the dangers of well-intentioned interventions."
Buttigieg's chances of winning the nomination seem low, and his prospects of becoming a literary critic appear even lower.
The Quiet American does much more than raise questions about interventions: it is a merciless condemnation of American exceptionalism
and its attendant indifference to Vietnamese suffering.
Americans hoping for peace won't find much comfort in the current White House either. President Trump has made the world more
dangerous by trashing the Iran nuclear deal, and his appointment of John Bolton, a man who makes Donald Rumsfeld look like Mahatma
Gandhi, as national security advisor is certainly alarming.
America's willful ignorance when it comes to the use of its own military exposes the moral bankruptcy at the heart of its political
culture. Even worse, it makes future wars all but inevitable.
If no one can remember a war that ended merely nine years ago, and there's little room for Tulsi Gabbard in the Democratic primary,
how will the country react the next time a president, and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declare that they
have no choice but to remove a threat?
Norman Solomon, journalist and founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, knows the answer to that question. He provides it
in the title of his book on how the media treats American foreign policy decisions: War Made Easy .
Where ae the people who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Should they be tried for lying to the American public?
4500 troops killed and over $1.1 TRILLION wasted with no good results .With hundreds of thousands of Iraq's killed. .
Where are they, indeed? They are still running US foreign policy; that's where they are. They are pundits in all the major media;
that's where they are.
I cannot even imagine what historians will say about the uncanny persistence of these charlatans' influence in this era after
a consistent record of disastrous, abysmal misadventures.
You don't have to look too hard to find them. Bolton, Pompeo, and other neocons are hiding in plain sight. The Military Industrial
Complex is embedded in our foreign policy like a tick on a dog.
Because you'd be knocking out a storm trooper instead of the emperor, at least as far as Bush goes. Same for why the focus is
on Bolton rather than simply Trump.
I CAN see an argument that Trump/Bush knew what they were doing when they brought those people in though. f you feel that way
and see it more of an owner of a hostile attack dog then yeah, you'd want to include those two too.
Here stands Tulsi. A woman, who, unlike their conventional troupe, can win this election. They reject her because... what? Moar
war? She's not the member of the Cult? Or it's simply some sort of collective political death wish?
They reject her because she had the temerity to speak truth to power and supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 race. She stepped
down from her position as Vice Chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders. She has real courage, and earned their wrath. She's not perfect
but she's braver and stronger than almost the entire field. Only Bernie is on par.
And Bernie is the one they also hate, maybe a little bit less openly. Thus they reject those who can win the election. It's either
a self-destructiveness or they think that it's better to keep on losing than to rebuild the party into what it needs to be.
Democrats and the Republican establishment, both, love war. It wasn't a coincidence that Hillary Clinton chose Madeleine Albright
to be a keynote speaker at "her" party convention ("we think the deaths of a half million children are worth it"). Liberals know
that there isn't really any "free" free, and that taxing the rich won't match their dreams -- it is the blood and bones of innocent
foreigners that must pay for their lust. Establishment Republicans are more straightforward: they simply profit off the death
and destruction.
This is why Trump is being destroyed, and why Tulsi is attacked. If only "she" (the one who gloated over Khameni's murder)
had been elected, we'd be in a proxy war with Russia now! A real war with Iran! This is what the American people want, and what
they'll likely get when they vote another chicken-hawk in come 2020.
Tulsi, like Sanders is a 'danger' to everything Israel wants.
So, all...all the main 'news' networks and online sites don't like them and give more coverage to the same old Dem bull peddlers
like ignorant Booker and the lousy opportunist low IQ Kamala Harris and Gillibrand.
Manafort and his ilk can be tried and convicted for their lies. I guess if the lie is big enough we grant a pass on any need for
prosecution. Justice for all? I don't think so.
Max Blumenthal posted a powerful piece at Consortium News (7/31/2019) about Biden's central and south American mis-adventures.
Biden still extols his own policies however disastrous. The hubris of the man is worse than nauseating.
Whether one thinks Gabbard has a shot at the nomination or not, it's important to keep her on the stage in the next round of debates.
Go to Tulsi2020.com
and give her just one dollar (or more if you can)
so she has enough unique contributors to make the next round. And if you get polled,early on give her your vote.
The total US costs related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to be considerably larger than $1.1 trillion, according
to this study:
https://www.hks.harvard.edu...
Try $4-$6 trillion, according to the author of the study.
Long after I, Andrew Bacevitch and Hillary Clinton have gone to our reward, there will still be thousands of wounded warriors
from these US Middle East adventures dependent on VA benefits for their survival and competing with civilian seniors for government
handouts. A war with Iran would make the US fiscal situation that much worse.
The religious folks who were so anxious to protect family values only a few years ago seem to have their heads in the sand
when it comes to the financial future of today's young Americans.
A few weeks ago, I made a token contribution to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign to help her qualify for the July Democratic debates.
She will need more new contributors to qualify for the next round of debates.
Tulsi hasn't a chance of the nomination, but she's exposing things and maybe more people will get a clue about what's really going
on with American lives and taxes being squandered for the profit of the few who benefit from these atrocities and wars abroad,
done in the name of all Americans.
Being a supporter of Tulsi Gabbard for the very reasons that the author writes, has me agreeing with everything he has promoted
in his piece.
However, to answer his own question as to why Americans are lured into commenting on such innocuous and foolish things in such
an important election such as Biden's touching of women, is answered by the author's own prose.
He states that Americans are only provided such nonsense from the press that is monitoring the election process. What else
can people talk about? And even if many Americans are clearheaded enough to understand the charade of the current Democratic debates,
what or who will actually provide legitimate coverage with the exception of online sites as the American Conservative, among others?
If most Americans were actually thinking individuals, Tulsi Gabbard would be a shoo-in for the presidency in 2020. However,
given the two factors of a highly corrupted mainstream press and too many Americans not studying enough civics to understand what
is going on around them, it is highly unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard will even get close to the possibility of being nominated...
Cheney, mentioned in the article, was pure evil. I voted for GB2 for two reasons. 1) He was a very good Texas governor. He actually
got anti-tax Texas to raise taxes dedicated to support education, in return for stricter standards for teachers. A good trade
since Texas public schools were awful. 2) Dick Cheney. I thought he was the adult in the room that would provide steady and reliable
guidance for Bush.
Boy was I wrong about Cheney. "Deficits don't matter". Just watch the movie Vice. Christian Bale does an incredible job portraying
the pure evil of Cheney and the Military Industrial Complex. The movie is chilling to watch. And it is basically true. Politifact
does a good job of scoring the accuracy of Cheney's role in the Bush administration as portrayed in the movie.
Regional experts had immediately suspected the possibility of an Israeli air raid after a
pro-Iranian militia arms depot in Iraq was obliterated during
a mysterious attack
on July 19
, and another reported follow-up attack this past Sunday.
The attack happened around 80 km from the Iranian border and 40 km north-east of Baghdad at Camp
Ashraf, former home to the Iranian exile group Mojahedin-e Khalq, but now reportedly in the hands
of Iranian intelligence and paramilitaries.
Speculation was rampant in the days that followed as to the source of the 'mysterious' air
strikes - or what was also initially reported as a drone strike - however, some pointed the finger
at an American operation targeting Iranian militants inside Iraq.
But now Israeli and regional media, citing western diplomats, have confirmed it was
a
nearly unprecedented Israeli operation on Iraqi soil
--
representing a major
escalation and expansion of Israel's anti-Iran operations.
Israel reportedly launched a total of two separate air strike operations on the camp using its
US-supplied F-35 stealth fighter jets.
Israel has expanded the scope of its anti-Iranian attacks and struck targets in Iraq
,
the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Tuesday.
According to the report, which cites anonymous Western diplomats,
Israel
struck Iranian warehouses storing arms and missiles at Camp Ashraf
, north-east of
Baghdad, twice in the past month.
On July 19, the base was struck by an Israeli F-35 fighter jet, the sources added. The base
was allegedly attacked again on Sunday.
The report alleges the primary target included
a shipment of Iranian ballistic missiles
which recently entered Iraq via the nearby Iranian border.
And though not confirmed, the report further claimed that "Iranian advisers" had been injured in
the series of airstrikes.
Israel has over the past couple of years conducted "hundreds" of attacks inside Syria, which
defense officials have claimed were primarily against Iranian and Hezbollah bases, but if this
month's air strikes on Camp Ashraf are confirmed Israeli assaults, it would constitute a major
widening in terms of the scope of Tel Aviv's "anti-Iran" targeting operations.
The news is also sure to enrage officials in Baghdad, who will mount protests defending Iraqi
sovereignty. Israel hasn't mounted a known significant attack on Iraqi soil since the days of
former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Went on Kunstler's website with the tasteless name and read comment about Hannity
screaming to bomb Iran. And if Mr. Kunstler's facts are correct I imagine the Republicans
will be saving Mueller's answers for the next election. Whatever Mr. Kunstler has to say, he
says it well. What a mess. The way the bad guys have dug in and rigged the election process
and the "News" business, it is difficult to imagine anything can change.
The controls of our society have become so efficient it is tempting to say what the hell
and see if there is a good old film or an meaningful sporting event and let it go at
that.
In saying that, it brings to mind the other CN article about anti-war sentiment and
organizing against war and the war machine that has gone missing makes the point very well. I
do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests were
simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be.
Eddie S , July 4, 2019 at 10:01
"I do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests
were simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be."
Yes, I know that the whole Iraq War-crime episode was an extremely disheartening episode
to myself and millions of others who had marched in protest. It was horrible enough when the
neo-cons were able to blatantly orchestrate an illegal invasion (with the obeisance of the
long-cowed Democrats), but the RE-election of 'W' -- a year after the non-existence of the
WMDs was proven by our OWN invading military -- was in a political sense worse because it
showed that the majority of the US public was indifferent to illegal US invasions of other
countries, so there would be little resistance in the future to these 'wars'.
It was only when the media was portraying the deaths & bad injuries to US soldiers
occupying Iraq that a modest amount of public sentiment turned against the whole sordid
episode.
So the tacit message was pretty clear to powers that be -- - as long as US troops aren't
hurt, go-ahead and bomb-away those foreign men, women, and even children getting killed by
them don't matter, especially if our military leaders offer-up oh-so-sincere apologies and
state that 'these were unavoidable collateral civilian casualties because we only perform
surgical strikes on terrorists' (and said in a most serious, gravitas-laden tone, so you KNOW
they're telling the truth).
Windup , July 4, 2019 at 16:09
George wasn't 'elected' in the first place, let alone 're-elected'. I don't know if that
makes you feel better. Maybe it does- at least about the American public (at that point in
time anyway).
But it was certainly a forerunner to how we 'elect' our officials, which at this point is
more blatantly fraudulent. At least to those of us not reading/watching msm.
"... The Supreme Court Treason related to the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire. ..."
"The UNSC veto doesn't make the UN Charter null and void. Actions that violate it are
still illegal/unconstitutional and able to be challenged in domestic courts". I agree it does
not make the charter null and void, the question is how can aggressors be brought to book,
Tony Blair was accused of the crime of aggression but the Judges said he could not be
prosecuted see below. Thanks for the link to the Uniting for Peace resolution, I will read it
tomorrow.
"Tony Blair should not face prosecution for his role in the 2003 Iraq war, the high court has
ruled.
The lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and another senior judge, Mr Justice
Ouseley, said on Monday that there was no crime of aggression in English law under which the
former prime minister could be charged.
Thanks for your reply! I recall what an absolutely incensed Craig Murray wrote about that decision about Tony Blair--well
beyond a travesty as it's a Capital Crime and not subject to statutes of limitation. The Supreme Court Treason related to
the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the
Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire.
Going on 3 decades now, one of my primary questions is How to contain the Outlaw US Empire and make it into a law-abiding
nation without blowing up the world. I've always recognized that it would take a global coalition to arrive at a genuine
confrontation.
IMO, we're very close to that point; the G-20 will indicate just how close.
But even more importantly than the global coalition is the requirement for a political force within the Empire asking and
acting on my question. The Maximum Pressure must come from internal and external sources for any positive outcome to be
achieved. Since 2012, I've seen 2020 as THE inflection point. It seems I'm not alone.
"... Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing , just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk. ..."
Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And
their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath
he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing
, just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our
opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk.
Here's Trump's hero ..
"One day, from his sniper nest, Chief Gallagher shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who
was walking w/ other girls on the riverbank. She dropped, clutching her stomach, & the
other girls dragged her away."
A mass murderer according to Senior Seals: "Would order needless risks, to fire rockets at
houses for no apparent reason. He routinely parked an armored truck on a Tigris River bridge
& emptied the truck's heavy machine gun into neighborhoods on twith no discernible
targets."
"Platoon members said he spent much of his time in a hidden perch with a sniper rifle,
firing three or four times as often as other platoon snipers. They said he boasted about the
number of people he had killed, including women."
Two other snipers said, the chief shot an unarmed man in a white robe with a wispy white
beard. They said the man fell, a red blotch spreading on his back."
Gallagher ordered a hatchet & a hunting knife" before 2017 deployment. He texted the
man who made them (a Navy Seal veteran) shortly after arriving in Iraq: "I'll try and dig
that knife or hatchet on someone's skull!"
May 2017, a SEAL medic was treating a wounded 15 y/o Islamic State fighter. "He's mine,"
Gallagher said. "Gallagher walked up without a word and stabbed the wounded teenager several
times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him."
He didn't even try to hide the murder of the 15 y/o. He brought other seals around minutes
later & took a photo over the body. Later, he texted the photo to a fellow SEAL in
California: "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html
Now Trumpies bear in mind that Gallagher's own fellow Seals testified against him
that's how depraved this guy Trump is pardoning is.
Here's Gallagher if you live in a stand your ground state and run into him shoot the
bastard, he'll have his hunting knife on him so you can claim self defense.
"... The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today. ..."
"... "Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all "respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?" ..."
"... Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as 'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers." ..."
Yves
here. Even though this post covers known territory, it seems worthwhile to encourage those of
you who haven't watched the "Collateral Murder" footage to view the full version. It's
important not only to keep the public (and that includes people in your personal circle)
focused on what Assange's true hanging crime is in the eyes of the officialdom .and it ain't
RussiaGate. That serves as a convenient diversion from his real offense. That effort has a
secondary benefit of having more people watch the video.
Before
and after images of the van that came to pick up the bodies of eleven men shot to death by
circling American helicopters in Iraq in 2007. Both children in the van were wounded. "Well,
it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," said one of the pilots. "That's right,"
replies another. From the videoCollateral Murder.
Below is a full video version of Collateral Murder , the 2007 war footage that was
leaked in 2010 to Wikileaks by Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. This version was posted to the Wikileaks YouTube
channel with subtitles. It will only take about 15 minutes of your life to view it.
It's brutal to watch, but I challenge you to do it anyway. It shows not just murder, but a
special kind of murder -- murder from the safety of the air, murder by men with heavy machine
guns slowly circling their targets in helicopters like hunters with shotguns who walk the edges
of a trout pond, shooting at will, waiting, walking, then shooting again, till all the fish are
dead.
The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S.
military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting,
then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the
Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who
matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today.
"Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards
for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all
"respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though
unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?"
Yes, Julian Assange the person can be a giant douche even to his supporters, as this exchange
reported by Intercept writer Micah Lee attests. Nevertheless, it's not for being a
douche that the Establishment state wants him dead; that state
breeds, harbors and honors douches everywhere in the world . They want him dead for
publishing videos like these.
Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless
brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning
leaked it in the first place. As she
said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the
seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the
individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as
'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers."
The Wikileaks page for the video is here . A transcript is here .
This was done in our name, to "keep us safe." This continues to be done every day that we
and our allies are at "war" in the Middle East.
Bodies pile on bodies as this continues. The least we can do, literally the least, is to
witness and acknowledge their deaths.
This was true about Iraq war. This is true about Venezuela and Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books , Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. ..."
"... Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. ..."
"... Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back to 1959 . ..."
"... Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.) ..."
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small c rappy little country and
throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
- Michael
Ledeen , holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Actually, the U.S. had been beating Iraq's head against the wall for a dozen years, with
sanctions and bombing. The
sanctions alone killed over a million Iraqis, far more than have been done in by weapons of
mass destruction throughout history. But Ledeen's indiscreet remark, delivered at an AEI
conference and reported by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online , does capture some
of what the war on Iraq is about.
And what is this "business" Ledeen says we mean? Oil, of course, of which more in a bit.
Ditto construction contracts for Bechtel. But it's more than that - nothing less than the
desire, often expressed with little shame nor euphemism, to run the world. Is there anything
new about that?
The answer is, of course, yes and no. In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books ,
Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had
excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when
earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. Anderson, who's edited New Left Review for years, but who has almost no
connection to actual politics attributed this strange explosion not to a popular outburst of
anti-imperialism, but to a cultural antipathy to the Bush administration.
Presumably that antipathy belongs to the realm of the " merely cultural ," and is of no great
political significance to Anderson. But it should be. U.S. culture has long been afflicted with
a brutally reactionary and self-righteous version of Christian fundamentalism, but it's never
had such influence over the state. The president thinks himself on a mission from God, the
Attorney General opens the business day with a prayer meeting, and the Pentagon's idea of a
Good Friday service is to invite Franklin Graham , who's pronounced Islam a "wicked and
evil religion," to deliver the homily, in which he promised that Jesus was returning soon. For
the hard core, the Iraq war is a sign of the end times, and the hard core
are in power.
Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also
recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. Though the
administration has been discreet, many of its private sector intellectuals
have been using the words "imperialism" and " empire " openly and with
glee. Not everyone of the millions who marched against the war in the months before it started
was a conscious anti-imperialist, but they all sensed the intensification, and were further
alarmed.
While itself avoiding the difficult word "empire," the Bush administration has been rather
clear about its long-term aims. According to their official national security strategy and the
documents published by the Project
for a New American Century (which served as an administration-in-waiting during the Clinton
years) their goal is to assure U.S. dominance and prevent the emergence of any rival powers.
First step in that agenda is the remaking of the Middle East - and they're quite open
about this as well. We all know the countries that are on the list; the only remaining issues
are sequence and strategy. But that's not the whole of the agenda. They're essentially
promising a permanent state of war, some overt, some covert, but one that could take
decades.
Imperial returns?
Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its
public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction
have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues
believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were
really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear
reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the
billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington
supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as
many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back
to 1959
.
Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why
it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much
tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.)
It now looks
fairly certain that the U.S. will, in some form, claim some large piece of Iraq's oil. The
details need to be worked out; clarifying the legal situation could be very complicated, given
the rampantly illegal nature of the regime change. Rebuilding Iraq's oil industry will be very
expensive and could take years. There could be some nice profits down the line for big oil
companies - billions a year - but the broader economic benefits for the U.S. aren't so clear. A
U.S.-dominated Iraq could pump heavily and undermine OPEC, but too low an oil price would wreck
the domestic U.S. oil industry, something the Bush gang presumably cares
about. Mexico would be driven into penury, which could mean another debt crisis and lots of
human traffic heading north over the Rio Grande. Lower oil prices would be a boon to most
industrial economies, but they'd give the U.S. no special advantage over its principal economic
rivals.
It's
sometimes said that U.S. dominance of the Middle East gives Washington a chokehold over oil
supplies to Europe and Japan. But how might that work? Deep production cutbacks and price
spikes would hurt everyone. Targeted sales restrictions would be the equivalent of acts of war,
and if the U.S. is willing to take that route, a blockade would be a lot more efficient. The
world oil market is gigantic and complex, and it's not clear how a tap could be turned in
Kirkuk that would shut down the gas pumps in Kyoto or Milan.
Writers like David Harvey argue
that the U.S. is trying to compensate for its eroding economic power by asserting its military
dominance. Maybe. It's certainly fascinating that Bush's unilateralism has to be financed by
gobs of foreign money - and he gets his tax cuts, he'll have to order up even bigger gobs. But
it's hard to see what rival threatens the U.S. economically; neither the EU nor Japan is
thriving. Nor is there any evidence that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about
economic policy, domestic or international, or even thinking at all. The economic staff is
mostly dim and marginal. What really seems to excite this gang of supposed conservatives is the
exercise of raw state power.
Jealous rivals
And while the Bushies want to prevent the emergence of imperial rivals , they may only be encouraging that. Sure, the EU
is badly divided within itself; it has a hard enough time picking a top central banker , let alone deciding on a common
foreign policy. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is already semi-apologizing to Bush for
his intemperate language in criticizing the war - not that Bush has started taking his calls.
But over the longer term, some kind of political unification is Europe's only hope for acting
like a remotely credible world power. It's tempting to read French and German objections to the
Iraq war as emerging not from principle, but from the wounded narcissism of former imperial
powers rendered marginal by American might. Separately, they'll surely hang. But a politically
united Europe could, with time, come to challenge U.S. power, just as the euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
(Speaking of the euro, there's a theory circulating on the net that the U.S. went to war
because Iraq wanted to price its oil in euros, not dollars. That's grossly overheated
speculation. More on this and related issues when LBO begins an investigation of the
political economy of oil in the next issue.)
An even more interesting rivalry scenario would involve an alliance of the EU and Russia.
Russia is no longer the wreck it was for most of the 1990s. The economy has been growing and
the mildly authoritarian Putin has imposed political stability. Russia, which has substantial
oil interests in Iraq that are threatened by U.S. control, strongly opposed the war, and at
least factions within the Russian intelligence agency were reportedly feeding information
unfriendly to the U.S. to the website Iraqwar.ru . There's a lot recommending an EU-Russia
alliance; Europe could supply technology and finance, and Russia could supply energy, and
together they could constitute at least an embryonic counterweight to U.S. power.
So the U.S. may not get out of Iraq what the Bush administration is hoping for. It certainly
can't want democracy in Iraq or the rest of the region, since free votes could well lead to
nationalist and Islamist governments who don't view ExxonMobil as the divine agent that Bush seems to. A
New York Times piece celebrated the outbreak of democracy in Basra, while conceding that
the mayor is a former Iraqi admiral appointed by the British. The lead writers of the new
constitution are likely to be American law professors; Iraqis, of course, aren't up to the task
themselves.
Certainly the appointment of Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner (Ret.) - one of the
few superannuated brass not to have enjoyed a consulting contract with a major TV network - to
be the top civilian official guiding the postwar reconstruction of Iraq speaks volumes. A
retired general is barely a civilian, and Garner's most recent job was as president of
SY Technology , a military
contractor that worked with Israeli security in developing the Arrow antimissile system. He
loves antimissile systems; after the first Gulf War, he enthused about the Patriot's
performance with claims that turned out to be nonsense. He's on record as having praised
Israel's handling of the intifada. If that's his model of how to handle restive subject
populations, there's lots of trouble ahead.
lightness
In the early days of the war, when things weren't going so well for the "coalition,"
it was said that the force was too light. But after the sandstorm cleared and the snipers
were mowed down, that alleged lightness became a widely praised virtue. But that force
was light only by American standards: 300,000 troops; an endless rain of Tomahawks,
JDAMs, and MOABs; thousands of vehicles, from Humvees to Abrams tanks; hundreds of
aircraft, from Apaches to B-1s; several flotillas of naval support - and enormous
quantities of expensive petroleum products. It takes five gallons of fuel just to start
an Abrams tank, and after that it gets a mile per gallon. And filling one up is no
bargain. Though the military buys fuel at a wholesale price of 84¢ a gallon, after
all the expenses of getting it to the front lines are added in, the final cost is about
$150 a gallon. That's a steal compared to Afghanistan, where fuel is helicoptered in,
pushing the cost to $600/gallon. Rummy's "lightness" is of the sort that only a $10
trillion economy can afford.
The Bush gang doesn't even try to keep up appearances, handing out contracts for Iraq's
reconstruction to U.S. firms even before the shooting stopped, and guarding only the oil and
interior ministries against looters. If Washington gets its way, Iraq will be rebuilt according
to the fondest dreams of the Heritage Foundation staff, with the educational system reworked by
an American contractor, the TV programmed by the Pentagon, the ports run by a rabidly antiunion
firm, the police run by the Texas-based military contractor Dyncorp , and the oil taken out of
state hands and appropriately privatized.
That's the way they'd like it to be. But the sailing may not be so smooth. It looks like
Iraqis are viewing the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. It's going to be hard enough to
remake Iraq that taking on Syria or Iran may be a bit premature. But that doesn't mean they
won't try. It's a cliché of trade negotiations that liberalization is like riding a
bicycle - you have to keep riding forward or else you'll fall over. The same could be said of
an imperial agenda: if you want to remake the world, or a big chunk of it, there's little time
to pause and catch your breath, since doubt or opposition could gain the upper hand. Which
makes stoking that opposition more
urgent than ever.
Losing it all
There's a feeling around that Bush is now politically invulnerable . Certainly the atmosphere
is one of almost coercive patriotism. That mood was nicely illustrated by an incident in
Houston in mid-March. A teenager attending a rodeo failed to stand along with the rest of the
crowd during a playing of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American," a dreadful country song
that has become a kind of private-sector national anthem for the yahoo demographic, thanks to
its truculent unthinking jingoism. A patriot standing behind the defiantly seated teen started
taunting him, tugging on his ear as an additional provocation. The two ended up in a fight, and
then under arrest.
There's a lot of that going around, for sure. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins get disinvited
from events, websites nominate
traitors for trial by military tribunal, and talk radio hosts organize CD-smashings. But things
aren't hopeless. A close analysis of Greenwood's text might suggest why. The song's core
argument is contained in its two most famous lines: "I'm proud to be an American/where at least
I know I'm free." But the oft-overlooked opening reads: "If tomorrow all the things were
gone/I'd worked for all my life," the singer would still be a grateful patriot. That's
precisely the condition lots of Americans find themselves in. More than two million jobs have
disappeared in the last two years. Millions of Americans have seen their retirement savings
wiped out by the bear market, and over a million filed for bankruptcy last year. Most states and
cities are experiencing their worst fiscal crises since the 1930s, with massive service cuts
and layoffs imminent. In the song, such loss doesn't matter, but reality is often less
accommodating than a song.
As the nearby graphs show, W's ratings are much lower than his father's at the end of Gulf
War I, and his disapproval ratings much higher. Their theocratic and repressive agenda is
deeply unpopular with large parts of the U.S. population. Spending scores of billions on
destroying and rebuilding Iraq while at home health clinics are closing and teachers working
without pay is potentially incendiary. Foreign adventures have never been popular with the
American public (much to the distress of the ruling elite). An peace movement that could draw
the links among warmongering, austerity, and repression has great political potential. Just a
month or two ago, hundreds of thousands were marching in American streets to protest the
imminent war. Though that movement now looks a bit dispirited and demobilized, it's unlikely
that that kind of energy will just disappear into the ether.
Gordon begins her
comparison by exploring the main charge levied against Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, which was
committing a crime against peace due to Germany's breach of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which, she
explains, "essentially outlawed war." American prosecutors in the mid-20th century insisted that this
initial crime was the unlawful act from which all other crimes committed by the Nazis originated.
"By comparison," the author tells Scheer, "I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make
an unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq.
"It's very clear from the documentary record that exists that the main reason people were being
tortured [by the U.S. before the Iraq War began] was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say
that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq,"
Gordon says.
Throughout the so-called war on terror, the ethics expert says, the U.S. has also violated several
rules set forth in just-war theory, including what constitutes collateral damage and proportionality, in
its slaughter of countless Iraqi civilians.
"We took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed and cosmopolitan countries in that part of
the world -- which was Iraq -- and we essentially did what [U.S. military officials] used to say they wanted to
do to North Vietnam: bombed it back to the Stone Age," Gordon says.
Listen to Scheer and Gordon discuss a range of moral issues that Americans for several generations
have swept under the rug as the government both openly and secretly commits crimes in their name abroad.
You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player.
Robert Scheer:
Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.
The intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, it's Rebecca Gordon. And she has her doctorate in
ethics and social theory. I teach ethics at USC; you teach at the University of San Francisco, which is a
Catholic school, so presumably with all their difficulties they're still concerned about ethics. And
actually we have a good pope, in major ways, who's dealing with the subject I want to talk to you about:
the ethics of war making, and the violence that has been unleashed on the world. And you wrote two very
important books, maybe the most important in some ways. One is called
Mainstreaming Torture,
and
another is called
American Nuremberg.
So the question I want to ask you, you know, because we've
always treated the crimes of others, particularly the Germans, the worst crimes of modern history, as an
aberration in the development of the human race. Those people went berserk, crazy, and they were evil;
now we have another category, Muslims are evil, they do terrible things. We're recording this on a day
where in New Zealand, some 48 people trying to practice their religion were killed. So we see a lot of
crime against Muslims, as there was obviously a lot of crimes against Jews and other people. And in your
writing, you're very clear that the crimes of Nuremberg, of the Nazis, are a low level of evil. But the
real question is, the Germans are so much like Americans. They were–largest number of immigrants in this
country were Germans; they're a white, Anglo-Saxon population; they're highly educated, probably the
highest level of music and science at that point. And can it happen here?
Rebecca Gordon:
And that, of course, is the question many of us have been asking at
least since the election of 2016, and probably before that. And the answer in some ways, of course, is
that it did happen here with the invasion of the Americas by people from Europe, and the destruction of
all the peoples who were living here at the time. So there has been a genocide on this continent and in
South America that, you know, we just forget about, because it happened a while ago. But coming to
Nuremberg, what I was trying to do in the book is to say how important the principle was that was
established at Nuremberg, which is that international law is real law. And when you break international
law, there are genuine consequences, and people can and should be held accountable. So what I looked at
was the conduct of this so-called War on Terror in the post-September 11th period, and asked: Could the
United States be accused of the same categories of crimes for which the Nazi leadership were held
accountable? And there were three categories that were established by the prosecution, and these were
crimes against peace; ordinary war crimes, which had already been well described in the body of
international law; and a new category, crimes against humanity, which was created in order to take in the
enormity of what had been done in Europe by the Nazis. But what was very interesting is that it was
Americans who insisted that the first of these crimes should be crimes against peace. So what's that?
That means making an aggressive war. It means starting a war that was not a war of self-defense, that was
not a war of so-called necessity, but making an aggressive war. Why was that illegal? It was illegal
because Germany and the United States and many other countries in Europe had signed a treaty in 1928
called the Kellogg–Briand Treaty, which essentially outlawed war. It said that nations will not use war
to settle their disputes. And the argument that the U.S. prosecutors made was that all the other crimes
that the Germans committed actually sprang from this first crime of making this aggressive, unnecessary,
illegal war. And so by comparison, I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make an
unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq. And just as the Nazi crimes
arose from this making of a war that was wrong and illegal, the U.S. crimes–and specifically now because
my area of expertise is torture, I look at the reasons why the United States became involved in torture.
And in the beginning, it's very clear from the documentary record that exists, that the main reason
people were being tortured, both in the CIA dark sites and also at Guantanamo under the Department of
Defense, was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say that Saddam Hussein was in league with
Al-Qaeda, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq. And so the other crimes–
RS:
But wait, let's be very clear about that. This would be like the Nazis saying,
Jewish bankers destroyed our economy and colluded with Western powers, and therefore made life untenable
in Germany. That was the vicious scapegoating argument to justify Nazi expansion and destruction of other
societies. So this thing of whether Bush–you know, it's kind of become part of folklore–they lied us into
the war in Iraq. But what you're saying, and very clearly, the very idea of going to war in Iraq over the
9/11 incident, which not only did Saddam Hussein have–
RG:
Nothing to do with.
RS:
–nothing to do with, but actually he was opposed to Al-Qaeda, and it was the one
country where Al-Qaeda could not operate in, was Iraq. But instead of going to war with Pakistan, or
going to war, you know, elsewhere–no. We–
RG:
Or Saudi Arabia.
RS:
Well, of course, Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers–
RG:
Came from.
RS:
–came from. You could actually make an argument to go into–hey, you attacked us,
you supplied the money and so forth. No, we whitewashed the Saudi Arabia thing and went to war with Iraq.
So your analogy, listeners should understand, is very precise. It is inventing an excuse, a defensive
excuse, to engage an offensive invasion.
RG:
Exactly. And from that spring all of these other kinds of crimes. So then I look
at ordinary war crimes, and if you go over the Geneva Conventions and the various other laws of war, you
can see that there are a number of categories of crimes. Many of them have to do with failing to make the
distinction between civilians and fighters, combatants. And of course the Bush-Cheney administration very
early on decided to create a third, nonexistent category called unlawful combatants. But this designation
doesn't exist in the International Red Cross's understanding; it doesn't exist in the Geneva
Convention's. It was just a convenient way of saying this particular group of people, whoever it is that
we choose to capture, detain forever, torture–they have no legal standing in the world. They exist
outside of international law.
RS:
So let me pick up on that also. And I don't want to lose the earlier thread of
the invention of war, and connecting with this incredibly important work you've done on torture. And you
made the statement, which I think people should ponder: the reason we were torturing these people was not
to get information about a future attack. We already had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and everything, we knew
everything about it, and so forth. The real reason for it was to invent an alibi for the invasion, to get
somebody to say Saddam Hussein was backing them. And I think that's a very important–a reason, by the
way, to read your book,
Mainstreaming Torture
; let me give a plug here. But this other argument
is also interesting, the whole idea of the noncombatant. And we are doing this interview at a time when
Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, is in prison–
RG:
Yes.
RS:
–again, because they want to fabricate a story about WikiLeaks and all that, and
get everybody off the hook for all of the crimes and torture and everything they've done. But the
interesting thing is, if you look at what did WikiLeaks–and they were just like in the position of the
Washington Post
with the Pentagon Papers, they're the publisher–what did Chelsea Manning reveal?
She revealed the death of noncombatants, including journalists. So why don't you develop that a little
bit, because that is so critical to the moment, that no one–no one has been prosecuted for those attacks
that she revealed with the data. But she is now sitting in prison.
RG:
And this is, of course–the fate of whistleblowers all over the world, and
certainly in this country, is exactly that. That the matters that they have revealed disappear in a story
that becomes about the crimes of the revealer. And of course in the war in Iraq, there was tremendous
amounts of civilian death. And it falls into a number of categories; one category is those people who had
actually been detained and were being held by U.S. forces. And for example at Abu Ghraib, we know–which
is the prison outside of Baghdad that had been Saddam Hussein's major torture site, and which the U.S.
decided in its wisdom would be the perfect place to hold detainees, and where we know a group of
reservists ended up torturing people. But the real torture was going on upstairs, by the employees of
various C.I.A. contractors, and by the C.I.A. itself. And that's where people actually died. So there's
that whole category of people, but that's a much smaller category than the category of ordinary civilians
whose lives were either ended or destroyed by the regular U.S. use of warfare in places like Fallujah and
other cities. So that we took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed, and cosmopolitan
countries in that part of the world–which was Iraq–and we essentially did what they used to say they
wanted to do to North Vietnam, bombed it back to the Stone Age. And so in just war theory, there are
these rules about discriminating between combatants and noncombatants, and you are permitted a certain
number of civilian deaths as long as they are side effects of your attempt to go after some legitimate
military target. And this is called collateral damage; it's, collateral means on the side, right? But in
fact, in Iraq, we don't know because there are many different counts, but anywhere between 500,000 and a
million people have died in the U.S. invasion and occupation in Iraq. And when you lay that against the
3,000 people who died on September 11th, none of whom were killed by anyone even from Iraq, you also see
that we have violated another rule of just war theory, which is proportionality. We have destroyed human
life out of all proportion.
RS:
And let me just–you know, it's so difficult to grapple with these questions. And
you are teaching at one of the major Catholic universities here.
RG:
It's a Jesuit university, and that's a little different. And these are the
left-wing Jesuits.
RS:
I'm not putting down your school. [Laughter] Hey, I teach ethics at the
University of Southern California–
RG:
Enough said.
RS:
–and clearly, yes, we are ethically challenged at this moment. I was about to
actually celebrate the pope in this regard. And so there is a certain necessity for being consistent in
the application of these principles, or they mean nothing.
RG:
Exactly.
RS:
And I think that's the body of your life's work, to remind us of that. So in a
sense, you are at a good place where you're teaching. I'm just wondering, how is this disregarded so
widely? I mean, people make a big deal about don't kill the unborn child. You know, I could see arguments
about that. But if that's the beginning of a consistent, pro-life position, yes, it makes certain sense.
If it's the end of a pro-life position, and then you end welfare and you don't care what happens to the
baby and so forth, you're into a deep immorality. And it seems to me you're at a very interesting place.
Because for better or worse, this pope seems to be the only one able to challenge, let's call it U.S.
imperialism or imperial ventures, on a moral basis.
RG:
I think that's right. He certainly is doing a better job of that than either of
his last two predecessors.
RS:
Or the major–
RG:
Other major, yeah. No, I think that's right. And I think, you know, it's
interesting that at USF, we have Reserve Officers' Training Corps. We have people who are training to be
second lieutenants when they leave university in the U.S. Army. And I have had students tell me, I had a
student from Guam who told me, you know, Professor Gordon, I know that when they send me to basic
training, they're going to try to take me apart and change me from being a person into being a soldier.
And I just want you to know that I'm not going to let them do that to me. He said, but you know, ROTC was
my ticket off the island, and I have a duty now to follow through with my promise. And I just, my heart
broke for him. Because what they do to you in basic training is actually a slightly lighter version of
what they do when they train torturers. Everyone who becomes a torturer–and people don't just torture on
a whim; people are trained to be torturers. And part of that training involves being brutalized first
yourself, and having survived that ordeal, you emerge with this sense of yourself as an elite person who
therefore has the right, as a superior being, and now the skills, to turn around and abuse and torture
people who come along behind you. And the U.S. has its own methods of training, and its own locations
where this happens.
RS:
[omission for station break] I'm back after our break with Professor and Doctor
Rebecca Gordon. And we were just talking about how we train people to be torturers. And this is
fascinating, because if you don't consider this question, that you're getting basically good people to do
horrible things, you're missing the whole point. But I just want to say something about the good German.
Because the basic appeal of Hitler was the solid–you know, he was going to make Germany great again. And
this is, I'm not demonizing Germans here, but Donald Trump's father was obviously familiar with this in
his lineage, in that tradition. And the whole appeal, even though this dictator Hitler was this
funny-looking guy, hardly the Aryan model–was to a notion of order. And even in the concentration camps,
keeping direct bookkeeping of how many teeth you pulled and gold you found in the teeth, and so forth.
But it's not–manners. They had the manners. And what bothers me about the very simplistic Trumpwashing
that we're going through now, that Trump is uniquely evil–it's all about manners. He's crude, he's
boorish, he's a misogynist, he says these things, he does these things, he grabs people's private parts,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's not his crime. His crime is he's continuing a tradition of
bombing people who we have no right to bomb. And so I want to push this a little bit more, the whole
question of manners. Because what Nuremberg did is unmask the manners. And this was also true in the
Eichmann trial that Hannah Arendt talked about, when she talked about the banality of evil. Evil can be
masked by manners. Smile while you learn to kill, right?
RG:
That's exactly right. And I especially know, when you talk about the meticulous
records that they kept, this is a hallmark of torture regimes all over the world. This very careful
record-keeping, this documentation of the work that's been done–because there's no shame about the work.
The process of becoming a torturer includes developing a sense of yourself as doing something uniquely
courageous, uniquely necessary, a unique sacrifice that you as the torturer, more in sorrow than in
anger, are being forced to do by the tremendous evil that confronts you. And so you're absolutely right
that especially among upper-class liberals in the United States, the objection to Trump is his manner,
and his manner is crude and obnoxious, as you say. But what he's really doing is not only continuing to
kill people, and in fact increasing the number of drone strikes, for example, over the already great
number that the Obama administration–
RS:
A man of impeccable manners. Barack Obama. I even feel that way about Bill
Clinton. When Bill Clinton's on television, I smile. I like him. He's warm, he's encouraging. And then I
forget, he's the guy that ended the welfare system, for example. Yes.
RG:
Exactly. Exactly right. And you know, Trump is now with his, I don't know if
you've taken a look at his so-called budget, but he's planning to take away our Medicare and Medicaid,
just in case you might have wanted to have healthcare. Obviously, that's dead on arrival. But
nonetheless, the point is that he is masking what he is actually doing by distracting us with this
bombastic display. And in fact, one of his officials in the EPA actually recently said exactly that, that
they've been able to make all these regulatory changes because every time it looks as though the press is
going to notice, Trump fires off a tweet, and everybody's like, ooh, shiny!
RS:
This is a really important point. Because if you look at the Nuremberg Trial or
you look at the Eichmann trial, these people all hid behind manners. They were well spoken, they were
well educated, and they were following a Charlie Chaplinesque figure, a ludicrous figure; Hitler was
certainly a, yes, he was a more ludicrous figure than Trump, in terms of manners and style and
everything. But his popularity was largely based on being a sort of comic figure, in a way. He inspired a
whole nation of logical, scientific, well-educated–probably the best-educated population in the world.
And so I've had this experience, I've talked to people in the business community and they say well, you
know, but Trump is good for business. And we did have a mess before, and then look at what's happened to
unemployment, and so forth and so on. And so we are really at the limit of manners as a guide. And that's
really what Nuremberg is about. Nuremberg was unmasking manners. Now, we didn't continue after that; we
had the brief Eichmann trial. But what we didn't really ever do in this country–and this is why I want
people to listen or to read your book, better to read it, although listening is great–we never really
took apart the Nazi experience. Because we wanted the ex-Nazis and other Germans to be our allies in the
Cold War. So we have never had that investigation of how an incredibly well-educated, Christian,
law-and-order nation goes into madness.
RG:
Not only that, we never did what the next step was supposed to be, which is
establish a venue in which U.S. war crimes could also be examined in World War II. And there were a
number of people who developed the Nuremberg principles, and worked on the original trial, who really
honestly believed that this would be the prelude to establishing an international court for trying
offenses committed during war, and expected that the United States would in fact be held accountable, not
only for the firebombing of German cities, but for the destruction of up to 60 Japanese cities which were
constructed of wood and paper and reduced to ashes, in a campaign that really very few people in this
country even know about. Although Robert McNamara actually describes it in that excellent documentary–
RS:
The Fog of War
, yeah.
RG:
--
The Fog of War.
RS:
And it's excellent because you see that McNamara was involved in designing the
bombing of Japan and Germany. But also, I mean–like, we talk about Korea. Oh, North Korea, animals, and
Kim Il-sung and his progeny–nobody I ever run into knows we leveled every single structure in North Korea
during the Korean War. Again, a war that was not needed; it was an attempt to get a Chinese communist who
had come to power the year before. I mean, it's bizarre. Then you look at what we did to North Vietnam,
and the carpet bombing, and everything. So this is critical. American exceptionalism–I've mentioned this
a number of times on this podcast–to my mind, is a really, it's the most profound problem that American
people have to face.
RG:
It's a vicious idea. And it's been taken up in different ways by both the liberal
democratic world, and by the, you know, the hard right in this country. The idea that by definition, the
United States can do no wrong, because we are the leader of the so-called free world. Which is a locution
I don't even understand anymore, given that we're not competing anymore with the unfree communist world
that supposedly we were in opposition to. But the idea that–and this was the argument, actually, that the
Bush administration made about torture. By definition, the United States is a country that does not
torture. Therefore, whatever it is that you are observing, it cannot be torture, because that would be a
logical contradiction, because we are the nation that doesn't do that. And it's almost impossible to
enter into that understanding of the world, because no amount of evidence that you can present to the
person who believes that is going to break that worldview. And so American exceptionalism allows us not
only to have military bases in over 100 countries around the world; not only to conduct secret wars that
the people in this country don't even know about–we just suddenly woke up and said, oh my gosh, we're
having a war in Somalia! Who knew. And not to mention Yemen–I was very heartened to see that the Senate
had actually voted with the House to reprimand the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia in Yemen. But leave
that aside. This whole idea that we are a unique bearer of human rights and democracy in the world–it's
very hard to break, because it's a concealed, hermetically sealed worldview that people imbibe in grade
school. And they imbibe it as they grow up, and it takes a lot of effort to break through. And one of the
sad things that I see, especially with younger people that I've worked with in organizations like War
Times/Tiempo de Guerras, is that once you've broken through, it then becomes very hard to imagine that
the United States is not permanently and always going to be the hegemon. It almost, having made the
effort and understood the danger the U.S. actually presents to the world, it becomes almost impossible to
recognize when the U.S. actually loses one. And I think it's very important we claim our victories.
RS:
Well you know, you hit it clearly with this, the abandonment by the Democratic
Party of any serious oppositional role. [With] control of the House now, there should be hearings about
what are we doing in these different countries. And instead they're actually criticizing Trump for being,
kind of selling out by getting out of Afghanistan, or not fighting more aggressively in Syria. And we've
actually sort of lost the peace movement, in a way, is a theme I get back to once in a while here. And we
forget, actually, most of the terrible wars since World War II have been fought under democrats, and
financed enthusiastically. So I want to get back to basic moral principles, because they don't mean
anything if you're not consistent. You have to call out people on the left or on the right, you have to
call out war crimes, you have to call out the attacks on homosexuals, black people, Jewish
people–anybody, any other, and so forth. It's something that Jesus reminded us of in the tale of the Good
Samaritan, if you can believe that Luke is the word of God, and not the others, [Laughter] where the Good
Samaritan doesn't appear. I don't want to get into your whole Catholic university thing here. But it's
interesting to me, this notion of consistency. Because it's painful to be consistent. It requires
examining the motives of people you voted for. And this was the problem of Germany: people forget Hitler
was elected. People forget Germany had all the trappings of a–
RG:
Of a democracy.
RS:
–of a democracy. And more important, the conceit that somehow
education–education, and manners–will prevent genocide is a lie. Maybe it's time to recognize this whole
notion of American greatness is the end of thought; if you are by definition great, there's nothing to
question. And it seems to me that main religions that we've had, their one demand that they have in
common is you must question not only your nation's morality, but your own. The devil is in you. We have
to struggle with this devil, we have to struggle with these forces. Yet as a nation, we think America the
beautiful absolves us all. And that's what you're saying in your torture book. That basically, you take
these young recruits that have a very limited knowledge of our history, and you convince them that they
are the agents, really, of a higher power.
RG:
Absolutely right. And in doing that, you pervert the very virtues that we say the
United States is supposed to represent. The virtue of courage, for example, becomes the courage to
suppress your squeamishness at causing pain to another human being. And justice becomes the idea that you
give the punishment first and the trial later, if ever. Right? And this is exactly what we see in the way
our detainees have been treated. And honestly, another locus of this that we don't often recognize is
what goes on on the U.S. soil prisons and jails in this country, where we have 2.2 million people locked
up in cages, and where torture is a regular feature of prison life. It's no accident that the reservists
who were downstairs at Abu Ghraib, they were from West Virginia, and most of them in their civilian life
were prison guards. They were corrections officers. And there's a famous email that one of the
ringleaders, Charles Graner, sent home which said: The Christian in me knows it's wrong, but the
corrections officer in me loves to see a grown man piss himself. And that is exactly the attitude of the
people who are caging up 2.2 [million] largely, vastly disproportionately, black and Latino, Latinx,
people in this country today. And so torture actually is a red thread that runs through the entire
history of the United States, beginning with the Native American population. Slavery itself would not
have been as successful as it was at allowing the amassing of capital–which is, you know if you're a good
Marxist, the congealed labor of these unpaid, captive people, who when they got to the United States, or
what was not even yet the United States, would not work unless, the farmers figured out, they were caused
physical pain. And it was the use, the concerted, intentional, well-documented use of physical pain in
the cotton fields a century later that forced people to develop a physical technology of their bodies
that allowed them, in the course of 40 years, to multiply by eight times the amount of cotton a human
being could pick in a day, because the alternative was to have the skin taken off your back with a whip.
RS:
You know, increasingly in my life I have been a bad Marxist. And I've embraced
some truths that seemed to come out of these religions that, growing up, really frightened me or were
intimidating, and also were on the wrong side. But let's take it back to the pope, let's take it back to
the Jesuit school, University of San Francisco, where you teach. There's a wisdom that I daresay Karl
Marx did not sufficiently embrace. It is that we all have a capacity for evil. That we have virtue; we
care, we bring children into this world, we nurture them, we care about others, we can cry over a
refugee. On the other hand, the 2.2 million–I've been on Death Row quite recently interviewing Kevin
Cooper, who I believe is an innocent man. And fortunately, the governor of California has suspended the
death penalty, and I think Gavin Newsom deserves great credit for his courage. But–and it is a cage, and
we don't care; we don't care about these people. And we don't care about the people we bomb, and we don't
care–they're expendable, they're throwaway people. You want them out of sight, out of mind. It's very
deliberate. And the problem is, if Marxism were accurate [Laughter]–I don't know, not too many people
care, anyway, but since the two of us are talking about it–you know, if it was just the economic motive,
we'd probably do better. The libertarians, for instance–to the degree that they're right, they're right,
yes. But the wars don't make sense. And growing that cotton that way didn't ultimately make sense. And
slavery didn't make sense. Except–except if we have a barbaric part of our nature, if we have a need to
exploit others. Not just for economic reasons; if power corrupts. And this, not to quote Marx, but to
quote Jefferson or Washington, these people who came to power in this great experiment of ours, with all
its contradictions–I repeat this ad nauseum on these podcasts. All their, yes, white, male, I got it, I
got it, slave owners, the whole thing–they were on to a wisdom about their own corruption. And the reason
we have the First Amendment, the reason we have all the amendments, the reason we have separation of
powers, is that power corrupts.
RG:
Absolutely.
RS:
And what comes through in these torture stories and so forth–I talked, I have one
student, just like you, I've had students go off to these wars. I had one who ended up at Abu Ghraib and
at Guantanamo, a reserve officer. He was outside with the families. I'm not going to compromise his
privacy. But he told me what shook him up was he was being told all these things about the people inside
the jail, but his job was to herd the families that were trying to visit. And he could not deny that
there was some kind of humanity going on with these people inside, or why would all these people care so
much about them. And I think we need to be reminded of our own capacity for evil. I think that's what
Nuremberg was about, that the people who commit evil don't present as evil and are not inherently more
evil than we are.
RG:
Exactly.
RS:
And we have to struggle with this. And the good liberals who accommodate this,
and say well, you know, Barack Obama had to do this with the drones, and governor so-and-so had to kill
these people even though he didn't believe in the death penalty–we have to challenge that. Because that
is the fount of evil.
RG:
So, my favorite virtue, Aristotle calls it phronesis, or practical wisdom. St.
Thomas Aquinas calls it prudentia, prudence. But what it really is, is that capacity of the mind that
allows you to actually understand the moral questions that are in front of you. And not to be fooled by
the fog of American exceptionalism, by the distraction of a Trumpian tweet, but to be able to actually
examine and really see, in this case, the effects of U.S. policy on actual human beings around the world.
And this requires a kind of courage to be willing to accept that your own self-understanding, and the
understanding of your people, your country, might be wrong. But it also requires a willingness to look,
to actually see and examine what's in front of you. And if there's one virtue I would like to see
developed, and that I try to develop in my own students, it's this virtue of practical wisdom, where you
actually are responsible for what the effects of your actions can reasonably be foreseen to be. And this
is something that we in the United States really don't have. It's trained out of us, we don't have it.
And part of it, yes, is that capacity to understand that the ability to do evil things exists in all of
us, and it's also to understand that when you multiply that capacity by the technological and economic
power that a country like the United States has, the results–well, the results
Powerful video about US propaganda machine. Based on Iraq War propaganda efforts. This is a
formidable machine.
Shows quite vividly that most US politicians of Bush era were war criminal by Nuremberg
Tribunal standards. Starting with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They planned the war of aggression
against Iraq long before 9/11.
I recently spoke to some college students who, I realized, were in fifth grade when I got on
a plane to Iraq. They now study that stuff in history classes like "Opportunities and Errors:
21st-Century America in the Middle East." About halfway through our conversation, I realized
it's coming up on 10 years since I first went to Iraq. Now that's real history.
I was a Foreign Service Officer then, a diplomat, embedded with the U.S. Army at a series of
forward operating bases and in charge of a couple of reconstruction teams, small parts of a
complex failure to rebuild the Iraq we wrecked. I ended up writing a book about it all,
explaining in tragicomic terms how we failed (those "Errors").
The book, We Meant Well: How I Helped
Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People was -- and wasn't --
well-received. People laughed at the funny parts, but my message -- it didn't work and here's
why -- was largely dissipated at the time (2012) by government and media propaganda centered on
The Surge. That was David Petraeus's plan to pacify the Sunnis and push al-Qaeda away, while
clearing, holding, and building across the country, apparently to make room so ISIS and the
Iranians could move in.
Meanwhile, the new American president, elected in part based on his "no" vote on the war in
2003, proclaimed it all a victory and started bringing the troops home even while I was still
in Iraq. Meanwhile my employer, the U.S. Department of State, was unhappy with my book. After a
year-long
process , State pushed me into early retirement. My career was history.
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Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that
traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing
witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I
might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in,
three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands. Around us, Iraqis blew
themselves up alongside children. Everyone was a potential killer and a potential target. I did
this at age 49, on antidepressants and with a good family waiting back home. I cannot imagine
what it would have done to 18-year-old me. And I had it easier than most, and much easier than
many.
People asked in line at Trader Joe's and in interviews on semi-important TV shows, "Was it
all worth it to you?" I always answered yes. I'm not important, I said, but the story is. And
now we're making the same mistakes in Afghanistan. The only way to even start to justify it was
to think there might be some meaning behind it all. It didn't do anything for me but fill my
soul with vodka but maybe somehow it helped?
See, my book wasn't aimed at cataloging the failures in Iraq per se, but in trying to make
sure we didn't do the same thing in Afghanistan. The initial title wasn't We Meant Well,
but Lessons for Afghanistan from the Reconstruction of Iraq . The early drafts were
pretentious scholarly stuff, outlining our mistakes. Harvard Business School-like case studies.
Maps. Footnotes. It would have sold maybe five copies, and so my editors encouraged me to add
more funny parts. NPR's Fresh Air actually added a laugh track to my
interview . I figured I'd get the lessons across with humor more effectively anyway. In
such situations, you have to think that way. You can't believe that what you went through
didn't matter and keep getting out of bed every morning.
I now know officially that it did not matter. It was pointless. SIGAR shows I accomplished
nothing.
SIGAR is the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, a government oversight
body that is supposed to prevent waste, fraud, and mismanagement of the billions of dollars
being spent rebuilding Afghanistan but that has its hands full just keeping a CVS
receipt-length history of what's wrong. Sound familiar?
SIGAR just released its " 2019 High-Risk List ," which
points out especially egregious things that will follow in the wake of any peace agreement in
Afghanistan. Here are some quoted highlights:
set the
cash ablaze on the streets of Kabul for all the good it will do."
That last line really got me. In my book, I'd written, "While a lot of the money was spent
in big bites at high levels through the Embassy, or possibly just thrown into the river when no
one could find a match to set it on fire ." Had SIGAR read what I'd written? Or was the
joke just so obvious that we'd both come to the same punchline 10 years and two countries
apart?
Word for word as in Iraq, and after over 17 years of American effort, the U.S. has failed to
establish a viable government in Afghanistan, eliminate the local
insurgents/patriots/residents, establish a civil society, tamp down corruption, and ensure some
sort of national defense. Afghanistan has almost no chance of survival except as a Taliban
narcoland with financial support needed indefinitely to avoid whatever "worse" would be in that
calculus.
But there still are semi-believers. One former State Department colleague is on her fourth
assignment in Kabul, roughly half her career. Her job is to liaise with the few NATO officials
still hanging around. She says it's easy work; they've known each other for years. She's heard
we're making progress.
Around the same time as the SIGAR report, the Army War College released its history of the Iraqi Surge, a quagmire of dense
prose that I'm only about halfway through, but so far no mention of the impact of
reconstruction. The theme seems to be that the Army had some good ideas but the politicians got
in the way. Fair enough, but they misspelled Vietnam as I-r-a-q all throughout.
The post-9/11 wars have metastasized across three presidencies so far. Pick the thing you
detest most about Bush, Obama, and Trump, and complain about how it was never investigated
enough and how there weren't enough hearings. And then I'll disagree, for most everything that
happened and continues to happen in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone uninvestigated, unheard of,
and unpunished. It's ancient history.
We all want to believe that what we did, what we didn't do, the moral injury, the PTSD, the
fights with spouses, the kid at home we smacked too hard when she wouldn't eat her green beans,
all of what we saw and heard, mattered. You read that SIGAR report and tell me how. Because
basically I'm history now.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for
the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan.
One of the rare early realistic assessments of Trump foreign policy. most were wrong. Circe was right in major points. The
appointment of CIA director was the litmus test and Trump failed it by appointing neocon Pompeo.
Trump foreign policy is a typical neocon foreign policy. People just tried to overlook it in vain hopes that Trump will change the US
foreign policy
Notable quotes:
"... 95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time. ..."
"... And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason. ..."
"... Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,". ..."
"... Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected. ..."
"... Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms. ..."
"... And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly. ..."
"... What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense. ..."
"... he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh? ..."
95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated
obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is
a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This
is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.
And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden
is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him
to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already
stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for
treason.
Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the
Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern
of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".
That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.
Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.
b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found
the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke
of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly
President was elected.
Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The
'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to
fund security agencies and buy arms.
And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder
until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad
as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.
What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military
(note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.
And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel
or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?
The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:
>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?
>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions?
An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.
>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?
Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction
or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.
Bush II campaigned on "no nation building" mantra. He lied. Crump campaigned no foreign wars manta. He lied.
Notable quotes:
"... The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct. ..."
"... Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief. ..."
"... John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to retire that label . ..."
The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder
of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct.
Former George W. Bush mouthpiece Ari Fleischer supplied a
promptly ratioed
tweetstorm that quibbled with the "Bush
lied, people died" mantra concerning his old boss's handling of the intelligence on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Never Trumper David French
gamely argued
that Saddam Hussein was a greater source of instability than the chaos brought about by the invasion, followed by Barack Obama's
withdrawal. In so doing, French reminded us that, however off-putting some conservatives find Donald Trump, the president's
criticism
of the war matters more to
many of those who devote their time to denouncing his every utterance.
Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking
bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's
protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief.
John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United
States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the
war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending
toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to
retire that label .
"The Iraq war began sixteen years ago tomorrow," Fleischer tweeted on March
19. "There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years. After no
WMDs were found, the left claimed 'Bush lied. People died.' This accusation itself is a lie.
It's time to put it to rest."
Fleischer goes on to declare that "The fact is that President Bush (and I as press
secretary) faithfully and accurately reported to the public what the intelligence community
concluded," before noting that "The CIA, along with the intelligence services of Egypt, France,
Israel and others concluded that Saddam had WMD. We all turned out to be wrong. That is very
different from lying."
As a Chief Weapons Inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq from
1991 through 1998, I was intimately familiar with the intelligence used by the U.S.
Intelligence Community to underpin the case for war (which I debunked in June 2002 in an
article published in Arms Control Today ). Armed with the
unique insights that came from this experience, I can state clearly and without any reservation
that Ari Fleischer, once again, has misrepresented the facts when it comes to the Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.
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The fact is, the Iraq War was never about WMD. Rather, it was waged for one purpose and one
purpose only -- regime change. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the sole focus of this effort,
and the so-called "intelligence" used to justify this act was merely an excuse for action. Ari
Fleischer knows this, and to contend otherwise -- as he does via twitter -- is simply a
continuation of the lies he told from the very beginning about the U.S. case for war with
Iraq.
UNSCOM had, by the fall of 2002, been relegated to the pages of history, replaced by a new
inspection organization, the United
Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) . It is through the
work of UNMOVIC that Ari Fleischer's defense of George W. Bush collapses. In November 2002 the
Bush administration pushed for the UN Security Council to pass Resolution
1441 , which found Iraq to be in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations.
Inspectors from UNMOVIC were dispatched to Iraq shortly thereafter in a last-ditch effort to
account for the totality of Iraq's WMD.
The work of the inspectors was undermined from the start by the Bush administration, led by
Ari Fleischer. "It is very well true that the inspectors who are working as diligently as they
can in an environment made very difficult for them by Iraqi actions, may not be giving notice,"
Fleischer
explained in a press conference, "but that does not mean Iraq is not receiving notice as a
result of their electronic means and other means to know what the inspectors are doing. Which
puts the inspectors in a very hard position."
But Fleischer had no evidence that Iraq was getting advance notice, and the experience of UNMOVIC
inspectors on the ground suggested otherwise. When asked by a reporter about the
possibility of giving the UN weapons inspectors more time to complete their task, Fleischer
fired back, asking "More time for what? More time to be run-around by a regime that has not
complied, that has concealed its weapons, and that has grown throughout the years --
particularly the four years when no one was in the country -- extraordinarily good at hiding
what they have and deceiving those who are there to do their level best."
Left unsaid was the fact that the inspectors had repeatedly asked the U.S. for access to the
very intelligence being used to underpin the American claims that Iraq was holding on to
prohibited WMD and were denied. "If the UK and the U.S. are convinced and they say they have
evidence," Hans
Blix, the head of UNMOVIC, had noted on December 20, 2002, "then one would expect they
would be able to tell us where is this stuff." When asked if they were getting cooperation from
U.S. and Western intelligence agencies, Blix replied, "Not yet. We get some, but we don't get
all we need."
In 2010,
Blix commented on the provisions of Security Council resolution 1441, which had declared
Iraq to be in "material breach" of its obligation to disarm, and which was cited
by Ari Fleischer to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003. "The
declaration, I felt, might give Iraq a chance for a new start," Blix noted, " except that it
was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they didn't have any. "
This is the conclusion that anyone taking umbrage with Ari Fleischer over his attempt to
whitewash the role he played -- as an extension of President George W. Bush -- in facilitating
the Iraq War should rely on. Deflecting blame onto the U.S. intelligence community ignores the
fact that the decision to go to war was the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch that
Fleischer served. Iraq's alleged retention of proscribed WMD were merely an excuse to achieve
the higher goal of regime change. The inspection process initiated in November 2002 to
investigate Iraq's WMD programs was, from the U.S. perspective, a façade created to
justify a decision to go to war that was made long before the inspectors ever set foot on the
ground.
"Intelligence," therefore, was an artifice manufactured by the Bush administration as a
smoke screen. A memorandum prepared by
the head of the British MI-6 intelligence service , Richard Dearlove, following a July 23,
2002 meeting in Washington, DC, underscores this truth: "There was a perceptible shift in
attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through
military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD . But the intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Bush knew that the engagement with the United Nations, including the crafting of resolution
1441 and the dispatch of inspectors to Iraq, was simply an elaborate charade, cruel theatrics
meant to dangle the prospects of peace, all the while preparing for war -- something Ari
Fleischer knew all along, as this exchange
with the press aptly demonstrates:
Question: "Does regime change mean that you want to change the leader of Iraq, or you want
to change the nature of the regime?"
Fleischer: "The objective is for Saddam Hussein's Iraq to disarm, to stop threatening its
neighbors, to stop repressing minorities within its own country. And that's why Congress passed
the policy of regime change."
Press: "Well, which of those definitions is correct?"
Fleischer: "Well, let's do it -- let me cut to the bottom line on it. What I would propose
is that in the event Saddam Hussein gives the order, and under his leadership and direction
disarms Iraq, gives up its weapons of mass destruction, has no more chemical weapons, no more
biological weapons, stops using hostility as a way to deal with its neighbors, stops repression
of minorities with his own country, give me a call. After you cover Saddam Hussein doing these
things, let's talk about it. Until then, the president is focused on making sure that these
developments take place as a result either of the UN resolutions being enforced, or by whoever
in Iraq taking these actions to make it happen. But this is probably the mother of all
hypotheticals. Give me a phone call when it happens."
Press: "So Saddam could stay in power if those objectives were carried out?"
Fleischer: "Again, call me up when Saddam Hussein gives the directions for all those factors
to take place."
Press: "So, that's a yes?"
Fleischer: "I think this is a question of how many devils can dance on the head of a
pin."
Press: "It's not. Can he stay in power and have regime change?"
Fleischer: "You're asking the mother of hypotheticals. And I think it's a rather "
Press: "Does it refer to a leader or a government regime change?"
Fleischer: "It refers to actions that have to be taken to keep the peace."
Press: "So it's a question of policy, not personnel?"
Fleischer: "That's a good way to put it."
Press: "So he could stay in power if those things happen?"
Fleischer: "If you want to fool yourselves into believing that that's what Saddam Hussein
would do in policy, that's an interesting way to approach it."
The fact of the matter is that Saddam did, in fact, do everything listed by Ari Fleischer to
effect a change in the policies of Iraq in order to preserve his regime. But President Bush --
whom Fleischer represented -- never had any intention of recognizing such change, even when it
occurred. President Bush, Ari Fleischer and every representative of the U.S. administration
involved in formulating and implementing U.S. policy on Iraq was being dishonest in the extreme
when dangling the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the Iraq problem.
In short, they all lied, and Ari Fleischer was the mouthpiece for disseminating these lies,
a task he continues to perform to this day.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author ofDeal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road
to War . 14 Responses to Ari Fleischer Lied, and People Died
Thank you for another reminder of what really happened. My only quibble is that this uses
GWB, the figurehead, as the power and decision-maker. Like Bolton & Co today, the ones
calling the plays are not the public face that can get elected by the proles. It was the
Cheney/Wolfy/Rummy cabal, smokescreened by Rove, who sent Iraq back to the stone age at the
behest of Israel.
One down and more to go Iran is the next big target of the same mentality.
It is interesting to note the following requirement: "stops repression of minorities with
his own country". It indicates that Bush administration had a plan B for invading Iraq, on
the template of Kosovo
The writer states: "In short, they all lied, "
Therefore, based on the evidence that the Iraq war was a lie, where are the prosecutions?
Millions of people are dead, soldiers are dead or maimed, Iraq is reduced to rubble in parts
of its land and nothing happens to the perpetrators of lies. What does this say about our
so-called "justice system"? http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/will-war-criminals-be-brought-to.html
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
It is the same today with the intelligence being fixed to justify the US exit from the INF
treaty.
Why does the administration not tell us what the range of the disputed missile is?
Why would Russia deploy a land-based missile in breach of the treaty when it could deploy
it at sea and not violate any treaty?
Not surprisingly, this information has not been supplied.
Behind the decision to leave the INF treaty is John Bolton. He also fought to remove Jose
Bustani as the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which
governs the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Bustani was trying to bring Iraq into that treaty. That is why he had to go. If he had
succeeded it would have removed the excuse for war.
It's astonishing that creeps like Fleischer have the temerity to show their faces in public.
His lies caused terrible damage to America and millions of innocent civilians in the Middle
East. He should shut the **** up and thank his lucky stars he wasn't sent to prison for his
part in this disgusting episode.
The War of Lies Against Iraq
By Eric S. Margolis
March 23, 2019
Sixteen years ago, the US and Britain committed a crime of historic proportion, the
invasion and destruction of Iraq. It was as egregious an aggression as Nazi Germany's 1939
invasion of Poland.
Large numbers of Iraqi civilians died from 2003-2007. Iraq's water and sewage systems were
bombed, causing widespread cholera. The UN estimated 500,000 Iraqi children alone died as a
result. Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, said it was 'a price worth paying.'
[read more at link below]
And now we get to do all over again, with the right target this time, Iran. Don't forget that
after 9/11 the first call was to go after Iran and not our trusty allies in the ME who were
the real perps. Iraq was just the consolation prize for these insane ideologues, who should
all be in jailed for war crimes.
If you define weapons of mass destruction as nuclear war capabilities, then Iraq had none. If
you define weapons of mass destruction as chemical, then Iraq historically had these weapons
which it used against Iran, the Kurds, and shot some in Iraq War I at Israel. What happened
to the chemical weapons? They were sold/moved to Syria, where they still are today, and still
being used by the Assad regime. When the US troops got to Iraq in Gulf War II, the chemical
weapons were gone from Iraq, but not from Syria, which is why Iran, has a vested interest in
being involved in Syria, not to mention Israel. Does this help to make more sense of what
seems to be a perpetual war?
Trump just wanted these chemical weapons destroyed and never created again, and the US will
evacuate the Middle East once this is accomplished.
The article and the comments say it all: the lies, nothing else, were used to destroy Iraq!
No intell "mistake" can be offered-it is and was a neo con deception of the country and
the world.
Accountability, however, will not happen. Very ominous for the situation pertaining to
Iran and Venezuela. If the thugs in suits, pompeo, bolton, abrams, feel no consequence will
happen, why worry-it is off to intervention/regime change they go.
American sheeple have the institutional memory of a gnat and the mass media coverup and
malfeseance will continue.
"Liberals were called traitors, we were right
The Bush admin's push for war stank from the beginning"
On the issue of Iraq, there's no hiding behind liberal, democrats, conservative,
republicans, libertarians, etc.
Most of the country was heck bent on war as a matter of revenge, regardless of policy. The
fear mongering for policies adjecent to the actual events and actors of 9/11 was not only
coming out of DC, but main street. New Yorkers were no less intent on war making than the WH,
Congress or various think tanks, businesses or educators from elite or non-elite schools.
And what has occurred since moots any real escape in labels. The group who should have
been the least likely and the most prudent, the most thoughtful – the conservatives had
bent conservatism so out of distortion that even they had no defense against unreason.
I have tended to give the president and those in the WH and Congress the benefit of the
doubt that they sincerely considered a response in the region as a defense. I did not go to
select schools, and the schools I did attend did not require me to Ovid or an overview of the
classics in Greek or Latin. I had not attended a war college class or anything of the kind.
But when the case was presented for war – it simply didn't have the evidence or a
rationale that made sense. In fact, some of those contentions contradicted the what was known
as well as each other. It was deeply disturbing and disappointing. But when I read the
president's response to Dir. Tenet,
"If that's all you got, we can't go to war"
or words to that effect, they reflected my thoughts entirely. And for a long time I
considered that all of this mayhem was part of a diplomatic package. I was already outside
the main on the issue of Afghanistan, which I thought was overkill and strategically unsound
for the what should have been the goal – dealing with the actors of 9/11.
I do agree with Inspector Ritter, it was also quite clear that until the inspectors had
finished their mission, minus any evidence that Pres Hussein was in violation – there
was no case. Nor was there a case for invasion based on any humanitarian crisis or
genocide.
But what I have not been able to do is cross that line that they the president knowing and
deliberately conspired to manufacture (lie) evidence against an innocent party. And I have
been able to cross that line to despite having contemplated this article for two days and I
will no doubt read it again, to include the references. Those of that objected the first go
'round, if not pacifists, have problem read several pools of of information and arguments
regarding the case or lack thereof for war and the misleading the country by the leadership.
And it's frustrating that those who actually got the matter spot on are still battling the
those that got the matter and subsequent similar advances incorrect to this day. It's down
right painful considering the measures that were engaged to not merely silence opposition,
but to destroy people's lives.
What has been broken may not be repairable, one hopes it is, believes it is, but reading
this article is just too deep wound to see it. And what is salt in the wound has been three
years of accusations about Russian collusion for the purposes of undermining the executive
who claimed we should reconsider how we address the adventures. And the near total buy in of
that press by half of the country minus any catastrophic event, makes the wars seem as window
dressing to a much deeper and darker ethic that plagues us.
And then there is the question of what to do about all of this official misrepresentation.
Not only must we filter out whether they knowingly lied, but what to do about it. The
daunting task of arresting so many in so many positions of leadership and research. I
consider it serious business to make a false report, much less doing so on a document of
declaration for official business -- that is purjury. We impeached a president because he
mislead about what was a private intimate indiscretion --
What s described above is devastatingly more egregious by several Everests in
magnitude.
And it implicates our partners in what could only be a crime: Great Britain, Israel,
Australia, Poland and others who aided and abetted in the matter.
Caveat pre-defense: L'est I be called an anti-semite, Israel has a right to exist and self
defense.
They were wrong. And that the factual data contradicted their claims may not be enough to
claim they did not genuinely believe their own "lies" if "lies" they were. Or maybe I am just
unwilling to hold people on my team to account to the standard required. Perhaps, accepting
the idea that they knowingly perjured themselves is just too painful to accept.
Unwilling to call a spade a spade – maybe just too merciful or at the end of the day
-- cowardice.
A newly declassified US intelligence memo has been unearthed this week and featured in a bombshell
Wall
Street Journal
report. It proves that the year prior to the Bush administration's 2003
invasion of Iraq the White House was expressly warned in great detail of all that could and would
go wrong in the regime change war's aftermath, including
the Sunni-Shia sectarian chaos and
proxy war with Iran
that would define Iraq and the whole region for years following. And
crucially, it reveals that seven months
before
the US invasion of Iraq, American
intelligence officials understood that
Osama bin Laden was likely "alive and well and
hiding in northwest Pakistan"
--
important given that a key Bush
admin claim to sell the war was that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were
"in league"
against the
United States.
The
July 2002 memo
was authored by William Burns, then serving as assistant secretary of state for near eastern
affairs, and though clearly dismissed by the Bush neocons making the case for war, proved prescient
on many levels.
"Following are some very quick and informal thoughts on how events before,
during and after an effort to overthrow the regime in Baghdad could unravel if we're not careful,
intersecting to create
a 'perfect storm'
for American interests,"
Burns wrote
in the memo, classified 'Secret' and sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The classified memo's existence was first brought to the public's attention through
Knight Ridder's reporting
in July 2003, which sought to reveal at the time there were pockets
of dissenting voices in the State Department and intelligence community pushing back against the
absurd White House claim that the whole operation would be a
"cakewalk"
and US troops would be greeted as "liberators". And there's Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous
declaration that the military effort
would take
"weeks rather than months."
Now, sixteen years after the start of the war the "perfect storm" intel briefing has been made
public in fully redacted form and it affirms, as the
WSJ reports
, "Diplomats accurately forecast many setbacks:
sectarian violence, attacks
on U.S. troops, Iranian intervention and long road to structural change
." Out of this came
the rise of ISIS and the continued unleashing of regime change and sectarian chaos on neighboring
Syria.
The ten page memo outlines a litany of
catastrophic doom and gloom scenarios
resulting from the invasion which would destabilize not only Iraq, but
unleash sectarian
hell on the entire region
.
Here are but a handful of the memo's many warnings which later proved right on target, as
summarized by the military reporting website
Task
& Purpose
:
Iran increasing aid to anti-American groups in both Iraq and Afghanistan because it
feared being "next on US hit list."
Security in Iraq collapsing following regime change because Iraqi troops and police would
be too afraid to patrol while Iraqis aligned with the United States would prove to be inept.
U.S. troops coming under increasing attacks as they patrol both Shiite and Sunni cities.
"If they intervene to stop disputes, they are perceived to have sided with one party or
another in a tribal dispute, thus incurring the wrath of the opposing party."
Afghanistan's security situation simultaneously deteriorating, creating the need for more
U.S. troops there.
"Carpetbaggers, bill collectors, expats and exiles," arriving in Iraq. "It will be a wild
mix."
"I don't mean to be pessimistic, because I really do believe that if we do it right this could
be a tremendous boon to the future of the region, and to U.S. national security interests," the
memo stated. "But we should have no illusion that it will be quick or easy."
And further contradicting Cheney's "weeks rather than months" claim, the memo accurately
predicted that U.S. troops would have to stay for,
"Five years – maybe four if we're lucky,
ten if we're not."
Some further interesting highlights from the July 2002 'Secret' report are below.
* * *
Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan
(the Bush admin claimed Saddam
and bin Laden were in cahoots)
"Osama bin Laden turns out to be alive and well and hiding in NW Pakistan. We press Paks,
internal stresses grow in Pakistan."
Iran and Syria targeted next
"Following US warnings that it would take the war on terrorism to all groups with global
capabilities, Iran and Syria hold summit meeting, decide US has targeted them."
Iran and Syria "strengthen positions in face of perceived US threat against them following
action in Iraq."
Sectarian score settling and Shia uprising
"This means night becomes the time for revenge, all over Iraq. A horrible wave of bloodletting
and private vengeance begins... US forces are helpless to stop the countrywide phenomenon. Police,
intelligence, senior military, and Baath Party officials effectively go into hiding..."
"Shia religious and political leaders, unhappy with composition of provisional government and
determined to secure greater share of power in post-Saddam Iraq... This leads to more violent
confrontations, and deaths, and the riots become a political tool to demonstrate power and increase
leverage against Sunnis and Kurds..."
Long US quagmire to put down sectarian powder keg
"Faced with inchoate and escalating disorder in the provinces, the US faces an agonizing
decision: step up to a more direct security role, or devolve power to local leaders."
"The Shia in the south, quietly aided by Iran, stage major revolt, taking over local government
offices and killing interim officials."
Weapons from Saddam's army will disappear (to be later used against US occupation)
"Law and Order, collecting weapons. We won't get them, most will go to ground."
"All for one, one for all, free for all - deals, short-term scrambles. It will be every clan for
itself."
"... Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes vote. ..."
"... how being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure, for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic? ..."
Foreign policy is more than just war and peace, it is a nuanced and complex issue that
directly affects us here at home. In this interview, Dr. Jane Sanders sits down with
Representative Tulsi Gabbard to talk about U.S. foreign policy and how it affects us here at
home.
Tulsi this is the first I've explored who you are. This conversation felt like a life
giving refreshment. The constant war and regime change policy of every administration since I
was a young child has been utterly confounding. We are bankrupting our society and
civilization with military expenditure exactly like a life destroying heroin addict except
it's on a global scale. These people in the powers that be together with the masses that back
them are literal sociopaths and they're entirely in control at both the highest and base
levels. The only other time I've felt as nourished by a public figure that somehow pierced
through the mainstream media was Bernie Sanders actually expressing the fact that we are an
oligarchy not a democracy. Like oligarchy, anti-war and imperialism is just not talked about.
US Americans won't acknowledge the scale of our imperialism.
Tulsi should run and both Sanders should follow her lead. As much as I love him, Bernie's
too old to be president - when it gets to the stage against Trump, we need a young, vibrant
face. Add onto that the fact that she's a veteran who actually asked to be deployed in
comparison to him, a draft dodger - he looks like an old fat pathetic septogenarian next to
an early 40s real populist. Ultimately it is up to Sanders whether this whole thing is about
a man or a movement. If he runs, he'll probably win the primary but it is not a guarantee
that he'd win - Tulsi would win and she'd be around for decades to come as a standard barer
too.
"Sensible politics" seems to be an oxymoron these days and pretty much throughout the
history of our country. It's so refreshing to see a politician who has a vision for the
future that the majority of us can get behind. It scares me though. I've read quite a bit
about JFK the past few years, and he amassed a number of very powerful and dangerous enemies.
They won't just stand by and allow someone in a position of influence to get the truth out
about our immoral and illegal wars. Tulsi, I support your efforts to bring peace to the
Middle East and elsewhere, but please do be careful. You're a fighter and I admire that, but
we all want you to be safe and healthy for many years to come.
Tulsi Gabbard, I am thrilled to have someone like you running for president. I am a fellow
Veteran dealing with disability and I am glad to have a candidate who understands the issues
Veterans are dealing with. I also realize that the voting public will support the person who
resonates with their personal lives and issues that don't exist in their life they will
disregard.Thank you for you're support.
The DNC will lie cheat and steal the election from Tulsi Gabbard just like they did Bernie
Sanders, and the 15 million Americans who Left the un-Democratic party will double and
triple....DEMEXIT
Tulsi Gabbard needs to be the president of the United States of America period. If she not
the president of our country will not survive. That is a fact, how stupid can our government
be. I guess very stupid, what else can I say. We don't hear that in main news media, the
reason we do hear it the media . The news media is totally brought, the main news media love
money and the devil, simple as that. How are you going to hear about wars from main news
media. They do care about the citizens or the country. We really don't have a real news
media, it all propaganda. All fake news, that why one doesn't hear anything from the new
medias.
Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one
responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime
change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes
vote.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE! Bernie is a sell-out - a sheeple-herder that never intended to win. He
was a gatekeeper for Hillary because she is AIPAC-beloved and he is an Israel-firster. He
threw his supporters under the bus as they told him in real time that the nomination was
being stolen. He's part of the con, and the sooner we realize this, the better off we'll be.
BERNIE WORKS FOR DEMOCRATS. Vote Third Party (REAL third parties, not the Bernie Sanders'
kind).
Kinky, 2 months ago
Tulsi - re your comment about our veterans who have "served and sacrificed for their country," could you clarify how
being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure,
for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our
country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic?
"... However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute. ..."
Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. died at the age of 76 on Sunday after an extended illness for which was a granted a leave of absence from
Congress last year.
The Republican representative for North Carolina's 3rd congressional district since 1995 had initially been a strong supporter
of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and even became well-known for getting french fries renamed as "freedom fries" in the House cafeteria
as a protest against French condemnation of the US invasion.
... ... ...
However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret
over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism
abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute.
Remembering Jones as a tireless advocate of peace, Ron Paul
notes that he " turned
from pro-war to an antiwar firebrand after he discovered how Administrations lie us into war . His passing yesterday is deeply mourned
by all who value peace and honesty over war and deception." The Ron Paul Institute has also called him "a Hero of Peace" for both
his voting record and efforts at shutting down the "endless wars".
And Antiwar.com also describes Jones as having been among the "most consistently antiwar members of Congress" and
a huge supporter
of their work:
By 2005, Jones had reversed his position on the Iraq War. Jones called on President George W. Bush to apologize for misinforming
Congress to win authorization for the war. Jones said, "If I had known then what I know today, I wouldn't have voted for
that resolution."
Jones went on to become one of the most antiwar members of Congress, fighting for ending US involvement in Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, and Yemen.
Also the BBC describes Rep. Jones' "dramatic change of heart" concerning the Iraq war starting in 2005, after which he began reaching
out to thousands of people who had lost loves ones in combat.
Rep. Walter Jones led an effort in the House to call French Fries "Freedom Fries" instead, but came to profoundly regret his role
in supporting Bush's war.
Noting that "no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq" and that the war was justified by the Bush administration based
entirely on lies and false intelligence, the BBC describes:
At the same time, Mr Jones met grieving families whose loved ones were killed in the war. This caused him to have a dramatic
change of heart, and in 2005 he called for the troops to be brought home.
He spoke candidly on several occasions about how deeply he regretted supporting the war, which led to the deaths of more than
140,000 Iraqi and American people.
"I have signed over 12,000 letters to families and extended families who've lost loved ones in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,"
he told NPR in 2017. "That was, for me, asking God to forgive me for my mistake."
In total he represented his district for 34 years, first in the North Carolina state legislature, then in Congress. He took a
leave of absence last year after a number of missed House votes due to declining health.
We just got done conquering Iraq. We haven't stayed to loot the oil.
The US has NOT successfully conquered Iraq (has not pacified the country). Oil is not like
a bag of diamonds, which you can grab and run. In order to steal a worthwhile amount of the
greasy stuff, you have to make a substantial investment up front, in wells and shipping
terminals. Not even the greediest thief will risk his money if there is even the slightest
chance that his wells and terminals will be blown up by righteous nationalists. This is why
the US hasn't stolen much from Iraq.
So now you believe we're going to Venezuela to take their crappy heavy oil?
That the US hasn't been able to steal much from Iraq tells us little about whether the
Americans have larcenous motives with regard to Venezuela. Especially as Trump has been
talking loudly about the oil.
It would be easier for us just to build a pipeline to Alberta and import all their
cheap, shut-in heavy crude.
"... Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was mixed. ..."
"... PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem. ..."
"... There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go. ..."
"... I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq. ..."
Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign
interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was
mixed.
We launched an ineffective volley of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to a trumped up gas attack, but we never
sought to establish a no fly zone and risk war with Russia. For a while we were well on our way to establish an enduring client state
in east Syria. We assumed this was all the doing of the cabal of manipulating neocons that Trump surrounded himself with. His call
for immediate withdrawal of troops from Syria surely proved this true. Finally Trump was allowed to be Trump. He was even seeking
a way out of Afghanistan, after a literal lifetime of war in that godforsaken land.
The neocons are fighting back bigly. The pace of withdrawal from Syria was slowed and there is no indication we would ever
give up our outpost on the Baghdad-Damascus highway at Tanf. Why? I think Trump laid out HIS thoughts on the matter during the traditional
pre-super bowl presidential interview.
-- -- -- --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to protect Israel. We have to protect other things that we have...
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you want to keep troops there [Iraq] now?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the
reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Whoa, that's news. You're keeping troops in Iraq because you want to be able to strike in Iran?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable
and expensive military base built in Iraq. It's perfectly situated for looking at all over different parts of the troubled Middle
East rather than pulling up. And this is what a lot of people don't understand. We're going to keep watching and we're going to
keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before
they do.
-- -- -- --
So, We are staying in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran and we are doing this to protect Israel. It was not any of the neocons who said
this. It was Trump himself. So much for America first. There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force
after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue
providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go.
However, Baghdad has thrown a monkey wrench into this developing Trump doctrine. Iraqi President Barham Salih has told Trump to
slow his roll.
-- -- -- --
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Barham Salih said on Monday that President Donald Trump did not ask Iraq's permission for
U.S. troops stationed there to "watch Iran."
Speaking at a forum in Baghdad, Salih was responding to a question about Trump's comments to CBS about how he would ask troops
stationed in Iraq to "watch" Iran. U.S. troops in Iraq are there as part of an agreement between the two countries with a specific
mission of combating terrorism, Salih said, and that they should stick to that. (Reuters)
-- -- -- --
I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq.
"... An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran ..."
"... Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue? For another 100 years? ..."
"... The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness. ..."
Trump wants to
keep U.S. forces in Iraq so they can "watch" Iran:
President Trump plans to keep United States troops in Iraq to monitor and maintain pressure on neighboring Iran, committing
to an American military presence in the region's war zones even as he moves to withdraw forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
"I want to be able to watch Iran," Mr. Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We're going to
keep watching and we're going to keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things,
we're going to know it before they do."
An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops
in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that
their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran.
Many Iraqis already want U.S. forces out of the country now that ISIS has been dealt with, and there will probably be even more
demanding our withdrawal if Trump tries to keep U.S. forces there for this purpose.
Trump's suggestion that Iran might "do nuclear weapons" is more of the same propaganda that he and his officials have been pushing
for months. Iran is unable to develop and build nuclear weapons because it is complying with the nuclear deal that Trump reneged
on. Thanks to the nuclear deal, the IAEA is able to conduct very intrusive inspections as part of the most rigorous verification
regime, and they would be the first to know if Iran were violating the restrictions set down in the JCPOA.
It is unlikely that the Iraqi government is going to agree to a U.S. presence that is being justified by hostility to its neighbor.
Iraq's president has already said that the U.S. military presence is permitted in the country only for the purposes of counter-terrorism:
Iraq's government wants to maintain good relations with Iran, and it isn't going to go along with an anti-Iranian agenda that
can only harm Iraq's economic and security interests. Many of Iran's neighbors are not as obsessed with and hostile to Iran as the
Trump administration, and Iraq definitely doesn't want to be a front-line state in some anti-Iranian coalition. Trump's proposal
would needlessly put U.S. troops at greater risk in Iraq, and it would gain the U.S. nothing except more resentment from Iraqis.
Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this
occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue?
For another 100 years?
The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness.
Neocons are "enemies of the people" independent of their party affiliation. Nuremberg principles were written not for nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks. ..."
"... The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence. ..."
There is an unforgettable passage in Graham Greene's classic "The Quiet American" in which the
title character, a CIA agent named Alden Pyle, admits that Vietnam is much more complicated
than he'd imagined. "I had not realized how tribal politics was and how divorced it could be
from principles or conviction," Pyle says. Surveying the wreckage of the American war effort,
he adds, "Looking back with greater introspection and humility after the passage of more than
fifteen years, I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it was all a big mistake."
Greene's admirers will recognize that these lines do not actually come from his 1955 novel.
They are from Max Boot's new book, " The Corrosion of
Conservatism: Why I Left the Right ." Boot, a leading intellectual in the conservative
movement for the past two decades, is now apologizing for nearly everything he has done and
abided. He is denouncing not just Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole. "Upon
closer examination," he writes in his 260-page atonement, "it's obvious that the whole history
of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance,
isolationism, and know-nothingism."
The temptation is to say, Bravo, here at last is a Republican willing to admit the emperor
has no clothes. That's the reaction of lots of journalists and
pundits who have flipped
through Boot's book. Jacob Heilbrunn wrote in the
Washington Monthly that Boot's "readiness to reexamine his old convictions is admirable."
Adam Serwer, writer at The Atlantic, tweeted , "You don't want to
punish people for getting the right answer." Boot is no longer a Republican (he quit the party
after Trump's election) but he is hardly an outcast in the political world -- he is a
Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a CNN
analyst. Such is the sweet life of a born-again intellectual.
It's easy to understand why a penitent like Boot appeals to liberals and other members of
the Trump resistance. He ratifies their sense of having been correct from the start, and his
confession is enunciated in perfect sound bites, with just the right dose of abasement. Boot is
an irresistible spectacle -- the sinner with tears running down his cheeks dropping to his
knees at the altar of all that is good, proclaiming that he has seen the light and wants to
join the army of righteousness. But here's the thing: Boot is only half-apologizing. And
because he's been wrong so many times and with so many ill consequences, he should be provided
with nothing more than a polite handshake as he's led out of the sanctuary of politics,
forever.
When I say wrong, I mean Guinness World Records wrong. In his first book, " Out of
Order ," Boot argued that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Brown v. Board of
Education that school segregation violated the Constitution ("I am not proud of 'Out of
Order,'" he now says); he was a key proponent of the invasion of Iraq ("Once we have deposed
Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the
one in Kabul," he proclaimed in 2001);
he thought John Bolton was treated unfairly when Democrats
opposed his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations ("He seems like a good choice
to help drain the U.N. cesspool of corrupt bureaucrats and self-serving tyrants");
he thought
Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly
maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone
except the staff of Commentary
magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the
GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks.
That's a lot of wrong. It's so much wrong that I can't imagine how or why anyone could look
at Boot and think, "Ah, here's a man we should listen to." I can pre-empt Boot's response to
this -- in his book, he complains that "doctrinaire leftists" will be satisfied with nothing
less than his "ritual suicide" for the war crimes he's committed. I've exchanged a few cordial
emails with Boot (we both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, a few years
apart, and worked at its student newspaper, the Daily Californian ), and I can honestly say he seems a nice and
bright enough fellow to whom I wish no physical harm. But like Alden Pyle, he has helped create
so much havoc, he has been wrong so completely, that it would be the definition of insanity to
treat his ideas as fodder for anything other than a shredder. Here's a real line from "The
Quiet American," spoken about Pyle by the novel's weary narrator, that suits Boot perfectly: "I
never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." Pyle's innocence, the
book explains, "is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no
harm."
The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and
intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic
consequence.
Boot is a perfect example, because he has been wrong so many times in such major
ways and is actually willing to admit it. But there are vast numbers of pundits , masters of
spin , and
allegedintellectuals who have been wrong
enough on enough big things (not just war, but climate change and more) to merit laughter
rather than praise. Yet there they are,
stroking their chins on our finest
op-ed pages and cable news channels. Mutual forgiveness is a necessity among pundits who are
stuffed with nonsense much of the time; without mercy on demand, they might all be out of jobs.
It's no surprise that Boot's book arrives with admiring blurbs from D.C. heavyweights James
Fallows, Jon Meacham, and David Corn, among others.
March 20, 2018, marks the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. While the American footprint in Iraq has drastically
changed over 15 years, a significant number of the original cheerleaders for the invasion still hold prominent roles in the media
today:
John Bolton, Fox News contributor
Bolton was President George W. Bush's
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control when the Iraq War began.
Bolton backed an Iraq invasion as early as 1998, when he signed a letter from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC),
a neoconservative group led by William Kristol, urging then-President Bill Clinton to attack Saddam Hussein. As the State Department's
top arms-control official during President Bush's first term, Bolton played a role in pushing the allegation that Saddam Hussein
sought uranium in Africa.
"We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq." [BBC,
11/20/02
]
"I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct." [Talking Points Memo,
5/14/15 ]
Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior contributor
Kudlow was economics editor of
National Review and a co-host of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer when the Iraq War began.
"Could it be that a lack of decisive follow-through in the global war on terrorism is the single biggest problem facing the stock
market and the nation today? I believe it is. The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand
points." [ National Review ,
6/26/02 ]
"Every day we wait for the impending invasion of Iraq is a day Saddam Hussein grows stronger, a day our national security is threatened,
and a day our economic security is jeopardized." [ National Review ,
2/6/03 ]
Boot's bloodthirstiness is united with a peculiar naïveté about America; it must be said that in this respect he is not unlike
Lansdale. Could it really have been, as Boot wrote in 2017, that only Trump opened his eyes to the fact that it's a bit easier
to be a white guy in America, that "I benefitted from my skin color and my gender -- and those of a different gender or sexuality
or skin color have suffered because of it"? Good for Max if he's had a change of heart and seen the world through more empathetic
eyes; one only wishes he could've had those moments of reflection, which seem so modest and so reasonable, circa 2001. But that
might not have changed anything. He wrote as recently as 2013 that he feels "No Need to Repent for Support of the Iraq War." He
declares, "I feel no shame being part of the 75 percent of Americans who believed at the beginning that this was a war worth waging."
This move is not quite honest: Boot wants to submerge himself into the center of a crowd, one of the democratic mass, when in
fact he was at its vanguard, pushing for the Iraq War early and often.
"Once Afghanistan has been dealt with, America should turn its attention to Iraq." [ The Weekly Standard ,
10/15/01 ]
"In places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and very shortly Iraq, ordinary people clamor for American intervention, and welcome
U.S. troops as liberators." [Nimitz Memorial Lecture at University of California, Berkeley,
3/12/03 ]
"No need to repent for support of [the] Iraq war." [ Commentary ,
3/18/13 ]
"But how exactly does the Iraq War differ from previous wars? From World War I, when the Great Powers were said to have 'sleepwalked'
into a conflict that no one really wanted?" [ Commentary ,
7/6/16 ]
Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist
Cohen
was a Washington Post columnist when the Iraq War began.
"Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or
possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise." [ The Washington Post ,
2/6/03 ]
"Initially, I thought bringing down Saddam Hussein was a good cause. I was wrong -- not about the cause, but about its practicality."
[ The Washington Post ,
4/1/08 ]
Ari Fleischer, Fox News contributor
Flesicher served as President Bush's
press secretary as the Iraq War began.
"My point is, the likelihood is much more like Afghanistan, where the people who live right now under a brutal dictator will view
America as liberators, not conquerors." [ The New York Times ,
10/12/02 ]
"There's no question that if force is used, it will achieve the objective of preserving the peace far faster than the current
path that we're on." [White House press briefing, 2/14/03
]
"Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice." [White House press briefing,
3/21/03 ]
"I think that if you look at the Iraqi people, the Iraqi people are overwhelmingly pleased with the fact the United States has
helped them to get rid of the Saddam Hussein regime. That was clear from their dancing in the streets, from the way they tore down
the statues. And I think that is the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people." [White House press briefing,
7/1/03 ]
Sean Hannity, Fox News host
Hannity was also a syndicated talk radio host
and a Fox News host when the Iraq War began.
"We're going to find all the weapons of mass destruction." [Fox News, Hannity & Colmes , 2/19/03, via Nexis]
"I was a real believer in the Iraq War. I still am to this day. I still feel that there were probably weapons of mass destruction.
I do believe they were likely moved to Syria in the long lead-up to the war." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show
,
9/7/16 ]
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief
Hayes was a senior writer at The
Weekly Standard when the Iraq War began.
"Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives
and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi
financial support for al Qaeda." [ The Weekly Standard ,
11/24/03 ]
Hayes' 2004 book was titled The Connection: How Al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America .
[ Media Matters ,
6/30/04 ]
Fred Hiatt, Washington Post editorial director
Hiatt has been
editorial page director of The Washington Post since 1999.
As Media Matters has
documented , the Washington Post editorial page -- headed by Hiatt since 1999 -- repeatedly echoed the Bush administration's
claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A February 6, 2003,
editorial began, "After Secretary Of State Colin L. Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, it
is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."
The Post 's editorial page also
linked the need to invade Iraq to the 9/11 attacks:
During the past decade the United States vowed many times to disarm Saddam Hussein, who made no secret of his hatred and enmity
toward the United States; but when the Iraqi dictator resisted, the United States chose to abandon its vows rather than use the
force that would have been needed to enforce them. In every case, the calculation, stated or unstated, was the same: Pay tribute,
don't make trouble, and maybe nothing worse will happen.
In the ruins of Lower Manhattan in September 2001, most Americans saw evidence that this calculation was incorrect as well
as craven. The nation's enemies would not be deterred or mollified by a gentle response; they would be emboldened. President Bush
rightly concluded that the nation had to defend itself more vigilantly but also that no defense could succeed unless accompanied
by an offensive against the terrorists and the states that sheltered them.
Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard editor-at-large
Kristol was a co-founder of
Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank Kristol used to crusade for the Iraq War.
Saddam Hussein "will not disarm peacefully. And he must be disarmed. So war will come. The war itself will clarify who was right
and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about
Saddam's regime." [ The Weekly Standard ,
3/17/03 ]
Kristol bragged that the war would last just two months:
In 2015, Kristol
defended
the decision to invade Iraq:
Even with the absence of caches of weapons of mass destruction, and the mistakes we made in failing to send enough troops at
first and to provide security from the beginning for the Iraqi people, we were right to persevere through several difficult years.
We were able to bring the war to a reasonably successful conclusion in 2008.
Paul Gigot, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor
Gigot has been the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal since 2001.
Under Gigot, the editorial page
frequently hyped the likelihood that Saddam Hussein was close to producing or obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Journal
forwarded alarmist claims about Iraq's nuclear capabilities on numerous occasions:
August 2, 2002: "Above all, a debate would let Mr. Bush demonstrate that he has by far the stronger case. Even the critics
concede that Saddam is a threat, after all, a tyrant who has gassed his own people, tried to kill a U.S. President and whose military
routinely fires at American pilots patrolling no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
said Monday that before the Gulf War Saddam was 'within a year or two' of having nuclear weapons. And at Wednesday's Senate hearings,
former Iraqi nuclear engineer Khidir Hamza said Saddam will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005."
August 29, 2002: "There is always the chance that Congress could refuse the President. But this must be measured against the
strong case the Administration has, a case Vice President Dick Cheney pressed earlier this week in Nashville. Mr. Cheney flatly
declared that when it comes to a nuclear-armed Saddam, 'the risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.'"
September 25, 2002: "And then there is the redoubtable Mr. Blair, an ally who continues to risk dissent in his party and country
for a cause in which he believes. Yesterday Mr. Blair released a dossier of intelligence on Iraq. The 50-page report describes
how Saddam has tried to buy uranium from Africa for use in nuclear weapons, has 20 missiles that could reach British military
bases in Cyprus as well as Israel and NATO members Greece and Turkey, and stating that Iraq's chemical weapons are on standby
for use within 45 minutes. 'The policy of containment is not working. The WMD program is not shut down. It is up and running,'
Mr. Blair told Parliament."
September 9, 2002: "Democrats hardly need two more months now to deliberate over this evidence, most of which they already
know. They merely want to push any decision past Election Day so their votes won't put their Senate majority at risk. They can
then posture as statesmen for two months but only declare themselves after the day when voters would be able to hold them immediately
responsible. Let's hope Saddam's nuclear weapons program is operating on the same wait-until-the-election timetable."
A January 27, 2003, editorial was titled "If Saddam Survives."
Judith Miller, Fox News contributor
Miller was a New York Times reporter
when the Iraq War began.
Miller produced a series of now-debunked reports that the Bush administration used to buttress its claim that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction. As Franklin Foer wrote for New York magazine:
During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein's ambition
and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by [Ahmad] Chalabi and his allies --
almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.
For the past year, the Times has done much to correct that coverage, publishing a series of stories calling Chalabi's
credibility into question. [ New York magazine, 6
/7/04 ]
In a 2004 interview, she told The New
York Review of Books: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My
job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal."
Former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller
discussed
Miller's Iraq War reporting with Media Matters in 2011:
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller says one of his biggest mistakes as editor was not addressing the paper's
misleading pre-Iraq War coverage sooner, including the reporting of former Times writer Judy Miller.
Keller tells Media Matters that he is "not at all" surprised that Miller ended up at the "conservative" Fox News Channel
after she left the Times under a cloud of controversy related to her Iraq reporting.
Keller, who announced Thursday that in September he will leave the post he has held since July 2003, said: "Judy was the author
of a lot of those stories, and I should have dealt with the stories and with her I think as the sort of first order of business
when I took the job rather than waiting until the following year."
Keller was referring to the unusual
editor's note the
Times published on May 26, 2004, in which it admitted many of its pre-war stories about weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq -- a number of which were reported by Miller -- misrepresented the situation before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The whole Judy Miller WMD experience was ... one of the low points of the last eight years," Keller said.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host
Scarborough
was hired by MSNBC as the Iraq War began.
Joe Scarborough repeatedly cheered on the Iraq War and attacked people who criticized it.
"Congressman [Jack] Kingston [R-GA], give me a quick response. How could there be anyone left on the planet today that doesn't
believe that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?" [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/5/03, via Nexis]
Toppling Saddam Hussein "will mean the end of his weapons of mass destruction." [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/11/03, via
Nexis]
"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types
. I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe
the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war
.
"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief UN weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein?
Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, 'The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between
its legs, defeated.' Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail, again.
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step
forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions
were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their
mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing." [MSNBC 4/10/03 via
FAIR ]
Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist and MSNBC contributor
Stephens
was editor of The Jerusalem Post when the Iraq War began.
As The New Yorker
noted , in 2003 Stephens' Jerusalem Post "named one of the Iraq War's chief architects, Paul Wolfowitz, its 'man of
the year.'"
"Saddam may unveil, to an astonished world, the Arab world's first nuclear bomb." [ The Jerusalem Post ,
11/15/02 ]
Stephens criticized the Obama administration's case for military intervention in Syria by contrasting it with Bush's decision
to invade Iraq, which he claimed was made based on "highly detailed" intelligence revealing weapons of mass destruction. Stephens
claimed that the "testimony of U.N. inspectors like Hans Blix" supported the Bush administration's case for war, and accusations
that the Bush administration lied were "libel" and "cheap slander." In fact, Blix told CNN in 2004 that the Bush administration "chose
to ignore" his team's concerns about the lack of solid evidence in favor of war, and that prior to the invasion the evidence of WMDs
in Iraq was revealed to be "shaky." [ Media Matters ,
4/13/17 ]
David Frum, Atlantic senior editor
Frum was a speechwriter for President
Bush when the Iraq War began.
Frum is renowned for writing George W. Bush's
"Axis of Evil" speech. Alex Nichols
described
Frum's Iraq boosterism in 2017:
Bush chief speechwriter Michael Gerson, a fellow fanatical interventionist and veteran of the neoconservative underworld, tapped
Frum for the speechwriting team in 2000. His greatest accomplishment was the authorship of Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech,
now known for its most famous phrase, "axis of evil." The axis was a grouping of three countries -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea
-- that were implicit allies in a plot to destroy America. The supposed ties between the three mostly came down to their mutual
love for imaginary "weapons of mass destruction" and non-existent collaboration with al-Qaeda. As Trump threatens war crimes against
civilians in Iraq and Syria, sanctions Iran despite its compliance with our nuclear agreement and threatens "fire and fury" for
North Korea, Frum must be held accountable for cementing them as boogeymen in the public imagination.
Frum resigned his post in February 2002 in order to join the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank then
working in close association with the Bush administration. With them, he emerged as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of
the War on Terror. In 2004, Frum and former adviser to the Bush Department of Defense Richard Perle published a book titled An
End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. Its text was as audacious as its title. "An End to Evil will define the conservative
point of view on foreign policy for a new generation -- and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond,"
a description of it reads. By this time, the Iraq War was in full swing, and Frum and Perle offered full-throated apologia. Under
the assumptions that the war would bring stable democracy to Iraq and that the imaginary WMDs would be located soon enough, they
called for similar action against North Korea and Iran.
Eli Lake, Bloomberg View columnist
Lake was a State Department
correspondent for United Press International (UPI) when the Iraq War began.
As
noted
by Adam Weinstein for Gawker, Lake
argued
for the legality of the Iraq War in a 2003
column for UPI:
"On the facts of the case, it is hard to argue that Iraq has given up its weapons of mass destruction. ... With this kind of
evidence, far from being an international outlaw, the United States would be a the (sic) defender of the entire institution of
international (sic) should it lead a war to disarm Iraq."
Eliot Cohen, Atlantic contributing editor
Cohen was a co-founder
of Project for the New American Century.
MSNBC's Zachary Roth described
Cohen's role in boosting the Iraq War in 2013:
[Cohen] was a key agitator for an Iraq invasion and for a maximalist response to the 9/11 attacks. In a November 2001 op-ed
in which he called the War on Terror "World War IV," Cohen argued that the US. should "target" Iraq because it had "helped al
Qaeda" and "developed weapons of destruction." Not long after, he touted a spurious connection between Muhammed Atta, the chief
9/11 hijacker, and Saddam's regime. In Congressional testimony in 2002, Cohen framed a stark choice for policymakers: Allow Saddam
"to acquire weapons of mass destruction or to take action to overthrow him." In 2007, Cohen became a top adviser to Condoleezza
Rice at the State Department.
Ann Coulter
Coulter was a prominent conservative author and
commentator when the Iraq War began.
Coulter, alongside Sean Hannity,
pushed lies about Army Ranger Pat Tillman's opposition to the Iraq War. Asawin Suebsaeng
wrote in 2017 for The Daily Beast about Coulter's Iraq War boosterism and how she has pivoted away from it under Trump:
"I think Iraq was a crucial part of the war on terrorism -- if you had to choose between Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd take Iraq
over Afghanistan," Coulter said on a Fox Business panel, debating anti-war libertarians, in late 2011. "PATRIOT Act, fantastic,
Gitmo, fantastic, waterboarding, not bad, though [even harsher] torture would've been better."
Coulter went on to tell a bewildered John Stossel and Matt Welch that "[Iraq] is a fantastic country for regime change," that
"torture works beautifully," and that position regarding potential blowback or unintended negative consequences to the war were
merely a "crazy ACLU argument."
Rush Limbaugh
Limbaugh was also host of his own radio show when the Iraq War began.
On April 7, 2003, Rush Limbaugh said
, "We're discovering WMDs all over Iraq." On September 26, 2007, Limbaugh
called soldiers who advocated withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." Limbaugh has
subsequently tried to justify the Iraq War, even declaring that President Bush should be
added
to Mount Rushmore . In January 2018, Limbaugh
accused the "deep state" of faking weapons of mass destruction evidence in Iraq to damage Bush.
Nicole Wallace, MSNBC host
Wallace
was George W. Bush's communications director as the Iraq War began.
"[Obama's] legacy on foreign policy is going to be that he didn't start a war in Iraq. He wasn't the president, thank God, in
the years after 9/11." [MSNBC, 5/30/14 ]
https://democracynow.org - As the media memorializes George H.W. Bush, we look at the
lasting impact of his 1991 invasion of Iraq and the propaganda campaign that encouraged it.
Although the Gulf War technically ended in February of 1991, the U.S. war on Iraq would
continue for decades, first in the form of devastating sanctions and then in the 2003 invasion
launched by George W. Bush. Thousands of U.S. troops and contractors remain in Iraq. A largely
forgotten aspect of Bush Sr.'s war on Iraq is the vast domestic propaganda effort before the
invasion began. We look at the way U.S. media facilitated the war on Iraq with journalist John
"Rick" MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper's Magazine and the author of the book
"Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War."
Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on nearly 1,400 TV and
radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET:
https://democracynow.org
The tributes to former President George H.W. Bush, who died on Friday aged 94, have been
pouring in from all sides of the political spectrum. He was a man "of the highest character,"
said his
eldest son and fellow former president, George W. Bush. "He loved America and served with
character, class, and integrity," tweeted former U.S. Attorney and #Resistance icon Preet
Bharara. According to another former president, Barack Obama , Bush's life was "a
testament to the notion that public service is a noble, joyous calling. And he did tremendous
good along the journey." Apple boss Tim Cook said : "We have lost a great
American."
In the age of Donald Trump, it isn't difficult for hagiographers of the late Bush Sr. to
paint a picture of him as a great patriot and pragmatist; a president who governed with "class"
and "integrity." It is true that the former president refused to vote for Trump in 2016,
calling him a " blowhard ," and that he eschewed the
white nationalist, "alt-right," conspiratorial politics that has come to define the modern
Republican Party. He helped end the Cold War without, as Obama said , "firing a shot." He spent
his life serving his country -- from the military to Congress to the United Nations to the CIA
to the White House. And, by all accounts, he was also a beloved grandfather and
great-grandfather to his 17 grandkids and eight great-grandkids
.
Nevertheless, he was a public,
not a private, figure -- one of only 44 men to have ever served as president of the United
States. We cannot, therefore, allow his actual record in office to be beautified in such a
brazen way. "When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that
only praise be permitted but not criticisms," as my colleague Glenn Greenwald has argued
, because it leads to "false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts."
The inconvenient truth is that the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush had far more in
common with the recognizably belligerent, corrupt, and right-wing Republican figures who came
after him - his son George W. and the current orange-faced incumbent - than much of the
political and media classes might have you believe.
Consider:
... ... ...
He made a dishonest case for war . Thirteen years before George W. Bush lied about weapons
of mass destruction to justify his invasion and occupation of Iraq, his father made his own set
of false claims to justify the aerial bombardment of that same country. The first Gulf War, as
an investigation by journalist Joshua Holland
concluded , "was sold on a mountain of war propaganda."
For a start, Bush told the American public that Iraq had invaded Kuwait " without provocation or warning
." What he omitted to mention was that the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had given an
effective
green light to Saddam Hussein, telling him in July 1990, a week before
his invasion, "[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement
with Kuwait."
Then there is the fabrication of intelligence. Bush deployed U.S. troops to the Gulf in
August 1990 and claimed that he was doing
so in order "to assist the Saudi Arabian Government in the defense of its homeland." As Scott
Peterson wrote in the Christian Science
Monitor in 2002, "Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated that up to
250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key U.S. oil
supplier."
Yet when reporter Jean Heller of the St. Petersburg Times acquired her own commercial
satellite images of the Saudi border, she found no signs of Iraqi forces; only an empty desert.
"It was a pretty serious fib," Heller told Peterson, adding: "That [Iraqi
buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn't
exist."
President George H. W. Bush talks with Secretary of State James Baker III and Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney during a meeting of the cabinet in the White House on Jan. 17, 1991 to
discuss the Persian Gulf War. Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP
He committed war crimes. Under Bush Sr., the U.S. dropped a whopping 88,500
tons of bombs on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, many of which resulted in horrific
civilian casualties. In February 1991, for example, a U.S. airstrike on an air-raid shelter in
the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least
408 Iraqi civilians . According to Human Rights Watch , the Pentagon knew
the Amiriyah facility had been used as a civil defense shelter during the Iran-Iraq war and yet
had attacked without warning. It was, concluded HRW, "a serious violation of the laws of
war."
U.S. bombs also destroyed essential Iraqi civilian
infrastructure -- from electricity-generating and water-treatment facilities to food-processing
plants and flour mills. This was no accident. As Barton Gellman of the Washington Post
reported in June 1991: "Some targets, especially late in the war, were bombed primarily to
create postwar leverage over Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself. Planners
now say their intent was to destroy or damage valuable facilities that Baghdad could not repair
without foreign assistance. Because of these goals, damage to civilian structures and
interests, invariably described by briefers during the war as 'collateral' and unintended, was
sometimes neither."
Got that? The Bush administration deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure for
"leverage" over Saddam Hussein. How is this not terrorism? As a Harvard public health team
concluded in June 1991, less than four months after the end of the war, the destruction of
Iraqi infrastructure had resulted in acute malnutrition and "epidemic" levels of cholera and
typhoid.
By January 1992, Beth Osborne Daponte, a demographer with the U.S. Census Bureau,
was estimating that Bush's Gulf War had caused the deaths of 158,000 Iraqis, including
13,000 immediate civilian deaths and 70,000 deaths from the damage done to electricity and
sewage treatment plants. Daponte's numbers contradicted the Bush administration's, and she was
threatened by her superiors with dismissal for releasing " false information. " (Sound
familiar?)
He refused to cooperate with a special counsel . The Iran-Contra affair , in which the
United States traded missiles for Americans hostages in Iran, and used the proceeds of those
arms sales to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, did much to undermine the presidency of Ronald
Reagan. Yet his vice president's involvement in that controversial affair has garnered far less
attention. "The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete," wrote Special
Counsel Lawrence Walsh, a former deputy attorney general in the Eisenhower administration, in
his final report on the
Iran-Contra affair in August 1993.
Why? Because Bush, who was "fully aware of the Iran arms sale," according to the special
counsel, failed to hand over a diary "containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra"
and refused to be interviewed in the later stages of the investigation. In the final days of
his presidency, Bush even issued
pardons to six defendants in the Iran-Contra affair, including former Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger -- on the eve of Weinberger's trial for perjury and obstruction of
justice. "The Weinberger pardon," Walsh pointedly noted, "marked the first time a president
ever pardoned someone in whose trial he might have been called as a witness, because the
president was knowledgeable of factual events underlying the case." An angry Walsh accused
Bush of "misconduct" and helping to complete "the Iran-contra cover-up."
Looks like my comment made on the previous Syria thread was a waste of my time. Oh Well!
The Iraqi situation has clearly turned in the favor of the Outlaw US Empire as it craves
chaos. It seems more likely than ever that Sadr's been turned given his behavior. The
situation will give comfort to Neocons who want to "consolidate gains" within Syraq and
continue building their military presence.
I very much welcomed the Russian statement on the al-Tanf terrorist base; its liquidation
will hopefully come swiftly. It's instructive to compare the political stability of Syria
with Iraq's political chaos. I think it very likely we'll see Daesh's resurrection within
Iraq as that's the Outlaw US Empire's main tool to keep the chaos ongoing--the empire doesn't
fight against Daesh; rather, it uses Daesh to fight against its stated enemies
everywhere.
The Iraqi situation has clearly turned in the favor of the Outlaw US Empire as it craves
chaos.
I don't agree with that, for the obvious reason that it will be impossible to
support the US position in al-Tanf. And indeed in Syrian Kurdistan. What the US wants is a
US-agreed PM in Iraq, and moderate stability.
"... "What is quietly happening across parts of Iraq is less of a resurgence, and more a resurfacing, of the Islamic State. Many of these fighters never actually left, but merely scattered temporarily, having melted away into the population only to return. " ..."
How is ISIS resurfacing in Iraq? The short answer is that it never really left. Despite US
President Donald Trump's orders to "
annihilate ISIS ," members of the organization have continued to exist in Iraq and Syria
and carry out attacks. The caliphate has fallen and the group no longer holds the vast
territory and population it once controlled. However, supporters, organizers and fighters have
not simply disappeared. Instead, the aspiring proto-state has reverted back to its roots as a
terrorist insurgency. The US-based Soufan
Center assessed the environment as such:
"What is quietly happening across parts of Iraq is less of a resurgence, and more a
resurfacing, of the Islamic State. Many of these fighters never actually left, but merely
scattered temporarily, having melted away into the population only to return. "
The US and the UN agree that there may be as many as 30,000 ISIS
members still present in Iraq and Syria. Jason Warner and Charlotte Hulme writing for the
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC) also recently estimated that an additional
6,000
fighters are spread across Africa , with the Islamic State West-Africa Province (Boko
Haram) contributing more than half of the total. ISIS continues to wield influence further
abroad with IS-Khorasan in
Afghanistan as well as supporters in the Philippines
, Indonesia
, and throughout the Indo-Pacific.
These members and supporters received encouragement and direction from their highest leader,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in an
audio message released last month. The message promoted patience and perseverance, claiming
that the time will come again for a resurgence. In Iraq, this may be a functional
strategy.
Little change
ISIS's Iraqi presence began as al-Qaeda in Iraq, an al-Qaeda affiliate led by
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi . The group found footholds in Iraq in the chaos caused by the US
invasion in 2003, and then re-branded itself as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) following its
founder's death in 2006. While pressured by the Anbar
Awakening and the US troop surge in 2007,
ISI managed to survive and wait for conditions to become more favorable.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki , a Shia
politician, would contribute to these conditions by giving preferential treatment and status to
Shiite Iraqis. As a result, many of Iraq's Sunnis were disillusioned and alienated from the
Iraqi state and were at least indifferent to ISIS, if not supportive. Renad Mansour of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in 2016 that a lack of options for Sunni
political engagement combined with "intra-Sunni conflict" drove the power development of ISI.
Following the withdrawal of US troops in 2011, the Iraqi security forces were left mostly alone
to fight the extremist group, and quickly buckled under the task.
Research published by the CTC earlier this year sought to analyze the
opinions of young men in Mosul , ISIS"s Iraqi capital. While largely characterized as
"corrupt, brutal, and hypocritical," 93% reported that ISIS had positive effects during the
beginning of their authority. Even now that they have lost that authority, most respondents
were confident that ISIS will not disappear anytime soon. The Sunni community in general was
characterized by the men as divided and both spiritually and physically weak.
Following the collapse of the caliphate, Iraq began judicial proceedings for thousands of
accused ISIS members. While trials are a necessary and positive element in resolving the
conflict, Iraq's courts have been quickly overwhelmed, resulting in trials lasting for as
little as
10 minutes . Innocent Sunnis are at risk of being swept
up in these trials, and joining the many who have already been sentenced to
death as a result of these proceedings.
Shia militias also continue to act with impunity as an element of Iraq's security
forces , reinforcing the power disparity between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. With Sunni
estrangement, internal conflict and disunity, and a perception of weakness continuing, it falls
on the government to enforce security and suppress violence.
Political inclusion
Perhaps the largest result of the Iraqi election this year was the ascension of
Muqtada al-Sadr , a Shia cleric, as the leader of the winning parliamentary block. Al-Sadr
promoted Iraqi unity and the abandonment of political divisiveness in his campaign; however,
his group has also been accused of
past aggression against Sunnis . How al-Sadr and the new Parliament will lead Iraq, enforce
security, and form relationships with Sunni communities remains to be seen.
The Sunni community apparently remains internally conflicted and continues to face
challenges at the hands of the Iraqi state. Renad Mansour believes that greater power-sharing
at high levels and greater autonomy at low levels is key to relieving the pressure on Sunni
communities and reengaging them with the state while also accounting for the lack of unity
within the Sunni community. Without political engagement, and facing institutionalized
challenges, many Sunnis may continue to support or be indifferent to extremist groups like
ISIS. Although the group itself has lost its attractiveness among most of Iraq's Sunnis, the
conditions which fueled its earlier growth are still present.
Doubtless, members of the group have gone into hiding and will continue to launch attacks
for the foreseeable future. ISIS will likely never return to the high point it experienced
several years ago, but it has defied expectations before. With smart re-branding and a strategy
made to appeal more to the local population, combined with a messy government unable to provide
security, ISIS may manage regain some of the power it has lost.
I followed that assault on Fallujah very closely at the time. Remember that the US Marines
had tried to take over the town some months before but met with very fierce resistance and
were chased out of town. Therefore there was an element of revenge and also punishment about
this second assault. First they occupied the civilian hospital on the outskirts of Fallujah
(a war crime). They then systemically bombed and destroyed the power station, the water
pumping station and the sewage works (all war crimes).
Then as you point out they used white phosphorous munitions (a war crime), but there was
something peculiar in the immediate aftermath. Having eventually successfully subdued the
town, US troops went around the central area and systematically shot out, and thus drained,
all the water towers (these were numerous as many houses had them). Then military bulldozers
moved in and removed all the topsoil from a couple of square kilometres. This led to
speculation that some form of illegal chemical weapons had been deployed.
Mad Dog indeed.
"... Besides, just look at how much the Iraq War benefited Israel. You see, Israel wants to pursue a strategy of destabilizing the region, so it cleverly pulled off a false flag attack on 9/11; I'm not quite sure why Mossad didn't frame one of Israel's actual enemies, like the Palestinians or Iranians, or even Saddam for that matter, as the perpetrators of the attacks, but I'm sure it's all part of the plan. ..."
"... Anyway, Israel got the United States to invade Iraq, which destabilized the region and created chaos, predictably leading to a massive increase in Iranian influence in Iraq and likely enabling more Iranian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, which benefited Israel because uh chaos and destabilization. ..."
. The decision to go to war on false pretenses against Iraq, largely promoted by a cabal
of prominent American Jews in the Pentagon and in the media, killed 4,424 Americans as well
as hundreds of thousands Iraqis and will wind up costing the American taxpayer $7 trillion
dollars when all the bills are paid. That same group of mostly Jewish neocons more-or-less
is now agitating to go to war with Iran using a game plan for escalation prepared by Israel
which will, if anything, prove even more catastrophic.
Oh right, who can forget the cabal of Jews controlling the US government and military at
the time of the Iraq invasion, such as President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney,
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, CIA director George Tenet, National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice Every.Single.Time, am I right, folks?
Oh wait, they aren't Jewish? Well, I blame the Jews away. Just look at uh Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Woflowitz and
journalist Bill Kristol. That sounds like an extremely powerful cabal easily capable of
commanding such trivial figures as the President, CIA director, Secretary of State, et
cetera, to do their bidding.
Besides, just look at how much the Iraq War benefited Israel. You see, Israel wants to
pursue a strategy of destabilizing the region, so it cleverly pulled off a false flag attack
on 9/11; I'm not quite sure why Mossad didn't frame one of Israel's actual enemies, like the
Palestinians or Iranians, or even Saddam for that matter, as the perpetrators of the attacks,
but I'm sure it's all part of the plan.
Anyway, Israel got the United States to invade Iraq, which destabilized the region and
created chaos, predictably leading to a massive increase in Iranian influence in Iraq and
likely enabling more Iranian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, which benefited Israel
because uh chaos and destabilization.
And if you doubt that neocons totally control the US government, just look at how we're at
war with Iran! Well we're not technically at war yet, a decade after neoconservatives
began promoting the war and President Obama did somehow manage to sign a nuclear deal with
Iran that infuriated his neocon and Israeli puppetmasters but I'm sure that President Trump,
famously beloved by Jews and neocons everywhere, will soon go to war with Iran.
' I'm not entirely sure why you keep hanging on to this tired and false narrative that
US politicians are some sort of stooges and puppets of Israel '
Maybe because they are stooges and puppets? In extreme cases, they even boast of it. When
Romney was running for president, he promised he would check with Israel on any action we
took in the Middle East. When Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was promoting civil war
in Syria, she explained that this was necessary because Israel wished it.
It goes on, and on. If someone is considering a run for Congress, he gets a nice little
packet from AIPAC. Among other things, he's asked to write an essay expressing his feelings
about Israel.
If the essay isn't satisfactory, AIPAC backs his opponent.
Not surprisingly, when Netanyahu -- the premier of a tiny state on the other side of the
planet -- spoke to Congress he was interrupted with standing ovations seventeen times. The
display put me in mind of the sort of frenzied adulation Communist delegates used to display
towards Stalin.
and the motives, of course, would be similar, even if actual death isn't in prospect. For
most in Congress, displease Israel, and your political career just ended.
"Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it (Israel) had
considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with
Washington."
It's certainly difficult to explain how else Mossad came to be filming the attack.
I think it needs to be emphasized that it's not merely a matter of practical politics.
Israel is evil -- she brings misery to millions, actual happiness to almost no one, and
engages in behavior with no defensible moral foundation at all. She has attacked every
single one of her neighbors, compulsively seeks out further conflict to paper over the
shortcomings in her own national identity, and treats her Palestinian subjects with a
morality about like that of a nasty little boy pulling the wings off a fly.
Arguably, others are as bad. However, unlike the others, Israel could not have come into
being without our support, and could not continue to exist today without our continued moral,
economic, diplomatic, and military support. If we pulled the plug, Israel would cease to
exist as a Jewish supremacist state within -- at most -- a decade.
We are, in fact, responsible for Israel, and hence responsible for Israel's crimes. Other
people's teenaged sons may well be out there stealing cars and raping girls. This happens to
be our son doing it. We're responsible.
We pursue many policies I regard as futile, short-sighted, deluded, or self-destructive.
My personal list would include 'come one come all' immigration, global warming denial,
maintaining a massive military establishment, condoning 'Black Lives Matter,' and probably
some other things.
No doubt the reader has his own list. However, that's not the point. The point is that
essentially, these policies are merely stupid rather than actually evil. It's not evil
to think we should just let whoever wants come into the US. It's dumb -- but it isn't
evil. In fact, I'll willingly credit people who vote for 'sanctuary cities' et al with the
most laudable sentiments. I merely question their intelligence.
Israel is different. Israel is evil, and hence our support for it is as well. It is the
most fundamentally wrong act we are engaged in.
There is a moral dimension to life. There is a distinction between striving to do good --
however unsuccessfully -- and willingly participating in evil.
"A well-funded massive lobbying effort involving hundreds of groups and thousands of
individuals in the U.S. has worked to the detriment of actual American interests, in part
by creating a permanent annual gift of billions of dollars to Israel for no other reason
but that it is Israel and can get anything it wants from a servile Congress and White House
without any objection from a controlled media."
Kind of begs the question, why are we giving any aid to a first-world country with a GDP
growth rate in the 3% to 4% rate for years (even while we were stuck below 2%) and an
unemployment rate below 4%?
The Israeli economy is in better shape than the US economy; they should be giving us
aid.
"Baron Cohen, who confronted several GOP notables in the guise of Colonel Erran Morad,
an Israeli security specialist, provided a number of clues that his interview was a sham
but none of the victims were smart enough to pick up on them."
Yes, it is truly amazing what our "Best & Brightest" will do to stay on-side.
Following Mr. Giraldi's earlier post regarding the gubernatorial run of Israeli puppet Ron
DeSantis and the Big Sugar connections of Adam Putnam, it would seem a Floridian's least
worst choice is Bob White.
Israel is nothing but trouble. It has the right to defend itself
1st part: Absolutely, indubitably correct.
2nd part: ¿Qué? Why do people say/write this? Under what corrupt
arrangement does an oh, so obvious outlaw have any such right?
Consider: A gang of out-of-towners turns up at a block of flats, breaks the doors down and
occupies the building, killing some erstwhile owner/occupiers and ejecting most of the rest
on the way in, thereafter whooping it up big, and ignoring [obviously too feeble] orders to
RoR+R*3 [= Right of Return + Revest, Reparations and Reconciliation.] Since when can such
outlaws dictate anything, thumb their noses at the Law?
Property, especially here land, is alienable – but this does not mean
' subject to seizure by aliens .'
Kindly consider: "A fair exchange is no robbery." A fair exchange means willing
seller, interested buyer, and a freely and fairly agreed price. No such thing exists
vis-à-vis the forcible colonisation of Palestine. Some proof may be seen
here [my
bolding]:
By 1949, some 700,000 Palestinians had fled or been expelled from their lands and
villages. Israel was now in control of some 20.5 million dunams (approx. 20,500
km²) or 78% of lands in what had been Mandatory Palestine
Land laws were passed to legalize changes to land ownership.[5]
5. Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land
and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 37.
Especially in reference to the illegitimate entity which terms itself Israel, wiki is not
reliable, being, like the US Congress, Israeli-occupied territory. So it is noteworthy that
they write "in control of" as opposed to 'own.' They can't ever own it due to not having
purchased it, and Palestinians may not surrender it, due to the UDHR which specifies
*inalienable* rights:
Article 3.
• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 17.
• (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with
others.
• (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Also, see the Washington Consensus:
10.Legal security for property rights.
Further, there is UNSC242: inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war, plus
only just law may earn respect, and/or be respected. A law dispossessing erstwhile legal
owner/occupiers is an utter travesty.
Me; comment: Its illegitimacy is all so howlingly obvious!
Fazit: Apart from the ~6% of 'pre-Herzl Palestine' which 'invading by stealth' alien,
mostly European Jews managed to purchase, the illegitimate entity does not own nor can they
ever own the land/property they squat upon, which still belongs to the erstwhile
owner/occupiers, specifically the 'native' pre-Nakba Palestinians [now including heirs &
successors]. Then, the illegitimate entity does not declare borders for two reasons 1) any
such declaration would be [probably successfully] challenged and 2) the illegitimate entity
expresses the desire to expand to 'from the Nile to the Euphrates.' Q: Just how ghastly is
that? A: Could hardly be worse.
Closing the loop: How can land-thieves have any 'right to defend' such improperly
alienated land/property? It doesn't compute! rgds
Thank you, Mr. Giraldi, for another forceful rebuke of Zionist criminality and US
culpability.
The supremacist kosher state is a cancer on America. Just survey the wreckage. Count the
bodies. Who benefits from this?
The Zionist project is a plague on humanity. It entertains no compromise. It will stop at
virtually nothing. Examine the blood-soaked damage from Soviet Russia to Germany to Palestine
and beyond. It moves Washington around via remote control.
The situation has become very grave. Speech deemed 'anti-Semitic' is rapidly being
criminalized worldwide.
Right wing political expression (that Jews don't like) on Twitter, Facebook and the web is
being de-platformed for speech infractions that involve 'hate'. But it's only 'hate' of a
certain stripe.
After all, hatred is ubiquitous in America. It cuts in every direction. So why is the
focus so intense on just one spectrum of hatred?
Might it have something to do with the political preferences of those in power?
Oh maybe.
Principles be damned. Whose ox is being gored?
With that in mind, consider this: who might actually be the biggest hater of
all?–and killer? (Hint: it's certainly not the powerless Alt-right 'deplorables'.)
Might it instead be the world's foremost victims?
After all, incendiary speech–even 'hate speech'–does not kill. It takes bombs,
drones, tanks and missiles to accomplish that.
So where's the uproar over routine sorties which needlessly dispense death and
destruction?
It's gone missing.
Incredibly, it is rough speech and acute political criticism–not failed, horrific
wars–that are being criminalized. Pro-Zionist 'wars of choice' still get a pass in our
corporate board rooms, TV studios, news rooms, and in most of Official Washington.
This entrenched distortion allows neocons and their underlings to jawbone and plot their
next preemptive war. The Big Squeeze is on. Beware Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and
Iran. Zionism is an 'unshakable' Washington value. So get ready.
How distant wars advance the interests of average Americans remains a mystery.
Despite this puzzle, America's MSM offers little resistance and no straightforward
criticism of Zio-Washington's ceaseless war efforts on behalf of a certain 'democratic ally'.
In similar fashion, the Fourth Estate has also been compromised.
It's worth remembering that, according to the UN Charter, a state-sponsored 'First Strike'
against another sovereign state is the most serious war crime. This elementary moral precept
however matters not–at least not when Israel is pulling the strings. Quiet, children.
Listen. Obey.
What we have here is a pattern of vast serial criminality.
Zio-Washington has become Israel's war vessel. We regular folk are just along for the
ride.
So don't forget to cheer for the good guys!
Incredibly, US-enabled, Israeli ruthlessness has gotten even worse under 'America First'
Trump. After all, Trump needlessly tore up Obama's hard-fought peace deal with Iran.
Why would Trump make such a move? (As a candidate, he was far less hawkish).
Our weakened and despised President needs desperately to please America's foremost lobby.
Trump cannot govern without their support. This peculiar situation however requires
additional blood-letting on behalf of the Zionist state. Foreign wars that benefit Israel are
the unwritten price that the goyim leadership in America must pay. Sorry folks!
(Are you listening, Tehran?)
Jewish power corrupts. Overwhelming Jewish power corrupts in overwhelming fashion.
"... "My film itself is essentially was tracking the neocon influence and how the neoconservatives from the Bush era that pushed the Iraq war, that constructed the blueprints for the Iraq war, how they also were the earliest pioneers pushing this Russiagate Cold War 2.0 mentality." ..."
"... – Robbie Martin, from this week's program. ..."
"My film itself is essentially was tracking the neocon influence and how the
neoconservatives from the Bush era that pushed the Iraq war, that constructed the blueprints
for the Iraq war, how they also were the earliest pioneers pushing this Russiagate Cold War 2.0
mentality."
While neocons definitely agitated for invasion and were well represented in Bush Ii
government, this statement might be not true. As Greenspan said it was about oil.
Earlier this year, Representative James Moran, a Democrat, said that "if it were not for the
strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this."
In Britain, Tam Dalyell, a longstanding Labor member of Parliament, expressed a similar view.
Tony Blair, he opined, was listening too much to a "cabal" of Jews around President Bush that
included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; an under secretary of defense, Douglas
Feith; Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board; Elliott Abrams, director of
Middle East Affairs in the White House; and the former presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"Those people drive this policy," Dalyell said.
Dalyell was "worried about my country being led up the garden path on a Likudnik-Sharon
agenda" by British Jews close to Blair.
-- -- -- -- -- -
Earlier this year, Representative James Moran, a Democrat, said that "if it were not for the
strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this."
In Britain, Tam Dalyell, a longstanding Labor member of Parliament, expressed a similar view.
Tony Blair, he opined, was listening too much to a "cabal" of Jews around President Bush that
included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; an under secretary of defense, Douglas
Feith; Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board; Elliott Abrams, director of
Middle East Affairs in the White House; and the former presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"Those people drive this policy," Dalyell said.
Dalyell was "worried about my country being led up the garden path on a Likudnik-Sharon
agenda" by British Jews close to Blair.
The way , this war has played out, the way Oslo has been shredded, the way Iran deal has
been gutted, the way Blair spoke in Bush's ranch and took money form and awards from Israel,
the way attacks on Lebanon and Syria have been allowed and helped , the way Libya have been
made a failed country, the way billions have been poured on Israel, the way dissent against
war has been suppressed, the way Corbyn was attacked prove one thing – only one thing
that is the author was entirely wrong .Moran Japanense and British minister are and were
correct.
"... "Our intelligence community" is one of those phrases that make my back teeth itch, because I hate to see "our" doing that much work (especially when I know how much work our's parent, "we," has to do.) ..."
"... On Friday, Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter: "I'm very impressed that Mueller was able to name the 12 GRU officers in the new indictment. Demonstrates the incredible capabilities of our intelligence community ." ..."
"... Almost one year ago, on January 28th, 2003, the President devoted one-third of his State of the Union address to what he described as "a serious and mounting threat to our country" posed by Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. He spoke, in those famous 16 words, about efforts by Iraq to secure enriched uranium from Africa. He talked about aluminum tubes "suitable for nuclear weapons production." He described stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and said, "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs." ..."
"... That "we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various locations " That "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more." Pictures of what he called "active chemical munitions bunkers" with "sure signs that the bunkers are storing chemical munitions." ..."
"... The WMDs episode led to the (bipartisan) Iraq War, the greatest strategic debacle in American history. The WMDs episode was marked by fake evidence (yellowcake; aluminum tubes), planted stories, gaslighting, and a consensus of elite opinion along the Acela Corridor, exactly as today. The intelligence community was wrong. The national security establishment was wrong. The press was wrong. The Congressional leadership was wrong. The President was wrong. Everybody was wrong (except for a few outliers who couldn't get jobs afterwards anyhow, exactly because they were right). And now, today, we are faced with the same demand that we believe what the intelligence community says, without question, and without evidence that the public can see and examine. The only difference is that this time, the stakes are greater: Rather than blowing a few trillion and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of faraway brown people, we're rushing toward a change in the Constitutional Order that in essence makes the intelligence community a fourth branch of the government. ..."
"Our intelligence community" is one of those phrases that make my back teeth itch, because I hate to see "our" doing that much
work (especially when I know how much work our's parent, "we," has to do.) So I thought I'd throw together some usage examples of
the term to see if I could find more significant readings than my own reaction, and then draw out some implications from that reading.
But first, let's look at how often that term is used, and where. We turn to
Google Trends
:
Some caveats: Google doesn't have enough data to track "our intelligence community," or so it says, so the search is for "intelligence
community" only.
Further, the search is for 2008 to the present, again because Google, or so it says, doesn't have enough data for
shorter time frames.[1] However, I think the chart shows that interest in the intelligence community is not general in time or space:
It spikes when there's gaslighting with reader interest in particular stories, and spikes along the Acela Corridor, in
Washington and New York. (We might also speculate,
based on HuffPost/YouGov
voter data , that interest in the today's stories about the intelligence is limited not only in space, and time, but in scope:
Primarily among liberal Democrats.[2]) With that, let's turn to our usage examples.
I used Google to find them, and of course Google
search is crapified and all but useless -- for example, it insists on returning examples of "intelligence community" along with "our
intelligence community" in normal search, even with when the search string is quoted -- but it is what it is; readers are invited
to supply their own examples.
On Friday, Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter: "I'm very impressed that Mueller
was able to name the 12 GRU officers in the new indictment. Demonstrates the incredible capabilities of our intelligence
community ."
No. Mueller provided no evidence and the case is unlikely to go to trial; the capability consists in the naming, not in the proof.
Verdict: Credulity .
The
intelligence community
determined
that the Kremlin intended to "denigrate" and "harm" Clinton, and "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic
process" while helping Trump.
And the same claim, July 10, 2018, Washington Post:
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost Trump's candidacy
No. If you click through, you'll find that this is the "17 agencies"/"high confidence" report, whose agencies and analysts were
hand-picked by Clapper; that's just not the "intelligence community" as a whole[3]; the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was not
involved in the analysis, for example. (I don't see how it's normal that such an important topic not to be the subject of a Presidental
Finding, but perhaps people were in a rush.) Verdict; Misinformation .
FLAKE: We know the intelligence is right. We stand behind our intelligence community . We need to say
that in the Senate. Yes, it's symbolic, and symbolism is important.
And a similar formulation, July 22, 2018, Senator Marco Rubio (R),
CBS News
:
We need to move forward from that with good public policy and part of that is, I think, standing with our intelligence
community .
Posturing aside, to my sensibilities, it's pretty disturbing when "support the troops" bleeds over into "support the spies," and
when supporting the conclusions of an institution bleeds over into supporting the institution itself, as such. (The whole of the
Federalist Papers argues against the latter view:
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.") Verdict: Authoritarian followership .
WE UNIFY OUR INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY TOWARD A STRONGER, SAFER NATION
No. The DNI mistakes the hope for the fact; were the intelligence community in fact
unified
, Clapper would not have hand-picked agencies for his report, and a Presidential Finding would have been made. (And given the
source, "our" is doing even more work there than it usual does; it reminds of liberal Democrats talking about "our Democracy." Whose,
exactly?) Verdict: Wishful thinking .
Example 5, July 16, 2018, John Sipher (interview),
PBS
:
I do think the intelligence community is quite resilient. They put their head down and they do their work, but they
take this very seriously. And they see the president as their primary customer and they will do almost anything to get the president
the information that he needs to do his job.
No. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
-- "Who will guard the guards themselves?" -- was formulated by the Roman poet
Juvenal (d. 138AD) in the late first or early second century,
[checks calculator], about 1880 years ago. It's absurd to assume that "the intelligence" community has always served its "primary
customer" -- see the Bay of Pigs invastion at "
groupthink " -- or that they will
in the future, especially considering the enormous stakes involved today. Verdict: Historical ignorance .
Today I voted for H.R. 6237, the Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019. This
important legislation funds our Intelligence community and provides them the resources they need to effectively defend
our nation "This legislation makes sure that the dedicated men and women who serve our nation in the Intelligence Community [caps
in the original] are fully equipped to fulfill their mission."
No. While Sipher urges (
as does Clapper
) that the intelligence community is in the business of serving customers, Comstock, through her language ("dedicated
men and women who serve our nation") identifies it with the military. That's pretty disturbing when you realize that the intelligence
community has a domestic component (and when you think back to Obama's 17-city crackdown on Occupy, or Obama's militarized response
to #BlackLivesMatter). Verdict: Militarization
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, head of the U.S. intelligence community , reaffirmed his conclusion
that Russia had indeed tried to sway the election in a statement published after Trump's remarks.
No. The U.S. has 17 intelligence agencies; the DNI is in no sense their head.
From the DNI site :
The core mission of the ODNI is to lead the IC in intelligence integration, forging a community that delivers the most insightful
intelligence possible. That means effectively operating as one team: synchronizing collection, analysis and counterintelligence
so that they are fused. This integration is the key to ensuring national policymakers receive timely and accurate analysis from
the IC to make educated decisions.
If you boil that bureucratic porridge down -- the Russian word for porridge is
kasha , in case kompromat has
worn thin for you -- you'll see that the 17 intelligence agencies do not have a reporting relationship to the DNI. Hence, the DNI
is not their head. QED. Verdict: Authoritarian followership
[BRENNAN:] What Mr. Trump did (Monday) was to betray the women and men of the FBI, the CIA and NSA and others and betray the
American public. That's why I use the term, this was nothing short of treason, because it is a betrayal of the nation. He's giving
aid and comfort to the enemy.
(Leaving aside Brennan's broad definition of enemy -- apparently a sovereign state with interests different from our own, as opposed
to a nation against whom Congress has declared war -- note that Brennan treats the agencies as individual entities, not as "unified,"
presumably betraying DNI Coats). More:
BRENNAN:] I still shake my head trying to understand what was discussed during the two-hour one-on-one, what was discussed
between the two sides in their bilateral meeting. We only saw what Mr. Trump said during the press conference. I can't even imagine
what he said behind closed doors. I can't imagine what he said to Mr. Putin directly. I am very concerned about what type of impact
it might have on our intelligence community and on this country."
No. Note well: What (
torture
advocate ) Brennan says contradicts the other two models expressed in this aggregation. If the President is the customer, it's
not Brennan's concern what that customer does (any more than it's Best Buy's concern what I buy in Starbucks after I pick up my flat-screen
TV). And if the intelligence community is a branch of the military, it's not their concern what their Commander-in-Chief does; he'll
tell them what they need to know.) Seriously, why does the Praetorian Guard need to know what the emperor is doing. Now, one could
argue that Brennan's ambition is counteracting Trump's ambition; well and good, but then one needs to think through the consequences.
And if Brennan, et al., really believe that Trump committed treason, then they -- as the good patriots they presumably are -- need
to indicate a path to removing him. If that path does not include full disclosure of the evidence for whatever charges are to be
made, then the country will have to deal with the consequences -- which I'd speculate won't be pretty -- of
a change in the Constitutional order where the "intelligence community" can remove a President from office based on its own internal
consensus . Praetorian
Almost one year ago, on January 28th, 2003, the President devoted one-third of his State of the Union address to what he
described as "a serious and mounting threat to our country" posed by Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. He spoke,
in those famous 16 words, about efforts by Iraq to secure enriched uranium from Africa. He talked about aluminum tubes "suitable
for nuclear weapons production." He described stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and said, "we know that Iraq, in the
late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs."
One week later, on February 5th, Secretary of State Colin Powell, with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet sitting
behind his right shoulder, used charts and photographs to elaborate on the Administration's WMD case. "These are not assertions,"
Powell said, "these are facts corroborated by many sources." Among Powell's claims were:
That "we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads
containing biological warfare agent to various locations " That "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons
and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more." Pictures of what he called "active chemical munitions bunkers" with "sure
signs that the bunkers are storing chemical munitions."
Powell has subsequently said that he spent days personally assessing the intelligence. He included only information he felt
was fully supported by the analysis. Hence, no mention of enriched uranium from Africa, no claim that al Qaeda was involved in
9-11.
The effect was powerful. Veteran columnist for the Washington Post, Mary McGrory, known for liberal views and Kennedy connections,
wrote an op-ed the following day entitled "I Am Persuaded". Members of Congress, like me, believed the intelligence case. We voted
for the resolution on Iraq to urge U.N. action and to authorize military force only if diplomacy failed. We felt confident we
had made the wise choice.
But as the evidence pours in the Intelligence Committee's review of the pre-war intelligence; David Kay's interim report on
the failure to find WMD in Iraq; an impressive study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board's critique; thoughtful commentaries like that of Ken Pollack in this month's Atlantic Monthly; and
investigative reporting including a lengthy front page story by Barton Gellman of the Washington Post on January 7,
we are finding out that Powell and other policymakers were wrong, British intelligence was wrong, and those of us who
believed the intelligence were wrong . Indeed, I doubt there would be discussions of David Kay's possible departure if the
Iraq Survey Group were on the verge of uncovering large stockpiles of weapons or an advanced nuclear weapons program.
But if 9/11 was a failure to connect the dots, it appears that the Intelligence Community, in the case of Iraq's WMD,
connected the dots to the wrong conclusions . If our intelligence products had been better, I believe many policymakers,
including me, would have had a far clearer picture of the sketchiness of our sources on Iraq's WMD programs, and our lack of certainty
about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities.
Let me add that policymakers -- including members of Congress -- have a duty to ask tough questions, to probe the information
being presented to them. We also have a duty to portray that information publicly as accurately as we can.
The WMDs episode led to the (bipartisan) Iraq War, the greatest strategic debacle in American history. The WMDs episode was marked
by fake evidence (yellowcake; aluminum tubes), planted stories, gaslighting, and a consensus of elite opinion along the Acela Corridor,
exactly as today. The intelligence community was wrong. The national security establishment was wrong. The press was wrong. The Congressional
leadership was wrong. The President was wrong. Everybody was wrong (except for a few outliers who couldn't get jobs afterwards anyhow,
exactly because they were right). And now, today, we are faced with the same demand that we believe what the intelligence community
says, without question, and without evidence that the public can see and examine. The only difference is that this time, the stakes
are greater: Rather than blowing a few trillion and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of faraway brown people, we're rushing toward
a change in the Constitutional Order that in essence makes the intelligence community a fourth branch of the government.
Why are we doing that? Well, if you look at the verdicts after each of the quotes I've found, taking the quotes as a proxy for
elite opinion, one reason might be that the portion of our elites involved in the Russia narrative -- who, let us remember, are limited
in space and scope -- are:
Credulous Misinformed Prone to authoritarian followership Historically ignorant Militarized Praetorian
If power is lying in the street, beware of who picks it up. Matters might not improve.
NOTES .
[1] The hit count (100 for the spike in January 2017) is oddly low; sadly, although 100 looks like a blue link, we cannot click
through to check the data. However, even if the aggregates are low, I think we can assume that both the shape of the trend line and
its geographic distribution are directionally correct, because the spikes occur at reasonable places for them to occur. Sidebar:
Note the horrid user interface design, which uses inordinate amounts of screen space to no purpose, disrespecting the time-pressed
professional user.
[2] We might even go so far as to speculate that -- given these limitations in space -- that while "our" asserts Democrat leadership
as a National party, Democrats are in fact a State party. Removing the hyphen from "nation-state" is a neat way
of encapsulating our current legitimacy crisis.
[3] "Intelligence community," like "deep state," connotes unity among institutions that are in fact riven by faction.
ADDENDUM: Scott Horton
I didn't add this material to the post proper, because I only had screen shots, and I wasn't able to find the post in time using
Google, or Facebook's lousy search. So after ten minutes of plowing through Facebook's infinite scroll, here is the embed* from Scott
Horton that I sought:
And a screen shot personally taken by me:
Note the lead: "European intelligence analysts ," so reminiscent of Bush's "British intelligence has learned " (the
sixteen words ). What they "learned," of course,
was the faked evidence on Niger yellowcake. Go through my list of "verdicts," starting with "credulous," and see what does
not
apply to Horton.
Horton is a Contributing Editor to Harper's Magazine,
has a law practice in New York, and is affiliate with Columbia Law School and the Open Society Institute.
The key point, for me, is this: "Liberal Democrats do not view anyone outside of places like Orange and Lexington County (whom
they go all-out to court) as people fit to make their own choices." It's important to watch for outright denial of agency,
to others, not merely lack of agency. That's true for Horton, it was true for Clinton's "deplorables" comment, and it was true for
Obama's "bitter"/"cling to" Kinseley gaffe.
It would be nice if Senator Sanders didn't signal boost this stuff. Here's another usage example of "intelligence community":
Or, to put this another way, Sanders needs to get his supporters' backs, and fast, with messaging that doesn't take a "duck and
cover" approach by repeating the catchphrases of the current onslaught, but contextualizes and decontaminates it. I didn't say that
would be easy
NOTE * I like the picture the Time chose very much; apparently, the evul left is young, female, swarthy, and/or black.
No suburban Republicans here! The "AbolishICE" t-shirt -- and not, say, #MedicareForAll -- is also a nice touch.
"... Read the first piece in Patrick Cockburn's latest series, 'Catastrophic drought threatens Iraq as major dams in surrounding countries cut off water to its great rivers', here . ..."
"... Part II, 'For this Iraqi tribe massacred by Isis, fear of the group's return is a constant reality', here ..."
"... Part III, 'After series of calamitous defeats, is Isis about to lose its last town?', here . ..."
"... Part III, 'Iraq unrest: Chaos reigns in the country even Saddam Hussein 'found difficult to rule', here. ..."
"The people want an end to the parties," chanted protesters, adapting a famous slogan of the
Arab Spring , as
they stormed the governor's office and the international airport in the Shia holy city of
Najaf.
Part of the wave of demonstrations sweeping across central and southern Iraq, they demanded
jobs, electricity, water and an end to the mass theft of Iraq's oil wealth by the political parties.
Beginning on 8 July, the protests are the biggest and most prolonged in a country where
anti-government action has usually taken the form of armed insurgency.
The demonstrations are taking place in the heartlands of the Shia majority, reflecting their
outrage at living on top of some of the world's largest oilfields, but seeing their families
barely survive in squalor and poverty.
The protests began in Basra, Iraq's third largest city which is at the centre of 70 per cent
of its oil production. A hand-written placard held up by one demonstrator neatly expresses
popular frustration. It read:
"2,500,000 barrels daily
Price of each barrel = $70
2,500,000 x $70 = zero !!
Sorry Pythagoras, we are in Basra"
The protests quickly spread to eight other provinces, including Najaf, Kerbala, Nasariya and
Amara.
In several places, the offices of the Dawa Party, to which the Prime Minister Haider
al-Abadi belongs, were burned or attacked, along with those of parties whom people blame for
looting oil revenues worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the 15 years since the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein.
As the situation deteriorated, Mr Abadi flew to Basra on 13 July, promising to make $3bn
available to improve services and provide more jobs. After he left, his hotel was invaded by
protesters.
The credibility of almost all Iraqi politicians is at a low ebb, the acute feeling of
disillusionment illustrated by the low 44.5 per cent turnout in the parliamentary election on
12 May that produced no outright winner.
The poll was
unexpectedly topped by the Sairoun movement of the populist nationalist cleric, Muqtada
al-Sadr, who has encouraged his followers to start protests against government corruption and
lack of services since 2015.
The Sadrists, who emphasised their socially and economically progressive programme by
allying themselves with the Iraqi Communist Party in the election, are playing a role in the
current protests.
The demonstrations are also backed by the prestigious Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. At ground
level, political activists and tribal leaders have set up a joint committee called "the
Coordination Board for Peaceful Protests and Demonstrations in Basra", its purpose being to
produce a list of demands, unite the protest movement, and keep their actions non-violent.
"The ends don't justify the means," says the committee in a statement. "Let us, being
oppressed, not lead to the oppression of others."
A list of 17 demands is headed by one asking for a government timetable for supplying water
and electricity, both of which are short at a time of year when the temperature sometime
exceeds 50C, making it one of the hottest places on earth.
Local people claim that the last time that the port city of Basra, once called the Venice of
the Gulf, had an adequate supply of drinking water was in 1982. Iran had been supplying some
extra electricity, but has cut this back because of its own needs and failure of Iraq to pay on
time.
The second demand of the protesters is for jobs with "priority to the competent sons of
Basra", the discharge of foreign labourers and employment for a quarter of people living in the
oilfields.
Lack of jobs is a source of continuing complaint all over Iraq. Much of its oil income
already goes on paying 4.5 million state employees, but between 400,000 and 420,000 young
people enter the workforce every year with little prospects of employment.
Anger towards the entire political class is intense because it is seen as a kleptocratic
group which syphoned off money in return for contracts that existed only on paper and produced
no new power plants, bridges or roads.
Political parties are at the centre of this corruption because they choose ministries,
according to their share of the vote in elections or their sectarian affiliation, which they
then treat as cash cows and sources of patronage and contracts.
Plundering like this and handing out of jobs to unqualified people means that many
government institutions have become incapable of performing any useful function.
Radical reform is difficult because the whole system is saturated by corruption and
incompetence. Technocrats without party backing who are parachuted into ministries become
isolated and ineffective.
One party leader told The Independent that he thought that the best that could be
done "would be to insist that the parties appoint properly qualified people to top jobs."
The defeat of Isis in 2017 with the recapture of Mosul means that Iraqis are no longer
absorbed in keeping their families safe so they have they have more time to consider
"corruption" – a word they use not just to mean bribery but the parasitic nature of the
government system as a whole.
There is a general mood of cynicism and dissatisfaction with the way things are run.
"Bad government, bad roads, bad weather, bad people," exclaimed one Iraqi friend driving on
an ill-maintained road.
Corrupt motives are ascribed to everything that happens: a series of unexplained fires in
Baghdad in June were
being ascribed to government employees stealing from state depots and then concealing their
crime by setting fire to the building and destroying it.
Given that the Iraqi security forces are primarily recruited from the areas in which the
protests are taking place, the government will need to be careful about the degree of
repression it can use safely.
The armed forces have been placed on high alert. Three regiments of the elite
Counter-Terrorism Service, which led the attack on Mosul and is highly regarded and well
disciplined, has been ordered south to cope with protests and away from places where there is
still residual activity by Isis.
The protests are largely spontaneous, but the Sadrists, whose offices have not been attacked
by crowds, want to put pressure on Mr Abadi, Dawa and other parties to form a coalition
government with a reform programme.
Many protesters express anti-Tehran slogans, tearing up pictures of Iranian spiritual
leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini and the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. They blame
Iran for supporting
corrupt parties and governments in Iraq.
Protesters have so far escalated their actions slowly, gathering at the entrances to the
major oil and gas facilities, but not disrupting the 3.6 million barrel a day production. If
this happens, it would affect a significant portion of world crude output.
Iraq's corrupt and dysfunctional governing system may be too set in its profitable ways to
be reformed, but, if the ruling elite wants to survive, it must give ordinary Iraqi a larger
share of the oil revenue cake.
Read the first piece in Patrick Cockburn's latest series, 'Catastrophic drought
threatens Iraq as major dams in surrounding countries cut off water to its great rivers',
here .
Part II, 'For this Iraqi tribe massacred by Isis, fear of the group's return is a
constant reality',
here
Part III, 'After series of calamitous defeats, is Isis about to lose its last town?',
here .
Part III, 'Iraq unrest: Chaos reigns in the country even Saddam Hussein 'found difficult
to rule',
here.
"Oh for the good old days when Saddam was running things."
Electricity production in Iraq overall is superior to what it
was during Saddam's rule. But availability is not 24/365, which is presumably what they're
demanding:
Prewar Baghdad had electricity 16 to 24 hours per day and was favored for distribution.
The remainder of Iraq received 4–8 hours of electricity per day.[6] Post war, Baghdad
no longer has priority and therefore both Baghdad and the country as a whole received on
average 15.5 hours of electricity per day as of February 2010.[7]
If they want some facsimile of Saddam's rule back, they could easily elect the Sunni Arab
parties to power. Which they haven't. Demonstrations were rare during Saddam's reign because
he killed the opposition and consigned those he did not kill to Abu Ghraib, where they were
raped and/or beaten to within an inch of their lives.
Shiites were unhappy with American occupation because they thought the only thing keeping
them from becoming a Shiite version of Saudi Arabia, economically-speaking was an American
plot to steal their oil and sow division in the country. After GI's left, they discovered,
through ISIS's long record of victories, that Sunni Arabs really, really don't like being
ruled by Shiites, and that Iraq's Sunni Arabs really are better at military endeavors than
the Shiites or the Kurds. They are fortunate that Uncle Sam came to their rescue, yet
again.
It's becoming clear that the Iraq's Shiite Arabs and Kurds could never have lifted the
Sunni Arab foot from their necks by their own efforts. The question is whether their history
books will ever reflect this truth.
So on the 15th anniversary of the Iraq debacle, a neocon who cheered it on is rewarded
with a national security post where he can cue up the attack on Iran that was always the
ultimate prize for Israel's US stooges?
Guess we'll be out marching again, just like last time. Bolton's walrus mustache is the
21st century version of Adolph H's toothbrush mustache. Down with the Persian Untermenschen!
/sarc
Of course while working for Cheney Bolton was pretty confident about getting Dubya to
start a war with Iran and that didn't happen. Here's a backgrounder that suggests that Bolton
is tight with both Adelson and the Mossad so one way of looking at this has Russia fading as
a target and Iran falling under the bulls eye. Trump's recent friendly phone call with Putin
was contrary to instructions from his NSC and therefore presumably McMaster.
Looked at optimistically it could be out of the frying pan and into a smaller frying pan
(for us if not for Iran but that remains to be seen).
Of course looked at pessimistically it's terrible news but if the public and Congress are
afraid of Trump gratuitously starting a new war then perhaps they should take away his power
to do so. Seems the Constitution did have something to say about that.
Tol'ja so these miserable wretches simply cannot die resurrection a promise any time a
misfit administration takes power all that audition time on FoxNews paid off Trump stripping
the cable channels of right-wing bloviators "best people for the jawb", don't you know.
"... American soldiers in Ukraine, American media not saying much about it. Two facts. ..."
"... Americans are being led blindfolded very near the brink of war with Russia. ..."
"... Don't need a war to get what done, Mr. President? This is our question. Then this one: Washington is going to stop at exactly what as it manipulates its latest set of puppets in disadvantaged countries, this time pretending there is absolutely nothing thoughtless or miscalculated about doing so on Russia's historically sensitive western border? ..."
"... And our policy cliques are willing to go all the way to war for this? As of mid-April, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade started arriving in Ukraine, it looks as if we are on notice in this respect. ..."
"... Take a deep breath and consider that 1,000 American folks, as Obama will surely get around to calling them, are conducting military drills with troops drawn partly from Nazi and crypto-Nazi paramilitary groups . Sorry, I cannot add anything more to this paragraph. Speechless. ..."
"... Part of me still thinks war with Russia seems a far-fetched proposition. But here's the thing: It is even more far-fetched to deny the gravity of this moment for all its horrific, playing-with-fire potential. ..."
"... Last December, John Pilger, the noted Australian journalist now in London, said in a speech that the Ukraine crisis had become the most extreme news blackout he had seen his entire career. I agree and now need no more proof as to whether it is a matter of intent or ineptitude. (Now that I think of it, it is both in many cases.) ..."
"... In the sixth paragraph we get this: "Last week, Russia charged that a modest program to train Ukraine's national guard that 300 American troops are carrying out in western Ukraine could 'destabilize the situation.'" Apoplectically speaking: Goddamn it, there is nothing modest about U.S. troops operating on Ukrainian soil, and it is self-evidently destabilizing. It is an obvious provocation, a point the policy cliques in Washington cannot have missed. ..."
"... The Poroshenko government contrives to assign Russia the blame, but one can safely ignore this. Extreme right members of parliament have been more to the point. After a prominent editor named Oles Buzyna was fatally shot outside his home several weeks ago, a lawmaker named Boris Filatov told colleagues, "One more piece of shit has been eliminated." From another named Irina Farion, this: Death will neutralize the dirt this shit has spilled. Such people go to history's sewers." ..."
"... He was a vigorous opponent of American adventurism abroad, consistent and reasoned even as resistance to both grew in his later years. By the time he was finished he was published and read far more outside America than in it. ..."
As of mid-April, when a Pentagon flack announced it in Kiev, and as barely reported in American media, U.S. troops are now operating
openly in Ukraine.
Now there is a lead I have long dreaded writing but suspected from the first that one day I would. Do not take a moment to think
about this. Take many moments. We all need to. We find ourselves in grave circumstances this spring.
At first I thought I had written what newspaper people call a double-barreled lead: American soldiers in Ukraine, American
media not saying much about it. Two facts.
Wrong. There is one fact now, and it is this: Americans are being led blindfolded very near the brink of war with Russia.
One cannot predict there will be one. And, of course, right-thinking people hope things will never come to one. In March, President
Obama dismissed any such idea as if to suggest it was silly. "They're not interested in a military confrontation with us," Obama
said of the Russians-wisely. Then he added, unwisely: "We don't need a war."
Don't need a war to get what done, Mr. President? This is our question. Then this one: Washington is going to stop at exactly
what as it manipulates its latest set of puppets in disadvantaged countries, this time pretending there is absolutely nothing thoughtless
or miscalculated about doing so on Russia's historically sensitive western border?
The pose of American innocence, tatty and tiresome in the best of times, is getting dangerous once again.
The source of worry now is that we do not have an answer to the second question. The project is plain: Advance NATO the rest of
the way through Eastern Europe, probably with the intent of eventually destabilizing Moscow. The stooges now installed in Kiev are
getting everything ready for the corporations eager to exploit Ukrainian resources and labor.
And our policy cliques are willing to go all the way to war for this? As of mid-April, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade started
arriving in Ukraine, it looks as if we are on notice in this respect.
In the past there were a few vague mentions of an American military presence in Ukraine that was to be in place by this spring,
if I recall correctly. These would have been last autumn. By then, there were also reports, unconfirmed, that some troops and a lot
of spooks were already there as advisers but not acknowledged.
Then in mid-March President Poroshenko introduced a bill authorizing-as required by law-foreign troops to operate on Ukrainian soil.
There was revealing detail, according to Russia Insider, a free-standing website in Moscow founded and run by Charles Bausman, an
American with an uncanny ability to gather and publish pertinent information.
"According to the draft law, Ukraine plans three
Ukrainian-American command post exercises, Fearless Guardian 2015, Sea Breeze 2015 and Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015," the publication
reported, "and two Ukrainian-Polish exercises, Secure Skies 2015, and Law and Order 2015, for this year."
This is a lot of dry-run maneuvering, if you ask me. Poroshenko's law allows for up to 1,000 American troops to participate in
each of these exercises, alongside an equal number of Ukrainian "National Guardsmen," and we will insist on the quotation marks when
referring to this gruesome lot, about whom more in a minute.
Take a deep breath and consider that 1,000 American folks, as Obama will surely get around to calling them, are conducting
military drills with troops drawn partly from Nazi and crypto-Nazi paramilitary groups . Sorry, I cannot add anything more to this
paragraph. Speechless.
It was a month to the day after Poroshenko's bill went to parliament that the Pentagon spokesman in Kiev announced-to a room empty
of American correspondents, we are to assume-that troops from the 173rd Airborne were just then arriving to train none other than
"National Guardsmen." This training includes "classes in war-fighting functions," as the operations officer, Maj. Jose Mendez, blandly
put it at the time.
The spokesman's number was "about 300," and I never like "about" when these people are describing deployments. This is how it
always begins, we will all recall. The American presence in Vietnam began with a handful of advisers who arrived in September 1950.
(Remember MAAG, the Military Assistance Advisory Group?)
Part of me still thinks war with Russia seems a far-fetched proposition. But here's the thing: It is even more far-fetched
to deny the gravity of this moment for all its horrific, playing-with-fire potential.
I am getting on to apoplectic as to the American media's abject irresponsibility in not covering this stuff adequately. To leave
these events unreported is outright lying by omission. Nobody's news judgment can be so bad as to argue this is not a story.
Last December, John Pilger, the noted Australian journalist now in London, said in a speech that the Ukraine crisis had become
the most extreme news blackout he had seen his entire career. I agree and now need no more proof as to whether it is a matter of
intent or ineptitude. (Now that I think of it, it is both in many cases.)
To cross the "i"s and dot the "t"s, as I prefer to do, the Times did make two mentions of the American troops. One was the day
of the announcement, a brief piece on an inside page, datelined Washington. Here we get our code word for this caper: It will be
"modest" in every mention.
The second was in an April 23 story by Michael Gordon, the State Department correspondent. The head was, "Putin Bolsters His Forces
Near Ukraine, U.S. Says."
Read the thing here.
The story line is a doozy: Putin-not "the Russians" or "Moscow," of course-is again behaving aggressively by amassing troops-how
many, exactly where and how we know is never explained-along his border with Ukraine. Inside his border, that is. This is the story.
This is what we mean by aggression these days.
In the sixth paragraph we get this: "Last week, Russia charged that a modest program to train Ukraine's national guard that
300 American troops are carrying out in western Ukraine could 'destabilize the situation.'" Apoplectically speaking: Goddamn it,
there is nothing modest about U.S. troops operating on Ukrainian soil, and it is self-evidently destabilizing. It is an obvious provocation,
a point the policy cliques in Washington cannot have missed.
At this point, I do not see how anyone can stand against the argument-mine for some time-that Putin has shown exemplary restraint
in this crisis. In a reversal of roles and hemispheres, Washington would have a lot more than air defense systems and troops of whatever
number on the border in question.
The Times coverage of Ukraine, to continue briefly in this line, starts to remind me of something I.F. Stone once said about the
Washington Post: The fun of reading it, the honored man observed, is that you never know where you'll find a page one story.
In the Times' case, you never know if you will find it at all.
Have you read much about the wave of political assassinations that erupted in Kiev in mid-April? Worry not. No one else has either-not
in American media. Not a word in the Times.
The number my sources give me, and I cannot confirm it, is a dozen so far-12 to 13 to be precise. On the record, we have 10 who
can be named and identified as political allies of Viktor Yanukovych, the president ousted last year, opponents of a drastic rupture
in Ukraine's historic relations to Russia, people who favored marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of the Nazis-death-deserving
idea, this-and critics of the new regime's corruptions and dependence on violent far-right extremists.
These were all highly visible politicians, parliamentarians and journalists. They have been murdered by small groups of these
extremists, according to reports readily available in non-American media. In my read, the killers may have the same semi-official
ties to government that the paramilitary death squads in 1970s Argentina-famously recognizable in their Ford Falcons-had with Videla
and the colonels.
The Poroshenko government contrives to assign Russia the blame, but one can safely ignore this. Extreme right members of parliament
have been more to the point. After a prominent editor named Oles Buzyna was fatally shot outside his home several weeks ago, a lawmaker
named Boris Filatov told colleagues, "One more piece of shit has been eliminated." From another named Irina Farion, this: Death will
neutralize the dirt this shit has spilled. Such people go to history's sewers."
Kindly place, Kiev's parliament under this new crowd. Washington must be proud, having backed yet another right-wing, anti-democratic,
rights-trampling regime that does what it says.
And our media must be silent, of course. It can be no other way. Gutless hacks: You bet I am angry.
* * *
I end this week's column with a tribute.
A moment of observance, any kind, for William Pfaff, who died at 86 in Paris late last week. The appreciative obituary by the
Times' Marlise Simons is
here.
Pfaff was the most sophisticated foreign affairs commentator of the 20th century's second half and the first 15 years of this
one. He was a great influence among colleagues (myself included) and put countless readers in a lot of places in the picture over
many decades. He was a vigorous opponent of American adventurism abroad, consistent and reasoned even as resistance to both grew
in his later years. By the time he was finished he was published and read far more outside America than in it.
Pfaff was a conservative man in some respects, which is not uncommon among America's American critics. In this I put him in the
file with Henry Steele Commager, C. Vann Woodward, William Appleman Williams, and among those writing now, Andrew Bacevich. He was
not a scholar, as these writers were or are, supporting a point I have long made: Not all intellectuals are scholars, and not all
scholars are intellectuals.
Pfaff's books will live on and I commend them: "Barbarian Sentiments," "The Wrath of Nations," "The Bullet's Song," and his last,
"The Irony of Manifest Destiny," are the ones on my shelf.
Farewell from a friend, Bill.
Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer:
Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from
1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and
has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter,
@thefloutist.More Patrick L. Smith.
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Map of the 2015 Aleppo offensives. [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56]
Daniel Lazare January 8, 2020 | Security Who Created the Persian Gulf Tinderbox? Joe Biden's statement that "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox" by assassinating Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was not inaccurate. But it skirts an all-important question: who created the tinderbox in the first place?
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Also by this author Daniel Lazare Daniel Lazare is an American freelance journalist, publicist and blogger.
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January 20, 2020 © Photo: Flickr / DonkeyHotey On the 17 September 1656, Oliver Cromwell, a Protestant Puritan, who had won a civil war, and had the English king beheaded in public, railed against England's enemies. There was, he told Parliament that day, an axis of evil abroad in the world. And this axis – led by Catholic Spain – was, at root, the problem of a people that had placed themselves at the service of 'evil'. This 'evil', and the servitude that it beget, was the evil of a religion – Catholicism – that refused the English peoples' desire for simple liberties: " [an evil] that put men under restraint under which there was no freedom and under which, there could be 'no liberty of individual consciousness'".
" The MoA Week In Review - Open Thread 2020-03 | Main January 13, 2020 The Long Planned U.S. Assassinations In Iraq Will Increase Its Political Chaos
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When the United States, the United Kingdom, and the "coalition of the willing" attacked Iraq in March 2003, millions protested around the world. But the war of "shock and awe" was just the beginning. The subsequent occupation of Iraq by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority bankrupted the country and left its infrastructure in shambles.
![Iraqi security forces are seen at Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province [File: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/1/8/691173f4ac6b42f6b95df126ad4421bd_18.jpg "Iraq army says no Iraqi casualties as 22 missiles strike bases")
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Image Copyright @realDonaldTrump @realDonaldTrump Report
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euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
