Why Iran “Came Clean” Regarding Its Role in the UIA-752 Tragedy

January 12th, 2020 by Andrew Korybko

Iran should be commended for ceasing all disinformation activities aimed at covering up its role in the UIA-752 tragedy, but it didn’t do this just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it realized that its international reputation would continue to suffer if it hadn’t reversed its narrative course when it did and it also wanted to avoid the imposition of further sanctions against it for what happened.

Giving Credit Where It’s Due

Iran, to its credit, quickly came clean and admitted to its culpability in accidentally shooting down UIA-752 last week after vehemently insisting for the past few days that any such claims were nothing but a “big lie…(a) psychological operation…adding insult to the injury of the bereaved families”. Tehran didn’t do this just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it realized that its international reputation would continue to suffer if it hadn’t reversed its narrative course when it did. The author explained everything that went wrong with his previous analysis on the topic in his most recent article titled “Iran’s Shoot-Down Admission Is A Mea Culpa Moment For Alt-Media (Myself Included)“, where it was promised that a forthcoming analysis would soon be published about the reasons behind Iran’s about-face, ergo the purpose of the present piece. That aforementioned work, however, should be reviewed by the reader in order to obtain a better understanding of just how counterproductive Iran’s previous stance was to its soft power.

Everyone Is Politicizing The Tragedy

As it turned out, the US and its partners were actually correct in their original assessment that an Iranian missile mistakenly took down the aircraft, and President Rouhani should be commended for vowing that his country will seek to hold the culprit responsible, who it turns out was a senior IRGC commander. That goes a long way towards helping the victims’ families receive the closure that they desperately need after all sides politicized this tragedy. It wasn’t just the US that was politicizing it for the reasons that the author elaborated on in his earlier piece titled “UIA-752: Who Gains From Politicizing The Tragedy In Tehran?“, but Iran too, as is now known after it admitted what happened after trying so hard to literally bulldoze the truth with what would have been a massive but increasingly unconvincing cover-up. In fact, one can actually say that Iran is still politicizing the tragedy after Foreign Minister Zarif implied on Twitter that the US itself was actually to blame for what happened after its “adventurism” caused the “time of crisis” in which this tragedy transpired.

Think what one will about the ethics of Trump ordering Maj. Gen. Soleimani’s assassination, but the US nevertheless had the wisdom to prohibit its planes from flying over Iraq, Iran, and some of the nearby waters shortly after Tehran’s carefully choreographed missile strike against two American bases in the region. Iran, meanwhile, continued to let flights function as usual through its airspace, which indirectly contributed to the tragedy. In hindsight, it should have behaved more responsibly by shutting down its airspace or at the very least warning the public (and not just the US through indirect back channels) what form its envisaged revenge was going to take. Instead, it didn’t do any of that, possibly to give off the misleading optics that it “took the US by surprise”, which in turn would maximize the domestic effect of its symbolic response. That was an error of judgement as is now known but speaks to just how sensitive the situation is inside of the country that its leaders felt it necessary for Iran to fully “play its part” in last week’s “big show”.

Infowars & Sanctions

The proverbial cat is out of the bag after it became impossible for Iran to continue with its initial policy of denying even an accidental hand in what happened, but Zarif’s innuendo that Trump was really responsible because he supposedly started it is a political evasion meant to give more fodder to his Democrat opponents during the US’ ongoing domestic-“deep state” crisis. It’s also intended to normatively defend the country from any further unilateral sanctions the US that could potentially impose against its international arms trade if America decides to intensify its politicization of this tragedy to interfere with Russian-Iranian military relations. Earlier reports claimed that it was a Russian missile that took down the airliner, which if true, could be exploited to impose sanctions on the sale of all such weapons to Iran under the threat of “secondary sanctions” against all those who defy them. Considering that Russia is already abiding by some of the US’ energy-related ones, it’s not unforeseeable that they’d do the same for their possible military counterpart after what happened.

Iran needs Russia more than the reverse when it comes to their military relations, so Moscow’s possible decision to tacitly abide by any forthcoming US sanctions on the sale of any missiles to the Islamic Republic could definitely hurt Tehran’s capabilities in the short- and medium-terms. It was therefore most likely calculated that the greatest risk to the country’s interests laid in continuing to deny the increasingly obvious, wagering that it’s better to own up to what happened, attempt to deflect the blame to Trump to incite the “orange man bad!” crowd across the world, and hope that no such sanctions would follow. If they do, then Iran can point to its decision to take responsibility to push forth its case that there isn’t any normative basis behind those unilateral arms restrictions and the “secondary sanctions” that would almost certainly be imposed against all violators. It’s risky, and there’s no way to know whether the US will “be merciful” (as if it ever embodied that principle in its foreign policy in the first place, let alone against rivals!), but such is the thinking.

Concluding Thoughts

In any case, the rest of the world now sees that Iran is indeed behaving responsibly by admitting what happened, with the previous cover-up attempts either being all but forgotten but dismissed as part of some vague “deep state” struggle of the sort that’s routinely speculated to be in effect in Tehran. Literally all relevant players are politicizing the tragedy to advance their own interests, which is their right to do as sovereign states regardless of the ethics involved, but there’s no denying that Iran finally did the right thing regardless of its motivations. It takes a lot of political courage to come clean and acknowledge that it accidentally shot down a civilian airliner, something that Ukraine has failed to do for over five and half years since it took down MH-17, as the author explained in his recent review of a relevant documentary titled “Latest MH17 Documentary By SBU Whistleblower Shares Some Shocking Truths“. Sanctions, and a possibly intensified period of “deep state” struggle within Iran, might soon follow, but at least the rest of the world finally has some closure.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Additional 6 Months Granted to NATO Terrorists North of Syria by the UN Security Council

January 12th, 2020 by Miri Wood

Al-Qaeda terrorists operating in the north of Syria and oppressing millions of Syrians can now breathe comfort after the United Nations Security Council extended their supply routes from their regional sponsor NATO member state Turkey for an additional Six months within its Resolution 2504.

Thousands of earlier UNSC resolutions remain unimplemented, especially those related to solving the violations of the Israeli apartheid regime against the people of Palestine, Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon and the cross-border assassinations it carries out due to the absolute protection it gets from the three NATO member states in the UNSC.

His Excellency Bashar al Jaafari addressed the UN Security Council on Resolution 2504, on 10 January. The resolution subsequently passed, in what might be the largest Pontius Pilate abstention votes (4) in UN history. Scant reports suggest it is a watered-down extension of the criminal 2165 (2014), which breached the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic.

At this writing, the full Resolution, and details of the meeting remain available; the UN website has cried poor-mouth in its inability to provide the essentials, though it did find the massive funding to do a release on the wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garment, by the colonialist clique running the circus.

Ojala! The triage geniuses were able to post this page, showing the usual colonialist wailing, though it couldn’t quite squeeze in that France was the lone country to vote in support of 2504. The penholding House Servants were inconsolable.

Ambassador al Jaafari began his statement in noting the “inhumane scene” of the “two charters” of the assemblage: The written one, filled with noble aspirations, and the active one, of “political agenda” by some member states, a biased agenda which sullies the noble, written charter.

As multiple demonstrations conducted in Haiti, New-York, California, Ottawa, Montreal, Caracas etc… have shown, corrupt post-coup puppet regimes installed and maintained by the Core Group are highly unpopular.

“Since the onset of the terrorist war against my country,” Dr. Jaafari continued, the Syrian government has made “relentless efforts to ensure” the delivery of essential goods and services to its citizenry, including food, healthcare, education, and salaries, despite the illicit economic coercive measures erroneously named “sanctions.” The Syrian Arab Red Crescent and authorized NGOs have successfully worked with OCHA, in such deliveries, yet OCHA representatives at the UN engage in partiality, having “taken sides of western states” in hostility toward Syria.

He decried the hypocrisy of OCHA and the Under Secretary, cheering the criminality against his country. “So, OCHA today is providing food and humanitarian assistance to Idlib terrorists, who are bound to Tripoli in Libya through Turkey. That’s the ‘humanitarian’ action envisioned.”

Syria UN Jaafari Humanitarian Aid Delivered by SARC Syrian Arab Red Crescent - السفير بشار الجعفري حول المساعدات الإنسانية المقدمة من الهلال الأحمر العربي السوري - مجلس الأمن الدولي

Addressing Mark Lowcock’s “falsified” stats at UNSC, Ambassador Jaafari shows documentation for SARC convoys in 2018. [Archive]

UN Lowcock Humanitarian Syria

Lowcock averts his gaze from documentation held by H.E. Jaafari. [Archive]

Thought the Charter is clear on the inviolability of sovereign rights of member states, UNSCR 2165 (2014) and extensions UNSCR 2393 (2017), UNSCR 2449 (2018) all violated Syria’s territorial integrity.

“Penholders” can accurately be described as ”teachers pets” culled from the General Assembly to give the best performances of House Servants, to the P3 masters.

Beginning with 2165, these resolutions permitting breach of Syrian sovereignty have provided terrorists with weapons — including of a chemical nature — finance, and the ability to smuggle out Syrian oil, artifacts, and property; Jabhat al Nusra terrorists occupying Idlib, have received their life line from Turkey, especially.

Excellency Jaafari reminded the Security Council that penholders have no legal standing at the UN. Current penholders, Kuwait, Belgium, and Germany have displayed unprofessional and unethical actions during this period. The Belgian let slip, during the meeting, that the trio had been “consulting with” council members and “neighboring countries,” not with Syria.

He reminded them that the capital of Syria is Damascus, not cities in foreign countries.

Diplomat Jaafari discredited the members who act as though engaged in Playstation games.

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U.S. Media Outlets Fail to Disclose U.S. Government Ties of ‘Iranian Journalist’ Echoing Trump Talking Points

January 12th, 2020 by Eli Clifton

The Trump administration is adamant that Iranians welcome the assassination of Qassem Soleimani. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed Iraqis were “dancing in the street … thankful that General Soleimani is no more” and that Iranians will view the U.S. as “giving them freedom.” 

The facts on the ground did little to match Pompeo’s assessments, however, with massive funeral processions for Soleimani in both Iraq and Iran, while Iraq’s parliament called for the expulsion of U.S. troops because of Soleimani’s assassination. But one frequently cited Iranian voice in the mainstream media, Masih Alinejad, has been repeatedly echoing the administration’s claims that Iranians, despite all visible evidence, were welcoming Trump’s potential act of war against Iran.

Fox News for example presented Alinejad – who appeared on the network on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – as an “Iranian journalist” or “Iranian journalist and activist,” missing a key detail about her biography: she’s paid by the U.S. government. CNN, and New York Times columnist Bret Stephens also quoted her without acknowledging her government funding.

Alinejad works as an “anchor, writer, reporter for [Voice of America] Persian Service,” a U.S. government owned television network broadcasting to Iranians, according to a publicly available description of her federal contract reviewed by Responsible Statecraft.

She received more than $305,000 in contracts for her work at Voice of America (VOA) Persia between May, 2015 and September 10, 2019, the date of her most recent contract.

That crucial context was missing in her television appearances and other media citations in which she appeared to closely echo the Trump administration’s line that the Soleimani assassination was welcomed in the region even when there is little evidence to support the assertion.

On Friday, Stephens took the contrarian view that Soleimani’s killing may bring calm to the region and cited Alinejad, without acknowledging her government funding, to back up his assertion. “One possible outcome is that a spooked Iranian leadership, already reeling from devastating sanctions and mass demonstrations, will prefer to tread lightly, at least for the time being,” wrote Stephens. “‘Suleimani’s death could bring a sense of realism to the Islamic Republic’s thinking,’ says the Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.”

On Friday, Alinejad told Fox News that Western journalists in Iran are “not even in touch with ordinary [Iranian] people” and, largely due to purportedly wanting to maintain good relations with the Iranian government, don’t report on widespread dissatisfaction with the government and anger at Soleimani.

On Saturday, she told Fox News — again, contrary to available evidence — that “a lot of Iranians do not see Qassem Soleimani a hero” and claimed that Iranian victims of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ violence during the November protests in Iran are “very happy” with his death.

And on Fox News on Sunday, she continued to echo Trump administration claims that the large turnout for Soleimani’s funeral procession in Tehran was explained by “employees of the government” and students being “forced to go to the streets.” She added that “average Iranians see the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization” but acknowledged that Trump threatening to destroy Iranian cultural sites was unhelpful.

Fox News wasn’t the only network to give Alinejad a platform. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria had Alinejad on his show, GPS, on December 22 to discuss the month-long protests and introduced her only as “an Iranian Activist in exile” without disclosing that she is paid by the U.S. government.

In her own capacity, Alinejad is less than transparent about her ties to the U.S. government. On Twitter, she has more than 152,000 followers but she describes herself on her profile only as an “Iranian journalist and activist,” making no mention of her role at VOA or her government contracts.

Under the Trump administration, VOA has become, as one of the network’s former senior managing editors put it, “a mouthpiece of Trump — only Trump and nothing but Trump.” Another former senior editor there called it “blatant propaganda” with “no objectivity or factuality.” Indeed, VOA Persian journalists have increasingly attacked Americans who are critical of Trump’s Iran policy. In August, The Intercept took a closer look and found, “The public attacks are the most visible manifestation of a transformation that’s been underway since November 2016. VOA Persian and many of its staffers have become rabidly pro-Trump, abandoning their stated mission of providing balanced news to Iranians.”

U.S. government funded and operated Radio Farda also failed to disclose Alinejad’s role as a government contractor. In February, Radio Farda published an article describing how, “U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Iranian-American women’s rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejad on Monday February 4 and thanked her for her bravery.”

Alinejad tweeted about the meeting, saying, “I did my best to be the voice of people who trust me,” and “many Iranians want an end to the Islamic Republic.”

The Washington Post published an op-ed on Monday by Alinejad, and while it originally did not disclose her VOA affiliation, it later amended the article to reflect her employment there. Media outlets should be following the Post in disclosing that Alinejad is being paid by the U.S. government and works for the increasingly pro-Trump Voice of America.

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Featured image: Masih Alinejad with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, February, 2019 (Photo credit: U.S. State Department)

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Iran’s Accidental Downing of a Ukrainian Plane Is Already Being Used to Smear MH-17 Skeptics

January 12th, 2020 by Max Parry

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 documentary MH17: 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.
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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, even if by accident. Stay skeptical.

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How to Hide an Empire – A History of the Greater United States

January 12th, 2020 by Jim Miles

The Greater United States of the title is not just the contiguous states of the mainland plus insets for Alaska and Hawaii, but includes many of the smaller – and not small – territories and possessions held by the U.S. around the world.  It is “seeing a familiar history differently” from the perspective of what were and are considered territories or possessions.  It is a story of land, slavery, economics, the military, and technology leading to globalization of trade, transport and communications, supported by a global network of military bases.  How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. “He tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States”. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.is an intriguing read into a history that is only touched upon in passing if  at all in mainstream presentations. 

Racism

The overall theme of the book as it explores the many different areas involved is that of racism.  It is not stated overtly as such, but in each historical episode, from each archival story, racism always plays a role, in the typical words about savages and lesser races needing to be civilized (at best) or simply to be done away with if recalcitrant (quite common!).

It starts with the first settlers to North America, following the expansion of the U.S. across the continent.  The land, in general, went from wilderness, to Indian Territory, to a pre-state territory and finally into statehood.  It then looks at the first overseas expansions with the Spanish-American war of which very little is known in its true light.

A fair bit of time is spent on this war, describing how the U.S. did not really win the war as Spain was already losing to the revolutions already occurring in Cuba, the Philippines and other colonies.  They found their excuse to intervene, sort of supported the successful guerilla fighters, then once victorious turned against them in order to install their own colonial apparatus to control the savages.

From this larger war, How to Hide and Empire goes through the interesting unknown histories of some smaller possessions, mostly rocky dry islets for guano, a late 19th century chemical needed for agriculture.  This introduces what Immerwahr calls the “pointillist” empire, the many small islets and locations (e.g. Guantanamo, Okinawa) scattered around the world for mostly strategic military purposes.  Kidnapping, racism, and exploitation accompanied these acquisitions.

How to hide an empire

After racism as a theme, the main idea of the book, a hidden empire, is obvious, and the answer is also obvious.  The first is simply to ignore it:  these histories are seldom if ever mentioned in the mainstream media or even in alternate media; the education system presents its histories in terms of defining dates and glorified names and supposed victories.

But above all the cultures of the people involved are destroyed.  The language is forbidden, and children are removed to schools where they cannot speak their native language.  They are then inculcated with the dominant myth of their needing enlightenment or civilization or in most early cases Christianity.  Another manner to destroy the culture is by changing laws to give the colonial/administrative  government power over all aspects of life, civilian and military.  Voting rights play significantly into this with laws on property, language, and education affecting people’s right to vote.

Empire

“Foreign prisons, walled compounds, hidden bases, island colonies, GPS antenna stations, pinpoint strikes, networks, planes and drones – these are the locales and instruments of the ongoing war on terror.  This is the shape of power today.”

There is no question in this presentation that the U.S. is and always was an empire.  Today it has changed from the landholding empires of the previous centuries European empires to that of an integrated economic, technological, surveillance empire.  Yet, for all that, “Territory still matters today…the history of the United States is the history of empire.”

Writing style

Immerwahr’s writing is a very well presented anecdotal style creating an interesting personal history of the different areas.  When discussing the guano story, significant for U.S. agriculture, he presents the story of Fritz Haber who later discovered how to fix nitrogen from the air, thus relieving pressure on the exhausted guano islets.  He later created the poison gases used in WW I.

His wife Clara, a gifted scientist in her own right, supposedly distraught over something in their marriage, committed “suicide”,  but knowing how these things usually work out today, she was probably murdered by Haber, who then went on to create Zyklon A and Zyklon B, the latter used in the German gas chambers.

Immerwahr’s writing includes many little interconnected stories such as this to present a highly readable and interesting ‘unseen’ history of U.S. overseas possessions. It is well worth the read for both those introducing themselves to the concept to the U.S. as empire, and those who already know it.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

US Envoy: Next Plan Is to Let Israel Annex West Bank

January 12th, 2020 by Middle East Monitor

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said yesterday that America’s next step, after recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, is the annexation of the occupied West Bank, Ma’an reported.

In a press conference held jointly with the Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett, Friedman said that he has been doing his best since he become ambassador to “fix” the issues which remain outstanding after the 1967 war.

“Since coming here l’ve worked to add one more item to a busy agenda: helping to find a fix to the issues that still linger from the Six Day War.”

There are three important issues, he said, Jerusalem, which US has already recognised as Israel’s capital and relocated its embassy to, the Golan Heights, which America has recognised Israel’s sovereignty of, and the West Bank.

“But it didn’t make peace with everyone and when we came into office the lingering issues included three of significant importance: the status of 1) Jerusalem, 2) the Golan Heights and 3) Judea and Samaria. We have approached them in ascending order of complexity,” he said referring to the occupied West Bank using its Israeli name.

He pointed out that the West Bank is the most complicated issue because of the large number of Palestinians living there, noting that the US would propose its vision for the solution, referring to the deal of the century.

“It does not obfuscate the very real issue that 2 million or more Palestinians reside in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank], and we all wish that they live in dignity, in peace, and with independence, pride and opportunity. We are committed to find a way to make that happen.”

Friedman added that Israel “recovers” it from Jordan in 1967 after it had “occupied” it for 19 years.

“Jordan had occupied Judea and Samaria for only 19 years and almost no one recognised its rights to the territory,” he continued.

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After 18 Years of US Occupation, Poll Finds Zero Percent of Afghans Thriving, 85 Percent “Suffering”

January 12th, 2020 by Alan MacLeod

American polling firm Gallup has found that Afghans are the saddest people on earth, finding that nearly nine in ten respondents are “suffering,” in their own words, with zero percent claiming that they are currently “thriving.” When asked to rate their life out of a score of ten, Afghans gave an average answer of 2.7, a record low for any country studied. Worse still, when asked to predict the quality of their life in five years, the average answer was even lower: 2.3.

As the study mentioned, “the unprecedented finding highlights Afghans’ near-universal lack of optimism.” In more than a decade of data collection around the world on the topic, this is the first time that any population predicted that their future lives would be worse than their current ones. This, to Gallup, was “all the more notable” due to Afghanistan’s very young population; two-thirds of those interviewed were aged 35 or under. Less than half of the country said they experienced enjoyment or were treated with respect in the previous day, while 52 percent admitted to worrying for much of the day, up 10 percentage points from 2016.

Source | Gallup

Remarkably, the study does not mention the 18-year U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the country as a potential explanatory factor for their suffering. In fact, it explicitly warns against an American withdrawal, arguing that it would “strengthen the Taliban’s grip” over the country, thus, tacitly endorsing the U.S. government and presenting the military as a force for good in the region.

The United States attacked Afghanistan in October 2001, invading just weeks after the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. It justified the decision on the inaccurate claim that the Taliban were not willing to negotiate handing over top suspect Osama Bin Laden. Since 2001, the occupation and fighting have not stopped, destroying the country in the process and leading to the U.S. spending an estimated $2 trillion on the war. The U.S. military and its allies are the number one killers in the country. Despite this, the Taliban is now in a stronger position than at any time in the last two decades, controlling more territory than it did in 2001.

The human cost of the conflict is clear but quantifiable statistics are sparse. The World Bank estimates that the number of Afghans living in poverty rose from 9.1 million in 2007 to 19.3 million in 2016. The average income is less than 2,000 U.S. Dollars per year, one of the lowest of any country in the world.

This is not the first time that Gallup has downplayed its explosive findings that imply a strongly anti-imperialist message. In 2014, it surveyed world public opinion on which country they believed was the greatest threat to world peace. The overwhelming number one choice was the United States, with a quarter of those polled selecting the U.S. out of nearly 200 countries.  Even in closely allied states like Germany, fear of America was highest. Pakistan was a distant second, buoyed by a large Indian vote in the survey. Gallup decided not to ask the question again. A December poll from the Pew Research Center also showed a majority of Mexicansconsider the U.S. the greatest threat to their country.

In December, the Afghanistan Papers were leaked to the Washington Post. In what political commentator Kyle Kulinski described as the worst media failure of 2019, the documents revealed that high-level military officers believed that the war was unwinnable, but that knowledge was kept from the public by the government who deliberately misled the public since the invasion. Kulinski decried the near “total lack of coverage” of the news. “We were lied to all throughout the war, every step of the way” he said; “18 years we’ve been at war…no good has come from it.”

On the Afghanistan Papers, MintPress News contributor Medea Benjamin said:

The debacle in Afghanistan is only one case in a fundamentally flawed U.S. policy with worldwide consequences. New quasi-governments installed by U.S. “regime change” in country after country have proven more corrupt, less legitimate and less able to control their nation’s territory than the ones the U.S. has destroyed.

She argued that there is a single premise that Washington “refuses to learn”: that the underlying fault is not in how the U.S. tries to change societies through regime change, but in the “fundamental illegitimacy of regime change itself.” While the Trump administration has made a few noises about a withdrawal from Afghanistan, successive regimes before it have made similar proclamations. And with the recent deployment of 4,000 extra troops to Iraq, it doesn’t appear that the Middle East will have anything to smile about any time soon.

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Alan MacLeod is a MintPress Staff Writer as well as an academic and writer for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. His book, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting was published in April.

Only 23% of American Voters Can Identify Iran on the World Map

January 12th, 2020 by Rashaan Ayesh

Only 23% of registered American voters were able to correctly identify Iran on an unlabeled world map, according to a poll from Morning Consult and Politico.

Why it matters: Voters’ inability to pick out Iran on the map highlights their relative unfamiliarity with foreign countries — even after decades of conflicts and tensions with the U.S. in the region.

  • Things didn’t get much better on a smaller scale as just 28% of voters were able to place Iran on an unlabeled map of the Middle East.
  • 8% of voters thought Iraq was Iran on the regional map.

The state of play: On Morning Consult’s global map, voters’ responses were spread across the globe. While the Middle East saw definite clustering, some respondents believed — among dozens of wild responses — that Iran was located in:

  • The U.S.
  • Canada
  • Spain
  • Russia
  • Brazil
  • Australia
  • The middle of the Atlantic Ocean

The big picture: The death of Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike has refreshed focus and attention on the region as tensions between the two countries remain high.

  • 47% of voters surveyed supported Trump’s decision to strike Soleimani, compared to 40% who did not — a result that broke largely along party lines.
  • Morning Consult noted that there were no statistical differences in support for the strike among those who could or could not identify Iran on a map.

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Invoking the United Nations’ Historic “Uniting for Peace” Resolution 377 Before Trump Embroils Us in War with Iran

January 12th, 2020 by Dimitri Lascaris

In the early hours of January 3, 2020, the United States military assassinated Iran’s most powerful military commander, General Qasem Soleimani.

Soleimani’s killing, accomplished by means of a drone strike in Baghdad, was done without the authorization of the Iraqi government. It thus constitutes a grave breach of Iraqi sovereignty.

It also constitutes an act of war against the state of Iran. Soleimani was a high-ranking representative of the Iranian government, reputed by many to be the second most powerful official after Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The U.S. government sought to justify Soleimani’s assassination on the basis that Soleimani was allegedly planning one or more “imminent” attacks on Americans.

According, however, to New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, who consulted with knowledgeable sources within the United States government, the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is “razor thin.”

As stated by Agnes Callamard, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on on Extra-Judicial Executions:

Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.

Ms. Callamard went on to explain that:

To be justified under international human rights law, intentionally lethal or potentially lethal force can only be used where strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.

Thus, Soleimani’s assassination was not only a grave breach of Iraqi sovereignty and an act of war against Iran, it was also a violation of international human rights law.

Even worse, on January 5, Iraq’s Prime Minister revealed that Trump had called him to ask him to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran with a view to defusing tensions between them and that the U.S. assassinated Soleimani at the very moment when Soleimani was carrying a response to the Saudi initiative.

In response to these shocking revelations, former U.S. Green Party leader Jill Stein tweeted:

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.

Undeterred by the collapse of his mendacious justification for provoking war with Iran, Trump threatened on January 5 to target Iranian cultural sites – a brazen war crime – if Iran elected to retaliate against his act of war.

Meanwhile, Iran has announced its withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear deal, referred to as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or “JCPOA.” The JCPOA’s future was already in grave doubt due to the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the agreement in 2018 and his subsequent imposition of crushing sanctions on Iran — which are destroying Iran’s health infrastructure and causing innocent Iranians to suffer and die.

It is important to recall that, at the time of Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, the International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Iran was in compliance with the deal.

The mere fact that Iran entered into the deal at all was remarkable, given that its arch-nemesis in the region, Israel, possesses the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal and is the only state in the Middle East that refuses to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT).

The United States itself is a party to the NNPT but is flagrantly violating its core provisions by failing to disarm and by ‘modernizing’ its already massive nuclear arsenal.

Thus, American-Israeli demands that Iran be deprived of any and all nuclear weapons is the height of hypocrisy – a hypocrisy almost universally ignored by the Western corporate media.

Trump’s machinations are occurring within an historical context that is also routinely ignored by the Western corporate media.

In 2013, the CIA admitted that, along with British intelligence, it orchestrated a 1953 coup d’état against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq. The coup, according to declassified documents, was “conceived and approved at the highest levels of government.” Mosaddeq’s ‘crime’ was that he nationalized the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company for the benefit of his own people.

Mosaddeq was supplanted by the murderous, Western-backed Shah of Iran. Subsequent to the Shah’s demise, the United States helped the dictator Saddam Hussein to massacre Iranians with chemical weapons in a savage war that cost an estimated one million Iranian lives.

Toward the end of that war, the U.S. navy shot down an Iranian commercial airliner, killing all of the plane’s 290 civilian passengers.

More recently, Israel has repeatedly violated the sovereignty of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq in order to kill Iranian forces and officials who are in those countries lawfully, at the invitation of their internationally recognized governments.

Despite the appalling historical record of Western abuse of the Iranian people, Iran is routinely treated by Western officials and the corporate media as a diabolical aggressor whose expansionism must be contained at all costs.

None of this is to deny that the Iranian regime has committed severe human rights abuses, but since when did Western ‘leaders’ prioritize human rights? Even as they wax eloquent about the liberation and well-being of the Iranian people (whose economy is being strangled by American sanctions), they are arming to the teeth the monstrous Saudi autocracy. As renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky has observed, the Saudi autocracy “makes Iran look like a virtual paradise.” In 2013, Professor Chomsky denounced Western powers for “torturing” Iran for 60 years, since the 1953 CIA-led coup.

What now?

Unless the world acts quickly, retaliation by Iran, either directly or by means of proxy forces, seems inevitable. After all, how could Iran maintain any credibility as a regional power if it allowed the murder of its top general to go unanswered?

Any such retaliation would almost certainly be met with a deadly escalation by the criminally insane Trump administration, perhaps leading to all-out war.

Iran has called upon the U.N. Security Council to denounce the Trump administration’s “criminal act” and “state terrorism” (both accurate descriptions of Trump’s drone attack on the sovereign territory of Iraq), but Security Council intervention is doomed to failure: the U.S. government would undoubtedly exercise its veto power to block any Security Council action against the United States.

There may be, however, another option.

That option is United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377, known as the “Uniting for Peace” resolution. Adopted in 1950, Resolution 377 provides that, in cases where the Security Council, due to a lack of unanimity amongst its five permanent members, fails to act as required to maintain international peace and security, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue any recommendations it deems necessary in order to restore international peace and security.

Any such recommendations would not be binding upon United Nations members or the Security Council, but a strong, widely-supported denunciation of America’s latest act of criminal aggression against Iran, coupled with carefully crafted recommendations for defusing the crisis with collective measures, might just be enough to preserve Iran’s credibility as a regional power without obliging Iran to retaliate.

Even the most belligerent actors agree that an all-out war between the United States and Iran and its allies would have dire consequences for the Middle East and, indeed, the entire world.

There is nothing to lose by invoking the Uniting for Peace resolution, and everything to gain by doing so.

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Genetically Modified Seeds in India: Faking it on the Astroturf

January 12th, 2020 by Colin Todhunter

According to a recent report in The Hindu Business Line, India’s intelligence agencies are investigating the role of a global investment company and international seed companies in supporting farmers organisation Shetkari Sanghatana (SS) in the distribution of illegally procured genetically modified (GM) herbicide tolerant (HT) cotton seeds. The planting of such seeds is an offence under the Environment Protection Act and Seeds Act.

In May 2019, SS broke the law and freely distributed these seeds. In early January 2020, it broke the law again by distributing second generation seeds. According to the report, a senior intelligence official had told Business Line that a global investment company, with investments in seeds and agrochemicals companies, has chosen to support the farmers’ organisation.

Business Line reports that the investment company is allegedly putting pressure on the Modi government to ensure that the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee fast tracks the clearance of HT seeds, so the seeds could be legally harvested and sold in the country.

In India, five high-level reports have advised against the adoption of GM crops. Appointed by the Supreme Court, the ‘Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report’ (2013) was scathing about the prevailing regulatory system and highlighted its inadequacies and serious inherent conflicts of interest. The TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops.

The reason why Bt cotton – to date, India’s only officially approved GM crop – made it into farmers’ fields in the first place was due to ‘approval by contamination’. Bt cotton was discovered in 2001 growing on thousands of hectares in Gujarat. In March 2002, it was approved for commercial cultivation.

The pro-GMO lobby has again resorted to such tactics. The 2010 moratorium on Bt brinjal was implemented because science won out against a regulatory process that lacked competency, possessed endemic conflicts of interest and demonstrated a lack of expertise in GM risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts.

As we have seen with the relentless push to get GM mustard commercialised, the problems persist. Now, to justify breaking the law, we are seeing unscientific claims and well-worn industry-inspired soundbites about GM crops: political posturing unsupported by evidence to try to sway the policy agenda in favour of GM.

Drawing on previous peer-reviewed evidence, a 2018 paper in the journal Current Science by renowned scientists PC Kesavan and MS Swaminathan concluded that Bt crops and HT crops are unsustainable and globally have not decreased the need for toxic chemical pesticides, the reason for these GM crops in the first place. 

We need to look at GM objectively because plenty of evidence indicates it poses risks or is not beneficial and that non-GM alternatives are a better option. Moreover, many things that scientists are trying to achieve with GM have already been surpassed by means of conventional breeding.

Those behind the distribution and planting of illegal seeds talk about helping the farmer. But the real agenda is to open-up India to GM and get farmers hooked on a corporate money-spinning GM seed-chemical treadmill.

The watchdog GMWatch recently produced an article about how hired public relations agencies and key individuals with firm links to the biotechnology sector are attempting to deceive the public and policy makers. The article’s author, Jonathan Matthews, notes that in June 2019 the pro-GMO campaigner Mark Lynas began talking up what he claimed was to be “the world’s first pro-GMO protest”.

The term ‘astroturfing’ is the process by which orchestrated marketing and public relations campaigns are presented as emanating from grassroots participants or ordinary members of the public rather than from powerful corporate interests. Lynas, a well-known industry lobbyist, said the ‘protest’ would involve Indian farmers planting banned GM seeds in what he called “Gandhi-style civil disobedience”. This attention-grabbing campaign was being led by SS, which Lynas described as “very grass roots”.

According to Matthews, SS is not a mass movement of grassroots farmers but an allegedly well-funded fringe group created by the late Sharad Joshi, a right-wing economist and member of the Advisory Board of the Monsanto-backed World Agricultural Forum, an organisation whose founder and first chairman was for many years Monsanto’s director of public policy.

Joshi was also Chairman of Shivar Agroproducts Ltd, says Matthews, but he is best remembered for his ultra-libertarian ideology, his links to certain farmers groups and the political party (Swatantra Bharat Paksh) that he founded – all vehicles for promoting his free market fundamentalism.

Matthews says:

“Lynas was not the first to present Shetkari Sanghatana as representing ordinary Indian farmers. A full two decades earlier, the European biotech industry and their PR firm Burson-Marsteller brought some of Shetkari Sanghatana’s leading lights to Europe to try and counter the view that Indian farmers opposed GMO crops. To that end, they were toured around five different countries by the industry’s lobby group, EuropaBio, which in a press release presented this free market fringe group, which is largely confined to the state of Maharashtra, as ‘the mainstream farmers’ movement in India’.”

Matthews adds that the US is the biotech industry’s chief propaganda hub for promoting wide-ranging fakery to the world. Referring to the illegal planting of HT cotton seeds and SS, he says:

“Among the notable cheerleaders promoting the protesters’ cause were the Gates-backed GMO propaganda outfit The Alliance for Science, which pays Mark Lynas to lobby for GMOs; CS Prakash of AgBioWorld, who has long served as a conduit for Monsanto disinformation; Bayer-consultant and Monsanto collaborator Kevin Folta, who made a podcast on the protests with CS Prakash…”

Matthews piece, ‘Fake Farmer Willi part of an international fake parade’, provides details of the various characters and strategies involved in faking it for the biotech industry, not just in India but across the world.   

As a market for GM proprietary seeds, chemical inputs and agricultural technology and machinery, India is vast. The potential market for herbicide growth alone for instance is huge: sales could now have reached USD 800 million with scope for even greater expansion, especially with the illegal push to get HT seeds planted.

With GM crops largely shut out of Europe and many countries reluctant to embrace the technology, Western agro-biotech conglomerates are desperate to seek out and expand into untapped (foreign) markets to maintain profitability. India presents potential rich pickings. And this is the bottom line: GM is not about ‘helping farmers’ or ‘feeding the masses’ (myths that have been deconstructed time and again). It is about hard-nose interests endeavouring to displace existing systems of production and capturing and exploiting markets by any means possible – not least fakery and deception.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

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Selected Articles: Iran Admits Accidentally Shooting Down Ukrainian Passenger Jet

January 12th, 2020 by Global Research News

A future without independent media leaves us with an upside down reality where according to the corporate media “NATO deserves a Nobel Peace Prize”, and where “nuclear weapons and wars make us safer”

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In Stunning Reversal, Iran Admits Accidentally Shooting Down Ukrainian Passenger Jet

By Zero Hedge, January 12, 2020

After multiple denials, and demands for proof from foreign entities – accusing them of spreading “psychological warfare” lies, President Hassan Rouhani has admitted Iran accidentally shot down the Ukrainian jetliner that took off from Tehran’s international airport amid this week’s tensions.

In a pair of tweets, Rouhani admitted that “Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people,” adding that “The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake.”

US Plans Permanent Occupation of Iraq

By Stephen Lendman, January 12, 2020

According to Iraqi Al Sumaria television, PM Mahdi asked Pompeo to send US delegates to Baghdad, wanting the process of withdrawing Pentagon troops from the country begun.

AMN News reported that US forces and weapons continue entering Iraqi territory without government permission. Mahdi and Iraqi MPs want US and allied foreign forces expelled.

Iraq – Why Doesn’t the US Move Out Despite the Iraqi Parliament’s Decision?

By Peter Koenig, January 11, 2020

Why doesn’t the U.S. respect the decision made by the Iraqi Parliament and move out of Iraqi territory? – The short answer is, because the US doesn’t respect anybody’s – any country’s – decision or sovereignty, as long as it doesn’t meet their objectives.

Now, the US is steadfast and will not leave the region. Already President Assad has requested that the US leave Syrian territory. They didn’t. The stakes are too immense for the US. It has all to do with their move towards world hegemony by territory and by finance – meaning by the US dollar.

A New Middle East “Made in Iran” is About to be Born?

By Elijah J. Magnier, January 11, 2020

It would be inaccurate to say the US will leave the Middle East. However, it is certain that the assassination of one single man – the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani – is diminishing US influence significantly. This could not have happened without the (in) direct help of US President Donald Trump. Trump is doing everything possible to undermine and degrade US hegemony in the world. He doesn’t need any help in this endeavour, but his advisors and cabinet members share his talent for mismanaging foreign policy and national security affairs. With this bad advice US relations around the world, and particularly in the Middle East, have been run as if by a businessman, used to negotiating and intimidating with little subtlety and altogether lacking diplomatic skills.

Ten Ways Trump’s Actions Against Iran Hurt Americans, the Region and the World

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, January 11, 2020

The U.S. assassination of General Qassem Soleimani has not yet plunged us into a full-scale war with Iran thanks to the Iranian government’s measured response, which demonstrated its capabilities without actually harming U.S. troops or escalating the conflict. But the danger of a full-blown war still exists, and Donald Trump’s actions are already wreaking havoc.

The tragic crash of the Ukranian passenger jet that left 176 dead may well be the first example of this, if indeed it was shot down by a jittery Iranian anti-aircraft crew who mistook the airliner for a U.S. warplane.

What’s Behind Boeing Crash in Iran?

By South Front, January 11, 2020

On January 11, the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces issued a statement saying that the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 (Flight PS752) had been shot down as a result of the human error “at a time of crisis caused by US adventurism.”

At the time of the incident, Iranian forces were on the highest alert. The plane flown close to a sensetive military site.

Savage. Brutal. After the Assassination of Soleimani, Can We Just Admit that the United States Has No Morality at All?

By Dr. Robert P. Abele, January 10, 2020

Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian military commander, who was assassinated this week by the United States in Baghdad, while he was on a peaceful mission, is just the latest, but perhaps most brazen and alarming, declaration by the United States that it is bound by no law and no moral principles. That is the sign of a morally bankrupt government and a similar culture that would support such actions.

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This Iranian War Vet Has Some Advice for Trump: Don’t Play Checkers with the Grandmasters of Chess

January 12th, 2020 by Habib Ahmadzadeh

Dear President Trump,

In a recent Tweet, you claimed that “Iranians never won a war, but never lost a negotiation.” As a world citizen and a veteran of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, I have firsthand experience with the bitterness of war, and I have a few suggestions and responses for you.

First, I would advise you against using the words win and winning to describe war, especially from a US perspective. American history is filled with bitter experiences of losing wars. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and even the engagement in Yemen—none of these horrifying interventions has ever reached their goals.

You should recognize that the first step in any combat is understanding your adversary. As an experienced Iranian war veteran, I strongly suggest you study the culture and history of an old civilization like Iran. Iranians, those you label as living in a “terrorist nation,” are proud that in the past 250 years we have never initiated a war. We are proud that we have never invaded, intruded and oppressed other nations, neither in our neighborhood nor even in response to our foes. 

Nonetheless, there is a delicacy in the sophisticated culture of Iran that separates us from you and your hawkish #Bteam—Bolton, Bin Salman and Bibi Netanyahu. The major difference is the view we each have toward war. For us, war is not an option; we never choose to go to war; we only respond to war.

In 1915, during WWI, Rais Ali Delvary, a young man from a tiny village near the Persian Gulf, gathered a group together to defend the country from the British invaders. They stopped the intruders who violated Iran’s neutrality during the war. Rais Ali’s slogan at the time is still applicable today. “We are in this war not to win over the invaders’ capital and assets; we are in this war to save our capital and assets from loss.” That is how we define losing and winning in a war. Rais Ali and his people won that war, as his disciples did almost a century later, and will do it again if they have to.

Mr. President, Iran has never initiated a war. Iran has never seized other nations’ resources to gain wealth and benefit for itself but Iran, of course, has and will vigorously defend its belongings, resources, life, and identity. Iran has done that throughout its four thousand years of history and will do it again if necessary. Rais Ali and his team did it in 1915. People in my generation did it in 1980-88 when the whole world stood behind Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain and helped him throughout those terrible eight years of war. We Iranians sacrificed everything to defend our nation.

Under the world’s watch, Saddam Hussain dropped bombs and used chemical weapons on civilians. In the end, he was not able to seize even an inch of our homeland. Iranians became one body in defense of our homes and families.

We lost hundreds of thousands of precious lives. To this day, Iranians, despite our differences, are all proud of the eight years we spent defending our country. Losing so many lives was a terrible tragedy and the nation still mourns the lives lost during those eight years. However, we stood firm and saved our homeland. Iran is still Iran; we did not lose an inch of terrain.

Mr. President, in our lexicon, the one who starts a war is the only loser. The one who plans to steal the happiness, life, and wellbeing of others is the real loser.  

War is not our business, but negotiations and diplomacy are. War is not our purpose. Peace is our mission. Peace is our philosophy in life, and you are right, diplomacy is our art.

Iran has proven its mastery in the art of diplomacy. Diplomacy, forbearance and patience are inclinations that cannot be achieved by billions of dollars of weapons. The United States’ allies in the region, including Saudi’s Bin-Salman and Israel’s Bibi Netanhayu, can testify to that. They have spent many billions of dollars in arms sales but have not been able to dominate Iran.

Just be aware, Mr. President, that your friends on the #Bteam are pushing you into the same quagmire they created with Iraq. In desperation, they have now tied the hands of our master of diplomacy, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, by imposing sanctions on him. They should have learned their lesson by now—they might be able to ties the hands of our master chessplayers, but we will find other ways to move the pawns and horses. And a final word of advice: Don’t play checkers with the grandmasters of chess.

Sincerely,

Habib Ahmadzadeh

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Habib Ahmadzadeh is an Iranian author, filmmaker and veteran whose often uses his experience in the 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq war in his work.

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Polls Show Americans Believe Killing Iranian General Made the US Less Safe

January 12th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

The Trump regime’s assassination of widely respected Iranian General Qassem Soleimani made things less safe in the region and beyond.

Killing him was an act of war, the highest of high crimes under international law — turning millions of Iranians, Iraqis, others in the region, and elsewhere into raging US haters for good reason.

Soleimani was a peace champion, a leading regional force against the scourge of US-supported ISIS and likeminded terrorists.

Aggression by one country against another heightens the risk for greater conflict.

Further US hostile actions in the Middle East are virtually certain — no matter which extremist wing of the US war party is in charge.

Trump turned truth on its head, falsely claiming the Soleimani’s assassination averted an “imminent” threat, adding:

He acted to “stop a war, not…start one” — another bald-faced Big Lie by the nation’s liar-in-chief, his remarks making painful listening and reading.

Virtually nothing he says is credible.  It’s simple to know when he’s lying. Read his lips.

Ignore his rhetoric and tweets. Follow his actions and polls. Gallup tracking polls have his approval rating at 45% last month.

An early January FiveThirtyEight poll has his approval at 42.6% — noting that it’s the lowest for a US presidential aspirant since Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Pew Research data based on respondents in 32 countries show 64% of those surveyed have no confidence in Trump, only 29% expressing support.

He scores lowest in Western Europe, Russia, Argentina, Turkey, Tunisia, and Mexico, highest in Israel, a nation run by likeminded Ziofascist extremists.

A new USA Today/Ipsos poll showed 55% of respondents believe killing Soleimani made the US less safe, only 24% saying it’s safer in the aftermath of what happened — 62% fearful that war with Iran is more likely following his assassination.

Over half of respondents called Trump’s anti-Iran agenda “reckless.”

A new Morning Consult poll showed 50% of Americans feel less safe from Soleimani’s elimination, only 32% feeling safer — 69% believing war with Iran now more likely, only 15% saying it’s less likely.

A new Reuters poll showed 54% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions toward Iran, only 37% expressing support.

A Huff Post/YouGov poll released Monday showed 46% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s Iran policy, 40% supporting it, 57% believing US war with Iran more likely.

On five talk shows last Sunday, Pompeo lied to the US public, saying Soleimani’s elimination made the US “100% safer.”

During a Tuesday press briefing, his Big Lies continued nonstop.

He lied about ongoing protests in Hong Kong with US dirty hands manipulating them, falsely claiming the Trump regime supports “human rights and fundamental freedoms,” what GOP and Dem hardliners want eliminated everywhere.

He lied claiming Iran is involved in Afghanistan, “actively working to undermine the peace process by continuing its long global efforts to support militant groups there (sic).”

He expressed support for US-designated puppet Guaido in Venezuela, a reviled usurper with no legitimacy, defrocked as National Assembly head by other opposition MPs, accusing him of corruption.

On Iran, Pompeo lied claiming Soleimani was assassinated to prevent an imminent threat to US security, falsely accusing him of conducting a “terror campaign in the region” — a US, NATO, Israeli specialty, Iran dedicated to combatting the scourge of terrorism, Soleimani in the forefront of its campaign while alive.

Pompeo lied claiming his assassination was “legal,” a notion responsible jurists explain is never the case for any reason.

Pompeo lied claiming Soleimani’s diplomatic peace mission to Iraq on the day he was assassinated “was not true.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif explained it. Pompeo is pygmy in stature to his preeminence on the world stage.

“Zarif is a propagandist of the first order,” he roared – a bald-faced Big Lie about a highly respected diplomat worldwide.

Pompeo continued to hype the nonexistent threat of an Iranian nuclear breakout toward the bomb.

The Islamic Republic nuclear program is the world’s most intensively monitored by IAEA inspectors. Fully compliant with the NPT and JCPOA, it has no military component or intention to have one.

If all nations were governed like Iran, swords would become plowshares worldwide.

Peace and stability would replace endless US, NATO, Israeli wars of aggression.

Mutual cooperation among nations and multi-world polarity would replace Washington’s rage to dominate other nations by brute force.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from the American Herald Tribune

In Stunning Reversal, Iran Admits Accidentally Shooting Down Ukrainian Passenger Jet

January 12th, 2020 by Zero Hedge

After multiple denials, and demands for proof from foreign entities – accusing them of spreading “psychological warfare” lies, President Hassan Rouhani has admitted Iran accidentally shot down the Ukrainian jetliner that took off from Tehran’s international airport amid this week’s tensions.

In a pair of tweets, Rouhani admitted that “Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people,” adding that “The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake.”

The army said Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was flying close to a sensitive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military site when it was downed because of “human error,” adding that the “culprits” would be identified and referred to judicial authorities.

“Iran’s armed forces went on high alert following U.S. threats to target Iranian sites,” the army said in the statement.

“Under such highly sensitive and critical circumstances, the Boeing Flight 752 flew close to a sensitive IRGC military site at an altitude and angle that made it appear as a hostile target. The plane was hit due to human error and unintentionally.”

In the aftermath of the incident, Rouhani arranged for “compensation” payments to the victims’ families, and ordered reforms of the country’s air defense system to prevent similar disasters in the future.

Iran will reportedly send the black boxes of the crashed jet to France as it lacks the technology to decode them, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif blamed “human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism” for the disaster.

Military officials will elaborate on the crash on state media on Saturday. There has been no response from The White House yet.

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US Plans Permanent Occupation of Iraq

January 12th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

The US plans permanent occupation of numerous nations worldwide, including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and other countries it attacked preemptively.

It’s up to officials of these countries and mass public opposition to end US occupation through the power of resistance.

Pentagon bases are platforms for endless wars, including against host and neighboring countries.

So-called status of forces (SOFA) agreements establish the framework under which US forces operate abroad — serving its own interests at the expense of occupied nations and their people.

Chalmers Johnson explained SOFAs as follows, saying:

“America’s foreign military enclaves, though structurally, legally, and conceptually different from colonies, are themselves something like micro-colonies in that they are completely beyond the jurisdiction of the occupied nation,” adding:

“The US virtually always negotiates a ‘status of forces agreement’ (SOFA) with the ostensibly independent ‘host’ nation.”

They’re a modern day version of 19th century China’s “extraterritoriality” agreements.

They grant US occupying forces charged with crimes the “right” to be tried by his (or her) own government under his (or her) own national laws.

It assures exoneration most always or slap on the wrist punishment back home, even for serious crimes like rape and murder, demanding harsh punishment in the host country according to its laws.

US offenders are usually whisked out of countries where they committed crimes.

Most SOFAs are secret, their total number in over 160 occupied countries not disclosed.

They “usurp, distort, or subvert whatever institutions of democratic (or other form of) government may exist with the host society,” Johnson explained.

The presence of US occupying forces abroad assures trouble, including murder, rape, theft, drunken driving, and other crimes.

Local populations also endure unacceptable noise, pollution, environmental destruction, appropriated public land, and US personnel mindless of local laws, customs, and rights of ordinary people.

Locals lose control over their lives and welfar. They have no say and virtually no chance for redress against offenses harming them.

Most US bases abroad are planned for permanent occupation, not abandonment.

Large and medium-sized ones have extensive infrastructure, command and control centers, accommodations for families in combat-free areas, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, and virtually everything else found back home.

Analyst Nick Turse estimates around 800 US bases abroad —  in 164 countries worldwide, according to the Pentagon.

David Vine, author of “Base Nation: How US Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World” believes hundreds more Pentagon bases exist off-the-books globally.

“Undocumented bases are immune to oversight by the public and often even Congress,” Vine explained, adding:

“Bases are a physical manifestation of US foreign and military policy, so off-the-books bases mean the military and executive branch are deciding such policy without public debate, frequently spending hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and potentially getting the US involved in wars and conflicts about which most of the country knows nothing.”

“US bases abroad cost upwards of $50 billion per year to build and maintain, which is money that could be used to address pressing needs at home in education, health care, housing, and infrastructure.”

According to Turse, about 95% of foreign military bases are US ones.

It’s undisclosed how many are in Iraq, Turse saying the number is less than “500-plus” in the aftermath of Bush/Cheney’s aggression, adding:

It’s hard getting “accurate manpower numbers for the military personnel in America’s war zones, let alone the number of bases in each of them.”

The Pentagon keeps this information secret even though satellite imagery can pinpoint their location, size, and estimate their troop size.

What’s revealed about US bases worldwide leaves information on hundreds of off-the-books ones undisclosed.

According to Iraqi Al Sumaria television, PM Mahdi asked Pompeo to send US delegates to Baghdad, wanting the process of withdrawing Pentagon troops from the country begun.

AMN News reported that US forces and weapons continue entering Iraqi territory without government permission. Mahdi and Iraqi MPs want US and allied foreign forces expelled.

Iran’s IRGC “warn(ed) US allies providing bases for (its forces) that any country serving as the origin of bellicose and aggressive attacks in any form against the Islamic Republic of Iran will be targeted” in retaliation.

Iraqi Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq leader Qais Khazali vowed to retaliate against the US for assassinating deputy PMU head Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the resistance aiming to expel US forces from the country.

On Friday, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus defied reality, calling the US “a force for good in the Middle East,” adding:

US forces in Iraq are “to continue the fight against ISIS” — the US created and supports she failed to explain.

On Thursday, PM Mahdi told Pompeo by phone to begin the process of disengaging.

According to the Pentagon, the US has around 60,000 troops in the Middle East, including in Iraq — the likely lowball figure at least double this number with private military contractors included, plus many thousands of US forces in Central Asia and North Africa.

Speaking for Pompeo, Ortagus said “any (US) delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership (sic) — not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East (sic),” adding:

On Friday, “a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO’s role in Iraq” — despite its ruling authorities, lawmakers, and vast majority of its people wanting the hostile US presence in the country ended.

They demand one thing, the Trump regime another, wanting Iraq to pay for unwelcome/unacceptable US occupation, US war secretary Esper saying:

“Our policy has not changed. We are not leaving Iraq.”

Trump said now “isn’t the right point” to leave, threatening tough sanctions on Iraq if unwanted US troops are forced out.

On Friday, Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for unity in the country against foreign occupation, meaning the US and NATO allies, adding:

“(S)erious attacks and repeated violations of Iraqi sovereignty that occurred in recent days with the apparent weakness of the concerned authorities in protecting the country and its people…are part of the repercussions of the current crisis.”

Fatah Alliance head/Badr Organization secretary general Hadi al-Ameri also called for expelling US forces from Iraq.

So did prominent cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. For now US troops remain, for how long an unanswered question.

As long as they’re unwanted and asked to leave, their presence is a hostile occupying force in violation of international law.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

The Indian Protesters Are Misled, but Not in the Way that Modi Says

January 12th, 2020 by Andrew Korybko

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Incendiary Extinctions: Australian Fires and the Species Effect

January 12th, 2020 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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Iraq – Why Doesn’t the US Move Out Despite the Iraqi Parliament’s Decision?

January 11th, 2020 by Peter Koenig

Why doesn’t the U.S. respect the decision made by the Iraqi Parliament and move out of Iraqi territory? – The short answer is, because the US doesn’t respect anybody’s – any country’s – decision or sovereignty, as long as it doesn’t meet their objectives.

Now, the US is steadfast and will not leave the region. Already President Assad has requested that the US leave Syrian territory. They didn’t. The stakes are too immense for the US. It has all to do with their move towards world hegemony by territory and by finance – meaning by the US dollar.

 The conflict with Iran is not over. By any means.

We are just experiencing a respite for regrouping – and subsequently continuing and escalating the conflict. US bases in Iraq and military presence, at present more than 5,000 troops, are the most convenient means of force against Iran.

Other than controlling the rich and highly strategic territory of the Middle-East as an important step towards world hegemony, the US continuous presence in the region also has to do with profits for the war industry and with the price and control of hydrocarbons, especially gas.

We have seen, soon after the cowardly murder of General Qassem Suleimani, the share values of the war industry jumped up, of course in anticipation of a hot war – and huge weapons sales. The war industry profits insanely from killing. Wars and conflicts are increasingly what drives the western economies. Already in the US the war industry and related industries and services make up for about half of the country’s GDP. The US economy without war is unthinkable. Therefore, the Middle-East is a perfect eternal battle ground – a sine qua non for the west. War is addictive. The western economy is already addicted to it. But most people haven’t realized that – yet. Revolving and renewed conflicts and wars is a must. Imagine, if the US were to leave the Middle-East, PEACE might break out. This is not admissible. Soon, your job my depend on war – if you live in the west.

Then there is the Iranian gas. Daily 20% to 25% of all the energy consumed to drive the world’s economy – including wars – transits through the Golf of Hormuz which is controlled by Iran. Immediately after the heinous murder on General Suleimani, the oil and gas prices spiked by about 4%, later declining again. This, in anticipation of a major conflict which could have Iran reduce her gas production, or block the passage of Hormuz. In either case a collapse of the world economy could not be excluded.

As a parenthesis – it is so absolutely necessary that the world frees itself from this nefarious source of energy – hydrocarbons – and converts to other, cheaper, cleaner and FREER sources of power to drive our industries and activities. Like solar energy of which Mother Earth receives every day more than 10,000 time what it needs for all her industrial and creative activities on every Continent.

The US, with a flailing multi-trillion fracking industry which just failed the European market, due Russian gas via Nord Stream2, and just inaugurated Turkstream, would like to control the price of hydrocarbon, so as to revive the highly indebted fracking industry. What better way than to control Iran, and her enormous reserves of gas, shared with Qatar?

Then there is the close alliance between Iran and China – China being Iran’s largest customer of gas. China is perceived by Washington as a deadly competitor, and barring her from the energy that makes China’s economy thrive, is one of those devilish objectives of the United States. They are unable to compete on an even playing field. Cheating, lying and manipulating has become part of their, and the western life style. It is deeply ingrained in western history and culture.

Of, course there are other ways of supplying China with the hydrocarbons she needs. Russia with the world’s largest gas reserves, could easily increase her supplies.

In brief, the US is unlikely to leave the Middle-East, although some generals – and even some high-ranking Pentagon brass – believe this would be the smartest thing to do – they see the light, and the light is not war, but PEACE.

How to Get the US out of Iraq

What could Iraq do to get the US out of Iraq and eventually out of the Region? After all, the Iraqi Parliament has taken a majority decision to regain Iraq’s sovereignty and autonomy, without foreign troops. Most countries with troops stationed in Iraq respect that decision. Denmark, Australia, Poland and Germany are preparing to move their troops out of Iraq. Only the UK with her 800 military men and women decided for now to stay alongside the US.

Iraq may want to strengthen her alliance with Russia and China, hereby increasing the pressure on the US to honor Iraq’s sovereign request for the US to leave. How much that would take to materialize, if at all, is a difficult question to answer. Maybe ‘never’. Except, if the US-dollar hegemony over western economies can be broken. And at the moment, a strong down-turn of the dollar’s role in the world economy is showing, as the western world is increasingly seeking ways to de-dollarize her economy and to associate with the East, led by China and Russia, where de-dollarization is advancing rapidly.

When that happens, chances are that the US of A’s dictates over the nations of the world will be mute, will not be listened to anymore, and that Washington will have to rethink its future – and very likely a US presence in the Middle-East will be history.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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A New Middle East “Made in Iran” is About to be Born?

January 11th, 2020 by Elijah J. Magnier

 It would be inaccurate to say the US will leave the Middle East. However, it is certain that the assassination of one single man – the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani – is diminishing US influence significantly. This could not have happened without the (in) direct help of US President Donald Trump. Trump is doing everything possible to undermine and degrade US hegemony in the world. He doesn’t need any help in this endeavour, but his advisors and cabinet members share his talent for mismanaging foreign policy and national security affairs. With this bad advice US relations around the world, and particularly in the Middle East, have been run as if by a businessman, used to negotiating and intimidating with little subtlety and altogether lacking diplomatic skills.

Every time Iran needs help, President Trump rushes headlong to boost its image in the world, particularly among the “Axis of the Resistance” and above all in relation to China and Russia. These two countries will now only strengthen their relationship with Iran, the country that has effectively and publicly challenged the strongest country in the world.

Targeting a base with thousands of officers and soldiers from hundreds of kilometres away and deliberately avoiding human casualties shows incredible self-confidence in Iran’s manufacture of their own missiles. Iran has shown the strength and technical ability to bomb the most powerful US base in Iraq with precision missiles and has now twice shown mercy by not killing US servicemen.

The first time was in June 2019 when Iran declined to down a US spy plane carrying 38-officers that had violated Iranian space during the “Tanker’s war”. The second time was yesterday when Iran deliberately chose not to bomb human targets at the Ayn al-Assad base hosting in Iraq, home to thousands of US, British, Canadian, Norwegian, Belgian and Dutch officers. Iran used precision missiles to hit specific military objectives avoiding human casualties, by contrast with Trump’s decision to assassinate an Iraqi commander (Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes) and an Iranian general and diplomat on a mission of peace (Sardar Qassem Soleimani).

The Iranian hit on the Ayn al-Assad military base exposed the weakness of the most sophisticated radar and interception missiles in the US arsenal. President Trump has long bragged about these tools like the “best in the world”. But the US defence system at the Iraqi-US base in al-Anbar (west of Iraq) was incapable of intercepting one of the 13 ballistic missiles launched. The consequences of this single act are devastating both to the US armament industry and to US foreign policy in the Middle East.

This strike has shown US allies in the region that the hundreds of billions of dollars they have invested in US weapons are an insufficient defence against Iran. These countries now recognize they have no real deterrence against an Iranian attack. This realisation will push the traditional enemies of Iran in the Middle East to bypass their differences and take the road to Tehran to regain good ties with the “Islamic Republic”. It should not be excluded that many countries would be tempted to buy Iranian precision missiles that must be much cheaper than the expensive US manufactured ones.

President Trump also sent a wrong signal when he announced: “The US doesn’t need Middle Eastern oil”. This statement has been taken by many Middle Eastern leaders as indicating the US government’s lack of appetite to defend their interests since many of these regimes base their yearly budget on oil income.

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This brings us to another important point: Trump’s threat to Iran’s nuclear capability. Following the Ayn al-Assad bombing, it is clear the US will not be involved in bombing Iran any time in the future. The US has the destructive military capability, so does Iran. The lesson learned from the Iranian bombing is that Iran is ready to bomb and hit back US targets with great accuracy. Therefore, bombing Iran is off the table. However, Iran developing its nuclear capability is on the table. Tehran is likely to announce new developments in this area as we approach the anniversary of the US revocation of its commitment next April.

Iran has no choice but to totally pull out from the nuclear deal due to the incapacity and unwillingness of the European signatories of the Iran deal (known as the JCPOA) to honour their commitments, to offer Iran any alternative, and to confront Trump’s unilateral abrogation of the US treaty obligation. Such an announcement will be the Iranian “gift” to Trump for his forthcoming electoral campaign, providing political ammunition to Trump’s political opponents.

Trump has done everything in his power to unify Iran behind their leaders by imposing sanctions on the Iranian people and assassinating their general. Iran played the US sanctions skilfully when attacking tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, gathering public support for the regime and fuelling nationalist feeling. The US assassination of Sardar Qassem Soleimani brought millions onto the street and unified Iran under one flag: the return of Iranian dignity, power and sovereignty. Only Trump could have achieved such a critical goal, regenerating the Iranian regime at the right and most needed moment.

Trump’s call for NATO to assume its responsibility in the Middle East has been interpreted in the region as indicating a serious decline of US hegemony. The US President is showing his inability or unwillingness to deal with Middle Eastern affairs. This could reflect the incompetence of his advisors, or a strategic decision by the US to let go of its influence.

Iran showed its power as a regional country capable of facing the US in its most difficult state. There is little doubt the 40 years of US sanctions on the “Islamic Republic” were a total fiasco even with Trump’s “maximum pressure” of sanctions. It would be difficult to imagine the results if Iran was not under these sanctions all these years.

The US primary ally in the Middle East, Israel, is watching the events with a lot of focus. Iran’s threat to hit the US or Israel is real today. Not only that, throughout the years, Iran has delivered these precision missiles to its partners in the Middle East. Iran (or its allies) showed its capability in the most complicated and coordinated attack ever, as proved during the destruction of Saudi Arabia oil facility. Drones and precision missiles launched hundreds of kilometres away hit simultaneously their target. This spectacular attack was claimed by Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East that initiated its weapon supply and retaliation only in recent years. What about Hezbollah, the fully equipped and highly trained organised but an irregular non-state actor with 38 years of experience? Hezbollah has received precision missiles from Iran and deployed these on the Syrian-Lebanese borders under the mountain chain in underground silos. The Iran bombing of the US-dominated base in Iraq marks the end of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. Israel can see what Iran and its allies are capable of. It should maybe start thinking about a different approach towards the Palestinians.

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.

Proofread by:   C.G.B and Maurice Brasher

 

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The Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy. “Helicopter Money”

January 11th, 2020 by Global Research News

Although the repo market is little known to most people, it is a $1-trillion-a-day credit machine, in which not just banks but hedge funds and other “shadow banks” borrow to finance their trades. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the central bank’s lending window is open only to licensed depository banks; but the Fed is now pouring billions of dollars into the repo (repurchase agreements) market, in effect making risk-free loans to speculators at less than 2%.

This does not serve the real economy, in which products, services and jobs are created. However, the Fed is trapped into this speculative monetary expansion to avoid a cascade of defaults of the sort it was facing with the long-term capital management crisis in 1998 and the Lehman crisis in 2008. The repo market is a fragile house of cards waiting for a strong wind to blow it down, propped up by misguided monetary policies that have forced central banks to underwrite its highly risky ventures.

The Financial Economy Versus the Real Economy

The Fed’s dilemma was graphically illustrated in a Dec. 19 podcast by entrepreneur/investor George Gammon, who explained we actually have two economies – the “real” (productive) economy and the “financialized” economy. “Financialization” is defined at Wikipedia as “a pattern of accumulation in which profits accrue primarily through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production.” Rather than producing things itself, financialization feeds on the profits of others who produce.

The financialized economy – including stocks, corporate bonds and real estate – is now booming. Meanwhile, the bulk of the population struggles to meet daily expenses. The world’s 500 richest people got $12 trillion richer in 2019, while 45% of Americans have no savings, and nearly 70% could not come up with $1,000 in an emergency without borrowing.

Gammon explains that central bank policies intended to boost the real economy have had the effect only of boosting the financial economy. The policies’ stated purpose is to increase spending by increasing lending by banks, which are supposed to be the vehicles for liquidity to flow from the financial to the real economy. But this transmission mechanism isn’t working, because consumers are tapped out. They can’t spend more unless their incomes go up, and the only way to increase incomes, says Gammon, is through increasing production (or with a good dose of “helicopter money,” but more on that later).

So why aren’t businesses putting money into more production? Because, says Gammon, the central banks have put a “put” on the financial market, meaning they won’t let it go down. Business owners say, “Why should I take the risk of more productivity, when I can just invest in the real estate, stock or corporate bond market and make risk-free money?” The result is less productivity and less spending in the real economy, while the “easy money” created by banks and central banks is used for short-term gain from unproductive financial investments.

Existing assets are bought just to sell them or rent them for more, skimming profits off the top. These unearned “rentier” profits rely on ready access to liquidity (the ability to buy and sell on demand) and on leverage (using borrowed money to increase returns), and both are ultimately underwritten by the central banks. As observed in a July 2019 article titled “Financialization Undermines the Real Economy”:

When large highly leveraged financial institutions in these markets collapse, e.g., Lehman Brothers in September 2008, central banks are forced to step in to salvage the financial system. Thus, many central banks have little choice but to become securities market makers of last resort, providing safety nets for financialized universal banks and shadow banks.

Repo Madness

That is what is happening now in the repo market. Repos work like a pawn shop: the lender takes an asset (usually a federal security) in exchange for cash, with an agreement to return the asset for the cash plus interest the next day unless the loan is rolled over. In September 2019, rates on repos should have been about 2%, in line with the fed funds rate (the rate at which banks borrow deposits from each other). However, repo rates shot up to 10% on Sept. 17. Yet banks were refusing to lend to each other, evidently passing up big profits to hold onto their cash. Since banks weren’t lending, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York jumped in, increasing its overnight repo operations to $75 billion. On Oct. 23, it upped the ante to $165 billion, evidently to plug a hole in the repo market created when JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest depository bank, pulled an equivalent sum out. (For details, see my earlier post here.)

By December, the total injected by the Fed was up to $323 billion. What was the perceived danger lurking behind this unprecedented action? An article in The Quarterly Review of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) pointed to the hedge funds. As ZeroHedge summarized the BIS’ findings:

[C]ontrary to our initial take that banks were pulling from the repo market due to counterparty fears about other banks, they were instead spooked by overexposure by other hedge funds, who have become the dominant marginal – and completely unregulated – repo counterparty to liquidity lending banks; without said liquidity, massive hedge fund regulatory leverage such as that shown above would become effectively impossible.

Hedge funds have been blamed for the 2008 financial crisis, by adding too much risk to the banking system. They have destroyed companies by forcing stock buybacks, asset sales, layoffs and other measures that raise stock prices at the expense of the company’s long-term health and productivity. They have also been a major factor in the homelessness epidemic, by buying foreclosed properties at fire sale prices, then renting them out at inflated prices. Why did the Fed need to bail these parasitic institutions out? The BIS authors explained:

Repo markets redistribute liquidity between financial institutions: not only banks (as is the case with the federal funds market), but also insurance companies, asset managers, money market funds and other institutional investors. In so doing, they help other financial markets to function smoothly. Thus, any sustained disruption in this market, with daily turnover in the U.S. market of about $1 trillion, could quickly ripple through the financial system. The freezing-up of repo markets in late 2008 was one of the most damaging aspects of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC).

At $1 trillion daily, the repo market is much bigger and more global than the fed funds market that is the usual target of central bank policy. Repo trades are supposedly secured with “high-quality collateral” (usually U.S. Treasuries). But they are not risk-free, because of the practice of “re-hypothecation”: the short-term “owner” of the collateral can use it as collateral for another loan, creating leverage – loans upon loans. The IMF has estimated that the same collateral was reused 2.2 times in 2018, which means both the original owner and 2.2 subsequent re-users believed they owned the same collateral. This leveraging, which actually expands the money supply, is one of the reasons banks put their extra funds in the repo market rather than in the fed funds market. But it is also why the repo market and the U.S. Treasuries it uses as collateral are not risk-free. As Wall Street veteran Caitlin Long warns:

U.S. Treasuries are … the most rehypothecated asset in financial markets, and the big banks know this. … U.S. Treasuries are the core asset used by every financial institution to satisfy its capital and liquidity requirements – which means that no one really knows how big the hole is at a system-wide level.

This is the real reason why the repo market periodically seizes up. It’s akin to musical chairs – no one knows how many players will be without a chair until the music stops.

ZeroHedge cautions that hedge funds are the most heavily leveraged multi-strategy funds in the world, taking something like $20 billion to $30 billion in net assets under management and levering it up to $200 billion. According to The Financial Times, to fire up returns, “some hedge funds take the Treasury security they have just bought and use it to secure cash loans in the repo market. They then use this fresh cash to increase the size of the trade, repeating the process over and over and ratcheting up the potential returns.”

ZeroHedge concludes:

This … explains why the Fed panicked in response to the GC repo rate blowing out to 10% on Sept 16, and instantly implemented repos as well as rushed to launch QE 4: not only was Fed Chair Powell facing an LTCM [Long Term Capital Management] like situation, but because the repo-funded [arbitrage] was (ab)used by most multi-strat funds, the Federal Reserve was suddenly facing a constellation of multiple LTCM blow-ups that could have started an avalanche that would have resulted in trillions of assets being forcefully liquidated as a tsunami of margin calls hit the hedge funds world.

“Helicopter Money” – The Only Way Out?

The Fed has been forced by its own policies to create an avalanche of speculative liquidity that never makes it into the real economy. As Gammon explains, the central banks have created a wall that traps this liquidity in the financial markets, driving stocks, corporate bonds and real estate to all-time highs, creating an “everything bubble” that accomplishes only one thing – increased wealth inequality. Central bank quantitative easing won’t create hyperinflation, says Gammon, but “it will create a huge discrepancy between the haves and have nots that will totally wipe out the middle class, and that will bring on MMT or helicopter money. Why? Because it’s the only way that the Fed can get the liquidity from the financial economy, over this wall, around the banking system, and into the real economy. It’s the only solution they have.” Gammon does not think it’s the right solution, but he is not alone in predicting that helicopter money is coming.

Investopedia notes that “helicopter money” differs from quantitative easing (QE), the money-printing tool currently used by central banks. QE involves central bank-created money used to purchase assets from bank balance sheets. Helicopter money, on the other hand, involves a direct distribution of printed money to the public.

A direct drop of money on the people would certainly help to stimulate the economy, but it won’t get the parasite of financialization off our backs; and Gammon is probably right that the Fed lacks the tools to fix the underlying disease itself. Only Congress can change the Federal Reserve Act and the tax system. Congress could impose a 0.1% financial transactions tax, which would nip high-frequency speculative trading in the bud. Congress could turn the Federal Reserve into a public utility mandated to serve the productive economy. Commercial banks could also be regulated as public utilities, and public banks could be established that served the liquidity needs of local economies. For other possibilities, see Banking on the People here.

Solutions are available, but Congress itself has been captured by the financial markets, and it may take another economic collapse to motivate Congress to act. The current repo crisis could be the fuse that triggers that collapse.

 

This article was first posted on Truthdig.com. Ellen Brown chairs the Public Banking Institute and has written thirteen books, including her latest, Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.  She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

Ellen Brown is a frequent contributor to Global Research

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Ten Ways Trump’s Actions Against Iran Hurt Americans, the Region and the World

January 11th, 2020 by Medea Benjamin

 

The U.S. assassination of General Qassem Soleimani has not yet plunged us into a full-scale war with Iran thanks to the Iranian government’s measured response, which demonstrated its capabilities without actually harming U.S. troops or escalating the conflict. But the danger of a full-blown war still exists, and Donald Trump’s actions are already wreaking havoc. 
The tragic crash of the Ukranian passenger jet that left 176 dead may well be the first example of this, if indeed it was shot down by a jittery Iranian anti-aircraft crew who mistook the airliner for a U.S. warplane.
Trump’s actions make the region, and the American people, less safe in at least ten important ways.
1.    The first result of Trump’s blunders may be an increase in U.S. war deaths across the greater Middle East. While this was avoided in Iran’s initial retaliation, Iraqi militias and Hezbollah in Lebanon have already vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of Soleimani and the Iraqi militia. US military bases, warships and nearly 80,000 U.S. troops in the region are sitting ducks for retaliation by Iran, its allies and any other group that is angered by U.S. actions or simply decides to exploit this U.S.-manufactured crisis.
The first U.S. war deaths after the U.S. airstrikes and assassinations in Iraq were three Americans killedin by Al-Shabab in Kenya on January 5th.
Further escalation by the U.S. in response to Iranian and other attacks on Americans will only exacerbate this cycle of violence.
2.       U.S. acts of war in Iraq have injected even more volatility and instability into an already war-torn and explosive region. The U.S. close ally, Saudi Arabia, is seeing its efforts to solve its conflicts with Qatar and Kuwait thrown into jeopardy, and it will now be harder to find a diplomatic solution to the catastrophic war in Yemen–where the Saudis and Iranians are on different sides of the conflict.
Soleimani’s murder is also likely to sabotage the peace process with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Shiite Iran has historically opposed the Sunni Taliban, and Soleimani even worked with the United States in the aftermath of the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Now the terrain has shifted. Just as the United States has been engaging in peace talks with the Taliban, so has Iran. The Iranians are now more apt to ally with the Taliban against the United States. The complicated situation in Afghanistan is likely to draw in Pakistan, another important player in the region with a large Shiite population. Both the Afghan and Pakistani governments have already expressed their fears that the US-Iran conflict could unleash uncontrollable violence on their soil.
Like other short-sighted and destructive U.S. interventions in the Middle East, Trump’s blunders may have explosive unintended consequences in places most Americans have not yet even heard of, spawning a new string of U.S. foreign policy crises.
3.       Trump’s attacks on Iran may actually embolden a common enemy, the Islamic State, which can take advantage of the chaos created in Iraq. Thanks to the leadership of Iran’s General Soleimani, Iran played a significant role in the fight against ISIS, which was almost entirely crushed in 2018 after a four-year war.
Soleimani’s murder may be a boon to the ISIS remnants by stoking anger among Iraqis against the group’s nemesis, the Americans, and creating new divisions among the forces–including Iran and the United States–that have been fighting ISIS. In addition, the U.S.-led coalition that has been pursuing ISIS has “paused” its campaign against the Islamic State in order to get prepared for potential Iranian attacks on the Iraqi bases that host coalition troops, giving another strategic opening to the Islamic State.
4.       Iran has announced it is withdrawing from all the restrictions on enriching uranium that were part of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement. Iran has not formally withdrawn from the JCPOA, nor rejected international supervision of its nuclear program, but this is one more step in the unraveling of the nuclear agreement that the world community supported. Trump was determined to undermine the JCPOA by pulling the U.S. out in 2018, and each U.S. escalation of sanctions, threats and uses of force against Iran further weakens the JCPOA and makes its complete collapse more likely.
5.       Trump’s blunders have destroyed what little influence the U.S. had with the Iraqi government. This is clear from the recent Parliamentary vote to expel the U.S. military. While the U.S. military is unlikely to leave without long, drawn-out negotiations, the 170-0 votes (the Sunnis and Kurds didn’t show up), along with the huge crowds that came out for Soleimani’s funeral procession, show how the general’s assassination has rekindled enormous anti-American sentiment in Iraq.
The assassination has also eclipsed Iraq’s burgeoning democracy movement. Despite savage repression that killed more than 400 protesters,  young Iraqis mobilized in 2019 to demand a new government free of corruption and of manipulation by foreign powers. They succeeded in forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, but they want to fully reclaim Iraqi sovereignty from the corrupt U.S. and Iranian puppets who have ruled Iraq since 2003. Now their task is complicated by U.S. actions that have only strengthened pro-Iranian politicians and parties.
6.       Another inevitable consequence of Trump’s failed Iran policy is that it strengthens conservative, hard-line factions in Iran. Like the U.S. and other countries, Iran has its own internal politics, with distinct points of view. President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, who negotiated the JCPOA, are from the reform wing of Iranian politics that believes Iran can and should reach out diplomatically to the rest of the world and try to resolve its long-standing differences with the U.S.  But there is also a powerful conservative wing that believes the U.S. is committed to destroying Iran and will therefore never fulfill any commitments it makes.  Guess which side Trump is validating and strengthening by his brutal policy of assassinations, sanctions and threats?
Even if the next U.S. president is genuinely committed to peace with Iran, he or she may end up  sitting across the table from conservative Iranian leaders who, with good reason, will not trust anything U.S. leaders commit to.
The killing of Soleimani  has also stopped the popular mass demonstrations against the Iranian government that began in November 2019 and were brutally repressed. Instead, people now express their opposition toward the U.S.
7.       Trump’s blunders may be the last straw for U.S. friends and allies who have stuck with the U.S. through 20 years of inflammatory and destructive U.S. foreign policy. European allies have disagreed with Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and have tried, albeit weakly, to save it. When Trump tried to assemble an international naval task force to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz in 2019, only the U.K., Australia and some Persian Gulf states wanted any part of it, and now 10 European and other countries are joining an alternative operation led by France.
At a January 8 press conference, Trump called on NATO to play a greater role in the Middle East, but Trump has been blowing hot and cold on NATO–at times calling it obsolete and threatening to withdraw. After Trump’s assassination of Iran’s top general, NATO allies began withdrawing forces from Iraq, signaling that they do not want to be caught in the crossfire of Trump’s war on Iran.
With the economic rise of China, and Russia’s renewed international diplomacy, the tides of history are shifting and a multipolar world is emerging.  More and more of the world, especially in the global south, sees U.S. militarism as the gambit of a fading great power to try to preserve its dominant position in the world. How many chances does the U.S. have to finally get this right and find a legitimate place for itself in a new world that it has tried and failed to smother at birth?
8.       U.S. actions in Iraq violate international, domestic and Iraqi law, setting the stage for a world of ever greater lawlessness. The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) has drafted a statement explaining why the U.S. attacks and assassinations in Iraq do not qualify as acts of self-defense and are in fact crimes of aggression that violate the UN Charter. Trump also tweeted that the U.S. was ready to hit 52 sites in Iran, including cultural targets, which would also violate international law.
Members of Congress are incensed that Trump’s military attacks violated the U.S. Constitution, since Article I requires congressional approval for such military actions. Congressional leaders were not even made aware of the strike on Soleimani before it occurred, let alone asked to authorize it. Members of Congress are now trying to restrain Trump from going to war with Iran.
Trump’s actions in Iraq also violated the Iraqi constitution, which the U.S. helped to write and which forbids using the country’s territory to harm its neighbors.
9.    Trump’s aggressive moves strengthen the weapons makers. One U.S. interest group has a bipartisan blank check to raid the U.S. Treasury at will and profits from every U.S. war and military expansion: the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned Americans against in 1960. Far from heeding his warning, we have allowed this behemoth to steadily increase its power and control over U.S. policy.
The stock prices of U.S. weapons companies have already risen since the U.S. assassinations and airstrikes in Iraq and the CEOs of the weapons companies have already become significantly richer. U.S. corporate media have been trotting out the usual line-up of weapons company lobbyists and board members to beat the war drums and praise Trump’s warmongering – while keeping quiet about how they are personally profiting from it.
If we let the military-industrial complex get its war on Iran, it will drain billions, maybe trillions, more from the resources we so desperately need for healthcare, education and public services, and only to make the world an even more dangerous place.
10.   Any further escalation between the U.S. and Iran could be catastrophic for the world economy, which is already riding a roller-coaster due to Trump’s trade wars. Asia is especially vulnerable to any disruption in Iraqi oil exports, which it has come to depend on as Iraq’s production has risen. The larger Persian Gulf region is home to the greatest concentration of oil and gas wells, refineries and tankers in the world.  One attack already shut down half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production in September, and that was only a small taste of what we should expect if the U.S. keeps escalating its war on Iran.
Conclusion
Trump’s blunders have placed us back on the path to a truly catastrophic war, with barricades of lies blocking every off-ramp. The Korean, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have cost millions of lives, left the U.S.’s international moral authority in the gutter and exposed it as a warlike and dangerous imperial power in the eyes of much of the world.  If we fail to haul our deluded leaders back from the brink, an American war on Iran may mark the ignominious end of our country’s imperial moment and seal our country’s place among the ranks of failed aggressors whom the world remembers primarily as the villains of human history.
Alternatively, we, the American people, can rise up to overcome the power of the military-industrial complex and take charge of our country’s destiny. The anti-war demonstrations that are taking place around the country are a positive manifestation of public sentiment. This is a critical moment for the people of this nation to rise up in a very visible, bold and determined groundswell to stop the madman in the White House and demand, in one loud voice: NO. MORE. WAR.
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK, and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
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What’s Behind Boeing Crash in Iran?

January 11th, 2020 by South Front

UPDATE (January 11):On January 11, the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces issued a statement saying that the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 (Flight PS752) had been shot down as a result of the human error “at a time of crisis caused by US adventurism.”

At the time of the incident, Iranian forces were on the highest alert. The plane flown close to a sensetive military site.

The statement added that those responsible for shooting down the plane would “immediately” be brought before military justice. It said that “by pursuing fundamental reforms in operational processes at the armed forces’ level, we will make it impossible to repeat such errors.”

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif offered Iran’s “profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations.”

***

On the morning of January 8th, a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 (Flight PS752) bound for Kiev crashed just minutes after taking off from the Imam Khomeini airport in the Iranian capital. The incident happened near Parand, a suburb southwest of Tehran. All 176 people on board – 167 passengers and 9 crewmembers – died. While the plane belonged to the Ukrainian airline, most of the passengers were Iranians or Canadians. The incident happened less than 3 hours after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted a missile strike on US-operated military bases in Iraq.

According to Iranian authorities, a technical malfunction was the main reason behind the crash. An initial probe found the aircraft had experienced a problem as it was leaving the airport zone.

On January 11, the Iranian authorities rectified their initial assessment: “Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 (Flight PS752) had been shot down as a result of the human error  at a time of crisis caused by US adventurism.”

The plane caught fire three minutes into the flight at an altitude of 2,400m (8,000ft). (A fire broke out in one of its engines) The plane, which was initially headed west, turned back to the airport immediately the problem arose. Then, the plane crashed into the ground. No distress calls were made. This is the main version of the crash.

On the evening of January 9th, a large-scale media diplomatic campaign started suggesting that Flight PS752 may have been accidentally shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.

The theory is that Iran accidentally launched a surface-to-air missile that hit Flight PS752. This version is most unlikely because it suggests the launch of a single missile at an allegedly unclear target in the vicinity of the capital’s airport where there is continual movement of passenger liners. Even if we ignore the isolated missile launch, the questions remain: At what kind of a supposed hostile target could the Iranians be aiming? How could a single hostile plane the size of a Boeing 737-800 have been imagined near Tehran, far from any site of a possible US attack? How might this kind of a singular hostile target have appeared near the capital unnoticed?

This version is based on claims by anonymous sources – sources which allegedly exist but must remain secret – , “spy satellite images” and social media-based speculations. These include

1. Speculations about ‘unexplained holes’ on photos showing the wreckage of the plane:

What's Behind Boeing Crash In Iran

Click to see the full-size image

What's Behind Boeing Crash In Iran

Click to see the full-size image

2. Two unverified images allegedly taken near the crash site supposedly showing part of a Tor M-1 missile. Iran indeed has Tor low to medium altitude, short-range surface-to-air missile systems obtained from Russia. But it remains unclear how the supposed missile part might have appeared next to the crash site if the missile hit the plane in midair and thus became the cause of the fire:

What's Behind Boeing Crash In Iran

Click to see the full-size image

3. A video allegedly showing the missile hit, and supposedly filmed in a residential area in Parand. If the video is authentic and it really shows the missile hit, the question is how this person could have known when and what to film? Some reports tried to explain this with a ‘there were 2 missiles version’. This is hardly possible. There are clear videos showing how the burning plane was falling. If it had been hit by 2 missiles, then it is extremely likely that it would have come apart midair.

If one theoretically accepts the missile version as probable, it would be reasonable to suggest that the aforementioned ‘missile hit’ video was filmed with advance knowledge of the event.

 

Iran is the side that has a direct interest in avoiding any such tragedies on its soil. However, there is another side involved – the United States. In this case, the possible reasons for the crash could include:

  • A missile strike with a man-portable air-defense system in the hands of US-linked operatives or US proxies. The location of the incident close to the airport zone and the altitude of the plane make this feasible;
  • Or a special operation by US forces to carry out a missile strike from the ground. For example, this may have included the capturing of an Iranian missile launcher.

It is also interesting to address the timeframe of the events. When the tragedy happened, the technical malfunction theory was widely accepted by all sides. It took the US-led ‘international community’ almost two days to start spinning the narrative. There are two possible explanations for this:

  • The United States strongly advised its ‘partners’ to promote the version blaming Iran regardless of the real reason for the crash. This media and diplomatic hysteria is needed to justify further pressure on Iran, to set the ground for possible aggressive actions and to draw the international and internal audience’s attention away from the fact that the United States for the first time since World War 2 did not give a military answer to a direct missile or bombing attack on its military bases by a state actor;
  • The Flight PS752 operation had been prepared as part of the campaign to justify military aggression against Iran. However, when Washington did not want to risk providing a military answer to the Iranian missile strike, the operation was put on hold. Two days later, when the reaction of the internal and international audience to the absence of any real answer to the Iranian missile strike became obvious, the Flight PS752 incident became a part of the campaign to compensate for the US setbacks on the international scene.

In any case, the tragedy of January 8 has already become a part of the US-led campaign to discredit Iran and to increase media and diplomatic pressure on it.

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U.S. Now at War Against Iraq and Iran

January 11th, 2020 by Global Research News

On January 9th, Iraq’s Prime Minister and Parliament again ordered all American troops out, but on January 10th the AP headlined “US dismisses Iraq request to work on a troop withdrawal plan” and reported that the U.S. State Department “bluntly rejected the request, saying the two sides should instead talk about how to ‘recommit’ to their partnership.” 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 U.S. needs Iraq in order to invade Iran, which is the U.S. 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.
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.
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Ten Years Ago in the Aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake: The Militarization of “Emergency Aid”. Was it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

January 10th, 2020 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Ten years ago:

This article was written three days after the January 12, 2010 earthquake which led to the devastation of Haiti.

Was it an Invasion or a Humanitarian Endeavour?  

It was an invasion coupled with economic plunder and destruction supported by the USAID and the United Nations, not to mention the Clinton Foundation.

It was an engineered crime against humanity.

The project consisted in destroying Haiti as a Nation State, transforming a country into a territory, taking over its resources, impoverishing its population.

The weaponization of Humanitarian is not limited to Haiti. 

Michel Chossudovsky, January 1o, 2020

*       *       *

Haiti has a longstanding history of US military intervention and occupation going back to the beginning of the 20th Century. US interventionism has contributed to the destruction of Haiti’s national economy and the impoverishment of its population.

The devastating earthquake is presented to World public opinion as the sole cause of the country’s predicament.

A country has been destroyed, its infrastructure demolished. Its people precipitated into abysmal poverty and despair.

Haiti’s history, its colonial past have been erased.

The US military has come to the rescue of an impoverished Nation. What is its Mandate?

Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

The main actors in America’s “humanitarian operation” are the Department of Defense, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). (See USAID Speeches: On-The-Record Briefing on the Situation in Haiti, 01/13/10). USAID has also been entrusted in channelling food aid to Haiti, which is distributed by the World Food Program. (See USAID Press Release: USAID to Provide Emergency Food Aid for Haiti Earthquake Victims, January 13, 2010)

The military component of the US mission, however, tends to overshadow the civilian functions of rescuing a desperate and impoverished population. The overall humanitarian operation is not being led by civilian governmental agencies such as FEMA or USAID, but by the Pentagon.

The dominant decision making role has been entrusted to US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

A massive deployment of military hardware and personnel is contemplated. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has confirmed that the US will be sending nine to ten thousand troops to Haiti, including 2000 marines. (American Forces Press Service, January 14, 2010)

Aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson and its complement of supporting ships has already arrived in Port au Prince. (January 15, 2010).  The  2,000-member Marine Amphibious Unit as well as and soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne division “are trained in a wide variety of missions including security and riot-control in addition to humanitarian tasks.”

In contrast to rescue and relief teams dispatched by various civilian organizations, the humanitarian mandate of the US military is not clearly defined:

“Marines are definitely warriors first, and that is what the world knows the Marines for,… [but] we’re equally as compassionate when we need to be, and this is a role that we’d like to show — that compassionate warrior, reaching out with a helping hand for those who need it. We are very excited about this.” (Marines’ Spokesman, Marines Embark on Haiti Response Mission, Army Forces Press Services, January 14, 2010)

While presidents Obama and Préval spoke on the phone, there were no reports of negotiations between the two governments regarding the entry and deployment of US troops on Haitian soil. The decision was taken and imposed unilaterally by Washington. The total lack of a functioning government in Haiti was used to legitimize, on humanitarian grounds, the sending in of a powerful military force, which has de facto taken over several governmental functions.

TABLE 1

US Military Assets  to be Sent to Haiti. (according to official announcements)

The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) and amphibious dock landing ships USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) and USS Carter Hall (LSD 50).

A 2,000-member Marine Amphibious Unit from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne division.  900 soldiers are slated to arrive in Haiti by January 15th.

Aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson and its complement of supporting ships. (arrived in Port au Prince on January 15, 2010):  USS Carl Vinson CVN 70

The hospital ship USNS Comfort

Several U.S. Coast Guard vessels and helicopters 

USS Carl Vinson

The three amphibious ships will join aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy and guided-missile frigate USS Underwood.

 


USS Normandy

 

Leading Role of US Southern Command

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with headquarters in Miami is the “lead agency” in Haiti. Its mandate as a regional military command is to carry out modern warfare. Its stated mission in Latin America and the Caribbean is  “to conduct military operations and promote security cooperation to achieve U.S. strategic objectives.” (Our Mission – U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) The commanding officers  are trained to oversee theater operations, military policing as well “counterinsurgency” in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the recent establishment of new US military bases in Colombia, within proximity of the Venezuelan border.

General Douglas Fraser, commander of U.S. Southern Command has defined the Haiti emergency operation as a Command, Control, Communications operation (C3). US Southern Command is to oversee a massive deployment of military hardware, including several warships, an aircraft carrier, airborne combat divisions, etc:

“So we’re focused on getting command and control and communications there so that we can really get a better understanding of what’s going on. MINUSTAH [United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti], as their headquarters partially collapsed, lost a lot of their communication, and so we’re looking to robust that communication, also.

We’re also sending in assessment teams in conjunction with USAID, supporting their efforts, as well as putting in some of our own to support their efforts.

We’re moving various ships that we had in the region — they’re small ships, Coast Guard cutters, destroyers — in that direction, to provide whatever immediate assistance that we can on the ground.

We also have a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, moving in that direction. It was at sea off of Norfolk, and so it’s going to take a couple of days for it to get there. We need to also just resupply it and give it the provisions it needs to support the effort as we look at Haiti. And then we’re looking across the international agencies to figure out how we support their efforts as well as our efforts.

We also are looking at a large-deck amphibious ship with an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit on it that will be a couple of days behind the USS Vinson.

And that gives us a broader range of capability to move supplies around, to have lift capability to help support the effort there also.

So bottom line to it is, we don’t have a clear assessment right now of what the situation on the ground is, what the needs within Port-au-Prince are, how extensive the situation is.

We also, finally, have a team that’s headed in to the airport. From my understanding — because my deputy commander just happened to be in Haiti when this situation happened, on a previously scheduled visit. He has been to the airport. He says the runway is functional but the tower doesn’t have communications capability. The passenger terminal — has structural damage to it, so we don’t know what the status of it is.

So we have a group going in to make sure we can gain and secure the airfield and operate from it, because that’s one of those locations we think we’re going to have a lot of the immediate effort from an international basis going into.

And then we’re out conducting all the other assessments that you would consider appropriate as we go in and work this effort.

We’re also coordinating on the ground with MINUSTAH, with the folks who are there. The commander for MINUSTAH happened to be in Miami when this situation happened, so he’s right now traveling back through and should be arriving in Port-au-Prince any time now. So that will help us coordinate our efforts there also, because again, obviously the United Nations suffered a significant loss there with the collapse — at least partial collapse of their headquarters.

So that’s — those are the initial efforts that we have ongoing And as we get the assessments of what’s coming next, then we’ll adjust as required.

The secretary of Defense, the president, have all stipulated that this is a significant effort, and we’re corralling all the resources within the Department of Defense to support this effort.” (Defense.gov News Transcript: DOD News Briefing with Gen. Fraser from the Pentagon, January 13, 2010)

A Heritage Foundation report summarizes the substance of America’s mission in Haiti:

“The earthquake has both humanitarian and U.S. national security implications [requiring] a rapid response that is not only bold but decisive, mobilizing U.S. military, governmental, and civilian capabilities for both a short-term rescue and relief effort and a longer-term recovery and reform program in Haiti.” (James M. Roberts and Ray Walser, American Leadership Necessary to Assist Haiti After Devastating Earthquake, Heritage Foundation, January 14, 2010).

At the outset, the military mission will be involved in first aid and emergency as well as public security and police activities.

US Air Force Controls the Airport

The US Air Force has taken over air traffic control functions as well as the management of Port au Prince airport. In other words, the US military regulates the flow of emergency aid and relief supplies which are being brought into the country in civilian planes. The US Air Force is not working under the instructions of Haitian Airport officials. These officials have been displaced. The airport is run by the US Military. (Interview with Haitian Ambassador to the US R. Joseph, PBS News, January 15, 2010)

“The FAA’s team is working with DOD combat controllers to improve the flow of air traffic moving in and out of the airport. The US Air Force reopened the airport on 14 January, and on 15 January its contingency response group was granted senior airfield authority … Senior airfield authority enables the Air Force to prioritise, schedule and control the airspace at the airport, …” (flightglobal.com, January 16, 2010, emphasis added)

The 1,000-bed U.S. Navy hospital ship, USNS Comfort, which includes more than 1,000 medical and support personnel has been sent to Haiti under the jurisdiction of Southern Command. (See  Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds readies for Haiti quake relief, Digital Journal, January 14, 2010). There were, at the time of the Earthquake, some 7100 military personnel and over 2000 police, namely a foreign force of over 9000. In contrast, the international civilian personnel of MINUSTAH is less than 500. MINUSTAH Facts and Figures – United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti

TABLE 2

United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)

 Current strength (30 November 2009)

9,065 total uniformed personnel

7,031 troops
2,034 police

488 international civilian personnel

1,212 local civilian staff

214 United Nations Volunteers

MINUSTAH Facts and Figures – United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti

Estimated combined SOUTHCOM and MINUSTAH forces; 19,095*

*Excluding commitments by France (unconfirmed) and Canada (confirmed 800 troops). The US, France and Canada were “partners” in the February 29, 2004 Coup d’État.

Haiti has been under foreign military occupation since the US instigated February 2004 Coup d’Etat. The contingent of US forces under SOUTHCOM combined with those of MINUSTAH brings foreign military presence in Haiti to close to 20,000 in a country of 9 million people. In  comparison in Afghanistan, prior to Obama’s military surge, combined US and NATO forces were of the order of 70,000 for a population of 28 million. In other words, on a per capita basis there will be more troops in Haiti than in Afghanistan.

Recent US Military Interventions in Haiti

There have been several US sponsored military interventions in recent history. In 1994, following three years of military rule, a force of  20,000 occupation troops and “peace-keepers” was sent to Haiti. The 1994 US military intervention “was not intended to restore democracy. Quite the contrary: it was carried out to prevent a popular insurrection against the military Junta and its neoliberal cohorts.” (Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Haiti, Global Research, February 28, 2004)

US and allied troops remained in the country until 1999. The Haitian armed forces were disbanded and the US State Department hired a mercenary company DynCorp to provide “technical advice” in restructuring the Haitian National Police (HNP). (Ibid).

The February 2004 Coup d’État

In the months leading up to the 2004 Coup d’Etat, US special forces and the CIA were training death squadrons composed of the former tonton macoute of the Duvalier era. The Rebel paramilitary army crossed the border from the Dominican Republic in early February 2004. “It was a well armed, trained and equipped paramilitary unit integrated by former members of Le Front pour l’avancement et le progrès d’Haiti (FRAPH), the “plain clothes” death squadrons, involved in mass killings of civilians and political assassinations during the CIA sponsored 1991 military coup, which led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide.” (see Michel Chossudovsky,  The Destabilization of Haiti: Global Research. February 28, 2004)

Foreign troops were sent into Haiti. MINUSTAH was set up in the wake of the US sponsored coup d’Etat in February 2004 and the kidnapping and deportation of the democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide. The coup was instigated by the US with the support of  France and Canada.

The FRAPH units subsequently integrated the country’s police force, which was under the supervision of MINUSTAH. In the political and social disarray triggered by the earthquake, the former armed militia and Ton Ton macoute will be playing a new role.

Hidden Agenda

The unspoken mission of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with headquarters in Miami and US military installations throughout Latin America is to ensure the maintenance of subservient national regimes, namely US proxy governments, committed to the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal policy agenda. While US military personnel will at the outset be actively involved in emergency and disaster relief, this renewed US military presence in Haiti will be used  to establish a foothold in the country as well pursue America’s strategic and geopolitical objectives in the Caribbean basin, which are largely directed against Cuba and Venezuela.

The objective is not to work towards the rehabilitation of the national government, the presidency, the parliament, all of which has been decimated by the earthquake. Since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, America’s design has been to gradually dismantle the Haitian State, restore colonial patterns and obstruct the functioning of a democratic government. In the present context, the objective is not only to do away with the government but also to revamp the mandate of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), of which the headquarters have been destroyed.

“The role of heading the relief effort and managing the crisis quickly fell to the United States, for lack — in the short term, at least — of any other capable entity.” ( US Takes Charge in Haiti _ With Troops, Rescue Aid – NYTimes.com, January 14, 2009)

Prior to the earthquake, there were, according to US military sources, some 60 US military personnel in Haiti. From one day to the next, an outright military surge has occurred: 10,000 troops, marines, special forces, intelligence operatives, etc., not to mention private mercenary forces on contract to the Pentagon.

In all likelihood the humanitarian operation will be used as a pretext and justification to establish a more permanent US military presence in Haiti.

We are dealing with a massive deployment, a “surge” of military personnel assigned to emergency relief.

The first mission of SOUTHCOM will be to take control of what remains of the country’s communications, transport and energy infrastructure. Already, the airport is under de facto US control. In all likelihood, the activities of MINUSTAH which from the outset in 2004 have served US foreign policy interests, will be coordinated with those of SOUTHCOM, namely the UN mission will be put under de facto control of the US military.

The Militarization of Civil Society Relief Organizations

The US military in Haiti seeks to oversee the activities of approved humanitarian organizations. It also purports to encroach upon the humanitarian activities of Venezuela and Cuba:

“The government under President René Préval is weak and literally now in shambles. Cuba and Venezuela, already intent on minimizing U.S. influence in the region, are likely to seize this opportunity to raise their profile and influence…” (James M. Roberts and Ray Walser, American Leadership Necessary to Assist Haiti After Devastating Earthquake, Heritage Foundation, January 14, 2010).

In the US, the militarization of emergency relief operations was instigated during the Katrina crisis, when the US military was called in to play a lead role.

The model of emergency intervention for SOUTHCOM is patterned on the role of NORTHCOM, which was granted a mandate as “the lead agency” in US domestic emergency procedures.

During Hurricane Rita in 2005, the detailed groundwork for the “militarization of emergency relief” involving a leading role for NORTHCOM was established. In this regard, Bush had hinted to the central role of the military in emergency relief: “Is there a natural disaster–of a certain size–that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort? That’s going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about.” (Statement of President Bush at a press conference, Bush Urges Shift in Relief Responsibilities – washingtonpost.com, September 26, 2005).

“The response to the national disaster is not being coordinated by the civilian government out of Texas, but from a remote location and in accordance with military criteria. US Northern Command Headquarters will directly control the movement of military personnel and hardware in the Gulf of Mexico. As in the case of Katrina, it will override the actions of civilian bodies. Yet in this case, the entire operation is under the jurisdiction of the military rather than under that of FEMA.” (Michel Chossudovsky, US Northern Command and Hurricane Rita, Global Research, September 24, 2005)

Concluding Remarks

Haiti is a country under military occupation since the US instigated Coup d’Etat of February 2004.

The entry of ten thousand heavily armed US troops, coupled with the activities of local militia could potentially precipitate the country into social chaos.

These foreign forces have entered the country to reinforce MINUSTAH “peacekeepers” and Haitian police forces (integrated by former Tonton Macoute), which since 2004, have been responsible for war crimes directed against the Haitian people, including the indiscriminate killing of civilians.

These troups reinforce the existing occupation forces under UN mandate.

Twenty thousand foreign troops under SOUTHCOM and MINUSTAH commands will be present in the country. In all likelihood, there will be an integration or coordination of the command structures of SOUTHCOM and MINUSTAH.

The Haitian people have exhibited a high degree of solidarity, courage and social commitment.

Helping one another and acting with consciousness: under very difficult conditions, in the immediate wake of the disaster, citizens’ rescue teams were set up spontaneously.

The militarization of relief operations will weaken the organizational capabilities of Haitians to rebuild and reinstate the institutions of civilian government which have been destroyed. It will also encroach upon the efforts of the international medical teams and civilian relief organisations.

It is absolutely essential that the Haitian people continue to forcefully oppose the presence of foreign troops in their country, particularly in public security operations.

It is essential that Americans across the land forcefully oppose the decision of the Obama adminstration to send US combat troops to Haiti.

There can be no real reconstruction or development under foreign military occupation.
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) (Montreal), which hosts the award-winning website: www.globalresearch.ca. He is the author of the international best-seller The Globalisation of Poverty and The New World Order and contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He is member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission and recipient of the Human Rights Prize of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, Germany. His writings have been published into more than twenty languages.

Michel Chossudovsky’s books can be ordered directly from Global Research

AMERICA’S “WAR ON TERRORISM”

by Michel Chossudovsky

CLICK TO ORDER

America’s “War on Terrorism”

In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

Chossudovsky peels back layers of rhetoric to reveal a complex web of deceit aimed at luring the American people and the rest of the world into accepting a military solution which threatens the future of humanity.

The last chapter includes an analysis of the London  7/7 Bomb Attacks.

CLICK TO ORDER (mail order or online order)

America’s “War on Terrorism”

The Two Faces of Warmongers

January 10th, 2020 by Massoud Nayeri

The American people are now facing a new political challenge brought on by the recent U.S. assassinations of Iranian and Iraqi military figures.

On one hand, they realize that their government has become unattached more than ever from their immediate and basic needs; such as, access to healthcare for all, job security and a rational educational system that elevates young minds to lead the nation down a prosperous path.

That prosperous path (including achievements in health care, education  and job creation) is jeopardized by Trump’s commitment to allocating 2.5 trillion dollars to the Military. 

The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration, at a cost of $2.5 trillion. U.S. Armed Forces are stronger than ever before. Our missiles are big, powerful, accurate, lethal, and fast. Under construction are many hypersonic missiles. (Trump, White House Speech, January 8, 2020)

On the other, they are trying to find their voices to express their desire for PEACE and PROGRESS in these uncertain times. Both major dominant political parties in the U.S. (the Democrats and Republicans) with their corrupt media are simply playing the old “Good Cop Bad Cop” scenario and in this case the good and bad warmongers. 

The fact is that both parties are in agreement that in order to maintain their superpower status, a major war against the “Foreign Enemy” is necessary, but more importantly, they are more fearful of the “Domestic Enemy” – that is a majority of the population who are dissatisfied and who are the real producers of goods and wealth with the power to govern and create a peaceful and prosperous society!

A government that justifies the terrorist act of ASSASSINATION, soon will apply the same unlawful methods to deal with the internal dissents and “trouble makers”. 

Working people worldwide are victims of an economic system that puts profit over people – the Capitalist system. Therefore, only people united on a global scale can defeat the warmongers in all forms and shapes. A People to People Diplomacy is our last chance to expose the 1% vicious war plan. American people (artists, intellectuals, independent journalists, teachers, students, workers, farmers and religious communities) should contact their Iranian counterparts to de-escalate tension in the region and defeat warmongers.

In the next global war, peaceful families around the world have nothing to lose except their sons and daughters, the future of humanity and our blue planet.

Organize against the war before the insane “leaders” of the world make the unrealistic Armageddon a reality.

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From Resistance to Assistance: Little Pushback to Trump’s Iran Assassination

January 10th, 2020 by Alan MacLeod

After Donald Trump’s election, both the New York Times and Washington Post saw huge jumps in subscribers, all hoping that the outlets would hold the president to account. Both papers tapped into this sentiment: In February 2017, the Post adopted the motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness” on its masthead; Times ads have used the slogan, “The truth is more important now than ever.”

Trump has played his part, attacking media that bother him as “failing,” and reportedly telling all federal agencies in October to cancel their Times and Postsubscriptions.

Yet when the president does indeed carry out dangerous, aggressive actions, such as the assassination of Iranian general and political leader Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3, “resistance” turns to assistance from the corporate press. FAIR studied every editorial and opinion piece on Soleimani’s killing published by the two newspapers, from the attack until January 7 (around three dozen articles), and found their pushback to Trump’s actions to be distinctly limited.

‘Indisputably an enemy’

Opinion writers and editorial boards took great pains to emphasize the disgust and contempt they held for Soleimani, a “terrorist mastermind” (Washington Post, 1/6/20) “as evil as Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Bahdadi” (Washington Post, 1/3/20). As Gail Collins wrote in the New York Times (1/7/20), “There seems to be a wide range of opinions about Soleimani, none of which are that he was a great guy the world will miss.” The millions of people who attended his funeral may beg to differ; two-thirds of Iranians rated him “very favorably,” according to a 2018 University of Maryland poll.

Some people in Lebanon and Yemen who received his support against foreign aggression, and citizens of Iraq and Syria who no longer live under the ISIS caliphate he helped defeat, may also have a perspective on Soleimani that went largely unrepresented in leading US papers. As Noam Chomsky (Truthout, 1/7/20) remarked of Iraqi Kurds:

They have not forgotten that when the huge, heavily armed US-trained Iraqi army quickly collapsed, and the Kurdish capital of Erbil, then Baghdad and all of Iraq were about to fall in the hands of ISIS, it was Soleimani and the Iraqi Shia militias he organized that saved the country.

There was little deviation in the Times or Post from the idea that Soleimani was an “evil” (New York Times, 1/3/20, 1/7/20; Washington Post, 1/6/20), “blood-soaked” (New York Times, 1/4/20) “terrorist” (New York Times, 1/3/20) who “had it coming” (New York Times, 1/4/20), a monster comparable to Nazi Holocaust leaders (Washington Post, 1/6/20). For New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (1/3/20), certain Nazis were, in fact, too good to be compared to Soleimani: “To think of him as a worthy adversary — an Iranian Erwin Rommel — is wrong,” he wrote. Meanwhile, Thomas Friedman (New York Times, 1/3/20) labeled him “the dumbest man in Iran and the most overrated strategist in the Middle East.”

The chief reason for Soleimani’s nefariousness, the Times editorial board (1/3/20) explained, was that he was “indisputably an enemy of the American people…and an architect of international terrorism responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.” 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.

Even if one is inclined, against all experience, to take US claims about an official enemy on faith, the language that Soleimani killed “hundreds of Americans” is a deliberately nebulous. American what—children? Civilians? Indeed not. The allegation is that he targeted US troops or “contractors”—i.e., mercenaries—stationed not at home, but in a region on the other side of the world that the US illegally attacked and has occupied for most of this century. “Soleimani provided effective military resistance to foreign occupying forces,” though, sounds very different from “killed hundreds of Americans.”

Minor quibbles about protocol

In the papers studied, the majority of articles carried a similar, cookie-cutter structure: agree that Soleimani was a bad guy and deserved to be killed, but worry about the consequences and criticize the president on technical grounds. The Times’ editorial board (1/3/20) wrote that “the real question” wasn’t whether Soleimani’s killing “was justified, but whether it was wise.” Meanwhile, the Post (1/3/20) made exactly the same point: “Yes, Soleimani Was an Enemy,” the editorial board declared. “That Doesn’t Mean Trump Made the Right Call.”

Criticism of the government’s actions was largely limited to worrying it might escalate tensions and spark a hot war—something for which US corporate media have been laying the groundwork for months (FAIR.org, 7/2/19) if not years (Extra!, 3/12). Complaints included that the US lacked a clear grand strategy (New York Times, 1/7/20), that it was a “rash and shortsighted” (Washington Post, 1/6/20), that there were “no more adults in the room” (New York Times, 1/6/20), that it would “bolster” the Iranian regime (New York Times, 1/6/20) or could “trigger a bigger conflict” (Washington Post, 1/3/20) that risks “ensnaring” the US in a wider encounter (Washington Post, 1/6/20). (In corporate media mythology, the United States is always an innocent party getting accidentally trapped into going to war, rather than actively pursuing it—FAIR.org, 6/22/17.)

The Times and Post offered some meager objections based on congressional technicalities. “Why didn’t the White House alert senior Democrats in Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi?” asked the Times (1/3/20). The Post (1/6/20, 1/6/20) made similar criticisms, as if had Trump done so, there would be no legal issues with killing a foreign leader in another country.

There were some exceptions. Law scholar Karen Greenberg (New York Times, 1/6/20) wrote that the general’s killing was illegal and an “inevitable outcome of our dangerous ‘war on terror’ policy.” Iranian-American writer Azadeh Moaveni worried about the effect of war on Iran and noted that Soleimani was considered a “war hero” inside the Islamic Republic (New York Times, 1/6/20).

Opposition to war from the Times’ regular columnists was more about who was carrying it out. Michelle Goldberg (1/6/20), condemning Trump’s “unstable” actions, presented Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis as a moderating force, although she did note that, “To Iranians, after all, America is the aggressor.” Paul Krugman (1/6/20), meanwhile, acknowledged that Iranians would not accept Trump’s right to kill their leaders, but also claimed that before Trump, the US was “relatively trustworthy” and “clearly stood for global rule of law,” always behaving as “no more than first among equals.”

But across the spectrum of dozens of articles in America’s two most influential newspapers, there was little difference in outlook. Contempt for the commander in chief? Sure. But scrutiny of the state? Not so much. As Stephens reminded Times readers, “What shouldn’t be in doubt is the justice.”

Embarrassing predictions

With all the confidence of White Star Line Executives in 1912 proclaiming HMS Titanic unsinkable, opinion columnists in our most influential media made a number of utterly terrible predictions or assertions that were immediately disproven.

The Times editorial board, echoing official claims, wrote that Soleimani likely “had come to Iraq in part to plot the next move against United States military personnel or civilians.” In reality, he had been invited to attend regional peace talks with Saudi Arabia by the Iraqi prime minister, who had personally asked Trump for permission for Soleimani to attend. Trump agreed, then used the opportunity to assassinate him.

Less than two days later, the Iraqi parliament voted overwhelmingly to expel all US forces from Iraq, which made Times top columnist Thomas Friedman’s assertion that protests against the US embassy in Baghdad were staged to “make it look as if Iraqis wanted America out when in fact it was the other way around” seem distinctly foolish.

Meanwhile, both the Post (1/3/20) and the Times (1/3/20) published articles confidently predicting that “the killing will have the effect of deterring further Iranian attacks on Americans, such as the rocket strike that killed a US contractor at an Iraqi base last week,” and that Iran “will prefer to tread lightly,” with the assassination “bring[ing] a sense of realism to the Islamic Republic’s thinking.” Needless to say, the dozens of Iranian rockets raining down on US bases in Iraq have proven these predictions woefully incorrect.

While corporate media like to present themselves as holding the current administration to account, in reality they offer little meaningful resistance to its foreign policy adventures. As with Trump’s efforts to overthrow the governments of Venezuela and Bolivia (see FAIR.org, 1/25/19, 11/15/19, 11/26/19), media are essentially lining up shoulder to shoulder with the president. When it comes to opposing or even questioning an aggressive foreign policy, the resistance™ is useless.

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Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. His latest book, Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, was published by Routledge in May 2019.

Featured image is from FAIR

America’ System of “Checks, Balances and Reality” Crumbles as It Seeks War with Iran: Send in Pope Francis, Not the Marines

January 10th, 2020 by John Stanton

“Any Muslim who denies #JesusChrist’s and #SaintMary’s infallibility is rejected by #Islam. This is how Islam respects Jesus and Mary (pbut).The honor #Muslims attribute to #JesusChrist (pbuh) is no less than his position and merit in the eyes of the Christian believers in Christianity. Today, many who claim to follow Jesus Christ, take a different path than that of him. The guidance of #Jesus, the son of #Mary (peace be upon our Prophet and her) is guidance towards worshiping #God and confronting the Pharaohs and tyrants. Following #JesusChrist requires adherence to righteousness and abhorrence of anti-righteous powers, and it is hoped that #Christians and #Muslims in every part of the world will adhere to this great lesson from Jesus (pbuh) in their lives and deeds.” Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader

Yes, boys and girls, he did say that and if you visit Khamenei’s Twitter site you’ll find him sitting next an an elderly woman and to the right of her a Christmas tree adorned with ornaments including one of Santa Claus. And did you know, kiddies, that Iran’s Majles, the equivalent of the UK’s House of Commons or the US House of Representatives (one hates to make that comparison to denigrate the Majles) has reserved, by constitutional decree/law—dating to 1906, five seats for the following minorities: two Christian Armenians, one Assyrian-Chaldean Christian, one Jew and one Zoroastrian. The Ayatollah Kohmenei preserved condition after the Iranian revolution of 1979. This according to the United States Institute for Peace (USIP—link above).

It is interesting to note what USIP has to say about the Majles/Parliament and its relations with the Iranian presidency, the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council. “The 290-member parliament is weak compared with the presidency, as well as with the non-elected institutions such as the 12-member Guardian Council and the supreme leader’s office.”

The US House of Representatives and the US Senate are, indeed, weak compared with the US presidency and let us substitute “non-elected institutions” with the Department of Defense, lobbyists, campaign financiers and the two-party corporate media monsters (reflecting Democrats and Republicans) run by Disney, Comcast, NewsCorp, and so on.

Supreme Leader’s Veto = US President’s Veto

And it turns out, according to the USIP, that the Majles has its own troubles with the Supreme Leaders use of a veto to thwart its legislative power. Though not arising out of the Iranian president’s office, it is in effect veto of parliament’s legislation or proposed legislation. “Parliament has faced other obstacles. The supreme leader’s office has intervened in the legislative process through a mechanism called the “state order.” The supreme leader’s most controversial intervention was in mid-2000, when he ordered a bill proposing to reform Iran’s repressive press laws be removed from the docket.”

Oh, what a flimsy comparison! But wait. Trump’s Guardian Council (Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley)  recently told two US Republican senators that they should not debate legislation to limit President Donald Trump’s power to go to war with Iran. The US officials were sent to the House and Senate on Wednesday to brief legislators on the rationale for killing Iranian General Soleimani.

“GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) ripped the administration over a closed-door briefing on Iran on Wednesday, announcing they will now support a resolution reining in President Trump’s military powers. Lee, speaking to reporters after a roughly hourlong closed-door meeting with administration officials, characterized it as ‘ the worst briefing I’ve seen, at least on a military issue. Lee said the officials warned that Congress would embolden Iran if lawmakers debated Trump’s war powers. ‘I find this insulting and demeaning … to the office that each of the 100 senators in this building happens to hold. I find it insulting and demeaning to the Constitution of the United States.’ Lee did not say which briefer made the assertion but specified that no administration representative contradicted them.”

On paper the United States Constitution, specifically the checks and balances system adopted by the framers (from Montesquieu) was intended to keep the three branches as co-equals. It seems that James Madison, at least, was wrong about controlling factionalism. Polarization/factionalism, in the form of the corrupted US two party system, has nearly destroyed the Republic. The executive branch is overpowering—no matter what party holds office (at least since George W. Bush)—the US Congress seems only as powerful as the party that holds the presidency and the judiciary is loaded up with whatever conservative or liberal ideologues the president sees fit to appoint. (For an interesting read on how the US political process should be changed see UK’s need to be change, see A.C. Grayling: Democracy and Its Crisis.)

Trump’s Response to Iran’s Missiles Hitting US Bases in Iraq

Looking at a still photo of Trump giving his “morning after speech” on the Iranian missile strike I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not. There was Trump behind the podium dressed up like Mussolini. On one side of Trump was Vice President Mike Pence dressed in a Nazi uniform. The stone faced members of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, proving that the United States is way ahead in the development of Artificial Intelligence appeared to me as Terminators. I had wondered if someone stuck a pin into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he would deflate like a balloon.

Well, the World Socialists hit the nail on the head in describing the troublesome scene and the content, or lack thereof, in his remarks.

“Much of what Trump had to say was recycled from previous speeches and tweets denouncing and slandering both Iran and General Qassem Suleimani. But more important than anything that Trump said was the way in which his speech was staged. In an unprecedented violation of constitutional protocol, Trump addressed the nation flanked by the entire uniformed Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. On all previous occasions, the announcement of a major crisis or a military engagement has been made by a president, seated at his desk in the Oval Office. This image was intended to present Trump as the leader of a military junta…

Why did Trump fail to act on his threats? It is more than likely that the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Trump that precipitous action could result in a military disaster.

The Pentagon needs time to prepare the defense of some 70,000 US troops deployed on Iran’s borders from Afghanistan to Turkey, along with tens of thousands more military contractors and naval personnel stationed in the region. The military knows that the next round of US attacks will probably be answered with a rain of Iranian missiles on US bases, airfields, battleships and aircraft carriers. In the run-up to the US wars against Iraq in 1990 and 2003, Washington needed several months to prepare against a far less potent enemy. 

There are also political considerations by Washington’s war planners. More time is needed to develop pro-war propaganda and psychologically condition the population for levels of violence unknown since the end of World War II. This propaganda will include efforts to condition the American people to accept the use of nuclear weapons by the United States, with the assistance of the pliant corporate media. The mass protests in Iran and throughout the Middle East, provoked by Suleimani’s killing, provided an indication of the upheavals that will be unleashed by an all-out US war…” 

In looking at the video as Trump walked down a corridor to deliver his remarks was that the two US generals nearest to the door were facing each other. As soon as Trump walked by they turned and faced the camera’s. Perhaps military protocol, but in these dangerous times with a demagogue in the Oval Office, it was nonetheless unsettling.

OK Boys and Girls: Why the US Can’t Win a Conventional War with Iran 

Let us dispense immediately with who has more blood on their hands, The United States or Iran. Well, there the Iran-Iraq War during which the US supported Iraq even as it used chemical weapons on Iranians. There is the Saudi campaign in Yemen, which the US supports, which has caused one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the last decade. Then there is that little piece of history from 1953 during which the United States and the UK overthrew the Iranian government. And remember this: No matter what the circumstance, United States is the victim, it’s always the victim; in fact, it is exceptional in its victimhood having never been the transgressor or having caused any group or nation to seek reprisal or recompense.

The first matter to note is that Iran has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which is an alliance between China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. As the Wiki entry noted, “In 2017, SCO’s eight full members account for approximately half of the world’s population, a quarter of the world’s GDP, and about 80% of Eurasia’s landmass.” As Iran remains under US sanctions, it is prohibited from becoming a full member adds another minor reason why Iran is under perpetual economic sanctions by the USA.

Iran is directly bordered by Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iran has maritime borders with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The distance between the capitals of Iran and Saudi Arabia, separated by the Persian Gulf, by air, is roughly 788 miles, well within reach of each other’s ballistic missiles. Iran is twice the size of Texas with more mountainous terrain.

Relations between Iran and its neighbors are up and down. According to the CIA Factbook (which correctly notes Iran’s non-compliance with human trafficking standards), “Iran protests Afghanistan’s limiting flow of dammed Helmand River tributaries during drought; Iraq’s lack of a maritime boundary with Iran prompts jurisdiction disputes beyond the mouth of the Shatt al Arab in the Persian Gulf; Iran and UAE dispute Tunb Islands and Abu Musa Island, which are occupied by Iran; Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia ratified Caspian seabed delimitation treaties based on equidistance, while Iran continues to insist on a one-fifth slice of the sea; Afghan and Iranian commissioners have discussed boundary monument densification and resurvey.” 

Iran and Azerbaijan have a testy relationship with one another.  Armenian analyst Tevan Poghosyan said recently that that,

”Against the backdrop of US-Iran conflict,Azerbaijan has become a platform for pressure on Iran from the US and Israel, from which unmanned aerial vehicles are being launched toward the Islamic Republic.” 

Armenia and Iran appear to have cordial bilateral relations and profitable tourism and trade between each other. Armenia has said it will remain neutral in the Iran-US conflict. The same appears true of Turkmenistan and Iran. It is no surprise that Iran and Afghanistan have closer relations than one would normally associate with a US puppet regime. But Afghanistan and Teheran are strong trading partners despite the influx of Afghani immigrants and refugees into Iran due to the ongoing US-Iraqi military operations against the Taliban and Islamic State. This haas caused friction between the Iranian and Afghanistan governments.

Iran and Turkey’s relations are determined largely by the United States. Though trade and tourism continue, Turkey no longer purchases oil/gas from Iran due to economic sanctions.

Iran and Pakistan relations are beset with problems. According to TRTWorld’s Tom Hussein,

“For Afghanistan and Pakistan, the alarming escalation of tensions between their common neighbour Iran and the US, their shared geopolitical overlord, could not have come at a worse time.Since the Islamic revolution, however, Pakistan has aligned itself with Saudi Arabia, while at the same time pleading neutrality in the hostility between Riyadh and Tehran. Unsurprisingly, this approach has backfired repeatedly, with terrible consequences…Pakistan flatly refused to join the Saudi-led military coalition that invaded Yemen in 2015, after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized most of the country. This infuriated Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, but the benefits to Islamabad’s relationship with Tehran were short-lived. Shortly after Imran Khan took power as prime minister in August 2018, Pakistan sought to repair the damage to its relations with the Gulf Arabs and invited the Saudis to set up an oil refinery complex at the Chinese-operated port of Gwadar, located close to the Iranian border. Since then, cross border attacks by militant separatists on both sides have been on the rise. Fear of a serious escalation prompted talks between Iran’s political leaders and Pakistan’s powerful military in November.”

Stir it all Up and What Do You Get?

There are simply too many military fronts for the US/NATO to handle simultaneously, particularly on the ground. Even with the Saudi’s and Kuwaiti’s as allies, one has to doubt those two nation’s fighting capabilities in any ground conflict. US military units can’t count on the Saudi’s or Kuwait’s turning against them during combat.

The US Army and Marines would face ground attacks from within Syria and Iraq and, of course, upon entering Iran they’d find it’s not Iraq circa 2003. US troops in Afghanistan would also find themselves, if not in retreat, then under constant attack. Who knows what new “terrorist” alliances would be made. A neo-Islamic State perhaps, joining up with other anti-US forces.

Refugee camps along the Pakistan-Afghnistan-Iran borders would be a hotbed for militias recruiting for the campaign agains the Great Satan. The Iranian’s have learned well that the United States and its military are very predictable in order of attack: massive, world wide propaganda campaigns to include trumped up cyberattacks on US commercial interests; air-land-sea-space assets redeployed; cruise missile strikes, followed by aircraft bombing runs. US Combat Controllers will have already Halo Jumped into remote portions of Iran to setup staging areas before any invasion starts.

The Navy and Air Force must make quick work of their Iranian equivalents because airpower will be needed to protect US ground troops in multi-theaters of operation from getting overrun from many directions by militias (Pakistan, Afghanistan) or Iranian troops allied with those who will come to its defense. The SCO will have something to say about the matter too. Will Russia and China provide support to the Iranians? Will Russia and China figure that they might as well go toe-to-toe with the US now before it completes nuclear modernization (and in light of the new military strategy of Great Power Competition).

The US Marines and Army will have it the toughest. They may try a WWII style-beach landing onto Iranian shores from the Persian Gulf using US Marines and US Army paratroopers may attempt to come from the sky into Iranian territory. As with any war between the US and North Korea, tactical nukes will have to be considered by the United States. Sides will be chosen and it will be a bloodbath, just as overtaking North Korea would.

Time to call Pope Francis. Given how crazy the times are, it’s a good idea. Read this at CRUX.

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Savage. Brutal. After the Assassination of Soleimani, Can We Just Admit that the United States Has No Morality at All?

January 10th, 2020 by Dr. Robert P. Abele

Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian military commander, who was assassinated this week by the United States in Baghdad, while he was on a peaceful mission, is just the latest, but perhaps most brazen and alarming, declaration by the United States that it is bound by no law and no moral principles. That is the sign of a morally bankrupt government and a similar culture that would support such actions.

This reflection will examine these two issues: the moral codes and the legal codes that do and necessarily must exist between nations and peoples that the U.S. blithely ignores, most horrendously in the case of the Soleimani assassination. I will assume that we can agree that morality is the condition of legality. If one has no concern for the former, there will be no concern for the latter, except what the law allows one to get away with.

For brevity’s sake, let us limit our moral examination to two moral codes: the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and its underpinnings in John Locke’s philosophy. The Declaration says that it is “self-evident” that all people are have equal moral standing, “unalienable rights,” that “among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” To secure these rights is the prupose of government, according to the Declaration. Thomas Jefferson openly admitted to borrowing from the philosopher John Locke to write these words. Locke’s moral concerns were with the freedom of people “to order their actions, possessions, and persons as they think fit,” and with the “state of equality”—i.e., no one has more power than another (i.e., no one has more power over another). Locke stipulated that the “state of liberty…[is] not a state of license”—i.e. no one has the liberty to destroy any other creature beyond what preservation calls for.

The second moral code concerns the morality of war and violence against another country. This is not discussed anymore in the U.S. political arena, and certainly not in the U.S. media. But this does not imply that leaders and media are exempt from moral laws of conduct, even if they choose to ignore them. We should keep them in the public debate arena.

These two principles of morality—one domestically originated, the other internationally—are what keeps governments in check. From the moral realm there are specific issues concerning the use of violence by the State that leaders are called to account for. Especially given current events in the U.S. meddling in the Middle East, we should call them to account for these moral failings.

Just Cause. This refers to an imminent attack by another country on one’s own. Short of this requirement, a just cause is not only lacking, but a military action is not a war. Rather, it is an immoral attack on another nation’s sovereignty. What is the moral cause of Soleimani’s assassination? Our government doesn’t have one. They don’t even appeal to one; they just act as they will. This is the very definition of a “rogue state,” one that has lost the moral authority to be followed by its citizens. By any definition of such a state, it is one that is a threat to the world’s peace. The criteria used to define such a state varies, but it is safe to maintain that any State that ignores or rejects another state’s sovereignty by invasion or assassination of its leaders cannot have a moral standing. Therefore, it cannot claim the assent of its people. Further, those so attacked have a right to fight back, as we now see Iran has done in its missile attack on American installations in Iraq. This “return fire” toward a nation that has attacked them is part of the definition of a “just cause.”

Proper Intention. Intention deals with the principle justifying the goals of contemplated action. As far as we know and can surmise, the only plausible intention of the U.S. in its actions with other nations and with the killing of Soleimani is to exert its own hegemony in the region. This is not a moral principle, and not even a pragmatic one. It is an imperialist one, and thus to be condemned by any moral analysis.

Proper Authority. In the U.S., only Congress can declare war. Further, only Congress can fund war. It has taken responsibility for neither.

Last Resort. War is to be the resort only when all attempts at negotiation have failed. But Trump never negotiated with Iran at all.

Discrimination. Civilians are exempt from military attacks. How many civilians have been killed without discrimination by the war actions of Obama, Trump, and other Presidents?

Proportionality. Proportionality requires that the good that results must outweigh the evils of the war. By all accounts, the results of killing Soleimani are far likelier to be negative than positive.

It takes only a cursory glance to see that the U.S. Congress has long since abdicated its moral and legal role in refusing to take responsibility for its fulfillment of its constitutional mandate to both take back its power declare war, and to control the budget, including the military monies it showers on the Pentagon (both of these mandates and responsibilities are in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The power to declare war was made even more explicit in the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which specifies that it is the power of the Congress to commit the U.S. to armed conflict, not the power of the President).

This is not just a “Trump issue,” either. We can add that every U.S. President has been a rogue leader in terms of moral values and international law, including Trump’s predecessor, President Obama. Under Obama, drone assassinations, the invasion of Libya, and the little noticed directive to upgrade nuclear weapons to make them not only more tactical (i.e. usable), but to make them radar-proof. Trump’s missile strike on Syria and the assassination of Soleimani simply add to the long history of the immoral actions of the U.S. regarding other countries, such as the overthrow of legitimate governments in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Honduras, Iraq, and support for the Bolivia coup and support of ongoing coup attempt in Venezuela.

From the legal viewpoint, what Trump did in striking Syria with missiles and now in assassinating Soleimani (and what Obama did in his drone assassinations) are war crimes, prohibited by both U.S. law and international law. War crimes, as defined in 18 U.S. Code, §2441, are any breach of the Geneva Conventions, such as intentionally killing or conspiring to kill “one or more persons taking no active part” in a war. Since there was no official war taking place between the U.S. and Iran, and since Soleimani was not in Iraq to make war plans, Trump’s killing is an international war crime of murder.

More specifically in law, the Hague Convention also defines war crimes as including the murder of a non-belligerent. The Hague Convention further includes “Crimes Against Peace” and “Crimes Against Humanity.” The former deals with “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression;” the latter includes “murder.” Importantly, Article 7 states that Heads of State “shall not be considered as exempt from responsibility” for these war crimes.

It does no good to simply state that these are war crimes and then let it go. Action needs to be taken against the war criminals, but that the U.S. media and large a swath of U.S. citizens ignore these concerns is yet another indication of lack of concern in the U.S. for moral and legal codes to which we are all bound in our international relations.

There are many other issues that need only be mentioned here but should be part of the discussion regarding the war criminals in the U.S. government and their domestic enablers. But let us mention only two, just for discussion purposes. First, part of what underlies this lack of morality in U.S. leaders and their willingness to follow international law is their enslavement to capitalist requirements: money in exchange for doing the bidding of the corporation capitalists, such that all the elites—both political leaders and corporate managers—profit. This is most clear in the case of military corporate contracts. Our leaders have coopted their leadership role and commitment to their citizens for a neoliberal philosophy of individual benefit, leaving such values as equality of all humans and citizen good far behind them.

The other issue just to be mentioned here concerns our militaristic culture and its faux patriotism; for example, the celebration of militarism in sports, and thus as sport, by association of one with the other. For example, not only does the NFL constantly celebrate militarism, but it makes it a part of the game, with officially approved camouflage towels, caps, and uniforms, jets flying overhead, military commercials, etc., and all pasted over with a U.S. flag. Watch how often those militaristic celebrations occur in the NFL playoff culminating in the Super Bowl, and you will have an indication of the culture of militarism that allows people like Trump, Pence, Pompeo, and their predecessors to get away with their crimes.

Lest this brief reflection sounds too abstract to be of practical value, one of the important points here is that what the United States government is willing to do to citizens of a foreign land, and innocent citizens from another country (including immigrants trying to come to the U.S.), they are willing to do to anyone, its own citizens included.

If we want to live in peace, we must stand strong against the brazen immoralities and illegalities of U.S. Presidents and their compliant and complicit Congresses, starting now; starting with standing against Trump’s assassinations and wars, and maintaining a commitment to stand against any presidential war crimes in the future, by Democrats or by Republicans. If we don’t stand now, the same crimes may well be visited upon us in the near future.

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Dr. Robert Abele is a professor of philosophy at Diablo Valley College, located in Pleasant Hill, California in the San Francisco Bay area. He is the author of four books: A User’s Guide to the USA PATRIOT Act (2005); The Anatomy of a Deception: A Logical and Ethical Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq (2009); Democracy Gone: A Chronicle of the Last Chapters of the Great American Democratic Experiment (2009), and eleven chapters for the International Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Global Justice. He and has written numerous articles and done interviews on politics and U.S. government foreign and domestic policies.

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Iraq Gives the US Its Marching Orders. What Part of “Go Home” Don’t You Understand?

January 10th, 2020 by Steven Sahiounie

Iranian forces launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against two military bases housing US troops in Iraq early hours of Wednesday morning. The al-Asad airbase in western Iraq was hit by 17 missiles, and 5 targeted at a base in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.  No US casualties were immediately reported. 

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the attack a “slap in the face” of the US, and observers seem to question whether the attack was designed to kill or inflict casualties, or was it carefully orchestrated to produce a closure to a situation which could have escalated into a regional or perhaps world war. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said he was informed of the attack by Iran ahead of time, which acted as a safety valve after he informed the US commanders.

The Iraqi militias may now begin attacks of revenge for the US assassination of the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who died alongside Soleimani in the drone strike on Friday.  Iraqi militia leader Qais al-Khazali said today his group’s retaliation should be “no less than the size of the Iranian response.”  Al-Muhandis was the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi militia group that is an official component of the Iraqi armed forces.  Previously, the US had attacked Iraqi PMF troops in Qaim and killed 24 Iraqi soldiers and wounded dozens more.  The Iraqi military, militias, and government have considered the recent US attacks on Iraqi troops and leaders on Iraqi soil as an act of aggression and more than enough reason to request the US military leave Iraq.

U.S. Defence Secretary Mark Esper, said Monday the United States “has made no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq,” seemingly oblivious to the fact the Iraqi parliament voted on Sunday to oust the 5,200 US troops. Esper has repeatedly reaffirmed that the U.S. was not pulling troops out of Iraq.

The US has around 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq, with plans to send in another 3,800 American paratroopers, and an additional 4,000 troops that may be sent.   The US forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, but returned in 2014 at the invitation of the Iraqi government to fight ISIS; however, that fight is over, and Trump angered the Iraqi government when he said the only reason he was leaving troops in Iraq was to watch Iran.  There were anti-US sentiments brewing in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, which perceived the US military to be an occupation force, and unwelcomed, but after the Trump statement about his main mission in Iraq, the calls for “Yankee Go Home” grew louder and included groups who had not previously called for the ouster. The US military has admitted they have sidelined work against ISIS to focus on self-protection of troops.

PM Abdul-Mahdi asked parliament on Sunday to take “urgent measures” to ensure the removal of foreign forces from the country, and on Monday, PM Abdul-Mahdi met with US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller and stressed the need for the two countries “to work together to execute the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,” and added the situation in Iraq was “critical”. American troops in Iraq are in the country based on a request by the then prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, in 2014. The request can be revoked by parliament. The Iraqi parliament resolution passed 173 to zero, although 156 MPs boycotted it, but clearly, it passed by a majority and united some factions previously at odds. Sajad Jiyad, managing director of Bayan Center, an Iraqi think tank said, “Even people nominally pro-U.S., anti-Iran or neutral is not happy with what the US has done, and believe it’s a dangerous escalation,” and added, “The common denominator is this was an infringement on sovereignty.”

On Monday, PM Abdul-Mahdi received a letter from Marine Brig. Gen. William Seely III, commander of ‘Task Force Iraq’, declaring the US intention to withdraw, and with specific details about the exit. The letter was sent twice, and the copy that Abdul-Mahdi has in his possession is signed, and he added,  “It’s not like a draft, or a paper that fell out of the photocopier and coincidentally came to us.” Strangely, Trump said he thought the letter was a ‘hoax’, and his officials Esper and Pompeo denied any letter of the kind was signed, or official.  Abdul-Mahdi took to the Iraqi TV to broadcast his exasperation with conflicting U.S. signals, and said: “We have no exit but this, otherwise we are speeding toward confrontation.”

The stated long-term goal of Iran’s reprisals is to remove US troops from the region.  Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said “This region won’t accept the US presence. Governments elected by nations won’t accept the presence of the US.”  Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, early today warned that the US forces would be removed from the Middle East, saying: “You cut off Soleimani’s hand from his body, your feet will be cut off from the region.”

Poland evacuated its ambassador in Iraq, and the Philippine government has ordered the mandatory evacuation of Filipino workers from Iraq. Germany has announced they will withdraw troops from Iraq, as well as Spain, Croatia, and Romania. France says they are staying. There are about 2,900 European troops in Iraq.  Trump has asked NATO to send more troops to Iraq; however, NATO troops are leaving Iraq.

Trump’s 2016 campaign promise was an “America First” policy, and he promised to reduce US involvement in foreign wars. However, his decision to bomb Iraqi militias and assassinate Iran’s commander Soleimani in a drone strike caught Middle Eastern and European allies unaware and confused. Since then, the US has given off conflicting signals on its intentions to exit Iraq even while it deploys more troops immediately for protection.

The US media uses the phrase ‘Shiite militias backed by Iran’ to identify the PMF; however, this is misleading and verges on propaganda.  The PMF is an Iraqi militia and part of the Iraqi armed forces. The fact they are mainly comprised of Shiites should not be a surprise, given the fact that Iraq is overwhelmingly populated by Shiites. Iran is a neighboring country and is also mainly Shiite.  Iran supports Iraq, their armed forces, and their militias. Iran supports a ‘resistance’ philosophy: that is resistance to the occupation of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Iran is inside Iraq at the official request of the Iraqi government. The fundamental division between the US and Iran is this ‘resistance’ philosophy, which has become ingrained in the mentality of the majority of residents in the Levant, but which the US fails to recognize or understand.  Iraq also has Sunni militias, and they are Al Qaeda and ISIS while Iran, Iraq, and Syria are all fighting those terrorists.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a political commentator.

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Trump Administration had Set a Trap for Soleimani

January 10th, 2020 by Joyce Nelson

As we breathe a sigh of relief that, for the moment, a massive escalation of regional tensions in the Middle East has been averted, it is important to raise some simple (though disturbing) questions about the assassination of Iran’s Major General Qassem Soleimani.

Pepe Escobar, a widely respected geopolitical writer, has stated (Jan. 6):

“The bombshell facts were delivered by caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, during an extraordinary, historic parliamentary session in Baghdad on Sunday [Jan. 5]. Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had flown into Baghdad on a normal carrier flight, carrying a diplomatic passport. He had been sent by Tehran to deliver, in person, a reply to a message from Riyadh on de-escalation across the Middle East. Those negotiations had been requested by the Trump administration[my emphasis].” [1]

Escobar further explained,

“So Baghdad was officially mediating between Tehran and Riyadh, at the behest of Trump. And Soleimani was a messenger. Adhil Abdul-Mahdi was supposed to meet Soleimani at 8:30 a.m. Baghdad time, last Friday [Jan. 3]. But a few hours before the appointed time, Soleimani died as the object of a targeted assassination at Baghdad airport. Let that sink in – for the annals of 21st century diplomacy.” [2]

So Soleimani was in Iraq on a diplomatic mission to discuss peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia – talks that had been requested by the Trump administration. He was killed by a U.S. pre-dawn air raid on Jan. 3 that also killed Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Escobar emphasized,

“Now, the fact is that the United States government – on foreign soil, as a guest nation – has assassinated a diplomatic envoy who was on an official mission that had been requested by the United States government itself.” [3]

According to Andre Damon and David North of World Socialist Web Site [Jan. 7], Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi further told the Iraqi Parliament that

“Trump had personally thanked him for his diplomatic efforts, giving the impression that Suleimani was not threatened with harm. And yet, within hours, the Iranian general was dead in what Abdul-Mahdi condemned as a grave violation of Iraqi sovereignty.” [4]

It’s hard not to arrive at the conclusion that the Trump administration set a trap for Soleimani in order to conduct a targeted assassination of him in Iraq. Indeed, that it is the stark possibility that news outlet South Front published on Jan. 5, stating with regard to the planned de-escalation talks that “the US supposedly used this initiative to set a trap for the Iranian military commander and assassinate him.” Trump’s phone call thanking the Iraqi Prime Minister for the impending de-escalation talks was made “on December 31, after demonstrators stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.” [5]

Rather than address this issue, the Trump administration has attempted to deflect from it in a variety of ways. For example, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told CNN (Jan. 7) that “Soleimani was caught red-handed … one terrorist leader of a terrorist organization meeting with another terrorist leader to synchronize and plan additional attacks on American diplomats, forces or facilities.” [6]

Given that the talks that brought Soleimani to Iraq were intended to focus on de-escalation, such spin seems particularly virulent. But then Esper topped his own spin by further telling CNN,

“What we would like to see is the situation de-escalated and for Tehran to sit down with us and begin a discussion about a better way ahead.” [7]

On January 8, Truthout published an op-ed by Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk and Daniel Ellsberg, who called the assassination of Suleimani “unlawful and provocative.” [8]

However, their op-ed also included this paragraph:

“From all that we now know, General Suleimani had come to Iraq without stealth on a commercial plane. He came to Iraq on a diplomatic peacemaking mission at the invitation of the Baghdad government, and with a meeting scheduled on the following day with the prime minister that was part of an ongoing effort to seek a lessening of tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In reaction to major violations of its sovereignty, the Iraqi Parliament has voted to expel U.S. troops from their country. In place of what seemed a promising regional initiative, the assassination of General Suleimani has resulted in an intensification of conflict…” [9]

Why would Chomsky, Falk and Ellsberg ignore reported indications of a trap having been set by the U.S.? If they do not believe what the Iraqi Prime Minister reportedly told the Iraqi Parliament, they should have stated that and explained why not.

Instead, they appear to be manufacturing consent for the Trump administration’s spin on the assassination, even as they question its legality and deplore its repercussions.

Arguably, given that everything seems to be on hair-trigger alert, this is the time for more honesty, not less. After all, what country – having been designated an “enemy” by the Trump administration – would want to send any delegates for negotiations somewhere, knowing they might be targeted for assassination?

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Notes

[1] Pepe Escobar, “The Economic Risks of Trump’s Reckless Assassination,” Asia Times, January 6, 2020; republished in Consortium News, January 6, 2020.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Andre Damon and David North, “The US propaganda machine justifies the assassination of Qassem Suleimani,” World Socialist Web Site, January 7, 2020.

[5] “Was Soleimani Framed by Trump? In Baghdad to Receive US Supported ‘De-escalation Proposal’ from Saudi Arabia,” South Front, January 5, 2020; republished in Global Research, January 6, 2020.

[6] Quoted in Zachary Cohan, “Esper says US isn’t looking ‘to start a war with Iran, but we are prepared to finish one’,” CNN, January 7, 2020.

[7] Quoted in Julian Borger and Patrick Wintour, “Iran crisis: missiles launched against US airbases in Iraq,” The Guardian, January 8, 2020.

[8] Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk and Daniel Ellsberg, “Congress Must Forcibly Limit Trump’s Power to Attack Iran,” Truthout, January 8, 2020.

[9] Ibid.

Video: US Simulates A War with Iran Scenario

January 10th, 2020 by South Front

The United States and Iran are balancing on the edge of a fully-fledged open military conflict, with many claiming that President Donald Trump had to respond militarily to the Iranian retaliatory missile strike on US military bases in Iraq. However, they have forgotten that in 2002 the Pentagon already ran a colossal wargame designed to simulate a war with Iran – and the US lost heavily.

Millennium Challenge 2002 was a $235 million USD military exercise that involved elements of all the U.S. armed forces, with over 13,500 personnel engaging in the most realistic wargames held up until that time. Almost immediately following the invasion of Afghanistan and ahead of the 2003 launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the exercise was clearly meant to test the Pentagon’s new vision of waging war against a Middle Eastern enemy. The enemy that the OPFOR (opposition force) was modeled after was in fact the nation of Iran.

The commander picked to develop the strategy of the OPFOR, or “Red Team”, and lead them in battle was retired USMC Lt. General Paul Van Riper. General Van Riper is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, who held many important commands over his 41 years of military service. At the time of Millennium Challenge, he was working with the Marine Corps Combat Development Command. He proceeded to do what everyone in the DOD command structure thought was impossible, defeat the U.S. military with a technologically inferior yet highly motivated and adaptive force.

Van Riper knew that perhaps the greatest advantage enjoyed by the U.S. forces, their high-tech advantage in command and control and surveillance, was also a potential weakness. The U.S. military’s overreliance on technology was exploited as its Achilles heel. The retired USMC general forbid his forces from communicating via radio communications, relying on motorcycle couriers and runners. He also conducted cyphered communication embedded in the Muslim call to prayer conducted throughout each day. The Blue Force had very little idea of what the Red Force was planning in the days leading up to the simulated amphibious assault.

The Bush Administration had  just recently announced the pre-emptive strike doctrine that included the use of pre-emptive war against an immediate or perceived future threat to U.S. national security. Since then, Washington has been actively using these perceived future threats to justify its own actions all around the world. (The claim that the assassination of the Iranian national hero, General Qassem Suleimani, in Baghdad on January 3 was required to prevent a war is an example of such a justification.) Therefore, with full knowledge of the preemptive war doctrine, the Red Force commander knew that an attack was imminent.

As soon as the Blue Force deployed in range for a strike on the simulated Iran, the Red team went on the offensive. Van Riper’s forces decimated the U.S. naval and amphibious assault within approximately fifteen minutes. Nineteen warships, including an aircraft carrier, and five amphibious ships, were sunk, and an estimated 20,000 sailors and marines were lost. The Red Force used barrages of hundreds of land-based missiles coupled with swarms of small, explosive laden suicide boats to defeat a combined aircraft carrier strike group and amphibious ready group.

Those overseeing the exercise decided to ignore the opening failure of the Blue Team and reset the chess board. Not only did they erase what should have been a monumental lesson to everyone involved, they decided to add several constraints upon Van Riper which did not give him full flexibility in conducting his defense. The Red Force was not allowed to respond to an airborne drop conducted by the 82nd Airborne by hitting the landing zone with chemical weapons, which it possessed under the exercise script. His forces were not allowed to keep their positions hidden. For example, the Red Force had to position its air defense assets out in the open where they became an easy target for the Blue Force. On top of that, the Blue forces were able to leverage technologies that were not actually in service at the time but were inserted into the exercise anyway. Even with the odds artificially stacked in the Blue team’s favor, the result was not what the Pentagon had hoped. Although in the end the U.S. invasion resulted in the defeat of the opposition, it did not result in total capitulation, but a strong guerilla war.

Van Riper had obviously learned a great deal about warfare in his years of combat in Vietnam, and deployments to the Middle East as well. He knew that technological advantage can never overcome an enemy that is calculating, ruthless and has the will to fight above all else. Reliance on technology is as much a weakness on the battlefield as a lack or logistical support or an unwillingness to embrace freedom of action. As a result of Millennium Challenge 2002, the U.S. military leadership should have learned this lesson as well. They did not.

Van Riper did his nation a great service by acting like a true soldier. He did what was needed to win and proved that his nation’s armed forces were not prepared for the war they aimed to fight. He was hamstrung, undermined and ignored. Van Riper would go on the record and speak out against the conduct of the exercise. He would later join a group of retired officers who called for the resignation of then acting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Fast forward eighteen years. The United States has escalated tensions with Iran with the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3rd. With the prospects of open conflict between the U.S. and Iran increasingly probable, it would behoove President Trump and his national security advisors to revisit the lessons learned from Millennium Challenge 2002.

Military operations of the 2020s differ significantly from all possible contingency planning variants of the 2000s. The current US military doctrine assigns the prior employment of mobile interoperable forces, unmanned and robotized systems, as well as massive strikes with high precision weapons in conjunction with the maximum usage of electronic warfare and information warfare. Therefore, the scenario of a possible conflict will differ from those simulated in the Millennium Challenge 2002. Large-scale landing operations are unlikely. Apparently, the US military strike’s main targets will be infrastructure objects and the objects of political and military command centers of Iran.

Despite this, any war with Iran will not be a walk in the park. Iran will respond asymmetrically, and in ways that the U.S. military establishment may not be able to predict. The lesson taught by General Van Riper may end up being learned the hard way.

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Washington Blames Iran for Ukraine Airliner Crash. Was the Plane Brought down by a Missile?

January 10th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

Update

The latest information suggests that the Ukraine plane was brought down by a missile, following statements emanating from the Iranian government.

…

On Wednesday, Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 crashed minutes after departing from Tehran’s International Airport.

All 167 passengers and nine crew members perished, including 135 Iranian and 32 foreign nationals.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said the aircraft caught fire in flight shortly after takeoff.

Initially heading west, it changed course for an attempted landing because of a likely technical malfunction.

No evidence suggests foul play. Yet AP News cited unnamed US, UK, and Canadian officials, claiming it’s “highly likely” an Iranian missile downed the aircraft, adding:

“They said the fiery missile strike could well have been a mistake amid rocket launches and high tension throughout the region.”

A Reuters report was similar, saying the Ukraine aircraft “was likely brought down by an Iranian missile,” citing Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and “intelligence from Canadian and other (unnamed) sources.”

Iranian officials debunked false claims about a missile or rocket downing the Ukraine airliner.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization head Ali Abedzadeh said the following:

“From a scientific viewpoint, it is impossible that a missile hit the Ukrainian plane,” adding:

“The plane caught fire three minutes into the flight, according to what the witnesses have reported and the data collected from the parts of the airplane.”

“The pilot tried to return the airplane at the altitude of 8,000 feet, but due to the fire, the airplane crashed and exploded.”

“We can say that the airplane, considering the kind of the crash and the pilot’s efforts to return it to Imam Khomeini airport, didn’t explode in the air. So, the allegation that it was hit by missiles is totally ruled out.”

“(B)ecause the airplane was Ukrainian, Ukraine is obliged to cooperate with us, and has started cooperation. Their team of experts has arrived in Tehran, and we have coordinated the issue with them on different aspects.”

“Iranian experts and the Ukrainian ones have had a meeting so that we could determine the cause of the incident in cooperation with the Ukrainian side.”

An official investigation into the cause of the crash is underway.

On Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi dismissed false accusations about an IRGC missile downing the Ukraine airliner.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has begun investigation into the cause of this plane crash in accordance with the international standards and the ICAO’s (International Civil Aviation Organization’s) criteria, and has invited Ukraine, as the owner of the plane, and the Boeing company, as the plane manufacturer, to take part in the investigation,” he explained, adding:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes the presence of experts from the countries whose nationals have been killed in the tragic incident, and requests the Canadian prime minister and any other government with information about this issue to give the information to the committee investigating the incident in Iran.”

Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 crashed hours after Iranian missiles struck two US bases in Iraq.

They were launched in retaliation for the Trump regime’s assassination of IRGC Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani — an act of war by the US against Iran.

Both incidents were unrelated, no credible evidence suggesting otherwise.

On Thursday, IRGC spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi debunked false accusations, saying:

Western sources “are spreading propaganda that the Ukrainian flight was targeted. This is ridiculous,” adding:

“Most of the passengers on this flight were our valued young Iranian men and women.

“Whatever we do, we do it for the protection and defense of our country and our people.”

If the airliner was struck by a missile, it likely would have broken apart in flight which no evidence suggests happened.

Separately, Ukrainian authorities ruled out terrorism, suggesting likely engine failure, what an analysis of the crash site and black boxes aboard the doomed aircraft will likely determine.

Falsely claiming an Iranian missile may have brought down Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 is similar to wrongfully accusing Russia for downing Malaysian Airlines MH17 on July 17, 2014 in eastern Ukraine airspace.

The latter Big Lie persists despite no credible evidence proving it, plenty of evidence debunking it.

Investigations of commercial airline crashes take considerable time to complete.

It’ll likely be months before it’s officially known why Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 went down.

There were no credible reports of satellite images showing one or more missiles in Iranian airspace before the Ukraine airliner crashed.

When the cause is determined and publicly announced, it’ll no doubt cite a technical malfunction, not an Iranian missile responsible for what happened.

A Final Comment

On Friday, Press TV quoted Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization head Ali Abedzadeh, saying the following:

“From a scientific viewpoint, it is impossible that a missile hit the Ukrainian plane,” adding:

“The plane caught fire three minutes into the flight, according to what the witnesses have reported and the data collected from the parts of the airplane.”

“We can say that the airplane, considering the kind of the crash and the pilot’s efforts to return it to Imam Khomeini airport, didn’t explode in the air. So, the allegation that it was hit by missiles is totally ruled out.”

Press TV also reported that five unnamed Western “security sources,” three US ones, a European, and a Canadian one, said a technical malfunction likely caused the crash, not a missile.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Oriental Review

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Trump, Soleimani and Terrorism

January 10th, 2020 by Robert Fantina

At the specific direction of the erratic and unhinged U.S. president, Donald Trump, the United States assassinated a top leader of another nation. The murder of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani is shocking for a variety of reasons; some, but not all of them, are described here.

  • The U.S. proclaimed that there was an ‘imminent threat’ to the lives of U.S. citizens, and that the general’s assassination saved hundreds of people. However, no U.S. spokesman could or would detail what that threat was. So the real purpose of this assassination can only be guessed.
  • General Soleimani has been called a terrorist by the U.S. government, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, of which he was a leader, is so designated by the United States. Governmental officials accuse him of interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, sometimes violently, and influencing foreign governments and their people towards more reliance on Iran. Is this not exact;u what the United States does? The CIA is forever ‘covertly’ overthrowing the governments of other nations. The U.S. currently supports foreign terrorists seeking the overthrow of the Syrian government. Sanctions against Venezuela, with the goal of ‘regime change’, are causing severe hardships there. A recent United Nations study indicated that at least a third of Afghanis are in need of urgent humanitarian aid, and millions suffer from food insecurity, a direct result of the U.S. war against that nation, which has now entered its nineteenth year. Palestine suffers under brutal occupation, financed by the United States.

It must be remembered that the U.S. has been at war for at least 223 of its bloody and violent 240-year history. Most of those wars have been invasions, sometimes under the guise of ‘humanitarian assistance’, which has seldom accomplished anything for the people being ‘assisted’. Iran has not invaded another country since 1798.

  • Donald Trump & Co. predicted that Iranians would be dancing in the street with joy over the death of General Soleimani. However, the outpouring of grief that resulted dwarfed any limited number of people who may have been pleased by this crime. In Tehran alone, a city of 8 million, an estimated 6 million people poured into the streets to pay their last respects to the general.
  • Following the assassination, U.S. citizens were immediately urged to leave Iraq, where the crime occurred. Additional U.S. soldiers/terrorists were dispatched to the Middle East. Apartheid Israel evacuated some popular resorts. This heightened alert and expanded military presence give the lie to any thought about protecting ‘national security’.
  • Lastly, it has been said that General Soleimani was on a peace mission, that Iran and Saudi Arabia were working together to reduce tensions between them. This, of course, would be unacceptable to Donald Trump. Saudi Arabia is the U.S.’s largest purchaser of weapons, and for that to continue, tensions and threats must remain high. No, anyone attempting to bring peace to the Middle East, especially if it means reducing Saudi Arabia’s perceived threats, must be eliminated.

All in all, this assassination does not seem to have been a good idea. Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has said that the Council has developed 13 retaliation scenarios. Trump has threatened to commit additional war crimes if Iran retaliates. He said the U.S. will bomb important Iranian cultural sights. More evidence that the U.S. holds international law in complete disdain.

Trump has said he will do this ‘if’ Iran retaliates. Are he and his advisors so naïve as to believe that they could assassinate a major political and military leader of a large and powerful nation, without the risk of retaliation? Imagine, if you will, that, say, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were to be assassinated by Russia.  Can you see U.S. government spokesmen strongly condemning this action, recalling the Russian ambassador, and threatening to curtail trade with Russia, and leaving it at that? Not on this planet. Russia could expect to be carpet bombed.

So one must ask why it is that Trump and the cadre of yes-men (male and female) with which he surrounds himself believed that the assassination of General Soleimani would bring no response.

One immediate response was Iran’s jettisoning of whatever was left of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that was working satisfactorily for all parties until Trump violated it and threatened the U.S.’s European allies with sanctions if they adhered to it. German government spokespeople have said they are troubled by this Iranian decision. Has reality fled from all heads of government? Why, oh why should Iran maintain its part of the agreement, when it receives no benefits by doing so? And shouldn’t Germany be more concerned about the U.S., which has run amok on the world stage for over two centuries, and its belief that it can kill any world leader it doesn’t like?

Iran will act, but unlike the U.S., its leaders will assess the options and carefully select the one that best suits Iran’s purposes. The U.S., like some deranged individual who enters a school and starts shooting, does not have ‘leaders’ who are able to see the basic relationship of actions to consequences; who have a grasp of world history, or who understand that few people outside of U.S. borders hold the U.S. in the lofty esteem that its leaders do, or who believe that it is a shining beacon on a hill. Rather, they recognize the hypocrisy of U.S. officials who proclaim with a straight face that Iran is the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, while the U.S. is currently at war in Afghanistan, is actively supporting terrorists working against the legitimate governments of Syria and Venezuela, and is sanctioning several nations because their people want to determine their own method of governance. They recognize that U.S. officials have no interest in understanding different cultures; those officials only want to force U.S.-style democracy, which is really an oligarchy, onto anyone who doesn’t follow U.S. dictates. They hope that their nation can avoid coming to the unwanted attention of the U.S.

How ever Iran chooses to respond, and respond it will, we can expect to see Trump overreact in the most destructive ways possible. This writer does not think he has seen the world so close to a major, worldwide war at any point in his life as he sees now. And like all wars, this one could still be prevented. But with the world’s largest bully having his finger on the trigger of World War III, with no one to restrain him, there is little hope that this pending catastrophe can be prevented.

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First Blow for Post-Brexit Britain as Australia Rejects Trade Deal

January 10th, 2020 by Jack Peat

Hopes of a flurry of post-Brexit trade deals were dashed this week after the Australian government rejected a UK offer that included visa-free work and travel between the two countries.

Trade minister Simon Birmingham said full free movement would not be accepted because it could cause an exodus of highly trained workers to the UK and an influx of unskilled British workers to Sydney and Melbourne.

Last year, ministers in New Zealand voiced similar fears of a brain drain.

Australian points-based system

Brexit advocates frequently referenced Australia’s points-based system in the referendum and the subsequent elections that followed.

Last September, international trade secretary Liz Truss, on a visit to Australia, announced that a plan to allow British citizens to live and work in the country visa-free could be just months away.

She said:

“We’ve been clear on the fact we want to adopt the Australian-based points system in terms of our new immigration system as we leave the European Union… our two countries have a special link and a historic relationship, and it’s certainly something that we will be looking at as part of our free-trade negotiations.”

But even then, Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison, said the visa-free arrangement with New Zealand was not something that would be extended to other countries.

Birmingham said yesterday:

“Negotiations for an FTA [free trade agreement] between Australia and the UK will prioritise enhancing trade with a market that is already our eighth-largest trading partner.

“Work and visa settings may also form part of discussions but it is important to appreciate that there is a huge spectrum of grey between the black and white of no movement or unfettered movement.

“Once talks are launched with the UK we will work through all of these issues in the usual way,” he said.

A stark reminder of the challenges the UK faces post-Brexit

Chetal Patel, partner at City law firm Bates Wells, told Personnel Today that the rejection of the UK proposal was a setback for the UK government: “Although bilateral trade discussions are ongoing, the news that the Australian government has rejected a visa-free arrangement serves as another stark reminder of the challenges the UK faces post-Brexit.

“It’s also a significant rebuke for the new administration considering the introduction of visa-free arrangements seemed to be almost a foregone conclusion just a few weeks ago.

“Surely work visas and other visas should be decided separately from the UK’s trade negotiations?

“This development ultimately begs several questions.

“What kind of approach will the government take in negotiations with other states given that the Home Office may now be completely restructured?

“Is the liberalisation of free movement as previously mooted by Boris Johnson and free marketeers going to be the guiding principle of immigration policy?

“Or does this episode suggest that preferential arrangements with certain other nation states will no longer be pursued?”

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Jack Peat is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE).He has contributed articles to The Sunday Telegraph, BBC News and writes for The Big Issue on a weekly basis.Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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Iraqi PM Asks US to Begin Withdrawal Process in Iraq

January 10th, 2020 by Almasdar News

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, announced on Friday that he asked the United States to send delegates to Iraq to help kick start the withdrawal of American forces from his country.

According to Alsumaria TV, Abdul-Mahdi asked the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to send delegates to implement the Iraqi Parliament’s decision to begin the withdrawal process.

Abdul-Mahdi indicated that there are still American forces and drones entering Iraq without the government’s permission.

The media office of the Prime Minister said that Abdul-Mahdi receiveda phone call from the U.S. Secretary of State that dealt with recent developments and the desire of various parties to prevent escalation and go to open war.

Abdul-Mahdi stressed that Iraq rejected all operations that violate its sovereignty, including the recent operation that targeted ‘Ayn al-Assad Airbase and the Irbil Governorate, noting that Iraq is making unremitting efforts to prevent the country from being used as a battlefield for the U.S. and Iran.

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Venezuela: Leadership of National Assembly Split Between Competing Opposition Groups

January 10th, 2020 by Nino Pagliccia

Last January 5 the members of the National Assembly of Venezuela elected its new leadership as mandated by the constitution. The new president of the National Assembly, Luis Parra, elected by a majority vote, will replace Juan Guaidó. He is not a Chavista nor a member of the governing party PSUV. But that didn’t seem to be anyone’s concern as it should not be in a democratic process. Except of course for Guaidó who has a lot to lose. By losing the post he will lose his self-appointment to the presidency of the country. So, what to do? Simple. Secure your domestic and foreign supporters, create a parallel body, call it National Assembly and…self-proclaim president of the unconstitutional body! After all, that strategy worked a year ago in holding the whole country hostage, and that’s easy when your directive comes from the US imperial government.

That seems to be precisely what Guaidó did.

It is important to remember that when in 2015 the governing party, PSUV, lost the majority in the National Assembly, there was no cry of fraud. Instead, the rightwing dominated Assembly botched its opportunity to push their political agenda by fraudulently attempting to swear in deputies. Because of that it was declared in contempt by the Supreme Court. Back in 2015 the NA had a single declared mandate to give an unconstitutional parliamentary coup to the government of Nicolas Maduro. The new board of the NA appears to promise to follow its legislative mandate within the Venezuelan constitution.

Juan Guaidó has claimed that he and his party colleagues were forcefully prevented to enter the NA building in order to vote. The dominant media has propagated this lie despite video evidence to the contrary. Only one person was stopped for not having the appropriate clearance. Others, including Guaidó, could proceed. However, Guaidó chose a misguided or calculated decision of “solidarity” not to proceed. He is heard saying, “No, no, no one else will proceed until they let him [person without clearance] in.” Some of Guaidó’s deputies had entered the NA precinct.

Image on the right: Luis Parra (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Image result for Luis Parra

In a dramatic and surprising development on January 7, there have been reports that Guaidó and his deputies have taken over the NA building ousting the newly elected legislature board and its deputies. This could be seen as a coup. But it is not clear against whom the coup is directed. The elected president of the NA, Luis Parra, is not a member of the governing PSUV, so by all effects, this is not a take over of a government controlled legislature. Further, Parra was recently expelled by the opposition  party Primero Justicia following mutual accusations of corruption with Guaidó. With this background, what we are seeing looks more like an internal struggle for power within opposition groups. The Venezuelan rightwing opposition has a long history of divisions and conflicts so this behaviour is not unusual, it’s only much more public.

In his first public declaration Luis Parra promised to depolarise the country and the parliament by seeking non-confrontational positions in order to achieve reconciliation. He called on the president of the country Nicolás Maduro to return to the headquarters of that power and he asked the armed forces not to take sides. He also rejected any external interference and to only be accountable to Venezuelans. This puts him fully in a head-on collision course with Guaidó who will not consider any other option except the total ousting of Maduro and his government. This determination is fully supported by the US, the EU and the so-called Lima Group who have declared their support for Guaidó.

At the time of writing it is not clear what will follow. The fact remains that the political confrontation in Venezuela has escalated with the addition of a NA composed of deputies mostly representing a narrow ideological range and a board presided by unelected Juan Guaidó, and a NA composed of deputies representing several parties whose board was elected by all deputies present. “Both” national assemblies are dominated by members opposed to the Maduro government that would favor a regime change.

Venezuelans who have been yearning for peace and normalcy in their country, have a reason to consider themselves still held hostage by the intolerance of irreconcilable opposition groups, and not by a legitimate government that tries to overcome precisely the social and economic crisis that those groups are causing to the country aided by foreign interventions.

Ultimately, Venezuela can still count on the Constituent National Assembly, established after the 2015-2020 NA was declared in contempt, that is still the legislative body until elections for the 2020-2025 NA will take place later this year.

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Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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A Window for Peace

January 10th, 2020 by Craig Murray

There is this morning a chink of light to avoid yet more devastation in the Middle East. Iran’s missile strikes last night were calibrated to satisfy honour while avoiding damage that would trigger automatically the next round. The missiles appear to have been fitted out with very light warhead payloads indeed – their purpose was to look good in the dark going up into the night sky. There is every reason to believe the apparent lack of US casualties was deliberate.

Even more important was the Iraqi statement that “proportionate measures” had been “taken and concluded” and they did not seek “further escalation”.

I agree their response was proportionate and I would say that I regard the Iranian action so far, unlike the assassination of Soleimani by the US, legal in international law.

The entire world should congratulate Iran for its maturity in handling the illegal assassination of its General, who was on a peace mission, travelling as a civilian on a commercial flight, carrying a mediation message the US had been instrumental in instigating. If as seems possible the US actively manipulated the diplomatic process to assassinate someone on a diplomatic mission and traveling on a diplomatic passport, that is a dreadful outrage which will come back to haunt them. Life insurance rates for US diplomats no doubt just went up.

It is also worth noting the 2.8% rise in the Lockheed share price in the 24 hours immediately before the Soleimani assassination, outperforming the Dow about three times. That would bear investigation. Arms manufacturers and oil stocks have soared this last few days – and remember that nowadays the vast bulk of financial transactions are bets on the margins of movement, so vast fortunes will have been made out of all this.

The UK has been, as ever, complicit in US crimes. Our laughingly so-called “defence” industry – when were its products last used in self-defence and not colonial adventure? – is tied in to and dependent on the US military machine. The current build-up of US troops and hardware in the Gulf has Mildenhall as a major staging post. We do not have to do this. Whether officially or on a pretext, French airspace was closed to the US military build-up and the Americans have had to fly from the UK, skirting France, around the Atlantic.

In a huge Boris Johnson slap in the face to international law, extra US bombers to attack Iran have been flown into Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Islands. You will recall that is where the UK committed genocide against the population in the 1970s to clear the way for the US military base. Last year, the UK lost a hearing before the International Court of Justice and was subsequently instructed by the UN to decolonise the islands and give them back to Mauritius by last November. The UK simply persisted in its illegal occupation and now is threatening the use of the islands as the base for yet another illegal and destabilising war.

That the UK is a permanent member of the UN security council is a disgrace which surely cannot endure much longer. What the current crisis has shown us is that under Johnson the UK has no future except as a still more compliant servant of whoever occupies the White House.

Wars are easy to start but hard to stop. Trump appears to have calmed, but we cannot rule out a stupid “last word” attack by the USA. It is to be hoped that Iran now concentrates on using the immense political leverage it has gained to get western troops out of Iraq, which would be a tremendous result for all of us after 17 years. But we cannot rule out hotter heads in the Iranian government insisting on further attacks, or attacks from regional forces whose Tehran authorisation is uncertain. On either side this could yet blow up badly.

I am a sucker for hope, and the best outcome would be for the US and Iran to start talking directly again, and a deal to be made from this break in the logjam that is wider than, and Trump can portray as better than, “Obama’s” nuclear deal and would enable the lifting of sanctions. I am sure Trump will be tempted by the chance to go for this kind of diplomatic coup under the political cover provided him by Soleimani’s assassination. But the US is now so tied in to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and thus tied in to irrational hostility to Iran, that this must be extremely unlikely.

For those of us in Scotland, this is still more reason why Independence must be early. We cannot be tied in to a rogue state. As we march for Independence on Saturday, the potential for war in Iran gives the sharpest reminder why we must leave the UK and form our own, peaceful, law-abiding state.

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Prince Harry and Meghan Quit The Royal Family. End of the Monarchy as We Know It?

January 10th, 2020 by Johanna Ross

When the Queen gave her annual speech at Christmas, she spoke of the ‘bumpy path’ that she and her family had been on over the past year. She was of course referring to one of the worst scandals ever to have hit the royal household – that of Prince Andrew’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his flawed attempt to conceal it. In the most damaging interview give to the media since Princess Diana famously revealed all regarding her relationship with Prince Charles back in the 90s, Prince Andrew gave a car-crash interview to the BBC last year which sealed his fate; he would never again play the same active role in public life.

But the Queen it seemed was not quite prepared for the announcement that Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, were to cut their ties with the Royal household and ‘carve out a progressive role’, becoming financially independent. It was reported by The Times on Thursday that the Queen was not even aware of the statement, which was released on Wednesday by the Duke and Duchess’ communications team.

The press release expressed Harry and Meghan’s desire to have ‘space’ for family life and detailed plans to split their time between Britain and the US, Meghan’s home territory. Buckingham Palace nevertheless issued a swift, brief, and rather terse response 90 minutes later, trying to play down the explosive nature of the news and stressing that there were ‘complicated issues that will take time to work through’. Not exactly praising her grandson’s decision.

Indeed there have been signals of late which indicated that all was not rosy between Harry and the family. The obvious omission of Harry and Meghan from the family photos pictured next to the Queen on Christmas Day spoke volumes, as did the decision by the Duke and Duchess to spend Christmas not at the palace, but with Meghan’s mother in Canada. Then there was the photograph depicting the four generations of the family: the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince William and his son George which reportedly upset Harry and Meghan as they had been excluded. But it would be naive to say that their decision to break with the royals has come as a complete shock.

In fact we have to be honest: Harry has always been, as his mother was, a bit of a rebel.

From being photographed dressed as a Nazi at a party in his youth to being captured on camera naked inside a Las Vegas hotel room, he has brought his fair share of controversy to the door of the Palace in the past. He has never quite toed the line when it came to royal etiquette and his marriage to Meghan Merkle was in itself testing the boundaries of the Queen’s tolerance. For the 21st century it may be, but for Prince Harry to marry a working class girl from LA, of African descent, would have been unthinkable only a few years ago and we’d be extremely foolish to think that Her Majesty and Prince Phillip looked on this match favourably. She was never going to be fully accepted into the Royal family; she would never be ‘one of them’.  But on the other hand, clearly Meghan doesn’t want to be; she’s had a flavour of royal life and it’s clearly not the life she envisages for her new family. The court case she and Harry announced last year against the Daily Mail for ‘untrue stories’ demonstrates the extent to which they are now calling the shots; they won’t be at the mercy of the powers that be any longer.

It’s important however to see this move also in the wider context of pressures on the monarchy. For another incident last year demonstrated more than any other the obsolete nature of what many people now consider an outdated institution. The prorogation of parliament by Boris Johnson, for which he had to seek to the Queen’s permission, but which was ultimately ruled as illegal by the courts, showed just how pointless Her Majesty’s role is. For if even the Queen herself is at the mercy of the underhand scheming of a dishonest Prime Minister, what is the value of such a head of state? Her position is purely symbolic and constitutes nothing more than an anachronism. Increasingly, people are asking if the millions of taxpayers’ money is worth it, particularly the amount they receive has been increasing year on year.

And so this could be the beginning of a downsizing of the British monarchy. The UK wouldn’t be alone either – the King of Sweden announced last year that he would be removing five of his grandchildren from the royal house. It makes sense to do this: the monarchy’s survival as an institution could depend on it…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Massive All-India General Strike Protests Modi’s Pro-investor, Communalist Policies

January 10th, 2020 by Deepal Jayasekera

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La Cina, non solo l’Iran, sotto tiro Usa in Medioriente

January 10th, 2020 by Manlio Dinucci

L’assassinio del generale iraniano Soleimani autorizzato dal presidente Trump ha messo in moto una reazione a catena che si propaga al di là della regione mediorientale. Ciò era nelle intenzioni di chi ha deciso tale atto. Soleimani era da tempo  nel mirino Usa, ma i presidenti Bush e Obama non avevano autorizzato la sua uccisione. Perché lo ha fatto il presidente Trump? Vi sono vari motivi, tra cui l’interesse personale del presidente di salvarsi dall’impeachment presentandosi quale strenuo difensore dell’America di fronte a un minaccioso nemico.

 Il motivo fondamentale della decisione di assassinare Soleimani, presa nello Stato profondo prima che alla Casa Bianca, va però ricercato in un fattore che è divenuto critico per gli interessi statunitensi solo negli ultimi anni: la crescente presenza economica cinese in Iran.

L’Iran ha un ruolo di primaria importanza nella Nuova Via della Seta varata da Pechino nel 2013, in fase avanzata di realizzazione: essa consiste in una rete viaria e ferroviaria tra la Cina e l’Europa attraverso l’Asia Centrale, il Medio Oriente e la Russia, abbinata a una via marittima attraverso l’Oceano Indiano, il Mar Rosso e il Mediterraneo. Per le infrastrutture viarie, ferroviarie e portuali in oltre 60 paesi sono previsti investimenti per oltre 1.000 miliardi di dollari. 

In tale quadro la Cina sta effettuando in Iran investimenti per circa 400 miliardi di dollari: 280 nell’industria petrolifera, gasiera e petrolchimica; 120 nelle infrastrutture dei trasporti, compresi oleodotti e gasdotti. Si prevede che tali investimenti, effettuati in un periodo quinquennale, saranno successivamente rinnovati.

Nel settore energetico la China National Petroleum Corporation, società di proprietà statale, ha ricevuto dal governo iraniano un contratto per lo sviluppo del giacimento offshore di South Pars nel Golfo Persico, la maggiore riserva di gas naturale del mondo. Inoltre, insieme a un’altra società cinese, la Sinopec (per i tre quarti di proprietà statale), è impegnata a sviluppare la produzione dei campi petroliferi di West Karoun. 

Sfidando l’embargo Usa, la Cina sta aumentando le importazioni di petrolio iraniano. Ancora più grave per gli Usa è che, in questi e altri accordi commerciali tra Cina e Iran, si prevede un crescente uso del renminbi cinese e di altre valute, escludendo sempre più il dollaro.

Nel settore dei trasporti la Cina ha firmato un contratto per l’elettrificazione di 900 km di linee ferroviarie iraniane, nel quadro di un progetto che prevede l’elettrificazione dell’intera rete entro il 2025, e probabilmente ne firmerà anche uno per una linea ad alta velocità di oltre 400 km. Quelle iraniane sono collegate alla linea ferroviaria di 2.300 km che, già in funzione tra Cina e Iran, riduce i tempi di trasporto delle merci a 15 giorni rispetto ai 45 del trasporto marittimo. 

Attraverso Tabriz, grande città industriale dell’Iran nord-occidentale – da cui parte un gasdotto di 2.500 km che arriva ad Ankara in Turchia  – le infrastrutture dei trasporti della Nuova Via della Seta potranno raggiungere l’Europa.

Gli accordi tra Cina e Iran non prevedono componenti militari ma, secondo una fonte iraniana, per salvaguardare gli impianti occorreranno fino a 5.000 guardie cinesi, assunte dalle società costruttrici per i servizi di sicurezza. Significativo è anche il fatto che, alla fine di dicembre, si sia svolta nel Golfo di Oman e nell’Oceano Indiano la prima esercitazione navale tra Iran, Cina e Russia.

Su questo sfondo appare chiaro perché a Washington si è deciso l’assassinio di Soleimani: si è volutamente provocata la risposta militare di Teheran per stringere la morsa sull’Iran e poterlo colpire, colpendo in tal modo il progetto cinese della Nuova Via della Seta a cui gli Usa non sono in grado di contrapporsi sul piano economico. La reazione a catena messa in moto dall’assassinio di Soleimani coinvolge quindi anche Cina e Russia, creando una situazione sempre più pericolosa.

Manlio Dinucci

 

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“Rwanda, the Truth About Operation Turquoise: When the Archives Speak”

January 9th, 2020 by Richard Labévière

In France, it is difficult to speak about certain subjects without unleashing the guard dogs of correct thought and dominant ideology. The sensitive dossiers are well-known: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the civil-global war in Syria, and the Rwandan genocides. Even to speak of “genocides” in the plural is to take a serious risk, as the guardians of the temple have erected the singular as a totem of their religion: from April 7, 1994 until July 17, 1994, the “evil” Hutu massacred the “gentle” Tutsi. Definitively, the morality of it is always this simple.

And from then on: spread the word, as there is nothing more to comprehend because it is a matter of feeling, believing in and celebrating the Rwandan dictator as a benefactor of humanity. The case is closed.

In a succession of sleight-of-hand tricks that turned the Rwandan tragedy into a veritable historic fraud, the French military’s Operation Turquoise deserves particular attention because it has been the object of fantasy, disinformation and deceitful propaganda.

On June 22, 1994, the United Nations Security Council mandated in Resolution 929 the deployment of a multinational force, under the command of French forces in Zaire (Congo) and Rwanda, for the protection of thousands of endangered refugees.

However, for over twenty years, journalists, staff of NGO’s, researchers and, above all, the Rwandan regime, have accused France of having participated in the preparation, if not the execution of, genocide. How was such a phantasmagoria imposed to the point that it became an undisputed and ideologically dominant truth?

Ten Years of Research

To respond to this question, this book by Charles Onana reports on more than ten years of research in the archives of the French Security Council, the executive branch, the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, and the American administration of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as well as numerous first-hand witnesses’ accounts. His book methodically deconstructs one of the greatest ideological frauds of contemporary history. It illustrates that the present rulers of Rwanda impeded intervention by the UN for over two months, knowingly encouraging massacres instead of acting to stop them, in order to gain unshared power and then move on to the conquest of Zaire—with the support of Uganda, the United States, Great Britain, and, to a lesser degree, Belgium.

Born on February 18, 1964, Charles Onana is no dilettante on this subject. With a doctorate in political science, this French-Cameroonian researcher has become known for several studies made in collaboration with our friend Pierre Péan (deceased in the summer of 2019) on Africa and the Great Lakes region, Palestine, and other armed conflicts. His milestone was his pioneering work on African sharpshooters of the French military during WWII. He managed the Pan-African Organization of Independent Journalists, for which he led an inquiry into the assassination of Norbert Zongo, a journalist from Burkina Faso. He has authored over twenty works, among them: The Tutsi Killers at the Heart of the Congolese Tragedy (2009), Al-Bashir and Darfour: The Couter-Inquiry (2010), Cote d’Ivoire: the Coup d’Etat (2011), Europe, Crimes and Censure in the Congo (2012), France in the Rwandan Terror (2014), Palestine, the French Malaise (2015).

Prefaced by Colonel Luc Marchal, former head of the blue helmets of the Kigali sector of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda [1993/10-1996/03], this first scientific study devoted to Operation Turquoise begins by presenting its sources and its methodology. After coverage of the historic and political context, Charles Onana explains how the attack of April 6, 1994—on the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi (Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira)—ignited the terrible machinery: “the massacres of civilians began effectively in the capital on April 7, 1994, after the announcement of the assassination of the Rwandan head of state. They would then spread throughout the country at the initiative of armed groups against the entire Rwandan population. Yet the mode for designating victims would never be founded on a detailed and deep inquiry, but rather done in haste under the emotions of the time.”

The Assumption of Power

At the time of the massacres, many journalists reported that the presidential guard and elements of FAR (Forces Armées Rwandaise) were committing atrocities against Tutsis and Hutus. Certainly, a few witnessed equally criminal acts committed by rebels of the RPA/RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Army/Rwandan Patriotic Front) during the same period. Among the few rare journals that were paying attention to the advance of the RPF there was Liberation, on May 19, 1994 (editor’s note: Liberation’s objective reporting did not last long) which evoked “bloody reprisals by the Rwandan guerrilla forces” before adding, “contrary to what they always promised, soldiers of the RPF had themselves begun to target civilian populations that had not succeeded in fleeing from the conflict.”

Charles Onana refocuses as well on this question, writing, “Far from the purely ethnic question that all journals refer to, it is rather the ‘sharing of power’ required by the Arusha Accords, or the non-sharing of power, that seems to be the heart of the problem. In other words, was the RPF disposed to share power with Hutus of the interim government at the moment it had a military advantage and preferred to fight until it could totally dominate?”

The testimony of the special representative of the UN Secretary General in Rwanda was along the same lines:

“Considering that victory was within reach, the RPF proved itself to be unreceptive to having informal contact with organizers of a meeting between the parties. It insisted on the dissolution of the interim government and the presidential guard… The special representative of the UN, the secretary general of the OUA and the international community were accused of doing nothing to stop the massacres and being complicit with the interim government. This excessive assertions led to the abandonment of the Arusha Accords by everyone targeted by the RPF, including Western diplomats.” [See translator’s note 1 about the special representative, Jacques-Roger Booh Booh.]

The attitude of the RPF in the massacres of civilians in 1994 remains a great taboo. No one has the right to speak of it, even the dissidents of this movement. If the image of the FPR has long been one of a “sympathetic national liberation movement opposed to the Habyarimana dictatorship, its positions and behavior during the massacres finished by revealing its Machiavellian and criminal side,” write Charles Onana. He sets out as rationally as possible the Rwandan and French context at the time the decision was made to undertake Operation Turqoise—a context of political “co-existence” within the country and of hostility outside of it. Clearly, when the French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur saw what was at stake from the point of view of domestic politics, President François Mitterrand saw what was at stake geopolitically.

The author of these lines above remembers having covered the OAU summit (at the time the African Union was still called the “Organization” of African Unity) in Tunis from June 13-15, 1994. The delegation was concerned mainly with the big issue at the summit: Nelson Mandela himself was ceaselessly imploring François Mitterrand to do something to attempt to staunch the massacres that were continuing against the Rwandan refugees heading for Zaire. The former oldest prisoner in the world—then having been president of South African for one month—estimated that the needed operation by the UN would take months and that only France, with its prepositioned forces in Africa, could intervene.

From Genocide to Accusations Against Turquoise

The term “genocide” was not applied at first because neither the United Nations nor the OAU, nor the Red Cross used this term. Its use, initiated with the help and support of the permanent delegation of the Czech Republic and the United States, encountered numerous opponents at the UN. It was then the close contacts undertaken by Colin Keating—ambassador for New Zealand and president of the Security Council—with the RPF which led to the first use of the term, relaying it officially within the United Nations and its technical agencies.[See translator’s note 2 below on why the term “genocide” was thought to be problematic.]

The US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, did the rest, and the United States validated, without the least reservation, and very officially, the pressing demand of the RPF to retain the term “genocide” and to qualify the massacres in Rwanda as such. This qualification was thus retained without prior examination or inquiry. Its validation would never be submitted to review by professional magistrates, nor by any international jurisdiction.

Charles Onana writes,

“The French Minister of Cooperation, Bernard Debre, would say with notable courage: two genocides had been committed, and the leading power of the world wanted that there should only be one because that suited its interests.”

Thus the foundation of an emotional ideological reconstruction was assured for the “genocides” and the attacks that were going to follow. The first accusations launched against Operation Turquoise were not initiated by French journalists or media. It was the American press that took a position and fired the first shot. From the month of April, shortly after the attack on President Habyarimana’s plane, several American newspapers blamed France. It was notably the International Herald Tribune, distributed in close to 180 countries around the world, that on April 14th published an article by “journalist” Frank Smyth entitled “French money is behind the over-arming of Rwanda.”

From then on the parrots of the Parisian press—in a permanent state of admiration and a quasi-colonial intellectual dependence on the American press—would relay a dossier cleverly promoted by the American NGO Human Rights Watch. It was taken up in Belgium and France by a very strange and shady organization named “Survie” which was literally obsessed with “Françafrique.”[Translator’s note 3] It operated on the premise that the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel had no idea where Africa was and that only France had any influence on the continent. This organization would never cease to incriminate French authorities and Operation Turquoise.

In this “journalistic” affiliation a number of “useful idiots” would flourish—self-proclaimed prosecutors, if not obsessed neurotics, who would peddle the fraudulent narrative. Charles Onana writes, “In invoking regularly and uniquely the support, as a real presence, of France to the Rwandan regime ‘before’ the massacres (until 1993), and in revealing only the actions of Rwandan government troops during the long civil and international war, but not describing in parallel those of the rebels and not mentioning the origin of their arms and their support, the French press, in quasi-totality, played a role in dismissing an essential part of the reality and presenting facts in a partial or incomplete way. The treatment of information thus, from the start, was unbalanced and truncated. This asymmetry would necessarily affect the intelligibility of the conflict and have consequences for the image of all actors in the conflict.”

Fear changed sides

The most violent attacks on Operation Turquoise appeared in the daily L’Humanité, which were then relayed by le Figaro which pounded—from the beginning—the administration of President Mitterand and Prime Minister Balladur. In this context, Liberation and L’Express would definitively take up the role of scandalmongers, while Le Monde—tying up with an anti-militarism left over from 1968—would specialize in systematically denigrating the French military.

In some cases it was the officers of Operation Turquoise themselves who were copiously dragged through the mud and personally slandered, as if it was a matter of establishing a supposed continuity with the Algerian war, in order to perpetrate bad conscience and tenacious hatred toward a France that remained “colonial” in its essence. While he was chief editor of Radio France International, the author was able to see the power of this ideological machinery: the political commissars of the organization Survie called directly to editors of “Service Afrique,” certain members of which were in permanent contact with the Embassy of Israel in Paris.

In effect, the other great trait of the mythology of the “singular” Rwandan genocide consisted of comparing it—stricto sensu—to the holocaust of WWII. Even if in the study of history comparison seldom rhymes with reason, there was suddenly a surge of all the water carriers of the Israeli cause, even launching defamation suits against free thinkers who disagreed with the dominant view. One must not forget also that in the context of a dreadful intellectual terrorism, inviting the investigator Pierre Péan had become a cause for termination!

It is some of the persons in this study—and the author of the book reviewed here is one of them—to whom we are indebted for a gradual re-establishment of the truth, notably concerning Operation Turquoise. At the time, the author reported on Swiss television (TSR), on many occasions, about the much decried Operation Turquoise. Based on his first-hand experience, he told how French soldiers assisted refugees, bringing them medical care, water and food; how in Goa, Congo, they had buried victims of cholera in order to stop the spread of the epidemic, how they had saved thousands of refugees who would have certainly died otherwise.

In paying homage to these soldiers—most of them very young, and who were then the face of France—I could not help but recall the words of Nelson Mandela to François Mitterrand: “Do something!”

Yes, this book by Charles Onana is “definitive” because, illuminated by undisputable multiple sources and testimonies, not only does he restore the historical truth (without closing the field to further research) but he also makes fear and indignation change sides. This book leads to an inescapable conclusion: from the common soldier to the highest military and political officials, Operation Turquoise saved—yes, saved!—thousands of lives. From the common soldier to those with the highest responsibility, this overseas deployment of French armed forces deserves our respect and admiration.

A question of honor

And if fear has thus changed sides and made it possible today to finally give much deserved honor to all the men and women of Operation Turquoise, it is also because its commander—General Jean-Claude Lafourcade—battled relentlessly to defend the honor of the mission accomplished.

When he was named as the head of the operation in June 1994, he was a brigade general of the 11th parachute division in Toulouse. Named as commander of the Legion of Honor in 2000, he would be successively deputy chief of staff of ground forces, chief commander of the armed forces of New Caledonia, then commander of ground forces (CFAT) in Lille.

How could such a man, supposedly so tarnished, have had such a career path? Yet Jean-Claude Lafourcade would also preside over the France-Turquoise Association which fought step by step against all the calumnies hurled against the actions of our country in Rwanda. Ignored by the Parisian press, his book Operation Turquoise-Rwanda 1994, written with journalist Guillaume Riffaud, cleared the way. In January 2016, General Lafourcade was a witness (témoin assisté) [Translator’s note 4] in a judicial inquiry pertaining (information judiciaire) to “complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity” that targeted French military personnel. These procedures all failed abruptly, not interfering with his ability to pursue the fight necessary to re-establish “honor” during a time when there was so little of it.

Other honorable men should be mentioned here: Admiral Marin Gillier, whose career was distinguished by an assignment in the Special Forces, in particular with the French Combat Swimmers.

His knowledge of Arabic led him to counter-terrorism activities and the fight against radical Islamic fighters. Duties at the Ministry of Defense led him to work in establishing rule of law in different national and international formats. Out of uniform, he took on several private duties: l’association Nazaréens au Cœur (NauC) which welcomed families having fled Iraq and Syria after the rise of Dae’ch [ISIS] there. Another was Night of the Handicapped, a gathering in public places, once a year, for passersby, organizations and institutions involved with vulnerable and handicapped people to share a moment of conviviality and brotherhood.

On this horizon line of restored honor, a third musketeer stands out among many others: Colonel Jacques Hogard, who was a commander of the Foreign Legion at the time Operation Turquoise. In 2005, his testimony about his participation—Tears of Honor: Sixty Days in the Torment of Rwanda—was published by Hugo. It asserts that the person responsible for the attack of April 6, 1994, which killed the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, was indeed Paul Kagame. He accuses American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright of having delayed the deployment of an international force to end the massacres. On May 13, 2009, with a number of other former officers of the French Army that served in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, he was distinguished with a decree from the President of the Republic and promoted to officer of the Legion of Honor. He is appreciated for other books revealing other truths such as: Europe Died in Pristina: War in Kosovo (1999, 2014).

It is in such good company that Charles Onana concludes his book, writing,

“Even in the present day, French political leaders, almost apathetic and resigned, are always little inclined to effectively and courageously defend their soldiers, in particular those of Operation Turquoise in the face of endless ignominious and defamatory accusations, a situation that would be totally unimaginable in the United States if it were a matter concerning American soldiers.”

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This was originally published on Lit by Imagination, translated by Dennis Riches.

Note

1. Jacques-Roger Booh Booh, Special representative of the UN Secretary General, Chief of UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda) during the genocide

John Kerry Did It

January 9th, 2020 by Ann Garrison

The Democratic National Committee’s scapegoating began early in 2016, months before wall building, climate change denying, health care abolishing, tax dodging, spewing demagogue Donald Trump surprised everyone including himself by taking the White House. First Wikileaks elected Trump by releasing 19,252 DNC emails plus attachments on the eve of the Democratic Party Convention. Then Russia did it. Russia helped Wikileaks do it. Then Jill Stein and the Green Party did it. They all did it together.

Of course the Green Party does it every presidential election year, but in 2016, we doubled down to elect the most fearsome Republican Godzilla yet. (Because he shares our core values: ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence.) Jill Stein even had her picture taken during her citizen diplomacy trip to Russia, just as Vlad the Impaler had stopped by her banquet table.

And now, according to Hillary Clinton, the Green Party is scheming to do it again by grooming Hawaii’s Democratic House Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, author of the stillborn Stop Arming Terrorists Act, to accept the Green Party presidential nomination—but only if Jill Stein, our dastardly 2012 and 2016 candidate, stands down. We did it, Russia did it, Wikileaks did it, and we’re all going to do it again. Wikileaks is still afloat on the Internet even as its founder Julian Assange is tortured in Belmarsh Prison, according to UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melsner.

One thing the DNC lynch mob and its corporate media would like us to forget is that one of their own, John Kerry, did it in 2004. The Greens couldn’t do it that year because our candidate, David Cobb, chose to campaign only in the “safe states” to avoid the opprobrium we’d been subjected to ever since Bush stole Florida and the Dems blamed our 2000 candidate, Ralph Nader.

Kerry knew that George Bush and the Republican Party stole the 2004 election from him in Ohio after his voters reported that their votes appeared as Bush votes even though they pulled the lever for Kerry, and after people in majority Democratic districts stood in long lines in thunderstorms and torrential rain waiting to vote (or went home) while majority district Republicans voted easily. Kerry’s patrician memoir “Every Day Is Extra” includes this comic description of another concern:

“Some on the team were bothered by the fact that many voting machines came from a private company, Diebold, owned by two Nebraska brothers who were the chairs of the Bush campaign for president.

“I wonder how many countries have elections in which the machines are privately owned and controlled, where the coding for the tallying cannot be inspected or verified because it is ‘proprietary information.’”

Kerry also wrote that he anticipated fraud but hoped for such a clear outcome that he wouldn’t need to contest. When that bubble burst he chose not to expose the rot at the core of our so-called democracy, although, of course, he didn’t put it that way.

As soon as he and his team realized Bush had stolen it again, he wrote, they went into deep deliberations about what to do. His vice presidential candidate, John Edwards, thought they should contest, but both knew that they might win their way past several appeals courts only to lose in the Supreme Court, as Al Gore had.

Why not tell Americans, and the rest of the world, the truth?

Because, Kerry wrote, he was “deeply concerned about a nation at war, with the world looking at us, coming out of a second consecutive election, where we would be sitting in limbo, wondering for the next six weeks or more who the president would be.”

But why should anyone have been surprised by that? In 2003, John Kerry had voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, and during his campaign, he stood by his vote. Discussing national security, he said:

“ . . . we must launch and lead a new era of alliances for the post-9/11 world. America must always be the world’s paramount military power. But we can magnify our power through alliances.”

Nevertheless, people were surprised and aghast. Kerry wasn’t as crude as Bush. He wasn’t so obviously sadistic and sociopathic, so many had somehow imagined that his election would end the horrors we were inflicting on the Iraqi people and the soldiers coming home in coffins or physically and psychically mangled for life. On election eve, November 2, I had gone to see some political theater where everyone was eager to learn that the nightmare was over. Then we exited the theater space to a reception area with televisions mounted on the walls and learned that it wasn’t.

The next morning George Bush told a press conference that he had earned a lot of political capital, and he was going to use it. Five days later, on November 7, the Second Siege of Fallujah began. I stayed up much of the night listening to the BBC’s on-the-ground reporters. One described women and children trudging out of Fallujah before the battle began until some of the women turned around and ran back to shoulder surface-to-air missiles alongside their men. Then the bombs came thundering down and innocent Iraqis were blown to bits. I wondered how many bodies would even be identifiable.

Everyone of good conscience was horrified by the Iraq War, but why did anyone think John Kerry might end it? Bill Clinton took office in 1993, two years after the Soviet Union collapsed, when some of us still hoped for a peace dividend that would turn swords into ploughshares, but he never delivered. During his eight years in the White House, he:

  • constantly bombed a “no-fly zone” over Iraq;
  • caused hundreds of thousands of deaths by imposing brutal sanctions on Iraq;
  • bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan;
  • bombed Iraq to distract from his impeachment for sordid sexual behavior with an 18-yr.-old White House intern;
  • destroyed Yugoslavia with a merciless bombing campaign;

and oversaw covert operations that left millions dead in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as mining moguls from Hope, Arkansas and beyond moved in.
(Then and now, most Americans understand Congo’s ongoing agony as “ethnic conflict” if they give it any thought at all.)

Some may have also remembered John Kerry as the young veteran who campaigned passionately against the Vietnam War and even testified to Congress about its ills. But those days were long gone, and his memoir suggests that he used widespread opposition to the war as a springboard for his political career.

John Kerry wouldn’t have stopped the war, and in the end, he decided not even to let Americans know that the presidency had been stolen again and not by the Greens. We hadn’t even campaigned in the swing state of Ohio. There were no safe scapegoats in sight and, in John Kerry’s mind, the United States’ national prestige in the world was at stake. How could he justify his claim that “America must always be the world’s paramount military power” if we couldn’t even hold an honest presidential election?  In his memoir he wrote:

“The decision was mine. I didn’t want to put the country through that again. It would be selfish and irresponsible. I knew some would be angry. People had a right to know that their votes were counted properly. They were correct to be incensed. But I decided I would continue that fight in a way that didn’t put our nation into banana republic status.”

It was already a bit late for that, but no one as richly rewarded by the status quo as John Kerry would want to risk rocking the boat till it ran aground or tipped over.

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The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is Determined You Will Have 5G Telecom Technology

January 9th, 2020 by Richard Gale

For the average American, bills that are introduced into state legislatures, especially those with bipartisan support, generally become the law of the state. But how often does the average citizen of any state review the bills in different committees or the laws passed and signed by the governors that have a direct impact upon their lives? We would imagine very few. What does it mean when a bill in California, for example, that mandates a change in an existing environmental law that protects citizens and in turn permits and protects corporations to pollute the environment, water and air with impunity? Then that same bill shows up in other states across the nation. How does that happen? One past example are bills to ban GMO labeling that were virtually the same in California, Oregon, Colorado and elsewhere. The same is true for hydro-fracking and pipeline installations, roll backs on environmental protections, public funds for charter schools, increasing the private prison system, gun rights, keeping drug costs high, etc. These are only a few examples of thousands of laws that are in place because one trade organization that represents many of the world’s largest corporations and industries has fully captured the policy narrative in many of our state legislatures. 

Today, many of us in the environmental movement consider the greatest danger to human health and the environment is going to be the full roll out of 5G technology.  This is article exposes one of the largest organizations in American that is paving the way to make 5G a reality: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The name ALEC should be a household word synonymous with corporate interests over the welfare of the public. The organization was created out of a gathering of radicalized conservative activists in Chicago in 1973. Having dreamt for a Barry Goldwater savior, conservatives got Nixon instead. The group was founded by Paul Weyrich, who had just founded the Heritage Foundation, and Lou Barnett who helped Ronald Reagan’s 1968 failed campaign for the presidency. Nevertheless, Reagan’s legacy continues to impact the organization. Its structure of “task forces” to bring elected politicians together with the leaders of private industry to draft policies for a large variety of issues — including medicine, telecommunications, regulatory policy, education, civil and criminal justice, commerce, homeland security, taxation law and energy and agriculture — has been modeled after Reagan’s national Task Force on Federalism.

Greenpeace’s Connor Gibson has described ALEC as “a one stop shopping outlet for large companies seeking state legislators to move their agenda through statehouses coast-to-coast.” And it is a “pay-to-play service” for corporations. After a whistleblower inside ALEC provided all of ALEC’s “model” bills drafted in private meetings between legislators and corporate lobbyists to the Center for Media and Democracy, we now know how and why ALEC has been so covertly successful for these past two decades.

Although the name ALEC and the Koch Brothers are frequently sounded in the same breath, Koch Industries did not join the Council until 1993. Since then, the Koch’s virtually hijacked the organization in addition to becoming its largest and most important funder. In tough times, the Kochs have been the first bail out the Council. Over the years, the Koch’s and their network of companies, foundations and organizations, such as Americans for Prosperity and Stand Together, have come to dominate the Council and steer its ideological aims.

Charles Koch’s and ALEC’s underlying philosophy about national and state governance is that the heads of private industry are far more qualified to lead the country than career politicians. Consequently the Council’s legislative infrastructure is based upon leaders of large mega-corporations colluding with elected officials to advise and construct policies, which are termed “model legislation,” before state Senates and Houses. The greater public good represented by the leaders of civil society are completely absent from the conversation. The titans of industry run the show. Benefits to private corporate interests, revenues and stock prices are all that matters. This is ALEC’s definition for economic progress.  It is Neoliberal capitalism on steroids.

ALEC claims that its membership is “comprised of nearly one-third of the country’s state legislators and stakeholders from across the policy spectrum.”  About 80 percent of these are members of the GOP. There are also about 270 industry and trade associations, conservative foundations and many of the nation’s largest mega-corporations represented. Therefore ALEC events and networks have become a paradise for large corporations to gain direct access to state legislators. PR Watch reveals that “even though many states prohibit corporations and lobbyists from influencing legislators through gifts and favors, ALEC has provided a way for special interests to sidestep these laws.” It has done so skillfully and unhampered for several decades. According to the Capital Research Center, a right-wing think tank that functions as a quasi “fusion center” to gather information on unions, environmental and liberal activist organizations for ALEC and the Heritage Foundation, about a 1,500 bills based upon ALEC’s “model legislation” are introduced to state legislative bodies annually and about 20 percent become law. We are therefore looking about 7,500 laws that were incubated in ALEC secret gatherings. And according to a Brookings Institute investigation, about 90 percent of these bills are introduced in state legislatures by Republicans. According to Brookings report, “ALEC’s Influence Over Lawmaking in State Legislatures”:

“What ALEC does during its closed-door meetings is largely a mystery…  Not only are their meetings private, but so too are their legislative successes and failures.  Specifically, we do not know where ALEC’s model bills inspired the introduction and passage of new legislation.”

Therefore it is no surprise to find ALEC’s fingerprints all over the aggressive push to roll out 5G technology across the nation.

One of the more frequent fears of the 5G rollout is that small cell antenna systems will be installed throughout cities and towns in heavily populated areas. Instead of soaring cell towers removed from these areas, millions of microwave antennas will adorn power poles, streetlights and roof tops. Although these are publicly owned installations, the city councils and the public have no say in the matter. Private industry has been given carte blanche control over collocating these devices at its perusal. In the words of an ALEC member at CTIA, a national trade group representing the 5G corporate giants, “it sounds super sexy and we hope that it is.” For the rest of us, there will be no means to avoid these cells’ microwave pulses day or night. Yet it was ALEC back in early 2016 who drafted legislation to “streamline” this infrastructure in violation of zoning laws.

Last year Comcast became the latest large corporation to drop its ALEC membership after the SEC demanded the company reveal its lobbying figures and following shareholder complaints about the company’s excessive secret lobbying activities, including opposition to state internet neutrality laws.  In fact, there has been a large exodus of mega-companies leaving the ALEC family.  Since 2011, when the Center for Media and Democracy initiated its campaign to pressure corporations to leave ALEC, Comcast is the 116th firm to have done so. Others include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Merck, Wells Fargo, Pepsi, and Coca Cola, Shell, BP, Exxon, Amgen, Visa, Sprint and T-Mobile.   Telecom giants AT&T, Cox Communications  and Verizon quit ALEC after a human rights campaign was launched against the Council for David Horowitz’s racist keynote hate speech against women, Blacks and Muslims at ALEC’s annual convention in New Orleans. Horowitz is a right-wing ideologue and the CEO of the David Horowitz Freedom Center that has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “driving force of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-Black movements.” Trump’s White Supremacist adviser Stephen Miller, who has been accused of advising Trump to separate immigrant children from their families, is a Horowitz “protege.”

Nevertheless, some of the most powerful telecommunication trade associations have retained membership:  CTIA (The Wireless Association), Charter Communications, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), and the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association. The departure of the large telecom companies listed above may be more of a ruse than a reflection of corporate conscience. They are still well represented in ALEC by the industry associations. AT&T, Cellpoint, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon are all members of CTIA and the NCTA, two of the largest associations promoting the Internet of Things that are publicly lobbying for ALEC telecommunication “model legislation.” And they continue to send lobbyists representing their commercial and policy interests to ALEC meetings through other channels.

The Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA), in collaboration with ALEC, has been developing “model” state legislation already adopted by several states including California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, New Jersey and Michigan. In Hawaii, WIA has managed to amend state land use regulations to permit wireless facility installation on agricultural lands in complete denial of EMF’s adverse impact on the environment, insect, and animal life. In Nevada, installation will proceed regardless of a municipality’s consideration of RF’s health impacts. In Florida local jurisdictions are limited to make demands for information from the telecom industry’s installations that may pose undisclosed risks. In short, ALEC is busily clearing the field for rapid 5G installation by removing state and local regulatory barriers that may create bottlenecks for deployment.

Despite ALEC’s woes and setbacks, the arrival of Trump in the White House has made up for its loss of corporate membership.  No other administration since the Council’s founding has been so packed with ALEC representatives, estimated at half of his cabinet appointees. ALEC’s 45th year celebration was held at Trump’s International Hotel in DC, a mile from the White House. ALEC’s CEO Lisa Nelson expressed her elation that the administration “does have the potential to be an ALEC administration. It is full of the people and ideas we’ve advanced since 1973. Now is our time. And ALEC is ready.” It was through ALEC channels that Brett Kavanaugh reached the Supreme Court bench. Trump’s former EPA head Scott Pruitt was earlier the chair of an ALEC task force. And Mike Pence was a loyal lobbyist for ALEC policies as Indiana’s governor and continues to be so as Vice President. Nikki Haley, Rick Perry, Betsy DeVos, agriculture secretary Sonny Purdue, Ben Carson, Kellyanne Conway, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta and the head of Health and Human Services Alex Azar are all ALEC alumni or insiders.

Trump’s Chairman of the FCC which is responsible for federal funding the 5G roll out,  Ajit Pai is a former Verizon attorney and a long time ALEC associate. Back in 2013, Pai spoke before ALEC’s Communications and Technology Task Force to commend state efforts to roll back regulations in order to permit the Internet Protocol (IP) Transition — Washington’s term for the internet technological revolution — to unfold freely without obstacles from state and city governments. A wolf in sheep’s wool, Pai is a committed free market globalist who favors solutions coming from market competition in the absence of government regulations. Therefore it came as no surprise that Pai appointed ALEC’s director of the Telecommunication’s Task Force, Jonathan Hausenschild, to the FCC’s new Broadband Development Advisory Council last April. Reporting for TechDirt, Karl Bode noted that ALEC has already helped “the broadband industry pass blatantly protectionist bills in more than 21 states that hamstrung or simply banned towns or cities from building their own networks, even in areas when private industry refuses to.” Despite ALEC’s libertarian rhetoric of favoring net neutrality, Hausenschild has lobbied heavily in opposition to net neutrality protections, which is ALEC’s real goal.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Barr has traveled the country touting ALEC’s “model legislation” for 5G. Before Indiana’s Senate, Barr promised that “5G will create jobs, improve education and promote safety. But to upgrade our networks, we must upgrade our regulations.” The Trump definition for “upgrade” means to trash altogether.

In its “Resolution Opposing State and Local Mandates Requiring Warning Labels on Wireless Devices and Packaging,” ALEC acknowledges the FCC’s safety limits for public exposure to EMF radiating devices (1.6 watts per kilogram body weight).  Despite acknowledging the health risks “based on the weight of scientific research,” it still “opposes all state and local legislation and regulations that would require either health-related warning labeling, including but not limited to specific absorption rate levels, on wireless devices and packaging, or mandate disclosure of any health-related information about wireless devices at the point-of-sale.”

As with its denial of anthropogenic climate change — a direct indictment against many of its most prominent corporate members in the fossil fuel industry — ALEC only cites cherry-picked scientific conclusions, largely outdated and some over a decade old, that negate any evidence of EMF’s adverse effects to human health and the environment. For ALEC, the 10,000-plus scientifically reviewed studies confirming EMF’s relationship with cancer, Alzheimer’s, endocrinal dysfunction, etc. don’t exist.

Other “model” policies ALEC is peddling to state bureaucrats to advance the 5G roll out, which it has succeeded to implement in many states, include:

  • Demands that states provide certainty for 5G deployment to proceed unimpeded by local and public jurisdiction.
  • Permit the telecommunications industry with free access to “public rights-of-ways” to assure full small cell antennae rollout
  • Limit or prohibit local municipalities from charging private telecom companies fees as a source of revenue. ALEC argues municipality fees reduce corporate’ funds “to further build out their networks, reaching unserved and underserved areas.”
  • Foster fast-tracking of 5G deployment to reduce time to conduct thorough reviews of the benefits and risks to local communities.
  • Prohibit “regulations or procedures for RF [radio frequency] strength or the adequacy of service quality” as a pre-requisite for wireless installment and operation.
  • ALEC’s core principles are small government and free markets for private interests. Cities and towns providing municipal publicly funded broadband services therefore compete with the private sector, drain the industry’s revenues and should be forbidden. Therefore ALEC’s “Municipal Telecommunications Private Industry Safeguard Act” creates obstacles for local governments to create public broadband access.
  • ALEC’s “Wireless Communications Tower Siting Act” allows existing public structures — buildings, utility powers, water towers — to be freely available to the telecom industry for installing small cell devices rather than rely upon the need to build new structures.
  • ALEC’s “Telecommunications Deregulation Policy Statement” would create barriers for states to pass laws that would regulate the cost and quality of service provided by private telecom companies. The statement also proposes to greatly reduce states’ and municipalities’ abilities to tax 5G providers.
  • Telecommunications and internet providers “should not be held civilly or criminally liable for content they either host or transmit.” In addition, the companies cannot be held responsible for monitoring illegal content nor “be compelled to provide any private client information data without due process.”

ALEC’s 5G platform represents just one body of bills that reveal its mission to shape the nation into the image of a corporation. The same is true for other areas where the Council pushes aside the public’s demands for a democratic voice in favor of private industrial interests. Despite, the large telecommunication companies leaving ALEC, it remains their best ally in state legislatures. And clearly after three years of Trump in the White House and the administration’s downsizing of the federal government and shredding regulatory protections, ALEC’s dream of running the government is becoming true.

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Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including The War on Health, Poverty Inc and Silent Epidemic.

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Racism and the Origins of the United States of America, “The Joker” and the End of White Supremacy

January 9th, 2020 by Franklin Frederick

«At its root, capitalism not only meant slavery and white supremacy but also the ethos of the gangster. » Gerald Horne

The film ‘Joker’ presents a contemporary phenomenon present in several countries, but which can only be understood in its complexity through the history of the origins of the USA.

African-American historian Gerald Horne argues in the book ‘The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America’ that the U.S. independence movement was born, on the one hand, from the fear of the wealthy classes in the colony of a growing abolitionist movement in the metropolis, England, which could put an end  to the basis of their wealth – the slaves. On the other hand, England also hindered the advance of the settlers to the west, which was to remain indigenous territory. For Horne, the war for U.S. independence was partly a ‘counter-revolution’ led by the ‘founding fathers’ with the aim of preserving their right to enslave other peoples, mainly Africans, and to continue to expand the young nation to the west, stealing more land from the indigenous peoples where more slave labor would be deployed.

In another book, ‘The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean’, Horne summarized this process:

«Then finally, in 1776, they pulled off the ultimate coup and exhibited their novel display of patriotism by ousting London altogether from the mainland colonies south of Canada, while convincing the deluded and otherwise naive (to this very day) that this naked grab for land, slaves and profit was somehow a great leap forward for humanity.»

In this context occurred another process of fundamental relevance for today: the birth of U.S. military power. The U.S. army originated in the war for independence against the British, which was also a war against the vast majority of African slaves who allied themselves with the British – which promised their freedom – and against the many indigenous peoples who also allied with the British – aware of what would follow for them once the new republic became independent. And indeed, soon after the victory against the British and the established peace, the newly created U.S. army engaged in its new task: the genocidal war against indigenous peoples to secure the territorial expansion of the new republic.

In the book ‘The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814’ author John Grenier argues that the U.S. armed forces were forged in the genocidal wars against American indigenous peoples, when virtually every means of destruction was allowed, all brutality was possible, and there was no distinction between civilian and combatant populations.

One of the methods used by the U.S. armed forces against indigenous peoples was the destruction of their plantations and food reserves, leading to defeat by famine, a method widely used and perfected decades later by the U.S. in the Vietnam war, making the U.S. perhaps the only country in the world to specialize in the war against the Vegetable Kingdom.  In fact, an unbroken historical line leads from wars against indigenous peoples to the war in Vietnam. The most recent economic embargoes against Cuba and Venezuela are just another form of this method, the objectives remain the same – to cause hunger, to punish civilian populations in order to subdue them – and have been used since the beginnings of US military power.

The extermination of indigenous peoples was so central to politics at the time that participating in military campaigns against indigenous peoples was practically a prerequisite for becoming a candidate for the presidency of the New Republic. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, is perhaps the one who best represents what this new country really was. Jackson was a wealthy planter and slaveowner, leading troops during the War against the Creek people, which led to the conquest of many lands now belonging to the states of Alabama and Georgia. He also led the US troops in the war against the Seminole people. In the presidency, Jackson continued his crusade against the indigenous people. There is an interesting episode in the well-known TV series ‘House of Cards’ in which Indian representatives visit the White House. As part of the preparations for the visit, White House staff remove the portrait of Andrew Jackson from a wall, apparently in order not to offend the Indians – a rare moment of lucidity in such media. And it was Andrew Jackson’s followers who founded the U.S. Democratic Party…

In order to guarantee a ‘single front’ between the settlers against the indigenous peoples, on the one hand, and to ensure the practice of slavery on the other, the British forged an illusory ‘alliance’ beyond the social classes, between the ‘whites’ – white supremacy – that legitimated and allowed the exploitation, theft or extermination of all those who were not so endowed. According to Gerald Horne, this militarized identity politics that was ‘whiteness’’ was at the root of the colonial occupations as early as 1676, leading to the creation of a ‘white man ‘s’ country, a first ‘apartheid’ state, an example to be followed by South Africa. Violence against indigenous peoples and the violence inherent in the slave economy became common, ‘normal’ elements in the US white mentality to this day. Gerald Horne argues that one of the last expressions of ‘white supremacy’ in the mainstream U.S. politics was the election of Donald Trump, as a part of the electorate « (…) could not overcome the poisonous snare of white supremacy. That is, the seeds of the fiasco of an election in November 2016 in the United States, where the less affluent of European descent, including more than half of the women of this group, found their tribune in a vulgar billionaire, has roots in the cross-class coalition  that spearheaded colonial settlement in the seventeen century at the  expense of the indigenous and enslaved Africans.»

This history and its consequences are very much still present in the Joker. Arthur Fleck, the character in the film, is just one of the millions of poor white men abandoned by the system, and it is not by chance that, in the film, practically everyone who comes into real, emotional contact with Arthur Fleck, is African-American, including the only woman he cares about. In this way, the film places white Arthur Fleck in the middle of a poor Afro-American community, that is, according to the myth of white supremacy, completely out of his ‘natural’ place. The social worker who allows him to get the medicine he needs is Afro-American and, when she informs him about the closure of the social centre – another result of the austerity policies of neoliberalism – she comments: ‘They don’t give a shit about people like you. Or like me.’ – They’, in this case, being a clear reference to the powerful, to the 1%. There is a permanent possibility of a haven for Arthur Fleck within the African-American community, as the social worker recognizes by placing the two as victims of the same system. But Arthur Fleck is unable to see or understand his situation in the broader context that would open him up to the dimension of solidarity with the African American community and others and, as I see it, it is his ‘whiteness’ that blinds him to this possibility. Instead, following the illusions of his adoptive mother that became his as well, he tries hard to be accepted again by the successful white community. The ‘alliance’ beyond the social classes that connects whites in the myth of white supremacy is still sufficiently strong in Arthur Fleck’s unconscious to take him to Thomas Wayne seeking the ‘recognition’ of his ‘natural right’ to belong to Wayne’s successful white community, a way of updating the ‘alliance’ of white supremacy, just as so many impoverished and marginalized whites voted for Donald Trump did. To reinforce the image of unity of this white community, the dialogue   with Thomas Wayne takes place in a theatre full of white people celebrating the success of their social class. Thomas Wayne does not recognize his “fatherhood” – the symbolism here is clear – of Arthur Fleck and, even worse, violently refuses any contact with him, thus revealing the lie of the white ‘alliance’, the myth of racial supremacy as a bond between whites beyond social classes.

Thomas Wayne’s punch shows that such an alliance never existed.

But there is a gesture of solidarity shown in the film that really belongs to the ‘white alliance’: knowing that Arthur Fleck suffered an aggression in the street, one of his co-workers offers him a weapon to defend himself – the gesture of solidarity par excellence of the ‘white alliance’. The neo-fascist Bolsonaro is his campaign for the presidency in Brazil did exactly the same, just in a much bigger scale.  he promised to put weapons more easily within reach of everyone, especially his supporters, who promptly rewarded this ‘solidarity’ by helping to elect him.

The moment when the myth of the ‘white alliance’ really explodes in the film is the sequence of the fight in the subway. Three well dressed and visibly successful white youths harass a woman sexually – feeling perfectly right in doing so, the “normal” behaviour of the white heterosexual male, in the U.S. as in Brazil. Arthur Fleck, with his nervous laughter, hinders the three young men who turn against him. Arthur Fleck is obviously poor, a clown, of a social class much inferior to that of the three young yuppies who start to assault him violently – betraying the ‘white alliance’ like Thomas Wayne – but Arthur Fleck has a weapon and, for the first time, gives way to his years of accumulated frustration and repressed anger – and kills his aggressors. For Arthur Fleck this moment is liberating and from then on, he feels stronger but also “goes crazy”, the symbolism used, I believe, to show the emotional price paid by Arthur Fleck for betraying his part in the white ‘alliance’. His oppressive violence was directed against white people, not against Latinos, black or indigenous immigrants – the ‘normal’ targets of white supremacist violence.

The “white” liberal public conscience, represented in the film by the character of Robert de Niro , Murray Franklin, an idol for whom Arthur Fleck also aims to be somehow recognized, condemns the murder of the three ‘promising young people’, because in this case the solidarity of the white ‘alliance’ really exists – as CLASS solidarity – the three were ‘successful’, obviously members of the dominant class. Three poor whites like Arthur Fleck murdered in the subway would certainly have no press attention, it was the social class of the three murdered that awakened, on the one hand, the sympathy of the Murray Franklins, and, on the other hand, the popular revolt that is the background of the film. Arthur Fleck repeatedly declares himself without any political awareness or political objective. The Arthur Flecks of real life hardly vote, but if they do, they vote for Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro. The Arthur Flecks’ revolt is limited to spreading violence, ‘paying back’, creating chaos, it has no political content, it does not aim to change the system, the Arthur Flecks do not even have the slightest idea how the system really works, they only feel unjustly frustrated by something they can only react to with violence. Arthur Fleck is the potential fascist, what unites them, in the U.S. as in Brazil, is still the mystique of the white supremacy, the feeling of belonging to the dominant class, a kind of ‘natural right’ to be privileged, to have prestige and power. 

For the capitalist system, the Arthur Flecks have an enormous importance, because they not only elect the Donald Trumps and the Jair Bolsonaros, allowing the international oligarchy of the capital to continue through them to dominate the world; but even more, the Arthur Flecks have the fundamental role of depoliticize society, of preventing public consciousness to focus on real issues. And it is through violence, intimidation, the attack on institutions, culture and everything that threatens their ‘white’ identity that the Arthur Flecks fulfil this role. The Thomas Waynes smile, the 1% rejoice at such stupidity so easily manipulated in their favour. And Thomas Wayne is not only a Gotham City type, there are many Thomas Wayne all over the world, as many in Brazil and Argentina as in Europe. All of them breeding the “Batmen” eager to fight “corruption” in the name of the Capital.

But ‘Joker’ also shows, even if only obliquely, the possibility of redemption for Arthur Fleck. What if Arthur Fleck managed to get out of his emotional prison, out of his whiteness ‘poisoning’ – to use the expression of Gerald Horne – and sought help and refuge in the African-American community? African-Americans have a long history of political consciousness and struggle, they have faced the violence of white supremacy from the beginning, they know what it means, they know its extent and also its main weaknesses. Above all, African-Americans know very well that the struggle is political. The greatest nightmare, the greatest threat to the U.S. oligarchical political system is precisely the solidarity union between the Arthur Flecks and the Afro-American community, witth the consequent politicization that this union implies. The system, the international financial oligarchy, may well coexist with chaotic violence, with brief outbreaks of destruction and social conflict – in fact, this violence is even useful for the system and for the oligarchy, among other reasons because it can be used as a pretext for more repression and violence on the part of reactionary forces. But what the system cannot support is rebellion WITH POLITICAL CONTENT – as we see now in Chile, Argentina or Ecuador.

The Joker portraits  the ending of white supremacy because even the Arthur Flecks are already realizing that “whiteness”, this ‘solidarity alliance’ among “whites” , which for so long has fed them until it became the foundation of their own being, is nothing but a lie woven by the 1% – mostly whites – to better exploit all the others.

And meanwhile in Latin America, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela, the political consciousness of the people has long since overcome the myth of white supremacy and “whiteness” loyalty to the oppressors and subservience to the international capital. There is a plural humanity, rich and proud of its many colours, genders and ways of being that increasingly assumes political control over its own destiny. It is this humanity that, with much clarity, determination and joy, is defeating fascism and the myths that support it.                                                                                  

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Surprise, Iraqi Resistance Bombs Green Zone!

January 9th, 2020 by Kurt Nimmo

Sky News, doing what it does best—dispense war propaganda—broadcast this know-nothing report soon after “Iran” attacked the Green Zone in Baghdad this evening. 

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This fellow fails to name the group allegedly responsible—Kata’ib Hezbollah, depicted as a zombified Iranian proxy. (On the other hand, this attack may be a false flag to drive the war narrative forward and keep the heat on Iran. Point is, we really don’t know.)

Kata’ib Hezbollah is a Shia paramilitary organization formed when George Bush and his neocon handlers invaded Iraq in 2003. It was specifically organized to resist Dick Cheney’s illegal and brutal invasion. It’s leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was murdered along with Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani on January 3. 

Additionally, the chattering teleprompter readers and newspaper scribblers say almost nothing in regard to the Preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention II on Land War (specifically the Martens Clause) or the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts.  Article 1, Paragraph 4 refers to armed conflicts “in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes.”

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was killed specifically for his resistance to US occupation in addition to his relationship with Iran, which was natural considering he was a Shia Muslim, as are most Iraqis, and there are strong religious and cultural ties between what are now Iraqi and Iranian Shias. 

But we are not allowed to hear any of that from the war media. Instead, we are told Iran is responsible for the deaths of US soldiers illegally occupying Iraq. Forgotten is that fact both Sunni and Shia Iraqis have resisted US occupation for well over a decade. In the United States of Lies, this resistance is depicted as terrorism. 

Soleimani was murdered because he planned to talk with the Saudis about deescalating tension in the Middle East. Trump’s high-tech Mafia hit on Soleimani was also designed to please the Israelis. They have waged an assassination campaign against Palestinian activists for more than sixty years. Additionally, they have murdered a number of Iranian nuclear scientists and Lebanese Hezbollah leaders and activists (most notoriously Sayyed Abbas Musawi in 1992). It is safe to say the double hit in Baghdad was coordinated with the Israelis. 

Donald Trump is the most outspoken pro-Zionist president in US history. The Zionist agenda, most urgently advocated by Bibi Netanyahu these many years, calls for the destruction of Iran on par with the destruction of Iraq and similar criminal acts in Afghanistan,  Syria, and Libya by Bush, Obama, and Trump. Iranian nukes serve as a pretext, however flimsy, to realize the Israeli agenda of political control in neighboring states and the further annexation of land in the Golan and the West Bank (and no doubt beyond; the Israelis have coveted Lebanon’s water resources for decades, i.e., Operation Litani). 

Donald Trump’s Kabuki theater of Fire and Fury must drive the neocons and Israelis up a wall, though. It was a different story under Bush. The neocons simply told a bunch of less than plausible lies, the media did the propagandizing and mesmerizing in preparation for the mass murder to follow, and it was off to the races. 

It can be said we were a somewhat different people in the first couple of years after 9/11. Now most people distracted, they’re inured to war, it has become part of the cultural fabric, it is endlessly portrayed as service to the nation in defense of freedom and liberty—and it’s all bullshit. 

Here’s what the corporate media never tells you. 

The killing of US soldiers in occupied Iraq is legal self-defense and resistance to alien occupation. Iran is not firing ineffective Katyusha rockets into the occupation Green Zone, Iraqis are. Iran is certainly provoking and assisting and can you really blame them? Brother and sister Shias just over the border are long-term occupied by alien invaders and the invaders keep making threats against Iran. 

Reality is irrelevant for the reality TV president. Reality dictates people invaded and occupied will resist, often with devastating result. The most radical Zionists in Israel do not and never have planned to make peace with the Arabs and Muslims around them. They have worked for many decades to undermine Arab nationalism, engage in false-flag deception, assassinate opponents in Mafia fashion, and prevent the barbarians from coming together, to paraphrase the late globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski. 

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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.

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Iraq PM Confirms Receiving ‘Signed’ US Pullout Letter. Has Washington decided upon Withdrawal?

January 9th, 2020 by Press TV

The following report by Press TV is yet to be confirmed.

The AFP said it had received a copy of the letter late Monday and verified its authenticity with both US and Iraqi officials, the agency added.

This occurred prior to the Iran bombing of US military bases on January 8.

The alleged letter of withdrawal was by US Military in Baghdad. It was an initiative of Brigadier General William Seely, who oversees US Task Force Iraq. Was the letter  endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, The State Department and the White House?

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper later denied that the US military had announced preparation for “movement out of Iraq,” and the Pentagon claimed that an unsigned draft version of the letter had been sent by mistake.

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Has Washington decided upon US Military Withdrawal? 

Amid confusion over a reported US letter to Iraq announcing the steps its military would take to move out of Iraq, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi confirms that Baghdad has actually received “signed and translated” copies from the US Army concerning the withdrawal.

In a televised cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Abdul Mahdi clearly refuted all US claims that the letter had been sent by mistake or it had been inauthentic.

On Sunday, the Iraqi Parliament voted unanimously in favor of a bill demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country.

The vote came only two days after US airstrikes assassinated senior Iranian commander Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) anti-terror group, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in the Iraqi capital.

Earlier, various news agencies reported that Brigadier General William Seely, who oversees US Task Force Iraq, had sent a letter to the head of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command on Monday, suggesting potential withdrawal of the forces belonging to a US-led coalition, which has been operating in Iraq since 2014 under the pretext of fighting Daesh.

‘Signed and translated’

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper later denied that the US military had announced preparation for “movement out of Iraq,” and the Pentagon claimed that an unsigned draft version of the letter had been sent by mistake.

Abdel Mahdi, however, said he had received signed and translated copies at 8:00 p.m. local time (1700 GMT, January 5) on Monday (January 6).

The letter discussed “redeploying with an aim to withdraw from the country. The expressions were very clear,” he said. “It was an official letter written in such a manner,” the premier told ministers.

“It’s not a piece of paper that fell off the printer or reached us by coincidence,” he added. The letters only contained a translation mistake that the US military corrected and provided Baghdad with new versions, Abdul Mahdi noted.

The AFP said it had received a copy of the letter late Monday and verified its authenticity with both US and Iraqi officials, the agency added.

In it, Seely informed his Iraqi counterparts that American troops were preparing to leave Iraq. Seely wrote the US-led coalition would “be re-positioning forces in the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement.”

“In order to conduct this task, Coalition Forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner,” said the letter.

It said helicopters would be travelling in and around Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone, where the US Embassy is located as part of the preparations.

The AFP, meanwhile, said its reporters could hear helicopters flying low over Baghdad throughout the night on Monday as well as Tuesday.

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The State of the Iranian Crisis. Will Trump “Escalate” or “De-escalate”?

January 9th, 2020 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Readers are asking my take on the Iranian retaliation and Trump’s response.  I think a deal might have been arranged between Washington and Tehran via a third party. The Iranian attack resulted in no US casualties.  Thus, it serves  both Iran’s purpose of retaliating and Trump’s purpose of interpreting the Iranian retaliation to be, in effect, a stand down.  

Possibly Trump will apply “crippling sanctions” as a cover for withdrawal from most of the Middle East.  Iran wants the US out, and Trump’s original intention was to withdraw before Russiagate forced him to stay. Thus, both Trump and Iran have a common interest in US withdrawal. Although the Iranian missiles killed no one, they did demonstrate to Israel that the Iranian missiles have pin point accuracy.  As Israel is a small land area, the accuracy of Iranian missiles possibly has changed Israel’s mind about provoking a war.  If Israel also stands down, perhaps the crisis is over.

On the other hand, the neoconservatives will be unhappy.  They see chaos in Iran as a way of spreading instability into the Russian Federation.  The military/security complex will be unhappy as US withdrawal would downsize their profits. US oil interests will be unhappy to lose the Iraqi oil.  

Trump is in a better position now to stand up to these powerful interests. The war scare has introduced a sobering element. Republican senators have urged Trump to de-escalate. Russia, China, and Turkey have spoken against any escalation. The Barr-Durham investigation of the role of the military/security complex and Obama regime in orchestrating the “Russiagate” hoax brings a sense of vulnerability to the CIA, FBI, and Obama Justice (sic) Department.  Therefore, Trump possibly can turn the situation to the advantage of his original aim to withdraw from the Middle East and restore normal relations with Russia.

Trump’s appalling decisions and explanations are largely a product of the vulnerable position he has been put in by three years of CIA, FBI, and Democratic Party efforts to remove him from the presidency.  Now that vulnerability has shifted to his opponents, unless they physically assassinate him, Trump may yet prevail with his peace agenda.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The US vs. Iran: Who Won and Who Lost?

January 9th, 2020 by Andrew Korybko

Iran’s symbolic missile strike against two US bases in Iraq was a soft power victory for the Islamic Republic despite not causing any casualties, though the US undoubtedly achieved a military victory by assassinating Maj. Gen. Soleimani in Baghdad last week, with this superficial “tit-for-tat” outcome being used by both sides to de-escalate tensions away from a destructive conventional war.

Iran literally shocked the world by responding to the US’ assassination of Maj. Gen. Soleimani in Baghdad last week through the most direct means possible, namely a ballistic missile strike against two American bases in Iraq in the early hours of Wednesday morning. People all across the planet were on the edge of their seats for over half a day wondering how the US’ unpredictable president would react following his threat to target 52 Iranian sites — including cultural ones — if Americans were killed by Iran’s promised response. Prior to Trump’s globally broadcast speech, many were (ridiculously) worried that World War III was about to break out, or at the very least the complete obliteration of Iran, but all sincere well-wishers of world peace breathed a collective sigh of relief when he revealed that no Americans were injured in the attack despite Iran claiming that 80 lost their lives, which is why he didn’t order a counter-strike. This almost completely unexpected result deserves to be analyzed in depth in order to get down to the bottom of how it all played out, as well as to better understand the US and Iran’s extremely different definitions of victory after both claimed that they came out of this superficial “tit-for-tat” exchange as the winner. It’s ultimately up to the reader themselves to decide which of the two really won, but this analysis aims to make their final assessment much easier.

It’s since been revealed that the Iranians notified the Iraqi Prime Minister before launching their salvo, after which his government’s officials informed their American counterparts in order to avoid any injuries before the strike actually commenced. One might argue that Tehran did this in order to “respect international law” after launching an attack on its neighbor’s territory, but it’s unrealistic to believe that the Islamic Republic would risk losing the element of surprise if it really intended to kill Americans and cross Trump’s threatened red line. Despite spreading discredited reports that 80 Americans were killed as a result and then claiming that this amounted to a “slap in the face” of its rival, it appears from satellite footage that Iran deliberately avoided targeting facilities in the two bases that were housing US and Iraqi troops, if they even were still there by the time the strike actually happened after being indirectly tipped off by none other than the Iranians themselves. These facts demonstrate that Iran didn’t want to truly escalate tensions with the US but nevertheless felt compelled to respond in a dramatic way to “save face”, hence why it took the utmost caution not to kill any Americans but still showed that it technically could have if its precision-guided missiles were programmed to do so.

From the American side of things, the author wrote the following last week in his article titled “No, A War With Iran Won’t Help Trump Win Re-Election“: “If events quickly climb the escalation ladder, then both Iran and possibly even Trump himself might end up the losers, with only the Democrats and the US’ military-industrial complex cynically emerging as the ‘winners’ (since ‘Israel‘ might be wiped out by Iran before the Islamic Republic is destroyed). In hindsight, this makes one wonder who ordered Iran’s militant removal from Iraq in the first place and whether it was a ‘deep state’ plot to entrap Trump by provoking this very scenario.” Since neither Trump nor the Ayatollah wanted to risk that mutually detrimental outcome of the former possibly losing re-election and the latter’s country likely being destroyed, their Iraqi “deconfliction channel” was relied upon to choreograph Iran’s carefully planned response in order for both sides to claim victory and thus pull away from the brink of what would otherwise probably have been the bloodiest war in the Mideast’s history. As circumstantial evidence of this in practice, Trump responded in kind to Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif’s earlier call for a de-escalation during his speech and therefore didn’t decide to retaliate since no Americans were killed as a result of this choreographed stunt.

Assessing what just transpired, Iran certainly won the soft power war whereas the US undoubtedly claimed a military victory. The Islamic Republic presented itself as supposedly being strong enough to strike American bases at will with impunity (notwithstanding that they informed the Iraqis in advance who in turn told US troops to take caution in order to avoid casualties), while the Pentagon took out Iran’s regional proxy war mastermind. In other words, the Iranian victory was purely superficial though that still doesn’t take away from the long-term effect that it might have on the global audience’s perceptions of the US’ supposedly waning power, whereas the American victory really hit Iran where it hurt and literally led to “regime change” within the IRGC even if that angle is largely being overshadowed by Tehran’s dramatic response. Both sides therefore “save face” in their own way by claiming their respective victories which are convincing enough for their domestic audiences while leaving the rest of the world to debate the zero-sum details of who really came out on top. Although a regional proxy war is expected to rage all throughout this year, the conventional peace prevailed, which was a direct result of Iran abandoning its “nuclear ambiguity” through the 2015 deal and thus having no means to deter an obliterating US counter-strike in the event that they were serious about bombing Americans.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Iran’s Strikes Against the U.S. Demonstrates the Unipolar System Is Truly Over

January 9th, 2020 by Paul Antonopoulos

When U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, he certainly had not expected that Iran would respond in the way it did by bombarding two U.S. military bases in Iraqi territory. It is likely that his advisers had convinced him that no country in the world had the courage to attack the U.S. so blatantly as no one else had since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. The Iranians did of course, as was expected by those who understand the ideology of the Islamic Republic that has a deeply ingrained martyrdom complex that stretches back to 680AD when Imam Ali Ibn al-Husayn was killed in Karbala, Iraq.

Trump has claimed that there were no American casualties while Iran has claimed there were at least 80. With the Erbil and Ain al-Assad bases bombarded and several U.S. aircrafts, drones and helicopters destroyed, it is unlikely that there were no U.S. casualties – however there is no way in knowing at this time whether there were 80. We can expect Washington to keep the true number of casualties a secret, in complete opposition to Iran who openly celebrate their martyrs.

The Ain al-Assad military base is the largest and most equipped U.S. base in the region, and one of a few U.S. special bases around the world, at the size of about half of Lebanon. The fact that the Americans have deployed their most sophisticated radar systems in Iraq, many of which have been destroyed, demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the Patriot missile defense system. This was despite U.S. forces in the region being put on high alert. This will only be in Russia’s favors as it continues to lure the S-400 system to potential buyers.

Not only did the attack on the Ain al-Assad military base expose the ineffectiveness of the Patriot system, Iran also targeted the Erbil base in Iraqi Kurdistan. This base was a center to try and encourage the Iraqi Kurds to rebel against the central government in order to put pressure on the central Iraqi government. The attack on the Erbil base was a warning that even a U.S. withdrawal into Kurdistan does not make them any less safe.

It was expected by most commentators that Iran’s retaliation for the martyrdom of Soleimani would be in the form of utilizing its regional paramilitary allies on U.S. positions. By directly attacking U.S. forces brazenly and openly, Tehran has demonstrated that the U.S. are not safe in any part of the region. However, Iran had no choice but to retaliate as it would demonstrate the country’s leadership only had empty rhetoric in defending itself. The U.S. would certainly be more inclined to carry out further attacks against Iran and its allies if Tehran did not respond.

If there is a war going on in Iraq between the U.S. and Iran, it probably will not be limited to one country and will engulf the whole region, and potentially, across the world. Washington cannot be counted on to abide by international laws and regulations. The countries in the region, particularly the Gulf States, should also bear in mind that the presence of U.S. bases on their land will not only fail to provide security, but will also endanger their national security as all states who assist the U.S. in any aggression against Iran will become legitimate targets, as Tehran has already warned.

Rather, the murder of Soleimani has only united Iranians, including those who have been protesting across the country since November, blaming the government for the increased fuel prices and difficult economic situation, ignoring the crippling U.S. enforced sanctions. The major demands of the Iranian people are now for the expulsion of the U.S. military from the region, something that the Islamic Republic’s leadership has loudly and clearly demanded as well.

Now that Iran has made its first response to the U.S. so directly, Trump for now is refusing to respond militarily and will impose greater sanctions against Iran. However, Iran has already made the demand that the U.S. withdraws from the region. To achieve this without directly provoking Trump again, Iran is likely to employ the militias it backs in Syria and Iraq to target U.S. military installations. With any Israeli involvement in this war effort, Iran can use Hezbollah and various Palestinian militias to pressurize the Jewish state internally and externally.

Therefore, since Iran has already promised to expel the U.S. from the region, the next phase of the anti-U.S. war effort will be asymmetrical warfare by Iran. If Iran engages in asymmetrical warfare, the return of dead and wounded American soldiers will severely hamper Trump’s re-election campaign this year as he originally ran on the ticket of criticizing wars in West Asia when he was competing for the presidency against Hillary Clinton years earlier. The Iranian leadership are now in control of the future of the West Asia and have demonstrated they are willing to retaliate against the U.S. who is seeking to maintain the unipolar hegemonic world order that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Iran has once again shown that the 21st century is not one of unipolarity that Washington hopes to maintain, but rather multipolar with several strong middle and Great Powers.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

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Warrior Trump Seeking Peace? Permanent War Remains Official US Policy

January 9th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

Throughout the post-WW II era, permanent war and military Keynesianism has been and remains official US policy — under both right wings of the one-party state.

Endless wars against invented enemies are glorified in the name of peace, what the Pentagon calls a “long war,” what Dick Cheney once said won’t end in our lifetime.

In his book titled “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace,” Gore Vidal said: “(O)ur rulers…made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own.”

Seymour Melman explained that “every major aspect of American life is…shaped by our Permanent War Economy” — peace and stability anathema notions to bipartisan US policymakers.

Militarism, endless wars of aggression, and corporate handouts come at the expense of unmet human needs.

Anti-nuclear activist/physician Helen Caldicott stressed that the US “addiction (to wars) in (the) nuclear age, (could) destroy all life on earth, creating the final epidemic of the human race.”

Trump is captive to dark forces controlling him, a geopolitical know-nothing businessman/TV personality transformed into a warrior president, escalating inherited wars, risking new ones.

Endless wars serve US imperial aims. World peace and stability defeat them — what was likely explained to Trump straightaway after taking office.

Hostility toward Iran without letup continues on his watch — war by other means through economic terrorism and other hostile actions, short of all-out hot war US policymakers know can’t be won.

Trump’s anti-Iran agenda has nothing to do with preventing the country from developing nuclear weapons it abhors, doesn’t have, never sought, and wants eliminated everywhere — while ignoring nuclear armed and dangerous Israel.

No criticism of its apartheid viciousness or terror-bombing of Syrian sites is mentioned by US policymakers or establishment media, nothing said about the menace it poses — in contrast to regional peace and stability advocate Iran.

US hostility toward the Islamic Republic has everything to do with wanting it returned to US vassal state status, gaining control over its vast hydrocarbon resources, and eliminating Israel’s main regional rival.

Trump turned truth on its head, saying the US “is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it (sic)” — while waging endless aggressive wars in multiple theaters, along with war by other means on Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, and other countries the US doesn’t control.

Iran’s UN envoy Majid Takht Ravanchi responded to Trump’s hollow claim, saying:

“(P)artnership with the United States is meaningless as long as the country persists with its policy of ‘escalation and animosity.’ ”

The Trump regime continues hot war and by other means against nations the US doesn’t control.

It abandoned the landmark INF Treaty and JCOPA nuclear deal — based on Big Lies and deception.

It’s economic terrorism on Iran, Venezuela, and other countries is all about crushing their economies and immiserating their people.

Unlawful US sanctions are weapons of war by other means. Trump falsely accused Iran of “support(ing) terrorism” — a US, NATO, Israeli, Saudi specialty, what Iran actively combats, General Soleimani key in defeating US-supported ISIS jihadists in Iraq and Syria, likely why he was assassinated.

For now, Trump stepped back from the brink of all-out hot war on Iran — while continuing unlawful hostile actions against the country and others.

What’s ahead is likely to be more of the same. The US is a belligerent state waging endless war on humanity at home and abroad.

Trump continues the hostile agenda he inherited — abandoning peace, stability, equity, justice, the rule of law, and other democratic values like most of his predecessors.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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The Deeper Story Behind the Assassination of Soleimani. Washington Threats to Engage in False flag Sniper Shootings. Iraq Prime Minister

January 9th, 2020 by Federico Pieraccini

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 U.S. 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 U.S. operation:

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not consulted regarding the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. dollar.

The petrodollar is what ensures that the U.S. dollar retains its status as the global reserve currency, granting the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. dollar.

Soleimani’s death is the result of a convergence of U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

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Trump’s Awful, Dishonest Iran Speech

January 9th, 2020 by Daniel Larison

Trump’s remarks this morning show that his Iran policy remains as blinkered and reckless as ever. Following the Iranian retaliation last night that caused no casualties, the president does not appear to be escalating the conflict further for the moment. Then again, there would have been no conflict at all were it not for the president’s excessive and illegal actions over the last week. Trump’s remarks were representative of his Iran policy: dishonest and blinkered.

The speech began with his bizarre statement that “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon,” but then there is currently no danger that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon. The main reason for that is still the JCPOA that he has worked overtime to destroy. This first line sets tone for the propaganda that follows. The president’s Iran policy is founded on a lie that one of the most successful nonproliferation agreements of all time is “defective,” and that misinforms and warps everything else. It is not possible for a policy to be effective or sound when it is based on such a ridiculous falsehood.

Trump’s justification for assassinating Soleimani leans heavily on describing him as a terrorist, but this ignores that he was a state actor serving in a branch of the Iranian military. This erases the very important distinction between targeting non-state terrorists and members of another country’s military, and choosing to ignore that distinction is what so dangerously escalated tensions with Iran over the last few days. The president doesn’t even attempt to offer a legal justification for what he did, because it was plainly illegal and the president obviously couldn’t care less about the law in any case.

The same bankrupt policy of economic warfare and collective punishment that brought the U.S. and Iran to this point remains unchanged. Trump reiterates his support for this failed policy again in the speech:

As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior.

Trump has piled on so many sanctions already that there is little more strangling of the Iranian economy to be done, but the insistence on adding even more sanctions in the wake of the last two weeks proves that the president and his administration are incapable of learning from their failures. It should be obvious to everyone now that the only changes in Iranian behavior over the last eighteen months have been to respond more forcefully to U.S. provocations and economic warfare. When Trump says that sanctions will remain until Iran “changes its behavior,” he is saying that the sanctions will remain in place forever. The unrealistic and maximalist goals that have defined Trump’s Iran policy remain an insurmountable obstacle to any constructive diplomacy, and the president shows no sign of altering them. The suggestion that there are additional “options” under consideration is a worrisome sign that the situation could deteriorate again very quickly.

The speech was full of the usual lies and inaccuracies that we hear about the nuclear deal. Trump refers to the mythical $150 billion that Iran was supposedly “given,” but in reality sanctions relief provided a much smaller amount of Iran’s money and most of that money was not used to support its regional activities. Trump’s preoccupation with the money that came with sanctions relief is a reminder that he and other Iran hawks are reflexively opposed to giving Iran any sanctions relief, and that is how we can be certain that their interest in a so-called “better deal” is just so much hot air. If someone is angry about sanctions relief as part of the nuclear deal, he doesn’t want any agreement at all.

He asserts that Iran is responsible for “creating hell” in Yemen, which is a particularly galling line coming from a president who has eagerly supported the Saudi coalition’s destructive war there and who has resisted every effort to end U.S. support for the wrecking and starvation of Yemen. Trump also claimed that “Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013.” He gets the date of the agreement wrong, and he misrepresents the record. The JCPOA was concluded in 2015, and over the next several years there was no notable increase in Iran’s activities. All of the Iranian actions Trump cites came after he reneged on the agreement, and they happened in direct response to the economic war that he has been waging. “Maximum pressure” has generated predictable resistance, and then Trump dishonestly claims that Iran’s response to sanctions was a result of the earlier deal that he violated.

Trump declares that Iran “must abandon its nuclear ambitions,” but Iran has no such ambitions to abandon. The president’s mindless hostility to the JCPOA has led him to undermine and damage a highly successful nonproliferation agreement and create a crisis with Iran out of a delusional belief shared with other Iran hawks that severely restricting Iran’s nuclear program amounts to assisting them in obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump has wreaked havoc on the Iranian economy, sabotaged the JCPOA, and taken the U.S. to the brink of war more than once in pursuit of an irrational fixation with “solving” a problem that had already been successfully managed. Once again, none of this had to happen, and all of it stems from the president’s choice to trash a successful agreement and attack the Iranian people with sanctions.

The president’s rhetoric about “making a deal” is obviously hollow, and there is no reason to take it any more seriously now than we have in the past. Following last week’s attack and the political backlash inside Iran against it, the prospect of negotiating with the U.S. under this president is more radioactive than ever. European governments have no incentive to ditch the JCPOA now, and last week’s attack gives Russia and China another reason to offer political and economic support to Iran. His appeal to the Iranian people is likewise empty. The economic war, the travel ban, and his threats against Iranian culture all prove that he has nothing but contempt for the Iranian people and their country.

The president committed a reckless and illegal act of war last week. We are fortunate that both governments have refrained from further escalation so far, but the potential for miscalculation and conflict remains great. The president made an extremely dangerous decision in violation of the Constitution. He has to be held accountable and put in check, and if he isn’t there will be nothing to prevent him from ordering more illegal attacks in the future.

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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.

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India’s Democracy Is Facing an Existential Threat

January 9th, 2020 by Prof. Vijay Prashad

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America the Repugnant. Assassinating Foreign Leaders Is an Act of War

January 9th, 2020 by Philip Giraldi

Once upon a time there was a Constitution of the United States. In Article II, Section 2 it stipulated that only the U.S. Congress has the power to declare war, which means the American president has to go to the legislative body and make a case for going to war against an enemy or enemies. If there is a vote in favor of war, the president is empowered as commander-in-chief to direct the available resources against the enemy.

There is also something called international law. Under international law there are situations in which a head of state or head of government can use military force defensively or even preemptively if there is a substantial threat that is imminent. But normally, a country has to go through a procedure similar to that in the U.S. Constitution, which means making a case that the war is justified before declaring war. The Nuremberg Tribunals ruled that starting a war of aggression is the ultimate crime.

The president has already declared that he needs no approval from Congress or from anyone else to initiate further military operations against Iran in the Middle East, even if the action taken is “disproportionate.” Meanwhile he, the State Department and the Pentagon are all stating, without presenting any evidence at all to the public, that Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani was planning attacks that would kill “hundreds of Americans” as a casus belli justifying his assassination. The White House is also asserting that the killing was done to “stop a war,” which makes no sense even coming from the addled tweet-conditioned brain of Donald J. Trump. And if one still harbors suspicions that Trump might actually be of sound mind, it is possible to listen to him on the day after the assassination while speaking to a gathering of his supporters at an evangelical church in Florida. He told the cheering crowd that “God is on our side” and that Soleimani “…was planning a very major attack, and we got him.” The audience went wild in approval, chanting “four more years.”

Such chest beating moments of pretend strong leadership coming from president bone spurs as well as similar justifications for an assassination that will be surfacing over the next few days simply do not pass the smell test. Take the window dressing away from the Pentagon and media propaganda and all one has left is that the United States illegally and openly killed a senior official from a country with which it is not at war and did so without the consent of the third country where the assassination took place with which the U.S. is also not at war. The assassination was not in reality based on any imminent threat and is therefore illegal under international law and is undeniably an unconstitutional act of war directed against both Iran and Iraq.

What is particularly bizarre about Trump-think on this issue is that the assassination was carried out right in the open in a country with which the United States has had of late a friendly relationship and which allows American soldiers to be based on its soil. Judging from the crowds of protesters gathered in Baghdad to protest the killing, that somewhat comfortable arrangement is about to end. And it will also end American involvement in neighboring Syria, which will be unsustainable without a presence in Iraq. That is the only good news to come out of the assassination.

To be sure nations at war will try and sometimes succeed to assassinate enemy leaders, and the intelligence services of various countries also have been known to kill foreign politicians who are considered to be threatening. America’s best friend Israel leads the world in that statistic. But spy agencies work their mischief on a basis of plausible denial, which means that the countries that carry out assassinations make every effort to obscure their role and permit deniability.

The difference in what the White House has done now is that another page has been turned in the process of the United States going completely rogue. It all started when George W. Bush warned that “you’re either with us or against us.” Barack Obama subsequently labored over his Tuesday morning kill lists, which included American citizens, and the Trump White House has now expanded that license, asserting that it can act with complete impunity and out in the open to kill anyone at any time anywhere without due process or any actual demonstrated cause or accountability.

Donald Trump should be aware that there is considerable downside to the tiger than he has let out of its cage. What will he do if “enemies” all over the world decide to copy the Trump example and kill American diplomats, soldiers and tourists because they oppose U.S. policies. And what about if they up the ante a little bit and kill senior Ambassadors, Congressmen, and even succeed in killing a presidential cabinet member or two. Trump in his foolishness has invited reciprocity and has even granted those who do the killing a certain immunity if they are claiming that they are doing it to stop something worse, i.e. war.

Finally, if the target of the assassination had been anyone but an Iranian, Israel’s enemy, one can count on there being hell to pay with Congress and the media over Trump’s having gone completely off the rails. Assassinating a foreign leader as a new United States government policy has to be an impeachable offense. Forget about obstruction of justice and collusion with foreigners: assassination is the real deal and if it does not constitute a high crime, it is hard for one to imagine what does. By all means let’s impeach Trump based on what he has actually done, not on speculation over what he might have connived at.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly justified the U.S. “extreme pressure” directed against Tehran, demanding that Islamic Republic take steps to become a “normal country.” The real question should be, “When will the United States of America become normal?”

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Iranian Messages Behind Attacking US Bases in Iraq and the Consequences

January 9th, 2020 by Elijah J. Magnier

Just after midnight local time today, Iranian ballistic missiles “Fateh 313” hit two military bases in Iraq that host a significant concentration of US forces, along with other allies. The Iranian direct hit was the retaliation for the US assassination of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds brigade Sardar Qassem Soleimani and his companions, killed by a US drone at Baghdad airport last week. The Iranian retaliation carries several strategic messages to the Middle East for this year 2020 and for many years to come. What are these messages? What will come of Iran’s open attack on the most powerful country in the world?

A high-ranking Iranian official contacted the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi after midnight to inform him that Iran had decided to retaliate for the assassination of its General. Iran said it would hit a concentration of US forces in Iraq, without hitting any Iraqi forces.

Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi – according to well-informed sources in Baghdad – answered that “this act may carry devastating results on the Middle East: Iraq refuses to become the theatre for a US-Iran war”. The Iranian official replied: “Those who began this cycle of violence are the US, not Iran; the decision has been taken.”

Prime Minister Abdel Mahdi informed the US forces of the Iranian decision. US declared a state of emergency and alerted all US bases in Iraq and the region in advance of the attack.

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Iran bombed the most significant US military base in Iraq, Ayn al-Assad, where just in the last two days, the US command had gathered the largest number of forces. Many US bases, particularly in Shia controlled areas and around Baghdad, were evacuated in the last days for security reason towards Ayn al-Assad, a base that holds anti-nuclear shelters. Ayn al-Assad is located in the desert of al-Anbar, close to the Iraqi-Syrian borders. This is the same base from which the drones which assassinated Sardar Soleimani and his companions at Baghdad airport took off. Iran also bombed another US base in Erbil, Kurdistan.

Iran copied the style used by the Americans in communicating its decision. On the 30th of December 2019, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper contacted Prime Minister Abdel Mahdi and informed him – without asking his permission – of the US intention to bomb Iraqi Forces (Popular Mobilisation Force – PMF). Five Iraqi security forces bases on the Iraqi-Syrian borders were destroyed, killing and wounding 79 PMF, federal police and Iraqi army officers.

Esper gave little time (half an hour) to the Prime Minister to inform his forces. Iran gave Mr Abdel Mahdi half an hour before bombing US forces and launching between 16 modernised multi-warhead “Fateh 313” missiles against al-Anbar and Erbil bases.

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Iraq has lost its sovereignty in the middle of the Iran-US battle. It can recover the control of its country only when the US forces leave Iraq as the Iraqi parliament has decided it. The decision came as a response to the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani, who was serving as an envoy in a diplomatic capacity. Soleimani was officially invited by the Iraqi government in 2014 when Iraq asked Iran to send 100 Iranian advisors to Iraq to fight ISIS. He had Iraqi immunity and led the Iranian intelligence cell in Baghdad, not far from the US embassy, in coordination with Russian, Syrian and Iraqi officials. He was a diplomat carrying a diplomatic passport and was asked to meetthe Prime Minister of Iraq the following day at 08:30 am to receive a message from Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Abdel Mahdi agreed to play a mediation role between Iran and Saudi Arabia and was the go-between following Iran’s peace initiative to the Arab leaders. Soleimani arrived in Iraq following a request from President Trump to calm down the tension with Iran. It was a multi-task trip.

Iran did use its precision missiles when bombing ISIS and the separatist Kurds in Kurdistan on the 8th of September last year when its missiles reached their desired target. Last night, Iran used its precision ballistic missiles with significant warheads on targets designed to avoid casualties and send a clear message to President Donald Trump. There were few if any victims. The US did not share information on casualties.

The Iranians did not use missiles from underground silos only but also overtly deployed its solid-fuel missiles against the two US operating bases in Iraq. Iran gave space for de-escalation because, without de-escalation, war will no doubt light up the entire Middle East.

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President Trump cornered the Iranian regime so that it had to respond to the US assassination of its General. Its state outlet claimed “80 US servicemen were killed”, a message that gratified domestic opinion and the Iranian nationalism manifested by millions of crowds honouring Sardar Soleimani. It also served to gather public support behind the regime in case of US retaliation necessitating further Iranian retaliation that could lead to war.

The Iranian message is also directed to the US Democrats to use against the US President who had promised that his soldiers would not be in danger during his tenure. Instead, he is risking the lives of thousands of soldiers in one hit or confrontation with Iran and its allies in the Middle East.

Iran selected to also target the US base in Erbil to send a clear message. According to Iranian officials, it intended for the US to understand that in case its command decides to leave Iraq and gather in Erbil, its presence in Kurdistan is not far from its missiles and that US soldiers won’t be safe anywhere in Iraq.

Iran’s bombing is revealing that the US interception missiles were inactive in Ain al-Assad and that another significant attack with precision missiles could create a massacre if that were the intention behind the hit.

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This is the second response to the assassination of Sardar Soleimani. The first came from the Iraqi parliament whose resolution calls for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country. The second came from President Hassan Rouhani who said: “You have managed to cut the hands of Qassem Soleimani (the hit dismembered the Iranian General), we shall cut your legs (force you out) from the Middle East.”

This is far from being the last Iranian hit against US forces in the Middle East. But if President Trump decides to refrain from retaliating, Iran will no longer hit the US forces directly and announce its responsibility. Iran and its allies are not expected to stop harassing the US forces if they stay in Iraq.

Another message was sent to Israel: the newly appointed commander of the IRGC-Quds Brigade Ismail Qaani met with all Palestinian groups in Tehran. According to a well-informed source, Iran promised “unlimited support to all Palestinian groups so that they reach their objective”. Indeed, Iran announced, “Israel is in partnership with the US in the assassination of Sardar Soleimani”.

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The time when the US can hit without being hit back seems over. Since Pearl Harbour, this is the first time a country claims its responsibility for hitting US targets. This grave and complicated situation can end if there is a total withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. This step, already officially requested by the Iraqi parliament, can spare US servicemen’s lives.

The US is capable of using only the sky of Iraq, avoiding any land transport. But it is swimming in a severely hostile society in Iraq where every single soldier, officer or diplomat is a potential target. Following the hostile announcement of several groups in Iraq, it is clear there is no longer any safe place for US forces in the country. The assassination of Sardar Soleimani closed all roads of this US administration to all possible negotiation with Iran. Russia and China are waiting just behind the door to move in and fill the vacuum.

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Trump’s Iran ‘Punching Bag’: US Provocations to Continue. Baiting Iran to Escalate?

January 9th, 2020 by Dr. Jack Rasmus

Trump’s assassination of Iran’s general and senior diplomat, Soleimani, was a clear provocation by the US, designed to produce a further escalated military response by Iran. That did not happen. Iran did not take the bait. It responded minimally and appears to have done so in a way to avoid US deaths or even major US asset destruction.

If Iran had escalated militarily, which it was capable of doing, it would have fallen into Trump’s trap. Trump was prepared to unleash a greater military response on Iran. He would have had his ‘war’, i.e. his great distraction from his pending impeachment trial, as well as a major boost to his political base in the current election year.

Trump’s Baiting Iran To Escalate

Had Iran taken the bait, Trump would also have been able to bypass the War Powers Act before militarily escalating. The Act allows an unlimited and immediate US attack on an adversary that has attacked US forces. Up to now, Trump has had to explain to Congress, especially the US House of Representatives, why he had assassinated Soleimani in the first place. That was clearly an ‘act or war’ according to international law. And Trump had bypassed Congress before doing so, which the Act and prior precedents have required. A major Iran counterattack on the US would have put the issue of Trump’s bypassing the Act by assassinating Soleimani without discussing with Congress to bed. The new escalation and conflict would have become the center of debate in the US–not the assassination and how Congress was bypassed and ignored.

Iran’s missile launch yesterday against two Iraqi bases, one of which reportedly had no US forces, was clearly a measured and minimal response. It appears the missile launch may have been purposely designed to do minimal damage even to US military assets. That no photos of any damage have been released by the US suggests there wasn’t much. And no US forces were killed. Either Iran’s missiles and targeting are worthless; or Iran purposely intended minimal, or even no, effective damage.

Without physical evidence of extensive damage, and no American deaths from the missiles, it was, and remains, difficult for Trump to escalate military action further thereafter. Moreover, Iran’s statement after the launch that it had “concluded” its response made it further difficult for Trump to escalate a US military response after the launch.

Trump therefore trotted out before the cameras and declared a ‘victory’ in the exchange: a successful assassination in exchange for a dozen missiles that largely missed their targets and did no damage. In other words, Iran had done little in response to the US assassinating it leading general. Trump got to look tough to his political base at home after engaging in a foreign policy adventure, as the 2020 election takes off.

But the Trump/US/Neocon assault on Iran is not over. As neocon John Bolton has recently tweeted, the US was planning to assassinate Soleimani for some months now and had its plan ready to go. It just now pulled the trigger. Trump and the US were escalating the conflict steadily throughout December, as the US launched attacks on Iranian militia bases in Iraq, provoking the desired response of the militias assault on the US embassy in Baghdad. Trump in turn escalated the confrontation by assassinating Soleimani. Time will reveal what happened between the period of the US successful provocation of the militias and the subsequent assassination.

As the 2020 election year in the US continues, Trump will almost certainly replay this Iran provocation card again. It’s proved successful thus far. Iran is in a box: if it responds minimally, Trump declares a short term victory and looks good to his base in the election year; if it responds in kind militarily, Trump gets an even bigger distraction–both from the impeachment and all the growing concerns about his personal instability coming to the fore in the election season. A major war with Iran will rally support by the American people and push all other issues and Trump policy failures to the background. Trump will therefore undoubtedly resort once more to a major provocation, or even several, before the election.

Iran knows it is Trump’s foreign policy punching bag. It has been since Trump came to office. More blows against Iran are yet to come in this election year.

Iran’s Response: Past and Future

Iran has responded minimally to date. No doubt it will publicize and declare domestically that its missiles did great damage and more is to come to drive the US out of the middle east. But that’s for domestic consumption. Iran’s strategy is to wait out the Trump presidency. And to continue to use its refusal to escalate as evidence to the Europeans that it is the sane party in the US-Iran confrontation.Why? Iran wants Europe to continue to trade with it, to buy its oil. More importantly, it wants Europe to implement what it had suggested with regard to establishing a more independent international payments system.

The current system is called SWIFT, and is controlled by the US and US banks. With SWIFT the US can see who is complying with its sanctions on Iran (or sanctions on any other country). SWIFT is a key institution for US imperialism globally–along with the dollar, the global trading currency, US control of the IMF, dominance of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, influencing global money flows and interest rates, and so on. Europe and Iran had been discussing setting up an independent international payments system, called INSTEX. The Europeans have been balking, however. Trump has been threatening them with sanctions should they do so. (Or should they install 5G wireless systems by China’s Huawei company. Or should they go forward with new Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic sea. And so on.)

In the 21st century, especially since 2008-09, the USA has been acting increasingly aggressive against allies and adversaries alike as US global economic hegemony begins to weaken. Thus we see tariffs as a more frequent foreign policy tool, economic sanctions imposed by the US increasingly the rule, US actions to destroy adversary economies’ currencies (e.g. Venezuela) as central to US goals of regime change, US direct assistance to indigenous capitalists to overturn democratic governments (Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia), and use of the SWIFT as a means to enforce sanctions and deny dollar access to targeted adversaries.

Should Europe and Iran establish an alternate INSTEX payment system it would mark a major blow to the US global economic empire and hegemony. Such an alternative payments system would likely be joined quickly by Russia, China, and others.

Iran therefore is keeping an eye on a possible agreement with Europe on such an alternative payment system that would enable it to avoid US sanctions. The US would then have no alternative but to blockade Iranian shipments physically. And that would be another act of war by Trump per international law.

Iran had much to lose, in other words, by escalating the conflict militarily with the US. And it didn’t fall for the Trump-Neocon provocation. Not yet. Its minimal response in recent days has made it impossible for Trump to escalate further, in turn, and unleash a greater US military conflict with Iran. Trump may have gained a propaganda victory in the election year with his base, but Trump’s inability to escalate still further means he won’t get his big distraction from his upcoming impeachment trial. Nor will he be able now to bypass the War Powers Act or smother the charge he has already ignored the Act’s limits by unilaterally assassinating a foreign government representative without consulting Congress first.

Iran will continue to avoid an all out war with the US, which Trump’s neocon advisers would prefer to see before the US November 2020 election. Iran leaves the door open to the Europeans. That door would have closed had it, Iran, escalated the conflict.

Trump and the neocons running US foreign policy had to acknowledge today the limits on any further US escalation, given Iran’s minimal response. Had the Trump decided to ratchet up the conflict military in reply to Iran’s minimal response, he would have reaffirmed himself to the world as the aggressor. Political concern about Trump bypassing the War Powers Act would have increased. He would have appeared even more ‘out of control’ to US allies and US voters. Trump has therefore declared a ‘victory’ by assassinating Soleimani and getting away with it. And since it ‘worked’, Trump will no doubt attempt it all again.

If Trump really wanted to renegotiate a new deal with Iran, this would have been an opportunity. He could have declared he was removing some sanctions as a offer to start negotiations. Instead, he ‘doubled down’, as he said, imposing new sanctions on Iran. Trump does not want a new deal with Iran. He never did. Trump has always planned to use Iran and a possible attack on it as his foreign policy punching bag for re-election. So he will keep on ‘punching’ as the 2020 election year progresses.

Every time Iran does not escalate, Trump can declare a partial victory and look tough on foreign policy to his base. And should Iran finally escalate in turn, then Trump has his excuse to intensify his military response.

Trump and his advisers see escalating the confrontation with Iran as a win-win situation. That’s why the provocations will continue. US provocations of Iran will not stop with the Soleimani assassination. They have only just begun.

The year ahead will tell whether Iran has the will to successfully wait out Trump until the US election, or whether US further provocations will result in Iran’s eventually responding more aggressively in kind in turn–i.e. whether Iran takes Trump’s bait and falls into the trap the US has set. This writer’s guess is they will find a way to wait him out, regardless of US efforts to continue to escalate the confrontation.

Provoking Iran is all about the US 2020 election. Trump is in the tradition of a long line of US Presidents (or would be-presidents), facing election or domestic troubles, who choose their own careers over War and the death of others: from Lyndon Johnson (Vietnam), to George H.W. Bush (Panama, 1st Gulf War), Bill Clinton (Bosnia), George W. Bush (Iraq war), and Hillary Clinton (Libya). None of these countries constituted a strategic threat to the USA. But all of them a convenient target to help them advance their political careers.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Jack Rasmus.

Dr. Rasmus is author of the just published book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, January 2020, available at discount on this blog, and on Amazon and other sources as of January 15, 2020. He hosts the Alternative Visions radio show on the progressive radio network. His website is: http://kyklosproductions.com. His twitter handle @drjackrasmus.

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US Regional Presence Makes Middle East Peace and Stability Unattainable

January 9th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

As long as tens of thousands of US combat troops, heavy weapons, and its jihadist proxies remain active in Middle East (ME) countries, a perpetual state of war will exist —  peace, stability and security to be unattainable.

That’s the reality of where things stand in the region, why Iran, its allies, and the Arab street’s main geopolitical goal is freeing the Middle East from the hostile US presence.

That’s what Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meant by the Islamic Republic’s “ultimate revenge,” calling for it to be delivered by “the nations of the region.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif stressed the same goal, saying the following:

“The Islamic Republic had to show a military reaction to the US government’s measure and it did, but this is not the end game.”

“The end will be the withdrawal of the US which does not need military action, and it is the result of the Americans’ move and the result of support they showed in this arrogant and stupid move,” adding:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has declared that if the US makes a mistake, it will definitely be given a response.”

So far a “slap in the face alone,” it displayed Iran’s military capability to penetrate US air defenses at a key regional base, striking targets with pinpoint accuracy.

Satellite images showed considerable damage to multiple Ein Al-Assad airbase sites, reportedly struck by 15 high-velocity Fateh-313 and Qiam missiles — Qiam missiles reportedly equipped with radar jamming systems and fragmentation warheads.

An IRGC statement said that despite the Americans being on high alert, Iranian missiles penetrated Pentagon air defenses, no missiles intercepted and destroyed — no claim otherwise by Trump or the US military.

The purpose of Iran’s retaliation was at least twofold — striking the US in response to General Soleimani’s assassination, a Trump region act of war, along with displaying IRGC military capability to hit US targets with pinpoint accuracy, likely anywhere in the region.

According to one analyst, it appears Iran intended to damage or destroy structures on US bases targeted to weaken their military capability, while trying to avoid or minimize deaths and injuries.

In his Wednesday morning remarks, Trump said nothing about striking back militarily in response to Iran’s missile attack on US bases in Iraq — sticking to his usual anti-Islamic Republic rhetoric, indicating more (unlawful) sanctions to come.

There’s almost nothing left to impose them on besides Iranian officials, symbolic alone when targeting them.

Iran is likely more powerful militarily than any nation the US (preemptively) attacked in the post-WW II era.

It’s able to hit back hard against the US and its regional allies if attacked, what US intelligence and Pentagon officials likely explained to Trump, getting him to back off from greater Middle East war.

Already bogged down in three unwinnable quagmires (in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen), it’s hard imagining that Pentagon commanders want a 4th one against a nation able to inflict considerable damage to US regional facilities and large numbers of casualties to US troops.

Al-out war with Iran would also likely make Trump a one-term president. Bodybags returning home in large numbers could doom his reelection prospects.

Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson withdrew from consideration for second terms because of the unpopular wars they waged in northeast and southeast Asia respectively.

Trump continues war on Iran by other means with no letup — short of turning it hot following Soleimani’s assassination, an act of war with no hot war follow-through so far.

The threat of US war on Iran by accident or design remains — even though Trump stepped back from the brink Wednesday.

With hardliners Netanyahu, Pompeo, and others likely pushing for added toughness on Iran, anything ahead is possible.

Trump’s top priority is getting reelected. Most likely, he’ll avoid doing whatever hurts his chances — but as he says time and again:

“We’ll see what happens.”

Given US rage for dominating other nations, anything ahead is possible.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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2019 Was the Year the Truth No Longer Mattered

January 9th, 2020 by Johanna Ross

New Year happens to be one of these rare moments in the news business when we pause to reflect on the greater context of the endless stories spouted out on a daily basis by an ever-growing variety of media platforms. And 2019 was one year which deserves more than a moment’s reflection. For it was an iconic year that saw more than ever the label ‘post-truth era’ used to describe the time in which we are living.

Nothing signified this more than the arrest of former Wikileaks editor Julian Assange, a man incarcerated for years inside the Ecuadorian embassy – his only crime to have published footage and documents exposing unlawful killings and torture committed by the US military. The collusion between the governments of Ecuador, the UK, and the US in orchestrating his illegal arrest – given his right to Asylum – really shines light on the gaping holes in western democracy. When journalism is attacked in this way, we should all be concerned.  As we speak, Assange is slowly dying in Britain’s most secure prison, Belmarsh, along with some of the country’s most notorious criminals. His treatment has been condemned by the UN as his basic human rights are continually being violated. This, I repeat, a man, whose only crime was to expose the crimes of others. But where are the mainstream journalists leaping to his defence?

2019 had started with another story which received little or no coverage in the mainstream press however; that of the UK’s Integrity Initiative scheme. This story clearly demonstrated the restrictions posed on journalists working in the UK at present, with the revelation that the British government was funding a covert propaganda campaign against Russia, involving journalists and academics across the globe. It highlighted that many of the anti-Russian articles and media appearances in the mainstream media were in fact ordered and paid for, in part, by the UK Foreign Office. The exposure of the leaked documents detailing this initiative ruffled more than a few establishment feathers, to the extent that my photograph, along with my colleagues’ was printed in The Times as part of a targeted smear story aimed at counteracting what was none other than basic fact. Once again, journalists had crossed the line in terms of revealing the truth about what the powers that be, are up to.

The mainstream media plays a fundamental role in this era of post-truth, as was never more apparent in the way it aided and abetted the government this year in its strategy to undermine the opposition led by Jeremy Corbyn prior to the election.  In much the same way as the Zinoviev letter was used to prevent a socialist government from coming to power in 1924, the media has led a concerted campaign to accuse the Labour leader and his party of anti-semitism, incredibly without providing a shred of evidence. But the hammering home of the message that Corbyn was anti-semitic paid off for his opponents; it coloured the December election campaign and was one of the main questions put to Labour MPs in countless negative interviews. Many prominent Jews spoke out against Labour’s unfair treatment, as did the Jewish Voice for Labour movement. Sadly, their pleas fell on deaf ears. Not surprising, according to Professor David Miller at the University of Bristol, whom I interviewed back in July 2019 and for whom this catalogue of smears against Corbyn was clear evidence of establishment bias.

As a result the effective nature of the campaign, Corbyn’s radical policies to improve people’s lives, didn’t get a look in. And despite the fact that Boris Johnson’s government was also facing allegations of Islamophobia, this received no real traction in the press. But Johnson, and his team, led by close advisor Dominic Cummings, know exactly how to play the media. Cummings, one of the key individuals behind Brexit, led a successful campaign for Britain to leave the EU back in 2016. Recently he helped Johnson to win the December general election also, with his catchy ‘Get Brexit Done’ slogan. But such victories have not been without their fare share of lies. Award-winning journalist Peter Oborne has researched the nature of the relationship between No.10 and the media since Johnson came to power, accusing British journalists of becoming part of the Prime Minister’s ‘fake news machine’. He has charged the mainstream media, from The Times to the BBC, of ‘peddling Downing Street’s lies and smears’ and even runs a website entitled ‘The lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of the Boris Johnson government’. And Oborne himself is not even a socialist. He just believes in the truth.

2019 showed that never before has the survival of independent media been so important. If we have no objective media, then the truth itself is at stake.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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The US Propaganda Machine Justifies the Assassination of Qassem Suleimani

January 9th, 2020 by Andre Damon

Over the past two days, millions of people have marched in cities throughout Iran and Iraq to condemn the killing of Qassem Suleimani. The response to the assassination contradicts the narrative constructed by the Trump administration, the Democratic Party and the media to legitimize an illegal act of war.

Within hours of the assassination, the vast American propaganda machine began churning out the latest update of its never-ending “bad man” theory of politics. Yet another anti-American evil-doer had received his just desserts.

Trump’s inane and sadistic chortlings have found their inevitable chorus. In statements echoed hundreds of times on TV networks, Margaret Brennan, the host of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” declared, “Qassem Suleimani directed mass murder” and “killed thousands of people in the region.” This script was incorporated into the responses of countless politicians, including Trump’s supposed opponents in the Democratic Party.

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren intoned, “Suleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands.” Former Vice President Joe Biden added, “He deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against American troops and thousands of innocents throughout the region.”

While reservations and concerns have been expressed about the tactical consequences of the action, and over Trump’s failure to consult with the appropriate security-cleared congressional leaders and provide proof that the US was confronted with any sort of imminent danger, there has been no protest against the brazen criminality of the murder, let alone any denunciation of the targeting of Suleimani.

The underlying moral legitimization of the assassination is the critical element of the political narrative that is left unchallenged.

The reason for this is that to present with any degree of honesty the life of Major General Qassem Suleimani would require acknowledging the politically criminal and morally filthy role that the United States and successive presidential administrations have played in subverting the interests of the people of Iran and the entire Middle East for upwards of 70 years.

First, some basic facts. Qassem Suleimani was not a terrorist or a murderer. He was a senior military officer and a political leader, traveling to Iraq in an official capacity as a diplomatic representative of a state of 82 million people.

He had just arrived in Iraq to meet with the Iraqi prime minister to discuss peace talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia. “I was supposed to meet Suleimani at the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message,” Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the country’s parliament Sunday.

Abdul-Mahdi said Trump had personally thanked him for his diplomatic efforts, giving the impression that Suleimani was not threatened with harm. And yet, within hours, the Iranian general was dead, in what Abdul-Mahdi condemned as a grave violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

Suleimani was born into a farming family on March 11, 1957. With his father facing bankruptcy and imprisonment for failing to meet payments on a loan from the government, Suleimani went to work on construction sites at the age of 13 to help pay his family’s debts.

In 1953, four years before Suleimani was born, the United States overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in one of the most notorious coups ever organized by the Central Intelligence Agency. After removing the nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadegh from power, the United States insisted upon and instigated a reign of terror against the Communist (Tudeh) Party, which had a mass following.

Countless thousands of Iranian workers, intellectuals and youth were consigned to the prisons and torture chambers of the SAVAK secret police.

SAVAK was implicated, according to the Federation of American scientists, in “the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners.” Its methods, according to the FAS, included “electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails.”

Iran, allied with Israel, served as America’s “gendarme of the Persian Gulf.” Under the so-called “Nixon Doctrine,” the United States funneled vast quantities of arms to the Shah’s regime, which was seen, with Saudi Arabia, as being one of the “twin pillars” of US domination over the Middle East. US arms transfers to Iran increased from $103.6 million in 1970 to $552.7 million in 1972. The United States was confident that the Shah’s terror regime was impregnable.

In December 1977, President Jimmy Carter personally toasted the Shah with the following words: “Iran is an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas of the world.”

This was the Iran in which Suleimani grew up and came of age.

But in the course of 1978, a massive popular movement swept across the country. The Shah’s attempt to hang onto power with mass killings, egged on by the United States, failed. The key role in the destruction of the Shah’s regime was played by the working class, particularly through strikes that crippled the critical oil sector of the Iranian economy.

Due to the betrayals of the Stalinist Tudeh party, the leadership of the revolution passed into the hands of the clerical nationalists under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. But there was no question that the revolution was fueled by hatred of the neo-colonial suppression of Iran by the United States. Following the overthrow of the Shah and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s accession to power on February 11, 1979, the 22-year-old Suleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard.

In September 1980 the United States, allying itself with the regime of Saddam Hussein, encouraged Iraq to attack Iran, producing a devastating eight-year war that led to over one million deaths. Tens of thousands of Iranians were killed, including through Iraq’s widespread use of chemical weapons deployed with the assistance of the United States. It was during that war that Suleimani emerged as a significant military figure.

Determined to prevent the defeat of Iraq, the Reagan administration provided Iraq with weapons, logistical support and critical information. But its most infamous intervention against Iran came on July 3, 1988. The United States Navy, deliberately targeting a civilian aircraft, shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 people on board, including 66 children. The war came to an end one month later.

The politics of Qassem Suleimani was that of a bourgeois nationalist. But as a military officer, he was engaged in the defense of an historically oppressed country. Suleimani’s “ruthlessness” in the conduct of his responsibilities as a military officer was, one can assume, a response to his experiences in war and countering the continuous threats emanating from the United States and Israel.

The same media mouthpieces that condemn Suleimani as a murderer are silent on the crimes committed by the United States since its initial invasion of Iraq in 1991, including brutal sanctions under the Clinton administration that killed hundreds of thousands.

Following the second invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US has been implicated in innumerable war crimes, from the sadistic torture and rape of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison, to the massacre in Fallujah, to the mass slaughter in the so-called anti-ISIS campaign in Mosul in 2017, which included the rampage by Navy Seal Edward Gallagher, who stabbed a wounded teenager to death and posed with his corpse as if he were a slaughtered animal.

In 2017, Trump casually observed, “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?” Two years later, Trump tweeted in October 2019 that “millions of people have died” as a result of US wars in the Middle East launched under “false & now disproven premise, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.”

But as far as the US media is concerned, the violent actions of the US military are to be celebrated, as when it lionized Trump’s former defense secretary James Mattis, the butcher of Fallujah, known as “Mad Dog,” and laughed off his statement that “it’s fun to shoot” people.

The media helped set the stage for Trump’s act of murder. The New York Times, the Washington Post and other major US newspapers have repeatedly justified extrajudicial killings.

There is a poem by Rudyard Kipling, which famously concludes: “We are not ruled by murderers, but only—by their friends.”

Were he alive today, the poet would be compelled to change the final line to conform with the current reality:

“The American people are ruled by murderers, whose killings are sanctioned by their friends.”

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Donald Trump’s Reckless Gamble with Iran Distracts from His Domestic Political Problems

January 9th, 2020 by Prof Rodrigue Tremblay

“Don’t let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected. —Be careful Republicans! Donald Trump (1946- ), 45th American president and hotel and casino owner, (statement made in a tweet, on Mon., Oct. 22, 2012)

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” – Jacques Abbadie (1654-1727), French Protestant, in1684. (N.B.: Often wrongly attributedto Abraham Lincoln)

“Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by ‘a world of enemies’, ‘one against all’, that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.“  – Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), in 1951.

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.“ – Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), in 1951.

I have long suspected that Donald Trump would do anything to save his political skin, and I mean anything, including murder and assassination — if threatened with impeachment, — and even commit an act of war against a foreign country. — Well, as I feared, he just did that against Iran.

Such is the level of public morality in the United States these days. It is pretty low. The cynical ‘wag-the-dog’ scheme is alive and well in the United States and it is used by unscrupulous politicians when they are in political trouble. Some people fall for it all the time.

Over the years, the United States government has waged a very aggressive campaign against Iran:

1- Indeed, the current U.S. President has used very threatening language against Iran and its population of 80 million. The list of Mr. Trump’s menacing statements is very long:

In 2012, while still a private citizen, he declared that the United States “could blow them away to the Stone Age!” Similarly, on September 5, 2013, he made another outlandish comment, saying that “maybe we should knock the hell out of Iran and their nuclear capabilities!” And, as recently as Sunday, January 5, Donald Trump declared on Twitter that he was ready to destroy 52 Iranian cultural sites, a deed that could constitute a war crime, etc., etc.

2- Let us add to the picture the cascade of severe economic and financial sanctions that the U.S. government has imposed on Iran. These sanctions, described by President Trump as “the toughest sanctions ever against a country”, have ranged from an embargo on Iranian exports of oil, steel, aluminum, etc. up to a complete ban to any country on using the U.S. dollar in its commercial transactions with Iran. It goes without saying that such sanctions have had devastating effects on the Iranian economy.

In 1955, however, the United States signed a friendship treaty with Iran. Since that treaty has never been terminated, the fifteen judges of the International Court of Justice, located in The Hague, unanimously decided, on October 3, 2018, that the trade sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran constituted a violation of the treaty. However, the Trump’s administration has ignored the court’s decision.

3- May 8, 2018 is also a fateful date because it marks another provocation against Iran and an insult to several other countries. This is indeed the date when U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Iran nuclear Deal, an agreement signed on Nov. 24, 2013, by Iran and the six countries of China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States and Germany, and whose main purpose was to stabilize the Middle East. This ominous decision has opened a Pandora’s Box of disasters to come. But Donald Trump wanted to please his rich Zionist donors and build for himself the image of a strong man, and … damn the consequences!

4- Of course, the biggest provocation yet of Donald Trump has been to do what no previous American president had done before, i.e. to give an order to assassinate a highly ranked Iranian general, and a member of the Iranian government. This was done seemingly in coordination with the Israeli government.

Indeed, the ordering of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, andalso of Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, with a U.S. drone strike on the Baghdad airport, on January 2, 2020, has been labeled ‘an act of war’ and, as it should have been expected, it has inflamed the entire Middle East.

Perhaps in doing so, American politician Trump has attempted to transform himself into a ‘wartime commander in chief’. He may have believed that such a development would benefit him personally in his trial for impeachment in the U.S. Senate and during the coming 2020 presidential election.

That political ploy worked well for George W. Bush in 2003, with the invasion of Iraq, an illegal and costly war of aggression, and which the U.S. is still saddled with, 17 years later. Now, it is well known that the Iraq war was based on big lies, i.e. about nonexistent weapons of mass destructions (WMD) in Iraq.

Since 2018, and with his military decision at the start of this year, Trump hopes to repeat the same 2003 Bush-Cheney scam, and he aims at reaping the same political and monetary benefits from warmongers among the American electorate.

Conclusion

It remains to be seen how far the military brinkmanship between the two countries will go. It also remains to be seen whether the American people and the U.S. Congress will follow Donald Trump in his risky gamble against Iran.

His declaration of January 8 was empty of content and it hardly inspires optimism for the future.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay.

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, of the book “The New American Empire”, and the recent book, in French “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“. Please visit Dr. Tremblay’s site: http://rodriguetremblay100.blogspot.com/