What The IPCC Said About Glaciers In 1990
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | April 25, 2017
When we talk about glaciers retreating, it is worth recalling what the first IPCC Report in 1990 had to say about the matter:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf
In other words, glaciers began receding in the second half of the 19thC, and the fastest rate of retreat was 1920-60, before CO2 emissions could have had any significant impact.
The IPCC also added the following chart showing how, on a range of glaciers, rapid retreat began in the 19thC.
They also added:
And:
US can’t take pressure anymore in Afghanistan
By M K Bhadrakumar | IndianPunchline | April 25, 2017
The seething US-Russia rivalry in Afghanistan took a sharp turn with the explosive threat held out by the visiting US Defence Secretary James Mattis in Kabul on Monday that Washington “will confront Russia” for violating international law by sending arms to the Taliban. Mattis said this while answering what appears to have been a planted question by a Washington Post correspondent who asked him about Russian weapons “showing up in Taliban hands in Helmand, Kandahar and Urozgan” (provinces bordering Pakistan.)
General John Nicholson, US commander in Afghanistan, who stood beside Mattis refused to refute the reports on Russian weapons but couldn’t provide details, either. He merely noted, “we continue to get reports of this assistance.” However, Mattis went ahead nonetheless to threaten Moscow:
- Russians seem to be choosing to be strategic competitors in a number of areas. The level of granularity and the level of success they’re achieving — I think the jury is out on that… I would say that we will engage with Russia diplomatically. We’ll do so where we can. But we’re going to have to confront Russia where what they’re doing is contrary to international law or denying the sovereignty of other countries. For example, any weapons being funneled here from a foreign country would be — would be a violation of international law, unless they’re coming through the government of Afghanistan for the — for the Afghan forces. And so that would have to be dealt with as a violation of international law.
This is a dramatic escalation in rhetoric. What accounts for it? Indeed, I can visualize a backdrop with three likely vectors. (After all, Mattis is reputed to be a “thinking general” himself.) First, of course, the immediate context of his visit was the devastating Taliban attack on the Afghan army corps headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif in which 200 soldiers were killed, leading to the exit of the Afghan defence minister and army chief.
Although there was no American casualty as such, it was a big blow to the Pentagon generals, who constantly claim to be doing a masterly job in the “capacity-building” of Afghan armed forces. Simply put, Mattis and Nicholson probably tried to change the narrative.
Indeed, it wouldn’t have been far from Mattis’ mind that Russian weapons are reportedly “showing up” in Taliban’s hands in Helmand when a deployment of Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, to that province “quietly” got under way last week, which is the first such deployment of Marines since 2014 when President Barack Obama announced the termination of the US’ combat mission in Afghanistan. The last thing Trump would want is body bags arriving from Helmand (which borders Pakistan’s Baluchistan.)
Second, Russia’s regional initiative to kickstart a political process in Afghanistan must be driving the Americans crazy.
The Pentagon has reason to worry that continued US occupation (military bases in Afghanistan) may become untenable if the political process made headway and a regional consensus favoring intra-Afghan reconciliation sought the restoration of Afghanistan’s sovereignty. (By the way, Taliban representatives based in Qatar travelled to China recently.)
Washington’s biggest worry would be that the Afghan opinion itself may come to view the Moscow-led regional initiative as the best (and only) available platform today to somehow bring the senseless bloody war to an end.
Third, if Matti’s idiom toward Russia has become distinctly hostile, it is also reflective of the deepening US frustration that Moscow is challenging its geo-strategies across the board – over Iran, North Korea, Ukraine, Turkey, Syria and so on. The chessboard is increasingly posing a “check-and-checkmate” scenario for the US, which in turn exposes the limits to America’s global hegemony.
Specifically, Mattis might have hit out in the wake of reports that Moscow has drawn up plans to deploy Special Forces to the key battle zones in Syria to vanquish the extremist groups (which enjoy US-Israeli backing). Mattis’ allegation of Russia violating “international law” in Afghanistan becomes curious because that is precisely what Moscow accuses the US of doing in Syria.
Interestingly, there are also a few sub-plots to Mattis’s press conference in Kabul: A) He was evasive about President Donald Trump deploying “thousands more” troops in Afghanistan, which was what Pentagon had recommended. Mattis said blithely, “our review in Washington is a dialogue with Secretary [of State Rex] Tillerson and the president and his staff in the White House. And I’d say that we’re under no illusions about the challenges associated with this mission.”
B) Mattis parried a direct question as to the US’ war objective in Afghanistan. C) He touched on reconciliation with Taliban – “If the Taliban wished to join the political process…, they need only to renounce violence and reject terrorism. It’s a pretty low standard to join the… political process.”
Significantly, Mattis made his visit to Kabul within a week of the fact-finding mission by NSA Lt. Gen. HR McMaster who reports directly to Trump. The transcript of Mattis’ press conference is here.
Decoding the American Jewish Zionists’ Rise to Power
Readings in the Jewish Zionist Control of the United States: Interviews with Francis Boyle, James Petras, and Kim Petersen [Part 4]
By B. J. Sabri | American Herald tribune | April 24, 2017
Previously I argued that the phony war on “islamic terrorism”, the incessant attacks on and indictment of Islam as a violent religion, and the claim to bring so-called “democracy” to a region ruled by “dictators” are ploys for U.S. wars in the Middle East. Real motives instead, I further argued, are driving these wars with the objective to destabilize, remake, or destroy Arab societies, partition all states that are not in line with the U.S. and Israeli policies, and, in short, dismantle the Arab world. Two agendas converge to implement this effort.
The first has for a focus the aims of U.S. hyper-imperialism. Besides submitting the Arab nations to U.S. plans and military control, the quest for uncontested global hegemony is the core of this agenda. While such a quest is intrinsic to the making of the colonialist nature of the American state, the part related to the Arab world is a particular detail within the overall agenda. Explanation: The Arab regions in the Middle East and North Africa enjoy unrivaled geostrategic assets palatable to U.S. imperialism. However, targeting the Arab nations for war, destruction, and partition because of resources or geographic positions makes no sense in modern times unless a wider, deeper agenda is playing out in the U.S. calculation.
This raises a series of questions. What are the forces directing the Arab agenda of the United States? Are these forces responsible for the persistent hostility toward the Arabs and the active destruction of selective states? Did such a plan start with Kissinger-controlled U.S. foreign policy during the Nixon’s presidency or does it go further back in time? Were Sadat’s recognition of Israel, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Iraq’s American-induced invasion of Iran and Kuwait, and U.S. war on Iraq in 1991 the preparatory stages for that plan?
A vital question: Do such forces persuade or coerce the United States to oppose all equitable proposals to solve the Palestinian Question? And to close, who is keeping the interventionist agenda going? Who are the proponents of the Fascist Military Pacification Model the United States wants to impose on the Arab nations?
The second agenda belongs to Israel. Considering its complex logistics and interwoven interests with the global aims of the United States, this agenda is partly carried out by Israel and partly by the United States but with European and Arab vassals following orders. Israel’s agenda operates on nine levels each of which comes with own scope, parameters, and application tools:
General Level: To expand the scope of Zionist narratives on Palestine, so-called right of Jews to return to it, fake historical rights, and so on. Films, TV, false archeology, fake research books, internet, propagandists, and all type of media—even cookbooks—are the avenues for such efforts.
American Level: To preserve the duopoly system as is for easy management; keep the White House and Congress under tight Zionist control; keep the display of power as in AIPAC annual pageantries in order to demonstrate system’s obedience and Zionist control; conceive and implement U.S. foreign policy through American Jewish Zionists who occupy key posts in the American system.
America’s European Vassals Level: To keep European states under the U.S. umbrella for a stronger Israeli control.
Russian/Chinese Level: With over one million ethnic Russian Jews living in Israel, Israel has an advantage in Russia through organized Zionist lobbyists and oligarchs. The scope is to keep Russia out of the Middle East—it failed in Syria—and away from the Arabs. As for China, Israel provides American-designed military technology to increase influence thus preempting potential Chinese support for Arab causes.
International Level: The U.S. belligerent posturing toward North Korea is not its own. It is Israeli by all standards and terminologies. Explanation: N. Korea provided military technology to Iran and Pakistan. That is anathema to Israel. If N. Korea were to stop cooperating with countries deemed adversaries to Israel, the U.S. saber rattling would cease instantly. The other scope is to keep flaunting any U.N. resolution critical of Israel using the U.S. hegemon as a buffer.
America’s Arab vassals: The United States has practically ended, on behalf of Israel, the Arab system of nations through wars and interventions. Israel is now poised to submit all Arab regimes—not the peoples—to its military power and political will.
Regional Level: To maintain Israeli superiority by means of American military supplies, as well as its own. However, the United States is now doing the major job by smashing the Arab states–one by one. The partition of Sudan and the pending partition of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen are examples.
Palestinian Level: To implement the plan to settle the Palestinian Question on Israeli terms. This is how it works. Give the Palestinian a semblance of economic independence within the occupation regime; swallow what remains of historic Palestine; suffocate Gaza to death to stop the resistance; declare a “state” called “Palestine” in Gaza comprising lands taken from Egypt.
Israeli Level: To intensify the Zionization, fascistization, chauvinism, and racism of the Israeli Jewish society. This is important for the continuation of the Zionist project to create a “greater Israel”. Further, the Zionist project was not about creating a “homeland” for the Jews of Europe. It is about Zionist expansions and empire. According to this scheme, turning the racist ideology of and the colonialist core of Zionism into a permanent way of thinking could guarantee the continuation of Israel as a peculiar racist state.
DISCUSSION
What we want to see now is what did American Jewish Zionists do to rise to such an unprecedented power in the United States? There is a flipside to the coin. Was such a rise autonomous or dependent on factors rooted in the American system? In other words, who allowed Jewish Zionists to dominate the United States?
To answer, we need a starting point. Jewish Zionist propaganda would like the uninformed to believe that the United States was already in pre-Zionist sympathies at least since President John Adams. [1] An example of such propaganda outlets is the Zionist website Jewish Virtual Library. This so-called library made a compendium of U.S. presidents who, it claims, supported the idea of “restoring the lands of Israel” to its “people”. [2]
First, U.S. presidents prior to Theodore Roosevelt might have made favorable expressions to certain Jewish individuals. However, I view such expressions as apolitical, superficial, and ceremonial. Moreover, they had no bearing into the future—this was yet to unfold depending on world events. Nor did they set the path for Franklyn D. Roosevelt and his successor Harry Truman to prepare for the installation of a Zionist entity in Palestine. It seems that the “Library” wants to convey the idea that rational political processes brought the United States to side with Zionism and later with Israel. Now, recalling that such “sympathies” might have been made in response to solicitations by Jewish personalities, they were not the political convictions of the American system. However, they became so after Woodrow Wilson publically endorsed the British Mandate for Palestine.
Second, because the American system depends on ideological continuity, it is expected that Roosevelt’s anti-Arab racism and Zionist outlook would pass to his successors. Such passage would also confirm that new patterns of domestic power were emerging. Explanation: in U.S. political settings, the presidents of the imperialist state invariably adopt and further expand on the foreign policies of their predecessors.
The pretense that what those presidents expressed had amounted to recognition of “Jewish claims” on Palestine is baseless. Needless to argue, the fate of Palestine, then under Ottoman rule until the end of WWI, was not a subject for U.S. presidents to decide. Colonialism, however, was the only historical force able to divide conquered nations according to self-interest or consequent to political machinations. Yet, those expressions revealed something interesting— the cultural ignorance of U.S. presidents. Fixated on biblical stories, they interchanged the religious affiliation of Europeans of Jewish faith with the ancient Hebrews. With this, a historical falsehood had been established. Later, this would become the rationalized basis to install a settler state in Palestine.
When American Jewish Zionists twisted the arms of FDR and Harry Truman to make them agree to their demands, and when both presidents gave up under pressure, it became evident that a Jewish Zionist force was born. Under this premise, I view Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklyn D. Roosevelt as the primary facilitators of U.S. Zionism and its ascending power.
Harry Truman is another story. Although, the Zionist state was born under his watch, he was not that essential in the gestation of Zionism toward power. It is true, however, that Truman, a war criminal and opportunist who sold out to Zionists to garner their vote, was a catalyst in turning American Jewish Zionists into the masters of the United States. Explanation: the installation of Israel gave momentum to the emergent power of Zionists. Still, during the transition from European Jewish invasion of Palestine to the installation of Israel, Truman did nothing but to continue with the moral cowardice and treachery of Franklyn D. Roosevelt toward the Arabs.
To back the views I just presented, I will discuss in this part Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; in the upcoming Part 5, I will discuss Franklyn D. Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt
Ever since New York Jewish Zionists supported his campaign for governor of New York, and later for president, Roosevelt, a racist and an avowed colonialist in the American tradition, set the stage for a long-lasting confrontational U.S. policy toward the Arabs. With that policy came the gradual elevation of American Jewish Zionists to the claimed status of “king makers” of American politics—especially in the making of foreign policy. Here I want to stress one aspect, which is how the hate of the Arabs became synonymous with the Jewish Zionist power. It works like this: If an American individual wants to run for office, he must declare or pledge in advance his support of Israel against all its “enemies”—the Arabs. On the other hand, opposing Israel (or Zionism) on any ground could mean losing elections and careers.
How did Theodore Roosevelt set the stage for a durable anti-Arab policy of the United States?
Let us reprise a quotation that appeared in Part 2. In a private meeting held in 1907, Roosevelt confided:
It is impossible to expect moral, intellectual, and material well-being where Mohammedanism is supreme. The Egyptians, for example, were a people of Moslem fellahin who have never in all time exercised any self-government whatever. Britain’s Lord Cromer, Roosevelt added, is one of the greatest modern colonial administrators, and he has handled Egypt just according to Egypt’s needs, military occupation, foreign tutelage, and Christian patience. [3] [Sic], [Italics added]
Roosevelt’s opinion on regions dominated by Mohammedanism—his word for Islam—was in tune with his bigoted ideology. Anyone, of course, is entitled to his opinion. But when an American president expresses racist remarks debasing peoples and their religion, the implication is enormous. Simply, it means that said president, his administration, and subsequent administrations would most likely take the same path. This is how political states stay in business. Eventually, a nurtured prejudice could evolve into state policy— the systematic destruction of the Original Peoples of the United States and the ideology of the Third Reich are examples. Consequently, it is not farfetched to say that Roosevelt’s prejudice had come a long way. Today, it has become the official philosophy of the United States.
A few decades after Roosevelt, John Kennedy, then a senator from New York, proved the assessment I just made. In search of the so-called Jewish vote, he had to go through the rituals of praise (allegiance) to Zionism and to exempt it from the disasters in the Middle East. In addressing a gathering at B’nai Zion Anniversary, he virtually licked the Zionist rear end without shame, pride, or, at least, a little cultivated historical and cultural knowledge. With his speech (1958), Kennedy proved beyond any doubt that 11 years after the installation of Israel (1947), the power of American Jewish Zionists had become a strong fixture in U.S. politics. He said:
This myth – with which you are all too familiar – is the assertion that it is Zionism which has been the unsettling and fevered infection in the Middle East, the belief that without Israel there would somehow be a natural harmony throughout the Middle East and the Arab world. Quite apart from the values and hopes which the State of Israel enshrines – and the past injuries which it redeems – it twists reality to suggest that it is the democratic tendency of Israel which has injected discord and dissention into the Near East. Even by the coldest calculations, the removal of Israel would not alter the basic crisis in the area. For, if there is any lesson which the melancholy events of the last two years and more taught us, it is that, though Arab states are generally united in opposition to Israel, their political unities do not rise above this negative position. The basic rivalries within the Arab world, the quarrels over boundaries, the tensions involved in lifting their economies from stagnation, the cross-pressures of nationalist – all of these factors would still be there even if there were no Israel. [4]
Comment: I could write a full dissertation on Kennedy’s speech and the excerpt I just cited . . . What Kennedy said is a classic example of political succumbence. It also shows how indoctrinations, political posturing, and the expected benefits from sycophancy seep from a political epoch to another. For instance, in his lengthy speech, he never uttered the words Palestine or Palestinians. And when he talked about the Palestinians kicked out of their lands by Jewish Zionist terrorists, he called them “Arab refugees”. (See pictures of Palestinians kicked out by Zionists in 1948). Beyond that, it confirms that the imperialist state had blindly embraced the Zionist narratives. And to close, it demonstrates a culture of obedience to Zionism, and acute prejudice against the Arabs. Above all, Kennedy’s speech highlighted the ascending power of American Jewish Zionism in the United States.
There is more. Kennedy externalized the standard political making of an American politician seeking office. When candidates confront the issue of Israel and the Arabs before Jewish Zionist gatherings, they invariably become arrogantly offensive toward the Arabs, but exceedingly flattering toward Zionism. (I added Italics to every sentence of the excerpt where a counter-argument can be made to demolish Kennedy’s assertions. I stop here, however, to avoid derailing this article.)
Let us go back to Roosevelt. When he made his racist feelings known, he appeared to have implied that only when Christianity is supreme, intellectual and well-being are guaranteed. In saying so, he gave Jewish Zionists the ideological weapons to fight Arab and Palestinian nationalisms.
To be noted, Roosevelt’ praise for Lord Cromer is revealing. In casting his praise with words such as, “the greatest modern colonial administrators”, he left no doubt that the guiding light of the United States is an ideology that glorifies colonialism and slavery while turning colonialist administrators into symbols of virtue and rectitude.
Aside from supremacist beliefs, Roosevelt’s use of the concept “Christian patience” lacks originality. He plagiarized Rudyard Kipling’s concept of “White’s man burden”. This observation is important: it shows how ideological contagion works. Knowing this little bit about Roosevelt’s sentiments, it should not be surprising, therefore, when he stated it is “entirely proper to start a Zionist state around Jerusalem.” [5]
The question one may ask, what were Roosevelt’s rationales and historic justification for a Zionist state “around Jerusalem”? Why is it “entirely proper to start a Zionist state”? What makes it proper: his ideology or bigotry? Why did he ignore the Palestinians who lived in, around, and beyond Jerusalem?
Woodrow Wilson
From studying how U.S. presidents interacted with Zionism and Israel, we may be able to draw some conclusions. For instance, from Theodore Roosevelt to Herbert Hoover, the trend was to mix theology, mythology, and colonialism. From FDR to George H. W. Bush the tunes changed to include the primacy of imperialism and the usefulness of Israel to America’s global agenda. From Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, theology and mythology resurfaced but this time the fuel is anti-Muslim Christian Zionism, anti-Arab Neocon Jewish Zionism, and the new plans to partition the Arab states.
It is known that the beginning of any process is a tone-setter for the next enterprise. Under this light, Wilson’s way of thinking about a Zionist state acquires special importance. It rested on four grounds: theological dogmas, Manifest Destiney beliefs, colonialist mindset, and on his conviction of the virtues of European colonialist states. When he (under suspicious circumstances [6] ), selected the Jewish Zionist Louis Dembitz Brandeis to be his informal advisor on foreign policy, he set the precedent for the rise of many Jewish Zionist advisors and chiefs of staff to presidents and vice presidents. [7] But when he appointed him to the Supreme Court, he initiated the process of the Zionist penetration into the American state.
To evaluate how Brandeis was working on the mind of Wilson, I am going to quote Jerry Klinger. Klinger is a Jewish Zionist propagandist and a founder of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation. In his article Judge Brandeis, President Wilson and Reverend William E. Blackstone changed Jewish history Klinger details the intellectual and ideological interactions Between Wilson and Brandeis:
Brandeis knew and understood Wilson. He understood what influences Wilson would respond to. He understood the soul of President Wilson. Brandeis was a master politician and courtroom manipulator of opinion and direction. Wilson needed to be appealed to on the basis of faith but not by faith alone would the President act. Wilson needed to be sure of his political base of popular support for his actions. He needed to be sure it was the right thing for America. He weighed his actions carefully and not impulsively. [Emphasis added]
He continues further down,
Wilson further understood through Brandeis that there were delicate negotiations going on in Britain for a declaration of intentions regarding Jewish interests once Britain had wrested control of Palestine from the Turks. [Emphasis added]
Most important for Brandeis was that Wilson understood he had significant grassroots American political and faith based support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Blackstone Memorial was an American document and not a British document. It was important for Wilson and Brandeis to show that they were not the followers of the British. American foreign policy was not shaped and directed by the British but by American interests. [Emphasis added]
Comment
Well, now that we know how Wilson had gotten his political education on the claims of Zionism, let us move forward. Brandeis is a master manipulator. Klinger’s statement that Brandeis convinced Wilson that “supporting the British plan for Palestine means that American foreign policy was not shaped and directed by the British but by American interests” was a winning tactic. It gave self‑importance to a United States. I view that tactic as an early indication of how American Jewish Zionists intended to manipulate the United States.
Did Wilson comply with the coaching imparted to him by Brandeis?
Certainly, in his book, The Elected and the Chosen: Why American Presidents Have Supported Jews and Israel, page 179, Denis Brian, an Irish Christian Zionist provides an adequate answer:
“Like many previous presidents, Wilson compared the Jews of the old testament with the colonists and the early history of America,”
He then goes on to quote Wilson directly:
Recalling the previous experiences of the colonists in applying the Mosaic Code to the order of their internal life, it is not to be wondered at that the various passages in the Bible that serve to undermine royal authority, stripping the Crown of its cloak of divinity, held up before the pioneer Americans the Hebrew Commonwealth as a model government. In the spirit and essence of our Constitution, the influence of the Hebrew Commonwealth was paramount in that it was not only the highest authority for the principle, “that rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,” but also because it was in itself a divine precedent for a pure democracy, as distinguished from monarchy, aristocracy or any other form of government. To think that I, the son of the manse, should be able to help restore the Holy Land to its people.”
Comment
Despite academic credentials and a university post, Wilson manifested clear intellectual confusion. First, he mingled between diverse categories of thought. Second, his mix-up was so severe that he bundled theology (divinity, etc.) with mythology as in his “various passages in the Bible”. And, if that were not sufficient, he added to the mixture a dose of political gibberish as in the dictions “pure democracy”, “monarchy”, etc. Then he resorted to colonialism as in his phrase “to help restore … etc.
Not only that, but his approach to important U.S. policy directions that structurally overlooked the existence of the Palestinians—the future victims of his planned “restoration” smacks of ignorance, dishonesty, callousness, and ethical perfidy. I wonder how Wilson would have responded to a question such as this: Mr. President, did you ever think to restore the Original Peoples of the United States to the lands you and your predecessors have stolen by fire, forced relocations, and extermination?
Next, I will discuss Franklyn D. Roosevelt and other issues.
NEXT
Part 5:
Part 6: Interview with Francis Boyle
Part 7: Interview with James Petras
Part 8: Interview with Kim Petersen
NOTES
- The Austrian Nathan Birnbaum coined the term Zionism in 1890. I view any prior similar ideology as pre-Zionist
- Jewish Virtual Library,
- Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945, University of North Carolina Press, 2008, p. 16
- JFK Presidential Library and Museum, Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at the B’nai Zion, February 9, 1958
- Quoted in Benjamin Glatt, Today in History: Teddy Roosevelt and the Jews, The Jerusalem Post, 2016
- Alleged Wilson’s adultery was seized to blackmail him. I’m no fan of hoaxes and allegations. However, unbiased research is needed to ascertain validity. The following link provides some background on this issue: The Making of Woodrow Wilson— An American Nero?
- Examples include Henry Kissinger, Samuel Berger, Irving Lewis Libby, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, etc.
*(Trump speaking at AIPAC. Image credit: Lorie Shaull/ flickr).
Proposed US anti-Hezbollah bill will harm Lebanon
Al-Manar – April 25, 2017
Lebanese President Michel Aoun said yesterday that the new anti-Hezbollah sanctions bill that the US Congress is considering would “greatly harm Lebanon and its people”.
Aoun told a delegation from the American Task Force for Lebanon, an organisation that includes Americans of Lebanese heritage and businessmen, that ”the draft law that is being prepared in Congress to slap new financial sanctions on Lebanese parties, institutions and individuals will greatly harm Lebanon and its people.”
The president pointed out that Lebanon is making the necessary contacts to prevent the issuance of the law and welcomed any effort by the American Task Force for Lebanon in this regard.
US Congress is planning to review additional and tougher sanctions against Hezbollah and all its affiliates and allies, a move that could have negative political and financial ramifications on Lebanon if the proposals pass without amendments.
The proposed law might for the first time target the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri as well as senior Hezbollah officials, headed by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, members of his political bureau and parliamentarians.
US sends nuclear sub to South Korea amid rising tensions with North
Press TV – April 25, 2017
The United States has sent a nuclear submarine to South Korea amid escalating tensions with the neighboring North.
The USS Michigan, which is a guided missile submarine, arrived in the port city of Busan, South Korea, on Tuesday. A US military official described the move as a show of force.
Washington has already sent the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group to the western Pacific Ocean.
The Ohio class submarine will later join the aircraft carrier for exercises in the Sea of Japan.
The movement came after North Korea threatened to sink USS Carl Vinson.
“Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a single strike,” the ruling Workers’ Party newspaper said in a commentary on Sunday.
The article said Pyongyang had weaponry that “can reach continental US and Asia Pacific region.”
A statement from US Naval Forces Korea described the submarine’s visit as “routine deployment.”
“US Navy ships and submarines routinely make port calls in a variety of locations,” Lieutenant commander Matt Knight with US Pacific Fleet told Fox News.
“As a matter of routine, we do not discuss future operations or the details regarding the operations of our submarines. USS Michigan is currently on a routine deployment to the Indo-Asia-Pacific.”
‘Senate to go to White House for North Korea briefing’
Meanwhile, the White House has invited the entire US Senate on Wednesday for a briefing on the mounting tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.
The briefing will be delivered by several top officials including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday.
‘UN must impose new sanctions on N Korea’
President Donald Trump has said the United Nations Security Council must impose new sanctions on North Korea.
“The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable and the council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions on North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” Trump said on Monday ahead of a lunch with ambassadors from countries on the Security Council.
“This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not. North Korea is a big world problem and it’s a problem that we have to finally solve,” he added.
North Korea has so far conducted five confirmed nuclear tests and numerous missile test-launches. While it has not fired missiles against other countries, it has vowed strong action — including missile attacks against South Korea — if it is invaded by the South and the US.
The US earlier threatened to strike North Korea if it tried to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile. And, Pyongyang warned the US of an “all-out war” and announced that it would continue to test missiles on a weekly basis.
Shambolic Doings in Washington
Will we survive the next 90 days?
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • April 25, 2017
There remains one good thing to say about Donald Trump: he is not Hillary. The boneheaded cruise missile attack in Syria would have occurred even earlier under President Rodham Clinton and there would undoubtedly be no-fly and safe zones already in place. Oh, and Ukraine and Georgia would be negotiating their entries into NATO to make sure that old Vlad Putin would be put on notice and understand that the days of namby-pamby jaw-jaw-jaw that characterized the Obama Administration are now ancient history.
Apart from that, I can only observe dumbstruck how yet again a candidate promising peace and dialogue could be flipped so quickly. Or maybe he never believed in anything he said, which is perhaps more to the point. Be that as it may, we now, after only ninety days in office, have a neo-neocon foreign policy and the folks clustered around their water coolers in the Washington think tanks are again smiling. And as the ruinous Syrian civil war continues thanks to American intervention, there are probably plenty of high fives within Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu government. Bibi again rules the roost.
The Israelis are no doubt particularly delighted to hear Donald Trump’s latest factually exempt voyage into the outer reaches of the galaxy regarding Iran. Or perhaps The Donald is only having continuing digestive problems dealing with “most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen” when dining with mortified Chinese leader Xi Jinping while simultaneously launching cruise missiles intended to send a message to Beijing’s ally Russia. It is inevitably Iran’s turn for vilification, so Trump, while conceding that the Iranians have been compliant with the nuclear weapons agreement they signed, also felt compelled to add that they continue to be a threat and have not entered into the “spirit” of the pact. Apparently the spirit codicil was somehow left out of the final draft, an interpretation that will no doubt surprise the other signatories consisting of Russia, China and the European Union.
To make its point that Tehran is somehow a cheater, the White House has ordered a 90 day review of Iran policy which will empower hardliners in that country in upcoming elections as well as nut cases like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham on this side of the Atlantic. Iranian opposition groups like the terrorist Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK) are already rising to the challenge by floating phony intelligence while Graham is currently advocating a preemptive attack on North Korea, conceding that it would be catastrophic for every country in the region while noting smugly that the carnage and destruction would not reach the United States. Too bad that Pyongyang’s fury cannot be directed straight to Graham’s house in South Carolina.
Graham is reportedly a good dancer and multitasker who can pivot back to Iran effortlessly as soon as Pyongyang is reduced to rubble, so those who want to deal with Iran sooner rather than later should not despair. As things continue to go south nearly everywhere, tension in the Middle East will no doubt lead to a rapidly deteriorating situation in the Persian Gulf that will require yet another ham-handed show of strength by the United States of Amnesia. There will be a war against Iran.
There have been a couple of other interesting stories circulating recently, all demonstrating that when Benjamin Franklin observed that we Americans had created a republic, “if we can keep it,” he was being particularly prescient. Robert Parry has observed that all the fuss about Russiagate is misleading as the only country that interferes with the political process in the U.S. persistently and successfully while also doing terrible damage to our national security is Israel. He wonders when we will have Congress convening investigative commissions to look into Israel-gate but then answers his own question by observing that it will never happen given who controls what in the United States. “No one dares suggest a probe of Israel-gate,” he concludes, but it is interesting and also encouraging to note that some Americans are actually starting to figure things out.
One of the curious things relating to the Russiagate scandal is the issue of who in the U.S. intelligence community leaked highly classified information to the media, a question which somehow seems to have disappeared from whatever final reckoning might be forthcoming. The issue is particularly relevant at the moment because there are reports that the Justice Department is pulling together a case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as part of a possible attempt to remove him forcibly from his refuge in Britain and try him for constituting what CIA Director Mike Pompeo describes as a “hostile intelligence service helped by Russia.” It all suggests that low hanging fruit is fair game while some “official” leakers at high levels are somehow being protected.
To cite another example of Justice Department hypocrisy, three current and four former U.S. officials leaked to Reuters last week’s story about a Russian think tank having created a plan to subvert the U.S. election. If that is so, their identities might be discernible or surmised. Why aren’t they in jail? Or is it that many in government now believe that Russia is fair game and are prepared to look the other way?
It is significant that the recent House Intelligence Committee hearing on Russiagate, featuring FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers, provided very little new information even as it confirmed troubling revelations that had already surfaced regarding the corruption of the nation’s security services. Given that former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) head John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) chief James Clapper have been most frequently cited as the Obama administration’s possible bag men in arranging for the generation, collection, dissemination, and leaking of information disparaging to Trump, why weren’t they also being questioned?
The latest focus on Brennan, an Obama/Clinton loyalist who might safely be regarded as the most likely candidate seeking to discredit Team Trump and reap the benefits from Hillary, explores some suspicions about what actually took place last year and how it might have been arranged. The story broke in The Guardian on April 13th, headlined “British spies were first to spot Trump team’s links with Russia.” The article rehashes much old information, but, relying on a “source close to UK intelligence,” it describes how Britain’s NSA equivalent GCHQ obtained information late in 2015 relating to suspect “interactions” between Trump associates and the Russian intelligence. GCHQ reportedly routinely passed the information on to its U.S. liaison counterparts, and continued to do so over the next six months. The information was supplemented by similar reporting from a number of European intelligence services as well as the remaining “Five Eyes”: Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
According to the Guardian source and reporters, who are clearly hostile to Trump, the collection was not directed or targeted but was rather part of random interception of Russian communications. This may or may not be true but it serves as a useful cover story if someone was up to something naughty. And it also makes one wonder about the highly incriminating British intelligence sourced “dossier” on Trump and his associates, which The Guardian strangely does not mention, that appeared in January. Another apparent Guardian source called GCHQ the “principal whistleblower” in sharing the information that led to the opening of an FBI investigation in July 2016, a suggestion that the British role was not exactly passive.
The article goes on to describe how John Brennan, then CIA Chief, was personally the recipient of the material passed hand-to-hand at “director level” because of its sensitivity. So the Guardian article is essentially saying that the information was both routine and extremely sensitive, which would seem to be contradictory. Brennan was reportedly then the driving force behind launching a “major inter-agency investigation” and he briefed selected members of Congress regarding what he had obtained. Shortly thereafter leaks began appearing in the British press followed subsequently by revelations in the media in the U.S.
An October request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court reportedly was initiated after particularly damaging information was received from Estonia concerning Trump associate Carter Page and also regarding allegations that a Russian bank was funneling money into the Trump campaign. This led to an investigation of Page and the tapping into servers in Trump Tower, where the presidential campaign offices were located. Estonia, it should be noted, was particularly concerned about Trump comments on de-emphasizing NATO and strongly supported a Hillary victory so it is fair to speculate that the intelligence provided might have been cherry picked to make a particular case, but The Guardian fails to make that obvious point.
It is interesting to note how for the first time, in this media account, Brennan surfaces as the central player in the investigation of Team Trump. And it is perhaps not out of line to suggest that the European reporting of information on Trump associates was not exactly due to random collection of information, as The Guardian seeks to demonstrate. It could just as easily have been arranged at the “director level” by Brennan and his counterparts to disrupt the Trump campaign and enhance the electability of Hillary Clinton, which would have directly benefited Brennan and his inner circle as well as the Europeans, all of whom feared a Trump victory. Intelligence can be skewed, “fixed around a policy” or even fabricated and can say whatever one wants it to say so it is fair to suggest that the role of a politically committed John Brennan remains to be explored much more fully.
It is now being reported that Brennan will be summoned to give testimony at a closed House Intelligence Committee meeting on May 2nd. Hopefully his comments will be somehow leaked to the media plus those of James Clapper, who is also scheduled to appear. Nevertheless, one imagines that, as was the case in Comey’s first appearance, both former officials will spend most of their time refusing to confirm or deny anything.
The active participation of Brennan in the background to the 2016 electoral campaign is unprecedented and it is also suggestive of what America’s national security agencies have become, basically creatures of the White House. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Benjamin Franklin would undoubtedly deplore the fact that we have failed to keep the republic that the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us. That would be bad enough, but we are slipping into a pattern of foreign wars based on tissues of lies and deceptions by the very people who are in place to protect us, quite possibly exemplified by unscrupulous and ambitious ladder climbers like John Brennan, who was also the architect of Obama’s assassination policy. If we go to war because of suspected lack of “spirit” in our adversaries or merely because someone in the White House had a piece of chocolate cake and wanted something to talk about over his cup of espresso then we are doomed as a nation.
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