Who Are the Leading State Sponsors of Terrorism?
By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 28.12.2017
As 2017 draws to a close, it is difficult to be optimistic about what will be coming in the new year. The American President, whose margin of victory was certainly based on his pledge to avoid unnecessary wars, has doubled down on Afghanistan, refuses to leave Syria even though ISIS has been defeated, and is playing serious brinksmanship with a psychopathic and unpredictable regime in Pyongyang. The White House has also bought into the prevailing largely fabricated narrative about a Russia and has decided to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons, which has already resulted in a sharp response from Moscow and will make détente of any kind between the two leading powers all but impossible in the upcoming year.
But, as I have observed before, the red hazard light that continues to be blinking most brightly relates to Washington’s relationship with Iran, which has unnecessarily deteriorated dramatically over the past year and which brings with it collateral problems with Russia and Turkey that could trigger a much wider conflict. I say unnecessarily because all the steps taken to poison the relationship have come out of Washington, not Tehran. The Trump administration refused to certify that the Iranians had been in compliance with the nuclear agreement negotiated in 2015 and has since escalated its verbal attacks, mostly at the United Nations, claiming that the regime in Tehran is the major source of terrorism in the world and that it is seeking hegemony over a broad arc of countries running westward from its borders to the Mediterranean Sea.
The only problem with the allegations being made is that none of them is true and, furthermore, Iran, with limited military resources, poses no serious threat to gain control over its neighbors, nor to attack the United States or Europe. The invective about Iran largely derives from Israel and Saudi Arabia, which themselves have hegemonic ambitions relating to their region. Israel’s friends in the US Congress, media and White House have not surprisingly picked up on the refrain and are pushing for military action. Israel has even threatened to bomb any Iranian permanent presence inside neighboring Syria.
A recent detailed analysis by former US intelligence officers has demonstrated just how the claim that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism is almost completely fabricated. The analysis explains how these false narratives are contrived and how they become part of the Washington background noise. The White House’s recent National Security Strategy Report for 2018 stated that “Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, has taken advantage of instability to expand its influence through partners and proxies, weapon proliferation, and funding.” But another US government report, the annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2016 cites no actual terrorist incidents initiated by Iran in that year. In fact, the most recent terrorist incident attributed to Tehran was in 2012, and that was retaliatory against Israel, which was at the time assassinating Iran’s scientists and technicians and attacking its computer systems.
America’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s has recently claimed that it is hard to find a “terrorist group in the Middle East that does not have Iran’s fingerprints all over it.” But in reality, the overwhelming majority of terrorist groups in the region, to include ISIS, Al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, are Sunni Muslims, who believe Iran’s Shi’ism is heretical, and are both tied to and funded by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) is indeed an ethnic Iranian terrorist group, but it has been funded and supported by Washington and Tel Aviv to carry out attacks inside Iran.
The reality is that terrorism, defined by the United Nations as “criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public,” is most employed at the state level by the United States and its allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, not by Iran. All have used violence directed against civilians in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, and all three have supported organizations that fit the definition of terrorists. Iran may indeed be guilty of actions that much of the world disapproves of, but it is not the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism as has been alleged.
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Latvia urging UK to ‘prepare for war’ with Russia
By Lucas Leiroz | March 18, 2024
The Baltic countries continue their “preparation for war with Russia.” Now, as if it were not enough to engage in a suicidal militarization campaign, Latvia is also demanding that the main NATO countries, such as the UK, also begin adopting radical measures to prepare for the “inevitable” confrontation with Moscow. The main Latvian criticism of the British concerns the military service, with the Baltic country asking the UK to immediately resume conscription policies to increase the size of its forces.
Latvia’s foreign minister, Krisjanis Karins, stated that all NATO countries should follow the Latvian example when it comes to military preparation. According to him, it is necessary to implement special militarization measures and improve defense capacity in the face of the supposed “Russian threat”, which is why Western countries should unite in a common military policy. Karins believes that not all NATO states are efficiently engaged in this military preparation process. In this regard, he criticizes even the stance of key countries in the bloc, such as the UK.
Karins was asked by a journalist from The Telegraph about whether London should adopt mandatory military service for its citizens. He resolutely responded that Latvia “strongly recommends” such an attitude. According to Karins, Latvia is developing a system called “total defense”, in which all the country’s efforts are directed towards expanding military capacity. Efforts include all sectors of civil society, thus requiring a system of total mobilization within which mandatory military service is vital. … continue
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They’re very bright, are the Iranians, and for that reason I suspect they’ll outsmart and outlast the nasty little faux-Semitic megalomaniacs currently occupying Palestine. Iran will still be there long after the genocidal entity styling itself “Israel” is nothing more than a blood-drenched footnote in the history books.
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“America’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s has recently claimed that it is hard to find a “terrorist group in the Middle East that does not have Iran’s fingerprints all over it.”
If Nikki Haley said it, believe the opposite. It’s the quickest way to arrive at the TRUTH. ‘Obnoxious’ Haley is the Devil’s spawn.
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Giraldi is yet another propagandist. He states obvious facts that any intelligent, informed person already knows but he comes across as honest and level-headed to the morons whose only sources of information are the lies propagated by the mainstream media. This article is an example of “limited hangout”, as the intelligence spooks say. That is to say, he writes 90% truth but manages to insert a few points to brainwash the morons.
For example, it didn’t take him long before he described North Korea as, “a psychopathic and unpredictable regime in Pyongyang”. I reject his use of the word, “psychopathic”. Coming from an American, that’s really a case of the pot calling the kettle black. And if they are unpredictable to the Americans then that is good because, in the continuous state of war that has existed between North Korea and the USA since the 1950’s, being unpredictable to your enemy means you are outsmarting them. Finally, his use of the word “regime” implies that the government of North Korea is illegitimate. Who gave the god Giraldi the right to decide the legitimacy of the governments of other nations?
Do you notice how he says that ISIS is defeated so now the US doesn’t need to be in Syria? He’s implying that the US defeated ISIS when we know the opposite is the case. It was Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah that defeated ISIS..
Then he repeats his usage of the word, “regime” in the statement, “… claiming that the regime in Tehran is the major source of terrorism”. If he was quoting someone else’s usage of that word to describe Iran then he should have put it in quotation marks. But since he didn’t do that, he is expressing his own choice of that word.
Next he writes, “… the claim that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism is almost completely fabricated”. Almost? He goes on to write that the most recent terrorist incident attributed to Tehran was in 2012, and that was retaliatory against Israel. Why doesn’t Giraldi actually give us a clue what that “terrorist incident” was? Retribution against Israel does not necessarily equate with “terrorism”.
Finally, he writes, “Iran may indeed be guilty of actions that much of the world disapproves of”. Maybe in much of Giraldi’s little world of retired CIA analysts and political propaganda writers. And, of course, he omits giving us any examples of these actions that Iran is supposedly “guilty” of.
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“A recent detailed analysis by former US intelligence officers has demonstrated just how the claim that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism is almost completely fabricated. Almost”?
I think that means about 99% How close to 100% does it need to be?(who would you believe anyway, Nikki Haley or Philip Giraldi?)
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Why would I have to choose between those two? There are people out there who speak 100% truth all the time, not the ridiculous lies of Haley, or the incorrect ideas that are surreptitiously inserted into people’s brains by propagandists like Giraldi. Of course Giraldi is closer to being a 100% truth-teller but that’s the skill of being a propagandist, to create the impression of telling the 100% truth all the time when you are not. It’s a subtle art.
Don’t forget that the article is about state sponsorship of terrorism. ‘Terrorism’ has a specific definition and is a serious matter. It’s directed at innocent civilians. If an ‘expert’ claimed that the Australian government was “almost” free of being a state sponsor of terrorism would you not be concerned about that? And would you not want to know what evidence the expert had to justify using the word, “almost”?
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You’ll choose the one who makes the most sense. I don’t think anyone is right ALL the time(except me of course….”Joke”)
Try not to attack Giraldi because you perceive he’s made a minor error of judgement, in your opinion. As for Australia, Our, ‘ratbag’ journalists are world leaders in the Art of Bullshit……We gave you, Rupert Murdoch(and you can keep him). We also have had some world class journalists too of course(Pilger for one)
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I’m an Aussie, in Sydney, although I lived overseas for the past 20 years. There seems to be a shortage of Americans on these comments pages for Alethonews.
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On a per capita basis Aletho News does much better with Aussies than Americans, but Canadians beat them 4 to 1.
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I wonder if you are ‘reaching’ the American people? Or are you being ‘silenced’ somehow? I feel sure that there are so many disgruntled Americans who hate the way the American government has been “Taken Over” from within. They know that there is something terribly wrong, as they are pushed down the line into poverty, by the “Money men”.
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