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Bodies of Dead Iraqi Children Test Positive For Radioactive Remnants From US Depleted Uranium Rounds

Sputnik – September 20, 2019

By examining bodies of dead Iraqi children who had congenital birth defects, researchers have proven their conditions were directly related to US bombardment of the country with depleted uranium rounds early in the Iraq War and stores at US bases during the subsequent occupation.

A new study has drawn direct links between the US military’s use of depleted uranium in the Iraq War and congenital birth defects suffered by Iraqi children. Researchers examined the hair and baby teeth of dead Iraqi children near areas of heavy fighting as well as US military bases and found the radioactive element thorium – a telltale sign of uranium of the type used to make depleted uranium rounds.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the industrial process used to refine uranium-238 into U-235, which is more suitable for fuel in nuclear power plants. Composed of U-238 that cannot have further U-235 extracted from it, the matter is extremely dense – twice as dense as lead – and when fused with other metals, it makes for a very potent bullet. The US military loves to use “DU” for piercing armor, but also for extra-powerful armor.

Thousands of rounds of DU were used against Iraqi positions during the first year of the Iraq War, which began in early 2003 after the George W. Bush administration, justifying its actions with false intelligence, launched an all-out invasion of the country, arguing that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had a secret weapons program he intended to use against the United States.

“Once a depleted-uranium round strikes its target, the projectile begins to burn on impact, creating tiny particles of radioactive U-238,” Common Dreams explained. “Winds can transport this radioactive dust many miles, potentially contaminating the air that innocent humans breathe. This inhalation may cause lung cancer, kidney damage, cancers of bones and skin, as well as birth defects and chemical poisoning.”

Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an independent researcher based in Michigan and a co-author of the study, looked at the hair and teeth of children from villages near Talil Air Base south of Baghdad, which US forces occupied during the counterinsurgency war that raged for almost a decade after the invasion as homegrown resistance to the US occupation grew. She found thorium in them, an element produced by the radioactive decay of U-238.

“We are basically seeing a depleted uranium footprint on these children,” Savabieasfahani told TruthOut in an interview. Her study, which will soon be published in the journal Environmental Pollution, found the children near Talil had 28 times the amount of thorium in their bodies as did children in a control group far from the fighting and who weren’t born with congenital disabilities.

According to United Nations estimates, the US fired up to 2,000 metric tons of DU at targets in Iraq in 2003 alone. The US also used the weapon against Iraq in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, and a limited number of rounds were also fired back at US forces by the Iraqi army.

However, that’s not the only source of the element in Iraq: vehicles with DU-reinforced armor were brought into the country by the thousands by the Americans, as well as all sorts of aircraft and ground vehicles that used the rounds and for which the bullets had to be stored at US bases.

TruthOut notes that much of this equipment wound up destroyed on the battlefield or rusting in junkyards across the country, leeching the radioactive chemical into the air and water, as well as into the pieces of metal likely harvested by locals to sell for scrap.

“What we see here, and what we imply with this study, is that we could see this very same scenario around every single US military base in Iraq,” Savabieasfahani said. “The exposure of pregnant mothers to the pollutions of war, including uranium and thorium, irreversibly damages their unborn children.”

Citing Iraqi government statistics, MintPress reported in 2014 that the rate Iraqis contracted cancer skyrocketed in the years after the US invasion, from 40 per 100,000 people per year in 1991 to 800 per 100,000 in 1995, to at least 1,600 per 100,000 in 2005.

Iraqi doctors have long voiced concerns about the problem. A 2013 study by Dutch peace group IKV Pax Christi found more than 300 such sites previously identified by the Iraqi government as contaminated with DU, and the US spent between $30 million and $45 million on cleanup at the sites. However, even as late as the 2013 study, observers still saw children playing on the waste heaps and collecting scraps for sale.

“The US must be held responsible and forced to clean up all the sites which it has polluted. Technology exists for the cleanup of radiation contamination,” Savabieasfahani told TruthOut. “The removal and disposal of US-created military junkyards would go a long way toward cleaning toxic releases out of the Iraqi environment.”

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Environmentalism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 4 Comments

All Points Alert: Killer State at Large

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | September 20, 2019

The most important news coming out of occupied Palestine last week was not the blow delivered to Benyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu or Gantz, it will be business as usual, now that the elections are over: more attacks on Gaza, possibly a large-scale war on Gaza, possibly a war on Lebanon, or Iran, who would know, as Israel always has a profusion of targets.

No, the most important news was not the elections but the killing of a Palestinian woman in the West Bank, only a few days after a 10-year-old boy, Abd al Rahman Yasir Shtewi, had been shot in the head by a soldier near the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum during a demonstration over the closure of an access road. He was taken to hospital in critical condition.

The woman, Alaa Wahdan, was shot with an assault rifle as she walked towards a checkpoint near the Qalandiya refugee camp, built for refugees after the massacres and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle in 1948.

She was walking on the road, having missed the pedestrian lane allotted to the Palestinians. That was the crime for which she had to die. She was told to stop. According to the five heavily armed men who blocked her way, she pulled out a knife, a small yellow-handled thing photographed lying on the road. Alaa was five to seven meters away and the knife could have been knocked away with the butt of a gun but one of the armed men shot her instead, the bullet apparently severing an artery in her leg.

Alaa fell to the road and was left there unattended for half an hour, bleeding to death. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it was prevented from attending to her. The soldiers watched her drag herself along the roadside on her front, the blood pouring out of her body, leaving a long, wide red stain behind her. Not one of them made any attempt to comfort her or staunch the wound. They watched her bleed to death. They let her die, in line with unstated state policy.

Who Alaa was precisely, a mother, a sister, a daughter or an aunt, was of no interest to the occupiers. She was a down-page story in the media, not even worthy of being given a name, no more than the African ‘terrorists’ of the 1940s or 50s were worthy of being given a name by the British or French occupiers of their land who tortured and murdered them. In the words of Mickey Rosenfeld, the police gauleiter of occupied Jerusalem, she was no more than a “female terrorist” who was “injured moderately.” If this is so, Mr Rosenfeld, why did she die?

In the background, while Alaa crawled along the road, her lifeblood draining away, the spivs, the thieves and the war criminals quarreled over who should be next to take over the occupation of Palestine. The choice was between Netanyahu and Gantz, the outcome of the elections so close that the ‘kingmaker’ will be Avigdor Lieberman, the Moldovan immigrant who arrived in Palestine when he was 20 and lives with his wife and children on Palestinian land in the settlement of Nokdim.

Like Menahim Begin in the 1970s, Lieberman was once regarded as a thug and fanatic who would never make it into the mainstream of Zionist politics but as the mainstream has shifted further right year by year it finally reached him. He once advocated the bombing of the Aswan dam as a means of shutting up the Egyptians. He thinks the ‘Arab’ members of the Zionist ‘parliament’ are the allies of terrorists.

He wants Muslim and Christian Palestinians to be required to swear an oath of loyalty to a state which has declared itself to be a Jewish, which has practically stripped them bare of all they possess and which plans to keep going until nothing is left.

His philosophy can be summed up in his own words: “Whoever is against us there’s nothing to do …. We have to lift up an axe and remove his head … otherwise we won’t be here.” The option of handing back part of what has been stolen as a means of making peace is not even within his realm of thinking.

As for Netanyahu, his campaigning was nakedly racist. He warned against an ‘Arab’ party ending up in government and his Likud party stationed cameras outside polling booths to intimidate Palestinians and prevent them from voting. It didn’t work. They turned out in higher numbers than ever. It is the measure of this individual’s vile nature that he wanted to attack Gaza either to win or postpone the elections, riding to eventual victory over the bodies of more dead Palestinian men, women and children.

Gantz got in his way, but only for the same electoral reason, because he also is a killer of Palestinians, and currently the subject of prosecution in the Netherlands for the bombing of an apartment building in Gaza in 2014 which killed six members of the same family.

As the Palestinians well know, it makes no difference which of the parties is in power because their policies – more war, more killing, more settlements, with annexation now only a few steps away – are all the same.

The pathology of the Zionists puts them beyond reason. They do not connect up with any laws or values except their own and trying to reason with them on the basis of international law and universal values is a waste of time, pebbles thrown against the side of a tank.

In 2013 Mehdi Hassan interviewed Dani Dayon as the centerpiece of an Oxford Union debate. Until recently Dayon was the head of the Yesha settler council. Sitting in the front row, Ghada Karmi, born in Al Quds to a family that owns land on the West Bank taken over by foreign settlers like Dayon, had to endure the lies and delusions that flowed from this man’s mouth. Cutting through the arrogance and his smiling, self-assured attempts to deceive the audience, she told him what he actually was in her eyes and the eyes of the world – a common thief.

There is no mystery about what has ‘happened’ in Palestine. There is no ‘conflict of rights,’ ‘contested narratives’ or ‘disputed’ ownership. These are all propaganda phrases designed to conceal the indisputable reality. From the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, Palestine has been stolen by people whose moral right to stay there can only be conferred on them by the people whose land they have stolen. Had they ever accepted this principle, had they ever apologized for their crimes, had they agreed to share instead of wanting to take the lot, using all the brutal means at their disposal, this moral right could have been secured but they forfeited this possibility long ago, preferring endless war to the possibility of peace. There is no ‘two state’ solution in sight. Add it to the list of myths still being purveyed. There is no solution in sight at all, at least not one based on rational discussion and the application of international law.

There is no statute of limitations here. The land was stolen and will remain stolen no matter how long the Zionists hold it. There is no ‘land of Israel’. There is no ‘Temple Mount’ and no ‘tomb of the patriarchs’ in Hebron. These are all deceptions sitting atop a mountain of lies intended to bury the truth. There is Palestine, there is the Haram al Sharif, the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, where the settler state pogrom against the Palestinians continues without pause, and countless other sites on the map, all of them occupied and renamed. Not a drop of water in the sea or a speck of sand on the beach belongs to the Zionists. It has all been stolen.

As soon as the elections were over, ‘kingmaker’ Lieberman, leading the party of Russian ‘immigrants’ to an illegally occupied land, started stitching together a ‘national unity’ government. As excited or as preoccupied with the process as the Zionist population of Palestine might be, there is no prospect of change for the Palestinians except change for the worse.

Gantz is as much a warmonger as Netanyahu or Lieberman and as the Palestinians will continue to resist occupation of their land where and when they can, as is their natural right and their right under international law, more large-scale violence is only a matter of time. In their arrogance the Zionists are ignoring all the warning signs, the cries of ‘death to Israel’ from the Houthis, the tens of thousands of missiles in Hizbullah’s armory and the determination of Iran to defend itself and its allies. The Zionists can kick the Palestinians around, but not these powerful enemies, who have behind them the support for Palestine of Muslims everywhere, not to speak of the numerous defenders of Palestine and Palestinian rights in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and many other countries.

The Zionists came to the Middle East as a ‘rampart’ of ‘western civilisation’ and that is where they have remained, on the ramparts, behind the palisades, the fences and the wall, fencing others out and fencing themselves in. They wanted to be in the Middle East but not of the Middle East. It was beneath them. They hijacked those aspects of its culture that suited them but looked down with contempt on the rest and they still do.

In any case, western domination was the accurate phrase, not western civilization. The ‘west’ has never been civilized, not in the Middle East or in any other lands against which it went to war and occupied. Rather, it has been utterly barbaric, as the word is generally understood, and Zionism has been part of that barbarism.

Not wanting to be part of the Middle East except on its own unacceptable terms, Zionism has to rely on powerful outside backers, a role currently filled by one of them, the United States. However, will it always be there to give the Zionist state the support it demands, will it always be capable of giving it the support it demands, will it ultimately be willing to put its own life on the line for a small state far away that is held in contempt by much of the world, not for bad reasons but for perfectly understandable ones, and one that is held in contempt as well by an increasing number of Americans?

Only arrogance could be the reason for the willingness of the Zionists to stake their future on such uncertainties, when for a small price, except in their own greedy eyes, they could have secured their place in the Middle East long ago. There is one other reason for their confidence, though, and that is their possession of nuclear weapons. At the worst, backs finally against the wall, they can take everyone down with them.

Take a serial killer out of the psychiatric ward, hand him a machine-gun and wait to see what happens. That is the prospect ahead of the Middle East as long as the Zionist state remains a killer at large.

– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press).

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 6 Comments

Trump’s New Security Adviser Could Boost Bid to Negotiate With Iran – Ex-White House Aide

Sputnik – September 20, 2019

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump picked hostage negotiator Robert O’Brien to replace John Bolton as national security adviser to boost efforts to engage diplomatically with countries like Iran and North Korea, former White House staffer and Middle East expert Gwenyth Todd said.

“I see O’Brien as Trump’s effort to appease [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo and the hawks while hoping to find, finally, a guy who will doggedly support and even contribute to Trump’s efforts to negotiate with countries like Iran and North Korea”, Todd, who served as a member of the White House National Security Council during the Clinton administration, said.

Trump fired Bolton, his third national security adviser in less than three years, last week due to disagreements over a range of US foreign policy issues related to Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, among others.

Although O’Brien is expected to be less of a hardliner than Bolton, he does have hawkish tendencies. In his 2016 book “While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis” O’Brien expressed hostility towards Russia and was critical of the nuclear deal with Iran.

Todd said that while appointing a hostage negotiator as security adviser “seems” like a positive step as the administration seeks new deals, it remains to be seen “if O’Brien is Trump’s man or Pompeo’s man.”

“Pompeo will likely dominate every Principal’s Committee meeting but all that matters is how the National Security Adviser words the ensuing recommendations to Trump, who wants to be offered options that include minimal kinetic solutions but maximal deal-making solutions”, she explained.

The former White House staffer also maintained that Bolton’s influence in the Trump administration had been exaggerated.

“Bolton was always there as a prop to placate the hawks. He has always been a despised blowhard in Washington and was there to be fired if Trump needed a scapegoat. I found people’s panic over Bolton’s absurd stances rather amusing because it was all for show”, she said.

With respect to Iran, Todd said it was important for people to recognise Trump’s demonstrated aversion to involving the United States in a new war.

“It would be a matter of the US kicking a hornet’s nest and then disappearing, leaving the region, including our thousands of US families deployed in the Gulf, open for a devastating retaliation from Iran, as well as from millions of Arab Shi’a and other sympathisers,” she said. “That would be horrendous for Trump’s image and legacy, which is really all that concerns him”.

Todd also said that while Trump likes to threaten raining hell down on enemies, it is all a negotiating tactic.

“He always pulls the rug out from under the hawks at the last minute and they are left with no traction”, she said.

Trump appointed O’Brien on Wednesday just as the White House weighs bombing Iran after blaming the Islamic Republic for involvement in recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities, despite the fact the Houthis claimed responsibility for the incident.

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | | 1 Comment

Iran, We Got to Do Something?

By Larry C Johnson | Sic Semper Tyrannis | September 19, 2019

Like a Japanese Kabuki dance Washington is in the grasp of War theater. Many pundits and members of Congress are filling the airwaves and offering up quotes demanding action. Demanding retaliation. We have to stand up to Iran. Only one little problem, the intel on the attack on the Saudi oil installations remains sketchy and hidden.

If the missiles were fired from Iranian territory then our intel collection certainly captured the launch or tracked the origin of the drones or missiles used in the attack. So where is it? I have heard from reliable sources that the info is being kept behind a highly classified wall and only those with access to this particular compartmented info can see it.

I only see four possibilities:

  1. The missiles/drones were launched from Iran.
  2. The missiles/drones were launched from Yemen.
  3. The missiles/drones were launched from a maritime platform in the Persian Gulf
  4. The missiles/drones were landed from a country that borders Saudi Arabia, such as Iraq.

Hmmm. I do not believe that if we had solid proof the attack came from Iranian territory that the United States would keep that info behind a Top Secret wall. I also doubt that we would try to hide the fact that the missiles/drones came from Yemen.

What if the missiles/drones came out of Iraq? That is something we would try to keep quiet. Having to admit that our “ally” (Iraq) was the origin of the attack brings with it a whole host of foreign policy problems.

Meanwhile, with scant evidence before the public the drumbeat of hitting Iran remains strong. If this were not so damn dangerous I would be amused by the irony that Trump, who was portrayed by critics as deranged madman who will launch us into a war, is the one trying to exercise caution and restraint.Colonel Lang’s earlier piece warned the President that war with Iran will ensure he is only a one term President. He knows what he is talking about. Unless we are committed to a full war with Iran and defeating the Islamic Republic on the battlefield (set aside a trillion dollars and send 500,000 troops for that effort) we should not launch any kind of air strike–e.g., fixed wing, drones or cruise missiles. The amount of force we would deliver would not cripple Iran’s capabilities.

This much is certain.   Iran has the weaponry to strike decisively against Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies of the Saudis and could severely damage Saudi Arabia’s ability to pump oil and purify water. Taking out the Saudi water supply would be more deadly and damaging than anything Iran could do to the Saudi oil infrastructure.

Then what? The political pressure in the United States to really hit back at Iran would escalate. Are you ready to pay that price? A military strike on Iran also raises the specter of the war spinning out of control and dragging in other countries. It is highly likely that oil exports from the Persian Gulf would be shutdown. That would likely touch off a global economic collapse.

We need to step back and try to define what it is that we are trying to do. Regime change in Iran? Destroy their nuclear program? Weaken Iran’s influence in the Middle East? I do not see how U.S.or Saudi airstrikes on a limited number of sensitive Iranian targets would advance any U.S. interest or objective. I am open to your suggestions and analysis.

I have said nothing about cyberwarfare. I have heard some pundits suggest we should hit Iran on that front. OK. Answer me this–whose economic system is more vulnerable to a cyber attack? The U.S. or Iran? I believe the U.S. has more to lose in such an encounter. Our economic sanctions on Iran have not made them more dependent on computer networks.

And how will Russia, China, Japan, Western Europe and India react. All but Russia rely on oil coming out of the Persian Gulf. What is the worst case for oil disruption? A responsible planner must take that into account in order to ensure the President understands the potential and long lasting ramifications of any “feel” good military strike.

Ever since the Korean War the United States public has been sold the lie that we can fight foreign wars and not have to make any sacrifices or incur any costs at home. What did our 1991 war to oust Iraq from Kuwait accomplish? We got the Iraqis back across the border and then became bogged down in trying to police Iraq for the next decade. How about the 2003 invasion of Iraq? We got rid of Saddam, ignited the ISIS threat and installed Iraqi Shias, who are beholden to Iran, in positions of power. And now we wonder how Iranian influence was able to spread throughout the region. We did that, not the mullahs.

And Afghanistan? I used to wonder how the Brits and the French fought the Hundred Years War. No longer. We seem hell bent on trying to match that record of futile conflict.

Can we defeat Iran and take out the mullahs? Sure, but at what cost? The cost would be enormous and I do not believe the American public are ready to pay the price.

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , | 3 Comments

The Climate Scam

Al Gore, vice president during US/NATO bombing of Serbia, finds religion as huckster for global warming. Art by David Dees.
By Richard Hugus | September 19, 2019

September 20, 2019 is a day of public demonstrations to address climate change. The climate change scare has seemed suspicious from the start. Except for exploiting it, the natural environment has never been a concern of the rich and powerful, yet powerful interests are everywhere behind the many organizations hyping the threat of anthropogenic global warming.

This vast theory came to mainstream acceptance far too quickly to be credible. Like so may political initiatives, it was sold to the public through fear — in this case, fear of human extinction in the very near future. No sooner did we hear of the theory than we were told “the science is settled.” At that point, belief in global warming became dogma, and skepticism became heresy. If one voices skepticism,  one is called a “denier.” Thus we are not allowed to question. This is the opposite of science. There is no protest against US, Israeli, Saudi, and NATO warmaking in the climate activist platform. In the US, the politics of climate change align with the politics of the Democratic Party, where criminal wars of aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq,  Yemen, and Syria, and constant threats against Iran are not discussed. How can you discuss environmental damage and not mention the largest polluter in the world — the Pentagon?

Cory Morningstar at The Wrong Kind of Green has written extensively about oligarch and corporate funding of the climate change juggernaut and its offshoot, the “Green New Deal.” Following is a quote from a recent essay by Cory:

As media hypes the global climate mobilizations in perfect synchronicity with a tsunami of “12 years until climate apocalypse” news articles saturating our collective psyches, global climate emergency declarations announced by states, and all levels of government, are indeed soaring. As this series has demonstrated, and as confirmed by the July 4, 2019, high-level roundtable (“Emerging from Emergency – Urgency as a Catalyst for Action and Regeneration”) this feat has been a high-level orchestrated endeavour. Indeed, the stakes could not be higher. Late-stage capitalism is faltering with economic growth in freefall. The climate mobilizations beget the declarations, beget the policy, beget the budgets, beget the finance.

The policy and legislation are instrumental to unlocking the public funds for so-called “climate infrastructure” projects (predominantly in the Global South). Infrastructure and technologies that will be paid by the citizenry, to be owned by the billionaires. We must never lose sight that the terrifying news regarding our rapidly deteriorating natural world is real, but the reason for the media saturation (spectacle) has nothing to do with protecting the natural world nor the climate – and everything to do with rebooting global economic growth and saving the capitalist system itself. Consider the Global Optimist meme shared by We Mean Business: “People are desperate for something to happen.” The message is this: No one can save you but us. Accept our solutions, or die. Another world is possible, but only if that world is designed by the ruling classes that maintain and expand current power structure. One could call this psychological manipulation, or hegemonic coercion.

This is the gentle transition into the new age of neo-feudalism. Social engineering and behavioural change campaigns have been employed to make hierarchical class invisible, in real time.

The environmental NGOs comprising the non-profit industrial complex exist as corporate front groups. They insulate, protect, and assist in the expansion of existing power structures that facilitate capitalism.

Below is an excerpt from a 2011 interview of Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. Watch McKibben quibble and lie about his funding by the Rockefellers. 350.org is a major sponsor of the great climate change protest scheduled for September 20.

Friends, we’re being had.

Source: http://www.richardhugus.com/pages/articles/Climate_scam.html

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | 6 Comments

Trump’s Real War Is With the Deep State, not Iran

By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 20, 2019

Should we chalk it up to coincidence theory that just days after Trump gives John Bolton the boot as his National Security Adviser, Iran is blamed for an attack on a Saudi oil facility, forcing Washington to forego any hope of peace with Tehran?

One day before Bolton’s abrupt departure from the White House, Trump had reportedly discussed with his security advisers the possibility of easing sanctions on Tehran in an effort to create the “right conditions” for a possible meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations later this month.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters last week. “I do believe they’d like to make a deal.”

Now we may never know how things may have turned out because one week later that comment looks like a page torn from ancient history.

On Saturday, Yemen Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for sophisticated drone attacks on the Saudi Aramco oil factory, which is situated deep inside the country, more than 1,000 kilometers away from the Yemen border. If the claims are true, it would mark a serious turning point in the four-year military ‘intervention’, which has seen US- and British-backed Saudi forces take a heavy-handed approach to extricating the rebels from the capital, Sanaa.

Yemeni military spokesman Yahya Sari said the attack involved an “accurate intelligence operation” that was assisted by “honorable and free” men working inside of the Kingdom. That televised confession, however, wasn’t going to stop the United States and its regional allies from believing what they wanted to believe, which was that Iran was solely responsible for the incident.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose pugilistic presence in the Trump administration makes Bolton’s absence seem almost imperceptible, proclaimed in a tweet that Iran is responsible for launching “an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.”

Pompeo went on to say there was “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen,” while never proving evidence the attack originated from Iran either. In other words, Trump is being pushed into a situation where he has no choice but to fight. Not the best situation for an incumbent president heading into the election season. And it certainly doesn’t help his situation when members of his own party shake the pompoms for war, as Senator Lindsey Graham did when he called for attacks on Iran’s oil refineries.

Thus, in a matter of hours, Trump has gone from being open to the idea of talking to Iran to saying the US is “locked and loaded” and just waiting to “hear from the Kingdom” before the White House takes some kind of action against the suspected perpetrator.

Incidentally, although that ominous tweet certainly got the attention of Iranian officials, it is worth noting that just over two years ago, as the war rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington was hitting its crescendo, Trump used exactly the same threatening phrase “locked and loaded.” Yet today relations between the two countries have calmed considerably and Trump even went on to become the first US leader to enter North Korea. Was Trump sending a message to Tehran? Will the maverick from Manhattan soon be strolling down the streets of Tehran, shaking hands with imams as he did Kim Jong-un? Nothing would enrage the US deep state more.

With regards to the idea that Iran was behind the attacks on the Saudi oil factory that claim sounds highly dubious. Once again, we are expected to accept the narrative that sovereign states have some sort of suicide wish, and would happily submit to a mortal self-inflicted wound at the most incongruous time (as was the case with Syria, by the way, which, as the media desperately wanted everyone to believe, decided to carry out chemical attacks against the rebels, thereby risking a full-blown attack by the US military and half of NATO).

Indeed, why would Iran, even through the use of proxy forces, risk an attack on Saudi Arabia that could set the entire Middle East alight? The idea becomes all the more preposterous when we remember that just several weeks ago, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, made a surprise visit to the G7 summit, hosted by France, where world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, were gathered. Trump, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron during a post-summit press conference, agreed to the possibility of meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani.

Trump even seemed open to the idea of backing away from current US policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran, saying he would consider providing Iran with an emergency credit line backed by its oil production.

Why would Tehran risk igniting World War III when the prospect for peace – not to mention financial relief – seems to be near at hand?

The circumstantial evidence points to the fact that Iran, as it has vociferously declared, had nothing to do with the brazen assault on Saudi Arabia. Trump, I would imagine, is probably also very wary of the accusations, spouted by none other than his own Secretary of State, since he is very familiar with such underhanded tactics due to his experience in Syria.

Thus far in his presidency, Donald Trump has been able to avoid full-blown war despite serious efforts by a consortium of concerns to trigger such an event. Despite the hawks he gathers around himself, probably in an effort to “keep his enemies closer,” as Sun Tsu recommended, Trump is clearly not enamored of the battlefield as are so many others in Washington. Trump is a businessman, and sees much more advantage in walking away from a hard-won contract than walking away from an obliterated landscape, the worst imaginable thing for a real estate developer. Nevertheless, it is a nerve-racking experience watching the author of the ‘Art of the Deal’ bluster and bluff his way against rivals right up to precipice of disaster before retreating back again to stable ground.

This strategy keeps the Deep State constantly off guard as to his real intentions, which is not about triggering World War III. How long the Deep State will tolerate such a relative atmosphere of global peace is another question, but they will certainly be doing everything in their power to ensure he does not secure another four years in the White House. And that is the tragic reality of Donald Trump’s real war.

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 3 Comments

Not a free speech platform: Facebook declares it’s a ‘publisher’ & can censor whomever it wants, walking into legal trap

RT | September 20, 2019

Facebook has invoked its free speech right as a publisher, insisting its ability to smear users as extremists is protected, but its legal immunity thus far has rested on a law which protects platforms, not publishers. Which is it?

Facebook has declared it has the right, as a publisher, to exercise its own free speech and bar conservative political performance artist Laura Loomer from its platform. Even calling her a dangerous extremist is allowed under the First Amendment, because it’s merely an opinion, Facebook claims in its motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Loomer.

But Facebook has always defined itself as a tech company providing a platform for users’ speech in the past, a definition that has come to appear increasingly ridiculous in the era of widespread politically-motivated censorship. Now, the not-so-neutral content platform has redefined itself as a publisher equipped with a whole new set of rights, but bereft of the protections that have kept it safe from legal repercussions in the past.

“Under well-established law, neither Facebook nor any other publisher can be liable for failing to publish someone else’s message,” Facebook’s motion to dismiss Loomer’s defamation suit reads, justifying its decision to ban her from the platform. It also points out that terms like “dangerous” or “promoting hate” cannot be factually verified and are thus constitutionally protected opinions for a publisher, while also claiming it never applied either term to Loomer, despite banning her from its platform under its “dangerous individuals” policy.

Defining itself as a publisher opens Facebook up to lawsuits for defamation and other liability for the content users publish, something they were previously immunized against. All the lies, personal attacks, and smears launched by users going forward can now be laid at Facebook’s feet. That’s a Pandora’s box they might not want to open, legal analyst and radio host Lionel told RT.

“Whatever they say – platform or publisher – their words will haunt them legally from now on.”

Platforms like Twitter, Google, and – until now, apparently – Facebook are protected from the legal consequences of their users’ speech by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Facebook even makes reference to section 230 later in its motion, suggesting that it is trying to have its cake and eat it too.

Lionel points out that Facebook could go back to life as a platform, if it was willing to sacrifice its usefulness to those in power by allowing some political speech to reach users and blocking the rest.

“All Facebook has to do is do what it says it is! But… you can’t be an agent of the ‘deep state’ anymore if you can’t pick and choose which information is allowed.”

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

US Diplomats in Cuba May Have Become Ill Due to Chemicals in Pesticide Fumigation – Report

Sputnik – 20.09.2019

US and Canadian diplomats in Havana, Cuba, may have become ill due to a neurotoxin used in pesticide fumigation and not by alleged sonic attacks, a clinical study commissioned by Global Affairs Canada revealed.

In August 2017, the US State Department said nearly two dozen diplomats working at the US embassy in Cuba were affected in an incident involving a mysterious audio device and some of the diplomats suffered permanent hearing loss and possible brain injuries.

“While proving the source of exposure and cause of injury is difficult, if not impossible at this time point, embassy records show a significant increase in fumigation in recent years with weekly exposure to high dose records show a significant increase in fumigation in recent years with weekly exposure to high dose pesticides in and around many diplomats’ residences,” the report, published on May 24, said.

Fumigation in Cuba increased in 2016 as the government mobilized to fight the spread of the Zika virus, the report said.

Canadian diplomats may have been more exposed to the neurotoxic agents during the routine fumigation going on around and often inside their houses, the report also said adding that the symptoms experienced by the diplomats and their families were low-dose exposure.

The clinical study consisted of a team of researchers from Halifax with the Brain Repair Center, Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Health Authority, the report noted.

Twenty-five “exposed” individuals participated in the study including 11 who others who have never lived in Havana, the report said.

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | | 2 Comments