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No, Greenland is not approaching a melting ‘tipping point’

By James Taylor | CFACT | January 1, 2020

An article on the climate activist website Inside Climate News claims Greenland is perilously close to a tipping point that will destabilize the Greenland ice sheet and result in substantial ice melt and sea level rise. The ice sheet’s stability through much warmer temperatures that lasted several thousand years during early human civilization, however, strongly contradicts the assertion.

Even climate alarmists have long acknowledged that temperatures would need to continue rising for many centuries before threatening a substantial melting of the Greenland ice sheet. A new study, however, claims that analysis of fossilized sea shells off of the coast of Greenland shows sustained warm temperatures several hundred thousand years ago indicate Greenland could eventually reach a tipping point of substantial sustained ice loss. Inside Climate News reports the authors of the study claim the sea shells indicate a similar tipping point may be just a few decades away.

“Our best estimate suggests that modest warming was able to dramatically reduce the parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet that are hard to melt away,” said one of the authors of the study, according to Inside Climate News.

Large sections of the ice sheet could melt “due to only a small increase in temperatures relative to today,” said the author.

However, peer-reviewed scientific research and even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have long established that temperatures remained much warmer than today for 4,000 years, during a period between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago. Yet the Greenland ice sheet did not experience any such tipping point.

No, Greenland is not approaching a melting ‘tipping point’

Figure 1: Global temperatures were much warmer than today during the Holocene Maximum and remained that way for thousands of years. Chart published in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change First Assessment Report.

Data published by the UN IPCC show quite clearly that temperatures can be much warmer than today and remain that way for thousands of years without reaching a tipping point for the Greenland ice sheet. But that won’t stop alarmists from continuing to assert their Climate Delusion that defies scientific facts.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Shutter the US Embassy in Iraq

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | January 1, 2020

This week, amid protests by people upset with United States intervention in Iraq, individuals forced their way into and damaged the US embassy compound in Baghdad. In response, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper declared on Tuesday that 750 additional US troops would be deployed immediately to the Middle East, and it was reported that anonymous US officials said thousands more could be sent there soon.

Here is another option to consider: End US intervention and sanctions, along with the threat of both, that stir up resentment toward the US in Iraq and elsewhere. Announcing the relocating and major downsizing of the huge US embassy in Iraq would help show the US is serious about following through.

If the US embassy in Iraq were intended to accomplish peaceful and diplomatic tasks, it would be much smaller, in line with the size of other embassies in countries with similar characteristics in areas such as population size and levels of trade and travel between them and America. Instead, in Baghdad the US has its largest embassy, even larger than US embassies in Mexico and Canada, two countries that share long borders with America and have very much larger amounts of trade and travel between them and America.

Built by the US government after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the US embassy in Baghdad is an important part of the continuing US government effort to exert control in the country and the larger region. Indeed, then-US House of Representatives member Ron Paul (R-TX) included the continuing presence of the gigantic embassy in Baghdad as part of his explanation of why President Barack Obama’s 2011 announcement of the withdrawal of some US troops from Iraq was of much less significance than many reports then suggested. Paul wrote in a November of 2011 editorial:

Some 39,000 American troops will supposedly be headed home by the end of the year. However, the US embassy in Iraq, which is the largest and most expensive in the world, is not being abandoned. Upwards of 17,000 military personnel and private security contractors will remain in Iraq to guard diplomatic personnel, continue training Iraqi forces, maintain “situational awareness” and other functions. This is still a significant American footprint in the country.

Eight years later, the embassy remains and rampant US intervention in both Iraq and the larger region persists. Instead of continuing the policy of intervention, President Trump could implement the policy reversal Paul endorsed in his editorial. Paul wrote: “I have long said that we should simply declare victory and come home.” That would be nice. However, escalation appears to be in the cards.

Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 1 Comment

Post-Iraq war US intel report predicting 2020 looks ‘eerily prescient’ only compared to agencies’ political blunders

By Helen Buyniski | RT | January 1, 2020

A 15-year-old intel report predicting the world of 2020 has been hailed for its accuracy, but much of the future it describes was already underway in 2004. Could today’s hyper-politicized intelligence community see even that much?

Rolling out a list of “eerily prescient” predictions in order to brag about their accuracy – no flying cars here! – the National Intelligence Council (NIC) report is just what one might expect from an intel community desperate to shore up its reputation ahead of what’s sure to be a hotly contested presidential election.

Intel vets have lamented that the intelligence community has become politicized, to the point where it has affected their ability to accurately and objectively describe the reality in front of them – never mind the world 15 years in the future. The NIC paper may thus represent a lost art of apolitical prognostication, a skill willingly sacrificed in the rush for modern spooks to prove themselves “team players.” After the near-fatal blow to its credibility dealt by the three-year Russiagate debacle, US intelligence has a long way to go to build its reputation back.

But US intelligence has played enough of a role in crafting the world of 2020 that at least some of the report’s predictions have to be viewed as plans and suggestions rather than prognostication. Revelations about the CIA’s role in funding and training Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, supplying weapons which often ended up in the hands of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists through Operation “Timber Sycamore,” cast the report’s “fictional scenario” about “a new caliphate” whose adherents include Osama bin Laden’s grandson in a more sinister light. Like IS, the fictional caliphate described by the NIC inspires “non-practicing Muslims” from Europe and America to return to their ancestral homelands and take up arms against the “infidels”; also like IS, they seize large swaths of territory in an Iraq weakened by years of war. With plans to regime-change “seven countries in five years” in the Middle East already underway in 2004, according to retired General Wesley Clark, both imagined and real caliphate dovetailed nicely with US foreign policy aims of remaking the region in its image.

Meanwhile, a scenario titled “Cycle of Fear” in which an “Orwellian world” arises from crippling fear of terrorism is almost a wink to the reader, coming just a few short years after the September 11 attacks spawned the Patriot Act and a draconian reduction in Americans’ civil liberties. The NIC report was published years before NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks began to reveal the disturbing extent of the US surveillance state, and Americans in 2004 were for the most part blissfully ignorant about how much they were being spied on – but the NSA, which consulted on the NIC paper, certainly wasn’t.

Other predictions are so obvious that holding them up as a sign of predictive genius is almost laughable. Anticipating a US confrontation with North Korea didn’t take any special skills – then-president George W. Bush had labeled the country part of the “Axis of Evil” alongside Iraq and Iran in 2002, presumably tagging it for eventual regime change. Nor did predicting China’s growth and dominance in the world economy require any great insight – it was already the second-largest global economy in 2004, with its GDP growing at over twice the rate of the US. And a warning against nation-building – a failure the US had already experienced in Afghanistan by 2004 – is hardly prescient; it simply hasn’t been heeded in the intervening 15 years.

Sure, the report nailed a shift in global alliances, with rising economies like the BRICS countries increasingly making their presence felt on the geopolitical stage. But betting global alliances will shift within a 15-year timeframe isn’t exactly clairvoyance.

Unfortunately, the NIC chose to end on an optimistic note, coincidentally the least-likely scenario – a so-called “Pax Americana” in which Europe, devastated by a series of terrorist attacks and “more unified than some of our American friends imagined,” runs into the arms of the US “imploring America to get tough on terrorism.” Even looking beyond the name – “Pax” means “peace,” something a nation with military bases in at least 80 countries knows little about – this hypothetical future has aged particularly badly in the era of Brexit encouraging other European countries to mull seeking independence from the union.

“Even as the existing order is threatened, the United States will have many opportunities to fashion a new one,” the report concludes. The stubborn optimism of the intelligence community of 2004 – just three years into what has become nearly two decades of non-stop war, triggered in part by that community’s own intel failures – is much more “eerie” than any resemblance of its fortune-telling to the real world of 2020. It’s not hard to see how the slight disconnect with reality on display here mushroomed into the chasm separating today’s intelligence community from the real world.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Deception | , , | 2 Comments

Declassified files reveal British establishment’s fear of online Irish Republican activity

Sinn Féin has consistently outsmarted the UK in the propaganda war
Press TV – December 31, 2019

Newly declassified files reveal that the British government had anticipated Irish Republican prowess in the online information warfare arena.

According to newly released state papers, the British establishment – led by the intelligence and security community – was fearful of the successful use of the internet for “propaganda purposes” by Irish Republicans, as early as the mid-1990s.

The potential threat to British national security from a Sinn Féin website (in the early days of the internet) was raised by then minister of state at the Home Office, David Maclean.

In a letter to Sir John Wheeler, the then Northern Ireland Office minister, dated March 12, 1996, Maclean wrote: “Amongst the unsavoury nasties were these very professionally produced pages, apparently showing our complete [military] deployment in NI”.

“It horrifies me to find such dangerous and nasty propaganda on the internet”. Maclean added by referencing enclosed documents from the Sinn Féin website which supplied details of British military, Royal Navy, RAF and Royal Irish Regiment numbers.

Maclean tried to raise the issue again in April 1996 at the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) Security Information Group meeting at Stormont Castle.

According to the declassified files, whilst officials learnt that the NIO had a website, it was noted that it was inferior to Sinn Féin’s “sophisticated” website.

The release of the declassified material from a quarter of a century ago coincides with the resurgence of the Irish Unity movement spearheaded by Sinn Féin and other nationalist groups.

Reflecting the growing anxiety of the British establishment, Jonathan Powell, who is a former senior diplomat and Downing Street Chief of Staff under Tony Bair, said recently that Brexit “could lead” to a United Ireland “within a decade”.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

We Were Warned About the Deep State, but Refused to Listen

By Larry Johnson | Sic Semper Tyrannis | December 30, 2019

Many of the critical tools employed in the coup to paint Donald Trump as a tool of the Russians and to manufacture a pretext for removing him from office, were created more than twenty years ago. I am talking about the surveillance state that the American electorate has ignorantly accepted as necessary in order to keep us safe from terrorists. Despite previous warning from whistleblowers like Russ Tice, Bill Binney, Ed Loomis and Kird Wiebe, no action to rein in the surveillance monster was taken until Edward Snowden absconded with the documents exposing the vast amount spying that the U.S. Government is doing to its own citizens. But even those weak efforts to supposedly rein in the NSA proved to be nothing more than mere window dressing.

The spying got worse. Just ask Donald Trump and the members of his campaign that were targeted first by the CIA and NSA and then by the FBI. Fundamental civil rights were trampled.

The real irony in all of this is that Barack Obama, as President, took credit for helping revise the laws in order to prevent the spying exposed by Edward Snowden. But under the Obama Administration, spying on political opponents–both real and perceived–escalated. We know for a fact that journalists, such as James Rosen and Sheryl Atkinson, were targets and their communications and computers attacked by the U.S. Government.

We know, thanks to a memo released by Judge Rosemary Collyer, that “FBI consultants” were making illegal searches of NSA material using the names of Donald Trump, his family and members of his campaign staff.

Some of this NSA material came courtesy of the Brits and their collection on U.S. targets. Some of this material came from the NSA’s own collection and storage of all electronic communications and was obtained using a nifty NSA tool called XKEYSCORE. Listen to Ed Snowden’s description. Also, take time to appreciate the irony that CNN and other journalists were actually trying to report real news. Now they are full blown apologists for the abuse of the intelligence collection tools.

Six years ago, former NSA Technical Director for Military and Geopolitical Issues, Bill Binney, and Russ Tice, a former NSA analyst, appeared on the PBS News Hour. Once again, they make very clear the enormous nature to the threat to our civil liberties.

Too bad Donald Trump did not listen to their warning.

Given the robust, wide ranging ability of the NSA to probe all communications by any person in the United States, it is remarkable that no real dirt on Donald Trump was ever uncovered. Had such information existed, it would be in the NSA’s storage vaults in Utah and crooked CIA analysts under Brennan’s direction would have found it and used it. But that did not happed. The best the intel folks could fabricate were the salacious claims attributed to reports ostensibly created by former British spy, Christopher Steele. Turns out that the titillating account that Trump hired hookers to perform coprophilia (could of been worse, coprophagia) was nothing more than idle bar talk.

What has happened to Donald Trump can happen to any of us. It is time to take this threat seriously and put the intel agencies back into a properly monitored corral. Otherwise, we will lose this Republic.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | 4 Comments

Embracing Palestine: How to Combat Israel’s Misuse of ‘Antisemitism’

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 1, 2020

At a talk I delivered in Northern England in March 2018, I proposed that the best response to falsified accusations of antisemitism, which are often lobbed against pro-Palestinian communities and intellectuals everywhere, is to draw even closer to the Palestinian narrative.

In fact, my proposal was not meant to be a sentimental response in any way.

“Reclaiming the Palestinian narrative” has been the main theme in most of my public speeches and writings in recent years. All of my books, much of my academic studies and research have largely focused on positioning the Palestinian people – their rights, their history, their culture, and their political aspirations – at the very core of any genuine understanding of the Palestinian struggle, against Israeli colonialism and apartheid.

True, there was nothing particularly special about my talk in Northern England. I had already delivered a version of that speech in other parts of the UK, Europe and elsewhere. But what made that event memorable is a conversation I had with a passionate activist, who introduced himself as an advisor to the office of the head of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

Although the activist agreed with me regarding the need to embrace the Palestinian narrative, he insisted that the best way for Corbyn to deflect anti-Semitic accusations, which have dogged his leadership since day one, is for Labour to issue a sweeping and decisive condemnation of antisemitism, so that Corbyn may silence his critics and he is finally able to focus on the pressing subject of Palestinian rights.

I was doubtful. I explained to the animated and self-assured activist that Zionist manipulation and misuse of antisemitism is a phenomenon that has preceded Corbyn by many decades, and will always be there as long as the Israeli government finds the need to distract from its war crimes against Palestinians and to crush pro-Palestinian solidarity worldwide.

I explained to him that while anti-Jewish racism is a real phenomenon that must be confronted, “antisemitism” as defined by Israel and its Zionist allies is not a moral question that is meant to be solved by a press release, no matter how strongly-worded. Rather, it is a smokescreen, with the ultimate aim is of distracting from the real conversation, that being the crimes of military occupation, racism, and apartheid in Palestine.

In other words, no amount of talking, debating or defending oneself can possibly convince the Zionists that demanding an end to the Israeli military occupation in Palestine or the dismantling of the Israeli apartheid regime, or genuine criticism of the policies of Israel’s right-wing government are not, in fact, acts of antisemitism.

Alas, the activist insisted that a strong statement that would clarify Labour’s position on antisemitism would finally absolve Corbyn and protect his legacy against the undeserved smearing.

The rest is history. Labour went into a witch-hunt, to catch the “true” anti-Semites among its members. The unprecedented purge has reached many good people who have dedicated years in serving their communities and defending human rights in Palestine and elsewhere.

The statement to end all statements was followed by many others. Numerous articles and arguments were written and made in defense of Corbyn. To no avail. Only a few days before Labour lost the general election in December, the Simon Wiesenthal Center named Corbyn, one of Britain’s most sincere and well-intentioned leaders in the modern era, as the “top anti-Semite of 2019”. So much for engaging the Zionists.

It doesn’t matter whether Corbyn’s party lost the elections in part because of Zionist smearing and unfounded anti-Semitic accusations. What, for me, as a Palestinian intellectual who has hoped that Corbyn’s leadership will constitute a paradigm shift regarding the country’s attitude towards Israel and Palestine truly matters, is the fact that the Zionists have indeed succeeded in keeping the conversation focused on Israeli priorities and Zionist sensibilities. It saddens me that while Palestine should have occupied the center stage, at least during Corbyn’s leadership years, it was still marginalized as if solidarity with Palestine has become a political liability to anyone hoping to win an election, not just in the UK but anywhere in the West as well.

I find it puzzling, indeed disturbing, that Israel, directly or otherwise, is able to determine the nature of any discussion on Palestine in the West, not only within typical mainstream platforms but within pro-Palestinians circles as well. For example, I have heard repeatedly, activists questioning whether the one-state solution is at all possible because “Israel simply would never accept it”.

I often challenge my audiences to base their solidarity with Palestine on real love, support, and admiration for the Palestinian people, for their history, their anti-colonial struggle, and the thousands of heroes and heroines who have sacrificed their own lives so that their people may live in freedom.

How many of us can name Palestine’s top poets, artists, feminists, football players, singers, and historians? How familiar are we, really, with Palestinian geography, the intricacies of its politics, and the richness of its culture?

Even in platforms that are sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle, there is an inherent fear that such sympathy could be misconstrued as antisemitism to the extent that Palestinian voices are often neglected, if not at all supplanted with anti-Zionist Jewish voices. I see this happening quite often, and it is becoming a common occurrence even within Middle Eastern media that supposedly champions the Palestinian cause.

This phenomenon is largely linked to Palestine and Palestine only. While the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and the civil rights struggle in the United States – as was the case of many genuine anti-colonial liberation movements around the world – have strategically used intersectionality to link with other groups, locally, nationally or internationally, the movements themselves relied on black voices as true representatives of their peoples’ struggles.

Historically, Palestinians haven’t always been marginalized within their own discourse. Once upon a time, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), despite of its many shortcomings and mistakes, provided unified Palestinian political discourse which served as a litmus test for any individual, group or government regarding their position on Palestinian rights and freedom.

The Oslo accords ended all of that; it fragmented the Palestinian discourse, as it has also divided the Palestinian people. Since then, the message emanating from Palestine has become muddled, factionalised and often self-defeating. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) has done a tremendous job in bringing some clarity by attempting to articulate a universal Palestinian discourse.

However, BDS is yet to yield a centralised political strategy that communicated through a democratically elected Palestinian body. As long as the PLO persists in its inertia, and without a truly democratic alternative, the crisis of the Palestinian political discourse is likely to continue.

Concurrently, the Zionists must not be allowed to determine the nature of our solidarity with the Palestinian people. While true Palestinian solidarity requires the complete rejection of all forms of racism, including antisemitism, the pro-Israel camp must be sidelined entirely from any conversation pertaining to the values and morality of what it means to be “pro-Palestine”.

To be anti-Zionist is not the same as being pro-Palestine, the former emanating from the rejection of racist, Zionist ideas and the latter indicating real connection and bond with Palestine and her people.

To be pro-Palestine is also to respect the centrality of the Palestinian voice, because without the Palestinian narrative there can be no real or meaningful solidarity, and because, ultimately it will be the Palestinian people who will liberate themselves.

“I am not a liberator,” once said the iconic South American revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. “Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves”.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | 1 Comment

Uiyghur “Activist” Quickly Exposed As CIA Asset Slandering China

By R S Ahthion | December 12, 2019

Rushan Abbas an Uyghur “activist” has worked for a long list of US regime change organisations from US State Dept, Dept of Justice, Radio Free Asia, Homeland Security and even Guantanamo Bay

A map of the countries that support and denounce Chinas handling of it’s Uiyghur security problem. Doesn’t take much of a glance to realise that Muslim countries support China and the people that denounce China are the same ones that have been bombing, murdering and torturing Muslims for the last 2 decades straight. In fact if you overlaid the countries that denounce China’s policy you basically have a map of NATO.

Last night an AMA started on Reddit claiming: “Hi, I’m Rushan Abbas. I’m one of the Uyghur People of central Asia, and the Chinese Government has locked up many of my friends and relatives in concentration camps.”

For those not sure what any of the above words mean Reddit is a social media site. And an “AMA” stands for Ask Me Anything. Many celebrities have done AMA’s as well as regular folk (if you wanted to ask a doctor/farmer etc. what their daily life entails). The format (unsurprisingly) is one of people asking them questions and the celebrity/person responding.

This AMA was, quite predictably, a long list of propaganda aimed at China and Rushan Abbas advising further trade war against China could be “something Western Countries can do”

Also plugging a narrative that China is some kind of Nazi Germany. This kind of atrocity propaganda being a staple of US regime change. We need not forget the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident to justify the Vietnam war. Hilary Clinton claiming Ghaddaffi handed out Viagra to soldiers to rape to justify destroying the most successful country on the continent of Africa (Libya).

Anyone else remember WMDs in Iraq and 45 seconds to launch?

Incubator babies in Iraq? (to justify the first invasion in the 1990s).

She also bandies about “3 million Uyghurs in camps”.

The original number was “1 million” which has since been disproved by the excellent Grayzone.

This seems to be a staple of shitlibs. To just say an outlandish ridiculous and easily disprovable claim but hope it sticks. However the fake news media (from WaPo to NYTimes ) are more than happy to run with it. Just a coincidence a trade war between US and China is on, right?

However using the Archive.org website which holds archives of other websites someone discovered a page with a Rushan Abbas on it. And what we learn there is she’s essentially a US intelligence asset

Rushan Abbas brings over 15 years of experience in global business development, strategic business analysis, business consultancy and government affairs throughout the Middle East, Africa, CIS regions, Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and Latin America. She also has extensive experience working with U.S. government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defence, Department of State, Department of Justice, and various U.S. intelligence agencies. In her role at ISI Consultants, Ms. Abbas leads the business development activities of the firm, which includes developing and leveraging international relationships to serve our clients. She also acts as the firm’s key liaison with US and foreign government departments, agencies and embassies in support of international business efforts. Before joining ISI Consultants, Ms. Abbas was the Director for International Business at Leo A. Daly, an internationally recognized leader in the design of the built environment that is consistently ranked among the top design firms in the world. Prior to that, she ran her own consulting firm, working with companies on the set-up, development and implementation of their international business and providing market intelligence and consumer insight to capitalize on new business opportunities in international markets. Ms. Abbas also served as International Marketing Liaison at Pelco (a subsidiary of Schneider Electric) and as International Business Development Manager at Perity Land Inc. the largest commodity exporter in North America. She was also employed at L-3, as a consultant at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, supporting Operation Enduring Freedom during 2002- 2003 and as a news reporter at Radio Free Asia. Ms. Abbas has also worked as a linguist and translator for several federal agencies including work for the US State Department in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and for President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush. Ms. Abbas holds a Bachelor of Science from Xinjiang University in China and completed a graduate program in International Business from California State University in Fresno. Outside of work Ms. Abbas has been an active campaigner for human rights and works closely with members of U.S. Senate, Congressional Committees, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the U.S. Department of State and several other US government departments and agencies.

In a surreal read she has worked for almost every arm of the US regime change machine: from Radio free Asia, US State department, Homeland Security, Department of justice and “various US intelligence agencies”.

So tied to the United States she even worked at Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration.

Given she worked at Guantanamo Bay it would be interesting to find out her role there. Was she a translator while the CIA torturers beat, shackled, sleep deprived and water boarded detainees against the Geneva convention?

As displayed in a recent article in how the West is ramping up hybrid warfare against China, the NED ( a regime change arm of the United States) proudly displays the fact they pour 22 million US dollars into the Xinjiang region to fuel separatism.

Apparently this is enough to get you an AMA on reddit.

A screenshot of Rushan Abbas’s page when she was an ISI consultant:

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 4 Comments

Israel’s countdown to achieve the ‘alternative homeland’ in Jordan begins

By Dr Adnan Abu Amer | MEMO | January 1, 2020

The Israeli right is preparing to present a plan to overthrow the Jordanian king after annexing the Jordan Valley in the West Bank to realise the dream of Jordan being converted to Palestine. They aim to establish a confederation between the PA and “Palestinian Jordan” because the Israeli right is interested in annexing the West Bank without the millions of Palestinians within it. Forcing them to head to Jordan.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper revealed in late December the Israeli right-wing’s approaches and plans, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is based on the claims that Israel has major plans for Jordan, but these plans do not include the same king. This is evidenced by several articles and reports written by right-wing Israeli writers this month who all present similar justifications and results, the main of them all is to destroy the peace treaty with Jordan.

Right-wing Israelis believe that annexing the Jordan Valley is a tactical operation aimed at hitting two Israeli birds with one stone: the first is to work to annex the West Bank and cancel the peace agreement with Jordan, and the second is to topple the Hashemite royal family and to embody the dream of Jordan being Palestine.

It is interesting that this dream is shared by all the Israeli right, with all its components and currents, because they are enthusiastic supporters of the idea that Jordan is Palestine. The ruling Israeli right has begun to detest King Abdullah II.

When King Abdullah is shamefully toppled, Israel will be able to complete its annexation of the West Bank and establish a confederation between the Palestinian Authority and “Palestinian Jordan”.

Moreover, according to the Israeli perception, when that happens, the Palestinians in the West Bank will obtain political rights in Jordan.

According to this Israeli theory, when the Palestinian state is established in Jordan, the Palestinians can resolve their issue, put an end to their suffering and stop using armed operations against Israel, because since 1988, Palestinians in the West Bank have been able to obtain temporary Jordanian passports.

It is worth noting that the Israeli approach may contradict Jordan’s interest in reducing the total number of Palestinians in the kingdom because it refuses at the moment to receive Palestinian refugees from Syria in the way it allowed Syrian and Iraqi refugees to seek refuge on its soil.

Perhaps such aspirational Israeli calls towards Jordan are encouraged by the fact that the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is no longer practical or realistic. Meanwhile, there are claims that the alternative solution is the establishment of an Arab Palestinian state east of the Jordan River, which will achieve peace between Israel and Palestine. They also claim that the river can be used to transport goods and products from either side, with the Israeli Jewish state on one side and the Arab Palestinian country on the other, side by side.

There is another Israeli scenario of Jordan hosting more Palestinians and instead of the kingdom becoming a Palestinian republic, they become citizens with full rights in the Hashemite Kingdom.

The return of Gilad Sharon after a long absence was noteworthy. He is the son of the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had strong relations with the late King Hussein, King Abdullah’s father. Gilad Sharon returned to claim that the current Jordanian king would not dare to oppose the annexation of the Jordan Valley by Israel, because Israel has him by his weak spot and the continuation of his rule depends on Israel. He also said that if the king opened his mouth, Israel would turn off the water tap and leave the kingdom to go thirsty.

All these are efforts to drive the king to cancel the peace agreement with Israel and allow Tel Aviv to remove him.

King Abdullah finds himself caught between the anger of the Jordanian public and Israel. The situation of his government has become really difficult because his country’s budget is suffering, the sources of income are declining, the Gulf states, which have always been a source of support for Jordan, have reduced their aid, and millions of Arab refugees have flocked to the kingdom in recent years.

In spite of the increase of tensions between Jordan and Israel over the past year, security coordination between them continues as usual and the intelligence cooperation is at its best. This raises questions about the king failing to use this card to pressure Israel unless this cooperation serves him and not the kingdom.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 3 Comments

America’s New War: Let’s Not Pretend That Iraqi Paramilitaries Drew First Blood

The undeclared US-Israeli hunting season on Iraqi militias had been going on for months before the first US casualty

By Marko Marjanović | Checkpoint Asia | January 1, 2020

As the Trump administration would have it history began yesterday. On December 27 A rocket salvo struck a US base near Kirkuk killing a US contractor and wounding four US soldiers, as well as, according to the Americans, two Iraqi soldiers.

So two days later the US — deducing that the attack must have come from the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary that right now hates the Americans’ guts the most — bombed five Kataib facilities on the Iraq-Syrian border, ie nowhere near Kirkuk, killing 25 and wounding 55 Kataib paramilitaries that almost certainly had nothing to do with the Kirkuk base attack themselves.

So according to the Americans albeit their airstrikes, against an outfit that is formally part of Iraq’s official security forces, may have technically violated Iraqi sovereignty that is a technicality since the paramilitary is a proxy for Iran, and in any case these Iranian proxies started it by killing an American first in attacks on guests of the Iraqi government.

Americans also suppose that since they have been granted basing rights in Iraq and the right to act militarily (against ISIS) on Iraq’s territory that comes with the right to defend themselves.

Americans also emphasize the attack allegedly by Kataib also wounded two Iraqi soldiers.

So the American telling is something like‘Iranian proxies are attacking us who are guests of the Iraqi government and hurting Iraqi servicemen in the process, so we bombed them to defend ourselves and teach them a lesson.’

On its face that sounds almost reasonable, but there are a number of problems with such a statement.

First, as probably the single most influential man in Iraq, the Shia cleric al-Sistani pointed out, even if it were true that Kataib paramilitaries had gone rogue in attacking US facilities it does not follow that Americans, a foreign military with mere basing rights, have the liberty to take matters into their own hands and be the judge, jury and executioner in revenge attacks on a state-sanctioned paramilitary 500 kilometers from the place of the actual attack on the US base.

Second, there is a matter of scale. Because “Iranian proxies” (as Americans would have it) injured a pair of Iraqi servicemen that does not follow Americans are now entitled to kill or wound seventy-seven Kataib paramilitaries who are also Iraqi servicemen.

Third, unlike the Trump gang would have it, history did not begin on December 27th. Between July 19 and September 22 Iraqi paramilitaries were hit in their Iraqi bases on at least eight different occasions. In August the Israeli PM Netanyahu confirmed that Israel was carrying out these strikes “against Iranian consolidation”. (That was also just the latest escalation on top of Israeli strikes on Iraqi paramilitaries positioned against ISIS in eastern Syria.)

However, as Iraqis fully understand Israel does not have the capability to strike targets in Iraq (and eastern Syria) without US logistical and intelligence support and the political go-ahead. These were Israeli drone strikes but originating in US/Kurdish-controlled NE Syria and using US-controlled airspace. What is more, quite possibly the Americans were using their presence in Iraq to supply Israelis with intelligence on Kataib and other paramilitaries.

It is also around this time that small-scale artillery (mainly mortar) attacks on US facilities in Iraq started. The only thing new about the December 27 attack was that it resulted in a US fatality. So no, Iraqi paramilitaries did not all of a sudden, and out of the blue, start targeting Americans in Iraq because they are such obedient Iranian proxies, and on the behalf of Tehran, but because they were being killed in their own country (and in neighboring Syria) and the US was to blame.

There have quite possibly been 100 Iraqi paramilitary fatalities in Iraq alone, before the first American died in a retaliatory attack. The blame here is not on Iran, the blame is on those who decided to pull Netanyahu’s chestnuts out of the fire even if it risked US troops in the region.

The only surprising thing about all of this has been how long it took for the backlash to catch up with the Trump gang. So of course instead of counting their lucky stars they went and escalated, so now they are going to reap a bigger backlash, quite possibly in the form of a renewed legal effort to oust them, albeit the nationalist Sadr has said he’ll be looking into “other means” if that doesn’t pan out.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | 2 Comments

Trump says he ‘does not see war with Iran happening’ hours after issuing a ‘threat’ against Tehran

RT | January 1, 2020

US President Donald Trump has said that the US is not gearing up for war with Iran, adding that he prefers peace to war. It comes just hours after the US leader upped the ante, making a pointed threat against Tehran on Twitter.

With simmering tensions between Tehran and Washington flaring up over the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad, which the US blamed squarely on Iran without providing any proof, there have been growing fears that another war of words could spiral into something far more violent.

In an apparent attempt to diffuse the tension, Trump said late Tuesday that he does not foresee a war actually breaking out between the US and Iran.

“War with Iran? I don’t think that would be a good idea for Iran… I like peace… I don’t see that happening,” Trump said speaking to media as he arrived at the grand ballroom at Mar-a-Lago for a New Year bash on Tuesday night.

Teheran has vehemently denied all the allegations that it is somehow complicit in the unrest sparked by the US airstrikes that killed 25 members of the Iraqi Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah over the weekend.

The American sorties have drawn ire from the Iraqi government, calling the bombing a violation of the country’s sovereignty as well as of militiamen and ordinary citizens who flocked to the US embassy in Iraq to protest the airstrikes.

Protests turned violent on Tuesday as demonstrators attempted to storm the compound, and saw US attack helicopters being scrambled to scatter the protesters after they reportedly breached the front gate.

In the wake of the attack, the Pentagon announced that it would send 750 paratroopers to the Middle East “immediately” in response to the incident, which will be followed by “additional forces.” Washington has repeatedly invoked the “Iranian threat” to beef up its military presence in the region, having deployed some 14,000 troops to the Middle East since May 2019 in addition to about 60,000 already stationed there.

January 1, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | 8 Comments