Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Wallace sounds alarm bell on future UK-US defence ties

Press TV – January 12, 2020

Defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has warned that in future Britain may have to contemplate fighting wars without the United States.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wallace made the extraordinary claim that the prospect of the United States retreating from a global leadership role under Donald Trump keeps him “awake at night”.

In comments that is bound to raise eyebrows in defence circles around the world, Wallace claimed that the UK needs to “rethink” military assumptions in place since 2010, which have centred on close partnership with US armed forces.

The defence secretary said that the government should use the “upcoming defence review” to purchase new kit to ensure that the British armed forces are less dependent on American air cover and spy planes in future wars.

According to Wallace, the UK is preparing to conduct the “deepest review” of the country’s defence, security and foreign policy since the “end of the Cold War”.

Wallace appears to be worried about Trump’s putative “isolationist” tendencies and its impact on Britain’s military and security posture going forward.

“Over the last year we’ve had the US pull out from Syria, the statement by Donald Trump on Iraq where he said NATO should take over and do more in the Middle East”, Wallace said.

Wallace’s sweeping prediction will strike many defence analysts as odd, at least in immediate terms, and in view of the fact that the UK has given every indication it is prepared to join the US in conducting military operations against Iran.

January 12, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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

By Dr. Robert P. Abele | Global Research | January 10, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

Copyright © Dr. Robert P. Abele, Global Research, 2020

January 12, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Tel Aviv calls for Gulf States to unite with Israel against Iran

MEMO | January 11, 2020

Former Israeli communication minister, Ayoob Kara, has called for the Gulf States to form a security and economic “union” with Israel, to stand against Iran at all levels, Shehab News Agency reported on Friday.

Kara, who is very close to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on Twitter that the goal of this “union” is to be a “strong front in the face of Iranian evil.”

The tweet came after the Iranian declaration that Iran would turn its hostile arms against Haifa and Dubai. In his tweet, Kara announces: “It is time that the States of the Arab Gulf come together with Israel in a security and economic union to stand against Iran’s threats in the Middle East.”

 

January 11, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US destroyer crossed course of Russian Navy ship in Arabian Sea, Defense Ministry says

Russian Defense Ministry: Unprofessional actions by US destroyer crew “are an intentional violation of international regulations of safety of navigation”

TASS | January 11, 2020

MOSCOW – The US destroyer crossed traffic lane of the Russian Navy ship in the Arabian Sea, as the American crew was acting unprofessionally, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The Defense Ministry pointed out that the 1972 Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea defines that “when two power-driven vessels are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way.”

“Therefore, on January 9, 2020 the US Navy destroyer, which was on the left from the traffic lane of the Russian Navy ship sailing ahead, grossly violated the international regulations for preventing collisions at sea, by maneuvering to cross its course,” the Defense Ministry said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, unprofessional actions by the US destroyer crew “are an intentional violation of international regulations of safety of navigation.”

Along with this, Russia’s Defense Ministry said the US Fifth Fleet’s statement that a Russian Navy ship “aggressively approached” USS Farragut is not true.

“A widely publicized statement by representatives of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet that a Russian Navy ship allegedly ‘aggressively approached’ USS Farragut destroyer in the Arabian Sea is not true,” the statement said.

The Russian Defense Ministry pointed out that “the crew of a Russian naval ship acted professionally making a maneuver which made it possible to prevent collision with the intruder ship.” The fact was filmed by onboard cameras of the US Navy Fifth Fleet’s destroyer posted on Twitter, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Earlier, the US Fifth Fleet released a statement accusing the Russian warship of “aggressively approaching” USS Farragut. Footage showing the Ivan Hurs, a Russian Project 18280-class intelligence-gathering vessel, was attached to the post.

January 11, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Maximum Failure: Trump’s Convulsive North Korea Strategy Can’t Bring Kim to the Table

By Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter – Libertarian Institute – January 9, 2020

Through a combination of myopic diplomacy and disastrous personnel picks, President Donald Trump has wasted a chance to fundamentally remake US relations with North Korea, throwing away a “Nixon goes to China” moment in exchange for a confused “maximum pressure” campaign that’s delivered the same failures of previous administrations. Having missed Pyongyang’s year-end deadline to revive stalled talks, the defects of Trump’s North Korea strategy are on full display.

Ditching Detente

On the campaign trail in 2016, then-candidate Trump took unusually dovish stances on North Korea for a Republican nominee. From openly considering whether to withdraw some of the 30,000 American troops stationed in South Korea, to even inviting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for an unprecedented visit to the US, Trump at the very least appeared willing to talk – “an overture that would upend three decades of American diplomacy,” the Times told us.

Even after Trump took office, there were early plans for informal talks with North Korean officials, but the trend would soon die. The meetings were abruptly called off, and the president’s first Defense Secretary, James Mattis, was dispatched to Seoul to assure that no troop withdrawal would take place. Trump’s flirtation with detente was only momentary, but it panicked Washington zealots committed to endless hostility with North Korea, some of whom ended up with jobs in the new administration.

So began months of “fire and fury,” which saw the two sides trading threats, the Pentagon carrying out its regular joint war games with South Korea – rehearsing an invasion of the North – and Pyongyang responding with a variety of weapons tests. Casting aside the friendlier tack put forward on the campaign trail, Trump embarked on a “maximum pressure” campaign, leveraging sanctions and tough rhetoric to push North Korea to bow to the American diktat, disarm and effectively surrender.

Freeze for Freeze

While the corporate press was focused on the war of words between Trump and Kim, however, a true believer in Korean peace was elected president in South Korea: Moon Jae-in. The new leader would serve as a counterweight to the hawks in Trump’s ear, making for a convulsive US policy which shifted erratically between open hostility and willingness to talk.

Despite the rising tension at the time, President Moon led a successful effort to see the two Koreas compete under the same flag in the 2018 Winter Olympics, a significant step away from Trump’s tweets of “war and annihilation,” and one which was at least tacitly accepted by Washington.

The symbolic victory of the Olympic games created momentum for Trump’s first summit with Pyongyang – the first ever meeting between an American and North Korean leader – held in Singapore in June 2018.

The meeting was in many ways a success, resulting in a joint statement vowing to continue dialogue on a number of issues, though the North Koreans made it clear from the outset that they would only discuss denuclearization in exchange for trust-building measures from Washington, namely sanctions relief and a security guarantee.

While the summit didn’t result in full rapprochement, it wasn’t all for naught. The North Koreans returned the remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War and dismantled a missile engine facility, important small steps toward a truce. Around the same time, a ‘freeze for freeze’ status was adopted, in which Washington would halt its military exercises with South Korea in exchange for a freeze on nuclear and missile tests in the North. Moon, meanwhile, was allowed a freer hand to improve inter-Korean relations.

The Libya Model

A countervailing force would soon challenge Moon’s drive for peace. Hired on as National Security Adviser (NSA) a few months prior to the Singapore Summit, infamous mad bomber and Iraq war devotee John Bolton was instrumental in keeping Trump from making good on his campaign rhetoric, doing his best to ensure US North Korea policy remained sufficiently bloodthirsty.

Bolton is despised in North Korea. He played a role in destroying the Agreed Framework – a Clinton era nuclear agreement later wrecked by the Bush administration – and has openly called for a “preemptive” attack on the Hermit Kingdom. Not long before landing the job as NSA, he penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal making the “legal case” for a first strike.

Weeks ahead of the Singapore summit, Bolton would also invoke Libya as the model for North Korean disarmament. Pyongyang could only take that as a moral threat, all too aware of the grisly fate of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, who gave up his rudimentary nuclear weapons program and was later murdered in US-led regime change plot.

By the time Singapore rolled around, however, Trump decided he could deal with Kim after all and the hawkish NSA was sidelined at the meeting, where he was seen sulking and sour-faced as diplomacy between Trump and Kim hit its peak – but it wouldn’t be Bolton’s final act.

Hawks Triumph in Hanoi

In the leadup to the next US-North Korean summit set for Hanoi in February 2019, a divide in the Trump administration deepened as hawks – led by Bolton – continued to push for the “Libya model.” Ignoring the North’s long-held position that its weapons are solely meant to deter an American invasion, Bolton pushed for rapid denuclearization as a condition for any further dialogue (the standard American poison pill), insisting Kim dismantle the country’s entire program in the space of a year. The demand set “absurd expectations” and amounted to a “deliberate attempt to sabotage all talks with North Korea,” observed Daniel Larison of the American Conservative magazine.

Despite the hawks’ push, there was a glimmer of hope that Hanoi could build on the progress of Singapore. US envoy Stephen Biegun had been put in charge of the talks at this stage, who advocated a step-by-step trust-building process that would see the US cautiously trade sanctions relief for a slow dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

The hope was short-lived. In what may have been the highlight of Bolton’s tenure on Trump’s national security team, he would steal the show in Hanoi, persuading the president to scrap Biegun’s more reasonable proposal in exchange for an offer Kim couldn’t possibly accept, once again demanding disarmament before Washington would make a single concession.

As expected, Kim rejected the “deal” outright, the summit abruptly ended and the nascent peace process cooled. The economic war against North Korea – which never ceased throughout the negotiations – marched on, prompting a few small retaliatory missile tests unrelated to Pyongyang’s nuclear program. While Trump downplayed the importance of the tests, it was a clear sign the ‘bad cop’ approach was doomed to fail.

Kim’s Deadline 

With crippling sanctions continuing to grind down the North Korean economy and populace, and the post-Hanoi peace process stagnated, Kim issued an end-of-year deadline last April to revive the talks. The ultimatum called on the US to come to the table before the end of the year, or else Pyongyang would scrap all progress made since the 2018 Olympic Games, including any freeze for freeze commitments it agreed to during that time.

Seeing the bleak prospects for talks, President Moon soon traveled to Washington to plead with his American counterpart and was once again able to grease the wheels of stalled diplomacy. Less than two months after the visit, Trump would send an unprecedented tweet inviting Kim to a historic meeting at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the physical embodiment of the intractable Korean conflict.

TRUMP TWEET – https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1144740178948493314?lang=en

Moon’s hard-fought efforts appeared to finally pay off in the summer of 2019, when all three leaders – Trump, Moon and Kim – met for the first time.

The meeting produced mostly symbolic progress – including Trump becoming the first US president to cross the DMZ into North Korea proper –  but it did end with an agreement to form teams for continued talks. Importantly, the American team would again be led by Beigun, not Bolton or Mike Pompeo, the bellicose secretary of state.

Biegun again looked to take a more flexible approach to negotiations, this time proposing a nuclear freeze deal in exchange for sanctions relief. Better yet, the renewed drive for dialogue occurred as Bolton’s influence seemed to be waning in the White House – he was exiled to Mongolia for a meeting during the DMZ-crossing – with expectations that he would soon get the pink slip.

Making Regress

While the DMZ meeting and Biegun’s new proposal appeared to put things back on track, a major obstacle was fast approaching: joint US-South Korean wargames set for August 2019, which the North had long complained were threatening and unnecessarily provocative. Though the US insisted the drills had been scaled down and were purely defensive, Pyongyang denounced them as a breach of the freeze for freeze status established in 2018, reacting with a series of short-range missile tests.

Rumors about a new round of talks swirled throughout the fall of 2019, but the North Koreans had grown increasingly doubtful of the Americans’ good faith, insisting there would only be another meeting if Washington fundamentally changed its attitude. As November rolled by with no new offer, Kim began referring to a “gift” he might send to the US for Christmas, a vague but ominous threat picked up and amplified in the establishment press.

Much of the progress made in Singapore and at the DMZ had effectively been reversed, leaving the US and North Korea close to where they began when Trump took office, returning to a familiar pattern of threats, military drills and missile tests.

A New Path

It was clear by December that the US and North Korea would not resume serious talks by Kim’s deadline. With Trump – and Washington – fully absorbed in endless impeachment drama, there was simply no time, leaving many to nervously speculate about what kind of “Christmas gift” Kim might have in store.

Jolly St. Kim didn’t even bother to deliver a lump of coal for his Christmas surprise, however, and the day came and went quietly, despite widespread press predictions of a major nuclear weapons test. In the week between Christmas and the New Year, Kim spent four days meeting with his inner circle, thinking long and hard about how to respond to Trump’s failure to meet his deadline.

With none of the theatrics anticipated in the US media, Kim soberly unveiled his “new way” for the new year, resigning himself to an immovable status quo in Washington:

“The present situation warning of long confrontation with the US urgently requires us to make it a fait accompli that we have to live under the sanctions by the hostile forces in the future,” Kim said, according to the KCNA.

Though still holding out for the possibility for a return to the freeze for freeze status, North Korea would no longer actively pursue peace talks. Kim had finally given up.

While the United States and North Korea have not yet returned to the height of enmity reached during Trump’s first year in office, it’s clear the strategy of “maximum pressure” has accomplished less than nothing, utterly failing to bring Kim to the table for a comprehensive peace deal, nor even a smaller preliminary one. Far from abandoning its arsenal, Pyongyang is now more confident than ever in its need for a nuclear deterrent – talking appears to get them nowhere. President Moon may now be the best hope for peace on the Korean Peninsula, but with forces in Washington arrayed against him, even he may not be up to the task.

January 10, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

US interventionist presence in region has to end as soon as possible: Iran defense chief

Press TV – January 10, 2020

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami says Washington’s “interventionist presence” in the region has to end as soon as possible for a de-escalation to take place after recent US provocations.

“Achieving de-escalation, stabilization and security in the region requires the immediate end of Washington’s occupation and interventionist presence,” Hatami said in a phone call with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono on Thursday.

The talks between the two defense chiefs came after Tokyo announced last month that it has sought to send a warship and a number of patrol aircraft to the Middle East region in order to ensure security amid heightening tensions.

Tokyo receives nearly 90 percent of its oil imports from the Middle East.

Speaking on Thursday, Hatami said “those who seek to assist in de-escalation and achieving regional stability have to remind the Americans, which are a source of regional insecurity, to leave the region.”

The Iranian defense chief added that Iran, being the largest country with an access to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, has always fulfilled its role in ensuring security in regional waterways.

Hatami’s call for the expulsion of US forces comes a week after Washington assassinated the Middle East’s most prominent anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.

Speaking to his Japanese counterpart, Hatami called on independent countries to condemn Washington’s “state terrorism”.

He described Soleimani’s assassination as an unprecedented and major crime where a foreign government has acted to kill a senior Iranian military officer in another country.

Speaking on his part, Kono stressed that Japan’s military deployment in the region seeks to ensure regional peace and that it does not intend to take part in a so-called US-led Persian Gulf coalition, which commenced its operations last November.

According to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, Kono also gave out orders for the Japanese military deployments to begin on Friday.

Earlier last year, Washington called for the formation of the maritime coalition in response to a series of mysterious explosions targeting vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

US officials were quick to blame Iran for the incidents without providing conclusive evidence.

Iran has roundly rejected the accusations, describing the attacks as being part of “false flag operations” seeking to pressure Iran.

Following the tensions, Japan, which has sought to maintain positive ties with both Tehran and Washington, has stressed that it has opted to form its own maritime operation rather than join the US-led mission.

According to The Japan Times, the Japanese operation will operate in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden east of Saudi Arabia and will exclude the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf due to Iran’s concerns regarding the presence of the US-led initiative.

January 10, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s Strikes Against the U.S. Demonstrate the Unipolar System Is Truly Over

By Paul Antonopoulos | January 9, 2020

When U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, he certainly had not expected that Iran would respond in the way it did by bombarding two U.S. military bases in Iraqi territory. It is likely that his advisers had convinced him that no country in the world had the courage to attack the U.S. so blatantly as no one else had since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. The Iranians did of course, as was expected by those who understand the ideology of the Islamic Republic that has a deeply ingrained martyrdom complex that stretches back to 680AD when Imam Ali Ibn al-Husayn was killed in Karbala, Iraq.

Trump has claimed that there were no American casualties while Iran has claimed there were at least 80. With the Erbil and Ain al-Assad bases bombarded and several U.S. aircraft, drones and helicopters destroyed, it is unlikely that there were no U.S. casualties – however there is no way in knowing at this time whether there were 80. We can expect Washington to keep the true number of casualties a secret, in complete opposition to Iran who openly celebrate their martyrs.

The Ain al-Assad military base is the largest and most equipped U.S. base in the region, and one of a few U.S. special bases around the world, at the size of about half of Lebanon. The fact that the Americans have deployed their most sophisticated radar systems in Iraq, many of which have been destroyed, demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the Patriot missile defense system. This was despite U.S. forces in the region being put on high alert. This will only be in Russia’s favor as it continues to offer the S-400 system to potential buyers.

Not only did the attack on the Ain al-Assad military base expose the ineffectiveness of the Patriot system, Iran also targeted the Erbil base in Iraqi Kurdistan. This base was a center to try and encourage the Iraqi Kurds to rebel against the central government in order to put pressure on the central Iraqi government. The attack on the Erbil base was a warning that even a U.S. withdrawal into Kurdistan does not make them  safe.

It was expected by most commentators that Iran’s retaliation for the martyrdom of Soleimani would be in the form of utilizing its regional paramilitary allies on U.S. positions. By directly attacking U.S. forces brazenly and openly, Tehran has demonstrated that the U.S. are not safe in any part of the region. However, Iran had no choice but to retaliate as not doing so would demonstrate the country’s leadership only had empty rhetoric in defending itself. The U.S. would certainly be more inclined to carry out further attacks against Iran and its allies if Tehran did not respond.

If there is a war going on in Iraq between the U.S. and Iran, it probably will not be limited to one country and will engulf the whole region, and potentially, across the world. Washington cannot be counted on to abide by international laws and regulations. The countries in the region, particularly the Gulf States, should also bear in mind that the presence of U.S. bases on their land will not only fail to provide security, but will also endanger their national security as all states who assist the U.S. in any aggression against Iran will become legitimate targets, as Tehran has already warned.

Rather, the murder of Soleimani has only united Iranians, including those who have been protesting across the country since November, blaming the government for the increased fuel prices and difficult economic situation, ignoring the crippling U.S. enforced sanctions. The major demands of the Iranian people are now for the expulsion of the U.S. military from the region, something that the Islamic Republic’s leadership has loudly and clearly demanded as well.

Since Iran has made its first response to the U.S. so directly, Trump for now is refusing to respond militarily and will impose greater sanctions against Iran. However, Iran has already made the demand that the U.S. withdraw from the region. To achieve this without directly provoking Trump again, Iran is likely to employ the militias it backs in Syria and Iraq to target U.S. military installations. With any Israeli involvement in this war effort, Iran can use Hezbollah and various Palestinian militias to pressure the Jewish state internally and externally.

Therefore, since Iran has already promised to expel the U.S. from the region, the next phase of the anti-U.S. war effort will be asymmetrical warfare by Iran. If Iran engages in asymmetrical warfare, the return of dead and wounded American soldiers will severely hamper Trump’s re-election campaign this year as he originally ran on the ticket of criticizing wars in West Asia when he was competing for the presidency against Hillary Clinton years earlier. The Iranian leadership are now in control of the future of the West Asia and have demonstrated they are willing to retaliate against the U.S. who is seeking to maintain the unipolar hegemonic world order that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Iran has once again shown that the 21st century is not one of unipolarity that Washington hopes to maintain, but rather multipolar with several strong middle and Great Powers.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

January 9, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Operation Kayfabe: How Trump and Iran avoided war while both claiming victory

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | January 8, 2020

For a moment there, as missiles were flying, it looked like a US-Iran war was inevitable. Then, just as suddenly, both sides walked away. What happened? The key to figuring it out might just lie in professional wrestling.

Last night, Iran launched two volleys of missiles at two bases in Iraq that house US troops and equipment, calling it revenge for the drone strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. US President Donald Trump called him a “terrorist” and a “monster,” but Iranians considered him a beloved war hero, and there was no way the IRGC could let his death go unavenged.

Trump, however, threatened to strike 52 targets in Iran – the same as the number of US embassy staff taken hostage after the 1979 revolution – if any “Americans or American assets” were harmed. Throughout Tuesday, the US president kept oddly quiet on Twitter, choosing only to amplify the anti-Iran messaging of the most hawkish senators, and let the Pentagon and State Department chiefs take the lead in saying there will be no withdrawal from Iraq. It seemed like any Iranian action would guarantee a war.

Democrats, media talking heads and antiwar activists alike were absolutely convinced that Trump was getting into a war with Iran. Everything pointed to it. Any hope that the situation could de-escalate seemed like wishful thinking. Some Hollywood celebs were even pleading with Tehran “please do not kill us,” and asking the Iranian government to hold out till November so Trump can be voted out of office.

So when the US president walked up to the White House podium and addressed the nation on Wednesday – only to announce that his response will be more sanctions and calling for greater NATO involvement, rather than unleash the might of the US military – a lot of people were were left confused, to say the least.

That’s because the American chattering classes forgot what in retrospect seems like a very important detail from Trump’s biography: before he ran for president, before he had a hit reality TV show… he was a superstar of professional wrestling. That’s not surprising, because they believe themselves too elite and too educated for that lowbrow form of entertainment – but Trump’s base does not.

Unlike the internationally known sport, professional wrestling is a specifically North American form of performance art, in which everything is staged but everyone pretends it is real and true. There is even a specific term for maintaining this pretense before the general public: kayfabe.

What if Trump’s threats of bombing Iranian heritage sites or refusing to withdraw from Iraq – even though he campaigned on doing just that – were all part of kayfabe, an act intended to gull the gullible into believing it was all real? Moreover, what if Iran was in on the act and chose to launch the missiles at largely empty warehouses, while giving Americans ample warning via the Iraqis ahead of time, so as to avoid any deaths?

It sounds unbelievable, right? Yet there is no denying that it is precisely how events played themselves out.

Speaking on Wednesday, Trump used standard rhetoric about Iran to bury two very important points that pundits largely missed. One is that the US is now energy independent and therefore far less vulnerable to events in the Middle East than in the 1970s, during the Arab Oil Embargo or the Iran hostage crisis. The other was his direct repudiation of the ‘Albright doctrine’ of US interventionism established in the 1990s with a glib remark.

“The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean that we have to use it,” Trump declared.

Those two things, I am fairly confident, were not kayfabe. Expect both to be largely ignored by the chattering classes, though, as they focus on who “caved” first and slowly get back to routine.

What matters at this moment is that the war that seemed inevitable did not actually happen. The IRGC got to tell the Iranian people that their brave soldiers avenged “martyr Soleimani” by smiting the “Great Satan.” Trump got to tell the American people that, since no lives were lost, he could shrug it off as insignificant and walk away. Both of them ended up looking triumphant, while their hysterical critics and doomsayers ended up looking like fools. And let’s remember, in politics and pro wrestling alike, perception is everything.

January 8, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

UK defence secretary ‘reserves the right’ to ‘strike’ Iran

Ben Wallace in a combative mood in the House of Commons
Press TV – January 7, 2020

British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has put up a spirited defence of the US decision to assassinate Iranian Quds force General Qassem Soleimani in a terrorist-style drone strike outside Baghdad airport.

Delivering a statement in the House of Commons, Wallace claimed that General Soleimani was “no friend of the UK or our allies in the region”.

Wallace tried to justify the assassination on dubious legal grounds by saying: “the UK will always defend the right of countries to defend themselves”.

Wallace’s claim flies in the face of all pertinent facts, notably credible reports that General Soleimani was on a peace mission to Baghdad to try to diffuse tensions with Saudi Arabia.

At any rate, the US accusation that General Soleimani had been planning attacks against US interests hasn’t been backed up by any evidence.

On a more ominous note, Wallace threatened that “aggressive behaviour” from Iran “was never going to go unchallenged”.

Wallace didn’t explain what he meant by “aggressive” behaviour, and the irony of his words was lost on him. After all, Iran was the victim of US aggression when the latter decided to kill the country’s top military commander.

The defence secretary claimed that the UK is “changing the readiness of our forces in the region” by placing “helicopters and ships on standby to assist if the need arises”.

Wallace didn’t address credible reports of the UK adopting an aggressive posture vis-à-vis Iran, in order to assist the US in any potential military action.

The Sun newspaper reported two days ago that a British nuclear-powered submarine was in “striking position” of Iran, ready to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iranian targets.

During the question and answer phase, Wallace was asked by acting Liberal Democrats leader, Sir Ed Davey, whether he would rule out “any UK involvement in any attack in any site in Iran”.

“I’m not going to rule out anything”, said a combative Wallace.

“We cannot say what’s in the minds of Iran or anybody else in the future – that’s why we will always reserve that right to take the decision at the time of it”, he added.

Wallace’s aggressive tone towards Iran is in keeping with the positions of both the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, both of whom have defended US actions in recent days.

But Wallace goes a step further by introducing for the first time the strong possibility of the UK taking military action against Iran.

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

‘Middle East Will Become a Graveyard for US’: Pyongyang Apprehensively Eyes Iran Crisis

Sputnik – January 6, 2020

Following the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has taken measure of the international situation, which is expected to excercise new caution. However, North Korean dailies noted Washington’s course was destined for disaster.

North Korean cultural publication Arirang Meari put the issue in no uncertain terms, saying on Sunday that the “Middle East will become a graveyard for the US.”

“Global military experts recently analyzed that the US is being bogged down in a war in the Middle East,” Meari wrote, according to the South Korean-based Yonhap News Agency. “Even pro-American countries have been passively answering the US’s request for sending troops on account of their internal politics and economic challenges, driving the US into despair.”

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the DPRK’s state-run news outlet, noted on Monday that Moscow and Beijing had taken strong stances against the US drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad early Friday morning.

“China and Russia emphasized that they not only object to abuse of military power in international relations but also cannot tolerate adventurous military acts,” KCNA wrote, according to Yonhap, describing a Saturday phone call between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, noting they “expressed concerns over regional situations being worsened by the US’ illegal acts.”

Kim ‘Pressured Psychologically’ by Soleimani Killing

However, despite the rhetoric, experts have noted the episode is likely to shake Pyongyang’s leaders.

Yang Moo Jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, told the Korea Herald that as a result of the Baghdad airstrike, DPRK leader Kim Jong Un “will be pressured psychologically.”

Former South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun said during a television appearance on Sunday the DPRK would be even more careful than before about revealing Kim’s precise whereabouts.

Andrei Lankov, a Russian scholar and expert on Korean affairs, noted in NK News on Sunday that Soleimani’s assassination showed US President Donald Trump was willing to take greater risks than North Korean strategists had previously believed, casting the “fire and fury” rhetoric of his presidency’s earlier years in a much starker light.

“As time went by, more and more observers were inclined to see the 2017 as a simple bluff, and it became widely accepted that Donald Trump did not have the guts to deliver on his threats of a military operation in a highly unstable part of the world,” Lankov wrote. “But last week’s killing of General Soleimani demonstrated that the world has underestimated Trump’s desire to take risks (or, perhaps, overestimated his ability to make rational decisions).”

“No doubt the North Koreans have taken note, and, most likely, see it as a warning sign.

Soleimani’s death reminded them that excessively risky behavior might result in a US drone quietly approaching some targets in Pyongyang suburbs,” Lankov added.

A Cautious But Steadfast Approach in 2020

As 2019 drew to a close, so did Pyongyang’s patience for negotiations with Washington, which after 18 months of talks had failed to yield significant results beyond a June 12, 2018, promise from Trump at his first summit with Kim in Singapore. In his New Year’s address, given several days before Soleimani’s killing, Kim had already taken a more cautious tone than in December, when North Korean publications promised a return to bellicose posturing.

Kim had previously promised a “Christmas gift” to Washington, which analysts widely predicted would be Pyongyang’s first long-range ballistic missile test since its self-imposed moratorium in 2017. However, no such “present” was delivered. Instead, Kim noted Washington’s delaying tactics were designed to prolong the harmful effects of economic sanctions on the DPRK, advising North Koreans to buckle their belts more tightly, since relief seemed unlikely anytime soon.

“If the US fails to keep the promises it made before the world, if it misjudges the patience of our people and continues to use sanctions and pressure against our republic, then we’ll have no choice except to seek a new path to secure the sovereignty and interests of our country,” Kim said on January 1.

Similar Struggles in Iran, DPRK

Like Pyongyang, Tehran has been engaged in a prolonged struggle to forge an independent path from Washington amid attempts to frustrate its ability to ensure its self-defense. Both countries have been subjected to strangling economic sanctions in an effort to force them into compliance, but unlike Iran, the DPRK has nuclear weapons as well as means of delivering them.

Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea, meets with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in August 2018

Iranian leaders have long been accused by Washington of pursuing an atomic bomb and not merely nuclear power and medical research, as they have claimed. Tehran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 to lower those sanctions in exchange for accepting tight constraints on the volume of nuclear fuel it could possess, but Trump reimposed them in 2018, accusing Iran of secretly pursuing a nuclear bomb – a conclusion not shared by other signatories to the agreement.

As a consequence, Tehran has slowly stepped back from the commitments it made in the 2015 deal, announcing on Sunday it would scrap the last ones it still followed.

The two countries’ experiences negotiating with Washington have long informed each other, and in the face of intransigence and doubletalk by the Trump administration, experts like Lankov have predicted US belligerence toward Iran, despite its obedience to the 2015 deal, was likely only to embolden those who hold hard-line positions in Pyongyang, opposing negotiations and concessions to Washington.

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Why I Don’t Trust Trump on Iran

By Ron Paul | January 6, 2020

President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani last week because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. I don’t believe them.

Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about Iran for the past three years in an effort to whip up enough support for a US attack. From the phony justification to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, to blaming Yemen on Iran, to blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US Administration has fed us a steady stream of lies for three years because they are obsessed with Iran.

And before Trump’s obsession with attacking Iran, the past four US Administrations lied ceaselessly to bring about wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Somalia, and the list goes on.

At some point, when we’ve been lied to constantly and consistently for decades about a “threat” that we must “take out” with a military attack, there comes a time where we must assume they are lying until they provide rock solid, irrefutable proof. Thus far they have provided nothing. So I don’t believe them.

President Trump has warned that his administration has already targeted 52 sites important to Iran and Iranian culture and the US will attack them if Iran retaliates for the assassination of Gen. Soleimani. Because Iran has no capacity to attack the United States, Iran’s retaliation if it comes will likely come against US troops or US government officials stationed or visiting the Middle East. I have a very easy solution for President Trump that will save the lives of American servicemembers and other US officials: just come home. There is absolutely no reason for US troops to be stationed throughout the Middle East to face increased risk of death for nothing.

In our Ron Paul Liberty Report program last week we observed that the US attack on a senior Iranian military officer on Iraqi soil – over the objection of the Iraq government – would serve to finally unite the Iraqi factions against the United States. And so it has: on Sunday the Iraqi parliament voted to expel US troops from Iraqi soil. It may have been a non-binding resolution, but there is no mistaking the sentiment. US troops are not wanted and they are increasingly in danger. So why not listen to the Iraqi parliament?

Bring our troops home, close the US Embassy in Baghdad – a symbol of our aggression – and let the people of the Middle East solve their own problems. Maintain a strong defense to protect the United States, but end this neocon pipe-dream of ruling the world from the barrel of a gun. It does not work. It makes us poorer and more vulnerable to attack. It makes the elites of Washington rich while leaving working and middle class America with the bill. It engenders hatred and a desire for revenge among those who have fallen victim to US interventionist foreign policy. And it results in millions of innocents being killed overseas.

There is no benefit to the United States to trying to run the world. Such a foreign policy brings only bankruptcy – moral and financial. Tell Congress and the Administration that for America’s sake we demand the return of US troops from the Middle East!

Copyright © 2019 by Ron Paul Institute

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Some War Truth In A Single Photograph

By Bill Willers | Dissident Voice | January 5, 2020

Once I realized to my dismay that I couldn’t believe a word of what our media and political leaders said about major events in the here and now, their credibility on controversial happenings so long ago and far away entirely disappeared.” — Ron Unz, 2018

The 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, generated renewed interest in the First World War, its beginnings, its aftermath, and the lead up to World War II. For anyone brought up with the carefully-crafted narratives that constitute “popular” history, a dive into details of the World Wars can shake one’s faith in the validity of all generally accepted history.  A good introduction to long buried aspects of the era of the World Wars is Patrick J. Buchanan’s 2008 book “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War“, in which all roads lead back to Britain’s 1914 declaration of war on Germany, which soon involved much of the world. Germany’s rising power had threatened British imperial dominance within a Rube Goldberg complexity of formal alliances and secret agreements. A Serbian shot an Austrian archduke, Serbia allied with Russia, but Austria-Hungary allied with Germany, and Russia with Britain and France, etc. Ultimately, the “Great Men” leading the masses appeared powerless to stop the WW I slaughter: 8 million dead, 20 million wounded. Thereafter, the Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany grossly unjust reparations, this leading ultimately to a humiliated Germany embracing Hitler’s rise, thence to a war with a price tag of more than 50 million human lives.

Massive works on Churchill and Hitler by the towering historian David Irving are based on every conceivable information source down to personal diaries and interviews. Irving’s departure from widely accepted “mainstream” story lines has irked some fellow historians, and because he has not been perfectly in synch with Holocaust dogma, he, like so many, has suffered unwarranted accusations of anti-semitism. He writes that many details in the generally-accepted history of WW II, apparently like much of history itself, are simply wrong. His depiction of Winston Churchill is as a central causative agent of both world wars. What’s that? you say! Churchill, during his lifetime considered the greatest living Englishman, a war monger? Likewise, Adolph Hitler struggled to avoid war? Are these too shocking to accept? Research for yourself, and you may find yourself in agreement with Caitlin Johnstone: “Our species fought two world wars (or arguably one world war with a long intermission to grow more troops) for no justifiable reason at all.”

Insight into how governmentally-sanctioned histories might be managed for mass consumption is offered by Ron Unz who cites an amazing number of A-list commentators (scroll down to subtitle “Purging our Leading Historians and Journalists”) who, on diverging from authorized accounts, were simply blacklisted, thereafter unable to get published. It seems that a thread of decency runs through the human family such that elaborate lies must be maintained by governments in order to justify and generate and perpetuate wars. If the Spanish-American War, the two World Wars, Vietnam and both invasions of Iraq have anything in common, it is that all six involved official lies used to bring We The People on board: Remember the Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, Kuwaiti babies, Weapons of Mass Destruction. Lies.

During Christmas, 1914, certain British and German soldiers of WW I got the urge for a truce. Shouts of “Merry Christmas!” across “no man’s land” of the front led to troops emerging from trenches, exchanging food and trinkets, playing a bit of soccer. Photos are easy to find on the Internet, but one in particular crystalizes a truth about humanity, regardless of what contorted propaganda might be coming down from the damned stuffed shirts who send humans to slaughter. Historians necessarily focus on political power players and the decision makers of war, but it is decent folk within the powerless masses who are the ones driven to do the killing and the dying. The two youths in the photo — not many years beyond childhood — could be any soldiers from any period of time, of any ethnicity, in any war. Like healthy people everywhere, they would have greatly preferred to be friends, and it shows.

Dwight Eisenhower, a General turned President, is quoted as having said “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.” Such a day is not yet visible on the horizon.

Bill Willers is an emeritus professor of biology, University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. He can be contacted at willers@uwosh.edu.

January 5, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »