The Afghanistan Fiasco and the Decline and Fall of the American Military
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 19, 2019
A devastating investigative report was published in the Washington Post on December 9th. Dubbed the “Afghanistan Papers” in a nod to the Vietnam War’s famous “Pentagon Papers,” the report relied on thousands of documents to similarly expose how the US government at the presidential level across three administrations, acting in collaboration with the military brass and civilian bureaucracy, deliberately and systematically lied repeatedly to the public and media about the situation in Afghanistan. Officials from the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations have all surged additional troops into Afghanistan while also regularly overstating the “success” that the United States was attaining in stabilizing and democratizing the country. While they were lying, the senior officers and government officials understood clearly that the war was, in fact, unwinnable.
The story should have been featured all across the US as Afghanistan continues to kill Americans and much larger numbers of Afghans while also draining billions of dollars from the United States Treasury, but the mainstream media was largely unresponsive, preferring to cover the impeachment saga. Rather more responsive were the families of Army Chief Warrant Officer Second Class David C. Knadle, 33, of Tarrant, Texas, and Chief Warrant Officer Second Class Kirk T. Fuchigami Jr., 25, of Keaau, Hawaii. Both were killed in a helicopter crash on November 20th in Afghanistan’s Logar province while assisting troops on the ground, according to a Pentagon press release. They were participating in what was characteristically dubbed Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. Both men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division in Fort Hood, Texas. The Taliban took credit for the downing of the chopper, but the Army is still investigating the cause.
Knadle and Fuchigami are only the most recent of the more than 2,400 American service members who have been killed in Afghanistan since October 2001, together with 20,589 wounded and an estimated 110,000 Afghan dead. In the wake of the Post’s report, Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1974, told a CNN reporter that the Pentagon and Afghanistan Papers exposed the same governmental dysfunction: “The presidents and the generals had a pretty realistic view of what they were up against, which they did not want to admit to the American people.”
The New Republic observes how “The documents are an indictment not only of one aspect of American foreign policy, but also of the US’s entire policymaking apparatus. They reveal a bipartisan consensus to lie about what was actually happening in Afghanistan: chronic waste and chronic corruption, one ill-conceived development scheme after another, resulting in a near-unmitigated failure to bring peace and prosperity to the country. Both parties had reason to engage in the cover-up. For the Bush administration, Afghanistan was a key component in the war on terror. For the Obama administration, Afghanistan was the ‘good war’ that stood in contrast to the nightmare in Iraq.”
The Afghan War’s true costs have never been precisely calculated, though they certainly exceed $1 trillion and counting. The documents relied upon for the Post report include more than 2,000 pages of confidential interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, including soldiers and diplomats, as well as civilian aid workers and Afghan officials. Many of the interviews were initially carried out by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The Post divided the interviews and supporting documentation into subject categories that demonstrate how the situation in Afghanistan began to deteriorate as soon as the United States followed up on its rapid invasion with a plan for nation building. Resorting to the usual American expedient, the occupiers flooded the country with money, which meant that the only thing blooming on the thin soil was corruption, apart from the poppies that have made Afghanistan the world’s leading supplier of opium.
One contractor who was involved in nation building described how he was required to spend $3 million daily for projects in an Afghan district roughly the size of a US county. He asked a visiting congressman if he could be authorized to spend that much money in the US “[The lawmaker] said hell no. ‘Well, sir, that’s what you just obligated us to spend and I’m doing it for communities that live in mud huts with no windows.’”
In another interview the report cites Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, the White House Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, who told the interviewers in 2015. “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” later adding “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
Army Colonel Bob Crowley, who served in Kabul in 2013-4, described how at headquarters “Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” adding also how “Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.”
Part of the problem with Afghanistan was the rotation of American soldiers in and then out after one year or less, just as they were learning about the country and the problems they faced. It has led to the joke that the United States has not fought an eighteen-year war in Afghanistan: it has fought a one-year war eighteen times.
The Post investigative report coincides with an interesting deconstruction of the US military and how it operates. David Swanson of World BEYOND War provides a lengthy review of West Point Professor Tim Bakken’s new book The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the US Military. Per Swanson, the book “traces a path of corruption, barbarism, violence, and unaccountability that makes its way from the United States’ military academies (West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs) to the top ranks of the US military and US governmental policy, and from there into a broader US culture that, in turn, supports the subculture of the military and its leaders. The US Congress and presidents have ceded tremendous power to generals. The State Department and even the US Institute of Peace are subservient to the military. The corporate media and the public help maintain this arrangement with their eagerness to denounce anyone who opposes the generals. Even opposing giving free weapons to Ukraine is now quasi-treasonous.”
Bakken even disputes the widely held view that the military academies have high academic standards. He describes how the “system” pays to get potential athletes and accepts students nominated by congressmen commensurate with donations made to fund re-election campaigns. Swanson sums it up by observing how the academies offer “a community college-level education only with more hazing, violence, and tamping down of curiosity. West Point takes soldiers and declares them to be professors, which works roughly as well as declaring them to be relief workers or nation builders or peace keepers. The school parks ambulances nearby in preparation for violent rituals. Boxing is a required subject. Women are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted at the three military academies than at other US universities.”
Bakken concludes that appreciating the fundamental structural flaws in the US armed forces “leads to a clearer understanding of the deficiencies in the military and how America can lose wars.” In fact, he does not even seek to identify a war that the United States has won since World War 2 in spite of the country being nearly constantly engaged in conflict.
Together the Bakken book and the Afghanistan Papers reveal just how much the American people have been brainwashed by their leaders into believing a perpetual warfare national narrative that is more fiction than fact. Donald Trump may have actually appreciated that the voters were tired of the wars and was elected on that basis, but he has completely failed to deliver on his promise to retrench. It suggests that America will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future and the inevitable next war, wherever it might be, will be another failure, no matter who is elected in 2020.
Turkey calls US ending of Cyprus arms embargo ‘dangerous escalation’
Press TV – December 18, 2019
Turkey has warned that the United States’ decision to end a decades-old arms embargo on Cyprus would be a “dangerous escalation.”
In a statement issued late Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the US decision “will have no outcome other than hampering efforts toward a settlement on the island and creating a dangerous escalation.”
The US Congress voted Tuesday to lift the arms embargo on Cyprus, which has been in place since 1987. The measure has passed both chambers of Congress as part of a massive defense spending bill, with President Donald Trump likely to sign it.
The bill comes at a time of tensions between Turkey and the US over such issues as Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 system and Washington’s support for Kurdish-led militants in Syria.
Cyprus has been divided into Turkish Cypriot-controlled northern and Greek Cypriot-controlled southern territories since a brief war in 1974, which saw Turkey intervene militarily in response to a military coup on the island sponsored by the Greek military junta of the time.
Greek Cypriots run the island’s internationally recognized government, while Turkish Cypriots have the breakaway territory in the north — only recognized as a “state” by Turkey.
Turkey and the Greek Cyprus, which do not have diplomatic ties, are also involved in a dispute over offshore resources. Ankara says some areas of Cyprus’s offshore maritime zone fall under what it calls the territory of the Turkish Cyprus.
Turkey already has two drilling vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean despite the threat of European Union sanctions.
Genocide, Sanctions and Incirlik: Erdoğan Will Not Kick Out NATO From Its Bases Despite Threats
By Paul Antonopoulos | December 18, 2019
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dropped a bombshell by announcing that he could shut down the NATO-controlled Incirlik airbase that hosts U.S. nuclear bombs and the U.S. missile warning radar at Kurecik military base, in response to Washington’s threats of sanctions against Turkey. These nuclear bombs are of course placed purposefully close to Russia. The Incirlik air base in the southern Turkish province of Adana is used by the U.S. Air Force while the U.S. military also maintains a missile warning radar in the Kurecik district in Turkey’s southeastern Malatya province, which is part of NATO’s missile defense system in Europe.
“If it is necessary for us to take such a step, of course, we have the authority… We will close down Incirlik if necessary,” Erdoğan said on A Haber TV on Sunday.
Last week, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate of the United States Congress approved the “Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act” bill that directly targets Turkey’s military and economic apparatus. According to the draft bill, the Turkish acquisition of the powerful Russian S-400 missile defense system gives grounds to impose sanctions against this country, under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), including against the Minister of National Defense of Turkey, the Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, the Commander of the 2nd Army of the Turkish Armed Forces, the Minister of Treasury and Finance of Turkey, the Halkbank and a whole host of other senior officials.
This action could further isolate Turkey from NATO, especially after the latest blow against the Eurasian country came last Thursday when the U.S. Senate finally passed S.Res.150 that recognizes the Turkish perpetrated genocide(1915-1923) against Turkey’s Christian minority that saw millions of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians exterminated. There is no doubt the long-awaited U.S. recognition of the genocide is politically motivated, and Erdoğan understands this, threatening to recognize the U.S. genocide against Native Americans.
However, there are key differences between a potential Turkish recognition of the U.S. genocide against the Native Americans and the Turkish genocide against the Christians of Anatolia. There are hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians living in the U.S. who have direct ancestry to genocide survivors who lost their entire lives including houses, farms, shops and other associated wealth. These descendants could pressure Washington to seek compensation from Ankara and could intensify sanctions against Turkey if they refuse too. Although the likelihood of compensation is extremely low, it could be used as a justification to strengthen sanctions against Turkey, which in turn will only push Turkey further away from the U.S./NATO and potentially closer to Russia.
On the other side, although Turkey may acknowledge the genocide against Native Americans, I would imagine there are no Native Americans, or maybe just a few, living in Turkey. Ankara could reciprocate sanctions against the U.S., but they would be virtually ineffectual as the world’s monetary system is still overwhelmingly dominated by the U.S. Dollar, despite efforts by Russia and China to de-Dollarize the international economy.
Turkey’s potential closure of the Incirlik and Kurecik bases from the U.S. military would effectively mean freezing relations with NATO. Even a Turkish reclamation of its military bases poses problems however – the obvious being political, but also the military and budgetary costs. However, discussions of Turkey closing the bases are not new. Ankara believes the Incirlik base was a staging point for the 2016 coup attempt against Erdoğan and has already contemplated kicking NATO out of there.
Despite the threat from Erdoğan, Washington will likely not be fazed by the threat for a number of reasons:
1) Washington has already turned Greece into its Plan B option in case Turkey leaves NATO.
2) Turkey leaving NATO could mean the U.S. backing a number of issues that have been frozen because of Washington’s policy of appeasing Turkey for geostrategic reasons, such as the unresolved status of Cyprus.
3) The Incirlik base is also used by other NATO states at times such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy, and a Turkish reclamation of the base could see Turkey further souring its relations with the European Union.
Although removing the U.S. military from the Incirlik Airbase would be a huge blow to NATO, Erdoğan is unlikely to do this despite Ankara’s strengthening relations with Moscow. Even if this were the case, the most important question still remains, would U.S. President Donald Trump accept this? It is highly unlikely that Trump will want to surrender the base that is critical for U.S. interests and aggression in the Middle East. Although Greece is a Plan B, it is a Plan B for a reason – it is not as strategically placed as Turkey towards the Middle East, and therefore the U.S. will not surrender such a great advantage it has so easily.
Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.
Europe was the main player in destroying Syria and creating the refugee crisis
By Steven Sahiounie | Mideast Discourse | December 14, 2019
Monica Maggioni is an Italian journalist and is CEO of Rai.com, which broadcasts ‘Rai News 24 TV’, among others. She interviewed Syrian President, Bashar al Assad, on November 26, and the interview was to be broadcast on December 2; however, it was mysteriously postponed.
Behind the scenes, at Rai.com there was conflict over the interview, with Fabrizio Salini declaring the interview was not commissioned, therefore it would not be broadcast, while Antonio Di Bella, director of news, declared it was not suitable to be broadcast, and Italian Senator Alberto Airola requested Maggioni to explain her role in the interview and answer charges of creating a diplomatic incident.
What was so explosive in the interview that the Italian news media wanted to hide from the Italian viewers? Many believe it has to do with questions 8 and 9 and President Assad’s response.
Question 8: At this moment, when Europe looks at Syria, apart from the considerations about the country, there are two major issues: one is refugees, and the other one is the Jihadists or foreign fighters coming back to Europe. How do you see these European worries?
President Assad: We have to start with a simple question: who created this problem? Why do you have refugees in Europe? It’s a simple question: because of terrorism that’s being supported by Europe – and of course the United States and Turkey and others – but Europe was the main player in creating chaos in Syria. So, what goes around comes around.
Question 9: Why do you say it was the main player?
President Assad: Because they publicly supported, the EU supported the terrorists in Syria from day one, week one or from the very beginning. They blamed the Syrian government, and some regimes like the French regime sent armaments, they said – one of their officials – I think their Minister of Foreign Affairs, maybe Fabius said: “we send.” They sent armaments; they created this chaos. That’s why a lot of people find it difficult to stay in Syria; millions of people couldn’t live here so they had to get out of Syria.
The US-NATO-EU attack on Syria is unprecedented in history. General Wesley Clark was told there was a plan to ‘take out Syria’ well before the first protests took place in Deraa. This was an internationally coordinated attack on Syria by the US and Europe. This was a classic ‘regime-change’ project, which was instigated between the US and Israel, but agreed to by the EU and NATO members. From the early stages of the conflict in Syria, the US and Europe provided political, military and logistic support to the ‘rebels’ in Syria and refused to call them terrorists. On 18 August 2011, President Barack Obama stated, “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” This US statement was fully supported by Europe.
In 2013 President Assad stated he was ready for dialogue with the armed terrorists, but only if they surrender their weapons. However, the US-NATO-EU plan to support the terrorists never included a peaceful surrender of weapons, followed by a national dialog, which would end in a peaceful solution to the conflict. The plan only called for weapons, training, and European officers to be continuously available to the terrorists, for ‘regime-change’. Europe only wanted to fuel the fires in Syria, and never planned to be the voice of peace and international law.
What was at first billed as ‘rebels’ and ‘freedom fighters’ soon morphed into sectarian extremists and Radical Islamic terrorists who filled the battlefields under many names and uniforms, but who were all essentially the same terrorists. Their names ranged from the ‘Free Syrian Army’ to ISIS. Radical Islam is a political ideology and is not a religion or a sect. Many experts have called Radical Islam a ‘Death-Cult’, which glorifies the killing of unarmed civilians, as well as armed adversaries, even to the point of eating human flesh while recording it on video.
Presidents Obama and Sarkozy convinced the EU to follow their lead. However, the Syrian people and armed forces fought back.
Some of the refugees left Syria for ideological reasons, they sided with the terrorists and followed the Muslim Brotherhood. Others left for Europe because their homes and livelihoods were destroyed by the terrorists, but many were just economic migrants, and had not lost a home, were from safe areas, and perhaps had never seen any fighting, and they left to seek an income from the charity offered to them in the EU.
EU-NATO support of terrorism in Syria
Bulgaria: Boïko Borissov, Prime Minister from 2014, supplied the drug ‘Captagon’ to the terrorists in Syria on orders of the CIA. The drug causes the terrorists to lose inhibitions and while under the influence they are capable of horrific atrocities.
Germany: A ship with intelligence and satellite capabilities was off the coast of Syria providing the terrorists the locations and movements of the Syrian military, as well as intercepted telephone communications. Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, said: “If the West supplies arms itself, it has more chance of influencing how they are used.”
Great Britain: British intelligence provided terrorists with information on Syrian military movements. In 2012, SAS Commandos were conducting covert operations within Syrian territory, and provided terrorists with military aid, including communications equipment and medical supplies, and provided intelligence support from its Cyprus bases, revealing Syrian military movements which were passed on to the terrorists. In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron said that Britain would send weapons to the terrorists. In August 2016, the BBC published photographs that showed British Special Forces soldiers guarding the perimeter of the terrorist’s base at al-Tanf, on the Syria-Iraq border, and the terrorists were shown to be equipped with four-wheel drive Al-Thalab vehicles and weapons such as sniper rifles, anti-tank weapons, and heavy machine guns.
France: The ‘Friends of Syria’ group was initiated by then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012. They declared their intent to support the terrorists in Syria, “If the regime fails to accept the terms of the political initiative outlined by the Arab League and end violence against citizens, the Friends of Syria should not constrain individual countries from aiding the Syrian opposition by means of military advisers, training, and provision of arms to defend themselves.” In 2013, French President François Hollande said, that France was ready to begin supplying lethal aid to the terrorists, and by 2014 Hollande confirmed that France had delivered arms to the terrorists, and by 2015 had begun airstrikes in Syria.
Italy: On 28 February 2013, the ‘Friends of Syria’ held their meeting in Rome, and among the 11 members were France, Germany, Italy, UK, and the EU. In a study published in 2019, the number of terrorists from Italy who were in Syria numbered 135 as of July 2018.
The EU: in 2013 Brussels decided assistance to the terrorists would include weapons training. Jane’s Defense Weekly reported a US shipment of 994 tons of weapons and ammunition in December 2015 from Eastern Europe to Syrian rebel groups, including 9M17 Fleyta anti-tank missiles, RPG-7s, AK-47S, DShKs, and PKMs. In early March 2013, a Jordanian security source revealed that the U.S., Britain, and France were training terrorists in Jordan to begin building a militia that would take over after Assad’s fall. By 2019, the EU issued a statement about Syria in which they now claim to call for peace and political negotiations to settle the conflict of almost 9 years duration and to have supported humanitarian and economic assistance there. However, when faced with documented history, this statement is a bald-faced lie. The EU position from the outset of the conflict was to support the armed terrorists and to prevent even chemotherapy drugs to be imported to Syria, because of the EU sanctions, which today prevents any possible rebuilding effort.
Pentagon Test Fires 2nd INF-Banned Missile Over Pacific Ocean
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 12/14/2019
A week after Russia’s President Putin said he is ready to extend the New START nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States “without preconditions” by year’s end, in an attempt to save it after the recent collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, the Pentagon has conducted another test of a previously banned ballistic missile.
Thursday’s test-firing marks the second missile to be tested which would have fallen under the INF ban, which the Trump administration withdrew from earlier this year. The first test had taken place in August, during which time Putin said Russia will be forced to deploy banned missiles if the US does.
Video footage of this week’s test, like the one in August, was made public. The ground-launched missile reportedly few over the Pacific Ocean.
“The Department of Defense conducted a flight test of a conventionally-configured ground-launched ballistic missile at approximately 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time, today, Dec. 12, 2019, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Carver said.
Carver indicated the missile tested “terminated in the open ocean after more than 500 kilometers of flight. Data collected and lessons learned from this test will inform the Department of Defense’s development of future intermediate-range capabilities.” Crucially, the INF Treaty had specifically banned land-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.
The other interesting element to the timing is that it came a mere two days after a rare visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the White House, where arms control treaties were reportedly discussed with President Trump.
Few other details of the launch were given, per the AP:
The prototype missile was configured to be armed with a non-nuclear warhead. The Pentagon declined to disclose specifics beyond saying thew missile was launched from a “static launch stand” at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and landed in the open ocean.
A statement by Defense Secretary Mark Esper has many worried the new tests and collapse of arms control treaties could trigger a new arms race with Russia.
Esper was asked at a briefing Thursday specifically about the possibility of placing US missiles in Europe, long a “worst-fear” scenario which the INF protected against. He responded:
“Once we develop intermediate-range missiles, and if my commanders require them, then we will work closely and consult closely with our allies in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere with regards to any possible deployments.”
For Moscow’s part, addressing a Russian defense meeting last week, Putin made an apparent appeal to the West, saying that he hopes to avoid a new arms race with the US and its allies, and vowed to in good faith refrain from deploying intermediate and shorter range missiles there where there are none.
“Russia is not interested in triggering an arms race or deploying missiles where there are none,” Putin said. He also invited the US and European countries to join a Russian proposed moratorium on such new deployments and weapons. So far only France has greeted the proposal positively. Indicating the offer is conditional, he warned, “No reaction from other partners followed. This forces us to take measures to resist the aforesaid threats.”
Seoul shows ‘preemptive strike’ with F-35s & boasts of ‘glorious victory’ over Pyongyang in propaganda video
RT | December 14, 2019
The South Korean Air Force has put out an incendiary video simulating a preemptive attack on its northern neighbor using a high-tech arsenal of US-supplied weapons. Pyongyang is unlikely to receive the clip in holiday spirits.
The promotional video depicts computer generated F-35 fighters and other jets launching strikes on North Korean positions, clearly marked with bright red stars – in case there was any mystery about who the message was intended for.
Published earlier this week, the four-minute video begins with a US-made Global Hawk spy drone detecting enemy activity, at one point showing what appears to be a North Korean Hwasong-14 ICBM platform just before it’s blown apart in a dramatic explosion. A narrator speaking in Korean then pledges the “glory of victory is promised under any circumstances,” according to JTBC, a South Korean TV network.
The provocative clip was released on the heels of the latest North Korean rocket engine test late last week, which some have speculated could be its first step toward developing a long-range ballistic missile capability. While insisting its weapons are purely for self-defense, Pyongyang has steadily ramped up such tests as denuclearization talks with the US falter and a year-end deadline set by North Korea to revive negotiations fast approaches.
Earlier this month, North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ri Thae Song placed the ball squarely in Washington’s court, stating it is now “entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select” from the Hermit Kingdom, though failed to specify what “gifts” the country may have on offer.
Seoul inked a deal with Washington in 2014 to buy several dozen F-35A stealth fighters to the tune of $6.8 billion, and is currently on track to operate a total of 40 of the aircraft by 2021. Another deal was struck the same year for 30 RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drones, another American system. Such arms sales are regarded by Pyongyang as acts of hostility, a conclusion which regular US-South Korean war games – rehearsing a full-scale invasion of the North – have done nothing to dissuade.
US threatens Iran over attacks on military bases in Iraq
Press TV – December 14, 2019
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened Iran with “decisive” action over a series of attacks on American military bases in Iraq.
In a statement released on Friday, Pompeo claimed that Iran was providing “lethal aid and support to third parties in Iraq and throughout the region.”
“We must… use this opportunity to remind Iran’s leaders that any attacks by them, or their proxies of any identity, that harm Americans, our allies or our interests will be answered with a decisive US response,” he said.
This came one day after two Katyusha rockets targeted a compound near Baghdad International Airport, which houses US troops. It was the 10th such assault since late October.
Another attack Monday on the same base wounded five members of Iraqi counter-terrorism forces, two of them critically.
Pompeo’s remarks came in the wake of a report by The Wall Street Journal which said Saudi Arabia is quietly seeking to mend ties with Iran amid economic concerns and doubts about Washington’s backing for Riyadh.
The fresh US threat against Iran can be viewed as a signal of support for Saudi Arabia to prevent a thaw in the kingdom’s relations with the Islamic Republic.
Possible friendly ties between Riyadh and Tehran will put America’s interests in danger as it can no longer milk Saudi Arabia to protect it against an alleged threat from Iran.
“Riyadh’s newfound interest in better relations with regional rivals comes as Saudi officials question how much backing it has from the US and other allies,” the WSJ report said.
The US, backed by the UK, invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext that the former regime of Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons, however, were ever found in the country.
The invasion plunged Iraq into chaos and led to the rise of terrorist groups.
The US and a coalition of its allies further launched a military campaign against purported Daesh targets in Iraq in 2014, but their operations in many instances have led to civilian deaths.
Now, the US is weighing deploying up to 7,000 additional troops to the Middle East in the face of what it calls a renewed Iranian threat.
UN General Assembly Adopts Five Russian Resolutions Aimed at Disarmament, Global Security
Sputnik – 13.12.2019
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations General Assembly voted in favour of five draft resolutions addressing arms control, disarmament and international security earlier submitted by Russia at the UN’s First Committee.
Three of the documents adopted late Thursday tackle the issue of avoiding a conflict in the space are dubbed “Transparency and Confidence-building Measures in Outer Space Activities”, “Further Practical Measures for the Prevention of an Arms race in Outer Space” and “No First Placement of Weapons in Outer Space. The other two drafts address preserving existing armed control treaties and strengthening information security.
The first resolution encourages countries “to continue to review and implement to the greatest extent practicable, the proposed transparency and confidence-building measures contained in the report, through the relevant national mechanisms, on a voluntary basis and in a manner consistent with the national interests”.
The text of the second resolution urges the international community to continue undertaking efforts to maintain peace and improve security in the world and avoid conflict in space.
The third document asks all states, “especially spacefaring nations, to consider the possibility of upholding, as appropriate, a political commitment not to be the first to place weapons in outer space”.
The resolution dubbed “Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security” expresses concern that some countries develop information and communications technologies (ICT) for military purposes and the probability of using ICT in future conflicts is growing.
It also welcomes the launch of the UN open-ended working group on developments in the ICT field in the context of international security negotiations, as well as the group of governmental experts on developments in the ICT field in the context of global security.
The document titled “Strengthening and Developing the System of Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-proliferation Treaties and Agreements” calls on all states parties to arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation treaties to implement such agreements in their entirety and continue efforts to strengthen the system of arms control to preserve global stability, peace and security.
US tests ground-launched ballistic missile that would’ve been banned by INF treaty
RT | December 12, 2019
The Pentagon has conducted a second test of a missile that would have been banned under the INF treaty with Russia, which the US abandoned earlier this year. A ground-based ballistic missile flew for over 500 kilometers.
The conventionally configured test missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Thursday, the US Department of Defense confirmed in a statement, giving no further details.
“Data collected and lessons learned from this test will inform the Department of Defense’s development of future intermediate-range capabilities,” the statement said.
Thursday’s test follows the cruise missile launch in August, just days after the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty expired due to the unilateral US exit.
Signed in 1987, at the height of the Cold War, the INF banned the US and the Soviet Union – later Russia – from fielding missiles with a range between 500 and 5,000 kilometers (310 and 3,400 miles).
The Trump administration accused Russia of possessing a missile that violated the treaty, something that Moscow has denied. Russian offers for NATO to inspect the allegedly offending missile system were ignored. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and his advisers further rationalized their exit by calling the INF a “relic” of the Cold War, an “obsolete” treaty that no longer reflected strategic reality, because it did not apply to China or other countries with ballistic missile capabilities.
The new test comes just days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Washington and discussed the possible extension of the New START nuclear reduction treaty with Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Moscow has said it was willing to extend the treaty, which expires in February 2021, by five years to allow time for a new deal to be negotiated.
Washington has not signaled any interest in doing either, however. Trump has talked about a potential new nuclear deal that would include Russia, China and other countries, but the US has not offered a specific proposal to that effect.
US Weaponizing Space in Bid to Launch Arms Race
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 12, 2019
While the spats between President Trump and other NATO leaders at the rancorous 70th summit garnered most media attention, barely noticed was the alliance’s announcement to make “space an operational domain”.
The move represents a grave assault on existing treaties forbidding the weaponization of space. The NATO announcement is doubly insidious because it gives the appearance of a multilateral acceptance of US attempts to open up the “final frontier” for militarization. A move which is far from acceptable. In fact, illegal, under international law.
Earlier this year, Donald Trump unveiled a new branch of the US armed forces, Space Command, separate from the Air Force. “Spacecom will defend America’s vital interests in space, the next war-fighting domain, and I think that’s pretty obvious to everybody. It’s all about space,” said Trump at a White House ceremony.
It is the first time that a new branch of the US armed forces has been created since 1947 when US Air Force was created out of the Army. The other existing armed services are the Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard. Legislation is currently going through Congress which will authorize the president’s order for setting up the new branch, to be known henceforth as Space Force.
All this is happening with barely any public debate or scrutiny. Even though it represents a dramatic escalation of military dimensions. To the existing domains of land, air and sea the United States under Trump is pushing ahead for weaponization of space. As the “war-fighting” rationale of the president makes clear, the development is explicitly about leveraging new military strike potential.
US weaponization of space has been underway for decades, going back to the “star wars” initiative of the Reagan administration in the 1980s and during the GW Bush presidency in the 2000s. However, Trump is taking the program to a whole new level by implementing a separate dedicated Space Force.
This is in spite of the existing UN-ratified 1967 Outer Space Treaty which prohibits any introduction of weapons, including nuclear weapons, into space.
“States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner,” reads the treaty, which provides the basic legal framework for international space law.
Russia and China have been consistently strong advocates for upholding the treaty.
Yet proponents of the US Space Force routinely claim that America is being threatened by Russian and Chinese advances in space military technology. It is not clear on what basis these American claims are made.
Republican Alabama Representative Mike Rogers is quoted by Space News as saying: “We have allowed China and Russia to become our peers, not our near peers and that’s unacceptable.”
But like so many other US claims about Russia and China supposedly threatening American interests, there is little or no evidence presented. The claims rely on ideological prejudice and/or a cynical lobbying service for the military-industrial complex. Going into space will convey billion-dollar contracts to US aerospace corporations.
Indeed, there is a resonance with US claims made in the 1950s and 60s of a “missile gap” which alleged back then that the Soviet Union was outpacing America’s arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons. The putative missile gap was invoked as a pretext for greatly expanding the US arsenal, thereby creating an international arms race, only for the so-called missile gap to be found out years later to be a fiction of American scaremongering. Cynically, that fiction was deliberately propagated to the American public in order to provide a tax-payer-funded pork-barrel production line for the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex.
The same process seems to be underway with Trump’s much-vaunted Space Force.
There is another strategic aspect to this American “weaponization of the heavens”. That is, to force Russia and China into an arms race which Washington calculates would be economically ruinous for Moscow and Beijing. What’s at stake here is a pivotal struggle between Russia and China’s vision of a multipolar world and Washington’s desire to be the globe’s hegemonic uni-power. If the US can break Russia and China economically then it wins this era-defining struggle. Launching an arms race is Washington’s gambit for taking down Russia and China.
The precedent is the arms race in the 1980s under Reagan which brought the Soviet Union to collapse. Because of Washington’s presumed right to print endless amounts of dollars and rack up seemingly limitless national debt, the US is wagering that it will be the last man standing in an arms race with Russia and China.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia will not fall into the trap of unleashing an arms race. At a recent meeting in Sochi with his top defense officials, Putin emphasized the imperative need to focus on efficiency in weapon systems. Russia’s latest-generation of hypersonic missiles which apparently can evade any US defense shield – despite the latter costing trillions of dollars to develop – is one example.
Nevertheless, if – and it is a big if – the US manages to develop space weaponry, the pressure will be on Russia and China to respond in kind to counter a whole new threat level. That would mean both nations diverting resources into another realm of weaponry instead of developing their economies.
The US Space Force has to be seen in the wider context of Washington unravelling the entire system of global arms controls. The US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 was followed by its withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty last year. The Trump administration is moving towards scrapping New START in 2021, the third and last nuclear-arms control treaty.
There is an unconscionable effort by US governments over many years to incite a new arms race. Going into outer space is part of that effort. It is a gross violation of international law and the United Nations by the US to open up a new frontier for military dominance. And the US has utilized the 29-nation NATO alliance to rubber-stamp its criminal weaponization of space.
Netanyahu-Pompeo Meeting Solidifies War Plan on Iran
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 10, 2019
Ratcheting economic sanctions, military force encirclement, inciting seditious violence and relentless war rhetoric. This all by the US and its allies over the past year towards Iran, yet it is Iran which is portrayed as posing “potential threats” to American interests.
The hastily arranged meeting last week between Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had the hallmarks of a war-plan summit amid a peak in renewed media provocation against Iran.
In the last weeks there has been a flurry of US media reports claiming that Iran is secretly moving ballistic missiles into Iraq and elsewhere across the region. As usual the media credulously cite anonymous intelligence and Pentagon officials on those claims.
Here’s CNN quoting one administration official: “There has been consistent intelligence in the last several weeks,” the official said, referring to “a potential Iranian threat against US forces and interests in the Middle East.”
Last month, the head of US CentCom made a similar dire forecast of Iranian intentions. General Kenneth McKenzie said: “I would expect that if we look at the past three or four months, it’s possible they [Iran] will do something that is irresponsible.”
Notice how General McKenzie tacitly acknowledges the background of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign of economic sanctions and US military force buildup against Iran as if that is somehow normal international conduct. Then he turns all that US aggression on its head by accusing Iran of possibly doing “something that is irresponsible”.
There are worrying signs that the US and Israel are redoubling the pressure of war against Iran. This pressure has to be seen in the context of a formidable deployment of US military forces – troops, warplanes and warships in the region since May this year. The earlier buildup was announced on the basis of unfounded claims that Iran was preparing to launch offensive operations against American interests. Then came a series of mysterious attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf over the summer which Washington blamed on Iran without evidence.
Street protests in Iran since mid-November over fuel-price increases appear to be hijacked by subversive elements. President Trump and other US officials have openly called for the protests to destabilize the Iranian government.
Fresh claims that Iran is sending ballistic missiles to neighboring countries appear to be setting the stage for justifying a pre-emptive US attack on Iran.
No doubt the Iranian government is under severe pressure from the economic hardship that the US has re-imposed unlawfully since Trump dumped the international nuclear accord in May 2018. No doubt too Iran is apprehensive about the relentless military threats against it from Washington and its Israeli ally. Almost certainly, Iran will have mobilized forces in the reasonable calculation that it may come under attack at any moment.
But, perversely, US intelligence and military officials are interpreting Iranian defensive moves as “indications of a potential threat” to American “interests”.
The meeting last week between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signals a foreboding development. Recall that this is in the context of US media reports of Iranian ballistic missiles being deployed and of reports that the Trump administration is considering a doubling of troop levels in the Middle East to 28,000, as well as sending more missiles and warplanes.
Netanyahu met Pompeo in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, December 04. The meeting was called urgently and was unscheduled. Netanyahu – who is fighting for his political survival over corruption charges – tried to arrange discussions with Pompeo on the sidelines of the NATO summit near London, but according to Israeli media reports there was not enough time for security logistics to be put in place by the British. That indicates the Israeli leader was trying to meet Pompeo in a hurry.
When Netanyahu met with Pompeo in Lisbon, he said at the start of their discussions: “The first subject that I will raise is Iran. The second subject is Iran, and so is the third. And many more.
The Israeli premier added: “We have been fortunate as President Trump has led a consistent policy of exerting pressure on Iran. Iran is increasing its aggression in the region as we speak, even today, in the region. They are trying to have staging grounds against us and the region from Iran itself, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen and we are actively engaged in countering that aggression.”
Netanyahu also gloated that the “Iranian empire [sic] is tottering… let’s make it totter even more.”
For several months Iran has steadfastly refused to take the bait of war laid down by the Trump administration. But with pressures mounting both within the country and externally, it would be imperative for the Iranian authorities to marshall their defenses.
US intelligence and military officials are using contorted logic to accuse Iran of posing a threat, and the American corporate media are ably assisting in the propagation of this oxymoron.
Netanyahu’s hasty meeting with Pompeo last week suggests that the US and Israel are putting the final touches to their malignant masterpiece for provoking a war with Iran.
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Jewish Guilt is the Discourse of The Goyim
By Gilad Atzmon | April 24, 2018
For quite some time the British have accepted that British Jewish organizations have hijacked the political discourse. As has happened in other Western countries, the British political establishment has engaged is a relentless rant against antisemitsm. Sometime the focus drifts for a day or two. An alleged ‘Russian nerve gas attack’ provided a 48 hour pause. Occasionally we bomb Arabs in the name of ‘human intervention’ only to realize a day or two later that we have, once again, followed a premeditated foreign agenda. But, somehow, we always return to the antisemitism debate, as if our media and politicians are a herd of flies gravitating to a pile of poop. … continue
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