US deploying missiles along Russia’s borders could lead to ‘new Cuban crisis’ – Russia’s deputy FM
RT | June 24, 2019
Washington will provoke explosive tensions, reminiscent of the darkest moments of the Cold War, if it sends missiles close to Russia’s border after suspending the INF Treaty, a senior diplomat in Moscow warned.
If Washington deploys short or mid-range ground-based missiles along Russia’s borders, the situation “will not only become complicated, it will escalate to the maximum level,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told lawmakers on Monday.
“We can end up in a missile crisis not just similar to the one we had in the 1980s, but to the Cuban Missile Crisis [in 1962].”
The diplomat was commenting on the demise of the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between Moscow and Washington. The deal banned owning and testing of all ground-based missiles with a range of up to 5,500km (3,420 miles), as well as their launchers.
Last year, the US announced the suspension of its obligations under the treaty, alleging that Russia secretly violates it. Moscow strongly denied the allegations and accused the US of conducting tests, illegal under the INF Treaty, which Washington likewise denied. In February, Russia suspended its participation in the agreement in “a mirror response” to the US’ actions.
Speaking on Monday, Ryabkov said that Moscow stands ready to continue taking “a responsible approach” to the situation but will do everything to “firmly maintain its own national security and the security of our allies in the changing environment.”
Trump Describes Advisors’ Attempt to Push Him to Attack Iran as So Disgusting: WSJ
Al-Manar | June 24, 2019
US President Trump bucked most of his top national-security advisers by abandoning retaliatory strikes in Iran on Thursday, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“In private conversations Friday, Mr. Trump reveled in his judgment, certain about his decision to call off the attacks while speaking of his administration as if removed from the center of it.”
“These people want to push us into a war, and it’s so disgusting,” Trump told one confidant about his own inner circle of advisers. “We don’t need any more wars.”
“In these conversations, Trump bemoaned the costs of a drone shot down by Iran—about $130 million before research and development—but told people the dollar figure would resonate less with US voters than the potential casualties.”
Will the Australian Government Join in a “Nuremberg Class” Attack on Iran?
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo welcomes Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne to the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on January 30, 2019.
Credit: U.S. Department of State/ flickr
By David Macilwain | American Herald Tribune | June 24, 2019
As my father used to say in response to difficult questions – “ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies”. This seems to be the approach of Australia’s media organizations to our government’s extraordinary silence over events in the Gulf of Oman. Barring an anodyne statement condemning the attacks on civilian shipping, neither Australia’s foreign minister Marise Payne nor Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ventured an opinion on who might have been responsible for these provocative actions. This remains the case even when subsequent developments included a narrowly averted war with global repercussions, with no questions asked and no lies proffered.
In the aftermath of recent attacks on journalistic freedoms and intimidation of whistleblowers, many people have expressed the view that it is the job of journalists to hold governments and public servants to account. That the governments of both Australia and its parent Britain seek to avoid such scrutiny is clear from their actions. Draconian punishments now apply to those who are thought to “threaten national security” by revealing inconvenient truths.
So we might wonder whether the ABC’s failure to ask questions of Government ministers about the dangerous confrontation in the Persian Gulf is connected to these recent developments, which included a highly provocative police raid on the headquarters of the ABC. The ABC purports to be independent of Government, and is expected to interview ministers on behalf of the public when necessary, as well as seeking the view of shadow ministers from the opposition Labor party.
In those recent raids, which concerned an Australian equivalent of the “Collateral Murder” crime exposed by an insider in Australia’s Special Forces in Afghanistan and leaked to an ABC journalist two years ago, there was a widespread shock at the actions authorized under the police warrant. In examining the ABC’s files relating to the case, it was revealed that the recently expanded powers of police forensic officers included the deletion and alteration of computer files – though this was explained as limited to the removal of irrelevant material and identities. This could be true given that the need to rewrite history is now minimized thanks to current controls over access to information.
What was more shocking to some, however, was a widely expressed but ill-informed view from the “Murdoch Right” that the ABC raids were justified, as its actions had endangered national security. Similar views were expressed over the alleged crimes of Julian Assange, whether “narcissist” or “cyber-terrorist”, with little sympathy from fellow Australians for his persecution and torture by the UK regime.
Australian sentiment towards the Islamic Republic of Iran is similarly prejudiced, so persuading the public that Iran would have launched an attack on two tankers near the Straits of Hormuz on the basis of minimal evidence was never going to be difficult; a mere dog-whistle sufficed. What now seems worrying is that “Central Narrative Control” knew this in advance – that they could show a blurry video of Iranian forces rescuing a ship’s crew, while saying it showed them “removing a limpet mine”, and the US aligned media audience would believe that this was what they saw.
But how could people be fooled by this ridiculous story, presented with a video that didn’t stand the slightest scrutiny? Why anyway would Iran sabotage two ships as a direct provocation, while trying to make it look as though the US or its allies were responsible? This wouldn’t make any sense, as the US would have no motive for such an attack – other than to frame Iran for it as a pretext for what has now followed!
The corollary of this perverse provocation by the US or its local agents is that while an Iranian strike on the two tankers could have been understood as a response to newly imposed sanctions targeting Iran’s petrochemical industry, such an attack on civilian shipping by the US with the sole object of framing Iran would be an undoubted war crime. As in fact, it was – and we need to remember this as subsequent events and silence from the media relegate it to a later investigation, or the memory hole. (Iran has also registered a protest over the US accusations with the UN)
Those subsequent events, which we now discover have brought us to the point of a major military escalation, allow current news reports to state that “following the Iranian attack on two ships in the Gulf of Oman” – tensions on both sides are increasing; no longer is the ship attack “alleged”. Instead, a new “limpet mine” narrative has been created to reinforce the idea of the Iranian threat, and this, in turn, feeds into talk of new Uranium enrichment above the agreed levels in the JCPOA, despite this being an entirely legitimate Iranian response to the US’ failure to keep to the agreement. Contrary to the immediate wild accusations from the usual suspects that Iran is now “again” working on a nuclear bomb (it never was, since 2003 [if ever] ), the renewed enrichment remains only to the 3.7% base limit, as those nuclear-armed suspects know perfectly well.
The need to be reminded of these stages in the development of the false narrative that Iran is the aggressor is that the silence from both media and politicians has actually enabled it, simply by drawing on the prejudices of the population. It seems that only those who doubt or deny the US-led accusations against Iran have noticed the deafening silence of Australia’s leaders and the failure of the main media to ask them to show their hand. Is it possible that we could find ourselves supporting the real aggressors in a criminal attack on a peaceful and friendly nation – a classic case of “sleepwalking into war”?
Well, now it appears that this is the case. The ABC hasn’t thought to ask the foreign minister whether we agree with the US story, and whether we would support them in military action against Iran despite the lack of evidence, because there is already that assumption. Despite the early skepticism of US claims from some mainstream commentators, and parallels drawn with the proverbial Iraqi WMD fraud, those reservations appear to now be forgotten. With this comes the realization that my father’s riposte does not apply to our national broadcaster; it doesn’t fear being told lies but rather fears having to admit the obvious truth, which is that of course, we believe the US story, and will support any action that our alliance demands.
Such blindness to the truth, and blind submission to the whims of the world’s most dangerous state, was brought home by this quote from Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Michael Bachelard:
“Some have likened the escalating atmosphere to the feeling leading up to George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. So why are we suddenly using the “w” word in the Middle East again, and should Australia brace to be invited into another Coalition of the Willing?”
Bachelard presents – and perhaps believes – “Australia” to be a well-intentioned onlooker on the mixed-up politics of the Middle East, whose “contribution” would always be towards peace and security and resolution of conflict. It is a rosy-eyed view of Australia sadly prevalent amongst people whose own intentions are honorable – assuming that the leaders of our traditional allies and partner “democracies” share their honesty and integrity and benevolence. By contrast, these same people seem happy to assume the worst about our “enemies”; Bachelard’s inappropriate use of a photo of a smiling President Assad greeting Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran in February in the above article nicely reflects this ingrained prejudice.
The reality of Australia’s role in Middle Eastern politics, on the battlefields of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and over Palestine and Israel is sadly very different. Despite a “modest contribution” to the Iraq invasion force, John Howard was George Bush’s closest ally, notably refusing to accept that Saddam Hussein had no WMD until around 2010. More recently the involvement of Australian fighter jets in the 2016 US coalition attack on the Syrian Army near Deir al Zour was symptomatic of Australia’s illegitimate presence in Syria, and complicity in NATO allies’ support for the insurgent forces. This intimate alignment with the US also saw Australia copying Trump’s “recognition” of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, despite the damage this did to relations with our closest neighbor Indonesia.
In the light of this record, and the catalog of unasked questions and untold lies, we can only speculate on the Australian Government’s RSVP to America’s “invitation” to join in a “Nuremberg class” attack on Iran. With Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s record of meetings with both Pompeo and Bolton, and our shared bases and assets in the region, it seems likely such an invitation was a mere formality, likely preceding the first strikes on tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
And as with the story of the war crimes in Afghanistan, there won’t be any desire to rewrite the history of how the third Great War began, should the truth finally surface. That history has already been certified as true by the silence of “Australia’s most trusted news source” and recorded in the mind of the nation; no-one would now believe otherwise.
‘They tried hard, but failed’: Iran foiled all US attempts to carry out cyber-attacks
RT | June 24, 2019
Iran successfully prevented US cyber-attacks that targeted its infrastructure, the country’s information minister said after Washington was reported to have crippled Tehran’s missile control sites with a retaliatory cyber-strike.
Minister for Information and Communication Technology Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi appeared to deny reports in the US media that a massive cyber-offensive had disabled Iranian computer systems that control rocket and missile launches on Thursday.
Neither the Pentagon nor the White House commented on the reports, which claimed that the strike had been carried out by US Cyber Command in cooperation with US Central Command to avenge the downing of an unmanned US Navy drone by Iran on Thursday morning.
Stopping short of directly addressing rumors that the attack had taken place, Jahromi said that Iran has vast experience of thwarting these kind of assaults, having foiled some “33 million attacks with the [national] firewall, only within the last year.”
He specifically referred to Stuxnet, a computer worm jointly developed by the US and Israel, which was used to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear facility networks in 2009-2010.
“They try hard, but have not carried out a successful attack”.
The Washington Post reported earlier that the alleged cyber-strike had incapacitated Iran’s military command posts and control systems.
The Trump administration has been pursuing a hawkish cyber-strategy. Signed by Trump last September, the document rolled up many of the constraints that limited the usage of offensive cyber-operations in retaliation against foreign actors.
Unveiling the strategy, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, who has been rallying behind a military option in Iran, announced that Washington’s “hands are not tied” anymore.
Meanwhile, Iran has exercised caution, warning that the US military should carefully assess the risks before going to war with Tehran. A senior Iranian general warned that if a conflict breaks out, “no country would be able to manage its scope and timing.”
Pentagon Pumps Millions Into German Universities for Research – Reports
Sputnik – June 23, 2019
German universities and research institutions have received $21.7 million in grants from the Pentagon since 2008, the German magazine Der Spiegel calculated after examining US budget data. According to the outlet, 260 such transfers have been registered with some of the universities repeatedly receiving financing from the US military. The support is mainly focused on technical and scientific disciplines.
Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich is said to be the leading individual recipient, receiving nearly $3.7 million from the US Department of Defence since 2008 over 23 individual transfers. Additionally, it was the Bavarian university that was apparently paid the largest single grant when it received $1.72 million to finance a project, researching chemicals and possible replacements for an explosive called RDX, widely used in the military.
Other leading recipients are the Technichal University Darmstadt and RWTH Aachen, which has been given more than $1 million since 2008.
The outlet points to a contradiction with educational regulations, stating that universities should be committed to peaceful goals and fulfil their special responsibility for sustainable development, which some interpret as a clear requirement to reject military funding.
The corresponding clause was introduced in one German state, North Rhine-Westphalia, and remains in force despite discussions to abolish it. However, the data, studied by Der Spiegel, suggested that three universities there have been funded by the Pentagon since 2014: RWTH Aachen University, Ruhr University Bochum, and the University of Paderborn.
RWTH Aachen, when commenting on the matter expressed commitment to peaceful research and denied that it had conducted armaments research, saying its goal is to “be the academic foundation for sustainable solutions to respond to today’s and tomorrow’s civil challenges”.
As Der Spiegel concludes, the problem is that a lot of research can be used for both militarily and civilian purposes, ranging from communications technology to robots and software, so accepting the US Department of Defence’s funding is “a tightrope walk”.
The US military, in several project descriptions, notes unambiguously that it is interested in basic research, which is “related to the improvement of army programs and operations or has such a potential”. Other documents outline the objective of “maintaining technological superiority in the scientific fields relevant to the needs of the Air Force” as well as the goal of preventing “technological surprises for our nation”, meaning the US, and develop such surprises “for our opponents”.
Examples of such dual-purpose research include several projects at RWTH Aachen. The university, however, has defended its ventures, including a $530,000 grant for research called “A scalable and high-performance approach to the readout of silicon qubits” that explores important components of quantum computers. The university insisted in a statement that although it was initially driven by the ability to decrypt messages, economic usage is now in the foreground. Another project concerns stable power supply for ships, also funded by the Pentagon.
Despite receiving $300,000 from the US military, the university argues that it was “basic research that could be applied to any kind of ships”. One of RWTH’s projects developed textiles for military and commercial applications that are designed to repel insects using only physical agents without insecticides.
Non-university research institutes also were among US funding recipients with dual-use projects. The most generous grants have gone to the Max Planck Society, to the German Aerospace Centre, and to the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. They included funding for an infrared-based automated whale detection project by AWI researchers, who received a total sum of $973,000. As the outlet points out, this could be used for hunting gigantic mammals as well as submarines.
US wants low-yield nukes to blackmail dissident countries, not to deter Russia – Moscow
RT | June 22, 2019
US generals are well aware that there’s no way of limiting the use of nuclear weapons in a war between superpowers, so the claim that some “low-yield” nukes are needed to match Russia is an outright lie, the Foreign Ministry said.
Moscow’s statement comes in response to the vice-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul Selva, who vehemently promoted the modification of the warheads on Trident missiles, which are carried on Ohio-class submarines, in order for them to be able to carry low-yield nuclear weapons.
Selva argued that the US will be put in a difficult situation if Russia decides to hit an American city with a low-yield nuclear weapon. “The US doctrine says it will respond in kind, but without a low-yield nuclear weapon in its inventory, responding in kind means it will have to respond with a high-yield nuclear weapon,” supposedly provoking and all-out nuclear war.
But the Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday blasted the general’s claims as “disingenuous” and pointed out that the use of low-yield nuclear weapons wasn’t even a part of Russia’s military doctrine.
An obvious deception is also the idea that it’s possible to ‘limit’ the use of nuclear weapons in a clash between two nuclear powers.
The yield of an incoming enemy warhead can only be determined after it detonates and the Americans are well aware of that, the ministry said in a statement.
“Therefore, any launch of a strategic nuclear carrier aimed at Russian territory… regardless of the capacity of its warhead, will be treated as an aggression with the use of nuclear weapons, and met with an appropriate response.”
Also on rt.com US must show evidence if it wants to claim Russia breached nuke test treaty – Moscow
American attempts to turn nukes into “battlefield weapons” have nothing to do with Russia, Moscow insisted.
It seems Washington wouldn’t mind making low-yield warheads a means of blackmailing the countries, who oppose American dictates.
The US returning to its views “from 60 years ago,” when they believed that a “limited nuclear war” was acceptable and winnable, is a source of serious concerns, the Foreign Ministry said, adding that “this is apparently linked to the growing signs of Washington’s desire to refuse its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).”
CTBT, which forbids nuclear explosions in all environments, was adopted at the UN General Assembly in 1996. However, the treaty has never gone into force, due to not being ratified by over a dozen countries, including the US.
FANB Warns that US Military Planes are Flying over Venezuelan Territory
Orinoco Tribune | June 21, 2019
The Comprehensive Aerospace Defense Command ( Codai ) of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) denounced that EP-3E and RC-135 aircrafts belonging to the United States Air Force have flown over Venezuelan coasts several times to carry out espionage actions and exploitative missions.
The information was disseminated by the military institution through its Twitter account on June 12, which also highlights that these overflights have intensified in 2019.
#Sabiasque El EP-3E Aries II es una aeronave de los EEUU para realizar misiones de exploración radioelectrónica? En el 2019 ha sido detectada en muchas ocasiones cerca de las costas de la RBV, siendo una amenaza a nuestra Soberanía #ElImperialismoExiste #TrumpHandsOffVenezuela pic.twitter.com/bx17KSlnMC
— CODAI (@CODAI_FANB) June 12, 2019
In March, the Minister of Popular Power for Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, denounced the incursion of a Boeing C17 ship of the same American military component that took off from the Hato base, located in Curaçao.
On that occasion, the crew of the aircraft made radio contact after their incursion. It was the second time that an American Air Force plane violated the space of the territorial sea that generates the Los Monjes archipelago in the Caribbean Sea.
The first time was in 2015 when a military aircraft of the DACH-8 type, equipped with an electro-optical system that allows the detection of thermal energy for the creation of images, flew over that same area.
Approximately since 2010, the FANB has detected the incursion of US aircraft without them having previously requested permission for their overflight.
Translated by JRE/EF
Source URL:
RELATED CONTENT:
Russia Says it Intercepted US/Swedish Spy Jets Over Baltic Sea
Here are the Exact Coordinates of the US Ship that Just Violated Venezuela’s Territory (Images)
Trump Has Lost All Leverage With Iran
By Marko Marjanović | Checkpoint Asia | June 20, 2019
I’m not buying Moon of Alabama’s theory that Iran is attacking the tankers — I think it’s plausible and I stand ready to change my mind if we get some evidence, but so far I have not seen more than conjecture so for me Iran is not the first suspect.
That said I agree that by going all in on the “maximum pressure” campaign Trump has in fact backed himself into a very unenviable position where he now has no leverage against Iran left.
Since it is obvious he doesn’t want war, but has already played all his cards short of war, Iran has now actually gained considerable freedom of action. It can shoot down US drones whether above Iran, or just over the Strait of Hormuz and what is Trump going to do about it?* Apply “maximum pressure”??
At most Trump could organize some kind of Syria-style limited strike but such a strike carries much more potential downside for him than for Tehran.
Limited missile and air strikes aren’t going to threaten the ayatollah and the Revolutionary Guards any more than they threatened Assad’s rule in Syria. They may actually boost the Revolutionary Guards who would get to pose as standing up to and defending the country against a super power.
While for Trump they would carry the danger of being seen as weak and inconclusive if Iran managed to mount a partially successful defense or retaliation, and cause him harm for 2020 as he satisfied neither the Iran war crazies nor the America firsters.
Trump should have kept some sanctions gunpowder in the magazine. Instead by firing off all of it he has disarmed himself.
* Albeit the drone that was shot down today may have been in Iranian airspace the US also claimed days earlier that Iranian forces had targeted a drone merely near its airspace.
Russia warns US against attempts to provoke war with Iran
Press TV – June 18, 2019
Russia has urged the United States to drop its “provocative” plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East, warning Washington against its “conscious” course of attempts to “provoke war” with Iran.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow had repeatedly warned Washington and its regional allies about the “unthinking and reckless pumping up of tensions in an explosive region.”
“Now what we see are unending and sustained US attempts to crank up political, psychological, economic and yes military pressure on Iran in quite a provocative way. They (such actions) cannot be assessed as anything but a conscious course to provoke war,” he added.
“If that’s the case, the US should refrain from further reinforcement of its presence and from other steps, including dragging and pushing its allies in various parts of the world into stepping up pressure on Iran,” Ryabkov said.
The United States has recently taken a quasi-warlike posture against Iran. The Pentagon announced on Monday that the US will send 1,000 additional US forces and more military resources to the Middle East.
Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan made the announcement, asserting that the deployment had “defensive purposes.”
His comments came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Washington does not want to go to war with Tehran, while falsely accusing Iran again for the attacks on two oil tankers in the Sea of Oman last week.
Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan made the announcement, claiming that the deployment had “defensive purposes.”
His comments came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Washington does not want to go to war with Tehran, while falsely accusing Iran again for last weeks’ attacks on two oil tankers in the Sea of Oman last week.
In response to such US claims, Ryabkov said if Washington did not want war, it had to show it.
“If that’s really how it is then the US should step back from reinforcing its military presence,” the senior Russian diplomat added.
Tehran has time and again said that it does not seek military confrontations with the United States, yet it stands ready to defend its interests in the region.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday reaffirmed that Tehran does not seek war with any state, but stressed that the Iranian nation will be the ultimate winner of any warfare against the Islamic Republic.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called for restraint to avoid the escalation of tensions in the Middle East.
“We are urging all the sides to show restraint,” Peskov told journalists. “We would prefer not to see any steps that could introduce additional tensions in the already unstable region.”
The United States remarkably stoked tensions with Iran in May 2018 when the US president pulled his country out of a 2015 multinational nuclear deal with Tehran, and re-imposed harsh sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticisms.
The tensions saw a sharp rise on the first anniversary of Washington’s exit from the deal as the US moved to ratchet up the pressure on Iran by tightening its oil sanctions and deploying reinforcements to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier strike group, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles.
The US’s recent military moves have sparked global concerns that the Trump administration was contemplating military aggression against Iran.
Pompeo Might Have The Perfect Carrot To Dangle In Front Of Modi’s Mouth
By Andrew Korybko | EurasiaFuture | 2019-06-18
The US is planning to include India on its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list in order to place it at par with its NATO allies, “Israel”, and a few others for the export of high-level military technologies, which could be the perfect carrot for Pompeo to dangle in front of Modi’s mouth during his visit to the South Asian state next week in order to get him to ditch Russia, and it might actually end up being part of the “surprise” that he recently hinted he has in store for his hosts.
The Indian press is full of reports about the country’s possibly forthcoming inclusion on the US’ International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list after two senators inserted the relevant amendments into a draft of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2020. Should it pass into law by the end of the year, then India would be legally at par with America’s NATO allies, “Israel“, and a few others for the export of twenty categories of high-level military technologies including ballistic missiles, drones, spacecraft systems, nuclear weapons simulation tools, and directed energy weapons, et al. This could be a real game-changer for its military capabilities and help it to more confidently “contain” China at the US’ behest per their shared “Indo-Pacific” vision, though the Pentagon probably won’t allow India to have this privilege so long as it retains its military partnership with Russia.
Alice Wells, the head of the State Department’s South and Central Asia bureau, implied as much last week in a testimony to lawmakers about the possible consequences of India’s refusal to reconsider its S-400 deal with Russia, which she said could include both CAATSA sanctions and the imposition of severe limits on the country’s military interoperability with the US. If India bends to American pressure and ditches Russia in exchange for THAADs, Patriots, and possibly even F-35s like its Ambassador to the US strongly hinted New Delhi is deliberating doing, then it can avoid this self-inflicted harm to its new military-strategic alliance with Washington though at the expense of its old one with Moscow. The “surprise” that Pompeo suggested that he has in store for his hosts during his upcoming visit to the South Asian state next week might be a formal offer to put India on the ITAR list if it decisively pivots away from Russia.
Truth be told, that would be a pretty attractive carrot for Pompeo to dangle in front of Modi’s mouth and might even get the re-elected leader to finally bite the bait. India is obsessed with China and the global pivot state of Pakistan, and it’s the excessive fearmongering about the latter in response to the suspicious Pulwama incident and subsequent Bollywood-like “surgical strike” that’s largely believed to have been responsible for Modi receiving such a huge mandate at the polls last month, so it can’t be underestimated just how important New Delhi would regard this unprecedented expansion of its military-strategic alliance with Washington. Russia can’t provide India with the game-changing capabilities that it’s seeking in its quest to “contain” China and “punish” Pakistan, ergo why it began its pro-American pivot in the first place because the US is more than eager to meet New Delhi’s needs in order to advance their shared strategic objectives.
Even though the two allied Great Powers are presently in the midst of what the Mainstream and Alternative Medias are misinterpreting (and in some cases, deliberately misreporting) to be a so-called “trade war”, their economic disagreements with one another are completely separate from their military-strategic commonalities. It’s therefore very likely that Modi would be extremely receptive to Pompeo’s possibly proposed offer to place India on the ITAR list in exchange for it pulling out of the S-400 deal with Russia, especially since the US’ unique “Major Defense Partner” already clinched the LEMOA and COMCASA interoperability pacts with it, so the next natural step is to prepare it for receiving high-level military technologies in order to take their alliance to the next level. India’s playing “hard to get” in order to receive the best terms possible, but it seems to have already made up its mind about the necessity of agreeing to a deal, so all that’s left is to finalize the details.
Israel’s Secretive Nuclear Facility Leaking as Watchdog Finds Israel Has Nearly 100 Nukes
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | June 17, 2019
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) — an international watchdog organization focusing on conflicts, the arms trade and nuclear proliferation — released a new report on Monday that claimed that Israel has nearly a hundred nuclear warheads, more than previously thought.
The SIPRI report described Israel’s nuclear arsenal as follows: 30 gravity bombs capable of delivering nuclear weapons by fighter jets; an additional 50 warheads that can be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles; and an unknown number of nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles that would grant Israel a sea-based second-strike capability.
In total, the SIPRI report estimated that Israel possesses between 80 and 90 nuclear weapons, an increase over previous years. SIPRI was unable, however, to confirm those estimates with Israel’s government, which has a long-standing policy of refusing to comment on its nuclear weapons program — a policy it describes as “nuclear ambiguity.”
As a result of this “nuclear ambiguity” policy, the actual number of Israeli nuclear weapons is unknown. Some other organizations, such as the U.S.-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, have estimated that Israel has produced enough weapons-grade plutonium to arm between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is one of only five nations in the world that refuse to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, an international treaty aimed at ending the proliferation of nuclear weapons and achieving global nuclear disarmament.
During a speech last August in front of the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to use nuclear weapons to “wipe out” Israel’s enemies. More recently, Netanyahu and his allies in the U.S. accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, despite the fact that intelligence agencies of both the U.S. and Israel have long recognized that Iran has no such program.
Unsafe, but only for those whose lives don’t matter
Just as the new SIPRI report has again brought scrutiny to Israel’s nuclear program, new information about Israel’s nuclear facility — the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, which houses the Dimona reactor — has also raised concerns about the facility’s safety.
Late last week, an Israeli court heard arguments that the site had leaked radioactive waste on more than one occasion and that information about those leaks had been hidden from some of the facility’s employees. One of those employees, Faridi Taweel, is suing the facility after learning he had cancer, which he suspects was the result of exposure to leaked radioactive material at the site.
The exposure of the numerous leaks at the Dimona facility is greatly concerning, especially in light of the revelation just a few years ago that the Dimona reactor is believed, according to a group of Israeli scientists, to have an estimated 1,537 defects. Israel has reportedly refused to consider replacing or fixing the aging nuclear core.
The fact that the site has leaked and is rife with defects should be a major issue for Israelis, as the facility is just 30 miles south of Israel’s capital Tel Aviv. Yet it is the city of Dimona itself that is in the greatest danger, as it is located just eight miles from the highly defective reactor.
But Dimona is largely populated by Jews from Northern Africa. This minority, referred to as “Black Hebrews” in Israel, is routinely discriminated against by Israel’s government, a recent example of which was the revelation of a covert Israeli government program of forcibly sterilizing African Jewish immigrants.
In addition to its large population of African Jews, Dimona and the surrounding Negev Desert are home to several Palestinian Bedouin villages, villages that are frequently labeled as “illegal” and demolished by Israel’s government. The fact that there is no political will or effort to clean up the site or prevent future leaks, coupled with the fact that the most at-risk populations are minorities frequently discriminated against by Israel’s government, reveals yet another troubling and overlooked aspect of Israel’s secretive nuclear program.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
Featured Video
Iran Walks Out On Peace Deal Due To Trump’s Threats
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Neocons confess: “We did 9/11-anthrax”
By Kevin Barrett | Press TV | September 6, 2014
As the 13th anniversary of the crimes of September, 2001 approaches, the neoconservatives are shrieking from the rooftops – and effectively confessing that they were the real perpetrators of the 9/11-Anthrax false flag operation. (The neocons, you may recall, openly called for a “new Pearl Harbor” in September, 2000 – and got one exactly one year later.)
Every year at this time, the neocons orchestrate and hype a series of public relations stunts designed to magnify fears of “radical Islam” and reinforce their crumbling 9/11-Anthrax cover story. But this year’s propaganda campaign is so extreme that it represents a tacit confession: The neocons know that the truth about the 9/11-Anthrax operation is slowly closing in on them; so they are over-reacting by desperately trying to stoke the dying embers of the so-called War on Terror, in order to maintain the myth that Muslims (rather than neoconservative Zionists) attacked America in the autumn of 2001.
When a hysterical person exhibits guilty demeanor by trying too hard to blame a crime on someone else, that person is almost certainly the real perpetrator. As the neocons try much too hard to blame Islam for 9/11 and “terrorism” in general, their hysteria inadvertently reveals their own culpability. Like Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth, the neoconservative movement has blood on its hands and “doth protest too much.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The Swiss summit of imperial humiliation
- Iran to continue IAEA cooperation under existing framework, SNSC decision: Baghaei
- Report highlights US munitions crisis: Missiles cannot be replenished quickly even with al the money in the world
- Iran’s Oil Spigot Could Open Soon But Hurdles Remain
- Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
- First round of Swiss-hosted Iran-US talks ends with 5 key agreements
- What Is Hay Fever?
- IRAN WALKS OUT ON PEACE DEAL DUE TO TRUMP’S THREATS – w/ Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi
- Moderna’s mRNA Flu Vaccine Gets Unanimous Thumbs-Up Despite Risks, Low Efficacy
- UK Speech Regulator’s Telegram Questions Point Toward Private Chats
- If Americans Knew
- The Republican & Democratic Politicians Trying to Scuttle Iran Agrrement
- Israel’s continued targeting of civilians in Lebanon renders ceasefire meaningless
- U.S. intelligence warns Israel is likely to undermine Iran peace deal, officials say
- In Gaza, Fathers Can’t Promise Their Children Food, Safety, or Even Survival
- This baby joins thousands of Gazans in need of medical evacuation
- Israel Kills Al Jazeera Journalist & Beloved Ecologist: 2 Articles
- Promoters of Israel: Leo Terrell, Ghana, Floyd Mayweather, Van Jones
- Gaza Soccer Player Who Dreamed of Competing in World Cup Can Now Barely Watch It
- Gaza baby loses mom and a leg; Palestinian prisoner tortured to death – Daily Update
- JNS Policy Summit to kick off in Israel
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
Aletho News 