The US is continuing to block all efforts to create a verification mechanism for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which came into force in 1975, while creating its own mechanism for biowarfare security, the Russian FM said.
The convention, which was ratified decades ago, still lacks a formal verification regime to monitor the compliance of signatories. According to Sergey Lavrov, the US contributed to this flaw in the key non-proliferation document out of self-interest.
“I hope our American colleagues realize that it is their responsibility to find a way out of this dead end,” he said. “So far, unfortunately, they have been preserving this dead end and, in the meantime, tried to create a system of US-controlled biowarfare security, which can be manipulated, through imposing bilateral agreements with various nations that are not covered by the scope of the Convention,” added Lavrov.
The Russian foreign minister was speaking at a session of the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on Wednesday.
Political commentary throughout 2016 was filled with scary sound bytes by partisan opponents of the Republican party warning how dangerous and horrifying it would be if Donald Trump ever gained access to the nuclear codes. Here’s a March 2016 column from USA Today titled “Trump’s nuclear views are terrifying”. Here’s another March 2016 article from CNN titled “President Trump: A 6-year-old with nuclear weapons?” Here’s an August 2016 article from the Chicago Tribune titled “The terrifying prospect of Donald Trump with nuclear weapons”. Here’s an October 2016 article from Business Insider about how former nuclear launch officers had said Trump can’t be trusted with the launch codes. Here’s a November 2016 Bloombergarticle titled “Two Words to End All Consideration of Voting for Trump: Nuclear Holocaust”.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Over and over and over again I encountered Democrats on social media in 2016 telling me I needed to support Hillary Clinton because Trump was going to get everyone nuked in a fit of stupid impulsiveness if elected, their fears stoked by partisan media reporting like the above day after day. Everyone lost their minds over Joe Scarborough’s claim on MSNBC that he knew someone who’d heard candidate Trump asking a foreign policy expert why nuclear weapons can’t be used, a claim Scarborough never substantiated. Trump’s political opponents made very, very sure that the American people were afraid that they and their loved ones would die in a nuclear holocaust if he was elected.
A couple of great articles have come out recently about the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and other omnicidal cold war escalations with the only other nuclear superpower on the planet. The first is Anti-Media‘s “How Donald Trump’s Policies Have Brought Us to the Brink of World War 3“, and the second is titled “Normalizing Nukes, Pentagon-Style” by Rejan Menon and Tom Engelhart for Antiwar.com. Both provide good insight into the dangers inherent in further blurring the lines between when nuclear weapons use is and is not acceptable, and the completely illogical rationale for doing so. I think it’s wonderful that both of these essays have been written, and I think it’s very telling that such insightful takes on this issue of unparalleled importance are relegated to small alternative media outlets.
How aware would you say the average rank-and-file Democrat is that Trump has controversial views on immigration? How about the fact that he said “shit hole countries”? Or the fact that that he says offensive things on Twitter? I think it’s fair to say that due to the frenetic coverage these issues receive from Democrat-allied mainstream media, a very large percentage of registered Democrats are aware of them.
How about the fact that this administration is imperiling the life of every organism on earth with needless escalations against a nuclear superpower? How often do you see 2018 Joe Scarborough talking about that on MSNBC?
Nuclear holocaust is the worst thing that can possibly happen. There are many, many things to hate and criticize the current president for, but the fact that he has overseen steady escalations which increase the likelihood of nuclear holocaust is far and away the most urgently worthy of condemnation. If you were going to attack this president on one thing, this would be it. But Trump’s ostensible political opponents ignore it, because they ignore all despicable acts of warmongering.
And because Russia.
Democrats have been collaborating with Republicans to inflate the already staggering US military budget and exacerbate the new cold war, as well as expand Trump’s Orwellian spying powers and expand his unconstitutional war powers. Propaganda has been used to keep rank-and-file Democrats fixated on the more cosmetically awful aspects of this administration, as well as entirely fictional aspects like the baseless Russiagate conspiracy theories, while hiding its most horrific aspects from the spotlight. Fear Russia, fear Trump’s tweets, but pay no attention to the steadily mounting nuclear tensions behind the curtain.
The US-centralized empire is making an omnicidal gamble with its Russiagate vanity project as it attempts to maneuver Russia off the world stage to prevent the rise of any rival superpowers, already having killed Russians in Syria, expanded NATO, kept troops along Russia’s border, established a permanent military presence in Syria with the goal of effecting regime change, forced Russian outlets to register as foreign agents, and allowed the sale of arms to Ukraine. Hot proxy conflicts and increasingly unclear lines could lead at any time to an inflammation in Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere which leads to a nuclear warhead being set off in the chaos and confusion, setting mutually assured destruction into motion and killing everything.
But sure, let’s talk about Trump’s fucking tweets instead.
The Democratic party does not resist Trump. Not in any meaningful way. If the most dangerous things about this administration are to be resisted, real resistance is going to have to come from ordinary human beings standing up and demanding change, and the Democratic party exists to prevent that from happening. The Democratic party exists to co-opt grassroots movements and divert their energy back towards the machine.
It is not Democrats versus Republicans. It is humanity versus the machine. Redraw the battle lines and fight the real war.
From an Indian perspective, the visit to the United States by the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his meeting with President Donald Trump on February 23 turns out to be a reality check on the power dynamic in the Asia-Pacific. Australia is torn between two vital partners – the US in the security sphere and China in the economic sphere. The dilemma is acute insofar as Turnbull has voiced opinions on threat perceptions regarding China, which are contrary to the Trump administration’s assessment and, yet, the US and Australia are key allies.
A month ago, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop pointedly distanced her country from the US’ assessment of China (and Russia) being a strategic threat. The US National Security Strategy issued in January said, “China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea… It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.”
Bishop refused to share that assessment, saying, “We have a different perspective on Russia and China clearly — we do not see Russia or China posing a military threat to Australia, we continue to work closely with China in fact we undertake military exercises with China as well as with other countries in the region and we will continue to do so.”
Turnbull openly endorsed Bishop’s remarks. In his words, “Apart from North Korea, there is no country in the region that shows any hostile intent towards Australia,” Mr Turnbull said, “We don’t see threats from our neighbours in the region, but, nonetheless, every country must always plan ahead and you need to build the capabilities to defend yourself, not just today, but in 10 years or 20 years, hence.”Turnbull reverted to the topic as he was embarking on the visit to the US last week. In remarks to Sky News, Turnbull said:
A threat, technically, is a combination of capability and intent. China has enormous capability of course, it’s growing as the country becomes more prosperous and economically stronger. But we do not see any hostile intent from China.
We don’t see the region through what is frankly an out-of-date Cold War prism. Neither, by the way, does Donald Trump. President Trump has a long experience in this part of the world as a businessman. He understands the significance, the economic significance of China’s rise and its opportunity.
Indeed, the joint statement issued after Turnbull’s meeting with Trump in the White House contains no reference to China or the disputes in the South China Sea. (Nor on ‘Quad’!) It doesn’t mention ‘freedom of navigation’, either. At the joint press conference with Turnbull, Trump said he’d “love” to have Australia back the US effort to assert the right to maritime freedom in South China Sea – “We’d love to have Australia involved and I think Australia wants us to stay involved.”
But Turnbull was unmoved. He made no commitments about Australia joining the US naval display. On the other hand, he emphasized the economic opportunities from China’s rise. Turnbull had hopes of persuading Trump to take a fresh look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but Trump repeated his distaste of the trade pact. Trump said, “The TPP was a very bad deal for the United States, it would have cost us a tremendous amount of jobs, it would have been bad.”
Equally, in the run-up to Turnbull’s visit, there was speculation that a possible economic front comprising the US, Japan, India and Australia could be in the making to “answer Chinese and Russian infrastructure-building efforts” in the Asia-Pacific. But it turned out to be mere drum-beating. (Reuters / Bloomberg) The Trump administration is focused single-mindedly on America First and has no interest in doing the diplomatic heavy lifting to push back at China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Clearly, one substantive outcome of Turnbull’s visit has been in the launch of an Australia-US Strategic Partnership on Energy in the Indo-Pacific. This must be seen against the backdrop of the US gearing up to export LNG to the Asian market, especially China. While on the one hand runaway gas demand in China is transforming the outlook for LNG in Asia and could see a return to the seller’s market in 2018, on the other hand, Australia’s rapidly growing LNG exports are already finding a ready market. A joint press release in Washington spelt out the “core principles” and outlined a “work plan” for the proposed US-Australia energy partnership. (here)
China would be quietly pleased with the outcome of the Trump-Turnbull meeting in Washington. An editorial in the government newspaper China Daily noted, “if Turnbull is now choosing to look at China through a more objective prism that would obviously help build more trust between the two countries, which will only usher in a more cordial atmosphere for relations to deepen and grow. Yet the Australian government still needs to match words with deeds… In its most recent foreign policy white paper, Australia proposes that it can act as an honest broker between China and the US.”
The Global Times in an editorial, also commended that Turnbull’s remarks “show positive signs for the Sino-Australian relationship.”
The British government has spent over $2.44 billion (£1.7bn) to carry out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since 2014, the year the US and its allies formed a so-called coalition to allegedly counter terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the two Arab countries, according to official data.
The larger chunk of the money, around $2 billion (£1.5bn), has gone into flying the Royal Air Force (RAF)’s Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets as well as Reaper attack and surveillance drones for more than 42,000 hours.
The figures, revealed on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information requests by anti-war group Drone Wars UK, seemed to be a fraction of what London has spent over the course of its unauthorized intervention dubbed Operation Shader.
The British air force has also dropped over 3,500 units of various munitions in over 1,700 airstrikes on Syrian and Iraqi targets at a cost of around $375 million (£267mn) over the past three and a half years.
That includes Paveway IV laser-guided bombs that cost an estimated $98,000 (£70,000) apiece for the older version and $140,000 (£100,000) for the enhanced ones.
RAF pilots have also fired no less than 8 Storm Shadow cruise missiles that are said to cost around $1,100,000 (£800,000) per unit, the activist group said.
The costs would grow if besides fuel, which is included in official figures, undisclosed data such as crew payments, aircraft maintenance and capital data are also included.
Drone Wars UK estimates that it costs the RAF $112,000 (£80,000) to keep the multi-role Typhoons airborne for an hour, while the figure drops to $49,000 (£35,000) and ($4,900) £3,500 for Tornado and Reaper aircraft respectively.
However large, the numbers are still a fraction of what the US-led coalition has collectively spent during the campaign, which has seen 105,000 bombs and missiles used in some 29,000 airstrikes. Drone Wars said the military campaign has cost around $10.5 billion (£8 bn).
The sheer number of US-led airstrikes since 2014 has alarmed rights activists about the possible civilian casualties.
While the US has only admitted to killing 841 civilians in the strikes, Drone Wars UK said it had recorded over 6,000 civilian deaths as a result of the military campaign. Neither Syria nor the United Nations have authorized the attacks.
The coalition forces have on many occasions air-dropped weapons and equipment for terrorists while targeting Syrian and Iraqi government forces who fight them.
So when police in Florida had to deal with a 19-year-old embarking on a shooting rampage inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., what did they do?
Nothing.
There were four armed police officers, including one cop who was assigned to the school as a resource officer, on campus during that shooting. All four cops stayed outside the school with their weapons drawn (three of them hid behind their police cars).
Not a single one of those cops, armed with deadly weapons and trained for exactly such a dangerous scenario, entered the school to confront the shooter.
Seventeen people, most of them teenagers, died while the cops opted not to intervene.
In other words, you can be outraged that cops in Florida did nothing to stop the school shooter, but technically, it wasn’t part of their job description.
This begs the question: if the police don’t have a duty to protect the public, what are we paying them for? And who exactly do they serve if not you and me?
Why do we have more than a million cops on the taxpayer-funded payroll in this country whose jobs do not entail protecting our safety, maintaining the peace in our communities, and upholding our liberties?
It’s the same reason why the Trump Administration has made a concerted effort to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant.
This is no longer a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
It is fast becoming a government “of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations,” and its rise to power is predicated on shackling the American taxpayer to a life of indentured servitude.
Cops in America may get paid by the citizenry, but they don’t work for us.
They don’t answer to us. They’re not loyal to us.
And they certainly aren’t operating within the limits of the U.S. Constitution.
That “thin, blue line” of loyalty to one’s fellow cops has become a self-serving apparatus that sees nothing wrong with advancing the notion that the lives—and rights—of police should be valued more than citizens.
Cops are no more noble, no more self-sacrificing, no braver and certainly no more deserving of special attention or treatment than any other American citizen.
This misplaced patriotism about police and, by extension, the military—a dangerous re-shifting of the nation’s priorities that has been reinforced by President Trump with his unnerving knack for echoing past authoritarian tactics—paves the way for even more instability in the nation.
Welcome to the American police state, funded by Corporate America, policed by the military industrial complex, and empowered by politicians whose primary purpose is to remain in office.
It’s a short hop, skip and a jump from the police state we’re operating under right now to a full-blown totalitarian regime ruled with the iron fist of martial law.
The groundwork has already been laid.
The events of recent years have only served to desensitize the nation to violence, acclimate them to a militarized police presence in their communities, and persuade them that there is nothing they can do to alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.
The sight of police clad in body armor and gas masks, wielding semiautomatic rifles and escorting an armored vehicle through a crowded street, a scene likened to “a military patrol through a hostile city,” no longer causes alarm among the general populace.
Few seem to care about the government’s endless wars abroad that leave communities shattered, families devastated and our national security at greater risk of blowback. Indeed, there were no protests in the streets after U.S. military forces carried out air strikes on a Syrian settlement, killing 25 people, more than half of which were women and children.
And then there’s President Trump’s plans for a military parade on Veterans Day (costing between $10 million and $30 million) to showcase the nation’s military might. Other countries that feel the need to flex their military muscles to its citizens and the rest of the world include France, China, Russia and North Korea.
The question is no longer whether the U.S. government will be preyed upon and taken over by the military industrial complex. That’s a done deal.
It’s astounding how convenient we’ve made it for the government to lock down the nation.
Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats.
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.
I’m referring to the corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House.
This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.
In the past, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) justified its militarization of large swaths of Eastern Europe by pointing to the omnipresent threat of terrorism, or some ‘rogue’ foreign state, inherently understood to be Iran. Today the mask has slipped and it is no longer denied that NATO’s primary target is Russia.
But first, a trip down nightmare lane. The road to ruin – at least as far as US-Russia relations were concerned – began immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks. Three months after that fateful day, in December 2001, George W. Bush informed Vladimir Putin that the US was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a strange move considering that the treaty had kept the peace between the nuclear superpowers since 1972. This geopolitical “mistake,” as Putin rightly defined it, allowed the US to begin the process of deploying a missile defense system, smack on the border with Russia, allegedly to shield the continent against an attack by Iran. Never mind the fact that Tehran had absolutely no reason, not to mention the wherewithal, to carry out such a suicidal mission. But Washington has never been one to let facts get in the way of a forced move on the global chess board.
Thus, the Bush administration advocated on behalf of a land-based missile defense system with interceptors based in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. However, due to serious objections from Russia, not to mention the apprehensive citizens of the host countries, the plan had reached an impasse in 2008 – just as Obama was replacing Bush in the White House. Some would call that impeccable timing. What happened next can only be described as a devious sleight of hand on the part of Washington.
In September 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, announced to great fanfare that the US would “shelve” the Bush plan. This announcement was received in Moscow and beyond as a sign that America’s first black president was truly the real deal when it came to working on behalf of global peace. Suddenly, it appeared that the Bush reign of error had been an ugly anomaly, a bad eight-year dream. That grand illusion lasted for about as long as it took to read that sentence.
Barack Obama, the man who had seduced the global masses with his velvety albeit teleprompted delivery, shifted gears the very next day, announcing that the US would be deploying, in four phases, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe instead. An opinion piece in the New York Times, penned by then Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, provided all the information to understand that the world had been hoodwinked.
“Steady technological advances in our missile defense program — from kill vehicles to the abilities to network radars and sensors — give us confidence in this plan,” Gates wrote. “The SM-3 has had eight successful tests since 2007, and we will continue to develop it to give it the capacity to intercept long-range missiles like ICBMs. It is now more than able to deal with the threat from multiple short- and medium-range missiles — a very real threat to our allies and some 80,000 American troops based in Europe that was not addressed by the previous plan.”
“We are strengthening — not scrapping — missile defense in Europe,” he concluded.
With the benefit of hindsight and common sense, it seems that Washington’s plan from the start was to move forward with the sophisticated SM-3 system; the bulky Bush initiative just provided the necessary distraction to usher in the advanced Obama plan, which presents a major threat to the global strategic balance.
But all that is ancient history compared to what is happening today. Under the guise of ‘Russia aggression,’ a concept that was peddled to the unsuspecting masses based on the fake news of a Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine and Crimea, compounded by claims that Russia somehow swayed the 2016 US presidential elections, US-led NATO has dropped all pretensions and declared open season on Russia. Combined with Donald Trump’s empty threat that the US would exit NATO if member states did not start spending more on defense (2 percent of annual GDP), Eastern Europe has become a veritable hothouse of paranoia-driven militarization.
In what the Kremlin has described as the greatest amassing of military assets on its border since World War II, NATO troops and hardware have set up camp from as far north as Estonia, down through Latvia and Lithuania, into Romania and Poland, where the rotation of US troops is now standard operating procedure.
Meanwhile, massive military games aimed at deterring the Russian bogeyman continue unabated on Russia’s border. In April, British journalist Neil Clark described just one of these exercises, dubbed Summer Shield. The NATO military exercises “got underway at the Adazi military base. Soldiers from Latvia, the US, Bulgaria, Estonia, Canada, Lithuania, the UK, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Germany and also non-NATO member Sweden are taking part in the drills,” Clark wrote.
He then went on to make a rather unsettling yet accurate observation: “Today’s mantra regarding ‘Russian aggression’ is the 2003 equivalent of ‘Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ to be repeated ad nauseum by anyone supporting NATO’s Drang nach Osten. And like the WMD claim, it’s based on zero evidence.”
Such reckless behavior would have been difficult to fathom less than a decade ago.
But these are brave new times, and American madness has settled upon the realm of foreign relations like a noxious cloud, forcing client states to crack open their tattered wallets or be left out in the cold when the big, bad Russian bear comes a knocking.
Consider the case of Romania, one of Europe’s poorest countries. Prompted by Donald Trump’s warning that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members must fork over 2 percent of their GDP on military spending, Bucharest just made a down payment on a $1 billion American-made M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), as well as four new multi-function corvettes.
Romanian Defence Minister Mihai Fifor told Jane’s that these exorbitant purchases would “improve Romania’s national and allied defense capability” and emphasized that Romania’s commitment to the 2% of GDP spending cap “for the next 10 years is strong”.
Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said, “We want those procurement programs to also strengthen our defence industry based on offset arrangements where possible”.
This was not the first American military incursion into Romania under the guise of guarding against Iran and other alleged rogue players.
In May 2016, the US activated its $800 million missile shield in Romania, which Russia obviously views as a direct threat.
“At the moment the interceptor missiles installed have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won’t know,” Vladimir Putin told reporters during a visit to Greece in May 2016.
“We have been saying since the early 2000s that we will have to react somehow to your moves to undermine international security. No one is listening to us,” Putin warned.
It remains to be seen how long NATO tone deafness will continue before the militarization of Eastern Europe gets completely out of control and the situation becomes untenable. Or perhaps the point of no return has already come to pass and, fait accompli, we are merely enjoying an illusory calm before the storm.
On Feb.23, the US Treasury Department announced the introduction of sanctions on 56 shipping vessels and entities accused of illicit trading with North Korea. The pressure intensification pursues the goal of compelling Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program. Today, almost all ships used for trade with that country are under the restrictive measures, including ship-to-ship transfers.
It’s timing that is important. The move is taken at a time the Winter Olympics are being hosted by South Korea. The event is used for easing tensions and launching dialogue between Seoul and Pyongyang.
Gradually, Washington is edging closer to the imposition of an economic blockade enforced by the US Navy. “If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go Phase 2,” President Trump said, obviously meaning the use of force. “Phase 2 may be a very rough thing,” he warned.
Washington appears to be serious about its intent to go really far. In December, 2017, the US tried to insert a provision into the resolution on Pyongyang that would permit to hail and board North Korean ships in international waters. In January, Defense Secretary James Mattis said the US military had prepared a North Korea war plan. According to leading American experts on nuclear issues, Pyongyang may have as many as 20 nuclear warheads.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says his country will sanction anyone who does not comply with the restrictive measures it imposes. But only the UN-endorsed sanctions are mandatory. If Russia or China imposed sanctions against a country the US maintains trade ties with, would it agree to comply?
There is another aspect of the problem to be paid attention to. US lawmakers are not biding time. The legislation has already passed the House of Representatives. This is a very dangerous legislation that few people remember about. It not only the calls for being as tough as can be but also includes «inspection authorities» over the sea ports of Russia, China, Iran and Syria (Section 104). The legislation mentions the Russian ports of Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Vanino. It authorizes US Secretary of Homeland Security to search any vessel or aircraft that have used North Korean airports or seaports to make them subject to nothing less than “seizure and forfeiture”! The bill openly dictates that other countries must comply with US laws.
And the proposed surveillance of sovereign ports in the Russian Far East! If enforced, it would not only grossly violate international law but also constitute an act of war. But how could lawmakers approve it? Will US senators be wise enough to realize that Russia, China or Iran compliance with these provisions is as realistic as a dog observing a barking ban?
One more thing to emphasize. There had been no real bipartisan debate before the Act was voted by the House. It was handled under a “suspension of the rules” procedure, which is normally applied to noncontroversial bills. It helped to make it pass with only one “no” vote.
The UN Security Council has never delegated the authority to inspect other countries’ vessels or seaports to the US. The 1994 Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control in the Asia-Pacific Region describes in detail the procedures in question. No country has special rights to get onboard of other countries’ ships.
An attempt to board a foreign ship would be a hostile act with unpredictable consequences. Russia and China will certainly counter such activities. But the US Navy will have to do it, once the legislation becomes law. The representatives who endorsed it were fully aware of what it might lead to but they did what they did. It reflects the mentality of those who are responsible for shaping US foreign policy as members of Congress.
And the new sanctions just announced by the administration, who are they aimed at? Probably, ordinary people instead of those who are responsible for the nuclear tests.
The problem is the reluctance of American politicians to perceive reality. The days when the US could do it alone are gone. Only an international effort can solve the North Korean problem. Unilateral actions are fraught with provoking conflicts not because other countries sympathize with or support North Korea but because they have no choice but stand up to the US challenge to remain sovereign nations. It’s time for the US to change mentality and stop behaving like a bull in a china shop.
As President Donald Trump prepares to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week, a group of U.S. intelligence veterans offers corrections to a number of false accusations that have been levelled against Iran.
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: War With Iran
INTRODUCTION
In our December 21st Memorandum to you, we cautioned that the claim that Iran is currently the world’s top sponsor of terrorism is unsupported by hard evidence. Meanwhile, other false accusations against Iran have intensified. Thus, we feel obliged to alert you to the virtually inevitable consequences of war with Iran, just as we warned President George W. Bush six weeks before the U.S. attack on Iraq 15 years ago.
In our first Memorandum in this genre we told then-President Bush that we saw “no compelling reason” to attack Iraq, and warned “the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” The consequences will be far worse, should the U.S. become drawn into war with Iran. We fear that you are not getting the straight story on this from your intelligence and national security officials.
After choosing “War With Iran” for the subject-line of this Memo, we were reminded that we had used it before, namely, for a Memorandum to President Obama on August 3, 2010 in similar circumstances. You may wish to ask your staff to give you that one to read and ponder. It included a startling quote from then-Chairman of President Bush Jr.’s Intelligence Advisory Board (and former national security adviser to Bush Sr.) Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who told the Financial Times on October 14, 2004 that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush “mesmerized;” that “Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger.” We wanted to remind you of that history, as you prepare to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week.
* * *
Rhetoric vs. Reality
We believe that the recent reporting regarding possible conflict with nuclear-armed North Korea has somewhat obscured consideration of the significantly higher probability that Israel or even Saudi Arabia will take steps that will lead to a war with Iran that will inevitably draw the United States in. Israel is particularly inclined to move aggressively, with potentially serious consequences for the U.S., in the wake of the recent incident involving an alleged Iranian drone and the shooting down of an Israeli aircraft.
There is also considerable anti-Iran rhetoric in U.S. media, which might well facilitate a transition from a cold war-type situation to a hot war involving U.S. forces. We have for some time been observing with some concern the growing hostility towards Iran coming out of Washington and from the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster is warning that the “time to act is now” to thwart Iran’s aggressive regional ambitions while U.S. United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley sees a “wake-up” call in the recent shooting incident involving Syria and Israel. Particular concern has been expressed by the White House that Iran is exploiting Shi’a minorities in neighboring Sunni dominated states to create unrest and is also expanding its role in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
While we share concerns over the Iranian government’s intentions vis-à-vis its neighbors, we do not believe that the developments in the region, many of which came about through American missteps, have a major impact on vital U.S. national interests. Nor is Iran, which often sees itself as acting defensively against surrounding Sunni states, anything like an existential threat to the United States that would mandate the sustained military action that would inevitably result if Iran is attacked.
Iran’s alleged desire to stitch together a sphere of influence consisting of an arc of allied nations and proxy forces running from its western borders to the Mediterranean Sea has been frequently cited as justification for a more assertive policy against Tehran, but we believe this concern to be greatly exaggerated. Iran, with a population of more than 80 million, is, to be sure, a major regional power but militarily, economically and politically it is highly vulnerable.
Limited Military Capability
Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard is well armed and trained, but much of its “boots on the ground” army consists of militiamen of variable quality. Its Air Force is a “shadow” of what existed under the Shah and is significantly outgunned by its rivals in the Persian Gulf, not to mention Israel. Its navy is only “green water” capable in that it consists largely of smaller vessels responsible for coastal defense supplemented by the swarming of Revolutionary Guard small speedboats.
When Napoleon had conquered much of continental Europe and was contemplating invading Britain it was widely believed that England was helpless before him. British Admiral Earl St Vincent was unperturbed: “I do not say the French can’t come, I only say they can’t come by sea.” We likewise believe that Iran’s apparent threat is in reality decisively limited by its inability to project power across the water or through the air against neighboring states that have marked superiority in both respects.
The concern over a possibly developing “Shi’ite land bridge,” also referred to as an “arc” or “crescent,” is likewise overstated. It ignores the reality that Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon all have strong national identities and religiously mixed populations. They are influenced — some of them strongly — by Iran but they are not puppet states. And there is also an ethnic division that the neighboring states’ populations are very conscious of– they are Arabs and Iran is Persian, which is also true of the Shi’a populations in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.
Majority Shi’a Iraq, for example, is now very friendly to Iran but it has to deal with considerable Kurdish and Sunni minorities in its governance and in the direction of its foreign policy. It will not do Iran’s bidding on a number of key issues, including Baghdad’s relationship with Washington, and would be unwilling to become a proxy in Tehran’s conflicts with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iraqi Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi, the highest-ranking Sunni in the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi government, has, for example, recently called for the demobilization of the Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces or militias that have been fighting ISIS because they “have their own political aspirations, their own [political] agendas. … They are very dangerous to the future of Iraq.”
Nuclear Weapons Thwarted
A major concern that has undergirded much of the perception of an Iranian threat is the possibility that Tehran will develop a nuclear weapon somewhere down the road. We believe that the current Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, even if imperfect, provides the best response to that Iranian proliferation problem. The U.N. inspections regime is strict and, if the agreement stands, there is every reason to believe that Iran will be unable to take the necessary precursor steps leading to a nuclear weapons program. Iran will be further limited in its options after the agreement expires in nine years. Experts believe that, at that point, Iran its not likely to choose to accumulate the necessary highly enriched uranium stocks to proceed.
The recent incident involving the shoot-down of a drone alleged to be Iranian, followed by the downing of an Israeli fighter by a Syrian air defense missile, resulted in a sharp response from Tel Aviv, though reportedly mitigated by a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin that anything more provocative might inadvertently involve Russia in the conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to have moderated his response but his government is clearly contemplating a more robust intervention to counter what he describes as a developing Iranian presence in Syria.
In addition, Netanyahu may be indicted on corruption charges, and it is conceivable that he might welcome a “small war” to deflect attention from mounting political problems at home.
Getting Snookered Into War
We believe that the mounting Iran hysteria evident in the U.S. media and reflected in Beltway groupthink has largely been generated by Saudi Arabia and Israel, who nurture their own aspirations for regional political and military supremacy. There are no actual American vital interests at stake and it is past time to pause and take a step backwards to consider what those interests actually are in a region that has seen nothing but disaster since 2003. Countering an assumed Iranian threat that is minimal and triggering a war would be catastrophic and would exacerbate instability, likely leading to a breakdown in the current political alignment of the entire Middle East. It would be costly for the United States.
Iran is not militarily formidable, but its ability to fight on the defensive against U.S. naval and air forces is considerable and can cause high casualties. There appears to be a perception in the Defense Department that Iran could be defeated in a matter of days, but we would warn that such predictions tend to be based on overly optimistic projections, witness the outcomes in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, Tehran would be able again to unleash terrorist resources throughout the region, endangering U.S. military and diplomats based there as well as American travelers and businesses. The terrorist threat might easily extend beyond the Middle East into Europe and also the United States, while the dollar costs of a major new conflict and its aftermath could break the bank, literally.
Another major consideration before ratcheting up hostilities should be that a war with Iran might not be containable. As the warning from President Vladimir Putin to Netanyahu made clear, other major powers have interests in what goes on in the Persian Gulf, and there is a real danger that a regional war could have global consequences.
In sum, we see a growing risk that the U.S. will become drawn into hostilities on pretexts fabricated by Israel and Saudi Arabia for their actual common objective (“regime change” in Iran). A confluence of factors and misconceptions about what is at stake and how such a conflict is likely to develop, coming from both inside and outside the Administration have, unfortunately, made such an outcome increasingly likely.
We have seen this picture before, just 15 years ago in Iraq, which should serve as a warning. The prevailing perception of threat that the Mullahs of Iran allegedly pose directly against the security of the U.S. is largely contrived. Even if all the allegations were true, they would not justify an Iraq-style “preventive war” violating national as well as international law. An ill-considered U.S. intervention in Iran is surely not worth the horrific humanitarian, military, economic, and political cost to be paid if Washington allows itself to become part of an armed attack.
FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY
William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
Kathleen Christison, CIA, Senior Analyst on Middle East (ret.)
Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq; Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF; ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC) (ret.)
John Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service Officer; resigned Feb. 27, 2003 as Political Counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, in protest against the U.S. attack on Iraq (ret.)
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Edward Loomis, Jr., former NSA Technical Director for the Office of Signals Processing (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council, National Intelligence Estimates Officer (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Greg Thielmann, former Director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office, State Department Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR), and former senior staffer on Senate Intelligence Committee (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA ret.)
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State; Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (ret.); also Foreign Service Officer who, like Political Counselor John Brady Kiesling, resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq
Pyongyang has accused Washington of bringing “clouds of war” to the region by imposing “the largest-ever” sanctions during the Olympic Games, but says it is still open to direct talks with the US.
A statement published by state news agency KCNA hailed North Korea’s leadership for their “strong determination for peace, long-awaited inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation,” which began to surface during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The statement went on to say that Washington is violating the Korean Olympics truce and “is running amok to bring another dark cloud of confrontation and war over the Korean peninsula” by announcing new wave of sanctions against the North.
“We came to possess nuclear weapons, the treasured sword of justice, in order to defend ourselves from such threats from the United States,” the statement read, adding that “we will consider any type of blockade an act of war against us.”
On Friday, Washington announced “the largest-ever set of new sanctions on the North Korean regime,” targeting the country’s industries and exports.
Twenty-seven foreign companies, 28 ships, and one person – mainly based in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore – were sanctioned, according to the US Treasury. US President Donald Trump has said that “if the sanctions don’t work, we will have to go to phase two, and phase two may be a very rough thing, may be very, very unfortunate for the world.”
The president did not specify what exactly he meant by “phase two,” but qualified the statement by saying he did not think he was “going to exactly play that card.”
Still, Pyongyang says it is open for direct talks with Washington and continues negotiations with Seoul. On Sunday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in hosted Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, in Pyeongchang, Yonhap reports. This was President Moon’s second meeting with top-tier North Korean officials in just two weeks.
Previously, he held talks with a delegation which included Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, who delivered a special message from her brother, inviting Moon to Pyongyang in future. Moon is yet to accept the invitation, and if he does, it would be the first visit by a South Korean head of state since 2007, when then-President Roh Moo-hyun met with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.
The Trump administration seems to be wary of the ongoing inter-Korean détente which started earlier this year with high-level contacts between the two countries’ officials. Notwithstanding some promising statements by US Vice President Mike Pence, Washington is continuing its policy of sanctions and military pressure.
This spring, the US and South Korea will resume massive military drills – Foal Eagle and Key Resolve. Though Washington and Seoul maintain that the exercises are critical to prepare for a North Korean attack, Pyongyang views the wargames as a rehearsal for invasion, and has threatened retaliatory strikes.
Russia and China have consistently urged caution in the matter. In January, the two countries put forward a ‘double freeze’ initiative that envisaged the US and its allies ceasing all major military exercises in the region in exchange for North Korea suspending its nuclear and ballistic missile program. The initiative was rejected by Washington.
Fads and scandals often follow a set trajectory. They grow big, bigger, and then, finally, too big, at which point they topple over and collapse under the weight of their own internal contradictions. This was the fate of the “Me too” campaign, which started out as an exposé of serial abuser Harvey Weinstein but then went too far when Babe.net published a story about one woman’s bad date with comedian Aziz Ansari. Suddenly, it became clear that different types of behavior were being lumped together in a dangerous way, and a once-explosive movement began to fizzle.
So, too, with Russiagate. After dominating the news for more than a year, the scandal may have at last reached a tipping point with last week’s indictment of thirteen Russian individuals and three Russian corporations on charges of illegal interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. But the indictment landed with a decided thud for three reasons:
— It failed to connect the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the alleged St. Petersburg troll factory accused of political meddling, with Vladimir Putin, the all-purpose evil-doer who the corporate media say is out to destroy American democracy.
— It similarly failed to establish a connection with the Trump campaign and indeed went out of its way to describe contacts with the Russians as “unwitting.”
— It described the meddling itself as even more inept and amateurish than many had suspected.
After nine months of labor, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller thus brought forth a mouse. Even if all the charges are true – something we’ll probably never know since it’s unlikely that any of the accused will be brought to trial – the indictment tells us virtually nothing that’s new.
Yes, IRA staffers purchased $100,000 worth of Facebook ads, 56 percent of which ran after Election Day. Yes, they persuaded someone in Florida to dress up as Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform and stand inside a cage mounted on a flatbed truck. And, yes, they also got another “real U.S. person,” as the indictment terms it, to stand in front of the White House with a sign saying, “Happy 55th Birthday Dear Boss,” a tribute, apparently, to IRA founder Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the convicted robber turned caterer whose birthday was three days away. Instead of a super-sophisticated spying operation, the indictment depicts a bumbling freelance operation that is still giving Putin heartburn months after the fact.
Not that this has stopped the media from whipping itself into a frenzy. “Russia is at war with our democracy,” screamed a headline in the Washington Post. “Trump is ignoring the worst attack on America since 9/11,” blared another. “… Russia is engaged in a virtual war against the United States through 21st-century tools of disinformation and propaganda,” declared the New York Times, while Daily Beast columnist Jonathan Alter tweeted that the IRA’s activities amounted to nothing less than a “tech Pearl Harbor.”
All of which merely demonstrates, in proper backhanded fashion, how grievously Mueller has fallen short. Proof that the scandal had at last overstayed its welcome came five days later when the Guardian, a website that had previously flogged Russiagate even more vigorously than the Post, the Times, or CNN, published a news analysis by Cas Mudde, an associate professor at the University of Georgia, admitting that it was all a farce – and a particularly self-defeating one at that.
Mudde’s article made short work of hollow pieties about a neutral and objective investigation. Rather than an effort to get at the truth, Russiagate was a thinly-veiled effort at regime change. “[I]n the end,” he wrote, “the only question everyone really seems to care about is whether Donald Trump was involved – and can therefore be impeached for treason.
With last week’s indictment, the article went on, “Democratic party leaders once again reassured their followers that this was the next logical step in the inevitable downfall of Trump.” The more Democrats play the Russiagate card, in other words, the nearer they will come to their goal of riding the Orange-Haired One out of town on a rail.
This makes the Dems seem crass, unscrupulous, and none too democratic. But then Mudde gave the knife a twist. The real trouble with the strategy, he said, is that it isn’t working:
“While there is no doubt that the Trump camp was, and still is, filled with amoral and fraudulent people, and was very happy to take the Russians help during the elections, even encouraging it on the campaign, I do not think Mueller will be able to find conclusive evidence that Donald Trump himself colluded with Putin’s Russia to win the elections. And that is the only thing that will lead to his impeachment as the Republican party is not risking political suicide for anything less.”
Other Objectives of “Russiagate”
No collusion means no impeachment and hence no anti-Trump “color revolution” of the sort that was so effective in Georgia or the Ukraine. Moreover, while 53 percent of Americans believe that investigating Russiagate should be a top or at least an important priority according to a recent poll, figures for a half-dozen other issues ranging from Medicare and Social Security reform to tax policy, healthcare, infrastructure, and immigration are actually a good deal higher – 67 percent, 72 percent, or even more.
Summed up Mudde: “… the Russia-Trump collusion story might be the talk of the town in Washington, but this is not the case in much of the rest of the country.” Out in flyover country, rather, Americans can’t figure out why the political elite is more concerned with a nonexistent scandal than with things that really count, i.e. de-industrialization, infrastructure decay, the opioid epidemic, and school shootings. As society disintegrates, the only thing Democrats have accomplished with all their blathering about Russkis under the bed is to demonstrate just how cut off from the real world they are.
But Russiagate is not just about regime change, but other things as well. One is repression. Where once Democrats would have laughed off Russian trolls and the like, they’re now obsessed with making a mountain out of a molehill in order to enforce mainstream opinion and marginalize ideas and opinions suspected of being un-American and hence pro-Russian. If the RT (Russia Today) news network is now suspect – the Times described it not long ago as “the slickly produced heart of a broad, often covert disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about democratic institutions and destabilize the West” – then why not the BBC or Agence France-Presse ? How long until foreign books are banned or foreign musicians?
“I’m actually surprised I haven’t been indicted,” tweetsBloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky. “I’m Russian, I was in the U.S. in 2016 and I published columns critical of both Clinton and Trump w/o registering as a foreign agent.” When the Times complains that Facebook “still sees itself as the bank that got robbed, rather than the architect who designed a bank with no safes, and no alarms or locks on the doors, and then acted surprised when burglars struck,” then it’s clear that the goal is to force Facebook to rein in its activities or stand by and watch as others do so instead.
Add to this the classic moral panic promoted by #MeToo – to believe charges of sexual harassment and assault without first demanding evidence “is to disbelieve, and deny due process to, the accused,” notes Judith Levine in the Boston Review – and it’s clear that a powerful wave of cultural conservatism is crashing down on the United States, much of it originating in a classic neoliberal-Hillaryite milieu. Formerly the liberal alternative, the Democratic Party is now passing the Republicans on the right.
But Russiagate is about something else as well: war. As National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster warns that the “time is now” to act against Iran, the New York Times slams Trump for not imposing sanctions on Moscow, and a spooky “Nuclear Posture Review” suggests that the US might someday respond to a cyber attack with atomic weapons, it’s plain that Washington is itching for a showdown that will somehow undo the mistakes of the previous administration. The more Trump drags his feet, the more Democrats conclude that a war drive is the best way to bring him to his knees.
Thus, low-grade political interference is elevated into a casus belli while Vladimir Putin is portrayed as a supernatural villain straight out of Harry Potter. But where does it stop? Libya has been set back decades, Syria, the subject of yet another US regime-change effort, has been all but destroyed, while Yemen – which America helps Saudi Arabia bomb virtually around the clock – is now a disaster area with some 9,000 people killed, 50,000 injured, a million-plus cholera cases, and more than half of all hospitals and clinics destroyed.
The more Democrats pound the war drums, the more death and destruction will ensue. The process is well underway in Syria, the victim of Israeli bombings and a US-Turkish invasion, and it will undoubtedly spread as Dems turn up the heat. If the pathetic pseudo-scandal known as Russiagate really is collapsing under its own weight, then it’s not a moment too soon.
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).
MOSCOW – North Korea’s committee on Korean reconciliation condemned on Thursday an upcoming joint US-Japan missile defense drill as an attempt to reignite regional tensions and obstruct the ongoing thaw between Pyongyang and Seoul.
“Branding this as a ferocious gangster-like act aimed to tarnish the hard-won atmosphere for the improvement of the North-South ties and for peace on the Korean Peninsula, and as a dangerous military provocation to ignite the train of a war,” the [North’s] Korean National Peace Committee said in a statement, announced by state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
The statement was made after on February 15, the Japanese Defense Ministry announced that this year’s joint ballistic missile defense exercise, which is due to start on Friday and last for a week, would have a larger scale than the previous ones and involve not only the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and the US Navy but also the two countries’ air force units and the US Marine Corps. The ministry stressed the importance of the drill, citing November’s North Korean ballistic missile activities.
The committee also noted “greater bellicosity” and the danger of the forthcoming exercise, pointing to the planned involvement of fighter jets and US marines.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have further escalated as North Korea achieved significant progress in its nuclear and missile programs last year. Pyongyang tested several ballistic missiles, including its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile in November, which it said was capable of hitting any part of the mainland of the United States. In turn, Washington has led a number of diplomatic initiatives to put pressure on Pyongyang and held several drills in the region.
In January, Pyongyang and Seoul resumed bilateral talks ahead of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. As a result, their national teams marched together under a “unification flag” at the opening ceremony and are jointly participating in a number of sporting events.
The sides also reportedly agreed to delay their military activities until after the Olympics, which will last through Sunday.
The brief respite on the Korean Peninsula seems fated to end with the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang after North Korean leaders canceled a planned secret meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence. Washington is also expected to soon resume postponed military exercises alongside South Korea, exercises that North Korea has labeled provocative.
Brian Becker and John Kiriakou of Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear were joined by Christine Ahn, a co-founder of the Korea Policy Institute, a think tank that advises American politicians to foster diplomacy and friendship with both Koreas, as well as the International Coordinator of Women Cross DMZ, an organization of peace activists.
“I feel like we’re in a funhouse with a lot of smoke and mirrors and doublespeak and confusion, especially coming from the Trump administration,” said Ahn. “This spin coming from the White House that it’s North Korea that canceled the secret meeting, but [the US] were also noting that they were just going to reiterate their hardline stance — which they publicly did in Tokyo as [Pence] was meeting with [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe.”
“As for the military exercises — I have heard different things. I have heard that South Korea has now been in conversation that they will consider stalling the military exercises, and we have the US jumping the gun and saying that the exercises are going to resume. We are in a critical window and it is urgent now for the US peace movement to raise our voices and to say we must support the inter-Korean peace process that is underway.”
“We must urge our government to halt the military exercises, to listen to the people of Korea — both North and South — that want the inter-Korean reconciliation to continue. Clearly resuming these military exercises, that include provocative decapitation strikes and regime-change exercises, would intrude on inter-Korean dialogue,” she went on to say.
In response to North Korea’s myriad missile tests, the US, South Korea and Japan launched a series of military exercises on and near the peninsula. This includes December air drills between the US and South Korea that involved hundreds of aircraft, including nuclear-capable B-1B bombers.
“The national security law in South Korea [considers] any contact with North Koreans to be a threat to their national security,” said Ahn. “I think you have a situation where South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has gone to the 2007 summit in North Korea, having his mother come from the northern part of the Korean Peninsula before it was divided, deeply understands the complex situation that South Korea is in.”
“They have this ‘alliance’ with the US which includes wartime operational control over South Korea’s military. I think you also have… this older generation, who are maintaining that Cold War paradigm that has really hobbled the advancement of South Korean democracy.”
“It’s a historic moment, we know that. [Moon] has said he is trying to get a peace treaty between the US and North Korea, as promised under the armistice agreement that was signed in 1953.”
The agreement that ended hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, was not a peace treaty, merely an armistice, so the Korean War technically continues 65 years later. While the stated intention of the armistice was to eventually replace it with a permanent peace treaty, attempts to actually do so have never gotten far.
“It’s time right now for Americans to really put pressure on our government to formally end the Korean War,” said Ahn. “Not just for the Korean people, but also for the soul of this nation.”
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding... continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Aletho News
Aletho News 