The venue for The Syrian National Dialogue Congress was the Russian resort of Sochi; however, the foundation of the meeting was previously laid in Geneva. Turkey, Iran and Russia sponsored the event, with full support of the United Nations.
Attended by 1,393 delegates of the Syrian government and the opposition, the congress concluded late Tuesday after nine hours of negotiations covering issues from how to put an end to the seven-year war, to revising the constitution and post-war reconstruction.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres sent Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, to the Sochi meeting in hopes of making a significant breakthrough in a path towards peace in Syria and a political resolution to the armed conflict, which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, destroyed large parts of the country, and has caused millions to flee Syria as refugees.
In the 8th round of the Geneva talks for Syria last November, Staffan de Mistura set forth 12 principles for a future Syria. All delegates at Sochi received that document. It was agreed upon, that a commission will be formed to draft a new constitution for Syria, and the 12 points will form the basis of the new constitution.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria, holds all the powers given by UN Security Council resolution 2254, which means that any decision should be agreed upon by the government and the opposition. At the end of the Sochi meeting, he was so encouraged that he said, “We never had the government side and the opposition actually getting involved in a discussion of a new constitution, because they were not in agreement. I think we have reached that point.”
UN-sponsored Vienna talks are scheduled for next Thursday and Friday. The talks are part of the Geneva process, though will be held in the Austrian capital. The Vienna talks are to be a progression of the Sochi meeting.
Syrians congregated from differing religions, political ideologies and social strata, but all in one room with the goal to find a peaceful way forward for a new Syria. There were at times heated and intense exchanges, but that was to be expected as part of a democratic process.
Sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and unity of the Syrian Arab Republic.
Syria’s national sovereign equality and rights regarding non-intervention.
Syrian people shall determine the future of their country by the ballot box.
Syrian Arab Republic shall be a democratic and non-sectarian state.
Syria to be committed to national unity, social peace.
Continuity and improved performance of state and public institutions.
A strong national army that carries out its duties in accordance with the constitution.
Commitment to combat – terrorism, fanaticism, extremism and sectarianism.
Respect and protection of human rights and public freedoms.
Value placed on Syria’s society and national identity, and its history of diversity.
Fighting poverty and providing support for the elderly and other vulnerable groups.
Preservation and protection of national heritage and the natural environment.
The Constitutional Committee
The Sochi meeting concluded that a Constitutional Committee should be comprised of the Syrian government, opposition representatives, Syrian experts, civil society, independents, tribal leaders and women. A list of 150 candidates for the constitutional committee will be submitted, and Staffan de Mistura will have the final say. He said the talks in Vienna, part of the Geneva process, would build upon the progress achieved during the Sochi congress and set a schedule for drafting the new constitution.
The UN-backed negotiations in the Geneva process will focus on four elements: constitution; elections; governance; counterterrorism. Many see a solution for Syria which would spring forth from the establishment of three committees: a presidential committee for the Congress, a special committee for constitutional reforms and a committee for elections and the registration of voters.
Some Syrian Opposition Boycotted Sochi
Though dozens of opposition figures attended the Sochi meeting, there was a segment which decided not to participate. On January 27, 2018 the US- Saudi-backed coalition known as the Higher Negotiations Committee announced they would not attend the Sochi congress. Yahya al-Aridi, their spokesman announced the boycott, and claimed that the Sochi Congress was an effort to sideline the UN and the importance of the Geneva process. However, when it was revealed later that Staffan de Mistura was going to attend, and play a central role in the meeting, and ultimately was given full powers and authority to continue the Geneva process, the opposition members regretted their decision, which left them sidelined and isolated. However, Staffan de Mistura has stated since, that those not attending Sochi may still be included in the future meetings, and potentially in the constitution committee.
America’s role in the Syrian peace process
America, Saudi Arabia, France, United Kingdom, and Jordan devised a plan which would drastically alter the Syrian government. This document was to be presented to UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, as the “Friends of Syria” counter to the Sochi Congress. However, the document was leaked. It exposed the US and Arab allies plan to make the Syrian government a very weak institution, stripped of most powers. In contrast, those countries who devised the plan all have very strong central governments, some of them are in fact monarchies bordering on dictatorships, and one of them has no constitution or elections. It would seem America, Saudi Arabia, France, United Kingdom, and Jordan are not part of the Syrian peace process, and are left sidelined and isolated.
Two lodges for Freemason MPs and political journalists are continuing to operate secretly at Westminster, it has been revealed. The ‘brotherhood’ is said to be so covert most lobby reporters are unaware of its existence.
According to the Guardian, the Chambers are still home to the New Welcome Lodge, which recruits MPs, peers and parliamentary staff, and the Gallery Lodge, reserved for the political press corps. Freemasonry records reveal that a third lodge called the Alfred Robbins Lodge, also for journalists, carries on gathering in London on a regular basis.
While the identities of members are unknown to anyone outside the organization, David Staples, the chief executive of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), the governing body for Freemasons in England and Wales, rejected claims that politicians and journalists who are masons might have divided loyalties.
“Contrary to populist perception, being a Freemason helps those members in roles serving society in the broader sense, including journalists, politicians, policemen and lawyers, to be better in those jobs by encouraging them to act as better people themselves.
“Their membership is a positive for both them as individuals, and for society at large,” Staples said.
The newspaper reported that many Labour MPs left the Freemasons in the 1980s for fear they would lose their seats when questioned about their allegiance to the highly-secretive circle when reapplying for Labour membership between general elections. Declaring one’s membership was compulsory at the start of the decade.
It is understood at least one Labour MP withdrew from the New Welcome Lodge recently, and asked for his membership to be temporarily suspended so he could rejoin once certain he had secured his parliamentary seat.
The New Welcome Lodge is understood to have between 30 and 40 members, of whom only four are MPs and none are peers. The Gallery Lodge is reported to have 18.
A spokesman for the UGLE said: “None of the members who have joined either of these two lodges since 2000 have their occupation recorded as journalist or anything obviously linked to the newspaper industry.”
Freemasonry can be viewed as an international organization with an estimated 200,000 members worldwide. It is the oldest and largest non-political organization in the world, whose members call each other ‘brothers’ or ‘brethren.’ Sometimes confused or conflated with the Illuminati, Freemasons comprise a society that believes the universe has an architect, though Freemasonry is not considered a religion nor its lodges places of worship. It has been criticized for its secrecy and accused of serving the interests of its members over the those of the public.
Iran’s FM Spokesman Ghasemi called on Turkey to end its major offensive in northwestern Syrian city of Afrin, saying the operation would bring back instability and terrorists to the Arab country.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi made the remarks in his weekly press conference on Monday, adding “Ankara needs to reconsider its policy on [Afrin].”
Ghasemi urged Turkish government to immediately end its offensive in Syria, adding “the continuation of Turkey’s military operation will facilitate the return of instability and terrorism to Syria.”
He further called on Turkey to follow up all Syrian-related developments within the framework of Astana peace process.
The Iranian diplomat had previously urged Ankara to protect the territorial integrity of Syria and to avoid the escalation of crisis in the Middle Eastern country.
On Jan. 20, Turkey launched ‘Operation Olive Branch’, its second major military intervention in Syria since 2011, in a bid to eliminate the US-backed YPG, which Ankara views as a terror organization as well as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).
Both sides have suffered casualties during the operation that has come under strong criticism by Damascus.
“Former CIA director John Brennan has become the latest member of the NBC News and MSNBC family, officially signing with the network as a contributor,” chirps a recent article by The Wrap, as though that’s a perfectly normal thing to have to write and not a ghastly symptom of an Orwellian dystopia. NBC reports that the former head of the depraved, lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, coup-staging, warmongering Central Intelligence Agency “is now a senior national security and intelligence analyst.”
Former CIA analyst and now paid CNN analyst Phil Mudd, who last year caused Cuomo’s show to have to issue a retraction and apology for a completely baseless claim he made on national television asserting that WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is “a pedophile”, is once again making headlines for suggesting that the FBI is entering into a showdown with the current administration over Trump’s decision to declassify the controversial Nunes memo.
More and more of the outlets from which Americans get their information are being filled not just with garden variety establishment loyalists, but with longstanding members of the US intelligence community. These men got to their positions of power within these deeply sociopathic institutions for their willingness to facilitate any depravity in order to advance the secret agendas of the US power establishment, and now they’re being paraded in front of mainstream Americans on cable news on a daily basis. The words of these “experts” are consistently taken and reported on by smaller news outlets in print and online media in a way that seeds their authoritative assertions throughout public consciousness.
As we discussed recently, the term “deep state” does not refer to a conspiracy theory but to a simple concept in political analysis which points to the undeniable reality that (A) plutocrats, (B) intelligence agencies, (C) defense agencies, and (D) the mainstream media hold large amounts of power in America despite their not being part of its elected government. You don’t need to look far to see how these separate groups overlap and collaborate to advance their own agendas in various ways. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, for example, is deeply involved in all of the aforementioned groups: (A) as arguably the wealthiest person ever he is clearly a plutocrat, with a company that is trying to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy, (B) he is a CIA contractor, (C) he is part of a Pentagon advisory board, and (D) his purchase of the Washington Post in 2013 gave him total control over a major mainstream media outlet.
Jeff Bezos did not purchase the Washington Post because his avaricious brain predicted that newspapers were about to make a profitable resurgence, he purchased it for the same reason he has inserted himself so very deeply into America’s unelected power infrastructure: he wants to ensure a solid foundation for the empire he is building. He needs a potent propaganda outlet to manufacture support for the power establishment that he is weaving his plutocratic tentacles through. This is precisely the same reason other mass media-controlling plutocrats are stocking their propaganda machines with intelligence community insiders.
Time and time and time again you see connections between the plutocratic class which effectively owns America’s elected government, the intelligence and defense agencies which operate behind thick veils of secrecy in the name of “national security” to advance agendas which have nothing to do with the wishes of the electorate, and the mass media machine which is used to manufacture the consent of the people to be governed by this exploitative power structure.
America is ruled by an elite class which has slowly created a system where money increasingly translates directly into political power, and which is therefore motivated to maintain economic injustice in order to rule over the masses more completely. The greater the economic inequality, the greater their power. Nobody would willingly consent to such an oppressive system where wealth inequality keeps growing as expensive bombs from expensive drones are showered upon strangers on the other side of the planet, so a robust propaganda machine is needed.
And that’s where John Brennan’s new job comes in. Expect a consistent fountain of lies to pour from his mouth on NBC, and expect them to all prop up this exploitative power establishment and advance its geopolitical agendas. And expect clear-eyed rebels everywhere to keep calling it all what it is.
The mainstream media are totally irresponsible in their priorities. At the moment of writing, five hours after the world’s most dangerous document was presented, no major Western media has featured it prominently. This means it won’t be. No chance it would go viral. The increasing risk of nuclear war isn’t important.
While people talk about fake, a much larger issue is omission:
What is hidden to you? What world order issues are deliberately down-graded?
What threats to humanity end up at the bottom of page 38 after 10 pages of sports, entertainment and celebrity stories?
Another technique is cover-up, talking about something else such as the ever convenient North Korean “threat” or Russia’s latest evil plot.
It’s not only ignorance. There are media and other power elites who know exactly what to hand out to you and how. And what to fake, omit and cover up instead of covering.
Time to wake up: The dominant Western media are rapidly becoming the largest single obstacles to understanding our world. One proof is this story.
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The Transnational has already posted a few articles about this scary, absurd and anti-ethical document, the Nuclear Posture Review, NPR:
• Huffington Post’s first article based on a leak from January 14, 2018.
• Pentagon advocates nukes against a cyber attack, in the New York Times, January 16, 2018.
Watch and listen carefully to how the Pentagon experts explain and rationalize it all, from within their box: So natural as if talking about pleasant everyday affairs.
And take note of the lame, cliquish questions asked by what must be highly selected media people who, it seems, have never read a book about nuclear policies. Don’t challenge a single underlying assumption or point to dangers.
The central words are ‘the safety of the American people’, the capabilities and it’s all held within the weapons technological framework and blurred security environment and deterrence. Not a single, intellectually defensible argument given.
No questioning of the framework – legal, political, ethical, psychological, civilisational…
* * *
This is not only what the leading US psychiatrist of war, Nazi doctors and sect psychology, Robert Jay Lifton calls ‘psychic numbing’.
Or what Yale psychologist Irving Janis in his classical study called ‘groupthink’.
No, seldom has the Theatre of the Absurd of the MIMAC – the Military-industrial MEDIA-Academic Complex – been performed so well.
In a calm and rational manner, we learn how natural it is to perceive, to talk about – and never question – what is in reality directly and fundamentally related to the unthinkable omnicide – destruction of humanity and the world as we know it.
All in the name, of course, of maintaining the US-based, military-dominated post-1945 world order against America’s beloved enemies. What would it do without them? How would it develop new nukes at trillions of dollars if it did not invent enemies all around. Imagine it had a policy of co-operation with the world instead of dominating it?
It’s well known that one of the defining characteristics of terrorism is the targeting, wounding or killing of innocent people, of people who are in no way fighters or otherwise related to the conflict – like children on a school bus, patients at a hospital.
The Nuclear Posture Review is a plea for mega-terrorism, dwarfing ISIS and everybody else.
It’s about the use of nuclear weapons – NUTs meaning Nuclear Use Theory – not for the deterrence business as usual, or MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction.
It is a document that argues in favour of nuclear weapons being usable, for the theory that the US can start, fight and survive a nuclear exchange. In other words, for making the unthinkable not only thinkable but acceptable.
You can’t use nuclear weapons without killing and wounding millions and making life uninhabitable for billions. Every thought about nuclear use is based on a terror philosophy – and practised today only by the United States of America.
The NPR 2018 lowers the psychological threshold and increases the likelihood vastly that nuclear weapons will be used in the future.
This kind of thinking brings huge dangers to the world. There are lots of vested interests that don’t want you to know.
This document should be condemned – as it would have been throughout the homogenised Western mainstream media had it been Russia or China or some other nuclear weapons state that had presented a similarly perversely dangerous and exceptionalist nuclear-use policy.
There is a simple solution to this nuclear madness: Nuclear abolition. That’s what the world’s huge majority wants and has voted for at the UN.
And if you don’t believe that, let’s try a little experiment in democracy – after all that’s what the US is, isn’t it? Get all the nuclear weapons states to hold free and fair referendums asking their citizens whether they want their own countries defended by nuclear weapons.
For the first time in human history. Then we take the struggle for nuclear abolition from there…
MOSCOW – The Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday expressed disappointment with the confrontational and anti-Russian stance in the recently issued US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and outlined intentions to take the policies, revealed in the document, into account in ensuring its own security.
The NRP, published on Friday, claims a stronger US nuclear deterrent is needed to discourage Russia, China, Iran and North Korea from either developing new weapons or expanding existing arsenals. The US doctrine envisages short-term plans to modify existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to provide a low-yield option and pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the long run. The NPR notes that these activities are not intended at being employed in a nuclear warfare, however they are aimed at raising the US nuclear threshold to ensure that the country’s potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in nuclear escalation.
Moreover, in its nuclear doctrine the United States accuses Russia of repeated violations of several international arms control treaties and commitments, particularly the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov was the first to react to the release of the NPR. The diplomat suggested on Friday that Washington used alleged Russian threats to justify a hike in military spending and nuclear buildup. Antonov noted that the document raised questions and did not encourage practical work.
Moscow Will Have to Take US Policies into Account
“The content of the new nuclear doctrine (the so-called Nuclear Posture Review) released by the United States on February 2 has provoked our deep disappointment. The confrontational and anti-Russian nature of this document strikes the eye. We can state with regret that the United States explains its policies for large-scale boost of nuclear weapons by referring to modernization of the nuclear forces in Russia and alleged increasing role of nuclear weapons in the Russian doctrine statements. We are accused of lowering the nuclear threshold and of conducting some ‘aggressive’ behavior,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Saturday statement on the NPR.
Moscow suggested that the NPR questioned Russia’s right to self-defense when countering aggression in situations critical for the country’s existence.
“Of course, we will have to take into account the approaches introduced by Washington and take all necessary measures to ensure own security,” the statement pointed out.
The projects on creation of low-yield weapons for sea-based cruise missiles and low-yield warhead for ballistic missiles carried by Trident II submarines, mentioned in the new US nuclear doctrine, represent the most danger, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted, adding that nuclear weapons with such characteristics are designed as “battlefield weapons.”
The ministry also suggested that the United States was misleading the global community by saying that the new NPR would not lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use.
“Even more dangerous is the belief of the US military experts and other specialists in the sphere of national security, emerging from the pages of the nuclear doctrine, in their ability to reliably simulate the development of conflicts, in which they allow usage of ‘low-yield’ nuclear warheads. For us, the opposite is clear: significantly lowered ‘threshold conditions’ may lead to a missile-nuclear war even during low-intensity conflicts,” the Russian ministry stressed.
Moscow expressed deep concern over the fact that in its NPR, the United States allowed for the possibility of using nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances,” which, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, are not limited to military scenarios.
“Washington’s practically ‘adjustable’ approach to the use of nuclear weapons is concerning. The possibility of its use in the case of ‘extreme circumstances’ is declared, which the doctrine’s authors do not limit to military scenarios,” the statement read.
The US Nuclear Posture Review describes military scenarios in a rather unclear manner, thus allowing the United States to consider practically any case of military force use as a reason for carrying out a nuclear strike on those who it calls “aggressors,” the document continued.
“If all this is not an increase of the nuclear weapons factor in the doctrine, then what does the United States mean when it uses this notion about Russia?” the statement pointed out, referring to the US statement on the increasing role of nuclear weapons in the Russian military doctrine.
Groundless Accusations
The Russian Foreign Ministry categorically refuted all the allegations against it, made in the US nuclear doctrine.
According to the ministerial statement, “the US document is overfilled with different anti-Russia cliches starting from far-fetched accusations of ‘aggressive behavior’ and different kinds of ‘meddling’ and finishing with baseless accusations of ‘violations’ of a whole range of arrangements in the sphere of arms control.”
“Such peremptory cliches have recently been replicated by Washington without a pause. We consider this as an unfair attempt to shift on others the responsibility for the degradation of the situation in the field of international and regional security and the imbalance of arms control mechanisms, resulting from a series of irresponsible steps taken by the United States itself,” the ministry added.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called Washington’s statements saying that Moscow refuses to further decrease its nuclear capabilities yet another “falsification.”
The US nuclear doctrine said that Russia allegedly demonstrates lowering threshold for its first-use of nuclear weapons through statements of the country’s officials.
Reacting to this statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that these accusations against Russia had nothing to do with reality.
“The military doctrine of the Russian Federation clearly limits the use of nuclear weapons to two hypothetical and purely defensive scenarios: only in response to aggression with the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction against Russia and (or) our allies, and also — the second scenario – in case of use of conventional weapons, but only when the very existence of our state is threatened,” the ministerial statement read.
The Russian ministry emphasized Moscow’s openness for discussion of various issues, related to strengthening international security.
“We have directed the attention [of various players] including the United States to the fact, that settling key strategic stability problems, such as unilateral and unrestricted deployment of the US global missile defense system, implementation of the ‘global strike’ concept, the US denial to ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refusal to rule out possibility of deploying weapons in space, would contribute to creating the needed conditions for moving on the path of nuclear disarmament,” the statement pointed out.
Moreover, Moscow reiterated its commitment to obligations under various international treaties.
“Russia strictly complies with its obligations under all the international agreements. We fully implement the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies,” the statement read.
The statement also noted that Moscow had not in any way violated its obligations under the 2011 Vienna Document of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on increasing security and confidence-building measures, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.
“As for the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe [CFE], Russia could not have violated this document, because it had suspended its participation in the agreement back in 2007. This has been done because the Treaty, created during the era of confrontation between two military and political blocs, the Warsaw Treaty Organization and NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization], does not fit in today’s reality, because one of the blocs was dismissed long ago, while the other one, on the contrary, has been increasing its potential and expanding its ‘geography,'” the document pointed out.
This new reality has been reflected in the Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE-II), which NATO allies led by the United States refused to ratify, the statement noted.
China has expressed firm opposition to a recent US government report describing Beijing as a potential nuclear rival, also calling on Washington to reduce its much larger nuclear arsenal and join in efforts to promote regional stability.
Casting China as “a major challenge to US interests in Asia,” the 74-page US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) report said the US strategy for China was designed to prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, was acceptable.
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang condemned the US report on Sunday and said his country exercised utmost restraint in developing nuclear capabilities and kept its nuclear arsenal at the “minimum level” required for national security.
The official Xinhua news agency cited Ren as saying that Beijing would resolutely stick to the peaceful development of nuclear weapons and pursue a national defense policy that was defensive in nature. It also added that under no circumstances would China use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.
The Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman called on the US — which possesses the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal — to conform to the irreversible world trend of peace and development rather than run in the opposite direction.
“We hope the US will abandon a Cold War mentality and earnestly shoulder its special and primary responsibility for its own nuclear disarmament, understand correctly China’s strategic intentions, and take a fair view on China’s national defense and military development,” Ren added.
China has the world’s fifth-largest nuclear arsenal, with 300 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The US and Russia each possess about 7,000 warheads, or about 20 times as many as Beijing.
Before he became US president, Donald Trump did a lot of China-bashing particularly in matters of trade; but since assuming office, Trump has taken a softer line on China and tried to cultivate a relationship with the Chinese leadership.
MOSCOW – Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the Russian upper house’s Committee on Defense and Security, believes that the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) allows for another mass murder of civilians with the use of nuclear weapons similar to the atomic bombings of Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945.
“The whole world remembers Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US nuclear doctrine does not taboo the repetition of such things, and this is the most concerning thing,” Klintsevich said in a statement on Saturday, as quoted by his press service.
The recently issued Nuclear Posture Review significantly boosts the confrontation aspect of the US foreign policy, basing its policies not on cooperation with Russia in this area, but on the rivalry with Moscow, the lawmaker pointed out.
By endorsing this nuclear doctrine, including multiple “ideological injections,” the United States stakes on undermining global strategic balance for its own benefit, at the same time trying to depict Russia as the main reason for modernizing US nuclear forces, Klintsevich added.
The lawmaker noted that the United States had halted the strategic dialogue on nuclear risks with Russia using the Crimea referendum as a pretext, and had switched subsequently to groundless accusations against Moscow, as well as violations of various agreements.
The new US Nuclear Posture Review has become Washington’s reaction to the changing global environments, Klintsevich suggested. The situation on the Korean peninsula has shown that the United States cannot feel its full dominance even in the conflict with Pyongyang, the lawmaker pointed out.
The 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review also envisages short-term plans to modify existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to provide a low-yield option pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the long run.
Oleg Morozov, a member of the Russian upper house’s International Affairs Committee, called the US nuclear doctrine “demagogic” as on the one hand, the United States demonstrated peacefulness while accusing Russia of preparing for a nuclear strike, on the other hand.
Morozov also called the US Nuclear Posture Review a declaration of “a new round of the Cold War.”
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States during the final stage of World War II remains the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. The bombings left over 100,000 people killed and thousands of others injured.
After the end of the Cold War, the United States has seen a decrease in its weapons arsenal, particularly, due to the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty between Washington and Moscow. US President Donald Trump, however, has repeatedly vowed to build up the US nuclear arsenal.
Qatar’s defense minister says Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had planned a military invasion of his country at the beginning of a diplomatic crisis that erupted last year when several states cut off diplomatic relations with Doha.
In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah said Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had “tried everything” to destabilize Qatar, but “we have diffused this intention.”
“They have intentions to intervene militarily,” said Attiyah.
“They tried to provoke the tribes. They used mosques against us. Then they tried to get some puppets to bring in and replace our leaders,” he added.
Attiyah, who traveled to the United States last week and held talks with his US counterpart Jim Mattis, described the beginning of the crisis by the Saudi-led bloc as an “ambush” that was “miscalculated.”
Asked about Qatar’s relations with Iran, Attiyah said that Qatar maintained “friendly relations with everyone.”
The Qatari defense minister said that the Saudi-led bloc had “failed” in its attempt to replace Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with a new leader.
“They put their puppet, [Sheikh Abdullah bin Ali Al Thani, a relative of a former Qatari emir], on TV,” he said.
“They can’t do anything. The Qatari people love their emir,” he noted.
Back in June, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE imposed a trade and diplomatic embargo on Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism, an allegation strongly denied by Doha.
The Saudi-led quartet presented Qatar with a list of demands and gave it an ultimatum to comply with them or face consequences.
The demands included closing the Al Jazeera broadcaster, removing Turkish troops from Qatar’s soil, scaling back ties with Iran, and ending relations with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Doha, however, refused to meet the demands and denounced them as unreasonable.
Amid the diplomatic crisis, Abu Dhabi has taken an especially tough line towards Doha.
The Qatari former deputy prime minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, told Spanish daily ABC last October that the UAE had planned a military invasion of Qatar with thousands of US-trained mercenaries, but it failed to secure the support of Washington.
A series of leaked documents revealed in November 2017 that the UAE had a stunning detailed plot to launch an economic war on Qatar.
Dubai security chief Dhahi Khalfan also once called on the Saudi-led coalition involved in a deadly military campaign against Yemen to bomb Al Jazeera.
Mattis Threatens Military Action Over Syria Gas Attack Claims, Then Admits “No Evidence”
“I don’t have the evidence,” Mattis said. “What I am saying is that other groups on the ground – NGOs, fighters on the ground – have said that sarin has been used, so we are looking for evidence.”
This week the American public was once again bombarded by fresh headlines alleging the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad gassed its own people. And in predictable fashion the usual threat of US military force soon followed.
Except of course rather than “alleging” a chemical incident, all the usual suspects from CNN pundits to State Department bureaucrats to Pentagon officials in typical fashion are opting for the simpler “Assad did it” narrative. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert stated Thursday, “Russia is making the wrong choice by not exercising its unique influence. To allow the Syria regime to use chemical weapons against its own people is unconscionable. We will pursue accountability.”
The White Helmets published this photo on Thursday, claiming that its “volunteer was suffocated by the chlorine gas attack”. It appears that this is the “NGO” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis referenced on Friday to say “open sources” say Assad is using chemical weapons.
Nauert’s statement was a repeat of talking points from last week’s chemical attack claims, wherein both she and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ultimately blamed Russia. But like with other recent chemical attack allegations, the claims couldn’t be more vague or poorly sourced, yet was still enough for U.S. officials to issue more direct threats of US military action against Assad.
While addressing the prior East Ghouta incident during a talk on January 23rd, Tillerson let slip that he didn’t actually know much about the supposed earlier January attack at all while still putting blame squarely on Syria and Russia, saying at the time, “Whoever conducted the attacks Russia ultimately bears responsibility for the victims in eastern Ghouta and countless other Syrians targeted with chemical weapons since Russia became involved in Syria.”
This week the “evidence” doesn’t appear to be any clearer or narrowed.
On Friday Defense Secretary Jim Mattis addressed the latest claims, confidently asserting the Syrian government had as a matter of routine used chlorine as a weapon against the remaining pockets of opposition areas of the country – specifically in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta, but it appears at this point that even Reuters has suddenly found its journalistic skepticism… Yes, actual knowledge on whether or not there was even a chemical attack to begin with is indeed thin enough for Reuters to headline its own report with “Mattis says has no evidence of sarin gas used in Syria, but concerned”.
Mattis, in line with the rest of the administration – especially the State Department – did his best to paint a scenario of the case being all but certain that the Syrian Army has been using chlorine gas to attack civilians, while also suggesting Sarin may have been deployed as well, which could serve as a “red line” triggering US military attack on the Syrian government.
But Mattis was also forced to admit the following, according to Reuters :
Mattis, speaking with reporters, said the Syrian government had repeatedly used chlorine as a weapon. He stressed that the United States did not have evidence of sarin gas use.
“We are even more concerned about the possibility of sarin use, (but) I don’t have the evidence,” Mattis said. “What I am saying is that other groups on the ground – NGOs, fighters on the ground – have said that sarin has been used, so we are looking for evidence.”
And according to CNN, Mattis is now merely going on “open source” information, which essentially means anything from media reports to YouTube to Twitter to mere “opposition sources say…”. CNN reports the following:
“You have all seen how we reacted to that [referencing the April 2017 US airstrike], so they’d be ill advised to go back to violating the chemical convention”… Mattis acknowledged that the US has not seen direct evidence of the use of Sarin gas but pointed to open source reports. “I don’t have the evidence… We are looking for evidence. I don’t have evidence credible or uncredible.”
Like with previous allegations, US government officials are issuing threats of military action based on NGO’s and fighters on the ground.
Indeed the group only operates in areas controlled by al-Qaeda (HTS) and other anti-government insurgents, especially in the locations of recent alleged attacks – Idlib and East Ghouta.
Now that unverified claims of chemical attack incidents in Syria (and their subsequent uncritical amplification by media and politicians) have become routine, the following somewhat obvious observations need to be recalled:
The Assad government has long been winning the war, what incentive does it have to do the one thing (use CW) that would hasten its demise?
The US is a party to the conflict, so its claims must be evaluated accordingly.
The “NGOs and fighters on the ground” (in Mattis’ own words) are an even more direct party to the conflict.
The only way anti-Assad fighters can survive at this point is by triggering massive US military intervention (by claiming “Assad is gassing his own people!”).
The greater the momentum of Syria/Russia/Iran forces in defeating jihadists on Syrian territory, the more frequent the claims of chemical attacks become – issued from those very jihadists suffering near certain defeat.
In the midst of a grinding 7-year long “fog of war” conflict involving constant claims and counterclaims, mere “open source” information means nothing in terms of proof or hard evidence.
Al-Qaeda administers the locations from which chemical attack allegations are being made.
US officials stand ready to make use of “chemical attack” claims with or without “evidence credible or uncredible” (in Mattis’ words) anytime further pressure needs to be applied toward Russia or Syria.
For its part, Russia alongside the Syrian government and other regional allies have long accused the US of blindly trusting opposition sources inside Syria concerning claims of chemical weapons attacks, including the April 2017 incident in al-Qaeda controlled (HTS) Idlib, which resulted in the US attacking an airbase in central Syria.
Last October, the US State Department admitted that anti-Assad militant groups operating in Syria, especially in Idlib, possess and have used chemical weapons throughout the war – something which the US government previously said was impossible, as it consistently held the position that only the Assad government could be to blame.
After a year and a half of seeking but not finding SARS-2 in any wildlife anywhere (apart from domesticated or zoo animals that appear to have caught it from humans) is it time to say, yes, it didn’t just escape from a lab. It was created, built, assembled in a lab. Or many labs
Coronavirus scientists have been constructing new viruses out of bits and pieces of other viruses for a long time.
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