Wars for Israel « Aletho News

Why Confronting Israel Is Important

The Jewish state is no friend

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 14, 2018

I am often asked why I have this “thing” about Israel, with friends suggesting that I would be much more respected as a pundit if I were to instead concentrate on national security and political corruption. The problem with that formulation is that the so-called “special relationship” with Israel is itself the result of terrible national security and foreign policy choices that are sustained by pervasive political and media corruption, so any honest attempt to examine the one inevitably leads to the other. Most talking heads in the media avoid that dilemma by choosing to completely ignore the dark side of Israel.

Israel – not Russia – is the one foreign country that can interfere with impunity with the political processes in the United States yet it is immune from criticism. It is also the single most significant threat to genuine national security as it and its powerful domestic lobby have been major advocates for the continuation of America’s interventionist warfare state. The decision to go to war on false pretenses against Iraq, largely promoted by a cabal of prominent American Jews in the Pentagon and in the media, killed 4,424 Americans as well as hundreds of thousands Iraqis and will wind up costing the American taxpayer $7 trillion dollars when all the bills are paid. That same group of mostly Jewish neocons more-or-less is now agitating to go to war with Iran using a game plan for escalation prepared by Israel which will, if anything, prove even more catastrophic.

And I can go on from there. According to the FBI, Israel runs the most aggressive spying operations against the U.S. among ostensibly “friendly” nations, frequently stealing our military technology for resale by its own arms merchants. Its notable successes in espionage have included the most devastating spy in U.S. history Jonathan Pollard, while it has also penetrated American communications systems and illegally obtained both the fuel and the triggers for its own secret nuclear weapons arsenal.

Israel cares little for American sovereignty. It’s prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu have both boasted how they control the United States. In 2001, Israel was running a massive secret spying operation directed against Arabs in the U.S. Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it had considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with Washington. There was the spectacle of the “dancing Shlomos,” Israeli “movers” from a company in New Jersey who apparently had advanced knowledge of the terrorist attack and danced and celebrated as they watched the Twin Towers go down.

Jewish power, both in terms of money and of access to people and mechanisms that really matter, is what allows Israel to act with impunity, making the United States both poorer and more insecure. A well-funded massive lobbying effort involving hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals in the U.S. has worked to the detriment of actual American interests, in part by creating a permanent annual gift of billions of dollars to Israel for no other reason but that it is Israel and can get anything it wants from a servile Congress and White House without any objection from a controlled media.

Israel has also obtained carte blanche political protection from the U.S. in fora like the United Nations, which is damaging to America’s reputation and its actual interests. This protection now extends to the basing of U.S. troops in Israel to serve as a tripwire, guaranteeing that Washington will become involved if Israel is ever attacked or even if Israel itself starts a war. The current U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley is little more than a shill for Israel while America’s Ambassador in Israel David Friedman is an open supporter of Israel’s illegal settlements, which the U.S. opposes, who spends much of his time defending Israeli war crimes.

And here on the home front Israel is doing damage that might be viewed as even more grave in Senator Ben Cardin’s attempt to destroy First Amendment rights by making any criticism of Israel illegal. The non-violent Israel Boycott movement (BDS) has already been sanctioned in many states, the result of intensive and successful lobbying by the Israeli government and its powerful friends.

So if there is a real enemy of the United States in terms of the actual damage being inflicted by a foreign power, it is Israel. In the recent Russiagate investigations it was revealed that it was Israel, not Russia, that sought favors from Michael Flynn and the incoming Trump Administration yet Special Counsel Robert Mueller has evidently not chosen to go down that road with his investigations, which should surprise no one.

Noam Chomsky, iconic progressive intellectual, has finally come around on the issue of Israel and what it means. He has always argued somewhat incoherently that Israeli misbehavior has been due to its role as a tool of American imperialism and capitalism. At age 89, he has finally figured out that it is actually all about what a parasitic Israel wants without any regard for its American host, observing on “Democracy Now” that

… take, say, the huge issue of interference in our pristine elections. Did the Russians interfere in our elections? An issue of overwhelming concern in the media. I mean, in most of the world, that’s almost a joke. First of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done… I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies – what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015….

Politicians are terrified of crossing the Jewish lobby by saying anything negative about Israel, which means that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always gets a pass from the American government, even when he starves civilians and bombs hospitals and schools. Netanyahu uses snipers to shoot dead scores of unarmed demonstrators and the snipers themselves joke about their kills without a peep from Washington, which styles itself the “leader of the free world.”

Just recently, Israel has declared itself a Jewish State with all that implies. To be sure, Israeli Christians and Muslims were already subject to a battery of laws and regulations that empowered Jews at their expense but now it is the guiding principle that Israel will be run for the benefit of Jews and Jews alone. And it still likes to call itself a “democracy.”

A recent television program illustrates just how far the subjugation of America’s elected leaders by Israel has gone. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is featured on a new show called “Who is America?” in which he uses disguises and aliases to engage politicians and other luminaries in unscripted interviews that reveal just how ignorant or mendacious they actually are. Several recent episodes remind one of a February 2013 Saturday Night Live skit on the impending confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. A Senator asks Hagel. “It is vital to Israel’s security for you to go on national television and perform oral sex on a donkey… Would you do THAT for Israel?” A “yes” answer was, of course, expected from Hagel. The skit was never aired after objections from the usual suspects.

Baron Cohen, who confronted several GOP notables in the guise of Colonel Erran Morad, an Israeli security specialist, provided a number of clues that his interview was a sham but none of the victims were smart enough to pick up on them. Cohen, wearing an Israeli military uniform and calling himself a colonel, clearly displayed sergeant’s stripes. Hinting that he might actually be a Mossad agent, Cohen also sported a T-shirt on which the Hebrew text was printed backwards and he claimed that the Israeli spy agency’s motto was “if you want to win, show some skin.”

Cohen set up Dick Cheney by complimenting him on being the “the king of terrorist killers” before commenting that “my neighbor in Tel Aviv is in jail for murder, or, as we call it, enhanced tickling.” Morad went on to tell Cheney that he once waterboarded his wife to check for infidelity and then convinced the former Vice President to sign a “waterboarding kit” that “already had” the signatures of Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon and Demi Lovato.

Another more spectacular sketch included a Georgia state senator Jason Spencer who was convinced to shout out the n-word as part of an alleged video being made to fight terrorism. After Cohen told Spencer that it was necessary to incite fear in homophobic jihadists, Spencer dropped his pants and underwear, before backing up with his exposed rear end while shouting “USA!” and “America!” Spencer also spoke with a phony Asian accent while simulating using a selfie-stick to secretly insert a camera phone inside a Muslim woman’s burqa.

In another series of encounters, Cohen as Morad managed to convince current and ex-Republican members of Congress — to include former Senate majority leader Trent Lott — to endorse a fictional Israeli program to arm grade school children for self-defense.

Cohen’s footage included a former Illinois congressman and talk radio host named Joe Walsh saying: “The intensive three-week ‘Kinderguardian’ course introduces specially selected children from 12 to 4 years old to pistols, rifles, semiautomatics and a rudimentary knowledge of mortars. In less than a month — less than a month — a first-grader can become a first grenade-er.”

Both controversial Alabama judge Roy Moore and Walsh were fooled into meeting Cohen to attend a non-existent pro-Israel conference to accept an award for “significant contributions to the state of Israel.” Representative Dana Rohrabacher, meanwhile, also was interviewed and he commented that, “Maybe having young people trained and understand how to defend themselves and their school might actually make us safer here.” And Congressman Joe Wilson observed that “A 3-year-old cannot defend itself from an assault rifle by throwing a ‘Hello Kitty’ pencil case at it.”

Cohen’s performance is instructive. A man shows up in Israeli uniform, claims to be a terrorism expert or even a Mossad agent, and he gains access to powerful Americans who are willing to do anything he says. How Cohen did it says a lot about the reflexive and completely uncritical support for Israel that many American politicians — particularly Republicans — now embrace. This, in a nutshell, is the damage that Israel and its Lobby have done to the United States. Israel is always right for many policymakers and even palpably phony Jews like Colonel Morad are instantly perceived as smarter than the rest of us so we’d better do what they say. That kind of thinking has brought us Iraq, Libya, Syria and the possibility of something far worse with Iran.

Israel routinely interferes in American politics and corrupts our institutions without any cost to itself and that is why I write and speak frequently regarding the danger to our Republic that it poses. It is past time to change the essentially phony narrative. Israel is nothing but trouble. It has the right to defend itself and protect its interests but that should not involve the United States. One can only hope that eventually a majority of my fellow American citizens will also figure things out. It might take a while, but the ruthless way Israel openly operates with no concern for anyone but itself provides a measure of optimism that that day is surely coming.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 14, 2018 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Foreign Power in American Democracy? Guess Which One?

By Frank Scott | Legalienate | August 7, 2018

Americans schooled by films, comics, sitcoms and other forms of capital media might well believe Russia invaded the USA during our 18th century revolution and that’s why we’ve been enemies ever since. Actually, the USA and its future European lap dogs, along with Japan, invaded Russia in 1918 under various pretenses covering the need to destroy an uprising that had the gall to replace a holy family of royal wealth with some stupid ideals about ending poverty and promoting actual rule by a democratic majority.

That bloody foreign intrusion into a civil war which further wrecked an economy already near total destruction as a result of the First World War, saw Russia lose more lives than any other country involved and was a preview of more recent history; the present assault on its borders by NATO, all following in the same imperial footsteps to the current moment of reducing innocent Americans into a near frenzied psycho-neurotic mob over alleged horrors committed to our cherished democracy by evil Russians.

That religiously worshipped fictional system has never in history existed nor produced one American president actually elected by a majority of the electorate. In fact, the image of a supposedly “brutal authoritarian thug” Putin, a description widely accepted by duped twits under merciless American mind management, received a much larger share of the Russian electorate’s voting support than either the despicable or deplorable lesser evil candidates in the last billionaire’s campaign we have been taught to call “our” democracy. This produced the frenzy of established power’s brain assault committed on a public with minds so reduced to pulp it may be too late for some to survive even with decent emergency treatment. Which they might only get in a foreign country given the private profit crazed madness in our alleged “health care” market. In fact, if paying a private insurance company before being able to acquire the services of a doctor or nurse is “health care”, then paying a pimp in order to acquire the services of a sex worker is “love care”. But away with logic and back to the supposed identity of a foreign force wreaking havoc with our cherished national perversion passing for democracy.

While hate crazed elders of the bureaucratic un-intelligence class formerly seen as enemies of the people take on the role of heroic fighters for the masses, the president elected by millions in the usual minority vote for bogus chief executive is treated as a treasonous, racist, homophobic, sexist, child molesting, bank robbing, unsafe driver and any other charge possible by almost all establishment voices. He certainly is a rich, arrogant, egomaniacal super twit, but his crude dim-witted honesty over-qualifies him for the job of CEO of a rich, arrogant, egomaniacal nation programmed to think itself god’s gift to humanity and what more regular presidential puppets of wealth have called the “essential” nation. And truthfully, what other giant of morality and intellect could spend trillions on war, billions on pets, and leave hundreds of thousands of its people living in the street? Such is the marketing fiction forcing insanity into the minds of near helpless consumers of commodified crap in diets leading to digestive and psychological disorders bordering on terminal social malfunction. These are usually diagnosed as personal problems needing therapy and drug cures, which bring massive private profits to a dwindling minority and massive public loss to an expanding majority.

Meanwhile, Trump’s alleged treasonous love affair with Putin occupies consciousness controllers and their near helpless consumers while Trump’s burying his economic face in Netanyahu’s political crotch attracts attention only from those long trying to wake the nation to its government falling under the control of a foreign power, Israel, where all manner of atrocities both moral and financial are excused under the banner of protecting the only democracy in the middle east. This lie is greater than the one sold here about our own minority rule cartel but helps perversely rationalize the need to slaughter, pillage, and destroy much of the Islamic world in pursuit of racial supremacy to be enjoyed by those who shout loudest that racial supremacy must be fought. Except when they practice it.

While the breast-fed-into-adulthood brigades swallow tales of Russian meddling in our billionaire financed minority perversion of democracy, Israel’s continued role in getting the USA to murder hundreds of thousands in the middle east increasingly moves to extend the fanatic bloodletting to Iran. Always in Israeli sights because it is totally disrespectful of European rule, given both its fundamental Islamic stance against much of modernity but mostly western values seen as immoral – because they frequently are – and its long history dating from ancient times of being both a global and more recently local power not given to taking guff from anyone. It has always been critical of the most blatant western invasion of the 20th century in the establishment of a euro-colony in Palestine and the total disregard for the people who’ve lived there since biblical times. How dare they disrespect the only other “essential” nation, along with the U.S.A. Are they crazy or what?

The perennially facing extermination mindset of the Israelis has dominated American politics since before that nation’s origins, officially in 1948 but pending since long before the days of Nazi Zionist partnership to make Palestine the home for Jews seeking a separate and superior homeland. The later bloody Nazi assault, murders and ethnic cleansing inflicted on lower economic class European Jews who could not afford to buy their way out, as their one percent did, has become the most well known, publicized and often fictionalized assault on humanity ever recorded in global consciousness. This even after the facts of western murders of countless millions in colonializing much of the world, and especially here in the USA where entire nations of indigenous people were wiped out or ethnically cleansed and where American Jews, descended from immigrants, far outnumber American Indians, the horror of the European Jewish experience takes precedence over what was done to native Americans. And Trump, like every single president before him, has not only embraced every fictional foundation story to cover injustice, but unlike previous hypocrites who did it only for the money provided by the Israeli lobby, he probably believes it and thus may be even more dangerous.

So as the saber rattling toward Iran increases, with the most extreme racists in the USA and Israel licking their chops over the thought of wiping out more Middle Eastern people, the mind boggling idiocy of alleged Russian involvement in organized crime in America – the electoral system – approaches sending millions to a mental health crisis center, none of them able to afford the drugs needed to possibly calm their over stressed minds. And the leaders in this rush to further crisis for capital are not the usual right wing loonies who used to find commies under their beds, but what passes for sophisticated neo-liberals who unashamedly assume the role of the most demented force in American politics and one that can almost make the insect brain in the white house seem thoughtful by comparison.

The idea that a nation which suffered more than any other with 25 million deaths in the two capitalist “world” wars, which saw its country invaded, bombed and reduced to starvation and cannibalism by this bloody experience, is a threat to America which by comparison lost less than half a million people – some .02% of the Russian total – is one that can only be placed into consciousness by creating a vast pool of unconsciousness. Americans with knowledge of material reality would not accept the dreadful drivel being poured into their heads, which is why rulers are pouring it on faster, and with more fury. If it truly is darkest just before the dawn, we are hopefully experiencing what will become the most shining burst of light imaginable. Hopefully non-nuclear.

August 11, 2018 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, Palestine, United States | Leave a comment

More Lies About the White Helmets

Is resettling a terrorist front group in the West a good idea?

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 7, 2018

When is a terrorist group not a terrorist group? Apparently the answer is that it ceases to be terrorist when it terrorizes someone who is an enemy of the United States. The most prominent recent example is the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK), a murderous Iranian Marxist cult which assassinated five Americans in the 1970s as part of its campaign against the Shah’s government. It was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after it had promised not to kill any more Americans but really because it had bought the support of prominent politicians to include Elaine Chao, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and John Bolton. It also had the behind the scenes endorsement of both the Israeli Mossad and CIA, both of whom have been using it in their operations to kill Iranians and damage the country’s infrastructure. Someone high up in the federal government, perhaps Hillary or even President Obama himself, must have decided that terrorists who kill only Iranians deserve a get out of jail free card from the State Department.

There are other examples of cynical doublespeak from the Syrian conflict, including labeling rebels against the Damascus government “freedom fighters” when in reality they were as often as not allied with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Al-Nusra or even with ISIS. Frequently they received training and weapons from Washington only to turn around and either join Al-Nusra and ISIS as volunteers or surrender their weapons to them.

But perhaps there is no bigger fraud making the rounds than the so-called White Helmets. The recent media coverage derives from the documentary The White Helmets, which was produced by the group itself and tells a very convincing tale promoted as “the story of real-life heroes and impossible hope.” It is a very impressive piece of propaganda, so much so that it has won numerous awards including the Oscar for Best Documentary Short last year and the White Helmets themselves were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. More to the point, however, is the undeniable fact that the documentary has helped shape the public understanding of what is going on in Syria, describing the government in Damascus in purely negative terms.

The fawning Hollywood and Congressional depictions of the group go something like this: “the White Helmets are an ‘heroic’ impartial non-government humanitarian volunteer group that engages in ‘first response’ emergency rescue and medical treatment for all those who have been impacted by the fighting in Syria. The Syrian government hates the group because it assists victims of the fighting who are either rebels or living in rebel held areas. Recently, with the Syrian Army closing in on the last White Helmet affiliates still operating in the country, the Israeli government, assisted by the United States, staged an emergency humanitarian evacuation of the group’s members and their families to Israel and then on to Jordan.”

Virtually all the mainstream media coverage of the White Helmets is bogus, but by far the most ridiculous account of the Exodus from Syria came from the BBC. For those who are not familiar with it, the BBC, which once upon a time had a reputation for journalistic integrity, has become one of the worst pro-government propaganda shills of all time. Reading its articles is even worse than having a similar go at The Washington Post, which is the prime newspaper exemplar of fake news and phony journalism pretending to be a respectable news source in the United States. Let’s face it, Donald Trump has a point. Nearly all of the mainstream media lies persistently these days but some sources are worse than others. People complain about Fox, and rightly so, but CNN is the absolute pits when it comes to slanting its coverage, as is MSNBC.

BBC’s article is entitled Syria conflict: White Helmets evacuated by Israel. It makes the following statements, many coming directly from Israeli official sources, regarding the White Helmets, its activities and the group’s relationship to some governments, to include Britain:

“The IDF said they had ‘completed a humanitarian effort to rescue members of a Syrian civil organization and their families’, saying there was an ‘immediate threat to their lives.’ The transfer of the displaced Syrians through Israel was an exceptional humanitarian gesture.”
“Although Israel is not directly involved in the Syria conflict, the two countries have been in a state of war for decades. Despite the intervention, the IDF said that ‘Israel continues to maintain a non-intervention policy regarding the Syrian conflict.’”
“A statement from Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said: ‘White Helmets have been the target of attacks and, due to their high profile, we judged that, in these particular circumstances, the volunteers required immediate protection. We pay tribute to the brave and selfless work that White Helmet volunteers have done to save Syrians on all sides of the conflict.’”
“Their official name is the Syrian Civil Defense and it began in early 2013 as an organization of volunteers from all walks of life, including electricians and builders. Its main task soon became to rescue civilians in war zones in the immediate aftermath of air strikes, and it says its volunteers have saved the lives of more than 100,000 people during the civil war.”

The BBC story could have been written by the White Helmets themselves or by their press department. Or alternatively by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. First of all, the Israelis do not do humanitarian gestures. They helped bail out the White Helmets at the request of the U.S. because capture by the Syrians would have produced embarrassing revelations about how the group was funded and what its affiliation with terrorists was all about. And Israel’s denial of involvement in Syria is nonsense, unless one considers demonstrated collaboration with the terrorist groups punctuated by nearly weekly bombing and missile attacks to be non-involvement.

The British too are into the deception up to their eyeballs. The comment by Hunt and Mordaunt is complete fabrication regarding what the White Helmets represent. The same goes for the BBC account of how the group developed, which comes directly from the White Helmet’s own propaganda division as amplified by Hollywood and the U.S. and U.K. governments.

Just as important as what is said about the White Helmets’ activities is the exclusion of a great deal of credible negative reporting on the group. The carefully edited scenes of heroism under fire that have been filmed and released worldwide conceal the White Helmets’ relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of “rebel” opponents. Indeed, the White Helmets only operate in rebel held territory, which enables them to shape the narrative both regarding who they are and what is occurring on the ground.

Exploiting their access to the western media, the White Helmets thereby de facto became a major source of “eyewitness” news regarding what was going on in those many parts of Syria where European and American journalists were quite rightly afraid to go. It was all part of a broader largely successful “rebel” effort to manufacture fake news that depicts the Damascus government as engaging in war crimes directed against civilians, an effort that led to several attacks on government forces and facilities by the U.S. military.

The White Helmets travel to bombing sites with their film crews trailing behind them. Once at the sites, with no independent observers, they are able to arrange or even stage what is filmed to conform to their selected narrative which consistently promotes tales of government atrocities against civilians to encourage outside military intervention in Syria and bring about regime change in Damascus. The White Helmets were, for example, the propagators of the totally false but propagandistically effective claims regarding the government use of so-called “barrel bombs” against civilians.

Peter Ford, British Ambassador in Damascus from 2003-2006, recently described the group in an audio interview saying, “The White Helmets are jihadi auxiliaries. They are not, as claimed by themselves and by their supporters… simple rescuers. They are not volunteers. They are paid professionals of disinformation.” He noted particularly the large size of the organization’s “press department”, saying, “This gives us an idea what the priority is for this very dubious organization… All their activities are directed at mobilizing Western opinion behind the jihadis with whom they associate. They co-locate their centers with the Al-Qaeda organization known as Al-Nusra and with other militant groups such as Jaish al-Islam. They have in the past been shown associating with and waving the flags of ISIS.”

The group is currently largely funded by a number of non-government organizations (NGOs) as well as governments, including the United States, Britain and some European Union member states. The U.S. has directly provided $23 million through the USAID (US Agency for International Development) as of 2016 and almost certainly considerably more indirectly. Max Blumenthal has explored in some detail the various funding resources and relationships that the organization draws on, mostly in Europe and the United States.

Perhaps the most serious charge against the White Helmets consists of the evidence that they actively participated in the atrocities, to include torture and murder, carried out by their al-Nusra hosts. There have been numerous photos of the White Helmets operating directly with armed terrorists and also celebrating over the bodies of execution victims and murdered Iraqi soldiers. The group’s jihadi associates regard the White Helmets as fellow “mujahideen” and “soldiers of the revolution.”

So Israel’s celebrated rescue of the White Helmets was little more than a theatrical performance intended to perpetuate the myth that the al-Assad government was thwarted in an attempt to capture and possibly kill an honorable non-partisan group engaged in humanitarian relief for those caught up in a bloody conflict seeking to oust a ruthless dictator. The reality is quite different. The White Helmets were and are part and parcel of the attempt to overthrow a legitimate government and install a regime friendly to western, American and Israeli interests. For Israel in particular the ongoing chaos in Syria was and is part of its plan for dividing all of its neighbors into warring ethnicities and sects, making them less viable as threats to the Jewish state.

The 800 White Helmets rescued reportedly will be resettled in the U.S., Britain and Germany. One hopes those coming to America can end up in Los Angeles, where they would presumably mingle with Hollywood big shots and the usual snowflakes while working on their next documentary. As some of them are most certainly radical Jihadists, it will be interesting to observe exactly how that will play out.

August 7, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | BBC, CIA, Syria, USAID | Leave a comment

The Israeli Buffer Zone On The Syrian Territory Will Have To Wait

By Khaled AL-KASSIMI | ORIENTAL REVIEW | August 4, 2018

On May 18^th 2017, 27 Syrian army vehicles drove within 18 miles of al-Tanf, which breached the U.S.-declared 34-mile radius of the army convoy’s operations resulting in the U.S. forces striking the Syrian Army. It should be noted that al-Tanf (an American military base) operated by U.S. special forces trains a number of rebel groups referred to by the U.S. as Vetted Syrian Opposition (VSO) also known as the Southern front which includes over 50 militant groups such as the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA). When the U.S struck the Syrian army, the Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov reported that “The U.S. attack at al Tanf is significant not because the U.S. has once again struck Assad’s forces, but because it did so in defense of Syrian rebels”. It is important to remember these past events because on June 24^th 2018, the U.S. announced that it will not be backing its proxies on the ground with air force – in contrast to last year. This event highlights that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have made substantial geostrategic gains in the past year.

While the Battle of Daraa is symbolically important – since it is the province where the Syrian (foreign) intervention by proxy first took place in 2011 with the help of Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford – the Battle for southern Syria should not be analyzed as the “final” battle simply because the U.S. announced “that it will not back up its anti-government proxies in the south”. The SAA and its allies still have a long way to go in liberating areas located in Northern and Eastern Syria which remain under the control of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) and extremist rebel factions – funded and trained by American officers. This is by no means an overstatement considering Major General Igor Konashenkov saying that Russia has intelligence that the Free Syrian Army is going to stage a “chemical attack” in the village of Haql al-Jafara and accuse the Syrian government of conducting it.

According to Syrian government military sources, almost a year ago in July 2017 a group of Israeli military and intelligence personnel travelled to Syria’s West Daraa countryside with the objective of meeting rebel commanders from the Southern Front such as Liwa Jaydour, Jaysh al-Ababil, and the Revolutionary Commando Army (RAC) to discuss future cooperation and collaboration in battles. Another meeting also took place on September 2017 in the Quneitra border town of Rafid between Israeli intelligence personnel and militia commanders concerning the establishment of a 50km buffer zone stretching east of Golan Heights into Syrian (Southern) territory – absorbing Quneitara, As Suwayda and Daraa. The Times of Israel on July 6^th 2017 notes “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday as part of ongoing Israeli efforts to convince Russia and the United States to establish a demilitarized buffer zone in southern Syria…Israel is pushing for an agreement that would prevent “Hezbollah or other Iranian-backed militias” from operating in the area, which would extend some 30 miles (48 kilometers) beyond the Israeli-Syrian border [sic] on the Golan Heights”.

On June 26^th 2018 Russia declared the ceasefire it brokered on July 2017 between Jordan, Israel, and U.S in Southern Syria (de-confliction/de-escalation zone i.e No Fly Zone) as null since Israel targeted an Iranian weapon depot around Damascus Airport, and mercenaries also targeted a Syrian military command post in Suwayda (southernmost province in Syria). The Russian defense ministry took both of these events as clear action in violation of the agreement. With the ceasefire no longer in place, a Syrian-Russo offensive has begun regaining the southern geographical space of Syria. Recent reports reveal that some rebels are surrendering and that the SAA is making substantive gains in Izraa, Nahitah, Sama Al Hadeidat in Daraa and ongoing advances are underway to take Busra al sham in East Daraa. Questions that remain unanswered concern how long will the IDF “turn a blind eye” to the SAA regaining southern provinces such as Quneitara bordered with Israel and the Golan Heights?; and will the U.S. withdraw from its base in Al Tanf base which Al Muallem and Al Assad have vehemently opposed and categorized as colonialism?.

It should be highlighted that with the U.S. abandoning its proxies in Southern Syria, we can deduce that Israel will have to “pause” its “Greater Israel” ambitions in wanting to absorb Southern Syrian territory, and la pièce de résistance – claim the Golan Heights as Sovereign Israeli territory. During a visit to Israel’s northern border according to the Jerusalem Post (JP) on July 4th 2018, General Eisenkot discussed the readiness of the Northern Command with its commander Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick and the 366th Division’s commander Brig. Gen. Amit Fisher. “The IDF is monitoring the situation in Syria and is prepared for a variety of scenarios to preserve the security on Israel’s border,” read a statement given by the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit. On July 1st 2018 the Israeli government reinforced its border with the Golan Heights by positioning armored and artillery forces near the border with Syria in light of a situational assessment by the Northern Command.

Benjamin Netanyahu is seen during a security tour in the Golan Heights, near Israel’s northern border with Syria

The SAA territorial advancements in the past year highlight that the SAA has the upper hand on the battle field. However, we should also remember that the southern battle is not the final battle, even though it is a vital battle since it includes an offensive that will be combating over 15,000 mercenaries. Contrary to Mr. Robert Fisk’s article in the Independent on June 26th 2018, I think it is too early to state that the battle for southern Syria will go down in history as a moment where “the US has given up on the overthrow of Assad in Syria” because it “abandoned its proxies in southern Syria”. Another battle that should be increasing in intensity in the next few weeks and/or after the southern battle is concluded is the battle to reclaim Northern (East) Syria – a territory under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and U.S. rebel factions.

The Syrian government including Liwa al-Baqir convened a major meeting of tribal notables from across Syria on June 2 in order to build support for operations against the U.S. in Eastern Syria. Syrian state media claimed the meeting included representatives from seventy clans from Aleppo, Ar-Raqqa, Hasakah, Daraa, and Deir ez-Zor Provinces. According to the Institute for the Study of War unconfirmed reports suggest that the SDF arrested dozens of additional tribal representatives traveling to the meeting from SDF-held Hasaka Province in Northern Syria. Tribal representatives at the meeting denounced the presence of the U.S., France, and Turkey in Syria and called for tribal mobilization to fight them on behalf of Assad. Multiple new pro-regime militia units of unclear size and capability reportedly formed subsequent to the meeting. These units may have joined Liwa al-Baqir with support from Russia and Iran. Not to mention reports released the week of July 15^th 2018 highlighting that rebels in Southern Syria are being transported to the Northern part of Syria.

More recent news on July 29^th 2018 highlights that the Syrian Democratic Council [the SDF political arm] held a two day meeting with the Syrian government headed by President Bashar Al Assad. Officials belonging to the SDF, which hold large swathes of land in northern Syria discussed the future of the autonomous regions it set up in northern and northeastern Syria. The SDF has made a series of deals with Damascus in recent years, notably in Aleppo when the SAA decimated Syrian Arab rebel groups making a final stand to hold the city. The SDF also came to an agreement with the Syrian government during the Turkish incursion into the then-Kurdish-held Afrin canton in Syria’s north-west corner, allowing Kurdish fighters to cross regime-held territory in a doomed bid to repel Turkish troops and their allies. The SDF, whose military is largely funded by the US as a counter-IS initiative, holds more than 27 percent of the country’s territory, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It is still not clear whether rebel troops in northern Syria will be in accord with the SDF and SAA in relinquishing land they have usurped in the past 7 years and have it under the control of Damascus headed by President Bashar Al Assad. Also, according to a statement by SDF spokesperson Leilwa al-Abdullah, SDF forces pushed IS fighters into retreat from an area of 3,100 square-kilometers to a small slither of territory close to the strategic border town of Abu Kamal. A local SDF commander, speaking to Syria Direct said that the “crackdown on the border area” had gone ahead in coordination with Iraqi forces and international coalition airpower.

The Golan Heights

Still, recent territorial gains by the SDF may have little bearing on talks with the Syrian government, which could be unwilling to actually cede territorial control or administrative authority to Kurdish-majority forces. Sihanouk Dibo, from the majority-Kurdish leftist Democratic Union Party (PYD), acknowledged that any future talks could be “long and arduous because the Damascus regime is very centralized.” Whether centralized or not, the Syrian Government has historically been committed to the modality of Greater Syria with Damascus being the locus in decision making and autonomous regions conducting provincial policies relating to their provincial preferences. As stated by President Al Assad “Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one”. In other words, a region of the historical Bilad Al Sham/Greater Syria space will not be relinquished since the Levant possesses a unified social fabric and most importantly because the Barzani Clan in Iraq is a dangerous example of how U.S. imperialism with its allies can defend decentralization for the sake of geostrategic interest.

Therefore, in regards to the Syrian peace process, peace cannot be implemented when the UNSC resolution 2254 adopted in 2015 – including the P5 – continues to be violated. The delegates meeting at the June 13^th U.N-led peace process in Geneva reiterated the importance of the clauses in the resolution which included that a nationwide ceasefire can only occur when member states are serious in halting the funding and training of mercenary entities. The members also reiterated the basis for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition in order to end the conflict in Syria. The meeting in Geneva did not highlight anything novel that the meetings in Astana or Sochi didn’t already outline. The meeting laid out the so-called four “baskets of reform” for a political settlement of the crisis. They include the drafting of a new constitution, parliamentary elections, the creation of a non-sectarian transitional government and the fight against mercenaries and terrorists. But the talks have made little progress so far as opposition members have failed to find an agreement over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad – a condition that the opposition has long wanted to include in the draft.

It is quite ironic that the Syrian Opposition is adamant in wanting to include a clause that stipulates that the current Syrian president is not allowed to run for president after 2020 and/or practice politics in Syria… it is ironic because while some opposition members discuss the importance of democracy being the foundation for peace in Syria, it is precisely democracy which re-elected President Bashar Al Assad in 2014.

Khaled AL-KASSIMI is a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University in Canada. His research interest relates to the fields and approaches contoured by Critical Security Studies, Development Studies, International Relations, and Decolonial Studies.

August 6, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Israel, Russia, Syria, Turkey, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Tehran Reveals Terms of Its Withdrawal From Syria

Sputnik – 04.08.2018

Iran might decrease its military presence in Syria and even leave altogether after the situation in the war-torn country normalizes and the fight against terrorism there brings significant results, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said.

“As soon as we see that Syria is close to certain stability, and the fight against terrorism is close to its end, and significant results have been reached, of course, we might decrease the presence of our advisors in Syria or even withdraw from the country,” Qassemi said in an interview with the Iranian Pupils Association News Agency (PANA) as quoted by the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website on Saturday.

Tehran would maintain its presence in Syria as long as Damascus wants it to, Qassemi pointed out. The diplomat noted that fighting terrorism was one of the Iranian forces’ tasks in Syria, apart from granting support to the war-torn country’s government.

In July, Iranian Supreme Leader’s Top Adviser for International Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati said Tehran would be present in Syria and Iraq at the request of these countries’ legitimate governments and would not leave despite the threats voiced by the United States.

Israel has also repeatedly expressed security concerns over the Iranian presence next to its borders in Syria. Velayati has noted that the Iranian presence in Syria was coordinated with Moscow and Damascus and did not have to be agreed upon with Israel.

Iran, alongside Russia and Turkey, is a guarantor state of the Syrian truce. Syrian President Bashar Assad has said that only Iranian officers, not troops, were operating in his country.

August 4, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, Middle East, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

Trump’s Art of the Deal and Iran sanctions

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | August 4, 2018

An amicable formula seems to be emerging between the Trump administration on the one hand and China and India on the other hand as regards the impending US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. Below-the-radar consultations are going on between Washington and Beijing and New Delhi.

The Trump administration initially threatened collateral damage to countries such as China and India unless they fell in line with the US diktat to stop all oil imports from Iran to zero by November 4. Oil is at the core of Trump’s containment strategy against Iran, since oil exports are a major source for income for Tehran and the American game plan is all about hurting the Iranian economy until its leadership capitulates and begs him for a meeting.

It’s a hackneyed notion to bully Tehran to make it bend. It never worked in these 40 years – not even under Barack Obama who enjoyed vast political capital in the international community. But the good thing about Trump is that behind the fire and fury, he’s a realist. (By the way, Iranians know it, too, as this utterly fascinating tongue-in-cheek commentary yesterday implies.)

So, after some rounds of diplomacy in world capitals (to test the waters, basically) – Beijing, New Delhi, Ankara, in particular, which are big-time buyers of Iranian oil – Washington began signaling that sanctions can also provide for ‘waivers’ – that is, Trump administration will selectively exercise the great privilege of deciding not to punish countries that may still want to buy Iranian oil after the November 4 cutoff date.

Quite obviously, from the feedback received from American diplomats, Washington senses great reluctance to pay heed to the US demarche. In particular, China and India (which account for over half of Iranian oil exports) are heavily dependent on Iranian oil – and, for good reason too. At least in the case of India, Iran offers oil at a discounted price on deferred payment basis with substantial reduction in freight and insurance costs.

Now, the US cannot possibly sanction the oil industry in China or India because Big Oil is also hoping to do business with them. (For shale oil, Asian market is the preferred destination.) Some analysts predict that Russia, which like America is also an energy superpower, will be a net gainer. Russia can cash in on the needs of China and India for oil; Russia can buy Iranian oil and sell it through swap deals and so on (and make some money in the bargain); or, Russia may even move into the Iranian oil industry in a big way and make investments there. At any rate, it is foolhardy for the US to imagine that it can control the world energy market in terms of price elasticity of supply.

In view of the above factors, the Trump administration is finessing an understanding with China and India whereby the US sanctions policy against Iran does not become an acrimonious issue. The interests to be reconciled are: a) China and India have legitimate interests in sourcing Iranian oil and it is unrealistic and counterproductive to coerce them; and, b) the US too has an abiding interest not to sanction the oil companies of China and India, which are prospective buyers of US oil.

The Bloomberg report, here, says that China has point blank refused to cut Iranian oil imports but may agree to keep imports at the existing level as of November 4. Interestingly, the report cites US officials heaving a sigh of relief: “That would ease concerns that China would work to undermine U.S. efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic by purchasing excess oil.” Plainly put, Washington is relieved that Beijing will not take advantage of the US sanctions against Iran.

On the other hand, the Reuters report on India, here, assesses that Indian imports of Iranian crude oil are dramatically increasing in recent months. A 30% increase is reported in July with crude imports from Iran touching record level of 768,000 barrels per day. (This is a whopping 85% jump over the corresponding period in July 2017, which was 415,000 bpd)!

Of course, if the US can allow China to keep its import of Iranian oil at the existing level as of November 4, it cannot deny a similar formula to India. And, therefore, doesn’t it make eminent sense that India keeps ramping up its oil imports from Iran to the maximum level possible by November 4?

Evidently, this is Trump’s Art of the Deal at work. By the way, for Iran too, this would provide some ‘sanctions relief’. Which in turn may even ‘incentivize’ Tehran to talk to Trump. If there is anything like a workable “win-win” in politics, this is it, this is it.

August 4, 2018 Posted by aletho | Economics, Wars for Israel | China, Donald Trump, India, Iran, Sanctions against Iran, United States | Leave a comment

AngloZionist Attack Options Against Iran

The Saker • Unz Review • August 3, 2018

In the past few days, the Internet has been flooded with a frankly silly rumor about the US soliciting Australia’s assistance in preparing an attack on Iran. Needless to say, that report does not explain what capabilities Australia would possess which the US would lack, but never-mind that. Still, the report was picked up in too many places (see here, here and here ) to be ignored. In one of these reports, Eric Margolis has described what such a US attack could look like. It is worth quoting him in full:

Outline of a possible AngloZionist attack on Iran

The US and Israel will surely avoid a massive, costly land campaign again Iran, a vast, mountainous nation that was willing to suffer a million battle casualties in its eight-year war with Iraq that started in 1980. This gruesome war was instigated by the US, Britain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to overthrow Iran’s new popular Islamic government.

The Pentagon has planned a high-intensity air war against Iran that Israel and the Saudis might very well join. The plan calls for over 2,300 air strikes against Iranian strategic targets: airfields and naval bases, arms and petroleum, oil and lubricant depots, telecommunication nodes, radar, factories, military headquarters, ports, waterworks, airports, missile bases and units of the Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s air defenses range from feeble to non-existent. Decades of US-led military and commercial embargos against Iran have left it as decrepit and enfeebled as was Iraq when the US invaded in 2003. The gun barrels of Iran’s 70’s vintage tanks are warped and can’t shoot straight, its old British and Soviet AA missiles are mostly unusable, and its ancient MiG and Chinese fighters ready for the museum, notably its antique US-built F-14 Tomcats, Chinese copies of obsolete MiG-21’s, and a handful of barely working F-4 Phantoms of Vietnam War vintage.

Air combat command is no better. Everything electronic that Iran has will be fried or blown up in the first hours of a US attack. Iran’s little navy will be sunk in the opening attacks. Its oil industry may be destroyed or partially preserved depending on US post-war plans for Iran.

The only way Tehran can riposte is by staging isolated commando attacks on US installations in the Mideast of no decisive value, and, of course, blocking the narrow Strait of Hormuz that carries two-thirds of Mideast oil exports. The US Navy, based nearby in Bahrain, has been practicing for decades to combat this threat.

There is a lot of interesting material in this description and I think that it is worth looking into it segment by segment.

First, I can only agree with Margolis that neither the US nor Israel want a ground war against Iran: the country is too big, the Iranians too well prepared and the size of the force needed for such a campaign way beyond what the Empire can currently muster.

Second, Margolis is absolutely correct when he says that Iran does not have the means to stop a determined AngloZionist (missiles and aircraft) attack. Iran does have some modern air-defense capabilities, and the attackers will sustain a number of losses, but at this point, the size disparity is so huge that the AngloZionists will achieve air superiority fairly soon and that will give them an opportunity to bomb whatever they want to bomb (more about that later).

Assessing Iranian air defenses is not just a matter of counting missiles and launchers, however, and there is much more to this. According to one Russian source Iran has 4 long range anti-aircraft missile S-300PMU-2 systems (with 48Н6Е2 Mach 6,6 interceptor missiles), 29 military anti-aircraft self-propelled missile complexes Tor-M1, some fairly advanced anti-aircraft missile complexes like the Bavar-373, a passive electronically scanned array radar (whose illumination and guidance system almost certainly includes modern Chinese electronics) and an impressive number of radar systems early warning radar of the Russian, Chinese and Iranian manufacture. This category includes systems like the high-potential long-range radar detection and target designation Najm-802 radar (has 5120 receiving and transmitting modules, operates in the decimeter S-range and is designed to detect ballistic targets and small elements of high-precision weapons), the Russian meter radar “Nebo-SVU” advanced early warning and control system with a fixed-array radar, as well as a meter range early warning radar of the type “Ghadir” . Most importantly, these radars are all integrated into the network-centric missile defense system of Iran. For example, the “Ghadir” radar is able to detect not only the tactical fighters of the USAF, the KSA and Israel, but also ballistic missiles immediately after launch (at a distance of about 1100 km). As a result, the presence of Iranian radio engineering units of multi-band radar detection facilities in the Western direction (the Persian Gulf) will allow the Iranians to prepare a flexible echeloned air defense to defend against high-intensity missile strikes. And yet, no matter how much the Iranians have improved their air defenses, the sheer number of of missiles (including the new advanced AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile) low observable standoff air-launched cruise missile delivered by B-1B bombers) means that the Iranian defenses will inevitably be overwhelmed by any massive attack.

I therefore also agree with Margolis that the Iranian oil industry cannot be protected from a determined US/Israeli attack. In fact, the entire Iranian infrastructure is vulnerable to attack.

Margolis’ final paragraph, however, makes it sound like Iran does not have credible retaliatory options and that I very much disagree with.

Example one: Iranian capabilities in the Strait of Hormuz

For one thing, the issue of the Strait of Hormuz is much more complicated than just “the US Navy has practiced for years to combat this threat“. The reality is that Iran has a very wide range of options to make shipping through this strait practically impossible. These options range from underwater mines, to fast craft attacks, to anti-shipping missiles, to coastal artillery strikes, etc.

Therein also lies a big danger: the Israelis and or the US could very easily organize a false flag attack on any ship in the Strait of Hormuz, then accuse Iran, there would be the usual “highly likely” buzzword from all the AngloZionst intelligence agencies and, voilà, the Empire would have a pretext to attack Iran.

In fact, the mere fact of issuing a threat to shipping through this narrow body of water might well deter insurances from providing coverage to any ships and that might stop the shipping all by itself. Should that not be enough, Iran can always lay even a limited amount of mines, and that will be enough (please keep in mind that while the USN could try to engage in mineclearing operations, to do so right off the coast of Iran would expose USN minesweepers to an extreme danger of attack).

Margolis does mention this issue when he writes:

While Iran may be able to interdict some oil exports from the Arab states and cause maritime insurance rates to skyrocket, it’s unlikely to be able to block the bulk of oil exports unless it attacks the main oil terminals in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf with ground troops. During the Iran-Iraq war, neither side was able to fully interdict the other’s oil exports.

However, I believe that grossly under-estimates the Iranian capabilities in this context. Let’s take one example, the Iranian submarine force.

The Iranian submarine force is a highly specialized one. According to the 2018 Edition of the IISS’s Military Balance, the Iranians currently have 21 submarines deployed:

3 Taregh-class diesel-electric submarine (Russian Kilo-class Project-877EKM)
1 Fateh-class coastal submarine
16 Ghadir-class midget submarines
1 Nahand-class midget submarine

When most people hear “diesel-electric,” they think of old diesel trucks, and are not impressed, especially when these are contrasted with putatively “advanced” nuclear attack submarines. This is, however, a very mistaken opinion because submarines can only to be assessed in the environment they are designed to operate in. Naval geography is typically roughly divided into three types: blue water (open ocean), green water (continental shelves) and brown water (coastal regions). Nuclear attack submarines are only superior in the blue water environment where autonomy, speed, diving depth, weapon storage capacity, advanced sonars, etc. are crucial. In comparison, while diesel-electric submarines are slower, need to resurface to recharge their batteries and are typically smaller and with fewer weapons onboard, they are also much better suited for green water operations. In shallow brown water, midget submarines reign, if only because nuclear attack submarines were never designed to operate in such an environment. Now take a quick look at the kind of environment the Strait of Hormuz constitutes:

Notice the interesting combination of very shallow and shallow depth typical of brown water and then the green water type of environment when going further into the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. With this in mind, let’s see what kind of submarine force Iran has acquired/developed:

For brown water operations (Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz) Iran has a relatively large and capable fleet of midget submarines. For green water operations (the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea), Iran has three formidable Taregh/Kilo-class submarines (which are even capable of limited blue water operations, though with much less autonomy, speed, armament or sonar than a nuclear attack submarine). Just like “diesel-electric”, the term “midget” submarine makes it sound that we are talking about a toy or, at best, some primitive third world hack which, at best, could be used to smuggle drugs. In reality, however, the Iranian “midgets” can carry the same heavyweight torpedoes (533 mm) as the Kilos, only in smaller quantities. This also means that they can carry the same missiles and mines. In fact, I would argue that Iranian Ghadir-class “midget” submarines represent a much more formidable threat in the Persian Gulf than even the most advanced nuclear attack submarines could.

The US has stopped producing diesel-electric submarines many years ago because it believed that being a hegemonic power with a typical (aircraft carrier-centric) blue water navy it had no need for green or brown water capabilities. Other countries (such as Russia, Germany, Sweden and others) actively pursued a diesel-electric submarine program (including so-called “air-independent propulsion” – AIP – ones) because they correctly understood that these submarines are much cheaper while being also much better suited for coastal defensive operations. Ditching diesel-electric submarines was yet another major mistake by US force planners; see this article on this topic. The new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer were supposed to partially palliate to this lack of green and brown capabilities, but both turned out to be a disaster

Ghadir-class submarine

The Russian Kilo-class submarines are some of the most silent yet heavily armed submarines ever built, and they could potentially represent a major threat to any US naval operations against Iran. However, we can be pretty sure that the USN tracks them 24/7 and that the Kilos would become a prime target (whether in port or at sea) at the very beginning of any AngloZionist attack. But would the USN also be capable of keeping track of the much smaller (and numerous) Iranian midget submarines? Your guess is as good as mine, but I personally very much doubt that, if only because these relatively small subs are very easy to hide. Just take a look at this photo of a Ghadir-class submarine and imagine how easy it would be to hide them or, alternatively, create decoy looking just like the real thing. Yet this midget submarine could sink any vessel in the Persian Gulf with a single torpedo.

While the US definitely has a lot of very capable reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities available to try to locate and then destroy these threats, we also know that the Iranians have had decades to prepare for this scenario and that they are truly masters at what is called maskirovka in Russian military terminology: a combination of camouflage, concealment, deception, and misdirection. In fact, the Iranians are the ones who trained Hezbollah in Lebanon in this art and we all know what happened to the Israelis when they confidently waltzed into southern Lebanon only to find out that for all their reconnaissance/intelligence capabilities they were unable to deal with even a relatively primitive (technologically speaking) Hezbollah missile capability. For all the patriotic flag-waving, the truth is that if the Iranians decide to block the Strait of Hormuz the only option left for the US will be to land a force on the Iranian shore and engage in a limited but still extremely dangerous offensive land-attack operation. At this point, whether this counter-attack is successful or not will be irrelevant, as there will be so much combat activity in this narrow bottleneck that nobody will even consider to bring ships through it.

I also believe that Margolis is wrong when he writes that all Iran could do would be to stage “isolated commando attacks on US installations in the Mideast of no decisive value“. One very real Iranian option would be to strike US targets (of which there are plenty in the Middle-East) with various missiles. Furthermore, Iran can also launch missiles at US allies (Israel or the KSA) and interests (Saudi oil fields).

Example two: Iranian missile capabilities

I would not trust everything the CSIS writes (they are a very biased source, to put it mildly), but on this page, they posted a pretty good summary of the current Iranian missile capability:

On the same page, CSIS also offers a more detailed list of current and developed Iranian missiles:

(You can also check on this Wikipedia page to compare with the CSIS info on Iranian missiles)

The big question is not whether Iran has capable missiles, but how many exactly are deployed. Nobody really knows this because the Iranians are deliberately being very vague, and for obvious and very good reasons. However, judging by the example of Hezbollah, we can be pretty sure that the Iranians also have these missiles in large enough numbers to represent a very credible deterrent capability. I would even argue that such a missile force not only represents a capable deterrent capability, but also a very useful war-fighting one. Can you imagine what would happen if US bases (especially airbases and naval facilities) in the region came under periodic Iranian missile attacks? Judging by the Israeli experience during the First Gulf War or, for that matter, the recent Saudi experience with the Houthi missiles, we can be pretty sure that the US Patriots will be useless to defend against Iranian missiles.

Oh sure, just like the US did during the First Gulf War, and the Israelis did in 2006, the AngloZionists will start a massive hunt for Iranian missile sites, but judging by all the recent wars, these hunts will not be successful enough and the Iranians will be able to sustain missile strikes for quite a long time. Just imagine what one missile strike, say, every 2-3 days on a US base in the region would do to operations or morale!

Reality check: the US is vulnerable throughout the entire Middle-East

Above I only listed two specific capabilities (subs and missiles), but the same type of analysis could be made with Iranian small speedboat swarms, electronic warfare capabilities or even cyber-warfare. But the most formidable asset the Iranians have is a very sophisticated and educated population which has had decades to prepare for an attack by the “Great Satan” and which have clearly developed an array of asymmetrical options to defend themselves and their country against the (probably inevitable) AngloZionist attack.

You have probably seen at least one map showing US military installations in the Middle-East (if not, see here, here or here). Truth be told, the fact that Iran is surrounded by US forces and bases presents a major threat to Iran. But the opposite is also true. All these US military facilities are targets, often very vulnerable ones. Furthermore, Iran can also use proxies/allies in the region to attack any of these targets. I highly recommend that you download this factsheet and read it while thinking of the potential of each listed facility to become the target of an Iranian attack.

The usual answer which I often hear to these arguments is that if the Iranians actually dared to use missiles or strike at the US bases in the region, the retaliation by the US would be absolutely terrible. However, according to Eric Margolis, the initial and main goal of a US-Israeli attack on Iran would be to “totally destroy Iran’s infrastructure, communications and transport (including oil) crippling this important nation of 80 million and taking it back to the pre-revolutionary era“. Now let me ask you this simple question: if Margolis is correct – and I personally believe that he is – then how would that outcome be different from the “absolutely terrible” retaliation supposedly planned by the US in case of Iranian counterattack? Put differently – if the Iranians realize that the AngloZionists want to lay waste to their country (say, like what the Israelis did to Lebanon in 2006), what further possible escalation would further deter them from counter-attacking with the means available to them?

To answer this question we need to look again at the real nature of the “Iranian problem” for the AngloZionists.

Real AngloZionist objectives for an attack on Iran

First and foremost, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Iran has any kind of military nuclear program. The fact that the Israelis have for years been screaming about this urbi et orbi does not make it true. I would also add that common sense strongly suggests that the Iranians would have absolutely no logical reason to develop any kind of nuclear weapons. I don’t have the time and space to argue this point again (I have done so many times in the past), so I will simply refer to the US National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusion that Iran had “halted its nuclear weapons program” and leave it at that.

I don’t believe that the Iranians ever had a nuclear weapons program either, but that is irrelevant: even if they once had one, that would put them on par with many other countries which took some initial steps in the development of such a capability and then gave it up. The only point is that it is the official US position that there is no current military nuclear program in Iran.

The real problem of Iran is very simple. Iran is the only country in the world which is:

Islamic and leads the struggle against the Saudi/Daesh/ISIS/al-Qaeda/etc. ideology of takfirism and the terrorism they promote
Openly anti-Zionist and anti-Imperialist and combines conservative religious values with progressive social policies
Successful politically, economically and militarily and thereby threatens the monopoly of power of Israel in the region

Any one of those features by itself would already constitute a grievous case of crimethink from the point of view of the Empire and would fully deserve a reaction of absolute hatred, fear and a grim determination to eliminate the government and people which dare to support it. No wonder that by combining all three Iran is so hated by the AngloZionists.

This entire canard about some Iranian nuclear program is just a pretext for a hate campaign and a possible attack on Iran. But in reality, the goals of the AngloZionists is not to disarm Iran, but exactly as Margolis says: to bomb this “disobedient” country and people “back to the pre-revolutionary era”.

Here is the key thing: the Iranians perfectly understand that. The obvious conclusion is this: if the purpose of an AngloZionist attack will be to bomb Iran back into the pre-revolutionary era, then why would the Iranians hold back and not offer the maximal resistance possible?

Because of the threat of a US nuclear retaliation?

US nuclear attack options – not much of an option in reality

Here again, we need to look at the context, not just assume that the use of nuclear weapons is some kind of magical panacea which immediately forces the enemy to give up the fight and to unconditionally surrender. This is far from being the truth.

First, nuclear weapons are only effective when used against a lucrative target. Just murdering civilians like what the US did in Japan does absolutely no good if your goal is to defeat your opponent’s armed forces. If anything, nuking your opponents “value” targets might only increase his determination to fight to the end. I have no doubt that, just as during the first Gulf War, the US has already made a typical list of targets it would want to strike in Iran: a mix of key government buildings and installations and a number of military units and facilities. However, in most cases, those could also be destroyed by conventional (non-nuclear) weapons. Furthermore, since the Iranians have had decades to prepare for this scenario (the US has always had Iran in its sights since the 1979 Revolution), you can be quite sure that all the peacetime facilities have been duplicated for wartime situations. Thus while many high-visibility targets will be destroyed, their wartime counterparts will immediately take over. One might think that nukes could be used to destroy deeply buried targets, and this is partially true, but some targets are buried too deep to be destroyed (even by a nuclear blast) while others are duplicated several times (say, for 1 peacetime military headquarters there would be 4, 5 or even 6 concealed and deeply buried ones). To go after each one of them would require using even more nukes and that begs the question of the political costs of such a campaign of nuclear strikes.

In political terms, the day the US uses a nuclear weapon against any enemy it will have committed political suicide from which the Hegemony will never recover. While a majority of Americans might consider that “might makes right” and “screw the UN”, for the rest of the world the first use of nuclear weapons (as opposed to a retaliatory counter-strike) is an unthinkable abomination and crime, especially for an illegal act of aggression (there is no way the UNSC will authorize a US attack on Iran). Even if the White House declares that it “had to” use nukes to “protect the world” against the “nuclear armed Ayatollah”, the vast majority of the planet will react with total outrage (especially after the Iraqi WMD canard!). Furthermore, any US nuclear strike will instantly turn the Iranians from villains into victims. Why would the US decide to pay such an exorbitant political price just to use nuclear weapons on targets which would not yield any substantial advantage for the US? Under normal circumstances, I would think that this kind of unprovoked use of nuclear weapons would be quite unthinkable and illogical. However, in the current political context in the US, there is one possibility which really frightens me.

Trump as the “disposable President” for the Neocons?

The Neocons hate Trump, but they also own him. The best example of this kind of “ownership” is the US decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem which was an incredibly stupid act, but one which the Israel Lobby demanded. The same goes for the US reneging on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or, for that matter, the current stream of threats against Iran. It appears that the Neocons have a basic strategy which goes like this: “we hate Trump and everything he represents, but we also control him; let’s use him to do all the crazy stuff no sane US President would ever do, and then let’s use the fallout of these crazy decisions and blame it all on Trump; this way we get all that we want and we get to destroy Trump in the process only to replace him with one of “our guys” when the time is right“. Again, the real goal of an attack on Iran would be to bomb Iran back into a pre-revolutionary era and to punish the Iranian people for supporting the “wrong” regime thus daring to defy the AngloZionist Empire. The Neocons could use Trump as a “disposable President” who could be blamed for the ensuing chaos and political disaster while accomplishing one of the most important political objectives of Israel: laying waste to Iran. For the Neocons, this is a win-win situation: if things go well (however unlikely that is), they can take all the credit and still control Trump like a puppet, and if things don’t go well, Iran is in ruins, Trump is blamed for a stupid and crazy war, and the Clinton gang will be poised to come back to power.

The biggest loser in such a scenario would, of course, be the people of Iran. But the US military will not fare well either. For one thing, a plan to just “lay waste” to Iran has no viable exit strategy, especially not a short-term one, while the US military has no stomach for long conflicts (Afghanistan and Iraq are bad enough). Furthermore, once the US destroys most of what can be destroyed the initiative will be in the Iranians’ hands and time will be on their side. In 2006 the Israelis had to fold after 33 days only, how much time will the US need before having to declare victory and leave? If the war spreads to, say, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria, then will the US even have the option to just leave? What about the Israelis – what options will they have once missiles start hitting them (not only Iranian missiles but probably also Hezbollah missiles from Lebanon!)?

Former Mossad head Meir Dagan was fully correct when he stated that a military attack on Iran was “the stupidest thing I have ever heard”. Alas, the Neocons have never been too bright, and stupid stuff is what they mostly do. All we can hope for is that somebody in the US will find a way to stop them and avert another immoral, bloody, useless and potentially very dangerous war.

August 3, 2018 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, United States | Leave a comment

The Yellow Peril Comes to Washington

Following the Israeli model?

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • July 31, 2018

So President Donald Trump reckoned on Monday that the United States Intelligence Community (IC) just might be wrong in its assessment that Russia had sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election but then decided on Tuesday that he misspoke and had the greatest confidence in the IC and now agrees that they were correct in their judgment. But Donald Trump, interestingly, added something about there being “others” that also had been involved in the election in an attempt to subvert it, though he was not specific and the national media has chosen not to pursue the admittedly cryptic comment. He was almost certainly referring to China both due to possible motive and the possession of the necessary resources to carry out such an operation. Indeed, there are reports that China hacked the 30,000 Hillary Clinton emails that are apparently still missing.

Just how one interferes in an election in a large country with diverse sources of information and numerous polling stations located in different states using different systems is, of course, problematical. The United States has interfered in elections everywhere, including in Russia under Boris Yeltsin. It engaged in regime change in Iran, Chile, and Guatemala by supporting conservative elements in the military which obligingly staged coups. In Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. forces invaded and overthrew the governments while in Libya the change in regime was largely brought about by encouraging rebels while bombing government forces. The same model has been applied in Syria, though without much success because Damascus actually was bold enough to resist.

So how do the Chinese “others” bring about “change” short of a full-scale invasion by the People’s Liberation Army? I do not know anything about actual Chinese plans to interfere in future American elections and gain influence over the resulting newly elected government but would like to speculate on just how they might go about that onerous task.

First, I would build up an infrastructure in the United States that would have access to the media and be able to lobby and corrupt the political class. That would be kind of tricky as it would require getting around the Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), which requires representatives of foreign governments operating in the United States to register and have their finances subject to review by the Department of the Treasury. Most recently, several Russian news agencies that are funded by the Putin government have been required to do so, including RT International and Sputnik radio and television.

The way to avoid the FARA registration requirement is to have all funding come through Chinese-American sources that are not directly connected with the government in Beijing. Further, the foundations and other organizations should be set up as having an educational purpose rather than a political agenda. You might want to call your principal lobbying group something like the American Chinese Political Action Committee or ACPAC as an acronym when one is referring to it shorthand.

Once established, ACPAC will hire and send hundreds of Chinese-American lobbyists to Capitol Hill when Congress is in session. They will be carefully selected to come from as many states and congressional districts as possible to maximize access to legislative offices. They will have with them position papers prepared by the ACPAC central office that explain why a close and uncritical relationship with Beijing is not only the right thing to do, it is also a good thing for the United States.

As part of the process, new Congressmen will benefit from free trips to China paid for by an educational foundation set up for that purpose. They will be able to walk on the Great Wall and speak to genuine representative Chinese who will tell them how wonderful everything is in the People’s Republic.

Congressmen who nevertheless appear to be resistant to the lobbying and the emoluments will be confronted with a whole battery of alternative reasons why they should be filo-Chinese, including the thinly veiled threat that to behave otherwise could be construed as politically damaging anti-Orientalist racism. For those who persist in their obduracy, the ultimate weapon will be citation of the horrors of the Second World War Rape of Nanking. No one wants to be accused of being a Rape of Nanking denier.

The second phase of converting Congress is to set up a bunch of Political Action Committees (PACs). They will have innocuous names like Rocky Mountain Sheep Herders Association, but they will all really be about China. When the money begins to flow into the campaign coffers of legislators any concerns about what China is doing in the world will cease. The same PACs can be used to fund billboards and voter outreach in some districts, allowing China to have a say in the elections without actually having to surface or be explicit about whom it supports. Other PACs can work hard at inserting material into social websites, similar to what the Russians have been accused of doing.

And then there is the mass media. Using the same Chinese-American conduit, you would simply buy up controlling interests in newspapers and other media outlets. And you would begin staffing those outlets with earnest young Chinese-Americans who will be highly protective of Chinese interests and never write a story critical of the government in Beijing or the Chinese people. That way the American public will eventually become so heavily propagandized by the prevailing narrative that they will never question anything that China does, ideally beginning to refer to it as the “only democracy in Asia” and “America’s best friend in the whole wide world.” Once the indoctrination process is completed, the Chinese leadership might even crush demonstrators with tanks in Tiananmen Square or line up snipers to pick off protest leaders and no congressman or newspaper would dare say nay.

When the political classes and media are sufficiently under control, it would then be time to move to the final objective: the dismantling of the United States Constitution. In particularly, there is that pesky Bill of Rights and the First Amendment guaranteeing Free Speech. That would definitely have to go, so you round up your tame Congress critters and you elect a president who is also in your pocket, putting everything in place for the “slam-dunk.” You pass a battery of laws making any criticism of China both racist and felonious, with punitive fines and prison sentences attached. After that success, you can begin to dismantle the rest of the Bill of Rights and no one will be able to say a word against what you are doing because the First Amendment will by then be a dead duck. When the Constitution is in shreds and Chinese lobbyists are firmly in control of corrupted legislators, Beijing will have won a bloodless victory against the United States and it all began with just a little interference in America’s politics alluded to by Donald Trump.

Of course, dear reader, all of the above might be true but for the fact that I am not talking about China at all and am only using that country as a metaphor. Beijing may have spied on the U.S. elections but it otherwise has evidenced little interest in manipulating elections or controlling any aspect of the U.S. government. And even though I am sure that Donald Trump was not referring to Israel when he made his offhand comment about “others,” the shoe perfectly fits that country’s subjugation of many of the foreign and national security policy mechanisms in the United States over the past fifty years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently boasted about how he controls Trump and convinced him to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement.

The real mystery, if there is one, is why no American politician has either the guts or the integrity or perhaps the necessary intelligence to substitute Tel Aviv for Moscow and to call Israel out like we are currently calling out Russia for actions that pale in comparison to what Netanyahu has been up to.

To be specific, there is no evidence that Russia ever asked for favors from Trump’s campaign staff and transition team but Israel did so over a vote on its illegal settlements at the United Nations. Is Special Counsel Robert Mueller or Congress interested? No. Is the media interested? No.

Israel, relying on Jewish power and money to do the heavy lifting, has completely corrupted many aspects of American government and, in particular, its foreign policy by aggressive lobbying and buying politicians. All new members of Congress and spouses are taken to Israel on generously funded “fact finding” tours after being elected to make sure they get their bearings straight right from the git-go. Israel’s nearly total control over the message on the Middle East coming out of the U.S. mainstream is aided and abetted by the numerous Jewish editors and journalists who are prepared to pump the party line. The money to do all this comes from Jewish billionaires like Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson, who have their hooks deep into both political parties. Meanwhile, the ability of America’s most powerful foreign policy lobby AIPAC to avoid registration as a foreign agent is completely due to the exercise of Jewish power in the United States which means in practice that Israel and its advocates will never be sanctioned in any way.

Israel is eager to have the United States fight Iran on its behalf, even though Washington has no real interest in doing so, and all indications are that it will be successful. Though it is a rich country, it receives a multi-billion-dollar handout from the U.S. Treasury every year. When its war criminal prime minister comes to town he receives 26 standing ovations from a completely sycophantic congress and now the United States has even stationed soldiers in Israel who are “prepared to die” for Israel even though there is no treaty of any kind between the two countries and the potential victims have likely never been consulted regarding dying for a foreign country. All of this takes place without the public ever voting on or even discussing the relationship, a tribute to the fact that both major parties and the media have been completely co-opted.

And now there is the assault on the First Amendment, with legislation currently in Congress making it a crime either to criticize Israel or support a boycott of it in support of Palestinian rights. When those bills become law, which they will, we are finished as a country where fundamental rights are respected.

And what has Russia done in comparison to all this? Hardly anything even if all the claims about its alleged interference are true. So when will Mueller and all the Republican and Democratic baying dogs say a single word about Israel’s interference in our elections and political processes? If past behavior is anything to go by, it will never happen.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

July 31, 2018 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Israel, United States | Leave a comment

An Iran War Would Destroy the United States

By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | July 30, 2018

The establishment of a military force to go abroad and overthrow governments does not appear anywhere in the Constitution of the United States, nor does calling for destruction of countries that do not themselves threaten America appear anywhere in Article 2, which describes the responsibilities of the President. Indeed, both Presidents George Washington and John Quincy Adams warned against the danger represented by foreign entanglements, with Adams specifically addressing what we now call democracy promotion, warning that the United States “should not go abroad to slay dragons.”

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has proven to be particularly prone to attacking other countries that have only limited capability to strike back. North Korea was the exception that proved the rule when the Chinese intervened to support its ally in 1950 to drive back and nearly destroy advancing U.S. forces. Otherwise, it has been a succession of Granada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, and Libya, none of which had the capability to hit back against the United States and the American people.

Iran just might prove to be a harder nut to crack. There has been a considerable escalation in tension between Washington and Tehran since the White House withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May. The JCPOA was intended to monitor Iran’s nuclear program to ensure that it would not be producing a nuclear weapon. Since that time, the U.S. and Israel have been threatening the Iranians and accusing them of both having a secret nuclear program and engaging in widespread regional aggression. In the latest incident, President Donald Trump tweeted in response to comments made on July 21st by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had told a meeting of Iranian diplomats that war between America and Iran would be a misfortune for everyone, saying “Mr. Trump, don’t play with the lion’s tail, this would only lead to regret. America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”

Trump responded in anger all in capital letters, “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

Interventionist U.S. national security adviser John Bolton added fuel to the fire with a statement on the following day that “President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before.”

President Trump’s warning that he would annihilate Iran missed the point that Rouhani was offering peace and urging that both sides work to avoid war. The Administration has already announced that it will reinstate existing sanctions on Iran and will likely add some new ones as well. After November 4th, Washington will sanction any country that buys oil from Iran, markedly increasing the misery level for the Iranian people and putting pressure on its government.

Iran, while recognizing the overwhelming imbalance in the forces available to the two sides, has not taken the threats from Washington and Tel Aviv lightly. Its Quds Revolutionary Guards Special Forces chief Major Generral Qassem Soleimani has now warned Trump that “We are near you, where you can’t even imagine … Come. We are ready … If you begin the war, we will end the war. You know that this war will destroy all that you possess.”

Iran’s Guards commanders have in the past threatened to target and destroy U.S. military bases across the Middle East, and also target Israel, within minutes of being attacked. Military targets would be defended by both Israeli and U.S. counter-missile batteries but civilian targets would be vulnerable, particularly if Hezbollah, with an estimated 100,000 rockets of various types, joins in the fighting from Lebanon.

Washington argues that its pressure on Iran is intended to force its government to end its nuclear program as well as its support for militant groups in the Middle East, where Iran, so the claim goes, is engaged in proxy wars in both Yemen and Syria. The arguments are, however, largely fabrications as Iran has no nuclear weapons program and its engagement in Syria is by invitation of the legitimate government in Damascus while aid to Yemen’s Houthi’s is very limited. And there is no Iranian threat to the United States or to legitimate American interests.

Given the size of Iran, its large population, and clear intention to resist any U.S. attack, military action against the country, which many in Washington now see as inevitable, would be by missiles and bombs from the air and sea. But it would not be a cakewalk. In the past year, Iran has deployed the effective Russian made SA-20c SAM mobile air defense units as well as the S-300 VM missile system, which together have a range of more than 100 miles that could cover the entire Persian Gulf. Radar has also been upgraded. They are the centerpieces of an air defense system that could prove formidable against attacking U.S. aircraft and incoming missiles while ballistic missiles in large numbers in the Iranian arsenal could cause major damage to U.S. bases, Israel, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

All of which means that Americans will die in a war with Iran, possibly in substantial numbers, and the threat by Iran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz is no fantasy. It has threatened to do so if its own oil exports are blocked after November 4th, even if there is no war. And if there were war, even if subjected to sustained attack, Iran would be able to threaten ships trying to use the Strait with its numerous batteries of anti-ship missiles hidden along the country’s rough and mountainous coastline, to include the Russian made SS-N-22 Sunburn, which is the fastest and most effective ship killing missile in anyone’s arsenal. Fired in volleys, it would be able to overwhelm the defenses of U.S. warships, to include aircraft carriers, if they get too close. With the Strait closed in either scenario, oil prices would go up dramatically, damaging the economies of all the major industrialized nations, including the United States. A major war would also add trillions to the national debt.

Iran also has other resources to strike back, including cadres ready and able to carry out terror attacks in the United States and Western Europe. American tourists in Europe will be particularly vulnerable. The reality is that the United States has no motive to go to war with Iran based on its own national interests but seems to be prepared to do so anyway under pressure from Israel and Saudi Arabia. If it does do so, Iran will certainly lose, but the damage to the United States at every level might possibly be very high.

July 30, 2018 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Wars for Israel | Iran, Sanctions against Iran, United States | Leave a comment

Has US-Iran conversation begun already?

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | July 29, 2018

About 4 months ago, when Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif travelled to Muscat to meet his Omani counterpart Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, I had written that something important might be brewing, since Oman was after all the intermediary that Barack Obama thoughtfully handpicked for opening a line to Tehran.

Oman handled the job with such rare aplomb that a couple of years later, later when US-Iran direct negotiations became public knowledge, the Saudis got furious with Muscat for keeping them in the dark. Oman is actually a very sophisticated practitioner of diplomacy, unlike the pompous petrodollar Gulf states that are so full of themselves, and has an independent foreign policy, although a close ally of the US.)

At any rate, news has just appeared that Alawi has paid a visit to the US where amongst others he met US Defence Secretary James Mattis. To my mind, all this probably began when Mattis visited Oman in March (in the backdrop of President Trump’s impending announcement on the US walkout from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.)

Thus, while the back-and-forth flow of rhetoric between Washington and Tehran in the recent weeks might have conveyed a sense of imminent confrontation, the reality could be very different. Indeed, when it comes to US-Iran tango, rhetoric can be deceptive – like cats in heat making strange growl.

It couldn’t have been coincidental that over the weekend, following the talks with the visiting Omani minister, Mattis made two very significant remarks regarding Iran during a Pentagon briefing for the media. In the first remark, Mattis said that beyond the stated agenda of curbing Iran’s “threatening behavior” in the Middle East, Washington is not seeking regime change in Tehran. He was specific: “We need them to change their behavior on a number of threats that they can pose with their military, with their secret services, with their surrogates and with their proxies.”

In the second remark, Mattis took on frontally any talk of the US preparing for a military strike against Iran. Pegging his remark on an Australian news report, Mattis said, “I have no idea where the Australian news people got that information. I’m confident that it’s not something that’s being considered right now, and I think it’s a complete, frankly, it’s fiction.”

Taken together, what Mattis said significantly waters down Trump’s recent threatening tweet where he challenged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani by name. Trump tweeted:

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

But then, arguably, Rouhani’s earlier remark itself was misunderstood. Rouhani had said, “America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” To my mind, Rouhani probably made an overture to Washington to the effect that making nice is still viable and a ‘win-win’ proposition.

Of course, Trump himself made amends the very next day, adjusting his rhetoric and suggesting that Washington is ready to go back to the negotiating table with Tehran for a new nuclear deal. Trump told a convention in Kansas City, “I withdrew the United States from the horrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal, and Iran is not the same country anymore. We’re ready to make a deal.”

Much will depend now on whether Allawi carried back from Washington some ‘talking points’ for transmission to Tehran.

July 30, 2018 Posted by aletho | Wars for Israel | Iran, Oman, United States | Leave a comment

Russia swats away Israeli bluster on Syria

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | July 25, 2018

The Russian version of the visit by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov to West Jerusalem on July 23 became available, finally, on Wednesday in the nature of a terse TASS report quoting a ‘military-diplomatic’ source in Moscow as saying that the visiting Russian officials “looked into the tasks of completing the anti-terrorist operation in Syria’s South.”

An unnamed Israeli official had earlier floated a story that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did some tough talking with Lavrov and “rebuffed” a Russian offer to create a 100-kilometre buffer zone adjacent to Golan Heights. Netanyahu reportedly insisted that he won’t be satisfied with anything short of Iran ending its presence in Syria conclusively.

The first indication that the talks didn’t go well came when Israel shot down a Syrian jet on July 24 in Quneitra bordering Golan. It was a calculated act of belligerence by Israel. (The Islamic State fighters who are present in the region have since released the photograph of the wreckage and the mutilated body of the Syrian pilot.)

The TASS report today punctures the Israeli version that the two Russian officials were deputed by President Vladimir Putin specially to discuss with Netanyahu the future of Iranian presence in Syria. (It now transpires that the Russian officials were on a tour of Israel, Germany and France.) The Israeli bravado can only be seen as a desperate ploy to cover up its humiliating defeat in Syria with the terrorist groups that were its proxies surrendering lock, stock and barrel in Daraa and Quneitra to the Syrian-Russian forces – especially the hasty exfiltration of the controversial group known as the White Helmets to Jordan via Golan Heights with the logistical help from the Israeli military.

Quite obviously, Moscow does not want to get entangled in the Israel-Iran tensions. This is also the American assessment of the Russian thinking, as articulated by the Director of the National Intelligence Agency Daniel Coats on Thursday:

“We have assessed that it’s unlikely Russia has the will or the capability to fully implement and counter Iranian decisions and influence (in Syria.) Russia would have to make significantly greater commitments [in Syria] from a military standpoint, from an economic standpoint. We don’t assess that they’re keen to do that.”

Nonetheless, the Israeli propaganda has gone overboard in attempting to create a wedge between Russia and Iran. (Read a fine piece, here, by Moon of Alabama on the Israeli disinformation campaign.) This couldn’t have gone down well in Moscow. At any rate, the Russian Foreign Ministry came out on July 24 with some sharp criticism of the move by the Israeli parliament (six days earlier) to adopt a bill known as Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.

The operation by the Syrian forces (backed by Russian allies) to liberate Quneitra succeeded beyond expectations once Washington signaled that the extremist groups entrenched in the southern provinces bordering Jordan and Israel should not expect any American intervention to bail them out.

Damascus is now turning its attention to the liberation of the northwestern province of Idlib. It will be a major confrontation due to the presence of a large number of foreign terrorists in Northwestern Syria. The Iranian media reported that a Russian flag ship Ro-Ro Sparta was spotted crossing the Bosporus en route to Syria’s Tartus, carrying military cargo mostly ammunition, shells and missiles and that the reinforcements are meant for the Syrian Army’s “upcoming assault” on Idlib province.

July 29, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Golan Heights, Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria, White Helmets | Leave a comment

The Putin-Trump Helsinki Summit

The action is in the reaction

The Saker • Unz Review • July 26, 2018

Now that a little over a week has passed since the much awaited Putin-Trump summit in Helsinki took place, I have had the time to read many of the reactions and comments it generated. I am coming to the paradoxical conclusion that this summit was both a non-event and a truly historical watershed moment. Let’s look at the event itself and then at its consequences.

The summit itself: a much-needed non-event

First, one has to welcome the fact that Putin and Trump spoke to each other, not so much because that fact by itself is great, but because it is an immensely dangerous situation when the leaders of the two military (and nuclear) superpowers do not talk to each other. Over the past couple of years, almost all contacts between Russian and US officials have been unilaterally severed, all by the US side, of course. The sole exception to this quasi-total silence was the ongoing contacts between Russian and US military and security/intelligence officials, which is a very good thing. However, this is also not enough because neither military nor security/intelligence officials are supposed to actually make policies and, therefore, when they are the only ones talking two things can happen: either a) these military and security/intelligence officials are severely limited in their authority to make decisions or b) military and security/intelligence officials are forced to take matters into their own hands and begin making policies in spite of their lack of authority to do so. Such a state of affairs is inherently dangerous (not to mention un-democratic). Still, the fact that the two Presidents and their advisers talked to each other is a much-needed development which hopefully will mark the return to a normal multi-level dialog between Russia and the US.

But besides the fact that talking is by definition good what else did the summit achieve?

Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.

Oh sure, there were a number of general statements made about “positive discussions” and the like, and some vague references to various conflicts, but the truth is that nothing real and tangible was agreed upon. Furthermore, and this is, I believe, absolutely crucial, there never was any chance of this summit achieving anything. Why? Because the Russians have concluded a long time ago that the US officials are “non-agreement capable” (недоговороспособны). They are correct – the US has been non-agreement capable at least since Obama and Trump have only made things even worse: not only has the US now reneged on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (illegally – since this plan was endorsed by the UNSC), but Trump has even pathetically backtracked on the most important statement he made during the summit when he retroactively changed his “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be” into “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia” (so much for 5D chess!). If Trump can’t even stick to his own words, how could anybody expect the Russians to take anything he says seriously?! Besides, ever since the many western verbal promises of not moving NATO “one inch eastward” the Russians have known that western promises, assurances, and other guarantees are worthless, whether promised in a conversation or inked on paper. In truth, the Russians have been very blunt about their disgust with not only the western dishonesty but even about the basic lack of professionalism of their western counterparts, hence the comment by Putin about “it is difficult to have a dialogue with people who confuse Austria and Australia“. It is quite obvious that the Russians agreed to the summit while knowing full well that nothing would, or even could, come out of it. This is why they were already dumping US Treasuries even before meeting with Trump (a clear sign of how the Kremlin really feels about Trump and the US).

So why did they agree to the meeting?

Because they correctly evaluated the consequences of this meeting.

The consequences of the summit: a unanimity of hatred and chaos

This is the proverbial case where the real “action is in the reaction” and, in this case, the reaction of the Neocon run US deep-state and its propaganda machine (the US corporate media) was nothing short of total and abject hysterics. I could list an immense number of quotes, statements and declarations accusing Trump of being a wimp, a traitor, a sellout, a Putin agent and all the rest. But I found the most powerful illustration of that hate-filled hysteria in a collection of cartoons from the western corporate media posted by Colonel Cassad on this page:

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/4330355.html

I won’t repost them here, but please do take the time to look at them and see for yourself what kind of message they hammer in. The message is brought from different angles and in different ways, but the overall unifying theme is this: Trump is infinitely evil, he sold out the US to Putin-the-Devil, and everything the American people hold as sacred and most dear to their hearts is now in immense danger. I have always liked cartoons and the way they disrespect and ridicule the powers that be, but what we see today is not humor, or disrespect or even virulent criticism. What we see today is a hate campaign against both Trump and Russia the likes of which I think the world has never seen before: even in the early 20th century, including the pre-WWII years when there was plenty of hate thrown around, there never was such a unanimity of hatred as what we see today. Furthermore, what is attacked is not just “Trump the man” or “Trump the politician” but very much so “Trump the President”. Please compare the following two examples:

The US wars after 9/11: many people had major reservations about the wars against Afghanistan, Iraq and the entire GWOT thing. But most Americans seemed to agree with the “we support our troops” slogan. The logic was something along the lines of “we don’t like these wars, but we do support our fighting men and women and the military institution as such”. Thus, while a specific policy was criticized, this criticism was never applied to the institutions which implement it: the US armed forces.
Trump after Helsinki: keep in mind that Trump made no agreement of any kind with Putin, none. And yet that policy of not making any agreements with Putin was hysterically lambasted as a sellout. This begs the question: what kind of policy would meet with the approval of the US deep state? Trump punching Putin in the nose maybe? This is utterly ridiculous, yet unlike in the case of the GWOT wars, there is no differentiation made whatsoever between Trump’s policy towards Putin and Trump as the President of the United States. There is even talk of impeachment, treason and “high crimes & misdemeanors” or of the “KGB” (dissolved 27 years ago but nevermind that) having a hand in the election of the US President.

What Trump is facing today is not a barrage of criticism but a very real lynch mob! And what is really frightening is that almost nobody dares to denounce that hysterical lynch mob for what it is. There are a few exceptions, of course, even in the media (I think of Tucker Carlson), but these voices are completely drowned out by the hate-filled shrieks of the vast majority of US politicians and journalists. Even such supposed supporters of President Trump like Trey Gowdy who has fully thrown his weight behind the “Russia tried to attack us” nonsense. With friends like these…

What has been taking place after the summit is an Orwellian “two minutes of hatred” but now stretched well into a two weeks of hatred. And I see no signs that this lynch mob is calming down. In fact, as of this morning, the levels of hysteria are only increasing.

By the way, these are typical Neocon-style tactics: double-down, then double-down again, then issue statements which make it impossible for you to back down, then repeat it all as many times as needed. This strategy is useless against a powerful and principled enemy, but it works miracles with a weak and spineless foe like Trump. This is particularly true of US politicians and journalists who have long become the accomplices of the deep state (especially after the 9/11 false flag and its cover-up) and who now cannot back down under any circumstances or treat President Trump as a normal, regular, President. The anti-Trump rhetoric has gone way too far and the US has now reached what I believe is a point of no return.

The brewing constitutional crisis: the Neocons vs the “deplorables”

I believe that the US is facing what could be the worst crisis in its history: the lawfully elected President is being openly delegitimized and that, in turn, delegitimizes the electoral process which brought him to power and, of course, it also excoriates the “deplorables” who dared vote for him: the majority of the American people.

The process which is taking place before our eyes splits the people of the US into two main categories: first, the Neocons and those whom the US media has successfully brainwashed and, second, everybody else. That second group, by the way, is very diverse and it includes not only bona fide Trump supporters (many of whom have also been zombified in their own way), but also paleo-conservatives, libertarians, antiwar activists, (real) progressives and many other groups. I am also guessing that a lot of folks in the military are watching in horror as their armed forces and their country are being wrecked by the Neocons and their supporters. Basically, those who felt “I want my country back” and who hoped that Trump would make that happen are now horrified by what is taking place.

I believe that what we are seeing is a massive and deliberate attack by the Neocons and their deep state against the political system and the people of the United States. Congress, especially, is now guilty of engaging in a de-facto coup against the Executive on so many levels that they are hard to count (and many of them are probably hidden from the public eye) including repeated attempts to prevent Trump from exercising his constitutional powers such as, for example, deciding on foreign policy issues. A perfect example of this can be found in Nancy Pelosi’s official statement about a possible invitation from Trump to Putin:

“The notion that President Trump would invite a tyrant to Washington is beyond belief. Putin’s ongoing attacks on our elections and on Western democracies and his illegal actions in Crimea and the rest of Ukraine deserve the fierce, unanimous condemnation of the international community, not a VIP ticket to our nation’s capital. President Trump’s frightened fawning over Putin is an embarrassment and a grave threat to our democracy. An invitation to address a Joint Meeting of Congress should be bipartisan and Speaker Ryan must immediately make clear that there is not – and never will be – an invitation for a thug like Putin to address the United States Congress.”

Another example of the same can be found in the unanimous 98-0 resolution by the US Senate expressing Congress’s opposition to the US government allowing Russia to question US officials. Trump, of course, immediately caved in, even though he had originally declared “fantastic” the idea of actually abiding by the terms of an existing 1999 agreement on mutual assistance on criminal cases between the United States of America and Russia. The White House “spokesperson”, Sarah Sanders, did even better and stated: (emphasis added)

“It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it. Hopefully, President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt”

Talk about imperial megalomania! The US will not allow the Russians to interrogate anybody, but it wants Putin to extradite Russian citizens. Amazing…

As for Nancy Pelosi, her latest “tweet” today is anything but subtle. It reads:

Every single day, I find myself asking: what do the Russians have on @realDonaldTrump personally, financially, & politically? The answer to that question is that only thing that explains his behavior & his refusal to stand up to Putin. #ABetterDeal.

Pretty clear, no? “Trump is a traitor and we have to stop him”.

By now there is overwhelming evidence that a creeping Neocon coup has been in progress from the very first day of Trump’s presidency and that the Neocons are far from being satisfied with having broken Trump and taken over the de-facto power in the White House: they now apparently also want it de-jure too. The real question is this: are there any forces inside the US capable of stopping the Neocons from completely taking all the reins of power and, if yes, how could a patriotic reaction to this Neocon coup manifest itself? I honestly don’t know, but my feeling is that we might soon have a “President Pence” in the Oval Office. One way or another, a constitutional crisis is brewing.

What about the Russian interests in all this?

I have said it many times, Russia and the AngloZionist Empire (as opposed to the United States as a country) are at war, a war which is roughly 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% “kinetic”. This is a very real war nonetheless and it is a war for survival simply because the Empire cannot allow any major country on the planet to be truly sovereign. Therefore, not only does the AngloZionist Empire represent an existential threat to Russia, Russia also represents an existential threat to the Empire. In this kind of conflict for survival there is no room for anything but a zero-sum game and whatever is good for Russia is bad for the US and vice-versa. The Russians, including Putin, never wanted this zero-sum game, it was imposed upon them by the AngloZionists, but now that they have been forced into it, they will play it as hard as they can. It is therefore only logical to conclude that the massive systemic crises in which the Neocons and their crazy policies have plunged the US are to the advantage of Russia. To be sure, the ideal scenario would be for Russia and the US (as opposed to the AngloZionst Empire) to work together on the very long list of issues where they share common interests. But since the Neocons have seized power and are sacrificing the US for the sake of their imperial designs, that is simply not going to happen, and the Russians understand that. Furthermore, since the US constitutes the largest power component of the AngloZionist Empire, anything weakening the US also thereby weakens the Empire and anything which weakens the Empire is beneficial for Russia (by the way, the logical corollary of this state of affairs is that the people of the US and the people of Russia have the same enemy – the Neocons – and that makes them de-facto allies).

It is not my purpose here to discuss when and how the Neocons came to power in the US, so I will just say that the delusional policies followed by the various US administrations since at least 1993 (and, even more so, since 2001) have been disastrous for the United States and could be characterized as one long never-ending case of imperial hubris (to use the title of Michael Scheuer’s excellent 2004 book). Here are some of the consequences of this:

There is no longer such a thing as “US diplomacy” (long gone are the days of James Baker or even George Shultz!). All that the so-called “US diplomats” are doing is delivering ultimatums, threats, sanctions, human rights “scorecards”, lists of “terror-sponsoring countries”, etc. Even worse, any and all types of negotiations are now construed as signs of weakness or, worse, treason. The US politicians have convinced themselves that one should only negotiate with friends and allies, but the truth is that the US has no friends or allies – only colonies, protectorates, puppet regimes and other comprador-run vassal states. To them, the US gives orders, which is very different from negotiations which imply a search for a compromise between roughly equal parties.
The US “intelligence community” has become a tool for petty political interests and competent analysts and foreign policy experts are clearly absent from the top levels of this community (Dmitri Orlov just wrote a good article about this issue here). The long string of lost wars and foreign policy disasters are a direct result of this lack of even basic expertise. What passes for “expertise” today is basically hate-filled hyperbole and warmongering hysterics, hence the inflation in the paranoid anti-Russian rhetoric.
The US armed forces are only good at three things: wasting immense sums of money, destroying countries and alienating the rest of the planet. They are still the most expensive and bloated armed forces on the planet, but nobody fears them anymore (not even relatively small states, never mind Russia or China). In technological terms, the Russians (and to a somewhat lesser degree the Chinese) have found asymmetrical answers to all the key force planning programs of the Pentagon and the former US superiority in the air, on land and on the seas is now a thing of the past. As for the US nuclear triad, it is still capable of accomplishing its mission, but it is useless as an instrument of foreign policy or to fight Russia or China (unless suicide is contemplated).

[Sidebar: this inability of the US military to achieve desired political goals might explain why, at least so far, the US has apparently given up on the notion of a Reconquista of Syria or why the Ukronazis have not dared to attack the Donbass. Of course, this is too early to call and these zigs might be followed by many zags, especially in the context of the political crisis in the US, but it appears that in the cases of the DPRK, Iran, Syria and the Ukraine there is much barking, but not much biting coming from the supposed sole “hyperpower” on the planet]

The US is now engaged in simultaneous conflicts not only with Iran or Russia but also with the EU and China. In fact, even relationships with vassal states such as Canada or France are now worse than ever before. Only the prostituted leaders of “new Europe”, to use Rumsfeld’s term, are still paying lip service to the notion of “American leadership”, and only if they get paid for it.
The US “elites” and the various interest groups they represent have now clearly turned on each other which is a clear sign that the entire system is in a state of deep crisis: when things were going well, everybody could get what they wanted and no visible infighting was taking place.
The Israel Lobby has now fully subordinated Congress, the White House, and the media to its narrow Likudnik agenda and, as a direct result of this, the US has lost all their positions in the Middle-East and the chorus of those with enough courage to denounce this Zionist Occupation Government is slowly but steadily growing (at least on the Internet). Even US Jews are getting fed up with the now openly Israeli apartheid state (see here or here).
By withdrawing from a long list of important international treaties and bodies (TPP, Kyoto Protocol, START, ABM, JCPOA. UNESCO, UN Human Rights Council, etc.) the United States has completely isolated themselves from the rest of the planet. The ironic truth is that Russia has not been isolated in the least, but that the US has isolated itself from the rest of the planet.

In contrast, the Russians are capitalizing on every single US mistake – be it the carrier-centric navy, the unconditional support for Israel or the simultaneous trade wars with China and the EU. Much has been made of the recent revelation of new and revolutionary Russian weapon systems (see here and here) but there is much more to this than just the deployment of new military systems and technologies: Russia is benefiting from the lack of any real US foreign policies to advance her own interests in the Middle-East, of course, but also elsewhere. Let’s just take the very latest example of a US self-inflicted PR disaster – the following “tweet” by Trump: (CAPS in the original)

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

This kind of infantile (does he not sound like a 6 year old?) and, frankly, rather demented attempt at scaring Iranians (of all people!) is guaranteed to have the exact opposite effect from the one presumably sought: the Iranian leaders might snicker in disgust, or have a good belly-laugh, but they are not going to be impressed. The so-called “allies” of the US will be embarrassed in the extreme to be “led” by such a primitive individual, even if they don’t say so in public. As for the Russians, they will happily explore all the possibilities offered to them by such illiterate and self-defeating behavior.

Conclusion one: a useful summit for Russia

As a direct consequence of the Helsinki summit, the infighting of the US ruling classes has dramatically intensified. Furthermore, faced with a barrage of hateful attacks Trump did what he always does: he tried to simultaneously appease his critics by caving in to their rhetoric while at the same time trying to appear “tough” – hence his latest “I am a tough guy with a big red button” antics against Iran (he did exactly the same thing towards the DPRK). We will probably never find out what exactly Trump and Putin discussed during their private meeting, but one thing is sure: the fact that Trump sat one-on-one with Putin without any “supervision” from his deep-state mentors was good enough to create a total panic in the US ruling class resulting in even more wailing about collusion, impeachment, high crimes & misdemeanors and even treason. Again, the goal is clear: Trump must be removed.

From the Russian point of view, it matters very little whether Trump is removed from office or not – the problem is not one of personalities, but one of the nature of the AngloZionist Empire. The Russians simply don’t have the means to bring down the Empire, but the infighting of the US elites does and, if not, then at the very least the current crisis will further weaken the US, hence the Russian willingness to participate in this summit even if by itself this summit brought absolutely no tangible results: the action was in the reaction.

Conclusion two: the Clinton gang’s actions can result in a real catastrophe for the US

Trump’s main goal in meeting with Putin was probably to find out whether there was a way to split up the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership and to back the Israeli demands for Syria. On the issue of China, Trump never had a chance since the US has really nothing to offer to Russia (whereas China and Russia are now locked into a vital symbiotic relationship). On Syria, the Russians and the Israelis are now negotiating the details of a deal which would give the Syrian government the control of the demarcation line with Israel (it is not a border in the legal sense) and Trump’s backing for Israel will make no difference. As for Iran, the Russians will not back the US agenda either for many reasons ranging from basic self-interest to respect for international law. So while Trump did the right thing in meeting with Putin, it was predictable at least under the current set of circumstances, that he would not walk away with tangible results.

For all his very real failings, Trump cannot be blamed for the current situation. The real culprits are the Clinton gang and the Democratic Party which, by their completely irresponsible behavior, are creating a very dangerous crisis for the United States: the Neocons and the Clinton gang are willing to say anything, no matter how destabilizing, to hurt Trump even if the US political system by itself is also put at risk. Furthermore, the Neocons have now completely flipped around the presumption of innocence – both externally (Russian “attack” on the US elections) and internally (Trump’s “collusion” with Putin). As for Trump, whatever his good intentions might have been, he is weak and cannot fight the entire US deep state by himself. The Neocons and the US deep state are now on a collision course with Russia and the people of the United States and while Russia does have the means to protect herself from the Empire, it is unclear to me who, or what could stop the Neocons from further damaging the US. Deep and systemic crises often result in new personalities entering the stage, but in the case of the US, it is now undeniable that the system cannot reform itself and that when a personality tries to reform it, the system strikes back with vicious power.

Depending on its context the word “catastrophe” can have any of the following meanings: any large and disastrous event of great significance, a disaster beyond expectations, a dramatic event that initiates the resolution of the plot or a type of bifurcation, where a system shifts between two stable states. In the context of the political situation in the United States, all these definitions apply. Whether for better or for worse, the most likely outcome of the current crisis will be some type of political regime change.

July 26, 2018 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Middle East, Russia, United States | Leave a comment

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New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.

A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.

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