Volvo stops truck assembly in Iran due to US sanctions
RT | September 24, 2018
Swedish truckmaker Volvo has stopped assembling trucks in Iran because of Washington’s sanctions, spokesman for the company, Fredrik Ivarsson, told Reuters.
According to him, the group could no longer get paid for parts it shipped and had therefore decided not to operate in Iran.
“With all these sanctions and everything that the United States put (in place)… the bank system doesn’t work in Iran. We can’t get paid… So for now we don’t have any business (in Iran),” Ivarsson said.
Volvo was working with Saipa Diesel (part of Iran’s second-largest automaker Saipa) which was assembling the Swedish firm’s heavy-duty trucks from kits shipped to Iran. The company had plans to become Iran’s main export hub for the Gulf region and North Africa markets.
An unnamed commercial department manager at Saipa Diesel told the media that more than 3,500 Volvo trucks had been assembled in the year to May. However, none had been assembled in this financial year, he said. The original deal was for at least 5,000 trucks.
The manager confirmed that sanctions had prompted Volvo Trucks to terminate their partnership agreement.
“They have decided that due to the sanction on Iran, from (May) they couldn’t cooperate with us. We had some renovation planned in Iran for a new plant but they refused to work with us,” he said.
Volvo has joined a list of European companies such as Total, Adidas and Daimler, who have been forced to reconsider their investments in Iran. The firms said they will scale back or abandon all operations in Iran due to Washington’s sanctions.
Swedish truckmaker Scania, which is owned by Volkswagen (VW), said it had canceled all orders that it could not deliver by mid-August due to sanctions. French carmaker PSA Group began to suspend its joint venture activities in Iran in June.
Germany’s Daimler said it was closely monitoring any further developments, while Volkswagen rejected reports that it had decided against doing business in Iran. VW said its position had not changed.
Iran summons European envoys over terrorist attacks in Ahvaz
Press TV – September 22, 2018
Iranian authorities have summoned ambassadors of the Netherlands and Denmark as well as chargé d’affaires of the British embassy in Tehran after terrorists with alleged links to the European countries carried out attacks during a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz on Saturday.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said that the department for European affairs of the ministry summoned the three diplomats separately at the evening time on Saturday to declare Tehran’s strong protest to the role their countries might have played to support elements who carried out the terror attacks in Ahvaz earlier in the day that led to the killing of some 25 people.
The al-Ahvaziya terror group, whose recruits are believed to be scattered in several European countries, including in the Netherlands and in Denmark, claimed responsibility for the attack in Ahvaz.
The terror outfit, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, has a record of carrying out sabotage acts in Iran’s Khuzestan province, which encompasses Ahvaz and some other Arab-dominated towns.
Qassemi said Iran expected the two European countries to extradite the “criminal perpetrators” of the terrorist act in Ahvaz.
“It was reiterated to the ambassadors of the Netherlands and Denmark that the Islamic Republic of Iran had earlier warned about the residence of these individuals in these countries and has called for their arrest and prosecution,” said Qassemi in a statement, adding that the ambassadors of the two countries declared that their governments were ready to share any information with regards to the terrorists and their records.
The official said that Iranian authorities had also passed their strong note of protest to the chargé d’affaires of the British embassy in Tehran about an interview aired by a Britain-based TV channel after the attack in Ahvaz in which the spokesman of the al-Ahvaziya had condoned the terrorist act.
Qassemi said the British diplomat condemned the attack and said that he would accordingly relay Iran’s message of protest to the authorities in London.
Three of the terrorists were shot dead at the scene while a fourth was arrested and later succumbed to his wounds, armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said.
Iran declared Monday to be a day of national mourning in which a funeral ceremony will be held for the victims of the attack in Ahvaz.
All but one of the 25 people killed in the attack have been identified. Some 60 people were wounded in the attack, most of them civilians. Authorities said the death toll could rise as some injured were in critical condition.
Western media mostly silent on Ahvaz terrorist attack
Press TV – September 22, 2018
The mainstream Western media have been mostly silent about the deadly US-sponsored terrorist attack in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, according to US scholar and political analyst Kevin Barrett.
“Innocent people being killed by terrorists is front page news in the West; but, in the case of terrorism against Iran, suddenly, everything changes and the media tends to ignore and downplay it,” Barrett told Press TV in an interview on Saturday.
Barrett sees the attack as another terrorist operation launched by the United States and its regional allies.
“There have been close to 20,000 people killed in these kinds of terrorist attacks by extremist groups in Iran over the years to almost the complete silence of the western media and that is because it is the western governments led by the United States and its Israeli master who are in fact organizing, funding, arming, equipping, and unleashing these terrorists against Iran and they have been ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979,” Barrett said.
Barrett noted that US President Donald Trump and top officials in his administration like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security adviser John Bolton were behind such state-sponsored terrorist attacks on innocent people.
“Today, we have in power in the United States the Trump administration whose two main Iran advisers — Bolton and Pompeo –are fanatical anti-Iran haters,” Barrett said.
Barrett said the pair had received huge bribes from the Iranian terrorist opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), known to most other countries by another acronym, MEK.
“These guys bribes are usually called ‘speaking fees’, and Bolton and Pompeo and others will go in front of these terrorist organized events – propaganda exercises – for huge sums of money, to basically paper over MEK’s terrorist past,” Barrett said.
In return, Barrett assumed, the pair helps the terrorists receive funds to launch anti-Iran operations. “We can assume that the pair is helping their friends by upping the level of US support for them,” he said.
Barrett said direct support of terrorists groups like the MEK and state-sponsored terrorism was doing the US no good.
Barrett concluded that US-sponsored terrorist attacks were going to be counterproductive in the long run because “terrorism doesn’t work … Iranian people are not going to stand it. People like Bolton and Pompeo may have failed to learn that lesson and they will be learning it in the future. “
Iran urges UN to censure Israel’s nuclear threat, make it respect international rules
Press TV – September 20, 2018
Tehran has written to the United Nations, calling on the world body to condemn Israel for threatening Iran with a nuclear attack and bring the regime’s atomic weapons program under its supervision.
Standing right beside the Dimona nuclear facility late last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Iran as a “threat” to the region and said Tel Aviv has the means to destroy its “enemies” in a veiled reference to Tel Aviv’s nuclear arsenal.
“Those who threaten to wipe us out put themselves in a similar danger, and in any event will not achieve their goal,” he said. “But our enemies know very well what Israel is capable of doing. They are familiar with our policy. Whoever tries to hurt us – we hurt them.”
In a letter addressed to the UN on Thursday, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the world body said Netanyahu’s belligerent remarks poses “a serious threat to international peace and security.”
It also urged the UN to make Israel abide by international rules and the UN Charter.
The letter also highlighted Israel’s long history of aggression, occupation, militarism and state terrorism among other international crimes, urging the world community to take a firm position on the Zionist regime’s “unbridled actions and nuclear threat.”
In the letter, Iran further demanded that the UN condemn Israel’s anti-Iran threat, make the regime join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and bring its nuclear program under the supervesion of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It also reminded the UN that Iran is itself a victim of weapons of mass destruction, particularly chemical weapons.
The UN member states should not turn a blind eye to Israel’s threat and make efforts towards to the elimination of its entire nuclear stockpile, the letter read.
Responding to Netanyahu’s highly aggressive comments, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the premier as “warmonger” and said the threat was “ beyond shameless.”
“Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, is threatened with atomic annihilation by a warmonger standing next to an actual nuclear weapons factory. Beyond shameless in the gall,” Zarif tweeted.
Israel is the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, but its policy is to neither confirm nor deny that it has atomic bombs. The Tel Aviv regime is estimated to have 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.
Unlike Iran, the regime is not a member of the NPT — whose aim is to prevent the spread of nuclear arms and weapons technology – in defiance of international pressure.
Tehran Has Sovereign Right to Develop Missile Program – Moscow
Sputnik – 19.09.2018
MOSCOW – Moscow believes that the development of the Iranian missile program is Tehran’s sovereign right, and all the issues arising in this regard should be resolved without pressure, especially military, at the negotiating table, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik.
“We have always supported resolving any problems that arise in interstate relations and in the dialogue on acute issues through negotiations and through relevant agreements,” Ryabkov said on Wednesday.
The deputy foreign minister further stressed that the developments in the situation around the Iran nuclear deal and other issues that American counterparts put in the context of this deal, as well as Iran’s behavior, attracted Russia’s close attention.
Speaking to Sputnik reporter, Ryabkov also revealed that the meeting of the five mediators and Iran at the level of foreign ministers will take place on the sidelines of the high-level week of the UN General Assembly at the end of September.
“The meeting of the participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — those who stayed in the agreement — will be held at the ministerial level,” the official stated.
He also noted that the definite time is being coordinated, and the European External Action Service is expected to make a relevant announcement in the near future. However, Ryabkov assured that it was certain that the meeting would take place.
The JCPOA stipulates the gradual removal of the West’s sanctions against Iran in exchange for Tehran maintaining a peaceful nature of its nuclear program. However, US President Donald Trump announced in May the withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA and the reinstating of the first round of sanctions in August.
Twitter blocks real Iranians’ accounts, overlooks US ‘regime change’ propaganda: Zarif
Press TV – September 16, 2018
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Twitter has blocked the accounts of “real Iranians” but overlooks the “regime change” propaganda spewing out of Washington.
Zarif made the remarks in a post on his official Twitter page on Sunday addressing Jack Patrick Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter.
He said the accounts of real Iranians, including TV presenters and students, have been shuttered for allegedly being part of an “influence operation.”
“How about looking at actual bots in Tirana used to prop up ‘regime change’ propaganda spewed out of DC?” the top Iranian diplomat asked, alluding to the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), whose members are currently based in Albanian capital city.
Back in August, Google removed 39 YouTube channels linked to the Iranian state broadcaster. Google terminated those accounts, along with six blogs on its Blogger service and 13 Google+ accounts linked with Iran. The move came after Twitter and Facebook also blocked hundreds of accounts on suspicion of possible ties with Iran.
The MKO has a dark history of assassinations and bombings against the Iranian government and nation. It notoriously sided with former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in his eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s.
The group has been behind most of the terrorist attacks, which have claimed the lives of nearly 17,000 Iranians since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.
Initially designated as a terrorist organization by Europe and the US, the group has established close links with Western political parties.
In recent years, several media reports have emerged about top political figures in the US and Europe receiving money from the MKO to speak favorably of the terrorist group.
In September 2016, the last remaining members of the terrorist group were relocated from Camp Liberty (Hurriya), a former US military base near the Iraqi capital Baghdad, to Albania.
Iraq had long urged MKO remnants to leave the country, but a complete eviction of the terrorists had been hampered as a result of the US and European countries’ support for the group.
Iranian Bots and the Facebook Stasi: Manufacturing Consent for the Endless War
By Helen Buyniski | Helen of desTroy | September 3, 2018
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. The American Empire doesn’t handle failure well, and their repeated failures to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad have driven them into a frenzy where good judgment and logic are a thing of the past. Russian military intelligence predicts a false-flag chemical attack in Idlib which will be pinned on the Assad regime and used to justify “retaliation” orders of magnitude greater than April’s Tomahawk tantrum. This time, if the words of the Wicked Witch of the UN are any indication, Iran and Russia will also be blamed. While the US has mostly abandoned hope for regime change in Syria, it will not look a gift horse in the mouth, and is gathering aircraft carriers and bombers to the region while pumping out tear-jerking propaganda about Idlib residents fearing for their lives. If the false flag fails, they can always send those bombers to Iran…
Such an attack is very much on the table, with the groundwork being laid in the pro-war press. John Bolton promised the MEK, a “corrupt, criminal cult” of Iranian exiles which bribed its way off the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in 2012, regime change by 2019, and the clock is ticking. Attempts to foment a color revolution have failed repeatedly, because Iranians aren’t stupid and remember what happened the last time the US overthrew their government. But Benjamin Netanyahu has been baying for Iranian blood for almost three decades, and Bolton cares little for more clear-headed military personnel’s warnings that invading Iran would be a costly, unwinnable nightmare – Real Men Go To Tehran, as they used to say in the halcyon days of the Axis of Evil.
Prelude to War: Iranian Bots
The ruling class understands Americans are wary of another Middle Eastern war and must be convinced they’re under attack. Hence the new bogeyman, just in time for Election 2018: Iranian Meddling. Twitter, Facebook, and Google took time out from deplatforming anti-establishment commentators to delete over a thousand accounts between them after cyber-security firm FireEye released a report detailing a far-reaching “Suspected Iranian Influence Operation.” With only “moderate confidence,” FireEye pointed to “coordinated inauthentic behavior” geared toward “shaping a message favorable to Iran’s national interests” as the smoking gun. Washed-up former intelligence operatives Ron Hosko and Larry Pfeiffer (ex-FBI and ex-CIA, respectively) smugly added that if we hadn’t let Russia get away with their (still unproven) interference in the 2016 election, Iran would never have been so emboldened as to pour $12,000 of cold, hard cash into this social media offensive in order to portray itself favorably to western audiences.
Facebook, eager to behave, took down 652 offending accounts before the government could even react to the news. FireEye’s report points accusingly to the accounts’ promotion of “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes, as well as support for specific US policies favorable to Iran,” implying Facebook users should be suspicious of anyone else espousing these views (and warning Iranian and Palestinian sympathizers and other pro-peace activists to shut up, or they’re next). An important step in laying the groundwork for an unpopular war is to “other” and ultimately demonize the enemy, and FireEye’s suggestion that those with pro-Iranian views aren’t even real humans is classic wartime propaganda for the digital age. In addition to three groups of Iranian accounts, FireEye claims it caught some Russians “attempt[ing] to influence politics in Syria and the Ukraine.” This group “was linked to sources that Facebook said the US had linked to Russian military intelligence.” How many hops of truth distortion are too many for even the terminally credulous establishment media?
Perhaps anticipating users’ bewilderment – the offending accounts had broken no laws, were promoting no political candidates, and in many cases had not even bought ads – Zuckerberg explained around a mouth full of jackboot that “These were accounts that were misleading people about who they were and what they were doing. We ban this kind of behavior because authenticity matters. People need to be able to trust the connections they make on Facebook.” Lest users make the mistake of trusting Facebook, however, he added that the company would be “working more closely with law enforcement, security experts and other companies,” turning over more user data than ever in its quest to make privacy obsolete. When law enforcement calls on Facebook to create a backdoor in its Messenger program – thus defeating the purpose of “encrypted chat” – does anyone really expect Zuckerberg to stand fast for privacy rights?
Not to be outdone, Twitter deleted 770 accounts based on the FireEye report, noting that only 100 of these ostensibly Iranian accounts had misrepresented their location and not even all of these had shared “divisive social commentary,” while a single account had purchased $30 in ads. This means over 600 Twitter accounts were deleted for the crime of geography alone (collateral damage?). But Twitter has always gone above and beyond the call of duty, announcing in May that to promote “healthy” conversations it would begin de-ranking users for engaging in “suspicious behavior.” Users who tweeted at many accounts, had multiple complaints against them, or retweeted material tweeted by banned accounts were shadowbanned indefinitely as persona non grata. Since November, Twitter and Facebook have both been turning over information on users who post “divisive” content of the sort promoted by “Russia-linked accounts” to congressional investigators even though a creator of “Russian bot tracker” Hamilton68 admits the accounts his tool tracks are not necessarily bots, or even Russian – “some are legitimately passionate people,” as if passion is an un-American trait.
Last year, the FBI launched a Foreign Intelligence Task Force to work with US tech firms to combat “foreign influence actors.” With bots and their ilk operating all over the world, the decision to single out Russia and Iran has obvious foreign policy motivation (Bolton also claims that China and North Korea are up to no good on social media). All of this avoids naming the elephant in the room. Even though Israel meddles loudly and proudly in US elections, Facebook openly collaborates with Netanyahu’s government. Beyond removing posts and banning accounts, Facebook even turns over user information to Israeli authorities to facilitate prosecution of Palestinian activists for “incitement,” sometimes over nothing more than a “like” or a “share.” Adding insult to injury, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs has weaponized the diaspora’s ennui – often caused in no small part by young Jews’ discomfort with the crimes their government commits in their name – with the social media equivalent of a Predator drone. Act.IL is an app that allows the user to participate in the “brigading” (mass-reporting for spurious violations) of hapless strangers for “incitement” – supporting the BDS movement, say, or implying that Palestinians are human rather than a “lawn” to be “mowed.” In a rare case of instant karma, the app was found to be leaking users’ email addresses. A nation where the government and citizen “enforcers” are working together to silence dissent sounds like an authoritarian nightmare, but this is our “democratic” Middle Eastern ally.
Origins of Totalitarianism
Israel is the missing link that explains how “sowing discord” – an offense few Americans had ever heard of until 2016 – entered our national vocabulary. The modern “fake news” panic has its roots in the totalitarian tradition. Words like “inciting,” “fomenting,” and “sowing” “discord” and “subversion” are very versatile weapons in the hands of authoritarian regimes. This language was previously uncommon in the US, but its emergence became inevitable when the “new Pearl Harbor” of 9/11 opened the door to the creation of the modern American police state. Social media are now just extra bars on the cage – the tools we once believed could liberate us, during the promising early months of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, are now used to silence us. The US, following a blueprint for legal censorship set by post-WW2 Europe, is taking on the totalitarian trappings of China, of Burma, of the central Asian “stans” and of Saudi Arabia. Kazakhstan calls it “inciting national discord,” with the variations “ethnic discord” and “religious discord” applicable as needed to whatever activist, journalist, or trade unionist the regime needs to put on ice for a few years. It’s called “inciting religious hatred” or “ethnic hatred” in Azerbaijan, which also permanently bans 5 major media outlets for reasons of “national security.” Uzbekistan arrests journalists for “extremism.” China targets activists of all stripes for “inciting subversion.” Burma, which is cracking down hard on the press as it seeks to keep its Rohingya ethnic cleansing quiet, criminalizes “speech that is likely to cause fear or harm and incites classes or groups to commit offenses against each other.” Egypt detains lawyers, journalists and activists under charges of “propagating false news.” Saudi Arabia recently put a Shi’a religious leader to death for “sowing discord” and “undermining national unity.” American dissenters, this is your future.
I have already explained how the Great Deplatforming represents the triumph of the repressive concept of Hate Speech over Free Speech, and how this – not Trump blustering about that wall he’ll get around to building someday – is what fascism looks like. The US government uses friendly corporations as workarounds for the constitutional limits on its power. This technique was deployed against the Second Amendment in Citibank and Bank of America’s post-Parkland refusal to process financial transactions from firearm manufacturers, and is being deployed against the First Amendment here. Such corporate-state fascism is very effective, and the ruling class has seen fit to share it with the other “Five Eyes” intelligence partners, all of whom share information gathered by their Panopticon surveillance agencies. This week, ministers from the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand met in Australia to condemn hostile nations who “sow discord, manipulate public discourse, bias the development of policy, or disrupt markets” through their manipulation of social media platforms; they also implored Big Tech to allow law enforcement “targeted” access to users’ encrypted data. Flexing the thuggish muscles of the world’s greatest carceral state, the group acknowledged “individual rights must be protected” (and presumably snickered before adding) “privacy is not absolute” and warning that encryption was being exploited by criminals.
The Iranian Meddling affair is a perfect distraction from the real malfeasance at Facebook, where Zuckerberg is bringing back Stasi-style crowdsourced secret policing. The company is assigning “trust ratings” to users based in part on their willingness to report their friends for posting “fake news,” fostering a climate of distrust and fear meant to instill reflexive self-censorship. As in East Germany, the central authorities can’t possibly police everyone all of the time, and it is much more advantageous for them to outsource surveillance to the people, since one who cannot trust his neighbor will not unite with him to overthrow the state. Accordingly, Facebook admits that “some users” abuse Facebook’s reporting system, dubbing stories or users they don’t like “fake news” – but don’t worry about those miscreants, because Facebook compensates for their actions with thousands (!) of other measures that go into calculating the trust rating. No user can see his or her own report – that would be telling – so we’re encouraged to tread carefully to avoid running afoul of the ever-shifting Rules. Jordan Peterson, conservatism’s favorite intellectual, delivers his marching orders in a video he posted last week – “nothing is ever simple,” he pleads as he tells his fans that he’s reached an understanding with Zuckerberg, a “very straightforward person” who really just wants to keep his users safe from bad guys like ISIS recruiters. And Iran. Because they’re terrorists, you know?
The police state is no longer necessary when you have internalized the police. “Media censorship is a shift in the flow of information, while self-censorship is a shift in consciousness.” When the government has convinced citizens to do its job – reporting friends and neighbors for “hate speech,” “sowing discord,” and “incitement” on social media, for example – a free society is impossible.
‘US incites Kurds to break promise, assault Iranian soil’
Press TV – September 11, 2018
Iran’s top military commander says the United States has been provoking terrorists based in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region over the past year to launch assaults on Iranian soil despite an earlier promise not to do so.
Speaking on Tuesday, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri referred to a missile strike by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRCG) at a gathering of terrorists in Kurdistan, saying the Iranian nation reserves the right to defend itself.
Over two decades ago, officials from Iraqi Kurdistan and the outlawed Kurdistan Democratic Party had “made a written commitment not to conduct operations in Iran, but they have been breaking that promise over the past year due to US provocations,” he said.
“This was not acceptable to us and thus we repeatedly cautioned them,” he added.
The IRGC issued a statement confirming that it had fired seven short-range surface-to-surface missiles at a gathering of terrorist commanders in Kurdistan on Saturday, dealing a heavy blow to them.
The terrorists, the statement read, had been seeking to create insecurity and carry out acts of sabotage in the Iranian provinces of West Azarbaijan, Kordestan and Kermanshah.
The Iranian general said that the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) should not allow the establishment of such anti-Iran bases and rather extradite the remnants of “criminal” elements to Iran or deport them.
If insecurity persists, Baqeri warned, more counter-measures would be taken against terrorist commanders in self defense.
Iranian forces reached all their goals in the missile attack, he said. “It is not coincidental that the missiles hit the meeting, and we hope that we will not need to repeat this.”
‘No appeasement policy’
Separately on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said that Iran will not follow a policy of appeasement when it comes to its security issues and the violation of its sovereignty by terrorist elements.
The missile strike has not been and will not be “Iran’s optimal choice. But terrorist activities – especially those that resulted in the martyrdom of Iranian border guards and soldiers – left the Iranian armed forces with no choice but to take a retaliatory and deterrent measure based on the credible information it had received.”
He also expressed hope that the joint border with Iraq would be among the most secure and stable frontiers in the region.
US Says Assad Has Approved Gas Attack In Idlib, Setting Stage For Major Military Conflict
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 09/10/2018
At this point there’s not even so much as feigning surprise or suspense in the now sadly all-too-familiar Syria script out of Washington.
The Wall Street Journal has just published a bombshell on Sunday evening as Russian and Syrian warplanes continue bombing raids over al-Qaeda held Idlib, citing unnamed US officials who claim “President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has approved the use of chlorine gas in an offensive against the country’s last major rebel stronghold.”
And perhaps more alarming is that the report details that Trump is undecided over whether new retaliatory strikes could entail expanding the attack to hit Assad allies Russia and Iran this time around.
That’s right, unnamed US officials are now claiming to be in possession of intelligence which they say shows Assad has already given the order in an absolutely unprecedented level of “pre-crime” telegraphing of events on the battlefield.
And supposedly these officials have even identified the type of chemical weapon to be used: chlorine gas.
The anonymous officials told the WSJ of “new U.S. intelligence” in what appears an eerily familiar repeat of precisely how the 2003 invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public (namely, “anonymous officials” and vague assurances of unseen intelligence) — albeit posturing over Idlib is now unfolding at an intensely more rapid pace :
Fears of a massacre have been fueled by new U.S. intelligence indicating Mr. Assad has cleared the way for the military to use chlorine gas in any offensive, U.S. officials said. It wasn’t clear from the latest intelligence if Mr. Assad also had given the military permission to use sarin gas, the deadly nerve agent used several times in previous regime attacks on rebel-held areas. It is banned under international law.
It appears Washington is now saying an American attack on Syrian government forces and locations is all but inevitable.
And according to the report, President Trump may actually give the order to attack even if there’s no claim of a chemical attack, per the WSJ :
In a recent discussion about Syria, people familiar with the exchange said, President Trump threatened to conduct a massive attack against Mr. Assad if he carries out a massacre in Idlib, the northwestern province that has become the last refuge for more than three million people and as many as 70,000 opposition fighters that the regime considers to be terrorists.
And further:
The Pentagon is crafting military options, but Mr. Trump hasn’t decided what exactly would trigger a military response or whether the U.S. would target Russian or Iranian military forces aiding Mr. Assad in Syria, U.S. officials said.
Crucially, this is the first such indication of the possibility that White House and defense officials are mulling over hitting “Russian or Iranian military forces” in what would be a monumental escalation that would take the world to the brink of World War 3.
“Lots of evidence”
Trump regime not even trying, they’re just phoning this disinformation campaign in pic.twitter.com/YD9MtXK97c— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) September 7, 2018
The WSJ report cites White House discussions of a third strike — in reference to US attacks on Syria during the last two Aprils after chemical allegations were made against Damascus — while indicating it “likely would be more expansive than the first two” and could include targeting Russia and Iran.
The incredibly alarming report continues:
During the debate this year over how to respond to the second attack, Mr. Trump’s national-security team weighed the idea of hitting Russian or Iranian targets in Syria, people familiar with the discussions said. But the Pentagon pushed for a more measured response, U.S. officials said, and the idea was eventually rejected as too risky.
A third U.S. strike likely would be more expansive than the first two, and Mr. Trump would again have to consider whether or not to hit targets like Russian air defenses in an effort to deliver a more punishing blow to Mr. Assad’s military.
Last week the French ambassador, whose country also vowed to strike Syria if what it deems credible chemical allegations emerge, said during a U.N. Security Council meeting on Idlib: “Syria is once again at the edge of an abyss.”
With Russia and Iran now in the West’s cross hairs over Idlib, indeed the entire world is again at the edge of the abyss.
developing…
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From the Archives
Neocons confess: “We did 9/11-anthrax”
By Kevin Barrett | Press TV | September 6, 2014
As the 13th anniversary of the crimes of September, 2001 approaches, the neoconservatives are shrieking from the rooftops – and effectively confessing that they were the real perpetrators of the 9/11-Anthrax false flag operation. (The neocons, you may recall, openly called for a “new Pearl Harbor” in September, 2000 – and got one exactly one year later.)
Every year at this time, the neocons orchestrate and hype a series of public relations stunts designed to magnify fears of “radical Islam” and reinforce their crumbling 9/11-Anthrax cover story. But this year’s propaganda campaign is so extreme that it represents a tacit confession: The neocons know that the truth about the 9/11-Anthrax operation is slowly closing in on them; so they are over-reacting by desperately trying to stoke the dying embers of the so-called War on Terror, in order to maintain the myth that Muslims (rather than neoconservative Zionists) attacked America in the autumn of 2001.
When a hysterical person exhibits guilty demeanor by trying too hard to blame a crime on someone else, that person is almost certainly the real perpetrator. As the neocons try much too hard to blame Islam for 9/11 and “terrorism” in general, their hysteria inadvertently reveals their own culpability. Like Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth, the neoconservative movement has blood on its hands and “doth protest too much.” … continue
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- No Tricks Zone
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
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