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US, Israel ramp up nuclear weapons testing, deployment amid regional provocations

Press TV – February 1, 2020

Israel says it has ramped up the deployment and testing of nuclear and nuclear-capable weapons amid heightened regional tensions after the US assassinated top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and unveiled a biased Middle East plan.

The ministry of military affairs of the Israeli regime on Friday announced that it had conducted a launch test of a “rocket propulsion system from a base in the center of the country”.

The ministry refused to disclose any additional details regarding the nature of the missile, contrary to its usual conduct following satellite launcher and missile interceptor tests.

The little information revealed about the test prompted speculation among observers that the tested projectile may have been related to Israel’s long-range ballistic missile program, which Israel seeks to not acknowledge publicly.

Tel Aviv conducted a similar rocket engine test last December with Israeli media reporting that the test was meant to be a “show of force” of the Israeli regime’s “nuclear deterrent system especially aimed at Iran”.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said last year that the Israeli regime is in possession of approximately 100 atomic warheads, noting that it has 30 gravity bombs which can be delivered by fighter jets – some of which are believed to be equipped for nuclear weapon delivery.

The regime has refused to allow inspections of its military nuclear facilities or sign the the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

US deploys new nuclear warhead 

The Federation of American Scientists also warned that Washington was deploying the recently developed W76-2 low-yield nuclear warhead as part of a new generation of less-destructive yet more “usable” nuclear weapons.

The report said the W76-2 warhead, which has an explosive yield of about a third of the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in August 1945, was supplied to Ohio-class USS Tennessee ballistic missile submarines last month.

The authors of the report, military analyst William Arkin and Federation of American Scientists Nuclear Information Project director Hans Kristensen, warned that such weapons increase the likelihood of a nuclear armed conflict.

In a Newsweek article published earlier this month, Arkin and Kristensen said that the development of the W76-2 warhead is the result of Pentagon planning for potential first strike scenarios “against adversaries, especially Iran”.

The article noted that Washington simulated a nuclear strike against Iran in the Global Thunder 17 nuclear exercise in October 2016 during the tenure of then-US President Barack Obama.

It pointed that the newly-deployed W76-2 warhead “is intended for exactly the type of Iran scenario that played out in the last days of the Obama administration”.

Israel and Washington’s provocative military deployments and weapons testing come at a time of major regional tensions resulting from Washington’s recent unveiling of the “deal of the century” and notably its assassination of General Soleimani.

Iran retaliated to the January 3 assassination with a volley of ballistic missiles launched at the US-occupied Ain Al Assad base in Iraq and another outpost in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iran, which has noted that Tel Aviv played a part in the assassination of Lieutenant General Soleimani, had threatened to target Israel if the US were to respond to Iran’s retaliatory attack.

Seeking to downplay the attack and deny any casualties, the Trump administration has since backed down from earlier pledges to respond to Iran’s retaliatory attack.

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

U.S. in the Middle-East: Preparing for Disaster

By The Saker • Unz Review • January 30, 2020

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Turns out that Trump and the Pentagon were lying. Again. This time about the true impact of the Iranian counter-strike on US forces in Syria. First they claimed that there were no injured U.S. personnel, only to eventually have to fess up that 34 soldiers had suffered traumatic brain injury (which Trump “re-classified” as a “headache”). Then they had to admit that it was not really 34, but actually 50!

According to some sources, not all U.S. personnel were hiding in bunkers and some were deployed to defend the base perimeter. Whatever may be the case, this adds yet another indication that the Iranian counter-strike was much more robust than originally reported by the Empire. In fact, Iranian sources indicate that following the strike, a number of wounded casualties were flown to Israel, Kuwait and Germany. Again, we will probably never find out the full truth about what happened that night, but two things are now certain:

  1. The Iranian attack was extremely effective and it is undeniable that all the US/NATO/Israeli forces in the region are now exposed like sitting ducks waiting for the next Iranian strike.
  2. Uncle Shmuel has had to dramatically under-report the real extent and nature of the Iranian counter-strike.

Now, let’s be clear about the quality of the warning the U.S. personnel had. We now know at the very least the following warnings were received:

  1. Warning through the Iraqi government (whom the Iranians did brief about their intentions).
  2. Warning through the Swiss authorities (who represent U.S. interests in Iran and whom the Iranian did brief about their intentions).
  3. Warning through the US reconnaissance/intelligence capabilities on the ground, air and space.

And yet, in spite of these almost ideal conditions (from the point of view of defense), we now see that not a single Iranian missile was intercepted, that the missiles all landed with very high accuracy, that the U.S. base itself suffered extensive damage (including destroyed helicopters and drones) and that there were scores of injured personnel (see this article for a detailed discussion of the post-attack imagery).

If we look at this strike as primarily a “proof of concept” operation, then it becomes pretty clear that on the Iranian side what was proven was a superb degree of accuracy and robust ballistic missile capability, whereas on the U.S. side the only thing this strike did was to prove that the U.S. forces in the region are all extremely vulnerable to Iranian missile attack. Just imagine if the Iranians had wanted to maximize U.S. casualties and if they had given no warning of any kind – what would the tally be then?! What if the Iranians had targeted, say, fuel and ammo dumps, buildings where U.S. personnel lived, industrial facilities (including CENTCOM’s key logistic nodes), ports or even airfields? Can you imagine the kind of hell the Iranians would have unleashed against basically unprotected facilities?!

Still dubious?

Then ask yourself why Trump & Co. had to lie and minimize the real scope of the Iranian attack. It is pretty obvious that the White House decided to lie and to present the strike as almost without impact because if it had admitted the magnitude of the strike, then it would also have had to admit to the total powerlessness to stop or even to meaningfully degrade it. Not only that, but an outraged U.S. public (most Americans still believe the traditional propaganda line about “The Greatest Military Force in the History of the Galaxy”!) would have demanded a retaliatory counter-counter-strike against Iran, which would have triggered an immediate Iranian attack on Israel which, in turn, would have plunged the entire region into a massive war which the U.S. had no stomach for.

Contrast that with the Iranian claims which, if anything, possibly exaggerated the impact of the strike and claimed that 80 servicemen were injured (I would add here that, at least so far, the Iranian government has been far more candid and less inclined to resort to crude lies than the U.S. has). Clearly the Iranians were ready for exactly the kind of further escalation that the U.S. wanted to avoid at almost any cost.

So what really took place?

There are two basic ways to defend against an attack: denial and punishment. Denial is what the Syrians have been doing against the U.S. and Israel every time they shoot down incoming missiles. Denial is ideal because it minimizes your own casualties while not necessarily going up the “escalation scale”. In contrast, punishment is when you don’t prevent an attack, but when you inflict retaliatory counter-strike on the attacking side, but only after being attacked yourself. That is what the US could do against Iran, at pretty much any time (yes, contrary to some wholly unrealistic claims, Iranian air defenses cannot prevent the US armed forces from inflicting immense damage upon Iran, its population and infrastructure).

The problem with punishing Iran is you are dealing with an enemy who is actually willing to absorb immense losses as long as these losses eventually lead to victory. How do you deter somebody who is willing to die for his country, people or faith?

There is no doubt in my mind that the Iranians, who are superb analysts, are fully aware of the damage that the U.S. can inflict. The key factor here is that they also realize that once the U.S. unleashes its missiles and bombers and once they destroy many (if not all) of their targets, they will have nothing else left to try to contain Iran with.

Here is how you can think of the Iranian strategy:

  • If the U.S. does nothing or only engages in symbolic strikes (say, like Israel’s strikes in Syria), the Iranians can simply ignore these attacks because while they are very effective in giving the Americans (or the Israelis) an illusion of power, they really fail to achieve anything militarily significant.
  • If the U.S. finally decides to strike Iran hard, it will exhaust its “punishment card” in that counter-attack, and will have no further options to deter Iran.
  • If the U.S. (or Israel) decides to use nuclear weapons, then such an attack will simply give a “political joker card” to Iran saying in essence “now you are justified in whatever retaliation you can think of.” And you can be darn sure that the Iranian will come up with all sorts of most painful forms of retaliation!

You can think of the current US posture as “binary”: it is either “all off” or “all on.” Not by choice, of course, but these conditions are the result of the geostrategic realities of the Middle-East and from the many asymmetries between the two sides:

Country US Iran
Air superiority yes no
Combat capable ground forces no yes
Willingness to incur major losses no yes
Short and secure supply lines no yes
Prepared for major defensive operations no yes

The above is, of course, a simplification, yet it is also fundamentally true. And the reason for these asymmetries lies in a very simple yet crucial difference: Americans have been brainwashed into believing that major wars can be won on the cheap. Iranians have no such illusions (most certainly not after Iraq, backed by the US, the USSR and Europe, attacked Iran and inflicted immense destruction on the Iranian society). But the era of “wars on the cheap” is now long over.

Furthermore, Iranians also know that U.S. air superiority alone will not magically result in a U.S. victory. Finally, the Iranians have had 40 years to prepare for a U.S. attack. The U.S. has only really been put on notice since January 8th of this year.

Again, for the US, it is “all in” or “all out”. We saw the “all out” in the days following the Iranian counter-strike and we can get an idea of what the “all in” would look like by recalling the Israeli operations against Hezbollah in 2006.

The Iranians, however, have a much more gradual escalatory capability, which they just demonstrated with their attack on the U.S. forces in Iraq: they can launch only a few missiles, or they can launch hundreds of them. They can try to maximize U.S. casualties, or they can decide to go after CENTCOM’s infrastructure. They can chose to strike Uncle Shmuel directly, or they can decide to strike his allies (KSA) and bosses (Israel). They can chose to take credit for any action, or they can hide behind what the CIA calls plausible deniability.

So while the U.S. and the AngloZionist Empire as a whole are much more powerful than Iran, Iran has skillfully developed methods and means which allow it to be in control of what military analysts call the “escalation dominance”.

Has Iran just “Ledeened” the almighty US?

Remember Michael Ledeen? He is the Neocon who came up with this historical aphorism: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business“.

Is it not ironic that Iran did exactly that, they took the US and “threw it against a wall, just to show that they meant business”, did they not?

And what does this all tell us?

For one thing, the U.S. military is in real trouble. It is pretty obvious that U.S. air defenses are hopelessly ineffective: we saw their “performance” in Saudi Arabia against the Houthi strikes. The truth is that the Patriot missiles never performed adequately, not in the first Gulf War, nor today. The big difference is that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not have any high-precision missiles and that its attempts to strike at the U.S. (or Israel, for that matter) where not very effective. Thus, it was easy for the Pentagon to fudge the real performance (or lack thereof!) of its weapon systems. Now that Iran has been able to pinpoint some buildings while carefully ignoring others shows that the entire Middle-East has entered a radically new era.

Second, it is equally obvious that U.S. bases in the Middle-East are very vulnerable to ballistic and cruise missile attacks. Air defenses are a very complicated and high-tech branch of the military and it often takes years, if not decades, to develop a truly effective air defense system. Due in part to its tendency to only attack weak and lightly-defended countries, and also due to the very real deterrent might the U.S. armed forces used to deliver in the past, the U.S. never had to really worry much about air defenses. The “little guys” had no missiles, while the “big guys” would never dare to openly strike at Uncle Shmuel’s forces.

Until recently.

Now, it is the previously almighty World Hegemon which has been tossed against a wall by a much weaker Iran and thus found itself being treated like a “small crappy little country”.

Sweet irony!

But there is much more to this story.

The real Iranian goal: to get the U.S. out of the Middle-East

The Iranians (and many Iranian allies in the region) have made it clear that the real retaliation for the murder of General Soleimani would be to bring about a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Syria primarily, followed by a complete withdrawal from the entire Middle-East.

How likely is such an outcome?

Right now, I would say that the chances of that truly happening are microscopically small. After all, who could seriously imagine the U.S. leaving either Saudi Arabia or Israel? Ain’t gonna happen short of a true cataclysm.

What about countries like Turkey or Pakistan which are formally allies of the US but which are also showing clear signs of being mighty fed-up with the kind of “patronage” the US likes to mete out to its “allies”? Do we have any reason to believe that these countries will ever officially demand that Uncle Shmuel’s mercenaries (because that is what U.S. forces are, paid invaders) get the hell out?

And then there are countries like Iraq or Afghanistan which have hosted a very successful and active anti-U.S. insurgency which has kept U.S. forces hunkered down in heavily fortified bases. I don’t think there is anybody mentally sane out there who could offer a even semi-credible scenario of what a U.S. “victory” would look like in these countries. The fact that the U.S. stayed in Afghanistan even longer than the Soviets did shows not only that the Soviet forces were far more effective (and popular) than their U.S. counterparts, but also that Gorbachev’s Politburo was more in touch with reality than Trump’s NSC.

Whatever may be the case, I believe it is undeniable that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lost and than no amount of grandstanding will change this outcome. The same goes for Syria where the U.S. is basically holding on out of sheer stubbornness and a total inability to admit defeat.

Uncle Shmuel’s “vision of peace” for the Middle-East

I just listened to the Idiot-in-Chief proudly present “his” Middle-East “peace” plan to Bibi Netanyahu and the world. This latest stunt shows two crucial things about the mind-set in Washington, D.C.:

  1. There is nothing which the U.S. ruling classes will not do to try to get the favor and support of the Israel Lobby.
  2. The US does not care, not even marginally, what the people of the Middle-East think.

This dynamic, which is not anything new, but which received a qualitative “shot of steroids” under Trump, will only further contribute to the inevitable collapse of Empire in the Middle-East. For one thing, all the so-called “U.S. allies” in the region understand that the only country which matters to the US is Israel, and that all the others count for almost nothing. Furthermore, all the rulers of the Middle-East now also know that being allied to the US also means being a cheap prostitute for Israel which, in turn, is guaranteed political suicide for any politician not wise enough to smell the trap. Finally, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria have shown that the “Axis of Kindness” is long on hyperbole and hubris, but very short in terms of actual combat capability.

The simple truth is that the abject brown-nosing of the Israel Lobby that Trump has been engaged in from Day 1 of his term only serves to further isolate and weaken the U.S. in the Middle-East (and beyond, really!).

In this context, how realistic is the Iranian goal of kicking Uncle Shmuel out of the region?

As I said, not realistic at all, if seen solely in the short term. But I hasten to add that it is very realistic in the mid-term if we look at some, but not all, the countries of the region. Finally, in the long term, it is not only realistic, it is inevitable, even if the Iranians themselves don’t do much, or anything at all, to make that happen.

These grinning ignoramuses are doing more than anyone else to bring down the Empire, even if they don’t understand this!

Conclusion: “Israel’s” days are numbered

The Israelis have been feeding us all a steady diet about this or that country or politician being a “new Hitler’ who will either gas 6M Jews “again”, or wants to wipe Israel “off the map” or even engage in a new Holocaust. Gilad Atzmon brilliantly calls this mental disorder “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” and he is spot on. The Israelis mostly used this “preemptive geschrei*” as a way to squeeze out as many concessions (and money) from the western goyim as possible. But in a deep sense, it is possibly that the Israelis are at least dimly aware that their entire project is simply not viable, that you cannot ensure the survival of any state by terrorizing all of your neighbors. Violence, especially vicious, rabid, violence can, indeed, terrorize people, but only for so long. Sooner or later, the human soul will outgrow any fear, no matter how visceral, and will replace that fear by a new and immensely powerful sense of determination.

Here is what Robert Fisk said in distant 2006, 14 years ago:

You heard Sharon, before he suffered his massive stroke, he used this phrase in the Knesset, you know, “The Palestinians must feel pain.” This was during one of the intifadas. The idea that if you continue to beat and beat and beat the Arabs, they will submit, that eventually they’ll go on their knees and give you what you want. And this is totally, utterly self-delusional, because it doesn’t apply anymore. It used to apply 30 years ago, when I first arrived in the Middle East. If the Israelis crossed the Lebanese border, the Palestinians jumped in their cars and drove to Beirut and went to the cinema. Now when the Israelis cross the Lebanese border, the Hezbollah jump in their cars in Beirut and race to the south to join battle with them. But the key thing now is that Arabs are not afraid any more. Their leaders are afraid, the Mubaraks of this world, the president of Egypt, King Abdullah II of Jordan. They’re afraid. They shake and tremble in their golden mosques, because they were supported by us. But the people are no longer afraid.

What was true only for some Arabs in 2006, has now become true for most (maybe even all?) Arabs in 2020. As for the Iranians, they have never had any fear of Uncle Shmuel, they are the ones who “injected” the newly created Hezbollah with this qualitatively new kind of “special courage” (which is the Shia ethos, really!) when this movement was founded.

Empires can survive many things, but once they are not feared anymore, then their end is near. The Iranian strike proved a fundamental new reality to the rest of the world: the US is much more afraid of Iran than Iran is afraid of the US. U.S. rulers and politicians will, of course, claim otherwise. But that futile effort to re-shape reality is now doomed to failure, if only because even the Houthis can now openly and successfully defy the combined might of the “Axis of Kindness”.

You can think of U.S. and Israeli leaders as the orchestra on the Titanic: they play well, but they will still get wet and then die.

(*geschrei: the Yiddish word for yelling, crying out, to shriek)

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 2 Comments

An Unusual Lawsuit against Iran

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | January 28, 2020

The Washington Post recently published an article about a lawsuit that American citizens have brought against Iran. The plaintiffs are Iraq veterans and families of veterans who suffered horrendous injuries or deaths while serving in the U.S. armed forces in Iraq. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs are claiming that Iran sent roadside bombs into Iraq that wreaked massive injuries or death on U.S. troops.

For example, Chris Levi’s Humvee was torn apart by a roadside bomb that cost him both his legs. Kelli Hake and her 13-year-old son are living their lives without their husband and father, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. There were thousands more like them.

It stands to reason that the plaintiffs would feel deep anger toward Iran, especially given their belief that Iran did, in fact, furnish the bombs that ended up inflicting death and injuries on U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq.

What is unusual, however, is that there appears to be absolutely no animus directed toward another regime. That regime is the U.S. government. I find the lack of ill will toward the U.S. government to be totally bizarre.

After all, let’s not forget something important: When a nation-state invades, attacks, and occupies a country and in the process intentionally wreaks death, suffering, and destruction, there is a very high probability that people are going to get extremely angry and are going to exact vengeance by doing the same thing to the invading and occupying troops.

We should keep in mind that the U.S. war on Iraq was illegal under our form of government. That’s because the U.S. Constitution, which is the higher law that we the people have imposed on the federal government, prohibits the president from waging war without a declaration of war from Congress. It is undisputed that Congress never declared war on Iraq.

The U.S. war on Iraq was also illegal under the principles set forth by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. It held that nation-states do not have the authority to invade and attack other nations.

Nonetheless, knowing that an invasion and occupation would be illegal under both the Constitution and the principles set forth at Nuremberg, the Pentagon ordered U.S. forces to invade and occupy the country, knowing full well that many of them would be killed, maimed, or injured in the process.

Did an illegal U.S. war of aggression against Iraq justify intervention by Iran to help Iraqis throw U.S. occupying forces out of the country? Of course not. Nonetheless, everyone knows — or should know — that when one nation illegally attacks and occupies another nation, there is a high likelihood that other nation-states are going to come to the assistance of the invaded and occupied country. That’s just the way the world works.

Consider, for example, when it was the Soviet Union, rather than the United States, that was the invader and occupier in Afghanistan. Guess who came to the assistance of the Afghans who were fighting to evict the Soviets from their country. That’s right — the U.S. government. It provided weaponry, including missiles, that was used to kill, maim, and injure Soviet soldiers. U.S. intervention wasn’t right, but that’s the way the world works.

What if those Soviet soldiers had sued the U.S. government for damages for the deaths and injuries caused by U.S.-supplied weaponry? There is not one court in the United States that would permit such a lawsuit to proceed. Unlike the lawsuit against Iran, a lawsuit by Soviet citizens against the U.S. government would be summarily dismissed.

If U.S. officials hadn’t ordered U.S. troops to invade and occupy Iraq, there never would have been any U.S. soldiers killed, maimed, or injured by anyone. Why shouldn’t the U.S. government be joined as a defendant in that lawsuit against Iran? If the Iranian government isn’t immune from liability, why should the U.S. government be immune from liability? Why are the plaintiffs giving their own government a pass, both legally and morally?

January 28, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | 4 Comments

Iran slams Trump’s ‘delusional’ Middle East peace plan, calls on US to accept Tehran’s proposal instead

RT | January 27, 2020

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has blasted US President Donald Trump’s soon-to-be-revealed peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, suggesting Iran’s referendum proposal would be a better strategy.

Trump said he will unveil his “deal of the century” for Israel and Palestine – actually prepared by his aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner – on Tuesday, but Zarif has already taken to Twitter to condemn it. He suggested that Washington should abandon its “delusional” plan and instead support a solution offered by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Unlike the US plan, the details of which remain a mystery, the proposal put forward by Khamenei amounts to holding a referendum on a system of government including “Muslim, Christian and Jewish residents of Palestine as well as Palestinian refugees.” The Iranian leader also repeatedly slammed the US’ “deal of the century” by calling it “traitorous” and designed to “destroy” Palestine’s identity, as he apparently suspects the plan will greatly favor Israel.

While little is known about the deal, reports suggest that it’s unlikely to envisage statehood for Palestinians. AFP said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already rejected the deal ahead of it being unveiled, and the Palestinian Authority considers that a two-state solution is the only way forward.

Tellingly, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival in the forthcoming snap elections, Benny Gantz, will attend the ceremony at the White House, while no Palestinian representatives will be present.

In anticipation of a strongly pro-Israeli plan, Palestinian leaders in Ramallah and Gaza have also condemned the upcoming deal and called for a “day of rage” on Tuesday. They urged Palestinians to boycott American goods, and remove all US symbols remaining in the West Bank.

Trump claimed in a press conference earlier this week that his administration had spoken “briefly” to the Palestinians, and vowed to talk to them again at some point in the future. He admitted that they might not like his proposals “at first.” However, he also maintained that his plan is “actually very positive to them.”

Washington has curtailed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and stopped funding the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees. Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem also drew the ire of the Palestinian Authority, which cut all communications with the US thereafter.

January 27, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Russia stood by Iran in showdown with US

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | January 27, 2020

US President Donald Trump first said there were ‘no casualties’ in the Iranian missile attack on the Ain al-Asad military airbase in Iraq on January 8. “We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases,” Trump had said.

Then a number 11 was mentioned a week later, but Trump minimised the injuries, calling them ‘headaches’. Last Friday, a fortnight after the attack, the number sharply climbed. The Pentagon spokesman told reporters that 34 US military members received concussions or other traumatic brain injuries in the missile strikes.

The true human toll of the Iranian strike is still being assessed. But what Iran achieved through the January 8 attacks may never quite be in the public domain.

The big question is whether Iran acted with Russian backing. Beyond a string of Russian statements empathising with Iran, all we have are tell-tale signs.

To be sure, satellite imagery suggests very precise hits of targets in the Ain al-Asad base. In an interview with Spiegel magazine last week, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated Iran’s objectives:

“There was no intention of causing any casualties with the missile attack… The damage we have done to the US is extensive, because with all its military might, it could not prevent the missiles from hitting its base. It shows how vulnerable the US is.”

The Iranians did succeed in displaying their formidable missile capability and its capacity to inflict lethal damage on US military establishments. But how could such high-precision hits be achieved except with missiles equipped with satellite guidance and target-tracking capabilities?

Importantly, Iran doesn’t have an independent orbital group of satellites. There are four global navigation satellite systems operational today —  the US GPS/NAVSTAR, European GNSS, Russian GLONASS and Chinese BeiDou. The US and European systems are out of bounds for Iran.

But there is no embargo on Iran accessing the Russian or Chinese systems and it probably used one of them. But Tehran neither confirms nor denies.

Iran acknowledges it fired two Russian TOR-M1 anti-aircraft missiles but, interestingly, stops short of blaming them for the crash of the Boeing 737-800, flown by Ukraine International Airways. By the way, TOR-M1 is mounted on a tracked vehicle and carries a radar and each vehicle can operate independently. Did Iran’s Russian-made TOR-M1 have access to GLONASS?

Indeed, on January 7, on the eve of the Iranian missile strike, President Vladimir Putin paid an unscheduled visit to Syria to meet up with President Bashar al-Assad.

Again, on January 9, the day after the Iranian missile strike, Putin watched a big naval exercise involving multiple missile launches in the Black Sea. The Navy Times reported, “The Russian naval maneuvers come amid heightened US-Iran tensions after the US strike last week that killed Iran’s most powerful military commander.”

Advanced Russian weapon systems were on display in the maneuvers. MiG-31 interceptor jets launched Kinzhal hypersonic missiles at practice land targets while Navy ships performed several launches of Kalibr cruise missiles and other weapons. More than 30 warships and 39 aircraft, including several Tu-95 strategic bombers, took part in the exercise.

Curiously, again on January 9, in the northern Arabian Sea off Iran’s coastline, there was a rare encounter between the US destroyer USS Farragut and the Russian intelligence gathering ship RFS Ivan Hurs, which was apparently shadowing the operations of a US aircraft carrier battle group in the area.

The above events taken together signalled that Russia was closely monitoring the situation around Iran and was in full readiness to meet any emergent military conflagration in the region. No doubt, the message was addressed to Washington.

It is entirely conceivable that Russia has intelligence-sharing arrangements with Iran. In fact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a veteran diplomat, might just have lifted the veil a little bit when he disclosed on January 17 that Iran’s accidental shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner occurred at a time when Tehran was spooked by reports of advanced US stealth fighters in the area.

“There were at least six F-35 fighters in the air in the Iranian border area. This information has yet to be verified, but I’d like to underline the edginess that always accompanies such situations,” Lavrov said. Alas, Lavrov’s disclosure left a cold trail. But it most certainly hinted that Russia is reconnoitring the skies above Iran.

All this may amount to nothing much, or everything — depending on how one looks at it. Russia will not militarily intervene in a US-Iranian conflict. Indeed, such a conflict is unlikely. What Russia can do is to make the probability of a conflict even less likely by aiding Iran to defend itself, by providing it with electronic warfare tools and other high-end arms that would raise the military costs to the US, as had happened on January 8.

How far Russia’s ‘positive neutrality’, which distinctly favoured Iran in the most recent period, irritated Washington no one can tell. But there have been four instances in the past 8 days alone of US forces blocking Russian convoys in northeastern Syria — one forcing back a vehicle driven by a Russian major-general. Poking the bear? In Russian-American relations, nothing is really coincidental.

The debate over the alchemy of Russian-Iranian relations is a never-ending one. But no matter the two countries’ specific interests or national objectives and ideologies, a destruction of Iran or the emergence of a US-friendly regime in Tehran would be profoundly consequential to Russian regional strategies, given the co-relation of forces internationally.

Lavrov gave an indication of Russian priorities when he said in Delhi on January 17 while addressing an international audience (including Zarif) that Moscow backs Tehran’s bid to join Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as a full member and is hopeful it will happen.

January 27, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | 3 Comments

‘Targeted and governmental terrorism’: Iran slams US for threat against Soleimani successor

RT | January 23, 2020

Iran’s Foreign Ministry slammed the US’ policy of “targeted and governmental terrorism” after an American diplomat threatened Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani with the same fate as his assassinated predecessor, Qassem Soleimani.

“These words are an official announcement and a clear unveiling of America’s targeted and governmental terrorism,” ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told Iranian state media on Thursday in response to threats made against Ghaani by US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook. Mousavi called on the international community to join him in condemning the thuggish statement from the American.

“If Ghaani follows the same path of killing Americans [as Soleimani] then he will meet the same fate,” Hook had told Arabic-language outlet Asharq al-Awsat earlier that day, vowing to “hold the regime and its agents responsible for any attack on Americans or American interests in the region.”

There has not been any indication Iran is planning to kill Americans, however, even after the death of the beloved general. Tehran actually spared US lives by tipping Iraq off to planned missile attacks on two coalition bases, allowing both Iraqi and American soldiers to vacate the facilities. The bases were severely damaged in precision strikes meant as revenge for the Soleimani killing, but no Americans were hit.

While Hook and Washington have insisted Soleimani was behind an ever-growing number of American deaths, they have been unable to supply any evidence – certainly not for an impending plot that would have required his immediate assassination – leading even some members of President Donald Trump’s own party to vow opposition to any authorization for war with Iran.

Evidence Soleimani was behind previous attacks on Americans – particularly the rocket strike on K-1 Air Base last month that killed a US contractor and sparked the most recent escalation of force – has also been lacking. The claim that the Iranian general was responsible for the deaths of “600 Americans,” often repeated by Hook and other members of the Trump administration in the days following Soleimani’s assassination by airstrike at the Baghdad airport, grew out of a propaganda figure cooked up by former US vice president Dick Cheney when he was trying to whip up the Bush administration for a war with Iran. More fanciful claims, like Vice President Mike Pence’s suggestion that Soleimani was somehow involved in the 9/11 terror attacks, also have no basis in fact.

Ghaani was appointed to replace Soleimani the day after the latter’s death and has vowed to continue on his “luminous path,” with the ultimate goal of removing US forces from the Middle East. Like Soleimani, he made his name during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.

January 23, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

Tehran open to dialog with all neighbors: Zarif

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (Photo by AFP)
Press TV – January 23, 2020

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has reaffirmed Iran’s readiness for talks with all its neighbors amid tensions in the Persian Gulf region.

“Iran remains open to dialogue with its neighbors, and we declare our readiness to participate in any complementary work that is in the interest of the region, and we welcome any step that restores hope to its people and brings them stability and prosperity,” Zarif said in a tweet in Thursday.

The tweet was in Arabic, which suggests it was addressed to the Persian Gulf littoral Arab countries. It came a day after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said Riyadh was ready for talks with Tehran “but it is really up to Iran.”

The top Saudi diplomat, however, repeated the baseless claims against Iran’s role in the region, adding that the precondition for dialog is for the Islamic Republic to accept it “cannot further its regional agenda through violence.”

Speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said he was glad the region has “avoided any escalation” with Iran, and that “many countries” have offered to mediate talks with Tehran.

Meanwhile, the Iranian president’s chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, said Wednesday that Tehran and Riyadh should work together to overcome their problems.

“The relations between Iran and its neighbor Saudi Arabia should not become like the relationship between Tehran and the United States … Tehran and Riyadh should work together to resolve their problems,” Vaezi said.

At an event in the Indian city of Mumbai on Friday in coordination with All India Association of Industries (AIAI), Zarif also voiced Iran’s readiness to hold talks with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries to promote regional security.

He added that Iran has also presented proposals on ways to establish peace in the Strait of Hormuz.

In an address to the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019, President Hassan Rouhani said as a steward of maritime security in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, Iran invites all countries that are affected by developments in the strategic region to join the country’s new regional peace initiative, dubbed Hormuz Peace Endeavor (HOPE).

Iran’s initiative comes as the US has been trying to persuade its allies into a maritime coalition purportedly seeking to boost security in the Persian Gulf, after it blamed Tehran for two separate attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman in May and June, without providing any credible evidence to back up the allegation, which Iran has categorically rejected.

Tehran has repeatedly said outsiders not only cannot safeguard the region, but will fuel tensions there. Iran believes it is the countries of the very region which can ensure regional peace.

Prior to the Hormuz initiative, Iran had offered to sign non-aggression agreements with all countries in the Persian Gulf region.

Zarif also said in late May 2019 that Iran sought the best of relations with the Persian Gulf littoral countries and would welcome any proposals for dialog and de-escalation toward that end.

January 23, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Trudeau toes imperial line on Iran

By Yves Engler · January 19, 2020

While the current Liberal government claims to be progressive and in favour of a rules-based international order, promotion of democracy and world peace, its actions regarding Iran demonstrate that the primary drivers of Canadian foreign policy remain US Empire geo-political interests and the rich and powerful.

(This previous article argues this has long been the case.)

While Israeli nationalists and Conservatives demand new measures targeting Iran, the reality is ordinary Canadians will not benefit from war with the 18thmost populous country in the world. The families of Iranian Canadians will certainly not benefit.

Despite election promises to the contrary, Justin Trudeau’s government has continued important components of the previous Conservative government’s ‘low-level war’ against Iran.

Ottawa has no diplomatic relations with Iran, maintains a series of sanctions on the country and lists Tehran as a state sponsor of terrorism. Canadian troops are also stationed on Iran’s border partly to counter its influence and Canada recently gifted $28 million worth of Iranian assets in this country to Americans who lost family members to purported Hamas and Hezbollah attacks decades ago.

The Liberals repeatedly promised to restart diplomatic relations with Iran. Before becoming prime minister Trudeau told the CBC, “I would hope that Canada would be able to reopen its mission [in Tehran].” In May 2016 foreign minister Stéphane Dion said, “Canada’s severing of ties with Iran had no positive consequences for anyone: not for Canadians, not for the people of Iran, not for Israel, and not for global security.” Five months later Trudeau added, “Canada must return to Iran to play a useful role in that region of the world.”

While the Liberals have dialed down the Harper government’s most bombastic rhetoric against Tehran, they have not restarted diplomatic relations or removed that country from Canada’s state sponsor of terrorism list.

The Trudeau government has criticized Iranian human rights abuses while mostly ignoring more flagrant rights violations in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies. In January 2018 foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said, “Canada is deeply troubled by the recent deaths and detentions of protesters in Iran” and four months later tweeted, “our government is committed to holding Iran to account for its violations of human and democratic rights.” Two months ago Global Affairs stated, “Iran must ensure that its people enjoy the rights and freedoms they deserve.”

In June 2018 Liberal parliamentarians supported a Conservative MP’s private member’s motion that “strongly condemns the current regime in Iran for its ongoing sponsorship of terrorism around the world, including instigating violent attacks on the Gaza border.” In effect, the resolution claimed Iran was responsible for Israel killing Palestinians peacefully protesting the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem, siege of Gaza and historic theft of their land. The motion also called on Canada to “immediately cease any and all negotiations or discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran to restore diplomatic relations” and to make the highly provocative move of listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. A demand B’nai B’rith and the Conservative party have restated in recent days.

Ottawa has continued to present a yearly UN resolution critical of the human rights situation in Iran. In response to Canada targeting it, Iran’s Deputy Representative to the UN, Eshaq Al-e Habib, said in November 2019, “how can a supporter of apartheid in Palestine pose itself as a human rights defender in Iran?”

Similarly, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development participates in the annual “Iran Accountability Week” on Parliament Hill, which showcases individuals such as Foundation for the Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz, who helped kill the Iran nuclear deal and pushed harsh sanctions against any country doing business with Iran. Dubowitz was a senior research fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. In 2015 Global Affairs gave the Munk School’s Digital Public Square $9 million to expand an anti-Iranian initiative.

While they ostensibly backed the “p5+1 nuclear deal” with Iran, the Liberals’ promoted a one-sided view of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the US, France, Germany, Russia and China. Canada put up more than $10 million for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor and verify Iran’s implementation of its commitments under the JCPOA. Iran has consistently been in compliance with JCPOA’s strict rules regarding its uranium enrichment. Nonetheless, the Donald Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 and re-imposed tough new sanctions on other countries’ companies doing business with Iran.

For their part, the Western European signatories to the agreement have largely failed to stand-up to US pressure by creating the space for their companies to do business with Iran and three days ago the UK, Germany and France delivered a further blow to an agreement on life support. In a January 14 release titled “Canada supports diplomatic efforts established for Iran to return to full implementation of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” Global Affairs expressed “support” for the UK, Germany and France “activating the Dispute Resolution Mechanism” under the JCPOA and “urged Iran to immediately restore its full commitments to the JCPOA.” But, this position amounts to calling on Iran to abide by a deal it receives no benefits from as its economy is crippled by sanctions.

The Liberals also legitimated the illegal US sanctions on Iran when they arrested Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou,at the Vancouver airport 13 months ago.The US claimed Meng’s company defied its illegal sanctions against Iran. But, between when the US judicial system sought her detention and the Trump administration requested Ottawa detain her, Meng traveled to six countries with US extradition treaties. Only Canada arrested her.

At the military level Ottawa also aligned with the US-Saudi-Israeli axis stoking conflict with Iran. An April 2016 Global Affairs memo authorizing Light Armoured Vehicle export permits to the House of Saud noted, “Canada appreciates Saudi Arabia’s role as a regional leader promoting regional stability, as well as countering the threat posed by Iranian regional expansionism.” At the November 2019 Dubai International Air Chiefs Conference the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Al Meinzinger, participated in a panel titled “Watch out Iran!” A year earlier Chief of the Defence Staff Jonathan Vance told a parliamentary committee that Iran was “an interested party and, in some cases, a malign agent in Iraq.”

Five hundred Canadian troops are in Iraq partly to counter Iranian influence. Specifically, the Canadian-led NATO Mission Iraq is designed to weaken the influence of the Iranian aligned Popular Mobilization Forces, Shia militias that helped defeat ISIS.

In the fall Canada seized and sold $28 million worth of Iranian properties in Ottawa and Toronto to compensate individuals in the US who had family members killed in a 2002 Hamas bombing in Israel and others who were held hostage by Hezbollah in 1986 and 1991. The Supreme Court of Canada and federal government sanctioned the seizure under the 2012 Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which lifts immunity for countries labeled “state sponsors of terrorism” to allow individuals to claim their non-diplomatic assets.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi called the seizure “illegal” and in “direct contradiction with international law” while a spokesperson for Iran’s Guardian Council, Abbasali Kadkhodaei, accused Canada of “economic terrorism”. A senior member of Iran’s parliament said the country’s military should confiscate Canadian shipments crossing the Strait of Hormuz.

In a right side up world, the Iranian asset sale would lead to various more legitimate seizures. Relatives of the Lebanese-Canadian el-Akhras family Israel wiped out, including four children aged 1 to 8, in 2006 were certainly at least as worthy of Canadian government-backed compensation. Ditto for Paeta Hess-Von Kruedener, a Canadian soldier part of a UN mission, killed by an Israeli fighter jet in Lebanon in 2006. Or Palestinian Canadian Ismail Zayid, who was driven from a West Bank village demolished to make way for the Jewish National Fund’s Canada Park.

There are hundreds of Canadians and countless individuals elsewhere who have been victimized by Israeli, Canadian and US-backed terror more deserving of compensation than the Americans paid with Iranian assets for what Hamas and Hezbollah purportedly did decades ago. Should Israeli, US and Canadian government assets be seized to pay them?

The Trudeau government failed to speak against the asset seizure. It could have undercut this obscenity by delisting Iran as a “state sponsor of terror” or repealing Harper’s Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. But, it didn’t even keep its promise to restart diplomatic relations with Iran. As such, the Liberals have empowered US-Israeli hawks hurtling towards a major conflict.

While there is much to dislike about the government in Tehran, progressive-minded, peace-loving Canadians should reject Ottawa’s aggressive anti-Iranian policies.

January 19, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 1 Comment

Is It an Act of War to Designate Iran’s IRGC as a Terrorist Organization?

The Israel Lobby’s Relationship to Trudeau, Trump and NATO

By Prof. Anthony Hall | American Herald Tribune | January 19, 2020

The Israel Lobby in Canada is demanding that the government of Justin Trudeau follow the lead of Netanyahu and Trump, the notorious duo of anti-Iranian warmongers. Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, has been leading the drive to have Canadian law brought into conformity with US and Israeli prototypes of post-9/11 terrorist designations.

At a press conference on January 13 in Canada’s Parliament, the Canadian branch of the US and Israeli-based ADL, demanded that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) be designated as a terrorist organization. Canada has already designated the Quds division of the IRCG as a terrorist group. Iranian General Qassem Suleimani was the leader of the Quds force until he was assassinated on January 2 of this year.

Mr. Mostryn presented the Canadian government with something of an ultimatum with the following comment. “We are asking for the IRGC to be designated as a terrorist group in Canada within the next 30 days. No further delays will be accepted by Canadians on this important public safety issue.”

There is a large body of evidence that demonstrates that Mr. Mostyn does not speak for all Jews in Canada or even for most of them. Certainly, this well paid functionary of the Israel Lobby does not speak for all Canadians when it comes to the issue of Canada’s relations with Iran. After the assassination of General Suleimani, Canadians have added cause to be skeptical about adopting the extravagant language and principles of the Israel Lobby as elevated to pre-eminence following 9/11.

After January 2, Canadian citizens and members of the global community generally are coming to understand better the lethal booby traps attached to pinning the status of “terrorist” on individuals and organizations without any due process whatsoever. The post-9/11 adoption of the principles of pre-emptive warfare promotes the ethos of shoot to kill first, worry later (if at all) about proof, justification and adherence to the older principles of international law. This ethos of kill first, deal with proof later, has essentially eliminated the legal principle that people, whether they be princes or paupers, are innocent until proven guilty.

The Displacement of Well-Founded Principles of International Law with the Pseudo-Laws of the Global War on Terror

The kind of agenda that Mr. Mostyn wants to import into Canada from Israel and the United States undermines the integrity and enforceability of international law. The United Nations and the International Criminal Court at the Hague are basically sidelined as credible organizations. The result is that officials effectively lack the capacity to command accountability from war criminals at the highest level.

The still-misrepresented events of 9/11 ushered in many transformations dramatically for the worse in the global community. These transformations include the negation of much of the juridical inheritance emanating from centuries of evolutionary progress in the community of nations. For the time being this juridical inheritance has been pretty much swept into the garbage bin leaving the world a much more dangerous place. Atrocities like the Israeli treatment of indigenous Palestinians or the extrajudicial Baghdad drone strikes of 2 January 2020 epitomize the subordination of the rule of law to the law of the jungle.

Benjamin Netanyahu has continued the longstanding Israeli practice of trying to push the United States and its supposed allies into invading Iran in order to conduct regime change. That priority was emphasized immediately after 9/11 when the Canadian Zionist neocon, David Frum, wrote the words of a pivotal speech for US President George Bush. Frum had Bush refer to Iran as part of the “axis of evil.” David Frum’ sister, now a Canadian Senator, has continued her brother’s preoccupation. She has long been working with Michael Mostyn and Benjamin Netanyahu “in advocating for the listing of the IRGC in its entirety as a terrorist organization.”

Setting Up NATO Soldiers and Iranian Soldiers to Kill Each Other to Advance Israel’s Expansionary Ambitions

The decades-old Israeli push to pressure the United States and its “allies” into war with Iran was renewed in April of 2019. As reported in The Times of Israel, just days before an Israeli general election, Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Donald Trump for increasing his chances of being re-elected. Netanyahu’s thank you was for Trump’s political decision to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization. In a Hebrew language tweet Netanyahu thanked Trump for “acceding to another one of my important requests.”

As Tamar Pileggi reported in The Times of Israel

Trump said his administration’s “unprecedented” designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”…. Since taking office, Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians, and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

There is cause to be suspicious about the deadline announced for the Trudeau government’s ratification of the B’nai Brith Canada’s demand. To designate the whole armed forces of a foreign country as a “terrorist organization” is basically to declare war on the host country of that military organization. How is it in Canada’s interests or in the interests of the United States for that matter to give way to Israeli pressure pushing North America into a war with Iran?

The issue of time comes up because of recent announcements from the White House that Trump and Pompeo want to see NATO troops, including those of Canada, take over from US troops in Iraq. Trump needs this concession from NATO countries to meet an election promise. He has to have some symbolic bringing of US soldiers home from the Middle East prior to the US presidential election later this year.

Is it the goal of the Israel Lobby to push Canada and other NATO countries into a war posture with Iran after Trump bragged about assassinating “the number one terrorist anywhere in the world.” At the bidding of Trump, the NATO countries are pushed to enter a Middle East after it has been transformed by the criminal drone strike on the Iranian people’s most popular and beloved war hero?

Indeed, the admiration of General Suleimani, a real foe, not a pretend foe, of the Daesh proxy army is not limited to Iran, to the Muslim world or the Middle East. I can think of no military figure in the Western world that commands anything like the degree of respectful recognition that General Suleimani earned even from some that consider themselves enemies of the polities that the Quds force fought to help.

Is the issuing of the 30-day time limit by B’nai Brith Canada based on insider knowledge? Does the Israel Lobby in Canada know that there will soon be an influx of Canadian soldiers to replace US soldiers in Iraq? After the events of January 2, these US soldiers in Iraq and throughout the Middle East have had targets painted on their back by the war mongering of their Israeli-puppet Commander In Chief in the White House.

Is the rush to get the Canadian government to accept the terrorist designation part of a plan to encourage young NATO soldiers to kill young Iranian soldiers if they encounter one another in Iraq? Are we witnessing a plan to assemble NATO fighting forces in Iraq with the view that they would then be in a more strategic position to invade neighboring Iran?

Anthony James Hall has been Editor In Chief of the American Herald Tribune since its inception. Between 1990 and 2018 Dr. Hall was Professor of Globalization Studies and Liberal Education at the University of Lethbridge where he is now Professor Emeritus. The focus of Dr. Hall’s teaching, research, and community service came to highlight the conditions of the colonization of Indigenous peoples in imperial globalization since 1492.

January 19, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 7 Comments

IRAN: Don’t trust the mainstream media!

SURFIRAN • October 3, 2019

Sara Melotti, a young Italian travel photographer, talks about her experience of visiting Iran.

“I wanted to see Iran. I wanted to feel the charm of ancient Persia, admire the intricate and colorful designs of its architecture, taste the incredibly diverse dishes, soak in the multilayered culture and live its well known heart-warming hospitality on my own skin; and thanks to SurfIran I did it all, on a dream of a road trip I’ll never forget.”

January 18, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | | 15 Comments

Evidence suggests US lied about Iranian strikes on US facilities in Iraq

By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | January 16, 2020

During the early morning hours of January 8, 2020, Iranian strategic missile units launched a precision attack, branded ‘Operation Martyr Soleimani’, against US forces at the American-operated section of the ‘Ain al-Asad’ air base in Iraq.

The response, coming in response to the illegal assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, was a high-observable attack using ballistic missile forces – as opposed to a low-observable attack using terrain-reading cruise missiles and suicide drones.

With US forces already having been in a heightened state of alert, American radar and satellite reconnaissance would have spotted the attack within a minute of it being launched (and a six hour pre-warning of an imminent attack before that), giving the US and other coalition troops present at the base time to seek cover in hardened shelter areas. This, however, did not prevent the success of the attack which, according to primary source evidence, destroyed highly-expensive US aviation assets.

THE RESULT – U.S. FORCES ASSET LOSSES

According to the evidence that has been made available to us at this point, it is obvious that the US is lying about the extent of the damage inflicted upon its assets and infrastructure at the Ain al-Asad base.

No American media group or official Pentagon report initially released the satellite pictures shown in this report, and probably for good reason. To downplay the event (as Trump did in his official address, as did the Pentagon in its later report), they simply dismissed the damaged equipment, referring to the destroyed assets as simple “tents, a parking lot and a damaged helicopter” (per the Department of Defense).

The Iranian missile attack for the most part targeted Apache (AH-64) attack helicopter shelters (refer to Picture 1). Refer to Picture 3 and Picture 4 to see what those “tent”-like Apache steel-frame shelters look like at ground level.

They are the standard steel-frame soft shelter design for US helicopter units based in overseas areas at second-rate airfields (such as the Ain al-Asad Base) – US helicopter units operating from old Afghan airfields are also housed in this kind of shelter design. Each one of those Apache attack helicopter shelters can house two such aircraft. With six structures of the type provably destroyed, demonstrated through the satellite images showing blackened scorch marks (suggesting assets inside them were destroyed with the shelter itself, refer to Picture 1) AND assuming each only had one Apache in them, it can be concluded that at least 6 Apache gunships were destroyed in the attack.

Recently, Danish media, citing a Danish coalition soldier who was present at the base at the time of the attack, admitted that multiple helicopters were destroyed to the point of being “split in half”.

Another Apache hangar (refer to Picture 2) was also directly struck, located to the far eastern end of the Ain al-Asad Base and destroyed. However, note that there is no scorch-blackened concrete underneath it, suggesting nothing was inside it that led to additional burning beyond the impact of the warhead itself.

Indeed, just to the south of that destroyed hangar and the undamaged three hangars next to it, 4 Apache helicopters can be seen sitting out on the open tarmac. They were spared as they were, ironically, not being sheltered.

The official US story on the other structure targeted beyond the “tents” (i.e. Apache gunship hangars) has already changed twice – first it was called a parking lot, then an equipment storage area and now, apparently, a barracks for drone operators. Picture 1 (far right) shows the result of the attack on this structure.

It is hard to imagine that base zoning regulators within the US military would chose to place sleeping quarters right next to a strip alert (ready-to-go) aircraft parking area, itself right next to a major taxiway, given the constant noise that comes from these areas.

A more astute assessment would place this structure as an operations center, which lines up with the Iranian claim that the command site from which the Qassem Soleimani assassination operation had been coordinated, was targeted and destroyed in Iran’s retaliation strike.

Indeed, AFP recently released an exclusive report in which a US drone operator present at the Ain al-Asad Airbase, one First Sergeant Wesley Kilpatrick, admitted that airborne drones were rendered inoperable after a direct hit penetrated the base’s UAV operations center and destroyed the fiber lines which connect remote stations to satellite communication equipment(needed for drone control and visuals).

In all of this, one thing is obvious. US officials and media are stumbling over their own statements trying to cover up the extent of the damage dealt to the US-operated section of the Ain al-Asad base – in fact, going so far to cease calling the military site a US airbase (as it had been called for the last 16 years) to (all of a sudden) just an “Iraqi facility”.

THE WEAPONS USED BY IRAN

Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) of the upgraded Fateh-313 (range 500 km) and Qiam (range 800 km) types were launched from Western Iran towards the US-operated Ain al-Asad Base in Iraq.

Fateh-313s represent the majority of the missile type used for the attack. Their accuracy still seems to have been to within a matter of meters of their intended targets, except for two stray shots that hit the open tarmac area.

Whilst the Fateh-313 missiles use a combination of INS and electro-optical guidance, the Qiam missiles reportedly use a mix of INS, GPS and radar-mapping target acquisition. The latter method being the archaic predecessor version of DSMAC (imaging automatic target acquisition) terminal-phase guidance used in high-end ground-attack cruise missiles, such as the Tomahawk.

THE OPERATION –OTHER DETAILS

Satellite pictures show that some targeted sites were double-tapped (hit twice-over for good measure).

Initial reports from the Ain al-Asad Base claimed nearly 40 detonations in total despite the fact the number of actual warhead impacts was about fifteen, indicating that there were around two dozen cases of secondary explosions (fuel and ammo going off after being ignited).

In conclusion, according to the evidence we have available to us currently, there is no doubt that the United States has completely distorted the gravitude of Iran’s strikes. The mainstream media in the West have also seemingly refrained from acknowledging much of the damage, apart from on occasion.

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.

January 16, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation | , , | 1 Comment

Facebook censors explainer clip recalling when western media liked Soleimani – and demonetizes popular account for sharing it

RT | January 15, 2020

Facebook is doubling down on censorship of anything less than villification of slain Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, deleting a clip showing his history of fighting terrorism – and demonetizing the account posting it.

The social media behemoth didn’t just remove independent journalist Dan Cohen’s ‘In the Now’ segment, “How ‘good guy’ Soleimani became US media’s ‘bad guy,” from the show’s page on Tuesday – it demonetized In the Now entirely, citing the typical unspecified violations of “community standards.” The move comes amid an alarming escalation in the platform’s crackdown on political speech that runs contrary to US foreign policy, a wave of censorship that has not been limited to Facebook.

Cohen’s video calmly and accurately explains how Soleimani “saved the region from falling to ISIS,” fighting the terrorist group alongside the US and its Kurdish allies before he was recast posthumously by a complicit western media as “actually a huge terrorist and a ticking time bomb who was born to kill Americans.” The video exposes the ideological inconsistency of the outlets currently depicting the Quds Force commander as the devil incarnate, showcasing clips from those same outlets in recent years praising Soleimani’s battlefield performance.

Rania Khalek, who runs In the Now, tweeted in shock that a video merely stating facts about Soleimani had gotten her page demonetized, asking “where is the outrage” now that Facebook was so explicitly deleting material for ideological reasons.

Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram have come under fire from independent journalists and media organizations like the International Federation of Journalists for embarking on a wholesale campaign to deplatform all support for Soleimani in the weeks following the US airstrike that killed him. The company has claimed the extensive US sanctions placed on Iran, including the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, require it to censor such posts, though even legal experts quoted by CNN took a dim view of that rationale.

Facebook and Instagram not only remove accounts run by or for sanctioned individuals or groups, but also posts that (they claim) praise or seek to assist the people in question – making sanctions a convenient excuse for mass-deplatforming any user who holds a political view the US government has deemed heresy.

Iranians saw insult added to injury when over a dozen Iranian journalists, several state-run media organizations, and countless ordinary individuals and activists’ Instagram accounts were yanked entirely in the days following Soleimani’s assassination. Many more saw pro-Soleimani posts removed, even when they carefully avoided saying his name – one Lebanese researcher praised “Q*ssem S*leim*ni” for protecting Christians from ISIS and al-Qaeda, only to have his video removed anyway.

The rank ideological discrimination not only left them unable to publicly mourn for a leader beloved by the lion’s share of the people, but allowed pro-regime-change trolls to dominate the narrative. Facebook has recently taken flack from the US political establishment for refusing to “fact-check” political ads, but non-advertising content is more tightly controlled than ever.

Facebook and Instagram are far from alone in clamping down on the speech of Iranian users, however – YouTube briefly deleted state-backed PressTV’s channel earlier this week, only to reactivate it after an outpouring of popular support.

Twitter removed state-backed media outlet Al-Alam News’ account, as well as that of the popular Iran-backed Spanish-language media outlet HispanTV, only reinstating the latter after a massive public backlash. Dozens of individual Iranians who supported their government were also deplatformed on Twitter, while anti-government users – many linked to notorious exile terror group Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) – were allowed to continue slinging hate against Soleimani and his supporters. Twitter even dished out a ban to Syrian President Bashar Assad, but restored the account after a few days.

January 15, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 6 Comments

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