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US to send radioactive weapons to Ukraine despite their extreme danger to humans

By Lucas Leiroz | September 7, 2023

The US appears to be less and less concerned about the risks of escalation in its proxy conflict with Russia. In yet another irresponsible and anti-humanitarian maneuver, the Biden government announced its decision to send depleted uranium (DU) weapons to the Kiev regime. As is well known, these weapons are extremely dangerous for everyone involved in the conflict, including the soldiers who use them. But the western side does not seem to care about these issues, planning only to prolong hostilities as long as possible.

The announcement was made on September 6, with Pentagon’s spokespersons informing the media that DU munitions will be included in a new military aid package valued at 175 million dollars. The munitions are expected to be used on more than thirty M1 Abrams tanks previously shipped to Ukraine. In addition to radioactive weapons, artillery, anti-tank equipment and other types of arms are also included in the package.

Although the US has already taken several escalating measures and violated many Russian red lines, this is the first time that the country has announced its intention to send radioactive shells to Ukraine. So far, only the UK has sent DU weapons to Kiev. With the US assisting in this supply, the situation worsens significantly, removing any hope of easing tensions in the short term.

As well known, the effects of these weapons on human health are disastrous. There are several reports about the negative impact of DU ammunition on the lives of soldiers and civilians in the regions where it was used. Cancer, fetal deformity, deficiency of fertility and several other diseases are linked with the handling of DU ammunition. Commenting on the arrival of these weapons in Ukraine months ago, Doug Weir, an expert linked to the Conflict and Environment Observatory, explained that “[DU munitions] fragment and burn, generating chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate that poses an inhalational risk to people.”

Despite evidence of health problems caused by DU arms, they are considered “low” risk by the British and Americans. This is why they were used on a large scale in NATO’s invasions against Serbia and Iraq, generating thousands of victims. The excuse for considering them “low risk” is that depleted uranium has a low radiation level, but this does not appear to be a solid argument, as obviously it does not have to be highly radioactive to be toxic and dangerous to human health.

Another important aspect to be discussed is how to classify these weapons according to international law. Since they are radioactive, there are experts who believe it appropriate to classify them in the same way as nuclear weapons. Other experts consider this interpretation exaggerated, since the radiation level of DU ammunition is low, but even so, there seems to be a consensus that the correct thing would be to ban them given their risks and their little strategic relevance.

These ammunitions are generally used to pierce armor vehicles and hit tanks. Despite giving a certain advantage to the side that uses them, their role can normally be performed on the battlefield by other types of weapons, which do not emit substances that are so toxic to human health. Russia, for example, has been efficient in neutralizing enemy tanks using artillery, drones and mines, without any radioactive substance. So, these weapons are obviously replaceable by other less dangerous ones, which is why they should be banned once and for all.

In addition to a lack of concern for human health and the environment, the American attitude also reflects a kind of “despair”. The US is running out of conventional weapons to send to Kiev, which is why it has recently started sending banned weapons, such as cluster munitions, and now even radioactive ones, such as DU. With the massive destruction of NATO equipment on the battlefield, Washington is becoming unable to continue producing conventional weapons for its own forces and for Kiev simultaneously, so it is now turning to controversial and illegal arms in the Ukrainian aid packages.

On Russia’s side, the stance remains one of avoiding escalation and trying to neutralize the radioactive threat with high-precision strikes. Most of the DU ammunition previously supplied by the British was prevented from being used on the battlefield due to the Russian attack on Khmelnitski in May, which destroyed the depot where the weapons were stored. With this kind of high-precision strike, Moscow prevents these ammunitions from being used against innocent civilians, who are the main targets of the Kiev regime.

The Russian response could be much tougher, even nuclear, since DU ammunition can be considered nuclear weapons, as they do not have specific regulation in international law. However, unlike the West, Moscow continues to maintain a posture of avoiding escalation as much as possible.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

September 7, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Fallujah Is Not a Presidential Victory Lap

By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | August 30, 2023

In the first 2024 Republican presidential debate last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touted his time in Iraq. “I learned in the military, I was assigned with U.S. Navy SEALs in Iraq, that you focus on the mission above all else, you can’t get distracted,” he declared. Later in the debate he stated, “I’m somebody that volunteered to serve, inspired by September 11 and I deployed to Iraq alongside U.S. Navy SEALs in places like Fallujah, Ramadi…”

Some viewers had the impression that DeSantis was a Seal, but he was actually a Harvard Law School graduate who was a Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) alongside the Seals. DeSantis was deployed to Iraq in 2007 and 2008, during President George W. Bush’s “surge” (intended to postpone the obvious failure of the war until after Bush’s second term ended).

The American troops that Bush sent to Iraq were injected into a conflict where it was often nearly impossible to distinguish friend from foe—what author Robert Jay Lifton labeled “atrocity-producing situations.” Invoking his time in Fallujah, DeSantis may be confident that few Americans recall the carnage that preceded his time there.

Fallujah was hammered by two U.S. assaults in 2004. The first attack was launched in April 2004 in retaliation for the killings of four contractors for Blackwater, a company that became renowned for killing innocent Iraqis. After their corpses were dragged through the street, the Bush administration demanded vengeance.

President Bush reportedly gave the order: “I want heads to roll.” He raved at Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez during a video conference, “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!…Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out!”

U.S. forces quickly placed the entire city under siege. The British Guardian reported;

“The U.S. soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or they would be killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they were stopped at the U.S. military checkpoint on the edge of town and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.”

The city was blasted by artillery barrages, F–16 jets, and AC–130 Spectre planes which pumped 4,000 rounds a minute into selected targets. Adam Kokesh, who fought in Fallujah as a Marine Corps sergeant, later commented: “During the siege of Fallujah, we changed rules of engagement more often than we changed our underwear. At one point, we imposed a curfew on the city, and were told to fire at anything that moved in the dark.”

The Bush administration decided to crush the city—but not until after Bush was safely reelected. In the weeks after Election Day, U.S. Army soldiers and Marines smashed the city of Fallujah, Iraq, killing an unknown number of civilians and leaving the city a burnt-out ruin. Marine Col. Gary Brandl explained the U.S. holy mission: “The enemy has got a face. He’s called Satan. He’s in Fallujah and we’re going to destroy him.”

Up to 50,000 civilians remained in Fallujah at the time of the second U.S. assault. At a November 8, 2004 press conference, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that “Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble.” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard B. Myers said three days later that Fallujah “looks like a ghost town [because] the Iraqi government gave instructions to the citizens of Fallujah to stay indoors.”

Supposedly, Iraqi civilians would be safe even if when American troops went house to house “clearing” insurgents out. However, three years later, during the trials for killings elsewhere in Iraq, Marines continually invoked the Fallujah Rules of Engagement to justify their actions. Marine Corporal Justin Sharratt, who was indicted for murdering three civilians in Haditha (the charges were later dropped), explained in a 2007 interview with PBS:

“For the push of Fallujah, there [were no civilians]. We were told before we went in that if it moved, it dies… About a month before we went into the city of Fallujah, we sent out flyers… We let the population know that we were coming in on this date, and if you were left in the city, you were going to die.”

The interviewer asked, “Was the procedure for clearing a house in Fallujah different from other house clearing in Iraq?” Sharratt replied, “Yes. The difference between clearing houses in Fallujah was that the entire city was deemed hostile. So every house we went into, we prepped with frags and we went in shooting.” Thus, the Marines were preemptively justified in killing everyone inside—no questions asked. Former Congressman Duncan Hunter admitted in 2019, “I was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians…probably killed women and children.”

The U.S. attack left much of Fallujah looking like a lunar landscape, with near-total destruction as far as the eye could see. Yet, regardless of how many rows of houses the United States flattened in the city, accusations that the United States killed noncombatants were false by definition. Because the U.S. government refused to count civilian casualties, they did not exist. And anyone who claimed to count them was slandering the United States and aiding the terrorists.

The carnage the U.S. forces inflicted on Fallujah was supposedly not massive retaliation but the well-disguised triumph of hope and freedom. Bush announced on December 1, “In Fallujah and elsewhere, our coalition and Iraqi forces are on the offensive, and we are delivering a message: Freedom, not oppression, is the future of Iraq… A long night of terror and tyranny in that region is ending, and a new day of freedom and hope and self-government is on the way.” But it is tricky for corpses to be hopeful.

During DeSantis’ first campaign to become Florida’s governor in 2018, his first words in his first televised advertisement were, “Ron DeSantis, Iraq War veteran.” The St. Augustine Record noted in 2018, “DeSantis was responsible for helping ensure that the missions of Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets in that wide swath of the Western Euphrates River Valley were planned according to the rule of law and that captured detainees were humanely treated.”

Most of the details of DeSantis’ time in Iraq have not been disclosed. But he was deployed into an area where stunning detainee abuses by the U.S. Army had previously been reported. In September 2005, Americans learned that three 82nd Airborne Division soldiers complained about Army cooks and other off-duty troops, for amusement and sport, routinely physically beating Iraqi detainees being held near Fallujah. One sergeant explained, “We would give [detainees] blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, and pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day.” The sergeant said that there were no problems as long as no detainees “came up dead… We kept it to broken arms and legs.” Captain Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne repeatedly sought to get guidance from superiors on the standards for lawful and humane treatment of detainees. He, like other officers, never received clear guidelines. Fishback publicly complained, “I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.”

It would be most helpful to American voters to learn more about what exactly Ron DeSantis did during his time in Iraq. Prior to his time in Iraq, he volunteered to be a legal advisor at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In a 2018 interview for CBS Miami, he stated that one of his tasks was to clarify “the rules for force feeding detainees.” He also stated, “What I learned from [Gitmo] and I took to Iraq—they are using things like [false charges of] detainee abuse offensively against us—it was a tactic, technique, and procedure.”  A Vice documentary that covered DeSantis’ role at Gitmo was scheduled for broadcast on Showtime but the May 28 air date was canceled on the day after DeSantis announced his presidential campaign.

The Pentagon’s records on DeSantis’ years as a JAG could help voters judge his candidacy for the presidency. But Americans would be damn fools to expect transparency from the feds or from most political candidates.

August 30, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The Iraq War Was a Systematic Atrocity

By James Bovard | FFF | July 28, 2023

Media coverage of the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War mostly portrayed the war as a blunder. There were systematic war crimes that have largely vanished into the memory hole, but permitting government officials to vaporize their victims paves the way to new atrocities.

On the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, former First Lady Barbara Bush announced: “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it’s gonna happen? It’s not relevant, so why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

The Pentagon quickly institutionalized the Barbara Bush rule. Early in the Iraq war, Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks, asked about tracking civilian casualties, replied, “It just is not worth trying to characterize by numbers. And, frankly, if we are going to be honorable about our warfare, we are not out there trying to count up bodies.”

Congress, in 2003 legislation funding the Iraq War, required the Pentagon to “seek to identify families of non-combatant Iraqis who were killed or injured or whose homes were damaged during recent military operations, and to provide appropriate assistance.” The Pentagon ignored the provision. The Washington Post reported: “One Air Force general, asked why the military has not done such postwar accounting in the past, said it has been more cost-effective to pour resources into increasingly sophisticated weaponry and intelligence-gathering equipment.” Acquiring more lethal weapons trumped tallying the victims.

The media blackout on the death count begins

After the invasion progressed, Bush perennially proclaimed that the United States had given freedom to 25 million Iraqis. Thus, any Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. forces were both statistically and morally inconsequential. And the vast majority of the news coverage left out the asterisks.

A 2005 American University survey of hundreds of journalists who covered Iraq concluded:

Many media outlets have self-censored their reporting on the conflict in Iraq because of concern about public reaction to graphic images and details about the war.

Individual journalists commented:

  • “In general, coverage downplayed civilian casualties and promoted a pro-U.S. viewpoint. No U.S. media show abuses by U.S. military carried out on regular basis.”
  • “Friendly fire incidents were to show only injured Americans, and no reference made to possible mistakes involving civilians.”
  • “The real damage of the war on the civilian population was uniformly omitted.”

The media almost always refused to publish photos incriminating the U.S. military. The Washington Post received a leak of thousands of pages of confidential records on the 2005 massacre by U.S. Marines at Haditha, including stunning photos taken immediately after the killings of 24 civilians (mostly women and children). Though the Post headlined its exclusive story, “Marines’ Photos Provide Graphic Evidence in Haditha Probe,” the reporter noted halfway through the article that “Post editors decided that most of the images are too graphic to publish.” The Post suppressed the evidence at the same time it continued deferentially reporting official denials that U.S. troops committed atrocities.

In 2006, the U.S. military imposed new restrictions on the media, decreeing that “Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without service member’s prior written consent.” This effectively guaranteed that Americans would never see photos or film footage of the vast majority of American casualties. (Dead men sign no consent forms.) The news media did not publicly disclose or challenge the restrictions.

In 2007, two Apache helicopters targeted a group of men in Baghdad with 30 mm. cannons and killed up to 18 people. Video from the helicopter revealed one helicopter crew “laughing at some of the casualties, all of whom were civilians, including two Reuters journalists.” “Light ‘em all up. Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,” one guy on the recording declared. Army Corporal Chelsea Manning leaked the video to Wikileaks, which disclosed it in 2010.

Wikileaks declared on Twitter: “Washington Post had Collateral Murder video for over a year but DID NOT RELEASE IT to the public.” Wikileaks also disclosed thousands of official documents exposing U.S. war crimes and abuses, tacitly damning American media outlets that chose to ignore or shroud atrocities.

A mid-2008 New York Times article noted that “After five years and more than 4,000 U.S. combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead U.S. soldiers.” Veteran photographers who posted shots of wounded or dead U.S. soldiers were quickly booted out of Iraq.

The Times noted that Iraqi “detainees were widely photographed in the early years of the war, but the U.S. Defense Department, citing prisoners’ rights, has recently stopped that practice as well.” Privacy was the only “right” the Pentagon pretended to respect — since the vast majority of detainees received little or no due process.

The collateral damage of innocent dead civilians

As the number of Iraqi civilians killed by American forces rose, the U.S. military increasingly relied on boilerplate self-exonerations. In September 2007, after U.S. bombings killed enough women and children to produce a blip on the media radar, U.S. military spokesman Major Brad Leighton announced: “We regret when civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism.”

The vast majority of the American media recited whatever the Pentagon emitted in the first years of the Iraq war. This was exemplified in the coverage of the two U.S. assaults on Fallujah in 2004. The first attack was launched in April 2004 in retaliation for the killings of four contractors for Blackwater, a company that became renowned for killing innocent Iraqis.

Bush reportedly gave the order: “I want heads to roll.” He told Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez during a video conference:

If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!… Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out!

U.S. forces quickly placed the entire city under siege. The British Guardian reported:

The US soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or they would be killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they were stopped at the U.S. military checkpoint on the edge of town and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.

The city was blasted by artillery barrages, F–16 jets, and AC–130 Spectre planes, which pumped 4,000 rounds a minute into selected targets. Adam Kokesh, who fought in Fallujah as a Marine Corps sergeant, later commented:

During the siege of Fallujah, we changed rules of engagement more often than we changed our underwear. At one point, we imposed a curfew on the city, and were told to fire at anything that moved in the dark.

Rather than change the rules of engagement to limit civilian carnage, the Bush administration demonized media outlets that showed U.S. victims. On April 16, a few days after Kimmitt’s comment, Bush met British Prime Minister Tony Blair and proposed bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar (a staunch U.S. ally). Blair talked Bush out of attacking the television network offices. A British government official leaked the minutes of a meeting, creating a brief hubbub that was largely ignored within the United States.

Bush had previously talked to Blair in 2003 about attacking the Al Jazeera television transmitter in Baghdad. A few days/weeks later, the U.S. military killed one Al Jazeera journalist when it attacked the network’s headquarters in Baghdad, and several Al Jazeera employees were seized and detained for long periods of time.

The Bush administration decided to crush the city — but not until after Bush was safely reelected. Up to 50,000 civilians remained in Falluja at the time of the second U.S. assault. At a November 8, 2004, press conference, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that “Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble.” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Myers said three days later that Fallujah “looks like a ghost town [because] the Iraqi government gave instructions to the citizens of Fallujah to stay indoors.”

Supposedly, Iraqi civilians would be safe even when American troops went house to house “clearing” insurgents out. However, three years later, during the trials for the killings elsewhere in Iraq, Marines continually invoked the Fallujah Rules of Engagement to justify their actions. Marine Corporal Justin Sharratt, who was indicted for murdering three civilians in Haditha (the charges were later dropped), explained in a 2007 interview with PBS:

For the push of Fallujah, there [were no civilians]. We were told before we went in that if it moved, it dies… About a month before we went into the city of Fallujah, we sent out flyers… We let the population know that we were coming in on this date, and if you were left in the city, you were going to die.

The interviewer asked: “Was the procedure for clearing a house in Fallujah different from other house clearing in Iraq?”

Sharratt replied: “Yes. The difference between clearing houses in Fallujah was that the entire city was deemed hostile. So every house we went into, we prepped with frags and we went in shooting.” Thus, the Marines were preemptively justified in killing everyone inside — no questions asked. Former congressman Duncan Hunter admitted in 2019, “I was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians … probably killed women and children.”

The U.S. attack left much of Fallujah looking like a lunar landscape, with near-total destruction as far as the eye could see. Yet, regardless of how many rows of houses the United States flattened in the city, accusations that the United States killed noncombatants were false by definition. Because the U.S. government refused to count civilian casualties, they did not exist. And anyone who claimed to count them was slandering the United States and aiding the terrorists.

Commas, not corpses

In September 2006, Bush was asked during a television interview about the ongoing strife in Iraq. He smiled and replied, “I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy.” To recognize the importance of civilian casualties would have marred his story about the conquest of Iraq as a historical triumph of democracy.

The Pentagon spent more money bribing Iraqi journalists than counting Iraqi victims. As long as there were enough cheerleaders in Iraq and on the home front, the bodies of U.S. victims did not exist — at least in the American media.

Pentagon contractors offered strategic advice on how to keep victims off the radar screen. In 2007, the RAND Corporation released “Misfortunes of War: Press and Public Reaction to Civilian Deaths in Wartime,” explaining how to best respond to bombing debacles. The study concluded that “the belief that the U.S. military is doing everything it can to minimize civilian casualties is the key to public support for U.S. military operations.”

The RAND report was more concerned about bad PR than dead children. RAND’s experts asserted that “Americans and the media are concerned about civilian casualties, and pay very close attention to the issue.” This is the charade that provides a democratic sanction for the U.S. government’s foreign killings.

In reality, most Americans are clueless about the foreign toll of their government’s policies. An early 2007 Associated Press poll found that Americans were well-informed about the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. But the same poll found that “the median estimate for Iraqi deaths was 9,890.” Actual fatalities were at least 15 times higher — and perhaps 60 times higher.

In December 2005, Bush said that 30,000 people “more or less” had been killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion. In October 2006, a reporter asked him: “Do you stand by your figure, 30,000?” Bush replied, “You know, I stand by the figure.” The United Nations estimated that 34,000 civilians were killed in 2006 alone. Regardless, Bush “stood by” his estimate from the prior year. This was the Fallujah methodology on amphetamines: It was impermissible to recognize or admit the deaths of any Iraqis who perished in the 10 months after Bush publicly ordained the 30,000 number.

Iraq’s Health Minister estimated in November 2006 that “there had been 150,000 civilian deaths during the war so far.” The Iraqi Ministry of Health had kept track of morgue records but ceased its tabulation after arm-twisting from U.S. authorities.

It is folly to pay more attention to Pentagon denials than to piles of corpses and flattened villages. The greater the media’s dependency on government, the less credible press reports on official benevolent intentions become. When the official policy routinely results in killing innocent people, it will almost always also be official policy to deceive the American public about the killings. It is naive to expect a government that recklessly slays masses of civilians to honestly investigate itself and announce its guilt to the world.

Killing foreigners is no substitute for protecting Americans. Permitting governments to make their victims vanish profoundly corrupts democracy. Self-government is a mirage if Americans are denied information to judge killings committed in their name.

This article was originally published in the June 2023 edition of Future of Freedom.

July 28, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Washington sanctions 14 Iraqi banks in new anti-Iran ‘crackdown’

The Cradle | July 20, 2023

The US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have barred 14 Iraqi banks from conducting transactions in US dollars as part of a “sweeping crackdown” to stop Iran and other sanctioned nations from acquiring the greenback, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 19 July.

US officials say the new sanctions were issued after discovering “information” showing the banks “engaged in money laundering and fraudulent transactions, some of which may have involved sanctioned individuals and raised concerns that Iran could benefit.”

“We have strong reason to suspect that at least some of these laundered funds could end up going to benefit either designated individuals or individuals who could be designated,” a senior US official told the WSJ.

The banks targeted by the punitive measures are small institutions reportedly “heavily involved” in US dollar transactions.

According to Iraq’s Shafaq News, the targeted banks include the Islamic Advisor for Investment and Finance, the Islamic Qartas for Investment and Finance, Al Mustashar Islamic Bank, Elaf Bank, Erbil Bank, the International Islamic Bank, Trans-Iraq Bank, Mosul Bank, Al-Rajeh Bank, Sumer Commercial Bank, Trust International Islamic Bank, the World Islamic Bank, and Zain Iraq Islamic Bank.

The sanctions came only one day after the US State Department issued a new 120-day sanctions waiver to allow Baghdad to deposit payments for Iranian natural gas into non-Iraqi banks in response to criticism that the White House is responsible for recent power cuts at the height of Iraq’s blistering hot summer.

Since 2003, all Iraqi oil revenues have been paid into an account with the US Federal Reserve. Although Iraqis formed a sovereign government after the US invasion and occupation of their state, Iraq is still restricted from opening accounts for its oil earnings outside the US.

Given its dominance of the global financial system, Washington can control all funds of Iraq’s Central Bank through threats or sanctions, even though these funds are not deposited exclusively in US banks. Furthermore, Iraq’s oil funds, which in 2022 amounted to more than $90 billion, remain in one single account in New York Fed – the institution that two years ago unilaterally blocked Afghanistan from accessing its foreign reserves, plunging the nation into an unparalleled crisis.

Last November, the US Treasury cut off four Iraqi banks from access to dollars and imposed tight controls on wire transfers, sending the economy reeling.

To negate the effect of these unilateral measures, Baghdad has been looking to move trade away from the greenback and, in May, banned the use of the US dollar for both personal and business transactions.

Earlier this month, the commercial advisor to the Iranian embassy in Iraq, Abd al-Amir Rabihawi, revealed that Baghdad proposed that the two nations switch trade payments to the Iraqi dinar to combat US economic coercion.

July 21, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Elizabeth Tsurkov Was Up To No Good When She Went Missing In Iraq

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JULY 10, 2023

It was just reported that US-based Russian-Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov went missing in Iraq, where she was conducting fieldwork as part of her research at Princeton. She reportedly arrived in the country on her Russian passport since Iraq doesn’t allow Israeli citizens to enter. Iran is accused of organizing her kidnapping via its local allies, which one outlet speculated was to set up a high-profile prisoner exchange for an IRGC operative who Israel claimed last month was captured inside the Islamic Republic itself.

The Mainstream Media is portraying Tsurkov as an innocent victim after an unnamed senior Israeli official denied that she’s a member of Mossad like some had begun to suspect. Regardless of whatever her ties with that country’s intelligence agency may or may not be, she was up to no good when she went missing in Iraq. From the perspective of local patriotic groups, it would have been legitimate to detain Tsurkov for the five reasons that will now be explained.

For starters, she should never have entered a country that prohibits entry to Israeli citizens like herself. By arriving in Iraqi on her Russian passport, she deliberately deceived the authorities. Once this was discovered, it immediately put her and everyone who she’d hitherto come into contact with there under suspicion of being spies. She therefore behaved highly irresponsibly, which is unbecoming of an Ivy League researcher like she presents herself as and thus casts further doubt on her credibility.

The second point is that the very nature of her work makes her suspicious. According to the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy where she’s a Non-Resident Fellow, “Her research is based on a large network of contacts – ordinary civilians, activists, combatants and communal, political and military leaders – which she has established across the Middle East and particularly in Syria, Iraq and Israel-Palestine.” The Iraqi counterintelligence service therefore had grounds to be concerned by her activity.

Third, she was clandestinely cultivating her vast regional network with sources whose countries prohibit their people from having any ties with her country or its nationals. She as an Israeli would have certainly known this, which means that she purposely put these people at risk for reasons that only she herself can account for. Researchers are supposed to operate according to a code of ethics whereby they never do anything that could bring harm to their subjects, though Tsurkov did precisely the opposite.

The fourth point is that she was conscious of her work advancing Israeli interests, whether the way she subjectively understands them as being or per speculative orders from suspected handlers, as evidenced by the fact that her Twitter handle @Elizrael explicitly references that country. She has the right to publicly self-identify with any country and thus be associated with it by others, especially if she’s its national, but this just goes to show that she knew that everything she was doing put her sources at risk.

And finally, local patriotic groups might not have trusted their corrupt country’s security services to properly deal with the counterintelligence threat posed by Tsurkov upon discovering her ties to Israel and the suspicious nature of her work, which is why they might have acted unilaterally as vigilantes. No value judgement is being made either way about the scenario in which such groups might have been responsible for her disappearance, but just to point out why they might have acted outside legal bounds.

Tsurkov should have known better than to visit Iraq seeing as how it’s illegal for Israeli citizens to do so, yet she still went anyway in order to expand her network of sources there on the pretext of conducting fieldwork as part of her research at Princeton and deceptively entered on her Russian passport. Even if she had nothing to do with Israel, her work would have still placed her on the radar of regional counterintelligence services, who investigate foreign-connected networks inside their countries.

Nobody who’s truly up to any good would ever enter a country where they’re legally prohibited from visiting by using another passport, let alone to clandestinely expand their network of sources there. She knowingly misled the authorities and then put her contacts at risk by meeting with them in person afterwards. Even worse, she did all this while publicly self-identifying on social media with the same country that they’re legally prohibited from having any ties.

One can still support Tsurkov and remain convinced that she’s supposedly an innocent victim exactly as the Mainstream Media claims, but it’s dishonest to deny that she behaved highly irresponsibly at great risk to herself and her sources inside Iraq, which contradicted expectations of an Ivy League researcher. For that reason, there are indeed plausible reasons to suspect her of conducting espionage under that cover, though whether or not she should have reportedly been detained remains a matter of debate.

July 10, 2023 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

Defiant Tony Blair Insists Ousting Saddam Hussein Was ‘Important Thing to Do’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 01.07.2023

This past March marked the 20th anniversary of the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq. The war, launched on the false pretext of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s alleged cooperation with al-Qaeda, claimed up to a million lives, and brought Iraq to the precipice of failed state status.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has returned to the limelight to defend his decision to join the US’s Iraq invasion of 2003, and to offer his opinions on the crises facing the world today.

“It’s always difficult to go back with hindsight. But I always say to people there are many things we would have done different. But I still think that ultimately, in the Middle East, the removal of Saddam Hussein was an important thing to do,” Blair said, speaking to Japanese media in an interview published Saturday.

The politician, who now heads the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a Gulf sheikdom, US State Department, World Economic Forum and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded non-profit, did not elaborate on why removing the Iraqi leader – which destroyed Iraq and destabilized the Middle East – was so important.

In hindsight, his comments are reminiscent of former Clinton Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s infamous 1997 60 Minutes Interview, in which Albright said that the “price” of half a million Iraqi children dying as a result of Western sanctions against Baghdad was “worth it.”

‘Important Opinions’

Blair, 70, also offered his opinion on world affairs, including the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, and China’s significance in a shifting world order.

Blair, apparently unfamiliar with Russia’s nuclear doctrine, claimed that Beijing’s close relationship with Moscow played a key role in preventing Russia from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

“Although there are many problems connected with China’s support of Russia, the one benefit of that close relationship, which you can see in China’s insistence that Russia does not use nuclear weapons, is I think China does not believe it is in its interest at all for this to slide towards a global conflict,” he said.

The terms of Russia’s 2020 nuclear doctrine actually strictly prohibit the use of nuclear weapons – tactical or strategic, unless the country is attacked using weapons of mass destruction, or faces a conventional attack so severe that its very existence is deemed to be at risk.

Blair, who met with Putin in the 2000s during his tenure as PM, suggested that while the Russian president was once more open to cooperation with the West, “the Putin of today only understands the language of strength.” He “and any future Russian leader knows Ukraine is entitled to protect its sovereignty, and so is the rest of Eastern Europe,” Blair said.

The politician also dismissed China’s 12-point Ukraine peace plan, saying it was “obviously not going to be acceptable to the Ukrainians,” but added that China could play an “important” role if a “sensible, negotiated solution” could be hammered out. Blair did not elaborate on which specific points in China’s peace plan, such as ‘respecting the sovereignty of all countries’, ‘ceasing hostilities’, or ‘not pursuing security at the expense of others’, would be unacceptable to Kiev.

Blair believes the “big geopolitical questions of the 21st century” will revolve around China and its relationship with the West, and urged Western countries to “stay engaged” with the Asian giant, while also taking a ‘peace through strength’ approach toward Beijing. “They’ve got to be under no doubt at all that we’re strong enough to deal with whatever comes because that will be the deterrent for anything rash,” he said.

He also pointed to the West’s failure to engage the countries of the Global South, saying that the lethargic and bureaucratic negotiations process on infrastructure development projects has allowed China to “get an enormous position in these countries.”

Tony Blair became US President George W. Bush’s closest ally during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and before that sent British troops to assist in the 2001 US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Blair has faced accusations of war crimes, with activists and prominent figures including Desmond Tutu, British playwright Harold Pinter, Indian Author Arundhati Roy, British human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad calling for him and Bush to be dragged before the International Criminal Court.

In 2017, former Iraqi general Abdulwaheed Shannan Al Rabbat filed a case against Blair in a London court charging him with the “crime of aggression” against Iraq. The court ruled that “although there was a crime of aggression under customary international law, there was no such crime as a crime of aggression under the law of England and Wales.”

July 1, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

‘Undeniable proof’ uncovered that Zionist agents targeted Jews in Iraq

MEMO | June 19, 2023

A distinguished Israeli-British historian and Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford has uncovered “undeniable proof” that Zionist agents were responsible for targeting the Jewish community in Iraq, pushing them to flee and settle in Israel. Prof. Avi Shlaim has made the claim in his autobiography, which details his childhood as an Iraqi Jew and subsequent exile in Israel. Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew was published last week. A review of the memoir appeared on Saturday in the Spectator magazine, detailing Shlaim’s shocking claim.

Why Arab Jews left Iraq and other countries in the Middle East to move to Israel after more than 2,000 years of living in relative peace and harmony with their Arab Muslim neighbours has been a controversial issue for decades. Events surrounding the creation of the Zionist state of Israel sparked an influx of Jews to historic Palestine. A combination of pull factors such as the belief in the notion of the “ingathering of the exiles” and “making aliyah” accounted for the migration of many Arab Jews.

Israel and supporters of the apartheid state, however, insist that it was the persecution of Arab Jews that pushed them out of their countries of birth. It is a claim that has long been contested. Israel carried out several false flag operations in the Middle East to “persuade” Jews to move to the new state. The most infamous of these was the “Lavon Affair”, during which Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence to plant bombs inside British and American civilian targets, including churches and libraries.

From 1950 through to 1951 Israeli spy agency Mossad is also said to have orchestrated five bomb attacks on Jewish targets in an operation known as Ali Baba, to drum up fear amongst and hostility towards Iraqi Jews. As the mood darkened, more than 120,000 Jews — 95 per cent of the Jewish population in Iraq — left for Israel via an airlift known as Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.

While the role of Mossad is underplayed by Israel, Shlaim’s account disputes this view. The Oxford professor was born in Baghdad in 1945 and belonged to a prosperous and distinguished Jewish family that enjoyed a comfortable life in the city. According to his memoir, their lives took a drastic turn for the worse when a series of bombings rocked the Iraqi Jewish community in 1950. Faced with increasing danger, Shlaim’s family made the difficult decision to flee to Israel, leaving behind their luxurious lifestyle and struggling to adapt to a new and diminished existence.

Shlaim contends that the Zionist project dealt a severe blow to the position of Jews in Arab lands. In the memoir he argues that the Eurocentric Zionist movement and the state of Israel intensified divisions between Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, Hebrew and Arabic, and Judaism and Islam. Furthermore, divisive pro-Israel forces worked actively to erase what Shlaim describes as an ancient heritage of “pluralism, religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism and coexistence. Above all, Zionism has discouraged us from seeing each other as fellow human beings.”

Shlaim discusses how Mizrahi Jews, like himself, who originated in the Middle East, faced discrimination from Ashkenazi Jews, who came from Europe. Mizrahi Israelis remain among some of the poorest communities in Israel, living in developing towns and underprivileged neighbourhoods.

See Also:

There is no parity between ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Jews’ exodus from Arab states

June 20, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Middle East and US Terrorist Activities

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 08.06.2023

Incredibly high civilian casualty rates from American-led military adventurism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia have been revealed in a new research by Brown University’s The Cost of War Project in the State of Rhode Island. The report provides direct data on the victims of the war in which nearly a million people were killed by the US efforts.

According to the study, another important aspect that has indirectly killed several million more people is the military destruction of the economy, public services, infrastructure and the environment, which increases the death toll long after the bombs have been dropped and increases over time. The report estimates that these factors contributed to more than 3.5 million deaths. This aspect requires more research, and the project specifically emphasizes that “the many long-term and underestimated consequences of war” need to be explored in more detail.

Another study shows that the number of direct casualties from wars that killed nearly a million people is an understatement, which the report again refers to by saying that “the exact death toll remains unknown.” In another section of the project’s report on the Iraqi death toll, it says that “estimates of the Iraqi war death toll have been particularly inconsistent. The Lancet 2006 estimated that approximately 600,000 Iraqis died as a result of military violence between 2003 and 2006.” The report goes on to say that the controversy over conflicting reports about the death toll in Iraq stems from news reports estimates, with some exaggerating the death toll while those who supported the illegal invasion downplayed the death toll.

The project cites a report in The Lancet that says the death toll in Iraq since 2003 and in the next three years alone reached 600,000 Iraqis. Various unbiased studies have been conducted, concluding that more than one million Iraqis were killed as a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011.

Even the one million mark in Iraqi deaths could be considered an understatement when there were daily reports of almost daily terrorist bombings that killed hundreds of Iraqis. And then, add to that the US and DAESH era from 2014 to 2017, when hundreds of thousands more people were killed, and it’s not hard to imagine that over a million Iraqis have died and continue to die today as a result of the US so-called “war on terror.”

There is no doubt that the US military presence has brought nothing but insecurity and instability to West Asia. In January 2018, Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei said: “What is important is that the corruptive presence of the US in this region must end… They (Americans) have brought war, discord, sedition and destruction to this region; they brought about destruction of infrastructures. Of course, they do this everywhere in the world… It must be stopped.”

The Cost of War Project’s latest study also warns that “these wars continue to affect millions of people around the world, who live with their consequences and die from them.” The report focuses on the impact of the wars unleashed by the United States on women and children, who “bear the brunt of these ongoing consequences.”

The report notes that while some people have died in combat, many more, especially children, have died as a result of the negative effects of wars, such as the spread of disease and damage to public services. “More research is needed on the impact of the destruction of public services by war, especially outside the health care system, on public health,” the report says. “Damage to water and sanitation systems, roads and commercial infrastructure such as ports, for example, has significant and important negative consequences.”

The study says that the wars and conflicts the United States has fought or been involved in under the pretext of supposedly fighting terrorism since September 11, 2001, clearly show that the consequences of the ongoing violence of war are so vast and complex that they cannot be measured. It should be noted that after the 9/11 attacks, the US waged wars and fomented conflicts, especially in West Asia, under the pretext of fighting terrorism. However, as a result of US military adventurism, there has been an extremely dramatic increase in terrorist groups that had no presence in West Asia or countries such as Somalia prior to Washington’s military intervention in the region.

In other words, the so-called “war on terror” has had the opposite effect from the stated goal of Pentagon’s campaign of instability in West Asia, which has allowed terrorism to flourish. In other words, and many experts agree, the presence of US troops and US policies in the Middle East and other parts of the world have only led to the direct growth of terrorism and terrorist organizations that have destabilized peace and tranquility in those parts of the world.

The report states that the damage and continued deaths caused by the wars mean that those who have unleashed them must take responsibility, including financial responsibility for repairing the damage caused. Suffice it to recall how the American clown of a Secretary of State Colin Powell shook some test tube of incomprehensible white powder on the UN podium and hysterically frightened the whole world with unthinkable troubles from Saddam Hussein. And that was the reason for the barbaric and unjustifiable attack on sovereign Iraq in 2003, from which the Iraqis are still unable to recover and rebuild their state.

Iraqis, and indeed millions of other people, still suffer from distress, pain and trauma in both current and former war zones, according to the study, which calls on the United States as well as its allies to ease the continuing loss and suffering of millions and provide the required “reparations, though not easy, and cheap.” It is something “imperative,” the report notes.

The project correctly and very justifiably blames the US for its role in the military adventurism it embarked on after 9/11, particularly the casualties inflicted during the American two-year war and the 20 year of occupation of Afghanistan. The report focuses on Afghanistan as an example of how people, particularly women and children, the most vulnerable in society, are dying because, despite the indiscriminate withdrawal (or rather shameful flight) of US troops, the damage Washington has done to Afghanistan’s vital services, such as its health sector, sanitation and other infrastructure over 20 years of war and occupation, means that Afghans are still dying today. “Although the United States withdrew military forces from Afghanistan in 2021, officially ending the war that began with its invasion 20 years ago, Afghans are suffering and dying from war-related causes today more often than ever,” the report notes alarmingly.

The Cost of War Project says that much more research is needed to gather more adequate data “to guide life-saving actions.” “More research is needed on the impact of the destruction of public services by war, especially outside the health care system, on public health,” the report notes. “Damage to water and sanitation systems, roads and commercial infrastructure such as ports, for example, has significant consequences.”

In the case of Somalia, for example, the US intervention and the ensuing war prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid, which, according to the study, exacerbated the famine. This is a natural disaster that could have been mitigated if the US had instead chosen to spend a huge amount of money on humanitarian aid programs instead of radicalizing the local population (and increasing terrorism and bloodshed) by bombing civilians with drones. The section of the report reads: “While all belligerents must be held accountable, in the causation sections this report addresses the relevant consequences of the actions of the United States, as the primary power responsible for all these crimes.”

Critics argue that if the United States had not fought wars against West Asian countries or provoked conflicts in the region, other parties would not have participated in any combat missions. In this case, the US should be solely responsible for the disturbing direct and indirect death toll resulting from its provocative and illegal military measures. Washington’s policy of intimidation, military adventurism and terrorism against peace-loving nations of the world must end. And this is the will and aspiration of peoples who want to live in peace and prosperity, without wars and aggressions, and to follow the path of building a new multipolar world, actively promoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

June 8, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran, Regional States to Form Naval Coalition Soon: Navy Commander

Al-Manar – June 3, 2023

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani announced that Iran’s navy and the countries of the region including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq will form a new naval coalition soon.

Irani in a televised program on Friday night announced the formation of new regional and extra-regional coalitions, saying that today, the countries of the region have realized that the security of the region can be established through synergy and cooperation of the regional states.

Referring to the holding of annual exercises of the naval coalition of Iran, Russia and China, he said that the regional coalition is also forming.

Almost all the countries of the North Indian Ocean region have come to the understanding that they should stand by the Islamic Republic of Iran and jointly establish security with significant synergy, he said, adding that Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan and India are among these countries.

Earlier, a Qatari website reported that Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman are to form a joint naval force under China’s auspices towards enhancing maritime security in the Persian Gulf.

Al-Jadid carried the report on Friday, saying China had already begun mediating negotiations among Tehran, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi aimed at reinforcing maritime navigation’s safety in the strategic body of water.

Since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Republic has invariably opposed foreign meddling and presence in the region, asserting that the regional issues have to be addressed by the regional players themselves.

June 3, 2023 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iraq unveils $17bn infrastructure project linking West Asia to Europe

The Cradle | May 27, 2023

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani on 27 May unveiled a $17 billion infrastructure project to link West Asia and Europe and make Iraq a regional transportation hub.

Once finished, the “Route of Development” project would run the length of the nation, reaching 1,200 kilometers from Turkiye’s northern border to the Persian Gulf in the south.

The project was announced by Sudani during a meeting with transport ministry representatives from Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkiye, and the UAE.

“We see this project as a pillar of a sustainable non-oil economy, a link that serves Iraq’s neighbors and the region, and a contribution to economic integration efforts,” he said.

While more negotiations are needed, the Iraqi parliament’s transport committee stated that any country that desires “will be able to carry out part of the project,” adding that the project may be finished in “three to five years.”

“The Route of Development will boost interdependence between the countries of the region,” Turkiye’s ambassador to Baghdad, Ali Riza Guney, said, without specifying what role his country will play in the initiative.

Sudani has prioritized the repair of the country’s road network as well as the upgrade of its aging energy infrastructure.

On 25 May, Iraq’s Oil Minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani announced that Saudi Aramco is seeking to invest in Iraq’s Crutch gas field and expand its capacity to 400 million cubic feet.

Additionally, in February, the Iraqi government signed an agreement with the UAE firm Crescent Petroleum to develop two gas fields in northeastern Diyala governorate to supply local power plants.

The UAE’s private upstream oil and gas company disclosed that the Gilabat-Qumar and Khashim gas fields are expected to produce seven million cubic meters within an 18-month span.

In recent months, Baghdad has bolstered its efforts to increase its relations with Gulf states. On 19 February, Iraq and Saudi Arabia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to share sensitive intelligence and deepen security cooperation, marking the first time the two nations have signed a security pact since 1983.

May 28, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Railway of Resistance: A grand project to connect Iran, Iraq, Syria

By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan | The Cradle | May 19 2023

Sir Halford John Mackinder, one of Britain’s most prominent theorists in the field of geopolitics, discusses the significance of land connectivity between nations in his 1904 essay called The Geographical Pivot of History.

Besides introducing his notable Heartland Theory, Mackinder argued that advancements in transportation technology, such as the development of railways, have altered the balance of power in international politics by enabling a powerful state or group of states to expand its influence along transport routes.

The establishment of blocs, like the EU or BRICS, for instance, aims to enhance communication between member states. This objective has positive implications for the economy and helps reduce the risk of tensions among them.

The cost of such tensions has increased considerably, given the growing benefits and common interests achieved through strengthened ties between nations. Consequently, reinforcing connections within a specific region has a positive impact on the entire area.

Therefore, any infrastructure project between countries cannot be viewed solely from an economic standpoint; its geopolitical effects must also be highlighted.

West Asia connected by railway

In July 2018, Saeed Rasouli, head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (RAI), announced the country’s intention to construct a railway line connecting the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, the Iran-Iraq-Syria railway link. This ambitious project would run from Basra in southern Iraq to Albu Kamal on the Iraqi-Syrian border and then extend to Deir Ezzor in northeastern Syria.

Undoubtedly, this project strengthens communication between the countries of West Asia and increases the need for other powers to collaborate with this important region, which is strategically located in parts of Mackinder’s “Heartland” and Nicholas Spykman’s “Rimland” of Eurasia.

Moreover, in accordance with Mackinder’s proposition, it can be argued that this railway project holds geopolitical significance for the three involved countries – Iran, Iraq, and Syria – and for West Asia as a whole.

The concept of a railway link between Iran and Iraq emerged over a decade ago. In 2011, Iran completed the 17-kilometer Khorramshahr-Shalamjah railway, which aimed to connect Iran’s railways to the city of Basra. Subsequently, in 2014, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Tehran and Baghdad to construct the Shalamjah-Basra line.

As per the agreement, Iran was responsible for designing and building a bridge over the Arvand River, while the Iraqi side pledged to construct a 32-kilometer railway line from the Shalamjah border to the Basra railway station within Iraqi territory.

Final destination: Syria

On 14 August, 2018, Iran announced its intention to further extend the railway from its territory to Syria, with Iraq’s participation. This move aimed to counter western sanctions and enhance economic cooperation.

The railway project would begin at the Imam Khomeini port on the Persian Gulf, located in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province, to the Shalamjah crossing on the Iraqi border. From there, the railway traverses through the Iraqi province of Basra, crossing Albu Kamal on the Syrian border and ending at the Mediterranean port of Latakia.

Iranian official sources stated that this railway would contribute to Syria’s reconstruction efforts, bolster the transport sector, and facilitate religious tourism between Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Iran would bear the costs of the project within its own territory, while Iraq would contribute its share up to the Syrian border.

During the visit of former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Iraq in March 2019, a memorandum of understanding on the project was signed between Tehran and Baghdad. However, despite the agreements, the Iraqi side has faced economic challenges and a lack of funds, resulting in a delay in the construction of the railway.

Proposed railway links between Iran, Iraq, and Syria

Three Sections

The railway project can be divided into three sections: The first section links the Imam Khomeini Port to the Shalamjah crossing on the Iraqi border. According to the Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash, the railway line in Iran has been completed and has reached the zero border point.

The second section will link the Shalamjah Crossing to Basra in southern Iraq, then extend to Baghdad, Anbar province, and finally, the Syrian border. The financing of this section, according to the agreement, falls under the responsibility of the Iraqi government. The commencement of this phase is expected soon.

The third section, within Syria, encompasses two routes: The northern route extends between Iraq’s al-Qaim and Syria’s Albu Kamal, then heads west towards the Syrian port of Latakia. The southern route runs from the al-Qaim crossing on the Iraqi-Syrian border to Damascus via Homs.

It should be noted that although the shortest route to Damascus is through al-Tanf, due to the presence of the illegal US occupation forces there, the longer Homs-Damascus corridor was adopted. This also ensures the passage of railways through a greater number of Syrian cities.

Economic significance

Although the rail line between Iran and Iraq will only span 32 km and cost approximately $120 million, divided equally, its significance extends far beyond its length. It will serve as the sole railway connection between the two countries and play a crucial role in improving communication throughout the wider region by linking China’s Belt and Road Initative (BRI) lines to Iraq via Iran.

Once completed, the project will enable Iraq to easily connect to Iran’s extensive railway network, which extends to Iran’s eastern border. This linkage will open pathways for Baghdad to connect with Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Far East.

Moreover, in the future, the project positions Iraq as a transit route for trade between the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region and Central Asia, as well as Russia. Incidentally, Iran and Russia have just inked an agreement to establish a railway connecting the Iranian cities of Astara with Rasht, as part of the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

The railway line also contributes to the promotion of religious tourism among the three countries, which are home to several important Shia shrines. In September 2022, more than 21 million people from around the world, including 3 million Iranians, visited Iraq for the annual Arbaeen pilgrimage in the holy city of Karbala. This figure is likely to increase significantly with a rail link, leading to increased revenues for the Iraqi treasury.

Furthermore, the project serves as a means to bypass western sanctions and external pressures on the three countries, particularly Iran and Syria. It strengthens the independence of these nations and reduces the likelihood of foreign powers interfering in the economic relations of the project countries.

Obstacles to project implementation

Despite the signed agreements, the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus railway project has faced mixed reactions in Iraq, leading to a lack of enthusiasm for moving forward with the rail link. Only last month, the Ministry of Transport issued a clarification regarding its rail link with Iran, stressing that the project is related to “passenger transportation only.”

Iraqi politicians have expressed concerns that the rail link with Iran could hinder their country’s Dry Canal project, which aims to connect the port of Faw in Basra province to the Turkish and Syrian borders.

They believe that the Grand Faw Port is strategically positioned as the closest point for sea cargo to Europe, potentially bringing economic benefits and employment opportunities. These concerns arise from the fear that the Imam Khomeini port in Iran could gain increased importance, diminishing the significance of the Faw Port.

But Iraqi concerns actually present an opportunity to link Iran to the Dry Canal, enhancing the strategic importance of both projects and bolstering Iraq’s position as a regional trading hub. In the near future, communication and cooperation between these neighbors will be crucial in thwarting external efforts to impede the economic interdependence of the three countries.

A promising journey

The tripartite railway link project holds immense significance as it connects these countries within a larger network, resembling the historical Silk Road that facilitated trade between the east and the west for centuries.

The railway project has the ability to initiate a major transformation in West Asia if it materializes and expands further afield to countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Their participation would not only reduce tensions among regional states but also yield positive economic outcomes and bolster tourism, particularly religious tourism, and foster stronger inter-regional ties.

By connecting key players in a geopolitically strategic region, the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus rail link has the potential to lay the foundation for a new West Asian paradigm that promotes connectivity, stability, and prosperity.

As seen by the recent Iran-Saudi and Syria-Saudi rapprochement agreements, the region is in a collaborative mood, actively seeking economic development instead of conflict. With China and Russia – two powers at the forefront of Eurasia’s biggest interconnectivity projects (BRI and INSTC) – brokering and impacting many of these diplomatic initiatives, expect railways, roads, and waterways to begin linking countries that have been at odds for decades.

May 19, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Up to 4.5 Million Dead in ‘Post-9/11 War Zones’ – Study

By Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | May 16, 2023

The far-reaching effects of America’s War on Terror may have contributed to the deaths of some 4.5 million people, according to new research by Brown University’s ‘Costs of War’ project. While many of the fatalities were the direct result of violent conflict, indirect causes such as economic collapse and food insecurity have taken a far greater toll.

Published on Monday, the study examines the long-term impact of the “post-9/11 wars” and the “devastating indirect toll” inflicted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia – all nations subject to US military intervention since 2001.

“Some of these people were killed in the fighting, but far more, especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of war, such as the spread of disease,” the paper said. “These latter indirect deaths – estimated at 3.6-3.7 million – and related health problems have resulted from the post-9/11 wars’ destruction of economies, public services, and the environment.”

Though the researchers acknowledged that the true total figure remains unknown, the study reviews a wide range of factors contributing to mortality. Those include economic collapse and the resulting loss of livelihood for local residents, the destruction of health infrastructure and public services, environmental contamination, as well as other cultural effects of war that can lead to further violence down the line.

“While this research does not ascribe blame to any single warring party or factor, and neither does it suggest the full death count is quantifiable, a reasonable and conservative estimate suggests that at least 4.5 million people have died in the major post-9/11 war zones,” the study concluded.

It went on to stress that “body counts are complicated and controversial,” and that tallying deaths from indirect causes is even more difficult, suggesting its figures are merely a tentative estimate based on a variety of sources.

The researchers found staggering levels of child malnutrition in some of the affected countries, with Afghanistan and Yemen topping the list. In the wake of Washington’s two-decade military occupation, more than 3 million Afghan children are now experiencing wasting, a symptom of severe, potentially life-threatening malnutrition.

Last year, Doctors Without Borders warned of a “worrying increase” in Afghanistan’s malnutrition rates, citing “the suspension of international aid” as among the primary causes. A special representative for the United Nations, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, described the situation as “almost inconceivable,” adding that up to 95 percent of Afghans were “not eating enough food, with that percentage rising to almost 100 percent for female-headed households.”

UN emergency aid coordinator Martin Griffiths has also attributed the crisis in Afghanistan, in part, to international sanctions and the seizure of government bank accounts following the Taliban’s sudden rise to power in the summer of 2021.

The study found that more than 2 million children in Yemen were also suffering from wasting following eight years of brutal bombings by Saudi Arabia and its allies, which have all but crippled the country’s healthcare sector. Riyadh has received indispensable support from the United States throughout the conflict despite countless reports of attacks on civilians and infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, homes, factories, farms and bridges. A UN estimate in late 2021 suggested some 377,000 people had been killed in Yemen since the war erupted in 2015, with 70 percent thought to be children under the age of 5.

The Costs of War authors said the study aimed to “convey the scale of the suffering” in the war-torn nations, stating the “urgent need to mitigate the damage” inflicted by US military interventions and their long-term and indirect consequences. They added that additional research is needed on the subject, voicing hopes such work could “prevent further loss of life,” as America’s post-9/11 wars “are ongoing for millions around the world who are living with and dying from their effects.”

May 16, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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