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Iranian MPs declare all of US military ‘terrorist entity’ after General Soleimani killing

Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division wait for Middle East deployment © Global Look Press / Timothy L. Hale / Source: ZUMAPRESS.com
RT | January 7, 2020

The US Armed Forces are now regarded as a terrorist organization under an urgent motion by Iranian lawmakers, who earlier branded the assassination of the Quds Force commander “state-sponsored terrorism,” state media report.

Iranian MPs adopted a bill on Tuesday calling “personnel of the Pentagon, all affiliated companies, institutions, agents and commanders” members of a “terrorist entity,” local media reported.

The bill amends and expands previous legislation which gave a similar designation to US Central Command (CENTCOM). Initiated in April of last year, it was a tit-for-tat response to Washington’s blacklisting of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The latest designation, however, comes as tensions between Washington and Tehran reach boiling point, following the US’ assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Friday. Tehran has vowed to avenge Soleimani’s death, a promise that in turn led to US President Donald Trump threatening to strike 52 “very high level” Iranian cultural and state targets should Iran hit any American interests.

The Iranian government has reportedly been considering 13 “revenge scenarios” in retaliation for Soleimani’s killing. The semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Iranian Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani as saying that “even if there is consensus on the weakest scenario, carrying it out can be a historic nightmare for the Americans.”

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Yemen’s Ansarullah: We’re partaking in regional drive to boot US forces out

Al-Mayadeen TV – 05/01/2020

Member of Ansarullah’s Political Council, Mohammad al-Bakhiti, says the Yemeni movement is partaking in the region-wide response to Iranian General Soleimani’s assassination by the US military. Bakhiti says the regional response is aimed at driving all US forces out of the region.

Transcript:

– the coming days will bring huge changes to the region

– the American aggression against Iraq is an aggression against the entire Axis of Resistance, which requires for unifying the theatre in which the response will be delivered

– of course Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi (Yemen’s Ansarullah leader) has already stated that this aggression is an aggression against the entire Axis of Resistance

– Yemen is a member of the Axis of Resistance, and we are at the heart of the conflict with this American coalition

– the American aggression will lead to the expansion of the conflict’s scope

– what we require now is greater coordination (between the members of the Axis of Resistance)

– as for the nature of the response, this is left for the leadership

– (yet) there is no response that can equal this (American) aggression other than popular, political and military action that drives out (all) US forces from the region

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Cloud Extraction Firms Are Offering Your Most Personal Data to the Government With Little Oversight

By Mohamed Elmaazi – Sputnik – January 7, 2020

A UK civil liberties charity says surveillance technology firms offer the ability to access and copy vast amounts of personal data, including from social media accounts, emails, messenger programmes, health monitors, and many more applications, all without any clear legal guidelines

Privacy International is sounding the alarm about highly intrusive surveillance technology currently on offer to the government agencies worldwide, with little to no legal oversight. The UK-based civil liberties charity published its latest report, Cloud extraction technology: the secret tech that lets government agencies collect masses of data from your apps, on 7 January 2020.

It examines the tech being sold to policing agencies which gives them access  to “cloud data” or information which is stored on third party storage devices. Applications which store immense amounts of data on “clouds” include Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and My Space, any e-mail account like Gmail or YahooMail, location trackers, health monitors like the Fitbit wristwatch, and storage software like Drop Box, Google Cloud Storage, and iCloud. Even encrypted messenger apps like WhatsApp store conversations on a cloud whenever a user backs up their conversations, for example to transfer them to a new phone.

In 2017 surveillance tech firm Cellebrite, an industry leader, celebrated the amount of data available saying:

“Private cloud-based data represents a virtual goldmine of potential evidence for forensic investigators.”

Cellebrite Data Available on Mobile Phones Vs Cloud Data

Cellebrite Data Available on Mobile Phones Vs Cloud Data Pg 2

Continuous Access to Personal Data of Millions of People

The report is based on publicly available information, freedom information requests, and Privacy International’s own technical analysis. It is important to note that once someone has accessed the cloud data of an individual they can continue to get live updates to the cloud, even after a device is returned to its owner.

The type of information which surveillance tech firms say they can access is:

  • emails,
  • social media activity,
  • account and device details (including passwords),
  • contacts,
  • user activity,
  • incoming and outgoing messages,
  • calendars,
  • notifications,
  • user created lists,
  • created/installed skills, and
  • preferences.

In pitching one of their surveillance programmes, Cellebrite suggests to its clients that access to people’s an Amazon user’s search history and wish list “can indicate suspicious behaviour leading up to a crime”.

Another surveillance tech firm, Oxygen Forensic, says that they can provide access to a user’s “actual voice”, when speaking to their digital devices such as Alexa, which they say offers “tremendous insights into the user’s everyday activity, their contacts, shared messages, and valuable voice commands.”

Privacy International Legal Safeguards Are Needed

Privacy International says that all of this technology is being used in a “vacuum of legal standards” and that many people don’t even know that this tech exists, let alone that it is being used against them. They say that legal protections and safeguards need to rapidly evolve to take into account the growing capability of surveillance technology and the potential threat they pose to civil liberties.

The report ends by calling for an immediate independent review of the surveillance technology and the current legal regime as it stands, with consultation taken from the public, industry, and police.

The report’s authors argue that there must be a clear legal basis before authorities can store or analyse anyone’s cloud data and that a warrant must be needed before such data can be accessed.

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Immoral Injury

By Kiask | Ken’s Blog | January 6, 2020

I recently attended a panel entitled “Coming Home: Dialogues on the Moral, Psychological, and Spiritual Impacts of War”. The event was about the invisible scars many veterans bear long after he or she experienced the horrors of war. How the scars were inflicted and how the afflicted recover from them is something those, like me, who have never been in combat can hardly understand.

One of the panelists at the event related the experience of a fighter pilot who on a bombing run was unable to see clearly what he had hit. Viewing his cockpit screen footage later, he saw that a carport had been totally demolished by his bomb. Amidst the rubble were four small bicycles. For years afterwards the pilot had a recurring nightmare in which he enters a bombed-out building and picks up a dead child from among the rubble. As he hugs the child to him, he sees that the back of the child’s head has been blown off. Simultaneously, the face of the child morphs into that of his own son.

Such anguished memories are sometimes referred to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), sometimes as “moral injury”. There’s a difference. PTSD is a mental disorder which makes it difficult for a vet to reintegrate himself back into civilian life. Moral injury is a “soul in anguish, not a psychological disorder”, as one psychiatrist puts it. It’s been defined as “an injury to an individual’s moral conscience and values resulting from an act of perceived moral transgression”. If a veteran survives the wound to his morality, he may not only successfully get on with his life but make an especially valuable contribution to his country.

A second panelist at the event, a lady fighter pilot, came back from her tour in Iraq uninjured either traumatically or morally. Without a twinge of conscience, she gushed about how good it felt to drop a bomb on a car filled with ISIS terrorists, knowing she had killed the personification of evil. She felt no more empathy for the those she had killed than do our drone pilots, raining down death from thousands of miles away, who refer to the victims of their bombs as “bugsplat”.

I was tempted to try to inflict a little moral injury on the gung-ho Top Gunness, so cocksure she was of the rectitude of her “good kill”, but I decided that wouldn’t be very nice. If I weren’t such a nice guy, I would have pointed out to her that the United States has a long history of working with Islamic extremists to counter governments we don’t approve of, the most overt case being our support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In more recent times, our attitude vis-à-vis the Islamic State (ISIS) has been disturbingly ambiguous. The thousands of foreign fighters who poured into Syria to join ISIS came through the territory of our NATO ally, Turkey—apparently with that country’s blessing… and, by extension, our own. Our good friend Qatar is generally credited with being a major financial backer of ISIS. Would we tolerate such behavior from a faux country like Qatar with a measly 300,000 citizens and an American military base within a stone’s throw of the Emir’s palace if we didn’t approve of their generosity?

So long as ISIS directed its attacks against the Syrian government, we had no problem with it. Only when it diverted its attention to trying to take over Iraq did we decide it needed to be reined in. Even then, a number of times we bombed Syrian or Iraqi forces engaged in battle with ISIS—all a big mistake, of course. Someone less kind than myself might have suggested to “Miss Crack-shot USA” that those grisly videos of masked evildoers beheading some hapless victim, which so enraged her as to free her from any soul-searching about exterminating some noisome bugs, owed more to American stage managers than to some mullah’s fiery rhetoric.

I suspect growing up just down the road from the Air Force Academy, then attending the Naval Academy, made the pilot immune to my contrarian point of view, but not every veteran is so lucky. Killing a fellow human being without guilt qualms is not normal. That’s why many soldiers—even in the heat of battle—never fire their weapon. It’s also why the army, I’ve been told, came up with the rapid-fire M16: you don’t aim it at anyone in particular, you just start blazing away.

According to one expert, moral injury occurs when “(i) there has been a betrayal of what is morally right, (ii) by someone who holds legitimate authority and (iii) in a high-stakes situation.” Sending those who trust you into battle on the basis of lies (e.g., Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; staged gas attacks in Syria) is a gross betrayal of their trust. Many returning from the war which gave us the term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Vietnam War, concluded that’s what happened. That’s why they founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).

I can only imagine what pangs of guilt must haunt the slumber of those who feel they’ve been lied to. Killing in a justified cause is hard enough to reconcile with our deep-seated aversion to the taking of human life; without legitimate justification, it becomes simply murder. How decent, good-hearted, feeling ex-soldiers deal with this “immoral injury”, as I call it, is a mystery to me. Maybe that’s why many Vietnam vets don’t like to talk about their experiences. No one likes to admit to having been duped, even if they were only eighteen years old at the time and most of their older and supposedly wiser compatriots let themselves be duped as well.

I hope those trying to help troubled veterans do not seek to have them forget their shame, anger, and disgust over being betrayed by those in power. Having been injured themselves, the vets can instruct those of us who have never paid the price on the techniques employed by unscrupulous leaders to get us into illegitimate, aggressive wars. That’s the special contribution I mentioned earlier that veterans can make to our country. Many members of the VVAW are doing just that today.

Whatever methods are being used to “cure” those suffering from immoral injury, they have not been completely successful. Last year, the number of attempted and successful suicides amongst marines—active and former—hit an all-time high: 354. Professor Lawrence Wilkerson of William & Mary—who in a former life was Col. Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to Colin Powell when he was Secretary of State—offers this explanation: “GIs have killed or helped to kill more than 400,000 human beings in these wars [Afghanistan, Iraq]. Killing at that level affects people. It particularly affects people when they are unable to explain the reason for the killing…. The U.S. government has told these young men and women that they are killing these people for freedom’s sake, for democracy, for women’s rights, for justice, to protect Americans, and for all manner of reasons that these troops know are just so much hogwash…. These GIs know that, on account of many of these lies, they are killing people, wounding people, destroying their homes, bombing their towns and villages, and generally wreaking havoc for ‘God and country’. They know this is a lie. But what are they to do about it? Some of them kill themselves.”
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The next time you see someone in uniform and are inclined to express your thanks, keep in mind what Col. Wilkerson has to say about this: “[T]he 99 percent of America with no skin in the game of war makes sure to say quite frequently ‘thank you for your service’ to any of these GIs encountered at airports, in restaurants, on the street, or elsewhere. From my own experience talking with serving troops and veterans—including a triple-amputee at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center— nothing galls them more. They see the 99 percent assuaging their guilt with a few meaningless words that don’t do a thing to alleviate the GIs’ concerns. In fact, such triteness deepens those concerns.”

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Chelsea Clinton Gains $9 Mln from Corporate Board Position in Her Mother’s Friend Company – Report

Sputnik – 07.01.2020

Chelsea Clinton has reaped $9 million in compensation since 2011 for serving on the board of an internet investment company, according to Barron’s, a financial publication.

Barron’s reported Sunday that Clinton has profited as a board member for IAC/InterActiveCorp, a media and internet investment company that has an ownership stake in 150 well-known brands, such as Vimeo, Tinder, Angie’s List and Home Advisor. The only child of former President Bill Clinton and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has served on IAC’s board since 2011 and receives an annual $50,000 retainer and $250,000 worth of restricted IAC stock units, according to Barron’s.

She reported owning $8.95 million worth of IAC stock to the Securities and Exchange Commission at the end of December. According to Barron’s, IAC’s stock has risen 89 percent, 50 percent and 36 percent in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively, in an extremely steep rise.

Clinton was also named to the board of Expedia Group in March of 2017, a position that typically earned $250,000 in 2015, according to a report at the time by The Guardian. Both IAC and Expedia are controlled by Barry Diller, a business and television mogul and, notably, a friend of Hillary Clinton.

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Corruption | , , | Leave a comment

Journalist: Trump ‘Could Lose’ US Presidential Election Due to Iran Affair

Sputnik – January 7, 2020

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Donald Trump have reportedly discussed recent developments in Iran in the aftermath of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani’s assassination. Journalist Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh expressed his opinion on the situation.

Sputnik: Has the US made a mistake by killing General Soleimani?

Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh: The United States has actually made a very grave mistake and they have left Iran with no other choice but to retaliate. The attack was a military one and Iran’s will need to be a military one as well, so Iran needs to react because if not; it would lead to the establishment of such a balance of power, that the US can attack and Iran just remains silent and it’s not something that anyone would accept.

The most vital thing for Iran is their security and the country needs to retaliate in order to deter the US from undertaking further attacks, otherwise, the United States would consider it a sign of weakness from Iran and that would lead to the possibility of full-fledged war against Iran, with the United States attacking Iran.

The only choice that the US has left for Iran is a retaliation of at least the same size that has happened to General Soleimani. Millions of people poured to the streets commemorating him this morning, because he was one of the most popular military leaders in Iran.

Sputnik: Should the EU defy US foreign policy for the sake of preserving peace in the Middle East?

Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh: Most of the statements coming from Europe so far have been awful I’m afraid to say. They were actually somehow supporting the US and demanding that Iran should de-escalate the situation and saying that it was Iran who made the US carry out an act of war, but diplomacy is never going to work like that.

The problem is that the Europeans have turned into puppet regimes of the US, particularly the UK and France, and they are now calling for de-escalation from Iran, when the Americans have carried out an act of war, they have carried out an attack against international law and they are threatening Iran with further attacks.

If there are going to be further attacks and retaliation from Iran, followed by a response from the United States, then it will create a full-scale war, which would at least engulf the region, if not the whole world and the consequences for sure would be harsh and destructive first to the American allies in the region and then to Europeans.

By supporting the US and by remaining silent against the violations of international law by the US,  they are actually sort of abetting the American crimes and they will ultimately suffer more than the US from any consequences that might happen.

Sputnik: How will the Iran affair impact the upcoming US Presidential election?

Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh: Donald Trump could lose the US Presidential election, just like Jimmy Carter did, due to the Iran situation. The gamble he took was a very big mistake and his administration thinks there is going to be a response from Iran and that if there was a war, that it might be something that unites Americans and would guarantee a second term.

The miscalculation that they have made is that Iran is not Iraq or even Vietnam. Iran is for sure more powerful and more established than those countries and if there is any war, Iran would absolutely be the winner because of the power that it has in the region and because of the experiences that they have had over the years.

This miscalculation will be very dangerous for President Trump and I expect that he will actually lose the next US election if he wants to continue aggression in the Middle East and responding to Iranian retaliation.

January 7, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US denies Iran’s FM Zarif visa to address Security Council in violation of UN treaty – reports

RT | January 7, 2020

Washington has reportedly refused to issue a visa to Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, even though, as the host of the United Nations headquarters, the US is obliged to allow foreign officials into the country.

According to multiple diplomatic sources, the visa request was filed several weeks ago, before the latest escalation, and would give the top Iranian diplomat a stage to speak out following last Thursday’s drone strike assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani, along with senior Iraqi militia leaders.

The murder of Soleimani, who played a key role in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists in Syria and Iraq, has drawn outrage across Iran and Iraq, with Tehran vowing to avenge the assassination, which it called “an act of international terrorism.” Washington, meanwhile, insists that Soleimani was the mastermind behind a spate of attacks on American personnel, including at the US Embassy, and says he was plotting new assaults.

This wouldn’t be the first time Washington abused its status as the host of the UN headquarters, refusing to issue visas for nearly a dozen members of the Russian delegation to a summit in New York last year.

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Is the Chairman of the JCS freaking out (answer: he should and he is!)

The Saker | January 6, 2020

 

 

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

General Soleimani ‘martyr of Quds’: Hamas chief Haniyeh

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh addresses a massive crowd of mourners during a funeral procession for General Qassem Soleimani in Tehran January 6, 2020. (Photo by Leader.ir)
Press TV – January 6, 2020

General Qassem Soleimani is a “martyr of Quds” for he devoted his life to supporting the Palestinian people’s struggle against Israel and his assassination by the United States is in many ways similar to crimes committed by the Israeli regime, says Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was assassinated in a US strike in Baghdad on Friday, alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraq’s pro-government Hashd al-Sha’abi forces.

A huge sea of mourners, streaming from all the adjoining streets, descended on the iconic Engelab Square in central Tehran early Monday morning and rallied to Azadi Tower in the capital’s west as they chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei led the prayers over the general’s coffin and the remains of his companions at Tehran University, his voice cracking several times with emotion which caused the massive crowd to weep.

Speaking at the funeral procession in Tehran on Monday, Haniyeh condemned the US strike, which was personally authorized by President Donald Trump.

“We have come to Iran to condole with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian government and nation,” Haniyeh said.

“He [Gen. Soleimani] was the commander of the IRGC Quds Force and he is a martyr of Quds,” the Hamas official said.

Haniyeh also sent condolences to General Soleimani’s family and described him as one of the “flag-bearers of resistance against Zionist and American plots.”

Haniyeh said he was in Iran “to express our true and sincere feelings about a dear brother and a martyred commander – a commander who made many sacrifices for Palestine and the resistance until he achieved the position he has today.”

‘A crime similar to Zionist atrocities in Palestine’

Haniyeh said this “brutal crime” by the Americans is representative of the “criminal mentality” that is at work in the occupied Palestinian lands.

“The criminal mentality that led to Commander Soleimani’s assassination and martyrdom is the same mentality that drives the minds of the Zionist regime’s thugs, the same mentality and policy that assassinates and kills Palestinians every day,” he said.

He said Hamas owes its current prowess to General Soleimani’s wisdom. The Palestinian resistance, he said, won’t back away from combating Israel and the fight will continue “until we purge all enemies from the noble Quds.”

New Quds Force chief pledges vengeance

Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, who was named the new Quds commander by the Leader on Friday, said in a statement that Iran will no doubt avenge the assassination.

“Steps will be definitely taken” to avenge General Soleimani’s blood, which Qaani said has set in motion a series of steps that will lead to America’s expulsion from the region.

US ‘elimination’ from region only acceptable retribution

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Division, echoed the remarks and said the only possible revenge for General Soleimani’s blood would be the total “elimination” of America from the region.

Launching a few missiles, destroying a base or even Trump’s death will not sufficiently avenge the blood of such a martyr, General Hajizadeh asserted, adding “the oppressed nations of the region will have to be rid of America’s evil.”

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

2019: The Year the Neocons Failed

By Tom Luongo | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 5, 2020

When things are as crazy as they are right now, it’s hard to see just how much progress has been made. 2019 had in it a number of watershed moments in geopolitics which signal just how close to radical change in the game board we are.

The neoconservatives within the Trump administration went for broke in 2019 and came a cropper every time. There’s no war with Iran. Nordstream 2 will be completed. Russia and Ukraine are on the path to solving their conflict. Iran is still selling oil. Turkey is still run by a madman. Israeli politics is more fractious than Spain’s. And Bashar al-Assad is still in charge in a slowly-rebuilding Syria.

The problem with these folks is they are relentless and still placed everywhere within the permanent bureaucracy of the U.S. government and Congress itself.

And President Trump has only been partially successful in fending them off from pulling off policy mistakes from which there is no turning back.

We are downstream from the neocon/Israeli push to withdraw the U.S. from the JCPOA, or Iran Nuclear Deal. That one event has dominated the geopolitical landscape for going on two years now. Trump thought he was gaining leverage over both Europe and Iran by withdrawing from the deal, when he actually unleashed a political and diplomatic quagmire.

The pull of the AIPAC crowd surrounding him, specifically Sheldon Adelson, Jared Kushner and Rudy Guiliani, put Trump on a path to confrontation with Iran which could only end in war, their desired outcome.

Trump, to his credit, has resisted this but only just barely. His refusal to go to war after Iran shot down a Global Hawk drone in June led to the firing of arch-neocon John Bolton as National Security Adviser and the subsequent impeachment fiasco we’re seeing today.

Trump, for his part, is reforming the NSC – National Security Council—by stripping it of more than two-thirds of its staff, to limit is ability to set policy outside of his purview. This will be reported by the MSM as him arrogating dictatorial powers and becoming insulated from reality.

It seems Trump is finally realizing that in Washington personnel is policy. Robert C. O’Brien is not John Bolton. It’s a good start. And if Trump wins a second term in November there may be hope that we’ll see foreign policy that is less schizophrenic and, frankly, dangerous.

Make no mistake, Trump not going to war overtly with Iran in June was a win. A small win, but a win, nonetheless.

But since that day it has been one non-stop neocon assault on his presidency and any kind of peace in the Middle East. I’m still of the opinion, tenuously so, that Trump wants to do the right thing in, at least, minimizing U.S. meddling in the region.

But the neocons are still dominant. They infest the NSC, the CIA, the State Dept. as well as major European governments and intelligence agencies. And it’s clear that Trump is fighting a rear-guard battle against them. They dominate the information flow to him.

I’m not absolving Trump of his mistakes by saying this. It’s clear he needs to be better at seeing through the misleading, if not outright false, data put in front of him about what’s happening on the ground in places like Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

But what’s also clear is that the neocons will not stop until they get a war with Iran. Theirs is an ideology of subjugation and permanent revolution. These people are the descendants of Trotsky and all that implies.

Israel has stepped up its aggression against Syria and Iraq while simultaneously backing down to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Airstrikes to the west get bolder and more aggressive, sometimes with the U.S.’s help while the mere threat of retaliation by Hezbollah sees IDF forces disappear from the earth for a week.

Israeli Prime Minister (for now) Benjamin Netanyahu will do anything to keep the U.S. engaged in Syria and Iraq. He and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are on the same page and it seems every time Pompeo shows up to talk with Bibi some escalation happens a week later.

The latest is this attack on the K1 base near Kirkuk which killed ‘an American contractor.’ That’s code for non-strategic personnel, most likely someone working the Iraqi oil fields there. The base was under the control of Iraqi PMU forces and likely attacked by either the local Kurds or ISIS.

The U.S. response was to bomb five PMU bases in Syria and Iraq nowhere near Kirkuk, all supporting the Iraqi government’s order to open up the Al Qaim/Al-Bukamai border crossing with Syria, which both the U.S. and Israel are vehemently opposed to.

It looks to me that Pompeo and Netanyahu cooked up yet another ‘incident’ to force President Trump into a confrontation with Iran by escalating tensions now in Iraq.

The result of the U.S. response was assaults on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad which brought in 100 marines and Apache helicopters to disperse the crowd.

And then Trump talks literally out of both sides of his mouth on Twitter.

Everything that happens in the Middle East that the U.S. and Israel doesn’t like is Iran’s fault. There can be no nuance for Iraqi people rising up organically against U.S. airstrikes taking out dozens of Iraqi patriots who liberated most of Iraq from ISIS and Al-Qaeda on the thinnest of pretexts.

Iraq is not going to rise up against Iran over this. If Trump has been advised that this is possible that is coming straight from a national security infrastructure intent on convincing him of staying it the Middle East forever. But Trump has shown no inclination to take this farther.

He’ll threaten fire and brimstone but that’s about it. And for this reason, the neocons are losing ground in the long run. What’s clear to me is that Trump lacks the political will to hold the line completely. He goes along with economic sanctions and tariffs in lieu of putting troops on the ground.

But at some point, he’s going to have to take a decisive stand and stop playing a game of attrition. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is slow-walking the impeachment articles to gain more leverage over him and force him from office with Republican support. For now, there is no appetite for this. But into this vacuum of power where Trump’s future rests on the votes of 17 Republican Senators, all rampant neocons, the worst legislation imaginable will come forth. This is how the NDAA got passed with additional sanctions on European allies working on Russian energy projects.

This is how Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will push the even worse DASKA through Congress now that he’s secured the vote of the Foreign Relations Committee. If Trump doesn’t toe the neocon line while the impeachment threat hangs over his neck, then, all of a sudden, conviction in the Senate will be the talk of the town.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that Trump keeps bringing in record money to fund his re-election. As long as Iran can keep a hold over its more militant factions and not escalate the situation in Iraq then all of these neocon provocations will peter out along with impeachment.

These moves by the neocons are desperation plays to retain control over U.S. foreign policy which the electorate is growing more tired of by the day. 2019 was the year they failed to secure victory. Most of 2020 will be dominated with them putting up one, last desperate offensive.

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Middle East Will Become a Graveyard for US’: Pyongyang Apprehensively Eyes Iran Crisis

Sputnik – January 6, 2020

Following the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has taken measure of the international situation, which is expected to excercise new caution. However, North Korean dailies noted Washington’s course was destined for disaster.

North Korean cultural publication Arirang Meari put the issue in no uncertain terms, saying on Sunday that the “Middle East will become a graveyard for the US.”

“Global military experts recently analyzed that the US is being bogged down in a war in the Middle East,” Meari wrote, according to the South Korean-based Yonhap News Agency. “Even pro-American countries have been passively answering the US’s request for sending troops on account of their internal politics and economic challenges, driving the US into despair.”

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the DPRK’s state-run news outlet, noted on Monday that Moscow and Beijing had taken strong stances against the US drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad early Friday morning.

“China and Russia emphasized that they not only object to abuse of military power in international relations but also cannot tolerate adventurous military acts,” KCNA wrote, according to Yonhap, describing a Saturday phone call between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, noting they “expressed concerns over regional situations being worsened by the US’ illegal acts.”

Kim ‘Pressured Psychologically’ by Soleimani Killing

However, despite the rhetoric, experts have noted the episode is likely to shake Pyongyang’s leaders.

Yang Moo Jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, told the Korea Herald that as a result of the Baghdad airstrike, DPRK leader Kim Jong Un “will be pressured psychologically.”

Former South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun said during a television appearance on Sunday the DPRK would be even more careful than before about revealing Kim’s precise whereabouts.

Andrei Lankov, a Russian scholar and expert on Korean affairs, noted in NK News on Sunday that Soleimani’s assassination showed US President Donald Trump was willing to take greater risks than North Korean strategists had previously believed, casting the “fire and fury” rhetoric of his presidency’s earlier years in a much starker light.

“As time went by, more and more observers were inclined to see the 2017 as a simple bluff, and it became widely accepted that Donald Trump did not have the guts to deliver on his threats of a military operation in a highly unstable part of the world,” Lankov wrote. “But last week’s killing of General Soleimani demonstrated that the world has underestimated Trump’s desire to take risks (or, perhaps, overestimated his ability to make rational decisions).”

“No doubt the North Koreans have taken note, and, most likely, see it as a warning sign.

Soleimani’s death reminded them that excessively risky behavior might result in a US drone quietly approaching some targets in Pyongyang suburbs,” Lankov added.

A Cautious But Steadfast Approach in 2020

As 2019 drew to a close, so did Pyongyang’s patience for negotiations with Washington, which after 18 months of talks had failed to yield significant results beyond a June 12, 2018, promise from Trump at his first summit with Kim in Singapore. In his New Year’s address, given several days before Soleimani’s killing, Kim had already taken a more cautious tone than in December, when North Korean publications promised a return to bellicose posturing.

Kim had previously promised a “Christmas gift” to Washington, which analysts widely predicted would be Pyongyang’s first long-range ballistic missile test since its self-imposed moratorium in 2017. However, no such “present” was delivered. Instead, Kim noted Washington’s delaying tactics were designed to prolong the harmful effects of economic sanctions on the DPRK, advising North Koreans to buckle their belts more tightly, since relief seemed unlikely anytime soon.

“If the US fails to keep the promises it made before the world, if it misjudges the patience of our people and continues to use sanctions and pressure against our republic, then we’ll have no choice except to seek a new path to secure the sovereignty and interests of our country,” Kim said on January 1.

Similar Struggles in Iran, DPRK

Like Pyongyang, Tehran has been engaged in a prolonged struggle to forge an independent path from Washington amid attempts to frustrate its ability to ensure its self-defense. Both countries have been subjected to strangling economic sanctions in an effort to force them into compliance, but unlike Iran, the DPRK has nuclear weapons as well as means of delivering them.

Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea, meets with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in August 2018

Iranian leaders have long been accused by Washington of pursuing an atomic bomb and not merely nuclear power and medical research, as they have claimed. Tehran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 to lower those sanctions in exchange for accepting tight constraints on the volume of nuclear fuel it could possess, but Trump reimposed them in 2018, accusing Iran of secretly pursuing a nuclear bomb – a conclusion not shared by other signatories to the agreement.

As a consequence, Tehran has slowly stepped back from the commitments it made in the 2015 deal, announcing on Sunday it would scrap the last ones it still followed.

The two countries’ experiences negotiating with Washington have long informed each other, and in the face of intransigence and doubletalk by the Trump administration, experts like Lankov have predicted US belligerence toward Iran, despite its obedience to the 2015 deal, was likely only to embolden those who hold hard-line positions in Pyongyang, opposing negotiations and concessions to Washington.

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US-Led Coalition Tells Baghdad It Will ‘Move Out’ of Iraq – Official Letter

Sputnik – 06.01.2020

In a Monday letter to Iraqi military leaders, the US-led coalition in Iraq announced it was preparing to “move out” of the country out of respect for Iraqi sovereignty.

Following approval of a non-binding resolution by Iraq’s parliament calling for US forces to leave the country, US military commanders announced they were drawing up preparatory plans for their departure. A Pentagon spokesperson could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the letter to Reuters.

“We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure,” the letter says, according to Reuters. US forces will re-position themselves over the coming days and weeks in preparation for the move, the letter states.

“In due deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, and as requested by the Iraqi Parliament and the Prime Minister, CJTF-OIR [Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve] will be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement,” states the letter, addressed to Iraqi Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir and signed by US Marine Corps Brig. Gen. William H. Seely III.

​The lawmakers’ request comes on the heels of a January 3 drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in which US forces killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani as well as the leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The two commanders helped lead the fight against Daesh in the 2014-17 Iraqi Civil War that saw the terrorist group expelled from the country. At its height, Daesh controlled significant amounts of northern Iraq, including its third-largest city of Mosul, and was advancing on Baghdad.

“In order to conduct this task, coalition forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner,” the letter continues. “During this time, there will be an increase in helicopter travel in and around the International Zone (IZ) of Baghdad. This increased traffic will include CH-47, UH-60 and AH-64 security escort helicopters. Coalition forces will take appropriate measures to minimize and mitigate the disturbance to the public. In addition, we will conduct these operations during house of darkness to help alleviate any perception that we may be bringing more Coalition forces into the IZ.”

“As we begin implementing this next phase of operations, I want to reiterate the value of our friendship and partnership. We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.”

Contradictory Statements

The news comes after US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo snubbed the idea of leaving Iraq, where US forces have been stationed since the March 2003 invasion that overthrew Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“We have a very extraordinarily expensive airbase that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it,” Trump said on Sunday. “We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

“The prime minister is the acting prime minister,” Pompeo said on Fox News on Sunday, speaking of Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. “He’s under enormous threats from the very Iranian leadership that it is that we are pushing back against. We are confident that the Iraqi people want the United States to continue to be there.”

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

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