Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

US and EU Gang up to Demonize Iran Over Saudi Airstrikes

Strategic Culture Foundation | September 27, 2019

The European Union’s statement this week condemning Iran over the recent airstrikes on Saudi Arabia’s key oil industry sites was a tawdry piece of political cowardice. Not only tawdry, but dangerous as well.

For the EU is giving credence to Washington’s intensified attempts to demonize Iran, imposing ever-harsher economic sanctions and escalating tensions that could explode into an all-out war. Ironically, this is in spite of the EU claiming to be facilitating diplomacy to promote peace and security in the Middle East.

To be more precise, it wasn’t an EU joint statement issued at the United Nations general assembly this week. It was a statement formulated by only three members of the bloc: Britain, France and Germany. In practice, however, the biggest members of the EU were speaking on behalf of the others. (Full statement here.)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated the following:

“We condemn in the strongest terms the attacks on oil facilities on Saudi territory on September 14, 2019 in Abqaiq and Khurais, and reaffirm in this context our full solidarity with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its population. It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.”

Thus, the Europeans are repeating assertions made by the United States and Saudi Arabia by which they accuse Iran of being responsible for firing drones and cruise missiles at the vital Saudi oil installations. No credible proof has so far been presented to support such an assertion.

The European powers are engaging in a reprehensible blame game which will only embolden further Washington’s reckless aggression against Iran.

Tehran has categorically rejected all accusations that it was in some way involved in the airstrikes against Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni Houthi rebels have from the outset following the attacks claimed full responsibility.

Iran may support the Yemeni rebels and have at some time provided weapon technology, but the Houthis are capable of developing and deploying their own fire power.

By blaming Iran, the US and Europeans are giving political cover to Saudi Arabia and its nefarious role in starting and waging a genocidal war against Yemen for the past four years. It is arguably the right of the Yemenis to retaliate against Saudi Arabia in acts of self-defense. And it is in Iran’s right to support the Yemenis, just as the US, British and French support Saudi Arabia. Why should there be a double standard?

What is even more despicable is that the European trio (the so-called E3) have been massive weapons suppliers to Saudi Arabia, in particular Britain and France. The British and French (and Americans, of course) have made hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years from weaponizing the Saudi war on Yemen, even though that has led to nearly 100,000 civilian deaths. Why doesn’t the E3 issue condemnation, rather than “solidarity” to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, over this genocidal slaughter?

A further aspect to the joint statement issued by Britain, France and Germany is that these powers are signaling their support for US President Donald Trump’s efforts at sabotaging the international nuclear accord with Iran. That landmark deal was co-signed by the US, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China back in July 2015.

Trump reneged on the UN-endorsed treaty when he unilaterally walked away from it in May 2018. It was typical American bad faith and backsliding whenever international agreements don’t suit their selfish interests.

Russia and China continue to support the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, as the nuclear deal is known formally as). Iran has recently begun to suspend certain commitments, such as increasing stocks of enriched uranium. The Iranian position of partial non-compliance is understandable. The US has trashed its obligations to the deal, and the Europeans have barely stepped up to the plate to implement sanctions relief for Iran, which is mandated by the JCPOA. Four years after the deal was done!

Britain, France and Germany claim to be still committed to the nuclear deal, according to a press statement by EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Federica Mogherini at the UN this week.

But it is evident that, on the contrary, the E3 troika is instead moving to undermine the JCPOA. Blaming Iran with groundless accusations of attacking Saudi Arabia is part of the sinister shift by stealth. The day before the E3 issued their joint statement, Britain’s Boris Johnson was disparaging the nuclear as a “bad deal” and urged a renegotiation for what he sycophantically called a “Trump deal”.

Here is another weasel-worded section from the EU joint statement:

“Conscious of the importance of collective efforts to guarantee regional stability and security, we reiterate our conviction that the time has come for Iran to accept negotiation [sic] on a long-term framework for its nuclear program as well as on issues related to regional security, including its missiles program and other means of delivery… We urge Iran to engage in such a dialogue and refrain from further provocation and escalation.”

That is a clear – albeit with backhanded verbosity – attempt to pressure Iran into accepting Trump’s demand for the JCPOA to be replaced by further restrictions on Iran’s rights to pursue self-defense and normal regional and international relations. In weak-kneed fashion, the EU is augmenting Trump’s agenda of demonizing and criminalizing Iran so that it might succumb to subjugation.

Why the Europeans are acting with such cynicism is to conceal the glaring fact of their own weakness vis-a-vis Washington’s dictates and imperialist bullying. They should be admonishing the Americans for bad faith and reckless aggression; they should be condemning Saudi Arabia for a merciless slaughter in Yemen; they should be with-holding lucrative weapons sales to Saudi Arabia if they were really interested in peace; and if the Europeans really were genuine about non-proliferation and Middle Eastern stability, they should be whole-heartedly implementing the nuclear accord with Iran and providing the country the normalized economic trade that it is entitled to – just as Russia and China have done.

But no. And so to cover up their spinelessness, the Europeans are obliged to gang up with Washington to blame the victim of imperialist abuse – Iran. Such European cowardice is leading to more conflict.

September 27, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump may disclose transcripts of Biden-Poroshenko talks

“A list of people whom we should not prosecute”

By Alexander Ponomarenko | September 27, 2019

“He [Zelensky] has made me more famous and I have made him more famous” – this is how Donald Trump began his joint briefing with Vladimir Zelensky this Thursday, hinting to the White House transcript of their conversation which took place two months before. Undoubtedly, this publication threw the brief meeting with the President itself in the shade, as it became a rare case of demonstrating behind-the-scene communication between politicians. What does this document imply and how will it affect the Ukrainian leader’s political perspectives?

My assumption that Zelensky pledged assistance to Trump with the Biden case has turned out to be true. At the same time, it seems to me that the transcript refutes the idea of the American President’s pressure on the Ukrainian one existing among the US Democrats. There was no apparent reason for that, because Zelensky appeared upfront and willingly elaborated upon the topic. However, even after the publication, the Democrats keep talking about the pressure. Of course, this term can be perceived in different ways. You can dig up evidence linking American assistance to the Biden case investigation in the text. But all of Trump’s words are out of all proportion to Biden’s public bluster as regards the dismissal of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, when speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018, the former Vice President said: “I said you [Petro Poroshenko] are not getting a billion and I’m going to be leaving here in six hours, if the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

But the Trump administration may publish similar transcripts of Biden’s conversations with Poroshenko. Or at least kick off a rumor that he inserted a lot more pressure than the current President, and the Democrats themselves will be interested in deciphering to add support to this rumor.

In the American press and speeches of American politicians, Zelensky only appears as a target (or a non-target) of pressure. His own remarks are generally neglected. There is no escaping the impression that he nearly came unscathed out of the scandal. But this impression stems from the fact that America is much more interesting for the world and especially for itself than Ukraine. The latter, however, ranks rather high in geopolitical calculations both in the Old and in the New World, so that to attract attention to Zelensky of those professionally engaged in its affairs.

And their conclusions will hardly be convenient from the Ukrainian leader’s viewpoint. Thus, in the mentioned conversation Zelensky did a lot to appear as a Trump-oriented populist. Which is an unacceptable sin for the globalists who dominate the international agencies Ukraine depends on. So it would be understandable if he just did not contradict Trump. But Zelensky, for his part, began the conversation by saying that the American President, this liberal world troublemaker, is a great teacher for him. Nobody forced Zelensky to talk, he could have said it was the American experience as a whole which is a showpiece for him.

Most of all, however, the globalists have to be worried by the fragment when Zelensky asks Trump to share information “to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States.” As can be seen from the following text, Zelensky made a slip of the tongue, referring to the US Ambassador in Kiev: “… as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100 per cent. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side.”

The idea of holding a trial (and the English phrase “administer justice” leaves no room for another interpretation) over the American Ambassador is a move worthy of a new Servant of the People series season. Of course, no one will judge Yovanovitch in Kiev, but Zelensky’s words are the best proof that he was not just making nice with Trump, but was really interested in helping him. Obvious is the Ukrainian President’s desire to get the most out of the situation, getting dirt on Yovanovitch in exchange for dirt on Biden. Just a reminder: the entire Biden case began in March this year with the statement of then Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko that the American Ambassador gave him “a list of people whom we should not prosecute” already during their first meeting.

It is profitable to Zelensky to promote this case to consolidate his power. Because the total elimination of parliamentary immunity rushed by him through the Parliament, will ring hollow if really untouchable personalities will remain under Western embassies’ umbrellas.

As regards the attitude toward Zelensky in the West, his obvious interest in the overall game with a demonstration of his own benefit in it is more important than whether he has already provided any dirt on Biden or not.

A separate disadvantage is that Zelensky played along with Trump in critical statements about Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, who allegedly do very little for Ukraine compared to America. It should be especially offensive for the French President, who invited Zelensky to the Elysee Palace back ahead of the second round of Ukrainian elections. Thus, in its article on the transcript, the Reuters agency refers to French officials who wished to remain unidentified and emphasizes that Macron took pains to arrange such a meeting going beyond his traditional protocol.

The headline of the same Reuters article says that transcript release was a “diplomatic disaster” for Zelensky. But in this case, the consequences are not going to be discovered right away. Undoubtedly, the globalist forces will treat Zelensky more cautiously and try to provide a counterbalance to him inside the country. Here their main hopes will be invested in the fact that both the deputy corps and the government comprise a lot of people who have received grants from George Soros’ entities. Certainly, not all of these people can be referred to as strong ideological supporters of globalism, most of them are ordinary careerists. But it is precisely due to their careerism that they are not Zelensky’s firm foothold. The Servant of the People is not an ideological structure. And at the end of the day, such politicians will put their stakes on the stronger one.

It is also beyond argument that the West will be even more critical towards the seemingly increasing role of Igor Kolomoysky in Ukrainian politics. Probably it is through a blow to Kolomoysky that they try to weaken Zelensky.

In such a situation, the Ukrainian President will lose the freedom of maneuver necessary for him to make complex decisions, in particular on the Donbass settlement. However, both the transcript of the conversation with Trump and the public speeches of the President of Ukraine in the United States raise doubts as to whether he really needs this settlement. Thus, with his genius for acting, Zelensky constantly says to the public that the Donbass war is a major challenge for him, but in the transcript, in a situation when it is not necessary to play to the crowd, he does without the words “war” and “peace”. And when at the September 25 joint briefing Trump expressed his hope that Zelensky meet with Putin and solve mutual problems, the Ukrainian President failed to take advantage of the situation and speak out on the same subject. Although regarding other things he was actively playing along with his American counterpart in their telephone conversation.

Alexander Ponomarenko is a political analyst with BRICS.

September 27, 2019 Posted by | Corruption | , | Leave a comment

Joe Biden: Impeachment’s First Casualty

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review  • September 27, 2019

Even before seeing the transcript of the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Nancy Pelosi threw the door wide open to the impeachment of Donald Trump by the Democratic House.

Though the transcript did not remotely justify the advanced billing of a “quid pro quo,” Pelosi set in motion a process that is already producing a sea change in the politics of 2020.

The great Beltway battle for the balance of this year, and perhaps next, will be over whether the Democrats can effect a coup against a president many of them have never recognized as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he took the oath of office.

Pelosi on Tuesday started this rock rolling down the hill.

She has made impeachment, which did not even come up in the last Democratic debate, the issue of 2020. She has foreclosed bipartisan compromise on gun control, the cost of prescription drugs and infrastructure. She has just put her own and her party’s fate and future on the line.

With Pelosi’s assent that she is now open to impeachment, she turned what was becoming a cold case into a blazing issue. If the Democrats march up impeachment hill, fail and fall back, or if they vote impeachment only to see the Senate exonerate the president, that will be the climactic moment of Pelosi’s career. She is betting the future of the House, and her party’s hopes of capturing the presidency, on the belief she and her colleagues can persuade the country to support the indictment of a president for high crimes.

One wonders: Do Democrats blinded by hatred of Trump ever wonder how that 40% of the nation that sees him as the repository of their hopes will react if, rather than beat him at the ballot box, they remove him in this way?

The first casualty of Pelosi’s cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already, this past week, fallen behind Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire and California. The Quinnipiac poll has her taking the lead nationally for the nomination, with Biden dropping into second place for the first time since he announced his candidacy.

By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden and son Hunter Biden will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes.

What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president he ordered then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forgo a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts.

Biden insists the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, that Hunter had done no wrong, that he himself was unaware of his son’s business ties.

All these assertions have been contradicted or challenged.

There is another question raised by Biden’s ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forgo the loan guarantee. Why was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened by the U.S. with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt?

Whatever the truth of the charges, the problem here is that any investigation of potential corruption of Hunter Biden, and of the role of his father, the former vice president, in facilitating it, will be front and center in presidential politics between now and New Hampshire.

This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi’s decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren.

Warren already appears to have emerged victorious in her battle with Bernie Sanders to become the progressives’ first choice in 2020. And consider how, as she is rising, her remaining opposition is fast fading.

Sen. Kamala Harris has said she is moving her campaign to Iowa for a do-or-die stand in the first battleground state. Sen. Cory Booker has called on donors to raise $1.7 million in 10 days, or he will have to pack it in. As Biden, Sanders, Harris and Booker fade, and “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg hovers at 5 or 6% in national and state polls, Warren steadily emerges as the probable nominee.

One measure of how deeply Biden is in trouble, whether he is beginning to be seen as too risky, given the allegations against him and his son, will be the new endorsements his candidacy receives after this week of charges and countercharges.

If there is a significant falling off, it could be fatal.

Copyright 2019 Creators.com.

September 27, 2019 Posted by | Corruption | | Leave a comment

Ministry of Health Warns of Whitewashing Attempt behind American Hospital Project

IMEMC News & Agencies – September 27, 2019

The Ministry of Health, today, reiterated its rejection of the establishment an American field hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip, warning of the existence of dubious intentions behind it, while considering it an attempt “to whitewash the Israeli occupation, whose hands are covered with Palestinian blood,” and a step to further separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank.

The Ministry said, in a statement, that “this project seeks to achieve Israeli goals aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause and fragmenting it, and to create additional justifications for the creation of a mini-state in the Gaza Strip at the expense of Palestinian history and rights.”

It said: “The objectives of this project are known to everyone who can see and think. Israel is the first and last beneficiary, as it will prevent Palestinian patients from reaching hospitals in the West Bank and Jerusalem, for treatment.”

The Ministry of Health condemned the claim by the de facto authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, that this project has no political connotations, stressing that it was part of a political agreement between Hamas, Israel and the US.

It wondered, “Why would the United States, which has cut off support for hospitals in occupied Jerusalem threatening as a result the lives of Palestinian patients, support the establishment of a hospital in the Gaza Strip, unless its real purpose behind it is to harm the Palestinians and harm and destroy their rights?”

It said “the attempt by the de facto authority in Gaza to claim that the project was a support from an ‘American institution’ to divert attention from the US administration’s support for it, is nothing but a failed attempt to get out of this impasse. Any project implemented by any American institution must first get the blessing and approved of the White House.”

The ministry said, according to WAFA, that “if this project was an innocent one and aims to serve our people, why not develop the existing Gaza Strip hospitals located in all areas of the Gaza Strip, and not in the northern Gaza Strip under the pretext of ‘facilitating the movement of its employees to enter and exit from the territory of 1948 (Israel)’? Is the facilitation of entry and exit of staff, who we do not know anything about their qualifications, nationalities, affiliations and goals, more pressing than facilitating the arrival of patients to the hospitals?”

It added: “If this project was so innocent, why is it being planned in secret without the knowledge of the Ministry of Health, which has carried out projects in the hundreds of millions (of dollars) in the Gaza Strip with the support of the Arab brothers, donor countries and international organizations, and why is this particular project kept secret while hiding the identity of the hospital operator and its staff, especially after the de facto authority in Gaza said that its staff will come to the hospital and leave it to the 1948 territory?”

The Ministry of Health says that it is doing all it can, despite the financial crisis it is facing, to meet the needs of the people in the Gaza Strip, and especially its various health centers.

September 27, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Schiff’s ‘re-telling’ of Trump phone call with Ukraine head mocked as ‘unhinged Orange-Man-Bad fan fiction’

RT | September 26, 2019

With impeachment efforts against President Donald Trump resting on the content of a single phone call, who could blame Congressman Adam Schiff for embellishing the truth a little, all to sell his “Orange Man Bad” narrative.

Though Trump released a transcript of the call in question on Wednesday, the Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee pressed ahead with questioning Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire on Thursday, about his handling of the whistleblower complaint that first thrust the phone call into the spotlight.

His thunder stolen by the release of the transcript – which failed to reveal the quid-pro-quo arrangement between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Democrats had alleged – Schiff added some dramatic flourishes to his summary of the call as Maguire’s hearing opened, describing “the essence of what the president communicates.”

“We’ve been very good to your country. Very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what? I don’t see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you, though. And I’m gonna say this only seven times, so you better listen good.”

“I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand, lots of it. On this and on that. I’m going to put you in touch with people… and by the way don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I asked.”

Sounds dramatic, but the only problem? Trump didn’t say any of this. Not a word. Schiff was mocked by Republican lawmakers and pundits for being so “desperate” that he resorted to rewriting the call into “unhinged ‘Orange Man Bad’ fan fiction.”

Chastised by Republicans on the committee, Schiff admitted that his mad-libbed re-telling of the call was “parody,” a stand-up routine of sorts from the California congressman. “It’s a shame that we started off this hearing with fictional remarks,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said. “Unfortunately today, many innocent Americans are going to turn on their TV and the media is only going to show that section of what the chairman had to say.”

From his wooden delivery to his poor imitation of Trump, Schiff will unlikely be leaving Washington DC for Hollywood any time soon. However, the California Democrat is well versed in grandiose storytelling. Schiff branded the idea of probing Joe Biden’s son Hunter over his role at a Ukrainian gas holding as “making up dirt” – this from the same Schiff who kept audiences on edge for the last two years by promising to reveal “direct evidence” of “Russian collusion” hiding “in plain sight.”

Schiff’s promises never amounted to anything beyond the contents of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report and, perhaps with Russia seeming a dead end, the congressman is now looking to Ukraine to satisfy his appetite for investigation.

The actual Trump quote on Biden in the conversation with Zelensky goes as follows: “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution [of the Burisma Holding where Hunter Biden was on board of directors] and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general [William Barr] would be great.”

September 26, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

From the Anti-Russia Brouhaha to the Ukraine Brouhaha

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | September 26, 2019

Since he became president, Donald Trump has killed thousands of people in Afghanistan and the Middle East in wars that are illegal under our form of government, given that he has never secured the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war to wage such wars.

Operating through his military-intelligence forces, he has also assassinated countless people in different parts of the world, notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution expressly prohibits him and his cohorts from killing anyone without due process of law.

He has also maintained a prison camp, torture center, and “judicial” system in Cuba that has denied people the right of speedy trial, trial by jury, due process of law, effective assistance of counsel, the right to confront adverse witnesses, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment, all in contravention to the guarantees provided in the Bill of Rights.

So let me see if I have this clear: Trump’s enemies oppose impeaching him for those things but instead want him removed from office for a telephone call in which Trump requested the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to undertake an investigation into possible corruption in Ukraine by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

That’s rich!

What’s wrong with impeaching Trump for the right reasons — wreaking death, injury, suffering, and destruction in illegal actions abroad? Wouldn’t his removal from office for those things have more significance than if it’s done because of a telephone conversation?

Bribery charge

Of course, there is the possible bribery element to Trump’s request to Zelensky. A few weeks before the telephone conversation, Trump ordered that a scheduled $250 million aid package to Ukraine be held up. Even though Trump did not mention the aid suspension in his telephone conversation with Zelensky, the allegation would be that Trump was sending Zelensky an implied message: “Grant my request to conduct an investigation into Biden and you’ll get your $250 million in U.S. taxpayer money.”

The problem that Trump’s enemies have, however, is a problem of proof. “Knowing” that that was what Trump was doing is different from proving it, especially since Trump states that he held up the money for the purpose of encouraging European countries to contribute more money to the effort. While Trump’s alternative explanation certainly appears strained, there is still the problem of proving that he is lying. In an impeachment trial, Trump’s enemies are going to have to prove that he is lying, which could be prove to be problematic, especially given the virtual certainty that Republicans in the Senate will immediately fall into line and vote for acquittal, knowing full what will happen to them if they don’t.

There is another problem that Trump’s enemies face: the fact that U.S. foreign aid, which both Republicans and Democrats have long supported, is itself a bribe. Does anyone really think that U.S. foreign aid is for the purpose of helping the “poor, needy, and disadvantaged?”  Forcing or “encouraging” foreign regimes to do what U.S. officials want them to do is the whole purpose of foreign aid. If they vote the right way in the UN, for example, the aid will continue. If they don’t, it will stop.

Back in the George H.W. Bush regime, President Bush was trying to get the UN to support his resolution to go to war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Yemen voted no. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker is reported to have said, “That will be the most expensive vote they ever cast.” U.S. foreign aid to Yemen was cut off.

Moreover, consider the fact that when Third World nations are appointed to the UN Security Council, U.S. officials increase the amount of foreign aid they receive. When they get off the Security Council, the amount is reduced. What is that if not a bribe being paid to ensure they vote the right way while they are serving on the Security Council?

It’s probably also worth mentioning the political bribery that both Trump and his Democratic presidential opponents will be engaging in during the impeachment proceedings as part of their campaigns for president. They are already offering all sorts of “free” programs and “free” money to American voters with the aim of garnering their votes. Why is that type of bribery considered okay?

Campaign-finance laws

Some Trump critics are saying that the mere fact that Trump asked Zelensky to conduct the investigation into Biden and his son constitutes an impeachable offense,  independently of whether the aid package was meant to be a bribe or not. Their argument turns on federal campaign-finance laws, which make it illegal for presidential candidates to seek a contribution from foreign governments.

What would be the contribution that Trump would have been seeking? Dirt! That’s their argument — that by asking Zelensky to undertake an investigation into possible corruption by Biden and his son, Trump was effectively asking Zelensky to provide him with political dirt that he could use in his campaign against Biden. Of course, nobody knows how much that speculative dirt would be worth, and so it’s not really clear how much that supposed illegal campaign contribution would be.

But let’s face it: If asking a foreign regime to conduct an investigation into possible political corruption is really a crime under U.S. law, then it only goes to show how ludicrous federal campaign-finance laws are.

First of all, let’s look at the words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Now, it seems to me that if anything constitutes speech, it’s a telephone conversation. How in the world does a campaign-finance law enacted by Congress trump the express prohibition on Congress enunciated in the First Amendment? Isn’t the Constitution supposed to be the supreme law of the land?

Second, why does a request for an investigation necessarily translate into a request for dirt? Isn’t it possible that a request for an investigation is just that — a request for an investigation?

Consider for a moment that Biden wasn’t running for president. Would Trump’s request for an investigation into possible corruption still be considered a crime? I don’t see how, given that he wouldn’t be running afoul of federal-finance campaign laws by supposedly seeking dirt against a political opponent.

Given such, how can a request for an investigation be a crime when applied against a candidate for office but not against someone who isn’t a candidate for office? Indeed, let’s assume, for a moment, that Biden and his son really did engage in political corruption in Ukraine. Would that mean that they could silence Trump from requesting an investigation simply by running for office? If that’s the case, maybe it’s time to reevaluate and terminate America’s ridiculous campaign-finance laws.

Impeachment: A nightmare for the Bidens?

One of the most amusing aspects of the upcoming impeachment circus is that it is likely to result in a living nightmare for Joe Biden and his son. The matter that Trump wanted Zelensky to investigate was Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of a private gas company in Ukraine while his father Joe Biden was vice-president. The position turned out to be an extremely lucrative one, reportedly paying Hunter Biden up to $50,000 a month.

Meanwhile, while Hunter Biden was receiving that handsome stipend, this father Joe was playing an active role in Ukrainian affairs. In fact, part of that active role included Vice-President Biden’s request to Ukrainian officials to fire the nation’s top prosecutor, who had jurisdiction over the private gas company where his son Hunter had been appointed. Joe Biden maintains that he wanted the prosecutor fired not because he was investigating his son’s gas company but because the prosecutor wasn’t do enough to ferret out corruption in Ukraine.

The impeachment inquiry is likely to give Trump and the Republicans the opportunity to subpoena Joe and Hunter Biden and require them to testify as to all the details of Hunter’s relationship with that gas company, what his services for it were, how much he actually got paid, and the exact nature of Joe Biden’s efforts to get that Ukraine prosecutor fired. That part of the impeachment proceedings cannot be something that the Bidens are looking forward to, and it might still be prove to be a reason for Democrats to abandon their impeachment efforts.

Two big points

There are two overriding points to all this new brouhaha.

First, what are President Trump and Vice President Biden doing meddling in Ukraine’s affairs in the first place, and why isn’t anyone complaining about that? We have just gone through more than two years of laments about Russia’s supposed meddling in America’s system. What business do U.S. officials have meddling in Ukraine’s affairs?

Second, the entire Ukraine brouhaha shows the lack of importance that both major political parties place on ethical principles. Even if Trump’s request for an investigation into Biden and his son was entirely legal and even if Biden’s request to fire the Ukrainian prosecutor was entirely legal, both actions violate the fundamental ethical principles against conflicts of interest and avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.

September 26, 2019 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

From Russiagate to Ukrainegate

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 26, 2019

With the “Russiagate” hoax proving to be the “most fraudulent political scandal in American history,” as Princeton Professor Stephen Cohen puts it, now we have emerging an alternative – “Ukrainegate”.

President Donald Trump is being accused of abusing his White House office to put pressure on Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to dig into alleged corrupt dealings by Joe Biden, the top Democratic candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections in 2020.

To make matters worse for Trump, he is also accused of threatening to withhold $250 million of military aid as a way to pressure the Kiev authorities to investigate Biden’s past relations with Ukraine, when he was serving as Vice President in the Obama administration. That could amount to extortion by Trump, if proven.

Democratic political opponents and the anti-Trump liberal media are renewing demands for his impeachment. They are adamant that he has now crossed a clear red line of criminality by seeking a foreign power to interfere in US elections by damaging a presidential rival.

For his part, Trump denies his conversations with the Ukrainian president were improper. He said he phoned Zelensky back in July to mainly congratulate him on his recent election. Trump does however admit that he mentioned Biden’s name to Zelensky in the context of Ukraine’s notorious culture of business corruption. The American leader maintains that Joe Biden should be investigated for possible conflict of interest and abusing the office of vice president back in 2016 in order to enhance the business affairs of his son, Hunter.

Trump’s phone call to Ukraine hit the news last week when a US intelligence officer turned whistleblower to allege that the president was overheard in a conversation inappropriately making “a promise to a foreign leader”. The identity of the foreign leader was not disclosed. But immediately, the anti-Trump US media began speculating that it was Russian President Vladimir Putin. The keenness to point fingers at Putin showed that the Russiagate fever is still virulent in the US political establishment, even though the long-running narrative alleging Russian interference or collusion collapsed earlier this year when the two-year Robert Mueller “Russia investigation” floundered into oblivion for lack of evidence.

Turns out now that Trump’s telephone liaison was not with Putin, but rather Ukraine’s Zelensky. And the anti-Trump politicos and media are getting all fired up with “Ukrainegate” – as a replacement for the non-entity Russiagate.

Trouble is that this alternative conspiracy could backfire badly for Trump’s enemies. Because, despite the obsession with trying to impeach Trump, the renewed focus on Ukraine raises legitimate and serious questions about the past dealings of Joe Biden.

In March 2014, Biden’s son Hunter was slung out of the Navy Reserve for his cocaine habit. Then a month later, the younger Biden ends up on the executive board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. This was all only weeks after the Obama administration and European allies had backed an illegal coup in Kiev against the elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Vice President Joe Biden was the White House’s point man to Ukraine, supporting the new regime in Kiev by organizing financial and military aid. Biden even boasted how he personally warned Yanukovych that the game was up and that he better step down during the tumultuous CIA-backed street violence in Kiev during February 2014. “He was a dollar short and a day late,” quipped Biden about the ill-fated president.

The appointment of Biden’s washed-up son to a plum job in Ukraine should have merited intense US media scrutiny and investigation. But it didn’t. One can only imagine their reaction if, say, it had been Trump and one of his sons involved.

Moreover, in 2016, when Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was conducting a probe into allegations of corruption and sleaze at the gas company Burisma, among other businesses, it was Vice President Joe Biden who intervened in May 2016 to call for the state lawyer to be sacked. Biden threatened to withhold a $1 billion financial loan from Washington if the prosecutor was not axed. He duly was in short order and the probe into Burisma was dropped.

Potentially, Joe Biden, the current top Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidency, could see his chances unraveling if “Ukrainegate” is pushed further. The dilemma for his supporters among the political establishment is that the more they try to beat up on Trump over his alleged horse-trading with Ukraine, the more the heat can be turned by him on Biden over allegations of graft and abuse of office to further his family’s business interests.

Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is this week calling for an investigation into Biden’s conduct in Ukraine.

“Joe Biden said everybody’s looked at this and found nothing. Who is everybody? Nobody has looked at the Ukraine and the Bidens,” Mr. Graham told Fox News.

“There is enough smoke here,” Graham added. “Was there a relationship between the vice president’s family and the Ukraine business world that was inappropriate? I don’t know. Somebody other than me needs to look at it and I don’t trust the media to get to the bottom of it.”

Ukrainegate could turn out to be even far more damaging to the Democrats. Because there is evidence that it was the US-backed Kiev regime which helped seed political dirt on Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager. Manafort is facing jail time for fraud and tax offenses unearthed by the Mueller probe. Mueller did not find any link between Manafort and a “Kremlin influence campaign”, as was speculated. However, because Manafort did work previously as a political manager for the ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovcyh, he was seen as a liability for Trump. Was Russiagate always Ukrainegate all along?

Apart from Biden’s potential personal conflict of interests in Ukraine, the country may turn out to be the key to where the whole Russiagate fiasco was first dreamt up by Democrats, Kiev regime operatives and US intelligence enemies of Trump.

Ukrainegate has a lot more political skeletons to tumble from the wardrobe. Those skeletons may bury Democrats and their liberal media-intelligence backers, rather than Trump.

September 26, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

House Intelligence Committee releases whistleblower report on Trump-Zelensky call

RT | September 26, 2019

The whistleblower complaint that led to the impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump has been released. In it, the leaker admits he did not actually hear the phone call at the center of the scandal.

Released by the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, the complaint details the circumstances surrounding Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Democrats argue that Trump attempted to pressure Zelensky into reopening a corruption investigation into 2020 candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and his business dealings in the country.

The complaint reveals little new about the call itself. In it, the whistleblower – believed to be a member of the intelligence community – admitted that they had not actually been privy to the call, but went on secondhand accounts from those who were. They also detailed a series of contacts between US and Ukrainian officials, some pertaining to the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Though Trump himself released a transcript of the call on Wednesday – which did not reveal a quid-pro-quo arrangement as Democrats alleged – the party has still pressed ahead with an impeachment inquiry. As the complaint was released, the committee prepared to interview Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire about his handling of the complaint.

According to the whistleblower, Trump’s mention of the investigation in the phone call amounted to soliciting “interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election.”

Accompanying the report was a letter from Maguire, who said the complaint “appears credible” and determined it to be an “urgent concern.”

President Trump responded angrily to the release, accusing Democrats of “trying to destroy the Republican party and all that it stands for.”

The complaint adds little of value to the Democrats’ case against Trump. Much of it is built on the concerns of anonymous officials who viewed the call as a “flagrant” abuse of office. The whistleblower also expressed concern that the White House apparently attempted to block the release of the call transcript. However, Trump’s release of the record on Wednesday rendered this concern moot.

Much of the whistleblower’s story surrounding the call is built on media reports. According to one of these reports, Ukrainian officials close to Zelensky claimed to have “evidence” that other officials in Kiev had “interfered” with the 2016 US election on behalf of the Democratic Party. Another report alleged that Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, planned to travel to Kiev to pressure Zelensky to investigate this supposed “evidence.”

Giuliani’s trip never happened, and these reports, alongside the whistleblower’s “general understanding of the state of affairs” make up the bulk of the complaint.

Also cited as evidence against Trump is his statement to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos earlier this summer, in which he said that he would “listen” to dirt on his political rivals from a foreign country. The president later said: “They all do it, they always have, and that’s the way it is.”

Whether the transcript will be enough to sustain an impeachment inquiry against Trump remains to be seen. Unless House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-California) can solicit more damaging information from the whistleblower in a committee hearing, the call transcript itself remains the only piece of hard evidence against Trump, but doesn’t detail the level of abuse the whistleblower alleged.

Furthermore, while a majority of House members back impeaching Trump, the American public does not share their opinion. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday shows that only 37 percent of voters support impeachment, the vast majority of them Democrats.

Though many Democrats long to see Trump impeached and removed from office, more fear that impeachment would strengthen the president’s chances come 2020, and would give credence to his argument that the effort to remove him is “the single greatest witch hunt in American history.”

September 26, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Trump Frees Himself From Bolton – but Robert O’Brien Will Be Just as Bad

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 26, 2019

After months of rumors, John Bolton was finally fired from the White House but the post mortem on why it took so long to remove him continues, with the punditry and media trying to understand exactly what happened and why. Perhaps the most complete explanation for what occurred came from President Donald Trump himself shortly after the fact. He said, in some impromptu comments, that his national security advisor had “… made some very big mistakes when he talked about the Libyan model for Kim Jong Un. That was not a good statement to make. You just take a look at what happened with Gadhafi. That was not a good statement to make. And it set us back.”

Trump has a point in that Bolton was clearly suggesting that North Korea get rid of its nuclear weapons in exchange for economic benefits, but it was the wrong example to pick as Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave up his weapons and was then ousted and brutally killed in a rebel uprising that was supported by Washington. The Bolton analogy, which may have been deliberate attempt to sabotage any rapprochement, made impossible any agreement between Kim and Trump as Kim received the message loud and clear that he might suffer the same fate.

More recently, Bolton might have been behind media leaks that scuttled Trump’s plan to meet with Taliban representatives and that also, acting on behalf of Israel, undercut a presidential suggestion that he might meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Trump summed up his disagreements with Bolton by saying that the National Security Advisor “wasn’t getting along” with other administration officials, adding that “Frankly he wanted to do things — not necessarily tougher than me. John’s known as a tough guy. He’s so tough he got us into Iraq. That’s tough. But he’s somebody that I actually had a very good relationship with, but he wasn’t getting along with people in the administration who I consider very important. And you know John wasn’t in line with what we were doing. And actually in some cases he thought it was too tough, what we were doing. Mr. Tough Guy.”

Trump’s final comment on Bolton was that “I’m sure he’ll do whatever he can do to spin it his way,” a throw-away line that could well set the stage for what comes next. Bolton has many supporters among hardliners in the GOP and the media and will no doubt be inclined to respond to the president in kind, but once the back and forth starts many other factors and relationships will come into play.

After the firing, it was widely believed that Donald Trump might have actually gotten rid of Bolton for all the right reasons, namely that as president he is disinclined to start any new wars and seeks negotiated solutions to existing conflicts, both of which concepts were no doubt regarded as anathema by the National Security Advisor. Unfortunately, that argument runs into problems where rhetoric and deeds disconnect if one considers actual actions undertaken by the president, to include the man that Trump has now named as Bolton’s replacement, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Robert O’Brien.

O’Brien might well have been ranked among the worst possible choices among the names floated in the media for the National Security Advisor position, mostly because he is almost completely lacking in actual experience related to the job. To be sure, he looks more presentable than the wild-eyed and walrus mustachioed Bolton, but Trump has repeatedly been overly deferential towards the bona fides of hardliners like O’Brien who boast of American Exceptionalism. The president will also likely appreciate that the sycophantic O’Brien’s lack of experience will mean that he will be completely deferential to the Chief Executive’s point of view at all times.

Trump’s cabinet choices have been so bad that they have led to musical chairs in nearly all senior positions. The president is to blame for having appointed Bolton, a man he disliked, though admittedly under orders from Israeli-American casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, and he also did not have to elevate Mike Pompeo first as CIA Director and then as Secretary of State. There is no one around who outdoes Pompeo when it comes to avoiding diplomacy and negotiations while also threatening dire consequences for America’s “enemies.” O’Brien’s hardline credentials are largely indistinguishable from those of Pompeo and Bolton and it is widely believed that his appointment was due to advocacy by the Secretary of State, who is reportedly assembling his national security team.

And it should be observed that Trump’s claimed avoidance of war credentials are pretty thin. Far from fulfilling campaign promises to end the wars he inherited, Donald Trump has continued and even escalated those conflicts. He has withdrawn from agreements with Russia and Iran that enhanced US national security. Drone strikes under Trump have increased dramatically and have exceeded the number occurring during both of Obama’s terms, while new rules of engagement have led to a major increase in civilian casualties from US bombing directed against ISIS and the Taliban. Most recently in Afghanistan, 30 farm workers were killed in a drone strike. Trump is also doubling down on his support for the Saudi genocide against Yemen.

And the president has demonstrated that he is willing to attack countries that do not threaten the US and with which Washington is not at war. He has twice illegally bombed Syria based on phony intelligence and even when he decided at the last minute not to use force, as he did earlier this year with Iran, there was no serious evidence that he was truly seeking dialogue. He is waging “maximum pressure” economic warfare against both Iran and Venezuela, in both of which countries he has called for regime change. He has threatened Russia over Crimea and Ukraine and is in a trade war with China. Transparent regime change policies coupled with willy-nilly imposing of sanctions are destructive, hostile steps that kill people in the targeted countries and make enemies where none previously existed.

America’s new National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien recently featured in a taxpayer funded trip to Stockholm to obtain the release of rapper ASAP Rocky, who had been arrested after getting involved in a fist fight. O’Brien had orders to threaten unspecified retaliation against the Swedish government if it did not accede to White House demands. That exercise in international bullying means that O’Brien is quintessentially Trump’s kind of guy. He has written a book entitled While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis, calling on the United States to end any “appeasement and retreat,” and has described the nuclear agreement with Iran, in predictable neocon fashion, as a repeat of 1938, Hitler and Munich. He was Mitt Romney’s foreign policy adviser and is a Mormon, which means he basically lines up alongside the Christian Zionists when it comes to Israel.

The Israel Lobby has predictably welcomed O’Brien. Sandra Parker or Christians United for Israel (CUFI), enthused how “CUFI enjoys a close working relationship with many officials throughout the Trump Administration, and we look forward to working with Ambassador O’Brien on strengthening the US-Israel relationship, confronting the Iranian menace, and curtailing the threat posed by terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Mort Klein President of the Zionist Organization of America observed how “Mr. O’Brien is a great friend of Israel, and is now the top-ranking Mormon in the pro-Israel Trump administration. He is also best friends with ardent Zionist US Ambassador to Germany [Richard] Grenell … And you can’t be a great friend of evangelical Christian Grenell unless you support Israel.”

So, does the firing of John Bolton and replacement by Robert O’Brien mean that there will be a change of direction in US foreign policy? The answer has to be no. Trump might well be maneuvering to avoid a new war as he will be in full 2020 campaign mode and wants to avoid falling into a quagmire, but the basic belligerency of the administration and its strong tilt towards supporting feckless allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia is certain to continue.

September 26, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Iranian President’s multifaceted UNGA speech, directed at President Trump, falls on deaf ears

By Sarah Abed | September 26, 2019

All eyes this week are on the events taking place at the 74th annual UN General Assembly (UNGA) which kicked off on Monday at UN Headquarters in New York. Hundreds of meetings, speeches, and events are planned to take place with representatives and world leaders from around the world.

In an entirely predictable move to appease the US, a joint statement was issued on Monday, by France, Germany, and the U.K, parroting Washington’s position of blaming Iran for the September 14th missile and drone strikes on Saudi Oil infrastructure.

In the joint statement they wrote, “it is clear for us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation.” They reiterated their commitment to the JCPOA but called for new talks on a more comprehensive long-term agreement that deals with nuclear, regional, and missile activities.

In response to the statement, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that the three nations should muster the will to forge their own path rather than parroting absurd US claims and making requests which are inconsistent with established JCPOA terms. He also stated that there will be no new deal without compliance with the current one.

In reviewing a lot of the side conversations that have been taking place between President Rouhani and other world leaders from France, Germany, the U.K., Switzerland, Sweden, Pakistan, etc. it appears that in the US’s absence these nations seem supportive of Iran’s efforts to keep the JCPOA deal alive. However, threats from Washington to sanction countries that do business with Iran like China, are worrisome and causing them to peddle back.

In a speech given on Wednesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said, “The Middle East is burning in the flames of war, bloodshed, aggression, occupation and religious and sectarian fanaticism and extremism.” President Rouhani spoke about Iran’s desire to solve and not create problems. He stated the United States was openly violating its responsibilities under the JCPOA and invited the US to come back to the negotiating table if they are willing to end sanctions and threats which violate principles of ethics and international law.

President Rouhani stressed that his proposal is clear they are not interested in war, in threats, in bullying, and want everyone involved to act according to the law and fulfill their obligations. President Rouhani spoke about Iran’s decades-long fight against terrorism and how on the contrary the US has been supporting and arming terrorist groups for decades. He spoke about the US’s involvement in Syria, Yemen, and Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.

Iranian President spoke about the need for the US to pull its troops out of the Middle Eastern region, saying that the ultimate way to achieve peace, security and independence is for the neighboring countries to work things out without foreign interference, which is fueling insecurity rather than bringing peace.

President Rouhani spoke about his new initiative the Coalition of Hope or Hormuz Peace Endeavor (HOPE) which he is proposing at the UNGA and encouraging cooperation in providing collective energy security, freedom of navigations and free flow of oil and other energy resources from and to the countries off the Strait of Hormuz and beyond.

President Rouhani said that this initiative is based on a commitment to UN principles, objectives, mutual respect, mutual interests, dialog, understanding, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, peaceful resolution of conflicts and most importantly non-aggression and non-interference in the domestic affairs of each other.

“The issues of the region are too big and important for the United States to deal with. A country that has failed to resolve the issues of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and has been the spearhead of extremism, Talibanism and Daeshism will never be able to resolve more sophisticated issues,” stated Iranian President Rouhani.

On Wednesday, a meeting chaired by the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini took place with representatives of those same three European countries along with Russian and Chinese representatives and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mr. Zarif. It was agreed upon that all participants wanted to see the deal fully implemented and that they were determined to continue all efforts to preserve the agreement.  Participants were reminded that the agreement was endorsed by the U.N. Security council and that the pact “remains a key element of the global nuclear nonproliferation architecture, and a significant achievement of multilateral diplomacy.”

President Trump’s decision last year to not only unilaterally withdrawal from the JCPOA but also enforce a “maximum pressure campaign” is seen by the Iranian government as “economic terrorism”. Harsh sanctions not only target financial establishments and government officials but the most vulnerable Iranian civilians who as a result are having trouble accessing food and medicine.

Underneath all the grandstanding both nations are not genuinely interested in war. Iran understands Trump’s distaste with the JCPOA being that it was negotiated by former president Barak Obama’s regime. They are willing to make some modifications and give him his own deal even though the previous one took a decade of negotiations, but for that to happen they need relief from crippling sanctions. They need the United States to show a genuine interest in coming back to the negotiating table. We’ve all seen how in the course of a day or a tweet tensions can suddenly flare up.

President Rouhani’s speech was an invitation to President Trump to come to the negotiating table. He outlined what needs to be done and Iran’s willingness and desire to choose peace over war. Washington has expressed similar sentiments at times but has then quickly reverted to rebuking and enforcing stricter sanctions rather than alleviating them. It’s in everyone’s best interest that all parties involved keep a cool head and come to agreeable terms, for the sake of humanity.

Sarah Abed is a political analyst with BRICS.

September 26, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

EU Assures US Brussels Will Not Act Toward Iran Without Washington’s Consent – Treasury

Sputnik – September 25, 2019

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Wednesday that the European Union has assured the United States that Brussels would not do anything – with regard to sanctions against Iran – without Washington’s consent.

The situation in the Persian Gulf region worsened after the United States walked out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, in May 2018 and reinstated harsh sanctions on Iran.

Exactly one year after the US withdrawal, Tehran announced that it would be gradually reducing its nuclear obligations every 60 days until EU signatories to the accord ensured Iran’s interests amid US sanctions. Earlier in September, Tehran embarked on the third stage of its rollback plan.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said during a speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that the only way Tehran would enter negotiations with Washington is if it returns to the JCPOA and stops imposing sanctions against the country.

US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said earlier that Washington would like to see Brussels impose sanctions on those who support what he described as Iran’s missile and drone programs, adding that there must be an international effort to counter Iran’s activities in the Middle East.

The EU, meanwhile, has established the INSTEX (the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) trade mechanism to ease non-dollar trade with Tehran in the wake of the US sanctions and in an effort to save the JCPOA.

Earlier this month, Brussels agreed to contribute $15 billion to the INSTEX fund. In September, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the country would resume compliance with the Iran nuclear deal if it received the $15 billion tranche before the end of the year.

On 14 July 2015, Iran and six international mediators — China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — ratified the historic JCPOA, more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, aimed at preventing Iran from designing and manufacturing nuclear weapons.

The deal provides for the gradual lifting of economic and financial sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations Security Council, the United States, and the European Union in exchange for Tehran’s guarantees that the country’s nuclear program would remain peaceful.

US President Donald Trump announced on 8 May 2018 that the United States would withdraw from the JCPOA and restore its sanctions on Iran, lifted by Washington as part of the nuclear deal. The restrictions target not only Iran but also other countries that continue to do business with Iran.

The remaining JCPOA signatories slammed the United States’ move and reaffirmed their commitment to respect their obligation under the deal.

September 25, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Another Day, Another Scandal. What the ‘Trump-Ukraine Collusion’ Is Really About

By Daniel Lazare | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 25, 2019

This is soooooo boring.

For nearly a week, Washington has been consumed by reports that Donald Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden.

The furor began on Wednesday, Sept. 18, when the Washington Post disclosed that Trump had said something to an unknown foreign leader that “was so alarming that a US intelligence official who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community.” Two days later, the Wall Street Journal reported that the foreign leader was Zelensky and that Trump had asked him “about eight times” in the course of a single phone conversation to look into allegations that then-Vice President Biden had pushed for the removal of a public prosecutor investigating a Ukrainian company that employed his son, Hunter. A day after that, Biden complained that Trump was trying to “smear me,” while on Sunday, Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, declared that Trump might be guilty of “the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office … during just about any presidency.”

From initial report to America’s greatest scandal ever in just four days – surely this was some sort of Washington speed record. Since the moment Trump was elected, Democrats have been searching for “the Big One,” as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd put it, the scandal “that’s going to finally bring Donald Trump down” – and now at last they found it.

Of course, Democrats said the same about Russiagate, the scandal that dominated headlines for two and a half years but fizzled when special prosecutor Robert Mueller said he was unable to come up with evidence “that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.” But now that Trump stood accused of conspiring or coordinating with the Ukrainian government – or at least trying to – surely the Big One was finally at hand.

But it’s not. One reason is that there’s no sign of a quid pro quo. The Washington Post suggested in its initial report that the purpose of the July 25 phone call was to “manipulate the Ukrainian government into helping Trump’s reelection campaign.” The means, supposedly, was $250 million in military aid that he was threatening to withhold if the Ukraine failed to cooperate. But the Wall Street Journal’s source specifically denied that Trump had threatened a cut-off while the New York Times reported that a decision to end military aid – subsequently revoked – had actually occurred weeks earlier.

Another reason for skepticism is that charges of a smear job are clearly misplaced. If anyone’s activities are suspicious, it’s Biden’s, and Trump can hardly be blamed for wanting to get to the bottom of them.

To briefly recap: in February 2014, a US-backed coup spearheaded by ultra-rightists sent Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing and installed billionaire Petro Poroshenko in his place. This was bad news for a wealthy Yanukovych supporter named Mykola Zlochevsky who was widely accused of corruption and was in danger of losing all or some of his holdings. In an attempt to smooth things over with the Americans, Zlochevsky appointed Hunter Biden to a lucrative post with Burisma Holdings, a natural-gas company he founded in 2002. Hunter had just been discharged from the US Navy after testing positive for cocaine. He had no experience in the natural-gas business and knew nothing about the Ukraine. But he got the job anyway along with a salary of $50,000 a month.

But when the Ukrainian prosecutor general launched an investigation into Burisma, the Obama administration demanded that Viktor Shokin, the man who took over the office a year later, be removed. Indeed, Biden bragged that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees during a visit to Kiev if Poroshenko didn’t do as he was told.

“I said, ‘We’re leaving in six hours,’” he said last year. “If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”

If anyone’s guilty of a quid pro quo, it would seem to be Biden.

Questions remain. Washington says it wanted Shokin removed because he was impeding the Ukraine’s anti-corruption drive and that it pushed for someone more vigorous even though the results for Burisma might have been negative. But the New York Times says the company was pleased by Shokin’s dismissal, and that a year later it was able to reach an amicable settlement with his successor. Hunter Biden’s job was safe.

Still, profiting off a family connection in this manner is plainly corrupt, and Biden is obviously attempting to deflect attention from his own misdeeds by screaming about Trump. The upshot is yet another tedious pseudo-scandal in which Democrats will only succeed in embarrassing themselves.

September 25, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »