Iran, Russia say US ‘was isolated’ at IAEA’s special meeting
Press TV – July 11, 2019
Tehran says the UN nuclear watchdog’s special meeting held at Washington’s request to win the Board of Governors’ support for its anti-Iran claims turned into another failure for Americans.
“Another failure for the US at the mockery of the IAEA’s Board of Governors,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi tweeted on Wednesday in reference to an emergency meeting of the 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, which wrapped up with no conclusion earlier in the day in Vienna.
“The US was once again isolated by its own hands,” Mousavi added.
“The legal strength of the JCPOA [the Iran nuclear deal], the active diplomacy and the fruitful political and ethical record of Iran block all the paths to arrogant deal-breakers,” he added.
The meeting was held a few days after Iran increased the level of its uranium enrichment to 4.5%, which is beyond the limit set by the JCPOA. The move was part of the second phase of the country’s May 8 decision to reduce its commitments under the multilateral 2015 nuclear deal in reaction to the US violations and Europe’s inaction.
The emergency meeting was held at the request of US Ambassador to International Organizations Jackie Wolcott. Iran later criticized the US’ request as a “sad irony” as Washington is the party that has violated the deal first by unilaterally pulling out of it and imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The US had approached various delegations before requesting to convene the special meeting but in the end had to make the request itself, says Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharib-Abadi.
“We have been informed that the United States were seeking to have some formal outcome of this meeting, something like a resolution […] but because they haven’t been in a position to convince the others to have their support for their claim, regarding consideration of Iran’s ceasing its implementation of the JCPOA, there has been no conclusion,” he told Press TV following the special session.
“The majority of the members of the Board supported the JCPOA, multilateralism and deplored unilateral actions of the US,” he added.
The Iranian envoy earlier told the IAEA’s special meeting that “the sadistic tendency of the United States to use illegal, unilateral sanctions as an instrument to coerce sovereign states and private entities should come to an end.”
‘US practically isolated’
The Russian Ambassador to the IAEA, Mikhail Ulyanov, also tweeted after the meeting that the US “was practically isolated on this issue”.
Ulyanov told the assembled diplomats it was an “oddity” that the meeting had been called by the US, “the country that declared the JCPOA to be a ‘terrible deal’”.
He said “in practice, it turns out that Washington is aware of the importance of the Plan (JCPOA).”
Also in a statement to the meeting, the UK, France, and Germany said such issues “should be addressed by participants to the JCPOA, including through a meeting of the Joint Commission to be convened urgently.”
The E3 at the same time called on Iran to implement its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal in full despite the fact that Iran’s decision to reduce its commitments under the deal was made after Europe’s failure to live up to its side of the bargain.
The European parties to the JCPOA were supposed to compensate for the US withdrawal from the deal in May 2018 and the impact of its sanctions on the Iranian economy. Back in January, the E3 officially announced a special payment mechanism, known as the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), which was aimed at facilitating trade with Tehran despite the US bans.
However, it took a long time for the trade channel to become fully operational. The first transaction is set to take place soon, but Iran says without injection of sufficient money into the channel, it cannot help the country reap the benefits of the deal.
“Iran would only accept the European financial mechanism known as INSTEX if it covers all countries rather than just the current ten, if it covers all items in the sanctions, rather than just food stuffs and medicine, and if it is sufficiently funded,” Gharib-Abadi told Press TV on Wednesday.
“We have told them that if they are not ready to put money in the INSTEX, so you have to consider the import of the Iranian oil, so that the money can go to the INSTEX to fund it,” he added.
Another nail in Russiagate coffin? Federal judge destroys key Mueller report claim
RT | July 11, 2019
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s claim of “sweeping and systematic” Russian meddling in the 2016 US election just took another body blow, as a federal judge ruled that his indictment of a ‘troll farm’ is not actual proof of it.
Mueller’s charges against Concord Management & Consulting, the Russian company accused of running a “troll farm” and “sowing discord” on US social media in 2016, do not establish a link between that private company and the Russian government, US District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich pointed out.
Yet the special counsel’s much-publicized final report claims to have “established” and “confirmed” Russian government activities based in part on the indictment against Concord, which is a breach of prosecutorial rules, Friedrich said.
For example, Mueller’s report says that Concord CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin “is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.” That’s an assertion, not evidence.
Judge Friedrich’s ruling was issued on May 28, but only unsealed on July 1, and went largely unnoticed by the media until this week. That’s not surprising, given the commitment of the US political establishment to the ‘Russiagate’ narrative, journalist and author Daniel Lazare told RT.
“It’s quite a dramatic ruling,” Lazare said. “Essentially what it says is that half of Mueller’s case doesn’t make any sense, it has no evidence to back it up.”
The special counsel’s report argued that Moscow sought to meddle in the election by Concord’s “sowing discord” on social media while Russian intelligence stole Democrat emails and released them through WikiLeaks, but neither of those assertions is backed by actual evidence, and now the insinuated link between Concord and the Kremlin has been rejected, Lazare pointed out.
“Americans assume that Russians and Russia are the same thing. But they’re not, any more than an individual American and the Trump administration are the same thing,” he told RT.
The ruling is “a major blow to the entire ‘Russian Active Measures’ talking point,” journalist Aaron Maté argued on Twitter. The Internet Research Agency put out “juvenile clickbait mostly unrelated to the election,” and is a private entity whose connection with the Kremlin Mueller never established, he added.
“If Mueller was disingenuous in falsely trying to link it to Russian government, what else was he disingenuous about?”
In an investigative article published last week, Maté pointed out that the Mueller report used “qualified and vague language to describe key events,” indicating that the investigators have not established for certain if DNC emails were stolen by Russia or leaked by an insider, or how they made it into the hands of WikiLeaks.
He also noted that the federal authorities have based their investigation into the DNC emails and President Donald Trump’s alleged connections with the Kremlin entirely on claims of two entities contracted by the Democrats – cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which actually redacted the evidence it gave to the feds – and British spy Christopher Steele, author of the infamous “dossier” used to spy on Trump campaign officials.
“The idea that this was a meddling operation by a foreign government, I think is just absurd,” former US diplomat Jim Jatras told RT, commenting on Mate’s revelations and Judge Friedrich’s ruling.
This should be the final nail in the coffin of ‘Russiagate,’ but it won’t be, Jatras added. Too many people in Washington have invested too much in Russiagate to admit they were ever wrong.
Pentagon solicits virtual reality tech to prep soldiers for ‘battlefield nuclear warfare’
© Global Look / Sebastian Gollnow
RT | July 9, 2019
The Pentagon has put out a call for virtual reality training environments with “radiological/nuclear considerations” – another sign that the US’ unhealthy obsession with nuclear warfare isn’t going away anytime soon.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Department of Defense division focused on countering weapons of mass destruction, is looking for virtual reality systems it can use to train combat forces in a “battlefield nuclear warfare environment.” The agency issued a “sources sought notice” last week, seeking technical specs and other market information on “virtual training and testing programs” for combat troops “performing radiological threat objects find and interdict operations” – as well as fighting on the nuclear “battlefield.”
“AR/VR capabilities will not replace field training requirements,” the notice states, adding that its “purpose is to test warfighter scenarios and decision-making to provide users realistic outcomes to support training and course-of-action selection when faced with radiological/nuclear threats.” It may also be used for “planning training scenarios” and “equipment testing events.” While the addition of a realistic VR overlay of post-nuclear devastation could make soldiers more reluctant to push the big red button, that decision has never been left to the rank-and-file, and it’s unlikely their commanders will be lining up to experience even the most high-tech post-apocalyptic training module.
The US military is increasingly relying on training simulators, which carry obvious advantages including cost – avoiding the need to transport troops to the countries they’re training to occupy – and safety. The army awarded two contracts for training simulators last month with the goal of ultimately generating 400 different location-specific training environments. And virtual reality is the only way to provide soldiers with training in a post-nuclear scenario – for now, at least.
It’s the duty of a nation’s military to be prepared, and the Pentagon’s nuclear prepping wouldn’t be nearly so sinister if it hadn’t posted, then removed, a Joint Chiefs of Staff strategy paper last month providing “principles and guidance to plan, execute, and assess nuclear operation.” The chilling document matter-of-factly suggests “using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability.” Nor was that an isolated burst of nuclear cheerleading. Last month, Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein suggested that the military piggyback its nuclear command and control function on the ever-growing network of commercial satellites.
The US pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty earlier this year, immediately embarking on the development of missiles that had been banned under the agreement. When the only military that has ever used nuclear weapons suggests there’s ever an acceptable time and place for their deployment, it’s understandable why the rest of the world might worry.
Did Jeffrey Epstein “Belong to Intelligence?”
By Thomas L. Knapp | Garrison Center | July 10, 2019
In 2008, billionaire asset manager Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers negotiated a very favorable plea bargain in Florida, under which he served a mere 13 months in jail — in his own private wing, with 12 hours of daily “work release” — on a single charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor (the FBI had identified 40 alleged victims of sexual predation on his part).
Epstein’s in jail again, this time in New York, on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for sex. Again, prosecutors allege at least 40 victims.
A prospective 41st casualty of the case, perhaps not an undeserving one, is Alexander Acosta. As US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Acosta negotiated that sweetheart 2008 plea agreement. Now he faces calls for his resignation as US Secretary of Labor.
How did the plea agreement come about? For an easy explanation, look to a (supposed) exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s:
Fitzgerald: The rich are different from you and me.
Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
More money buys more formidable lawyers (in Epstein’s case, Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr). More money usually means friends with more money, and with the influence that goes with having more money. It’s just a fact of life that more money sometimes means getting away with — or at least getting off easier for — things which would put you or me in jail for a long, long time.
But another possibility rears its ugly head. In an article for The Daily Beast, investigative journalist Vicky Ward quotes a former senior White House official, in turn quoting Acosta’s response to questions about Epstein during his interview with President Donald Trump’s transition team:
“I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”
Yes, we’re getting that quote at third hand. Unfortunately, yes, it sounds plausible.
Suppose you were a wealthy and influential man with wealthy and influential friends — not just celebrities, but business moguls and politicians — from around the globe.
Suppose you held wild sex parties on your private island and invited those wealthy and influential friends, even ferrying some of them to the island on your personal Boeing 727 airliner.
Suppose those wild sex parties included the presence, voluntary or coerced, of young (perhaps illegally so) women.
That’s pretty good extortion material, isn’t it?
Now suppose a government intelligence agency offered to protect you from prosecution for your escapades — perhaps by leaning on a federal prosecutor to make the matter go away with minimal punishment — in return for that extortion material?
Is that how things happened? Your guess is as good as mine. But if so, it would be far from the first time that innocent men, women and children have been sacrificed to the false idol of “national security.”
Since World War Two, the United States has built itself into a “national security state” which recognizes no ethical or legal constraints. It’s doesn’t exist to protect the American public. It exists to protect itself. And, too often, it protects the predators among us.
Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
The Obama Wars
By David Swanson | War Is A Crime | July 10, 2019
By “the Obama wars” I don’t mean some overgrown infants on television screaming racist insults or pretending that opposing racism requires cheering for Obama.
I mean: the widespread indiscriminate murder of human beings with missiles — many of them from robot airplanes — let loose to threaten any non-white country on earth by Obama and expanded by Trump. I mean the catastrophic destruction of Libya — still continued by Trump. I mean the war on Afghanistan, the vast bulk of which was overseen by Obama, though Bush and Trump have had minor roles. I mean the assault on Yemen, begun by Obama and escalated by Trump. I mean the war on Iraq and Syria escalated first by Obama and then by Trump (following the de-escalation locked in place by Bush though Obama fought it tooth-and-nail).
I mean the conflict with Iran, heightened by Obama and then dramatically again by Trump. I mean the expansion of conflict-producing troops and bases across Africa and Asia. I mean the creation of the new cold war with Russia. I mean the build up in nuclear weapons and the delusional rhetoric about “usable” nuclear weapons. I mean the support for Israel’s wars on Palestinians. I mean the coups in Ukraine and Honduras. I mean the threats to Venezuela. I mean the normalization of fantastical excuses for the gravest crimes. I mean the practice of campaigning on ending wars, never ending any of them, and never having anyone really care. I mean the constant shattering of past records in military spending.
Obama’s legacy, despite all sorts of variations, many of them superficial, and despite its role in defeating Hillary Clinton at the ballot box, has largely been maintained, advanced, and imitated by bipartisan consensus and by Donald Trump.
If you want to review what Obama did in that quirky little area of his job to which some 60% of federal discretionary spending is devoted, and which puts us all at risk of nuclear disaster, pick up a copy of Jeremy Kuzmarov’s book Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State. Kuzmarov places Obama in historical context and outlines his parallels with Woodrow Wilson, another extreme militarist generally understood as a peace visionary. Kuzmarov reviews — and adds information that many of us probably never knew to — the story of Obama’s rise to power and the story of all of his many wars.
We tend to forget that right up through the presidency of George W. Bush wars were thought of as temporary things that had endings. Now they’re hardly thought of at all, but they’re understood to be permanent. And they’re thought of in partisan terms. We sometimes forget that candidate Obama, like candidate Trump, promised a larger military. Candidate Obama promised a larger war on Afghanistan. And when it came time for Obama’s re-election to a second term, he reached out to the New York Times and asked that paper to write an article about how good he was at killing people, about how he carefully studied a list of men, women, and children and picked out the ones in whose name he would send missiles into clusters of unidentified victims. Obama’s claim, in his own words, was “I’m really good at killing people.” Nobody who liked Obama and didn’t like murder allowed themselves to become aware of this aspect of Obama’s re-election campaign; and they never will become aware of it.
The reason it matters is that over 20 Democrats are now campaigning for president, some of whom are promoting the same sort of militarism, some of whom are opposing it to some degree, and some of whom have revealed little or nothing about their positions on such matters. One of them, Joe Biden, was part of Obama’s wars. Biden is the guy who claimed of the mass-slaughter of people in Libya “We didn’t lose a single life.” Kamala Harris is the woman who will never ever question whether by “life” he meant “non-African life.” She’s too busy worrying that peace might break out in Korea. The stupidity of tokenism will plague us until we at least have the decency to regret having fallen for it before. The stupidity of militarism will plague us until we stop glorifying and excusing it and start supporting efforts to create peace.
The United States of Fascism Hysteria
By CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory | July 10, 2019
So it’s been an exciting few weeks for Antifa and the rest of the neoliberal Resistance. OK, they haven’t yet managed to overthrow the Putin-Nazi occupation government (hereinafter “POG”), but they’ve definitely got “the Fash” on the run. “Fascism” hysteria is spreading like wildfire. Liberal Twitter mobs are out for blood. At this point, it’s only a matter of time until the sleeping giant of normality awakens and purges America of the fascist filth that have Putin-Nazified this once great nation.
Antifa has been at the vanguard of the fight, smashing the Fash on both East and West Coasts. In Portland, where a gang of neo-fascist anti-masturbationists known as the “Proud Boys” had assembled for a self-promotional street fight they were billing as the “Battle of Portland 2,” Antifa militants positively identified and preventatively beat the living snot out of a journalist named Andy Ngo. To prevent him from snitching to the fascist cops (who are allegedly working hand in hand with POG), they self-defensively robbed him, sprayed him with silly string, and pelted him with vegan milkshakes.
Now, before you get all up in arms about Antifa assaulting and robbing journalists, you need to know a couple of things. First, according to Antifa spokespersons, and those bloodthirsty liberal Twitter mobs, Andy Ngo is a “fascist adjacent,” and possibly even a card carrying fascist. Antifa representative Alexander Reid Ross claims that Ngo is personally responsible for putting people’s names on a Nazi “kill-list” (or at least that Ngo’s writing has been published by Quillette, which published an article by someone else that some fascists read and copied people’s names from), so, basically, he deserves to die.
Also, assaulting and robbing Ngo was technically “preemptive self-defense” (you know, the same as when we invaded Iraq to defend ourselves from those WMDs). Despite their helmets and body armor, and the fact that Ngo is a doughy little gay guy, his presence among them on a public street was making Antifa feel “unsafe.” So, they had no choice but to beat him senseless, steal his camera, and vegan milkshake him. As Antifa expert Mark Bray explains, when you’re Antifa, “fighting back is always self-defense, even if [you] strike the first blow.” (This logic only applies to anti-fascists, of course, like Antifa and the U.S. military, and not to, you know, gangs of thugs, or the perpetrators of wars of aggression.)
Antifa’s self-defensive mugging of a journalist apparently scared the crap out of POG, because one week later, back in Washington, D.C., President Hitler called in the tanks, and the Luftwaffe, and announced that he was going to stage a reenactment of a Nuremberg Rally right in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The liberal intelligentsia went apeshit. This was really it this time! Putin had given Trump the green-light to declare martial law and pronounce himself Führer. The long-awaited Putin-Nazi Apocalypse was finally about to begin!
Unfortunately, Trump’s Fourth of July Jamboree turned out to be a rather tame affair. He even almost made it through his speech without making an ass of himself. This was extremely disappointing for liberals, who were hoping he would go full-Hitler, paint “death’s heads” on the turrets of the Bradleys and a Swastika on the tail of Air Force One, and order ICE to start rounding up the Jews.
The weekend wasn’t a total let-down, however. The Proud Boys (who are clearly gluttons for punishment), staged another self-promotional event, this one billed as “Defend Free Speech.” A few hundred people turned up to listen to speeches by a handful of alt-right clowns desperately trying to reignite their careers. They were outnumbered 2 to 1 by Antifa, Black Lives Matter, assorted drag queens, and an indigenous, two-spirited transperson of color, who reportedly “performed a spoken word” on the meaning of the term “latinx.”
The D.C. police (who are even more fascist than the Portland police who stood by and watched as Antifa beat up and robbed a journalist) fascistically prevented Antifa militants from storming into the Alt-right rally and beating the snot out of everyone in sight. So, the anti-fascists had no choice but to preemptively attack a newspaper dispenser, which was presumably making them feel “unsafe,” or disseminating POG propaganda, or something. One of them tried to burn a flag, but he couldn’t figure out how to operate his matches. Assorted other hilarious acts of revolutionary direct action followed. Apparently, Antifa’s strategy was to smash the Fash by amusing them to death.
Meanwhile, militant Resistance actions against the POG “concentration camps” continue. New York City, San Francisco, and other liberal metropolitan areas have almost completely emptied out as liberals flock to the southern border to liberate the surviving prisoners. Conditions in the camps are now beyond inhuman. According to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, migrants are being forced to drink out of toilets, and otherwise subjected to “systematic cruelty,” (so you can understand why liberals are physically putting their bodies on the line to bring an end to this horrifying sadism, and not just sitting around on the Internet shrieking about “concentration camps” as they travel to their summer holiday rentals on Martha’s Vineyard, or the Hamptons, or wherever).
No, these Putin-Nazi “concentration camps” are nothing at all like the “detention facilities” the Obama administration operated, even though they look exactly the same. Sure, thousands of migrant children were separated from their parents, in cages, and there were tens of thousands of incidents of rape, sexual abuse, beatings, and so on, but, otherwise, these Obama “detention facilities” were more like great big 2-star hotels, or like student dorms at a state university, so there was no need for liberals to get all worked up and start comparing them to places like Dachau and Buchenwald.
Plus, here’s a picture of dead people! Look at this picture! These people are dead! So just shut up about Obama already! Enough with history, and critical thinking, and the practical aspects of immigration policy! It’s time to abolish all national borders, issue everyone a U.S. passport, and transcend the whole concept of national sovereignty … or at least to provide the capitalist ruling classes with an endless supply of cheap, undocumented, extremely compliant unskilled labor. Those Bel Air lawns aren’t going to mow themselves!
Jesus, I can’t believe I just wrote that. Concentration camps and dead people are nothing to joke about. It’s OK, however, to cynically use them to whip people up into a paroxysm of manufactured mass fascism hysteria. Not that the neoliberal ruling classes and the corporate media would ever do that. No, they would never repeatedly attempt to evoke our hatred of the actual Nazis (and their actual concentration camps … which people were dragged out of their homes, loaded onto trains, and shipped away to, and which you could not voluntarily depart) in order to short circuit our critical thinking, or otherwise emotionally manipulate us into supporting their War on Populism.
No, the Putin-Nazi occupation government is not just manufactured mass hysteria concocted by the neoliberal ruling classes. Donald Trump is really a Nazi. There’s a portrait of Hitler in the Oval Office. Putin really controls America. Putin, and his cabal of Russian Nazis. They’re everywhere. They own the banks. They control the media. They control elections. They are the “International Invisible Government.” (Is any of this sounding vaguely familiar?) They are devising the Final Solution to the Immigrant Problem right this minute. They are doing this at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has had a big “Black Sun” etched into the marble floor.
So, if you’re serious about your anti-fascism, now’s the time to load up on silly string, ski goggles, masks, hard knuckle gloves, and whatever you make those milkshakes with. POG might be on the run at the moment, but there’s an election season coming up, so we need to be prepared for anything. The important thing is to remain hysterical, and to be ready to respond to whatever emotional stimuli the ruling classes wave in our faces. The fate of democracy hangs in the balance.
Oh, and watch out for those fascist newspaper dispensers!
How Stupid Do They Think We Are?
By Patrick Armstrong | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 7, 2019
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Consumers of the print or electronic output of the League of Copy Typists and their Instructors are expected to believe many impossible things and believe them, not just before breakfast, but all day too.
- Putin kills his enemies by using spectacular methods that can easily be traced back to Russia and preferably when he’s staging some high-profile event like the Olympics or World Cup.
- Russian submarines only fool around in the waterways of neutral countries whose elites want to get into NATO, never in NATO ones.
- Poison is smeared on the front doorknob. This requires the roof of the house to be replaced.
Come to think it, believing any part of the official Skripal story, from the incredibly lethal nerve agent that didn’t kill them, to the spectacular coincidence of the British Army’s chief nurse being on the scene, to the re-wrapped perfume bottle would tax the White Queen’s ability. Here’s a list. But that’s not to say that we’re finished yet: there always seems to be another absurdity like the dead ducks.
- Assad only uses chemical weapons or nerve agents when he’s winning.
- They bomb hospitals on purpose, we bomb them by accident.
- The USAF bombs with great precision and accuracy. But the cities it bombs are turned into rubble. Its “precision” is indistinguishable from random carpet bombing. Fallujah. Raqqa. Mosul.
- Washington’s enemy-of-the-moment always attacks just when Washington warns it might: vide recent Gulf of Tonkiran episode. Or shoots down innocent drones which are absolutely, positively, in international airspace. Or perhaps they aren’t.
- RT is tremendously effective at influencing people even though nobody you know actually watches it.
- Satellite photos vary between amazingly blurry and sharp as a tack. Obviously some mysterious law of optics is at work here: Russian artillery in Ukraine – blurry; Russian aircraft in Syria – sharp.
- Despite spending billions on intelligence agencies and equipment, NATO depends on Bellingcat and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights for its information. They are credible sources despite being on NATO’s payroll (UK in the case of SOHR and the Atlantic Council in the case of Bellingcat ); Russian sources are not credible because they are on Moscow’s payroll.
- Putin is unable to rig elections in Ukraine or Georgia but he does it with ease in the USA and Europe.
- Russia is on the edge of collapse but tremendously powerful (Cleverly termed “Russophrenia” by Bryan MacDonald.)
- Democracies are inherently peaceful but always at war.
- No one knows where refugees come from; they just appear. See above and below. (They were warned.)
- NATO, despite its record in destabilising Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the Balkans, is a force for stability.
- Sanctions, combined with threats and subversions, are not really an act of war. Even if they kill people in Iraq or Venezuela.
- Brian Hook, the US special representative on Iran, told reporters in Saudi Arabia that Iran “needs to meet diplomacy with diplomacy, not military force.” That statement doesn’t stand up to a millisecond’s consideration – sanctions, reconnaissance aircraft, more fighter planes, troop movements, more troops are not “diplomacy”. But the complaisant media re-prints it with a straight face.
- The US Navy always has the right of way at sea.
- Iran is the principal state sponsor of terrorism; the most deadly terrorist organisation is al Qaida/ISIS. Or so the US State Department has told us for many years. They’re telling us that a Twelver Shiite state is number one but a Sunni Takfiri entity inspired by ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb, which regards Shiites as even greater enemies, is also number one. Those who say this, over and over again, never quite explain how these two assertions fit together.
- Freedom for same-sex activity is to be encouraged everywhere except in countries where they face the death penalty.
- Russia’s Military Drills Near NATO Border Raise Fears of Aggression. Comment is neither necessary nor possible on that one, is it?
- US declares Venezuela a national security threat, sanctions top officials. Ditto. And that’s from Obama’s time. (“National security threat”? Wow! Little Venezuela?).
- One dollar spent by Russians on Facebook is more effective than 1,700 dollars spent by Clinton and Trump. Now that’s PPP!
- An investigation into an airplane crash that gives a suspect veto power and excludes the owner of the aircraft is the gold standard of investigations. Oh, and it’s quite proper to jump to the conclusion before the investigation has even begun. Because, after all, you just knew.
- If you accuse someone of a crime and he doesn’t immediately admit guilt, he’s admitting his guilt. Litvinenko: “Beyond the ‘rogue elements’ theories, pro-Kremlin media outlets in Russia have been pushing a slew of alternative theories“; MH17:The Kremlin’s Many Versions of the MH17 Story or Skripal: “Russia is pushing these 15 mutually contradictory theories to claim they weren’t behind the nerve agent attack“. Why don’t you just ‘fess up and stop wasting our time, Putin?
- AIPAC is not a foreign lobby and therefore is not a matter for FARA.
- Because we are proponents of the Rules-Based International Order we can violate the Vienna Convention whenever we want to and try to force military coups in neighbouring countries. And have as many uninvited soldiers in Syria as we want.
Pseudo psychology explains geopolitics. And pretty idiotically too: a whole country on the couch. “Russia is more insecure and paranoid“, “a kind of neurotic disorder that renders Russia’s sense of insecurity” “The deep sense of humiliation, the dread of arrogant Westerners, the fear of NATO encirclement.” or maybe it’s not the whole country, just Putin: Putin’s insecure because of Russia’s “diminished role in the world“. “Well, Russian President Vladimir Putin is a textbook case of someone with a serious inferiority complex.” Anyway, some gasbag pseudo-psychology explains it: there’s no reality, Russia/Putin is just naturally paranoid. Probably nothing you can do about it.
NATO is just going along, minding its own business when, entirely without provocation, hostile nations try to destabilise the world, interfere with freedom of navigation, assault the Rules-Based International Order, and otherwise force NATO to react. From a current Pentagon study: “Russia is adopting coercive strategies that involve the orchestrated employment of military and nonmilitary means to deter and compel the US, its allies and partners prior to and after the outbreak of hostilities.” “Deter and compel” – poor little NATO, so weak, so bullied! Russia does this because of its “deep-seated sense of geopolitical insecurity” which it has just because it has. (More geopolitical pseudo-psychology.)
And, finally, Putin is interfering in the West’s interference in another country.
The Only Strategic Rationale for America’s Involvement in Syria Finally Revealed
By Elias Samo | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 6, 2019
“Washington lacks a clear strategy in Syria “; those were the recent words of Robert Ford, the last American ambassador to Syria who served prior to and during the first few years of the Syrian uprising from 2010 to 2014. A man of Ford’s intricate knowledge of the Syrian/American political dynamic is surly knowledgeable enough to assess America’s policy towards Syria. He goes on to say, “It is hard to explain the fundamental American mission in Syria… Is it to fight Daesh? Or is it to help promote a Kurdish autonomous district in Northeastern Syria… Or is it to resist Iranian encouragement?” It is partially all three; however, oddly enough, Mr. Ford avoids the obvious top priority and strategic rationale for America’s involvement in Syria: The Protection of Israel.
To alleviate this dereliction by the executive branch for not presenting a clear strategy in Syria, as the former ambassador asserts, the Congress took it upon itself to identify American strategic interests in Syria and make recommendations to Trump. However, it is legitimate to ask: what do American congressmen know about Syria to qualify them to determine American strategic interests in the country? It is very unlikely for American congressmen to know much about Syria; they are dictated the Israeli narrative and that is all they need to know.
Irrespective of who or what motivated the congressmen to seek information to develop a framework for American strategic interests in Syria and eventually send a letter signed by nearly four hundred congressmen- roughly seventy five percent of the total number of congressmen from both chambers and both parties- to the president about their findings and their recommendations, the congressmen called upon United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to establish a Syria Study Group (SSG) to provide them information about Syria to comprehend the situation and formulate recommendations to Trump.
The SSG was established in February 2019 and gave its interim report to Congress May 1, 2019; the report consists of detailed seven single-spaced typewritten pages.
Subsequent to the SSG submitting of its interim report to Congress on May 1, the four hundred congressmen Letter was sent to the president on May 20. It would be natural to assume that the Letter is a condensed reflection of what the interim report contained and recommended; that was not the case. The elaborate and detailed interim report dealt with a multitude of issues centered around American national security. Ironically, the Letter to the President focused on the sources of threats to Israeli security: terrorism, Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iran, Turkey and Russia. Just a note regarding the difference in emphasis in the two documents. In the seven – page single spaced interim report Israel is mentioned nine times, it is mentioned twenty one times in the two page Letter.
The first paragraph of the Letter states “[…] we recommend several specific steps to advance our regional security priorities, including assisting our ally, Israel, in defending itself in the face of growing threats, including on its northern border.” The reference to northern border is Syria and Lebanon. As for Syria, it suffices to note that Israel occupied the Syrian Golan for fifty two years and annexed it recently with Trump’s blessings. Syria has not fired a shot at Israel in decades while Israel has fired hundreds of shots at Syria just recently; there are no Syrian boots on the ground in Israel, while there are Israeli boots on the ground in Syria. So much for the threat to Israel emanating from Syria. As for the Lebanese scenario, it is similar to that of Syria, albeit on a smaller scale, with one addition: Hezbollah which Israel views as a source of imminent threat. However, it suffices to note that it is Israel which has been the source of violent onslaughts against Hezbollah. The Letter, in the succeeding paragraphs, elaborates further on the acquisition by Syria and Hezbollah of large and more threatening sophisticated weapons to threaten the security of the regional, nuclear super power: Israel. Need one point out the ridicule?
In the third paragraph, the Letter asserts: “While our nation has encouraged more stable and inclusive political systems in the Middle East, the regime in Tehran has spread its influence and destabilized its neighbors for its own gain.” To say this is an outrageous distortion of the truth would be an understatement. There is not a sane Iraqi, Syrian, Lybian, Yemeni and most Muslim Arabs who would vouch to such a distortion. In fact, internationally, the US and Israel are viewed as sources of threat to international peace and security; both have boots on foreign ground but no foreign boots on their ground.
Russia receives a jab at the fourth paragraph for its role “[…] to ensure the survival of the Assad regime.” It adds “Furthermore, in providing Damascus with advanced weapons like the S-300 anti-aircraft, Moscow is complicating Israel’s ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria.”
The last part of the Letter contains three recommendations which are interrelated and converge on the core of the Letter; the security of Israel:
- Underscore Israel’s right to self-defense.
- Increase pressure on Iran and Russia with respect to activities in Syria.
- Increase pressure on Hezbollah.
Beyond any conceivable doubts, the Letter was dictated by Israelis or their advocates in Washington, signed and submitted by the 400 congressmen to Trump; the height of hypocrisy. What is dismaying is that hardly any voices of protest were raised in American society at large or the political or intellectual segments about the fact that four hundred congressmen, who are elected by Americans to serve American interests, at a time when the US is bogged down in the Arab region, sign and submit a letter to the US President concerned almost exclusively with Israel’s Security.
These congressmen had an opportunity to make a coherent recommendation on US policy in the Arab region in the interest of American National Interest, but instead chose to make recommendations to safeguard the wellbeing and security of a foreign state: Israel.
A Secret Meeting to Plot War?
Who is representing the American people in this secret conclave with pro-Israel groups?
By Philip Giraldi | American Free Press | July 6, 2019
On June 5, 16 heads of Jewish organizations joined 25 Democratic senators in a private meeting, which, according to the Times of Israel, is an annual event. All of the Jewish organizations but one were openly declared advocates for Israel and are supportive of its policies. Key groups present included the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. A number of the groups have lobbied Congress and the White House in support of the use of force against Iran, a position that is basically identical to the demands being made by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The senatorial delegation was headed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), currently Senate minority leader who has described himself as the “shomer” or guardian of Israel in the Senate. The 25 senators in attendance constitute one-quarter of the entire deliberative body and more than half of all Democrats serving in it. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who has emphatically linked her campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 to Jewish and Israeli interests, chaired the gathering.
After the meeting, Jewish Insider provided a complete list of the participants and also a diagram of how they were positioned in the Capitol Hill conference room. The senators were placed on one side of a rectangle with the Jewish leaders in front of them filling the seats on the other three sides. Who exactly provided the agenda that Klobuchar was presumably following is not known, but one suspects that it may have been a joint effort by Schumer and several of the more prominent Jewish organization participants.
The meeting was by design not a public event, and, to a certain extent, it was a secret. Its time, place, and participants were not announced, and it was only reported at all in the Israeli and Jewish media. According to after-the-fact coverage of the event by Alison Weir of the “If Americans Knew” website, even staffers in the congressional offices were not aware that the meeting was taking place. No statement was issued afterwards, but it is believed that the principal topic under discussion was how to contain and reverse pro- Palestinian sentiment among progressive Democratic voters, who, to the horror of the participants, actually have been embracing the possibility that Palestinians are human beings with plausibly the same rights as Israelis. A particular focus would have been the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which has become a growing force on college campuses and in progressive circles.
Other issues raised were mentioned in passing afterwards on the email service “The Tell” by Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) news service. They included supporting Israel and also more federal-level legislation to combat “anti-Semitism.” And, of course, there was the issue of money. Several groups want funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) increased to pay for more security at Jewish facilities. Current legislation is considering allocating $70 million per year and there were demands that it be increased to $90 million. A 2014 article in the Jewish Forward reported that Jewish institutions received 94% of DHS discretionary funding.
One might reasonably argue that the private meeting with the Democratic senators reflects a singular urgency in that the party base is becoming notably less pro-Israel, suggesting that something had to be done to stop the rot. That may be true enough, but the reality is that the federal government’s pandering to Israel is both bi-partisan and global in its reach. The United States uniquely has a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, and his writ extends to proposing sanctions against countries that are critics of Israel.
And even as the Democrats were meeting with Jewish leaders, the Republicans were doing much the same thing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with probably some of those very same leaders as the Democrats and expressed concern about the possibility that British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn might become prime minister. Corbyn has been targeted by British Jews because he is the first UK senior politician to speak sympathetically about the plight of the Palestinians.
Pompeo was asked, if Corbyn “is elected, would you be willing to work with us to take action if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?” He replied: “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”
So American Jews want to join with their British counterparts to either bring down or contain a top-level elected politician just because he recognizes the suffering of the Palestinians. The American secretary of state meets with those same activists and agrees with them that something must be done, to include quite possibly taking steps to ensure that he does not become prime minister in the first place. Recall for the moment that Britain is America’s closest ally and is what passes for a democracy these days. Jews obviously occupy a rather special space, politically speaking, in the United States. One might reasonably ask, where are the private meetings with representatives of Italian, German, Irish, or Polish organizations, each of which represents a far greater portion of America’s ethnic mix than do Jews? The obvious answer is that those groups do not operate in a cohesive, tribal fashion and they do not possess the financial resources that the 600 or so Jewish groups that advocate for Israel have. In America, unfortunately, money buys access to power and, if there is enough money on the table, it can also buy politicians.
Nor are America’s other white ethnic groups as grievance-driven.
And there is one other significant difference: While other ethnic groups in the United States are protective of their respective cultures and languages, there is no sense that any of them actually seek to advocate policies damaging to the United States to benefit the foreign nations that they identify with. The Jewish advocacy for Israel is something quite different, costing the American taxpayer billions of dollars every year and involving Washington in a sequence of wars of choice driven by Israel itself aided by its powerful domestic lobby.
Israel also comes with a price tag in terms of the constitutional rights enjoyed by Americans. Before too long, legislation currently working its way through Congress will criminalize any criticism of Israel. No other national or ethnic group in the United States seeks to dismantle the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in quite that fashion.
Israel is no friend and never has been. Recent media reports detail how Jewish-American oligarch Paul Singer has been working with the Israeli government to transfer thousands of high-paying American IT jobs to Israel. Is he guilty of dual loyalty? No, he is only really loyal to Israel, as are many of the Jewish leaders who met with Pompeo and the senators. It is a disgrace.
And it is also a disgrace that Pompeo and 25 Democratic Party senators should be meeting privately with Jewish organizations to do things for Israel and the Jewish community that do not serve the interests of all Americans, up to and including meddling in the politics of a genuine close ally to respond to the paranoia of British Jews.
Yes, there is a Jewish international conspiracy in place directed by some Jews like those who met with the senators and Pompeo, and it has no off switch. Never before in history has a great power been so dominated by a puny client state and its domestic fifth column, and it is time that the private meetings whereby a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” panders to one group alone should end forever.
Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the Interest.
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From the Archives
How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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