How Yesterday Resembles Today: Iran Confronted The US in The Strait Of Hormuz in The 1980s
By Elijah J. Magnier | American Herald Tribune | May 29, 2019
“We are going to intercept and stop all oil exports from the (Middle East) region if we are prevented from exporting our oil. We shall take every measure possible to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the US aims – by sending jets, carriers – to reinforce its positions and status among the international community, it doesn’t concern us. But if the US is seriously aiming to threaten us, it should know that not one drop of oil will leave the region and we shall destroy all US interests in the Middle East”. This is what the President Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei said in 1983, in response to the US President Ronald Regan’s decision to send jet carriers to the Middle East during the Iran-Iraq war. It seems like only yesterday.
Today, in 2019, the experienced and veteran leader of the revolution, Sayyed Khamenei – who played a role in the very similar critical situation in the 80s – is facing President Donald Trump and an administration who seem not to have learned much from history and the previous US-Iran confrontation. Looking at past foreign policy with a critical eye seems not to be part of the current US administration’s practice. A small reminder may give many answers to what Trump can expect in a wider confrontation with Iran.
In the 80s, Iran’s “Islamic Revolution” was facing serious problems on many levels. Its armed forces were disorganised and dispersed; there were serious differences between decision-makers and politicians over how to run the country following the fall of the Shah; domestic security was lacking; there were ethnic and national struggles; no country was ready to sell weapons to Iran; the US, Europe and the Gulf states supported Saddam Hussein’s aggression against Iran; and the country was going through serious economic difficulties.
It was a perfect scenario for Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, which he did in September 1980 by bombing Mehrabad international airport and occupied later Khorramshahr, calling for an uprising of ethnic Arabs “in al-Muhammara”. This same objective, and concomitant regime-change is what the US administration has been aiming at since 1979- and it apparently retains the same fixation in 2019.
Many may not remember that Imam Khomeini did not hesitate to encourage the Iranian leadership, led by the current Rahbar (Spiritual Leader) Sayyed Ali Khamenei (1987), who was the President of Iran then, to confront and open fire against US forces or indeed any hostile country sailing in the Gulf. “If I were you (addressing his speech to the political leadership), I would order the armed forces to target the first vessel protecting an oil carrier trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz. You decide what you think best (as a course of action), whatever it takes”, said Imam Khomeini.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (and Sheikh Hashemi Rafsanjani) gave immediate orders to the armed forces to act accordingly. All armed forces were fully coordinated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Forces (IRGC – Pasdaran). Iran launched Chinese-made Silkworm missiles on Kuwait port al-Ahmadi. Another attack was registered on a Kuwaiti oil tanker that had been registered to fly the American flag and was sailing under US Navy protection- it hit an Iranian mine in the Gulf. Moreover, Iran shot down a US helicopter using US-made Stinger missiles delivered by the Afghan Mujahedeen to Iran. It was ready to take the confrontation further in the Persian Gulf, careless of the US “almighty” military power. Iran also attacked a Soviet vessel, the freighter Ivan Korotoyev, sailing in the Gulf and providing naval escorts for its ships.
It was rare to see the two superpowers, the US and Russia, united against Iran in one Middle Eastern conflict, in support of Saddam Hussein. Of course, Iran’s diplomacy skills were not yet sharpened. It was helping the Afghans against the Soviets and was committed to fighting US hegemony in the Middle East.
Sayyed Ali Khamenei went to New York, and at the UN Security Council told the world that “the US will receive a response to its hideous action” in the Gulf (following a US attack against an Iranian commercial ship called Iran Ajr). Indeed, a US owned giant oil tanker carrying the name of Sungari was attacked and set ablaze by the IRGC. Iran was not willing to stand down, but instead showed itself ready to confront two superpower countries at a time when Tehran was in its worst condition.
Today, Iran is well equipped with all kinds of missiles, and is a more powerful, highly productive country with strong and efficient allies who can hurt its enemies much more than in 1987. The Islamic Revolution principles and values are still the same, led by more or less the same people. The IRGC is stronger than ever and is an integrated part of the armed forces.
Sayyed Ali Khamenei was fully devoted to Imam Khomeini. He served as a faithful guardian of the “Islamic Revolution”, supervised the IRGC, represented Imam Khomeini at the Security Council and played an effective role in arming and merging the IRGC into all levels of the country’s armed forces. He will not hesitate to take further steps against any weakness any leader in the country today might show in trying to soften the relationship with the US. Today, the leader of the Revolution is neither afraid of war, nor of peace. He will not negotiate with Trump and will not help him be re-elected in 2020. Those who think Iran is desperate or cornered or failing due to the US sanctions may need to read more carefully the history and behaviour of the “Islamic Revolution” since 1979.
Elijah J. Magnier is a veteran war correspondent and Senior Political Risk Analyst with over 35 years’ experience covering Europe, Africa & the Middle East.
The Vaccine Debate Has Gone Off the Rails – By Design
By Helen Buyniski | Helen Of Destroy | May 30, 2019
US media and government have united to demonize “anti-vax” parents, demanding censorship, fines and even jail for questioning scientific progress. If they wanted to end the “crisis,” they could – but that would defeat the purpose, which is to keep the people divided, fearing and hating a malignant “enemy within” that threatens their beloved children.
When anti-vax activist Del Bigtree donned a yellow star in a melodramatic show of solidarity with Hasidic Jewish parents being pressured into vaccinating their children under a short-lived emergency law in upstate New York’s Rockland County, many cringed. Sure, public opinion was against anti-vaxxers, but they weren’t being rounded up and sent away to camps, or fenced into ghettos, or forbidden from operating businesses as Jews were in Nazi Germany.
Then the Washington Post took Bigtree’s idea and ran with it in a bizarre, overwrought editorial that slammed anti-vax parents as “pro-plague” and called for them to be arrested, fined, and isolated, placed on registries like sex offenders (their comparison, not mine), and… fenced into ghettos (“force isolation on pockets of populations that might have been exposed to the outbreak”).
This isn’t how you defuse a controversy. No amount of catastrophizing – whether it’s the World Health Organization declaring anti-vaxxers a threat on the level of ebola and HIV, or New York mayor Bill deBlasio sending “disease detectives” to Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods to hunt down unvaccinated kids, or Facebook removing photos of vaccine package inserts posted by parents concerned by the laundry list of side effects – will convince a vaccine skeptic to embrace inoculation. Indeed, these measures guarantee anti-vaxxers will become further entrenched in their beliefs. If vaccines are truly safe and effective, the argument goes, why are the authorities suppressing anything that questions them?
It’s clear from the institutional response to the measles “crisis” that the powers that be are not interested in changing anyone’s mind. It should be a simple matter for doctors to take scared parents aside, listen to their worries, and address them one by one – perhaps even offer to meet them halfway by developing an individualized health program that takes their child’s needs into consideration.
Certainly, pretending there’s no risk to vaccination when the government’s own vaccine court has paid out $4 billion to the parents of vaccine-damaged children over the past 30 years is disingenuous, and only serves to convince skeptics that a cover-up exists. Many “anti-vaxxers” are parents of autistic kids who believe their children were damaged by vaccination; most have done a significant quantity of research on the subject. Treating them like gullible fools is guaranteed to alienate them further.
Nor is the US government’s response to a measles “epidemic” that has infected 880 people since January in a country of 327 million people designed to put anyone at ease. With a vocal segment of the population already alarmed over unprecedented assaults on First Amendment freedoms of speech and of the press, several states have put forward bills to end religious exemptions to mandatory vaccination laws, thus inflaming another vocal segment of the population, this one concerned for the First Amendment freedom of religion. Headlines like the New York Times editorial earlier this month, titled “Infecting people isn’t a religious right,” deftly add insult to injury. If the government’s goal was to create civic unrest, to encourage division in a country already more divided than ever, they couldn’t have done a better job.
And this may indeed be the goal. “Wedge issues” – controversies which divide and inflame a population, despite often having little or no bearing on their day-to-day lives – are a time-honored means of manipulating popular sentiment. Divide and conquer as a political principle dates back to the Roman Empire. As the American Empire crumbles, with poverty and homelessness at record levels (despite the government’s attempts to redefine poverty and hide unemployment) while companies like Amazon and Google break the trillion-dollar mark, even capitalism’s biggest cheerleaders are concerned about the unwashed masses rising up and breaking things.
It’s no coincidence that the vaccine debate is being amplified at the same time Americans are duking it out over abortion, another popular wedge issue. Threaten people’s children, even other people’s hypothetical children, and a strong emotional response is guaranteed. So why, if the end goal is universal vaccination, is the government threatening the parents of unvaccinated children with taking those children away?
If health authorities are serious about converting the anti-vaxxers, they will have to stop thinking in terms of war. This means engaging in civil dialogue, instead of refusing to debate the other side, and listening to parents’ concerns – even treating those concerns as if they come from their own minds and not nefarious Russian influence campaigns – instead of censoring all criticism. It means conducting more safety studies, studies not funded by pharmaceutical companies or other institutions with a vested interest in the products being tested, and publicly admitting that even the Centers for Disease Control acknowledges certain pre-existing conditions can interact with vaccines to produce devastating developmental disabilities. It certainly does not mean treating anti-vaxxers like plague-loving brainwashed zombies.
Israel-based meeting of Florida cabinet triggers scandal & suit
RT | May 29, 2019
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his cabinet kicked off controversy after conducting an official meeting on Israeli soil, prompting a flurry of criticism from watchdog groups and constituents alike.
DeSantis and his cabinet met Wednesday at the US Embassy in Jerusalem to proclaim support for the Jewish state and sign a bill prohibiting anti-Semitism in Florida’s public schools. DeSantis, who has promised to be the “most pro-Israel governor in America,” called the meeting “historic.”
The Florida First Amendment Foundation, joined by four media outlets, however, say the meeting violated state legislation known as the “Sunshine Law,” which requires government meetings to be open to the public.
“Holding a meeting at this distance in such a facility violates the constitutional and statutory rights of Florida citizens (and the news media) to personally observe the workings of, and for the public to offer comment to, their state’s highest officials,” the organizations wrote in a complaint filed earlier this week.
Though state officials assured the public the meeting would be “ceremonial” in nature, and would be livestreamed on Florida public television, critics argued it did not qualify as an open proceeding.
“There are legitimate concerns regarding the constitutionality of holding a Cabinet meeting that Floridians cannot attend,” First Amendment Foundation president Barbara Petersen said in a statement.
The initial complaint was dismissed by a Florida judge on Tuesday, but the governor’s office, through a spokesperson, said it intended to comply with Florida law and defend against the allegation. The spokesperson declined to comment further on “pending litigation.”
Some of the governor’s constituents chimed in on social media, many unhappy that state resources were used on the trip.
“Pretending to play secretary of state will do nothing for you in the mind of your constituents,” wrote one Floridian. “Get back home and do something for your citizens.”
Another resident said the state did not need “public funds going towards #DeSantisIllegalVacation in a state accused of apartheid,” adding “our resources need to STAY in FL.”
The DeSantis trip isn’t the only recent collision of US and Israeli politics. In late April, after a months-long legal battle, a Texas judge struck down legislation that banned Texas state employees from engaging in boycotts of Israeli products, arguing the measure sought to “manipulate debate through coercion rather than persuasion.”
The bill was one among several introduced this year to combat the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the US, an organized effort to rein in Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.
Israel and US disputed intelligence for assassination targets
![Lebanese men inspect the damage done to their homes after Israel carried out attacks in Beirut, Lebanon on 22 July 2006 [PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2006-Lebanese-men-inspect-the-destruction-caused-by-Israeli-attacksGettyImages-119810831.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Lebanese men inspect the damage done to their homes following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 [PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images]
MEMO | May 30, 2019
Leaked documents published by whistle-blower Edward Snowden have exposed a deep rift between Israeli intelligence officials and their counterparts in the US National Security Agency (NSA) over the sharing of intelligence which the Israelis requested to carry out assassinations during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon.
Details of the rift were laid out in the NSA’s internal newsletter known as SIDtoday under the heading “The Israel-Hizballah [sic] Crisis — Perspectives from an Acting SLO Tel Aviv”. In the document, an American liaison officer, who is tasked with managing relations with counterparts in Israel, recounted a dispute with the Israelis over intelligence that was to be used for “targeted killings”.
The Israeli demand, the US liaison wrote, “centred on requests for time sensitive tasking, threat warning, including tactical ELINT” — electronic intelligence — “and receipt of geolocational information on Hizballah elements.”
“The latter request was particularly problematic,” he continued, adding that he “had several late-night, sometimes tense, discussions with ISNU,” the elite Israeli equivalent of the NSA. The US official rejected the demand, and said that he provided details of “NSA’s legal prohibition on providing information that could be used in targeted killings.”
The acting SLO officer pointed out that, “Even with his full understanding of the US statutes, [ISNU Commander] BG Harari sought assistance from NSA for an exemption to this legal policy. To ISNU, this prohibition was contrary not only to supporting Israel in its fight against Hizballah but overall, to support the US Global War on Terrorism.”
The account, published by The Intercept — which has released four years’ worth of SIDdtoday material in batches — goes on to suggest that the NSA ultimately reached a compromise with the Israelis by working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and that in the end it was the Israeli team that defined the parameters and methods of what could and could not be shared with them.
According to The Intercept, the episode recounted by the US liaison officer raises “questions of what intelligence the United States can legally share with a foreign government.” This, it said, is a “notoriously murky” area.
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Okinawa Governor Warns of Civil Unrest if US Doesn’t Give Up Local Marine Base
Sputnik – May 30, 2019
Should the US prolong its military use of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, it could see civil unrest in the region, Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki recently wrote in a letter to US officials.
“If the US continues to use [MCAS Futenma], it may give rise to anti-base protests against all US military bases in Okinawa, or even an overall anti-US movement like what was seen in the past,” Tamaki noted, recalling the turbulent days of the early 1970s when Japanese demonstrators unified under an anti-American stance.
“If that happens, such movements would have a significant impact on the Japan-US Security Arrangements as well as the Japan-US Alliance including operation of Kadena Air Base and White Beach Naval Facility.”
Tamaki further noted in the letter that US Marine air operations should be removed completely from the island, since the US has the capability to handle any possible threats from China or North Korea with its Air Force and Navy.
Most notably, in December 1970, tensions came to a boil in Okinawa after an intoxicated American driver struck an Okinawan pedestrian, triggering one of the largest anti-US demonstrations. That incident, later known as the Koza Riots, saw thousands of Okinawans protest against the American presence on the island.
According to the Japan Times, local residents pulled American drivers from their cars, beat them and set their vehicles ablaze. More than 80 cars were left burning, and dozens of Americans were hospitalized.
Bruce Lieber, a veteran once assigned to the 20th Military Police Company in Okinawa, told the Times that he had been one of the first individuals on the scene. “It was really frightening. The crowd surrounded us, then they flipped our car and set it on fire,” he recalled.
Despite the years since the Koza Riots, tensions have continued to simmer. Locals have repeatedly called for US officials to close down the Futenma base due to environmental concerns, repeated aerial mishaps and violent incidents perpetrated by US servicemembers.
In 2017, a helicopter window from a CH-53E Super Stallion became detached and landed on the sports field of an elementary school, where dozens of students were playing at the time. Sputnik reported that one student suffered a minor injury as a result.
Over the last several years, US and Japanese officials have drawn up various plans to relocate the service’s base to Henoko Bay in the Okinawan city of Nago. However, the project has been repeatedly postponed due to opposition from local officials and residents who want the base removed from the prefecture.
According to Stars & Stripes, the relocation plan was expected to be completed by 2014. Landfill work for the base was recently resumed in December 2018 — a decision which was made before an island-wide referendum saw 70% of Okinawans vote against the relocation.
Updated estimates for the project suggest the base could be completed sometime between 2025 and 2026, if not later, the military website reported.
US Claim of Illegal Russian Nuke Testing Lacks Proof – Arms Control Association
Sputnik – 29.05.2019
The claims by the United States that Russia illegally conducts nuclear testing lack evidence, the Arms Control Association said in a press release.
“But no public evidence has ever been provided to support the claim of illegal Russian testing and Gen. Ashley didn’t provide any Wednesday”, the Arms Control Association said. “Gen. Ashley also claimed that Russia has ‘not affirmed the language of zero-yield.’ But Russia has repeatedly affirmed publicly that they believe the treaty prohibits all nuclear test explosions”.
The association noted, for example, that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov emphasized in a 2017 op-ed that the treaty bans “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, anywhere on Earth, whatever the yield”.
The best way for Washington to enforce adherence to the zero-yield standard would be for President Donald Trump and the US Senate to support ratifying the treaty to help bring it into force, the association added.
Such a move would pave the way for “intrusive, short-notice, on-site inspections to detect and deter any possible cheating”, the release said.
The United States should propose confidence-building visits to test sites as allowed for by the treaty if it indeed has any “credible evidence” of Russia violating the treaty, it added.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organisations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov has commented on the matter saying that Washington is trying to distract attention from its own destructive policy on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) by blaming Russia for violating the moratorium on nuclear tests.
The release comes after US Defenсe Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley said that the United States believes Russia may not be adhering to the nuclear testing moratorium outlined in the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Pentagon tells same old story: Russia ‘PROBABLY’ violating nuke treaty… that US never ratified
RT | May 30, 2019
The Pentagon has rolled out new allegations against Russia, suggesting that Moscow might be conducting nuclear tests banned by a treaty which the US never even ratified.
Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr, the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, disclosed during a speech at the right-wing Hudson Institute on Wednesday that the United States believes Russia has “probably” restarted low-yield nuclear tests, in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
The fear, according to Ashley, is that Russia may be developing tactical nuclear weapons for use on conventional battlefields.
Pressed about the claim in a question-and-answer session afterward, Ashley backed away from his provocative word choice and said only that Russia “has the capability” to conduct a test with a low nuclear yield.
His comments were later clarified by Tim Morrison, a senior director at the National Security Council, who insisted that Moscow has “taken actions” to improve its nuclear arsenal that “run contrary to the scope of its obligations under the treaty.”
The Pentagon’s latest allegations are complimented by an inconvenient reality that neither Ashley nor Morrison were eager to discuss. The United States never ratified the CTBT, and is not bound by international law to follow its provisions. In layman’s terms, this means that Washington is making vague assertions that Russia is violating a treaty of which the US itself is not a ratified signatory. (The United States, the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon, claims that is has not conducted a nuclear test since 1992. So who needs silly treaties?)
The accusation of Russia’s non-compliance with CTBT comes as Washington prepares to exit a different arms control agreement, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, in August. The Trump administration insists that it must leave the 1987 accord because of repeated violations by Russia – an allegation which Moscow has strenuously denied.
Russia has warned that the collapse of the INF could imperil the landmark New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires in 2021. Attacks by US conservatives and political analysts against the treaty have compelled the Russian Embassy in the US to issue a factsheet on Russia’s arms control record.
“We deem it necessary to point out some of their blatant misrepresentations of facts that mislead the audience and create a distorted picture of the actual state of affairs,” the embassy wrote in a Facebook post.
This isn’t the first time Washington has resorted to vague language to accuse adversaries of serious crimes. US National Security Advisor John Bolton recently claimed that Iran was “almost certainly” behind an attack on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. As usual, Bolton didn’t elaborate.
Washington’s Mighty Warriors: Draft Dodgers and Scoundrels
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 30, 2019
Remember Shakespeare’s line “he jests at scars that never felt a wound?” That epithet could have been written with National Security Advisor John Bolton in mind. Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, like his current boss, not due to any scruples regarding what was occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass. He is now credibly believed to be the driving force behind the punishment being meted out to Venezuela and, far more dangerously, of the creeping escalation that is taking place in the Middle East that is seeking to draw Iran into a misstep that would lead to war. Bolton, who has received the “Defender of Israel” award, has long been an outspoken advocate for attacking Iran and now he has the power to do just that.
The psychopaths in the White House have been pretending that the United States “and its allies” are being threatened by Iran, a ridiculous conceit in and of itself as the Persians are hugely outgunned by the local U.S. presence as well as by the weapons in place in the region in the hands of the Saudis and Israelis. Israel is, one might recall, armed to the teeth through the beneficence of the United States and is also the region’s only nuclear armed power by virtue of the theft of U.S. technology and enriched uranium. The Saudis, meanwhile, are about to receive another $8 billion in American made weapons due to the “Iranian threat.” That Trump has arranged the arms sale on his own questionable authority as an “emergency response” seems to bother some in Washington and the media, but no one will ultimately do anything about it as everyone inside the Beltway hates Iran due to the assiduous work of the Israel Lobby.
Trump has already sent bombers to the Persian Gulf region as well as an aircraft carrier and he is now adding 1500 more troops because the Iranian threat is reportedly increasing. The alleged threat itself is based on generic Israeli intelligence about what the Iranians might do if they choose to react to U.S. pressure. The intelligence reportedly suggests that there might be attacks on American diplomatic missions in Iraq, which has led to the evacuation of dependents and unnecessary staff from the posts in Baghdad and Irbil. It is also claimed that the Iranians were mounting anti-ship missiles on small coastal vessels to deploy against American warships.
The Pentagon claims that it has photographic evidence of the anti-ship missile threat, but Gareth Porter has demolished the analysis that has been produced by the White House, noting that the truly dangerous missiles are largely shore based and hidden.
The reality is that the Executive Branch of the federal government is essentially contriving a phony war supportive of no conceivable national interest that is based on lies and might even include a “false flag” operation that will condemn Iran for something it did not do. Some have compared it to the lead-up to Iraq, which is a fair judgment, but one has to suspect that the current situation is much worse as a war with Iran is potentially far more damaging to actual American interests than Saddam Hussein ever was. Iran will fight back and has capable defenses, which means Americans, not Israelis or Saudis, will die. So too will many thousands of innocent Iranian civilians. And there will be new trillions of dollars to add to the already crippling war debt being amassed Washington with absolutely nothing to show in return.
If there is any hope on the horizon it might be coming from a number of media reports that President Donald Trump has expressed considerable irritation with the advice he is getting from Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He reportedly began to see the light when the attempted coup in Venezuela did not develop as planned, resulting in some comments by the president that he had been misled into thinking that the regime change would be “easy.” He has since that time stated that he does not want war with Iran, though his actions would suggest otherwise, and some news reports are suggesting that he is unhappy and at odds with Bolton in particular.
Unfortunately the desktop warriors who are currently calling the shots in Washington have no idea what they might be getting into. The only former soldier among them is Pompeo, who is a West Point graduate. He missed Vietnam and has never been involved in actual combat. He is also is a Christian Zionist who welcomes a major war in the Middle East in hopes that it will bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Neither Pompeo nor Bolton has any real understanding that war means death. If Bolton has his way, many thousands will die and the United States will be reviled by nearly the entire world. President Donald Trump for all his self-proclaimed “genius” status does not appear to understand that reality either. For him, megadeaths and national humiliation might mean little more than the numbers on a balance sheet when one is reckoning up the costs of constructing a building.
This impending tragedy must be stopped. Back in 2003, a hundred thousand Americans gathered at the Washington Mall to protest against the drive to invade Iraq. Nothing like that has developed yet, but the people must rise up to demand that the government cease and desist from doing things in their name that do not help a single American but instead only bring death and destruction. Trump promised to do that when he ran for president. It is past time that he fulfill that promise.
Pulling a Comey: How Mueller dog-whistled Democrats into impeachment of Trump
Nebojsa Malic | RT | May 29, 2019
Robert Mueller is special counsel no more, but he fired a parting shot during his televised statement that has sent Democrats into a frenzy of calls for impeaching President Donald Trump, whether by accident or by design.
At a remarkable press conference on Wednesday – at which he refused to take questions – Mueller sank the theory that Attorney General William Barr somehow misinterpreted his report, and sent a clear message to House Democrats eager to have him testify about the probe that “the report is my testimony.”
Despite years of work, millions of dollars and near-unlimited powers, Mueller’s special prosecutors found zero evidence of collusion or conspiracy – and absent that underlying crime, no grounds to charge the US president with obstruction of justice, even as they wrote up 240 pages of tortured reasoning as to why they wanted to. Case closed, conspiracies put to bed, lots of people with egg on their face, time for the republic to move on, right?
Wrong!
Did you honestly expect people who have gone all in on a conspiracy theory about Russia somehow “stealing” the election from Hillary Clinton – investing not just the past three years, but their entire political and media capital into it – to give up just because there isn’t a grain of truth in it? Instead, they latched onto Mueller’s carefully weasel-worded declaration:
“If we had confidence the President did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
That was no mere misstep, either. Mueller followed that line up with a passage about how his office did not make a determination whether Trump committed a crime because the standing policy of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Not their fault, you see, they had no choice.
Except they did, and they had the avenue to make their claim – but chose not to, knowing that Barr would shoot it down, because he disagreed with their interpretation of obstruction laws long before he became AG. But those are details known to lawyers and honest legal analysts, not the propagandists and conspiracy-peddlers who have spent years whipping the American public into a hysteria not seen since the 1950s.
Mueller’s was a weasel statement, worthy of former FBI boss and his personal friend James Comey – who actually admitted to Congress that he hoped to force the appointment of a special counsel by leaking the memos of his meetings with Trump to the press.
It also seems to have been a dog-whistle to Democrats, who have been arguing ever since the Mueller report was published that it totally proved obstruction of justice and gave them the pretext for impeachment. A variety of party luminaries, such as House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-New York), presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) and firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), now doubled down on the claim.
What happens next is anybody’s guess: Democrats may hope enough Republicans will break ranks to successfully impeach and convict Trump, though that’s no more likely to succeed than any of the schemes to overturn the 2016 election result so far. Or they might hope that impeachment proceedings will mobilize their voters for 2020. Either way, the opposition party and the media aligned with it are determined to keep flogging the dead horse of Russiagate, hoping it will deliver them victory.
Those who believe Mueller’s mission was to “get Trump” will no doubt be happy with the former special counsel’s last move. But Americans who hoped he would clear the air clogged by endless conspiracy theories have every right to feel disappointed.
“Spying”: Comey Doth Protest Too Much
By Thomas L. Knapp | Garrison Center | May 29, 2019
“We didn’t ‘spy’ on anyone’s campaign,” writes former FBI director James Comey in a recent Washington Post op-ed.
“We asked a federal judge for permission to surveil” former Donald Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, but that’s not “spying.”
Before that (unmentioned in the op-ed), we infiltrated an informant into the campaign to gather information on its operations, but that’s not “spying.”
What a strange allergic reaction from Comey, and others associated with US intelligence and counterintelligence operations, to US Attorney General William Barr’s simple statement before the US Senate: “Spying on a campaign is a big deal … I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated.”
Comey insists that the spying was indeed “adequately predicated,” and that for some reason this makes it not spying.
It was spying.
You know, the same activity for which 98-year-old Patricia Warner, who infiltrated Nazi circles in Spain during World War Two, just received the Congressional Gold Medal.
The same activity for which dozens of CIA assets have received the Intelligence Star medal, and for which 113 of them have their names inscribed on that agency’s “Memorial Wall.”
The same activity on which the US government spends untold billions per year, assuring us that it is not just good and moral and justifiable, but absolutely necessary to the defense of the United States.
Comey’s trying to have it both ways here.
On one hand, he justifies the spying based on claims that “Russia engaged in a massive effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” and that “we learned that one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers knew about the Russian effort seven weeks before we did.”
He defends the cloak-and dagger approach of the FBI’s espionage (“the practice of spying or using spies”) operation on the Trump campaign, saying that “if there was nothing to it, we didn’t want to smear Americans. If there was something to it, we didn’t want to let corrupt Americans know we were onto them. So, we kept it secret.”
On the other hand, he claims it wasn’t “spying” because … well, just because. “Non-fringe” media, he says doesn’t spend much time on this “conspiracy theory” because it’s just so wacky.
Comey’s sophistry doesn’t even rise to the level of Nixon Logic: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” His formulation is “if the FBI did it for a good reason, that means the FBI didn’t do it.”
The important question here is not whether the FBI spied on the Trump campaign. It did. Period.
The important question is why Comey doesn’t want to discuss, or even acknowledge, that fact.
The answer to that question is that discussing and acknowledging the irrefutable fact that the FBI spied on the Trump campaign leads into other discussions he finds even less desirable, such as whether the spying was legal — “adequately predicated” — and whether it was politically motivated (in a word, an attempted “coup”).
Why doesn’t Comey want those discussions? That question pretty much answers itself.
Defense Cooperation Agreement Between US, UAE Now in Effect – White House
Sputnik – May 29, 2019
The White House issued a press release Wednesday, revealing that US National Security Advisor John Bolton and United Arab Emirates National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA).
“The DCA will enhance military coordination between the United States and the United Arab Emirates, further advancing an already robust military, political, and economic partnership at a critical time,” reads the statement. “The United States and the United Arab Emirates share a deep interest in promoting prosperity and stability in the region.”
“The DCA will advance that interest by fostering closer collaboration on defense and security matters and supporting efforts by both nations to maintain security in the Gulf region,” it adds.
The US also has defense cooperation agreements with Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.
The latest agreement comes days after the US Defense Department announced that officials from the US and Estonia signed a five-year document to continue a defense cooperation between the two countries through 2024. According to a release from the defense agency, Estonia joins fellow Baltic states Lithuania and Latvia in the move.
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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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