Whatever their plans, the stakeholders in the Middle East must remember that clever plans to remake the Middle East have hitherto been remarkable for their inability to anticipate countermoves by opposing forces.
Tension is increasing all across the Middle East and the United States is again falling into a trap set up by its so-called allies to act against its own interests by getting deeply involved in what might turn out to be an escalating conflict. The recent victories by the Syrian Army and its Russian allies, which suggest that the active phase of the Syrian civil war will soon be drawing to a close, means that the perennial unrest in the region will be shifting gears and possibly leading to new conflict in areas that have until now been quiet. The lack of any real American policy for the region will enable the Saudis and Israelis, who have hegemonistic dreams of their own, to manipulate a casus belli, quite likely starting in Lebanon, where Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri recently resigned his office and fled to Saudi Arabia, claiming that he was fearing for his life due to his resistance to Iran’s influence over his country.
Hariri headed a coalition pulled together in 2016 that included nearly all of Lebanon’s main parties, including Hezbollah. It took office in a political deal that made Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian who has an understanding with Hezbollah, president. The inclusion of Hezbollah and the presence of a friendly Aoun was seen as a victory for Iran.
The Hariri resignation was certainly carried out in collusion with Riyadh, to include the damning of Iranian influence as his reason for leaving. It suggests that the Saudis and Israelis, who have been hyperbolically claiming that Tehran is about to take control of much of the Middle East, are feeling confident enough to move towards some kind of showdown with the Mullahs. As a first step, expected deteriorating sectarian interaction between Sunni and Shi‘ite Muslims in Lebanon will eliminate any possibility of a bipartisan and functioning government, providing a pretext for foreign intervention to stabilize the situation.
The United States is clearly privately approving the Israeli and Saudi moves, as Washington, Riyadh and Tel Aviv have all adamantly opposed the existence of the Lebanese coalition dominated by Aoun and Hezbollah’s Nasrullah because of the Hezbollah presence. The next step will be for Israel fighter aircraft to increase their incursions into Lebanese airspace in light of the alleged instability north of the border derived from the claims by Hariri that he was about to be assassinated. The activity would be intended to provoke a Lebanese response that would escalate into an incident that will lead to a major strike to bring the Beirut government down. The ultimate objective is to create a Saudi and Israeli-led grand Sunni alliance, which might be a fantasy, to pushback Iranian influence in the entire region. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, opposed by the Saudis because it is Shi’a and by Israel because of its missile arsenal, would be targeted as the first marker to fall.
A supportive Washington role in the conflict will of course be indispensable and there is every sign that it would be forthcoming, with grand strategists like Generals Mattis and McMaster no doubt envisioning a roll-up of Shi’as starting in Lebanon and working eastward while the Saudis continue their aggression against Yemen to counter alleged Iranian interference in that area. Israel will also undoubtedly step up its attacks on Syrian Army positions, claiming that it is striking Hezbollah, to further complicate any countermoves by the Iranians. Israel has made it very clear that it will attack any Iranian military positions that are established in Syria.
It is important to recall that clever plans to remake the Middle East have hitherto been remarkable for their inability to anticipate countermoves by opposing forces. Bashar al-Assad has survived an onslaught directed by the very same alignment now out to reverse a perceived Iranian-led Shi’a ascendancy and Hezbollah proved so successful against Israel that Israeli war plans now rule out any action on the ground due to the high casualty levels experienced in 1990-2000. The US would be playing a supporting role in any conflict, but might well suffer collateral damage if Iran is drawn in directly, a development that could easily lead to armed conflict between Washington and Tehran.
Mass arrests of senior royals, amid fear of assassinations, indicate that what is going on in Saudi Arabia is a far-reaching purge. The facade of a “corruption probe” – promoted in part by Western news media and US President Donald Trump – is a barely credible cover.
The cover is not just for a ruthless power grab within the desert kingdom by Saudi rulers, but a realignment that also puts the entire Middle East region on notice for more conflict and possibly even an all-out war with Iran. A war that the Israeli state and the Trump administration are enthusiastically egging on.
This move towards war with Iran could explain why the Saudi royals made a landmark trip to Moscow last month. Was it an attempt to buy off Russia with oil and weapons deals in order to free the Saudi hand with regard to Iran?
In typical fragmented fashion, Western media have tended to report the mass arrest last weekend of royal princes, ministers and business leaders, carried out under the orders of King Salman and his heir Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as a crackdown on corruption and business sleaze.
Omitted in media coverage is the significant wider context of the Saudi rulers moving at the same time to exert political control over regional politicians, as well as making sensational claims that Iran and Lebanon have “declared war” on Saudi Arabia by allegedly supporting a missile strike from Yemen.
The apparent forced resignation of Lebanese premier Saad Hariri last weekend after having been summoned to Saudi capital Riyadh provided convenient substance to Saudi claims that Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah were destabilizing Lebanon and indeed plotting to assassinate Hariri.
However, Hariri was just one of several regional political figures whom the Saudis were reportedly putting pressure on. Reports emerged that the ex-Yemeni president Mansour Hadi has been held under house arrest in his exile home in Riyadh. There were reports too of Syrian opposition figures being detained in Riyadh. And the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was ordered to the Saudi capital. This suggests the Saudis are orchestrating a regional chorus line.
Furthermore, there were credible Israeli media reports that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv is coordinating with Saudi Arabia to support the latter’s accusations against Iran and Hezbollah of committing acts of war from Yemen by supplying missiles to the Houthi rebels.
Washington has also weighed in to support the Saudi claims that Iran is arming the Houthis in violation of a UN Security Council resolution. Referring to the missile strike on Riyadh international airport last Sunday President Trump said that “Iran took a shot at Saudi Arabia”. Then the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley later in the week called for sanctions against Tehran, citing Saudi “evidence”. Iran has dismissed the claims as baseless, pointing to the Saudi air, sea and land blockade on Yemen as preventing any such weapons supply.
The power behind the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the 32-year-old son of aging King Salman (82), has emerged as an ambitious autocrat who also harbors an intense hostility towards Iran. In several media interviews, the Crown Prince has disclosed an obsession with crushing Iran. This goes way beyond the usual sectarian Wahhabi antipathy of Saudi leaders towards Shia Iran.
Crown Prince MbS is playing a smart game to a degree. He has made a big media play on “reforming” Saudi Arabia from its fundamentalist social conservatism to become a seemingly more cosmopolitan society. The Crown Prince has pushed reforms giving Saudi women the right to drive cars, travel without male guardians, and enter sports stadiums. Hardly radical advances in gender equality. Nevertheless, MbS has ably projected himself with Western media assistance as something of a progressive reformer.
Those changes are but the veneer for ruthless ambitions and a hyper power-grab within the despotic House of Saud. The supposed “corruption probe” is another layer of varnish to conceal much more sinister developments.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper this week waxed lyrical over the mass round-up of senior Saudi royals and ministers describing it as a “revolution” carried out by the would-be reformer Crown Prince, placing the development in the context of minor liberalization of women’s rights.
Meanwhile, the New York Times offered an apologia for the “Saudi Corruption Crackdown” by saying: “Graft is so pervasive that any measures short of revolutionary change may appear to be selective prosecution.”
Such reporting serves as a distraction from the real power play at work and the grave regional implications.
For a start, the number of detained princes, as well as current and former government ministers, are in the dozens. The profiles of those arrested suggest a pattern that has more to do with eliminating potential rivals than with alleged corruption.
Potentially most sinister is that on the day of the mass arrests, a contender for inheriting the Saudi throne was killed in a helicopter crash. Prince Mansour bin Muqrin (42) was among eight officials who died when their chopper went down in southern Asir Province near the border with Yemen. Saudi media have not given any details about the cause of the crash. One might have expected the Saudis to lay the blame on Houthi rebels and, by extension, Iran. But no. The House of Saud and its media outlets have said little about the death of this senior royal. Significantly, too, the Houthi rebels and their media have said little about the incident. If there was a chance of the rebels being involved, one might expect them to prompt a propaganda coup claiming a spectacular blow against the Saudis whom they have been fighting a war against since March 2015.
The chopper victim Prince Mansour was the son of 72-year-old Prince Muqrin, who is one of the last surviving sons of the Saudi kingdom’s founder Ibn Saud. (He is a half-brother to the sitting King Salman.)
Prince Muqrin was also former head of Saudi state intelligence (2005-2012) before he was made Crown Prince in January 2015 upon the death of his brother, the late King Abdullah. In the arcane world of Saudi power inheritance, the throne has always passed between Ibn Saud’s sons, or from brother to brother. When Abdullah died in January 2015, the next in line was their brother Salman (the present king). After Salman, according to traditional succession rules, the next heir to the throne should have been Muqrin, who indeed was made Crown Prince in January 2015. However, three months later, King Salman demoted Muqrin as heir apparent. He was sidelined to make way for the emergence of Mohammed bin Salman, the son of the king, as Crown Prince. That marked an unprecedented rupture in Saudi royal tradition, and no doubt has left a seething resentment among the clans comprising the House of Saud.
Prince Muqrin and his lineage of six sons therefore can be seen as a dangerous rival to the ambitions of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. As his own father King Salman’s health declines, the next-in-line appears to be clearing the royal court of potential competition for the throne.
It is not yet known what actually happened to the helicopter ferrying Prince Mansour last weekend. But it seems more than a coincidence that the crash occurred on the same day as the arrest and round-up of several other senior royals. Two of those arrested were Prince Mataib bin Abdullah and Prince Turki bin Abdullah. They are the sons of the late King Abdullah, and like Prince Mansour, they are cousins of Crown Prince MbS, and therefore could potentially mount a challenge to his succession to the throne.
The arrests also targeted the heads of national security, the National Guard and Navy, as well as Western-connected Saudi media magnates Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and Waleed Al-Ibrahim, who are major shareholders in 20th Century Fox, News Corporation, Apple, Twitter, and TV satellite companies. Those arrests suggest that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to close down any backlash from within the Saudi security establishment, as well as shut off potentially negative media coverage.
Donald Trump immediately hailed the events in Saudi Arabia as a welcome clean-up against corruption. He said people had been “milking the country for years”.
There is little doubt that Saudi elites are generally up to their eyes in graft. The House of Saud and the country’s fabulously wealth oil industry are a byword for endemic corruption, bribery and racketeering. (Recall the British Al-Yamamah $60 billion arms and bribery scandal during the 1980s under the Thatcher government for example.)
So, for Trump and sections of the Western media to indulge the notion of a reforming Crown Prince overhauling endemic national sleaze is impossibly naive.
It also completely misses the point of how the Saudi rulers are gearing up for a regional war with Iran and via Lebanon by consolidating all power behind Crown Prince MbS and his anti-Iran obsession.
Trump and his business mogul son-in-law Jared Kushner have from an early stage gravitated to Crown Prince MbS for massive US arms sales and Saudi investment in the American economy. Only days before the Saudi purge, Kushner was on a low-key visit to Riyadh to meet with Saudi rulers. Trump also appealed last week to the Saudis to choose US stock markets for the much-anticipated share sell-off for Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, which is expected to fetch $2 trillion.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the architect behind the Saudi slaughter in Yemen, is positioning himself with total power in order to pursue his obsession of confronting Iran. That’s like pushing an open door when it comes to forming an anti-Iran front with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and the Trump administration. And for Trump there is also the added incentive of lavishing Wall Street by pandering to the Saudi despots.
The ballistic missile, intercepted near Saudi Arabia’s capital last Saturday, was from Iran and bore “Iranian markings,” a top US Air Force commander has said.
The commander for southwest Asia at US Air Forces Central Command, Jeffrey Harrigian, claimed on Friday that the missile, which targeted the country’s main airport near the capital last Saturday, was Iranian. The projectile, which was downed near the airport of the Saudi capital bore “Iranian markings,” according to Harrigian, who added that an investigation was underway into how it was smuggled to Yemen despite the Saudi naval and air blockade.
The missile incident proves that Iran has made it possible for ballistic missile attacks to be launched from Yemen, the official claimed. Harrigian declined to give any specifics on the exact type of missile the US believed it to be.
While both US and Saudi officials, as well as other politicians, expressed confidence that the projectile originated from Iran, no evidence supporting that claim has been presented so far.
The uncovered wreckage of the missile indicated “the role of the Iranian regime in manufacturing,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said earlier this week, without providing further details.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in his turn, simply put it that the missile was “obviously” Iranian – also without giving any proof.
While the blame for the missile launch was promptly pinned on Iran, Tehran has firmly denied its involvement. The Iranian Foreign Ministry branded the allegations “destructive, irresponsible, provocative and baseless,” adding that the missile launch was an “independent” response by Yemenis to Saudi aggression.
The ministry’s statement was echoed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who said that Riyadh itself was actually to blame, as the Yemeni fighters were only protecting their country from Saudi bombings.
“How should the Yemeni people react to the bombardment of their country? So they are not allowed to use their own weapons? You stop the bombardment first and see if the Yemenis would not do the same,” Rouhani said on Wednesday.
The influential Russian daily Kommersant reported today on an intriguing development with ominous overtones for long-term India-Russia defence cooperation. It seems that Indian authorities gave access to a US Navy delegation of “well-trained technical specialists” to enter the top secret Russian nuclear submarine under the rubric “Project 9711″, which is on lease to Indian Navy within the framework of the so-called “special and privileged strategic partnership” between the two countries.
Apparently, the incident took place when the submarine was docked at the naval base at Vishakhapatanam while undergoing repairs. (The Indian Navy has christened the super secret Russian nuclear submarine as ‘Chakra’.) The Russian daily reported that this has been the second such serious breach of confidentiality that traditionally existed between Russia and India in defence cooperation with regard to the sharing of military technology with third parties.
In an earlier incident, a US Navy team was apparently allowed to visit the Russian-built aircraft carrier with the Indian Navy, Vikramaditya. Upon knowing about the security breach, the Russian side lodged a protest with the Indians. Obviously, that had no effect, as the latest incident involving the nuclear submarine suggests.
Unnamed Russian officials have described the Indian behavior as “outrageous.” According to Kommersant, the incident threatens to “seriously complicate negotiations both on the lease of the second nuclear submarine, and on other projects” in the field of military-technical cooperation between the two countries.
Given the high likelihood – nay, virtual certainty – that the Kommersant report is based on official Russian briefing, this must be taken as a warning from Moscow. Without going into details, Kommersant quoted Russian officials as pointing out that the incident involving the nuclear submarine is of a piece with several recent “unfriendly acts towards Russia” by the concerned Indian authorities.
It is unclear whether the paper was insinuating that such Indian behavior may be taking place without the knowledge of the political leadership in Delhi. If so, the Russian media leak could be intended to draw the attention of the Defence Ministry and the PMO. Of course, the officer corps of the Indian armed forces would have a fair share of lobbyists for American arms manufacturers. It is well-known that retired military officials have been retreading themselves at times as dalals of foreign vendors of weaponry eyeing the Indian market.
The Russian daily underscored that this whole string of incidents could have a very adverse impact on defense cooperation between the two countries, which has been successfully developing over the past five years. Interestingly, it disclosed that “specialized Russian structures are preparing retaliatory measures against their Indian partners. “Very difficult conversations are on the horizon, we have a lot of questions,” a source said. Some who spoke to Kommersant believe that, in particular, the negotiations on leasing the second nuclear submarine, which the Indian Navy planned to obtain from Russia, will be seriously complicated.”
The big question is whether the two governments are at the parting of ways as regards the sharing of cutting edge Russian military technology. At the level of the Indian political leadership, this is most certainly not the thinking. Prime Minister Modi himself is known to be a staunch believer in the raison d’etre of India-Russia strategic ties. It will be interesting to see how far India’s “natural partner” Donald Trump steps in to follow up on the US Navy team’s visit to INS Chakra. Will the Pentagon agree to lease to the Indian Navy a nuclear submarine?
There is already a cloud hanging low over the much-touted futuristic Russian-Indian collaboration to create a fifth-generation fighter aircraft. A concerted campaign has been appearing in India from time to time deliberately running down the project. (here and here.) Even foreign publications began floating the rumor that India wants to get out of the Russian deal. (National Interest, Diplomat ). The preference of lobbyists in Delhi seems to be for the American prototypes. But then, for backing out of the ‘Make in India’ venture, they must find some credible argument. Even with the best Indian ingenuity, this has not been possible so far. Funnily enough, TASS felt obliged to carry a report a few days ago (here) simply to set the record straight.
To be sure, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin’s expected visit to Delhi next month is invested with much importance. India-Russia defence cooperation has been traditionally based on great mutual trust and confidence. Therefore, the recent trends are disturbing. The Indian think-tankers and media analysts keep whining and complaining about Russian weapons going to China and Pakistan. On the other hand, some of them also happen to be lobbyists for the US interests. Testing times are ahead, for sure, as the US-Russian rivalry may also surface on the Indian strategic landscape. (See may earlier blog US strikes at India-Russia defence ties.)
House Concurrent Resolution 81 (H.Con.Res.81) is sponsored by Representatives, Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Walter Jones (R-NC), Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and 39 other lawmakers. The resolution commands an end to U.S. participation in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
The sponsors of this resolution contend that such participation, which began in March 2015, was never authorized under the War Powers Act of 1973. Per the War Powers Act, any congressman can pose a legal challenge and is guaranteed a floor vote on the issue. This is known as a privileged resolution.
On November 1st, the night before the vote was scheduled to take place, House leadership swiftly pushed through a Rules Committee vote, denying the resolution’s privileged status. Thus, preventing the guaranteed floor vote.
What was their justification? Apparently, the House Rules Committee feels that the war in Yemen has yet to ‘rise to a level’ where the War Powers Act is applicable.
After preventing the vote on H.Con.Res.81, the House Leadership has said it shall permit a ‘compromise’ resolution on the war in Yemen. The debate, scheduled for the week of November 13th, will discuss the legality of U.S. involvement in the war. The vote will be non-binding.
Five peace activist groups, heavily engaged in promoting the resolution, said just after the Rules Committee vote:
“We remind the House leadership that under the War Powers Resolution of 1973,
“‘introduction of United States Armed Forces ’includes the assignment of member of such armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged…’
U.S. refueling of Saudi-UAE planes bombing Houthi targets in Yemen meets that definition.’”
Therefore the War Powers Act, clearly applies to the war on Yemen.
The House leadership is lying to the American people, supporting the continuation of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, violating the War Powers Act, and attempting to prevent Congress from stopping yet another illegal and unconstitutional war.
Conservatively, since the beginning of 2017, at least 10,000 people have been killed in this war. The heroic and indispensable Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee has said the toll could be as high as 60,000 deaths.
The Saudis are ruthlessly bombarding the Yemenis and their civilian infrastructure. The coalition wants to cripple the people of Yemen to the point of submission. Their end goal is to force Yemen’s civilians to stop supporting the northern tribesmen if only to alleviate their suffering.
U.S. involvement is most critical to the Saudi effort in this war. The U.S. military is training Saudi Arabian forces. The U.S. is refueling the coalition’s warplanes not just in the air with tanker sorties, but also on its bases peppered throughout the region.
As of February, according to an article written by Oriana Pawlyk for Military.com:
“Saudi Arabian coalition jets bombing Houthi rebel sites in Yemen increasingly turn to U.S. Air Force tankers for refueling support almost two years after the conflict began. Since April 2015, the Air Force has logged 1,778 tanker sorties for the operation, Air Forces Central Command spokeswoman Capt. Kathleen Atanasoff told Military.com on Tuesday. That includes 1,069 over the past year, an increase of 360, or 50 percent, from the 709 in the previous period. ‘These operations are ongoing, with aircraft refueling occurring daily,’ Atanasoff said in an email. The service’s tankers such as KC- 135 Stratotankers and KC-10 Extenders participated in 7,564 refueling ‘events’ with coalition aircraft, with ‘about 54 million pounds of fuel off-loaded in support of Saudi operations in Yemen,’ Atanasoff said.”
Donald Trump, doing his best Barack Obama impression, has been more than happy to sell the Saudis hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons to continue their genocide. These include planes, ships, rockets, precision-guided bombs, cluster bombs, etc. American defense contractors, particularly Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are likewise more than happy to rake in their handsome profits from Yemen’s destruction. With Jared Kushner playing the role of matchmaker for Mohammed bin Salman and Marillyn A. Hewson (CEO of Lockheed), the profits will surely escalate.
However, the Saudis have another powerful ally in this war, al Qaeda. This certainly makes the upcoming debate on Yemen a great opportunity for the House to finally get around to discussing the legality of high treason. Or more specifically, fighting another war for al Qaeda.
In addition to the coalition’s sadistic air campaign, Yemini civilians are threatened and attacked on the ground day in and day out by Sudanese mercenaries, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and a local Islamic State affiliate. All of whom support the coalition.
In an article published in The Hill, Gareth Porter and retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff) said:
“U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials have regarded AQAP as even more of a foreign terrorist threat to the United States than ISIS. It mounted efforts to bring down U.S. airlines three times between 2009 and 2012, and nearly succeeded twice. But the Saudi/UAE war in Yemen has made them the most powerful indigenous armed group in southern Yemen, with more money, arms and territorial control than ever before. The Saudi-led coalition and the forces of the Saudi backed former regime have allied openly with AQAP and even fought alongside them. As a result of the war AQAP is now poised for the first time to compete for national power in Yemen.”
See the map below of the military situation in Yemen as of this July for an idea of just how much territory AQAP has consolidated. The areas shaded white are controlled by AQAP, the pink areas are controlled by Hadi-loyal forces, and the green areas are controlled by the Houthi/Saleh alliance:
This is further evidence that U.S. involvement in the Saudi war is illegal. When asked for a justification for U.S. involvement in the Saudi/UAE war, both Barrack Obama and Donald Trump’s administrations have cited the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). That AUMF permits military action only against those entities who perpetrated the attacks on 9/11. In other words, military action is only permitted against al Qaeda. Yet, this war is being fought on behalf of al Qaeda against their enemies, the Houthis.
Indeed, Asher Orkaby made the point in Foreign Affairs that, “far from being aligned with extremists, the Houthi movement has repeatedly clashed with the Islamic State and AQAP”. So, in addition to the fact that this war was never authorized under the War Powers Act, it is also clearly not covered under the current AUMF.
Since the Obama administration, this is at least the third major conflict wherein the U.S. has found itself aligned with, fighting along side, arming, and/or supporting al Qaeda. This was official policy notably during the regime change operation in Libya and in the failed regime change operation in Syria. It is very important to note that if things had gone to plan in Syria, al Qaeda would have almost certainly taken Damascus.
Neoconservatives are now calling for a new AUMF to explicitly define ‘the enemy’ more broadly as proponents of so called, ‘radical Islam’. The ‘radical Islam’ handle is a red herring callously promoted by the fake news establishment. It is meant to dumb down and obscure the realities of these conflicts for domestic audiences. The cynical neoconservatives are pleased to have Americans view all Arabs and Muslims as one homogenous and terrifying collective. Most Americans are designedly oblivious to the differences between Sunnis, Shiites, and other branches of Islam. It is in the interests of the War Party for American voters to see such radically opposed groups as Daesh and Hezbollah as cut from the same cloth. This is obviously done in order to prevent rational discussion of these conflicts from ever taking place. For if the American people were well informed of the consequences of U.S. policy abroad, especially in the Middle East, they would probably not even passively support their regime’s policies.
In 2013, popular sentiment from people of all political stripes helped to prevent Obama’s would have been Iraq-style invasion of Syria. I believe one of the primary reasons for this was the effectiveness of the famous ‘I will not fight for al Qaeda in Syria’ social media campaign undertaken by active military personnel. Americans do not want to support and subsidize al Qaeda in Syria, Libya, Yemen, or anywhere else for that matter. The reason these horrific policies persist is not the peoples’ apathy, it’s their ignorance.
This is a particularly indefensible war, even by U.S standards. If they choose to, this is a war the American people can end. The establishment is certainly not comfortable publicly debating and defending their Yemen policy. Exposing the realities of this conflict and ending the war in Yemen could trigger an anti-war domino effect. Not since the Vietnam War has there been more fertile soil for an American anti-war movement.
Please continue to call your Congressmen and women and tell them to vote against the war on November 13th. Give them some good talking points for the debate. Please share, retweet posts from Yemenis on the ground, post news items, write blog posts, write articles, and speak your mind about the war in Yemen on social media. Do not be afraid to talk about the U.S.-Saudi/AQAP alliance. We have the truth on our side.
The ICC prosecutor’s decision to pursue a probe into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan is “completely political” and won’t amount to anything, law professor Francis Boyle believes. He said it will be a “cold day in hell” before any Americans are prosecuted.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced last week that her request to launch an investigation had been handed over to a pre-trial court. She said that if her request is granted, the probe will focus “upon those most responsible for the most serious crimes committed in connection with the situation in Afghanistan.”
However, Francis Boyle, an international law professor at the University of Illinois, told RT that while Bensouda is likely to get approval for the investigation, the move is simply a “propaganda stunt.” He added that Bensouda has no desire to go after any Americans who committed war crimes.
“You have to understand, this is all political,” said Boyle. He noted that the African country of Burundi has already pulled out of the ICC, and South Africa has voiced the same intention.
“So she’s in a position and the court is in a position that almost all of Africa is going to pull out of the ICC because the only people in the dock over there are black, tin-pot dictators from Africa,” Boyle said. He called the court a “Western, racist, imperial tool” which is being used against Africa.
Because of this, the so-called “white man’s court” will not be going after Americans, Boyle said. “It will be a cold day in hell” before we see Bensouda doing so, he added. Boyle noted that the ICC has “never gone after the Americans, the NATO states, Britain, Israel, despite clear-cut jurisdiction to do so.”
Boyle went on to accuse the US government of committing a Nuremberg crime against peace by “invading Afghanistan and attacking it and blowing them back to the Stone Age and killing a million Afghans.” He added that “I doubt very seriously Bensouda is going to deal with any of that.”
“The United States illegally and criminally invaded Afghanistan and attacked and destroyed them… and then they set up all these torture campus over there, they’ve been torturing these poor people forever. And at a minimum, the United States has probably killed a million Afghanis [sic] since October 2001,” he said.
“The Americans should have been investigated a decade ago at least,” said Boyle, who filed an ICC complaint against former US President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among others, in 2010, over their policy of “extraordinary rendition perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.” He added that “the American government knows full well they’ll be able to sabotage her [Bensouda], stop her. Nothing’s going to come of it.”
However, Boyle predicted that Bensouda would likely come back with a verdict that it was actually the Taliban who was responsible for crimes. “Or she might apportion blame, but that’s ridiculous too…if you read all the United Nations reports of human rights violations coming out of Afghanistan, they all blame the Taliban. And it’s a joke.”
Although the ICC statement doesn’t name specific parties that would be subject to the investigation, a report released by the prosecutor’s office last year said there is “reasonable basis” to believe crimes were committed by US military forces deployed to Afghanistan, and in secret detention facilities operated by the CIA. It also points the finger at the Taliban and Afghan government forces.
Boyle noted that although the US can technically be prosecuted by the court – despite not being a member – the ICC “pretty much do what they’re told to do,” citing money received from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, as well as the influence of America.
Meanwhile, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said earlier on Thursday that at least 10 civilians may have been killed in an airstrike in the north city of Kunduz last week, despite a US military investigation stating that no evidence of civilian deaths had been found.
Boyle previously served on the board of Amnesty International USA and drafted legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was signed into law after being unanimously approved by both chambers of the US Congress.
The mainstream media and the acolytes of the U.S. national-security establishment continue to emphasize that there are no “smoking guns” in the tiny (2 percent) of the 50-year-old JFK records that President Trump, the National Archives, and the CIA have recently permitted the American people to see.
Of course, these people define “smoking gun” as a videotaped confession or a memorandum summarizing how and why the CIA orchestrated the November 22, 1963 regime-change operation. If the released records don’t contain a confession or such a memorandum, then in the minds of the people that means the official narrative must stand: A lone-nut former U.S. Marine communist with no motive suddenly decided to kill the president.
Even with the tiny release of records, however, it is possible to draw logical inferences that show the falsity of the official narrative. This type of analytical analysis, however, only works for people who have a critical and analytical mindset. It doesn’t work for people whose mindset is one of deference to authority and inconceivability that the CIA would be willing to protect national security with a domestic regime-change operation.
The 20-page document, dated March 12, three weeks before King was assassinated in Memphis, is included in the latest trove of government files about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, which the National Archives released Friday. It alleges that King’s political ideologies and the creation of his civil rights organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were heavily influenced by communists, specifically the Communist Party USA. The FBI document went into great detail about one of King’s most trusted advisers, Stanley Levison, a New York lawyer and businessman who served as a top financier for the Communist Party years before he met King in 1956.
One big question that arises, of course, is why the FBI chose to keep this 50-year-old analysis secret from the American people until now.
One possibility, of course, is that the FBI was just embarrassed about having published such a report.
A second possibility, however, is that the FBI orchestrated the assassination of King and decided that the analysis would constitute evidence of motive. After all, don’t forget, this was the era of the Cold War, when the CIA was targeting communists for assassination. Before anyone cries, “Conspiracy theory, Jacob!” let’s not forget that in a civil lawsuit brought by King’s family, after weighing all the evidence the jury found, in its official verdict, that government agencies conspired to kill King.
Does the FBI analysis on King have any bearing on the Kennedy assassination?
Actually, yes. That’s where critical thinking, circumstantial evidence, inferential thinking, and common sense come into play.
The FBI analysis on King reflects the national-security establishment’s overwhelming obsession with Russia (i.e., the Soviet Union) and communists during the Cold War. It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of this anti-communist obsession—it is 1000 times greater than the national-security establishment’s and mainstream media’s obsession with Russia today. Think of the Korean War. The McCarthy hearings. The search for communists in the Army and the State Department. The invasion of a country that never attacked the United States (Cuba). Regime-change operations, including assassination, in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Congo, and, later, Chile. The U.S. invasion of Vietnam.
Not to mention COINTELPRO, MKULTRA, secret hiring of Nazis, infiltration of the U.S. Communist Party and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, prosecution of members of the U.S. Communist Party, and other totalitarian-like domestic programs to protect America from communists and communism.
The focus on King was all part of this anti-communist obsession. The FBI, especially its head J. Edgar Hoover, was absolutely, totally convinced that King was a communist, which is why they spied on him, wiretapped him, smeared him, and even blackmailed him in an attempt to get him to commit suicide. In fact, Hoover was convinced that the entire civil-rights movement was a secret front for the international communist conspiracy.
Okay, so you have the picture? Communists are bad. Communists are trying to take over America. Spy on them. Infiltrate their organizations. Kill them or try to destroy them. Or try to get them to commit suicide.
Now, here’s a funny part. That Washington Post article concludes with the following sentence: “The FBI document was among the 676 files that the National Archive released Friday. Among the recent disclosures are more than 500 never-before-seen CIA files that contain information about Lee Harvey Oswald….”
Why is that funny? Because it shows how obtuse the mainstream press can be when it comes to Lee Harvey Oswald. They just leave it at that!
This is where common sense, logic, and an analytical and critical mindset come into play.
What does the official narrative say about Oswald? Doesn’t it say that he was a communist?
Let’s review the facts.
Oswald gets interested in communism and joins the Marines, an institution that hates communists and kills communists. He is stationed in Japan at the military base that houses the top-secret CIA U-2 spy plane. He learns fluent Russian while in the military. Fellow soldiers laughingly refer to him as “Osvaldovitch.”
And yet, no one does anything to him, notwithstanding the national anti-communist crusade that is ferreting out and destroying communists everywhere!
Does that make any sense?
Oswald travels to Moscow, enters the U.S. Embassy, announces that he wishes to renounce his citizenship, and says that he is going to reveal everything he learned in the military to the Russians. He ends up living in Russia, marrying a woman whose uncle was a colonel in the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Oswald changes his mind and decides he now wants to return to the United States, with his Red wife. U.S. officials let him back in and even help him to return.
He moves to Dallas, where he hangs out with right-wing people rather than fellow-traveler, left-wing, commie types. He gets a job at a photography business that develops top-secret photographs for the CIA.
He moves to New Orleans, where he somehow gets a job with business owned by a right-wing, anti-communist American. He is seen at the offices of a former FBI agent, who seems to be connected to U.S. intelligence. He openly proselytizes for one of the organizations that the FBI and CIA are trying to destroy, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He even stamps one of his FPCC pamphlets with the return address where the FBI agent had his office. He approaches a secret CIA anti-communist front organization, the DRE, and offers to help train its members.
Oswald travels to Mexico City, where he visits with the Cuban and Soviet embassies. He supposedly meets with one of the top assassins for the Soviet Union.
Okay, you get the picture?
Now, think about what they did to Martin Luther King, who arguably wasn’t a communist at all. Think about what they did to Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood 10. Think about what they did to all the people hauled up to testify before Sen. McCarthy and forced to answer whether “they are now or ever have been members of the Communist Party.” Think about all the communists they targeted for assassination. Think about all the communists they killed in Korea and Vietnam. Think about what they did to Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Communist Cuba. Think what they did to Mossadegh, Arbenz, Allende, and Lamumba.
Now, ask yourself: What did they do to a supposedly real, died-in-the-wool, honest-to-goodness, self-avowed American communist named Lee Harvey Oswald?
Answer: They did nothing! Nothing at all. No COINTELPRO. No harassment. No abuse. No prosecution or persecution. No torture. No jailing. No military tribunal. No hauling before a federal grand jury. No criminal indictment for treason. No humiliation. No nothing!
And here’s the thing: It’s not as if they didn’t know about Oswald. In fact, as Jefferson Morley figured out several decades after the Kennedy assassination, a small section of the CIA, headed by CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, was secretly monitoring Oswald’s movements in the weeks leading up to the JFK assassination.
Why not harass, abuse, prosecute, or persecute this supposed communist? Why not treat him like they treated Martin Luther King and other people they were convinced were communists?
There can be only one logical answer: Oswald wasn’t a real communist. Instead, he was exactly what some people were saying he was after the assassination: He was a U.S. intelligence agent who had been trained to behave as a communist in order to infiltrate the Soviet Union, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and perhaps even Cuba as part of the CIA’s many assassination programs against Fidel Castro. In fact, recently released records among the two percent that were released also reveal that the CIA was in fact using secret agents to infiltrate communist organizations.
And don’t forget: Oswald vowed to give all his military secrets to the Russians. Would U.S. officials really ignore that threat, especially given that CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down while flying a CIA U-2 spy plane illegally flying over Russia while Oswald was living in Russia? Not a chance! Look at how they have treated Edward Snowden who simply revealed illegal acts of the NSA to the world.
So, why would the CIA be secretly monitoring Oswald and, equally important, why keep that secret from the American people for decades? Indeed, once the CIA learned that Oswald had supposedly met with a top Soviet assassin, why not report that to the Secret Service?
Indeed, where are the telephone recordings and photographs of the CIA’s Mexico City surveillance of Oswald? Why was Lyndon Johnson told that someone had impersonated Oswald in Mexico City? Why are the CIA and the National Archives still keeping the CIA’s records on Oswald’s trip to Mexico City secret from the American people?
There is only one answer that makes any sense: Oswald was exactly what he said he was after he was arrested. He was a “patsy” — a person who was being framed by the people around him. In order to make the frame-up succeed, they needed not only to fortify his bona-fides as a “communist,” they also needed to watch him carefully to make sure that he hadn’t figured out that he was being set up.
As Jefferson Morley recently pointed out at JFKfacts.org, “Pre-assassination communications about the unimportant Lee Oswald went straight to the top of the agency, i.e., to James Angleton.”
Needless to say, however, the mainstream media and the acolytes of the CIA are pointing to a recently disclosed CIA record that denies that Oswald was a U.S. intelligence agent.
Well, duh!
Let’s not forget one important thing about the CIA: It lies. Everyone knows it. In fact, lying is one of the core features of the CIA.
For example, recall CIA Director Richard Helms. He intentionally and knowingly lied under oath to Congress about the CIA’s role in instigating the Chilean coup in 1973. Perjury. He lied to protect “national security,” which meant protecting the secrecy of what the CIA had done to bring regime change to Chile.
Even though other CIA officials clearly knew that Helms had committed perjury, they intentionally and knowingly let the perjury stand. The need for secrecy was considered of paramount importance.
Moreover, when Helms returned to the CIA after being caught and sentenced, he was treated by his fellow CIA operatives as a hero and a patriot. They thought his lying was great. They even passed a hat around to help him pay his fine.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, if they would lie to protect the secrecy of their regime-change operation in Chile, why wouldn’t they lie to protect the secrecy of their regime-change operation here in the United States on November 22, 1963?
The CIA director Mike Pompeo has come under fire for meeting a former intelligence official, William Binney, over the alleged hacking of the Democratic party back in 2016. The US intelligence community laid the blame for the hack, on Moscow. READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/8rsl
Both Ken Burns and Anthony Bourdain have recently recycled the myth of National Liberation Front massacres in Hué during the Vietnam War. The real story, however, was quite different, as revealed at the time by one of the great correspondents of the era Wilfred Burchett. In order to set the record straight, we are reprinting his piece on Hué for The Guardian in 1970.
The recent attempt to equate the Son My (My Lai) massacre and scores of other similar atrocities with the so-called “Vietcong massacre at Hué” is a vain attempt to cover up what have been genocidal methods by the United States in South Vietnam since the war started.
The bodies in the mass graves of Hué — said to have been killed by the National Liberation Front — are victims of the same military machine and the same genocidal policies in operation at Son My. They are not the victims of the NLF but of American bombs, bullets and napalm.
Any discriminating reading of press reports published at the time will show what really happened in Hué. What follows is a true account of the Hue massacre.
The NLF attack on Hué was co-ordinated with an internal uprising on January 31, 1968. The main part of the city was in the hands of liberation forces within hours, practically without a shot fired.
Among the vanguard forces re-entering the city was Nguyen Chi Chanh, Hué’s former police chief who had sided with the people in the Buddhist uprising of 1966. He was a member of the Revolutionary Committee established as soon as Hué was liberated. If ever there was an example of what the South Vietnamese people really wanted, it was the manner in which the NLF took over the city of Hué.
Saigon Army Dissolved Overnight
Saigon’s power dissolved overnight. The Saigon army was incapable of even attempting its recapture. The population of Hué voted with its fists, feet and weapons — when it had them — for the NLF. No power in South Vietnam, except the American invaders, was capable of physically overthrowing the new people’s power.
The South Vietnamese army simply refused to fight. All its positions in Hue, except the headquarters of its 3rd Division, were overrun or surrendered in the first minutes. US Marines were called in to do the job the South Vietnamese refused to do — recapture Hué even at the price of its destruction. And destroyed it was.
Here is an account from the British ultraconservative Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, which prides itself on digging up the facts from the most responsible press for the historical record:
A large part of Hue was reduced to ruins by fighting and bombing. Le Monde reported ‘no large town in the Far East has been so devastated since the fighting in Seoul during the Korean war… Vast areas of the beautiful city were demolished.’
Of 145,000 inhabitants, 113,000 were homeless refugees. Bodies lay rotting in the streets for days and sanitary facilities broke down.
Artillery
This implied the city was 80 per cent destroyed. Reuters reported that more than 90 per cent was destroyed. By the NLF? No — by US planes and artillery, including the guns of the Seventh Fleet.
The Keesing’s account continued:
After the assault on the southern ramparts was hurled back on February 14, the United States fighter bombers dropped bombs, rockets, napalm and nausea gas on the Citadel and the following day warships of the Seventh Fleet shelled its walls, in addition to fresh United States air strikes.
In the old part of the city, South Vietnamese air craft had carried out heavy air attacks on February 3, wherein many houses were destroyed.
The city which the NLF and the Hue population liberated in a few hours took US Marines 26 days to recapture, at the price of Hue’s almost total destruction.
At a certain stage, helicopter gunships, hovering over the roofs, joined dive bombers and naval guns in shooting everything that moved in a total war against the entire population while Marine artillery tanks systematically destroyed the city block by block.
All public facilities broke down including sewage, water supply and garbage disposal. In many areas the streets were choked with bodies — limbless, headless, napalm-charred and cut into pieces by bombshell fragments. NLF sanitary services were forced to bury victims in mass graves nightly under constant air and artillery bombardment.
On April 23, two months after the destruction and reoccupation of Hue, the Saigon army — after their psychological warfare teams had done certain rearranging of the bodies — invented the “Vietcong massacre” myth, presenting the evidence of mass graves.
The US embassy in Saigon solemnly weighed the evidence and added “confirmation” later in the week. The US’s own atrocious massacre in Hue thus was attributed to the “Vietcong” and has been revived to offset the massacre at Song My.
A Western news agency estimates the civilian casualties in Hue as between 2000 and 3000, about the figure attributed to the NLF.
This fakery is totally consistent with the US “body count” fabrications, where every baby and grandfather killed by the US is listed as another “Vietcong casualty.”
Every time US propaganda services need a new diversion from increasing revelations of American atrocities, a new “Vietcong atrocity” is discovered. If the graves in Hue did not exist, US propaganda would have been forced to invent them. But they do exist — courtesy of the Pentagon.
Perhaps the Song My massacre and other instances of US atrocities will help to open the eyes of the American people as to exactly who it is which is resorting to terror in Vietnam.
An Entire People Fighting Invaders
If the American people could only understand why their soldiers are losing in Vietnam they might also understand why all the stories about “Vietcong atrocities” are not true.
This is people’s war. An entire people is fighting against American, invaders.
For the NLF and the liberation army to commit acts of terror against the people would be the same as committing an act of terror against itself.
Of course it is true that the liberation army executes some political officials of the Saigon regime and village chiefs controlled by the Saigon regime.
They consider these people traitors to Vietnam. And of course some civilians have died as an accidental result of liberation army firepower.
But anyone who understands in the slightest the meaning of people’s war also understands that the liberation armies take every conceivable precaution against harming the civilian population.
The Pentagon budget alone for illegal war propaganda is about $626,000,000(1) per year. Generous taxpayers relinquish these funds so that the Pentagon can contaminate the public mindset to the detriment of humanity, foreign and domestic.
The contamination of the public mindset is a necessary precondition to aggressive, criminal warfare in furtherance of a self-devouring political economy. Once the public is convinced that there is a War On Terror (which is a Big Lie), further astronomical transfers of money from the people to the oligarchs and narrow vested interests – all to the detriment of the vast majority of the population – are easy to justify.
Over the course of the dirty war on Syria, for example, the annual CIA budget in support of the terrorists invading Syria — all of the terrorists – has been about $1,000,000,000 per year(2), and that is only a small fraction of monies spent to support terrorism in Syria. Bill Van Auken notes in “General lets slip US escalation in Syria” that Washington’s “key regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, poured in billions more to ignite a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and turned millions into refugees.”(3)
An important component of the Pentagon’s “public deception apparatus” (a.k.a illegal war propaganda) consists of “think tanks”. The RAND corporation is one such example.
The strategy of “branding” has been particularly effective throughout the fake War on Terror. For example, governing agencies of deception would have us believe that there are “moderate terrorists.” The name itself is an oxymoron, but the strategy has been highly effective. Credulous people still believe that lie.(4)
The “Public Relations” liars, however, are paid to be aware of perception shifts, and the “Moderates” lie as well as the strategy of constantly re-naming terror groups(5) is wearing thin, so the branding is also shifting. A new trend now is to re-brand al Qaeda – and all of the terrorists invading Syria are al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates, including ISIS – as the “good guys”.
Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’afari is well aware of the importance of word choices and how words are used to contaminate public perceptions. He stresses the importance, for example, of recognizing that the Syrian government is a government, and not a “regime”.
Similarly, the terrorists are not “Islamic” not only because of their deviant ideology, but especially because their actions defy any sane notions of Islam. Nor are the terrorists “jihadis”, especially since some of their most ardent supporters are Zionists. And of course the war isn’t a civil war. The terrorists are there because of the West and its allies, not despite the West and its allies. When incorrect nomenclature is used and repeated, however, public perceptions invariably shift.
All of this leads to an often over-looked observation by Christopher C. Black, a former lawyer at the UN:
Journalists who prostitute themselves by telling their fellow citizens lies are not only betraying the trust put in them by the people, and treating them with contempt, they are also war criminals and should be judged as such. Their responsibility in preparing the way for war is as great as those who plan the war and carry out the military operations of the war.(6)
***
All of the post-9/11 wars were sold to Western audiences through a sophisticated network of interlocking governing agencies that disseminate propaganda to both domestic and foreign audiences. But the dirty war on Syria is different. The degree of war propaganda levelled at Syria and contaminating humanity at this moment is likely unprecedented. I had studied and written about Syria for years, so I was not entirely surprised by what I saw.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo reportedly met with NSA whistleblower William Binney for an hour at CIA headquarters on October 24 at the request of US President Donald Trump. Binney disputes US intelligence claims over Russian hacking of DNC emails in 2016.
Binney is of the belief that someone “with physical access” inside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) leaked sensitive information during the 2016 presidential campaign, as opposed to a sophisticated hack perpetrated by Russian Intelligence.
Trump allegedly told Pompeo that if he “want[ed] to know the facts, he should talk to me,” Binney said, as cited by The Intercept. The Intercept interviewed Binney and at least two additional intelligence sources close to the matter for its report.
“I was willing to meet Pompeo simply because it was clear to me the intelligence community wasn’t being honest here,” Binney said. “I am quite willing to help people who need the truth to find the truth and not simply have deceptive statements from the intelligence community.”
The meeting to discuss the narrative that directly contravenes the findings of the US intelligence community was so productive that Pompeo is already arranging further meetings between NSA and FBI officials and Binney to discuss his analysis of the alleged DNC ‘inside job.’ Binney also raised the death of former DNC staffer Seth Rich to Pompeo during their meeting.
The CIA has declined to comment on such reports, however. “As a general matter, we do not comment on the Director’s schedule,” said Dean Boyd, director of the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs, as cited by The Intercept.
“I think he probably saw me on those programs,” Binney told NBC News of his multiple appearances on Fox News and how he might have appeared on Trump’s radar. Binney has put his reputation on the line to challenge the prevailing consensus among the US intelligence community and mainstream media as to how Donald Trump won the US presidency, namely through alleged Russian interference, despite a dearth of evidence to support such claims.
The meeting indicates that the already-strained relationship between the US commander-in-chief and his intelligence apparatus may be taking an even more bizarre twist. For example, the CIA’s Counterintelligence Mission Center, which would be directly tasked with any investigation into alleged Russian meddling, reports directly to President Trump in a somewhat unorthodox move.
Binney is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former intelligence officials who are skeptical of the intelligence community’s conclusions. “[T]he entire intelligence community needs to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the American public,” Binney reportedly told Pompeo as cited by CNN.
The VIPS analysis has been disputed among the intelligence community, most notably by one of its co-authors, Thomas Drake, himself a former NSA official charged under the Espionage Act.
“A number of VIPS members did not sign this problematic memo because of troubling questions about its conclusions, and others who did sign it have raised key concerns since its publication,” the counter memo published online reads.
The majority of the fourth estate in the US has bought into the narrative of alleged Russian hacking wholeheartedly.
Several outlets have described Binney’s analysis as a “disputed,” “fringe,” or “conspiracy,” theory (Washington Post, NBC, and CNN respectively) while failing to apply the same level of skepticism to the US intelligence community narrative, which has time and again been undermined, including in testimony by social media giants before Congress.
Pompeo has come under fire for cozying up to Trump in the past. In October, he said that “the intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election.”
The CIA quickly engaged in damage-control operations, however. “The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed, and the director did not intend to suggest that it had,” CIA spokesperson Dean Boyd said clarifying the official stance.
“[M]any people are emotionally tied to this agenda, to tie the Russians to President Trump,” Binney told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in August.
President Hasan Rouhani on Wednesday dismissed recent threats and accusations by Saudi Arabia against the Islamic Republic, stressing that Riyadh is unable to do anything against the Iranian might.
As he stressed that Iran has nothing but good intentions towards countries and people in the Middle East, Rouhani said that the recent missile attack near the Saudi Arabian capital’s airport was a legitimate response by the Yemeni people to Saudi bombings.
“You know the might and place of the Islamic republic. People more powerful than you have been unable to do anything against the Iranian people,” Rouhani was quoted by Iranian media as addressing Saudi regime.
“The United States and their allies have mobilized all their capabilities against us and achieved nothing.”
“How should the Yemeni people react to the bombardment of their country? So they are not allowed to use their own weapons? You stop the bombardment first and see if the Yemenis would not do the same,” the Iranian president said.
He was apparently commenting on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman remarks a day earlier. Bin Salman accused the Islamic Republic of supporting Yemen Houthi revolutionaries, and of staging a “direct aggression” against the Gulf Kingdom.
Rouhani meanwhile, reiterated that Iran wanted a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, accusing Saudi leaders of meddling in these countries’ domestic affairs and of strengthening ISIL Takfiri group.
“We want the welfare and development of Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and of Saudi Arabia too. There are no other paths forward than friendship, brotherhood and mutual assistance,” he said.
“If you think that Iran is not your friend and that the United States and the Zionist regime are, you are making a strategic and analytical error,” Rouhani said, addressing the Saudi regime.
On the other hand, the Iranian president said “great powers and the West have always sought to create gaps and differences among nations and countries of the region,” hoping that “rulers in certain countries of the region will understand the reality.”
Former Pfizer chief toxicologist Helmut Sterz presents a critical examination of the development, approval, and global rollout of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines—particularly those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech. The Vaccine Mafia details the failure of pharmaceutical companies, regulatory authorities, politicians, and international organizations to follow established scientific and ethical standards during the pandemic. Drawing on the author’s decades of experience in pharmaceutical toxicology, Sterz reveals the many ways the vaccines’ inadequate or omitted preclinical safety testing put the world’s population at risk.
Sterz demonstrates how “emergency” approvals allowed manufacturers to bypass long-standing international guidelines governing toxicity testing, especially with regard to reproductive and cancer risks. They also allowed governments and health authorities to ignore or conceal evidence of serious adverse effects that occurred, including myocarditis, reproductive harm, and other long-term health risks.
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