By James Tweedie – Sputnik – 25.09.2023
Operation Crossfire Hurricane — the FBI’s attempt to discredit Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016 — was found by a Congressional inquiry to be based on falsehoods. But Democrats and their sympathetic media continue to repeat the claims of ‘Russian interference’.
Failed presidential runner Hillary Clinton has repeated her discredited claims of Russian interference in US elections.
Clinton dusted off the 2016 ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory she used to explain her defeat by Donald Trump in an interview with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki — the former White House press secretary renowned for her inability to answer journalist’s questions.
Psaki claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “interfered in our elections in the past” — directly contradicting the findings of special counsel John Durham’s inquiry that the claim was “uncorroborated” — and asked Clinton if she feared it would happen in 2024.
“I don’t think, despite all of the deniers, there is any doubt that he interfered in our election, or that he has interfered in many ways in the internal affairs of other countries, funding political parties, funding political candidates, buying off government officials in different places,” Clinton claimed.
Her tone became increasingly paranoid as she went on.
“He hates democracy. He particularly hates the West and he especially hates us,” Clinton ranted. “And he has determined that he can do two things simultaneously. He can try to continue to damage and divide us internally, and he’s quite good at it.”
The former secretary of state and senator, the wife of disgraced ex-president Bill Clinton, even believed that Putin had a personal grudge against her.
“Part of the reason he worked so hard against me is because he didn’t think that he wanted me in the White House,” Clinton complained. “Part of the challenge is to continue to explain to the American public that the kind of leader Putin is.”
She then reeled off a series of unproven allegations against the Russian president, including that he was responsible for the deaths of opposition figures and journalists — and interfered in the 2016 US elections to ensure she lost to Trump.
“I fear that the Russians will prove themselves to be quite adept at interfering, and if he has a chance, he’ll do it again,” Clinton concluded.
Durham’s report, finally released in June 2023, found that former Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Director James Comey’s operation Crossfire Hurricane probe — oddly named after a Rolling Stones lyric — was founded on “raw, un-analyzed and uncorroborated” intelligence and should never have been launched.
It said the FBI was guilty of misconduct and was in need of reform, but did not lay individual blame on any of the numerous officials involved — from Comey to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two agents entwined in an extra-marital affair at the federal agency.
RT | September 25, 2023
The EU and G7 countries have largely failed to enforce a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil exports, Financial Times reported on Monday, citing an analysis of shipping and insurance records.
In August, around three-quarters of Russian oil was reportedly being shipped overseas without Western insurers, which was considered one of the tools helping to limit the price at which Russian crude was being sold on the global market.
About half of Russian oil exports did not use Western insurance services during the entire spring, according to Kpler data, as cited by the media, suggesting Moscow “is becoming more adept at circumventing the cap.”
Meanwhile, global prices for crude are on the rise, nearing 13-month highs. Brent futures for November delivery were trading at $93.51 per barrel on Monday, while US West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) climbed above $90 per barrel. Russian crude was no exception, with the Far Eastern blend ESPO trading at over $88 per barrel, and with Urals crude above $78 per barrel.
In June, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo claimed that the price cap imposed by the Western allies in December was working as intended.
“In just six months, the price cap has contributed to a significant decline in Russian revenue at a key juncture in the war,” he said.
In August, Acting US Assistant Treasury Secretary Eric Van Nostrand said that he was “confident that the price cap is achieving its twin goals of restricting Russian revenues while helping stabilize energy markets.”
According to FT, Russian, Chinese, and Indian insurers have stepped in to replace Western majors, while a “dark fleet” of tankers, built for transporting Russian crude around the world, has helped Moscow to avoid Western insurers and shippers.
By Drago Bosnic | September 25, 2023
It’s virtually guaranteed that the Kiev regime will get the MGM-140 ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System), a US-made tactical/theater ballistic missile system with a maximum engagement range of approximately 300 km and a supersonic speed of up to Mach 3. While its capabilities are far from Russian counterparts, such as the now legendary “Iskander” with a hypersonic speed (up to Mach 8, with maneuvering capabilities for its missiles) and a range of approximately 500 km, this is still enough to jeopardize Russian supply lines, as well as civilian settlements deeper within Moscow’s territory. The ATACMS can also be fired from two platforms, namely the tracked M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) and the wheeled M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), both of which have been delivered to the Neo-Nazi junta forces well over a year ago.
When paired with adequate ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets, which NATO fields extensively, particularly in the vicinity of Russian borders, the ATACMS can be quite a challenge. Its battlefield performance can be significantly amplified through the effective usage of real-time ISR data that essentially acts as a major force multiplier. This is where the legal “grey areas” of warfare get even more complicated. Namely, Moscow is doing its best to keep the scope of the SMO localized, but NATO continues to escalate, as evidenced by the resurgent presence of its ISR platforms around Russia’s borders, particularly in the Black Sea. The Russian military already shot down some of NATO’s ISR platforms, resulting in several months of pause in flights close to the SMO zone. However, the belligerent alliance recently restarted this highly destabilizing practice.
Moscow is perfectly aware that the political West controls the Kiev regime’s targeting, even issuing orders which Russian assets are to be attacked. The sole reason why Russia hasn’t responded by shooting down all NATO ISR platforms in the relative vicinity of its forces is that it wants to avoid escalating the conflict. However, the US-led political West sees this as a weakness and an opportunity to hurt Russia, because the way the Ukrainian conflict is being conducted is highly beneficial to NATO. Namely, the way that the political West is engaged in hostilities in Ukraine would simply be impossible in a shooting war with Moscow. The reason is quite simple. One of the very first targets for Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) would be NATO’s ISR platforms. Precisely these are responsible for the vast majority of data being relayed to the Kiev regime.
As Ukraine borders four NATO members, this gives the belligerent alliance a unique opportunity to use their airspace for ISR flights. And while the political West argues that these are “perfectly legal” and that the aircraft “just passively collect information”, the impact of their activities is anything but “passive”. NATO ISR platforms are directly responsible not only for the deaths and injuries of Russian servicemen, but also civilians. The United States Air Force (USAF) and the British Royal Air Force (RAF) are the most active NATO members in this regard, particularly with their Boeing RC-135V/W SIGINT (signals intelligence) aircraft that regularly fly over the Black Sea. These are among the belligerent alliance’s most commonly used strategic ISR assets and play a crucial role in spying on Russian forces, covering the collection of ELINT (electronic intelligence) and COMINT (communications intelligence).
These are used to find gaps in Russian defenses (particularly radar coverage) which are then reported to the Neo-Nazi junta forces that can exploit them to launch attacks on valuable assets, as evidenced by recent air strikes with NATO-sourced cruise missiles. This makes ISR aircraft far deadlier than satellites that simply cannot loiter in an area to provide a constant supply of real-time data. NATO SIGINT aircraft also complicate Russian communications significantly, as military units are forced to maintain radio silence or use encryption, which slows down battlefield coordination, thus degrading their effectiveness. More precisely, Moscow’s military planners simply have to pay close attention to what sort of information will end up in the hands of NATO, as this could help in the creation of better countermeasures against Russian forces.
The sheer magnitude of ISR data collected by SIGINT aircraft has helped the Kiev regime forces to a certain extent, but not nearly enough to create conditions for defeating Russian troops. Still, it’s often enough to bring the much-needed PR “victories” that are a crucial part of the overall propaganda war. However, with the delivery of the ATACMS, things can become a lot more complicated, forcing the Russian military to expand the scope of the SMO. Namely, since it’s a land-based missile system, the ATACMS is logistically far less strenuous than the Franco-British “Storm Shadow/SCALP EG” or the German-Swedish “Taurus”, both of which are air-launched and are limited by the number of carrier aircraft (in the case of Neo-Nazi junta, that would be the Soviet-era Su-24), as well as the logistics for the said aircraft. To say nothing of the possibility these could get shot down.
On the other hand, the launch of a single ATACMS is not only more difficult to detect on time, but the weapon is also several times faster than air-launched cruise missiles, meaning that Russian air and missile defenses have significantly less time to respond. This changes the calculus for Moscow, as its major assets could be targeted, causing significant losses that will not be easy to replace, while it may prove difficult to detect and destroy the ATACMS launchers. Once again, it would be impossible for NATO to wage a direct war against Russia in this way, as the VKS would simply send its fighter jets, such as the superfast, high-flying MiG-31BM interceptor or the state-of-the-art Su-35S, both of which carry unrivaled long-range air-to-air missiles (AAM), such as the 400-km-range R-37M, known for its ability to maneuver at hypersonic speed (Mach 6).
Such AAMs would be used to easily destroy any ISR aircraft and other supporting assets hundreds of kilometers around Russian borders. Having the Neo-Nazi junta do all the heavy lifting and dying for “a NATO mission” while the belligerent alliance collects battlefield data is perfect for the political West, but only as long as they can maintain plausible deniability of involvement. However, as Moscow is losing patience for this sort of insolence, the conflict that is still largely limited to Ukraine could inevitably escalate, as Russia can decide to legally redefine what constitutes direct involvement. For the time being, the Russian military might decide to shoot down unmanned SIGINT assets, such as the RQ-4B “Global Hawk”. This was already done once, when a Russian Su-27SM3 masterfully downed a USAF MQ-9 “Reaper” back in March.
What’s more, the political West is close to approving deliveries of such drones as well, specifically the MQ-9 and the medium-range MQ-1C “Grey Eagle”. However, these were designed to fight low-tech enemies, meaning they’re completely useless against opponents like Russia, which shot down over 100 “Bayraktars” by April. And while some ISR drones, such as the RQ-4B are extremely expensive and strategically important, the “Global Hawk” is still just a machine, unlike the RC-135, which is manned by up to 30 crewmen. Still, if the political West decides to continue escalating even in that case, then Moscow will be forced to shoot down all of NATO’s ISR assets, which could potentially lead to a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation. If the belligerent power pole thinks it’s worth risking the fate of the world over this, then so be it, as Moscow has had enough.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
By David T. Stevenson | Real Clear Energy | September 21, 2023
Offshore wind developer Ørsted has delayed its New Jersey Ocean Wind 1 project to 2026. Previously, the company had announced construction of the project would begin in October 2023. The delay was attributed to supply chain issues, higher interest rates, and a failure so far to garner enough tax credits from the federal government. For now, they are not walking away from all their U.S. projects but will reconsider long-term plans by the end of this year. Ørsted’s stock price has fallen 30% in 5 days. This is just the latest bad news for offshore wind.
Ocean Wind 1 had one of the highest guaranteed prices among the 18 projects currently in the approval queue. The actual wholesale price guarantees for Ocean Wind 1 start at $98.10/MWh, rising 2% a year to $145.77. Over twenty years revenue will average $126.47/MWh according to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU). Ørsted is seeking higher guarantees from the BPU and an increase in federal Investment Tax Credits from 30% to 40%. Recognizing the potential financial problems, New Jersey’s largest public utility, Public Service Electric & Gas Company sold its 25% share of the project to Ørsted in January.
The company said it is “reconfiguring” Ocean Wind II in New Jersey, and its Skipjack Wind project off the coasts of Maryland and Delaware because they do not currently meet its projected financial standards. The Maryland Public Service Commission guaranteed Skipjack Wind $146.42/MWh average over twenty years and also gets to keep revenue from sales to the regional grid. Apparently, the higher guarantee is still not enough to meet the company’s financial goals. Ørsted is working to renegotiate guaranteed prices on two other projects, Sunrise Wind and Revolution Wind, that would need a 30% increase just to meet the current Ocean Wind 1 guaranteed price.
Meanwhile, projects off New York are asking for an average 48% increase in guaranteed prices that could add $880 billion a year to electric rates, or almost $18 billion over twenty years (see table below).
In North Carolina, the latest long-term energy plan from Duke Energy drops offshore wind entirely in favor of nuclear, solar, and onshore wind. Furthermore, Duke has committed to only close any existing power plants once replacements are in operation, an idea that other states should follow. Two new offshore wind lease areas in the Gulf of Mexico failed to attract a bid. Vineyard Wind off Nantucket has begun construction but faces three unresolved lawsuits.
Wind turbine manufacturers are faring no better. Siemens Gamesa has announced almost $5 billion in 2023 losses from warranty repairs for turbines much smaller than those planned in the US. The company also faces price pressure. The stock price has dropped 30% since June.
This is not the time for Delaware to be considering offshore wind.
Clearly, the industry is in disarray, facing rising costs, durability, and legal issues. An 800 MW project similar in size and the current guaranteed price to Skipjack 2 may raise Delaware residential electric prices by $400 to $545/year and for businesses by the tens of thousands. A Monmouth University poll shows a major decrease in public support for offshore wind in New Jersey, falling from 84% to 54% with 40% opposed.
Press TV – September 24, 2023
President Ebrahim Raeisi says Iran’s uranium enrichment to the purity level of 60% was in response to the lack of commitment by the European parties to the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Raeisi made the statement in an interview with the CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on the sidelines of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“In the beginning, we were not seeking 60% levels of enrichment. They (European states) trampled upon their commitments,” the Iranian president said. “What the Islamic Republic of Iran did was in response to a breaking of commitment of the signatories to the (2015) agreement.”
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami announced in June that enriching uranium to the said purity level was in accordance with a December 2020 parliamentary law – the Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions.
The law was passed with the purpose of removing anti-Iran sanctions as well as the production of radiopharmaceuticals and detectors, among other aims.
Earlier in the month, Reuters cited a confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claiming that Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace than in the previous quarter.
In the interview, Raeisi categorically rejected the country’s enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade levels, saying, “It was officially announced that the action that we intend to take is not intended to reach nuclear weapons of any type or a military dimension of any type, but it is… a response for the lack of commitment demonstrated by the Europeans.”
He also reiterated Tehran’s long-standing conviction that the Islamic Republic does not plan to acquire a nuclear bomb.
The United States, under former President Donald Trump, abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018 and reinstated crippling sanctions that the agreement had lifted.
The talks to revive the 2015 deal kicked off in Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of removing anti-Iran sanctions and examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the JCPOA.
The discussions, however, have been at a standstill since August 2022 due to Washington’s refusal to remove all the sanctions imposed by the previous US administration.
The European Union, which acts as the coordinator of the talks, forwarded at the time a new proposal to the Islamic Republic in order to break the impasse. Iran submitted its response to the draft proposal on August 15, 2022, a week after the latest round of talks wrapped up in Vienna.
After submitting its response to the EU proposal, Tehran urged Washington to show “realism and flexibility” in order to reach an agreement. However, it took almost ten days for the administration of President Joe Biden to submit its response to Iran’s comments on the EU draft.
Iran blamed the failure of the JCPOA’s revival on the procrastination of the American side in providing an answer and said moving to the next stage would have been possible had the US government shown serious willpower and acted responsibly in its promises.
Israeli normalization deals will fail
In the interview with CNN, Raeisi said the US-mediated efforts to normalize Israeli relations with Persian Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, “will see no success.”
President Biden declared on July 28 that a deal for Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations may be on the horizon following National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s talks with Saudi officials in Jeddah.
In order to sign a deal with Israel, Riyadh publicly asked Tel Aviv to implement the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative to establish a Palestinian state first.
However, members of the Israeli cabinet led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say they will not make any concession to the Palestinians as part of a potential deal for normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia.
Under the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco signed US-brokered normalization deals with the Israeli regime in late 2020. Palestinians have denounced the deals as a “betrayal” of their cause.
RT | September 24, 2023
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has alleged in a recent interview that unnamed figures in Washington obstructed his attempts to interview Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“I tried to interview Vladimir Putin, and the US government stopped me,” Carlson claimed in an interview with Swiss publication Die Weltwoche published on Thursday. He also explained that he felt let down by the lack of support for his situation that he says he received from US news media.
He said: “I don’t think there was anybody who said ‘wait a second. I may not like this guy but he has a right to interview anyone he wants, and we have a right to hear what Putin says’.” The 54-year-old added: “You’re not allowed to hear Putin’s voice. Because why? There was no vote on it. No one asked me.”
The often-controversial media personality didn’t elaborate on the circumstances under which he says there was government intrusion into his plans to interview Putin but it appeared to suggest that it was the current Biden administration which was behind the meddling. Carlson also didn’t mention when the interview with the Russian leader was supposed to take place.
“I’m an American citizen,” Carlson told Die Weltwoche. “I’m a much more loyal American than, say, Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, who didn’t even grow up in this country; she grew up in Canada. And they’re telling me what it is to be a loyal American?”
Carlson –previously Fox News’ biggest star– parted ways with the broadcaster in April shortly after the news network settled for $787.5 million a lawsuit with voting-machine company Dominion Voting Systems. Fox News had regularly discussed claims on some of its shows that Dominion’s machines were involved in ‘rigging’ the 2020 US presidential election.
Carlson’s show Tucker Carlson Tonight, during which he frequently discussed issues like gender, race, sexuality and ‘woke’ ideology, was specifically referenced in the Dominion lawsuit.
Since leaving Fox News, Carlson has broadcast abridged versions of his news show on X (formerly Twitter) which regularly draw tens of millions of views.
Meanwhile, Russia TV news channel Rossiya 24 has aired a teaser trailer for a weekend show it says is to be hosted by Carlson. The promo was first broadcast earlier this month and again on September 22 along with the words “at the weekend.” It adds that the “high-profile American presenter is moving to another level. Here.”
Rossiya 24 didn’t state when the show will debut or if it will be original content or translated versions of Carlson’s X broadcasts.
By Gilbert Doctorow | September 23, 2023
This past week most Western media discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war has focused on developments in New York, where Zelensky and Biden gave their propaganda speeches about Russian imperialism threatening the world order, and then in Washington, where Zelensky met with Congressional leaders and with the President in his pursuit of further deliveries of arms. The focus was on air defense systems, on F-16 fighter jets and on the ATACMS ground to ground missiles.
This past week Western media broke ranks on the prospects for a Ukrainian victory. It appeared that there is growing consensus that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had failed and there was more talk of Ukraine-fatigue in American political circles. Speculation now turned both in major media and in dissident media on how the United States will respond to a looming defeat in Ukraine. Many decided that Washington would just move on after ‘throwing Ukraine under the bus’ and raise the war cries against China so as to avoid getting bogged down in recriminations over ‘who lost Ukraine.’
However, that was two days ago. Today Washington’s Plan B is becoming clearer. And what I see does not look good for world peace and for our chances of surviving this conflict.
Plan B took the form of the Storm Shadow strike a couple of days ago directly on the General Staff building of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. You have not seen or heard much about this in Western media and the Russians were dead silent until today. And even today what little information we have comes from the civilian administration in Sevastopol, not from the Russian Ministry of Defense, a fact which by itself raises the intrigue.
The Russian news tickers, by which I mean Dzen (formerly Yandex news) and mail.ru, tell us that one staff member of the general staff is unaccounted for. We are told by the Governor of Sevastopol that another strike may be expected and people were warned not to visit the downtown area. As for the building itself, the attack touched off a fire which took several hours to bring under control. There were reports that debris was scattered up to several hundred meters away. There was talk of back-up equipment being prepared to carry on the functions that were performed in the staff building. Finally, the attacking missile has been identified as a British-made Storm Shadow air-to-ground cruise missile. There may have been a cluster of these missiles incoming, because Russian air defense is said to have shot down five.
Judging by past experience when the Ukrainians have committed some sensational act, such as their bombing of the Crimean bridge or the destruction of the Kakhovka dam or their incursion across the border to the Belgorod region of Russia, there was some menacing response from the Russian Defense Ministry. Now there is silence. Why? Russian state television news yesterday and today has carried on as if there is nothing more important than the price of diesel fuel and whether the new ban on export will dampen the price and improve availability across the country.
The next troublesome straw in the wind is the reversal of the Biden administration on the question of sending the ATACMS to Kiev. The optimal moment to announce such a decision would have been during Zelensky’s day on Capitol Hill and meetings in the Oval Office. Instead Jake Sullivan told reporters that no decision had been taken as yet by the President.
I believe there is a clear connection between the successful Storm Shadow attack on the general staff building in Sevastopol and the decision to ship ATACMS to Ukraine now. I also note that the decision to supply the American missiles will surely be followed in a few days by the German decision to ship its long-range TAURUS missiles. Both decisions have till now been held back on grounds that they would lead to a Russian escalation of the war. Now it would appear that, facing imminent defeat, the Biden administration is throwing caution to the wind and is ready to risk outbreak of a direct, not proxy Russia-NATO war.
As a further straw in the wind, I point to another deeply troublesome bit of information that you will not find in The New York Times. The Russian news ticker today carries a report from a Russian commander in the field in Ukraine that his unit just destroyed a Leopard tank and found that the entire crew was Germans. Two of them were killed and one injured tank officer was taken prisoner. Those manning a Leopard surely were not soldiers of fortune but genuine Bundeswehr boys. Put in other words, NATO is now directly on the battlefield and not as advisers or instructors. We are headed into very dangerous territory.
Poscript:
One reader has sent in a valuable further bit of information that is not in mainstream reporting:
This, coming from Turkish sources, says that the Russians retaliated to the Sevastopol destruction by staging their own cruise missile attack on the Kremenchug Airport, the launch site used by the Ukrainians. “Both SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles, which were stationed at the airbase, along with the SU24M/MR bombers responsible for today’s attack, have been detroyed. A substantial number of firefighters and ambulances have been dispatched to the airfield. There are significant casualties among pilots, ground personnel and even NATO personnel, including Poles, who were involved in coordinating the operatoins and maintaining the missiles.”
This all suggests an additional reason for Biden to consent to shipment of the ATACMS missiles to Ukraine now: unlike the Storm Shadow, they are launched from the ground on mobile launchers similar to HIMARS. Therefore the loss of airfields and bombers and pilots does not constrain their use and holds the promise of more destuction of Russian assets in Crimea. I would also wager that US forces will be sent not just to maintain but to target and launch the ATACMS.
RT | September 24, 2023
Ukraine joining NATO would be of no benefit to the US and would become yet another burden for Washington, Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has said.
In an episode of The Glenn Beck Program podcast on Saturday, he was asked whether he believed Ukraine should give a commitment never to join the US-led military bloc in order to make peace.
“I don’t think NATO membership is in our interest,” replied DeSantis, who is considered a top rival of former president Donald Trump in the GOP primaries.
“All that would do is add more obligations to us, so … if you’re adding more obligations, then what are the benefits that we’re getting in return? In that case, I don’t know what the benefits necessarily would be,” he added.
Ukraine applied to join NATO in September 2022 after four of its regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in referendums. While the bloc’s members have declared that Kiev will eventually become a member of NATO, they have not provided any timelines.
DeSantis also reiterated that he categorically opposes sending American troops to Ukraine, adding that Washington’s goal should be to end the conflict. He criticized the current “blank-check” policy of supporting Kiev with financial and military aid.
This position has been gaining traction within the ranks of the GOP in recent months, with some Republicans repeatedly raising accountability concerns. Earlier this week, a group of more than two dozen of the party’s senators and Congress members submitted a letter to the White House demanding answers.
“The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were six months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan?” they asked the Biden administration.
The lawmakers indicated that, until those questions are answered, they will oppose additional spending in support of Ukraine. Their pushback came as Congress debates whether the US, which has already provided tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, should approve Biden’s latest request to send another $24 billion in assistance.
By Robert Inlakesh | The Cradle | September 20, 2023
The secret US-Iran deal revealed to the public last month has largely been portrayed as a “humanitarian agreement” – the release of US prisoners in exchange for the return of frozen Iranian funds that will bring relief to the people of Iran.
But as tidbits of new information emerge on the agreement, it has become clear that Washington and Tehran have agreed on a far more comprehensive array of arrangements.
The US, for instance, has quietly approved the release of significantly more Iranian funds than the $6 billion figure touted in the media. Dr. Mohammed Marandi, former media advisor to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team in Vienna, confirms to The Cradle that almost $20 billion of Iran’s internationally frozen assets have already been released as part of the agreement.
The reported $6 billion only constitutes Iranian funds frozen in South Korea, while an additional $11 billion was held by Iraq, with the remaining portions scattered across various other countries. These assets, Marandi says, have now been successfully released and are under the control of Iran’s Central Bank.
Based on information from Iranian and Arab diplomatic sources who requested anonymity, the US-Iran deal terms include – but are not restricted to – the following commitments from the two sides:
Iran’s commitments include:
US commitments include:
The closure of remaining IAEA “open files” regarding several Iranian nuclear, military, and civilian sites.
Western diplomatic sources tell The Cradle that the main reason the US initiated secret talks with Iran is because Washington has a critical need to increase oil supply in global markets.
Deescalating with Tehran can bring new energy sources online quickly to make up for lost Russian supplies. This is why one of the unpublicized US deal concessions to Iran is to ignore sanctions on Iranian oil and gas trades.
The problem for the Biden administration, since the failure of nuclear talks, has consistently been domestic political opposition toward the easing of “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran. This new backroom agreement provides a way to bypass Washington’s institutional roadblocks, and flood the market with Iranian oil supply.
Reviving a ‘dead’ deal
Already, Washington-based think tanks are understanding that the Iran-US prisoner swap could be a softball maneuver by the Biden administration to publicly kickstart the easing of tensions with Tehran. This move is seen as a way to navigate around the stubborn resistance of congressional representatives and pressure from Israeli hawks against reviving the Iran Nuclear Deal, also known as the JCPOA.
Monday’s prisoner exchange of both Iranian and American prisoners, which received blanket coverage by both country’s media, has agitated parties opposed to any Iranian-US detente and has them scrambling to discover the hidden significance behind the breakthrough Qatari-brokered agreement.
Richard Goldberg, Director of the Iran Program at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a 13 September interview with the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that the US-Iran prisoner swap was strategically designed to deflect congressional criticism over the renewal of the JCPOA.
He contends that by linking sanctions relief to the prisoner exchange instead of a JCPOA revival, US President Joe Biden has effectively defused tensions with Iran and sidestepped the political hurdle of presenting a new nuclear deal to Congress – a move that would have otherwise proved contentious in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential elections.
In June last year, indirect negotiations between the US and Iran officially fell apart, ending a year’s worth of on-and-off efforts to reach a consensus in Vienna. Later in the year, while on the sidelines of an election rally in November, Biden declared the 2015 JCPOA “dead.”
But in May 2023, secret indirect negotiations between US and Iranian officials took place in Oman.
In June, the New York Times released an article on ongoing talks between the two parties aimed at finalizing an informal agreement that could potentially replace the need to resurrect the 2015 nuclear deal and “avert a nuclear crisis.”
The Cradle’s diplomatic sources confirm this was never merely a prisoners-for-cash swap, but a quiet initiative to defuse escalating US-Iran tensions – and proponents of continued conflict – by crafting a settlement that completely bypassed the naysayers.
This settlement, which would begin with some simpler humanitarian gestures to build goodwill and trust between the two parties, would then provide the foundation for negotiations over more complicated issues.
Beyond the prisoner swap
Despite Biden’s public commitment to revive the Iran nuclear deal, his negotiating team has dismally failed to secure an agreement. This week’s prisoner exchange was seen as just the right kind of sweetener to pave a new, unencumbered path toward securing the basic requirements of the two adversaries.
But even this humanitarian gesture by both sides has failed to quell media criticism. US outlets and social media platforms have castigated the Biden administration for releasing $6 billion of Iran’s frozen assets to secure the release of just 5 US prisoners.
And while US officials claim that the funds were transferred to designated bank accounts in Qatar and restricted to the purchase of food and agricultural products, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi went public to make clear that Iran has full discretion on the use of these funds.
Raisi has described the release of the five prisoners as a “purely humanitarian action” and hinted that it could serve as a foundation for future humanitarian initiatives, code for sanctions relief.
His statement has further fueled speculation that the US and Iran are privately moving toward a broader agreement – well beyond the prisoner exchange – that will substitute the hotly-contested JCPOA.
By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | September 21, 2023
From 1953 through 1987, an estimated 1 million people who passed through North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base were unknowingly exposed to chlorinated solvents and other contaminants — up to 280 times the safe level for humans.
During that time, miscarriages and stillbirths were rampant. Many children were born with birth defects such as cleft lip or palate, brain stem issues or malformed organs. Some died from leukemia.
People who lived or worked at the base have suffered and died from cardiac defects, kidney disease, liver cancer, bladder cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, Parkinson’s disease and other ailments.
Many are still suffering today — and are still awaiting justice.
In 2022, President Biden signed into law the PACT Act (Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics), a part of which facilitates compensation for those who suffered at Camp Lejeune.
But the military continues to stonewall the process, leaving many — especially women who suffered miscarriages and stillbirths — out in the cold, according to an NBC News investigation published this week.
The human toll
Frank Bove, a senior epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told NBC that exposure to trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, vinyl chloride and benzene, which found their way from Camp Lejeune into drinking water supplies, did not need to be long-term.
The chemicals could cause harm after only “days or weeks” — that’s long enough to damage a developing fetus.
Jeri Kozobarich was 24 and pregnant when she arrived at the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps training facility in early 1969, she told NBC.
At a reception, she approached another pregnant woman and asked, “When are you due?” The woman answered, “My baby’s dead.”
Two months later, during a routine checkup, Kozobarich learned the baby girl in her womb was dead.
“It turned out all the wives in the squadron, they all had either birth defects or they lost their babies,” she said. “Everyone was afraid.”
This story was echoed by other women interviewed for the investigation. One woman, LaVeda Kendrix, had one stillbirth and nine miscarriages during her time at the base.
Ann Johnson’s daughter, Jacqueta, was born with a cleft lip, a cleft palate and brain stem issues. She couldn’t breathe or swallow on her own.
“She couldn’t cry out loud,” Johnson told NBC. “You could see her open her mouth, and you could see tears roll down her [one] eye, but she couldn’t make any noise.”
Jacqueta died seven weeks later on the car ride home.
“For 39 years, this has been at the back of my head: ‘Did I do something wrong?’” Johnson said.
Crystal Dickens worked in the base’s motor pool as a mechanic beginning in the late 1970’s. Dickens was pregnant with twins after suffering three miscarriages in 1979, when she was told, during her six-month checkup, there was only one heartbeat.
Marine veteran Jerry Ensminger learned of the contaminated water from a news report, finally receiving an answer to the mystery of why his daughter, Janey, died of leukemia in 2007 at age 9.
Beth Steimel Barger, who lived at Camp Lejeune during her teen years from 1976-1982, told The Defender she developed ovarian cancer at age 26. At 33 she had a hysterectomy. Her mother developed breast cancer and had a double mastectomy.
Later genetic testing found no history of these cancers in her family, Barger said.
Other family members developed various cancers. A nephew developed Spondyloarthritis, inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, when he was 10. Her father and sister have tremors.
Grady Edward Walker told The Defender he was 14 when his family in 1970 moved to Camp Lejeune, where his stepdad was stationed. They stayed until 1981.
His stepdad, who suffered multiple melanomas, passed 10 years ago from lung cancer. Grady’s niece was born with a single kidney and other chronic health complications.
Children’s Health Defense President Mary Holland told The Defender :
“What happened at Camp Lejeune is terrible: Service members and their families were forced to drink and use toxic water for decades due to the military’s gross negligence. The Marine Corp. knew of the toxicity but covered it up, and the ones who suffered were the most vulnerable. Pregnant women miscarried and had stillbirths, repeatedly.”
Justice delayed and denied
Despite the plethora of similar stories from Camp Lejeune, cases surrounding stillbirths, miscarriages, infertility and birth defects have been particularly difficult to litigate, attorneys told NBC News.
Many of the medical records needed to prove the arguments would now be several decades old and are incomplete or unavailable.
Claimants must also prove it was contaminated water that caused the ailments. Given the high rate of stillbirths in the U.S. — 1 in 175 pregnancies — and the prevalence of birth defects — 1 in 33 babies — that may be a tall order.
Attorney Andrew Van Arsdale, whose law firm represents 9,500 camp Lejeune claimants, told NBC the process could go on for decades.
The Navy Judge Advocate General’s office told Van Arsdale’s firm they were specifically looking for severe disease cases.
“They are not even looking at this miscarriage issue right now, because I think it is a complicated issue,” he said.
“It’s like we’re invisible,” said Kendrix, now 65 years old.
“There is no record whatsoever of my child who passed away in the womb,” Dickens said.
Camp Lejeune lawsuits, numbering over 1,100, are expected to comprise one of the largest mass litigations in history. Payouts could exceed $20 billion.
In June, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) urged the four federal judges overseeing the cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina to speed up the process of consolidating the cases.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been receiving claims for years for 15 of the illnesses and conditions related to the Camp Lejeune water contamination. But, according to Van Arsdale, progress has been slow. “They’re fighting us at every turn,” he said.
According to a 2022 report by the VA’s inspector general, the VA mishandled more than one-third of all disability claims related to Camp Lejeune water contamination, affecting more than 21,000 cases and resulting in a loss to veterans of nearly $14 million.
The majority of the denied claims were the result of the staff’s failure to request additional evidence of injury.
Responding to these issues, Congress passed the PACT Act. A section of that law, the “Camp Lejeune Justice Act,” allows individuals who were exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune between 1953 and 1987 to file a claim for compensation.
Since the PACT Act was signed, more than 90,000 administrative claims have been submitted to the Navy, but few have been resolved.
The PACT Act does not set a deadline for the resolution of claims, but allows for victims and families to sue in federal court if claims are not resolved after six months, according to Reuters.
Earlier this month, the Navy and DOJ announced a new fast-track program for injured veterans and family members.
However, those suffering injuries more than 35 years ago — before 1988 — are not eligible for compensation under the “elective option” published by the Navy.
The elective option does not cover cardiac birth defects, but does include an exception for “in utero” claims based on the mother’s “residential or occupational exposures for at least 30 days during the nine-month period before the claimant’s birth,” according to the Navy document.
Van Arsdale told NBC he thought the Navy’s offer was a “clever attempt” to “pick off desperate” victims who may not have much more time to live and who might therefore jump at a settlement now rather than wait for litigation.
According to an article Monday by Washington D.C. CBS affiliate WUSA9, claimants do not need a lawyer to file.
Under the PACT Act, the deadline to file a claim is Aug. 10, 2024 for injuries diagnosed or treated before Aug. 10, 2022 for those who had exposure for not less than 30 days.
Holland told The Defender, “While Congress’ Camp Lejeune Justice Act is a step in the right direction, it won’t bring back the dead or restore the ill to robust health. This was an avoidable tragedy.”
A history of negligence
Leaders at Camp Lejeune knew as early as 1980 that their water was contaminated, according to court filings by DOJ attorneys.
Yet, nothing was done.
In 1982, Camp Lejeune’s water supplies were formally tested and found to be contaminated.
One of the owners of the lab that performed the tests, Mike Hargett, told NBC he personally met with one of Camp Lejeune’s leaders to discuss the findings, but said he was dismissed in less than five minutes.
The worst of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water wells remained open until 1985.
“We swam in it. We drank the water. We bathed in the water. We were totally exposed,” Dickens said.
It wasn’t until 2008 that former residents of the base were notified, under congressional edict, that they may have been exposed.
“To have not shut down the wells for so long, to have hidden information for 20 years, and now the continued stonewalling is just despicable,” Barger told The Defender.
Retired Maj. Gen. Eugene Gray Payne told NBC leaders should have taken the warnings more seriously. “Someone dropped the ball badly,” he said.
Payne assumed leadership of Camp Lejeune in 2007.
During a 2010 congressional hearing, Payne said he and the base commandant had been told “over and over” that the water situation was “better than it was.”
Payne said the fear of backlash by those who had been negligent “would’ve been tremendous,” admitting that in a large bureaucracy like the Navy’s, such a cover-up is “a very real danger.”
Barger offered one possible explanation for the ongoing negligence. “I’m not making excuses,” she told The Defender, “But a contributing factor is that on these bases, the physicians are constantly changing, the commanding officer of the hospital is constantly changing, and in an age before computerized records, things can get lost.”
But, she agreed, the trail of lost babies should have been more than enough to spark an investigation years sooner.
Camp Lejeune’s contaminants
The contaminants at Camp Lejeune came from leaking underground storage tanks, waste disposal sites, industrial area spills and an off-base dry-cleaning firm.
Three of the bases’s eight water treatment facilities contained contaminants while serving mainside barracks and family housing at multiple locations.
A study published in Environmental Health in 2014 reported samples taken at Camp Lejeune between 1980-1985 primarily contained tetrachloroethylene (also known as perchloroethylene or PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE) and their breakdown products, trans-1,2-dichloroethyline and vinyl chloride.
Benzene was also found in the water but at officially safe concentrations.
The highest contamination level for TCE was detected at 1400 µg [micrograms]/L; for PCE it was 250 µg/L, and for vinyl chloride, 22 µg/L.
The current U.S. maximum contaminant levels for TCE, PCE are 5 µg/L, and for vinyl chloride, 2 µg/L.
TCE and PCE are commonly used as industrial degreasing solvents and are used in dry cleaning and in some refrigerants. PCE is used to remove oil from fabrics, as a carrier solvent, and as a fabric finish or water repellent. Both are known carcinogens.
TCE can smell sweet or be odorless, and its vapors can be absorbed directly through the skin. It breaks down slowly in water and soil, and quickly in air. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency:
“TCE has the potential to affect the developing fetus, irritate the respiratory system and skin, and cause light-headedness, drowsiness, and headaches. Repeated exposure to TCE has been associated with effects in the liver, kidneys, immune system, and central nervous system.”
PCE breaks down slowly in soil, water and air, evaporates quickly from water, and can travel long distances by air. According to the CDC:
“Breathing high levels of tetrachloroethylene for a brief period may cause dizziness or drowsiness, headache, and incoordination; higher levels may cause unconsciousness and even death.
“Exposure for longer periods to low levels … may cause changes in mood, memory, attention, reaction time, and vision.
“Studies in animals … have shown to cause cancers of the liver, kidney, and blood systems, and changes in brain chemistry.”
The 2014 study compared health outcomes at Camp Lejeune to those at a military base without water contamination issues. Marines and Navy personnel at Camp Lejeune faced significantly increased hazard ratios for all cancers, for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and for multiple myeloma.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), due to vinyl chloride exposure, had the highest mortality hazard ratio of all diseases in the study.
John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | September 21, 2023
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The Iraq War was a genocide of the Iraqi people by Zionist supremacists in the Bush administration. Over 1 million innocent people were killed based on a lie. American soldiers died in an Israeli war and now an average of 22 soldiers commit suicide every day because their consciences cannot cope with the fact they committed crimes in an illegal war that served no purpose other than to benefit Israel, not America.
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Paul Wolfowitz had his sights on Iraq since his time in the first Bush administration. Former Israeli official and Bush administration official Richard Perle had his eyes on Iraq since at least his authorship of the Clean Break white paper. The Zionist regime had their eyes on Iraq since the 1980s when strategist Oded Yinon wrote his white paper in support of dividing the Arab-Muslim world along ethnic and sectarian lines. The global Zionist lobby has had their eyes on Iraq since Theodor Herzl stated that Eretz Israel’s true borders go from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. … continue
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