Thursday, May 31, 2018

America: The Dictatress of the World

On July 4, 1821, John Quincy Adams delivered a speech that summarized America’s founding foreign policy of non interventionism. Having gone down in history with the title “In Search of Monsters to Destroy,” Adams pointed out that one of the best things about the United States was that the U.S. government did not embroil itself or meddle in the affairs of other nations.

Adams issued an interesting warning. He said that if America were ever to abandon her founding principle of non interventionism, she would become “the dictatress of the world.”

One nation that can certainly attest to the reality of that phenomenon is Iran, which is currently experiencing the full force of the world’s dictatress.

In a speech on Iran delivered to the conservative Heritage Foundation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the CIA director who recently took control over the State Department, manifested the classic attributes of a dictator. According to the New York Times, Pompeo issued orders to Iran to not engage in nuclear enrichment programs, admit that it had military purposes for its now-dead nuclear weapons program, end its support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and Yemen’s Houthis, and withdraw all its forces from Syria.

It was quite a laundry list of dictates and commands, as Pompeo himself acknowledged.

Read the entire article

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

America’s Incredible Shrinking Influence

Just two weeks after President Trump pulled the US from the Iran nuclear agreement, his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, issued 12 demands to Iran that could never be satisfied. Pompeo knew his demands would be impossible to meet. They were designed that way. Just like Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia in July, 1914, that led to the beginning of World War I. And just like the impossible demands made of Milosevic in 1999 and of Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003, and so many other times when Washington wanted war. These impossible demands are tools of war rather than steps toward peace.

Secretary Pompeo raged at Iran. The mainstream news media raged at Iran. Trump raged at Iran. But then a strange thing happened: nothing. The Iranians announced that they remained committed to diplomacy and would continue to uphold their end of the nuclear agreement if the Europeans and other partners were willing to do the same. Iranian and European officials then sought out contacts in defiance of Washington in hopes of preserving mutually-beneficial emerging commercial relations.

Washington responded to the European snub by threatening secondary sanctions on European companies that continued doing business with an Iran that had repeatedly been found in compliance with its end of the bargain. Any independent European relationship with Iran would be punished, Washington threatened. But then, again, very little happened.

Rather than jump on Washington’s bandwagon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made two trips to Russia in May seeking closer ties and a way forward on Iran.

Read the entire article

Friday, May 25, 2018

Iran and Pompeo’s 12-Point Ludicrous Wish List – Empire’s End of the Rope?

When you listen to Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s 12-Point wish list, what he calls Plan B to confront Iran – one can but wonder, has this man, or for that matter the entire Trump Administration, truly departed from the realm of common sense? – This is, of course, a question many of us have been asking for quite a while. But this latest affront of aggression towards Iran is so out of context, out of whack, so ludicrous, that the question is more like – is the empire reaching the end of the rope and uses Iran as one of a last-ditch propaganda effort to prove to the world its economic and military might, like in “we are the greatest and exceptional nation – don’t you dare messing with us”?

Trump’s reneging on the Nuclear Deal was the first step. It was, of course, pushed by Israel, but based on lie after lie and more lies, that Iran did not comply with the conditions and ‘spirit’ of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). And this despite the fact that the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna has already at least 8 times since the signing of the deal in July 2015 confirmed that Iran is in absolute compliance.

What exactly is Washington and its Israeli handlers trying to achieve with Pompeo’s most clumsy approach? – “Regime Change”, perhaps? By activating and mobilizing the Fifth Column in Iran to create an internal revolt, with the objective of putting a new Shah-type puppet in place? – The desperation of creating a strong and oppressive “ally” in the Middle East – as Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf States are ‘failing’ US trustworthiness – is hidden only by a thin veil.

Abandoning US loyalty in the Middle east is becoming epidemic. Iraq has just elected a new Parliament, where Muqtada al-Sadr’s nationalistic, anti-American Shia Sairoon Alliance emerged as the winner with 54 seats in the 329-seat Iraqi Parliament. Though, it is said that al-Sadr’s coalition was largely elected because of his anti-corruption stance, his parliamentary victory also means a resurgence of an Iraqi nationalism with a strong position against foreign influence, meaning especially the US, but possibly also Iran. The latter remains to be seen when the new Government is in place. Within the coming 90 days, al-Sadr, the new ‘kingmaker’, will have to form a new governing body and choose a President. But already now it is clear that Iraq – if left alone by the west as a sovereign country – will turn away from Washington – and may eventually also move towards an eastern alliance.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Haspel Is Not the Problem. The CIA Is the Problem.

As a general rule, when Dick Cheney favors a foreign policy position it’s best to be on the opposite side if you value liberty over war and authoritarianism. The former vice president’s enthusiastic endorsement of not only Gina Haspel as CIA director but of the torture program she oversaw should tell us all we need to know about Haspel.

Saying that Haspel would make a great CIA director, Cheney dismissed concerns over the CIA’s torture program. Asked in a television interview last week about the program, Cheney said,

“if it were my call, I’d do it again.”

Sadly, the majority of the US Senate agreed with Cheney that putting a torturer in charge of the CIA was a good idea. Only two Republicans – Senators Paul and Flake – voted against Haspel. And just to confirm that there really is only one political party in Washington, it was the “yes” vote of crossover Democrats that provided the margin of victory. Americans should really be ashamed of those sent to Washington to represent us.

Just this month, the New York Times featured an article written by a woman who was kidnapped and send to the secret CIA facility in Thailand that Haspel was said to have overseen. The woman was pregnant at the time and she recounted in the article how her CIA torturers would repeatedly punch her in the stomach. She was not convicted or even accused of a crime. She was innocent. But she was tortured on Haspel’s watch.

Read the entire article

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Monday, May 21, 2018

Israeli Government ‘Justifies’ Killings of Palestinians Saying ‘We Can’t Put All of These People in Jail’

An Israeli government spokeswoman has come under fire for her comments on the situation in Gaza and trying to justify Israeli forces’ use of live fire and the shooting dead of Palestinian protesters.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on Monday, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Michal Maayan said

“Well, we can’t put all these people in jail” when asked why troops were shooting at the demonstrators.

Her comments during a live recording quickly went viral, drawing criticism from all around the world.

Responding to criticism that the U.S. decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will only cause more ‘instability’ in the region and hurt the peace process, Maayan said

“But moving embassies to Jerusalem isn’t stopping peace, it’s actually helping peace because it’s helping the Palestinians realize that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state of Israel and it helps them realize a reality that’s very important to us to go further on.”

“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, it’s going to be the capital of Israel whatever future settlement we will arrive with Palestinians,” she told the Irish broadcaster.

Read the entire article

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Netanyahu: “Let’s You and Him Fight”: Brandishing the American Military

Why did the Cockatoo-in-Chief renege on the Iran deal deeply prized by Russia, China, France, Germany, England, and the European Union? Why did he deliberately damage relations with Europe and cost American workers many thousands of jobs at Boeing among others? Why do all of this to hurt a country that poses no danger to the United States?

Israel.

Israel, Israel. Israel. Israel.

Always Israel.

If Iran were a threat to the existence of Israel, things would be different. If Muslims conquered the Jews, they would presumably treat them as badly as Israelis ,and very likely worse. It would be ugly in the extreme. To prevent this, use of the American military would be justified.

But Iran does not threaten the existence of Israel. It does threaten Israel’s dominance in the Mid-East. Iran is far larger and more populous than Israel, strategically located, and has vast amounts of oil. It is a large market for many European products. By contrast, Israel is small and has nothing anyone needs or wants. Left to itself, Iran would become the dominant regional power. It moves fast in that direction now with burgeoning trade with Europe in, among many other things, airliners. With economic influence comes political influence.

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Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Was There Ever an Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program?

Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which has set the stage for another Iran crisis, has opened a new round of domestic political struggle, as Democrats in Congress, the anti-Trump television networks, and the tattered remains of the old anti-war movement try to push back.

But that effort has a fatal weakness at its core. It concedes to Trump and opponents of the Iran deal an effective argument: that the Iranians have been lying when they say they’ve never had a covert nuclear weapons program. The theme of Iran’s duplicity has been the emotional core of the assault on the JCPOA. It is no accident that the title and consistent theme of Benjamin Netanyahu’s melodramatic YouTube slideshow was “Iran lied.”

As I detail in my investigative history of the Iran nuclear issue, the Obama administration itself fell for a false narrative about a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program allegedly in operation from 2001 to 2003. After Netanyahu’s April 30 show, former secretary of state John Kerry tweeted: “Every detail PM Netanyahu presented yesterday was every reason the world came together to apply years of sanctions and negotiate the Iran nuclear agreement—because the threat was real and had to be stopped.”

But a far more effective counter would have been the truth—that the long-accepted accusation about Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program is the product of an elaborate disinformation operation based on documents forged by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.

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Friday, May 11, 2018

Ray McGovern Kicked Out Of Gina Haspel’s Confirmation Hearing In Anti-torture Protest

The protester who just got thrown out of Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing used to brief Ronald Reagan every morning.

Former CIA operative turned activist Ray McGovern got up at the Wednesday hearing on Capitol Hill and demanded answers from Haspel, acting head of the CIA and President Trump's nominee to replace Mike Pompeo as CIA chief. While she promised not to create another torture program, she also wouldn’t condemn the previous one, including what happened at a CIA black site in the years after 9/11. When McGovern spoke up, at least five Capitol Police officers quickly detained him, warned him to stop resisting, and threw him out of the hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The hubbub started when Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, asked Haspel about the morality of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (read: torture) and how she would react if one of her own officers were tortured. Would she consider a CIA officer being waterboarded by “terrorists” to be immoral? Reed wanted to know.

“Sorry to interrupt here,” McGovern said, standing up in the audience. “Senator Wyden, you deserve a direct answer.” Wyden, however, wasn’t questioning Haspel at the time, so it’s unclear what McGovern was referring to.

At that point, Sen. Richard Burr, the head of the committee, ordered Capitol Police to escort McGovern out of the room. And as they did, McGovern yelled something inaudible about waterboarding.

In the days leading up to the hearing, McGovern wrote an opinion piece denouncing Haspel’s nomination, headlined, “Will a Torturer Become CIA Director?” In it, he claims torture is not only immoral but also doesn’t work: It simply produces “false intelligence” from the victim, who will say just about anything to put an end to their torture, he argued.

When Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, asked Haspel if she agrees with President Trump that torture “works,” Haspel said no but also added: “I believe, as many directors who have sat in this chair before me, that valuable information was obtained from senior al Qaida operatives that allowed us to defend this country and prevent another attack.”

Read the entire article

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Russian Oligarch Who Allegedly Paid Michael Cohen Is Linked to Clinton Foundation and John Podesta

New emails show Clinton Foundation staff pushed Hillary Clinton’s State Department to approve a meeting between Bill Clinton and a powerful Russian oligarch as her agency lined up investors for a project under his purview.

The Clintons’ relationship with Viktor Vekselberg, the billionaire whose name appears in the documents, has taken on new significance amid an expanding criminal investigation into his company. Last week, authorities raided the offices of Vekselberg’s firm, Renova Group, following allegations of bribery from several of Renova’s subsidiaries.

Vekselberg had been named head of a partnership dubbed the “Russian Silicon Valley” just three months before a Clinton Foundation employee began pushing the State Department to approve Bill Clinton’s proposed meeting with Vekselberg and a handful of other Russian executives.

The emails, obtained by conservative-leaning Citizens United and provided first to the Washington Examiner, do not reveal any illegal activity on the part of the State Department, the Clintons or their foundation.

But the records shed light on one of many relationships that blurred the lines between the Clinton’s political, financial and philanthropic pursuits while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.

Vekselberg’s Renova Group has donated between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation, donor records show. Another firm associated with Vekselberg, OC Oerlikon, donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

Read the entire article

Monday, May 7, 2018

The Warmakers

Between the US strikes on Syria in April and the recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, we are in somewhat of a lull in the Empire’s search for a new war to start. The always helpful Israelis, in the person of the ineffable Bibi Netanyahu, are now beating the drums for, well, if not a war, then at least some kind of false flag or pretext to make the US strike at Iran. And then there is the always bleeding Donbass (which I won’t address in today’s analysis). So let’s see where we stand and try to guesstimate where we might be heading. To be honest, trying to guess what ignorant warmongering psychopaths might do next is by definition a futile exercise, but since there are some not negligible signs that there are at least a few rational people still left in the US White House and/or Pentagon (as shown by the mostly “pretend strikes” on Syria last month), we can assume (hope) that some residual degree of sanity is still present. At the very least Americans in uniform have to ask themselves a very basic and yet fundamental question:

Do I want to die for Israel? Do I want to lose my job for Israel? How about my pension? Maybe just my stock options? Is it worth risking a major regional war for such a “wonderful” state?

A lot depends on whether the US military leaders (and people!) will have the courage to ask themselves this question and, if they do, what their reply will be.

But, first, let’s begin with the good news:

The DPRK and ROK are in direct talks with each other.

This is indeed a truly great development for at least two reasons. First, of course, the main and objective one: anything which lowers the risks of war on the Korean Peninsula is good. But there is a second reason which we should not discount: Trump can now take all the credit for this and claim that his (empty) threats are what brought the North Koreans to the negotiating table. I say – let him. In fact, I hope that they organize a parade for Trump somewhere in the US, with confetti and millions of flags. Like for an astronaut. Let him feel triumphant, vindicated and very, very manly. MAGA, you know?!

Read the entire article

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Is Iran Really a Nuclear Threat?

"Iran is moving 'very quickly' towards production of a nuclear bomb and could have a weapon within two years," the United Press International reported.

The quote was published in a 1984 article headlined "'Ayatollah' bomb in production for Iran" but it might as well have been published today.

For more than three decades Western politicians and the press have been claiming that Iran is a nuclear threat.

Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres echoed this claim numerous times in the 1990s, warning that Iran would build an atomic bomb by the next decade.

In the fall of 2012, Netanyahu declared at the United Nations General Assembly meeting - with his infamous bomb cartoon - that Iran would be able to build a nuclear weapon by June 2013.

The following October, former US President Barack Obama followed with a new deadline - that Iran is a year away from making a nuclear bomb. 

Most recently, the press reported earlier this month that Yossi Cohen, head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, stated he is "100 percent certain" that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

And yet, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released eight statements over the years confirming that Tehran has been meeting its nuclear commitments fully.

Read the entire article

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Israel’s Legislature Votes War Against Syria

The key decision now will be made by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

On May 1st, Al Masdar News headlined “Netanyahu is granted the ability to wage war without the Knesset”, and reported that Israel’s Knesset or legislature had voted late on Monday night April 30th, to hand entirely to the far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to his extremely far-right Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman the decision as to whether or when to invade any country — the main actual target is Syria, but Iran and Lebanon are also in Israel’s gunsights.

Israel’s newspaper Haaretz reported about this on April 30th, while explaining that this legislation was “transferring responsibility for declaring war from the full cabinet to the smaller security cabinet. The joint committee of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee rejected his request but it was later voted for by the Knesset plenum.”

The real change that the new law introduces is to transfer Israel’s war-making decisions away from both the Knesset and the less-invasion-prone members of Israel’s Cabinet, to only the two most invasion-seeking officials: Netanyahu and Liberman — in other words, actually, to Netanyahu alone.

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