Tag: western interests in fighting wars

Yemen, Saudi Arabia & War

The September 19th precision  attacks on  the  oil processing facility  at  Abqaiq  in Eastern  Saudi  Arabia  have raised many questions for the Saudis and their allies in  UAE, the United States and Israel. How did the attackers ( whether they be  Houthi, Iranian or  Saudi  dissidents or a combination of any of those),manage to  breach  what  should have a very  well protected  site from  air borne attack.

The attacks should not have come as a surprise however.  The  Houthi  “rebels’ in Yemen  (against  which  the Saudis  and their British, U.S. , Al Qaeda and UAE allies  have been conducting a barbaric  war of attrition for the past  4 years ) have both  threatened and carried out increasingly  ambitious attacks on Saudi  infrastructure  in  the past year with  drones and missiles to  varying effect. (note the map below showing earlier Houthi  drone  attacks on the oil pipeline leading to  Abqaiq.)

Drone attacks on Saudi Pipeline

Recent  news releases from  the Houthi  indicate major military  successes against  the  Saudi  mercenaries on  the front line.;  and the latest  report of 500  Saudi  mercenaries  killed and  2000  captured  in  ongoing  Houthi/Yemen  Army raids into  Saudi  territory  is  outlined here.

The U.K., France and Germany have all joined the chorus of condemnation of Iran  from  the Saudis and United States  for the  Abqaiq attacks, despite any evidence. As noted in  previous blogs here ,  the ability of the Iranians to  ship   quantities of large missiles and drone components to  Yemen  through  a very  tight naval  blockade of its ports and coastline  is problematic to  say  the least. That  blockade  is part of the deliberate  humanitarian  disaster  that  the Saudis and their allies have inflicted for 4 years  against   the population of Yemen. That genocide  is compounded by the deliberate  bombing of civilian  infrastructure  with  active  military support  and coordination by  the British  and the Americans. Those actions are war crimes on a  massive scale.

Going back  to how the Abqaiq could have possibly happened; given the massive investment the Saudi  clan have put into  war  machinery  from the U.S.  and U.K. , Craig Murray  notes: Saudi Arabia’s entire weapons capacity is massively focused on Iran, as are the manifold detection devices of the numerous US bases. Besides modern air defence systems are omnidirectional

Saudi oil refinery drone hit
Note the precision of the holes in the distillery tanks from the South -West (not from from Iran in the East)

 The Patriot missile defence system is not the best in the world, though it is the most expensive; however you cannot just creep up behind it and shout “boo!” Not even the Saudis would pay billions of dollars for that.

So  if by  some absurd chance , what  Western  governments are saying is true;  how did the Iranians fly drones and missiles  at  Abqaq from  across the Persian  Gulf directly in  the face of large  batteries of Saudi  and American  air defenses? The analysis by “Juliet Guy Oscar” clearly shows that  Houthi   manufactured Quds1 cruise missiles have both  the capacity and range to  have attacked Abqaiq and beyond.

The Americans, using brutal  sanctions, theft of Iranian  assets  and threats, want to   bludgeon  Iran into  both  pulling back  on its extensive and very  effective missile programme,  and its support for   its local  allies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen  and Palestine above all. As E.J. Magnier notes- pulling back  on  either of those two  programmes is simply not an option for the Iranians.

For  U.S. Secretary of State  Pompeo  to  state  that “the foreign minister of Iran is threatening all-out war and to fight to the last American,(and) we’re here to build out a coalition aimed at achieving peace and a peaceful resolution to this,” is of course pure nonsense and lies. America wants to  make Iran once again a client state like the Saudis , Egypt  or Jordan,  which  can bend to  the expansionist  whims of the Israelis.

While its very  likely that  the Houthis have  been using and adapting Iranian  missile and drone technology, the evidence suggests that  the Yemen military,  supported by  the Houthis,  have also been  making their own or adapting  military  equipment salvaged from  the Saudi/UAE conflict – with  perhaps technological advice from Iran.

The Saudis,  amusingly enough,  cannot believe that   Houthi  “savages” could  develop  and  deliver such  weapons. ( the  same kind of sad racist  mistake that  the Americans have continuously made against  the Russians, Chinese,  North Koreans and many other nations. (“If they   have such  weapons then  they must  have stolen the technology  from us”.)

The Yemen ‘rebel’  commentary on  the attacks is however interesting,  noting that “various kinds of combat drones were used in the Second Deterrent Balance Operation, noting that they were launched from three different locations according to their flight endurance and designated targets.   He underlined that the third generation of domestically-designed and -manufactured Qasef (Striker) combat drones, long-endurance Sammad-3 (Invincible-3) drones – which have an operational range of 1,500 kilometers to 1,700 kilometers and newly-developed drones equipped with jet engines.

 

Houthi drone
Houthi drone

 Each of the new drones can carry four precision-guided bombs with fissionable heads every time, and can monitor and hit their targets from several angles.“Other aircraft were also used so the main combat drones could hide in their shadow without being detected, and signal jamming devices effectively disabled the enemy’s air missile defense systems.” 

Like the Iranians,  the Houthi  and the Yemen military are fighting for their survival  against  much better equipped and financed  opponents. Opponents whose  ruthlessness and  commitment to  war crimes on  a grand scale is known to  all.

This will  not end well  for all  sides…but the writing is on th wall  for the Saudi  clan if Pepe Escobar’s analysis is anything to  go  by

Links

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201909201076843665-saudi-coalition-initiates-operations-yemen/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/19/us-dials-back-iran-rhetoric-and-seeks-peaceful-resolution-over-saudi-attack

http://thesaker.is/how-the-houthis-overturned-the-chessboard/

Why Evidence of Iran’s Role in Attack Doesn’t Matter

 

http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/the-saudi-arabia-drone-attacks-have-changed-global-warfare/

Who Really Benefits From ‘Iranian Attack’ On Saudi Arabia?

 

New Antarctica  Relevant Links

America’s Exceptional Interest in Wars

The Saudi created hell in Yemen

Lock ’em up!-NOW!

With  dear little Mike Pompeo immediately accusing Iran of attacking two Japanese-bound   tankers  in  the Gulf of Oman  with  supposed “torpedoes” or limpet mines   (note that limpet mines have limited effect  above the waterline and would only punch  a small hole in a large tanker, and that  torpedoes have not been known to fly out of the water to  hit targets above the waterline) – we reach  new heights of lunacy  within  the United States foreign  policy  arena.   The attack  was precisely timed to  ‘fit’  with  Iran’s meeting with  a Japanese foreign  policy team attempting to  defuse  a confrontation  between  Iran  and the U.S. -which  cannot be defused.  (Clear principle of mediation Mr Trump (oh wise and great  mediator!) –  where one party is  attempting  to threaten and bully another party into total  submission-  no  agreement  is possible until  the bullying party desists. The  other party will  fight  to  defend itself unless  physically defeated. Where the bullied is aware of the bully’s strengths and weaknesses , the bullied party can  and will come up  with alternative strategies that  defeat  the bully  at  their own  game…they  are after all,  fighting for their survival and their lives, not for new profits in  the weapons industry..

It is quite likely that  one of John Bolton’s terrorist allies, like his good friends the brutal  MEK , played a part in  the tanker bombings after having not achieved the desired result a few weeks ago in a botched attack  on other tankers  in the Gulf that  caused minimal  damage . The fact  that Pompeo,  -ex CIA Director, ( it tells one a lot about ‘intelligence’  agencies  when  they have   men  with the extraordinarily limited intellectual  capacities like Pompeo  at  their heads ) has immediately come out saying it was ‘Iran  wot did it’, does somehow demonstrate the crudity and stupidity of  American  foreign  policy, and its total  reliance on  violence and intimidation as its sole  foreign policy tool.( with  a little bit of bribery  and corruption thrown in for good measure)

The United States has been forthright in saying that  Iran  does not behave like a ‘normal  country’ . What  they  mean  is that Iran  does not accept the United States’  right to  impose its will  and ‘values ( such  as they  are)  on other countries – Iran  does not behave according to  ‘accepted international  norms’.

An article by  Christopher Black in  New Eastern Outlook   article by  notes that  the (U.S.)  ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy Report’, of June 1, 2019 includes the statement that, “We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order (my emphasis)– an order that benefits all nations. We are committed to defending and enhancing these shared values”.

Christopher Black  notes that, ‘”What they mean by “rules based international order” is not the order of international law as accepted by the world governments in the United Nations Charter and other international agreements but a US imposed international order, – an order that does not yet exist except in the fantasies of these gangsters-but which they never stop trying to impose on the world, an order of militarism, fear, and tyranny for the rest of the world”.

The fact  that  the United Kingsom’s current government can  immediately endorse the wild accusations  of these crazed and foolish  Americans about  Iran  being the cause  of the tanker attacks , is not unsurprising. Britain  since the First  World War has promoted and supported  the  brutal Saud tribe in Arabia and its fanatical  Wahhabist ( and anti-Shi-ite)  teachings, and used to  such  great  effect  in Libya, Iraq Afghanistan and Syria  in  promoting sectarian division and violence to  provide power and profit for both British  and American  business interests in  the Middle East.

What  is perhaps most disturbing in  recent analyses of the rumours that  the U.S.  will  bomb Iran’s non-existent nuclear  bomb facilities -even  by those opposed to  the bombing-is that  this is not going to  end  well for the United States. As with  the previous multiple acts of murder against  the Iranian  people;  (not least  the attack  by  USS Vincennes on an  Iranian civilian   jumbo-jet which  killed 290  people in 1988: -(just one of so  many attacks the United States has never apologised for ; let only compensated the victims for)we see the complete absence of analyses of  what  terror,  murder and destruction  such  attacks will  inflict  on Iran’s 80  million people -already  under atack  from  years of United States’ vicious sanctions . As with  almost every  United States war;   this is a rascist war- a war of agression against darker skinned peoples who  clearly are no  match for ‘exceptional’  (white) Americans like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

It’s time to  acknowledge that  the United States is simply a rogue state that  needs to  be controlled by  others more mature and steady and with some modicum of intelligence. Hvaing pychopaths at  the helm  does not bode well  for the survivability of the planet.

Lock  ’em up  NOW!

Links

The MEK and the Bankrupt U.S. Policy on Iran

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/13/deja-vu-iraq-war-lies-mike-pompeo-blames-iran-tanker-attack-without-single-shred?

This Outlaw Power

https://journal-neo.org/2019/06/13/convenient-tanker-attacks-as-us-seeks-war-with-iran/

https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/31/2002139210/-1/-1/1/DOD_INDO_PACIFIC_STRATEGY_REPORT_JUNE_2019.PDF

https://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13980323000724

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/14/seven-reasons-to-be-highly-skeptical-of-the-gulf-of-oman-incident/

http://markcurtis.info/2019/06/04/what-the-latest-secret-government-file-tells-us-about-uk-middle-east-policy/

http://markcurtis.info/2019/02/03/britain-and-the-iranian-revolution-expediency-arms-and-secret-deals/

The Broader View Reveals the Ugliest of Prospects

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/18/report-us-planning-massive-airstrike-on-an-iranian-facility/

The New Ukraine: A Pathway to Peace with Zelenskiy?

With  the election of the  comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine may possibly be entering a new era-  or not….

With  no  known  specific  policy  agenda items Zelenskiy is a blank  canvas,  but there are drivers that  indicate where  the new government may  head,  based on  historical  trends.

While promising to  eliminate the endemic corruption that  has been  rampant in  Ukraine since  the Soviet Union was dismantled on December 25th  1991 ( as have many  other recent politicians like Brazil’s new president Bolsonaro or President Trump’s ‘draining of the swamp’) Zelenskiy’s credentials are not promising. His main  backer appears to be the  Ukrainian /Israeli/Cypriot  billionaire ( the second or third richest  person  in Ukraine) Ihor Kolomoyskiy,  who  fled Ukraine in  2016  (to  Israel?) after being accused by  Ukrainian officials of embezzling $5 billion from  his now nationalized Privatbank.  Once favoured by  the post Maidan   Ukrainian government and appointed governor of the  Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Kolomoyskiy is  also   accused of  using his wealth  and paramilitary  forces  to  threaten other businesses into  submission. Wikipedia notes that: Kolomoyskyi has used Privat’s “quasi-military forces” to enforce hostile takeovers of companies, sending a team of “hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber bullet pistols and chainsaws” to forcibly take over a Kremenchuk steel plant in 2006,[26]and has used “a mix of phony court orders (often involving corrupt judges and/or registrars) and strong-arm tactics” to replace directors on the boards of companies he purchases stakes in.[27

You  may be amused (or not)  of this account of  Kolomoyskiy’s  behaviour  in 2014  in attempting to  reclaim  his ‘rightful’  ownership of “Ukrtransnafta”  a Ukrainian  company which  manages the transport of oil through the Ukrainian pipeline network.

Kolomoyskiy also owns the TV channel on which Zelenskiy’s comedy programmes were shown and has provided security, lawyers, and vehicles for the candidate.  Zelenskiy however,  denies,  somewhat  implausibly, any influence  by  Kolomoskiy on his political  agenda as president.

The former President Poroschenko, the confectionery  billionaire and   apparent CIA asset, attempted to  portray  Zelenskiy ( and all  the other presidential  candidates) as Putin’s stooges;  a  ploy that  has been used extensively by   Ukrainian American  intelligence assets in the Ukraine since the breakup  of the Soviet Union. Zelenskiy, while speaking Russian,  does not appear to  have the inclination or motivation to  break  away  from  these current Ukrainian  mindsets,  although he has indicated a willingness to  at  least  talk  to  the Russians about the breakaway  primarily  Russian  speaking  oblasts of  Donetsk and  Lugansk .

Despite a lack  of  evidence ( somewhat  surprising in  this age of satellite  imagery) Ukraine and many  Western  governments have continued to  insist  that  Russia is directly militarily involved in  the breakaway  regions. The Minsk  Protocol of 2014, designed to  halt the   savage war between  the  breakaway Donbass paramilitaries and the Ukrainian   government and paramilitary forces (many of the paramilitary  having neo-nazi connections and using nazi-like terms to describe their  ‘untermenschen’ Russian speaking opponents) , has failed to  stop  the fighting,  with  both  sides accusing the other of breaking the agreement.  Kolomoisky   himself has been  accused  of ‘funding the Aidar, Azov, Donbas, Dnieper-1, and Dnieper-2 battalions that engaged in a brutal campaign of looting, torture and murder during Kiev’s Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) military action against eastern Ukraine, starting in April 2014 as well  as being involved in  the burning of Odessa’s Trade Union building with much  loss of life .  Russia issued a warrant in 2014 for Kolomoyskyi’s arrest  for “organizing the killing of civilians”.

Despite monitoring by  an independent OSCE force, violations of the ceasefire by  both parties  continue to  occur on  a day  by  day  basis.  We can be thankful at  least  that  former president  Poroschenko’s attempts to  further stir up  racial  hated using the bigotry  of the far right groups,  have not won the day  in Ukraine ( for now).  For  that, Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian  Jewish   communities too  will  be thankful; despite his  billionaire sponsor’s apparent support for those groups; Patriots of Ukraine, Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) and White Hammer .

While   inflation and unemployment have reduced somewhat  since 2017,  Ukraine  continues to  be  mired deep in  a financial  crisis,  with   the EU and IMF stating that  they do  not consider Ukraine has done enough  to  reduce  government corruption  or  government subsidies . Zelenskiy will  be caught between  the need to  satisfy  his billionaire supporters,  satisfying  the demands of the IMF  and EU, while appeasing his voters and improving their lot,  and somehow reducing the scale of the conflict  in  the East.

As the media onslaught and  historical emnity to  ‘foreigners’   and national ‘patriotism’  of western  Ukrainians has surged   since Soviet days ,  the window of opportunity for reconciliation between Eastern ,  largely  Russian  speaking Ukrainians  and  the Western  EU oriented populations has begun  to  close.  Fears of a Russian invasion  have been  fanned  relentlessly by    intelligence operatives from U.S.  and U.K.  and several  other Western European  states with  Ukrainian media increasingly hyping the perceived threat  to  the benefit of the oligarchs and  political  forces.  As Ukraine’s biggest  trading partner,  and with   its  many hundreds of years of ethnic , religious  and language  connections , Russia  seems unable to  counter that  spin. For the medium  term  at  least  that  may mean  a Ukrainian nation both  divorced from  its historical  Rus  roots,  and also unable to  to  achieve recognition as a European  nation.

A nation  which  can   achieve harmonious integration of both of these paths ,  despite outside  interventions ,  would be the best  of futures. Can Zelenskiy begin  the  perilous journey  down  that  pathway; juggling the  competing interests of Russians,  Europeans and Americans  whilst maintaining Ukrainian independence?- it is just possible….

Links

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/22/the-buried-maidan-massacre-and-its-misrepresentation-by-the-west/

ConsortiumNews comments to  the above webpage  by  “Abe”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelensky

https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-shows-carrot-and-stick-to-new-ukraine-leader-11556210091

https://www.rferl.org/a/so-far-zelenskiy-is-high-on-charisma-and-light-on-policy-do-ukrainians-care-/29868871.html

https://program.ze2019.com/

https://www.politico.eu/article/volodomyr-zelenskiy-ihor-kolomoisky-the-comedian-and-the-oligarch-ukraine-presidential-election/

 

Zelenskii beat Poroshenko – what will happen next?

https://www.thenation.com/article/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-election-zelenskiy-oligarch/mutual-friends-and-borrowed-cars-how-ukraines-would-be-leader-is-linked-to-tycoon-idUSKCN1RS147 

The Moral Right to Govern

The  arrest  of Julian  Assange  for absconding while  on bail from  a UK court;  (a charge that  normally requires a non custodial ( non-prison) sentence) and  his proposed extradition to  the United States for  ‘conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010″  alongside Chelsea Manning, raises important issues , not only for journalistic freedom, but also puts into  question the right of those in power to  have any  moral  capacity to make any decisions for  the publics they  supposedly represent .  Assange’s real  crime is that  his website Wikileaks exposed, and continues to  expose, the criminal  behaviour of state actors.

The U.K.  judge, Judge Michael Snow,  presiding over Assange’s arrest,  made the highly unprofessional  and unscrupulously  biased comment  when  describing Assange in  his  legal judgement as a “narcissist, who can’t get beyond his own selfish interests” and found him guilty of failing to surrender to bail in 2012.  No  doubt “Justice” Snow, considered it contemptable that  an  upstart  colonial  boy like Assange should challenge his imperial  betters in  such an unseemly way.  The personal characterization of Julian Assange by Judge Michael Snow was “highly improper,” Mads Andenas, former UN special rapporteur on arbitrary detention noted.    Should being   a narcissist ever become a chargeable crime then  certainly most judges and every politician would be spending long periods in  incarceration. As Craig Murray  notes: One key fact gave away Snow’s enormous prejudice. Julian Assange said nothing during the whole brief proceedings, other than to say “Not guilty” twice, and to ask a one sentence question about why the charges were changed midway through this sham “trial”. Yet Judge Michael Snow condemned Assange as “narcissistic”. There was nothing that happened in Snow’s brief court hearing that could conceivably have given rise to that opinion. It was plainly something he brought with him into the courtroom, and had read or heard in the mainstream media or picked up in his club. It was in short the very definition of prejudice, and “Judge” Michael Snow and his summary judgement is a total disgrace.

Its noted that  the current prime minister of the U.K. Theresa May  stated in  related to  Assange’s arrest  that “This goes to show that in the United Kingdom, no one is above the law”. . One assumes   that  May  will   therefore proceed to  the nearest  Police Station to  confess her direct  complicity  in genocide in Yemen, and that her predecessor Cameron  will  come forward to be  charged with war crimes in Libya and Syria and that  the ever determinedly evil  Tony Blair will  finally confess to  his monumental  war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere.

Similarly the media’s  constant attempts prior to Assange’s  arrest over the previous 6 years to  characterize him  as some objectionable human  being;  including his not  emptying the kitty litter for his little cat (who was voluntarily extradited to safety in November 2018) ,  or his personal  hygiene (one wonders how much  those journalists  might smell  after being incarcerated in  virtual  solitary  confinement for 7 years?) clearly demonstrates the depths to  which   Western  mainstream  journalism  has sunk, and its cosy-ing up  to “intelligence’  services determined to punish  and get  rid of Assange. ( as well as the extensive limitations of its case in  attempting to justify locking Assange up).   One can  expect  the (linked) type of response from  newspapers like the Daily Mail,  but  Mainstream  media’s attempts to  character assassinate

Assange have continued after his  arrest. Note the language in this screenshot from  the  ‘respectable’  news outlet  Reuters from 12th  April  2019 ,  stating that   Assange  was being indited for sexual  offences (charges which  as the U.N. has noted,  were dropped almost two  years ago). Wikipedia notes: ‘On 19 May 2017, the Swedish chief prosecutor applied to the Stockholm District Court to rescind the arrest warrant for Julian Assange,[39] effectively ceasing their investigation against Julian Assange.[40] The case may be reinstated until the expiration of the statute of limitations. Additionally, Britain’s arrest warrant pertaining to bail violations remains open. In 2013, Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition but the English Crown Prosecution Service dissuaded them from doing so.[41]‘

There appears to  be some  not inconsiderable discrepancy  between  the intent and motives of the two  women  involved in  the Swedish  rape cases and the Swedish  prosecution’s account of events.

Or  we can note another ‘respectable’  media  U.K.  outlet,  with its  ongoing wild accusations  ( screenshot below)   that  Assange and Wikileaks were somehow

connected to  Russia’s “military intelligence  spy agency”  who supposedly ( without a shred of evidence)  had   hacked the U.S.  Democratic Party’s  servers,  exposing the very  real corruption within  the party to ‘select”  Hilary  Clinton  as a presidential  hopeful..

The  numerous attempts by  the UK Justice system  to  force Sweden  to  maintain  its prosecution case for rape against  Assange,  despite their clear resistance, is one more  line of evidence of conspiracy  against  justice by  those currently  in  power in  the United Kingdom.  Ms. Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions  tweeted that the expulsion of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London exposed him to “risks of serious human rights violations”. 

However it should be noted that  the U.K.;  like its ‘partner’  the U.S. , takes no  cognizance of its  extensive human  rights violations, as it  is  apparently above international  law. In December 2018 the U.N.  has noted that the U. K.  should: ‘abide by its international obligations” and allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the embassy.

“States that are based upon, and promote the rule of law, do not like to be confronted with their own violations of the law, that is understandable. But when they honestly admit these violations, they do honour the very spirit of the rule of law, earn enhanced respect for doing so, and set worldwide commendable examples,” said a statement released by the Working Group.

In December 2015, the Working Group concluded in its opinion No. 54/2015 that Mr. Assange – who at the time had a European arrest warrant issued against him for an allegation of crimes committed in Sweden ‑ was being arbitrarily deprived of his freedom and demanded that he be released.

“Under international law, pre-trial detention must be only imposed in limited instances. Detention during investigations must be even more limited, especially in the absence of any charge” said the experts. “The Swedish investigations have been closed for over 18 months now, and the only ground remaining for Mr. Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offense that cannot post facto justify the more than 6 years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador.”

“Mr. Assange should be able to exercise his right to freedom of movement in an unhindered manner, in accordance with the human rights conventions the UK has ratified,” the experts added.

Of course it should be remembered that  those U.K.  and U.S. people in  positions of power are the very  same people who  ultimately will  face extradition  to  The Hague and life-time imprisonment  for their war crimes and facilitation of genocide in Iraq,  Afghanistan, Libya,  Syria and now Yemen,  and whom Wikileaks has exposed as genocidal  abnd corrupt  psychopaths,  time and time again.

It is now high  time for the public in  both  the  United States and the United Kingdom,   to  acknowledge that  those who  rule    those two  nations (and who  view themselves as the ‘elite’  despite all  the evidence  to  the contrary of their minimal  vision and intelligence),  are simply  parasites  who  have no  moral  right to  rule. That  in  fact  they  are the people who  need to be in  the dock  now for  their well documented war-crimes and murders of many millions of people world-wide in  their corrupt drive for power and more money.

They  are  in  fact  truly psychopaths.

Perhaps the conclusion can  best  be left to  a quote from President Roosevelt in 1944 and  recently re-quoted by  the courageous and articulate Richard Falk: It seems apt to recall President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 message on German war crimes directed at the German people in the midst of World War II: “Hitler is committing war crimes in the name of the German people. I ask every German and every man everywhere under German domination to show the world by his action that in his heart he does not share these insane criminal desires. Let him hide the victims, help them to get over their borders, and do what they can to save them from the Nazi hangman. I ask him also to keep watch and to record the evidence that will one day be used to convict the guilty.” (emphasis added) Is this not precisely what Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange have been doing?

As Richard Falk notes,  the attempt to  extradite Assange to  answer for  his access to,  and publication of, criminal  wrongdoing by  state actors, and thereby  muzzle the release of further information on  state criminal  activity, is indisputably an international  act of criminality  in  itself.

https://defend.wikileaks.org/take-action/

Links

https://www.rt.com/news/456290-assange-uk-judicial-system-us/

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/754-assange-indictment/d093e7dc7982f7fe4c24/optimized/full.pdf#page=1

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1036491

Chelsea and Julian are in Jail. History Trembles.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/05/iraq-war-judge-to-review-tony-blair-prosecution-ban

Assange’s arrest shows us very clearly who supports freedom of speech, and who doesn’t

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/julian-assange-charges-press-freedom-journalism

https://www.anonews.co/anonymous-message-to-uk-citizens/

Julian Assange Arrested, Take Action Now

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/12/how-you-can-be-certain-that-the-us-charge-against-assange-is-fraudulent/

Assange’s ‘Conspiracy’ to Expose War Crimes Has Already Been Punished

https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/julian-assange-criminal-or-benefactor/

https://intpolicydigest.org/2017/06/21/analysis-julian-assange-case/

 

The Pink Supremacists

Christchurch is my old hometown;  long before the earthquakes that shattered the city, long before multiculturalism  thankfully arrived ,   and long long  before Mr Tarrant decided it was his mission to  save the ‘white”  world  from  those “others” by murdering 50  people in two  mosques in March  2019. Certainly there has always been  racism  in little old  New Zealand-  but  in my experience a greater  tolerance of diversity  than in  many countries. Our  current Prime Minister Jacinda Adern  is thankfully a symbol  of that  tolerance and compassion.

Mr Tarrant is however not a symbol  of white supremacy  ( he is ,  as the headline of this post  suggests ,  in  reality   pink skinned;  not ‘white’;  a fact  which  rather  detracts from  the white power rhetoric) but he is rather;  a symbol  of  grief, fear and  loss. Like so many  angry  men  across the world, he found a rationale for the expression of that  anger and violence. In Mr Tarrant’s case, it was ‘white’  supremacism;   but for others  it might be  Salafist    murderous  jihadi fundamentalism, or Hindu  or Buddhist ‘righteous’  anger. In fact  anything to  avoid the real  grief and loss gnawing at  their psyche . In  Mr Tarrant’s case it was ,  almost indisputably the suicide of his father in 2010 when he was 18 , and more explicitly his discovery of the body  after his father shot himself  after he was diagnosed with cancer as a result of asbestos exposure. In the case of Anders Breivik, the Norwegian  who  killed 77 Muslim children in an attack  – it was perhaps the  separation of his parents at  an early age and the subsequent  split from  his father at  15.

What  might we be able to  say  about Osama bin Laden  and his childhood, or even  Genghis Khan?

Please note ,  none of this   rationale in  any way  condones or excuses the violence of such individuals,  but it can  give a rationale for their actions,  and hence an opportunity to  remove and reduce such  risks in  others .

And it is important  also  to  note that  by  far the greatest  violence by  such  angry  men is not committed  by  their own  hand,  but via the hands of others. Those men  ( and some women) who  manipulate others into  carrying out  their acts of violence  against  those ‘others”. In recent times those mass murderers have been  politicians and military  men and specifically those in  the Western ‘democratic’   nations. One can  only speculate on  the childhoods of sociopaths like John Bolton, the US advisor who  advocates the  killing of so  many Arab people,  but more importantly the Iranian people,  in the supposed belief that  this will  protect  the apartheid state of Israel,  or U.S.  Secretary  of State Mike Pompeo  who  apparently sincerely believes that  war against  Iran  will  hasten the Second Coming and the Rapture . Or we could list  a few women like  Gina Haspell  CIA director who is  clearly able to  internally rationalise her brutish  actions in  torturing people in a systematic manner,  or note the psychopathic glee of Hilary  Clinton when she learns of  Muammar Qaddafi’s brutal  death.

Such  people  use their  concoctions of beliefs to  rationalise their  brutal  and violent actions…when in  fact  they  are  simply  frightened little people who  need our compassion – and to  be taken  away  from  any capacity to  control  other’s lives.

 

Venezuela Madness

President Trump has  recognised as President of Venezuela, a man  who  has never stood for the Presidential  role  but who presides over  the Venezuelan  national  assembly: Juan Guaidó— a man  who  the New York Times (1/22/19) describes as “virtually unheard-of”—and who has now – at  the behest of the Trump administration- proclaimed himself the country’s new leader. Guaido  was elected President of the National Assembly of Venezuela in December 2018, and was sworn in on 5 January 2019.  He appears to  have strong links into  the American  neocon  ‘thinktank’  and policy   systems and strongly supports  the United States  re- taking more ownership  of Venezuela’s extensive oil  reserves, (the largest in  the world)  and the privatisation of many state-run  services which  currently fund health  and welfare  in Venezuela.  In  addition,  according to  ConsortiumNews,  he hads a long history  of involvement in  the violence associated with Popular Will party  which   formed the shock troops of the guarimbas that caused the deaths of police officers and common citizens alike. He had even boasted of his own participation in street riots. And now, to win the hearts and minds of the military and police, Guaido had to erase this blood-soaked history.   According to  Consortium News, Within 48 hours, Guaidó quickly tried to seize control of Venezuela’s major US-based oil refiner and use its revenue to help bankroll his US-backed coup regime.  Guaidó is attempting to fire the directors of Citgo Petroleum, which is owned by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, and seeks to appoint his own new board……This plan would involve the creation of a “new hydrocarbons agency” that would “offer bidding rounds for projects in natural gas and conventional, heavy and extra-heavy crude.” In other words, these are rapid moves to privatize Venezuela’s oil and open the door for multinational corporations. As David Pear notes- this is essentially a racist  white supremacist  counter-revolution 

The current President of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro,  who  was  re-elected in  a disputed election ( ie some of  the opposition parties  chose not to  run  a candidate and then disputed the election)  in January  2019 . Maduro has used increasingly repressive measures to  maintain  his powerbase and repress  opposition, whilst  confronting increasingly violent  opposition groups.  Telesur (a news agency funded by the Government of Venezuela and  other governments such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia ), notes that the ‘National Assembly has been in a situation of contempt of court for almost two years. After the election of deputies in December 2015, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) candidates in Amazon State filed a complaint because their opponents had purchased votes to win the election. The court subsequently condemned the fraud and the Electoral Power Tribunal demanded that the election for these three seats be redone. Since the Speaker of the National Assembly refused to comply with the judicial and electoral authorities, the National Assembly was declared in “contempt of court.” Decisions and votes emanating from the legislative power are therefore null and void as long as the speaker of the National Assembly fails to authorize the return to the polls.”

The United States has implemented wide-ranging sanctions against the  Maduro  administration since 2014 ,  claiming that it is a dictatorial regime. The sanctions ,  along with  declining oil  prices and to  a lesser extent, structural  failures by  the socialist  Bolivarian presidents, Chavez and Maduro  administrations ,  has resulted in  an  economic disaster for Venezuela,  with  rampant inflation  and high  unemployment . The working classes and peasants who  formerly supported the Maduro  government because of its extensive redistribution of state owned oil  wealth  and its  health and social  policies, appear now to be  increasingly angry  with  the Maduro  administration for the economic failures they have recently endured.  Mainstream  media in  the West  and many Western  politicians are now able to  insist that  it is solely the  socialist  agenda of the Chavez/Maduro  administrations  that  has caused this economic crisis, while  ignoring the very  deliberate attempts by  the United States to de-stabilise the country  over an extended period of years via sanctions and supporting an  attempted coup  in 2002,  and using its pressure with other Latin American  states to  isolate the Venezulean  administration.

The United States and its Western  and Latin American ‘allies’  have a desperate need to  invalidate the socialist  wealth  distribution policies of Venezuela;  both  to  ensure its corporate elites, the “comprador”,  continue to  receive their ‘rightful’  incomes, and bank  accounts in  Miami , but also  to  ensure that their home populations do  not begin  to understand that  state ownership  and wealth  distribution is a very  valid and effective method to ensure a  sustainable and fair world. (where would we be -God forgive!!-if we had an equitable, efficient, sustainable   and accountable economic process that  ensured a country’s assets actually returned to  all  of its population?)

 The appointment of Elliot Abrams by  the Trump  administration to  coordinate ‘diplomatic’  efforts to  replace Mafuro is a clear indication of the regime change efforts of the United States. The contemptible Abrams was heavily involved in  the  coordination of terrorist activities by  the  Reagan  era contras in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and would clearly be  a key contender for  long-term incarceration if there was in  fact a neutral   international  War Crimes Tribunal. As the Guardian  article on  the 2002 notes:  the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for ‘democracy, human rights and international opera tions’. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as ‘Hemispherism’, which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas.

What  Guaido and his American  neocon  advisors seem  to fail to  understand,  is that his possible ascension to  the Venezuelan presidency  ( a re-run of the coup  of  the U.S.  2002 attempted coup ), while  allowing the US regime to  remove sanctions and its stranglehold over the Venezuelan  economy,  will  inevitably lead to  a nationalist  backlash  in Venezuela as it becomes clear that  the majority of the country’s resources are being sold off  to  US corporates and the IMF,  with  possible negative implications  for the  recently installed intellectually impaired Bolsonaro  extreme right wing administration  in neighbouring   Brasil-as it becomes clear who  is pulling the strings in  that  country.

In addition,  as the centre of global  power inexorably moves from  the United States to  China , Latin American  states aligned to  increasingly erratic  and violent U.S. corporate and  state imperialist  ambitions, will  find themselves isolated.

What  is also  equally disturbing is the alacrity which  which  EU nations have fallen in line behind the United States’ sponsored coup  in Venezuela. Their insistence on  interference in  another country’s domestic issues and their pronouncements on who is the ‘legitimate’  ruler of Venezuela do  not bode well  for human  rights and the international  rule of law.

Postscript: Stansfield Smith  at  Covert Action lists  a damning history of U.S.  intervention  in Venezuela and beyond

See another unpleasant history of U.S.  intervention  in  Venezuela here at  Telesur https://www.telesurenglish.net//opinion/The-History—and-Hypocrisy—of-US-Meddling-in-Venezuela–20190128-0016.html?

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Understanding-Venezuelas-Crisis-An-Interview-With-Guillaume-Long-20190129-0005.html

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-why-capitalism-not-socialism-blame-corruption?

History of US Interventions in Latin America (courtesy of @asadabukhalil on Twitter.)

Or read David Pear’s analysis that  this is essentially   a racist  counter-revolution http://www.unz.com/article/us-and-canada-are-backing-an-elite-white-supremacist-minority-in-venezuela/ 

Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Guaid%C3%B3

The Making of Juan Guaidó: US Regime-Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader

https://venezuelanalysis.com/video/14253

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Ongoing-Coup-in-Venezuela-What-If-Same-Scenario-Happens-in-France-20190126-0007.html

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bank-of-England-Refuse-to-Return-US1.2BN-Venezuelan-Gold—20190127-0003.html

Yet Another U.S. Coup Attempt to Eradicate the Bolivarian Revolution

Venezuela’s US-Backed Coup Leader Immediately Targets State Oil Company and Requests IMF Money

US Backs Coup in Oil-Rich Venezuela, Right-Wing Opposition Plans Mass Privatization and Hyper-Capitalism

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bank-of-England-Refuse-to-Return-US1.2BN-Venezuelan-Gold—20190127-0003.html

‘Resistance’ Media Side With Trump to Promote Coup in Venezuela

 

The Madness of Military Intervention in Venezuela

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/venezuela-trumps-coup-attempt-is-based-on-a-seriously-flawed-plan.html

The Vultures of Caracas

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html

Your Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times’ Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin America

“Death to Wikileaks”: the battle for truth

The recent Guardian article penned by  Luke Harding – of famed ‘the Russians are invading Ukraine with  a convoy of (mythical)  tanks”  and other anti-Russian hysteria,  and  co-author Dan Collyns,  alleges that  Paul  Manafort, U.S.  convicted felon and former Republican  campaign  chief for Donald Trump’s election campaign, met  and conspired with  Julian  Assange of Wikileaks  to  ensure Hilary  Clinton was not elected President.

The authors of the Guardian story, Dan Collyns and Luke Harding, were in Ecuador recently with Equadorian , Fernando Villavicencio, who ‘assisted’  with this story  and who they had previously worked  with on  other  evidence -free  stories. Villavicencio ( Fernando Villavicencio, oil exsindicalista refugee in the US)  has fabricated claims about people visiting Assange in the past. In May he claimed Farage visited Assange on 28 April  2009, a month after Ecuador initiated its 8 month-long isolation of Assange, banning phone calls, all visits and  internet. Assange’s isolation at  the Embassy coincided  with the  defeat of Ecuadorean president  Rafael  Correa to  U.S.  supporter Lenin Moreno. The Guardian article states ; based on  the allegations from  Villavicencio,  that Manafort entered the Equadorian  Embassy  in London  where Assange is currently in  refuge,  and spoke   to  Assange, on  several occasions.  But as  Craig Murray  notes ,  the Equadorian Embassy  security files,  let alone the London Police records,   strangely show no  evidence of such  meetings.  Embassy employees who were there during that entire time period  also say they never saw Manafort or heard of his visit.

Assange and Wikileaks; and also  separately,  Paul Manafort, are  now proposing legal  action  against  the Guardian.  Wikileaks is raising money here for their legal  appeal. In likely response to these legal  threats, the Guardian has now edited its original  story  to  soften  the tone  of the allegations.  See the edits here  at   https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1706143/diff/0/1. If both libel  actions are successful  against  the Guardian;  its capacity to   survive financially are questionable -as will be its reputation as a reputable news-source.  Why  then would the Guardian  take such  a risk? It is to be noted that  legal  libel proceeding costs in  the U.K.  can be up to  140  times the costs of similar proceedings in  Europe ( ironically this is a Guardian link) .

Wikileaks’ crime is not only that it did the unpardonable;  it published leaked   information that  accurately and truthfully described war  crimes committed by  both  the U.K. , the US and  other Western states,  but more importantly  Wikileaks also  has put into  question the very  lucrative financial  dealings of the City of London  and also the Maltese government.    Without these illegal   financial dealings,  (primarily via Russian ‘oligarchs’ who  have  fled Russia), it is possible  that  the City of London   and much of the British  economy,  could collapse.

These murky financial  dealings  intermesh  with   much of the  terrorist activities carried out by  Western (particularly U.S.) intelligence agencies  to  ensure  their corporate sponsors  retain  their supplies of cash regardless of the  impacts on  lives  and the local environment. South  American  right wing governments and  their military/intelligence agencies have played a key  role in  these activities –  hence the arrival  of the very  dubious Fernando Villavicencio and his timely allegations of  collusion between  Trump,  Assange and the Russians.

Jimmy Llama notes  many  convoluted links to  neo’liberal’  thinktanks,  shady  corporates and   U.S.   and other individuals    such  as Bill  Browder,  famed for instigating  the U.S. Magnitsky Act ( Russia  has now accused Browder of Magnitsky’s murder) and a key player in  the Russiagate allegations.

These allegations are one of many determined concerted media  efforts to  ensure that once  Assange is  no  longer under the protection of the Ecuadorian  London  Embassy,  there will  be limited public backlash   against  those governments responsible for his subsequent  deportation to  the U.S.  –  his show-trial and likely disappearance..

That  process is after all ,  standard practice  already by  the United States and others;  make allegations against  someone you don’t like or need ,  inform  the necessary  Western authorities,   and a  drone   can  eliminate any unnecessary  evidence forthwith.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks have indeed played a very dangerous game-  unmasking the  extremely brutal  and vicious  international  game of exploitation and greed by  those  in  positions of power  in  the name of “democracy and freedom”…

Links

 

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/27/it-is-possible-paul-manafort-visited-julian-assange-if-true-there-should-be-ample-video-and-other-evidence-showing-this/

Assange Never Met Manafort. Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies

https://www.latimes.com/ct-julian-assange-russian-visa-20180917-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy

https://www.couragefound.org/2018/11/the-guardian-publishes-fabricated-claims-of-paul-manafort-visiting-assange/

https://www.gofundme.com/wikileaks-suing-the-guardian-over-manafort-story

https://archive.fo/9w6Zv

The Fate of Julian Assange: Chris Hedges Interviews Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria

A Written Guide to the Guardian’s Smear Campaign Against Assange

The Truth About Fernando Villavicencio, the Guardian’s Source for Their Anti-Assange Campaign

Russiagate Part One: The Story That Everyone Missed

Russiagate Part Two: Malta

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-really-killed-sergei-magnitsky-16612

https://wikileaks.org/Statement-Julian-Assange.html

https://justice4assange.com/

Misreporting Manafort: A Case Study in Journalistic Malpractice

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Why-No-Outrage-Over-Ecuadors-Illegal-Constituent-Assembly-20181130-0016.html

Brazilian Indigenous Guardian of the Amazon Murdered: & Facebook..

In the last few weeks Facebook  has become assiduous in   removing “fake news’  newsposts  from  its servers.  Telesurtv is one such example-  now  reinstated

One might be forgiven for thinking that Facebook  serves interests other than  truth and honesty in  its promotion of the ‘fake news’  meme,  when one looks at just one such  media article listed on  the Telesur website  Telesur is one of the few English language media outlets in  South America that promotes indigenous rights against  the rapaciousness of corporate entities ( predominantly   US-based).

The history of  the U.S. ongoing  intervention in South  America to promote its own  interests ( ie US corporate profits) has resulted in many many thousands  if not  millions of of deaths,  the decades long support of South American tyrannical  regimes ,  death  squads,  torture and the oppression of South America’s working classes, peasants and indigenous population-  as well  as the rape of its incredible environmental heritage for logging and  meat production companies, and the facilitation of the drug trade .

The recent U.S. sanctions against Venezuela are just one more example of the techniques used by  the United States to  destabilize various Latin  American  governments that  do not suit U.S.  corporate interests.

How much longer does South  America have to endure  the tortures of this ignorant  bully from  the North  I wonder? How much longer will  supposedly ‘honest’  American media portray  U.S.  interventions as being upholding ‘freedom  and democracy’?

Sadly this distortion and manipulation  of ‘truth’ by  powerful  American  companies  for the benefit of corrupt  U.S. businessmen has been  an ongoing reality for the past century.

Craig Murray   beautifully outlines  the Facebook  censorship  issues from  another perspective here,  and the  extraordinarily ignorant and inept role of the Atlantic Council. 

Links

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazilian-Indigenous-Leader-Guardian-of-the-Amazon-Murdered-20180816-0009.html?

http://www.yachana.org/teaching/resources/interventions.html

https://www.telesurtv.net/english

Facebook Censorship, Mad Ben Nimmo and the Atlantic Council

America Unhinged

Perhaps it  should not be a surprise that  the United States political  scene is becoming increasingly deranged  with its talk  of ‘treasonous Trump” , and  it’s ( and the U.K.’s) media screaming headlines  about the  purported but totally unsubstantiated ‘hacking’  of the U.S.  presidential  elections by  Russia, and where any foreign media or politician  that  does  not support the “Democratic” Party’s view of American politics, is subverting democracy  .

After all ,  we have seen more than a hundred years of American  politicians  trumpeting the United States as  the international  beacon of freedom  and hope for the oppressed,  while at the same time committing endless wars against  vulnerable countries ( almost exclusively populated by  darker skinned  peoples) who  dare to oppose its economic demands . And indeed has conduced a  long-standing violent war  against  its own  vulnerable populations.

Perhaps now we simply   see  American society, previously  unable to  differentiate between  the constant lies  it has told the world over the past century and more, and the reality  of its sordid and brutal  foreign  policies, now turning in  on itself- cannibalizing what  remains of its   democratic processes , innovative thinking and compassion for the underdog..

Sadly , with  such  immense natural  resources, the United States has squandered its opportunities  to build a truly democratic  open  society  that provides free education, healthcare  and job opportunities  for   all;   and protects the environment in real  ways while building a prosperous and sustainable  future for its human  citizens ..It has  instead become an oligarchy  where greed  and  brutality rule ..

A nation  is in  deep  trouble when it begins to  believe the lies it tells itself – here’s just one bizarre example of American  groupthink..

As Bill  Van Auken at  the World Socialist  Web,  (and bear in  mind that  Putin is no  socialist!) quotes: “1964 is a year of crisis and decision. Will America continue to aid the communist enemy, to disarm in the face of danger, to bow before communist dictators in every corner of the earth? The decision is yours.”

Postscript:

Perhaps a quick  read of Code Pink’s Assessment of American Foreign  Policy might also  be instructive?

 

Links

https://eand.co/how-russia-conquered-america-without-firing-a-bullet-36d9f0132b8c

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/war-criminals-theirs-and-ours

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/433793-putin-helsinki-interrogations-russiagate/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/19/pers-j19.html

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/20/pers-j20.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5971475/Flake-suggests-TREASON-Senate-floor-saying-Trump-gave-aid-comfort-enemy.html

https://blackagendareport.com/russiagate-ruling-class-diversion

https://www.al-akhbar.com/Opinion/254619/

Trump’s Treasonous Traitor Summit or: How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New McCarthyism

The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy

CODEPINK  War Profiteers: The U.S. War Machine and the Arming of Repressive Regimes*

The Sick Men of Washington

President Trump,  has now  officially pulled the United States out of the Iran  nuclear deal , officially known  as the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA) 

Negotiated via U.N.  auspices, the Iran deal limited Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium and thus limit any potential  for Iran to develop  nuclear weapons;  something it has always said is has not intended  nor planned to  do. UN inspections prove that  Iran has indeed complied with  the JCPOA in  full  since its inception in 2015. The deal  in no way  prohibits Iran’s develop  of missile technology,  which would be seen by  any state as a   sovereign  right to protect  itself from  aggressors.

And Iran has many threatening states  to protect  itself from. These include Israel, who  sees Iran  as its major  spoiler to the  ongoing expansion of Israeli  territory  in  the Middle East;  particularly  because of Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, who  roundly  defeated  Israel in its last  attempt to  occupy Lebanon in   2006 . Then  there is Saudi Arabia,  the despotic regime which  pretends to be a ‘monarchy” who  actively supports protects and funds the Salafist terrorists  across the Middle East  and beyond.  Salafists believe that  all  other Islamic and other religious  beliefs   other than  their own  are ‘heretical”, and therefore those people who  hold such beliefs need to be either forcibly converted or disposed of. Hence the  millions of Shiite peoples of Iran   and its Shi-ite theocracy are anathema to  the Saudi  ‘princes’. Iran is a  large country of over 80  million people,  and while its economy has been made vulnerable by  years of U.S. and other Western countries sanctions, it has managed to develop a wide range of responses to those sanctions,  and particularly  a  home grown defence industry.

Iran is therefore not  significantly vulnerable to  attack  by  Saudi Arabia ,  despite S.A.s huge defence spending ($76 billion in 2017 – third  highest in  the world after the U.S.  and China) ,  as opposed to Iran’s approximately $14 billion), largely because of its very  effective home grown  ballistic missile systems. (it is always amusing to note that U.S. military ‘specialists  always attribute this or that countries’  home grown  military capabilities to some other country – implying in some way  that the specific  country does not have the  technology ,  research  capability and technical know-how that  only  the great and exceptional  U.S.  has!)

And finally,   Iran’s perhaps most significant threat  comes from  the United States,  who has desperately tried to destabilize Iran’s theocracy  in  every  way  possible way since its inception in  1979, after overthrowing the U.S.  and and U.K. installed  despot, the ‘Shah’  of Iran .

The U.K.  has also  played a supporting role to the U.S.  since 1953 in supporting the salafist regimes in the Persian Gulf  and encouraging the export of  Saudi  and Qatari  jihadist  terrorists to  Middle East  states  which  are not active supporters of Western colonialism or Israeli  expansionism.

Thus the latest  move by  the Trump administration to  undermine the U.N.  JCPOA agreement  and threaten sanctions against  countries  and companies that do  not comply with its renewed sanctions against  Iran, is simply part of the ongoing war  by the United States against  Iran that had its inception in  the overthrow of its  brutal dictator ,  the Shah.

The drivers for this  ongoing  war against  Iran are  largely economic:  primarily  re-acquisition of the huge Iranian  oil  market  by  American oil  companies  will  buffer the U.S.  against  the imminent collapse of the local  shale oil  market, whilst  ensuring that Iranian owned oil  and gas is not pipe-lined through to  Europe and Turkey.

However the other major U.S.   impetus for Iranian destabilisation and overthrow of its  independent theocracy is the role of Israel  and its Zionist  lobbyists in  Washington.  Now that Saudi Arabia has been bought into  the Zionist  fold and accepts  the Israeli   theft of Palestinian  lands since 1948 as legitimate, there is only Iran  as a significant power player in  the Middle East  who is  able to  confront Israeli  expansionism.  A tame Iranian regime that supported both  Israel  and  U.S.  colonial policy in  the Middle East  would mean Chinese and Russian commercial and strategic   ambitions  there could be thwarted, and  U.S.  and U.K.  (and to  a smaller degree, French) companies could make billions exploiting the region. With  the truly psychopathic John Bolton now  as Trumps defence advisor, drooling for war  with Iran, and Israel’s Netanyahu frothing at  the mouth for the U.S.  to bomb Iran, all  options are truly on  the table.

While Iran does not have an  effective airforce, due to the  long-standing sanctions against it; it’s ballistic missile  capacity is  indeed formidable,  although largely deprecated by  U.S.  defence analysts . Should the U.S. launch  an attack on  Iran’s infrastructure, as it has continually threatened to do  over the years, the U.S.  would undoubtedly be able to , over time,  obliterate much of Tehran  and  its  key urban  centres as it has done in North Korea,  Vietnam Libya and Iraq in  the past, along  with the consequent  huge suffering and civilian casualties  that  entails. However in  the first  days and weeks of such  a war, Iran’s  widely  dispersed military units, and particularly its missile and anti-ship  units, will  be able to  inflict  massive damage on  U.S.  military bases and aircraft  carriers in  the Gulf because of their close proximity to Iran. An ongoing guerilla war against  U.S.   economic and military  interests in  the Middle East   could well  last  for years. In  comparison  to  the U.S.  war against  Iraq,  Iran’s military capabilities cannot be under-rated as American  defence  analysts  are wont to do  in  their arrogance. This would not be the  “cake-walk” that  the neocons pretended the Iraqi  invasion would be!

Should Israel  also enter the war,  as it has often promised to,  then Tel Aviv is now  well  within  missile striking distance by  Iran’s  Lebanese allies.  Hezbollah.

One would hope that  the crazies like Netanyahu  and John Bolton will  finally be locked away  somewhere safe for the rest of humanity’s sake ,  and the fools like Donald Trump  fade into  quiet  oblivion,  but sadly it seems , that may not be the case…

Links

The Deep State First – Madness On Both Ends of the Acela Corridor

How Hezbollah Defeated Israel

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/05/countdown-to-war-on-iran.html