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Gen. Dunford says US response is a ‘political judgment’

Though President Trump has downplayed the idea of war with Iran over the past couple of days, the actual decision is to be made at a high-profile meeting, either Thursday or Friday depending according to reports.

Trump will be joined by a number of national security officials and other aides, and will be presented with a wide array of options by the Pentagon. Options are said to range from full-scale war to a simple cyberattack.

Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was very clear about the Pentagon not pushing any specific agenda on this matter, saying the response would be purely a “political judgement.”

Among Trump’s officials, Pompeo is seen as the one pushing hardest for a military response. He’s been in Saudi Arabia meeting with officials there, and probably will come back all the more hawkish.

This response, whatever it will be, will be nominally over Iran attacking Saudi oil refineries with drones. The Iranians denied having done so, and Yemen’s Houthis said it was them, not the Iranians.

Either way, Saudi oil output is virtually back to pre-attack levels as it is, not even a week later, which gives the appearance this whole thing was being hugely overplayed earlier in the week.

Trump has already announced that there will be sanctions against Iran, and those sanctions are set to be announced Friday as well. The timing of the two together could further reduce the pressure to take more extreme measures militarily.

US Joins Secret Talks Between Israel and UAE Targeting Iran

August 18, 2019

US Joins Secret Talks Between Israel and UAE Targeting Iran

UAE trying to balance regional interests with keeping US happy

Secret talks have been ongoing between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, focused on sharing intelligence against Iran and possibly military cooperation. The talks have progressed to the point that the US is now joining the talks too.

Israel and the UAE have some security ties, but don’t have public relations. That they’re discussing Iran reflects Israel’s long-standing hostility toward Iran, and the UAE’s close proximity to Iran.

While some are presenting the US joining of the talks as proof they are making progress, a lot isn’t understood about what’s going on, and particularly unclear is what the UAE is trying to work out.

The UAE seems to be trying to balance multiple interests, as they’ve tried to talk to Iran about maritime security in recent days, and seem not to be looking to pick fights with them. That’s in stark contrast to Israel, for whom picking fights with Iran is the centerpiece of decades of foreign policy.

It’s clear that the UAE has an interest in keeping the US happy, and that probably requires keeping Israel at lease sort of placated in this regard. So while they aren’t trying to start anything against Iran they’re trying to walk the tightrope of balancing both sides to keep everyone satisfied.

US Strategy in Syria: ‘Create Quagmires Until We Get What We Want’

September 2, 2018

US Strategy in Syria: ‘Create Quagmires Until We Get What We Want’

In seeking to control post-war Syria, US determined to keep war going

In 2013, top Obama Administration officials described their policy in the Syrian War as one of keeping the war going. The administration wanted a big seat at the table for a political settlement, which officials clarified meant ensuring that the war kept going so that there was never a clear victor.

The Trump Administration seems to be slipping into that same destructive set of priorities in Syria. TheWashington Post this week quoted an unnamed Administration official as saying that “right now, our job is to help create quagmires [for Russia and the Syrian regime] until we get what we want.”

As ever, hat the US really wants is to have a dominant position in post-war negotiations, so they can dictate the form that post-war Syria takes. This means ensuring that the Syrian government doesn’t win the war outright.

That’s not as realistic as it once was, with the Assad government, backed by Russia, having retaken virtually all of the rebel-held territory except for a far north bastion in Idlib, dominated by al-Qaeda. This means the US now has to save al-Qaeda to keep the war going, which if we’re being honest has been a recurring undercurrent in US policy in Syria for years.

It is this desire that has the US repeatedly threatening Syria and warning them not to attack Idlib. It is this desire that is sparking almost daily US threats to intervene militarily if the Idlib offensive involves chemical weapons. Most importantly, it is this desire that has Russia very much believing media reports that the rebels could “stage” a fake chemical attack just to suck the US into the war, and be fairly confident it would work.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Don’t Poke the Dragon: War with China Would Be an Unnecessary Disaster

May 12, 2018

Don’t Poke the Dragon: War with China Would Be an Unnecessary Disaster

There’s nothing military men like more than obsessively training for wars they will never have to fight. The trick is not to stumble into a conflict that no one will win.

Let’s everyone take a breath. Yes, China presents a potential threat to American interests in the economic, cyber, and naval realms. The U.S. must maintain a credible defensive and expeditionary posture and be prepared for a worst case scenario. What we don’t need is to blunder into a regional, or, worse still, all-out war with the Chinese dragon. Not now, probably not ever.

And yet, in Washington today, and within the Trump administration in particular, alarmism seems the name of the game. This is risky, and, ultimately, dangerous. In his 2018 National Defense Strategy, Secretary of Defense Mattis, a known hawk, refers to Russia and China as “revisionist powers,” and announces that the US military must now pivot to “great power” competition. Look, I’m all for extricating our overstretched armed forces from the Middle East and de-escalating the never-ending, counterproductive “war on terror.” What doesn’t make sense, is the reflexive assumption that (maybe) dialing down one war, must translate into ramping up for other, more perilous, wars with nuclear-armed powerhouses like Russia or China.

The usual laundry list of Chinese threats is well-known: China is (how dare they!) building a sizable blue-water navy and (gasp!) patrolling around sandy islands in the South China Sea. They conduct cyber-attacks (so do we) and steal intellectual property. They are planning a new “Silk Road” to integrate much of Eurasia into a China-centric trade and transportation system. No doubt, some of those items may be cause for measured concern, but none of the listed “infractions” warrants war!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama Ordered Cyberweapons Implanted Into Russia’s Infrastructure

June 25, 2017

Obama Ordered Cyberweapons Implanted Into Russia’s Infrastructure

A new report from the Washington Post today quoted a series of Obama Administration officials [5] reiterating their official narrative on Russia’s accused hacking of the 2016 election. While most of the article is simply rehashes and calls for sanctions, they also revealed a secret order by President Obama in the course of “retaliation” for the alleged hacking.

[6]

This previously secret order involved having US intelligence design and implant a series of cyberweapons into Russia’s infrastructure systems, with officials saying they are meant to be activated remotely to hit the most important networks in Russia and are designed to “cause them pain and discomfort [7].”

The implants, developed by the NSA, are designed to hit Russian networks deemed “important to the adversary and that would cause them pain and discomfort if they were disrupted,” a former U.S. official told the Post.

They could be activated in the event that Russia attacked a U.S. power grid or interfered in a future U.S. presidential race.

The US has, of course, repeatedly threatened “retaliatory” cyberattacks against Russia, and promised to knock out broad parts of their economy in doing so. These appear to be the first specific plans to have actually infiltrate Russian networks and plant such weapons to do so.

Despite the long-standing nature of the threats, by the end of Obama’s last term in office this was all still in the “planning” phases. It’s not totally clear where this effort has gone from there, but officials say that the intelligence community, once given Obama’s permission, did not need further approval from Trump to continue on with it, and he’d have actually had to issue a countermanding order, something they say he hasn’t.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Erdogan: Democracy, Freedom Have ‘Absolutely No Value Any Longer’

March 18, 2016

Erdogan: Democracy, Freedom Have ‘Absolutely No Value Any Longer’

Vows to Turn Military on Political Opposition

Concerns about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian leanings have been at the fore in the nation’s political dialogue since he assumed the presidency, and appear to have been well founded, as in a televised speech today he declared “democracy,, freedom, and the rule of law have absolutely no value any longer.”

Rather, Turkey is about one thing in 2016, and that’s wars, with Erdogan insisting anyone who supports his wars is a friend and anyone “on the opposite side are our enemy,” insisting the nation will treat them all with an iron fist.

Erdogan also vowed to turn the nation’s military against the opposition HDP, which opposes the war against the Kurds, saying that “wherever you run, our soldiers, police, and village guards will find you there and do what is necessary.” Erdogan had previously pushed for the HDP’s parliamentarians to lose their legal immunity so they could be charged as terrorists.

“I no longer see as legitimate political actors the members of a party which is operating as a branch of the terrorist organization,” Erdogan reiterated today, demanding parliament take quick action against opposition MPs from the Kurdish-dominated southeast.

Erdogan has increasingly sought to charge political opponents as terrorists, and has in the past few weeks not only arrested academics as “terrorists” for their positions on his government, but nationalized the nation’s largest newspaper for publishing articles critical of his ruling party.

They Sow the Cyclone – We Reap the Blowback

November 27, 2015

They Sow the Cyclone – We Reap the Blowback

How Uncle Sam Seeded Global Jihad and Cultivates It to This Day

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” — Hosea 8:7

It may be surprising to hear, but it is a plain historical fact that modern international jihad originated as an instrument of US foreign policy. The “great menace of our era” was built up by the CIA to wage a proxy war against the Soviets.

A 1973 coup in Afghanistan installed a new secular government that, while not fully communist, was Soviet-leaning. That was a capital offense from the perspective of America’s Cold War national security state, at the time headed by Henry Kissinger.

Conveniently for Kissinger, the dirt poor country was sandwiched between two US client states: Pakistan to the east and Iran (then still ruled by the CIA-installed Shah) to the west. Immediately after the coup, the CIA and the clandestine security agencies of Pakistan (ISI) and Iran (SAVAK) began regime change operations in Afghanistan, orchestrating and sponsoring Islamic fundamentalist insurrections and coup attempts.

Due to these efforts, as well as the government’s own oppressiveness, a widespread rebellion broke out in Afghanistan in 1978. In July 1979, US President Jimmy Carter, on the advice of National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, officially authorized aid to the puritanical Mujahideen rebels, to be delivered through the CIA’s “Operation Cyclone.” This was on top of the unofficial aid that the CIA had already been funneling to Afghan Islamist insurgents for years through Pakistan and Iran.

In a 1998 interview, Brzezinski openly admitted that he and Carter thus “knowingly increased the probability” that the Soviets would militarily intervene. And indeed Russia did invade in December 1979, beginning the decade-long Soviet-Afghan War. In the same 1998 interview, Brzezinski boasted:

“The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Saudis Are Stumbling – They May Take the Middle East With Them

November 17, 2015

The Saudis Are Stumbling – They May Take the Middle East With Them

America’s leading Sunni ally is proving how easily hubris, delusion, and old-fashioned ineptitude can trump even bottomless wealth

For the past eight decades Saudi Arabia has been careful.

Using its vast oil wealth, it’s quietly spread its ultra-conservative brand of Islam throughout the Muslim world, secretly undermined secular regimes in its region, and prudently kept to the shadows while others did the fighting and dying. It was Saudi money that fueled the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, underwrote Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran, and bankrolled Islamic movements and terrorist groups from the Caucasus to the Hindu Kush.

It wasn’t a modest foreign policy, but it was a discreet one.

Today that circumspect diplomacy is in ruins, and the House of Saud looks more vulnerable than it has since the country was founded in 1926. Unraveling the reasons for the current train wreck is a study in how easily hubris, delusion, and old-fashioned ineptness can trump even bottomless wealth.

Oil Slick

The kingdom’s first stumble was a strategic decision last fall to undermine competitors by scaling up its oil production and thus lowering the global price.

They figured that if the price of a barrel of oil dropped from over $100 to around $80, it would strangle competitors that relied on more expensive sources and new technologies, including the U.S. fracking industry, companies exploring the Arctic, and emergent producers like Brazil. That, in turn, would allow Riyadh to reclaim its shrinking share of the energy market. There was also the added benefit that lower oil prices would damage oil-reliant countries that the Saudis didn’t like – including Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Iran.

In one sense it worked. The American fracking industry is scaling back, the exploitation of Canada’s tar sands has slowed, and many Arctic drillers have closed up shop. And indeed, countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, and Russia have taken serious economic hits.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ukraine- Cyber Mercenaries Attack Antiwar.com

October 23, 2015

Ukraine- Cyber Mercenaries Attack Antiwar.com

The terms cyber war and infowar have been a constant in many articles written about the conflict in Ukraine. The problem with the terms is that the concepts are so new that definitions vary from an ignorant “troll” rant to a hacker that destroys the controls on a dam. The troll is an annoyance. The dam that burst that kills hundreds of people in their sleep is not. The military definition of a cyber attack revolves around real world injury, death, or damage.

Then, there is an in-between world where most freelance cyber mercenaries work. Their job is to get as close to the threshold of an obvious cyber attack as they can without crossing that line. They are the freelance contractors that countries like Ukraine are hiring to find and target enemies (any person not supportive of Ukrainian Nationalism or taking what appears to be a pro-Russian stance).

Hiring freelancers gives them a veneer of plausible deniability for the consequences and responsibility. The means, methods, and anonymity of cyber do the rest.

In the early 2000’s, cyber freelancer Aaron Weisburd pioneered using cyber and coordinating online/offline attacks on activists, journalists, and alternate media websites. Early in the decade he found out by throwing around terms like “supporting terrorists” he could get internet providers to shut down websites. He could get employers to fire employees. His group could force social and civic groups to shun his victims. After all, who wants to consort with “terrorists.” Weisburd found out he could even get local banks to close checking accounts. He did this by networking with a few thousand like-minded people that hacked social accounts and planted “evidence,” and complained about his victims to Homeland Security and the NSA.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nuke Russia?

June 16, 2015

Nuke Russia?

The warlords of Washington haven’t ruled it out

The War Party is a veritable propaganda machine, churning out product 24/7. Armed with nearly unlimited resources, both from government(s) and the private sector, they carpet-bomb the public with an endless stream of lies in order to soften them up when it’s time to roll. In the past, their job has been relatively easy: simply order up a few atrocity stories – Germans bayoneting babies, Iraqis dumping over babies in incubators – and we’ve got ourselves another glorious war. These days, however, over a decade of constant warfare – and a long string of War Party fabrications – has left the public leery.

And that’s cause for optimism. People are waking up. The War Party’s propaganda machine has to work overtime in order to overcome rising skepticism, and it shows signs of overheating – and, in some instances, even breaking down.

One encouraging sign is that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis have lost their US government funding …

In a blow to the “let’s arm Ukraine” movement that seemed to be picking up steam in Congress, a resolution introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Florida) banning aid to Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, and forbidding shipments of MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles to the region, passed the House unanimously.

This is significant because, up until this point, there has been no recognition in Washington that the supposedly “pro-democracy” regime in Kiev contains a dangerously influential neo-Nazi element.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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