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We’re Ready For “Full-Fledged” War: Iran Responds To US Accusation It Launched Saudi Oil Attack
We’re Ready For “Full-Fledged” War: Iran Responds To US Accusation It Launched Saudi Oil Attack
After the United States was quick to point the finger at Iran for the early Saturday explosions that rocked Abqaiq facility and the Khurais field — forcing production to be shut and with it 5.7 million barrels a day of oil production lost — Iran has warned it stands ready for a “full-fledged” war.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi slammed Washington for a “maximum pressure” strategy that has turned to “maximum lies,” saying that because of the former’s “failure [the US] is leaning toward maximum lies”. FM Javad Zarif also said these were a continuation of efforts to pressure and shame into compliance under US hegemony.
Iran denied the accusations, which followed photos circulating online which appeared to show cruise missile debris scattered in the Saudi desert outside the incapacitated oil facilities. Yemen’s Houthi forces had claimed responsibility, saying it deployed ten drones in the successful targeting of the facilities.
And separately an IRGC commander is reported to have reaffirmed that American military bases and aircraft carriers are crucially up to 2,000km around Iran and thus “within range” of Iranian missiles.
The senior commander, Amirali Hajizadeh, said his country stands ready for a “full-fledged” war but he stopped short of directly mentioning the attacks. As quoted in regional and state media:
On Sunday, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying: “Everybody should know that all American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2,000 kilometers around Iran are within the range of our missiles,” according to Reuters.
“Iran has always been ready for a ‘full-fledged’ war,” Hajizadeh added, without directly mentioning the attacks in Saudi Arabia.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why 9/11 matters in 2019
Why 9/11 matters in 2019
On 9/11 2001 three steel-framed high-rise buildings collapsed completely at near free-fall speed allegedly due to fires – which, if true, makes them the only steel-framed high-rises in construction history to have ever done this. Only two of these buildings had been struck by planes.
The official explanation for this event is that Moslem terrorists somehow confounded all the usual security procedures and ‘attacked America’ because they ‘hated our freedoms.’
This version of the meaning behind 9/11 was the catalyst for the perpetual war currently being waged, the ultimate fail-safe irrefutable argument to silence criticism of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo and the creeping emergence of fascism in the Western world.
A narrative as crucial as that needs to be closely examined, but the mainstream media has not only failed to perform this function, it has successfully persuaded many intelligent people that it doesn’t need to be done, and that only lunatics would bother subjecting the official story to any examination.
Eighteen years ago the idea of large scale false flags or government deceptions may have seemed absurd to most of us. But the unraveling of so many official narratives in recent years; the lies over WMDs, the lies over Ghouta, the lies over Libya and Ukraine, the repeat evidence for wholesale manipulation, if not fabrication, of events to promote war, means it ought to be impossible for any thinking person to simply take the events of 9/11 on trust any more.
How can any of us continue to question everything 9/11 has brought us, but not question 9/11 itself?
It all comes down to some very basic questions:
- Has the government sufficiently explained its version of events?
- Does this version fit the observed facts better than any other?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Israel Warns Any Hezbollah Attack Will Bring “Reprisal On Whole Lebanese State”
Israel Warns Any Hezbollah Attack Will Bring “Reprisal On Whole Lebanese State”
There’s been a flurry of threats and counter-threats after pro-Iran allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq were all hit in suspected Israeli strikes in the space of less than 24 hours, signalling a new aggression out of Tel Aviv and willingness to risk yet another major Middle East war. Indeed Lebanon’s southern border with Israel is heating up once again in the worst tensions since the devastating 2006 war.
Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to shoot down any Israeli aircraft violating Lebanon’s sovereign airspace after early Sunday a pair of drones targeted Hezbollah offices in south Beirut, and further after a follow-up drone strike reached deep into Lebanon, killing a Palestinian paramilitary commander (of the PFLP-GC) in the Bekaa Valley.
“Hezbollah will endeavor to down all Israeli drones, which may violate Lebanon’s airspace,” Nasrallah pledged in a televised speech. “The era of the Israeli military’s undeterred attacks on Lebanon has come to an end. Hezbollah will tolerate no more Israeli drones penetrating Lebanese airspace,” Nasrallah said.
Simultaneously, Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Monday said the drone strikes amount to a “declaration of war” and convened an emergency meeting of the country’s top military and security chiefs.
Meanwhile in a potential return to the precise lead-up to the month-long 2006 war, which saw the Israel Defense Forces conduct a heavy bombing campaign across southern Lebanon all the way into Beirut, including the international airport, Tel Aviv is now signaling its forces won’t differentiate between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state.
This according to Axios’ Barak Ravid, who described a phone call between Pompeo and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri:
Israeli officials tell me Netanyahu told Pompeo in their phone call on Sunday that he should convey to Hariri that if Hezbollah attacks Israel, Israel won’t differentiate between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government and will retaliate against the Lebanese state as a whole.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Humans Are Waking Up
The Humans Are Waking Up
You run into a lot of despair in this line of work. The more you learn about the mechanisms of power, the more hopeless things seem at first glance.
The political system is totally locked down, with anyone who tries to upend the status quo being aggressively sabotaged by the mass media and their own political party.
Technology, which futurists have long heralded as the deus ex machina which will liberate humanity from its self-destructive ways, is owned by plutocrats with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and is pervasively infiltrated by murderous intelligence agencies from top to bottom.
Even attempts to circulate information about the dangers of war, ecocide and oligarchy are consistently sabotaged by internet censorship, blanket de-platforming and mass media propaganda, and even imprisonment if one’s truth-telling becomes too successful.
Still, I remain unwaveringly hopeful. Not because I foresee any of those massive obstacles vanishing at any time in the near future, but because I see an escape route that none of them are blocking.
I have had a great many bizarre and utterly unanticipated experiences, some of them ongoing, which assure me beyond a shadow of a doubt that humanity is capable of far, far more than our consensus worldview about ourselves accounts for. Most of those experiences I will probably never share publicly, because, while I often venture well off the beaten path in my commentary, if I discussed those experiences people will think I’m way more insane than they already believe me to be. But I don’t mind sharing here that I know from my own experience that humans are capable of radically and permanently shifting into a much healthier and efficacious relationship with mental narrative, which happens to be the mechanism by which existing power structures keep us locked down.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Turkey-Syria War On The Horizon: Airstrikes Target Invading Turkish Army Convoy
Turkey-Syria War On The Horizon: Airstrikes Target Invading Turkish Army Convoy
Turkey and Syria could be headed for war as their armies increasingly clash on front lines in southern Idlib, also amid a heavy aerial bombardment by Syrian and Russian jets of al-Qaeda held Khan Sheikhoun.
On Monday a Turkish convoy came under attack by Syrian airstrikes while traversing a highway headed toward Khan Sheikhoun. Damascus has accused Turkey of seeking to aid terrorists in the besieged town, which had been site of prior chemical attack claims issued by anti-Assad fighters, and fired “warning shots” on the approaching armored convoy, killing and injuring some among the pro-Turkish force.
The convoy is said to be laden with ammunition resupplies for local “rebels” battling the Syrian Army in southern Idlib province. Ankara’s position has been to claim massive Syrian-Russian airstrikes are a violation of prior agreements between Russia, Turkey, and Syria.
At least one fighter from a Turkish-backed faction was reported killed in the airstrikes on the convoy, which halted its movement south, along with many injured. Some reports said there were multiple among the dead.
Turkey’s defense ministry “strongly” condemned the incident, with statements out of Damascus saying Turkey is seeking to resupply terrorist groups on Syrian soil.
Another video showing the military convoy of #Turkish occupiers being bombed by Su-22M4s of #Syria Arab Air Force near #MaarTahroma, #Idlib outskirt. Multiple Turkish soldiers are reported to be killed & some of their BMC Kirpi MRAPs and M-60 tanks are damaged or destroyed.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Pakistan Suspends Bilateral Trade With India, Expels Envoy
Pakistan Suspends Bilateral Trade With India, Expels Envoy
The Kashmir crisis triggered by India’s revoking of Article 370 from its constitution has exploded into a fast escalating renewed crisis between nuclear armed arch-rivals India and Pakistan.
Merely within the last 24-hours Pakistan has recalled its ambassador while expelling its Indian envoy, and more importantly has taken the drastic step of suspending bilateral trade with India.
“We will call back our ambassador from Delhi and send back their envoy,” foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced in televised comments, according to the AFP, while a separate government statement declared trade suspended and a downgrading of diplomatic ties.
The committee has decided on “downgrading of diplomatic relations with India” and “suspenstion of bilateral trade with India,” according to the statement.
PM Khan further directed the military to “continue vigilance” after previously saying Pakistan would take “all possible options” in support of Kashmir’s Muslim-majority population – this after regional media has reported “tens of thousands” of Indian troops have surged into Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), while a phone and internet blackout is in place.
In a worrisome sign that the two historic rivals and neighbors could be again moving to open war, Khan is reported to have said, “We have to choose between dishonor and war.”
Pakistan’s foreign minister informed the United Nations early this week it is prepared to act in response to the “critical situation”- which Khan reiterated to the high level defense committee meeting Wednesday.
The now voided Article 370 is legally and historically what assured a high degree autonomy for the Indian administered Muslim-majority state, enshrined in the constitution, which inhabitants there see as justifying remaining part of India. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata leadership in New Delhi, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, revoked J&K’s status quo ability and rights to maintain their own local governance on Monday.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Declining Empire of Chaos Is Going Nuts Over Iran
The Declining Empire of Chaos Is Going Nuts Over Iran
The transition in recent years from a unipolar to a multipolar world order has created international tensions that seem to threaten to escalate into clashes between regional and global powers.
In 2014 we were almost at the point of no return in Ukraine following the coup d’etat supported and funded by NATO and involving extremist right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The conflict in the Donbass risked escalating into a conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation, every day in the summer and autumn of 2014 threatening to be doomsday. Rather than respond to the understandable impulse to send Russian troops into Ukraine to defend the population of Donbass, Putin had the presense of mind to pursue the less direct and more sensible strategy of supporting the material capacity of the residents of Donbass to resist the depredations of the Ukrainian army and their neo-Nazi Banderite thugs. Meanwhile, Europe’s inept leaders initially egged on Ukraine’s destabilization, only to get cold feet after reflecting on the possibility of having a conflict between Moscow and Washington fought on European soil.
With the resistance in Donbass managing to successfully hold back Ukrainian assaults, the conflict began to freeze, almost to the point of a complete ceasefire, even as Ukrainian provocations continue to this day.
Tensions were then focussed on Syria, where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. Russian intervention in 2015 managed to save the country with no time to spare, destroying large numbers of terrorists and reorganizing the Syrian armed forces and training and equipping them with the necessary means to beat back the jihadi waves.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Kashmir On Lockdown: India Strips Muslim-Majority Region Of Autonomy, Troops Move In
Kashmir On Lockdown: India Strips Muslim-Majority Region Of Autonomy, Troops Move In
In a dramatic escalation following a worsening crisis, which over the weekend saw intensive shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) that separates Indian-controlled and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir, New Delhi has revoked the key constitutional article which gives Indian-administered Kashmir special status.
The unprecedented move signals India is willing to take greater military action in the disputed border region, which is virtually guaranteed to not only spark severe local unrest, but put India and Pakistan on a direct collision course for war. Specifically, Article 370 is legally and historically what assured a high degree autonomy for Indian administered Muslim-majority state, enshrined in the constitution, which the majority of inhabitants there see as justifying remaining part of India.
The Indian administered side of Kashmir, called Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), was granted its status in the 1950s, which included maintaining its own state constitution, as well as law making bodies, making it the most independent of all Indian states. But starting Monday this will all be revoked, following a resolution introduced on Monday by Home Minister Amit Shah and quickly put into law by President Ram Nath Kovind.
Ultimately, as the BBC reports, “the BJP [the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata, India’s largest political party] has irrevocably changed Delhi’s relationship with the region.” Currently, there’s reported to be a lockdown across J&K, with some phone and internet services reported cut. According to CNN:
Indian-controlled Kashmir was in lockdown Monday, with tens of thousands of new troops deployed into what is already one of the most militarized places in the world, as a number of prominent politicians were placed under house arrest and New Delhi announced contentious changes to the way the territory is administered.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
War Profiteers and the Demise of the US Military-Industrial Complex
War Profiteers and the Demise of the US Military-Industrial Complex
Within the vast bureaucratic sprawl of the Pentagon there is a group in charge of monitoring the general state of the military-industrial complex and its continued ability to fulfill the requirements of the national defense strategy. Office for acquisition and sustainment and office for industrial policy spends some $100,000 a year producing an Annual Report to Congress. It is available to the general public. It is even available to the general public in Russia, and Russian experts had a really good time poring over it.
In fact, it filled them with optimism. You see, Russia wants peace but the US seems to want war and keeps making threatening gestures against a longish list of countries that refuse to do its bidding or simply don’t share its “universal values.” But now it turns out that threats (and the increasingly toothless economic sanctions) are pretty much all that the US is still capable of dishing out—this in spite of absolutely astronomical levels of defense spending. Let’s see what the US military-industrial complex looks like through a Russian lens.
It is important to note that the report’s authors were not aiming to force legislators to finance some specific project. This makes it more valuable than numerous other sources, whose authors’ main objective was to belly up to the federal feeding trough, and which therefore tend to be light on facts and heavy on hype. No doubt, politics still played a part in how various details are portrayed, but there seems to be a limit to the number of problems its authors can airbrush out of the picture and still do a reasonable job in analyzing the situation and in formulating their recommendations.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is a New US Mideast War Inevitable?
Is a New US Mideast War Inevitable?
In this new century, leaders of both parties have plunged our country into at least five wars in the Middle and Near East… None of these wars has produced a victory or success for us. But taken together, they did produce a multitrillion-dollar strategic and human rights disaster.
In October 1950, as U.S. forces were reeling from hordes of Chinese troops who had intervened massively in the Korean War, a 5,000-man Turkish brigade arrived to halt an onslaught by six Chinese divisions.
Said supreme commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur: “The Turks are the hero of heroes. There is no impossibility for the Turkish Brigade.”
President Harry Truman awarded the brigade a Presidential Unit Citation.
In 1951, Turkey ended a neutrality dating to the end of World War I and joined NATO. In the seven decades since, there has been no graver crisis in U.S.-Turkish relations than the one that erupted this week.
Turkey has just received the first components of a Russian S-400 air and missile defense system, despite U.S. warnings this would require the cancellation of Turkey’s purchase of 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
“The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities,” said the White House.
The sale has been canceled. The Turkish pilots and instructors training in the U.S. are being sent home. Contracts with Turkish companies producing parts for the F-35 are being terminated. Under U.S. law, the administration is also required to impose sanctions on Turkey for buying Russian weaponry.
Wednesday, the Pentagon warned Turkey against military action in an area of Syria where U.S. troops are deployed. The Turks appear to be massing for an incursion against U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces Ankara regards as terrorist allies of the Kurdish PKK inside Turkey.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Australia Conducts It’s “Largest Amphibious Assult Since WWII”
Australia Conducts It’s “Largest Amphibious Assult Since WWII”
A joint Australian-U.S. military exercise, called Talisman Sabre 2019, will continue through early August following this week’s Australian-led amphibious landing at Langham Beach, Queensland, Australia, reported Naval Today.
Forces from around the world (the U.S., New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Japan) practiced one of the most massive beach assault since World War II off the eastern coast of Queensland.
Maj. Gen. Roger Noble, deputy chief of joint operations for the Australian Defence Force, noted the beach assault was the critical portion of the monthlong exercise.
“The relationship between the Australian and the United States is the cornerstone of our regional stability. Practicing [working together] builds our flexibility to achieve our shared aims,” he said.
“A credible amphibious capability significantly broadens the options for Australia and the United States to fulfill these requirements,” Noble said in a statement Wednesday.
Stripes said the Australian military lacks a dedicated amphibious force. Rather, the Australian army rotates soldiers through land and sea postings, and the Australian navy is in command of sailing them close to the beach for attacks.
“This is completely foreign to almost all of us,” said Capt. Matthew Stevens of the Royal Australian Army’s 7th Infantry Regiment, who led the group of soldiers on the amphibious landing craft earlier this week.
The amphibious assault included more than 34,000 personnel, 30 ships, and 200 aircraft, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Thursday.
Marines started aboard the USS Wasp, USS Green Bay, Royal Australian Navy ships, and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels. The marines then used landing craft air cushion, amphibious assault vehicles, and combat rubber raiding crafts for the beach assault.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
On The Brink Of World War 3: Here Are 5 Major Developments Within The Last 48 Hours…
On The Brink Of World War 3: Here Are 5 Major Developments Within The Last 48 Hours…
Has a war between the United States and Iran become inevitable? That is what some in the mainstream media seem to be claiming, but let us hope that is not true, because such a war would mean immense death and destruction. If the Iranian regime felt that their survival was at stake, they would throw everything in their entire arsenal at the United States and Israel, and they would unleash Hezbollah to commit horrific acts of terror all over the globe. That would include acts of terror inside the United States, and most Americans have absolutely no idea how nightmarish it would be to have Hezbollah terrorists striking soft targets all across the country. And in order to quickly win a war against Iran, the U.S. would probably have to use nuclear weapons, and that is a line that we do not want to cross. This wouldn’t be anything like our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but very few people seem to understand this.
And within the last 48 hours, such a conflict has gotten much, much closer. Here are 5 of the most important developments…
#1 According to President Trump, the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian drone over the Strait of Hormuz. The following comes from NBC News…
President Donald Trump on Thursday said that a U.S. Navy ship “destroyed” an Iranian drone over the Strait of Hormuz — the latest in a series of tense incidents between Washington and Tehran.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that the USS Boxer — a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship — “took defensive action” against the Iranian drone that had “closed into a very, very near distance, approximately 1,000 yards.”
The drone was “threatening safety of the ship and the ship’s crew” and “was immediately destroyed,” he said.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
One hundred years after World War I, are we heading back to the abyss?
One hundred years after World War I, are we heading back to the abyss?
On the anniversary of the Great War’s end, we should reflect on its causes, consequences and lessons for the future.
Today we live in a world that is not dissimilar to the pre-WWI world, when a few emperors and their families controlled the fate of the vast majority of the world’s population. In 1914, all it took to trigger the Great War was the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a nationalist Serb. The assassination took place on June 28. Five years later to the day, on June 28, 1919 – almost exactly 100 years ago – the Great War formally came to an end, but at the cost of approximately 40 million lives.
There are no empires in the old sense now, but there are self-centered leaders who are just as powerful as any emperor in history. Some of these leaders are the kind of bullies who would not think twice before making potentially catastrophic decisions, merely to keep up the appearance of ‘strong men.’ Consider this list: Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte and Jair Bolsonaro. What do they all have in common? They have too much power and display autocratic tendencies when exercising it.
Whether you are a genius scientist in the United States, a peace-loving poet in Brazil, or a great philosopher in Iran, the truth is that your fate is, to some degree, in the hands of a man who, in a more rational world, would not even be allowed to care for a pet. Whatever we tell ourselves about the elite who control politics nationally, regionally, and globally, there is one embarrassing fact we need to face: we have surrendered our destiny, and the well-being of the planet, to a bunch of bullies. This should be disturbing for everyone.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Provoking World War III with Iran and a U.S. History of Provocation
Provoking World War III with Iran and a U.S. History of Provocation
In the history of the United States and its history of interventionism, the recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman seem to be foreboding and ominous signs of what may come—an inevitable war with the Islamic Republic of Iran? To many who are watching the region closely, it is still unclear if Iran is behind such attacks. Moreover, and, thankfully, President Donald J. Trump backed away from bombing Iran after the Iranians allegedly and recently shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz.
Even so, the bellicose rhetoric between President Trump (threatening Iran’s “obliteration”) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (calling Trump “mentally retarded”) have continued. Watching from the sidelines, everyone hopes diplomacy will prevail.
Let us examine U.S. interventionism past more closely. I know of four clear international instances where the United States intervened under dubious circumstances, initiating war.
The first happened just before the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). President James K. Polk sent American troops to the Rio Grande River under the command of Zachary Taylor. The Mexicans had believed that the border had been at the Nueces River, not the Rio Grande, the Nueces being significantly north of the Rio Grande. This move was provocative and incited Mexican forces to attack the U.S. Army at its fortifications on the Rio Grande in 1846. As the attacks on U.S. soldiers were reported by Taylor to Polk, the U.S. Congress promptly declared war on Mexico.
Yet, in understanding these incidents, we have to likewise understand the motivations of the historical actors. Polk strongly believed in the Manifest Destiny of the United States to conquer the territories west of the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
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