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Pentagon Readies “Contingency Plans” For Potential Escalation Against Iran
Pentagon Readies “Contingency Plans” For Potential Escalation Against Iran
Amid fears that the US is running headlong into yet another sure to be disastrous war in the Middle East, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters Friday that the Pentagon is prepping “contingency plans” should things quickly escalate militarily.
“When you look at the situation… 15 percent of the world’s oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz,” Shanahan said as quoted in The Washington Times. “So we obviously need to make contingency plans should the situation deteriorate. We also need to broaden our support for this international situation.”
The Pentagon indicated it’s further implementing plans to coordinate with America’s international allies in the event of military confrontation with Iran — something which could prove difficult given the European Union has urged “maximum restraint” following Thursday’s tanker attacks incident Washington quickly blamed on Iran. The UK has been the only exception, which immediately stood behind Pompeo and Trump’s assessment.
Oil Market `Less Concerned’ With Iran Actions, Says U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary
Notably, as The Washington Times reports further of Friday’s press briefing, “the Pentagon is planning for the possible deployment of additional U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf region in the event the threat from Iran worsens.”
Weeks ago as tensions began soaring in the region following John Bolton’s claimed intelligence of a “heightened threat” of Iran or its allies attacking nearby US troops, the Pentagon deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, at least 1500 extra troops, as well as B-52 bombers, drones, and patriot missile batteries.
Likely the Pentagon will use the tanker incident to keep up the pressure on Tehran: “The more information that we can declassify, the more information we can share, we will. And that’s our intent. And I think as you saw yesterday — doing it quickly,” Shanahan continued in his statement.
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False Flag intro to World War 3 tanker attacks
False Flag intro to World War 3 tanker attacks
Global Intel Hub – (London, UK 6/13/2019) — Most wars in the past 100 years have been started with a ‘spark’ which might be assassination, attacking of a ship, or bombing of Pearl Harbor. As we explain in Splitting Pennies the world is not as it seems.
We’re not saying that this attack is a false flag – we are saying that all these attacks seem to fit the same profile. And we’re not the only ones with this reaction, as other sites banned by Facebook have chimed in as well:
Honestly, Iran deciding to attack two “Japan-related” tankers while the Japanese head of state is in their country would push the Iranian government straight through “stupid” and out the other side into “suicidally insane”. That said, if it is a “false flag” – by the US or anyone else – it’s so blatant as to be borderline useless. Are the Deep State operatives of the US/UK/Israel or whoever, really that stupid?
As reported here on Zero Hedge:
Update 7: Ahead of comments to the UN Security Council (which will presumably block any action, with China and Russia backing Iran), unnamed officials are sharing with reporters some of what the US intends to say:
U.S. OFFICIALS ALLEGE IRANIAN ATTACK MEANT TO ESCALATE CONFLICT
OFFICIALS: ATTACK SHOWS IRAN UNINTERESTED IN DIALOGUE WITH U.S.
OFFICIALS: OPTIONS UNDER CONSIDERATION INCLUDE TANKER ESCORTS
Earlier, the Saudis presented a letter to the council claiming that the Iran-backed Houthis had obtained special weapons training and were responsible for Wednesday’s attack on Abha airport.Pompeo said earlier that the US was in possession of “intelligence” suggesting Iran is behind the attack…but he neglected to offer any poof.
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What Comes After Trump – World War III?
What Comes After Trump – World War III?
Those who are familiar with my articles would be aware that I am not given to catastrophism or alarmism. But perhaps the time has come to reflect on who will be president after Trump (whether after this or the next term) and what this will mean for relations with Russia and China.
What will the United States’ relations with Russia and China be like when the 46th president of the United States takes office in 2025? This is a question that I often ask myself, especially in light of Trump’s political choices regarding international arms-control treaties (INF Treaty), nuclear proliferation, economic war with China, a financial crisis that is artificially postponed thanks to QE, out-of-control military spending, an increasingly aggressive NATO stance towards the Russian Federation, and continuous provocations against the People’s Republic of China. Where will we end up with after another five years of provocations? For how much longer will Putin and Xi Jinping maintain the “strategic patience” not to respond to Washington with drastic measures?
Let us imagine we are in 2025
The four current global hot spots – Iran, Syria, Venezuela and DPRK – have maintained their resistance to Washington’s diktats and have emerged more or less victorious. Syrian territory in its entirety is now under the control of Damascus; Iran has established enough deterrents not to be attacked; Pyongyang continues in its negotiations with Washington as the reunification of the two Koreas continues along; the Bolivarian revolution still lives on in Venezuela.
Putin is preparing to leave the Russian Federation as president after 25 years. Xi Jinping could see his mandate expire in a few more years. Washington is about to appoint a new president, who in all probability will be the opposite of Trump, in the same way Obama was the opposite of Bush and Trump a reaction to Obama.
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US Troops To Be Based In Saudi Arabia, Qatar Against “Iran Threat”
US Troops To Be Based In Saudi Arabia, Qatar Against “Iran Threat”
Just hours after US National Security Advisor John Bolton formally accused Tehran of conducing the May 12 tanker “sabotage” attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s foreign ministry has responded that “we are ready for war” amid fears that Washington could still be on a war footing in the Persian Gulf.
“We hope that we can start a dialogue, but we are ready for war,” Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told RIA Novosti.
Bolton had told a press conference earlier in the day in Dubai, “The point is to make it very clear to Iran and its surrogates that these kinds of actions risk a very strong response from the United States.”AP file photo of US troops in Saudi Arabia during 1990 Gulf War.
Bolton is in Abu Dhabi attending an emergency summit of gulf leaders to consider the implications of both the “sabotage” tanker attacks near Fujairah emiriate in the UAE and the drone strikes two days following on a Saudi Aramco pipeline and oil pumping station.
Meanwhile acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters while in Asia for a major policy speech on the region, “nobody wants war” with Iran. However, he added that the US is ready and willing to “defend ships in the Strait of Hormuz” if necessary.
Also of note is that Shanahan for the first time identified that 900 American troops newly deployed to the Middle East in response to the heightened Iran threat are headed to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is the US on the cusp of war in Iran?
Is the US on the cusp of war in Iran?
March 19th 2003, US forces in coalition with the United Kingdom and others initiate war on Iraq in a conquest to overthrow the ruthless dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. During this time President George W. Bush famously announced, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”
The Bush administration had built practically one hundred per cent of their case for war on the premise that Saddam Hussein was keeping “weapons of mass destruction” and was ready to use them. But soon after, it became imminent that the origins of these claims were baseless.
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Soon after the initial invasion of Baghdad, dubbed operation Iraqi freedom by western politicians, coalition forces were able to swiftly topple Hussein’s regime and capture Iraq’s major cities in the span of just 3 weeks whilst sustaining only minor casualties. At this stage, all seemed well after President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1st 2003.
But Despite this victory, instead of immediately pulling US troops out of Iraq, Bush attempted something that up until then was anathema to Republicans- nation building. Hence the word freedomin its name. Most Americans at this time recognised that the US had stabilized the middle east and would then ensure a peaceful transition to a new democratically elected government and free society.
But this would end in unequivocal failure after a growing insurgency prolonged 8 years of intense guerrilla warfare, which according to the BBC resulted in 4487 US personnel killed, over 100,000 Iraqui civilian deaths and US financial costs projected anywhere between $802 billion all the way to possibly as high as $3 trillion when additional impacts on the US budget and economy are considered.
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The Indictment of Julian Assange Under the Espionage Act Is a Threat to the Press and the American People
The Indictment of Julian Assange Under the Espionage Act Is a Threat to the Press and the American People
Placards left by supporters of Julian Assange outside the Ecuadorian Embassy on Aug. 20, 2012 in London, England.
Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
A TRUE DEMOCRACY does not allow its government to decide who is a journalist. A nation in which a leader gets to make that decision is on the road to dictatorship.
That is why the new U.S. indictment of Julian Assange is so dangerous to liberty in America.
The Trump administration has charged Assange under the Espionage Act for conspiring to leak classified documents. The indictment, released yesterday, focuses on his alleged efforts to encourage former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak classified documents to him and WikiLeaks about a decade ago.
Many of those documents, including U.S. military reports and State Department cables, were later published by WikiLeaks, but they were also the basis of reporting by major news organizations like the New York Times and The Guardian, which published some of them. The Manning leaks helped reveal long-hidden truths about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the post-9/11 global war on terror. Among the most striking leaks were a classified video of U.S. military attack helicopters killing a dozen people, including two Reuters staffers, in Baghdad in 2007, as well as the more than 250,000 State Department cables, which continue to be an important reference for reporters and researchers studying U.S. foreign policy.
The Manning documents also turned WikiLeaks into a strange new player in the modern journalistic ecosystem. WikiLeaks would obtain materials from sources inside governments and other organizations and then disseminate them, either by publishing them itself or by sharing them with major news organizations. WikiLeaks served as an intermediary between sources and reporters.
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War is War on Mother Earth
War is War on Mother Earth
Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
“In order to achieve the massive systemic and cultural transformations required for mitigating climate change…we’re going to have to deal with the socially sanctioned, institutionalized violence perpetrated by U.S. foreign policy that is pouring fuel on the fire of global warming.”
Climate Change Causes War
There is the close relationship between war and climate change that can be seen in a cycle of feedback loops creating the interlocking crisis.
Take the case of Syria, the perfect example with its direct relationship between war and drought. In an exacting statistical analysis of warsfought between 1980 and 2010 the connection between war and climate change is undeniable.
The US military itself has long recognized climate change as a “threat multiplier.” The last three Pentagon Quadrennial Defense Reviewscharacterized climate change as a threat to national security.[1]
Since the idea of climate change as “threat multiplier” tends to encourage militarized responses, (like Elizabeth Warren’s recent proposals) this information is widely reported in the pro-war media and I will not repeat it here. The military and their media allies fall silent when it comes to a far more important truth: war causes climate change.
War Causes Climate Chaos
At the core of the corporate state is the war machine, the world’s largest polluter. Despite the exemptions from reporting on military pollution that the US demanded in the 1997 Kyoto Accords and continued suppression of information by the military, the general picture comes through. Consider the evidence linking fossil fuels and war making.
+ The US military is the world’s largest polluters of all forms of toxins. Almost 900 of the nearly 1,200 Superfund sitesin the U.S. are abandoned military facilities or sites that otherwise supported military needs.
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The road to modern wars
The road to modern wars
President Trump pursues a policy combining military threat with economic warfare and his aim is to restore American hegemony especially in view of the rising contender: China. Beijing has been acquiring technological knowledge and started expanding beyond the borders, having easier access to Central Asia and the Pacific than Americans.
In 2015, when Trump stood for election, we wrote: “Trump’s war rhetoric is very popular with his audiences and is a step beyond Obama’s statement about American exceptionalism. In New Hampshire, Trump nearly declared war on China as he stated: ‘Take a look at China what they have done, they have taken our money, our jobs, our base, our manufacturing, and we owe them 1.5 trillion dollars that’s like a magic act, they have taken everything, and we owe them money.’ Mr Trump did not tell his audience that bringing back jobs comes at a cost. China’s GDP per capita is around 7,500 dollars, while the GDP per capita of the US is about 55,000 dollars. The China rhetoric is unambiguous; China stole what belongs to the US, and there is no need to repay US debt owed to China. The world should brace for Mr Trump as the 45th president of the USA.”
President Trump wants to dictate to the whole world, but, taking into account the fact that the United States is now in conflict with Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Russia, China and North Korea, a big war is not to be expected any time soon, so much so that the military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya appear to be inconclusive. Washington has an arsenal of other measures and these include:
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The Most Dangerous Place on Earth
The Most Dangerous Place on Earth
A nuclear Armageddon in the making in South Asia
Undoubtedly, for nearly two decades the most dangerous place on Earth has been the Indian-Pakistani border in Kashmir. It’s possible that a small spark from artillery and rocket exchanges across that border might — given the known military doctrines of the two nuclear-armed neighbors — lead inexorably to an all-out nuclear conflagration. In that case the result would be catastrophic. Besides causing the deaths of millions of Indians and Pakistanis, such a war might bring on “nuclear winter” on a planetary scale, leading to levels of suffering and death that would be beyond our comprehension.
Alarmingly, the nuclear competition between India and Pakistan has now entered a spine-chilling phase. That danger stems from Islamabad’s decision to deploy low-yield tactical nuclear arms at its forward operating military bases along its entire frontier with India to deter possible aggression by tank-led invading forces. Most ominously, the decision to fire such a nuclear-armed missile with a range of 35 to 60 miles is to rest with local commanders. This is a perilous departure from the universal practice of investing such authority in the highest official of the nation. Such a situation has no parallel in the Washington-Moscow nuclear arms race of the Cold War era.
When it comes to Pakistan’s strategic nuclear weapons, their parts are stored in different locations to be assembled only upon an order from the country’s leader. By contrast, tactical nukes are pre-assembled at a nuclear facility and shipped to a forward base for instant use. In addition to the perils inherent in this policy, such weapons would be vulnerable to misuse by a rogue base commander or theft by one of the many militant groups in the country.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
UN Arms Chief Says Nuclear War is Closer Than Ever Since WW2
UN ARMS CHIEF SAYS NUCLEAR WAR IS CLOSER THAN EVER SINCE WW2
A United Nations arms official has declared nuclear war to be closer than it has ever been since World War II. The geopolitical climate is so divisive and disturbing right now, that globalists are actually telling us a nuclear war could be coming.
The head of the United Nations’ Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) Director Renata Dwan said in an interview that the use of nuclear weapons is more likely today than any time since the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, adding that the use of such weapons today carried a greater risk than ever, according to Reuters.
“I think that it’s genuinely a call to recognize — and this has been somewhat missing in the media coverage of the issues — that the risks of nuclear war are particularly high now, and the risks of the use of nuclear weapons, for some of the factors I pointed out, are higher now than at any time since World War II,” she told the news service, speaking about a call from 122 nations to ban such weapons entirely. Dawn says that the UN should be doing more to ban nuclear weapons. “How we think about that, and how we act on that risk and the management of that risk, seems to me a pretty significant and urgent question that isn’t reflected fully in the (U.N.) Security Council,” she told Reuters according to The Hill.
Of course, a ban only works if countries are going to obey. Should nations defy a UN nuclear weapons ban, there is literally nothing the UN can do about it. There are far too many nukes out there for the UN’s words to matter.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Belligerence of Empire
The Belligerence of Empire
Photograph Source: Sgt. Ajenis Nunez – Public Domain
“Capitalism’s gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the ‘stone age’ with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the US government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions, a whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities—pounded into dust.”
– Arundhati Roy
“As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities.”
― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments
“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Could China dump its US Treasuries to fight the trade war? A contrarian view is emerging in Beijing
Could China dump its US Treasuries to fight the trade war? A contrarian view is emerging in Beijing
- As trade war escalates, market talk is emerging that Beijing will use monetary weapons to retaliate as ‘last resort’
- China’s US Treasury holdings in March dropped by US$10.4 billion while foreign exchange reserves rose to highest level since August
Traders work as US President Donald Trump is seen on television on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York. Photo: Bloomberg
As American pundits and polls dismiss the idea that China would dump its massive holdings of US Treasury debt as retaliation against US tariffs, a contrarian view is emerging in Beijing that the government may use the securities as a “weapon of last resort”.China’s US$1.12 trillion holdings account for just 5 per cent of total US national debt, which may mean any material damage on the US economy stemming from a bond sales would be limited. In addition, even if it did cause market volatility, China’s remaining holdings would also be hurt, which the Chinese may view as a move that is too risky, US sceptics have said.
“While we think China will continue to sell Treasuries, as it has for most of the last year, we do not think that the pace at which they sell will increase as a direct response measure for tariffs. Rather, we believe that the pace at which they sell Treasuries will continue to track the pace at which they see capital inflows,” said Matthew Hornbach, an analyst at Morgan Stanley.
However, with Beijing vowing to fight “to the end” and the US preparing to place a 25 per cent tariff on a further US$300 billion of Chinese imports, China may have “no choice but to sell” its US Treasury holdings, according to some analysts and reports widely distributed on China’s social media.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Xi Sends Trump A Message: Rare-Earth Export Ban Is Coming
Xi Sends Trump A Message: Rare-Earth Export Ban Is Coming
Back in April of 2018, when the trade war with China was still in its early stages, we explained that among the five “nuclear” options Beijing has to retaliate against the US, one was the block of rare-earth exports to the US, potentially crippling countless US supply chains that rely on these rare commodities, and forcing painful and costly delays in US production as alternative supply pathways had to be implemented.
As a result, for many months China watchers expected Beijing to respond to Trump’s tariff hikes by blocking the exports of one or more rare-earths, although fast forwarding one year later this still hasn’t happened. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen, and overnight President Xi Jinping’s visit to a rare earths facility fueled speculation that the strategic materials will soon be weaponized in China’s tit-for-tat war the US.
As Bloomberg reported overnight, shares in JL MAG Rare-Earth surged by the daily limit on Monday after Xinhua said the Chinese president had stopped by the company in Jiangxi, a scripted move designed to telegraph what China could do next.
The reason for the dramatic market response is that the presidential visit flags policy priorities, and “rare earths have featured in the escalating trade spat between the U.S. and China.” Specifically, as Bloomberg notes, China raised tariffs to 25% from 10% on American imports, while the U.S. excluded rare earths from its own list of prospective tariffs on roughly $300 billion worth of Chinese goods to be targeted in the next wave of measures. And just in case the White House missed the message, Xi was accompanied on the trip to JL MAG by Liu He, the vice premier who has led the Chinese side in the trade negotiations.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
That Time John Bolton Said It’s Good To Lie About War
That Time John Bolton Said It’s Good To Lie About War
Journalist Whitney Webb recently tweeted a 2010 video clip I’d never seen before featuring US National Security Advisor John Bolton defending the use of deception in advancing military agendas, which highlights something we should all be paying attention to as Trump administration foreign policy becomes increasingly Boltonized.
On a December 2010 episode of Fox News’ Freedom Watch, Bolton and the show’s host Andrew Napolitano were debating about recent WikiLeaks publications, and naturally the subject of government secrecy came up.
“Now I want to make the case for secrecy in government when it comes to the conduct of national security affairs, and possibly for deception where that’s appropriate,” Bolton said. “You know Winston Churchill said during World War Two that in wartime truth is so important it should be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.”
“Do you really believe that?” asked an incredulous Napolitano.
“Absolutely,” Bolton replied.
“You would lie in order to preserve the truth?”
“If I had to say something I knew was false to protect American national security, I would do it,” Bolton answered.
“I don’t think we’re often faced with that difficulty, but would I lie about where the D-Day invasion was going to take place to deceive the Germans, you’d better believe it,” Bolton continued.
“Why do people in the government think that the laws of society or the rules don’t apply to them?” Napolitano asked.
“Because they are not dealing in the civil society we live in under the Constitution,” Bolton replied. “They are dealing in the anarchic environment internationally where different rules apply.”
“But you took an oath to uphold the Constitution, and the Constitution mandates certain openness and certain fairness,” Napolitano protested. “You’re willing to do away with that in order to attain a temporary military goal?”
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Not Just a Trade War, But a Shooting War With China
Not Just a Trade War, But a Shooting War With China
The Chinese came from nothing; only 40 years ago, they had nothing but a billion impoverished peasants. No money. No technology. No power. Today, they’re on par with the United States. But, if this trend continues – which it will – their economy will be triple the size of the US economy in 20 years.
Not just a trade war, but a shooting war with the Chinese seems inevitable. Because when tensions build up between states they eventually fight with each other. China is the major rising power. It’s got four times the US population, it’s soon going to be more economically powerful, and it’s going to reach military parity. It’s of a different culture than the US. The US government may figure it’s best to take them out while the balance still favors them. It’s a bit like the situation was with the USSR in the ’80s. They could see they were going into decline, and some Soviet generals figured it was “now or never” for a successful war. Fortunately they collapsed first.
The Chinese don’t like seeing US aircraft carriers off their coast any more than we would like to see Chinese aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Mexico or off Santa Catalina Island.
The last thing that we need is a war with the Chinese. But if something that’s been called the Thucydides Trap is valid – and I think it is – then it’s highly likely. It refers to the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, at the end of 5th century BC. The Trap is sprung when a reigning power strikes out at the advancing power while they still have a chance of winning.
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