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thepriceofbeingaroseisloneliness · 4 years

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The Freedom of Expression #2 6th March (Notes/Translation)

“The radio program with the concept of “ask for freedom of expression in the world” is back in YouTube! We will reveal the hot topics and the news related to the concept of Freedom of Expression.

Appearance:

Kaoru (DIR EN GREY direngrey.co.jp/)

Joe Yokomizo (Writer / DJ)

Tasai Reporter (Tokyo Sports)

God ?

You can watch this program here The Freedom of Expression #1 translation/notes here

Notes before reading: This is the second episode of The Freedom of expression in its new format as a YouTube weekly program. You can find the translation/notes for the first one in my Tumblr clicking in the tag. Today’s main topic is Carlos Ghosn’s case so I highly recommend you to read a bit about it even if I’m going to provide some context in case you know nothing at all about it. Then, the discussion will lead to the Japanese Justice System.

Be aware that at some parts, their talk is really random and there are edited cuts that sometimes lead to a sudden change of topic. Please don’t forget to subscribe to their channel and watch their actual video to support the program.

Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistake or any confusing as they are talking so casually and relaxed that it’s hard to get some parts. Thanks to those who help me with some lines of this translation :)

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(Intro The Freedom of Expression)

Kaoru: Hello, it’s Kaoru from Dir en grey... it’s the second time…

Joe: Yes

Kaoru: Joe-san....

Joe: Yes

Kaoru: Tasai-san......

Tasai: Yes

*Kaoru laughs*

Joe: Why are you laughing?

Kaoru: Nonono…. nothing in particular… the introduction…. I just introduce you two but…the third person…no, the 4th one… I was thinking while saying your names if I should or not introduce him too.

Joe: I see I see.... Kaoru: I’m going to leave it like this…

Joe: That’s it.

God: No, don’t leave it like that!

Joe: As expected, if you ignore him, he will come out! (laughs)

Kaoru: But the first time he was fairly left alone too!

Joe: For sure!

God: No, I was silent!

Everyone: I see, I see *nods*

God: Yes, I was waiting until the end to see if I would come or not for sure….it turned out just as I wanted*….(God uses “思うつぼ”, which can also be translated as “play into someone’s hands)

Everyone laughs.

Joe: As you wanted (laughs) God’s nature/character is bad (laughs) God said “as I wanted” right?

God: Because it is said that God’s nature/character is bad right? As expected, …

Joe: Surprisingly, God is not very forgiving/tolerant…

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“A radio program in which Kaoru (Dir en grey) was the main host aired from 2015 to 2016 at InterFM.” (Top left on screen)

Kaoru: Based on a radio program with the concept of freedom of expression now we are doing it in YouTube...last time, we did it for the first time… how do you think that it was? For the people who watched it…

Joe: I wonder how it was…

Tasai: True…. I’m curious about the response…

Joe: Yes, we are curious about the response, right? I want them to spread it through SNS…

Kaoru: I agree

Joe: I certainly hope that you all spread it!

Kaoru: Well, first topic of today....Tasai-san...

Tasai: Well, it’s from Tokyo Sports newspaper....

Joe: I feel like when it is news from Tokyo Sports is somehow about a Kappa or a UFO....

Tasai: That’s true but today’s is not about a Kappa...

Joe: Is it something different?

Tasai: It’s about Ghosn....

Joe: Is it about Ghosh being a Kappa?

“The defendant Ghosn escapes to Lebanon” (on top of the screen)

*Carlos Ghosn is a former Nissan boss arrested in November 2018 when he arrived to Japan. Ghosn has served as the CEO of Michelin North America, chairman and CEO of Renault, chairman of AvtoVAZ, chairman and CEO of Nissan, and chairman of Mitsubishi Motors. Ghosn was also chairman and CEO of the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance. He was initially accused of under-reporting his salary from 2010 and 2015. Nissan ceased him as president two days later of his arrest. Six days later of his arrest, he was also ceased by Mitsubishi Motors. Ghosn claims to be a victim of “victim of a complot” against him orchestrated by Nissan.

The thing is, during the 13 months from his arrest to escaping to Lebanon, Ghosn was going in and out from jail until the point that in April 2019, he had spent 108 days in jail. Japanese justice system allows to arrest someone and be in jail for 10-20 days each time charges are presented before having the option of bailing. In Ghosn’s case, each time he was released, new charges were presented that allowed to arrest him again. He paid several bails until the end of April where he was confined to strict house arrest during four months with no contact with his wife. On December 2019, it was reported that Ghosn had escaped from Japan to Lebanon. *

Tasai: No, no, no (laughs) it’s not that, it’s not that....it was a big news last year’s summer... the defendant Ghosn escaped to Lebanon....what do you think about it?

Joe: Me? I think that Japanese Justice System is harsh. I think as he is alone, it’s possible. Of course the choices you make can be illegal...but probably....well, he make the money go out too as well (laughs)

“Do the deterioration of the relations between Iran and USA disadvantages Ghosn?” (top screen)

*Now they start discussion about the relationship of Iran and The United States. Joe exclaims “wow how serious this is (the topic)”. Tasai recalls the killing of Qasem Soleimani, a major general from the Iranian forces in a bombing. He was considered to be the second most powerful person in the country. He adds that Iran’s act of retaliation could have lead to the Third World War. “Third World War outbreak?” appears on top of the screen. Tasai says the relationship between countries is tense. It seems that Soleimani was related to some armed Lebanon groups such as Hellbollah, which built a giant statue of the deceased general in a town closet o the Israel border. “Lebanon has the potential to become a battlefield” says Tasai and the line appears in the screen too. Going back to Ghosn talk, as he is now in Lebanon, Tasai comments he can’t go out of the country or he could be arrested (Japan doesn’t have an extradition agreement with Lebanon.*

Tasai: In this unexpected situation, Ghosn would be in a critical situation too. This talk was about that.

Joe: Tokyo sports went straight to it!

Tasai: It looks like a film plot right?

Kaoru: That’s true.

Tasai: Then the hiding in the instrument thing…

Joe: For sure!

Kaoru: A band that came right?

Joe: There was a party right?

*Carlos Ghosh allegedly escaped from Japan in a musical instrument case. A Gregorian music band played at his home where he was confined. It seems that when the performance ended, he hid himself in one of the larger instruments case, being take to the airport inside it and being boarded to a private jet which take him to Lebanon”

Kaoru: Going inside an instrument’s case and hiding….it’s really fascinating right?

They all laugh.

Tasai: It was inside a big instrument’s case. If you had such a case with nothing inside…. please be careful.

Joe: Nobody flees abroad….

Kaoru: It’s amusing right?... it really looks like a film.

Tasai: Moreover, a film adaption is going to be out…

Joe: Kaoru, are you especially worried after watching the news about Ghosn?

Kaoru: Well, as it is simple…to do this plan at this scale…it’s too amazing. How much could it cost?

Joe: You surely are spending a substantial amount of money….somewhat it is said that his fortune seems to have decreased but even with this, you could say it’s dauntless.

Tasai: On bail…..he paid 15 billion yens* as bail…that is being confiscated too but Ghosn doesn’t care a bit about it.

*Around 128 million EUR/140 million USD

Joe: He doesn’t right?

Kaoru: When he came out, he disguised himself right? That part is also interesting…

Tasai: It seems he did as a janitor….

(cut)

Joe: Japanese Justice system is said to be a “Hostage justice” (practice of keeping a suspect in police custody in an attempt to force a confession)

He keeps on commenting how in Japan, prosecutors have the exclusive right to indict. They also have the right to drop charges. Japanese prosecutors’ power is being highly discussed nowadays as court follows the prosecutor’s decisions. Joe says that in Japan’s conviction rate is 99.9%. Joe keeps on explaining the prosecutor’s role and how the “hostage justice” is a result of the power of them. Also mentions that lawyers restricted role in order to help the defendant. Japanese trials tend to regard confession as a strong evidence. Defendants are pressured to confess and are offered lesser sentences if they confess. So, escaping comes as a choice if the options are the ones previously given.

Kaoru: It would be better to stay quietly in Japan, right? (about Ghosn)

Joe: That is. Because the place he fled to, it’s going to become a front in battle…. maybe it would have been safer to stay in Japan.

Tasai: Which option would you choose? Being in place where a war is going to breakout but you are free, or a place where you are safe but they are going to take you to court.

Kaoru: It’s most likely to be a movie….

Joe: It’s going to be a movie right...

Joe talks about who would play the role of Ghosn in case that it becomes a movie or even a drama.

(cut)

Joe: Japan takes excessive measures in comparison with the rest of the world. If something happens in Japan, measures against it are taken. It becomes “too much”.

He talks about how when he discusses it with foreign people the impressions and thoughts about topics are different. He talks about France. He says that for example, there is an accident and someone dies. If this happens in Japan, they will take measures as doing a report put a traffic light and that’s not necessarily bad. If that happens overseas, that someone dies in an accident, the first thing that happens is that people is going to be more careful at that place and pay more attention, in Japan, the action relies in the measures taken. Kaoru says that if you put the blame on things or people, we lost our sense of being careful. Joe says something like if it is always blamed on that, the same things will keep happening again and again.

(Cut)

God: Well…. I wonder if being Ghosn’s ally would be bad…

Tasai: Would it be good?

Kaoru: That’s comes to you.

Tasai: It’s an opinion.

God: If I am Ghosn’s ally, he would give me money, like the so-called tips…

Everyone laughs.

Tasai: That’s an amazing way of view it…

Joe: After all, God works for money right?

God: No, but If I were rich, it would be like “everyone, don’t scape” kind of…

God: For example, Tasai san, if they say, “can’t you write a good article for me?” and they offer you some money for it…

Tasai: I’m shaking (grinning)

God: Something like “Ghosn is right!” that kind of article…depends of the mood….even, “the news from the media are a joke”, if they tell you “How about giving you a billion yen for writing that”, I think that maybe it’s better that you quit your job....

Joe: For sure…

Tasai: 1 billion yen…. that’s so cool…

*1 billion yen is approx. 8,5 million euros or 9 million USD:

God: That’s what you think …. but God doesn’t think that way, because for God is better a small amount of money…

Joe: How much would you ask for helping him to escape, God?

God: Maybe 10.000 yen…. *

*Around 80 euros/90 dollars

Tasai: Cheap!

Joe: That’s so cheap! (Laughs)

God: Because I have to know what can be done right?

Tasai: Isn’t God omniscience and omnipotence?

God: I can’t do anything.

Joe: A god that can’t do anything is really amazing right?

God: Just for praying…

Joe: Ah, I see…. Just pray…

Kaoru: Isn’t he just a regular old man? (Laughs)

Joe: I thought about saying something deep…. but…. just a regular old man (laughs)

God: God knows one deep thing about this talk…. About Ghosn…in an interview....suddenly in an interview, the minister of Justice said during it “Ghosh must prove his innocence” *.

*This goes against the Presumption of Innocence principle (Innocent until proven guilty), a human right.

Joe: That’s wrong…

God: Once he said so, the international media criticized the statemen and say “Japan is awful” …

Joe: Moreover, because that person was originally a lawyer…I don’t know if people watching this know about this, but the defendant doesn’t have to prove anything…it’s the prosecutor who has to prove that you are guilty…so there is no need to prove that they are innocent..

(cut)

Joe: Because the Minister of Justice said that Ghosn must prove that he is innocent, I think that this caused a scornful laughter around the world…

God: About what the Minister of Justice said?

Joe: Someone of that level, such as Minister of Justice saying that…. I think that for Global ideal idea of Justice, this country doesn’t pass for it. It’s a strange talk but…the press around the world was laughing (at those words)

Joe makes a question for God, but he seems to be gone.

Joe: Eh? God has disappeared.

God: I was listening attentively (laughs) I think that I listened to it but, having to escape from Japan is not a good thing…

Joe: Is that so?

Tasai: I see

God: Having to escape is really a bad thing….it seems that the consumption tax is going up…

They comment about having seen this new in the internet (?). Kaoru makes a comment about it.

God: God is packed with money….No, I really am running short of money…

Joe: Are you really a poor God?

They all burst into laugh.

God: Don’t say that!

Kaoru: At this point…. this second episode…

Tasai:….has finished.

Kaoru: Until the next time….

Everyone: Thanks for watching….

God: Thank you!

#dir en grey #kaoru #the freedom of expression #translation #thefreedomofexpression #Joe Yokomizo #Tasai

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expatimes · 3 years

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What is Israel's secret weapon against Iran?

There is much reason to believe, but obviously no hard evidence to prove, that Israel is behind the most recent assassination of yet another high-ranking Iranian scientist.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was seen by United States and Israeli intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capability, was evidently killed on November 27 in an ambush on a highway near Tehran “with remotely controlled smart devices”.

It is, of course, impossible to know what exactly happened on that highway. The Israelis have reasons to exaggerate their capabilities in conducting deadly covert operations in Iranian territory. Iranians, meanwhile, have reasons to conceal the manner in which their prominent official was killed, and engage in their own reciprocal disinformation campaign.

What we are left with is the evident fact that Israelis, perhaps in cahoots with the Americans, the Saudis or even the Emiratis, were behind yet another targeted assassination of a prominent Iranian official.

But how does Israel do it? How does this puny little settler colony get away with murder, repeatedly?

Projecting more power than they actually possess

Although Israel wants to project an image of an omnipotent and omniscient force that can kill and destroy with the flick of a finger, the fact is that it is all a bogus, cliché, and gaudy posture. There is not much mystery surrounding this cowardly operation: we have the Israeli-US intelligence, Saudi-Emirati finances, and the sleeper cells of the treacherous Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) - the ex-Iranian terrorist outfit - operatives inside Iran as the most likely combination of factors that allowed Israel to commit this murder.

Targeted assassination is a common feature of Israeli behavior. The murder of prominent Palestinian revolutionary writer Ghassan Kanafani in Beirut on July 8, 1972, together with his 17-year-old niece, Lamees Najim, is perhaps the most infamous and iconic of such assassinations.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was not the first and likely will not be the last Iranian scientist presumed murdered by the Israelis. At least half a dozen Iranian scientists have been murdered over the last decade, and Israel is to have been chiefly responsible for half of these murders.

To be sure, Israel is neither the first nor the only state that has eliminated its perceived enemies with assassinations outside its borders. Earlier this year, Donald Trump ordered the US military to murder Qassem Soleimani, a high-ranking Iranian military official, in Iraq. Just two years ago, Saudi Arabia chopped to pieces Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist, in Turkey.

The Iranians themselves have a long history of brutally murdering their perceived enemies around the world. They, for example, stabbed prominent opposition figure Shapour Bakhtiar to death in France in 1991. They do not hesitate to murder dissidents inside Iran either, as in the notorious case of the so-called “chain murders” of the 1980s and 1990s.

So no state can assume a holier than thou posture here. They are all guilty as sin. It is a dog eat dog world out there among these ruling regimes of terror and murder, each one worse than the other.

But still, the bald-faced incursion of a colonial settlement into a sovereign nation to murder one of their high-ranking scientists requires some examination.

What is Israel's secret weapon?

The specific question I wish to raise here is how could Israel murder Fakhrizadeh, then cowardly assume a stance of “neither denying nor confirming”, and get away with it?

The issue at hand here is not the Israeli behavior, which is systematically criminal. All you have to do is read Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations (2018) to learn chapter and verse the sustained and systematic history of the settler colony being founded and kept in place with such targeted assassinations.

There is a link, I wish to propose, between the fact that Israelis can just move into Iran and murder anyone they want and the cowardly sellouts like the rulers of the UAE, Bahrain or Sudan “normalising” the historic theft of Palestine and entering into diplomatic relations with the settler colony.

That link spells out the scandalous incompetence of ruling states on all sides of the Gulf and beyond having no trust in their own people and degenerating the state apparatus into the instrument of tyranny against their own populations instead of learning how to protect their national sovereignty. On this score, there is no difference between the rulers of the UAE and Iran: they are both pathetically weak towards American-Israeli militarism because they are pathetically tyrannical towards their own citizens.

Let us talk specifically about Iran. The ruling state dedicates an overwhelming segment of its security and military apparatus to keeping Iranians themselves in line. It is so conscious of its own illegitimacy that its single most important function is to grab power, control the economy, and systemically subjugate Iranians to oppressive surveillance.

The ruling military, intelligence and security apparatus of the Islamic republic does not want to accept how utterly ridiculous it looks that Israel can infiltrate their country and point-blank murder one top scientist after another, while they are busy brutalising a teenage child into wearing her scarf one way and not the other. The sheer stupidity of this state just boggles the mind.

Stateless nations, illegitimate states

Israel is a garrison state - a state without a nation ruling over the Palestinians, a nation without a state. And so is precisely every single other state around it, chief among them Iran that has long since lost the trust and support of the nation over which it rules with wanton cruelty.

Imagine for a minute if people in Iran or anywhere else in the Muslim world were the masters of their own destiny. Imagine if the dungeons of the Islamic republic were not filled with political prisoners and human rights activists. Imagine if the ruling state did not waste much of its resources and abilities to surveil the Iranians and punish them for the slightest sign of life and liberty.

That is the secret weapon Israel has against Iran and all the other corrupt regimes in the region. That these illegitimate rulers do not see the strength of their countries is in their own population; that freedom, liberty, the ability to stand up proudly and claim national sovereignty is the true source of power for any country. Instead these pathetic incompetent fools who cannot even protect their most precious assets are trying in vain to keep an entire nation prisoner of their outdated, corrupt and moronic politics.

Israel is a military base created by a gang of European adventurists. They would not even dare to imagine infiltrating Iran, or Turkey, or Egypt, or any other real country, and murdering one of their citizens if they realized they had the will of an entire nation confronting them. They know the entire apparatus of the Islamic republic from top to bottom is irredeemably foreign to the defiant will of the Iranian people, that after 40 years they have miserably failed to become integral to the will of their nation, that they and their entire propaganda machinery has become parasitic to the organic integrity of an ancient but young, proud and competent nation, over which the ruling clergy has much power but little authority.

Nations against states

What can Iran do in retaliation for their top scientists being murdered by Israel? Nothing. Can they reciprocate and go and kill an Israeli nuclear scientist? Of course not, they do not have the wherewithal to do anything remotely similar to that. So they huff and they puff and ultimately shoot a few useless missiles in one direction or another and continue abusing their own population and supporting Hamas, Hezbollah or the murderous al-Assad regime for one useless act of “resistance” or another.

But at the same time, the habitual chicaneries of Israel will ultimately have to face not these feeble and pathetic states but the root of the power of resistance to its murderous deeds which is the will of the Palestinians and the Iranians alike.

What is lost to Israel and its sustained course of criminal activities is how utterly futile they are. They mobilize all their evil means and assassinate a few Iranian nuclear scientists - so what? Iran has literally thousands upon thousands of such unclear scientists, more than half of them women physicists from top Iranian universities. What is Israel going to do? Kill them all? Drop a couple of their pathetic and useless atom bombs on Iran as its American godfather Sheldon Adelson wants to do?

Is it possible to prevent Iranians from achieving nuclear knowledge or technology for peaceful or even non-peaceful purposes if that is what Iranians decide to do? Do they think a puny little settler colony can stop an entire nation that has given Maryam Mirzakhani to the world? Where do they think the late genius mathematician came from? Tel Aviv University? Israelis will fail miserably in this as they fail in everything else they touch - from stealing Palestine, to convincing anyone with an iota of decency and empathy to accept this blatant theft.

Both the ruling Islamic republic and the settler colony of Israel will ultimately fail to silencing the will of Palestinian and Iranian peoples. The repressed but defiant will of nations, Palestinians under the boots of Israeli soldiers and Iranians under the cruelties of their ruling regimes, will prevail.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=15357&feed_id=22325

#Iran #Israel #MiddleEast #Opinions #Politics

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fuckyeahmarxismleninism · 4 years

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U.S. out of Iraq and the Middle East! NO to war, NO to sanctions on Iran

Money for jobs, health care and education! No Pentagon war for Big Oil profits

The assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy leader of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump, was a declaration of war against the people of Iran, Iraq and all of the Middle East.

Trump and the Pentagon have ordered 750 more U.S. troops to be sent to the Middle East and possibly 3,000 more, on top of the 5,200 U.S. troops already stationed in Iraq. This followed major protests by the Iraqi people in response to the Pentagon’s aerial assault that killed scores of innocent civilians.

The new air assaults ignited nationwide resistance by the Iraqi people who want to reclaim their full sovereignty and do not want Iraq to be used in a U.S. war on Iran.

Corporate media and Congressional leaders have backed Trump’s cowardly and illegal tactics. Democratic and Republican leaders alike have joined in promoting the Big Lie that Iran is a terrorist state, which aims to trick poor and working people into supporting yet another war for Wall Street and Big Oil profits.

Whose war? Big Oil and fracking companies

More than a million Iraqi people have died during the past 28 years as a result of the U.S. occupation, bombings and sanctions. Tens of thousands of GIs have also been killed or badly wounded.

Why? To control the flow of oil and guarantee profits for the trillion-dollar oil and fracking corporations!

Meanwhile, workers at home are facing major cuts to food stamps and disability benefits. In April of this year, 700,000 people will be dropped from SNAP benefits and millions will get fewer benefits.

In Baltimore city, 22.2 percent of people already go to bed hungry. In rural areas that have suffered from low wages and no wages, the loss of food stamps will mean that many small grocery stores will have to close their doors.

But not the Pentagon! This year the world’s biggest polluter got a $130 billion increase.

Shut down the Pentagon and 800+ overseas military bases

We are weeks from celebrating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It was Dr. King who proclaimed that the bombs dropped on Vietnam were like bombs dropped on cities at home.

If we are to declare war, then let it be on racism, police terror, anti-immigrant bigotry and violence, low wages and poverty. The best people’s defense is to shut down the Pentagon.

Don’t be silent this coming year. Join us in the fight to end U.S. wars and for a socialist future.

Struggle-La Lucha for Socialism

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 4 years

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Did Soleimani plan Benghazi? Was he directly responsible for strife in Syria? Those are the things I see in a bunch of "GOOD RIDDANCE, TRUMP DID GOOD" posts.

>thinking soleimani, a shiite, masterminded a protest by the Sunni pet rebels the west backed against gaddafi

The former is so obviously a rewriting of history. Benghazi was just deserts. The latter is dramatic simplification of a civil war that kicked off between the armed forces of Syria shooting protesters and Western and gulf States arming and funding salafist gangs to rise up and carry the revolution.

Soleimani was directly involved in supporting the Syrian government from getting it's ass defeated by salafist rebels and ISIS. Everyone who participated in that war is fucking guilty for the strife, up to and including the Obama and Trump administrations. The USA drops thousands upon thousands of bombs on raqqa, turning it into rubble, and when the civilians asked for help in reconstruction, the Americans said "nah fuck you bye"... And then the USA has the audacity to kick and scream about how russia and Syria turned half of Aleppo into rubble.

It's all so disingenuous and propagandized!! Additionally, pompeo said that Iran planned 9/11, which is another blatant lie. Literally stop listening to the American regime.

#syria

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thatquietsong · 4 years

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The sole reason we would get into a war with Iran is no more complicated than that is a matter of imperialism. Control over a strong pseudo democracy not dissimilar from ours with an abundance of oil. Let’s say Soleimani did kill hundreds of US soldiers... We drop bombs, nukes, drones, invade the Middle East under the guise of implementing democracy and thwarting nuclear weapons from being used. Democrats and Republicans alike all have gaslit us at some recent point in history that war is our only option. A necessary evil for the sake of humanity. ISIS it literally the gift that keeps giving to US foreign policy. A buffer to go in and “save” countries from tyranny or terrorism. This time around we’re trying to go and fight a country that helped us fight ISIS. So to that point, our motives should be more transparent than ever. We should all should know better by now. Our main angle in invading these countries isn’t to save people or protect our country. We should at this point understand what it’s truly about. We should all get to know the history of Iran and the US. We have to get people to understand US imperialism and imperialism in general. The same goes for capitalism. (Whew, for another post.) ..Because if we don’t fucking learn our history, we’re doomed to repeat it.

#imperialism #iran #us military industrial complex #us imperialism #united states politics and government #united states #capitalism #no war with iran #middle east #war #anti war #democracy #anti capitalism #anti imperialism #socialism #iraq war #iraq #history

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atheistforhumanity · 4 years

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An Unstable Leader Marches Toward an Unstable War

Over the past week there has been a quickly escalating tit for tat between the U.S. and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Most notably, Trump made a vastly disproportioned assignation of the IRGC’ s general, Quasim Soleimani. This has had a quick fallout or rising consequences, which Trump is only threatening to meet with stronger retaliation.

Before I move on, I want to be clear that I believe these actions by Trump are a clear attempt to save himself from being impeached and get re-elected. His hopes are that the impeachment will be put on hold during this crisis, and that he can ride the historical wave that shows Presidents are usually re-elected during times of war. I view this to be a sociopathic course of actions, and exactly the type of behavior we all feared when he became elected.

Trump’s actions are part of a clear problematic pattern in his life. He shows no ability to think situations through and weigh the consequences of his actions. Always acting on a whim of selfish desire, whether or not it will harm many others.

Trump claims the killing of Quasim Soleimani was in retribution for the death of a contractor in an attack on an Iraqi base. However, the administration had already carried out five air strikes around Iraq and Syria. This was the catalyst for Iraqi citizens to attack the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. So, something more proportionate was already done about the attack of the Kirkuk Base.

The first problem with Trump’s decision is that it was not proportional at all, because Quasim Soleimani was similar to a Vice President in America. He had the same level of power and admiration. While I’m not arguing that nothing should be done about the death of one of our citizens, I am pointing out that it is the duty of a world leader to act proportionally and wisely. Death is an unfortunate inevitability for some of those we send or allow to venture into unstable areas of the world. An act of warlike provocation cannot be the answer to every single live lost. It is neither moral nor sustainable. Wise leaders consider the lives on both sides that will have to pay for their personal anger. This action will almost certainly plunge us into a conflict that will cost thousands of lives.

A relationship that we have been fostering for fifteen years has been spoiled in foul swoop. Iraq suffered our wrath after 9/11, even though their nation had nothing to do with the attack. Now, after fighting along side them against ISIS for years, Trump has completely disregarded Iraq’s sovereignty as a nation. Historically, this is a series moral issue the U.S. We feel free to play war on anyone’s land who is not powerful enough to stand up for themselves. Can you imagine having drones suddenly drop bombs into civilian areas here at home by other countries, and having no warning or permission from our government? This is what the U.S. does constantly. Furthermore, if you look at the map in this article, you’ll see that the road leading from the International Airport is ridiculously close to the Green Zone. The Green Zone is where most of their government officials live and was made by the U.S. to be insulated from war and show of development. The Green Zone went into immediate lockdown, because they were not made aware of the strikes at all. The Iraqi people are understandably deeply upset and fed up with the profound lack of respect we show our ally.

Iraq is now voting to remove our troops from their country. This isn’t finalized yet, as the Iraqi government is divided on this action themselves. However, Trump is already threatening powerful sanctions for Iraq if they dare to stand up for themselves against Trump’s grave disrespect. This will mean that Iraq will be seriously weakened in the fight against ISIS and we will lose our coordination with them.

The common belief is that the U.S. can push this conflict as far as we want because of our military superiority, and that killing an anti-America general must make us safer. It was publicized that Soleimani had plans to attack U.S. targets, but Pompeo refuses to say how imminent those threats actually were or the details involved. So we can’t even confirm that there was a serious imminent threat. Even worse, this airstrike has pushed Iraq toward being an ally of Iran. Iran exerts a large amount of influence in the middle east as it is, but now we are pushing away allies in that area. What Trump should have considered is that Iran’s vow for retaliation will not come in the form of a traditional attack on the U.S., but it will be against one of our many installations around the world. There is a map from 2015 by Politico on the locations of our known military bases and outposts. If this map is anywhere close to accurate you can see there are many small “lily pads” of less than 200 hundred personnel scattered around the world. Many are spread throughout the Middle East and Africa. A couple soldiers were recently killed in Kenya, by extremists. Iran will certainly look to use it’s influence to carry attacks against our smaller installations, and it could be in any of over a hundred locations. This disproportional attack has put all of our people around the world in imminent danger. While Trump has been praising Putin, who made a serious cyberattack against our government, Iran and Russia have been drawing closer in an effort for Iran to better oppose America.

Trump has been threatening Iran for sometime over their nuclear program. Trump already ruined any leverage we had over Iran to get them to hold off on their nuclear program. Europe attempted to continue the agreement with Iran, but this airstrike has now pushed Iran to accelerate their nuclear program, with the full intention of creating a weapon. After berating Obama’s approach to handling Iran, Trump has failed at every measure to keep the situation under control. Iran’s development of nuclear capabilities definitely does not make America safer.

If Trump manages to push us into a full scale war, it will likely drop us into a recession as economists have already been worried one may be coming. At a time when economic inequality is a prime issue in the election, can we afford to put millions or billions into a war after already raising the debt by trillions over the next decade. Lastly, Trump promised to end never ending wars, yet that’s exactly what this situation would be. We would be dragged into battling Iran’s influence all over the middle east, while losing the allies we have there, and completely destabilizing the region all over again. This will undoubtedly lead to a resurgence of ISIS and other anti-American extremist groups. Nothing about these actions will make us safer.

#Politics #Trump #Iran #Airstrikes #No War #Protest #Resist

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eelhound · 4 years

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"Our access to much of the world is through language alone. We only see our tiny sliver of the world with our own eyes, much of the rest of it has to be described in words or shown to us through images. That means it’s very easy to manipulate our perceptions. If you control the flow of information, you can completely alter someone’s understanding of the things that they can’t see firsthand.

Euphemistic language is always used to cover atrocities. Even the Nazis did not say they were 'mass murdering innocent civilians.' They said they were defending themselves from subversive elements, guaranteeing sufficient living space for their people, purifying their culture, etc. When the United States commits murder, it does not say it is committing murder. It says it is engaging in a stabilization program and restoring democratic rule. We saw during the recent Bolivian coup how easy it is to portray the seizure of power as 'democracy' and democracy as tyranny. Euphemistic language has been one of the key tools of murderous regimes. In fact, many of them probably believe their own language; their specialized vocabulary allows them to inhabit a world of their own invention where they are good people punishing evil.

Assassination sounds bad. It sounds like something illegitimate, something that would call into question the goodness of the United States, even if the person being assassinated can be argued to have 'deserved it.' Thus Rothman and Bloomberg will not even admit that what the U.S. did here [in killing Soleimani] was an assassination, even though we literally targeted a high official from a sovereign country and dropped a bomb on him. Instead, this is 'neutralization.'...

Those of us who want to resist marches to war need to insist on calling things exactly what they are and refuse to allow the country to slide into the use of language that conceals the reality of our actions."

- Nathan J. Robinson, from "How To Avoid Swallowing War Propaganda"

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icymirss · 4 years

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The US has admitted to assassinating Iran's most beloved military leader, General Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike which seems very likely to ignite a full-scale war. Six others are also reported killed, including Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. According to the Pentagon, Trump personally ordered the assassination..... A proportionate retaliatory strike would necessarily entail an attack on US military targets, or the military targets of US allies. If that happens, either the empire stands down or we're looking at an all-out war of a size that is potentially almost limitless.... Many are understandably claiming that this geostrategically pivotal confrontation was precisely what Trump was installed to facilitate all along. The largest donor to any campaign in 2016 was oligarch Sheldon Adelson, who gave $25 million to the Trump campaign, and who in 2013 said that the US should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. After Trump's election win, Adelson gave another $5 million to his inauguration, the largest single presidential inaugural donation ever made.... Make no mistake, Iran is not Iraq or Libya. A full-scale war against Iran would be many times more deadly, costly and destabilizing than those interventions... Even if a direct war with Iran didn't lead to a confrontation with China, Russia and the other unabsorbed allies, it would still be worse than Vietnam and Iraq combined in terms of death, destruction, expense, and regional destabilization. And now, as I sit as the mother of two teenagers watching what might be a third world war looming on the horizon, all I can think is about how infuriating it is that we've spent the last three years on Russia bullshit and sectarian political infighting instead of building an actual cohesive antiwar movement and pushing real opposition to Trump's warmongering.

#donald trump #foreign policy #iran #iraq #middle east #politics

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phroyd · 5 years

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A potential scenario worth reading all the way through. The foolishness of “Tough-Guy Diplomacy” throws caution to the wind. - Phroyd

As tensions mount between the United States and Iran, American and Iranian leaders publicly insist they want to avoid war. Yet history is littered with accidents, misperceptions, miscalculations, hidden bureaucratic agendas and other factors that produced armed conflicts nobody seemed to want. This is one fictional example of how easily a war between the United States and Iran could start. None of this has happened — but it could.

On Aug. 7, 2019, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, rushed out of an emergency session of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The meeting was discussing how to respond to news that Iran’s oil sales — the lifeblood of the Islamic republic’s economy — had plummeted to only a few hundred thousand barrels a day, down more than 2 million barrels in just 18 months, because of U.S. sanctions.

Soleimani had a few important calls to make. The first two were to the commanders of Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah, the most prominent Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq. Since the defeat of the Islamic State’s territorial “caliphate,” these militants had been itching to turn their sights on the 5,000 U.S. troops who remain in Iraq, with the goal of driving them out. Soleimani had cautioned patience, but his guidance now took a decisive turn: “Brothers, you have my authorization. Follow the righteous path.”

Soleimani’s next call went to Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, the most capable Iranian proxy in the Middle East. Despite hundreds of Israeli strikes in recent years against Hezbollah arms shipments and Iranian bases in Syria, the organization and its backers in Tehran had not yet waged an all-out war across Israel’s northern frontier. Still, everyone knew that such a conflict was inevitable at some point, and Soleimani told Nasrallah that the time might be approaching. “The American-Zionist alliance is plotting and a storm is coming,” he said. “Be ready.”

One week after Soleimani’s calls, a U.S. diplomatic convoy traveling from the heavily fortified Green Zone to Baghdad International Airport was hit by several powerful roadside bombs. A high-level State Department political officer, three other diplomats and a U.S. Army colonel were killed instantly.

Within hours, other attacks followed, including a barrage of rocket and mortar fire on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that destroyed the main dining hall and killed five Iraqis cleaning the grounds. At the same time, a suicide attacker hit a U.S. military unit operating in eastern Syria, near the Iraqi border. Two American Special Operations troops were killed, and two more were taken hostage by a Syrian militia widely believed to be backed by Iran.

Under any circumstances, these incidents would spark a crisis. But they occurred against a backdrop of escalating tensions and provocations between Washington and Tehran that began after the Trump administration withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018. The subsequent “maximum pressure” campaign the administration applied to cut off Iran’s oil sales and connections to the international banking system deepened the siege mentality in Tehran. The U.S. decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, overruling warnings from the Pentagon, made the situation even tenser. Iran responded by restarting some proscribed nuclear activities and carrying out calibrated provocations in May, hoping to reciprocate U.S. pressure and build leverage in the event that negotiations with the Great Satan ever resumed.

In June and July 2019, there were more incidents of sabotage targeting ships across the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen stepped up their attacks on Saudi Arabia, firing missiles at oil facilities and attacking Saudi oil tankers on their way to Europe. Then, in late July, Saudi Aramco — the national oil and gas company — suffered a devastating cyberattack, shutting down its operations for nearly a week.

Stepping back from the nuclear accord, Iran also began accumulating higher-than-allowed levels of heavy water and low-enriched uranium. By late July, after European negotiators failed to salvage the deal, Iran had reinstalled centrifuges at its deeply buried Fordow facility, threatening to resume enrichment. Soon, Western intelligence agencies estimated that it would take less than a year for Iran to produce the explosive fuel for a single nuclear device, eroding the delays in “break-out time” that the nuclear accord had brought. This prompted Israeli and American threats to take military action if Iran got too close to acquiring the bomb.

So the region was already on a knife’s edge when news of the August attacks in Iraq and Syria reached the White House. Predictably, Trump lashed out on Twitter: “We will respond to Iran’s acts of Aggression and there will be even more Hell to pay if our Brave Soldiers are not returned immediately. The demented and decaying regime in Tehran will feel Power and Wrath the likes of which the world has never seen.” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded with his own tweet: “The great Iranian nation will not be intimidated by a corrupt and criminal superpower spreading lies and beating the drums of war. The world knows Iran is in the right and all should be certain of America’s defeat.”

It was unclear exactly what Trump’s threats implied. But the president found himself under increasing pressure from Republican hawks in Congress and hard-liners within his administration to take immediate military action.

Trump worried about what this would mean for his reelection prospects. He had campaigned against further interventions in the Middle East. But he had also spent years trashing Obama’s “horrible” nuclear deal, and he had repeatedly promised to use “great force” in response to Iranian attacks. Ultimately, Trump feared that looking weak would do him more harm in 2020 than risking further escalation.

So having sent one aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in May, Trump agreed to deploy a second carrier , along with additional squadrons of aircraft. U.S.-based strategic bombers were placed on high alert. Trump also authorized unilateral raids in Baghdad against an Asaib Ahl al-Haq bomb-making cell and a Kataib Hezbollah rocket team. Mysterious explosions were reported at several munitions depots and training camps inside Iran, near the Iraqi border, and ATMs across Iran suddenly ceased functioning for two days. While no one claimed credit, Iranian and international media outlets suggested that the CIA and the Mossad were responsible.

Tensions finally boiled over in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway in the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of the world’s tradable oil passes. Several Iranian fast-attack craft swarmed nearby U.S. naval vessels. When the Iranian boats ignored U.S. warnings, an American destroyer fired on them, killing everyone aboard Iran’s vessels.

Fearing that this was the first skirmish in a wider naval war, Iran began dispersing its mines, anti-ship cruise missiles and mobile ballistic missiles, lest they be struck by U.S. bombers. The Pentagon’s proposed response was a large-scale preemptive strike to neutralize the weapons before they posed a significant threat to U.S. forces, bases, allies and shipping. National security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged Trump to hit Iran’s nuclear program at the same time (something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during numerous calls to Trump, agitated for as well). Pompeo assured the president that he doid not require additional congressional authorization beyond that provided after 9/11 to launch such an attack, given alleged links between Iran and al-Qaeda.

Within days, the United States unleashed a multi-day bombardment of Iranian air and coastal defense systems, mine storage facilities, ports, and ballistic missile locations, as well as strikes on the Natanz and Fordow uranium enrichment plants, the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, the Arak reactor, and several Revolutionary Guard bases where the administration alleged (with no clear evidence) that suspicious nuclear-related research had been conducted. Coordinated cyber-attacks — believed to originate from Israel and the United States — struck Iran’s electrical grid.

The Islamic republic responded by dropping hundreds of surviving mines into the Strait of Hormuz, terrorizing oil shipping with suicide boats and kamikaze drones, and targeting U.S. military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates with missiles. Meanwhile, Houthi attacks on Saudi territory escalated.

As the battle unfolds, American overmatch soon produced significant tactical successes. Iran’s nuclear program was set back at least two years, its air and coastal defenses lay in ruins, and much of its navy was sunk to the bottom of the sea. Yet global stock markets panicked as oil prices spiked and fears of an all-out regional war grew.

The Iranian regime, defiant and far from defeated, announced its formal withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “Having been attacked by a nuclear aggressor,” President Hassan Rouhani declared, “Iran has no choice but to pursue all necessary capabilities to deter the enemy.”

Determined to “restore deterrence” and show that its homeland could not be struck with impunity, Iran also directed Lebanese Hezbollah to unleash tens of thousands of rockets and precision-guided missiles against Israel, overwhelming missile defenses and striking civilian targets in Tel Aviv and other cities. Simultaneously, Hezbollah and Iranian forces launched attacks from Syrian territory, opening a second front against Israel. Hundreds died, and Israel’s economy stood paralyzed.

Israel responded with massive force, not just bombarding southern Lebanon but also saturating Hezbollah and government targets in Beirut, killing or wounding thousands of civilians. Israel’s air force struck Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria, as well, while Israeli ground forces prepped for a large-scale land incursion to clear out Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon and establish a buffer zone in Syria across the Golan Heights.

As the bloodshed mounted, the Trump administration defended Israel’s right to use all means to protect itself, while a horrified world called for calm.

Nothing seemed to be enough to end the cycle of carnage.

Iran and its proxies drew more Israeli and American blood — and vice versa — and oil prices surged even higher, risking a U.S. recession. The voices calling on Trump to come to Israel’s aid and finish off the Iranian regime once and for all became an unstoppable crescendo.

As in 1914, at the outset of World War I, events took on a cruel logic of their own, and the Guns of August sounded.

Having invested his credibility and political future in looking tough, Trump seemed to have no choice. A president who promised to extricate America from endless wars in the Middle East found himself sending more than 100,000 troops back into the desert. Only this time, the United States was invading a country with 80 million people (twice Iraq’s population), a territory 68 percent larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and with hundreds of thousands of the best paramilitary troops in the world.

Asked at an impromptu news conference about the deployment, Trump simply said, “I warned Iran that if they chose to fight, we would end them.” It was a war that neither Trump nor Iranian leaders wanted — and yet, at each critical moment, escalation seemed like the only way to defend vital national interests and respond to political imperatives. Circumstances had simply become too combustible. And once the fuse was lit, no one could stop the explosion.

Phroyd

#iran #war #trump #bolton

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xtruss · 2 years

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How Many Times Has The United States Said ‘Just Trust Us’ and Then Lied?

— By Rachel Marsden: Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France | February 05, 2022 | RT

‘War Criminal, Liar, Ignorant, Killer and Braindead Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell,’ (Now Staying, Resting, Rotting and Burning in Hell), holds a vial representing the small amount of Anthrax, Feb. 5, 2003. He has the blood of millions of innocents on his dirty hands. © AP Photo/Elise Amendola (File Photo).

In a single day, two members of the American press asking for clarification and evidence from the Biden administration were painted as sympathizers of Russia and ISIS.

Efforts by US media to establish objective truth – rather than acting as stenographers for the government and its official narratives – is now apparently considered an act of disloyalty to your country, and loyalty to its enemies.

The first instance occurred during a gaggle in which the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, addressed the US-led liquidation of the latest “ISIS leader,” Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, in Idlib province, northwestern Syria, on Wednesday night. According to President Joe Biden’s televised retelling of events, the target blew himself up and took some family members and others out with him just as American troops were moving in for the kill. Why would he do that? Because he’s a “coward,” Biden suggested.

“I know the US has put out its statement that [ISIS] detonated the bomb themselves. But will the US provide any evidence? Because there may be people that are skeptical of the events that took place and what happened to civilians,” NPR White House Correspondent Ayesha Rascoe asked.

“Skeptical of the US military’s assessment when they went and took out the leader of ISIS?” Psaki replied. “That they are not providing accurate information? And ISIS is providing accurate information?”

Note that the journalist didn’t say that ISIS (IS, Islamic State) had a counter narrative, just that the official story put out by the US government is worthy of skepticism. And the US has certainly earned skepticism in Syria. Not only have they peddled narratives portraying the Western private contractor-founded White Helmets activists as do-good humanitarians and objective witnesses rather than a convenient propaganda front, but just last November, the New York Times published a story with the headline: ‘How the U.S. Hid an Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians in Syria’. In March 2019, according to the report, an F-15E fighter jet dropped a “500-pound bomb” on the town of Baghuz, right before another aircraft dropped two more bombs of 2,000 pounds each. It was only after the Times’ investigation that CENTCOM admitted it may have killed up to 80 people, including civilians, but argued the women and children may have been “combatants.”

War Criminals! From left: Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney.

Now one might figure that anyone in a war zone is fair game. OK, but then don’t be surprised when their countrymen end up hating the US for the next several generations (you know, because of the ‘freedoms’, as successive administrations routinely claim).

The Syrian conflict was also the backdrop to the US-backed murder of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at neighboring Iraq’s Baghdad Airport two years ago, after which the Trump administration publicly claimed self-defense and US intelligence suggesting that Soleimani was planning an imminent attack on American interests. A White House memo later debunked that excuse.

The same day as Psaki was fending off journalists who weren’t automatically buying the latest Hollywood movie scenario being peddled by Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price accused a veteran journalist of favoring Russia over America when he dared to demand evidence for Price’s assertion that Russia was setting up a ‘false flag’ event to justify a Ukrainian invasion.

Price accused Russia during a press briefing of “developing a fake pretext to initiate and potentially justify military aggression against Ukraine.” Veteran journalist Matt Lee of the Associated Press asked for proof – actual evidence to accompany Price’s assertions. Price then replied: “If you doubt the credibility of the U.S. Government, of the British Government, of other governments, and want to find solace in information that the Russians are putting out – that is for you to do.”

A long-standing respected member of the American press was promptly smeared – all because he dared show skepticism of what could ultimately become a NATO and US pretext for war rather than a Russian pretext. False flag rhetoric, suggesting some kind of potential future threat to a NATO ally, has been used by the military alliance to justify moving weapons ever closer to the Russian border.

The US is effectively setting up a narrative whereby anything that occurs now on the Ukraine-Russia border could be pinned on Russia and justify NATO aggression, regardless of who might be responsible for the act.

How many times has the US already created false flag pretexts to justify wars and invasions throughout history and then routinely lied to the public about the reality of the ensuing conflicts?

There has been the ‘imminent threat’ of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that justified that country’s invasion. There was the ‘imminent threat’ with the Gulf of Tonkin incident that sparked US involvement in the Vietnam War, followed by the spectacle of the defeatist exit from the embassy in Saigon after telling the public that America and its allies were ‘winning’ the war. There was the ‘imminent threat’ of the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua that supposedly justified secret weapons sales to Iran to fund the Contras, all while lying to the public about it. Then the ‘imminent threat’ of an armed Iran. More recently, there was the ‘imminent threat’ of the Taliban in Afghanistan, resulting in the White House declaring their ‘defeat’ post-invasion, followed years later by an abrupt US military exit from the country with the Taliban retaking total control.

Fear has always allowed the US government to mobilize public support – whether of communism, terrorism, or even a virus. Fear has also given them far too often a carte blanche to take actions that are of questionable value to the average person, whose interests are routinely sacrificed for those of an elite few. They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt on anything that comes out of their mouths. And standing up for the American people’s best interests isn’t enemy action – it’s the very definition of patriotism.

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opedguy · 3 years

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Pentagon Takes Out Suicide Bomber

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Aug. 29, 2021.--Taking out a would-be suicide car bomber before detonating his explosive near the Hamid Karzai Airport, the Pentagon showed off its intel capabilities and sophisticated targeting. Pentagon officials confirmed the strike, saying secondary explosions could be seen for miles, attesting to another suicide bombing attack by ISIS-K, the bombers that killed 13 U.S. soldiers and at least 169 Afghans. Showing the unmanned drone sophistication, the Pentagon revealed the same kind of precision seen Jan. 3, 2020 when a predator drone took out Iran’s 72-year-old Al-Quds leader Qassem Soleimani outside the Baghdad airport. No one doubts the remote capability of the U.S. military, knowing the extreme danger around the Afghan airport now swarming with ISIS-K, after Trump successfully vaporized ISIS leader 53-year-old Abu Bakr al-Badhdadi, leaving the so-called caliphate in shambles.

Killing 13 U.S. soldiers was a big recruiting tool for the beleaguered Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] after the U.S. with the help of the Kurd’s YPG [Kurdish Protection Units] Peshmerga helped defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Al-Baghdadi, declared his Islamic caliphate June 29, 2014, telling all Islamic groups that he controlled radical Islam. Former President Donald Trump worked feverishly with the YPG to wipe out al-Baghadi. Former President Barack Obama helped created ISIS ending the Iraq Wars Dec. 31, 2011, much like President Joe Biden did in Afghanistan. When Biden surrendered to the Taliban Aug. 16, the Taliban took over all of Afghanistan including Kabul. Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed puppet government collapsed when 73-year-old former President Ashraf Ghani fled Kaubl for Doha, Qatar Aug. 16. Ghani was told the Taliban was inside the presidential palace.

Trump’s Feb. 29, 2020 agreement with the Taliban guaranteed that the Taliban would provide the U.S. security during the exit strategy. When ISIS struck the Abbey Gate of the Karzai airport, it breached the agreement of providing safety the U.S. military and civilians. Pentagon officials questioned whether or not the Taliban coordinated with ISIS to allow they to retaliate for al-Baghdadi’s Oct. 27, 2018 deaths at the hands of a U.S. predator drone. Preventing more carnage today, the Pentagon showed with good intel they can preempt terror attacks from maiming U.S. troops and civilians. “We remain vigilant for potential future threats,” said the Pentagon, making up for the Aug. 26 suicide bomber that killed 13 U.S. soldiers. Pentagon officials followed up Aug. 27 with a predator drone strike in Nagnarhar province apparently killed two ISIS planners, though there was not confirmation.

Biden said that the Pentagon thinks there’s a high probability of another suicide bombing before Aug. 31, the drop dead date for the U.S. military to leave Afghanistan. Whatever cooperation goes with the Taliban, the White House is finding out quickly that it must provide its own security, not rely on a known terrorist group. Taliban terrorists already dragged Afghanistan’s beloved folk singer Fawad Andarabi out of his home in Andarab in the Panjshir Valley and shot him like a dog. Whatever fantasy the Biden White House has about a reformed Taliban, they justified the killing letting Afghan’s people know that all music, except for some Islamic chants, are banned in Afghanistan. When the Taliban says they plan on respecting the rights of women, they’re not talking about letting women get an education or work in an Afghan workplace. Taliban are clear women must follow strict Sharia law.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid is like old Baghdad Bob, telling the world that Saddam Hussein’s Revolutionary Guards were beating back the American apostates, while Baghdad had fallen and Saddam crawled into a hole.. Mujahid keeps talking about how the Taliban have reformed, how much security they’ve provided to the U.S. during the exit strategy, all belied by the fact that 13 U.S. soldiers are dead. No one thinks that predator drone strikes on remote ISIS locations will stop what’s left of the caliphate from its terrorist ways. Mujahid’s goal is to deceive the U.S. what the Taliban is really up to, salivating at the opportunity to re-create the brutal Islamic regime that openly posted its atrocities for all to see. Like Baghdadi, the Taliban wants to intimidate the Afghan people, much like they did to Ghani when he ran for his life at the thought of being beheaded in the public square.

No one should think for one second that the Biden administration responsibly exited Afghanistan. Procrastinating for months, Biden could have spent four months evacuating U.S. and Afghan citizens but chose to let chaos-and-panic open the door for an ISIS terror attack. Biden told ABC News George Stephanopoulos that there was nothing he could have done differently, distorting what happened. He waited until the 11th hour before starting the evacuation. By that time the stampede had already started for U.S, Afghans and other foreigners to get out of Dodge. Compared to Saigon after the military exited Vietnam in 1975, it was far worse because things could have been done differently had Biden not waited until Ghani fled the country. Left with 13 unnecessary deaths of U.S. soldiers, Biden must do more than go to Dover, Delaware to greet the corpses and console the families.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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tachtutor · 3 years

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Military And Intelligence News Briefs -- March 1, 2021

Military And Intelligence News Briefs — March 1, 2021

The airstrike was the first military action undertaken by the Biden administration, after repeated tensions between Iran and the Trump White House over the previous four years which reached a peak following Qassem Soleimani’s killing in early 2020 * The US dropped seven 500lbs bombs on site – which was used by two Iranian-backed Shia militia groups * Images taken before the blast shows the…

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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How the President Launches a Nuke

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, can launch a nuclear weapon whenever he wants. There exists no check on this authority. He doesn’t need to run the decision to unleash the most destructive weapon in the history of the world by Congress, the Pentagon, or anyone on his staff.

“It’s actually a frighteningly simple process,” Eryn MacDonald, an analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group of scientists who advocate for a safer world, said on the phone. “Everybody talks about a big red button, but of course there isn’t one.”

The U.S. has 1,365 nuclear weapons deployed in missile silos, bombers, and submarines, with almost 4,000 more in reserve. Of those, 650 are B83s. At 1.2 megatons, the B83 is the strongest nuke in America’s arsenal, 80 times more powerful than the bomb it dropped on Hiroshima. Any one of those weapons would create a world-changing explosion.

Questions about the mechanics of nuclear war came up as the United States moved dangerously close to a war with Iran thanks to Trump’s unilateral assassination of General Qasem Soleimani. Again, Donald Trump has sole authority to launch any combination of nukes weapons at any time of his choosing.

To start the process, the president needs his Biscuit and his Football.

“An aide is always with him carrying the Football, which is the official name of the President’s emergency satchel,” MacDonald said. The Football is a Zero Halliburton aluminium attache case covered in black leather. One you know to look for them, the Football and the aide carrying it are ubiquitous in photos of the President. In 2017, the aide even posed for a selfie with a retired investor at Mar-a-Lago. To begin the launch, the President can either present himself at the Pentagon or use communication equipment inside the Football to call the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon.

A U.S. Marine carries the nuclear codes to the White House on April 22, 2018 in Washington, DC. Image: Getty Images

Once the President has made the call, he needs the Biscuit to confirm his identity. The Biscuit is a laminated sheet of paper filled with a long string of alpha-numeric code the President is supposed to carry on him at all times. A code authorizing the President’s identity is buried within that line of code and changed everyday by the National Security Agency. The President doesn’t need to memorize the entire code, just the location of that day’s string within the gibberish.

Once his identity is authorized, the President can pick from a menu of possible strike packages pre-selected for him. According to Marin Pfiefer, a PhD student specializing in the anthropology of nuclear weapons at the University of New Mexico, the menu system dates back to the Carter administration.

“[Carter] wanted to compress the options down,” Pfiefer said in a phone call. Those options include estimated casualties for each particular strike. “So, basically, the President would say ‘I want a medium well on Russia and a well done on China. Mr. President, do you want to withhold leadership? [avoid nuking the heads of state] No, kill the fuckers.’”

At that point, the orders are disseminated down to submarine crews, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos, and bomber squadrons to be carried out. This all happens within a matter of minutes. The logic of the Cold War was that of Mutual Assured Destruction—the idea that the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from nuking America was the knowledge that the moment the U.S. detected the launch, it would unleash its own nuclear arsenal. The architects of this delicate balance of terror wanted to ensure that launching one nuclear weapon meant, effectively, the end of human civilization. To ensure that would happen, the process for ordering and launching a nuclear weapon had to be fast.

“It’s meant to be a very quick procedure,” MacDonald said. “Back in the day we were worried about surprise attacks from the Soviets and there would only be 10 minutes from the time we detected the missiles until they were hitting. We needed to make decisions quickly. Times have changed, but we still have this procedure.”

The deadliest destructive force humans have ever created can, by design, be unleashed by one person in minutes.

“The President has virtually unrestricted nuclear launch authority,” Pfiefier said. “At the end of the day, there’s no one—legally—who has to check in and be like, ‘Yes, this is an OK launch order. Let’s do it.’ Or ‘This is a shit launch order, let’s not do it.’”

Just because the President orders a nuclear launch, however, doesn’t mean the launch will happen. “At every stage of the launch process there are multiple humans involved,” Pfiefer said. “There’s a voting system at the ICBM silos. The submarines…to launch the missile requires a large number of the submarine’s crew and command.”

In an ICBM silo, for example, five teams of two have to turn keys in unison to “vote” to follow an order and launch a nuclear weapon. Two of these teams of five must vote to launch or the order doesn’t go through. On a nuclear-armed submarine, the sub must rise to a certain depth and follow a complicated list of procedures to launch the nuke. Along the way, there are countless opportunities for a human to refuse the order, which would mean defying a direct order from the commander-in-chief of the military without any outside context or information.

Having rank-and-file soldiers refuse a direct order seems unlikely, but it does happen. In the past, humans have refused orders and prevented nuclear Armageddon. During the Cuban missile crisis, Soviet Navy officer Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov talked his captain out of launching a nuclear weapon. In 1983, Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov sat in a bunker south of Moscow monitoring alerts when his computers told him that the U.S. had just launched five missiles at Russia. He assumed this was a false alarm and refused to initiate a counter attack.

In the case of both Arkhipov and Petrov, mechanical systems failed, and had cooler heads not prevailed, nuclear war may have started. Considering how easy it is for one person to order a nuclear strike, it's surprising the world hasn't seen an attack with a nuclear weapon since World War II.

“The most likely use case scenario has always been through miscalculation, accident, human error, and unintended escalation,” Pfiefer said, all scenarios made easier by the President’s unchecked ability to launch nukes without restraint, consideration, or approval from the rest of the government.

How the President Launches a Nuke syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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ericfruits · 4 years

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Iran’s nuclear programme takes a dangerous step

THE FORDOW nuclear plant in northern Iran would make an ideal lair for a Bond villain. Russian-made surface-to-air missiles guard the skies around it. The facility itself is buried under a mountain. Several hundred feet down, in two cavernous halls, neat rows of centrifuges spin uranium gas to produce fissile isotopes, which could be used for nuclear energy—or, if concentrated enough, a nuclear bomb.

Such activity is prohibited under the deal that Iran signed with six world powers in 2015. Iran agreed to cease enrichment at Fordow for 15 years, keeping only 1,044 centrifuges spinning for scientific purposes. But on November 6th it began injecting uranium gas into those centrifuges for the first time in four years. The move heralds a new, more dangerous phase in the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme.

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The trouble started last year, when President Donald Trump removed America from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. For a year Iran continued to abide by the agreement, hoping the other signatories—Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia—would provide economic relief. But it lost patience in April, when America ended waivers that allowed some countries to import Iranian oil.

Since then Iran has been taking steps away from the nuclear deal. In June its stockpile of low-enriched uranium exceeded the limit set under the agreement. In July Iran breached a cap on the purity of that uranium, enriching it to levels slightly closer to weapons-grade. Last month Iran began using quicker-spinning centrifuges. (It has also cancelled the accreditation of an inspector with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal.) The idea is to put pressure on America to end its campaign of “maximum pressure”, which has crippled the Iranian economy. GDP is expected to drop by 9.5% this year.

Each of Iran’s steps shortens its “breakout time”: how long it would take to produce a bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium. They also make it increasingly hard to resuscitate the nuclear deal. The decision to restart work at Fordow is Iran’s most defiant gesture yet. “I think that for the first time, Iran has decided in an explicit and blunt manner to leave the [nuclear deal], which marks a profound shift,” said President Emmanuel Macron of France.

The move is also rich in symbolism. Fordow was built to withstand Israeli and American air strikes. Referring to the deal’s signatories, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said: “I understand their sensitivities toward Fordow and its centrifuges. But whenever they meet their promises, we will cut back gas injection.”

Iran is raising hackles elsewhere for other reasons. Massive protests in Iraq and Lebanon have been directed at corrupt politicians and their foreign backers, above all Iran, which sponsors powerful militias in both countries. “Iran out, out!” chant protesters in Baghdad. In the holy city of Karbala they attacked the Iranian consulate. Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most prominent commander, was dispatched to Baghdad to help quell the unrest. Iranian-backed militias have been accused of killing protesters.

Iran’s nuclear and regional problems are connected. “Its way of countering the maximum-pressure campaign has been twofold: dial down compliance with the nuclear deal and dial up pressure on the regional front,” says Ariane Tabatabai of the RAND Corporation, a think-tank. She points to recent attacks, allegedly by Iran or its proxies, on commercial shipping, Saudi oil facilities and the area around America’s embassy in Baghdad. Such incidents will seem even more troubling the further Iran moves away from the nuclear deal. ■

This article appeared in the Middle East and Africa section of the print edition under the headline "Undone deal"

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