[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Sunday, 13 September 2020 05:21.
I don’t like to get into the 9-11 event and conspiracy theories surrounding it because it does not meet the first criteria for entertaining a conspiracy theory: Do You Need This?
And the answer is no, if you are looking for arguments that the backing of Israel creates major problems for The United States, particularly the wrath of Islam.
Nevertheless, Israeli foreknowledge of the 9-11 attacks is not as speculative as some theories, even while classic Israeli opportunism, the casuistry demonstrated by Netanyahu in its wake is meaningful enough: “This was good for Israel” - that is to say, it provided emotive material to get the American public behind Operation Clean Break to effect regime changes in the nations around Israel to make them Israel friendly. Even while attaching its first target of Operation Clean Break, Sadaam Hussein, to the 9-11 attacks was far fetched, with America’s mood stirred-up, Scooter Libby and Colin Powell made war with Iraq more palatable by serving up a desert of yellow cake, and they pushed through a war to finish off Saddam Hussein anyway.
While Osama Bin Laden and Saudi are evidently the main culprits in the 9-11 attacks, that doesn’t mean that Israel couldn’t have foreknowledge (indicating at least passive complicity) - Building 7 owner Larry Silverstein’s dealings prior to the event are interesting and there are several interesting concrete facts about “the dancing Israelis.”
Ryan Dawson claims that Whitney Webb basically relied on his research of the dancing Israelis. So, we’ll put this discussion of the event with Vincent James first…
And we’ll follow up with a Whitney Webb audio and article on the matter:
The Dancing Israelis: FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
As another 9/11 anniversary comes and goes, many questions surrounding the events remain unanswered. MintPress brings you a freshly updated article, originally published in May, 2019 that seeks answers to some of those questions.
by Whitney Webb
NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men — later revealed to be Israeli nationals — had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack. The story received coverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has since been largely forgotten.
The men — Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari — were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”
For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by a private citizen.
According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to the Jewish Daily Forward in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Israelis arrested “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” At least two of the men arrested were determined to have direct links to the Mossad after their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner, subsequently stated on Israeli TV that the five Israelis had been in New York at the time “to document the event,” meaning the attack on the World Trade Center.
Posted by DanielS on Friday, 21 December 2018 06:00.
Mattis resigns in disagreement with Trump, citing need to maintain unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships.
CNBC, “Defense Secretary James Mattis is quitting because he doesn’t agree with Trump”, 20 December 2018:
- Defense Secretary James Mattis will be stepping down at the end of February, telling President Donald Trump in a letter that he has “a right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours.”
- Mattis served as Trump’s secretary of defense since the start of the Trump administration.
- “General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations,” Trump says.
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary James Mattis will be stepping down at the end of February, telling President Donald Trump in a letter Thursday that he has “a right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours.”
In his extraordinary letter to Trump, Mattis said that a long-held “core belief” of his “is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships.”
Without maintaining those alliances, he wrote, “we cannot protect our interests or serve” the role of an “indispensable nation in the free world.”
The president has frequently lashed out at America’s allies in France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany, while at times appearing to side with U.S. adversaries over his own officials.
“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors,” Mattis said, “are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues.”
Mattis’ resignation letter, which a Pentagon spokeswoman said was hand-delivered to the president Thursday afternoon, comes on the heels of Trump’s controversial plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
That announcement on Wednesday will reportedly take more than 2,000 U.S. service members out of the country, ending the ground strategy against the Islamic State. Trump said in a tweet Wednesday morning that “we have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”
The move was met with heated criticism from a number of Trump’s usual allies in Congress. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Trump made the “correct” move, because the U.S. troops had no legal right to be in Syria.
On Thursday evening, defense officials told NBC News that the White House has ordered the Pentagon to look into plans for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, as well.
CNBC, “Read James Mattis’ resignation letter to Trump: ‘We must be resolute’ against Russia and China”, 20 Dec 2018:
In a letter addressed to Trump, Mattis said that “because you have a right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours” on a number of subjects, “I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”
In his letter, Mattis cited the importance of US alliances, particularly NATO, and said the US must stand ‘resolute and unambiguous’ in the face of authoritarian countries such as China and Russia.
Mattis’ resignation comes on the heels of Trump’s controversial plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
That announcement on Wednesday will reportedly take more than 2,000 U.S. servicemembers out of the country, ending the ground strategy against the Islamic State. Trump said in a tweet Wednesday morning that “we have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”
Neither the White House nor The Pentagon immediately responded to CNBC’s requests for comment on the president’s announcement.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 18 December 2018 06:00.
Occidental Dissent, “Yellow Vests Protest UN Migration Pact In Belgium”, 16 Dec 2018:
I’m starting to think The New York Times was engaging in some wishful thinking about the Yellow Vests movement losing steam. The action has shifted to Belgium:
Sotiri Dimpinoudis @sotiridi Dec 16
#Update: Already 1000 people gathered to protest in #Brussels against the #UN Migration Pact of #Marrakech! More Trains and Cars are expected to arrive in the #Belgian capital!
Céderic@Cederic_V
#Brussels #Belgium approximately 5.500 protesters march against #Marrakech without violence.
Riots broke out AFTERWARDS and should not be associated with the march.
3:04 PM - Dec 16, 2018
Oom Ashii@AshiiK11
Chaos in EU’s capital #Brussels.
Massive protests have erupted in Brussels against adoption of #UNMigrationCompact. Signing of this compact means Belgium has been sold to Globalists.
Protestors have been beaten and arrested.
more of the same
DECEMBER 17, 2018 AT 9:16 AM
UN Migration Pact: The Final Solution to The White Problem. I can’t imagine why there’s been so little MSM coverage about it. Yellow Vests are zeroing in on what really matters.
Sotiri Dimpinoudis@sotiridi
Replying to @sotiridi
#Breaking: Protestors are smashing every window of the European Commission building they can see in their path! To protest against the #UN Migration Pact of #Marrakech in #Belgium!
2:19 PM - Dec 16, 2018
#Update: Picture of the European Commission building in the European district “#Schumanplein” in #Brussels Surrounded by Tear-Gas cloud! To protest against the #UN Migration Pact of #Marrakech in #Belgium!
Sotiri Dimpinoudis
@sotiridi
Replying to @sotiridi
2:20 PM - Dec 16, 2018
Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.
Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.
When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.
Here’s how it works:
As long as the Muslim population remains around, or under, 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens.
This is the case in:
United States—Muslim 0.6%
Australia—Muslim 1.5%
Canada—Muslim 1.9%
China—Muslim 1.8%
Italy—Muslim 1.5%
Norway—Muslim 1.8%
At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.
This is happening in:
Denmark—Muslim 2%
Germany—Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom—Muslim 2.7%
Spain—Muslim 4%
Thailand—Muslim 4.6%
From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves—along with threats for failure to comply.
This is occurring in:
France—Muslim 8%
Philippines—5%
Sweden—Muslim 5%
Switzerland—Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands—Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago—Muslim 5.8%
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.
When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris, we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam, with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections in:
Guyana—Muslim 10%
India—Muslim 13.4%
Israel—Muslim 16%
Kenya—Muslim 10%
Russia—Muslim 15%
After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:
Ethiopia—Muslim 32.8%
At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:
Bosnia—Muslim 40%
Chad—Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon—Muslim 59.7%
From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:
Albania—Muslim 70%
Malaysia—Muslim 60.4%
Qatar—Muslim 77.5%
Sudan—Muslim 70%
After 80%, expect daily intimidation, violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 21 April 2018 12:40.
Scooter Libby with Paul Wolfowitz in 2008
- Observes Majorityrights correspondent, Kumiko.
It waves a giant red flag as to how much Trump is down with the Zionist agenda.
Who even needed 9-11 when you had Scooter Libby!
When you have insiders like that to manipulate the evidence to create false warrant on behalf of Zionist Operation Clean Break, you don’t need massive false flag events.
In fact, if you look at the PBS piece titled “A Secret History of ISIS”, they actually reveal the precise moment at which Israel injected itself into the decision-making process in the lead up to the Iraq War in 2003, and thus shaped the outcome to their advantage.
From 11min 40sec onward in that video, the transcript:
COLIN POWELL: The speech, supposedly, had been prepared in the White House and in the NSC. But when we were given what had been prepared, it was totally inadequate and we couldn’t track anything in it. And when I asked Condi Rice, the National Security Advisor, “Where did this come from?”, it turns out the Vice-President’s office had written it.
NARRATOR: Powell would turn to the CIA to vet the speech.
NADA BAKOS: We [the CIA] had a copy of the speech that was sent over from the White House that Powell was preparing, and one of our senior analysts was working on it, editing, working on the language to ensure that it reflected our analysis.
NARRATOR: Just days later, Powell arrived at the United Nations.
POWELL: Walking into that room is always a daunting experience, but I had been there before. And we had projectors and all sorts of technology to help us make the case.
KAREN DEYOUNG: Powell was very nervous. Powell doesn’t like to read speeches; he likes to have a few note cards and then do his Powell thing. But this one he read from the text, every word.
NARRATOR: At the Counterterrorism Centre, Bakos was watching carefully to see what Powell would say about Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.
BAKOS: We’re sitting in our room at CTC watching the television with a copy of the speech in our hand. When he got to our portion, it went off our script fairly quickly. And we were looking around at each other saying, “Where’s he at, where’s he at?” We’re flipping through pages. And so, you know, right away, we could tell that this wasn’t reflecting the language that we had used.
NARRATOR: Powell used Zarqawi to make the connection between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
BAKOS: It drew conclusions in language that we would not use. So we were very, very, very careful about describing the relationship as we saw it, and it seemed to overinflate and not reflect our analysis.
INTERVIEWER: How did that happen, Nada?
BAKOS: Within the process of how it went, you know, where it went back to the White House and who worked on it after that, I don’t know how it was changed, or by who.
If anyone should want to know what happened at that crucial point, and how, the place to look would be at the office of the Chief of the Staff to the Vice President of the United States, who at the time was Scooter Libby.
If you understand that Scooter Libby was to Dick Cheney as Dick Cheney was to George W. Bush, then suddenly you become capable of seeing how it could be possible for the changes that Bakos is referring to, to have been made in the Vice-President’s office by Scooter Libby and his network of very Zionist associates.
In summary
There is no need for any kind of 9/11 conspiracy theory to explain what happened in Iraq.
The explanation has been right in front of everyone’s face from day one. The office of the Chief of the Staff to the Vice President of the United States was compromised by Israel, and as such, all decision-making processes that flowed through there were subject to having Israeli policy preferences injected into them.
It is not the only node that was compromised, but it is the most pivotal and significant one in this situation. I hope that clears up all possible questions and that everyone can draw a line under that issue and call it a closed case now.
Now for the BBC article:
BBC, “Scooter Libby: Trump pardons Cheney aide who leaked”, 13 April 2018:
US President Donald Trump has pardoned former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, who was convicted of lying about leaks to the media.
Lewis Libby, known as Scooter, was found guilty in 2007 following an investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity.
The White House said Libby was “fully worthy of this pardon”.
“I don’t know Mr Libby,” said Mr Trump, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.
“Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”
What’s the background to the case?
Libby was found guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements following an investigation into a leak that revealed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
His trial heard that Bush administration officials wanted to get back at Ms Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Mr Wilson had written a 2003 New York Times op-ed accusing Mr Cheney of doctoring pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
Libby was charged with lying to investigators about his contacts with reporters, but he maintained he simply misremembered the sequence of events.
He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 (£175,000).
But his sentence was commuted by then-President George W Bush.
What’s the reaction?
In an interview on Friday with MSNBC, Ms Plame condemned Mr Trump’s decision to pardon Libby.
“My personal sense is that I didn’t think my contempt for Donald Trump could go lower, but he surprises me each and every day,” she said.
“It’s very clear that this is a message he is sending, that you can commit crimes against national security and you will be pardoned,” she added.
Ms Plame has previously said her career as a CIA agent was finished “in an instant” once her identity was leaked.
She told the BBC in 2007 that “treason” had been committed in pursuit of political retribution.
Mr Cheney told the New York Times Mr Libby is “one of the most capable, principled and honourable men I have ever known.
“He is innocent and he and his family have suffered for years because of his wrongful conviction. I am gratedful that President Trump righted this wrong…”
On Friday, Democrats charged Mr Trump with hypocrisy for pardoning a man who leaked to the media, despite the president’s condemnation of such disclosures in his White House.
Mr Trump’s decision came on the same day that he savaged former FBI Director James Comey as a “proven LEAKER & LIAR”.
Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff tweeted: “This is the President’s way of sending a message to those implicated in the Russia investigation: You have my back and I’ll have yours.”
What was Libby case’s political fallout?
Mr Cheney had pressured Mr Bush to pardon Libby in the final days of his presidency.
But Mr Cheney’s badgering reached the point where Mr Bush reportedly told his aides his vice-president was beginning to annoy him.
After consulting White House lawyers, Mr Bush decided it was best not to issue a pardon.
When he finally told Mr Cheney about his decision, Mr Cheney snapped at him, saying: “You are leaving a good man wounded on the field of battle.”
“The comment stung,” Mr Bush would write in his memoirs.
“In eight years, I had never seen Dick like this, or even close to this.
“I worried that the friendship we had built was about to be severely strained, at best.”
Key players in the 2007 CIA leak probe
What is a presidential pardon?
Libby’s pardon amounts to official forgiveness for his crime, but does not equate to exoneration or finding that he was innocent.
Presidential pardons can overturn consequences of a conviction such as being denied the right to carry out jury service, vote or run for political office.
Since the conviction, Libby has already had his law license reinstated.
And former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell restored his voting rights in 2013.
This is the third time Mr Trump has issued a pardon.
In August last year, he did so for former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt over his crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Last month he pardoned Kristian Saucier, a Navy sailor who took photos of classified areas inside a US submarine and served a year in federal prison.
Kumiko adds: Last night’s strike was not what they wanted.
John Bolton and some middle eastern leaders are laying the metapolitical backdrop for that - they wanted a broad and longer engagement. .
Instead, they got a limited strike because the US Defence Dept prevented anything bigger.
Posted by DanielS on Friday, 02 February 2018 10:03.
The Russia Investigations: Trump Reportedly Wanted To Fire Mueller; D.C. Dumbstruck. A journalist describes Robert Mueller, pictured in 2007 when he was FBI director, as “about as apolitical and nonpartisan a figure as you could find in Washington.” (photo credit Susan Walsh/AP).
NPR, “Mueller’s Reputation In Washington Is ‘Stunningly Bipartisan,’ Journalist Says”, 1 Feb 2018:
As the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election forges on, Robert Mueller, the Justice Department special counsel leading the investigation, has managed to stay largely out of public view.
Journalist Garrett Graff says that is in keeping with Mueller’s personality: “This is not someone who in any way has tried to grab the spotlight, but instead has kept his head down and worked hard throughout his career.”
Graff’s 2011 book, The Threat Matrix, explores the transformation of the FBI under Mueller’s leadership. Appointed by President George W. Bush, Mueller took over as director of the FBI one week before the Sept. 11 attacks. After Mueller completed his 10-year term as FBI director, President Barack Obama reappointed him for a two-year term, which required a special act of Congress.
“Bob Mueller is probably about as apolitical and nonpartisan a figure as you could find in Washington, particularly at the levels of government in which he has served,” Graff says. “This is someone who really, truly believes in truth, justice [and] in the American way, in a way that very few people in American life today anymore do.”
Interview Highlights
On Mueller’s bipartisan record
We know him most recently, obviously, as the FBI director, but his tenure in government really dates back to the Reagan years. And he’s been appointed or held top jobs in the administrations of all five of the last presidents, and was appointed to the Justice Department, the head of the criminal division, under George H.W. Bush’s administration, then was appointed a U.S. attorney by Bill Clinton, then appointed the acting deputy attorney general by George W. Bush, and then later FBI director — a position he was reappointed to, in an unprecedented move, by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote 100-0, a stunningly bipartisan track record in today’s times.
On Mueller’s military service
Part of what makes Bob Mueller such a fascinating character is he has dedicated his life sort of time and again to public service. ... Mueller and a handful of other colleagues ... [signed] up for Vietnam after college. This was early in the 1960s, so it was before Vietnam became the cultural touchpoint that it did later.
Second Lt. Marine Corps Bob Mueller ended up leading a platoon in the jungles of Vietnam for a year and really distinguished himself in combat. He received a Bronze Star with valor for his leadership in an ambush that his unit suffered in the fall of 1968, and then was actually shot himself in a separate incident in April 1969 where he received, of course, the Purple Heart and was quickly back on patrol, serving out the remainder of his year.
He came into the F.B.I. in part, in the summer of 2001 because he was known inside the department as a computer-guy. He had help found the Justice Department’s first real computer crime unit. And, the FBI in the summer of 2001 had this incredibly outdated computer system…
On how the FBI changed after the Sept. 11 attacks
Bob Mueller, in the days after Sept. 11, sees this incredible sea change in the mission of the FBI, which until then for most of its first 90 years had primarily been a law enforcement agency focused domestically on solving crimes after the fact. And on Sept. 11, we saw an international plot that focused on a suicide attack with catastrophic results, and that that necessitated this top-to-bottom change in the way that the United States approached counterterrorism issues, that after-the-fact investigation was going to be inadequate in the face of these threats.
So Mueller was given a mission by [former Attorney General] John Ashcroft and President Bush to not just investigate attacks afterwards, but to stop plots in the first place, to disrupt the attack before it happened.
It led to this massive reorganization that Bob Mueller spent the next 12 years of his tenure working on, to move the FBI from what was traditionally a domestic law enforcement agency into something that is more akin to an international intelligence agency.
On how Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign is similar to other FBI investigations
This is, in many ways, a perfectly standard and routine FBI investigation. The FBI, as an investigative agency, takes down corrupt organizations, that’s what it’s designed to do, go after street gangs, drug cartels, organized crime families, and the way that they do that is by starting on the outside and working their way in. And so that can either mean starting at the bottom of an organization, or starting with ancillary charges and working their way inwards, the equivalent of getting Al Capone for tax evasion.
Posted by DanielS on Thursday, 09 November 2017 06:44.
President Donald Trump and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman meet at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2017. Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
CNBC, “Trump may have pushed Saudi Arabia and Iran closer to war”, 7 Nov 2017:
- Saudi Arabia’s moves over the past few days are bringing it closer to direct war with Iran.
- But this process seems to have been kick started by the new Saudi crown prince’s meeting with President Trump in March.
- It’s crucial to keep this conflict contained to the Middle East.
Crucial news keeps flying out of Saudi Arabia at a frantic pace, but here’s the bottom line: The Saudis are marching ever closer towards a wider regional war. And the U.S. may have helped send them down that path.
Just to recap, in the last several days the new crown prince of Saudi Arabia has initiated a massive purge of dozens of his fellow princes, ministers, and others in the kingdom in what’s been labeled as an “anti-corruption” sweep. Most of the headlines so far are understandably focusing on the one celebrity arrested, Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire investor seen and heard frequently for years on financial news channels like CNBC.
But that was just the first wave of news from Riyadh. Since the crackdown began on Saturday, the Saudis have considerably ramped up their accusatory rhetoric towards their neighbors. First, the kingdom squarely blamed Iran for a missile attack on Riyadh from Yemen that was thwarted by the U.S.-made Patriot anti-missile system. The Saudis called that attack “direct military aggression by the Iranian regime and may be considered an act of war.”
Second, the Saudis accused Lebanon of — figuratively at least — declaring “war” against it because of aggression from Hezbollah. That statement spurred even Saudi ally and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to publicly urge for calm.
al-Sisi may be too late. Because the common denominator in all these Saudi moves is a more focused preparation for a wider and more direct war with Iran for control of the region. As I noted when he was first put in his top position by his father King Salman in June, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was already known as a hardcore hawk against Iran. Just a month before he was made crown prince, bin Salman declared that peace dialogue with Iran was impossible.
“More aggressive anti-Iranian hawks like bin Salman may have seen Donald Trump’s election as an excuse to win the day over more dovish princes and ministers. And the White House seemingly gave Saudi Arabia a green light.”
But the direct line to these more bellicose moves begins earlier than that and goes directly to the White House. While still deputy crown prince, bin Salman visited with President Trump in March of this year. During that meeting, they publicly declared Iran as the key regional security threat in the Middle East. That was step one.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 14 October 2017 06:00.
Ending the Iran deal has been the veritable raison d’être for the Trump Presidency. Trump refers to an “international community” whose opinion on the matter he will take under consideration. The “international community”, i.e., YKW and other right wingers.
Way to go Alt-Right! Along with Donald, you sure know how to make a deal.
Donald Trump: Given the regime’s murderous past and present, we should not take lightly its sinister vision for the future. As I have said many times, The Iran Deal was one of the worst and most one sided transactions The United States has ever entered into. The Iranian regime has committed multiple violations of the agreement, for example, on two separate occasions they have exceeded the limit of 130 metric tonnes of heavy water; until recently, the Iranian regime has also failed to meet our expectations in its operation of advanced centrifuges. The Iranian regime has also intimidated international inspectors into not using the full inspection authorities that the agreement calls for; Iranian officials and military leaders have repeatedly claimed they will not allow inspectors onto military sites even thought the international community suspects some of those sites were part of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program. Importantly, Iran is not living up to the spirit of the deal. So today, in recognition of the increasing menace posed by Iran and after extensive consultations with our allies, I am announcing a new strategy to address the full range of Iran’s destructive actions. First, we will work with our allies to counter the regime’s destabilizing activity and support for terrorist proxies in the region. Based on the factual record I have put forward, I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification.
What about Saudi, Donald? He cites Iran’s backing of terrorists; this, coming from a man who just a few months back lavished Saudi - Saudi - with a 110 billion dollar arms deal.
The Hill, “Trump makes his move on Iran nuke deal”, 13 Oct 2017:
President Trump declared Friday that the Iran nuclear deal is no longer in the national security interest of the United States, but stopped short of withdrawing from the Obama-era pact.
“I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said during a speech at the White House.
“We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout,” he continued.
The president said that Iran “has committed multiple violations of the agreement” and accused Tehran of “not living up to the spirit of the deal.”
Trump ticked off a list of problems with the deal and laid out a new, tougher strategy to confront “the rogue regime” over a series of other “hostile actions” unrelated to its nuclear program.
Scooter Libby with Paul Wolfowitz in 2008
President Donald Trump and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman meet at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2017. Kevin Lamarque | Reuters