A former mental health care specialist attempted to sue the Department of Homeless Security and his superiors at an Iowa sex offender treatment unit for religious discrimination and violating of his First Amendment rights.

A federal jury found on Wednesday that the Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders in Cherokee, Iowa did not fail to accommodate the religious beliefs of psychiatric security specialist Michael Mial, who claims to have been fired for signing his emails with the valediction "In Christ".

According to the Sioux City Journal, Mial was fired in April 2016, the same day his supervisors asked him to stop using the signature in internal emails, while also claiming that his Christian faith helped his patients.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201901181071603348-iowa-state-worker-loses-la...

 

 

Meanwhile, the holy war on a holy-aircraft-holy-carrier:

On aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, sailors will not only be welcome to attend run-of-the-mill religious ceremonies at the carrier's chapel, but also informal Heathen religious services known as a sumbel.

Heathenry is a modern Pagan religion with strong roots to Norse culture and mythology.

The latest development was recently revealed in a news release from the carrier, which introduced Aviation Electrician's Mate 2nd Class Joshua Wood as the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier's Heathen lay leader.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/military/201901051071233064-uss-carrier-heathen-...

“No war is over until the enemy says it’s over,” James Mattis, the former Marine Corps General and recently resigned secretary of state, is quoted as saying. “We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.” Mattis’s statement was made in 2012, well before President Donald Trump, in a surprise announcement on December 19, declared victory over the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, better known as ISIS. 

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” the president wrote. He later expanded on that sentiment in a video message, posted on Twitter. “Our boys, our young men and women, are coming home now,” Trump noted. “We won.” 

But a recent attack on U.S. forces in Syria, carried out by a suicide bomber which ISIS claimed was operating on its behalf, has led to an outpouring of criticism of Trump’s precipitous decision. “ISIS has claimed credit for killing American troops in Syria today,” Senator Marco Rubio tweeted in the aftermath of the attack. “If true, it is a tragic reminder that ISIS not been defeated and is transforming into a dangerous insurgency. This is no time to retreat from the fight against ISIS. Will only embolden & strengthen them.” 

While Mattis’s words were a cautionary warning about premature celebration, Rubio’s sentiments, along with those who share his point of view, miss the point of the ISIS attack altogether. The U.S. was on the verge of withdrawing from Syria, something Rubio and others believe would give ISIS a victory. Why, then, would ISIS attack American forces in such a high-profile manner, creating the condition for a reversal of Trump’s decision and keeping the U.S. military in Syria for the foreseeable future?

As far as military patrols go, the one carried out by forces assigned to the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (SOJTF-OIR) in the northern Syrian city of Manbij on January 16 was as routine as it gets. SOJTF-OIR was authorized under Section 1209 of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to provide assistance to the so-called “Vetted Syrian Opposition,” or VSO. A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) intelligence specialist, accompanied by a Department of Defense civilian translator, was tasked with meeting with local personnel from the Civil Administration of Manbij and the Manbij Internal Security Forces, ostensibly as part of the overall coordination being conducted with the VSO in preparation for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria announced by Trump last month. The intelligence specialist was accompanied by a small force of U.S. soldiers, tasked with providing force protection commensurate to the threat. 

The “threat” as it was, was two-fold. On the one hand you have the Turkish military and allied proxies on the outskirts of Manbij who are threatening to occupy Manbij in the wake of a U.S. withdrawal in order to expel Kurdish forces aligned with the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish political party Turkey accuses of being allied with the PKK, a Turkish-based Kurdish group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey. On the other, ISIS, an Islamic extremist group which had, until 2016, occupied Manbij. Although ISIS had been driven from Manbij by VSO forces, so-called “sleeper cells” remained. This threat was real—in March 2018 a U.S. Delta Force operator and British commando were killed in a roadside bomb attack carried out by ISIS. 

But ISIS apparently was not a major factor in the security plan put in place by the patrol. The planned meeting took place in a popular restaurant located on the main street of Manbij. The owner had fled Manbij when ISIS took over, returning after its liberation to open this particular establishment, which became the “go-to” location for visiting dignitaries (Senator Lindsey Graham claims to have eaten there when he visited Manbij), and was frequented by U.S. soldiers during their “coordination” efforts with the VSO. If an ISIS suicide bomber wanted to pick one location in Manbij where he or she could be certain Americans and high-value local officials would regularly congregate, it would be this restaurant.

This is precisely what happened this week. Alerted by the tell-tale presence of the unique M-ATV vehicles used by U.S. special forces, flying large American flags, the ISIS suicide bomber waited until the Americans had entered the popular restaurant and sat down with their VSO counterparts. The bomber walked to the entrance of the restaurant, detonated a suicide vest carrying explosives and, in the resulting explosion, killed the DIA intelligence specialist, his American interpreter, and two other U.S. soldiers, and wounded three other U.S. soldiers. Eleven locals died in the bombing as well, including at least five members of the Manbij Internal Security Force.

...

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of Dealbreaker: Donald Trump and the Unmaking of the Iran Nuclear Deal (2018) by Clarity Press.

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In order for ISIS to disappear in Syria, the US troops HAVE TO LEAVE... Go Home! US go home!

Following the Head of US Diplomacy, Mike Pompeo, his French partner ‎Jean-Yves Le Drian also made a visit to Bagdad. His visit coincided with the visit of King Abdallah II of Jordan. ‎

To everyone’s surprise, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that France – while in the throes of a financial crisis – will give to Iraq 1,000 million euro (1 150 millions US dollars). This will go to participating in Iraq’s reconstruction following the war against the Islamic Emirates ‎‎(Daesh). ‎

The fact is that France is hoping to secure permanent military bases in Iraq so it can continue interfering in Syria after US troops are pulled out. ‎

Translation 
Anoosha Boralessa

 

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https://www.voltairenet.org/article204754.html

 

 

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Iran is cornered

by Thierry Meyssan

The United States are preparing to organise the « Greater Middle East » without their troops. They will probably capitalise on the errors committed over the last five years by Iran in order to create a Judeo-Sunni military alliance, dubbed the « Arab NATO » by the Press, who will be sent to fight the Chiites.

While the Pentagon is withdrawing from the « Greater Middle East » to invest in the « Caribbean Basin », the White House is getting ready to reorganise its allies in the region. To this aim, a « Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East » will be held in Warsaw on the 14 and 15 February. All the allies of the USA will be participating, but not their partners : neither Russia, nor China.

On 10 January, during a conference at the American University of Cairo, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo set the aims of the Ministerial : 

- to oppose the « Iranian regime » and its representatives » ; 

- to set up a strategic Judeo-Sunni Alliance against Chiite Iran [1].

 

The Return of Elliott Abrams

We can only be saddened at the confessionalisation of US foreign policy. It must be connected with the return of Elliott Abrams [2] to the State Department after 30 years of absence. This Trotskyite, rallied in 1980 to Republican President Reagan, is one of the founders of the neoconservative movement. He is also one of the initiators of theopolitics, the school of thought which allies Zionist Jews and Christians, according to which the Earth will know peace only when it has a world government based in Jerusalem [3].

Contrary to a popular idea, the neoconservatives are not the enemies of Iran, and not the friends either. They have always considered that it was necessary to maintain a balance between Arabs and Persians. This was why Elliott Abrams participated in the « Iran-Contras operation », which notably consisted of selling Israëli weapons via Cheik Hassan Rohani (currently the Iranian President) to Ayatollah Hachemi Rafsandjani (who consequently became the richest man in his country) in order to resist the Iraqi attack (which was also commanded by Washington). This operation was carried out without the knowledge of Congress, then condemned, and later amnestied by President Bush Sr.

During this period, Abrams was implicated in several massacres, in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

The Trotskyites from the magazine of the American Jewish Committee, Commentary, who rallied, like him, to Reagan, intended both to combat the USSR in order to pursue Leon Trotsky’s struggle against Joseph Stalin, and at the same time to realise a world-wide coup d’état, if this idea even has any meaning. Elliott Abrams thus participated in the creation of the US Institute of Peace (which used the humanitarian platform to promote imperialism) and the National Endowment for Democracy (which orchestrated the colour revolutions) of which he is still one of the directors. This is how we should understand theopolitics, as a religious justification of a world-wide power grab.

The founding Congress of theopolitics was financed by the Izmaïlovskaya, a Russian criminal organisation of which, according to the Spanish Judiciary, Michael Cherney, Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov were members at the time [4].

Under the presidency of Bush Jr., Abrams discreetly returned to the White House with Liz Cheney (the daughter of Vice-President Cheney). At the National Security Council, he supervised the coup d’état against the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez [5]. Acting a little late, he opposed the imbalance created by Washington which, by eliminating both the Taliban and President Saddam Hussein, enabled Teheran to impose itself regionally. He worked for the « Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group », and was then tasked with the « (Global Democracy Strategy » [6]. He was the main expert for National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice during the Israëli war against Lebanon in 2006.

The Warsaw Conference

The « Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East » will probably be co-presided by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and by the Vice-President of the Polish government, Beata Szydło, who has no competence in the matter.

Already, considering that the states implicated in the war against Syria will be awarded a privileged status, Israël is claiming responsibility for a number of anti-Syrian operations which it had so far refused to mention. Army Chief of Staff General Gadi Eisenkot has declared that the Hebrew state supported the jihadists from the beginning of the events, supplied them with a quantity of weapons, and had supported them militarily by bombing Syrian forces. All sorts of things that we have been revealing for the last eight years, and which are now official.

Worried about the outcome of the Warsaw meeting, Moscow has sent a high-level delegation to Tel-Aviv in order to probe Israëli public opinion.

The Iranian errors

It is important to keep in mind the fact that the United States has never fought Iran in general, but has always chosen its governors. Thus, in 1941, the US helped the British to overthrow Reza Shah in order to install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It was the US who, in 1953, forced the Shah to separate from nationalist Mohammad Mossadegh in order to impose Nazi General Fazlollah Zahedi. It was the US who, in 1979, forced the Shah to retire, and organised the return of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini. Etc.

Contemporary Iran is imprisoned in its own contradictions, first of all the discrepancies between its public declarations and reality. The Islamic Republic unceasingly presents Israël and Saudi Arabia as its absolute enemies. However, the facts contradict the rhetoric from Teheran as much as that from Tel-Aviv and Riyadh. For example, the three countries fought together, in 1992-1995, alongside NATO and the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Or again, the company EAPC, which currently manages the Eliat-Ashkelon pipe-line, is the joint property of Iran and Israël [7].

Secondly, even though they stand together against foreigners, the governors of Iran are extremely divided between the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khameney), the President of the Republic (Cheikh Hassan Rohani), and the chief of the opposition (ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been under house arrest for a year, and whose main collaborators were imprisoned after a series of secret trials [8].

At the end of Ahmadinejad’s second mandate, President Barack Obama attended secret negotiations in Oman with the Rafsandjani-Rohani team. The principle for the nuclear agreement was then approved. Ayatollah Khamenei side-lined the candidature of Ahmadinejad for the Presidential election by using Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, and favoured the election of Cheikh Rohani, probably ignoring certain aspects of the agreement he had concluded with Obama. Cheikh Rohani was betting on his secret agreement with the US Democrats. He anticipated the cancellation of US sanctions, and promised a better life for his electors. Once he was elected, he dismantled the system that had enabled Iran to avoid the sanctions, then pretended to negotiate in Switzerland with the major powers the agreement which already been recorded with the USA alone. However, the signature of the 5+1 agreement was not followed by the lifting of sanctions. Since the Iranian economy could no longer avoid them, it collapsed. When Donald Trump entered the White House, he scrapped the agreement with Iran, plunging the Rohani team into panic. Rohani had committed the error of believing that the President would quickly be removed and that the Democrats would shortly be back in power. Iran rejected Donald Trump’s offer of negotiation and is today economically strangled.

Cheikh Hassan Rohani, who campaigned in 2013 by repeating ceaselessly that his country should no longer spend one rial to liberate Palestine and support Hezbollah and Syria, has undertaken nothing with his allies since his election. Progressively, the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution have stopped defending Syria and have only offered their support to Damascus in order to come to the help of the Chiite minority. For almost two years, Teheran has sent no ambassador to Damascus. It was only in 2018 that Iran sent senior civil servants of its government to Syria. They signed economic agreements which had been drawn up five years ago and which no longer correspond to the needs of the Syrian people.

Seeking to convince Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to withdraw the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution from Syria, President Cheikh Hassan Rohani reached out to Turkey (with whom his friends maintained excellent relations) and to Russia. And yet Cheikh Rohani had already negotiated with the United States and Austria for the delivery of Iranian oil instead of Russian hydrocarbons to the Europeans. In any case, the three countries have effectively expressed their points of view. However, the last meeting in Teheran with Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was a failure. It was immediately followed by a meeting between Russia and Turkey where their differences were settled without the Iranians.

Simultaneously, the economic and financial collapse of Iran does not allow the Supreme Leader to support Iran’s militia in Iraq and Hezbollah, which is no longer able to pay wages to its combatants. Only 60 % of their salaries were paid in January.

For several months, Israël has been bombing Iranian targets in Syria without the protection of the Russian defence. Over the last few weeks, Moscow has offered Damascus S-300 missiles which will enable Syria to handle its own anti-air defence. However, the Israëli bombing of the Iranians has continued. At the end of January, according to the Turkish Press agency Anadolu, two units of the Syrian Army were fighting one another. The first was supervised by Russian officers, the second by Iranians.

The Warsaw conference arrives at a time when US Democrats have regained the majority in the House of Representatives, but nonetheless, they will not save Cheikh Rohani. It is probable that his country will pay a hard price for its political incoherence.

 

Thierry Meyssan

Translation 

Pete Kimberley

 

 

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As President Trump flew home from his Hanoi summit with Kim Jong Un, Mike Pompeo peeled off and flew to Manila. And there the Secretary of State made a startling declaration.

Any armed attack by China on a Philippine ship or plane in the South China Sea, he told the Philippine government, will be treated as an attack on an American ship or plane, bringing a U.S. military response.

“China’s island building and military activities in the South China Sea threaten your sovereignty, security and, therefore, economic livelihood, as well as that of the United States,” said Pompeo. “As the South China Sea is part of the Pacific, any armed attack on Philippine forces, aircraft or public vessels in the South China Sea will trigger mutual defense obligations under article 4 of our mutual defense treaty.”

Article 4 requires the U.S. and the Philippines to come to the defense of the other if one is attacked. The treaty dates back to August 1951. There are Americans on Social Security who were not born when this Cold War treaty was signed.

Pompeo’s declaration amounts to a U.S. war guarantee.

Why would we make such a commitment? Why take such a risk?

Is Trump aware of what Pompeo’s promise could entail?

For years, Beijing has claimed as national territory virtually the entire South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and the Philippines all reject China’s claims to the Paracel and Spratly Islands within that sea. But Beijing has occupied and expanded half a dozen islets; landed planes and troops; and fortified them as military and naval bases.

Beijing is not going to give them up, and Manila is too weak to take them back. A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies says a Philippine attempt to build on a disputed islet in the Spratly chain brought a flotilla of nearly 100 Chinese ships to halt Philippine construction.

Why did Pompeo issue this war guarantee?

Because Duterte and members of his Cabinet are unsure the U.S. would come to the defense of the Philippines in such a clash, and they believe their best course may be to appease Beijing, the rising power in Asia and the western Pacific.

Since the end of the Cold War, when Manila ordered us to vacate the Subic Bay Naval Base—only to invite us back when Manila grew nervous about her neighbors—and we were forced to abandon the Clark Air Base, the U.S. has not faced the fundamental question here.

Do we have a vital interest, justifying a war with China, in defending Manila’s claim to the Spratly Islands that China also claims, holds and defends as sovereign territory?

If so, how do we plan to get the Chinese off these islands, short of a naval and air war that could escalate? Is the Philippines capable of holding these islands if we help to retake them? Or would Manila rely on U.S. naval and air power in perpetuity to keep them?

Could America sustain such a commitment? More important, why should we? Has the White House thought through the implications of what the Pompeo threat may bring?

If the Chinese politely inform President Duterte that any attempt to take a Chinese-claimed island by force will be met by superior force, what do we do? Tell Duterte it is still his call, even if it means our war?

Is it wise for a great power to cede to a weak ally the ability to drag it into a great war? Ask the late Kaiser Wilhelm II.

When a Chinese fighter crashed into a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea in 2001, then-President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell apologized for the death of the Chinese pilot—to retrieve the crew China had interned on Hainan Island.

We were unprepared to confront China over an act of aggression over international waters. Yet we are now prepared to fight China over who owns and occupies Mischief Reef or Scarborough Shoal?

In Monday’s Wall Street Journal article “The U.S. Is Ceding the Pacific to China,” writer Mark Helprin says America must “alter the correlation of military forces in the Western Pacific … so that it no longer moves rapidly and inevitably in China’s favor.”

He urges a massive buildup of U.S. ships, planes, missiles, troops and Marines all across the Asia-Pacific theater. And if we do not?

“Frankly, if we do not, the Pacific Coast of the United States will eventually look out upon a Chinese lake,” says Helprin.

Today, the U.S., $22 trillion in debt, has treaty commitments dating to the early Cold War to defend Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia, all thousands of miles of ocean away from the USA.

If Trump cannot cut back these war guarantees, who will?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.

 

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https://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/mike-pompeo-threatens-c...

 

 

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http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/10937

 

kissing himself... mark II

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused the US of waging an “electricity war” against the country, as Caracas and other cities were plunged into darkness Thursday night. The government says the incident is likely sabotage.

Early on Friday, supply of electricity had been restored to “some parts” of Caracas, Venezuela’s Telesur broadcaster reported.

Thousands of commuters in Caracas had to walk home on Thursday as a power outage shut down the capital’s subway, resulting in massive traffic jams.The lights also went out in the largest airport of Caracas.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/453310-venezuela-outage-sabotage-us/

Military intervention can not overthrow the Venezuelan government

by  Valentin Vasilescu

While several Latin American states and US Special Forces seem to be preparing to attack Venezuela, Valentin Vasilescu examines the balance of power and topography. According to him, no form of invasion can defeat this vast country defended by a jungle, much larger than in Vietnam. Any intervention can only aim to destabilize the country, not to overthrow its government.

Scenario of the South American War

The foreign invasion of Venezuela is only possible by Brazil, Colombia and Guyana, three neighboring states of Venezuela. Theoretically, there are at least three axes of invasion.

Colombia has Kfir, A-37 and A-29 Tucano aircrafts that have no chance against the Buk-M2, S-125, S-300 and Venezuelan F-16 and Su-30 aircrafts. The same is true for Brazilian planes in the face of medium and long range air defense and against Venezuelan aviation.

Because of their low ceiling, the Tucano A-29 turboprop aircrafts are constantly evolving within the reach of the 5,000 Venezuelan portable anti-aircraft missiles SA-24 (Igla-S).

The F-5, A-4, AMX-1A, Kfir and A-37 do not have precision guided weapons and attack at altitudes of 2,000 to 3,000 meters, making them vulnerable to the same SA-24 missiles. portable (Igla- S).

A land invasion from Guyana is unlikely. This small country has neither the abilities nor the physical capacity: there is no road through the river and the delta of the Orinoco, nor the possibility of moving tanks through the jungle. Brazil is the least likely to succeed.

Because before coming into contact with the main Venezuelan forces, the Brazilian army must also travel 500 km in the jungle.

Then, the Orinoco River is a very difficult obstacle for Brazilians who do not have mobile bridges or other engineering equipments.

In regarding, the air defense of land forces, Brazil and Colombia have only portable missiles for a ceiling of 5,000 m, while the Venezuelan Su-30 launch laser-guided bombs KAB-500 and KAB-1500 or Kh-29 missiles with an altitude of 10,000 m

The most likely axis for the offensive is Colombia. However, the relief does not favor the Colombian offensive, the direction of the offensive stopping at Lake Maracaibo. It must be bypassed to the east in following a corridor from 15 to 20 km, easily defended by the Venezuelan army.

The best option would be to open a bypass with the Colombian air base equivalent to a brigade, and to parachute to the South-East by the Andean Cordillera. But this option is also impossible because Colombia has 5 C-130s and 8 C-295s, with which only 2 or 3 infantry companies can be parachuted.

Colombia also has a much lower combat force than Venezuela because it relies on infantry with light armor; in addition, it does not have tanks, its artillery is scattered and towed by trucks. In comparison, Venezuela has 2S19 Msta self-propelled artillery tanks, BM-30 Smerch tanks, BM-21 Grad, LAR and T-72.

A Brazilian maritime expedition of the 1st Marine Infantry Brigade aboard helicopter carriers and landing ships may complicate the situation of the defenders of Venezuela. Venezuela can attack the group of landing ships on 100 to 200 km of coast with Kh-31A1 and Kh-59ME anti-ship missiles launched by Su-30s.

The scenario of an US invasion

Only a US military invasion can overthrow Nicolas Maduro, as was the case in Iraq and Libya. But in the meantime, Russia has changed its foreign policy and has demonstrated in Syria that it is able to defend its allies. Due to the high economic interest in Venezuela, Russia and China, even if they will not send troops, will provide them with high-level and wide-ranging types of weapons to prevent a US invasion.

The United States is the largest naval power in the world and has two naval infantry corps. This is why the main offensive axis could be opened by a US landing. The sinking of 1 to 2 aircraft carriers and several US amphibious landing ships means the impossibility of obtaining air supremacy and reduced chances of creating a naval infantry beachhead on the Venezuelan coast.

This goal is easily achieved with the 1,000 mile [reach of] Zircon hypersonic missile and the 1,400 km Kalibr 3M-54 cruise missile. If Venezuela had these missiles, it could hit the US group of expeditionary ships south of the Bahamas, 500 km from Miami. However, I do not think Russia would deliver Zircon and Kalibr missiles to Venezuelans. It could, however, offer Bastion systems and air-to-air missiles Kh-59MK2, with a range of 550 km, usable on Su-30 aircraft.

A Bastion-equipped Russian missile-borne missile battery uses four P-800 Oniks mobile missile launchers. The missile has a mass of 3 tons, a wingspan of 1.7 m and a powerful warhead of 250 kg. The propulsion is carried out by a ramjet cruise engine (supersonic ramjet), similar to that of the Zircon missile. The range of the P-800 missile is 350 to 600 km, its speed is Mach 2.5 (700 m/s). On the trajectory, at the cruising ceiling of 14,000 m, the missile is guided by satellite. Near the target, the P-800 attaches to the target, descends to a height of up to 10 m and performs change of direction maneuvers.

In this situation, Venezuela would be able to cope with the US Expeditionary Force group located south of the islands of Haiti and Puerto Rico. The likely accuracy gap of the Oniks P-800 missile is 1.5 m, which means that the target is 100% hit in the case of an aircraft carrier, a helicopter carrier, a cruiser or destroyer, all longer than 100 m.

The only possibility is a coordinated bombing of NATO (USA, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom) and Latin American States (Brazil, Colombia, Guyana) on targeted targets. In this case, it would not be an invasion, but the destruction of some Venezuelan structures.

Valentin Vasilescu

Translation 
Jean-Louis Scarsi

 

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This is why the USA is encouraging traitors and sabotage from within Venezuela.

After weeks of insinuating that Nicolas Maduro’s ouster was imminent, Washington now insists that there’s “no timeline” for regime change in Venezuela. RT looks at how the US’ best laid plans haven’t panned out.

When Vice President Mike Pence released a video statement in January pledging full US support for Juan Guaido’s claim to the Venezuelan presidency, many assumed that an operation to install the opposition leader in Caracas was just around the corner. But more than a month later, and with Maduro still firmly in power, Washington seems to be out of ideas: Not only has the US failed to deliver its “humanitarian aid” to Venezuela, but Washington’s allies have unanimously ruled out military action.

 

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https://www.rt.com/news/453398-guaido-maduro-us-no-timetable/

 

This is another Mafia tactic, now used by the Trump administration. After pressure, one lets go. But it's only temporary relief. The target thus does not know when, where and what is coming next. One Maduro could become "paranoid"...

 

The USA has done sanctions — reinforced with more severe sanctions — has possibly tried to kill Maduro with explosive drones on his inauguration day, has tried the Trojan Horse of "charitable delivery", has promoted a little twerp to the rank of  "President", has used the Western media to denigrate Maduro and promote the little twerp, has possibly helped sabotage electricity supplies; the USA has manipulated the Venezuelan oil markets, has tried to steal Venezuelan oil fields, has frozen Venezuelan assets around the world — all of which, including the demand for Maduro's resignation, are TOTALLY ILLEGAL IN INTERNATIONAL LAW. It is also likely that President Chavez was also the victim of a US (slow) assassination.

 

So, can Maduro relax?  Without being totally paranoid, he has to be more than careful. The US is "pulling back" to pounce without warning. 

 

 

 

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why venezuela has not been attacked, yet...

a game changer...

 

and

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/12038

NYT: Video contradicts Trump admin claim that Maduro burned aid to Venezuela

BY BRETT SAMUELS - 03/10/19 03:59 PM EDT

An opposition protester in Venezuela appears to have been responsible for setting a convoy of humanitarian aid on fire, despite members of the Trump administration blaming members of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's administration, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The news outlet obtained previously unpublished footage that appeared to show a reconstruction of the incident from last month. Video suggests an anti-government protester threw a Molotov cocktail that "accidentally" ignited the truck carrying aid.

The footage shows the homemade bomb being thrown toward police, who were blocking a bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela, the Times reported. But video obtained by the Times reportedly shows a rag used in the weapon separating from the bottle, and flying toward the truck.

The same protester can be seen throwing a Molotov cocktail at another truck 20 minutes earlier, the Times reported.

Vice President Pence tweeted at the time that Maduro danced as his "henchmen murdered civilians & burned food & medicine heading to Venezuelans."

 

Read more:

https://thehill.com/policy/international/433413-nyt-video-contradicts-tr...

Meanwhile:

 

Story Transcript

SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.

A favorite talking point of those who support the Trump administration’s policies towards Venezuela is that 50 countries have recognized the opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela, and this includes countries like Canada and Europe. So people are very confused. When it is pointed out that 50 out of the 195 countries is only about 1/4 of the world’s countries, and less than 20 percent of the world’s population, the Trump administration argues that these are the world’s main democracies that support Guaido.

Part of the reason for assembling this coalition of countries that are willing to recognize the parallel government in Venezuela is to provide legitimacy to the Trump administration’s effort to oust Nicolas Maduro, the elected president of Venezuela. In some ways, this is similar to the coalition of the willing that President George W. Bush assembled to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq. But who is this anti-Maduro coalition of the willing? And why are they supporting Trump?

Well, to discuss all of this with me today I’m joined by Mark Weisbrot. And he’s joining us from Washington, DC, where he is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Thanks for joining us, Mark.

MARK WEISBROT: Thanks for inviting me, Sharmini.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Mark, let’s start off with Trump’s main allies in this effort in Venezuela; particularly the Latin American allies, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, among others. But most of these governments have their own issues of legitimacy, particularly Brazil. Tell us about some of them, and why are they allied with Trump, Bolton, Pompeo, Pence, and group?

MARK WEISBROT: Yes. Well, first I want to emphasize that even if these were the most wonderful governments in the world, there’s no legitimacy to the effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government. And that’s because, first of all, the sanctions that they’re using are illegal. They’re illegal under the Charter of the Organization of American States. They’re illegal under the Charter of the United Nations. And they are illegal under various conventions that these countries, and the United States in particular, have signed. So it wouldn’t be legitimate even if they had only the best countries, and even if they had a majority of countries. It’s just, it’s just illegal. And of course it’s immoral, because they’re using collective punishment against the population of Venezuela by depriving them of medicine and food and other essential goods.

But they still–they use this anyway. So it is kind of worth looking at the coalition. And as you said, why–you know, who is it, and why? So obviously you have some countries that have their own problems of legitimacy. The government of Brazil, which is headed by Jair Bolsonaro, he came to power in an election that was of questionable legitimacy because they excluded the most popular politician in Brazil, Lula da Silva, the former president. And they put him in jail so he couldn’t run. They also made a separate court decision that he couldn’t run from jail. But he was jailed and convicted without any real material evidence against him. It was all based on one plea bargain–the whole case was based on one plea bargain witness who was convicted of corruption. And his plea bargaining was cut off until he changed his story and supported the investigating, prosecuting judge’s view, what he wanted.

So that was very questionable. Then they prevented Lula from speaking to the media. And of course, they wouldn’t have even gotten rid of the Workers Party, Lula’s party, and had this opportunity if they hadn’t impeached Dilma Rousseff, the president from the Workers Party, in 2015 and ’16. They proceeded against her with an impeachment that didn’t actually have a real crime.

So all this was really unconstitutional, illegal. And that’s how Jair Bolsonaro, who’s most famous for his horrible remarks, you know, telling a fellow member of Congress, a woman, that he wouldn’t rape her because she didn’t merit it, and saying all these terrible racist and homophobic things, and glorifying violence. He once said that the Brazilian dictatorship should have killed 30,000 people instead of 3,000. And so this is the kind of president you have.

And so you have an ideological affinity with Trump. And you have also this question of legitimacy. Now, some of the other governments have both this ideological affinity with the U.S., and also owe them a lot. So you have the government of Colombia, and that’s a right-wing government headed by Ivan Duque. And he was picked by Alvaro Uribe, who was the previous president, and kind of the kingmaker. And he has been tied for a long time to death squads, and by our own intelligence agencies and diplomats he’s been tied to the major drug cartels. And in fact, he stepped down last year in the midst of–from the Senate in a criminal investigation. And he’s very–and they’ve both been very close to the U.S. In fact, last year, Colombia announced that it was going to join NATO, which is a very strange thing, since it’s the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It’s also something that’s very ominous for Latin America, because it would possibly commit them to joining the United States in any military intervention. And so this is the kind of government you have there. It’s not really a surprise.

SHARMINI PERIES: Let’s just rest with that for a moment, there. I understand that Colombia has been in some pseudocapacity admitted as a part of NATO. And this was, I remember when it broke in the news, this was really unusual. This is the first Latin American country that might become a part of NATO. And according to the NATO convention, any country potentially attacked by any other country that is not a member of NATO, all the NATO countries bond around them, or is bound to by the NATO convention. Now, this would mean if there’s any confrontation between Colombia and Venezuela, all of NATO countries would come to their aid. This is a significant shift in Latin America.

MARK WEISBROT: Well. that’s right. And that’s what we’re kind of going through here, is where do these countries come from? It’s all a big shift. And the U.S. was involved in some of the shift. So for example, in Honduras you have a president who literally stole his his last election in 2017. And this there was no doubt, even Luis Almagro, the head of the OAS, called for a new election, didn’t accept the results. And this was ignored because the Trump administration supported it. But this was something where they stopped the vote count, and the opposition was ahead, and it was almost impossible for them to–for the government to win. And then everything was reversed. And so nobody believes that. And they came to power in a coup that was aided and legitimized by the United States. Hillary Clinton wrote about that in her memoirs.

So you have Honduras. You have Argentina which just got a $50 billion–another right-wing government just got a $50 billion loan from the United States; the largest IMF loan ever. And they upped it to $56 billion after the economy didn’t do very well, as it was forecast by the IMF. So these are all governments that are either close to the U.S. ideologically, they’re right wing, and they’re getting money, in many cases. Ecuador is another one. This is always, often touted because the president Lenin Moreno came from the same party as the prior left president, Rafael Correa. But he quickly moved to the right, and now he’s got $10 billion of money, which is enormous. That’s equivalent of $2 trillion in the U.S., relative to their GDP. And the $4.2 billion of it is from the IMF, and the rest is from other international multilateral lending institutions.

And so you have this combination of U.S. influence and ideological affinity, in some cases like Honduras. And Brazil, by the way. The U.S. supported that coup against Dilma. It actually helped get rid of the prior left governments. If you had the Latin America of just a few years ago, you wouldn’t have any support for this at all. And in fact, we saw that in 2013, when Maduro was elected the first time, and there was absolutely no doubt about the election. And the whole world recognized it except for the United States and the secretary general of the OAS at that time, Jose Miguel Insulza. And then the right wing government of Spain. And then those two peeled off because there was a lot of pressure from South America to recognize the legitimately elected government.

So what the United States has done is managed to transform Latin America in the 21st century. They didn’t do that all by themselves, but they helped wherever they could. They’ve got all these right wing and loyal governments, governments that are very loyal to them, that are part of this coalition of the willing.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Mark, let’s shift a little bit here to the European countries. You mentioned Spain, there. But other major European countries have come out and supported the recognition of Juan Guido, and that includes Germany, and France, and UK. I mean, these are big countries. And usually Europe is a bit more cautious about jumping on the bandwagon with the U.S., particularly with the Trump administration that they have a lot of question marks about, in terms of the way Trump has been trashing the European Union; often publicly. Now, why is this coalition of European countries willing to play ball with Trump on Venezuela?

MARK WEISBROT: Well, they generally defer to the United States on Latin America, and they often–some of them, like Germany, will tend to follow Spain’s lead. And so there you do see some pressure, because they did twist the arm of Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister. And that was reported in the press. His foreign minister told El Pais that there was enormous pressure on them to support Trump on this.

And so I think they generally–they don’t have an independent foreign policy most of the time, you know, from the United States, Europe in the whole post-World War II period, but on Latin America especially they tend to go along with the U.S. And so this is a case when they’re doing it. Again, the arm twisting helped in the case of Spain, and that probably brought along some other countries. And Spain is facing an election at the end of April. Things could change after that, because they get a lot of pressure from the media there. It’s similar to the media in Latin America. Very pro-regime change in Venezuela. And so they’re doing it partly under electoral pressure.

But Europe is, you know, it’s problematic. A lot of people see Europe as more progressive than the U.S. And of course it is in terms of healthcare, and education, and internally. But on foreign policy, the general rule–and there are exceptions–but the general rule is they go with the U.S. And a lot of that is because they’re rich countries, and they control the major institutions of global governance. The IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization. And they write the rules of the global economy, and they don’t have even the biggest countries, biggest economies in the world. Like, China as the biggest economy the world. It has no voice in the, you know, the deliberations of Europe and the United States and the G7.

And so that’s how they see the world; their leaders, not necessarily the people. And so it’s not really that surprising, although this is kind of an extreme move. I mean, recognizing Guaido, this is outside the bounds of any kind of diplomatic protocol. You don’t get to choose the president of another country, normally. And it also, as I’ve said before, and a lot of people don’t know this, the recognition of Guaido automatically imposed a trade embargo on Venezuela, because the government can–which is exporting, getting all the foreign exchange of the country and everything you need for food and medicine, comes from the oil sales. The government can’t sell that oil in about three quarters of its markets once the Guaido government is recognized by these countries as the legitimate recipient of any oil sales for the government. So that’s why, you know, things are going to get drastically worse, even worse, very soon there.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, a place where the Europeans are departing from the U.S. when it comes to this kind of sanctions, and so on, is Iran, where they are upholding the nuclear agreement, and they have also found pathways to have economic activity by establishing a sort of a currency exchange process independent of the U.S. and independent of some of the international banks. Now, if the European Union really wanted to, and they want to put their effort into this and play a mediating role, they have ways in which they can engage with Venezuela and its economy. But there’s not a political will to do so.

MARK WEISBROT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, first of all, even on Iran, I think their response has been very weak. They don’t like the U.S. pulling out of the agreement. But they haven’t done very much. The Iranian economy is getting hit very hard by the sanctions, and the European Union has done very little to try and go around them. And this is a problem. You know, this is a real problem for the world. The United States–there’s a dollar-based financial system in the world that is the major part of the world financial system, and the U.S. is able to do this. But the Europeans could push back so much more against it, and they don’t.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Mark, we’ll leave it there for now. As always, I thank you so much for joining us, and we’ll keep this conversation going about Venezuela, because there’s so much that you’re doing, and we’d like to benefit from that.

MARK WEISBROT: Thank you.

SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us here on The Real News Network.

 

See more:

https://therealnews.com/stories/trumps-coalition-of-the-willing-against-venezuela-has-legitimacy-issues-of-their-own

 

The outrage of burning a truck with ‘humanitarian aid’ for Venezuela galvanized western opposition to President Nicolas Maduro. However, now that mainstream media admit they were ‘misled’ on this, don’t expect any change of heart.

For the Venezuelan opposition and its backers in Washington, the needless torching of an aid truck bound for crisis-stricken Venezuela last month was a made-for-TV moment. How could a heartless dictator willingly destroy aid for his needy people? And when can we do something about it?

As the truck burned on a bridge spanning the Venezuelan/Colombian border, US Vice President Mike Pence said that “the tyrant” Maduro “danced as his henchmen...burned food & medicine.” National Security Advisor and regime change enthusiast John Bolton accused Maduro of sending “masked thugs” to torch the aid crates, while USAID Administrator Mark Green stated with confidence that the Venezuelan leader “ordered the firing on and burning” of the trucks.

Despite the fact that video footage, circulated within a day of the incident, appeared to show an opposition protester tossing a molotov cocktail at the truck, much of the mainstream media was content to go along with the official line. Column inches were given to ‘witnesses’ who saw Maduro’s troops set the convoy ablaze and, in CNN’s case, its reporters claimed to have personally seen Venezuelan riot police fire “incendiary devices” at the trucks.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/453485-venezuela-aid-truck-fire-lie/

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a pressing briefing on Monday that it's Cuba and Russia that are undermining democracy in Venezuela, not the US or other nations that have recognized the un-elected, self-declared Juan Guaido as the leader in Caracas instead of sitting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Pompeo claimed in the briefing that "Cuba is the true imperialist power" in the South American country, and that the island nation has been training Venezuelan secret police in torture tactics, among other disciplines. Furthermore, Cuban security forces have been displacing Venezuelan security forces, the US official alleged.

"I even hear that Maduro has no Venezuelans around him," Pompeo said, suggesting that the president's advisers are under the direction of the Cuban government. He also blamed Venezuela's economic woes on the tiny island nation. "When there's no electricity, thank the modern marvels of Cuban electricity… when there's no food, thank the Cuban communist overlords."

Cuba has also been subject to devastating sanctions and economic isolation by the US for decades. 

The California native later blamed the Venezuelan crisis on Russia as well, saying that Moscow "for its own reasons, distorted the Venezuelan people's legitimate hopes" of democracy. Moscow continues to recognize the elected president of Venezuela, not Guaido.  

According to Pompeo, the Russian government is using both RT and Sputnik as a means to distract others from the crisis at hand, and that the, "Kremlin is standing with its Venezuelan cronies" in a bid to undermine the will of the Venezuelan people. The US official went on to say that Russia continuing to purchase oil from Venezuela and trade gold with the state is similar to acting as a "personal ATM" for oligarchs, and that Moscow is providing "aid and comfort" to Maduro's government.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201903121073138450-cuba-russia-undermining-de...

 

 

Read from top.

 

Pompeo will invent any crap to suit the US government's rubbish...

As if the United States wasn’t already pursuing enough murky and dubious military missions in such places as Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, a push appears to be underway to expand Washington’s involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

U.S. troops are more deeply engaged in “anti-terror” in Niger, Somalia, and other countries than most Americans realize. When four American Special Forces personnel died in Niger in 2017, even members of Congress were surprised.

A lobbying effort now seems to be taking place for U.S. intervention to alleviate suffering in the Central African Republic (CAR), because of that country’s ongoing civil war. NBC News took the lead with a story on the March 6 Today show and followed it up with a more detailed segment on the Nightly News that same evening. Cynthia McFadden was the lead journalist for the report that included searing footage of suffering in one UN-run refugee camp.

The media treatment would be familiar to anyone who recalls the preludes to U.S. military interventions in such places as Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, and Syria. There is extensive video of starving, disease-afflicted children and their anguished parents. International aid workers emphasize that the suffering was certain to get worse unless the “international community” (led, of course, by the United States) took immediate action. A U.S. diplomat on the scene or in Washington proceeds to echo that argument. The armed conflict causing the suffering is mentioned, but the treatment is brief and superficial, or it becomes a simplistic melodrama in which a designated villain is causing all the trouble: Think Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Qaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-dogs-of-war-sniff-o...

 

Add MADURO  to the list...

 

Pompeo Claims Trump Sent by God to Save Israel, Turkey Scolds US for Golan Hts.

The move comes after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed on Thursday that President Trump had been sent by God to Earth in order to save Israel.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has lashed out at the US President following Trump's most recent remarks on the Golan Heights, stressing that “the territorial integrity of states is the most fundamental principle of international law”.

“Attempts by the US to legitimise Israel's actions against international law will only lead to more violence and pain in the region. Turkey supports Syria's territorial integrity,”Cavusogly tweeted on Friday.

READ MORE: Israel No Longer Occupies Golan Heights, US State Department Indicates

He responded to Thursday’s tweet by US President Donald Trump, who claimed that 52 years after the Israeli took the Golan Heights, located in Syria's Quneitra province, it is time for his country “to fully recognise Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability”.

The move was praised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who specifically applauded Trump’s “bold” decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

In a separate development on Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) that as a Christian, he “certainly believes it’s possible that “President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace.”

READ MORE: US Lawmakers Push Resolution to Recognise Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan Heights

Pompeo made the remarks in Jerusalem, where he visited the Western Wall with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Earlier this month, The Hill cited US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham as saying that he will push the Trump administration to formally recognise the disputed Golan Heights region as part of Israel, according to a report by The Hill.

Graham made the announcement after a joint tour of the territory by him, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Envoy to Israel David Friedman.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201903221073444536-israel-golan-heights-po...

 

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Russian military experts have come to inspect Venezuela's electricity generation and distribution system, whose repeated failures have paralyzed the country since March 6.

They have confirmed the use of electro-magnetic bombs to damage the facilities coupled with manual sabotage.

This type of bomb is a variation of the work of the Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, in the 50s. It seems that several states have today, including the United States.

While President Maduro directly accused the United States of being responsible for the blackouts, US National Security Councilor John Bolton denounced Venezuela's use of foreign military forces to keep him in power. In application of the "Monroe doctrine", he warned any power outside the continent to deploy military forces.

Fearing Russian retaliatory action, US President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order to prepare his country for a possible electro-magnetic attack [1].

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article205858.html

 

Translation by Jules Letambour.

 

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo kicked off Thursday's portion of his Latin America trip with a focus on engaging multilateral institutions to apply pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his government.

"The United States will continue to utilize every economic and political means at our disposal to help the Venezuelan people […] Using sanctions, visa revocations and other means, we pledge to hold the regime and those propping it up accountable for their corruption and their repression of democracy", Pompeo said Sunday in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, cited by Reuters.

"You watch the political and diplomatic noose tighten around Maduro's neck [..] Cubans must understand too that there will be cost associated with continued support of Nicolas Maduro […] And we’re going to have that same conversation with the Russians as well", Pompeo said, cited by Reuters.

Earlier, US Vice President Mike Pence said that Washington would soon announce new action against Cuba in response to what the administration of US President Donald Trump considers Havana's "malign influence" in Venezuela. In June 2017, Trump reversed the policy of his predecessor and abandoned attempts to normalize relations with Havana.

READ MORE: Pompeo: China a 'Corrosive' Presence in Venezuela, Russia 'Escalating' Crisis

The US has since repeatedly sanctioned the government of President Nicolas Maduro in a campaign to back a self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaido, as a means to oust the constitutionally-elected Maduro. In turn, Maduro has called Guaido a puppet of the United States and accused Washington of trying to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela to replace the country’s legitimate government and claim its resources.

 

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201904151074130931-usa-venezuela-cuba-russia-...

Read from top...

 

 

One would hope that soon the US administration personel would run out of bile, hubris and loonitude... and leave everyone alone.

Power has begun to trickle back into the grid after a massive blackout hit the South American countries of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, leaving tens of millions without power, authorities said.

Key points:

• The blackout hit at 7am on Sunday, local time across all three countries
• Power was starting to be restored more than five hours later to some major cities
• Shops closed and traffic lights stopped working, creating chaos

 

Argentina's grid "collapsed" about 7:00am local time, leaving the entire country without power, Argentina's Energy Secretariat said in a statement.

The outage also cut electricity to swaths of neighbouring Uruguay and Paraguay.

Energy distributors in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, whose populations total nearly 55 million, said power was being restored to major cities — including Montevideo and Buenos Aires after being without power for at least five hours.

Argentina's energy agency said in a statement it had begun investigating the causes of the outage, but had not provided further details.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-17/massive-blackout-across-argentina...

 

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From Larison at TAC

 

Barbara Boland reports on Mike Pompeo’s cringe-worthy speech at the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) conference:

Pompeo was clearly taking his case against Iran to Hagee’s faithful in his own remarks Monday, beginning with a brief history lesson on the modern state of Israel, and then asking the audience to “compare Israel’s reverence for liberty with the restrictions on religious freedom facing Christians and people of all faiths throughout the rest of the Middle East,” where “if a Muslim leaves Islam it is considered an apostasy, and it is punishable indeed by death.”

Pompeo’s posturing about helping the victims of religious persecution would be a bit more credible if he were not part of an administration that imposed a travel ban that bars Iranians of all religious backgrounds from coming to the U.S., and it would be a little less ridiculous if his department hadn’t stranded dozens of Iranian religious minorities in limbo for years. The Trump administration is happy to use other governments’ abuses as talking points, but it is hard to shake the impression that they do so to advance their own agenda against those governments. Along the same lines, they credit client dictatorships with being more tolerant of religious minorities than they really are. Their record of providing real support and assistance to victims of religious persecution is quite poor.

Pompeo’s abuse of the Book of Esther deserves a few comments. He said:

This is similar to a cry that came out of Iran – then called Persia ‒ many, many years ago. The Book of Esther teaches us about this. It was in the 5th century B.C. There was a wicked advisor named King Xerxes [bold mine-DL]. A fellow named Haman hatched a plot to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire. He secretly wrote letters with the king’s seal to all the provincial governors, ordering the people to rise up and attack the Jews. This edict, once issued, could not be revoked. But thanks to the courageous intervention of Queen Esther, who begged the king to show mercy to her people, Haman’s plot was exposed and the Jews were ultimately spared. Today this marks the Jewish holiday of Purim and it commemorates this amazing miracle. 

As Boland notes, Pompeo is cribbing from Netanyahu’s own abuse of the Esther story earlier in the year. The prime minister’s misuse of this story is consistent with Netanyahu’s habit of engaging in cheap anti-Iranian demagoguery for many years. Pompeo seems a little confused on the details of the story, but the disturbing thing is that the Secretary of State thinks it is appropriate to use a distorted reading of Scripture to promote his tedious anti-Iranian propaganda. This is not the first time Pompeo has abused the Esther story for this purpose. Sina Toossi pointed this out earlier this year when he made similar references in a radio interview:

Aside from the preposterous notion that President Trump enjoys divine support, Pompeo’s remarks distort the story of Esther and demonize the Iranian people and their history. Nor is Pompeo’s framing of this Biblical story new. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long twisted the Old Testament’s book of Esther to advance a hawkish agenda on Iran. Such rhetoric from Pompeo and Netanyahu is demagogic hyperbole at best and dangerous incitement against the Iranian people at worst.

The purpose of retelling this story is to create the impression that there is some deep-seated hostility between Iranians and Jews that dates back to antiquity, and Pompeo was telling that to an evangelical audience at the conference to rile up their hostility towards Iran. It’s not true, and the historical record doesn’t support it in the slightest. It is the most pathetic sort of religious rabble-rousing, and it ought to be beneath someone in Pompeo’s position. Unfortunately, because this is Pompeo we’re talking about, it is just what we expect from him.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/pompeos-cringe-worthy-cu...

 

 

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Mike Pompeo can’t get through a single interview without telling a bald-faced lie. Here he lies about Iran again:

They’re investing in missile systems that they’re not allowed to have. They continue – indeed, they announced just yesterday that they’re going to continue to do more research and development on their nuclear weapon systems [bold mine-DL]. Those things are unacceptable.

The Iranian government announced no such thing, and Iran has no “nuclear weapon systems.” Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and hasn’t had anything like that for more than fifteen years. Pompeo is promoting an extremely dangerous lie here, and as usual he is never challenged on what he says. The Trump administration is desperate to deceive the public into thinking that Iran seeks nuclear weapons when that is not happening. They dishonestly put modest Iranian responses to U.S. violations of the JCPOA in the worst light in the hopes that people don’t realize that their reckless and destructive Iran policy has failed and has brought us dangerously close to an unnecessary war. 

The so-called “third step” that the Iranian government announced this week was that they were no longer going to respect the JCPOA’s limits on research and development. They taking this step in response to the continued economic war being waged against them by the Trump administration after it violated the deal and reimposed sanctions. The purpose of these limited, reversible steps is to pressure the other parties to the agreement to deliver on their end of the bargain. To date, our European allies have failed to deliver, and so Iran keeps taking these steps.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/pompeos-constant-shamele...

 

 

 

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The day before, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the attacks on two oil refineries in Saudi Arabia were "an Iranian attack" that was an "act of war."

Despite blaming Iran for the latest attacks on the Saudi Aramco oil facilities, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that he would prefer to see a "peaceful solution" to the crisis in the region.

 

 

Read more

https://sputniknews.com/world/201909191076840863-peaceful-solution-to-crisis-in-region-preferable-after-attack-on-saudi-aramco-facilities---pompeo/

Read from top. I can go to sleep now...

The United States government has revealed its contempt for human compassion and global solidarity by refusing to lift draconian sanctions on Iran and Venezuela during the Covid-19 crisis, director Oliver Stone has argued.

Iran has suffered immensely from the virus, Stone noted in an op-ed published by the New York Daily News, but due to US sanctions the Islamic Republic is “reportedly the only country in the world that cannot buy medicines needed to fight the pandemic."

The outspoken Hollywood legend similarly condemned Washington’s decision to maintain – and in some cases, increase – its economic chokeholds on countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as coronavirus strains healthcare systems across the globe.

In the case of Venezuela, US “coercion” led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) denying the South American state’s request for a $5 billion loan to help fight the pandemic, Stone contended. The US has ratcheted up its pressure on Caracas amid the global health crisis, accusing the government of drug trafficking and calling for a “transition government”to replace President Nicolas Maduro.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/484999-iran-sanctions-coronavirus-oliver-stone/

 

 

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Setting Pompeo loose on the concept of ‘human rights’ is a warning the US is about to violate a lot more of them

 

Helen Buyniski — an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23

 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has unveiled what he calls a “moral foreign policy,” attempting to limit other nations’ power to declare unalienable human rights. The aim, as usual, is legitimizing the American empire’s abuses.

The 60-page preliminary report, released on Thursday, is the product of a year’s work from an advisory panel Pompeo appointed to devise “a moral foreign policy…grounded in [a] conception of human rights.” It calls for a dramatic reevaluation of what constitutes “human rights” and advises the international community to get off the Trump administration’s back regarding their enforcement.

It wasn’t hard to guess when the project was announced that where US policy and human rights were at odds, Washington would win out – Pompeo even acknowledged as much, warning that “loose talk of ‘rights’ unmoors us from the principles of liberal democracy” (translation: you have too many rights, don’t make us come over there and civilize you) in an op-ed published at the time. He confirmed it again on Thursday in a speech he gave to celebrate the report’s release, quoting the commission’s chair Mary Ann Glendon while complaining about the “proliferation of rights.”

A rapidly expanding catalog of rights…not only multiplies the occasion for risks of collision, but risks trivializing core American values.

The commission’s report even acknowledges that for the US to hold itself up as a beacon of human rights to the world while its police are beating peaceful protesters and shooting unarmed civilians might ruffle a few feathers. “The credibility of US advocacy for human rights abroad depends on the nation’s vigilance in ensuring that all its own citizens enjoy fundamental human rights,” a ‘prefatory note’ to the report reads, admitting “like all nations, the United States is not without its failings.” 

As those failings become more and more obvious to the rest of the world, it’s clear Washington has two options – reform itself, or try to “level the playing field” by lowering expectations for what “human rights” entail. Despite paying lip service to the need for reform, the US empire has shown, through decades of waging illegal and destructive wars under false pretenses for which it is never punished, that it is utterly incapable of moral growth or self-discipline. Thus, other countries will have to suffer to bolster the American government’s image.

A master of doublespeak, Pompeo loves to bloviate about China as an “authoritarian regime” oppressing its people, spewing bleeding-heart rhetoric about the plight of the Uighur Muslims – even while the US military continues to systematically oppress and murder the inhabitants of majority-Muslim nations in the Middle East. His other favorite target, Iran, is run by a theocratic Islamic government, and while most minority religious leaders there deny they are persecuted, the US has long howled about Tehran’s (imaginary) enmity toward non-Muslims. It’s thus no surprise that “religious freedom” forms the hypocritical core of Pompeo’s commission’s reimagining of human rights. The US has religious freedom baked into its Constitution, which the commission spends half the report rhapsodizing about; therefore, it’s an ideal cudgel to wield against countries opposing its hegemony.

Indeed, while the commission admits that “dedication to rights and democracy does not confer the authority nor entail the obligation to forcibly change regimes or to otherwise coerce nations to accept the interpretation of unalienable rights favored by majorities in the United States,” it claims just a few paragraphs later that “the defense of freedom at home may require the United States to come to the aid of friends of freedom abroad in repelling the aggression of freedom’s enemies.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who those “enemies” are.

Pompeo has repeatedly threatened the International Criminal Court for approving a probe into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan, calling the institution “reckless” and “renegade” for daring to challenge the country’s self-image as a paragon of virtue. Rather than attempt to deny war crimes had been committed, his State Department merely sanctioned members of the international body for having the indecency to point out illegalities in both the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan and Pompeo favorite Israel’s own atrocities against the long-suffering Palestinians.

In fact, the Pompeo commission’s report ultimately reads like a lengthy defense against a hypothetical ICC human rights case (and the ICC does have jurisdiction over “crimes against humanity” that go unprosecuted by national governments), insisting that the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding and should not be held against the US because it derives so much from the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. While there might be “good reasons to ‘legalize’ human rights in international law,” the report explains, the UDHR is more of a moral and philosophical suggestion. It also stresses the principle of “subsidiarity” means international bodies (like the UN Human Rights Council, the ICC, or others who might take a dim view of the US’ activities) should avoid judging individual societies’ application of human rights. The irony for a country that has howled about “human rights” to justify sanctioning and even invading its nemeses is truly gargantuan, but it’s easily explained by Pompeo’s unshakable (one might say delusional) belief in American exceptionalism.

“America is fundamentally good, and has much to offer the world, because our founders recognized the existence of God-given unalienable rights, and designed a durable system to protect them,” the diplomat explained in Thursday’s speech, capping off the report’s bold effort to both credit the US for the existence of human rights and absolve it from abiding by them.

© US State Dept 

There’s some good advice in the report, though it’s unlikely the US will follow it. “If human rights were to become only or even primarily instruments for legitimating state authority and intervention, they would betray their origin and become the playthings of every authoritarian government seeking to cloak its abuses in the language of human rights obligation,” the document reads, seemingly skewering NATO’s “responsibility to protect” doctrine, which was used to justify devastating invasions of Libya and Yugoslavia. However, a spirited critique of “humanitarian bombing” was probably not what the commission meant.

Ultimately, the goal of the report appears to be to strip away ‘unnecessary’ rights in order to bring the US’ oppressive policies – foreign and domestic – into line with its democracy-promotion rhetoric, which glistens with hypocrisy under the currently-accepted global definition of “human rights.” If the international community will swallow that, they’ll fall for anything.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/495119-pompeo-human-rights-hypocrisy-report/

 

 

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