lewrockwell--2020-01-09--The Donald’s Murder of General Soleimani

During more than a half-century of Washington watching we have seen stupidity rise from one height to yet another .
But nothing – just plain nothing – compares to the the blithering stupidity of the Donald ’ s Iran “ policy ” , culminating in the mindless assassination of its top military leader and hero of the so-called Islamic Revolution , Major General Qassem Soleimani .
To be sure , we don ’ t give a flying f*ck about the dead man himself .
Like most generals of whatever army ( including the US army ) , he was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this day and age of urban and irregular warfare and drone-based annihilation delivered by remote joystick , generals tend to kill more civilians than combatants .
The dead civilian victims in their millions of U.S. generals reaching back to the 1960s surely attest to that .
Then again , even the outright belligerents Soleimani did battle with over the decades were not exactly alms-bearing devotees of Mother Theresa , either .
In sequential order , they were the lethally armed combatants mustered by Saddam Hussein , George W. Bush , the Sunni jihadists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ air forces , which at this very moment are raining high tech bombs and missiles on Iranian allies and proxies in Syria , Lebanon and Yemen .
The only reason these years of combat are described in the mainstream media as evidence of Iranian terrorism propagated by its Quds forces is that the neocons have declared it so .
That is , by Washington ’ s lights Iran is not allowed to have a foreign policy and its alliances with mainly Shiite co-religionists in Iraq , Syria , Lebanon and Yemen are alleged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and terror , warranting any and all retaliations including assassination of its highest officials .
Peak Trump : The Undrai ... David A. Stockman Best Price : $ 18.70 Buy New $ 26.99 But that ’ s just colossal nonsense and imperialistic arrogance .
The Assad government in Syria , the largest political party in Lebanon ( Hezbollah ) , the dominant population of northern Yemen ( Houthis ) and a significant portion of the Iraqi armed forces represented by the Shiite militias ( the PMF or Popular Mobilization Forces ) are no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sectarian violence than anybody else in this woebegone region .
And the real head-choppers of ISIS and its imitators and rivals have all been Sunni jihadist insurrectionists , not Shiite-based governments and political parties .
The truth is , America has no dog in the Shiite versus Sunni hunt , which has been going on for 1300 years in the region .
And when it comes to spillover of those benighted forces into Europe or America , recent history is absolutely clear : 100 % of all Islamic terrorist incidents in the US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perpetrated or inspired by Sunni jihadists , not Iran or its Shiite allies and proxies in the region .
So we needs be direct .
The aggression in the Persian Gulf region during the last three decades has originated in the Washington DC nest of neocon vipers and among Bibi Netanyahu ’ s proxies , collaborators and assigns who rule the roost in the Imperial City and among both political parties .
And the motivating force has all along been the malicious quest for regime change – first in Iraq and then in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Washington instigated “ regime change ” tends to provoke a determined self-defense and a usually violent counter-reaction among the changees .
So the truth is , the so-called Shiite crescent is not an alliance of terrorists inflicting wanton violence on the region ; it ’ s a league of regime-change resisters and armed combatants who have elected to say “ no ” to Washington ’ s imperial schemes for remaking the middle eastern maps .
So in taking out Soleimani , the usually befuddled and increasingly belligerent occupant of the Oval Office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terrorism ” .
He was just dramatically escalating Washington ’ s long-standing regime-change aggression in the region , thereby risking an outbreak of even greater violence and possibly a catastrophic conflagration in the Persian Gulf where one-fifth of the world ’ s oil traverses daily .
And most certainly , the Donald has now crushed his own oft-repeated intent to withdraw American forces from the middle east and get out of the regime change business – the very platform upon which he campaigned in 2016 .
There are now upwards of 50,000 US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ region and tens of thousands of more contractors , proxies and mercenaries .
After Friday ’ s reckless maneuver , that number can now only go up – and possibly dramatically .
In joy-sticking Soleimani while lounging in his plush digs at Mar-a-Lago , the Donald was also not avenging the innocent casualties of Iranian aggression – Americans or otherwise .
He was just jamming another regime-change stick in the hornets nest of anti-Americanism in the region that Washington ’ s bloody interventions have spawned over the decades , and which will now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a picture does tell a thousand words , and this one from the funeral procession in Tehran yesterday surely makes a mockery of Secretary Pompeo ’ s idiotic claim that the middle east is now safer than before .
If there was ever a case that this neocon knucklehead should be immediately dispatched to his hog and corn farm back in Kansas , this is surely it .
The larger point here is that Imperial Washington and its mainstream media megaphones have so egregiously and relentlessly vilified Iran and falsified the middle east @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story has been completely lost – literally airbrushed right off the pages of contemporary history in Stalineseque fashion .
Not that the benighted , mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which resembles white hats .
One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and incompetence of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics .
But that ’ s exactly the crime of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Iranian regime .
It merely rekindles Iranian nationalism and causes the public to rally to the support of the regime , as is so evident at the current moment .
Worse still , the underlying patriotic foundation of this pro-regime sentiment is completely lost on Imperial Washington owing to its false narrative about post-1979 history .
Yet the fact is , in the eyes of the Iranian people the Quds forces and Soleimani have plausible claims to having been valiant defenders of the nation .
In the original instance , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the battlefield contending with the chemical weapons-dropping air force of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s .
And Saddam was the invader whose chemical bombs achieved especially deadly accuracy against often barely armed teenage Iranian soldiers owing to spotting and targeting assistance rendered by the U.S. air force – a Washington assisted depredation that a whole generation of Iranians know all about , even if present day Washington feints ignorance .
Then after Bush the Younger visited uninvited and unrequested Shock & Awe upon Baghdad and much of the Iraqi countryside , it transpired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population didn ’ t cotton much to being “ liberated ” by Washington .
Indeed , the more radical elements of the Iraqi Shiite community in Sadr City and other towns of central and south Iraq took up arms during 2003-2011 against what they perceived to be the American “ occupiers ” because , well , it was their country .
Needless to say , their Shiite kinsman in Iran were more than ready to give aid and comfort to the Iraqi Shiite in their struggle against what by then was perceived as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ After all , a full year before Bush the Younger launched the utterly folly of the second gulf war in March 2003 , his demented neocon advisors and speechwriters , led by the insufferable David Frum , had concocted a bogeyman called the Axis of Evil , which included Iran and marked it as next in line for Shock & Awe .
But the idea that the Iraqi people and especially its majority Shiite population would have been dancing in the streets to welcome the US military save for the insidious interference of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Stated differently , Washington sent 158,000 lethally armed fighters into a country that had never threatened America ’ s homeland security or harbored its enemies , and had no capacity to do so in any event .
But contrary to the glib assurances of Rumsfeld , Cheney and the rest of the neocon jackals around Bush , these US fighters soon came to be widely viewed as “ invaders ” , not liberators , and met resistance from a wide variety of Iraqi elements including remnants of Saddam ’ s government and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ motley array of Shiite politicians , clerics and militias .
Foremost among these was the Sadr clan which emerged as the tribune of the the dispossessed Shiite communities in the south and Baghdad .
They rose to prominence after Bush the Elder urged the Shiite to rise up against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War , and then left them dangling in the wind .
No US support materialized as the regime ’ s indiscriminate crackdown on the population systematically arrested and killed tens of thousands of Shiites and destroyed Shiite shrines , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
According to eyewitness accounts , Baathist tanks were painted with messages like “ No Shiites after today , ” people were hanged from electric poles , and tanks ran over women and children and towed bodies through the streets .
From this horror and brutality emerged Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr , the founder of the Sadrist movement that today , under the leadership of his son Muqtada , constitutes Iraq ’ s most powerful political movement .
After the collapse of the Baathist regime in 2003 , the Sadrist movement formally established @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jaysh al-Mahdi , or the Mahdi Army .
The vast Shiite underclass needed protection , social services and leadership , and the Sadrist movement stepped into these gaps by reactivating Sadeq al-Sadr ’ s network .
In the course of US occupation , the Mahdi Army ’ s ranks of supporters , members and fighters swelled , particularly as sectarian conflict intensified and discontent towards the occupation grew out of frustration with the lack of security and basis services .
At one point the Mahdi Army numbered more than 60,000 fighters , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chaos after 2005 , it became a deadly thorn in the side of US forces occupying a country where they were distinctly unwelcome .
But the Mahdi Army was homegrown ; it was Arab , not Persian , and it was fighting for its own homes and communities , not the Iranians , the Quds or Soleimani .
In fact , the Sadrists strongly opposed the Iranian influence among other Shiite dissident groups including the brutal Badr Brigade and the Iran-aligned Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution ( SCIRI ) .
As the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refer to the Sadrist Movement ’ s Peace Brigades as the “ rebellious ” militias , because of their refusal to submit not only to Iran , but also to the federal government and religious establishment .
Muqtada al-Sadr has oriented his organization around Iraqi nationalistic sentiments and derided the Iran-aligned militias .
In line with the true political outlook of his father and his followers , Muqtada ’ s supporters chanted anti-Iranian slogans and stormed the offices of the Dawa Party , ISCI and the Badr Brigade when they protested against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happened , the overwhelming share of the 603 US servicemen the Pentagon claims to have been killed by Iranian proxies were actually victims of the Mahdi Army uprisings during 2003-2007 .
These attacks were led by the above mentioned Iraqi nationalist firebrand and son of the movements founder , Muqtada al-Sadr .
In fact , however , the surge in U.S. deaths at that time was the direct result of subsequently disgraced General David Petraeus ’ infamous “ surge ” campaign .
Among others , it targeted al-Sadr ’ s Mahdi Army in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in late April 2007 , the US launched dozens of military operations aimed solely at capturing or killing Mahdi Army officers , causing the Mahdi Army to strongly resist those raids and impose mounting casualties on US troops .
So amidst the fog of two decades of DOD and neocon propaganda , how did Iran and Soleimani get tagged over and over with the “ killing Americans ” charge , as if they were attacking innocent bystanders in lower Manhattan on 9/11 ?
It ’ s just the hoary old canard that Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bombs called Explosively Formed Penetrators ( EFPs ) that were being used by many of the Shiite militias , as well as the Sunni jihadists in Anbar province and the west .
Yet that claim was debunked more than a decade ago by evidence that the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias were getting their weapons not just from the Iranians but from wherever they could , as well as manufacturing their own .
The command ’ s effort to push its line about Iran and EFPs encountered one embarrassing revelation after another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ briefing asserted that the EFPs had “ characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran.
” However , after NBC correspondent Jane Arraf confronted the deputy commander of coalition troops , Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno , with the fact that a senior military official had acknowledged to her that US troops had been discovering many sites manufacturing EFPs in Iraq , Odierno was forced to admit that it was true .
Then in late February 2007 , US troops found another cache of parts and explosives for EFPs near Baghdad , which included shipments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contradicted its claims .
They had come not from factories in Iran , but from factories in the UAE and other Arab countries , including Iraq itself .
That evidence clearly suggested that the Shiites were procuring EFP parts on the commercial market rather than getting them from Iran .
Although the military briefing by the command in February 2007 pointed to cross-border weapons smuggling , it actually confirmed in one of its slides that it was being handled by “ Iraqi extremist group members ” rather than by Iran ’ s Islamic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And as Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch , the US commander for southern Iraq , admitted in a July 6 press briefing , his troops had not “ captured anybody that we can directly tie back to Iran.
” On the other hand , what the Iranian Quds forces have actually accomplished in Iraq and Syria has been virtually expunged from the mainstream narrative .
To wit , they have been the veritable tip of the spear in the eradication of the Islamic State .
Indeed , in Iraq it was the wobbly Iraqi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cost of billions , which turned tail and ran when ISIS emerged in Anbar province in 2014 .
So doing , they left behind thousands of US armored vehicles , mobile artillery and even tanks , as well as massive troves of guns and ammo , which enabled the Islamic State to briefly thrive and subjugate several million people across the Euphrates Valley .
It was also Washington that trained , equipped , armed and funded the so-called anti-Assad rebels in Syria , which so weakened and distracted Damascus that that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the power vacuum and impose its barbaric rule on the citizens of Raqqa and its environs .
And again , it did so in large part with weaponry captured from or sold to ISIS by the so-called moderate rebels .
To the contrary , the panic and unraveling in Iraq during 2014-2015 was stopped and reversed when the Iranians at the invitation of Baghdad ’ s Shiite government helped organize and mobilize the Iraqi Shiite militias , which eventually chased ISIS out of Mosul and Anbar .
Likewise , outside of the northern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it was the Shiite alliance of Assad , Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces that rid Syria of the ISIS plague .
Yes , the US air force literally incinerated two great cities temporarily occupied by the Islamic State – Mosul and Raqqa .
But it was the Shiite fighters who were literally fighting for their lives , homes and hearth who cleared that land of a barbaric infestation that had been spawned and enabled by the very Washington neocons who are now dripping red in tooth and claw .
Trumped !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stockman Best Price : $ 2.05 Buy New $ 9.50 So we revert to the Donald ’ s act of utter stupidity .
On the one hand , it is now evident that the reason Soleimani was in Baghdad was to deliver an official response from Tehran to a recent Saudi de-escalation offer .
And that ’ s by the word of the very prime minister that Washington has stood up in the rump state of Iraq and who has now joined a majority of the Iraqi parliament in demanding that Iraq ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in treasure and blood – leave the country forthwith : Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made .
The US assassinated Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him .
Abdul-Mahdi also said that Trump had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran .
Did he do that to trap Soleimani ?
It is no wonder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same time , the positive trends that were in motion in the region just days ago – ISIS gone , Syria closing in on the remaining jihadists , Saudi Arabia and Iran tentatively exploring a more peaceful modus vivendi , the Yemen genocide winding to a close – may now literally go up in smoke .
As the always sagacious Pat Buchanan observed today , Two months ago , crowds were in the streets of Iraq protesting Iran ’ s dominance of their politics .
Crowds were in the streets of Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s resources on imperial adventures in Iraq , Syria , Lebanon , Yemen .
Things were going America ’ s way .
Now it is the Americans who are the targets of protests .
Over three days , crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands and even millions have packed Iraqi and Iranian streets and squares to pay tribute to Soleimani and to curse the Americans who killed him .
We have long believed that there is nothing stupider in Washington than the neocon policy mafia that has wrecked such unspeakable havoc @ @ @ @ @ @ @ upon American servicemen and taxpayers who have been marched time and again into the jaws of their folly .
But , now , the Donald has single-handedly given even neocon stupidity a run for the money .
The Best of David Stockman

During more than a half-century of Washington watching we have seen stupidity rise from one height to yet another. But nothing – just plain nothing – compares to the the blithering stupidity of the Donald’s Iran “policy”, culminating in the mindless assassination of its top military leader and hero of the so-called Islamic Revolution, Major General Qassem Soleimani.
To be sure, we don’t give a flying f*ck about the dead man himself. Like most generals of whatever army (including the US army), he was a cold-blooded, professional killer.
And in this day and age of urban and irregular warfare and drone-based annihilation delivered by remote joystick, generals tend to kill more civilians than combatants. The dead civilian victims in their millions of U.S. generals reaching back to the 1960s surely attest to that.
Then again, even the outright belligerents Soleimani did battle with over the decades were not exactly alms-bearing devotees of Mother Theresa, either. In sequential order, they were the lethally armed combatants mustered by Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, the Sunni jihadists of ISIS and the Israeli and Saudi air forces, which at this very moment are raining high tech bombs and missiles on Iranian allies and proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
The only reason these years of combat are described in the mainstream media as evidence of Iranian terrorism propagated by its Quds forces is that the neocons have declared it so. That is, by Washington’s lights Iran is not allowed to have a foreign policy and its alliances with mainly Shiite co-religionists in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen are alleged per se to be schemes of aggression and terror, warranting any and all retaliations including assassination of its highest officials. Peak Trump: The Undrai... David A. Stockman Best Price: $12.72 Buy New $43.07 (as of 11:40 UTC - Details)
But that’s just colossal nonsense and imperialistic arrogance. The Assad government in Syria, the largest political party in Lebanon (Hezbollah), the dominant population of northern Yemen (Houthis) and a significant portion of the Iraqi armed forces represented by the Shiite militias (the PMF or Popular Mobilization Forces) are no less civilized and no more prone to sectarian violence than anybody else in this woebegone region. And the real head-choppers of ISIS and its imitators and rivals have all been Sunni jihadist insurrectionists, not Shiite-based governments and political parties.
The truth is, America has no dog in the Shiite versus Sunni hunt, which has been going on for 1300 years in the region. And when it comes to spillover of those benighted forces into Europe or America, recent history is absolutely clear: 100% of all Islamic terrorist incidents in the US since they began in the 1990s were perpetrated or inspired by Sunni jihadists, not Iran or its Shiite allies and proxies in the region.
So we needs be direct. The aggression in the Persian Gulf region during the last three decades has originated in the Washington DC nest of neocon vipers and among Bibi Netanyahu’s proxies, collaborators and assigns who rule the roost in the Imperial City and among both political parties. And the motivating force has all along been the malicious quest for regime change – first in Iraq and then in Syria and Iran.
Needless to say, Washington instigated “regime change” tends to provoke a determined self-defense and a usually violent counter-reaction among the changees. So the truth is, the so-called Shiite crescent is not an alliance of terrorists inflicting wanton violence on the region; it’s a league of regime-change resisters and armed combatants who have elected to say “no” to Washington’s imperial schemes for remaking the middle eastern maps.
So in taking out Soleimani, the usually befuddled and increasingly belligerent occupant of the Oval Office was not striking a blow against “terrorism”. He was just dramatically escalating Washington’s long-standing regime-change aggression in the region, thereby risking an outbreak of even greater violence and possibly a catastrophic conflagration in the Persian Gulf where one-fifth of the world’s oil traverses daily.
And most certainly, the Donald has now crushed his own oft-repeated intent to withdraw American forces from the middle east and get out of the regime change business – the very platform upon which he campaigned in 2016. There are now upwards of 50,000 US military personnel in the immediate Persian Gulf region and tens of thousands of more contractors, proxies and mercenaries. After Friday’s reckless maneuver, that number can now only go up – and possibly dramatically.
In joy-sticking Soleimani while lounging in his plush digs at Mar-a-Lago, the Donald was also not avenging the innocent casualties of Iranian aggression – Americans or otherwise. He was just jamming another regime-change stick in the hornets nest of anti-Americanism in the region that Washington’s bloody interventions have spawned over the decades, and which will now intensify by orders of magnitude.
Sometimes a picture does tell a thousand words, and this one from the funeral procession in Tehran yesterday surely makes a mockery of Secretary Pompeo’s idiotic claim that the middle east is now safer than before. If there was ever a case that this neocon knucklehead should be immediately dispatched to his hog and corn farm back in Kansas, this is surely it.
The larger point here is that Imperial Washington and its mainstream media megaphones have so egregiously and relentlessly vilified Iran and falsified the middle east narrative that the Iranian side of the story has been completely lost – literally airbrushed right off the pages of contemporary history in Stalineseque fashion.
Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and incompetence of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics.
But that’s exactly the crime of Washington’s neocon-inspired hostility and threats to the Iranian regime. It merely rekindles Iranian nationalism and causes the public to rally to the support of the regime, as is so evident at the current moment.
Worse still, the underlying patriotic foundation of this pro-regime sentiment is completely lost on Imperial Washington owing to its false narrative about post-1979 history. Yet the fact is, in the eyes of the Iranian people the Quds forces and Soleimani have plausible claims to having been valiant defenders of the nation.
In the original instance, of course, Soleimani earned his chops on the battlefield contending with the chemical weapons-dropping air force of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. And Saddam was the invader whose chemical bombs achieved especially deadly accuracy against often barely armed teenage Iranian soldiers owing to spotting and targeting assistance rendered by the U.S. air force – a Washington assisted depredation that a whole generation of Iranians know all about, even if present day Washington feints ignorance.
Then after Bush the Younger visited uninvited and unrequested Shock & Awe upon Baghdad and much of the Iraqi countryside, it transpired that the nation’s majority Shiite population didn’t cotton much to being “liberated” by Washington. Indeed, the more radical elements of the Iraqi Shiite community in Sadr City and other towns of central and south Iraq took up arms during 2003-2011 against what they perceived to be the American “occupiers” because, well, it was their country.
Needless to say, their Shiite kinsman in Iran were more than ready to give aid and comfort to the Iraqi Shiite in their struggle against what by then was perceived as Iran’s own mortal enemy. After all, a full year before Bush the Younger launched the utterly folly of the second gulf war in March 2003, his demented neocon advisors and speechwriters, led by the insufferable David Frum, had concocted a bogeyman called the Axis of Evil, which included Iran and marked it as next in line for Shock & Awe.
But the idea that the Iraqi people and especially its majority Shiite population would have been dancing in the streets to welcome the US military save for the insidious interference of Iran is just baseless War Party propaganda.
Stated differently, Washington sent 158,000 lethally armed fighters into a country that had never threatened America’s homeland security or harbored its enemies, and had no capacity to do so in any event. But contrary to the glib assurances of Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of the neocon jackals around Bush, these US fighters soon came to be widely viewed as “invaders”, not liberators, and met resistance from a wide variety of Iraqi elements including remnants of Saddam’s government and military, radicalized Sunni jihadists and a motley array of Shiite politicians, clerics and militias.
Foremost among these was the Sadr clan which emerged as the tribune of the the dispossessed Shiite communities in the south and Baghdad. They rose to prominence after Bush the Elder urged the Shiite to rise up against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War, and then left them dangling in the wind.
No US support materialized as the regime’s indiscriminate crackdown on the population systematically arrested and killed tens of thousands of Shiites and destroyed Shiite shrines, centers of learning, towns and villages. According to eyewitness accounts, Baathist tanks were painted with messages like “No Shiites after today,” people were hanged from electric poles, and tanks ran over women and children and towed bodies through the streets.
From this horror and brutality emerged Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, the founder of the Sadrist movement that today, under the leadership of his son Muqtada, constitutes Iraq’s most powerful political movement. After the collapse of the Baathist regime in 2003, the Sadrist movement formally established its own militia, known as the Jaysh al-Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army.
The vast Shiite underclass needed protection, social services and leadership, and the Sadrist movement stepped into these gaps by reactivating Sadeq al-Sadr’s network. In the course of US occupation, the Mahdi Army’s ranks of supporters, members and fighters swelled, particularly as sectarian conflict intensified and discontent towards the occupation grew out of frustration with the lack of security and basis services. At one point the Mahdi Army numbered more than 60,000 fighters, and especially as Iraq degenerated into total sectarian chaos after 2005, it became a deadly thorn in the side of US forces occupying a country where they were distinctly unwelcome.
But the Mahdi Army was homegrown; it was Arab, not Persian, and it was fighting for its own homes and communities, not the Iranians, the Quds or Soleimani. In fact, the Sadrists strongly opposed the Iranian influence among other Shiite dissident groups including the brutal Badr Brigade and the Iran-aligned Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI). As the above study further noted,
Iraqis today refer to the Sadrist Movement’s Peace Brigades as the “rebellious” militias, because of their refusal to submit not only to Iran, but also to the federal government and religious establishment. Muqtada al-Sadr has oriented his organization around Iraqi nationalistic sentiments and derided the Iran-aligned militias. In line with the true political outlook of his father and his followers, Muqtada’s supporters chanted anti-Iranian slogans and stormed the offices of the Dawa Party, ISCI and the Badr Brigade when they protested against the government in May 2016.
As it happened, the overwhelming share of the 603 US servicemen the Pentagon claims to have been killed by Iranian proxies were actually victims of the Mahdi Army uprisings during 2003-2007. These attacks were led by the above mentioned Iraqi nationalist firebrand and son of the movements founder, Muqtada al-Sadr.
In fact, however, the surge in U.S. deaths at that time was the direct result of subsequently disgraced General David Petraeus’ infamous “surge” campaign. Among others, it targeted al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in the hope of weakening it. Beginning in late April 2007, the US launched dozens of military operations aimed solely at capturing or killing Mahdi Army officers, causing the Mahdi Army to strongly resist those raids and impose mounting casualties on US troops.
So amidst the fog of two decades of DOD and neocon propaganda, how did Iran and Soleimani get tagged over and over with the “killing Americans” charge, as if they were attacking innocent bystanders in lower Manhattan on 9/11?
It’s just the hoary old canard that Iran was the source of the powerful roadside bombs called Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) that were being used by many of the Shiite militias, as well as the Sunni jihadists in Anbar province and the west. Yet that claim was debunked more than a decade ago by evidence that the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias were getting their weapons not just from the Iranians but from wherever they could, as well as manufacturing their own.
As the estimable Iran expert, Gareth Porter, recently noted:
The command’s effort to push its line about Iran and EFPs encountered one embarrassing revelation after another. In February 2007 a US command briefing asserted that the EFPs had “characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran.” However, after NBC correspondent Jane Arraf confronted the deputy commander of coalition troops, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, with the fact that a senior military official had acknowledged to her that US troops had been discovering many sites manufacturing EFPs in Iraq, Odierno was forced to admit that it was true.
Then in late February 2007, US troops found another cache of parts and explosives for EFPs near Baghdad, which included shipments of PVC tubes for the canisters that contradicted its claims. They had come not from factories in Iran, but from factories in the UAE and other Arab countries, including Iraq itself. That evidence clearly suggested that the Shiites were procuring EFP parts on the commercial market rather than getting them from Iran.
Although the military briefing by the command in February 2007 pointed to cross-border weapons smuggling, it actually confirmed in one of its slides that it was being handled by “Iraqi extremist group members” rather than by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). And as Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the US commander for southern Iraq, admitted in a July 6 press briefing, his troops had not “captured anybody that we can directly tie back to Iran.”
On the other hand, what the Iranian Quds forces have actually accomplished in Iraq and Syria has been virtually expunged from the mainstream narrative. To wit, they have been the veritable tip of the spear in the eradication of the Islamic State.
Indeed, in Iraq it was the wobbly Iraqi national army that Washington stood up at a cost of billions, which turned tail and ran when ISIS emerged in Anbar province in 2014. So doing, they left behind thousands of US armored vehicles, mobile artillery and even tanks, as well as massive troves of guns and ammo, which enabled the Islamic State to briefly thrive and subjugate several million people across the Euphrates Valley.
It was also Washington that trained, equipped, armed and funded the so-called anti-Assad rebels in Syria, which so weakened and distracted Damascus that that the Islamic State was briefly able to fill the power vacuum and impose its barbaric rule on the citizens of Raqqa and its environs. And again, it did so in large part with weaponry captured from or sold to ISIS by the so-called moderate rebels.
To the contrary, the panic and unraveling in Iraq during 2014-2015 was stopped and reversed when the Iranians at the invitation of Baghdad’s Shiite government helped organize and mobilize the Iraqi Shiite militias, which eventually chased ISIS out of Mosul and Anbar.
Likewise, outside of the northern border areas liberated by the Syrian Kurds, it was the Shiite alliance of Assad, Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces that rid Syria of the ISIS plague.
Yes, the US air force literally incinerated two great cities temporarily occupied by the Islamic State – Mosul and Raqqa. But it was the Shiite fighters who were literally fighting for their lives, homes and hearth who cleared that land of a barbaric infestation that had been spawned and enabled by the very Washington neocons who are now dripping red in tooth and claw. Trumped! A Nation on t... David A. Stockman Best Price: $2.05 Buy New $9.50 (as of 06:30 UTC - Details)
So we revert to the Donald’s act of utter stupidity. On the one hand, it is now evident that the reason Soleimani was in Baghdad was to deliver an official response from Tehran to a recent Saudi de-escalation offer. And that’s by the word of the very prime minister that Washington has stood up in the rump state of Iraq and who has now joined a majority of the Iraqi parliament in demanding that Iraq’s putative liberators – after expending trillions in treasure and blood – leave the country forthwith:
Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The US assassinated Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him. Abdul-Mahdi also said that Trump had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran. Did he do that to trap Soleimani? It is no wonder then that Abdul-Mahdi is fuming.
At the same time, the positive trends that were in motion in the region just days ago – ISIS gone, Syria closing in on the remaining jihadists, Saudi Arabia and Iran tentatively exploring a more peaceful modus vivendi, the Yemen genocide winding to a close – may now literally go up in smoke. As the always sagacious Pat Buchanan observed today,
What a difference a presidential decision can make.
Two months ago, crowds were in the streets of Iraq protesting Iran’s dominance of their politics. Crowds were in the streets of Iran cursing that regime for squandering the nation’s resources on imperial adventures in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. Things were going America’s way.
Now it is the Americans who are the targets of protests.
Over three days, crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands and even millions have packed Iraqi and Iranian streets and squares to pay tribute to Soleimani and to curse the Americans who killed him.
We have long believed that there is nothing stupider in Washington than the neocon policy mafia that has wrecked such unspeakable havoc on the middle east as well as upon American servicemen and taxpayers who have been marched time and again into the jaws of their folly.
But, now, the Donald has single-handedly given even neocon stupidity a run for the money.
PEAK TRUMP, IMPENDING CRISES, ESSENTIAL INFO & ACTION
Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.
The Best of David Stockman


lewrockwell--2020-01-09--Another Crisis in the Middle East – When Will We Ever Learn?

Qasem Soleimani is dead , his life snuffed out by missiles shot from American drones which targeted his convoy near Bagdad International Airport .
By all accounts this man , in many ways the second most important figure in Iran , was the mastermind of numerous violent actions—we call them “ terrorist ” acts—throughout the Middle East , and very likely was indirectly ( maybe directly ) responsible for the deaths of dozens of Americans in the region , at least if we can believe our discredited intelligence agencies ( it ’ s ironic that most of those who rightly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ take out ” President Trump , now enthusiastically embrace the assessments of those very same agencies when it comes to Iran ) .
And now the Iranians have reacted directly by firing ground-to-ground missiles aimed at Iraqi army bases ; from reports no Americans , military or civilian , were killed or injured in these attacks .
That may or may not indicate a particular strategic calculation on the part of the Iranians .
Indeed , if this should be the only major response to Soleimani ’ s death it may—underline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to lower the level of high stakes hostilities…and a realization that the United States under President Trump is unlike previous American administrations .
After all , Soleimani was arguably the most powerful and most significant military leader in Iran ; the Iranians , given his death , had to react .
As our leaders recognized , that was certain , and the attacks by the Iranians did not come as a surprise .
But now that this is done , multiple questions arise .
War is a Racket - The ... Smedley Butler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 5.97 Buy New $ 5.40 Watching “ Fox & Friends ” this morning there appeared former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and newscaster Brian Kilmeade , all a-twitter—almost in a frenzy—talking about “ regime change ” in Iran , about a “ future strategy ” to “ take out ” the regime in Tehran , about a Middle East strategy of total American involvement which takes hardly any account of the fall of Soviet Russia or the sorry record of repeated American disaster in that region of the world ( e.g .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Egypt , etc. )
.
President Trump ran for office on a platform of strategic disengagement from many areas of the world , the draw-down of American troops , including from the immense and complex quagmire of the Fertile Crescent .
The fall of Communism in late 1991 as a world threat radically altered global politics .
Winst0n Churchill once described Soviet Russia as “ a riddle , wrapped in a mystery , inside an enigma ” ; if that was the case with Communist Russia , it certainly describes tenfold the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Arguably , when we were dependent on Persian Gulf oil and were facing Soviet expansionism—when we feared the emergence of Soviet power as a hegemon in the area—a position of massive involvement was at least intellectually debatable .
It is , however , no longer tenable and no longer in the interest of the United States or , a “ Make America Great Again ” policy .
The major challenge that President Trump confronts is , in fact , that many of the foreign policy advisers he has surrounded himself with are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he enunciated during the 2016 campaign and won him the presidency .
Those individuals—echoing the sentiments of Gingrich and Kilmeade—are positively giddy over the prospect of a shooting war with Iran .
Remember the late unlamented John McCain ’ s little ditty caught on a microphone : “ Bomb , bomb , bomb…bomb , bomb Iran ” ( set to popular rock tune “ Barbara Ann ” ) ?
Recall the threats and designs to assert “ American suzerainty ” over the entire region ?
And the pink elephant in the room that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel ’ s right flank against Iranian-supported terror attacks , mostly from Hezbollah in Lebanon ?
( Israel can take care of itself . )
But American interests in this case do not coincide with the interests of either Israel or with the Neocons policy wonks who zealously continue to push what they call “ democratic regime change ” ( at the price of thousands of dead Americans ) .
Since 1991 that has been attempted too many times with horrendous results .
It is not in the interest of the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point in Iraq .
We need now to find a way to withdraw our troops from that nation whose parliament just asked us to leave ( Iraq is , after all , a sovereign nation ) .
Our invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 , while presented as necessary by the G. H. W. Bush administration was a tragic mistake , based on faulty and contrived intelligence .
Yes , he was a cruel dictator , but he was a Sunni Muslim ( who favored Iraq ’ s large Christian population @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What we “ achieved ” by that invasion was rule by a fanatical Shi ’ a majority , favorable to Iran…just the reverse that those think-tank ensconced Neocon “ experts ” and advisers promised us .
And with dozens of body bags on their way back to American shores .
Let us hope that America will now finally come to its senses .
Let us pray that President Trump will honor his campaign promises .
We do not seek regime change ; we seek to make America great .
We don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are—under this president others know it .
Time to lower the volume , time to—through third parties , if possible—once again go to the table , maybe not right away , but within the year .
Yes , Iran is a bad negotiating partner .
But a first good step would be if we were to announce that we were exiting Syria and Iraq , not with our tails tucked in behind us , but because it does not serve our strategic interest .
Not for political reasons—as witness the hysterical ( and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategic reasons .
In other words : to live up to the slogan— “ Make America Great Again.
” Pat Buchanan column which addresses some of these issues .
Reprinted from My Corner by Boyd Cathey .

Qasem Soleimani is dead, his life snuffed out by missiles shot from American drones which targeted his convoy near Bagdad International Airport. By all accounts this man, in many ways the second most important figure in Iran, was the mastermind of numerous violent actions—we call them “terrorist” acts—throughout the Middle East, and very likely was indirectly (maybe directly) responsible for the deaths of dozens of Americans in the region, at least if we can believe our discredited intelligence agencies (it’s ironic that most of those who rightly indict these agencies for their anti-constitutional attempts to “take out” President Trump, now enthusiastically embrace the assessments of those very same agencies when it comes to Iran).
And now the Iranians have reacted directly by firing ground-to-ground missiles aimed at Iraqi army bases; from reports no Americans, military or civilian, were killed or injured in these attacks. That may or may not indicate a particular strategic calculation on the part of the Iranians. Indeed, if this should be the only major response to Soleimani’s death it may—underline “may”—indicate an implicit desire to lower the level of high stakes hostilities…and a realization that the United States under President Trump is unlike previous American administrations. After all, Soleimani was arguably the most powerful and most significant military leader in Iran; the Iranians, given his death, had to react. As our leaders recognized, that was certain, and the attacks by the Iranians did not come as a surprise.
But now that this is done, multiple questions arise. War is a Racket - The ... Smedley Butler, Smedle... Best Price: $5.41 Buy New $5.40 (as of 05:40 UTC - Details)
Watching “Fox & Friends” this morning there appeared former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and newscaster Brian Kilmeade, all a-twitter—almost in a frenzy—talking about “regime change” in Iran, about a “future strategy” to “take out” the regime in Tehran, about a Middle East strategy of total American involvement which takes hardly any account of the fall of Soviet Russia or the sorry record of repeated American disaster in that region of the world (e.g. Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, etc.).
President Trump ran for office on a platform of strategic disengagement from many areas of the world, the draw-down of American troops, including from the immense and complex quagmire of the Fertile Crescent.
The fall of Communism in late 1991 as a world threat radically altered global politics. Winst0n Churchill once described Soviet Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”; if that was the case with Communist Russia, it certainly describes tenfold the situation in places like Iraq or Syria.
Arguably, when we were dependent on Persian Gulf oil and were facing Soviet expansionism—when we feared the emergence of Soviet power as a hegemon in the area—a position of massive involvement was at least intellectually debatable. It is, however, no longer tenable and no longer in the interest of the United States or, a “Make America Great Again” policy.
The major challenge that President Trump confronts is, in fact, that many of the foreign policy advisers he has surrounded himself with are persons—Neoconservatives—with views diametrically opposite to the vision he enunciated during the 2016 campaign and won him the presidency. Those individuals—echoing the sentiments of Gingrich and Kilmeade—are positively giddy over the prospect of a shooting war with Iran. Remember the late unlamented John McCain’s little ditty caught on a microphone: “Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran” (set to popular rock tune “Barbara Ann”)? Recall the threats and designs to assert “American suzerainty” over the entire region? And the pink elephant in the room that almost no one talks about: defending Israel’s right flank against Iranian-supported terror attacks, mostly from Hezbollah in Lebanon? (Israel can take care of itself.)
But American interests in this case do not coincide with the interests of either Israel or with the Neocons policy wonks who zealously continue to push what they call “democratic regime change” (at the price of thousands of dead Americans). Since 1991 that has been attempted too many times with horrendous results. It is not in the interest of the United States.
No; we have made our point in Iraq. We need now to find a way to withdraw our troops from that nation whose parliament just asked us to leave (Iraq is, after all, a sovereign nation). Our invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, while presented as necessary by the G. H. W. Bush administration was a tragic mistake, based on faulty and contrived intelligence. Yes, he was a cruel dictator, but he was a Sunni Muslim (who favored Iraq’s large Christian population) and a staunch opponent of Iran. What we “achieved” by that invasion was rule by a fanatical Shi’a majority, favorable to Iran…just the reverse that those think-tank ensconced Neocon “experts” and advisers promised us. And with dozens of body bags on their way back to American shores.
Let us hope that America will now finally come to its senses. Let us pray that President Trump will honor his campaign promises. We do not seek regime change; we seek to make America great. We don’t have to prove how strong we are—under this president others know it.
Time to lower the volume, time to—through third parties, if possible—once again go to the table, maybe not right away, but within the year. Yes, Iran is a bad negotiating partner. But a first good step would be if we were to announce that we were exiting Syria and Iraq, not with our tails tucked in behind us, but because it does not serve our strategic interest. Not for political reasons—as witness the hysterical (and bogus) response by Democrats—but for national strategic reasons. In other words: to live up to the slogan—“Make America Great Again.”
*****
Pat Buchanan column which addresses some of these issues.
Reprinted from My Corner by Boyd Cathey.


lewrockwell--2020-01-09--Come Home, America: Stop Policing the Globe and Put an End to Wars-Without-End

I agree wholeheartedly with George S. McGovern , a former Senator and presidential candidate who opposed the Vietnam War , about one thing : I ’ m sick of old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in .
Bring them home from Somalia , Afghanistan , Iraq and Syria .
Bring them home from Germany , South Korea and Japan .
Bring them home from Saudi Arabia , Jordan and Oman .
Bring them home from Niger , Chad and Mali .
Bring them home from Turkey , the Philippines , and northern Australia .
That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen , of course .
Battlefield America : T ... John W. Whitehead Best Price : $ 10.25 Buy New $ 18.54 The U.S. military reportedly has more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty , with more than 200,000 of them stationed overseas in nearly every country in the world .
Those numbers are likely significantly higher in keeping with the Pentagon ’ s policy of not fully disclosing where and how many troops are deployed for the sake of “ operational security and denying the enemy any advantage.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Although few Americans realize it , the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people , nation , or empire in history.
” Don ’ t fall for the propaganda , though : America ’ s military forces aren ’ t being deployed abroad to protect our freedoms here at home .
Rather , they ’ re being used to guard oil fields , build foreign infrastructure and protect the financial interests of the corporate elite .
In fact , the United States military spends about $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oil supplies around the world .
The reach of America ’ s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries , operated at a cost of more than $ 156 billion annually .
As Vine reports , “ Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul , South Korea , are bases of a kind .
Worldwide , the military runs more than 170 golf courses.
” This is how a military empire occupies the globe .
Already , American military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Middle East and elsewhere in anticipation of the war drums being sounded over Iran .
This Iran crisis , salivated over by the neocons since prior to the Iraq War and manufactured by war hawks who want to jumpstart the next world war , has been a long time coming .
Donald Trump , Barack Obama , George W. Bush , Bill Clinton : they all have done their part to ensure that the military industrial complex can continue to get rich at taxpayer expense .
Despite numerous campaign promises to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” once elected , Trump has done a complete about-face , deploying greater numbers of troops to the Middle East , ramping up the war rhetoric , and padding the pockets of defense contractors .
Indeed , Trump is even refusing to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in the face of a request from the Iraqi government for us to leave .
Obama was no different : he also pledged—if elected—to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce America ’ s oversized , and overly costly , military footprint @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that didn ’ t happen .
Yet while the rationale may keep changing for why American military forces are policing the globe , these wars abroad ( in Iraq , Afghanistan , Pakistan , Syria , Yemen and now Iran ) aren ’ t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer , are certainly not making America great again , and are undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt .
Although the U.S. constitutes only 5 % of the world ’ s population , America boasts almost 50 % of the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined .
In fact , the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health , education , welfare , and safety .
The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope , one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth .
Since 2001 , the U.S. government has spent more than $ 4.7 trillion waging its endless wars .
Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors , corrupt politicians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $ 32 million per hour .
In fact , the U.S. government has spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year .
Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $ 12 trillion by 2053 .
Talk about fiscally irresponsible : the U.S. government is spending money it doesn ’ t have on a military empire it can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ puts it , for more than 15 years now , the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card , “ essentially bankrolling the wars with debt , in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments , and by countries like China and Japan.
” War is not cheap , but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence , fraud , and greedy contractors .
Indeed , a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t account for hundreds of millions of dollars ’ worth of spending.
” Unfortunately , the outlook isn ’ t much better for the spending that can be tracked .
A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts , resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending .
As the report noted , the American taxpayer paid : That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “ we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government .
Mind you , this isn ’ t just corrupt behavior .
It ’ s deadly , downright immoral behavior .
Americans have thus far allowed themselves to be spoon-fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts , the ruined lives , the ravaged countries , the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands , or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ government is not making the world any safer .
It ’ s making the world more dangerous .
It is estimated that the U.S. military drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes .
Since 9/11 , the United States government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 human beings .
Every one of those deaths was paid for with taxpayer funds .
The U.S. government is not making America any safer .
It ’ s exposing American citizens to alarming levels of blowback , a CIA term referring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government ’ s international activities .
Chalmers Johnson , a former CIA consultant , repeatedly warned that America ’ s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback .
The 9/11 attacks were blowback .
The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback .
The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback .
The Fort Hood shooter , a major in the U.S. Army , was blowback .
The assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by a U.S. military drone strike will , I fear , spur yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The war hawks ’ militarization of America—bringing home the spoils of war ( the military tanks , grenade launchers , Kevlar helmets , assault rifles , gas masks , ammunition , battering rams , night vision binoculars , etc . )
and handing them over to local police , thereby turning America into a battlefield—is also blowback .
James Madison was right : “ No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
” As Madison explained , “ Of all the enemies to public liberty war is , perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it comprises and develops the germ of every other .
War is the parent of armies ; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
” We are seeing this play out before our eyes .
A Government of Wolves ... John W. Whitehead Check Amazon for Pricing .
The government is destabilizing the economy , destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources , and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars , drone strikes and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national priorities are in desperate need of an overhauling .
At the height of its power , even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military .
Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise .
As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts : This is the “ unwarranted influence , whether sought or unsought , by the military-industrial complex ” that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us more than 50 years ago not to let endanger our liberties or democratic processes .
Eisenhower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Allied forces in Europe during World War II , was alarmed by the rise of the profit-driven war machine that emerged following the war—one that , in order to perpetuate itself , would have to keep waging war .
We failed to heed his warning .
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America : The War on the American People , there ’ s not much time left before we reach the zero hour .
It ’ s time to stop policing the globe , end these wars-without-end , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s too late .
The Best of John W. Whitehead

“Let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad. This is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. America must be restored to a proper role in the world. But we can do that only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves…. together we will call America home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning. From secrecy and deception in high places; come home, America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, America.”—George S. McGovern, former Senator and presidential candidate
I agree wholeheartedly with George S. McGovern, a former Senator and presidential candidate who opposed the Vietnam War, about one thing: I’m sick of old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
It’s time to bring our troops home.
Bring them home from Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Bring them home from Germany, South Korea and Japan. Bring them home from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman. Bring them home from Niger, Chad and Mali. Bring them home from Turkey, the Philippines, and northern Australia.
That’s not what’s going to happen, of course. Battlefield America: T... John W. Whitehead Best Price: $10.95 Buy New $18.80 (as of 10:15 UTC - Details)
The U.S. military reportedly has more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty, with more than 200,000 of them stationed overseas in nearly every country in the world. Those numbers are likely significantly higher in keeping with the Pentagon’s policy of not fully disclosing where and how many troops are deployed for the sake of “operational security and denying the enemy any advantage.” As investigative journalist David Vine explains, “Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history.”
Don’t fall for the propaganda, though: America’s military forces aren’t being deployed abroad to protect our freedoms here at home. Rather, they’re being used to guard oil fields, build foreign infrastructure and protect the financial interests of the corporate elite. In fact, the United States military spends about $81 billion a year just to protect oil supplies around the world.
The reach of America’s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”
This is how a military empire occupies the globe.
Already, American military servicepeople are being deployed to far-flung places in the Middle East and elsewhere in anticipation of the war drums being sounded over Iran.
This Iran crisis, salivated over by the neocons since prior to the Iraq War and manufactured by war hawks who want to jumpstart the next world war, has been a long time coming.
Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton: they all have done their part to ensure that the military industrial complex can continue to get rich at taxpayer expense.
Take President Trump, for instance.
Despite numerous campaign promises to stop America’s “endless wars,” once elected, Trump has done a complete about-face, deploying greater numbers of troops to the Middle East, ramping up the war rhetoric, and padding the pockets of defense contractors. Indeed, Trump is even refusing to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in the face of a request from the Iraqi government for us to leave.
Obama was no different: he also pledged—if elected—to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce America’s oversized, and overly costly, military footprint in the world. Of course, that didn’t happen.
Yet while the rationale may keep changing for why American military forces are policing the globe, these wars abroad (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and now Iran) aren’t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer, are certainly not making America great again, and are undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt.
War spending is bankrupting America.
Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.
In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $4.7 trillion waging its endless wars.
Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour.
In fact, the U.S. government has spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.
Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.
Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.
As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”
War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors. Indeed, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”
Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked.
A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:
$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.
That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government.
Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.
Americans have thus far allowed themselves to be spoon-fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts, the ruined lives, the ravaged countries, the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands, or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone.
That needs to change.
The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It’s making the world more dangerous. It is estimated that the U.S. military drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes. Since 9/11, the United States government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 human beings. Every one of those deaths was paid for with taxpayer funds.
The U.S. government is not making America any safer. It’s exposing American citizens to alarming levels of blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s international activities. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America’s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback.
The 9/11 attacks were blowback. The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback. The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback. The Fort Hood shooter, a major in the U.S. Army, was blowback.
The assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by a U.S. military drone strike will, I fear, spur yet more blowback against the American people.
The war hawks’ militarization of America—bringing home the spoils of war (the military tanks, grenade launchers, Kevlar helmets, assault rifles, gas masks, ammunition, battering rams, night vision binoculars, etc.) and handing them over to local police, thereby turning America into a battlefield—is also blowback.
James Madison was right: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” As Madison explained, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”
We are seeing this play out before our eyes.
The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.
Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of an overhauling.
At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:
The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.
This is the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us more than 50 years ago not to let endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, was alarmed by the rise of the profit-driven war machine that emerged following the war—one that, in order to perpetuate itself, would have to keep waging war.
We failed to heed his warning.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, there’s not much time left before we reach the zero hour.
It’s time to stop policing the globe, end these wars-without-end, and bring the troops home before it’s too late.
The Best of John W. Whitehead


lewrockwell--2020-01-09--The Justice Department Is Devoid of Justice

In the United States the criminal justice ( sic ) system is itself not subject to law .
We see immunity to law continually as police commit felonies against citizens and even murder children and walk away free .
We see it all the time when prosecutors conduct political prosecutions and when they prosecute the innocent in order to build their conviction record .
We see it when judges fail to prevent prosecutors from withholding exculpatory evidence and bribing witnesses and when judges accept coerced plea deals that deprive the defendant of a jury trial .
We just saw it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ month prison sentence for Lt. Gen. Flynn , the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency accused of lying to the FBI about nothing of any importance , for being uncooperative in the Justice ( sic ) Department ’ s effort to frame President Trump with false “ Russiagate ” charges .
The Justice ( sic ) Department prosecutor said : “ The sentence should adequately deter the defendant from violating the law , and to promote respect for the law .
It is clear that the defendant has not learned his lesson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law does not apply to him , and as if there are no consequences for his actions.
” That is precisely what the Justice ( sic ) Department itself did for years in their orchestration of the fake Russiagate charges against Trump .
The Justice ( sic ) Department is a criminal organization .
It has no sense of justice .
Convicting the innocent builds the conviction rate of the prosecutor as effectively as convicting the guilty .
The Horowitz report of the Justice ( sic ) Department ’ s lies to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prision sentence for those Justice ( sic ) Deplartment officials who lied to the government .
Horowitz covered up the crimes by converting them into “ mistakes.
” Yes , they are embarrassing “ mistakes , ” but mistakes don ’ t bring prison sentences .
Against the Left : A Ro ... Llewellyn H Rockwell Jr Best Price : $ 13.64 Buy New $ 8.00 Gen. Flynn , who was President Trump ’ s National Security Advisor for a couple of weeks before Mueller and Flynn ’ s attorneys manuevered him into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the FBI about whether he met with a Russian .
Flynn and his attorneys should never have accepted the proposition that a National Security Advisor shouldn ’ t meet with Russians .
Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski met with Russians all the the time .
It was part of their job .
Trump originally intended to normalize the strained relations with Russia .
Flynn should have been meeting with Russians .
It was his job .
Ninety-seven percent of felony cases are resolved with plea bargains .
In other words , there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guilt for a lighter sentence , and if he throws in “ cooperation , ” which generally means giving false evidence against someone else in the prosecutor ’ s net , no sentence at all .
Flynn was expected to help frame Trump and Flynn ’ s former business partner , Bijan Rafiekian , on an unrelated matter .
He didn ’ t , which means he is “ uncooperative ” and deserving of a prison sentence .
Plea bargains have replaced trials for three main reasons .
One is that the defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work of defending his client .
One is that the majority of defendants can not afford to pay the cost of defense .
One is that refusing to plea guilty and demanding a trial angers both the prosecutor and judge .
Trials take time and provide a test of often unreliable police and prosecutorial evidence .
They mean work for the prosecutor .
Even if he secures a conviction , during the same time he could have obtained many more plea bargain convictions .
For the judge , trials back up his case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the defendant very high risks of a much longer and more severe sentence than he would get in exchange for saving prosecutor and judge time and energy .
All of this is explained to the defendant by his attorney .
It was explained to Gen. Flynn .
He agreed to a plea , most likely advised that his “ offense ” was so minor , no sentence would be forthcoming .
Flynn later tried to revoke his plea , saying it was coerced , but the Clinton-appointed judge refused to let him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we know the only Russiagate scandal was its orchestration by the CIA , Justice ( sic ) Department , and Democrats , failing to cooperate with the special counsel investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election is nonsensical as we know for a definite fact that there was no such interference .
This is how corrupt American law has become .
A man is being put in prison for 6 months for not cooperating with an investigation of an event that did not happen !
If Trump doesn ’ t pardon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and fire the corrupt prosecutors who falsely prosecuted Flynn , Trump deserves no one ’ s support .
A president who will not defend his own people from unwarranted prosecution is not worthy of support .
In Flynn ’ s case , we can not dismiss the suspicion that revenge against Flynn was the driving factor .
Gen. Flynn is the official who revealed on television that Obama made the willful decision to send ISIS or whatever we want to call them into Syria .
Of course , the Obama regime pretended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overthrow the alleged dictator Assad and bring democracy to Syria .
Washington then pretended that it was fighting the mercenaries it had sent into Syria .
Even though the presstitutes did their best to ignore Flynn ’ s information , Flynn gave extreme offense by letting this information out .
That bit of truth-telling was Flynn ’ s real offense .
The Best of Paul Craig Roberts

In the United States the criminal justice (sic) system is itself not subject to law. We see immunity to law continually as police commit felonies against citizens and even murder children and walk away free. We see it all the time when prosecutors conduct political prosecutions and when they prosecute the innocent in order to build their conviction record. We see it when judges fail to prevent prosecutors from withholding exculpatory evidence and bribing witnesses and when judges accept coerced plea deals that deprive the defendant of a jury trial.
We just saw it again when federal prosecutors recommended a six month prison sentence for Lt. Gen. Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency accused of lying to the FBI about nothing of any importance, for being uncooperative in the Justice (sic) Department’s effort to frame President Trump with false “Russiagate” charges. The Justice (sic) Department prosecutor said: “The sentence should adequately deter the defendant from violating the law, and to promote respect for the law. It is clear that the defendant has not learned his lesson. He has behaved as though the law does not apply to him, and as if there are no consequences for his actions.”
That is precisely what the Justice (sic) Department itself did for years in their orchestration of the fake Russiagate charges against Trump.
The prosecutor’s hypocrisy is overwhelming.
The Justice (sic) Department is a criminal organization. It has no sense of justice. Convicting the innocent builds the conviction rate of the prosecutor as effectively as convicting the guilty. The Horowitz report of the Justice (sic) Department’s lies to the FISA court did not recommend a six-month prision sentence for those Justice (sic) Deplartment officials who lied to the government. Horowitz covered up the crimes by converting them into “mistakes.” Yes, they are embarrassing “mistakes,” but mistakes don’t bring prison sentences. Against the Left: A Ro... Rockwell Jr, Llewellyn H Best Price: $2.85 Buy New $8.00 (as of 07:59 UTC - Details)
Gen. Flynn, who was President Trump’s National Security Advisor for a couple of weeks before Mueller and Flynn’s attorneys manuevered him into a plea bargain, allegedly lied to the FBI about whether he met with a Russian. Flynn and his attorneys should never have accepted the proposition that a National Security Advisor shouldn’t meet with Russians. Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski met with Russians all the the time. It was part of their job. Trump originally intended to normalize the strained relations with Russia. Flynn should have been meeting with Russians. It was his job.
Ninety-seven percent of felony cases are resolved with plea bargains. In other words, there is no trial. The defendant admits to guilt for a lighter sentence, and if he throws in “cooperation,” which generally means giving false evidence against someone else in the prosecutor’s net, no sentence at all. Flynn was expected to help frame Trump and Flynn’s former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, on an unrelated matter. He didn’t, which means he is “uncooperative” and deserving of a prison sentence.
Plea bargains have replaced trials for three main reasons. One is that the defense attorney doesn’t want the hard work of defending his client. One is that the majority of defendants cannot afford to pay the cost of defense. One is that refusing to plea guilty and demanding a trial angers both the prosecutor and judge. Trials take time and provide a test of often unreliable police and prosecutorial evidence. They mean work for the prosecutor. Even if he secures a conviction, during the same time he could have obtained many more plea bargain convictions. For the judge, trials back up his case docket. Consequently, a trial means for the defendant very high risks of a much longer and more severe sentence than he would get in exchange for saving prosecutor and judge time and energy. All of this is explained to the defendant by his attorney.
It was explained to Gen. Flynn. He agreed to a plea, most likely advised that his “offense” was so minor, no sentence would be forthcoming. Flynn later tried to revoke his plea, saying it was coerced, but the Clinton-appointed judge refused to let him out of the trap.
Now that we know the only Russiagate scandal was its orchestration by the CIA, Justice (sic) Department, and Democrats, failing to cooperate with the special counsel investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election is nonsensical as we know for a definite fact that there was no such interference.
This is how corrupt American law has become. A man is being put in prison for 6 months for not cooperating with an investigation of an event that did not happen!
If Trump doesn’t pardon Flynn (and Manafort and Stone), and fire the corrupt prosecutors who falsely prosecuted Flynn, Trump deserves no one’s support. A president who will not defend his own people from unwarranted prosecution is not worthy of support.
In Flynn’s case, we cannot dismiss the suspicion that revenge against Flynn was the driving factor. Gen. Flynn is the official who revealed on television that Obama made the willful decision to send ISIS or whatever we want to call them into Syria. Of course, the Obama regime pretended that the jihadists were moderates seeking to overthrow the alleged dictator Assad and bring democracy to Syria. Washington then pretended that it was fighting the mercenaries it had sent into Syria. Even though the presstitutes did their best to ignore Flynn’s information, Flynn gave extreme offense by letting this information out. That bit of truth-telling was Flynn’s real offense.
The Best of Paul Craig Roberts