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Title: With Suleimani Assassination, Trump Is Doing the Bidding of Washington’s Most Vile Cabal
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URL Source: https://theintercept.com/2020/01/03 ... tion-trump-administration-war/
Published: Jan 4, 2020
Author: Jeremy Scahill
Post Date: 2020-01-04 20:25:32 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 176
Comments: 22
While the media focus for three years of the Trump presidency has centered around “Russia collusion” and impeachment, the most dangerous collusion of all was happening right out in the open — the Trump/Saudi/Israel/UAE drive to war with Iran. On August 3, 2016 — just three months before Donald Trump would win the Electoral College vote and ascend to power — Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged a meeting at Trump Tower. For decades, Prince had been agitating for a war with Iran and, as early as 2010, had developed a fantastical proposal for using mercenaries to wage it. At this meeting was George Nader, an American citizen who had a long history of being a quiet emissary for the United States in the Middle East. Nader, who had also worked for Blackwater and Prince, was a convicted pedophile in the Czech Republic and is facing similar allegations in the United States. Nader worked as an adviser for the Emirati royals and has close ties to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince. Join Our Newsletter Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. I’m in There was also an Israeli at the Trump Tower meeting: Joel Zamel. He was there supposedly pitching a multimillion-dollar social media manipulation campaign to the Trump team. Zamel’s company, Psy-Group, boasts of employing former Israeli intelligence operatives. Nader and Zamel were joined by Donald Trump Jr. According to the New York Times, the purpose of the meeting was “primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months, past the election and well into President Trump’s first year in office.” One major common goal ran through the agendas of all the participants in this Trump Tower meeting: regime change in Iran. Trump campaigned on belligerence toward Iran and trashing the Obama-led Iran nuclear deal, and he has followed through on those threats, filling his administration with the most vile, hawkish figures in the U.S. national security establishment. After appointing notorious warmonger John Bolton as national security adviser, Trump fired him last September. But despite reports that Trump had soured on Bolton because of his interventionist posture toward Iran, Bolton’s firing merely opened the door for the equally belligerent Mike Pompeo to take over the administration’s Iran policy at the State Department. Now Pompeo is the public face of the Suleimani assassination, while for his part, the fired Bolton didn’t want to be left out of the gruesome victory lap: Trump, who had no idea who Qassim Suleimani was until it was explained to him live on the radio by conservative journalist Hugh Hewitt in 2015, didn’t seem to need many details to know that he wanted to crush the Iranian state. Much as the neoconservatives came to power in 2001 after the election of George W. Bush with the goal of regime change in Iraq, Trump in his bumbling way assembled a team of extremists who viewed him as their best chance of wiping the Islamic Republic of Iran off the map. While Barack Obama provided crucial military and intelligence support for Saudi Arabia’s scorched earth campaign in Yemen, which killed untold numbers of civilians, Trump escalated that mass murder in a blatant effort to draw Iran militarily into a conflict. That was the agenda of the gulf monarchies and Israel, and it coincided neatly with the neoconservative dreams of overthrowing the Iranian government. As the U.S. and Saudi Arabia intensified their military attacks in Yemen, Iran began to insert itself more and more forcefully into Yemeni affairs, though Tehran was careful not to be tricked into offering this Trump/Saudi/UAE/Israel coalition a justification for wider war. Protesters shout slogans against the United States and Israel as they hold posters with the image of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a demonstration in the Kashmiri town of Magam on January 3, 2020. - Hundreds of people in Indian Kashmir staged "anti-American" demonstrations in the troubled territory on January 3 within hours of US forces killing a top Iranian commander. (Photo by Tauseef MUSTAFA / AFP) (Photo by TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP via Getty Images) Protesters shout slogans against the United States and Israel as they hold posters with the image of top Iranian commander Qassim Suleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a demonstration in the Kashmiri town of Magam on Jan. 3, 2020. Photo: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images The assassination of Suleimani — a popular figure in Iran who is viewed as one of the major drivers of ISIS’s defeat in Iraq — was one of only a handful of actions that the U.S. could have taken that would almost certainly lead to a war with Iran. This assassination, reportedly ordered directly by Trump, was advocated by the most dangerous and extreme players in the U.S. foreign policy establishment with that exact intent. Assassination has been a central component of U.S. policy for many decades, though it has been whitewashed and normalized throughout history, most recently with Obama’s favored term, “targeted killings.” The U.S. Congress has intentionally never legislated the issue of assassination. Lawmakers have avoided even defining the word “assassination.” While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, they have each carried out assassinations with little to no congressional outcry. The Iran CablesRead Our Complete CoverageThe Iran Cables In 1976, following Church Committee recommendations regarding allegations of assassination plots carried out by U.S. intelligence agencies, Ford signed an executive order banning “political assassination.” Jimmy Carter subsequently issued a new order strengthening the prohibition by dropping the word “political” and extending it to include persons “employed by or acting on behalf of the United States.” In 1981, Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333, which remains in effect today. The language seems clear enough: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” As I wrote in August 2017, reflecting on our Drone Papers series from two years earlier, “The Obama administration, by institutionalizing a policy of drone-based killings of individuals judged to pose a threat to national security — without indictment or trial, through secret processes — bequeathed to our political culture, and thus to Donald Trump, a policy of assassination, in direct violation of Executive Order 12333 and, moreover, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. To date, at least seven U.S. citizens are known to have been killed under this policy, including a 16-year-old boy. Only one American, the radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, was said to have been the ‘intended target’ of a strike.” There’s no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Suleimani. While many Democratic politicians are offering their concerns about the consequences of Suleimani’s assassination, they are prefacing it with remarks about how atrocious Suleimani was. Framing his assassination that way ultimately benefits the extremist cabal of foreign policy hawks who agitated for this very moment to arrive. There’s no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Suleimani. This is an aggressive act of war, an offensive act committed by the U.S. on the sovereign territory of a third country, Iraq. This assassination and the potential for a war it raises are, unfortunately, consistent with more than half a century of U.S. aggression against Iran and Iraq. For three years, many Democrats have told the country that Trump is the gravest threat to a democratic system we have faced. And yet many leading Democrats have voted consistently to give Trump unprecedented military budgets and surveillance powers. Five months ago, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have prohibited this very type of action, but it was removed from the final bill. “Any member who voted for the NDAA — a blank check — can’t now express dismay that Trump may have launched another war in the Middle East,” Khanna wrote on Twitter after Suleimani’s assassination. “My Amendment, which was stripped, would have cut off $$ for any offensive attack against Iran including against officials like Soleimani.” Trump is responsible for whatever comes next. But time and again, the worst foreign policy atrocities of his presidency have been enabled by the very politicians who claim to want him removed from office.
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#1. To: Ada, All (#0)
This will drive some into hysteria or worse...Trump told Iran he has 52 more sites ready to take out.
While the Trump administration has claimed that the attack was driven by a self- defense rationale, with Soleimani allegedly planning imminent attacks on US targets in the region, UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions said the strike rather appeared to be retaliatory in nature. The attack on a senior Iranian commander, which was slammed by Iran's UN envoy as an 'act of war', also lacked congressional authorization, with US presidents expected to seek it to declare a war. Instead, however, the strike seems to have been based on the War on Terror authorization of use of military force, which was granted to the White House after the 9/11, with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which Quds force is part of, designated by US government as a terror group in April 2019. "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
Carlson will have to wear a straight jacket to contain himself while frothing at the mouth. TRUMP IS NOT NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN.
I guess he is letting them know the other shoe can, and will, drop. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
When Hitler marched troops into the Rhine River valley, and the French and British did nothing, he knew he had them whipped. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
Trump is in charge, Carlson and our friends here better accept that.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡ "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." -- Thomas Jefferson
Declared or not, war is hell. The muzzies will soon enough realize that they no longer have a fellow-traveler in the White House. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
Ah yes...indeed. Disturbing to see how many here have failed to learn from history. I recall long ago when the French and Brits kissed Hitlers ass, to prevent war. Churchill was called a warmonger for telling them to stop Hitler while they could. Millions died as a result.
I support anyone and anything that opposes the cults of the koran and the talmud.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
With respect, while Hitler was an asshole, Churchill and his friends wanted a large-scale conflict as much as Hitler did. The hope was to promote and maintain British global might and supremacy. The results were somewhat less than were expected.
randge...History..available quickly on internet... WWI...Churchill was in charge of Brit navy, screwed up and was fired. He volunteered and served on western front. He was not an armchair warrior. Six months BEFORE Versaille treaty was signed, German Army Chief of Staff, General Hans von Seeckt drew up the plans for the next invasion of France and the low countries. Hitler was a corporal in German army at that time. Those were the plans used by Hitler years later to invade France. Churchill was writing in newspapers that the world should strangle communism while it could. World media called him war monger and worse. What was US doing??? We started fortifying and preparing for war with Japan after Versaille was signed. Check history, we bought cement from Japan to fortify Corregidore in...1920... Europe turned to Churchill when millions were dying.
I will not gainsay you there. The world should have listened to him at that point in time. But Lenin and Trotsky had friends in Western circles.
Fascism was given birth by an avowed world Communist named Mussolini. Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler were all blood brother COMMUNISTS... Every word out of their mouthes originated with Jews...every word.
Communism and Fascism are two sides of the same coin. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
History... This is an historical oddity, because Benito Mussolini had warm relations with the Soviet Union and Lenin. Mussolini wasn’t a monarchist, capitalist or a rightwing churchgoer. He was fervently anticlerical, an avowed atheist and a well-known Marxist during the early years of his life. Where’s the proof? In 1924 Fascist Italy became the first western country to recognize the Soviet Union. That should not be surprising. Calling himself the “Lenin of Italy,” Mussolini had earlier launched a theoretical Marxist journal, Utopia. Two of his collaborators on Utopia went on to found the Italian Communist Party. Another helped found the German Communist Party.[3] As socialist and labor agitator, he led strikes and riots against Italy’s invasion of Ottoman Libya in the 1911–1912. He supported the violent labor strikes during “Red Week, until it failed to topple the government. During the 1920s and 1930s, he often boasted that fascism was the same as communism.
At least he made the trains run on time, which except for France, they do to this very day. What would Benito do with the French strikers/slackers today?
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
I don't know for certain, but I saw some guy on Facebook who says he has been getting SSI since he was 14 y/o. I wonder where he got his work experience at that age? Or maybe it had something to do with his parents and their work history. Not sure how to find out more. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
And did you know that French Marxists fought the Germans as well as the Americans in France? ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
This is all interesting stuff, and I know that no one here wants to re-fight the last century or so of war. However, both the Germans and the British made pacts with the devil during the twentieth effing century. By that I mean with the bolsheviks, if that fact has escaped anyone's attention in this sense. Beyond raking over old coals I wonder, what is the lesson here in these times for us?? Your thots.
Yes. Studied that long ago. In fact there is film and audio of French communists shooting at de Gaule in Paris. The French army under Eisenhower refused to fight. Ike threatened to shut off their food and gas to get them to move. Let Brits and Yanks die. The last defenders of Berlin were Belgians and French.
If Hillary Clinton had killed the Salami she would have delivered a speech with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer standing behind her (along with the obligatory, random little black boy for whatever reason), eleventy-billion US flags, and solemn bullshit words of "strength in the face of adversity". And the fucking shitlibs/Demofags/communists/Leftists would ALL be RIGHT THERE WITH HER.
“With the exception of Whites, the rule among the peoples of the world, whether residing in their homelands or settled in Western democracies, is ethnocentrism and moral particularism: they stick together and good means what is good for their ethnic group."
#2. To: Ada (#0)
But time and again, the worst foreign policy atrocities of his presidency have been enabled by the very politicians who claim to want him removed from office.
#3. To: Ada (#0)
#4. To: Cynicom (#1)
Trump told Iran he has 52 more sites ready to take out.
#5. To: Cynicom (#3)
TRUMP IS NOT NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN.
#6. To: BTP Holdings (#4)
I guess he is letting them know the other shoe can, and will, drop. ;)
#7. To: Ada (#0)
#8. To: Cynicom (#1)
This will drive some into hysteria or worse...Trump told Iran he has 52 more sites ready to take out.
#9. To: Lod (#8)
The muzzies will soon enough realize that they no longer have a fellow-traveler in the White House.
#10. To: Cynicom (#9)
#11. To: Cynicom (#9)
#12. To: randge (#11)
With respect, while Hitler was an asshole, Churchill and his friends wanted a large-scale conflict as much as Hitler did.
#13. To: Cynicom (#12)
Churchill was writing in newspapers that the world should strangle communism while it could. World media called him war monger and worse.
#14. To: randge (#13)
#15. To: Cynicom (#14)
Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler were all blood brother COMMUNISTS...
#16. To: BTP Holdings, Lod (#15)
#17. To: Cynicom (#16)
#18. To: Lod (#17)
What would Benito do with the French strikers/slackers today?
#19. To: Cynicom (#16)
Mussolini had earlier launched a theoretical Marxist journal, Utopia. Two of his collaborators on Utopia went on to found the Italian Communist Party. Another helped found the German Communist Party.
#20. To: Cynicom (#16)
#21. To: BTP Holdings (#19)
And did you know that French Marxists fought the Germans as well as the Americans in France? ;)
#22. To: Ada (#0)
-Alex Kurtagic 
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