Thursday, June 20, 2019

Changing Strategy

Voting For Team Captain,

As US-Iran tensions increase, Tulsi Gabbard calls her 2020 candidacy a ‘threat to the foreign policy lies sold to the American people’
This past week, two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman were crippled with explosions that have set the region on edge and sparked concerns that the United States and Iran could soon engage in a bloody war with massive international ramifications.
With little information made public, the Trump administration has begun making the case for a potential conflict, blaming Iran and pointing to a grainy video as proof of its culpability.
Meanwhile, worlds away from the Middle East, congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has been framing her presidential candidacy on avoiding this type of sabre rattling. While some of her better-known Democratic rivals have focused on healthcare or climate change as the number one concern, the army veteran has instead cited nuclear war and US regime-change policy as the number one threat to the the country she hopes to lead.  


Early this morning Iranian air defense shot down a U.S. high attitude reconnaissance drone:
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have shot down a U.S. “spy” drone in the southern province of Hormozgan, which is on the Gulf, the Guards’ news website Sepah News said on Thursday.
State news agency IRNA carried the same report, identifying the drone as an RQ-4 Global Hawk.
“It was shot down when it entered Iran’s airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in the south,” the Guards’ website added.​..

​ ​Trump does not want to open a military conflict with Iran. But he is already waging a brutal economic war against Iran and the country is pushing back. Trump wants negotiations with Iran without first lifting his sanctions against it. Iran rejects that.​..
 (Interestingly no MQ-4C is supposed to be in the Middle East. The deployment must have been secret. Update: This specific drone seems to have arrived in Qatar only five days ago.​)...​ 
​ ​It does no longer matter what Trump wants. Iran has achieved escalation dominance. It can cause a myriad of incidents that force Trump to react. He can either launch a hot war and thereby risk his reelection bid, or he can cut back on the sanctions that hurt the Iranian people. If he does not do either, more pinpricks will follow and will over time become more costly.

The loss of the Global Hawk drone is significant. These huge birds, with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737, are considered strategic assets. They were build as replacements for the infamous U-2 spy planes. They carry highly classified sensors and cost more than $120 million a piece.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/iran-shoots-down-strategic-us-drone-is-ready-for-war-puts-maximum-pressure-on-trump-.html#more  


All over the world, leaders of important countries, and various "experts" of all stripe are calling 'bullshit" on US evidence that "Iran obviously did it".
 Even Elliot Higgins of Bellingcat – who is famously pro-war against regimes which the U.S. has targeted, like Syria – writes in the New York Times:
 Nothing presented as evidence proves that the object was placed there by the Iranians. The video shows only that the Iranians chose to remove it for an as yet unknown reason.
 This is especially important in light of a statement by Yukata Katada, the president of the operator of the Kokuka Courageous, that the crew had reported that the ship was attacked by a “flying object.” Mr. Katada added, “I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship.”

Pompeo To Present Military "Options" To Trump As Iran Threatens Carriers With "Precision" Ballistic Missiles


 On May 9 the White House announced that it would nominate Shanahan for the Secretary of Defense position. But it never sent the nomination request to Congress to have Shanahan confirmed. During the usual FBI background check before a confirmation, a 2010 domestic violence incident Shanahan was involved in came up. It seems that it now ended his short career at the Pentagon.
Shanahan had zero experience in the military. He is a former Boeing manager. A recent Politico portrait of Shanahandescribed him as weak leader who allowed the war hawks in National Security Council to directly talk with regional commanders without even informing him. He was no counterweight for Bolton and Pompeo who are eager to wage war on Iran...
Trump already had difficulties to find a new Secretary of Defense. Shanahan was not his first choice. To now find a new candidate will be difficult.
It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place.
Bolton and Pompeo obviously want a war on Iran and they try their best to instigate it. They need a new SecDef in place as soon as possible.
Pompeo served five years as an officer in the U.S. army. He has extensive political experience. Would he want to become Secretary of Defense?
 That would leave the Secretary of State position open for John Bolton to move in. The confirmation would be a bit difficult but the Senate is in Republican hands and might go with it.
One of Bolton's cronies could then take over the National Security Advisor position.


Trump Heights, international real estate deal-of-the-century:
 Israeli authorities on Sunday established a new development they coined “Trump Heights”, with Binyamin Netanyahu presiding over the unveiling ceremony alongside U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
 The location for the new colony is on land stolen by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war, an area known as the Golan Heights, and illegally occupied by the Israeli military since that time. Donald Trump recently announced that he recognizes Israel’s claim to the territory – despite no internationally-recognized treaty or agreement ever having been signed ceding the territory.

​ ​Israel conducted the largest military drill it's held in years during the first half of this week, according to the AP, which described the exercise as intended a simulated "future war" against Hezbollah.
​ ​The four-day war games concluded on Wednesday, and though pre-planned, came just days following the tanker attack incident in the Gulf of Oman which has sent tensions between Washington and Tehran soaring. The exercise focused on an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) multi-pronged all-branch deployment against threats on Israel's northern border.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-19/israel-holds-largest-hezbollah-war-exercise-years-amid-iran-tensions  


 Outrage Against 'Rising Jewish Hegemony' Was Widespread Among Top US Military Brass Before and After WW2
Ron Unz (12400 words, long and detailed, Thanks, Eleni)

Putin and Xi met early this month to finalize and coordinate...
One of the first major confrontations with the US by Russia and the PRC was to be over the greater Middle East. The main reason was the advance negotiations with all key oil producers — including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran — on substituting the petrodollar with a basket of currencies where the yuan, the euro and the ruble dominate. Using the currency basket would enable the sellers and buyers to go around the US-imposed sanctions and quotas. Indeed, Beijing and Moscow were now enticing the oil producers with huge, long-term export deals which were both financially lucrative and politically tempting by offering guarantees for the well-being of the participating governments.
The crux of the proposal is regional and includes flagrant disregard of the US sanctions on Iran.
However, the key to the extent of the commitment of both Beijing and Moscow lies in the growing importance and centrality of the New Silk Road via Central Asia.
Persia had a crucial rôle in the ancient Silk Road, and both the PRC and Russia now expect Iran to have a comparable key rôle in the New Silk Road.
The growing dominance of heritage-based dynamics throughout the developing world, including the greater Central Asia and the greater Middle East, makes it imperative for the PRC to rely on historic Persia/Iran as a western pole of the New Silk Road. It is this realization which led both Beijing and Moscow to give Tehran, in mid-May 2019, the original guarantees that Washington would be prevented from conducting a “regime change”.


President Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are meeting in Pyongyang Thursday after Xi became the first Chinese leader in 14 years to visit North Korea. And although nobody could say for sure what the two would be discussing, most believed that their mutual difficulties with Washington would likely be on the agenda...
 A banner at the airport welcome ceremony read: "Long Live with Unbreakable Friendship and Unity Formed by Blood," a  declaration of the longstanding 'friendship' between the two Communist nations.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-20/xi-kim-hold-historic-meeting-pyongyang  


Charles Hugh Smith, Dear Central Bankers: Prepare to be Swept Away in the Next Wave of Populism
The political moment when the "losers" connect their discontent and decline with central bankers is approaching.

The Fed makes noises to cut the discount rate, but not today. Gold jumps.

Where does your plastic in the "recycling" bin go?  Long story. Bad story. Changing and staying the same. 
(Mostly piling up and getting illegally burned in villages of poor countries, where it makes people sick.)

Man, what a lot of fine hand work is done by these villagers! Thanks Ray.
 Every year the last remaining Inca rope bridge still in use is cast down and a new one erected across the Apurimac river in the Cusco region of Peru.
The Q'eswachaka bridge is woven by hand and has been in place for at least 600 years. Once part of the network that linked the most important cities and towns of the Inca empire, it was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2013.


​Biodegradable ​

2 comments:

  1. I read this post and then went about my housework but couldn't shake the uneasy feeling. Why lie about how the tankers (from Norway & Japan, not U.S.) why this lie that they were not attacked aerial but rather by an attached bomb under the sea making it impossible to know the truth. And whose bright idea for the lie against eye witness reports of an aerial attack.These layered lies are all gummied together creating such a solid block of filth.

    Thank you Dr.Day for keeping up with it.

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    Replies
    1. I'm trying to piece together what happened last Thursday morning in the Strait of Hormuz...

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