Berto Jongman: Foreign Policy Exclusive: CIA Files Prove USA Helped Sadaam Hussein Attack Iran with Chemical Weapons

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, DoD, Government, Idiocy, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Hypocrisy?

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

The U.S. knew Hussein was launching some of the worst chemical attacks in history — and still gave him a hand.

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

Source: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2003/03/11/15814941.php
Source: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2003/03/11/15814941.php

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq's favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration's long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn't disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein's government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

“The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn't have to. We already knew,” he told Foreign Policy.

Read full article (four screens, more links).

Mini-Me: Afghanistan in Transition – Regional Water Authority Emergent Centered In, Of, By, and Through Afghanistan

05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 12 Water
Who?  Mini-Me?
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

2013-08-26 Pakistan, Afghanistan mull over power project on Kunar River

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Afghanistan are moving towards joint management of common rivers starting with construction of a 1,500MW hydropower project on Kunar River — a major tributary of Kabul River contributing almost 13 million acres feet (MAF) annually to Pakistan.

iran dam2013-08-21  Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan hold trilateral meeting on water, energy

DUSHANBE (NNI): Officials of water and energy sector from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan held a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of an international conference on water cooperation on Wednesday.

During the meeting, Alireza Daemi, director of Water Catchment Department of the Iranian Energy Ministry and water and energy ministers of Afghanistan and Tajikistan emphasized the necessity of cooperation in implementing joint energy projects.

The construction process of Tajikistans Sangtoudeh-II power plant which will be completed by yearend with joint investment of Iran and Tajikistan was also discussed.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Afghanistan in Transition – Regional Water Authority Emergent Centered In, Of, By, and Through Afghanistan”

F. William Engdahl: The Stark Reality Behind Obama’s Russian ‘Statesmanship’

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Genocide, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Officers Call
F. William Engdahl
F. William Engdahl

The Stark Reality Behind Obama’s Russian ‘Statesmanship’

By F. William Engdahl

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant, author and lecturer. He is author of the best-selling book on oil and geopolitics, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. It has been published as well in French, German, Chinese, Russian, Czech, Korean, Turkish, Croatian, Slovenian and Arabic. In 2010 he published Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century, and in 2011, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, completing his trilogy on the power of oil, food and money control.

With a diplomatic attitude more reminiscent of a spoiled brat grabbing his toys and leaving the room, US President Obama has resorted to diplomatic snubs and childish criticisms of Russian behavior as if the Russian leaders were small children.

In a press conference Obama described the Russian President as having a “slouch…looking like that bored schoolboy in the back of the classroom.” Yet behind the childish form of the latest White House refusal to meet President Putin before the G-20 St. Petersburg Summit is a grim reality:

Washington is rapidly losing its way to impose its will in the world on multiple fronts and the Putin snub is an impotent reflection of that loss of power. The real issues in US-Russian relations go far deeper.

Read rest of long detailed article — strongly recommended.

Chuck Spinney: White House Blows Iran — Again….

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 08 Proliferation, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

The Washington Jerkocracy Strikes Again

by Rami G. Khouri
Agence-Global, 07 Aug 2013
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can follow him @ramikhouri.
 
BEIRUT — I would love to know who the jerk is who wrote the White House’s press statement on the occasion of the inauguration earlier this week of the new Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani. I say this is the work of a jerk, or a band of war-addicted zealots in Washington, D.C., because it seems designed to totally bury the opportunity that Rouhani represents to improve the wellbeing of Iranians and resolve Western-Iranian and Arab-Iranian tensions on a variety of important issues.

Marcus Aurelius: False Embassy Threat a Preamble to War? + Syria Islam Divide Iran Nuclear Israeli Insanity RECAP Update 1.1 — More Prison Breaks?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

The retired Marine colonel who cued me to this report opined that, “This is a hell of a lot closer to the mark than any Administration or DoS blathering.”  I would be totally unsurprised to find him 100% spot-on.  I invite your attention to the final para, highlighted.  If that is true, the (in)actions of our government may have rendered us incapable, fiscally and operationally, of effective response.  Another Task Force Smith, another Kaserine Pass could be the foreseeable result.

Unmasking the embassy threat

Embassy closures are a signal of the rapidly escalated intervention in the region by the US

There is one thing certain about the publicized threat to our embassies; it is not what it is presented to be. To accept the official explanation of a nebulous threat from al Qaeda as the reason for closing our embassies across the Middle East and North Africa is being dangerously naive and simplistic.

This is much more serious than what we are being told, but not for the reasons we are being given. We are seeing the consequences of a long running “Cold War” on two major fronts of political conflict that could escalate into military engagement with proxy nations of world super powers. The world, and life as we know it, could change in an instant should we awaken one morning to the news of bombs flying across the Middle East. That is a very real possibility, as we are now in a heightened proxy war environment. We are standing in a thick forest of dry tinder, and the smallest of sparks could ignite a conflagration the likes of which we have never before seen.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: False Embassy Threat a Preamble to War? + Syria Islam Divide Iran Nuclear Israeli Insanity RECAP Update 1.1 — More Prison Breaks?”

Neal Rauhauser: Greater Kurdistan and the Syrian Insurgency

05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence
Neal Rauhauser
Neal Rauhauser

Lesser Syria, Greater Kurdistan, Armenia’s Mt. Olympus

Here in America it’s somewhat notable to meet up with someone who can identify all fifty of our states if presented with a national map that doesn’t have a legend. European weapons and European diseases made quick work of the native population and there are only a few areas where there is any political friction from the survivors, mostly remote places like Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

The ethnic, sectarian, and historical divisions of the Mideast are obscure and puzzling to us in general, and they remain puzzling to our policy makers. This is about expectations – the U.S. civil war was an anomaly. We had defined nation states, uniformed armies, a clear cut beginning, a fairly clean end, and while the meme has never died there hasn’t been any large scale violence since the cessation of the conflict, nearly 150 years ago. The Mideast is full and there are always tensions the likes of which we never experience here.

This being said, I am now going to put up a bunch of maps and engage in a bit of wild speculation about some things that aren’t all that likely to happen, but if they did … well … game changers.

Read rest of post with graphics.

Funding The Syrian Insurgency

When I wrote Mali Is Neither Afghanistan Nor Somalia in mid-January I was coming from a place of common sense. Mali does not have anything like Afghanistan’s opium poppy crop or Somalia’s piracy opportunities. The only shady business that goes on there is the keeping of western captives. It’s reported that half of all kidnap victims in all of Africa are kept somewhere in Azawad – the rebellious part of Mali north of the Niger river.

Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy, a 2006 paper on the analysis of 47 civil wars, provided a serious academic confirmation of what I had suspected – insurgencies without funding sources simply don’t last. What does this mean for Syria?

Read full post with graphics.

Jean Lievin & Jon Rappoport: Is Ed Snowden A Stake In Heart of USG-Wall Street Market Rigging? Is an Impeachment Shit-Storm Looming? Will Extratradition of US Bankers Be Demanded?

04 Indonesia, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Liberation Technology, Military, Policy, Privacy
Jean Lievens
Jean Lievens

Max Keiser Explains Significance of Edward Snowden’s “Leak”

Twitching, rumpled and passionate, Max Keiser explains the deeper significance of Edward Snowden’s recent intelligence leaks.  It’s not about national security.  Keiser implies that Snowden has revealed evidence of a fascist market-rigging operation that’s ultimately funding America’s secret government–a corporate plutocracy.

 

Jon Rappoport
Jon Rappoport

Matrix: Who is Edward Snowden?

By Jon Rappoport

This article is a compilation of a number of pieces I’ve written about Ed Snowden and the NSA. It doesn’t replace them, but it hits the high points…

EXTRACT

For years ATS [substitute NSA] had been using its technological superiority to conduct massive insider trading. Since the early 1980s, the company had spied on anyone and everyone in the financial world. They listened in on phone calls, intercepted faxes, and evolved right along with the technology, hacking internal computer networks and e-mail accounts. They created mountains of ‘black dollars’ for themselves, which they washed through various programs they were running under secret contract, far from the prying eyes of financial regulators.

Those black dollars were invested into hard assets around the world, as well as in the stock market, through sham, offshore corporations. They also funneled the money into reams of promising R&D projects, which eventually would be turned around and sold to the Pentagon or the CIA.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Jean Lievin & Jon Rappoport: Is Ed Snowden A Stake In Heart of USG-Wall Street Market Rigging? Is an Impeachment Shit-Storm Looming? Will Extratradition of US Bankers Be Demanded?”