Babylon the Great Transfers Nukes to Europe

U.S. transfers two nuclear bombers to Europe

09:16, 17 March 2019

The United States has thrown two strategic B-52H Stratofortress bombers, which can carry nuclear bombs, at the Fairford Air Base in the UK. MilRadarreported on Twitter,  which tracks the messages of air traffic control services.

Aircraft DRYER91 and DRYER92 took off from the Barksdale air base in Louisiana and landed at the airfield in the UK on March 16.

Three B-52H bombers landed at the Fairford airbase the day before. Such a massive transfer of the US Air Force strategic bombers to Fairford has not happened since 2003 when up to 20 B-52H aircraft were deployed there to participate in the American military operation against Iraq.

The strategic bomber B-52H Stratofortress has been used by the American army since 1955. The B-52H was created in order to deliver two high-power thermonuclear bombs to any part of the Soviet Union.

According to the latest data, the United States has 78 such vehicles. Each of them can carry 31,5 tons of various weapons, including nuclear charges.

American Hegemony in the Middle East

The US In Iraq And The New Offensives In The Region – Analysis

Modern DiplomacyMarch 16, 2019

A U.S. Army M109A6 Paladin howitzer conducts a fire mission at Qayyarah West Airfield, Iraq. Army photo by Spc. Christopher Brecht

By Giancarlo Elia Valori

Over the last few days, particularly on March 6,  new US troops arrived in Iraq. They in fact arrived in the Iraqi area of Al Anbar, leaving from bases located in both Israel and Jordan, particularly from the Mowaffaq Salti and  H-4 air bases.

 Nevertheless the US troops – quickly attacked by the Iraqi Shiites – probably arrived also from other bases outside Iraq.

 Those US forces had the primary goal of quickly crushing an operation of Shiite brigades connected to Iran, but coordinated by the People’s Mobilization Forces that, albeit linked to Iran, are the political and military axis of the major groups elected to Parliament.

 Moreover, last year, it was exactly the Iraqi legislative Assembly that adopted legislation making the Shiite militias an essential and official asset of the Iraqi political system.

 The Hashd al-Shabi forces –  in their new “civilian” group, Fatah, which is their new political alliance – have also become the second group in terms of seats in the election held last May.

 The Hashd al-Shabi forces consist of at least 120,000 well-armed men, who were the first to declare victory on the Iraqi forces of Daesh-Isis – although we do not know yet to what extent this victory can be considered final.

 It should also be recalled that, precisely with the recent election held in Iraq on May 12, 2018, almost all the traditional ethnic-religious fragmentation and tension among Iraqi voters have slackened.

 The real cleavage among Iraqi political groups is now more focused on the defence of territorial interests and on the Welfare share to be transferred from the centre to the periphery than on the traditional “rift” between religious and ethnic groups.

 Currently the real fragmentations are the internal and economic ones within the various political groups.

 The precarious Iraqi government, however, is led by the Shiite leader, Adil Abdil Mahdi, a member of the party known as the “Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq” (ISCI), linked and derived directly from the old Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Shiite and Khomeinist organization founded in 2007 upon Imam Baqir al-Hakim’s initiative.

 Also the Sunnis, however, gathered and supported their traditional electorate, especially within the rebalancing of financial transfers between their regions and the central State.

 Moreover, the Kurds are increasingly present in the administration and in the central political system but – as can be easily imagined – to favour their autonomous welfare and international and Iraqi investments in Erbil and in their great province between Kirkuk and the non-Iraqi Kurdish areas.

 Later, however, the Iraqi Shiite Prime Minister met with resistance even in his traditional Shiite bloc, among the “Sadrists” of the Sairoon Party and even in some Kurdish sectors.

 Furthermore, with their Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Kurds already have 45 seats out of 100 and traditionally obtain many votes from the Christian and Turkmen minorities.

 Certainly the economic and political relations with Turkey – which constantly acquires many of the Iraqi waters – are essential for both oil extraction and agriculture.

 Another variable between Shiites, Kurds and the United States, as well as in the local relations among Russians.

 Daesh-Isis, however, is coming back onto the scene, particularly in North-Western Iraq.

 In all likelihood, however, the “Caliphate” does not intend to conquer the cities –  which are currently difficult to hold for a long time – but, from now on, it wants to operate as a mobile guerrilla group, possibly with further artillery actions and proposing itself again as the main political-military actor of the Al-Anbar region.

 It will be exactly the “Caliphate” to keep Iraq fragmented and weak. This is its primary strategic aim.

 Even this particular Iraqi internal political set-up leads Iran to consider Iraq the most important strategic pawn of its future foreign policy, especially in the framework of its nuclear issue.

  Certainly the nuclear reactors in Iran’s hands, but present on Iraq’s territory, would be the ideal solution for Iran.

 It should also be recalled that Iran sets great store by Iraq, considering that this country is at the origin of the new “corridor” that -upon the de facto end of the clashes in Syria -will go from the internal areas of the Shiite Iraq to Syria up to Beirut and the Lebanese areas controlled by Hezbollah.

The statement made in July 2018 in relation to the United States by General Soleimani, the leader of the Al Qods militias of the Iranian Pasdaran, “We are near you, where you cannot even imagine…”is probably the key to understanding the current situation.

The visit paid by the Iranian President, Hassan Rohani, on March 6, 2019 is a further factor to understand the Iraqi situation and the region that US analysts define as Syraq.

 The “reformist” President – according to the simplistic Western thinking – is sending a clear signal, above all to the United States, that the Shiite Iran values Iraq very much, mainly its de facto hegemony on it, but also the possibility that Iran immediately and directly clashes with the United States, right on the Iraqi ground, but only and solely where Iran wants.

 The Iranian President has also said that Iraq is the primary solution  “to bypass America’s unjust sanctions imposed on Iran”.

 In this regard, we should also recall the “International Conference for Reconstruction of Iraq”, held in Kuwait in March 2018.

 Its main document, drawn up directly by the World Bank, envisages as many as 157 primary projects for a total value of 88.7 billion US dollars, 23 of which are short-term and the remaining ones are medium-long term projects.

 Ii is worth recalling that Iraq is OPEC second largest oil producer and ranks fifth in terms of proven oil and gas reserves.

 Hence the Saudi specific interest in the Kuwait International Conference, although Saudi Arabia has not yet credible points of reference in the Iraqi ruling  class.

 Iraq is the real stake between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the strategic key is the separation of military continuity between the Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq.

 Saudi Arabia, however, has already provided over one billion US dollars for aid and 500 million US dollars for export support. Also the Emirate of Qatar granted another billion dollars and Kuwait followed suit, while the United States itself promised as many as 3 billion dollars.

 As can be easily imagined, everyone is interested in differentiating their support for Iraq and above all avoiding Iraq falling entirely into Iran’s hands.

It should be noted, however, that the 39 million inhabitants of present-day Iraq are increasing at a very quick pace (one million per year), which is certainly the fastest growth rate in the Middle East. It should also be recalled that the whole Iraqi social and economic system is characterized by the highest number of poor and unemployed people across the Middle East.

 It is therefore obvious that Iran wants to acquire the Iraqi oil market in its entirety and use it – as a political and economic weapon – against the whole Sunni axis and particularly against the United States and its allies within OPEC.

 In fact, after the Shiite forces’ attacks on some US military targets in Iraq – coincidentally carried out during Iranian President Rouhani’s visit – the United States immediately called back their forces in Israel and Jordan, as well as those in the Gulf, and – as always happens in these cases -it also alerted its military in Romania and Bulgaria.

 The two groups that attacked the US forces on March 6 and later are directly linked to Iran.

 It is a first militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah, while the other Shiite organization is known as Hasaib Ahl al-Ahq, i.e. the Khazali network.

 Both organizations stem directly from the Lebanese Hezbollah.

 The Kataib Hezbollah was founded by the Iranian Pasdaran and the military organization known as Al Quds Force,  which is linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

  Hezbollah in the Lebanon was born from the will of Imam Khomeini, who considered the Shiite group “the light of his life”.

 It should be recalled that Kataib is also one of the six groups that established the “People’s Mobilization Forces”, from which the current majority political bloc in Iraq stemmed.

 The Khazali network is also a party in the Iraqi Parliament, with 15 representatives, who are said to be the result of electoral fraud. It was also officially established by the Al Quds Force and, during the war in Iraq, it organized over 6,000 attacks on US and Western targets.

Nevertheless the very recent operations against the US military – in clear connection with Rouhani’s visit and his declarations on the now unique Iranian hegemony on Iraq – were carried out exactly one day after the United States had imposed further sanctions, but against a third Iranian Shiite military network, namely Al-Nujaba.

 More precisely, it is the Harakat Hezbollah Al-Nujaba, an organization created in 2013, which has four brigades between Iraq and some cells hidden in the Gulf (hence the apparently obscure reference in the above quoted statement by General Soleimani), including the military group that is explicitly devoted to the anti-Israeli operations on the Golan Heights.

 There is also an Al-Nujaba brigade carrying out special operations in Syria for Bashar al-Assad’s forces – a brigade equipped with several Russian T-72 tanks and, above all, Iranian missiles.

 Furthermore, a very strong signal for the US armed forces came from the statements made by Iraqi parliamentarian Nessar al Rabee, linked to the Sadrist movement and, hence, having direct relations also with the quasi-majority currently in power in Iraq, who asked that “all foreign forces should leave the Iraqi territory” .

 The Shiite Sadrist parliamentarian also added that this request would rescue Iraq from the “terrorist forces” that want to enter the country “under new labels”.

 Hence clear language and terminology.

  Moreover Prime Minister Al Mahdi stated he had spoken directly on the phone with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He also said that the United States can no longer legally establish their new bases on the Iraqi territory and added that the current US military presence is confined only to combating Isis-Daesh and training the Iraqi armed forces.

 The United States, however, is repositioning itself on the border between Iraq and Syria and, particularly, in the Western area of the Al-Anbar province and among the Kurds of Kirkuk.

 Nevertheless it is strange that, also for the Sadrists, this new composition of Iraqi Shiite forces comes after a long struggle of the Iraqi military and political Shiism against Iran’s increasingly heavier hegemony.

 Initially quasi-enemies and certainly Iraqi “nationalists”, probably  enemies of the Khomeinist doctrine of Velayat-e-Faqih, but currently  increasingly linked to Iran’s ideologies and, above all, interests.

 Hence the greater Iran’s economic and strategic reaction against the US  denunciation of the nuclear agreement, the greater the Iranian strongly adverse presence against the United States in Iraq, an inevitable axis for opposing the US troops, who are withdrawing from Syria and repositioning themselves right on the border with Iraq and, above all, at the starting point of the Shiite “corridor” that already reaches the Lebanon through the Syrian-Israeli border.

 Another essential factor of the Iranian strategy has recently been the organization of a fundamental meeting between Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – a meeting that took place in Tehran on February 27 last.

 Bashar al-Assad is the only Middle East leader who “kissed the hand” of Iran’s Supreme Leader.

 The primary signal of the meeting–again sent directly to the United States – is that Bashar al-Assad will never abandon Iran.

 Are we sure, however, that this new collocation of relations between Iran and Syria is really ideal for the Russian Federation?

 We will see at a later stage.

 In his meeting with Rohuani, Bashar al-Assad also explicitly said that  Syria will still be part of Iran’s “Resistance Axis” and currently also of all the guerrilla, terrorist and paramilitary entities that Iranians have so far organized between the Shiite areas and the covert structures operating in the Gulf Sunni world.

 The issue of the Syrian-Iranian relationship also concerns the whole connection between Syria, Iran and Iraq, considering that – during Bashar al-Assad visit to Tehran – General Suleimani said – very clearly, as usual –   “Our safest border is the one between our two countries and Iraq”.

 Here is, in fact, the real problem at the core of Khamenei’s and Assad’s fears, as well as of the current Iraqi leaders’. Both Syria and Iran think they must absolutely avoid the United States being their stable pocket, a strong buffer zone in Syria, always connected to Israeli strong air operations in Syria and, in the future, between the Bekaa Valley and the Golan Heights towards the Iraqi areas and, possibly, even on the Iranian border.

For this reason, in both Assad’s and Khamenei’ statements and recent actions, there are strong signs that make us foresee a new great offensive inside Syria, a massive action that could hit both some remaining Sunni-Caliphate pockets, between Idlib and Deir-Ezzor, and above all the US areas (the El Tanf base) and, more precisely, some Israeli targets.

 In fact, addressing to Israel, in mid-January 2019, General Soleimani said that the Jewish State must “greatly fear Iranian high-precision missiles” and that “in any case, Iran will keep all the military advisers and armed forces it deems appropriate”.

 Hence a new area of contrast is emerging between the Jewish State and the Shiite world, while the true solution to the equation could be a de facto agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation to contain Iran and make Israel safe, also on the border between Israel and the Lebanon.

 In fact, two days after the meeting between Assad and Ali Khamenei, Vladimir Putin met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Head of the Israeli Armed Forces, Tamir Hayman.

 The Russian leader explicitly ensured to give a free hand – also in relation to the Russian presence in Syria and in other regions –  to a possible Israeli attack against the Iranian positions in Syria.

 Putin also asked Netanyahu to formally accept the Russian primary role in the Syrian “peace-building process”. Hence he implicitly asked Israel to avoid future attacks on Iranian targets in Syria being targeted to areas shared between Iran and Russia and, above all, to implicitly favour the Russian presence on the ground.

 Obviously, the Iranian leaders are well aware of this and have therefore asked Bashar al-Assad to declare that any Israeli attack on Iranian targets in Syria will be considered a direct attack on Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

  In their designs, this could force Russia to have a milder approach vis-à-vis Iran.

*About the author: Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr. Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “International World Group”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.”

Source: This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Americans Try to Sue the Antichrist

Iraqi Cleric Faces Novel Suit on Hostage-Taking

BRITAIN EAKIN
April 6, 2017

WASHINGTON (CN) – Three Americans who were taken hostage and tortured in Iraq claim in a federal complaint that Iran and prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave material support to their abductors.

Russell Frost, Waiel el-Maadawy and Amr Mohamed brought their complaint Tuesday just over a year after their abduction. The Americans say they had been working in Iraq on a government contract to train Iraqi special forces when they were grabbed on Jan. 15, 2016, outside a translator’s apartment in Dora, a neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad.

The men initially thought they had been taken be Sunnis aligned with the Islamic State group, but el-Maadawy noticed an image of al-Sadr on one of his captor’s cellphones.

Al-Sadr led the Shiite Mahdi Army after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which has been closely linked to the sectarian violence that plagued the country in its wake.

Since the U.S. has sided with al-Sadr-aligned militia groups in the fight against the Islamic State, this gave the men confidence that they might survive the ordeal.

Frost, el-Maadawy and Mohamed eventually learned that they had been abducted by Saraya al-Salam, a militia they say al-Sadr founded and Iran funds.

Lawsuits against Iran for providing material support to terror groups are fairly common, but the men’s filing in Washington marks perhaps the first time anyone has sued al-Sadr.

“We felt like he should be responsible for organizing and instructing the groups that took these guys captive just as much as Iran is,” Kevin Hoffman, an attorney for the former captives, said in an interview.

Hoffman’s clients say they were held incommunicado for 31 days, blindfolded at a compound in Sadr City, in violation of numerous international laws.

“The hostage takers kicked the legs out from underneath their hostages, forcing them to kneel before the mural of Muqtada al-Sadr, taped dirty rags over their eyes, bound their hands and feet, and taped rags over their mouths so tightly that the men could barely breathe,” the complaint states.

“Every day for the next three weeks, they underwent psychological and physical torture,” the lawsuit continues.

The three Americans said they slept in freezing cold, asbestos-laden cells and “learned to urinate in empty water bottles in order to avoid the beating they would receive whenever they asked to use a bathroom.”

“Furthermore, the men discovered evidence of brain matter, body tissue, and other human remains throughout the area where they were being kept,” the complaint continues.

Hoffman, an attorney with the firm Singer Davis in Virginia Beach, noted that two of his clients were able to listen to and converse with their captors because they speak Arabic fluently.

“The guards bragged to Waiel and Amr about their Iranian military training and the time they had spent with Hezbollah in Lebanon,” the complaint states. “They also told Waiel about how their financial resources, weapons, and equipment came directly from Iran.”

Hoffman could not say for sure if his client spoke the Iraqi dialect of Arabic.

“Their job was to train Iraqi special forces while they were over there, and so I would imagine they spoke the dialect on a regular basis,” he said.

According to the complaint, the State Department became aware as early as 2013 that Iran had plans to use “an obscure Islamist group and its regional proxies” to increase kidnapping operations against Americans.

The men claim that an anonymous State Department official had knowledge that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had received intelligence the week before their kidnapping that “an Iranian-backed Shia militia group wanted to seize American personnel.”

That threat was allegedly never communicated, however, to the trio.

The agency is not a defendant to the complaint, but the men say this same  State Department official failed to warn the men because he had been optimistic that negotiations surrounding the Iranian nuclear deal would persuade Iran to restrain the militia.

Hoffman offered no comment on whether he has plans to take legal action against the U.S. government, saying only that he is investigating every possible avenue on behalf of his clients.

Upon their release, the three Americans were forced to thank al-Sadr in a video filmed in front of a large portrait of him.

“The men were also told to warn the United States that the Shia militias were prepared to resist if America tried to invade Iraq again,” the complaint states.

On July 17 – one day after the men’s release – al-Sadr said on his website that his militias would target U.S. individuals.

“This stance was re-affirmed in a televised interview with Muqtada al-Sadr’s official spokesman who stated ‘(w)e are thirst [sic] for Americans’ blood,’” the complaint says.

Hoffman said his clients are doing well as they recover from the experience.

“All three of them are exceedingly resilient guys,” Hoffman said. “They have a long history of public service and they’re not really dissuaded from that.”

Still, the men suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and are undergoing medical treatment for lingering injuries.

“For instance the way they were bound for extended periods of time caused nerve damage in some of their limbs,” Hoffman said.

“They are doing their best to move on and they are recovering but there’s no doubt that they’re going to be affected by this physically and emotionally and mentally for a long time,” he added.

Neither the Iraqi embassy or the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington responded to an emailed request for comment about the lawsuit.

Frost, el-Maadawy and Mohamed are seeking punitive damages for their confinement, and pain and suffering – including torture. The men had been working in Iraq for Blue Light LLC, a subcontractor of General Dynamics.

The Nuclear Arsenal of Babylon the Great (Daniel 7)

Welcome to American Nuclear Weapons 101

Land of the free, home of the nukes?
Tom NicholsDana Struckman
October 3, 2015

Why does the United States have a nuclear arsenal, and what is it supposed to do?
That’s actually a complicated question, especially in the 21st century. Even during the Cold War, there were strong divisions among American strategists about the purpose of nuclear weapons. For some, they existed only to deter nuclear attacks on the United States; for others, they were the military equalizer between an outgunned West and a gigantic Communist alliance. How did we get the nuclear deterrent we have, and where should we go from here?

The Past:

The U.S. nuclear force today is the cumulative result of a number of decisions made over 70 years. At the dawn of the Cold War, bombers were the backbone of the American nuclear deterrent, since there was no other way to deliver a weapon over long distances. The Soviets also developed long-range bombers, but they were considerably inferior to their U.S. counterparts, and had to traverse two oceans before reaching North America.

At first, the United States tried to use its nuclear advantage to contain Soviet expansion by threatening to use nuclear force in response to almost any Soviet aggression anywhere. This was the Eisenhower-era policy of “Massive Retaliation,” but this was a less a strategy than a sign of desperation. There was no way for the U.S. and its allies to confront the massive conventional superiority of the Soviet Union (and, for a time, its huge Chinese communist ally) in Europe or Asia with conventional force. Outgunned and outmanned, the Americans threatened to respond “at times and in places of its own choosing” with nuclear arms, but Washington never made clear what would trip this nuclear trigger, and in the end, Massive Retaliation, while an early attempt to induce uncertainty in the enemy, was a hollow threat once the Soviets could respond in kind.

From the 1950s to the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union both diversified their strategic forces. Both sides soon developed long-range missiles, but the earliest versions were in perhaps the worst possible configuration: huge warheads on top of relatively inaccurate missiles sitting outside on launch pads. These bombers and missiles out in the open were sitting ducks, which made them a strong and destabilizing temptation for an enemy first strike.

In the 1960s, the superpowers started burying their missiles in the ground and hiding them underwater. Survivability was the key to stability: if neither side could be assured of neutralizing the other with a sudden attack, neither would risk suicide. This created the condition American strategists called “mutual assured destruction,” a phrase they chose in part because of the evocative acronym it created. The United States spread its ICBMs out over vast spaces in the American West, but the Americans took advantage of their maritime prowess to create a powerful sea-going deterrent as well (as did the Soviets, but in smaller numbers). These changes meant that both sides soon had a “secure second-strike capability,” or the guaranteed ability to strike back after being hit first.

By 1967 the U.S. arsenal hit a peak of some 32,000 weapons, from small bombs to blockbusters. This array of forces reflected the war that U.S. leaders and strategists expected to fight. During the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies assumed, sensibly, that no matter what started an East-West confrontation, the conflict would migrate to the inter-German border, the “Central Front,” in Europe. The Soviets, the reasoning went, would have every incentive to shift any conflict away from areas where they were weaker or less capable (such as Asia or the Middle East) and take it to the area where they enjoyed huge conventional superiority.

Once war was underway in Europe, NATO would be forced to surrender whatever was at issue to get the Soviets to release their grip on Western Europe. Nuclear weapons provided the West with its only chance of stopping such an attack. Small, short-range weapons (“tactical” nuclear arms) would be fired from everything ranging from bazookas to artillery, destroying the advancing Soviet tank armies and halting the invasion in its tracks. The goal was to convince the Soviet Union that nothing could be gained from aggression, since every scenario would lead back to a major nuclear exchange.

But did the Americans really intend to use nuclear arms, or were they trying to deter the Soviets from using nuclear force against the U.S. and NATO? The U.S. answer was to build a nuclear force configured for both deterrence and nuclear war-fighting. In fact, by the late 1960s, the American position was something of a paradox: the only way to convince the USSR that we wanted no part of a nuclear war was to have a logical plan for fighting one, and to maintain a credible force that could execute that plan. The U.S. triad thus shifted somewhat from a rationale of survivability and toward increasing options for nuclear use in a variety of scenarios ranging from limited strikes to all-out war. That force, and its multiple options, remains largely in place today.

The Present:

Today, the Cold War – or at least the most recent Cold War – is over. What does the U.S. strategic deterrent look like today, and what purpose should it serve in our national security?

First, it’s important to note that the dilemma of Massive Retaliation persists, in a way, to this day. What can the U.S. nuclear force, designed for World War III, do against a smaller nation that might be considering the use of, say, chemical weapons, or a single tactical bomb in a regional confrontation? Is the United States actually ready to employ nuclear strikes across North Korea or Iran?

Second, although the U.S. force is much smaller than it was during the Cold War (with, for example, only 450 land-based silos instead of 1000), it is still configured for a major nuclear conflict with a peer competitor. By treaty with the Russians, we can only have 700 launchers – that is, any mix of submarine or land-based missiles, along with bombers – and they can only carry a total of 1550 warheads. How should we arrange our forces within those limits?

The United States has conducted three reviews of its nuclear forces – in 1994, 2002, and 2010 – and each time concluded that it needs to retain the triad. But does America still need long-range bombers? Should it get rid of the land-based ICBMs, and move most of its missiles underwater, as some have argued? How many submarines, and with how many weapons on each, do we need? Does NATO still need tactical nuclear weapons, now that the Atlantic Alliance is the conventionally superior power and Russia is the inferior regional power?

The Future…Hard Choices Ahead:

Today, the U.S. nuclear deterrent is facing hard choices about modernization. The Air Force and Navy are drawing up plans for new bombers and a new generation of submarines. The American tactical arsenal will be modernized, at great cost. In effect, the result will be a smaller version of our Cold War nuclear deterrent, an idea that would have been harder to sell until the reemergence of Russia as a severe threat to U.S. security. But with the costs projected to reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars, it’s time to ask if our previous strategies and nuclear force structure make sense.
The next administration will have to do its own review of U.S. nuclear posture when it comes into office after 2017. Will it start from the ground up, or will it merely ratify decisions made in the 1960s and the 1970s? There’s no rule that says that previous answers are the wrong answers, but every planner knows that there’s always an insidious and difficult enemy when drawing up future forces: bureaucratic inertia.

Tom Nichols is Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College and an adjunct at the Harvard Extension School. His most recent book is No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security (University of Pennsylvania, 2014) You can follow him on Twitter:@RadioFreeTom.
Dana Struckman (Colonel, USAF, ret) is Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College. On active duty, he was a missileer and also worked in ICBM testing and acquisition. Additionally, he commanded a U.S. ICBM missile squadron at Minot AFB, North Dakota. The views expressed solely those of the authors.

American Terrorism (Ezekiel 17)

 

The Nuclear Deal

By: Noam Chomsky

Nothing can compare with the U.S. “war on terror.”

The nuclear deal reached between Iran and P5+1 was greeted with relief and optimism throughout the world, with striking exceptions: the U.S. and its closest regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, which are consumed with visceral fear and hatred of all things Iranian. In the U.S, even sober commentary declares Iran to be “the gravest threat to world peace” and warns that we must be vigilant, given the exceptional gravity of the Iranian threat.

It is perhaps of some interest that the world sees the matter differently: it is the United States that is regarded as the gravest threat to world peace (WIN/Gallup). Far below in second place is Pakistan. Iran is ranked well below, along with Israel, North Korea, and Afghanistan.

It is worthwhile to explore the reasons for the concerns of the rejectionist triad. What exactly is the colossal threat of Iran?

The threat can hardly be military. U.S. intelligence years ago concluded that Iran has low military expenditures by regional standards and that its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter aggression; and that “Iran’s nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy.”

Details are provided in an April study of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which finds that the Arab Gulf States outspend Iran on military weaponry by a factor of almost 10 to 1. The qualitative difference is even greater. The Arab Gulf states have “some of the most advanced and effective weapons in the world [while] Iran has essentially been forced to live in the past, often relying on systems originally delivered at the time of the Shah,” which are virtually obsolete. The imbalance is of course even greater with Israel, which, along with the most advanced U.S. weaponry and its role as a virtual offshore military base of the global superpower, has a huge stock of nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, there is deep concern about Iran’s aggression. In his letter to Congress to rally support for the deal, President Obama assured them that Washington “would unilaterally maintain economic pressure and deploy military options if needed to deter Iranian aggression,” the NY Times reported. Obama did not give examples of Iranian aggression, but there is one: in 1971, the U.S-backed Shah invaded two islands belonging to the United Arab Emirates, the only case in several hundred years.
No serious analyst believes that Iran would ever use a nuclear weapon, thus suffering instant destruction.

Other concerns are Iran’s role as “the world’s leading supporter of terrorism,” primarily its support for Hezbollah and Hamas. Whatever one thinks about them or other beneficiaries of Iranian support, Iran hardly ranks high in support for terrorism worldwide, even within the Muslim world. Among Islamic states, Saudi Arabia is well in the lead as a sponsor of Islamic terror, not only by direct funding by wealthy Saudis but even more by the missionary zeal with which the Saudis promulgate their Wahhabi-Salafi version of Islam. ISIS is an extremist offshoot of Saudi religious extremism and its fanning of jihadi flames.

In generation of Islamic terror, however, nothing can compare with the U.S. “war on terror,” which has helped to spread the plague from a small tribal area in Afghanistan-Pakistan to a vast region from West Africa to Southeast Asia. The invasion of Iraq alone escalated terror attacks by a factor of seven in the first year, well beyond even what had been predicted by intelligence agencies. Drone warfare against marginalized and oppressed tribal societies also elicits demands for revenge, as ample evidence indicates. And current plans are to increase drone flights by 50%, doubtless increasing the estimated 3000 or more killed.

No serious analyst believes that Iran would ever use a nuclear weapon, thus suffering instant destruction. There is however real concern that a nuclear weapon might fall into jihadi hands – not from Iran, where the threat is slight, but from U.S. ally Pakistan, where it is very real. Two leading Pakistani nuclear scientists, Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian, warn that increasing fears of “militants seizing nuclear weapons or materials and unleashing nuclear terrorism [have led to] the creation of a dedicated force of over 20,000 troops to guard nuclear facilities.” Furthermore, this force is not “immune to the problems associated with the units guarding regular military facilities,” which have frequently suffered attacks with “insider help.” In brief, the problem is real, and largely ignored, displaced by fevered fantasies concocted for other reasons.

Do Iranian leaders intend to develop nuclear weapons? Evidence is lacking today, but that they had such intentions in the past was asserted openly on the highest authority, which declared that Iran would develop nuclear weapons “certainly, and sooner than one thinks.” The father of Iran’s nuclear energy program and former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization was confident that the leadership’s plan “was to build a nuclear bomb.” A CIA report also had “no doubt” that Iran would develop nuclear weapons if neighboring countries did (as they have).

All of this was under the Shah, the highest authority just quoted. That is, during the period when high U.S. officials – Cheney, Rumsfeld, Kissinger and others — were urging the Shah to proceed with nuclear programs, and pressuring universities to accommodate these efforts. My own university, MIT, arranged to admit Iranian students to the nuclear engineering program over the very strong objections of the student body, but with comparably strong faculty support.

Opponents of the nuclear deal charge that it did not go far enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Some supporters agree that there should be additional measures, holding that “the whole of the Middle East must rid itself of weapons of mass destruction.” The author of these words, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif, adds that “Iran, in its national capacity and as current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, is prepared to work with the international community to achieve these goals.”

Minister Zarif was referring to the regular 5-year NPT review conference, which ended in failure in April when the U.S. once again blocked the efforts to move towards a WMD-free zone in the Middle East (joined this time by Canada and Britain), as Obama had in 2010.

A nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East is a straightforward way to address whatever threat Iran’s nuclear programs allegedly poses And as these comments make clear, a great deal more is at stake in Washington’s continuing sabotage of the effort, protecting its Israeli client. This is not the only case when opportunities to end the alleged Iranian threat have been undermined by Washington, raising further questions about just what is actually at stake.

What then is the real threat of Iran that inspires such fear and fury? Recall the analysis of U.S. intelligence that Iran’s nuclear programs (with no effort to produce bombs, as far as intelligence can determine) are “a central part of its deterrent strategy.”

Who would be concerned by an Iranian deterrent? The answer is plain: the rogue states that rampage in the region. Far in the lead in this regard are the rejectionist triad. That is too obvious to review in the case of the U.S. and Israel. Saudi Arabia is joining the club with its invasion of Bahrain to suppress a reform movement there and now its murderous assault on Yemen, accelerating the humanitarian catastrophe there

For the United States, the characterization as a rogue state is familiar. Fifteen years ago, Samuel Huntington warned in Foreign Affairs that for much of the world the U.S. is “becoming the rogue superpower,” considered “the single greatest external threat to their societies.” His words were echoed shortly after by the president of the American Political Science Association, Robert Jervis, who observed that “In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States.” As we have seen, global opinion supports this judgment today by a substantial margin.

Furthermore, the mantle is worn with pride. That is the clear meaning of the insistence of the leadership and the political class, in media and commentary, that the U.S. reserves the right to resort to force if it determines, unilaterally, that Iran is violating some commitment. It is also a long-standing official stand of liberal Democrats, for example the Clinton Doctrine that the U.S. is entitled to resort to “unilateral use of military power” even for such purposes as to ensure “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources,” let alone alleged “security” or “humanitarian” concerns.

In his letter to Congress, cited earlier, Obama reiterated the doctrine that the U.S. will use force, unilaterally, as it chooses. And the doctrine is accepted with such unanimity that it elicited no comment. The same was true when Obama declares that the alternative to the nuclear agreement is war – meaning an attack by the U.S. or Israel. Who else contemplates such actions – in fact openly declares the intention to carry them out, if it chooses?

Why Wouldn’t Iran Attack US Troops? (Dan 8)

U.S. officials fear Iran might attack American troops in Iraq: report

U.S. officials fear Tehran could direct Iraqi Shiite militias it commands to attack American troops who are assisting in the fight against ISIS. 

US officials have growing concerns Iran might launch attacks against American troops in Iraq should nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers collapse, journal Politico reported on Wednesday.
The  U.S. officials, according to the report, voiced concern that a collapse in the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France, plus Germany) could embolden Iranian hard-liners and potentially lead to attacks on Americans in Iraq.
According to the report, U.S. officials also voiced concern over the safety of U.S. troops in Iraq in relation to U.S. attempts to see the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, one of Iran’s principal allies in the region.

U.S. officials fear that in either scenario, Tehran could direct Iraqi Shiite militias it commands to attack American troops who are assisting in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to the journal.

“The current [nuclear] negotiations likely have a restraining effect, but there are other incentives and national interests at stake for the Iranians,” the journal quoted one senior U.S. military official as saying.

“This is something that we are continually assessing. [Iran’s] history as regional provocateurs and exporters on terrorism demands it,” the official said.

The U.S. has dispatched 3,000 troops to Iraq as trainers and advisers to Iraqi forces fighting ISIS and Iran is heavily involved military in its neighbor, including sending one of its top generals, Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s secretive Quds Force.

The journal quoted one military official as saying that there was no imminent threat to U.S. troops in Iraq. It also quoted sources saying that the potential danger was factored into U.S. military planning.

This concern of Iran harming American troops in Iraq has also impacted on the debate in the Obama administration on whether to push for the removal of Syria’s Assad, the journal reported.

It quoted Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, as saying: “Multiple [officials] have told me they’re worried about retaliation in Iraq, which does seem to be influencing our Syria policy.”

“Basically, they’re afraid that if they provide serious help to the armed opposition against Assad, the Iranians will have their surrogates in Iraq attack  us.

The Great Oxymoron: American Political Ethics (Ezekiel 17)

Iran’s Khamenei Says Senators’ Letter Reflects Collapse Of US Political Ethics

March 14, 2015

By Iran Review

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has urged the Iranian negotiators in the nuclear talks with the P5+1 group of world powers to exercise vigilance over the subterfuge of the other side.

“The team assigned by President Hassan Rouhani to attend the talks constitute good, reliable and sympathetic individuals who are trying to secure the country’s interests,” said the Leader.
Nevertheless, the Leader expressed misgivings over potential duplicity by the P5+1 in the negotiations.

“Of course, I’m concerned because the other side is into deception, trickery and backstabbing,” Ayatollah Khamenei underlined.

The Leader also noted that the letter sent by US senators to Iranian officials revealed the collapse of political ethics in the US system.

Ayatollah Khamenei then underlined that the other parties to the talks, particularly the US, adopt a harsher tone whenever the deadline for reaching a comprehensive deal approaches.

“This is part of their ploys and tricks,” said the Leader.

Ayatollah Khamenei then lashed out at the White House for accusing Tehran of terrorism, dismissing the accusation as “ludicrous, cheap and disgusting.”

Elsewhere in the remarks, the Leader took a swipe at efforts aimed at tarnishing the image of Islam, saying “Islamophobia will backfire” and, instead, put Islam at the center of attention for people around the world.

Ayatollah Khamenei then noted that pure Islam, which supports the oppressed and is against oppression and reactionary attitudes, should be introduced and promoted.

Iran Review

Iran Review is a Tehran-based site that claims to be independent, non-governmental and non-partisan and representing scientific and professional approaches towards Iran’s political, economic, social, religious, and cultural affairs, its foreign policy, and regional and international issues within the framework of analysis and articles.

Antichrist Tries To Cut Off Babylon The Great (Daniel 8:6)

Iraqi Politicians: US Not Doing Enough Against Extremists, Time To Scrap Cooperation

| عربي | کوردی
niqash | Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | 15.01.2015

Recently Iraq’s Kurdish were thanking the USA but for some Iraqi politicians, not enough is being done.

The US has been leading an international alliance against the extremist Islamic State group in Iraq. But locals say the US is not doing enough. Politicians in Baghdad recently led a call to scrap the strategic agreement the two countries have had since 2008. Could this be a symptom of Iran’s ever-growing influence in Iraq?

Four months have passed since the US began to work with an international alliance to confront the threat of the extremist group, the Islamic State, in Iraq. Yet for many locals, there don’t seem to be any obvious results.

The Islamic State, or IS, group still has control of over around 70 percent of the province of Anbar as well as other cities, like Tikrit and Baiji in Salahaddin province as well as parts of Diyala and Kirkuk.
As a result of what appears to be something of a stalemate, some Iraqi politicians have started to question an essential agreement between Iraq and the US, known as the Strategic Framework Agreement for a Relationship of Friendship and Cooperation between the United States and the Republic of Iraq. It’s known as the SFA for short.

As the US Embassy in Iraq’s website describes the agreement, which was signed in November 2008, it, “guides our overall political, economic, cultural, and security ties with Iraq”.
Section 3 of the SFA describes the close cooperation between the two signatories on defence and security in Iraq. Yet slowly but surely Iraqis are starting to question: Why can’t a superpower like the US defeat the IS group?

And last week Iraqi MPs began to push for answers, with some even suggesting a cancellation of the SFA. Among them was Alia Nassif, an MP for the ruling State of Law party, a Shiite Muslim-majority party headed by both the current and former Prime Ministers of Iraq. “Iraq does not benefit from the security agreement with the US,” a statement from Nassif’s office said. “On the contrary the agreement has become a heavy burden on us because the US has not fulfilled one of its stated obligations – strengthening and supporting the democratic system in Iraq. The IS group threatens the whole existence of the Iraqi state.”

Nassif also noted that the international alliance fighting against the IS group, which is being led by the US, isn’t large enough or consistent with the strength of the American nation, which could defeat the extremists within weeks if it wanted to.

Niazi Mimar Oglu, the MP representing the interests of Turkmen in Iraq’s Parliament, was another politician calling for the end of the SFA. “This agreement prevents Iraq from getting weapons from other countries because the US promised to give Iraq arms,” Oglu told NIQASH. “But the US hasn’t kept its promise, especially at a time when we are in desperate need.”

These kinds of criticisms appeared to be the motivation that the Ahrar block in Baghdad – the political wing of the movement led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who was always vehemently opposed to the US presence in Iraq – needed to start collecting signatures so that the proposed end of the SFA could be discussed in Parliament.

The Iraqi Constitution says that if 25 MPs can agree, they can propose a general topic for discussion in Parliament. If MPS can win over 215 others in the 328-seat Iraqi Parliament then they can also overturn agreements like the SFA.

However, as Ahmed al-Rubaie, an expert on international law*, points out, most of the politicians calling for the end of the SFA don’t really understand what it’s about.

“The agreement isn’t actually binding for either party,” he says. “And it doesn’t define the size or nature of US support to Iraq in security-related issues. The agreement contains expressions of support but it in no way defines what the size of, or nature of, this support should be.”

Al-Rubaie says that either party could do everything – or nothing – and there would be no legal consequences. There are no punitive clauses in the SFA if either party doesn’t abide by it. So putting the words into action is optional, for both Iraq and the US.

Besides the growing political opposition to the SFA, locals have also been perturbed by recent reports coming from unofficial Shiite Muslim militias fighting alongside the regular Iraqi army. They say that the US has managed to drop weapons and supplies to areas controlled by the IS group. So the extremists are getting these supplies, they say.
The Ali al-Akbar Brigade, a Shiite Muslim militia fighting in Salahaddin province, said they saw a US military helicopter throw weapons into the Yathrib area occupied by the IS group. Additionally two other militias – the League of the Righteous and the Peace Brigades – reported similar events.
However it is also important to consider where these complaints are coming from. Most of them originate from Shiite Muslim politicians and militias, who may well be more influenced by aid from Iran than from the US. Both nations are helping Iraqis in the fight against the IS group – the Iranian assistance has gone from slightly more covert to very much overt in recent days with leading Shiite Muslim militia commander, Hadi al-Ameri, declaring his thanks for Iranian salvation.

*Ahmed al-Rubaie is also the name of a regular NIQASH correspondent. However this story features a different individual.

Iraq Is The Nuclear Horn That Will Strike Back At The US (Daniel 8:4)

America’s unending involvement in Iraq

Posted on December 17, 2014
by John Myers

“I hope I’m wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy — worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.” — Madeleine Albright
Quoting Madeleine Albright makes me queasy, but it shows even the progressives sometimes get it right. And as we look back upon Iraq, it can only be seen as an unmitigated disaster that has built up for a dozen years.

Following 9/11, President George W. Bush wanted Baghdad to be another Venice with the Tigress River as its picturesque canal. A dozen years later, American intervention has led to ethnic cleansing and the rise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Sunni leader of the Islamic State (ISIS), whose terrorist army has murdered tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Syria and who may yet set the Middle East ablaze.

Al-Baghdadi’s iron-fisted adversary was Nouri al-Maliki, until recently the prime minister of Iraq. Al-Maliki was not only handpicked, but he was mentored by Bush. That Bush’s efforts were all for naught became apparent when President Barack Obama pulled most U.S. forces out of Iraq in 2011. That was when al-Maliki began the systematic removal of Sunnis from senior positions in the Iraqi government and military. It reached a climax over the past 18 months when hundreds of peaceful Sunni protesters were slaughtered by al-Maliki’s Shiite Iraq army. It was then Sunnis, led by top military commanders from Saddam Hussein’s Republican guard, who joined ISIS.

In August, al-Maliki was forced to resign. Yet the Iraqi civil war is bloodier than ever, and it engulfs a growing portion of the Middle East. All of it is the result of Bush listening to neocons who insisted Iraq would emulate American ideals.

The Bush neocons made a case that without an invasion America could face a nuclear attack from Iraq.

Most don’t remember the nonsense that the Bush administration was spouting in 2002, but members of the Bush cabinet continued to build a case for war because Saddam may soon have had nuclear weapons. For weeks, Sunday news programs carried their message.

In leading up to the invasion then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN: “The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

Bush gave the same warnings during the period leading up to the U.S. invasion:

“America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
“If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, he (Saddam Hussein) could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.”
“Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger… The first time we may be completely certain he has a — nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one”
Hardly a soul questioned the reasoning. Our government officials insisted they were telling us the facts, that the Iraqis were mixed up with Osama bin Laden and had their hands on yellowcake uranium that was going to be, or already had been used, to build a nuclear weapon.
No one pointed out that Iraq was under scrutiny from a no-fly zone. There was little mention that the skies over Iraq were swarming with American jet fighters and sophisticated surveillance planes. Nobody said that Saddam’s military was terribly degraded after Desert Storm. Yet somehow, while barely managing to hang on to power, Saddam was building a nuclear weapon to be used against the United States.

It was utter nonsense. But I found out firsthand as the editor of a very large newsletter that saying such things got me in hot water not only with my readers but my bosses, too. One of my publishers admonished me by saying you can’t call the president a liar. I was incredulous. I asked him if he meant liars such as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton. I could quickly see that argument would take me straight to the unemployment line, so I stopped writing about it in the newsletter.

The president of the United States and especially Vice President Dick Cheney swore up and down that it was true: Iraq was ruled by a leader with the ambitions and cruelty of Adolf Hitler, and he had terrible weapons that might include the bomb. To say otherwise was unpatriotic.

One of the few in the administration who suggested caution was former Secretary of State Colin Powell who famously told Bush before the invasion, “If you break it, you own it.”

In an interview Powell explained:

(It) was a simple statement of the fact that when you take out a regime and you bring down a government, you become the government. On the day that the statue came down and Saddam Hussein’s regime ended, the United States was the occupying power. We might also have been the liberating power, and we were initially seen as liberators. But we were essentially the new government until a government could be put in place. And in the second phase of this conflict, which was beginning after the statue fell, we made serious mistakes in not acting like a government. One, maintaining order. Two, keeping people from destroying their own property. Three, not having in place security forces–either ours or theirs or a combination of the two to keep order. And in the absence of order, chaos ensues.

If you want to be critical of what I say regarding mismanagement of Iraq, ask yourself this: How did America spill so much blood and treasure only to make things worse while the dictators of North Korea spent those years developing nuclear warheads and a ballistic missile delivery system? Perhaps nobody in Washington makes too big of a deal over North Korea because it lacks oil.

You can torture yourself with such thoughts. But if the CIA believes you to be an enemy of the state, its operatives can torture you. Until just recently they called it “enhanced interrogation,” but it is torture with all the crippling effects and sometimes even death.

I find it strange that in one column I quote Albright and Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), but that is where I find myself. McCain went on the record Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” regarding the practices of the CIA:

I said these things are torture. They’re in violation of the Geneva Convention and the convention against torture… You can’t claim that tying someone to the floor and have them freeze to death is not torture. You can’t say 183 times someone is waterboarded.

That Republicans called him out for his comments is ridiculous. After ejecting from his Skyhawk, McCain was beaten, bayoneted and brutalized for five and a half years. I think that gives him special insight into what is torture.

Torture has been known as a poor way to gather good information. If our government doesn’t know this, it’s 70 years behind our British cousins.

A remarkable PBS “Secrets of the Dead” documentary, “Bugging Hitler’s Soldiers,” tells of how captured top Nazi officers were constantly recorded while being kept in luxurious accommodations at an English country manor. They were provided with German newspapers, radios, gourmet meals, fine wine and even sightseeing trips. During the entire time, their conversations were recorded surreptitiously. Unwittingly, the Nazi brass served up some of the best intelligence of the war, including the deteriorating state of Hitler’s mental health as well as yet unknown Nazi super weapons, including the V1 and V2 rockets.

Why this kind of intelligence is not used by the CIA is beyond me. But when it comes to Iraq, there is plenty of stupidity to go around. First, how could the neocons believe they could rebuild Iraq in America’s image? And second, why did the American public swallow bald-faced lies?

What stands out the most to me is that in killing more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians and torturing hundreds of Muslims our government has done more to recruit terrorists than bin Laden ever dreamed of.

Yours in good times and bad,

–John Myers

The American Nuclear Horn

US Sends Planes Armed With Depleted Uranium to Middle East

Thursday, 30 October 2014 09:27 By David Swanson, War Is A Crime

There’s a version of this story at Al Jazeera.

The US Air Force says it is not halting its use of Depleted Uranium weapons, has recently sent them to the Middle East, and is prepared to use them.

A type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the US Air National Guard’s 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). “Weight for weight and by number of rounds more 30mm PGU-14B ammo has been used than any other round,” said ICBUW coordinator Doug Weir, referring to ammunition used by A-10s, as compared to DU ammunition used by tanks.

Public affairs superintendent Master Sgt. Darin L. Hubble of the 122nd Fighter Wing told me that the A-10s now in the Middle East along with “300 of our finest airmen” have been sent there on a deployment planned for the past two years and have not been assigned to take part in the current fighting in Iraq or Syria, but “that could change at any moment.”

The crews will load PGU-14 depleted uranium rounds into their 30mm Gatling cannons and use them as needed, said Hubble. “If the need is to explode something — for example a tank — they will be used.”

Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright told me, “There is no prohibition against the use of Depleted Uranium rounds, and the [US military] does make use of them. The use of DU in armor-piercing munitions allows enemy tanks to be more easily destroyed.”

On Thursday, several nations, including Iraq, spoke to the United Nations First Committee, against the use of Depleted Uranium and in support of studying and mitigating the damage in already contaminated areas. A non-binding resolution is expected to be voted on by the Committee this week, urging nations that have used DU to provide information on locations targeted. A number of organizations are delivering a petition to US officials this week urging them not to oppose the resolution.

In 2012 a resolution on DU was supported by 155 nations and opposed by just the UK, US, France, and Israel. Several nations have banned DU, and in June Iraq proposed a global treaty banning it – a step also supported by the European and Latin American Parliaments.

Wright said that the US military is “addressing concerns on the use of DU by investigating other types of materials for possible use in munitions, but with some mixed results. Tungsten has some limitations in its functionality in armor-piercing munitions, as well as some health concerns based on the results of animal research on some tungsten-containing alloys. Research is continuing in this area to find an alternative to DU that is more readily accepted by the public, and also performs satisfactorily in munitions.”

“I fear DU is this generation’s Agent Orange,” US Congressman Jim McDermott told me. “There has been a sizable increase in childhood leukemia and birth defects in Iraq since the Gulf War and our subsequent invasion in 2003. DU munitions were used in both those conflicts. There are also grave suggestions that DU weapons have caused serious health issues for our Iraq War veterans. I seriously question the use of these weapons until the US military conducts a full investigation into the effect of DU weapon residue on human beings.”

Doug Weir of ICBUW said renewed use of DU in Iraq would be “a propaganda coup for ISIS.” His and other organizations opposed to DU are guardedly watching a possible US shift away from DU, which the US military said it did not use in Libya in 2011. Master Sgt. Hubble of the 122nd Fighter Wing believes that was simply a tactical decision. But public pressure had been brought to bear by activists and allied nations’ parliaments, and by a UK commitment not to use DU.

DU is classed as a Group 1 Carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and evidence of health damage produced by its use is extensive. The damage is compounded, Jeena Shah at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) told me, when the nation that uses DU refuses to identify locations targeted. Contamination enters soil and water. Contaminated scrap metal is used in factories or made into cooking pots or played with by children.

CCR and Iraq Veterans Against the War have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request in an attempt to learn the locations targeted in Iraq during and after the 1991 and 2003 assaults. The UK and the Netherlands have revealed targeted locations, Shah pointed out, as did NATO following DU use in the Balkans. And the United States has revealed locations it targeted with cluster munitions. So why not now?

“For years,” Shah said, “the US has denied a relationship between DU and health problems in civilians and veterans. Studies of UK veterans are highly suggestive of a connection. The US doesn’t want studies done.” In addition, the United States has used DU in civilian areas and identifying those locations could suggest violations of Geneva Conventions.

Iraqi doctors will be testifying on the damage done by DU before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Washington, D.C., in December.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration said on Thursday that it will be spending $1.6 million to try to identify atrocities committed in Iraq . . . by ISIS.

The Iraqi Horn Promises US Blood (Daniel 8:4)

Islamic State message to America: ‘we will drown all of you in blood’

MSN.com

 

ISIS Promises US Blood

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The Islamic State militant group that has seized large parts of Iraq and drawn the first American air strikes since the end of the occupation in 2011 has warned the United States it will attack Americans “in any place” if the raids hit its militants.

The video, which shows a photograph of an American who was beheaded during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and victims of snipers, featured a statement which said in English “we will drown all of you in blood”.

U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq have helped Kurdish fighters take back some territory captured by Islamic State militants, who have threatened to march on Baghdad.

The latest advance by the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot, sent tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi ethnic minority and Christians fleeing for their lives and alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies.

Unlike al-Qaeda, Islamic State has so far focused on seizing land in Iraq and Syria for its self-proclaimed caliphate, not spectacular attacks on Western targets.

U.S. President Barack Obama said at a news conference on Monday that the Islamic State posed a threat to Iraq and the entire region.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Ralph Boulton)