Since posting this picture in 2005, a lot has changed — nothing in the intent of war forever has changed, but in the technologies to "maintain superiority". Most images of war are presently those of SMALL conflicts and pissy combats involving troops, all equipped to the max, up to the level of "plane warfare" (traditional soldiering). Now robotics have made a giant leap into the foray. The next step is to make robotic (automated) war without destroying the planet which is unavoidable, once the "superiority" of one side over another becomes over-bearing. The nuke option becomes the only way out. This nuke option of course has been auto-updated into a final response. 

We know that at this stage, the USA is pushing an anti-peace agenda under false pretences. This is for profit and control. We cannot support the agenda of the USA. 

The New (SJ Res 59) amendment would help the USA minimise the rigmarole of the US secret services having to painstakingly construct a fake "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction" disinformation campaign. Now, there will be no need for elaborate misinformation and propaganda: "we choose to take these out because they're baddies" will be good enough for the adventure. Er... this is the way it's done anyway already. Libya, Syria, and wait for it: Iran... and of course NK.

And our media is enjoyably being suckered... What's better than loving biffo and blaming the Russians?... Or the Chinese?

One of the worst symptoms of the paralysis in Washington and at the Pentagon has been the inability to correctly match weapon systems with current enemy threat capabilities. Hence the United States Marine Corps is set to announce the final winner between defense contractors BAE Systems and SAIC to build and field their new Amphibious Combat Vehicle, or ACV.

Or should we say the old Amphibious Combat Vehicle? Because after 46 years and tens of billions of dollars, the Marines are right back where they started with this technology, which leaves no one—except maybe the contractors feeding off this farcical routine—feeling very satisfied.

So how did we get here? 

The naval campaigns in the Pacific theater of World War II were successful due to the capability of the Marine Corps to conduct amphibious assaults against Japanese-held islands. Following the war this capability was written into law via the National Security Act of 1947, which stipulated that the Marine Corps was responsible for the seizure of advanced naval bases.

In order to move from Navy ships to enemy-held territory, the Marines must be transported across a distance of water and rely on what is generally called a connector. Both the Navy and Marine Corps operate various connectors from ship to shore, while the job of the Marines is to fight their way into enemy territory. Marine connectors only carry one weapon: Marines. Step one is to take the beach.

During World War II, the Navy ships could move to within a few miles of the Japanese-held islands before loading Marines into connectors. But with the advent of ballistic missile technology during the Cold War, a new weapon made its debut: the anti-ship missile.

The idea is simple. If Navy ships are within range of an anti-ship missile, they risk being severely damaged or even sunk. The solution is standoff. The Navy ships must stay outside the effective range of the missiles or use defensive measures to shoot the missiles down. This forces the ships further out to sea and increases the distance the connectors must travel over the open ocean to transport the Marines.

The connector vehicle the Marines adopted in 1972 was the Amphibious Assault Vehicle or AAV. AAVs are stored in hollow lower sections of naval ships known as well decks, which can be flooded so the AAV can exit the aft end of the ship into the ocean. The vehicle moves through the water using two traditional water propellers and also has tracks similar to a tank in order to drive on land. The AAV can carry around 20 Marines, swim through the water at seven knots (nautical miles per hour; seven knots is eight mph for comparison), and has an advertised water range of approximately 20 nautical miles, which in reality is closer to five nautical miles.

But anti-ship missile technology advanced in the 1980s, and proved deadly in the 1982 Falklands War between Great Britain and Argentina as the British lost two ships* to French-built Exocet missiles. So the Marine Corps and Navy rewrote their doctrine to move their ships over the horizon to approximately 12 nautical miles.

This strategy necessitated a new connector vehicle. Marine amphibious doctrine requires a “swift introduction of sufficient combat power ashore.” If the AAV can only swim at seven knots and the ships are 12 nautical miles away, you are looking at close to a two-hour ride to the beach. Time equals distance divided by speed. For the Marines stacked like sardines in full combat gear in the sweltering troop compartment of the AAV, this bumpy two hours becomes a rather nauseating and incapacitating experience.

Read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/amphibious-vehicles-are-...

From Greg Maybury:

As the mainstream (or corporate) media—as deservedly much-maligned as it is malignant—descends further and further into deceptive arrogance and dangerous incoherence, it increasingly seeks, in indirect proportion it seems and with an equal mix of hubris, dishonesty, chutzpah, and hypocrisy, to double down in its attempts to preserve and maintain its façade of credibility and integrity. Western political, intellectual and media elites are veritably hyperventilating at the prospect that their own “fake news” is being viewed for what it is: a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks in the wall of a crumbling Anglo-American-Zionist empire.

It’s instructive here to consider a few of the recent, most preposterous narratives that have been—or are being—breathlessly promulgated. These stories are ones amongst many that no serious media outlet claiming a modicum of integrity or credibility should be touching with the proverbial forty-foot barge pole. 

That is of course unless it’s to refute the generally always evidence-free claims that frequently attend them and ridicule then discredit the person(s) making them. Here are just three of the ‘greatest hits’ as it were, currently topping the MSM charts:

Whether in the U.S., Britain, Australia or anywhere else in the West for that matter, few of us should be under any illusions that the monolithic Fourth Estate remains steadfastly devoted to the ongoing betrayal of its purported brief by supporting the hidden—and not so hidden—agendas of those to whom it is, and indeed has always been, beholden.

It’s notable that one of the U.S. establishment media’s flagship marques the ‘venerable’ Washington Post—whose high-minded, yet pedestrian positioning statement, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is so positively Orwellian one suspects its authors were wearing ‘Freudian slips’ at its moment of conception—was given a deliciously outsized serve of ridicule recently by the media watch organisation Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

And rightly so we might opine. The article, by Adam Johnson, chronicles the Wash-Post’s ‘top ten’ columns that he’s characterised as “sociopathic” in tone and temper. 

For ‘casually threatening economic ruin, inciting violence against entire populations, pushing for bombing faceless Muslims, or downplaying racism and child rape, there’s no better outlet’ Johnson says of the Post, ‘than [this] long-time echo chamber of power-serving conventional wisdom…’

In the pages of the Post’s opinion section, you can say the most sociopathic things and get away with it, because you are, by definition, Serious People offering Serious Solutions in a Serious Paper. The human cost of these extreme, reactionary opinions is of little matter; what matters is packaging calls for violence, sexism and racism in a nice, official-sounding tone.’

Along with ‘pointing the bone’ at the paper’s editorial board itself for its own track record of sociopathic sensibilities when opining about the Big Issues, Johnson name checks several of their high profile ‘by-liners’ past and present for special attention. These include Joshua Muravchik, John Bolton (now the White House’s Chief Chicken-hawk-in-Residence), and Richard Cohen amongst others. For Johnson, if there’s “one thing” the Post opinion editors love—and which is highly pertinent to the here and now along with being instructive in respect of our narrative—‘it’s columns threatening, plotting and advocating war against Iran. It’s the little black dress of foreign policy punditry—[it] never goes out of style’.

To bolster his assertion, Johnson showcases a piece written in 2015 by Muravchik, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Muravchik’s op-ed piece was titled “War With Iran Is Probably Our Best Option”. Johnson responded with the following:

[Muravchik]…argued nonchalantly that launching a war of aggression against Iran was “probably” “our” best “option.” He doesn’t explain who “our” refers to, or why a military attack was even an “option” to begin with….He [Muravchik] then asserts that Iran is uniquely irrational and cannot be compelled with material needs, asserting that “ideology is the raison d’etre of Iran’s regime” and concluding, as if he were settling on a Thai food order, that a bombing campaign that would kill tens of thousands is the “best option.”’

From this above ‘catalogue’ of dodgy Post reportage we might draw the following conclusion: It is in matters of war and peace that perhaps the MSM is most at conflict with the now decidedly old school journalistic canons, these being of course: accuracy, fairness, public accountability, objectivity, truthfulness, and impartiality. The current state of geopolitical affairs and international relations—as existentially precarious as it is—should be ample testament to this reality. The mainstream mastheads are not—and have never been known for being—bastions for the promotion of peace, love and understanding amongst nations, anymore than they have been known for their adherence to truthfulness, accuracy or any of the other “canons” cited earlier.

Read more:

http://poxamerikana.com/2018/05/25/of-fake-news-and-history-suborned-in-...

and: 

https://off-guardian.org/of-fake-news-and-history-suborned-in-war-and-pe...

Read from top. I was having similar argument recently about global warming. My point was that "The Australian" and "The Daily Telegraph" were promoting fake news (anti-sciences) on this important subject. Both being "Murdoch papers". I was told that the readership of such papers is quite small, including the listening audience of "Alan Jones". Point taken, except that Murdoch papers are:

a) the influencers of news in Canberra political decision making and

b) ninety per cent of other papers and news outlet rely on the feed from the Murdoch stable of rubbish for their new. As well, I had to explain that many "local" papers, including "The Courier Mail" are "Murdoch" owned papers.

On the subject of global warming, the only outlets that will "support the concept" are the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian. The ABC has to go through hoops of "balance" to report on the subject. 

On all other subjects, especially Trump and Russia bashing, the whole Western media is a symphonic harmony.

So far I have not seen a single media reporting like I have done consistently on the influence of Murdoch on Trump's victory over Hillary. It has to be said that the Americans were presented with a diabolical choice on this score. Murdoch made his choice known quite early in the campaign. Soros was more devious about his support for the Clintons who were the friends of the billionaires, not of the people of whom many were described as "deplorables". Not a good look.

Note: THE PRESENT GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL AND ANTHROPOGENICALLY INDUCED. 

Read from top. Read also:

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/09/22/how-presstitutes-rob-a...

The media? Gerald Celente has a few things to say about the media! Don't miss this lively and humorous take on what's wrong with the mainstream media in the United States from the Ron Paul Institute's September Washington DC conference!

Read from top...

As well, read George Orwell in 1938:

...

To begin with, the era of free speech is closing down. The freedom of the Press in Britain was always something of a fake, because in the last resort, money controls opinion; still, so long as the legal right to say what you like exists, there are always loopholes for an unorthodox writer. For some years past I have managed to make the Capitalist class pay me several pounds a week for writing books against Capitalism. But I do not delude myself that this state of affairs is going to last forever. We have seen what happened to the freedom of the Press in Italy and Germany, and it will happen here sooner or later. The time is coming – not next year, perhaps not for ten or twenty years, but it is coming – when every writer will have the choice of being silenced or of producing the dope that a privileged minority demands.

I have got to struggle against that, just as I have got to struggle against castor oil, rubber truncheons and concentration-camps. And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a Socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer – that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That in itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a Socialist party. 

I have put the personal aspect first, but obviously it is not the only one.

It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it. For perhaps ten years past I have had some grasp of the real nature of Capitalist society. I have seen British Imperialism at work in Burma, and I have seen something of the effects of poverty and unemployment in Britain. In so far as I have struggled against the system, it has been mainly of writing books which I hoped would influence the reading public. I shall continue to do that, of course, but at a moment like the present writing books in not enough. The tempo of events is quickening; the dangers which once seemed a generation distant are staring us in the face. One has got to be actively a Socialist, not merely sympathetic to Socialism, or one plays into the hands of our always-active enemies. 

Why the I.L.P. more than another?

Because the I.L.P. is the only British party – at any rate the only one large enough to be worth considering – which aims at anything I should regard as Socialism.

Read more:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/orwell/1938/why-ilp.htm

---------------------------

The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893, when the Liberals appeared reluctant to endorse working-class candidates, representing the interests of the majority. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman.

The party was positioned to the left of Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Representation Committee, founded in 1900 and soon renamed the Labour Party, to which it was affiliated from 1906 to 1932. In 1947, the organisation's three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party, and the organisation rejoined Labour as Independent Labour Publications in 1975.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Labour_Party

-------------------------------

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

All US post-9/11 wars continue unresolved - Afghanistan the prototype for them all.

America's military, industrial, security, media complex (including Wall Street) supports waging them endlessly. That's why they don't end.

Military Keynesianism on steroids reflects longstanding US policy. For the Pentagon it's "long war." I call it forever war, the human toll of no consequence  - millions of casualties post-9/11 alone, human suffering immeasurable.

US policymakers support endless aggression, smashing one sovereign independent state after another, seeking unchallenged control over planet earth, its resources and populations.

The nation's resources are heavily used for mass slaughter and destruction. Bipartisan policymakers support America's permanent war economy, continuing endlessly.

Government financed and promoted warmaking comes at the expense of vital homeland needs gone begging.

The same agenda endured since WW II - from Korea to Southeast Asia to Central and Latin America, the Balkans, the Middle, East, Central Asia, North and Central Africa, its horn, and elsewhere.

Warmaking takes precedence over everything else, peacemaking considered unAmerican. There's increasingly little public space to improve the quality of our lives.

Growing numbers of Americans are poor, disadvantaged, and uneducated. Homelessness and hunger go largely unaddressed.

State capitalism reflects the American way, a business partnership, running a war economy for greater power and wealth at the expense of a nation in decline, corrupted leadership, lost industrialization, crumbling infrastructure, and suffering millions on their own, uncared for, unwanted, ignored, and forgotten to assure steady funding for America's wars, no matter the cost and enormous harm they cause.

Deindustrialization instead of reindustrializing the country goes on - millions of high-pay/good benefits jobs lost to low-wage countries.

Militarism and belligerence are parasitic, inefficient, ineffective, self-destructive, immoral, and illegal. 

Wealth is transferred from ordinary people to its privileged class. Physical and human capital are undermined. There's increased vulnerability to hurricanes, widespread blazes, droughts, floods, and other natural disasters.

On the phony pretext of protecting national security, fundamental human and civil rights eroded - totalitarian control, tyranny and ruin replacing a free and open society.

US wars of aggression are unresolvable because bipartisan policymakers want them waged forever, beholden to interests supporting them.

Congress has appropriation power. Wars can't be waged without majority support for funding them. Ongoing ones can end by cutting off the money spigot - never since WW II except after 10 years of Southeast Asia war.

After escalating it earlier, Nixon ended America's longest war in modern times until Afghanistan and Yemen, both wars begun within weeks of each other post-9/11.

He threatened entrenched military/industrial/security and other interests, why he was marked for removal and had to go.

He survived and reinvented himself, traveled the world, wrote books, and was respected as an elder statesman.

Jack Kennedy was eliminated for wanting US forces out of Vietnam before December 1965, urging rapprochement with Soviet Russia and nuclear disarmament, wanting the CIA "splinter(ed) into a thousand pieces and scatter(ed) to the winds," along with other responsible policy aims no top US officials support today - just the opposite, destructive over constructive ones. 

Talk of ending US involvement in Yemen, along with cutting off support for Saudi Arabia, is hollow.

Weeks after heavy Saudi/UAE terror-bombing began in March 2015, massacring civilians, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif submitted a four-point workable plan for ending the war to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon - an imperial tool subservient to Washington like his predecessor and successor.

Zarif drew attention "to the extremely alarming situation" in the country, horrific war crimes committed, saying:

Saudi-UAE-led terror-bombing "mostly targeted purely civilian infrastructures of Yemen, destroying, inter alia, hospitals, schools, roads, food factories and power plants, and thus depriving civilians of basic necessities," adding: 

"They have also indiscriminately targeted residential areas, including refugee camps, killing and injuring innocent civilians, in particular women and children."

He sounded the alarm about a "humanitarian crisis (back then) approaching catastrophic dimensions."

He called the US launched, orchestrated, supported war "one of the most barbaric" in our time, including use of "foreign-backed terrorists."

He called it essential for the world community to unite for ending the ongoing horrors - continuing over three-and-a-half years after he raised the issue, stressing what's clear to combatants, the UN and major powers.

There's no military solution to what's going on. His four-point conflict resolution is as relevant now as earlier, calling for the following:

"1. Ceasefire and an immediate end to all foreign military attacks;

2. Unimpeded urgent humanitarian and medical assistance to the people of Yemen;

3. Resumption of Yemeni-led and Yemeni-owned national dialogue, with the participation of the representatives of all political parties and social groups; (and)

4. Establishment of an inclusive national unity government."

Zarif urged UN leadership to seek achievement of the above objectives.

UN chiefs are beholden to Washington and the West. Endless war in Yemen rage with virtually no movement for ending it.

AMN News highlighted the endless horror, headlining "heavy clashes breakout across Yemen despite calls for (a) national ceasefire."

SouthFront reported that the Trump regime blocked a Security Council resolution, calling for ceasefire and delivery of vital humanitarian aid to starving Yemenis - neocon extremist Nikki Haley saying:

"(W)e cannot support a resolution at the moment" - not even a watered-down virtually meaningless one, largely an attempt to permit aid deliveries through the key port city of Hodeidah.

Reportedly Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman "threw a fit" when shown the draft. The Saudis are serving US interests in Yemen and their own.

Washington, Britain and France supply almost 90% of kingdom arms and munitions - supporting endless war, opposed to ending it, despite claims otherwise from Trump regime officials, none backed with positive actions, showing they're hollow.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/hotspots/conflicts/06-12-2018/142084-endless...

Read from top. 

Iran's foreign minister commented on the recent statement voiced by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he claimed that Iran "will never enjoy security, achieve economic stability, or advance the dreams of its peoples if Iran's revolutionary regime persists on its current course."

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has responded to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo [who said] that "when America retreats, chaos follows." 

"Whenever/wherever US interferes, chaos, repression and resentment follow," Zarif wrote on Twitter.

The response came after earlier in the day Pompeo promised that the US sanctions targeting Iran will keep on getting tougher.

READ MORE: Pompeo: US Troops to Withdraw From Syria, Continue Anti-Daesh Fight

Commenting on Tehran's actions, the US official claimed that Middle Eastern states "will never enjoy security, achieve economic stability, or advance the dreams of its peoples if Iran's revolutionary regime persists on its current course."

On Anti-Iranian Sanctions

During a keynote address in Cairo, according to prepared remarks released by the State Department, Pompeo stated that US "economic sanctions against the regime are among the strongest in history, and will keep getting tougher until the Iranian regime changes its policies that threaten the United States and the international community."

He also said the United States was ready to "open a new chapter" in relations with the Islamic Republic once it meets the 12 demands that the secretary outlined during an address in May.

Those demands include allowing unlimited international inspections of Iran's nuclear program, halting Tehran's support for Hezbollah and other militant groups in the region, withdrawing all Iranian military forces from Syria, and releasing all US citizens being detained in the Islamic Republic, among other steps.

READ MORE: Iran to Equip Its Speed Boats With Missiles and Stealth Technology — Report

Pompeo's remarks come after, earlier this week, Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said that representatives of the US administration had invited Tehran to resume talks on the Iran nuclear deal on numerous occasions, however, the Middle Eastern country said that it was not interested in engaging in negotiations with a country that is not logical in its approach toward talks.

Moreover, last week, Mike Pompeo announced that Iran would face economic and diplomatic consequences if it continues to pursue plans to conduct three space launches in the coming months.

Earlier, the US official noted that Iran has publicly announced plans to soon fire off three Space Launch Vehicles, or rockets that are used to carry payloads. He added that such launches incorporate the same technology used in ballistic missiles.

Relations between the two states deteriorated after the United States' withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal. After the move, Washington opted to re-impose a series of sanctions against Tehran that had been lifted under the agreement. The first package of the US trade restrictions came into force in August. Later, in early November, Washington expanded its sanctions, targeting core sectors of Iran's economy.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201901101071367970-us-sanctions-iran-pompeo/

Sanctions are weapons of war. 

Read from top.