Thursday 28th of March 2024

the deep state has donald by the balls...

nuts
Venezuela, Iran: Trump and the deep stateby  Thierry Meyssan

The US Press is spreading a false narrative of the events in Venezuela and the rise of tension between Washington and Teheran. Given the contradictory declarations of both sides, it is almost impossible to discern the truth. After having checked the facts, we need to deepen our analysis and take into account the opposition between the different political currents in these countries.


The new deal of the White House and the Pentagon

The parliamentary elections of 6 November 2018 deprived President Trump of his majority in the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party assumed that this would lead inevitably to his destitution.

Of course, he had done nothing to deserve it, but a flood of hysteria swamped the two camps of the United States, exactly as it had during the Civil War [1]. For the last two years, the partisans of economic globalisation had been pursuing the Russian trail, waiting for Prosecutor Robert Mueller to prove President Trump’s ’’high treason’’.

Robert Mueller has always given priority to the interests of the federal state over Truth and Law. During the Lockerbie attack, it was Mueller who invented the Libyan trail on the basis of ’’proof’’’ which was later invalidated by Scottish Justice [2]. It was Mueller, after the attacks of 11 September 2001, who claimed that three planes had been hijacked by 19 terrorists, none of whose names figured on the embarkation lists [3]. His conclusions concerning the Russian enquiry were known before the investigation had begun.

Donald Trump therefore negotiated his political survival with the deep state [4]. He had no choice. It was agreed that the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski plan [5] would be implemented on the condition that it would not drag the nation into a major war. In exchange, Prosecutor Robert Mueller changed sides and declared President Trump innocent of treason [6].

While they were at it, the hawks seized the opportunity to impose the return of the neo-conservatives. This New York Trotskyist groupuscule, built around the American Jewish Committee (AJC), had originally been recruited by Ronald Reagan. It transformed the ideal of a « world revolution » into that of « world US imperialism ». Since that time, it has participated in all US administrations, one day Republican, the next day Democrat, according to the political leanings of the President in power. The only exception to that rule so far has been the Trump administration, which, however, did not exclude it from its reserved agencies, the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) and the USIP (United States Institute of Peace).

So, on 25 January 2019, the Venezuelan dossier was handed to Elliott Abrams at the Secretary of State. Abram’s name has been associated with all manner of lies and manipulations by the US state [7]. He was one of the architects of the Iran-Contra operation in 1981-85, and the war against Iraq in 2003. As soon as he was nominated, he began working with the US military Command for South America (SouthCom) to overthrow elected President Nicolás Maduro.

It so happens that we are familiar with both the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy – whose deployment in the Greater Middle East we witnessed for fifteen years - and the command structure of SouthCom [8], drawn up on 23 February 2018 by Admiral Kurt Tidd, and revealed by Stella Calloni last May [9]. What is happening today is clearly an application of the plan.

The Venezuelan fiasco 

The failure of the US operation, with the discovery of the betrayal of the director of SEBIN, General Manuel Figuera, and the coup d’état that he improvised on 30 April in the confusion before his arrest, demonstrates the unreadiness of SouthCom, or rather its misunderstanding of Venezuelan society. The US state apparatus, which had six months to prepare, proved unable to organise joint operations by the different agencies and soldiers on the ground. And despite the reigning disorganisation, the Bolivarian army was nonetheless ready to defend itself.

As anticipated, Washington, the Lima Group (except Mexico) and their allies recognised Juan Guaidó as the replacement for Nicolás Maduro as President of Venezuela, but this has plunged the US camp into a turmoil of unsolvable problems. Spain has already expressed anxiety at having been deprived of an interlocutor for the Venezuelans who have taken refuge in Spain, and for the Spanish citizens living in Venezuela. Never before, even in war time, has the legitimacy of a constitutionally elected President and his administration been denied.

In the space of a few weeks, Washington stole most of Venezuela’s overseas assets [10], just as it did in 2003 with the Iraqi Treasury, in 2005 with the Iranian Treasury, and in 2011 with the Libyan Treasury. This money has never been recuperated by its rightful owners, except by the Iranians during the JCPOA agreement. The Iraqi and Libyan régimes were overthrown, and their successors were careful not to take the affairs to trial. But this time, the Bolivarian Republic held fast, and the US situation is now untenable.

On a smaller scale, it will be interesting to observe how Washington is going to handle the affair of the Venezuelan embassy in the US capital. Police were sent to expel the occupants and set up a team nominated by Juan Guaidó. But the legitimate occupants refused to give up, despite the fact that their electricity and water had been cut off. With time, they received reinforcements, including that of Afro-American pastor Jesse Jackson, who came to bring them food. Finally, they were expelled. Now Washington has no idea how to justify its behaviour.

The Iranian diversion

Calling an end to this tug of war, Donald Trump reminded his troops of their compromise - overthrow Maduro « yes », kick off a major war « no ». President Donald Trump is a Jacksonian; his security advisor, John Bolton, is an exceptionalist [11]; and Elliott Abrams, who campaigned against them, is a neoconservative - three ideologies which exist in no other country (except for the neoconservatives in Israël). Evidently, this sort of unnatural wedding cannot work.

Seeking to dodge the responsibility for its failure in Venezuela, the deep state immediately launched an Iranian diversion to save Elliott Abrams and get rid of John Bolton. The US Press protects the former and blames the latter [12].

Without hesitation, noticing the breech between the Pentagon and the White House, the Democrats once again set off to explore the trail of Russian interference, this time aiming their guns at the President’s oldest son, Donald Jr.

The Iranian dossier is very different from that of Venezuela. Although in Venezuela, the United States have led multiple operations since 2002 against the Bolivarian model and the aura it enjoys in Latin America, it was only last year that they began to target the population directly. On the contrary, however, since the beginning of the 20th century, the Iranian people have had to face up to colonialism. Famine and disease killed 8 million Iranians during the British occupation of the First World War [13].

The overthrow of Nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh by the United States and the United Kingdom in 1953, followed by his replacement with Nazi General Fazlollah Zahedi, who triggered the terrible repression by the Savak, is widely known. The arrest of a group of CIA agents caught red-handed on a private floor of the US embassy is still presented in the West as a « diplomat hostage-capture » (1979-81), although Washington has never instituted legal proceedings on this case, and two freed Marines confirmed the Iranian version. In 1980, the Western powers demanded that Iraq enter into war with Iran. They sold weapons to both sides to help them kill each other, and fought alongside the Iraqis when the tide of war almost turned against them.

A French aircraft carrier even participated in the combats without the French people being informed. This war caused 600,000 deaths on the Iranian side. In 1988, the US army shot down an Iran Air commercial flight, causing 290 victims, but never proffered the slightest excuse. Not to mention the stupidity of the excessively heavy sanctions on nuclear power - the United States and Israël pretend that Teheran is pursuing the Shah’s atomic programme. But the most recent documents published by Benjamin Netanyahu attest that this is an extrapolation. The Guardians of the Revolution were considering only the fabrication of a shock-wave generator [14], which, it is true, may be used as part of a bomb, but which does not in itself constitute a weapon of mass destruction.

So it is in this context that Iran announced that it would no longer respect a clause of the nuclear agreement (JCPOA), as is its right according to the Treaty when another party – the USA as it happens – fails to respect its obligations. Besides this, it gave the European Union two months to announce whether or not it intended to honour its obligations. Finally, a US Intelligence agency broadcast an alert that a note from the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hinted that Iran was preparing attacks on US diplomats in Erbil and Baghdad.

In response, 
- 1. Washington sent the naval military group of the USS Abraham Lincoln into the Gulf, and removed its non-essential diplomatic personnel from Iraq. 
- 2. Saudi Arabia, which accuses Teheran of having sabotaged its petroleum installations, is calling on Washington to attack Iran. Bahreïn has asked its citizens to leave Iran and Iraq immediately. ExxonMobil has removed its personnel from the Iraqi site of West Qurna 1. 
- 3. The Commander of CentCom, General Kenneth McKenzie Jr., has asked for reinforcements. 
- 4. The New York Times has revealed a plan for the invasion of Iran by 120,000 US soldiers. This was immediately denied by Donald Trump, who called on Iran to open discussions.

None of this is particularly serious.

Contrary to the suppositions in the Press:

- 1. The report by US Intelligence concerning a possible attack on its diplomats is based on a note by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But the analysts agree that another interpretation of this same document is possible [15]. 
- 2. The US naval group did not enter the Gulf in order to threaten Iran. This movement had been planned long ago in order to test the naval anti-missile system AEGIS. A Spanish ship, the frigate Méndez Núñez, which took part in the movement, refused to continue with the mission in order to avoid getting dragged into the confusion. It did not cross the Straits of Ormuz and is docked at Bab el Mandeb [16]. 
- 3. The retirement of Iraqi diplomatic personnel is part of the sudden withdrawal of the diplomatic personnel of Afghanistan, in March and April [17]. This reorganisation of diplomatic posts is not a sign of a forthcoming war. Quite the contrary, it was negotiated with Russia. 
- 4. Without the support of the pro-Iranian Iraqi militia, the United States would lose their foothold in this country.

Unfortunately, the Iranian government refuses all contact with President Trump and his team. We need to remember that Sheikh Hassan Rohani, then a parliamentarian, was the primary contact with the Western powers during the Iran-Contra affair. He knows Elliott Abrams personally. He put the US deep state in relation with Ayatollah Hachemi Rafsandjani, who became the richest billionaire in Iran thanks to this arms traffic. It was on the basis of this service that the United States assisted his victory against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s team. Ahmadinejad was prevented from participating in the election, and his team’s main members are currently in prison. He considers, rightly or wrongly, that Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement was aimed at using the popular discontent of December 2017 to overthrow him. He continues to believe that the European Union still supports him, despite the fact that the Treaty of Maastricht and those that followed prevent Brussels from withdrawing from NATO. It is therefore perfectly logical that Iran twice refused Donald Trump’s offer of discussions, and is waiting for the return of the globalists to the White House.

Of course, with this tendentious cast-list, we can not exclude the possibility that the scenario might go sideways and provoke a war. In reality, the White House and the Kremlin are talking to each other. Neither the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, nor his Russian opposite number, Sergueï Lavrov, have any wish to get tangled up in this trap.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation 
Pete Kimberley

the plan: destroy russia...


“THE ART OF WAR”

Rand Corp: how to destroy Russia



by  Manlio Dinucci

The conclusions of the latest confidential report by the Rand Corporation were recently made public in a « Brief ». They explain how to wage a new Cold War against Russia. Certain recommendations have already been implemented, but this systemic exposure enables us to understand their true objective.

Force the adversary to expand recklessly in order to unbalance him, and then destroy him. This is not the description of a judo hold, but a plan against Russia elaborated by the Rand Corporation, the most influential think tank in the USA. With a staff of thousands of experts, Rand presents itself as the world’s most reliable source for Intelligence and political analysis for the leaders of the United States and their allies.

The Rand Corp prides itself on having contributed to the elaboration of the long-term strategy which enabled the United States to win the Cold War, by forcing the Soviet Union to consume its own economic resources in the strategic confrontation. It is this model which was the inspiration for the new plan, Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, published by Rand [1]. According to their analysts, Russia remains a powerful adversary for the United States in certain fundamental sectors. To handle this opposition, the USA and their allies will have to pursue a joint long-term strategy which exploits Russia’s vulnerabilities. So Rand analyses the various means with which to unbalance Russia, indicating for each the probabilities of success, the benefits, the cost, and the risks for the USA.

Rand analysts estimate that Russia’s greatest vulnerability is that of its economy, due to its heavy dependency on oil and gas exports. The income from these exports can be reduced by strengthening sanctions and increasing the energy exports of the United States. The goal is to oblige Europe to diminish its importation of Russian natural gas, and replace it by liquefied natural gas transported by sea from other countries.

Another way of destabilising the Russian economy in the long run is to encourage the emigration of qualified personnel, particularly young Russians with a high level of education. In the ideological and information sectors, it would be necessary to encourage internal contestation and at the same time, to undermine Russia’s image on the exterior, by excluding it from international forums and boycotting the international sporting events that it organises.

In the geopolitical sector, arming Ukraine would enable the USA to exploit the central point of Russia’s exterior vulnerability, but this would have to be carefully calculated in order to hold Russia under pressure without slipping into a major conflict, which it would win.

In the military sector, the USA could enjoy high benefits, with low costs and risks, by increasing the number of land-based troops from the NATO countries working in an anti-Russian function. The USA can enjoy high probabilities of success and high benefits, with moderate risks, especially by investing mainly in strategic bombers and long-range attack missiles directed against Russia.

Leaving the INF Treaty and deploying in Europe new intermediate-range nuclear missiles pointed at Russia would lead to high probabilities of success, but would also present high risks. By calibrating each option to gain the desired effect - conclude the Rand analysts - Russia would end up by paying the hardest price in a confrontation, but the USA would also have to invest huge resources, which would therefore no longer be available for other objectives. This is also prior warning of a coming major increase in USA/NATO military spending, to the disadvantage of social budgets.

This is the future that is planned out for us by the Rand Corporation, the most influential think tank of the Deep State - in other words the underground centre of real power gripped by the economic, financial, and military oligarchies – which determines the strategic choices not only of the USA, but all of the Western world.

The « options » set out by the plan are in reality no more than variants of the same war strategy, of which the price in sacrifices and risks is paid by us all.

Manlio Dinucci

Translation 
Pete Kimberley

Source 
Il Manifesto (Italy)

 

smoking US cigars...

In a report that views Russia through the same cracked lens as Washington’s old ideological foe, the Soviet Union, the RAND Corporation reveals that its worst enemy for gaining global dominance is not Russia but the US.

Featured in the 1964 dark comedy ‘Dr. Strangelove’, where it starred as the “BLAND Corporation” – the think tank behind the ‘Doomsday Machine’ that would destroy the planet in the event of a nuclear attack – the notoriety of the RAND Corporation continues today with an ill-founded hit piece against Russia.

If anything positive could be said about the latest RAND briefing, entitled ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia’, it would have to be its shameless transparency. There are no fig leaves here. The 12 pages of mischief outline in cold and calculating creepiness how the United States may lay waste to Russia. There’s just one problem with the RAND grand plan. The scheming proposals are offset at every turn by the flat-footedness of US actions on the global stage.

Immediately out of the gates, for example, the report gloats over oil and gas prices “well below peak” while cheering at the same time the imposition of economic sanctions that have further precipitated Russia’s much-hyped “decline.” Yet no sooner had the ink dried on those devious designs they were already obsolete.

Any hopes that RAND had for driving a stake into the heart of Russia through stagnating oil and gas prices – an idea, by the way, that has been long discredited – were deterred by aggressive US behavior against both Venezuela and Iran, two countries that are sitting on a veritable ocean of oil reserves.

Oil prices surged to their highest level in six months in April, leveling off in May, after the US said it would take a harsher stance against countries that breach its oil embargo on Iran. That news was exacerbated by the arrival of US naval ships in the Persian Gulf amid hostile rhetoric from the White House, which Tehran naturally returned in kind.

At the same time, the Trump administration – openly pushing for regime change in Venezuela against the legitimate government of President Nicolas Maduro – has thrown its support behind puppet leader Juan Guaido whose recent plans for a putsch failed to win over the military.

Venezuela’s oil exports have declined by some 40 percent since January. The ultimate irony here is that Washington’s crackdown on Caracas has forced US oil refineries to triple the amount of Russian crude it is importing to make up for the deficit.

Meanwhile, RAND promotes economic sanctions against Moscow in an effort to “degrade the Russian economy,” while failing to measure whether its allies even support such an aggressive approach. Many clearly do not, and that should come as no surprise considering that Russia is the EU’s fourth-largest trading partner.

Just last week, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini  slammed EU sanctions targeting Russia, arguing they don’t work and “all decent people” favor removing them.

Germany is no less perplexed with Washington as it prepares to impose sanctions on companies associated with the construction of Nord Stream 2, a German-Russia venture to carry Russian gas directly to Germany via a pipeline under the Baltic Sea. To better understand the real source of hostility to the project just follow the money: Donald Trump the itinerant businessman has made no secret of the fact that he wants the EU to start purchasing costlier US liquefied natural gas (LNG). And just for the record, it was Ukraine not Russia that was guilty of using Russian gas supplies as a ‘political weapon’ as Kiev turned off the supplies in the winter of 2009.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/460385-rand-report-us-russia/

UAE spied on the donald, with a paid intelligence source...

IN JANUARY 2017, three days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, a businessman from the United Arab Emirates was invited to a lavish dinner planned by Trump’s longtime ally Thomas J. Barrack Jr., who was chair of the president’s inaugural committee. The guest list placed Rashid al-Malik, a onetime business associate of Barrack’s, amid more than 100 foreign diplomats and top members of the incoming administration. The president-elect himself made a surprise appearance at the gathering.

Al-Malik’s name later surfaced in connection with a federal probe into potential illegal donations to Trump’s inaugural fund and a pro-Trump Super PAC by Middle Eastern donors. Al-Malik was interviewed by members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and was “cooperating” with prosecutors, his lawyer told The Intercept last year. The New York Times recently reported that investigators are looking into “whether Mr. al-Malik was part of an illegal influence scheme,” although no details of that potential scheme have been made public.

In fact, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that al-Malik served as a paid intelligence source for the UAE throughout 2017, The Intercept has learned.

Al-Malik reported to UAE intelligence about aspects of the Trump administration’s Middle East policy, according to a former U.S. official and documents viewed by The Intercept. The National Intelligence Service of the UAE gave al-Malik a code name and paid him tens of thousands of dollars a month to gather information, a role for which his investment business would have provided a convenient cover.

After he was interviewed as part of the Mueller investigation, al-Malik left Los Angeles, where he’d been based for several years, and went back to the UAE.

A former Dubai aerospace executive and chair of the investment firm Hayah Holdings, al-Malik was tasked to report to his Emirati intelligence handlers on topics of consequence to the UAE, such as attitudes within the Trump administration toward the Muslim Brotherhood; U.S. efforts to mediate the ongoing feud between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar; and meetings between senior U.S. officials and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose rise to power has been loudly championed by the UAE and its crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed.

Al-Malik also told his handlers that he had approached unnamed U.S. individuals about a possible business venture that was indirectly associated with Trump. It is not clear what the undertaking was, who al-Malik was talking to, or whether any deal was made.

 

Read more:

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/10/trump-uae-businessman-spy/