Tag: Iran

Almost 17 Years Ago, This SWAT Team Knocked Down My Door – They Are Still Here and Will Not Leave

So back in 2003, this SWAT team busted down my door because they claimed I had a very dangerous illegal weapon. In the process, the house was almost totaled, many of my family died, but as time went on they kept claiming they were making our family safe and free. Sure they bought an oven and then a fridge BUT they are the ones that use those appliances the most. The electrical is still flaky as we lose power for seconds or minutes a few times a week. There was a time when they claimed they left in 2007 or so but by 2014 they were back using the oven and fridge again. It seems they have a thing for our neighbor too, swearing at them at every opportunity and robbing them of their Amazon packages off the porch. They have also claimed that they were bad people so that others would not deal with them, and would not sell them things they need to them and their kids.

Just last week was the icing on the cake. They not only killed our uncle right in our house, but killed the next door neighbor’s uncle who happened to be in our home too! That was the last straw, we told them to leave but they said F*** Y**, we want to renegotiate our “partnership”.

Are you kidding me? Stay in this abusive relationship where no one knows who will get killed next and the house never gets fixed to the point it was in 2003? I don’t think so. Look at my house back in the day:

Look at my relatives in my home:

I hope you know by now this is not MY house, but the nation of Iraq.

The SWAT team that has stayed in control in this abusive one-sided relationship is the US Empire. They flat out refuse to leave!

From Moon of Alabama:

Iraq’s caretaker prime minister asked Washington to start working out a road map for an American troop withdrawal, but the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the request, saying the two sides should instead talk about how to “recommit” to their partnership.

Main stream media (MSM – propaganda arm of the US Empire), specifically the Associated Press (AP) got it all wrong then they claimed:

… the move was “stoked by the American drone strike on Jan. 3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani”. The move was stoked five days earlier when the U.S. killed 31 Iraqi security forces near the Syrian border despite the demands by the Iraqi prime minister and president not to do so. It was further stoked when the U.S. assassinated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, the deputy commander of the Popular Militia Forces and a national hero in Iraq.

No s**t .. confusing Iran and Iraq again .. just like their confusion between Shia and Sunni .. but I digress.

The [US] State Department issued a rather aggressive response to Abdul-Mahdi’s request:

America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners.

Notice the order, just like the police protect themselves 1st, the US Empire also protects itself 1st .. and that is where the partnership is not nor will ever be equal. The US Empire is not “protecting” Iraq, they are projecting through Iraq in this region to continue to interfere in Iran and Syria.

Iraq continues to be used and abused in this relationship. Trump implies that when he thought that extending NATO to the Middle East .. oh yeah, what the Middle East “needs” is another dysfunctional “partner”.

Epic BS on the part of the war party in DC who all love the profits and lobbyists money from MIC and job security for the CIA while keeping the CIA black budget funded from Afghanistan poppy fields.

Peace out

-SF1

2020: We Can See Clearly Now

Yes, thanks to a “slight” miscalculation on the part of the US Empire, I think many people will wake up to the fact of what has been coming down for 40 years in the Middle East.

Before this era, there was little terrorism while there were a couple of world wars. Which do you prefer? Personally, I prefer none, not for me mind you, but for my kids and my grand-kids I prefer peace.

The “slight” miscalculation is highlighted in this article that rightly makes prominent what most of MSM (no surprise there) and most people are missing:

The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani on Thursday at 11:00 PM local time at Baghdad airport. Usually, when Soleimani was arriving in Baghdad, security commander Abu Zeinab al-Lami, a deputy officer to al Muhandes, would have welcomed him. This time, al-Lami was outside Iraq and al-Muhandes replaced him. The US plan was to assassinate an Iranian General on Iraqi soil, not to kill a high-ranking Iraqi officer. By killing al-Muhandes, the US violated its treaty obligation to respect the sovereignty of Iraq and to limit its activity to training and offering intelligence to fight the “Islamic State”, ISIS. It has also violated its commitment to refrain from overflying Iraq without permission of the Iraqi authorities.

As the article states, the US and Iraq are both embarrassed by this turn of events that unmasks the US Empire’s true intentions, on behalf of Israel. This has coalesced most of the various militias in the region (except ISIS of course, sponsored by US, Israel and Saudi Arabia) and has now linked former enemies Iraq and Iran to have common ground. It will be interesting the uptake of this outside the region as Russia and China, along with Syria find each others as friends with a common enemy, especially with all the trade sanctions and tariffs that the US has instigated. I am thinking too that the European “coalition” days are numbered as what nation in Europe will side with the US Empire at this point?

So is the US Empire at the 1775 point of the British Empire? An unmasked  and revealed belligerent imperialist force for bad verses American Exceptionalism, a Global Force for Good. Time will tell.

I am pretty sure that with Brexit, and with Trump’s blunder on Iraqi soil, we will all see much clearer in 2020. As more and more people distrust huge government, distrust its partner in crime, the media, there will be all sorts of things that can be revealed in this new year.

One thing I do want to draw attention to is the difference in character between the typical US politician and the man (i.e. labeled a bad guy by Trump) that was murdered after a non-private commercial flight from Damascus, Syria to Baghdad, Iraq:

Soleimani’s handwritten will: “My wife, I have chosen my burial place in the cemetery of the Martyrs of Kerman, Mahmoud knows it. I want my gravestone to be simple. Just write ‘Soldier Qassem Soleimani’ no more titles and phrases.”

Quite the difference, no?

Interesting days to come .. enjoy each day and the blessings that God the Creator has blessed us with in the midst of “wars and rumors of wars” – Jesus in Matthew 24:6.

Hug your kids, your grand-kids and good friends!

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

(Ooh…) Look all around, there’s nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, there’s nothing but blue skies

-SF1

12OCT2019: Blog Post Trilogy Finale – Sedition Criminalization Back in Vogue

10 years after the Constitution was drafted, this act was signed by “patriot” John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

Just from my history education from the government, I know there were times in our history that one had to just agree with the government and not speak or write critically of their actions. Words like treason and sedition became mainstream.

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. – John F. Kennedy

From the “Copperheads” during the Civil War (those who called out the tyrant Lincoln) to those critical of entering the “Great War” (WWI), who had to content with Woodrow Wilson’s  U.S. Sedition Act of 1918, the act that made it a crime to ”willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States.” Less than 25 years later aviation hero Charles Lindbergh would be criticized by FDR by not going along with his secret plan to get America involved in yet another world war. (WWII) From George Bush stating “you are either with us or against us” in his decision to invade Iraq to the same treatment when Barack Obama decided to attack Libya and back ISIS in Syria, it is the same song, different verse ad nauseum.

This is my 3rd post today, a trilogy of sorts, which:

  1. covered the unhealthy big-business/government alliance and its impact on regions of this nation.
  2. covered on a macro scale how there were two visions of the American Colonies “cause” for independence from the British Empire.
  3. covered on a micro scale, where what one individual says or writes is held against them as a crime against the government.

Pure Redcoat.

Pure Soviet Union circa 1950s/1960s.

It turns out, it is also Pure America in 1798!

Today, under Trump, this whole critical views of government has again gotten personnel. In the last few years, individuals have been banned from social media or experienced a demonetization of their work online because of their words. The attitude these days aligns with that of John Adams back in 1798 when he signed the Alien and Sedition Act as described by Robert Ringer nearly 10 years ago:

… which made it a crime for anyone to criticize the government ”through writing or any other shape, form, or fashion.”

Specifically, criticizing the president, Congress, the military, or the flag was made illegal. This by a group of men who themselves had escaped bondage only twenty-two years earlier!

It was an audacious move by the Federalist-controlled Congress to silence the Republicans, particularly regarding their support of the French Revolution. It was, of course, in direct violation of the Bill of Rights, which clearly states, in the First Amendment, that ”Congress shall make no law … abridging freedom of speech, or of the press.”

With the 21st century press looking more and more like the 20th century USSR mouthpiece “Pravda”, the only true “press” is the independent blogger, tweeter and friend of liberty that risks being the rebel in social settings both in the workplace/marketplace and in the neighborhood.

Daniel McAdams frames it nicely:

Are we agents of a foreign power for opposing the foreign policy of the US government? This is the way of thinking that dominated communist Europe for decades. The Party was always right, guided as it was by the inevitable and undeniable march of history. Any foreign policy position put forth by The Party was by definition the correct foreign policy. So anyone who disagreed was also by definition incorrect and a “wrecker.” When The Party is by definition correct, any deviationist must be punished and any deviation must be disappeared.

New interpretations by Trump’s Administration indicate that in its “Maximum Pressure” exercise with Iran have changed the rules to criminalize individuals who “associate” with Iranians. Originally intended to mean:

Responding to a query by a potential participant, an OFAC employee explained that ‘transaction’ and ‘dealing in transactions,’ as those terms are used by OFAC, are broadly construed to include not only monetary dealings or exchanges, but also ‘providing any sort of service’ and ‘non-monetary service,’ including giving a presentation at a conference.

So simple truth-telling about the US Empire’s sanctions that ban Iranian import of components to make medicine, there by indirectly causing unknown number of deaths in that nation, could subject one to fines and imprisonment.

We have all kinds of freedom in the USA today because of all the interventions around the world, especially in the Middle East, since 1990, NOT!

Pretty soon, your neighbors will be encouraged to “say something, if you hear something”, or maybe not, since your smartphone can report your words 24/7.

Sorry to end on a note like this, but there is a bright side, a silver lining if you will in the empire’s quest to silence us. A weakness.

Pride.

The myth of American Exceptionalism will help to unravel the powerful.

Pride will do 🙂

-SF!

Below: Script from the movie “The Patriot”:

MARTIN
	I've just been inside the mind of a
	genius.  Lord Cornwallis knows more
	about war than I could in a dozen
	lifetimes.

		BILLINGS
	Cheerful news to greet the morn.

		MARTIN
	His victories at Charleston and
	Camden were perfect, strategically,
	tactically, logistically.  But he
	has a weakness.

They all turn to Martin.

		MARTIN
	Lord Cornwallis is brilliant.  His
	weakness is that he knows it.

		GABRIEL
	Father?

		MARTIN
	Pride is his weakness.

The men consider that.

		DELANCEY
	Personally, I'd would prefer
	stupidity.

		MARTIN
	Pride will do.

War Can Be Avoided – Even for the US Empire! (Rarely) – Retro 1983

Service members pick through the rubble following the bombing of the USMC barracks in Beirut, Lebanon on Oct. 23, 1983. The terror attack resulted in the deaths of 220 Marines. File Photo by USMC/UPI

You can count on one hand the times that the United States of America refrained from its drive for war. While its third president said on 04MAR1801:

… peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none …

… in hindsight, presidents that followed Thomas Jefferson did not have those ideals and/or could not resist the unity that happens when the war path is decided on. War is good for the state as well, which statesmen back in the day and politicians today realize clearly. The state was meant for war.

However, there was a time in the early 1980s when the US backed off from the war path. It was tempting, but at the end of the day, cooler heads prevailed. As Kenny Rogers sang

He said, “If you’re gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right
You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

In this article, the details emerge from a time in 1983-1984 when the US Empire acted more like a man of character than that of a bully. Confident that knowing when “to hold them, and knowing when to run” displayed more meekness, power under control, than most Presidential administrations to date.

While Reagan’s administration piled on the debt more than Carter’s, engaged in the drug trafficking trade called the Iran-Contra Affair, and also ratcheted up “gun-control”, this event in Lebanon and the US response is something that needs to be remembered and admired.

Setting the stage:

In October of 1983, a truck filled with explosives leveled the four-story U.S. Marine Barracks in Lebanon, killing 241 American military personnel. The intelligence community laid responsibility for the act at the feet of Tehran’s mullahs, who’d tasked Hezbollah, their proxy in Lebanon, with pushing the U.S. (which had deployed the Marines as part of a multinational peacekeeping mission) out of the region. The incident (the largest non-nuclear explosion since World War Two, as we were told at the time), touched off a legendary internal Reagan Administration dispute over how, and whether, the U.S. should retaliate.

As today, there were members of the administration that were more war-hawk in nature, and others who have been in combat, and acutely know what the unintentional consequences might be in ordering a retaliation.

I do like Caspar Weinberger’s (US Army veteran of some intense Pacific fighting in WWII) angle:

Secretary of Defense [Weinberger] had opposed the deployment of the Marines to begin with, and had the support of the military. Colin Powell, Weinberger’s senior military assistant, spoke for many of the military’s leaders when he described the Lebanon deployment “goofy from the beginning.”

On the other side was Secretary of State George Shultz:

For Shultz, however, revisiting the deployment decision was a waste of time. In a series of knock-down-drag-outs that pitted him against Weinberger, the Secretary of State argued that “American credibility” (that old standby), was being tested and that, therefore, the deaths of 241 U.S. Marines was cause enough for a military escalation.

The kicker comes here where Weinberger’s wisdom is revealed:

Weinberger disagreed: “retaliation against who?” he asked. Slow-rolling the president, he argued that the U.S. needed better intelligence before deciding who to punish. Weinberger was adamant: the U.S. had just left one unwinnable conflict (in Vietnam), and shouldn’t be so quick to start another. He dug in.

I do wish that this effort could be made today. Instead of lashing out like a bully swinging wildly to and fro, connecting here, connecting there mainly with innocent people and missing the real culprits, can’t today’s US government ever take time and wisely ascertain what is really happening? No more “WMD’s in Iraq”, no more Colin Powell holding some “chemical weapon” in his fingers at the UN, no more stories of babies in incubators left to die. The CIA/MI6/Mossad deep state “evidence” needs to be compared to truly independent science, if one can every practically get there.

Maybe, just maybe today’s announcement that Sen. Rand Paul has been chosen to be a point of dialog with the regime in Iran, is a rare piece of good news that I myself have been waiting years if not decades for.

Back to 1983.

It seems that the Vietnam War was not too far in the rear-view mirror as men with war experience from WWII in the South Pacific, who started as PRIVATES, who have seen the elephant, could wisely speak into:

NOTE: “Weinberger was a Harvard-educated lawyer, his formative experience came in World War II, where he served as an infantry officer during the 1942 Battle of Buna—a fetid, leech-infested Japanese base on the rim of northern New Guinea. For those who survived, including Weinberger, the swamp-slogging battle was an unrelenting nightmare: at its end, the Japanese resorted to cannibalism and used the bodies of the dead to reinforce their defenses. ”

Staying strong:

The Shultz-Weinberger tilt dragged on until February of 1984, when Reagan decided to “redeploy” the Marines to U.S. ships on station in the Mediterranean. The “redeployment” was seen by Shultz as an ignominious retreat, a sign of American weakness. But, as capably rendered by Marine Colonel and historian David Crist in The Twilight War, that’s not the way the Pentagon viewed it.

Only the insecure thinks this is a loss. The mature and secure person can see better the big picture and risk the possibility of this reaction to be seen as week.

Then the truth is unearthed, something that the US Empire struggles with to this very day:

The problem with American policy in the Middle East, Koch implied, was American hypocrisy—and our selective use of the word terrorism: when our friends plant bombs we say it’s because they’re defending our values, but when our enemies do it, it’s terrorism.

The entangling alliances will always cause hypocrisy. We had been warned from over 200 years ago and we (especially our leaders) still don’t get it.

Over reaction to the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, or to anything we might see in the Persian Gulf in the coming weeks and months is a recipe for a disaster that will over-shadow Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Things were very different even 5, 10, 15 and even 20 years ago. The world has changed, Russia and China have not only survived US sanctions and tariff wars, but they also have allies in other countries that have been bullied by the US Empire especially since the end of WWII.

.. striking back, killing who you can because you can (and simply to assuage your own anger) is not only “beneath our dignity”—it’s a signpost on the road to unwinnable wars.

Don’t we know it. The US Empire legacy lives on, and it ain’t a pretty sight.

-SF1

Iran STILL Upholds the Treaty it Signed with the US and Other Nations, But the US is UPSET?

* actual numbers may be dated, however, the true character of each nation should be obvious to the most casual observer!

Iran has yet to violate the JCPOA treaty that was signed by many countries almost four years ago. Have you read it?

There seems to be some angst in major media today, 01JUL2019, when they heard that Iran has announced that it has exceeded 300kg of enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6). Really? Did they not read the treaty and know what “triggered” this action? Did they not hear Iran warn about this during late-May and earlier last month? This should have been no surprise.

I had shared my own concerns of the heightened tensions between the US Empire and Iran in a post about a week ago when I mentioned:

A nations character is determined by its actions over time. The US’s character in domestic and world affairs has been going downhill for decades, even over a century. This nation has long passed the time when the world might see us as a “shining city on a hill”.

It takes TWO in any relationship, and in this case, the US has been nothing but a bully in “victim-blaming” Iran .. from when the CIA assassinated their president in 1953 to this April when Trump said:

“floods once again show the level of Iranian regime mismanagement in urban planning and in emergency preparedness.”

.. WHILE whole swaths of the US Midwest were underwater. You can’t make this up. Every administration assumes that the stupid American people will just nod their head and agree with main-stream-media and their masters, the US government (deep state, politicians and thousands of bureaucrats that suck the life out of the American taxpayer).

Moon of Alabama cuts to the chase about what is really going on here:

Iran does that [exceed 300kg UF6] within the frame of the JCPOA. It is not breaching it. Article 26 of the joint plan states that the U.S. will refrain from reimposing sanctions and that Iran will react in case that happens:

The United States will make best efforts in good faith to sustain this JCPOA and to prevent interference with the realisation of the full benefit by Iran of the sanctions lifting specified in Annex II. The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from re-introducing or re-imposing the sanctions specified in Annex II that it has ceased applying under this JCPOA, without prejudice to the dispute resolution process provided for under this JCPOA. The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions. Iran has stated that it will treat such a re-introduction or re-imposition of the sanctions specified in Annex II, or such an imposition of new nuclear-related sanctions, as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part.

For the record, on 08MAY2019, the US broke the JCPOA when it reimposed sanctions on Iran. Period. There should be ZERO crocodile tears from the US on this latest development.

In addition to this, Mood of Alabama points out that on 03MAY2019:

the State Department removed sanction waivers that allowed Iran to export low enriched uranium in exchange for natural uranium:

In addition, any involvement in transferring enriched uranium out of Iran in exchange for natural uranium will now be exposed to sanctions. The United States has been clear that Iran must stop all proliferation-sensitive activities, including uranium enrichment, and we will not accept actions that support the continuation of such enrichment.We will also no longer permit the storage for Iran of heavy water it has produced in excess of current limits; any such heavy water must not be made available to Iran in any fashion.

Linked to this is the US’s attempt to isolate Iran in all this by its threat to keep EU (European Union) partners (especially Germany, France and the U.K.) from trading with Iran.Do you see any similarities to how the US treated Japan in 1940 for force them to fire first? (from a 15JUN2019 post):

Especially damning was the economic manipulation FDR orchestrated against Japan the year before Pearl Harbor and the fact that his administration was well aware of the Japanese fleet’s route to Pearl but decided to keep the US Navy in Hawaii in the dark. So much for that “surprise”.

Deja vu, all over again. When will the masses learn? Oh yes, we are in the process of erasing our history, how convenient!

But there is some good news, according to Zero Hedge:

Europe announced that the special trade channel, Instex, that will allow European firms to avoid SWIFT and bypass American sanctions on Iran, is now operational.

The EU has *alls! This is great news and the price of oil reflected this event.

This also has some more unintended consequences for the US playing “hard-ball” with Iran (on behalf of Israel and Saudi Arabia you know, because what other reason would the US be upset with Iran about?). Zero Hedge again points out this aspect of the empire that has some more cracks in it:

Here is a simpler summary of what just happened: this was the first official shot across the bow of the USD status as a global reserve currency, and not by America’s adversaries but by its closest allies. And once those who benefit the most from the status quo openly revolt against it, the countdown to the end of the USD reserve status officially begins.

Yes. You may ask why would I be happy about the economic mayhem that is bound to occur when the effects of this ripple out through all the US economic “spinning-plates”? It is because the only way for the US Empire to quit thinking that “American Exceptionalism” gives it a license to operated above the law (natural law) in the whole world without penalty, the only way the US Empire finally understands that it can no longer be the world’s policeman, that the only way the US political class / elites and deep state finally come to terms with the immorality of its ways (not practicing the golden rule on the macro level) is for the financial rug be pulled out from under it so the “beast” (i.e. swamp) can finally be starved (i.e. drained).

I yearn for the day that the American people (together (doubtful) OR separately (ideally) in various federations of states and city-states) get back to that moment in time when the American Revolution concluded when life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were the top three in the minds of those that finally threw off the British Empire’s micro-managing / taxing agenda.

For the current US government who never saw a treaty that it couldn’t eventually break, it is no wonder why the political elite never wanted this deal with Iran to work, as one can see in the intro to the 2015 treaty:

The E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and the Islamic Republic of Iran welcome this historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which will ensure that Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful ..

Yes, it is that word “peace”. The US Empire has not nor has never wanted peace. Free trade is the antidote to war, and the state knows this!

Know your history!

-SF1