PDF-Version: selected 5.1.2020
Selected articles (January 05, 2020)
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1a)
International journalist statement in defence of Julian Assange
The European Federation of Journalits calls on journalists and people in journalism-related roles to sign the international journalist statement in defence of Julian Assange.
January 2, 2020
https://speak-up-for-assange.org/journalists-speak-up-for-julian-assange/
1b)
WikiLeaks: UN official accuses UK and US of torture over treatment of Assange and Manning
January 1,2020
„[…] Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said Ms Manning, who is being held in a jail in Virginia after refusing to testify about Mr Assange, was being subjected to an “open-ended, progressively severe measure of coercion fulfilling all the constitutive elements of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.
He added: “The practice of coercive detention appears to be incompatible with the international human rights obligations of the United States.” […]“
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2)
Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
January 5, 2020
„This article by award winning author Mahdi Nazemroaya first published by GR in November 2006 is of particular relevance to an understanding of the ongoing process of destabilization and political fragmentation in the Middle East as well as US war plans directed against Iran. […]“
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3)
US Strategy and What the Gas Pipeline War Is Costing Us
By Manlio Dinucci
December 30, 2019
https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-strategy-what-gas-pipeline-war-costing-us/5699048
„[…] Rather than being economic, the goal for the USA is strategic. This is confirmed by the fact that the sanctions on North Stream 2 are included in the National Defense Authorization Act, the legislative act which, for fiscal year 2020, hands the Pentagon the colossal sum of 738 billion dollars for new wars and new weapons (including space weapons), to which must be added other posts which bring the US military expenditure to approximately 1,000 billion dollars. The economic sanctions on North Stream 2 are part of a politico-military escalation against Russia. […]“
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4a)
Soleimani murder: what could happen next?
By The Saker
January 3, 2020
https://thesaker.is/soleimani-murder-what-could-happen-next/
„[…] I asked a well-informed Iranian friend whether it was still possible to avoid war. Here is what he replied:
Yes I do believe fullscale war can be avoided. I believe that Iran can try to use its political influence to unite Iraqi political forces to officially ask for the removal of US troops in Iraq. Kicking the US out of Iraq will mean that they can no longer occupy eastern Syria either as their troops will be in danger between two hostile states. If the Americans leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a single shot. […]“
4b)
War With Iran
By Chris Hedges
January 3, 2020
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/war-with-iran/
„[…] The United States, like Israel, has become a pariah that shreds, violates or absents itself from international law. We launch preemptive wars, which under international law is defined as a “crime of aggression,” based on fabricated evidence. We, as citizens, must hold our government accountable for these crimes. If we do not, we will be complicit in the codification of a new world order, one that would have terrifying consequences. It would be a world without treaties, statutes and laws. It would be a world where any nation, from a rogue nuclear state to a great imperial power, would be able to invoke its domestic laws to annul its obligations to others. […]“
4c)
Sanders and Khanna Introduce New Bill to ‚Stop Donald Trump From Illegally Taking Us to War Against Iran‘
By Jake Johnson
January 04, 2020
„[…] „Congress now has an opportunity to change course,“ Sanders and Khanna said. „Our legislation blocks Pentagon funding for any unilateral actions this president takes to wage war against Iran without Congressional authorization.“
„We know that it will ultimately be the children of working-class families who will have to fight and die in a new Middle East conflict—not the children of the billionaire class,“ the lawmakers added. „At a time when we face the urgent need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, to build the housing we desperately need, and to address the existential crisis of climate change, we as a nation must get our priorities right.“[…]“
4d)
America is Ruled by a Murderer
By Peter Koenig for The Saker Blog
January 4, 2020
https://thesaker.is/america-is-ruled-by-a-murderer/
„[…]Yes, there is no doubt, Trump is a murderer. And yes, he is not alone. He is joined at least by those dark elitists who put him on the throne, and who direct and monitor his atrocities; and foremost, by Israeli’s PM Netanyahu. Trump and Netanyahu are walking hand-in-hand, and it is unclear who is wagging whose tail. Israel is running the western world’s financial system, i.e. Wall Street and by now most related and affiliated globalized international banks which are financing the deadly US war industry.
On the other hand, the US military – plus NATO, the composite of the US, Canada and the European puppets, also called the European Union – they are all defending Israel’s horrendous crimes on the Palestine people for the last seventy years. The Nazi Holocaust pales in the face of Israeli atrocities waged against a helpless Gaza-incarcerated people. All that would not have been possible without the full military support and funding of the US. […]“
4e)
A New Year and a New Trump Foreign Policy Blunder in Iraq
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
January 3rd, 2020
https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/01/a-new-year-and-a-new-trump-foreign-policy-blunder-in-iraq/
„[…] Under the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, U.S. forces may only remain in Iraq at the “request and invitation” of the Iraqi government. If that invitation is withdrawn, they must leave, as they were forced to do in 2011. The U.S. presence in Iraq is now almost universally unpopular, especially in the wake of U.S. attacks on the very Iraqi armed forces they are supposedly there to support.
Trump’s effort to blame Iran for this crisis is simply a ploy to divert attention from his own bungled policy. In reality, the blame for the present crisis should be placed squarely on the doorstep of the White House itself. The Trump administration’s reckless decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and revert to the U.S. policy of threats and sanctions that never worked before is backfiring as badly as the rest of the world predicted it would, and Trump has only himself to blame for it — and maybe John Bolton.
So will 2020 be the year when Donald Trump is finally forced to fulfill his endless promises to bring U.S. troops home from at least one of its endless wars and military occupations? Or will Trump’s penchant for doubling down on brutal and counterproductive policies only lead us deeper into his pet quagmire of ever-escalating conflict with Iran, with the U.S.’s beleaguered forces in Iraq as pawns in yet another unwinnable war? […]“
4f)
WHAT COMES NEXT AFTER THE US ASSASSINATION OF QASSEM SOLEIMANI? THE OPTIONS.
By Elijah J. Magnier
January 4.2020
„[…] The Iranian leadership hopes that the Iraqi Parliament will ask US forces to leave Iraq. This decision may be reached if Moqtada al-Sadr joins his 53 MPs to those of the Al-Bina’ coalition, enough to get an affirmative vote of 165 MPs. The Kurdish MPs, most of the Sunni, and the Shia Ammar al-Hakim and Haidar al-Abadi will not vote in favour of US withdrawal. […]“
„[…] Even if the Iraqi Parliament decides to expel the US forces, they can always pull back to Iraqi Kurdistan and position their troops at a distance from Baghdad, lending their support to Kurdish independence. […]“
„[…] Iran will not likely rush into retaliating. It will more likely keep the US waiting for a possible attack on many fronts, exhausting its finances and security measures to protect its forces, its commanders and VIPs. Iranian retaliation will be considered and precise but will seek to avoid dragging Iran and the Middle East into an all-out-war. Iran’s response is unlikely to trigger a US prompt reply.“
4g)
Hundreds of Thousands of Iranians Flood Streets to Condemn US Assassination of Qassem Soleimani
The massive rallies discredited U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s claim that the people of Iran would „view the American action last night as giving them freedom.“
By Jake Johnson
January 5, 2020
4h)
Trump’s Iran Policy Is Brain-Dead
Lacking coherent objectives and a strategy for achieving them, moves like the assassination of Qassem Suleimani are foreign policy as theater—and could leave the United States worse off.
By Stephen M. Walt
January 3, 2020
„[…] For starters, Iran will almost inevitably respond, just as the United States would were the situation reversed. The regime will do so at a time and with means of its own choosing, and in ways designed to maximize the pain and political impact. Second, the assassination is going to inflame Iranian nationalism and strengthen hard-line forces in Iran, further reducing any possibility of regime change there. Third, killing Suleimani on Iraqi soil is a violation of Iraqi sovereignty that put its fragile government on even shakier ground, and it is worth noting that caretaker Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has already condemned the U.S. action. Fourth, Trump has now given Iran even more incentive to acquire nuclear weapons, a step that would force Washington to go to all-out war or back down and accept an Iranian bomb. All this over a country that has serious disputes with some of the United States’ regional partners but does not threaten the security or prosperity of the United States itself in any meaningful way. […]“
4i)
Soleimani’s Assassination Act of Psychological Warfare: American Author
Douglas Valentine believes that assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani is an act of psychological warfare which allows Trump to deflect attention from the impeachment scandal and appease his American and Israeli followers.
By Mostafa Afzalzadeh
January 5.2020
https://siasateparsi.ir/en/news/2628
„[…] Trump’s assassination of a High Value target is an act of psychological warfare, in this case aimed primarily at the US public and Israeli public. 1) It allowed Trump to deflect attention from the impeachment scandal. 2) It assured his American and Israeli followers that he is predatory, with the willingness to kill without remorse.
It is also an act of selective terror directed at Iran. The assassination is meant to terrify the leaders in Iran and deter them from attacks against Americans and Israelis. […]“
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Amir Mortasawi (alias Afsane Bahar) (امیر مرتضوی (افسانه بهار 