Sunday, January 5, 2020

US Blundering in the Middle East



I receive (academic) James M. Dorsey's very interesting political analyses and his latest on the US targeted killing is definitely worth reading. Here is a brief excerpt:
By James M. Dorsey [A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox.

The killing of Iranian military leader Qassim Soleimani proves the point: The United States has perfected the art of strengthening Iranian hardliners fuelled by an apparently ingrained misreading of Iranian politics and strategy sustained over decades.

It also suggests that the Trump administration has walked into a trap in which spiralling tension between the United States and Iran is likely to be played out on Iranian rather than US terms.

Iran moved last year away from its initial strategic patience response to the US withdrawal from the 2015 international agreement that curbed the Islamic republic’s nuclear program and imposition of harsh economic sanctions to a strategy of gradual escalation....

I have written previously about the misguided US policy to re-make the Middle East many times:
http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2018/04/seven-nations-in-five-years.html 

Many internal dissenters have gone public regarding the ill-advised re-making of the region:
Joe Conason (10.12.2007).“Seven countries in five years”: Wesley Clark’s new memoir casts more light on the Bush administration’s secret strategies for regime change in Iran and elsewhere. Salon, https://www.salon.com/2007/10/12/wesley_clark/

While the Bush White House promotes the possibility of armed conflict with Iran, a tantalizing passage in Wesley Clark's new memoir suggests that another war is part of a long-planned Department of Defense strategy that anticipated "regime change" by force in no fewer than seven Mideast states....

In May 1991, according to Clark, he dropped in for a conversation with Wolfowitz, then the third-ranking civilian in the Pentagon, to congratulate him on the success of the Gulf War. "We screwed up and left Saddam Hussein in power. The president [then George H.W. Bush] believes he'll be overthrown by his own people, but I rather doubt it," he quotes Wolfowitz lamenting. 
"But we did learn one thing that's very important. With the end of the Cold War, we can now use our military with impunity. The Soviets won't come in to block us. And we've got five, maybe 10, years to clean up these old Soviet surrogate regimes like Iraq and Syria before the next superpower emerges to challenge us ... We could have a little more time, but no one really knows."
The legacy of this imperialism by the US and by other warlike nations is vast human suffering, as illustrated in this headline from a year ago:
Chen, Michelle (2019, Feb 26). 1 in 5 Children Live in a War Zone. The Nation, https://www.thenation.com/article/children-warzone-conflict/And that number has only risen in the past few years. Around the world, a stunning one in five children are growing up in a war zone today. Neither their governments, nor humanitarian-aid groups, nor their families can guarantee the basic elements of survival, much less anything like a happy childhood.
My heart breaks for the victims of the stupid and homicidal games played by the sociopathic men we allow to rule us.


6 comments:

  1. The death of the planet through fire, nuclear insanity and armed conflagration

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    Replies
    1. [PDF]Ecological Considerations of Depleted Uranium Munitions
      https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/la-5559.pdf
      1972 hanswn

      excerpt from pdf

      DEPLETED URANIUM MUNITIONS IN TER-
      RESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
      A. Wildfires During Military Exercises
      The pyrophoric properties of DU make it extremely
      effective in combat use where the ecological consequences
      of wildfire are hardly a consideration. A similar philos-
      ophy probably exists for training purposes, although fire
      control is a greater concern near populated areas or where
      arid conditions produce flammable environments.
      Fire is a most important limiting factor in ecosystems
      of forest and grassland regions of temperate zones and in
      tropical areas with dry seasons. Fire is a major hazard, and
      has been for centuries, of the normal climate in most of
      the terrestrial environments of the world. This has
      produced biotic, fire-adapted communities uniquely
      suited to a region, such as the long-leaf pine forests on the
      coastal plain of the southeastern United States.3
      Manage-
      ment of controlled environments by prescribed burning
      has been intensively investigated in this southeastern
      area." Control of vegetative cover by fire is only one
      consideration in the total ecosystem response. Animal
      populations respond in various ways to such procedures,
      as shown in studies of wild turkey management.5
      In
      southeastern US pine forests, controlled fire is an indis-
      pensable tool to maintain and manage turkey populations;
      however, it must be used wisely to ensure that associated
      animal populations are not jeopardized and thai all popu-
      lations achieve a balance. Differing responses of various
      species to habitat fires are found in all ecosystems, such as
      soil insects and their vegetative cover in desert steppe
      vegetation,6
      caribou and their crucial lichen winter ranges
      in arctic areas,7
      and muskrats and waterfowl in various
      marsh habitats.8
      '
      9
      Less obvious effects of fire include the
      induction of mortality factors in aquatic situations,
      mostly due to chemical changes in the water produced '<y
      burned vegetation.10
      The above examples recognize the ecological con-
      sequences of fires caused by the pyrophoric properties of
      DU munitions. The degree of importance these con-
      sequences attain will depend upon the situation (wariime
      or training), the bio£'ographic region(s), climate, season
      of the year, and several other factors. Each situation must
      be judged independently.

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    2. Why doesn't anyone care about pyrophoricity and the speading  of unquenchable wildfires in populated areas, in industial Countries? Especially around large nuclear complexes like INL, Hanford, Mayak? Fukushima and Chernobyl?
      The current wildfires in Australia are some the worst catastrophes in History.  I have been reading about Uranium and rare earth mining, close to the Amazon. The mining and contamination of areas around and, in the Amazon. The contamination maybe a more important factor in the wildfires there, than climate change. 
      The human encroachment via clearing of forests, heavy metal mining, rare earth mining and uranium mining are certainly important factors.

      There is a 70 percent chance that there will be another major nuclear reactor  accident, in the world, in the next 2  years. So far they have been occuring on an average of about every 10 to 15 years. They have become much worse. 
      Most reactors are well beyond their initial  licensing dates. More than 30 years old. Corroded, embrittled, cracked with poor to no backup. Poor supervision in countries like the USA,  Ukraine, and eastern Europe. 
      The reopened Japanese reactors are old and damaged. Many are  in earthquake zones. Accelerated climate change is significantly increasing the risk of nuclear reactor catastrophe.
      ONE OR TWO major nuclear explosions, meltdowns and fuel fires, probably  will occur  in the USA or europe in the next 2 years.
      They will   spread, an unimanigable swath of pyrophoric and highly toxic, hi level radionuclides across the USA  or  in europe.   Wildfires in populated sections of the USA  will surely accelerate dramatically within a few years, of nuclear reactor catastrophes in the USA .  The large areas that burned at Santa Susana and INL fires, sent radionuclides across Socal from Santa Susana and 6 states for INL The INL fire burned 900,000 acres. These fires occured  in the past 2 years. They have been all, but ignored.


      FROM IAEA PDF on Uranium PDA

      "Uranium metal can be melted by any of several different techniques. However, because
      uranium is very reactive when heated in air, melting must be done either under a protective inert
      atmosphere or in a vacuum.17
      Uranium and its alloys are considered difficult to machine and almost
      all machining of uranium results in some sparking or burning because of its pyrophoricity.
      Health and safety considerations must be carefully considered when using uranium because of its
      high toxicity and pyrophoricity. The main hazard to health occurs where finely divided particles can
      become airborne and inhaled. For this reason, vents and fume hoods should be used, or the workers
      should use respirator equipment to avoid inhalation.
      Uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element that exists in recoverable amounts,
      averaging about 4 ppm in the earth's crust"

      The use of pyrophoric phosphorus to fire bomb dresden, in world war 2 killed 120,000 people and burned Dresden to the ground. Guess what, Uranium is as pyrophoric than phosphorus and takes much less to start fires and keep them burning. The government will not talk about it. Nobody will talk about it. Primarily because of the implications for storage of nuclear waste, what can happen after nuclear catastrophes, and because of the militaries ongoing uses, of depleted Uranium that is highly pyrophoric and radioactive.

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    3. The neoconservatives and mic interests, that run the Trump junta, have said they will use tactical nukes on iran, since 2002. This is evil. Now we see a run up, to an illegal war and probably a nuclear war, by the same PNAC psychopaths and fascists that did iraq, in 2003.

      The NY times was part of it. Part of the propaganda juggernaut that led to the blood-lust of iraq.

      The neoconservative nuclear-warmongers, are hateful evil things. They are pathological liars and mass murderers. They think a nuclear war is winable and survivable.

      Here is a twitter from a stupid evil little thing, that pretends to be antinuclear . It is really an operative, for the evil fascist, nuclear murderers-creeps. It insinuated itself as antinuclear a  couple of years after fukushima. It is a mole. It takes blood money to push nuclear death propaganda and chearlead for nuclear bombs, nuclear war and nuclear oblivion on the internet. It is a propaganda cointelpro troll and agent that uses sensationalism and lies to project its garbage

      We do not believe, for a second that Iran intentionally shot down a Boeing jet or, really shot it down, for that matter.  Boeing jets have had a litany of techical issues for the past two years. This is the same sort of gutter propaganda, the warmongers neoconserative, creeps used to drum up hate and lies for the pre-emptive war and destruction of iraq.

      "RADCHICK
      NEW Video Shows Ukrainian Plane Being Hit Over Iran - NOT mechanical failure except what resulted from being BLOWN UP. #RIP��

      Video Shows Ukrainian Airliner Being Hit Over Iran
      nytimes.com"

      This thing constantly plants the worst government and neoconservative, deep-state issued-propaganda, in its twitter feeds and on the internet. Like the story, about the chinese detonating a nuke in the s china sea.

      We are not religious . We dont care for the religious insanity of jews or christians or sunni or shia . Middle east conflict is not about religion. It is abput in the PNAC psycho and israel, surrounding and destruction of  iran. It is about greed, power and military-nuclear insanity.
      Same for the cold war and nuclear escalation with China and Russia. It is not about ideology  it is about getting money for more insane, nuclear escalation

      the rightwing fascist racist hate-rag  zero hedge, is  running the same gutter propaganda about iran shootim down a boeimg jet

      This thing was part of the group that posted garbage all over the internet that China detonated a nuclear bomb is the south china sea a month ago. It almost seems like they want a worldwide nuclear. The neoconservative junta and mic do want more money to build more nuke production to consolidate the poisoning of mother earth and the USA



      Watch this video before it is deleted
      https://youtu.be/xszvdy_Egjo

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    4. It is all too depressing, to think about anymore. It has gone too far. There is nothing anyone, can do to stop it or get any change. Let it go. Survive for a while longer

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  2. While the situation is surely being mishandled as is the custom with the US and middle east, I think people are blowing this a little bit out of proportion and things will go back to normal very soon.

    https://aab-edu.net/

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