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Iran declares war on US's covert influence in Iraq

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Tue, 09 Jul 2019 17:22 UTC
iraq us troops
When US officials visited Baghdad and met with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, they had two requests: first, to close all commerce and financial exchanges with Iran to strangle the Iranian economy and bring it to its knees. The second was to neutralise the Iraqi groups (known as Hashd al-Shaabi) which sympathise with Iran and carry a similar ideology.

The Iraqi Premier is aware he is being pushed into the heart of two minefields, Iranian and American, and therefore he cannot just walk straight into these fields. He has decided to reject the first US demand because Iraq has religious, commercial and energy bonds with Iran. He is refusing to transform Iraq into a US-Iran battlefield where no winner can be expected to stay on his feet, including Iraq. He wants to force the US administration to back down and agree to provide Iraq with waivers to buy Iranian gas and keep commercial exchange flowing.

What were Abdel Mahdi's reasons for responding to US pressure? He did not want to have the Americans on his back or turn the country upside down. Therefore, though he refused to satisfy US officials in their first request, he did take account of the latter, seeking to avoid a potential coup d'état and a possible US manoeuvre to allow the return of the terrorist group "Islamic State" (ISIS). The Prime Minister issued Diwani Order (decree) no. 237 "to organise Hashd al-Shaabi, where all factions close their headquarters and have the option to either join the armed forces or engage in political activity (unarmed). Any faction acting secretly or publicly bypassing these instructions is forbidden. Compliance with the ultimatum is required by the 31 of July".

The US administration was satisfied with this move, but...
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Bad Guys

Democratic congresswoman Veronica Escobar secretly sending staff into Mexico to coach asylum-seekers

Anna Giaritelli
Washington Examiner
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 17:08 UTC
Veronica Escobar coach migrants
© KFOX
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, speaks to KFOX from Capitol Hill on Jan. 23, 2019.
A Democratic congresswoman is sending staff to Mexico's northern border town of Ciudad Juárez to find migrants returned from El Paso, Texas, under the "remain in Mexico" policy, then coaching them to pretend they cannot speak Spanish to exploit a loophole letting them to return to the U.S.

The National Border Patrol Council's El Paso chapter and several Customs and Border Protection personnel told the Washington Examiner aides to Rep. Veronica Escobar, who took over 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke's district, and the local Catholic diocese have interviewed thousands of migrants in Juarez over the past few weeks to find cases where Department of Homeland Security officials may have wrongly returned people.

"What we believe is happening is Veronica Escobar's office is going ... to basically second-guess and obstruct work already done by the Border Patrol," said one senior union official, who shared evidence with the Washington Examiner from concerned CBP managers and rank-and-file members. Those documents have been held to protect identities.

Comment:

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Russian Flag

'I wouldn't sanction Georgia out of respect for its people' - Putin


RT
Tue, 09 Jul 2019 17:19 UTC
Putin
Any measures that damage ties between Russia and Georgia must be avoided, Vladimir Putin said. As for the Georgian TV host who targeted him with an abusive rant, the man is too insignificant to be mentioned, the President added.

"I wouldn't introduce sanctions against Georgia out of respect for its people," Putin said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the parliament had urged the Russian government to ban imports of Georgian wine and table water, as well as to restrict money transfers to the country, among other measures.

Another spike in tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi occurred last weekend, when local TV host, Georgiy Gabuniya opened his TV chat show with an obscene address to Putin, delivered in Russian, in which he targeted the President and his late parents in the most vulgar terms possible.

The bizarre stunt made headlines, but the Russian leader believes that it wasn't worth the fuss. "He came out, said something, being a real nothing," he said of Gabuniya.

As for calls to bring criminal charges against the so-called journalist for offending a head of state, Putin pointed out that the man just "didn't deserve such an honor."

Anti-Russian sentiment in Georgia is promoted by those who don't remember history and who want to harm their own country, he added.


Comment: See also:

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Vader

US State Dept boasted in 2017 that the appointment of FM Chrystia Freeland meant Canada had adopted an 'America First foreign policy'

Ben Norton
The Grayzone
Tue, 09 Jul 2019 15:30 UTC
Nieto Trump trudeau freeland USMCA siging
© Getty Images
Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico's president, President Donald Trump, and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sign the USMCA, with FM Chrystia Freeland looking on.
The US embassy in Ottawa boasted in a March 2017 memo, "Canada Adopts 'America First' Foreign Policy," just after PM Trudeau appointed hard-line hawk Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister.

The US State Department boasted in a declassified memo in March 2017 that Canada had adopted an "America first" foreign policy.

The cable was authored just weeks after the centrist government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister. The former editor of the major international news agency Reuters, Freeland has pushed for aggressive policies against states targeted by Washington for regime change, including Venezuela, Russia, Nicaragua, Syria, and Iran.

The State Department added that Trudeau had promoted Freeland "in large part because of her strong U.S. contacts," and that her "number one priority" was working closely with Washington.

Comment: For more on Chrystia Freeland's sketchy past, see this excellent background piece from Arina Tsukanova on Consortium News.
"Canada's fiercely anti-Russian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland says her Ukrainian grandfather struggled "to return freedom and democracy to Ukraine," but she leaves out that he was a Nazi propagandist justifying the slaughter of Jews, writes Arina Tsukanova."


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Arrow Down

Judge rules against Trump on drug pricing disclosures - says it's up to Congress

Nathaniel Weixel
The Hill
Mon, 08 Jul 2019 16:58 UTC
pills Big pharma money
© REUTERS/Srdjan Zivulovic
A federal judge on Monday sided with a coalition of drug companies and blocked the Trump administration from implementing a policy that would require prescription drug manufacturers to disclose list prices in TV ads.

The pharmaceutical companies — Amgen, Merck, and Eli Lilly — were joined in the lawsuit by the Association of National Advertisers. The rule was scheduled to take effect Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, D.C., agreed with the drug companies that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not have the authority to compel drug companies to disclose prices.

"To be clear, the court does not question HHS's motives in adopting the [rule]," Mehta wrote. "Nor does it take any view on the wisdom of requiring drug companies to disclose prices. That policy very well could be an effective tool in halting the rising cost of prescription drugs. But no matter how vexing the problem of spiraling drug costs may be, HHS cannot do more than what Congress has authorized. The responsibility rests with Congress to act in the first instance."

Under the rule, which was announced by HHS Secretary Alex Azar in May, drug manufacturers would have to state the list price of a 30-day supply of any drug that is covered through Medicare and Medicaid and costs at least $35 a month.
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Boat

Norwegian tanker 'attacked' in Gulf set to dock in Iran despite US blame-game


Sputnik
Tue, 09 Jul 2019 16:51 UTC
oil tanker
© AFP 2019 / HANDOUT / Emirati National Media Council
Four tankers in the Gulf of Oman, belonging to Norway, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, were left crippled as a result of several explosions that damaged their hulls in May 2019. While an investigation by the UAE has failed to determine the actor behind the "sabotage", the US has groundlessly accused Iran of it. Tehran has denied all the accusations.

Andrea Victory, a Norwegian tanker that suffered a significant blast on 12 May while sailing in the Gulf of Oman near a UAE port, is readying to dock at Iran's Bandar Imam Khomeini port, almost two months after the attack, the research company Refinitiv Energy reported on its Twitter.

According to Refinitiv, the tanker is completing its voyage, which was interrupted by the May incident, carrying a shipment of oil from Argentina to Iran. Following the blast, Andrea Victory reportedly unloaded its cargo onto another ship and was then moored at a dry dock for repairs needed to cover the hole in its hull. Recently, the tanker reclaimed its cargo and is now heading towards its destination, according to Refinitiv Energy.
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Gold Bar

Poland is latest country to repatriate its gold from the Bank of England


RT
Tue, 09 Jul 2019 10:22 UTC
gold
© Getty Images / Achmad Arphan / EyeEm
Poland is repatriating gold from overseas, after it more than doubled its bullion holdings in the past year. Central banks all over the world have been stocking up on gold in recent years, shifting away from the US dollar.

The National Bank of Poland (NBP) has bought 100 tons of the precious metal since the beginning of this year, nearly four times more than it added to its reserves in 2018.

Now Warsaw wants to bring a significant part the precious metal back home, repatriating it from the Bank of England. The NBP wants to transfer at least 100 tons and store the repatriated bullion in its vaults.

The Polish central bank noted that the repatriation comes on account of central banks' need to diversify the storage of their gold reserves "to limit geopolitical risk," which, it says, could result "in losing access to or restriction of the availability of gold resources held abroad."

In recent months, the Bank of England refused to return 14 tons of gold belonging to Venezuela. Caracas wanted to repatriate some of its bullion holdings to deal with the country's economic crisis, which is exacerbated by US sanctions.

Comment: The following may also have something to do with the desire of various nations to hold on to their own gold:

A revolution in world economies is underway thanks to the Bank for International Settlements' 'Basel III' policy

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Clipboard

The top 10 indicators of 'liberal imperialism' - and the 'thinking' behind it

Stephen M. Walt
Foreign Policy
Mon, 20 May 2013 17:25 UTC
Liberal imperialists
© MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images
Are you a liberal imperialist? Liberal imperialists are like kinder, gentler neoconservatives: Like neocons, they believe it's America's responsibility to right political and humanitarian wrongs around the world, and they're comfortable with the idea of the United States deciding who will run countries such as Libya, Syria, or Afghanistan. Unlike neocons, liberal imperialists embrace and support international institutions (like the United Nations), and they are driven more by concern for human rights than they are by blind nationalism or protecting the U.S.-Israel special relationship. Still, like the neocons, liberal imperialists are eager proponents for using American hard power, even in situations where it might easily do more harm than good. The odd-bedfellow combination of their idealism with neocons' ideology has given us a lot of bad foreign policy over the past decade, especially the decisions to intervene militarily in Iraq or nation-build in Afghanistan, and today's drumbeat to do the same in Syria.

It's not that the United States should never intervene in other countries or that its military should not undertake humanitarian missions (as it did in Indonesia following the Asian tsunami and in Haiti after a damaging earthquake). It should do so, however, only when there are vital national interests at stake or when sending U.S. troops or American arms is overwhelmingly likely to make things better. In short, decisions to intervene need to clear a very high bar and survive hardheaded questioning about what the use of force will actually accomplish.

Comment: Another term for "liberal imperialism" would seem to be neoliberalism - and at the end of the day these folks sure have a lot in common with neoconservatives:

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Briefcase

Rep. Peter King: 'Severe, serious abuses' by FBI and CIA in Russia probe are 'going to come out'

Ron Blitzer
Fox News
Mon, 08 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Rep. Peter King

Rep. Peter King
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said he is "confident" that when Attorney General Bill Barr concludes his investigation of the origins of the investigation of President Trump's 2016 campaign, the American people will learn that the FBI and CIA under the Obama administration engaged in foul play.

President Trump and his supporters have questioned how the investigation started in the first place, accusing the FBI of carrying it out under false pretenses. King is among those leveling such allegations.

"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin the investigation of his campaign," King said in a Friday interview with New York radio host John Catsimatidis, "and the way they carried it forward and the way information was leaked, the improper applications they filed in the FISA court to get surveillance, all of this is going to come out."

King was referring to the FBI's application for a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Republicans, including California Rep. Devin Nunes, claimed that federal authorities did not fully disclose their reliance on an unverified dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, which was part of opposition research for Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Comment: As the Democrats continue to try and make something of absolutely nothing they may find themselves, correctly, at the opposite end of the investigation - and may have some hell to pay for it:

See also:

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Bullseye

Britain is run by a self-serving clique, that's why it's in crisis

Gary Younge
The Guardian
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 06:01 UTC
britain food bank
© Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian
Government and culture are dominated by the same narrow section of the population. It's no way to run a country
Last week Boris Johnson delivered a speech to a Royal Horticultural Society audience in Wisley, Surrey, before heading to the affluent village of Oxshott to buy some fennel and tarragon sausages and have a cup of tea in the Munch and Wiggles cafe. In a series of interviews later that day, he was unwilling to reveal the provenance of the staged photograph of him and his partner, Carrie Symonds. He was, however, able to insist that Britain would leave the European Union, "do or die", by the end of October.

On the same day, the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission issued a report into elitism in Britain that "paints a picture of a country whose power structures are dominated by a narrow section of the population [where] social mobility is low and not improving". Those who went to private school comprise 7% of the country's population but 39% of the elite; those who went to Oxford or Cambridge university comprise less than 1% of the population but 24% of the elite. Senior judges, junior ministers, permanent secretaries and diplomats are among the least representative professions. But the media, and particularly newspaper columnists, are right up there, too.

Comment: It's not just a case of elitism, and it's not just Britain, the system throughout the Western world is becoming ponerized and is collapsing under the weight of its own corruption: Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes Also check out SOTT radio's:

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