by Oui
Mon Aug 12th, 2024 at 10:13:43 AM EST
All revealing documentary broadcast on BBC Two ... we all knew we have been lied to and continues to this day with two horrific wars: the genocide of Palestinians and the existential threat to Europe on the Eastern Front. Not to mention the genocide in Sudan in Africa.
The European Union and the G7 nations have pull up the bridges and abandoned the Global South ... the most vulnerable parts of the world 🌍 ⚡️ 🌏 in the age of climate change ...
Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? BBC Two
BBC's Corridors of Power
review - would it be better
if the US just told the truth
that it will use its power for
its own interests and
economic benefit?
Barack Obama considers the world in the Oval Office
Barack Obama ... let's see where that fellow Gaddafi roams in Northern Africa ... I've been advised to take him out ... there are a lot of fossil fuel resources concentrated and he supports the uprising of African States against new colonialism. A friend of Nelson Mandela, the designated terrorist by several U.S. administrations ... a dangerous development for the apartheid state of Israel, our closest ally.
Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? | BBC iPlayer |
Corridors of Power shows that under America’s watch, evil continued to take place and, in some cases, while the superpower turned the other way.
This eight-part, monumental series is an excoriating critique of US foreign policy but also a reasonable and understanding one.
Film maker Dror Moreh accepts that complexity, self-interest, error and human failure means wrong decisions are often taken.
64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup
On the creation of Israel in 1948, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, establishes close ties with the new country. At the time, Iran is home to the biggest Jewish community in the Middle East.
Iran’s feared Savak secret police is created in 1957 with the help of the CIA and eventually Israel’s Mossad.
Moreh opens with the disastrous interference in the Middle East by the US and in particular its relationships with Iran and Iraq.
The US policy goal was exclusively to maintain the flow of oil from the region and ensure that no country had too large a slice of the cake. After the fall of its client leader, the Shah, in 1979, the US had a major problem with the new theocracy of Iran.
In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that [Saddam] Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence.
It knew that Saddam Hussein, who had just taken power in Iraq, was a monster, but my enemies’ enemy etc.
The US gradually opened relations with Iraq and supported Saddam with intelligence and weapons during his eight-year war with Iran.
It ignored Iraq’s use of poison gas and continued to ignore it when Saddam began an attempted genocide against the Kurds.
When the Shah of Iran and President Saddam Hussein signed a border agreement in Algiers in 1975, the United States abruptly withdrew its support for the Kurds and the rebellion collapsed. Many thousands of Kurdish fighters and their families were forced to flee to Iran to escape the pursuing Iraqi army.
Nobody's Periphery: Pahlavi Iran and the Arab-Israeli Conflict | Stanford Iranian Studies - 2022 |
"Pahlavi Iran, alongside Turkey, was a rare case of a Muslim-majority state to have consistent relations with Israel. Much of existing literature often discusses this as an aspect of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s Policy of Periphery. But the Shah’s relations with Israel were in line with his foreign policy conception of “National Independent Policy” and part of a careful balancing act that aimed to stake out a unique place for Iran in the global Cold War.
Following the 1967 war, the Shah publicly criticized Israel and demanded its withdrawal from the occupied territories while Iran also maintained clandestine ties to the PLO and restored its ties to the leading Arab nation of Egypt. The Shah’s vision of Iran as a Muslim country and his opposition to remnants of European colonialism also motivated Iran’s policy in this era.
Basing itself on a study of the Ardeshir Zahedi papers at the Hoover Library & Archives—which include accounts of Iran’s diplomatic meetings with countries such as Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia—this study attempts to flesh out the formation and execution of Iranian policy on the Arab- and Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the 1967-79 period."
Wes Clark - America's Foreign Policy "Coup"
Pentagon papers in 2001 after bombing Afghanistan in retaliation: "We are going to attack and destroy the governments of seven countries in 5 years. We are going to start with Iraq and move on to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Iran." The Neocon policy of America in support of ally Israel.
On the road towards a global empire that rules by military force and diplomatic coercion - Pax Americana in the 21st Century.
President Obama's Oval Office Address on BP Oil Spill & Energy | 15 June 2010 |
Tony Blair, British Prime Minister:
"I was particularly struck at our earlier meeting, with Colonel Gadhafi, by his insistence, not only of Libya's determination to carry on down this path of cooperation, but also his recognition that Libya's own future is best secured by a new relationship with the outside world. And the recognition also of a common cause with us in the fight against al-Qaida extremism and terrorism which threatens not just the Western world, but the Arab world also."
Tony Blair defends Colonel Gaddafi desert meeting | BBC News - 13 April 2011 |
Mr Cameron has criticised Mr Blair's government for conducting "dodgy deals in the desert".
However, Mr Blair told the BBC: "I don't think we were wrong to make changes in our attitude to Libya when they changed their attitude to us.
"So I think the fact they gave up their chemical and nuclear programme, the fact they stopped sponsoring terrorism and cooperate in the fight against it was great."
Mr Blair, who is now Middle East envoy for "the Quartet", made up of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States, also said: "But what didn't happen - and people hoped it would but it didn't - was that the external changes in Libyan policy were matched by internal changes.
US President Obama engages with African youth leaders at UJ's Soweto Campus
At the University of Johannesburg - Soweto, President Obama discusses youth empowerment and leadership with young African leaders in a town hall meeting. June 29, 2013.
Clinton's 21st Century Statecraft and the Land of the Two Rivers | by Oui @BooMan on 23 Aug 2014 |
ISIL a creation due to the ill-founded and unwarranted decision to bomb Baghdad, invade and occupy the sovereign state of Iraq. Creating chaos in the region and empowered the Shia Islam in most of Southern Iraq which group had suffered greatly under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and his clan.
🔻🔻🔻2
British House of Commons ISIS Debate | C-Span video Sept 2014 |
Members of the British House of Commons returned for an emergency debate and vote on a motion for military action against ISIS* militants in Iraq. The motion did not include an endorsement of airstrikes in Syria, which would be subject to a separate vote. Prime Minister David Cameron had proposed joining the U.S.-led military operation.
*The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), is a militant group that has called itself the Islamic State.
Statement by David Cameron: "ISIL selling oil to the Assad regime" ... a pertinent LIE.
How Iraq's black market in oil funds ISIS | CNN News - 22 Aug 2014 |
ISIS controls smuggling routes and the crude transported by tankers to Jordan via Anbar province, to Iran via Kurdistan, to Turkey via Mosul, to Syria's local market and to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where most of it gets refined locally.
Turkey has turned a blind eye to this and may continue to do so until they come under pressure from the West to close down oil black markets in the country's south.
Today many of the border oil fields near Deir Ezzor benefit the US allied Kurdish forces SDF and are protected by U.S. and Israeli military through air strikes hitting local Sunni Arab tribes.
Flashpoint FOB Al Tarif
Located in Syria on the Iraqi border and within miles of the Jordanian border, the U.S. garrison at al-Tanf has, since 2016, served as a launching point for counter-ISIS operations and training for Syrian opposition factions fighting the jihadist group. Iranian and Iran-backed forces are deployed in close proximity to the al-Tanf desert outpost, which sits on the strategically significant Baghdad-Damascus highway.
U.S. forces in al-Tanf established a 55-km de-confliction zone, beyond which lie an array of forces described as either "pro-regime" or "Iran-backed" that have set up checkpoints in the area. Several incidents in recent months underscore al-Tanf's potential as a flashpoint between U.S. and Iranian and/or Iran-backed forces.
Line of Defence to protect Israel
Flashpoint Middle Euphrates River Valley, Syria | Crisis Group - 2 Aug 2024 |
The Pentagon announced that "more defensive military capabilities will deploy to the Middle East to bolster force protection for U.S. troops in the region and to defend Israel... in response to threats from Iran and Iranian-backed militias".
The same day, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin conferred with his Israeli counterpart on "the destabilising threats posed by Iran, its partners and proxies". He reaffirmed "ironclad support for Israel's security", emphasising that "further escalation is not inevitable and that all countries in the region would benefit from a de-escalation in tensions, including through completing a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal".
"The unprecedented scale of U.S. support for Israel since 7 October should leave Iran, Lebanese Hizbollah and other Iranian backed terrorist groups with no doubt about U.S. resolve", Austin highlighted.
In iron-clad support of war crimes against the Palestinian people ... the U.S. empire on the wrong side of history.
In defense of war criminals and clear genocidal acts .... from the RAND corporation:
One Step Forward for the ICC, One Leap Backward for Peace | Lawfare - 9 June 2024 |
[Author Raphael S. Cohen, RAND Corp.] -- geez what a nutcase ❗️giving him a platform 🆘
The decision by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor, Karim Khan, to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders was met with widespread applause in Europe and among progressive circles and also considerable criticism, especially from U.S. leaders. But would court action against Israel help end the conflict? RAND's Raphael Cohen argues that it is likely to backfire, bolstering Netanyahu politically and making Israel more likely to shift to the right.
-- Daniel Byman
The fallout does not stop at Israel's borders. Europe has sought to position itself as an honest broker for a future Israeli-Palestinian peace deal 🤥 [nonsense], particularly as Washington is seen as being too close to the Israeli government. But much of Europe has signed the Rome Statute and so will need to abide by the ICC's wishes.
As such, it will be hard for Brussels--or any European country--to play its aspirational role of peacemaker 😂 🤣 if Israeli leaders cannot travel there without fear of arrest and prosecution. At the same time, fewer European politicians will want to travel to Israel to have their photos taken shaking hands with men who are indicted war criminals, if only because the optics would complicate their own political fortunes. And so, the pool of potential peacemakers would dwindle.
The effect of the ICC's actions on the United States is, if anything, worse. American conservatives bi-partisan have seen the court as illegitimate, a constraint on American power, and a potential weapon that can be used against U.S. policymakers and service members since its development.
