In Trump’s remarks the following day, the President stated: “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world… ISIS is a natural enemy of Iran. The destruction of ISIS is good for Iran, and we should work together on this and other shared priorities.”

Although Trump’s speech characterized Iran as a “major supporter of terrorism” and Gen. Soleimani as a “top terrorist”, his assertion that a common interest exists between the USA and Iran in the combat of ISIS is a spectacular break from the neocon agenda.

Ilhan Omar has been a controversial figure in her first term in office.

Another Muslim woman who is also a refugee is looking to unseat Omar, saying that Omar “spends her time in congress sowing seeds of division, actively supporting our enemies.”

Dalia al-Aqidi is running as a Republican from Minnesota to bring people together.

While the media focus for three years of the Trump presidency has centered around “Russia collusion” and impeachment, the most dangerous collusion of all was happening right out in the open — the Trump/Saudi/Israel/UAE drive to war with Iran.

On August 3, 2016 — just three months before Donald Trump would win the Electoral College vote and ascend to power — Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged a meeting at Trump Tower. For decades, Prince had been agitating for a war with Iran and, as early as 2010, had developed a fantastical proposal for using mercenaries to wage it.

BEIRUT, LEBANON (1:20 P.M.) – A new investigative report released on January 15th by Agenzia Fides revealed that the two Syrian bishops kidnapped by the militants in Aleppo were killed, ending nearly seven years of speculation.

US President Donald Trump’s order to “take out” head of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force Major General Qassem Soleimani on the territory of Iraq was immoral and constituted a violation of international law, American lawyer and former Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz wrote in a letter to The New York Times.

Ferencz, aged 99, was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial. one of the 12 military trials held by the US authorities in Nuremberg, Germany.
http://www.benferencz.org/

David Wurmser was a longtime advocate of war with Iraq in the Bush administration. Eventually, he got what he wanted, and it was a total disaster. Now, Wurmser again has the ear of a president — this time, Donald Trump — and his sights are set firmly on Iran.

An influential neoconservative in President George W. Bush’s White House who became a significant force behind the push for war with Iraq in 2003, Wurmser has recently been serving as an informal adviser to the Trump administration, according to new reporting from Bloomberg News. In that capacity, Wurmser helped make the case for the recent drone strike that assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

To completely avoid targeting soldiers at a large military base is no mean feat – it suggests an accuracy within a meter or two – not ten meters – for Iranian missiles.

Isn’t this the point? It suggests that advances in Iran’s guidance systems can land missiles with extreme precision.

The US bases around the region – in short – now represent vulnerable US infrastructure – and not strength. Ditto for those expensive carrier battle fleets. The Iranian message was clear and very pertinent to those who understand (or want to understand). To others, less strategically aware, it might seem that Iran pulled its military punch, and showed weakness. Actually, when you have just demonstrated the ability to upend the military status quo, there is no need for a hail of trumpets.

Most glad Trump didn't escalate attacks to a full war
Jason Ditz Posted on January 15, 2020Categories NewsTags Iran, Trump

A new poll from Politico-Morning Consult shows the American public substantially less on board with escalatory violence against Iran than media coverage of the situation would generally lead one to believe.

The poll showed the decision to assassinate top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was highly controversial. Despite weeks of vilifying Soleimani, only 44% support his killing, and 38% continue to disapprove.

The US Military is responsible for this.

While the Islamic State group is losing territory in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on the estimated 3,000 women and girls held as sex slaves. In a fusion of ancient barbaric practices and modern technology, IS sells the women like chattel on smartphone apps and shares databases that contain their photographs and the names of their “owners” to prevent their escape through IS checkpoints. The fighters are assassinating smugglers who rescue the captives, just as funds to buy the women out of slavery are drying up.

The claim that Major General Qassem Soleimani was a “terrorist” on a mission to carry out an “imminent” attack that would kill hundreds of Americans turned out to be a lie, so why should one believe anything else relating to recent developments in Iran and Iraq? To be sure, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 departing from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on the morning of January 8th with 176 passengers and crew on board was shot down by Iranian air defenses, something which the government of the Islamic Republic has admitted, but there just might be considerably more to the story involving cyberwarfare carried out by the US and possibly Israeli governments.

When you violate US and International Law and murder a diplomat and then lie through your teeth........

The Trump administration has abruptly called off four classified congressional briefings for lawmakers, who were seeking explanation about contradictory statements of the White House over assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

The State Department cancelled two briefings on the Trump administration's Iran strategy at the last moment on Wednesday, CNN reported.

Another schedule for a separate closed-door session for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was also cancelled.

FBI officials had been about to brief a group of House lawmakers on counterintelligence issues, during the briefing that was added to the calendar late last week.

The Pentagon also scrapped a Thursday classified briefing on Iran.

The United States has the legal and constitutional authority to continue attacking ‘Iranian proxies’, in Iraq or even on Iran’s home soil, in response to attacks against US troops, Defence Secretary Mark Esper has said.

“We hold Iran responsible for its proxies, and we will retain the right to exercise self-defence and take action where legally available and appropriate to hold those proxies accountable for their actions,” the Pentagon chief said, speaking to NPR.

The President does not become commander in chief until the army,navy and militia are called into actual service of the United States by a Congressional Declaration of War. This is one of the most abused and violated sections of our Constitution. Since Korea every deployment to war ordered by a US President has been in violation of the Constitution.
Section 2.

He should be impeached and convicted,but not on these charges.

The much-anticipated impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump is set to begin on Tuesday, January 21, according to US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

McConnell, who leads the Republican majority in the Senate, told reporters Tuesday he expected the Senate to receive articles of impeachment from the House of Representatives on Wednesday, enabling them to take preliminary steps toward beginning the trial. For example, before the trial can begin, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts must swear in senators as jurors.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Tuesday the House would vote on advancing the two articles of impeachment to the Senate on Wednesday.

The government which runs a globe-spanning empire led by a reality TV host keeps talking about the lack of normality in the nation of Iran.

“We want Iran to simply behave like a normal nation,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press statement the other day. “We believe that the sanctions we imposed today further that strategic objective.”

These would be the additional sanctions which have been expanded to include virtually the entire Iranian economy, deliberately targeting Iran’s already sanction-starved populace, with the explicit goal of fomenting a civil war in that nation.

Which is of course a perfectly normal thing to do, from a perfectly normal nation.

Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate begins next week and it’s clear that this will not be a walk in the park for the President. Anyone dismissing this because the Republicans hold the Senate simply do not understand why this impeachment exists in the first place.

It is the ultimate form of leverage over a President whose desire to end the wars in the Middle East is anathema to the entrenched powers in the D.C. Swamp.

This is what I said back in September:

A US-led military coalition said to be backing the Iraqi government in its fight against Daesh terrorists has been training Iraqi army forces for several months at a military base located in Taji. The attack on the Iraqi base comes amid escalating tensions in the region due to the ongoing standoff between the United States and Iran.

Donald Trump once bragged about the total demolition of Islamic State. Today, thanks to his and previous presidents’ policies, IS is making a dangerous comeback. Now, even staunch American supporters are ringing alarm bells.

The myth of invincibility is what allows the US to start these wars, the truth must be shown.

Baghdad, ST- The Iraqi government confirmed today its refusal to sign an agreement to keep American forces in Iraq, noting that it will support the vote of the Iraqi parliament, which demands the ejection of these forces from the country.

Mark Esper, the former US Secretary of Defense (it’s a matter of time now) said that his chief Donald Trump lied to the US citizens about the justification to carry out the most heinous murder crimes against two top commanders who fought ISIS and saved US and European lives, including the soldiers from the USA and Europe.

He said nations have to understand that the US is not only capable of imposing cost on nations by killing their leaders but “willing to do so,” saying that the killing put the US in the “greatest position of strength ever.”

It was shortly after midnight in Baghdad on Friday, Jan. 3, when a missile strike ordered by President Trump killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

When stock markets opened the next day, dozens of members of Congress saw bumps in their portfolios as their holdings in defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon increased in value on the possibility of war. Over the next three trading days, the leading defense industry stock index would surge 2.4% above Thursday’s close.

The Trump administration is neck deep in deepstate globalist scum.
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3582/CFR-Members-Ap...

The strategic stupidity of Trump’s order to murder Soleimani cannot be exaggerated. This shocking, dastardly murder, committed while Soleimani was on an American-encouraged peace mission, has unleashed a “Pearl Harbor effect” that will galvanize not just the nation of Iran, but other forces in the region and around the world.

Will the national security nightmare ever end?

If one seriously seeks to understand how delusional policymakers in Washington are it is only necessary to examine the responses by the president and Congress to the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani. The first response came in the form of a Donald Trump largely incoherent nine-minute self-applauding speech explaining what he had done and why. It was followed by a House of Representatives War Powers non-binding resolution that was all theater and did nothing to limit the president’s unilateral ability to go to war with the Islamic Republic.

It was reported that the Trump speech had been hurriedly written by aides the night before it was given and that it existed in several competing drafts. It was full of out-and-out lies and half truths and intended to reassure the American people that the president was keeping them safe.
Philip Giraldi

WE are on our way to becoming a Pariah Nation.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today that victims of a Ukrainian flight that crashed in Iran would still be alive if the US hadn’t triggered tensions in the region.

In an interview with Global television, Trudeau suggested America’s assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani had brought about the tensions in the region, and the subsequent response from Tehran to target a US military base in Iraq. The Ukrainian flight was accidentally hit by a missile which was intended for the American base.

He said: “I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families.”

Milley and company have done their subordinate soldiers, and the American people, a great disservice by repeatedly supporting Trump’s worst misdeeds, moral failings, and utter lack of coherent national security strategy. In a sense, of course, in their unwillingness to publicly dissent and/or resign, Milley and his boys are in good company. An entire generation of generals have been utterly derelict in their duty to the Constitution, to the nation, since at least September 12, 2001, by sheepishly going along with one unwinnable, falsely-justified war after another. Still, there’s something unique about Trump – his perfect storm of erratic temperament, ignorance, and laziness – and, by extension, about his top general Mark Milley.

President Trump’s claim Gen. Qassem Soleimani was going to attack four embassies was immediately suspect, both because of the absence of evidence offered with it, and its odd specificity. It sounded made up. It was.

Donald Trump occasionally utters unspeakable truths. In March 2018 he called Bush Jr.’s decision to invade Iraq “the worst single mistake in US history.” Earlier, Trump had said that Bush should have been impeached for launching that disastrous war.

Yet on January 2 2020 Trump made a much bigger mistake: He launched all-out war with Iran—a war that will be joined by millions of anti-US non-Iranians, including Iraqis—by murdering Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the legendary hero who defeated ISIS, alongside the popular Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Gen. Soleimani was by far the most popular figure in Iran, where he polled over 80% popularity, and throughout much of the Middle East. He was also adored by millions even outside that region, non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Many Christians throughout the world loved Gen. Soleimani, whose campaign against ISIS saved the lives of thousands of their co-religionists.

On August 31, 2010, Obama declared an end to Washington’s combat mission in Iraq, saying:

“Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility (sic).”

Ignored was Washington’s rape and destruction of the country. Pre-1990 Iraq no longer exists, its population victimized by decades of US aggression, genocidal sanctions, a plague of preventable diseases, ecocide, impoverishment, and deprivation.

US forces Obama withdrew from Iraq were returned in June 2014, invited by its US-installed puppet regime to combat ISIS jihadists deployed to the country by the Pentagon to provide a pretext for resumed US occupation — where things stand today.

Birds of a feather.......?

It’s particularly interesting to see ISIS, Israel, and the United States on the same side when it comes to Soleimani’s death. A weekly ISIS newspaper called al-Naba praised the assassination and called it “divine intervention” “an act of God” and stated that Soleimani’s death will assist their efforts to regroup in Iraq. It’s blatantly obvious that ISIS saw him as a deterrent while Washington painted him to be the “number one terrorist”. This further illustrates how Washington’s alleged “war on terror” is nothing more than an excuse to invade countries and control their natural resources all while bolding Israel.

Trump blinked. After threatening to bomb military and cultural sites in Iran, President Donald Trump has apparently backed down on further escalation in his quasi-war with Iran. He tried to spin his decision as a US victory, claiming his administration had supposedly made America safer by assassinating Iranian Major General Qassem Suleimani.
Despite a public statement that it does not seek further escalation, the Trump administration may yet see more retaliation, according to a high-level Iranian government source. So far, he tells me, Iran has focused on military targets, but he notes that Suleimani has "millions of followers all across the region from Yemen to Lebanon who will be seeking revenge from the United States. Iran cannot control them."

"Trump’s assets all around the world will be considered as legitimate," says the source, who didn’t want his name used for security reasons.

The US was warned by Iran through the Iraqi government and by the Swiss envoy,who does our business in Tehran. Over 2 hours before the strike.

Troops stationed at an Iraqi air base knew beforehand that the facility will be attacked by Iran, which helped them to safely take shelter, unnamed sources were cited by CNN as saying on Sunday.

Sources asserted that most US forces were either withdrawn from the base or sheltered in bunkers for two-and-a-half-hours before Iran launched missiles on Wednesday.

At the same time, the sources claimed that although the US troops were in the know about the attack, they didn't know what the nature of the attack would be.

US troops were today clearing rubble and debris from a military base in Iraq which was attacked by Iranian missiles last week at the height of the Middle East crisis.

The barrage on the Ain al-Asad base in Iraq left huge craters in the ground and damaged military trailers in the compound.

New pictures which were released today showed bulldozers and fork-lift trucks clearing rubble from an area the size of a football stadium.

No US soldiers were killed or seriously harmed in the missile attack, but the high tensions prompted a disastrous error by Iran's Revolutionary Guards who shot down a passenger plane just hours later with 176 people on board.

Days after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, new and important information is coming to light from a speech given by the Iraqi prime minister. The story behind Soleimani’s assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported.

The Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has revealed details of his interactions with Trump in the weeks leading up to Soleimani’s assassination.

He tried to explain several times on live television how Washington had been browbeating him and other Iraqi members of parliament to toe the American line, even threatening to engage in false-flag sniper shootings of both protesters and security personnel in order to inflame the situation.

The purpose? To throw Iraq into chaos. Here is the story in a nutshell:

If someone invites a person to a peace conference, and then murders him on his way to attend that event, would you say that this killer is the kind of person you’d like to hang out with (thinking he’s just like your favorite Hollywood superhero — handsome, powerful and dishonorable)?

Proudly boasting of that power U.S. President Donald Trump took it upon himself to murder an Iranian folk hero whom he had lured to a secret peace negotiation in Baghdad.

Trump’s power gave him the right to murder an honorable soldier in a disgustingly dishonorable way, a soldier who had fought bravely for both his country and his neighbors against the universal menace of the worldwide Jewish money machine? Who exactly is the enemy here?

(a) Whoever kills or attempts to kill a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113 of this title Show.

(b) For the purposes of this section:

(1) “Family” includes (a) a spouse, parent, brother or sister, child, or person to whom the foreign official or internationally protected person stands in loco parentis, or (b) any other person living in his household and related to the foreign official or internationally protected person by blood or marriage.

(2) “Foreign government” means the government of a foreign country, irrespective of recognition by the United States.

(3) “Foreign official” means—

The assertions being repeated today seem based on apparently groundless claims from twelve years ago by the same people who said Iraq possessed weapons, weapons programs, and weapons systems that were such a grave threat that they ignited the U.S.-Iraq war.

There have not been significant U.S. casualties in Iraq since around 2007, when charges of Iranian involvement in attacks against U.S. forces first surfaced. Virtually all attacks against U.S. forces since the 2003 invasion had come from Baathist, Sunni, and other anti-Iranian groups. Of the more than 10,000 suspected insurgents arrested in U.S. counter-insurgency sweeps prior to the first U.S. withdrawal in 2011, the relatively few foreigners among them were Arabs, not Iranians.

Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, served in the U.S. Senate from 2007 to 2013 and was secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1988.

Strongly held views are unlikely to change regarding the morality and tactical wisdom of President Trump’s decision to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani as he traveled on a road outside the Baghdad airport after having arrived on a commercial flight. But the debate regarding the long-term impact of this act on America’s place in the world, and the potential vulnerability of U.S. government officials to similar reprisals, has just begun.

Seven mortar bombs have hit the Iraqi Balad Air Base in the north of the country, Reuters quoted military sources as saying. According to sources, four Iraqi soldiers were injured in the incident.

However, AFP cited security forces as saying that the base was hit by just four rockets.

Esper just hung Trump out to dry.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Sunday that he did not see intelligence that supported President Trump’s comments that the Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike was plotting attacks against four U.S. embassies.

Esper said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that he shared Trump’s view that planning was underway but did not cite intelligence information he saw to support the claims.

Correct me if I am wrong, Trump is the first President to openly claim credit for the assassination of a foreign chief of state. Historically, heads of state are assassinated by the CIA as black budget operations, giving a president plausible deniability in the press. Trump in this case both admits responsibility for the strike and is actively taunting the Iranians with the death of their #2 on social media.

What president in their right mind would get on a public platform and brag about assassinating a head of state like Trump has done this last week, and then, on top of that, threaten 52 Iranian targets including cultural sites if they decide to respond with their own attacks?

We now know that it was a missile fired by an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) missile complex that brought down Ukrainian flight PS752. We also know that it was no accident, bur rather, a deliberate act.

Whether the missile was fired due to the actions of a human traitor within the IRGC or due to remote hacking into the missile’s control systems is unknown; however, the outcome is the same – nearly 200 dead civilians whose deaths can be blamed on the IRGC.

The idea behind the shootdown appears to be to undermine the current Iranian leadership by discrediting it’s main supporter – the IRGC.

Every single suicide bomb operation carried out by Daesh against our people (in the region) and in every mosque and church, must be labelled with ‘Made in America’

– America is the number one threat and Israel is merely a US tool and military outpost planted in our region

– The response to America’s crime (in killing Soleimani & Muhandis) is not one operation, but rather a long track which must lead to US forces leaving the region

– What happened in Ain Al-Assad is only a slap & not the (entire) revenge for the assassination. It is a strong military beginning. It is the first step that will lead to the withdrawal of US from the region

– The main target (of Iran’s missile attack) was Ain al-Assad, the missiles reached the heart of the base and struck their targets

– When (certain) media began to say there were no deaths or injuries & downplayed the attack, we knew Trump will not go to war

By Aaron Kesel

There are many who accuse U.S. President Donald Trump of “wagging the dog” when it comes to the recent bombing that killed Al Quds commander Qassem Soleimani due to the fact he is facing impeachment. While many media outlets have stated this accusation suggesting the assassination of Iran’s Soleimani was pre-planned, to this writer’s knowledge no one has pointed out that five total Pentagon officials resigned prior to the murder or Eric Trump’s strange tweet about “opening a can of whoop ass,” right before the New Year.

On January 3rd, just a few hours after the world became aware of the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by an American drone attack, Ariel, the so called ‘Jewish dissenter’ rushed to post the following tweet:

“Loving reminder to folks rightfully horrified the US attack on Iran: please don’t frame this as being as being done to please Israel. This is Donald Trump and his band of US war hawks, period. To suggest Jews are pulling the strings is nothing short of antisemitism.”

Days after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, new and important information is coming to light from a speech given by the Iraqi prime minister. The story behind Soleimani’s assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported.

The Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has revealed details of his interactions with Trump in the weeks leading up to Soleimani’s assassination.

He tried to explain several times on live television how Washington had been browbeating him and other Iraqi members of parliament to toe the American line, even threatening to engage in false-flag sniper shootings of both protesters and security personnel in order to inflame the situation.

The purpose? To throw Iraq into chaos.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the most wanted terrorist and alleged leader of the Islamic State (ISIS-ISIL-Daesh) is dead, according to POTUS.

President Trump confirmed in October that US forces had been searching for him, that he was under surveillance. “Capturing or killing him has been the top national security priority of my administration.”

Addressing the Nation from the White House in late October 2019, “Trump said al-Baghdadi killed himself and three of his children, detonating a suicide vest as U.S. forces closed in after a “dangerous and daring” U.S.-led air raid in northwestern Syria.

Hollywood in Real Time: “I watched the operation from the Situation Room”said Trump

(a) Whoever kills or attempts to kill a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113 of this title Show.

Donald Trump is under the illusion that the fracas with Iran is over. He thinks that Iran’s pinprick missile strikes on US bases in Iraq have assuaged Tehran’s thirst for revenge. But he’s wrong. The missile strikes were merely the first salvo in an epic cage match between Iran’s Axis of Resistance and its 70 year-long nemesis, the United States. As Iran’s Supreme Leader said on Wednesday, the missile attacks were not sufficient payback for the assassination of Iran’s most decorated military hero, Qassem Soleimani. They were just “a slap”, just Round One in what will surely be a long and bloody campaign aimed at driving the US out of the Middle East.

Really? Baddest of the bad? Most blood-soaked? How about General Stanley McChrystal, the guy who organized and paid off death squads in Iraq, and who, as head of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) oversaw notoriously criminal and brutal interrogations in that country and later Afghanistan, and then moved his death squad proclivities to that latter country when he took over command of the Afghanistan War? How about Marine General “Mad Dog” Mattis, who earned his monicker for saying, “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.

For as long as I’ve been alive, my country has been a rogue state.

Actually, the US became a rogue state four years before my birth in 1949 when, in 1945, Washington decided to bomb two militarily insignificant cities in Japan with its new super weapon, the atomic bomb, instantly incinerating several hundred thousand Japanese civilians, including many, many children, and condemning at least that many more to slow agonizing deaths from resulting cancers and birth defects.

The assertions being repeated today seem based on apparently groundless claims from twelve years ago by the same people who said Iraq possessed weapons, weapons programs, and weapons systems that were such a grave threat that they ignited the U.S.-Iraq war.

President Trump said his order to launch the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani came amid pressure from Senate Republicans he views as key allies in his upcoming impeachment trial, The Wall Street Journal reported and The New York Times reported this week.

The articles did not name the GOP senators, but many of Trump's allies in the Senate, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have praised his decision to take out the Quds Force commander in Baghdad

Mike Pompeo admitted U.S. officials didn't know when or where attacks allegedly planned by Iranian General Qassem Soleimani would take place, despite previous claiming that the latter posed an "imminent" threat to American personnel.

The secretary of state said officials did not know "precisely" when or where the alleged plots would occur, but insisted the threat "was real" in a Fox News interview on Thursday night.

Trump is using an Israeli excuse to commit murder.

In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence.

US officials have said they have no intention of leaving Iraq, but they’re skirting the legal reality of the situation by saying they’ve yet to get a formal request from Iraq to leave. How long they can maintain that pretense by simply telling Iraq not to talk about it remains to be seen.

Iraq is already looking for holes in this fairly transparent attempt to avoid discussion, with Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to devise some sort of mechanism whereby Iraq could actually request the US to leave.

Those Americans who speak out against the insanity of the district of criminals are the next people who will be targeted by the US Military for death!

The American people are now facing a new political challenge brought on by the recent U.S. assassinations of Iranian and Iraqi military figures.

The fact is that both parties are in agreement that in order to maintain their superpower status, a major war against the “Foreign Enemy” is necessary, but more importantly, they are more fearful of the “Domestic Enemy” – that is a majority of the population who are dissatisfied and who are the real producers of goods and wealth with the power to govern and create a peaceful and prosperous society!

A government that justifies the terrorist act of ASSASSINATION, soon will apply the same unlawful methods to deal with the internal dissents and “trouble makers”.

With Iraq's airspace being frequently violated by American and even Israeli bombing raids against the country's paramilitary units backed by Iran of late, Iraq has for the last several months considered purchasing Russian air defense and missile systems, including both the S-300 and more advanced S-400, however, it has been met with fierce pressure from the US.

And now Russian media is reporting authorities in Baghdad have formally resumed talks to possibly acquire the S-300 systems.

Caretaker Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has asked the United States to send a delegation to Iraq to begin preparing for a troop pullout, his office said on Friday.

In a phone call late on Thursday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Abdul-Mahdi “requested that delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement parliament’s decision for the secure withdrawal of [foreign] forces from Iraq,” AFP reports.

Some 5,200 US soldiers are stationed at bases across Iraq to support local troops preventing a resurgence of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

They make up the bulk of a broader US-led coalition, invited by the Iraqi government in 2014 to help combat the jihadists.

Deep inside a long, detailed Wall Street Journal report about President Trump’s foreign policy advisers is an explosive nugget: “Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.”

Iran-backed militias within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) have acquired short-range ballistic missiles from Tehran, supplementing their existing arsenal of unguided rockets.

These militias’ small, harassing rocket attacks targeting U.S. facilities in Iraq have already disrupted American diplomatic and business activities in the country.

Israeli airstrikes on PMF missile depots have killed and injured dozens of Iraqis, straining relations among the United States, Iraq, and Israel.

What are we really supporting when we refuse the truth and accept the war lies and the permanent war agenda?

We are supporting al Qaeda/ISIS, Empire’s proxies. We are supporting an overseas holocaust. We are supporting the military dictatorship of Washington-led NATO and the collapse of International Law. We are supporting a New Fascist World Order and our subservience to supranational diktats.We are supporting the thirdworldization of our own political economies.

The Truth is deplatformed in this New Fascist Order. Politicians do not represent the people. Representative government is a projected perception, empty of substance.

Everyone has heard by now that Soleimani was responsible for 600 American deaths . . . but where does this oddly specific number come from? Today on "Questions For Corbett," James finds the answer at the bottom of a barrel of neocon lies.

(CD) — The State Department on Friday made clear that the American military will not abide by the requests of the Iraqi government to leave the country and instead will stay indefinitely.

“America is a force for good in the Middle East,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus claimed in a statement reaffirming that the U.S. will remain in Iraq

This morning (January 7) Pompeo, the embarrassment we suffer as our Secretary of State, was on TV promising to “confront and contain” Iran. A political general was featured declaring that he had seen the intelligence reports and was certain that the murder of Soleimani had stopped an attack. If the general saw any such “intelligence” it was fixed intelligence to produce the desired result. Regardless, Soleimani’s murder was a crime and an act of war. The previous day Pompeo suggested that Trump might have to kill some more Iranian leaders, because Obama had emboldened Iran by appeasing them. This is just another of Pompeo’s false accusations. Obama accepted the agreement that Iran would not enrich uranium to the extent required by weapons. Inspectors have verified that Iran has kept the agreement.

It was Trump, pushed by Israel’s agents, the neoconservatives, who broke the agreement and restarted the conflict with Iran by issuing threat after threat.

By Aaron Kesel

There are many who accuse U.S. President Donald Trump of “wagging the dog” when it comes to the recent bombing that killed Al Quds commander Qassem Soleimani due to the fact he is facing impeachment. While many media outlets have stated this accusation suggesting the assassination of Iran’s Soleimani was pre-planned, to this writer’s knowledge no one has pointed out that five total Pentagon officials resigned prior to the murder or Eric Trump’s strange tweet about “opening a can of whoop ass,” right before the New Year.

The Soleimani ploy has apparently failed, however, thanks to the carefully prepared Iranian response, which did not provoke Donald Trump to raise the stakes further. At least not yet.

The fingerprints of Pompeo are all over this provocation to war. In a striking parallel to the deception that accompanied the Gulf of Tonkin crisis in 1964—in which the American public was told about an attack on a U.S. ship that never happened, precipitating the Vietnam War—Pompeo and his allies carried out a complex deception in regard to the Soleimani hit. They claimed they had to kill the second most popular leader of Iran with no advance notice to Congress because the Iranian general was planning a massive attack that put the country in “imminent” danger. Trump officials have so far not provided any evidence publicly to back up this version of events.

The war on terror, that campaign without end launched 14 years ago by George Bush, is tying itself up in ever more grotesque contortions. On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after it became clear British intelligence had been arming the same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting.

The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead with the trial would have been an “affront to justice” when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself providing “extensive support” to the armed Syrian opposition.

In the address, Abdul-Mahdi revealed that that Soleimani had traveled to Baghdad to deliver a message back from Iran to Saudi Arabia about a proposal to lower tensions in the region, that Soleimani was to meet with the Prime Minister the very morning he was assassinated, and — most crucially — that days prior Trump had asked the Iraqi Prime Minister to “play the mediator’s role” between the U.S. and Iran.

Oddly, this information is not yet a major headline in any mainstream publication and those that have mentioned it in passing do not explain its full implications.

“Voice of Iranians,” wrote the 27-year-old alongside a video in which an Iranian said behind tears: “Is this democracy? Are we humans or not? What should we do? You tell us,” the man desperately asks.

“What is your message to America,” ABC’s Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz asked the man.

“I’m saying, we love Americans, but we hate your President,” he said.

On January 3, the United States assassinated Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the de facto commander of Iranian efforts of expansion throughout the Middle East.

American drones targeted his convoy near Baghdad International Airport killing him instantly. Iran responded with a pre-dawn missile attack on an American base in Iraq Wednesday, and tensions appear to have eased since.

“He was a monster. He is no longer a monster. He’s dead,” President Donald Trump declared in the aftermath of the killing.

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

The Trump regime’s assassination of widely respected Iranian General Qassem Soleimani made things less safe in the region and beyond.

Killing him was an act of war, the highest of high crimes under international law — turning millions of Iranians, Iraqis, others in the region, and elsewhere into raging US haters for good reason.

Soleimani was a peace champion, a leading regional force against the scourge of US-supported ISIS and likeminded terrorists.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump’s motion to liquidate a top Iranian commander, CNN reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating Pompeo’s influential status in the Trump administration.

According to several sources, taking Iranian General Qasem Soleimani – the leader of the elite Quds Force, a powerful military group with vast leverage in the region – “off the battlefield” has been Pompeo’s goal for a decade.

BEIRUT, LEBANON (2:40 P.M.) – The Iraqi Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, announced on Friday that he asked the United States to send delegates to Iraq to help kick start the withdrawal of American forces from his country.

If passed by Senate, it cannot be vetoed by President Trump.

In a vote heavily split along party lines, the House of Representatives passed H.Con.Res.83, a War Powers Resolution seeking to limit President Trump’s ability to unilaterally attack Iran without any Congressional authorization, by a vote of 224-194. It also opposed last week’s attack on the Baghdad International Airport, which assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Though many Republicans argued it was non-binding, analyst Robert Naiman pointed out that under the War Powers Act’s own language, this type of resolution is binding. The concurrent resolution could not be vetoed by the president.

Supporters of the bill noted that Trump carried out the attack without significant Congressional dialogue, let alone authorization. They added that President Trump has shown himself unable to articulate a real strategy for the war.

Trump has now committed real impeachable offenses.

The United States’ targeted airstrike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq has placed the U.S. on the precipice of an undeclared war with Iran, a hostile and militarily sophisticated foreign government, all without the consent of Congress.

Trump’s decision to strike without notifying congressional leaders is without precedent in history. There’s also no precedent for an American president openly ordering the killing of a senior state official of a country on which the U.S. has not officially declared war.

The future of the U.S.’s involvement in the Middle East is in Iraq. The exchange of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran occurred wholly on Iraqi soil and it has become the site on which that war will continue.

The defenders of Syria can soon transition into the rebuilders thereof, if allowed. And they didn’t do this alone, they had a silent partner in China the entire time.

And, if I look at this situation honestly, it was China stepping out from behind the shadows into the light that is your inciting incident for this chapter in Iraq’s story.

China moving in to sign a $10.1 billion deal with the Iraqi government to begin the reconstruction of its ruined oil and gas industry in exchange for oil is of vital importance.

When asked by a reporter for details about what kinds of imminent attacks Soleimani was planning, the State Dept. responds with:

"Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?"

Totally normal.

Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he’d be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Trump is now the Head Swamp Monster. What this war criminal did is an impeachable offence and a war crime. This moron has put a target on the back of every US Government official.

Once upon a time there was a Constitution of the United States. In Article II, Section 2 it stipulated that only the U.S. Congress has the power to declare war, which means the American president has to go to the legislative body and make a case for going to war against an enemy or enemies. If there is a vote in favor of war, the president is empowered as commander-in-chief to direct the available resources against the enemy.

First, since we have more reliable data about what happened, let me recap a few key points to being:

It is has now become pretty clear that Iran took several steps to make sure that the US would know when and where the strike would happen. Specifically, Iran warned the Iraqi government and the Swiss diplomats who represent US interests in Iran.
Yet, at the same time, Iran issued the strongest threat it could possibly issue: it told the US that *any* counter-strike aimed at Iran would result in a strong Iranian attack on Israel.
The US quite clearly took the decision not to retaliate and to “forget” Trump’s promise to strike at 54 Iranian targets. I want to stress here that this was the correct decision under these circumstances.

What if it’s Iran that’s avoided war?
by Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.) Posted on January 09, 2020

Don’t buy the hype 1.0: Look, the administration, Fox News, and a Twitter army of Trumpsters are about to unleash a wave of propaganda. The president was right to assassinate Soleimani all along, they’ll say. The Iranian missiles fired on Tuesday night missed all American targets – perhaps on purpose – resulting in zero U.S. military casualties. Trump must’ve known the Iranians would flinch, we’ll be told. His hard line, his provocative escalation, was all part of a grand strategy – the master dealmaker strikes again!

That’s all balderdash!

This is all the footage your government doesn't want you to see.
Multiple sources from Iran, Iraqis, American/Peurtorican Soldiers, Satellite images of the destruction.

Military analysts say that Iran targeted the bases military capabilities not personnel which were running from hangar to hangar.

Riyadh fears it will be in the frontline of any war in the Gulf – and it cannot rely on Trump.

Saudi Arabia has sent a message to Washington and London that it wants to see a de-escalation of the United States’ struggle with Iran, in a sign that Saudi is nervous about its vulnerability to Iranian missile strikes – and still uncertain about the reliability of Donald Trump’s long-term commitment to his Gulf allies.

The tone has been sent out in an array of diplomatic tweets since the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani, but also conveyed personally by the Saudi Arabian deputy defence minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman.

He held meetings this week with Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, in Washington and then in London with the defence secretary,

Iranian national pride required a pantomimed military response, but the U.S. has provoked a far worse punishment by the Iraqis, on whose territory Suleimani was ambushed. The Iraqi parliament swiftly voted 170-0 to kick the 5,000 US troops out of their country, an exodus that would render Washington’s foothold in neighboring Syria untenable, thus sealing the fate of the remaining U.S.-backed al-Qaida “rebels” holed up in Idlib province and hastening the demise of ISIS forces currently shielded from Russian air attack by U.S. firepower. Donald Trump, who (correctly, but incoherently) charged Barack Obama with “founding ” ISIS, may well have fast-forwarded the definitive end of the U.S.-Islamic jihadist presence in Syria and Iraq.

Not that this was Trump’s intention. The Republicans and Democrats are united under the American imperial banner, and only differ on details of strategy to maintain Washington’s global domination.