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Leaving Out Context To Vilify Iran’s New President
The New York Times is using a dubious criminal case in Sweden to vilify president-elect of Iran Ebrahim Raisi over his alleged involvement in the execution of prisoner.
The smear works, but only because the New York Times decided to leave out the historical context.
Murder Trial in Sweden Could Shine Unsavory Light on Iran’s New President
First some details on the trial in Sweden:
He was a 28-year-old student and member of a communist group in Iran serving a 10-year prison sentence in 1988 when, according to his family, he was called before a committee and executed without a trial or defense.
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The student, Bijan Bazargan, was among an estimated 5,000 prisoners belonging to armed opposition and leftist groups in Iran, who Amnesty International and other rights groups say were executed in the summer of 1988.
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Now, a Swedish court will prosecute a former Iranian judiciary official for war crimes and murder in connection with Mr. Bazargan’s death. The case carries some notably public and damaging implications for Iran’s president-elect, Ebrahim Raisi, who helped decide which prisoners lived or died during those mass executions.
The defendant, Hamid Noury, 59, was indicted on Tuesday in Sweden, ..
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Mr. Noury served as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison where Mr. Bazargan and hundreds of prisoners were sent to the gallows.
The mass executions represent one of the most brutal and opaque crackdowns by the Islamic Republic against its opponents. International rights groups say they amount to crimes against humanity.
Some assistant to a deputy prosecutor of some prison, who was at that time 26 years old, is accused of alleged involvement in the trial by committee and execution of a prisoner who had previously been sentenced to 10-years.
To accuse some minor assistant over this sounds a bit fishy to me but is for the Swedish courts to decide.
The highlighted paragraph are tying to tie that case with Ebrahim Raisi who is at center of the second half of the NYT piece:
Cont. reading: Leaving Out Context To Vilify Iran’s New President
Lost In Translations – The Dangers Of Being Misled By Them
Translation errors can seriously affect the relations between hostile nation states.
One prominent example is the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'. It was alleged to be a Russian strategy of hybrid war, the use of subversion to complement military force. The concept, it was claimed, had been introduced in a 2013 speech by the Russian Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov’s.
The claim was first made in a July 2014 blog post headlined The ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ and Russian Non-Linear War by Russia 'expert' Mark Galeotti. Galeotti had used a misleading translation of Gerasimov's speech provided by the U.S. government funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He asserted that Russia had a strategy of 'hybrid wars', combining secret and open civil, economic and military operations against an enemy.
Russia however did not have such a strategy. Gerasimov in his speech was in fact describing the U.S. way of waging 'hybrid wars' like, for example, the one against Syria.
But once Galeotti had published his misleading idea, dozens of papers and opinion pieces were written about the dangerous 'Gerasimov Doctrine' – all to underline the nonsense claim of a 'Russian threat'.
Various scholars and journalists had immediately pointed out that the assertion was wrong. There was no such Russian doctrine. It still took the author of the original false claim nearly four years to finally retracted his nonsense:
I’m Sorry for Creating the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’
I was the first to write about Russia’s infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.
Today Moon of Alabama reader Bernd Neuner pointed to another mistranslation and the bad effects emerging from it (edited for readability):
Bernd Neuner @Bernd__Neuner – 9:09 UTC · Jul 30, 2021
On widespread #Sinophobia
I recently attended a seminar on doing business in #China, hosted by the local Chamber of Commerce. During the presentation of a lady representing German Trade & Invest, I was surprised to learn the President Xi Jinping allegedly had given a speech announcing his intention to "…form powerful countermeasures and deterrent capabilities based on artificially cutting off supply to foreigners."
Since the presenter mentioned the speech had been published in Quishi, the official publication of the #CCP, I started looking for the original of the speech. It did not take long, and my suspicions were confirmed. What Xi Jinping really had said was the following: "…forming a powerful countermeasure and deterrent capability against foreigners who would artificially cut off supply [to China]".
I contacted the presenter and voiced my doubts regarding the quotes she used. She was very helpful and said she had received them from a colleague in Hamburg. I got in touch with him, and upon taking a closer look he confirmed the benign interpretation above. It seems the malicious version stems from the initial translation published by the US think tank CSET, latter corrected due to feedback from the audience:
cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/upl… (footnote 3, p.3)
The damage is done – how many people in positions of influence are now convinced that China aims at disrupting the supply chains of "the free world"?
A few hours after Bernd Neuner's tweets I stumbled over the same error made by a different person.
I was reading a piece by Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism about the new trend towards industrial policies:
Industrial Policy Coming Into Vogue After China Cleans US Clock by Using It
Yves quotes from a paywalled Wall Street Journal piece about the return of industrial policy:
Cont. reading: Lost In Translations – The Dangers Of Being Misled By Them
China Cracks Down On Tech – Its People Benefit
Back when Stephen S. Roach was Morgan Stanley's chief economist Moon of Alabama often quoted from his columns. Fifteen years ago Roach spoke out against globalization and emphasized the need of labor power. His takes stood in stark contrast to the conventional wisdom of that time. Roach retired from Morgan Stanley around 2011 and has since been a senior lecturer at the Yale School of Management.
While I had not read Roach for some time I today stumbled over a column of his which I find astonishingly wrong and badly argued.
Roach writes about China's recent clamp down on fin-tech, internet monopolies and private education companies:
China’s regulation of its spirited tech sector could be a tipping point for the economy
The subtitle is a good summary of the column:
There are legitimate reasons for China’s anti-tech campaign, but when the full force of regulation is used to strangle the business models and financing capacity of the economy’s most dynamic sector, it weakens confidence and the entrepreneurial spirit
China has recently cracked down and financial consumer services, hail services and private education companies. Alibaba's fintech spin off Ant was prohibited from going public. Didi, the Uber of China, went public in U.S. capital markets even though it been warned not to do so. Its apps were taken down and it will have to pay a severe fine. Other tech companies are also under pressure says Roach:
Moreover, there are signs of a clampdown on many other leading Chinese tech companies, including Tencent (internet conglomerate), Meituan (food delivery), Pinduoduo (e-commerce), Full Truck Alliance (truck-hailing apps Huochebang and Yunmanman), Kanzhun’s Boss Zhipin (recruitment), and online private tutoring companies like TAL Education Group and Gaotu Group. And all of this follows China’s high-profile crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
It is not as if there were a lack of reasons – in some cases, like cryptocurrencies, perfectly legitimate reasons – for China’s anti-tech campaign. Data security is the most oft-cited justification.
This is understandable in one sense, considering the high value the Chinese leadership places on its proprietary claims over big data, the high-octane fuel of its push into artificial intelligence. But it also smacks of hypocrisy in that much of the data has been gathered from the surreptitious gaze of the surveillance state.
The issue, however, is not justification. Actions can always be explained, or rationalised, after the fact. The point is that, for whatever reason, Chinese authorities are now using the full force of regulation to strangle the business models and financing capacity of the economy’s most dynamic sector.
Stephen Roach thinks, wrongly, that it is bad to restrict certain business models and financing through public offerings. But from China's point of view it makes perfect sense. Why should it care how much money foreign investors lose by that:
Cont. reading: China Cracks Down On Tech – Its People Benefit
Biden Is Not Ending The ‘Forever Wars’. He Is Preparing The Path To New Ones.
Daniel Larison writes that Joe Biden's foreign policies are probably worse than Trump's:
Joe Biden’s foreign policy record as president in his first six months has been as bad as his non-interventionist and antiwar critics feared it would be. Biden has made one significant and correct decision that he appears to be following through on, and that is the withdrawal of the last remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but even here there is reason to worry that US forces may be relocated to other nearby countries and the war against the Taliban will continue from afar. On almost every other front, Biden has not only failed to undo some of his predecessor’s worst and most destructive policies, but in many cases he has entrenched and reinforced them.
Biden has failed to stop the U.S./Saudi war on Yemen. He is keeping troops in Iraq and Syria. His retreat from Afghanistan turns out to be fake. He is sabotaging a return to the nuclear with Iran.
The U.S. has, in contradiction to its Doha agreement with the Taliban, restarted its bombing campaign against them and is likely to continue it for years to come:
The top American general overseeing operations in Afghanistan declined to say Sunday night whether U.S. airstrikes against the Taliban would end Aug. 31, the date previously given by officials as a cutoff for such attacks.
Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of United States Central Command, refused to commit to ending the United States last remaining military leverage over the Taliban: airstrikes.
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The Taliban reacted furiously to the strikes, saying they were in breach of the 2020 agreement negotiated between the militant group and the United States.
The concentration of strikes against the Taliban reflected a new sense of urgency in Washington about the imperiled Afghan government.
“I’m just not going to be able to comment about the future of U.S. airstrikes after Aug. 31,” General McKenzie told reporters after meeting with Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, and his aides earlier in the day.
The Taliban have recently done a lot of diplomacy with visits to Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. Together, with Pakistan, which continues to supply the Taliban with weapons and manpower, those countries are planing for a future where the Taliban will have total control of, or at least a significant role in. the Afghan government. They have promised to invest in a Taliban led Afghanistan.
But the U.S. will not allow a rebuilding of the silk road between China and Iran. It will not allow for safe 'Belt & Road' investments in Afghanistan. Instead of controlling Afghanistan for its own purpose, as it did with its occupation, the U.S. will, from now on, do its best to deny others to benefit from the country.
After first pressing the Afghan president to make room for an interim government, Biden is now again backing him. In a phone call last Friday Biden pledged full support for Ghani's continued hardline:
Cont. reading: Biden Is Not Ending The ‘Forever Wars’. He Is Preparing The Path To New Ones.
U.S. – China Talks Point To A Longer Conflict
The U.S. wants to slice and dice its approach to China. It will use all means to take advantage of China where it can, while restricting China in those fields were it can no longer compete with it. The Chinese reject that approach. The U.S., they say, should not see China as an enemy. It should stop lecturing China, accept it as an equal and cooperate with it in all fields.
The U.S. is unwilling to do that. Its media-military-industrial complex is already primed for a cold war with China. Trillions of dollars are to be made from it. China on the other side is ready to play hardball if it must.
Today U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held talks with the Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Feng, She also meet with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The later meeting, demanded to be the main event by the U.S., had already led to some squabble. Wang Yi is beyond Sherman's rank and her main discussion, the Chinese insisted, should be with a person on her own level:
The State Department emphasized Sherman will have “senior-level” communications but a statement from China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry emphasized that Sherman “will hold talks” with Xie and after that Foreign Minister Wang will “meet her.”
On Saturday two 'senior U.S. administration officials' gave a preview of the talks:
As Secretary Blinken has said, the U.S. relationship with China will be collaborative where it can be, competitive where it should be, and adversarial where it must be. And we expect all dimensions of the relationship will be on the table for discussion during Wendy’s meetings.
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In Tianjin, [Sherman is] going to make clear while we welcome stiff and sustained competition with the PRC, everyone needs to play by the same rules and on the level – on a level playing field.
She’s going to underscore that we do not want that stiff and sustained competition to veer into conflict. This is why the U.S. wants to ensure that there are guard rails and parameters in place to responsibly manage the relationship.
The second official added:
Cont. reading: U.S. – China Talks Point To A Longer Conflict
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-057
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-057
Canada, Victims Of Communism, And Comparisons To A Holocaust
Canada seems to have some rather ambiguous position towards fascists. While it compares China's handling of its Uyghur population to a holocaust it is itself favoring the perpetrators of the real Holocaust.
The Canadian Broadcast Corporation reports of donations from supporters of east-European nazis to a Canadian anti-communist organization:
A controversial monument being built in Ottawa to honour victims of communist regimes has received donations in honour of known fascists and Nazi collaborators, according to a list posted online by the organization spearheading the project.
The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is being financed partly through a "buy-a-brick" campaign called Pathways to Liberty, which is run by the registered charity Tribute to Liberty.
The campaign sells "virtual bricks" that appear on the organization's website and in their newsletter. The bricks are dedicated to alleged victims of communism and include biographical notes about the individuals being commemorated.
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An organization calling itself the General Committee of United Croats of Canada purchased virtual bricks dedicated to Ante Pavelić, describing him only as a "doctor of laws."
Pavelić was the wartime leader of the Ustaša, the fascist organization that ran the Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi puppet regime. In this role, Pavelić was the chief perpetrator of the Holocaust in the Balkans. Approximately 32,000 Jews, 25,000 Roma and 330,000 Serbs were murdered by the regime.
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An organization calling itself the Knightly Order of Vitéz purchased five bricks. "Several members of the order actively participated in the persecution, despoliation and, in 1944, the deportation of the Hungarian Jews," said László Karsai, a professor of history at the University of Szeged.
Vitéz members included high-ranking members of the Nazi-puppet government established late in the war, which organized the deportation of some 437,000 Hungarian Jews. "It was the biggest, fastest deportation action of the Holocaust," said Karsai. "Several tens of thousands of Vitéz members got large lands (from) Jewish properties."
The League of Ukrainian Canadians' Edmonton Branch, meanwhile, purchased five virtual bricks in honour of Roman Shukhevych — who led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the Second World War and was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Belarusians, Jews, Poles and Ukrainians.
The Victims of Communism memorial project in Canada is a copy of a similar project in Washington DC. It has high level support:
In 2013, the Harper government pledged $1.5 million to the project, a figure that increased to $3 million by 2014. By the end of 2014, the project's budget had ballooned to $5.5 million, with a taxpayer contribution of $4.3 million.
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A NCC spokesperson said the estimated total cost of the monument is now $7.5 million, with $6 million coming from the federal government after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland included an additional $4 million in this spring's budget to complete the monument.
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The monument has received letters of support from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former Green party leader Elizabeth May, former NDP leader Tom Mulcair and former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler.
The generous with tax dollars Chrystia Freeland is known for her support of fascists in the Ukraine. It relates to her family's history:
Cont. reading: Canada, Victims Of Communism, And Comparisons To A Holocaust
How Iran Successfully Trolled The U.S. With A ‘Weapon Smuggling’ Ship Parade
Remember these June headlines?
> The Biden administration is urging Venezuela and Cuba to turn away two Iranian warships believed to be carrying arms intended for transfer to Caracas, while vowing that the U.S. will take “appropriate measures” to deter what it sees as a “threat” to America’s partners in the Western Hemisphere.
The warnings — some public and some private, according to three people briefed on the situation — come as the vessels have traveled a significant distance across the Atlantic Ocean. A senior Biden administration official said the ships are thought to be carrying weapons to fulfill a deal that Iran and Venezuela made a year ago, noting that it was during the administration of former President Donald Trump. <
A few days later the news had changed a bit.
> U.S. officials believe the course change indicates that a diplomatic campaign to urge governments in the Western Hemisphere to turn away the ships was successful, the official said. The Iranian frigate Sahand and afloat staging base Makran charted a new course after Biden administration officials publicly and privately urged the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in the region not to allow them to dock, POLITICO reported. <
After the U.S. was blustering that it had won that 'diplomatic campaign' the news was silent about the Iranian ships.
A few days ago the ships were back in the news but only on specialized sites:
Cont. reading: How Iran Successfully Trolled The U.S. With A ‘Weapon Smuggling’ Ship Parade
Open Thread 2021-056
Russia And Germany Win War Over Nord Stream 2
The sanctions war the U.S. waged against Germany and Russia over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has ended with a total U.S. defeat.
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The U.S. attempts to block the pipeline were part of the massive anti-Russia campaign waged over the last five years. But it was always based on a misunderstanding. The pipeline is not to Russia's advantage but important for Germany. As I described Nord Stream 2 in a previous piece:
It is not Russia which needs the pipeline. It can sell its gas to China for just as much as it makes by selling gas to Europe.
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It is Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse, that needs the pipeline and the gas flowing through it. Thanks to Chancellor Merkel's misguided energy policy – she put an end to nuclear power in German after a tsunami in Japan destroyed three badly placed reactors – Germany urgently needs the gas to keep its already high electricity prices from rising further.
That the new pipeline will bypass old ones which run through the Ukraine is likewise to the benefit of Germany, not Russia. The pipeline infrastructure in the Ukraine is old and near to disrepair. The Ukraine has no money to renew it. Politically it is under U.S. influence. It could use its control over the energy flow to the EU for blackmail. (It already tried once.) The new pipeline, laid at the bottom of the Baltic sea, requires no payment for crossing Ukrainian land and is safe from potential malign influence.
Maybe Chancellor Merkel on her recent visit to Washington DC finally managed to explain that to the Biden administration. More likely though she simply told the U.S. to f*** off. Whatever – the result is in. As the Wall Street Journal reports today:
Cont. reading: Russia And Germany Win War Over Nord Stream 2
China Has First World Problems
People in China have first world problems:
Peter Jolicoeur 周力克 @pajolicoe – 5:35 PM · Jul 20, 2021
My subway trip from home to Hongqiao rail station tomorrow (28 km) will take longer at 70 minutes than my high speed rail trip from Shanghai Hongqiao to Nanjing South Station at 59 minutes (295 km, averaging 300 km/h).
Who does not such hate long train rides? Well, that first world problem might be solved pretty soon:
World's first 600 km/h high-speed maglev train rolls off assembly line
China's new high-speed maglev train rolled off the production line on Tuesday. It has a designed top speed of 600 km per hour — currently the fastest ground vehicle available globally.
The new maglev transportation system made its public debut in the coastal city of Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province.
But Peter is going to Nanjing which recently had a first world problem with Covid-19. One traveler had brought it in. Ten close contacts were identified and 140 possible contacts beyond them. All were notified, isolated and tested and Nanjing is again free of Covid. Meanwhile over 90% of all adults in Beijing have been vaccinated.
What amazes me is that some in the U.S. still think they can compete with and beat such an efficient system.
U.S. Takes Down Israeli Spy Software Company
A number of international papers report today on the Israeli hacking company NSO which sells snooping software to various regimes. The software is then used to hijack the phones of regime enemies, political competition or obnoxious journalists. All of that was already well known but the story has new legs as several hundreds of people who were spied on can now be named.
How that came to pass is of interest:
The phones appeared on a list of more than 50,000 numbers that are concentrated in countries known to engage in surveillance of their citizens and also known to have been clients of the Israeli firm, NSO Group, a worldwide leader in the growing and largely unregulated private spyware industry, the investigation found.
The list does not identify who put the numbers on it, or why, and it is unknown how many of the phones were targeted or surveilled. But forensic analysis of the 37 smartphones shows that many display a tight correlation between time stamps associated with a number on the list and the initiation of surveillance, in some cases as brief as a few seconds.
Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International, a human rights group, had access to the list and shared it with the news organizations, which did further research and analysis. Amnesty’s Security Lab did the forensic analyses on the smartphones.
The numbers on the list are unattributed, but reporters were able to identify more than 1,000 people spanning more than 50 countries through research and interviews on four continents.
Who might have made such a list and who would give it to Amnesty and Forbidden Stories?
NSO is one of the Israeli companies that are used to monetize the work of the Israel's military intelligence unit 8200. 'Former' members of 8200 move to NSO to produce spy tools which are then sold to foreign governments. The license price is $7 to 8 million per 50 phones to be snooped at. It is a shady but lucrative business for the company and for the state of Israel.
NSO rejects the allegations that its software is used for harmful proposes with a lot of bullshittery:
The report by Forbidden Stories is full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability and interests of the sources. It seems like the “unidentified sources” have supplied information that has no factual basis and are far from reality.
After checking their claims, we firmly deny the false allegations made in their report. Their sources have supplied them with information which has no factual basis, as evident by the lack of supporting documentation for many of their claims. In fact, these allegations are so outrageous and far from reality, that NSO is considering a defamation lawsuit.
The reports make, for example, the claim that the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has used the NSO software to spy on the leader of the opposition party Rahul Gandhi.
How could NSO deny that allegation? It can't.
Further down in the NSO's statement the company contradicts itself on the issues:
Cont. reading: U.S. Takes Down Israeli Spy Software Company
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-055
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod – 10:57 UTC · Jul 18, 2021
Incredible.
Fox News' editors blurred out the signs at what they claimed were "anti-government" demonstrations in Cuba 🇨🇺 because they said things like "Long Live the Cuban Revolution" and "The Streets Belong to the Revolutionaries." 😂
Taking fake news to a whole new level.
Embedded video
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And check this: with no notification, the @NyTimes has gone back and stealth edited their original article on the protests.
"Hundreds" nationwide becomes "thousands" in one small town alone!
Pretty sus!
> Although civilian leaders may be accused of having overreached with visions of building Afghanistan into a democracy capable of defending itself, the military eventually embraced that goal. Claims by senior military officers of having “turned a corner” toward success in Afghanistan were repeated so regularly that critics wondered whether the military was going in circles. <
Has the AP author read MoA?
Nov 28 2017 – Turning The Corner In Afghanistan – Moon of Alabama
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-055
‘Civilized Nations’
The Washington Post is differentiating between 'civilized' and -unsaid- 'uncivilized' nations.
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After making false claims about the illegal passage of a British destroyer near Crimea, a planned provocation, the author goes on to bash Russia as well as China.
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WaPo columnist George Will then asserts:
Henry Kissinger has said, not unreasonably, that we are in “the foothills” of a cold war with China. And Vladimir Putin, who nurses an unassuageable grudge about the way the Cold War ended, seems uninterested in Russia reconciling itself to a role as a normal nation without gratuitous resorts to mendacity. It is, therefore, well to notice how, day by day, in all of the globe’s time zones, civilized nations are, in word and deed, taking small but cumulatively consequential measures that serve deterrence.
If arrogance were a deadly disease, George Will would be dead.
Recent Access Problems To Moon of Alabama Have Been Fixed
During the last 36 hours some people had problems to reach Moon of Alabama.
The issue was weird. For some it worked on their phone and laptop but not on their tablet. Others had the opposite experience. I could not reproduce the problem on my machines.
It took a while to track this down but now the problem is solved.
For people with some Internet Protocol knowledge here is in short what had happened:
User device <—> Google DNS <—> Registrar DNS
The problem occurred only recently and only on devices configured to use Google's public Domain Name Servers. Google's DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 responded to NSlookup requests for moonofalabama.org with 'failure'.
The reason for that turned out to be a weird error in the communication between Google's DNS and PAIRnic, the domain registrar for moonofalabama.org. When Google's DNS requested the IP4 address for the site from the registrar DNS everything went well. When Google requested the IP6 address for the site from the registrar DNS the request failed for all domain names at PAIRnic that are configured with DNSSEC enabled (which moonofalabama.org usually is). This happened only for IP6 request from Google's DNS, not for IP6 resolver requests from elsewhere.
The registrar now found a workaround that avoids the Google IP6 resolve problem.
Still, Google should have been able to deliver valid responses for IP4 resolver requests to it. But because the Google IP6 request to the registrar DNS failed, Google responded to both, IP4 and IP6 lookup requests for moonofalabama.org, with 'failure'. That behavior is somewhat unexpected and IMHO a bad implementation.
Anyway – you now know what I spent my day on and why there is no regular blog post.
Thanks to everyone who helped to solve this problem.
U.S. Announces Retreat From Iraq (And Syria)?
I did not expect this. Great – if true:
Nafiseh Kohnavard @nafisehkBBC – 13:57 UTC · Jul 15, 2021 Breaking
White house coordinator for MidEast, Brett McGurk has informed Iraqi officials that US troops will withdraw from Iraq.
“step by step”, sources tell me. “First combat troops will leave and then others” he has told his Iraqi hosts
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“Withdrawal from Iraq will not be like what happened in Afghanistan and it will be step by step. The schedule for this will be agreed during Iraqi PM’s trip to Washington” official sources told me
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And here is the statement from PM office that “mechanism for combat troops withdrawal” has been briefly mentioned in
link
The link is to a tweet of the Iraqi Prime Minister account which says (in Arabic) of the McGurk – al-Kadhimi meeting:
During the meeting, they discussed coordination and joint cooperation in various fields, and preparations for holding the next round of strategic dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America, as well as the mechanisms for the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq and the transition to a new phase of strategic cooperation.
My first thoughts on this:
- The pressure the resistance has put onto the occupation force has achieved the desired result.
- No time frame is given but I expect weeks rather than months for the retreat to take place as the pressure will otherwise increase.
- Leaving Iraq likely also means leaving Syria as supplies and support to the U.S. occupied Syrian north-east and to the al-Tanf base at the border triangle of Syria, Iraq and Jordan runs through Iraq.
- The Kurds in north-east Syria must immediately start talks with Russia and the Syrian government. They will have to give up their autonomy or they will be eaten alive by Turkey. Expect them to (again) make the wrong decision. That means that the Syrian government, with Russian support, will have to use force against them. So be it.
- The U.S. occupation has denied the Syrian government access to two of its greatest resources, oil and grain. Syria will be much better off after regaining these.
- Expect a huge attempt by the usual hawks and the media to change the decision.
- The U.S. has dragged its feet over the renewal of the nuclear deal with Iran. Removing the troops from Iraq and Syria moves them out of the target area in the case of an eventual war on Iran.
While there are now first denials from some anonymous 'officials' I do believe that the decision has been made.
It is only rational. A further occupation of Iraq and Syria makes absolutely no sense.
Steele Dossier Peddlers Confirm Its Substance With New Forgeries
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Today the Guardian published another fake 'Russiagate' story:
Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
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Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.
Yaawwwnn …
We know, without reading it, that the story is fake because its main author is Luke Harding. Harding also authored the story which claimed that Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manaford met Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. That story was proven to be false but the Guardian, to its shame, still has it up on its website.
In 2017 Luke Harding abruptly ended an interview with Aaron Maté after Harding was challenged over false claims he had made in his book about 'Russiagate'. The last five minutes of that video are quite amusing.
The Guardian story claims that the 'leaked' nonsense paper was discussed in high level Kremlin meeting in January 2016. It was then decided, it alleges, to support Trump. But in January 2016 there was no one, not even Donald Trump himself, who thought that he would win the Republican primary or even the presidency. But the Kremlin is supposed to have discussed him at the highest level well before anyone thought he could win?
Various people make interesting remarks about the new Guardian fakery:
Cont. reading: Steele Dossier Peddlers Confirm Its Substance With New Forgeries
Open Thread 2021-054
A Secret British ‘Strategic Communication’ Campaign Aims To Fracture The Balkans
In late 2018 we learned about the secret British government campaign to smear Russia. The campaign was run by the 'Integrity Initiative' – A Military Intelligence Operation, Disguised As Charity, To Create The "Russian Threat".
A year later the release of a number of British documents revealed systematic 'Strategic Communication' propaganda campaigns against Syria and in Iraq run by contractors who were working for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).
A similar campaign, run by the same companies, created 'regime change' protests in Lebanon. This included infiltrating Lebanon's military intelligence as well as indoctrination of young Palestinian refugees. The recent campaign to regime change Belarus was likewise secretly supported by British government contractors. It is thus not astonishing to learn that the British government is running similar secret influence campaign in other regions of the world.
The release of a new batch of documents show that one of those campaigns has the aim of fracturing the Balkans.
An extensive narrative around those documents is available in three parts. All relevant documents – solicitations, company offers, contracts etc. – can be downloaded here.
After describing the secret British manipulation campaigns in detail the author(s) conclude:
The documents we have published reveal a large-scale neocolonial HMG operation in the region. The British employ various methods to achieve their goals: they support friendly regimes at the same time undermining those regimes they consider hostile. They strengthen or weaken governments as they deem necessary. And everything is done as part of a global plan.
However the essence of the operations has not changed. They are still HMG Trojan Horses.
We believe the people have the right to know both the perpetrators and their accomplices (local politicians or organisations).
I agree with that. But as I am not well versed in the Balkans, and have few readers from there, I will study the documents and leave it at that.
If you have contacts in the area please make sure that they learn about the British campaign.
Taliban Reject U.S./Turkish Plans To Keep A Foothold In Kabul
In mid June Turkey floated a plan to occupy the airport of Kabul with Turkish troops to allow for emergency evacuation of 'western' embassies. The plan seems to have originated on the U.S. side. I had speculated on what might be behind it:
One does not protect diplomatic missions by holding the main airport of a foreign country. There must be other reasons why this was put on the table.
The CIA has tried to get drone-bases in countries neighboring Afghanistan to continue its drug smuggling business fight against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Negotiations were held with Pakistan but Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan publicly rejected the plan.
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With no other country around Afghanistan willing to support the CIA it needed to find a way to stay in Afghanistan. Turkish control of the airport of Kabul would allow it to keep drones within the country and to stay in contact with its networks on the ground.
A country that has its main international airport controlled by foreign forces is not sovereign. Such a position can thus only be temporary. When the Taliban take Kabul, and there is little that lets me believe that they will have trouble to do so, the airport will come under fire. The Taliban have by now captured enough long range artillery to put it under siege and to bomb it to smithereens. U.S. air support for the Turkish forces would have to come from the wider Middle East and would have to cross through Pakistani airspace. A long term defense of the airport is therefore not possible.
There are well founded rumors that Turkey is hiring 'Syrian rebel' mercenaries to be send to Kabul:
According to the Euphrates Media Center, a Syrian Kurdish news outlet, members of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization discussed the issue June 24 with representatives of several rebel factions under the banner of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, including Suqour al-Sham, Suqour al-Shamal, Faylaq al-Majd, the Samarkand Brigade, the Hamza Division, the Sultan Murad Division and the Suleiman Shah Brigade. The factions were told to start preparations for the deployment of 2,000 fighters to Afghanistan, the report said, adding that the rebel representatives asked for monthly salaries of $3,000 for the mercenaries. Other Syrian Kurdish media outlets reported the meeting took place in Hawar Kilis, a village near the town of Azez, not far from the Turkish border, and the intelligence officials asked for 2,600 mercenaries.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that unlike the transfer of mercenaries to the Libyan and Nagorno-Karabakh wars, this time Turkey is more image-savvy and will recruit them through official contracts with Turkish private security companies. According to the observatory, the process is to be supervised by Turkish intelligence officers because faction members do not trust their leaders. Under the plan, the mercenaries would be tasked mainly with guarding the Kabul airport and government buildings without any involvement in operations against the Taliban, and would receive monthly salaries of $2,000 to $3,000.
But at the same time Turkey is still negotiating with the U.S. and with NATO. It seems it wants to get paid excessively for the proposed 'service':
Cont. reading: Taliban Reject U.S./Turkish Plans To Keep A Foothold In Kabul
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