US interest in pinning the Saturday drone attacks against Saudi Arabia
on Iran continue apace, even though President Trump does not appear to
want to use such allegations to start a war.
Officials continue to make claims of evidence, though as usual they continue not to provide any of that evidence to
the public to evaluate. Officials claim they can say that the attack
originated in southwest Iran, but again, aren’t clear on how that
happened.
Instead, US officials are trying to discredit the more likely
alternative, that Yemen’s Houthis did it. This is the most probable
source of the attack, because the Houthis have very publicly said they
did it. US officials, however, say the Houthis never used drones before,
as though that proves they couldn’t have developed what is basically a
commercially available technology.
In what is perhaps the least credible aspect of the investigation, US investigators claim that the Saudis recovered a “pristine” circuit board off of a cruise missile fired in the area. The US is trying to pin it on Iran.
And yet, the very idea is preposterous. The suggestion that a circuit
board in a missile full of explosives flew through Iran, Iraqi airspace,
and Saudi airspace and then slammed in the ground, and miraculously
remained “pristine” is simply not credible.
Not credible. It’s what we are stuck with as our goverNance and news.
Pristine circuit board. Right. Just like the pristine Passport of one the 9/11 attackers found on the street.
Or those that left passports in cabs, or those proofs of weapons of mass destruction …,
Again the same cranks that have not been fired for inventing stuff over and over.
And where were the Patriots or Thaads. Kind of had their radars turned off — like all the cameras that magically did not work in Epstein’s cell AND outside of it.
And what happened to our super radars in Manama — the home of Fifth fleet. And from Manama you could get a whiff of burning oil. So, we have NO IDEA that a missile buzzed by — until we fund some stuff in the wreckage?
This is beyond ridiculous! And if this is the case, then all of our understanding of military capability is science fiction.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel has something to do with the attack on Saudis oil refineries, so as to have a pretext for US to be drawn in and bomb Iran. After all they have been clamouring for war with Iran for decades. It’s the only motivthat makes sense.
Ya think.
I wouldn’t be surprised……
Exactly. The only logical answer to CUI BONO question.
https://media2.giphy.com/media/l2SpXxLeB0bGqk9Ta/giphy.gif
EAT THAT POMPUS.
Your own allies don`t believe you.
Japan says it has not seen any evidence to prove a claim by the United States that Iran was involved in recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities.
“We are not aware of any information that points to Iran,” Japan’s Defense Minister Taro Kono told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/09/18/606489/Iran-Saudi-Arabia-oil-attack-Japan
neither do the French
neither do the Germans……but the stupid lapdog UK jumps on the wagon.
Gas attacks were easier to fake.
But even when fakes were PROVEN and witnesses testified, none of our media showed the proof of fake gas attack. White Helmets doused people, including children, with hoses, in hospital. Witnessed cane forward — those in film, telling how White Helmets caused panic and snatched people from the street to be treated against chemical attack. None of them was ever affected by any chemicals. Doctors from the hospital testified later then they did not treat any patients affected by chemical poisoning.
So, no Western audience saw how chemical attacks were staged. And because of this, Assad still must be religiously branded as monster in any media discussing Syrian crisis. While the monsters are good guys, the “rebels”, the “revolutionaries”.
Why would anyone care to go to vote when power can be snatched in the street! US has rediscovered the excitement of Trotsky’s revolution, his parallel government, and parallel justice, his red color coded messages, simple appeal of street.
Are these people aware what are they REALLY saying? Stone’s throw there (missile-speed speaking) is American Fifth fleet in Bahrain. Any cruise missile coming from that direction would have been taken down, as cruise missiles do not have a fixed trajectory, and could strike either Saudis or US assets. Super radar in Manama could not have missed that,
The fact that Saudi facilities WERE successfully targeted in itself is BIG news, not who did it. The noise of blame game MASKS a very, very troubling question about safety of OUR assets in ME.
Uh sssuuuuurrrrree. Like the FBI and CIA were certain that the Russians ‘definitely’ hacked the US election in 2016.
And yet, somehow we’re supposed to believe Trump can just sit there, ignore all this posturing by his entire administration and Israel and the Saudis, and just “somehow” refuse to do anything against Iran over it.
And that this is supposed to *prove* that Trump is really a “peace President” who “doesn’t want another war.”
It’s a joke.
Update: Meanwhile, more posturing that the US knows *exactly* where the Iran attack came from…
U.S. official says drone and missile attack on Saudi Arabia was launched from Iran
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-saudi-arabia-oil-attack-us-official-says-attack-launched-from-iranian-territory/
Note that: “the exact locations in Iran”. No ifs, ands, or buts, right? We know what weapons were used, we know *exactly* where the attack came from, we watched the missiles cross Kuwait airspace, etc., etc.
It’s a “slam dunk”, right? Just like those Iraqi WMDs…
So now what does Trump do? Just say, “hey, it’s your problem, Saudi Arabia, you pay for it…”? I don’t think so.
It is a very good question. After all, he gave life to Iranian war mongers by violating the Treaty and UN SC resolution to boot. He opened the door wide open to war, ramping up sanctions and coming down in allies who objected.
He did his job. Not only he did not resist the push from Israel and its Amen corner here, he actively supported them with all sorts of accusations — ridiculous one — against Iran.
Now that they have the grand cause to rally against — let us see what he does.
Politically, now it is hard for all those that thought it safe to bash Saudis and bash Trump — to be FOR helping Saudis. And no picture was created to justify war in Iran other then protecting “our allies”. And our allies armed to teeth — thanks to very Trump — should be able to defend themselves? So, again, a reason for war is?
Trump brought Iran crisis to boil. All that remains now is FOR THE ADVOCATES OF WAR IN THIS COUNTRY TO SUMMON POLITICAL POWER AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FIR WAR. He is now sitting back — like I do not want war, but let’s see.
The big problem for war crowd is — when President is not preparing country for war, justifying it, and doing it CONSISTENTLY, they are lacking that all important pulpit from which to send our armed forces to war.
I am also not sure Pentagon is giving rosy scenarios for war outcome. Add to this the calamitous event in Saudi Arabia where hundreds of billions worth of US air defense weaponry failed spectacularly.
Since when do the neocons really care about a war’s outcome? Still less does the military-industrial complex. The oil companies will profit no matter how long the war goes on.
So those air defense systems failed. So what? That just means there needs to be a new contract let to improve them! How much has that F-35 cost so far?
As for Trump not being on his bully pulpit – well, let’s wait another 24 hours. He’ll change his mind. He always does.
Consistency isn’t this guy’s strong point. He’s leaving that to his flunkies to prepare the way by proclaiming that they know *exactly* how Iran attacked Saudi Arabia. That way he gets to avoid the blame when he “reluctantly” – like Obama – starts a new war.
Gareth Porter kept telling us for eight years how “reluctant” Obama was to start a new war – despite SIX attempts to start a hot war with Syria while supporting Al Qaeda in Syria for years, devastating Libya over a bogus “no-fly zone”, which he wanted to try *three times* in Syria later, stopped only by Russia each time, influencing the Ukrainian government resulting in a civil war, and supporting the Saudis in their Yemen war – which Trump is perfectly happy to continue supporting – when he isn’t canceling talks with the Taliban about ending *that* war.
“Reluctance” has nothing to do with it – except as a means to avoid *blame.* Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want a war and doesn’t mean he will actively try to stop one.
“Sitting back” isn’t a way to stop a war.
Actually, I can totally see things your way — as in fact, there is very little difference between studied “reluctance” of Obama, and “let’s see how it goes” of Trump.
Frankly, Obama disgusted me more. Probably, because I foolishly expected more. Trump does not mind being a clown, and for that reason alone he is a poor material for neocons to work with. Having demonized him, hunted him through investigations and dossiers, are neocons in Democratic Party now ready to embrace him? Is his habit of changing his mind so theatrically going to convince anyone that country must go to war? His “stupid ME wars” base would not be happy. They already are convinced he is doing too much for Israel — and Netanyahu is not helping.
Anybody who cannot stand him — regardless of reasons — would be aghast that this man is taking us to war.
Obama did a very convincing act of statesmanship — like him or hate him, and reluctance and resignation to yet another war did the rest. Do you think that is the case today? Neocons do not care. Agreed. Yet, it is the President that becomes the face if the war. This president’s face is not something many can embrace, and trust with war. The biggest problem he has with rank and file and veterans. The vote that he received from them was shocker. Stupid wars resinated with them. This is not the constituency you can afford to cheat.
I am with you that neocons do not care about anything but STARTING wars. Everything else is always an automatic stalemate,
But they have a problem this time — no face of statesmanship to sell it to a skeptical and divided nation.
“Frankly, Obama disgusted me more. Probably, because I foolishly expected more.”
I think that sums up the prevailing feeling of about half the planet.
I knew Obama was “Bush Lite” when I read his foreign policy platform while he was campaigning. I used the term before Steven Walt did. So I never expected more from him. I could see he was just a slick black Chicago hustler.
The Democrats are the ones who hate Trump, not the neocons. The neocons have surrounded him and can manipulate him because he’s a clown. They might prefer someone else more attuned to their philosophy but they can work with Trump – and have so far.
The neocons don’t need Trump to convince the country to go to war. They just need to convince him that it won’t hurt him either in the pocketbook (which it won’t, so that’s easy) or his second term. He’s a narcissist, so he only needs to be convinced that he will benefit in some way.
But his potential second term is only 14 months away. After that, he won’t care. Not that he cares what the public thinks anyway – or his base per se. He only cares about the polls.
The problem with that is the polls could swing in his favor if he does go to war. He could get the mass of people who *already* believe Iran has nuclear weapons. I’m mentioned before that a poll was taken when Obama was pushing the “Iran nuclear weapons” theme – something like 70-plus percent of the respondents believed Iran had actual nuclear weapons. If those people approve of a war with Iran and vote for him, as well as those people who will automatically vote for any President during war time, he may not need that portion of his base who don’t approve.
Then there’s the problem that foreign policy is almost nonexistent as a voting influence. People overemphasize Trump’s foreign policy views as part of the source of his base. His base is actually those people who are concerned about the economy – which is why his trade war with China is approved by them, even though it’s stupid – and about immigration, which they think is stealing their jobs (the economy again.) War is only related to the degree that people think it wastes taxpayer money (the economy again.)
Now one can say, well, the Iran war would destroy the economy. Two problems with that:
1) most people don’t understand the potential impact – Iraq and Afghanistan had little apparent effect so people think Iran is not significantly different since it’s “just another third world country”;
2) much of the economy is military-industrial related and will benefit from an Iran war – which is why those corporations will support it and they can be convinced to keep the campaign contributions flowing to Trump.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the US electorate.
No President during war times has lost an election. Of course, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen since wars are relatively rare. Still, Trump could be convinced that, despite what his base may want or what he thinks they want, starting a war is his best bet to win the election. He knows he got an approval rating bounce when he struck Syria.
Trump can also start looking (even more) lame in the approval polls if the current tensions keep rising and things like the Saudi attack keep happening – and he does nothing. The Democrats can use that against him with the support of the media – since both of them want war – and if that becomes significant in the pre-election polling, then Trump could start seeing the war as a benefit, not a liability.
The only way he could prevent that would be to actually *do* something to reduce tensions, not just talk about it. But then he has to fight his entire administration, Israel, Saudi Arabia and all his big donors and the mainstream media. So we’re back to his “sitting back” routine again.
So the assumption that Trump won’t start a war because of his political aspirations for a second term are just that – an assumption that may not hold for a variety of reasons.
Finally, it doesn’t matter whether Trump sells it for two reasons:
1) he can let the rest of his administration – and the mainstream media – sell it, which they are already doing. They may not be succeeding with a lot of people, but again, that could change once a conflict starts and Iran starts inflicting significant damage on US assets and US soldiers start dying.
It could change if he starts a war and it looks like the US is winning initially because the US doesn’t commit any ground troops and its air campaign is spun by the media as doing major damage. Remember the media coverage of the Iraq war – it was “US winning” all the time, and “mission accomplished” – until it wasn’t.
2) Once the war starts, it won’t matter – because the war will be on, the neocons, Israel and Saudi Arabia got what they want (except the Saudis who will get screwed since Iran will punish them the worst) and the electorate gets screwed again, whether they like it or not. And anything could get the war started whether or not Trump “sells it”.
As I’ve said before, Trump can’t stop the war if everyone else wants it. He’s not that capable a human being, let alone a President. People who think he is are deluding themselves.
And again, *all* of this only *applies* if Trump starts the war in the next 14 months. If he waits until after, all of this is irrelevant. Given his flip-flop nature and his total support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, he could start the war the day after he wins the election, just because he can.
They also found Mohammed Atta’s birth certificate but that pointed back to the Saudis, so they buried it beneath Jamal Khashoggi’s head in the royal garden.
Well I think given that we have the Yemenis claiming credit, we might want to consider that possibility. They do get weapons from the Iranians so it isn’t inconceivable that an Iranian circuit board would be recovered. Yesterday the missiles were from Iraq, now from SW Iran aren’t those hundreds of miles apart. More embarrassing is the billions and billion of $ the Saudi spent on airdefence apparently useless. What is stopping another 10 well targeted drones tomorrow? I am skeptical of the Saudi’s powers of investigation, it took them quite a while to even discover that an American resident had been murdered in their embassy. Shouldn’t the USA know exactly where these drones came from?? We have tons of HW over there is this stuff stealth?