And/or the Saudis want to jack up oil prices. The U.S. turned off the taps for Venezuela and Iran (refusing to renew oil sanctions waivers earlier in May), and Libyan exports are down because Haftar is rolling on Tripoli. Saudi Arabia has lots of leverage now to send prices north to pay for its Yemen war and get its own fiscal house in order generally: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Saudi-Arabias-Dream-Of-85-Oil-Is-Closer-Than-Ever.html
The story of Erik Prince post Blackwater.
— Matthew Cole (@matthewacole) May 5, 2019
War, conflict, lies, incompetence, @Project_Veritas and Donald Trump.https://t.co/rHznWRG3m6 pic.twitter.com/hPj7jXnFd0
The US embassy in Iraq said the state department has ordered all non-emergency government staff to leave the country right away.
— LBC Breaking (@lbcbreaking) May 15, 2019
The NATO military intelligence official said Pompeo’s clumsy attempt to gin up support for the U.S.’s dealings with Iran fell on deaf ears.
“The briefing was a dog’s breakfast of things that happen every day, rumors, poorly-sourced things we suspect are planted information, and of course, some pictures of boats that the Iranians have put some missiles on,” he said, referencing the photograph of an Iranian missile on a small boat in the Persian Gulf that was recently declassified, according to the New York Times, by U.S. intelligence agents who wanted to prove that Iran is indeed a threat. “Iranians have been putting missiles on boats in the Gulf since the 1980s. That’s what you do when you don’t have proper blue water navy.”
So I try to follow what's going on but I'm also thinking "well, there's not much really happening so call me when they start bombing." Not sure if that's the right attitude either though
cars posted:please post elaborate denunciations of my post elsewhere.
Edited by tentativelurkeraccount ()
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say Pentagon will present plans to White House to send up to 10,000 troops to Mideast amid Iran tension.
That ain't a whole lot.
special ambulance for delivering bombs to Saudi Arabia pic.twitter.com/Lx7Duw4NOx
— HK (@HenryKrinkIe) May 25, 2019
U.S. President Donald Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, swept aside objections from Congress on Friday to complete the sale of over $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
They include Raytheon precision-guided munitions (PGMs), support for Boeing Co F-15 aircraft, and Javelin anti-tank missiles, which are made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Other companies that will benefit include General Electric, now cleared to sell engines for use in F-16 fighter jets operated by the UAE and the U.S. unit of French firm Thales, which was cleared to sell a fuzing system for Paveway IV precision guided bombs to Britain and the UAE.
It will also likely be welcome news for Britain’s BAE Systems Plc and Europe’s Airbus, clearing the way for installation of Paveway laser-guided bombs on European-built Eurofighter and Tornado fighter jets sold to Saudi Arabia, as well F-15 fighters built by Boeing.
AP posted:TOKYO — One of the tankers that were attacked in the Gulf of Oman was struck by a flying object, the ship’s Japanese operator said on Friday, disputing at least part of the account of United States officials who had blamed Iran for the attack.
“Our crew said that the ship was attacked by a flying object,” said Yutaka Katada, the president of the operator, Kokuka Sangyo.
American officials released video on Thursday that they said showed an Iranian boat crew removing a limpet mine attached to the hull of the damaged Kokuka Courageous, a tanker operated by Kokuka Sangyo.
But Mr. Katada, citing accounts from the ship’s crew, said: “I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship.”
Mr. Katada said that the holes in Kokuka Courageous were well above its waterline. “There is zero possibility that they were torpedoes,” he added.
president of japanese shipping company revealed as iranian asset, secret muslim
ghostpinballer posted:bellingcat have been on the job with google search and MS paint and can confirm the insidious shia blew up that ship to upset america, which was minding its own business
be careful iran, your next move may only incriminate you further
And it is severely unfortunate and not at all a plot device literally ripped off frame for frame from a Jason Bourne movie, that this redundant bomb cunningly attached in a useless and extremely visible spot just happened to be the one that failed to explode.
trakfactri posted:
war criminal
cars posted:trakfactri posted:
war criminal
Please he's only being ironic
Petrol posted:Once again lurking reddit because what better have i to do while waiting for death to envelop us all, and the contrast between the reception the Iran accusations are getting and the bloodthirsty liberal mobs on every story about china or venezuela is stark. I see that a lot of media is going out of its way to hitch the Iran provocations to the Trump administration and Bolton specifically, which is obviously true but no less true with venezuela for example. I guess the only real explanation is that the spooks are mostly not happy with how the administration is playing the Iran stuff and they're stoking pushback instead of enthusiastically playing it like another libya or syria scenario. Small blessings I guess
I've mentioned this a lot because it's one of my pet things, but:
The U.S. global-booj/spook/Obama-admin in-group line on Iran is, IMO, Iran must not be destroyed in the same way as Iraq or Libya, because Iran will be one of the top countries in the world for GDP/GNP contribution from labor over the next 50 years.
That workforce will be absolutely crucial to disciplining worldwide labor in the next century, especially given how skilled and educated Iran's future workforce is likely to be compared to other countries on that list.
Petrol posted:I guess the only real explanation is that the spooks are mostly not happy with how the administration is playing the Iran stuff and they're stoking pushback instead of enthusiastically playing it like another libya or syria scenario.
There are some other clumsy psyops exposed recently. One is "Heshmat Alavi," a fake writer and "political activist and supporter for regime change in Iran" concocted by the MEK (i.e. CIA) and published in: Forbes, The Hill, Voice of America (U.S. govt.), The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Al-Arabiya (Saudi govt.), The Diplomat, FrontPageMag and the American Thinker. Cited in a bunch of other places too and by the White House in a self-licking ice cream cone of fabricated "sources" to justify action.
The other psyop is the "Iran Disinformation Project" which is a State Department op and run through the hardline neocon Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The main purpose seemed to be to bully people in the Iranian diaspora online who criticized regime change / hardline policy and then escalated to bullying Iranian-American reporters for the U.S.'s own propaganda outlets like VOA, academics and other institutional people including one at the Atlantic Council and another at Human Rights Watch, which is just dumb.
Anyways both of those stories were in the press in the past two weeks or so which might bolster your theory Petrol
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaashooh
edit for noclick:
Edited by kinch ()
kinch posted:speaking of reddit, this is their 'director of policy'
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaashooh
How disappointing must it have been to be an analyst in the UAE-branch fucking-of-Syria office during 2014-2015. Every single week your boss comes in and tells you that tomorrow you're going to be in Damascus deciding who gets to eat, who gets mass-executed etc. and it just never ever ever happens.
ghostpinballer posted:that brown moses guy dropped his NYT article in the c-spam bit of somethingawful that is like this place (but not as good, mods!) and they laughed him off the internet. anyway yes belingcat are drawing arrows in MS paint for the new york times, what a age we live in.
#Yemen Houthis, who were supposed to be exterminated by #SaudiASrabia in a couple of weeks, hacked al-Ikhbariya Saudi TV, broadcasting his guerrilla attacks against Saudi in Yemen with a song: "Surrender Saudi, you are surrounded".https://t.co/JwpW4rlKIq
— Elijah J. Magnier (@ejmalrai) June 15, 2019
lmao