Tag: war

Mike Cernovich reports that the US is officially ending the military occupation and withdrawing from Iraq.

U.S.-led coalition tells Iraqi military it will withdraw from Iraq out of respect for the nation’s sovereignty
– Reuters

Trust the plan. No wonder the neocons weren’t celebrating.

UPDATE: Confirmed.

The authenticity of the letter, which was addressed to the Iraqi defence ministry’s Combined Joint Operations Baghdad, was confirmed to Reuters independently by an Iraqi military source.

UPDATE: The US Secretary of Defense denies the report.

The United States has no plans to pull out militarily from Iraq, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Pentagon reporters on Monday, following reports by Reuters and other media of a U.S. military letter about a withdrawal. 

Remember, the narrative is not synonymous with the truth. Read this article published by the Washington Post twice, first with a mainstream perspective, then with your Q filter turned on:

In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him — which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq — on the menu they presented to President Trump.

They didn’t think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable.

After initially rejecting the Suleimani option on Dec. 28 and authorizing airstrikes on an Iranian-backed Shiite militia group instead, a few days later Mr. Trump watched, fuming, as television reports showed Iranian-backed attacks on the American Embassy in Baghdad, according to Defense Department and administration officials.

By late Thursday, the president had gone for the extreme option. Top Pentagon officials were stunned.

Who, one wonders, are these “top” American military officials and Pentagon officials? To whom, or what, are they loyal? And how tactically capable are they if they are foolish enough to engage in this sort of transparent managing-up with a personality like the god-emperor?

One can’t help but notice that neither the Israelis nor the neocons appear to be overly pleased about the recent assassination of Qassem Soleimani. Perhaps, instead of a prelude to war, it was a prelude to the long-overdue withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The Iraqi parliament called on the government on Sunday to work to end all foreign troop presence as a backlash grew after the killing of a top Iranian military commander and an Iraqi militia leader in a U.S. strike in Baghdad.

A resolution passed by a special session of parliament said the government should cancel its request for assistance from a U.S.-led coalition.

Parliament resolutions, unlike laws, are non-binding to the government. But this one is likely to be heeded: Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had earlier called on parliament to end foreign troop presence as soon as possible.

Remember, the god-emperor seldom does the obvious. So, the obvious explanation for his actions is seldom going to be the correct one. After all, there is no reason to believe this was even an attack by the U.S. military, given the fact that the previous attempt on Soleimani was by someone else.

And one immediate result has been the cessation of offensive actions by the U.S. military:

The US-led coalition has announced it will put most of its operations on hold and focus on ensuring the security of its troops as tensions in the Middle East skyrocket after the death of Iran’s top general at the hands of the US. The coalition will from now on devote most of its efforts to protecting its troops and bases, a coalition spokesman told journalists, adding that most operations against militant groups have been put on hold. 

Don Jr., yes. Ivanka, absolutely, unquestionably no.

In a SurveyMonkey poll for Axios, Republican voters chose children of President Trump — Don Jr. and Ivanka — as two of the top four picks for president in four years.

Why it matters: An early poll like this is largely a measure of name ID. But it’s also a vivid illustration of just how strong Trump’s brand is with the GOP.

Ivanka and Don Jr. find themselves near the top of a long list of politicians who have held elected office, many of them vocal supporters of the president.

The big picture: Don Jr. has emerged as one of the most prominent defenders of his dad, frequently going after the left on Twitter, where he has 4.2 million followers, and serving as a popular warm-up act for presidential rallies. His book — “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us,” released in November — reached No. 1 on the N.Y. Times nonfiction bestseller list. In October, at a rally in San Antonio for president Trump’s re-election, the crowd chanted “2024!” as Don Jr. spoke.

Before we get too excited about the god-emperor-in-waiting, let’s focus on seeing the god-emperor himself reelected in 2020. Those who weirdly – and suspiciously – have questioned whether I have lost faith in President Trump simply because I am capable of pointing out the entirely obvious in the aftermath of the supposed Soleimani assassination are simply not paying attention to my comments on it. I will do a Darkstream on the subject tonight after the Vikings game.

I don’t know what is actually going on. Nor does anyone else, however much they might like to pretend that they do. But I would still rather have the god-emperor in the White House right now than any U.S. politician or world leader not named Duterte. Then again, the thought of what Duterte could do with the U.S. military at his disposal is terrifying.

On the one hand, the opioid crisis would definitely be over and the Devil Mouse would no longer exist. On the other, we might find ourselves maintaining a military occupation of California while caught up in a massive war with the Elder Ones in Antarctica.

Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson made what should be an obvious point and needs to be addressed by every current and would-be U.S. leader:

Before we enter into a single new war, there’s a criterion that ought to be met. Our leaders should explain to us how that conflict will make the United States richer and more secure. There are an awful lot of bad people in this world. We can’t kill them all. It’s not our job. Instead, our government exists to defend and promote the interests of American citizens. Period. That’s why we have a government. So, how has the killing of Soleimani done that? Maybe. No one in Washington has explained how.

It seems unlikely that the assassination of a general from a country with whom the United States is not at war is going to end well for Americans:

President Donald Trump has ordered an airstrike that killed Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, the powerful head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, at Baghdad International Airport, the Pentagon confirmed.

The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, which were responsible for the recent attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, officials said.

Tehran has vowed ‘crushing’ vengeance for Soleimani’s death, an extremely popular figure at home, the country’s highest ranking general and responsible for shaping Iranian foreign policy throughout the Middle East.

A Pentagon statement issued to DailyMail.com late Thursday, Washington DC time, said: ‘At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Quasem Soleimani.’

The United States has nearly two million Iranian residents living inside its borders. I tend to doubt most of them are more loyal to President Trump and the U.S. military than the Iranian people, which is why I am concerned that the next stage of the USA’s Syracuse Expedition may have just begun.

It’s particularly disappointing because the president had been doing such a good job of refusing to expand the needless imperial wars up until now. Perhaps the strike was legitimately justified, but given the last 18 years of costly, pointless, and mostly unsuccessful war, that also appears less than likely.

Certainly the Iraqis don’t appreciate the action.

The caretaker leader of Iraq’s protest-challenged government, Adil Abdul Mahdi, said the US assassination operation was a “flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty” and an insult to the dignity of his country. He stressed that the US had violated the terms under which American troops are allowed to stay in Iraq with the purpose of training Iraqi troops and fighting the jihadist organization Islamic State. 

UPDATE: ‘Due to heightened tensions in Iraq and the region, the US Embassy urges American citizens to heed the January 2020 Travel Advisory and depart Iraq immediately. US citizens should depart via airline while possible, and failing that, to other countries via land.’

Despite all the announcements and theatrics, I can’t help but observe that an identification reportedly based on a well-known ring could be faked rather easily. It would not shock me if Soleimani were to unexpectedly surface in the future.

The more things change in the Middle East, the more things stay the same:

The Pentagon has sent 100 Marines to the US Embassy in Baghdad to bolster security in the wake of an attack on Tuesday where hundreds of pro-Iran militia members stormed the compound, set walls ablaze and chanted ‘Death to America!’ in retaliation for American air strikes. 

US soldiers inside the embassy have fired tear gas, stun grenades and warning shots, wounding 62 of the hundreds of fighters who broke down the main door to the compound and set a fire in the reception area, according to the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group for the militias recognized by the Iraqi government.

The ambassador to Iraq was on leave at the time of the attack and embassy staff had already been evacuated before the US Marine guard became besieged behind the bullet-proof glass and on the rooftops.

Tuesday’s attack on the embassy was is in retaliation for US air strikes on the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah on Sunday night, which killed two dozen fighters. Those strikes were in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor at a US base in Kirkuk.

I think I speak for most Americans when I say, “who the hell cares?” American troops shouldn’t be in Iraq in the first place. Sending in more Marines and risking them getting wiped out is not at all the wise course of action. And babbling about how “Iran will be held fully responsible” serves no purpose at all when everyone knows that the US cannot and will not win a war against the Iran-China-Russia alliance.

The age of the one global superpower is over. Leave the Middle East to the Middle Easterners.

The god-emperor should simply declare martial law and put an end to the entire would-be coup now. There is far more cause for martial law today, with a lawless House of Representatives and federal agencies full of confirmed criminals, than there was during Civil War 1.0. Soon we’re going to discover if the Great Negotiator can fight or not.

This isn’t a black pill. Americans are fortunate to have the god-emperor in office. Most Republicans would have caved already. I don’t think President Trump will do so. But I’m also not certain that he is ready to take the necessary steps. Yet. But he’s going to have to do it sooner or later if he wants to save America.

William S. Lind explains why the current New World Disorder is a precursor to 4GW across the West rather than the phenomenon itself:

In more and more places, states are failing to maintain order but remain as vehicles of the New Class, the Establishment.  The Establishment runs the state, not to provide security of persons and property for all, but for its own benefit. It uses its control of the state to give itself careers, money (lots of it), power, prestige, etc.  It then employs these to exempt itself from the consequences of state failure, i.e., it lives in gated communities, its kids go to private schools and its jobs don’t get shipped overseas.

One of the interesting characteristics of the new world disorder is that it is coming primarily from the middle class.  The yellow vests are a striking example. But the young people filling the streets of Baghdad and Hong Kong are also often of middle class background.  They are college students or recent college graduates. They are taking to the streets because around the world, the middle class is under ever growing pressure.  College degrees no longer bring good jobs. Pensions and paychecks no longer last to the end of the month. Maintaining even a vestige of a middle class standard of living requires going even deeper into debt.  The state arose to provide security, but it now yields growing insecurity for the middle class.

So far, the disorder appears to be directed against the Establishment that runs the state, not the state itself.  That is why it is not Fourth Generation war. If it proves possible to boot the Establishment out and replace it with governors who serve the middle class instead of themselves, the state is likely to remain.  However, if the Establishment is able to hold on to power despite its failure in governance, then at some point people are likely to start giving up on the state itself. At that point we will be looking at 4GW, and lots of it.

One thing is already clear, however. The Establishment is not going to give up power voluntarily, regardless of how the electorate votes.

This news about the U.S. military systematically lying about its disastrous occupation of Afghanistan can only come as a surprise to those who still believe that the USS Maine was sunk by the Spanish, NASA landed men on the barren Moon, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.

The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.

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In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.

We may not know what the whole truth is. We usually can’t. But we absolutely know, on the basis of the historical pattern, that whatever story the U.S. government is pushing on the public is substantially false.